by Luke Scull
‘No longer moral? After you’d already enslaved countless thousands of us?’
‘Your species had achieved a level of civilization we could no longer ignore. Only since the murders of Aduana and Feryan has Obrahim once again sanctioned the use of human thralls.’
Jerek seemed to be even more agitated than normal. He tugged at his beard, sent a mouthful of spit perilously close to Isaac’s silver-booted feet. ‘You two gonna stand there all day flapping your jaws?’ he snarled. ‘There I was thinking the fate of the world was at stake.’
The Fade fixed the angry Wolf with his obsidian gaze. ‘It would be more accurate to say that humanity’s fate is at stake. If you fail, my kind will step in. Saverian will not fail again.’
‘What if you die here?’ Jerek rasped. ‘What’s your prince gonna say if we drag your corpse back to the Trine?’
‘It will not alter his thinking. Unlike your kind, we do not act out of spite or anger.’ Isaac’s eyes narrowed. ‘I trust you do not harbour any unwise thoughts.’
Jerek spat again. ‘I told you I would help hunt down and kill this Herald fucker. Till then, I got your back.’ The Wolf looked mighty pissed off at Isaac’s inference and Sasha decided a distraction might be a good idea.
‘Let me take a look at that plateau,’ she said, pushing herself between the pair. She stared at the plateau opposite and focused her augmented eyes. The tiny figures almost instantly became towering giants, their long hair braided in knots that hung over naked chests. They were under siege from squat, eyeless creatures the colour of raw meat. The giants were badly outnumbered, covered in bloody wounds from the demons’ vile claws. Though their clubs were longer than Sasha was tall – the trunks of trees, torn from the ground and stripped of their branches – the giants’ rudimentary weapons did not appear to be greatly effective against the fiends.
‘The giants are going to lose,’ she said. ‘The demons greatly outnumber them.’
‘Should we intervene?’ asked Rana. The sorceress was an unassuming woman, but she possessed a quiet strength that reminded Sasha of Brianna, the White Lady’s one-time apprentice. Sasha stared at the woman, noting her strong jaw, her bright eyes.
‘Fuck ’em,’ Jerek rasped. ‘No giant ever did shit for me. Bunch of pricks.’
Brodar Kayne had finally caught his breath. The old warrior squinted at the battle raging ahead of them and it was obvious to Sasha that he could hardly see a thing. ‘I ain’t never been fond of giants myself,’ he said. ‘But they might know something about the whereabouts of this Herald demon.’
Isaac drew his crystal sword. It glittered a thousand shades of red in the overhead sun. ‘Let us go to kill demons,’ he announced.
They scrambled across broken rock, the sounds of combat growing louder as they neared the tableland upon which the battle was taking place. The harsh crack of Isaac’s hand-cannon split the air, and one of the demons was knocked to the ground before the largest of the giants flattened it beneath his mighty club.
Sudden terror gripped Sasha. She slowed, her legs seemingly turned to water. Kayne passed her, half stumbling. ‘Demon-fear,’ he spat, between gritted teeth. ‘Don’t let it conquer you, lass.’
Cole caught up with her and grasped her hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I won’t let them hurt you.’
They reached the fighting just as the second-to-last giant fell, his eight-hundred-pound bulk going down beneath a half-dozen fiends, their razor claws pulling his intestines out through his stomach. Sasha raised her crossbow with trembling hands and sent a bolt thudding into the head of one of the demons, killing it instantly. Isaac, Kayne and Jerek plunged into them, sword and axe cleaving apart the fiends. Fire burst from Rana’s outstretched palm, roasting four of them, their pink flesh turning a darker shade of red, circular mouths widening in silent screams.
The sole remaining giant wielded his huge tree like a quarterstaff, fending off the demons with both ends. His skin was gouged and bleeding in countless places but he was seemingly immovable, a towering colossus standing head and shoulders above even Isaac. As Sasha watched, Cole sneaked up behind one of the fiends and plunged Magebane into the place where its heart ought to be. The demon twisted around, scything claws raking for Cole’s face. He danced back, avoiding the swiping talons by a whisper, and then struck like a snake, once, twice, three times, Magebane tearing gaping holes in the fiend.
