by Neil Beynon
‘Do you have any suggestions where to attack the Kurah?’ asked Hogarth, his eyes not leaving his wife.
Pan looked up at the king. ‘Are you sure? I did not do this for your favour – I would not have you think I have manipulated you into a battle you do not want.’
Hogarth smiled. ‘I know you did not, but if I hear you right, the battle will come whether I want it or not, and only the fool allows his enemy to pick the terms of engagement.’
Pan nodded. ‘Time is pressing. I can sense Vedic and Cernubus fighting even as we speak. The Kurah eastern flank is exposed to us, and the thain, if she comes, will come from the west. Should you attack from the east, then we can crush them between you and the Shaanti.’
‘What if the woodsman kills Cernubus?’ asked Akyar.
‘We still have to free the children,’ said Pan, shaking his head. ‘Do not put too much faith in that one, and don’t underestimate the Kurah. They want to control this continent, and they can’t do that while there are Shaanti, Tream and gods occupying the land. Cernubus is not the only threat.’
‘It will be difficult to get there in time,’ said Hogarth.
‘Do what you can, my lord,’ said Pan. ‘I can ask no more than that.’
‘The woodsman can defeat Cernubus?’ asked Hogarth.
Pan was quiet, then said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Then why bother,’ asked Hogarth, ‘when we will lose?’
‘He does not have to kill Cernubus,’ said Pan. ‘You can erode my cousin’s power by defeating the Kurah. All Vedic has to do is free Danu. Besides, I might be wrong.’
‘There’s always hope?’ asked Hogarth. ‘Is that it?’
Pan nodded. He felt like he was carrying the weight of the forest on his shoulders as he replied.
‘Akin to hope. Although I do not speak of that which left this land so long ago. For me, defiance and mischief have always been good substitutes. How we choose to fall can be as meaningful as managing to stay on our feet.’
‘Even the fallen tree has its uses,’ said Hogarth, with a grim smile.
Pan nodded.
‘Summon the warriors,’ said Hogarth to his guard. ‘We head for the Barrens as soon as they are mustered.’
Pan stood and bowed to the king. The guardsmen finally lowered their swords, sheathing them. The god drank in the sweet smell of the pine wood surrounding them and tried to gather what scraps of energy were left in the ground. Far away, Cernubus was fighting hard and using up the forest like it was a glass of water.
‘Thank you, sire,’ said Pan. He turned to leave, hoping to make his exit a little way away from the Tream where they would not see the method he planned to use to return. He hoped he had enough energy.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ asked Hogarth, surprised.
‘Yes,’ said Pan, looking back. ‘I have done what is needed here. Now I must help Vedic as best I can.’
‘How can you manage another trip?’ asked Akyar, stepping forward, concerned.
‘With difficulty,’ said Pan, his face gaunt. ‘But I’ll live.’
The god paused. In looking over at the king and his son, a weapon caught his eye. The blade glinted from the wall: sleek, silver and gold, elegant and deadly, the sword was nearly as long as a man, a wooden sheath hanging just below it. Together they would have looked like a staff, perhaps were even used as such.
It can’t be, thought Pan. Why would he leave the weapon behind if it were?
‘What is that?’ asked the god, drawing closer to the sword.
‘I think you know,’ said Hogarth, following Pan’s gaze. ‘The Shaanti called it the Eagle’s Claw. Not many priests’ weapons were as effective as this one. The lives that blade has taken could fill the forest.’
‘His tongue was also pretty effective,’ said Pan, unable to look away from the sword.
‘True.’
‘How did you get it?’ asked Pan, walking to where the blade hung.
‘I found it,’ answered Hogarth.
‘You know, in Kurah, they even warn their children against this weapon,’ said Pan softly, running his hand down the blade. He was surprised that he could smell the oiled wood of the sheath so strongly. He had assumed the weapon would smell of nothing, or of blood. The sword was beautiful in a terribly simplistic way.
‘I believe the owner is who they warn against,’ said Hogarth, his tone careful and even.
‘Yes,’ said Pan, shaking his head. ‘To be feared as much by your own people as your enemy … takes a kind of talent.’
‘Not one I care to emulate,’ said Hogarth, with a slim smile.
‘Tried to give it to him, did you?’
