Three members of the town Council had gathered in their meeting chamber before the Warriors found them. The officer in charge checked their names against a list, and ordered one of the Councillors to step forward. He did so, blinking uncertainly, and the officer calmly ordered his soldiers to shoot the man. The other two Councillors were still gaping disbelievingly as the Warriors’ bullets lifted the man off his feet and slammed him back against the wall behind him. He slid slowly to the floor, leaving a long bloody smear on the wall. The Warriors hustled the two remaining Councillors out of the chamber, and they went unresistingly, their eyes wide with shock. The officer gave instructions for the building to be torched, and his men laughed as they set the fires. They were doing the Lord’s work, and it felt fine, so fine.
But even as the invaders swept through the outskirts and on into the more complex inner circles of the town, the advance began to slow. Maps were useless. One road might become another as they were driving down it, or even reverse itself without them noticing. Time changed suddenly, without warning, from day to night and back again. The invaders had a list of strategic buildings and locations to occupy, but none of them were where they were supposed to be, as though the town itself was working to confuse them. They stopped people at random or dragged them out of houses, demanding directions, but even though the townspeople were too frightened to lie, it did the invaders little good. There were worlds within worlds inside the boundaries of Shadows Fall, and even the laws of nature were not constant. Boiling summer became freezing winter, and there were places where the engines of the tanks and transporters would no longer function, though there was nothing wrong with them. One group thought it saw another armed force coming to confront them, and opened fire, only to discover they were shelling their own rear. Other groups found themselves lost in jungles or open plains, or maddened by alien landscapes without sense or reason.
One platoon became separated from the main thrust of the advance and was soon hopelessly lost. They gathered round a signpost, hoping for useful clues, only to find the words on the signpost changed when they weren’t looking, or even when they were, giving useless or conflicting information. The Warriors cursed it, and it cursed them back. They riddled it with bullets, and it crashed to the ground. The sign read Oh I am dying. The soldiers converged on it, stamping and kicking and shouting. They sprayed the surrounding buildings with gunfire in their frustration, and laughed at the screams.
Any living thing that wasn’t clearly human was shot on sight. The Warrior officers had declared them demons, devils, unnatural beings whose very existence was a mockery of the Lord. The soldiers shot down unicorns and griffins, cartoon animals and childhood friends. Some tried to surrender, but the Warriors had no mercy for anything inhuman. The Underworld of the Subnatural fled, disappearing into secret hiding places and burrows, scattering as they ran so that the invaders couldn’t hope to find them all. But some couldn’t run fast enough, and others were tracked down and dragged kicking from their boltholes, to die from a bullet in the head or the battering of rifle butts. Pathetic little corpses lay in bloody heaps among the burning buildings, innocent eyes empty and unseeing.
The Warriors did finally manage to find the main train and bus station, and occupied it, to prevent further townspeople from escaping and to keep out any help that might be coming in. There was clear evidence that some people had already fled, but the soldiers looked uneasily at the strange names and destinations on the departures board, and would not go after them. The local television and radio station was the next to fall, and the Warriors began broadcasting instructions. Everyone was to remain calm and stay in their homes. Attempts to flee would be taken as a sign of guilt. All non-human life forms were to be handed over to the occupying forces for execution. The penalty for harbouring such creatures was death. The penalty for resistance was death. Television screens showed gutted buildings with shattered windows, burning freely. Bodies lay everywhere, the dead and the dying alike ignored by the Warriors as they pressed steadily, mercilessly inwards.
There was resistance, here and there, but it was scattered and isolated. The speed and surprise of the invasion had caught the town unprepared, for all its forebodings. The Warriors pressed remorselessly on, despite everything the town could do to slow or stop them, heading for the one crucial objective of the invasion; control of the Sarcophagus, and through it access to the Galleries of Frost and Bone. To Old Father Time, and the Forever Door. It took hours, and some said days, but eventually the leading force streamed into the park, and found itself faced with real resistance for the first time. From everywhere they came; a great swarming army of metal automatons, running gleaming from every direction to fall on the Warriors with silent fury. Blood sprayed from metal fists, but the expressions on the painted faces never wavered as they tore into the invaders, killing and maiming and crushing with cold, calculating efficiency.
