by Darius Hinks
‘What’s this, Alhena?’ she whispered, looking down into the nest of tentacles that passed for the daemon’s face. ‘Where have we come, my child?’
Down below, Ganglion was shoving the tallymen on across the rocky basin, his sword pointed at the black spire. As the other daemons lumbered slowly after him, the waves of arrows continued slamming into them. There were piles of fallen tallymen now, slumped over the rocks; not dead, but unable to rise because they were bristling with so many arrows. Meanwhile, the torrent of bile continued pooling around them, filling the pit with lurid, bubbling effluence as Bule hacked endlessly at the base of the tower, shaking its bell and filling the valley with a tuneless din.
Ordaana felt a rush of panic as she saw what was happening. ‘Whoever you are, you won’t take this from me.’ She climbed to her feet and held her hands aloft for a second time.
More roots exploded from the forest but, to Ordaana’s horror, she felt a whole host of magic-charged minds arrayed against her. They wrested control of the trees and hurled them back.
Ordaana groaned as a tide of rotten branches thundered through the air towards her.
She tried to turn and flee but there was no time. The branches smashed into her slender body and sent her tumbling back down the incline.
As she fell, twigs pierced her skin and lashed around her throat, causing her to cry out in pain. Her cries grew more desperate as the branches prised the little daemon from her arms and hurled it into the shadows.
‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Alhena!’ Panic threw her body into a violent fit and flames exploded from her flesh, incinerating her wooden bonds. By the time she thudded to a stop at the bottom of the slope, she was able to stagger free of the crackling remnants and lurch to her feet.
‘Alhena!’ she howled, lashing out with the silver knife and splitting the darkness apart with fire.
The brightness was enough for her to see that the monstrous tumult of branches had doubled in size.
‘My child!’ she cried, looking around and attempting to sprint back up the hill. Before she had taken a few steps, the forest swept her up and sent her tumbling back into the trees. As she rolled and bounced through the darkness, Ordaana felt a whole conclave of spellweavers watching her from the tower, bending their will against hers.
‘Who is this?’ she cried, hurtling backwards through the air. Then she slammed into a tree and lost consciousness.
She woke a few seconds later, with twigs clawing at her face.
The enchantment was more powerful than anything she had faced before. Leaves and moss enveloped her, spinning her around like a fly ensnared by a spider.
‘Alhena!’ she wailed again and more flames erupted from her body. Her bonds collapsed for a second time and she thudded onto the grass. Air exploded from her lungs. She lurched back onto her feet, clutching her blackened chest and scouring the shadows for a glimpse of her daemon ward.
There was no sign of the creature and when she looked back down into the pit she saw that the situation was even worse.
Bule had punched a hole in the rock and asrai were pouring from the tower: lithe, armour-clad spearmen, their stern, implacable faces gleaming in the moonlight.
They reached the floundering daemons and sliced into them, retaining their imperious expressions as they jammed spears into the monsters’ diseased bodies.
Rather than parrying the blows, the tallymen welcomed the attacks – opening their arms to the enemy and even pulling the spears deeper into their own bodies.
Ordaana watched in disbelief as the tallymen slumped against the spearmen, making no effort to fight back.
Then she remembered her purpose and looked back up the incline. ‘Alhena!’ she cried ‘Where are you?’
The smouldering wreckage of branches lay all around her, lighting up the hillside with a repugnant green glow, but there was no sign of the squid-like being she had carved from Alkhor’s innards.
Ordaana clambered back up the hillside, peering into the darkness, but was unable to find the little daemon. A few minutes later she reached the top of the incline and saw that the tallymen were gathering around the base of the tower.
She gasped, looking back to where the river was pouring into the pit.
To her relief, she saw the asrai spearmen, heaped in mounds where the tallymen had left them. They had sustained no wounds, but their corpses were contorted beyond all recognition. Some of them were already lumbering back into life, with single, unblinking eyes.
