by Tom Lloyd
A fountain of magic erupted from the broken stub of the cleaver, green trails whipping around like enraged snakes. The daemon hissed and threw it away. It skittered across the floor for ten yards before coming to an abrupt halt. Out of the corner of his eye Styrax saw the lashing snakes slam down into the ground and begin to worm their way under the stone paving slabs, driving them up.
The daemon now held its flail with both hands, keeping the mace-heads moving, swinging them up threateningly whenever Styrax took a step closer. So fear has taught you something then, he thought with a grim smile. Try to keep me at bay while you work out what to do.
He feinted forward and was rewarded by the flail being whipped across where his knees would have been. As soon as the heads had passed Styrax leaped forward for real, following the swinging chains back to the source and chopping down to sever the daemon’s right wrist. Burning green ichor spurted out over the temple floor and it reeled back, trying desperately to ward him off.
The white-eye ignored the flail as it clattered weakly off his armour and lashed out at the daemon’s already damaged knee-joint. The force of the blow sent a judder along the blade that numbed Styrax’s hands, but his ferocious resolve drove him on and he turned to smash an elbow into the daemon’s gut. The handle of the flail crashed against the side of his head, sending black stars bursting across his eyes, but the daemon was weak now, and the battering, though painful, was too weak to stop him.
He rained down blows until at last he had the daemon-prince on the end of his fanged sword. Kobra pierced its chest and pinned it against a great marble column.
Styrax staggered for a moment. The air was alive with colours and magic rampaging uncontrolled; the air shuddered under the assault and he could hear the screams and hollers of the inhabitants of the Dark Place all around him. On the edge of his sight he saw flames against a looming darkness, the border between realms weakening further. His eyes were blurred and fiery pain flared in his gut, but he had enough strength left for the killing blow. With a roar he yanked Kobra free then hewed savagely at the daemon’s neck and deep into the pillar behind. The impact almost lifted him off his feet as the black sword cleaved through stone; for a terrible heartbeat the darkness descended and the heat of Ghenna’s sulphurous fires washed over his skin, then he tore the blade clear and staggered out beyond the temple’s boundary line into the cool morning light.
He staggered forward, a groan escaping his lips as he fought to find the ground under each step. It took a few moments for the Land to steady underneath him and the fire behind his eyes to fade enough for him to see again. He sank to his knees and tore his helm off, gasping at the touch of the morning air on his skin.
Somewhere behind the blur he heard someone - Kohrad? - shout, ‘Father!’ Then someone tried to slip his fingers around Kobra’s hilt… with an effort he made out Kohrad’s face and forced open his fist so his son could take the sword from his hand.
Drawing Kohrad close, Styrax put his lips to his ear and whispered fiercely, ‘Find it.’
As he spoke, a symphony of shattering stone filled the air and a tremble ran through the ground like a massive earthquake. The pillar Styrax had hacked into was buckling as the magic was drawn into Ghenna with the daemon-prince’s broken spirit. A thunderous crash split the air as the pillar collapsed onto the ruined temple floor, followed by the relentless sound of thousands of tons of stone imploding as the Temple of the Sun became a daemon’s cairn.
Eventually the devastation slowed to a halt and the echoes of the temple’s death faded away, leaving nothing more than a memory ringing in their ears. After that, there was only a ragged sound that Styrax could not place for a while until he realised it was his own laboured breath. Around him, everything was perfectly still, the hush of a temple at prayer.
He blinked as the Land crept back into focus. It was covered by a haze; for a moment Styrax wondered what had happened to his eyes until he realised it was a cloud of dust. He let Kohrad help him to his unsteady feet and bear his weight for a moment longer, then a voice in the back of his mind reminded him that the young warrior still had a task to perform.
