Stone Rising

by Gareth K Pengelly

  “Methinks that’s a moot point, now…”

  He turned, to find the troupe standing not far from him, their way down the hill to the forest barred by a flickering, shadowy figure. The image of the Malleus man smiled, shaking his head slowly and wagging an admonishing finger, before vanishing.

  “They’re round the back of the Mill!” came the distant cry from the far side of the buildings.

  A cheer and roar of bloodlust, as the mob began to charge around the outskirts of the building.

  Gwenna screwed her eyes shut, torn. No time to flee to the woods. And even if they could, there was no sign yet of Pol, James and Virginie; they could not abandon them. The teachings of Wrynn burned strong within her; innocents were not to be killed, not unless they wished to invite darkness into their hearts. Yet what choice did they have but to defend themselves? If they barred themselves back within, then they would surely die.

  She opened her eyes.

  “Shamans, defend yourselves,” she commanded, the troupe reaching about for pieces of wood, for heavy sacks of grain that could be swung, or else settling into rusty fighting stances, long-since unpracticed. Gwenna continued, even as the mob flew around the corner, pitchforks, scythes, hammers, torches, all brandished and waved, ready to kill. “And try not to kill. Disarm, cripple, whatever you must to defend yourselves. But each life is sacred.” She stared into the venomous eyes of the foe as they drew, slowly, cautiously nearer. “Even theirs.”

  ***

  Pol coughed again, using the sleeve of his leather jacket to cover his mouth as best he could. As he climbed the staircase, a great crack from above, then a burning timber whistled past him to crash into the ground below. As he watched its descent through stinging eyes, he made out a figure below, coughing and spluttering its way up behind him.

  “What are you doing, man?” shouted Pol. “Get down with the others. Get out of here.”

  As James drew near, he bent over double, coughing, even as he shook his head.

  “No,” he spluttered as the fit subsided. “She’s family.” He ducked as burning embers fell from the ceiling above. “And it’s too dangerous to go alone.”

  What may have been a snarl from the young shaman, but he relented with a nod of his head.

  “Very well, let’s keep moving before this entire building collapses all about us.”

  Once more, the two men began to move, climbing their way through the smoke and flames to the level above. Finally, after what seemed an age, they reached the storey whereon lay the room in which Virginie lay resting. They could hear coughing from within. Pushing the wooden door open, Pol saw the girl, sat upright on the bed, feet on the floor yet pale-looking, weak, unable to stand and move under her own power.

  “What’s happening?” she enquired of the pair, as they made their way into the small room.

  “We are found,” James answered her, even as he made his way over towards her and helped her stand. “And they’re trying to burn us out…”

  “Enough chit-chat,” spat Pol. “Let’s move!”

  He turned to leave, but as he did, a great resounding crash from outside the door and a shower of sparks and a billowing cloud of smoke engulfed him. Wafting the smoke away, he gingerly made his way to the door once more, what he saw there not improving his mood a jot. Letting the girl rest against the wall, James, too, ran over, shielding his face from the heat as he gazed at the destruction before him. A heavy beam had fallen from the roof above, smashing through the landing and shattering all the stairs below.

  There was no way down that way. Not anymore.

  “C’est mal?”

  “Oui,” replied James, his face grave. “Very mal.” He looked to Pol. “Ideas?”

  The shaman turned, gazing about, before his eyes caught sight of the window at the end of the small room. He dashed over to it, looking down. Below him was the roof of the grain store, some ten feet below. A long drop, but doable.

  “The window, we drop down to the roof below and make our way along.”

  James looked out.

  “Oh shit, that’s a long drop.”

  A groaning noise, the floor beneath them shifting slightly as supports below no doubt burned away in the heat.

  “It’s that or burn to death.”

  “Fair point. How do we do this?”

  Pol’s brow furrowed as he thought quickly, his forehead beading with droplets of sweat as the air rippled with heat.

  “You go first – you’re bigger. I can lower Virginie down to you and you can catch her.”

