"Well war found you. A war for the whole world and our right to exist. So we're all soldiers now. Whether we like it or not."
Invar saw the ripple of fear spread through the survivors. Bakers, blacksmiths and greengrocers, not trained fighting men and women.
He felt his age. The cold water of the fountain had soaked through his leggings and boots and he was fighting not to shiver. His muscles ached with use and his stomach still lurched with nausea. But worst of all, he could barely move his injured arm. He looked at the puncture wounds and saw that the skin around them was turning black. A fine map of thread veins spread out from the wounds. His blood felt like boiling oil right up to his shoulder and he felt a fever starting.
That was not the true battle though. Invar could feel a spiritual war within him. The rogue sliver of angel that dwelled in his Magus Heart was fighting against the rushing poison of the Sorrow. Invar was infected with Mournefever. He knew it as soon as he was bitten. He had seen it before and he knew the outcome. If it spread, then the consciousness of the Sorrow would take him over and he would become its rotting servant for a time, until his body broke down to nothing from the poison. A possessed husk to be used for evil then discarded.
Invar said a quiet prayer under his breath and hoped that his strength lasted until he cleansed the filth from Crowburgh and got these survivors to safety.
He hoped his magic was strong enough to last just a little longer.
12
The aspirants stood just inside the Torrent. They felt the change in the air the instant they stepped inside. It was cold, and musty and very old. Like opening a coffin and taking in a lungful. Alfred turned around the way he had come and watched in growing horror as the doorway his blessing had created began to close. He saw the face of Malkolm Bluheart staring at him with fear and compassion. Alfred just had time to see the old monk raise a hand to wave before the doorway closed. Next to it the other aspirant's portals sealing shut. The thin slivers of daylight spilled in to land upon a floor of broken stones and grey dust.
Alfred called out.
"Gather in close. Grab each other's robes. Try to calm the fear and gather your blessings in your chest. It's about to get very dark in here."
Alfred stared at the last portal as it diminished to a single thin line of light. He wanted to reach out and jam it somehow, but before he knew it the seal shut tight.
The darkness around them was complete and endless.
Alfred's ears strained out into the dark. He could hear his fellow aspirants huddling close. He felt shaking hands grasp his robes and squeeze tight. Alfred took a deep breath of crypt air and gathered Angall's Whisper behind his breastbone. It kindled and warmed like a little candle in his heart. It made him even more aware that the temperature was dropping by the moment. His extremities tingling with a chill wind that whispered across the crunchy floor. He spoke, not daring to raise his voice.
"Are we all here?"
To his left a bubble of holy light bloomed. It was warm and the colour of honey. At its centre was Deena. She was smiling but Alfred could see the fear in her eyes.
"In this light you're almost handsome, Durnling."
Alfred blushed despite his predicament. He gave her a tight-lipped smile.
"In this light you're almost pleasant to be around."
Deena narrowed her eyes but her wry smile remained. Alfred looked over her shoulder.
"Everyone here and safe?"
He saw that behind Deena another sphere of light had bloomed. Within it huddled Sebastian, Farah, Dunc, Peyter and Manzak. Farah's light also bloomed but too, ignited by her terror. Dunc placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Easy Farah. We don't want any one of us to burn through our blessing too fast. Remember the training room with that monster."
Deena gave him a nudge in the ribs with her elbow. She hissed back to him.
"That monster is a Karkaren and my friend. Watch your mouth."
Dunc gave her a diplomatic nod and a smile.
"I'm sorry Deena. But you have to admit he's pretty frightening."
Deena remembered her first meeting with Cyrus Blackweather. She was trussed up hostage aboard one of the king's frigates. The Karkaren had burst in and torn a man in two right in front of her. Never in a million years did she imagine that they would become fast friends.
"Aye, fair enough Dunc. But I wish him here with us now, fighting our corner."
