by Tom Lloyd
At last he was done, and the Land went from white to grey to black as one final burst of pain erupted from his heart and the talons closed around his ribs. He fell, and all around him, the heart of the Narkang army died.
Daken scooped up a discarded shield and grinned at Vesna. The white-eye had blood running freely from a torn lip and his cheeks were splattered with the deaths of a dozen men. They stood at the crest of the hill with dead and dying men all around then. The rigid lines of defenders had collapsed and the hill was now a free-for-all, a thousand individual battles being fought up and down its slope.
‘Waiting for those dead bastards to get all the glory?’ Daken rasped, brandishing the shield wildly.
Vesna looked back at the Ghosts and Kingsguard struggling forward in their wake, hampered as much by the corpses covering the ground as by the slope. Beyond them they could see the lower line of defenders was still holding against one legion of Kingsguard, while the Menin had slaughtered those in front of them and were pressing the upper line hard. In any normal battle this would have been won; Vesna would be turning inwards to seal the victory and meet the Menin in a double envelopment, but with nowhere to go, the Devoted couldn’t crumple and run. Their only option was to fight to the death, and thousands had already done so.
‘Wait for the king,’ he commanded. ‘We can’t do it alone.’
‘He’d better hurry, then!’ Daken swapped his axe to his shield-hand and thumped his free fist against his chest. ‘Wake up, bitch! You ain’t sleeping through all of this!’
For a moment nothing happened, then Vesna saw faint trails of blue light creep up from around Daken’s breastplate. Four, then a half-dozen or more, the trails wavered uncertainly in the dull daylight until Daken cackled with mad delight and turned towards the standing stones at the hill’s peak.
The hilltop was close to flat, but at its very centre the ground rose up in an approximate circle around the great carved monoliths. More defenders were stationed there: Ruhen’s final line, protecting the entrance to the barrow. From where he stood Vesna could see they were heavily armoured, an elite troop standing with shields locked and weapons ready. There were no archers among them, and for a strange moment Vesna felt a sense of calm: the faint breath before the storm returned.
They had scattered entire divisions. King Emin and his close guard were still fighting in the wake of the Legion’s dwindling but inexhaustible troops. Daken and Vesna, the point of the spear, had driven right through the enemy.
Vesna turned back the way they had come He gasped in horror: the disordered, unarmed mob of Ruhen’s Children had swamped the legions left to protect their centre. One whole side of the square had been engulfed, and even as he watched the rest folded in on themselves.
‘ There is magic on them,’ Karkarn whispered in his ear, ‘ the touch of Aenaris.’
Vesna shuddered. Whatever Ruhen’s Children were now, they had just overrun and crushed several legions of battle-ready soldiers. ‘This is Ruhen’s tactic — he’ll break us from the rear,’ he cried to Daken, then roared, ‘Ozhern!’ his voice amplified with unnatural power, but he received no response from the commander of the Legion.
He ran towards the nearest of the Damned, the Crystal Skull he carried pulsing with warmth. He reached out a hand and grabbed at the air, the flicker of Karkarn’s spirit inside him obeying his unspoken command. The undead mercenary jerked around as he was yanked bodily through the air and hurled towards Vesna, driving his spear into the ground to catch his balance as he hit the earth. Tattered hair fell across the dead man’s face as the weapon was tugged out of the ground.
‘Look!’ Vesna yelled, feeling the War God again stir inside at the mercenary’s hostile poise. He pointed, and after a moment the undead warrior turned towards the rout at the base of the hill, then jerked back towards Vesna with a flash of understanding. In the next moment the entire remaining regiments of undead had broken off and were barrelling headlong down the slope.
‘Emin!’ Vesna yelled, ‘get the regulars to turn and attack them, Kingsguard too!’
The king turned too, visibly startled, by what he saw there. At his side Dashain, one arm hanging limp and useless, barked orders to a captain of the Kingsguard.
‘My mage is dead,’ Emin shouted back. ‘I cannot contact them!’ He cast around for a few moments, then yelled, ‘Legana! Order our regulars to withdraw and engage the centre!’
