Chapter Twenty-Six:
You Know What I Have Done
The damp, smoky, slaughter-scented air of the Nest gave way to warm floral breezes as Bitterwood stepped from the rainbow. The false sky overhead was still a nightscape dotted with stars and a moon. The light was bright enough to illuminate the footprints of the fallen angel that had preceded Bitterwood through the gate. He studied the shapes in the crushed grass; these weren't the prints of a living thing. The prints had hard, crisp edges that told him that what he'd glimpsed as the angel had vanished into the gate was true. Gabriel was a clockwork man, as Hezekiah had been.
Bitterwood followed the trail of bent blades, though he instinctively knew where they led-the temple. Gabriel only had a few minutes lead. Bitterwood could tell from the trail that the machine man was limping, injured from battle. Bitterwood, on the other hand, felt energized after his murder of Blasphet. His fever dreams, his visions of Recanna, all the omens and portents suddenly seemed clear. For twenty years, the hatred of dragons had given him reason to rise in the mornings. He'd been full of righteous anger at the thoughts of how dragons held power over the lives of men, power they'd used unjustly. Yet, what of the power of gods? He didn't know if his hatred could drive an arrow through the heart of the goddess. He was keen to find out.
He hoped his bruskness had been sufficient to dissuade Jandra from following him. If he died in pursuit of this task, it mattered little. He saw no reason for the girl to risk her life, however.
He caught up to Gabriel as the winged man climbed the steps of the temple. The angel was exposed for what he truly was, a mockery of a man made of steel bones and wet-clay muscles. Bitterwood dropped Blasphet's severed tongue to the grass. From a hundred feet away, he took aim at Gabriel's skull and let his arrow fly.
Sound, however, flies more swiftly than arrows. Gabriel spun in response to the twang of Bitterwood's bow and swatted the arrow from its flight with skeletal fingers.
"Oh, it's you," Gabriel said. The angel drew his flaming sword from its scabbard. "I've known since you arrived you were an ungrateful guest. Put down your bow, human. You failed to kill me while my back was to you. You have no chance of victory now that I'm aware of your presence."
Bitterwood placed a second arrow against his bowstring and stepped forward. "I've just come from killing a god," he said. "An angel is no challenge."
Gabriel spread his legs into a fighting stance, holding his sword with both hands.
"Bant Bitterwood, you owe me gratitude, not anger. I saved the life of your son. He's grown into a valued servant of the goddess. It will cause him tremendous grief to know you died at my hands. For his sake, put down your bow."
Bitterwood continued to close the gap. Twenty feet away was close enough for him to feel the heat of the flaming sword against his cheeks. He knew what this being was capable of. He'd witnessed Hezekiah survive far worse injuries than anything his bow could inflict. The machine man's strength, even injured, was ten times his own. But he also knew one further thing that this angel didn't know-he'd watched Vendevorex disable Hezekiah in the Free City. He knew this creature's vulnerable spot.
He released the bow string. The arrow crossed the gap between man and angel in a time too fast to measure, yet the angel swung his sword swiftly enough to knock the arrow aside. He then raised the flaming weapon high overhead, and lunged. Bitterwood had anticipated this gambit. He charged forward with all his speed, coming in low under Gabriel's racing weapon, tackling the angel's torso with his full weight.
As with Hezekiah, it wasn't enough. Throwing himself against Gabriel was like throwing himself against stone. He found his footing and rose up, in the embrace of the angel, until his face was staring into Gabriel's steely skull. He could see his own eyes reflected in the angel's gleaming teeth. Gabriel calmly folded his arms around Bitterwood in a bear hug. Bitterwood reached around the machine man's back, feeling his way up the mechanical spine to the base of the neck. He smelled burnt hair from Gabriel's sword being so near his face; his ribs were on the verge of breaking. There was no way for him to draw a breath in the angel's death grip.
Bitterwood found the small, smooth orb that sat at the base of the angel's skull. He wrapped his fist around it and yanked as spots danced before his eyes. Suddenly, Gabriel dropped his sword. His clasped arms around Bitterwood didn't slacken, but they also didn't grow any tighter.
Bitterwood exhaled fully, creating tiny amounts of slack. He slipped down the angel's rib cage, twisting his shoulders to free himself. He staggered backwards with a shiny silver marble in his hands. Vendevorex had called this sphere a homunculus-the machine soul that animated the artificial man. Gabriel was still now, save for a trio of wires that snaked from his back and floated toward Bitterwood like tentacles of a jellyfish. Bitterwood dived beneath these probes, reaching for Gabriel's flaming sword, which lay on the ground beside the angel's skeletal feet. He rose with the weapon and sliced upward through the wires, severing them. Instantly, they began to grow back.
Bitterwood ran away, down the lengths of the temple steps. He didn't know the range of the wires, but it couldn't be infinite. Or perhaps it could. They might seek out the homunculus wherever it went. Bitterwood stopped, having put several yards between himself and the wires. He laid the silver orb upon the polished steps of the temple. Then, he placed the flaming sword upon it. He stepped back, hoping that the wires would melt away before they could reach the orb. Instead, the homunculus suddenly popped like a kernel of corn, violently enough to throw the sword into the air. Tiny fragments of shrapnel tinked against the stone. A steel splinter buried itself deeply in Bitterwood's cheek, barely an inch below his left eye. He dug the sliver out with his ragged nails, then wiped the wound with the back of his hand. He allowed himself a deep, calming breath, though it sent needles of pain through his bruised ribcage.
He retrieved the flaming sword from where it had landed. It had burned a circle around it in the grass, though the ground and vegetation were too moist to allow the flames to spread far. He carried it at arm's length, unable to even look directly at the white-hot weapon. He hoped that placing it back in Gabriel's scabbard would squelch the weapon. Yet, as he wished that the weapon wasn't so hot, the weapon responded. The white searing flame faded to the intensity of a torch. Bitterwood no longer felt as if his shirt sleeve were on the verge of catching fire. He stared at the now manageable flame and wondered if it could grow dimmer still. It did, lowering its intensity until only the barest halo of faint orange flame danced around it, and Bitterwood could no longer feel its heat on his face. With a thought, he willed it to brighten again.
He allowed himself a rare grin as the sword obeyed his unspoken command. He went to Gabriel's paralyzed form and placed the sword back into it scabbard, then fastened the scabbard to his own belt.
He cast a glance back to Blasphet's severed tongue. At least he now knew how he was going to cook it.
Bitterwood left the flaming temple. For an hour, he'd shouted in the place, calling the goddess down. He'd burned her statue and set fire to the walls to no avail. She hadn't come for him.
Very well. His true purpose in returning, he reminded himself, wasn't to kill angels and goddesses, but to rescue Zeeky. He walked away from the conflagration of the once sacred place. With the angel slain and the temple on fire, Bitterwood saw no further need for subtlety. "Zeeky!" he shouted. "Zeeky, where are you?"
He listened to the night jungle, to the chirping of frogs and the buzzing of insects, to the agitated cries of birds and monkeys as they chattered about the scorched earth Bitterwood had left in his wake. For all he knew, Zeeky could be crying out for him and he couldn't hear her beneath this cacophony.