“You were with us but a few short months, my friend. Had things been different you would have attained this and surpassed it, no doubt. Though as I said – times were simpler then.”
Nodding, Stone winced as a keening wail pierced his ears, faint but there. He looked about; only himself, Wrynn and Gwenna had noticed it, the crowd, shaman and non-shaman alike still enraptured in the unfolding duel.
Stone understood.
“The spirits don’t enjoy this.”
Wrynn shook his head, grim.
“No. As I taught you, a century ago, the spirits don’t like being set against each other. Unfortunately, we face the sorceries of the enemy soon and this is the only practice our shamans can get at countering opposing magicks. Without it, I fear we stand no hope.”
His towering student thought for a moment, even as the lad in the centre finally took down his opponent, who lay gasping on her back, her hair singed and her chest heaving as he helped her to her feet.
“This is true. And perhaps there is something that I need to do as well.”
Stone moved forwards, towards the centre where the two duellists shook hands to the cheers of the crowd, looming over the victor as he approached.
“An impressive show of skill, lad.”
The youth looked up at him, sweat beading his forehead, the still-fresh connection to the spirits lending him a wariness of the immortal who had so long opposed them.
“Thank you, Nagah-Slayer. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” Stone told the startled shaman. “You can duel me. And don’t hold back.”
***
Stone stood opposite the youth as the crowd watched on. To any casual observer, such a duel would have looked ludicrously one-sided; on one side, a youth, wiry and slight; on the other, a warrior, towering and mighty as no mortal had any right to be.
Yet this was no mere contest of arms, but a test. To see how well a god-king could combat sorcery without access to powers of his own.
“Remember,” he told the trembling youth that stood a few yards distant. “Don’t hold back.”
The shaman nodded then, with no warning, raised his hands, a streaming funnel of superheated air swirling to a point before him before unleashing in a hail of piercing bolts of flame. Stone closed his eyes against the conflagration, feeling the searing heat as the embers peppered off his skin. The storm passed, the top half of his white robe now burnt away, blackened scraps hanging from his shoulders, his hair smouldering in the breeze.
His skin, however, unmarked.
“Good.”
The crowd gasped in disbelief at his untouched flesh as he strode forwards towards the shaman who stood, shell-shocked, yet even as the Nagah-Slayer reached out to grasp his foe, the youth sped away in a blur, calling upon the speed of the Falcon-Sight, before re-appearing behind him. Stone turned, ready to reach out again, but the lad ducked his grasping hands and lunged forwards to connect a punch to the immortal’s midriff. The small fist should, by all rights, have crumpled against the rock-solid abdominals, yet Stone was catapulted backwards to land, unceremoniously on the floor.
Stone shook his head as he rose, tasting a curious, minerally taste in his mouth after the brief instant of contact; the youth was calling upon the Earth Tap to boost his strength. The crowd had started rooting for the youth now, seeing that the new arrival truly was no longer the god-king Invictus of legend. Wondering whether it might just be possible for the young shaman to win this bout.
It wasn’t.
The Nagah-Slayer’s mind raced as he watched with interest the youth that closed in, the shaman growing in confidence with every cheer from the crowd. Stone had forgotten the strength and speed that could be borrowed from the spirits, but there was one thing they couldn’t lend: experience. The boy, for all his gifts, was but a youth, no warrior, with no martial training; he had never fought tooth and claw on the field of battle, never felt the cold bronze of an enemy blade or seen up close the jaws of a slavering bear.
So it was that when the lad disappeared, blurring into invisibility as he called upon the Falcon-Sight once more, Stone had predicted his move, dodging to one side and holding out his hand to catch the punch, knowing, thanks to a century of battle, exactly when and where his foe would move. A jarring impact as the Earth-infused punch connected with the palm of his hand. A stalemate, for a moment, as immortal muscle contested with borrowed might. Then, with a flash of shock across his face, the shaman buckled to his knees, the strength of the Earth Spirits beginning to flee from his body as if in realisation that they couldn’t win against this kind of foe.
