A wound, it looked like. A world in the world. Pain.
It was vast. Bigger than Tobias remembered it. Like it had grown, since he last came here, like a tumour growing on a body, like a fungus growing on a tree. Dragon fire and ruin, and still it rose higher than mountains, squatted wide over the earth. Not a fortress but a city. A kingdom. The air over it was empty of everything. The air shimmered. The air was very cold. Battlements. Gatehouses. Armouries. Marching grounds. Silver towers. White marble terraces. Walls of mage glass. Walls of gold. Walls of human bones. It stank of death and deathlust. Beat into the mind calling out to all who saw it to bow down in worship, rebuild it as the centre and heart and hearthstone of the world. Here, the broken stones screamed, here is the seat of the only true and real king. Here is power. Here is glory. Here is god. This is the only real place in the world.
Landra clapped her hands to her face in wonder. Began to weep.
The Illyian army was camped near to it, between the ruins and the river and the sea. The Illyian army now consisting of two men and a dog and a horse with three legs. They’d thrown up a palisade of thorn branches, in front of that a pathetic screen of wagons and farm carts. The thin line of the Jaxertane at least offered them some protection to the west. Silver lights shimmered in the sky around them. In the sea and in the river, things with teeth and clawed fingers stirred. Fight or die. Die fighting. Fight dying. Hold this last tiny stretch of ruined cursed ground. The shattered walls of Amrath’s stronghold: we will not let you have it, the camp shouted. We will not let you return here to this place from which we destroyed you and drove you out.
The camp was in turmoil, figures running, shouting; looking down on them, Tobias could feel the fear rising off them, panicked voices calling men to order, frantic donning of armour, saddling of horses, preparations made.
A scream. The Army of Amrath was streaming down towards them. Marith himself was visible as a shining light like a diamond, galloping up and down the ranks. The red standard beside him snapped and shuddered. Dripped blood. Overhead, the shadows circled. Twisted their shapeless bodies, bared their teeth.
“So quickly,” said Raeta. “He got here so quickly. I thought we’d have more time.”
Banefire rained down onto the Illyians. Little armoured figures shrieked and burned. The shadows poured in around the ruined towers. The stones of Ethalden seemed to sway.
The sea behind was a mass of thrashing limbs. Sea beasts. Sea monsters. Great white waves. Horse teeth gnashing. White foam hooves flailing out. Kicking madly at the shore. Desperate to reach him. Destroy him. Break his soldiers, as they had broken so many Altrersyr ships. The shadows flew out over the water and the waves rose up to try to drown them.
The waves broke back on themselves. White foam spraying, the waves swirling fighting thrashing round and round. A maelstrom building in the water, a whirlpool sucking at itself, pulling the sea beasts down. The water hissed up in steam. Waves crashed onto the shore reaching for the Illyian soldiers. Tiny stick limbs visibly flailing in their wake. Creatures in the water. Men and monsters together shattered. Smashed against the ruined walls of Ethalden, breaking against the stone.
Marith, Tobias remembered then, had had a weather hand with him in the White Isles. A man with power over the sea.
Bloody useless crossing a barren wasteland.
Bloody effective when your enemy’s standing backs onto a beach.
The silver lights flickered in the sky. Banefire shooting out and down and skyward. Uncontrolled. Burning up Marith’s own men. The shadows plunged at the Illyians. Golden god bird rushing to defend. Another circling, searching out something in Marith’s ranks. The weather hand? Marith himself? A blast of white fire hit the front ranks of the Army of Amrath, tore men apart, devoured them.
The tiny figure of Marith, watching as his men fell dying. Tobias could swear, even from this distance, he gave a mildly irritated sort of shrug.
Marith raised his sword. Shouted. Sound like bronze gates slamming. The death scream of hope.
Another wave crashed into the back of the Illyian ranks.
The Army of Amrath charged the Illyians. Marith a shining diamond at their head.
Kill him, Tobias’s mind screamed.
“Tobias,” said Raeta. “You can go. Do it.”
“Maybe I magicked you to want to stay alive,” said Raeta. “Do you think?”
The Illyian lines broke before the onslaught. Smeared and crushed. The Army of Amrath surged forwards. Every mind fixed. Only killing.