He straightened and gave Kohrad a light shove towards the ruin of the temple, then made his way waveringly to the group of Chetse commanders who were standing some twenty yards off. They looked aghast, too stunned to even move. One had sunk to his knees in prayer; the others just gaped at the collapse of Tsatach’s greatest temple in the Land - and the eternal flame, the burning heart of the Chetse tribe.
He had just snuffed it out.
The dust swirled out to cover the Temple Plain, fading into nothing in the clear air above them. Somewhere behind him a lose piece of stone thumped heavily onto the packed earth of the temple floor.
‘Gentlemen,’ Styrax said hoarsely to the assembled Chetse, staggering sideways for a moment before he reasserted control over his body, ‘gentlemen, you are dismissed.’
They stared at him, shocked and uncomprehending. He took another step and his lip twisted into a snarl as the ever-present blood-lust screamed to take charge once more. He heard one start a horrified prayer, but it was only fleeting as they turned and fled like a herd of spooked deer.
Kastan Styrax, Lord of the Menin, grinned drunkenly. He felt a trickle of blood fall from his lip; maybe he’d bitten it. He swung around and saw that Duke Vrill had also backed off to a safe distance. That amused him; this was Vrill’s best chance to kill him and become Lord of the Menin himself… but no, Vrill had more sense than that. Kohrad carried Styrax’s own sword after all, and he was not as weak as he looked.
Styrax looked out at where the low morning sun shone from just above the western cliffs. In his chest he could feel his heart hammering away, reminding him with every thump that he was still alive. At each beat he wanted to call out, to shout with laughter. He wiped the blood from his mouth, never once taking his eyes from the horizon beyond which the Gods lived in splendid isolation away from their mortal subjects. The legend was that they had retired there to recover after the Great War and the horrors they had inflicted upon the defeated, and there they would stay, apart from the affairs of mortals, content to sit and play with strands of destiny, as long as they never again had to see any of their own dying at the hands of mortals.
Were you watching, you bastards? Do you fear me yet?
CHAPTER 24
Breytech eased the door of his room open far enough to peer out at the street beyond. It looked quiet now, but he still had to be wary. He’d barricaded himself in the cramped room for days now, and from the shouts and screams outside, he knew the city was falling further and further into chaos. Over the last month the Chetse trader had seen the character of the city change completely as the locals descended into savagery. Though he was a frequent visitor to the city, Breytech had never seen anything like this before. Passers-by had turned on him, or attacked their fellow citizens, without provocation or intimidation, as abruptly and unexpectedly as a sentinel lizard guarding its nest: timid one moment; savage the next. He grimaced; at least with a sentinel you had a chance of escaping. In Scree the people didn’t have the sense of animals; they wouldn’t content themselves with just chasing you off.
He fought the urge to close the door and push the table back against it. Eyes that had grown used to the gloom of shuttered windows squinted in the painful light. It was the hottest part of the day; the sun was fierce enough to kill the old and sick. He was a Chetse and knew perfectly well the dangers of Tsatach’s ferocious glare, but he had to gamble that even the insane would not venture out at midday. As much as he wanted to stay and hide, he knew he had to get out before his tired limbs grew too weary to carry him out of this place to replenish his water skin. He looked back at the cramped and airless room that had been his prison for the past week, since things had become really bad, and felt revulsion crawling over his skin as he realised he hated that space with a passion he couldn’t explain. The weather had been merely warm when he rented the room, and what reason
had there been for anyone to think he would spend much time there beyond sleeping. But worse it had become, and the four square yards of grime-encrusted floorboards had started to stink like a festering gaol.
Beyond a table and bed, and the chamber-pot that had forced him to unblock the door each day and risk being seen, much of the room was taken up with Breytech’s remaining wares, stacked against one wall. He’d removed the canvas sacks filled with bolts of cloth from the warehouse he usually used after watching the owner, a man he’d known for five years, go crazy. Two nights ago the man had burned his own building down, screaming frantically all the while about shadows with claws.
