The Dark Cabal (5)
With every step down the staircase, the heat blazing in Yona's chest cooled a little more. The fire that had seemed ready to burn her face clean off was already going cold — and in its place, only the pounding of her heart echoed louder and louder.
When they reached the brown wooden door, Alec raised his shield. He drew out the layered plate fitted inside it and handed it to Yona, who slipped it onto her left arm. He glanced back at her; she nodded. In the same breath, Alec kicked the door with everything he had.
— CRASH!
With a thunderous boom, the door shattered, swayed helplessly for a moment, and collapsed inward in a heap.
“Ugh!”
She barely choked down the rising bile. The stench that swept through the opening was like rusted iron gone to rot — the smell of blood.
Inside was an enormous hall. How a building like this even had a chamber so vast was a mystery, but that hardly mattered now. Dozens of people, by any rough count, were packed inside. Every one of them wore a deep maroon hood pulled low over their faces, huddled around something and peering down at it — until Alec and Yona burst in without warning, and they all turned with a murderous air.
“Who the hell are you?!”
Yona roared right back at the thunderous shout.
“Rubina—! I'm Rubina's—”
Her mind blanked for an instant. …Her what, again?
But the hesitation was brief. — I want to go with you, sis…
“—sister! Hand over my little sister, you sons of bitches—!!!”
Yona's scream and Alec's charge came as one, and he tore into the hall like a whirlwind. His steel greaves struck the blood-slicked stone floor with ringing clangs, hiding nothing, announcing everything as he barreled forward — and Yona sprinted close behind him, refusing to be left out.
“Give me back my sister, you sons of BITCHES—!!”
Alec howled like something out of a nightmare and swung his shield full-force into a hooded cultist.
— CRUNCH!
Something cracked, the man went flying, and he crashed into a table and rolled across the floor with it.
“My sister—!”
A steel greave slammed into a cultist's groin without mercy. Something felt like it broke against the greave's toe; he didn't care.
“HAND HER OVER—!!”
A fist wrapped in a steel gauntlet hammered down onto a cultist's face. As the man's head bounced off the floor, Alec seized him by the hood at the back of his skull and hoisted him up.
“You FUCKING bastards—!!”
Raging red veins crawled across Alec's face — he looked possessed by a demon. He hurled the limp cultist bodily into the others, and they toppled over each other in a tangled, thrashing heap.
“YONA, WATCH OUT!”
A short, wickedly sharp dagger flew at Alec's flank — and met a small round shield.
“Aim for this, you bastard!”
Yona swung shield and all, smashing it into the cultist's face.
“Nice one, Yona!”
“Give me back my sister! GIVE HER BACK—!”
Baying like animals, Alec and Yona waded into the cultists and tore them apart.
The advantage of a surprise attack lies, above all, in the devastation it inflicts in that very first instant. But the moment the enemy realizes the assault is weaker than it seemed, that advantage decays exponentially.
“Finish them quickly. If the sacrifice wakes, things will get loud.”
The man who had been going by the name Neri — his true name was Andrei. He frowned, peering around through the narrow slit between his hood, his eyes glinting hard.
The cult's members here already numbered fifty or more.
“And yet two intruders have gone unanswered all this time? We must clear them away swiftly to proceed with the rite.”
“F-forgive us! We'll deal with them at once!”
The man and woman shrieking give me back my sister over and over — Andrei knew them.
They registered at the gate as husband and wife, and claimed the girl was their daughter. Now suddenly she's a sister?
A hollow laugh escaped him. He couldn't fathom what these liars — people who had lied even on their entry declaration — thought they were so righteous about now.
“Clear them away, quickly. The rite must proceed.”
The night the night market opened was always the night of the full moon. Ostensibly because it was pretty and bright — a reason Andrei, as a member of the Dark Cabal, found utterly idiotic.
The full moon. The hour when the Heavenly God's power was at its weakest. In that sliver of time, they would soak the altar in blood. It was for that sublime rite that Andrei had infiltrated the gate garrison under the name Neri, and thanks to it his task had gone smoothly — no wasted effort at all.
