by Ian Whates
Finally, M'gruth's squad were in position; they'd skirted around to the far side of the ruin and so had further to go than anyone else. Kat raised one sword above her head and twirled it – quite impressively, she thought – giving the agreed signal. Everyone started forward, their wide circumference constricting rapidly. Kat got a real kick out of knowing that the Blade had just moved into action at her command. Who'd have thought it?
The earlier flat tedium of inaction was forgotten. As they closed in on the Soul Thief's layer, Kat could feel the excitement ratcheting up with every stride. Surely the bitch had to be aware of them by now, or was she so confident of her power that she slept soundly and unguarded out here?
Anyway, who said she was asleep?
The Kite Guards were the first to spot it. They circled above the stump of the ruined building like flies above a rotting corpse. One of them shouted something and Kat didn't need to hear the individual words to catch their meaning. Seconds later she could see it for herself. A black fog had begun to emerge from the stunted building, drifting out to tumble over the edges of the brickwork like liquid boiling from an overheated beaker in some experiment of the Maker's.
The inky mist fell to the ground where it pooled and gathered and started to take shape; a column of darkness which built quickly, facing directly towards Kat.
As the column was still forming and the suggestion of a face within that swirling darkness was still more imagination than actual impression, one of the figures circling above dipped its wing and dived towards the Thief.
"No!" Kat yelled, even as she realised it was Tylus. The idiot!
But the Kite Guard didn't plummet all the way down to engage the Thief hand-to-mist as she'd expected. Instead he banked and levelled out, passing a little above the broiling figure. As he came close, something dropped from his belt, a fist-sized package that arced towards the Soul Thief to strike the ground at the foot of the black column. On impact the package exploded.
Kat laughed. A bomb; the Kite Guards were carrying bombs!
The sound was deafening. Flame and smoke and clods of grass, mouldering earth and rotted detritus rose up at one edge of where the Soul Thief stood. Its developing form waivered and a shriek of pain or perhaps alarm rose from the mouth, which was now clearly visible.
The shriek was music to Kat's ears. Tylus may have struck before she was fully ready, but she couldn't argue with the results, and perhaps it was just as well none of them had been any closer with bombs flying around. Two more Kite Guards were following Tylus' lead, swooping in and dropping grenades. Kat turned to Tug, the Tattooed Man immediately to her left, and said. "Hit her!"
Tug nodded, braced himself, levelled the flechette gun he was carrying, and squeezed the trigger. A stream of metal slivers blasted from the muzzle, crossing the intervening distance in an instant and scything into the Thief's billowing form just as the two bombs went off one after the other, the sounds buffeting Kat's ears like the staggered beat of a giant's heart. The shriek was constant now, a wail of frustration and pain. They were hurting the bitch.
This wasn't Iron Grove Square. There was no Brent and no would-be street gangsters to intervene. This time the creature whose murderous deeds had shaped so much of Kat's life wouldn't escape. She was going down, whatever it took.
M'gruth's squad had moved in closer, shifting around the tower stub for a better angle. Their flechette gun now joined the fray as another pair of Kite Guards swooped in. Metal darts were tearing into the substance of the Soul Thief from two sides, passing through to chew into the more solid wall behind.
"Careful!" Kat screamed, as the stream of darts from M'gruth's gunner flew through the Thief and past the tower, coming perilously close to Ox and his group who were manoeuvring around the opposite side of the ruin. Good leader that he was, M'gruth had already recognised the danger and instructed his man to stop firing, motioning for him to move around further so that he would only threaten the brickwork rather than his fellows. Kat's gunner continued to keep the Thief occupied as the Kite Guards swooped in.
This pair proved less accurate than their colleagues, their bombs landing a fair bit wide of the target; due in part, no doubt, to the Soul Thief contracting. The smoky column collapsed rapidly into a dense ball which slipped and drifted around the side of the tower towards Ox, trying to get away.
