Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  Through that violent sea, Kanin ploughed a steady path. He cut away the hands that clung to his saddle and tore at the reins. His horse reared and stamped down, pounding bodies into the sodden dirt, crushing them against ancient cobbles. The street was choked with pushing, surging masses of people. Forests of spears jostled towards him, rattling against one another. The air bristled with missiles of every kind. Stones and tiles and bolts and darts flew like great dark insects. Kanin felt blows on his shield and shoulders and legs, but none seemed to wound him.

  And he found himself transported once more into that high, calm place where the demands of battle freed him of all other concerns and burdens. His sword rose and fell, the beat of a martial heart marking out the rhythm of his progress. The faceless horde that milled before and all around him was to him as inanimate and brute a thing as a thicket of tangled undergrowth. He carved his way through it, and its blood painted his boots and his blade and the flanks of his plunging, straining mount. He took no joy in it, for in itself it had no meaning to him. But his body felt more filled with fiery life than it had in a long time, and his mind as light and free.

  Ahead, through the rain, he could see the cluster of decapitated towers at the heart of the city. Once the abode, he dimly recognised, of the Thanes of Gyre; once the sanctuary in which the faltering fledgling creed of the Black Road had been protected and nurtured. Without that protection, so much would have been different. Everything would have been different. And those same shattered palaces would not now be the abode of abomination and corruption. Eska had assured him he would find Aeglyss there, lodged in the very centre of this dead place, like a maggot deep in the flesh of a carcass.

  The crowds in front of him thinned, and he stabbed his horse's flanks with his heels. It burst forward into an expanse of open ground. Other riders came with him and erupted into that space with wild cries. They rode down the scattering dregs of their opponents, driving spears into backs. Kanin wheeled his horse about, aware that it was breathing badly, perhaps wounded, certainly on the fringes of panic. Igris and a few others of his Shield were emerging from the street. Blood--their own and that of others--was on their faces, in their hair, splattered across their chain vests and leather gauntlets. The drizzle made countless red tears of it, flowing down over them.

  Battle still raged behind them and on every side. Screams and the clash of weapons echoed flatly from the stones of the dead city, heavy on the air. Figures struggled back and forth, fell, faltered, died.

  "Did you see Eska?" Kanin shouted at Igris.

  His shieldman shook his head dumbly. Kanin did not care. He had cast his dice, and in the casting had liberated himself. He looked around at the undulating walls that bordered this grey field of rubble and mud. There were beams of rotten wood sticking out from a heap of stones, split and eroded and draped in rotting plant matter. A dead woman was sitting with her back resting against one of those beams, her head slumped forward onto her chest, her arms laid limply on the ground beside her.

  This place, this whole foul city, had been dead for more than a hundred years and dying for longer. Death was drawn to it, and freeing it from its long inundation had only opened the way for ever more mortality and decay and corruption to flow into it and fill its derelict streets. Kanin, for those few transcendent moments as he turned about, was filled with the sudden desire to see everything, every detail of the desolation, and take it all into him. He was, he thought, the avatar of death, returning in fierce splendour to his natural home. Aeglyss was not in truth the lord of this place or of the world that was being born; no, it was Kanin himself, and the slaughter that attended upon him.

  The moment, the vision, passed, and he sank back into his saddle. He was still imbued with a desperate excitement, but he was only a man once more. He led his warriors across the rubble and puddles and corpses towards an opening--the stone-formed memory of a street, perhaps, that once ran from this wide square. It carried them deeper, closer to the jagged bulk of palaces and parapets in which all Kanin's desires were now invested.

  Like vermin, like swarming vermin, the inhabitants of Kan Avor came clambering and staggering from every side. Kanin and his Shield were beset once more, their horses plunging through a clawing sea of outstretched hands, a rain of stones. His sword arm ached, but his mounting anger drowned out that weary pain. He raged against the capacity of this city to oppose him; to vomit this unending flood of poisoned flesh up from its crevices and alleyways and drains, and batter at him with it.

