Mother of Daemons

by David Hair

  He was leafing through the governor’s papers when Era Hyson and Vorn Detabrey entered, followed swiftly by Ramon Sensini, whose stolen windship had landed minutes ago in the main square to great applause. The other ships had all been grounded and those who’d been trying to escape were currently being detained in one of the ballrooms. The more senior, including some of Norostein’s wealthiest pure-blood magi, were under arrest; they’d mostly eschewed keeping their gnosis up to martial standards in favour of a life of luxury and ease, so there’d been little resistance. They were probably safer here anyway: the city was filled with people who wanted them all hung.

  ‘How’re we doing?’ he asked Mercer.

  ‘We’re distributing food,’ Vann reported, ‘and that’s taking the edge off the riot. Impounding the windcraft and everything on them has pissed everyone off, but we’ve got control, for now at least.’

  Seth looked at Ramon. ‘Governor Myron?’

  ‘I had someone aboard his ship when it went up,’ Ramon smirked. ‘They set fire to it and leaped before it exploded. There were no survivors.’

  Seth met his friend’s eye. ‘Give your agent my commendation.’

  ‘It’d only go to her head,’ Ramon replied. ‘So, we can feed the lads a while longer. How many of Myron’s people are prepared to defend the walls?’

  ‘All of them claim to be,’ Detabrey noted, ‘but whether that’s honest I can’t say.’

  ‘We’ll give them the chance,’ Seth said. ‘We’re cornered here – even the rats should be motivated to fight.’ He looked north, towards Lowertown. ‘The Shihad have been making the change in sultan for the past week, but they’ll attack any day now. We need to look to our defences again.’

  Ramon raised a hand. ‘Regarding that,’ he said gravely, ‘when we overflew them on our return, there was a large formation of men approaching the Shihad camp from the east.’

  Hyson and Detabrey groaned, and inwardly Seth did too, but he was also puzzled. ‘From the east? Are you sure? The only way the Shihad reinforcements should approach is from the north, down the King’s Road from Jastenberg. That’s where the rest of their forces are. Even if new men were coming in from Verelon through Trachen Pass, they’d still come that way.’

  Ramon agreed. ‘The only road leading here from the east is the coastal track that winds around the alps from the south up from Silacia and Rimoni.’

  ‘Then is this a Rimoni army, come to our aid?’ Era Hyson asked hopefully.

  Ramon was shaking his head and looking worried. ‘I wish. I’m afraid that I recognised the banners. For the past five years, my legion has been fighting alongside the Becchio Mercenary Guild against a Rimoni army full of men who fight like savages. Long story short, we’ve been driven from the south. They’re led by someone known only as “the Lord of Rym”.’

  Seth looked at Ramon and saw his eyes were burning with an unusual intensity. This Lord of Rym means something personal to him, Seth guessed, but he left that for now.

  ‘Then our enemy has been reinforced,’ he said aloud. ‘It’s a damned good thing we’ve dealt with Myron.’

  ‘It is,’ Ramon agreed, ‘but if the Lord of Rym is here to aid our enemies, we’re in worse trouble than ever.’

  *

  When Waqar Mubarak crawled through the cellar hatch and out into the mud, the frigid air hit him like a slap to the face. He rose and found himself eyeball to eyeball with the elephant Rani, who was sitting under a canvas sending plumes of white steam into the starry firmament. She made a grumbling noise, blinking at him as he stroked her trunk.

  Latif followed him up the ladder. The impersonator looked tired but sounded feverishly alert as he whispered, ‘My Prince, I wish you didn’t have to leave us.’

  ‘What choice do I have?’ Waqar asked. ‘I can hardly stand up and denounce Xoredh, and every moment I’m here just endangers us more.’

  ‘But the task you’ve set yourself . . . I wish we could aid you somehow.’

  ‘The task’: killing the sultan, my cousin Xoredh, a daemon in human guise. He sighed. ‘I’ll do it, this I swear,’ he said. ‘You should leave too.’

  ‘We can’t: this is Yuros,’ Latif replied. ‘There’s nowhere we can go that’s safer than here.’

