Arms were about her shoulders. Arducius and Ossacer were with her.
'He'll be all right,' said Arducius. 'He - unh!'
Arducius leapt up as if he'd been burned, shaking the hand that had been resting on the ground. 'Ardu?' said Mirron.
But the answer was there in every fibre of her being. A rolling, vast sickness in the ground far beneath her. It flipped her stomach, bringing vomit into her throat. Beside her, Ossacer turned his head and threw up. Arducius was clutching his temples, his face drawn in pain. Fog threatened to obscure Mirron's every cogent thought.
'Oh dear God-surround-us,' she managed.
'Mirron?' Jhered's voice cut through to her.
'Something happening,' she said. 'Something growing.'
Mirron fought her nausea, fought the sounds of strangled agony coming from Arducius and the constant retching of Ossacer. Both had expended so much more than her during the Work. She sought down to the sickness where it lurked like an animal waiting to pounce. And beyond it, to the strong lines of energy that fed it, no, that were feeding something else. Mirron knew her heart was beating hard. Gorian might sense her, be able to attack her like he had Ossacer.
There was nothing, though. No ripples in the energies that surrounded whatever Gorian was doing. He had created the sickness deep down while the earth above remained healthy and slow. And having done so, he was using the sickness to drive his central Work. Gorian didn't know she was probing his use of the energies. Or he didn't react if he did. She was able to follow the structure of the Work. Back. Back into the open land where the grass and the trees grew. Back to
Mirron opened her eyes, unable to put into words what she had just seen. There was something she could say, though.
'Run,' she said.
'What?' asked Jhered.
Mirron flew to her feet and tried to drag Ossacer up with her. 'Run!'
Chapter Sixty-Two
859th cycle of God, 12th day of Genasfall
'What are we running from?' Jhered shouted at Mirron.
He didn't think she would reply. Her face was blank and white. But whatever she had seen in the energy trails below the earth, it had frightened her beyond her wits.
'Mirron. Stop, stop.'
They were creating pandemonium among the refugees who were still clustered about them. Arducius and Ossacer were both dragging some way behind, neither sure what was happening, both trying to determine the source and scale of the threat. Ordinary people had begun to bunch and run back towards the Jewelled Barrier, or head north or south to get to their tents, their families or just away from they knew not what.
Jhered caught one of Mirron's arms and made her stop and face him. He grabbed both her shoulders.
'Mirron!'
She jerked and stared at him. Her whole body was shaking. There was a froth on her lips and in her eyes, such fear that it all but took the heart of him.
'Mirron!'
'He has poisoned the earth,' she said. 'It is coming. Through the air and across the land. We have to run.' 'Run where?'
She shook her head and a single tear fell. ‘I don't think it really matters.'
Jhered turned towards the open ground west. He heard a rumbling in the distance. It was low and it sent a vibration through the ground beneath his feet, soft at first but growing in intensity by the heartbeat. Mirron wanted to break away to run again but he held her firm.
'Then it's too late to run. You must think of something. You and Ossacer and Arducius. You must.'
'You don't understand,' said Mirron, voice quavering. 'It's too big. It will swallow him. And it will swallow us.'
The rumble was audible to everyone. Refugee and soldier alike turned to the west. There was nothing to see for a moment, bar a shimmering in the air like a heat haze on the horizon. No one moved for a time. It could be an army approaching but no intelligence suggested any other enemy forces within a thousand miles. The mood was still one of victory but Mirron's move to run had dropped confusion into the midst. It was a dangerous state. Fifty thousand refugees. If they ran, there was nowhere really to go.
Jhered blinked. He thought he'd seen the land ripple on a front as far as his eye could pick up in either direction. Mirron's fear loomed in his memory but still he didn't want to believe. A judder rattled through the ground under his feet and people began to shout. There was another, violent this time. Jhered staggered. Ossacer fell. Like several thousand in the mass of refugees. People were screaming now and some had turned to run.
Jhered was still holding Mirron's hands. She squeezed them and he looked down at het.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It wasn't enough.'
'Never be sorry for doing everything you possibly could.'
