Mother of Daemons

by David Hair

  ‘Stay under cover,’ Kyrik shouted, as mage-bolts from below sought out any defender foolish enough to lean out. ‘Spears at the ready—’

  He heard scrabbling on the wall and nodded to the axeman beside him when an arm reached over the lip . . .

  Kyrik lunged, his blade punching through a helm’s eye-slit and into the brain. The possessed legionary fell silently away, but he was immediately replaced, only for that attacker to take an axe-head to the chest. The defenders also hacked at limbs, not fatal, but enough to dislodge, sending the attackers crashing back down, although they simply rose up and assailed the walls again.

  The black eyes, the silent snarling and the lack of reaction to pain and maiming were all unnerving, but the Mollachs and their allies fought with grim determination. Minutes passed like hours and still the attack intensified.

  Then a possessed battle-mage flew out of the darkness, black-eyed and snarling. He landed atop one crenulation and blasted fire along the fighting platform, torching several men and punching a hole for the daemon-solders to swarm over the battlements. Though the reserves tried to counter, more enemy magi appeared, setting the air alight as they blasted mage-bolts into the throng below.

  ‘Hold on!’ Kyrik shouted: these moments were critical. Shielded Mantauri hurtled along the walls, hacking down attackers and exchanging spell-fire, but the battle-magi were stronger. Kyrik heard one daemon cackling in glee as two bull-men roared in agony and tumbled to their deaths.

  Kyrik pulled aside a teenage girl who staggered, then folded over a sword-thrust, her determined, fearless expression fading to confusion. He destroyed her killer with a kinesis-aided stab of his argenstael dagger, then leaped in on the blindside of the daemon-mage who’d begun this breach, hacking his sword blade through both ankles and sending him toppling away.

  He was immediately assailed by a black-haired battle-mage barely clad in the torn, bloody remnants of her robes; she hurled a crackling bolt of raw energy before lunging at him. They traded blows, steel clanging, then her foot lashed out; had he not been ready she would have pitched him over the edge, but he struck back, slashing down on her sword arm and breaking it, then thrusting his dagger through her raging mouth into her brain. As she fell, ash bursting from her eyes and mouth, Maegogh closed in from the other side, pitching two foes over the edge with one mighty swing of an enormous hammer.

  But all along the outer walls, Kyrik could see the relentless assault was breaking through. Stairs were clogged with the bodies of his men who’d been blasted as they tried to plug the gaps. He saw a Mantauri hacked down from both sides, and another who’d been buried in biting, tearing, ripping men, emerging with black eyes and hate on his face.

  We’re losing . . .

  ‘Fall back to the inner keep,’ he shouted, kinesis fuelling his leap to the roof of the stables. Hearing a thump behind him, he turned in time to catch a blade meant for his back, battered another thrust aside, deflected his foe’s sword up and then slashed sideways, beheading the man and kicking his body off the roof.

  His cries to retreat were taken up and those who could fled down the stairs, trying to dodge the fire raining down on them from above.

  Kyrik leaped to the courtyard, fast filling with bodies and blood, joining the rearguard alongside Kip and Maegogh just as the next wave of enemy struck. They fought shoulder to shoulder to keep the attackers back, shielding the retreat into the inner bailey.

  When a torrent of silver-tipped arrows from the keep walls above slammed into the next wave of possessed, checking their impetus, Kip shouted, ‘Go!’ and they took to their heels. They were the last through the keep gates, which were then slammed shut.

  Kip’s normally confident expression had disappeared, worn away by the rapid loss of the outer walls and the dozens of men and Mantauri already dead, but Maegogh gripped the Schlessen’s shoulder and for a moment the pair pressed foreheads together, fortifying each other.

  Then Kip looked at Kyrik and demanded, ‘Where are your Vlpa?’

  ‘No idea. They can’t contact us without betraying themselves – you know that.’

  ‘They’d better get here soon,’ Kip said grimly, then he straightened his spine and called to his men, ‘Bullheads, to the walls – Minaus is watching us.’

  The Schlessens regrouped swiftly, their years first as legionaries, then as mercenaries telling. They joined the archers above, packing the ramparts.