Kill them. Kill every single one of the sick poisonous vile bastards. I know what they are and what they feel, Tobias thought. They cannot be allowed to live.
Tobias found himself rushing down the hillside to join the Illyian soldiers. You can’t run into this, some part of his mind screaming. No one in their right mind would run into this. Never go up against a drink- and drug-addled death-obsessed invulnerable demon. Old secret sellsword’s wisdom, that. He drew his sword as he was running. The Army of Amrath! Destroy it. Wipe it out. Plague. Disease. Rabid ravening blind corrupting beast.
“Tobias!” Landra was howling behind him. “Tobias! No. Please.”
He drew closer and closer to the line of battle. The ruined walls towering over him. A shadow blotting out the sun. Tobias threw himself into the fighting. Hacked and smashed at bronze clad soldiers. Shouted “Marith! Marith!” as if the boy might hear him and come to fight him.
From a cloudless blue sky, it began to rain blood.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Landra stumbled two paces after Tobias. Stopped. Stared after him. Stared at the battle lines. She could feel Marith. Shining. He raised his sword again and the blade flashed. His voice cried out loud as the end of all things.
“Tobias!” Landra shouted desperately. “Come back!”
“Leave him,” said Raeta.
“He’ll be killed!”
Raeta said, “Why else do you think he came?”
“He came to kill Marith.”
“He came to die, Landra. Die thinking he’d done something of use with himself. You, however, came wanting to live. So come with me. Down there. Now.”
They began to walk down the slope of the hill. Heat was rushing off the battlefield towards them. The air tasted of ashes and salt spray.
The ruins of Ethalden clawed at the sky before them. Here, Landra thought. The house of my ancestor Amrath. The house of my god. We have to go in there, she thought. Inside the walls. Through the battlefield.
Marith’s soldiers were spreading out, heading for the fortress. She saw with a jolt people she knew in Marith’s lines: Lord Stansel on his high square saddle, Lord Erith, Osen Fiolt waving his sword. Their teeth were gritted, spittle dripped from their mouths, their faces yearned for blood. So many of them. They so far outnumbered the Illyian soldiers, as the dead outnumber those who now live.
If the Illyians had been wise, Landra thought, they would have dug themselves in behind the ruin’s walls.
Crouching, shaking, they drew nearer. Ethalden’s ruined towers shone in the sunlight. Running red as red rain began to fall. Shadows danced around the towers. It seemed to Landra that they were singing. The shadows and the ruins. Singing for joy.
The shadow of the towers fell on the Illyians fighting. Dark shadows. Cold. If the Illyians had been wise, Landra thought, they would have drawn up so that the ruins were not between them and the sun.
“Come,” hissed Raeta. Raeta’s face was white as dying. Clutching her shoulder to keep her body from breaking apart. Shimmering fading away to nothing, a thousand faces staring through her face, teeth horns claws roots flowers wings. Crouched and shuffled. Moving on the wrong number of legs. They circled wide around behind the line of the fighting. Forced therefore to walk close to the sea and the shore. The water still churned, wrestling with itself. Great sea beasts that had once swallowed up whole war ships were dying in the pounding waves. On the shore there were bodies everywhere. Already rotting. The curs
ed ash earth of Ethalden reclaiming its own. The Illyian corpses were drowned and bloated. Seawater pouring itself down their throats. Dead sea beasts gasping for water. Suffocated. Fish-scale skins all cracked. The men of the White Isles were smiling. Honey-sweet pleasure in them as they died.
A man ran down over the beach in front of them. He was naked. Covered in blood. He was holding another man’s severed head. Stopped, held up the head, kissed it. Set it down in the ashes, screamed “Death!” Ran back off away from them. Threw himself at two men with swords coming the other way.
Rolling in the dirt. Stabbing. Clawing. Bare hands against metal blades.
Groan of pleasure as he died.
Landra turned her head away. Tried very hard not to be sick.
Tobias smashed at them. The Army of Amrath, curse them, damn them, shatter them to bits! Hammered with his sword blades, hacking, slicing, hitting, stabbing, take them down take them apart this disease on the world fucking ruin fucking death. Plague. Maggot things. Sick evil filth that didn’t deserve to live.
