by Darius Hinks
A clicking, ridged face loomed out of the darkness, its eyes rolling with pain. At the sight of Finavar it lurched forwards, extending a branch-like limb.
He dodged out of reach and ran on, vaulting another howling shape.
As he reached the foot of the wall he glimpsed his goal – a glimmer of curved steel. ‘Tear it down,’ he muttered under his breath. He felt as though he would be happy to die right now if he could just stop the screams. ‘Tear it all down.’
He crawled through the twisted branches and reached for the sword but, just as his fingers were about to latch onto it, the branches wrapped around him, sinking thorns and twigs into his skin.
‘I’m going to free you!’ he cried, but the spirits were too lost in pain to understand.
Finavar struggled to free himself, but the branches wrapped around his neck, crushing his vocal cords and silencing his cries.
The mass of talons and bark crushed him to the ground, just inches from his prize and Finavar felt the air explode from his lungs as they circled his chest.
Rage filled him and he tried to shake himself free, but it was no use.
Then he noticed that the strands of vine around his legs were snapping free, as though cut with a knife.
He managed to stand and force all his weight against his captors, leaning towards the sword.
More strands snapped free and then some of the branches holding him broke away too. He glimpsed a pair of fleet, serpentine shapes, weaving through the dark and, as the cords around his neck came free, he let out a bark of laughter, recognising his saviours.
There was a crashing sound, like waves breaking against rocks. The wall quivered, the screaming grew louder and another dark mass bore down on Finavar, thrashing in pain and fear.
With his chance about to slip away from him, Finavar hurled himself forwards into the shifting branches.
Needles of pain exploded across his face as he crashed against the spirits and animals but, to his delight, he felt his hands lock around the hilt of the sword.
More vines shot up to greet him, lashing around his face and neck but, before they could drag him down again, he wrenched the blade free.
The screaming stopped.
For a moment, the vines and branches continued crushing against Finavar’s skin, then they froze, sensing a change.
There was deep, rumbling, splintering sound as the wall disintegrated.
Spirits and animals, bound to their pain for so long suddenly exploded into movement, tearing up the ground as they fled from the acid that had been devouring them.
Finavar fell onto his back, still clutching the sword in both hands as the world collapsed around him.
For a moment he simply lay there, showered in snapping branches and enjoying the absence of screaming. Then he noticed that a circle of shadows was forming in the darkness around him.
He leapt to his feet and raised his sword.
The shapes edged closer and he saw a baffling collection of forest spirits – towering, bark-clad goliaths, with gaping jaws and blazing emerald eyes. They whispered a strange, rustling song as they moved closer and the sound was filled with rage.
Fury poured from their splintered mouths.
‘Wait,’ gasped Finavar, keeping the blade held before him. ‘I was not party to this. I did not bind you to this–’
Finavar’s words froze in his mouth as he realised that the spirits were nodding whatever passed for their heads and performing a strange kind of wordless bow.
They stood in mute genuflection, then one of them broke ranks, popping and clicking towards him.
Finavar saw that it was a peculiar marriage of bark and feather. The spirit was like a hunched powerful giant, clad in the paper-like bark of a birch tree, but its back sported enormous swan wings and its wooden face had a beaked, avian quality to it.
The strange-looking thing extended one of its limbs and unfurled a nest of long, wooden claws.
As Finavar looked into its eyes, he felt suddenly calm.
The spirit placed one of the claws on his chest but Finavar felt no fear.
Even when it dragged the claw downwards, drawing a thin line of blood from his skin he did not flinch, seeing nothing but respect in the spirit’s alien eyes.
Then they turned and raced away from him, joining the bristling stampede that was charging away from the yellow river.
Finavar stood motionless, his sword still raised, watching them with mute wonder. He was incredibly moved – sensing that he had just come close to something more wild and strange than anything he had seen in Orion’s hunt.
Then he saw the result of his work – a wall of yellow acid, tumbling across the remnants of the dam and rolling towards him.
He looked around, scouring the broken branches at his feet. ‘Mormo? Mauro?’
There was no sign of his guides so he turned and fled, sprinting back across the valley with corruption pouring in his wake.
Soon he began to encounter stragglers from the main retreat – asrai that were too weak, or too injured to travel as lightly as the others. He helped those he passed but did not pause. With the screaming finally gone, his mind was his own once more; he had rid himself of a kind of mania and could now focus on his true purpose – surviving long enough to avenge Jokleel.
The elation he had felt at freeing the spirits faded as he recalled his brother, but then, as his mind slipped back into melancholy, a new sound filled the valley – a whirring, beating hum that rushed overhead.
Finavar and his fellow runners glanced up. The clouds were low and thick, allowing no trace of moonlight, but Finavar could sense shapes moving through the blackness.
The air shivered as the enemy bore down on them.
Finavar picked up his pace, thanking the gods that some of his strength had returned.
A chorus of screams exploded to his left.
Finavar stumbled to a halt and raced to investigate.
There was a snarling sound and the unmistakable voices of asrai, crying out for help.
Finavar rushed back and forth in the dark, trying to locate his fallen kin, but the cries seemed to come from several directions at once.
