Thorne and Vann stayed by his side as Mortalo sped past them to lead the charge. The clock tower rang out, signaling their arrival.
The ground shook; windows cracking, stone vibrating. He heard the mechanical gears of the Wardens whirring as if they were on top of him, steam hissing from the vents protruding from their backs.
He assumed he would face nothing more than his earlier encounter—a single Warden with a few Scourge attacking it, but as they ran into the square opposite the guard tower, he found his thoughts to be naive. Scores of Scourge mobbed the mechanical creatures, choking the archaic enforcers. It looked as if all the Wardens were there, towering above everything, their frames letting little light past them. But for every Warden, there was a horde of Scourge, their waxy faces, wide-eyed and intense.
A group of men, all disparately dressed, some in robes, some clad in rat furs, even mesh armor, different Companies pulling together, dragging and cutting the Scourge, trying to defend their city and, indirectly, the Wardens.
Others started to flee and ran toward Mortalo and his procession. As they passed, Canis noticed their hollow eyes and awkward movements. They’re not human…
“Scourge!” he shouted.
Mortalo cleaved his double-edged axe into the gut of the nearest one. Black, ink-like fluids poured to the dirt. Sorrow washed over Canis as if one of his own brothers had died. Bane contracted around his spine whilst Thorne and Vann leaped ahead and joined Mortalo as they butchered the unarmed drones.
Canis collapsed, unnoticed, and clawed at the ground, his nails digging in deep, his hands and fingers stiff to the point of snapping. Bane tried to gain control again and, as he looked ahead, all he could think about was burying his sword into Mortalo’s back. That wasn’t him. It never was him.
He managed to twist his sword and place its edge on his throat. Its tip rested between the ridges of his bark-box, scratching the inside after digging into the skin. Bane tried to battle against it, but Canis pushed through the mental fog. Blood snaked down the blade. Canis went limp.
“What’re you doing?” Bane screamed.
Canis looked into the thorny night sky. The souls were still swirling far above, still trapped in torment. He thought he saw their arms outstretched for help, either that or they welcomed more dead into the fold.
I warned you. I’d rather die than be controlled by someone else again. Stay out of this or I’ll kill us both. I’ll join the souls up there before I’m slave to you!
Bane didn’t reply, but Canis felt the acceptance as his muscles relaxed farther. He pulled the blade away from his throat.
Mortalo walked to him covered in blood, dripping from his face and axe. His robe was open, revealing silver armor underneath. It shone in the limited light. Mortalo held out a hand, but Canis ignored him and struggled on his own.
“I’ve captured one alive,” said Mortalo, pointing behind him, a grin on his face. “They’re tying it up.”
“Get away from me,” said Canis.
He backed off. His lip quivered. “I thought you might share my enthusiasm.”
“The only thing I share with you is the vision of a better life for Blackrose. I believe we can make it and reach the other cities.” Canis looked at Thorne. “Not everyone is as they appear. There’s a person behind every mask.”
Mortalo swung around and joined his men. The clouds rumbled in the dark sky, and moments after, rain poured. It was warm against Canis’ skin. He could taste the dirt and sweat as it trickled into the split corners of his mouth. It washed away the powder from Mortalo’s face. Sad eyes drooped, his wet hair thin, and his skin blotchy. Your time has passed, old man.
Canis looked toward the battle near the foot of a guard tower. Arcs of blood had been sprayed on the city walls, and the door to the tower was a crimson portal. The different Companies fought as one, cutting into the mass of Scourge, their differences lost in the sea of violence. There is hope. We can free other cities from the Scourge. I can be the man Mortalo never was.
Groups of Scourge detached from the Wardens, starting to surround everyone. Canis watched the hordes’ efforts, chipping away at the hard exterior of the Wardens, clamoring to the soft innards the soul energy held together.
“If we can free some of the Wardens?” asked Canis.
“We’re gonna have to do something!” shouted Thorne, her gaze flicking between him and Vann.
“To hell with Mortalo,” said Vann, his cold breath visible. “He’s more concerned with capturing them than helping us.”
Canis nodded and set into a tight, low run, his body now free of Bane’s control.
