Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2) Read online

  PRAISE FOR SHAUN O. MCCOY AND THE HELLSONG SERIES

  "McCoy is a talented and bright young writer. Knight of Gehenna is a new kind of novel—a page turner in the truest sense—wrought from equal parts brawn and brain."

  —B. Butler, Author of Murder in Cairo

  "McCoy is a brilliant writer; insightful, intelligent, articulate, imaginative, and funny."

  —McKendree Long, Author of No Good Like it is.

  "In Knight of Gehenna, McCoy masterfully creates characters, scenarios and the Hell where they live. He writes with a passion, layering emotion on fantasy and science fiction, drawing in readers from beyond his genre."

  —Ginny Padgett, President of SCWW

  "If Hemmingway was a Boxer, McCoy is a Cagefighter."

  —Monet Jones

  "Shaun is the real McCoy."

  —Laura Valtorte, Filmaker, Author of Family Meal

  "Exceptionally well written. I felt the pain of these characters physically and emotionally."

  —Fred Fields, Author

  "With the visionary aptitude of such writers as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein, McCoy further illustrates his unique underworld that has produced the spiritual vagabond Arturus in this sequel to Even Hell Has Knights. Arturus' quest for purpose in Hell is not unlike man’s quest for purpose on Earth."

  —Len Lawson, Author of City of David

  “Reading Knight of Gehenna is like being privy to an argument between Camus and Aquinas—only in this book they've got shotguns.”

  —Thomas the Younger, Author of These Windows.

  “In Even Hell Has Knights, McCoy depicts dark landscapes filled with fiery fury. His characters are soulful, at times wonderfully craven, surprising us with their humanity and evoking our laughter in unexpected ways.”

  —Chris Mathews, Author of GARGOYLES

  “McCoy writes with a passion for action. He introduces us to graphic characters and takes us on a hair-raising journey through crumbling underground landscapes where battles rage to protect a magical child. This is a borderlands for where the quest for survival has never been so grueling.”

  —Bonnie Stanard, Author of Master of Westfall Plantation

  OTHER WORKS BY SHAUN O. MCCOY

  HELLSONG SERIES

  Even Hell Has Knights

  Knight of Gehenna

  March Till Death

  Affliction (Coming Soon)

  Soulfall (Coming Soon)

  The Eden of a Lesser God (Coming Soon)

  NOVELLAS

  Electric Blues

  Binary Jazz

  SHAUN O. MCCOY

  SISYPHEAN PUBLISHING

  For Gabrielle Olexa

  Editor, friend, traveler, and Trenton Phoenix

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, I’d like to thank everyone who supported Even Hell Has Knights. Without your help, this sequel would have never happened.

  I’d like to thank Matt Michaelis, Adriane Fry, and Helen Regan for keeping me pumped full of ideas.

  The gun expertise of Scott and Jeremy Mason, whose advice for Even Hell Has Knights has carried over nicely into this book, was much appreciated.

  Dr. Butterworth, I truly appreciate the insights you gave me on the ending of Joyce’s Dubliners.

  One of the things I enjoyed the most about writing Knight of Gehenna was the opportunity to create an apologetic for a religion that doesn’t exist. To do so I studied the apologetics of several extant religions. Inspirational to me in that vein were the lunchtime conversations I’ve had with Eric Wolf, as fine a friend as I have ever known.

  And lastly I’d like to thank all of the wonderful people at Sisyphean Publications. Gabe, Matt, Justin, Jason, Nichole, Jody, James, Clay. Also, I’d be remiss not to mention media mogul Kirill Simin and artist extraordinaire Thomas the Younger.

  Oh, and one more. I’d like to thank Cae, my godson, for being so damn adorable.

  CAVEAT

  The philosophical views expressed by the characters in this book, particularly the villains, are not necessarily the views of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The damnation portrayed in this novel is fictitious, and similarities between it and any actual damnation are strictly coincidental.

  KNIGHT OF GEHENNA

  Copyright 2013 © by Shaun McCoy

  All rights reserved.

  Editor-in-Chief: Gabrielle Olexa

  Associate Editors: Matt Michaelis, Justin Williams, Jody Mobley

  Consulting Editors: Jason Thrower, Nicole Breton, James Mobley, Clay Mcleveen.

  Title art: Thomas the Younger

  Title Layout: Kirill Simin

  A Sisyphean Publishing Book

  Http://hellsongseries.com

  ISBN:978-0615889184

  First Edition September 2013

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART IV

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  PART V

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  PART VI

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  What use is flight if you cannot feel the cool spray of the brine or bask in the warmth of the sun?

  Let them say, then, that I am he who flies on molten wings.

  —Kent

  Be wary of Heaven and Hell. They are extremes and therefore evil by Aristotelian standards.

