The Third God

by Ricardo Pinto

  The outer ditch approached. Then Carnelian and Fern were crossing it upon another earthbridge. Riding into open ground made them feel as if they were being released from the neck of a bottle. The dragons were sailing in columns south-eastward, up to their haunches in billows of dust. Auxiliaries were coalescing into rhomboids already vague in the haze their aquar were stirring up. Looking south, Carnelian lost hold of that human scale and even the dragons appeared small. For the red plain stretched away to a boiling cliff of dust, churned up by the approaching sartlar, that rose towards the frowning clouds. Black with rain, these seemed the Sky Lord’s wrathful brow. A subtle light played behind that might have been the God seeing in His mind the coming flame. In his bones, Carnelian felt the sky’s growling was warming to thunderous rage.

  Harsh trumpets sounding caused him to turn back towards the camp. Through tearing red miasmas, a dense press of dragon towers was pouring out through the southern gate. Above them hung an apparition that chilled Carnelian’s marrow: the infernal face of the Iron House standard, black and leering, sprouting four horns like scorpion stings. It was only a representation of the Twins, whose other face had given him comfort.

  ‘We’re getting left behind,’ cried Fern, pointing with his lance to where the auxiliary squadrons were moving towards the blinking eye of the sun. As they caught up with them, the sun climbed behind the clouds, instantly plunging the world into a lurid twilight.

  THE MIRROR BREAKS

  Even a hairline crack can shatter a mountain.

  (a Quyan proverb)

  CARNELIAN GAZED AT THE CLIFF OF DUST THAT COUNTLESS SARTLAR feet were driving towards him and the rest of Molochite’s host. The half-light was giving it a darker, bloodier hue. In its rolling depths growled nearing thunder. Sometimes faint lightning, like a twinge of toothache, made him remember his dreams and, for some reason, his voyage to the Three Lands. He gazed up into the leaden heavens dreading the weight of rain above them. Fern was watching the sartlar approach. Before them both stretched more than a dozen ranks of heads and banners, of backs of saddle-chairs, of lances that combed the gale the mountainous wave was hurling at them. Carnelian opened his cowl to sample the air, almost expecting the tang of the sea, the iron of blood, but there was nothing save the smell of aquar, of men and their sweat and, perhaps, the dry musk of the land.

  Left was the vast sweep of auxiliary squadrons bristling all the way towards the pale thread of the Great Eastern Road. Right, a dragon loomed that was the nearest bastion in the wall of monsters that ran unbroken into the west as far as Carnelian could see. Their flame-pipes gave them the appearance of some vast hornwall. Chimneys lit, this whole first line was streaming banners of black smoke back over the second: another rampart that would stand should the first fail, and Molochite’s ancient tactic to counter Osidian’s hollow crescent. Not that such a precaution seemed necessary. Regarding such a concentration of raw power, it seemed ridiculous to imagine that Osidian could triumph. A bleakness at the thought of his defeat alerted Carnelian to what he had not known he felt: that he still yearned for Osidian’s victory. Willing his gaze to penetrate the gloom behind Molochite’s second line, he was sure he could see the demonic face hanging leering above the Iron House. It was a perfect representation of the mind that moved that vast host. Adjusting his position in the saddle-chair made him aware his torn muscles were beginning to seize up. His joints ached where they had almost come apart. His skin shivered, remembering the brutal touch of the cross. He relived his pain, his shame, but also the naked children and Molochite’s bitter malice. Was it strange, then, that he did not wish that monster to triumph?

  Resuming his survey over the heads of the auxiliaries, he watched again the sartlar advance rearing its wall of curling dust. Though it looked solid, it was not. This was no wave of blood that would drown Molochite’s power, merely a mirage behind which lay nothing more terrible than a multitude of starved, poorly armed brutes. Would their flesh resist Molochite’s fire? Would their bones withstand the trampling thunder of his dragons? Carnelian chuckled mirthlessly. Still he could not let go hope of Osidian’s victory. Scanning the dust wall, he searched for any sign of him. A light flickered, there towards the far end of Osidian’s right flank. It flared again. A tiny flicker too close to the ground to be lightning. Dragonfire, then. Carnelian’s heart leapt as he had a thought. Could it be a feint to draw Molochite’s strength from his centre, weakening it perhaps enough to land a fatal blow? He looked back towards the Iron House and watched it for a signal. Nothing. The two lines might have been granite walls upon whose ramparts fires smoked.

