Knight of Stars

by Tom Lloyd

  Teshen glanced back at his comrades. The once-handsome face of Anatin, as nasty as he was charming, and Safir, who’d have been a hero of legend in some earlier age. Kas too – a woman he could trust his life to as utterly as once he had Sanshir, but sharing little else with her. Kas was an archer and he thought of her as a bow, master-made and all the more beautiful for her craftsmanship.

  Sanshir was a dagger blade – no less incredible in the forging, but you could never forget that cutting edge, never avoid it. That was why they had been so good together, so intense in their relationship. They had both been fascinated by the danger of the other and the equal they had found. How it might have lasted, Teshen could never see, but it had been intoxicating. Until his treachery.

  And mebbe that was just part of our relationship. That unspoken friction. It was always going to tear us apart, some way or another. I was just the one to run headlong at that breaking point.

  He looked past Kas. Reft the quiet monster, Llaith who was more like Anatin than he liked to admit. Even the newcomer Suth, who was glorious just like Sanshir, and remorseless, relentless Toil. Many of the Cards were background noise to Teshen. He had never had time for those who were unexceptional, but Anatin had assembled a remarkable crew and its light attracted more. Few employers had ever fought at their side as Toil had, but Teshen saw a kindred spirit there.

  He wasn’t as broken as Lynx, but with the wisdom of years Teshen knew how important the crew was to him. Back then it had only been Sanshir. The rest hadn’t really mattered, for all they had fought side by side and toasted the fallen together. Perhaps age had mellowed him. Perhaps he understood himself more fully and had found what he had always needed here. Not riches, nor fame. Luxury meant little to him, worthy causes even less. Toil and he differed there. Her cause was everything and she would do terrible things in its name, but Teshen had never cared.

  No, he needed the company of monsters and heroes, a crew of the extraordinary within which he fitted. Nothing else was worth standing beside and that, it turned out, was all that mattered to him. To stand and face the world. To challenge the odds with a pantheon at his side.

  With one hand on his long knife, the other on the butt of his mage-gun, the Bloody Pauper smiled and walked the streets of Vi No Le once more.

  Lynx watched the sun reach the horizon. Orange light spilled across the sea and cast gold feathers of cloud across the sky. Above, the skyriver bore a gilt edge while below, the shadows reached long fingers across the city. He shivered despite the warmth that lingered in the air.

  The memories of days spent in Shadows Deep merged with older, more mundane horrors. The desire to help, to not sit idly by, clashed with those images. The golantha hurling itself across the chasm, the crack and crash of stone as it tore through the empty hallways in its pursuit of them.

  Occasionally, he dreamed of it. The creature of flame and shadow chasing him down the open street that overlooked the great rift and on to the bridge. Footfalls so heavy they shook the ground and took his feet from under him. Flickering tongues of light that lashed at his heels as he stumbled on. The enormous strength and fury of the creature, the exhaustion and helplessness he’d felt when he stopped to face it.

  Shadows Deep had kept him from arguing with Anatin. Lynx suspected that even Anatin had been surprised at that and part of Lynx hated himself for his meekness. A small voice at the back of his head claimed he would stand up when the golantha came. That when they were first sighted and the line wavered, he would walk up and join them, but Lynx wasn’t certain.

  The fractures in his soul and the demons that scratched away at his mind would play their own part, Lynx was only too aware. That he was not always in control of his mind was a spectre constantly lingering at his shoulder, but never more so than at times like this. And so he and all the other Cards had followed Teshen up into the high-reaching warren of Vi No Le district.

  It was the tallest of all the districts, three huge tors on Xi Le island, and two lesser piles on now-deserted An Vir. Hollowed out by generations of mages, the smallest of those was ten storeys high with a network of raised bridges connecting them to the smaller blocks skirting them.

  Teshen had led the company unerringly through the great warren of the district’s largest island, Xi Le, where even Kas would have got turned around. It had almost come as a shock when they emerged into the evening sun on the other side, where the narrow, layered streets ended abruptly at a long, thin plaza on the shore.

