Godfang Chapter 6: The Colossus, Part Two — Engine of Slaughter

New to Godfang? Start here: Godfang Chapter 1

The story thus far:

Kaelvor was betrayed, mutilated, and murdered by his own tribe, the Blackfang. A mysterious entitity named The God Beneath restored him as its champion, granting him a black-scaled demon arm, a burning green eye, molten blood, and a greatsword forged from one of its own fangs, which he named Godfang. In return, Kaelvor owes the god a debt to be claimed in time. Reborn from the grave, he cut through a horde of scavenger demons, defeated the Iron Witch, and crossed a settlement of slaughtered dead before taking shelter in a watchtower, where dreams forced him to relive his past and betrayal. He woke to find riders pursuing a lone figure bearing the same crimson fist banner he had seen in the massacred settlement.

He intervened and learned the pursued figutre was Saelira, War Queen of the Osskari, a fierce nocturnal people of the wastelands whose tribe had been enslaved by a warlord of terrible power who traveled in a massive moving fortress called the Colossus. The two forged a pact: together they would infiltrate the Colossus, kill the warlord, and free the Osskari; in return, Saelira and her people would march with Kaelvor into the volcanic highlands to take vengeance on the Blackfang. Along the road north, they discovered the warlord had been twisting captured Osskari into mindless berserkers, turning Saelira’s own people into monsters.

Catching up to the Colossus, they encountered the avatar of the God Beneath, a two-headed jackal, which revealed the warlord’s name, Ozravel, and his true nature as the half-mortal son of the Void Matriarch, a demon queen from another realm. From the jackale, they also learned that no weapon of this world can harm the warlord; thus, only Godfang, a weapon not of this world, holds any chance of slaying him. They infiltrated the Colossus through its underbelly, but upon reaching the inner sanctum, they were ambushed by Ozravel’s soldiers and living stone statues. The bridge collapsed, sending Kaelvor plummeting into the abyss below, while Saelira was captured and dragged before Ozravel, chained among the Nightweaver sorceresses of the Osskari.

Welcome to Chapter 6: The Colossus, Part Two: Engine of Slaughter.

Content Warning: This chapter contains extreme graphic violence and gore, sexual content, and other dark fantasy themes intended for mature audiences only. Reader discretion is advised.

Kaelvor plummeted through the dark. Bloody corpses and flaming human remains rained around him, painting the falling debris in a sick orange hue. In the black beyond the deluge, two red eyes burned; one of the living statues, watching him as they fell.

Far below, something glimmered. A faint amber glow against a plane of flat black. He had only a heartbeat to realize what it was before he struck it.

Water.

The bridge wreckage hit the surface half a second before him. From that height, the impact with the water was as unforgiving as stone. His skull fractured. Fluid drove through the cracks and pushed his right eye from its socket — it hung suspended in the murk, clinging by the optic nerve. Ribs snapped and punched through flesh and lung. Organs ruptured. His arms and legs shattered. The ruined pulp of his body spread through the black water, barely the shape of a man anymore. Where his molten blood escaped, the water hissed and boiled.

Awareness clung by a thread, a dim flicker in the wreckage of his brain.

Then the regeneration began.

His remains pulled together and convulsed in the dark water. Shattered bones fused and reformed. His skull rebuilt from the base up, seams knitting beneath mending flesh. Somewhere in the reforming architecture of his mind, a memory surfaced. He was a child again, staring out from a cave mouth, thinking of his dead mother. His father’s hand fell on his shoulder.

Kaelvor. Stay close to the fire, my son. The dark takes those who wander.

The dark bloomed into fractals made from shapes and colors without names. Thoughts floated past, trailing streaks of prismatic light.

Kaelvor. Yes. That is my name.

His eyes snapped open; freshly repaired lungs sucked in black water. He choked, gagged, and let out a muffled underwater scream as his ribs ground back into place with wet, grinding pops. Kicking hard, he broke the surface in a violent gasp, then vomited water that tasted of rust and ash. A stone ledge rose three feet away. He grabbed it with his mortal hand and coughed until his lungs cleared. Only then did he register the familiar weight in his other hand — Godfang, still clenched in his demonic fist. He lifted the blade from the water, set it on the ledge, and looked around.

The cistern stretched outward, flat and vast. The water was dense, unnaturally buoyant. What remained of the iron bridge protruded nearby, sinking. He began pulling himself up.

Something seized his ankle and dragged him under.

One of the living statues from the bridge, tangled in debris and trailing human remains. Its grip was crushing; something in his ankle snapped. The thing’s weight pulled him deeper into the dark. He reached down with his scaled hand, found the statue’s wrist and twisted. Stone cracked. He torqued harder, and the limb split apart in a cloudy burst of grit. The statue sank alone, reaching toward him with its remaining hand, red eyes shrinking to pinpricks before vanishing below.

He kicked hard for the surface, lungs burning, and broke into open air. He hauled himself over the lip and rolled onto the stone walkway, chest heaving.

The commotion on the surface had reached the depths, and something answered. Water swished, then came the sound of heavy sheets cascading off an enormous body. A low, resonant click echoed from deep in a monstrous throat. He snatched Godfang and spun to his feet.

An immense, wedge-shaped reptilian head hovered above the cistern’s edge; its pale eyes fixed on nothing. The thing was blind. Kaelvor held his breath and went still. The creature’s head tilted, hunting for some sound or vibration to give away his location. Its jaws parted slowly, revealing teeth the length of his forearm. Several heartbeats passed, then thin membranes slid across its eyes, and it slipped beneath the surface without a sound.

He watched the water settle, then turned. His glowing eye cut through the blackness. A tunnel opened ahead, a hot draft flowing from it. He had no idea how far he’d fallen, or how far he had to climb, but Saelira was somewhere above, taken by Ozravel, and he would find her. He tightened his grip on Godfang and moved into the tunnel.

