No, not just tingling, it felt like it was on fire. Warning bells were screeching inside my skull, and I got the feeling that if I went in there alone, even as powerful as I was, it would be the death of me. I needed backup.
I darted my mind out into that of Talon, who was waiting in the woods a couple miles away, and commanded her to fly across the sky, giving my companions the signal they had been waiting for. The beast took off, flapping her leathery wings against the chilly night air, and flew in silence across the clear, starry sky.
I waited in the shadows, certain that my companions had seen the signal, and sure enough, my companions, my skeletons under Sarge, my zombie Crusaders under Captain Jandor, and my zombie crossbowmen were soon in the chamber with me.
“What’s going on?” Rami asked, her sais in her hands and her eyes blazing with an eagerness to fight.
“Where enemy?” Drok demanded, swinging a heavy battle-axe casually in each of his meaty hands. “Drok want fight, Drok want kill!”
So, he’d made it through the entrance. It must have been a tight squeeze.
Rollar had his Thunder Hammer in his hands, and it was glowing with magic. “Just point me in the direction of the enemy, and I’ll pulverize them with lightning.”
Faint tendrils of acidic mist were rising from Isu’s hands and dribbling from her lips. Elyse, although she couldn’t access the full extent of her powers underground, was also ready to fight, her hands glowing with bright light, ready to unleash her holy ropes. Sarge was gripping his massive golden greatsword loosely in his skeletal fingers, and Captain Jandor and his zombies were standing in formation, their tower shields locked. Everyone was ready for a fight, and I suspected that that was exactly what we were about to get, the moment I opened that door.
“I don’t know what’s going on behind that door,” I said, pointing at the door, “but I have a feeling it’s something fucked up. Something very fucked up, and I can sense dark, powerful forces at work here. I hope you’re all ready for one hell of a fight, because I have a feeling that this isn’t going to be easy.”
“We’re ready, Vance,” Elyse said. “The Blood God’s evil has to be stopped.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
There was no point in waiting any longer. The Auras had brought me this far, and my destiny lay beyond the door. I pulled my kusarigama from its sheath on my back and held it in my right hand, cocked my wrist crossbow, and gripped Grave Oath in my left hand. Then, I kicked the door open.
My kick ripped the door off its hinges, and it went flying inward as I stormed in after it, my weapons at the ready and my pulse thudding in my ears. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the sight that greeted me.
The chamber of the crypt was as I remembered it—huge and cavernous, almost like an underground cathedral in size— but it looked nothing like it had the last time I’d been in here. No, the whole place had been... defiled.
My ancestors’ tombs, the monuments, and the statues had been discarded to make the space larger while old bones had been stacked up in a careless pile in one corner. A portal of some sort, a stone doorway with blazing white light pouring out of it, had been erected in another corner. The stink of blood in here was overpowering— ichor was smeared all over the walls of the crypt— and it made even Drok stumble and gag with disgust as he charged in behind me, roaring with battle rage.
What dominated the entire space, though, was a huge bronze cauldron at the center. It was easily large enough to have boiled Fang in. Hanging over it, upside down, suspended by their feet from chains fixed to the ceiling of the crypt, were the naked corpses of the young women I’d sensed earlier. Their throats had been cut, and the blood from their bodies had drained into the massive cauldron, which was overflowing with boiling blood, heated up by a large fire beneath it. Around the cauldron, chanting in a language I did not recognize, were a number of oblates in purple hooded robes, and what looked like veins of red lightning were zapping from their fingertips into the boiling blood as they chanted.
Presiding over all of this, standing between the cauldron and the portal of light, was my uncle. He was clad in full plate armor, gleaming crimson. In his right hand, he held a massive red flail, with three chains and three morning star mace heads. Tall and broad-shouldered, he looked unnervingly like an older version of me, a fact that had always repulsed me, considering how much I’d hated him throughout my life. Unlike me, however, he had long hair, which was now streaked with gray, and a thick beard, also graying. He and I had the same eyes, though, and when we locked our gazes, it was almost like looking into a mirror, a mirror tainted with pure evil.
“Ah, the prodigal nephew returns.” He smiled mockingly. “But too late, I’m afraid. Too late.”
“I’m no longer the boy you cheated out of his lands and title. I’m the fucking God of Death now. Before the sun rises today, your soul will be in this dagger of mine.”
“You ignorant fool.” He sneered. “You have no idea what kind of forces you’re meddling with or the kind of power I’m about to unleash on the world.” As he continued to speak, his voice took on a menacing depth and resonance, booming through the cavern like thunder. It was obvious that a far stronger, far more evil force than my uncle was speaking through him. “You boast of being a minor god, you little shit. Well, I will soon become the living embodiment of an
