Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  They were a storm, daring anyone to come near, and they knew it. They felt it now, every single one. The fear had melted away, if only temporarily.

  Even when the next dozen stars fell, disturbingly close this time, the army kept on singing and drumming. The stars shook the ice from under their feet, but still they kept at it. It was only when one solitary star fell, later than the rest, did the thunder and noise die away a little.

  The star fell in the very centre of the battlefield. Like a suicidal mountain it threw itself into the ice. It was bigger than the rest, it was easy to see that from the size of the hole it left. There was a deep rumbling in the seconds that followed. They could feel the ice cracking deep below them. Modren stepped back into line as the drumming died away.

  A grey finger inched over the edge of the hole. No, not a finger, a claw. It fell back into the hole, leaving an oily smear behind. Then came a whip-like tail, waving like a flag in the gloom. Then a glow to rival Samara and the volcanoes, a hot red glow from inside the hole. A great gush of steam came up, and then the daemon lifted itself from the hole, stepping out onto the ice.

  ‘And what about that?’ Modren muttered into Eyrum’s notched ear. ‘How does that compare to the hydra.’

  Eyrum sniffed. ‘Still not as big.’

  It was monstrous even so. A giant welt of a creature, a grey lump of flesh with cracks of red running through its skin like magma under stone. Its mouth was a blacksmith’s forge, only with teeth, broken shards of teeth that looked more used to gnawing on granite than bone. It had a crown of twisted horns, and two that framed its face, pointing down into his mouth, as if any prey needed directions. If that wasn’t fearsome enough, it had two pairs of arms, each knotted with muscle and sinew like ripcord, and claws that would have made a scythe weep with embarrassment.

  ‘Count yourself lucky that you can’t see this, Durnus,’ whispered Modren.

  Durnus shook his head. ‘Oh, I can.’ He could see the fiery outline of it in the dark. That was enough. ‘It is time,’ he said.

  ‘That it is,’ Modren replied. He raised his sword. ‘Mages! Written! Spells at the ready!’

  There was a desperate shuffling as the mages moved forward. Fire, smoke, sparks, ice, water, and light began to trail around their wrists and fingers. Modren felt his ears pop one more time as the magick swelled. It was their turn to make the ground shake. ‘Archers!’ Durnus yelled. The creaking of several hundred bows added to the crackle and hiss of the spells.

  ‘Fire!’

  Perhaps it was an accident that everybody aimed for the giant daemon. Perhaps it was the fact that he was closer, or bigger. Perhaps it terrified them to their very cores.

  Maybe it was all of these.

  The daemon was turned into a flaming pincushion within seconds. Once again, time slowed as the army made the first strike. Arrows flitted past ears and helmets, like a swarm of angry, bladed hornets eager for blood. They soon found it. The daemon snarled and held up his hands as the arrows flew in. He was marching forward when the spells struck him. Fireballs struck him in the face and midriff. Lightning burnt the flesh from his black bones. Ice pierced him. He belched and bled smoke, filling the battlefield.

  In moments, he was down, claws raking at the ground in frustration and pain. There was a whine as the last few spells struck home, and then the creature sagged into the snow, dead. The first blood had been drawn.

  The army was about to raise an almighty cheer to the sky when they saw the rest of the daemons sprinting towards them. Wolves galloped alongside them. Dragons filled the sky above them. Creatures of all kinds, swarthy wild men, clansmen, bears, sabre-cats, ravens, rock trolls, ice trolls, tree trolls, and even a white giant charged by their sides.

  ‘Spears! Spells! Fire at will!’ Modren bellowed, summoning a huge fireball.

  Seconds can drag into minutes in battle, but they can also shrink to nothing. A hundred yards were charged as though they were an inch, and before anyone could tense or take a breath, the battle had been joined.

  Chapter 29

  “Imagine if all the spell books in the world were to be taken away, whisked into memory, with the snap of a finger. How long do you think our songs can survive for, without them? How long will the rhymes stay lodged in the mind? The father can only whisper into the ears of his son for so long before the song is lost, or changed.”

  From the wildly popular book ‘Mutterings’ - author anonymous

  ‘You would think it would smell down here,’ Farden mused as they trudged through the seemingly endless tunnels.

