by Lucas Thorn
The two girls stared at each other, each battling swarms of inner demons. Each consumed by emotions they couldn’t even name.
“I’m sorry,” Mija said at last.
“Me, too,” Nearne said. “It’s my fault. I brought them here. I-”
“It’s not your fault!” The other girl pushed from the wall and threw her arms around Nearne’s neck, ignoring the blood drooling from her arm. Pressed her face against Nearne’s. Stared hard into her eyes. “They brought you here. You didn’t bring them. Look what they did to you. They tried to break you. But you didn’t break. You kept standing. So proud. So brave. And you’re walking through the Madman’s temple, where even some of the strongest fighters I’ve ever known wouldn’t walk. Rockjaw didn’t even come here. And you’re doing this not for me. For you. Because you need to. You know you do. So, let’s do this. Do it together. If I die, that’s okay. No, stop it! It’s okay. It’s okay because I die with you at my side. And that’s fine. It means I’ll go to the Shadowed Halls with blood on my hands and the Old Skeleton will give me a good seat. Maybe the best, because I’m going to die like a Crossbone girl, with a knife in my hands and the blood of my enemy on my lips. And I’ll make sure he gives me another seat. For you. For when you get there. Right next to me, Nearne. And we’ll be together one day. I’ll wait for you. As long as it takes, I’ll wait. So, it’s okay. I swear. It’s okay.”
The elf took a step away from the young couple, memories skipping through her brain. Memories of Talek saying words just like those being forced through Mija’s lips.
Words which revelled in the passion he felt for her. A passion she’d always been unable to release for him. A flash of jealousy licked her heart and she turned her head away. Began walking after the blind deathpriest, confused and feeling like something was breaking deep inside. Something which had been frozen and hard for too long.
A flood of emotions ready to burst at any second.
So, with every step, she pushed on it. Pressed it. Crushed it. Forced it back into the freezing depths of her soul. Drew her lips back into a tight humourless grin which arched upward to the vicious scar on her cheek.
She had to be cold.
Hard.
Because death waited in the brittle heart of this arcane temple.
Using her teeth, she tugged at Saja’s belt around her fist, pulling it tighter by one loop. Tasted the salty tang of leather. A few drops of blood squeezed loose as she eased the buckle back in place. Kept her eyes on the temple walls, though. Didn’t trust Lux’s confidence in the creature not returning. And, even if it didn’t, she was sure there were plenty of other things living in the cursed interior.
When she caught up to the blind deathpriest, he’d paused at a fork and was tapping his staff angrily. “I told you to be quick,” he growled. “Not to piss about. If one of them is wounded, then she must be left behind. There’s a time and a place for empathy, and this isn’t it.”
“Fuck you,” she said. No heat in her voice. Just impassive cold. Jingled the bell at him. “You might have a leash around my wrist, but I still ain’t your slave.”
He sneered, a derisive twist of dry crisp lips. “I didn’t expect to be telling you this. It sounds to me like you’re getting soft. Is that it, Nysta?”
“Ain’t that.” She spat on the ground at his feet, resisting the urge to bury Queen of Hearts in his chest to see if it could kill him.
“What, then?”
“Could be I don’t like skulking around in ancient ruins of the Vampire Lord kind. Seen enough to know I don’t like them.”
He looked ready to say something, but waved his staff dismissively as the two girls came limping out of the gloom. “Forget them. Wounded, they are no use to us. There are more of their pathetic kind all over the Crossbones. They breed like rabbits. There’ll be more of them by morning. But if we don’t protect the temple, then everything in these islands will die. Maybe even the world. Everything. Do you understand this?”
“Sure, feller,” she said. Smile crooked on her face. “I get it. But I reckon I’ll still do things my way. Help who I like. Because from what I’ve seen, raiders ain’t all that bad. It’s the temple of doom which is shit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A slim thread of yellow fog curled above their heads as they talked. Where it touched the temple walls, droplets of plasmic slime drooled down the stone.
