by A J Dalton
‘They’re not themselves,’ Jillan cried in despair as Samnir hacked down an old couple ahead of them.
‘I’ll say!’ Samnir replied grimly. ‘But they never were the friendliest bunch, eh?’
They dashed out of the alley into a slightly bigger one and Jillan guided them through several twists and turns until they reached the main street. They slid to a stop, dozens of Godsenders spread out and standing motionless before them, waiting in the half-light. To their rear Jillan and Samnir heard the panting pack of hunters closing in on them. The eyes and heads of the Godsenders turned towards the soldier and boy and immediately saw Samnir’s bright sword. In eerie concert, they came forward, silently at first and then with hungry snuffles and yelps of excitement.
‘Shit! We’re going to have to do this the hard way. Stay close to me, boy. We’ll fight back to back if necessary. Jillan! Come on!’
The naked woman stroking Aspin’s brow smiled dreamily at him and smacked him so hard across the face that she all but dislocated his jaw. That’s not how the dream’s supposed to go, he thought as he was brought violently awake. The woman grew stubble, her nose became wide and her brows heavy. She stank. ‘Thomas?’ he asked blearily, wondering if the blacksmith’s blow might just have fractured his skull.
‘The enemy are inside the gates!’ Thomas shouted. ‘Get your bow. Now!’
Thomas turned away, kicking others awake and bellowing for them to rise. Most struggled up, including Chief Braggar and Slavin, but a handful were so lost to drink that they didn’t even stir.
The blacksmith got to the door of the inn, only to find it barred from the outside. There was the smell of smoke. Flaming torches were thrown in through the windows and the shutters slammed closed. A table that had seen liquor spilled on it during the earlier celebrations caught alight and fire roared up to the ceiling, billowing more smoke through the room.
‘Awake, you dogs!’ Thomas roared, backed up from the door and then smashed into it with his shoulder and powerful frame.
The door cracked and sagged. Thomas backed up again and hurled himself forward. The door burst open and Thomas went sprawling onto the ground. There were Heroes ready and waiting with swords of sun-metal raised. One immediately swung with his weapon at Thomas’s head, but an arrow flashed out of the inn door and took the Hero through the throat. Mountain men jumped over Thomas, giving him life-saving moments to get to his feet and bring up his massive hammer.
Dozens of Heroes pushed at the pagans with their shields, trying to use weight of numbers to keep their enemy trapped inside the burning inn. Thomas flexed his mighty arms and chest and put deadly momentum into his hammer, its head crumpling shields, shattering ribs and bowling men over. More Heroes stepped into the gaps left in the wall of shields. Thomas swept the hammer again, smashing through two helmets and dashing a third man against the ground. Another swing, but this time a blade of sun-metal was thrust forward and the hammer was decapitated. Thomas now used its long handle as a staff, but the Heroes were at least six ranks deep around the inn, so he couldn’t create more than swinging room for himself.
‘For the gods!’ came a full-bloodied battle cry, and Chief Braggar charged into the Heroes with head down, shoving the Hero in front of him back onto the sword of the man in the rank behind. Braggar held a blade of sun-metal that his warriors had seized when they took Godsend, and he used it now to carve a wide semicircle out of the front rank. Slavin stepped into the gap behind his Chief, a long thin spear in each hand with which he darted forward with unerring accuracy, spiking an eye here, a throat there, an open mouth and any unarmoured armpit exposed by a raised arm. No Hero had a chance to strike a blow at Braggar while Slavin protected him. Dying men loosed pathetic cries, begging for their blessed Saviours or their mothers to help them.
Aspin and several more warriors forced their way out of the inn, shooting arrows and casting short javelins. It mattered not that their hands shook slightly, for the Heroes were packed so tightly that it was hard not to hit one of them.
‘One step forward!’ cracked out a commanding voice at the back of the Heroes, and the ranks advanced as one, treading on fallen comrades as necessary and stamping down hard to establish a secure footing.