The Mortal-Aspect stood amidst a pile of corpses, long-knives bloody and an aura of emerald light shining about her. She glanced at the spear legions just starting up the lower slope before returning her piecing gaze to their direction and gesturing: it was done.
Vesna didn’t wait; it would take them a while before anyone was able to react to the orders. Shoring up the rear would mean nothing if they couldn’t break through this final defence and reach Isak in time. Daken had already set off towards the standing stones and Vesna fell in behind the white-eye, realising what the man intended. The blossoming taste of magic filled the air and he hesitated, for a moment not sure if it was Litania, Daken’s own Aspect — but the power far exceeded hers. With a thought he threw out a wild, unfocused mass of energies, just as two enormous detonations crashed down on his shield.
The impact stopped him dead and he rocked back on his heels. The blistering shield above them exploded into a shower of sparks. From behind him he sensed Legana hurling something in response, and the sky turned emerald as she lashed at the standing stones. He gathered his wits and moved on, struggling to catch up with Daken, who was ploughing on regardless. With an effort he threw up another shield around them, a haze of sparks obscuring the hunkered soldiers ahead of them, but in the next moment he realised it was not necessary.
From the standing stones a figure rose up in the air, four fat crackling bands of light driving into the ground beyond the soldiers. He glimpsed a robed figure wreathed in fire, a slender man with white-blond hair, moving away from Vesna towards the rocky back slope of the hill. With Larim dead and two Mortal-Aspects advancing on him, the mage who’d grabbed the dead Menin’s Crystal Skull knew he was outmatched. He was no fanatic, he had no desire to die for his master, so he withdrew, dropping behind the defending soldiers, leaving them to their fate.
Daken, half-crouched behind his shield, charged with a roar as Litania’s trails of blue light reached out to the waiting spears. Vesna stopped and channelled the energy of his own shield towards Daken, throwing the force behind him just as the white-eye reached the line of defenders. Blue sparks burst on the waiting spear-heads, their shafts shattered into splinters and leaving only unarmed men in his path.
Vesna pushed forward and the white-eye was bodily thrown into them, crashing right through the overlapping shields and scattering soldiers left and right.
With Doranei and Forrow as his side, Vesna raced to the breach before the defenders had even worked out what had happened. He cut through the first man and beheaded the next. Doranei turned the other way, attacking the right-hand side of the hole with long, sweeping blows of his star-speckled sword, while Forrow went in after Daken, roaring as though possessed by the mad spirit of his predecessor.
In their wake came the Ghosts, breathing hard but far more skilled than anyone they faced, and close behind came the swift Sisters of Dusk, spreading out around the ring of soldiers while the Ghosts attacked from within. Vesna found himself on flat pavestones, beyond the main line of Devoted, and a Harlequin leaped forward, twin swords whistling through the air. He caught one on his own blade. The other hammered into his pauldron, but the God-blessed armour turned it. Before he could counterattack, the Harlequin had peeled away and was dancing towards a Ghost. He slashed down at the back of the man’s knee and the Ghost faltered, crying out in pain, but he never even had the time to fall before he was spitted in the side. Vesna whipped a fistful of sparks towards the Harlequin, but the figure jinked to the side with inhuman speed. He lunged forward and was parried, but this time Vesna charged on and crashed bodil
y into the Harlequin. A blade scraped down his armoured side, and then he had driven it from its feet and they fell together, Vesna’s greater weight driving the wind from the Harlequin’s lungs as he landed on it. He head-butted it, and the white mask it wore shattered and fell away as Vesna stabbed his sword into its belly.
The Harlequin spasmed and cried out, its voice high and feminine, and Vesna felt a jolt in his gut at the sound. He looked down and saw a woman’s small features, her face contorted by pain. He hesitated, even as she moved, stabbing the point of her sword into the joint of his armour and driving him off her, his sword tearing out of her gut in a great spray of blood. For a moment they lay side by side, staring into each other’s eyes, and then a boot stamped down on her neck.
‘Get up, you bastard!’ Daken roared, turning as he shouted to swat away a spear with the butt of his axe. He brought the weapon back around and chopped down into the Devoted soldier attacking him, dropping the man with a crunch.
