by Neil Beynon
The king shifted. ‘Is the thain with the Shaanti forces?’
Cernubus nodded. ‘She will be.’
The king remained silent as he watched the battle for signs of Tream mistakes. They began to fall back as the Kurah numbers started to tell, and the Tream moved to form into a wedge. The Kurah cavalry were ready. The battle was turning back in his favour, and he felt his confidence returning. In many ways, this was a much better test of his forces than he had anticipated, closer to what they might face in a Tinaric invasion, where the numbers and weaponry would be much closer to their own.
‘You brought two armies down on me,’ said the king, tapping the ground with his blade. ‘Hardly the actions of an ally.’
‘I did what you asked. Why are they ringing that damned bell? We know there’s an attack.’
The king tilted his head – he had not noticed the alarm bell still ringing out. This was decidedly odd. The bell was coming not from the northern line but from the southern line, and that wasn’t right either unless … they had taken the portal.
‘That’s the southern line,’ said the king, breaking into a run. ‘That’s why there are so many of them.’
The southern line foundered in the early morning sun. Many men had rushed to the northern line, not realising an attack was imminent, and were unable to hear the call for help over the sound of men dying. The Shaanti cavalry had ridden straight in behind the line and caused a massacre. They burned through the camp, killing Kurah wherever they could find them. The king took all this in from a small ridge that looked down on the southern line. A row of tents hid him from raiders.
‘Do something!’ said the king, turning to Cernubus.
The god watched the scene without emotion. ‘It’s all right. They’re nowhere near the pyres. You just need to hold them until midday.’
The portal exploded, showering them in dirt and blood, and making the king’s ears ring. Damn this god, thought the king. He looked up at the morning sky. The alignment had begun, and the celestial dance was impressive: the first stage was underway with the twin suns rising in the south and the sentinels continuing to shine in an almost-perfect line across the sky. By the afternoon, they would be in final formation.
Montu barked at his men. ‘Damn you. This is your fault. You, man – get the horsemen from the eastern line. No, don’t use the signaller. Run and send another to the northern line. We need a more even distribution of forces. Go.’
Cernubus dropped to the ground. He appeared to be listening again. The king shoved him with his foot.
‘Stand and fight, even if you won’t use your power to help me.’
Cernubus ignored him, rising a moment later when he had satisfied himself that whatever he had heard was correct. He looked at the king and lifted his hand. A pulse of light burst upon the southern line, sending Shaanti rolling from their horses. The god was no longer smiling. The king felt his stomach flip at the sudden seriousness of the immortal.
‘Hold the men until midday,’ said Cernubus, turning to the king. He stared at Montu so hard the king felt like his skin was being peeled away.
There was screaming now from the north. Men scattered all around them, running as if the stone god itself was on their heels and ready to take them down to hell. Cernubus lifted his spear in concern, and the king felt his own grip tighten on his sword hilt.
‘Now what?’
Akyar found himself separated from the Tream.
The vizier led as he had always been taught by Hogarth, from the front, and so had cut and bludgeoned his way into the Kurah line as they shattered and panic spread through the forces. He saw the occasional glimpse of Anya and Vedic making their way inexorably towards the scaffolding and the sacrificial prisoners waiting to die. He pushed the thought from his mind. He had another idea.
The Kurah king stood on a small rise, barking orders and talking to someone that the Tream could not see clearly. Who it was didn’t matter. The way was clear because the Kurah were already panicking. What if their leader was killed in clear view by one of the ‘mythical’ Tream? What would that do to their forces? Would that weaken the scarred god? It would be revenge, he thought. The Kurah and Cernubus had wrought such pain down on his people, had left him so exposed in front of his peers. He was not given much to rage, but he burned with it as he stepped onto the rise.
‘You have come a long way, little prince,’ he said. ‘But the time has come for you to leave.’
Montu turned. The vizier saw the tall warrior the king had been talking to roll from view, but he thought nothing more of it.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am the vizier of the Tream,’ he replied.