Kat went to yell at Ox but there was no need. The big man had already unslung the equipment from his back, flipped open the tripod with practiced ease and was slipping the cylinders into place. Beside him, a flechette gunner opened up, trying to persuade the Thief not to come any further around the tower after all. Kat signalled her own gunner to stop, to offer their target an easier route back the way it had come.
The Kite Guards were back, two of them stooping for another run, right to left as Kat watched. They were getting cocky; this pair flew lower than any before them. The bombs were dropped, driving the Soul Thief back towards Kat, but this time the Thief was ready to try something different. She attacked, taking the initiative for the first time, funnelling away from the blast and stretching upwards with incredible speed. A strand of darkness shot into the air, as if drawn there by the Kite Guard's passage. It touched a trailing leg of the nearest Guard, instantly solidifying around the man's ankle.
"No," Kat yelled, as, for an instant, the Kite Guard floundered, reaching for the air as if hoping to grasp it and somehow keep himself aloft. Then he was quite literally yanked from the sky.
It all happened so quickly. One moment the Kite Guard was sailing majestically past, the next his cape folded and he'd been brought crashing to the ground. The inky blackness drew on that treacherous tether and used it to flow across, enveloping the fallen Guard.
Kat was already on the move, sprinting forward. The flechette gunners had been caught by surprise. They'd adjusted now but couldn't fire for fear of hurting the fallen man, and the other Kite Guards weren't about to attack while one of their own was at risk. It was down to her. They'd been hurting the bitch, and now it was about to draw the life force from a victim and replenish its energies, undoing everything they'd achieved. Not if Kat could help it.
She didn't give a thought to whether Isar's trick with her swords had worked or not, to whether she could actually harm the Soul Thief in any way, she simply reacted. Her arms pumped, sword in each hand in a manner that had become second nature to her, as she closed the gap across the uneven ground. Someone shouted her name but she ignored them. It was just her and the Thief now.
She struck even as she arrived, a crude overhand blow accompanied by a shriek of effort and anger and hate. Her blade bit. She felt a hint of resistance as she drew it through the murky insubstance. The Kite Guard had been completely hidden beneath the Soul Thief, but at Kat's blow the darkness seemed to flinch, pulling in on itself. Kat's other blade followed the first. She struck again and again, in a fighting rhythm that came as naturally as breathing. The Soul Thief shied away from her blades, the Kite Guard evidently forgotten as it came upright, the wheedling yowl of its hurt, its indignity, ringing in her ears. She smelt rot and decay and death. A face took shape in the creature's shadowy form.
"Kat, don't, please… you're hurting me!" Chavver, her features wracked with anguish, pleading, begging. The ghost of her sister, resurrected to disarm her. She'd expected this, steeled herself against it, but still it hit home – a bolt of loss slicing through her heart – but that wasn't enough to make her hesitate. If anything, she increased the tempo of her assault. This wasn't her sister. Charveve would never have begged, she would have died first.
Next the face shifted into that of her mother, looking exactly as memory painted her, as if the passage of time hadn't marked her at all. "Why are you doing this to me… your own mother? All that remains of me is here. Katarina, please don't…" The shadowy face, so familiar from painful memory, plucked at her heart strings, but this wasn't enough to stop her either. The Thief had played this card before and this time around it only made Kat redoubl
e her efforts yet again.
"Kat!" That might have been M'gruth, but she'd pay attention to whatever he wanted later.
Then her blade carried a little too far, or perhaps the darkness deliberately shifted. Her wrist brushed against the Thief, sinking a little into its misty substance where it stuck fast. Kat couldn't pull free.
The face no longer pleaded. Instead it gloated. "Foolish, foolish girl. Come to join your mother and sister, have you?"
Kat's arm felt cold, numbed, and she could no longer hold her sword. She watched the weapon tip from her unresponsive fingers and tumble towards the ground, seeming to fall in slow motion.
