Horsemen of Old

by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

  ‘Myrkho. You truly wish to be an assassin?’

  ‘I want to help.’

  ‘There are other ways.’

  ‘I want to be able to fight.’

  ‘The assassin does not fight. He kills. Will you be able to do that?’

  Gray hesitated, only for a moment. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your body shall be abused in training, abused to the point of no return. There will be regimes torturous, and strict discipline.’

  ‘I’m willing to work hard.’

  ‘On the day your training is over, I shall ask you to kill a child, a mere boy or girl no more than three to five years of age. Will you perform the kill as the client demands, as the charge dictates?’

  Gray was finally silenced.

  ‘Being an alkhatamish is always more about breaking the mind, myrkho. The body becomes what the mind is taught to be. It is not the road for you.’

  ‘Then what is?’ Gray demanded. ‘I cannot fight; even that bloody shotgun does not deserve the likes of someone as useless as me! And the violin? I cannot practice without undead hordes marching to my call! How am I supposed to train? What am I even supposed to do in the Shadowlands?’

  Fayne did not reply.

  ‘Even you give up on me, eh?’ Gray muttered.

  ‘Life is perhaps too short for giving up on others,’ Fayne said.

  ‘Life,’ Gray repeated dully.

  ‘I have no sons,’ Fayne said. ‘The power to grant life is denied to the alkhatamish. I can only take it away.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I’m saying, myrkho, that I am a stranger to expectation. Yet, I somehow do not want to see you kill your own spirit.’

  ‘You’re strange, Fayne. You know that? I think I know how you are, what you are, and then, then you say something that completely surprises me.’

  Fayne did not say anything, and Gray wondered if the assassin was somehow, against his better judgment, slowly getting attached to Maya and him. They had journeyed together for so long now, and yet Gray could not completely look to Fayne as a friend. He knew Fayne would protect them, but that was his charge. The man hid behind his mask, and somewhere, Gray remained afraid of that. It was at times like these that he missed Adri. He knew the Tantric would have his answers, like always.

  His plea to Fayne had been quite desperate, and in a way he was glad Fayne had shot it down. He wanted to fight, but not as an assassin. He questioned the need behind every death too much to kill with the cold carelessness that was Fayne. Maybe he needed to rediscover the Sadhu’s Shotgun. It had a history. Perhaps it was time he paid his respects to it. And for the first time, Gray picked up the shotgun and started cleaning it.

  Time passed. Gray noticed the punishment the weapon had taken. It had been dropped, and dropped a hundred times over, from Jadavpur University to the Bishakto Jongol, dropped time and again, collecting scratches, bruises, marks. It was plain, unglamorous, but it had stayed by his side, and now he realised he must honour that. Gray took a cloth and wiped it down, slowly, carefully, bit by bit, and polished the wood until it shone. After a while, he realised Fayne was standing, watching him.

  ‘Care to have a go?’ Gray asked drily, holding up the cloth.

  ‘It is time for my spar with Ba’al,’ Fayne said.

  Gray got up, cloth and shotgun in hand. ‘I’ll watch.’

  ‘You have watched me fight before.’

  ‘Not with Ba’al.’

  When Maya reached the room she found it empty. She walked to the window and looked down at the courtyard.

  Fayne and Ba’al were fighting. She looked on at this incredible scene with tired eyes, her thoughts as heavy as her feet felt, surprised how casual it was to her, this fight about which she had been so worried. Ba’al wasn’t using magic, she noted dimly. The Demon Commander danced with swords, and Fayne matched each blow with his. It would have been a spectacular fight to witness, and there was a fair crowd of Demons, and Gray, she noted. Then Maya moved away.

  Fights and more fights, that was all there seemed to be. How on earth had it come to this? She remembered stories her grandmother used to tell her—the old, old woman who, after they got over their fear of her, told them tales of all kinds, tales from all corners. Somehow, even as a child, the stories seemed to have an element of fact in them, and it was that untraceable element, that wisp of light in darkest night, that made Gray and her believe the stories. Maya did not want to think about her parents, but her grandmother, she had been something different.