  From there, two bridges led on to the small stepping stone island between Xi Le and An Vir, called Si Jo. Aside from one kabat’s home, a quartet of copper-sheathed domes on the lagoon shore, Si Jo was much lower. The best view was offered from the shallow roof of a warehouse, less than a hundred yards from the narrow channel where Sanshir would lead their stand.

  Civilians continued to flee through the streets while the fighters of every district assembled ahead with whatever weapons they had. If anyone wondered why these foreign mercenaries were not marching forward, no one bothered to ask in their haste – the uncertain threat of sundown eclipsing all other thoughts.

  The Cards spread out in silence, some lying on the warm stone roof and others with their legs dangling over the edge. Lynx could see the low district of Cliffbase and An Vir island were largely deserted now, but not entirely. Some refused to leave, others could not and had been abandoned to cry piteously in the quiet darkening streets. Behind were the great cliffs where the tysarn roosted and above which many now circled – lit by the sun in the west, bright and warm in the day’s last light.

  It made the two dozen or more caves look all the more forbidding and dark, but Lynx knew they still had a short while. The sun was falling between the outer islands of the western chain and its light lay slanted across the cliff face. Only sunset itself would release the promised horrors from their prison.

  ‘Not long now,’ someone said uselessly.

  There was one bridge remaining across the channel between Si Jo and its larger neighbour, An Vir. The rest had been demolished, both this side and all those between it and Cliffbase, to only limited protest. The Shard’s authority had proved enough to sway the argument when people refused to believe huge monsters of ancient myth were advancing on the city. He could see mages fussing over the high stone bridge that remained, clearly preparing it as a trap for anything trying to cross.

  ‘Where did the Wisps go?’ Lynx asked Toil, suddenly remembering he’d not asked before.

  ‘Somewhere on the cliff itself,’ she replied. ‘They’re all mages, they’ll wait until the golantha are distracted then slip in while their backs are turned.’

  ‘Distracted with killing all of us,’ Anatin said. ‘Still, they gave us the warning I guess.’

  Toil nodded. ‘They risked their lives to do it.’

  ‘Unless this is all some sort o’ Wisp practical joke,’ Anatin chuckled. ‘We realise at sundown their whole clan is watching us shit ourselves and laughing at us!’

  ‘I hope so. Losing face is better’n the alternative.’

  Anatin raised his stump. ‘Preaching to the converted there, missy.’

  The shore of the island was a gentle curve around from the east that came to an abrupt point not far ahead of where the Cards were sitting. The remaining bridge was just fifty yards short of that point and as a result, the bulk of Sanshir’s command were stationed there. The Cards had arrived too late to see all of the preparation work done in An Vir, but the mages had clearly been busy – undermining buildings, blocking streets and using every trick they could think of to channel any attack where they wanted it.

  The regular troops were confused and apprehensive as sunset loomed, growing fractious as a result. Their fighting was normally done on the move, pack-hunting tactics and feints instead of a standing defence. There had already been fights between rival crews, some clearly unwilling or unable to believe their orders. Sanshir had apparently ordered the destruction of every barrel and bottle of booze on the isla
nd to limit this, but how long the détente would last come nightfall was anyone’s guess.

  The kabat guards, the only ones armed with mage-guns, were slightly better disciplined but only barely. The longer they watched, the more Lynx recognised the sense in Anatin’s orders. He still felt a coward about it all, a betrayer of the code he tried to follow, but he had no illusions. He was afraid, terrified of the thought of more than one golantha, and seeing all this, the commando in him saw a rabble ripe for shattering.

  If it doesn’t hold, Lynx thought to himself, all us marked Cards are going to want to run fast, not just the mages. I’m guessing we’re all on the menu now.

  He felt a nudge. It was Llaith offering him a smoke, which he took gratefully. The ritual of lighting and puffing was a balm as much as a distraction, familiar movements that helped to quell the turmoil inside him. As he smoked and the breeze snatched each puff away like an angry spirit, the last of the sun’s light sank into the sea.

