Daimonia poked and prodded at the thing, half-expecting it to crumble to pieces. The statue remained steadfast despite the girl’s explorations. Finally she threw an arm around its enormous shoulders. ‘Welcome to the Underworld,’ she said, as if she had arrived first.
When there was no reply, she sat upon the statue’s base and leaned against its cold legs. ‘Here we are, Goodkin,’ she told the stone. ‘Journey’s end and it has all come to nothing. What’s that you say? You don’t want to be drawn into my story? Too late. It has already killed us both.’
She fell to the ground as if struck by an arrow. There she lay, motionless and in silence, imitating death for as long as she was able. She fantasised about her mother finding her body. Wondered if Catherine would hate herself for not loving enough? But perhaps only someone capable of love could know regret. The truth was, the world would go on without Daimonia, just as it had without Niklos. Finally she arose and turned back to the stone.
‘We came looking for a vengeful Goddess that did not exist. But do you know what I have realised? We can create her anyway.’
The Screaming Stars
It was the last night of the season and the celebration of Cere-Thalatte, the Goddess in her destructive aspect. A thousand blazing torches were carried through Khorgov’s smoke-choked streets, mirroring the brilliant stars above. The lights were waved with joy by the very old and young alike, celebrating the eventual return of all things to chaos.
The festival could be heard within the many-halled fortress, where Daimonia journeyed determinedly. She travelled, candle in hand, a tiny cataract in the deep darkness.
Upon reaching her mother’s room, she felt a little sick, a portentous excitement tingling through her body. Inside the dark was at its thickest. No matter how many candles Daimonia lit, the chamber would not progress beyond a wary gloom.
Now her faith would truly be put to the test. From around the room she gathered armour and weapons, examining the steel with delight. This would be the flesh of the Goddess.
She stood before the shard of glass on her mother’s shrine and unsheathed the Visoth dagger. Grabbing fistfuls of her long hair, she began to cut. Locks upon locks fell in clumps to the floor until the girl’s hair was short and severe like her mother’s.
When all was done, she stood dressed as a Knight of the Accord, as formidable as the castellan, Captain Vornir herself. She relished the burden of the armour, as if wearing her mother’s skin, inhabiting her body with her own.
‘Daimonia.’ She spoke her own name into the darkness, but her voice was too soft and warm.
‘Daimonia!’ She tried again, lacing her tone with ice and contempt. It was a good approximation of the woman she had decided to become.
When mother and daughter were as one, she shattered the glass into a thousand star-like fragments and left.
She found them packed into cells beneath the fortress. The smell was atrocious, an almost visible concoction of sweat and sewage. These were the Vendicatori, the anarchists who sought to overthrow the governance of Khorgov and of all Dalibor. Those who would spit in the eye of Prince Moranion had they the chance.
Beyond the grimy bars Daimonia saw not monsters, but children of the Goddess. These were the ordinary folk of Khorgov, exceptional only for having spoken out against the Accord. Amid their ranks she saw labourers and parents, there were vagabonds and Visoth migrants. Even disavowed knights, militants and Seidhr swelled their number, hints of a nobler order that might have been. These were the people cast as traitors in a story authored by the prince’s apologists.
They regarded Daimonia with distrust and hate, mistaking her for the castellan, as the militants had when she demanded admittance to the prison. She strode amid the cells, meeting the hard faces of men and the accusing stares of women. She let their hate radiate until she was sure they would destroy her.
One woman was as brawny as the strongest men, streams of sweat coating her muscles as she held the cage bars tightly. Her hair was in tight knots, like wreaths of golden corn down her back. She bore her teeth at Daimonia, warning her off like the mother of a pride of lions.
Daimonia stood before this woman’s cage as she addressed the hall. ‘I am not Captain Vornir,’ she told them as she began to unbolt the cells. The ancient song came to mind and she used it, appealing to their faith in the Goddess. ‘I am the crown of flaming stars,’ she told them. ‘I am the armour forged from scars.’ She searched their faces, watching hostility become assent and understanding. ‘I am the truth whose seed is doubt.’ Voices joined her own, swelling into a tribal ceremony. ‘I am the flaming sword that will never burn out!’
