by Tim Lebbon
His skin burned, his scalp was tight and on fire, his muscles twitched and knotted with pent energy, and when he began to run his speed was borne of wrath.
Those dreams came again—images of people he had killed, women he had taken, the pathetic, quivering flesh-things that had died in their dozens on the end of his sword—and the whispers deep in his mind were confused, shocked, and yet unable to let go. Lucien held them there. The images came faster, but rather than guilt and shame he felt only triumph.
He saw the Shantasi darting from behind a tree and roared his warning to the other Red Monks. The scream split the arrow shaft in his throat and sprayed bloody splinters at the pines. A flash of red to his right, a shimmer of movement to his left, and the Monks closed in.
His sword sang and vibrated with blood lust. A squirrel jumped from a tree into his path, and Lucien struck out, slashing it in two. Another arrow whistled in, glancing from his cheek and taking a chunk of flesh as it spun away. Lucien laughed.
More memories, more deaths, dredged from the depths of his mind and forgotten merely because there were so many to remember.
There was a scream from ahead, the clash of sword on sword, the flash of sparks flying in the shade beneath the trees. Lucien coughed more blood and splinters and ran to join the fray.
“The graveyard,” Hope said. “Oh Mage shit, I never in my life expected to really see this. I never believed it.”
But Rafe was leaning against her back, asleep or unconscious, and it was for her to make sense of what she saw. The other horse drew near and she heard Kosar gasp. Trey ran up between them, panting, his breath slowing as he looked at what lay before them.
They had left the grey forest several minutes before, and followed a gradual slope up to the crest of a small hill. Now, in a natural bowl in the land before them, lay the graveyard to which Rafe had brought them.
There were no markers here, no headstones or monuments or mausoleums to the hundreds of machines that lay dead in the heather and grass. Their hollowed carcasses almost covered the ground entirely, starting from a hundred steps down the hilltop from where the observers stood, sweeping into the crater-like valley and then climbing the slopes on all sides, here and there actually lying dead on the hills surrounding the hollow. Some looked as if they had been consumed by fire in their last moments, stony protrusions burnt black and melted smooth by the heat. Others had died and rotted down slowly, settling into their final resting places as the living tissues that supported them slowly returned to dust. The smallest machine was as large as a man, its spindly iron legs rusted centuries ago into its final stance, and now almost rotted through by the trials of time and climate. Its shell held only air now, where before its workings had merged in metallic and biologic symphony. There were constructs the size of a horse, others even larger, and one, in the low centre of the valley, that must have shaken the very ground it once rolled across. It was as large as a dozen farm wagons, its smooth stone shell curved and notched like the carapace of a giant beetle. Its back bore holes at regular intervals, and a few of them were surrounded by the bony stumps of what may have once have been legs, or other less obvious limbs.
The land had continued to grow around this place of death and decay. Grasses grew strangely long and lush on the valley floor, fed perhaps by the water that must gather there from the rains. Bushes and small trees had forced their way between and through the dead machines, protruding from gaps in the constructs’ bony skeletons and metal cages, pressing through cracks where perhaps there should be none, doing their best to subsume these echoes from the past into this stranger, less happy present. Several large trees had sprouted here since the Cataclysmic War, their roots set deep, their boughs and trunks grown around or through dead things. One trunk had split in two and joined again, trapping within itself the rusting metal limb of a large handling device. It clasped the iron like a wound holds an arrow, and though sickened by the rusting metal its growth still seemed a success.
The shades of old machines—the greys of stone, blackened fire-stained limbs, the dark orange of rusting things—were complimented by the brave greenery of the plants trying to hide them from sight. Giant red poppies speckled the solidified hide of one machine like recent wounds. Yet the dead could never be truly hidden. They were too many, too large, and now a permanent part of the landscape.
“They came here to die,” Hope said.
“They’re machines,” Kosar said. “They must have been brought here. It’s a refuse yard, not a graveyard. They’re machines, they were brought here … they can’t have come on their own.”
“Why not?” Trey asked. “It was ancient magic that made them, not people. Can we say what they could and couldn’t do?”
“They came here to die,” Hope said again. “Lost, knowing the Cataclysmic War was its end, magic brought them here to die.”
“However they got here,” Kosar said, “why has Rafe brought us here?”
“Maybe we can hide,” Trey said. “That huge one down there, it must have a whole network inside, plenty of places to crawl into and hide.”
“He said he was going to make us believe,” Hope said. “There’s something else here, not just a hiding place. And the Monks would never give in. It may take them days, but they’d find us.”
“He also said that he might take us away,” Kosar said.
Hope turned in her saddle and nudged Rafe, almost smiling at how she was treating the carrier of new magic. “Wake up!” she said. “Rafe … farm boy … wake up!” He was not asleep. His breath was too fast for that, his eyes half-open, his hands clasped tight in his lap, so tight that a dribble of blood ran from his fist.
“We should get below the skyline,” Kosar said.
“Down there?” Trey asked.
“It’s where Rafe brought us,” Hope said. “And as you said, we can hide away in there while we’re waiting for … whatever.”
“But …” the miner began.
“It’s either down there, or back towards the forest,” Kosar said.