  Kyrik saw his own people’s despair and fought down the same emotion. ‘To your posts,’ he shouted. They’d prepared for this moment, but no amount of practise could overcome the shock of experiencing a reverse, let alone the realisation that there was nowhere else to fall back to.

  I have to give them hope, he told himself, and just as Kip had done, he stiffened his spine. ‘Men and women of Mollachia, we can hold,’ he told them. ‘The fields of fire are narrower here. We can defend in greater depth. Now, move!’ He brandished his sword in their faces. ‘For Mollachia – for all those you love.’

  It wasn’t much, but it sufficed. He saw dread on many faces, but they too sought courage within themselves. They took up their positions, many praying aloud as they went, as he hurried to the top of the gatehouse, which was filled with hunters.

  Then a shout of horror went up as the church across the square, the site of his bloody coronation, burst into flame – and the air was filled with the screams of those townsfolk who’d taken shelter there instead of in the keep.

  Dear Kore, no . . .

  The flames rose swiftly, fanned by the wind whistling across the lake which set sparks streaming upwards, glass shattering and fiery tongues licking through the portals. The possessed legionaries ringing the square were ghoulishly lit by the lurid flames.

  A few of the archers were firing, while spitting out curses.

  ‘Hold fire,’ Kyrik shouted. ‘Save your arrows for the next rush when we can do some good.’

  As his archers stilled, a silent ripple ran through the possessed men and without a word, they melted back into the alleys until the square was empty of all but the wounded and dead.

  The screaming inside the church reached a crescendo when the roof crashed down in a roar of flame and Kyrik found himself fervently praying, Kore and Ahm, take them up, I pray you.

  A dark shape stepped from the smoke surrounding the burning church, walking nonchalantly among the flames. Kyrik presumed it was Asiv Fariddan, although the robed figure wore a Lantric mask: the long-nosed, bird-like visage of Beak, the meddler.

  ‘Kyrik,’ the dark voice called, ‘how do your people fare?’

  The defenders fell silent, until someone muttered, ‘I can hit him . . .’

  Kyrik didn’t need gnostic sight to know the Gatti mage was wreathed in shields. ‘Hold your fire,’ he said, then called, ‘Is this a parley, Asiv?’

  ‘Call it what you like. I just wanted to show you something.’ He gestured, and four of his possessed legionaries dragged a bound body into the square. Kyrik’s throat seized up. He threw a horrified look up at Haklyn Tower and saw the window was shattered.

  Hajya . . . He must have gone up there, in the midst of the fight . . . and what of the four men with her . . .

  Asiv’s laughter filled the square. ‘Perhaps we should talk?’

  Kyrik felt all hope wither inside him. It took three tries before he could fill his lungs enough to speak. ‘I do not hold the life of one woman above those of my people,’ he shouted.

  ‘Of course you don’t, O Noble King,’ Asiv sneered. ‘But do you hold your own life above hers?’ He gestured, and the ropes around Hajya moved like tentacles, hauling her to the charred spar over the well from which the bucket normally hung and tethered her there, upside down.

  Kyrik could see she was aware and struggling in her bonds.

  Asiv stepped in front of her and gestured widely. ‘Come and get her, Kirol Kyrik, if you have the courage to fight one duel, Brave King: with me. Or better yet, let me offer a simple exchange: your queen for your br
other.’

  A dark titter ran around the men lining the square as the daemon voiced its approval through hundreds of throats.

  ‘It’s a trap,’ Kip told Kyrik, stating the obvious. ‘I will fight him—’

  Kyrik shook his head and asked the Easterner, ‘My brother is not here – and why would I accept a duel knowing you’ll storm the keep afterwards anyway?’

  Asiv chuckled. ‘Why should I? All I want is your coward of a brother.’

  ‘My brother is not here,’ Kyrik repeated.

  ‘Then where is he hiding, while his people suffer?’ Asiv’s voice was full of contempt. ‘I see women fighting, children fighting – but not your cowardly catamite brother. Come down here and prove me wrong – or are you as feeble a woman as Valdyr?’

  ‘Why would I put my head into your trap?’ Kyrik asked again.

  ‘Just the sort of pathetic response I expected.’ Asiv turned to the possessed man guarding Hajya and calling, ‘Butcher the queen.’

