Moontide 03 - Unholy War

by David Hair

  The second Kirkegarde from the lake-side threw off his dead comrade and charged. He was a mage and his shields flared about him as he launched himself at Elena, but Kazim intercepted him, blocking his blade and forcibly hurling the man backwards before spinning to face the main door as it rattled and his wards were assailed with a flurry of blows.

  ‘Kazim, the lights!’ Elena pulled herself together and her straight sword flashed out, blocking an overhand blow from the mage-knight. She parried again and again, giving ground.

  Kazim gestured at the oil-lamp and hurled it at the next man in, but the newcomer threw up his buckler and slapped the lamp to the corner of the room. It shattered and flaming oil caught the edge of the wall-tapestry and blazed up as the rest of the room went dark. Steel on steel belled through the suite as he called on his gnostic sight and darted past Elena. Fire flickered on his blade as he thrust it through the breastplate of the man with the buckler, who crashed sideways, bellowing in pain.

  Behind him the door shivered again as Kazim cut down the next man and was trying to angle in on Elena’s foe when the mage-knight picked her up in a telekinetic grip and hurled her across the room, battering her against the wall beside the main door. Elena’s shields protected her enough that she bounced off the cracked plaster, but she fell heavily and lay gasping. He’s a pure-blood, Kazim guessed as he roared and hurled himself at the man’s back, Ascendant-power gnosis empowering his blade as the man spun to face him.

  The Kirkegarde knight met his blow with both a gnostic-shield and his physical buckler, the energy crashing together, but Kazim’s scimitar crunched through leather and brass and left a chunk of the shield on the floor. The man’s eyes widened at the unexpected power of the blow, but Kazim didn’t give him any chance to centre himself; he flew at him, flowing into a series of movements ingrained by months of training: jab, slash high, feint another, then low, cutting through his weakening shielding, then slashing open his thigh to the bone.

  Blood gushed as the man grunted and staggered. Another Kirkegarde burst in from the lake door, but Elena had recovered her breath and rolled from her prone position, driving her blade straight-armed up into his groin. Her foe stiffened, dropped his sword and clutched her blade, eyes and mouth agape, then she twisted and let him fall away as she came upright.

  Kazim was still battering at the mage-knight, keeping his mental shields fixed and strong, giving the man no time to seek the gaps in his gnostic defences. A complex combination Elena had taught him opened up the man’s defences and he pierced first his shield arm, then his shoulder, before he beat the mage’s blade aside and drove his own through the breastplate and into his chest. As the man’s face went slack and his legs began to give, Kazim kissed him, inhaling his soul. At some level the intimacy shocked him – flashes of a life seared into him, then evaporated – but what he felt most was the blazing energy that coursed through him, turning the world momentarily scarlet and gloriously vivid. He was dimly aware of Elena behind him, thrusting through the shattered window into the chest of a man waiting to enter via the door. He was crackling with puissance as he turned back to the main door just as it shattered.

  *

  Rutt Sordell knew enough to let Etain Tullesque go ahead; you never went first into a fight involving Elena Anborn. You skirted it, and awaited your chance. But Tullesque was no fool either. He turned to the shrouded figure beside him, something hidden in a bekira-shroud that stank of Necromancy.

  The thing unhooded itself, revealing a visage of desiccated flesh clinging to bones and the hands of a week-old corpse. It was possibly female, probably Jhafi, with empty sockets lit with sparks of violet light. The stump of a tongue waggled as it gurgled its hunger, a trail of dark sparks glittering in the air as it lunged through the door, gnosis-light streaming from its hands. A thin cord of light trailed back to Tullesque’s hands.

  Impressive … A Spectral mage. His throat tightened, as it always did in the presence of someone whose skills outweighed his. The corpse had been re-enervated and then used to house an eidolon, but one with its own gnostic powers. It was the kind of Wizardry and Necromancy combination that few could manage. His fear of Tullesque went up another notch.