He found his own mind wandering now as the waves of heat radiating from the streets made him drift feverishly away. Images of his children appeared in his mind; their skin untouched by the smallpox that had taken them from him. When he’d rolled over on the straw-packed bed this morning he’d felt his wife’s soft breath on his ear and had turned with a smile to greet her, though she’d been gone this past three winters now. And all the while, there were sounds on the edge of hearing: distant shouts and howls that a part of him wanted to join in with, the quiet hum of a priest’s incantation, the groan and ache of the building as it suffered through another blistering day. On occasion, a faint scent of tainted sweetness found him, like overripe peaches left out in the sun. The stink of waste and decay was all he smelled in Scree now. He’d even forgotten what a breeze felt like …
With a real effort of will, Breytech drove the confused thoughts from his mind and muttered an old mantra his grandmother had taught him, a prayer of sorts against the maddening effect of the sun that could drive men from the road and out into the desert. It had no effect on the pounding behind his eyes but the words were comforting and kept his mind focused. He edged out into the street, eyes flickering nervously around at the baked empty road.
Scree was as still and silent as only a dead thing could be; the diseased city streets looked on the verge of crumbling to dust, all the life sucked from them. Breytech crept forward, mouthing the mantra and keeping in the shadows as best he could, though in truth there was no hiding from the relentless sun. He wore a shapeless white desert robe and a scarf of the same material draped over his head to protect him from the sun. Hidden in one voluminous sleeve was an ancient long-knife, its edge battered and scarred with use, but still dangerous enough to afford him a small shred of comfort.
The main street before him was empty of all life. With the bright sun reflecting off bleached stone and the air shimmering uneasily under its assault, he found it hard to make out details - until he realised with a start that the largest building around, a merchant’s office, he thought, was now just a charred ruin.
Without warning a whisper reached his ear as it raced around the confines of the street. Breytech flinched and looked behind him, pushing his scarf back a little to afford a better view - but it was still empty: no people, nothing alive to move, or speak. Despite the beads of sweat running down his throat, Breytech felt a chill pass though him, as though a ghost had laid its pale hand on his neck.
For a few moments he was frozen to the spot, until a drop of sweat from his brow ran down his nose like a tear and it jerked him into action, sending him stumbling off towards the spot where he thought he’d seen a well. If that looked unsafe, he would have to go further south, to the Temple District, maybe. He’d seen a shrine to Vasle - surely the God of Rivers would not fail him? For a moment he wondered whether he should have brought an offering, but then he thought that Vasle was unlikely to be listening to prayers from Scree. Perhaps only Death walked these streets, with his more awful Aspects, like the Reapers, at his heel. Or perhaps even they had deserted the city and turned their back in judgment. What curse on men, when even the final blessing of Death is denied them?
As he scampered from shadow to shadow he saw bodies. A whimper of fear escaped his parched mouth. Some were burned, limbs curled up in their final moment of pain. Some were missing limbs, even heads; others lay with the weapons that had killed them still in the wounds, eyes staring up to the sky as though pleading for help from Gods that had abandoned them.
He was beginning to feel like the sole survivor of some atrocious cataclysm. He peered into shattered doorways, but with the sun so high, there were only impenetrable shadows within. Slumped against one half-burned door was the torso of a child, missing its limbs. Breytech looked around, but they were nowhere to be seen. He tried not to dwell on why they might have been taken away. The fearful voices in the distant corners of his mind shrieked more urgently, and it was all he could do not to wail uncontrollably himself.
His sandal caught a stone and sent it clattering over the open ground. He gave a whimper of terror and crouched down beside the remains of a barrel, the closest thing to cover he could see. The horror of being found gripped like a vice around his stomach and he clamped his lips together to stop himself crying out in fear. At last the stone came to rest and silence descended once more. He didn’t dare even breathe for a few more moments.
Finally he opened his mouth to gulp air down and felt the cracked skin on his top lip tug and tear, followed by the luscious taste of liquid on his tongue. His finger was halfway to his mouth when another sound came and he froze.
