Tiarnach abandoned that sword in its holy skull and tried to spin to take the next attack head on, but his leg betrayed him and buckled, pitching him to the dirt.
A steel boot slammed onto his left hand, crushing the bone around the sword hilt. He screamed and rolled, the knight kicking his sword away. He was unarmed. He was fucked. Through the slit in the knight’s helmet, Tiarnach glimpsed Orc Man’s teeth bared in glee, his eyes bulging.
“Time to die, monster,” the knight roared. He lifted his sword.
A wooden stool crashed into the man’s helmet, staggering him. A pot of piss shattered on his cuirass, followed by a rock.
Tiarnach gaped as the townsfolk streamed out of the hole he’d made in the side of the temple, makeshift weapons in hand.
Dozens of old folk and children screamed and rained down mugs and pottery. It was an impressive assault, but their enemy wore full harness of fine steel, making it almost impossible to harm him. Almost. One lucky throw got a shard through the eye slit to catch Orc Man in the eyebrow, drawing blood.
“What is wrong with you heathens?” the knight yelled. “You serve monsters. Turn towards the light!”
An old woman spat on him, spittle sliding down his shiny steel. “Ain’t no monsters here but you.”
The inquisitor’s eyes hardened, mad with zeal. He was moments away from slaughtering the young and the old.
Tiarnach frantically searched the muddy ground next to him for a weapon – any weapon. He knew that golden fire was coming. His fingers buried themselves in a warm pile of horse manure. It would have to do. He howled and threw the steaming pile at the holy knight.
Praise me! Tiarnach thought as the mess hit the helmet, clogging up eye slits and breathing holes. Horse shit in the man’s eyes and mouth!
The knight reeled back, pawing at his helmet. The townsfolk swarmed him. His flailing sword slit a woman’s shoulder open but he was only one man, however skilled and powerful. The horde of peasants knocked him to the ground and laid into him with makeshift clubs and rocks. Steel pounded like a drum. The children were there too, knives and forks digging into vulnerable armpits, groin and neck. Spinsters fell on him, knitting needles stabbing in through the visor.
The holy knight, one of the elite of the Bright One, died like a rat in a sack.
The townsfolk stood over the battered corpse, breathing heavily and shaking with terror. A little girl with a bloodied fork turned wide eyes to Tiarnach and raised her weapon in salute.
“Get me back up,” he ordered as the sounds of battle nearby eased off. Most of the militia had been slaughtered. “More will be coming.”
One broken leg and a mangled hand. He could still fight as long as he didn’t have to move.
Lucent soldiers appeared in ones and twos, done cleansing nearby buildings of their cowering occupants. They eyed the dead inquisitors and wisely waited for more men to arrive.
Tiarnach ushered the townsfolk back inside the safety of the temple walls and took up position at the hole. He would not move. He would protect his people or die trying.
Tiarnach blinked.
His people.
He knew it for the truth. They had given him new courage, and a kind of peace came with it. He had failed the Cahal’gilroy, but he refused to fail the people of Tarnbrooke.
It was a strange sort of feeling, this desire to protect. The Cahal’gilroy had been bloody-handed reivers, exulting in their martial prowess and taking whatever they wanted from those weaker than them. He had revelled in it… but what was this well of newfound strength inside him? The belief of the people of Tarnbrooke flowed into him, not enough to heal much of anything quickly, but enough to enable him to stand and fight.
“Well, fuck me,” he muttered as self-realisation washed over him. He felt better about butchering reivers than he ever had being one.
Well then, the war god thought, his task was simple: he would just stand here and kill all the enemy until their bloody Falcon Prince dared show his face.
CHAPTER 41
“Where is my sister?” Maeven demanded. “Tell me now and this town can still be saved. Your own family might not be here, but I will find them, and I will gift them eternal torment if you do not.”
Black Herran cackled. “You cannot reach my family. That is not within your power, only mine.”
The tattoo writhed angrily across Maeven’s face. “Ah, then you must have sent them to Hellrath,” she said through gritted teeth. “Always plans within plans. If they are safe, then why all the mummery of protecting this town?”