Vesna felt a sharp pain in his side as he fought his way unsteadily to his feet, and then he felt Karkarn invade his mind quite suddenly, and gasped as the War God turned a weapon and cut clean through a man’s arm. The cold, clear soul of a God washed away the grief threatening to consume him.
Vesna staggered back as the God fled again, too weakened to take control for any longer than that, but the sight of the soldier dropping to his knees and shrieking at the wound brought him back to the fight. His side was on fire, but he found himself able to move and fight still, so he drove the pain from his mind and moved on.
All around him the Ghosts and Sisters were butchering the reeling, shattered remnants of the Devoted defenders; their spirit had been broken by their commander’s retreat and Daken’s mad rush. Those still alive, the few score defending the far side of the stones, were driven off and the Ghosts let them go, glad for any moment to catch their breath after the exhausting ascent through the lines.
‘Emin, go!’ Vesna yelled, pointing towards the black, open stairway between the two tallest stones.
‘You’re not coming?’ the king gasped, running up to him. ‘We’ll need you.’
Vesna pointed back the way they had come, and even from this distance they could clearly see their troops falling to the crazed white monsters of Ruhen’s Children. Even as they surveyed the slaughter, he gestured at a Devoted regiment advancing towards them. ‘You need someone watching your back here. The Ghosts need to make a stand, and me with them. You need men who can walk in the shadows down there — Legana’s going with you, Daken, Doranei, Leshi, Shinir — but my place is here. You can handle that shadow’s Harlequins without me.’
As Emin nodded, Vesna saw a line scored down one side of his helm. The king held out a hand. ‘Karkarn chose his Iron General well.’
The Farlan hero faltered as his mind suddenly conjured an image of Tila’s last agonised expression, the remnants of a shattered Harlequin’s mask surrounding her face. He took the hand. ‘Get it done and get out,’ he said gruffly. ‘We’ll be needing a great king after.’
Emin ducked his head and tore off his boots, the Brotherhood and Legana’s Sisters following suit. Before Vesna could turn back to the fight, another man ran up to him, heaving for breath and covered in blood.
‘Too old for this shit,’ he, tearing his helm from his face and sucking in great lungfuls of air. ‘Cut my boots for me, will you?’
‘Carel, stay here,’ Vesna ordered, but the veteran just spat on the ground and straightened up.
‘Fine, I’ll do it myself.’
‘You’ll die!’ Vesna protested.
‘My boy’s down there!’ Carel shouted, ‘and I’m going.’ He started to run the edge of his notched sword over his boots, trying to slice the laces open and get his feet free, but the weapon had blunted and wouldn’t cut properly.
‘Carel, listen to me.’
The old man dropped his sword and grabbed Vesna with his one hand. ‘You listen to me, boy!’ he shouted, ‘I’m going, an’ that’s the end of it! You want to part on bad terms, that’s your choice.’
Vesna stared into his eyes a moment longer, then bowed his head. He pulled his dagger from his belt and bent to slash Carel’s boots open. He dragged them off Carel’s feet and ripped open his leggings so the tattoos were exposed. ‘I don’t want to part that way,’ he said, ‘I’d rather call you brother before the end.’
Unexpectedly Carel embraced him. ‘Aye, brother it is. I never meant those words I said back in Tirah. You know what grief does to a man.’
Vesna nodded, unable to speak.
‘See you in the Herald’s Hall,’ Carel added, breaking away from the Mortal-Aspect and retrieving his sword with a grunt. ‘Put in a good word for me, y’hear?’
With that he was off, half-running, half-limping towards the stairway where most of the Brotherhood had already entered.
‘Goodbye, brother,’ Vesna whispered, filled with sudden certainty that he wouldn’t see the ageing warrior again. He shook himself, then shouted, ‘Right you bastards! Form line! ’ The Iron General looked around at his remaining soldiers. Some three hundred Ghosts out of the two thousand who’d ridden to Moor-view had reached the top with him. No doubt there were more left back on the slope, still fighting, but three hundred would have to be enough.
‘Well, brothers,’ he called out as they started to get into position, ‘looks like we’ve found a good place to die. Let’s give the bards something to sing about, eh?’
And all around him, the Farlan battle hymn started up again.
