Slumrat Rising

Chapter 98: The Beautiful Game

The feathered serpent slithered through the air toward Truth, leading the dozens of demons that came through the portal with it. Truth really, really wanted to run. But they were moving faster than he could, so there really was only one choice- fight. He raised the angelic blade and braced himself.

The Police around the stadium finally got their act together and rushed in. Heavily armored mages pressed forward, enchanted riot shields between them and the fire. Their summoned angels soared over and came to blows with the demons. Burning wheels, sun-bright bands of gold with hundreds of eyes, balls of wings the size of a man, and upon each feather of each wing was inscribed a different name of God. The angels fell upon their hated enemies, no less varied in dreadful appearance than the demons.

The feathered fire serpent would not be distracted or denied. Powerful, at least a late Level Four, it simply ignored the Angels or let its fires turn those who came too close into desecrated cinders. It knew who had spoiled its fun.

The snake opened its maw, and a thin beam of superhot plasma stabbed toward Truth. He had his blade up and was running Incisive as hard as he could. It’s all that saved his life. He barely got the sword up in time to deflect the demon-tainted fire into the pavement. The backwash of the heat was enough to burn the skin on his hands and face, to make a thunderclap of displaced air. For the first time, the blade warned him- it couldn’t take too many of those. Not yet. Not while it was so weak. He would have to dodge.

But how could he dodge something so fast? Truth started running in a sharp zig-zag, hoping to throw off the demon’s aim. The demon, for its part, simply rushed for him. It didn’t require its food roasted before eating, after all.

How would he kill this thing? He couldn’t even reach it. Truth racked his brains for a solution, desperately sorting through his limited options. There was only one conclusion- he could not. He would die before help could reach him. He wouldn’t even be able to fight back.

The Hell with that!

Truth, therefore, did something very stupid but very human. Channeling the spirit of the fans, he yelled up at the demon, “Come down here and fight me if you think you’re hard enough!”

Somehow, a six-eyed snake demon made of infernal flames and the very concept of eternal torment managed to give Truth a look that said, despite everything, Truth was the asshole here. Then lunged downward, burning acid dripping from fangs longer than Truth was tall. It breathed out as it came, its breath a hot wind carrying the stench of housefires. Truth could hear it all, hear the roar of the fire, the roar of the stadium, as the flames burnt into his eyes. The roar of the stadium, louder and louder!

Old Mek’elle ROARED, outraged, furious! The screaming balconies demanded blood. The generations of fans who came together for the beautiful game, memories desecrated by terrorism and murder. Old Mek’elle shook with anger, unable to endure even one second longer!

The serpent came for Truth, but never reached him. It was crushed underfoot by a far greater being.

Truth looked up. And up. And up. The spirit was the height of the stadium, a triskelion of three bent legs around a ball-shaped eye. One leg ground the demon into mush as the eye looked Truth over.

A gentle spell washed over him, soothing the worst of his wounds but still leaving him in rough shape.

“Orange wedges at half-time and a bit of a rubdown from the trainer is the best I can do, lad. Damn shame this happened the first time you visited. Here- have a souvenir.” A stainless white scarf floated down and wrapped itself around Truth’s neck. On the ends of the scarf, Old Mek’elle’s picture was embroidered. Truth had thought the Triskelion was a logo.

“There. Now you will have something to remember us by. Keep it with you, lad. No matter where you go or who you shout for, you shall have the Freedom of the Terraces and be known as a home fan.” The giant eye swept around. The demons were rapidly being subdued by the police, and doctors in their long-beaked masks were already flying in. “Best be on your way, friend. Unless you want to stay and hear the applause. Old Mek’elle would never deny its heroes that.”

“Thank you, Old Mek’elle. My team needs me. My thanks for your care.” Truth politely nodded, covered his face with the scarf, cleaned and sheathed his sword, and ran like hell. Nobody, at least nobody in Harban, thought talking to the cops was a good idea.

He got a bit lucky. The police hadn’t had time to set up barricades and seal the area. He got out and managed to lose himself in the crowd, steadily working up the main road. He only got about three blocks when he ran into Etenesh and Jember, bitterly arguing.

“We can’t just leave him! We can support him! We are ritualists working for an exorcist! This is literally our job!”

“Etenesh, the PROFESSIONAL BODYGUARD told us to run away! He did not say, “Step back and support me with spells!”

“Bullshit, bullshit! That is some cowardly-”

“No, he’s right. Actually, I kind of wish you were both still running. Further is better.” Truth cut into the conversation. He slowed from “faster than city traffic” to merely jogging quickly, encouraging them to catch up.

“TOMMY!” Etenesh screamed. She lunged to hug him, then stopped, arms hovering. “Please, can I hug you? I really need to hug you right now!”

“Yes, thank you. CAREFULLY!” he yelled the last word as she squeezed in on some barely healed burns and partially scabbed-over wounds.

“I thought you were going to die! I thought you had died!” Etenesh broke down, shivering as she held on to Truth.

“Actually, mind if I hug you too? I’m a little shaky myself.” Jember said.

“Alright, group hug, I guess.” Truth awkwardly extended an arm. He really wanted to be further away from the stadium, but it seemed like they needed a minute. A minute turned out to be exactly thirty seconds more hugging than he could comfortably tolerate, and he evicted the cousins from his arms.

