The Dead Gods

by Rob Bayliss

  Nurarna laughed at the dogel, but looked questioningly at Kaziviere. The dogel screamed, his body twisting this way and that, trying to escape. The outline of his body was blurred, trapped as he was, in a halfway point between the space of the temple and the portal’s dimensional pathways.

  The commander looked at the well and at Nurarna, then back at Tunaka and Saneesh. He knew what had to be done.

  “Nurarna, find some clothes of Acaross, quickly. This is our chance to journey onward to find a cure.”

  Nurarna nodded in understanding. Her hand strayed to her belly as she remembered what she carried inside her. The knowledge bled into her dreams and caused nightmares. She tore clothes from those who had been sacrificed the previous night.

  Kaziviere did likewise, stripping clothes from the dead, as well purses of gold; they would need to pay their way through the realms of Acaross. He picked up his scimitar and put it back in the sheath. Soon Kaziviere and Nurarna were clad as a rich merchant and his wife.

  Tunaka and Saneesh looked sadly on, clasping each other’s hands for support.

  “You mean to leave us then, Kaziviere the Gutspiller; Nurarna?”

  Nurarna kissed both of them. “We have to go, brave Tunaka. My destiny demands I go with Rendroc. I will not be a mother to more of these monsters.”

  “We will not forget you what you have done for us, either of you,” Saneesh said, tears welling in her eyes.

  “Nor we you,” Kaziviere said. “Be free, live your lives and be happy. Just one thing. After we have gone, seal this place. Make this temple a tomb for this shadow filth. Deny them any access to your lands ever again.”

  “It shall be done, Kaziviere, my brother warrior,” Tunaka said.

  Kaziviere smiled and hugged the young Tunaka, slapping his back.

  “Well then, savage, shall we go?” Nurarna said, smiling mischievously. Kaziviere nodded and they walked to the well.

  Something near the portal caught the commander’s eye. He reached down and picked up his obsidian dagger of Imperial authority. He drew the blade from the sheath and kissed it, a broad smile on his face.

  “I will have my revenge on you, Taleeli filth,” Serresel rasped, looking at Kaziviere with hate in his eyes, phasing and shimmering.

  Kaziviere regarded the dogel and raised the black blade. “Not in this life, nightsoil. I hope you enjoy your immortality.” The commander’s hand flashed out and the ebony blade slashed across the dogel’s belly.

  Serresel screamed as the shadowed snakes of his inhuman entrails burst from his body, to be snapped tight and drawn down into the well.

  Holding hands, Kaziviere and Nurarna jumped into the swirling void before them. The well snapped shut behind them, its passengers delivered. Disembowelled, immortal Serresel screamed anew.

  ***

  Tunaka fell silent. The sun had almost sunk below the horizon. He could see the light of candles and lanterns burst into life in different homes across their fertile and blessed land.

  Kiri gave her father a hug. “You were all are so brave. I love you, Ubaba and Mama.”

  Kiri looked up suddenly, her face showing grave concern. “Is the monster Serresel still there, Ubaba? Will he escape to enslave us again?”

  Tunaka shook his head. “The last we saw, he was a shrivelled pathetic thing, his strength drawn from him and thrown down the well. We found some black cannon powder. Those who knew how to use it in the city brought the temple roof down on him to make sure. He will be there forever. You must remember this tale, Kiri, my sweetling. Tell it to your children, let the monster lord of Dofr’Arachane be, in his tomb.”

  Tunaka looked up.” I have kept you here for too long. Look, your mother comes to berate me,” he said, smiling.

  He watched as his wife approached. Even now his heart leapt at the sight of her, after all these years, the way she moved and her exquisite beauty. She stood over them, her hands on her hips in mock indignation.

  “And just what have you two been talking about all this time? I saw you from the window.”

  Tunaka stood up and took her in his arms. “Just our family history, my beautiful Saneesh.”

  He leaned down and kissed her.

  Chapter 22

  “Are you sure you need me with you, Sergeant?” Cardich asked, as he poured the hot deer blood from the pail he carried on to the muddy track. It pooled in the impressions left by their boots as they slowly walked back to the ruins.