  He was turned about for a moment as his horse faltered in confusion or weakness. He saw two of his men go down, dragged into the gaping maw of the mob and devoured. He saw how few warriors remained at his side and at his back. And his horse slumped down, tried to rise, and failed. The throng closed on him. He was crushed and beaten and choked with the heat and stink of bodies. The light of the muted day was dimmed still further as a dozen hands hauled him from his saddle, and the crowd engulfed him. But he still had his sword and still had strength in his legs.

  He rose, and made of his blade and shield a storm. He killed and killed until he was no longer alone; until Igris was there, and others. Until they opened a path of corpses that led on. Deeper.

  There were only six of them. Their horses were gone, all dragged down. The rest of the warriors were dead or scattered, fighting their own doomed battles now. Behind them, the entire city seethed with slayers and their victims, their voices and their struggles filling the sky with a single shrill howl.

  Kanin ran, and Kan Avor yielded its heart to him. It took him in beneath the cliffs of its greatest edifices, and led him down cobbled streets, past doorways with carved lintels, and eroded statues bedecked in regalia of mud and moss. It took him into its rotten core.

  The first of the Battle Inkallim came running alone, quite suddenly, from beneath a cracked archway, a long thin axe held out to her side. Like a dark arrow. Kanin veered towards her, but two of his Shield were closer and faster. They stepped between Thane and raven. And the raven feinted and weaved her darting way inside a sword thrust, and split one of their skulls. The second shieldman cut her across the hamstring, and she staggered but did not lose her grip on the axe. It came free of bone, and swung low and hard into the man's knee, taking his leg from under him, the joint flexing at an impossible angle.

  The Inkallim limped another clumsy pace towards Kanin before she fell. He hammered his sword halfway through her neck. Her eyes turned white as they tipped back in their orbits.

  "Sire," Igris shouted.

  Kanin turned. Seven more Inkallim, arrayed across the street. They were relaxed, their shoulders loose, their expressions full of calm confidence. Two leaned on spears; others cradled naked swords. Shraeve was there, arms folded across her chest, staring at Kanin.

  "Have enough died yet, Thane, to assuage your anger?" she asked him levelly. "Have you amassed sufficient dead to convince you of your error?"

  Igris and the last two of his Shield--one man, one woman--stood in front of Kanin.

  Shraeve smiled as they formed that defiant barrier.

  "Your forces are somewhat meagre, Thane. If fate's favour is measured in numbers, I think you find yourself condemned."

  Kanin looked back over his shoulder. The way he had come was closed off: thirty or more men and women, warriors and commonfolk and Tarbains. All wild-eyed, half of them bloodied. The rain had stopped, he realised. Blood no longer ran freely, but thickened and crusted on skin.

  His hopes became dust. What had seemed so possible now was plain folly. What madness had been upon him that he had thought himself capable of overcoming the fever of an entire world?

  "You did not think we would leave him undefended, did you?" Shraeve said.

  He stared back at her, and in that stare she evidently found the answer to any and all questions.

  "Very well," she said with a dead smile.

  And even as she spoke, two spears were in the air, spinning along shallow arcs. Kanin started forward.
So did Igris and the other two of his Shield. Only Kanin and Igris completed more than half a stride, as the spears hit home.

  Shraeve did not even move. The six other ravens spread into a half-circle, sinking gently into fighting stances. Kanin and Igris found themselves back to back, as that half-circle slowly extended itself, reaching to enclose them.

  "My feet are on the Road," Kanin heard his shieldman murmuring. "My feet are on the Road."

  Kanin bit back his scorn for such futile fidelity. But what did it matter? Death came as it wished, and what rode in its wake only the dead could know. Let those entering its embrace believe what they wished. To die a fool was no worse than to die alone and faithless.

  A flurry of blows. The scuffing of feet over the grimy cobbles. A hissing gasp. Kanin did not look round. He could not, for the three Inkallim facing him edged closer, eyeing him with all the focused intent of hounds stalking a stag at bay.

  "Igris?" he muttered.

  He heard metal on metal. Something--a shield, perhaps--striking the ground. Another muffled impact and then silence.

  Igris slumped against Kanin's back. The sudden weight almost made him lose his balance, but he leaned against it. Slowly, the burden slid down his spine into the small of his back, across his thighs. Then it was gone, and Kanin swayed for a moment. He spared only the briefest of instants to look down and see Igris lying there, face down, his head by Kanin's feet. There was blood on his neck and scalp.