Hogarth nodded.
‘He did not want it,’ said Jiana. She sounded in awe of the weapon. ‘He fears it.’
Pan smiled. ‘Well, he should, nevertheless. I think we may yet have use for a legend. A blade that even the Kurah fear … May I take it to him?’
‘If you wish,’ said Hogarth, frowning. ‘I never really cared for it.’
The god lifted the weapon from the wall. The scars of the sword’s forging had left swirls down the blade that glinted in the light. The Kurah blacksmith who’d forged it had been talented indeed, copying the Delgasian technique for hardening the steel. Meyr met his gaze as he turned to leave the throne room, extending his hand. Pan smiled, shaking the prince’s hand.
‘You’re going to fight as well,’ said Meyr, concerned.
‘Yes. Cernubus has slain many already – friends, family and worshippers. I would serve my purpose and teach him the true meaning of chaos.’
‘He knows how to kill gods?’ asked Meyr.
Pan found himself moved by the boy’s concern. ‘Yes, I’m afraid he does.’
‘Be careful,’ said Meyr, hugging the god. ‘The world would be a sad place without you.’
‘Oh, I’ll be back,’ said Pan, laughing. ‘For now, I go to sow my tricks amongst my cousin’s plans.’
Akyar stood in front of him as if determined to stop the god leaving.
‘I must,’ he whispered to Akyar.
‘I know,’ said the Tream, gathering Pan to him and kissing him, his body pressed hot against the god. ‘Return to me.’
Pan nodded. He could not bring himself to look back at Hogarth. Pan turned and kept on turning, spinning on his heel until he became a blur, faster and faster, until he was no longer solid but a spinning vortex of dust that sped out of the door, knocking pictures from walls.
In the space of the conversation, his mood had changed. He felt more himself, and he decided to work his spell in full view against what he knew to be Danu’s wishes. As he spun through the palace and out into the forest, he could feel the Tream eyes on him, their unasked questions hanging over him, and his total absence of answers ringing hollow. In the whirlwind, it sounded like a fool’s laugh, but he was happy to play as such. At least he would go down laughing and with enough power to put up a fight.
Anya crashed into the tree.
The air exploded from her lungs, and she heard her blade snap underneath her as she dropped to the ground. She tried to lift herself up, but the pain in her back was a searing weight that she couldn’t shift. She slumped back down, watching from the dirt as Vedic fought on alone.
The woodsman bled from a number of wounds. His thin hair was matted with sweat, but he swung his sword without signs of flagging. The problem with his technique was not that he failed to penetrate the god’s defence – he was landing more blows – but that his attacks didn’t wound Cernubus. Where steel separated the god’s flesh, Cernubus used his own power to heal himself. However, where the god landed wounds on Vedic, they cut and bled, leaving him weaker and weaker. Anya wasn’t sure how much longer the woodsman could keep up with the god.
Vedic rolled out of the way of a spear thrust, coming to his feet near Anya.
‘I’m impressed, Laos,’ said Cernubus, swinging his spear. ‘You’re not rusty after chopping wood for half a century.’
‘It’s not a skill you forget,’ said Vedic, eyes not leaving the god.
‘Tell me, Laos,’ said Cernubus, nodding at Anya. ‘Have you had her yet?’
‘You cast your words like a boy playing at battle, not a god of millennia,’ said Vedic, spinning his sword back into a guard position and looking for an opening. ‘I left such things behind long ago.’
‘Perhaps I should,’ said Cernubus, pacing round the woodsman. ‘Before I burn her in front of the armies of Kurah. What do you think? How would you do it?’
Anya got to her feet. Ignoring the pain in her back, she limped around, looking for a weapon: a sword, a stone, a stick – anything to help Vedic with. Cernubus ignored her, continuing his assault on the woodsman with renewed speed and ferocity.
‘I’m surprised she’s with you, really,’ said Cernubus, breaking away once more. ‘I can smell Pan’s stench on her. It wouldn’t take much to bring him away from that Tream he is so infatuated with, and to be honest, I’d have thought she’d be eager to be away from the likes of you, Kurah.’
Anya spotted a bow. From the look of the thing, it had been discarded in the bushes by one of the fallen gods. It cost her to draw the bow, but she had found a use for her rage at least.
