FALSE GODS

10 Fortune Favors the Alive

“Why is this happening to us? What did we do?” Damon grumbled.

“There are some entities which are not very happy with our union,” Felicity explained.

“What entities?”

“Dark ones.”

“Can I apologize to these dark entities and leave?”

‘It is too late.”

“I can see that!” Damon snapped. “They do not appear open for negotiation. What do we do? Fight? First of all, it is too dark. Let me see what I can do about that.”

Damon wiggled his fingers, and two flaming torches appeared in his hands. He cast them in two directions to light up the surroundings. The creatures recoiled at the sudden radiance. Raspy growls and furious snarls followed.

‘Their numbers could be between a hundred and two hundred,’ Damon estimated.

They circled the torches, which were soon extinguished as the brutes punted soil on them. With darkness resumed, they formed a circle and closed in.

“I did not expect them to be this clever and organized,” Damon complained, embarrassed by his failure. “How do we deal with the darkness? At this rate, they will overwhelm us in no time!”

“Lucerna!” Felicity spelled. A blue orb of light manifested and rose to a height, piercing the darkness. The undead flinched and froze, shrinking under the dazzle.

“You know charmspeak?” Damon sought. “Where did you learn the language?”

Charmspeak is the language that the gods and the mildly divine use to cast myriad spells. You need divine blood running through your veins for charmspeak to take physical shape. It also works if you are under the protection and tutelage of a god-titan who shares divinity with you. The language was taught extensively at the Citadel, and aspirants of the Labors were expected to be well-versed in it.

“Books and practice,” the beauty explained.

“Smoke and mirrors,” Damon mocked. “You, my lady, are keeping secrets. However, I shall berate you about it another time. If I get out of this nightmare alive.”

He squinted at the converging fiends, trying to understand their molds. They were shaped like humans, but in essence, were dead and decaying, their skins peeling off, their skulls and ribs showing, with barely any flesh on the bones.

Damon flexed his fingers, and a bunch of knives appeared in his hands. He hurled them at the looming eyes.

The volley hit some of the creatures in the front. They collapsed with the jolts but crawled back to their feet in no time, the knives still buried in them.

“Knife wounds will not stop them,” Felicity professed. “The undead are corpses reanimated with dark magick. They neither feel pain nor have the will to survive. You must break them apart until the dark animation escapes.”

“Well, I can hack through them and still defend myself,” Damon argued. “However, I am worried about you.”

Felicity raised an arm for another spell.

“Nero Fluctus!”

A broad whip of water element sprung into her grasp. It was at least twenty feet long. The young muse slung it back and then lashed it forward, thrashing a band of the creatures head-on. Her weapon was surprisingly wieldy. The impact shattered the bodies into heaps of bones. Collapsed frames returned to dust as if they never existed.

“I reckon there was no cause to be worried,” Damon observed in embarrassment.

Felicity’s lashes broke the fiendish circle and derailed the undead's advance. However, it also made them more agitated. They started charging at the group.

Tarsus lay undefended on the ground, away from the fighting duo. One of the creatures came at him, heaving a large boulder on its shoulders. It meant to shatter the young man’s skull.

Damon was about to rush in to protect Tarsus when Felicity stopped him.

“Leave him be.”

“What? Why? He is unconscious. No matter how big he is, a boulder will kill him.”

“Have faith, Damon,” Felicity offered, swinging her whip at their assailants in another direction.

The creature stood over Tarsus and dropped the boulder on his head. Damon gasped. In surprise.

The boulder shattered into pieces while Tarsus was unharmed.

The hulk rose abruptly and grabbed the creature.

Damon stared at the scene in bewilderment.

“Tarsus needed the shock to wake him up,” Felicity explained.

The hulk rushed to his feet, holding onto his attacker. He plucked the body into the air and tugged on both sides with a savage cry, ripping it into halves. Then he went for another.

Tarsus tore into the undead, shattering them with bare-knuckle punches and elbows. The juggernaut went berserk in their midst, causing pandemonium.

“Whoa, beanstalk!” Damon shouted. “Superhuman strength is your ability? You are immune to poisons as well?”

“I do not know about that!” Tarsus hollered back groggily. “I have always been this way.”

“You can go to sleep under a tree while I finish these off, runt,” he added.

Damon laughed sheepishly and readied himself to enter the hustle. “You can judge in the aftermath what this runt can do.”