As it drifted overhead, the elf looked up. Ears filled with the whispers.
Find it. Kill it.
A chuckle, at first. Low and humourless. Then rising in crescendo to a mad cackle which made her flinch.
“Come on,” Lux hissed. “Listen. Hear that? It’s the draug. They come. Now, move. Move if you want to survive!”
She ran.
Hairs on the back of her neck standing free. Hair on her head tingling with energy passing from the skin of her scalp. Energy crawling with fear.
The soft slap of sodden feet pursued them.
Nearne dragged Mija, sometimes with ease. Other times a struggle. Cajoling and begging at the same time. Promising safety. Sometimes vengeance. Anything to keep the wounded girl from falling and not getting up again.
Lux ignored them all, leading the way with typical speed. He lifted his staff, plunging its tip at the walls. Using it to guide himself, though sometimes she doubted he needed it. Sliding around corners as though working to a map. A map only he could see.
She had to trust him. Trust he wasn’t leading them in circles. But it was hard to trust a deathpriest. Even harder when he was blind and everything looked the same. When every tile was a perfect match to the tiles before. The only thing different was the increasing number of bodyparts.
Not whole bodies.
Just parts.
A hand.
A skull.
Severed limb.
Half a lung.
Puddles of putrid bile and congealed blood licked the wall. Gleaming with smug secrets and a promise of death. Death at the hands of something dark. Something ancient. Something hungry.
A spine, bones neatly piled into a tower. She rushed past, her passage sending bone skittering across the ground in her wake. Nearne yelped as she crossed the bouncing shrapnel.
Mija didn’t notice. A trail of red still drizzled loose from her arm in a near-unbroken line.
How much longer could she run?
The elf was also beginning to feel the toll of the chase. A chase which had begun long before she’d been wrecked on this island. Sweat licked her forehead and scribbled down her cheeks. She wiped at it with the back of her bandaged fist. Blinked against a feverish rush of vertigo.
More sweat squeezed through the pores of her armpits, soaking into her undershirt.
Even her feet felt hot.
But not her hands. They felt only icy cold numbness striped with flashes of pain.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Keep it together.”
Then Lux skidded to a halt. The blind deathpriest motioned her to be quiet.
Right on the edge of wide stone stairs which led down into a sunken courtyard which, at first, looked to hold an army. Figures stood in neat rows, faces aimed away from them. But they weren’t alive. They were statues. Carved from the same dark rock. In their hands, swords and axes.
Not stone weapons. Steel.
In rank and file, they stood before a massive altar of bones. Bones which had been piled there for centuries. Uncountable centuries. If Lux was right, then they’d been heaped there since the Night Age. The altar itself was pale white stone unlike any other rock used in the carving of the temple.
Smoothed to a mirrorlike sheen, it shone in the fresh light of dawn. Down its sides, dark stains hinted at its grim purpose.
Behind the altar, a repulsively twisted tower. The tower speared upward, its curling wall bearing the skulls of those whose bones lay about the altar. Blank eyesockets stared with malignant humour. Teeth grinned with crazed smiles.
Down.
Down at the
men who gathered before the barred tower’s doors. Men who’d managed to smash one of the statues free of its place and were using it as a ram. A ram to try breaking through the heavy barrier keeping them from their prize. Men dressed in grey.
And, at their head, an old man shouted. Shouted in frenzy for them to work harder. To have faith.
To fear nothing, because Rule was with them.
The elf’s eyes narrowed to slits as she saw Nath. Saw Maks, too. The big one-eyed man was off to the old man’s right. Beside him, Dalle stood with her arms hugging her chest. She looked chilled by the morning air and bored by the lack of progress.
A couple of Grey Jackets leaned against the altar. Heavily wounded. One with a gaping hole in his throat. He wouldn’t live much longer. This irritated Nysta.
Maybe, she thought, if she ran fast, she could kill him. Kill him before he died.
