Demon Axe, Chapter 20

“The Holy Mountains? Are you fucking serious? That’s what Roger Zee calls these big ass piles of dirt and stone? Holy shit!” said Daniel Mercer with a scowl on his face and his arms folded while never letting go of his trustworthy microphone. Shawn Henry had his shotgun locked and loaded while Raven Triscloud had her blade within firm grasp. These were three badasses who were ready to do battle. Even though they had reached their final destination, they wondered what was taking so long for the battle to begin.

Raven explained, “The Holy Mountains as Roger called them were secret places where The Order of the Spider would torture prisoners. I guess he’s feeling nostalgic by bringing my father back here…if he is here at all. The Holy Mountains would be my first guess.”

“It’s almost as if he wants us to find him,” suggested Shawn. “Arrogant little punk. We’ll see how full of himself he is when I put one between his fucking eyes.”

“Just tread carefully, both of you,” warned Raven. “There’s a reason he chose this pile of rocks and dirt as Daniel so eloquently put it. We could we walking right into a trap for all we know. Then again, fighting Roger is a trap in and of itself. Trust me, I know.”

“I’ll take my chances with the Holy-Pile-of-Dog-Shit,” said Daniel. “Let’s get moving.”

The three renegades trekked slowly and carefully up the hillside, the steep angle putting a dull strain on their leg muscles. No traps so far, just piles of bones scattered across the hill whether they belonged to a human, elf, or animal. The stench of this place wasn’t any more pleasant. If a meat truck had crashed into a sewage treatment plant, that’s what the Holy Mountains would have smelled like with all of the dead carcasses lying around. All three warriors kept their noses in their shirts until they reached the top of the hill.

“That’s him! That’s my father!” exclaimed Raven. The three adventurers rushed over to his fallen body and checked to see if the old man was still alive. They all saw the same thing: a crown of thorns around his head and a neon glow in his eyeballs. They slowly edged away from Arthur Triscloud’s body, fearing the absolute worst scenario they could.

The old man rose to his feet like a zombie thirsting for a second life. His smile was contorted, his beard was covered in dirt and worms, his flesh was vein-covered and rotting. He spoke to his opponents in a low growl reminiscent of a demonic tiger. “Master Roger wants death…and I shall give him death!” The brainwashed Arthur unleashed a creepy laugh that only an insane asylum full of psychopaths could utter.

Raven didn’t even try to reason with her father; it would have been useless. Instead, she and Detective Henry stood their ground with battle born looks on their faces and their weapons ready. She said, “Daniel, you know exactly what to do to someone with a crown of thorns.”

“I’m on it, sugar tits,” said Daniel, who cleared his throat of all the snot and bile that the dusty air brought up within him. His mouth was centimeters away from the mouthpiece of the microphone. He was primed and ready to shout every heavy metal lyric he could muster into this deadly piece of musical equipment.

And then while everyone was too focused on Arthur Triscloud’s zombie form, two powerful hands grabbed Daniel around the ankles and dragged him roughly beneath the ground, causing him to drop his microphone in the process. While Raven was shouting for her boyfriend and reaching out her hand, Daniel’s body scraped across the jagged bones and rocks of the underground cavern.

Once he hit the ground, Daniel groaned and wrapped his arms around himself in agonizing pain. He was shrouded in darkness, but only until a familiar being lit a torch on the wall with the most hellish fire. With his retinas burning beneath the flames, the Lord of the Pit could barely make out the features of Roger Zee, same ugly face, same blood soaked uniform, same horrifying machete.

Daniel ignored the wicked smile Roger gave him and instead tried to reach over to retrieve his fallen microphone, to which the elf zealot stepped on his wrist and ground his boot into the fragile bone. Daniel shrieked in pain as he tried to rip his hand away from the heartless soldier.

Roger took his boot off voluntarily and grabbed Daniel by his shirt to hoist him off the ground. The zealot then slammed the heavy metal singer back first against the rocky wall multiple times before holding him in place by his jaw, which emitted quick and painful breaths.

