by Greg James
Their march halted. They watched the fiery knight with uncertain eyes. They did not move. He did not move.
A crossbow bolt sang out from the ranks of Fellfolk. It disappeared in a soundless burst of fire and smoke as it struck the White Rider. He drew a sword of blinding light from the scabbard at his side and pointed it towards the Fellspawn. He dug his heels into his steed’s side and charged. Jedda turned her head to the wearied faces peering out from broken stone and shattered wood. She held her own sword high.
They charged in his wake.
With the White Rider cleaving a path through the enemy, they followed and slew the man-things and monster-folk that he scattered. Jedda watched as the fire that the White Rider was composed of radiated outwards, in the same manner that the sun rising slowly illuminates the world in the morning and chases away shadow. This was a more fatal dawn though as the enemy were reduced to smoke and ashes by his passage. He disappeared through one of the holes torn in Highmount’s walls and Jedda watched as plumes of white smoke began to billow into the sky from the other side.
She ascended the battlements, careful to keep her footing on the parts that were still stable and looked out over the land. She saw the Rider travelling through the army of the Fallen One as an incandescent mote that sent seething waves of flame coursing across the ranks of their enemies. The ground was becoming black and heavy with ash. Many of the Fellfolk and Phages saw him coming and fled before him. Dionin burrowed into the earth, hoping to survive. Mind-Reavers raised their tendrils to weave enchantments that would shield them from his unwavering wrath. But all of their efforts were to no avail – the touch of the White Rider found them all. And with his work was done, he was gone, riding on to other worlds, places and times.
All came to halt.
All were silent. All were waiting.
A blinding aurora seared the eyes of all who looked to the West. There, a fire blossomed in the sky.
Jedda swallowed hard – was this the Rider returning to incinerate them?
Was this to be the consequence of her commands?
The death of her people after having them believe that they were saved?
But, as her sight cleared, she could see the forms marching forth from within it.
Shadows framed by fire. Each one, a colossus. The flames behind their fanged jaws and glaring eyes were fierce and dark. Each uttered a growl like mountains crashing together, as they strode on. Hearts began to pound and the four winds blew with ire. No quarter would be given. No mercy. No retreat. And so it was that nine great shadows fell across the battlefield; nine shadows of the Iron Gods.
They raised and lowered their clawed hands, slashing at the walls of the city, spilling rocks and stones in chattering torrents onto those below. Their shadows eclipsed the sun and their blows shattered the earth. Fire that could cut through mountains spat from maws that gaped like bottomless chasms.
Men and women screamed, fleeing, howling, and dying where they stood, as the Iron Gods cast their rage in every direction. Many thousands of bodies lay broken across the battlefield.
Jedda watched bewildered as defeat seemed about to be snatched from the jaws of victory. Gorra and the White Rider would not come to their aid again. There was nothing left to stand in the path of the Iron Gods. A few dozen defenders survived now, including herself, Venna and the Herb-Sisters. No more.
They might as well be ants before these monsters.
“What can I do? What can I do?”
Tears pricked at her eyes. All for nothing. All of this had been for nothing. She was going to fail General Kella. She was not going to win this war.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Oh, this was so sweet!
Mikka Wyrlsorn’s burning, twisted form danced and spun above the battlefield as his iron brothers did their work. The cries of the dying were music to his ears as men and women were crushed beneath sculpted talons. He watched, leering, as gigantic fingers plucked squirming bodies from the broken walls of Highmount, lifted them high and then dropped them, shrieking, into open maws where they were roasted alive in seconds. His brothers had been asleep for a long time. Their wrath had festered until it was a pungency that Mikka could taste on the wind.
Oh, so foul yet, oh so sweet!
He allowed himself to drift towards the ground to enjoy the sight of those suffering. Men and women. A few Fellfolk and Phages. He was neither – in the shape of one kind but born with the dank soul of the other. There were none like him from one end of Seythe to the other. Soon, there were would none of them left at all. They would all be dead. His insides would no longer writhe when he looked upon another living thing and knew himself to be so very different from it.
He let his feet touch the ground beside a man dying from a grievous wound in his side. Blood was pumping out heavily into the ground. He did not have long to live. That was why Mikka chose him. He leaned in close to the man’s face and asked, “Why do you fight it? Why don’t you just give in? Just let go. Die.”
The man’s eyes rolled in their sockets before they found Mikka’s eyes. For a second, the man flinched away though he had no strength to move. His mouth worked but no sound came out.
Mikka became insistent, “Tell me ... why? You could just die and let this all be over. Why cling to this life – this forced, made thing that you endure?”
The man blinked death-sweat from his eyes and swallowed, “Because I want to see ...”
“See? What do you want to see? I have been from one end of this world to the other. There is nothing to see.”
“Then,” said the man, “you have not looked. Perhaps, you cannot see. Your eyes are turned inward, away from the world ... because you fear to see yourself in it, somewhere.”
“What?”
“The world ... the one I love and do not want to leave ... is a mirror ... it is up to ... us ... if the reflection is grim ... or a beautiful one.”
Mikka snarled.
