The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2)

by Phil Tucker

  "We're out?" She looked around. Relief swamped her, and she lurched forward to hug him tight, pressing her forehead against his shoulder, tears squeezing out of her closed eyes. He hesitated, then hugged her back. She took a deep, whistling breath, got herself under control and pulled away. Wiped at her cheeks. Felt cuts open, saw blood on the back of her hand.

  "We've got to keep moving."

  "Mæva," she said, fresh horror arising within her. "How could she..?"

  "She saved us." Asho shook his head in wonder. "She saved us."

  "Where are we?" She struggled to rise and failed. "How do we get back down?"

  "I - I don't know if I can," he said. He gave her an apologetic smile, shivering all the harder. "I'm - I'm burning up. I can't pour any more into you. I know you can't take it. But I can't hold it. I took in too much. It wasn't even a choice -"

  "Asho." She took his hands in hers. His skin was scalding hot. "Let it go. I can take it."

  He almost leaped to his feet. "No. No, you can't. You were vomiting blood!"

  "We have to get away," she said. "We'll both feel better the farther away we get from the Gate." But she felt exhausted. Could barely countenance the idea of climbing down the mountain.

  "I - yes." He nodded. "Maybe movement will help me burn off - some of - ah!" He shook his head and closed his eyes tightly. "I feel like I'm going to burst. I can't - I -"

  "Asho." Kethe fought her way to her feet. Despite the dark she could make out Asho's pale features with terrible clarity. "We're going to make it. Just stay focused. Come on -"

  A sound came from behind Asho. A slight shift in the rocks. They both looked up from the gulley in which they were standing and saw the four-legged demon standing over them, its body a deeper black against the night sky, the refulgent light of the rising moon gleaming darkly on the blades of its monstrous flail.

  Kethe staggered back. She couldn't tear her eyes from the unnatural yet weirdly organic folds of its head. No eyes. No mouth. No features of any kind, just a delicate elegance, a rose of stone, an orchid -

  Asho drew his blade and laughed. "Didn't you hear from your master? We are to descend unmolested."

  The demon towered high into the night. It was easily the height of four men, its torso whip-thin, its arms spiderlike in their length, its strength awesome as it held its double-headed flail with ease. It flexed its four legs and leaped down, landing just beyond them with a heavy crunch on the loose stones.

  "Very well," said Asho. He sounded manic, almost joyous. "You want to dance? I'm in need of a partner." He laughed again, the sound just shy of madness. "Let us dance!"

  The demon whipped its arms up and around, sending both flails spinning through the air with such speed that they blurred. Kethe felt the wind across her face, heard the dull keening. Asho walked off to the left, picking up speed, jogging then breaking out into a sprint, then leaped up onto the wall and ran along its length, perpendicular to the ground.

  The demon sent a flail flying through the air at Asho. It smashed into the wall with a deep, wrenching crunch, sending huge splinters of rock flying in every direction - but it missed the Bythian. He ran along the wall and then leaped again, this time diving along the ground, a foot above it, his sword a sliver of moonlight in between the demon's legs.

  Kethe couldn't keep track of what happened next. The demon's insectile speed caused it to sidestep, but then it screeched and stumbled and Asho was somehow behind it, spinning his blade.

  It didn't turn, but instead brought its thrown flail back to its side, set it to spinning in a tight arc over its head, and then began to launch both heads in a series of brutal sweeps at Asho, one barely clearing the other in horizontal swipes, then both cascading down in diagonals, bouncing off the rock floor to be swept up again into another attack.

  Kethe put her hand over her mouth. But Asho laughed and threw himself over the monstrous flails' heads, dove underneath, rolled aside, was back up, a ghost amongst the attacks that the demon couldn't touch.

  Until it did.

  Asho was ejected from the fight as if he'd fallen off the face of a cliff, spinning through the air to hit the rock wall and bounce off it. Kethe hadn't even seen what had hit him.

  He lay still.

  No. No.

  The demon canted its head to one side like a bird, then issued a series of interrogatory clicks. It was ignoring her. Where was her blade? There – it lay but a few feet from her where Asho had set it down. She could barely stand, but she had to attack the demon now, while its back was turned.