  ‘Smell?’

  ‘Of dead things,’ Farden said. He stepped aside as a huge minotaur lumbered past, vacant-eyed and faded. Farden couldn’t help but reach for his sword. Old habits, he guessed.

  ‘These are souls, not rotting bodies, mage,’ Loki tutted.

  ‘Of dirt then. Of mildew. It smells of nothing. There is nothing here but rock. I don’t even feel warm or cold. Just nothing. It’s as if my body doesn’t acknowledge this place is real,’ replied Farden, running his hands along the dusty rock. It certainly felt real.

  Loki sighed. ‘An interesting observation. Perhaps you’re dead as well. That’s why you can’t feel anything.’

  ‘Not likely,’ Farden scoffed, rubbing his vambraces. Even so, he surreptitiously pinched himself to make sure. He winced. Still alive then.

  They paused so Tyrfing could catch up. He appeared momentarily, leaning heavily on the rock, hand clamped over his mouth. Farden itched to keep going. Elessi had to be caught before she reached the bridge, if she hadn’t already. He prayed that she hadn’t, willed it with every inch of his being. They had been walking for hours and still there was no sign of any bridge. Just the slow, ambling of the shadows and the endless tunnels, lit by light unseen.

  Farden stood in the centre of the tunnel, half watching his uncle, half examining the faces of the dead. Man, man, troll-thing, woman… no, I’ve seen her before. Child. Man. He counted each and every single one. Still no Elessi. Farden stamped his foot in frustration. They had to keep going.

  ‘Tyrfing?’ he hollered. His uncle waved and nodded, and made an effort to follow. Perhaps it was something about the tunnels, maybe the dust, but he had gotten worse in the past hour, ever since stepping off that horrid ship. Farden bit the inside of his lip as Tyrfing jogged to meet them. He was wheezing hard when he arrived.

  ‘Any sign?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Tyrfing shook his head and shooed them forward. ‘Then let’s keep going.’

  Farden set his jaw. ‘Just tell me if you n…’

  ‘Nonsense, nephew. Keep up,’ Tyrfing chided. He burst forward, making a go of trying to stay ahead, but he soon fell back again after a dozen paces. Farden knew his uncle didn’t want to be fussed over, so he left him to it, and busied himself with checking the dead, running from shadow to shadow until he was breathless. Woman, woman, child… for gods’ sakes, where are you Elessi?!

  ‘Tell me about this bridge, Loki,’ Farden asked, as he was barged aside by a gangly shadow. The dead were finding their feet again, quickening their pace. A fresh muttering and whispering filled the tunnels as it had the endless cavern. Farden felt they were near, though to what he had no clue.

  ‘A bridge? Usually a structure, carrying a road or path across an obstruction or obstacle, perhaps a river, or fjord, or…’

  ‘This is no time for your games, Loki!’ Farden snapped. ‘Tell me about this bridge.’

  ‘The Bifröst?’

  ‘Is that what they call it?’

  Loki shrugged. ‘Some do. We gods do. We built many bridges in our time.’

  ‘You built this bridge?’

  ‘Partly. The rest built itself.’

  ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘Where there’s a need for something, the world provides. The dead, when there began to be dead, needed a way to the other side, to the void that all souls must go to,’ Loki paused to squeeze between two shadows.
He shivered, made a show of checking their faces, and moved on. ‘This bridge was created to guide them there. We gods just helped it along.’

  ‘And the daemons?’

  ‘The daemons? They built this place.’

  Farden nodded, remembering his uncle’s stories. ‘And so the daemons dwelt alongside the dead?’

  ‘Worse,’ Loki sneered, ‘they used them.’

  ‘Used them how?’

  ‘Ever wonder why we gods took so long to defeat the daemons? It’s because prayer is so weak compared to that of a soul. Both lend us power of course,’ Loki said, letting his fingers pass through a nearby shadow, an old man hobbling along with a cane. He shuddered, but his face suggested it wasn’t all that unpleasant. Farden eyed him suspiciously. ‘But one is considerably more… satisfying.’

  ‘So that’s why Hel told you to leave the dead alone.’