  As the rain pinged off the peak of his helmet, Sergeant Tovey regarded the trooper standing before him impassively, but understood his reluctance. Trooper Cardich had come on in leaps and bounds, from the levy snatched from his home in the Khanate he had become one of Tovey’s most dependable soldiers, and all in fewer than twelve months. The sergeant smiled to himself. This time last year he himself had been an instructor and now here he was, a sergeant in the 1st Cheamas.

  “Yes, Cardich, I’m sure,” Tovey replied grimly, while adjusting his scarf one-handed to try and prevent the rain dripping down his neck and inside his back plate. In his other hand he carried his subordinate’s halberd. “It’s by your own words that we know you as an expert, when it comes to the behaviours and habits of marsh dragons. Did you not hunt them, back home on the Cheamanite Coast? Pour a bit just here.”

  “Well yes, Sergeant, I …” the trooper replied, his eyes falling to the floor to avoid the sergeant’s eyes that shone fiercely from under his helmet. As instructed he had poured more blood from the pail.

  “And was it not only last year,” the sergeant interrupted, before the trooper could continue, “when you helped herd and keep these self-same beasts from eating us in our sleep? You remember, don’t you Cardich? It was the last time we were in this fucking, gods-forsaken shithole in the rain?” the sergeant said, throwing his arms wide.

  Trooper Cardich looked up and scanned the scene. It was true: here they were, a squad of the 1st Cheamas, back at the site of their units’ first campaign, in the Great Marsh, on the island in the Talons delta where an Acarossian base had once stood. They were in the haunt of salamanders, the denizens of this vast swamp. It was the opposite end of the sun’s journey through the heavens now, but the spring rains were as equally wet and miserable as those of autumn.

  “Sergeant, it was Blackstone and his magic that kept the beasts in our thrall, I just kept them fed a little so they didn’t eat each other, or us,” Cardich said, slowly returning his eyes from the scene of river, pool, tussock and willow clumps to meet the sergeant’s steely gaze.

  “Well, that’s more experience than I, or anyone else here has,” Sergeant Tovey replied. Through his close-cropped beard a smile began to take shape. “But the most important question remains: is this place a shithole, trooper?”

  “Yes, Sergeant, this place is probably the biggest shithole on earth,” Cardich replied, trying to keep straight faced.

  “Exactly, Trooper, and your sergeant is never wrong, never forget that. Therefore when I say that your presence is required you can be sure that it is. If some marsh dragons follow the spoor we’ve made, it’s your job to kill them quickly.” Sergeant Tovey looked questioningly at the trooper. “Why wouldn’t you want to be warm by the fire anyway? The rest of the lads are either sat in a row boat or in a soggy ditch with the frogs and leeches for company … and with marsh dragon shit smeared on them … are you certain that was necessary or was it your idea of a joke? More blood just here.”

  Cardich grinned as he poured the pail, remembering the protests of his comrades when he had suggested it. They would be out for revenge on him, probably when he least expected it. “The salamander can smell us, Sergeant, they sense the heat of our blood.” Cardich’s smile faded as he looked over to the ruins where the stonehouse had once stood, reduced to a pile of rubble after Captain Treal had ordered its destruction using black powder, last year. “It is the inquisitor, Sergeant; I’m worried that he can read my thoughts. You and the captain warned us to say nothing to him, but his eyes seem to
grab you and look in….”

  “Well, you’re not wrong lad,” Tovey said nodding, “the secret is not to meet his eyes for too long … and stay sober, which is the hardest bit! Now come on, save some blood for the end of the trail and don’t forget to only use your halberd if a normal beast comes, we can’t use muskets lest we scare off our prey.”

  “We’re the prey here, Sergeant; with this shadowbeast lurking in the deep. He’ll smell this blood, the cooking venison, and us!” Cardich said, swallowing hard, watching the ripples in the mud laden water flow past the old stumps marking where the wharf once stood. Already the evening was advancing, the grey day drawing steadily more drearily into monochrome.

