by Martin Davey
The room was getting warmer, as though the sun had arrived on top of the mountain and was blazing through the window in fury. And then the sun was in him, somewhere in the middle of his chest, and it was growing and swelling and expanding until his chest was sure to explode with the rage of it. The heat, the terrible heat, rose up his neck and into his face and his eyes felt as though they were melting, his tongue, his teeth on fire and he screamed, only barely aware that he was on the floor screaming and screaming and blood was burning in his nose, in his throat, and the fire was now raging through his entire being, his blood boiling and bubbling, smoking from his mouth.
And then nothing. The fire was gone and Retaj was left only with the memory of the pain, which was terrible beyond anything he could remember. But memories can be forgotten, memories can be pushed away to the darkest recesses of the mind, which Retaj knew better than most men. He struggled to his knees, fighting against the terror and the the fear and the memory of the pain, and saw Rebekah standing just as she had been before, back straight and eyes fixed on Jermatoah. Only now she had one arm held out level before her.
Retaj had seen a similar scene not so long ago on a battlefield. That time it had been a giant of a man with a snarling dog’s head for a helm. This was a far more terrifying thing to see. Jermatoah, her white hair blowing about like seaweed under the waves, her thin arms stretched out either side of her, hung suspended in the air perhaps ten hands above the ground. Her face was the most terrifying thing, the fear and the rage mingling together on that wrinkled face, broken teeth gnashing together and youthful eyes blazing with hate. “Rebekah!” she snarled. “How, how?” Words failed her as she threw her head back and screamed loud enough to hurt the ears, a primal scream as her white hair blew about her face.
“You think I would let you leave with my sources?” Rebekah looked calmer now, happier, and her voice was cooler, questioning. “You should take more care of your own, Jermatoah. And my friend here,” she looked at Retaj and he rose to his feet not liking the fear he felt as he watched her turn the old woman in the air before them, more screams as though the hag was being torn limb from limb. Something wet and thick ran down her leg and splattered on the floor before them. “My friend here,” Rebekah carried on as the screams had quietened to fearful sobs. “He slays the gods. You think a haggard old witch like you can protect yourself from him?”
Retaj remembered the night, cool and dark on the mountainside, shadows long and black and the breeze rustling the pitiful dry leaves on the twisted trees clinging to the thin soil. Rebekah had stroked his cock with a warm hand until he had wanted to scream with the need of her. “Not yet,” she had said. “Not yet,” and he had whimpered and bitten into her blanket to stop his cries. She had stroked him some more, touched him with the tip of her tongue, “I need you to do something for me first.” He had been chosen by the Keepers to slay the gods; finding an old woman and cutting her so slightly so as to draw blood but not wake her had been an easy task for the promised reward.
Jermatoah threw her head back and howled to the ceiling, her dress whipping about her as though in some wild wind. Surely somebody outside would hear her? Retaj drew his dagger and Jermatoah’s head snapped forward, seeming to look straight at him, blood leaking from eyes that had once been youthful, blood leaking from between her broken teeth and down her chin, it was pouring now from between her legs, staining her dress. “Please,” she looked at Retaj. “Help me.” The last word was drawn out in a howl of pain.
Retaj nodded in answer and walked to her, his dagger in his hand. Blood was pouring from Jermatoah now, leaking from every hole in her body, thick and red as it stained the floor about her. He remembered the pain that she had made him suffer moments ago, drew on that memory to source the hate.
He started with her throat first, so nobody could hear her screams as he cut her arms and legs and stomach. By the time he was done and Rebekah had let the woman fall, she was barely recognizable at all and Marin was smeared with her blood. He threw the dagger on the torn body and turned to face Rebekah, the crone’s blood dripping from his arms and hands.
Rebekah said nothing. She smiled. Her forehead didn’t crease in sympathy. Her eyebrows arched and it was a smile Retaj had only ever seen her share with him. He ran to her, tried to kiss her, his breath hot and greedy but she pulled away laughing, her teeth white as he lifted her onto the table, pulling at her dress.