  Waqar disagreed, but of course, he was a mage, better able to fend for himself in the wild. There was no way these men could, especially not with an elephant they couldn’t bear to part with. He patted Rani’s trunk fondly – even he’d grown to appreciate the beast’s patience, intelligence and loyalty. He also respected the courage of Latif and his friends: elephants always attracted the enemy’s fire in battle. They’d faced Rondian archers, magi and ballistae and somehow, through a mix of courage, luck and knowing when to run, come through alive.

  All attributes I’m going to need.

  ‘Then keep your heads down,’ he exhorted, taking Latif’s hand and pressing a signet ring into it; he had only one left now. ‘If you’re discovered, this might buy you a sympathetic ear with some of the court.’

  Then he crept out into the night, past the slumbering elephant teams and into a muddy garbage-filled alley. The air was bitter, the moon shrouded and the light poor, but with gnostic night-sight he was able to ghost through Lowertown, a maze-like sea of broken stone houses covered in snow and ice. The upper tiers of Copperleaf and Ringwald, still unconquered, loomed above, dimly lit by the cloud-shrouded moon.

  He made his way down the slope towards the outer walls, passing few patrols, for he was still well inside the vast Shihadi camp. Anyone he saw was completely anonymous, enveloped in scarves and blankets, anything to keep the bitter chill at bay.

  He reached Lowertown Lake unchallenged, but as he neared the damaged outer walls, he took more care, for only foraging parties were allowed outside the walls. Moving cautiously, he wended his way forward, crouching behind the charred remains of a fallen brick wall, as a patrol of Shihadi soldiers swaggered past. They didn’t look his way, too engrossed with boasting about the drink and women they’d had during the celebrations. By Waqar’s calculations, the army had devoured a month’s supplies in one week; there couldn’t be much food left.

  ‘Ahm bless Sultan Xoredh,’ one laughed, ‘a more generous lord than Rashid ever was.’

  The officer cuffed the man’s ear and growled, ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead, you fool, even in jest. Rashid was beloved of Ahm. He is seated even now in Paradise, watching us all.’

  Are you in Paradise, Rashid? Waqar wondered, or deep in Shaitan’s Pit? I could make a case either way.

  Once they’d moved on, he hurried through the moonlit night. Deserters were executed without trial – not that he feared the soldiers, just the magi who’d come after them – but no one stopped him. He reached the mass of buildings behind a section of breached walls, half-wrecked Rondian taverns and whorehouses, and judging by the racket, functioning largely as they always had. There were women of all races and ages, catering to all tastes, and no shortage of alcohol – that might be a sin in Ahm’s eyes but soldiers still drowned themselves in it, along with the opium that bedevilled the army.

  Two men emerged from an alley to accost him, footpads from Dhassa, he guessed by their accents, but kinesis-enhanced fists quickly saw to them. Easily bypassing a cordon of guards huddled around braziers, their gazes turned inwards, he reached the breach. Discipline had grown lax under Xoredh.

  What game is he playing now he’s the ruler? Waqar wondered. Does he still care about this war? Did he ever?

  He climbed a broken section of wall, used kinesis to leap the moat and stole into the flat expanse of the killing zone. It had been cleared of bodies, but there were still pyres burning here and there, and mounds of charred bones taller than houses.

  Beyond that was the forest, where Xoredh had set wide patrols to guard against the mounted Rondians who still plagued the supply lines, but Waqar was lucky: only minutes later he was under cover and undetected. He was wondering where to seek Tarita when he saw a line of hor
ses emerge from the shattered main gates of the city. The horses were white and therefore from the sultan’s court, and both they and the riders were encased in a nimbus of gnostic shielding, haloed like the saints of Koredom.

  It’s Xoredh, he realised. Where’s he going tonight? His interest deepened when the sultan’s party didn’t take the north road but went east. There’s nothing there but a back road to the coast, then it turns south into Silacia, he remembered. Is he going to meet someone? Is this my opportunity already?

  Impulsively he followed, using the gnosis to avoid blundering into men or trees and to bolster his speed. He kept the riders in sight as they wound through farmlands for some three miles until they reached a burnt-out manor where the paddocks were filled with rows of huddled shapes, dark mounds dotting the snow. He was wondering what they were – Haystacks, perhaps? – when they all rose soundlessly.