  “Very well.” The Englishman turned to his French cousin, embracing her in his great arms. “See you in a moment,” he told her. “We’ll get out of this.”

  She nodded, wide-eyed, as he made his way to the window. With a gulp, he turned, clambering over the stone ledge, barely squeezing his large frame through the gap. With a groan of effort, he slid down till he was dangling from the ledge, feet still several feet above the roof below. Then, with a gasp, he let go. He landed on the slates with a thud and a curse, falling onto his backside and scrabbling with his hands and feet as he sought to keep himself from rolling off the roof entirely. Finally, confident that he was no longer going to roll to his doom, he rose cautiously to his feet and called up.

  “I’m okay! Lower Virginie down!”

  Pol nodded at his words, turning back to the girl who still stood, unsteady, supporting herself against the wall.

  “Let’s go.”

  With a tired nod, the girl took a step forwards.

  And with a roar of flame and the tearing of wood, the floor collapsed beneath her feet.

  ***

  Arris snarled, ducking another clumsily telegraphed blow from a charging Frenchman. This man was a farmer, by the looks of things; broad and well–muscled, with determined eyes above his luxuriant moustache. But he was no warrior.

  Arris was.

  As the farmer’s second haymaker swept around, aiming his meaty right fist at Arris’ head, the shaman side-stepped, seizing his foe’s wrist with his right hand, whilst at the same time bringing his left forearm up and around his opponents elbow. A wrench, then a violent tug, and the man’s shoulder was torn, sending him rolling on the floor, screaming in pain and out of the fight.

  One on one, each shaman was a force to be reckoned with; for they were instruments of warfare and when the power of the spirits failed, arms, legs, heads; they were trained to use each to defeat their foes. But the baying mob against which they fought were many and the shamans few. And, despite their skill, the outlanders, holding back as they were, were fighting a losing battle. Here and there, cries of pain, as lucky blows from the Frenchmen’s weapons found their mark.

  Through the melee, Gwenna whirled like a dervish, a graceful storm of red hair and sinuous motion, lashing out here and there with nerve-strikes, eye-pokes and kicks to joints. She was fast, a blur of balletic poise and precision, as she sought to disable rather than kill, using her tiny size and lithe movements to her advantage.

  Yet even she was only mortal, bleeding as she was from a score of minor cuts, where swinging pitchforks and flails had caught her glancing blows.

  And amidst the violence and fury of this one-sided battle, the Malleus man simply stood and watched from the side-lines, smiling that cold, calculating smile. Even as he glared at the smiling demon in human form, Arris stumbled, caught unawares by a club to the back of the head, falling to his knees as his vision swam.

  ***

  The heat at her back was incredible, now; the building behind her ablaze, causing her fiery hair to glow even brighter, lending her the appearance of some warrior-goddess as she weaved this way and that, dispatching her foes with a flurry of powerful, precise blows.

  Yet the strength of her slender limbs was fading, no fresh sustenance flowing from the earth as it might have done in times past. Her heat beat within her heaving chest. She knew she couldn’t keep this up much longer. She had hoped they could disable and disarm their foes, holdi
ng them off until their comrades appeared from within the building behind them.

  Perhaps if they had been, as Arris had hoped, but seconds behind them, the ploy might have worked. But not now. They were overrun. On the verge of defeat.

  She had no doubts that if they had gone all out to kill, from the off, then they would have lived this night. But that was not their way. That could never be their way. The powers of a shaman were those of life, not death. Whatever dread powers they could summon, whatever lethal skills they knew, were harnessed towards defeating a darker foe by far than Gallic peasantry.

  An ignominious end to the shamans. Yet at least they would fall with their honour and their morality intact. She would rather that than turn out like the demon that watched them, even now.

  She lashed out, aiming a blow for a snarling man’s face. He had the build of a smith; short, stocky, powerful. But whatever speed she had before was gone now, her hand flashing past his face as he bobbed to one side. His rough, calloused hand gasped about her front, throwing her clean into the air to land hard on her back, driving all the wind from her lungs.

