by J. M. Martin
The group was up at first light and on the trail shortly after. Gryl said nothing as they made ready, gnawing on the salted meat Mihir had provided to break their fast. It was hardly a meal yet it might well have been a feast as far as Gryl was concerned.
Brant met him with a broad smile as he climbed out of his tent and went about his preparations, casting amused glances Gryl’s direction at every opportunity. Kel had been just the opposite. He never once looked Gryl’s way, his chin seemingly woven to his tunic. He hurried to get ready and shuffled off the moment the group started on. Gryl’s anger, only muted from the night before, simmered as he fell in line. Though he still felt the tingles of weakness dancing through his skin, the gruel and rations had returned some measure of his energy. He glared at the back of Brant’s head as they traveled, Damien and Kel bookending him at either side.
Mihir hovered close to Gryl, making small talk as though hoping to defuse his anger. It worked, to a degree as he blathered on about the mission amongst the more mundane topics. They’d set out from Cantor, Mihir said, a small fort set upon the sword line, the group charged with returning the head of an escaped convict, though he knew little more. The constant prattle of the knight’s voice kept Gryl from dwelling on the sergeant and what he’d do to the man once he regained his strength.
The sun had crept nearly halfway across the sky behind its mask of gray and rumbling black clouds before Damien raised a fist to bring the group to a halt. Mihir’s voice in his ears, Gryl hadn’t heard anything until the talkative knight went silent. As soon as he did, a duet of raspy grunts resounded from somewhere ahead, distorted by the labyrinth of jutting, snow-covered stones that made up the gateway to Jiorn. The noise echoed through the afternoon still, striking a chord with Gryl. A tenuous hum danced inside his skull.
There were Thrak ahead.
Brant and Damien seemed to recognize it as well. They shifted their packs from their shoulders and eased their swords free of their scabbards. Gryl did the same, Mihir following their example a moment later. Brant handed one of the dead knight’s swords to Kel, but it was clear he was uncomfortable with it. It looked overlarge in his hand, his forearm sagging with its weight. Brant was heedless of the boy’s discomfort, though Gryl expected nothing less.
The sergeant crept along the narrow pathway between the sharpened stones that rose from the ground like fangs. The rest of the group followed, Kel hovering close to Brant despite the fear that stiffened the boy’s spine.
They wound their way through the rocky maze until Brant dropped before a jagged outcrop, staring at something just over the other side. Gryl squeezed in alongside Damien and spotted two berserkers digging at the snow at the center of a tiny clearing. One’s back was turned toward the group while the other sat facing them, though its view was blocked by its horde mate. They seemed oblivious to the world around them.
Brant raised a hand for the group to make ready as Gryl stared at the beasts, the pressure in his head growing. He had never seen the creatures so distracted before. He wondered if the Thrak were becoming as desperate as he had, scouring the land for sustenance as the Shytan population dwindled above the line, the populace either dead or having retreated. With only so much readily available supplies, he had to imagine the Thrak were beginning to burn through their food sources.
The sergeant gave him no more time to wonder. He slipped between the stones and charged at the berserkers, Damien and Kel in tow. Gryl hissed and ran after. Mihir was on his heels. The nearest Thrak stood and sniffed the air, whirling about just as Brant cleaved an oozing river across its chest. The beast roared and stumbled back, knocking the second one into the snow.
Damien and Kel dove on the berserker, flailing away with their swords as it lashed out at them with its claws, its bone blade swinging from a leathern hook at its belt. Brant and the other two drove it back, knocking aside its frantic attacks and meeting each with steel. The berserker bellowed, its voice echoing through the hills. The beast at its back scrambled and got its feet beneath it just as Brant hewed the leg of its companion.
The Thrak stumbled and fell to its knees, shrieking in rage and agony, spewing blood from the cavernous maw of its throat. Damien drove his sword into the gaping hole and twisted, ripping the blade free with a grunt. The Thrak’s scream melted into a wet gurgle. It fell back clutching at its spurting neck, convulsing as its life spilled from its wounds.
The second Thrak growled and spun. Without looking back, it darted up a step path that snaked its way up the hill.