  Suddenly the air was rent by a ragged, shrill chorus pumped out by many brass throats. The blasts reverberated beneath the heavens. Again the fanfare sounded, so harsh it seemed as if it might pare flesh from bones. Their commander, in the front rank, jabbed his lance as if he sought to spear the clouds. The men behind him answered him with a roar that seemed mild in comparison with the trumpets. Carnelian and Fern could feel the excitement around them heating. The battlecries rushed away along the line, turning distantly to a hiss that set the lances vibrating like a wind through ferns. Fern bared his teeth and nodded.

  Then Carnelian became aware the front ranks of their squadron were sliding forward in a packed mass of flesh and hide, of bronze and wood. He did not even need to signal his aquar. Her head dropped and she sprang forward. He was thrown from side to side. Faster and faster until the rocking smoothed and she was leaning into her run as her feet reached forward, clutched the ground with their claws, then whipped back. Carnelian adjusted his position, wound his wrist into the reins and clutched his lance in both hands. Its grip was greasy, but firm. Around him other riders were hazy jiggling shadows. Only glimpses of Fern’s pale leathers allowed him to know his friend was close.

  Peering ahead Carnelian could see little through the dust their aquar were scratching up from the ground. He lowered his head against the pelting sand, deafened by the furious drum and rush of their charge. From up ahead came muffled, crashing sounds. His aquar rocked him as she slowed, her head rising a little with her plumes. Then the ground became rough, uneven. He was jerked this way and that as her footfalls landed on things that collapsed suddenly like eggs beneath her weight. One of her legs snagging threw him forward. As she yanked her foot free he was punched back into his saddle-chair. Her head was high now, crowned with startled plumes, and she had slowed to a jerky stride. A shudder. Another as her footing slipped and she fought for balance. Carnelian clung to the saddle-chair, his lance lying flat across his knees, and he peered down to see the field of rocks or whatever it was they were fighting through. At any moment she might lose her footing and he would be thrown.

  The ground seemed for a moment to be meshed in the roots and stems of dark ferns. Then he saw a thick hand, limbs contorted into loops and hooks. Boulders resolved into heads furred with hair. Some staved in, crushed and leaking moist pulp. Bestial faces torn and bloating, lips drawn back revealing black peg-encrusted maws. A stench rose up of shit and blood as his aquar stumbled forward through that quagmire of mangled flesh.

  Seeing the dust thinning, he pulled her up. Around him other riders were struggling through the carnage, fanning out. Less than ten ranks ahead they met the edge of a sea. He gaped at that milling ocean of heads. Cries and screams were coming from where the auxiliaries met the sartlar in a frothing boundary. Arms rose and fell wielding blades of gleaming, dripping bronze. He felt a horror greater even than his disgust of the slaughter. Clearly, the beastmen were unarmed. Then there was a small but sudden change in the scene. A man and rider toppled, and disappeared. At a different point along the boundary, another vanished. An aquar that had been screeching fell abruptly silent. His scalp began to crawl. He glanced round and saw Fern’s pallid shape hunched in a saddle-chair some distance away.

  ‘Fern,’ he cried, but his voice was lost in the tumult. He wanted to work a path to his side, but there were too many auxiliaries in the way. He became aware
of how desperately they were eyeing the fighting up ahead. He and Fern were being fed into that front with everyone else. He glanced back, contemplating retreat, some attempt at regrouping. Carnage carpeted the land to their rear, but this mess was slowly being overrun by an eddying tide of sartlar creeping around their flank. Ahead, he saw how much the line of auxiliaries had thinned. A surf of hands grasped at man and beast, which the auxiliaries hewed at with their blades, but as a hand was cut away, more replaced it. He saw one aquar struggling to stand as a skirt of sartlar clung to it. The creature flailed its neck as it toppled, spilling its rider into the waiting grasp of dozens.

