A Thousand Eyes

by Christian Leese

  Bane hissed. “In your dying breaths, you ask me for help?”

  It was not a request.

  He imagined his veins pumping with Bane’s black fluid, but it resisted. The Warden who had struck Canis continued its attack and stabbed a hole through his shoulder. He remained upright, hanging from the twisted weapon.

  Canis closed his eyes. He tried to extract Bane’s power once again. “Get out of me,” Canis ordered.

  The Warden leaned in close, awaiting orders. Canis felt its presence. He channeled the enemies’ emotions, their need for survival, their unrivalled need to take Blackrose.

  They’re trying to infect the Herald. I can’t let them…

  Canis flexed his chest. The wax-like surface made him sick. Nothing felt more wrong than harboring a parasite, and he would not, could not, put up with it anymore.

  I won’t join the Scourge!

  He lifted his hands to his chest and scratched his skin. It was thick and hard, but his nails bit in deep, lines of flesh peeling away. Bane writhed, every scrape of nail causing it to shift in mirrored pain. The more Bane moved, the more he dug in, fighting against its control as it tried to stop his hands.

  The red haze hinted at a return, caressing the perimeters of his vision. Canis tensed. Pain erupted from his shoulder and skin, black blood seeping out. Strength started to return to his limbs, and the agony evaporated as if he had swallowed a dozen helpings of mooncap.

  He rocked, still impaled by the silent Warden. Canis Rayne went from rocking to shaking, then into a violent fit, smashing his head off the wall until it was cracked and bloodied. White flashes of light mixed with red, and Bane’s body stretched inside him. There was no room for the parasite anymore, and his insides fed off it. Its blood shot through Canis’ veins, and they rose on his body as thick as fingers. One of them burst on his hand, but he didn’t stop as he absorbed Bane’s power, the blood still pumping.

  “Canis!” screamed Vann as he rushed to his brother’s side.

  Vann grabbed the Warden’s arm and tried to yank it free. Canis looked down to see Bane’s black limbs hooking onto Vann from the hole in Canis’ stomach.

  “Watch out!” cried Canis.

  Vann’s face screwed up in disgust. He gritted his teeth and drove his hand deep into Canis’ stomach. Vann gripped the parasite. With a mighty howl, Vann yanked Bane from its host and threw the black mass to the floor.

  Canis’ muscles swelled and caused his armor to split and break. They burst beneath his flesh. His body went into a fit, the pain sweet as it tore through him. His left pectoral ruptured and squirmed. The deep claw marks stretched farther.

  The Warden’s weapon felt like a pinprick, no more than a splinter. He forced his elbow down, and the metal shattered. Canis took a step toward it and rose. His body had grown in size, his physique mutating into a deformed mass. Bane’s thoughts were faint, its body withering at Vann’s feet, his pleas for an audience distant. Canis’ knuckles crunched against the Warden’s gauzed face and the glass lenses of its eyes cracked. Vann jumped in, smashing his gauntlet against the Warden too.

  Canis landed on the floor, and the machine stumbled before falling to the ground. His knuckles became bigger, the bones clustering into one. Skin rippled, and he looked at his arms. Their tree-like texture made them look alive. Bile boiled at the back of his throat, a lump causing him to gag. The foul liquid gurgled through his mouth, all over the Wardens beneath him. Bane sat in pieces, covered by the black sludge.

  Bane…

  There was no answer.

  Bane? Answer me!

  His head was quiet, just the buzz left after a loud noise.

  “I’m free,” said Canis.

  “For Blackrose!” replied Vann as he pointed toward the Herald.

  Canis roared as they bounded over to help free the Herald of the Scourge. Telsa Reinhart was already there, his Imperial sword sweeping from one enemy to the next. Hang on, Reinhart! Another Warden stepped into his path, and he charged into it with his shoulder. The exoskeleton folded in on itself and smoke spiraled upward. He gripped onto its torso as it fell and hammered his fists into it. The first strike ripped off its corrugated face, the tentacles and tendrils retreating between cogs. The next strike punched straight through and it powered down, the steam hissing into silence.

  The Warden was nothing more than a metal shell, but Canis still had to kill the parasite residing within. He ripped panels and armor off the machine, hunting the thing inside. He pulled at wires and flung them behind him. He pulled at more wires until his hands gripped the slimy bastard controlling it. He squeezed hard, and the insides splattered from small holes, yellow worms of pus browning in the air.

  His brother had run ahead, fighting one-handed, his body battered, but he fought on. All the men did. Even death wasn’t an excuse not to join in, and Canis grabbed the corpse of Teller and hurled it at a Warden that bore down on Thorne. The body hit it and spun, serving as nothing more than a distraction, but Canis closed the gap between them in three bounds and knocked the machine off its feet. He screamed and stood, waiting for it to stand.

