by David Hair
Gyle sped up. Having Elena’s possessed body so close to him was deeply unpleasant. ‘Just a few more days, Rutt. Show some Korebedamned backbone.’
‘She’s whispering to me all the time,’ Sordell said, his voice catching like a frightened child’s. ‘I can’t stand it.’
‘Live with it.’ He forced himself to meet Sordell’s haunted eyes, making himself confront the fact that Elena was still in there. I loved her, part of him insisted. Love? another part responded. You’re not capable. Gyle ground his teeth. ‘I need you in there, Rutt. Do your damned job.’
‘I mean it. I’m going insane.’ Sordell raised his hands as if about to tear his own eyes out.
Gyle sniffed, wrinkled his nose. ‘You’ve been drinking, haven’t you? I told you not to, not today! Damn you, Rutt! You’re endangering us all!’ He whirled and stormed onwards.
*
Sordell tried to hurry, but the dimensions of this damned woman’s body were all wrong, and he stumbled again.
He wished – prayed – for something to drink. ‘Dear Kore …’
The tunnel had become some kind of nightmare made real, and he staggered about, lost and alone, stalked by things too frightening to confront. Some said that all men were born with one of two reactions to threat: retaliate, or run – but against the ghost inside his head he could do neither.
His evil dream only ended as he burst from that womb of darkness into a courtyard, barely lit by the red-streaked sky above. Dusk had come whilst they were underground. He blinked in the dim light, and looked about him warily. Those of the team who could be spared from other duties elsewhere were waiting: dapper little Mathis Drumm, an illusionist and dabbler in Morphic-gnosis, Mara Secordin, a bloated, ugly psychopath with billowing red hair coiled in thick tresses about her huge breasts, and the serious-faced Brevian Earth-mage Glynn Nevis, who’d been recruited barely a month ago. He loathed all of them. None were fit to lace his boots.
He flinched, as if an insect had flown at his face. Mara caught the gesture, and her teeth glinted. Those teeth weren’t human: Mara had taken the shape of a shark too often and she seldom managed to change fully back these days. It was part of her dangerous madness.
‘Why are we here?’ Mathis Drumm asked. ‘We have our orders already.’
‘You have,’ Gyle agreed. ‘This is about something else.’ He turned to Sordell. ‘Something has happened that you all need to know about.’
‘What would that be?’ Glynn Nevis asked diffidently. The Brevian didn’t like to look terribly interested in anything: he thought animation was childish. Bored aloof poise was fashionable in the northern parlours these days.
And you’re just a parlour mage, Nevis, Sordell sneered silently. Inside him, he felt Elena agree.
‘Our enemies have made a play – a major change to the game – and I have an eye-witness,’ Gyle told them. He raised a hand as if greeting the shadows. ‘Magister Sindon?’
Sordell flinched as the darkness disgorged a robed man. The newcomer wore the badge and colours of the Ordo Costruo, Sordell noted with some surprise. He flicked back his hood to reveal a placid, sensible face. The baldness of his head was offset by his thick beard. He looked more like a baker than a mage.
‘Magister Gyle,’ the man responded in a voice as grey as his beard.
Sordell looked about him, not liking this place. There were too many shuttered windows, too many blind spots; though the building appeared to be empty, he couldn’t be sure. Night was falling, but the street noises were distant.
He returned his attention to Sindon. The name was familiar; Stivor Sindon was one of Rene Cardien’s, a pro-Yuros faction of the Ordo Costruo. But no saint, apparently, not if he knew Gurvon.
Gyle half-turned so that he faced them all. ‘Magister Sindon and I are old acquaintances. He has news that has great bearing on the Crusade.’ Sordell heard something in Gyle’s voice that was seldom there: surprise. He noted that even Elena inside him was straining to hear what was being said.
Sindon looked about him, his face grave. ‘Thank you, Magister Gyle. I do indeed come with important tidings.’ He hung his head, and something like shock entered his voice. ‘The Ordo Costruo has been usurped by Rashid Mubarak. He has been elected Antonin Meiros’ successor.’