‘Oh, I’m full of surprises,’ said Anya.
‘Ah,’ said Cernubus. ‘Back with us, I see. Perhaps – before I kill him – you can tell me how you, a clanswoman, can follow Laos?’
Anya did not blink. ‘Laos, Vedic, whatever this warrior’s name – Kurah or not – he is true to his word.’
‘She doesn’t know?’ said Cernubus, gently testing the woodsman’s guard once more. ‘You haven’t told her?’
Vedic wheeled around Cernubus’s spear thrust. Though the attack missed him, Vedic was grey as he turned to face the god once more, eyes flicking to Anya. She looked for a more serious wound, thinking he must be losing blood, but she couldn’t see one. Something twisted in her belly. The movement was coiled like a snake, and she felt the sweat on her own skin as cold as ice.
‘His secrets are his own.’ Anya unleashed an arrow that slammed into the wood near Cernubus’s head.
‘Tell her, Laos,’ said Cernubus, goading the woodsman with his spear. ‘Tell her about your word. Tell her, priest.’
Anya paused, second arrow strung. Priest? Why did it feel like there were cold fingers tightening in her chest? But the Kurah had no god any more, not since … No …
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Cernubus. ‘Are you ashamed of who you are, Laos?’
Vedic did not respond.
‘I’ll tell her, then. This man you call Vedic, this man whose given name is Laos, was not always a forestal – and never a warrior as you know warriors – he was a Kurah priest. Or rather, the Priest, the definite article, you might say …’
Anya lowered her bow in disbelief. Vedic. Laos. He had to be over a hundred years old. He had been old when he had fought in the last war. The hand in her chest twisted. Please don’t let it be true. The blanket memory of the lake had been pulled from the myriad of dreams, and they cycled through the forefront of her brain without pause or mercy. She hadn’t been experiencing Cernubus’s dreams; she hadn’t been a passenger in the god’s head at all. Every nightmare had been Vedic’s memory.
They faded to her grandfather, Thrace, the once-proud general of the thain, disintegrating into a drunk before her eyes, her grandmother driven into the wilds by what she had seen, crushed by the memories of the massacre at Vremin and the carnage that had been dealt out by the Kurah military commander called the Priest. Her grandmother assassinated by Kurah.
No, she thought, he can’t be. And yet she knew it was the truth.
‘I see you have heard of him,’ said Cernubus, circling the woodsman. ‘The Butcher of Vremin and the faithful lapdog of the Kurah king. How many people have you sacrificed?’
‘The Priest is dead,’ said Vedic, swinging his sword. ‘I am Vedic.’
‘You are Laos, the priest who led the Kurah armies across the continent, the priest who destroyed three cities in three days, the priest who sacrificed the whole of the city of Blumenthal to the stone god, and the priest whose master tried to have him killed in these woods all those years ago.’
‘I was mistaken,’ said Vedic, attacking.
The woodsman’s timing was off. Cernubus belted him in the stomach with the butt of his spear, sending Vedic airborne and his sword into a tree and out of reach. The god smiled as he drew back his spear.
Anya saw all this through a clouded veil of half-held tears. Danu must have kept him alive – why? She felt sick. The weight of Cernubus’s words drove her to her knees.
Laos the Priest had responded to his king’s command – Montu’s grandfather – for a united continent and taken the armies of the Kurah under the banner of the stone god. Only the Shaanti had defeated them. Fifty years ago, within sight of the forest.
My grandfather, my people, she thought. I have betrayed them all by trusting this Kurah demon, and now we are all dead.
Anya felt an emotion rise in her. The feeling churned and burned in her gut, and she thought it might engulf her, until she found she could hold the fire, there in the centre of her chest. The emotion made everything sharp and focused. She looked down at her once-shaking hands that were now steady as a rock. She remembered the word her grandfather had taught her for this feeling. Fury.
Wind gusted through the glade, lifting the burnt detritus into the air and forcing Anya onto her feet and away from Vedic. She could only just make out Cernubus as the wind lashed her hair against her face, and even the god was forced to raise his hands to protect his eyes from the dust and ash.
