by Tom Lloyd
‘Anyone not here is dead, or as good as,’ said Vesna as he hurried up beside Isak.
Jachen was with him, looking considerably less fatigued in his hauberk and open-faced helm. He looked around. ‘No more than a division here,’ he commented grimly.
Vesna slid up his face-plate and did his own assessment, nodding agreement after a few heartbeats.
‘So we’ve lost two-thirds of our men,’ Isak said, running to the corner of the temple where an empty waist-high pedestal stood. He pushed a soldier out of his path so he could hop up onto the pedestal and look down on the paved ground in front of the Temple of Death. The entrance faced due east, to catch the dawn light. Isak raised an arm towards Nartis’ pillared temple to the north-east. If he could drive a trench in that direction it would cut down the ground they had to defend, without trapping them inside the temple.
‘Vesna, get these fucking men ordered and out of my way,’ he roared.
The sudden bellow caused most of the soldiers to jump and hurry out of the line he was drawing in his head, but some went the wrong way and Vesna had to shout himself hoarse to draw them back. Rapid orders followed, so quickly that Isak hardly made out the words, but these men were professional soldiers; they recognised an order to form ranks, no matter what language it was given in. A good number had already congregated by Count Vesna and their comrades rushed to follow.
Around the corner, their pursuers were only fifty yards behind, once again in a big, formless mass, though they weren’t running but advancing by fits and starts, the leading figures casting glances back at those behind and waiting to be overtaken, as though unsure about what they were doing. The imposing presence of the temples had slowed them, but he doubted anything would stop the mob. Isak set the closest alight and saw the man’s ragged clothes burst into a bright flare of light, but he didn’t wait to see whether it impeded the rest.
As the last of the infantry took up their positions and the cavalry abandoned their horses at the Temple of Nartis, Isak ran down the line he’d pictured in his mind until he was almost thirty yards along. He knelt again and reached out to the Skull fused to his cuirass. This time the magic was eager to serve as it coursed through his body and into the ground. He hardly had to command it before the vast energy running through him started to shake and twist the flagstones there.
A gigantic crash rang out across the plaza as the earth was ripped open, this time with terrifying ease. It drowned out all other sounds, and as a black gulf appeared in the ground, Isak was thrown backwards by the power. He lay sprawled on his back for a few moments while the ground continued to shake. Blinking, he looked up at the night sky. Up above, the clouds glowed red as they reflected the fires raging through the city, but in a break Isak saw half a dozen stars, shining bravely.
‘I hope you really are my bloody ancestors looking down on me,’ he muttered with a manic chuckle as the magic receded from his tingling limbs. He looked out over his feet at the jagged rip in the ground. It was wide; they’d have a problem jumping it, but it wasn’t impossible. The paving slab by his right heel upended suddenly, pitching down into the trench to crash onto the stony floor. It was followed by the patter of loose soil.
Isak jumped up and flexed his shoulders. He raised Eolis to the skies, his eyes still fixed on the faint pinpricks high above. ‘Now’s the time to do something more than watch, you bastards, ’ he called as the mob rounded the corner of the temple. Behind him he heard soldiers run up alongside and saw Jachen appear with the remaining Farlan troops. Suzerain Torl took up a position on his left-hand side and Shinir appeared on his right, sparing the time to scowl at the big white-eye. She had looped her flail around her body to keep it out of the way and now brandished a plain round shield taken from a fallen lancer. She had perfected a very simple technique now taken up by many others: she stepped straight into an attacker and smashed the steel boss of her shield into their face, then chopped into their neck with her khopesh.
He looked again at his trench. It was deeper than the last, a good ten feet down, so those who failed to bridge the gap were likely to fall and break bones. Getting out would be a damn sight more difficult too. The defenders were formed into a rough triangle, their backs to the entrance, the three wide arches that spanned the front of the temple.
