Gates of the Dead

by James A. Moore

  The rider flopped from his saddle, dead, and Tully lurched to the right as another rider came, aiming to take her down.

  She dodged the attack.

  Temmi, who was stabbing her sword into a man’s side, was not as fortunate. The horse struck her a staggering blow and she fell to the dirt with a loud smack. Rhinen was there a second later, hauling the girl out of the muck. Temmi shook her head, or the force of Rhinen’s movements shook it for her, it was hard to say.

  No time for distractions. Stanna turned to the side and blocked another attempt to carve her face from her head. An elbow caught the man in his thigh and then her shoulder caught his hip, sending him off the saddle as the horse went past. The beast’s flank caught her and sent her stumbling, rolling and then crawling to her knees as the fighting continued.

  She might well have died then, but the pale Grakhul woman, Myridia, was there, her sword a black arc as it caught a man moving on Stanna. The blade was as sharp as she’d expected, and opened the man and his breastplate from left to right. He did not fall down and die. Instead he drove the point of his own sword through the pale woman’s left forearm, nearly severing the limb.

  Myridia let out a gasp and fell back, holding her sword, though Stanna could not imagine how.

  A moment later the rider dropped his weapon and collapsed.

  Stanna looked around and saw more of the same. The attacking riders were everywhere and they were savagely efficient. It was a matter of time. Something had to change soon, or the last attempt to save the world would die as surely as the people trying to do the saving.

  Daivem Murdrow

  The fighting started before she moved through the vast Gateway, and it didn’t seem likely to stop. The land of perfect beauty that she’d seen was gone, replaced by more decay and darkness. She found herself wondering, not for the first time, if there was any part of this world that was not already dying.

  The Marked Men drove forward into a vast sea of soldiers and then were overwhelmed by the crushing weight of that sea.

  They fought hard and they fought well, but they likely never had a chance, the numbers against them were too great. As soon as they died their spirits were ripped away from them and drawn back through the Gateway. She saw them struggle against the pull, but it was too powerful. Whatever deals they had made had sealed their fate in any possible afterlife. She had captured the life force of many of the same sorts of soldiers in Edinrun, but that had been a place sealed away by the gods and this place had a portal leading back to the world where they had lived their lives.

  A good distance ahead of her she could see Brogan McTyre fighting. He seemed more alive than the people around him. His axe and sword moved, cut, cleaved. The armor on his body deflected most of the blows thrown against him, but in time he would fall if nothing changed.

  Jahda sighed. “He will never reach the gods if this continues.”

  Daivem nodded her head and pressed her lips together. “We have to reach him. Too much can go wrong from a distance.”

  Jahda nodded. A moment later he faded from view, moving into the Shimmer. She’d been afraid that special gift of her people would not work here, but it did. Perhaps the gods were unaware, or unable to stop it, perhaps they simply did not care. In any event, she stepped into the Shimmer and followed Jahda as he moved along. If only they could simply move to new places without first examining them, how much madness could have been avoided?

  The world around them was still there, but just set aside – they could see everything around them, but could not interact. Soldiers on both sides fought and were struck down, though the tide was very much in favor of the gods. It was their land, after all, and they made the rules.

  When the armies of the gods fell, there was no release of a spirit. They were not living things in the truest sense, more likely simulacra, given exactly enough life to serve and die.

  She moved past them and followed Jahda. He stepped back into the real world before her and almost immediately was engaged in combat. His hard staff blocked a brutal blow and he staggered back before catching himself. The armored foes were everywhere and they were driving toward Brogan McTyre, doing their best to take him down.

  The man was a fighter and he was touched by a god, but that did not make him immortal. He was bleeding in several places, those unprotected by his armor, though most of the wounds seemed superficial.

  His mane of red hair was disheveled, his beard looked like a chunk of it had been cut away by a keen blade, and his eyes rolled with madness and rage. Still, the axe came down and cut through soldiers. The sword parried and thrust and cut deep again and again. Something had changed since he’d come here. Perhaps that bit of him that was marked by the presence of a god was more alive here, in the place where gods ruled and dwelled.

  “Watch yourself, woman!” Jahda yelled at her and pushed her aside, blocking a cut meant to remove her head.

  There was no time for guilt. It was time instead to do what she could for Brogan McTyre.

  The man prepared to fight gods and had been given that ability, but they had an advantage over him. He was not truly a god. He had not spent eternity gathering the lives of sacrifices and hoarding that energy.

  That was where she came in. Daivem moved quickly, dodging past one of the dark armored warriors of the gods and leaping to get closer to Brogan.

  “McTyre!” Her voice almost broke. “I’ve something for you!”

  The red-haired man let out a grunt as he brought his axe down and cut a soldier’s head free of his body.

  “I’m busy, lass!”

  Rather than argue, Daivem reached for him and touched his shoulder. He was panting now, and sweating from exertion in the places that weren’t cut and bleeding. Up close she could see that his armor was breaking in several places: not dented like metal, but chipped and cracked like stone.

