They took their gaze off us only for a moment, but that was all Secca needed. She worked her illusionary art, magic enveloping us as we carefully stepped away from the circle, rendering us invisible and leaving simulacrums behind in our stead. The druí made ready to stab us in the back the very moment we attacked the daemons, when we would be distracted and vulnerable.
Secca made our illusions look upwards, break the circle and glow with power. False fire erupted from Vincent’s hands, billowing up towards screeching two-headed daemons with snapping beaks and razor-claws. Before we could cause too much damage the druí struck. Fire and lightning leapt from their hands to turn our circle of magi into a maelstrom of death, annihilating the illusions with waves of heat and visual distortion. Daemons plunged into it to finish us off and only found themselves ripping red furrows into each other.
Vincent didn’t even have to set off our little surprise buried below the cleared circle – the betrayers did that all themselves. Nareene’s gift to the war effort was a barrel filled with her special blend of incendiary alchemy. The ground erupted, killing two druí outright and shredding the others with sharp stone and dirt. A fireball roared into the darkling sky to consume the diving flock of daemons.
Now! I screamed. Magic flooded through my body, sharpening senses and strengthening muscles.
My coterie erupted from their heaps of snow to thrust spears into the backs of the Clansfolk druí. Vaughn swung his big axe around his head and down, splitting Murdoc’s head and torso in two with a single blow, bisecting the squealing Scarrabus inside. Nareene squealed with joy as she rammed a knife into the side of another’s throat and ripped it forward in a spray of blood offered to the raging fire. Swords and knives rose and fell in bloody butchery, burning bright in the firelight. The dazed Clansfolk fell in moments without knowing who had killed them, leaving us facing only burning panicked daemons.
Bone vultures fell screaming around us and the huge flying lizard roared and plunged into the snow, scales sizzling. Its tail lashed round and caved in one of my thrall’s ribs, killing him instantly. I felt his death like a distant pinprick, and just as upsetting.
Diodorus and Adalwolf loosed their poisoned arrows, having no difficulty in hitting such a large beast. The shafts plunged deep into its hide. They backed away and loosed again as it surged towards them, fanged maw snapping. Then its slit eyes clouded over with red and it coughed, spraying black blood and bile across the snow. It looked confused as Diodorus’ fungal concoction spread through its body, still feebly trying to reach and eat them even as it coughed up a glistening heap of its own guts. I’d always hated mushrooms and now I felt vindicated in my belief that those foul rubbery things only masqueraded as food.
As devastating as our ambush was, it still left a large flock of screaming, scorched and confused daemons milling above us. With Secca’s illusion broken they quickly noticed us off to the side and came for us, claws outstretched.
“Burn,” Vincent cried, thrusting his hands up. Roiling flames again roared into the flock.
The air whirled around Bryden and lashed out, clipping wings and sending a handful of daemons plunging into the heart of Vincent’s inferno.
Cormac and Granville caused a dome of stone spikes to rise around us, warding off most of the bone vultures that made it through the fire. Those that did were met by Eva, blade singing as it lopped off heads. I plunged my knife in and out of any impaled daemons, finishing them off before an errant claw could rip a hole in one of us. The flock were being driven off in frantic disarray, with Vincent and Bryden picking them off.
My plan had worked perfectly. Which, given my typically shitty luck, is when everything went wrong.
Not all daemons flew, but then not all daemons needed to walk between there and here in this realm. Some could leap through the shadows and travel through their own strange realm to emerge elsewhere…
My enhanced senses gave me a split second warning before stone spikes shattered and obsidian claws the size of knives ripped through fur and cloth on my back and the skin beneath. Without that warning it would have torn out my spine. I spun and fell, landing badly, bones shrieking with pain as my blood splattered the snow all around.
The shadow cat was the size of a horse. Impenetrable blackness boiled from its fur as those burning green eyes focused on me, lusting to kill with a very personal malevolence. I had thought the entire pack dead, but apparently this one had not been present to be slaughtered at the hands of the traitor god.
