Dead Man's Steel

by Luke Scull

  ‘Not the rift, sir. Humans. A vast army of them, even more savage than the men of the Trine.’

  ‘Show me,’ commanded Saverian. He went to stand beside the Fade who had called his attention to the image on the platform. It depicted a blasted landscape. Sasha concentrated on the image, focusing what Isaac had referred to as her ‘augmented eyes’ on the tiny figures marching over the broken earth. There came that familiar whirring sound and her vision adjusted...

  The tiny figures were Highlanders, she saw. Hundreds of them, thousands. Hard-looking men with unkempt beards and bristling with weapons, women with charms woven into their hair and wrapped in thick furs. There were children, too. Many were half-starved and wore haunted looks.

  ‘Who leads these humans?’ Saverian demanded, his jaw clenching as he evaluated this latest threat.

  His officer pointed at a figure near the front of the marching horde. ‘I believe it is this one.’

  ‘Send the vista-sphere in for a closer look,’ ordered the general.

  The other Fade turned a knob on a strange metallic box to the side of the platform. A hulking figure suddenly appeared on the floating image. He was half a head taller than the warriors beside him and wore his dark hair and beard in oily braids. The warrior’s craggy face stared south with grim determination. On his back was a broadsword etched with strange runes.

  ‘Do you know this human?’ Saverian asked Isaac, who shook his head. ‘Survey the entire area,’ the white-haired general ordered. ‘I want their numbers in full. Pay particular attention to any that look capable of magic.’

  ‘Wait,’ cut in Isaac. ‘I know him.’ The Adjudicator pointed at a man following the apparent leader of the Highlanders and Sasha’s breath caught in her throat. She would remember that bald, scowling countenance until the day she died. It belonged to a man so grim he made the warrior with the rune-etched broadsword look positively effervescent; a man who had threatened to kill her countless times.

  A man who, in the end, had intervened to save her life when no one else would.

  ‘I am familiar with that human,’ said Isaac. ‘His name is Jerek, but others call him the Wolf. A formidable warrior.’

  ‘Formidable,’ repeated General Saverian, his voice thick with scorn. Another figure joined Jerek. A taller man, older and not quite as thickset, with piercing blue eyes that spoke of tragedy and regret, but also of death. A man of contradictions.

  Sasha remembered that face as clearly as she did Jerek’s. There had been a time when the company of those two warriors would have been her very definition of hell.

  She’d learned a lot since then.

  ‘Brodar Kayne,’ said Isaac. Perhaps it was Sasha’s imagination but the Adjudicator seemed genuinely pleased to see the old Highlander. ‘A legend among his people. A good man.’

  ‘A dead man,’ the general said. ‘Like the rest of them.’

  Suddenly, the Obelisk shook. One of the floating panoramas distorted, the image flickering. When it steadied, the vast crater it depicted was suddenly awash with an evil green radiance. Sinister shapes began to crawl up out of the crater, reaching towards the surface with nightmarish appendages.

  ‘Sir,’ said another of Saverian’s officers. The Fade’s voice trembled slightly. ‘The rift beneath the Demonfire Hills has opened. The children of the Nameless are beginning to cross over.’

  Convergences

  ✥

  ‘GOT ANOTHER SCAR to add to that pretty face of yours,’ rasped the Wolf in a sardonic tone. ‘Carn almost had you. You’re getting slow, Kayne.’

  Brodar Kayne rubbed at his chin with a rueful wince. Oathbreaker had given him a nasty nick on the jaw and he’d only just escaped with his head attached. Carn was as strong as an ox and as quick as a snake. A better fighter than his father Targus had been, by some distance.

  In the end, he’d still lost.

  It hadn’t felt good, helping the beaten chieftain up off the ground. Sparing his life in front of his men. No small part of Kayne had wanted to allow Carn to run him through and be done with it. To give the sons of the West Reaching the vengeance they craved. But Kayne’s father had always taught him that a victory that wasn’t earned was no victory at all, and the lesson had stuck with him. Carn had accepted Kayne’s mercy with good grace, all things considered. One day the Bloodfist would challenge him again and the result may well be different. That was a worry for another time, though. First, they needed to survive the journey south.