The Benevolent Council of Khorgov convened in the Hall of Humility. This chamber was the grandest in the fortress, supported by decorative columns that reached to a ceiling twenty-four men high. Paintings adorned the walls, depicting both the incumbent bureaucrats and their predecessors in noble poses. A table was laid with profuse food and wine to assist the councillors in their work.
The councillors themselves were the highest quality people Khorgov had to offer. Honourable Lord Nebble Guldslag owned the finest armouries in Dalibor and was one of the nation’s richest men. The Esteemed Lady Mortica was well known for her eloquent speeches on the suffering of the poor and for her grand properties in Khorgov, Kraljevic and Leechfinger. High Priest Eligendo was the leader of the Holy Cult and had never been successfully convicted of groping boys.
‘These festivities mock us!’ Lord Guldslag seemed to have more teeth than other men, like the mouth of a crocodile slapped onto a human face. ‘What we need is a God who inspires obedience, servitude and long-suffering. Not a harlot who incites revelry and rebellion!’
The councillors, courtiers and honorary knights showed their approval with orchestrated sycophancy. They laughed and wept with Lord Guldslag, competing for the most obsequious performance.
One red-faced and portly knight seemed especially adept at bellowing servile platitudes such as ‘very good, my lord’ or ‘quite rightly so.’ He was loud enough to attract his own sycophants, who would pat the shoulders of his untarnished armour, laughing ‘well said, Marshall!’
‘Perhaps the time has come to outlaw Cere-Thalatte,’ Lady Mortica suggested. ‘Even a Goddess must heel to the Accord.’
There was a crash like falling rock. The hall door was wracked with stress and then burst to unleash a stampede of roaring men and women. Each face was afire with rage.
The prestigious chamber erupted into a wild tumult of violence, shrill screams and cries of fury, a collective expression of the Goddess. The prisoners fell upon the fleeing bureaucrats, who tried to escape in a confusion of chicken legs, spilled wine and shattered glass.
‘This is an outrage!’ someone was shouting. One of the council militants grabbed Daimonia, but she used his momentum to throw him face first into a trough of food. Meat and gravy splashed liberally.
Only Lord Guldslag stood his ground, commanding the rebels to desist. His face glistened as he shouted, his cheeks still wet with the oils of his sumptuous meal. He was promptly relieved of every kind of wealth and dignity and his head replaced by that of a dead pig.
Daimonia was ankle deep in blood, stepping over the bodies of militants and nobles alike. She felt neither regret nor vindication, only a growing sense of predestination.
Mother and daughter met on the bridge at dawn. The crimson sky was raked with claws of lightning.
Daimonia led out her army of traitors. Having looted the fortress armoury, these avengers were dressed and prepared for battle.
Catherine stood at the forefront of her knights, the most senior officers at the front and beyond them units of militants, men-at-arms, crossbowmen and archers.
‘What new madness is this?’ Catherine was shaking, her face twitching with incredulity. She stared at Daimonia as if the girl were a once-loved horse needing to be put down. Kasamir stood by her side, grinning lecherously as if his world were not about to end. The Accord off
icers stared fearfully, as if into the pit of Archonia.
‘This is the madness of the Goddess.’ Daimonia spoke with authority. ‘That which was contained by force will now be set loose with equal force.’
Catherine shooed away the declaration. ‘You’re not a prophet, Daimonia. You’re part of a problem, old as life. Fools believe we can do without law and punishment. But look at what happens when you give free rein to barbarity; your allies are condemned by the very blood on their faces.’
‘Don’t you see?’ Daimonia insisted. ‘These revolutionaries are your creation. Each was a voice silenced. Now silenced voices have been hammered into swords.’
‘Look!’ Catherine was exasperated. She waved her finger as if chastising a child. ‘You’re doing it right now!’
‘Doing what?’
