A Fire in the North

by David Bilsborough

  And then came that faint resonant music, just as there had been in his spirit-walk, but this was a resonance not of sound but of time, a re-echoing of times long gone. And with that music came pictures, pictures forming out of the darkness around him, a succession of images faintly etched in varying shades of grey, each grainy and troubled: a multitude of soldiery, an entire battalion sprouting spears and banners, surrounding him, pressing in upon him, towering over him; old men looking down at him, fear and despair in their eyes; children too, grubby boys the same age as he, watching him in silence. And striking electric-black shadows upon white in one glaring monochrome frieze, the intense luminous discharge of vaporizing magic pouring from the wands of the magic-users against the portal they faced.

  One of the taller boys, a glassy-eyed youth of about fifteen, was staring at Bolldhe with a worried frown. Next to him stood one of the old men, surely the oldest and smallest one there among the Fasces. Turning from Bolldhe to this quaking veteran, the boy spoke in a puzzled voice: ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘He’s always going off like this.’ The old man sighed in exasperation. ‘Always at the worst possible moment too, and— Just what is that damn rumpus about back there? ’

  In the hush the boy whispered, ‘Maybe he’s dying . . .’

  The old man did not seem impressed. ‘Bolldhe!’ he hissed. ‘Snap out of it, d’you hear? There’s something happening at the rear. The Vetters are getting agitated. Come on, there’s no reason to wait any longer; this is it, the end. We’ve got to finish it now. Aren’t you going to do something?’

  ‘Do what?’ Bolldhe stammered, wondering just why he was answering this question from a ghost out of the past.

  The old man leant over and cupped Bolldhe’s face in his death-cold hands. He gazed imploringly into his eyes, and said earnestly, ‘Bolldhe, just do whatever it is you must. I can ask for nothing more now.’

  Then both he and the boy stood back from him, pointing towards the shattered doorway.

  Bolldhe could not enter of course. How could he enter a place that held within it all the evil and fear that existed in the entire world? But neither could he wrench his gaze away from it, and he continued staring through the hole at the blackness within.

  ‘Come on you lot, move!’ came a harsh voice from behind him, and two powerful gauntleted hands shoved Bolldhe in the back. Unable to stop himself, he was propelled through the hole.

  ‘No!’ he wailed like a soul hurled into hell, and staggered head first into the chamber.

  A pestilence of panic poured in upon him from all sides, and a plague-cloud of nausea condensed around him. Bolldhe stood naked in the Chamber of Drauglir, alone save for the underdream that had finally come to claim his soul.

  No . . . not alone. For as he stared about in an effort to locate the door and make his escape, he saw that there were other boys hovering around him. Again, they were etched in varying shades of grey but now they were ducking, feinting, darting around as if in play. Bolldhe felt an odd tingle of excitement starting to grow within him. Without understanding, he found himself joining in with their game of tag, charging about and giggling hysterically.

  As if he too had been there – he himself – at the siege of Vaagenfjord Maw five hundred years ago . . .

  Others were now entering the chamber behind him. A legion of soldiers marched in to the steady tattoo of side drums, brushing aside the old men and boys. An ageing drum major with cold pale eyes and a helmet resembling a lobster glanced at Bolldhe and said, ‘It’s all right, kid, we’re here now.’

  The siege had begun in earnest. The beat quickened. More entered. Some bore torches, and gradually the darkness was repelled. On into the chamber the entire company marched. The drum major was joined by someone riding a scaly hippogriff. The yellow-eyed rider placed a krummhorn to his lips and blasted out a fanfare, whereupon, to the ecstatic roar of the throng, the mighty Warlord himself strode in. Appa’s distorted face swam into view, then backed away as he hauled Bolldhe and the glazen-eyed boy out of the path of the vanguard as they escorted their leader in. Haloed in a blue metallic lustre, the Warlord carried the Greatsword of Pel-Adan in one hand and a book in the other. Up to a lectern he swaggered, placed the book upon it and with a flourish opened the cover.