The Army of Amrath wanted death? He’d give them death. Oh hell, yeah.
Sword in each hand. Never fought like that before. Crazy fighting. But way, way fun. Slaughter all of them. Stab them and bloody crush them to bloody bits. Filth and scum and pestilence. Sick fucks, all of them. Didn’t deserve to live. Killing and killing and killing and gods he’d missed this. He was a soldier. He’d so missed fighting and killing things.
The Illyians smashed themselves against the Army of Amrath. The Army of Amrath smashed itself back. Men on both side groaning climaxing as they killed and died fighting. Glorious battle lust! Thrill of it rushing through Tobias’s body. Panting in fervent killing sweat. Oh, it’s wonderful! Oh, it’s like nothing a man can imagine! And extra special this time in that it’s being on the right bloody goodness and virtue side of things. Sword in each hand. Crazy fighting. But so much fun. Kill every single one of the sick poisonous vile bastards. The Army of Amrath! Destroy it. Wipe it out. Kill! Kill! Kill!
People think they care about living. But people, somewhere deep down, what they really care about is killing and death.
Landra stumbled through the back of the fighting. Four Illyian soldiers running passed with their faces on fire. Black as midnight now. Black clouds boiling. Red rain hissing on their burns.
A blast of white light hit the Illyian soldiers.
Gone.
Just suddenly not there any more.
You trained with a swordsmaster, Landra thought. You killed a man outside Skerneheh. Your father feasted men in his halls to keep them loyal to go to war for him. To kill for him. To die.
To do this.
“This way! Come on!”
She followed Raeta running. Raeta’s body was shivering, changing. Throwing out branches and limbs. Raeta was vast like a giant. Raeta was limping barely able to walk. They almost fell over a group of soldiers, crouching in the shelter of a hollow to regroup. Marith’s soldiers, from their red badges. Raeta flared up golden and the whole lot of them were dead. Like the Illyians. Just gone.
“This way! This way!” Raeta was frantic. Foam clung to her lips. The ruins loomed before them. To their left an explosion roared across the battlefield. A ringing following thousand-voiced scream.
Raeta screamed. Pointed. Horror. Broken, despairing, endless grief.
The dragon shot overhead spouting fire. Pus and maggots raining off its wings. Roared out in pain. Roared out in triumph. Flew out wide over the sea, bent its head and the sea boiled up white.
“It was dead,” Raeta whispered. “It was dead.”
The dragon swept back over them. Overhead so close Landra could feel the heat of it. The rush of its wings. Dripping blood and pus from its belly. Her skin was burned where its blood fell. A jet of flame shot out upwards. Blood-red fire illuminating the boiling black sky.
“I really thought it was dead,” whispered Raeta.
Landra thought: fool.
“This way! This way!” They ran on across the battlefield. Had to shy away from a charging riderless horse. Landra’s heart felt as though it was bursting. Couldn’t go on. Couldn’t go on. She almost fell, Raeta had to grab her hand to steady her. The ground shook like an earthquake. The dragon crashed downwards. Came down like nightfall on the battlefield beneath it. Shrieks. Crash of metal. Bronze and iron and bones melted, smashed, shattered beneath its weight. It rolled and howled. Another jet of fire shooting upwards from its mouth. The walls of the fortress shuddered. The dragon’s mouth opened huge, feasted on the Illyian ranks.
“This way!” They stumbled forwards, running bent over, Raeta warded off a blood spattered swordsman with a blast of light.
The walls of Ethalden rose over them. They stopped gasping before the tumbled ruin of a vast gate.
Smashed, sliced, hacked, battered, hit, killed them. Kill the bastards! Sword in each hand. Blades dripping blood. Don’t leave any of them living! They don’t deserve to live! Swings and hits and misses and hits and cuts and kills them. A disease. They’re a disease to be wiped out. Run and hit and kill and hit and miss and kill them.
An Illyian swordsman lined up beside Tobias. Limping barely walking his right arm useless, clutching a sword in his left hand. Mad rolling eyes in his corpse face. Bits of someone’s brain matter dripping off him.
“We’re holding them,” the swordsman gasped at him. “We’re doing it. We must. We can do this thing.”