Hope glanced past the thief at the grey canopy. Further back in the forest the grey changed to green, but from here the colourless blight looked huge, stretching as far as she could see from left to right, humps of grey trees retreating back into the woods. “A’Meer must be in there,” she muttered, wondering what might be occurring beneath those trees right now.
“She’ll find us,” Kosar said.
Hope looked at him and saw that he knew his lie.
They urged the horses down towards the graveyard of dead machines. Behind her Rafe mumbled something, but Hope could not make out the words. She nudged back sharply to try to wake him, but he merely held tighter and became looser, head lolling against her back, hands reaching around her waist.
Soon, she thought. He’ll show us soon. Soon we’ll know just what it is he has, and it’ll be our choice to have faith in it or not. She looked out over the scattering of dead machines, relics from the last age of magic.
I want it so much, I’ve always had faith.
As Kosar led his horse past the first skeletal machine he thought he heard something move. He paused, turned in the saddle, met Hope’s questioning gaze. Perhaps it had been Trey working his way ahead of them, stopping here and there to look into hollowed metallic guts, lift rusted blades, step over something long since sunken into the ground. The miner kept his disc-sword resting over one shoulder ready to swing, though at what Kosar could not guess. The Monks were behind them, fighting A’Meer in the woods. Here, for now, there were only old dead things to keep them company.
The urge to go back and help A’Meer was almost overwhelming. The cold way she had looked at him when she told him to go had been a mask. She had known that she was committing suicide, and that any acknowledgement that this was their final moment together would have changed her mind. She could have said goodbye, but that would have taken a second too long. She could have smiled and given thanks for their good times, but that would have been a breath t
oo far. She had known that within hours or minutes of turning her back on Kosar, she would be no more. That certainty had left no room for sentimentality.
He could help. He could draw one or two of the Monks away from her, perhaps lose them in the woods, hide while they passed him by, double back and do the same again. There were huge old trees in there, trunks hollowed by rot; deep, dark banks of bushes; high ferns. A thousand hiding places, and other areas where he could lay false trails, snapping branched and then working back. Striving together he and A’Meer could confuse the Monks, and in that confusion perhaps find their escape.
It was a crazy idea, and he knew it. If he went back to the woods he would die with A’Meer. She was trained, her early years dedicated to preparing her for this one purpose. He was only a thief. Three minutes against a Red Monk and he would be dead. And knowledge of his death was the last thing he would want to accompany A’Meer into the Black.
“These are all different,” Trey said. “Inside and out, they’re all different. This one, here … I can see right inside, and it has dried veins or bones strung like strings across the spaces.” He ran to another machine, chopped at the overgrowing ferns and mosses with his disc-sword, smoothed his hand over its surface. “This one: there’s no opening, no way to see inside. Who knows what’s in there?” Moving on, chopping again, hauling on a bundle of thorny branches to expose what looked like a giant set of ribs. “This one, we can all see inside. We can all see those fossilised things.”
“Organs,” Kosar said. “They look like the insides of a living things grown hard.”
Trey reached in between the stony ribs with his disc-sword, touched one of the hardened things held in place by dozens of solidified stanchions, thick as his thumb. It exploded in a shower of grit and dust, the long rattling sounds indicating that there was much more of this machine buried deep down.
“I still can’t believe they came here on their own,” Kosar said.
“You’ve heard of the tumblers’ graveyards, haven’t you?” Hope asked. “They’re scattered around in the mountains, dozens or more all across Noreela. They’re guarded by other tumblers, but there are those that have got through to see for themselves. Thousands of tumblers … they go there to die, mummified in the heat, rotting in the rain, petrified in the cold.” She looked around at the partially hidden history they were now intruding upon. “Once, we thought that tumblers were only animals.”
“They’re not?” Trey asked.
“They’re not,” Kosar said, but he had no wish to continue the discussion. Trey turned away again, exploring, fascinated by this place.
“Is he doing anything?” Kosar asked, halting his horse so that Hope and Rafe could draw level.
The witch half-turned in her saddle, reached around and supported Rafe with one arm. “Still asleep,” she said. “Or maybe unconscious. And … he’s hot. Mage shit, he’s burning up!”
“Let’s get him down,” Kosar said.
“But—”
“Hope, there’s no way we can hide in here. They’ll find us. And there’s nothing to fight with, if and when they … break through.” The thought of what ‘breaking through’ meant for A’Meer did not bear dwelling upon.
“And now are you believing? Are you finding enough faith to put your well-being in his hands?”
Kosar shrugged. Rafe’s eyes were flickering, red from whatever fever had sprung up. He was nothing special to look at, yet everything was special about him. “It’s the last thing left to have faith in,” Kosar said.
A scream of agony came from over the hill in the direction of the woods, loud and anguished and rising in pitch.
Kosar shivered, his skin prickling all over, and he turned the horse around, ready to nudge Alishia off and gallop up the slope to the ridge. And what then? Down into the woods, sword drawn, ready to sacrifice himself to the Monks?
“Kosar,” Hope said. He looked at her, momentarily furious that she had drawn him back. “Kosar, help me with Rafe! He’s burning.”
