Revenant

by Bevan McGuiness

  The blackness fell away from Slave’s eye instantly, his silver eye’s glow faded, flared once and went out. Slave himself fell to the ground in bloodied exhaustion. Myrrhini dismissed the protective globe around him and went to his side. Within her, the angry power that was Kielevinenrohkimainen raged impotently at her control, but she was its master now. She was pureblood Mertian, and the power was hers to command. No matter that it raged, it was subject to her will.

  Myrrhini lifted Slave’s head and rested it in her lap. She stroked the matted black hair away from his forehead and regarded the Scarred Man’s face. His eyes flickered open.

  ‘You can control it?’ he gasped. ‘You sent it away?’

  ‘I can. I did. You are at peace. We are —’ Her voice stopped as her eyes widened in shock. Her mouth worked, but nothing emerged save the blood that ran over her chin, spilling onto Slave’s face. He rolled off her lap and forced himself to his knees, his eyes transfixed on Keshik’s sorcerous blade protruding obscenely from between Myrrhini’s breasts.

  His eyes shifted up, to look into the eyes of the woman now trying to wrench the sword back. She had fair hair, startling green eyes and skin the colour of fertile earth. Slave might have noticed the similarities to his own features, but his mind was beyond such subtleties.

  ‘Bitch,’ Bai snarled. ‘You brought this all upon us, Mertian!’

  Slave gave an incoherent scream of raw, unidentifiable emotion and launched himself at her, his hands reaching out for her face. She was just not fast enough and his fingers ripped into her flesh. Slave’s leap drove them both to the ground while he ripped and tore at the tatters of skin that once had been beautiful. He landed on top of her, his weight cracking bones inside her chest.

  The ferocity and speed of the attack left her dead in an instant. Slave looked up from where he crouched like an animal on its prey to see six others backing away in terror. Beyond their line of sight, Tatya shifted into spurre form. Together, in an attack as coordinated as any Tulugma training exercise, Slave and the vlekkenvorm tore them apart.

  40

  Li ducked under the swinging tentacles of the monster. As she went down, she swung her sword, catching the tentacle a solid blow. As before, her blade bounced off the impossibly hard skin of the thing. The jarring shock ran through her arm again, but at least her sword had not yet snapped, as too many of her fellow Tulugma warriors’ weapons had. Despite the apparent impotence of weapons, the monsters had fallen under the weight of numbers. Simple bruising clubbing had worked where skill and guile had failed. Hit it, hit it hard and hit it often was the tactic. And it was a tactic that had worked so far.

  Hundreds of these unspeakable things had erupted from the ground all through the city of Asnuevium. No one knew why, what these things were, or how they had come to be here, but here they were and here they laid waste. She hacked again at the tentacle as it came back, again her sword did not break. Her arm burned with agony from the near-constant jarring, ringing from her tortured blade, but she had seen three of these hateful things fall, so she would keep fighting.

  Li was confident she would die here, battling these things, but her mind was too numbed to be bothered thinking about it. Her every thought was needed in the battle: run, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, run. Over and over again.

  Two Habigga sprang out of concealment. In a display of astonishing agility, they actually climbed up the monster as though it were a wall, to attack its head. In defence, the thing whipped its tentacles away from attacking the several Tulugma hacking at it and sought to rip the troublesome Habigga off. This gave the Tulugma below the chance to press the attack. They swarmed in, hacking and screaming. One Habigga was ripped off the beast’s face and hurled away to smash into a broken wall. Li did not follow the path, but heard the sickening wet crunch as the Silent One died.

  The monster went down under the swarming attack. Li had not enough energy for any form of celebration so she sheathed her sword and leaned against a pile of rubble, catching her breath.

