by Tom Lloyd
Legana shook her head and pointed as another blade of light tore through the dark, this one an arc, curving gracefully around. The air was perfectly still and silent, no deep and savage cry of dragons breaking the calm.
‘They’re hunting,’ Legana said at last, wonder and delight in her voice. ‘If only you could see it with my eyes.’
Isak frowned, still not understanding, but a gasp from Emin told him the king had realised what they were looking at.
‘The phoenix dance,’ he croaked in astonishment. ‘I’ve heard the stories but not even Morghien has seen this!’
‘Phoenix?’ Isak asked. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Birds of flaming plumage, who scorch the air as they dive on their prey,’ Emin said softy, and Isak gaped at the sight as two trailing paths like fire arrows raced through the night above them, faster than any falcon could swoop. Distantly he heard the click and chatter of bats in the night sky, Death’s messengers fleeing the talons of the phoenix: the chosen creature and symbol of the Queen of the Gods.
‘Is it an omen?’ King Emin wondered aloud. ‘Do they herald the rebirth of the Land?’
Legana shook her head. ‘Some will see them that way perhaps, but I’ve had enough of omens. The future shall be as we make it. The phoenix tell us something far more important.’
‘Which is?’
She smiled and rose to leave, unsteady on her feet until Ardela appeared at her side to steady her. Legana put her hand on Ardela’s, letting her support her with loving care. ‘They remind us that there is still beauty in the Land.’
Isak stepped out of his tent and looked up at the sky. A brisk wind threw the drizzle down onto his face, but while his guards scowled at the cold, unwelcome dawn, Isak savoured it. His bones carried a memory of Ghenna’s close, oppressive air and unnatural warmth so for him, the chill winter rain slapping his cheek was a pleasure, the surging wind and open ground around him a moment of release from the memories that bound him.
All around him men and woman were waking, and several Sisters of Dusk emerged from Palace Guard tents, dragging their coppery hair back into braids and ponytails for the day’s battle. Isak watched one, a tall woman in a studded jerkin at least a decade older than the grim-faced Ghost at the entrance of the tent she’d just left. With a deft hand she buckled on her spaulders and vambraces before collecting her long-knives and spear from the tent.
She paused a moment to run an affectionate finger down the soldier’s cheek, then headed out without a backwards glance. The soldier watched her go, then caught Isak’s eye and ducked his head with a sheepish expression. The white-eye’s laughter echoed around the camp.
‘Morning, lad,’ Carel called, rising from beside the dull fire embers. ‘Get any sleep?’ He looked stiff in the chill morning air, and had dark rings around his eyes, but once he’d taken a few steps there was a renewed purpose to the ageing warrior’s gait. He was already dressed for battle and carried a peaked helm looted from some Devoted corpse in his hand. Carel had blackened the helm’s surface in the fire, Isak saw, burning off the painted insignia and ensuring he wouldn’t look like an enemy in the chaos of battle.
‘As little as you,’ Isak admitted. ‘As little of any of us.’ He’d slept in his breeches and long boots like the rest, but his chest was exposed to the faint daylight and he saw Carel’s eyes drawn to the scars on his body. Most prominent among them was the fat band around his throat and the distinct white mark of Xeliath’s rune.
Around his waist was the cloth band that kept the Skull of Ruling pressed against his skin. It was faded and stained by many weeks of constant use – but then, nothing about him was pristine, Isak reflected. He reached up towards the sky and stretched out his white and black arms, still thickly muscled, despite the damage done to them.
‘You shouldn’t come,’ Isak said once he’d finished stretching out the familiar discomfort of a night on hard ground. ‘I know you want to be at my side, but the best of the Ghosts’ll be hard-pressed. It’s too dangerous for you.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll stick with the women and the cripples,’ Carel said with a fierce grin.
‘The Sisters of Dusk are with me, Legana too.’
‘Well, that’s tough shit for you then, ain’t it? Can’t tie me up like you have Hulf.’
A whimper came from Isak’s tent as the dog heard his name. Isak had tethered him to a stake to keep him away from the battle, but Hulf was used to freedom and Isak had to hope the rope he’d used would last long enough.
Isak sighed. Though his memories of the man were fractured and broken, Carel’s presence remained soothing for him; he calmed the burr of fear and fatigue at the back of his mind, just as Mihn had. And then Mihn had died, trying to protect him.