Struck by the absurdity of her thought, she moved her gaze away. Back to the deathpriest who surveyed the courtyard with equal hatred and fascination.
He pointed his staff to the right side where a dozen or so Grey Jackets waited for the door to be broken. “I’ll deal with them,” he said. “But I’ll need-”
“Time,” she finished for him. “Yeah. I’ve known a spellslinger or two. I hope you’re quicker than they were.”
“It would’ve been better if the ork had come,” he said softly. “There are many of them. Maybe too many. And we need to kill them before Ihan will open the door, I think. He needs to emerge. If he’s still alive. If not, we must find a way inside. And that will take time. But the sacrifice must be made. It must!”
“If you wanted the ork to come along, maybe you shouldn’t have pissed him off.”
“I needed him angry,” Lux shrugged. “He needs to remember who he is. Until he does that, he’s useless.”
“He got you out of there.”
“No, Nysta. You did that. You pushed him. You started to remind him of what he was. What he should be. But it wasn’t enough.”
The two girls finally caught up, heaving and sweating. Nearne whispered, voice a frightened croak; “They’re right behind us!”
The yellow fog poured down from above, reaching down into the courtyard with ethereal arms. Its whispers, nasty and spiteful as the temperature plummeted and mist exhaled on their breath.
“He comes,” Lux growled.
The elf lifted her hand and gave her wrist a flick so the bell rang clearly in her ears. “I’ll give you time,” she said. “But it ain’t going to be easy. And with my hands all fucked up, it won’t be much. Use it well.”
“I will.”
“You’d better.”
And with that, she leapt down the stairs. Five, sometimes seven, at a time. Letting loose a savage shout as she made the base, she darted in among the rows of stone figures. Found the space between them to be tighter than she’d expected. There wasn’t much room to move. A wrong move could see her cut by a sword or an axe held in those immovable fists.
She should be uncomfortable.
Any fighter would be.
But she was Jukkala’Jadean. Used to fighting in the tight confines of alleys and shrouded hallways.
Grinning at the sheer lunacy, the elf felt the worms pulse through her body. They strummed on her muscles like a bard plucking the strings of his lute. They slithered across her back. The familiar feel of insects crawling across her skin.
Under her skin.
Exhaustion trickled away, replaced by a heart-thudding desire to murder.
Taste of copper in her mouth.
Burning in her veins.
She could hear Maks. Bellowing orders. Telling the Grey Jackets where to go. Pointing the way.
Useless.
She zigzagged, keeping her body low. Ducking under the figures which formed a thick forest around her. She couldn’t see the altar from here. Could see only the backs of the inanimate army.
When she found her first kill, she couldn’t be sure who was more surprised.
Still, he died first. He brought his sword up fast. Should have cut through her arm, severing it at the elbow. But there wasn’t room. His sword clanged off an inanimate warrior’s stone arm, sparking as it skated up across the statue’s sword.
Her knife didn’t miss. It sank into his thigh. The venomous green glow of A Flaw in the Glass bubbled inside his leg. Boiling inside the flesh.
For a brief second, they were one. Killer and victim.
Eyes trapped in each other’s gaze as his blood churned across her unfeeling fist. Fear and understanding met with a clash which was almost physical.
Then she cut the connection with a sudden rip of the blade which tore up his thigh and rammed deep into his belly, doubling him over and spinning him around. As his back was exposed, she thudded Queen of Hearts between his shoulders. The blade spat its enchantment into the cavernous void of his lung and ate deep.
Pulling the blade free was difficult, the rags binding it to her hand making it hard to pluck the reluctant knife loose without having it jerk free of its bindings. She turned as it slurped free. Twisted on her feet as a scuffle from behind announced the Shadowed Halls calling for its next soul.
Saw a blur of steel sweep across her vision and threw herself out of the glittering arc, rolling awkwardly. Crashed into the knees of a stone warrior. Grunted in pain and rattled loose the thought that this wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d figured it would be.
