Warlock of Ashmedai: The City of God [Progression fantasy/LitRPG]

"My name is Yakubu Nkruma!" Yakubu slashed open a slaver's throat with his sword and bashed him in the face with his shield, sending the flailing pile of dead meat flying. The slaver landed at the feet of his three horrified fellows, bleeding like a stuck pig. "You took my son, and you owe me your lives!"

Oak could hardly believe it. A father aggrieved is a force of nature. The only people he had ever seen doing things like that were himself and a few ogres. Even if he didn't know it, Yakubu stood in mighty company.

"No, no, no! We have taken no one!" A Koromite mercenary with a comically wide nose and an ugly scar on his cheek babbled, eyes wide with fear. He swung an axe around in wide arcs, trying and failing to ward Yakubu off. "A mistake! This is a mistake!"

"Liar!" Yakubu roared and stalked forward, blade pointed at the spluttering slaver. The two men behind the one he menaced turned to run. Geezer rushed past Oak, hopped on top of the crenellations and took a running leap over the heads of the slavers. The hellhound landed on top of the wall on the other side of the fight, cutting off the slavers' escape.

"NO RUNNING. STAND AND PERISH." Geezer growled low enough that Oak could feel the sound resonating inside his chest. The slavers screamed and stumbled back from the giant dog, clutching their swords and trembling like leaves in the autumn wind.

I can taste their fear on my tongue. How cloying and sweet. It's thick enough to lick off the air. Oak spun up another spiral of fire with a telekinetic spike in the middle and licked his lips. The spell quivered in place, and he wanted so desperately to send it off to pierce flesh and cook bone, but somehow he held himself back. It was one thing to thin the herd, but killing more than a couple would have been a rotten deed.

Yakubu had earned these deaths, and Oak would not steal this moment from his friend for the world.

The slaver with the large nose screamed and leapt at Yakubu, his axe blade gleaming in the lantern light as it arced through the air towards the Koromite warrior's helmeted head. It was a good try, but doomed to fail.

Even in the grips of vengeful, murderous rage, Yakubu still had a good head on his shoulders. His blade flashed forth and cut off the slaver's axe-hand at the wrist. The slaver hacked at empty air with his stump and stumbled, staring at the blood spurting from the end of what remained of his right arm in stupefied horror.

"You–you cut off my arm!" the slaver wailed and cradled the stump against his chest.

"So I did, worm." Yakubu pressed the tip of his sword against the man's throat and advanced while circling to the left, forcing the slaver backwards until his heels touched the wall's edge. The one-handed slaver's two compatriots stared with their mouths open as Yakubu walked their friend right off the wall.

The slaver fell with a surprised yell and crashed into the yard with the grace of a newborn calf. By the sound of it, he broke both of his legs. "Keep yourself alive, pig!" Yakubu shouted and spat after the man. "You deserve a bad death, and I wish to give it to you!"

Only incoherent wailing answered Yakubu from down below, though he seemed content with the reply.

Oak stared at the slaver crawling around in the dirt and swallowed hard. The crack of breaking bone had sent pleasant tingles racing down his spine. What a pretty and captivating sound, the Butcher whispered. More beautiful than any music or song heard in mortal lands. Despite his reservations, Oak found it hard to disagree with the Butcher's verdict. Blood pooled on the sand, great spurts of it fountaining from the slaver's wrist stump. Oak could hardly breathe. The sight excited him beyond reason, and he shivered in perverse delight.

It would be so easy to let go, the Butcher whispered. The Charnel Pit awaits. Always there, always yawning wide. We are the question and the answer. The cause and the effect. Let me carry you down to the Darkness. Let me show you the Godhead.

Vision pulsing with images of blood-soaked sin, Oak held on for dear life, his entire body vibrating in place. He could feel them all. Every torturous heartbeat, every meatbag inside this prison living on borrowed time, fouling the very air with their presence. He could end them all if only he dared to exalt his base cravings above the constraints of reason.

Why stop there? A city full of souls stands around us, fit for slaughter. He saw it in his mind's eye. Rivers of blood flowed through the streets of Mashkan-shapir. A cleaver rising and falling, chopped-up corpses spilling from the unholy blade like flower petals from a cherry tree in full bloom. A mountain of bones, bleached white by the unforgiving sun.

He would only need to uncurl his grip on sanity and let the pieces fall where they may.

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"–you alright? Oak!" Yakubu shouted and shook him by the shoulder, snatching Oak away from visions of glorious, tantalizing carnage.

