Godblind

by Anna Stephens

  ‘There’s nothing else you can do to me, my love,’ he said. ‘You can’t hurt me any more, not without killing me, and I know you won’t do that. If I’m dead, you can’t get into the world, can you? Your Blessed One doesn’t have the power.’ He giggled and chewed on his arm while the Dark Lady pouted.

  She gave him a seductive smile and swayed towards him. Dom held up his hand. ‘No, not that either. I’ve no interest in fucking you despite your very obvious charms. So to answer your question, Lady, there will be no bargain. Not tonight, not ever. You can break me, and you can hurt me, but you cannot have my soul. So why don’t you just leave me alone?’

  ‘Because you’re too much fun,’ the Dark Lady whispered and backhanded him hard enough to hurl him through the air, over the water trough and into the rubble beyond. There was a moment of freedom in the flight, when his flailing limbs let go of everything. The air whistled over his skin and cleansed him of Her touch.

  But then he landed hard, smashing through the fallen frame of a window, the oiled screen flapping around him and broken wood slicing into his lower back and shoulder, and She was standing over him again, moonlight limning Her skin. He reached for the pain instead of Her, willing his cock to wilt.

  ‘Gosfath,’ She called. ‘Gosfath, you can have him now.’ The movement on the plain stuttered and reappeared a stride from Dom’s feet and he yelped, squirming backwards through the rubble. Gosfath reached down and curled a taloned hand around his ankle, dragging him back to the clear space by the water trough. Dom clutched at rubble and burnt beams, hooked his fingers around the trough for a few seconds, but there was no denying that pull.

  And then Gosfath stood him up. ‘Fight,’ He rumbled, grinning. ‘Fight, little man.’

  Dom stared up at him, light-headed with hilarity at the proposal. The Dark Lady had a faint smile playing across Her lips. ‘Well done, my brother,’ She murmured. ‘Go on then, Calestar. You want to play games with gods? Then play.’

  Might be time for that knife, then. Dom slid it from his boot and crouched. Gosfath laughed and the Dark Lady tapped two fingers into Her palm in mocking applause. There was wet on Dom’s face and his guts bubbled, close to shitting himself, but he had a lifetime of training on his side. What did the God of Blood have? Dom giggled and then lunged, feinting with his right hand to draw Gosfath’s gaze and then stabbing with his left, aiming for the groin. No point fighting fair when you were fighting a god.

  Gosfath wrapped His hand around Dom’s face, squashing his nose with His palm until Dom couldn’t breathe, and picked him up from the grass, feet dangling. Dom swiped for the god’s forearm, felt resistance as though he’d run his knife across a whetstone, and then the world slammed him in the back and drove the air from him.

  Gosfath let go of Dom’s face and pinched the knife between His thumb and forefinger, and He showed it to Dom as he wheezed on the ground, and then He drove it through Dom’s left palm and into the ground.

  Dom’s back arched and he’d have screamed if he had any air in his lungs. Then Gosfath pulled the blade back out, licked it, and tossed it aside, launching in with His talons instead.

  ‘This is our world now,’ the Dark Lady said, calm as if She was watching spring lambs playing king of the hill. ‘You understand me, Calestar? Our world. And you’re right, we can’t kill you yet. But we can make you wish you were dead.’

  As always these days, Dom woke tasting blood. His blood, the blood of his people, blood of innocents. The pain was constant, racking his body, an old enemy close to being a friend.

  He rolled on to his side and then reached his hands and knees, pausing to retch as the world flipped and danced around him. He gasped, the pain in his left hand stinging and intense. He sat back on his haunches and looked at it, looked at the wide red mouth in his palm and the smaller one on the back of his hand, the dried blood crusted down his fingers and up his forearm. He licked it thoughtfully. The gods’ wounds never lasted past waking. If they did he’d have died a thousand times already. His eye was drawn to the grass where he knelt. It was black and dead, blighted. As though something had poisoned the soil.

  Or Someone. And that’s when Dom realised. They’d been here last night, not in the waypoint between the real world and Red Gods’ Afterworld. Not in the flame-lit cavern. They’d come to him in the living, waking world.