Had to scuttle quick as the bucktoothed Grey Jacket came leering out of the dark and stabbed down with his sword.
Struck the ground between her legs. The steel impacted stone and vibrated in the air like a ferocious scowl.
She kicked out, shin smashing into the side of the heavy sword and sending his arm flailing as he fought to keep hold of the weapon. His eyes flickered.
An instant.
An instant was all she needed.
She twisted, not trying to get to her feet. Instead, slashed across his knee. Queen of Hearts, always eager, snatched at flesh with its sticky tendrils. Tore a flap of skin free with a steely snap of delight.
Red splashed the elf’s grinning face. She drove her other arm up. Green light snaking after A Flaw in the Glass as its curved tip tried to find the soft bowl of his guts.
He was quick, as an elf should be. Even one without his ears.
His mailed fist smashed into her forearm, hammering the angle of her attack into a useless swipe at nothing. Pain exploded from her wounded hand, drawing a roar from deep inside her throat.
She kicked again, a clumsy and defensive move made effective when the heel of her boot cracked into his wounded knee, splintering bone as the joint was wrenched at an angle it wasn’t made to endure.
Shrieking, he fell to the ground, writhing.
Hearing more boots, she quickly sliced his throat and ran. Left him writhing as his blood washed the feet of the statue looming above.
Sprinted up a line of warriors before ducking quickly to her right when two Grey Jackets appeared a few metres in front of her. They let out a yell and scrambled after her.
One snatched with a whiplike arm, gloved fist grabbing air.
Had he caught her hair, he’d have cleaved her skull in two with the axe he’d been swinging. As it was, he missed, and then lost her as she darted to her left before squirreling between two statues too close together for him to follow.
“She’s here! Here!”
The elf took her third, taking him from behind. He was crouching down, trying to look between the legs of the stone warriors. She leapt onto his back, landing with both knees. Brought both knives carving with a whirl of enchanted fury into his throat. One either side.
The knives clashed against each other in the maelstrom of his lifeblood as it gushed free.
Nearly fully severed from its neck, his head angled impossibly as he dropped.
She kept running.
“Maks!” She screamed his name. Taunting. Pulling their attention. “Maks! I’m coming, you bastar
d! I’m coming to kill you!”
Heard him spit. “Fuck.”
Angled toward his voice, then was pushed away as three Grey Jackets came from three sides. An axe missed her arm. But tore through the shallow meat above her hip. Cut a burning line between her jacket and her pants. Not deep enough to hit bone, but deep enough for her to feel the sharpness of the blade’s curved edge kiss through skin.
Cursing, she watched her blood spatter between her feet.
A sword nicked her ear.
Her ear.
She froze in the act of dodging away from them.
Felt the sharp pinprick of pain in the fresh cut. Turned.
Thought of Nearne.
Thought of all of them.
Cutting the ears off their children.
Burning them to ash. Delivering them to Rule.
“You cut my ear,” she said. They didn’t move. Didn’t breathe as her words stilled the world around them. Voice desolate of emotion. But inside, her stomach churned. Churned with hate. “I’ll kill you for that. Kill you all.”
She charged in.
A glittering thread of death followed her blades as they worked their magic. Cutting. Stabbing. Driving their shrieking souls into the Shadowed Halls.
She worked with a rhythm born of rage. Didn’t notice when more converged. Just kept going. Kept moving. Unwilling and unable to stop.
Blood, spraying loose, swatted her face. Drizzled down her cheeks. Their blood.
When she paused, there were six dead at her feet and two more still living. One whimpering as he bled from a deep cut across his chest. Eyes wide, confused by the savagery of the elf, he still managed to keep himself balanced on his weak legs.
“The Lord of Light is with us,” the wounded man croaked, trying to convince himself. “He’s with us.”
She let him stumble towards her. Let him find a fleeting ember of confidence in her unmoving stance.