Feeling the power leaving his opponent, Stone quickly relaxed his grip lest he crush the lad’s hand. The youth fell backwards onto his arse, massaging his aching fist, gazing up with awestruck eyes at the blissfully unharmed form of the immortal above.
“…what are you?” he whispered.
“Annoyed,” came the reply.
Wrynn came up to him, even as the crowd of shamans dragged the youth away, gabbling excitedly as they replayed the fight.
“Annoyed? How so? You have proven that even without the dark powers of the enemy, your mere physical might is enough to overcome the advantages of Spirit-Craft.”
Stone sniffed, unconvinced.
“Yes, against an untrained whelp of sixteen summers.”
“Pol is eighteen, in fact.”
“Regardless, my point stands; in the coming battle, without my powers, I am no more than a man. A big man, a strong man and hard to kill, sure. Maybe impossible to kill, for who knows my limits? But one man, no matter how strong and tough, can be contained. Can be taken out of the battle.”
Wrynn nodded, looking curious.
“What do you need then, my apprentice, to give you confidence in this coming fight? Name it, and I shall do my best to make it happen.”
The looming immortal walked, slowly, towards the edge of the courtyard, where a sheer drop gave way to the vast and lush expanse of the valley, looking southward to the mountains and, beyond, to the South.
“I need my Glaives.” He voiced for the first time the loss of his beloved weapons, so close to him as to almost be a part of his soul. He could feel them, so achingly far away, resting in their mount in his tower of stone far to the South, yet at this distance he couldn’t call them, the connection too faint.
“And,” he continued, “what Champion of the Avatars is without the power of Spirit-Craft at his beck and call? The spirits flee from me, refusing to listen to me, for they fear what I have been this last century, scared of the taint that remains. This needs to be rectified.”
He turned to the elder Shaman, his eyes determined.
“I need to meet with the Avatars for a second time…”
Chapter Two:
Screams. Oh, the screams. The sounds of fear echoing through the corridors. Blood; rushing through the ears and splattering the walls. Flickering shadows, cruelly elongated by torchlight to stretch, menacingly round every bend. Nightmare.
A living, waking nightmare.
Naresh ran. Ran as fast as his legs would carry him. From the halls, through the kitchens, towards the only refuge he knew. The only place he could be sure of hiding from his fate. Death at every turn. Blood here. Limbs there. Survivors dragged, screaming, to fate unknown. Scimitars rising, falling. None of it made sense. None of it.
And he had been there when it started.
You there, the cook had shouted at him as he’d trundled past with a handcart. We’re down a waiter, one is sick; you fill in. The cook had held his baton with a practiced hand, so Naresh hadn’t dared argue. Besides – the Great Hall! He’d always longed to see inside, to see where the King himself held party with the Lords of the Land. Now was his chance. Finally, he could talk to his family about life in the Halls without that burning flush of guilt that he was sure his brothers and sisters saw straight through, regardless of how proudly his parents cooed.
He had lined up with the other waiters, streaming in
a slow and steady procession by the Pass where they were given platters to carry, full of steaming, succulent meats and exotic fruits. Nearly at the pass now, his mouth salivating at the savoury aromas that hung low and teasing in the air, Naresh couldn’t help but wonder who was dining tonight. He’d asked the waiter in front, a small and nervous looking lad, blond, probably from the North. The Lord of Alathar, had been the hushed reply, and shush – you do not speak whilst serving unless spoken to first.
Alathar, Naresh had thought as he shuffled forwards in the queue; a far-away land of fields and crops, so different to the harsh and unforgiving Steppes of his birth. Daydreams of another life had been cut abruptly short as he was handed a great steaming platter of suckling pig, ringed in by a barricade of roasted vegetables.
He had almost gone cross-eyed with hunger and jealousy at the feast he was forced to carry but not to eat, thinking back to his own stockpiles that had so often gone missing of late. Rats, his fellow servants had continued to tell him. Rats. Yet sometimes the stone had been rolled back… Oh, the disparity, the unfairness; if only it were he feasting in the Hall tonight, he had wished, and one of the Lord’s lieutenants here, forced to cart this tormenting burden in his stead.