Isak’s trench cut across the plaza towards the Temple of Nartis; the Farlan defended that while the Devoted had strung their shield-wall across the remaining ground. General Chotech had taken a position at the very tip of the triangle, towards the end of the trench, standing over a burly infantryman who knelt with his shield braced on the ground to act as an obstacle while the general swung the axe over him. It would be tiring work, even for a Chetse, but this was what they were reduced to.
He watched Vesna overseeing the shield-wall as the first few citizens loitered in the gloom.
‘What are they waiting for?’ shouted General Chotech.
‘Who cares?’ Vesna replied. ‘Perhaps they’re nervous of the temples -whatever it is, it’s slowed them down and buys us more time.’
The crowd began to thicken, ragged figures massing with whatever weapons they had found. Some had only discarded shields from the fallen infantry, but that didn’t matter much. Weapons blunted quickly in battle and a drawn-out fight invariably ended up as a bludgeoning match, where steel-reinforced shields were almost as good as swords. A drawn-out bellow dragged Isak’s attention back to the side he was defending and a few score of the swifter members of the mob led the charge towards him. Some carried the torches the defenders had abandoned at the pickets and Isak felt a chill at how close he’d come to ordering his men inside.
Leading the way was a young man with long gangly arms flailing wildly. He wore only a torn pair of trousers and waved a long cook’s knife wildly above his head. His face was grossly contorted by hatred, and so focused was he on Isak that he didn’t even notice the trench on the ground. Even as he pitched downwards, he was slashing for the white-eye. Isak heard the sickening crunch as the youth’s face hit the far side of the trench and snapped his neck back, but he was watching those still coming on.
The first misjudged his jump. He got one knee onto firm ground, then Jachen slashed open his face and sent him falling back. After that they came en masse, and the soldiers found themselves brutally repelling the leaping attackers any way they could. Isak had it easier than most, for he had the weight to stand almost on the very edge of the trench and use his shield to swat away those that jumped towards him. One by one they fell into the trench, and the rush towards the defenders slowed.
‘This ditch isn’t deep enough,’ Jachen yelled, crouching down to stab a man in the throat as his fingertips reached up to try and pull himself up.
‘If you think you could do any better, feel free to try,’ Isak shouted, hacking inelegantly down into a woman’s shoulder as she leapt empty-handed, clawed hands reaching for him. The magical edge sheared through her torso with horrific ease and as the two halves fell into the trench a great spray of blood spattered over Isak and the soldiers on either side.
‘Piss on you,’ roared Shinir, blinking hard through the blood covering her face, ‘that’s in my damned eyes!’
‘Private!’ Jachen shouted. ‘Keep that mouth shut! My Lord, this trench isn’t going to be enough; look at them.’
Isak had to agree. Now too many were slowing their pace and willingly dropping into the trench, clambering over their fallen and scrabbling at the crumbling edge for enough purchase to pull themselves up. The number of corpses down there would soon start to count in their favour.
From the noise he realised they were fighting on both fronts now. The mob had grown again, and fatigue hadn’t robbed them of any ferocity; his soldiers had been fighting for hours against enemies who didn’t care about their own safety.
‘This isn’t warfare,’ he said aloud. ‘In battle you know the enemy’s got some sort of sense left.’
‘Bugger that,’ Jachen said, ‘this is a race of numbers,
and we’re going to lose unless we get help. The damn trench is filling up with dead and that’s got to be more than a legion queuing up to walk across.’
Isak took a moment to watch the crowd of spitting and wailing citizens only half a dozen yards away. This was the first time he’d stopped to look at them closely. They were starved and filthy, some trembling and unsteady as they tumbled into the trench towards him. They looked like the sort of people a duke should be protecting, not desperately thinking of ways to slaughter them.
‘There’s more of them,’ Jachen continued, ‘the fighting must have drawn others.’ Isak realised the commander of his guard was right as he looked over the heads of the nearest. The plaza was filling up, a bobbing carpet of heads spreading back to the break in the ring of shrines they had been defending only minutes before.
