Layna laughed. “We may come across like that to strangers, and I admit, we are not at all welcoming to outsiders, but once you get past that, you’ll find there’s a lot to our culture. Such as how we Webmavens take our mates.”
“I ‘d love to learn more,” I said with a cheeky grin. “You know, this thick jungle all around us provides an excellent screen, and I don’t think the others will notice if you and I disappear into the bushes for a while, so—”
My randy suggestion was cut off by a bloodcurdling shriek that erupted from a section of jungle about a hundred yards up the road from us.
“What on earth was that?” Layna gasped.
It didn’t sound like it had come from Anna-Lucielle, Zhenwan, or the other monks.
My first thought was that someone was being attacked by the saber-toothed panthers, so a surge of excitement raced through me at the thought of killing a few of them and turning them into undead minions.
“I don’t know, but let’s get on it.” I whipped out Grave Oath and my kusarigama and sprinted off in the direction of the scream, with Layna, Anna-Lucielle, and the monks hot on my heels.
Another scream ripped through the air, this one a lot weaker. Whoever was screaming was in a lot of trouble and was losing strength rapidly.
I veered off the road and crashed through the dense tangle of undergrowth, palms, and vines, navigating a hasty passage through the piles of rubble and collapsed buildings. One more scream reached my ears, but this one was more of a wheezing gasp of defeat than a cry of terror.
I burst through a thick wall of foliage into a part of the ruined city that seemed to have once been a huge arena but was now overgrown with vines and trees. There were dozens of pillars, and like everything else in the ruined, jungle-swallowed city, they were made of an obsidian-like stone.
When I saw what had just happened and who had been screaming, I skidded to a halt, almost rooted to the spot in disbelief. The man who had caused his victim to scream froze too, similarly surprised.
The one who had been screaming was a Yengish peasant girl, and she let out one final, pitiful gasp and then died. Her throat had been cut, and the gaping wound stretched from ear to ear. And there, kneeling down beside her, with the girl’s hair gripped in one hand and a red Blood Dagger in the other, his mouth and jaw wet with the blood he’d been drinking from the girl’s throat, was the Hooded Man himself. At the far end of the ruined arena was a glowing portal.
The hood he wore kept his face from the mouth up shrouded in dark shadow, so I couldn’t see who he was, except that he was Prandish, and seemed to be elderly. Despite his appearance, though, I knew the old bastard was anything but weak.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Vance Chauzec, God of Nothing,” he snarled, and in his voice were the thousand echoes of the deep rasp of the Blood God. “I brought this maiden here and sacrificed her so you would hear your screams, futile to stop them. You crossed the ocean faster than I expected, but you are too late. You were too late before you even set sail. We are stronger than ever, and we will drown the world in blood!”
His voice was bizarrely familiar, but I just couldn’t place it. Was he one of the members of my father’s court? Or had I met him in my many adventures while I worked as an assassin, and later, a crypt diver?
I didn’t have time to think long on his identity because I could already sense him summoning his powers.
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” I said as I plunged my spirit deep into the earth beneath me to draw up as much Death energy as I could muster. “No more running, you coward. Let’s finish this.”
“You are the only one who will be finished, Chauzec, you and the puny fools who follow you!” he roared.
Anna-Lucielle and Layna were directly behind me, as were the Blind Monks, who were in combat stances, fanned out in a semicircular formation. Zhenwan had run off to hide somewhere. Anna-Lucielle’s powers would be useless here, however, and she was no fighter. The monks’ unarmed combat skills, impressive as they were, would do little against an opponent as powerful as this. Layna’s webs and weaponry were fantastic against most warriors, but she couldn’t fight this adversary either. Well, that might not be true. Her webs could prove useful here.
“All of you take cover,” I said to my fighters. “Only I can handle him. Layna, get around to the other side of the arena and cover that portal with as many webs as you can. I’m not letting this motherfucker escape this time. Go, all of you!”
“God of Death, we said we would give your lives for you, and we will,” Ji-Ko said as he touched his jade necklace, a sign that seemed like an oath.
“No. Nobody is helped if you throw them away like this! Run, and take cover—that’s a command.”
“They can run, they can hide, but I will find them, and I will devour their souls, just as I will devour yours, you wretch!” the thousand booming voices of the Blood God roared.
A tremendous shockwave, like the first violent tremor of a sudden earthquake, tore through the ground, knocking everyone off their feet. I scrambled upright as the Hooded Man’s robe and cloak exploded, and the ground beneath him erupted like a volcano blowing its top.
What spewed up in a mighty torrent from the bowels of the earth was not lava or magma. It was a vertical tower of blood, thirty yards in diameter, surging upward to a height of over fifty yards. The bloody tower flung huge rocks and
