From the Ashes

by Gareth K Pengelly

  From this point on, the Plains People were on their own.

  “Are we doing the right thing?”

  Wrynn understood Gwenna’s concern as she gazed out on the embattled Plains People they were leaving behind, but he nodded nonetheless.

  “If we tie ourselves up to destroy the entire Clansman army then we risk running out of time. The portal is close to forming.” To point out the fact, he gestured over to the sky behind the Keep; the vivid green beacon standing out like a sore in the sky, the air around it swirling with unnameable, unnatural colours as the walls of reality came down. “We need to- “

  He was cut off mid-sentence by a shockwave that rippled out from the Pen itself; barely seen, barely heard, but felt in the chest of every man and woman there and beyond. It was as though a stone had been dropped into a placid lake, the results rippling out to the far shores.

  The universe had changed.

  “What was that?” Arbistrath, concerned as his eyes were drawn to the looming Keep.

  Wrynn smiled as he watched his awestruck shamans, Gwenna included, gazing out with open mouths, seeing the spirits flying about in wonderment at what had entered the world.

  “Salvation…”

  ***

  The Great Hall was lit up, every shadow driven from the room by the blazing angel that loomed monolithic in the centre. The air hummed, crackled, as energies leapt from him. The potent, anti-spirit symbols wrought into the building screaming in protest at his presence and the very stone of the walls began to splinter as reality strained at the seams to contain the impossible being.

  Throttle back, Graeme, the titan thought. Turn down the wick.

  The searing light died down, the crackling lightning fading away till only a quiet hum betrayed the power contained within his mighty form.

  “Better,” he muttered to himself with a nod.

  The assassin stood boldly before Stone, high on the dais whereupon sat the deposed King’s throne, refusing to be intimidated by the newfound power he felt washing out in great, invisible waves.

  “I don’t know how you survived my poisons, Stone,” Memphias sneered. “And I don’t know how your shamanic tricks work within these walls. But neither fact will alter your destiny; you will die by our hand…”

  A curt nod in the gloom and the Khrdas attacked, emboldened now that the radiant shroud once surrounding him had dimmed. Blurs of motion, trails of smoke, as they leapt to the attack, poisoned daggers and bladed bracers to the fore.

  A thundercrack noise and Stone appeared for a moment to be in every place at once; each Khrda receiving in the same instant a mighty fist to the stomach, or kick to the face, each sent hurtling through the air to land with a crash against the far walls of the Hall. A blink of an eye later, Stone was still standing exactly where he’d always been as though he’d never moved.

  A sniff from the Councilman.

  “Impressive, Stone. You’ve picked up some new tricks… so have I.”

  Even as the Khrdas shook their heads, picking themselves up to attack anew, their leader launched down from the dais in a blur of black, rippling energy, his dark patrons rendering him immune to the laws of this world, moving with a speed hitherto unknown to science.

  But Stone was still the faster.

  With almost leisurely detachment the looming titan watched the assassin close, his mind calculating all possible angles of attack and defence, registering subconsciously every facet of the coming encounter. If Memphias continued on his current course and speed, he would simply splat against Stone’s rooted form, like a fly against the windscreen of a car. He frowned though, his mind and piercing green eyes flaying the approaching foe like an x-ray as he examined him closer. Warning bells rang in his mind as he clocked the daggers in his hands – the very same that had impaled him once before, wrought with dark sorceries.

  Dark sorceries the antithesis of the powers that fuelled him.

  He moved, blurring aside as the assassin struck out, godbane daggers finding empty air. A furious flurry of blows as Memphias pressed home the assault, weapons flashing about with inhuman grace and speed, hands leaving streaking blurs of black energy, forcing the giant Stone to spin, duck, dive and lean as he sought to keep those lethal, ensorcelled blades at bay. An opening, Stone’s fist shooting out like a piston, impacting with precision and launching Memphias across the Hall to smash into the great bronze doors with a clang, leaving a great dent as he fell to the floor.