  —Endymion

  From Gehennic Law: The King and the River

  For the People so loved their King that they enclosed him in a steel cage; and thus the demons could not maul him. Then they found a horn of plenty and set it with him; and thus the hunger could not take him. Then they placed him on a barge and sent him down the river Janus; and thus the Devil could not catch him.

  But soon they were assaulted by dyitzu and knew not how to save themselves. So they sent men down the river to beg advice from their King, and he told them to make weapons of stones and defend themselves. They did so, and they survived.

  But then they were given women and knew not how to control them. So again they sent men down the river, and the King taught them how to clothe the women from head to toe—that their wives might forget they were human. They did so, and they survived.

  And finally they were struck with famine and could not feed their people. So again they sent men down the river, but this time their King and his wisdom had floated too far away. They did nothing and wasted until death.

  Many wish to meet this King, and many have tried. They say that if you tr
avel far enough down this river you can still find him, drifting eternally through Hell. But they also say that since Damnation is infinite, then the river's end is also its beginning; its head is also its mouth.

  If one waits here long enough, he may come again.

  I will never see Alice again.

  Arturus lay in the cold, dark stone chamber with the five remaining Harpsborough hunters, separated from his home by countless miles of impenetrable devil-filled labyrinth, waiting for Galen to return. Waiting for execution or absolution.

  Arturus’ fingernails had grown long, and though he had bathed since his climb through Giant’s Tunnel, there were half-moons of dirt beneath them. He pulled back the left sleeve of his black t-shirt so he could see the symbol that had been so artfully carved into his shoulder. Some of the long thin scabs peeled off, sticking to the cotton cloth. The pain was a distant thing, like the echo of a man’s shout from a far off chamber.

  He stretched out his arm so he might better see the symbol the priestess Kayla had cut into his person. It was a man, arms held straight over his head, palms touching and fingers pointing as if he were diving upwards. The man was only free from the waist up—below that, he was encased in stone. Hell heals all wounds, so the saying went, but it wouldn’t heal this one unless Arturus was willing to cut off his arm and wait for it to regrow—a dangerous proposition under normal circumstances and probable suicide in the Carrion.

  That meant the symbol stayed. That meant that, in some way, he was still Maab’s.

  He remembered Maab. Remembered her soft, wet lips as they coaxed him through his first kiss.

  His heart quickened against his will.

  I don’t love Maab. I love Alice. Or maybe even Ellen . . . but I don’t love Maab.

  He looked to the five remaining hunters. They were a sorry sight.

  We weren’t ready for the Carrion.

  They had failed to rescue Julian, who was now a slave of Maab’s dark cult. They had failed to secure the devilwheat Harpsborough needed to survive. They had failed to even return home before Harpsborough sealed them in.

  And four of them were dead.

  Wistan, Mabe, Fitch and Patrick.

  Aaron, the Lead Hunter of Harpsborough, seemed the healthiest. The muscular hunter caught Arturus’ eye and stood slowly. He walked with a limp, having not fully recovered from the long needles the silverleg spiders had left in his feet.

  Those spiders are still out there, waiting for us to try and go home.

  Aaron squatted down next to him, nodding across the room. Arturus followed his gaze to Kyle, the hunter who’d suffered the worst wounds from the spiders. Even now, after nearly a week of rest, Kyle could easily be mistaken for dead. The spiders had flayed his legs, removing so much of the man’s thigh and calf muscles that they’d only been able to take off his tourniquets yesterday. The healing had begun, but just barely. Loose clumps of scabs and congealed fluids leaked out between the masses of bandages which covered his legs. His face was gaunt, pale as a corpse’s. Even his black hair seemed unnaturally thin.

  He looks worse than he did before we took off the tourniquets.

  Arturus glanced back towards Aaron.

  The worried hunter leaned forward and whispered into his ear, “He won’t be ready when we try for home.”

  Arturus bit his lip for a second. “We’ll have to carry him.”

  “We should have never removed his tourniquets, Turi. Moving him might kill him now.”

  “But we can’t stay,” Arturus whispered back.

  Aaron nodded.

  Galen had done well in finding them a safe place to rest in a little traveled nook of the Carrion, but their week of safe rest was now pushing the boundary between good luck and miracle—and there were no miracles in Hell. Arturus wasn’t even sure if they could make it another day without being sniffed out by a hellhound, and Kyle would probably need months to recover.

  All we have left to do is die.

  He imagined Kyle sitting there, abandoned in this Carrion room—waiting alone for the devils to find him. Arturus wasn’t familiar enough with the man to know if he had a lover back in Harpsborough. He didn’t know whose name Kyle might call if the dyitzu were to find him.

