The Best Weapon

by David Pilling

  Their perspiring crews were focused on loading and re-loading as fast as possible, keeping the defenders on the battlements in permanent fear of showers of rocks and iron-tipped bolts the size of a lance raining down on their heads. None of them saw the lone horseman appear on the sandy ridge just behind their position, raise his staff and mouth words of power.

  As Fulk spoke a halo of fire played around his head, like the spectre of a crown, and he pointed his staff at the ground.

  There was a rumbling, tearing sound, and a fault line appeared in the patch of earth Fulk's staff was pointing at. The line widened and extended, rapidly zigzagging across the earth like an enraged snake, straight towards the war machines.

  The first machine in its path was an onager, a framework of solid oak on four wheels with a bowl-shaped bucket used as a sling. A great pile of ammunition lay next to it, round white stones and clay pots filled with a combustible substance. The pots shattered on impact and the substance inside burst into flames, causing terror among the defenders, who had never been on the wrong end of such a weapon before.

  All the attention of the three crewmen was fixed on loading a fresh bundle of pots into the bucket, and for a moment they didn't notice the ground cracking and splintering beneath them.

  One man cried out as his foot disappeared inside a sudden crevice, and he dropped his armful of pots. They broke on impact and disappeared into the depths of the earth as more cracks and crevices appeared. Then the onager itself sagged and tipped onto its side, a ship foundering in rough seas, and the ground collapsed inwards like a hollow heap of sand. The crewmen screamed and sank with it, clutching helplessly for purchase as they were hurled off their feet and slid down into the gaping pit.

  Similar chaos was repeated down the line of war machines as the ground split and gave way under each one, and the rain of missiles against the walls of Temple Rock abruptly stopped. Fulk laughed at the ease of it, the fizzing glow of the magic coursing through his veins. He laughed also at the panic of the crews scurrying in all directions like frightened ants.

  Like ants. A nice analogy and one I have often considered myself. They are rather like ants, aren't they, my son? And you are their superior in every way.

  Fulk cursed as he heard his father's voice, echoing inside his skull.

  "Out of my head, liar," he shouted. "And claim no kinship with me. We will have our reckoning soon enough."

  Come, then. We shall be waiting.

  Fulk gave his reins a shake and urged his horse down the ridge. He skirted around the quagmire that he had created, not sparing the struggling mass of men and slowly sinking machines a glance. His eyes were fixed on the boiling skies above Temple Rock.

  Limping and wounded soldiers coming back from the fierce fighting at the gate did their best to scatter out of his path, and those that didn't were ridden down. A few horse archers took shots at him, but their arrows burst into flame in mid-air and dissolved into ash before reaching their target. Then Fulk was among the horde of troopers surging towards the gate, shields held over their heads against the arrows and rocks hurled down at them by the defenders.

  There was no way a lone horseman could hope to simply ride through that rushing mob, so Fulk once again raised his staff. The tides of magic were phenomenally strong here, the air so hot and heavy it was like trying to breathe in an oven, and little effort was required for him to summon lightning.

  A blinding flash split the skies, accompanied by the raw stench of ozone, and the close-packed ranks of Godless Ones burst apart as bodies were hurled into the air like rag dolls. Their charred and blackened remains tumbled back to earth like shrapnel onto the heads of their terrified comrades, and Fulk wasted no time in galloping through the path he had carved.

  He was quickly through the gateway and into the ward, where, for the first time in many weeks, he saw fellow Templars. They were a sorry sight, wild-eyed and half-starved, their uniforms barely recognisable under a film of blood and dirt, and they stared at him in amazement.

  Then he saw the lifeless form of the Grand Master, lying propped against a wall with the few survivors of his bodyguard standing over him. One, a burly grey-haired man he vaguely recognised as a veteran named De Gascur, wiped the blood from his face and stepped forward.

  "Fulk?" he croaked, "is that you?"

