by Darius Hinks
The three wardancers paused for a moment, leaning against each other as they caught their breath.
‘There he is,’ said Sibaris, pointing his bow at the bluebottle clouds.
Where the fumes were thinnest, the wardancers could see a vast, winged serpent, looping and diving through the sky. On its back was their king. He was close enough that they could even make out his twisted antlers and glinting spear. Orion was duelling with a bloated, six-winged daemon-fly and, as the two combatants looped in their direction, they caught a glimpse of Orion’s cloak, streaming behind him. It was black, and studded with thorns.
‘Fin,’ said Caorann. For once, there was no laughter in his voice. His eyes were full of awe. ‘Save us.’
The others followed his gaze, drinking in the glorious sight of their king and savouring it as an antidote to the desolation that surrounded them.
Orion blew his horn again. The wardancers howled in reply, holding their weapons aloft. Beasts and spirit beasts exploded from the smog, hurtling towards them from every direction. The three warriors were lifted up like flotsam and hurled across the battlefield, still howling as they rushed towards Alkhor’s garden.
Orion jammed his spear into the monster’s abdomen and wrenched the blade up towards its head, filling the air with acid-yellow gore.
At the same moment, Tanos vomited a column of green poison, enveloping the thing’s thrashing wings.
The daemon-fly screamed and Orion saw again that its face was unlike the other fly monsters. This one was a revolting combination of insect and asrai. It had two huge, segmented eyes, but the rest of its face was that of a pale-skinned noblewoman. Her features had been twisted and tormented by the horror of her transformation but she must have once been beautiful. As her black, bristling carapace shivered in pain, the asrai face screamed – spitting garbled words that Orion could almost recognise.
Something tugged at his thoughts. There was something horribly familiar about the face. With dawning horror, he mouthed the word Ordaana. All his rage and hatred for his betrayer faded when he saw what a pitiful end she had come to. Treachery had consumed her. She was a creature of Chaos. She was damned.
Before he could think any more on the subject, the other Orions howled at him to keep fighting. Their voices rebounded from the inside of his skull, filling him with a horrible sense of urgency.
End this abomination, they cried. End her suffering. No one deserves such a fate.
He wrenched the spear even higher, almost reaching the head of the daemon-fly, but at that moment she found the strength to fight back, lashing out at him with a jumble of barbed limbs. They clattered against his bark-armoured chest and sent him tumbling along the dragon’s back.
Orion would have fallen, but the huge serpent recoiled – beating its huge wings and freeing itself from the daemon’s grip.
The two winged creatures circled each other, gathering their strength and looking for an opening in the other’s defences.
Orion took the opportunity to blow the horn of Kurnous. The sound drowned out even the voices of his forebears. His heart pounded fiercely in response and, as he saw the chaotic rout below, it took all his strength not to leap from the dragon’s back and join the charge. He knew such a fall would destroy his body, but the pull was incredible.
He regained his footing and lifted his spear, bracing himself as the daemon-Ordaana prepared to launch another attack. At the last moment his opponent changed direction and veered away from him. Something had caught her attention – something down below. Her already-tortured face was wracked by even more suffering.
Orion took his chance, rocked back on his heels and hurled his spear with all his might. It whistled through the air and sliced through the daemon’s beautiful, agonised face. The blade burst from the back of her skull and what remained of Ordaana tumbled from the sky.
Tanos dived after her and gave Orion chance to retrieve his spear, before leaving her to spin and roll out of sight.
Orion steered the dragon away from the sight of Ordaana’s fall and flew higher, wondering what had distracted her. He saw that nothing had changed at the entrance to the garden. There was still a hopeless crush of figures battling at the foot of the watchtower. The fury of the Wild Hunt was incredible when seen from such a height. His subjects were crashing against the daemons in wave after bloody wave, heedless of their own safety. But the tide of daemons pouring from the gulley was never ending and the two armies were still locked in a bloody, unyielding knot.