  He stared, horrified, as his night sight showed him hundreds of emaciated living corpses, their eyes a luminous black, like the men Asiv Fariddan had enslaved in Mollachia. But these wore some strange Yurosi mail, a style he’d not encountered before.

  Possessed men, like we fought in Mollachia – but from where?

  Waqar crept forward through the undergrowth until he was close enough to see that his cousin’s guards were as black-eyed as the dead-alive men they’d encountered. Xoredh had evidently been spreading his blessing.

  He preys even on his friends . . . A wave of nausea washed over him. This is just like Mollachia and Asiv Fariddan all over again.

  Equally horrified and intrigued, he moved closer, regretting his lack of clairvoyance and feeling dangerously exposed, but everyone’s attention was on the sultan.

  From the wrecked manor house emerged a great hulking masked being, a construct type he was familiar with – and then he went rigid, for he recognised the very ogre who had captured Jehana. He was taller, straighter and more lordly than Tarita’s friend, and clad in ornate crested armour, but he wore the mask Waqar had seen in Cuz Sarkan:, that of a green scaled skull with a scarlet snake-tongue. His shining eyes were not black, but tarnished gold, and as he approached, Xoredh knelt – an obeisance no sultan should ever have to make.

  ‘My Lord of Rym,’ Xoredh started, with none of his usual superiority. The title puzzled Waqar, for surely the ancient capital of Rimoni was empty, a vast ruin left deserted by imperial decree. There was no ‘Lord of Rym’.

  ‘Rise, Sultan of Kesh,’ the huge construct boomed. ‘Call me Cadearvo. Are you ready for us?’

  Waqar frowned. Cadearvo is from the heathen Book of Kore. He’s the Angel of Famine . . .

  ‘We’re more than ready,’ Xoredh replied, still sounding subservient, but adding, ‘We needed you last month.’

  ‘The previous sultan refused our Master’s aid and even this army takes time to move,’ Cadearvo growled. ‘Be grateful we’re here now. How swiftly can we integrate our forces?’

  Integrate? What does that mean? Waqar wondered, straining his senses – then he blanched. Do they mean to infect the entire Shihad with daemon ichor? The thought almost stopped his heart.

  In matter-of-fact tones, Xoredh replied, ‘I suggest we march them one hazarabam at a time, unarmed, into your camp – we’ll pretend it’s a celebration for their valour, or some such nonsense.’

  No, Waqar thought in horror, that cannot be permitted—

  But Xoredh was still speaking. ‘And you have how many men?’

  ‘I bring you fifty thousand possessed beings,’ the Lord of Rym said grandly. ‘They do not need to sleep or rest, and they fight like savages. How many do you have?’

  Fifty thousand? Dear Ahm . . .

  ‘I have three hundred thousand men here,’ Xoredh replied, ‘and another two hundred thousand at the southern end of the Augenheim Pass; we can integrate them in due course.’

  ‘Enough to conquer the whole of Yuros,’ the Lord of Rym said lightly, ‘should we need to.’ He dropped his voice, and so did Xoredh.

  No longer able to hear, Waqar cursed and looked around until he spotted a narrow ditch that might get him nearer. He slipped from his hiding place—

  Crack!

  The sound of the stick breaking under his heel filled the night.

  Every head turned his way, every black eye lancing through the frozen air to skewer him. He felt each stabbing glance like a blow, from the unmoving, lordly, inhuman visage of Cadearvo to the ferocity on the ruined faces of the dead men to Xoredh’s surprise and anger – but attacking him was impossible: he had to run—

  Waqar spun around. Streaming energy into his limbs, he propelled himself into the darkness, concentrating his shielding behind him. Mage-bolts were already slashing past him and battering his shields when he heard a bloodcurdling yowl from a thousand throats and the ground suddenly shook as every man in the fields behind launched into pursuit. Even worse, he heard Xoredh’s horses whinnying and the thud of heavy hooves – and something shrieked like Shaitan in the night sky above.

  Seeking the cover of the trees, he ran, leaping yards at a time thanks to kinesis – but many of those hunting him could do the same and energy blasts constantly sniped at his heels.