  ‘We all get slow eventually,’ he said in answer to Jerek’s gibe. ‘Age never did no one any favours, excepting maybe the Magelords.’ He remembered the Shaman’s final words to him. All things die. ‘Maybe not even them,’ he amended.

  Suddenly the Wolf stopped in his tracks and stared up at the sky with eyes like flint. ‘What d’you reckon that is?’ he growled.

  There was something floating far above them – a round, metallic object the size of a man’s head that turned slightly as they passed below it, as though it were tracking their movements. Every so often a red light flickered on the strange object.

  Kayne turned to Brick behind him. ‘Reckon you can hit that?’

  The youngster pursed his lips in concentration, measuring the distance. ‘Not without wasting a lot of arrows. Maybe one of the sorceresses could toss a fireball at it.’

  Kayne thought about it and shook his head. ‘I reckon they got better uses for their magic.’

  Rana and the small handful of sorceresses who had made it out of the Fangs were kept busy treating the sick and injured. They’d lost more Highlanders crossing the Badlands, some to animal attacks, others to disease and a few to mishaps no one could for account for, like one old fellow who had fallen down a ditch and broken his neck. The food had run out yesterday afternoon and everyone was marching on empty bellies, but they’d made it nearly to the Trine without any more disasters on the scale of the river crossing. All things considered, the great migration of Highlanders had gone smoother than Kayne had dared hope. Now his thoughts turned to how they would be greeted once they reached the northernmost of Dorminia’s vassal towns. If not with open arms, then Kayne at least hoped they might settle on a wary truce with the Lowlanders while Brandwyn negotiated on his countrymen’s behalf. Then again, the recent coup against the tyrant Salazar may well have thrown the entire region into chaos.

  The world never stops changing. Who knows what we’ll find once we reach the Broken Sea.

  ‘There’s fucking ash everywhere,’ Jerek grumbled, interrupting Kayne’s thoughts. The Wolf kicked up a cloud of the black material. ‘Where’d all this shit come from?’

  They’d begun encountering clouds of ash days ago. The stuff got everywhere, dirtying their clothes and spoiling what little water they had available to them. As they drew nearer to the Demonfire Hills it became even more of a nuisance, coating everything like a blanket and half-choking those near the back of the great winding line of Highlanders.

  ‘Not much further now,’ Kayne said hopefully. He turned to Brick again. ‘Where’s Corinn?’

  ‘Down the line,’ the youngster replied. ‘She’s looking after the foundlings.’

  ‘She’s a good lass,’ Kayne said. ‘You’re a lucky man. She’ll make a fine wife, I reckon.’ He tried to keep the grief out of his voice. Even so, Brick must have heard it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the youngster said. ‘I know you miss her.’

  Kayne clapped Brick on the shoulder and nodded his thanks. The three men said nothing for a time, each lost in his own thoughts.

  ‘How’s Magnar?’ Brick asked, breaking the silence.

  ‘Better. They reckon he’ll be walking soon.’

  ‘I’d like to meet him, when he’s well enough to take visitors.’

  ‘I reckon he’d like that too,’ Kayne lied.

  Corinn joined them, placing a hand in Brick’s. ‘Tiny Tom keeps asking after Grunt,’ she said sadly. ‘I told him he wouldn’t be coming back.’

  ‘He was a good man,’ Ka
yne said. He thought about it for a moment and then added, ‘or whatever he was.’

  ‘Aye,’ Jerek rasped. ‘He was all right.’

  ‘I wonder what happened to Jana,’ Brick offered. Kayne saw the mischievous twinkle in his emerald eyes. ‘I hope she got home safe. Do you think she made it back to the Jade Isles, Jerek?’

  ‘Don’t give a shit,’ the Wolf grunted. ‘She can choke on one of her nana fruits for all I care.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  The Wolf shot Brick a glare. Jerek was in a foul mood. A fouler mood, at any rate.

  Suddenly the great line of Highlanders came to a grinding halt. ‘Trouble ahead?’ Kayne asked the fellow in front of him – one of Carn’s sworn swords, who eyed Kayne like a man might eye a foul-smelling turd. He spat and shook his head, clearly in no mood to talk. Kayne sighed and picked his way over the carpet of ash to stand beside Carn Bloodfist and Brandwyn the Younger. The two chieftains were staring south. Kayne squinted, following their gazes. There was a sickly green glow on the horizon.