He didn’t know if Thorne or Vann followed, and he didn’t care as he willed his inbred rage to the surface. Mooncap or not, he would have his way. Bane helped with the influx of raw power, but with timid effort compared to the times before.
Canis and Mortalo locked gazes for a moment as he sped past. His old master’s frown narrowed, and his mouth turned down before widening. What little color remained in the dyed face drained to grey. Grey like the city. Grey like the ashes of his victims in the pit.
I’ll save these people, not you.
He neared the Scourge, seven strides away.
The rain thrashed in waves of upset lashings and his hair stuck to his face. Agrim struggled in the wet mass, and he remembered the creature weighed down with rain the first time they’d met. Do what you can, beastie. The distance between him and the Scourge shrunk as he passed a woman and child as they escaped behind him. He glanced back. They held out their battered clubs, swinging them with hope rather than any conviction.
Three strides.
Canis lifted his sword, drawing it high over his right shoulder, then back down again.
One.
It hit one of the living mannequins on the collarbone and became lodged against its spine as it tore in. Canis bounced off; the dead body fell to the cobbles, its arms still raised in the air. Two Scourge-freaks jumped on Canis. He fell back, the sword dropping from his hand.
They kept him pinned, and he felt Bane’s sorrow as the boy who had been fighting for his life moments ago drove Canis’ blade through the Scourge’s face. Steel punched through, and the thing lay twitching on the ground. Canis rolled from under the other’s grip as Vann descend upon it.
Vann jumped as he snuck behind the Scourge and jabbed at the side of its head. His gauntlet’s spikes dug all the way in. Canis guessed it had died, but Thorne rammed a spear through its back for good measure. Its sternum cracked, and the ribcage opened like a blooming flower as the skin tore around it.
That was the first time Canis saw what was inside, the thing controlling people, using them as hosts. Wrapped around the dead human’s spine was an oily thin creature with as many hooks and limbs as a greedy slaver would use. He couldn’t see eyes or anything resembling a head, but he saw the indistinct mass thrashing and writhing.
Canis retched at the sight, not because of the dead, blackened organs, or the twitching organism, but because something like that controlled him too. The parasite ceased to move and curled into a ball as the husk dropped face first into the blood-soaked street.
Vann grabbed Canis’ sword and threw it to him before charging into battle. Canis ran after him, Thorne at his side.
He pushed past Vann. Masses of Scourge clawed at each other to get at the people being herded into the middle of the square. Their mouths and hands were covered in blood, mere specks of red in a sea of many, moving with the coordination of a killer symphony.
Canis’ feet glided across the cobbled street, his sword already raised above his shoulder, coiled to kill.
“I’ll hack a path to the nearest Warden. Keep them off me,” Canis shouted.
“Mortalo better back us up,” said Thorne.
“Who cares,” said Vann, thrusting some mooncap into his mouth. “I’m going to enjoy this!”
“I care!” She drew back her spear. “We’re as good as dead if
this goes wrong. I hope you’re as strong as you look.”
“Strong?” Canis’ face stretched into an aching smile. “I’ll show you how strong I am.”
He puffed out his chest and fixed his stare on the enemy ahead. Bane retreated from his mind. His inbred rage slammed against his consciousness, ramming his sense of reality. Ice lanced through his veins, his teeth smashed together, his face swelling. He didn’t have any mooncap, and it appeared Bane had chosen not to help butcher its kind, so he let it consume him.
The familiar edge of insanity caressed his mind. Hallucinations warped his vision.
The waxed and muscled bodies wavered in size as red mist capped his vision. The world turned upside down. He was running on clouds, the souls of the dead swimming beneath him, the rain pouring upward. He imagined the Scourge-freaks floating upward too, cowering as he collided into them. Tiny brown ghosts, memories of his past playing in their eyes, climbed out of his mouth and scratched his face, pointing toward the horde. He saw himself being cradled by his mother in one of the ghost’s eyes, but in another he saw Mortalo pushing a spike through his cheek.