Another shudder through the earth. Cracks appeared in the top soil. The vibration went on and on. Jhered dropped into a crouch while the earth spat dust at him, cracks widened enough to put his fist in. The refugees' belief collapsed. They ran but it was immediately clear that Mirron was right. There was nowhere to go that they would make in time.
The horizon rippled again and then it was coming at them, faster than a galloping horse. The hand of God had shoved the earth. A wave thundered towards the camps, the buildings, the Jewelled Barrier and everyone who stood on, in or around them. It raced north and south too, disappearing quickly out of sight but for its trail of destruction.
In front of the wave, the earth trembled before exploding up ten, fifteen feet and more. Trees tumbled aside, rocks were hurled into the air, plants scattered and dust and debris spewed ahead. Jhered just stood and stared. The Ascendants were around him, talking, shouting over the din.
A breeze kicked up ahead of the earth front and upon it came the sick stench of disease. Steam was rising behind the wave, a dense mist coiling and deepening. The first animals began to run past Jhered's legs. Rats, mice, rabbits, all tearing to nowhere. Birds were in the sky, scattering to every point of the compass.
The series of quakes under their feet continued unabated. Jhered was knocked to the ground by the latest. He tumbled to his left, rolled and came back to his haunches. The sound of the approaching wave was like a scream of vengeance atop the roar of ten thousand gorthock scenting prey.
Jhered's heart hammered in his chest. There was no escaping this. The foul reek was causing his eyes to run. Dust was clouding in the air and washing over them. He could see vegetation turned to sludge and pulp as the wave passed, sucking everything into its body and casting it behind, rotten and long dead.
Gorian was killing everything. Jhered could only feel sad. A boy with such potential but fatally flawed. And he had rewarded mercy with hatred. He had become everything that those who despised the Ascendancy had feared. A monster capable of destruction on a scale no man should control.
But this was not control. This was surely the act of a man beyond reason.
The wave was almost on them. Only fifty yards away. They were alone. An oasis of humanity, deserted by everyone who had thought to thank them so recently. Bedlam behind as refugees and the legions tried to escape was matched by the unnatural roaring drone and scream of the approaching earth wave. Booms were thudding beneath their feet, rocks snapped by the force of the Work and shoved upwards, breaking the surface of the earth, spearing up like new sentinels, fingers up to the sky.
Jhered pulled himself up. Standing to accept what was about to engulf him. The steam, mist and dust were choking him. He would not fall. Defiant in death as he was in life. His final prayer was that the Ascendants lived to fight the enemy. The one enemy not merely the Conquord but the entire world was facing. Gorian Westfallen. Jhered commended his body to the embrace of the Omniscient.
The wave towered above him, blotting out the light. He was hurled from his feet, rolled in darkness. Tossed like a model ship in a hurricane, like being batted from hand to hand by God. He would have cried out but he dare not breathe. Somewhere, a warmth stretched out its welcoming embrace.
Jhered breasted the top of the wave and wa
s dumped in a seething rotting mass behind it. He rolled over and over, his body coated with rotting sludge. It got into his mouth, up his nose and filled his ears. Only when he stopped moving did he dare to open his eyes and wonder how it was he remained alive. There could only be one reason.
He pulled himself from the cloying filth, shook his head, spat out nauseating mulch and ejected mud from his nostrils. The wave was rumbling on, heading undimmed towards the barrier, dampening the screams of the helpless about to be engulfed.
Jhered looked around. Everywhere behind the wave was devastated, returned to swamp and decay. He staggered a few paces back towards the wall. His head was pounding, a sledgehammer at the back of his skull. He swallowed, coughed and vomited. He wiped at the dirt over his face, clearing his eyes.
There. It had to be them. He began to run. A shambling, stumbling run. Rot sucked at his boots with every pace.
'Mirron,' he gargled. He coughed and spat again. 'Arducius.'
They were lying together in a still embrace. Barely recognisable for the slime coating them. Brown, green and steaming grime. One or other of them moved. Picked up a head and looked to the left. Jhered followed the gaze. Kneeling up, arms outstretched, was Ossacer. He was swaying, covered like all of them but his eyes were open, staring sightlessly towards them.