Thomas’s staff had been chopped in two. He twirled the ends in his hands as short fighting sticks, smashing knuckles, blocking swinging attacks at the arm, cracking elbows, breaking noses and punching up under chins. He clubbed and drummed his way forward, knowing every step he took was another life from the inn saved. He was now right among the Heroes and knew that any moment could be his last. He increased his speed, his arms feeling like red-hot metal and his lungs working like bellows. He worked the iron in his muscles as if he were back in his forge. Roaring flames, stifling heat and blinding smoke were all around him. He fought the eternal dragon, the dragon of life and death, and laughed deeply, for this was the struggle he’d always been meant for, the struggle that gave him meaning, that made all his suffering and loss a wondrous joy.
Somehow, Braggar was still at his side, the bull-shouldered youth not about to be outdone by a mere lowlander. The Chief’s bare torso was severely cut and burned all over, blood sheeting down his front and back, but each injury only seemed to add to his rage and strength. His eyes rolled with madness as he ran berserker, all thought for his own safety gone, any sense of self gone as he gave himself over to the elemental force and will of the gods. He’d won himself a second sun-metal sword and plunged forward with them as a dread and maddened aurochs would, twin points held low and threatening.
‘Spears ready! One step forward! Thrust!’ came the voice again, its commanding tone slightly shaking now.
Then Torpeth was running across the heads and shoulders of the Heroes, his ululating cry spooking the ranks and creating disorder as much as the small but devastating daggers in his palms. He leapt and landed with both feet on top of one man’s helmet, going straight into a crouch and swinging his daggers down below his feet so that they punched through the man’s ears to spike his brain. The near-naked holy man sprang up and landed his feet on either side of another Hero’s head. The daggers sliced through the man’s throat from both directions. He hopped onto another man, landing on one foot and kicking in the face of the man behind. Spears stabbed towards him, but he never stayed in one place long enough for them to arrive. He landed hard on another to break his neck and then jumped and skipped his way up and down the ranks, his every step and touch bringing death, every moment a final cry from a different member of the Empire’s army.
‘One step forwa— Argh!’
The mountain men now poured from the inn, coughing and spluttering, but most with weapons and all ready to fight. The force of over a hundred Heroes sent ahead to kill those within the inn had been entirely undone.
Thomas looked towards the north gates. The main body of Heroes was finishing off the mountain men on the walls and those who had been sleeping in the nearby barracks. Wave after wave of heavily armoured Heroes still marched through the open gates, and now the terrible figure of Saint Azual appeared. The region’s ruler towered over all of them – apparently more formidable even than when Aspin and Thomas had faced him in Hyvan’s Cross – the rising sun creating a glaring halo around his head so that it was hard for the several hundred surviving defenders to look upon him.
Jillan released his arrow and took the baker in the leg, the same baker who had always sold bread to his mother but now seemed intent on killing him. The baker hardly broke step and kept coming.
‘Shoot to kill!’ Samnir castigated him. ‘We can’t afford to waste shafts.’ The soldier sliced and lopped off limbs that reached for him.
They were in a running battle along the south road, more and more of the Saint-possessed inhabitants coming out of side streets to swell the mob. They brayed for Jillan, for blood and the glory of the Empire.
The majority of the frenzied Godsenders came on behind Jillan and Samnir, but there was still a scattering of them ahead. Two
came angling in at Jillan: he shot an arrow into the forehead of one and Samnir used his momentum to body-check and slam the other into the ground.
‘Pick your feet up, lad,’ Samnir panted, and cursed as an oversized lumberjack came across their path.
Jillan dared a glance back over his shoulder. ‘They’re gaining on us!’ he cried in a panicky voice and fumbled an arrow from his quiver, only to drop it.
The lumberjack dived for Jillan, momentarily catching Samnir off guard. Big hands grabbed the front of Jillan’s tunic and pulled him to the ground. Samnir stamped on the lumberjack’s back, keeping him flat, sank his sun-metal blade into the nape of the man’s neck and withdrew it. The soldier cut through the man’s wrists and pulled Jillan up, one of the lumberjack’s separated hands still gripping tightly to Jillan’s front.
