Dusk: a dark fantasy novel (A Noreela novel)

by Tim Lebbon

  There was a pause in the battle then, a moment so brief that Hope thought she might have imagined it between blinks. Swords must have been drawn back, waiting to fall again. Red Monk’s breaths were hauled in for the next exhalation of agony. Machine limbs paused between stretches, rusted joints poised to find themselves whole again, denuded metal bones revelling in the softness of new flesh. There was silence, an instant of peace, and when the cacophony began again everything had changed.

  The ground around Hope, Alishia, Rafe, Kosar and Trey rumbled and rose, two dozen ribs the thickness of a man’s thigh piercing the sky from the ground, curving up and around, and even before the ribs met above and formed a protective cage they had changed from rusted red to silvery grey, catching and reflecting the first gleams of the death moon.

  “We’re caged in!” Hope hissed.

  “They’re caged out.”

  And from above, the promise of death descending.

  Lucien Malini fled that valley of death. Almost dead himself, he crawled up to the ridge and down the other side, rolling, leaving bloody marks on the ground behind him. It was lost. It was all lost, all hope, lost to the Mages and those machines awoken here. The land would know magic again and he would see its influence, and that enraged him. Pain was chewing him up now, driving his rage to new levels in failure. He rolled, stood, tripped and rolled again, knowing that all there was left to do was to take whatever petty revenge he could find. He would go to that Shantasi bitch’s body and hack it to small shreds, bathe in her blood and use it to replace his own. That image would keep him alive for the next few minutes, at least.

  But when he reached the place where she had fallen her body was already being taken apart. He saw the last of it spread and melt away, red turning to grey. And as he fell to his knees and screamed he saw the trees and rocks and ground around him shift, move, melt down into a billion tiny parts. They merged with the disintegrated Shantasi and flowed away to the east.

  Perhaps it was simply his vision failing him at the point of death. Or maybe it was something much more important than that; something for him to follow. And that thought alone gave him back a spark of life.

  The hawks fell out of the sky. Kosar was amazed that they did not leave a trail of burning air behind them, such was their speed and ferocity. He heard the roar of their movement through the air, and maybe they were growling as well. He could see the shapes sitting astride their gnarled necks, and though Rafe had spoken their names Kosar could not believe what he was seeing.

  The Mages? Here, now, already?

  For so long they had been the stuff of legend and campfire tales, an evil three centuries old that, though horrendous, had faded slowly away. Time could not extinguish their wrongdoing, but it had smoothed the sharp edges, shedding the intricate details of their crimes and leaving only the wide-scale stories of magic gone bad and war, conflict and death across the length and breadth of Noreela. The results could still be seen and felt, but Kosar had never known a time when the land was untainted. He had seen many strange and horrible sights in his travels, but he had not consciously attributed them to the Mages. They simply were.

  And now within seconds, the Mages were going to attack.

  “What do we do?” he said. “What can we do?”

  “They’ll never stop,” Trey whispered. “They’ll smash right through us!”

  “They want Rafe alive; they’re not here to kill him.”

  “It doesn’t look like that to me,” Kosar said.

  He could see their faces now, and he was surprised at how human they looked. Fearsome, furious, but human.

  Night filled the valley.

  The machine caging the five humans began to vibrate, the sensation originating from below ground and shimmering up the tall ribs enclosing them.

  When the hawks were only seconds away, slowing down, extending their clawed feet to grasp onto the huge machine, an explosion of light burst from the point where the ribs met and splashed up and out to meet them.

  Kosar squinted against the sudden brightness, shielded his eyes and fell to the ground. There were screams from above them, perhaps hawk, perhaps human. When he looked again a few seconds later the sky was clear and the hawks were skimming the ground away from them, shedding specks of light like embers from a disturbed fire. More sparks erupted as their riders slashed and hacked at machine and Monk alike.

  “What was that?” Trey hissed.