In a moment of utter, pant-pissing terror, Sasha spotted one of the demons dashing towards her, its limbs flailing wildly. She reached for her quiver but, overwhelmed by horror, she fumbled the bolt. It clattered uselessly to the ground and she turned to flee, only to trip over a rock and sprawl flat on her face, scraping her cheek painfully. She rolled onto her back just as the demon reached her. Its grotesque head snapped down, teeth gnashing, desperate to tear her face right off her skull. In mad panic she grabbed hold of its head, stopping it mere inches from her, so close she could count the razor teeth bristling in its gaping maw.
Everyone else was busy fighting for their own lives, too busy to come to her aid. She remembered being in a similar predicament outside the gates of Dorminia, the weight of a man pressing down on her as he tried to choke the life from her. She’d saved herself that time, but she’d had a shortsword to hand and besides, that had only been a soldier, not a demon from a place beyond her worst nightmares.
The demon’s jaws brushed her nose and she screamed, her arms shaking with the effort of trying to hold it off. She caught a glimpse of Cole, surrounded by a trio of demons. He met her gaze and his face filled with agony. He couldn’t reach her in time.
Sasha spotted a jagged rock a few feet away. It was the same rock that had tripped her up. She stared at it, wishing it were just a few inches closer...
It might have been a trick of her panicked imagination, but the rock seemed to shift slightly. She felt that tingling in her body again, just like she had in Derkin’s home when the tea Derkin’s mother had placed in her hands had boiled out of the cup.
Am I moving it? Is it possible? She focused on the rock, willing it to come to her. Again it shifted, further this time, skipping over the ground like a pebble skipping across a pond. Suddenly it jumped, landing near her leg. She couldn’t spare a hand, so instead she concentrated on the snarling, biting visage a few inches from her face, willing the rock to crush its skull. It bounced up and struck the demon on the head. It looked stunned for a second or two, but then it attacked with renewed fury.
Shit.
In desperation she searched around. This time her gaze settled on the crossbow bolt she had fumbled and she willed it to rise off the ground, to pierce the brain of the nightmarish apparition above her. The bolt vibrated a few times.
Come on, you bastard. Move. Fucking move!
There was a soft popping sound.
The demon slid slowly off her, the shaft of the crossbow protruding from its cranium.
Sasha climbed unsteadily to her feet, shocked at what had just happened. Dead demons and giants littered the plateau. Cole and the giant finished off the last of the demons while the others were regrouping, wiping ichor from their faces and their weapons. Isaac walked over and stared down at the dead demon near her feet. ‘Telekinetic manipulation,’ he said, sounding impressed. ‘One of the last augmentations we discovered, and one of the most unstable. You are full of surprises.’
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, not really sharing Isaacs sense of wonderment.
None of the small company appeared to have been wounded in the fight. The giant, however, bore terrible gashes on both its legs and its stomach. It stared at them suspiciously from beneath heavily lidded eyes, its massive chest rising and falling. Cole stared up at it and frowned. ‘Can you speak?’
The giant merely looked down at him.
‘You’d better answer me,’ Cole snapped. ‘I just saved your life.’
The giant grunted and blew snot from its nose. Though it appeared to be accidental, some of it struck Cole in the face.
&
nbsp; Her friend reached up and wiped the snot from his forehead, staring at it with an unreadable expression. Then, to Sasha’s shock, he leaped up and slapped the massive humanoid across the cheek. ‘Don’t you disrespect me, you son of a bitch!’ he snarled.
The giant gave a furious bellow and took a single lumbering step towards Cole, only for Isaac to block its path. Kayne and Jerek held Cole back. He seemed as eager to get a piece of the giant as it was to get a piece of him.
‘Calm,’ the Adjudicator ordered. The giant blinked a few times and then visibly relaxed, pacified by the power of Isaac’s voice. Cole looked vaguely embarrassed. Even Sasha found her anxiety melting away as the immortal’s command soothed her emotions. ‘Tell us what happened here,’ Isaac said softly.
‘Demons,’ the giant rumbled, in a voice like an avalanche. ‘Attacked our clan. Other clans all dead or gone. Wouldn’t flee. Is our home.’ The giant spread its hands and stared mournfully at its fallen comrades. ‘Now all gone.’
‘We are sorry for the loss of your kin,’ said Isaac. ‘Tell me. Do you know of the Herald? It is a demon far larger than any other. It has three eyes that see inside your soul, and wings that seem to blot out the sun.’
