by Tom Lloyd
At last his limbs obeyed and Narin dropped to his right as the man fired. His shoulder was slammed back as the crack of the pistol rang out and Narin realised as he flopped backwards that he’d been shot. A strange prickle ran through his fingers, then the numbness of a stinging punch filled his arm. Only then did the pain come and Narin gasped at the shock of it, too surprised to even cry out.
Sprawled on the edge of the rooftop, almost directly above Enchei, Narin watched the pale-skinned man direct one more shot in the direction of the Lawbringers down below. After that he fled, one arm slipped around the chest of his presumably-wounded companion. Narin watched them run into another dark archway tunnel before he found himself unceremoniously yanked back from the edge by Kesh. Above him, like some vengeful goddess, Myken stepped over his body with her musket levelled. She fired after the pair, but from the slight twist of her features, only half-hidden by the hanging cloth, Narin could tell she had missed.
‘Damn fool,’ Kesh snapped, closing her hand around Narin’s shoulder. ‘When are you going to learn some sense?’
The Investigator howled at that and squirmed under her grasp, but the pain was too great to wriggle free and he submitted.
‘Move,’ commanded another voice from behind Myken.
The Wyvern glanced back then stepped away, hands already moving through the motions of reloading her gun. Narin looked up in confusion, not recognising Irato’s voice until the man with shining eyes was staring down at him.
Irato crouched and removed Kesh’s hands from Narin’s wound. Narin’s vision blurred for a moment at that fresh stab of pain, but then Irato was touching two fingers to it and the Investigator properly understood what it was to scream with his every ounce of strength.
‘He will live,’ Irato stated once the red shadows of pain had receded and Narin once more gasped for air, that now stank of burned flesh.
‘Enchei,’ Narin croaked, flopping towards the edge of the rooftop again.
Kesh peered over. ‘He’s moving,’ she commented, far from concerned for the veteran. A grin flashed across her face as Narin heard a voice from down below – not clearly enough to make out the words, but the tone spoke volumes. ‘Oh aye, man’s back to normal already.’
‘The summoner,’ Narin pointed towards the tunnel he’d seen the two men retreat down. His arm was numb now – entirely absent and limp, but mercifully free from pain. ‘They went that way.’
‘The summoner is there,’ Irato said, pointing across the rooftops to a bloodied, brutalised body that seemed to Narin to have been nailed to the wall. ‘She is dead,’ the demon stated in a flat, lifeless tone.
Narin gave up trying to focus too greatly on the dead woman Irato pointed at. The sight was horrific in any case and making out details in the dark made his head swim.
‘The Ghost … he escaped that way. Had someone with him, injured I think.’
Enay’s sharp voice emerged through the staccato sounds of gunshots. ‘Ghost? The one who betrayed Father?’
As she spoke, Maiss crouched and extended an empty hand over the edge of the building. A moment later she hauled back and pulled the swearing, blank-visored Enchei back up on to the roof. The former Astaren looked unsteady to Narin, but with the world lurching underneath him, Narin was envious that Enchei could remain standing.
‘Bastard almost got me,’ Enchei growled. ‘Must be old to fall for somethin’ like that.’
‘The summoner is dead,’ Irato intoned. ‘Destroy the shrines and the remaining hellhounds in the city will be banished. Then my duty is done.’
‘As simple as that, eh?’ Enchei snapped. ‘You’re coming with us, I tell ya. That worm Sorpan tried to sell me to Gealann mercs and until I cut his balls off, nothing’s done.’
‘Narin saw him, he went that way.’
Enchei followed Kesh’s direction. ‘Good.’ He glanced down. ‘Got yourself shot?’
Narin coughed and nodded.
‘Tough – you ain’t dead, so you’re coming with us.’ With his finger he traced a path through the air, following the line of rooftops to work out where Sorpan’s tunnel would emerge. ‘He was heading west?’
‘They.’
That took Enchei by surprise. ‘They?’
‘Had an injured man with him, was helping him.’
‘Don’t seem likely. Was the other one even paler than a Ghost?’