  There had been a night, a night when after listening to a particularly beautiful story about the sea monsters that dwelt in the green oceans, that something had happened. Maya struggled to remember what. The old woman had said something, she had seen something. It was vague, a ghost of a memory from a mind a few years old at best. Maya could not recall it—perhaps Gray would be able to, she must ask him sometime—but somehow, what had been said on that night with the undersea monsters and the green oceans, it seemed important, far more important than a measure of skill between an assassin and a Demon Mage.

  Maya felt lightheaded for a moment. There was too much information, too many thoughts. She realised the existence of a splitting headache. Sleep. She must sleep tonight. Tomorrow, all of them would start with their new companion, Zabrielle. As she lay down on her bed, Maya wondered how the Demon would turn out to be.

  Gray was cleaning the shotgun without looking at it. Every eye in the courtyard was on the fight, on the two opponents, matched evenly. Evenly without the use of magic, Gray couldn’t help thinking. He had a feeling the Demon Commander was holding back, toying with Fayne, even though both of them fought fiercely, with grunts and occasional shouts. He planned to bring this up later. Even though he knew it would annoy Fayne.

  Fayne struck, and struck again, his blades deflected by perfect strokes. He had been nicked several times, small cuts that did not matter. Ba’al had not let a single attack through yet, but even Fayne was holding back. He could not afford to kill Ba’al, and he knew it. This was play, a play with real dipping in and out, a play which might just end with a sudden swing and blood spilt, a streak of red.

  Ba’al was truly a dancer; he whirled and spun and fought fluid, without any defence play. He was the master of the parry, and his anticipations were flawless. A warrior’s intuition, Fayne realised. They fought on, with increasing speed, and the fight might have gone on well into the night, fuelled by incredible egos, if not for the incident.

  It started with a low rumble. The stones beneath their feet vibrated, and the fighters stopped immediately. The cries and the shouts of the Demon audience reduced in a moment into silence as everyone felt the stones move. Then a wind came from the east, a sudden gale that caught everybody off guard. The wind blew, strong, powerful, carrying a darkness within itself, enveloping everyone and everything, almost uprooting them. And in the midst of it all, Gray heard it.

  The roar.

  It was beneath the sound of the wind at first, and then it rose, an unmistakable roar of fury, white fury. A roar that woke Maya from her deep slumber. A promise of wrath. A roar high and deep, feasting on the ears forced to listen. A message delivered with unflinching accuracy. Gray covered his ears in terror, and Maya screamed aloud, and then it was gone, drowned in the howling, screaming wind, the wind which carried onwards, onwards to envelop the entire city of Old Kolkata for a few terrifying seconds.

  Then the sounds of the night returned. Gray looked at Fayne, and Fayne looked at Gray. Then they both turned to look at Ba’al.

  ‘Well,’ Ba’al said, with agonising slowness. ‘It seems the Horseman has discovered Adri Sen’s little deception.’

  3

  Ba’al stood watching the sun rise. The battlements of his fortress provided suitable elevation with a wide field of view; he could admire the event as it was meant to be. Though the sun did little to take away from the happenings of the night before, it helped Ba’al escape, if only for a few moments.


  He heard shuffling footsteps behind him. ‘You’re up early,’ he said without turning.

  Hermlock slowly walked up to Ba’al. ‘I wanted to see them leave.’

  ‘Ah yes, Zabrielle. You are sorry to see her go.’

  ‘I will miss her presence in the Septaranium, her books and her musings. Goodness knows the world has no time for poems and songs.’

  ‘The world has no time,’ Ba’al said.

  ‘Yet you dare to hope, my master.’

  ‘Mustn’t I? What is the point of war without hope?’

  ‘Hope is never enough for you. But hope and destiny—a dangerous combination.’

  Ba’al looked down at his hands, at the box he held between them. ‘Yes, Maya has power,’ he said.

  ‘Yet you leave her, merely pointing the finger at a path fraught with wolves? I would have thought you to train her, forge her into the weapon you see.’

  ‘That is the thing about destiny, Hermlock,’ Ba’al said. ‘I cannot possibly train her for greatness. If it is there in her, she will be the one to find it. Danger might just be the catalyst she needs.’

  ‘I fear for their safety, even with Zabrielle and the assassin with them.’