  “You think?” Tovey said, his hand straying to the pommel of his sheathed dagger. “He killed six of our lads, your mate Claypit among them. Be he a man or beast now, I’m going to open him up and take him apart, expose his shadows to the light.”

  “It’ll be the killing him, Sergeant; that will be the dangerous bit. You saw how impervious he was to wounds and he was a man then … or closer to a man, if you take my meaning. He even laughed when Bronic carved him in a red rage,” Cardich said, biting his lip in thought.

  “Well that is what the inquisitor is here for. You have never seen one in action, lad. I have,” Tovey said, smiling. “The only fire rites you have seen were those done by Commander Kaziviere way back at Greenwell with old Tollend’s heart. You reckon Taleel became great by accident? Our Fire God burns brightest in the divine pantheon lad; it’s the reason why he, and we, conquered you Summerlanders and your heathen ways. He‘ll burn the bastard and shrivel his shadowed guts. I just hope he leaves something for me.”

  “Well I hope so, Sergeant, but I’d rather Tuan was here with his Sun Shard.”

  Tovey grabbed Cardich’s arm. “Don’t even think about it, do you hear? Put it out of your mind, that’s an order, Trooper. Now come on, the less you talk, the less attention you’ll draw to yourself. We‘re getting close to our shadowbeast trap (and the inquisitor); a drop more blood here and there and by the entrance and we are done.”

  ***

  Captain Treal put more wood on the fire. It hissed and spluttered; it was green willow and marsh alder, now made even wetter by the rain. The smoke made his eyes water but all too soon it would be dark. The fire needed to burn bright and fiercely for the plan to work. He poked at the embers with a stick, muttering curses between coughs as the smoke caught the back of his throat.

  Unbidden, but as if reading his thoughts, Braebec Conziva appeared at his side. “Captain, please step away from the fire, let me tend it.”

  Captain Treal backed away, while the inquisitor muttered barely perceptible words in the language of old Cyria, his hands drawing shapes in the billowing smoke that neither stung his eyes nor caused him to cough. He stepped away from the fire and clapped his hands. Instantly the fire leapt to life, the flames, eager and hungry, climbing skywards. The flames lit the faces of Sergeant Tovey and Trooper Cardich as they walked through the entrance to where the fire was situated. Cardich hung back, guarding the entrance, looking down the track.

  The inquisitor turned to his alchemist apprentice. “Keep the fire fed, Morcan, but use the time wisely; study the flame shapes, as our god speaks to you in his tongues of fire.”

  Nodding, the young alchemist took up his position close to the fire. He was glad to be there to dry out his clothes. He felt sorry for the troopers who were hidden around and about the ruined fort in the wet, but then again maybe not, he thought: those by the fire were bait after all.

  ***

  The flames twisted, dancing from log to log. A summer’s growth contained within each ring, the long days of sun, from dawn to sunset, each leaf shining green under the fiery gaze of the single flaming eye that observed all creation below. In the branches insects had lived their entire existences, from hatching to death, crammed into four seasons, unlike the nesting birds that came and went. Around the tree’s roots beasts roamed in an endless cycle of life, while it grew tall, season upon season, until felled by winter wind. There it had lain until it was butchered by the two-legged ones with axes of steel, fashioned from the very bones of the earth itself. The song of wood was relayed in the tongue of the Fire God, in its hiss, crackle and snap, yielding gifts of warmth and light ….

  But beyond the circle of flame, where the shadows grew long and merged to one in the deepening darkness, another stirred, rising from the cold depths. It sensed the blood and the sweet taste of mortality; its hunger was a deep dark pit.

  ***

  “All set, Sergeant?” Treal addressed Tovey, who had snatched off his gauntlets to warm them in front of the fire. Captain Treal had grabbed a haunch of venison from the recently slain deer. He hung it on a split branch and propped it over the fire.

  “Yes, Captain, a trail of blood leads here,” the sergeant said, rubbing his callused hands together. “Cardich says our prey has been making regular pilgrimages to this spot over the months, but he says there is something odd about the prints ….”