All eyes turned to Narin, who shook his head. ‘Looked a local – some House under Iron. Hair wasn’t grey, but he was from round here.’
Enchei grasped Narin’s good arm and pulled the Investigator upright. ‘Could it’ve been one o’ the priests you met before?’
‘I … maybe.’
‘Doesn’t sound like your job’s done yet after all, Irato,’ Enchei said. ‘Sounds like we’ve got a second summoner to kill – one that used the first like a weapon.’
He started to skirt the open ground where the shattered building stood, heading west over the rooftops towards a stairway.
‘It could be a trap,’ Myken called after him as the others moved to follow. ‘The defenders here were no match for us.’ She pointed down to demonstrate her point, to where Lawbringer Rhe had emerged into the starlight at the heart of the Minerild, looking left and right for more Sea Snakes and possessed.
‘Aye, could be,’ Enchei replied without any of his usual levity, ‘but I want the bait all the same.’
Before anyone could argue, Enay hefted her Stone Dragon lance and gave the remaining shrines a speculative look. ‘Best you all get to the ground,’ she said with a cold smile on her face, and levelled the weapon at one of the nearest. ‘Right now.’
Narin hurried to obey, Kesh helping him along as Myken led the way to the stairs. Irato simply stepped off the roof while Maiss stayed with her sister, a pistol in each hand. Before Narin had reached the stairs he heard the dreadful, hushed sound of the Dragon’s Breath turning the air to flame and metal to slag. He quickened his pace, despite his now-useless arm.
Once they got to ground level Narin looked around for Lawbringer Rhe, but the man had disappeared already. Prince Kashte flashed him a smile as he arrived briefly in the starlight – rifle now stowed on his back and broadsword dripping blood. Then more gunshots came from the northern part and he was off again, two more gold-scarfed Imperials prowling in his wake.
‘Looks like they’re enjoying ’emselves,’ Enchei growled. ‘I guess Imperials don’t get much chance to brawl like commoners.’
With Irato leading the way, they moved through winding tunnels and open alleys that echoed with gunshots, shouts and cries. Narin saw nothing block their path as they followed the Ghost’s trail. He heard only the whispers of Enchei’s darts and their clatter against brick, swiftly followed by the meaty crack and thump of Irato killing something out of sight.
He tried to keep his eyes on the person ahead, Myken, and do little more – apart from keep his teeth from chattering in fear, or shock, or the memory of pain, he was no longer sure.
Kesh continued to give him anxious looks, but it was his left arm that Narin could no longer use. He tucked it inside his tunic to stop it working at the wound as he moved. His right hand tightened sufficiently around the hilt of his sword that Narin refused to be told to wait behind.
Not that anyone has suggested that, Narin noted in a distant, dazed fashion as they emerged into a street. He saw Irato point towards movement perhaps a hundred yards away. Enchei wants me on hand to recognise the priest. Is that it? Or something else?
He shook the questions from his mind, finding no answers in the fog there. It was easier simply to follow, to leave the decisions to his friends and stumble along behind as they hurried down the street. Ahead, Narin could see the pale golden pinpricks of magical light that adorned the towers of House Iron’s nobles.
The Spines, he recalled, remembering the six white columns around which the largest palazzos were built. It was a sight he’d rarely seen at night, but he knew the mages of House Iron in generation
s past had set sigils of magic-imbued glass – invocations of divine favour – on the columns and the peaks of those palazzos. A lesser display than the long shapes that adorned House Dragon’s towers or the eyries of Eagle perhaps, but beautiful against the stars of the Gods none the less.
‘There,’ Enchei said, pointing down the street.
Narin could see nothing, but Enay and Maiss both nodded as more gunshots rang out behind them. The houses on both sides were dark and silent, the people of Iron District no doubt cowed into silence while rare violence reigned outside.
‘Who’s the other one?’ Maiss asked.
‘The priest here,’ Narin said abruptly as though jerking awake. ‘Senior Kobelt Hoker, something like that. Bastard’s one hell of a liar. Even Rhe believed him, but he was with them all along.’ He spat. ‘Pillar of the community, hah.’