Kosar steadied his horse and slipped from the saddle, easing Alishia down and laying her flat in the low ferns. She moaned slightly, eyes flickering, limbs twitching at the change of position. Later, he thought, I’ll tend to you later.
Rafe was scorching. He grabbed the boy beneath the arms as Hope lowered him down and laid him out next to Alishia. Already the boy’s clothes were soaked through with sweat, his face beaded with moisture, and his skin seemed to radiate heat so violently that Kosar actually looked for flames, expecting the boy to ignite at any moment. And why not? he thought. The magic within has to release itself at some point, once he’s served his purpose. Why not purge itself through fire?
“We need to cool him down,” Hope said. “Mage shit, I had medicines back home, things that would have helped.” She ripped at his clothes, loosing buttons and ties and exposing his chest and stomach, blowing on his slick skin to cool him. He started shivering instantly, so violently that his teeth chattered together.
“Is it happening now?” Kosar wondered aloud.
“Whatever, it had better happen soon. If he brought us here to show us some miracle, we’re in dire need of it. Look.” She nodded up the slope, Kosar looked, and there stood the first of the Red Monks.
It was a bloody red blot on the landscape, a wound to the skyline, a rent in the perfect world through which a dread wind howled, its mouth wide, hooded head thrown back as it sighted its quarry. There were several arrows and bolts stuck in its body; one through each thigh, a snapped shaft protruding from its face, one pinning its voluminous cloak tightly to its chest. Yet it stood strong and defiant, like a standing stone that has seen ages pass. It was close enough for them to make out its woman’s face, and the skin was red. Blood, perhaps. But rage as well. This thing was at its most dangerous. Flushed with the fury of the hunt, enraged by the wounds it already endured.
“A’Meer,” Kosar muttered, because he could not avoid thinking of her body ruptured and spilling its precious insides across that forest floor. Perhaps even now her blood was fading to grey, eager to become a part of that wrong place.
The Monk staggered down the slope towards them. It was only two hundred paces away. Its sword was extended, bloody and glinting in the sun. It would be on them soon.
“Come on!” Hope cried. She shook Rafe brutally. “Fuck you, come on! Do it, do whatever it is you brought us here for!”
Trey had returned from his exploring. Instead of hiding himself away, he stood beside Kosar and held his disc-sword in both hands.
“We take it from two angles,” Kosar said, walking forward a few paces to take the fight away from Rafe and Alishia. “It’s resilient, shrugs off wounds like a splash of water, but it’s not that fast. And its swordplay isn’t the best.”
“Neither is mine,” Trey muttered.
“You have that disc-sword,” Kosar said. “It has a long reach. As long as you don’t let the Monk knock it out of your hands, you can hold the bastard away.”
“And you have that apple picker?” Trey said, nodding at the sword in Kosar’s hand.
The blade thrummed, the handle was hot and steady in his grasp. “It’s tasted Monk blood before,” he said. “It’ll do.”
“Until the others come from the woods to join their friend,” Trey said.
Kosar did not answer.
“Come on!” Hope screamed behind them, slapping Rafe across the face. The unconscious boy’s fingers were fisted into the soil, delving into hidden roots and routes, holding him there as if the world was about to up-end.
A’Meer, Kosar thought, you must have fought hard. The Monk was close now, and there were several large areas of its cloak that gleamed with fresh blood.
“Not like this,” Hope said, her voice changing from challenging to forlorn. “Not like this, it can’t all end like this! It’s so pointless!”
The Monk was twenty heartbeats away.
Something began to growl. Kosar thought it was the Monk, but then he noticed the thing�
�s head turning slightly as it too searched for the source of this noise. It was a high, screeching whine, like two huge swords being ground together.
“What’s that?” Trey said.
From behind them, Hope gasped and whispered, “It’s happening.”
A few paces ahead, from where a flat machine lay all but smothered in a rich purple moss, a long limb slowly extended out across the ground. The movement was accompanied by the metallic growl as hinges, junctions and elbows that had been stiffened by three centuries of inactivity, rain, frost and sun began to move once more. It lifted painfully from the ground, rust the colour of dried blood dropping away in a shower to speckle the moss below.
The Red Monk had paused in its advance and stood swaying unsteadily a few paces away from this new, strange, wondrous thing.
“Magic!” Hope called out, laughing viciously. “Magic! Do you like that, you red bastard?”
The Monk hissed at her words, stepped forward and struck out at the long metal appendage. Its sword glanced from the limb, throwing sparks and rust specks into the air, and it staggered back with its arm held tightly to its side. The thing continued to rise, bending in the middle like a human arm preparing to throw. And it seemed to be growing thicker.
“It’s changing,” Kosar said in disbelief. “Expanding. It’s—“
“Magic,” Hope said. She turned to Rafe, bent down and put her hand to his face. “He’s holding onto the ground as if he’s afraid he’ll fall off, but at least he’s cooled down. No fever. Whatever was building in him has been let loose.”
The Monk roared again, and Kosar and Trey raised their weapons in readiness. The rejuvenated metal arm of the dead machine might intimidate the Monk, but it would not hold it off forever. Their fight was still to come.