A horseman charged the two of them. Tobias threw himself sideways. His body screaming. The Illyian swordsman went down under a sword blade. The Illyian swordsman’s head rolled off and got trampled by a horse.
Hacked and slashed and spat and killed and injured. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Diseased plague things. Didn’t deserve to live.
Maggots. Filth. Poison. Kill them.
Ah, gods. Ah, gods.
So much fun.
Landra staggered as she approached the gateway. The house of her ancestor, her god. The force of the fortress’s power tore at her. Screaming at her. It beat against her, leering and hungry, filled with want and hate and need. She bent onto her knees, crawling, shaking, moaning in fear. One hand then another, trying to move. The stones of the gateway looking down at her. Such cruelty. Such hate. Such pain.
“Come on, Landra,” Raeta called to her.
“I can’t … I can’t … Eltheia … help me, be kind …”
“Don’t say that name here! You can and you will.”
“I can’t … please …”
“You can.” Raeta almost laughed at her. “His death or our death. What are you going to do otherwise, sit waiting there until his coronation day?”
Landra dragged herself forward on her belly. Her face pressed on the burned ground. Worming her way forward, the ruins above her, remorseless, beating down. Lie here. Lie here and die. Even with her eyes closed she saw the stones shining. So slowly, crushed against the ground. Keep going. Keep going. Come on. Stretched out a hand and tried to pull herself along by her fingertips. The ruins rocked again, a shower of dust coming down on her. The stones of the gatehouse swayed. Keep going. Keep going. Come on. Dragging herself, her body screaming from the weight on it, her skin tearing on the ground. Keep going. Keep going. Come on. Come on. The ruins rocked. A roar. Screaming. I can’t, she thought. I can’t. The air howled around her. Amrath’s house. Her ancestor. I can’t go in here. I can’t. He’s there. Amrath. He’s in there. His bones. His body. I can’t. I can’t.
Hacked and slashed and hit and missed and killed them. His whole body slick with blood.
“It’s not their fault they’re fighting for him,” Landra had said one night with the Army of Amrath’s campfires off in the distance. Stumbled on a pit of still-living writhing chopped-up Illyian bodies that day. “He orders them to do it. He’s their king. He rules them. They follow him. It’s not them we should be fighting. It’s him.”
“They could say no,” Tobias had answered. “They could put down their wea
pons. Walk off.”
“Could they?”
Hit and smashed and hacked with a sword in each hand and they fell dying. They could walk off. They could bloody walk off if they wanted to. They all knew what Marith was.
Hacked and killed and smashed and hit and missed and injured and killed.
Eyes gritted shut, seeing shadows. Rolling and twisting. Earth tearing her. Weak pathetic thing like a worm.
“Come on,” Raeta was begging her. “Come on. Please, Landra.”
Distant voice. Like dreaming. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t go on.
She dragged herself forwards. Hands pulling herself. Dragging herself with her fingers along the burned ash stone ground.
“Come on. Come on.”
The weight dropped away from her. Her eyes opened.
She was through the gateway. Inside the ruins of Ethalden.
The dragon crawled across the killing ground. Tearing the earth apart beneath it. Its blood consuming the stones beneath it. Pouring out fire. Killing everything it met. The sea boiled. Waves smashing the shoreline. Broken bones in their wake. Silver lights in the sky fading. Like stars as the dawn comes. Flickered out, slowly. Like a candle flame dying when the last living person leaves a death room. Fire and bronze and iron. Tobias killed and killed and killed and killed. Death. Murder. Carnage. Killing. Pleasure. Pain. Death. Love. Everything falling dying. Just ashes. Just dark. Dust. Bones. Blood. Bodies. Ruin.
Fun.
Hells, yeah.
You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?
Chapter Seventy-Four
The battle was winding up now. Been winding up since before it began. Last desperate stand of the Illyian people. Always knew it was going to end like this. Down to mopping up operations. The Army of Amrath making damned sure no one was still alive who might possibly otherwise be dead. Ensuring they squeezed every last drop of enjoyment out of it. The final conquest of Illyr. Might not get to really kill people again like this for, oh, weeks. Kind of like when you lick the last taste of something off your plate, it’s that tasty. Don’t want to lose a drop.
The Tower of Living and Dying Page 45