  Her fingers touched flesh and Daivem in turn touched her wooden walking stick and released what she had held inside. The feeling was like a river carving a channel inside her, there could be no chances taken, not in this place. So the energies had to use her as a conduit in order to make sure they reached the right place.

  Souls. Spirits. Lives. Ghosts. By any name they were energy and they flowed into Daivem, giving her miniscule glimpses into their experiences and lives. Soldiers who fought, children at play, lovers lost and found, and a thousand others all ran through her, leaving a fading memory here and there. Niall Leraby, the man she found dead in the snow, who had called out so furiously for revenge, roared as he passed through her body. He howled his fury at all that would never be, at all that had gone wrong and still more. He echoed inside her louder than the rest. He wanted revenge against the gods and he intended to have it.

  All of the dead she’d encountered in this world, the spirits she’d gathered on battlefields, and in cities that were dying, in pocket worlds designed to torture the citizens of Edinrun and the soldiers who dared investigate that haunted, lost place, all of them pushed into her and from her hand into the body of Brogan McTyre.

  When she had spoken with Jahda and asked his advice, that was what he had suggested. If a man touched by gods wanted to fight gods, he had to have the same advantage as them. He had to have sacrifices to offer him the necessary energies.

  The difference here was simple: Daivem had asked if they were willing and the dead had said yes. Anything to end the gods who had ruined them and taken so much from their loved ones. Anything at all to have their say at last.

  Brogan McTyre roared. His eyes bulged in his head and his skin reddened as if touched by hours of sunlight.

  He did not move away from her, truly, she doubted he could move at all. He had never been prepared for this sort of spiritual contact and even Daivem, who had trained for many years, had trouble keeping hold of herself as the energies of the dead ran through her.

  For Brogan McTyre it was surely a hundred times worse.

  Beron

  H
e was moving closer to McTyre when the woman touched the red-haired bastard and did something to him. Beron had no idea what was happening, only that for the moment McTyre was incapable of defending himself.

  When the man ran into the realm of gods, Beron followed. He kept a distance and he watched and he defended himself from the madness of the soldiers waiting for them all.

  Brogan McTyre was chosen by the demons to fight the gods. Beron found that notion maddening. The cheating bastard who had started the end of the world was supposed to gain all the honor and glory of defeating the gods, clearing the way for Ariah and the other demon lords to ascend and become something greater. There was no doubt in his mind that somewhere along the way, that sort of glory would reflect back on the western bastard who had taken everything from Beron, deliberately or not. His world was in ruins. Brogan McTyre did it. His fortune was gone and his empire crumbled. Brogan McTyre caused it.

  The thoughts haunted Beron as surely as the gods tormented the demons in their prisons. As surely as Beron himself had tormented endless slaves in his time.

  Brogan McTyre needed to die and he needed to do it soon. Beron would take his place. Beron would earn the glory. Beron would prove himself to his new god, Ariah. He would show himself worthy of being favored.

  The slip of a girl touched Brogan McTyre and whatever she did seemed to paralyze the man.

  There would never be a better time for taking care of the situation.

  Beron started forward, holding his sword at the ready. He had been patient and now he would be rewarded.

  The first blade cut across the back of his thigh, severing the hamstrings. His leg gave out immediately and he fell forward, more shocked by the lack of control than anything else. The pain came along a few moments later, nearly blinding in its intensity.

  The second blade jammed into his throat, stopping him from speaking or screaming out his anger. Blood ran in a hot stream down his neck, to his chest, slipping past his armor with ease.

  That second blade stabbed again and again even as he fell forward. When Beron tried to rise, a booted foot kicked his arm out and dropped him back to the ground.

  “Stay there, friend. Just lie down.” The voice was harsh, the message clear. It wasn’t meant as a kindness.

  Beron tried to stand again, but instead dots of blackness swam in front of his eyes.

  The voice was bitter. “You killed a lot of my friends, Beron of Saramond.” The blade this time pressed against his eye. “I don’t much like you.” A second later the blade was pushed deep and there was an explosion of pain before the darkness dragged him away.

  He saw the man who killed him, had seen him before, in fact. He had been among the captured allies of Brogan McTyre. Short, thin and balding. He tried to remember the name that went with the face but there was nothing.

  And then there was Nothingness.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Godhead

  Brogan

  The woman with Jahda touched him and he warned her away and then the entire world changed. Whatever it was she did to him it was potent and explosive. His body felt hot and feverish. His senses twisted. He could hear too much, see too much, feel too much, and though it was overwhelming it was not the first time he’d felt this way.

  The last time a god had touched him and changed him. This time it was more than that. This time there was something inside of Brogan that changed.

  There had been times in his life when Brogan thought he would surely die of the cold, and one occasion where he very nearly drowned in a river. His body felt like he remembered feeling when he stepped into warmth after that bitter cold and when he sucked in fresh air as he surfaced on the river, only more so.