  Hooves pounding on the road were drawing near; he’d soon be overtaken – then a beast snarled, far too close, and he whipped round just in time to see a pair of black-eyed drooling dogs closing in, jaws agape. He planted his feet and blasted energy from either hand: their skulls igniting, revealing the outline of bone inside the lit-up flesh – but there was a third hound he’d not seen, already airborne and arcing towards him—

  —as another blast of light burned incandescent, ripping down from above to tear the third hound apart, and Tarita’s voice called urgently, ‘Up here!’

  Looking up at a flurry of feathers and light and guessing her intent, he put all his energy into a kinesis-fuelled jump. Tarita helped, pulling him towards her, until his flailing hand found her bony shoulders and he was able to grab her.

  The golden-winged roc bearing them both rose and tore through the raking branches of the pines and into the sky – and with a great whoop! of joy, Waqar suddenly realised it was his roc – his own Ajniha, who’d flown away weeks ago. Tarita enveloped them in illusory veils and kept the bird low, skimming the tree-tops.

  Despite the freezing air stinging his cheeks and fingers, Waqar held tight, marvelling at his rescue and trembling at what he’d learned, but eventually he leaned forward, pressed his mouth to her ear and called, ‘Where are we going?’

  Tarita jerked her head in acknowledgement and shouted, ‘We’re nearly there—’ and seconds later they were landing beside a damaged building, another manor house. Waqar jolted from Ajniha’s back and hit the ground, but was immediately on his feet and hugging his beloved bird, stroking her giant beaked head and crying, ‘Shukran, you wonderful lady, shukran!’

  Tarita slid from the saddle with an ironic, ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘And as for you—’ He strode to the Merozain, picked her up and bear-hugged her hard enough to push the air from her lungs. ‘You’re a miracle – truly you are. How did you know to find me there?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she replied, blushing at his fervour. ‘I was watching the city. When I saw the sultan leave, I followed – when you blundered into it all, I couldn’t have been more surprised.’

  At last he released her and looked around, surveying his surroundings. ‘Where are we? How did you find Ajniha?’

  Tarita curtseyed like a dancer acknowledging her audience. ‘I needed to find out what was going on so I pretended I was a Keshi mage and infiltrated the Shihad camp. I discovered the traitor prince – that’s you – had a price on his head. They hoped you’d come back for your roc, so they locked her away to bait a trap. So I stole her,’ she added nonchalantly.

  ‘And you managed it without getting caught? You got clean away?’

  ‘Of course.’ She handed him Ajniha’s reins and led the way into tumbledown stables off the courtyard, stopping to point out a h
eraldic emblem carved on the doors. ‘As for this place, it’s Anborn Manor.’ She said this grandly, as if Waqar should know what that meant.

  ‘Um . . . which is?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘This is the family home of my mistress, the great Lady Elena Anborn, and her nephew Alaron Mercer – I presume you’ve heard of him?’

  The Merozain leader, Waqar thought, startled. ‘But the Shihad know of it?’

  ‘Of course,’ Tarita said, and even in the darkness he could see her eyes turning stony. ‘They ransacked it, they pissed and shat everywhere, and then they set it alight, because they’re that sort of stupid. But I guess there must have been someone with half a brain who recognised its use as a winter shelter for wide patrols because they did at least get the fires put out and made some effort at cleaning up.’

  ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘My mistress told me about her childhood many times, so I knew where to look. I’ve got wards set on the approaches now and I keep my cooking fire hidden. It’s been my base for the last few weeks. Now, how about you?’

  Waqar gave her a brief outline – after all, hiding in a cellar with an elephant crew didn’t require a lot of narrative – and in any case, what he’d just witnessed was much more important. ‘So, my cousin – sorry, I mean our exalted Sultan Xoredh, may he live for ever – is working with this Cadearvo, the Lord of Rym, and they’re going to infect everyone – the entire Shihad,’ he concluded, ‘and somehow, I have to stop them.’

  ‘I thought you needed to save your sister?’

  ‘I can do both.’

  Tarita grimaced. ‘Can you?’

  ‘The whole Shihad are going to be enslaved to our enemy – that’s half a million men!’

  ‘We still don’t know what Ervyn Naxius wants your sister for,’ she retorted. ‘Do you think that’s going to be any less dangerous to us all?’

  Waqar went to reply, then hesitated. Naxius wielded both power and creativity: he was capable of anything. And honour demanded he find his sister.