Art of Hunting

by Alan Campbell

  As they drew nearer, Ianthe could see people gathering on the waterfront – ordinary citizens of Losoto. And she could also sense them in the busy streets and houses behind, thousands of them, tens of thousands. Evidently Emperor Hu had not ordered an evacuation.

  ‘Do you see any Haurstaf?’ Paulus said.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Ianthe?’

  ‘No, I don’t see any.’

  ‘They’ve gone,’ said a voice from behind.

  Ianthe turned to find the slender blonde figure of Nera standing there, heartbreakingly pretty, her pale hands clasped at her chest. The psychic wore a patterned woollen shawl around her shoulders.

  ‘They fled north,’ she added. Then she looked up at Paulus. ‘Emperor Hu has taken them with him. He abandoned the city after you destroyed his navy.’

  Paulus frowned. ‘Hu isn’t there?’

  Nera shook her head.

  ‘Well, where the hell is he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘They won’t say.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘The Imperial Army has left with him. The whole city is undefended.’

  Ianthe rested her hand on Paulus’s arm. ‘Then there’s no need to attack,’ she said. ‘Can you send the Uriun back to where it came from?’

  He made no reply.

  ‘Paulus?’

  He shook his head. ‘Fiorel gave us the worm for a reason.’

  ‘To destroy Hu’s navy.’

  ‘To be a symbol of Unmer power.’

  She grabbed his arm. ‘Call it off. Please.’

  ‘It is too late.’

  He pointed to the shore a hundred yards ahead of them, where the Uriun’s tentacles reached the outskirts of Losoto. A swarming mass of them began to crawl through that maze of broken and flooded buildings in search of food, pulsing with luminescence. Ianthe heard a single gunshot from the west, followed by the sound of a man screaming. And then, before her, the roofless husks of buildings began to collapse under the weight of the creature’s countless pushing limbs. Two houses and then four and eight and soon scores of walls were falling to dust and rubble.

  Those curious citizens who had gathered on the waterfront now started to panic. Hundreds of them turned and ran from the oncoming monster; they filled the streets like a sudden outrushing of water. Many fell under the pressure of those behind and were trampled. Others screamed, frantically kicking and fighting each other to escape. And as the tide of people poured up the market streets that rose behind the shore, the Uriun reached the stragglers.

  Ianthe could only look on in horror as hundreds of the creature’s mouths lashed out and struck at men, women and children. It seemed to blur, its limbs continually shifting between the real and the incorporeal. It crushed the fleeing people and pinned them to the cobbles by the hundreds, shivering as it fed. Other tentacles broke through doors and shattered windows and slithered inside the shorefront buildings.

  ‘Can’t you stop it?’ she cried.

  Paulus watched with awe and did not reply.

  Now the houses on the land were starting to fall as the Uriun pushed further ashore, a great wave of flesh that flowed over the harbour wall and the promenade and the seafront buildings. The great worm stretched all along the coast, extending further even than the limits of the city. Buildings crumbled under its weight. The streets became slippery with blood. And still it crawled inland, turning block after block to rubble.

  Duke Cyr came running up to them. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘Open the fourth bottle.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘End it now, Paulus.’

  Paulus hesitated a moment. Then he pulled out the stopper from the last ichusae and held the bottle high. From its mouth poured a stream of amber smoke that soon engulfed the three of them. He threw the bottle into the sea. The brine around them began to bubble and steam, but the mist was building so rapidly they could no longer see ten yards from where they stood upon the St Augustine’s deck. A rank smell filled the air, like rotten vegetation.

  Like a swamp, Ianthe thought.

  The waterfront vanished amidst the clouds of fumes, but for some time afterwards they continued to hear screams and gunshots from the city. Finally a silence fell on the harbour, the stillness broken only by the creak of the ship and the slosh of the sea beneath her hull and by the occasional mournful wail of a survivor left upon the shore.