I lashed out with my mind as I had with the bone vulture.
The shadow cat hissed and shook its head. The mental structure of every creature was different and my magic scrabbled to find a way in.
I’d bought only enough time to lift my right hand up to ward it off before vicious fangs crunched down. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised when its fang pierced the leather glove and then broke. Inky blood gushed over the exposed black iron plates covering my hand.
A thrill of bloodlust and power as my hand drank in the daemon’s magic-rich lifeblood. Hungry! the familiar voice of Dissever howled in the back of my head. That dark daemonic spirit had been slumbering ever since it escaped its imprisonment in my spirit-bound blade. The taint left in me was awake and it wanted blood.
My fingers clenched of their own volition, piercing the shadow cat’s jaw with inhuman strength and sharpness. It roared and tossed its head, shaking me like a ragdoll, ripping my sleeve to pieces. My hand refused to let go. Had I been a mundane human I would have died.
Eva saved me from having my entire arm ripped off. She was much smaller than the daemon but twice as fierce. She shoulder-charged it to the snow, her magic-wrought strength beyond even that of the great daemonic cat. Her sword plunged deep into its flank and then ripped out in a glistening arc of darkness.
My hand plunged deeper into its flesh, feeding as the thing died and dissipated to black mist. With the surviving bone vultures in full retreat back to their Skallgrim masters, that left Eva staring at my exposed arm. The taint was visibly spreading and black iron plates rose to cover all the skin halfway up my forearm. I couldn’t move it at all, though it could still feel.
“Hide that,” she whispered as she flipped me onto my front and applied pressure to the wounds running down my back.
I hissed, and then used my mental skills to deaden my own sense of pain. “How bad is it?”
Her mask made it difficult to tell what she was feeling, but her eye glared accusingly. “A lot of stitching needed but your back will be fine in a couple of days. Lucky you heal fast even for a magus.” I kept my hand hidden as she waited for a medically-trained warden to bring her bag and patch me up like an old coat so I didn’t bleed out.
“That plan went far better than I thought it would,” Vincent said, still grinning from his earlier misadventures. He dusted ash and charred bits of daemon from his robes. “Dozens of daemons dead at our hands and Scarrabus destroyed. Not even a scratch on me.”
I glared up at him until his stupid grin vanished.
I’ve said it before, and will hopefully never have to say it again, but I fucking hate shadow cats. Almost as much as I hate people.
CHAPTER 18
If you’ve never been carried on a stretcher downhill through slippery ice and uneven clumps of snow, feeling every step and bump like a knife to the back, and then had your gaping flesh sewn back together by ham-fisted butchers, well, I can assure you it is far from fun. It was downright humiliating – especially when you are meant to be this fearsome and powerful magus in charge of a whole army. Balls.
I concentrated on making the pain go away. It was not mine; it belonged to some other unlucky wretch. The stabbing pains faded to a dull ache but I didn’t want them gone entirely. Pain was the body’s way of warning you something wasn’t right and I didn’t want to start leaping about and burst my stitches and then have to go through it all over again.
Inside my tent, I lay face down on soft furs and cursed all gods, spirits an
d daemons. Fuck the Arcanum. Fuck the druí. And fuck the Scarrabus with a hot poker! All I wanted was some peace and quiet but oh no, they all had to go off and play their world-conquering games of fuckwittery. Was a single evening relaxing by a crackling fire with good food, good beer and good company really too much to ask for?
My brooding was interrupted as the tent door flapped back and let in a gust of chill air. I turned my head to see Eva enter, armoured in full war plate. “How are you feeling now?” she said.
I grunted and buried my face back into the fur. At least being a magus I didn’t have to worry about plague spirits rotting the wounds.
Her freezing gauntlet planted itself on my bare back. I yelped and flinched away, then yelped again as my stitches pulled.