“No, no,” she laughed. She grabbed his hands from her hips and pulled the bloodied fingers to her face, sniffing them and then looking deep into his eyes as she sucked them one by one, sucking the blood off each of them and then running her tongue around her lips. He kissed her then, hard and long and tasted the blood on her lips, on her tongue, on her teeth. The taste made him dizzy. He pushed her back on the table, hard enough for her head to hit the wood. She only laughed and wriggled her hips to help him lift her dress. He gasped hard as he climbed onto her.
“Where will you take me next, godslayer?” she pulled his head to her as she spoke, thrusting her breasts out, looking up at him from under heavy-lidded eyes.
He ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, warm and smooth to touch. “Katrinamal, my love.” He lowered himself to kiss her thighs, running his nose lightly along the skin. “Keeper Jerohim himself came to me in my Dream,” more kisses on her thighs, brushing them with the tip of his tongue. “Told me to go to the Sea that lies at the end of the world.” He revelled in her sighs and moans as he kissed his way up her thighs.
She grabbed his hands, squeezed them tight, her nails digging into skin. “There is a god to be born there? You travel to slay a god?” She squirmed against him now. He could smell her wetness.
“Yes,” he lied. “A god is to be born there.” He stopped kissing her, lifted himself on his arms to look down on her writhing and gasping beneath him, her nipples hard against her dress. He could die looking down at her like that. Make her wait, make her wait until she begged for him. His words sounded thick and slurred to his own ears, “A god of war who killed his sacrifices with a blade of fire, who sat on a stone throne and cast judgement on all those who came before him while he wore a crown of steel daggers. She wrapped her legs about his waist now, pulling him to her. He fought against her, fought against his own need. “He is to be born by the Sea and the Keepers want me to kill the god of war.” She cried out then and he couldn’t wait any longer. His moans as loud as her own.
“My godslayer,” she cried as he fucked her. And Retaj said nothing, lost in his own ecstasy. There would be time enough to tell her they travelled to the Sea to hunt a woman with long dark hair once they were on the road. He held her hands in one of his own, pinned them to the table, no chance then that she would scratch his back and draw blood.
“My godslayer,” she screamed this time, looking to bite into his shoulder. He pulled her away with her hair and fucked her all the harder screaming himself now. Yes, there would be time to tell her who they hunted later.
CHAPTER 37
Landros saw the knight stalking something through the crowd of slaughter and blood. More men were fleeing the Nameless One, but this knight had killed another man, sliding a dagger through the eye slit of his helm. Then he had seen something in the distance and smiled, his wound bloody and bright and he had thrown his dagger away and drawn his sword, walking slowly through the fighting, ignoring everything around him, his eyes fixed ahead.
Screams all around Landros now, the air full of mud and blood and he looked behind him. The Nameless One was there, killing and maiming. He could feel the taint of the creature and he remembered his mother and Feren and Clerk Lovelin and the boy. He ought to go back and face the monster, but something about the way that knight in the battered armour had smiled made his blood run cold. Ysora.
With one last look over his shoulder, Landros set off running, his sword in his hand. He had lost sight of the knight now, lost in the whirl of steel bodies. Swords flashed at him as he ran, and Landros ducked and spun and
three, perhaps four fell under his blade. No longer was there any rhyme or reason to the fighting; men stood and fought and killed all around him and Landros ran through them all, gasping for breath, slipping in mud and blood and other, fouler things that were red and white, and the smell of shit filled the air.
There. A man who had removed his helm to scream something incoherent screamed again as an arrow took him in the cheek and he fell to his knees sobbing. There was the knight, still walking through the fighting, his eyes still fixed on something out of Landros’s sight. Landros shouted out and ran on.
