by A J Dalton
‘Now, my dear, I would like you to start resurrecting our people just as I have shown you. With two of us at work, it will take half the time.’
She hesitated and looked at a place in the air not far from Lucius. He froze, so that he was almost stiller than the corpses around them. Had she sensed him? She must be a witch or sorceress! He felt a primeval terror and almost lost control of his bladder.
‘I see and hear him!’ her voice slithered around the crypt.
Please, no!
‘I see the young Guardian and a priest in an inn. The missing hero is Balthagar!’
‘Confirming what our Chancellor has already reported,’ Voltar said dismissively. ‘Is there nothing else? Really, my dear, your pet Guardian is proving to be of very little use. Perhaps your powers are not what I thought they were.’ He put a hand half around her slender neck and squeezed tenderly.
The swan-white woman looked up into the King’s face, her expression unchanging, unlined. ‘You are urgent, passionate,’ she sighed, her lips falling open.
The King’s adam’s apple fell and rose. He was not entirely resistant to her charms. ‘My dear!’ he warned.
‘Perhaps there is something. The priest mentions that Shakri has set them a task connected to their search for Balthagar.’
The King’s hand stopped caressing her throat. ‘He is a priest of Shakri? Did he join them in Corinus or on the road?’
‘I’m not sure. The young Guardian sleeps much. His mind is not a clear one and I struggle to distinguish stray thoughts from actual sights and sounds. He is often distracted by lustful thoughts, which is not surprising in one of his age. Do you want me to describe them to you?’
‘Later, later. What does She want of them?’ he wondered aloud. ‘I know the Scourge. His principles will not allow him to betray me. So why would She approach him? Perhaps the priest was actually speaking figuratively about his calling rather than referring to a specific task. Is that possible?’
‘Perhaps,’ she conceded.
‘Whether he was or not, we should expect Shakri to attempt to influence events in some way. It is the way of all the gods. We must continue to be vigilant. Come, there is still work to be done here.’
Lucius started and the King’s eyes went straight to him. Lucius was trapped and mesmerised by the black gaze and began to fall into the void.
‘Help me!’ he pleaded and covered his face with his hands.
‘Who are you?’ demanded the King, the voice booming inside Lucius’s head.
He was on his knees. ‘Just a hauler, Sire, just a hauler!’ Tears trickled from his tightly squeezed eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Sire! I never meant to intrude.’
‘Do not be afraid. Stand up,’ Voltar said more gently. ‘Good. Now, tell me what you have seen here.’
He trembled. ‘A m-miracle, Sire! You have the power of the gods themselves, the power to create life! Sire, at first I thought I witnessed necromancy, but then realised the soldier was fully alive.’
The King’s expression was unreadable. ‘And you understand I have the power to take life as well? For, you see, you have seen and heard things that would be of interest to my enemies. Tell me, do you have any other use in this world apart from hauling dead bodies?’
Lucius knew his life depended on his next answer. His mind raced and his mouth opened and closed without any words coming out. He stared at his King, paralysed by panic and conflicting emotions. This was the man that every inhabitant of Dur Memnos was sworn to serve, but this man was now threatening to kill him. What reason was there to serve Him any longer? What reason?
Smiling, the white sorceress drifted closer, apparently amused by his predicament. ‘Careful!’ she mouthed at him.
What reason?
‘M-music!’ he stammered.
‘M-music?’ mimicked the King.
‘I play the greater lute. A master player… Sire!’
‘Well, well, who’d have thought it? Things have been a bit slow round here of late. We could do with some entertainment. It has been many years since we’ve had a royal musician. I might even have you compose a piece in my honour. What do you think, my dear?’
She glided ever nearer to Lucius. ‘I like him. What is your name, musician?’
‘Lucius.’
‘Lucius, will you pledge yourself to me?’
‘I would not be worthy, ma’am!’
The King chortled. ‘It seems your powers cannot create any allure for our simple and honest musician.’
‘Do you not find me attractive, Lucius?’ the white sorceress asked unhappily.