  The St Augustine and the Ilena Grey remained at anchor beyond the entrance to Losoto’s harbour for another half-hour, waiting for the fog to lift. When it finally cleared, they could at last perceive the full extent of the destruction the worm had caused.

  Three of every four buildings along the waterfront had been completely levelled. The debris field extended at least a hundred yards inland from the shore, but in many places it was much further still. Whole blocks had collapsed into piles of shattered stone and timbers. Corpses littered the streets and the gutters ran with blood.

  On the deck of the St Augustine, the crew stood in silence, gazing out at the carnage.

  Finally Howlish lit his pipe and breathed in a lungful of smoke. ‘Hell of a wedding gift,’ he said.

  ‘What is that thing?’ Siselo said.

  Granger lowered his kitbag to the ground and looked to where she was pointing. They were standing on a ridge overlooking Losoto. From this high viewpoint he could see the Anean coast stretching far into the east. Mist shrouded the distant horizon but he knew the coast turned north at the tip of the peninsula some four leagues away. Hu’s capital sprawled across several miles of shoreline and occupied just as much land to the north – taking a great bite out of the Forest of Ai that covered the inland hills. Apart from the white clutter of the city and the breakers, the landscape was entirely ink green or brown – a meeting of forest and brine.

  The old mine road had taken them over these very hills.

  But now that they had finally reached Losoto, they found it to be under attack by some sorcerous creation. To Granger it looked like a vast mat of weed that had somehow crawled out of the sea and entangled itself in the city.

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said. ‘Something conjured.’ There were only two ships in sight, he noted: a Losotan merchantman and an odd, curiously pale barque, both anchored within a few hundred yards of the harbour entrance.

  And then suddenly the strange yellow fog rose.

  He watched it forming in the sea directly in front of the barque. It was thickening and growing far too quickly to be a natural phenomenon. In mere minutes it had enveloped the whole of the waterfront and still it kept coming, rolling into the streets, filling alleys and quadrangles like a tide. It obscured the monster and the city around it. He heard a few gunshots, but the scene soon became quiet.

  He sat on a log beside Siselo and waited.

  After about half an hour, the fog began to disperse. The creature had vanished, but it had left acres of destruction in its wake. Granger gazed out at the ruined city with mounting anger. What the hell had been the point of that fiasco? There would be hundreds lying dead down there, hundreds who’d have to be dug out and buried in lime to stop the spread of disease.

  ‘I knew it! I knew it!’

  He wheeled round to find Siselo sitting on the ground next to his kitbag. She had untied the draw string and pulled out the replicating sword, the blade of which was still wrapped in cloth.

  Granger growled at her. ‘Don’t touch that, it’s dangerous.’

  She set the blade down on the ground and looked up at him. ‘It is a replicating sword. I knew it had to be something like that.’

  ‘Something like what?’

  ‘The reason why you shine!’

  He stared at her dumbly.

  ‘Sorcery!’ she said. ‘Ygrid was right. You exude sorcery.’

  ‘What do you know about such things?’

  She scrunched up her face. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Dragons are sorcerous creatures, so they recognize other sorcerous creatures. It’s like something in the wa
y they see things, like an aura, I suppose. Ygrid said you were shining with so much sorcery it was hard to even look at you.’ She grinned. ‘It’s because of this sword.’

  Granger grunted.

  ‘Are you a replicate?’ she said. ‘Or the original?’

  ‘Original,’ he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  She looked at him as if she didn’t believe it. ‘You do know it’s killed you, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s trying to take me over.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s already killed you. You must have died three or four days ago.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ygrid said you were dead,’ Siselo said. ‘I didn’t believe her. But now I think on it, it kind of explains a lot.’

  Granger just stared at her.

  ‘Entropathic armour,’ she said. ‘You know?’

  Granger had no idea what she was talking about, and yet she seemed so earnest. ‘This armour helps me move.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, because your heart stopped. That’s what happens when you become a sword replicate. Your body shuts down and then your mind.’