  “The machine protecting us,” Rafe said. “It can fight them, but I doubt it’ll hold them off forever. It’s a distraction. If they can satisfy themselves with fighting the Monks and the other machines in the valley—and they must be raging for blood after so long—then perhaps we can get away.”

  “’Perhaps’? Get away how?” Hope was on her feet, staring up at the huge ribs catching the moonlight.

  Rafe smiled. “As I said, it’s out of my hands.”

  Kosar and Trey stood beside Alishia and Rafe, still nursing their weapons but more distracted now by the vibrations in the ground beneath their feet, the shimmering of the air between the ribs. Something was happening—something invisible and momentous—and the potential filling the air was palpable. Kosar tried to slow his breathing but fear sped it along. I’ve just seen the Mages, been within a spear’s throw of the demons of the land. And I’m still alive. For now.

  “What was the light?” he said.

  “Magic fending off the Mages, that’s all that need concern us,” Rafe said.

  “Magic,” Alishia whispered.

  “Is it still in you?” Kosar asked Rafe. “Are you still carrying it? Isn’t it free now? Isn’t this the moment magic comes back to the land?”

  Rafe frowned, staring out through the cage at the struggling shadows beyond. “I think this is only happening here,” he said. “It’s taking a lot of effort.”

  “So how long does it last?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Long enough for us to get away?” Trey asked. He was kneeling beside Alishia now, touching her face and hands. “Otherwise, what’s the point? If magic protects us like this—reanimates the machines, defends us against the Monks … the Mages! … why would it not save us for good?”

  “I don’t know,” Rafe said again. The ground shook once more, a vibration that sent a heavy, rumbling groan up into the air. It mingled with the sounds of battle.

  The cage altered in the dark, and when Kosar looked closer he saw that the metallic ribs had turned back to bone.

  “We’re going to fly,” Alishia said.

  “What woke you?” Kosar asked. He suddenly did not trust her. He did not trust anyone, not now that A’Meer was likely dead and he was here amongst strangers again. Alishia looked at him and her eyes were both beautiful, and terrifying. For a librarian, she’s seen so much, Kosar thought.

  Seeing past the ribs he could just make out details of the fight. The three dark shapes had seemingly shaken off the effects of the light and were now hovering above different parts of the valley, their riders slipping sideways in their saddles and entering into battle. Kosar could not tell what they fought—Monk or machine—but he knew that the Mages would find enemies in both. The previously simple battle had now turned into a three-way fight. That suited him fine. Let the Mages and Monks and machines battle it out, so long as it left them alone …

  Something, Kosar thought. Something is happening, now, beneath our feet. I can feel it. Like tumblers rolling beneath the ground, as if to change the shape of the land itself.

  “Fly…” Alishia said again, dreamy and light.

  A roar came in from the distance and a huge shape reared above the horizon, a hawk standing on its rear tentacles and grappling with something less recognisable. A fiery exhaust burst from the machine and scorched the ground, and the hawk rider lashed out with some unknown weapon, the weapon itself carrying fire, wrapping around the machine’s base and bringing it down with an earth-shaking crunch. The hawk screeched again, but this time in triumph.

&n
bsp; Monks cried out, crumpled beneath hawk feet, slashed by the riders’ blades, crushed by machines.

  The land swam in blood.

  And then slowly, incredibly, the valley began to fall away.

  “What in the name of the Black—?” Kosar hissed.

  “It’s going,” Trey said, looking down. “It’s going, it’s falling, leaving us behind.”

  “No, ” Hope said. “We’re flying.”

  “Flying …”

  Lights flashed below them and to the side, accompanied by a roar as the ground tore itself apart, freeing the trapped machine. The light flared, lifting them up on a pillar of luminescence. Bursts of a more fire-like exhaust streaked across the valley from the machine, enveloping hawks and Mages in writhing flame, sending them spinning away like burning stars. The hawks streamed around the valley, ricocheting from rocky outcroppings and solid machines, dripping fire across the ground and setting the blood-drenched cloaks of Monks aflame. Soon the valley was lit by fire, though the hawks and their riders seemed to shake it off, rising up again.