“For the world to go on ... and to no longer see it ... that is why ... I want ... to live ... not die ...”
Mikka roared. He raised his hand and let loose a torrent of brilliant force, reducing the man to vapour. For a moment, the light of it blinded his eyes. He was not weeping. He could not be.
Then, the earth trembled and shook.
~ ~ ~
Jedda thought the quake was created by the Iron Gods, at first. But a mighty crack forced the metal giants to retreat as rocks, stones, and soil collapsed underfoot. The smelted demons howled and shrieked as they lost their footing and fell into widening pits that began to appear from nowhere.
From the pits sprang nimble forms that danced, struck and scratched at the shells of the Iron Gods - the Kay’lo!
Jedda called out to her people.
“Fall back!”
The ground was unstable and she did not want to see any of them hurtling into the pits and cracks that continued to open as ever more Kay’lo surged out from their underground web of tunnels and burrows. The tide of long-haired, dark-eyed warriors spread across the fallen Iron Gods like a beneficent plague. The Kay’lo’s speed and fighting skill out-matched their ponderous opponents, and whenever it appeared they might be overwhelmed and cast off the hides of their growling foes, a shout went up and Orraea was there–her robes billowing around her and her hair writhing as a wild storm. The daughter of Ossen smote the Iron Gods in the name of her father; conjured lightning played over them and boiling mercury scalded them until they groaned in protest.
Jedda watched and waited.
She could see steam escaping from the giants and hear the sound of ancient metal being slowly broken.
The ants were winning.
A sudden blast of fire knocked her off her feet, and as she tried to pick herself up, she heard a familiar, hateful and weasely voice.
“Greetings, your majesty.”
Mikka Wyrlsorn ...
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sarah was lashed to the sacrificial altar in Kiley’s place.
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br /> E’blis stood over her. His eyes were opals of shadow, without colour or life. The bones of his body made a disgusting rattling-clicking sound as he moved. His teeth were set in a demonic grin. She watched him as he turned the knives in his hands, this way and that. He slashed the blade past her at full arm’s length, taunting her. The flat of a blade swatted her throat, digging in, making her feel it, experience the curves and edges. The knife was withdrawn. The point of the knife jabbed into her stomach, not breaking the skin. The knife darted from here to there. Her arms. Her legs. It hovered before her eyes, close enough to scratch them.
“I win, O Flame, as I always knew I would. The final moment has come. All the power and strength of the Fallen One will be unleashed, and you will cease to exist. Darkness will fall, and nothing will ever again be born into the Light.”
“It’s not too late for you to end this, E’blis.”
“End this, why would I want to do that?”
“Because this is madness.”
“Madness? No, it is not madness; it is my destiny.”
“You fell for a reason, E’blis. It’s not destiny that brought you here. It was your own will and the destruction of countless lives.”
“You are not here to discuss philosophy with me, O Flame. You are here to bear witness as the Thirteen Worlds fall under His Shadow for eternity. This long war we have fought is ending in the only way it ever could, and the people of this world and every other will see you kneel before me, just before you die.”
“I’ll never kneel to you, E’blis.”
“You will, O Flame. Oh, you will, and to make sure that you do, I will hurt you. Oh yes, this shell that you burn within will bleed before it falls upon its knees and grovels before me.”
Agony scoured through Sarah out of nowhere.
“Your suffering will be only an iota of mine, A’aron. I will flay your body and then flay your soul, and your dying scream shall be the one that brings him into Being. I could have spilled your sister’s blood, and you could have spared yourself this fate, but I am even more content that you chose to take her place. Your pain is much more exquisite.”
There was a sound from far, far below.
An echo of sundering.
A reverberation of imminent collapse.
“Ah, do you hear, O Flame? He stirs. He tastes your blood on these stones. The alpha and omega awakens. Death and rebirth await!”
E’blis drove his hands into her body.
“Now, you will kneel! You will beg for your life!”
It was the turn of E’blis to scream.
The outpouring of scalding power from Sarah’s body consumed him. He reeled away from the altar as she arose from it.
“No ... you were bound ...”
“You cannot bind me, E’blis.”
“You were at my mercy.”
“The only one of us who can grant mercy today is I. I gave you a chance and you ignored it. You sought only to cause more pain to me and to others. Likewise, I choose to offer you no mercy now.”
E’blis was on his knees.
“No ... this cannot be the end ... you were to die ... not I ... your life ... for Him ...”
“There are no endings, E’blis. This is a beginning, and that is why there is no place for you here. Fare well, brother.”
Sarah poured more of the Flame into him. In moments, E’blis became a guttering candle of blackened bones, writhing, thrashing and twisting against its fate.
“... this ... cannot be ... the end ... my ... destiny ...”
But, it was.
Soon enough, there were only embers left of him, growing cold on the stony ground. And then, from under her feet, Sarah felt a steady tremor building. It was strangely regular in its rhythm and it made her think that it was something other than an earthquake occurring.
It was the Fallen One, laughing at her.
Sarah suddenly realised what she had done in slaying E’blis.
The sacrifice to summon Him had been fulfilled by her hand.
