Cade patted his stomach. ‘Reckon I’m hungrier than I thought.’
No one laughed. They froze like statues, listening. When no further sound came, Keel let out a breath, and at last they relaxed.
‘Nine, this place gives me the jitters,’ he said. ‘If only—’
He was cut short by a thunderous gurgling bellow that echoed down the valley, the sound of something not quite animal and definitely not human. Aren’s blood ran cold as the cry pulsed through the empty corridors and halls, reverberating around Skavengard until finally it chased itself into silence.
‘The terror that comes with the night,’ Vika whispered.
From somewhere in the heights of Skavengard there was a dull, heavy boom, as of some great gate thrown open. They heard the bellow again, and then quiet.
‘Did your fellow druidess speak of the nature of this … terror?’ Garric asked.
‘Polla never saw it. Perhaps she slipped beneath its notice.’
‘Perhaps we should do the same,’ Fen murmured.
The unseen thing gave another cry, somewhere between a squeal and a roar. Or perhaps it was many, not just one: a dozen sounds overlapping. They heard a pounding noise, as if something massive was battering at the walls and doors of the castle. It was closer now, moving along a corridor somewhere above them. Aren took a step back, instinctively wanting to run.
‘It’s hunting,’ said Vika.
‘You don’t know that!’ Osman sounded edgy. His confident denial of the supernatural was being tested hard.
‘No,’ said Vika, her eyes on the ceiling. ‘But I feel it.’ Suddenly her head snapped around and she fixed her gaze on Garric. ‘The sanctum!’
‘What? That butcher’s den?’
‘It is protected,’ Vika said. ‘And it may be our only chance.’ She raised her voice. ‘Run, all of you! Run!’
They needed no second invitation. Snatching up their packs, they fled back the way they’d come, leaving the debris of their meal behind them.
Fen took the lead and they moved as fast as Vika’s limp would allow, down dusk-dark corridors and narrow stairs. When Aren began to flag, Grub scooped him up onto his back and the tireless Skarl bore him onwards. From above and behind them came that thunderous booming again, and a sound like grinding teeth. A wind sprang up, blowing down the corridors and rustling their clothes. It was hot and foetid, and smelled of rank meat, greasy metal and death.
‘Are you sure it’s this way?’ Keel asked urgently as Fen took them down another side-corridor.
‘I’m sure,’ she replied.
‘I remember it was further—’
‘I’m sure, Keel.’
Aren jolted against Grub’s back, his sword – reclaimed from Cade – bouncing on his thigh. From the corner of his eye he saw their hurrying shadows against a wall. Just for a moment, he thought he saw other shadows there, too: men and women in flowing robes and elaborate headpieces, also fleeing from the beast. They were gone again in an instant.
‘Sounds further behind us now,’ Cade said breathlessly.
Fen slowed and cocked an ear. ‘You may be right.’
They listened. The sound was fainter now. Soon it fell quiet, and for a while they heard nothing more. The wind dropped until they only caught faint whiffs of that rotten breeze. Their pace began to slow as fatigue dragged on them, and hope grew that their pursuer had given up the chase.
‘Not far now,’ said Fen, her chest heaving. ‘We’re close.’
‘Keep going,’ Vika urged, her staff clicking on the stone floor as she lumbered onwards through corridors turned grey with Lyssa’s light.
Suddenly, from behind them they heard a ferocious, bubbling roar of outrage and hate, a snarl and a scream all together. It was followed by a hurricane-force wind which blasted through the corridors, strong enough to push Vika to her knees. She struggled to rise again, leaning on her staff as the wind swirled around her. A furious pounding shook the walls.
It was coming closer. Fast.
‘It must have found our camp,’ Vika said. ‘It has our trail now! Flee, if you value your lives!’
Flee they did, dashing in a panic for the dubious safety of the sanctum. The wind howled after them, and Aren thought it carried faint screams from far away, the sound of people in suffering.
‘Which way?’ Garric demanded of Fen, who’d stopped at a junction.
‘I don’t remember this—’
‘Pick one!’
