by Danie Ware
A scatter of rain made him shiver.
Lost amid the fused reeks of righteousness and testosterone, he felt both tiny and inept. He had about as much chance of kicking Big Boss Butt stuck in here as he did of growing a prop out his ass and learning to fly.
Chrissakes.
And to add to that, he was cold.
First his clothes, now his insulation? What next, was someone gonna peel off his fucking skin? More layers, more stuff lost.
It wasn’t fair.
His adrenal glands kicked, bringing him to his feet. He booted sulkily at a nearby statue’s ankle, and when it didn’t go Talos on him, he booted it again. Irritably, he flicked his oculars, and scanned the ruin: the silent siege engines, the expanding camp, the various patterned flags…
Yeah, this is one helluva vacation spot. Lemme just get a thingy of rock and a souvenir keychain.
His gaze took in the walltops, targetters idly crossing on the patrols. The archers’ spans were limited by the state of the ruin – there were huge, unsafe stretches of wall that they didn’t dare tread. Yeah, like he could fucking show them how it was done—
And then, of course, he had an idea.
Well okay, so the idea wasn’t new – but fuck it, he was bored, and he was restless, and he was feeling kinda useless in the middle of all this shit. And hell, it wasn’t like it didn’t need doing.
Grinning now, he shed his overcloak and clumsy footwear, and he left the mouldering Talos to his own devices. Fuck the cold; adrenaline and anticipation were warming him already, giving him a much-needed sense of purpose. His oculars scanned corners, seeking the ubiquitous secret doors, but they found only more stone. Apparently, the long-dead sage, whatever the hell his name’d been, hadn’t read the gaming manual.
Gleefully, he slipped across the overgrown cobbles of the courtyard and found the long side wall of the ruin. He passed the remains of the vast stone fireplace, ancient soot stains still visible. He passed the green and slippery innards of what must’ve been the well – Nivvy had despatched crews of scrubbers to reach down to the water. They’d probably find tunnels, seething with restless undead – hell, he was almost tempted to wait.
But no, that wasn’t why he was here.
At his shoulder now, the wall was cold and slippery, growing a reddish lichen, like rust. He eased along its length, his adrenaline thrumming and warming him through – Mostak’s silent guards had no fucking clue he was there.
Yeah, I can so still do this.
He reached the front of the defences without being seen.
So, whatcha got for us, Mistress Control Program?
Have a look, my Ecko, she said, though it could’ve been just his head. Tell me what you see…
Beside him, frost crept like death up the dark stone. He crouched at the ruin’s outermost edge and tuned his telos to the army below, scanning length by length until he’d seen everything they had to offer.
Come on then, fucker. No surprises, now.
There – the tumbledown curtain-wall halfway down the hillside, the ragged stone length that protected Vahl’s force. There – the Lord’s command tent, sigils and all, flanked by the horned and hooved vialer. There – the paddocks of the cavalry, the racks of carts and animal cages. There – one, lone stores tent pitched a sizeable distance from the rest of the site. And there – the endless, untidy sprawl of bedrolls that was the homeless people of the city, driven beyond—
No, that wasn’t right.
Now, just you hang on a fucking second…
Telos focusing, he looked closer.
It’d taken Mostak’s force everything they had to cross the plains – and they were trained soldiers, almost to the last man and woman. They’d also brought no baggage train – their supplies had come from Amos.
Which was why they’d been able to move so fast.
Ecko was no tactician, but he wasn’t dumb as he was asshole-looking. Lumbering carts and cannon-fodder-foot simply did not shift their butts that quickly. Even the cavalry, armoured as they were…
What the hell? Daemonic magick? Portal power? They’ve invented the combustion engine? Oh, come on…
And he saw two things.
The first one, he clocked almost by accident, and he had to stop and think – to remember.
He could see the vialer, the beasties-in-charge, and he could see a large glut of Amal’s crafted monsters – but he’d swear on his right bollock that their numbers had fallen since he’d seen them in Fhaveon.