“After it,” Brant shouted, the shrill edge of laughter tingeing his voice. The knight barreled up the hill after the berserker, Damien right behind with Kel a few short paces to their rear.
A crushing fist seized Gryl’s guts. His head throbbed, a sense of chaos warring for reason. He stumbled to a stop and stared after the fleeing beast, cursing his muddled thoughts. Mihir went to run past, but Gryl snaked a hand out and seized his arm, stopping the knight short.
The hum nagged.
“We need to help them,” Mihir said, though he did nothing to shake loose of Gryl’s hold. He remained silent for a short moment before asking, “What is it?”
Gryl ignored him, following the trail of the Thrak with his eyes. It had just slipped from sight behind a wall of rocky spires. Brant and the others were a short distance behind it, the berserker much lighter on its feet than its bulk suggested. Just as the knights and Kel dropped from sight behind the stone wall, Gryl’s mind slid the pieces into place. His eyes went wide as he surveyed the terrain.
“They didn’t draw their swords,” he muttered, the words tumbling from his lips in a jumbled heap.
Mihir yanked his arm loose in a panic. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Thrak never flee,” Gryl said as he slammed his sword into his sheath and bolted for the rocky face of the hill ahead.
“Wait,” Mihir shouted at his back. “Don’t leave me here,”
The words barely registered as Gryl leapt to the first of the rocks, his fingers clasping for leverage. Muscles screamed at the sudden exertion, flashes of pain spearing his shoulder blades as he scampered up the slick stones. The hum filled his head as he climbed, finally easing to a dull whisper as he grew accustomed to it. He had hoped to never hear its song again. The sound mocked him, as though laughing at his foolishness. He growled in reply as he made his way up the hill, each handhold an icy blade that threatened to rob him of his hands, but he pushed on.
His eyes traced the path he’d laid out from below, his body pulled along by the strings of his will, his fingers numb despite his gloves. He cared nothing for Brant and had no opinion of Damien, though the knight had offered him no offense, but it was Kel who drove him on. While death awaited the knights at the top of the hill, the boy’s suffering at the hands of Brant would be a pleasant dream compared to what was to come.
A Thrak loosed a roar above and Gryl heard the muted clang of a weapon slamming into the steel of armor. The harsh grunt of a man followed, the berserker shrieking its displeasure.
The trap was sprung.
Gryl clambered up the last few horse-lengths of the hill leaving spots of blood and pieces of flesh in his hurry as he slithered along the rock wall. Time had run out.
He grasped at the ledge and pulled himself over the lip of stone that separated him from the scene below. His heart wailed at what he saw—what he had hoped to never see again.
An Avan sorceress stood at the center of a blackened circle, its lines drawn with the cooling ichor of a Thrak berserker, which lay desiccated and discarded in the snow just feet from where the sorceress chanted. Glyphs and sigils painted in red ran the length of the inside circle.
The woman preened, straight-backed and tall, confident in her superiority. Her purple robes clashed against the solemn whiteness of the hill, her shorn scalp glistening in the gloom. Gnarled hands traced invisible shapes in the air. Gryl’s gaze fell back to the circle. It was a conduit, the sorceress amplifying her energies in pr
eparation. It was the circle that had alerted Gryl to her presence.
His hands shook at seeing it, memories threatening to overwhelm him. He had been murdered within such a circle and reborn in its embrace, time and time again, the ritual purification feeding him with agony until he could devour no more. That was what the sorceress had in store for Kel.
Gryl glanced over at the boy. Kel had fallen to his knees, his hands clasping at trails of red that stained his tunic. To Gryl, the wounds looked shallow, but they were only the beginning of the boy’s suffering if the sorceress had her way.
Lying beside Kel, Damien floated in pool of his own blood, clouds of steam billowing around him. A bone blade jutted from his skull. Its flesh-wrapped pommel quavered above as though a flag pole driven to ground. He was the lucky one, death having come swiftly to collect him.