***

The chain held Saelira’s wrists high above her head, her feet dangling inches above the stone. A ripping pain burned through her shoulders with every breath. The Nightweavers hung from chains around the chamber, wrists bound overhead like her own, unconscious and still.

Ozravel stood so close she felt his breath on her skin. He studied her the way a butcher examines livestock, slow, appraising.

“I sent my soldiers to retrieve you,” he said, “but you saved them the trouble.”

His gaze crawled across her nude body before locking onto her eyes. “Returning through the vents. Now that was clever. Your companion surviving the heat was unanticipated.” A thin smile. “Not that it matters. He’s dead now, in case you were wondering.”

She kept her face still. Her heart twisted at his words, but she hid the pain, refusing to give this monster the pleasure of her grief.

He drew one finger slowly up her body, navel to chin, light enough to make her squirm. Fresh fire lanced through her straining joints at the movement.

“Your pain grows,” he murmured. “I can smell it. Hanging like this is excruciating. The shoulder joints pull apart gradually.” He withdrew his hand from her chin. “Yet you hide it well. Exceptional endurance.”

“Kill me or shut your mouth,” Saelira snarled. “I’m done listening to you speak.” She gritted her teeth as another wave of agony rippled through her arms. “Your voice is like wasps lodged in my ears.”

Ozravel’s smile widened, cold and venomous. “Oh, but our business is far from over, huntress.”

He gestured at a soldier, who yanked the lever. The chain dropped without warning. Saelira crashed down, knees smashing into iron. Pain shot through her legs and hips. Her arms screamed as blood rushed back into her shoulders in a burning flood.

A soldier unhooked the chain from her wrist manacles and shoved her face-down against the cold stone. Iron shackles clamped around her ankles. A heavy collar snapped shut around her throat, tight enough to make every breath a struggle. A chain lead was fastened to the collar and handed to Ozravel.

“Up,” he ordered. “Walk.”

She rose on shaking legs and pulled hard against the chain. “Go to hell.”

Fury grew behind Ozravel’s eyes. He raised his free hand and slowly closed his fist. Violet light flared along the chains binding the suspended Nightweavers, surging through their bodies in a crackling wave. Every sorceress convulsed at once. Their heads snapped back, and the sounds that ripped from their throats were raw, animal wails of agony. Blood streamed from their eyes and ears. They thrashed and twisted like live meat on a butcher’s hooks.

“Stop!” Saelira screamed. “Stop this!”

He lowered his hand. The violet light died. The Nightweavers slumped forward, limp and twitching, swaying from their chains once again.

“You will listen and obey, or your people will suffer. Make no mistake, huntress. You serve me. Now, come.” He turned and walked. She followed.

He led her through a door and into a narrow passage that opened into a wider chamber. Cold air met them, carrying the sharp-sweet tang of Void-sorcery. Rows of crystal cylinders stretched from floor to ceiling, lit with cold blue-white light. Each held a figure suspended in pale luminescent fluid, arms slack, hair drifting in slow, ghostly halos. Many of the bodies were incomplete—limbs missing, flesh half-formed over bare muscle and bone. One had teeth exposed through a missing cheek, jaw muscles dark and glistening in the fluid. Another’s skull was fully intact on one side, raw bone and exposed brain on the other, violet veins pulsing through the tissue like burrowing worms.

Disgust coiled in Saelira’s stomach. “What are they?”

Ozravel stopped beside one of the cylinders and placed a hand against the glass. “My Void-witches. Mortal vessels infused with the essence of the Void. When they are finished, no army in this world will be able to stand against them.”

Her eyes moved slowly down the row, unable to look away. Incomplete faces. Twisted anatomies. They stopped before one cylinder where the upper body was unmistakably feminine — full breasts, rosebud lips, high cheekbones still forming beneath the skin, long hair floating weightlessly. Below the waist, it had a man’s legs and a penis.

Saelira’s voice came out low. “What… is this?”

“The process doesn’t care what the vessel was, man or woman,” Ozravel said. “The Void overwrites everything. They all become the same in the end, remade in the image of the Void Matriarch — my mother.” He studied her face. “No reaction. You already know what I am. How interesting. I’ll enjoy learning how you came by that knowledge.”

At the far end of the row, one of the figures slowly opened its eyes. Flat, violet-black irises locked onto Saelira and held, unblinking.

Ozravel’s attention returned to the cylinder before him. “In my early attempts, the mortal vessels rejected the Void-essence and tore themselves apart in seconds. I needed a bridge, and your Nightweavers’ sorcery provides it. Their power stabilizes the infusion long enough for the transformation to take hold.”

The cold in the chamber seemed to deepen. Saelira now recognized the blue-white glow inside the cylinders for what it was: the Nightweavers’ sacred power, drained and siphoned into these grotesque amalgamations.

She turned to face him. “Why show me this?”

“Because it will all be yours.” Ozravel gestured at the cylinders and the iron chamber around them. “These warriors. This machine. The empire that will rise from it.” He looked at her directly. “I want a queen, and I will have one.”

“What?” she hissed.

He pulled the slack from her chain and yanked her forward until their faces were inches apart.

“You are the War Queen of the Osskari,” he said. “Your bloodline survived a cataclysm that erased entire civilizations.” His gaze moved over her face with a look between reverence and hunger. “That legacy does not die with your people. It continues through a child carrying both your ancient blood and my Void power. An heir worthy to rule the world I conquer.”

Revulsion twisted in her throat. At the same time, a deep, unwanted warmth stirred low in her belly, a foreign, invasive lust coiling through her flesh like something alive.

“You will bear my child,” he said. “That is my command.”

Saelira held his stare. When she finally spoke, her voice dropped into the low, venomous cadence of the Osskari death-tongue, the dialect of her people reserved for damning verdicts and funeral rites.