  No time. Fulk shook his head and rode for the gate of the inner ward. As he went the fortress echoed to the sound of war-horns. The Godless Ones were rallying for another assault. Fulk hoped that some of the Templars he had just left would survive to speak with him later. Assuming he survived to meet them.

  The inner ward was occupied by wounded knights and men-at-arms dragged away from the fighting by their comrades. A few archers and crossbowmen manned the walls, and those solders whose nerve had finally snapped lurked in corners, whimpering in shock and terror.,.

  Here, then, was the shattered remainder of the Twelfth Reconquest, a crowd of dying and bewildered souls, hundreds of miles from home and with no clear idea of what they were doing there.

  Fulk dismounted, patting his horse's flanks and leaving her under the archway of the gate. The highest tower stood in the middle of the inner ward, its grey spire looming ominously over the rest of the fortress. Fulk strode quickly towards the doorway.

  The door opened at a push, and he entered and turned left up the spiral stairs. Sounds from the battle outside filtered through the arrow-slit windows. It wouldn't be long before the outer ward was overrun, and then it would be time for the kind of glorious last stand that minstrels loved to sing about.

  Fulk paused for breath and leaned against the wall. "Damn all minstrels," he spat. It was foolish lies of storytellers that led to disasters like the Twelfth Reconquest, that and the inability of humans to stop repeating their mistakes.

  This was more than just the usual combination of lies and human error. Some unearthly power had manipulated everything, moving armies and individuals like pieces on a board.

  Now it was time for the endgame. Fulk collected the dregs of his courage, along with his breath, and continued up the steps.

  The staircase opened onto the summit of the tower, and Fulk was forced to cling to the wall for support against the screaming winds that buffeted the ancient stones. As soon as he crawled into the open he was mobbed by dozens of crows. They shrieked and flapped about him, forcing him to shield his face.

  He willed a fireball into being and was about to hurl it against them when the black wall suddenly dispersed and flew away in all directions, cawing and chattering.

  Welcome, my son.

  Fulk looked at the maelstrom above him, the swirling clouds and tumbling wisps of smoke that coiled and twisted into hideous shapes before unravelling as soon as he tried to focus on them. In the heart of the storm were twin points of red light, like a pair of miniature suns. They radiated sheer power and a greasy malevolent evil that made Fulk feel sick to his stomach.

  "I'm here," he shouted, struggling to his feet with the aid of his staff against the buffeting wind, "I've come."

  Now we wait on the arrival of your brother. Look to the south.

  Fulk glanced in that direction, over the battlements, over the desperate fighting and towards the Girdle Sea. He projected his gaze over the sparkling blue waters.

  There was a fleet approaching. He counted dozens of ships, floating wrecks that looked as though they had just been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. Each was stuffed with warriors, brown-skinned men in strange clothes, and the stench of magic hung over the fleet like a pall.

  One man in particular caught Fulk's attention. He stood at the prow of the leading ship, taller than most of the men around him, his dark eyes anxiously gazing towards Temple Rock.

  Fulk instantly recognised the man's face, for it was a mirror of his own. His brother was coming.

  * * * *

  As the fleet crept towards Temple Rock, the black mass in the sky grew ever larger, and its edges became distorted. Every now and then gu
lls would wheel overhead, flying out to sea. They seemed to be panicking, fleeing from some unnamed terror.

  Eventually land appeared, a thin brown line resting on the horizon. From Naiyar's point of view, the ocean was an ominous shade of grey, reflecting the churning chaos in the skies above. In the centre of the line, an increasingly discernible spike jutted upwards.

  Temple Rock.

  The atmosphere became close and muggy, and Naiyar felt pressure rising around him, as though he was immersed in deep water. Raw power coursed through his veins as he stared up at the murky, heaving mass of shapes above the old fortress.

  On the adjacent ship, Colken leaped on the bowsprit and bellowed a war-cry. The drawn-out wail of the Djanki war horns slashed the tension like a knife through a taut bowstring.