They all murmured in agreement. Alfred gathered his meagre magic and a sphere of honey light expanded around him. It merged with Deena's and increased in brightness, yet Alfred felt it took less effort to maintain, the burden halved.
"We will take it in turns. Keep your blessings ready and held within, but don't release until another of us tires. We can't risk being in the dark for even a second in here."
Alfred watched as Farah took a few deep breaths, aided by Dunc holding her hand. Her light faded until it was visible, just the trace of a halo around her. Alfred took another deep breath and opened his mouth. As his cheeks became translucent pink, the glowing mote of light drifted from his throat and hung in the air like an obedient firefly. He turned to his companions.
"So far, like attracts like, no? We all feel our blessings drawn to each other when we stand close. So I believe if there are servants of Angall buried deep somewhere in this place, then they will attract holy light. As father Latherus told us. I have faith that it will lead us where we need to go."
Deena gave Alfred a curious look, almost of grudged admiration. When he noticed it, her half smile fell and she gestured him on.
"Lead on then, great general."
When they had all settled and begun to feel the symbiosis from their shared blessing, Alfred took stock of their surroundings. He could only see about eight feet in all directions. After that it was black as the sky on a moonless night. The light from their blessings was strange. It was finite. Rather than losing visibility as their gaze got further from the blessing, the power of the light stopped at the fringe of their sphere, and beyond it was a void.
From what Alfred could make out, the ruins of a city.
Thick pillars lay cracked and collapsed across a road of broken flagstones. Black grass grew between the spiderweb of cracks in the road. Inky vines wrapped a chunk of pillar like a constricting creature. Fine motes of dark ash peppered the air, gathering in drifts and coating statues. The sections of buildings visible all ruins, but had once been grand. The size of the stones that made up collapsed walls alone spoke of an empire of power and scope. It was beyond anything Alfred had ever seen in the crumbling chaos of Old Vassonia's streets. He could see only small sections at a time by the limits of the light, but he sensed that this place reached high and wide around them. The little mote of light bobbed in front of them at the edge of the broken thoroughfare. Alfred glanced at Deena.
"Well, there's a road. Any suggestions other than follow it?"
Deena shook her head.
"You are right, Alfred. We have to trust that our blessings given to us with purpose. They will lead us to the source of any light that is in this gloomy place. They will lead us to the burial site of the messengers."
The group murmured in agreement. As a single loose unit the aspirants moved forward on the ruined road. More dilapidated buildings came into view as they proceeded. Huge square structures that Alfred imagined could only have been temples and palaces. Their walls breached and crumbling. The same black vines wrapped around them, as if trying to drag them down into the earth.
The explosion of silence all around them made the aspirants aware of their breathing, their heartbeats, and the crunch of their footsteps. Their eyes rolled in all directions as they became aware of the scale of the city. The moved forward, a few tiny linked bubbles of warm light in a world of pitch black.
Manzak narrowed his dark eyes. The gold rings in his brow glittered.
"What was this place? What in light's name happened here?"
Alfred peered into a gloomy amphith
eater as they passed. He felt a thousand eyes watching him from somewhere in the gloom.
"This is the centre of the Bleaks. This is what remains of the city that once stretched a hundred miles. Its people are trapped within those brecanstanes. I suppose that this is what war with the Sorrow looks like."
Sebastian's haughty voice came from behind them, a little too loud.
"How can something like this be lost? This looks like an empire than stood for a thousand years."
Farah gripped onto Dunc's robes. She could not disguise the fear in her voice.
"If the Sorrow can level a place like this to the ground, what can we do against it? It's still here after all this time, trying to choke the last life out of the walls."
Alfred extended his light to her, trying to calm her down.
"We're here to ensure it doesn't happen to us in our time. Don't let it overwhelm you. Just follow our blessing to wherever it takes us."
Alfred soon regretted that statement. They began to see shapes in the gloom ahead. At first it made them stop in their tracks with a jolt. Not one of them dared to breath.