“It’s just a little kitty scratch,” she said. “Don’t be a baby.”
I bit my lip to stop the insults flying. What complaints could I possibly hurl at her? Not without getting a slap on the back anyway. To her this really was just a flesh wound. “I hate you so much,” I growled.
“Hate you more,” she replied. “You might be annoying but I admit that was a decent plan. Now I can head on out and we can start slowing them down without getting picked off by hordes of flying daemons. It is a better start to the campaign than I had hoped for.”
I turned my face towards her, groaning as my back pulled tight. “Give me a hand up.”
“Not a chance,” she said. “If you rip those stitches open out in the field then you might bleed to death. It would be a shitty, pointless death for the magus who took down the Magash Mora and killed a god, wouldn’t you say? And more pertinently, you would be a great inconvenience to me if I had to drag you back here again. I don’t have the time or people to spare on being your nursemaid.”
I hated it when she spoke sense. “But you might need the mighty Edrin Walker to haul your sorry arse out of the frying pan.”
Her single eye just glowered at me, packing in a surprising amount of disdain despite the mask.
I cleared my throat. “Ah well, arrogance aside, who knows what else is waiting for you out there. It sticks in my craw that I’ll be laying here like a butchered hog while you are off fighting for your life.”
She shrugged, oiled steel whispering. “Things are as they are. If we cannot change something then it is best to accept it and stop complaining. Nobody wants to hear our whining. We must meet this challenge head on.”
I grimaced. “I can’t just loll here like a drunken lord, I need to do something useful.”
She cocked her masked head, green eye flicking down across my wounds. “Well, do you have to be there physically? I know you can communicate at a distance. Could your magic serve as a secure and swift method of communication?”
I suddenly had a far better idea than mere communication. I reached out to my one remaining thrall and entered what was left of his mind: an empty burnt-out hall devoid of all independent thought and personality. I had done a thorough job and it made him an empty ale cup just waiting to be filled by my particular brew of foamy goodness. I ordered him to come to me, and as he walked towards the tent I concentrated on feeling the pull of his muscles and blood pumping with a slow and heavy thudding. I poured myself into his brain and body…
Light flashed in my eyes and I stumbled in the slush, almost falling onto the beaked axe hanging from a loop on my belt. I was dressed in rusty chain and matted furs and the rancid stench of months-old sweat was in my nose. I stared at my large and filthy hands, the fingernails long and black, then around the makeshift camp we had formed on a rise now almost free of snow. Everything was subtly different, the colours a shade duller and hazier than usual. I reached the tent and much to Jovian and Vaughn’s surprise, said: “Good job with all the guarding,” then entered before they got over their shock at the mute thrall suddenly speaking.
Eva turned, hand darting to the hilt of the blade at her hip. “It seems I really can do better than that,” I said, my voice deep and gruff and manly. This body was that of a warrior’s, not a skinny bony thing like my own, and it only took a trickle of magic from my own body to sustain my presence.
Jovian peered through the tent flap, looking first at me and then the real me. I winked with both bodies and he swiftly retreated, looking a little green about the gills.
“Walker?” I heard the hesitant note of horror and disgust in Eva’s voice.
I nodded, greasy shaggy hair falling around my bearded face. This body itched all over, hunger gnawed its belly, and one broken tooth throbbed with raw pain. I had forgotten just how weak it felt to be merely human, with all their bodies’ weaknesses. Physically I wouldn’t be any more use than one of her wardens but I wondered what else I could do. From inside this body I reached out to Eva’s mind.
She flinched back. Out! “I guess that works too.”
She was not exactly impressed. “The next time you do that without my permission I will hurt you so badly you will be screaming for a week. You can touch my mind in an emergency, but try anything else and whatever trust we have built together turns to ash. If you want to play the tyrant then I will treat you like one.” Her gaze dipped to the sword at her hip.