  Arturus ran his fingers over the smooth peach fuzz that was collecting on his cheeks. “We’ll have to get a stretcher. A woodstone door or something to carry him on, like we did with the Infidel Friend.”

  Galen can still walk well. He could carry one end of the stretcher.

  But that wasn’t a good idea either. Galen was the only one of them who was healthy enough to fight. It would be better if Aaron and he were to bear the burden—if they even could. Neither of them was able to walk very well. Arturus looked to the other hunters.

  Johnny Huang, Avery, and Duncan were in bad shape, but there was also their captured priestess.

  Maybe she can help.

  She could hardly stand up straight, however. Aaron had told him that Galen broke her ribs. On top of that, Arturus had no good reason to assume that she would even be willing to help. She was just as likely to drop her end of the stretcher and run as she was to carry it.

  Maybe Aaron and I could manage for an hour or so before we give out. Then Duncan and Johnny could fill in, maybe for half as long. And then . . .

  Then nothing. There would be days of travel left after that. Galen would be forced to carry Kyle on his own, there was just no other way around it. He and the hunters would have to try and be ready to fight—except this was a terrible idea. Even if they were all healthy, fed, and weren’t running low on ammunition, they would still be no match for the huge packs of dyitzu that roamed the Carrion.

  We can’t leave him. There’s got to be a better way. Think, Turi.

  Arturus felt Aaron’s hand on his shoulder. For as long as Arturus had known him, Aaron had been a very compassionate man, but he did not look so now. His expression was stern, even callous.

  “Harden your heart, Turi.” Aaron said, getting up to his feet.

  “What? Why?”

  Aaron did not answer. He looked as cruel as Arturus had ever seen him. Slowly, the hunter walked away.

  What’s going on?

  Arturus looked back between Aaron’s limping figure and Kyle. Kyle’s eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. His chest was rising and falling slowly. He looked so helpless.

  Oh, no. Please no. We can’t.

  Aaron leaned his shoulder against the far wall and slid down it into a crouch. His jaw was set. Arturus looked back towards Kyle, and by some horrible coincidence, Kyle chose that moment to lower his head. Their eyes met. Kyle managed a wan smile.

  I’m sorry, Kyle. I’m sorry.

  Ellen sat at the kitchen table watching steam rise up off of Rick’s hotplates. The table was a makeshift thing, an old door propped up by a few stone blocks at its corners. The wood was a lighter color where the hinges had been. She remembered that Arturus had often run his fingers over those slight depressions while he was thinking. Idly, she did the same.

  Rick began to cut up a knowledge fruit. “You were out last night, and you snuck in this morning.”

  She felt immediately guilty. “I did.”

  “You need to announce yourself when you come in. I might shoot you on accident.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew. I will, from now on. I promise.”

  Rick’s gaze was unblinking. He was obviously studying her, trying to figure out if she was being sincere.

  “I will!” she said.

  “And when you go out, you should leave a block by the entrance that tells me where you’ve gone.”

  She shook her head. “But I’m just exploring. I wouldn’t know what to write on the block.”

  Rick pointed his knife at her, a bit of red knowledge fruit innards hanging down from the end of it. “‘Exploring’ would be just fine. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She looked back down at the table and began fiddling again with one of the door hinge depress
ions.

  I’m going to give myself a splinter.

  “This isn’t quite ripe,” Rick said, holding up a small section of the knowledge fruit he’d been dicing.

  “I know,” Ellen responded. “I like it better that way. More tangy.”

  “Sour you mean. What have you been doing with the ripe ones?”

  “I was trading them to the Harpsborough hunters that would come and visit me. Now that I’m staying here, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  Rick tossed the diced fruit onto the hotplate, turning the pieces quickly with his knife so as to only sear their edges. Then he gave her a pointed look. “You could trade them to me.”

  Ellen laughed. “You don’t like these?”

  “I’d rather eat like a villager,” Rick flippantly replied.

  “Well, I suppose I could get them for you, but there’s hardly any left now. How long until they regrow?”

  He picked up the pieces of fruit in between two knives and dropped them into the nearly boiling pot of devilwheat meal. “Perhaps a month, maybe a little longer.”

  That’s longer than I’ve even been in Hell.

  Rick wandered over to the supply closet and began fishing around in it.

  “Well, there’s got to be something I can do to help out in the meantime,” Ellen suggested.

  “Certainly,” Rick called back over his shoulder. “I’ll take you on some rounds this morning. As long as you feel comfortable with where things are, you can start gathering devilwheat and hungerleaf and such. At some point, I’ll have to teach you how to hunt. Would have been better if Galen could, but . . .”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, and his rummaging stopped.

  I’m sorry, Rick. I wish he could have, too.