  His sympathy for the sartlar had all dried up. His fingers fumbled the toggle that closed a scabbard. Slipping his fingers around the handle of a sword gave him a thrill of relief. He pulled its fanblade free and glanced round. Their way back was now closed. He focused his gaze on Fern and urged his aquar towards him. In pushing past another rider, their saddle-chairs scraped against each other. Carnelian had no time for the man’s gaping panic. Fern glanced round and their eyes met. The next moment he looked away and Carnelian saw the man before him being pulled down, adding his cries to the pandemonium.

  Then, suddenly, at the edge of his vision, an auxiliary disappeared. He spun round and they were upon him. He saw first their filthy mouths. Then their monstrously branded faces. Then the animal gleam of their eyes. He swung the fanblade, pruning off a couple of hands. Twisting, he swung it back, feeling it snag as it bit into bone. It caught, the blade turned transverse and the central ball cracked a skull. Even as his wrist got control of it, he felt the tethers of their fingers hooking his saddle-chair. He dashed the flat along a knobbled run of knuckles and was jerked back by their release, but other hands came and a face slavering for his arm. He sliced the blade into that mouth, clinking against rotten teeth, widening the grin, then the blade struck bone and stuck. Grinning impossibly wide, the corpse fell back, yanking the sword from his grip. He laid about him with his fists as hands and arms hooked over his aquar’s neck. She screeched as they gouged her with their claws, then worked their fingers into her wounds to widen them. More hands were reaching ever higher up her neck as they bent her head down towards them. Her plumes snapped like twigs when a sartlar grabbed her skull and swung up to tear at her throat with its teeth. She convulsed. Her legs buckled. Carnelian was tumbled out. His head cracked against another, even as his elbow dug into flesh. Stunned, he watched the world whip past as he plunged in among their legs.

  Then he was lying on the earth, gazing up at an angry sky. A livid crack opened it for a moment. A booming, slow, stuttering voice sounded. He turned into the earth, gouging dust as he sought to stand. His feet under him, pushing up, unbending his spine. He was startled by his whiteness. He was puzzled to be naked under the cloak. Corpses seemed stones scattered over the earth. An aquar, one clawed foot twitching, her belly torn and spilling entrails. Carnelian became aware of the circle round him. At first he could make no sense of it, then he saw they were sartlar kneeling, their heads bowed into the dust. A movement of his head was enough to make them shudder. He regarded them, feeling eerily calm. Then he became aware of a pale figure being pulled down. As he remembered Osidian and the slavers, anger rose. Sartlar were bending to their victim like raveners. Then he knew what it was he was seeing and roared, ‘Fern!’

  He ran towards his friend, ready to rend any who opposed him, but the sartlar sprang from his path. Fern was now invisible beneath their frenzy. Carnelian grabbed hair and the dark, coarse stuff of their clothing and pulled two off. Faces came up, snarling, but their maws snapped closed as they ducked away, whimpering, abandoning their victim prostrate upon the earth. Carnelian fell to his knees at Fern’s side, and had eyes for nothing but the blood smearing him. The sartlar assault had been so violent they had torn him almost wholly free of his commander’s leathers. Carnelian felt Fern’s body for wounds. Though his skin was striped with gashes, none seemed deep. Fern groaned. Carnelian was transfixed by the overwhelming relief he was alive. The bloody face opened an eye that stared in wonder.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  Fern frowned, clearly dazed. Carnelian spat on his fingers and gently began to wipe Fern’s face clean. A metallic screaming echoing beneath the rumbling sky made Carnelian rise and look in the direction from where the sound had come. There the sartlar envelopment was thinning. Through the gaps he could see that, in the centre, unopposed by aquar, the sartlar had continued to advance to well behind his current position. Beyond them dragon towers rose as a crenellated rampart. Another blast sounded even as, beyond the sartlar, a violent dawn erupted that caused him to shield his eyes. Feeling the coruscation dim, he peered over his arms. Thick sooty smoke had risen like a fog. Flashes sliced through the writhing billows. He froze with horror. Molochite’s first line was advancing, vomiting fire. Oceanic surges of terror were rippling back through the sartlar mass as the creatures tried to escape the holocaust. Their numbers choked their flight. He thought it was their shrieks he was hearing, then he recognized the whine and scream of the fire jets as they scythed through their ranks.