  But far from being out for the count, the assassin simply looked up, grinning as the darkness gathered about him to heal his wounds, before blurring once more into the fray.

  A hiss and a shriek as the Khrdas re-joined the fight along with their master; their non-magical weapons no threat to Stone, but they got in his way, always there when he least wanted them, swarming him like bugs. He lashed out, hurling them aside with staggering punches and kicks when the opportunity appeared, sending them flying away, only to return moments later; the darkness empowered them.

  Distracted, for a moment, by one such altercation, a searing line of fire across his forearm as one of Memphias’ daggers managed to find its target. The skin crackled and steamed as the dark sorceries contested with his enhanced healing, but a conscious thought caused the wound to heal, even as the Master Assassin leapt in for another attack with a snarl.

  This wouldn’t do. He was being penned in, overwhelmed.

  An instant of concentration, and a sphere of air exploded outwards from him, hurling all his aggressors away for a moment and giving him an instant’s respite. He leapt upwards on legs of titanic might, soaring through the air in a graceful flip to land on the dais, the stone flags beneath him smashing into a crater twenty feet wide.

  His foes turned to face him, readying themselves to attack and Stone snarled in frustration. He could feel the unlimited power at his beck and call, there, pressing like water against a dam, calling for use. But he couldn’t. Reality still throbbed with the echoes of his entrance.

  He was living in a world of cardboard, he thought. Tread lightly. Maintain balance. There will be a time and a place to unleash his potential.

  For now, find other ways to win.

  A brief thought crossed his mind, of almost forgotten friends, even as the enemy leapt the balustrade and flew towards him, daggers poised for the kill. He smiled, the torches about the room flaring into life at his command, the Khrdas and their dark leader falling to the floor in shock at the fresh light. It took but a moment for them to regain their composure, but when they looked up the giant was gone.

  Memphias snarled, even as the Khrdas whimpered and whined in their cloaks of smoke beneath the onslaught of the light.

  “The King’s Tower… move!”

  ***

  The air in the tunnel was strange; first it was warm, growing warmer as they moved underground; but now the air was growing colder, fresher, as they made their way down towards the docks carved into the cliffs beneath Pen-Merethia. The freshness was welcome, the salty coolness of the air seeming to wash away the taint of the bloodshed they were leaving behind.

  Though Alann had an inkling there was yet more to come.

  “You know who that was, don’t you…?” came the voice of Narlen in the gloom.

  Elerik replied, his voice quiet.

  “We were all there, in the arena, Plainsmen.”

  Alann nodded in the dark. He knew who it was. But at the same time, he had seemed different to the man he’d once seen. There was no cruelty or malice in the angel that had flashed into existence before them. There was only power. Forgiveness. And hope.

  “Who was it…?” came another voice, Naresh, as they continued through the Warren. “I wasn’t there in the Arena. I was lugging food through these very tunnels.”

  Narlen laughed at the irony.

  “That great being of light back there, my friend,” he explained, “was none other than your King himself.”

  Naresh gave a gasp.

  “That was Invictus…?”


  A chorus of nods, though pointless in the dark, before Alann spoke out.

  “’Was’ being the operative word. Whatever that man was, he’s no longer Invictus, of that I’m sure. I felt nothing but strength and goodness flowing out from him. That’s not the tyrant of legend.”

  Grunts of agreement, for each man had been rocked by the visitation.

  And to tell the truth, Alann, who talked so much of the change within Stone, felt changed within himself now. How, he didn’t yet know. But he felt different following his encounter. The man’s words; no-one should have known that. No-one. Yet he did. He’d heard tales, of course, that shamans could rip the memories from a man’s mind. But such things were painful, traumatic. He’d felt none of that. Only an overwhelming sense of peace and relief.

  If what the giant had said was true then Alann no longer needed to hunger for revenge. If there truly was a world beyond this and his wife, his son, were safe and happy, then what would it matter finding and avenging them upon the flesh of his nemesis?