“I will do no such thing. You are an abomination draped in a warlord’s skin. Your empire is a rotting corpse that hasn’t yet realized it’s already dead. Your mother is a profane atrocity, a whore who spread her legs for a man even more cowardly than you. Everything spawned by the Void ends the same way: destroyed, forgotten, and irrelevant as the very darkness that shat it into existence.”

His jaw clenched. The chain went taut in his fist.

Saelira didn’t flinch. “Your bloodline ends with you, worm. You will have no heir. No queen.” She spat in his face. “Crawl in a hole and die. That is my command.”

Ozravel’s hand shot up and clamped around her throat. He slammed her against the nearest cylinder, her head cracked against the crystal and the iron collar bit into her neck beneath his grip. His other hand drove between her legs without warning, gripping her hard and possessively.

She cried out, not from pain, but from the sudden, violent surge of alien carnal heat that exploded through her core. Her body responded instantly, against her will — a bewildering, unwanted yearning for him. A deep, liquid warmth bloomed as her flesh grew slick under his palm. Her thighs spread and her hips pushed forward before she could stop them. This was not her. Whatever power he controlled reached inside her and pulled the strings of her desire like an insidious puppet master. Terror flooded her as she felt herself grow wet against his hand, her body opening to him even as her mind screamed in revulsion.

Ozravel’s face was against hers. A slow smile spread across his lips as he felt the growing wetness beneath his fingers. “Your body has already made its decision,” he whispered.

Saelira’s voice came out steady, even as her legs trembled. “Whatever you think I feel is a lie. Your perverse power twists my flesh, but it means nothing. My mind and my heart are mine alone. Those you will never touch. What you crave, you will never have. Not from me. Not from anyone, you pathetic maggot.”

He released her throat and stepped back, handing her chain to the nearest guard.

“Take her to the torturers,” he said, his voice cold. “Put her on the wheel until she’s ready to be reasonable. Then keep her there a while longer, for good measure.” His eyes met hers. “And have them burn out her tongue. I’d prefer her silent.”

The guards seized her arms and marched her toward a far door. They walked through dim corridors before reaching a long flight of iron stairs. With each descending step, the sounds from below grew louder — the agonized shrieks of the torture chamber.

Saelira refused to think about what waited below. Instead, she burned the path behind her into memory, mapping every turn, every passage, every step that led back to the throne room.

***

Guided only by the faint emerald glow of his eye, Kaelvor moved through the dark tunnel. The Colossus groaned beneath him as he climbed through twisted gaps in the metal framework. With every step, the air grew drier and hotter, carrying a scorched mineral stench that clung to the back of his throat.

Ahead, an orange glow swelled in the darkness, and a low rhythmic thunder pulsed through the structure like the heartbeat of something enormous. New sounds emerged as he moved toward the light: the sharp hiss of pressurized steam, the crack of whips, barked orders, and cries of pain. He reached the end of the tunnel, and the engine room opened before him.

The space was immense, vast enough to swallow the largest settlement Kaelvor had ever seen. At its center rose a colossal tower of iron and brass. Giant pistons drove in and out with slow, thunderous power. Jets of white steam erupted from hundreds of vents, flooding the lower levels in hot fog before drifting up through layers of catwalks. Chains dangled everywhere, bearing counterweights, hooks, and massive pulleys that swayed in the infernal orange glow of the furnaces.

All around him, chained Osskari slaves toiled like damned souls in an iron hell. They labored at massive cranks and heaved heavy slabs of coal into the furnaces. Overseer demons prowled among them, metal whips trailing arcs of purple light. Tongueless soldiers stood at intervals along the outer walls, their faces blank.

Kaelvor’s hand went to Godfang’s hilt. This was the heart of the Colossus, the core of Ozravel’s power. And this was where it would begin to die.

High above on the central catwalk loomed an enormous, broad-shouldered figure, its flesh fused with heavy mechanical augmentations. Kaelvor watched it for several heartbeats, then slipped from the tunnel and crept along the shadowed outer wall, weaving between the demonic machines.

The nearest soldier stood with his back to him, eyes on the floor below. Kaelvor closed the distance in silence, clamped both hands around the man’s skull, and crushed inward. The soldier’s neck snapped with a thick, gristly pop. He dragged the body into the shadow of a support column, tucking it between two massive chain housings, then crouched, watching the floor below.

A low grunt came from the other side of the structure to his left. Kaelvor moved silently and peered around the corner from the shadows. A horned demon stood with its back partly turned; an Osskari woman knelt before it, trembling with fear and fury.

The demon coiled its whip around her throat, pulled its loincloth aside, and gripped her head. “Beg for it, slave,” it growled, its voice like stone dragged over rusted iron. “Please me, and I might let you keep your teeth. Disappoint me, and I’ll feed you feet-first into the furnace. Slowly.”

The woman caught movement in the dark. Her eyes flicked past the demon and found Kaelvor’s face. She startled.

Shit.

The demon turned to follow her gaze, just as Kaelvor surged forward. He slammed his scaled palm into the creature’s face and drove its head into the iron behind it. The skull splintered beneath the blow with a sharp crunch. Purple blood and mashed brain sprayed across the metal. The demon’s body convulsed, then went limp.

The woman stood and took two steps back in fear.

Kaelvor raised his hands, palm out in a gesture of peace, and kept his voice low. “It’s okay. I’m not with them. I’ve come to help. What’s your name?”

The woman studied him, eyes narrowed with suspicion. A long moment passed before she answered. “Vaura.”

“Vaura, listen to me. I know it’s dangerous to trust a stranger.” He looked down at himself, then back at her. “Especially one covered in demon blood. But if we do nothing, we all die in this hell. Horribly. I don’t want that. Do you?”

She shook her head slowly.

“Good. Join me. You and your people. Together we can fight back and retake your freedom.”

She looked at the dead demon on the floor, skull crushed in, then back at him. “You killed one. That does not make you our savior.”