  As he watched, he saw their flank shivering, vibrating. With each moment, a tremor in the ground was growing stronger. He realized the creatures were fleeing in the only direction they could: towards the flanks. He and Fern were right in the path of their stampede.

  That brought him back to life. He spun round. Fern was still lying prone upon the ground. Carnelian cast around for even a single aquar, but all those he could see were dead or dying. The sartlar rout was almost upon them. He stooped, thrusting an arm under Fern’s right shoulder and head, pulling with his other hand on Fern’s left. He managed to sit him up. Still frowning, Fern’s gaze strayed to meet Carnelian’s.

  ‘You’ve got to get up!’ Carnelian shouted in his face.

  Fern’s brow creased deeper as if he did not understand but, clutching at Carnelian, he scrabbled up onto his feet, the tatters of pale leather falling from him. Carnelian dug his shoulder under Fern’s arm, pulling it like a yoke over his neck, then grabbed hold of the hand on the other side. They stood unsteadily for a moment. He could make out bestial shapes hobbling and stumbling towards them. He manoeuvred Fern round and began striding, half carrying, half dragging him. When the sartlar flood smacked into them, it almost lifted them off their feet. Saturated with the odour of fear, the stench of the sartlar further quickened Carnelian’s heart so that he became too frantic to think. Constantly buffeted, he threw everything he had into keeping his footing and steadying Fern. He was slow to become aware of a deeper thunder in the earth. The shrieking of the flame-pipes was now sliding in pitch like a blade whipping past his ear. Ahead the sartlar flood was mounding as it flowed over some obstruction. Then the flow grew turbid; heads were dropping suddenly, arms flung up were then sucked down. He tried desperately to slow down, but the rout swept him and Fern inexorably towards the pile-up.

  Closer and closer they were driven towards that bank of threshing limbs. Then his feet were catching in the mesh of bodies. Bones cracked under his heels, flesh slipped under his toes, warm wetness mouthed his bruised feet. He was stumbling, lowering his head, ramming through hard and soft obstructions, screams and yells, elbows arcing into him like pick-axes, thuds and shudders as bodies crashed into him, his arm yanked nearly from its socket as he pulled Fern towards him and, together, on all fours they scrabbled up a writhing slope of struggling flesh. Torrid breath wafted over him, laced with naphtha, thick with the stench of cooking meat. Desperation gave him new strength, but they were hopelessly enmeshed in flailing limbs and maned heads. The whole mound of bodies was quaking. He was engulfed in the aura of the monster. It avalanched towards them, red up to its knees. A footfall like a meteor strike. Another sent a concussion into the earth that shunted Carnelian hard against the sartlar among whom he was embedded; his bones jellied, his brain rattled in his skull. He had an overwhelming impression the Horned God was lunging to crunch them in His maw.
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  Then an arch of sun erupted so that he was blind to everything save its coruscating arc. Vibrating incandescence forced through his slitted eyes. Its odour a pure, bitter promise of death. His mind, like crystal, resonated to its shrill, terrifying song. He clung to Fern, wanting that they should die together. Among the shrieks of those set alight, he could hear the crackle of their flesh crisping. A bonfire whoosh. The heat intensified and he screwed his eyes closed, waiting for the unbearable touch of fire on his naked skin. Then its scream changed pitch and he opened his eyes and saw it pass, dancing over the arms and legs above him, skin peeling back from chests and faces, hair igniting in quick bushes of flame, all suddenly lost among thick black blossoms. Tar smoke rolled hot over him, oozing an acrid burn into his lungs. Then he was drowning, choking, coughing so hard he could taste blood. Iron in his mouth; iron infusing into his being. Stretching his neck up until he was sure his throat would tear, straining for breathable air. Then a sweet draught, another, another, until he surfaced, eyes raw, blinking, feeling the thunder almost upon them, saw the dim lantern of the high cabin in which a Master sat and, beneath him, the swelling monstrous dragon. Hawsers pulling on its horns caused it to drop its head, so that it was the flat of its skull that rammed the sartlar pyre. Carnelian was aware of the corpses rising round him in a bow wave. He was rolled in tumbling bodies, heavy blows from heads like clubs, a mass sharp with knees and elbows, lubricated with blood, reeking from smouldering flesh and sinew.