  ‘I don’t like the look of that,’ he volunteered. Something else was troubling him too. There was an odd but familiar sensation in the air, the indescribable feeling of wrongness that sometimes crept over a man when a demon was nearby.

  Brandwyn’s mouth twitched nervously. ‘The air feels poisoned,’ he said, reaching up and wiping sweat from his brow. ‘It is warm. Too warm.’

  ‘We cannot turn back,’ Carn rumbled. The big chieftain gave no indication that he was ashamed of his defeat on the southern bank of the River of Swords. The same couldn’t be said for his followers, like the warrior Kayne had just passed. In particular, young Finn seemed to spend half his days glaring a hole in Kayne when he thought the older man wasn’t watching.

  ‘If it’s a choice between starvation behind us, or the unknown ahead of us,’ Kayne said slowly, ‘I know which I prefer.’

  Carn nodded his agreement. ‘For the time being, we will set up camp. I will send men to the forest west of here in search of food and dispatch a small group to investigate the land that lies ahead.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ rasped the Wolf. The three men turned to regard him. Jerek’s axes were in his hands, his dark eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of danger.

  ‘You are one man,’ Carn said. ‘Besides, I have my own scouts.’

  ‘You gonna stop me?’ Jerek growled. He took a step towards Carn, fire-scarred face darkening in anger, jaw clenched. The two men stared at each other. Though Carn was easily the bigger man, it was he who eventually looked away.

  ‘Your life is yours to risk as you see fit,’ he rumbled. ‘Report back here before midnight. I plan to be moving on again by then.’ Carn stomped off to relay his instructions to his men. The Wolf spat and then set off south without a backward glance, stalking alone towards the malevolent green glow in the distance.

  Brandwyn shook his head. ‘Your friend is brave to stand his ground against the Bloodfist,’ he said. ‘Brave or stupid.’

  Kayne blinked. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Your friend,’ Brandwyn explained. ‘Carn usually shows no mercy to those who defy him.’

  Kayne watched the diminishing figure of the Wolf in the distance. ‘What do you know about Jerek?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Only that he served in the Forsaken for many years. That he was exiled for an unspecified violation of the Code, and that he later rescued you from the Shaman’s cage.’

  ‘That’s all true,’ Kayne said. ‘But there’s something else you need to know about the Wolf. You can’t control him. You try to tell him what to do, you make him angry. Carn might not be one for mercy, but Jerek, he don’t know the meaning of the word. Those two ever come to blows, it won’t be the Bloodfist leaving alive.’

  *

  Magnar’s grip was stronger than it had been the last time, but it was still woefully weak. Kayne put an arm around his son’s waist, supporting him as subtly as he could manage. ‘One foot in front of the other,’ he said. ‘Slowly, now. Take your time. There ain’t no rush.’

  The dancing flame of the torch cast silhouettes on the tent that mirrored Magnar’s tottering efforts. He took another step and wobbled.

  ‘Easy. That was good, son. Let’s try that again.’

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ Magnar said angrily. ‘How long has it been now? A month?’

  Brodar Kayne shrugged helplessly. ‘You almost died, son. Jerek dragged me through the Fangs for the best part of an entire winter after he freed me from the Shaman’s cage. The sorceresses can only do so much. It’s up to you to build up your muscles again.’

  ‘Build my muscles how? When I cannot hold anything?’ Magnar flexed his mangled hands as if to demonstrate and Kayne had to look away. His son’s suffering was too much.

  Fat lot of good I am, he thought bitterly. He wished he were a smarter man. Then he might know what to say to ease his boy’s pain, to show him a path back to a life worth living. But his talent had always been in taking a life, not giving it.

  ‘We’re almost at the Trine,’ Kayne ventured. ‘Maybe there are physicians in the big cities who can help.’

  ‘Can they restore my fingers? Erase the memory of my imprisonment? Bring back Yllandris?’

  ‘I... I don’t reckon they can. But maybe they can fix your body well enough so that you can fight—’

  ‘I don’t want to fight.’ The strangled fury in Magnar’s voice stopped Kayne dead in his tracks. ‘I’m tired of this, Father. Always striving to be the man you expect me to be. Always trying to live up to your legend. I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t want to be king. I did it because you wanted it. And now look at me. Look at me.’