  ‘No elementals,’ Sitain said in a whisper from further down the line. ‘Not one, even here.’

  ‘Even around you?’ Lynx asked.

  ‘Nowhere,’ she replied, pointing. ‘Must be a sign the Wisps are right.’

  There were mages down in Sanshir’s rabble, either brightly coloured or in dark coats depending on the habits of their guild. Lynx couldn’t see them at this distance, most swallowed up by the mass of troops down there, but he’d seen many arrive. Tanimbor’s cadre had been first to take their place, so Teshen had reported, and half a dozen of the Shard’s own led a unit of fifty. There should be elementals of all kinds buzzing around the small island, drawn to the mages of their particular flavour, but perhaps that flavour was what kept them away. The creatures that hunted magic would have elementals as their natural prey.

  ‘We should be down there,’ Atieno muttered to himself, not for the first time. ‘Not sitting here too far away to help, too close to escape.’

  Lynx didn’t think Atieno sounded any more convinced than he was. For all that Atieno also wore a Vagrim ring, he’d had a lifetime of avoiding battle, from unleashing the strange corrupting power inside him. It made this no simple decision for either of them.

  A treacherous voice at the back of his head reminded Lynx he should lead the way down, show the others what was expected of them. He was the soldier, not Atieno. Rarely had he let himself be swayed from what he thought was right. He felt a sour taste in his mouth as he watched others get ready to fight.

  ‘You won’t make the difference,’ Toil said; the voice of Lynx’s grubbier angels. ‘They’ve got a hundred or more mage-guns, four hundred Mastrunners, maybe a hundred mages too and what, ten of those are marked? It’s not people who’ll get to decide how this fight goes.’

  ‘And I know you ain’t much for following orders, you and Lynx both,’ Anatin added, ‘but this is one o’ those times when I need them followed. For your good as well as mine. I’m willing to let a lot o’ shit slide from all you idiots, but we’re working and I’m in charge. That means you damn well do what I tell you or your friends could start dying.’

  A sigh seemed to rise up from the patchwork army ahead of them, a shiver that acknowledged the encroaching dark. For the Cards, the light was still good enough to make out most of the scene ahead, but down on the ground it would be very gloomy. They had planted torches all along both shorelines of course and long tails of flame pointed out towards the lagoon where a large gun- and mage-laden boat bobbed fifty yards from the shore.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kas asked, pointing at the shadow-smeared cliff ahead. Lynx followed her finger but saw nothing at first. Others hissed, a few cursed, but it took him a long time before he worked out what was attracting their attention.

  Then he saw it, a flicker of movement at one cave mouth. Not the spreading of a tysarn’s wings, the beat at the air as they stretched their limbs and pushed off, but something altogether larger and more tentative. Lynx glanced to the side and saw a thin column of small tysarn emerge from the hellmouths in the centre of the lagoon. It didn’t look like as many as before, but he had no idea what that meant.

  At one of the larger caves, not far above the water, there was a sudden commotion and flurry of movement. Three enormous tysarn crawled out into view, bellowing furiously. They were as big as the ones who’d attacked the lodging house – as big as Teshen said they got before being unable to fly. Two reached out with their wings and began to gather the air, while the last continued to crawl across the shelf of rock.

  The first two heaved themselves up with heavy strokes of their wings, their great bulk dragging them down to brush their tails across the water before climbing. More than one of the Cards hefted their gun and kept a wary eye on those, but most watched the third. It made no attempt to fly, for all that it was also looking to get away. Instead it crawled on its four wings, making for the safety of water.

  But something was wrong with it. Its movements looked heavy and sickened, one of the larger forewings unable to push forward properly. When it did reach the edge of the ledge, it seemed not to notice – just kept on going and flopped over the edge to tumble into the sea channel below.

  Lynx found his gaze darting between that ledge and the cave that Kas had pointed out. The earlier movement hadn’t resolved into anything more, but then almost in unison a shape appeared in the fading light from each dark entrance. He found himself recoiling at the large head that emerged, just a head but one the size of a tysarn. At that distance it was hard to make out much more, even with his unnatural night-sight. But when Kas – the keenest-eyed of the company – hissed and instinctively drew back he felt a chill.

