by Andy Remic
‘You must take it,’ said Volos. His voice was the ocean. Fathomless. ‘The challenge has been issued.’
‘Not by me it fucking hasn’t!’ snarled Callaghan. ‘Why? Why me? This is a fucking madness! What am I supposed to do, fight to the death? I'm no fucking warrior, I drive a Porsche, I’ve never held a sword in my life!’
‘Yes. You fight to the death.’ Volos met his gaze with an intensity that made Callaghan take a step back. ‘I can do nothing. It is the Law.’
‘Bull and shit!’
‘Take the sword, Callaghan. If you kill him, I am released from the Blood Bond. I will do the rest. Trust me. But... if not, then...’ he smiled sombrely. ‘You will be slaughtered where you stand.’
‘I cannot do this!’ hissed Cal, breath streaming from his mouth like dragon smoke. ‘Why? Why the fuck me? Why me, damn you?’
‘Because you are my apprentice,’ said Volos, simply.
‘Callaghan!’ Mia’s voice was weak. Feeble. Broken. He stared at her, naked, spread–eagled on the stone slab. Something clicked inside him. This place, these people, this world – it was all wrong. It was bad. Bad. An evil place in an evil time.
Cal smiled a cadaver smile. Gave a nod to internal dialogue.
‘OK.’
He reached out, taking the sword and Bronagh attacked instantly and with blistering speed, his blade scything in a smashing arc – Cal’s blade slashed up instinctively and there rang a discordant clash, iron grated iron, sparks disgorged in a shower. Cal staggered back under the brutal impact, his entire arm and shoulder numb from the blow. An involuntary cry erupted from his mouth – and Bronagh’s sword was there, a downward stroke that would have cleaved him in two from skull to balls. Cal twisted, his own weapon lashing out blindly and by some miracle of pure luck Bronagh’s weapon was deflected. Cal scrambled backwards, lifting the iron sword in both hands, eyes wide tongue dry mouth a tight grim line as understanding thumped him like a brick. There was no justice here. No mercy. Sweat beaded his brow. The whole thing felt like a surreal dream. This was it. Gladiatorial combat. To the death. There would be no second chance...
‘Kill him,’ urged Volos, eyes shining bright. ‘We will etch his bones. Send him to the Second Level.’ He moved back, towards the edge of the rocky basin. He seemed to fade from reality.
Ryan, also, had backed away; and Cal found himself alone, alone facing Bronagh.
In the entirety of his existence, he had never felt so alone.
Bronagh smiled behind the iron mesh of his helm.
It was a smile of arrogance. Of hate. Of loathing.
With a primal scream, Callaghan charged.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
VELA
BRONAGH LEAPT TOWARDS Callaghan. Their swords screamed. Sparks erupted. Bronagh twisted his blade and Cal almost lost his grip. The weapons slid together so Cal and Bronagh were mere inches apart. Cal could smell Bronagh’s stink; of sweat, of foul sex, of whisky. ‘I’m going to hurt you so bad,’ spat Bronagh, and the racist DI’s stained spittle drizzled Callaghan’s face. Cal said nothing. His arms were shaking with fatigue. In a sudden movement half–remembered from pub brawls, he brought his knee slamming up into that obscene erection and Bronagh staggered back, not in pain for the blow had no real power, but in shock and stinging numbness. Callaghan swung his sword clumsily, missing, then again on the return sweep. Bronagh’s sword batted Cal’s blade easily aside, turning the weapon into the snow and lashing up to miss Callaghan’s face by a hair’s breadth.
Again, Cal stumbled away and Bronagh grinned at him.
‘You’re going to sing so sweet, boy-o,’ said Bronagh.
‘Show me,’ snapped Callaghan, losing his temper. Again, he was here, a victim in the place of the weak and the despised. Everybody knew the rules, except him! Everybody played the game, except him! No, not Callaghan, the greedy, the lustful, the wasteful; good for nothing, a pawn, a wastrel, and if the truth be known, despite the money and the good looks and the Porsche, a whole lot of fucking joke. A cosmic fucking comedy. A mockery of bravado. Even to his friends. Although, if the truth be known, he had none.
Anger fuelled him.
Hatred burned through him, melting the ice.