She tried to twist, to pull away, but the darkness held her firm. In fact it was pulling her in, picking at her inner being.
It suddenly occurred to Kat that she might die. Strength flowed out of her, drawn along that captured arm. Somewhere deep inside her a savage, bitter laugh threatened to bubble through. What did it matter? What did she have to live for anyway? But she couldn't die, not quite yet; not until the Soul Thief had first paid for all the hurt and misery she'd caused.
Regrets piled one on top of another in her mind. Why hadn't she listened to M'gruth when he called her? Why hadn't she pulled back when it was obvious there was no saving the fallen Kite Guard? They were hesitating because of her, she now realised. Her presence was protecting the bitch. Flechettes couldn't fly, bombs wouldn't fall, all because she was in the way.
"Don't worry about me," Kat yelled. "Just kill the bitch!"
That face, so like her mother's, seemed to swell, occupying all the Soul Thief's form. It demanded attention, capturing Kat's gaze and refusing to let her look anywhere else even for an instant.
She felt her soul, if that's what it was – her inner spirit, the very essence of who she was – well up, pulled inexorably forward; a horrible, stretching, wrenching sense of being ripped apart from within, that made her want to retch and shriek at the same time. "No!" she growled through gritted teeth. She couldn't, wouldn't let it end like this.
Somebody else was there, at her left-hand side, a presence dimly sensed.
Kat abruptly snapped back to herself, reeling at the sudden return of perspective, welcome though it was. M'gruth stood beside her, clutching a flechette gun, mouth contorted into a scream of savage challenge as he poured metal round after metal round into the Thief.
Kat brought her other hand up, sword still gripped in rigid fist, and sliced through the inky bond that held her other wrist.
She staggered free. "M'gruth… pull back, let the others finish this," she said, her voice lost against the incessant chatter of the flechette gun. He hadn't heard her or didn't want to hear her. He might have come in close to help but his focus was now entirely on the Soul Thief, his face set in a snarl as he played the stream of darts over the creature's twitching, dancing form.
Others were there now, off to one side – Ox and his team, the big man having carried the flame thrower with him. Tripod down and firmly grounded, Ox just needed a clear shot.
"M'gruth, fall back!" Kat yelled.
Then, disaster. In evading the darts tormenting her, the Soul Thief streamed away from the tower. Caught up in the moment, M'gruth followed, tracking her movements with the muzzle of the gun, trigger still depressed and darts tearing through her dwindling body and beyond… to rip into Ox and one of the men beside him. Both went down, gouting blood.
"M'gruth!"
He stopped then, mouth falling open in dismay. The Soul Thief was greatly diminished after the pummelling she had taken, the humped form suggesting that of a hunch-backed old woman as she cowered; but she reacted first, seizing her chance and flowing towards the stupefied man. Given a choice the Thief always went for talent. She had raided the streets at erratic intervals to harvest the seers and the healers and the other gifted, but evidently when push came to shove she could feed off any life force, as the unfortunate Kite Guard had so recently discovered. Kat ran forward, snatching up her fallen sword in her still-recovering hand and preparing to throw herself upon her nemesis once more. She wasn't about to let M'gruth die, not for her sake; in fact she had no intention of losing anyone else to this murderous hag.
"Hey, you! Soul Thief! Where the breck do you think you're going, you coward? Come back here and finish what you started."
The nebulous form paused, gathering itself into an upright near-human form. The outline of a face coalesced once more as if to encourage the impression. "As you wish," a voice seemed to whisper. The darkness flowed towards her.
She braced herself and a smile creased the corners of her mouth. This was it: do or die; her against the Soul Thief. Just the way she'd always imagined it would be.
Then the world tore apart; or at least the air did, quite literally. There came a rippling between the Thief and Kat, a peculiar twisting. Kat shuffled back, was forced back, by an intense gust of wind. It only lasted for an instant, the air falling deathly still immediately after, but in that instant two people had appeared out of nowhere.