  As it tried to rise, he pushed it back, the metal scraping against the floor. He screamed again and pushed it down. The wriggling mass, the source of the city’s fear, was there for all to see. Canis’ men cheered and dived on the Warden, tearing into it with eager thrusts. The metal shell twitched and sputtered, its hand moved to try to brush off the invaders, but fell silent, dead.

  “Canis?” Thorne asked, back stepping.

  “Kill them all,” said Canis, his voice choked, the muscles on his neck pressing on his bark-box, his eyes bulging.

  The Herald stood a statue of flesh. The Scourge-freaks hung from every piece of its algae-stained exoskeleton. It thrashed and stomped. A pile of bodies had gathered at its feet, and Canis used them to vault past it. He pounded toward the stream of Scourge still coming in from Blackrose’s streets. Not one cowered as he grabbed them, nor did they live as he snapped their bones with his hands. He hit their soft bodies, his knuckles caving in faces and collapsing chests.

  The horde swarmed Canis like a miniature Herald in reverse. A spear caught him in the neck, but the tip broke off as he turned to strike another one down.

  “I need more!” he roared, the waxy, mindless Scourge splattering apart with every blow he hammered into them.

  Thorne led her own attack as she sprinted past Canis. He looked to the Herald. Mortalo’s slaves ripped the Scourge-freaks from it. He glanced back to Vann, who led the rest of the men to him.

  Canis put his weight onto his left knee, ready to leap into battle once again, but the socket seized up. With no choice but to ignore it, he put his weight on it again. His shin cracked and splintered. Shards of bone jutted from the side of his leg. His heart raced, pushing harder and contracting at the same time, everything threatening to turn in on itself.

  The mass of his body bore down on him, and he dropped to his hands and knees. Every muscle craved air, pleaded for respite. Liquid fire danced through him, and his body tightened, stretched, cramped, and tore all at once.

  He curled into a ball. Where are you, Mortalo? he thought as his teeth crumbled, breaking, due to constant grinding. Bits of them fell into his mouth, clogging his windpipe. He convulsed and gagged. They came out in clumps when he coughed. All he could do was claw at the floor. His nails bent back and snapped off in the futile attempt to escape the torture his parasite-fueled rage inflicted upon him.

  The Herald got free, and Canis saw its focused slaughter of the Scourge through his fading pupils. It stomped, hit, flung, and impaled the waxy imposters. Vann and the men cut down the remaining few.

  Canis’ vision wavered as he lay on his back now looking into the night sky. The souls of the dead and their green glow filtered down through the mesh of thorns. Canis held his hand up to the moon, his arm disintegrating from the inside out.

  Thorne and Vann rushed to his side, and he looked at
them through all-but-closed eyes, restricted by his swollen face. Thorne held his hand whilst Vann cried, each drop, Canis knew, in respect. Canis’ head flopped to one side and he saw the humans’ dirty clothes, soaked in the blood of the day’s battle. Not a single person’s skin color could be seen, each covered in the black ichor of their enemy.

  He smiled, the air clinging to the exposed nerves left by missing teeth.

  “We’ll bury them all,” said Canis barely able to speak, bruises erupting all over his body faster than he could spit words.

  “We need to get you fixed!” said Vann. “You can’t die. I won’t let you.”

  “Promise me you’ll bury them. Find Mortalo, bury him too.”

  “I promise. Help me carry him!” Vann ordered, his one arm not able to lift even one of Canis’ massive, swollen legs. Belloch Storme was there to help too, but as they lifted him, Canis felt something stab into his spine, and Belloch ran back into the crowd of survivors with a bloody shank in his hand. Canis tried to speak, but the pain ran up his spine, numbing his thoughts.

  The night sky disappeared as the group lifted him and carried him farther into the complex. The green light scanned them as they entered the halls. The Herald walked away, its archaic guard duty of the ravine to be continued. The floor was layered with bodies; a carpet of skin.

  Canis’ head dropped. His breaths became shorter and his chest tightened. Air forced its way through his swollen throat. He couldn’t swallow and saw silver specks in his vision. Someone gripped his hand from the crowd, and he squeezed back as much as his crippled hand allowed. Tarosh hung back. He carried the other Imperium’s weapons like he carried his smile—without shame. The image of Tarosh’s black smile was lost in the angular corridors and smoke.

  They neared the mezzanine, and Thorne ran ahead to spin the chair around. They got him down and carried him over, lowering him into it. It groaned under his weight and cut into his already butchered body. The men scattered as Vann ordered them to find anything to help. Canis’ vision blurred in and out of black, the lights from the map imprinting his thoughts.

  So tired…

  He imagined Mortalo standing beside him, his hand resting on his shoulder. But it was Thorne who comforted him before placing a mask on his face.

  The sound of Blackrose’s heart no longer beat in rhythm to his own. He couldn’t scratch his face, the bones in his arm broken, the tendons snapped. Canis’ vision cut out. The pain evaporated his body. Hands prodded and pulled all over him, but he couldn’t open his eyes.