“No, it doesn’t, but I plan to kill many more. In fact, I plan to kill all of them before it’s over. If we take this engine room, we take control of the Colossus.”

Vaura considered his words, doubt still clouding her eyes.

Kaelvor leaned in slightly. “Your queen escaped. She returned with me to free you. She’s above us right now, fighting her own battle. If we take this room, we can fight our way up to her.”

Vaura went still. Her eyes widened, shock flickering across her face. For a moment she looked like she didn’t believe what she’d just heard. Then her expression shifted. “Are you truly here with the moon-blooded huntress?”

“Yes,” Kaelvor said. “I am here with Saelira, your War Queen. I made a promise to her, and to your people, to fight for your freedom.”

Vaura looked at the dead demon again, then back to him. Finally, she gave a single, reluctant nod.

“Good,” Kaelvor said. He pointed up at the massive figure watching over the engine floor from the central catwalk. “First, tell me, what is that thing?”

Vaura followed his gaze. “A thermark demon. They call it the Architect. It built and runs this machine.” Her eyes returned to his. “It is very dangerous.”

Kaelvor grunted. “Go now. Pass the word quickly and quietly. Tell your kin to be ready when I give the signal. First we take this room. Then we fight our way to Saelira.”

“And if they do not believe me?” she asked. “Or lack the will to fight?”

“Then they are already dead,” he said flatly.

Vaura hesitated. “How will we know when it is time?”

“Trust me. You’ll know. Go.”

She slipped away into a line of slaves hauling a heavy chain. Kaelvor watched from the shadows as she leaned close to the woman beside her and whispered. The woman froze, eyes wide with fear, then began scanning the room. Vaura grabbed her arm and spoke again, more urgently. After a tense moment, the woman gave a tiny nod and whispered to the next prisoner.

Vaura’s message rippled outward through the engine room in whispers, like a spark catching and creeping along a line of dry tinder.

Kaelvor watched and waited, giving the Osskari time to pass the message along. Then he slipped back into the deeper shadows and began making his way up. He took out another soldier along the outer wall, covering the man’s mouth and driving two scaled fingers through his temple with a squelching crunch. He crossed to the iron stairs and climbed fast, boots ringing against the metal.

At the top of the catwalk stood the Architect. The demon was a nightmare of fused flesh and iron. Seven feet of brutal muscle wrapped in skin that looked like cooling slag, cracked and glowing faintly from within. Four iron pistons jutted from its spine, pumping and venting hot steam with every breath. Dark metal bands were bolted into its joints, flesh and scar tissue bulging around each graft.

Kaelvor filled his lungs and roared. “Demon! Face me!”

The cry rang through the engine room, turning every head. A sea of eyes rose to the catwalk, where steam curled between the two figures in thick, glowing plumes.

The thermark turned toward him. Its eyes, the color of old blood, narrowed. With a wet rip of muscle and cartilage, it drove a clawed hand into its own torso below the ribs. Black blood poured down its abdomen as it wrenched free a short, brutal maul of black iron, slick with gore. Along the wound, iron staples punched out from beneath its skin and snapped shut, dragging the torn meat closed. It threw its head back and bellowed, then charged.

Kaelvor crouched low, Godfang gripped in both hands.

The platform shook as the Architect charged across the catwalk. It closed the distance in a handful of thunderous strides, swinging the brutal maul in a savage horizontal arc aimed at Kaelvor’s skull.

He dropped beneath the swing, then rose and brought Godfang down in a two-handed overhead chop. The blade sheared through the demon from crown to groin as if its flesh were wet parchment. The two halves split apart and toppled from opposite sides of the catwalk, striking the floor far below with heavy, meaty thuds.

The chamber fell silent except for the relentless thud of the pistons and the hiss of steam.

Kaelvor stood at the center of the catwalk and looked down at the multitude of upturned faces below. Slaves. Soldiers. Demons.

“Osskari!” Kaelvor’s voice boomed through the chamber. “Your War Queen lives! Saelira, the Moon-Blooded Huntress, fights for your freedom. Even now she stands against the warlord!” He raised Godfang high above his head. “Join me. Fight with me. Win your freedom or die trying. This day, your people will be free!”

The sound of boots came from both ends of the catwalk. Soldiers charged, weapons drawn.

Kaelvor glanced left, then right. He brought Godfang down in a savage arc, shearing through the catwalk. The entire walkway buckled and collapsed beneath Kaelvor in a wail of tearing metal. The soldiers plummeted with him. Some screamed as they fell into open crucibles of molten slag. Others slammed into the iron grating far below and never rose again.

He crashed onto a lower platform, legs folding with a loud snap. Metal slammed into his face, and something deep inside him ruptured. Shattered bones and burst organs repaired as he drew ragged, agonizing breaths. He pushed himself up, raised Godfang once more, and roared.

The Osskari stared in stunned silence. This stranger had butchered the Architect in a single blow and survived a fall that should have killed any mortal. Whatever he was, he was no ordinary warrior. That was all the convincing they needed — they had a fighting chance.

One of the women moved first. She whipped a heavy chain through the air, smashing a soldier across the face and dropping him. Before he could rise, she drove her heel into his throat with a crunch of cartilage.

Violence erupted across the chamber. Hammers crushed skulls. Chains lashed out and wrapped around necks. Whips were torn from the overseers’ hands and turned against them. Three Osskari drove a demon backward and shoved it screaming into an open furnace. Another group seized a tilting mechanism and threw their weight against it, tipping a crucible that sent a roaring wave of molten slag pouring across a cluster of soldiers; their screams lasted only a second before their bodies vaporized. Four prisoners dragged a soldier to the ground and beat his skull to pulp with fist-sized lumps of coal, screaming with every blow.