The pursuing townsfolk were now all but upon them.
‘Head down and get to the Gathering Place, where we’ll have more room to manoeuvre. Don’t stop, whatever happens!’ Samnir ordered fiercely, pushing Jillan on ahead of him.
‘Jiiillan,’ came a collective moan from behind them. Jillan dared not look back now. He was forced to discard bow and quiver so that he could run more freely. Besides, the weapon would do him no good in the close fighting that was surely about to descend on them.
His lungs burned and his legs shook with effort. ‘We’ll never make it!’
You will if you release me, you fool! the taint railed at him. You’ve been given magic for a reason. Give up this self-doubt or the Saint has already won.
‘I can’t! I can’t!’
Release me! it howled, fighting his control.
Jillan dodged left and right, jumped and tore through grasping hands and then burst into the Gathering Place … where still more Godsenders waited for him. They turned as one towards him.
‘Jillan, there’s no escape. No more people need die.’ The voice of the Saint came from a dozen throats.
Jillan, I can save you, save Samnir, save all these people!
‘Here!’ came a shout. Haal and several dozen others were running towards him, Den Arnesson among them. Jillan realised they were all people he’d healed of the plague, but he hadn’t done so just for them to throw their lives away buying him a few more seconds of freedom! Many of those with Haal were old and clutched an assortment of domestic tools for weapons – how long could they last against a crowd ten times their number that had a single organising intellect?
Your magic gave them the freedom to choose, Jillan. Do not now take that away from them. You freed them from the trap of their own minds. They have meaning and purpose now. Better a meaningful death than a long and meaningless existence.
They were closer now and he saw determination in the set of Den’s jaw, conviction in the eye of his classmate Haal and even joy in the bearing of a spry grandmother who held her breadknife in a firm grip. He was moved and humbled by them. He could not let them down. He ran to them as the masses of Godsend’s population closed in.
Samnir was suddenly back at his side. ‘To the north! Where the pagans should be, if any still survive.’
Jillan and his companions surged through the Gathering Place, skirting round the Meeting House. Every dozen yards one of those at the edge of Jillan’s group was pulled down or overwhelmed, but the group as a whole managed to keep making progress. If anything, those the Saint controlled seemed to get out of their path so that they could keep moving.
‘They’re herding us! Corralling us,’ Jillan shouted in alarm as his group entered the north road and saw the relatively few defenders that still stood against the numberless army of Heroes beyond. The people of the mountains and Jillan’s small band were trapped.
The taint rose suddenly within Jillan as he beheld the giant the hated Saint had become. You must let me strike at him before—
‘I! See! You!’ Saint Azual mentally boomed and slavered. ‘Good of you to join us, Jillan. You’re just in time to see all your friends die. And see here! I even had your pretty Hella and her father join us. We wouldn’t want them missing out now, would we?’
‘No!’ Jillan shouted involuntarily as he saw the girl he loved held fast by a group of lewdly taunting Heroes. The Saint laughed, knowing his final victory was only moments away.
Chief Braggar roared his defiance, brandishing two smoking swords of sun-metal and almost drowning out the Saint’s own thundering tones. The mountain men rallied to the young but gods-favoured warrior.
‘Wait!’ Jillan cried despairingly.
But the brave mountain chief had no chance of hearing, and the battle rage still upon him meant he was lost to reason. Dead Heroes lay all about Braggar and he was painted with their gore. He was a terrifying apparition and an avatar of pagan vengeance. The Heroes in the first rank facing him could not help but recoil, battle-hardened though they were and despite the fact they were directed by their holy Saint.
‘For the gods!’ Chief Braggar screamed, the battle cry taken up by all his men. They rushed forward with fearless wild-eyed eagerness.
The mountain men formed the head of a spear, their Chief at the tip, Slavin and Thomas directly behind him, Torpeth, Aspin and another just behind, and then two hundred after them. The spear smashed into the wall of shields formed by the Heroes and punched straight through it.