  Tullesque didn’t follow it in; all his concentration was required to control his summoning, for the slightest break in his concentration would see the thing’s hold on this reality lost and in its last few seconds before collapsing it would flash back along that gnostic thread and attempt to take its summoner with it back to whatever Hel it had been plucked from. It was tempting to stab the Grandmaster in the back and provide just such a distraction, but Gurvon needed Elena’s head and Tullesque might just be the man to provide it.

  So Rutt waited dutifully as the spectre flew straight at Elena Anborn.

  *

  Sweet Kore, an eidolon! Elena recognised the thing that came through the door by the feel of its icy aura before she even turned. Her heart almost froze, but she threw up a warding of healing-gnosis, the only thing she knew that could counter such a death-summoning. She would have to trust that Kazim could deal with the three Kirkegarde pounding up the stairs at her back.

  The spectral shape came at her in a rush of cold air, its aura sucking at the living and the dying. Motes of energy were flowing towards it like snowflakes swirling in a storm, and only her shielding protected her, and Kazim behind her, as he hacked at the newcomers one by one. She dimly felt the Kirkegarde men succumb to the spectre’s life-sucking aura and die, but all her concentration was focused forward as she fought the life-sucking spectre trying to absorb all the energy sources in the room. The burning tapestry went out, and the water in the basin dried up. The dead python crumbled to dust on the bedclothes.

  But she could still fight, just. Staggering towards it, she gripped her periapt in her left hand and fuelled her blade with all the life-energy she could dredge up. She raised her sword and swung – but she was too close; the spectre’s hand flashed out and grabbed her sword-arm by the wrist. For a single second, life warred with death, then the thing’s eyes froze her, caught in the terror of crumbling to dust in its hands.

  Flesh began to quicken on its arm where it gripped her and she saw the skin on her own arm begin to flake and turn purple. She felt the most incredible weakness flow through her and her legs started to wobble.

  Then steel flashed and the eidolon’s hand was severed from its arm. The appendage dropped and crumbled while the spectre yowled. Then Kazim used telekinesis to hurl the spectre away from him and back through the door, then slammed it shut. Elena dimly heard three muffled screams, but all her effort was going into just standing, staring at her wrist where the shape of the death-summoning’s hand was burned into the flesh. She swayed and fell …

  … into Kazim’s arms.

  ‘Alhana!’ he cried.

  She looked at him dazedly. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here …’

  Then everything went dark.

  *

  Rutt Sordell staggered aside as the shrouded spectre was hurled backwards, through the doorway, shrieking with rage. It struck Etain Tullesque and knocked him over, then turned on him. The Grandmaster grunted in shock as the spectre twisted and hung above him, its visage filled with hate for its summoner. Rutt could clearly see the spiderweb-thin thread of violet light that tied the Kirkegarde knight to his creation: the link that would allow it to pierce Tullesque’s wards and rip his soul out.

  The spectre’s right hand had been severed and it was still yowling in anguish; that agony was all that kept it from striking instantly. But the hand was reforming, fuelled by spirit-energy it was pulling from everyone around it. As Rutt watched with appalled eyes, its joints popped and its sinews wept yellowish fluid, and fresh blood dried on its fingers. The energy came from the three crossbowmen, whose auras were snuffed out in the same instant that they collapsed soundlessly. He’d have died the same way had he not been well-warded. Thankfully, its eyes were fixed on Tullesque, not him.

  Rutt would have de
arly loved to have let it have the Grandmaster, but that would mean Elena got away. Instead, he raised his hands and committed a rare act of selfless courage. Reaching with his own necromantic powers, he sought to snare the spectre.

  He cast a web of violet light about it, protecting Tullesque but drawing its attention on himself. Seconds turned to years as it turned on him, following a new path of control, leading to him, not Tullesque – then, with pure terror, he realised that he was not strong enough to master the spectre, not with the handicap of his imperfect control over Guy Lassaigne’s body. And it was too late to vacate the body and run. His scarab would wither in seconds the moment it was exposed.

  The spectre took another step, and another. It reached out.

  Suddenly he was bathed in purple light and Etain Tullesque’s voice crackled around him. Renewed gnostic-light lit the spectre, trapped it and enfolded it, and Rutt fell backwards against the wall and sagged to the ground as the Kirkegarde mage-knight reasserted control over his summoning.