Kaelvor seized a hanging chain and rode the counterweight down, boots slamming into the floor, then carved a path of destruction through the soldiers. Godfang rose and fell in brutal arcs. A demon lashed at him with its whip; he snatched the glowing cord mid-swing, yanked the creature forward, and drove his forehead into its face, collapsing its snout in a burst of shattered teeth and bloody spittle. Another demon charged. Kaelvor sidestepped, caught it by the throat, and slammed its head into a spinning flywheel — its skull exploded in a spray of blood and bone. A third lunged at him from the side. He rammed Godfang through its open mouth, the blade punching out the back of its skull. He twisted the sword, scrambling what was left of its brain, then ripped the gore-slick blade free.

The remaining demons and soldiers broke and ran, but the Osskari did not let them escape. They ran the oppressors down, cutting throats, crushing skulls, and burning them alive in the crucibles of molten metal.

Kaelvor stood at the center of the carnage, blood dripping from his hands and chest, and watched the Osskari gather around him. Hundreds of them, battered but still clutching their improvised weapons. He raised Godfang. “You fought like the warriors you were born to be! Osskari don’t bow! Osskari don’t break!”

A roar erupted through the room. Fists lifted. Chains rattled. Bloodied weapons struck iron.

“Your queen is above us. We go to her. Show the warlord exactly what it means to be your enemy.”

The roar surged again, louder this time, weapons raised high.

Kaelvor scanned their hardened faces. “Now. Who knows the way out of here?”

***

The soldiers marched Saelira down the stairs as the screams rose to meet her. They intended to break her with torture, but she was Osskari — she could endure far more than most could imagine. To them, she was just another frightened prisoner being dragged to unspeakable torment — so she played the part.

She let raw terror spread across her face. Her shoulders sagged, her breathing turned shallow and ragged. Pleas for mercy spilled from her lips in a cracked, trembling voice. Then her legs gave out and she collapsed on the stairs. The first guard edged closer and crouched over her limp body. His armor creaked as he leaned in to inspect her condition. Her hand flashed up, ripped the dagger from his belt, and drove it repeatedly into his throat in a blur of savage strikes. Hot blood sprayed across her face.

The second guard charged. She kicked his legs out from under him and looped the ankle chain around his neck as he fell, yanking it tight. They tumbled together down the stairs and slammed onto the landing at the bottom. She planted a knee in his back and pulled the chain hard, the links tearing into his flesh, until his spine snapped and his body went slack.

A search of the corpses yielded the key from the first guard’s belt. The shackles and collar fell with a clang on iron. She took a short sword from one and a long knife from the other, then descended the remaining stairs.

The torture chamber opened before her, and she strode in without hesitation. Prisoners were strapped into iron chairs, their mouths forced open by hooked jaw braces. A hooded torturer heated the tongue-removal instrument in a brazier of glowing coals. Two others moved among the prisoners, tightening the straps around their wrists. All three hooded heads snapped toward the blood-smeared, naked Osskari warrior who had just entered.

Saelira moved like wrath given flesh.

One torturer took her short sword through the chest, the blade punching out its back. She left the blade buried there, ripped the red-hot instrument from the coals, and rammed it into another torturer’s hood. For a split second, the glowing tip lit the nightmare beneath: a cluster of wet, lidless eyes above a lipless maw lined with jagged, overlapping teeth. The creature shrieked as the burning metal sank deep into its skull. When the last torturer turned to flee, she hurled the long knife between its shoulder blades into its spine, dropping it face-first onto the stone. She took a hammer from the rack, walked over, and crushed its skull with two heavy blows.

She yanked the short sword free from the dead torturer’s chest, wiped the blade on its robe, then cut the prisoners loose. They tore at the hooked jaw braces — one woman ripped hers off and spat a mouthful of blood onto the stone. “Thank you,” she rasped. “Please. My sister. She’s in the cell just beyond that door. They’re holding more of us there.”

Saelira nodded. “Lead the way.”

The holding cell was long, low, and packed. Humans and Osskari alike sat or lay on bare stone, hollow-eyed. The air reeked of unwashed bodies and old terror. As Saelira entered, several prisoners stirred. She brought her sword down on the cell lock, snapping it open in a spray of sparks.

“I am Saelira, War Queen of the Osskari. I’m getting you out of here.” She swept her gaze across the ragged faces. “There are more of our people enslaved in the engine room of this machine. If we free them, we have a chance to fight. If not, we die here anyway, only slower and in pain.”

A gaunt man near the back lifted his head. His wrists were raw from shackles, but his eyes were strong. “I know the way. They brought me here from the engine.”

“Then you’re with me at the front. Let’s move.”

***

Kaelvor and the freed Osskari moved upward through the Colossus.

A soldier charged from a side passage. Kaelvor took his head with a backhanded swing of Godfang. The headless body stumbled three steps forward before collapsing, spraying blood across the wall.

A demon crashed into their ranks from above. The Osskari scattered as the creature swung a hooked chain in a wide arc, ripping warriors in half. Kaelvor rolled beneath the swing and buried Godfang deep in the demon’s chest. He ripped the blade free in a torrent of black blood, and the creature pitched forward.

Without warning, iron portcullises slammed down at both ends of the corridor with an echoing crash. The Osskari at the rear were crushed beneath the falling gates before they could scream. Others were trapped beyond the bars, cut off from Kaelvor and the rest. A grinding noise filled the corridor and the floor shivered. The ceiling began descending, driven by some mechanism in the walls. The trapped Osskari looked up, some shouting in terror.

Kaelvor slammed Godfang into the nearest portcullis. The metal bent outward slightly, but the gate was too thick. He would never hack through it in time. The ceiling kept dropping. He planted his feet and thrust both arms upward against it. The metal was scalding beneath his palms, making his skin bubble and smoke. The Osskari joined him, bodies straining against the crushing pressure from above.