‘What?’ Sordell felt the words tumble from his mouth as his jaw dropped, and saw similarly stunned looks on all their faces, even Gurvon’s, and he had clearly already been told this news.
‘How?’ demanded Mathis Drumm, his orderly Brician world turned upside down. Not even Glynn Nevis looked bored at this news.
Sindon put his hands to his head as if struggling to speak. ‘Rashid Mubarak bought the votes of the majority, playing on the murder of Meiros as a Rondian plot. He now holds the Krak di Condotiori. Those of us who refused his leadership have fled.’
‘The man’s a serpent,’ Drumm declared.
Mara Secordin glared at that; she didn’t like people speaking impolitely of serpents. Of all those present, she seemed least affected by this surprise, but then she really had only one major emotion nowadays: hunger.
Sindon exhaled, shaking his head. ‘It sounds incomprehensible, but it is so. For myself, I refuse to accept his leadership, as do many others.’ He looked appealingly to Gyle. ‘Will you take us in?’
Gyle looked around at the other magi. ‘Magister Sindon, I think I speak for us all when I say that you are most welcome amongst us.’
‘How did Sindon know you were here?’ Mara asked suspiciously, twisting a thick tress of her scab-coloured hair.
‘He contacted me using a relay-stave, hoping I was still here in Antiopia,’ Gyle responded, and Sindon nodded in confirmation. ‘He felt I would be better able to provide sanctuary for his people than Betillon.’
‘Constant has no love for the Ordo Costruo,’ Nevis mused in his affectedly casual voice.
‘Quite,’ Sindon agreed. He turned to Gyle. ‘Might I bring in the others?’
‘Please do, Magister.’ Gyle was playing the benevolent host, the pitying healer offering succour in the man’s hour of need. Sordell had to suppress a smile of derision, then had a pleasing thought.
I wonder if there are any who have a suitable body for me …
Sindon turned and made a sign, and the door from which he’d emerged opened again, allowing more hooded figures to enter the courtyard, fanning out as they came. ‘Magister Gyle, we’re so grateful,’ Sindon said, offering his hand.
Sordell saw Gyle go to take the offered hand, when he abruptly froze.
*
At the very last moment, something didn’t ring true. Gurvon Gyle was in the very act of reaching out to clasp the hand of this man who’d hired him before and paid well, then he paused. It wasn’t Sindon so much as these newcomers: their robes were too bulky; they concealed too much.
Sindon’s pupils went wider. The game is up, those eyes said.
It is. Gyle swore softly. And I have too few pieces on the board.
‘Watch out—’ he began, then Sindon’s hand flashed vivid blue and a searing mage-bolt slammed into his shields – shields that hadn’t been there an instant before. His whole vision flashed in dazzling rainbow colours as an unseen force smashed him head over heels. All around him people started moving, but all he saw was the sky arc over his head, then he and his shields smashed into a pillar. They cushioned the impact some, but not entirely, and pain hammered through him as he felt his left collarbone crack.
As one
, the six newcomers opened their cloaks and discharged concealed crossbows; the bolts ablaze with gnosis-fire and aimed straight at Gyle’s team. Drumm went sideways as one bolt missed, but another impaled his shoulder and spun him around like a top. Two bolts exploded in Nevis’ chest and his rib-cage ignited, the bones lit from within. He flew backwards like a thrown toy, already dead.
Mara Secordin didn’t appear to move, but her hand shifted and then she was holding the bolt directed her way in her fingers; it flared, then disintegrated.
Sordell shouted loudly in denial, and the bolt directed his way froze in the air before clattering harmlessly to the tiles.
The attackers dropped their crossbows and advanced with swords and gnosis. Nevis was down and Drumm wobbling, so Gyle tried to concentrate on Sindon, who fired another gnosis-bolt at him. He blocked it, though not comfortably. He’s a half-blood, like me, he thought as he whipped out his own blade, seeking a wall to put his back to. One of the attackers, a young man, darted to his flank and threw a mage-bolt at him that he barely managed to deflect. Kore’s Blood, is that kid a pure-blood?
