The Defiler

by Steven Savile

  "Their guts are filled with gas!" Ukko yelled triumphantly, laughing manically as he threw himself forwards again, slashing fire into the faces of the retreating insects to send them skittering away down the street. "That's it, go on! Get! Go! That'll teach you to tangle with a coward!"

  His laughter rang down the street.

  The sudden heat wrenched the breath from his lungs.

  Sláine tried to stand. The fires of agony burned through a thousand cuts across his body.

  He couldn't understand why they had let him live.

  The giant insects had engulfed him, pincers and claws cutting away at his flesh until he lacked the will let alone the strength to fight back, and then, as he had surrendered to the notion of death here in this hellish place, they had fled.

  Ukko stood over him, brands burning in either hand, face lit up like a demented demon, eyes burning twice as feverishly as any physical fire could.

  "That's it, go on! Get! Go! That'll teach you to tangle with a coward!" Ukko mocked, flourishing the flaming torches. Sláine wanted to laugh but couldn't because it hurt too much to even think about it. He didn't want to contemplate the mess his body must have been in back in the mortal realm. It was a miracle he was still alive.

  They had cut him badly, one slash wide enough to open his stomach. It ought to have been a mortal blow. Instead it began to fuse and knit beneath his fingers as he tried to feel out the extent of his injuries until it was nothing more than a white line running across the musculature from his groin to his belly. He tried to sit. The world swam, lurching violently beneath him.

  "You look like-" the dwarf stopped speaking as Sláine's fingers found another ragged wound and sealed it. "I thought there was no magic here... I mean... how did you?"

  "I don't know," Sláine said, and in truth he didn't. There was no thrill of the Earth Serpent surging through him, no connection with Danu or the land. He couldn't begin to explain it. Was his spirit drawing the last dregs of healing from the land his body lay on back on the fringes of Dardun? Was it an illusion, those wounds still bleeding out from his flesh even though they appeared healed here?

  The pain itself lingered even if the wounds did not. He felt it inside, beneath the skin, as though he had been cut and cut and cut, each one searing as he made even the slightest move. Getting out of Purgadair was not going to be a simple case of running - he wasn't even sure he'd be up to walking out of the hellish city.

  "I'm not being funny, but these faggots are going to burn out soon and then the bugs will be back with a vengeance, so how about we don't sit around here contemplating miracles and instead run for it?"

  He held up a hand for Ukko to help him to his feet, and had to stifle a scream as he was tugged upright.

  "He isn't here, is he?" Ukko said, casting an erratic gaze left and right as though trying to take everything in at once. "It was a trick. The Morrigan wanted us here so she could do whatever she has to do without us around to interfere."

  Do you believe that, son of the Sessair? Truly? Do you believe yourself so important I would need to dispose of you to carry out my schemes? Vanity is the last resort of the fool. Find the Skinless Man for yourself, your people. He didn't know if he imagined the Crone's denial, but he found himself believing it. A being of her power would not need to trick them into some foolish quest - there had to be more to it than that. There always was with the Crone; deceit came as naturally to the ancient one as did any kind of truth. But, he suspected, the promise she had extracted from him was worth too much to her to waste so frivolously. Good, use your brain, barbarian.

  "He's here," Sláine said, knowing it to be true. "But he isn't here. What did the Crone say? What were her exact words?"

  "I don't remember," the dwarf admitted.

  I do, the voice goaded. A city on the edge of Nàimhdiel, a harsh and utterly barren desert. The Skinless Man you seek resides there, but beware child of Danu, this is a cruel place, this city. The Crone's words rose in his memory, the subtlety of the sentence had misdirected their search.

  "He is in the desert, not the city."

  My clever, clever barbarian, the voice of the Crone mocked. Learned to listen at last.

  Sláine took one of the burning brands; more than half of it was charred to the breaking point. "We need more, before these burn out."

  Ukko nodded and gestured for Sláine to follow him into the nearest house. "Go crazy," he waved towards the wooden chairs and began rifling through his pack for the flammable grease. Sláine shattered three of the chairs, wrenching the legs away from the rest of the frames and passing them to the dwarf. Ukko liberally applied the grease and stuffed two into his belt, making sure he didn't hold the naked flame too close. Sláine took the remaining staves, lit one on the burned-out torch Ukko had used to save him and stowed the rest.

  They went back out into the street.

  The vile insectoid creatures lined the rooftops, antennae twitching as their multi-faceted eyes caught and reflected and refracted the light from the twin suns.

  "We're going to walk out of here nice and slow," said Sláine, wincing as he shouldered Brain-Biter. "No sudden movements. We don't want to set them off."

  Ukko nodded without saying a word.

  They walked slowly side by side down the narrow street. His skin crawled, prickling with goosebumps. The hair on the nape of his neck rose like hackles as they passed the first of the lurking insects. The creature's antennae began to twitch furiously, its mandibles grinding together coarsely.

  "Just keep walking," said Sláine, advice that was easier said than followed. His eyes roved from high to low, left to right, trying to keep all of the angles covered in case of sudden ambush, but it was impossible.