‘Asking questions and being defiant.’ Catherine nodded emphatically at her own words. ‘This has always been your failing, although you have truly outdone yourself this time.’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ Daimonia admitted. ‘All you have given me are wounds, and wounds are all I have to give.’
‘You hope to commit a famous treason,’ said Catherine. ‘But your story threatens to corrupt the young and encourage them to celebrate the downfall of their betters. No, it must have an ending most horrid so that others do not fall into madness, as you have.’
‘It seems to me that we are both mad,’ Daimonia replied, ‘but only I know it.’
Catherine could hardly look at her daughter. ‘What would your brother make of you now?’ she lamented.
‘My brother is dead.’ The words seemed to drip with blood as Daimonia spoke them.
Catherine’s strength faltered. She staggered and fought to retain her composure, pulling her arm away from Kasamir when he tried to console her. She shrank under Daimonia’s vindictive stare, as if she were now the child. With visible effort she managed to regain herself and force a reply. ‘Why not you instead of him?’
A terrible heartsick cry rose from Daimonia’s throat, releasing all grief in one strenuous expulsion. She unsheathed her sword and dagger, cutting and stabbing in a hail of hate.
Those who leapt forward in Catherine’s defence lost bits of themselves in the furore. A knight fell to his knees, his hand spouting blood from the stump of each finger. Another lost an eye.
Catherine grabbed Daimonia’s forearms and pushed back with all her armoured weight, hurling Daimonia to the floor. As the girl scraped across the ground, Catherine secured her shield and drew her Guldslag broadsword, advancing upon her daughter.
The fighters took this as a signal to attack. Daimonia’s outlaws stampeded towards the knights, who met the charge with a wall of shields and heavy armour. Cruel swords gleamed and war horns bellowed as the tides of men competed.
Daimonia lifted her head from the ground. Little fragments of stone were stuck into her face. She arose amidst a tumult of grim close-quarters fighting. Blood sprayed and spattered, men slipped on the gory thoroughfare, and muscles unleashed blow after blow of bone-cracking brutality.
A knight lunged for the girl and she stabbed at his face with her dagger. His knees gave and she leapt past, burying her sword into a charging militant. She cut at two men who tried to grab her and stabbed another who had climbed onto the bridge wall; his body flopped into the moat below.
Daimonia’s tongue rolled over the scar on her lips as she brandished her weapons. ‘I have more wounds to inflict,’ she shouted, her eyes seeking out her enemy.
Catherine fought on the edge of the bridge, stabbing round the rim of her shield. As traitors assailed her, she split them with quick precise stabs. Kasamir fought determinedly beside her, striking out with an increasingly dented blade.
Daimonia battled through the melee until she was almost behind them. She seized Kasamir’s hair in her fist and slit his throat with a cackle. She opened the mouth of his wound to her mother, baptising her with arterial waste.
‘Go to the Goddess,’ Daimonia prayed, advancing with her blades.
Catherine hissed, her white cloak now sopping red. Rage tightened her face, revealing fangs for teeth and eyes black as Archonia’s pits. Her body shook, racked by a powerful hate. ‘You – are – my – curse!’ The words came out in heaving breaths.
The Vornir women circled each other, leaning close enough to hug. There was a flash in the sky and they struck, blades wedged into each other’s flesh. Catherine rolled her head at the sky, groaning as if in labour before she forced Daimonia back with a powerful kick.
Daimonia fell into the struggling fighters. For a moment she was overwhelmed by the reek of sweat and injury. These warriors were her brothers and sisters now, their faces bone white as another claw of lightning ripped the sky. She launched herself from their battle and swung at Catherine with all her force.
Catherine blocked, turning the blow away with her embossed shield. She swept her own blade up and struck Daimonia’s hand. The girl’s sword spun, reflecting the storm, and was lost. With a piercing cry, Catherine swung for Daimonia’s neck. Thunder shook the sky.
Daimonia rolled under the attack, evading with a performer’s grace. She lunged, her dagger gashing the face she had longed to touch. Sacrilege, her heart responded, but she was beyond repentance.
Catherine’s dark brows oozed blood. Half-blind, she retaliated, sweeping high and low. Her sword was vicious and quick, but the girl was already behind her.
