Mother of Daemons
Page 22
They took the back door and sloshed their way down the south alley towards their section of the walls. Men saluted as they passed and a cluster of diminutive street-sellers, none older than ten, scattered at the sight of officers’ insignia.
Vania was prattling about whether she fancied becoming a nun for real after the war. ‘I reckon I’ve a better chance of getting laid in a habit, frankly. I got propositioned more times during those riots than most nights in a packed tavern.’
‘So not exactly a calling from Kore, then?’
‘Of course it is: Kore knows I deserve more sex after what I’ve been through. If vows of chastity mean I get nailed more regularly, then it just proves that Kore works in mysterious—’
She shut up as Ramon suddenly raised a hand: shouting had broken out and torches were flaring along the outer walls. Now he could hear the clomping of boots on stone – and then more shouting, this time in Keshi.
‘Come on,’ he told Vania, already running towards the serrated tower that was the keystone of his section of the wall. Calling into the aether, he summoned Melicho. They arrived to find him waiting in the cupola with a squad of archers.
‘What is it, Mel?’ he called as they emerged from the stairwell.
‘Some guy tried to rush the wall,’ the lanky battle-mage replied in a perplexed voice. ‘He was yelling something – in Rondian – about “plague” – so we shot him.’
Ramon blanched ‘Plague?’ Disease in any walled city was a horror; whatever infected the besiegers didn’t spare those within. ‘Holy Hel, that’s the last thing we need.’
‘It’s inevitable, boss,’ Vania pointed out. ‘Come spring, if we’ve not lifted this siege, the vermin’ll outnumber us ten to one – you know what it’s like.’
Ramon did: three years of fighting the Lord of Rym down south had shown him the full topography of Hel.
‘Good work, Mel. Maybe they were attempting to spread the sickness by using an infected deserter. Don’t let any others in.’
10
Sancta Esmera
The Dark Confessor
Brother Ulcan was an Argundian priest of the seventh century who preyed upon his flock, using the secrets of the confessional against his own congregation. He was eventually found to have instigated four murders and dozens of other crimes, despite never having involved himself directly. At his trial he famously declared, ‘Once I have heard a man or woman’s confession, I own their soul. I have the divinely given right to pass judgement.’
ANNALS OF PALLAS, 756
Pallas, Rondelmar
Febreux 936
The first mage-bolts nearly ended everything.
Moments before the fires of Hel were unleashed, Lyra was peering down the dimly lit aisle of the church at Ari Frankel. Unlike when she’d freed him two months ago, he looked oddly uncertain. He exchanged a few words with the hard-faced brunette and it was clear to Lyra that whatever she’d said had appalled him.
That was the only warning she got before the woman spun to face her as the two leonine men with her raised their hands, periapts blazed and the three of them tore the air apart. A beam of azure light flashed towards her, flanked by two balls of billowing flame.
She didn’t stand a chance as death flashed towards her.
*
The Kaden Rats were fast – but preparation was what mattered and Basia de Sirou hadn’t trusted them from the start. Working in unison, she and Exilium hurled themselves between Lyra and the deadly hail of gnosis-fire sweeping towards them. Her shields flashed scarlet but caught the mage-bolt, while Exilium’s wards took the brunt of the fireballs. Intense heat washed over them, the air became flame and Basia’s mortal eyes were dazzled.
But her inner eye sensed further strikes and she poured more energy into her shields, blocking another mage-bolt aimed at Lyra. The queen had frozen for an instant, but now she was ducking behind the pews.
Then the brunette Rat – Braeda herself, if the posters were accurate – shot up into the rafters, while her bulky flankmen rushed forward with drawn blades. Gnostic sight made sense of their silhouettes and the lines of force, and with kinesis strengthening her arm against the first pulverising blow, Basia threw herself into fighting for her life.
*
‘No—’ Ari shrieked, as the treacherous attack was launched. ‘Nooo – I came to talk!’ he howled down the length of the building as Braeda shot into the shadowy rafters above and the Schlessen brothers stampeded towards the queen and her guards. ‘I swear this isn’t my doing—’
No one was listening – no one cared. Braeda, aiming into the pews, snapped off another burst of mage-bolts and Ari heard a woman cry out in sudden agony.