  “Bury them,” he whispered into the abyss.

  Chapter 33

  Vann Xan looked down at the choking pile of meat. Exposed muscles twitched in the few places they hadn’t disintegrated. Blood dripped from the chair that the mass was vegetating in, coating the different colored buttons and bulbs in dark red. The lights blinked, unlike the seeping brother whose every breath threatened to be his last.

  “Bury…” it sputtered beneath the facemask.

  He kneeled beside his brother. “Canis! You can’t die. You’re not supposed to die!”

  Something ruptured and another slow trickle of blood oozed. The thing’s skin lost color and fell quiet. The edges of flesh recoiled in Blackrose’s tepid air, the tips as black as the inbred hearts that had been surviving there for centuries.

  He doesn’t have long. Canis, we can’t lose you. The Scourge are gone, but we still need a leader.

  Canis Rayne’s shape wheezed and shook.

  “How does this thing work?” Vann yelled as he searched the chair, yanking at tubes fixed to its sides.

  “Don’t ask me,” Thorne said. “I know as much as you do.”

  He pressed his hand underneath the mask where Canis’ face once was. “He’s cold.”

  They jammed the pipes and hoses wherever they could find an opening. The lump didn’t move, resist, or make a noise as they entered him.

  “Is that right?”

  Vann shook his head. “I don’t know. The ones I used on the Herald were different. Over there, flip the switch and pull that lever.”

  Thorne tried to pull the massive lever. “It’s stuck.”

  Vann ran over and placed his hand on top of hers. “On three. One. Two. Three!”

  They put their weight into the motion and pulled the grinding mechanism down. The machine rumbled and increased its rotation. Static crackled in the warming air. Warmth erupted from vents around them.

  They stared at the thing in the chair. Thorne put her hand over her mouth. Tiny, minute threads wriggled out of Canis’ mangled thigh. One crept across the exposed bone and sinew, trying to find the other edge of the wound. It spanned the gap and latched into another fiber, pulling itself tight, starting to weave the injury shut.

  He felt his brother’s face again. “It’s working. He’s starting to warm!” Vann hugged Thorne but got nothing back. She was as cold as Canis’ dying body had been.

  More threads wove together. The flow of blood started but stayed inside the veins. Color drifted back into the skin.

  “Come back to us, Canis,” Vann said.

  “Ho—” Canis murmured.

  Relief washed over him in an awesome wave. Nothing could kill Canis. Nothing. He smiled and turned to hug Thorne again, but a cold, smooth stab of betrayal slid into the side of his neck, turning hot in an instant. Thorne pushed the dagger in as far as the handle. He brushed his hand against it. Something slick stuck to his fingers. It clotted as he rubbed them together.

  He strained his neck and gazed into her eyes. The wound opened, and he dropped onto his knees.

  The machine whirred down as Thorne flicked a switch. Canis’ murmurs quieted.

  Thorne dropped the knife onto the floor, next to his feet.

  “Why?” Vann choked.

  “It hurts me to have to do this,” Thorne said in a whisper. “But you boys led those things in here. You got my mother killed; all that I knew and all that I loved is gone.” Her eyes welled, but it wasn’t for him. “We were happy before you came along.”

  Vann’s breathing picked up but was shallow. His body struggled to replace the oxygen seeping from his neck.

  She stood, her arms folded. “Canis died a hero. And in your grief, you took your own life, loyal brother that you were.”

  His face went cold, and he slumped over. The red puddle grew as it mixed with Canis’ blood.

  “But don’t worry, the people will be safe.” She smiled. “In your last gasps, you said Tarosh and I would lead. You said we would stay in Blackrose and rule all the Companies, united at last. We’re not going anywhere. And it’s all thanks to you, big’uns.”

  She turned on her heels and strode out of the chamber, back to the crowd waiting for news of their savior, the Butcher’s Cleaver tied to her back. The glow disappeared as she left them behind. Vann looked at the switch in control of the machine. Too far away.

  Something moved on Canis’ head, and Agrim the spider emerged, its singed body twiggy with the loss of hair. Its legs contracted, and it dived through the air. It hit the machine, just above the switch and, as it slid down, it flicked the machine back on.

  Agrim curled up into a ball on its back. The clock tower donged, and Vann shut his eyes. The machine fired up as the last beat of his heart echoed in his ears. Vann faded to black, just the dull ringing of the clock tower in his ears.

  The End

  Publisher’s Note

  Please help this author's career by posting an honest review wherever you purchased this book.

  About Christian Leese

  Christian Leese has had six short stories published, and now feels like it’s the right time to put that experience into his novels. He believes that writing for himself, and what he’s passionate about, is the purest form of fiction, and invites his readers to enjoy the dark worlds he creates.

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