To throw off any pursuit, they had snatched only rootless drifters — nameless adventurers and orphans with no ties to anyone — and bathed this altar in countless gallons of their blood. And if, to crown it all, they offered up this black-haired girl on the night when the full moon climbed highest, the grand ceremony they had dreamed of for so long would finally be complete.
Black hair — the mark said to descend from the Heavenly God's own bloodline. Long, long ago, when the Heavenly God descended upon Marlene and crushed the False Heavenly God beneath her heel, black hair came to be regarded as the proof of her descendants. Even now, when black hair appeared only here and there, it was hardly common enough to squander on such a rite — and yet here was a black-haired girl, delivered right into their hands, daughter of a rootless adventurer with not a single connection in all of Carpatia. Nothing short of providence.
Adventurers could vanish without a whisper and no one would blink. And the child of an adventurer who wasn't even a resident of Carpatia? If she disappeared, not a soul would care. So they had taken her.
It's cold out — wait somewhere warm, they had told her, and the sacrifice had come along meekly. All that remained was to perform the rite, and yet—
“I TOLD you to give me back my sister—! You sons of BITCHES!”
That woman in the nun's habit was rampaging as if all reason had fled her body. And the man guarding her with uncanny precision while laying out heretics by the dozen was no ordinary foe either.
Andrei decided this could not go on. If the commotion spread any further, the odds that the entire rite would collapse were far too high. Only if the ceremony was seen through tonight, at this very hour, could they summon their grand ambition made flesh — the Demon of Mockery, Berbaria.
“So be it, then.”
The site of the brawl and the altar were a fair distance apart. Even if they forced the rite through now, those rabble-rousers would never reach them in time to interfere. Better still — if they fed the freshly awakened Lord Berbaria the blood of those two as well… and the bald one had black hair too, didn't he? All the more blessed a rebirth would be.
“We proceed with the rite! All of you — form the wall of men!”
The instant Andrei shouted, the dozens of hooded cultists packed themselves tightly together, ringing out like a living rampart. Confirming the formation, Andrei wrenched the lever of the pulley beside the altar with all his strength, and the altar — gone sticky and crusted from drinking down rivers of blood — groaned and split open with a creaking shriek.
And from beneath it, rising slowly into the light, came the wooden frame that would crown this blood-soaked ceremony's finale — Rubina, her limbs bound fast to the wood.
“RUBINAAAAAA—!!”
Yona screamed until her throat tore. The moment she laid eyes on Rubina, she hurled herself at the cultists in her path, clawing to break through. But the men had locked into a scrum like a fortress wall, closing around her and Alec in a ring of bodies that refused to yield an inch.
No matter how Alec swung his shield, no matter how they rained fists and kicks to break the line — the moment one fell, the man behind him filled the gap. There was nothing to be done.
“O great Berbaria. We offer unto Thee the blood of the beast, heir to the accursed Heavenly God's line. Descend upon this land — rise, spit upon the Heavenly God's likeness, and shake heaven and earth with Thy power—”
Andrei raised the dagger high. Firelight glinted off the blade, flashing murderously.
“Arise now, O Berbaria!”
“Don't you DARE touch those kids, you bastard!”
A deep voice thundered, and something cleaved the air with a shriek.
— TWANG!
The dagger in Andrei's hand exploded into splinters that scattered like shrapnel, and the arrow that had surely shattered it stood buried in the wall behind the altar, still trembling.
“This is what you two have been doing all this while? Pathetic.”
An axe came screaming through the cultists at a horrifying speed and slammed into the ground. The axe-head struck stone, and the shockwave rippled out in both directions; the cultists flanking the impact staggered, arms flailing for balance.
“GET LOST—! You devil-worshipping scum—!”
Alec roared and charged again, shield swinging.
“Go, Yona — now!”
At Kayak's shout, Yona nodded and sprinted after Alec. Alec carved the path open; Yona stayed glued to his back, covering him as they ran.
