by Luke Scull
‘Child of murder,’ thundered the general, as more thralls began to drag themselves onto the docks, dripping dirty water from the harbour, weapons glistening in their hands and on their belts. ‘You thought yourself my match because a god resides in you? The gods had their chance to challenge me millennia ago. It is too late for them. And now, it is too late for you.’ His hand began to squeeze. Cole thrashed wildly, the shadows falling away like shredded fabric as the Reaver abandoned him. He met Sasha’s eyes, all Cole again, pure terror on his face.
In sheer panic, Sasha raised her crossbow and fired. The bolt bounced off Saverian’s silver armour. He shot her a glare as his thralls closed on her hiding place. ‘Ah, the mutant girl. Once I am finished with this one, it will be your turn. I wish to see for myself the implants you stole from us.’
Sasha screamed as she was dragged out from behind the barricade by a pair of thralls. As they laid their hands on her, however, something strange happened. Visions suddenly exploded in her mind. She saw the thrall to her left tilling fields on a hazy summer morning. Something moved in the long grass behind him. She tried to yell out a warning but then a hand clamped around her mouth and the world went dark.
The next thing she knew, she was strapped to a chair in a darkened room while a sliver of metal was inserted into her arm. It clamped into her flesh and her brain seemed to explode, awareness fading until she could see only a towering, white-haired being whose voice filled her world...
Sasha returned to herself just as one of the thralls raised his cudgel, preparing to smash her skull in. Cole was twitching in Saverian’s grasp, his strength almost spent.
Her skin was tingling. She watched the thrall – a big, burly fellow – pull his arm back. ‘No!’ she screamed, knowing this was the end, her voice cracking with grief.
The thrall hesitated. He looked from her to Saverian. ‘Kill her!’ the general barked. ‘You have your instructions.’
Something burned in Sasha’s skull, like a tiny fire had been lit. An implant being activated. The thrall readied himself to attack again.
‘No,’ she said, calmer this time—
And the man lowered his cudgel. He stared at her, a blank expression on his face... almost as though he were awaiting further command.
Finally, she understood the nature of the implant Fergus had inserted into her skull; the memories she had no knowledge of that plagued both her dreams and her waking hours.
They belonged to the thralls. Somehow, she was mentally connected to them all.
More than connected – she was the nexus. The centre of a vast network of men and women enslaved by the Fade-created parasites implanted in their flesh.
And somehow she was the controller, able to override Saverian’s instructions.
‘Stop him!’ she shouted, pointing at the towering general. The thralls on the docks immediately turned on Saverian, who released Cole and raised his sword to defend himself, pure rage twisting his alien features.
Cole was sprawled right in the path of the thralls as they converged on Saverian. Sasha dug deep, summoning the dregs of her strength, using her telekinesis to pull him back and away from Saverian and the men and women converging on him with weapons held high.
The thralls fared no better than had the Whitecloaks. Saverian’s crystal sword danced, slicing through muscle and bone, so far beyond their skill that no numerical advantage could possibly make any difference to the outcome.
In desperation, Sasha stared beyond Saverian to the ships bobbing in the harbour. She could feel the thralls aboard the ships; see glimmers of their suppressed minds, like fireflies flickering in the night.
She concentrated, reaching out with her thoughts, ordering those aboard the ships to adjust their targets. The carrack closest to Saverian shifted position slightly. The figures operating the cannons shoved fresh iron shots into the barrels...
Just as Saverian cut down the last of the thralls, the cannons roared. A second later the deck exploded beneath the Fade general, fragmenting into a shower of splinters. Sasha caught a glimpse of the Fade commander diving away, his features ruined, his black cloak in tatters. She thought she heard a splash as the cannons died, and then the night fell silent.
Sasha ran to Cole, knelt down beside him. Saverian’s fingers had left red marks around his throat, but he appeared more shaken than badly hurt. ‘Is he dead?’ he managed to rasp. ‘Did we kill the bastard?’
She gazed out over the water. She thought she could make out a shape moving north towards Dorminia. No human could possibly swim all the way back to Dorminia from Thelassa – but Saverian was no human. ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ she said grimly. She stared at the ships in the harbour. Ships packed with thralls, now under her command.
