by Ari Marmell
Harvester was a scythe once more before the dust settled.
“Thank you,” Death said.
Despair snorted, trotting from around the outcropping, churning snow and drifting mists clouding its hooves.
“Dust!”
Dust stuck his head out from where he’d buried himself in Despair’s stringy mane. Death hadn’t the first idea when the crow had sheltered there, and wasn’t about to give the wretched little beast the satisfaction of showing his surprise.
“Make yourself useful, bird. Keep an eye out for anyone coming our way.” Then, after a brief but vitriolic tirade of screeches, “Yes, it’s cold and windy and you won’t be able to see very far. Do it anyway.”
Death waited until the angry squawking had faded, directed Despair to stand guard at the largest entry to the offshoot valley, and once more planted Harvester shaft-first in the snow. At a languid pace that might, in anyone else, have signified reluctance, he approached the hill of snow.
He raised his arms, hands outstretched as though to rip the clouds from the sky. Sounds that were scarcely syllables, let alone words, rolled dully from behind the faceless mask.
A trio of ghouls, very much like those he’d left working on his home, burst from the snow as though they’d been buried here, rather than worlds away. Instantly they fell to, chucking snow between their legs with both hands very much like digging dogs. A second chant, and skeletal arms slithered up from below, also working to scoop away the thick, freezing skin of the hill.
And finally, Death lowered his left arm, reaching out with his right. The air blurred and darkened, rather like clear water filling slowly with ink. The blackness spread, bulging and growing, until it formed a ghostly hand many times the size of Death’s own. Darkness dripped from its hazy borders; tendrils of shadow linked it to the Horseman’s own fingers. With slow but steady strokes, the massive appendage made swift work of the mound’s slope.
In a surprisingly short time, the guts of the artificial hillock were exposed to the open air. Death snapped his fist shut, dispersing the hand of shadow and dispatching the skeletal limbs back whence they came. The ghouls he chose to maintain a while longer, sending them to aid Despair in guarding against unwanted company.
The bulk of the stockpile consisted of demonic corpses, frozen and preserved since the days of the Nephilim rampage. A few of them, disturbed by the digging, tumbled off the heap to sprawl near Death’s feet. Most were imps, the lowest of the demonic castes: flamecallers, duskwings, the occasional shadowcaster. These he ignored. A rare few were of greater power—primarily the Knights of Perdition and their Hell-spawned mounts, twisted shadows of the Horsemen themselves—and these he carved apart with Harvester, just in case a spark of life might linger even after all the gruesome wounds and all the centuries.
Why the enemy would want the bodies of the demons gathered, the Rider wasn’t certain. Study? Examination of their fangs and claws, or the wounds that had killed them? A search, perhaps, for weapons or parts of weapons that might have been lost inside their victims?
Or simply a means of clearing them out of the way for a more arduous, meticulous search?
He dug deeper, ignoring the acrid stench of dead demon, clear through the freezing ice and the thick, oozing sludge that had once been half a dozen varieties of unnatural blood. And at first, he was relieved. Blades and cannons, pistols and shields, and all manner of far more peculiar devices—these he found, mostly in bits and broken slivers, only occasionally whole. Yes, they might have located Affliction this way, and perhaps a few other usable weapons, but nothing nearly so catastrophic as he’d feared.
Hope was not a feeling to which Death was accustomed. He rarely had any reason to hope for anything, and even more rarely was he sufficiently optimistic to do so. But he began to hope now, to believe that, just maybe, he’d grown alarmed over nothing.
It was a pleasant feeling, for the precious few moments it lasted. Until he reached the innermost layers of the constructs’ stockpile.
They were almost invisible among the demon corpses: a few strips of leathery flesh, molded into handles and grips; mechanical components of bone and steel, the one blending seamlessly into the other; and even smaller bits, unrecognizable save for the quivers of wrath and loathing Death felt beneath his touch.
Pieces, but no traces of the whole.
So … The enemy had found at least one of them. Still, they might not know what they had, might think it just another peculiar artifact of that long-ago war. And they almost certainly couldn’t know how to use it. How to wake it up.
Almost certainly.
For some time, Death stood and stared, unseeing, at the pile of refuse that was swiftly being reclaimed by the falling snow. Stared, and deliberated.
He could search for leaders among the constructs, living beings who directed their operations, but such a plan didn’t offer great odds of success. If there were any such commanders present, they’d almost certainly have been here, at the center of it all. No, more likely—now that the drones were clearly in the final stages of their endeavors here—they’d simply been left with instructions, while the true enemy moved on to the next stage in their schemes.
Try to follow them? He and Despair could certainly step through the walls of the world, but even Death’s powers and senses couldn’t tell him where the gate had led.
Wait for it to become active once more, and either ambush those who appeared or follow them back to their point of origin? Workable, except that the Horseman had no way of knowing how long that might be. He could find himself sitting around, accomplishing nothing, for quite some time—and again, all that while the enemy’s own strategies would be advancing apace.
No, he’d have to act now. He was just contemplating a journey to the realm of the Charred Council itself, where he might beg their assistance in tracking the absent gate’s destination—much as he hated being reliant on them, or anyone else, really—when the decision was taken abruptly out of his hands.
Still circling above, fighting the drafts with wings dusted in filthy snow, Dust went berserk. Piercing cries rent the air and the ears, high and angry, sharp as Harvester itself. The black-feathered shape plummeted, falling as much as diving, pulling up at only the last instant before he would have plowed painfully into the mountainside. He circled Death over and over, wings flapping with unnecessary fury, squawking so frantically he must surely bring the rest of the construct army down on their heads.
That, and quite possibly an avalanche of prodigious proportions.
“What? What?” This was no mere alarm, no warning of a few approaching enemies; of that, Death was certain. As the crow refused to calm, the Horseman watched, timing his flight—and then snatched him from the air with an impossibly swift hand.
And very nearly let the bird go again. Death staggered back with an involuntary cry as a barrage of images crashed through his mind.
Blood. Pain. Flashing blades. Jagged paths and winding stairs. Stone columns taller than any mountain, precarious ledges overlooking a drop so high that clouds drifted below as they passed. Unnatural lights of violet hues and flocks so thick they choked the sky.
A great hall, impossibly vast. A broad floor, slick with ice, and a god-like dais. Everywhere, everywhere, the fluttering of black feathers and the endless screech of an avian chorus a thousand strong.
And at the center of it all, a face of impossible age, lined and leathered as a well-worn saddle, bushy of beard though bald of pate.
A face Death knew well.
The waking dream faded, the world of ice and snow coming once more into focus. Death peered down at the crow, now huddled—shaking but no longer frantically flapping—in his open palm.
“I was not aware,” he said darkly, “that you and he still shared any sort of link. Funny how he didn’t bother to mention that when he bound you to me.”
Dust cawed miserably.
“I should leave him to his own fate,” the Horseman muttered. But even as he
spoke, he knew he wouldn’t. Not because he felt any particular affinity, but because the Old One—perhaps the oldest of the Old Ones—could prove useful.
And even more, because the blades appearing in the series of images, though seen only briefly, looked very much to him like brass. Like the malleable limbs of the four-armed gilded soldiers Sarasael’s spirit had described.
The ghouls Death had summoned collapsed back into the snow, and out of Kothysos entirely. Despair appeared an instant later in response to the Horseman’s silent call.
“Very well, Dust,” Death said. “Let’s see what dares to trouble your Father in his own home. And maybe, depending on what he decides to tell me, I’ll be able to decide whether I should assist him or kill him myself.”
CHAPTER SIX
IT HAD BEEN DIFFICULT, AT FIRST, TO TELL THAT HE’D crossed between worlds at all.
The biting, predatory chill; the gusts so cold they nearly congealed into a solid mass; the flurries of swirling snow … All were as much a part of where he had gone as where he’d been.
But where the snows of Kothysos were thick, sludgy, discolored by waste and corruption, these were pure, as white as angels’ wings. Here was not the sapping cold of the blizzard, but the raw sharpness of the highest peaks.
Death and Despair had emerged from the emptiness between worlds at the very edges of the Crowfather’s domain. The ancient hermit’s eldritch defenses would allow nobody, not even the Horsemen, to materialize any nearer. From there, under clouded skies as gray as any headstone, Rider and mount had traveled the meandering canyons of jagged rock that ran beside the mountains’ roots. For long hours, Despair had galloped tirelessly, carving hoofprints into the cracked, icy surface. Slowly, a thickening of the grim overcast began to suggest the fall of twilight—except, Death realized almost instantly, what he saw wasn’t twilight at all.
The heavens ahead were not darkened, but obscured. Spreading in all directions like an oily stain came a roiling mass blacker and heavier than any storm. Crows. Uncountable, perhaps infinite, crows.
And not merely these, the Crowfather’s chosen, but multiple pillars of twisting smoke choked the skies as well. Even from such a distance, the occasional sharp crash or ringing clatter of battle wafted over the open ground. Flashes of searing light silhouetted the swooping flocks, or the occasional gleaming figure both down in the canyon and up atop the towering ridgeline.
The Horseman ordered Dust into the air, though he knew that the snow and the sheer population of those skies might prevent his companion from observing much of use. He and Despair had then charged headlong for the base of the nearest cliff.
It was clear immediately that the mount could go no farther. Continuing along the canyon floor would have been asking to be spotted by the dozens of constructs atop the mountain ledges. Death would have to proceed on higher ground; yet the looping switchbacks, narrow shelves, and perilous climbs could not possibly provide purchase for hooves, no matter how dexterous or unnatural. Harvester strapped to his back by a leather baldric that hadn’t been present only moments before, Death had slid from the saddle and begun his ascent.
Although the peaks and ledges were crawling with the metal soldiers, their spinning supports providing uncanny balance, Death had faced little opposition during his ascent. He came across several fallen constructs wedged into crannies in the rock, their brass-and-stone carapaces marred by scores of scratches, small yet deep. The crows descended upon the invaders, and the power of the Crowfather bestowed their talons and beaks with more than enough strength to wound the unliving invaders.
The birds themselves, despite their numbers, could never have defended the domain alone—but they were far from their master’s only defenses. Seemingly mild breezes abruptly froze attackers solid, or gusted violently enough to hurl them over nearby precipices. The air sizzled and cracked as bolts of lightning gouged the cloudless skies, somehow missing the massed crows, to obliterate throngs of constructs. Rock faces that had stood unyielding for millennia crumbled at the worst possible time, burying invaders by the dozens; fire erupted from the deepest caves.
The Crowfather’s mastery of his domain was nigh absolute, and for a time it appeared that Death’s presence would prove superfluous. As he progressed across the cliffs, however, the quantity of brass soldiers didn’t seem substantially reduced. The Horseman began to wonder just how anyone could have assembled such an enormous host of construct soldiers. It should have taken centuries, and surely the Charred Council would have become aware at some point!
Slowly but steadily, Death had neared the Crowfather’s abode, ducking low in the mountain passes and sheltering behind outcroppings to avoid numerous battles he could almost certainly have won, but which would have caused unnecessary delay. Unfortunately, he’d finally come across a band of the enemy that he could not easily avoid.
Death found himself clinging like an oversized spider to the underside of a jagged stone spur—a slanted outcropping on which half a dozen of the automatons perched—hanging above a drop deep enough to have been the gullet of the world itself. Below were only drifting clouds and a cracked canyon floor so far away it was all but invisible unless the light and the overcast collaborated just so. Fingers and the toes of his boots jammed into any available crevice, clutching with a tireless strength, Death chose to stop peering down at a drop that might just kill even him, should he fumble but once.
Atop that thick protrusion, several of the four-armed constructs circled in perfect military formation, brass hands formed into long blades and heavy bludgeons. The spindles on which they balanced whirred, cutting thin paths into the snow and layers of guano that coated the rock. Although they, like their stone brethren, were headless, the slow back-and-forth rotation of their torsos suggested a methodical patrol.
The Horseman had hoped to sidle along the cliff face and pass beneath them, continuing on unnoticed, but the contours of the terrain now thwarted his plans. Up ahead, the canyon opened further, providing a clear line of sight to distant ledges occupied by yet more of the stone-and-metal men. They would spot him easily enough once he emerged from the shadow of the overhang, and while Death didn’t believe they had pistols or cannons, he didn’t know what means they had of communicating with one another. If they were to alert their compatriots on the spur overhead, they might have some means of attacking over the edge from above—and Death could find himself too busy hugging the stone to fight them off.
Better, then, to abandon stealth and take them before they could pose a threat.
He tried to listen to the creatures moving above, but the gusting winds, the deafening cries of a thousand avian throats, and the thickness of the stone itself made a mockery of his efforts. That the enemy was watching, he had no doubt—but precisely where, or in what number, he just couldn’t say.
So be it. Death had a very simple doctrine for just such a circumstance: When in doubt, strike first and kill everyone.
Scuttling sideways until he reached the edge of the protruding stone, the Horseman reached his left arm upward. He felt about until his questing fingers found a crevice on the spur’s side that would hold his weight, sank his fingers as deep as they would go, and let go with his other hand and both feet. For an instant he dangled, his fingertip grip all that kept him from a dreadful plummet. Then, with a single flex, he hauled himself up until he could reach the fingers of his right hand up and over the stone. With one last exertion, he brought his left hand up again, so that he hung from the top of the outcropping, and lifted until he could just see over the edge.
He found himself staring at a veritable thicket of brass spindles.
One of the automatons was almost directly before him, and it was a stroke of fortune that its attentions were currently directed elsewhere. Numerous others, well over half a dozen, stood at intervals in both directions. Even if Death could hold them off, with their sheer numbers and the limited breadth of the ledge, they could easily bottle him up for a good while.
Al
l the more reason to deal with them swiftly, then.
Again Death let go with his right hand, hanging solely by the left. Harvester tugged itself from his back, the strap vanishing, and flew to his waiting fist. At the whim of its wielder, the potent weapon altered itself once more—not any dramatic change of shape, this time, but simply a dulling of the blade, transforming itself into more of a heavy hook than a scythe. The Horseman hauled himself up to the edge on his left arm, swung Harvester in a high arc, and yanked with all his strength.
The blade sank into the torso of the nearest construct, screeching like the newly damned as metal grated on metal. Rather than slicing through, Harvester instead jerked the brass-coated soldier over backward. For a split second it only wobbled—that spinning base provided an unnatural degree of balance—and then it toppled. The headless shoulders struck with a deafening clang, bouncing once or twice off the unyielding stone.
In that same sharp tug, Death sent himself sailing up and over the edge of the outcropping. He didn’t fly high, propelled as he was with only the strength of one arm, but he didn’t need much height. He tucked his legs under him as he rose, and then thrust down hard in a full-bodied leap.
His boots struck the torso of the construct he’d just brought down, hard enough to dent the carapace. The Horseman shot overhead, well beyond the reach of the enemy’s longest weapons, somersaulting forward as he soared. Harvester’s edge sharpened instantly, and the weapon sprouted a second blade on the opposite end of the haft—becoming, in effect, an elongated S with a perfectly straight centerline.
The force of the impact was also more than sufficient to send the fallen construct flipping end over end off the edge and down, down, until it was lost from sight, but Death had already forgotten about it.
He was spinning as he landed, knees bent to absorb the shock, Harvester whirling around him, blades circling in a deadly orbit. Again metal shrieked and shredded, and the five nearest constructs, only just turning to the attack, collapsed to the stone in a scattered collection of parts.