Montu frowned. ‘I retreat from no one.’
‘I wasn’t planning on letting you,’ said Akyar, lifting his blade.
Montu drew his own sword. ‘You should have stayed in the forest, Tream.’
Akyar had the advantage. He was taller and his arms were longer, allowing him to strike without moving his body in range, but the Kurah king was beyond good with a sword. He did not break a sweat as he parried and swatted aside Akyar’s attempts at finishing the duel. How did a human, practically a child, get so good with a blade? Akyar asked himself.
In the distance, there was another bright flash and more yelling. Perhaps another god had arrived. Akyar was only dimly aware of the wider battle as he fought for his life on the knoll. Perhaps Cernubus was returning. But no, that couldn’t be right, because the scarred god was there already; he knew that.
‘Why do it?’ asked Akyar. ‘Why attack the forest?’
Montu smiled. ‘Because we can.’
The Kurah king twisted his blade and flicked the Tream’s sword out of his hand and across the grass, running his weapon back across the vizier’s stomach in a line of fire. The Tream gasped. His hands went to the wound, even as he could feel his body trying to heal.
‘What in the gods …?’ hissed Montu, staring at the Tream.
‘No, no, no,’ said Cernubus behind Akyar.
The Tream heard a swoop of the spear being drawn back, and then his legs were on fire and folding under him.
Cernubus continued. ‘You have to remove their heads to kill them. He’ll just heal.’
Oh gods, thought Akyar. I’m going to—
Cernubus struck off Akyar’s head with his spear.
Chapter Thirty-Five
They came to watch what transpired.
Pan and Danu stepped through a portal they’d created a short way from the battle, behind the treeline, hidden from view. There was little that could be done about the light show that accompanied such magic. Danu folded the portal behind her, and Pan knew there was no way she would risk Kurah warriors making their way deep into the forest. Hooded and cloaked, they made their way onto the field, staying away from the fighting but looking for the pieces they had set on the board.
‘Our sister is here,’ said Danu, gesturing at the Morrigan.
The goddess stood, unmoving, on the far side of the battle, staring up the small rise at the sacrificial pyre.
‘If she tries to involve herself …’ began Pan.
‘She won’t,’ said Danu, her voice cracking. ‘She is here for another reason.’
Pan was about to ask what when he felt the connection in the back of his mind, the line that tethered him to Akyar, go slack and vanish. It felt like a spear of ice had been rammed into his skull. His words stopped, and he began to gag as he dropped to his knees.
Danu was at his side. ‘What is wrong?’
Pan could feel tears pouring down his face. He felt hollow. He mentally tongued the place in his mind where Akyar had been, and found nothing.
‘He’s dead.’
Danu frowned. ‘Who? Vedic?’
‘No,’ said Pan, forcing the nausea down. ‘Akyar.’
Danu clutched him to her. ‘Oh, Pan, I am so sorry.’
Pan pushed her away.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘We cannot sit on the side
lines.’
‘This is a battle,’ Danu said. ‘People die.’
‘Cernubus killed him.’
Danu looked at him. Perhaps she was thinking of Vedic. Pan didn’t care. He just didn’t want to fight her as well.
‘I understand,’ she replied, refusing to argue.
Pan let power pour to his hands. He set off at a run for the hill and the scarred god, who stood laughing over his friend’s still-warm body. He noted Danu did not follow.
Tears streamed down Anya’s face at the sight of her fallen friend. Akyar’s body lay at the feet of the scarred god as the Kurah king spoke words she could not make out over the storm of her grief. Vedic put his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged his hand off. She felt sick. She was hyperaware of the cold, cloying mud under her feet, of her stomach churning, of the feeling that she had failed another.
‘Anya,’ Vedic said, his voice gentle. ‘The children.’