  One of the monstrosities leaned low, distended jaws crunching towards them. Thick yellowish saliva drooled from the fangs, sizzling as it hit the floor. Sláine realised then what had caused the pinhole wounds that had burned into his arm. The knowledge sent a sick shiver down his spine. He walked on, his foot grinding the blistering sand beneath it. Sláine thrust the blazing torch towards its nose, forcing the creature to skitter back. It gave him a grim sort of satisfaction to frighten the insect even as more loomed over them, crouching on the rooftops, only held back by the flame.

  "You do realise when we get out of here I am going to be merciless with the next earwig I see," said Ukko. "And daddy long legs, forget it, those legs are coming off. Ants, flies, cockroaches. If I never see another living insect it'll be too soon."

  They followed the curve of the street down to the next level, the insects swelling and surging around them, following their passage back down to the lower tiers of Purgadair.

  "We could just torch the place," Ukko said, hopefully. "The way the buildings are cramped so close together the whole place would go up in smoke in no time." The little runt looked delighted at the prospect.

  "The buildings are made of stone," Sláine pointed out, fending off another curious insect with a thrust of the brand in his hand.

  "Doesn't matter, the roofs are made of wood, in this heat it'd be an inferno in no time."

  Sláine shook his head, "No, we'll just make our way out nice and slowly. We don't need to bring the whole place down around our ears, as appealing as it might be. We aren't here as destroyers. Besides, I don't fancy having to fight every insect and all of those demonic man-animal guards down there just to get out into the desert and have the Goddess alone knows what looking to skewer us."

  They continued to work their way slowly down the twists and turns of Purgadair's streets, each declination offering tantalising glimpses of the whitewashed walls and rooftops of the lower hovels, and the desert beyond the city walls. Many of the hovels were two and three storeys high, or rather deep, these upper levels opening out on the tier below. The lower they went the more the sharp turns began to resemble the staggered steps of a huge ziggurat, descending a few hundred feet every turn of the street.

  All around them the insects crowded in, drawn by
the scent of their flesh. Sláine lit a fresh brand and handed it to Ukko, then lit another for himself. He resisted the impulse to toss the almost-spent torch up into the middle of the encroaching insects. Barely. His instinct as a warrior was to drive them away, to cleave and crush and smear their viscera across the ichor-slicked streets and stand amid their broken carapaces, victorious, blood pumping, Earth Power firing his veins. Sláine's fist clenched and unclenched around the splintered chair leg as it burned down in his hand. He felt its heat on his face and hand as the flames licked both ways, consuming the wood.

  There were hundreds, thousands of the huge insects swarming across the low rooftops.

  Ukko let his torch drop for a split second, reaching down to scratch his armpit with his spare hand - and almost paid for the momentary lapse of concentration. Two of the creatures reacted instantaneously, launching themselves from the rooftop at the dwarf. Sláine lunged forwards, thrusting his own firebrand into the giant insect's labrum, forcing the creature to eat the fire. Grabbing Ukko by the collar Sláine shoved the dwarf, sending him sprawling indignantly across the sand. Sláine ducked and rolled away from the creature barely a fraction of a second before it was engulfed in flame as its own gases erupted and the explosion pasted its guts all across the street. The second insect skittered away and up onto the roof on the other side of the street, barely escaping the explosion.

  "So much for no sudden movements," Sláine said, smearing a charred strip of intestinal tract across his brow.

  "I had an itch," Ukko mumbled defensively. "What was I supposed to do?"

  A swarm of angry insects blocked their path; their bodies were crushed together en-masse so that they formed an impenetrable living wall.

  Sláine stopped, pushing the burning stave in front of them and waiting for the fire to open up a path through the insects. They were packed too close together to allow for retreat. It was impossible to tell how deep the black-carapaced wall was. Their only chance of getting to the other side of the wall of insects was to burn their way through, but looking at the endless wave of antennae and mandibles Sláine doubted the practicality of charging the wall, fire or no fire. Which meant there was no chance they could leave the way they had come - meaning, in turn, there was no route back to the hillside where the Morrigan had opened the door between yesterday and today for them.

  There was no way out.

  They were trapped.

  "What now?"

  The wall of chittering and shrieking insects surged towards them.

  "We're not dying here, not to some flaming bug."

  "Flaming bug, that's almost funny."

  "Just give me your torch."

  Sláine hurled the centre of the living wall, triggering a series of deafening explosions as first one and then dozens of the gaseous insects burst into flame. He didn't wait to see the extent of the damage. The harsh series of detonations and the desperate shrieks of the insects was enough to tell him too many had survived. Without thinking, Sláine shouldered open the nearest door and bundled Ukko through it. He planted his own firebrand in the doorway, praying it would keep the creatures at bay long enough for them to find a way out of this hell hole.

  The room was barren, the walls smeared with what looked like dried blood. There was no sign of the hovel's previous inhabitants, either here or in the lower rooms, as they descended the rickety wooden stair set into the corner of the corridor leading off the main living quarters.