“Why indeed,” Black Herran said. “Tarnbrooke has been my home for decades, and its people are good and decent folk. That is reason enough. One last good act among all the bad.”
The demonologist leaned heavily on her walking stick. “A deal is a deal, however. Grace is in the temple of the Bright One in the Lucent capital of Brightwater. Not that garish great temple they built in the city, but a small private chapel deep below the old queen’s palace out on the lake. Amadden has kept her locked away there for decades, safe from all harm, and all independence. I have never lied to you; this is the truth.”
Maeven knew it was. “Thank you,” she said, fingers gripping her black blade tight.
“I suppose you will kill me now?” Black Herran said. “I am too old and exhausted to resist, but I have all that I need from this life.”
“Burn in Hellrath,” Maeven said. “May your family join you in torment.” She plunged the blade into her old general’s chest and pierced what remained of the heart.
Black Herran gasped, magic sucking at her stubborn soul. She pulled the necromancer in close and kissed her on her scarred cheek face. “I will be seeing you. Soon.”
Maeven flinched as Black Herran laughed, cruel and mocking. She shoved the knife in deeper. Harder. Twisting it in the hag’s heart.
The old woman shuddered, then sagged in her arms.
The dread demonologist, the legendary general who could have ruled all Essoran if not the world, died with a soft exhalation and a smile on her lips. Maeven dropped her onto the ground, a small and fragile corpse that had housed burning soul and iron will enough to rival the very gods themselves. She scrubbed at her cheek, fearing some sort of last trick, but found only her own paranoia.
Maeven stared at the knife. No soul had flowed into it. Black Herran had been correct; that corrupt thing was long since claimed by something else. But her death had released just enough potent energy to fully awaken the weapon.
It pulsed in her hand, a heartbeat flush with warmth, with immeasurable power. A shard of the void beyond life: death incarnate. A weapon that could kill anything.
After all these years of building up the enchantments, we have finally completed our great work, her grandfather said, his voice dry as parchment and old bone. Use that power wisely.
She shrugged off her backpack and let it drop, taking out his finger bones and tossing them to the cobbles. “Thank you for all your tuition, grandfather. I no longer have any need of you.” She ground his bones to dust beneath her heel.
She felt the ghost’s shudder of relief as his soul was freed from its necromantic bindings. Her grandfather embraced his long-delayed death, and she allowed his soul to blow away on the wind.
She prodded Black Herran’s corpse, just in case. She was really gone. Maeven ripped the enchanted rings off her old general’s hands, breaking the fingers in the process. Whatever she couldn’t use, she would be able to sell for a king’s ransom.
She headed for the town’s temple. Amadden would undoubtedly head there to tear down every sign of heathen worship. Her brother had never been imaginative.
She followed the sounds of battle and came to the temple, now with a gaping hole in one side. Corpses were piled up outside, three in the heavy armour of holy knights, and a dozen more in the garb of common foot soldiers.
Two soldiers lay gasping and clutching mortal wounds. As she walked past, she willed their hearts to stop, a death too good f
or them.
Tiarnach sat with his back propped up against the wall by the entrance of the temple, the earth beneath him stained dark. He was covered in dreadful wounds and his long red hair on one side was shorn to stubble, bone visible through a wide gash. Blood poured down his face and beard. Terrified faces of townsfolk peered out at the necromancer from the entrance he guarded.
“Maeven,” he gasped, lips twisting in pain. “Not seeing me at my best.”
She studied him for a moment. “That’s arguable. I had expected you to be dead by now. Or fled.”
“So sorry to disappoint,” he said. “How do you fare?”
“Black Herran is dead.”
He glanced at the obsidian knife in her hand. “Killed the cow yourself, did you? I can smell her sorcery on you. Ach well. Not unexpected, I have to say. What o’ the others?”
“All dead.”
“Bunch of weaklings,” he snarled. “Just us hard bastards left standing at the end, eh?”
She snorted. “You do not seem to be standing right now.”