He saw himself rocking in his cell, mooncap stroking his problems, but the ghosts in his face ripped the flesh from it and kept his mind from wandering. That was something of his past, just like the little boy he used to be, the young man he used to be. Instead of rocking by himself, hands wrapped around his knees, he moved the blade back and forth, from enemy to enemy.
His sword met little resistance. Skin and bone melted at first touch, their bodies turning inside out. Limbs spiraled all around him, droplets of sweat flying in different directions. Left to right, right to left, he hacked at the fleshy canvas in front of him. Their bodies bloomed with the slightest of touches, their black organs floating.
He continued his onslaught and could have gone on cutting through their bodies like rotten fruit, but something stopped his blade. Screaming vibrations shot up his arm, splintering bone. Again, he attacked it, but the force came straight back at him. He looked up and saw the brown ghosts climbing a giant orgy of bodies. The perfectly formed Scourge weaved in and out of each other, all diving into the metal below.
He had been hitting a dying Warden. Sharp pains exploded in his body and he climbed the Warden like an animal using all four limbs. Steam melted the skin off the Scourge near the Warden’s head, and he came to meet its emotionless and gauzed face. The tiny brown ghosts disappeared into the machine’s clockwork body.
The hallucinations evaporated, and his thighs quivered. His feet slipped as he tried to stand on its shoulders, but he steadied himself before delivering wild, thundering blows to the enemy trying to climb it. Agrim shot out and planted itself onto one of the attacker’s faces. Its fur was soaked, and it struggled to navigate its strand of web back to him.
He raised his sword again, but the weight of it shook him loose, still unbalanced after overreaching for Agrim. Confusion trickled into his thoughts and the world contracted, everything returning to how it should. His lungs burned, and his head pounded. He recognized Vann and Thorne hacking at the enemies beneath. Thorne eyed him for a moment, her fleeting glance sheepish and withdrawn.
The Warden tore the Scourge from its back, and Canis fell and landed at Vann’s feet. His brother cleaved his spikes through a mannequin’s face. Mortalo and the rest of the slaves swarmed the Warden. It turned. Flames burst from turrets on its back. Their enemies burned, melting, chittering, and squealing until all sound ceased.
Canis couldn’t move his head and didn’t resist as Vann hoisted him onto his back. Bane tried to enter Canis’ thoughts, pounding on the mental barriers he had to put in place.
The freed Warden, Mortalo, and the other slaves ripped through the Scourge as they pushed toward the trapped guards. Mortalo stopped, as did everyone else, leaving the colossus alone.
High-pitched cheers erupted around them, but the cries warped from joyous to a symphony of sheer hate. Though he wasn’t under the effects of his rage, the twisted chorus was a noose around his neck.
It was the Scourge, their copy of human cheers like a widening knife slicing its way deep into his chest. They stopped fighting against the humans and gathered before another Warden in front of the tower. The lumbering colossus wasn’t fighting back against them like the others; it was bent in submission, letting them climb on it, encouraging others to stand before it. It charged, stepping on the Scourge who moments ago had been worshipping it. Its left hand was crippled, bent and deformed from the fray, a twisted spike. It charged straight for the humans, weaving between the buildings with care, avoiding them with every step.
“Canis!” Bane screamed.
Bane?
“Listen to me,” it stressed. “You must kill that Warden. It has been infected.
But it’s a machine. How is that possible?
“Its mind is corrupt! The Warden must be alive in some way for us to take over, but something is wrong. It isn’t part of us. It must be stopped.”
Stop it? Wasn’t it your plan to kill or control them?
“That one is of the Fallen, an offshoot of our race. I don’t know why or how it’s here, but for both my kind and yours, it must be killed. Get on your feet! Get Mortalo to help you kill it. Only his slaves have the strength.” Its last words sounded as if it mocked him.
Canis clung to Vann’s back, dribbling onto his shoulder as he tried to speak. His vision blurred, and he couldn’t feel any help flowing from Bane. “Vann,” he slurred, his thoughts clear but his body drained of any fight.
“You’re still alive,” said Vann, side-eyeing Canis whose head flopped on his shoulder. “I knew it, you twisted beast.”
“Vann,” Canis said. “Get Mortalo.”