‘I don’t …’ She trailed off. Then her expression firmed, and she knew. ‘That way!’
They ran through a pillared chamber and around the upper gallery of a hall where the floor had collapsed. Aren knew they were on the right track then, for he remembered this place. They fought through the battering wind to a flight of stairs, and below them were the sanctum doors, crawling with wrought-metal demons.
A shriek of unearthly fury came from the chamber behind them, loud enough that they felt the force of it against their ears. As they raced towards the sanctum, thumping down the steps, the air darkened and congealed around them, cloying in their throats. The taste of it was so vile, it made Aren retch. He heard slopping and slithering and the sound of many mouths, mewling and chomping hungrily.
Eager to be first inside, Grub sprang recklessly past the others, carrying Aren through the open doorway on his back. In his haste he lost his grip on his passenger, who tipped sideways, and the shift in weight sent them both tumbling to the floor. Fen vaulted over them, with Keel behind her, and the two of them took hold of the doors and began shoving them closed as the rest came through. Fen had her shoulder to the metal, but Keel was looking through the gap as he pushed; his eyes widened and his face went white as he saw what was coming down the stairs behind his companions.
‘Do not look upon it!’ Vika cried, but it was too late.
Keel screamed and fell back into the room, his hands over his eyes. Osman rushed to take his place; he and Fen slammed the doors and flung the two heavy levers across, engaging the lock an instant before something crashed against them with a bellow.
Aren scrambled to his feet, backing away into the room as the doors were pounded again, again, again, the blows so strong they bowed the doors inwards. Cade scurried to his side and they stood there together, paralysed with fright as the creature slithered and gnashed just outside the sanctum. Garric, Fen and Osman had their weapons drawn, holding them uncertainly. All they could do was wait, and hope the doors didn’t give way.
Then, as suddenly as it had attacked, it retreated again. There was a flurry from without, a diminishing scream, and the thing fled up the stairs and away. They heard it pounding off in another direction, its squeals echoing through the halls. Finally it faded to silence, and there was only the sound of their panting breaths in the moonlit gloom of the sanctum.
Garric ran over to Keel, who was kneeling and rocking with his hands over his eyes. ‘Are you hurt, Keel? Show me!’
Vika joined him, and gently pulled Keel’s hands away. The Bitterbracker’s palms were red, as were the whites of his eyes. Tears of watery blood trickled down his cheeks.
‘I saw it,’ he whispered, and Garric held him tight as his friend trembled and shuddered like a frightened child.
40
When dawn’s light crept through the windows they emerged from the sanctum, hollow-eyed and wary. Aren had slept in snatches when tiredness overwhelmed him; most of the others hadn’t slept at all. Keel had to be led out by Garric, blinking, his eyes so bloodshot and swollen that he saw only smears of colour. He wouldn’t speak a word of what he’d seen.
The sanctum doors were dented and buckled, but though they screeched on their hinges now, they’d held firm against the creature. Aren eyed the damage and wondered if they could have stood much more.
They set out with all speed, hoping to make as much progress as they could while the morning held. They’d made it almost halfway across Skavengard on their first day, despite getting lost in the afternoon. They mi
ght make the rest of the way before sunset.
Aren felt stronger despite his tiredness, as if he’d fought off the last of his sickness in the night. Vika, too, seemed much recovered. She could make a fist easily with her left hand now, and her limp was so slight it hardly hampered her at all. Fen left marks behind her as they went, scored in the stone with her knife. ‘In case we have to make our way back,’ she said. It was a precaution they hoped they wouldn’t need. None of them wanted to be here when the night found them again.
They retraced their steps to the hall where they’d rested the night before. The debris of their camp was gone, the room as clean and empty as all the others, and they pressed on quickly. If they could make it to the third island by the afternoon, they might yet make camp in the Ostenbergs tonight. Even those bleak stony passes felt welcome now, compared to the alternative.
‘You know what it is, don’t you?’ Aren asked Vika quietly as they walked together. ‘You know what seeks us.’
‘You’re an observant one. What makes you so certain?’
‘I’m not sure. I just … I see it in you.’