I swallowed – in two bodies at once – and nodded. “I apologise. It won’t happen again.”
“It better not,” she replied. “You have abused my trust once, when you opened yourself to me and touched my face. I am not the forgiving and forgetting sort.”
I fled my thrall’s body and slunk back to my own brutalised flesh. “Nor should you be,” I groaned. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. I’ve spent ten years alone only caring about myself, and it’s been… difficult adjusting to being back home. It’s not an excuse, but there it is.”
She remained silent for some time. “It is not my job to educate you.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s all on me to become better, not on everybody else to tolerate me and tell me when I step out of line. I’m not a child. I am trying.”
She grunted. “See that you continue to. Well, let us say no more about it.” She edged around my motionless thrall, disgusted as much by what he was as the rancid stench.
“Stay safe,” I said. “I’m not sure how far or for how long I can reach out to help you.”
“I’m sure I can manage a few smelly, bearded heathens,” she replied, stepping out of the tent and preparing her parting shot. “Hopefully they will all prove as foolish as you.”
Thanks, Eva. Still, it was not undeserved.
She left to lead a small chosen force out onto the icy rock to blunt the nose of the Skallgrim advance. Me, I got to lie here under guard until my wounds closed enough that I was no longer a liability.
I slipped back into my thrall’s mind and decided to join her for as long as I could. But first I needed to wash this stinking barbarian body before it made me throw up. I left the camp to locate an icy stream and peeled off my furs and mail, layers of congealed grease and mouldering skin coming off with it. Had I been in my own body with a nose not used to the stench I might have gagged. This one was not in the best of health, but that wasn’t terribly surprising given he hadn’t washed since Black Autumn.
I stepped into the water and gasped as the cold burned against my ankles. As I hastily began scrubbing with water and grit, the stream darkened with filth. While washing, I couldn’t help but think of Eva and Jovian’s reaction to what I was doing. The perverse morality of wearing another human body was not lost on me, but nor did I really care if I was brutally honest. He had attacked Setharis and paid the ultimate price. If this body could help protect Eva then I felt no guilt about riding it to destruction.
I knew I was sliding closer towards the monster that the Arcanum always feared I would become, but needs must, and like me, any Docklander would put pragmatism far above morality. Morality and ethics didn’t fill your belly with food. Which is not to say what I was doing was not creepy as all fuck…
I dunked his head into the water and frantically scrubbed at the greasy hair,
but moments later I couldn’t take the cold any longer and ran for dry clothing. I dressed, hefted my axe, and then went to join Eva’s expedition north.
She had decided to leave the heavy infantry here while taking thirty wardens armed only with bow and spear and fifty local Clansfolk warriors who knew the lay of the land and all the secret cattle rustling paths. Cormac, Granville and Bryden were to accompany us, though after our battle with the daemons none looked especially pleased about leaving the safety of our camp. I had to admit, Cormac did look rather fine today. Had he trimmed and oiled his lovely bushy red beard?
That brought me up short. I looked over the men and women readying to march north – but mostly the men. Then it dawned that this particular body I was wearing had a beard fetish. As much as I wore this body, it seemed to also influence my thinking in return. The flesh remembered pleasure and pain and movement of the muscles, but precious little else as fluids gushed about and the various organs did all the things I had no real knowledge about.
An untidily-bearded warden blocked my path as I sought to approach Eva. “Piss off, idiot mute. Head on back to your own degenerate magus.”
My fist slammed into his face before I could think about it, sending the warden sprawling in the dirt with a split lip. He lay dazed and bleeding.
These muscles remembered exactly how to punch with maximum force, and were far more proficient than I had ever been. Apparently this body was used to reacting to aggression with extreme violence, and the merest twitch of muscle had set it off. Magic influenced the body and the body and its Gift influenced the magic, that much was common knowledge, but no magus had truly explored the role of the mind on the other two – how could they without slipping on a new suit of meat?
God of Broken Things Page 16