Just a few feet behind them, Brant whipped his falchion overhand and slammed it, again and again, into the last of the Thrak’s who’d fled. The butcher’s block thump sang out against the rocky walls. Covered in blood, thick rivulets running down his frame, the sergeant kicked the berserker’s carcass aside. He screamed at the sorceress, crimson streamers dangling from his lips as he stumbled toward her.
“I’ll kill you, whore.”
The sorceress only grinned, her fluttering movements stilling. Darkness welled about her hand as she held it out toward Brant. Before Gryl realized what she intended, bolts of ebony screamed from her fingertips. Nowhere to run, the sergeant reached out for anything to shelter behind.
His hands found Kel.
He yanked the boy in front of him just as the bursts of energy hit. Kel screamed, spears of blackness piercing his flesh. Held fast by Brant, he writhed beneath the virulent caress, skin peeling back in waves. When the spell broke, Kel tumbled from the knight’s grip and slumped to the ground. Brant staggered off in a daze, wisps of black smoke wafting off him. After a few steps, he fell, as well.
The acrid scent of charred meat slithered into Gryl’s nose as he launched himself at the sorceress.
“No!”
His voice echoed across the clearing though he hadn’t realized he’d yelled.
The sorceress spun, surprise rippling across her features. If she recognized Gryl for what he was he would never know. His throwing blade punctured her eye, burying itself deep in the well of her skull. He landed just short of where she stood and drew his sword across her throat as he darted past. The sullen whump of her body collapsing sounded at his back as he rushed to examine the boy, his sword sheathed before the sorceress hit the ground.
Gryl’s heart sputtered at what he saw.
Kel’s clothing had been burned away to expose the entirety of his misery. Blackened pustules covered his exposed flesh like a swarm of giant beetles, their ashen mounds quivering as though possessed of a life of their own. The boy gasped when Gryl knelt beside him. His every breath, shallow and sharp, sounded like his last but still the next one came, and the one after that. Gryl cursed the boy’s stubborn defiance and looked to his eyes. The lids had melted away, leaving nothing to hide the bubbled mass of ruin that sloshed inside the sockets. Gryl felt his own eyes well up, tears warming his cheeks as he looked down on the wreckage of the boy.
“Did you get her?”
Gryl’s tears stilled when he heard the knight’s raspy voice. He looked up from the boy to see Brant digging at the snow in an effort to sit up. While his skin had been scorched by the sorceress’ spell, he had escaped its full wrath, hidden as he’d been behind Kel.
A low growl slipped from Gryl as he rose and went to stand in front of the sergeant.
“Well, did you, skeg?”
Brant struggled to his elbows with a grunt, still unable to see across the clearing to where the Avan sorceress lie dead. His dark eyes settled on Gryl. The sergeant’s baleful smile was smeared with a layer of soot, but it shone through. Among all the myriad scrapes and crusted wounds, which covered his face, there was nothing there that resembled remorse.
Gryl grabbed the knight’s throat, sinking his fingers in deep as he pushed the man to his back. Brant’s eyes went wide as Gryl yanked his long dagger free, the blade shimmering in the reflected pallor of the cold north. The sergeant stiffened as the knife drew closer, but Gryl had no intention of letting him slip away so easily.
With the tip of the blade, Gryl split the sleeve of his tunic, opening it from his wrist to his elbow. As he peeled the fabric back, Brant sputtered against his grip, seeing the woven patchwork of scars revealed, but Gryl held him fast. Weakened by the sorceress’ blast despite what he’d done, there was no escape for the sergeant. Gryl grinned at that thought.
He set the tip of the dagger to one of his scars and the mass squirmed as though a worm slithered beneath the skin. Warmth throbbed up the length of his arm. Brant struggled, his pulse pounding against his temples, face reddening. He cursed, but the words came out as phlegmy gurgles.
The blade sank into Gryl’s savaged flesh and carved out a single line of scar tissue, a layer of skin peeling back beneath the knife with ease. It came loose in a ragged rectangle. Dots of red appeared on the meat beneath, but no blood flowed. Gryl speared the piece of flesh on the tip of his knife and shifted his other hand from Brant’s throat to his jaw. He ground his thumb and forefinger into the joints as the sergeant gasped for breath, forcing his mouth open. A deft flick of his wrist spun the dagger about. Gryl slid the blade into Brant’s mouth, driving the carven flesh into the back of his throat. The sergeant swallowed on instinct, the scar tissue sucked into his stomach with a retching gasp.