And stuff was missing. Where were all the stone things? The golems that had torn themselves from Fhaveon’s walls?
He wondered if they were sneaking round the back route, or had gone in through the ubiquitous underground tunnels – but he had a feeling he knew exactly where they were. They’d chased down under Fhaveon and were gleefully stomping the city’s population. Amethea had told them this much.
But what about the centaurs? They didn’t fit down fucking tunnels. Where the hell were they?
And, more importantly, why would Ythalla split her force like that? Fighting a war on two fronts was fucking stupid enough – but a war on three?
What the hell was she doing?
That, though, wasn’t even the biggest problem.
As Ecko looked over the lurking force, carefully studying, he found he could see a peculiar, distinctive difference in the faces of the people – cavalry and foot alike. They had a darkness, now, an elation, a seething steam that rose from shoulders and gazes and foreheads. They had a burning sense of purpose, and a sheer, savage glee in what they were doing.
They no longer looked human.
They looked… visionary, somehow, like they were about to experience full-on Rapture. Like their Gods had come for them, descending in tongues of flame or whatever the hell it was; like they were rocking out to bad Norwegian metal as they found the true heart of Satan.
The Kas, whatever they were, had come.
But even that wasn’t what caught his attention, wasn’t the thing that froze him to his vantage, struggling to breathe.
Holy shit.
He backed up, rubbing his eyes, but it was still there – the image seared on his forebrain like some mental brand. There was the camp – if that’s what you’d call it – of the city’s jumbled homeless; the scattered bedrolls, the mess and the poverty. The place where the children had been gathered.
It was significantly smaller than it had been.
And sitting there, in the heart of the muck and the cold, there were the shivering huddles of those who remained – those who had once been the young people of Fhaveon.
Ecko had seen their eyes, their expressions.
Those that were left were old men and women, frail and drained, their lined and shrunken faces hypnotised by the blacklight of the Kas.
* * *
Nivrotar, Lord of Amos, stood austere in the light of her command tent, perfect and carved in monochrome. She wore soft, blackened leathers and a long knife across her belt, neither of them, Amethea suspected, remotely ornamental. Her expression was severe and her hair in a tight and shining-cold braid.
Flanking her, Rhan had his forehead in one hand, was rubbing his skin as if it hurt. Mostak paced back and forth before the pair of them like he’d never again be still. His outsize lamellar armour rattled and his hands twitched, as if reaching for a weapon – or a throat.
He said, “Why did you delay?”
The bright winter sunlight dappled patterns on the tent’s fabric, though the stealing wind was bitterly cold. Amethea quelled an urge to shove her numb hands up her sleeves.
The Lord of Amos smiled. “Your fear gave you the speed you needed to survive,” she said. “A good choice, Commander, and a brave one.” The smile held no mockery. “Giving up control is not easy. And regaining it, once lost, takes a miracle.”
Mostak snorted, unappeased. “This is your strategy, my Lord of Amos—”
“This fight belongs to all of us.” In her dark armour, she reminded
Amethea of old paintings, of histories lost – she seemed anomalous, somehow, some figment of the past.
“We face our own troops,” she said, “our friends, fallen to Vahl’s lure. We face the blight; we face the end of the Varchinde entire. Commander, if we fail, we will die up here to the last man and woman. I have stores, fodder, fuel,” she glanced at Amethea, “remedies – but we are besieged, and our time is limited.”
“Triqueta will come.” Amethea’s voice held a squeak. She forced it down. “I know she will.”
“I believe she will,” Nivrotar said. Her face flickered a faint smile, though at what, Amethea couldn’t tell. “Larred Jade refused Triqueta once, which is precisely why he won’t do so again. Guilt is a powerful thing.” The smile deepened. “All things happen for a reason, little priestess. You, of all people, know that.”
Little priestess.
All things happen for a reason.
Now, those words and the memories associated with them made her angry. How dare you—!