The Warriors retreated, to give themselves a free field of fire, and then opened up with automatic weapons. The bullets ricocheted more often than they penetrated, but even so some automatons fell as gunfire smashed vulnerable joints or openings. The clockwork figures ignored their losses, pressing always forward, and step by step, foot by foot, the Warriors were driven back from their objective, until finally they were outside the park again. They regrouped as best they could, their military professionalism shattered for the moment by their losses and the inhuman unstoppability of their enemy, and as they hesitated a thick mist rose up, filling the park. The automatons fell back, one by one, disappearing silently into the fog. A strained quiet fell across the scene, and the Warriors slowly lowered their weapons. In a while they would fortify their position, and radio for reinforcements and more powerful weapons, but for the moment they just stood there, staring into the fog, feeling the first intimations of defeat shuddering through them.
—
Some parts of Shadows Fall are older than others. In one of the oldest, an ancient circle of standing stones greeted the dawn as it had for uncounted centuries, still and silent, waiting only to be woken and put to use. In that circle, a hundred men and women put aside their differences and came together to form a new circle within the old. Druids stood with Jews, Christians with Muslims, interspersed with followers of Wicca and the Golden Dawn. There was a time they would have argued hotly with each other, struck blows with fists or knives, but they had found a new union in the town’s need. The same inner voice had called them to the standing stones, to defend Shadows Fall against the Warriors. For after all; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or at least my ally.
They joined together, hand in hand, as the first light of dawn spilled across the stones, and an ancient music stirred within them, bursting forth in song. The magi sang, and power burned within them; the old, wild magic from the dawn of Time, before man discovered reason and science, and chose to stand aside from the natural order. It was a vast, capricious, whimsical magic, fierce and raging, but the magi drew on the long-established power of the stones and bent it to their will. They drew power from all the old sources, from the moon and the tides, the ley lines and the bustle of the hedgerow, from the light that burns in all the living world. The wild magic built within the circle of the magi, racing round and round in search of an outlet. The pressure built and built, screaming for release, but still the magi held it back. They tapped the barest fraction of it and sent their minds soaring out above the beleaguered town, to see how far the Warriors had advanced. They watched and they learned, and their hearts grew cold as stone.
The Warriors of the Cross streamed into Shadows Fall from all sides; long columns of tanks and trucks and marching men. Helicopters hovered overhead like angry insects, spying out the way ahead. The Warriors came in their thousands, howling through openings in the town’s defences that could only have been made from within. The soldiers of a jealous God fought their way inexorably inwards, heading for the heart of the town, burning and killing as they passed. The townspeople fled screaming before them, an
d devastation lay in their wake, and the cries of the dying.
The magi witnessed the butchery of the Subnatural and the destruction of the town, and could hold their rage back no longer. The wild magic leapt out, given shape and form by the cold fury of the magi, and fell upon the advancing Warriors. From that moment, the soldiers of the Lord were hexed. Machines broke down, motors stopped running, accidents happened. Men fell, and broke their legs. Petrol became water. Guns could not fire, or exploded in soldiers’ hands. And helicopters fell out of the sky like dying bees. The Warriors’ advance stumbled to a halt, all across the town.
But then the Warriors of the Cross revealed their hidden hand: a cache of sorcerer priests dedicated to their vision of the Lord, and fanatically devoted to the way of the Warriors. Their magic came from the dark places of the world and the darker places in their hearts, though they would never admit it. The end justified the means, they said, when they would speak of it at all; anything is justified if it is done in the name of the Lord. They raised their bitter magics and lashed out at the magi. Only the ancient power in the standing stones protected them, and their hex was broken in an instant. Motors roared and guns fired, and the advance began again. The magi steeled themselves, raised their voices in song, and sent out the wild magic again.
