God's Bounty Read online

  God’s Bounty

  Gideon Ra

  Copyright © 2019 by Gideon Ra

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For my Mom, who inspired me.

  For my Dad, who supported me.

  For Makenna, who believed in me.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  “In this strange, twisted universe there are many worlds.

  Most are lonely, desolate rocks.

  Some are husks, stripped of resources and left like the bones of a carcass picked clean by carrion crows.

  A few are inhabited, peopled by races grotesque and fantastical, and crystallizing from the collective consciousness of these people are their gods.

  Infused with the power of mass belief, sometimes benign and often tyrannical, these beings exist in a place outside of time. Eternal and undying.

  But sometimes gods, too, must die.”

  ~ from the private journals of Nemo Shade

  Chapter One

  The desert sands were hard packed beneath my feet as I struggled toward the temple. Gusts of wind blew grit in my eyes and my white robes billowed around me.

  I cursed under my breath. “Who.” I gasped to myself, tugging the broad strip of cloth back up over my nose, “In the universe. Puts a temple. In the middle. Of a fucking wasteland?”

  The walls rising several hundred feet before me were the yellow-brown color of the desert, spiderweb cracks reminding me that this place had been in disrepair for decades, if not centuries. The contract that brought me to this world was unusual, to say the least, but this was the last time I took a job for the novelty.

  I frowned grimly and hefted my pack, my gladius bumping comfortingly against my leg as I strode forward, step by step. When I finally reached the entrance to the temple I blew out a sigh of relief and dropped the pack in the shade with a clatter of metal.

  I stood to my full height. “That’s more like it…”

  I shook sand from my robes and looked around, taking in the short, vaulted entrance and the courtyard beyond, the air unnervingly still after the constant, blustering wind. I narrowed my silver eyes and scanned again, then sniffed.

  He was here, certainly. I could smell old, dusty power and wealth long since dried up.

  I blew the air out between my lips and rolled my shoulders. No sense waiting around.

  I headed in. The layout seemed solar, the central dome crisscrossed with glass panels designed to capture light from one or both of this planet’s suns.

  My hand hovered by the hilt of my weapon but I didn’t draw her from her sheath. She didn’t like waking up unless there was blood in the offing.

  That, and we usually got on each other’s nerves.

  I pulled the cloth down from my face and shoved the hood back from my head, long, blond hair spilling free. I tucked what I could back behind my ears and ignored the rest, taking another deep sniff.

  The scent, predictably, drifted on stale air from the center of the compound.

  Old gods… I mused. Always stuck in their glory days. Never willing to move on or move out…

  I wondered, for an instant, if that was why they ended up like they did: all bitter and hateful. Then, I decided I didn’t care.

  Nothing changed, gods least of all. For now, the only thing that mattered was the contract.

  Sand crunched beneath my feet as I continued, stealthier. If he had any modicum of power left he would probably sense me coming, but if not…

  Well, I was never one to give up the element of surprise.

  I approached the inner sanctum, ghosting from shadow to shadow until I was just inside the nearest archway. I peered deeper but all I could make out was a long, dark corridor that opened out into some sort of central chamber and the scent of…

  Another one?

  “Alright,” I muttered. “Time to wake you up.” My fingers curled around the hilt of my blade.

  Good morning, handsome… Lilith’s seductive purr sounded in my mind as I slid the sword free of its sheathe.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Save it,” I muttered, even though I knew she could hear my thoughts clearly. “We have work to do.”

  Oh, she murmured. She tried to play it cool, but I could hear the excitement churning beneath her calm facade. The desert dweller?

  “None other,” I answered, my fingers flexing on her grip.

  Lead the way, then, she ordered, and I obeyed, not bothering to point out that since I was the one with legs I hadn’t planned on waiting around for her.

  Oh, I added silently as I stalked down the corridor, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. Remind me not to take another contract unless Chester gives us all the details. I don’t like uncertainties.

  Yes you do, darling, she told me smugly. But I’ll remember, if it makes you feel any better.

  I gritted my teeth and reminded myself, not for the first time, to minimize my banter with soulbound demonblades.

  Then we reached the edge of the central chamber and all my thoughts turned to business. Because there, standing on the circular dais, was our quarry.

  I scowled. I hate bugs.

  He was tall, probably eight or nine feet, with a vaguely humanoid shape but the dusty black carapace of a desert beetle. He wore a long, linen skirt that reached to the floor. His torso was bare.

  The god had two pairs of arms, one roughly human and the other wickedly-hooked scythes like some type of mantis, and when he turned to look at me his head had the triangular face of the same insect.

  His mandibles scraped together oddly when he spoke, giving his voice an unnerving quality. It felt like dozens of ants running up and down my spine.

  “Come forth, mortal,” he rasped. “Come forth from the shadows and into the light of my presence.”

  Lilith? I asked. Thoughts?

