by Dan Avera
“Get back!” cried a Fadoré in white and gold robes, and he held up an iron trilix of Gefan. “Back to the Void, demon! The Harbinger holds no sway here!”
“Demon?” Will hissed, rolling the word on his tongue as though tasting some foreign food. His voice was once again completely buried beneath Koutoum's. Smoke billowed from his charred mouth as he spoke, and each breath blew a flurry of sparks at the Fadoré. They lit on his robes, burning little black holes in the fine linens. “Harbinger?”
A twisting rope of flame caught the man about the wrist and lifted him high into the air, melting the trilix in his grasp. He screamed as the molten metal flowed over his skin.
“I am no demon, fool,” Will growled. “I am the cleansing flame that will burn your foul taint from this land. I have returned after five hundred years of slumber to once more forge the old ways anew. You could have rallied to the cause of the Titans, but instead you chose the path of damnation.” He brought the sobbing Fadoré close so that the man's hair burned away, leaving behind a shiny pink pate. “Now burn, traitor.”
The Fadoré disintegrated in a flurry of ash and sparks, and Will looked around at what foolish few remained cowering around him. They were paralyzed by fear, staring at him with doe eyes and slack mouths.
And then Will felt something slam into him with the mental force of a falling anvil. It darted around inside his mind, whispering to him, trying desperately to be heard. It rocked him back a step, but he shook his head and recovered a moment later, now even angrier than before. “Traitors,” he snarled. “You will pay for your crimes.”
“Will, please stop,” Clare begged from her place at his chest, her voice small and weak. He did not hear her.
“Burn!” Will screamed, and a sphere of flames exploded out from his body like a crushing tidal wave. Anything caught in its path—be it stone or wood or human flesh—stood for only an instant before simply melting or disintegrating beneath the sheer force of his power. Men, women, and children, frozen in mid scream, burst into clouds of ash and were swept away by the tempest of air that followed. Whole houses burned to the ground in instants, their stones melting and their wood crumbling rapidly into piles of smoldering cinder.
“Will, no!” Clare screamed, and she pounded on his chest, but to no avail. He did not hear her; he did not feel her. His mind was so deeply immersed in dark fury that it had no room for any conscious thought other than her protection, and the rampant destruction all around him was the only way he could think to accomplish such a task. “Stop, please!”
A memory flashed within his mind then, pounding against the inside of his skull like a blacksmith's hammer. There are two of them, a woman and a little girl. But on closer inspection he realizes that the woman is in fact very young, no more than fourteen—far too young to be a mother. But then, she isn't the mother, is she? Will has already killed that one, the thirty-something woman with the frightened eyes, whose body now lies against the table in the next room, nestled snugly in a pool of its own blood—
“No!” he cried, and staggered backward. He shook his head, banishing the memory to the dark corners of his thoughts. Why, after so many years, were those thoughts resurfacing? Why? He shook his head again, groping wildly for the rage that had ebbed beneath the new emotions—and found it. He snarled and stalked forward, his thoughts once more filled only with images of flame and death—and of Clare.
~
Katryna had never heard such a noise in her life; even the storm of cannonfire from the Fury had not been so loud or terrible, and she felt this new din as a physical blow. She twisted in Castor's arms as the earsplitting sound assaulted her senses, and was just able to see over his shoulder as a massive ball of fire bloomed from within the depths of the city. That's just past the barracks, she realized. Oh, spirits...not Will...
They had made it to the outskirts of the city, thanks in large part to Serah's command of the winds. The Titan, now exhausted both from her near-death at sea and from moving close to a thousand people at once, had her arm around Feothon's shoulders. She gasped and stumbled as the hot wind from the explosion swept over the survivors. It was not a strong wind by any means, but Serah fell to the ground all the same. “No,” she whispered, and tears dripped freely from her face. “Oh, no, no, no...”
