God of Broken Things

by Cameron Johnston

  What a fucking idiot! The Arcanum and my old mentor Byzant had twisted my mind in against itself all those years ago and I was still dealing with the aftereffects. One way or another I would have to pay that pain back.

  “Get off me you big lump,” I growled, shoving ineffectively at the bulk of daemon atop me. It shifted and I crawled free. I kept glancing at my right hand, at smooth human skin. It had been a while.

  A sharp pain stabbed through my breast. The air suddenly chilled and my breath misted. Snow began to fall, dirty orange in the dull red light of this alien realm. The Queen of Winter was returning to claim her prize.

  I had come here seeking healing and power to use against the Scarrabus. And I had found it, just not in the way my beloved grandmother wanted. Dissever was right; I needed to fight. “I must wake,” I said. “Don’t suppose you have an idea how I go about doing that?”

  Oh yes. It smiled as much as a daemonic serpent can.

  I knew enough of what amused Dissever to be afraid, and I screamed as its jaw yawed wide to expose nightmare fangs. It swallowed me whole. A few moments of struggling in darkness against hot wet bone-crunching convulsions and then searing pain.

  I stabbed upwards and felt my blade bite, punching hilt-deep through muscle and bone. A woman grunted in shock and hot wetness spilled across my chest. My eyes opened to see Angharad fall to the floor, flesh ripping from Dissever’s black barbs. Blood pished wildly from a gaping wound in her belly.

  My chest burned from the cold, but I was alive and free. I slid off the altar dedicated to her septic cunt of a spirit and stood on wobbly legs. I was back in my real body and rediscovering a hundred human aches and pains, from my lacerated back to broken bones that had never healed quite right.

  The Eldest ogarim sat motionless, watching this turn of events silently and without visible expression, but emanating emotional turmoil.

  “I’m back, o’beloved grandmother of mine.” She was a vicious, heartless beast, so I did what Dissever had taught me. I fought what I feared, my power ravaging her unprepared mind as I stepped forward. “You murderous bitch. You meant me to be a sacrifice to your stinking spirit – well guess what, your vision of the future has come true, except it turns out I already had a pact with something far more powerful than your weakling spirit. Pah, ice and snow and winter winds? What use are they to me? I am blood and fury. Come now, let me show you.”

  She clamped hands to the wound that passed right through her body and her three amethyst eyes flared bright with power as her Gift fought to resist my intrusion. She was old and strong but not quite an elder magus, whereas I had bathed in the blood of gods and monsters. I was going to win. Why had I lived so long in dread of this pathetic creature?

  “Queen o’ Winter,” she screeched. “Protect me!”

  Frost rippled from her, flowing along the walls and floor towards me.

  I sneered at her. “You murdered thirty-six of your own children for your mad rituals, and who knows how many others. You are finished.” I turned and hammered Dissever’s point down into the altar. It sank in and I wrenched it out sideways, gouging a deep trench through the stone.

  “No!” Angharad cried as her ancient altar cracked and fell in two halves at my feet. The frost stopped, white tendrils writhing blindly and building crystals in unnatural shapes. The spirit could no longer see me here in this place so deep below the earth. My grandmother’s blood kept flowing. Even such a vicious wound wasn’t fatal to her, but it would slow her down.

  “Yes!” I snarled, advancing on her with bloodlust burning away the chill she had placed within my heart. I intended to feed my big daemon friend.

  I was aware of the ogarim clambering to its feet and backing away. It could feel exactly what I intended as my Gift used a torrent of magic to crack open her mind, and it wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Will you fight beside me when the time comes?” I demanded of it. “You are ogarim, and you wield magic potent enough to turn the tide.”

  I no longer have the fortitude to endure war. I will not kill a sentient being ever again.

  “Your fucking inaction dooms us all,” I said. “That’s right, run away and hide and do nothing. That’s what your kind do best these days! You would have let her destroy me before lifting a finger of your own to help. Hah, and you call humans Broken Ones? Magically that may be true, but you are the real Broken Ones. Once you were the great defenders of the Far Realms – well where are you now when we need you most? Pathetic.”

