Fallen Gods

by James A. Moore

  Morne looked around the area and shook her head, but she was grinning. “I expect that might be a part of it, but if they are going to take the place of the old gods they should get to it. There won’t be much of a world left otherwise.”

  Beron chuckled, but imagined Ariah’s face hearing that sort of thing. He doubted the demon would be so amused.

  “So your new god gave you servants?”

  “He offered help on finding my enemies.”

  She nodded. “Alive, or they do none of us any good. We have to ride. There are matters we need to attend to further to the east. But we will return.” She smiled and offered a lazy salute. “Try not to lose them a second time.”

  Beron nodded but did not smile. The riders moved then, heading away from the camp in unison.

  “I do not like her very much.” He stared after their retreating forms.

  Argus shook his head. “You are not famous for liking anyone, Beron.”

  “I like you well enough.”

  “Well, yes, but I’m paid to agree with you. Or at least to follow orders. She is giving you commands and you have never liked that.”

  “It is not something I will ever like.”

  “That is the thing about having the most money. It allows you to say whatever you please.”

  Argus looked at the clouds coming their way. They had almost covered the whole of the sky and the snows were falling harder than ever. “This new god of yours. Will he ever fix the weather, do you suppose?”

  “I haven’t asked him.”

  “Well, if you’d like to move on beyond this point, you should consider it. We’re not going to go far if the snow is over our heads.”

  Beron nodded but did not answer. He was far too busy considering the possibility of new gods. He had accepted the terms of the demon Ariah, but hadn’t truly considered the ramifications until Morne mentioned them.

  If the Marked Men had also found a new god, what would happen when or if the old gods fell? A war in the heavens was not a thought he wanted to consider. On the other hand, a war between gods walking the earth was even more terrifying.

  Harper Ruttket

  Harper looked back the way they’d come and shook his head. They’d joined together again with relative ease and he now rode his horse again.

  Desmond had looked his way with a question in his eye and Harper shook his head. He was alone; that should have said it all, but no one wanted to lose mates.

  Bump unrolled the bundle Harper had made of swords and blades from the tent and everyone got something. It was the best he could do.

  Desmond watched on, his eyes dark and murderous. That was the thing about Desmond. When he wasn’t mad with jealousy from anyone looking at his woman, he was mad with the desire to fix everything wrong with the world. In fact, thinking on it, he was mostly just mad. His Anna kept him saner and she was gone just now, off with Brogan and looking for whatever he was supposed to find to kill gods.

  That was a thought, wasn’t it? “Let’s be off, lads. South, I think. Too many people around here for my comfort.” He paused. “And too much fucking snow. I hate this. I want to be fucking warm.”

  Laram and Mearhan had looked at each other for a long moment and he’d half expected them to run into each other’s arms, but instead, in the end, they’d nodded and looked at each other with a palpable longing.

  He rather thought them fools for not acting on their desires. The world was ending. If they were wise they’d do what they could to spend that time together.

  The snow was coming down heavier. He couldn’t decide if that was a good thing. On the one hand their tracks would fade quickly. On the other, the things that had attacked them were pale, nearly white except where their faces were covered in iron, and he didn’t much like the notion that they might use the snow as cover.

  Giddenland was not that far, really. Though he had doubts of getting there quickly, considering the current weather. Davers kept silent watch. He rode near Harper and spoke not at all as he watched their surroundings and in particular the sky. Harper wondered, not for the first time, how the bastard could hope to see anything at all through the constant falling flakes. Still, Davers was one of the best at spotting the unexpected as far as Harper was concerned. He’d certainly caught a few surprises that had been laid out for them in the past.

  Aside from Davers there were Tom Kind, Will Foster and Ogunt, a man who seemed to thrive on combat and loathe conversation. He and Ogunt got along splendidly for that reason. Tom and Will were doing a favor. Both of them had families and all three of them had heard about the troubles for Brogan and company and come running. They were being paid, but that was hardly the point; they were loyal friends.

  Laram, Bos, Kano, Mosely, Neely, Bump, Sallos and Desmond were all there and would remain loyal, if only to save their own hides. Well, and because it was Brogan that asked.

  There was the Slattery girl to consider, too. Laram was smitten. That didn’t mean she could be trusted.

  The rest of them, however, Harper worried about. Brogan would not, and so Harper worried for him. The mercenaries were just that, sellswords. They worked for the highest bidders. Right now Harper and the rest were able to pay, but if someone came along with more money, or if someone offered a bounty on their heads and their companions heard about it, everything could change, and very quickly indeed.

  Davers snapped his fingers and pointed. Riders were coming. It was impossible to say who they were through the snow, but they were coming.

  Whoever they were, they wore armor. The rhythmic rustle of metal and leather jingled and sighed as the people and their horses rode closer.

  Harper gestured for everyone to stop and they did. If they were spotted, so be it. But there was no reason to make themselves known until they could see the strangers. The shapes moved by them, not close by, but near enough to be seen if they were careless, trudging slowly in the same direction. The strangers did not speak, but moved on, two columns of armored forms riding on warhorses, the sort of beasts that were trained in combat, and larger by several hands than the animals used by the mercenaries.