  There followed a busy silence as the Djanki warriors took up positions, awaiting Colken's signal. Finally he gave a single blast on his horn and the battle-cry of thousands of warriors split the skies as they leaped from their ships into the surf.

  The flinty walls of the ancient fortress loomed overhead as the Djanki swarmed towards the high cliffs. Undaunted by the treacherous slimy black rocks that confronted them, they began to climb, moving with supple ease. As they ascended the cliffs the ghostly fleet continued to move slowly towards the ancient man-made harbour.

  The vessels slowly ground to a halt, and more horns and yells sounded as the Sharib streamed onto the wide jetty that thrust out into the sea. This led onto a steep path carved out of the cliff face many centuries before, and up this path charged the Five Armies of the Southern Sands, shoving and jostling each other in a jealous contest to reach the summit first. Puffing at the unaccustomed exercise on foot, Husan al Din led the charge.

  The path led up to the old sea gate, a gateway in the southern wall of the fortress that had once been guarded by a portcullis. The portcullis was long gone, plundered for its valuable iron by local tribesmen centuries before, and the defenders lacked enough men to guard it. Thus there was nothing to oppose the Sharib as they streamed into the outer ward of Temple Rock.

  Meanwhile the strongest and fastest warriors among the Djanki had reached the cliff top and were now skirting the outer wall, where they appeared on the left flank of a regiment of Godless Ones.

  The Djanki did not falter for an instant. Led by their chiefs, they ploughed fearlessly into the shocked troopers, driving deep into their ranks.

  Colken was in the thickest of the melee, fighting with fluid efficiency as swords swung wildly about him, spears jabbed and men screamed. His aim was to carve a path for Naiyar to get into the fortress, but the numbers of Godless Ones were such that not even he could fight his way through them. The initial ferocity of the Djanki charge had knocked them reeling, but now the ululating cry of war-horns echoed across the field, and the veteran regiments they held in reserve swung about and charged into the fray.

  Naiyar moved like a wraith through the struggling mass of warriors.

  He drifted through the raging battle outside the fortress, through the fierce fighting at the gate to the inner ward, and vanished into the doorway of the great tower.

  Behind him, unnoticed, like a thief stalking her prey, moved Kayla. She was determined to accompany Naiyar, but at this moment her fellow High Gods chose to make their presence felt.

  Across the World Apparent, humans honour the High Gods and believe them to be the embodiment of courage, nobility, wisdom and any other virtues you might care to mention. The reality was rather different. The gods were in fact greedy, cowardly, and self-absorbed, concerned mainly with internal bickering and maintaining their stranglehold over the human mind.

  Kayla was perhaps an exception, and for that reason her peers did not much approve of her. They stopped her now, binding her body with silver chains, and refusing to let her advance another step.

  She begged and pleaded with them, to no avail. "I must not leave him! You do not understand what is at stake!"

  The deep, rich voice of Altus, Highest of All, sounded in her ears.

  You insisted on entering the World Apparent. We allowed this on condition that you may influence the demon-sons, but you cannot intervene in the lives of men.

  She tried to speak of the Lords of Hell, which only succeeded in reducing the High Gods to spitting, incoherent fury, scrambling whatever brains they possessed, and they scorned the notion of the Devourer.

  Kayla struggled impotently against their shackles, raging as she tried to make them understand.

  * * * *

  Naiyar and Fulk faced each other on the summit of Temple Rock. The first shock of mutual recognition had drowned out the sounds of battle, for they were not just brothers, but identical twins. There were differences, but these were merely superficial and the result of their upbringing in totally different parts of the world.

  Naiyar spoke first. "Well," he said, "it is good to see you in the living world, for this short time at least."

  Above them the tortured skies whirled and shrieked, and the presence of their fathers loomed large. The Lords themselves were silent, as if waiting to see how their creations would react to each other.

  Naiyar drew his knife, and took a tentative step towards his brother. "Do not hesitate," he said, gently placing the tip of the blade against Fulk's chest. "There are many more spheres of existence besides this one, and this world is done with us. We can do it one last service before departing."