“YOU — you lowly little—!”
In her sight line, a man tore his hood clean off. A face that couldn't be called handsome to save its life. And dead center in his forehead, a black mole — with a single black hair jutting from it, unmistakable even by candlelight.
“You — you son of a—!”
“Hah. I couldn't say whether I'm your mother or your big sister, but handing the child over to me yourself and then demanding her back like this — isn't that just a touch shameless of you!”
Andrei leered at Yona with all the mockery he could muster. Abduction? No. Hardly. It was that woman who had entrusted the child to him, and all he'd done was bring her along. Life as an adventurer's dependent would be that same squalid shuffle either way — so wasn't it a finer, more precious existence after all, to serve as the ingredient of Lord Berbaria's rebirth?
“Cut the crap, you spot-faced freak!”
“S-spot-faced?! You wretched bitch!”
“I said give me back my SISTER! How many times—!”
“Why you…!”
Andrei ground his teeth and drew another dagger from his coat. The moment the two adventurers, the orc and the lizardman, joined the fray, the wall of men began to collapse at speed. Two seasoned warriors had waded in, and the cultists were scattering like a sandcastle meeting the tide. Left like this, the rite was in mortal danger.
“The rite comes first…!”
Andrei raised the dagger high. All he had to do was drive it into the sacrifice's throat. Let her blood seep into the altar — that was all—!
“Alec!”
Yona called to the man ahead of her. Alec glanced back once, then wheeled around. Bending deep at the knees, he laced his hands together and made a step of them—
“GO, Yona!”
The instant her foot hit his palms, Alec surged upward and launched her with everything he had. Light as she was, Yona soared a distance she never could have managed alone and crashed down on top of Andrei.
— KA-BOOM!
The moment she brought him down, a searing pain flared through her right shoulder as if it had caught fire. Even so, Yona kept her grip on Andrei and rolled with him all the way to the base of the altar.
Everything hurt — her right shoulder worst of all, burning like a lit fuse — and the half-healed wounds on her face began throbbing anew. Still she pinned Andrei down and did not let go.
“You — you bastard — my sister, MY SISTER—!”
— SMAK!
Her fist smashed into Andrei's face hard enough to leave her knuckles numb. Without a breath to spare she hit him again, hammered him with her other fist, and kept going — again, and again, and again, and again, pounding Andrei's face over and over.
“You little—!”
Someone seized her by the hair and yanked, and Yona went sprawling backward. Andrei — lips split and torn, a sorry sight indeed — rose to his feet with eyes brimming with bloody fury and stalked toward her.
“You miserable bitch — you dare scar my face?!”
He reached her prone body and drove his boot into her stomach with full force. A dull whump rang out, and Yona let out a strangled cry — kekh — and curled against the floor.
“I'll make you a match for me, you cursed woman!”
Andrei seized the dagger still buried in her right shoulder and wrenched it free with a vicious twist. The pain of steel grinding through bone and tearing through muscle tore a long scream out of Yona — and Andrei raised the dagger high to drive it down again.
“You FUCKER—!”
Alec's shield slammed into Andrei like a battering ram, sending him flying. As Andrei crashed to the ground far away, Alec was on him in a heartbeat, seizing him by the collar and hoisting him clean off his feet.
“You dare — you DARE lay a hand on her…!”
Eyes blazing crimson, wheezing ragged breath after ragged breath, Alec glared at Andrei like he might strangle him then and there.
“You miserable son of a BITCH—!”
Still gripping the collar, Alec hurled Andrei bodily toward the altar. He sailed across the chamber and crashed down beside it in a tangle with the frame — and as the wooden stand rocked and threatened to topple with Rubina bound to it, Yona lunged and caught it in her arms.
“Ngh — aargh—!”
The Holy Shroud on Yona's right arm had come apart to shreds, unraveling and sliding loose. Blood streamed from the great gaping wound torn across her arm, soaked her tattoo through and through — and then, drop by drop, began to seep into the altar.