by Ben Galley
‘What is it, Caltro?’ Pointy asked, sounding nervous.
Yaridin spoke loudly over the roar. ‘We care nothing for the throne.’
‘We care nothing for charity!’ cried Liria.
I looked out, to the closest the buildings came to the Nyxwell. There was something spanning the avenue. Wagons. Barrels. A wall. I could tell not, but the crowds scattered in their thousands trying to escape it. I felt a deep unsettling within my chest.
‘You snakes! It was too good to be true! What are you doing?’ Nilith demanded.
‘We told you, Nilith. A sacrifice is demanded to build the new world!’ yelled the sisters as one.
It was a slaughter. The Cult of Sesh had made a trap of the plaza. A death trap, and their prey numbered in the millions. Panic overtook the crowd. Shoving and screaming, they surged from avenue to avenue in clumps of thousands. Straining my dull eyes, I could see the walls of barrels and wagons blockading the streets. Ghosts in red armour that had roamed through the dense crowds began to hack, stab and slash at anything made of flesh and blood. Every direction I looked in, I saw phalanxes of cultists going about their bloody work. Even living soldiers turned against their own kind. Riders on tall beetles paraded through the chaos, spearing stragglers. Even around the Nyxwell, Cult and royal soldiers that had stood guard about clusters of nobles turned their spears on their charges, bringing the murder close at hand. I saw Anoish barge his way through a shield wall, fleeing the madness.
I peered at the streets again and saw cultists attacking the barrels with hatchets, cracking staves. As murky Nyxwater cascaded onto the plaza, drenching those that had already fallen to the Cult’s blades. I realised then what all the preparation had been for. Grey vapour began to curl from the waters as if they boiled around the dead.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ Pointy howled, and I flinched instinctively. A triggerbow bolt clattered from the black stone tusk behind me. More bolts began to fly at the platform from a troop of house-guards. Some pudgy serek, far too slow on the uptake, seeking to make his name out of the bewilderment, even though his own house-guards were at that moment being overrun by Cult soldiers.
‘Caltro!’ yelled the empress.
I dove to the stone near Nilith, whose saucer eyes were still trying to make sense of the chaos that had descended upon the plaza. We were at the eye of the battlefield, and everywhere I looked, fighting and murder reigned. More insects, spiders and centipedes were barreling through the crowds on the eastern side. A fire had broken out in the north. Smoke was now sweeping across the plaza, darkening the skies.
‘I…’ I began, but the empress shook her head so avidly I thought she was having a seizure.
‘After. If there’s going to be an after!’ Nilith hissed at me.
‘Witness Sesh’s glory firsthand!’ Liria and Yaridin were screeching over the roar of the dying and the terrified.
Nilith hauled me upright with her ghost hand, our vapours mingling. ‘I don’t know about you, Emperor,’ she shouted in my ear, ‘but I’ve had about enough of those fucking sisters!’
‘Pair of cunts, if you ask me. And I’ve come to strongly despise the colour red,’ I said, baring my teeth at the sisters, and the monster that stood beside them. Dread swamped me. I had come to the Grand Nyxwell expecting to leave it fighting. I had wrestled with this inevitability every hour of the night, and still no escape had presented itself. It had taken me until dawn to realise it was the price of my freedom. And yet even now I glanced over my shoulder, considering the pit of Nyxwater below me. But alas; the runner had finally run out of places to run. ‘Fuck it,’ I said to myself, resolving to have a strong word with the next dead god that showed his face.
‘Caltro!’ Pointy bellowed at me aloud. Quickly stowing Farazar’s coin beneath my armour, I seized the soulblade from my belt.
‘What?!’ I yelled, staring at the sisters and their damnable smiles.
‘I never told you my other name,’ said the sword.
Danib rolled his shoulders, and I heard the crunch of armour over the roar of the massacre.
‘I remember! Absia!’
‘No! I once went by another name: Yer’a Ankou.’
The great monster stepped forward, and the entire platform shuddered. With a ring, Nilith drew her scimitar, a great curve of silver and copper.
‘This really isn’t the time for a fucking conversation!’ I held him up, yelling at his pommel stone. I expected to see wide eyes, but instead I saw a calm face, almost smug. I tried to move my arm, but I was frozen.
Danib unsheathed his huge sword, raising it high for a smiting blow.