  His blinding hunger no longer leading him astray, he could finally embrace the role that life had been so insistent on thrusting upon him and he so reluctant to take. He could be the leader of men his people had always seen him as. He’d always shied away from the role as best he could; not from humility, but from fear of failure, fear that his thirst for vengeance would cause him to lead his people into danger.

  A fear he’d thought realised when Kurnos had wrought havoc on his men in the forest of the North. But now… the Foresters; Iain at their head, here with the shaman army. His family; happy, at peace in the afterlife, no longer calling at him for revenge.

  He felt lighter, more focussed, like a man once out of shape, but now trim and healthy once more. He grasped the axe in his hand; plain, unadorned, workmanlike – so like him – and felt a buzz, a tingling within that he could have sworn he felt echoing in the wood and steel of his weapon.

  “Nearly there…”

  He focused into the gloom at Naresh’s words, spying the light growing brighter at the end. Yes, they were nearly there. The tunnel would soon open out into the great cove wherein sat the docks of Merethia. The air, which he had expected to grow even fresher and salty with brine, took on a tingling, greasy feel. His stomach turned at the recognition.

  Sorcery.

  They were expected.

  ***

  Resistance about the right flank of the Pen that swung round to the causeway was relatively light and Hofsted grunted. Things were never this easy. Usually a calm such as this was merely to lull them into a false sense of security.

  The front of the column rounded a rock, the foot of the storm-lashed causeway lying a hundred yards ahead, and the Lieutenant’s suspicions were proven correct. Oh, were they proven correct…

  The creatures snarled and shrieked at the sight of the mortals; glowing red eyes filled with hate that stared out beneath black and twisting horns. They stood upright, like men, on long, sinewy legs that ended in cloven hooves, their black-skinned arms wielding cruel weapons of bone and fire, so similar to those of Kurnos before. The Tulador Guard stopped in their tracks, eyeing the monstrous gathering before them, some shivering, others retching, at the sight of the unnatural host. Arbistrath turned to Wrynn with horrified eyes, the Shaman answering him before the question left his lips.

  “Demon spawn,” he explained, spitting the words as though unable to bear the taste of them on his tongue. “The lowliest servants of the infernal powers we face.”

  As if in response to his words, the demons clamoured and called, spitting and frothing in eagerness to spill the mortal blood they smelt before them, yet not venturing closer, held back as though on a leash.

  “Why do they not charge us?” enquired Hofsted, his tone indicating that he was not entirely uncomfortable with the fact.

  Wrynn pointed out with a mighty hand, gesturing to the rippling line of air that scored the earth before them.

  “The creatures of hell can exist on our plain for only so long. If they were to move closer to us, such lowly demons would dissipate quickly, like so much smoke from a fire. But the Portal atop the Beacon stretches thin the walls between worlds; within the sphere of its influence, they can remain quite happily.”

  Marlyn nodded in understanding, as he appeared at Wrynn’s side.

  “So they can’t get out, but we can get in?”

  “Precisely.”

  Marlyn smiled at Hofsted who grinned in turn, hefting his cannon.

  “Tulador Guards – present arms!”

  ***

  No matter how fast he moved, Stone couldn’t outrun the Khrdas, for the shadows were their natural home now; the dimness of every corner, the gloom behind every door, the assassins leaping out from each one to strike at him.

  Therefore he walked at a relaxed gait as he wound his way up the servants’ staircase above the kitchens.

  A column of stone on the wall, the flickering torch mounted there casting a dark shadow, so Stone was ready. The Khrda leapt out, appearing from nowhere as it sprang from the darkness, trailing the roiling cloak of shadows behind it. He wasted no time being elaborate, merely catching the creature’s bladed forearm in one mighty hand, crushing metal and bone, dashing the assassin to ruin against the wall before casting it down the stairs. It would return, he knew, in moments, leaping once more from the shadows whole and restored.

  Distractions, nothing more, meant to hinder his progress, stop him reaching his objective.

  But nothing could.

  Slowly, patiently, he continued his ascent, climbing the winding staircase of the Seers’ Tower.

