Quietly, the men distributed the weapons amongst themselves and a hand tapped Alann on the shoulder.
“I believe this is yours, Woodsman.”
Alann grasped the haft of the axe, feeling the reassuring weight in his hand, a familiar surge of determination flowing through him as he eyed the beast, sensing that it wouldn’t hold back much longer.
“What now?” asked a captive, a farm labourer, by the looks of him. Probably from Tulador, or Alathar, one of the two main farming regions unlucky enough to be plagued by the Hunt. “Do we charge it?”
Alann shook his head.
“No, we wouldn’t stand a chance.”
The beast roared, as if in agreement, raising its head high, its gaping maw stretching wide enough to encompass the tallest man, even with his arms stretched high above his head. Its neck was flexible, thought the Woodsman. The scales there must be thinner…
“I need a distraction.”
“You got it…”
The Plainsman grabbed a long pike, running from the group to the excited roar of the crowd, a shrill and savage war-cry on his lips as he sped around the edge of the arena, taunting the creature to follow him. It did, the lone target a much easier proposition for its simple hunter’s mind, turning its great bulk to keep him in front. Finally, the beast was angled almost a hundred and eighty degrees from the group, scattering as they sought to evade its lashing tail, the tip of which caught the weapons rack, sending it clattering to the floor as though ‘twere made of no more than twigs.
“Whatever you’re planning,” shouted the Plainsman, as he ducked the snapping jaws, stabbing at the iron-hard scales with the long point of his pike, “do it now!”
The Woodsman needed no encouragement, grabbing a long whip from the smashed rack and racing towards the beast to the alarm of his fellow prisoners. He avoided the lethal lashing tail, leaping high onto the monster’s back, swinging up, using its spines and bony ridges as handholds. The scales were dry, cool to the touch, not slimy or wet as he’d imagined, not like a fish. On top of the crocodile’s back now, the crowd wild with anticipation, but he couldn’t hear them, only the rushing pulse of blood in his ears, the hammering of the heart that sought to tear free from his chest.
Running, high above the ground, he made his way, balancing as best he could, to the creature’s neck, where he spied, with glee, that he had been right; the scales were thinner here. With a whistle of air, he lashed the whip down and to the side, the end whipping around and back up so that he formed a rein about the creature’s neck. He looped the end of the whip about his waist, then fastened it to its own handle, before raising the axe high above his head. It was no war-axe, no gleaming, rune-inscribed weapon of destruction. It was merely a plain and unassuming tool for the chopping of trees.
Ideal.
He swung down, his seasoned muscles carving the axe through the air and, with a crunch, the sharp iron head bit into the flesh, dark blood oozing, thick and viscous from the wound. The monster roared, its primitive mind registering the pain, and it bucked and thrashed in an effort to dislodge him, but the makeshift harness of whip held, the Woodsman remaining upright.
He brought the axe up again, bringing it down to chop and bite once more. Again, again, again, venting his frustrations in a roar, thinking back to his denial in the forest, thinking back to the Foresters who had now fled to the North, thinking back to his family, lost, never to be avenged. He swung and he swung till his arms burned with fatigue and he was splattered in gore and foul, reeking ichor, the tortured roars of the beast causing the hearts of the crowd to run cold, as even the cheers began to die away.
For this was not what happened. The crocodile never died.
It was the ultimate horror of the arena. Reserved for those who absolutely must die.
The crocodile never died.
Finally, the creature collapsed to the ground with a great thud, a cloud of dust rising up to cover the scene, the thrashing of its limbs ceasing as the monsters dim brain finally succumbed to the blood loss and the beast passed from this world.
The crowd stood, on tenterhooks, breaths bated as they gazed into the cloud of dust at the heart of the arena.
A silhouette in the murky gloom.
A humble woodsman, a worker of the forest, striding from the centre. The corpse of a monster behind him, felled by a simple workaday axe.