  ‘You really think I’m dead?’

  ‘You are definitely dead,’ she said. ‘Have you even smelled yourself lately?’

  Granger sat down on a nearby rock. He felt suddenly unsteady. The last time he’d taken off his gauntlet, he’d been unable to move his hand at all. Was that because the body inside the suit was dead? And now only sorcery kept it moving? He turned back to the girl. She still looked earnest. ‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘You’re saying that I died, and this suit is the only thing keeping me going?’

  She nodded. ‘Don’t you know anything about this sword?’

  Granger gave a weary sigh. Evidently not.

  ‘My father once fought a whole village with one of these,’ she said. ‘We still have it back home. He’s going to show me how to use it properly when I’m older. I’ve already learned how to phase with it.’ She frowned. ‘But why did you let the sword do this do you?’

  Granger grunted. ‘Let it? I didn’t have much choice.’

  ‘Why, what does it want?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘why is it turning you into one of its slaves anyway? These weapons all have minds behind them. What is this one trying to get you to do for it?’

  He shrugged. ‘I wish I knew.’

  Siselo blinked with surprise. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t even asked it?’

  ‘How can I ask it?’

  ‘Seriously?’ she said. ‘You don’t know? Nobody told you?’

  ‘Told me what?’

  She shook her head with amazement. But then her expression softened. ‘Being dead isn’t that bad,’ she said. ‘As long as you keep wearing the armour, and maybe use some perfume, most people probably wouldn’t even notice.’ She looked down at the sword again. ‘But you don’t want this to take over your mind. You need to find out what it wants and make a deal with it. That’s the only way you can use these things safely. If you don’t, they’ll kill you.’

  ‘How do I make a deal with the sword?’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll show you.’ She brought the sword over and placed it on the ground before Granger. ‘Now unwrap the blade,’ she said.

  He did so, revealing the dull metal surface.

  ‘Now place your hand over the runes.’

  ‘What runes?’

  ‘The runes in the metal! There!’ She pointed to the place where the blade joined the grip, where Granger spied a series of tiny markings embossed in the steel. He had just assumed them to be ornamentation before and hadn’t paid them much heed.

  He placed his gauntlet over the runes.

  ‘Now say, Let me in.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Say, Let me in.’

  ‘Let me in.’

  And the world around Granger vanished.

  It was night and he was standing on an island surrounded by luminous white mist. The ground ahead of him was black basalt and completely devoid of all plant life. It rose in a series of irregular stepped slopes towards a dark fortress formed from the same rock.

  There were no windows in that building, merely a single doorway in the centre of a sheer and otherwise featureless façade. The only illumination came from the mist around the island.

  Granger set off towards the fortress.

  His metal boots clanked against black rock riven with myriad narrow cracks as if a huge hammer had come down and fractured this land. The air was cold and sharp and smelled of metal. No stars shone in the skies above him. He could hear his armour humming as it shifted limbs through which his blood had ceased to flow. He looked out across the mist, stretching away to the horizon like a softly glowing sea, but saw nothing of note.

  As he neared the fortress, he spotted a figure he recognized crouched outside the doorway. The man was brine-scarred and wore armour identical to Granger’s own.

  ‘You left it late,’ the replicate said.

  ‘You might have told me about this,’ Granger said.

  ‘They are waiting for you inside.’

  ‘They?’

  The replicate grinned and indicated that Granger should enter.

  The doorway led to a short passageway terminating in a set of steps leading upwards. Granger spied light coming from the top of the steps. He climbed, his metal footfalls echoing in that confined space, and arrived in a vast hall.

  Torches in wall sconces cast a dim flickering light across a vast space. The chamber occupied what must have been the entire floor of the citadel. And it was crowded with people.