Then Sindon blasted at him again and as the rest of the attackers charged, their faces emerged from their hoods: Keshi, all of them, and screaming for Ahm to bless them. Rashid’s renegade Ordo Costruo, he thought frantically, then that hyper-powered boy flanking him stabbed like a striking snake and all he could do was parry and blast and parry, and try to survive.
*
Kazim roared and struck again, but the grey-clad Rondian was fast, faster than any man he’d fought, Rashid included. Gurvon Gyle. He’d not intended to use the gnosis, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. He could almost hear Rashid and Sabele cackling. But Gyle’s blade was flickering faster than sight, flinging up a net of steel that Kazim could not penetrate. He could feel Gyle countering with more than a sword, too: the mage’s gnosis was attacking him with seen and unseen blows. So far his simple gnostic lessons were sufficing, but he didn’t know how long he could last, and still he couldn’t land a blow.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a second Rondian go down: Gatoz cut a small bearded mage almost in half and blood gushed across the stone floor, slippery and treacherous. He sought better footing, though that left Gyle free to attack Sindon. Gyle’s steel flashed and battered against unseen shields and purple sparks lit the air around the Ordo Costruo mage.
Then the obese woman with the bloody red hair bellowed with rage, and her whole face changed. In a blur, her chin became an undershot jaw which opened wide as a man’s head. Her arms flashed out and she seized Yadri by the shoulders and pulled him to her. The young Hadishah mage barely had time to scream before she bit his throat out. Blood gushed over her chest as she flung the body away; the flesh missile bowled Jamil over.
Talid tried to strike at the other woman – Elena Anborn? – when purple light beamed from her hands into the young assassin’s face. For an instant the dark shape of his skull was visible, then Talid collapsed, his face withered away.
Their attack was coming apart, Kazim suddenly realised. The two women were still on their feet, and they were turning the tide. The fat woman had a look of mindless savagery on her face as she waddled towards Jamil. Kazim could see his friend was not badly hurt, but he was dazed, and that would be fatal. He had to get between them –but the other woman, Elena Anborn, was in his way … He gathered his courage, though the power that had destroyed Talid terrified him, and charged.
*
Sordell felt his blood rise as the tide turned. He wasn’t a warrior, but he enjoyed killing, and using the necromantic-blast to destroy the young Keshi was the best thing that had happened to him since he’d been put in Elena’s damned body. The problem was, Necromancy wasn’t Elena’s thing, so the effort had been costly. Suddenly the hours of drinking instead of learning how to use Elena’s body began to feel fatally stupid. Elena would have been dancing about, blade in hand, by now, but he’d not even drawn his weapon. At least he could rectify that. He gracelessly yanked out his sword as Mara, beside him, yowled.
The shutters surrounding the courtyard flew open and a torrent of bolts filled the air – all of them directed at her, Sordell realised. Kore be thanked. She slapped them away, then her hand whipped around and her gnosis battered Sindon across the courtyard, away from Gyle. Sindon’s body made a dent four feet wide in the brickwork, but he barely flinched. Then Sordell was forced to defend himself again as another attacker came at him.
This Keshi was a towering young man with athletic grace and a fanatic’s ferocity. Sordell threw up his hands and blocked the youth’s sword with shields alone, but the effort staggered him. He bought himself time by shoving the young assassin away with telekinesis, but somehow the youth resisted that too, though he was knocked off-balance. He’s magi too, Sordell realised with shock, and suddenly galvanised by the fear that he was burning too much power, he hacked at the youth. But he missed, and was forced to block another thrust …
Too. Fucking. Slow.
He stared stupidly at the foot of steel in his right shoulder, the curved blade like a half-moon. Icy numbness blossomed about the wound even as he tried to muster some kind of response.
The young man twisted the blade, and he screamed as the world tilted.