  Kanin grinned at the nearest of the Inkallim.

  "So be it," he said.

  But they backed away. They opened the circle that had held him and fell slowly back into rank across the street, aligning themselves with Shraeve once more. Past her shoulder, past the hilt of her sword, two dozen paces back, at the base of a tall column of curved stonework that could only encase a stairway, a door was opening. Kanin straightened, lowering his sword, letting his shield come back to his side.

  And Aeglyss emerged.

  III

  Aeglyss leaned heavily on Hothyn the White Owl as he advanced out into the street. His head--a simple skull, almost, in its gaunt and fleshless angles--lolled on a limp neck. The plain robe he wore was patterned with brown and red and black stains, the exudates of the wrecked and porous body beneath.

  At the sight of him, Kanin was instantly blind to all else, and he sprang forward.

  "Be still," Aeglyss said, like a thunderclap on the damp air.

  Kanin staggered to a halt, dizzied. The world spun about him for a moment, a swirling vision of dirty grey stonework and mud and figures that flashed past too quickly to be recognised. He steadied himself. The na'kyrim was staring at him, and that gaze was all contempt, all confidence.

  Shraeve started to move. Long, languid strides, hands reaching slowly up for the hilts that framed her face. Her eyes were on Kanin, wholly committed to his death. And he could see it quite clearly for himself. He could envisage with the utmost clarity his own graceful execution. She would be like a hawk, composed entirely of speed and power, falling upon him. He would die now on Shraeve's twin blades, and go into the darkness knowing he had failed. He would follow Wain, knowing there would never be an answer to her death.

  He knew all this, and the weight of it felt as though it would crush his heart, but still he hefted his sword in his hand and tightened his grip upon the straps of his shield until the leather creaked, and stepped forward to meet her. Perhaps... perhaps...

  "Wait," said Aeglyss.

  Shraeve stopped. She passed from motion into perfect immobility in the blink of an eye. Her gaze remained locked onto Kanin. He found that he had come to a halt too. Two dozen paces separated Thane and raven. Kanin could feel his heart thumping, straining, in his chest. Its beat was the only sound in all the world. A silence descended upon them all, every warrior gathered there at Kan Avor's centre.

  Then Aeglyss was edging sideways, his gown trailing through the mud. He moved like an ancient, all brittleness and fragility. But his voice... his voice was like the ocean.

  "You have done all that you could have done, Bloodheir," the halfbreed rasped. "No. Thane. I forget. Or remember too much."

  He coughed and shivered. Blood was trickling from his nose. Hothyn followed him, a watchful, silent attendant.

  "You never understood, though. Because there is something in you--this hatred--that deafens you, blinds you, you never grasped what has been happening all around you. You see only the surface of things. But you needed to feel, Thane, if you were to understand."

  Aeglyss extended a bony arm, and pressed his hand against a wall. He leaned thus, letting the ruined city take his weight.

  "If you could have felt it, you would have understood that this is not something you can undo. Not with all your hatred, all your stubbornness. You are not equal to the task of opposing me, because I am become the world."

  There were cracks in the skin of the halfbreed's naked scalp, Kanin could see. Fissures in him. Failings of the body. But it was not his body that filled the street, coiled like fog around the buildings, streamed out from the stones. It was not in his limbs that his awful strength resided.

  "I am become the world," Aeglyss repeated. His eyes were closed. His eyelids were seeping sores. "And it would be easy to let you die, for the world is finished with you. But that is not what I want. And the choice is mine to make."

  "No," said Kanin through gritted teeth. The denial cost him a great effort, for the halfbreed's monumental will had hold of him.

  "Yes. You will be what I want you to be, Thane, because that is the nature of things now. Surely you do not imagine you could have come this far, had I not permitted it? I think a thing, and it becomes real. That is what... that is how... No, no. Things have happened... Did I dream them? Scavenge them from the memory of the world? Things I never wanted..."