  ‘No—’ Kyrik couldn’t stop himself wailing, as every hard-won moment of joy he and Hajya had shared swam before his eyes. ‘No – wait – I will fight—’

  Kip gripped his shoulder. ‘Don’t,’ the Schlessen growled. ‘You know he’s too strong – you’re throwing away your life for nothing. He won’t let any of us live, you know this.’

  Kyrik pressed his forehead to Kip’s, as he’d seen the Schlessen do with the Mantauri, as if seeking strength, but what he murmured was, ‘He’s the key. Remember at the hostage exchange, how these possessed men became a rabble when their leaders fell? I have argenstael – I know it’s unlikely, but one good blow and we’re back in the game.’

  Kip made a rumbling sound, then, ‘Yar . . . yar . . . Minaus approves, Kirol Kyrik. Fight the duel.’

  They shared a grim look, then Kyrik shouted, ‘Very well. We shall fight.’

  ‘Goodness me, have you actually grown some testicles?’ Asiv taunted. ‘I didn’t think you Sarkanys had those. You have half an hour to prepare yourself, Sarkany. We will fight before your own gates. If you kill me, you can cut her down and my army will leave.’ He snorted dismissively. ‘Not that you will. No, you will die . . . and I will renew the assault until Valdyr Sarkany crawls from his hole to give himself up.’

  The masked man strode back into the shadows.

  The men on the walls were all looking at Kyrik, and he could see the question on every face: Where’s Valdyr . . .? And why must our kirol die for his brother?

  The Elétfa

  Valdyr gripped Gricoama’s ruff, caught up in the wonder of the Elétfa. Hanging in the branches all around were glowing spheres of translucent light, each containing some tiny detailed scene of a lake or a city, a meadow or a mountain. When he got right up close, he could see tiny shapes were moving.

  These are visions of now: these are real places . . . It was breathtaking, beautiful, eerie and frightening. He was petrified of what would happen if he touched, or worse, broke one.

  And he still had no idea what to do, other than to keep moving, so he and the wolf soldiered on, the meal at the Keshi farmstead a long-digested memory. Each step required more effort, but the light growing brighter above pulled them onwards. The leaves now surrounding them were huge and minutely detailed, thousands of blades of green slowly scything the air, blown by some vast cosmic wind.

  Then the stairs took them though a cleft between two massive branches, taking them inwards, a sharp ascent to a flat place – not the very top of the tree, but the top of the trunk before it forked off into the highest branches. The inside of the tree trunk was revealed, a hollow shaft in which a huge globe, bigger than all the others he’d seen, slowly rotated. Around it spun two more spheres, dimly lit, one large and closer, the other smaller and further away.

  It’s Urte, Valdyr realised, as the largest globe’s surface resolved into continents: Yuros, the eastern half covered by darkness, the western region streaked by cloud and the north coated in gleaming snow. He saw rivers winding across plains, a patchwork of farms and the dark stain of forests. And those two lesser orbs must be Luna, and Simutu, the Wandering Star . . .

  Gricoama looked up through the branches, growling. When Valdyr followed his gaze, he saw the Elétfa was hanging in a void, a light in an eternity of darkness; but following it were dark shadows which looked to be feeding on the trailing sparks.

  Ghosts, he guessed. Or daemons. It occurred to him that they might be the same thing: Death feeding on Life – and trying to re-enter it. They looked like floating clouds of eyes and mouths and limbs and organs, for ever forming and reforming, merging and coming apart, resembling a flock of dark crows circling a tree they couldn’t land upon.

  Words from the Book of Kore came to him and he whispered, ‘And in the Last Days, dark shall become light and the sun shall turn black. Crows shall alight in the branches that break. The sky shall be torn apart and the daemons shall be summoned by their Mother, the Fallen One, Glamortha who is Death. Thus the eternal night shall begin.’

  Is that what’s happening right now . . .

  His head spun at the enormity of that thought, that these were indeed the Last Days, that all of Urte was about to end, that Kore was coming in judgement, to take the Deserving to his Paradise and leave the rest at the mercy of the daemons who would inherit the world.

  Does a broken man deserve the Mercy of Kore? he wondered. But the Book of Kore had nothing but condemnation for men who’d endured the sins Asiv had wreaked on him. He’s still inside me. The wounds are cauterised, but the venom still burns. Why did the dwyma chose someone as unworthy as me?