  No sense hiding, she mused. The blade sounded bored. He knows we’re here.

  I grunted. Then, slowly, I slunk out of the corridor and several strides into the chamber. My eyes scanned the room, taking in salient features. Twelve entrances with high, arched windows and an internal support structure that reminded me of the cathedrals back home.

  Back when I had a home.

  The room was built of the same stone as the exterior walls, but at some point in the distant past someone — or, more likely, many someones — had taken the time to make it look magnificent. Old, fading paint covered the walls. Images of figures, dark like shadows, worshipping two glowing suns. Geometric patterns in blue and red and green.

  The bug looked me up and down with his prismatic eyes. His human hands flexed and then relaxed, the only body language I could read, and then he spoke. “You bear arms in this most holy of places. I can only assume this is because you are a stranger, far from home...”

  I stood silently, watching him for any hint or twitch that might give away his next move.

  The hands closed slowly into fists, knuckles white, and his volume increased as he started again. “You refuse to answer? I am M’ardukaath the First Sun, Ordu of the Twelve Cycles, Devourer of Night and—
”

  “Look,” I interrupted, raising my hand. I’d heard it all before. “You’ve obviously seen my sword. You know what I’m here to do. So the way I see it, you only have a few options.”

  I ticked them off on my fingers, Lilith sighing in the background at my display. “You can try to impress me with all your titles, but I won’t be impressed. You can try to blast me with your holy power, but you won’t. If you could, you would have done it already. Or, you can kill me, and put me out of my godsdamned misery.”

  The insect looked at me, mandibles agape. Then he reared back, praying mantis arms clawing in my direction. “You dare—”

  “Yes I dare!” I was raising my voice now, Lilith practically vibrating in my hand. She wasn’t bored now. “I was sent here to kill you. So what do you say we get on with it?”

  Surprisingly, that calmed him down.

  “Kill me?” The old god laughed, a sound like a thousand centipedes chittering across miles of broken rock. “Kill me? I am Eternal. I am Undying. I have been here since the foolish mortals of this planet crawled from beneath the crust and I will be here long after they have withered to dust. What fool has convinced you that you have a blind man’s chance in the desert of killing me?”

  I didn’t bother to correct him, to tell him that he was merely the incarnated figure of mass superstition. It certainly wouldn’t have shaken his god complex. Instead, I just tightened my grip on Lilith and sank into a fighter’s crouch.

  A sound broke the tension.

  It was a loud sigh off to my right, the sound of someone almost as tired of this god’s antics as I was.

  I pivoted, not entirely surprised, as the second god I’d smelled walked into the room from one of the twelve corridors.

  The insect whipped his head around, kaleidoscope eyes locking onto the figure, and together we surveyed the newcomer.

  This one took the shape of a young man in his twenties, bald and bronze-skinned, dressed in a long white robe that brushed the floor as he came slowly forward. His hands were tucked into voluminous sleeves that ended inches above the smooth, dusty tile and he wore an expression of world-weariness that I could get behind.

  “Isn’t it obvious, brother?” he asked. He gave the insect a look that might have been a pair of raised eyebrows, but he appeared to lack that particular facial feature. “I think we can both agree that it’s high time the Second Sun rose to supremacy.”

  I was tempted, in that moment, to sheathe Lilith and leave. I could sense another monologue in the offing. Instead, though, I simply sighed audibly and shuffled back several steps, leaning loosely against the wall.

  The young man spared a glance my way. “Be still, bounty hunter,” he sneered, his face a mask of disdain. “For the price of one million credits and a single golden aureus, I will have words with my brother before you use your blade.”

  I blew out an impatient breath and rolled my eyes, but gestured with Lilith for him to continue.

  Maybe we should kill the other, afterwards, Lilith suggested. I could hear the eagerness in her voice, the bloodlust rising inside her.

  That was the problem with demons. They could be good conversation for a lonely angel wandering the desert, but at the end of the day their moral compasses are all out of wack.

  Or… I suggested, trying to ignore as the mantis god took a step back in shock and began to spit what I could only assume were profanities in a clicking alien dialect, we could actually get paid for our trip out here. The bounty will stay in escrow with Chester until the contract is complete, and there is definitely a clause about ‘not killing our employer.’

  The blade huffed silently then said, This bug better taste good, then. Otherwise it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

  The younger brother stood placidly until the older ran out of breath, torso heaving with infuriated breaths and mandibles chewing the air in a manner I found oddly disconcerting.

  “We are old, brother,” he finally responded. “Eons I have spent in your shadow. Millenia, as the desert spread, crops failed, water vanished and our people starved. You are harsh, you are brutal, and you are dangerous. The ages have made you mad with power, and if our world is to have any chance at survival I am the only one who can stop you.”