Ysora. He saw her now. She was standing tall, her skirts wrapping about her, her hair flying in the wind. She looked like she had in the vision. A thing of beauty in a world of nightmare. She was smiling nervously at the knight, her smile slightly lopsided which only made her more beautiful. She was waiting for the knight, stalking to her now and swinging his sword at his side. How could she not see the intent in his eyes, in the way he walked? Landros shouted her name, but it was lost in the wind and the screams of man and horse, in the clash of steel and the wailing of the dying. Still she waited.
His shouting had caused a man to turn his way, not just a man; a giant in steel armour. Blood was smeared on his breastplate, spattered across his helm, and dripping from the sword clutched in his fist. Fighting all around him but they all ignored the giant in his bloodied armour with two horns twisting from his helm. He walked to Landros more quickly than he had any right to in his massive armour, his steel feet squelching in mud and blood and guts.
The giant knight swung and Landros parried high, staggering and falling backwards under the weight of the blow. The knight roared, savage and loud and he swung again, a red sky with a yellow sun behind him and the sounds of death and fear all around him. Landros rolled away from the sword, his elbows and hands sliding through something thick and wet. Before the knight could adjust, Landros swung as hard as he could, felt the sword crash into the knight’s breastplate, vibrations shuddering up his arm and he spun away again. Desperate to look for Ysora, not wanting to know what he might see there.
The knight turned again, more slowly, the blackness in his eye slits somehow bright. And then the knight stopped and turned away from Landros, three warriors taking the chance to strike at the giant and the he faced them all with a scream of savagery, his sword whirling.
Landros’s breath came in short sharp gasps, and the world sounded quiet around him as he took the chance to look for Ysora.
She was gone.
He turned again, no sign of Ysora and no sign of the knight with the wounded face who had been following her. He whirled around, a world of nightmare spinning about him, no Ysora, only a black tree where she had been, its black branches bowed as though in mourning. He ran toward the tree, the howling rage of the giant knight following his every step. Landros ignored the curses and ran on.
But nobody was fighting anymore, all had stopped and turned to face one way. Some had taken off helms, kneeling, some standing with tears running down bloodied cheeks. Others who had lain there dying moments before, had struggled to rise to their feet, staggering and holding hands out to the light behind Landros, begging and pleading the light to cure them of their injuries.
Still Landros looked for Ysora, his breath loud in his own ears as he remembered the woman in the long skirts waiting for the knight with the bloodied face. How could she not have known his intent? Still no sign of her, only a man with his bowels rolling out of his stomach holding out hands to the light behind Landros, tears falling down his cheeks, smiling even as he was dying.
Shouts. A woman shouting, and Landros heard the hoof beats. More hoof beats and a man shouting and Landros turned, shielding his eyes against the light. Not the sun as he had thought, but a god. A god coming to war.
Keeper Reioshar had seen enough of the battle and held a staff aloft in one hand, the robe spilling about him and his green wig swaying about his mask. Light shone from his staff, sheathing the battlefield in nightmarish clarity, steam rising in the morning air from the blood and bowels of the fallen.
The god had a blade of green in his hand and as he moved forward, the horse sullen and quiet beneath him, he passed judgement on those fleeing the battle. Some knelt before him and were beheaded as easily as a man might cut through a grape. Others knelt before their god and were spared, the mask expressionless as it studied them for a moment before the Keeper waved a hand before them and moved on. Tears and exultations of joy followed the god as he approached the battlefield. Headless corpses lay still and motionless, steam rising in the air from the pouring blood.
Men all around Landros knelt and wept. Even those who had fought for the line of the Black Prince seemed overwhelmed by the majesty of the creature in the red mask, so tall and its movements so graceful as it slid down from the horse, its legs bending unnaturally beneath the flowing robe.
But some weren’t kneeling. Still two white horses raced through the steam and the mist rising about the field. The dead and the dying and the kneeling looked black and dark in the rising heat, but still Phailin and Laraine shouted. “Hold the line! Hold the line! The power is strong here!” And some few brave souls went to join their King and Queen, looking tired and battered and bloodied but still they formed the line before the white horses; less men now, maybe even less than a hundred facing the unhurried god and his staff of light.