‘Pointy!’
‘Do you know what it means, Caltro?’
I would have screamed at him had grey vapours not flowed down my arm, spiralling around my vambraces. His obsidian blade took on my blue hue.
Danib’s horned shadow fell across me, his burning eyes focused solely on mine.
Point’s whisper of an answer was deafening. ‘Invincible.’
Unbidden, my arm flicked upwards. I cried out in a mix of confusion and terror. The impact was enough to flatten me to my knees. I prised open my eyes, and found two crossed blades before me, edges glowing white hot and vapours reeling against each other.
‘Pereceph,’ Pointy growled. ‘My sister.’
I swear I heard a voice in the furious sizzling of the blades.
With a roar, Danib came at me, but Nilith distracted him with a blow to his gauntlet. The beast bellowed, reaching for her, but the empress was nimble. This wasn’t her first fight.
Pointy drove me at Danib, spinning a figure of eight before me that left a spiral of blue smoke. Danib met us with a mighty sweep of the greatsword. Sparks flew as our blades crashed. Our vapours roiled from the impact. Pointy was arcing through the air before I could stop him. Danib’s greave tore like silver foil, and he responded with a bellow that would have made a dunewyrm quail. But before I or the sword could react, the monster’s boot came swinging for my ribs, and I was launched into the air.
Somersaulting over the marble sweep of the Nyxwell and the writhing mass, I crashed to a heap against a step. Had I breath, it would have been driven from me. My only injury was a crushed pauldron, seeking to pierce my shoulder. I ripped it free as I stumbled to my feet.
I was welcomed to the battlefield by a warhammer swinging at my face, a red-robed cultist grinning at the other end of it. Once again, my sword arm sprang into action, shearing through the stone hammerhead as if it was papyrus. Swing interrupted, the cultist pitched forwards. I held Pointy at my hip, and the ghost skewered himself on the blade like a gruesome kebab before exploding into blue vapour.
‘How am I doing this?’ I cried out.
If I listened carefully, I could hear Pointy cackling. ‘You’re not, Caltro. I am. I told you you were in excellent hands!’
‘Who are you?!’
‘This is why you should have spoken your mind.’
‘Leave the lesson for later!’
I heard a screech upon the dais, and saw Nilith clutch her side as Danib’s blade drew an arc of blood in its wake. Her scimitar had already lost its point, and as I watched, the great ghost cleaved the rest of it away. Pereceph came slicing, and with a cry, Nilith tumbled from the lip of the marble into the black waters below. Danib saw me amongst the phalanxes of house-guards, amid the dead and battling. He levelled Pereceph at me and began to march along the dais towards the steps.
‘Fuck,’ I said aloud, involuntarily ducking as a spear jabbed for my face. My parrying strike caught the Cult soldier in the sternum, and he crumpled to the ground in a pool of blue smoke.
‘We have to face him, Caltro.’
‘We.’ I said, looking between the chaotic masses to see Nilith spluttering as she hauled herself from the side of the Nyxwell pool. I sprinted for her, Pointy’s mind and mine joined together. Trust. It was the ingredient this disastrous concoction of an existence had been missing all along. The dead gods. Pointy. Even m
yself.
I hacked through the pillars of iron and stone surrounding the pool, and the thick bars between them. I felt the thunder in the ground as Danib increased his pace. ‘Hurry, Nilith!’ I yelled.
Her armour had tried its best to drown her, but she burst through the opening I’d made for her, spitting foul Nyxwater. Another cultist ran at us, sword high like a banner, but before Pointy could halve him, Nilith was already battering him with her gold and copper fists until he was a moaning wreck on the stone. His sword was wrenched from his grasp and swiftly driven through his head.
‘Now I’m fucking angry!’ Nilith rasped at me, seething from every pore.
Danib was cleaving a path through any that stood in his way, on purpose or accidentally. Ghosts deliquesced in clouds and shredded pieces of armour. Screaming bodies flew in great arcs across the plaza, or collided with the black tusks of the Nyxwell. All the while, Danib’s white eyes burned for us.
‘He’s had Kalid. He’s had Etane. Now he wants you and me.’
‘I think it’s mostly you,’ Nilith snapped.