“I’m alright. Nothing some good healing spells won’t fix up. At the Temple, where we should be, not hanging around here. Let's get to Nag Hamadi quick as we can. Everything is under control at the stadium now. Old Mek’elle stepped in.”

Maybe running would be too much to start with. He started walking up the road.

“When you say “Old Mek’elle” stepped in-” Jember slowly asked.

“I mean it literally, yes.” Truth nodded.

“Tommy. I know protecting people is your job but really? Did you absolutely have to charge a DAMN BLOOD PORTAL TO HELL?!” Etenesh started calmly but couldn’t finish that way. She had cycled from fear to guilt, to anger, then relief, then back to anger. It was wild to watch.

Truth wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that. It just seemed… intuitive to him. They wouldn’t be able to run away. So attack. He had never seen demon summoning quite like that, proof that the people of Siphios were ancient masters of that art. The two protectees, even if they could help, would still have to be protected during the attack. The safest place for them to be was “not where the attack is.” So they should scram.

But Etenesh was clearly not in the mood for “It was the right decision,” so he tried to think of something to say. It was tough being put on the spot like this. He racked his brains. “I fell into the cerulean pools of your eyes?” No, that wasn’t right. Erm. “It’s my job?” But it wasn’t. Merkovah was the body to guard, sort of. This was an afternoon out with friends. “My heart called me to action?” Well, it was kind of true, but they started fucking straight away in the book after that line got dropped. So… not great timing. They needed to be moving.

“Well?!” Etenesh asked.

“Sorry, trying to think of what to say. Basically, yes, it was necessary. We couldn’t outrun the demons, and they were coming out at a crazy rate. Sooner or later, they would have swarmed over the whole area and killed everyone, us included. If running or hiding was an option, I would have done that and let someone else deal with it. I didn’t know about the giant spirit, but I knew there were cops around.” Truth shrugged. “And it may sound unpleasant, but it is very hard to fight while protecting someone. Having you get away while I attacked the portal really was the best thing for the three of us as a group.”

“But not for you individually.” She seemed really heated about this. Truth could kind of understand why, or at least the books had similar scenes, but it didn’t connect emotionally.

“Yes, for me individually. Remember how I said we couldn’t run away? We really couldn’t. They were faster than me, and I’d bet that makes them faster than you too.” He shrugged. And sped up a bit. Maybe there was a carpet they could hail floating around.

Hooray, he had won his first argument with a peer! He glanced over at Etenesh. The vein on her forehead was throbbing. A bit of wisdom from a paperback lept to mind- “If you are in a family argument and win, apologize at once!” He didn’t understand it, but…

“Etenesh, I’m sorry.”

“Good!” The word exploded out of her. “You scared the life out of me! Never do that again!” Truth nodded, not bothered about lying.

There was a pause. “I like the scarf. Better if it wasn’t the Brickies, of course.”

It really was a nice scarf. Not particularly soft, but durable and comfortable, despite the intense heat. Actually, it seemed to be keeping his neck and face cool. Not picking up any of the dirt and grime off him, either. Or blood. Notoriously staining stuff, blood. It was a good scarf, and he was prepared to treasure it.

“Apparently, it grants me the Freedom of the Terraces and home fan status at any Pitz stadium.” Truth half grinned. He had no idea what that meant. A few weeks ago, he had never seen Pitz. He still wasn’t sure he would call himself a fan.

Ah, no, it wasn’t keeping him cool. He was shivering from the blood loss and shock from having a significant percentage of his body burnt. Old Mek’elle told him it was barely a patch job.

“Oh, that’s so neat! No, it’s better than neat-”

“Sorry to interrupt, but could one of you hail a carpet? I actually need healing badly. Right now, please. Please.”

____________________________________________

That evening in the Temple, after a fairly intensive round of healing and the application of several truly vile-smelling ointments, Merkovah had interrogated everyone carefully about the events of the day. He had been summoned to the Palace and had to give his report on the attack. Currently, as he pithily put it, “Nobody knows nothing,” but they intended to blame it on foreign agitators. Probably Praegerites, most likely sponsored by Jeon. The notion that it could be a purely homegrown atrocity was quietly but firmly discouraged.

The event coming immediately after the heroic sacrifice on the pitch magnified and compounded the impact. Merkovah seemed rather pleased and supremely angry at the same time. Truth couldn’t figure out why. Then decided it wasn’t his problem and got back to forgetting how to smell.

Truth didn’t much care who the attack was blamed on. He wasn’t in the terrorist hunting business, so the truth of the thing was kind of irrelevant. Nor did he care about blaming Jeon. He never had much loyalty to it. Patriotic education in Jeon was a bit of a joke. Jeon sucked. Starbrite, now, that was worth defending.

The Army did its best during his conscription. It really did. It would be hard to imagine more than two conscripts actually cared. Nationwide. Truth did his best to act like nothing had happened. Just… cultivate, meditate, and practice Incisive. That got him into the early evening when Jember hammered on his door.

“Tommy, Tommy, you have to come and see this!”

“Jember? What’s up?”

“It’s amazing! You are on Scry!”