‘Ma’am, I could not… It would not be right! I cannot even think that way,’ Lucius said with shock.
‘I’m sure your music will soothe my lady in her distress, Lucius. Best not to say anymore about it for now.’
‘Yes, Sire!’ Lucius said with a clumsy bow to the dark King and His white lady. He wondered if they would ever let him out of their sight without a guard. He wondered if he would ever be free again.
***
The Scourge had them leave Holter’s Cross at a gallop. The hooves of their horses struck sparks on the stones of the King’s Road. Nostracles’s habit billowed around him like a ship’s sail. He feared he would be plucked from his saddle and thrown up to the heavens. He clung on grimly and managed to stay up with the two Guardians, who were the more experienced riders.
Young Strap’s horse was ahead by a nose and seemed to delight in being given its head. The Scourge’s horse was bigger and heavier, but it was sure-footed and bore down on the younger horse with all the thunder and inevitability of one of Shakri’s own herd. Where the Scourge’s mount was all brutal experience and unexcitable wisdom, Young Strap’s colt was unfettered enthusiasm and leaping passion.
And the younger pair led.
‘Will you betray me, dray?’ the Scourge challenged his destrier. It heard him and stretch its stride beyond what was sensible. They gradually gained and then drew level.
The small crossroads rushed up to them suddenly and the Scourge pulled on his reins with a shout of ‘Here!’ The dray bunched its back legs and lowered its rump, spinning to a pinpoint stop. Young Strap’s colt shot onwards pell-mell and took twenty yards to slow to a speed where it could turn and come back to them. The dray looked smug and neighed loudly. The colt came with head lowered. Both mounts were blowing hard, however, and were drenched in a sweaty foam.
Nostracles’s mount had stopped not far from the dray and stood looking unimpressed. It was less spent than the other two and over a longer distance would doubtlessly have overhauled the other two.
‘Phew! That cleared the cobwebs!’ Young Strap yelled with the fire of adrenaline in his eyes. The look was more commonly known as Shakri’s touch, and it made the priest smile to see it. Perhaps the white sorceress struggled to keep a firm grip on this one.
‘The bodies of the mercenaries are over there,’ responded the Scourge, tolerance for once softening the set of his features. ‘Let’s see if you remember how to read a battlefield, Young Strap.’
‘Yes, of course,’ replied the young Guardian, a certain seriousness overtaking him now. He dismounted and walked his horse across the ground towards the area of churned up mud. He was careful to disturb as few of the footprints and hoofprints as possible.
The scene was shocking in its banality; as were all such scenes. Human life was meant to have significance, but all there was here was cold lumps of meat in the mud. Still, it provided sustenance for worms and crows, Nostracles reflected. And all sorts of creatures fed off worms in their turn, and so on.
‘A waste of life in many ways,’ the priest said out loud. ‘But mercenaries have always lived on borrowed time.’
Young Strap shooed away a crow that was perched on the upturned face of one of the mercenaries and pecking at an exposed eye. It squawked angrily and reluctantly left without its prize. It performed a winged hop that took it some ten metres away and stood watching Young Strap beadily.
&n
bsp; Crouched by one of the bodies, Young Strap commentated for them: ‘There is not as much blood as one would expect. Only one has fallen to blades. The others: a broken neck, a crushed throat and crushing blows for two of them. So, one, possibly two, killed by someone with their bare hands. This body was struck up through the chin by what looks like a staff. The angle tells us the staff-wielder was on foot, and the mercenary horsed. By the number of hoofprints, it looks like there were only three or so fighting the six mercenaries, as the captain told you. The staff-wielder must have had extraordinary strength and speed to survive amongst a group of mounted adversaries.’
The Scourge nodded. ‘Good, Young Strap. From what I can tell, there weren’t even nine horses. It looks like the staff-wielder arrived on foot. See there, only two sets of hoofprints leaving that way. Kate will have been the one to shoot the captain and dice that one up, but not the strength and speed to overwhelm armed mercenaries with her bare hands. I’m guessing that the staff-wielder killed four of them.’
