At the fourth of the sacrificial pits six men still stood. They held a woman by her wrists, by her ankles, to stop her from escaping. She tried, too. She thrashed and struggled and wailed at them.
Tears stained Nora’s face. Through the markings they had painted on her flesh, he could see the tears as they cut at the colors that tried to hide her beauty from him. A hundred strides and more away and he knew Nora’s face, her shape, as well as he knew his own hands. She was his world, his breath, his light.
“No!”
Brogan charged forward, barely looking at anything beyond Nora.
She looked his way, her mouth an open wound showing her pain. There were four pits. Only one was still untouched. The calculation was painfully simple. His children were dead. But there was still a chance, wasn't there? There was the possibility that he could reach Nora in time.
He ran for Nora, and Harper ran beside him and raised his chosen weapons. As a unit the rest charged forward, spreading out in an effort to block any attempts their enemies might make at escape.
The single man standing at the first pit looked their way. He was dressed in a dark tunic and boots. His head was shaved clean and his skin was pale. He stared without any comprehension, an expression so completely shocked by the appearance of strangers that it bordered on comical. His eyes flew wide, his mouth dropped open and his hands raised up to clutch at his chest. And while he goggled in their direction, Harper ran a blade from his clavicle up to his nose, splitting everything between in one stroke.
The dead man fell as Harper pulled the sword free, never missing a step in his stride.
Brogan ran past the corpse and continued on. There would be time to look at bodies when the living had been sorted.
The wind roared and threatened to push him aside. The wind did not matter. There was Nora and nothing else.
As he went, Brogan pulled his axe from its sheath.
Four of the men around Nora came their way, most of them dressed much like the corpse left behind by Harper.
Not a one of them was armed and as a whole they looked confused by the idea of anyone bothering them at home.
Brogan sneered and raced toward them, his axe hefted up in his thick arms, his eyes locked on the closest of the pale bastards that had taken his family from him. He charged, a roar building in his chest. Four men stood between him and Nora. They would not stand for long.
The axe cut deeply into pale flesh and brought forth a river of crimson. He did not stop as the first of the bodies fell. The second man died where he stood. The next in line flinched back, tried to escape, but never had a chance. The blade cleaved through his chest and only stopped when it reached his backbone. A hard kick wrenched the body away from his weapon and Brogan roared again, the fury consuming him.
And up ahead Nora let out the smallest of sounds as the blade of her killer pierced her heart.
There was no thought left in him, Brogan smashed into the next fool between him and his wife and threw him into the pit. Two more came too close and suffered the same fate as he reached for Nora.
The man who’d killed her – for even then, much as he wanted to believe otherwise, Brogan knew the truth of the matter – looked his way and tried to speak out a warning. His words were in a language Brogan did not know, but whatever he’d been saying in any tongue would have been wasted breath.
Brogan brought the axe up above his head and cut the man in two.
Whatever the plans, whatever possible ideas the Grakhul had in mind, they were forgotten when Brogan came forward. They fled from him, backing away and chattering in their foolish tongue as he dropped the axe from his grip and barely felt the sway of it on his wrist. Brogan moved to take Nora in his arms.
His wife looked at him. Her dark eyes rolled in their sockets and she looked his way, and whatever she might have wanted to say, whatever she might have been feeling, it faded from her, unuttered, as her ruined heart stopped beating.
There were only a dozen men. They never stood a chance against his gathering. If he had been alone Brogan would have died and never even noticed, he was lost staring at the remains of his beloved for a time. Who could say how long? Surely not Brogan himself.
He rose slowly, Nora in his arms, his axe swaying against his wrist, held in place by the heavy leather strap. It tapped against him several times but if it cut he did not notice.
Harper looked his way with haunted eyes and shook his head in sorrow.
“I am so very sorry, Brogan.”
Brogan had no words.
Around him his men stood guard and looked on. Not far away the ocean roared and the wind howled and Brogan understood all too well their fury.
For a moment he considered the possibility of taking Nora’s body home with him and giving her a proper burial.
Instead he kissed her face one last time and then let her fall into the deep pit. A mother, he knew, would want to be with her children. “Let this be your last sacrifice.”
Harper put a hand on his shoulder with great care. “Brogan there are more of them. There is a city worth of people here.”
As he spoke their enemies made themselves known. They came running from the great hall Harper had spoken of, most of them dressed much like the corpses around them.
None were armed. None had even contemplated being bothered at home.
The axe found its way back to his hands. It felt weightless as Brogan contemplated his enemies.
The closest of them bellowed in his gibberish language and Harper held out a hand, stopping Brogan for a moment.
He called to the strangers and they quickly exchanged words. Harper turned to his friend. “Truly I am sorry, Brogan. All of your family….”
“I know this.” Four pits and now all four were painted with blood.
“They say the gods demand fresh sacrifices or they’ll tear the world apart.”
Brogan’s voice was hoarse with tension. “Let them.”
The time for considerations and discussions was done. Brogan charged toward the speaker and cut into his stomach with one hard swing. Before him, the gathered men of the Grakhul stared, horrified, and did little or nothing to defend themselves.
Around him, behind him, he heard more battle cries. They owed him debts and so they came. They had lost to the Grakhul and so they shared their rage. They all had their reasons for breaking the laws and not a one of them felt any regret.
The battle was brutal and fast; a reaping of bloodied wheat that fell to the stone floors without much protest and few attempts at defense.
When it was done all of them were winded – murder is exhausting work – and Brogan looked at the corpses and frowned. It made no sense. These were not, could not be, the Grakhul he had heard so much about.