He looked back towards the rearguard of his army. Something was pouring from the forest. Orion thought that a lake must have flooded its banks. There were shadows rushing from the fungus-bloated boughs. Then he saw that the shadows had claws, crooked backs and long, branch-like limbs.
He flew higher for a better look, amazed by the nature of his new ally.
The torrent of voices in his head coalesced into a single name and it exploded from his lips.
‘Drycha.’
She led her sisters across the plain with a howl. An unexpected joy shuddered through her slender, mossy frame. Beasts and ghosts ran with her and, as the forest united, animal, tree and dryad alike, she felt increasingly calm. Even as she began slicing through rotten daemon flesh, Drycha’s fury and shame continued to ebb, replaced with an intoxicating sense of unity. She hacked and tore and felt a truth long denied her. There was no shame in this. This was meant to be. They were one. The Ancient One was wrong. They were not divided. The faces that surrounded her belonged to a single, eternal soul. Asrai became boar, boar became stag, stag became gnarled, deadwood husk, and all of them sang with the same voice. It was the voice of defiance. The voice of the forest.
Drycha let herself be carried by the Wild Hunt. All her doubts faded as Orion’s horn drove the forest smashing through its invaders. They crossed the plain in minutes and swarmed up the walls of the watchtower. Arrows flew out to greet them, followed by thrashing, glistening tentacles, but the forest would not be stopped. The deepwood host rolled on. Tearing through the watchtower like a swarm of locusts. Devouring its walls. Hurling its guardians to their deaths.
With a slow, subterranean groan, the watchtower slumped under the weight of the assault. Daemons and dryads toppled from its walls as it listed and started to fall.
Drycha leapt free and rushed on, entering the final approach to Alkhor’s garden as the tower collapsed behind her.
The gulley was packed with warring figures. Screams and war cries echoed strangely from fungus-clad walls and the air was crowded with fat, frenzied bluebottles. But Drycha’s army was so vast that it finally broke the deadlock, slicing deep into the ranks of daemons and carving a passage into the garden beyond. The rest of the Wild Hunt followed, powering through the gap and emptying the plain. The forest’s defenders charged through the gulley, howling victoriously as they reached the heart of their enemy’s realm.
Drycha was at the head of the army and, as she entered the circular garden, she finally paused. Even after all that she had seen, this was appalling. Bright pink lobes of fungus towered over her forming a huge amphitheatre, watered by hissing torrents of acid-yellow bile. At the centre of all this madness Drycha saw a whirling tower of flies and spores – the living shroud of a vast, bloated daemon.
Drycha sensed immediately that this was her prey and let out a howl of delight. This was the monstrosity she had allowed to live. This was the being she had buried beneath the Torr-Ildána all those centuries ago. Finally, she could right her most terrible wrong. To her delight, she saw that there were only a few hundred of the plaguebearers left between her host and the daemon.
She raised her fist and was about to launch the final attack when Liris hauled her round to face the other side of the stomach garden. Beside the column of flies was a sight that caused her head to pound. It was a hole in the air. Drycha stared in shock as the Wild Hunt juddered to a halt around her. The hole was trailing a long, crimson tongue of daemon warriors. These were not the lurching oafs t
hat had polluted the forest, but something far more deadly – precise, orderly ranks of blood-red monsters, marching to a slow, ominous drumbeat with murder in their eyes. Drycha was about to warn the others when a shadow washed over them and a hunting horn rang out.
Drycha looked up and saw a brief glimpse of Orion, then the charge began again. Driven on by their king, the guardians of the forest poured into the garden, smashing through the remaining plaguebearers and making for the architect of the horrors that surrounded them.
Drycha was knocked to the ground and felt hundreds of feet pounding over her. She could see nothing but mud until, with a groan of exertion, Liris dragged her to her feet and hauled her out of the way of the stampede.
‘Those things are killers,’ she gasped, staring at the red-skinned daemons.
Liris nodded and they both watched in horror as the daemons sliced into the flank of the forest’s defenders.