“An old man needs a wee rest now and again,” he snapped. “Still got your fucking brother to behead, don’t I? Where is the whelp?”
She looked to the south, where the last few defenders were fleeing for their lives through narrow streets and alleys, Red Penny leading a valiant but futile rear guard. “He shall be along presently.”
She looked to her knife, and then at the ruined war god.
“You’ll no’ get much out of me,” he said. “I’m wrung dry.”
Her gaze moved to the townsfolk cowering in the temple behind him.
His eyes went cold and hard. “I wouldn’t if I were you, wench. I’ve just enough left in me to deal with one corpse-botherer.”
“I very much doubt it, you old drunkard,” she said, but did not act on her impulse.
“I would murder for a cold ale,” he muttered.
Lucent soldiers began arriving in force, heralding the Falcon Prince’s entrance. They formed up in a line facing the temple, shields up and bloodied swords ready.
“Perhaps later,” she said. “He’s here.”
Tiarnach heaved himself up onto one good leg, swaying dangerously, sword dangling from his one working arm.
The Falcon Prince limped towards them, his split skull leaking golden fire in spurts and hisses. His armour was a tattered ruin and his eyes dark and haunted. Somehow, he still managed to exude an aura of confidence and command.
His gaze met Maeven’s and he stopped dead. His expression fell blank. “This slaughter is your doing, necromancer.”
“Ah, my dear brother,” she replied. “As always, you fail to take ownership of your dark deeds and selfish desires. The perverse thing you call a religion is all your own doing, Amadden. This invasion and slaughter are by your will.”
The Falcon Prince’s face turned to Tiarnach, standing amidst the corpses of his beloved righteous army. “The savage that calls himself a god. I thought I had ended you years ago. No matter.”
Tiarnach spat a congealed lump of blood towards him. “I am a fucking god, you thief.”
“Thief?” the Falcon Prince exclaimed. “In what way?”
“That holy fire is not yours,” Tiarnach said. “There is no divine will behind what you do with it. You steal her lifeblood and make a weapon of it.”
The Falcon Prince bared his teeth in a bloody snarl. “You know nothing. Vile monsters. You will be purged from Her world. Kill the witch.” He limped towards Tiarnach with his burning sword out while his men surged towards Maeven.
Tiarnach knew he couldn’t win. He could feel the divine power filling the Falcon Prince up like a man’s bladder after a full day of downing ale. All he could do was slow him down and give that wretched necromancer more time to deal with his army. She hated her brother even more than Tiarnach did.
The Falcon Prince’s mobility was hampered by wounds, less so than Tiarnach but the war god used it to draw the fight out and lead him away from the temple and the occupants he was protecting. He hopped away as the Falcon Prince gave clumsy chase.
Holy fire rolled over him. “That tickles!” Tiarnach shouted, feeling the blood flow from his scalp cease as he absorbed a little of that divine power. His knee felt like it might even bear a little weight.
“Impossible!” came the reply.
“Ach well,” Tiarnach yelled. “The Bright One wouldn’t want to burn her lover up now, would she? She loves my big hard cock.” He put on a woman’s voice and began to moan in ecstasy. “Oh, Tiarnach!”
Veins bulged in the Falcon Prince’s neck and forehead. He screamed and broke into a lumbering charge. Both swung swords, but with different purposes. The Falcon Prince brought his round in a vicious but entirely predictable diagonal slash. Tiarnach’s cut came later, aiming for hand and sword rather than a mortal wound.
Tiarnach turned as the slash came in, sacrificing his mangled left arm and a few ribs to the burning blade. There was no resistance as it sliced through flesh and bone and took off his arm, and that was exactly what the war god had been counting on. The Falcon Prince overbalanced, his sword hand extended and vulnerable. A sword that cut through anything could also be a dangerous liability.
He hammered his sword down on the Falcon Prince’s wrist. Plate armour was marvellous for stopping cuts, but his wasn’t intact and there was little padding left to cushion such a heavy blow. Sword and wrist both broke with a loud crack.