Alfred stood there, staring at the silhouettes of an army before them. For a moment he thought they had misjudged their endeavor. He feared that somehow the king's Witchfinders had broken in here before them and waited in ambush. The figures stood motionless in various positions at the fringes of the light. Some crouched with hands held aloft, other very straight with hands held out in front. Deena drew the sword Cyrus had gifted her with a metallic whisper.
"Step forward scum, and feel the burn of god's light!"
Alfred put out a hand to rest on her blade.
"Wait. Deena wait, it's not..."
Alfred edged forward and it became clear that these figures were not Witchfinders waiting for them in the dark. Not living things at all.
"What are they?" Farah spoke up in a terrified voice.
They walked past the first huddled group of figures, skirting them. Alfred studied one as they drew close. It was an adult male, crouched to one knee with hands raised as if fending off an attacker. Yet none of its features visible. It was the shape and size of a human man, but it was encrusted in a thick layer of ash and gravel. The face was smooth except for three shallow indentations. Two craters where eyes would be. One where a screaming mouth once howled.
"It's the people. It's the people who once lived here. This is what remains."
Deena screwed up her face at the figures as they gingerly weaved between them.
"That's not possible. What could do this to living people? It's as if they died in mid scream."
Alfred recalled the words of his priestly companions as they journeyed to Ironghast through the Bleaks.
"My master told me that the fighting was so fierce here, that the gods called down fire from the sky. Storm giants raining destruction on the entire city, in an attempt to eradicate the Sorrow."
Sebastian snorted behind Alfred.
"Shut it, Durnling. No fire burns enough that it can turn a man to ash while he still screams his last words."
Alfred eyed a cluster of petrified figures as they edged past.
"No fire that we possess."
As they passed, the big-boned aspirant Peyter reached out a tentative hand and touched one of the figures on its forehead. He frowned and prodded. With a sharp crack the thin outer shell broke and crumbled to dust. Beneath was a human face frozen in horror. It was long dead, with pale fish eyes and grey skin, but a man. Peyter jumped back and let out a small squeal despite his size.
Moments after it was exposed to the air, the mummified skin began to blacken and crack. Then it crumbled off like sand until there was nothing left and it all collapsed in on itself.
Deena cast Peyter a disapproving glare.
"Just couldn't resist touching, eh Peyter?"
The big lad looked to his feet to hide his fear.
"I wanted to see."
Manzak gave him a nudge with his shoulder and a reassuring wink.
"Now try unseeing it, eh, big lad? Come on, stay in formation."
The aspirants moved on down the road. They weaved between the petrified citizens of grey ash, frozen in their death throes. As they advanced, the human shapes became more frequent, clogging the roads and buildings. Deena shook her head in pity.
"So many of them. So many people all afraid and dying together. Whole families."
Alfred glanced at her and saw her haunted eyes.
"The Sorrow came to where you live? That's why you left your home?"
Deena nodded with tight jaw. She struggled for a moment to find the words.
"My village unearthed something from the old war. They didn't know. They thought it brought us good luck and fortune. Until it hatched. What was born from it killed every man woman and child I grew up with. And the king's men, they let it happen. All so they could get hold of the dark magic we had unleashed. That's when I knew we’d have to fight for ourselves. That we wouldn't get one bit of protection from our betters."
Alfred wanted to reach out and hold her, but the others watched and he was sure she would punch him if he did. Besides, the blessing was bonding them, the shared light and warmth of Angall.
They continued to negotiate the rubble strewn roads of the city. Sometimes forced to detour when the fallen masonry became too much of an obstacle. They skirted down alleyways and across open courtyards. Always fearful of leaving themselves vulnerable and exposed, though they did not know to what.
The darkness and silence was oppressive and unsettling. They began to imagine their own nightmares taking form just outside the pools of light that held around them. Fragile light held up only by faith.