  She’d even told him to his face. This is our world, She’d said. After a thousand years of exile, the Red Gods had pierced the Dancer’s veil. Enough blood had been spilt, enough men had pledged their souls, and the veil had torn asunder.

  Whatever Dom had or hadn’t done to his soul, whoever it belonged to now, there was no denying the return of the Gods of Blood. He rocked back and forth on his knees, chewing his arm, and he laughed madly as he wept.

  CRYS

  Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

  Yew Cove tunnels, River Gil, Western Plain

  Crys bit, hard as he could, and thrashed his head from side to side. The man on top of him was screaming, pushing and slapping at his face, but Crys wasn’t letting go. On his back in filthy, bloody water, the only light that from a dying torch forty strides away, they fought, grunting, punching, squealing, until Crys managed to bring up his legs and cross them around the Raider’s torso.

  Still had two fingers in his mouth so he clenched his jaw even tighter and jack-knifed straight, slamming his legs and the Raider down into the water, keeping hold of the arm. A crunch of gristle as the shoulder ripped and hot blood spurting against his tongue when the fingers came off: the Raider’s scream went up in pitch as he was folded backwards in Crys’s legs and then Crys sat up, spat the fingers at the bastard, fumbled for his knife in the dark and stabbed him in the belly over and over, seven, eight, nine times, until the screams were whimpers and the thrashing just twitching.

  Bodies everywhere and this whole section of tunnels dank with water inches deep. Crys kicked free of the dying man and sloshed to his feet, spitting heathen blood into the water.

  Voices with Mireces accents and the tinge of orange light from a second tunnel. Crys grabbed his sword and backed off, down the tunnel where Ash had gone with the others, leaving him behind, but there was movement from that direction as well and it didn’t sound friendly. He threw himself into a corner, pulled a corpse on top of him and lay still, heart hammering.

  ‘Gos, the gods must hate you,’ a voice said, loud and uncaring if anyone heard, ‘else you’d be dead and with Them by now.’

  ‘Must admit I’d prefer the Afterworld to this shithole, but what can a man do, eh?’ The two men shook hands. ‘Surprised you’re still alive.’

  ‘Will of the gods,’ the first voice said. ‘How are we doing?’

  ‘All going to plan, as near as we can tell. The sappers up top should be in position by now, ready to—’

  ‘Wait. Ssh – shut the fuck up. I heard something.’

  Crys’s breath stopped and he forced himself not to tense. The corpse’s arm was over his face, hiding the glint of his eyes as he watched the Mireces fall silent and scan the corpses in the chamber.

  ‘Spread out. Check they’re dead,’ the first speaker said and stepped over a tangle of limbs to pull the bodies apart. He carried a spear which he plunged down into each corpse as other Mireces sloshed through the water, stabbing weapons into men.

  The one called Gos was getting closer and Crys breathed slowly through his nose, panic flaring in his gut, biting back a scream, a plea for mercy. He had the element of surprise. He only needed to leap up, take out this one and break for a tunnel, didn’t matter which one. Fastest runner in the North Rank, Crys Tailorson, right now probably the fastest in Rilpor given the motivation.

  The man whose fingers Crys had bitten off made a mewling sound and the Mireces’ heads snapped towards him. ‘Fucking hell, it’s Benn,’ Gos said. ‘You silly twat, you had us going then,’ he said and peered down at him. ‘Won’t make it,’ he said and drove his sword into Benn’s chest
and then his throat. Crys whimpered, the sound muffled by the corpse’s arm, and shut his eyes.

  ‘All right, may as well take a break here,’ the first speaker said.

  ‘Bit wet, Maris,’ Gos said, splashing water with his foot.

  Maris grinned and shoved at a corpse with his toe. ‘Pull up someone to sit on, then, Gos, you need to keep your haemorrhoids out of the chill.’

  Crys opened one eye and saw the Mireces, nearly a score of them, stack corpses on top of each other to make benches and settle in for a rest. He suppressed a shiver and gritted his teeth against the cramp beginning in his calf. Get me out of this alive, Trickster, I’ll do anything you want.

  ‘Water’s rising,’ Gos muttered, rousing Crys from his frozen stupor. ‘Must be a storm in the mountains.’