  ***

  The docks of Merethia. A vast port, once busy, bustling with life. But now a ruin, a graveyard; mariners from the East Coast, traders, merchants, ship guards, all slain and broken, corpses littering the wooden harbour; ghost ships floating at their moorings, some having broken away in the storm that enveloped the aptly named Isle out to sea, drifting off to bump into other vessels or run aground on the harsh, unforgiving rocks of the coast.

  Yet despite the cold wind, the briny spray of the ocean, the air rippled with a haze like summer heat as the Four made their way out, blinking, into what light the grey clouds permitted through.

  “This way,” whispered Naresh as he made to move. “This path leads round the coast to the Causeway.” He suppressed a shudder of grief as he ran, the others following; this is the way Jafari would have come, having fled from his bondage, seeking refuge in the dark warmth of the tunnels they left behind.

  They rounded a counting house, the wooden building sprawled with corpses, when a smell assailed their nostrils; the pungent reek of sulphur, tinged with the sharp tang of smoke. A flash of fire on the decking before them and they screeched to a halt, feet sliding on the wet wood. A flaming tear in reality, cloven feet touching the deck as legs stretched out, arms coalescing into being, heads forming in a cloud of smoke.

  Malevolent red eyes stared at them in fury as the horned creatures crawled into existence, fangs gnashing, tongues lashing, claws grasping sickles of bone and daggers of flame. Demons from the worst nightmares of childhood, come to life to take theirs.

  The men gasped in horror, weapons held limp to their sides in shock, all save Alann who stood his ground, unyielding in the face of terror. One of the black-skinned beasts glared at him, hissing an otherworldly screech that tortured the air, before charging, a tangled mass of limbs and claws.

  The axe in Alann’s hand sang as he whipped it up, the head seeming to aim itself with marksman accuracy as he swung it with practiced ease. The demon’s horned head flew off, eyes wide in confusion as it disappeared in the waters of the harbour. The lifeless body collapsed to the floor, disappearing in a great flare of dark orange flame and smoke as it did.

  The Woodsman turned to his men, his axe held out to his side, the silvery head gleaming in the pale light of the sun, untarnished by blood or flame. The gathered demons hissed at the weapon, backing off
, tense, as though he were holding a venomous snake rather than a simple tool.

  “Smoke and flames, my friends, that’s all they are.”

  The trio, emboldened by their leader’s example, hefted their weapons, determination returning to their eyes as they moved to his sides. Alann turned back to the waiting demons, readying his axe once more, eyes narrowed.

  “Nothing but smoke and flames…”

  ***

  The elite of the Shaman army bore down on the Causeway, fighting through the foes as they pressed forth onto the bridge. The demons came at them in waves, but the destructive firepower of the Tulador Guards had decimated them from afar, the magicks of the shamans themselves mopping up the rest. Though the spirits seemed reluctant to tackle these foes.

  Pol found this out the hard way, a ravenous, behorned creature leaping towards him through the air. He reached out his hand, launching forth a flurry of fire bolts, but they pattered off the demon’s hide. The beasts were from another world, unnaturally resistant to the powers of the spirits. The creature landed atop him, pinning him down, the youth calling upon the earth to lend him strength as he sought to keep the snapping fangs at bay.

  A deafening report, the monster blasting away from him before disintegrating in a cloud of flame and smoke. They weren’t immune to the brute, destructive force of a cannon.

  Pol rose, dusting himself off, nodding in thanks to Marlyn who scuttled off to Gwenna’s side yet again. Like her own personal bodyguard, the young shaman sneered, before chastising himself. This was not the time or the place.

  With a throbbing mind he called forth the power of the air; maybe lightning would work better against these foes.

  On the other side of the Causeway, Wrynn piled into the midst of the horde; mighty arms surging with seasoned spiritual strength as he tore the demons limb from limb to the cheers of the men. But such mewling creatures as these were nought but vanguards, he knew; precursors to the horrors they would face on the island proper.