The whirring grew louder.
Finavar shook his head and turned to a young archer at his side. ‘It’s no use,’ he said. As he spoke he realised that they were alone. ‘We’re lagging behind!’ He grabbed the archer by the shoulder and was about to start running when a flash of light blinded them both.
They reeled backwards, shielding their eyes and, after a few seconds, Finavar managed to make out the source – a dazzling sphere of emerald roots. Standing beside the inferno was a tall, hawk-nosed figure, gesticulating wildly.
‘Mälloch,’ gasped Finavar, lurching towards him.
As he neared Mälloch, Finavar saw that the spellweaver’s skin was blazing with the same light as the roots, pulsing in time to his spasmodic movements. As Mälloch worked his spell, the sphere grew smaller, wrapping itself around a shape trapped at its core.
Finavar grimaced as he saw Mälloch’s catch. It was one of the enormous flying grubs. As the net of roots and light tightened, the daemonic creature jabbed wildly with its barbed tail, trying to break free.
As the light flashed, it revealed bodies scattered across the earth. One of them was still moving so Finavar rushed to help. As he neared the prone figure he saw that it was a rider from the north, wearing leather armour and a helmet topped with a horse’s mane. The rider was rolling from side to side, clutching his stomach and moaning in pain.
As Mälloch battled with the daemon, Finavar dropped to his knees beside the fallen rider and grabbed his shoulder, trying to calm him.
‘Let me carry you,’ he said.
The rider flinched at his touch, then turned to face him. ‘The daemon,’ he groaned. His eyes were rolling with panic and his face
was glistening with sweat, despite the cold. ‘My stomach.’
Finavar saw that there was blood spilling from between the rider’s fingers, spreading out across his jerkin.
Another shape whirred overhead, so close that Finavar could smell the greasy musk of its flesh. ‘There’s no time to treat you,’ he said, placing his arm under the rider and preparing to lift him. ‘We must catch up with the others.’
The rider nodded, fixing his eyes on Finavar’s. ‘I think I can stand.’
As the rider climbed to his feet, the being caught in Mälloch’s net broke free and hurtled at its captor.
Finavar dropped the rider, lifted his bow from his back and loosed an arrow, all in one fluid movement.
Even in the dark, his aim was perfect.
The arrow sank deep into the daemon’s eye and caused it to miss Mälloch by several feet.
The spellweaver stepped back, raised his arms and hauled another blazing cage from the ground, enveloping the monster again.
A groan of pain reminded Finavar of the fallen rider and he stooped to lift him.
The rider turned to face him and, as he stood, Finavar saw that his eyes had clouded over, turning a sightless milky blue, like the eyes of a corpse.
‘My stomach,’ muttered the rider and his words sounded muffled, as though his mouth were full of food.
Finavar looked at the wound again and gasped in disgust.
What he had taken for blood leaking through the rider’s fingers, was actually something far more disturbing – writhing, crimson tentacles that were crawling from the wound, wrapping themselves around the rider’s torso and reaching out to entangle Finavar. To his horror, he realised that each of them ended in an open, tooth-lined mouth.
Finavar let go of the rider and backed away, drawing another arrow and levelling it at the shapes tumbling from his guts.
The rider hissed furiously as he hit the ground, but he was only down for a moment. Dozens of the bloody shapes poured from his belly and they fanned out around his legs like a glistening skirt of meat, lifting the rider back onto his feet.
Finavar forgot to shoot as he watched the transformation that was overtaking the rider’s body. As the tentacles burst through his skin, his head began to swell and ripple. In a few seconds it had doubled in size and changed from an unhealthy pallor to a dark crimson hue.
Finavar gagged as a rotten smell filled the air.
The rider’s skull cracked into a new shape, popping his eyes and spewing optical fluid down his cheeks. He was only sightless for a brief moment. As his head continued to change, a single yellow eye blinked into view, right in the centre of his forehead, followed quickly by a coiled tusk that sprouted, shoot-like from the top of his head.
‘Kill it,’ whispered a shocked voice at his side.
Finavar turned and saw the young archer who had originally accompanied him.
Before he could answer, the archer sent an arrow whistling past his ear.
The shot was true, slamming straight into the chest of the shuddering rider.
The rider opened his mouth wide to laugh and revealed why his words had sounded muffled – his mouth was swarming with pulpy, writhing maggots. They tumbled from his mouth as the skirt of tentacles hurled him forwards, acting like spider’s legs.
Mälloch’s magic suddenly failed, plunging them all into darkness.
Finavar loosed his arrow into the night, without any idea of whether he had hit anything. Then he felt movement near his face and rolled away to the left, tumbling over the frozen earth before leaping to his feet and sprinting away into the dark.
After a few seconds he stopped and whirled around nocking another arrow to his bow, pointing it back the way he had come.
Screams rang out from every direction and the air was alive with movement.
There was a flash of light and he glimpsed a tall figure, perhaps Mälloch, wrestling with an indeterminate shape. Then the light failed again.
Finavar began heading back towards where he had seen the noble but, before he had taken a few steps, he felt something washing against his feet.
