A Shout for the Dead

by James Barclay

  What Mirron had trouble with was how Gorian could control the dead and form ice simultaneously. It shouldn't be possible. Every mote of research in the Ascendancy pantheon said that it couldn't be done.

  She couldn't help herself. She reached out to the energy map Gorian was using to drive the ice forwards. It was beautiful, stamped with his personality. He'd always been the most accurate of them all. There were few stray strands of energy. So little flailing at the edges of the map and wasting precious stamina.

  Gorian's map of ice was pouring both over and under the lake. It was dark at its centre, and a blindingly bright blue at its edges. She could see immediately what he had done. So simple and so effective. A classic circuit. In another life, Father Kessian would have been proud. He was taking the living energy from the water, draining it through his body and stripping it away to another place. It left the aura of a deep dusas night and without the depth of life to combat it, the water encased in the map froze solid.

  Mirron sought on, moving her mind down, far into the outflow tunnel where Gorian had to be and where perhaps her son stood by him. The more her mind probed out, the more concentrated the feeling of nausea became. It churned in her stomach and fogged her thoughts. She gasped and leaned back against a wall, reacting sharply to the frost that covered it, the intense cold shearing straight through her cloak.

  Swallowing the saliva that filled her mouth, Mirron opened her mind further. The flat, cold negative energy of the dead, for that's what it was, threatened to swamp her. But there was something else there. Something pure and bright which drew her on. Long before she felt him she knew it was him. Her son. Kessian. Standing among the dead, standing with Gorian whose aura pulsed with power and greed. It was a disturbing life map. Distorted from that which she remembered even that short time ago when he took Kessian. There was a sensuous beguiling purple wreathing the tight map of his body. It was like sickness though it wasn't the normal dull grey.

  Instead, she let Kessian's aura fill her. She could almost touch him, feel him. If only there was a way to tell him she was near. Gorian might sense her but Kessian wouldn't and her life map could not form a communication. So close but it felt like a thousand miles apart. She dragged in a sobbing breath.

  'I'm here, my love, I'm here,' she said.

  A spear of pain drove her to her knees. The purity of Kessian's life map had a dark heart and the most gossamer-thin of paths connecting him to Gorian. Trembling, she sought the reason for the bleakness infecting her son. The truth brought, clarity, fury and horror.

  There was a voice nearby though it sounded distant. She hadn't realised she'd gone so far within herself and into the energies that flowed and formed around her in the cavern. She felt herself being shaken. Gently at first but then more roughly. She drew back, shutting out the multitude of colours and lines her mind could see. She focused.

  'Mirron.' It was Jhered.

  'Paul,' she said. It was little more than a whimper but she remembered the anger and let it lend strength to her voice. 'He's using my son to control the dead. I know what he's doing and I know what he wants here. That bastard is using my son.'

  'Then we have to stop him,' said Jhered.

  The noise in the cavern was suddenly intense as Mirron's normal senses reopened. 'We—'

  'Mirron.' Another shake of her shoulders. Jhered hauled her to her feet and stepped back. 'Later. Concentrate now.' 'What can I do?'

  Mirron cast about her. There was panic on the island. She could see Harkov amongst them, standing to the fore and urging steadiness and courage. From out of the outflow they came. The dead. Shambling, slipping, falling and rising. But moving on, never stopping. Coming for the island.

  Mirron gaped. The sickness boiled in her throat and the scratching of the ice captured her. A silence spread across the island. Every Karku voice was stilled. Distantly, gorthock could be heard in the tunnels, keeping back the Tsardon. The sound of boot and metal scraped over ice filled Inthen-Gor. The dead spread like flotsam from a wreck washing towards shore.

  'What can I do?' she repeated.

  Jhered looked at her, demanded her attention. Despite what he was witnessing, he alone seemed to retain control. 'You're an Ascendant. Work your talent.'

  'But he'll know I'm here if I act.' 'God-embrace-me, I hope so. He needs scaring off.' 'What can I do?'

  Jhered frowned, then pointed. 'It's ice, Mirron. Melt it.'

