Effla took a step back and squinted.
Sakaj stood tall and spoke to Effla as if she were a dim pony. “Cheg-Cheg can take any of us to the Dark Lands whenever he wants and finish us there.”
Krak rubbed his jaw. “Either we defeat him today, or we accept exile. Hell, for all we know, he might follow us into the Void and destroy us there.”
Effla cursed for a few moments and then nodded. She drew her knife and placed the point on Sakaj’s throat. Krak pulled forth his knife, which was quite a lot nicer than any other knife in existence, and laid it against Effla’s throat. Sakaj lifted her knife and prepared to slay the Father of the Gods.
Krak cleared his throat. “And… now!”
All three knives were driven forward with divine power, and all three accomplished deicide. Sakaj grinned and held the Dark Lands in mind as she expired.
An unknown interval later, Sakaj awoke lying on velvety black grass. She rolled to her feet and began unwinding the strangling cord from about her forearm. Krak was already sprinting down the shallow hill toward Cheg-Cheg and the not-so-mystical pond. The monster was snapping and grunting a few hundred paces away. Sakaj followed Krak, and she heard Effla’s footsteps slapping the grass behind her.
Cheg-Cheg still grasped Harik and Madimal, who remained alive, if flailing and shouting meant anything. Fingit was bouncing and dodging around the monster’s left foot, which jerked, stomped, and denied Fingit a good target. Sakaj didn’t see Lutigan anywhere.
As the newly arrived gods drew near their enemy, Cheg-Cheg sidestepped and whacked himself on the side of the head twice using the hand still grasping Madimal. Then he wriggled like a horse’s back in fly season. Madimal screamed and began babbling. He babbled so loudly that Sakaj almost didn’t hear Lutigan yelling and hooting from above. After a moment of disorientation, she realized that Lutigan was inside Cheg-Cheg’s ear, probably scrambling around in the ear canal and whacking everything within reach.
Cheg-Cheg must have tired of Madimal’s terrified gibberish, because he squeezed his fist tight and crushed the god, armor and all. Madimal jabbered, then burbled, then whimpered, and then he was silent, except for the plop of some entrails and one arm as they fell to the grass. The beast pitched his corpse, which spun away over the pond, the trees, and whatever lay beyond them.
Cheg-Cheg slapped his ear with his open hand, but Lutigan never stopped yelling defiance and profanity. Krak released the impossibly searing light of the sun at the monster’s undamaged eye, but Cheg-Cheg warded the light-beam away with his other hand, almost annihilating Harik.
The beast snarled and then spit at Krak, Sakaj, and Effla. Krak jumped one way, Sakaj jumped the other, and Effla stumbled for an instant. A great, viscous mass of Cheg-Cheg’s acid-like spittle enveloped her and smashed her to the ground. Sakaj bounced back to her and noted that the corrosive substance hadn’t marred Fingit’s armor, or at least not yet.
Cheg-Cheg had paused for a moment while aiming his sputum. Fingit now charged toward the monster’s stupendous right foot and swung his hammer with both hands. He landed the blow against the foot’s longest talon, and a shattering boom caused Sakaj to squint and hold her ears. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that the talon had been smashed completely off and was lying atop Fingit, who’d been thrown to the ground. Cheg-Cheg cocked his head at the god, who was struggling to stand. The monster shifted his weight and stomped Fingit with a cataclysmic reverberation.
Sakaj rushed past Krak toward the creature. Krak released the impossibly searing light of the sun again, this time striking Cheg-Cheg in the mouth. The Void-beast shook his head and leaned to step away, but he halted halfway through the motion. He looked down and wiggled his talons, and then the creature tried to lift the foot that had crushed Fingit. The foot was bound fast to the earth. Cheg-Cheg dropped Harik, who plunged two hundred feet into the nearby pond, howling all the way. The monster grabbed his black leathery lower leg with both of his clawed hands. He heaved on the leg, which stretched like cooling taffy, soft and pliable.
“Hold this!” Sakaj yelled, throwing one end of her strangling cord to Krak. She sprinted between Cheg-Cheg’s feet at supernatural speed, holding the other end of the cord, which lengthened as she ran. She rounded the monster’s immobilized heel and returned to Krak. Then she and Krak crossed the cord and pulled it tight around Cheg-Cheg’s ankle.
Cheg-Cheg swatted at the gods, but with one foot pinned and a god ravaging his inner ear, he bobbled and even staggered once. Krak and Sakaj heaved in opposite directions with every grain of their divine strength, as if they were using an enchanted wire to slice an enormous, mystical Void-cheese. Fingit had made the strangling cord long and strong. The cord closed, the ankle severed with a gigantic, wet pop, and the monster dropped to his knees in a catastrophic collapse.
Krak and Sakaj ran back out of Cheg-Cheg’s reach. The beast just watched them run away, crouched on his hands and knees. He gazed at them with his feathery brow drawn tight and his lips turned down over a mouthful of decimating teeth.
Sakaj regarded the Void-beast. This is the worst we’ve ever hurt him. Perhaps he’s accusing us of cheating at some rough but collegial game. Perhaps he’s going to cry. He could sing and break wind in harmony for all I care, as long as he goes away.
The monster poked at his dismembered right foot and then jiggled it. The foot appeared to no longer be locked tight to the earth. Cheg-Cheg picked up the foot, examined it, and then looked around before stuffing the appendage between his teeth. Lutigan jumped out of the monster’s ear and dropped to the earth, where he landed with simian grace.
Cheg-Cheg, Dark Annihilator of the