The weight forced Kaelvor to one knee, his arms and shoulders still pressing upward. Every muscle screamed. His skin sizzled against the metal, and his joints creaked under the strain. Beside him, the Osskari grunted and heaved. He roared and pushed with everything he had, but the ceiling continued pressing down. Then it stopped. The machinery groaned in the walls, and the ceiling lifted. Both gates at the ends of the corridor rose back into their recesses.

Kaelvor stood, chest heaving. At the far end of the passage, the soldier who had pulled the lever lay dead, a blade buried in his back. A robed figure stood over the body, hood drawn low. One of the torturers. The figure reached up and pulled the hood back.

“Saelira!”

Kaelvor crossed the corridor, and she met him halfway. He pulled her into his arms and pressed her face against his chest, his heart hammering. “I was coming for you.”

Saelira pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. “I was coming for my people.” She grinned. “Apparently, you needed saving in the process.”

Kaelvor grinned back and motioned to the Osskari behind him. “I brought you your people.”

“That’s the least you could do.”

They came together in a brief, hard kiss.

“Where’s Ozravel?” Kaelvor asked.

“The throne room,” Saelira said. “And I know exactly how to get there.”

“Then let’s go kill the bastard.”

***

The passage opened into the chamber of the Void-witches. Every crystal cylinder was empty. The pale luminescent fluid sloshed softly against the glass. The cold blue-white glow was gone. “They’re loose,” Saelira said.

Kaelvor peered into the nearest cylinder. “What’s loose? What was in these?”

“He called them Void-witches. Mortal hosts reshaped with Void-essence. They will be difficult to kill. Our weapons may not work on them.”

Kaelvor glanced toward the dark passage leading upward. Then back at her.

“Then we’ll find out what kills them. Let’s go.”

***

Kaelvor and Saelira emerged from the final passage into the throne room; the Osskari poured in behind them. Across the vast chamber, rows of soldiers stood ready. Among their ranks waited the Void-witches, pale and motionless, violet-black eyes unblinking.

At the far wall, a long central staircase rose over a hundred steps, broken by wide platforms along the climb. At the top, Ozravel sat upon the black iron throne. His voice rang through the chamber. “Kill them all. Bring the huntress to me alive.”

Kaelvor turned to Saelira. “He’s mine.”

“Go. Make him pay for everything. Kill well, champion.”

She watched him sprint up the staircase, then turned and unleashed a war cry. The Osskari roared and charged with her, crashing into the enemy line with chains, hammers, and scavenged blades. The chamber filled with screams and sounds of steel meeting bone and flesh. Blood pooled across the iron floor, dark beneath the glow of witch-fire braziers.

Then the Void-witches reached them, crackling purple energy formed into long spikes around their fists. An Osskari’s sword skated off a witch’s shoulder. The warrior hesitated half a heartbeat before the creature’s spike punched through his chest.

Another witch vanished in a wisp of black smoke and reappeared behind two Osskari. Spiked hands burst through their backs and out their chests. She vanished again and reappeared beside a woman, opening her throat in a spray of blood.

The Osskari line buckled. Blades bounced off transformed flesh as if striking stone. A man drove his sword into a witch’s ribs with everything he had, but the blade only bent against her skin. The witch seized his head in both hands and crushed it like an egg, then stepped over the twitching corpse.

Another witch flashed through a group of fighters, spike-fists punching through torsos and throats in rapid, mechanical strikes. Bodies dropped in her wake. Three Osskari rushed a fourth witch together, hammering at her with chains and scavenged swords. The creature absorbed every blow, then killed all three in two sweeping arcs.

Saelira’s force was dying faster than Ozravel’s. She ducked a witch’s Void-spike that would have taken her head and fell back, scanning the creatures for any weakness. Every second cost more lives. Her people’s makeshift weapons deflected harmlessly off their Void-transformed skin.

The witch advancing toward her had exposed muscle along the left forearm and raw flesh where neck met shoulder. Gaps where the transformation had not finished. Saelira dodged a slash, then drove her blade into the open gap at the witch’s clavicle. The creature screamed. She yanked the sword free and stabbed the same spot again. The Void-witch staggered, fell to one knee, and collapsed. “The open flesh!” she roared above the chaos. “Hit the witches in the open flesh! That’s where they bleed!”

The Osskari heard and adapted. Their weapons found open throats, bellies, the joints of hips and knees, anywhere the Void-essence hadn’t finished its transformation. One by one, the witches began to fall.

***

Kaelvor sprinted up the staircase.

Three soldiers waited in tight formation on the first landing, the outer two shifting to flank him. He feinted at the man in the middle, then dove left, driving his shoulder into the flanking soldier. The man tumbled down the stairs, bones snapping with every impact. His neck broke before he reached the bottom. Kaelvor knocked the middle soldier’s blade aside, planted a boot in his chest, and shoved him hard into the third man. One sideways slash from Godfang took both their heads.

He surged onto the next platform.

The nearest soldier raised his sword, bracing for the attack. Godfang sheared through the blade and kept going, ripping through the man’s torso in the same motion.

Another soldier lunged, thrusting for his gut. Kaelvor twisted sharply. The blade missed anything vital but tore a deep gash across the meat of his flank. He seized the man’s sword arm and ripped it free at the shoulder.

The soldier let out a gargled wail. Kaelvor slammed the severed arm into the soldier’s face, again and again, until the screaming stopped.

Far below, the battle raged, but Kaelvor’s eyes stayed locked on the warlord seated on the throne above.

He reached the next platform, and a shape materialized from shadow and purple smoke. The demon was something between a great cat and a wolf, black-furred and enormous, its shoulders level with a man’s chest. Its eyes burned indigo with pinpricks of crimson for pupils. He had only a heartbeat to take it in before the beast launched at him.

Kaelvor caught it by the throat with his scaled hand. The impact drove him back a step. Claws raked down his bare chest, opening gashes that exposed ribs. His molten blood hissed and burned where it sprayed across the demon’s muzzle and forelimbs, but the beast didn’t flinch. Its jaws clamped onto his shoulder, teeth sinking deep through muscle and cracking bone.