  There was no veil of shadows that flickered with inner fire around this golantha, as there had been in Shadows Deep. This one was entirely different. It was hard to make out but it emerged as though tasting the air, strange flickering movement surrounding it. Long, slender legs reached forward from a blunt shape Lynx could barely make out. There was a jagged tangle of something at its face, no eyes or mouth that he could make out, and all overlaid by a greenish flicker that danced around it.

  As he tried to picture the golantha from Shadows Deep, he realised it looked nothing like this – that had been more dragon-like, with clawed feet and a horned head. This one he saw nothing recognisable in for a while, until he remembered what else lived down there.

  Even as he thought that, Toil gave a moan.

  ‘Oh screaming hells, that’s one big bug!’

  It really was big, Lynx saw. Massive compared to the tysarn that had plucked people off the walkway even. Both of the shapes to half-emerge from the caves seemed of the same type, but how long that dark body went back was anyone’s guess.

  Faint flickers of light illuminated it, random bursts of greenish yellow running down its length and casting a slight haze around its head. Then a pulse of light seemed to well up from somewhere inside it. The light flowed outwards to trace the lines of its lower body, creating an after-image of many long, angular limbs and terrifying, twitching mandibles. The upper part remained dark, but from that glimpse Lynx guessed its back was armoured in some way and Kas seemed to agree.

  ‘See that?’ she called. ‘Plated back, the light beneath?’

  ‘Like that damn thing that bit me in Shadow’s Deep!’ Sitain moaned. ‘And killed Olut – but shattered gods, how big is that?’

  ‘That thing was just a centipede grown big,’ Toil warned. ‘Golantha are creatures o’ magic as well as flesh. Might be it’s got some extra surprises all of its own.’

  The creature came further out on to the shelf and the Cards gasped as one. It was huge – longer than the golantha they’d faced and with a dozen more legs emerging from beneath its plate armour back. The rear third tapered, but ended in a bulbous lump it kept slightly raised as it quested at the edge of the rock shelf with long whips of antennae.

  The antennae left a faint trail of light as they moved, resembling fronds drifting on a sea current then twitching back. There was a mass
of mandibles behind those, six or more lit up by the strange glow and all in movement. They reached out to the air and Lynx couldn’t shake the sense of anticipation he saw in those gestures – nor the memory of the last golantha’s glowing tongue-threads that had hungrily gathered up every mage cartridge it could find.

  The other one was half over the shelf it had emerged on to, lumpen tail held high as it anchored itself against one corner of the cave mouth. It twisted left and right as it sought purchase on the cliff face, but soon found enough to move down and disappear from view.

  ‘There’s rocks down there,’ Teshen said. ‘Not much, but if they don’t mind getting wet they can pull themselves along from one to the next. No boats can use that channel.’

  ‘More!’ someone shouted, pointing. ‘Oh Veraimin’s breath!’

  It was true – another had emerged from a different cave and a fourth followed the boldest as that one vanished behind the jutting towers of An Vir. Each was as big as the first, each unnervingly swift and lithe.

  ‘You count four?’ Kas asked the group in general. There were murmurs of agreement, but Teshen shook his head.

  ‘We saw four,’ he said. ‘There are more caves behind An Vir. We’ve no idea how many are coming.’

  ‘Aren’t you a little ray of sunshine?’ Anatin said, almost ripping his jacket as he tugged his hip-flask out. He took a long swig and then another.

  ‘If they reach us, don’t be precious with your ammo, boys and girls. Hard and fast is the only way, keep shooting after you’re sure you’re in range!’

  Chapter 35

  Lynx tried to follow the movement of the golantha through An Vir’s streets, but the tors and blocks obscured everything. Flickers of movement would catch the eye only to disappear when Lynx tried to focus on them. The largest streets had been lined with lanterns, small points of light that afforded some sense of the layout to his mage-enhanced eyes.