‘Then we really do need help,’ he admitted. ‘Whoever shot Mariq must have realised that as this became more desperate, I’d likely give him one of the Skulls. The effort would have killed him pretty quickly, but Mariq had more skill than I ever will; perhaps enough to burn us a path through this lot.’
‘What help are we going to get out here?’ Jachen puffed, his sword strokes laboured as he smashed away yet another salvaged spear and stabbed his attacker in the neck.
Isak stopped still for a moment, leaving Suzerain Torl to chop through the wrist of man with a cleaver at Isak’s feet. The suzerain was puffing hard too, sounding like he was feeling his age at last, but he didn’t hesitate to redouble his efforts to give Isak a moment to think. Torl had fought alongside Lord Bahl often enough to know there was good cause.
Help? Not from the ancestors above us, he thought with a growing sense that an idea was looming. ‘Of course, bloody ancestors, ’ Isak cried suddenly.
‘What are you talking about?’ Jachen said.
‘What do we have here?’ Isak asked before answering his own question. ‘Nothing, that’s what; only the souls of ancestors in the sky and six empty temples.’
‘I hope you’ve got a point here.’ Jachen sounded more than a little concerned that Isak had gone insane.
‘More than that,’ Isak laughed. He saw the ranger, Jeil, on Jachen’s other side and raised his voice. ‘Jeil, do you remember when we got to Saroc and I had a look around to see if I could find something to help us?’
‘I—’ The ranger looked confused for a moment before understanding dawned. ‘That water elemental you woke? My Lord, you do remember that it attacked us, don’t you?’
‘A minor detail,’ Isak said cheerfully.
‘Lord Isak,’ interjected Jachen, ‘I recognise that tone of voice by now; it means you’re going to do something to worry me.’
Isak clapped him on the shoulder, causing Jachen to wince at the unintended force, then paused to drive back two attackers scrambling over the edge of the trench. ‘It looks like I chose right, then,’ he said in a more serious tone. ‘What I need from a commander is for him to worry when I forget to.’
Isak reached into both of his Crystal Skulls and his smile broadened as sizzling trails of energy began to snake over the surface of his armour. The air around him shimmered. ‘What you get in temples is Gods,’ he explained, as though to a room of schoolchildren. ‘Every temple and shrine is touched by the God when it’s consecrated -that’s what consecrated ground is. While the Gods might have been driven out of the city, some trace of that spirit must remain.’
He took a step back from the line and let two men fill his space. Behind him, Vesna ordered a company of Devoted troops to join the Farlan. The trench was filling fast, though blood and gore had made the edge treacherous. The stink of loosed bowels and perforated intestines filled the air, which shook to the sound of wordless shrieks.
Isak tried to clear his mind, ignoring the fearful shrieks echoing up from the writhing mass below him. He tried to black out the glee on the faces of those jumping deliberately down as the screams intensified, closing his eyes and focusing on the magic surrounding him, finding a selfish refuge there. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing now, but he didn’t want to see what would happen if he made a mistake.
‘My Lord, what are you doing?’ cried Jachen, butting an attacker with his steel helm as the man grabbed his sword arm. They were holding the line, but it was starting to get desperate. The losses at the other pickets had been too great.
‘I’ve woken one God here this evening by mistake,’ Isak muttered, trying to gain a grip over the magic flooding his body: he needed the energies to be settled, not raging. ‘Here, in their own temples, no minstrel’s magic will stop them incarnating.’
‘Them?’ Jachen almost shrieked. ‘You’re summoning Death and Nartis? Oh Gods, you’re going to summon Karkarn?’
‘Let’s see what we can see,’ Isak murmured and turned the magic inward to seep into his soul, drawing his senses out into the hot night air. He found his bearings as the confusion of battle and pain cut through him, stirring strange eddies in the drifting currents above. He could feel the warmth of latent power coming from the temples, the familiar call from Nartis’ house only a few-score yards away, though overshadowed by the looming shadow of Death, so close behind. After a moment he heard quiet voices echoing through the dark, then the scraping of knives and a low, bestial pant, just on the edge of hearing.
