by Tom Lloyd
She tilted her head to the side and gave him a small smile. ‘Oh please.’
She fired. The arrow soared through the air, disappearing from sight just as the deepgod’s head appeared in view. It saw the arrow flying and reached out to try and swat it from the air, but a moment later it struck. A bright ball of lightning exploded near the base of the pillar. That immediately expanded as the sparker Estal had left was ignited too. From there Lynx heard a cascade of sounds, booms and crackles as whatever else Estal had packed into the narrow shaft exploded. It all happened in no more than two seconds, crack after crack followed by one final shuddering crash.
The deepgod saw the explosions and was moving before the mage-sphere had even blown. Chunks were blasted out of the pillar and brittle sheets of rock cascaded from the far side, weakened by Atieno’s magic. But the deepgod was already past it.
Slowly – oh so slowly – pieces fell away and the rock began to fall. Dirt showered down as boulders dropped from the cavern roof, but the pillar held as the deepgod continued towards the far end of the cavern. Then the falling pieces proved too much and abruptly the huge stair-wrapped formation tipped and dropped unceremoniously, dragging a massive section of the cavern roof with it.
The Cards forgot to run. Horrified by what they saw – by how slowly it all seemed to be happening and how quickly the deepgod was escaping – they couldn’t move. All those surviving simply stopped and stared, aghast.
‘It’s going to escape,’ gasped someone. ‘We’ve missed!’
A yawning, hollow feeling opened up in Lynx’s gut, but Toil just shook her head.
‘Bunch of simpletons,’ she muttered. ‘We’ll never make proper relic hunters of these fuckers, eh, Aben?’
Her lieutenant laughed as more chunks of stone fell. Great sections that groaned and twisted like waking giants then fell booming. ‘They’re just mercs,’ he replied. ‘Can’t expect too much of ’em.’
‘Huh?’
‘Look.’ The man laughed. ‘Look at it!’
As he spoke, more sections of the cavern roof fell. Dirt and earth poured down then with a heaving roar one long stretch sagged … and with it came water. No small scattering. No brief deluge. A vast, swirling column of water that tore its own path and smashed down into the cavern with the force of a hundred siege weapons. The lake – two miles wide, holding millions of tonnes of water – suddenly become a weapon of unimaginable force.
‘Good sense of direction,’ Toil declared in a satisfied voice, barely audible above the tumult. ‘Of all the bits I like about myself, that one’s my favourite.’
The water exploded onto the cavern floor, bursting in all directions. Spume hurled a hundred yards out like the lashing tentacles of some ocean horror. If there were screams, Lynx couldn’t hear them. The light dimmed as the flood swamped the water pools and scoured all foliage there. It was a dark and vengeful god that reached down into the depths and blotted out all life from the centre of the cavern. A booming voice that echoed and built to thunderous proportions.
Against it there was no defence. It swept away everything in its path with contemptuous ease and flooded every gully and ravine, but the incline of the cavern ran away from the mountain, in the direction the deepgod had been heading. Lynx couldn’t see it, but it had been in the path of the water and he didn’t imagine anything would be quick enough to escape.
It had sought the blackest depths as a sanctuary, being a creature of the inner places beneath even Duegar ruins, but water only ran one way. Laughter bubbled up inside him even as they scrambled for higher ground. Somewhere behind them the water rushed forward, swallowing the light as it came.
Chapter 47
They climbed as far as they could. When finally there was nowhere left to run, the Cards flopped down, turning to face oblivion if it claimed them. The lake waters were a consuming darkness now. Even the Marked Cards could hardly see as the bright centres of the cavern were stripped and cast into the depths. It didn’t take long for the flood to rush up to them but the Cards stared it down, refusing to fear it, and the waters came no closer. The torrent from the surface slowed and the tide ebbed, receding from them as its power was spent and the deepest black called.
‘It was a water garden,’ Toil announced in a hoarse voice.
All eyes turned towards her and the relic hunter pointed. ‘Look, the channels and plateaus.’