  But he wasn’t the only dwymancer. Nara is surely more worthy than me.

  But she wasn’t here and his thoughts went back to his family, to Kyrik . . . and his brother’s name sent his awareness swooping across Yuros at a bewildering speed, arrowing down – and when his vision cleared he saw Hegikaro. The lake was iced over, although his dwyma senses told him the thaw was coming. The castle was smouldering on its promontory, even the church was aflame.

  Dear Kore, the whole town’s ablaze . . .

  Then he saw the dark shapes packing the alleys around the inner keep – and men and women, shining with life, besieged within.

  It’s their last stand, he thought frantically. Asiv has them cornered – Kyrik—

  That panicked thought sent his perspective right to ground level. The gates were swinging open to reveal Kyrik, ashen-faced, his eyes seeking a bundle hanging upside down above the well – Hajya, gagged and barely conscious.

  Asiv Fariddan stood beside her, armoured for battle.

  A duel, he realised. It’s a duel for Hajya’s life. Oh, my brother . . .

  Asiv shouted, ‘Last chance, Sarkany: where’s your craven catamite brother?’ The Gatti mage raised his curved scimitar to the skies. It gleamed with dark energy sent from the daemons outside the Elétfa. His voice echoed with a thousand voices as he shouted, ‘If Valdyr won’t come forth, I’ll make do with you, weakling.’

  Kore’s Blood, Kyrik’s doing this for me.

  Valdyr went to tear at the air when a woman’s hand gripped his hand. ‘No,’ Luhti begged, appearing beside him, young and timeless. ‘No, you failed the test – you aren’t ready.’

  ‘But my brother—’

  ‘This isn’t why you’re here,’ she shouted in his face. ‘You must go to the empress—’

  The empress? ‘No,’ he roared back, ‘Kyrik needs me.’

  He wrenched himself free and turned back to Kyrik – and realised that in this place where time was fluid, his delay had been a deadly mistake, because his brother was already down.

  17

  Wings of Pearl-White

  House Sacrecour

  Mikal Sertain, the first Rondian emperor, took the family name Sacrecour when he was crowned. That family has held the throne ever since, which is not the feat it sounds when you consider that Sertain himself reigned for another two hundred years, and all of his line have the longevity o
f the pure-blooded magi. Ironically, the only reason Mikal Sertain was among the Blessed Three Hundred was because he’d run away to join Johan Corin’s followers in rebellion against his tyrannical father. Blood will out.

  GRAND PRELATE DOMINIUS WURTHER, HOLY PRECINCT, PALLAS 931

  Bruin River, Rondelmar

  Febreux 936

  Lyra’s flying west up the River Bruin, Basia de Sirou thought frantically, watching the dot that was Pearl and her rider merge with the darkness. She’s run away – dear Kore, she must have decided it’s all too much . . .

  It was tempting to scream the palace down, but she realised that that would be the worst thing to do: if people knew the queen had left, panic would set in and half the city would rise up in rebellion. So instead she sent, into the aether and conjuring mage-light to illuminate her path, went tearing back through the garden.

  As she ran, her mind cleared enough to ask the obvious question: Why is she flying towards her worst enemies? To that, she had no immediate answer.

  She hurtled up the stairs to the balcony and barged into the apartment to find Exilium looking around in puzzlement at the empty suite. ‘Basia?’ he exclaimed. ‘Where’s the queen?’

  She ignored him and ran to the nursery, expecting to find it empty, but there was Nita, sharing a blissful look with Rildan as she fed him. The maid turned, smiling. ‘Milady Basia – are you all right?’

  Dear Kore, Lyra didn’t take Rildan . . . Why wouldn’t she take the son she loves? She just stood gaping, half-turning back and forth as tried to think. If she’s left him behind, she must surely mean to return.

  ‘I . . . um, sorry,’ she panted, backing straight into Exilium.

  He grabbed her forearms – the first time he’d ever touched her, part of her noticed – and stopped her. ‘Basia, where’s the queen?’

  Her brain stalled – then she heard a shriek outside as Vasingex answered her call; the wyvern was circling outside the southern towers of the Bastion, no doubt causing much consternation on the walls.