by David Hair
Raine’s voice tore him back to sanity. He yanked on the reins and shouted at his khurne to get clear. The steed thrashed about, seeking an opening, and Malevorn rained down more fire and lightning, trying to drive the shifters away, to get a few seconds’ respite, though exhaustion was crowding in and he felt breathless, drained.
The Dokken fell back from Dominic’s corpse, snarling triumphantly. But more were arriving every minute, and now they’d started circling around to cut off the three surviving Inquisitors. He reached Dranid and Raine and threw a look back at the camp, but it was lost in a haze of smoke.
Instead it was only Artus Leblanc’s mental voice he heard.
Rukk you! If I get out this …
Dranid reached him, his breath gusting but his face a mask of calm. Blue gnosis-fire licked along his blade, but his khurne was visibly wobbling. He cast Malevorn an ashen look. ‘Quintius isn’t coming, is he? It’s up to us.’
Raine swore, and blasted fire at a jackal venturing too close. The Dokken still circled, catching their breath. Many had flowed past them, heading for the camp, but enough remained to cut them off from help, and they were circling closer.
Malevorn felt something frighteningly powerful touch his mind, then retreat. His wards against mental attack flared into life and he followed the point of attack back to an outlined figure on the boulders above. The Keshi girl, he realised, as much from instinct as anything. Kore’s Blood, how strong is she?
He opened his mouth to call for the retreat.
But the little Keshi witch struck first.
Dranid suddenly yowled and wrenched at his reins, first left and then right, sending his khurne into a mad dance as his defences collapsed, and even as he did, an arrow slammed into his khurne’s neck. The steed wobbled and fell, and Malevorn could hear Dranid’s leg audibly crunching as he struck the rocky ground. The Inquisitor bellowed in pain as another wave of Dokken launched themselves at him. Raine and Malevorn tried to reach their captain, but the press was immense and all they could do was block and shield and fight for their own lives, using whatever came to hand – telekinesis, mage-fire, thrusting swords into mouths and throats.
The whole world lurched.
Malevorn’s khurne lashed out as something gripped its back legs and he glimpsed a massive python just before it wrapped itself about the khurne’s hindquarters and dragged it down. He beheaded the snake as he rolled clear, fell onto the body of a wolf and used it to clamber to his feet. He saw another arrow puncture the ribs of Raine’s khurne and she too flew free. He ran to her side, beheading another snake as he went, then cutting a raven in two as he reached her and stood back to back.
Dranid was gone, a shapeless, gory mess beneath a pile of ravaging beasts.
And still there was no sign of rescue from the other Fist.
< Adamus!> he demanded, pleaded, begged,
Raine’s shields blocked an arrow from the right as they circled, seeking a weak point, something to attack, but they were confronted by an unbroken wall of beasts, slavering and growling. More giant birds shrieked above, eagles and vultures and ravens, all man-sized.
Kore’s Blood, she’s wonderful.
A big grey wolf arrived at the fringes, followed by a bipedal bull with a massive war-spear. Then he spotted the archer, a scrawny crop-haired bitch with a hatchet face. They began to close in.
He began to lift her as the Dokken lunged. The grey wolf leaped and he cleaved its skull, saw it fall back into the maelstrom of beasts, heard Raine shouting in fury as she hacked a raven apart, and then—
—absolute, overpowering agony.
There was a torture device used by the Inquisition called an Iron Maiden: a metal casket, lined inside with spikes which were screwed deeper, slowly, bit by bit, so that the prisoner was pierced all over, and eventually bled to death – those few who didn’t break and spill every secret they’d ever had first.
The Keshi girl’s gnosis struck Malevorn like an Iron Maiden slamming closed on his soul. It was as if his mental shields did not exist. Her power dwarfed his and she rammed fresh bloody pain into every part of his body. Beneath him, he heard Raine scream and he could feel that same agony engulfing her. Her hand lost grip of his belt and before his telekinesis could catch her, she’d plunged to the ground. Bullhead caught her wrist in his hand and snapped it as easily as snapping a twig.