Stupid damned body, never worked for me anyway …
*
Kazim spun from his falling foe, yanked out his scimitar and slashed at the back of the monstrous red-haired woman. Unseen wards smacked his sword away, and then the steel itself warped in his hand. He gaped, uncomprehending, as the blade twisted, smoking hot in his hand. From the corner of his eyes he saw Sindon fling Gurvon Gyle all the way onto the roof, then leap after him, but it was the fat woman who filled his vision. They’d been briefed about her – Mara Secordin – but before he could remember if they’d said anything useful, she was on him like some Lakh demoness, an extra pair of arms – no, snakes! – erupting from her shoulder blades just above her arms and snapping at him. He lopped the head from one with his ruined scimitar, but the other one’s jaws clamped onto his shoulder. Fangs punched through the leather and punctured the muscle. He slashed again and managed to slice the snake-arm in half, but it evaporated as if it had never been and Mara barely winced.
Kazim staggered away from the demoness, the ruined blade falling from his hand as his shoulder went numb.
He lived through the next instant only because of Jamil, who shouted in defiance and thrust his sword at Mara. He didn’t kill her, but he did puncture her shields and cut her arm. Red blood spattered about her and she shrieked and turned towards Jamil.
Kazim saw his chance. I’ll just—
His legs wobbled as numbing pain shot down his shoulder and his right arm went limp. The blood on the tiles did the rest, and he slipped and fell beside the fallen Anborn woman as Mara Secordin drove Jamil back.
Suddenly he was struggling to manage even small things. Sight and sound became a confusing vortex behind his eyes. The world was receding, or he was. Is this death? Am I dying? He felt numb, and yet moving was all pain. He tried to stand, managed, but barely.
There was no one but dead people around him. Yadri and Talid, torn and blasted, motionless. The two Rondians, lifeless manikins. Sindon and Gyle were gone. Mara was pursuing Jamil through a door. Then he realised that Elena Anborn still lived …
I should finish her off, before she does the same to me—
He fumbled for a dagger as the woman stirred and her mouth fell open.
A black chitinous body like some obscene bloated beetle crawled from the woman’s mouth. It seemed to peer up at him, and purple light formed in its eyes. In a flash he recalled how Talid had died and so he backed away, fear overtaking all other emotions.
Without shame, he ran, on legs that wavered like a newborn colt’s.
*
Elena came up like a drowning man from beneath the surface of the ocean, fighting through the tumult, following the bubbles of light. She tasted a ghastly oily film as the
cavity in her upper mouth where the scarab had nested burst, followed by the iron-sugar sweetness of her own blood. Then everything, everything, came back and she was ALIVE and the body she dwelt in was HERS.
She rolled and slashed, but too slow. The scarab scuttled from her reach. She went after it, needing to killthefuckingfilthything …
Her blade struck sparks from the cobbles inches behind it, but the scarab reached the shadows and was gone before it even occurred to her to summon the gnosis. She howled in silent rage until sheer relief overtook her frustration.
I’m alive. I’m free. I’m ME …
She flooded her mouth and shoulder wound with healing-gnosis, clean, beautiful energy that was HERS ALONE. She spat pus and blood and then vomited out the sheer horror of the nightmare she’d escaped. Sordell was gone. She almost wept.
The courtyard had fallen into silence. She could taste the crisp metallic feel of gnosis on the air as light flashed outside. Mara Secordin was screaming blue murder, the beast in her let loose. Gurvon was out there, fighting Sindon; she didn’t know the traitor mage but she knew Gurvon, and she expected the Ordo Costruo man was in deep shit by now. Bodies lay all about her, unmoving. The last attacker had fled the scarab emerging from her mouth, and no blame for that. She rose, reeling at the effort. She’d closed the wound, but the blood-loss had been real, and thanks to that bastard Rutt Sordell, she was horribly out of condition.
I’ve got to run before Gurvon comes back.
She went out through a side window, blown open by Mara’s fury, and into the road. She knew roughly where she was, and where she had to get to. The streets were empty, in that way violence empties a place; she could sense folk cowering in dread behind their closed doors.
She ran, not fast – her wounds and blood-loss prevented that – and she didn’t look back. But she didn’t run blindly either.
Ahead of her, the young man who’d wounded Sordell was also running on unsteady feet. One of Mara’s snakes had bitten him. Dead man, part of her thought, but she followed him nevertheless, hoping to learn who these people were. The enemies of my enemies might be friends. Or not.