by J M D Reid
“You stood up before a mob,” Avena said, shaking her head. A strand of brown hair, escaped from her braid, tumbled down her forehead.
“That was easy.” Ōbhin shrugged. “They were angry and unskilled. They had no goal besides venting their rage. I had to convince them to find an easier place to unleash it. I had my blade.” He sighed, feeling the weight of that day. The screams, his boots slipping on crimson-stained concrete. “I tried not to hurt them, but they forced me to.”
“Sounds like courage to me.”
“When things really matter, I can’t be relied on.”
“Because you made one bad decision?”
He turned away from her. “Once I’m gone, even if I don’t kill Ust today, there’ll be no danger to you and Dualayn.”
“Today.” Her hand touched his shoulder. He could feel her pressure through the chainmail and leather jerkin. “What about tomorrow? Ust is hardly the only danger in the world. I want you to come back and try. It’ll be hard, but you don’t have to be alone. When I was lost, I had Daughter Heana. Maybe I can guide you.”
“And Ust? He wants me dead.”
She snorted. “You beat him barehanded while he had a sword. His men just watched him.”
“So he’ll hit me when I’m not ready. And I’m not the only one who’ll be caught up in it.”
“That’s why you hired more guards. Let’s talk to Dualayn. He has friends. Your boss is one. Why don’t you talk to him? Ust’s his dog. Grey can leash him, right?”
“I don’t know where Grey is.” Ōbhin rolled his shoulders, rattling his mail coat. He felt the fog bleeding through it, the night growing chill. “He’s using Ust right now for some operation. They assassinated the high refractor.”
“What?” Avena’s hand flinched back. “You’re certain?”
“No, but Handsome Baill is an expert marksman. He could have been on another building and shot the high refractor. Framed the city guards.”
“See, we need you.” She grabbed his gloved hand and lightly tugged, turning him. Something foul filled his nose as he glanced at her. A reek of rot and decay permeated the garbage strewn alley. The fog glowed behind her, eddying in currents. “You know Ust and Grey. If the Brotherhood is causing problems in Kash, creating riots, we need your help. What do you say?”
He didn’t know how to answer as he stared at the shadow of her face. He could just make out her eyes against the brightness flooding around the corner. What was he truly afraid of? Ust? She was right. The man wasn’t a real threat. If his bandits attacked, Ōbhin and the other guards could repel them.
He feared himself. How he acted. He was such a coward he hadn’t been able to face the truth about the woman he’d loved. He’d denied it so much, he’d planted a dagger in a good man’s heart out of childish refusal to face reality.
What if he did it again?
Her thumb stroked the back of his stained glove like she was polishing a diamond. He teetered on a precipice, and he didn’t know if he should jump or stay on the cliff’s edge. If he stayed, his path was clear: kill Ust and march back into the darkness.
What lay at the end of the leap?
Before he could answer, a door burst open inside. His head turned out of reflex to see through the window Ust enter the inn’s back room, his dark hair knotted in greasy curls, his beard matted with dried stew. He filled the doorway, broad and muscled. His eyes fell on Creg.
“Well?” Ust growled as Ōbhin pulled his hand from Avena’s and seized the hilt of his sword.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Avena’s now-empty hand closed as Ōbhin’s face changed. His thumb stroked along the emerald. He stepped back from the tavern’s wall, falling into a fighting stance. She could hear Ust inside. Twisting fear skittered through her. She took a step back as Ōbhin’s blade whisked out from its sheath. The emerald hummed to life.
I’ve lost him, she thought.
“Well, Creg?” barked Ust from inside.
“I did what you wanted,” Creg protested. “Don’t blame me if it didn’t work.”
“Ōbhin,” she hissed as he stood there, his body still. The foul reek of garbage filled her nose, something rotten decaying in the moldering ally. She wrinkled her nose as she ignored it, the taste pervading her mouth. “It’s not too late.”
“We’re not alone,” a new voice said from inside. A cruel voice that haunted her nightmares.