Vann did as he was asked and went to stand beside Mortalo. The old man’s mouth was open, his face still drooped, and his eyes glazed. It looked as if he were frozen in place.
Numbness washed over Canis’ body.
Mortalo pulled his gaze from the Warden and grabbed Canis’ shoulder. “Canis,” he said. “You made me so proud.” He smiled, and his face filled with genuine warmth.
“If you want to save Blackrose, then kill that Warden,” Canis said, stretching his trembling arm and pointing to the infected machine. “They’re against us.”
Mortalo didn’t respond. He watched the Warden. It was under the thumb of the Fallen that burrowed deep inside. It crushed its own kind in order to get at the people. Despite the disregard shown to its own, it stayed in the streets, twisting and contorting to fit between the stone buildings without damaging them.
The small army had already started to flee and headed straight for them, cutting their own path through the Scourge in a last, futile attempt to save their lives.
Mortalo stood in front of a wall of slaves and looked at Canis. The old man shuddered as he took the first tentative step forward, as though he couldn’t control or believe what was happening. He gripped the Butcher’s Cleaver and took three steps. After a fourth, he gave the orders to meet the Warden head-on.
Smoke overtook the clearing; the Wardens’ attempts to defend themselves had set fire to everything. All Canis could see were the contorted faces of fleeing people and the green eyes of the Wardens piercing through the chaos.
Vann and Thorne stayed behind. Canis slid off his brother’s back, hoping to stand on his own. His legs held. He watched, still clutching his brother, as Mortalo went to challenge the enemy, leading his Iron Hands into battle. His robe trailed behind him as he pushed bodies out of the way to get at the Fallen Warden.
Canis’ limbs tried to recover, but his eardrums popped, and all sound ceased for a moment. He looked on, clutching Vann for balance. Despite the silence blanketing Blackrose, he could still feel the vibrating heart.
The three remained in place as throngs of terrified city-dwellers ran past them to escape. The slaves flung themselves at the machine, but their weapons bounced off the exoskeleton.
M
ortalo will kill it. He’ll grind it into the dust. He’ll…
As the thought left his mind, the Fallen Warden’s mangled arm lashed out at Mortalo. His head was knocked backward. Canis saw the white of his eyes as his face was forced around. Sound returned to Canis like the lighting of a new torch and he caught the end of his master’s gargled cry. Canis’ thoughts begged him to help, but his body collapsed, and he crumpled to his knees. The leaderless slaves scattered, no longer driven to destruction by a madman.
“Help me!” said Canis aloud. “I need you, Bane. Help me!”
“Get on your feet. Help Mortalo,” said Bane.
“He’s dead,” said Vann, rubbing his cold hands. “Isn’t that what we wanted?”
Canis choked. “Help him, Vann! You have to!”
A tear formed in the corner of Vann’s eye, but he nodded and thundered after Mortalo.
Thorne dragged Canis away and, although he struggled against it, he was in no shape to fight back. His heels scraped in the dirt in front of him. As the crowds cleared, he saw Mortalo’s body on the ground, getting smaller and smaller, the smoke consuming him. He was gone. More Scourge filled the battlefield, drifting within the grey fumes. Vann disappeared into the chaos.
He watched as the Fallen Warden continued to step on humans and Scourge. Between trampling people and avoiding buildings, it scooped up handfuls of bodies, their frames forced together, their mouths wide as they gasped for air. Wiry strands of flesh sprouted from its vents and were forced down its victims’ throats as it infected them with more Fallen parasites. Canis remembered the feeling, the scraping as it climbed into his throat in the forest. They struggled at first but stopped fighting back and followed the Warden as it dropped them for new victims. It created an army of its own. It created the Fallen. Canis traced its direction and clenched his fists. It’s going for the clock tower…
Mortalo’s evil had been replaced by another, and yet he couldn’t imagine a world without his old master. We’ll get our revenge and then we’ll take back our city. We’ll escape this prison and live as a free people. Everyone deserves to be free. He watched as more souls floated from the battlefield and into the sky. There they watched and waited.
A Thousand Eyes Page 11