  Fulk knew what he meant. Their demonic fathers meant to use them as gateways to the world. There was no magic, no tricks of witchcraft strong enough to prevent this happening, just the courage needed to end their own lives.

  All the lies and humiliation Fulk had endured in his life, the half-understood acts of magic and apparently meaningless brutality, coalesced into this single moment. The point of Naiyar's knife pressed cold against his skin as he slowly drew his own dagger and laid the tip over his brother's heart.

  A second longer, and their blood would have been spilled on the ground as their souls escaped together into the beyond.

  Freedom.

  * * * *

  As each brother applied pressure to his blade he found himself paralysed.

  They became aware that another struggle was taking place. The Lords of Hell had turned on one another. Treachery was one of the founding aspects of their characters, and in this final reckoning the kings of the underworld had decided to betray each other.

  Fulk's dagger stabbed for his brother's heart, but Naiyar sprang backwards at the vital moment, dropping to his palms, spinning and kicking out with his right leg to sweep his brother's legs from under him. Never in all his long years of combat training had Fulk been taught to deal with such a move, and he landed heavily, the back of his skull cracking against the flagstones.

  Naiyar leaped, his leg raised to stamp down on Fulk's throat. With unexpected swiftness for such a big and apparently sluggish man, Fulk rolled aside and Naiyar's heel slammed painfully into the stone floor.

  Rising onto one knee, Fulk slashed with the edge of his dagger, aiming to hamstring his brother. Vision blurred from the blow to his head, his aim was off and the sharp steel missed the tendons but drew a thin red line down the length of Naiyar's calf muscle.

  * * * *

  At the foot of the tower, Kayla cried out in anguish. At one and the same time she witnessed the duel between the brothers, forced to fight each other by their demonic fathers, the bloody tumult in and around Temple Rock as the armies tore into each other, and the bickering of the gods.

  And there was something else, an approaching shadow that dwarfed all of these, filling her with an elemental terror that was almost human. From the moment, millennia before, when she had first become aware of her own existence, this ultimate enemy had lurked in the depths of her consciousness.

  For the first time in her ageless existence Kayla found the courage to look into the abyss, and what she saw there filled her with despair. In desperation she cried out to the other High Gods, pleading wi
th them to rally against this threat.

  Altus spoke again, and this time his voice was full of fear.

  No. In your frivolous attachment to the demon-son, you have corrupted your divinity, and bound yourself to the world for as long as he lives. You are on your own. Only after his death will you be free to return to us.

  For a moment she could hardly believe their cowardice. The so-called High Gods, for all their arrogance and apparent authority, could not face this enemy. They knew that, even united, they could not stand against the Devourer, and any attempt to do so would result in their destruction.

  * * * *

  Naiyar wheeled away from a savage thrust as Fulk jabbed and cut at him with his dagger. The Djanki spun and danced a desperate rhythm, parrying and slashing with his own knife.

  Both men were bleeding from shallow cuts to their forearms and chests. A slash from Fulk had narrowly missed laying Naiyar's windpipe open. The brothers stared at each other with desperation in their eyes, unable to speak as the power that forced them to fight had also rendered them mute.

  As they fought in silence, demonic voices screamed and echoed around them.

  "Traitor!" squealed Lockjaw, the Lord of Lies, "all these long ages of exile, we have loved and supported each other, and you choose this moment to stab me in the back?"

  "Lying pig!" retorted his sibling, "you set your spawn on mine first!"

  They had betrayed each other at precisely the same moment. Both had always wanted to rule the living world alone, regarding each other as a vile but necessary evil, and reckoned that this was now the ideal time to kill the other off. If Fulk killed Naiyar, or Naiyar killed Fulk, it would prevent one or other of their fathers from entering the world.

  Their petty, self-absorbed motives ignored the real danger. And as they argued and their possessed sons battered each other to pieces, the shadow of the Devourer entered the world.