Silence, as the man looked up into the crowd that had so recently cheered him on to his death.
Silence, as the crowd as one turned to the King that sat, impassive and quiet, on his throne.
The captives gathered around their blood-soaked leader, the axe resting, head down, at his side as they awaited their fate.
Invictus rose from his throne.
And began to clap, a smile of amusement on his face.
The crowd erupted into cheer, the roaring of their approval ringing in Alann’s ears, even as he watched, with a smile of grim satisfaction, the Master of the Hunt who stormed, face dark, from the Council’s box.
One more week, he thought. He looked about at the jubilant captives that stood to his sides, embracing and clapping him on the shoulders.
One more week. He would take it. He would take every week that was offered.
For every little victory counted, he thought, even as the guards came to bind them anew and lead them to their cells. Every day he was alive was a day he carried their memory with him.
Every day he remained alive, the Wheel would still turn.
***
The silence of the night-time air was refreshing after the roaring cacophony of the Games. Such constant noise took its toll on his nerves, for he heard with so much more than just his ears. Granted, his ears were good, for every heartbeat, every screaming syllable of each of the three thousand, nine hundred and sixty-two spectators had rang clear and true, separate and unique in his ears. That had been annoying in itself.
People didn’t realise how noisy they were, even standing still.
But no, it was his thoughts that had hurt him the most. Ceceline had a knack, a way of blotting out the thoughts and feelings of those about her, but the King had never been able to grasp it. Power he had in abundance, but the subtlety, no. He felt that perhaps, in his past, he may have been on the cusp of learning that subtlety, but then the power had swept him up and he had lost his restraint. For what need of restraint, with no repercussions?
Still, he thought to himself with a laugh, it had been worth the throbbing headache, if only to watch Kurnos storm off in a huff. The Woodsman had put on a good show. There was a quiet strength that had radiated from the man, Invictus had felt it, even from his throne in the Council box, high above the arena floor. There was something in the man that had even the King rooting for him, something of the underdog. The man fought with a determination that could only have come from great loss.
He wondered what that loss had been
He clicked his neck and pushed the thoughts from his mind, for he had come here, to the platform atop the Beacon Tower for a purpose, and that was not to ruminate over the histories of the prisoners that languished in the dungeons of the Pen.
Invictus reached out with the might of his consciousness, feeling the raging power flowing from its ever-unknowable dark source, channelling through his form, till his every nerve, his every cell was tingling with its touch. He cast out further, the sphere of his mind taking in the entirety of the Tower and he noted, with a nod, that his orders had been followed, no living soul within a mile.
Good. For he was about to unleash forces beyond the ken of mortals.
Forces he had unleashed but once before.
His twin glaives, Sinister and Dexter rested, dormant, in his chambers, yet he could feel their kindred in the block before him. The dark glass-like stone, translucent yet all-but indestructible; he remembered, vaguely now, finding the rising, twisting columns of stone, high in the far, far North, way beyond the Arragonians. There he had forged his swords, under directions of the whisper
s. The whispers? He couldn’t even remember them clearly, now, almost beginning to believe that the whispers were merely part of his own subconscious. His own desire for revenge guiding him in his training. In the acquisition of his power.
A distant, half-remembered echo of a dream as he gazed upon his twisted reflection in the rock before him. He could almost swear he’d seen this sort of stone once before, years ago, even before he’d forged the glaives. Flashes across his mind’s eye; a sea of fire, an island of black. Looming apparitions of pure, untouchable power.
He shook his head, staggered, and the vision was gone, the memory fading till he wasn’t even sure that he’d seen it at all, before he turned his attention back to his task. A booming crash of thunder from high above him. A mighty storm was brewing.
Good, he thought. He could use it.
He closed his eyes and the dark power flooded him. With a thought, he rose from the top of the altar, his feet leaving the ground below him, rising higher and higher into the dark and wrathful sky. Forks of hungry lightning flashed, reaching out to stroke him, licking across his body but causing no harm.