A god’s blood had been spilled—enough to awaken the Fallen One from his tomb. Though his power had been stripped away and his soul forever tainted, E’blis had still been a brother in blood to A’aron.
“Oh, shit!”
The Shadowhorn shook to its roots. Dark banks of cloud hurried in around its peak, and Sarah knew with all certainty that He was now fully awake. She would have to face Him, or the Thirteen Worlds would be consumed by His Shadow, for his might was greater than all who served Him. If she did not face Him then everything would be crushed into nothingness. He would not suffer another thing to live that was not as He was.
“No pressure then,” she said to herself, “no, none at all.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mikka Wyrlsorn, or what he had become, hung above Jedda surrounded by a halo of pulsating magickal energy. The venomous expression on his wretched face was frozen in place, only his eyes seemed able to move. The ripe stench of rot emanating from him and the rags that clung to his mis-shapen torso made Jedda gag before she was able to speak. Whatever magic had been granted to him by the Iron Gods, it had taken its toll on his body – she doubted the flesh and bones would hold together for much longer.
“You are changed, Mikka.”
“Whereas as you are not, Daughter of Ferra. I should have had you slain again the moment I set eyes on you. You could only ever have betrayed me. I should have seen it.”
“You should have, but you did not. It is difficult to see when one is in shadow, as we both were.”
“Silence, bitchling! I will flay your skin, tear your flesh, feast on the blood of your heart!”
“You speak like E’blis, Mikka. Or, you try to. Do you think you are him?”
“I am more than he ever could have been. The ancient power that flows through me is like ice, fire and the purest rage. I am greater than Him. I am greater than the Living Flame. Greater than all of you!”
“Then, how were we able to cow you, and your masters? Iron Gods are poorly named if they are not able to usurp such a title. And you were never a true king on the throne of Highmount – only a slave coveting a crown.”
“Silence! You will bow! You will kneel to me! All shall fall before my brothers’ might.”
“Your brothers? Does a creature such as you have kin? A false man. A mask without a face beneath it. How can a hollow man have anything truly, except for his own emptiness?”
Mikka’s eyes blazed. He raised his hands and they spat a spiralling torrent of energy at Jedda. It struck her but it did not move her. It flowed through her and earthed itself into the ground beneath her feet. Mikka screamed in frustration and hurled more of his power at her, but it too was absorbed and had no effect.
“What are you? What have you become?”
“I am nothing more than someone who has accepted who they are, Mikka Wyrlsorn. I need no name, save the one I was born with.”
“You speak in riddles and nonsense.”
“You are nothing, Mikka Wyrlsorn. A worm that believes it walks. A maggot that thinks it flies though it is caught in the beak of a preying bird. Truly a Wormtooth. You have well-earned the name. You pretend the role of conqueror, but you have only traded one master for another. You are already defeated. See, how do your brothers fare against the Wayfarer and the Kay’lo? You will never be more than the wasted, servile thing you are. You will always be less than a man. You are nothing.”
“No! You will fight me! I demand that you fight me!”
“Why should I? It would serve no purpose but yours. You have no power, except that which they deign to allow you. You lost this battle a long time ago, Mikka Wyrlsorn. You’ve been lost since the day you were born.”
He hung before her – his eyes clouding over and his fingers flexing, uncertain. Jedda thought she saw tears fall. She must have been mistaken.
“The world is a mirror ... grim ... beautiful ...”
What was he saying?
Jedda felt prickles of swe
at working their way across her brow. Her father had once said words were mightier than swords, and the right words could raise up kings, fell empires and drive lesser men to madness. She hoped this was true.
“For the world to go on, and to no longer see it. That is why I must ... die ...”
As his words faded, Mikka let loose a roar of hatred, but it was not directed at Jedda.
It was directed at himself.
Molten tears were pouring down his cheeks. He appeared frozen, so still, as he rose high into the air, higher and higher, away from Jedda before turning and hurling himself towards the Iron Gods – becoming a fiery comet that screamed out their names.
Jedda called out.
“Fall back! Away! Away, if you value your lives!”
They fled as Mikka, burning brighter than a midnight star, struck deep into the heart of Daogoth. The Iron God moaned and clutched at his breached chest. Jedda could see Orraea’s flowing robes among the Kay’lo streaming to safety as the Iron Gods thrashed and struggled to free themselves from semi-burial. Bright cracks were showing across the dark skin of Daogoth. Steam and black smoke were pouring from his form. There was a sound of boiling, a fierce creaking, then there was a deep and monstrous rending.
Daogoth shrieked in a grinding language that no-one knew.
He erupted – as did his brothers. A black rain of slag and searing-hot metal fell all around. The Iron Gods were gone. Mikka Wormtooth was gone.
The awful light of the explosion took its time to fade.
Jedda blinked slowly to clear away the pain it had caused.
They had won.
Highmount was safe.
Why then was no-one cheering?
Why was the air still so heavy and sombre?
As the aftershock of the Iron Gods’ fiery death pulsed on through earth and air, Jedda turned her eyes to the East. Great rumbles of thunder hammered the sky, and the ground beneath her feet shook violently.
Something out there was stirring.
“He is awake,” she said.