Dead Man's Steel

by Luke Scull

  ‘Where is the god-killer?’ barked the one called Saverian. ‘The terms of our truce demanded her presence.’

  Even with the Reaver’s divine essence lending him courage, Cole felt cowed by the consternation in the iron voice of the Fade general. He knew what Saverian was capable of. He knew that even he – a god-touched assassin – and Thanates – one of the foremost mages of his age – were irrelevancies in the face of this most legendary of Fade.

  Nonetheless, Thanates adjusted his tattered black overcoat and held himself as straight as an arrow, meeting Saverian’s ruinous stare head-on. ‘The White Lady will not leave her city,’ he answered. ‘She sends us in her place.’

  Saverian’s eyes narrowed. ‘Those were not the terms offered,’ he repeated. He shifted the enormous shoulder-cannon he carried, lowering the oversized barrel so that it pointed directly at the sightless wizard, who was unaware of his peril.

  Before things could get out of hand, the blast of a horn reverberated and all eyes turned to the north. Several figures were making their way up the crag on the opposite side of town. They were dirty and unkempt and Cole fancied he could smell them every time the wind blew south, but as they neared the clearing he saw a couple of faces he recognized and couldn’t suppress a smile.

  Brodar Kayne hadn’t changed much, though he now sported several inches of grey beard and his face was even more weathered and troubled than Cole remembered. At his side was his constant companion, Jerek the Wolf, a man who never seemed to smile or laugh or do much of anything except threaten and carry out acts of prodigious violence against those who pissed him off, which was basically everyone. Still, Kayne at least had been a boon companion once upon a time. As far as Cole was concerned, any familiar face was a welcome sight.

  The figure marching just ahead of Kayne and the Wolf gave a nod of greeting. He was a mountain of a man, though still a little shorter than the Ancients, as rugged as they were smoothly beautiful. He leaned on a great, rune-etched broadsword that radiated the telltale glow of magic and wiped a shovel-like hand against his jutting forehead, which was covered in sweat. ‘We are here as promised,’ he said in a deep voice. ‘I am Carn Bloodfist, and I lead our people in the absence of their king.’

  ‘Magnar ain’t well enough to be here,’ Kayne added, pain flashing across his scarred face.

  Melissan’s brother introduced the Fade, while Thanates and the Highlanders finished their introductions. To Cole’s faint surprise Kayne grasped his hand in greeting. ‘Been a while, lad,’ said the old Highlander, grinning.

  ‘It has,’ Cole agreed, returning the smile. Something was troubling him, however. He had learned to ignore the endless beating rhythm that filled his ears whenever he was in close proximity to another living thing – a side effect of the Reaver’s curse. As he met the old Highlander’s blue eyes, he heard that Kayne’s heartbeat was weak and uneven.

  ‘The Fangs are overrun by demons,’ Carn was saying now. ‘We sought to flee south, seeking a new home. Instead we found more demons. More demons, and... whatever you are.’

  ‘We are no demons,’ said Saverian angrily, staring at the huge warrior as if he were a worm. ‘We are the fehd, and to you, we are as gods among men. The survival of your people is contingent upon our forbearance.’

  Mighty as he was, Carn looked suddenly unsure of himself and Cole felt a strange sense of shame that none among them possessed the courage to stand up to this formidable general.

  You don’t know what I’ve been through, he wanted to shout. He’d killed Magelords, survived the most hellish places imaginable. How dare this white-haired immortal treat him with such disdain!

  Melissan’s brother was staring at him, a hint of amusement on his ancient face. ‘What?’ Cole demanded, perhaps unwisely.

  ‘Davarus Cole. You still owe me a lute.’

  ‘I owe you a what?’ Realization hit him like a hammer blow to the head. ‘You’re Isaac!’ he said, feeling stupid now. ‘I thought you seemed familiar.’

  ‘My sister here says you fought her almost to a standstill – and few are her equal with a sword even among our kind. I would say I am shocked, but your race was ever quick to change, to become something else in the blink of an eye. I see that some things about you remain the same, but now you are... formidable.’