Even Feothon, normally so utterly implacable, adopted an expression of complete horror. He sat down heavily next to Serah, his armor clanking, and put a shaking hand on her shoulder. “I...I cannot believe...” he whispered, and then a second explosion thundered through the air. Serah cried out as though in pain, and her breaths turned to sobs. Castor went to his knees and awkwardly set Katryna next to them.
“Will!” Katryna cried, fear twisting her gut. “That has to be Will! We have to help him!” Spaertos was a great city—the jewel of the Westlands. It rivaled even Prado in size, and its gleaming towers could be seen for leagues in every direction. And yet nearly a third of it had vanished, its buildings and citizens caught amid a rampant wildfire that would burn and burn and burn until commanded to do otherwise.
Feothon shook his head sadly, his face a mask of defeat. “There is...nothing you can do for him, my dear.” He closed his eyes and glistening tears traced shining paths down his cheeks. “Nothing at all.”
“But he could be hurt!” she cried, and she struggled unsuccessfully to get to her feet. Feothon had done what he could for her broken leg during their flight from the city, but his energy had already been all but drained, and her body was still weak from where the guards had beaten her into submission. She turned to Castor and begged, “Castor, please! We have to help him!”
“He lives,” Feothon said as Castor leaped to his feet, and all eyes turned to the Titan. “He lives, and yet...his mind is dead.” He shook his head sadly. “He has been completely consumed by anger. To walk into that city now...it would be suicide. You would be incinerated.”
“Just like they were,” Serah whispered, her voice shaking. “Burned alive...burned to ashes...”
Castor shot Katryna a troubled look and licked his lips nervously. “Who, Serah?” he asked hesitantly. “The townspeople?”
Serah nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “Men, women...children.” A sob shook her body.
“What about Clare?” Katryna asked frantically. “He hasn't killed her, has he?”
Feothon turned his hazel eyes on her, and there was such sadness in them that it tore Katryna's heart apart. “Nothing in this world or beyond it could harm her now,” he answered softly. “The power of Koutoum protects her.” He looked away. “It is for her sake that Willyem has invoked it to such an extent. His rage is what keeps her safe.”
“At the cost of innocent lives,” Castor said quietly, and at his words memory flashed unbidden through Katryna's mind.
“Darrek, those are innocent people!” Will cries.
“I don't give a damn if they're pure and unspoiled virgins laid out for the Old God himself,” the commander snarls, and he takes a threatening step toward Will. “We were commissioned to make sure these desert rats cannot retaliate ever again, and Void take you, that is what we are going to do!”
Will turns away, his face twisted with inner turmoil.
“The Southlands are at war,” Darrek continues. “And in war, sacrifices must be made. In the Eastlands, death by the sword is considered an honorable end. So long as they draw breath, they will never stop attacking.” He takes a step forward and places a hand on Will's shoulder. “This is a terrible thing. But Gefan smiles upon deeds done to protect His brothers and sisters, and in the end you will be saving more Southland lives than can be counted.”
Will shrugs the hand off and makes for the tent's exit without a backward glance. “I'll do what has to be done,” he growls as he leaves. “But I'm not doing it for Gefan. Void take your god.”
Katryna had never told Will what she had seen, had never spoken of what they had done after. But she remembered it now, and like some horrific recurring nightmare, the past seeme
d to be repeating itself. Only this time, Will was enjoying it.
~
The young girl stares up at him with frightened eyes and pushes her sister behind her. Her skin is dark, a beautiful brown that reminds him of the caffae brewed in the tropical regions of the Southlands, and her eyes are even darker. He can see himself reflected in them as they fill with tears—can see his own cold, cruelly emotionless face. The Hammersong blade gripped tightly in his fist seems to hum with energy, its insatiable appetite hungering for blood. Forged by a true master, he thinks. Hammersong would be disappointed to know what use his weapons have come to.
But that is a small part of his mind, segregated and secluded somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of his sanity, which he can feel slowly slipping away. He ignores the pleas of his own conscience, walling off the strange voices filling his head, focusing on one thing and one thing only: killing. It must be done.
