Monster Hunter International, Second Edition

  Finally at the top, I kicked away the giant feasting buzzards. My ax was embedded through the back of the captain's now-empty suit of mail. His body was gone.

  The artifact was gone.

  I screamed at the sky. Cursing everything, swearing vengeance upon all, I tore my blade free, shaking it overhead. I vowed to regain that which was mine.

  The body of the priestess Koriniha was facedown in a puddle. The carrion birds had pulled her open and eaten freely. Her fine robes were crusted with dried red, stained with her spilled organs. The buzzards reluctantly hopped away as I approached.

  She was the key.

  I had to bring her back.

  We were two weeks from the city, a hard trek through dark jungle paths. I could not carry her weight all that way, especially alone, wounded, and without provisions. I knelt beside her, and with my ax, carefully stripped the flesh from her bones, breaking joints as necessary to reduce her to her component parts. When I was done, I bundled the broken skeleton into a soldier's cloak, and tied it tight with a belt. I slung it over my back and stumbled down the pyramid, in the direction of the city. Surely one of the remaining dark priests would know what to do. If I could bring back my concubine, she could reunite me with the artifact. Nothing was going to stop me.

  Days passed.

  Delirium increased.

  I ate bugs and small animals raw, crawling, dragging myself ever onward. Fever rushed through my body. Eating away at me. Burning me. Killing me. I did not sleep. I pushed onward, through the darkness, strange beings and spirits watching me along the jungle paths, urging me onward toward my destiny. I did not abandon my armor, nor my ax. They were symbols of my authority, and I would not give my enemies the satisfaction of abandoning part of my birthright to rust in the never-ending rain of the hated jungle.

  My first sign of the city was the towers of black smoke and the clouds of milling vultures.

  It was a city of the dead.

  A month had now passed since my expedition had left. The bodies of the people were mostly in their homes, on their sleeping mats, pustules open on their decaying forms, taken by a fever.

  I walked down the empty streets. The brilliant songbirds had starved in their cages. The only movement I saw was the carrion animals inside the doors and openings as if they were the new owners. In a way they were. Stray dogs, brought here by my men, prowled the streets, fattened by the vast stores of available meat.

  Fires had caught, and now burned out of control, with no one left to fight the blaze. The air was thick with smoke and ash. I did not know if any of the people of the city had survived, but if they had, then they had fled this cursed place.

  I made my way to the temple. The priestess had taken me deep beneath it, far down into the bowels of the earth, where strange things lived, and the very walls were alive. She had shown me the ancient obelisk and its prophecy. Surely there I would find my answers.

  Infection had set into my wounds, dripping green pus and leaving a trail upon the paved road. My body stank like the corpses in the surrounding buildings. I was aflame with fever, yet shivered because I was so starkly cold. I could not remember my trek to the temple, nor the long deep descent to the ancient unnatural cavern. I do not know how much time passed on my journey down the endless stairs and tunnels.

  I found myself in the cavern, reduced to crawling like some pathetic forest beast. The damp bones of Koriniha rattled on my back. I pulled my ax along, dragging a trail through the soft living floor. Now, so close to death, I pushed myself along by will power alone. I had no torch, so I moved through the dark. Strange things skittered over my body, or slithered over my hands. I crawled, hopelessly lost, pushing onwards toward where I felt the obelisk to be. The air rushed and changed direction overhead, as if the cavern itself was breathing. It stank of rotting fish, but I could barely smell it over the stench of decay coming from my own flesh.

  At last my quest ended.

  The black obelisk was there—still impossibly thin, and disappearing into the darkness above. The ancient writings of the prophecy gave off a faint light of their own. My swollen fingers struggled to uncinch the remains of the priestess from my body, and after much effort I was able to spill her bones upon the patch of floor where I had taken her to consummate our pact.

  "Old Ones. I have come," I croaked through my parched throat, barely able to produce any sound. "I demand you return your Priestess Koriniha to life."

  Nothing happened.