Malevorn tried to reach her, but his whole body was shutting down. The Keshi girl’s telekinesis held him in the air and he watched helplessly as the beasts engulfed his lover. Her mail came apart like tin, and her body like a gutted rabbit. Her mouth spewed a wordless bloody spray, her face bulged and her eyes flew wide, staring up at him as he rotated helplessly in the air.
she said into his mind.
She vanished beneath the press of fur and blood.
He tried to do something, anything, screaming his loss and hatred in grief and fury, but the Keshi girl’s face flashed in the sky, and then all creation winked out.
*
Cym ran north, keeping a wary eye on the skies above. Oversized birds no longer streaked across the skies and there was smoke rising from the direction of the camp. If she tuned in her gnosis she could make out cries of fury and distress; she had no idea what had happened but she hoped it would keep them busy for a long time. She needed to get outside the Noose arena and then find a deep hole and crawl into it. Even the best scryer struggled to penetrate stone. If she could evade capture for a few days, maybe they would give up and move on.
Then she saw the vultures, circling somewhere to the left of her path, and she stopped and peered at them. I’ve got no food, she reminded herself, as if justifying her subconscious urging, which was pushing her to go that way for other reasons. She gave in and scurried through a narrow defile. The palate of scents and colours deepened as the sun rose higher and started to warm the earth. She climbed another slope and stopped dead, staring in horror.
A lion lay on its right side, an arrow jutting into the air. Blood was caked about the shaft and running down its flank. A dozen vultures were already on the ground, screeching and milling as they squabbled for the right to feed first, working up the courage to dart in and tear at the still-warm flesh. Another three dozen were still in the air.
Even from forty yards away, she could tell it was Zaqri, and a range of emotions hit her. At first she felt cheated, that someone else had killed the man she’d pledged to end. Then surprise, that a single arrow had killed him when he’d seemed so competent as a mage. Unless Hessaz caught him with his guard down. And with that, a tableau formed in her mind: Zaqri, like Wornu, overcome with grief and rage, abandoning the contest and running for the camp … with ruthless Hessaz lying in wait …
Anger. Loss.
All those nights, lying beside him for warmth, knowing he wanted her but wouldn’t take what wasn’t offered. Teaching her, sharing his life with her, offering all he was, though she threw it at his feet, over and again. The lion watching over her at night, protecting her. His golden smile and confident manner; his majesty in any shape.
Why I can see these things clearly only now he’s dead?
She stood up and strode forward, blazing mage-fire into the nearest vulture and killing it instantly. The rest took to the air in a storm of indignant screeches and beating wings, but she ignored them. She reached the fallen lion’s side and stared down at h
im. He wasn’t moving. The crude arrow in his side was buried deep.
She found herself blinking back tears, choking on wet breaths of air that clogged her throat, grieving for what could have been. If another had slain my mother, what then?
She fell to her knees and put her hand on his side, remembering his face above her in the tent, and the heat of his body. That heat was fading fast.
You wanted him dead, the vultures seemed to be calling. Enjoy the moment … and leave us the carcase.
Breath wheezed faintly from his open jaws, and his ribcage quivered.
Rukka mio, he’s alive!
*
Malevorn Andevarion woke from a nightmare of bodies piled on top him and creatures tearing at him with bestial faces and huge teeth, pulling him down no matter how many he hacked away with his sword … and then … all he saw was Her. The Keshi girl. She’d reached through the tangled bodies to where he lay pinned, her angel-whore face smiling beatifically. She reached out, touched his temple.
She was a goddess – an eastern goddess, arisen to destroy all that he was. She was terrifying, all-powerful.