  Ba’al shook his head softly. ‘The alkhatamish is unstoppable. We fought, and he managed to tire me. Incredible.’

  ‘As always, you think too highly of yourself,’ Hermlock complained.

  ‘I do not remember the last time I got tired,’ Ba’al replied stubbornly.

  Hermlock turned around. ‘I see they are getting ready for the departure. I will say my goodbyes, with your permission.’

  Ba’al nodded, and the old man hobbled off.

  Maya looked at the creature before her. It was a horse, but it was missing eyes. Instead, metal plates rimmed its face, reminding her of Death’s undead steed. It stood, gently pawing the ground of the courtyard, ready for the journey ahead. There were three others of its kind behind it, different horses, but with the same metal plates blocking their vision. Maya felt a mix of pity and repulsion.

  ‘I’m not getting up on this,’ she told Hermlock as he approached her.

  ‘They are called Aathir,’ he replied.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘They come from across the River,’ Hermlock said. ‘They run fast as the wind, and when they can run no more, they scatter to the same winds.’

  ‘Scatter? Do you mean they—’

  ‘Disintegrate, yes.’

  ‘I’m not sitting on a suicidal horse,’ Maya said, backing off a little. ‘Why would anyone make them run and die? I’m going to walk.’

  ‘Oh, no one can make them run, dear girl,’ Hermlock said, smiling. ‘The Aathir are born out of summonings, out of the moment when a Demon enters our plane. And they are fiercely independent. You could whip one to death and it would still not move.’

  ‘They’ve . . . they’ve come on their own?’

  She turned to look at the Aathir once again. It was now looking at her, its helmet-like face alert and still.

  ‘It certainly seems so. Ba’al has stables where Aathir are cared for, but there are no stable doors,’ Hermlock said. ‘They are creatures of magic, and they respond to magic as they see fit.’

  ‘They want to die of their own will?’ Maya asked softly. Their journey was only beginning.

  ‘There is a saying about the Aathir,’ Hermlock said.

  ‘In pain they live

  Everyday

  Born by their own will

  Faraway

  Friends with the wind

  Led astray

  And when death calls

  Disobey.’

  Maya felt chills go down her spine. The moment Hermlock had started talking about them, the Aathir had stopped behaving like normal horses. Necks raised, all of them were looking at her and the old man. These creatures—the Aathir—could they understand what was being said?

  ‘Death is simply another state for them,’ Hermlock said. ‘Of course, they do not speak, but so say the legends.’

  ‘What the hell!’ Gray exclaimed, just having stepped out of the tower. Fayne, behind him, looked at the creatures silently. Maya’s look fell on the assassin’s new clothes.

  Fayne wore a light, black armour chest piece on his upper torso. It looked strong and hardy, with certain bits curving in and out of the surface. It did not catch the light in any way, having a fine matte finish. Other than that were the usual loose pants, new ones, jet black like the armour. The assassin saw Maya looking.

  ‘A gift from Ba’al,’ he grunted.

  ‘I got no gifts,’ Gray complained.

  ‘You accepted?’ Maya asked the assassin lightly, ignoring her brother.

  ‘The Demon had it forged for me, overnight. In honour of the spar,’ Fayne said. ‘And it has the slits I need to draw my blades.’

  Maya moved away from Hermlock, who was now stroking an Aathir’s neck. ‘Should we ride the Aathir?’ she asked the assassin.

  ‘It is a great honour,’ Fayne said. ‘Take a call, fatiya. We can walk it to the Frayed Gate, but it will take days.’

  ‘Days? How fast are these things?’

  ‘They are friends with the wind.’

  ‘Yes, I heard,’ Maya said grimly.

  ‘Better take a call fast, sis,’ Gray said, looking over Maya’s shoulder. ‘The Demon Commander’s here.’

  Ba’al was walking towards them, slowly, his eyes sharp yet thoughtful. In his clawed hands he held, gently, a wooden box and Maya wondered what it contained. Ba’al stopped a short distance away.

  ‘A journey which I am unable to undertake with you,’ he said. ‘A journey which almost ended me when I undertook it. A journey difficult. I do not let you go unprepared.’ He looked at Fayne. ‘You wear an armour forged out of Shaza-ghamm, alkhatamish. Shadow steel. It will protect you from sword and arrow, and will grant you a natural immunity in the Shadowlands. And if you are well, you may protect the others with your great skill.’