  Formidable. Much as he disliked Isaac, Cole was forced to admit the Fade had a point. ‘I have changed,’ he said. Suddenly emboldened, he gave voice to the question that had been burning inside him since Melissan had delivered Prince Obrahim’s offer of a temporary truce to the White Lady. ‘Where’s Sasha? You took her hostage during the battle at the harbour. If you’ve harmed her—’

  General Saverian took a huge stride forward and suddenly the white-haired commander of the Fade was towering above Cole, who swallowed dryly, his bravado stripped away in an instant. ‘You are neither king nor chieftain nor wizard,’ barked the general. ‘You are a boy. A child, even among your transient race. You will not make demands of us, nor will you threaten us.’ The Fade commander seemed to notice something. He reached down and grabbed the golden key hanging around Cole’s neck. ‘What is this? Give it to me.’ Saverian gave the key a yank and the chain snapped.

  Cole watched helplessly as Saverian’s long fingers brought the golden key up to his otherworldly gaze for inspection. The general’s eyes widened in recognition and then narrowed in fury. ‘This is the key that activates the gholam,’ he growled. ‘The god-weapon came here seeking this. I was forced to Reckon it.’

  ‘The key that activates the gholam? Are you certain, Saverian?’ asked Prince Obrahim.

  ‘Where potential threats to our people are concerned, brother, I am always certain,’ Saverian announced. ‘This human is responsible for the deaths at our outpost in the Demonfire Hills. For the loss of Nym.’

  ‘Not just at the outpost,’ Melissan added, her own voice lowered in fury. ‘He also killed Justinian at the docks.’

  ‘Our cousin died in the line of duty—’ Isaac began, trying to calm the situation, but Saverian had already drawn his crystal longsword.

  ‘I will end you now,’ he declared, an assertion so powerful that Cole shrank back, terror overwhelming him. He tried to reach for Magebane but found his hands were shaking too hard to grasp the hilt. Saverian’s aura was like a vice, squeezing all the courage from him.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ a woman cried, her voice carrying down from the flying machine. It trembled a little, but nonetheless familiarity eased the panic that held Cole in its grip. He stared up at the wondrous Fade relic and saw her standing there in the doorway. Her face still held a greyish tinge and her hair was little more than dark stubble, but she looked a great deal healthier than when he had left her unconscious with Derkin back in Thelassa.

  ‘Sasha!’ he cried.

  Saverian’s glare shifted from Cole to Sasha. ‘You were not given permission to leave the Seeker,’ he snapped.

  Sasha flinched, but did not back away. ‘Obrahim gave his word,’ she said. ‘He said no one would be harmed.’

  ‘You have violated the truce. It no longer holds.’

  ‘Sir—’ Isaac began, but the general was already striding towards Sasha, shoulder-cannon raised.

  ‘You dare to protest my justice after what this wretch has done?’ he thundered, pointing at Cole with his deadly weapon. ‘I was ancient when the tallest trees were saplings. I walked this world in a time of dragons and giants and worse things and I defeated them all. Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Some cunt,’ rasped a voice like a wound tearing open. Suddenly, Jerek was blocking Saverian’s path, twin axes in his hands.

  The Fade general came to an abrupt halt, his eyes wide in disbelief. Then his expression twisted into one of such terrible rage that Cole had to fight the urge to flee. It seemed impossible that any mortal could face the general’s wrath and not crumble like sand.

  Jerek, however, might have been made of steel.

  Saverian and the Wolf stared at each othe
r for what seemed like an age. Neither fire-scarred Highlander nor towering Fade commander blinked. Not when Brodar Kayne came to stand beside Jerek, his greatsword in his hands. Nor when Obrahim joined Saverian, the prince’s sceptre raised, the diamond tip flaring brightly.

  ‘Brother.’ Prince Obrahim’s voice was like a cooling rain on a hot summer day. Calm settled over the clearing. Even Saverian visibly relaxed a fraction. ‘I gave them my word,’ said the prince. ‘We do not break our promises. We do not let our emotions rule us. These are the principles we have lived by since the Pilgrims saved us from the wreckage of the Time Before. We heed them no matter the cost, or we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.’

  Saverian grimaced. A moment later he sheathed his sword. ‘You counsel wisdom as always, brother,’ he said, though his jaw remained clenched.