  "We should burn it," Ukko said, looking back over his shoulder at the stairs, "so they can't follow us."

  "No point, they'd just cover over the rooftops," Sláine grunted, kicking down the door. "Come on, before they realise where we've gone."

  The pair of them ran out into the street, looked left, saw the huge wall of seething insects pressing into the narrow street, multi-faceted eyes blazing, saw-toothed blades dragging a screeee-scraaaaw against the baked stone, and ran right, arms and legs pumping furiously.

  The air burned in Sláine's lungs. The incessant screeee-scraaaaw rasping swelled to fill his head until it was all he heard; a death sentence scratched out on the very fabric of the nightmarish city.

  The street ahead divided into three branches, left, right and straight on. Sláine took the sinister path. Beside him, Ukko gasped and panted, his short legs struggling to match Sláine's powerful stride. Sláine stooped low and scooped the dwarf up, hoisting him over his shoulder. The dwarf wriggled around like a lizard, struggling to break free of Sláine's iron grip. "Just lie still and tell me if you see them coming!"

  Thirty yards down the left-hand path the shadows of the huge insects returned, crushing down on them from the high rooftops of the hovels. Sláine didn't waste energy or momentum looking at them, he ran for his life, Brain-Biter in one hand, Ukko in the other.

  This time there was no fire to keep the insects back.

  The street opened up into a vast square, outside of the city walls and yet not a part of the desert proper. The centre of the square was dominated by a towering leafless tree. It was a remarkable sight, soaring into the blazing sky, a thousand skeletal branches reaching out over every inch of the square. Their emaciated shadows crept into every crack and crevice, worming into the hard-baked ground, between the stones of the walls of the hovels.

  "They're gaining!" Ukko gasped into his ear, kicking Sláine in the chest frantically as though trying to spur him on.

  Sláine grunted, and looked around, trying to decide which way to run.

  The choices were rapidly disappearing as, street by street, the wall of insects became a noose, tightening around the square until no avenue of escape remained. His heart hammered in his chest. He tried desperately to draw upon the Earth Serpent, but was answered by the sucking emptiness of the void where the Goddess ought to have been.

  They had been corralled in this direction, herded into the square.

  He lowered Ukko to the ground and grasped his axe, ready to fight.

  Beside him, the dwarf pulled out a short pig-sticker of a blade. He looked utterly terrified. Sláine had no words to comfort him.

  "Stupid bloody quest," Ukko mumbled, looking despairingly at each and every one of the blocked streets and then at the floor, hoping against hope that it might open up and swallow him before the creatures of Purgadair could. His face curled up into a bitter sneer. "Just so you know, I've got no intention of dying here, so you'd better work something out."

  They edged back, step by precious step until their backs were pressed against the mighty tree, and still the creatures poured out into the square.

  "Can you get another one of those torches lit? Maybe we can burn the tree or something?"

  "Urm, Sláine, you might want to look at this."

  Sláine twisted, trying to see where the dwarf was pointing: but all he saw was the trunk of the great tree.

  The sea of writhing black bodies parted, and through the centre walked a monstrous regiment of deformed and perverted creatures, blades drawn, feral faces hungry for blood.

  "What?"

  "I think we found him."

  It took a moment for the dwarf's words to register. When they finally did, they made no sense whatsoever. "What?"

  "The Skinless Man, I think we found him."

  Sláine risked another backwards glance, trying to see what the dwarf was going on about. This time he saw it: in the folds of the bark, the silhouette of a man's anguished face. Fingers of wood reached out of the knotted bole, clawing at the life that had been stolen from the man as he was locked within the wood.

  This was their saviour? A man trapped within a dead tree in the middle of some hellish desert?

  Sláine laughed bitterly. "You stupid bloody fool, this is what you get for listening to the Morrigan."

  "What are we supposed to do now?"

  "Die," Sláine said.

  "How about we don't?"

  Sláine thought about it for a moment, and made his choice. "Burn the damned tree down. Let's go out fighting. The music of thei
r hunger excites me," Sláine roared, a terrible boiling anger surging through him. "I will teach them a thing or two about death."

  "Spoken like a true hero," Ukko grimaced.

  Ukko had no idea how long Sláine could hold the animal guard off without the riastrad, his fierce berserker warp-spasm, roaring through his veins, swelling his musculature to transform him into the juggernaut he was.

  Minutes, no more, surely. Less.

  Every instinct cried out: run! But there was nowhere to run to.

  Ukko couldn't let himself think about it.

  He needed to burn the tree: Sláine was counting on him. He wouldn't let him down - at least not deliberately.

  Shaking, fear coursing through his limbs, the scoundrel emptied his pack out across the sand, pawing through the pile of junk until he found the tin of grease. He unscrewed the lid. It was all but empty. He scooped out the last smears of grease and rubbed them into the gnarled face trapped within the bark. He looked around desperately for anything else that might burn. There was nothing.

  He fumbled with his tinder, trying to strike a light but he was shaking too much. He dropped the flint and straw and scrambled around in the sand trying to find it.