  The battle continued. But now, dazzled by the new fire thrusting them aloft, Kosar and the others were all but blinded to its progress. They saw glimpses of the scattered fires, but the edges of the machine that lifted them up obscured any real view.

  Kosar had sat down on the shaken ground. He held onto the thick grass below him, as if that would anchor him to the spot. He was terrified. Trey glanced at him and Kosar grimaced back, shrugged his shoulders. The strange, it seemed, had just become stranger.

  “Where are we going?” Hope asked Rafe. She sounded so matter of fact, as if flying was something she did every day.

  “Away,” Rafe said. He was staring at Alishia, and they both smiled. “Away. Safe. I’m so tired.” And he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  “I wish I could do that,” Kosar said.

  Hope grinned at him, her tattoos catching the death moon and turning her visage ghastly. “Scared, thief?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Her smiled remained. “Petrified. We’re flying, for Black’s sake!”

  The machine seemed to be picking up speed. They felt the bursts and pulses of energy shed from its lower edges, and with each explosion they were pushed higher. Light simmered around the machine’s lower edges. And with each gush of motion the machine itself was changing. The ribs had thickened as some dull grey coating grew around them, pulled in from nothing. The spaces between the ribs began to glow with countless points of light. Kosar had once been caught in a storm of fireflies, but this was even brighter. Soon it was bright as daylight within the grey ribs, and then lighter still, so that Kosar had to squeeze his eyes closed. It lasted for only a few heartbeats. When the light faded and he looked again, there was only the vague background illumination left from the pulse down below. And he saw what the light had made. Between each rib, for the height of a tall man, a fleshy skin stretched across. Even now veins formed on its surface and within, flooding it with blood from nowhere, and magic was at work so close, so near, that if he so desired he could have reached out and touched it.

  Their sense of velocity increased. Kosar looked around at the others—Hope wide-eyed, Trey hanging onto the ground for dear life, Alishia and Rafe prone, the movements of their limbs perhaps due to the motion of the machine, perhaps not—and he knew that he had to look over the edge. He had never been scared of heights or the unknown, but what terrified him most now was just what he did know. He crawled to the skin-like edging between the ribs, knelt up and looked over.

  Fires had erupted across the ground. Some of them were small, others seemed to have spread, and a few of them still moved. They lit up most of the small valley and the dying things it contained. It was spotted with dead Monks. He could make out the larger machines in the firelight, most of them still now, limbs slumped down, one of them accepting punishment from a group of Monks without defending itself. Their purpose fulfilled, these machines were dead again.

  There was no sign of the hawks.

  The machine gushed another blast of light, blinding Kosar and sending him reeling back. The roar was immense and accompanied by another burst of speed, thrusting them up and up until, suddenly, the sun found them again. The heat felt good on his skin. To the west the horizon was a smudge of yellow. If they rose forever, perhaps the sun would never set.

  No hawks, he thought. Of course not. They’d have no reason to continue the battle once we were away with Rafe.

  “What do you see?” Hope asked.

  Kosar looked over the side again. It was strange looking down into night from a position of daylight. He wondered how high they had come.

  “Kosar?” Trey prompted.

  “I think the fighting’s stopped,” he said. “The machines aren’t moving anymore. I can’t see the hawks.”

  “They’re stalking us,” Hope said. “They have to be. It’s the boy they want. They’ll go back for the Monks later.”

  “It’s Rafe they want,” Alishia said, “and they’ll get him.”

  “Go back to sleep!” Hope said.

  “Then where are they?” Trey asked. “Why don’t they just attack if they want him?”

  “I don’t know,” Hope said.

  “You pretend to.”

  “But I don’t! I don’t know anything. It’s guesswork, all of it. The only one who knows is him and … and maybe her!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Rafe and Alishia. “And they’re not telling the likes of us.”