‘Black plague,’ she said, recalling the pus that oozed from Alkhor’s blighted offspring. ‘Of course.’ She realised then why Ganglion and the others had made no attempt to defend themselves. All they had to do was bring the spearmen close enough for their contagions to take hold.
Ordaana flinched as another arrow sliced through the air, just inches from her face. She crouched low and shook her head. Alkhor’s plaguebearers had reached the tower, but there was no way for them to gain entry. The hole made by Bule was only a couple of feet wide and, as the daemons shuffled blithely around it, arrows flew out, slamming into their misshapen bodies. One-by-one they were being paralysed, tumbling in front of the hole and blocking the entryway as Bule pounded at another craggy buttress, seeming to have forgotten about the battle.
Ordaana’s fear was not for the daemons.
‘What have you done with my child?’ she snarled, glaring at the shadowy column. The tower glared back and Ordaana saw the mass of branches and roots tumble back across the rocky basin, before disappearing beneath the foot of the tower.
‘Alhena,’ she gasped, scrambling down into the treeless gulley. She clutched her knife tighter as she ran, filled with panic. ‘My child!’ she cried, scouring the shadows.
Blistered hands reached up to her as she sprinted across the floor of the valley. The asrai who were still able to see begged her for help, their voices thick with blood and phlegm. She batted their hands away, keeping her gaze locked on the black tower.
The tallymen were still thrashing uselessly against the unyielding foundations, unable to wade through the bodies and reach the hole made by Bule. They had grasped the rock with their pallid fingers, trying to weaken it with disease, but the basalt did not rot as easily as flesh. Arrows continued slamming into their grotesque bodies, but Ordaana no longer cared. She barged through them and grasped the rock, sure there must be an entrance somewhere in the base of the tower.
She charged through the tumult, attempting to find an entrance, but there was none.
Undeterred, she cast her mind into the darkness, seeking currents of magic to harness. The air was alive with sorcery. It was pouring from the forest and flooding through the walls of the tower.
‘What are you doing?’ she muttered, addressing the minds pitted against her. Vast waves of power were soaking through the walls. She could see the air rippling and bending under the weight of it. Whoever was defending the tower was blessed with more skill than sense. No structure could withhold such energy and remain standing.
‘Pull back,’ she muttered, but her words were lost beneath the noise of the tallymen.
Ordaana backed away from the tower, shaking her head. As she walked, her robes lashed around her, caught in the tempest of power whipping through the valley. ‘My child,’ she muttered, sure that the trees had dragged the little daemon inside the keep.
She thought desperately for a way to gain entry, but there was now so much magic rippling across the black stone that it was almost impossible to look at it.
She was about to call out a command when the darkness vanished. The whole valley blazed white. Then the gloom returned, accompanied by screams and the screech of splitting rock.
The ground shuddered and Ordaana dropped heavily to her knees.
For a moment she could see nothing but the after-image of the explosion, then, as her eyes recovered, she saw that a new, much larger
hole had appeared in the side of the tower.
The ground was littered with body parts, both daemon and asrai, and a cloud of smoke and dust was billowing around the hole in the tower.
Ordaana’s ears filled with a screaming sound. At first she thought it was the sound of the tallymen, calling for help, but then she realised the sound was in her head.
‘Alhena!’ she gasped, recalling her ward. She sprinted back towards the tower, bounding over the crowds of bodies thrown by the blast.
The wall of the tower was several feet thick, but it had collapsed like rotten wood.
As she staggered through the wreckage, Ordaana saw the remains of a grand chamber, and arrayed against the far wall were the asrai who had pitted themselves against her. There were three of them, slumped in enormous thrones of knotted birchwood. They were dressed in long, black robes and furs and their heads were crowned with circlets of hawthorn. It was clear from their intricately tattooed faces that they were highborn but, as Ordaana approached them, she saw there was no need to bow.
All three of them were dead.