  “Really? What did ….” Turning, the captain saw their bound prisoner, the Acarossian apothecary, licking his lips, looking at the meat in anticipation. Treal snarled and snatched his dagger from its sheath and advanced on the man. He leant over the apothecary menacingly.

  “You think I am going to feed the likes of you, you shadow worshipping scum, when my men are waiting for your lordship in the rain?” he growled. “Remember this blade? Do you remember?”

  The apothecary nodded in fear; it was the blade that had removed his finger the year before. Its wielder was the same ruthless Taleeli officer who had extracted information from him on the promise of an extremely painful and drawn out death if he had refused. To his shame, his flesh had proven weak; he had betrayed his god and spoken of things he should not have, and now here he was, back here, awaiting a child of the Corpse Lord to come.

  “Captain, the apothecary is here for a reason.” The inquisitor spoke forcefully. “He is not to be harmed.”

  Captain Treal shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just reminding him of a few truths, Lord Conziva.” With that, he sawed through the bonds that held the apothecary’s hands together. But as he did so he whispered in the captive’s ear, “I should warn you against escape, but in truth I hope you try ….” The captain half turned his head over his shoulder. “He is all yours, Lord Inquisitor; I’m going to check on my men before darkness settles.”

  The captain slammed his dagger back in its sheath, loosened his sword that slept in its scabbard and went to walk the bounds, where his men were positioned around the ruins. All through the morning and early afternoon the squad had worked to ensure there was only one possible entrance to the remains of the stonehouse: the temple at the Accarossian fort. As Treal walked past Tovey he whispered to his subordinate, “If that filth tries anything, you have my permission to kill him.”

  Tovey nodded, keeping his eyes on the prisoner and his hand on the pommel of his sword as Captain Treal stomped out of the temple ruins into the gathering dark. The fire hissed as fats and juices fell from the meat to sizzle on the red-hot coals. The smell of cooking meat began to permeate the evening air. His eyes came to rest on the young alchemist, the flames of the fire reflected in his eyes.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but my stomach is beginning to rumble,” Tovey said, grinning. “How could a beast that’s been eating raw marsh dragon flesh resist?”

  The sergeant awaited a response, but none was forthcoming from the young alchemist, whose gaze never left the flames. “Arrogant little bastard,” Tovey muttered under his breath.

  “No offence is meant.”

  The sergeant turned towards where the voice came from, a figure in a hooded cloak with eyes that shone in the gathering gloom. “Young Tavili here is reading the flames and hearing the voice of our god.”

  Tovey snatched his eyes quickly away from the inquisitor, grunted and folded his arms, watching the fat drip from the meat t
o fall into the fire. He became aware of the inquisitor standing beside him, saw the dark hair with its distinctive white streak in it, felt the inquisitor’s eyes boring into him.

  “Did I hear you say to the captain that there was something odd about the prints made by our prey that led here?”

  “According to the scout, Cardich, yes,” the sergeant replied, “Sheerak has learned to walk, it seems.”

  “What do you mean, Sergeant? I need to know.” The inquisitor’s voice sounded reassuring and reasonable.

  Tovey turned his head, despite his best intentions; his eyes met those of the inquisitor. Keep your mind clear, keep your mind clear. “Earlier tracks seem to indicate a creature on four legs but recently he’s taken to walking on two.”

  “Interesting ….” the inquisitor said, his eyes unblinking, “Of course you saw Sheerak, when he was still human in appearance, did you not?”

  “Yes, I was ….” Tovey’s words faded as the eyes held him, staring deep into his soul. He remembered that day when the commander was lost to them, in battle with the Corpse Lord. But before he was taken, the enemy Lord Sheerak had stood before this very ruined temple, killing men with ease, impregnable to deep wounds that promised to relieve him of his unnatural life. Bronic, his red rage burning strong, had carved the immortal creature into many parts: yet Sheerak had laughed, as shadows had writhed seeking to make him whole once more. But the marsh dragons had taken severed limbs, head and torso, summoned by Tuan and the sweet light of the Sun Shard .... With a gasping effort Tovey pulled his eyes from the piercing gaze of the inquisitor. The sergeant cursed himself under his breath.