  I lay gasping and heaving on the floor. I forced myself upwards, knees buckling, I fell against the obelisk, barely holding on.

  "Old Ones. I am he whom you prophesied." The writing was there before me, glowing, providing scant illumination. It was still in Latin. I read the words again. Surely it was I.

  "I have done what you asked. I have fulfilled my part," I demanded. "Give her back to me. Give me my power."

  The giant breathing continued, each exhalation brought a greater stink of rotten ocean. Nothing responded. I grew angry. I found the strength to push myself away from the obelisk, standing shakily on my own feet. I pulled my ax into my hands.

  "It is mine! Give me my power!"

  The breathing continued.

  "Damn you then." I found the strength to lift my ax. I swung it into the narrow obelisk. Obsidian chips flew as I struck. "Damn you!" I struck again, finding strength in my fury. Lines of the prophecy winked out of existence. "I do not need you!" Bits of the obelisk embedded themselves in my skin as I hammered it. "I am the one!" The narrow thing cracked and shifted from the roof. More lines disappeared. "The power is mine!" A final blow turned the center into powder. "I curse you, Old Ones!" I spit on their prophecy.

  The obelisk toppled, the lower part shattered, and the top hung suspended for a long moment before detaching from the unseen ceiling of the cavern and falling, exploding like glass on impact. I was left alone in the dark, gasping, heaving. Dying.

  We must go now, Boy. Hurry.

  The cavern shifted. I had drawn the attention of the Old Ones. Shapes dropped down around me, somehow visible as darker than the shadows.

  Come. Must leave his mind.

  What's happening?

  He has—how you say?—pissed them off.

  Ten thousand glowing eyes opened on the cavern walls as the giant tentacles encircled me, suckers piercing and ripping into my rotten flesh, lifting me upwards through the cavern, into the gaping gelatinous maw of an Old One. I screamed, but acid filled my mouth and poured down my throat, burning, tearing.

  Darkness . . .

  Pain . . .

  I was once again my self. Owen Z. Pitt.

  Thank goodness.

  The memory was fading away as the Old Man pulled me back toward light and sanity.

  I saw Lord Machado as he was cruelly twisted into the Cursed One. His human form was stripped away, replaced with the foul organic materials of the ancient alien trespassers. His mind was probed and tortured, shattered and pulped against incomprehensible forces, pushed beyond the breaking point of any mortal being. The torment lasted for a hundred years.

  Finally satisfied at the punishment, or perhaps growing bored and tiring of it, the Old One dropped the pulsing mass of black tissue back to the floor where it landed with a wet splattering.

  Somehow his spirit survived the unspeakable torture, driven by hate, anger and lust for power. Those things were his anchor, keeping him from being absorbed completely into the ancient beast. The inky mass slithered away into the darkness, husbanding its strength.

  Planning for its return.

  The Polish village was silent. I shuffled through the snow, making my way through the rubble of homes and businesses, looking for the church, what I knew now to be the chosen Place of Power from the winter of 1944. My feet were bare, but the jagged stone, shell casings, and broken glass did not harm me.

  "Mordechai!" I shouted. "We need to talk!"

  I found the church. The steps were barren. I hurried up them and through the entrance
.

  "Byreika!" I bellowed, cupping my hands over my mouth. The Old Man was nowhere to be seen. I kicked over a damaged pew. I did not have time for this. "Where are you?"

  "Greetings," called a voice. I turned to see a man, a stranger, approaching down the aisle. He was short, dressed in an archaic steel breastplate and plumed, rounded helmet. A yellow and brown family crest was emblazoned upon his chest. His goatee was black and grease-slicked down to a point. His eyes were small and dark, set deep into a face tanned like leather. He glared at me from under bushy eyebrows. "Your friend will be along shortly." One arm hung at his side, lazily holding the handle of his battle-ax, the blade dragging a furrow through the ash and snow on the church floor.

  I realized he was speaking archaic Portuguese. The language of Lord Machado's memories.

  Not good.

  "Lord Machado," I said over the lump in my throat.

