Tallah

Steady there, lad. We’ve got you.

Vergil did not recognise the voice. It didn’t fit with the rest of his life just then. A woman was speaking but he couldn’t see her. Her voice was a balm to dull out the teeth on the terror gripping his heart.

The ratmen were taking them deeper into the caves. They dragged Sidora by her hair, kicking and screaming. Davan tried to fight, twice. They broke his arms for it, twisted them at odd angles with bones pushing out against the skin. It washed out any resistance left in him.

Merk was pushed and dragged along, too shattered to manage more than a couple steps on his own.

Two scores of ratmen infested the large cavern at their destination, gathered in clusters around small fires burning all around a central blaze. The smoke slowly filtered out through a gallery of cracks in the ceiling, but the musk of animal filth overpowered any other smell.

“What this?”

Vergil raised his eyes to the gravely voice and saw a ratman nearly twice as large as the rest, with grey fur and milk-white eyes. It held a gnarled staff. Unlike the rest of the horde, which wore various bits and ends of armour, this one was wearing a black robe adorned with bones. It clattered when the monster hobbled over to look them over.

One of the ratmen let out a long series of hisses and grunts. The old rat struck it over the knees with its staff and snarled.

“You guard. Not hunt. Hunting for smart clan, not dumb pup.” It spoke in broken, hissed Imperial, making a mockery of the words.

A flicker of hope ignited in Vergil’s chest but quickly went out as the creatures roughly undressed them.

“These two, cage,” the shaman said as he inspected Davan and Merk. “Female, spice. Knifey-ear taste better than human.”

That only left Vergil. Warm piss ran down his legs as the wizened ratman loomed over him close enough to taste the filth in its fur. The monster sniffed and let out a rasping laugh.

“I wonder if this one can starve. It reeks of Anatol’s incense. Up,” it ordered the other beasts.

They threw him in a cage fashioned out of gnawed bones. It reeked. Strips of rotten meat hung in tatters off the grisly construction. His stomach turned over and ejected the sparse content of their last dinner as he was hauled up two meters or so above the lick of the cook fire. Only smoke marred his view of the cavern as he slowly rotated in the draft of hot air.

Steady, lad, the voice-like-a-balm said. The edges of reality blurred, like colours running down a wet painting. Found a cluster. We start here. Move outward.

Who’s talking? Vergil looked around, trying to find whoever it was that talked right in his ear. Again that feeling of stepping out of his head, of hitching a ride in someone else’s life.

The world bucked and bent around him. He’d seen Experiences glitching sometimes, images and events shuffling together. This felt very much like that. There was no connection port on the back of his head, no matter how desperately he groped for one. If this wasn’t real, he needed it to stop.

It all kept playing forward as he wailed and smashed his fists against the bones.

Bugger, you’re a stubborn blighter. Mistress Aliana, please go to him. He’s going to twist something out of place if he keeps at it.

Vergil screamed until he frothed pink at the mouth.

Sidora wailed when they dragged her out of the cage for the first time. She screamed and cried and pleaded as they held her down and chopped off her fingers.

Vergil was sick with the sight of so much blood spilling at once, stunned into silence.

The shaman forced the healer, clawed fingers clasped around her nose, to drink something out of a dirty bowl. The bleeding stopped but she still cried for what felt like days.

Her fingers were ground up into paste and mixed in with the gruel boiling over the fire.

Spice, he realised with a rising sense of horror. Just as the monster had said, they would use her for spice.

You appear to be in distress. Mood regulation attempted. Please consult Medical at your earliest convenience.

Vergil looked through two sets of eyes. One pair watched Sidora kicking and clawing with her unmaimed hand when she was taken out again. The other watched him watching her. A sort of strange calm washed over him as he separated from the first and drifted above the pain and the horror of it all, above the shame of what he’d done to them.

“Take him! Take him! Please, no more. Please!” Sidora begged. They stretched out her other hand on the chopping block. “I’ll do anything. Please, not—” The hatchet came down and her voice rose into a keening, rattling wail. More blood. More screams. More curses and hate.

Days passed. Or weeks. Maybe even years. An eternity of hunger and shame in his tight little cage, slowly going insensate to it all. Sidora cursed him every single moment she was awake and not screaming, all the way until they took her tongue. From there on, she merely glared up at him until she had nothing to glare with.

Colours ran together and moments skipped forward. Silences filled small crevices in his life where he was sure there were supposed to be cries, clangs, clatters, curses, pleadings. Ghosts whipped past the Vergil that watched, apparitions in white that manifested for a moment and stole away something of him.

He felt it happening but never knew what went away.

Davan and Merk were made to fight one another, to bite and scratch and try to rip each other’s throats out. They were even fed bits off Sidora when the rats drank too much of their brews.