Mirron scrambled to her feet, helping Arducius up. He had to hang from her and when she moved towards Ossacer he dragged a leg and cried out. Jhered renewed his efforts, running harder the last few paces to Ardu and Mirron. He grabbed Arducius's free arm and heaved it around his neck, taking the weight from his broken leg.
'Ossie?' shouted Mirron. Ossacer did not respond. 'Ossie! Hang on. Please hang on.'
Questions were tumbling through Jhered's mind. The wave had struck the camps. Tents tumbled, shredded and rotted. The massed screams of the terrified were cut off as the wave crashed through them. Jhered had to look away. So much humanity swept up, taken in and massacred. Rolled over, turned to corpses in moments. He shivered, a sick feeling beginning to rise.
Mirron and Arducius still called out Ossacer's name. Jhered knew he had saved them all but would never understand how. The Pain Teller to end all Pain Tellers. Protecting them from the rot, the disease and death. The three of them scrabbled over to Ossacer, four living people in this blasted land.
Mirron and Arducius sank down by Ossacer. He sensed them somehow and fell gently sideways into Mirron's arms.
‘I saved you,' he said. ‘I did it.'
Jhered could see his skin was terribly weathered and cracked. His hair had grown a foot and a half and was straggling and grey-white. His face was that of a man Andreas Koll's age and his fingers, his limbs, were no more than skin and bone. He clawed at Mirron's sleeve with long-nailed hands. He was fighting for breath.
'Oh, Ossie, what did you do?' she whispered, smoothing his hair, holding him close.
Arducius was kneeling by him, hands on him, probing at the life forces within.
'Don't,' said Ossacer, opening his eyes. They were dull, grey hued with tiny sparks of blue at their centres around pin hole pupils. 'Nothing else to use. Nothing else was alive. Only had myself.'
Ossacer coughed and his whole body seemed to rattle with the force of it.
'We can fix you,' said Arducius. 'We can fix anything. Just don't let go.'
'No. You can't.' Ossacer wheezed a breath. Jhered bit his lip. 'Need all your energy for Gorian. You have to stop him.'
A colossal impact reverberated across the ruined plains. Multiple cracking and rumbling echoes rolled over them. And above the tumult of falling rock, the sound of a thousand voices, raised in helpless prayer to the Omniscient who had turned His back this day. Jhered snapped a glance away east. He could see nothing but dust, steam and mist. So many friends. So many fine people.
'What was that?' asked Arducius.
'The wall,' said Jhered. The tightness of his throat denied anything but a hoarse whisper. 'Best assume it's just us against him now. Ossacer's right. We can't afford to lose this one or that wave might just go on forever.'
'I'm not leaving Ossacer here,' said Mirron. 'We can't.'
'I have no intention of doing anything of the kind,' said Jhered. 'I'll carry him. You support Arducius. And Mirron, Ardu. Do whatever you can to sense Gorian. We're already out of time. We've already lost too many.'
Mirron helped Arducius up. Arducius gasped at the pain from his leg. He was white with it and a sheen of sweat stood out from his filthy brow. Jhered knelt, scooped Ossacer into his arms and stood.
'You didn't get any lighter, did you?' he said.
Ossacer said nothing. His breathing was ragged and his head lolled against Jhered's shoulder. He turned to head west, not really knowing precisely where to go. From their backs came a sucking sound. Like the ocean dragging over sand and shells but intensified, slow and malevolent. Like the first breath of evil.
Jhered turned with his burden and looked back over the landscape. The sludge stretched as far as he could see. Distantly, the wave front still travelled outwards, the plume of steam its crest. And nearer, at the edge of the camps, movement. Jhered swallowed and took a pace back.
'Oh no.'
Hands reached to the sky. Heads rose from the slime. Bodies, dripping with filth hauled themselves upright to stand on unsteady legs. Refugees, soldiers. And larger shapes too a little more distant. Horses. Up they came. Thousands. Tens of thousands. And as one, they turned and began to walk west. Their shambling march, the uncoordinated movement of arm and leg. The hanging of a head to one side or other. All of it told Jhered everything he had to know and feared to see.