  "We have never been properly introduced. You have plundered through my memories. My precious things. You have delved into my power and tried to take that which is mine. You have ruined my plans and stolen the glory of the ancients, an honor which is rightfully mine. And yet, I do not even know who you are." He stopped, only a few feet away. The artificial construct of the Old Man's world shifted violently as the Cursed One intruded. The fabric of the surrounding town rippled as if it were fluid. "Who are you?" he hissed.

  I somehow found the courage to respond. "I'm the man that's going to kill you once and for all."

  Snapping his head back, he laughed—the same evil laugh from the memories. "How naïve. I cannot die. I am eternal. Far greater things than you have tried to take my life. I refuse to die."

  "We'll see about that."

  He raised the ax slowly, taking it in both hands, balancing it, feeling the weight. He inspected the blade, carefully running one thumb over the edge.

  "I've killed thousands of men. I could kill your body now as you sleep. I could take your spirit and chain it to the artifact like your guide. Do not be insolent with me," he threatened. "It would bring me much joy to rip the heart from your chest."

  "Try it."

  He did not move, merely stood, cradling his ax, smiling slightly, as if my bravado amused him.

  "Are you going to sit there, or are we going to do this?" I asked, preparing to fight. How did you battle an immortal being in your own dreams? I was about to find out.

  "Nay," he answered. "For in this place you are safe. I am but a shadow, a message, a warning. I am here but as a friend. I come to offer you a pact of peace and cooperation."

  "Fuck off."

  "My young friend, you have much to learn." He planted the ax head solidly into the floor and leaned upon the shaft. "Tomorrow I will rule. That much is already determined. Those who stand with me will be greatly rewarded. Whatever you so desire, power, riches . . . You wish to have the vampire's daughter. I can see to it that the two of you shall live together for eternity . . . in return for your allegiance. It is within my power to give you whatsoever you wish. I will need captains for my army, great men such as yourself. Think of the glory."

  "Real tempting," I answered. "But how about I just find you and shove that stupid ax up your ass?"

  "Those who stand against me will be crushed. I shall kill you for eons. I will wear your skin as my cloak, I will grind your bones into powder, I will drink your blood, and I shall chain your soul to the artifact forever. A token trophy of my victory." As he spoke he began to change, features becoming blurry and darkening, as if he was cloaked in smoke. He grew, widened, black-glistening tissue protruding through the seams of his clothing and creases of armor. The ax thumped to the floor, no longer fitting in the fleshless hands. "I shall take every one that you have ever loved. I shall turn them to me, or I shall swallow their souls. I shall make them suffer as you do, and they shall know, as their flesh burns and their skin is peeled away, that it was you who caused this suffering. That it was you, through your foolishness, which caused them such pain. And they will curse your name through eternity."

  The Cursed One's voice changed, as if the sound was traveling through water. The flesh of his face sloughed away, leaving a skull, and then black tendrils sprang from under his helmet and out of his mouth, coating his face in a withering mask. "I shall take your family, your father, your mother and your children who are not yet born. They shall feel my wrath and know of my eternal rage. I shall take this woman you love, the vampire's daughter, and I shall inflict savagery upon her such that your pathetic mind cannot comprehend. Once she is broken I shall give her to her mother, and she too shall join my legions."

  The transformation was complete, and the true form of Lord Machado towered above me, bones cloaked in a slime-coated mass of moving tentacles: pure black hatred made manifest into a physical presence. The armor remained, only now dented and rusted, bracketed in filth and ooze. The mass slapped wetly against the wooden floor, black fluids dripping through to eat away at the ground below. The helmet dipped down, burning eyes gleaming in my face.

  "Choose now. Choose your fate. Serve me or serve eternal pain."

  Incomprehensible fear grasped claws around my heart. I knelt down before the billowing wall of evil. The Cursed One began to laugh, echoing through the shattered church, secure in his power and greatness.

  "I choose neither."