Their heads had been thrown back by the force of the blast and there were thick lines of blood rushing from their nostrils. Their eyes had rolled back in their sockets and their wooden staves lay at their feet.
The chamber was full of spearmen. Dozens of them had been slain by the explosion that killed their masters, but many were still alive and, at the sight of Ordaana, they lurched to their feet, hurrying towards her through the rubble.
Ordaana could easily have defended herself. The air was humming with untrammelled magic and she would have no problems turning it to her will. Her thoughts were not on the spearmen, however.
At the foot of the steps that led to the three wooden thrones was a pile of severed roots and broken branches, and nestling in the middle of it was a mound of white flesh.
‘Alhena,’ gasped Ordaana. Her mouth fell open as she realised her progeny was the centre of the storm. The power hurtling through the valley was emanating from its nest of tentacles.
One of the spearmen was about to reach Ordaana when the daemon glanced up from the floor. The nest of tentacles that made up its face was still pulsing with the light that had destroyed the wall.
The daemon’s gaze hit the spearmen like a hammer blow.
His head snapped back and his neck cracked.
He collapsed to the floor with a whistling sound.
As he lay on the ground, struggling to breathe through his ruined neck, the other spearmen stumbled to a halt, staring at the daemon in disbelief.
Ordaana saw her chance and reached her mind out to the pile of roots and branches.
Before the spearmen could defend themselves, she hurled the tree wreckage at them.
Screams rang out as roots and branches formed into rough-edged blades and tore into chests and limbs.
The spearmen staggered back, trying to fend off Ordaana’s attack, but as they neared the crumbling hole they came face-to-face with Bule, clambering over the fallen stones with its mouth hanging slack and an enormous iron sword in its fist.
The asrai fought desperately but it was hopeless. Bule was followed by countless smaller tallymen and, in a few minutes, the last of the asrai were either wrapped in bristling boughs or crippled by disease.
Ordaana left the tallymen to finish them off and hurried to the nest of tentacles. ‘My child,’ she sobbed, staring at the daemon in shock. It had tripled in size.
‘Did you do this?’ She looked around, taking in the dead spellweavers in their thrones and the wreckage that littered the hall. Her voice trembled with pride. ‘Did you summon all this power?’
The daemon adopted an oddly coy pose, as though embarrassed, then it reached out to her, entwining one of its tentacles around her arm.
As Ordaana shook her head in wonder, the daemon focused dozens of eyes on her face. They stared at each other, lost in their love.
‘I can barely recognise you,’ Ordaana whispered, stroking the rubbery flesh that had knotted around her arm.
Once the killing was over, the tallymen drew out their mildewed ledgers and counting tools. As the asrai gasped their last breaths, the tallymen crouched beside them, picking cheerfully at the scabs erupting all over their bodies.
Bule began punching the walls from the inside, causing the whole chamber to tremble.
Ordaana tore her gaze away from the daemon and noticed something on one of the dead sorcerers. She climbed the steps up to the thrones, still grasping one of the daemon’s tentacles, and approached the corpse in the centre.
The tallymen had yet to cross the chamber and the spellweavers were still free of the plague. Their skulls had been smashed when their heads jolted back against their thrones, but their bodies were intact, and their robes had yet to rot.
Ordaana stepped closer to the corpse and snapped a necklace of wooden beads from around its neck. There was an intricately carved oak disc attached to it and, as she held it up into the light, the smile fell from Ordaana’s face. It was a beautifully rendered cameo of a stern-faced noble.
Ordaana paled.
There was a wet slapping sound as Ganglion climbed the steps to her side. The tallyman saw how grey her face was and frowned. ‘Proctor?’
Ordaana looked at the cameo and let out a strained laugh. ‘Your Plaguefather might have chosen the wrong route for his river.’
Ganglion stared at her with a vacant expression in its single, lidded eye. ‘No, Proctor. The Plaguelord’s stomach is perfect. The bile passes this way.’