Where Braggar stamped, the ground shook and Heroes lost their footing and heads. Where he looked, his shining eyes blinded and confused, and his enemy did not see their deaths coming. Where he breathed, the soldiers of the Empire choked and collapsed, clawing at their throats. Where he moved, the air burned and men were consumed by flames of blood. Where his spittle landed, those standing against him found their guts turned to water and their bodies paralysed by icy fear. The gods rode on his shoulders and their elemental powers were his to command.
When a rank of a dozen Heroes came for Braggar at once, Thomas would leap to protect the young warlord’s left flank, while Slavin’s willowy twisting spears would skewer those on the right. Where a Hero avoided or successfully defended against Thomas and Slavin, Torpeth would spring forward faster than the eye could follow, with an all but extra-sensory awareness of where flying weapons were and would be, and bring instant death with the slightest of touches.
One moment the Heroes were pushed back, the next they would push forward again, like waves battering against a beach. They poured around the sides of the spearhead formed by Braggar and his close companions, only to break against Aspin and the others. The dancing mountain men continuously spun and ducked, their churning motion impossible for their disciplined enemy to organise against. The pagans plunged through the Heroes, and Chief Braggar at last came face to face with the holy representative of the Saviours.
Saint Azual watched them come, revelling in the moment. What did it matter if five Heroes died for every pagan? Each pagan death was one less avatar of a free and chaotic Geas. Life by life, step by step, drop by drop, second by second, the time and self-defining power of the Geas was coming to an end. Soon there would be none but the boy left standing, and the boy would be all that stood between Azual and the Geas. The Geas, as powerfully connected to the boy as it had become, would have no other major avatar or hiding place except the boy. It would have to give itself entirely to the boy or risk losing both of them forever. Yes, the Geas would have to give itself to Jillan, and then Azual would claim the boy and Geas for himself. His moment of ascension and godhead was at hand. There would be no other gods either – none of those whining and mewling aborted gods of earth, air, fire and water! – for he would be the one god of all life, the supreme and defining will that would then turn to challenge the cosmos. The stars would be the dust beneath his feet and other worlds would be his playthings. He would hold the cosmos in his one hand … the one hand with which he casually reached out now and crushed the head of the pagan chief, mind, vital fluids and life squeezing out between his fingers. He raised his hand and let the heady juice drip into his mouth. How sweet and intoxicating was t
he essence of existence, the essence of this desperate avatar of the gods. And now he understood and foresaw these people in their entirety.
With what remained of the chieftain’s body, Azual swept the ground before him, contemptuously smashing away the bothersome blacksmith and the sly snow-hair. The naked pagan priest predictably jumped over Azual’s swipe and bounded up to deliver a fatal touch to the Saint’s diaphragm. Azual’s all-seeing mind – a mind which now knew past, present and future, a mind that was the defining alpha and omega of the existence written upon the pages of this reality – had known this final moment of presumption and defiance would come. It was almost anticlimactic, quite disappointing and somewhat tiresome now that it was here. Yawning mentally, he let his divine will be known.
‘Cage!’ Captain Skathis commanded, and sun-metal blades were raised in a tight mesh around the Saint’s body.
There was no way through for Torpeth, and he had to contort madly in midair just to avoid dicing himself. The cage of deadly sun-metal pushed towards him and he back-flipped and tumbled away.
The mountain men cried out to their fallen gods as they witnessed the death of their chief and saw their greatest warriors cast down. Dismayed and despairing, they fell back, a number of them unable to disengage cleanly from the force of Heroes and quickly finding themselves unstrung. Torpeth and Aspin fought for valuable moments to allow as many as they could to escape, but had no choice but to flee themselves.
The Saint’s laughter echoed all around them. ‘See, Jillan, how many deaths you have caused with your overweening pride and refusal to kneel to another! See how you risk your beloved!’
‘Spare them and I will give myself to you!’ Jillan cried.
No! You cannot! It will be the end of all things. Free me!
The Saint smiled in satisfaction. ‘And so it was always decided. Come to me and we will end this needless suffering and destruction.’