  He turned and ran back down the path away from her. He was shouting at Harkov to bring the Karku to readiness and not to take a backward step. That he'd be with them soon. A boat waited for him.

  'Stupid girl,' muttered Mirron, feeling a flush of shame.

  Melt the ice. Easy.

  There was heat within her, heat from the fire at her feet and from every blaze that still illuminated the cavern, giving shape to the ghastly advance. And her target was everywhere.

  'Out in the deep, Mirron.' Jhered's voice floated up to her. 'And care for the dead. Don't burn them. They can still feel the embrace of God.'

  'No, Paul,' she said quietly, letting the fire everywhere coalesce and thrum through her body, amplifying with every heartbeat. She moulded the energy, projecting it forwards. 'At the mouth of the beast.'

  Heat marked a shimmering line in the air above the Eternal Water's outflow. Below it, the dead disgorged onto the ice plateau, heading for the island. All but invisible, heat washed down in two sheets, like the graceful slow opening of a butterfly's wings. Their edges struck the ice.

  The dead moved on oblivious, while beneath their feet their platform was under attack. Steam clouded in the cold air, gouting up from the lake surface. Water poured over their feet. More of them slipped and fell but rose again, unconcerned. Blank. Gorian had done his work well. The ice was deep and solid. Mirron increased the heat, driving the sheets down, widening them too. They covered the whole outflow now and were still growing. The clouds of steam deepened, obscuring much of the dead advance.

  She felt herself thrilling to the energy surging through her. So long since she had exercised her ability to such an extent. A jolt told her she'd broken through the crust and into the pure waters of the lake below. There was energy there she could use. Immediately, she released some of the fires in the cavern to regain their strength and pulled on the slumbering power of the Eternal Water.

  Mirron felt it wash through her, a mighty force waiting to be tapped. She opened herself to it, relaxed her mind and let the deep blue trails modulate into the harsher lines of her heat construct. They lent intensity to the heat and it fed on the ice, driving it to water and sending more steam into the cavern and down into the outflow.

  Fissures and fractures ran across the surface. The weight of the dead amplified the weakening. The result was inevitable. In great swathes, the ice gave way. The dead fell through into the chilling water. Shelves of ice reared up, spilling the helpless, expressionless walkers to splash and flail briefly before their armour dragged them down to the bottom of the lake.

  'There to feel once more the embrace of God,' whispered Mirron.

  Yet there was still work to do. Across the lake, the ice needed to be melted if Gorian's advance was to be seriously dented. Mirron also needed to find some way to interrupt the work that Kessian was, she prayed, doing unwittingly. And in the shallows, the dead still walked. Splashing in to threaten and engage the Karku, who were led by Harkov. There was something else nagging at her too. Another presence drawing on the lake's energy. Growing stronger.

  Harkov saw the great mass of the dead, a thousand and many more, crash into the water and disappear from view. The steam obscured any struggle but not one of them made any sound. He thought he could handle the few that were left.

  'Bless you, Mirron,' he said. 'Bless you.'

  Around him, some modicum of confidence returned to the scared Karku.

  'Stand firm!' he shouted, Harban translating his words. The Karku responded, his own soldiers among them urging courage. 'We have the numbers now. Strike
hard. To stop them now is to help them return to God.'

  He looked out at the dead still coming at them. He shuddered. Men and women in tattered Conquord livery. Karku in torn furs. Faces were blackened by frostbite, wounds gaped, jaws hung slack. Boils and sores covered pasty flesh. But the cold couldn't mask everything. The closer they came, the more the stink of decay grew, assaulting the nostrils. Resolving from the steam that still rose in clouds from the water and remaining ice came bodies that were literally falling apart. Limbs missing, bone showing through skin that had sloughed away, heads lolling where muscle had withered. Not all. Some, Harkov considered grimly, were fresher.

  Harkov swallowed on a dry throat and gripped his gladius and shield tight. He sensed a shuffling around him. The dead were scant yards from them.

  'Stand!' he roared. 'You have nowhere to run.'

  He raised his shield, took a pace forwards and butted it into the face of a former Conquord legionary. The man raised no defence. The skin split from nose to forehead, revealing pale flesh beneath. Thin blood lined the split. The blow should have knocked him senseless. But he merely staggered back, rebalanced and came straight back in, sword raised.