They reached a fork in the road and Enchei stopped to look for their quarry as Narin and Kesh panted for breath.
‘Towards the river,’ Irato said. He pointed down to the dirt-packed ground as though it was as clear as day.
Enchei frowned and tugged a chunk of metal from the darter on his wrist, slapping an identical one back in its place a few moments later. ‘You sure? Something’s messed my senses up proper, I can’t see any traces anywhere.’
‘I am.’
They continued in that fashion for five hundred yards, taking an oblique path towards the palazzos looming on the nearer bank. The largest, those built around the ancient columns, looked like cog wheels stacked one atop another, irregularly sized with scraps of pale golden light inscribed on the walls between shuttered windows.
Around them were lesser palazzos that echoed the style and Irato led them to one at the Crescent flank of the noble streets – a lightless building of five storeys inside a yellow brick perimeter. Noble sigils in the Iron tongue were embossed on the bronze-sheathed gate that stood ajar, square pillars spaced along the wall topped alternately with stylised hammers and anvils.
Enchei glanced at his daughters and nodded to the wall. Maiss knelt at the base, making a cradle with her hands that Enay stepped into. Without any great effort Narin could see, she stood and lifted her sister, lance and all, up until Enay could see over the wall.
‘Empty,’ she reported as she dropped back down again. ‘Main door’s open.’
‘Why would they go to ground?’ Kesh wondered aloud.
‘They haven’t,’ was Enchei’s grim reply. ‘We ain’t that lucky.’
‘So what, then?’
‘Enay, Maiss – skirt the perimeter. See what other exits they got and if there’s any mischief you can get up to. There’s power here, enchantments in the stones, I can smell ’em. This place has been prepared.’
The two young women broke into a silent run, as swift and silent as the foxes used as vessels by lesser demons.
Narin exchanged a look with Kesh. ‘You’re just going to walk straight in, aren’t you?’
That elicited a grunt. ‘If this is a trap, I doubt they had Irato in mind.’ Enchei flexed his fingers and a burst of lightning crackled hot and fierce over his armoured hand. ‘You three stay here – keep this gate open. Myken, you shoot anyone you see and don’t like the look of, understand?’
With that he pulled the gate open and stalked through, Irato again following close behind. Beyond them, Narin saw a great stone basin a few yards past the entrance, ice gleaming inside it. The light of the Gods illuminated frosted gravel paths between fractured boulders half-covered with grey mosses. Under starlight the formal garden looked like a long-dead corpse of some fantastical beast entombed in ice, the broken edges of stone arranged in some complex, organic pattern.
Myken raised her musket, a practised position of readiness from which she could aim in an instant. Despite his wound Narin found himself holding his breath as he waited for some new attack, but what came was quite unexpected.
From the doorway a grey figure walked out into the starlight. Narin felt a jolt – the figure was insubstantial and ghostly. A young woman, barely as old as Kesh, with painfully thin limbs, a blurring grey dress hung down over her feet. Her gaunt face looked serene, at peace with death – though if she was truly a ghost, she had died of prolonged starvation. Her empty hands trailed through the air at her sides, a gesture of peace that revealed her clawed fingers.
‘You want me, I’m here,’ Enchei growled, apparently unperturbed.
The ghost opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Her hands described some complex gesture, more a dance than communication, but it was enough to stop Enchei in his tracks and glance back at his demon-possessed friend. If Irato had an opinion he did not share it so Enchei hurried to meet the ghost, weapons ready and armour crackling with power, rather than be left standing in the open.
Without warning, the ghost lunged forward. Enchei evaded its grasp easily, but in the next instant Narin saw it was not after him but Irato. The possessed goshe reached out and grabbed the ghost by the arms while the echo of a howl seemed to rise up from the ground. The ghost struggled a moment, unable to break Irato’s grip, then relaxed and bowed her head before bursting apart.