“I bet you’re wondering why we called ourselves the Order of the Spider. Trap door references aside, it’s because we evoke fear in the hearts of everyone who crosses us. I can smell it coming off you for miles, my friend. It smells like a bucket of greasy fried chicken!” Roger emphasized that last word with another slam against the wall. “I bet you taste just like fried chicken too. You have every right in the world to be scared of me, Daniel. I’m going to have some fun with you, buddy. I could just as easily kill your ass right now with my lovely blade. But where’s the excitement in that? Huh?!”

“You know why you’re not killing me right now?” said Daniel through fast and raspy breaths. “Because you’re a fucking coward! Terrorists like you always are! You think you’re hot shit because you killed a crowd full of people, but you’re not different from the high school senior who took my lunch money on a regular basis! You’re a coward, Roger! A chicken shit coward!”

Roger slammed Daniel against the wall yet again and earned another painful cry from the Lord of the Pit. The elf leaned in closer and said, “Right, I’m the coward here. I’m the one shaking in my boots ready to piss myself at a moment’s notice. You sure do have your facts straight, don’t you, buddy.” Daniel hocked up a bloody wad of spit and launched it into Roger’s face, to which the elf smiled even more evilly and slammed Daniel against the wall multiple times. Every pound against the singer’s back was met with a tearful cry of brutal pain. He might have even heard a few pops here and there.

Roger continued to grin at his victim when he asked, “Do you like videogames, Daniel? Believe it or not, I liked them too when I was young. They give me some nice creative fuel. Society likes to blame youth violence on videogames and they’re only halfway right. The other half of it…it comes from within. Let’s see if you remember which videogame this comes from. Tiger Knee!”

The elf terrorist buried his rock-hard knee into Daniel’s ribs, cracking them like glass and forcing the singer to scream through coughed up blood. “Tiger Uppercut!” yelled Roger as he buried his clenched fist right into the other side of Daniel’s ribs, shattering them like china plates and getting even more blood to waterfall from the singer’s mouth.

The singer dropped to the ground and crawled like a snail across gravel toward his microphone, to which Roger just folded his arms and smiled some more. He even said, “What are you waiting for, Mr. Mercer? Isn’t that microphone supposed to be the answer to all of your problems? Didn’t King Triscloud give that to you specifically for slaying me?”

Daniel finally made it to the microphone, but not without scraping his chest across the bone-covered ground and developing rashes along the way. He grabbed a hold of the wall and gingerly pulled himself up, every ounce of effort sending a cataclysm of agony through his chest. Even standing upright felt like he swallowed the spiked ball on a morning star.

Roger mockingly held his ear up close to the singer and waved his fingers back and forth like a conductor. “Go ahead, Daniel. Serenade me with your sweet sound. I’m dying to hear that beautiful voices of yours.”

Daniel brought the mouthpiece to his lips and breathed heavily before trying to let out a death metal scream. One decibel of sound and the singer was on the ground clutching his broken ribs and screaming like hell (though the screaming actually made his pain worse). That was the elf and human kingdoms’ last hope in a crumbled heap on the ground looking as pathetic as a dead body.

Roger chuckled at his fallen foe and said, “Well, I’m sorry to hear that your pipes don’t work anymore. It’s kind of hard to have a career in heavy metal music when your ribs are all busted up like that. But don’t worry, Daniel. You still have other parts of your body that are functioning perfectly well. The question now becomes, which one functions better: your pretty little mouth or your sweet little anus?” The question was punctuated with the sound of Roger’s pants zipper coming undone. “Like I told you, I intend to have some fun with you, buddy. I’m going to have the best kind of fun there is. It’s the oldest profession in history and it’s going to be your new career. Open wide!”

“NO!!” shouted Daniel in a prolonged cry that further grinded his ribs like coffee beans.