Beside her, Rhan suddenly coughed, a puff of startled vapour, and then doubled over, fingers to his temples. His face was lined with ash and shadow, he was shrunken and shaking, exhausted to a point she’d never seen – but he had a determination to him, was still fighting.
His voice like gravel, he said, “They’re taunting me – I can hear them, all the time. Pulling at me: E Rhan Khavaghakke. I’m like the odd child left out of the game, the adult that’s missing the party—”
“Ironic,” Mostak commented, his tone like a slap.
“Oh, shut up.” Rhan glanced sideways at the Tan Commander and the response had a flicker of his old, sardonic humour. “If you can’t find a way to block them, don’t make smart remarks. You can’t damned well hear it.”
“I’m Valiembor,” Mostak said. “I can feel it in my very bones.”
That brought a silence, as if they all strained to hear the voices of the Kas down there on the hillside, the monsters mustered by the curtain-wall. The creatures below them watched with a hunger that was palpable, even from here.
Amethea shivered.
“So, what now?” Rhan pulled himself back to his feet. “The camp is set up, stores and hospice ready. We just sit here until dusk?”
“We have numbers and ground.” Mostak’s pacing had an edge of mania, as though the tent were somehow airless. “We should strike back. Send bretir, co-ordinate the assault with Roviarath hitting Vahl in the flank. We can finish this – and we can win.”
Nivrotar chuckled, the sound as cold and bright as the winter morning. “It’s the Kas themselves that await us, Tan Commander,” she said. “I wish it were that easy.”
* * *
The parley came under the traditional yellow flag. Against the bleak hillside it snapped brilliant, like the final piece of the world’s lost sunshine.
Selana Valiembor, Lord of the fallen Fhaveon, ruler of the dead Varchinde; Kas Vahl Zaxaar.
She rose ahead of her two companions, rode with a palpable confidence, a new blaze of righteousness that reminded Rhan forcibly of Phylos. Young though she was, her Archipelagan heritage was suddenly visible in her bearing and demeanour – and Vahl himself seemed to float about her like a cloak, a rising flare of power and strength that she wore only to make herself beautiful. Ink seethed in her skin.
To one side of her rode the military commander Ythalla, the old soldier grey-haired, spear-straight and apparently unchanged. She carried two ink stripes on her cheekbones like war paint, and she bore the truce flag with a certain, silent contempt.
To Selana’s other side rode Brother Mael.
The old scribe’s presence hit Rhan like a fist. Mael had been the last good man in the city, a man whose courage and insight had saved Fhaveon – Mael had humbled him, dammit. Now, the old man rode arrogant, younger, his bearing almost mocking. He’d lost his pince-nez, and his face was sharp and shrewd, cruel.
He met Rhan’s gaze with his brothers’ humour, daring him.
A long time, my estavah. Tell me, how have you been?
Kas Tamh Gabryl.
The name was like claws in his skin.
His armour burned and battered, Rhan came to the ruins’ outermost edge to look down at his family, his brothers – as if he could, and would, defend the great ruin single-handed.
Beside him stood Tan Commander Mostak, Selana’s uncle.
Behind them, Nivrotar waited with her maps and her catapults, watching.
But the Kas intended no treachery.
Selana came forwards, Mael at her side. They were tiny against the hillside, fragments under the sky. As Rhan watched them approach, he could see the writhe of the ink in their skin, the slowly circling serpents that moved with their thoughts and needs and passions…
Images tumbled, tangling.
Four hundred years. Vahl screaming in blood and flame and steam and fury, assailing the walls of Fhaveon herself. Fire over the water, death across the plains. Samiel charging Rhan – “If you fail me, you will be as nothing.” Phylos on the clifftop. Falling through chaos, rising through water. Fhaveon, House Valiembor, generations of children. Each crying babe in his hands, and his sworn protection. Now the last of the line grown to power and stood there, his brother in her eyes…
The images were bright, vivid, gone in a flash. They left him shaking – so much was layered in this moment, as if everything that had ever happened was somehow focusing here…
“I would speak in peace,” Selana said. Her voice carried without effort, as though the wind itself did her bidding.