They’ve turned me into a backstabbing liar – they’ve made me complicit in regicide!
His fury made him want to storm down the aisle, but that would be certain death, so all he could do was back away from the blazing violence unfolding in this holy place.
Then the door behind him opened—
*
And the instant they moved, crossbows started cracking from the far side, their bolts hammering into shields, and even worse, dark shapes wreathed in pale violet light erupted from the graveyard between Dirklan’s men and the church. The oncoming Volsai pounded them with mage-bolts, but to Dirklan’s alarm, the shambling figures didn’t fall.
Walking dead! Hidden from scrying by the soil . . . Sylvan gnosis to hide the disturbed ground . . . reanimated, so no nervous system to feel pain . . . Necromancy – with something more . . .
He turned to Mort Singolo. ‘Come on – we need every man.’ He whipped out his longsword and with the Axeman bounding at his side, flew into the fray. The first of his Volsai had struck the dead men and the furious fight would have been over in seconds had their foes been mortal. Some Volsai used kinesis to leap, but Dirklan heard the crack of ballistae and three eight-foot shafts ripped through the night, spitting two of his people and bearing them to the ground.
‘Holy Hel,’ Mort swore, ‘I hate it when the other guys prepare better than we do.’
But Dirklan’s venators were over the field now: one had already landed on the church roof and the rider had leaped into the bell-tower. Three others soared towards the buildings from whence the ballista shafts had come, unleashing glowing balls of flame.
Dirklan and Mort vaulted a low fence, only to be confronted by a trio of dead men – they might have been little more than rotting flesh clinging to bones, but they stood up to the kinesis and mage-bolts with preternatural resilience, like thorn-bushes weathering a storm, bending but not breaking, until one of Mort’s massive axes crunched through the first and the dead man fell apart in two pieces. But more were rising from the graves and the ballistae shafts were still flying and inside the church all Dirklan could sense was Basia’s rising panic . . . and one dreadful thought: The queen is down.
*
The mage-bolt from the rafters that pierced the edges of her bodyguards’ wards and struck home left Lyra howling in pain and clutching her shoulder, the fabric seared away and her flesh blackened. The stench of roasted meat rose as the queen huddled there, her face contorted in agony.
That glimpse was all Basia could spare, because the two man-mountains were battering her and Exilium like madmen, their blows almost too fast to counter. Her grip became numb from the impacts of previous blows – then her blade shattered into steel splinters as her opponent’s broadsword tore through her leather jerkin and chainmail, carving open her side. The man, a Schlessen, she thought, grunted in satisfaction and swept his blade back again.
This time, s
he thought, I really am dead . . .
Then Exilium moved as only he could: somehow gliding aside from a vicious blow and launching a sidewise kick that battered his own foe’s sword aside – but instead of slashing at his suddenly unprotected enemy, he tossed his blade upwards, caught it halfway down the blade in a spear-grip and threw it – at the man about to cleave Basia’s skull.
His aim was straight and true, taking her man in the right eye and transfixing the brain.
The sight of the dead man unhinged his colleague; he gaped in horror, screamed and then swung wildly at the unarmed Exilium, who swayed to one side – but then the man caught himself and with Basia still stunned, her side torn and bleeding, he went for the queen. His blade crashed down at Lyra, just as she twisted aside in desperation, the sword crunching into the floorboards beside Lyra’s head and catching in the timber. The queen, still grimacing in pain, rolled away – just as a mage-bolt from the rafters struck the pew she’d darted behind, leaving it charred.
Exilium blasted back at the unseen mage while Basia launched herself at the enemy. Before he could wrench his blade free, she’d slashed at the man’s wrist with her sword-stump – it might have been shortened, but it was still razor-sharp – and severed his hand. The fingers were still twitching as it dropped to the floor, but the man went rigid, gaping first at the blood fountaining from his wrist – and then at the hilt of Basia’s broken sword, which she slammed into his chest, pumping raw energy into it until his ribcage exploded and he crashed to the floor.