Callaghan charged. Blades clashed in a rapid succession of blows and Cal found himself hammering the sword left, right, bringing the blade around in an arc aimed at Bronagh’s head. Bronagh took a step back, slipped, and the sword opened a line across his bicep. For a moment it appeared as a thin red line – a scratch. Harmless. Then it opened wide and a pulse of blood pumped over Bronagh’s pale fat flesh.
Cal looked into Bronagh’s face. Could read nothing through the helmet. His breathing was heavy, laboured. And Cal realised with a start – he had hurt this man, this powerful symbol of evil. Cal smiled then.
Suddenly, doing the right thing felt good. His cowardice fled and he felt imbued with a kind of immortality; he knew, even if his flesh died, if his weak and feeble drug–riddled body hit the ground in quivering cubes, then somewhere, somehow, this moment would be infinite. Recognised. Remembered. It meant something. It mattered.
Bronagh was clenching and unclenching his fist. Thankfully, his erection had died. Blood stained his upper arm like a tattooed sleeve. He struggled with his helmet, wrenching it free and casting it down on the snow. Sweat gleamed on his face.
‘Bastard,’ he hissed.
‘Who’s singing now, fucker?’
Bronagh roared and charged, sword in his good hand, face narrowed into a fish–flesh mask of hate. The swords clashed, dancing, black iron flashing through the falling snow. Callaghan was forced brutally back, stumbling, panic etched on his face as Bronagh – fuelled by pain and hatred – forced him back and back and back and the sword smashed and hammered, the sounds of clashing iron echoing around the mountain night and Cal felt death breathe down his neck as Bronagh’s blade missed his face, then his chest, then his shoulder by the smallest of margins and he felt a scream welling inside him as he deflected a mighty blow and more numbing pain shot up his arms jarring his wrists and his elbows. They circled. Callaghan moved sideways, around the extremities of the clearing. Bronagh attacked again, jabbing, slicing, hammering his sword at Callaghan’s head and torso. By some miracle Callaghan survived, ducked a sweep, then he lowered his shoulder and charged Bronagh, connecting with a thump and they both stumbled and fell, Bronagh on his back and Cal atop him. Bronagh smashed a right hook into Cal’s head, making him list to the side, dizziness swamping him. Cal lashed out, his half–balled fist slapping Bronagh’s sliced bicep. Bronagh howled. Blood splattered. Callaghan rolled away frantically, head still blurred, then looked up at
Bronagh.
The large DI stood, legs apart, sword in both huge hands.
With a curse, Callaghan realised he had lost his sword in the fall. He could see it – black and limp against the snow behind Bronagh. He smiled without humour. His eyes met Bronagh’s. There was no mercy there. This was it. Death. An execution. Something glittered black at the corner of his vision.
‘Callaghan,’ said Bronagh, taking a step forward. The sword lifted high in the air. Callaghan was transfixed by the point, a savage V of rough–forged iron. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this moment. I’d like to say it’s been fun knowing you – but it hasn’t. You’re a fucking worm.’
The sword slashed down, and Callaghan kicked out with all his might and a scream that could wake the dead. His boot cracked Bronagh’s knee–cap and Callaghan twisted, but the sword entered high in his chest, smashing through his clavicle and punching into the crimson snow.
Callaghan gasped. Pain swamped him. Red swamped him. Blood enveloped him. He felt it, pumping from his broken shoulder. Through a mist he saw Bronagh, staggering up, his knee broken and his teeth gritted in pain. The sword was lodged in Cal’s shoulder, pinning him to the ground. It grated against his shoulder blade. He could feel tiny teeth eating him. Eating his bone. Sawing at him mercilessly. Reality swayed. Pain was his sister
his mother his lover and it fucked him mercilessly. Cal reached up, grasped the embedded sword with blood–slick fingers, and tried to tug it from his own flesh. He squealed like a butchered pig. His breathing came in short sharp pants. The world descended into an arena of blood. Bronagh staggered towards him, half–limping, his leg bent at a funny angle. Cal saw the black glitter, again. He turned his confused head. It was Bronagh’s discarded helmet, lying not two feet from his own concussed brain. Bronagh slumped down next to Callaghan. He reached out, and his fingers closed around Callaghan’s throat. Slowly, agonisingly, teasingly, they began to squeeze. Cal had never choked before. Never been strangled before. Bronagh’s fingers tightened in grim silence. Callaghan struggled, his free hand suddenly slapping at Bronagh’s thick, powerful arms, trying to prize the choking fingers free; but he had no strength left and felt weakness wash over him like liquid fallout. He tried to punch Bronagh, but his flail was as ineffectual as a small child’s.