Something changed in them. They lessened, but not how Sidora did. Humanity shed off them with every drop of spilled blood until they were little more than feral, twisted things that snarled against the grates of their cages. Ratmen prodded them into fighting frenzy and treated them like pets. They fed them rotting carcasses nearly stripped of all meat, and some of their fetid potions.

That never happened, lad. It was a nightmare, nothing more, said the voice as the watching Vergil cried behind the eyes of his corporeal self. That other him had stopped caring, had quieted down and suffered the gnawing hunger.

SEVERE STARVATION afflicts your body. Death is imminent. Please consult Medical urgently.

Blessing of Anatol has activated. Death is no longer imminent. Please consult Medical at the earliest convenience.

It happened irregularly and it made him scream.

On the verge of death, of sweet release, that thrice-damned blessing dragged him back. Every single time! If he still had the tears for it, he’d cry when the jolt of healing clawed him from the precipice and forced another hour, or another day, of watching Sidora and the pure hate in the pits that had been her eyes.

Was it all really happening?

There we go. Seed of doubt is flourishing. Give him a couple of days before you start growing out new memories.

The hunger gnawing at his insides was all too real. When the ratmen cut off Sidora’s arm and roasted it over the fire he had drooled for a bite of it. He had begged ragged-voiced for a sliver of the charred meat. They teased him with it, waving it up at his cage just out of reach of his outstretched fingers.

It wasn’t my fault! They weren’t supposed to be there! Guilt burned worse than the hunger, worse even than the fire. Nothing they could do to him compared to the simple fact that he’d damned them all.

It never happened, lad.

It happened! I was there. I hated her. I hate her. I hate her.

Steady, lad. She was the first to die.

Yes, she was. She died when there was nothing more to cut off her. She died before the stranger got there. She…

No!

That’s not right.

Sidora had died in the goblin warren, head split open by a ratman axe. She died with a spasm and a sigh, painless and quick.

No.

She… she… was eaten? She wasn’t. They killed her first.

When the stranger had come, he was alone in the cavern, the only one left. Merk and Davan had died in the warren. They hadn’t changed. They hadn’t been sicced on the stranger only to be gutted by lances of white fire.

Sidora had been the first to die, hit from the back by the ratmen. She… she hadn’t suffered. It had all been quick, painless.

Yes, that made more sense than the horror he’d been imagining. He rose from it as if from an early morning’s nightmare. It was already fading into formless mists and rags of memory like all bad dreams are wont to do.

He had mourned them all, for endless days of endless hungry terror. Then he was bored and hungry. Then, just hungry. No rest for him, not when the blessing kept shaking him awake.

In the low firelight of what was, probably, night he saw the stranger approaching.

Firelight glinted at the mouth of one tunnel. There had only ever been darkness there before. It grew in brightness by the moment.

Someone walked out of that normally empty tunnel. It wasn’t a verman. There were supposed to be guards in that tunnel, but the newcomer walked through as if the notion was ridiculous.

Men came to the cavern sometimes, to deal with the ratman shaman. Coin pouches were passed between them, scrolls were locked in a metal box, ratmen were sent out. They would return later carrying bound women. Once they brought three young girls bound together into a bundle. Every time they’d open a secret door to the side of the cave and carry their victims through.

Only the ratmen ever returned.

The stranger wasn’t someone Vergil had seen before. This one wore black garments and a shining mask upon their face. Fire and shadows reflected in it.

He wanted to shout a warning. There were scores of vermen in the cavern, lying strewn about, out of sight, armed and armoured. No matter how he strained and fought to gather strength, he couldn’t do more than lift his desiccated arms in a gesture of warding.

More meat was coming to the fire. The stranger looked like they would take a long while to be eaten. That thought fled his mind as if chased by hounds.

I’m hallucinating things. This can’t be real.

There were fireflies flitting around the stranger like motes of dust catching the uneven light.

One ratman sounded the alarm and the cavern exploded into action. Vermen scrambled to their feet and rushed the intruder with weapons held high and fangs bared. Doom descended on the unwary fool.

Fireflies swarmed away from the figure, flying out like rays of light. Each one hit a different rat, stumbling their rush for a heartbeat.

Some ratmen faltered in their charge, gazed down, and burst apart like overripe fruit hitting the ground. Flesh and entrails erupted as the stranger approached the fire, barely concerned about the carnage.

It was a woman, Vergil saw, with red hair and a tall frame that almost matched up to the vermen. She had a thin sword at her waist but did not draw it.

Her hands flashed into fire. The first verman to rush her exploded into blood mist as she unleashed a lance of flame on it.

Air boiled and screams evaporated into echoes as balls of fire exploded with blinding flashes. Vergil was tossed inside his cage like the near corpse he was when the blast wave hit him. He saw, in brief gaps through the smoke, the woman killing the shaman with a gesture. She turned him into a burnt out skeleton as if he were of no concern to her.

It lasted for a moment. A breath, maybe.

Then his cage crashed to the ground and the world lurched out of shape.