  Asho pushed himself to his feet. Kethe groaned as taint flooded out of his ruined shoulder and shattered arm, knitting them whole and seeping into her. She sank back into a crouch and steadied herself with an outflung hand. Asho shook out his arm, picked up his blade and threw it like a spear, straight at the demon's head.

  Swords were not made to be thrown in such a manner, but Asho's blade slid almost to the hilt into the demon's alien skull. It screeched, reared back, chains jangling as the flail heads danced, legs tripping as it turned from side to side. Asho sprinted forward, leaped, touched one foot down on the demon's thigh, pushed off, and spun in midair to grasp the sword hilt. Momentum carried him over the demon, and in doing so caused the sword to cut up and around and split the demon's head in half.

  It shrieked again, spasmed and collapsed. Asho fell onto the rocks and lay still. The demon rattled its limbs again and again, slapping at the ground, whipping its head from side to side. Eventually it too lay still.

  Kethe crawled over to Asho. He still wasn't moving. She touched his cheek. His skin was cool.

  His eyes flickered, then opened. "What happened?"

  "You..." Kethe shook her head. "I don't know. I saw it, but I don't know how to describe it."

  Asho groaned and rolled onto his side. He winced, touched his healed shoulder and gasped in pain. Blood was leaking from the corner of his mouth, dripping from his nose and ears. "I don't..." He closed his eyes and went still.

  "Asho?" Panic. She reached out and touched the side of his neck. His pulse was weak and irregular. What had he done? He'd Sin Cast without her help, burned through an enormous amount of magic in moments.

  "Asho!" Her terror mounted, gave her strength. She knew she shouldn't draw power from the world around her, drain the magic and in doing so find strength. But she had no choice.

  Kethe inhaled deeply, and felt a swirling rush of magic sinking into her soul. With a grunt, she slid her arms beneath Asho's body and rose to her feet. Her skin felt too tight. Her eyes were dry, her tongue swollen in her mouth. They had to make it down. They had to warn the others. Kethe turned and began to stagger down the length of the crevice. Patterns of light danced before her, swirls and dots as if she had just been staring at the sun.

  She had to make it down. She had to warn Ser Wyland. She had to tell him that the Black Shriving followed at her heels.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The log burst into coals and sparks as it split in half across the stone troll's face, and an instant later Grax rose to his feet with a roar of fury. Immediately Gregory was on his feet too, but Tharok gave a brutal roar all of his own and stepped forward, shoving Gregory to the ground.

  Grax loomed over Tharok, twice his height, some fourteen feet in all, gangly and stooped but all whipcord muscle under his stony hide. The troll shook his head, took up his great hammer, and swung it toward Tharok with terrible strength.

  Time slowed. Tharok brought all his thoughts to bear on a single point: Grax's left eye. The hammer moved toward him as if through honey. He had to think like the troll. He had to be a stone troll. He had to convince himself so thoroughly, then and there, that Grax would believe it too.

  The circlet became searing hot, and Tharok almost cried out as alien thoughts and images and sounds poured into his mind. Darkness black and thick like oil and the night a tender lover touching him in all his monstrosity, sinking into the cracks in his great stone iron carapace, wrapped aroun
d him in the bowels of a cave or sweeping about him like a great ragged cloak when he stood on the top of peak. Hands so powerful they could crush rock and carve grooves into the very stone, the world a strange and frenzied place, frantic and rapid, his own mind a center of instinct and hunger around which the madness of reality whirled. The calm beauty of the stars, the fresh enchantment of true blood-freezing cold, his body growing ever more powerful and large but slower and deliberate till one day it would merge with the mountainside and he would bleed his sense of self into the peaks and valleys and become one with the world, true death, true dying being that absorption, that dissolution. Power and strength and the calm of trees growing and the fundamental rightness of eating another and darkness about him, but everywhere and true was the stone and mountain, the boulder and block, the living rock of which he was but only a slightly more aware part of. Mountain and rock, shale and stone, the deep organ grinds of boulders shifting in the heart of chasms and gorges. Time changing the face of the world. The sigh of wind through the valleys. The crack of ice parting slivers. Time and bone, darkness and blood.