  The book flew up out of his hands, its fluttering pages a flock of startled birds. Amid their clamour, out of the pages sprang Gwyllch, a brutish sergeant with pox-ridden skin, yet arrayed in fine armour and with bejewelled golden rings upon his talons. While the pages danced, he thrust his hand beneath his habergeon, rummaged about and brought out a slate etched with runes. This he held up for the Peladane chief to see. It was a headstone with a name engraved on it, which he suddenly hurled at his master. Missing him by inches, it exploded against the wall with a moist slap like rupturing flesh.

  Further into the vast chamber they were pushed, the place filling with clamour as it filled with soldiers. The fluttering pages increased their commotion, broke loose and flew about the hall with an ear-splitting howl like a swarm of locusts. Bolldhe noticed a tugging at his hand, which felt pathetically feeble and debilitated, and looking down saw Paulus. Small now, smaller than the youngest child there, like a puppy he was staring up at Bolldhe with his single eye full of entreaty, out of his mind with fear.

  ‘What can I do?’ Bolldhe whispered, helpless with fear himself.

  He could not stand to see such pain and looked away. But there was something coming into view ahead that he could not bear to look at either. For they were finally drawing near to the ziggurat, a great pyramid of black marble in the centre of the chamber which throbbed with a dormant but terrifying menace.

  On towards it they were compelled, and still the tumult of pages flew about like dead leaves cavorting upon the bleak wind of autumn’s passing – leaf after leaf of history unfolding from half a millennium ago right up to the present moment. Heads down, eyes slitted, the company pressed on, ziggurat-bound. Like a lost multitude trudging through freezing fog they advanced, limbs turgid, extremities numbed. Bolldhe was aware that at his side walked the little old man, the Paulus-child and the glazen-eyed youth, keeping close, maybe for his comfort or for their own. Beyond these three it seemed only vague shadows shuffled about in the gloom.

  A deep purring growl at the youth’s side. A rattling intake of breath from the old man. The child’s grip on Bolldhe’s hand tightening. A harsh whisper in his ear: ‘Shlepp’s smelt something! We’re not alone in here . . .’

  The beat of the side drums doubled in tempo. On past the ziggurat they were led, the army swinging round to follow Shlepp, now a ghostly black dog, the harbinger of destruction. Bolldhe realized with increasing alarm that he was caught at the head of the phalanx, with the rest of his company close behind and goading him on. The two time sequences blurred into each other and through this dual reality Bolldhe staggered and was pushed, ever onward into the dark.

  Still the legion pressed from behind, and still the hound led them further into the unknown. They were nearing the far side of the vast hall for a wall loomed right ahead. The hound was growling savagely. High-pitched shouting could be heard from the rear of the column, where the Vetters’ increasing panic was infecting them all. A black empty square in the wall could be discerned. Finally they stopped, all of them, and stared ahead in silence.

  ‘The flue,’ the Peladane’s voice announced thickly. Shlepp tensed, ready to spring.

  What Bolldhe saw next may or may not have been genuine, for he had no way any longer of knowing what was real. But what he saw, the rest of the company saw also, for reality, reverie and illusion had now become inseparable.

  There, within the black square, lurked a throng of shapes, silent and unmoving, huge black shapes the size of ogres with one among them taller still. As the invaders gaped, great blades of fire leapt up, surrounding them, igniting them, illuminating them in a blood-red glare. Giants they must have been, or fiends, for they stood motionless amid the flames, their ash
-white hair streaming about them in that furnace. Clad in ancient ornate armour of heavy bronze plate, each bore an immense poleaxe whose blades curved like the antlers of a devil. Both armour and weapons glowed with a fierce heat mirrored in ghastly inhuman eyes that were all that could be seen behind the shifting curtains of hair. Then the tallest one stepped out to meet them, and the nightmare descended in full.

  It was Scathur himself.

  Dreams made flesh. Two events, one present and one long past, running parallel upon separate tracks, screaming along blindly like runaway trains. And with Bolldhe caught between them, trying to hold his skull together against their shattering din. Pyrotechnics: raw power unleashed, crackling and screaming into the dark air. A rawgric howling. A tsunami of missiles. A vision of Zhang screaming, the little horse being devoured by a green-eyed wolf that drank his blood. From behind Bolldhe warriors charged forward, swarmed around him. Tall as antler-headed forest giants, they stampeded past him upon cloven hooves, charged on to assail the D’Archangel.