  M’ardukaath hissed, his human hands flexing spasmodically. “Mad?” he spat. “I will show you mad. I will tie you to the rack and take you a hundred miles into the desert. I will rip off your eyelids and you will burn, staring up into the sky as my star crosses above you over and over and over again, until there is nothing left of your treacherous corpse but bleached bones and a warning to any who would oppose me.” Then, his eyes turned to me.

  It probably had nothing to do with the fact that I had laughed softly under my breath.

  I’d found, in the past, that those who imagined the most elaborate tortures were the least likely to carry them out. They lacked the spine. The thought that had prompted my laughter was a question: I wonder if this bug even has a spine in there?

  “Just as soon as I have dealt with this pesky maggot you hired to dispose of me.”

  I supposed there was only one way to find out. About the spine, that is. I felt my heartbeats slow, my breath stilling.

  Ready? I asked Lilith silently.

  Always… The gladius replied.

  I opened up my heart, and Lilith’s power surged in my body.

  “Are we going to fight, then?” I asked the mantis god, my eyes narrowing. My muscles pulsed with energy but I didn’t move, still leaning casually against the rounded wall of the chamber. “Have you built up the courage yet or are you going to keep on stalling?”

  The long, draping hem of its skirt fluttered, and I could suddenly see at least six insectile legs beneath as they flexed and tensed. That was all the warning I got as the mantis moved with frightening speed, covering the distance between us in a single long bound, twin scythes slicing through the air where I’d stood a split second before.

  Instead, though, I was a dozen feet above, Lilith’s energy thrumming in my body and my legs tensing as I pushed powerfully off the wall. With a grunt, I flung myself forward, flying parallel to the floor for an instant before I tucked into a roll and landed lightly on the dais.

  I spun swiftly on the balls of my feet, my robes billowing around me, and met the bug’s shocked kaleidoscope eyes with my own silver gaze. “Is that all you got?” I goaded, settling into a fighter’s crouch with Lilith held out before me.

  The mantis god screamed. Rage literally began to pour off of him, shining through the chinks in his chitinous armor and spreading out around him in a dark red halo the color of blood. “What are you, mortal?” he demanded, voice scraping across my eardrums.

  Not a mortal. But I didn’t answer, eyes narrowing as I concentrated. I watched his hands carefully, my muscles tensing in preparation as they curled into fists. The crimson energy was beginning to pool around them, swirling ominously.

  Lilith… I asked again, silently. You ready?

  I could practically hear the demon lick her lips. Don’t make me repeat myself, she purred.

  The god hissed. “Curse you then, foolish one!” His two humanoid arms thrust forward, channeling the scarlet light into a single lance that shot across the distance between us fast as thought. Apparently blasting me with holy power wasn’t out of the question after all.

  Even faster than the light, however, was my blade, the black metal intercepting the bloodred beam. My feet skidded back across the smooth tile, face set in a stern grimace as I battled to hold the sword steady.

  There was an intense ringing in my ears as the god gnashed his mandibles and redoubled the attack, and I could feel his heat and rage through Lilith, seeping across our bond and into my body. But the demon simply devoured it, a soft cry of satisfaction sounding silently in my mind.

  Yesss… Lilith’s voice was deeper now, darker, no longer the lighthearted feminine tone. More! I felt her own power shift, her spirit writhing and changing.

  W
ith a grunt, I twisted the blade.

  The lance of energy shattered, dissipating like sunlight at dusk.

  The bug looked shocked. He shook his head silently, dark-skinned hands opening and closing spasmodically. “Impossible!” he rasped.

  That was when I attacked. I bounded forward, siphoning Lilith’s energy so that each leap covered half a dozen feet. My gladius sliced forward, but the mantis god skittered sideways in a blink so that all I managed was a shallow cut that carved a furrow in his black, armored torso.

  His scythe-like arms slashed defensively and I ducked, my shoulder slamming into the wall.

  My breath left my body in a whoomph but I spun, lashing out with Lilith to defend against a counterattack. But the bug was standing just out of range, massive eyes glaring down at me. Up close he towered above me by at least a yard, his body coiled like a spring and his mantis arms curled back.

  It was a frightening sight, but I fought down the shard of fear that pierced my core and pushed off the wall with one hand, going on the offensive. I sped forward, my gladius a black lance aimed right at the center of the bug’s body.

  His feet skittered on the tile as he retreated, out of range of my lunge. From the corner of my eye I could see the other god watching silently, hands still folded in the long sleeves of his robe.

  But that was the only glimpse I got as my opponent suddenly jinked sideways. Lilith practically wrenched my shoulder from its socket as she curved out in a devastating sweep, seeking blood, but even she wasn’t fast enough as the bug twisted around the blade and bore down on me, serrated claws slicing down in an X.

  I ducked, shouted in pain as I felt one of the scythes smash across my shoulders, carving through my robe and into my back beneath. The woven fibers of the enchanted cloth were good for deflecting lasfire, not so good against serrated god-claws.