Page 30 of Chained to the Horned God

BARSOK

D awn doesn’t break. It shatters.

The sky bleeds pink and gold over the jagged treetops, casting everything in a false glow like the world’s pretending to be peaceful for just one last second.

The air is thick with the sour stink of sweat and black powder.

My boots sink into the soft jungle earth, and every breath I take tastes like smoke and nerves.

Mike stands at the head of the column, eyes burning, lips curled in a half-smile like a preacher on the edge of revelation.

His coat flaps behind him like the wings of some dark prophet, hands gesturing as he talks about destiny and vengeance.

His men eat it up. Wide-eyed. Fanatic. They nod, grunt, raise rifles in unison like they’re lifting up holy scripture.

Valoa stands at my side, quiet but tense, her jaw set. She hasn’t said a word since last night. Not since we came together in the dark and held each other like we were already ghosts. Her hand brushes mine and lingers. I take it. I squeeze. Her fingers are cold. Mine are shaking.

The city rises ahead like a wounded giant. Kharza, proud and scarred, its ancient walls pitted and scorched from centuries of war. The gates tower like broken teeth, cracked but not yet fallen. Not yet.

Mike raises his arm.

Explosives, rigged during the night by men who never sleep, blink like stars in the dim light.

“NOW!”

The blast cracks the world open.

Stone screams. Wood splinters. The gates crumble in on themselves with a roar like a dying god. Dust rises in a choking cloud, hot and thick. We charge through it, rifles raised, steel drawn, throats raw from shouting.

Gunfire erupts in a cacophony of death.

I slam into the chaos, dragging Valoa behind me.

The world is fire and noise and blood. Smoke burns my eyes.

My nostrils fill with the stink of ozone and scorched flesh.

Somewhere above, spells rip through the air, shrieking like banshees.

A wall collapses to my left, burying a soldier under a rain of stone.

People are screaming. Not soldiers. Not warriors.

Civilians.

A child darts across the road, barefoot and howling, arms outstretched. A woman follows, clutching a baby to her chest, her mouth wide open in a silent wail. Bullets chew through the stone beside her head. I shove Valoa behind a pillar, my heart pounding so loud it drowns out the war.

“This isn’t right,” she yells, voice hoarse. “This isn’t what we?—”

“I know!” I roar back, grabbing her wrist. “Keep moving!”

Mike’s army pours in like a flood, indiscriminate and wild. Magic bursts from alleyways. Blood paints the cobblestones. This isn’t liberation.

This is slaughter.

I call for Durk. No answer.

I shout Sharonna’s name. Nothing.

I pull Valoa into an alley, ducking behind a stack of crates just as a ball of flame whips past, lighting the building behind us like dry tinder. Her face is streaked with soot and terror. My own breath hitches in my throat.

“We have to find them!” she gasps.

“We will,” I promise. I don’t know if it’s a lie.

The city wails like a living thing, crying out as it dies by inches. We move fast, dodging gunfire and falling beams, trying to stitch our group back together in the middle of a war zone.

But we’re unraveling.

We’re losing.

The central keep rises like a crown of black iron, smoke curling from its turrets, stone scorched and slick with blood.

Mike’s banner flies where the city’s crest once waved, a crude red fist scrawled across rough cloth, fluttering like a threat in the wind.

The screams have dulled now, replaced by the low moan of a city gasping its last breath.

We storm the steps, what’s left of our group rallying behind him like they’re chasing salvation.

Valoa clings to my side, her eyes scanning the carnage with wide, horrified disbelief.

I can barely feel my shoulder. Blood soaks the bandage, sticky and hot, but I grit my teeth and press on. I’m not stopping now.

Inside, it’s worse.

Bodies litter the marble floors. Civilians huddled in corners, shaking, silent. Soldiers stripped of armor. Executions, not combat. The air reeks of sulfur and something worse—burnt flesh, dreams turned to ash.

Mike stands atop the dais, the throne behind him stained with fresh blood. Beltran limps forward, his arm still bandaged, his face pale but defiant.

“You’ve won,” Beltran says, voice ragged but clear. “The city’s yours. Let the survivors go.”