They did and for a while Lynx could see nothing, just a churning mass half-visible amid the gloom. Eventually, the water settled and some remained even as the bulk surged away down the far tunnels. The channels they had walked, fought and died in were full of water but there were paths between that a person could walk on in addition to the raised road.
Maze-like in its complexity, little of the high ground was totally isolated and much of that only because of the Cards. One might have to walk an oblique path, but the pillars and plateaus served as hubs for a network that would allow someone to traverse the entire cavern.
‘What now?’ someone asked. Payl, Lynx thought, though the woman sounded uncharacteristically tired and defeated. ‘Back the way we came?’
‘Now we make sure,’ came another voice – Varain, of all people. The burly merc wasn’t normally one for volunteering, even if the hard march had done him as much good as Lynx. ‘We’ve come this far.’
We’ve all got our poisons, Lynx reminded himself. Doubt I’ll stay this trim for long and I doubt Varain will swear off the booze.
He paused. Varain had seen one of his closest friends die, or so Lynx assumed anyway. Anatin’s body was out there, likely swept away to unknown parts, and they would have to raise a glass to his memory along with the others. Right now Lynx didn’t even know who was dead. He didn’t have the strength to look for faces and check. But they would drink to each and every one, raise some trouble in Anatin’s name and hear the man’s ghost laughing along with every joke and insult.
‘Why?’ Payl asked, looking around the faces of her comrades as best she could. ‘It’s done – what else have we got to give? We’ve played our hand. If it turns out that wasn’t enough … fuck, that’s life. You don’t win every game.’
‘What else have we got to give?’ Toil shook her head. ‘We’ve got dark-bolts, that’s what. I don’t reckon much survives what we’ve just done, but I’ll go take a walk with Varain. If we’re wasting our time, it’s ours to waste. You want to head up to the surface now and explain what happened, I’ll not stop you. You’ve all done more’n could have been asked, I’ll ask no more.’
‘But without you, the Marked Cards, we might not make it back.’
Toil looked at her, not angry or even triumphant, just tired. ‘I can’t help that. I’m past giving orders for the time being. But I’m going to make sure and I’d be glad to have you next to me as I do.’
‘So’m I,’ said Llaith, sounding heavy with grief.
‘Me too,’ Lynx added, finding his voice at last.
‘And I,’ Atieno said. ‘If we find corpses, there may be more God Fragments to destroy.’
‘Fortunately for you all, that sounds like my idea of fun anyway,’ Kas said with a short laugh. ‘So I’m in.’
One by one, the Cards assented, some with murder in their eyes and other with a sense of finality. Payl was the last but she didn’t argue, just shrugged and stepped aside.
‘Go on then, relic hunter, this is your world.’
They saw to their injured first, wrapping wounds as best they could and Sitain easing the pain for several. Reft’s broken bones looked most in need of proper attention but she did what she could, knowing it would have to be enough. Before long, the Cards were following a winding path down the side of the cavern.
They kept to the lighter parts where they could be sure of their footing until they passed the ruined pillar and found a route to the next. Darm fell into the water once, but even that wasn’t enough to cheer the Cards up and attracted only half-hearted laughter and abuse.
They saw nothing alive
as they went, neither human nor creature of the deepest black. Small sounds reached them from distant parts of the cavern, a shout, the tumble of loose stone and, once, a gunshot. Lynx never saw the flash of the icer, but it sounded distant. The water continued to recede, a slow drain that made it clear little would be left come tomorrow – assuming tomorrow hadn’t yet come.
Lynx had lost all sense of time and for the moment ignored it. They were outside time now, beyond hunger and the needs of the body too. Or so he thought. When Toil called a halt and announced she needed a piss it seemed to spark something in the whole company. Before long, most of the men were lined up on a narrow path and cheerfully pissing into the water below – more than a few hoping nothing leaped out of the dark to catch them with their trousers down.
Afterwards, Toil took a moment to survey the ground. Lynx could see her tracing the path of the water, trying to estimate where the deepgod might have gone if it had somehow managed to avoid being swept away. They followed one path and then another, but in the end it was a flurry of gunshots that told them where to go.