‘Then you keep with them, you hear me? Stay with Ardela – I can’t be watching over you, I can’t be at your side.’
‘Don’t worry, lad,’ Carel said, nodding, ‘I was a Ghost, remember? Sometimes the white-eyes or Lord Bahl himself had to be left exposed in the teeth of battle. Don’t feel right, but that’s the way it is; a normal like me can’t always be in the worst of it. There’s places I can’t follow you and weapons I can’t stop. I’ll do my part and give you the space you need.’
‘Good – you just remember that. Even if you don’t understand what I’m doing, you leave me to it. I’m not part of the battle; I’ve got my own mission.’
‘Aye, my Lord,’ Carel confirmed.
‘I’m no lord, not any more.’
The veteran scowled. ‘Piss on that. You’re the lord I follow, the one I’m proud to obey. If this old man only has one fight left in him, it’ll be in your name and there’s nothing you can do about that.’
Isak smiled. ‘As you wish.’
‘My Lord!’ a voice called from beyond the ring of tents: Tiniq, returning from his nightly patrols. The Ascetite ranger’s night-vision was far better than any normal man’s, so he spent the night roaming between sentry positions and slept in the wagons during the day. Now he trotted forward, holding out something coiled and silvery in his hands for Isak to see.
‘I found this in a pack last night,’ Tiniq explained as he reached Isak and deposited a hinged cuff attached to a chain in Isak’s open palms.
Isak frowned down at it, sensing some latent magic in the metal. ‘I don’t understand,’ he started.
Without warning Tiniq slashed forward at Isak’s belly with a short knife, and Isak gasped, the silver chain spilling from his hands – but before he could react, a surge of power roared up from inside him and he screamed with pain.
Tiniq dropped to a crouch as Isak howled and the Crystal Skull tumbled from the slashed strip of cloth across his belly. Quick as a snake the ranger scooped up the Skull, dropping his knife in the same movement and catching up the falling chain in his free hand. Isak dropped to his knees as the air turned black around him, his hands rising as though to shield his face from the suddenly-unchecked magic coursing through his body.
With one deft movement Tiniq brought the chain up and snapped the cuff around Isak’s black wrist. Without waiting to see if the stricken white-eye had reacted, he kicked backwards at Carel, knocking him sprawling. As the nearest Ghosts came forward, Tiniq ran behind Isak with blinding speed, dragging the chain after him so Isak’s right arm was pinned against his chest.
Strands of black light filled the grainy morning air and Isak screamed again, falling to his knees as sparks burst from his eyes and the magic of Termin Mystt ran rampant through his mind. The daemon-scars on his body flared red and as his cries intensified, lightning snapped out through the air all around him. The Ghosts faltered in the whip-crack of light that lashed past them and Tiniq took the opportunity to throw the chain around Isak’s body again, looping it under his right elbow and back over his left shoulder.
That done the ranger glanced around, checking he wasn’t about to be gutted by any of the startled soldiers, and yanked a shard of glass encasing a black feather from his tunic. He droppe
d it, and a storm of black wings erupted from the magic-saturated air around them. The cloud of wings hammered furiously for a brief second, beating back the stunned guards, and then melted into nothingness, leaving behind only the glass shard on the ground where Isak had been.
Carel dragged himself upright and stumbled forward a few steps before falling to his knees in disbelief. Isak was gone. Tiniq was gone – had betrayed them after all this time. The weapon they had hoped might win this war was now in their enemy’s hands.
‘Sound the alarm,’ he croaked, his voice initially too hoarse to the guards nearby to make out. ‘Alarm!’ Carel cried, grabbing the nearest dumbstruck soldier and dragging him around to face him. ‘Search the camp, fetch Vesna! They can’t have gone far – find him, damn you!’
The Ghost gave some sort of garbled reply, but Carel was already heading for the king’s tent, until the beating of wings in the still morning air stopped him dead. With a mounting sense of horror he saw Vorizh Vukotic’s wyverns rising into the sky, a few hundred yards away. The vampire was astride the leading beast, but he turned towards the second, with the great bulk of a white-eye draped across its back and Tiniq’s smaller frame perched just behind.
