Blood and Sand Trilogy Box Set

by Jon Kiln

  Now they could hear the creak of wood and the slap of oars on the water, but no shouts. