And as quickly as that, everything went to hell. Two great forces slammed together, and in a moment it was all just a mess, men and monsters fighting separately and in small groups, all of them cut off from one another, with no idea of what was happening anywhere else. The war, like all wars, had come down to just individuals, fighting for themselves. Doing whatever it took to win, or just to stay alive.
• • •
Raven the Necromancer quickly found himself separated from everyone else. There were fighting and screaming all around, and dark shapes running everywhere. The clash of steel on steel, and the chunking of sharp edges into yielding flesh. But he was left alone, standing in a small open space, surrounded by creatures that knew his name. They circled him slowly, keeping to the shadows while he stood steadily in a spotlight of shimmering blue moonlight. The shapes called out to him mockingly. Raven concentrated, focusing his emotions into a cold and deadly fury, and then he lashed out, blasting his surroundings with crackling magical energies that shattered trees into splinters and ripped through the Unreal things that threatened him. Flesh burned and exploded, and harsh screams filled the air. But when Raven finally stopped, exhausted, they were still there. Some had rebuilt their broken bodies, some had vanished and reappeared, and some had just stood their ground and soaked it all up. Because they were of the Wild Magic and he was not. His power was, and always had been, rooted in High Magic. And Raven knew . . . that wasn’t going to be enough to get the job done here.
So he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stared defiantly out at all the gleaming inhuman eyes, and drew the Infernal Device known as Soulripper. He cried out involuntarily as the sword’s presence beat on the air, and the Unreal things cried out too. They could tell there was a new power in the night. Raven shuddered with shock and disgust as the sword’s essence sank into his mind and made itself at home there. It was like holding a handful of maggots that laughed and called you by name and knew every dark thing you’d ever wanted to do. Raven stood up a little straighter, as new strength and new power moved within him. He felt like he could tear down mountains, or set the whole Forest on fire, just by thinking about it. He held the long sword out before him, and its blade glowed in the gloom, bitter yellow like poisoned fruit. It wanted to be used, and he wanted to use it.
He went forward to meet the Unreal, laughing aloud. They threw themselves at him from every side, vastly strong, inhumanly fast, and he cut them all down before they could reach him. The sword cut through everything, with hardly an effort, and monstrous bodies crashed to the muddy ground and did not move again as the Infernal Device ripped the souls right out of them and threw them into the outer dark.
• • •
Jack Forester, that old and grey-haired man who had once been the Walking Man but gave it up in his search for peace, went to war again. With sad eyes and a grim smile. He walked slowly forward into the dark between the trees, feeling his age, hearing his old bones creak even as he leaned heavily on his wooden staff. He’d been left behind as the Forest army pressed on, and he was in no hurry to catch them up. Blue moonlight fell heavily between the trees, a harsh, ghastly light that somehow only made the surrounding shadows seem even darker. Jack could feel his skin smarting where the blue moonlight touched his bare face and hands.
Tall, spindly, bony figures moved forward out of the trees and the shadows to block his way. Long skull faces with pointed horns, flaring crimson eyes, and chattering teeth. Elongated hands with vicious claws. Unreal things that had no respect at all for who and what he used to be, and what he had tried to do with his life. Jack stopped and sighed. He leaned on his staff, and looked at them, and spoke softly.
“It’s not too late,” he said. “You can still turn back. You don’t have to do this. Please. Walk away.”
The creatures giggled and tittered, like insane children, and flexed their clawed hands.
“I love it when they beg,” said one.
“Want to play, little thing?” said another.
“It’s been such a long time since we had a chance to play with our food,” said a third.
And they all laughed together again, in a sound that had no humour or humanity in it.
“All you see is an old man,” said Jack. “And sometimes, I feel it. But I am still the Walking Man, with all his strength and protections. I gave it up, because I thought I wasn’t worthy of it anymore. Apparently the choice was never mine to make. But even that isn’t going to be enough here, is it? This is no fight, or battle; this is war. And so I must use a weapon of war. Don’t look to me for mercy. You brought this on yourself.”
“Talks too much,” said one of the bony creatures. “Hurt it. Kill it.”
Jack threw aside his wooden staff, as though saying goodbye to an old friend. And then he reached over his shoulder, and his hand closed around the leather-wrapped hilt waiting for him. The bony things cried out in a single horrified voice as Jack drew the Infernal Device known as Blackhowl. Its presence beat on the air like the wings of some trapped giant bird. The sword’s essence fell upon Jack like a terrible shadow, cutting him off from the Light he’d always served. Power thundered within him, and he felt young again. The long blade was as black as its name, a length of impenetrable shadow, like a piece cut out of the night. The Unreal creatures backed away from it, and Jack went after them.
The sword howled but made no sound. The voice of the Infernal Device known as Blackhowl was an inner thing. A torment to the mind, and the soul. An everlasting howl of hatred and malice. The tall and bony creatures fell to their knees, crying out and weeping, their clawed hands sinking into their own heads as they tried to block out the awful sound. The voice of the sword was terrible and unforgiving. It didn’t bother Jack. He gloried in it. The bony creatures knelt helplessly before him and begged him to kill them. And he did. He swept the long blade back and forth, cutting easily through their misshapen bodies. He killed them all and walked on, with a smile on his lips that no one who knew him would have recognised.
• • •
Hawk and Fisher fought back to back, cutting and thrusting with skills and tricks and martial experience gathered the hard way, over far too long a time. They’d always been good with a blade, but their strangely extended lives had made them incredibly good. Nothing they met could stand before them. They parried swords and dodged spells, and nothing that came at them out of the dark was monstrous or powerful enough to slow or stop them for a moment. They’d seen it all before, and worse. Hawk and Fisher stamped and skidded through thick mud, only partly diluted with spilled blood and guts, and nothing could touch them. They had spent a lifetime fighting side by side, and knew each other’s moves and reactions like they knew their own.
But no matter how many Unreal creatures they killed, there were always more. And a sudden rush of leaping, flailing things, like monstrous stick insects with terrible barbed flails, overran them and forced them apart . . . and before she knew it, Fisher was on her own. She called out to Hawk, even while she fought off terrible odds, and heard his voice, somewhere out in the dark, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. She moved quickly to put her back against a tree, so nothing could come at her from behind. Men and monsters raged back and forth all round her, fighting and screaming and dying.
The insect things leapt and jumped before her, approaching and drawing back, wanting to kill her but warned off by inhuman instincts. Their long, empty faces had huge compound eyes and twitching antennae. Their desire to kill and rend and feast was obvious, and somehow Fisher knew that when she was dead, and they’d finished with her, the insects would lay their eggs in her, to grow and hatch out in their own time. It was the insect way. Fisher grimaced with horror, and put her sword away. It wasn’t going to be enough. She knew how bad it was going to be, but she didn’t hesitate; she just reached behind her shoulder and drew the Infernal Device known as Belladonna’s Kiss. And showed it to the insect things.
And they fell down before her and worshipped it.
/> Fisher felt the sword slip in among her thoughts, insinuating itself into her soul, and it felt like some old and long-forgotten part of her woke up to embrace it. For that was always the true horror of wielding an Infernal Device. It didn’t possess you; it seduced you. Fisher held the long blade out before her, and it shone in the blue moonlight like the rotten glow of corruption, of things dying slowly and horribly.
The insect things wriggled forward with a terrible eagerness, pushing their empty faces into the thick mud in supplication, bowing down to the sword and the small thing that wielded it. Their instincts told them to run, but their hearts pulled them forward. The sword made them want to die, and to love it as it killed them.
Fisher cut down all the insect things with brief, economical blows; and then she moved on, to see what else there was to kill.
• • •
There were ghosts everywhere now: shining, shimmering, insubstantial forms . . . solid enough to strike out and wound and kill at one moment and then drift away like mist the next. They could jump out on their prey through solid things, passing right through trees or men or monsters. And some of them laughed and some of them cried, and some of them, driven mad by long years of loss and loneliness, shouted things that made no sense at all. They fought because they were Unreal, and because King William had been given dominion over them. He sent them out of Castle Midnight, out to war, and so they went. They envied every man who fell, for his complete and uncomplicated death. For an end to the obligations of the living world. Sometimes they would stop, to dance and caper in the blue moonlight, in old dances and styles that no one else remembered. And sometimes they sat down in the middle of everything, put their hands to their faces, and cried, and the tears would drip through their hands.
A group of them fell on Hawk, ravenous as wolves, attracted by the vitality that blazed within him, wanting it for themselves. They made their hands hard, so they could tear it out of him. They thought his axe was just an axe. They cried out in horror as he cut them down, the gleaming steel blade shearing through their shimmering forms, destroying them and driving them from this world forever. Because the High Warlock had made that axe to cut through anything. Hawk moved on as the last of the ghosts faded away, silently screaming. He was looking for monsters to kill, calling out to Fisher and getting no reply.
• • •
Prince Richard fought his way forward, staying always at the front of his army, forcing his way slowly deeper into the trees. Cutting down everything that rose up against him, with the great old sword Lawgiver. Doing all that was necessary, but no more, conserving his strength for the battles to come. Because for every monstrous thing he killed, there were always others to take their place, more vicious and more horrible than the ones before. He fought righteously, and he did not flinch, and he did not turn away. Because he was a Prince, and it was his job to inspire those who followed him. A part of him would have liked to have been scared, but he didn’t have the time.
He’d been separated from the Princess Catherine early on, but his old friend and bodyguard Peter Foster was still there at his back, stubbornly refusing to be forced away. Defending his Prince from all those threats he never saw. Richard never knew how many times Peter saved his life, or how many wounds his old friend took, putting himself between Richard and attacks intended for him. Peter was cut, and torn, and horribly wounded, and blood dripped steadily from him, but he would not fall. Not while his Prince and friend needed him. He suffered hurt after hurt, injuries small and large, and would not cry out, for fear it would distract Prince Richard from what he needed to do. Peter gritted his teeth and struck out doggedly with his sword, cutting and killing what he could. Putting his body and his life between his old friend and all the things that would kill him. He left a long, bloody trail behind him, but still he would not fall.
• • •
The Sombre Warrior strode ahead of the Princess Catherine, cutting a path through the enemy for her to follow. It was what he did best. He swung his great sword with both hands, and the force of his terrible blows sent dead things flying this way and that, dead before they even hit the ground. He sheared right through massive creatures, gutted some and beheaded others. And those that got past his blade found that their claws and fangs made no mark on his heavy armour. They came at him in waves, and they could not slow or stop him. When the press of fighting eased, the Sombre Warrior would cut through overhanging branches, or lesser trees, to open up a trail for others to follow. The creatures of the Unreal came at him in wave after wave, and broke against him.
Catherine stuck close behind the Warrior, using him as her shield, striking out at anything that tried to come at him through his blind spots. She was doing what she could with her Blood Magic, her elemental command of the air, but in the dark and the confusion, and the constant shifting of men and monsters fighting around her, there was a limit to what she could usefully do. There was never time for her to stop and concentrate without leaving the Sombre Warrior’s back unguarded. So she stuck with him, and defended him, and killed anything that got too close.
• • •
Gillian Forester found herself fighting alone very early on, but she was used to that. In fact, she preferred it. She always felt better when she had no one to worry about but herself. She grew a long silver blade from the Cestus, that ancient gauntlet from the depths of the Armoury. It glared supernaturally bright in the gloom, as though it was cutting through the dark itself. She strode steadily forward, and though the long blade felt eerily light in her hand, still it cut through anything that dared stand against her, as though it had the weight of the world behind it. Gillian cut down one awful thing after another, and laughed at how easy it was.
She was still careful to conserve her energy. First lesson she taught her students: save your strength for when you’ll need it. And while she was in excellent shape for a woman of her age, she was still a woman of her age. She whirled about with vicious, controlled cuts and parries, pacing herself. Because there was still so much to be done. The Unreal felt no such reservations. They came howling out of the trees from everywhere at once, hitting her from every side at once, and the sheer pressure of numbers overwhelmed her. They ran right over her, dragging her to the ground.
Gillian rolled back and forth in the thick mud, flailing about her with her Cestus sword. The rain was pounding down harder than ever, filling her eyes and blinding her, running down her wrinkled cheeks like tears. Claws raked her flesh, and blood spurted. Teeth closed on one shoulder and shook her roughly, even as she cried out from the pain despite herself. Gillian stabbed and cut with her silver sword, but there were just too many of them. She couldn’t even force herself back to her knees. And then a great jagged blade came slamming down out of nowhere and chopped clean through her wrist, above the silver gauntlet.
Her hand jumped away, bouncing and sliding across the muddy Forest floor. She could see it, on the other side of the trail. The blade sank back into the Cestus, and it was just a gauntlet again. The fingers slowly opened, and were still. Gillian looked blankly at the blood jetting furiously from the stump of her wrist. She had time to think a single word, Cursed, before the massive sword came driving down again, and slammed through her heart, pinning her to the earth. Her head went back, and she looked up into the night sky, through the towering trees, and cursed the Blue Moon with her last breath.
The monsters tore her to pieces.
• • •
Jack saw his sister fall but couldn’t get to her in time. It seemed like every monster in the Forest was deliberately blocking his way. He hacked a path through them, Blackhowl’s awful voice either scattering them or freezing them in place so he could kill them easily; but when he finally got there, and killed the last few things feeding on the torn-up body, he already knew it was too late. Jack sank to his knees beside what was left of his sister. They hadn’t reached her face yet. It was all he had left to recognise her by. He thought she still looked defiant, even in death.
/>
Not far away, he saw the shining silver gauntlet, the Cestus, lying in the mud. He wondered numbly if it had been the old curse that killed Gillian, or just the cold, hard fact that when an army goes to war, some are going to die. He doubted he’d ever know. But it still didn’t seem fair. Gillian, his sister. Daughter of the legendary Prince Rupert and Princess Julia. She’d done so much to make her own legend, to be her own person. He tried to remember the last time he told her he loved her, and how proud he’d always been of her, but he couldn’t. All those years in the monastery, and then . . . they’d just been so busy. He started to pray over her, and then stopped. He was in no fit state of grace, as long as he carried Blackhowl. He looked at the Infernal Device, still nestled in his hand, shoved it point first into the muddy ground, and used the length of the blade to force himself up to his feet again. His knees creaked loudly, and his back ached. The Infernal Device might make him feel young, but that was just another of its lies.
He didn’t care. He would avenge his sister, and drown the Unreal in their own blood before he let himself rest.
He looked around, slowly, as he realised that though the fighting was still going on around him, no men or monsters were coming anywhere near. And then Jack tensed, and his head came up, as Leland Dusque the Stalking Man stepped out of the shadows to face him.
Blackhowl’s terrible cry had fallen away to a sulky murmur in the back of Jack’s head, as he knelt beside his dead sister; but now it began to sing loudly again, anticipating a most satisfying kill. Jack deliberately forced the sword back into its scabbard, cutting off the awful sound. The sword didn’t like that, but Jack didn’t care. He had always been his own man.
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