Kaelvor roared in pain. The beast released its bite on his shoulder and lunged for his throat, jaws gaping. He drove his demonic fist straight into its maw and buried his claws deep in the soft flesh within. The demon thrashed, trying to bite down and sever his arm. Its fangs scraped and ground against the obsidian scales with crushing pressure, but they could not pierce them.

He seized its tongue by the root and ripped it out in a spray of purple blood. The demon convulsed, choking on its own gore. Its claws raked across him as its strength ebbed and its indigo eyes dimmed. With a final wet gurgle, it collapsed.

The blood pouring from the deep gashes across his chest and the bite in his shoulder slowed to a trickle as the torn flesh sealed itself shut. The broken ribs snapped themselves back together with a stomach-churning crunch he felt travel through his spine.

He looked up to Ozravel waiting on his throne at the top of the stairs.

***

On the throne room floor, the tide of battle had turned. The Osskari now held the numbers. Ozravel’s soldiers died faster than they could kill. Saelira carved a path through the thinning ranks. A Void-witch stepped into her path. She lunged in, driving her blade into the unfinished flesh of the creature’s chest, and twisted hard. She yanked the sword free, and the witch collapsed.

She looked up the long staircase. Kaelvor had reached the top.

***

Ozravel stood from the throne as Kaelvor crested the final step. “You made it. How lovely.” He examined Kaelvor intently, fascination in his eyes. “Your eye. That arm. And the sword. It seems someone has invested considerably in you.” He smiled faintly and moved to the edge of the dais, then looked down at the battle below, finding Saelira carving through soldiers and Void-witches alike. “I must thank you for returning the huntress to me. She is remarkable. Fierce. Resilient. Beautiful. The kind of creature who survives everything the world throws at her.” He turned back to Kaelvor. “Which is precisely why she will bear my heir.”

Kaelvor’s expression twisted. Ozravel caught it and smirked. “Ah. She matters to you. Good. Then you understand what you are about to lose.”

Without a word, Kaelvor closed the remaining distance, and they crashed together like two incarnations of ancient hatred, each hungry for the other’s destruction. This was no longer a battle for dominance, but a fight for what neither would yield: the woman they desired and the fate of the world.

The warlord was fast. His blade moved in lightning arcs of pure, lethal efficiency. Kaelvor met the first three exchanges with Godfang, feeling each bone-jarring impact through his arms. He dodged the fourth and retaliated with an explosive attack, but Ozravel slipped aside and opened Kaelvor’s forearm to the bone.

Kaelvor swung a wide cut. Ozravel spun inside it and drove the hilt of his sword into Kaelvor’s jaw with a loud crack. Kaelvor answered with his scaled fist, slamming it into the warlord’s ribs. Something cracked under the knuckles. Ozravel stumbled back, holding his side and staring wide-eyed at the black-scaled hand.

No weapon of this world can harm him. The god’s words echoed in Kaelvor’s mind. He looked at his scaled fist and understood. Godfang was not his only weapon in this fight. He surged in with another attack.

Their blades clashed. Ozravel’s strikes came faster than Kaelvor could track. One opened his thigh. Another sliced a deep gash across his forehead. He bled from a dozen wounds now, the stone beneath his boots pocked and scorched with molten blood. One gash healed only for two more to appear.

He finally broke through Ozravel’s guard and drove Godfang into the warlord’s shoulder, drawing black, smoking Void-blood. The warlord did not slow.

Kaelvor took a slash across his chest that would have destroyed any mortal man. Flesh parted to the sternum, the blade biting deep into bone.

They circled each other across the dais, witch-fire braziers casting their long shadows down the staircase and onto the throne room floor below. Kaelvor was slowing. His regeneration fought to keep up, but it could not match his opponent’s onslaught. He was landing blows, hurting the warlord, but it still was not enough.

Kaelvor roared, driving a heavy overhead strike with everything he had left. Ozravel caught the blow in a bind, twisted Kaelvor’s wrist with a disarming technique he had never seen, and wrenched the greatsword from his grip. The blade sailed over the edge of the dais, struck the first step, then clattered down the long staircase until the sound finally faded.

The warlord flashed a triumphant sneer and lunged. Kaelvor raised his forearm to block, and the red blade skated off the black scales. A backhand cracked across Ozravel’s face, sending him stumbling as violet smoke curled from a split lip. His sneer faltered.

Kaelvor seized the opening and drove forward, slamming into Ozravel in an onslaught of pounding jabs. Ozravel’s sword fell from his hand and clattered across the dais as Kaelvor slammed him into the throne.

Ribs cracked as Kaelvor’s fist hammered into the warlord’s side repeatedly. Ozravel bellowed and drove a knee into Kaelvor’s stomach, then seized his mortal arm and twisted it back, breaking the bone. Kaelvor’s scream tore from his throat as his forearm bent at a grotesque angle. But Ozravel wasn’t done — he grabbed two of Kaelvor’s fingers and snapped them backward until they hung broken and useless.

Kaelvor used the pain, surging forward and tackling the warlord to the floor as his shattered bones mended in rhythmic snaps. He straddled Ozravel and rained down punches with his demon fist, smashing into his face repeatedly, shattering his nose, caving in a cheekbone. One of the warlord’s eyes ruptured in a burst of blood and fluid that ran down the side of his face.

Ozravel snarled through the ruin of his features and slammed a palm into Kaelvor’s face. The impact crushed Kaelvor’s skull inward with a sickening crunch. White-hot pain exploded through his skull, and his vision blurred. Blood poured down his face as he reeled. Ozravel shoved him off and rose, spitting blood and broken teeth.