The undead had gone into a fury- roaring, hissing, growling and grunting.

Damon summoned two saber swords. The weapons were his best friends when fighting multiple enemies.

He turned to look at Felicity with concern.

“I will be fine. Go on,” the beauty said with assurance.

Damon let out a battle cry and dashed into the undead crowd. He swung and slashed and chopped with incredible agility. In dual-wielding, he could make twelve cuts in a second. The creatures were too slow to react to his onslaught.

Tarsus, on the other end, was striking the undead wildly, pulverizing them with his fists.

Jab! Clip! Cuff! Smash! Thump! Slam!

At one juncture, he faltered, and vitality left him momentarily. He stood unmoving, trying to get his bearings. The poison was still in his system.

In that instant, the undead besieged him, and half a dozen clung to his body like leeches.

Damon sprinted into the huddle, slicing at the bodies surrounding Tarsus. He thinned the crowd, running in a circle around him, giving the hulk time to recover.

“Not bad, runt,” Tarsus acknowledged once he was back in action.

About sixty undead remained, but the trio had picked up a strategy and together demolished the enemy. Felicity’s water whip alone brought down a sizeable chunk of the undead army. In no time, they were looking at a few stray creatures.

Damon picked off the last one with a decapitating slash. “I had not fought like this in a while,” he said.

“I had never fought in my life before,” Tarsus declared.

“Well, it seems you can handle a small army by yourself.”

“You are not so awful yourself, friend.”

“You are both wonders,” Felicity rounded off cheerfully, releasing her elemental whip.

Both her heroes, spattered with dry blood and viscera, turned and looked at her. They were barely recognizable, not significantly different in pallor from the creatures they had slain.

“Pluviam purgare,” Felicity chanted.

Tiny clouds appeared over their heads, and a sudden downpour of rain washed them off in a few seconds.

Damon almost gagged under the torrent.

“Please warn me before you do something like that again!” he said, coughing.

Felicity giggled, eyeing the young men with affection.

“So! What are these, uh, dark entities?” Damon asked, drying himself with a napkin that he conjured.

“I have seen many dark creatures in my dreams,” Felicity narrated. “The undead are one of them. Some malevolent force is controlling them. A name always resounds in my dreams. HYPNOS.”

“Hypnos? Who would name their child that?” Damon quipped and elbowed Tarsus, who did not find it funny. The latter asked whom the name belonged to.

“I am afraid I have no further knowledge of him,” Felicity said. “More will be revealed to me as we progress on our journey. Nevertheless, I can say this with certainty- an encounter with Hypnos is imminent.”

“Then we will be ready for him the next time,” Tarsus said, sheathing his sabers.

The young beauty beamed at him and came closer to the two.

“What do we do next?” Damon posed, slightly uncomfortable.

“You say goodbye to your lives as you know them.”

Both men were silent for some time, carrying the weight of the matter.

“I will go and speak to Empousa, my old man,” Tarsus began. “He will not be pleased with my decision.”

“I have to fulfill my last mission,” Damon declared.

“Before you depart,” Felicity addressed the men. “I believe this is a good time to swear your loyalty to me.”

Tarsus and Damon exchanged glances and then turned back to the beauty.

“How do we do it?” they asked together.

“Let me show you how.”

Felicity put her hand in her camel-skin bag and collected a handful of something. She removed it and opened her fist.

A mound of shiny, sparkly powder sat on her palm. “This is eir dust. It keeps your promises safe with me.” She threw some at Tarsus and Damon.

“Speak your name, and words that are true to your heart will appear before you. Once you chant them, they will bind you to me.”

The men nodded, and the hulk went first.

“I, Tarsus, ward of Empousa, swear fealty and loyalty to Felicity to stand beside her during the utmost peril. Until my last breath.”

“I, Damon, son of Dmitri, swear eternal allegiance, devotion, and piety to the muse, Felicity of Fugi.”

“And thus your promises I keep. Forever and ever,” Felicity concluded with a chant and a snap of her fingers.

The shiny dust rose from their bodies, balled together, bending into a hoop of light, which grew large until it encircled them like a halo. It started rotating at a blinding speed and dissipated into dust again.

“It is done.”

Felicity stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Tarsus’ cheek and another on Damon’s cheek.

Their hearts were full, and their lives had truly begun that night.