A moan, as soft as the absent breeze, but too abrupt. With shaky hands Breytech pulled his dagger out and gripped it tightly. Hunched low, like a nervous rabbit, he looked over to where the sound had come from - there! Across the street, behind a brutalised facade of a shop. It came again, and Breytech felt a tiny trickle of terror.
As he watched, a pale, hairless head rose slowly up from behind the shop’s counter. His whole body trembled as he saw the head turn and cast about the street, searching for him, like a wolf that has caught the scent of a deer. In his fear he hardly noticed that his teeth were buried hungrily in his split lip until the taste of blood flooded his tongue.
The tang of blood made him swallow eagerly, but as he did so, the strange head flicked around like it was on a spring, and a loud, hoarse moan broke the silence. A second head appeared and the sound grew.
Breytech could stand no more. He tried to run, but his stiff muscles refused to comply. He forced himself into a stagger, and lurched forward a few steps, until he tripped on a broken piece of brick and fell to his knees. There was a crash from the shop and he heard the clatter of feet behind him, and voices, now loud and insistent, rather than in the corners of his mind but still furious, still awful.
‘Priest! Servant of Gods!’ someone howled.
A choir of rabid shrieks took up the call. ‘Priest! Prayer!’
Breytech looked down at his robe and a finger of dread crept down his spine. His robe - because of that, they thought he was a priest? Before he’d barricaded himself in his room - before the city had fallen completely to madness and ruin - he’d heard whispers that people had turned on the priests. Children had thrown stones at the temple acolytes, a priest had been murdered on stage, and the city guard had done nothing.
He ran, and when he picked out the curve of a dome up ahead and he recognised it, he was filled with a sudden surge of energy. Six Temples. The Gods. If there were still soldiers in the city - if the streets had not been entirely given over to howling lunatics - then surely they would be defending the temples? It wasn’t close, but he had no choice. He prayed that the monsters pursuing him were as starved and thirsty as he.
As he ran, more guttural voices broke the stultified afternoon air, ringing out from all over as wrecked doors and broken shutters were flung open. Breytech kept his head low, his eyes on the ground ahead of him, trying to pick a path through the rubble. He didn’t look back, but after a hundred yards he realised they weren’t gaining on him and a flicker of hope sparked in his heart. Ragged figures swarmed out of gutters and through archways, but while the voices grew in number, they came no closer.
His grandmother’s mantra returned to him and he muttered it with every heaving breath until he turned t
he corner and realised he was almost there. A square building surrounded by shattered benches and tables and a screen of withered vines on the far side was all that stood between him and the Temple Plaza.
He barrelled around the building andA pain exploded in his chest—
The sky flashed black and pink as the great temple dome ahead of him vanished from sight—
Breytech felt himself spinning as the air was driven from his lungs. He crashed to the floor in a confused heap. The howls of daemons battered at his ears, but he could see nothing except a fierce brightness that burned at his eyes. Instinctively he raised his arms to cover his face and felt a stab of pain. He blinked and tried to focus on the arm, eyes widening when he saw the livid red gash. He flinched as a man’s laughter cut through the monstrous barks and yelps from his pursuers.
‘Taken a wrong turning?’ said the man, from somewhere nearby.
‘Please,’ Breytech babbled, tussling with the local dialect, ‘you’ve got to help me!’ He struggled up to his knees and looked back at the rabble that had been chasing him. They had stopped well short of the Temple Plaza and were pacing back and forth nervously. Only now could he make them out: emaciated figures, half-naked and blistered under the afternoon sun. They were covered with grazes and scrapes from head to fool, with numerous fat, dark scabs that looked like plague pustules. Their unwashed, unkempt hair was matted and patchy, and many had great patches of scalp exposed where clumps had been torn out. Breytech realised he would have pitied them, had their faces not been so deformed with rage.