  The fog was swept away, and clearly now Bolldhe could see the Chamber of Drauglir in all its diabolic magnificence. From its glass-smooth floor of black and violet marble, up the ornately contorted pillars that ribbed the towering walls, to the hellish canopy of glowing faces – souls of the sacrificed – that spanned the ceiling far above, all could now be seen in such glaring detail that it hurt the eye.

  That ear-splitting locust-like din of earlier now increased in volume until it filled this world, grinding through Bolldhe’s skull as a chainsaw through teeth. Clutching his head lest it burst asunder, he could only stagger about insanely. But through the rent in his head – imagined or real – the vision that had transfixed him since entering this place now poured out unfettered. The canopy of souls shrieked as they swirled around, and disappeared in a vortex; the ribcage walls crumbled into decrepitude; shining floors dulled back into the dusty dereliction they really were; and at last Bolldhe’s dream came crashing down around him in a pandemonium of screaming, human or otherwise.

  ‘Bolldhe!’ a decrepit voice squealed as the withered little face of the oldest of men filled his vision. ‘It’s an ambush! We’re trapped!’

  ‘Appa?’ Bolldhe mumbled, once again seeing the old priest clearly. But a deep voice beside him drowned any further cries from the mage-priest: ‘RETREAT! RETREAT! BACK TO THE PYRAMID!’

  The company needed no further urging. As one they turned and took to their heels after the Peladane as he headed towards the ziggurat. Paulus let go of Bolldhe’s hand and tore after them, followed immediately by Appa. Even Gapp abandoned him, leaping onto Shlepp’s back and riding off.

  ‘Wait!’ Bolldhe cried, lurching after the departing horde. ‘We’ve got to get out of here now!’

  ‘We can’t – we’re cut off,’ Appa called back. ‘The entire host of the Maw is coming through the main door!’

  Bolldhe could barely think straight, for his vision had left him befuddled. But he instinctively joined the rout. With Paulus’s sword in one hand and his own lantern in the other, he hared after the skittering shapes before him, catching up with the hindmost of the throng just as they reached the wide base of the ziggurat.

  Up the diamond-hard steps they swarmed, torches waving, lanterns dancing, none daring to look back at what they could now hear filling up the chamber. Bolldhe was among them, bounding up the steps like an antelope, the swiftest and nimblest of them all. Now that his head had cleared, his mind concentrated upon doing what he was best at: looking after himself.

  He was aware of little during this frenzied flight, as the enemy poured after them. Instinct had taken control, and there was no room for thoughts or feelings, not even fear. All he could now see in the flashes of wildly swinging lamplight were the moving feet – bare, booted or velvet-clad – immediately before him. All he could hear was the commotion of hands and feet scrambling up those steps. But as he ascended further to where the press was at its thickest, forcing his way through the throng of those weaker than himself, there arose another sound. It was like the rushing of the tide over shingle, the approach of a swarm of hornets through the forest, the first tremors of an earthquake, then finally the rumbling that presages a stampede of bison.

  Just what is it we face?

  Then the voice of the Peladane, yelling above the clamour, ‘No more, no further. This is it! There is nowhere left to run!’

  So, still shoving and moaning, the company finally turned to stare at what had gathered below.

  What had, when they had first entered this place, been an empty floor, a vast lake of glassy smoothness that mirrored the glow of their torches, was now a heaving discoloured mass that still flooded into the chamber like sewage through sluice-gates.

  On the right approached a score of figures that towered above the rest. Alive or dead, human or otherwise, could not be determined, for they were draped from the neck down in robes of burgundy and gold, each head wholly encased in a brass helmet bearing a grotesque visage with a long spear-blade curving out from its mouth. Into the battle they carried great thuribles on heavy black chains, and these they swung about their heads as they came on. They belched a thick smog that choked out all light nearby save for a dull glow within like the blanketed flare of lightning amid stormclouds.

  On the left were similarly tall figures, but these were shrouded in white, with voluminous cowls of ash-grey that hid their faces. No thuribles this time but bronze bells almost as large as cauldrons. These they pealed continuously, double-handed, filling the air with a doom-laden clamour that sapped the spirit of all enemies who heard it.