‘But what manner of individual could do this?’ Nostracles asked. ‘Surely such an explosion of elemental violence and savagery is supernatural.’
‘I’m not sure,’ the Scourge admitted. ‘I have seen men possessed of a rare insanity when fighting. But they are men who are known and avoided on the battlefield. Their fame spreads quickly. It makes me think it is Balthagar, but it would be a bizarre coincidence for him to be here. And it would mean a necromancer and his animee travelling with a Guardian, which is impossible. Besides, no animee in my experience has been able to move so quickly.’
‘Is there some other hero who may have deserted?’ Young Strap asked.
The Scourge shook his head. ‘Doubtful. They are honoured greatly by the Crown, with lands and households. Few would leave their families behind. And most are too well known to get far were they to flee.’
‘What is clear, then,’ Nostracles summarised, ‘is that there is great magic and or coincidence at work here. Do you believe in great coincidences, you Guardians?’
‘Ha!’ the Scourge exclaimed with contempt. ‘Coincidences happen, but there’s usually a cause to them, like divine interference. We may have free will, but we do not have control or the whole picture. The gods cheat, basically.’
‘What?’ asked the priest in confusion.
‘They cheat. They pretend we have free will, but we never get the chance to use it to affect anything of real importance. They engineer events so that we serve their ends while they squabble pettily and struggle for power against each other. In the final reckoning, we owe them nothing!’
‘They are divine,’ the priest said softly. ‘The divine is mysterious, for it is greater than Man and beyond simplistic, mortal understanding. But I hear your words and will think upon them further. They disturb me very much.’
‘Priest, they disturb me as well. They make me angry and defiant. They drive me onwards, so let’s be going. Young Strap, do you have blessed water for the bodies?’
The young Guardian nodded, but Nostracles said, ‘I will bless the bodies. It will have the same effect but be quicker. Aren’t we going to bury the bodies?’
‘The patrols from Holter’s Cross will deal with that.’
A minute later, they were tracking hoofprints and a single set of footprints into empty, rutted fields. The spoor became almost invisible on the over-farmed, loose surface here, but the Scourge was expert at interpreting scuffs and smudges. The wide fields stretched as far as the eye could see, all the way to the horizon, where the vague outline of the Needle Mountains could be seen. The mountains were the natural barrier between Dur Memnos and Accritania, and the route the companions followed headed straight for them.
By unspoken agreement, they began to pick up their pace, until they hit a part of the field that was unnaturally still. The silence was heavy and almost palpable. The horses shied and the riders had to work hard to bring them under control. The air was so thick that they laboured for breath and found their movements slowing.
‘What’s that over there?’ Young Strap whispered.
‘Whatever it is, it’s evil,’ the Scourge asserted.
‘This is a bad place, we should leave.’
‘Sorry, priest, that’s not how it works,’ came the Scourge again. ‘Guardians are sworn to dispel all that is unholy from the land of the living. We cannot leave this if it might entrap others.’
‘Another blessing?’ Nostracles asked and began to chant as the Scourge nodded.
The black pool of blood began to flow towards the arching ribcage and jumble of bones in the middle of the cursed area, and began to coat them thickly. The gaps disappeared and a distinct body-shape began to emerge.
‘I take it that’s not supposed to happen,’ the Scourge hazarded. ‘Young Strap, your water!’
Uncorking his bottle, Young Strap sloshed temple water out over the blackened ground. It hissed on contact with the darkness, which began to run more quickly towards the reconstitution taking place. The ground shook and soil began to be dragged up and over the figure like a thick layer of flesh.
‘This is not good,’ the Scourge said, drawing his sword. ‘Young Strap, your bow!’
The earth golem began to stir and rose up unnaturally, not a single limb bending. Its head bore no features save for cracks and crumbling planes. Nonetheless, a crack widened and became a mouth of sorts.
‘Ahh! I must thank Shakri for enabling my animation,’ it mulched. ‘I can’t see you. Come closer.’
‘You do not need to see us. Where are you from?’