The giant nodded its massive head. ‘It came to us in storm. Many moons past. Offered dark promises. Some giants listened. Not Mighty Oak. Not his clan.’
‘You are Mighty Oak?’ Isaac asked. The giant nodded. ‘Where are the other giants? Those that listened to the Herald?’
‘Gone west to smallfolk lands. Gone with demons to slaughter smallfolk. To kill.’ The giant nodded at Cole and Sasha. He seemed uncertain about Isaac, treating the Fade with a wary respect that he clearly did not hold for humans. At least not until he saw Brodar Kayne.
‘Cold Eyes,’ he rumbled, sounding surprised. ‘Thought you dead. Many moons ago.’
The old Highlander stared up at the giant. He was a tall man, still an impressive figure despite his advancing years, but compared with the immortal Fade and the towering giant he looked wretched. Wretched and a little broken. ‘I ain’t dead yet,’ he said, though the grimace on his face suggested that he might have some doubts as to how much longer that would remain the case.
‘You know this man?’ said Isaac.
Mighty Oak nodded once again. ‘Cold Eyes famous.’
Kayne sighed at that. The sorceress, Rana, was watching him carefully. ‘Why is he famous?’ continued Isaac.
Mighty Oak brought an equally mighty fist to his chest in what appeared to be a gesture of respect. ‘Cold Eyes killed many giants. Those that tried to cross Boundary. Strong Heart and Long Tooth. Dancing Maiden, too.’
‘Dancing Maiden?’ Sasha said. ‘You mean there are female giants?’
Of course there are, stupid, she silently chided herself. The males don’t get themselves pregnant.
‘Dancing Maiden dragged body to mirror lake,’ Mighty Oak said. ‘Spoke of Cold Eyes as deadly killer. She died well.’
‘Didn’t realize “he” was a “she” until after,’ muttered Kayne, looking at the ground. Rana was staring at Brodar Kayne with a hard expression.
A sudden wind gusted across the plateau. Sasha shivered. The wind felt... strange. Cold, and yet also hot.
Mighty Oak’s eyes narrowed. ‘Must seek shelter. Killing wind is coming.’
‘Killing wind?’ Isaac repeated, his melodic voice echoing eerily.
The giant nodded. ‘Have to go. Not safe here.’
‘Wait.’ The command in Isaac’s voice stopped Mighty Oak dead in his tracks. ‘Do you know where the Herald may be found?’
The giant pointed towards the north-east with a finger as thick as a spear shaft. ‘In valley beyond mountains. Land is... wrong there. Mighty Oak’s kind no go near.’
‘You could come with us,’ Brodar Kayne said. ‘We could use your help.’ There was something in the Highlander’s voice. A deep sadness, maybe.
Mighty Oak shook his head. ‘First shelter. Then I search mountains for kin. Maybe others survived.’
Brodar Kayne cleared his throat. ‘Wish you luck with that, friend. Sorry about your fellows.’ The old warrior Mighty Oak had named ‘Cold Eyes’ might have been talking about the fallen giants scattered about the tableland – or he might have been talking about the giants he himself had killed in his younger years.
They watched the lumbering giant depart. ‘I hope he finds more of his people,’ Rana said. ‘There is a certain sadness in him being the last of his clan, bereft of everything he once knew.’ Sasha noticed then that the sorceress appeared to have a few specks of blood on her face.
Kayne shook his head. ‘He’s got the demon-rot,’ the old warrior said quietly. ‘You saw those wounds on his legs? They were turning black. He’ll be dead on the morrow. Maybe the day after.’
A gloomy silence followed that unhappy pronouncement. The wind howled again and this time Sasha felt wetness on her face. She reached up and when she examined her fingers she saw with horror that they were speckled with blood.
‘Sash!’ exclaimed Cole. ‘You’re bleeding!’ He glimpsed his reflection in Magebane’s blade and paled a little beneath the crimson sheen covering his own skin. ‘Shit. So am I...’
*
They sought shelter as the wind quickly became a terrifying storm. The companions huddled in a small cave just below the tor on which the battle had taken place and listened to the raging of the killing wind. The howling from outside was otherworldly, like the screams of a mad god reverberating through the mountains. At one point, shards of a hard substance rained down, shattering as they struck the rock. Had the party still been out in the open, the unnatural rain would have cut them all to ribbons.