‘I have a suspicion,’ she admitted.
‘Will you tell me?’
She sized him up, deciding if knowledge or ignorance would serve him best. Aren felt a touch of anger at that.
‘To overcome your enemy, you must first understand him,’ he said, before she could make up her mind.
‘This is not an enemy you can overcome,’ she said.
‘I don’t believe that. Nothing is without weakness.’
He wasn’t sure whether she was amused or impressed by that, but either way, it convinced her to speak. ‘Let me tell you something of the nature of sorcery, then,’ she said, ‘for I have read a little of the elder arts. When Joha drew the Divide between the living and the dead, he also separated order from chaos, because his people could not thrive in a land where nothing was permanent. And so we, the living, have rules: up is up, down is down, stone is hard and water is wet.
‘The Shadowlands are different, fluid and ever-changing. There, a thought might conjure a castle or collapse it. If we wish to change something of permanence in our world, we need a little of that chaos; a pinch of disorder, and the will to enforce the outcome.’ She held up her arm. ‘You see the sleeve of my coat. Is it possible it will burst into flame, right now?’
Aren sensed a trap, but said no anyway.
‘Wrong. Nothing is impossible. It is merely fantastically unlikely. But if a sorcerer chose to bridge the Divide with their arts, so that a little of the essence of the Shadowlands leaked in, then they could will the most unlikely of outcomes into existence. The more unlikely it is, the more chaos is needed, and the greater the force of will required. My sleeve is made of cloth; it would be relatively easy to make it burn. To make your sword burst into flames would be another feat altogether, for metal is not given to burning.’
She peered through a doorway as they passed it. Beyond was a chamber that might have been a temple to the Nine, except there was only a single statue there. Old as it was, Aren recognised the hooded figure that loomed over the altar. Vaspis the Malcontent, Aspect of Vengeance and Treachery, patron of outcasts and underdogs. Ruck stopped and took a look, ears raised, while Vika walked on.
‘It is said that in the Age of Legends, even the meanest sorcerer could achieve astonishing things,’ said Vika. ‘Other histories of the Second Empire speak of the great and strange powers of the Sorcerer Kings and Queens. But if such accounts are true, those arts are long forgotten. Those who call themselves sorcerers today are mere tricksters by comparison.’
‘Are you a sorceress?’ Aren asked.
‘I am a druidess. I speak to the spirits. And perhaps there is a touch of chaos in my potions.’ She gave him a sly glance. ‘But I am no sorcerer. I could no more make your sword burst into flames than I could fly.’
They turned into a new corridor. Bright sunlight slanted in through the windows but did little to alleviate the pervasive sense of threat. Ahead of them, Garric was leading Keel, who held himself like a frail old man, diminished by the terror he’d witnessed. Garric’s expression was grim. Aren hadn’t seen him exhibit much concern for any of his other companions, including those that had fallen to the dreadknights, but his worry for his friend was obvious.
So there’s more than just anger and hate in you, he thought.
‘There is another kind of sorcery, though,’ said Vika. ‘An altogether more abhorrent kind of magic. A century ago, there was war in the Communion. Druid fought druid. Our order was brought to the brink of extinction, and though it has recovered since, we were weakened for ever after. A group formed under the leadership of Carlac-Parts-The-Flames. They called themselves Apostates, and declared the Aspects dead, and sought their gods in the Shadowlands instead. The other druids thought them harmless and let them be, not knowing that Carlac had unearthed forbidden knowledge and was making dark pacts with entities across the Divide. By the time we learned of it, it was almost too late to stop them.’
Aren thought of the tools in the sanctum, and understood. ‘Blood sacrifice.’
‘Aye. Sacrifice, and torture, and worse.’ Her face hardened. ‘There is potency in blood, but we use only animal blood, or that which is given willingly. To take a human life is to deny all possibilities from that day to the day of their natural death. The Apostates discovered how to harness that, and it made them terrible. It is only by Joha’s grace that we found them out while they were still few, but our order has borne their taint ever since.’
‘You think this creature comes from the Shadowlands?’