The whirlwind emerged at breakneck speed from the forest, shooting over Vedic and striking Cernubus in the chest. The god was slammed to his back, sliding away from the woodsman. The force of the wind pushed everyone else to the ground. The tornado resolved itself into Pan, who stood clutching a long staff, his face lined with effort and his legs buckling into the thick, choking ash.
Vedic lifted his feet over his head and flicked up from the ground, running as best he could to his trapped blade and trying to work the weapon loose.
Anya could not bring herself to move. She found herself retching as Cernubus rolled to his feet again. His eyes, black as Danu’s, were fixed on Pan. The two gods seemed as if they were drinking in the light from the glade.
‘Priest!’ shouted Pan, ignoring the more powerful god in favour of the gnarled woodsman.
Vedic turned.
Pan dropped to his knees, ignoring the advancing Cernubus, and pulled his staff apart to reveal the sword. Anya had been told by Falkirk that this sword had given her grandfather the scar that ran down his face from right to left. Few warriors had survived an encounter with the Butcher of Vremin. Thrace had, driving the Kurah back from Vremin with the fury of what he had seen in the sacked city. Still, it had not been enough. You couldn’t undo what had been done.
The trickster threw the blade with the last of his strength, spinning the weapon end over end, describing an arc that Anya watched lead to Vedic. The woodsman stepped to one side, grabbing the hilt as the sword spun past him, his hands sliding onto the weapon with an ease born of a lifetime of practice, and a new man stood where Vedic had been.
Anya thought she had been afraid in the camp; she thought she had been frightened in Golgotha; but she hadn’t known the meaning of the word until she saw the look in Vedic’s eyes upon holding that weapon once more. It was a look of pure hunger that went beyond what she had seen on Danu, beyond what she had seen on her grandfather’s face when he drank, and became as demonic as anything she had seen on Cernubus.
Cernubus’s foot connected with Pan’s chin, throwing the trickster god into Danu’s cell. Caught in the magic field, Pan let go a strangled cry before falling to the ground. He lay still.
Vedic spun the sword from hand to hand; the blade moved from limb to limb as if it were an extension of his arms. Anya th
ought the woodsman looked taller, like he had been made more real and more present by the weapon. She didn’t know any more if that was a good thing or not.
‘What of your oath?’ said Cernubus, spinning the shaft of his spear with one arm while inviting the woodsman to attack with his other.
‘As you keep trying to remind me,’ said Vedic, refusing to look at Anya, ‘I am Laos. What is a priest without his staff?’
‘Dead,’ said Cernubus, stabbing the spear again.
The woodsman blocked, twisting his sword as he struck Cernubus’s spear from his hand. He rolled past the god, his thick arms pushing the blade into a powerful backhanded thrust that ran through Cernubus from spine to belly.
The god stared down at the blade protruding from his chest. The woodsman turned to face Cernubus and swung his sword again, slicing the god’s neck with a powerful stroke that should have beheaded him. Cernubus laughed, a wet, gargling sound that made Anya’s stomach flip as she willed the god to fall, but he remained on his feet, wounds healing. Still, the woodsman fought on.
Vedic slammed the blade into the god’s chest with all his power. Cernubus grabbed the weapon as the blade went in, holding the sword there, and capitalising on the woodsman’s error – Vedic could not remove it. The god smiled, but flecks of blood traced his teeth, and sweat beaded his brow in a way that Vedic’s strikes had not incurred moments earlier. He wasn’t healing as quickly now. Vedic tried to twist the blade in Cernubus’s chest, clearly hoping that the increased pain would force Cernubus to release the blade.
‘That may not kill, but it does irritate,’ said Cernubus, angry for the first time. ‘I’d just as soon you stopped.’
The god raised his hand, sending magic arcing at the woodsman, striking him in the chest and knocking him across the clearing. Vedic fell on the ground, his charred tunic smoking where the spell had struck him. Anya knew he wasn’t dead, because his chest was still moving, but she didn’t expect him to get up again. Anya struggled to feel sorry for him.
Cernubus withdrew the blade from his torso and tested the weight of the weapon in his own hand. His chest healed as he swung the sword in lazy circles that cut the air with low whooshing noises. To her surprise, Anya watched Vedic as he tried to get to his feet, Cernubus advancing on him with his own sword.