His fears increased as he looked about him, his pupils dilating as he sought to make sense of the darkness. An animal reek filled the air, and the stench of bodily waste and blood. His chainmail was torn like paper, the boiled leather ripped apart and a steel helmet beside him crushed like clay. A wave of pain struck him and he flinched. Dimly he sensed amber eyes all about him, shimmering in the darkness.
He cringed fearfully.
Then the goddess spoke, in a voice forged from miracles that vibrated through him like a perfectly formed note. His tangled bewilderment settled into something like order. A thousand bars of light flashed across his vision, then vanished, and his intellect plunged into the void. ‘Get up, Malevorn Andevarion. Come here.’
He looked about him blankly as his body rose without his volition. Yellow eyes sent their hatred at him, but no one moved as he pulled himself to his feet, his ruined armour clinging awkwardly to him as he stood. A mailed sleeve gave way and fell to the ground. He could barely move for the fresh scabs that pulled and tore as he moved.
He’d been lying on the battlefield, a valley floor of sun-blasted sand and rocks, dotted with spindly brown bushes. The ground was covered in bodies and soaked in blood. Perhaps red bushes would grow here now. It was sunset, he thought, and all about him, men and women were labouring, digging holes and carrying rocks – and bodies, too, mostly of animals and half-animals with limbs and heads lopped off, or smashed or broken, with torsos pierced and covered in blood. There were four horses too … no, not horses; khurnes, their bodies partially gorged upon. Beyond, he could see tents and other belongings smouldering.
The goddess waited patiently for him. She motioned for him to kneel before her and his body did so without consulting his mind. A small independent part of him babbled away, repeating, She did something to me! She’s been inside my mind! He knew the sensation – he had been trained to recognise it, and how to fight it. But the bindings he sensed inside him were stronger than any he could have imagined. This was Ascendant-level gnosis, far beyond him; for now at least, he belonged utterly to her.
‘Do you know what has happened to you?’ she asked.
He shook his head slowly as his eyes fell on three headless, dismembered human bodies, white-skinned and blood-drenched. Inquisitors. He looked at her, a question in his mouth he flinched from asking. She smiled and pointed languidly to a place over his shoulder.
Three lances had been buried in the ground, point up. On them were skewered three heads, the steel tips piercing right through the crowns. Flesh and blood had dried to gore and tendrils of rotting meat in the sun.
Dranid, shredded until he was barely recognisable.
Dominic, his naïve face caught in final bewilderment that such a thing could ever happen.
And Raine, her ugly-loveliness frozen in a moment of softness.
He dropped his face to the dirt and howled his grief.
The Keshi girl laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Yes. We slew your woman, and one of the pack took her soul. These others also.’ She reached down, lifted his chin and met his tear-wracked eyes. ‘Do you remember what else happened?’
He tried to recall. Nothing came.
She smiled her radiant smile. ‘You and I had a chat, remember? I needed one of you alive, to understand how you found us and what you know. Your commander would have been more suitable, or perhaps the … what is the word … crozier? But they fled. The only one I could preserve was you.’
He remembered how to speak. ‘Kill me,’ he croaked.
She shook her head. ‘Not yet, pretty boy. You’re now my personal slave – my bodyguard. You really are a formidable fighter. My … memories … go back five hundred years, and I do not believe I have never seen anyone as skilled as you. You slew dozens of my kindred. If I had not been present, it is likely the four of you would have defeated us, or at the least, slain many, many more.’ She stroked his cheek, making his skin tingle. ‘So you belong to me now, until I have no more use for you. Then you will be consumed.’ Her voice was entirely matter of fact.
He stared at her feet and tried to reach for his gnosis, but of course there was nothing there. He tried to leap at her, but his body wouldn’t respond.
She felt his struggle, though, and laughed. ‘I cannot let you use your gnosis: that has been chained.’ She bent over him, peered into his eyes. ‘I’ve been inside your mind, Slave. It’s a vile place. You are a self-centred, arrogant, bullying piece of dung, aren’t you?’