  ‘The Allfather forbade it. He created you creatures, both body and soul. He saw it as perverse to create a race purely so we could consume it. Rather, he saw it noble to create a race that could worship and fight. That could choose. I fail to see the difference. As did the daemons. They had, and have, no such qualms about consuming souls.’

  ‘You know what? The more you talk about the other gods, the more it sounds like you don’t like them very much.’

  ‘Have you heard them speak of me? I guess it would sound the same.’

  ‘Somebody’s bitter.’

  Loki ignored him, muttering something dark and poisonous. Farden relished in the point he had scored. Served the god right. Still, something in Loki’s tone troubled him. Something in the way he stood a little straighter, a little taller. Something in the way he strode back and forth, idly checking the dead, his usual saunter injected with a little bit of swagger. Farden didn’t like it one bit and it made him wary. Still, he was a god. A bastard of one, but a god nonetheless, and therefore bound to their morals. ‘So this bridge? Is it near?’ he asked.

  Loki paused to watch the shadow of a wood troll wander past, its giant oaken limbs creaking faintly, emerald eyes still glowing stubbornly even in death. Intrigued, the god followed it around a corner. He was about to disappear from view when something stopped him dead in his tracks. ‘See for yourself, mage,’ he said.

  ‘Tyrfing!’ Farden called out as he bounded forward. It took him a moment to reach Loki’s side, and when he did, a cold wind and a formidable sight joined forces to take his breath away.

  ‘Might I introduce the Bifröst,’ Loki muttered beside him, as he gawked at the edge of the world.

  The entire end of the cave was missing. In its place was nothing. Not a dark hole leading out into another cavern. Not a hole that led out into the countryside, wherever that may be. Nothing. Not even misty gloom. Just pure, simple darkness. At first, Farden thought it might be a wall, painted with the blackest paint imaginable, but then he took a step forward, and he saw that the void, for that was what it was, had a depth to it that suddenly made him feel very small, and very alone. It was a pit of darkness that had no edges, no limits, no end. No dust swam in it. Not even stars shone in it.

  It was the other side.

  Farden looked down the slope at the bridge that speared the void, one brave spit of reality bridging the gap between this world and the next, a single half-arch precariously clinging to the rock of the cave. Its join was so seamless that it looked as though the rock had spewed it out into the void, instead of being mortared into place. That was where the relationship ended. It was the bridge’s colour that fascinated Farden. Instead of mirroring the cold, grey rock of the cave and the tunnels, the Bifröst was a shimmering… colour. It was hard to say which. It cycled through the spectrum faster than the eye could follow, glittering here and there with little curls of light and golden flame, like a rainbow on fire. Farden couldn’t help but want to touch it. Would it be warm, or ice cold? Would it burn him? Was it metal, or stone? The mage wandered forward, leaving Loki behind. Had Farden spared a glance for him, he would have seen a jittery smile beginning to creep across the god’s face.

  The dead pressed towards the Bifröst, slowly, yet inexorably. They didn’t fight and clamour like they had at the Naglfar, but rather they serenely took it in turns to step onto the bridge, in twos, threes, sometimes four together. Farden watched as an old couple set their feet to its glittering surface. They walked, still hand in hand, to its apex, where the void whisked them away. They didn’t scream or shout. There was no violence in it; they simply melted into dust and faded into the darkness. It was all very orderly for the afterlife.

  Farden looked across the crowds, wincing at the sheer numbers. They were pressed a hundred deep at the thinnest point, all tightly-packed and shuffling toward the bridge, always to the bridge. None of them looked back.

  ‘Elessi!’ Farden bellowed across the heads of the crowd. It was useless. Not a single head turned. He needed to find a rock, or a boulder, anything to climb up on. He pushed his way forward and dove into the crowd.

  It was the boulder that found him, not the other way around. He didn’t see it until he was sprawled over it, hidden as it was amongst the forest of shuffling legs. Nursing his groin, he clambered on top of it. It wasn’t much, but it put him at least a head over most of the crowd. He shouted again, cupping his dusty hands around his mouth. ‘Elessi!’

  Nothing again. All Farden could hear was the incessant muttering and whispering of the dead. ‘ELESSI!’ he boomed, so loud his lungs hurt. His eyes frantically scanned the crowd. Still nothing, and every second that passed, another two or three shadows disappeared into the void. Any one of them could have been Elessi. It was like watching the sand run down an hourglass, except that at the bottom, the sand fell into an abyss, never to return. Farden could not have that. He had made a promise.