For he was a channel to forces greater than they.
At last, he opened his eyes, looking down to spy the tower far beneath him, the clouds of the storm all about him now, like the spread out cloak of a God of Thunder. He raised a hand as he floated, making a swirling motion, slowly, insistently, a slight smile tugging at the edges of his mouth as he noted, with satisfaction, the dark, heavy thunderhead beginning to copy the motion. Slowly, but surely, gentle wisps at their edges began to move. They took some persuading, for the storms were heavy, the forces that had caused them to gather ancient and unwieldy, but they began to spin nonetheless. He would not be denied.
For long minutes he focused his power, until the miles-wide clouds began to gather, collapsing in on themselves, spinning faster and faster, till they formed a hurricane with Invictus at their eye. A roaring, rushing noise, like that of the ocean, yet constant, not ebbing and flowing. At his command, the storm gathered yet more pace, tightening further, the speed of its outer edges increasing in inverse proportion to its circumference, lightning flashing from within, illuminating the column of twisting, twirling air that span at impossible speeds.
His mind raced, calculating the forces needed. More, he thought. Faster. Not enough.
The clouds gathered yet closer, bunched together by the force of his will, spinning faster and faster and faster as they collapsed further in on themselves, till the spinning sphere of cloud was no wider than a hundred yards, fifty yards, ten.
The sound now, beyond that of thunder. Beyond that of a volcano. A constant tearing, shredding death-note that tortured the ears and rumbled the sea below in all directions.
Windspeed? A thousand miles per hour. Fifteen hundred. Two thousand.
The ball of spinning air, now as much solid as gas, caught light with a great whoosh of impossibly superheated air, the molecules tortured by the friction of passing their slower brethren and illuminating the heavens, so that it seemed Invictus floated before the Sun itself, his face basking in the orange glow, ecstatic with the power at his fingertips.
There, he thought. Enough.
With an outstretched hand, he commanded the ball of incandescent plasma to descend with him, lower and lower till it reached the top of the tower, hovering above the block of obsidian stone. With a grin, the King dropped to the floor before the block, the ground beneath his feet hissing and crackling at the nearness of the ball of raging fire. He had his tools. He had his material.
Now to work.
At an unspoken command, the sphere of tortured, superheated air dropped, engulfing the block of stone with a hideous, piercing shriek that shattered the glass of every window for ten miles inland. And like a master sculptor, the King brought to mind the vision he’d seen in miniature on the scale model of the beacon.
And brought it forth from the stone.
Chapter Eight:
The time was now. The day was at hand. The stars were all but in alignment and the tower of the Beacon thronged with the assembled Clansmen and Lords of the Land. Kurnos was there, with his Hounds. Ceceline, with her Seeresses. Memphias, with his Khrdas. Bavard, with his Lieutenants.
And before them all, the God-King himself.
Invictus.
“Are you ready for this, my King?”
He turned to look at Ceceline who had appeared at his side, her cool hands grasping the mighty muscles of his arm, the stiffening breeze flapping her midnight hair. He didn’t answer for a moment, instead, turning back to look at the Dragon Claw Cradle, within its grasp the startling green emerald. Within moments, the combined light of several stars would cause that gemstone to glow, shining out across the ocean and proclaiming his might to one and all.
It still didn’t feel right, his sixth sense screaming at him with its unease. But events had unfolded and things had come to fruition. He’d even had a hand in it himself; the intricate detailing carved into the indestructible Claw was testament to that. He knew that despite his unease he would see things to the end.
Come what may.
“I am ready,” he declared.
She nodded, smiling, her ice-blue eyes unreadable, before turning to walk back down the stairs to the base of the altar-pyramid.
“Farewell, my King. Enjoy your moment of triumph.”