She peered into the window to see Dje’awsa sweeping into the backroom after Ust. Jagged, black lightning bolts marked the dusky-brown head of the sorcerer. Five of them, three on the right side and two on the left, reached around his shaved scalp towards his face. They looked puckered, raised up from his skin. She shivered as a faint umbral shadow seemed to bleed out of the tattoos like they glowed with negative light. He clutched his obsidian wand in his hand, a drop of crimson blood running down its fluted surface.
A strangled whimper rose in her throat.
“There are two skulking in the alley,” Dje’awsa said, his voice as cold as death.
Ust glanced at the window. “Hope you didn’t wait long, Ōbhin. Took me a while to convince Dje’awsa to come tonight.”
“Ōbhin is here?” asked Dje’awsa, a cruel smile on his face. “A defiant man holds such potential in his flesh. And the other? The woman with light in her eyes?”
Ust shrugged. “She’s of no concern to Grey. I told you I could deliver. You interested?”
“Yes, yes, we are in agreement.”
Ōbhin snarled and swung his sword at the wall. The blade slashed through the rotten wood like it was stretched canvas, tearing through it with hardly any effort. He finished his strike and moved to make another when she heard the click of claws on pavement. She whirled around to see a shadow moving through the glowing fog.
The mist eddied.
“Ōbhin!” she cried in warning.
*
Avena jumped into Ōbhin’s left side. Her impact shifted him. His chainmail rattled as he rotated right. He spotted a dark shadow leaping through the fog. The smell of rotten flesh filled his nostrils. Cold fear, a primal, gibbering terror, rose in his soul.
His body acted out of instinct. He shoved Avena off of him, sending her stumbling across the alley and into the warehouse’s wall. He pivoted, his feet dragging like he trudged through a brackish mire, and struggled to bring his blade up in a guard position.
The dark form slammed into his sword arm. A dog’s muzzle snapped down on his arm, biting the chainmail. Its weight crashed into him, driving him back, his boots sliding on the damp pavement as he fought for balance.
The lean, black dog, what Dje’awsa had called a jackal, landed on its feet, jaws locked about Ōbhin’s sword arm. He felt the pressure of its sharp teeth through the mail. Canines ground on steel. The beast shook its head, jerking him off-balanced. Despite its jaw locked on his limb, he felt no fetid breath spilling from the beast. It didn’t make a sound other than the scrabble of its claws on cobblestone.
“Ōbhin!” Avena gasped and rushed back across the alley. Purple light flared from the end of her binder. She slammed it down on the jackal’s back. The band of energy sprung around its torso, illuminating its dark form. It hugged its midriff tight.
Did nothing to impede it.
“Niszeh’s Black Tone!” he snarled and slammed his foot down on the dog’s foreleg. The bone cracked.
The beast didn’t whimper. It stumbled and pulled harder, struggling to stand on three legs. The reek of death filled his nose. Green light from the emerald on his sword glowed in its milky eyes. The primal terror rose again.
Is it dead?
The impossibility of an attacking corpse sent fear spilling across his skin, an icy bath of sweat coating his body.
“Ōbhin!” Avena gasped. “There’s another.”
She gripped her binder in trembling hands. He had to do something. Claws scrabbled. More of these dead beasts approached. He couldn’t shake his sword arm free. The jackal gripped him tigh
t, teeth struggling to penetrate through the tight weave of chains. He swapped his sword to his left hand, holding the blade awkwardly.
The hum of the sword swelled in pitch as he slammed the curving blade into the beast’s belly and slashed downward. The hide split open like a turkey too-long roasted in the oven, skin cracking. Rotten entrails, practically liquefied into a brackish muck, spilled out of the hound’s innards.
Its head shook with a violent pull, jerking Ōbhin off-balance. The foul viscera slicked the cobblestones as Avena shouted. The scrabble of claws rushed at them. Ōbhin battled to stay upright against the corpse hound thrashing with unliving strength.
Horror curdled Ōbhin’s innards at the monstrosity before him. Something birthed by foul Niszeh’s Black Tone, a dissonance so powerful it perverted the laws of nature and animated the dead. How do we fight such abominations?
Avena’s binder swung, the purple light flashing as she screeched in tight terror.
*
Heart beating faster than a scarlet hummingbird, her binder slammed down on the repulsive hound leaping out of the dark. Her body acted as her mind cowered. All her practice had trained her limbs to strike hard.