Tears are flowing freely down the girl's face now, and she sobs loudly, hiccuping in fear. Snot runs down her nose, and she does not move to wipe it away. Behind her the small child begins to cry, not knowing why her sister is frightened but able to feel the fear all the same. “Ma'dár!” she wails. “Kama'ak yam, Ma'dár!”
Will does not understand the words, but he recognizes the cry for a mother's help. Some phrases, he thinks dully, are universal. Her screaming is becoming grating, hurting his ears, fraying his nerves, wearing at his resolve; he ends the noise. Little crimson beads of blood run in rivulets down the length of his blade. He holds it up to the smoky, flickering lamplight and contemplates it as though gazing upon a strangely foreign object. Forged by a true master, he thinks.
“Stop it!” Will snarled, and while the words came out in an almost indecipherable garble of rage, for a moment, his voice was his own—Koutoum's was gone. He roared like an animal and shook himself. “Get out of my head!”
Something was pounding against the inner walls of his mind with all the force of a stone hurricane, and his temples throbbed with unrelenting pain. The fires that covered his body flared and sputtered, sending thick, greasy black clouds of smoke billowing high into the air. Must save Clare, he thought, and the mantra repeated over and over again in his mind, giving him strength. Soon he had control of the flames once more, and he continued along his path of destruction.
People ran screaming from him wherever he went, and like a mindless automaton he cut them down, one and all. His manic mind had no room for higher thought; to him, they were all the enemy—the enemy that wished to harm Clare.
“Please have mercy!” one man cried, falling on his knees before Will in supplication. The heat flash-burned the hair on his brow and head and heated his skin until it was an angry red, but he did not move. He raised his hands to Will, who stared down at him with smoldering, pitiless eyes.
“Don't hurt him!” Clare screamed, and she pounded ineffectually on his chest once more. Tendrils of white-hot flame snaked out toward the villager, searching hungrily for further prey. “Will, stop!” She hit his face, slamming her fists into his teeth, his nose, his eyes—but she might as well have tried to beat a boulder into submission. He barely noticed what should have been crippling blows, his blackened skin registering nothing but the heat of his own soul. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the man kneeling before him.
Why does he not flee? he wondered. Perhaps...perhaps he does not mean to harm her. Then his eyes widened, and the living flames along his body flared with new life. Unless it is a trick.
The glowing tendrils cut the man in half more easily than the sharpest sword. The villager stared down at the line of charred skin along his middle, his body somehow still managing to stand, his mouth gaping like a fish, and then he looked back up at Will in confusion. “Am I—?” He never finished. The molten whips sliced through his neck, and the man tumbled forward in three pieces.
Clare screamed. It was a long, ragged, choking sound, a sound of complete disbelief, utter terror, and the deepest despair. She covered her face with her hands, unable to watch the slaughter any longer, and though she struggled against Will's grasp his arms were as strong and unyielding as steel.
There are more of them—an entire camp nearly the size of a small town set in the mouth of the Pass. But then, Eastland nomads always travel in large groups. Will knows this—knows that this cannot possibly be an attacking force, without weapons or disciplined soldiers—and yet he walls this knowledge off as well, secluding it along with the horror growing inside of him at what he continues to do.
And he kills—and kills and kills and kills, swinging his sword left and right like an extension of his own body, feeling it pass effortlessly through cloth and unarmored flesh. He sees Katryna standing over an old Eastland man, his eyes staring dimly up at her as she holds a shortsword over his head in a trembling hand. Will cannot let her share in his pain; he gently catches her wrist and pulls the sword from her hand, sheathing it at her hip. The look she gives him is frightened, childlike, and he gently clasps her shoulder before turning her away and killing the man, ending his life with one quick slash of his own blade. When he looks up Katryna is staring at him, her face a collage of horror and disgust. She does not move; she does not speak. She simply stands and stares. She does not understand. Will looks away, and his sword swings.
