Tane lifted his head with as much pride as he could muster. There were retorts in his expression, Fulcrom could see that; witty one-liners or just a dismissive remark; nothing came from his lips, no apology, but that silence was all Fulcrom really needed.
Fulcrom placed a hand on Tane’s arm and looked him right in the eye. The feline pupils were wide, his furred face rippled ever so slightly in the breeze. Tane’s hair had grown a lot since Fulcrom first saw his transition under the cultist treatments, but there still remained an air of dignity and respect. Even now, after his performance with the soldiers.
‘What’s wrong?’ Fulcrom said softly.
‘It just seems all rather futile, don’t you think?’ Tane replied, his voice returning to that familiar, refined tone. ‘Just a few days ago there were some plans and probabilities to help shape our day. A degree of comfort could be found in that. What now, eh?’
‘We press on,’ Fulcrom said. ‘We get our rest, we gather more people, we protect them against any attacks, and we move forward. We don’t look back. We don’t think about the worst, though we plan for it.’
The wind picked up, groaning in the distance. The sky was now indigo, the flames of campfires littered the foreground, and the smell of cooking meat lingered in the air. He could see families nearby had daggers or short swords out on top of blankets, just in case something bad was to happen.
Fulcrom, even with his tough, rumel skin, began to shiver. Lan put her arm around his waist, resting her head on his chest, and Fulcrom wondered just how well he would be coping if she was not there to soothe his worries.
Screams woke him.
He bolted upright, the blankets sliding off him. Lan was already awake, rolling the sheet back, letting in the noise from the clearing: to one side, the land-vehicles were lined up behind each other; to the other, people were beginning to surge forwards.
Fulcrom stumbled up, brushing his clothes. He wrapped up the blankets and bundled them into a small bag, which he slung across his back, then picked up his crossbow, bolts, and a blade.
‘What’s going on?’ he called out, though no soldiers were nearby.
Lan and Fulcrom watched in confusion — it was still dark, and campfires had become smouldering ash piles. One of the moons was overhead, its faint glow cast down upon the scene. There must have been a hundred people moving to scramble to the other side of the land-vehicles. A few soldiers on horseback rode back the other way with their weapons at the ready.
‘Can you see Tane?’ Lan asked.
‘No,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘Are they coming for us? I can’t see anything.’
Lan craned her neck to look up. ‘Not from the air at least. I’m going to see what’s going on.’ With that, she bounded up towards one of the land-vehicles, used one of its wheels for leverage and took huge arcs through the air and out of sight.
If only I had such powers, Fulcrom thought, as he trudged over the ice-cold mud. His pulse racing, he headed towards a family pulling their small handcart hastily through the clearing.
‘What’s going on?’ Fulcrom asked.
The father, a slender, bearded man in a baggy jumper, stopped and urged his family to go on. ‘I’ll catch up.’ Then, to Fulcrom, ‘There’s word of things coming out of the far end of the forest, sir.’
‘Things?’ Fulcrom asked. ‘What things?’
The man shrugged. His eyes looked tired. ‘I’ve only heard word, like. I don’t know really. We’re just getting the hell out of here before the sun rises.’
‘Can you give me any description?’ Fulcrom asked, wanting to shake the man. ‘I need something to go on, anything.’
‘Word. . word is that ghosts have started attacking, that’s all, sir, I swear.’ The man looked this way and that, then back to his family.
‘Thank you,’ Fulcrom sighed, gesturing for him to return.
People swarmed past now, and Fulcrom began hassling others at random to ask them what they had seen. Again, only the suggestion of ghosts. Spectres. Glowing things. Only hearsay, nothing definite, which frustrated him.
Fulcrom jogged towards the head of the convoy, away from the noises, where dozens of soldiers had now stationed themselves, but had not yet moved into action — instead they were slouching by one of the fires. Further up, standing alongside the front leg of the furthest horse, Frater Mercury stared out into the darkness.
The soldiers stood to regard Fulcrom.
What the fuck are they doing just lying around? he thought to himself. ‘Evening,’ Fulcrom announced, ‘we’ve reports of events at the western end of the convoy. People are looking for help.’
‘We don’t know what to do,’ one of the younger men said. ‘We’re waiting for orders.’
‘You pick up your swords and bows and you help them,’ Fulcrom urged.
Two looked at each other, another one — older — seemed to get the idea. ‘Gather all those wearing Empire colours like before.’
Fulcrom nodded. ‘Good, and hurry. I’ve heard odd reports of spectres — which sounds different from what we’ve dealt with before.’
The soldiers split up — some went to locate their horses, others moved on foot. Ahead of the convoy lay the limits of the woodland and, beyond, the vast expanse of grassland and tundra, much of it buried underneath snow. There were no lights of towns or villages, only darkness.
Fulcrom headed up towards Frater Mercury, moving around the legs of the gargantuan horse, which seemed to remain so still it was statue-like.
When Frater Mercury spoke it was directly into Fulcrom’s head. What do you want now?
‘The rear of our convoy is under attack, I believe. People are saying that there are ghost-like killers — spectral forms.’