A moment of doubt made him pause as he recalled waking the Malviebrat in Saroc. Adding to their troubles really would be the final nail in their coffin. If, somehow, he brought something other than his intended target into being, there would be no going back.
He held his breath and listened, reaching out as far as he could with his mind to whatever lingered on that plain. A dark cloud hung over everything, and he had to push at every step, trying to find a way around the dulling effect of the minstrel’s now-visible magic. After another few dozen heartbeats, Isak made out a number of indistinct presences nearby. He couldn’t distinguish them, though he knew they were separate entities. Five stood closest to him. He felt their eyes on him as, lingering at the edges of his perception, they became aware of his questing tendrils of power.
Now they all turned towards him, and there was a taste to the air that sent a shiver through his body, a strange mix of anticipation and bloodlust that felt far from divine. Isak didn’t know what else there was to be found here - on sanctified ground they surely couldn’t be daemons . . . but he could sense a gratified ache coming from the beings watching over the slaughter. He wasn’t reassured, but now there was no going back.
As he hesitated, pondering the consequences, he got more from his surroundings: the all-consuming hatred radiating out from the horde about to overrun the dwindling lines of soldiers, and a growing terror even closer to hand. Screams cut through the fog of his mind and reverberated in his very bones as the fear of his comrades -his friends -sliced into his skin like hot knives.
He could no longer delay. Whatever the result, he had to try and save them.
Consequences mean nothing if you’re dead, said a soldier whose face he couldn’t remember, a memory from years back. Carel? It was the sort of thing the veteran would have said in a maudlin moment before stomping away to his bed, but when had it been? A second wave of screams, louder and more insistent, forced Isak to put the matter from his mind. There would be time to remember, if he lived through the next hour, and to do that he needed whatever fell creatures remained in this place, watching and waiting.
He reached out to the shadowy figures and touched them with his mind. At first they recoiled, rising up towards the clouds, then he opened the Skulls and directed their vast power towards the spirits.
Dear Gods, let my ignorance not prove the death of others, he prayed silently.
The entities drew closer, grasping fingers reaching greedily for the roaring streams of power. Isak gasped and shuddered at the searing pain of so much magic rushing through his body, suddenly fearful as lines of heat ran down his arms and legs. Like claws cutting to the bone, the energies from both Skulls took a sa
vage grip and Isak felt a distant cry ring out in the night. The scar on his chest burned like a flame and he realised Xeliath, wherever she was, was pained by what he’d done. Isak’s fear deepened.
His lips were cracked and blistered; they tore open, spilling blood down his chin. Only then did he realise he’d commingled Xeliath’s scream with his own. Somewhere he heard Aryn Bwr cry out, and felt his hand tighten around the hilt of Eolis. The twitch of movement was enough to awaken him to what was happening, reminding him of his struggle on Silvernight, when the last king tried to take his soul.
Isak drew in a huge gulp of air, and as his lungs filled, he felt energised. There was no time now for elegance, so instead he used every ounce of strength in his body to wrench the fat, pulsating streams of magic away from the suckling entities, slowing the flow of power. His mind fell back into his body in time to feel himself collapsing back onto the unyielding stone, but in that moment he felt a wash of relief as the burning pain of rampant magic fled from his body.
His eyes flashed open, but for a moment all Isak could see was a dark blur up above and faint bursts of light as his head smashed back against the ground. Lungs burning, he took a raspy gulp of air and flailed wildly until he was sitting upright again. He tried to focus his vision until he could blurrily make out soldiers jumping back from trench.
‘Piss and daemons, what in the name of Death are those?’ yelled a voice nearby. A name, Jachen? It hovered at the back of Isak’s mind as his fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. Jachen, Major Jachen: as awareness flooded back, he scrambled to his feet, coughing and heaving and blinking away the tears that were obscuring his sight.