Mike laughs. Not like a man who’s found peace. Like a man who’s lost his mind. His rifle hangs loose in one hand, the other clenched around a flask. He sways, just a little, like the madness is starting to unbalance him.

“No more noble puppets,” he says, stepping forward, smile brittle. “Only revolution.”

The shot rings out before I understand what’s happening.

Beltran jerks, a red flower blooming on his chest. He staggers, his mouth working but no sound coming. Then he falls. Hard. Final.

My vision tunnels.

My scream rips from my chest like it’s clawing out of something buried too long. I don’t think. I charge.

My horns slam into Mike’s chest, launching him off his feet.

We crash to the floor, rolling, snarling, grappling like beasts in a pit.

His rifle clatters away. He punches me in the face, and stars explode behind my eyes.

I grab his throat. He kicks my knee. I roar, bringing my head down toward his skull.

He’s fast. Slippery. Cunning.

But I’ve killed worse.

He twists beneath me, grabs a pistol from his belt, fires. The bullet tears into my shoulder, spinning me sideways. Pain lances through me, hot and searing, blinding. I bellow and slam my fist into his face, again, again, again. His nose shatters. Teeth clatter to the stone.

I grab the gun.

My finger curls on the trigger.

He’s beneath me, panting, bloody, defiant even now.

Valoa’s voice slices through the haze.

“Barsok!”

I freeze.

She’s standing over us, eyes wide, hands out. Blood on her face. Not hers.

“Not like this,” she says, voice breaking. “We’re better than this.”

My chest heaves. My hand shakes.

I look down at him, this man who called himself a liberator and turned out to be a monster. This man who burned a city to build a throne.

I want to end him.

But I don’t.

I drop the gun.

Just barely.

The pain doesn’t register at first. Just a dull throb, like something's knocking on the edge of my body, asking to be let in.

Then the weight hits me—bone-deep and soul-heavy.

My legs give out. My knees crack the marble.

I collapse forward, into her arms, into her warmth, into the only thing left in this broken place that still feels real.

Valoa catches me like she always does. Her arms wrap around me, strong and soft, her fingers threading through the blood-soaked fur at my neck. Her breath is shallow against my cheek, but it grounds me more than any battlefield ever could.

I taste blood in my mouth, hot and metallic, mixing with the copper stink of the air and the grit grinding between my teeth.

My shoulder screams, raw and pulsing, but I don’t pull away from her.

I press closer. Her skin is streaked with ash.

Her hair smells like smoke and sweat. Her heartbeat hammers against mine like a war drum set to a different kind of rhythm.

“You saved us,” she whispers, voice cracking like old leather. “You saved me.”

The words cut deeper than any blade. I don’t know if it’s true. Maybe all I did was delay the fall. Maybe all I managed was a different kind of ruin. But she says it like it’s gospel, like it’s carved into the bones of this moment.

I tilt my head up, just enough to see her face through the haze. Her eyes are wet. Her lips tremble. There’s blood on her brow, smeared like war paint, and she’s never looked more like a goddess risen from the ashes of her own fury.

I kiss her.

It isn’t gentle. It isn’t clean. It’s desperate.

It’s raw. Our mouths crash together with a hunger that has nothing to do with lust and everything to do with survival.

Her fingers dig into my shoulders, and I flinch, but I don’t stop.

I can’t. I need her like air. Like water.

Like the aching need to be whole after being broken in every way a person can be.

My breath shudders when I pull back.

“We’re not done,” I say, choking on the words, on the fire in my lungs. “Not yet.”

Her hand cups my cheek, rough with grime but trembling all the same. “But we survived.”

I nod, forehead pressed to hers, eyes closed against the ruins around us.

“Together.”

The city groans outside these stone walls, wind catching the torn banners and fluttering them like the last heartbeat of a dying animal. Somewhere distant, a gunshot cracks the silence, but here, in this hollow place where thrones are built and toppled, there is only her.

The war isn’t over. The blood hasn’t stopped. The scars are fresh and gaping.

But I have her and that’s all I’ll ever need.