  The club hit him across the chest with the power of an avalanche. It snapped him out of his dark thoughts with a rush and a roar of explosive pain, and he was lifted off the ground and sent hurtling back through the air. He hit the ground and rolled, came up by reflex onto his knees and hands, and fought for his feet snarling and coughing for a moment before his body crumpled once more. Pain spiderwebbed across his chest, caused his heart to shudder, and with effort he rolled onto his back, looking up unseeing at the stars. He raises his hands, touched his chest, sought to suck in air, but his lungs weren't working. Gasping, retching, he shook his head, and through the pain and confusion he forced himself to roll onto his side.

  Weapon...? He forced himself up into a sitting position. He had no time; the troll would be upon him. He heard yells, the sound of boots pounding the rock, dull roars like cave-ins coming from all around. Gregory's voice was raised in command, shot through with fear and rage. Then there were hands under his arms, and Tharok was hauled to his feet. His legs refused to steady beneath him, though, and he growled and shook his head, his tusks almost goring the kragh to his side. Finally, something unlocked in his chest and he took a massive breath of fresh mountain air, the cold purity of it doing much to quell the fire that was raging through his body.

  Blinking away the tears, Tharok shrugged the hands away from him. He stepped forward and saw that an ever-growing tide of kragh was gathering around them, weapons drawn. Gregory was standing in front of Grax, facing out, looking at the assembling horde that was quickly growing from the tens to the hundreds. The stone troll was in full rage, its club raised above Gregory's head protectively, its massive bat wing ears twitching and swirling from side to side as it shifted its weight from foot to foot, turning to try to keep the kragh in view.

  Tharok stepped forward and roared from the depths of his belly, "Enough!"

  The kragh who had been inching forward stopped. Only then did the pangs of failure hit him. The moment had come, the moment of truth, of mastery, and he had failed. He had gambled and lost.

  "Weapons down! Now!" He strode forward, trying not to limp, refusing to bend over, to continue sucking in air, to close his eyes and wait for the pain to subside. He didn't know how many ribs might be snapped. The pain was terrific, and a burning was rising in his core, but he forced it aside. "You, all of you, weapons down!"

  Slowly the kragh did as he ordered, lowering their spears and sword points but not putting them away. Tharok turned to stare at them all, moving in a slow circle. "There is no problem here. None! This human is under my protection, and his troll is innocent. Everything is alright. Go back to your fires. Sleep! Tomorrow we march for the Dragon's Tear, and I need you strong. Go! There is no danger. Go!"

  Reluctantly, the bloodlust still upon them, the kragh retreated. When they were gone, Tharok looked to Gregory. "Apologies. I thought I could dominate your troll, and I failed. My mistake nearly cost us everything. I'll leave you now."

  Grax was subsiding, its ears beginning to droop, lowering the hammer so that the great stone head rested gently against the ground.

  "Wait," said Gregory, stepping forward, reaching out to touch Tharok's shoulder before dropping his hand. " Fail? If you had failed, you would be dead. If you had failed, Grax would have stove in your chest and splattered your bones across the entire valley. I don't know how you did it, but you passed. Damn you, you did it."

  Tharok frowned, the thought taking a moment to sink into his head, and then he laughed. The sound was weak and pained. He fought back the bitterness that arose within him, and almost he chose to confess to Gregory: it wasn't me that passed your test. I don't have your power.

  "Good," he said, voice low and rough. "You will teach me?"

  "Yes, damn it, yes. I've only met three others since Egard who could do what we do, and they had to begin with robins and goldfish. You've begun with stone trolls. That is... that is frightening."

  Tharok reached up and took off the circlet. The world howled and shrank from an expanse of light to his own limited viewpoint. The skin around his temples felt blistered. He turned the slender band of metal over in his hands, examining it carefully in the firelight. Gregory watched, nonplussed. This band. This crown of Ogri's. What was its limit? From where came its power?

  The circlet glimmered. Tharok grunted and slipped it back over his brow, and immediately a wave of confidence and aggression passed through him like a wall of fire. He grinned and Gregory backed away half a step. "Don't worry, human," Tharok said. "You will get your gold. You will get your treasure. You will stalk the battlefield like a hungry crow, and wherever you gaze you will see riches. Stay with me, align your fate with mine, and we will see you richer than even your Ascendant."