The flash of icers and sparkers lit up the darkness just a hundred yards away, five or six shots all directed at something the Cards never saw. A glow of mage-light followed, illuminating a cluster of soldiers on the edge of a plateau. There, wedged in an indent of rock, was the faint glimmer of a huge body, partly submerged in the water.
‘Handy of ’em to light themselves up as targets for us,’ Deern commented, slipping his mage-gun off his shoulder.
‘No flag of parlay first? Where’s your honour?’ Braqe sniffed, prompting a few quiet snickers as the mercenaries settled down to shooting positions.
Those Cards who still had icers knelt or leaned on outcrops of stone, whispering down the line until everyone had an assigned target.
‘Shoot,’ Payl said, taking charge for the moment. Their guns roared as one. A dozen white streaks raced through the dark and slammed home.
A burst of magic erupted to meet the gunshots as their tattoos flared. It didn’t stop every shot, though. A yellow-grey shield on the right-hand side deflected half, but some soldiers were too far away for protection. The mage-light wavered and vanished, returning once the figures had closed up.
‘Bastard mages,’ Deern said, as they shifted position before any return fire could follow. ‘Always only looking after themselves.’
‘If that’s how you want it, fine,’ Sitain commented.
‘Oh not you, my lovely,’ Deern replied. ‘You’ve got a special place in my heart, I promise.’
‘Like fuck.’
Deern made a disgusted sound. ‘I draw the line there, girly. That and Llaith’s bony white arse. You couldn’t fucking pay me to – or indeed pay me to fuck.’
‘Can I toss him in the water?’ Aben asked, giving Deern an experimental jostle as he spoke. Reft hardly moved but all the same they could see the big man, wounded as he was, was far from being in a joking mood.
‘Let’s go, children,’ Payl ordered. ‘Looks like we’re not done yet so shut your faces.’
They shut up, using what light was left to negotiate a path around to where the deepgod, or perhaps its corpse, sat. Strangely, the other humans simply watched them come, but when Lynx commented on that Toil just grunted.
‘Probably our friend Kalozhin,’ she said. ‘Either he reckons he can take us or he wants to talk because he can’t.’
‘Talk about what?’ Lynx asked. ‘Negotiate after all this?’
‘Let’s go and find out, puss,’ she said, patting his cheek with mock affection. ‘High time you lot learned to use your words and not your fists.’
‘Says the assassin,’ muttered someone from the darkness.
They stopped well short of the other party, the glow of tattoos on both sides making it clear it was indeed Sons of the Wind there – or at least what remained of them. Lynx could see three figures with a white shine on their skin. Outnumbered in terms of mages, but there weren’t many guns left in the other party.
‘How do we play this one then?’ Lynx muttered. ‘Atieno crumbles the ground from beneath them? Any mage-shot is just going to hit a shield, right?’
Before she could reply a man’s voice shouted out from the far group – Kalozhin himself.
‘Toil!’
‘Too much to hope for, I guess,’ Toil muttered before raising her voice. ‘Kalozhin? What are you still doing here? It’s over.’
One of the Sons started to walk towards them, hands empty and spread wide in a gesture of peacefulness. Lynx felt those around him shift and guessed he wasn’t the only one who wanted to shoot, but Kalozhin was a marked mage and perfectly able to defend himself.
‘We can talk?’ the man shouted back. ‘Negotiate like adults?’
‘Adults?’ Kas retorted. ‘Is he taking the piss or has he forgotten who he’s talking to?’
‘Maybe the man’s not holding a grudge?’ Lynx suggested. ‘Accidents happen, after all.’
‘Dropping a million tonnes of rock and water onto their god wasn’t exactly an accident,’ Toil commented. ‘Even Anatin would’ve been hard-pressed to claim that.’
Lynx sighed. ‘Heat of the moment? Nothing personal?’
‘Aye, good luck trying it,’ Kas said. ‘I’ll be standing well back.’
Toil shook her head and started forward, tugging Sitain’s sleeve to come with her just in case.
‘I won’t shoot you yet if that’s what you’re asking,’ she yelled over, ‘but if you want me to hold off from calling you a cunt, I ain’t promising to not hurt your feelings.’