***
That infernal itching. Bavard shook his head, like a horse trying to rid itself of a particularly bothersome fly. An itching, a scratching that seemed be plaguing his head, yet not the skin, for no matter how much he scratched at it, it didn’t soothe it. The itching seemed to be coming from inside his mind.
He turned, looking at his lieutenants, noting that they, too, appeared out of sorts; they shuffled, uneasily, from foot to foot, rubbing their eyes and heads. It felt as though they were standing in a cloud of gnats, pricking at them, infecting them.
Rubbing his eyes, Bavard looked out, taking in the rest of the platform that sat atop the tower, noting with interest that almost everyone seemed plagued by the same affliction. Almost, but not quite. He frowned as he saw Kurnos, the Huntsman, Memphias the Assassin and, finally, Ceceline the Seeress as she strode, slowly, purposefully down the altar steps.
None of them seemed affected by the tingling power that he felt engulfing the tower.
His frown deepened, for as the Seeress strode from the base of the altar, her Coven of Witches ran low and fast behind her, dragging with them smouldering torches with which they marked out symbols on the ground. A barrier. Alarm bells rang in Bavard’s mind as he recalled the Battle of Pen-Tulador, so many months ago; the Circle of Transportation, a magic pentagram on the floor that separated the physical world from that of the sorcerous.
The symbols were different, subtly, yet the sensation of power was still there; the sorceresses were ringing the King, encapsulating him in some kind of eldritch circle, keeping things from reaching him.
Or penning him in.
In an effort to warn his King, Bavard made to stride forwards, but the itching intensified, a ringing in his ears sending him to one knee. He looked up, meeting the cold gaze of the Seeress and she smiled at him, bidding him to relax. To enjoy the show.
Your time of servitude to this master is over, Bavard. It is time for you to embrace the bloodlust within. For we are about to unleash you on battlefields far beyond this world.
“No…”
With that gasp of denial, Bavard reached up in vain to the King who had saved him, so very long ago, even as the heavens began to explode.
***
Invictus gazed up, open-mouthed now, to the dark skies above. The stars, almost impossible to discern as separate, even to his incredible eyes. Forked tongues of coloured lightning licked out across the heavens, scorching the retinas with incredible, myriad colours. The strong and undeniable taste of tin flooded his mouth, as though he’d bitten his tongue, and a deep and stark sense of foreboding began to creep over
him.
For this was no mere alignment of heavenly bodies; there was sorcery afoot. Dark, ancient and intensely familiar.
He turned from the glimmering emerald, to leave the altar, unwilling, now the time had come, to be manipulated, but the very edges of the soaring platform erupted in black eldritch fire, the flickering flames reaching high up into the sky. The smoke reached his nostrils, the scent of brimstone, sulphur, pain and suffering. And hunger. Oh, such a deep and ravenous hunger for life.
He snorted, remembering the very same black flames being unleashed against him in the Temple of the Ancestors, a century ago, and made to walk through the roaring wall. He staggered backwards, his outstretched hand smoking, the skin crisping at the touch of the flames. The pain excruciating.
With a roar, he raised his hands, calling forth his dark powers to summon a windstorm, to blow the flames clean out, but the power was denied, his request going unanswered. His powers, woefully absent.
He span around, confused and alarmed now, as a low, insistent whispering began to rise up from everywhere and nowhere, in his mind and through his ears. He hadn’t imagined it, after all, all those years ago.
Panic not, loyal servant. For this truly is your moment of triumph. Thanks to your masterful construction of this altar, the alignment of the stars shall soon open a portal between worlds. A gateway we have been awaiting for so very, very long.
“How is this a triumph?” he roared into the air. “To be manipulated and trapped? Who are you?”
If the very air could pulsate with laughter, that is what it was doing now. Mocking him.
All through your life, our servant, you have yearned for control. Yearned to be master of your own destiny. We have been with you, yes, but all the choices you made you made yourself. Do not deceive yourself into believing you have been led. You find yourself here by your own volition.
The Fall to Power Page 14