Basia threw herself over Lyra to shield her before looking up to see Braeda Kaden’s frustrated snarl turn to fright, for Exilium had leaped at her using kinesis, his sword flying back to his hand. He grasped a rafter with one hand, then struck again, driving Braeda to drop to the ground then following as she sprinted towards the door where Frankel was cowering, his face aghast, surrounded by dead men, lurching corpses that were more bone than flesh.
Basia twisted to send a bolt at Frankel, but instead it struck the head of one of the corpses, blasting the skull apart. It dropped, but more dead kept entering from the rear of the church.
‘Exilium!’ she shouted, coming to her feet and reaching down to help Lyra up.
But the Estellan was gone, caught up in the pursuit of Braeda Kaden, so Basia turned her attention back to Lyra. There was a great crater, several inches wide and half an inch or more deep, burned into the livid red flesh of her shoulder. The charred tissue was oozing blood and pus and she was shaking like a leaf, but her jaw was set and her eyes blazing.
If the bolt had caught her a foot higher or eight inches over, she’d be dead.
‘Majesty, let’s go,’ Basia said urgently, but to her horror, the queen staggered forward, towards the living dead men.
*
Her shoulder was agonisingly painful, her vision swimming and she was utterly terrified, but Lyra knew what she had to do.
The dwyma is life and they are death . . .
Braeda Kaden was seeking to flee by a side door, but a Corani mage-knight had appeared from the bell-tower right over her head. He leaped down, trapping her, while Exilium was closing in, but the walking dead were filling the central aisle, all of them coming for her, and there were now a dozen or more of them.
Aradea is with me. Lyra had preserved a link all the way from the Bastion, readying herself for this moment ever since she’d left.
Because I’m not as trusting and naïve as they all think.
A few weeks ago she’d channelled the sun into pure light, blasting the daemon-soul inside Lef Yarle into nothing. Since then, she’d realised that the energy of life was everywhere – in the soil and the stone, in leaf and bough – although it was mostly caught in physical objects, hard to be pulled free. Sunlight was the easiest source of power . . . but it was not the only one.
For one who could feel it, the air itself tingled with light and energy – and gnostic energy was also a living source of power. By the time she stepped in front of Basia – who seemed to see something in her face or maybe her aura, because she gave ground, her eyes wide – she was ready, and this time she let it stream out through her hands, not her eyes as she had last time, almost blinding herself.
Against a mage, she’d have died a dozen times in the six seconds or so it took to build, and even so, the first of the dead men almost reached her—
—but at last her palms went hot and light blossomed, even as all the candles and lamps went out as she drew on their energy. Her ray of light struck the corpses and each was caught momentarily in a rictus of pain, if they could still feel, then the energy animating them collapsed in on itself and as one they fell, leaving her standing in a nimbus of light and all else in shadow, as if she were the moon itself.
A moment later, Exilium drove a blade through Braeda Kaden’s guard and into her thigh. She gave a sharp cry, instantly cut off as his left fist hammered into her jaw and she collapsed.
Lyra looked around for Frankel, hoping he’d still be there, but he was already gone. For a moment she just stood there . . . then the pain in her shoulder overwhelmed her again and she swayed sideways—
—to be caught by Basia. ‘Sometimes I don’t know who protects whom,’ her bodyguard muttered, conjuring a globe of gnosis-light as the main doors burst open behind them and Dirklan swept in, Mort beside him brandishing his great battle-axes.
Lyra felt a flood of relief, then concentrated on staying conscious as they bundled her out of the door. Surrounded by grim-faced men and women, she was borne back to shelter through a night streaked with fire.
*
‘Damn you for a faithless treacher!’ Ari Frankel shouted at Tad Kaden, so livid he forgot his fear of the man. ‘You’ve made liars of us all!’ he raged, while Tad – bloodied and streaked with ash – leaned against the wall with his head bowed. ‘They’ll never negotiate with us again!’