Ordaana held out the cameo so that Ganglion could see the face. ‘Have you heard of Prince Elatior?’ She looked for recognition in the daemon’s face, but there was none. ‘They call him the Enchanter,’ she explained.
Ganglion’s expression remained blank.
‘This is the eastern gate of the Silvam Dale.’ She looked at the corpses in the thrones. Ganglion was standing several feet away from them, but their flesh was already beginning to bubble and blister. ‘This must be the Ravenstone. Alkhor is driving his river into a nest of witches.’ She pointed to the butchered remains of tallymen, piled outside the tower. ‘This is just a gatehouse. Do you understand?’ She nodded at the quickly mutating bodies in the thrones. ‘These are the least of Elatior’s servants. The least of them.’
She struggled to hold back laughter. ‘We’ve murdered the lords of the Ravenstone.’
‘Surely my own queen doesn’t doubt me?’ said a wet, gurgling voice.
Ordaana whirled around, recognising Alkhor’s mocking tones.
At first she could not work out where it was coming from, then she noticed that one of the black-robed corpses had climbed from its throne. Its head was hanging oddly to one side, due to its broken neck, so as it addressed Ordaana it was unable to face her, looking instead at the distant ceiling of the chamber.
‘Do you think I am no match for this Elatior you speak so highly of?’ The corpse stepped down from the throne towards her, swaying drunkenly as it walked.
Ganglion and the other tallymen stopped counting, dropped to their knees and pressed their faces to the floor. Even Bule stopped its endless pummelling and knelt, filling the chamber with another clang as it did so.
The squid-like mass in the centre of the chamber hauled itself towards the corpse and caressed it with dozens of limbs, muffling its words.
‘I told you we might encounter the odd naysayer.’ The corpse began giggling as its daemon child wrapped countless limbs around it. ‘But when they see how glorious and varied my garden is, they will understand why the odd sacrifice had to be made.’
Ordaana shook her head. ‘Elatior has significant power at his command.’ She glared at the rows of kneeling tallymen. ‘And you have given me an army of dunces. Elatior is ancient and wise. He will not allow you to send your corruption across his borders.’ She shook her he
ad. ‘His seers will have foreseen your every move and he will have prepared a defence. I have known him since I was a child. Believe me, if you march into his realm he will be ready for you. He will have a plan.’
The corpse shook with laughter and its head flopped forwards onto its chest, sending it off balance. It was about to stumble down the steps when the tentacles wrapped around its legs held it upright.
‘I’m sure he will have a plan,’ chuckled the corpse. ‘If only I had some kind of friend who could take him into her confidence so that he shared his plan with her. Then I could know what he was thinking and our garden could continue to blossom.’
Ordaana shook her head in disbelief. ‘You think I could appear before him now? Look at me!’ She dropped to her knees and stared at her reflection in a pool of blood. She expected to see a monster – something as grotesque as the horrors that surrounded her. But, to her surprise, she saw the same sharp, angular features and disdainful eyes. She still looked the image of a refined, asrai noble.
‘You look beautiful, my queen,’ said the corpse, shambling across the chamber and flopping a lifeless hand on her shoulder. ‘Your husband will be delighted to see you.’
‘Beldeas?’ She spat the word as she climbed to her feet. ‘You’re sending me to him?’
‘Your people are afraid of change, Ordaana. I am filling their world with colour but they can only think in green. They have fled to the Enchanter, thinking he can keep the world as it was.’ The corpse shook with laughter again and held its hand in the air. The fingers were teeming with mites and bubbling with disease. ‘Nothing ever remains as it was. Isn’t that a beautiful thought? Everything passes. Everything changes. Everything is fleeting, Ordaana; everything.’
‘Beldeas is in the Silvam Dale?’
‘Yes, along with your subjects – those that survived the battle of Drúne Fell.’
Ordaana looked around at the ranks of kneeling tallymen. Disease was pouring from their rotten flesh, eating into wood and bone and filling the air with a cloying stink.