“You’ll torment no more children.”
Gryl pulled his blade free and shook the bloody spittle from the blade, releasing Brant. The knight coughed and clasped at his throat, desperately drawing in air.
“No!” Mihir screamed as he staggered up the rise to see Gryl standing over the sergeant. “Don’t kill him.”
“I hadn’t intended to.” Gryl laughed and slid his dagger into its sheath. “Death would be a mercy. He doesn’t deserve such kindness.” He spit on the knight and stepped away.
Mihir stood his ground and stared as Gryl returned to Kel. The boy still breathed, though that was hardly a kindness. Gryl reached beneath Kel and scooped him into his arms, waxen skin peeled away at the slightest touch. The boy moaned but unconsciousness was his sanctuary. He didn’t awaken.
Brant thrashed in the snow, kicking up a mist of white powder and crystalline stars. Deep, guttural groans spilled from him as his fingers clawed at his chest, bloody streaks smeared across his armor. His wild eyes bulged, shimmering with an eerie, emerald hue. He stared unseeing at the billowing sky, drool splattering his lips and chin as he howled. The bitter stink of urine filled the air.
“What did you do to him?” Mihir asked, terror drawing a mask across his features. He stepped away as Gryl drew closer.
“I gave him a taste of agony.”
Gryl started down the path, his burden hanging limp in his arms. Brant’s cries swelled to shrieks that reverberated through the maze of stone. The sound followed Gryl toward the horizon, but with every step it fell further behind until it faded away.
Through it all, the boy breathed on.
What Gods Demand
James A. Moore
The Empire of Fellein has reigned in relative peace for hundreds of years. The legends told by the people speak of a First Empire and the greatest city ever known to mankind, Korwa. According to the tales Korwa was destroyed in the distant past in an epic battle so intense that it destroyed part of the world and created the Blasted Lands. There might be some truth to the legends. Not long ago explorers from Fellein found the distant Seven Forges mountain range, deep in the Blasted Lands and also discovered, to their surprise, that the area within that range is inhabited by people called the Sa'ba Taalor. The gray-skinned people from the distant realm have come to Fellein and, since that moment, a war has been building. Swech is one of the Sa'ba Taalor, chosen by her gods to hide among the huma
ns and do the will of her deities.
~
The Sa’ba Taalor have very few rules. First among them, however, is never disobey the gods. That would never happen with Swech.
Swech Tothis Durwrae served all of the Daxar Taalor—the gods of the Seven Forges—without hesitation. She had her favorites, of course. Paedle, who believed that wars could be won without the use of warriors, and Wrommish, who believed that the body was the finest of weapons.
She agreed with both of the gods, and she served them as loyally as any child has ever served a loving parent. Though if the truth were to be completely revealed, she could have done without her current predicament.
She was standing on a rooftop in a foreign town that she barely knew, stalking one of the men walking below her, and wearing the wrong body. She bore the flesh of a different woman; it was only her spirit that remained unchanged. With a thought she could even change her memories—as if she were moving behind a veil and watching the world through someone else’s eyes. Swech remained in charge of the body at all times, the other woman was dead, killed by Swech when she took the form—but she had access to a lifetime that had nothing to do with her own. It was an enlightening experience.
The Daxar Taalor liked to challenge their followers, to sharpen them as a whetstone sharpens an edge, but there was a part of her that wondered about the wisdom behind their actions.
The city was Canhoon, often called the “Old Capitol.” In appearance Canhoon was much like Tyrne, the Summer City. As Tyrne had been designed to look as much like Canhoon as possible that was not surprising.
Canhoon was a vast place that was ancient well before Swech was born. The city was, in fact, one of the last remaining cities left from the time of the First Empire, which had been destroyed ten centuries earlier. There was history in every stone building and in the timeworn statuary that lurked near every building and often atop the older structures. She moved among those frozen forms, flittering from one shadow to the next as she eyed her potential targets.