He dropped into a crouch and saw that thick, viscous liquid was spilling across the rocks.
He gasped in pain as it washed over his toes, causing his skin to blister and burn.
He stepped backwards but the liquid followed, rising up to his ankles.
I cannot die, he thought – not with my brother unavenged.
His bones throbbed painfully as he turned and fled, sprinting from the valley, deaf to the cries that rang out around him.
Then the light flashed again, somewhere to his left.
He stumbled to a halt and saw Mälloch quite clearly, dragging another daemon to the ground with his magic.
Finavar hesitated. Visions of the rider filled his head, but, try as he might, he could not leave Mälloch to his fate. He changed direction again and raced towards the light, drawing another arrow as he did so.
Soon he was running through the hissing, yellow acid, and he felt it eating into his skin. He ignored the pain and locked his gaze on Mälloch. As he approached, he saw other figures, picked out of the darkness by Mälloch’s sorcery. There were half a dozen asrai surrounding their lord, loosing arrows at the shape caught in his net.
Mälloch looked exhausted and the light was failing as Finavar reached him.
The daemon began to struggle free from its bonds.
The thing was huge and vaguely resembled an armoured fly, covered in blisters and scales.
Finavar did not slow down as he approached, sensing intuitively what was about to happen. Time crawled as the scene played out before him.
Mälloch gasped in pain and collapsed backwards, letting the last strands of his magic slip from his fingers.
In the dying light, Finavar saw the daemon lurch forwards and beat its tattered wings.
Finavar drew his sword and leapt at the daemon, carried along by the momentum of his charge.
He rolled as he jumped and brought his blade down in a fierce, two-handed slash.
The sword passed cleanly through the daemon’s abdomen, near to the bottom of its head.
The head came free in a spray of toxic gore.
Finavar landed on the far side of the daemon and rolled clear, just before it slammed onto the ground.
The headless daemon began to rise, but before it could do so, the other asrai, led by Mälloch, attacked. The thing was blind and disorientated, and they hacked it apart in seconds, taking care not to step too close.
The final blow was delivered by Mälloch himself. His blade, the twin of Finavar’s, pulsed with cold fire as he sliced the daemon in two.
Finavar climbed to his feet and jogged back towards the fight. To his amazement, he saw that the lumps of blubber were crawling towards each other, and merging back into a single mass.
Before they could reassemble, Mälloch dropped into a crouch, closed his eyes, placed one of his palms on the ground and muttered a prayer.
Then he stood and backed away, waving at Finavar and the others to do the same.
As they moved back the earth opened up, cracking into a series of deep fissures that swallowed the lumps of daemon before they could join together.
As soon as the fragments had vanished from view the fissures slammed shut again.
Mälloch nodded once, then collapsed.
Finavar joined the others in rushing to his side.
The noble’s eyes were closed and his face was deathly pale. Finavar noticed that the strange glimmer had almost vanished from his flesh.
‘You saved his life,’ said a trembling voice.
Finavar looked up to see that one of the other asrai hunched over Mälloch was Sibaris. The youth was staring at him.
‘This is him,’ said Sibaris, raising his voice and turning to the other asrai. ‘
The Darkling Prince.’
There was a chorus of indrawn breaths and Finavar shook his head in disbelief.
‘I’ve saved nobody yet.’ He waved at the acid that was pooling in the hollows all around them. ‘We have to move.’
Sibaris nodded eagerly, obviously delighted to be taking orders from his hero. The others did the same and, between them, they lifted Mälloch from the ground.
Then they stood and stared at Finavar, waiting for him to speak.
‘Move!’ he yelled, shoving them away from the oncoming tide. ‘Take him to the Silvam Dale!’
They leapt to obey and Finavar jogged after them, glancing from left to right as he ran, wondering how they would face another daemon without Mälloch’s magic.
Chapter Fifteen
Only the ghosts remained. One by one Orion’s senses failed him, leaving only his voluble past. There was nothing else to hear, nothing to see – nothing to smell even; just his forebears, telling him the glorious tales of their lives – singing to him as they led him through the darkness. They surrounded him and sustained him, noble and determined, ablaze with the heat of their divinity.
As they travelled together, Orion realised that his former selves were no longer just words. Their songs drew powerful images in his mind – straight-backed giants, with broad, angular muscles and tall, knotted antlers. He slowed his pace, ashamed to be in their presence. What right did he have to walk among such proud kings? Their tales were epic and profound. Each of them had drawn the forest deeper into wildness. Each of them had bound their subjects tighter to Ariel’s rule. While his own tale was a tragedy at best.
Orion stumbled to a halt and looked down at his hooves. He saw that, as on the day of his birth, he was stepping through the heavens. Below him there were only stars.
‘I have failed,’ he said, opening his hands and staring at his broad, scarred palms.
The voices fell silent and he looked up. The other Orions were no longer walking ahead, but gathered around him in a circle. Their faces were both brutal and serene. Each of them was distinct, carved in the shape of the noble who had spawned their flesh, but they were clearly one. They stepped closer with a single, silent movement and Orion cowered under their gaze, until he realised there was no judgement in their eyes, only determination.