CHAPTER 43
At the centre of the cavern there were more standing stones, each one as high as the pair marking the entrance, set in a circle thirty yards across. They’d not been carved or quarried, and the only markings they bore were the rune of a God, carved on their inside faces, above a small niche. Isak could feel the presence of the Gods here; this place was a lodestone for their spirits.
As he dragged himself towards the centre of the cavern Isak felt the heat on his skin, and he quailed inside, knowing the sight he would soon be faced with. When they had rounded the last of the great pillars even Ilumene had faltered, the leash falling slack for a moment, until Ruhen had gestured and the former King’s Man trotted up to his side again.
A swift-flowing river of fire, ten feet wide, was swirling around the standing stones, high flames leaping like grasping hands from its surface. A single stone slab crossed it. Isak cringed at the memory of Ghenna as the heat and pain of his torments radiated out of his many scars. He dropped to one knee, his arm thrown across his face as though to protect himself, but he could not tear his gaze from those flames.
‘Lit by the River Maram,’ Ruhen announced with delight, ‘holy beyond the Palace of the Gods itself. This is the heart of the Land, the very bedrock of the Gods and the worship that sustains them.’ The boy turned to face Isak and he saw the shadows surge and dance in the mismatched eyes. His pale skin was tainted by grey swirls as Maram’s light showed Azaer’s true self through its mortal vessel.
‘This is the place?’ Isak croaked, fighting for breath. He forced himself to his feet again, standing for a moment with the silver chain dragging at his shoulder, until he dropped heavily to his knees again and prolonged the moment a fraction more. ‘This is where you had Aryn Bwr forge the Skulls?’
Ruhen gestured towards the standing stones and Isak realised each of the niches set below each God’s rune was were were large enough to take a Crystal Skull. ‘I merely showed him this place; his decisions were his own.’
‘But you gave him the idea — how to restrict the power of the Gods.’
‘I told him the truth of the crystals he found here, the link each one had to the Gods, how worship and magic flowed through them. How each could be limited, the Last King discovered himself. He saw them for what they were: beings of power who cared little for their creations. He made them care, he made them dependent on their followers, and for that they hated him.’
Ruhen looked at Is
ak, his face strangely intense. ‘Do you remember any tales of the Age of Myths? The mountains they carelessly tore down, the moon they threw into the night sky? They acted without regard for consequences. The myths speak nothing of the mortals lost when the mountains fell or the waters rose. The Elves suffered, the Tribes of Man suffered, and so Aryn Bwr tried to limit them, to grant the Gods understanding and bring the creation of mortal life full circle.’
‘And for that they cursed him,’ Isak whispered.
‘They did not see it as a gift,’ Ruhen said. ’They could accept no hand but their own shaping their existence.’ He crossed the slab and entered the circle itself. ‘Bring him,’ he commanded.
Ilumene followed eagerly, half-dragging Isak after him, with Tiniq and Venn close behind. Once inside Isak felt a sudden coolness on his skin; the oppression of Maram’s flames dimmed within the circle.
‘Venn — the Skulls.’
The black Harlequin reached into a bag at his waist and withdrew three Crystal Skulls which he placed in the alcoves under the runes of Vrest, Amavoq and Ilit. Tiniq tugged Isak towards the stone bearing Death’s rune and put the Skull of Ruling there, but he kept his hand on it to maintain the link between it and on Isak’s black sword. The Harlequins and Acolytes spread out, outside the ring of fire, keeping a wary eye on the entrances to the tunnels. Koteer, the grey-skinned son of Death, took up position on the bridge itself, making himself a barrier to anyone else’s entry.
‘It is almost time,’ Ruhen said in a quiet, reverential voice. ‘I can feel my children dying.’
He nodded to Ilumene, and the big man let Isak’s leash fall to the ground as he drew his sword. Ruhen followed, the strain clear on his face as he unwrapped the shining crystal hilt of Aenaris and drew it. He reversed the sword and drove it down into the rock until the blade was half-buried, then handed Ilumene the Skull he had been carrying.
Isak recognised it: Dreams had been fused to Xeliath’s withered hand. Once it had been Life’s, the Queen of the Gods, now it was linked to Kitar, Goddess of Fertility.