He bowed his head. Her criticism wounded him on some profound level; that this goddess might not esteem him. He retreated into that small scrap of independent thought and tried to rally himself, to think or to plan, even to mourn, but she pulled him back with a shimmering thread of gnosis and forced him to attend her again.
‘So, Slave: tell me everything you know about your comrades and how you found us.’ She smiled brightly, and added, directly into his head,
13
Taking the Long Way Home
The Rimoni Empire: Military Organisation
Despite their defeat, we found much to admire in the discipline and professionalism of the Rimoni legions. Each was one being, five thousand swords and hearts, but one mind. We have therefore left the basic model intact. Modern developments such as more efficient missile weapons and, of course, the gnosis have made the Rondian legion even more effective.
ANNALS OF PALLAS
Southern Keshi, southwest of Shaliyah, on the continent of Antiopia
Thani (Aprafor) 929
10th month of the Moontide
From a low rise, Ramon watched the lines of men and wagons as they snaked through the shallow valley below. They were making slow progress – what had from a distance looked like a dead flat plain turned out to be a rubble-strewn nightmare of wheel-breaking holes and ruts. Even on the poor road running through it they were making barely ten miles a day. That wasn’t enough. A Keshi skiff had been seen by one of the scouts, searching the valley to the west of them; it wouldn’t be long before enemy cavalry showed up. The Efratis River was still at least a week’s journey to the south.
About him were the twenty men of his new cohort. They’d been sticking close to him, though they were all on foot and he was mounted. The terrain made keeping up with him pretty easy. He’d offered them horses if they could get some, but they’d declined. ‘Cavalry are soft bastards,’ they all responded. He suspected they thought the same of magi.
He waved a hand at the tall, deeply tanned officer, Pilus Lukaz. He was Vereloni, from one of the towns lining the Imperial Road; his people were kin to the Rimoni and Silacian, with similarly dark skin and hair. Fourteen years ago Lukaz had run away and joined the legions marching past, en route for the Second Crusade. Now he was a Pilus, the leader of a twenty-man cohort. Lukaz was tall and athletic, with a natural a
ir of command. Ramon was beginning to like him a lot.
He swung down off Lu and slapped the horse’s rump, sending her trotting off seeking forage. Food for the horses was only one of a thousand logistical problems they were having. ‘How are the men, Pilus Lukaz?’
Lukaz chewed over his reply. ‘They are unsettled, sir. Defeat was an unknown to us, and we appear to be fleeing deeper into enemy territory, are we not?’ His deadpan tone never changed, whatever he was discussing.
‘I prefer to think of it as taking the long way home,’ Ramon replied easily. ‘Tell me about your cohort, Pilus.’
Lukaz eyed him cautiously. ‘What would you like to know, sir?’
‘Let’s start with how you array in combat, so I can understand how we will be able to work together.’
Lukaz took his time to reply; there was never anything hasty about him, nothing unconsidered, though he wasn’t even thirty yet. It was part of what made him a leader, Ramon decided, and something he himself might do well to emulate.
‘Well, sir, when we face the enemy, the strongest and most solid go to the front.’ He pointed to a clump of big Rondians. ‘Serjant Manius, with Dolmin, Ferdi, Trefeld.’ He then jabbed a thumb at a pair of blond Hollenians. ‘And Hedman and Gannoval. They anchor us, use their bulk to keep us solid. Once you start going backwards, you’re rukked.’
‘So six in front.’
‘Then another six behind them,’ he went on, ‘smaller men, but reliable. It was the Rimoni who worked out that a man can fight for only a few minutes at a time before he needs a breather. The second rank rotate with the front line as frequently as they can.’ The second-rank men were also clustered together, around a big, genial-looking man with somewhat swarthy features. ‘That’s Serjant Vidran: he keeps them together: the rest of his line are Bowe, Ilwyn and Holdyne, Gal Herde and his brother Jan.’