This time it roared through the natural world, and the weather turned against the Warriors. Storms blew up out of nowhere, and blinding rains fell from the skies. Snow and hail and ice froze the soldiers, and blazing suns boiled the blood in their veins. Thunder roared, shaking the world, and lightning stabbed down to shatter tanks and throw helicopters out of the sky like burning birds. But once again the sorcerer priests struck back, breaking the hold of the magi on the natural world, and the weather settled and grew still once more. The priests were strong in their fanaticism, and had the faith of their whole army to draw on. The magi had only themselves and the power of the stones, and they knew that wasn’t going to be enough. Especially now that the sorcerer priests had located them.
A platoon of soldiers split away from the main thrust of the invasion, and headed straight for the circle of stones. They were perhaps thirty minutes away, or even less. No time left for thought or planning; only desperation, and one last throw of the dice. The magi clasped each other’s hands tightly, and raised their voices in a new song. They called upon the walkers of the Low Road, the road taken by the spirits of the dead as they made their way unseen to Shadows Fall and the Forever Door, and their final rest. Most of the dead could or would not hear them, but the newly dead of Shadows Fall, murdered by the Warriors, stepped aside from their last journey to help protect their town one last time. They sank into the circle of stones, giving all they had left to give: themselves. New power thundered through the magi, coursing round and round as they sought frantically to harness and control it. The hold they finally managed was tentative at best, but for the moment it would serve. They gave it shape and form as geomancy; the magic of the earth and all that moved in it. They sang, their voices hoarse and strained but still true, and the earth heard.
The Warrior platoon was drawing closer. There was time only for one last spell. They could attack the main invasion force, or defend themselves, but not both. To their credit, the magi did not hesitate. They raised their song and called on something that lived deep within the earth; old and awful and magnificent in his power. The main advance stopped again as the Warriors felt his coming. The ground trembled beneath their feet, as though a tube train was barrelling through its tunnel far below. But the trembling grew stronger as something rose through the earth towards them; something huge and potent. The earth cracked open and great vents widened, through which could be seen the enormous white segments of Cromm Cruach, the great Wurm.
The magi watched the Wurm’s progress as tanks and jeeps and soldiers disappeared into great cracks in the earth. They watched as the Wurm burst up out of the ground, scattering tanks and troop transporters like toys. The earth swallowed up screaming soldiers, and shook endlessly with the Wurm’s rage. The Warriors opened fire on the great white segments as they appeared through the vents in the earth, but their guns did little damage. He was too big, too vast for their tiny weapons. A giant hole opened up beneath one platoon, swallowing men and vehicles alike, and then the two sides slammed together as Cromm Cruach closed his huge mouth, and the Warriors were gone, as though they had never been.
And still the Wurm raged on, his subterranean path undermining buildings on all sides. A house collapsed suddenly, as though all the strength had gone out of it. Cracks sprang up walls as more buildings shifted, falling slowly in on themselves as the Wurm swept on. Innocent people were crushed in the wreckage, and the air was full of the screaming of the trapped and injured. The magi watched with horror and changed their song, ordering Cromm Cruach back into the depths of the earth, but he fought them with slow, implacable power. For the first time in centuries he was free, and he would not willingly be bound again.
The magi didn’t have enough power left to compel him and they knew it. They also knew that the approaching Warrior platoon was almost upon them. They could not bind the Wurm, and they could not protect themselves now that they had been found, so they did the only thing they could. They allowed the Warriors to breach the circle of stones, and made no defence as the soldiers shot them all. They lay in silent, bloody heaps among the stones, but in the few instants left to them they drew upon the magic generated by their own deaths and used it to bind the Wurm and send him back into the depths of the earth. Some weapons are too powerful to use. The ground grew still and buildings settled, and people began to search among the rubble for survivors.