He turned and began to walk quickly over the slippery terrain. 'Ardu, Mirron. Let's walk. And don't look back.' 'Why not?' said Ardu, looking.
Jhered had to slow immediately. Arducius could barely put one foot in front of the other.
'Because the dead are coming. All of them.'
Cheers died in throats. Men whose spears and swords had punched upwards into the air in celebration let them drop to hang limp at their sides. The dead outside the walls had not moved but the songs of victory from the camps and beyond had ceased. A rumbling had filled the air. The foundations of the barrier had shaken very slightly and the screaming had begun.
Roberto ran to the back of the gate fort and looked through one of the mounted magnifiers positioned there. He moved it up to the horizon and then slowly back down, scanning left and right in a gentle sweep. What he saw chilled him to his bones despite the warm genastro sun. People running. A stampede of humanity with all sense of control and discipline gone. Legionaries pushed aside slower citizens. Refugees clambered over any who fell. All had forgotten anything but the primal urge for self-preservation. Faces were contorted. People screaming as they ran, dragging in fresh breath and screaming again. He saw a man tumble and be submerged beneath a tide of others too terrified to stoop and help him.
Man descended to animal. And Roberto could not find it in his heart to blame a single one of them. For behind them the earth had risen and was charging at them. From horizon to horizon it spread. It would crash against the roots of the Gaws. It would thunder through the foothills and into Lake lyre. And it would drive straight through every single living thing between it and the Jewelled Barrier.
'Not again, God-surround-me, not again.' Roberto dropped to his knees, placed one hand on the stone and the other fingers spread pointed to the sky. 'Dear God the Omniscient, saviour and loved of all your faithful. Deliver us from this fate. Show us a path to victory that may keep your earth safe for your children.'
A shockwave ran through the fort. Soldiers stumbled. Everything shook. Onagers juddered across the roof. Loose stones rolled. Roberto stood again. The earth wave, higher than two men, eclipsed the western horizon. Clouds and dirt clogged the sky above it. It crashed through man and beast, unstoppable. Roberto turned and ran back to where Davarov and Harban were clinging to battlements while the shudder subsided.
'Hang on to any
thing you can,' he shouted. 'Whatever happens, do not let go. Don't fall to the ground when this things hits us. Down there is death. Up here we might just live.'
'It is as the prophecy foretold,' said Harban. 'He will shiver the mountains and topple the world. Him and his spawn.'
'That may be but right now, we have to survive what's coming at us,' said Roberto. 'Pass the word to any who have time and the will to hear it. If you want to live, cling on to the rock.'
They didn't have to shout people to the walls. A flood tide of soldiers and civilians was already racing up the concrete slopes. Flagmen were waving the command to get to the walls anyway. Davarov, his bellow managing to carry over the din of panic, was roaring people up. He barked at anyone within earshot to attach themselves any way they could to the barrier. Torch brackets, rope around crenellations, human chains. Anything.
Roberto cast around for a place to secure himself. Bound in a net and held fast against the forward battlements were two crates. He raised his eyebrows and ran for them. Another tremor shook the fort. He pitched forwards. On the roof behind him, onager stones rolled. Engineers dived and leapt the ambling projectiles. Pitch barrels fell, spilling flame and heat across the concrete and stone. He heard screaming, cut off abruptly. The net and its contents had not shifted. It would have to do.
Roberto clawed his way towards them, grabbed the net and fumbled at his sword belt with the other hand. The tremor subsided. Roberto passed the belt through the net, its half inch rope strong and fresh, and refastened it such that his back was to the crates. He looked left. Davarov, his huge arms wrapped around a bolted torch bracket, a rope from his waist to the metal as well, could still smile.
'Hey Roberto!' he called. 'What a way to go. A wall of earth is coming and you attach yourself to the most explosive compound in the Conquord.'
Something broke in Roberto then. The well of his grief ran dry for a moment and every trial, everything that was to come, diminished. Just for a few heartbeats. He howled with laughter and patted the crates. He had to shout over the roaring rumble of the wave and the juddering of the fort and wall that grated stone against stone.
A Shout for the Dead Page 63