Mostak called in return, the words unreal: “I will hear you in peace.” The litany was a human thing, ludicrous, tiny against the vastness of time and ruin.
Selana walked her horse a step, turned her face upwards.
“Then hear me, my friend, my defender, my brother, my uncle.” Her voice was her own, clear and sweet – yet under it, he could hear the E Rhan Khavaghakke that had been thrumming bass in his ears, pulling at his heart and soul.
“I admire you,” she called, “all of you! Your resistance has been strong. You’ve come far, and fought well, and your courage is commendable. What you’ve achieved is astonishing.” Charm and sincerity wove through her words, were borne on the morning air. She called love up to them, opened her arms and her heart. “But you know this is folly. However proudly you acquit yourselves, this will be your end.” Regret distilled from the words. “You cannot face us, and by the death of the sun tomorrow, every one of you will lie dying.”
The word was like a slap. From his vantage, Rhan could see the heat in her shoulders, in her eyes. And beneath her earnestness, he could hear something else – the challenge aimed at him alone.
Ah, my estavah, you’re so tired, and your attunement so weak. You’ve been running, protecting, healing, chasing down my hunting packs, defending your kine. I’ve been keeping you busy, little brother, distracted. I’ve been wearing you down, and your weariness is obvious. You cannot face me, any more than they can.
Selana spoke with him, the two voices twisting, one upon another, a writhe of sound.
“Yet I don’t wish you harm,” she said. “I want to offer you what I’ve always offered you, what my family has always offered you – home, security, wealth, a hand in salvation. Love.”
Love. Mutterings flowed across the hilltop, crept around the ruined walls.
“I make no secret as to who and what I’ve become, but I’ve done this for you, for Fhaveon, for the future of the world herself. I am Vahl, I am Selana, I am Phylos. I am the last child of Saluvarith and I am your friend. You can trust me!” The word was a plea, tugging at all of them.
Yet Rhan could still hear his brother. You know how we live. We’re drawn to those with strong emotion – ambition, grief, anger – to those we can understand, work within. You murdered her father, forced her mother, damned her city. What did you think she would do, Rhan? Of course she would come to me, and willingly, at the end.
His denial was reflex:
Damn you! I didn’t hurt Demisarr, or Valicia…
As if in answer, the Lord walked her horse forward another step, and her voice rose to a paean.
“My people, people of Fhaveon! Of Amos! Of the Varchinde entire! I’m not your enemy, I never was!” On the hilltop, bodies tensed. “Please,” Selana said, “you don’t need to end your days in blight and starvation, or in war and pain. I can help you. I beg you…” and now she rose in her stirrups, calling to them, “…lay down your weapons, your flags, your drums, and come to me.” She was their mother, their daughter, their sister, their lover, everything they had ever wanted. “I’ll welcome you, I’ll embrace and forgive you. All of you who choose to leave the ruin, the old ways, the stagnation and death of the Varchinde…” Rhan’s name was loud though she didn’t speak it, “…if you would have a new life, and progress – come down to me now. You’ll be named as estavah, as brother and sister, and a place will be made for you when the world begins again.”
On the hilltop, no one even breathed. Shiftings flickered among the gathered warriors, but no foot came forward.
“And make no mistake,” she said, “the world will begin again.” She sat down in her saddle and gestured at the army behind her. “It’s why we saved the children.”
The word had an edge; under its touch, Rhan flinched and shuddered. He could still hear the soul-call, his brothers pulling at him, but he ignored it and watched Selana carefully.
The young Lord studied the hilltop for a moment, then turned her horse full circle and went to wait beside Mael, her head lowered. He patted her shoulder, the gesture so human, so familiar and ordinary, that it pulled at Rhan’s heart.
Ythalla took her Lord’s place, armour shining. The old warrior’s voice rose dark with an undertone of power – in Ythalla, the Kas were both eager and obvious.