I’m going to die! gibbered through her. I’m going to die going to die going to die!
She hit the hound’s chest beneath its teeth-filled jaw. Purple energy flared from the gem, a projection of its innate energy channeled out into the world. It flared around the beast’s torso and tangled its forelegs moments before it slammed into her stomach.
She screeched, her mind almost consumed by terror as she fell backward beneath the bulk of the rotten hound. Her skirts flared, tangling about the snapping jaws of the jackal. She crashed onto her back. Air exploded from her lungs. Bright spots danced before her eyes, fuzzing pain rippling around the back of her skull.
The beast thrashed. Cloth tore as it ripped at her heavy skirts and layers of petticoats. She scrambled to escape, bathed in the purple light from the binding energy tangling about its forelegs. She kicked hard, catching it in the throat and pushing herself back. She scrabbled across the dirty muck of the alley, passing as Ōbhin battled with his disemboweled horror.
“Avena!” Ōbhin snarled.
Emerald flashed. The air hummed before her. Something streaked down as the jackal lunged at her, propelled by its free hind legs. She heard a snicker and then a crunch. The jackal’s head parted from its body. It landed at her feet, jaws snapping at her booted heels, ripping at the heavy leather of her sole. A foul ichor poured out of the severed neck as the body collapsed. Ōbhin grunted, wrenching his blade free of cobblestones it had buried into, slicing through them as cleanly as the beast. His chainmail rattled as she kicked the head away from her, shrieking. She scrambled back from the still-snapping head, milky eyes fixing on her. She crashed back into a crate.
“Elohm, shine your blessed Colours on the darkness spilling into the world,” she babbled, her body shaking. Cold hands clawed through her mind. “Drive away the Black that pollutes the world.” Tears fell down her cheeks. Every part of her shook, the binder in her hand trembling.
Ōbhin’s sword plunged into the severed head. Orange light burst from its jaw, a flare of smoky brilliance. He jerked his blade back as ichor poured out of the beast’s unmoving head. Ōbhin snarled in triumph, his blade flashing down at the hound savaging his arm.
Orange exploded through the alley a second time as she stared at the whispering curls of smoke billowing out of the first beast’s eyes. She hugged herself, retreating into the emptiness. Safe. Secure. Nothing could touch her if she didn’t feel anything.
Someone called her name. It came from a distance. Across a vast sea of fog thicker than the mist billowing through the alley. Darkness grabbed her shoulder. She shrieked and swung her binder at the new danger, a wild strike.
A black-gloved hand seized her wrist, arresting her attack.
She blinked at Ōbhin’s face peering at her. His lips were moving. He held her shoulder with one hand, the other gripping her wrist. He squeezed hard and then hauled her to her feet with little effort. Her tattered skirts swirled.
. . . don’t fall apart on me . . .
She blinked again.
. . . avena . . .
Sound crashed into her ears. She gasped as her name ignited her senses. She panted for breath, ice pouring through her veins. Her entire body shook. Sweat drenched her. She felt her chemise sticking to her stomach and back, slick sweat pouring down her face and mixing with her tears.
“They’re dead,” he said. “They had jewels in their heads, Avena.”
“What?”
“Jewels without wires, look!” He pointed at the one which had attacked him. Amid the rotten, worm-ridden gray matter lay a topaz, faceted with strange angles, cut in half. It smoked. She shuddered, seeing no wires wrapped around it.
“He is a sorcerer,” she whispered. “Jewels need wires shaped and bent about their cut faceted to channel their effect and harness their power. Dualayn showed me. He taught me. I’ve made my own jewel machines. He knows no method of using a gem without them.”
“Dje’awsa knows,” Ōbhin said. “We have to go. What if there are more of them?”
Claws scrambled in the night, moving around the public house.
She didn’t resist as he pulled her towards the light, her sweaty palm gripping her binder.
*
Ōbhin dragged Avena away from the two abominations. The scrabble of claws made his blood run cold. He drew his sword. He could kill them if he hit their gem, but their mere presence had almost unmanned him. His stomach begged to be emptied.