Daimonia grabbed her mother’s cloak, making a fist in the bloodstained cloth. She wrenched hard, pulling Catherine into her arms, and then stabbed her in the breast. The Visoth dagger tasted flesh beneath armour. ‘I cannot find your heart,’ Daimonia mocked.
Catherine wailed and span free, bashing Daimonia’s skull with her shield. She seethed, spitting curses, as the girl stumbled amid the growing mounds of corpses. ‘You can never win, you evil girl!’
Daimonia felt the world spin. Blood streamed from her scalp like the caress of warm fingers. It seeped down her neck and trickled beneath her armour, becoming intimate with her burning skin. She was knocked back through the melee, as if gliding from suitor to suitor at a ball. Conflict encircled her as she became the eye of a violent whirlwind – the fulcrum of destruction.
Her mother was charging, her red-white cloak raised like seraphic wings. Daimonia grabbed a spear from the dying and hurled it haphazardly, killing some other foe. She threw an axe, a helm and a dagger. Each met Catherine’s shield. Finally Daimonia pulled a broadsword from the stomach of a corpse and set loose.
Passion possessed mother and daughter as they sliced at each other. Faces twisted in fury, they fought in agony of body and spirit. When they broke apart, Daimonia was wreathed in the blood of them both. Her face was ugly with emotions too turbulent to give name to.
‘I see it.’ Catherine laughed between tears. She was bleeding from a dozen vengeful cuts, crouched over her shield as she shivered. ‘Even now you want love.’
‘You are incapable of giving it.’
An arrow arced over the carnage and penetrated Catherine’s throat. Her eyes bulged and she dribbled a ripple of blood down her neck and armour.
Daimonia went to hold her, but Catherine was backing away, warding her off. The girl watched helplessly as her mother fell to one knee and then the other. Their eyes met, but with confusion and pain rather than understanding. Catherine looked surprised by the cruelty of the world – it was an expression so typical of poor Niklos. Then she was dead.
Daimonia dropped to the ground and threw her arms around her mother. She shifted the armoured corpse so it seemed they held each other. She hugged the cold body as all around turned to chaos.
A shout rose among all the combatants, one voice quickly becoming many. The fortress had erupted in flame, the inferno illuminating the ferocious conflict. This was an act that would be swiftly answered by burnings throughout Khorgov. A sign the revolution had begun. The word would spread from city to city, wrath poured from beacon to fiery beacon.
Daimonia rose in the blistering firestorm heat. She was the torch that had ignited this conflagration. As the highest turrets crumbled, a crown of light lit the sky, a diadem of flaming stones. She basked in the terrible glow, savouring her brilliant coronation.
Now she knew with absolute certainty. She was the Goddess of War. She was the avenger, chaos and death. She was Cere-Thalatte and the falling stars were a measure of her anger.
As the heavenly fire descended, she raised her sword, light flashing on the bloody tip. Shadows took life and prowled the battleground, delineating the abundant dead. The Goddess had repaid greed with slaughter, a thousand lives shed for one.
As the screaming stars rained down, her laughter became a haunting song.
I am the crown of eternal stars,
I am the armour forged from scars,
I am the truth whose seed is doubt,
I am the flaming sword that will never burn out!
APPENDICES
THE CAST
The Vornir Family
Daimonia Vornir – A questioning young woman
Niklos Vornir – Daimonia’s brother, a Knight of the Accord
Jhonan Vornir – Daimonia’s grandfather, a retired Accord Knight
Catherine Vornir – Daimonia’s mother, castellan of Khorgov Fortress
The Geld Knight and his Enforcers
Sir Conrad Ernst – A Geld Knight and former apologist
Fotter – A trapper and animal molester
Scorcher – An arsonist and delinquent
The Afreyan – A mysterious swordsman
Cain – 400 lb of muscle
The Way Knight and his Passengers
Goodkin – A Way Knight
Hem – A simple boy from Littlecrook
The Way Knight: A Tale of Revenge and Revolution Page 17