  Thousands of them. They stood in silence and watched Granger step into that cavernous hall. The majority of them were men, battle-hardened veterans by the look of them, but Granger spied one or two women among the crowd of faces. Most wore armour of some sort. Here and there an epaulette or buckle or shield edge gleamed in the dim torchlight. These people were replicates, he realized, for their eyes were as dull and lifeless as manacle iron.

  At the far end of the room Granger could see a dais. Upon this sat a throne of stone. And on the throne sat an Unmer sorcerer. He was a huge man, heavily muscled, with his naked torso and arms covered in the entropic geometries of his profession. Upon his bald head he wore a circlet of lead. His eyes were deeply set and unusually dark for one of the Unmer. On either side of him burned red chemical braziers.

  Granger approached.

  He passed between the ranks of replicates and stepped up on the dais and stood before the man who controlled the sword.

  ‘My name is Shehernan,’ he said. ‘And I had expected you to come before now, Thomas Granger.’

  ‘I didn’t know this was possible.’

  Shehernan shrugged. ‘It is too late to come looking for a deal,’ he said. ‘Your body ceased normal function three days ago. Your mind is almost mine to control.’

  ‘Why me?’ Granger said.

  The sorcerer was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘You, more than anyone, are likely to supply me with what I want. Your kind possess certain . . . unique abilities.’

  ‘My kind?’

  Shehernan’s lips thinned. ‘How is it that you, of all the people in the world, begot a child powerful enough to free the Unmer from enslavement?’

  Granger frowned.

  ‘I imagine you have a little of her talents yourself,’ Shehernan said. ‘Eh? A fraction of her gifts, but, nevertheless . . . Perhaps a talent for knowing where to look for things, or where to step to avoid a trap? You probably think of it as luck or intuition.’

  Granger’s men, the Gravediggers, had often said as much.

  Whether it was a food panic in Weaverbrook, or spotting the Drowned, or escaping from a warlord in Ancillor – his intuition never failed him.

  ‘These abilities came from one of your parents,’ Shehernan said, ‘who inherited th
em from one of their parents, and so on for nearly three hundred years. All leading to the birth of Ianthe, a blind deaf peasant girl from Evensraum powerful enough to smash an entire guild of psychics.’

  ‘You’re saying Ianthe was part of someone’s plan?’

  ‘She is the result of three centuries of selective breeding,’ Shehernan said. ‘Desired traits were chosen with every generation until finally a child is born who can do what she can do.’

  Granger felt suddenly cold.

  ‘Do you know who your parents were, Thomas Granger?’

  Granger spoke through his teeth. ‘I remember them.’

  ‘You remember mortal people,’ Shehernan said. ‘But the creature who actually conceived you merely looked human. It was the same creature who conceived one or more of your grandparents and their parents before them and so on.’

  A shape-shifter?

  ‘Almost three hundred years ago, when King Jonas fled from the genocide of his own people, a shape-shifter came to him on a mountain trail. Fiorel made him an offer. In exchange for help in seeding the oceans with ichusae, Fiorel vowed to return the Unmer to power. And now he has succeeded.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  Shehernan steepled his fingers under his chin and observed Granger with dark eyes. ‘For many years I have been searching for someone to assist me in a particularly difficult task. When I learned of Ianthe’s existence I knew that she was the only one who could help me. But my attempts to bring her to Pertica failed.’

  ‘What do you want from her?’

  ‘I want her to find something for me.’

  ‘And when you couldn’t get to her, you sent the deadship to retrieve me in her stead?’ Granger rubbed his forehead, thinking. He had been adrift at sea when that strange crew-less electric ship had made such a timely appearance. It had brought him far to the north, to an old Unmer transmitting station in the frozen wilds, where he had found the sword among a hoard of trove.

  ‘I saved your life,’ Shehernan said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  The sorcerer allowed himself a smile. ‘And now you are dead,’ he said. ‘A walking corpse in power armour. We are past the point of any return, Thomas Granger. You cannot now survive without your armour or my sword. And very soon you will be mine to control.’