Frater Mercury contemplated his words without expression.
‘Did you hear my words?’ Fulcrom asked.
Of course. It takes me time to remember the language.
‘Are they from the Policharos?’ Fulcrom asked, using Frater Mercury’s original term for the sky-city.
Yes, he replied. I know what they are.
‘Are they a threat?’
Yes they are.
‘Then would you be able to help?’
It seemed to take the greatest effort for this man — this god, perhaps — to oblige Fulcrom’s request. Why was there no sense of urgency?
I will follow you, if I must.
They located two black mares and rode off to the western end of the convoy. Fulcrom was impressed by Frater Mercury’s finesse at riding, the ease with which he moved in the saddle and directed the animal.
People seemed to be moving more quickly, the further west they rode, and there were more panicked expressions upon people’s faces.
Fulcrom tried to peer further ahead but the forest was too thick to make anything out. His frustration grew. Fulcrom began to worry that leading the refugees through a vast clearing in the forest had been a mistake. He had hoped it would provide cover from two sides, wood for campfires and potential food. He forced his guilt from his mind: he could not possibly know what he was dealing with.
Panicked faces became more distressed; there were piercing screams in the distance, then — through the darkness — Fulcrom could discern glowing forms.
‘Oh fuck, no. .’ he breathed. ‘What now?’
They had reached the fringe of the convoy. Jamur soldiers, perhaps a hundred in all, as well as citizen militia who had picked up arms, had formed a line of defence stretching perhaps a hundred feet from one side of the clearing to the other. Along the fringes of the trees, archers were firing into the open.
As Fulcrom approached, he could see beyond them stood blue-white glowing forms, exactly like ghosts, and they were brandishing swords. They did not wear military armour: in fact, they seemed to be sinewy muscle and tendon, as if stripped of skin. Their faces, too, were featureless. Only their swords seemed real: huge curved blades that shimmered in their own light.
Two Jamur soldiers were suddenly carried back through
the lines, their arms bloodied and blistered. One man was unconscious, the other screamed, his face creased in agony. He shouted, ‘It’s fucking burning me, it burns, get it off!’ before being taken to one side where his screams became whimpers.
Fulcrom scanned the crowd of soldiers and civilians for Lan: there she was, on the far left, much to Fulcrom’s relief, hauling two people out of the combat zone to safety. It was then that Fulcrom noticed the dead bodies — civilian casualties — that lay around.
So many of them. . this time we’re surely finished.
A burst of soldiers moved forward, shields locking behind to protect the next row. From his horse, Fulcrom watched the men move to engage the spectres in combat. The ghost-warriors seemed undisciplined; they fought like feral savages, though for the most part the soldiers were holding them off. Yet more of the ghosts came from behind, twenty, forty, maybe more flooding into view. Fulcrom could not see the sky-city, could not see where these things were coming from.
‘Frater Mercury,’ Fulcrom called across. ‘Please, help us. What do you suggest we should do? Do you know how to stop this?’
The god-like figure remained inert, merely observing the scene. He gave no sign of having heard Fulcrom’s questions, but instead he nudged his horse in a tight arc and behind the thin line of Jamur soldiers.
The soldiers moved back and locked their shields again and, from their flanks, archers released another wave of arrows. None of them connected with their targets; the arrows merely passed straight through and struck into the earth beyond.
Frater Mercury emerged onto the field of combat and rode out into the centre. Fulcrom heard commands for the Jamur soldiers to hold their position and for the archers to cease firing. After Frater Mercury pulled his horse to a stop, the scene fell eerily silent. The ghost-warriors ceased their movements across the clearing then began to confer with each other, their movements oddly fluid. More of them came in from behind, brightening the night with their glow. They seemed to swarm, ooze and drift rather than make coherent progress, but soon they began moving towards Frater Mercury, slower than before and more cautious.
Frater Mercury stared at the approaching figures and began wailing in a bass tone, almost melodic at first, then something far harsher.
The spirit figures paused on the spot and their glow faded to something duller. When Frater Mercury ceased his noise they became more obviously animalistic and less supernatural. The god-like man held up a hand and Fulcrom watched in awe as a sword whipped from the grasp of one of the Jamur soldiers and travelled — through the air — towards his outstretched hand. He snatched it firmly, dismounted from his horse and advanced on foot towards the former ghosts, who were now cowering like frightened children at his approach. He held up his other hand and another blade emerged through the air and landed in his palm with little effort.
Fulcrom now struggled to understand the action, but he saw Frater Mercury lurch forward and bury one blade into the chest of an enemy. As the sword connected, the creature began to redden at the point of impact, and burst into flame. Screaming horrifically, it lurched back and forth, burning from within, before retreating off into the distance. Several others of its kind began to follow and, with their backs turned, Frater Mercury threw another blade like a spear: it connected with one of them, creating yet more flames and high-pitched screams. Again, he held his hands aloft, like a prophet, and — again — he seemed to haul more swords from the clutches of a nearby soldier. One by one, Frater Mercury warded off the remainder of the ghosts until the last of them scrambled, alight, along the periphery of the forest.