  He jumped from his boulder and began to wade through the crowd again, pushing aside anything his hands came into contact with. It was like wading through deep water. The dead refused to move for him, and Farden soon found himself stranded, stuck in the middle of crowd.

  ‘Tyrfing! Loki!’ Farden shouted, jumping up as high as he could. He saw them in similar positions. Tyrfing was by the tunnel, swimming in his own patch of crowd. Loki was nearby, and somehow making a beeline for the Bifröst, effortlessly weaving in between the shadows as if they were nothing. ‘Loki!’ Farden yelled, but the god paid him no attention. ‘Loki! Where are you going? Can you see her?!’ he cried. Loki had already disappeared. ‘Damn it, you bastard!’

  Farden gnashed his teeth together. He felt drowned in the crowd. He shoved and pushed but the dead didn’t budge. He held out his hands to brace himself and shut his eyes. If he had ever needed his magick, it was now. Come on! he inwardly roared. He muttered something to himself as a sharp pain ripped through his skull. ‘Agh!’ Farden yelped. He pushed again, grimacing as the pain grew and grew. He snarled as he felt the bile rising. He felt his fingers twitch. He cracked open an eye just in time to see one of the shadows stumble and fall. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Reeling with pain, Farden rushed into the gap he had made and pushed on. Tyrfing was soon behind him.

  ‘This is no time to be experimenting, Farden. I don’t want to have to carry your unconscious weight back through those tunnels, you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you. Now stop complaining and find Elessi!’ Farden snapped.

  With two to do the barging, they moved a lot faster. Tyrfing used his magick to cleave a path through the ranks. Farden followed closely, trying not to faint from the blinding pain in his skull.

  ‘There’s Loki!’ Tyrfing shouted, pointing towards the bridge. Farden glimpsed a dark figure standing on it. ‘What in Emaneska is he up to?’

  That knot that had been forming in Farden’s stomach tightened. A cold shiver washed over him as he spied the god standing alone amongst the shadows on the Bifröst, smirking and proud, watching them calmly as the mages struggled to the foot of the bridge. ‘I think we’re about to find out,’ Farden hissed.

&nb
sp; ‘Loki, what are you doing?’ Tyrfing challenged him. There was a metallic whine as Farden drew his sword.

  ‘Tyrfing, look,’ breathed Farden, pointing with the blade.

  Loki had Elessi by the arm. Farden’s heart thumped. She was a faint shadow in his grip. She struggled only slightly, but he seemed to be having a hard time keeping hold of her. The apex of the bridge looked painfully close. Tyrfing turned around to hold back the dead while Farden moved forward. ‘Let her go, Loki,’ he ordered, moving slowly.

  But Loki just tutted. ‘Poor choice of words, mage. Why would I go and do a thing like that?’

  Farden stepped onto the Bifröst. He could feel the thing vibrating beneath his feet, feel its heat rising up to warm his chin and face. Up close it looked like molten gold, swimming with gems and diamonds. His boots hissed quietly as its fire tested them. ‘Give her to me, then,’ he said, holding out a hand.

  Loki nonchalantly thrust his spare hand into one of his coat pockets. He stared up at the roof of the cave and shrugged, rocking back on his heels. ‘All in good time, Farden. All in good time.’

  Farden waggled his sword at the god. ‘Is this your way of punishing me? Something I’ve done to you? If it is, then leave her out of it. You and I can settle this another way.’

  Loki flashed his teeth. ‘All about you, isn’t it? This entire voyage has been about you. You’re so wrapped up in yourself, Farden, that you haven’t even noticed who’s sitting beside the bridge, have you? Waltzed straight past him, in a self-obsessed daze. Hardly respectful,’ he said, standing on his tiptoes to peer over the Bifröst’s wall.

  Farden’s blade fell. He edged backwards onto the rock and to the side of the bridge, where the wall of the Bifröst curled around in an arc. There, cradled in it, between the scintillating bridge and the dizzying edge of the rock, sat Korrin, in all his red-gold glory.