  ‘Or the lads are doing their work,’ Maris said and slapped his knee. ‘Let’s be about killing some more heathens then, eh? Rested long enough, I’d say.’

  Their voices were muffled and clanging because Crys’s right ear was submerged in the creeping, icy water. His shivers were uncontrollable now and only the gloom and the Mireces’ chatter kept them from noticing the vibrating pile of corpses in the corner. They’d thrown another one on top of him some time during the last hour, a body that didn’t live up to its expectations as a seat, shoving Crys further down into the water and sending a bolt of pain through his cracked ribs.

  And now finally, finally they were leaving. But they stood up without hurry, stretching, grunting, adjusting their weapons, pissing on the corpses like dogs marking territory. A thin tendril of yellow bloomed into a paler rose in the water and warmed the side of Crys’s face. Water was nearly at his nose. If they didn’t go soon he’d have to move or drown, and the fuckers seemed to have forgotten why they’d got up.

  The water was in Crys’s nose and he opened his mouth, felt it flood in, tasted blood and piss and cold, gagged, but had just enough of an airway. Fuck off. Fuck. Off.

  Finally they trooped past him, shadows and light bouncing from their torches and disappeared down the tunnel. Crys counted to ten, then heaved at the bodies, wrenched his head out of the water and staggered to his feet, leg numb, ribs creaking as he gasped for breath.

  A man stood opposite, staring at him in surprise, cock in hand as he pissed. ‘What?’ he managed and Crys grabbed up his sword, sloshed across the cave and rammed it under his ribs. Still kept pissing though, even as he fell on to his knees. Crys kicked him face first into the water and stood on the back of his head until the bubbles stopped.

  Crys shuddered with cold and with a strange, twitchy energy. He took the man’s dagger and stuck it in the back of his belt, put a second into his boot, and then he crept after the others. He’d tasted their piss and nearly pissed himself with fear. Now he wanted their blood and he meant to get it.

  RILLIRIN

  Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

  Yew Cove tunnels, River Gil, Western Plain

  Lim slammed the man into the wall, forearm across his throat, and pulled back his elbow to run him through.

  ‘Friend! Friend friend friend,’ the man gasped and Lim jerked him forward into the meagre light of a guttering torch. ‘Crys, I’m Crys.’

  Lim blew out a breath and let him go, but didn’t bother apologising. ‘The fuck you been?’ he growled.

  ‘Lying under a pile of corpses trying not to drown while the Mireces had a nice chat. You? I’ve been looking for you for hours.’

  ‘Running, fighting, running. Hiding.’

  And then Ash shoved Lim out of the way and scooped Crys into his arms. Rillirin lay propped against the wall and watched while they kissed as if no one else was there, murmuring into each other’s mouths and ears. She blinked owlishly. Good for you.

  Rillirin was beginning to suspect Dalli had lied to her. She was cold, and not just because she’d got wet falling in puddles. Spots drifted lazily in front of her eyes and her hearing faded in and out. She had no energy, no will to move, and hadn’t even twitched when Crys burst into their hiding place.

  In fact, Rillirin was pretty sure she was dying. It felt as though they’d been underground forever. They were lost, split off from the other groups, and every hour it seemed another attack came, another couple of warriors picked off. It’d be terrifying if she wasn’t so shitting tired.

  And then there was the noise, the noise that Rillirin knew she’d heard before but couldn’t place. A never-ending thumping echoing through the tunnels. It was like the earth’s own heartbeat but for its stuttering irregularity and it had been going on now for hours, winding everyone’s nerves so tight that someone was going to break. Muffled crying carried through the damp air and far away, the sound bouncing from the walls, she could hear fighting.

  The men and women crouched at the entrance to their storeroom tightened their fingers on their weapons and pushed themselves up the walls to standing. She watched as Dalli checked her spear yet again and then thumped its butt on to the ground again and again, in time with the thumping echoing along the tunnels.

  Rillirin sat up straight. ‘I know what it is,’ she said. No one turned to face her. ‘Ash? Dalli, I know what that noise is.’

  ‘Is it important, because we’ve got incoming,’ Dalli said and set her spear. Ash leapt to her side, Crys behind him, and everyone in the room who could prepared to fight.