"N–yes. I'm good," Oak replied and wrenched himself free from the Koromite's grip. Sweat ran down his back in little rivers, and he breathed hard, feeling out of sorts. He took a step back from the edge and looked around, trying to orient himself and catch his breath.

The two remaining slavers lay on top of the wall in their own blood, limbs twisted and red smiles on their necks. Yakubu had evidently made short work of the pair. Good riddance. Geezer sat by the corpses with a severed leg in his mouth, looking way too pleased with himself.

A loud, inhuman roar from the other side of the gate below his feet blasted an image of fur, tooth and claw inside Oak's head. He turned around and leaned over the crenellations to get a look with his own eyes.

While transformed, no traces of the short and foolish-looking Okoro remained. The werewolf was a big fucker, more than thrice the size of Geezer. Tall as a warhorse and ten times as mean, the lupine bundle of fur and violence tore into the gate with endless fury. Judging by the piles of splinters lying on the dirt, the gate would lose in the long run, but they had a bit of time on their hands before its inevitable defeat occurred.

I wonder. Okoro was very drunk when he transformed. Does inebriation carry over, or are we dealing with a sober werewolf? Oak shook his head and stepped back from the crenellations. A question for another time.

Multiple approaching footsteps drew Oak's attention back inside the walls. The rest of their merry crew had made their way onto the wall and around the bend. Ur-Namma led the group, followed by Sadia, and the Sakyi siblings brought up the rear. Baako and Onyeka had stowed their short swords and bucklers on their belts and switched to bows.

Both killers already had an arrow on the string, which Oak thought prudent. You never knew when the situation might require a quick projectile through the eye-socket. Problem-solving through kinetic means was a tried-and-true method of conflict resolution that never went out of style.

As if summoned by Oak's pondering, the door of the prison's keep slammed open and ten armed men ran outside, looking like someone had just ripped them out of bed and slapped them around the ears. The signs were clear. Open laces. Belts unbuckled. Hair like a bird's nest. Four of the men didn't have a helm, and one had forgotten his chain mail.

"Yuusuf! Kirabo! What the fuck is happening!" the mercenary taking point roared, spittle flying from his chapped lips. He was a tall and spindly looking Muttalite, or at least he looked the part, and he wore red silks under his mailshirt.

"Help! Help me, Haron!" the guard Yakubu had dropped off the wall, screamed, reaching towards the keep with the stump of his wrist.

Belatedly, Oak noticed a fire's glow from the corner of his right eye. The spiral of flame and telekinetic force he had summoned into existence still spun over his shoulder, sparking like a spruce tree aflame.

"Yuusuf!" Haron shouted in dismay. Then his eyes widened. The slaver had finally noticed the armed strangers occupying his walls.

Well, waste not, want not. Oak launched the spiral at Harron. The spell whipped across the empty expanse of space and struck the man in the middle of his forehead, with predictable results. Harron's skull exploded, raining scorched brain matter and smoldering skull fragments over his stupefied men.

Baako and Onyeka let their arrows fly, and two men keeled over, clawing uselessly at their pierced throats. Three back-to-back blasts of red lightning followed the arrows, lighting up the night and a trio of charred corpses hit the dirt as Sadia added her own contribution to the mix.

Sheesh, girl.

Out in the yard without even the barest hint of cover, the slavers were like a troupe of sitting ducks, which suited Oak more than fine. He had never concerned himself with the concept of fair play, and he was not about to start now.

"Right." Oak spun up two more spirals and continued the impromptu session of target practice.

Two ruptured chest cavities, two dead and burning meatbags. All in a day's work, as Oak's old man would have said.

A slaver with working survival instincts, who had been at the back of the group before Oak and his compatriots killed the eight men in front of him, dove back inside the keep screaming bloody murder. The last mercenary left in the yard chose a different approach. He shouldered his crossbow and sent a bolt Oak's way.

Miraculously, it hit Oak on the shoulder with a muffled thump. "Huh. Well, I'll be." He stared curiously at the bolt, and yanked it out. Barely a drop of blood dribbled out of the shallow wound. His newest Boon, the Scales of the Southern King, worked just as advertised.

Oak cocked his head at the gobsmacked mercenary and spun up another spiral of flame. This time he aimed at the stomach. The spiral struck true, drilled through the man's gambeson and blasted out of his back in a shower of gore, dragging parts of his spine and most of his intestines with it.

The man fell on his face and didn't even twitch.

This thaumaturgy bullshit is pretty awesome. Oak considered the carnage he had just wrought and stifled the impulse to whoop in glee. Four fairly complex spells right after another, and he didn't feel winded in the least.

I might be in love.