  And between these two wings advanced the army that Scathur had summoned. Towards the rear marched the host from Wrythe in their scores. By their bloody aprons and garrottes – not to mention their loping gait – could be recognized the wire-faces, but they had covered their heads with freakish bag-like hoods with only small holes cut out for the eyes.

  Among their number stalked pack leaders, forgoing their trusty cheesewires in favour of tzerbuchjer. In times of greatest need the wire-face elite would wield these long weapons of blunt wood edged with a serrated blade composed of bone slivers, ripping teeth and shards of quartz. The word meant ‘tenderizer’, which was possibly the closest their race had ever come to humour.

  Clearly they meant business, more so now than ever. Their cowardice at Lubang-Nagar had shamed them beyond belief, but not beyond redemption, and they would rip this redemption in hot red gouts from the insides of their foe.

  But before these, and vastly outnumbering them, shuffled the Dead. Herded from the Trough, their ranks were augmented by the pickled people from Wrythe, recently clawed with renewed animation from the Urn. As a solid crawling blanket of damp flesh they appeared, and even from this distance the stench was overpowering.

  As Bolldhe stared, he noticed a small figure scuttling ahead of the approaching army. It ran in a most peculiar way, wholly unlike those who followed. Its gait caused Bolldhe to train his lantern beam upon this solitary figure, whereupon his realization that this was Appa smote him with a harrowing grief. His eyes wide with mortal terror, arms flailing in his pathetic efforts to mount the slippery steps, the elderly mage-priest would be the first to fall.

  No one was eager to help him, for they were all about to face the same fate. Paulus, somewhere up at the top of the ziggurat, was screaming hysterically like a child; curled up on a marble tier with his hands over his ears, he was reciprocating in uncontrollable spasms, his mind completely gone. Nibulus was furiously attempting to clear a space to swing his Greatsword, thrusting the frightened and bewildered Vetters out of his way. To one side stood Wodeman, one hand over his face, muttering something unintelligible in a shaky voice.

  The army of darkness came crashing onto the lower tiers of the ziggurat as a wave surges around a rock. Then up they came. The company flinched back, pressing further to the summit like ants swarming up their anthill to escape the rising waters.

  ‘Hold the line stead
y! Hold the line steady!’ Nibulus called above the apocalyptic chaos, as though there was any line to hold steady in the first place.

  The Peladane, brandishing Unferth two-handed above his head, glanced over to meet Bolldhe’s eyes and gave him a final nod. There were no words to be said. Bolldhe noticed also Gapp and Shlepp nearby. Neither showed any sign of emotion other than complete concentration.

  A pall of black thurible smoke rolled up towards them ahead of the army. Thick and stinking, it caused the eyes to smart and the stomach to heave. Suddenly from its depths the first figure emerged. A ragged figure, plunging up towards them with two others close on its heels. There was a flurry of sounds as weapons were raised: the Vetters’ quartz-tipped darts and hilt-less machetes and the Cervulice’s amber-coated wooden sabres, held one in each hand.

  Bolldhe looked down the steps at their foremost assailant and gaped. It was Appa. He was desperately hauling himself up the great risers, with two animate corpses after him, their broken mouths agape in permanently silent screams. There was barely any strength left in the priest, and it was only the remnants of instinct that impelled him on. The scene reminded Bolldhe of once watching a rabbit, badly mauled and with its hind leg broken, scrabble through the briars, away from the pack that snapped at its heels, to the safety of its burrow.

  Then the Dead reached out and hauled him back.

  Bolldhe cried out, but there was a hiss through the air about him, and the two Dead fell back, releasing their prey. Each was now barbed with several Vetter darts, and one by an arrow from Methuselech’s bow. Once again the Peladane had hit the mark. With a flourish, Nibulus returned the bow to its place across his back and re-hefted his Greatsword. There was the ghost of a smile on his face, and even the sheen of a tear in his eye that seemed to say, That one’s for you, Xilva.

  Seconds later the terrified priest plunged up through their ranks and did not stop till he had collapsed onto one of the upper tiers.