The golem turned towards the Scourge’s voice. ‘I am Gart. I have always been here. I am the mountains and the soil. I am ancient beyond the reckoning of every living thing. Bow to me!’
‘Gart! God of the earth,’ Nostracles supplied.
Was it his imagination or was the thing growing bigger? ‘You wouldn’t see us bow even if we did, according to what you’ve said. And if we were to grovel before you, would you come forwards and bury us?’
‘I need nourishment!’ belched Gart. ‘Where are the farmers who sacrificed to me before? You will supplicate yourselves to the god of the earth or there will be no harvest, only famine!’
Gart was at least seven feet tall now, almost as wide and beginning to hulk over them with boulder-like shoulders and fists. The Scourge chopped his hand towards the golem and Young Strap let fly with his bow.
The arrow struck the mass deep in the chest, but it didn’t seem to notice. Where the feathered flight protruded, the earth chewed and reduced the shaft to nothing but splinters.
‘Oops! Bit of a problem here, Old Hound.’
The Scourge spat at the ground and kicked his destrier forwards, first into a canter and then a flat run. He slashed with his sword into the apparent head of the earthen behemoth. His blow was hard and straight, and managed to cleave a section the size of a water melon off the top of its head. Gart seemed unaffected and turned ponderously after the horse, although much too late.
The Scourge circled back round, jumped from the horse and stuck his sword almost up to the hilt in Gart’s back. The weapon jammed and the Scourge put one boot on the thing’s arse to try and find the leverage to pull the blade free. Instead of trying to turn, Gart’s body reshaped itself so it was facing the Scourge.
‘Look out!’ Young Strap screamed as the golem toppled over on top of the older Guardian and covered him in a huge pile of earth.
Frantically, Nostracles reached inside his cumbersome robe and clamped his hand around the lightning jade amulet his master had given him. He called on Shakri for strength and a jade green wave of bio-energy rolled forth from where he stood, to engulf the combatants.
The wave dissipated and everything was still for long seconds. Then the earth bucked and heaved and thick roots burst up through the earth to start churning it up.
Now Gart roared with pain and rage. A small man-shape of earth formed but was grabbed by the living roots, dragged back down and broken up. Moments late
r, two bodies were brought to the surface: a struggling and netted, black, dripping skeleton; and the still, cradled Scourge.
Nostracles ran to the prone Guardian and touched him on the forehead with a finger, moving back once he began to show signs of life. The Scourge’s eyes snapped open and he leapt to his feet, looking only slightly dazed. The hilt of his half-buried sword stood out of the ground conveniently nearby and he hastily pulled it free. He stalked towards the glistening creature caught in the web of roots and tendrils.
‘You are no god!’ he accused. ‘Who are you?’
It actually laughed at him. ‘No matter, I shall take your skin for my own instead!’
‘Answer me, or I will immediately dispatch you back to the realm from which you came.’
It gurgled in its throat, but what the sound signified it wasn’t clear. ‘Do you seek to bargain with me?’
‘Wait!’ Nostracles said to pre-empt the King’s Scourge. ‘I suspect this is a demon. Do not say anything more, Guardian, for it will try to entrap you. Demon, we will make no bargain or concession on any count, and there will be no exceptions. Either speak as we wish it or be dispatched.’
The creature gnashed its teeth and sought to spit venom at the priest, but finally conceded, ‘Phyrax is my name for all the good it will you. The likes of you do not have the power to banish me.’
Nostracles smiled. ‘Then you will be dismembered and sunk deep in the earth in separate pieces. You will be held in impotent limbo until the earth ends or is torn asunder.’
Young Strap looked at the priest in horror. By contrast, the Scourge wore a new-found respect for their priestly companion and gave an approving nod: ‘I like it! We’ll make a Guardian of yet, priest!’
‘Wait! There are secrets I can tell you,’ promised the sly demon. ‘What Lacrimos plans, when each of you is meant to die, what my master knows of him whom you seek, and the location of the Heart. More than this, I can tell you how the spirits of your parents fare!’
The last was addressed to the Scourge, whose face became like granite. ‘Priest?’