In two short minutes, he would be thankful that such was not the case.
At a shouted order, the line of servers had left the kitchen, working their way up a flight of steps to the Great Hall itself. The scale, the grandeur had taken Naresh’s breath away, leaving him to stand and stare, gormless, until the urgent proddings of the next in line had forced him onwards. The party in the middle of the Hall looked small, wasteful even, in comparison to their surroundings; a table of no more than thirty, the Lord himself, his lieutenants and their highest ranking officers, in a hall built to accommodate a feast of thousands.
Winding their way through the myriad wooden tables, the servers had been greeted with cheers by the hungry party. The Lord of Alathar himself had spied the suckling pig on Naresh’s shoulder, clicking his fingers with a gleam of hunger in his eye, beckoning the youth over. Naresh had laid the platter in front of the Lord and his lieutenants, standing, watching them carve into it with a gnawing in his belly when he’d noticed the silence.
He’d blinked out of his reverie, noticed that the gathered nobles were staring at him, bemused smiles on their faces. What’s the matter, boy, the Lord had enquired. You joining us? Naresh had gone to open his mouth, when the flat of the Lord’s hand had caught him across the back of the head, to the laughter of those at the table. Get out of here, serf!
That would be the last thing the Lord of Alathar would ever say.
As Naresh had scuttled off in the direction of the kitchens, just beginning to make his way down the stairs from whence he’d came, the great bronze doors at the far end of the Hall had creaked open, allowing inside the bellowing rumble of the thunder which had shook the Pen incessantly since the lighting of the Beacon the night before.
Clansmen had marched in, by the dozen, by the score, lined and disciplined. Armed and armoured. But these Clansmen had looked nothing like those that Naresh had dove out the way of in the corridors of the keep, or seen marching on parade along the city streets. Where normally they had the healthy tan of life on the Steppes, these Clansmen had been pale and ashen. Where normally their eyes were vibrant with passion and pride, the eyes of these warriors had been lifeless and staring. These Clansmen had been shallow, empty mockeries; shadows of their former selves.
But no less deadly for it.
Drawing their scimitars, the troupe of Clansmen had charged, silent, wraithlike across the Hall, towards those seated at the table. No war-cry had issued from their lips. No howls of bloodlust or statements of intent. No reason. They had simply waded into the defenceless diners, hacking and killing with all their former skill but none of the passion, till the last man had dropped down, dead. A particularly fearsome swing from a ghost-like warrior had sent the Lord’s head careening across the Great Hall, where it had rolled, leaving a trail of crimson blood in its wake, till it finally came to a rest, startled eyes staring upwards, right into the face of the horrified servant.
Tearing his gaze from the face, Naresh had looked upwards, to the warriors that still stood about the table in the centre of the Hall. A Marzban, or what used to be one, had looked back at him, fixing him with sallow, sunken eyes and, for an instant, a long, spine-tingling instant, Naresh could have sworn that he had seen the man’s very soul, screaming away in torment in the black pits of those orbs. Screaming, for these actions were not his, not what he wanted to be a part of. But futile, for the man’s body, as with those of the troops around him, was obviously no longer his own.
The Clansmen had sprinted towards him, as one. Naresh had bolted for the door.
And now here he was, running for his life, the sounds of carnage as the slaughter was unleashed anew in the kitchens and corridors behind him as he raced for the one sanctuary he knew like the back of his hand.
The Warren of tunnels beneath the Pen.
***
The leaders of the Shaman army were gathered in the cool, stone chamber. Wrynn. Gwenna. Arbistrath. Hofsted. Iain.
But not Stone himself.
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?” Arbistrath’s tone was incredulous. “He’s been here for a single day. The Shamans risked their lives to draw the poisons from him. The army expects him to lead them to battle. And now he ups sticks and goes as soon as he awakens?”