  Near as he could tell, there were a few hundred riders moving past. It wasn’t a comforting number, not in the least.

  Finally a banner could be seen, three swords and a crowned skull. The Mentath, then, and likely led by Marked Men. There was every reason to believe they’d be hunting for Harper and the rest.

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  When enough time had passed, Harper led them to the south. They’d not risk running into a small army. They were wanted, after all.

  Laram sat on his horse, head down, barely conscious by the look of him. Mosely was more lively, though his face was still swollen and one eye was puffed shut. Bos, Neely and Kano were like Mosely. They moved and they were alert.

  None of them argued.

  They rode well past the sunset and deep into the night before they found a place that looked suitably protected from the winds. There were a few hills and they found a spot between them that offered some shelter.

  Most of the poor bastards looked ill-suited for anything but sleep, so Bump managed to start a fire and Desmond went off to find a bit of wood. They were hardly in the best shape in terms of supplies, but they’d make do well enough.

  Desmond came back with enough wood to last a while and with a very plump rabbit besides. “Just looked at me, it did. Couldn’t believe I was there. So I hit it in the head.” His axe had taken the head clean off. Bump worked the fire and left cleaning the carcass to the proud hunter. Most of the rest were asleep or close enough that it didn’t matter. They were alive. They were lucky, but they’d taken a few blows and most of them needed to mend.

  Jon came back with more firewood. It was green and it smoked fiercely, but it was warmth and light in the darkness of unfamiliar territory.

  When the shape came out of the falling snow, Harper was completely caught off guard. The cloaked form stepped to the edge of the fire’s light
and looked at them without speaking.

  Sallos looked at the shape and didn’t speak either. Instead he rose from his place closer to the flames and drew his blade.

  When the stranger spoke, his voice set Harper’s skin crawling. It was wrong. “You are wanted men. I am here to take you back. If you resist, you will suffer. If you come along I will cause you no harm.”

  Sallos nodded, stepped toward the stranger and brought his sword around in a hard slash. The shape was fast, but not fast enough. It stepped back and managed to avoid being skewered, but it lost a hand in the process. Sallos moved forward again and brought his sword around a second time, sweeping the blade with his whole body behind it.

  The cloaked shape let out a warbling screech and clutched its bloodied wrist in a dark claw. The limb that had been severed twitched on the ground, and looked like nothing so much as a spider on its back trying to right itself.

  Blood did not spill from the wound. Instead it bled darkness. Not a liquid that flowed to the ground, but a shadowy powder that fell to the snow and hissed.

  Harper rose; Bump stood up. Desmond followed suit. Jon looked on, puzzled.

  Sallos struck again, driving his blade into the shoulder of the shape. In response it screamed again and slapped Sallos aside.

  Sallos was a large enough man that backhanding him should not have sent him anywhere at all, but he was staggered and knocked into the snow.

  And the thing came close, screaming again.

  It was not one of the Undying, not as far as Harper could tell, and he’d met all of them in his time, but it was at least as vile. What looked like a cloak from a distance was a dark, greasy-looking hide. Where Sallos had cut the thing that hide bled darkness.

  And that darkness moved, slithered and spread across the snow. Not far away the horses started to panic. They weren’t the sort of animals to be skittish, they were combat trained and usually very placid, but something had them on edge.

  Harper was trying to understand everything happening. As he contemplated he drew his two swords and prepared for a fight. Desmond didn’t seem to have that problem. He hurled the smaller of his axes directly at the thing coming their way and nodded to himself when the blade slammed deep into its chest.

  It screamed again and this time the darkness vomited from that hood-like opening and defied the wind and all logic to attack Desmond.

  He was a weather-tanned man, but that meant nothing in comparison to the blackness that swallowed his entire body. Whatever that blackness was, it covered the mercenary like a fine powder, coating each part of him. He didn’t even have the chance to scream before he was buried.

  Harper reached back to the fire and looked carefully at the burning branches. When he found one that was not completely set ablaze he grabbed it by the unburned end and pulled it free. Almost two feet of the stick burned.

  Desmond screamed again and fell to his knees. Harper walked right past him, though it hurt him to do so, and shoved the burning stick toward the cowled thing. The fire pushed into that dark mouth and lit up the inside, letting him see that more things moved within. Those things, tiny as flakes of snow, caught fire as the flames touched them and they moved as they burned, spreading the blaze locked inside the cloaked form.

  Whatever the hellish thing was, it rose into the air and let out a piercing scream that shook Harper’s eyes in their sockets and half deafened him. Still, he looked on as the darkness inside that cloak rippled and burned and started falling from the hood and from the cloak itself, dropping and burning, a shower of tiny embers.

  A moment later the cloak rose higher still and then dropped into the snow, smoldering.

  Harper stared at his makeshift torch and back at the emptied cloak.

  “That was just plain too easy.”

  He turned to look back and saw Jon crouching over Desmond. Without another thought he moved that way, still holding his torch.

  “Is he alive still?” Bump worried his lower lip as he looked on. Put him in a fight and he was perfectly happy, but tending to the wounded, looking at the damage the living could suffer, and he felt a sudden desire to be elsewhere.