As two dead soldiers fell in heaps at our feet, Nilith and I swiftly parted as Pereceph came crashing down between us. Pointy scored a cut across Danib’s shoulder before the ghost swung around with incredible speed, shearing a whisker of vapour from my head. Pointy had me rolling in a ball to avoid the vicious strikes that chased me across the stone. Sparks and chips of sandstone flew in all directions under the giant soulblade’s bite.
Nilith’s sword cut in like the sting of a hornet, finding gaps with the copper in her blade, making the beast roar. Every time he spun to catch her, Pointy would cut in, cutting his thick steel armour to pieces wherever possible. One, maybe two, we scored, before Danib would jab or parry, and send me running for cover. That’s all I brought to the fight; dodging and diving.
Sparks showered me every time the two soulblades came together. I could almost feel their ghosts fighting through the touch of the blades. A sibling rivalry at its fiercest, each of them matching the other.
With a twist of my grip that made my vambraces squeal, Pointy forced Danib’s sword away and brought the blade up to cut deep under his armpit. At the same moment, Nilith drove her sword deep into his thigh with a war cry.
The monster roared once more, but a gauntlet sent Nilith spinning into the stone edge of the Nyxwell with a crunch of rubble. Before I could move, Danib hooked Pointy under his arm and jabbed at my defenceless midriff. Pereceph made a mockery of my armour and sliced into my ribs, drawing a cry from me. It was like fire and ice searing my vapour all at once. I yanked the sword from Danib’s grip, shearing more steel from him, and cutting a chunk through his arm.
I reeled away, trying to manoeuvre around the roiling masses and whirling weapons to reach Nilith. I saw the Enlightened Sisters standing at the edge of the dais, arms raised and hands clasped as they watched their slaughter unfold. Behind them, the ghosts of Farazar and the empress-in-waiting were struggling through the swarms of Cult soldiers on the marble steps. They were trying to reach Nilith, half a broken sword and a sharp wooden stake clutched in their manacled hands. Bezel, Temsa, and Hirana were dragged along with them. They watched us, rapt before our fight with the great Danib. I wondered briefly who they were hoping would die.
Fucking royals, I couldn’t help but think, as I fended off blow after blow. A mighty clang dulled the roar of fighting as Pointy met Pereceph once more above my head. Light burst. Hot metal hissed. The bell-toll that ran through the blades stunned me. Once again, Pointy dragged my tiring soul back as Danib pressed me again and again.
Everywhere I moved or dodged, Danib was upon me. My arms were shaking through striving to keep up with the ghost’s speed and ferocity. Though I quailed, he only seemed to grow stronger, taller.
‘Caltro…’ came Pointy’s strained whisper. ‘I can’t…’
Between wild, windmilling swings of the soulblade, I scrabbled backwards, slipping through the muck and black water trickling over the stone. My gaze flitted about in desperation, catching another glimpse of the three chained ghosts. Temsa was now pulling in his own direction, as was the falcon, trying to escape this madness. Hirana was damning everybody present at the top of her lungs, and Sisine was raising her shattered blade, a spear’s thrust away from the the prone Nilith. Farazar was fighting against her now, intent on beating his daughter to the kill. Even in death, half-naked and glowing bright, I saw all their venom and rage and vengeance living on, refusing to die with their flesh. In their own ways, each had almost brought the city to its knees. Together, they would have conquered the Reaches.
Together.
It was then I saw the threads connecting us, pulling me towards them even now. The web fate had weaved between us. Even as I riled against the notion, I saw the perfection of destiny’s plan.
‘We can’t do this alone!’ I snapped.
Throwing myself out of Danib’s reach, I wrenched the rest of my armour from my limbs, casting it away to clang on the stone beneath me, until I stood naked and glowing brightly against the smoke and gathering darkness, soulblade in hand. The sun was now a pale disc behind the black smog that had begun to belch from the Grand Nyxwell.
‘What are you doing?’ Pointy screeched at me, trying to force me to move. Pereceph was descending in an obsidian blur.
‘What I’m supposed to do!’ I yelled. Or so I hope. There was no more time for thought.
I dove to the side, rolled and began to run. I pelted towards the three ghosts, watching with every lunging step how Sisine’s blade rose higher, and higher.