  “So what happens now?” Kosar asked. “Do we just sit and let this thing take us wherever it likes?”

  “What choice do we have?” Hope said. “We’ve never had choice. We’ve been dragged along for days, never given any option, no free will. Everything that happens to us is fated. Maybe in an hour we’ll all be dead, or free, or somewhere we can’t possibly imagine.”

  “That’s helpful,” Kosar said, but her words chilled him because they echoed what he had been thinking all along. No free will.

  The witch stared at him, her tattoos writhing as she grimaced in annoyance. “It’s the only help I can give.”

  “So we sit back,” Kosar said. “Enjoy the view.” He glanced down over the side again at the wide forests surrounding the burning valley. A’Meer was in there somewhere, dead, already greying into the land. He scanned the darkened tree tops, wondered if he was looking right at her.

  The machine rose higher and higher, light bursting occasionally from its underside. The air became cold, the sky above them darker, and soon night enveloped them once again. They could not outrace the sun, however powerful the magic that carried them.

  They watched and listened for the hawks. They must still be there, Kosar thought. There’s no way that single attack from the machine could have finished the Mages, no way. Not after three centuries awaiting their chance to return. There must be more to them than that. “We should plan,” Kosar said quietly. “They’ll be coming. We should figure out how to fight them off.”

  “Don’t be so stupid,” Hope said.

  “And don’t be so fucking negative!” Kosar stood on the uneven clump of ground held inside a machine, glowering at the witch where she squatted next to the unconscious boy. “Why did you come along, why did you take it on yourself to protect him? When we first met he was yours and yours alone! Now you’re ready to sit back and let the Mages take him without a fight? I don’t believe that.”

  “No, I’m not ready to do that at all,” Hope said. “I just admit that we don’t have a chance. It’s hopeless. How can we fight them? You have a sword, Trey has a disc sword, I have a few false charms in my pockets that would barely hurt a street urchin, let alone one of them!”

  “What do you know about them?”

  “Enough to know we don’t stand a chance.”

  “You know nothing,” Kosar said softly. “You know nothing because no one knows anything. They’ve been gone for so long that every story about them has been twisted and turned. They could just as eas
ily be sad, pathetic, weak old things that will drop dead at the flick of a knife.”

  “They got here quickly enough,” Trey said. “They have their spies that told them what was happening, and they’ve flown from wherever it is they fled to claim back what they think is theirs.”

  Kosar looked between the two of them, shook his head, and realised that there was no point in arguing. When none of them knew the truth, what was the purpose of further discussion? They could only discuss supposition.

  “But we have to fight,” Kosar said, and his words sounded so weak that he sat down and said no more.

  “Fight,” Alishia said. “Yes, fight.”

  “What do you know?” Kosar asked her.

  Alishia smiled and closed her eyes.

  Trey chewed on a chunk of fledge—his final thumb of the drug, stale now, bitter-tasting and rank—and he tried to let his mind float out and away.

  In Alishia and Rafe he encountered two areas of utter darkness, and he was repelled. There was so much in there and nothing at all, and the sense of threat told him that either could be the case. So much could be things he was not meant to see, ideas that were never supposed to be dreamed; and nothing could only be the Black.

  He edged out into space and soared, his flight weakened by the bad fledge, the balance of his mind dangerously uneven. But he was free for a time, and he could see, and if he moved out in concentric circles he may yet still be of use to the others. His disc-sword had aided Kosar back there against the Monk, but he felt no sense of victory in meting out death, however repellent the thing he had killed. Rafe was a stranger and what the boy appeared to carry was stranger still, so try as he might Trey could find no real nobility in their cause. He supposed he was fighting for the good, but that was something of which none of them seemed to know. They ran and fought blind. Rafe seemed honest, but did that make what he carried decent as well? Or merely deceitful?

  There was no way Trey could know for sure, so he had to follow his instincts. And besides, Alishia was still here, beautiful Alishia, awake now and more mysterious and closed off to him than ever. And she had saved his life.