  Gregory held still, staring at Tharok, and then he nodded. "By the Black Gate, I believe you. I would have laughed but a moment ago, but now I believe it. So be it! I shall cast my lot with you. Deliver what you have promised, fill my hands with more riches than I can spend, and I will teach you all that I know. All that Egard taught me in those high mountain meadows."

  "Good," said Tharok. "Now sleep. I have matters to attend to. Follow the Red River tribe tomorrow, and when we strike from the Chasm Walk, I shall ensure that you are able to follow."

  Tharok strode away into the dark, his mind aflame with excitement. He would perfect the ability to control the trolls, would summon and bring them all down from their rocky crags. He would enlist their aid, as many as he could find, and with a score of them, he would descend to the Dragon's Tear and silence all his critics. He would present the kragh with their greatest weapon. In one move he would unite the highland kragh, and word of his coming would strike fear into the hearts of the Tragon. All would fear him, all would flee, only to be swept up and brought into his tribe, unifying all beneath his banner.

  Through the different small camps he walked, hand massaging his chest. He slowed when he saw Golden Crow waiting for him outside his hut, hands laced over his walking stick, his blind face inscrutable.

  "Shaman," he said.

  "Warlord," Golden Crow said gravely. "I thought we had spoken. I thought we had reached an understanding."

  "We did, and we have," said Tharok, stopping. "What is amiss?"

  "I am blind, but I see more than any. The spirits have been screaming in my ear, shrieking their warnings. They say that you learn black magicks from the human. That you seek to control that which should be left alone. What is this that you do? Explain it to me, young kragh."

  Tharok controlled the urge to growl. His every move was checked by this old shaman. "Golden Crow, in a few days we will reach the Dragon's Tear. I will stand on the broken altar of the Shattered Temple and issue a call for a Grand Convocation. I need to prepare for that, or fail and lose all. I am doing what I must. I am going to summon the stone trolls and make them part of our forces."

  "Impressive," Golden Crow said dr
yly. "And wholly unnatural. The spirits are not pleased. Why do you think this human travels alone, with only a stone troll for company? Why do you think he is not down in the cities of men, hip deep in wine and naked human women?"

  "I don't know," said Tharok, lowering his chin. "And I don't care."

  "Well, you should, fool," said Golden Crow. "What he has gained has come at great cost. Do you think this human the only one with this power? There have been others, but they never last long. They always disappear. They are cast out from their societies, banned and shunned. Why, oh great and wise warlord, do you think that is?"

  "Because they have power!" roared Tharok, drawing the attention of many camped close by, his patience snapping. "Because they have power unlike any other, and draw the resentment of old meddling fools!"

  "No, Tharok!" Golden Crow swung his walking stick and rapped Tharok on the shoulder. "Because they lose their sense of self! If you would be a troll, be a sheep, be a fish or a hawk, then you cannot be a kragh or a human! He who seeks to control others loses himself, and in so doing becomes at once less than he was and more. Yes, there is power; yes, there is the ability to control. But at what price, fool? What price? Why do you think we are not ruled by these men and women? Why do you think they are not in control of the cities, of the world? With such power, they should be!"

  "I don't know," admitted Tharok. "It's a fair question."

  "Because," hissed Golden Crow, "they do not last. They lose the ability to live with their own kind. They become predators. They become alien. Did this human tell you of the charwolf?"

  "Yes," said Tharok, his eyes narrowing.

  "Did he tell you from where the charwolf comes? Its origin?"

  "No."

  "Then think, idiot! Think of the path you are stepping onto. Think, and turn back! If you walk this path, you will lose more than you can imagine. You stand to lose your soul! Your very spirit!"

  Tharok stood still as realization washed over him. To lose his spirit... Golden Crow was speaking the truth, the fervor and anger in his voice real and raw. Tharok took a deep breath and thought of Grax, the great stone troll, standing over Gregory as the man hissed and wheeled to stare at the assembling kragh. Thought of his tale, of the firehawks and goats, of Egard alone in the high meadow. Of the charwolf with its yellow eyes leading sheep into the woods.