  The shrouded thing went still. Its arms fell to its side and its head dropped.

  Rutt looked up at Tullesque. For an instant, there might have been gratitude in the Grandmaster’s eyes, then he turned back to the spectre and commanded: ‘Bring me Elena Anborn, dead or alive.’

  With a flurry that dropped the temperature of the room even further, the death-summoning turned and smashed straight through the door – only to find Elena and her Noorie gone.

  With a howl of rage, the spectre took to the air and flashed out into the night.

  Within the room was carnage. One of Tullesque’s mage-knights was a dead husk, as were half a dozen of his knights. The Grandmaster’s face was thunderous as he whirled to scream at the further soldiers pouring down the stairs into the lobby area. ‘Rouse the garrison, and scour the city! Find them!’

  The officer leading the reinforcements saluted, barking orders as he hurried away. But he was back a few minutes later. ‘Grandmaster, a windskiff just lifted off from the other side of the lake.’

  Tullesque spat a curse. ‘Damn it, how—? All right, we must make new plans. Mobilise the men! Alert Gyle! We must flood this region with windcraft. The hunt does not end here, it begins!’

  Tullesque turned finally to Rutt Sordell, who had regained his feet. ‘Well, Magister. I thank you and I commend you. I owe you my life. A Tullesque does not forget his debts.’

  Rutt bowed, his heart still thudding. ‘Nor do I,’ he panted. Nor my humiliations.

  Tullesque went to the lake-door, staring out into the night. The cord of light still ran from his fingers out into the skies. ‘Find her, my lovely,’ he whispered, just loud enough for Rutt to hear. ‘Find her and kill her.’

  27

  The Bakhtak

  Combining Gnostic Effects

  The more accomplished of our magi have found ways to blend their disciplines to greater effect – for example, Earth- and Fire-gnosis together can be used to hurl flaming lava at a target, harder to shield and harder to negate. Opportunities to explore even more destructive techniques are precious – thank Kore for this war!

  GENERAL BRENDIS RANTHORN, BREVIS, DURING THE THIRD SCHLESSEN WAR, 634

  Emirate of Lybis, on the continent of Antiopia

  Rajab (Julsep) 929

  13th month of the Moontide

  Elena came to her senses with the wind whipping through her short hair and the crack of canvas sails above. She jerked awake, the image of the spectral creature leaping to her mind and looked about. Everything was dark except for the faint glow around Kazim’s right hand as he poured Air-gnosis into the keel of the Greyhawk. He must have been doing it for hours, because he looked drawn; his teeth were pulled back in a snarl and his eyes were bloodshot. To her gnostic sight, he looked even worse: his aura was a swirl of crimson and black, a tentacled void that boiled about him. A terrifying number of those tentacles were buried in her own aura, like worms burrowing into her soul, pulsing as they fed.

  ‘Kaz?’

  He looked across at her, and a look of utter relief filled his face. ‘Alhana! Ahm be praised! I thought you were lost!’

  She pulled herself up, though that only told her how frighteningly weak she was. How much is he taking from me – and how much did that God-awful eidolon take? She looked around dazedly. ‘Where are we? What’s happening?’

  ‘We’re running, that’s what.’ Kazim threw a look over his shoulder. ‘But that bakhtak won’t stop coming.’

  ‘Huh?’ She looked back and stared behind them. It was Darkmoon, Luna’s face hidden, and the star-studded heavens were turning to indigo. They were weaving through narrow mountain clefts, the landscape shadowy except for the occasional blotches of snow still to melt. At first she saw nothing … and then something dark scudded over the last ridgeline and even half a mile away she knew what it was.

  ‘Holy Kore, how long have I been unconscious?’

  ‘Two hours,’ Kazim told her grimly. ‘You went out like a candle flame, halfway round the lake. I had to carry you the rest of the way. But I got you out.’

  She looked down at herself. Her sword arm was bruised to the elbow and the hand-print of the creature looked burned into the skin – but at least it was living tissue still. Otherwise she felt okay, just incredibly tired. She crawled down the hull and buried her head against his chest. ‘You did. I love you.’