  Obrahim raised his mighty sceptre. ‘There will be no more discord,’ he announced. The prince gestured at the magnificent vessel Saverian had referred to as the Seeker. ‘You will join me aboard,’ he said. ‘I will tell you of the reason I called a truce. I wish to speak of the Nameless.’

  Turbulence

  ✥

  SASHA TOOK A deep breath and tried to calm her frayed nerves. Not for the first time in recent memory, she had thought she was about to die.

  One of Cole’s hands closed around hers and gave it a squeeze, and she squeezed back. The two of them stood side by side on the deck of the Seeker. The Highlanders were to their left, Thanates to their right. Before them, standing beside a slightly raised platform, was Prince Obrahim. The other Fade were seated before what Sasha had heard referred to as ‘the cockpit’: a giant array of panels and flickering lights situated below an enormous glass window at the very front of the craft. The dark-skinned Fade, Ariel, was apparently the vessel’s captain – or ‘pilot’, as Isaac had called her.

  The interior of the Seeker was somewhat cramped with so many in it, but it made a welcome change from the Obelisk dungeons where Sasha had been locked away for the last couple of weeks. At first she had been certain she was going to be executed. The general was insistent that her skull be opened and her brain examined to see what implants Fergus had inserted.

  She glanced at Isaac and the Adjudicator gave her the ghost of a smile. She had him to thank for saving her life.

  ‘We cannot risk endangering our offer of a truce,’ Isaac had argued. He had presented his case to Prince Obrahim logically, leaving no room for sentiment. Even so, Sasha had the feeling Isaac had a personal stake in avoiding seeing her come to harm.

  Saverian saw the look that passed between human and Fade and frowned. The general fixed Jerek with an ominous stare. Sasha didn’t know if Prince Obrahim would have allowed his brother to carry out his threat, but she was nonetheless grateful to the grim Highlander for stepping in to bar Saverian’s path. She still didn’t get the Wolf and doubted she ever would – but she now understood why Brodar Kayne, as decent a man as she had met, called him a friend.

  Prince Obrahim tapped his sceptre on the deck for silence and then addressed the assembled humans and fehd. ‘I have travelled far to be here,’ he said, his melodious voice enrapturing all present. ‘Across the great breadth of the Endless Ocean. I came in response to the tragedy at the Demonfire Hills, but in truth I should have come sooner. Several months ago I declared a crusade upon humanity. The crimes of Marius required answering with blood.’

  Marius. The Magelord of Shadowport was dead, crushed by Salazar’s magic along with his city. Cole’s fingers twitched in surprise as the Magelord’s name was spoken, and Sasha resolved to ask him about that later. There were a great many things she wanted to ask him.

  Thanates’ voice was grim. ‘You sent Isaac to Dorminia. He manipulated me into helping him smuggle thralls into the city in preparation for your invasion. You would place humanity in bonds to serve your ends.’

  ‘A race such as yours has no right to freedom,’ said Saverian. ‘No more than any other animal.’

  Black fire blazed around Thanates’ hands at the insult, and in response Prince Obrahim raised his sceptre. The diamond tip glowed a brilliant white and a beam shot out towards Thanates, enveloping the mage. He was lifted into the air, floating helplessly several feet above the deck. ‘Attempt any more hostile magic and our truce is void,’ said the prince. ‘You have a singular opportunity to prove humanity worthy of mercy. Do not squander it.’

  The beam of light winked out and Thanates instantly fell to the deck. He rose, brushing off his tattered coat. With a visible effort, he somehow brought his anger under control. ‘I was led to understand your kind had no aptitude for magic,’ he said. ‘What was that, if not magic?’

  Prince Obrahim tapped the diamond at the end of his sceptre. ‘Perhaps the final great creation of the Time Before. It is the only one of its kind to survive. With it, certain laws that govern the world can be undone. Reality itself can be altered.’

  Sasha focused, willing her enhanced eyes to zoom in on the sceptre. Suddenly she was viewing the metal rod as though she were a fly perched upon its surface. There were dozens of tiny buttons running the length of the rod. Obrahim pushed one, and the diamond tip flared again. Another beam of light shot out, expanding in a cone to illuminate the platform around which they were standing.