Kat gaped. "Tom?" And beside him a woman she recognised, a Thaistess, though she couldn't quite recall her name.
"Kat?" He looked as bewildered as she felt.
There was the suggestion of movement behind the two new arrivals. "Look out!" Tom and the Thaistess were facing towards Kat, they wouldn't even realise that the monster was at their backs, let alone that it was coming straight for them.
The distance was no distance at all. Even as Tom began to react to her warning, black mist welled up behind him, as if set to engulf boy and Thaistess alike. Tendrils of night reached forward to encircle both their heads. The woman – Mildra, memory suddenly supplied – froze, her eyes opening wide as if from shock.
Kat was only a few paces away, and wasn't about to stand by and simply watch. With a snarl, she raised her good hand, brandishing her sword, and… flinched.
Searing light erupted from Tom's head, annihilating the fingers of darkness that had been attempting to grasp his skull.
What the hell? Kat squinted, struggling to stare into that light, where she beheld a night black form rear up behind the lad, brightly illuminated by the energy pouring from him. Mildra had fallen over or collapsed, and was now sitting with one hand pressed to the ground for support and the other raised to shield her eyes as she too looked towards that darkness: the Soul Thief.
The Thief had adopted a surprisingly solid-looking form, notably human though ragged at the edges as though flayed. Two protuberances sprung from her shoulders to sweep outwards before fading into wispy nothingness; they might almost have been wings. For an instant only, through screwed-up watering eyes, Kat beheld that form. Then it tore apart, quickly and violently. The raggedness extended, like a multitude of tears in paper swiftly spreading across an entire sheet. One instant there was a recognisable shape, the next it was rendered into a collection of mere strips that disappeared as if swept away by a gale. The brightness died and for a moment the whole world seemed still.
All Kat could do was stare; unable, unwilling, to accept what she had just witnessed.
Both swords slipped from her numb fingers as the truth slowly sank in. The Soul Thief was gone. The bane of her life had just been slain before her eyes, swept away as if it were nothing by a mere slip of a boy Kat had considered a friend.
Tom, now looking like any ordinary kid, turned towards her, smiling broadly.
"No!" Kat shouted.
"Kat, it's all right, I'm not hurt."
"Hurt? You stupid brecking bastard!" She flung herself at him, clenched fists pummelling his shoulder and head.
"Ow! Hey, stop. What's wrong? I thought… will you stop hitting me!" He was backing away, arms crossed in front of his face for protection against the barrage of over-arm blows raining down upon him. Kat wasn't aiming to hurt, not really, he'd have been writhing on the ground by now if she had been. She just needed to hit something.
"It was supposed to be me," she sobbed. He'd cheated her, robbed her of the only
thing that might have brought her some peace, some closure. After a lifetime of hating and hurting, of scheming and dreaming, of imagining the sweet taste of revenge, he'd snatched it away from her. "I should have killed her. Not you, not anyone else… Me. Don't you understand?" Her one chance of redeeming herself, of making up for her shortcomings and putting things right with her mother and her sister, gone in an instant.
"I… I'm sorry," he said as the assault subsided. "That thing attacked me. What was I supposed to do?"
"I don't know, I don't care. I just… Argh!" How could he ever understand? How could anyone? Without saying another word she swivelled on her heel and strode away, fists still clenched, head bowed to hide the tears from Tom, from M'gruth, from everybody.
Tom stared after Kat, exasperated. What was wrong with her for Thaiss's sake? He'd arrived here disorientated, elated that he'd managed his first ever materialisation as more than a mere passenger, to find himself… where? Was this the Stain? And before he had a chance to get his feet properly on the ground he'd been attacked, his mind assaulted by the most evil and invasive presence he'd ever encountered. Cold, dank, horrible. The mere memory was enough to make him shudder. What did she expect him to do, stand there and let that thing kill him? Of course he'd lashed out.