Enraged by my fleeing, the great ghost let loose a roar from behind me that silenced the battlefield momentarily. Danib Ironjaw was far from finished with me. He sloshed after me through the Nyxwater and corpses, covered in stone-dust and blood. Blue vapour streamed from his helmet. White smoke rushed along the crossguard of the sword and down onto his wrist like a waterfall.
I ran for all my dead backside was worth.
‘Stay back, Caltro!’ Temsa’s decapitated head bellowed at me, seeing me now charging at him through the melee, a mad look in my white eyes. I cut his chains as I barrelled into him, loosing the falcon into the dark skies. I tensed every strand of my vapour to breaking as I pushed my soul into Temsa’s, dominating his will, wrapping it into mine. Within a blink, I had claimed him, keeping my form and Pointy entwined with my hand. Our glow burned like a bonfire. Temsa’s anger filled me like ice water flooding lungs. I felt my face contort into a mask of rage.
And still I ran, aiming at Hirana.
As her copper chain links shattered at the kiss of my blade, I came at her with a twisted grin, half Temsa’s, half mine. I collided with her face-first, driving myself into her cold vapours. She buckled before me, weak as a cotton strand. With a roar building in my chest, I drank in all her hate and venom. Like hot wine, it swirled within me.
Farazar never saw me coming. The manacle exploded from his his stump of a wrist as I threw myself at him, fusing him into my band of twisted souls before he could even yelp. A murderous fire ran threw my swirling vapours.
One final leap drove me into the empress-in-waiting. Sisine never saw me coming until it was too late. I threw myself at her with my arms spread-eagled, enveloping her ghost. She fought me hard, but I fed her screech of rage into my roar. Nilith’s eyes burst open to find me standing over her for a fraction of a moment, arms spread, a blade in each hand, bellowing to the heavens with every inch of my lungs.
The thunder of footsteps fell heavy behind me, and I poured all the raging emotion within me into Pointy. Still roaring, I threw my body into a crouch, swords arcing backwards just as Danib lunged to grapple me. Pointy pierced the collar of his giant breastplate, driving through his thick neck to the other side.
Danib’s momentum impaled him almost to the crossguard. I snarled with Temsa’s ferocity and Sisine’s hatred, and curled my lip with Farazar’s contempt. With Hirana’s callous twist, I dragged the soulblade through the r
emainder of Danib Ironjaw’s neck. Cobalt vapour trailed behind the sword.
The words fell from me, unbidden.
‘For Kalid!’
‘For your betrayal!’
For a moment, the ghost held his shape, sword raised high, poised to fall upon me. Those white eyes glared at me with such ferocity I thought for a horrifying moment the monster would never die. And then the spell of binding caught up with him, and the giant deliquesced into a thick cloud of blue vapour, rapidly fading to grey. His armour clattered to the Nyxwater, hollow, and yet the horned helmet still managed to match my stare with its black eyes. Pereceph fell like a keystone, cutting a wedge from the stone as it met the ground.
I convulsed as the ghosts fought me, but I wrestled them under control. I bared my teeth as emotion flooded me, along with the overpowering desire to kill everything around me, even Nilith. I tensed my sword hand, keeping Pointy by my side, and focused their murderous desires on the Cult of Sesh.
‘We have to end this!’ I yelled over the tumult, staring long and hard at Liria and Yaridin. Danib’s death had either escaped them, or they did not care. They were chanting to the music of battle, calling out for their god to rise.
‘Sesh. Sesh. Sesh! Sesh!’
Heaving Pereceph from the stone, Nilith followed my gaze to the dais. ‘Cut the head from the snake!’ she said.
Our soulblades spinning in blurs, Nilith and I advanced across the bloody stone. For every step we took towards the sisters, a rank of Cult soldiers swarmed towards us.
Nilith and Pereceph on the right, Pointy and I on the left, we divided and conquered with brutal efficiency. Nothing could stand in the way of the razor-edged swords. Rows of shields were cleaved in two. Sword blades and axeheads were reduced to shards.
With Pointy’s skill and the ferocity of the ghosts within me, I felt like an unbound ghost tethered to his body, content to be taken along for the bloody ride. My arms swung in intricate patterns an artist couldn’t conceive. Clouds of blue smoke burst with every slice. Scarlet cloth scattered in ribbons. Whenever the living came against us, blood rained down. White burns adorned my naked vapours, but my rage eclipsed all pain.