He hoped he was now dead. For a long time he saw nothing but the crimson puddle of blood in which he lay. Bits of fur and offal broke the surface. An arm length away lay half a corpse, burnt nearly black, staring with empty eye sockets at him.

By the time the Goddess came for him, he’d screamed himself mute.

Her touch was warm and soft on his face as she turned his head over to gaze into his eyes. She was a vision of beauty with glacial blue eyes and hair the colour of the midday sun. She spoke and pressed her fingers to his forehead but his mind slipped around the words.

“I require touching this mind,” she said. He heard the words but they meant absolutely nothing. Colours ran behind her.

He begged for death with soundless words. She was a Goddess, she should know that in his head there was only guilt and the wish to end. Why prolong his suffering?

She was gone in a flash of blood red, her touch ripped from his skin with a clap of thunder. Why?!

No! Please, no! Kill me. Please—

None of that, lad. That Adana may be many fine things, but she’s no goddess. Let’s not keep that silly notion.

Maybe he was just imagining everything. Maybe he had lost his mind while watching Sidora’s long murder.

But Sidora had died first. That didn’t make sense.

By the Goddess’s mercy, you’re stubborn, the voice snapped at him, suddenly impatient. Why are you fighting me, boy? Don’t you want to be free of it all?

The stranger in black loomed over him. There was smudged blood on her mask. She wore a black long coat with gold trimmings, almost like some kind of uniform.

Her mere presence caused him more suffering. She manhandled him and threw him about like a rag-doll. Every time she moved him it reminded him he was still alive. He found new depths of hatred. He couldn’t live and couldn’t die, and he hated her for not letting the rats or the hunger finish him off.

Stop struggling, boy. Let it all go. There’s a good lad.

The goddess was back, talking to the stranger. Blood ran down her face, as if she’d hit her head on something.

She’s not a goddess, Vergil.

They stuffed a helmet over his head. The stranger argued with the other, the not-a-goddess goddess. He could only look at them. His voice refused to obey him and stop its braying laughter.

When had he started laughing?

Why am I laughing?

Why a helmet? Why give him a damned helmet? Couldn’t they show mercy and just end his suffering?

Muted echoes penetrated the helm’s thick metal. The not-a-goddess hid behind the stranger in black and aimed her staff at him over the other’s shoulder. Blue light blinded his vision and fire flared up in his chest as bones knit painfully back together and his breathing came easier. It made his arms and legs spasm and jerk around like the limbs of a marionette, and then he was still again. Even out of the cage, he was too weak to even crawl.

Physical ailments have been healed. Pain muting has been deactivated.

SEVERE STARVATION afflicts your body. Death is imminent. Please consult Medical urgently.

Something clicked in his head.

The light fizzed out and he saw the blond woman peering at him over the shoulder of the frightening stranger, looking ready to duck back at any moment. She raised her staff again and a moment later he felt very wrong.

His voice was no longer his own, the braying laugh taking on a manic, desperate edge. He tried to and found that he actually could move his head around. A thin, golden line connected his chest to the goddess’s. The line pulsed faintly, its glow dimming and intensifying in rhythm with his thundering heartbeats.

Mistress Aliana, please attend. This… we can’t get rid of this. Look, see how tight it’s latched on to him?

This thing is going to be trouble, another, rougher voice said. I’m going to skin those two.

Something felt horribly off. Words crowded his field of vision but they meant nothing to him.

His right arm jerked up of its own accord and pushed him to his side, the effort igniting new fire in his bones. The left arm became rebellious as well and, helping the right, pushed him up to his hands and knees as if he were just learning to move again. His entire body moved and rebelled violently against his wishes of lying still to die. Impossibly, moving in jerks and starts, he came up on his own two feet.

Everything hurt. His feet and legs hurt just from supporting him. Bones ground on bones and sent daggers into his laughing brain. His hands and arms hurt just from pushing him upright. Every breath hurt his chest. He tasted blood from something rupturing somewhere.

Despite it all, he drew in a sharp breath and bellowed out a war cry that made his own blood run cold.

Where had that come from?!

Something flowed out of the helmet and into his head. It pushed his consciousness aside as if he were nothing. It laughed and laughed and screamed its way to the surface of his thoughts. It was malice, angry and hateful, barely conscious of itself. Vergil felt the shape of the mind that occupied his and it made him recoil from its cadaverous touch.

His voice cracked halfway through the war cry and he gasped for air, choking and coughing viciously. He inhaled sharply and with alien strength he bellowed again and banged his worthless fists against his naked chest.

Except that he wasn’t naked any more. Translucent plates of armour now covered him from neck to feet, and his fists rang out like the tolling of a bell.

From a cage of bones now into a cage of thought. The cave faded away and only the malice remained, pitch black and all consuming.

The spirit of Horvath, The Hammer, has taken over your body. No actions are available at this time.

What, in the Goddesses’s tits, do we do about you?!