"Tell me what I must do!" I raged into the storm. I was so close.
The booming of the thunder continued, but my battle-hardened senses picked up another sound-the explosions of gunpowder.
"You must take the final-" She stopped, glancing down in surprise. Koriniha reached one delicate hand between her breasts and probed with her fingers. Her hand came away from the hole as a trickle of blood ran down her rain-soaked robes.
I turned in time to see the armored figures appearing over the lip of the pyramid. Most of their matchlocks misfired as the fierce rain soaked their powder or extinguished their smoking cords, so they used them as clubs. Captain Thrall led the charge. His sword cleaved downward and tore one of the priests in half. Behind him were all of his men, and I was surprised to see many of the men that I had sent in pursuit of the deserters. Even my most loyal troops that I had left to guard the pyramid had turned against me.
The demons rose and lumbered into the fray, swatting aside the conquistadors with heavy stone limbs. The scene degenerated into a mob of confusion as rain fell and lightning flashed. The artifact still spun in its web of black tendrils.
"Koriniha!" I shouted as the priestess fell to her knees, vomiting blood from her open mouth. I knelt at her side, and caught her before she went facedown to the stone. I shook her. "What now? Tell me!"
"My love… Bring me back…" She foamed at the mouth, and died. Her eyes rolled sightlessly back into her head.
"No! No! Damn you! Damn you all!" I screamed as I dropped her soulless form into the rushing water. My plans were ruined. Without the priestess I did not know how to commune with the Old Ones. All of my treachery, throwing away my command, throwing away my generalship, all for naught. I howled in rage and hatred.
I had to reach the artifact.
Now the memory shifts, flailing forward in jerks and spurts.
"Stop him! Kill the general!" bellowed Captain Thrall. He was locked in battle against one of the fearsome demons. With his great strength he sent it tumbling backward over the pyramid's edge. "Kill him!" the brute screamed in a berserk rage.
Soldiers moved to block me. I killed one of Koriniha's priests that stumbled blindly into my path. I waded into the troops, ax humming through the giant water droplets. The troops fell back under the fury of my onslaught. My skin was like ice and my blade moved as quickly as the lightning. I could feel the power of the artifact. So close, so very close.
I crushed a soldier's skull and batted him aside. A sword tip streaked across my armor as I stepped clear and hammered the man to the earth. I wrenched out my ax blade, dripping with blood. Rage cascaded over me. How dare these men betray me after all that I had done for them? I swung my ax, killing or dismembering with each blow. I used the blade, spike and butt of my weapon to bring down my troops. Flailing limbs and blurred sword blades surrounded me as I poured death into my newfound enemies.
Pain flashed through my thigh as a blade pierced me. I broke free and spiked the soldier through the face. The water running off the top of the pyramid was running red with blood. The backdrop of the light-sucking altar and its spinning black tendrils were so close. I had to reach it. Razor-like steel cut through my back, breaking the coat of mail, and splattering my blood into the rain.
"NO!" I bellowed, turning and striking down the soldier who had dared to touch me. "YOU CAN NOT KILL ME!" The power of the artifact was thick upon me. I killed two others in one mighty swing. More wounds were inflicted on my flesh. I fell to my knees, but continued fighting. I cut a soldier's leg off, and finished him when he hit the ground.
That was all.
I pushed myself up. Slowly. Shakily. Bleeding from many punctures and lacerations. Dozens of bodies sprawled upon the pyramid top or across the stairs. My soldiers, my countrymen, all of them dead or dying. A few feet away, the final stone demon crumbled and flaked away into the rivers of blood and rain. Captain Thrall knelt upon its back, broken sword still clenched in one hand. His massive chest heaved with the exertion, and blood drizzled down his face from his lacerated scalp.
"Lord Machado," he said.
"Captain Thrall," I nodded.
We both looked at the darkness of the artifact, and then back at each other.
" 'Tis not meant to be, my General. 'Tis not meant for men to use such a black thing." His skull was visible through missing parts of his face.
"With it I can rule the world."
"Thou art lost without thy witch," the giant stated simply. The priestess' body lay nearby, partially submerged.
"I will bring her back," I hissed.
"My ancestors came to my dreams and told me of thy plans. Thou was destined to fail and to open the way for the return of the dark forces of the ancients through thy failure. My people are gone. I am the last. Yet I have not forgotten our sagas." The giant captain gradually heaved himself to his feet, shaking from the many grievous wounds on his body. A lesser man would have just lain down and died. "Ye shall not pass."
"Never." I used my ax to lever myself forward. "It is mine."
"I have made a vow to the spirits. I will protect this artifact until the end of time. No man will look upon its evil and live." The captain turned and stumbled toward the altar.
"It's mine!" I screamed as I hurled my heavy ax across the distance. The blade sunk deeply into his back. It was a lethal blow.
The captain fell forward into the swirling bands of crackling black energy. He bellowed in pain as the evil tore into his flesh. Searing him. Burning him. He was turned over and spun in the maelstrom of darkness. The bands sunk and bonded into his very skin, like a twisted inking, an evil living tattoo.
"I… vow… to… keep… it… from… you…" He was engulfed by the power. The whites of his eyes disappeared, to be replaced by solid inky blackness. He screamed in agony.
There was an explosion of color and energy as lightning struck the top of the pyramid. Pain and heat surged up through my armor, burning me and hurling me aside. I fell upon the stairs, rolling and tumbling, through the torrents of water, down, down into the darkness.
I gasped as the Old Man removed his hands from my head. I was once again myself. The jungle pyramid and its unholy storm were gone, replaced by the eerily silent 1940s Polish town.
"Holy shit!" I said. I felt terribly weak. "What happened?"
"In his mind too long," the Old Man said softly, "is great strain."
"The captain. Thrall. He is the Tattooed Man."
"Yes. Cursed like the rest of us. Always there is a catch with these things. How you say-I think… He got screwed."
Indeed. Cursed to guard an evil artifact for the last five hundred years. I could think of lots better ways to pass the time.
"But there is more?" I asked. There were still questions to be answered. "Lord Machado failed. That evil priestess chick got shot before they could finish the ceremony. Yet somehow he's still alive today. How did he become the Cursed One?"
"There is small bit of memory left. Only short time while he is still human, I think. Still that I must show you."
"You have to show me now, Mordechai," I pleaded. "If I can know how he became what he is, then I can know how to defeat him."
"Not yet. Too much strain. And rest I must."
"I can do it," I answered. "I have to be ready."
"No, Boy. Not ready. You wake up. Be ready for fight. Big fight for you today."
"Big fight?"
"Yes. Much big." He pointed his fingers and made shooting noises. "Much fight."
"You got any more little wooden carvings you want to send back with me?" I asked hopefully. "In case I need to roast any vampires?"
"Sorry, Boy. I surprised that work my own self."
"How could it anyway? I'm no expert of physics, but how can I take an immaterial thing into the material world?"