  With the coming of the monsters within the city, all attention had been taken from the wall, so the besieging army had flooded back in through the open gate, adding to the chaos. All the defending army was gone, leaving only citizens, various armed groups of thugs, the agents and the Tulugma. The first two groups were fighting a normal city battle — hit and run; fade into the alleys to reappear elsewhere. Their casualties were horrific and they would not last much longer. The agents were proving themselves to be tough, more than holding their own, although their numbers were falling rapidly. Outside the wall, an army still waited their turn to enter and join the thousands who had already made their way inside. They streamed in, screaming and yelling with the mindless ferocity of the truly insane. Li had encountered too many of them already. They were all mindless, reduced to barbarous savagery either by bloodlust or something more sinister.

  Asnuevium was doomed. The great, ancient city would fall within a day, but the ravening army, mindless and directionless, would be destroyed with it. The Tulugma, fighting with their unparalleled skills and tenacity, would cut them to pieces in the alleys, streets and buildings where numbers counted for nothing, and skill, everything.

  Li felt nothing for the faded city. Her only emotion was a slowly building pleasure at the magnificent fighting skills of the Tulugma. Whatever would remain of this decayed glory would owe its existence to the great fighters. It would be their greatest moment and would be celebrated throughout the Eleven Kingdoms for as long as songs were sung.

  She pushed herself upright. From all around her came the sounds of a dying city in its final throes — screams, cries, crackling flames, falling buildings. The smells accompanying the sounds were even worse. Li shook herself, trying to clear her head, but to no avail.

  The body of the monster shifted as the unsteady pile of rubble upon which it lay collapsed. It slumped to the ground. Li flicked a glance at the mess, expecting to see nothing but broken stone. To her shock, she saw light.

  Curious, she shuffled towards the heap. At its base was a black rock. She crouched to examine it, only to discover it was a hole, not a black rock. Emanating from the hole was the stink of stagnant water together with something else. Something she could not name, but recognised.

  Li shoved the pile of rocks aside to look down the hole into the darkness below. The slanting sunlight cast a little light down into the hole, illuminating a shaft that dropped further than she could see, straight down beneath the city. It was narrow enough for her to brace herself and crawl down using her hands and feet. In an action she could not later explain, she eased herself into the shaft and started to edge her way down.

  With her back pressed against the side of the shaft and her hands and feet bracing her, she made good speed climbing down, quickly moving out of the sunlight into darkness. Li was fit, lithe like a dancer, strong like a blacksmith, so she climbed easily despite the weariness in her bones. The end of the shaft came with no warning in the darkness. One moment she was pressing with her feet against the wall, the next there was no wall. Her feet shot out, causing her to lose her balance and tumble with a short cry, landing heavily on a hard floor covered in less than a hand’s width of water. She scrambled to her feet, her sword springing to her hand as she looked around.

  Nothing moved. No sound but the gentle flow of water. Li sniffed. The smell of death reached her, drifting along with the water. She started to move towards the smell. Her feet made little in the way of splash as she slid along through the ankle-deep water.

  After about twenty paces, she found a fork in the passage, the water coming down one way, the smell of death the other. She hesitated, unsure, when another scent insinuated its way through the smell of death. It was hauntingly familiar, but try as she might, she could not put a name to it. The scent faded after a moment, drifting away from her. Li chose the dry path, at the end of which she could see a faint, but steady, light. After another twenty paces, she found the chamber.

  Its walls glowed
softly, magically illuminating a scene of carnage. Numerous bodies lay scattered about the floor showing signs of unspeakable savagery. Whoever they had been, they had died under the most horrific attacks imaginable. For a moment, Li felt she might vomit.

  Trying to regain control of her rebellious stomach, Li forced herself to look away from the bodies. She saw three other people: Maida, Myrrhini and an old man with a brutal wound to his head. With a small gasp, she ran towards Myrrhini, but the sight of the blade protruding from her chest made her stop. The Eye of Varuun stared up at the roof of the chamber in death. Li was about to turn to check Maida when she noticed the sword. Her eyes widened in disbelief. Surely there could not be two blades in the world like that?

  With trembling hands, Li rolled Myrrhini over and pulled Keshik’s enchanted sword from her dead body. She held it up to examine it, its milky-white translucent blade seeming to absorb the light emanating from the walls.

  ‘Why did you kill Myrrhini?’ she whispered. ‘What did she do to you, Keshik?’

  A low moan shocked her almost as much as the scene of death around her.

  ‘Keshik?’ Maida whispered. ‘Keshik, are you there?’

  Li shoved Keshik’s sword into her belt and knelt beside Maida. She cradled the Tusemon woman’s head in her lap.

  ‘Keshik is not here any more,’ Li said softly. ‘He left.’

  ‘No,’ Maida protested weakly. ‘I left him. I walked away from him, back near the wall.’

  ‘He wasn’t here with you?’

  ‘No.’ Maida struggled to sit up but was too weak. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Beneath the city, in some sort of chamber.’ Li looked around, noting the light was fading. ‘We need to get you out of here.’

  Li helped Maida to her feet and half carried, half led her out of the chamber, back along the passage to where faint sunlight trickled down from above. She called out and was rewarded by the sight of a head poking down.

  ‘Li?’ a voice called. ‘What are you doing down there?’

  ‘I’ve found Maida,’ Li called back.

  ‘Is Keshik there?’

  ‘No.’

  A rope slithered down. Li caught it and tied it around Maida’s shoulders. Maida was still only barely conscious and went up like a rag doll as the rope was pulled back, occasionally bumping against the side of the shaft. Li thought about climbing up after her, but she caught a hint of the smell that had held her attention earlier. It was coming now from the opposite direction to the chamber. With a quick look up the shaft to make sure Maida was fine, Li ran lightly away, following the oddly familiar scent.

  Li moved as quietly as she could through the shallow stream. It was flowing quicker now, heading down towards the sea. She could smell the salt water ahead. This little trickle would empty into the tunnel through which ships would enter the inland harbour. From there, a fugitive could escape the city.

  She was following a fugitive, of that she no longer had any doubt. In the time she had been moving under the city, she had heard too many inexplicable little sounds, felt too many odd air currents, smelled that same smell too often for there to be any other reasonable explanation. It was most likely one person, but whoever it was had great skill. The longer she followed, the more she believed she knew who it was.

  And that knowledge filled her with fear as much as it did curiosity.

  Li continued to move quickly. Her hand rested on the hilt of Keshik’s sorcerous blade. That it had been used to kill Myrrhini did not surprise her. She half believed that no other weapon could be capable of it. The woman had been remarkable, if irritating.

  Ahead, she could now hear the slow surge of deep water. The smell of salt was strong, so strong it overwhelmed the other scents she had been following. It was almost enough to cost her her life. For a moment, she let her guard lapse, and in that instant, the flash of silver cut through the darkness to end at her throat. She felt the blade rest on the flesh beside her windpipe.

  ‘Why are you following me, Tulugma?’ the hard voice hissed in her ear.

  ‘Why are you fleeing, Beq?’ she replied.

  ‘I have done all I had to.’

  ‘And that’s it? Do what you think is right, then run away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d heard you were selfish.’

  ‘What else is there?’

  ‘Quite a lot.’

  It occurred to Li that she was deep under a burning city, in a dark tunnel with a blade against her throat, discussing morality with the last Scaren Beq.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘East, towards the mountains. I heard there were people like me left living there.’

  ‘You mean my mother, Bai?’

  Slave whipped the Claw from Li’s neck and pushed her away. ‘Your mother?’

  ‘My mother,’ Li replied. ‘If you think she is from the mountains, you are wrong.’

  ‘She said she was from the mountains.’

  ‘That is where she was before she went to the Kuriltai, but she wandered all her life. I doubt even she knew where she was born.’

  ‘But there are others like her … like me?’

  ‘Like you? No, I doubt that. But like her, and me, yes. There are.’

  ‘Where can I find them?’

  Li shrugged, aware of the futility of the gesture in this darkness.