‘But,’ she added. ‘Unless he has another army... I think we’ve won.’
Monsters
✥
‘THEY WILL SUFFER. They will all suffer.’
A terrifying and familiar voice dragged him awake and the Halfmage’s eyes fluttered open. Or at least, they tried to flutter open. His face was still swollen and bruised from the vicious beating he’d received outside the Refuge. The sunlight filtering in through the open doorway made him squint and he blinked away tears.
He ought to be dead. The Collectors had scooped him off the streets and had been about to cart him away with the bodies of Ricker and Mard when Isaac’s sister, Melissan, had turned up and had brought him to an abandoned storeroom near the docks. A Fade physician had come to administer some healing, setting his broken arm, bandaging his cracked ribs. Sewing his scalp back together.
Good job I lack legs or no doubt I would also be nursing broken knees.
Weeks locked up in solitude had given the Halfmage plenty of time to reflect on the injustices done to him. The simmering resentment that had come to define his adult years had become a burning desire for revenge.
He fucking hated this city. These people.
His eyes finally adjusted enough to see General Saverian staring down at him. Eremul shrank back in his wheelchair. The Fade commander’s features were utterly ruined: half his hair had been scorched away, revealing the blistered scalp beneath. Terrible burns covered his face. There was a fevered look in his obsidian gaze.
‘What happened to you?’ the Halfmage whispered.
The general ignored his question. Behind Saverian, Melissan lurked in the doorway. ‘The others are ready to depart,’ she said to her disfigured commander. ‘I shall be glad to leave this accursed backwater.’ The hatred in her voice made the anger Eremul had felt for Salazar seem pitiful in comparison.
General Saverian gestured at Eremul with a fire-scarred hand. ‘We’re taking this one with us.’
‘Him?’ Melissan’s voice was thick with contempt. ‘Let this human excrement perish with the rest of them! He is a broken, wretched thing. Unworthy of breathing the same air as you and me. Never mind sharing space aboard the Retribution.’
‘The Retribution,’ Saverian growled. ‘The name is apt. As for this human, he is my proof that your brother was wrong. My vindication.’
‘I do not understand, betrothed,’ said Melissan.
Saverian leaned in to Eremul. ‘Tell me,’ he grated. ‘Why did your kin do this to you?’
The Halfmage’s eyes narrowed. ‘They think me a monster.’
‘Are they right?’
He remembered the glee on the faces of the gang as they punched him, kicked him, spat on him. He remembered Monique’s final words in that soul-destroying moment at the docks.
How could I love you?
‘I am what they made me,’ he rasped. ‘Everything I ever wanted, they denied me. Everything I ever cherished, they broke. Everything I ever loved... was an illusion.’
‘What do you want done to those who wronged you?’ Saverian’s eyes glittered.
‘Right at this moment, I’d like to see them burn.’
Saverian turned to Melissan. ‘You see, betrothed. Your brother was a fool. His judgement a lie.’
<
br /> ‘Judgement? Where is Isaac?’ Eremul demanded. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Forget Isaac. You will receive answers soon enough.’ Saverian gestured to Melissan. ‘Take his chair.’
Melissan looked as though she’d just been asked to hold a slimy turd in her delicate hands. ‘I am to play helper to this poisonous little half-man?’
‘Only until he is safe aboard the Retribution.’
They left the cramped storeroom and emerged into glorious sunshine. The Halfmage fancied he could hear Melissan’s teeth grating together as she pushed his chair down the cobbled streets. The Adjudicator hated him, that much was obvious.
No more than I hate myself. Or you. Or this city.
He stared down the thoroughfare and noticed with some surprise that the harbour was completely empty save for the single huge vessel carrying the Breaker of Worlds.
Where are the First and Second Fleets? Where are Dorminia’s ships?
He looked around. The streets were unusually busy compared with what had become the norm these last few months, but they were notably absent of the city’s immortal invaders. Men and women crowded together to watch them pass, and for the first time in a long while Eremul saw smiles on the faces of some. Smiles, and expressions of relief.