And swings, and swings, and swings.
~
The city was no more. Where once had stood a testament to mankind's ingenuity and might, there was little more than a raging inferno. Only a few of the once proud buildings remained, and they were little more than burnt shells. From where she sat Katryna could see the few pitiful people who had made it out alive fleeing across the grassy hills to whatever salvation they could find. They made for the forest on the very outskirts of the city, or for the roads that would inevitably lead to Avalone, the seat of the Clergy's power. Katryna knew they would seek refuge there, sobbing maniacally and babbling incoherent tales of a flaming demon from the Void.
Our cause is lost, she thought, and her eyes unfocused, staring out at nothing. Who will follow us now?
An explosion shook the ground, sending faint tremors across the land, but she did not try to find its source. Through her crying eyes the world appeared as a pastel, a blurred mirage of colors that swirled around and around indefinitely in a dance of fire.
She vomited, emptying her stomach on the sandy grass beside her until there was nothing left to empty. She coughed and wretched and sobbed, and spat out the taste of bile that remained like a taint in her body. Her greatest friend, the man with whom she had traversed nearly all of life's challenges and tribulations and come out unscathed, was gone. Deep down, though she tried to deny it, she knew that he would never be the same. Oh, Will, she thought, and she sobbed even harder. She felt comforting hands on her shoulders, and somewhere along the way Castor drew her into a tight embrace, holding her head to his breast. He was crying too—she could feel his own hot tears splashing on her cheek and wetting her hair—and she clung to him like a drowning woman to a piece of wood.
Oh, Will.
~
He tried to convince himself that he had been looking for an exit all along, and some part of his mind believed the lie. Deep down, though, he knew the truth, and it sickened him. I enjoyed it, what remained of his conscience said, and the violent hatred that dominated his soul tried to bat it away. He passed through the great stone gates that led to the fields of dune grass beyond, leaving in his wake a smoking, burning crater. I enjoyed it, just as I did...before...
They slaughter the livestock as well, leaving no creature alive, and then set fire to the tents. The silks and cloths burn quickly, leaving behind skeletal frames of beautifully carved wood. Those burn too, though they last somewhat longer against the onslaught, and as the glow from the fires lights the night sky the mercenaries cheer and laugh and drink. They toast their commander Darrek, who has made them a fortune to last a lifetime; they toast the Southlands, home to the Faithful; and they toast their hero, Willyem Bl
ackmane, who alone slew nearly every Eastlander to the man. Willyem Blackmane, who sits by himself on a sand dune far away from the festivities.
He is curled into a fetal ball, his muscular body somehow smaller than the smallest child's, and he shakes and trembles as sobs wrack his form. His mind is clear now, the guilt of the night's events resting firmly on his shoulders, and he feels his soul dying inside of him.
And he cries, and cries, and does not stop—not even when his friend Katryna finds him the next day as the desert sun is just beginning to crest the highest dunes to the east. She falls on her knees next to him and holds him, tells him that they need to return to the camp or they will die.
He does not care. Nothing matters to him anymore. Even when his tears finally run out, he sobs pitifully. And when the burning sun rises high into the sky, he finally moves at Katryna's urging—but it is not to the camp. At least, not the camp of the Southland mercenaries.
There were people in front of him, rushing toward him as he fell heavily to his knees. What? he thought dumbly. What's happening?
And then, finally, the thing in his head burst through his mental barriers and took control of his mind with an iron grip. It extinguished his flames, leaving behind a confused man with ice-blue eyes. The man held a woman in his arms—she was sobbing uncontrollably. As were, he realized, the people stumbling toward him.
I am so sorry, said Koutoum's voice in his head, but it was different now—more human. It sounded almost feminine, and he had only a moment to be baffled by this new development before an overwhelming sadness took control of him. I am so, so sorry. I should have been stronger. Willyem...forgive me...