  The pulsating mass that was the Cursed One's head tilted slightly, betraying the still-human reaction of disbelief. My hand closed upon the polished handle of the ancient ax as I heaved myself upwards. I swung the massive blade into the black flesh, slicing through the flailing darkness.

  The Cursed One roared and struck.

  Chapter 24

  Light.

  Confusion.

  Pressure on my chest. Hands restraining me, holding me down.

  I lashed out, knuckles colliding with something soft. Strong fingers landed on my throat. I reached upwards, grabbed the person and flung them aside. Something struck me, grabbed me, lifted me through the air and slammed me painfully into a rock-hard surface.

  "Wake up, damn it!" Harbinger shouted into my ear.

  I gasped. I was alive.

  And being crushed painfully into a cinderblock wall. Harbinger held me up by the straps of my armor, feet dangling several inches from the ground. He shook me violently, took one hand away and slapped me silly.

  "Hey!" I shouted. "Cut that out."

  "Okay. He's back." Harbinger released me and I dropped to the ground. The much smaller man had flung me around as if I weighed nothing. "Sam. You okay?"

  Sam Haven stood to one side, rubbing the side of his head. A slight trickle of blood leaked out of his nose and strained through his enormous mustache. "Kid's got a punch all right. Like getting kicked by a horse."

  "Sorry," I said.

  "Jeez, I was only trying to help. You were flopping around like a fish," the big cowboy said.

  I looked around in bewilderment. We were by the hangar, back at the compound. The Hind sat nearby, blades still slowly turning. The team stood around me, looking concerned. I felt nauseous and weak. I slid down the wall and sat. Julie squatted down beside me.

  "You were having a seizure again. You started as we came in for a landing." She pressed her fingers to my neck and took my pulse. She glanced at her watch. "Your heart rate is crazy."

  "The Cursed One was in my dreams," I gasped.

  "Did you get us a location?" Harbinger asked.

  I shook my head sadly. "Sorry."

  "Shit," he sputtered. "Nothing?"

  "He made me a job offer," I added. "Great benefits package. Eternal life, that kind of thing. All I've got to do is help him conquer the world. Or he's going to boil my soul for eternity or something." I did not say what he had said about Julie. I was going to make the slimy son of a bitch pay for that.

  "Okay, let's get inside," Harbinger said. I tried to wobble back to my feet. Julie gave me a hand up, and Trip silently put my arm over his shoulder and helped me to walk. Holly picked up my shotgun
. "I've summoned every team back to the compound for the night. Pitt, you're going to need to debrief all of us. Maybe somewhere in there is a clue that we need to track him down."

  "Aren't the others taking care of local infestations?" Holly asked.

  "It's suicide to hunt vampires in the dark. I've got a few team leads who're brave enough to try though, so I ordered them back. So now we regroup, check our gear, and tomorrow we head out again. We have one day left to find the Place."

  "I can try again, Earl," I said shakily. "I can do it. Byreika promised he would show me before time runs out."

  "You looked like you were going to die back there," Trip said, with concern in his voice. "You sure you want to do that again?"

  "You got a better idea?"

  He thought about it. "Nope . . . The Lord helps those who help themselves."

  "I wish he would send a miracle our way then, 'cause we sure could use one," I said.

  "Maybe he has," Trip suggested. "Maybe you're our miracle."

  "If that's the case, we're screwed," Holly said. "No offense."

  "None taken. Hell, I agree."

  "No, serious. Think about it," he told the group as we approached the main building. I never thought that I could be so glad to see the ugly old fortress, but I was. With the sun setting in the distance, the compound looked almost heavenly. "You talk with ghosts. You see visions. You even managed to turn back the clock. Explain that if it isn't a miracle."

  "Trust me on this. If you had seen the evil crustacean monsters that this artifact comes from, then you wouldn't be talking about the backwards-in-time experience as if it was a good thing." I shuddered when I thought about their giant saucer eyes floating through space. "You had best put your faith in something other than me."

  "I don't know, man. I think you've got a job to do. I think when that werewolf killed you, you got sent back with a mission, and Byreika is your guide."