‘Good riddance to you,’ one woman muttered under her breath. Saverian turned to stare at her and she ran back inside her house, slamming the door behind her. Something Melissan had said echoed in Eremul’s groggy brain.
Let him perish with the rest of them.
‘You’re going to Reckon the city,’ he gasped. ‘They don’t know it – but they are all doomed.’
‘Not just this city,’ answered Melissan. This whole wretched Trine will be annihilated.’
Eremul grabbed Melissan’s wrist and she pulled away from him with a snarl. ‘You cannot!’
‘Why do you care?’ Saverian growled. ‘These people hate you. They do not deserve your pity.’
The Halfmage met the general’s gaze. ‘Maybe they don’t. Yet some are innocent.’
‘You confuse ignorance with innocence,’ hissed Melissan. ‘Every human, even a newborn babe, is poison. A poison that is merely biding its time before it becomes toxic. Your kind corrupt everything you touch. Even the People are not immune to it. Even my own family.’
It took a moment for the meaning behind Melissan’s words to sink in. ‘Where’s Isaac?’ Eremul asked again. The pain on Melissan’s face all but confirmed his suspicions.
Saverian’s ruined jaw clenched. ‘He spent too much time among humanity. Sometimes a smaller evil must be suffered so that a greater good may flourish.’
Melissan’s fingers dug painfully into Eremul’s bruised shoulder. ‘Cease your questions. Be grateful you are to be spared the same fate as your kin, for you surely deserve it.’
Eremul sat in silence for another minute or two. Then he said, ‘I wish to remain here.’
Saverian stopped abruptly. The Fade general turned to Eremul, his mouth twisting in fury. ‘What did you say?’
‘I wish to remain here.’
You fool! What are you doing? Save yourself!
‘You will die!’ barked Saverian.
‘That’s humans for you. We tend to make a habit of it.’
The general reached for his sword. ‘I could kill you now,’ he said coldly. ‘Piece by piece.’
The Halfmage shrugged and smiled a horrible, humourless smile. ‘Ah, that old chestnut. Look at me,’ he said, pointing to his stumps. ‘Such a threat carries less weight than you might expect when directed at a man with no legs. I suppose you could delve further into the realms of banality and threaten my cock – but I must you warn you, that too would be no great loss.’
Saverian’s face filled with such rage that for a moment he looked as though he was going to follow through with his threat. Instead, he sheathed his sword. ‘Very well,’ he said, his voice seething. ‘You will be Reckoned.’ He walked away. Melissan shot Eremul a hateful stare and followed after him, leaving the Halfmage alone.
Eremul closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, wondering what to do next. There was little to be gained by warning his fellow citizens. They wouldn’t be able to evacuate in time. It would simply create panic on the streets and turn Dorminia’s final few hours into a living hell.
He was still wrestling with his conscience when the first mouthful of spit splattered over the back of his head. ‘Treacherous prick!’ screamed a woman from the window of a building above. He realized with growing horror that a mob was beginning to form.
A stone ricocheted off his broken arm. The agony caused him to bite down hard on his tongue and he tasted blood. He tried to draw upon his magic, to summon a barrier to ward against further projectiles – but when he reached for his magic, there was nothing there.
He stared at his hands in shock.
‘Abandoned you now, have they?’ someone shouted. ‘Even those black-eyed bastards can’t stand the cripple!’
Curses and insults rained down upon him. Those Eremul could tolerate, but the spit and then the shit tossed from buckets that followed were another matter. Soon he was covered in filth. ‘Traitor!’ a man screamed. And then, ‘Monster!’
I am no traitor, he wanted to shout back. I am no monster! I’m just a man. A man you reject for being different. For being born with magic.
‘Fuck you,’ he screamed. ‘Fuck the lot of you.’ He was shaking now. He stared around, looking for a side alley to lose himself in. A place where he could wait out the last miserable hours of his life before the Breaker of Worlds burned all the pain away.