  Desmond answered. “I’m alive. I don’t know what they are, but these things are stuck to me.”

  Harper leaned in closer and held his torch where it could do some good. To be certain, whatever the things were, they’d dug in deep. All looked the same, small pebbles of darkness locked onto Desmond’s skin. They did not move, they did nothing that he could see, but they were there and they apparently hurt.

  “I could try to burn them off?”

  “I just fucking saw what that did to that fucking thing. Do I look like I want to be roasted alive?” Desmond’s voice carried an understandable edge of desperation.

  “Well, no. Not really.” Harper scratched at his head. “We could try to pry them out? Like ticks?”

  “Gods, no.” Desmond whimpered at the thought.

  Jon asked, “Do you want us to just leave them then?”

  “It might well be for the best, I think.” Desmond pushed himself to his feet. He looked like he’d rolled himself in soot, but he was standing, at least. “Have we any spare clothes? I can’t wear them too.”

  Harper shook his head. “No spare anything. If we’re lucky we won’t have to eat a horse before we get to Kaer-ru.”

  Jon took off his cloak. “Wear this for now. We’ll try to do something about the state of your clothes.”

  The cold was biting and hard, and the bastard took off his heaviest protection without hesitation. Harper thought about it and retrieved the burlap he’d brought the swords in. Desmond put that on, too and then curled up near the fire.

  While he did that, Harper put the torch on Desmond’s clothes and watched as the small black things burst and popped and burned violently. It only took a few seconds for most of them to be burned off the clothes. The fabrics were scorched, but intact. Desmond’s boots were barely harmed at all. But the flames that came from them would likely have been enough to blister flesh.

  Within ten minutes Desmond was back in his clothes again, and looked mostly like himself. The small black things on his skin covered his hands, his face, his neck, and darkened his hair. His clothes looked unsoiled in comparison.

  Jon studied his cloak very carefully when he got it back and Harper understood. Be they dust or something worse, he did not want the black things covering him as they did their friend.

  Sallos had pulled himself from the snow and gone off in search of the fallen thing, but there was no sign of it. Whatever it had been, it had vanished.

  Aside from a split lip and some bruising, he was none the worse for the wear. That was the thing about the people of Stennis Brae, they were built to take almost anything thrown their way. Probably why so many of the men became mercenaries. It was easier than honest work.

  “Let’s get some rest, lads. I’ll handle first watch. And you after me, Jon, if you please.”

  Jon nodded and they did their best to settle in.

  The winds howled and every time they did, the whole lot of them twitched. It was that sort of night. There might be some rest, but there would likely be no sleep except for those who’d been brutalized by the slavers.

  Brogan McTyre

  Three days passed without much happening. Brogan walked and explored, trying to find what was supposed to be easily found. He saw the vile things that had bumped against him in the darkness and was aghast. Too many legs, hard shells and pincers that looked capable of biting him in half. The only good news was that he was faster than they were. Perhaps they were starving. There wasn’t much flesh around that he could see and the vast skeleton had long since been picked free.

  He looked at the massive skeleton and, despite the time spent around it, still had trouble absorbing and keeping in mind what it was. The scope was simply too much. First there were the crystals adorning everything, half hiding the enormous shape, and then there were the bones themselves. The smallest digit of a finger bone
was larger than three or even four of him. He wouldn’t have been able to pull the damned thing with four horses.

  That thought led him to wonder who had built a door into the side of the mountain and why. The door was certainly not for the giant to walk through. It was the size of a small man and built by someone skilled at concealment. It was there, and it existed, but he couldn’t see why. Had someone made it just so they could come look at the bones of a giant or a god? Did the bones truly belong to a god? That led to other questions. How was the god killed? How had anything of that size ever walked the lands? How long ago had it walked if the very mountains had formed around the body?

  Because he was tired of silence and his companion – still following at the same distance – never spoke, he talked out loud and wished for someone to speak with.

  He stopped after a time and considered his meager supplies. He still had some hardtack, but his water supplies were running low and so far he had not run across much by way of water, save the odd pools that trickled down from the crystals above. He had tasted one and it seemed fresh enough, but the waters held a faint pink tint that left him uneasy.

  Currently he had found what he thought to be the center of the vast cavern. He stood at the crotch of the giant’s two massive legs. The shape above those hips sloped at an angle but far, far away, in the height of the vast cavern he could just make out the shape of a skull looking down at him, past the ribcage that was pierced by the largest of the crystal shards. It was hard to be sure.

  “Am I really seeing the skull of that thing from here? Or do you suppose my mind is lying to me?”

  He looked back to his silent companion. The dark pits where eyes might or might not be hiding stared at him from that blank spot where a face should have been. “Must be my mind. Your face is starting to look like a face.” He snorted as he said the words. Maybe it was the light, which here, where the most crystal shards penetrated the mountain perhaps, seemed brighter. Here, in this place, the non-face seemed to have more angles. He could see the shape of a jaw line and cheekbones, and shadows fell where eyebrows might have been. None of them were prominent, but they seemed more obvious than before.