The Land seemed to squirm around him as the wyverns beat the air with their wings and climbed steadily, rising in the sky and heading towards the Devoted army. Shouts rang out from all around, but Carel didn’t hear them. He tried to run, but his legs betrayed him and only the arrival of some soldiers at his side stopped him from falling to the ground.
‘Archers,’ Carel tried to shout, but the strength had drained from his body, the air driven from his lungs, and the command came out only as a gasp, the cut-off exhalation of a man run through. He felt it as a pain in his gut, an upwelling of horror that enveloped him as Isak was carried off into the distance.
CHAPTER 40
Vensa watched the soldier yelling himself hoarse as he wove through a mass of startled soldiers. Men were running in all directions, most with their weapons drawn, a cacophony of voices, panic and confusion breaking out in the heart of the camp.
‘Soldier!’ he roared as the man reached him, still gabbling frantically, ‘take a breath and tell me what’s happened.’
In that shout came the full force of Vesna’s divine presence and it rocked the man like a punch to the chest. He gasped and stopped dead, wide-eyed for a moment, before returning to his senses. ‘Lord Isak, my lord – he’s gone!’
Vesna grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Gone? What do you mean?’
The soldier swallowed hurriedly, feeling the Mortal-Aspect’s impatience like the heat of a fire. He wore the black and white of the Ghosts; he was old enough to be a veteran, but right now he was as flustered and frightened as a raw recruit. ‘He’s been taken – Tiniq’s taken him, with that bloody vampire’s help!’
‘Tiniq the ranger? He’s the bloody traitor?’ Vesna demanded, shaking the soldier, who went white with terror. Vesna realised he’d dented the man’s steel pauldron and he quickly released the Ghost. ‘How? That’s why those wyverns were flying towards the enemy?’
The man bobbed his head, too frightened to speak. ‘He took the Skull from Lord Isak and used some glass feather to disappear, so Carel said.’
Vesna broke into a run, heading towards Isak’s tent. Even before he reached it he could sense the panic and confusion emanating from the throng around it, but they stilled as he arrived as though calmed by his presence.
‘Carel! What happened?’
Carel lurched forward, his face pale. ‘The bastard took him,’ he croaked. ‘He cut away the Skull and let the bloody sword cripple him with pain.’
‘He’s alive?’
‘Screaming,’ he moaned, ‘howling like the whole damn Dark Place was tearing his skin apart.’ He held up a shard of glass. Small fractures ran down one side of it, marring the clear view of a raven’s feather encased inside. ‘He used this to disappear.’
Vesna took the glass shard from him and inspected it. ‘Tiniq must have stolen this from the witch before we left Moorview,’ he muttered. ‘He’s been planning it all this time?’
‘But why?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. He always was a strange one – I just thought he was as mad as any other Ascetite. Could he really have been an agent of Azaer’s all this time?’
As he spoke a second figure sprinted up, and the Ghosts were turning with weapons half raised before they realised who it was.
‘Is it true?’ Doranei demanded, gasping for breath. ‘He’s been taken?’
Vesna offered the glass shard. ‘He used this to reach the vampire – Vorizh’s also betrayed us.’
‘Karkarn’s horn,’ Doranei breathed, ‘we’ve lost Termin Mystt, the Skull of Ruling, two wyverns and a vampire all in one go?’
‘Eolis too,’ Vesna reminded him. ‘Vorizh took it when Isak claimed Termin Mystt.’
‘And none of you had a fucking clue?’ Doranei shouted, wheeling round at the Farlan soldiers, who bristled. ‘A traitor in your midst this whole fucking time?’
More than one would have stepped forward if Vesna hadn’t raised a hand to stop the argument from developing. ‘There’s no time for that,’ he said. ‘We’ve lost our greatest weapon – we can’t delay any longer.’
Doranei grabbed the shard from his hand. ‘You’re right: Azaer’s got all the power it needs now. I’ll see if Endine can do anything with this. You get the army moving.’
‘What chance do we stand now?’ Carel yelled at the King’s Man. ‘The two greatest weapons in creation are in our enemy’s hands!’