A small boy looked up from playing in the dirt and met his gaze. The child had been poking at a damaged wall with a stick, trying to scoop out the cement. When he saw Eremul, he reached into his filthy trousers and pulled out something small and green. It was an apple. He tossed it to the Halfmage, who caught it in his good hand. The skin was a little bruised, but beneath it the fruit was still fresh.
‘Don’t pay them no mind,’ the boy called out. ‘Olly and the others said you was sound. They used to run errands for you at the depository. I always liked books. When I grow up, I wanna be like you.’
The orphan waved and scampered off. Eremul watched him go while around him the abuse continued. He stared at the apple and frowned, then placed it in a pocket.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his injured arm, he wheeled himself after the two immortals in the distance. ‘Wait for me!’ he yelled.
*
Eremul sat beside the towering figure of General Saverian near the starboard rail of the Retribution and watched Dorminia vanish into the distance. The general turned to him, his arms crossed over his chest, and fixed the Halfmage with a contemptuous stare. ‘I knew you would return,’ he said. ‘It is an imperative of your race to save yourselves at any cost. You know nothing of unity. Of sacrifice for the greater good.’
The Halfmage was silent for a moment. ‘Where is Prince Obrahim? There are barely twenty of you aboard this ship. Perhaps the fehd are not as unified as you claim.’
Saverian’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think yourself clever, half-man. Perhaps Isaac was enamoured of your wit. I am minded to cut out your tongue.’
‘That’s Halfmage,’ corrected Eremul. ‘And cutting, again? After five thousand years, I had imagined you might possess more creative means of threatening a legless cripple.’
The look Saverian gave him should have chilled his blood and loosened his bowels, but the Halfmage was beyond fear. Monique had broken something inside him.
‘Disrespect me again, and you will drown in these waters,’ said Saverian. ‘That is a promise.’
They were silent for a time. When the Retribution was halfway to Thelassa, the ship dropped anchor and the Ancients began inspecting the giant cannon that took up the bulk of the ship’s deck. It began to move slowly, the mechanisms that operated it responding to directions presumably issued from below decks.
‘Dorminia will be
obliterated,’ said Saverian. ‘The Breaker of Worlds aboard this vessel is twice as powerful as that unleashed upon the Demonfire Hills. The creeping sickness that follows the blast will kill the populace of Thelassa slowly. They will suffer before they die. Suffer like none before them.’
Eremul stared at the great cannon piercing the sky. In minutes it would unleash a Reckoning upon the Trine.
I have no magic. No allies. I cannot even walk. I have nothing. Nothing except my anger.
‘I want to ask about something,’ he said abruptly. ‘Isaac’s judgement. You said he was wrong. About what?’
Saverian’s scarred face twitched. ‘He believed he saw something in you that proved your race could be redeemed. Instead he allowed himself to become corrupted.’
‘You killed him.’
‘I did what was necessary to protect my people. As I have always done. Even now I sacrifice for them. The Breaker of Worlds was to guarantee our security. Instead I shall employ it against the Trine so that humanity may never again sail west and threaten our homeland. My sword shall conquer the lands to the south. In time, this continent will be mine.’
So said every other tyrant. Is this why your brother abandoned you? You became enamoured of your own legend, Saverian. Blind to your own hubris.
The Halfmage stared at the sea far below the ship. It looked beautiful in the afternoon sun.
Peaceful.
He took a deep breath. ‘This isn’t about sacrifice,’ he said. ‘This is about vengeance. Your people abandoned you. Conquering Thelassa proved beyond you. Now you seek to salve your ego by murdering countless thousands.’
Eremul summoned all his bitterness; all the anger that had lived inside him for so many years. He summoned it, and spat it right back in the face of the legendary Fade before him. ‘You’re the fucking monster here, general. The worst kind of monster. A hypocrite.’
Saverian was across to him in an instant, a hand around Eremul’s throat, his voice bubbling like molten iron. ‘Insolent dog,’ he thundered. ‘You dare judge me? You abandoned your people to die! You cowardly, snivelling little worm! Don’t think your magic will save you now. The water you’ve been drinking was spiked with powdered abyssium.’