Laram said it for him. “These are the brutes who demand sacrifices?”
Harper shook his head. “No. They must be out and seeking their next sacrifices.” He frowned. “The women, the children, they are hiding somewhere below. What do you want to do about that, Brogan?”
Brogan looked at the corpses. For as long as anyone knew, the Grakhul had come and taken and left their coins. For as long as he could remember it had not mattered. Now, however, his family, his entire family….
“We gather the children and the women. They come with us.”
Harper looked at him with one raised eyebrow and that damnable smirk. “What will you do with them?”
“Give them to those who lost their families.” He shrugged, not completely certain what he planned. “They can decide for themselves what should happen to scum who took their loved ones.”
“And the bodies? What if the families see the bodies?”
His face in that moment, he knew, was not the face of a loving man. “Let them know my loss. Our loss. Let them grieve for their loved ones before they are given to the people who will judge them.”
Laram spoke again. Laram, who was always a more decent man than Brogan. “We could push them into the pits.”
&
nbsp; Brogan shook his head. “No. There will be no more bodies in those damned pits. They’ve had their blood.”
That was all there was to say about the matter.
The women and the children of the Grakhul did not go gently. They were not the least bit intimidated by the gathering of men and if they grieved for their loved ones they showed it by taking up weapons and fighting against the invaders.
The first attack came from a boy of perhaps ten who charged out of a darkened doorway with a knife in his hand and came at Brogan. One step out of the way took care of the knife. One fist to the side of the boy’s head left him reeling on the ground.
The second attack came from the boy’s mother, who charged at Brogan, swinging a small axe. Laram tripped the woman in midstride and sent her sprawling. She let out a cry and dropped her weapon. Rather than stopping, she came back up a second time with a dagger drawn from her belt.
Harper stopped her with a word. She froze and looked at the men around her, her eyes wide. By the time she was done assessing the situation Harper had placed the blade of his weapon to her throat.
Harper’s words were a mystery but his tone clearly offered a warning. There were several exchanges between the woman and the soldier and when it was done he put away his sword.
“They’ll come with us.”
“What did you say to her?”
“They could come with us or they could die.” Harper eyed the woman for a moment. “I also told her we’d make sure the children suffered before they died.” The woman sighed, put her hand around her mouth to amplify her words and then bellowed out in the gibberish language of her people. Within minutes a very large group was forming.
Twenty men all told. If the families got serious, Brogan’s group would never have a chance, despite the fact that half the women had little ones gathering around their knees. There were twenty able bodied and well-armed men. There were hundreds of women and children.
Brogan shook his head and spat. “If we’re taking them, we need to be able to control them.”
Harper shook his head. “No reason. They’ll follow us.”
“Why would they?”
The very woman who’d tried to attack him answered. Her voice was thick with the strange accent of her usual tongue, but he understood her well enough. “Because you have damned this place and the people here. Our only hope, no matter how small, is to be away from here.”
She would say no more. Instead she soothed her child, the boy he’d punched in the head, and then she and the rest of her people followed after Brogan and Laram and the rest.
Harper and four others did not immediately leave. They caught up instead. Brogan noticed but said nothing.
Another exchange with one of the women and he and the others left again, coming back with a few wagons that had seen better days and horses to draw them.
One of the women led the horses and found a different route that led to the top of the plateau. The exit point was nearly impossible to see and Brogan wasn't surprised that Harper had not known of it.
Within an hour they were on their way from the keep and moving in a very large serpentine across the nearly barren land. A few of the women had gathered possessions, but most did not bother.
As they left the sky roared with a hundred strokes of thunder and fingers of light ripped through the darkening clouds, cutting their way across the skies and bullwhipping strokes across the horizon. Brogan turned to look at the great Gateway. He watched as tongue after tongue of lightning stroked the thing but did it no harm.
“How often does that happen?” Laram was making conversation, nothing more. The woman with her son was walking nearby and looked at them but did not answer. Her smile was not pleasant.
The sea behind them raged on, hammering at the shoreline. The winds blew harder, as if inviting them to leave the area even faster than planned.
Brogan should have felt victorious. He had avenged his family and stopped the bastard Grakhul from ever doing to another what they had done to him. Instead he felt hollowed out and left to wither and die.
About the Author
James A Moore is the award-winning, bestselling author of over forty novels, thrillers, dark fantasy and horror alike, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under the Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring antihero, Jonathan Crowley) and his popular Seven Forges series. In addition to writing multiple short stories, he has also edited, with Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, The British Invasion anthology. His first short story collection, Slices, sold out before ever seeing print. He is currently at work on several new projects, including book three in the Tides of War series. Along with Jonathan Maberry and Christopher Golden, he hosts the popular Three Guys With Beards podcast. He lives in Massachusetts, USA.
genrefied.blogspot.com • twitter.com/jamesamoore
ANGRY ROBOT
An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd
20 Fletcher Gate,
Nottingham,
NG1 2FZ
UK
angryrobotbooks.com
twitter.com/angryrobotbooks
To the dead
This collected edition first published 2017
Seven Forges copyright © James A Moore 2013
The Blasted Lands copyright © James A Moore 2014
City of Wonders copyright © James A Moore 2015
The Silent Army copyright © James A Moore 2016
The Last Sacrifice copyright © James A Moore 2017
James A Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
EBook ISBN 978 0 85766 766 3
Set by ARGH! Nottingham.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.
ISBN: 978-0-85766-766-3
The Seven Forges Novels Page 128