‘This I accept,’ came the reply from Kalozhin. ‘But we can talk – once you run out of names?’
‘I suppose.’ Toil glanced back at the Cards as she spoke. ‘Might take me a while, but sure.’
She walked on with Sitain at her side, leaving the rest of the Cards behind. She could see murder in the eyes of many, even Lynx’s, which is why she made them stay. Sitain would be protection enough – if not, they were all screwed.
‘Remember you’ve got a pistol,’ she muttered to the young mage. ‘He can’t put you down with magic, so if he tries something you might have to shoot him.’
‘I’ll get close then,’ Sitain said, an attempt at a joke.
Kalozhin looked better than she would have expected, brimming with energy despite the damp and bedraggled clothes he wore. His jacket was gone, one shirt sleeve torn away, but the glint in his eye remained. She couldn’t gauge how he was going to act, though – his manner was almost friendly, as though they remained allies. There was little of the bristling hostility she’d expected from a fanatic whose god was dead or dying.
Bunch of madmen, Toil reminded herself. Who knows how they’ll react? He could turn rabid in a wink.
‘Toil,’ Kalozhin said with a respectful nod. ‘It was clever, what you did – a bold act. My hat is gone, but I lift it to you all the same.’
‘I’m resourceful,’ Toil acknowledged. ‘Is it dead?’
‘This we do not know. Dead is …’ Kalozhin gave her an apologetic look. ‘Not so simple, not for a being such as this.’
‘Then step aside and I’ll make sure.’
‘This I cannot do. The gods were never meant to exist, but this …’
‘Is a fucking golantha from the dawn o’ time,’ Toil snapped. ‘Whether you call it a deepgod or something different, it’s no friend of humans.’
Astonishingly, his face had broken into a smile. ‘Ah, deepgod, yes! So you know something of them?’
‘I do.’
‘Then you know this is the last of its kind. The first gods – the true gods of Urden.’
Toil snorted. ‘I know I don’t fucking care. Maybe it was the biggest and baddest of horrors back in the day, but it’s no god of mine.’
‘It is my god!’ Kalozhin declared loudly – for the first time getting animated. ‘I will not stand aside and let you kill it. I have felt its spirit inside me, I have heard its call to service and will answe
r with my life.’
‘Yeah, that’s the problem isn’t it?’ Toil said. ‘Service. Perhaps your deepgod slopes off into the deepest black for a thousand years, ages pass and memory turns to myth. Not my problem then, hey? But one year or a thousand, it called you to service and one day it’ll be back for the rest of us.’
The Sons of the Wind officer was quiet a long while. Toil could almost see the thoughts ticking through his head. The impasse was obvious, but even if he had once been a relic hunter she was pretty sure Kalozhin wasn’t as comfortable underground as her. Before he could come to a decision, Toil asked a question to keep him off-balance.
‘You know who I met here today?’
Kalozhin paused, momentarily puzzled, then shook his head.
‘Some bastard I thought was dead – man called Sotorian Bade.’
‘Ah, the Charneler,’ Kalozhin said with a sharp nod. ‘He looked most favoured by my god.’
‘That doesn’t exactly cast your god in a good light. Man always was full of shit, full of talk about the deepest black. Might be he was touched by the deepgod early on, before I even met him fifteen-odd years back. Might be he’s a new convert who just happened to be here at the right time. Whatever the truth, it’s hardly a recommendation.’
‘The converted are rarely blameless,’ Kalozhin replied mildly. ‘Such is the nature of faith. Do you think yourself without fault in this life? Your former friend at least started out on the path of repentance.’
Toil shook her head. ‘That wanker was never repentant about anything. If I was any sort of self-respecting god, I’d be a bit more picky about those I set at the front of my followers.’
‘How quickly you judge what you do not understand,’ Kalozhin said with a shake of the head. ‘I give you one final chance here – out of the respect I have for you. Withdraw, now.’
‘Confident you can win this fight, eh?’
‘No – only that I will fight to the death. What may come is not known, but I will defend my god with my life. Are your Cards so determined?’
‘The Cards kill monsters, it’s what we do now. Pretty much took a vote and everything on the subject.’