  As she blinked the stars from her vision, the noises, the sound of battle all about her, seemed to go muted, as though she were underwater. A great, balled fist swung in a downward arc towards her face.

  She knew the following moments would hurt.

  ***

  Pol froze, staring at the scene of carnage before him. The floorboards had given way, only those nearest the window holding firm for now. The bed, the chair, vanishing into the roaring flames below. He took a step forwards.

  The girl yet survived, arms wrapped about a charred and blackened beam. She screamed as her feet dangled in the empty air, the roaring inferno below crackling and spitting in gleeful anticipation of her fall.

  Virginie looked up at him, tears of desperation in her eyes, knowing that she didn’t have the strength to hold for long. She looked up, her eyes seeking his through the smoke and haze. She found them.

  And then she knew, her face growing pale with the certainty of her own demise.

  Even as James’ urgent calls of concern rang up through the window and over the din of the fire, Pol gazed back down at her, face blank, eyes stone-cold.

  And began to turn.

  ***

  Stars. But not the stars of concussion, the ringing aftershocks of a blow to the head. But glittery stars. A trail of them. As that fist stood still, poised to strike her, yet now frozen, the trail of glittery stars curved its way towards Gwenna as she lay on her back before the burning windmill.

  A figure, tiny, elfin, flitted before her on delicate gossamer wings.

  “Why are you here?” she asked it. “Are you here to mock us or aid us?”

  “Neither,” the Sylphii replied, its voice the tinkling of bells and the whistle of the wind. “Merely here to watch.”

  “Watch us die?”

  The creature laughed.

  “Not to watch you, silly.”

  “Then who?”

  The spirit smiled.

  “Him.”

  And with that, the world was torn asunder.

  ***

  The world, the windmill, the hill upon which it stood and the forest all about was bleached to pure and utter whiteness. Then a thunderclap, louder than anything Vincenzo had ever heard in all his centuries of existence. On his tongue, a strange metallic tang that scorched the taste buds. Not the metallic, iron-rich taste his body craved, but different; it tasted of tin.

  It tasted of sorcery.

  As his eyes adjusted with superhuman speed, he looked up to the scene of battle. Then up, higher, higher still. He was an immortal, once a man but now a creature of darkness. He knew no fear. It was he that caused fear in others; a creature of legend, a monster of the night clad in the flesh of man.

  Yet it was he that took a step back. It was he that shivered.

  The beast stared down upon the clearing in the forest, stared down upon the hill and the mill with its flaming blades and all the tiny mortals, too, that swarmed like ants beneath it. It stared, with ancient and unknowable blue eyes that glowed with power. Where its claws dug into the ground, hundreds of yards away, great gouges in the earth from its impossible weight. Where its six mighty wings unfurled to stretch across the heavens, they blotted out great swathes of stars.

  Yet the dragon seemed content merely to stand. Merely to watch.

  He tore his eyes from the enormity of the creature, to his minions, picking themselves up following the thunderclap. Even as he watched in contempt, the pitiful mortals quailed in terror at the apparition above them, fleeing from the battle without any care for the witches in their midst, intent only on fleeing for their lives.

  In disgust, Vincenzo lashed out as a villager ran past, snatching the burly man up like a child’s doll, before ripping his throat out with his teeth and throwing him to the ground. Chin and chops covered in sweet lifeblood, the Malleus man swallowed and smiled, eyes focusing with instant and easy precision on the red-haired witch that slowly picked herself up from the ground, staring up with awe at the beast above her.

  Whatever this great beast was that had appeared, it would not deny him at least a modicum of revenge. He would have to move, probably to another country. He would need a new name, a new identity. A new life. It would take years before he could gain any semblance of order or routine again.

  It was annoying when that happened. He would not let it go unpunished.