Slowly and deliberately Doranei put a hand to Carel’s chest and pushed him back. ‘Yes, Azaer’s got all the cards, but that changes the game.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning,’ Doranei replied calmly, fully composed again now, ‘the shadow doesn’t give a shit about this battle. It’s got bigger plans than beating us on the field, and for those plans it needs the swords and Skulls in use, not out here tearing us apart.’
‘Why wouldn’t it wait?’
‘You saw the toll Termin Mystt took on Isak; these weapons are not to be used lightly – and do you think it trusts its allies so completely it’d risk being vulnerable in their presence? Azaer’s goal is to become a God, not a conqueror! Why wait before doing that? Why wait for any possible surprises we might pull to win the battle? All those soldiers have to do is defend the hilltop until Azaer’s a God, and then we’re all fucked anyway. But to make that happen the shadow needs to be within the barrow, deep underground and away from anyone its mages could use the Skulls on!’
‘How long?’
‘How in the name of the fucking Dark Place should I know?’ Doranei shouted. ‘Do I look like a bloody mage? Vesna, you’ve got more chance of knowing – what does your God say?’
The Mortal-Aspect of Karkarn blinked, but if his God had answers, he was not sharing them. ‘I don’t know, but how long can a ritual take when you’ve that much power?’
He looked around and raised his voice so that the ground shook with divine authority. ‘Arm yourselves! Leave everything else – we march right now!’ Lowering his voice he looked hard at Doranei. ‘What happens even if we punch through? Isak was going to kill Azaer – how do we win without that option?’
‘I don’t know, but rituals can go awry – maybe Legana or Endine can find a way to disrupt it. You’re leading the strike now; there’s no one else. Who’s commanding the Ghosts?’
‘Colonel Cerse!’ Vesna bellowed, and the commander of the Ghosts ran up, still pulling on his heavy armour. In his wake came Suzerain Torl, dressed in the lighter armour of the Dark Monks.
‘Here, Vesna,’ Cerse replied. ‘Your orders?’
‘The battle order remains the same, but you’re leading the Ghosts,’ Vesna said. ‘Make General Lahk proud of his men. Torl, you have command of the Farlan forces.’
He started back towards his tent to put on the rest of his own armour, but hesit
ated when he realised the soldiers were all still staring at him in awed silence.
‘Move yourselves!’ he roared, jerking them into action. ‘May Karkarn’s blessing shield you all. The Farlan ride to war!’
‘At last we meet,’ came a distant voice through the darkness, ‘my most useful of playthings.’
Isak raised his head and muzzily made out a small figure standing a few feet in front of him. A small, slender boy, looking barely fourteen summers, but with the presence of a king. He was dressed simply, with a wrapped sword bound on his back, and he dominated a view containing Harlequins, mages and Demi-Gods. Even the one blind eye and scar on his face served only to enhance his unearthly air.
Isak recognised Ilumene standing close to Ruhen’s side, while on the boy’s other side he saw a black figure with teardrops tattooed on his face: the black Harlequin, Venn. Ilumene grinned malevolently at Isak, but the best he could manage in response was to look straight through the man, as though he wasn’t worth noticing.
‘But as you see,’ Ruhen continued with a small, secret smile, spreading his hands to indicate himself, ‘I am growing up. The time has come to put aside my childish things and you, beloved toy, have almost served your purpose.’
‘Fuck off,’ Isak croaked.
Ruhen’s smile widened. ‘Ah, you do not disappoint. Always the white-eye, even after all I’ve put you through.’
Isak took stock of himself. He was on his side, his right hand pulled tight against his chest and a chain of silver looped diagonally around his torso. The sky was oppressive, sullen grey clouds with a taste of rain on the wind. He could see a perimeter of cut stones, both standing and fallen, and fractured paving slabs underneath him. It appeared that they were standing on the remains of an obliterated temple. His senses told him he was on the bare hill their scouts had spoken of; Aryn Bwr had described it as a barrow. The air hummed with power and the stones beneath him trembled at the artefacts gathered in one place.
He pushed himself up with his left hand until he was kneeling, then hunched forward and retched until the waves of pain and dizziness passed. His hands were trembling and his head swam; even the simplest of movements was exhausting. It was a huge effort just to turn his head enough to see Tiniq’s hooded head behind him, a grim expression on the ranger’s face. The end of the chain that bound him was in one hand, the Skull of Ruling in the other.