Anya looked up. The rage pulled at the harness she had built for it. Cernubus was right there for the taking – if he fell, then the army would scatter and all would be safe. She was the daughter of the witch-warrior of the Shaanti; she could do this thing for her people even if the act killed her, and Akyar would be avenged. Anya felt energy flicker under the ground. The movement felt like the presence she had sensed when they had been up in the mountains, seeking refuge from Cernubus. Vedic shifted next to her. Did he sense the power?
‘You can’t kill him,’ said Vedic, not unkindly. ‘I’m not sure anyone can.’
Anya knew he was right. Their best chance was to move round the king and his ally. Whether you thought of him as a demon or a god was irrelevant – Cernubus was deadly.
‘I know,’ she replied.
Vedic nodded. He seemed satisfied that she wasn’t going to berserker-charge the pair, and he moved towards the next tent, which would take them out of view, towards the prisoners.
Pan came from nowhere, incinerating the tents all around them. The trickster was making a noise that Anya had never heard in her life. Somewhere between a bellow and a scream, and speaking of pain on the scale of the universe. If Anya had ever wondered how the Morrigan could have razed so much of the forest when Bres had been killed, she had no doubt now. Pan’s rage caught even Cernubus by surprise. The scarred god managed to almost turn towards the vengeful god before Pan struck him in the midriff, a vicious spear-like takedown that also sent the Kurah king to the ground. The trickster thrust his hands, burning with magic, into Cernubus’s torso. The scarred god cursed.
Montu picked himself up, holding his sword, and looked straight at Vedic and Anya.
‘Fuck,’ said Vedic, putting himself between Anya and the king. ‘Go!’
‘But Pan …’ she tried to argue.
Vedic lifted his sword-staff as he looked her straight in the eyes. ‘Go!’
Anya flinched. It doesn’t matter if you feel fear, said her mother’s voice. It’s what you do with it that matters.
Anya turned her back on her friends, though the pain of moving on nearly broke her, and started running for the prisoners even as she heard Vedic’s and Montu’s swords kiss in the midday sun. But when she closed her eyes, she saw Akyar’s body, and the tears were hard to hold back.
‘You are brave to show your face here, priest,’ said Montu, holding his sword in a guard position. ‘The punishment for that robe is not one I would want to endure.’
Vedic smiled at the Kurah ruler. ‘Where else should I be but at my master’s side?’
The king’s hand tightened on his sword. Vedic noted the boy’s knuckles were turning white. ‘I thought my grandfather had killed all your kind.’
‘Laos is not any priest,’ said Vedic, swinging his staff in lazy arcs to loosen up his arms. The woodsman was frightened by how at home the weapon felt in his hands, like renewing a conversation with an old friend. If Vedic let himself, he could almost hear the sword talking to him.
Other Kurah were turning to look at them now.
‘Did you hear what he called himself?’ was the murmuring cry amongst the men. ‘He is the Priest returned.’
But they did not run. The fascination of watching a legend stand in front of their king, the King’s Eagle, the Priest, was too much to run away from, and Vedic felt all eyes on him. There was a surge beneath his feet; energy flickered back and forth, as if unsure what to do, and when the thing touched Vedic’s feet, it made the world brighter. He had felt this before.
Pan and Cernubus fought in a tangle of magic and heat just a few feet away, oblivious to the confrontation taking place. Akyar’s body lay to the woodsman’s left, but he would not focus on the corpse. He had to buy Anya time.
‘Laos is dead,’ said the king, drawing his blade. ‘You’re being ridiculous, priest. You would be over a hundred if you were him.’
‘One hundred and forty-nine to be precise,’ said Vedic, spinning his staff from one hand to the other and around his neck before planting it back on the ground in front of him. ‘But I’ve kept in shape. Now, let me guess which of Jeran’s boys spawned you. You have Bale’s stature and Fen’s pride but … no. Vince would be your father, I think.’
The men around them were pale as ghosts. Yet still they did not run.
‘Kill him,’ said the Kurah king to his men. ‘I am bored of this madman. We have a war to win.’