‘We’re not here to bloody negotiate, Frankel,’ Lazar said in his chilling voice, but for once Ari wasn’t even intimidated by him.
‘We are now.’ He jabbed his finger at Tad. ‘He wants his sister back, doesn’t he? So he’ll talk now, and sell us out! What were you even hoping to achieve, Tad? You sneer at her “weakness”, but Lyra’s the only reasonable bastard in the Bastion. If we’re ever going to get acceptable terms, they’re going to come from her, or no one—’
‘We ain’t after terms any more,’ Gorn growled. ‘We never were. We’re here for blood. You so fuckin’ stupid you don’t get that?’
‘Yes, I know what you’re after,’ Ari retorted. ‘But the people fighting on the barricades? They want a better life, not a bloodbath. They believe in what I’m offering—’
Gorn stepped in front of him, but Ari’s anger sustained him, made him stand straight as the big man balled his fist. ‘That won’t change anything either,’ he said defiantly.
‘It’ll fuckin’ cheer me up,’ Gorn growled, pulling back his arm.
‘Stop it,’ Tad snapped, straightening up and glowering about him. ‘It was a chance worth taking and I stand by that. But now I need to get Braeda back.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’ Lazar demanded.
‘It means I’ll offer terms to Setallius,’ Tad mumbled. ‘I’ll pull my people out of Pallas if he frees her.’
‘You can’t pull out now,’ Lazar snarled. ‘You keep telling us this is your damned movement – you say you’ve been fighting this fight for generations, so you can’t walk away.’
‘I can walk away whenever I damn well please,’ Tad retorted. ‘My family has always played the long game.’
‘Well, rukking good for you,’ Ari snapped. ‘Thousands of people have committed to this—’
‘I sympathise,’ Tad said, ‘but I have my whole operation to consider. The family can’t afford to risk all in this one skirmish.’
‘A skirmish? This is our life’s struggle—’
Tad put his hands on his hips. ‘Well, that’s your choice. But a man should always be able to walk
away.’ And with that he vanished through the window.
Rukka . . . Damn him, Ari thought, but a moment later, Lazar was planting a finger in the middle of his chest, making him catch his breath because Ari hadn’t felt him move. ‘What about you, Frankel? You going to run too?’
Ari tried to mask the roiling fear inside him. Disembowelled whilst being hanged by the neck: that’s the sentence I’ll get: dying in slow agony while people laugh . . . Lazar would get the same, of course, but he looked like he’d welcome it. He’s insane, Ari thought, finally acknowledging what he’d known from the moment they met.
But he still croaked, ‘I’m here to the end.’
‘Good,’ Lazar said. ‘I’m in charge now and the first thing I’m going to do is find Father Germane. We need Ostevan Pontifex’s aid, or this rukking rebellion is doomed.’
Coraine, Northern Rondelmar
Her name was Brunelda, Solon now knew, but he didn’t use it. There was no need, for they barely talked. Her thoughts and emotions were irrelevant and his weren’t hers to know. She was a stopgap in his life, nothing more.
Right now she was kneeling before his armchair, pleasuring him orally – and, he had to admit, showing far more skill and enthusiasm than the real Lyra had ever managed. He’d not meant to return to the House of Lantris that evening, but it was preferable to lying awake, snarling imprecations at faraway enemies – especially when he was still foaming at the news his spies had brought, of an assassination attempt upon the queen.
She’s mine, his mind raged while he gripped Brunelda’s head and held her in place, allowing her mouth’s earthy magic to sweep him along towards climax. ‘Lyra,’ he moaned, quivering bodily as he spent himself.
As the moment subsided he shoved Brunelda away so that she sprawled on the rug at his feet, her Lyra-wig mussed and her skin flushed, a little aroused by her erotic duties. He now paid her owners to forbid her other lovers and keep her secluded so that she was his alone. He wanted her pining for him, and evidently that was having the desired effect. And he doubted she’d ever had a lover like him. But right now, when he was burning with rage, it all felt so tawdry.