  Rillirin forced herself up the wall to standing, leaning on her spear. ‘Yes,’ she whispered as the Mireces howled into the room, ‘it is important. You need to listen.’

  The Mireces attacked.

  MACE

  Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

  Yew Cove tunnels, River Gil, Western Plain

  ‘I was raised at Dancer’s Lake,’ Rillirin said. There’s a cave system there we used to store sailcloth and rope in, but it kept flooding with meltwater from the lake. So a dam was constructed. This is before I was born, but we had to maintain it to keep the waters out of the caves.’

  ‘Why do I need to know this?’ Mace interrupted. ‘We should be looking for an exit.’

  ‘My brother Madoc – Corvus – worked on the dam before we were taken by the Mireces. He understands the mechanics of it. That thumping sound? They’re breaking the dam that keeps these tunnels from being flooded by the river. They’re going to drown us.’

  Mace looked at her, so pale with blood loss that the punch to the face she’d taken wouldn’t even bruise. Then he looked at the people around her, holding her up. Grim-faced and silent, it was plain they all believed her.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Mace protested. ‘They wouldn’t drown their own people. They—’

  ‘We’ve never seen groups of more than fifty down here,’ Tara said. ‘It’s quite likely they haven’t got more than a few hundred warriors. Shit, they might even have dressed the townsfolk up as Mireces to make it appear they had superior numbers. Either way, looked like more than it was in the dark, and that boy yelling about an escape route was enough to get us moving. Then all they had to do was follow us down here and keep harrying us, keep us moving away from them and deeper underground. Corvus probably offered the folk here a deal – lead us into a trap and they wouldn’t get slaughtered.’

  ‘Corvus was sixteen when he was taken,’ Rillirin said before Mace could respond. ‘He knows Rilpor, knows its stories and Smuggler’s Cove is one of the most famous. They sailed through here on your boats: you think he wouldn’t have checked out the truth of it?’

  ‘But the Mireces down here with us …?’ Mace tried as the awful truth grabbed him by the throat.

  ‘They’re pledged to die for the Dark Lady,’ Rillirin croaked. ‘If they think they can take us with them, they’ll drown and gladly.’

  ‘We need to get out, now,’ Lim said, not bothering to whisper any more. ‘We have no idea how long it’ll take them to smash that dam. And we need to tell the Rank without them panicking.’

  ‘But which way do we go?’ Ash asked. �
��None of us have found a tunnel that leads upwards.’

  ‘Then we go back the way we came, if we can remember it,’ Rillirin grunted. ‘Straight through the fuckers. We’ve been moving downhill ever since we were forced in here. All they had to do was push us downwards.’

  ‘So now we push back,’ Tara said, cracking her knuckles.

  ‘Does anyone remember the way out?’ Mace asked. They were silent. ‘Then we head uphill, Mireces be damned. It’s our only hope. Get ready to move.’

  Rillirin stuttered a laugh. ‘I can’t even walk. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Dom needs you. You’re coming with us.’

  Ash’s eyebrows disappeared into his fringe as he looked at Crys. The soldier stared at them all in turn, a weird light in his eyes. ‘She comes,’ he insisted. ‘And we go back the way we came.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Lim said. ‘We take the fight to the Raiders. Tell the Rank it’s a final, all-out push to break through.’

  ‘The Rank is scattered through who knows how many miles of tunnels. We can’t get them all together,’ Tara said.

  ‘Then start passing the message, get it sent along as fast as you can and get them piling back here at the double,’ Mace said. ‘Rillirin, count to a thousand. When you’re there, tell me and that’s the signal to go. Regardless of how many have made it to us. Lim, Tara, Crys, we’ll form the advance and once we start moving, we don’t stop for anything.’

  Mace rolled his shoulders. ‘We need to keep this secret. If the Mireces suspect we’re planning a push, they’ll do all they can to disrupt it. Tara, get some lookouts at the bend down there. The rest of you, keep them quiet when they get here.’

  ‘Don’t stop for anything once you start,’ Rillirin said. ‘A straight run for the surface, as fast as you can. There’s only a few hundred of them, Tara said, so you’ll be fine.’