  ‘You don’t know? Or you won’t tell me?’ Slave demanded.

  ‘You can see in the dark?’

  Slave gave a low, dismissive laugh that held no humour. ‘I have a number of blessings,’ he muttered.

  ‘I don’t know where they are,’ Li explained.

  ‘Would you tell me if you did?’

  ‘Yes, if only to get you away from me.’

  ‘You would not need to lie to get that. I am too dangerous now to be near people.’

  Li was about to speak, but the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps stopped her. Slave had run, again, disappearing into the blackness of this underground tunnel. As she rubbed at her throat, she realised he was where he belonged.

  Maida regained full consciousness sometime after dark. She was in a bed in a well-appointed room somewhere far above the fighting. Keshik, sitting heavily bandaged in a chair by the window, looked across at her when she stirred.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked him.

  ‘The Georgiades’s Palace.’

  ‘The city?’

  ‘Mostly destroyed, but the enemy is being wiped out. They will all die.’

  ‘So it’s over?’

  ‘It’s over. Both Revenants are gone. Myrrhini is dead and Slave is missing.’

  Maida sat up, wavering slightly as a rush of weakness swept over her. She pressed a hand to her forehead.

  ‘Slave is missing?’

  ‘You aren’t surprised at Myrrhini’s death?’

  ‘No, I think she wanted to die. She was so lost.’

  ‘You’re sounding very thoughtful tonight.’

  ‘We’ve been through a lot. It makes you think.’ Maida knew they would never speak of what happened beneath the city. Keshik would be feeling weakened and useless, not having been there when Slave finally struck down Kielevinenrohkimainen. He would be unlikely to ever want to even be reminded of the events here in the city. His injuries were severe and would take a long time to heal. ‘What are we going to do now?’

  Keshik shifted in his chair a little, as if in pain. ‘There will not be many Tulugma left.’

  ‘Are you thinking of going home?’

  Keshik nodded. ‘I think the Tulugma should continue. Someone needs to start rebuilding them.’

  ‘Do you want me?’ She had meant to ask if he wanted her to come with him, but the last words would not come. What she said sounded right anyway.

  ‘Always, forever, and in every way.’

  ‘Good.’

  There was nothing more to say, so they lapsed into silence, staring out onto the burning city. Smoke rose from many places stretching from the sea to the wall. Maida
could not shake the image of Vogel from her mind. The similarities were disturbing. Like Vogel, this city had been shattered by the mindless army of a Revenant, but unlike Vogel, this one would probably rise again. From the talk she had heard, Vogel had been utterly razed.

  The door opened without warning. Maida looked around to see the Georgiades standing in the open doorway.

  ‘I don’t know whether to thank you or have you impaled,’ the garishly dressed noble declared.

  ‘Try thanking us first,’ Maida said.

  ‘Have you seen my city?’

  ‘Did you see the army attacking it? How about the two Revenants we removed from the battle?’

  ‘Do you mean the Revenants you released onto the world?’

  ‘Yes, those,’ Keshik said softly. ‘They would have destroyed the world. They have already destroyed a lot of it.’

  ‘Pah! C’sobra and Lac’u. The world is better off without them.’

  ‘And the Lac’un farms? Asprosians don’t need to eat?’

  ‘We will not suffer loss.’

  ‘You already have,’ Maida said, waving a hand towards the devastation visible outside the window.

  ‘A city can be rebuilt.’ The Georgiades stroked his chin with his right hand. It was a theatrical, almost comically exaggerated, gesture. ‘But I want you two, and all your Tulugma barbarians, out of it before we start.’

  ‘You want us out? The killing is not even over and you are already throwing us out?’

  ‘Of course. The King will be visiting the city within a Crossing, and I want no evidence of your presence here by then.’

  ‘Maida and I will leave as soon as we can walk.’

  ‘Good. I shall have ships made ready to transport what remains of your forces away the moment you two are able to go.’ He turned on his heel and strode from the room, closing the door firmly after him.