Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) by Shaun O. McCoy Read Free Book Online

when he heard the watery rush of the Kingsriver.
    He entered the chamber slowly. There were very few devils around here, but it never hurt to be sure.   It was empty.
    I could shoot my way through the guards.
    Pyle admitted to himself that such a thought was just a fantasy. He knew what he had to do.
    He set his pack down by the river. The rush of the water helped sooth his nerves. He untied his bag’s draw string and let it spill open. Slowly, he removed one of his torches. He held it aloft, still unlit.
    I have to speak to Mancini. Hell heals all wounds.
    He knelt by the bank and placed the torch reverently to his right. He met his own gaze in the water. His sister had always bragged about his good looks. About how all her friends had wanted to date him.
    Ladykiller.
    He fumbled through his pack until he found his firerock brick. The dark, heavy, almost metallic stone felt rough to his fingers. He struck it, hard, against the hellstone by the riverbank. Sparks flew from the brick, showering into the Kingsriver. A few settled on his hand. He let them burn out there. The pain was intense, but he knew it would be nothing compared to what was to come. He reached over with his free hand and picked up the torch. It took him two more strikes with the firerock before he had the thing lit.
    The torchlight shone on the Kingsriver, adding its own ruddy glow to the room’s ambient light. His hands were shaking, and the glow shook with it.
    He held the torch up to the level of his eyes. The fire danced there before him. He looked away.
    Hell heals all wounds. This is the way.
    He couldn’t hold the torch steady. He could feel the flame’s heat on his cheek. The skin on the side of his face tingled with anticipation. The warmth was a good thing, he knew. The fire was his friend. The fire was going to get him into Harpsborough. The fire was going to let him know if that young man was indeed the one Carlisle had been looking for. The fire was going to help him control Maab. Help him get enough leverage to make that bitch restore to him those parts of his body she had taken. Clenching his jaw, he looked back towards the torch.
    He leaned forward and immolated himself.
     

 
     

     
     
    Arturus heard the sound of the Mighty Thames, and then, as he came closer, the splashes of the woodstone waterwheel as it turned. It spun quickly, so he knew that the battery had been charged.
    “It’s Arturus,” he announced.
    He crossed the bridge, his steps sounding off against the wooden structure. As he neared the doorway and the graveled floor, he smelled a bit of smoke in the air. That meant that the forge was on. That meant that Galen was home.
    He ran across the gravel, passed the hallway that led to his room, and then turned into the forge. He felt the heat on his face when he entered. Galen’s body armor and pack lay discarded by the room’s entrance. The warrior was adding woodstone to the furnace. Arturus could see his father’s face in profile. Even though Galen had been traveling for several weeks, his beard was as neatly trimmed as ever.
    I’d swear his beard doesn’t grow.
    Galen rose up to his full height, his broad frame blocking the heat from the forge’s furnace.
    “Galen!” Arturus caught him up in an embrace as the man turned.
    “Okay, boy,” Galen told him, “enough.”
    Arturus ignored his father and held on.
    “Enough, Turi, or this will turn into wrestling practice.”
    “You’re home,” Arturus said.
    Arturus finally let go when Galen began extricating himself by force.
    “I heard you had a big day today,” Galen remarked.
    “Wasn’t so big,” Arturus lied. “I went all the way to Harpsborough on my own, and made it back. I got shells and a rifle barrel, want to see?”
    Arturus ignored the man’s protests and rummaged through the pack. For a moment, Arturus saw Galen’s eyes narrow when he produced the AR-15 barrel. “And all I traded wa s three pounds of dyitzu and a nine millimeter.”
    Galen