‘What does it feel like to die?’ whispered Bronagh, intimately.
Cal’s hand slapped the snow. Found the helmet. Bronagh’s helmet. His fingers entwined with the mesh, the smooth cold curve of iron; he groped at the horns. Cal’s hand curled tightly around the rim of the visor, and with all his gathered might he brought the helmet around at that huge hulking silhouette intent on choking him...
There was a slam of impact, and Cal lost grip of his only weapon and he nearly wept with frustration, and he knew, knew his blow had been pointless, a weak and final feeble fling and his eyes were closed and he waited for death to fold dark leathery wings over his face but then – miraculously – the grip lessened on his throat. And then Bronagh’s hands fell away, fingers leaving a cold trail down Callaghan’s chest.
He opened his eyes.
Bronagh knelt, broken in the snow, one of the helmet’s horns embedded in his neck. Blood welled around the thick spike of iron, pumping down over his chest. His face was ashen. His eyes wide open. His lips mouthing, wordlessly. Then, his gaze fixed on Callaghan and he tried to speak. Blood flowed over his tongue and gave him a beard of blood.
Callaghan wrenched himself sideways with a scream, freeing himself of the ice–trapped blade. He heard his own flesh tear. Felt it rip. Vomit emerged, and he dragged himself up to his knees, saliva spooling to his lap, then, shakily, struggled and staggered to his feet. Bronagh was swaying, lips still moved wordlessly. Callaghan turned, grasped the sword with his one good hand and worked it free of the snow. He could see his own skin and muscle caught on the rough–edged blade; little flesh streamers like banners. He turned to Bronagh, who was on his knees. Supplicated.
‘No!’ The authoritative voice of Ryan slammed across the clearing.
Callaghan stepped forward. Glanced up at her. He smiled. ‘No?’ he growled, then looked down at Bronagh with hate in his eyes. ‘You asked me what it felt like to die. Looks like you answered your own fucking question. Bronagh – you’re going to Hell. Keep the seat next to you warm for me, eh mate?’
The sword hammered Bronagh’s neck, half severing the DI’s head. Bronagh’s body flopped sideways onto the snow. Blood gushed out in a flood. His hands and arms and legs twitched. Callaghan lifted the sword for another strike – and saw Bronagh’s eyes locked to his own. Callaghan gave a single nod, and watched the life–light bleed from Bronagh’s soul. Slowly, he ceased his twitching. Callaghan stood there, in the snow, head hung and weary. The sword hit the ground with a dull slap.
He did not feel victorious.
Just empty. Bleached. Drained.
‘Cal!’ It was Mia.
Cal looked up, wincing as his ruined shoulder tried to tear him apart. His eyes, half–lidded, roared open in an instant. Ryan stood over Mia, a long and slender dagger in her hand.
‘No,’ said Callaghan ‘No, wait!’
Ryan plunged the dagger down, and the blade sliced Mia’s throat. Blood erupted, a crimson fountain. Languorously, Ryan pulled the dagger sideways, severing Mia’s jugular. Blood pumped across the stone table. Mia spasmed, spine arching, and Ryan reached out as if comforting a disturbed child. She held Mia still, cradling her.
Callaghan fell to his knees.
And wept.
Millennia passed.
Callaghan looked up through oceans of tears. Volos was there. His hand, with its tapered nails, reached out and patted Callaghan’s head; strangely, this soothed the distraught man.
‘Give me the sword,’ said Volos.
Cal’s vision was blurred from crying. ‘Is it over?’
‘Not yet.’
Cal focused. Ahead, by the low stone platform, the robed figures were advancing. They carried their swords well; confidently, efficiently. Cal swallowed, feeling hollow. He was a shell of a man. Volos reached down and plucked the blade from Cal’s grip.
‘I thought you could do nothing?’ whispered Callaghan.
‘You beat him,’ said Volos. Then smiled at Cal. ‘You freed me to do my work.’
‘It was Ryan you wanted?’ said Cal, suddenly, in a moment of intuition.
‘Yes. I watched Bronagh for a long time. I knew what he did. But I needed the Old O – the Mistress of the Deviant Strain.’