  Three-dimensional figures suddenly flickered into life upon the platform – a dozen or more Ancients, miniature versions of their counterparts on the deck. They were all washed out, as though the colour had been bled from them. They paid no attention to their audience aboard the Seeker.

  Sasha recognized the marvel as similar to the one she had witnessed in the Obelisk. Unlike the real-time representations on the platform in the tower, this image appeared to be some kind of living memory recorded in Obrahim’s sceptre. Cole, too, didn’t appear overly surprised by what he saw. The Highlanders were a different matter altogether. Jerek unleashed a stream of curses and Kayne’s eyes widened in shock.

  ‘What sorcery is this?’ growled Carn Bloodfist. The big Highlander poked at the figures on the platform with his broadsword, muttering in astonishment as the blade passed right through them.

  ‘They are not real,’ explained Obrahim. ‘They exist only as memories. What you are seeing now occurred many thousands of years ago, before even I was born into this world. The Pilgrims are about to encounter the Horror Among The Stars for the first time.’

  The living memories were milling around the interior of what looked like a vessel similar to the Seeker, but on a much grander scale. Without warning, the image suddenly flickered and distorted.

  When it finally settled, it revealed a scene like something from one of Sasha’s hashka-induced nightmares.

  Within the living memory, several Fade had sprouted tentacles from their bodies. Arms and legs had been replaced by snaking appendages that slithered out to wrap around the other Fade, tearing off heads and limbs in a spectacularly gruesome fashion. Sasha had to look away. She had seen no small amount of violence in her short life, but the horror of what she had just witnessed made her stomach roil.

  Thanates shifted beside her. ‘Could you describe what is happening?’ the sightless mage asked. The shame in his voice cut through her nausea and Sasha silently admonished herself. It was easy to forget the Dalashran wizard-king was blind. He seemed to ‘see’ everything, except when he didn’t.

  Sasha began to describe the horrific scenes playing out on the platform. More Fade appeared in the living memory, and these newcomers were armed. Bursts of silent fire exploded from their hand-cannons and the corrupted Fade were scythed down. Their kin had tears running down their faces as they unleashed death upon them.

  ‘The Nameless takes no fixed form,’ said Prince Obrahim. ‘At least none that we can discern. It does not dwell wholly within our reality. How and why it attacked the Pilgrims, we will never know. You think us alien, yet the Nameless truly is a thing beyond understanding.’

  ‘I’ve heard of this “Nameless”,’ Cole volunteered. ‘I
ran into a bunch of cultists down in Tarbonne. They weren’t a nice bunch.’

  The living memory faded to be replaced by another. A colossal twin to the Seeker lay broken on the ground, fire and smoke pouring from the wreck.

  ‘The Pilgrims discovered this land shortly after first contact with the Nameless,’ Obrahim continued. ‘Their search for a new home lasted millennia. These lands were like and yet unlike the ones the Pilgrims fled, but it was their best hope come the end. The Salvation did not survive the landing. In the years that followed, the Void claimed the surviving Pilgrims.’

  ‘The Void?’ Cole echoed.

  ‘Even we were not designed to withstand an age among the stars,’ the prince explained. ‘The bodies and minds of the Pilgrims began to close down. Before they were lost to us, they gave birth to fifty children. The purebloods. I was the first, Saverian the second. We were born of Fehdmann, from whom we took our racial name.’

  The living memory shifted again. An army of Fade fought side by side with a pointy-eared, humanlike race against a nightmarish horde. Saverian was there, as was Obrahim himself, his sceptre firing blinding rays that turned the monsters into clouds of billowing ash as they struck.

  ‘Those are demons,’ Kayne observed. ‘How long ago did all this take place?’

  ‘Three thousand years,’ Obrahim replied. ‘It took the Nameless horror two millennia to find us. To seek us out among the stars. What you call “demons” are in actuality lesser entities from the same reality as the Nameless. They manifest in this world in forms that mimic the nightmares of the Pilgrims it first encountered. Your Creator did not bring demons into this world. We did.’

  ’You?’ echoed Thanates.

  Prince Obrahim had a faraway look in his face as he remembered events from before the dawn of human history. ‘It took the combined efforts of the fehd and the elves to seal the Nameless away. Our advanced tools and their magic. The seven greatest elven sorcerers of the age gave their lives in the effort.’