by B R Crichton
They leapt onto the backs of fleeing soldiers, ripping heads from shoulders with their toothless maws, and tearing arms from sockets with savage efficiency. They cut down any living thing within reach of their obsidian claws, and spread out from the temple like ants from a nest.
And Abaddon laughed.
Granger felt fear as he never had done before.
This was to be the end. His end.
He had known what mortality would bring, but now that it was immediate, and real, the recognition of it drove home like a spike of ice through his belly.
He would be among the poor unfortunates of this world. He would not observe from the safety of his detachment as countless innocents were slain. All the people, real people, that he had ever known were about to die.
He glanced at Elan, lying where Granger had left him. Beside him lay his bow, unstrung, and a quiver of Lythurian arrows, with their flute shafts and flawless flights. The foolish glimmer that he had banished earlier once again began to glow, and, like a butterfly in a hurricane of doubt, took wing.
He grabbed the bow, and fumbled about for a bowstring. He found one in a pouch at Elan’s hip. With difficulty and a few false starts, he managed to get the string looped over both ends of the bow. He snatched the quiver, slinging it over his shoulder, and grabbed Elan’s hand.
The Lythurian responded as expected. He went where he was pushed, walked where he was led. Granger dragged him through the crowds of panicked people. They were screaming out for lost friends and family swept away by the rush of humanity. Granger forced his way through, with Elan trailing mutely behind.
He moved down the gentle slope to the edge of what had been the battlefield. No fighting had taken place there yet, but with the ever spreading horde of Shar, it was only a matter of time.
He felt as though he was swimming upstream against the flow of fleeing soldiers. Some sat dumbly on the ground staring at the terrible spectacle, while others wept as they watched their end approach.
Granger continued through the chaos towards the temple.
“I have seen them die,” Valia shouted. “I know it can be done.”
“It was Kellan who killed them,” Truman replied, his horse prancing skittishly and eager to be away.
“Then we must find another way!”
“The historian said something after Foley was killed,” Marlon said. “He said, ‘sever the head’”
“You saw what our blades did in the mountains,” Truman replied, “their hide is too tough, and heals too quickly.”
“Let us fight them,” Valia urged, “and show the others the way.”
Valia. So brave, and so stubborn.
Truman smiled as he looked at her. They had come so close. With more time together, they could have had something special. It was such a cruel twist that had her finally drawing him to her on the day that the world ended.
It would have made a fine ballad.
“Valia,” he said soothingly, “it is over. We cannot defeat so many.”
“Then I will die trying,” she growled fiercely, pulling on the reins of her terrified horse and pointing it at the advancing horde. She drew the horse in after a few paces, and turned. “You promised to follow me into fire if I chose to ride there.” She held his gaze with a look that spoke every word she could not bring herself to utter. “Ride with me now.”
He sighed and nudged his horse forward. “And we will take the fight to them in a manner befitting a thousand ballads,” he said. “I will ride with you, always.”
She smiled, then set her jaw and wheeled her horse towards the temple, digging her heels into its ribs, and driving it into the oncoming horde. Truman followed with a strangely euphoric feeling, counting down the last minutes of his life.
Pockets of soldiers still fought bravely amongst the ever growing mass of Shar, but their numbers were dwindling. Granger dragged Elan through the chaos of the battle, dodging scything blows from the Shar that he got too close to.
He pulled Elan to the ground as a Shar leapt at them, leaving it to pass over them. It crashed into another one of the beasts, which snapped at it with the wide, toothless jaws that almost had the head split in two, and Granger scurried out of its reach.
They were a hundred and fifty yards from Abaddon, who stood triumphantly at the centre of the rift that joined his own realm to this world. The Daemon spun around him within that gateway that it held open. Granger felt a pang of sorrow for Kellan, whose Life-force fuelled it.
He pushed the bow into Elan’s hand.
“Take it, Elan,” he shouted over the screams of the dying, and the shriek of the vortex above the temple.
Elan held it, but stared into the middle distance, uncomprehending.
“That is the man who destroyed your home,” Granger shouted as he pulled a Lythurian arrow from the quiver, and pushed it into his other hand. “Kill him, Elan!”
Elan stared dumbly at the vortex. Granger had to pull him to the side to evade a Shar as it lunged at them. A lone Heavy Infantryman buried his sword in the thing’s neck before it could turn for another attack. He had lost his helmet, and his armour was dented. He was bloody from head to toe, though little of it was his. The beast fell, and thrashed on the ground as the deep wound began to close. The huge man brought his sword down again, hitting the same point, and severing the head before it could right itself.
A small victory for the men of this world, Granger thought, but there are more Shar on the other side of that rift than there are stars in the sky.
The Heavy Infantryman paused a moment to look at Elan. There was a hint of surprise in the eyes of the huge man. Then he launched himself back into the battle.
“Elan!” Granger tried again. “Elan! That is the man who killed your family. He destroyed your People. Now he is trying to destroy the rest of the world. Elan, you must kill him!”