  Harkov paused. Against a fast, living enemy, probably fatal. Here, not so. The dead march was relentless but it was ponderous. What worried Harkov now was not their ability, it was how they would ever be stopped. Harban shouted and the entire Karku line engaged, roaring determination after Harkov's lead. The few archers they had, fired over the front ranks and into those still chest deep in water.

  Next to the general, a Karku warrior buried his blade in the chest of a badly mouldering militia man bearing Gesternan insignia. The blow stopped him but only temporarily. And while the Karku tried desperately to drag the blade from his ribs, the Gesternan brought his gladius through waist-high and drove it into exposed gut.

  'Dear God-embrace-me,' whispered Harkov.

  He struck his enemy, though it was hard to see this victim as an enemy, once more with his shield, pushing him back, buying himself more time. He stared at the blank advance. No flicker of emotion, no recognition of enemy. Nothing. And behind the front rank the next walked on oblivious of the defence, pushing, pressing.

  'Harban,' called Harkov. 'Tell your people. No killing blows. Disable them. Bring them down. It's our only chance.'

  Harban's voice rose above the growing anxiety, halting the backward step some of the Karku were making. Harkov took a deep breath and faced the rotting legionary one more time.

  'May God forgive me for what I must do,' he said.

  Harkov changed the angle of his attack and hacked down into the man's unprotected legs at the knee. He felt the blade part flesh and rattle into bone. The leg gave way. Harkov kept his shield high, fending off the falling body. Even as he went down, the Gesternan dead man lashed out, his blade clattering into Harkov's defence.

  'Bring them down!' he shouted. 'Go for their legs.'

  In the chill mist that blew across the island from Mirron's work on the ice, the Karku and Estoreans got to their grisly work. The silence of the dead was deeply unsettling. Harkov was desperate for a reaction but got none. Passion begets passion and in the carnage that followed, tears mixed with determination in many of the island's defenders. It was hard to fell an opponent who did not have the will to kill you.

  The Estoreans led the attack. The dead were slow but implacable. Shields were held firm, in front and above. Harkov found his gladius a difficult weapon for the work it had to perform. The short stabbing blade was unsuited to the hack and chop. But there was no choice. He drove himself into the press of the dead, trying to blank his mind and think only that he was clearing a path.

  'Dead wood,' he said to himself. 'They aren't alive, they aren't alive. Send them back to God. To his embrace and to peace.'

  Harkov carved his gladius into the hip of a soaking, stinking Karku. He felt the bone shatter and the man was flung sideways into one of his grim companions. Not a sound but the splash as he hit the water right on the shore. His heart might not be beating but Harkov's thundered in his chest. He felt sick. The stench this close to was appalling. Like a five-day-dead horse on a hot solastro battlefield.

  Harkov gagged and battered his shield forwards, feeling it connect with armour. He looked over the top. The man in front of him had no eyes. Dear God, he had no eyes and a flap of diseased skin hung down from one cheek, ripped by small teeth. But still he came forward. He held a gladius. He was another Gesternan. Another militia man brought here by foul Ascendant magic.

  'Release him from torment,' he muttered. 'Help him.'

  He tried to chop down and round at the back of the thigh to cut a hamstring. The man's blade whisked just above his head, clipping the top of his shield. Harkov raised his arm a little more, giving him better defence, and hacked his blade in again. The flesh parted. The man stumbled. Harkov stepped back out of his way, the next blow missing him. The man fell.

  Left and right he saw frightened Karku and Ascendancy guard engaged with the dead. Next to him, a Karku screamed his disgust and horror, slashing an axe across in front of his face. It struck the neck of his victim, smashing through leather and bone. The man's head fell from his body. The Karku grunted satisfaction but in the next instant whimpered in fear. The body came on. The man's sword rose and fell blind. The Karku stood helpless, the blade cutting him deeply in the shoulder.

  it can't be,' said Harkov. 'Tell me, God, please.'