Soon they entered a broad thoroughfare with edges lost in darkness outside their little bubbles of light. The little guiding mote was urging them ever forward. The road was so congested with ashen bodies that they could barely move between them without brushing against the remains.
It was clear that Peyter had no desire to repeat his experiment, and he crept between the cadavers with his shoulders hunched and eyes half closed. Farah was muttering a prayer under her breath between sobs as she crept between the broken legs of the dead. Deena had kept her sword drawn and was walking but her eyes shifted from side to side for danger.
Although Alfred had found courage he never knew he possessed, he was still struggling against panic. There was no scenario he had ever imagined when he was a trainee priest back in Old Vassonia that was like this. Creeping through a deserted city in utter darkness, through an upright graveyard saturated with black magic. It went against the grain of his every coward's instinct of self-preservation.
Yet Alfred also knew that now locked inside the Torrent, the only way out was forward. If his blessing did not lead him to the resting place of the ancient angels he sought, Alfred knew that none of them would get out of that city alive. He would never see sunlight or breathe clean air. They would die of starvation or thirst, or despair. That is, if whatever lurked in the ancient dark did not get to them first to feast on their weakened bodies.
With a creeping dread Alfred saw that the road in front of them was blocked. Closed off by a throng of bodies that had died clambering over each other to reach some unknown safety that they never found. The tangled arms and legs wound around each other. A jagged fence of raised arms presented a natural border. With growing nausea, Alfred drew his short sword.
The mote of light bobbed forward insistently.
"It's leading us this way. We have to cut our way through."
Alfred heard the groans of disgust and fear behind him. All except Deena, who strode forward and drove her sword deep into the knotted line of bodies. She twisted and turned the blade, releasing a cloud of ash and bone dust. Then she slashed wide and barged with her shoulder. A six foot hole crumbled in the barrier of limbs, with some corpses falling in half to leave a single legged mutant still standing.
Alfred looked at her in amazement. Deena shrugged.
"I
f it needs done it needs done. I don't want to be in here any longer than I have to be. None of us do."
Alfred nodded and cleared away the rough edges of petrified bone that jutted from the corners of the gap Deena had created. Stealing their courage, the aspirants walked through.
What lay on the other side was something Alfred knew he would see, but it did not fill him with confidence.
Ahead was a wide stone stairway leading down into the earth. The mote of holy light floated above it, and then drifted down into the greater dark. Alfred felt his courage waver but he held his face neutral.
"We knew they weren't going to be buried on a sun terrace. So we follow where it leads us. Besides, how much more dark can it get?"
Not one of them wanted the answer to that question, and several of them resented Alfred for even asking it. Alfred felt the wrestling of fear and faith within him. It churned and fought with no clear winner. So he just followed the light. As he took the first step down into the earth, he whispered under his breath.
"Lord Angall. We have spoken for many years, in a variety of situation on a number of subjects. I have been in many pickles and predicaments over the years, and asked you for help. Now I'm asking you for more. I'm asking you to help all of us. We're not soldiers, or generals, or leaders. None of us even know why we were chosen. But here we are, following what little light you gave us into the dark. Could you not have given us a dragon, or an army of giants, or the power of lightning, for something like this? It feels a little bit like a torch that guides us to our doom."
Deena tapped him on the shoulder.
"Alfred who are you mumbling to?"
Alfred swallowed hard as they descended the steep steps deeper into the dark. He shook his head and reined in his fear.
"No one who is listening."
13
The aspirants prepared to descend down the dark stairwell into the foundations of the city. Peyter called from the back of the group.
"Wait. Stop. This one is moving."
Alfred stopped in his tracks and froze. He glanced at Deena and saw she was staring back at him with the same worried expression. Alfred and the other spirants turned to see Peyter at the back of the group, bent over one of the petrified citizens with a curious expression on his flat face. Alfred took a few steps towards him with his sword gripped tight.
A Prayer of Freaks and Sinners Page 14