  Fayne gave Ba’al the slightest of nods.

  ‘We must finish our little spar sometime,’ Ba’al said.

  ‘We will meet again,’ Fayne replied.

  The Demon turned his attention to Maya. ‘Maya Ghosh, I ask you to come forth.’

  Maya stepped forward, and Ba’al opened the box. Inside, carefully placed within velvet casing, was something she recognised immediately. Sorcerer Gauntlets. Her heart leapt. But these were not silver like the other ones she had seen so far. Instead, like Fayne’s armour, the gauntlets were black, coal black, sitting quietly in the case, fit for display.

  ‘The gauntlets of Daan, the Whisperer,’ Ba’al said, his voice a bare hush.

  ‘Are these really the gauntlets of Daan?’ Maya asked, unable to believe what she was being told. Of course she had studied Daan, as she had studied Ba’al. A Demon Lord, a Demon Mage, one that went missing after the Battle of the Seven Angels, right from the Lake of Fire, right from under everyone’s noses, including, many argued, Ba’al’s. No time to recall the rest of her notes though. Ba’al was talking, and she must listen.

  ‘Let me put them on your hands,’ Ba’al said. ‘Observe the operation. I will only demonstrate once.’

  Maya nodded, new questions springing to mind.

  ‘Hold out your left hand.’

  Ba’al pulled on two sliding switches, and the top of the gauntlet slid open with a faint hiss. He took Maya’s hand and placed it into the gauntlet with surprising delicateness, telling her to fit her fingers into the grooves within. Maya’s fingers slipped into the glove-like chambers, and after the thumb was set, Ba’al slid the armour rings into place, one by one, like ribs curling around the hand, then turned on the lock knobs, and the main framework clicked into place. He individually turned all the lock rings on each finger, and finally pushed the projector in the palm inward, where it fit with another loud click.

  ‘Flex your fingers,’ he ordered.

  Maya did. Immediate response. The metal gauntlet felt like a gl
ove and nothing more. She inspected it closely, noticing every bit of the tiny machinery between the joints of each finger that allowed the gauntlet to twist and turn in every way that a normal hand could. The black colour, for a second, reminded her of Adri’s hand with Mazumder’s scales. She was quick to dismiss the thought. Now was not the time.

  ‘It feels responsive,’ Maya said. But no hidden power. No such feel.

  Ba’al nodded. ‘Wear the other one, and we shall see if you can manage.’

  Maya took the other one from the box, and with her gauntleted hand, operated the controls. It took her a while and some bit of struggling, but in the end, she managed. The gauntlets fit her hands perfectly, as if they had been made for her. Ba’al looked at her and nodded. However, a new thought hit Maya.

  ‘Why did Daan need gauntlets?’ she asked Ba’al. ‘He was a Demon, he didn’t need Sorcerer equipment.’

  ‘You have answered your own question, Maya Ghosh,’ Ba’al replied.

  Maya took a moment. ‘Daan wasn’t . . . he wasn’t a Demon?’

  ‘Daan is a Darkchild, born of Demon and man.’

  ‘A half breed,’ Fayne spoke.

  ‘He inherits gifts from both,’ Ba’al said.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Maya asked.

  ‘Daan is a master of stealth, a mage of the night. He has gone of his own will, and it has been years. I never looked. It is useless.’

  ‘But his gauntlets?’

  ‘Remember the Battle of the Seven Angels?’ Ba’al asked. ‘He left them here.’

  Maya felt foolish asking the question. Of course. One of the reasons the battle was famous was because of the Glass Hammer, the Angel weapon that fed on magic, rendering mages useless. The Demons had fought without magic that day. As had the Whisperer.

  ‘You believe in me,’ she told Ba’al, looking at her hands, softly clenching them into fists. Ba’al said nothing. ‘You give me something historical, something with a legacy . . . Thank you. I will do what I can.’

  ‘What you must,’ Ba’al said shortly, and turned to Gray, who was looking horribly expectant. ‘For you, human, I have something as well. A phrase.’