  Brodar Kayne didn’t look. Instead he stared at the floor and swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘I—’ he began, but Magnar cut him off again.

  ‘Get out.’

  Shoulders sagging, Kayne turned and left the tent. He paused outside for a moment, staring up at the moon and stars, wondering how everything had turned out like this.

  He remembered when he’d wanted to be a hero. Perhaps he had been, for a time. Serving at Watcher’s Keep, helping to keep the demons at bay. He was a long way from a hero now. There weren’t many things in this world more pitiful than a broken-down barbarian who couldn’t move for the weight of his regrets. Several campfires away, Finn chose that moment to look up and met his gaze. The younger man’s lips twisted in a sneer.

  Head bowed, suddenly longing for a friendly face, Kayne set off thinking to find Brick, only to stop when he realized how pathetic that was.

  My only friend aside from the Wolf. A lad of fourteen winters. Brick was probably enjoying some alone time with Corinn. The last thing he’d want was Kayne slinking into his tent desperate for some company.

  He was about to go and sharpen his greatsword for the umpteenth time that night when a familiar figure stormed into camp. Jerek’s bald head was shiny with sweat, and he was covered head to toe in foul ichor. The axes in his hands were dripping with the stuff. ‘Demons,’ he rasped. ‘A fucking valley full of ’em heading our way. Rouse the camp.’

  With anyone but Jerek, Kayne might’ve been inclined to ask questions. Instead he stumbled through the encampment, yelling at warriors to ready their weapons and for women and children to take shelter before the fiends came boiling over the hills. They were supposed to be coming from the north.

  He didn’t have time to ponder the injustice of it all. Before the Highlanders were even half-organized the first of the demons appeared in the night. It was like nothing Kayne had ever seen. The legs and abdomen of a giant spider sprouted a humanoid torso covered in madly staring eyes, while its two arms ended in vicious pincers. Behind the spider demon flowed a tide of gibbering demonkin, as well as blink demons, the latter disappearing and reappearing elsewhere amidst the great throng of horrors surging towards the Highlanders.

  Words of power cut through the panic and fire and lightning rained down upon the oncoming demons. Rana and her sorceres
ses had formed a circle near Carn’s tent and were unleashing their combined magical might against the fiends. Kayne found himself standing shoulder to shoulder with Finn and another young warrior from the West Reaching, waiting in a grim line at the camp’s southern edge while the assault from the circle thinned the onrushing tide. Thinned, but did not devastate: more demons made it through the magical storm than were slain.

  The hilt of his greatsword slick in his hands, Kayne forced himself to remain calm while he mentally counted the yards between the Highlander line and the gibbering, snarling multitude boiling towards them.

  Five hundred. Four hundred. Three hundred.

  Even with the best efforts of the sorceresses, there were still nearly as many demons as men. Kayne knew the line couldn’t possibly hold, but they had to try, if only to buy their countrymen time to flee.

  When the fiends were fifty yards away the demon-fear hit them. The warrior to Kayne’s left suddenly turned and ran. Another man broke, and then another, until big holes gaped in the formation. Finn looked likely to flee at any moment. Kayne met his gaze. ‘You hold,’ he snarled. And despite, or perhaps because of, the hatred warring with terror in the other man’s eyes, he held.

  Seconds later the fiends were upon them.

  Kayne hacked at a demonkin, felt leathery flesh split open and warm ichor sprayed all over his face. Claws reached for him and he reversed his swing, severed an arm the colour of raw meat. He heard the snap of dagger-like fangs behind his ear and threw an elbow back, stunning another of the demonkin for just long enough to part its eyeless lump of a head from its neck.

  A blink demon pounced at him, razor tongue probing, and Kayne realized he was wrong-footed. He tried to get his greatsword up, knew he wouldn’t make it in time. Just before it reached him, an axe spun head over shaft to sink into the fiend’s central eye, dropping it mid-leap. Jerek barged past, wrenched his axe out of the fallen demon in a burst of gore. ‘Too slow, Kayne,’ he grunted, turning and burying his other axe in the skull of a demonkin.