  It bowed its shaggy head and fled through rippling stone walls, consumed by guilt.

  It had been through so much, enough to break down anything with a conscience, but I wasn’t inclined to pity it. My disappointment was vast and all-consuming and I was the type that held grudges. I turned to my grandmother, still struggling against my mental power, and forced her mind open. I nodded gravely to the silent skulls of my dead kin lining the walls and then I got to work with my knife.

  As I emerged from the hold’s most sacred place and stepped back into the halls of the ancestors, the other druí looked up from their meditations and flinched at the sight of the bloody footsteps I left behind me. They rose unsteadily, having knelt from nightfall until whatever time of the morning it was now.

  “Catch,” I said as I passed, tossing them parcels wrapped in strips of white-wolf fur. There was a war on and I had one fully working hand and Dissever again – and no more fear of what I was, or what I was becoming. If it took a monster to save those I cared about then I would be that monster.

  The ogarim’s mistake was, ironically, being too human. Had they been human then I had no doubt the Scarrabus would have been wiped from existence, likely along with everything else that stood in their way. We had been built for war but the bugs did their job a little too well to have any hope of controlling us.

  I smiled as the screams erupted behind me. I don’t think they appreciated the gift of my grandmother’s hands and feet, but they do say to take pleasure in the giving, and I most certainly had. Her crystal eyes clinked together in my coat pocket, a little souvenir.

  “Best keep your spirits busy with the enemy leader,” I shouted. “Or I will be back for yours.”

  She had yearned to sacrifice her own flesh and blood to the great spirit she worshipped so that it could walk by her side among humanity. My mother had been only a tool to that evil creature and I was very glad she had the sense to flee her fate. As for me, my grandmother had intended me to be a prisoner in my own body, if any part of me survived at all. I was just returning the favour. No hands or feet or eyes and locked inside the festering darkness of her own mind.

  Perhaps I would return some day and end her torment, but let’s be honest, probably not

  CHAPTER 26

  A number of Clansfolk warriors tried to challenge me as I passed through their halls with my newborn blade writhing eagerly in my hand, lusting to feast on more blood. “Follow me,” I said, and they did. My magic twisted in their heads and gave them no choice. Even a few druí tried to stop me but their relatively untrained magic was nothing to me now, and their pacted spirits were busy elsewhere.

  I was no longer afraid of what I could do if I let myself go.

  I was the monster.

  I left the stone doors of Kil Noth with a small army at my back, found my coterie and acquired yet more warriors from the town below. Once I boasted enough swords and spears the recruitment carried its own momentum and most followed me by their own choice – people saw the swelling numbers and felt that irresistible call to glory. They were sucked in as if I were the very centre of a whirlpool. I had manipulated crowds before but this was something deeper. My magic mixed with their feelings to form an army burning to fight. It was a heady thing to know that my will would be done without having to say a single word.

  The Worm of Magic reared its ugly head inside me and shouted YES! This was what it had always wanted for me, but I was in total control of my magic. Instead of gi
ving into it I was bending it to my will to open up my true potential as a tyrant. This is what I was born for: not to be a sacrifice for my grandmother’s goals, not to be used and disposed of as troublesome trash for my old mentor

  Byzant. Oh no – I was meant to lead armies and save the world of humans.

  It felt a little like being a god.

  A warband of ritually scarred and heavily tattooed warriors from Dun Clachan and a few other Clansfolk from all over met me at the edge of town, having just arrived after hearing of the fall of Dun Bhailiol. They were spoiling for a fight, especially if it was not on their own holds’ doorsteps. They shoved into the crowd to marvel at and mock the weak-kneed warriors of Kil Noth for accepting a thin-blooded Setharii as their war leader.

  “I’m half Clansfolk,” I shouted back. “And boast the black-hearted bastard halves of both our peoples. Follow me if you want to take some heads, or stay and whine like those toothless elders and mewling babes cowering in their hold.”