Satisfied his work was done, he slowly walked back to his horse, without acknowledgement of the events or his actions, mounted the mare and nudged her in a slow arc around the row of shocked soldiers and back towards the east.
It was the dignified thing to do, Fulcrom thought, to light a pyre for the fallen.
Fifty-three people in total had been found dead, the vast majority of them with burns or weird abrasions from physical contact with the ghost-warriors. Those who had survived were in agony and many remained unconscious long afterwards.
As Fulcrom was on his way back towards the chain of refugees, he thought he caught sight of Lan crouching by a body at the edge of the forest. When he came closer he noticed she was shivering and in tears. The body resting on the damp earth beside her was one he knew all too well.
Tane. .
He took a deep breath and bent down beside them.
‘Is he unconscious or is he. .?’ Fulcrom asked, gesturing to Tane’s body.
Because of the late hour and Tane’s dark uniform, Fulcrom struggled to make out how much blood the werecat had lost, but the open wound below his right ribcage was enough to tell Fulcrom what he needed to know. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘Yes, he’s dead,’ was all Lan could manage.
They rose together.
‘We hadn’t always got on,’ she breathed, ‘but I had very few people I could rely on in this world. It shouldn’t have happened to him. .’
Fulcrom didn’t say anything. He had found Tane frustrating to work with, but very effective — if a little too brutal — at helping to reduce crime in Villjamur. But he felt a fatherly attachment to him, and was deeply saddened.
‘Did you see what happened to him?’
‘He had pulled a dozen or so individuals from the path of those white things,’ Lan said, her arms still around Fulcrom. ‘He’d managed to find a blade and was trying to attack them when one of them must have caught him. I was the other side of the clearing when I heard his scream, but couldn’t reach him quickly enough because of the combat and all the soldiers. It was only when the fighting moved on that I could find his body. So I brought it to the side and let him pass away quietly. He was so silent at the end — he just couldn’t say a word. It seemed so unnatural.’
The pyre was a hasty affair. What wood could be gathered from the damp forest floor was piled haphazardly and all the bodies wrapped in any rags that people could spare. Smoke plumes drifted back in the direction of Villjamur, downwind, carrying with them the rancid smell of the burning dead. Fulcrom had tried to approach Frater Mercury about doing something perhaps to bring Tane back to life, but his requests were stubbornly ignored and the god-man simply walked away. Instead, Tane’s body would join the others.
Hundreds of people tentatively came to pay their respects, many of them wary about remaining too long in one place — Fulcrom included. People raised the question of whether or not it was reckless to light beacons that would reveal their whereabouts; perhaps this was true, Fulcrom told them, but it was clear, given the recent events, that whatever was after them knew perfectly well where they could be found.
He would light these pyres. Respect would be paid.
Frater Mercury attended the funeral burning, but despite Fulcrom persistently quizzing him about what had happened, the god-thing gave no explanation as to what the creatures who attacked them were, or indeed how he had dealt with them; they seemed a minor inconvenience to him. The figure merely regarded the flames, which were reflected in the metallic half of his face.
Fulcrom and Lan moved closer, Lan with her head on his shoulder, him with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
‘Will we make it to the coast after this?’ she whispered.
‘So long as we have him by our side,’ Fulcrom said, indicating Frater Mercury, ‘I would think our chances are decent. The only question is, is he actually here to help us? Given the sacrifices to bring him into this world, we still have little idea of who Frater Mercury is, or even what he wants, let alone whether he can get us to the coast.’
FOUR
She waited for him from within the shelter of an old doorway in the heart of the Ancient Quarter of Villiren. Diggsy had promised to take Jeza out tonight and he was true to his word. They were headed to her new favourite bistro, which had replaced the one on the seafront with the constantly steamed-up windows and the delicious c
rab cakes — that had been destroyed in the fighting. She had been devastated by its loss at first, until she realized it was silly to mourn a bistro when so many people had died in the war. Still, it was the little things like that which hurt just as much — the little pleasures she had previously taken for granted, which had been rendered important once they had been lost to her forever.
A lot of things took on a new context after the war. Once-important issues, such as what clothes she was wearing or what they might eat that night, didn’t seem to matter as much, not when the bodies of tens of thousands of people were being swept from the streets. Arguments with others seemed futile. She realized how close death could be, and that seemed to fill her with a sense of urgency — to do things, something, anything, though she didn’t quite know what.
Diggsy sauntered down the street towards her. He had made an effort with his hair, and wore customized breeches. He was also sporting a hooded jumper she had asked to be made for him with money she earned selling a bunch of dodgy relics. The sight of him warmed her insides. She smiled widely.
When he arrived, they kissed. He smelled good tonight and his tongue tasted of peppermint. He walked with his arm around her, and she liked that it was so casual. The stars were starting to show. Everything felt right.
‘What d’you think our next creation should be?’ Diggsy asked, before tucking into a mouthful of young, boiled sea trilobite. She laughed when he had difficulty prising open their shells, but she fared no better. She half wished she could bring some of the tools from their workbench, but that might not have gone down too well with the owners of the bistro.
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