  His eyes went round with pleasure and wonder. ‘You’re only saying that because I pulled your arse out of the fire,’ he teased. But his eyes never lost that look of joy.

  I do love him. I do … And this is what it feels like … She immediately tried to rationalise it: they’d fought together, saved each other, their auras were linked … but that didn’t really explain it at all.

  Love isn’t rational, her sister Tesla had once told her, trying to explain why she was marrying Vann Mercer. It just is. She blinked back tears and laid her hand beside his on the keel. She tried to concentrate on the danger, instead of the relief. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Wherever the wind takes us,’ he replied. ‘When I got us aloft in Lybis it was blowing westwards, so that’s the way I flew. It’s not strong enough, though, and I’ve been having to try and generate more to stay ahead of that damned bakhtak.’

  ‘What’s a bakhtak?’

  ‘It is a ghost of the night.’ He glowered. ‘So how do you kill it?’

  ‘Lots of ways. I can do it, I think.’ She faltered, then admitted, ‘No, I’m not sure.’ The fact was, the damned thing terrified her. For a moment it had become the embodiment of all she feared and now she doubted she was up to dealing with it. That doubt could be fatal. ‘With those things, you’ve got two options: banish it or kill it. Banishing is easier, but you’ve got to be a Wizard or a Necromancer and I’m neither.’

  He shrugged. ‘So we kill it then.’

  ‘We try – but it’ll be near impossible, because it can pull energy from all round to keep itself alive. That includes drawing energy from your spells. It takes healing-gnosis to keep it at bay. I can do that, but you can’t, so we’d have only a few seconds to kill it before it gets us.’

  They looked at each other, let each other see the worry and the fear.

  ‘The bastard who summoned this knows what he’s doing,’ Elena said. ‘He knows who I am and he’s tailored this thing specifically to get me. Our best hope is to run. These sort of summonings can’t be maintained beyond dawn – sunlight messes with the Necromancy.’

  Kazim looked encouraged by that. He returned his attention to the Greyhawk as they shot along a gully, then brought the windskiff around a granite outcropping and into another long valley, almost doubling back. They both scanned ahead worriedly: there was no visible exit; they’d flown into a cul-de-sac of stone. There was a small lake at its base, though it was in shadow, a black emptiness beneath the jagged cliffs. Snow clung to the peaks and their breath streamed behind them. Their fingers had gone numb and the chill was cutting through them both, drawing on already plumm
eting gnosis levels.

  Looking at Kazim’s aura, twined about her own, was like watching a vine choke the life of a tree. She could feel the linkages, feel her energy flowing out of her. He knew it too; the look on his face told her that. But they both knew he couldn’t afford to stop doing it.

  Will it kill me before the spectre does?

  ‘I can’t see a way out of this valley!’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Rukka!’ Elena breathed, casting about frantically. She engaged her night sight, but sheer cliffs rose on all sides except back the way they came. The wind was swirling, caught in a funnel by the enclosing cliffs. They were losing speed and had nowhere to go.

  The spectre floated lazily around the outcropping, its shriek of gleeful fury audible all the way down the valley.

  *

  Kazim gripped the tiller and tried to catch the swirling winds but they were slipping ineffectually past and the sail flapped uselessly against the mast as they hung in the air. They’d lost all momentum. ‘What do we do?’ he shouted, fear coming out as anger.

  ‘Stay calm, Kaz. It’s still minutes away.’ She scanned the cliffs, then pointed. ‘Look, there!’

  He peered upwards, wishing the moonlight was brighter. There was a lighter patch on the rock face, and he turned the skiff towards it, rising sluggishly. The bakhtak howled triumphantly and its ragged death-shroud flapped in the wind as it flew unerringly towards them.

  ‘There! There!’ Elena gasped frantically. ‘It’s a cutting, to another valley!’

  He blanched. The cleft she was pointing at ran between two overhanging cliffs, almost a tunnel, and it looked incredibly tight. But the ghoulish thing streaming towards them froze his blood and he was feeling dangerously spent. He could see what he was doing to Elena too, the way her aura was growing fainter, but he couldn’t stop his gnosis from draining hers.

  One last effort.