Cal eyed the nine robed figures. ‘You can’t kill them all.’
‘Watch me.’
Through a blur of falling snow and tears Callaghan observed Volos go to work. He moved with awesome speed, each movement precise, elegant, a dancer amongst stumbling zombies. Their blades flashed out, and to Callaghan the scene was performed in absolute silence. Snow fell around him. Volos ducked a sword blow. His weapon skewered a chest. A figure fell. He swayed back instinctively as a blade whistled a parallel vertical with his chest. A back–handed cut sent a head rolling across the snow. Volos danced and his efficiency was dazzling. Within seconds the robed figures lay dead, dismembered, and Volos, chest heaving, turned his attention to Ryan. Her eyes were narrowed. She held the dagger stained with Mia’s blood close to her chest.
‘Be gone,’ she hissed through – Callaghan realised, with a start – needle teeth.
Volos strode forward, and Ryan’s blade came up to parry the savage blow. Volos’s sword slammed through the blade, and Ryan’s neck and spinal column. The head rolled onto the snow and sat there, an obscene amputation, staring blank at Cal with storm–cloud eyes.
Callaghan staggered over to Volos, stepping through the bloodbath of corpses and body parts. He halted, dumbly, looking down at Ryan’s flopped body. Then he turned, moved to Mia. Already her body was covered in a snow shroud. Cal started to cry once more. He touched her cold flesh. He was too late to save her. Too late to do anything good.
‘Why?’ he said, refusing to turn to Volos, who had taken Ryan’s dagger and was preparing to – well, Callaghan wasn’t sure, but it reminded him of a butcher with a slab of beef on a block.
‘I must etch her spine,’ said Volos, glancing at Callaghan. Then realised he had answered the wrong question. Volos shrugged. ‘Sometimes, Callaghan, the innocent get involved. I do what I can to help them. To save them. Mia – she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘That’s no fucking answer.’
‘It is the only answer I have,’ he said, gently.
‘Well, it’s not fucking good enough!’
‘Callaghan!’ Volos’s eyes were wide, bright, glinting with ferocity. He calmed himself. ‘Look, get out of here. Go on – back down the mountain. I’ve got a lot of work to do...’ he glanced around meaningfully at the corpses. ‘I have to make sure they never come back.’
Callaghan nodded, and stumbled out from the small depression in the mountain ground – out, into the wind, out, into the snow and cold and darkness. Tears froze like mercury to his cheeks.
Weeping, he began a long descent into the real world of men and gods and demons.
‘Ahh, your English humour in the face of adversity, no? This is a sad day for me. You betrayed us. Betrayed me. I cannot let that happen. Not ever again.’
; ‘Yes, my love,’ whispered Sophie, and closed her eyes.
Vladimir tensed, ready for the kill – and sadness swamped him, regret engulfed him, and he paused, paused for that extra second as he absorbed the moment, imbibed the sensation of murdering his beautiful wife. Something touched lightly against his groin.
His eyes met Sophie’s.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. There came a muffled blam and Sophie stared into the eyes of her husband. Vladimir wore a strange half–smile like a mask. Then, he leaned forward, heavily, against her. His cheek pressed against hers. She was surprised to find tears there.
‘I always loved you,’ Vlad breathed, then slid slowly down her, a fluid, easy movement. And crumpled into a ball at her feet.
Sophie stepped backwards. She lifted her gun. She shot Vladimir twice, in the head.
Smoke dissipated on the breeze.
‘Consider this a divorce,’ she said.
Sophie found Callaghan lost on the mountainside, half frozen to death. Dawn was breaking, and she led him down little used trails, through the snow and the ice, past the rock and the stunted, black, gnarled and twisted trees. For a long time Callaghan marched weary, in silence. One hand clutched his wounded, broken shoulder (he refused to let Sophie have a look at the wound) and occasionally he would let out a whimper, a moan of pain, a groan, when the ground surprised him, jolted him, or he stumbled in weakness and exhaustion.
Finally, when they stopped to rest, huddled under an overhang of black jagged rocks, the snow falling thickly around them, Callaghan looked up as if coming awake on adrenalin.
‘What happened up there?’ asked Sophie, gently.
‘It was horrible.’
‘Mia?’
Callaghan gave a little shake of his head.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I will never be the same again,’ said Callaghan.
‘None of us will.’
Cal nodded.