Slowly, Elan turned to face Granger. A flash of recognition sparked in his eyes.
“It is me, Granger. You must kill that man. He has killed your family. Your entire People.”
Shar poured from the rift as Elan slowly raised his bow. His eyes focused on his target as he nocked the arrow. His breathing was steady. He looked at Granger again, with a slightly confused expression.
“Granger?” he mouthed.
“Kill him!” Granger yelled.
He drew back the bow. Granger heard the string creak in the bow notches as the tension and compression grew in the carefully bonded wood.
He released the arrow.
It shot away into the distance, reduced to a speck in a heartbeat, curving through the air in a measured trajectory, beginning to fall from its zenith as it entered the Daemon’s rolling maw.
It struck Abaddon, squarely in the chest.
There were still those willing to fight the creatures, and Valia and Truman were not alone on the battlefield, though she suspected that most of them had become trapped as the hordes swamped them. Now they fought in pockets, dotted around the east side of the canal.
There were dead Shar on the ground. That gave them all reason to take heart. The Heavy Infantry, of all men, would be able to take those creatures’ heads from their shoulders.
But so many were pouring through that hole in the sky that there was no way for so few soldiers to win the day.
Suddenly, movement caught Valia’s eye. A small cluster of black beads, each no larger than her fingertip, appeared in the air in front of her. They spun lazily around a common centre before hissing away with frightening speed towards a small group of Heavy Infantry. As she watched in horror, the small black objects darted back and forth through the bodies of the men, finding no resistance from the flesh or armour. One by one, the soldiers crumpled to the ground, felled by the little swarm, against which, they had no defence.
There was another, larger group of Heavy Infantry that were having some success at holding the Shar at bay. Valia pointed towards them, and urged her horse onwards. She tried to put from her mind the smooth and deadly
black droplets that killed so freely. There was nothing she could do against those, but she heard their passage through the bodies of the defenders whenever they struck, and her skin itched.
She charged passed a Shar that had just killed a soldier; a boy wearing the armour of the Heavy Infantry, and swung her longsword, timing the strike perfectly. The beast’s head spun from its shoulders, but the impact almost wrenched the sword from her hand, and she was pulled off balance. As she tried to right herself in the saddle, one of the creatures slashed out with its forelimb, cutting deeply into her horse’s shoulder. The horse screamed, and went down, throwing Valia from the saddle.
She managed to hold onto her sword, although she was unaware of that fact for a few moments, as she tried to shake off the fall. She had been lucky, and had only been winded, but the Shar that had killed her horse was looking to finish what it had started. It closed the gap, its black, shiny eyes fixed on her like a spider’s. It lunged, and she was barely able to parry the attack, sidestepping and swinging her sword as she tried to regain her breath. Truman arrived and leapt from his horse, landing on the thing’s back. He wrapped his legs around its midsection, and his arm around its short neck as he drew his rapier. The blade was too light to hack off a head, but perhaps it was sharp enough to slice through the neck.
“Truman!” Valia called, as he brought the blade onto its throat. It leapt into the air as it felt the blade bite; twisting, and coming down on its back; crushing the wind from Truman. It thrashed as his grip loosened, then rolled free. Valia arrived just as it slashed Truman across the chest as he tried to right himself.
“No!” she cried, throwing herself at the Shar. Her sword bit deeply as it tried to dodge away, opening a deep gash in the midnight flesh. She struck again, this time hitting the neck, and cutting halfway through. She finished the job with a clean strike that sent the head tumbling, but did not see the creature that had moved in behind her. She glanced at Truman, lying on his back, just as he flung a dagger past her shoulder. The dagger bedded itself in the head of the Shar even as it leapt, distracting it enough for Valia to roll away. She scrambled to right herself and take the creature down before it recovered, knowing that she would have to be quick, but that her body was so very tired.
Marlon thundered by on his horse, steel flashed and the Shar’s head tumbled.
Kellan’s body was shattered. He knew that. Scattered like dust. No more.
The Calm had been broken, and the Daemon was freed. But the Calm had fallen into place again, like a lid on a pot of boiling water, lifting to let out the steam before rattling back down.
His mind was shielded. Terror stalked him beyond the Calm. He knew that to allow it in would lead to madness. No man should have to endure this. No man could.
The horror of what was being done with his link to the Life-force would break the strongest of spirits. The knowledge that all was lost but suffering, and pain, and anguish would drive him to insanity. And so he held onto the Calm.
He curled up tighter into the protective cocoon he had made for himself to await his release.
His death.
But something nagged at his consciousness.
An intrusion needled him.
A harmless trifle brushed away by Abaddon.
An image. An arrow.
He had made such things. So long ago.
It stirred memories of trees and lakes of Topaz; ice and steam.
Memories.
An Arrow.
Friends.
Eloya!
The muzzy walls around his mind allowed a hint of her memory in.
He searched for her essence, pushing along the path as though well-trodden by him, to find her.