  It could have been that all of them sensed what Harkov had just seen. But in truth it was the fact that not one of those who had been felled was still. Panic rippled through the defence. The crippled dead were dragging themselves slowly up the beach while those behind them simply walked on and over them if they were in the way.

  Harkov could do nothing more. He backed off a pace. He needed time to breathe though he knew there was none.

  'Don't break!' he called, his voice perilously close to just that.

  But they were. He couldn't deny the fear and the sense of helplessness. And yet at his feet, there were dead who could not threaten them and only a couple of hundred still walked. The rest, the mass, were lost to the bottom of the Eternal Water.

  'We can take these down,' he said, hearing Harban shouting what he presumed were similar words.

  Jhered's voice behind him gave him fresh heart.

  'Send them to the deeps. Stand. You're on an island. Where are you going to go? Harban. Tell them.'

  But he didn't wait for Harban to speak. Jhered crashed into the fray right next to Harkov. He'd picked up a long blade from somewhere and had abandoned his shield. He wielded the blade in both hands, sweeping it into the shoulder of one man and then back down into the midriff of another. Both enemies were flung into other dead, making a gap into which Jhered strode.

  'They can't hurt you without arms, they can't come at you without legs.'

  Harkov moved in behind him, crouching and hacking out with his gladius, feeling it shear into exposed flesh. Karku came in to support them, bringing a remnant of tattered confidence back to the defence. Voices rose again, echoing from the cavern walls and sheeting across the water. Harkov felled another, his gladius chopping into an enemy spine just above the waist.

  In front of them, the density of dead was just beginning to lessen. They were tripping over the crawling bodies of those fallen in front of them. Karku, led by Ascendancy guard, were beginning to work the flanks. Harkov heard Harban's voice, loud above the thud of weapon on armour and the sick sound of flesh dividing. The Karku began chanting. It sounded like a prayer but more important, it sounded like victory.

  Harkov found himself energised. He surged upright and slammed his shield into the face of a dead Karku brave. The man's head snapped back and he fell backwards, splashing down in front of another who tripped over his body. Harkov smiled.

  'Touch the embrace of God. Leave this place.'

  Around them, the fires guttered on the island and the pathways above. Harkov felt a rush of warm
air. Mirron, surely. A blink before the Work was cast, Harkov smelt the taint. A tongue of flame speared from the mouth of the outflow. For a heartbeat it lit the cavern as it traced across the roof. Harkov shielded his eyes. He didn't see the impact but he heard Mirron scream. Darkness fell.

  It was blackness so complete it stole the breath and stilled the tongue in every mouth. Harkov could hear the dead still moving forwards and the panic that swept the island, the whole of Inthen-Gor, was complete and all-consuming.

  'Stand!' roared Jhered. 'One pace back and stand.'

  There was little he could do. Harkov took his pace and raised his shield. The noise was growing around him. Shouts bounced from the walls, the sound of feet scrabbling on sand and stone came from everywhere. Men were screaming. He heard the wild swishing of blades. People were running, colliding, plunging into the water. Anything to try and escape the stumbling dead menace.

  'Harkov?' Jhered's shout nearby was curtailed by his violent exhaling as he was struck by some desperate Karku.

  'Behind you, Exchequer. And right.'

  Harkov was rocked by a hand placed on his shoulder as a fulcrum. He steadied himself.

  'I'm feeling out. Don't put your sword point in my way.'

  'It's down,' said Harkov. 'Shield is towards you. Low. I'm crouched.'

  'Best place to be. God-around-me. Calm! Calm!' The last a bellow at anyone who might be listening.

  There was the faintest luminescence growing in the cavern. Blue-green and gaining slowly. Lichen all over the walls and algae in the lake. Harkov blinked, trying to discern the distance to the dead, aware he couldn't hear their movement over the screaming panic sweeping the island. Another Karku bounced from him on his way to who knew where. In the half light, Harkov saw his eyes; wild and terrified. No coherent thought behind them.

  More images swam before him; shapes in the gloom, ghosts in shadow. The pale glint of light in dead eyes. He had expected to feel the dead at his shield by now but it was Jhered's hand that gripped his shield arm.