It was Wrynn who answered the indignant Lord.
“Stone has reasons, Arbistrath. Good reasons. He goes to seek that which is lost to him. If he succeeds then he will return, in good time and with greater power. Power that will prove useful in the times ahead.”
“Greater power?” The noble laughed in disbelief. “The man is already the greatest warrior to ever live. He’s slaughtered armies single-handedly. And you witnessed that little exhibition out there – if magic fireballs do no more than singe the stubble from that chiselled jaw, then what chance have Clansmen, eh? Or the pet mages of the Seeress? Pure greed. Pure hunger for power. That’s all it is. Off on a vainglorious hunt for ever greater-power whilst we –“
He was cut off by Wrynn’s bellowing voice, each word hammering into the ears like a nail, each syllable felt in the chest as much as heard.
“Cease your infernal prattling and set aside your personal loss. You speak on that about which you know nothing.” The shadows seemed to flee from the room at his rage before he continued, his voice now quieter, darker. “We face more than mortal soldiers and the Seeress’ coven. Darker, older things are arrayed against us. Our enemy will not risk us reaching that portal. The Nagah-Slayer is right to seek power, for without it, even his might will avail us nothing…”
Silence descended on the room for long moments, as each person pondered the implications of the elder Shaman’s words. Finally, the silence was broken by a voice.
“How long will he be gone? Do we move without him?”
It was Iain, of the Foresters. Gwenna answered him.
“Difficult to say. In the realm of the Avatars, time moves differently to how it does here. What seems like minutes to him may be days here. So to answer your question, yes, we move. He will join us, when he can. Until that time, we have orders to carry out. He has left us instructions. We have only days in which to march south to the Pen. So we leave tomorrow.”
Nods all round, before Hofsted raised a hand.
“Your shamans, they scry the land of our foes, yes?”
The flame-haired sorceress nodded.
“Any word of the enemy ranged against us?”
She drew in a breath, as if pondering whether to answer truthfully or not, before relenting.
“The full might of Pen-Merethia is gathered in the garrisons. Ten thousand Clansmen, as well as the Hunt. As for the Council themselves, we are unable to scry them, for the hand of the enemy rests heavy upon them. Likewise with the Isle of Storms itself – it is covered, now, with a dark
and vile cloud through which our gaze cannot penetrate.”
The Lieutenant bit his lip as he mulled over the vast numbers, before shaking his head.
“Too many. Far too many. We number barely a hundred men. How can we hope to prevail against such numbers?”
The lady shaman’s youthful face creased into a pretty smile.
“You will find that we have some tricks up our sleeve,” she reassured him. “Besides, the Nagah-Slayer seemed to have quite the trust in a certain recruit of yours…”
***
You will not be welcome, Wrynn had told him. The spirits will make life difficult for you, for you still carry the taint of the enemy. It may take you time to find the entrance to their world. Normally, Stone had all the time in the world.
But not this time.
Seek out the dark and lonely places, he’d been told. Let the spirits find you. Only by persuading them will you find a way. Find them and give them what they want. Stone had thought long and hard on that, on what kind of spirits he had encountered the first time round and which ones had seemed human enough to talk with, bargain with.
The spirits of earth were too elemental, too bestial; the Knocker had been an almost mindless creature of instinct. Besides, the Earth was slow, intractable, and Stone had an inkling that earth spirits were loath to change their mind on subjects.
The spirits of fire; all he’d sensed in them was a ravenous, burning hunger. He didn’t even know where to find such creatures, but even if he did, he sensed that to confront them would be no more than suicide.
The spirits of air. He’d met with them before, more than once now, unsure still, after all this time, whether there was even such a thing as the Avatar of Air, whether all the tiny, flitting Sylphii were but one and the same. Either way, their capricious and flighty nature had left him befuddled and frustrated before. He had visions of hour upon hour of laboured, looping conversation.
Therefore, that left only one type of spirit with which he was willing to try to parlay.
From the Ashes Page 3