  That sort of bravado seemed to tickle their fancy. I subtly encouraged that: a prod here, a suggestion there…

  The Free Towns Alliance was still three days off if their last report was accurate. If we could hold the Skallgrim until then we had a chance of survival and it would offer us breathing room to figure out what to do about Elder Magus Abrax-Masud, the ravak and whatever blood sorcery-using halrúna accompanied them. The human warriors and daemons I would leave to Eva’s superior knowledge and skills.

  We loaded up every cart and pony with food and supplies and marched north towards the Setharii camp. I’d learned a lot about leadership simply from watching Eva, but I couldn’t always rely on her martial prowess to pull my arse from the fire, so I spent the time learning to become a warrior by dipping in and out of people’s thoughts. Sword techniques, the use of shields as lethal weapons crushing faces and throats, small squad tactics, ambushes, using terrain to your advantage… some of it was useless to me, things that had to be learned more by muscle repetition than by the head. Others were now safety nestled inside my mind, borrowed memories integrating with my own, more than I had ever tried to absorb before. My head began to ache and I was forced to stop. It seemed there was a limit to how much my brain could absorb at once.

  By the time we reached camp my head was pounding with a knowledge-hangover, but I felt almost competent now. I surveyed the forces at my disposal, at least a thousand added to the Setharii forces left in the camp. We were outnumbered by five to one at best but our magi were worth far more than haphazardly-trained halrúna. Secca and Vincent were there to meet me, their coteries closed around them until they realised that it was me in charge of this horde of Clansfolk. Then they closed up even tighter, shields up.

  “Has Eva returned yet?” I demanded, as I strode right on past them and into the camp.

  “Not yet,” Secca answered, seeming surprised to see me. She ordered her wardens to stand down, which they did with great reluctance. “We thought you had fled this place for good.”

  “None of us are that lucky,” I replied, distracted as pain spiked in my skull and then subsided. The worst was over with, and now it was time to concentrate fully on the war ahead. “The terrain is rough but she should be back from the front shortly, everything going well. Then we can begin to form a battle plan. Oh, and Granville is dead.”

  Vincent hissed. “How?”

  I paused. “Best we discuss this in private.”

  I took them into my tent and told them everything they needed to know of recent events. I left out any mention of my exploits within the daemonic realm and the foul rite, Dissever, and what I did to my grandmother. Best not to terrify them completely.

  They sat in appalled silence. “How do we deal with an elder tyrant?” Secca asked, staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Luckily you have a tyrant for a leader,” I said. “We will find a way, even if it is fucking petrifying. Abrax-Masud is everything that the Arcanum always feared I would become. Granville and I bought Eva and Cormac enough time to get out of there, or so I hope. We–”

  A distant voice cried out and a rumble of chatter began to rise from the army gathered around us. Jovian poked his head in. “Clansfolk arriving from the north. They ask for you. They have a prisoner.”

  I rubbed my hands together. “Excellent. Bring him here.” He caught the malevolent look in my eye, grinned and nodded.

  Secca and Vincent seemed less pleased. “What will you do with him?” Vincent asked.

  “What I have to,” I replied. “It should be painless and far more productive than any alternative.”

  They shifted uncomfortably on their seats but couldn’t think of any reasonable objection. The naked prisoner was ushered in and shoved onto the bed. His hands were bound tight enough to turn them purple and he looked far more worse for wear than I recalled. His flesh was mottled with bruises, eyes swollen and black and his lips split like a log, red and puffy and sore. It was more or less what I had expected of the folk I’d put in charge of him. At least he was alive.

  I cut his bonds with Dissever and stepped back. “Have no fear, you will not be harmed.” I massaged his thoughts to put him at ease and place him into a compliant frame of mind, then I slid deep into his brain like a knife through the eye, and just as deadly if I wanted it to be.

  “What do you wish to know?” he asked in guttural Setharii. He was an educated man of some influence if his surface thoughts rang true. Certainly his fancy helm and clothing had been indicative of that when I chose him.