Kaelvor recovered faster. He lunged, grabbed Ozravel by the head, and tore one of his ears clean off. Blood sprayed hot across his knuckles. Ozravel howled. Kaelvor slammed his scaled fist into the warlord’s throat, and the howl cut off into a choking gurgle.

Ozravel kicked out hard, catching Kaelvor in the chest and sending him crashing backward across the dais. The warlord staggered, snatched his red blade from the stone, and advanced.

Kaelvor pushed himself up, blood pouring from his ruined face and broken body. He swung his fist again at the approaching warlord.

Ozravel caught the blow, twisted the arm aside, and drove a knee into his groin. Kaelvor stumbled and the warlord was on him instantly. The red blade punched through Kaelvor’s right shoulder and out his back. His mortal arm went limp. Ozravel wrenched upward, using the buried sword as a lever, and Kaelvor screamed in agony as he was forced to his knees. His scaled hand clamped around the warlord’s sword arm. Pain roared through his shoulder, and his head swam.

Kaelvor squeezed with everything he had left. Something snapped in his arm, but Ozravel refused to release the blade.

“It’s over, freak. She is mine. Know this before you die. Every scar you have given me, I will revisit on her in kind. Before it’s over, she will—”

A single footstep landed on the dais behind him. Godfang sang through the air and took the warlord’s head cleanly at the neck.

The head hit the dais and rolled down the stairs. The body remained upright for one impossible moment, Void-energy and violet blood fountaining upward, then toppled sideways and lay still.

Below, every Void-witch unleashed a single piercing scream. Purple smoke boiled off their bodies in thick columns. Their black eyes liquefied and poured down their faces before the creatures vanished in a haze that smelled of a funeral pyre.

Kaelvor lay on his back, Ozravel’s headless corpse beside him. Their blood pooled and mingled on the stone, his molten blood hissing where it met the black, smoking Void-blood. The two substances warred like fire and poison.

He yanked the sword from his shoulder. The torn flesh began pulling itself closed.

Saelira stood over him, Godfang gripped in both hands. Blood covered her body, and her chest still heaved from the climb.

Below them, the throne room fell silent for the first time since they had entered it. The Osskari stood among the bodies of their enemies and looked up at the dais. The only sounds were the deep groan of the Colossus and the distant thunder of the engines far below.

The faintest smile touched Saelira’s lips. “Someone once told me, kill or be killed.” She offered him her hand and pulled him to his feet. “That’s good advice. You should follow it.”

***

The Colossus had stopped. The great pistons had slowed and stilled, and the constant thunder that had shaken the floors and walls since they first boarded was gone.

Kaelvor sat on the dais at the top of the stairs, Godfang across his knees, the black iron throne looming over him. He looked out over the throne room. The bodies had been cleared. The Nightweavers had been freed and taken away to be tended. The ceiling’s chains now hung empty.

He closed his eyes and thought of his sister Draega, still out there somewhere. He would find her. Memories of the night he was murdered slithered through his mind, and rage boiled in his chest. Visions of the Shamanka cutting out his eye repeated over and over, his teeth grinding until his jaw ached.

The sound of boots on the stairs brought him back. Saelira climbed up and stopped beside him, looking out over the same room. She had bathed and wore an ornate Osskari wrap across her shoulders, star-metal blades at her hip.

“I have spoken to the Osskari,” she said. “We’ll need three days to recover, prepare, and grieve. Then they march with us. The Blackfang won’t know what hit them.”

Kaelvor said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “Three days.”

“Now, come with me,” she said, taking his hand. She led him from the edge of the platform to the throne. “Sit.”

A soft, contemptuous laugh escaped him. “Sit? On his throne?”

“No. On our throne.”

He looked at her and smiled. She shoved him back, and he let himself fall onto the cold iron throne.

Without a word, she tugged his trousers down below his thighs. Kaelvor caught her wrists, breathing hard. “Saelira. I want this. Gods, I want you. But my blood runs hot as molten iron. I cannot —”

She laughed, low and playful, and pressed two fingers to his lips. “You beautiful fool,” she whispered. “I am Osskari, remember? Flames and heat cannot harm me.”

Saelira let the wrap fall from her shoulders and stood before him, naked in the crimson light. Then she climbed onto his lap, thighs around his hips, and drew him into her in one slow motion. They both gasped. Then she began to move.

She rode him hard and hungry, chest pressed to his, his heartbeat thundering against hers. His scaled hand spread across the small of her back, pulling her down onto him. His mortal hand gripped her hip. She moved against him until his head fell back and his body shuddered, a low groan tearing loose from his chest. Heat flooded through her, spilling deep inside.

But she didn’t stop. Her fingers wrapped in his hair, mouth at his throat, until her own pleasure crested and broke, waves of euphoria rolling through her. She bit his shoulder as her whole body shook.

Still, she didn’t stop. She moved slower now, forehead pressed to his, their eyes locked together, until he groaned and shuddered beneath her again, the heat of it carrying her over the edge once more.

Afterward, she lay in his lap, his arms around her, breathing heavily, clinging to him. The throne room below them was empty and still. He held her for a long time.

***

Three days later, the Colossus rolled across the lowland plains in the gray light of early morning, great pistons driving and witch-fire engines blazing at full power. The Osskari ran the machine as a free crew now, warriors guiding a fortress they had chosen to wield as a weapon. Each rotation of the colossal wheels churned the earth beneath its weight.

At the highest tower, Kaelvor and Saelira stood side by side at the railing, clad in black armor forged in the Colossus’s own foundry. They faced the horizon, where volcanic peaks rose dark against the sky and thin columns of smoke drifted from their summits before the wind tore them apart.

Ozravel is dead. The Osskari are free. Kaelvor and Saelira now control the Colossus, and they are moving toward the Blackfang, but what dangers lie between them and their destination…only time will tell.

Godfang Chapter 7 coming soon.

Until then, stay close to the light. The dark takes those who wander.