No man moved.
‘I said, kill him. What’s wrong with you?’
Vedic could see the king’s anger growing at his men’s superstition.
‘They’re scared of me,’ said the woodsman, stepping forward. ‘They know their history and what your grandfather did to me. They fear what the Butcher of Vremin will do to the family who betrayed him.’
‘You were a threat to the kingdom,’ said the king, raising his sword to emphasise his words. ‘They feared you and your mad faith more than us. You’d have overthrown us if your god willed it.’
‘You believe?’
The king positioned his sword in guard. Vedic stopped his approach.
‘I believe you think you’re Laos,’ said the king. ‘But your delusion will get you killed. I could not let you live now even if you confessed your deceit.’
‘Oh, I think your men would disagree.’
‘One in ten of them will die for this disobedience,’ said the king. ‘But you won’t see it.’
Vedic smiled. ‘I see they still use my treatise on punishment for disobedience.’
The king smiled. ‘Oh, we’ve moved on quite a bit since then.’
The ruler’s attack was swift and strong, but Vedic was faster, rolling clean out of the way and coming to his feet still without striking back. The men looked on but did not try to intercede on the king’s behalf; it was as if they were rooted to the ground. The ruler spun round ready for a counter-attack, but Vedic stood leaning on his staff as if worn out. The king smiled.
‘Are you defeated already, old man?’
Vedic laughed. ‘Are you so eager to die?’
The king’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are unwilling to defend yourself. And you ask me if I am eager to die?’
Vedic shrugged. ‘I have every reason to kill your grandfather, but he is already dead. I would not hold you responsible for your ancestor’s sins. You could leave this place and free the children. You could refuse to do the bidding of that thing that was once a god.’
‘You would prefer I sacrificed to the stone god, who I – king of the Kurah – destroyed?’
Vedic smiled. ‘I doubt you killed that creature, but no, I make no such claim or request, no such boon. Just leave here. Your analysis of history is faulty – if you seek to drive back an invasion force, you must seek willing help.’
The king made another attack.
Vedic blocked the series of blows with his sheathed sword without drawing the blade from the wood. He rolled backwards, out of strike range. Two warriors made a start towards him as his back came within reach, but his staff spun out, knocking out the men, and returned to the grou
nd in front of Vedic before their blades made it from the sheath.
Vedic looked at the warriors surrounding him. If they got over their fear, he would not make it off the knoll alive, and the longer the battle went on, the more likely they would see him not as a ghost but as a man. He could see narrowing eyes on more than one man who thought it odd the Priest would not fight.
In truth, he didn’t know why he wasn’t fighting the king and cutting down the man who had slaughtered so many. Yet the king’s deeds were nothing compared to what he had done himself. Had Montu done anything different from Laos? Who was Vedic to judge?
He has unleashed a second god on his people. He has pushed them into a needless war that may destroy his entire nation’s security. How many more will die before he sees the futility, the evil of it all? I have to stop him.
Kill him, said his own, harsher voice, the one he thought of as Laos. The thing under the forest flicked beneath him again.
The king attacked once more.
This time Vedic did not move. He drew the sword from the staff, and the men stepped back as the woodsman moved under the ruler’s sweeping strike and spun. The Eagle’s Claw bit into the king’s arm, cutting through without any difficulty and sending Montu’s weapon to the ground. The woodsman’s strike followed through into a powerful spinning blow across the whole of the king’s body, slicing him in half. The Kurah king fell, in two pieces, to the mud, and all was silent save for the last hiss from Montu’s open mouth.
The men stared at Vedic, covered in their leader’s blood.
Vedic looked at the men. Beneath him he could still feel that powerful energy flickering. He raised his sword. The thing seemed to hum with the magic Pan had cast and the belief of the warriors.
‘Who’s next?’
They ran. Alone on the knoll, knee-deep in corpses, Vedic finally noticed that Cernubus and Pan had vanished.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Anya didn’t look back.