  “Why did you attack Setharis?” Vincent demanded. “We were forced to,” he answered honestly.

  Secca’s gaze flicked to me and I nodded. “He cannot lie, or withhold information.”

  “Explain,” she continued. “Tell us everything.” “Since beyond my great-grandfather’s time the honoured halrúna have paid well for salvage from ruins of a vanished empire far to the south across the Cyrulean Sea.”

  I winced, knowing exactly which ancient magical empire they had in mind.

  “Some ships go and are never seen again. Others return with clay tablets, trinkets and pots. Thirty years ago my grandfather returned with a wise man dark of skin and black of hair, an ancient ruler of that old empire.”

  “This must be false,” Vincent said. “Ancient Escharr was destroyed and the last of their magi sought refuge in their outpost at Setharis. They all died far too long ago to be here, now.”

  “Nay,” the man said. “It was the aftermath of a great storm and new ruins had been revealed to brave Skallgrim explorers long of limb and sharp of eye. He was dug from an undisturbed tomb buried below mounds of rubble, a place only the snake and the scorpion had entered for untold years. They found him alive and waiting.”

  I swallowed. He had been buried alive for as long as my home had existed. How could he have survived and stayed sane for all those years? Not even an elder magus could endure over a thousand years without proper food and drink. He must have already had the Scarrabus inside him keeping its host body alive as it waited patiently for the world to change once more.

  It seemed that Secca had reached the same conclusion. “If these parasites were around in the days of Escharr, could they have caused that empire’s fall?”

  “Why don’t you ask him when you see him?” I snapped. “What matters is he is no fake and possesses ancient knowledge we lost in the fall of his empire. That’s not going to work out well for us.”

  The Skallgrim continued, his eyes glazed. “It took him only two years to become the chief of all halrúna across the land and be worshipped as a living god. In eleven he had forged all far-flung tribes into one.”

  “How did he manage to seize power so thoroughly?” Secca asked. “Your people were riven by blood feud.”

  Our prisoner simply stared at me.

  Secca winced. “Ah. Understood.” She avoided looking at the tyrant in the tent.

  “What has he been doing in the years since then?” I asked. “Seems to me he’s been a b
it of a lazy git.”

  The man shuddered despite my mental control keeping him immobile and compliant. I glimpsed the answer in his mind and felt bile sear the back of my throat.

  “Not lazy,” he said. “Waiting for their eggs to mature and bless our chiefs with more of its kind. Now there are hundreds of Scarrabus among us, and among the leaders of this land.”

  That was not all I had seen. “Tell them about the pits.”

  The poor man wanted to throw up. He licked cracked and swollen lips. “That was not all he did in those years. He had us build… workshops, to breed unnatural beasts crafted from flesh and bone.”

  I sat down on the bed beside him, head in my hands as I shared his misery.

  “Walker?” Secca asked. “What is wrong?” “During Black Autumn a halrúna said something that puzzled me at the time. He said ‘They have our children!’ These Skallgrim we fight are not evil – they are desperate.”

  The prisoner continued. “He bred monsters from those who angered or failed him and their children went into the pit to be twisted into things other than human. Some were forged into unholy beasts that fed on magic. We dared not disobey.”

  “Magash Mora,” Vincent gasped. “How many?” “Dozens,” the man replied. “Much smaller than the one grown in the belly of your corrupt and degenerate city, but still unkillable, or so the war leaders of the Skallgrim believed.”

  We three magi exchanged horrified looks. I cleared my throat. “We have seen none in the Clanholds. If Abrax-Masud is here, where are they?”

  “The town you call Ironport. They will feast on your Gifted and then make their way towards your undefended city.”

  Secca clutched a hand to her mouth. “Sweet Lady Night…” The Arcanum army had marched right into the jaws of a trap and we had no way to help them.

  The tent flap opened allowing Eva, Bryden and Cormac to enter. Each was scuffed and caked in dust but otherwise intact.

  “What goes on here?” she said. “I am told you have a prisoner.”