“Bring the men! Bring the men!” Her horse reared and Landros could hear the fear in Laraine’s voice as she screamed. Men and women ran through the dead and Landros stepped and staggered through the bodies, no sign of Ysora, no sign of the knight with the fold of skin hanging from his face.
It looked a pitiful line of men to face a god. A hundred of them in battered armour, some barely able to stand, others wide-eyed with fear, swords held upright before them as the blade of green flashed and the Keeper strode towards them through the field of death.
More and more fell beneath the green blade, even men of his own army who the god deemed unworthy fell beneath the sword, the blade cutting through steel armour as though it were little more than the shell of an egg.
Other men screamed, shouted, “Praise the gods! Praise the Keepers!” And knelt and grovelled in shit and blood and mud and the Keeper passed them by, his mask expressionless as he stepped over the bodies.
And then Keeper Reioshar stopped and looked around the death and the destruction and the devastation. He faced the pitiful line of men before him, the white horses prancing and rearing, and even Laraine and Phailin fell quiet under that black-eyed gaze.
Keeper Reioshar raised his blade above his head, the robe loose and flowing about his body, the mask looking all about, the eyeholes black as the blackest night. “See what they bring?!” The Keeper’s voice was a loud hiss, heard over the whole battlefield, more fell to their knees as they heard the voice of their god, one of the five Keepers who had ruled the world for three thousand years. “See what they bring?!” The Keeper shouted again, louder now, and warriors wept into their bloodied hands in shame. “They say they bring the line of the Black Prince back to the world. They bring nothing but death and horror!” The voice was muffled behind the Keeper’s mask and only now did Landros realize that he too had fallen to his knees and was weeping in the presence of his god. His mother killed by the Nameless One, her body used by him to kill Clerk Lovelin; the Guardian murdered by Phailin and his men. And here was Keeper Reioshar to pass judgement on the cruelties of man.
Men were rising all around the field now, muddied faces streaked by tears, some of them so wounded that Landros was sure that the Nameless One was among them, possessing a body beyond any chance of life.
“Bring the men!” Phailin shouted, somewhere he had lost his helm and his grey hair stuck up in sweat-streaked tufts. “Bring the men!” His horse reared and screamed and the line of the Black Prince looked for all the world as though it was at an end as the light rose before them, growing and spreading and sheathing the battlefield in warm
golden brilliance.
“They bring you darkness and death and your gods bring you light and life!” The Keeper somehow hissed loud enough for people to scream in pain at the noise of it. Two kneeling men touched the Keeper’s robe as he passed them and the mask turned downward, looking at them. The knights screamed and begged for the god’s grace, and the blade whipped through the air at an impossible angle and two heads fell to the ground, blood steaming. Soldiers all around moaned, the sound more worshipful than fearful.
Keeper Reioshar rose then, rose into the air, his arms outspread and his staff of light blinding to look at.”Those who are true will be spared! The rest of you will be an example to your kind! Come and fall before me and declare yourselves!” He rose higher into the sky now, his robes billowing in the breeze and he looked down on them all, a vengeful god come to pass judgement. His light blazed upon them all, making everyone shield their eyes against his glory. All men knew the histories of the Keepers, all men knew none could stand against the Five. “Declare yourselves before me!” Keeper Reioshar screamed and all men on the battlefield fell before him like a field of wheat in a storm.
All except those who had declared themselves for the King and Queen, still proud on their white horses.
All except a figure standing in the middle of a circle of nine seated men and women, some of them wearing red coats fluttering in the breeze. The men of the Watch. And all the seated people had their hands bound behind their backs, had their feet tied before them. Bound and shackled before the figure standing in the centre of the circle of nine. A figure in black armour with a hooded cloak of grey, the hood pulled low to hide a shadowy face. The cloak flapped in the wind and the figure kept its head low and its hands by its side. The circle had been placed behind the last line of Phailin and Laraine’s army, and Landros’s heart quailed when he saw the creature. The Nameless One. He could feel the taint of the creature.