  The exhaustion that made his muscles shake faded away. The aches where blades had scratched or even cut him vanished. His body surged with energy and Brogan let out another scream.

  And then he changed.

  Harper

  They came from everywhere and for a while all Harper could think about was not dying. It was exactly that simple for him. Do not die. The good news was that he’d become very adept at not dying over the years. Mostly the trick was not getting hit. To that end Harper dodged, blocked and moved on, doing his best to keep his eyes on Brogan at the same time. The man was fast, he had to give him that. Of course, the horse he rode away on made that part easier.

  Harper did not have a horse. That luxury went away when the ship he bought was ruined by the Undying.

  He didn’t let that stop him. He saw the woman touch Brogan. Harper saw his best friend twist and twitch for a moment, even as he once again lashed out at an enemy getting too close.

  Behind him Daivem Murdrow dropped to her knees as if exhausted. Her face hung too low to the ground for him to clearly see her expression. Not that it mattered. Brogan dominated his attention, because as he moved forward again, he changed. That was the only way to put it. One moment Brogan was Brogan and the next he was growing.

  Brogan cried out, demanding that the gods face him. He very nearly roared the challenge as he had before; the difference was that this time his voice carried like a peal of thunder. He walked forward and moved away from Daivem. And as he strode, he grew. His blade slapped across a soldier and sent the man sprawling as if he’d been hit by an enraged bear.

  The battlefield shuddered and the soldiers around him, creatures surely chosen by the gods for their ferocity, retreated. The ground shook where Brogan walked and everyone around seemed aware of it. Fighters from both sides slowed and then stopped fighting. It wasn’t a matter of choice. Brogan’s presence was overwhelming. Harper had known the man his entire life and had never been afraid of him, never worried the man might kill him, but he worried now.

  Brogan was no longer merely Brogan. He was more than that in a way that Harper could not easily define. He was a dangerous creature now, no longer human. He was scarier than the He-Kisshi, and the Undying had been terrifying. He was larger than he should have been, true, but it was more than that. It was simply that he was dangerous, that he was more there than any mortal being could be.

  One of the fighters for the gods charged forward and lashed out at Brogan. The sword shattered as it struck him. Brogan looked around and waved his arm, and to the last, the fighters lined against him collapsed. They fell from their horses and the horses flopped to the ground, just as suddenly useless.

  Brogan demanded again that the gods show themselves and fight.

  This time, something responded.

  Stanna

  The fighting stopped. It was not a gradual thing, but happened all at once. The warriors on both sides felt the change in the atmosphere that marked the change in Brogan McTyre. There was no way to define what had happened, but whatever it was, it was bigger than mortal combat. They couldn’t have ignored the change any more than they could a tidal wave.

  Then the soldiers collapsed. As one they fell and did not stand again. The silence was a potent thing. The few remaining Marked Men and those who’d survived looked around in shocked silence.

  Temmi joined in, holding her head. She had taken a mighty blow when the horse sent her sprawling. Next to her the pale woman still bled, the wound deep enough that she’d need proper patching, but Myridia still stood and that was a good sign.

  Tully moved about, panting, wild-eyed and wary. She had no desire to be attacked and was actively looking for potential enemies.

  Stanna stopped caring about what was going on with her friends and associates at precisely the same moment that Brogan McTyre started growing. It was not subtle and it made no sense in her world perspective. The man physically changed, doubled in size and then doubled again in the space of a few heartbeats.

  She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her initially, but no, he grew and he grew a great deal. Stanna, who was notorious for not being afraid of anything, stopped and stared, her mouth agape, as the man who planned to fight the gods grew enough to make her feel like a n
ewborn in comparison.

  He stepped, and he grew. Another step and he grew still more. A dozen strides and he was still looking larger, though she knew he was physically moving away from her vantage point.

  He stepped and grew again.

  Stanna looked away and closed her eyes, needing to consider this for a moment.

  When she looked again he was farther still in the distance and if she had to guess was close to one hundred feet in height.

  “Face me, you bastards!” McTyre’s voice was the same, but louder than seemed possible.

  Around her others were reacting to the transformation, confirming that she had not lost her mind. The ground vibrated with each step he took, his weight enough to leave an indentation with every stride.

  Beyond him, she knew, there were five castles, each stranger than the last. One was in ruins, the others were in poor shape but still stood. The stone constructs were ancient, as old, it seemed, as some of the ruins that had marked areas where the gods had punished people before. The stones were weatherworn, the ground around them barren of life, or left with little but lichen to show that life still existed.

  That did not mean they weren’t occupied. From the closest of the structures something came forth. It was too distant to understand at first, a small speck from a far away building.

  And then the damned thing did as Brogan McTyre did. It walked and as it drew closer, the thing changed shape and size, until it was taller than McTyre.

  Temmi said, “What is that?” She was squinting to see the thing in the distance.

  Tully answered, “I think it’s a god.”

  Whatever it actually was, it changed as it moved and looking at it hurt Stanna’s mind.