‘What the hell is that?’ Sasha wondered aloud. Something shattered just inside the cave and she scooped it up in her hands, accidentally cutting herself. The substance resembled opaque glass, cloudy and rough-textured. It was like nothing she had seen before.
‘We are very close to a rift,’ Isaac explained.
‘A rift?’ Cole asked, half-heartedly. He seemed distracted.
‘A doorway to whatever dark dimension the Nameless and its kind reside within. The barrier between realities is weakest near a rift. What is happening outside is a result of this convergence.’
‘And you’re saying we’ve got to get even closer to this rift in order to track down the Herald?’ Kayne didn’t sound impressed. ‘Can’t say I’m keen on the prospect.’
Sasha wasn’t keen on the prospect either. Once again she wondered why she had volunteered for this suicide mission. In truth, though, she already knew the answer. He was sitting just opposite her, gloomier than she’d ever seen him. Cole met her eyes for an instant, then glanced away.
There came the fluttering of wings from outside, barely audible above the storm. A large bird suddenly skipped across the cave’s surface, shedding dark feathers from its body, so bedraggled it was a wonder it could still fly. It came to a halt just before Cole.
Sasha stared at the bird. It was a crow, she saw.
The bird began to glow. Magic wreathed its avian form and it began to change shape, growing arms and legs, becoming a man—
‘Thanates,’ she gasped.
The wizard-king of Dalashra looked as though he had been through hell. His face was even gaunter than usual, and his black overcoat, tattered at the best of times, was almost falling off him, and was torn and singed in countless places. He had a fresh scar running from the top of his head down to the bottom of his cheek.
Thanates raised a gloved hand and ran it through his receding hair. Flakes of ash tumbled out, drifting down to the ground. ‘Now that,’ he said darkly, ‘was unpleasant.’
Isaac rose majestically to his feet, obsidian gaze watching the mage intently. ‘The dragon?’
‘I lost it. Eventually. It proved more stubborn than I had anticipated.’
Jerek looked up from where he was starting a fire. ‘You mean you didn’t kill the bastard?’
‘I doubt t
here is a human alive who could slay such a beast. I include the Magelords in that. Even Alassa.’
Alassa was the White Lady’s true name. Sasha remembered the Unborn’s parting words in the cave of the cultists.
If Thanates returns, tell him... tell him I am waiting for him.
Sasha rose and went to sit by the wizard as he attempted to dry himself by the fire Jerek had just kindled. ‘She misses you,’ she said. ‘The White Lady. She told me to tell you that.’
Thanates seemed taken aback. ‘She did?’
‘Yes.’ An awkward silence followed. Sasha looked across the fire to Cole, who sighed and rose to his feet.
‘The storm’s stopped,’ he stated coolly. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
‘Do not be long,’ Isaac said. ‘You need to rest. Tomorrow we enter the Valley of the Nameless.’
‘You’re not my father!’ Cole shot back. He spun and stalked out of the cave, pulling his hood tight up over his head.
Jerek spat. ‘He’s pissing me right off,’ the Wolf rasped angrily.
‘I’ll go and speak with him,’ said Sasha. She got to her feet and hurried after her friend, ducking out of the cave. The storm had left the terrain battered and blasted. Broken shards of the strange substance littered the ground. Up on the plateau, the bodies of the giants had been stripped of flesh and a good number were torn apart, limbs scattered everywhere. The demonkin were already dissolving into puddles of putrid gore.
Sasha caught up with Cole and placed a hand upon his shoulder to slow him. ‘What’s got into you?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve been acting like – well, like an arsehole ever since the Seeker went down.’
‘Thanks for the insult,’ he replied petulantly. ‘Last time you called me an arsehole I didn’t see you for months. Maybe you’re hoping the trick will work again.’
‘Cole, don’t be like this. I thought you were finally starting to grow up.’
He rounded on her, the fury in his grey eyes stopping her dead in her tracks. ‘Don’t talk to me about growing up! You have no idea of the shit I’ve been through. The only thing keeping me going, the only thing keeping me sane—’ He seemed to catch himself, thought better of what he was about to say. ‘Look, don’t worry about it,’ he said, softening his tone. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind. Tomorrow we face the Herald. I don’t know why they chose us for this stupid mission—’