  Then something darted from the ruins, some dark fleck of movement that leaped towards the na'kyrim. It was too fast to follow, too fleeting for any of them to react. Any of them save the one Kyrinin. In the time it took Kanin to turn his head, Hothyn managed a single surging stride, set his hands on the halfbreed's shoulders, twisted and hauled him aside, and caught the crossbow bolt square in his own back.

  The White Owl fell against Aeglyss, and in the manner of that collapse Kanin could see at once that he was dead. Aeglyss swayed for a moment, reaching round to grasp the stub of the quarrel that had buried itself between ribs and deep into the heart beyond, then the Kyrinin's weight was too much for him and he toppled backwards.

  The passage of time slowed. Shraeve was pointing. Inkallim were running, homing on the source of that fatal dart. Kanin blinked--it felt glacial and leaden--and looked back to Aeglyss. The na'kyrim was pinned beneath Hothyn's corpse, struggling feebly to roll it away. And Kanin moved. One long stride, then another, giant paces that swept him over the silt-packed cobbles. There was nothing save the sight of the halfbreed, down and distracted, and the feel of his own body, the might that coursed through his legs and his shoulders and chest. The world, the future, fate: all of it yielding itself to him and opening itself. He had but to reach out and take hold of what was offered. He ran towards Aeglyss, and his sword was rising, attaining the height from which it would fall, and in falling salve all hurts.

  Shraeve hit him from the side, driving her shoulder into his armpit. It felt like a log of hardwood punching into his ribcage, and it knocked him from his feet. She somersaulted away from him and somehow twisted so that she came to rest facing him, crouched on one foot, one knee, hands already up and grasping the hilts of her swords. Kanin tried to get to his feet, but his shield hampered him. He was too slow, he knew. He had seen Shraeve fight; seen her speed.

  But the Inkallim was smiling, rising without urgency. Her two swords eased free of their scabbards and she held them out, one on either side, rolling her wrists so that the blades stirred the air in lazy circles.

  Kanin's flank where she had hit him protested violently as he lifted himself off the cobblestones. He
used sword and shield to lever himself up, and forced himself to straighten, ignoring the cramping pain from his ribs. He wanted to look for Aeglyss, but Shraeve was advancing slowly, that disdainful smile still upon her face.

  "Come, then," Kanin murmured. He would welcome it now, to be freed from the chains of sorrow and failed hopes.

  "I killed your sister, Thane," Shraeve said quietly. "Not Aeglyss. Me. It was necessary."

  "Necessary. Necessary." Kanin repeated the word in incomprehension. It had no meaning to him, his mind could not grasp its shape. It bore no relation he could conceive of to Wain. To her death. Yet it filled him with renewed fire. It burned away the dull fog of surrender.

  He threw himself at the Inkallim, and heard as he did so, as if from very far away, Aeglyss crying out, "Don't kill him."

  She was all that he had imagined she would be. A dark and dancing flame, always and inevitably just out of reach. He fought as he never had before, knowing that there was nothing to preserve his strength, or will, or passion. It all came to this.

  Shraeve's swords wove fluid webs which he could not penetrate. They notched his shield and struck splinters from its face. Her body described patterns that he did not recognise, and could not follow or predict. His blunt attacks lagged always an instant behind, though he poured every last measure of his skill and effort into them. His boots scraped and slipped across the uneven surface of the street; hers flowed. She laid open his cheek. She dented the chain links on his breast.

  Kanin had never been so wholly present within the moments of a battle. He had never been so fast or so acutely conscious of each movement, each fractional instant. He had never been a better warrior than he was there, facing Shraeve in the decrepit streets of the shattered city, beneath broken towers. And it was not enough. From the first ringing touch of their contending blades, he had understood that it would not be enough.

  He cut at her hip. Shraeve blocked the blow. As he pulled his sword arm back to gather the distance for another attempt, he found the point of her second sword pursuing it, lancing diagonally between the two of them towards his elbow. He straightened that retreating arm out and twisted his shoulder back to let Shraeve's lunge take her across him. She turned as she went, showing her back to him. He began to bring his shield sweeping up and around, aiming its rim at the side of her head. A sudden dip and surge and Shraeve was rising, still turning, in the air; moving no longer across him but towards him. Her trailing arm was snapping round. Kanin saw it, read its path, and could do nothing to prevent it.