  He stalked forwards towards the unwary witches, the terrified peasants streaming past him as they fled the battle. A man got too close, a clawed hand lashing out to take off his head with one easy blow. Another saw the act, standing still, petrified, but his fear lasted mere heartbeats; heartbeats that were stopped momentarily as Vincenzo pulled that beating organ out in a blur and took a great bite out of it before the dying man’s very eyes.

  With every kill, he drew closer to his final prey.

  She turned. She saw him. She was too slow, too weak, too tired.

  She would soon be dead and he would flee from here, needing to start a new life but content with his kill.

  He snarled, ready to leap, ready to rend. Ready to feast.

  But then a flash of bright light that startled him, and when the dazzling afterimages disappeared from his eyes, his way was barred. Nose wrinkling, quickly losing patience, he looked up. The man that stood now, before him, was large. Very large. Clad in white robes that seemed to almost glow, he stood at least a head taller than Vincenzo, who was himself not a short man. And he was wide with it; the bulges beneath his robes and cloak speaking of lean, chiselled muscle.

  But he was just a man, nothing more.

  With a laugh of contempt, the Malleus man drove forth a great punch into his obstruction’s midsection, intending to liquefy organs and launch him clean from his path. Instead, his fist impacted against the very mountains of the earth. Immovable. Indestructible.

  Mouth open in a silent gasp of pain, the demon staggered backwards, staring at his mangled and ruined hand in shock and confusion.

  “What… what are you?” he managed to stammer.

  The giant frowned, cocking his head to one side as he watched the man’s hand begin to heal, shattered bones straightening, knitting together at incredible speed.

  “No,” said the giant, his green eyes alight with curiosity as he strode closer. “What are you?”

  In two strides he was in front of Vincenzo, reaching out to grasp the front of the Malleus’ robes with one enormous hand. The demon resisted, but couldn’t help but be lifted clean from the ground, his feet kicking uselessly in the air as he spat and snarled. The giant, white-robed man turned him this way and that, taking in the blood on his chin, the paleness of his skin, the sharp, elongated canines of his jaw.

  “Well, well, well…” the man chuckled to himself. “You learn something new every day!”

  With a casual toss of the wrist, he hurled the clergyman twenty feet to land in a heap on the hard
ground, before turning his attentions to the shamans who had begun to gather, wide-eyed and open mouthed at his back.

  The red-haired leader staggered forwards as though in a daze, mouth opening and closing as if she knew she should say something but didn’t have the words. She blinked away tears that threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes.

  But before anyone could say anything, a laughter, mocking and cold, from the ground some distance away. Vincenzo rose, shaking with mirth. With an audible snap, he straightened his broken neck, sighing as the vertebrae aligned once more, then fixed the giant with venomous eyes.

  “Fool. Strong you may be, but you cannot kill the likes of me with force alone. You have no idea what you are meddling with.”

  The giant cocked his head, thoughtfully.

  “Garlic?”

  The Malleus man smiled.

  “I’m quite partial to the stuff.”

  The giant thought once more.

  “Silver?”

  The demon raised his eyebrows and gestured to the hammer pendant about his neck.

  The flame-haired witch spoke up now, her words aimed at the giant, though her eyes remained fixed on the Malleus.

  “He’s not too keen on sunlight…”

  Vincenzo’s smile disappeared.

  “Ah!” The giant grinned down at her, before returning his gaze to the creature. “Of course, how could I have forgotten that?” He took a thunderous step towards the demon, cocking his head, eyes glistening with mirth. “Tell me, demon. You masquerade yourself as a clergyman, so you should know the good book well enough. Pray tell me… what were God’s first words in the beginning?”

  The demon’s face twitched and it took a step backwards, eager to fly from here, to run from this man that seemed so relaxed, so easy-mannered. But something kept him rooted to the spot, some force, some mighty will that defied comprehension. And that same will forced him to answer, the words spilling from his lips as though of their own accord.

  “L… let there be light?”