The harmony of the world was disrupted tonight. Monsters stalked it. Real ones, not legends of snowsnakes or shape changing grumliicho or avalanchirim. The forbidden use of obsidian was responsible. He had to get Avena to safety. She was lucky to be alive.
No, she bound the beast’s legs before it hit her. She threw it off just enough to escape.
He raced down the side of the Gray Pillar for the bright light of the diamond lamp. It lit up the fog and the street. He could hear the people moving around. It wasn’t long after sunset. The mist wouldn’t keep the locals from finding their favorite public houses.
His chainmail rattled as they pounded down the alley and burst out onto the street, the tavern’s obscene sign swinging to the right. A large, covered wagon was parked before the tavern, horses tethered. The foul scent of rot pervaded from it. The back was covered by dyed-black canvas stretched over a frame, the flaps pulled down to hide the contents.
He wanted to gag.
The public house’s door crashed open. Dje’awsa stepped out, a cruel smile on his face. He stood with confidence, his thumb caressing his obsidian wand like Ōbhin had once touched Foonauri. A look of almost erotic pleasure crossed the man’s lips.
Anger burst through Ōbhin. He almost pivoted. Five paces, a quick sprint, and he would have the man’s head off.
The canvas closing at the back of the wagon burst open. Rotting men poured out. Some had the bloated corpses of the recent dead, their bellies distended, their skin waxy and blubbery. They landed naked, a foul reek wafting from them. Others were skeletons covered in scraps of rotting flesh, amethysts visible in the backs of their skulls, peeking through gaps in bone. They had sharp finger bones that reached for him, their footsteps rattling across the ground, different from the meaty slap of dozens of fleshy corpses.
Ten disgorged. Twenty. Fifty. More.
“Run!” Ōbhin shouted, yanking on Avena to swing her before him and send her stumbling down the street away from the walking horrors. A primal revulsion at the abominations stumbling towards him struck Ōbhin.
This was a crime against the order of the world. The dead desecrated, animated, and bound into a mockery of slavery. They rushed at Ōbhin. The stench overwhelmed him. His stomach curdled. His sword flashed, cutting off the first reaching hand, the skin parting. It landed with a wet splat at his feet, the muscles liquefied from rot and o
ozing out of a waxy sheath of skin.
The corpse stumbled on, heedless of its lost limb.
Ōbhin turned and raced after Avena, one moment from utter panic. His legs stretched out, his humming sword gripped in his hand. The bony rattles and fleshy smacks chased after him along with sloshing gurgles from the bloated dead.
“Raleth, sing with pure, white brightness and drive away the dark,” he prayed in Qothian. “Vatsim, gird my legs with the strength to—”
Something heavy struck his back. The weight drove him face first to the street. He landed hard. His hand relaxed, his sword skittering free of his grip and sliding across the cobblestone. Teeth snapped at the back of his chainmail, four feet pressing down on him.
The third hound ripped at him as the walking dead surged forward.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Avena threw a look over her shoulder as she reached the intersection. “Ōbhin, this . . .”
Her words died as she saw him thrashing on his stomach, one of the foul hounds on his back. The horrors pouring out of the back of the wagon, spilling out like salted cod from a smashed barrel, rushed towards him. Fear lashed at her.
Run, you stupid girl.
Already, her legs were moving her in the wrong direction. Not towards safety, but towards danger. She would save Ōbhin from the darkness. Not let him be dragged into it. Her mind recoiled from her stubborn actions, fear flaying her soul.
You’re going to die! Don’t do this! Idiot! They’ll rip you apart! What can you do?
She snatched up his fallen sword as Ōbhin covered the back of his head against the beast’s savaging teeth. He bucked his back, trying to throw the hound off. The horde of corpses was closer. Five paces. She rushed at Ōbhin, gripping the humming tulwar, the hilt feeling strange in her right hand, her left clutching her binder.
Four paces.
She reached him and screamed.
Three paces.
She slashed the tulwar down at the beast’s back. She was prepared for resistance, to feel the blade bite into its flesh. Instead, it passed through its spine and torso like it didn’t even exist. She gasped and yanked up her stroke right before it buried into Ōbhin’s body.