The Warriors urinated on the bodies of the magi, blew up the standing stones with explosives, and went on to the next objective.
—
Frank Morse, who had been to the town before as an assassin, now walked naked and unarmed through chaos and destruction, and none of it touched him. To every side of him his Warrior brothers shot down the fleeing scum and torched their diseased buildings, but even though the Godforsaken inhabitants sometimes found the desperation to fight back, Frank Morse took no harm at all. He strode happily at the front of the invasion force, singing the praises of the Lord and damning the unbelievers, and a warm glow filled his heart that he had proved worthy of God’s protection. Not that he’d ever really doubted it, of course. He was pure and exemplary, and steadfast in his persecution of the ungodly. He looked about him, taking in the smoke and flames of the burning buildings, and the screaming of the townspeople, and laughed out loud. God was in his Heaven, and finally all was right with the world, or soon would be. Soon the Warriors would seize control of the Forever Door from the unworthy, and then they would take their rightful place as rulers of this sinful world. The word of the Lord would be mercilessly enforced, and God help the guilty.
Some of his brother Warriors fell as the townspeople fought back, striking viciously at the soldiers of the Lord like cornered rats. Some of his brothers did not rise again, and Morse said a prayer for their souls. Only a short prayer, since obviously they were unworthy. If their faith had been as pure and holy as his, they would not have fallen to the unbelievers. And then he rounded a corner and all was quiet. He looked quickly about him, but the rest of the invasion force was nowhere to be seen. The street was empty, the buildings untouched by fire or destruction. He must have taken a wrong turning. He hurried back round the corner, but that street was deserted too. Somehow he’d become separated from his brothers, and he was naked and alone in the territory of the enemy. Morse felt a brief twinge of panic and ruthlessly fought it down. He was not alone. The Lord was with him and would protect him. Perhaps this was some kind of test…
He heard something moving down at the other end of the street, and looked quickly round. A small dark figure was moving slowly but steadily towards him. His hands twitched, reaching for guns he didn’t have. The figure stepped out of the shadows and into the light, and Morse’s heart jumped. He kn
ew the creature, and it knew him. The four-foot teddy bear with golden honey fur and dark knowing eyes came to a halt a dozen feet away. He was wearing his usual bright red tunic and trousers and a bright blue scarf, and carrying an automatic rifle. Bandoliers of ammunition crossed his chest, falling almost to his ankles. Morse had never heard of Bruin Bear. His parents had protected him from such trivial and fanciful material when he was a child. There had been no room for magic and imagination in his life, even then. But he remembered the Bear from the churchyard at All Souls. He remembered firing at it and being unable to hit it, and just when he thought he’d escaped up the rope ladder to the helicopter, the unnatural beast had grabbed his ankle in its filthy paw and crushed it. He still had the bruises.
“Demon,” said Morse. “I do not fear you. The Lord is with me.”
“I remember you too,” said Bruin Bear. “You shot my friend. You would have shot me too, if you could. But now I’ve got a gun and you haven’t. Any last words, assassin?”
“You cannot harm me. God will strike you down.”
“You shot my friend,” said the Bear, and for the first time a shiver of uncertainty went through Morse. There was something in the Bear’s voice, and in his eyes; something cold and implacable. Morse tried to smile. He couldn’t take this seriously, a teddy bear with a gun; but the rifle looked very real and very dangerous, and the more he thought about it, so did the Bear. He shuddered suddenly as a cold wind caressed him, and he tried to stand a little straighter so the demon wouldn’t think he was shivering out of fear. The Bear raised his gun and took aim, and for a long moment the two of them just stood there, looking at each other.
And then the Bear lowered his gun, looked at it, and sighed quietly. He knelt down and laid his rifle gently on the ground, took off his bandoliers of ammunition, and put them down beside it. He straightened up and looked steadily at Morse.
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