‘This is no mere shade. It may even come from some place beyond,’ she said. ‘I believe it is a servant of the Outsiders.’
Aren felt dread touch him. He had no more reason to believe in the Outsiders than in the Aspects that had imprisoned them in the Abyss, yet it was easier to fear the unknown than to love it.
‘All this is the work of the Sorcerer King Azh Mat Jaal, I suspect,’ Vika said. ‘He meddled with forces best left alone. Whatever happened here, he brought it upon them.’
‘And yet whatever force protects the sanctum remains undisturbed.’
‘It may not be the only sanctum in Skavengard. It may not even have been Azh Mat Jaal’s. The Second Empire was a time of sorcery and many practised it. There are tales of the rulers of the great city-states waging magical battles with usurpers, sometimes their own children.’
‘Maybe we’ll find another sanctuary further on,’ said Aren.
‘Maybe,’ she replied.
But they didn’t. Instead, the way began to twist again, and as before, they found themselves going in circles. After the gains they’d made in the early morning, it was doubly frustrating to find their path blocked again and again. Once, when they tried to retrace their steps, Fen found she’d inexplicably forgotten to mark the corners, and they wasted an hour searching out their path again.
They paused to eat in an oval room with smooth sides like an egg. A slice of its narrow end was open to the air, as if the wall had simply parted there, and beyond it they could see the rocky slopes of the valley and the sharp blue sky above. Set around the room were a dozen bronze stelae taller than a man, vaguely oblong but tapering towards the top. On the south side of each, facing the open wall, were complex rows of hieroglyphs, broken up by larger pictures depicting scenes in bas-relief.
While Vika and Garric, Keel and Fen discussed the next step in grave tones and Grub stuffed his face industriously, Osman pulled Aren and Cade from stele to stele.
‘They’re histories, do you see?’ he said, excited. ‘That’s Sarla bringing the plague to the urds; and there’s Jessa Wolf’s-Heart and Morgen, leading our people from slavery!’
Aren studied the strange flattened figures on the stele. They were angular and disproportionate and curiously posed, but he saw Osman was right. A hooded child stood with the dead lying round her. Elsewhere, urds fled before a man and woman bearing
swords. The urds were squat, slope-browed and lantern-jawed, grotesque in their fear.
‘Ugly things, ain’t they?’ said Cade, through a mouthful of stale bread. He pointed. ‘That one looks like Grub.’
Aren had never seen an urd except in a painting once, howling beneath Toven’s armoured boot as the great Krodan swordsman drove his blade into his enemy’s breast. That had been enough to haunt his dreams when he was young. Later, his father’s bodyguard Kuhn had told him tales of his time in the Sixth Purge, when he fought alongside the Knights Vigilant in another ultimately unsuccessful attempt to eradicate the urdish tribes from the face of the world. He spoke of the hordes that attacked in the night from hidden tunnels that mazed the lowlands, and of a great underground city that no one had ever found. For centuries, the Barrier Nations had stood as a bulwark against the vengeance of the First Empire. If occupation by Kroda was bad, occupation by the urds would be infinitely worse.
‘Aren! Come here!’ Osman’s enthusiasm was infectious. He’d forgotten the danger in the thrill of discovery.
He was pointing to a strange chart, a tangled family tree running down the face of one of the stelae. At the top was a single mighty figure, drawn in an attitude of pride and strength. Six lines spread downwards, crossing and overlapping, passing through various scenes in which people sailed in ships, or hid from the sun in caves, or warred. Scene by scene, the people changed gradually, becoming shorter or thinner or more brutish, until at the bottom there were six figures standing side by side.
‘What’s it mean?’ asked Cade, looking over his shoulder.
‘It’s how the Six Races came to be,’ said Aren, and Osman grinned. Aren traced with his finger. ‘There are the giants at the top, along with the draccens and monsters that ruled the lands after the Age of Chaos came to an end.’
‘Then here, the Long Ice,’ Osman said, ‘and the Breaking of the People. The giants scattered, fleeing the ice. Some to the caves, some to other lands. Some became cannibals, some herders.’
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