Tiarnach fell atop him as both swords dropped to the dirt. The Falcon Prince rolled him over and slammed a knee into already severed ribs, crushing them inwards to pierce his lungs.
He aimed his spurting stump of an arm and jetted his blood into the Falcon Prince’s eyes. Even blinded, he had the war god on his back and at his mercy. Steel-clad elbows, feet and knees were driven into the war god’s torso again and again and again until Tiarnach lay still and broken underneath him, blood frothing his red beard.
The Falcon Prince stood, and clumsily wiped the blood from his eyes. He cleared his vision to see his foe grinning even as death approached.
Tiarnach managed one last wheezing chuckle as the Falcon Prince spun to witness the last of his men fall dead at his hateful sister’s feet.
He might not have taken the bastard’s head, but Tiarnach had ensured Maeven would. He died content, if death it could be called when you were a god.
Maeven enjoyed murdering the soldiers, her necrotic power stopping hearts and decaying brains. Two archers at the back died choking on swollen black tongues. The remaining inquisitors came at her head on, but now she had her awakened blade. She held it up and called to their souls. She snuffed out their lives like candles caught in a storm, and sucked their souls into it. Armoured forms fell like dead flies.
She walked among them sowing death and reaping souls to grant her ever more power, savouring the death of hope in the acolytes’ eyes as they realised all their faith in their goddess could not save them.
Tiarnach had kept her brother occupied long enough for her to eradicate the little pests and ensure there would be no more distractions. She appreciated his consideration, which was not something she could have thought possible when this all began. He had proven surprisingly durable.
Her brother howled in rage as he beheld all of his followers dead at her feet. She exulted in his pain, anger and frustration.
They walked towards each other – their first meeting in forty years. It would also be their last.
“Sister,” he hissed.
“Brother.” She smiled at the hideous axe wound splitting his skull, the scars he had inflicted on her own face pulling tight. “It seems fate has decided to repay you for your betrayal. How delicious. If only Amogg Hadakk had cut a little deeper.”
Golden fire spat from his head wound, angry tongues of devouring magic reaching towards her. She lifted her deathly void blade and divine fire flinched back.
“What have you done to Grace?” she demanded. Maeven cared nothing for empires, religio
n or conquest. All she cared about was finding her long-lost sister, the one person in the world she had ever loved.
“I have kept my sister safe from all the corruptions and evils of this world,” he said. “Including you. You will never lay a hand on my pure and perfect sister.”
“She is my sister too,” Maeven replied. “And you keep her locked away like a pet.”
He scowled. “You are no kin of ours. You are a vile worshipper of death and decay, not fit to set foot upon the righteous world I am building for her.”
“You build this cruel world only for yourself, you self-obsessed fanatic,” Maeven spat. “You never once asked Grace what she wanted, did you? Of course not. So, I am no sister of yours, am I?”
She struck first, talons of darkness striking at his heart. They shattered on his breastplate, his torn flesh still protected by the power of the Lucent Goddess. Maeven hadn’t expected it to be so easy but it allowed her to gauge his remaining strength. Even after the damage inflicted by the giant demon, by Amogg’s axe and Tiarnach’s sword, it seemed he still overmatched her in raw physical and magical might. If he fought with careful calculation there was a chance he might even win, but she would never allow that to pass.
“I will kill you,” she said. “And then I will bury my blade in the heart of your beloved Bright One and eat her soul.”
Any sanity Amadden had left snapped. His eyes lost all semblance of control and humanity. He screamed. Golden flames boiled out of his wounds until fire sheathed him like a second skin. He loomed large above Maeven, four times the size he had been moments before. No artful sword technique for him now, just burning hands and feet filled with the primal urge to crush and kill. He swiped a hand through a building and she was forced to dodge the flaming debris.
She backed away, one hand lifted high and filled with necromantic magic. “Rise!”
The corpses of footmen and holy knights climbed to their feet, weapons clutched in hands that still remembered what to do with them. Only one corpse refused to obey her will. Tiarnach lay where he had fallen, stubbornly disobedient even after death, his eyes staring at her, filled with warning.
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