Suddenly, two more ghosts leaped up from the gravel beneath their feet and seized Irato. A savage open hand swipe tore right through one and it instantly evaporated into nothing, but more followed – a sudden eruption of grey blurs appearing on all sides and falling forward into Irato’s body, flailing and clawing at him. In the next moment a burst of bluish light erupted from Irato’s back and Narin heard the man howl – not the demon, the man.
Irato turned his head to the sky as half a dozen spitting whipcords of light appeared from inside him and lashed at the ghosts, but they continued forward and somehow they bodily hauled the twisting, folding shape of the demon’s avatar from Irato’s body. The former goshe screamed as the demon was ripped from his body and mind, the massed ghosts wrapping themselves around it and bearing it down into the ground, where all of a sudden it vanished.
The lights faded. Irato gave one final croak of pain and sank heavily to his knees then all was silent. Myken didn’t wait any longer and marched through the gate, musket levelled. Enchei turned in a circle as she came, looking for a target for his darts, but at last went to check on Irato, who looked about to topple face-first to the ground. The stricken man stared off at nothing in the distance, shuddering at what had just happened.
Behind Enchei the door crashed open and the shadows were split with light. Narin recoiled from the white fire silhouetting his friend even as Myken aimed and fired. If the bullet struck, Narin didn’t hear it. A surge of wind whipped up over the ground as Enchei rolled and fired. Stuttered white light seemed to flash across his faceless helm then something caught hold of him and yanked the former Astaren off his feet.
Myken dropped her musket and fired a pistol, but failed to stop whatever force was dragging Enchei towards the door. He twisted in mid-air; throwing his body through an impossible horizontal flip and landing upright with his baton tearing the air apart ahead of him. Again he was snared and dragged off his feet, spun about as his body made a furrow in the gravel.
‘Oh f—’
Narin blinked and Enchei was gone.
CHAPTER 38
Enchei crashed heavily to the flagstone floor and rolled sideways. He pushed himself up into a crouch and spun away, expecting some sort of attack, before realising he was in a still, dark room. Shades of grey fluttered across his eyes as his mage-sight fought to readjust. The lines of an atrium enclosed by narrow archways slowly unfolded before him.
Through the central arch he saw a grand hall that rose to almost the height of the entire building – a central space penned by curling staircases and partitions in the House Gold fashion of hollowed-out caverns. Directly in the centre of the room, a figure of nightmare regarded him. Once it had been a man of House Gold – the Kobelt, he assumed – but now there was little left of the man he’d once been. Black trails of blood marred his cheeks, welts and fissures
in his skin spilled blood and smoke-like trails. Where there had been something darkly magnificent about the possessed Banshee, haloed by a demon’s shadow, here it was monstrous as the forces slowly tore their vessel apart.
Enchei checked left and right as incantations buried deep in his memory began to sing and he rubbed the metal of his gauntleted fingers together. He could feel the armour chime and radiate tiny pulses of sound as the shape of the palazzo’s interior began to develop in his mind’s eye – the line of stairs and semi-defined rooms, four solid chimney stacks and curved beams that supported the roof. It was a warren with few obvious exits; the lower windows too small to escape through, the winding staircases all leading down to the centre where the demon waited. The demon’s presence distorted it all, offered Enchei only a twisted picture with a deep well at its heart, but he saw enough.
No point dragging this out, Enchei thought as more incantations activated. His muscles began to ache with building power, runes on the metal edge and ball of his gauntlets glowing white. Without waiting he fired a stream of darts at the Kobelt. The possessed man didn’t bother to dodge, letting the slivers of metal punch through the flesh without effect.
Enchei continued to fire, volley after volley until the man’s face was a lacerated mess – it wouldn’t stop the demon, he knew, but anything that weakened its vessel might be worthwhile, if he could stay alive for long enough. He had no intention of getting into a straight fight, not when there was a tangle of obstacles to get lost in, but torn flesh and arteries forced the demon to expend more energy to maintain its link to the mortal realm.
When he stopped, the demon hadn’t moved. In the strange washed-out twilight of his mage-sight there was a moment of stillness. Even the air was caught between breaths and Enchei found himself frozen, watching the demon from halfway behind a stone pillar.