Lost.
Alone.
Detached from the Life-force.
Detached!
Kellan knew then what had to be done, and with that knowledge, the terror that prowled around the Calm fled. His path was clear.
He released the Calm, and felt a wave of relief wash over him as his mind once again experienced emotion. He did not need the Calm any longer with this new clarity. He searched for her again until he found the faded remains of her untethered being, floating without direction in limitless space
He held onto the vision of Eloya’s soul and looked outwards at all the myriad mortals fighting for their lives, their minds like knots of terror and determination. Their fragile links to the Life-force winked out, one by one as they perished on the battlefield.
He turned his mind back to Eloya, finding an anchor in her. Then, he looked inwardly at himself and focused on the tendril that wavered as his very existence was tortured by the demands made of it by the Daemon. Perhaps he had always known that it would end this way. How could it have been any different?
With a hint of sadness, he severed his own link to the Life-force. He drifted free from the retreating tether, and willed himself to her, folding her into his warm embrace.
“Eloya,” he sighed. “I will show you the way.”
“Truman!” Valia cried as she scrambled to his side. His chest was open, and his lips were bloody. He must have used every last ounce of strength and determination to throw that blade.
“Truman,” she said softly as she cradled his head. “You fool.”
He coughed weakly. “I feel no pain.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“You will be fine,” she said firmly. “But we must get that wound bound.”
“Liar,” he said with a grimace.
She cast about for help. Marlon was near, but was fighting a Shar.
He reached up and placed a hand weakly on her shoulder. He shook his head slowly when he had her attention.
“You cannot die,” she said angrily. “I will not allow it.”
“Valia; so stubborn,” he said fondly.
“Fight it!”
“It is decided,” he said weakly. “All men die.”
“You cannot leave me now,” she said, her anger turning to tears. “You swore to stay at my side.”
“Do not weep for me, Valia,” he said, lifting his hand unsteadily from her shoulder to touch her face. “I have loved you. That is enough.”
Her tears flowed freely now. Something they had not done since she was very young, and her name had been different.
“Damn you, Poet!” she growled. She tried to channel her anguish to fuel her anger. How could she lose him now after all they had been through? He had worn away at the foundations of her defences. Not with volleys of stone, or iron; but like a river, eroding with gentle persuasion until he was within her affections before she was even aware of it herself.
And now he was being taken from her.
“Damn you!”
She kissed him then. The salt of his blood mingling with the salt of her tears. She held her lips to his until his final breath sighed from his broken body and he died; with the kiss of his true love still sweet on his lips.
She had not noticed, but he had pressed something into her hand in those final moments. She was aware of it now. A gold coin.
A symbol of his loyalty.
A symbol of their love.
Her grief was too vast to comprehend, and a strange numbness took her.
She heard Marlon’s voice, and stood slowly, vaguely aware that something had changed.
“Valia; look,” Marlon urged.
With the link to the Life-force broken, the Daemon’s power had vanished. The rift it held open around itself and Abaddon failed instantly. Abaddon found himself in an ever decreasing sphere between worlds. The Shar that had been trapped with him as they traversed from one realm to another, were crushed to death as the space they occupied collapsed in on itself. The Daemon buzzed with impotent fury. Abaddon screamed with rage that turned to terror as he felt himself crushed by the closing walls. The terror turned to pain as his body was forced into an ever smaller space, shrinking relentlessly, his agony building as the pressure grew. The Daemon thrashed with him in his bubble of suffering, adding to his tormen
t. His anguish only grew as he realised that there would be no escape from this place. The Daemon had no link to the Life-force now, and this place that should not be would continue to crush him with growing intensity as the universe demanded that order be restored.
The immortal God howled into eternity.
The Shar were without direction. They panicked and ran away to seek shelter from the world that their master had abandoned them on. They would need to be dealt with; in time.
As the creatures fled the battlefield, the last soldiers still standing wandered numbly looking for fallen comrades, or simply surveying the carnage.
Valia was standing, clutching the coin tightly in her hand as she stared at the point where the rift had been. She was barely aware of the footsteps behind her, and then she heard a familiar voice. It was a voice from her past. Her recent past, but it echoed across a lifetime.
“You have the look of Shol’Hara about you,” the man said.
Valia looked over her shoulder at him, and chuckled humourlessly.
“I wish I could say that you had the look of victory about you, this day, Hatar.”
“Hatar, no more,” Merat Fol’Ashar replied. “You saw to that.”
Valia sighed. “What would you have had me do?”
“No less than you did,” he replied.
Valia turned to face him. Merat had put on weight. He was not the same figure he had cut on the battlefield at Hadaiti. Defeat had clearly cost him dearly.
“Have you come to take me to Kor’Habat?”
Merat shook his head. “What for? I see only a soldier who fought well to defend the Empire.”
“You could claim the bounty. Restore some of your former glory.”
Merat laughed. “This is not about ‘glory’. Besides, I fear we have both lost friends this day.”