Upon reaching their enemy, the bright red daemons abandoned their orderly ranks and gave in to a frenzied orgy of slicing and stabbing, butchering whole swathes of dryads in seconds. The ecstasy of killing was written across their bestial faces and the pounding of their drums raced into one long, furious roll.
‘We must help!’ cried Liris, pointing at the crimson monsters. ‘We must stop them.’
‘No.’ Drycha pointed at the whirling column of flies. ‘That is my fault. That is the cause of all this. That is where we must strike.’
Liris’s limbs clattered in fear as she shook her head. ‘Too late.’
Drycha howled again as she saw that Liris was right. The red-skinned daemons had broken into dozens of separate columns, performing a bewildering series of manoeuvres, and they had already blocked the way across the garden. As she staggered towards them shaking her head, several more columns poured from the hole, carpeting the garden with scaled red muscle and flickering blades.
Drycha screamed the order to attack and the deepwood host spilled from the gulley.
The wardancers slowed as they neared the garden. Through the clouds of flies they saw that the dryads had finally halted.
‘Is it over?’ gasped Alhena, tilting her head back and peering through the haze.
Caorann noticed the disappointment in her voice and looked at her in disbelief. How much death would be enough to satisfy her?
She did not notice his surprise and kept staring into the distance. ‘What could have stopped such an army?’
‘We must have won,’ said Sibaris, his eyes gleaming. ‘Look around.’ He waved at the piles of dismembered daemons that lay all around them. With the forest united, the plaguebearers had not stood a chance.
‘I think not.’ Caorann shook his head and held up his hand to silence them, tilting his head to one side, indicating that they should listen. The stragglers of the Wild Hunt were still staggering past – those too exhausted or wounded to keep pace with the dryads – and for a moment, the wardancers could hear nothing but their panting and snorting.
Then, as the crowd thinned out, Alhena nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, as the dryads rushed on and the sound of clattering weapons drifted from the garden up ahead. She smiled at Sibiris, sliced her blades through the air and raced on, clearly excited. ‘We’re not done yet.’
Orion steered Tanos lower, sensing that something was wrong. He could see his goal at the centre of the garden – the mountainous bulk of the daemon was visible, even within the tornado of flies – but his army had faltered. This was not what he expected. What could hold up against the fury of the entire forest? As the dragon dropped through the fly-clouds, he had his answer – the attack dogs of the Blood God. The voices in his head cursed and railed as they beheld the crimson horde.
The brutal killers had already surrounded the Wild Hunt with a confusing array of bristling columns. As the spirits and beasts tried to break into the garden, the red daemons slashed into their flank and steered them towards a sunken pit, just to the east of the gulley. Orion’s heart pounded as he saw the danger. The hunt was nothing without the furious momentum that had carried it across the plain. Once his kin were trapped in the pit, there would be no escape. The daemons would butcher them.
He scoured the enemy troops for sign of a leader and saw the chariot and its hulking driver. It was still leading them on with low, snarled commands. He was about to steer the dragon down to the front lines and behead the army, when they let out a deafening roar. Several of them were looking back over their shoulders as they advanced.
Orion looked back towards the rift in reality and saw a flash of red hurtling towards him through the clouds.
The attack was sickeningly fast. Orion barely managed to roll aside as a huge, two-handed axe sliced down towards him.
The blade bit deep into the dragon’s back and it roared in pain.
Orion staggered to his feet and saw the full horror of his assailant.
Hovering over him, borne on a pair of massive, leathery wings, was a daemon the size of a full-grown oak. It was a hulking, muscled brute, with red, scaled flesh and a suit of hammered, brass armour. It had the head of a vicious hound, with a long, feral snout and a greasy, shaggy mane. Two enormous ram’s horns circled its brow and its blazing red eyes were fixed furiously on Orion.
Orion raised his spear, but before he could strike, the daemon pounded its wings and backed away, wrenching its massive axe free in a shower of dragon’s blood.
Tanos slumped beneath him and Orion saw that the dragon’s body had been cleft almost in two. There was a deep gash through the centre of its back and one of its wings was hanging limply at its side.
Orion staggered as the dragon rolled in pain, snorting blood and fumes; barely alive.
The daemon flew back for another attack, bellowing and lifting its axe high above its head.
Before the second blow could land, Orion launched himself through the air, leaving Tanos to tumble, lifeless, from the sky.
The axe sliced through thin air as Orion landed on the daemon’s armoured shoulder.
This close, he could feel an unholy heat, pulsing through its scarlet hide. The air around the daemon was cracking and curling, like bark shrivelling in a fire. The world could not contain such brutality. Orion did not have long to consider the dreadful nature of his foe. As the dog-headed brute turned to face him, Orion jammed his spear up through its massive jaw, shearing the blade up and out through the top of its skull.
The daemon howled and stiffened in pain, throwing back its head. Then it rallied and slammed the haft of its axe down into Orion’s chest, sending him flying into the clouds.
Orion kicked wildly as he fell, then cried out in surprise as his fall was broken and he found himself hanging in the sky.
‘We cannot kill it,’ said a voice in his ear. The tone was cold and full of pain, but Orion recognised it immediately.
‘Ariel,’ he gasped, turning to face his queen.
She was pale with grief and worry, but she managed to give him a faint smile as she nodded in reply.
Orion looked around and saw that he was cradled in drifting, spirals of cloud, formed into the shape of branches. He looked down and saw a glittering trunk of mist, descending hundreds of feet below him to the ground.
Remnants of the mist were still trailing around Ariel’s fingers and Orion realised that, yet again, she had saved his life.
He was about to thank her, when she pounded her tawny wings and looped away from him, seconds before the daemon’s axe plummeted through the clouds.
The monster hurtled past Orion, carried by the weight of its own strike, but it quickly whirled around to face him. The spear was still jammed through its jaw but, with a brutal roar, the daemon reached into its mouth and snapped the weapon in two. The head of the spear remained in place, sticking up from its forehead like a third horn, but the daemon seemed oblivious, pounding its wings and lifting its axe in both hands, preparing to hurl another blow at Orion.
Hatred and disgust rushed through the king and he
threw himself at the daemon for a second time. He was unarmed now, but he jammed his antlers into the daemon’s throat and wrenched them free, filling the air with fire, tendons and vocal cords.
The daemon arched its back in pain and Orion clambered up its serrated brass breastplate and pounded his fist into its wounded jaw.
The daemon’s head jolted back and, at that moment, Ariel flew from the clouds and lassoed its wings with a mesh of spectral vines.
The daemon roared, but the more violently it struggled, the more Ariel’s bonds tightened.
With a furious howl, the daemon fell through the flies and crows towards the battling armies below.
Ariel swooped down to rescue Orion, but the daemon lashed out with its axe and the flat of the blade smashed into her, sending her hurtling from sight.
Orion continued wrestling with the daemon as they both plummeted through the air.
The fly crawled blissfully across a plain of warm, glistening meat. There were weapons, limbs and faces scattered throughout the food, but the fly took no notice – crawling, devouring and vomiting in an endless cycle of gluttony. Her wings no longer worked. They had been broken. And there was a hole through her head that felt very strange. But the fly did not care. There was a lifetime of mindless consumption spread out before her. She dragged her abdomen on through the gore, belching and laughing as she ate.
Something jarred in her mind. Flies do not laugh. This brief moment of understanding was enough to ruin everything. It opened the door on countless other, disturbing thoughts. The fly sensed, to her dismay, that she could not indulge herself with such idle pleasures. She was heading somewhere – looking for something.
Along with memory came pain. As the fly saw glimpses of her past, she felt all the broken parts of her body, screaming out at once. The pain combined with horrible guilt as she became aware of the battle raging around her. She looked up from the corpses and saw her people dying. The deepwood host was being massacred by waves of red-skinned, brass-armoured daemons. She saw spearmen and archers, huddled against the spirits of ancient, noble trees and proud, feral beasts, and all of them were dying at the hands of the daemons. They had been forced into a sunken corner of the garden with no way to escape.
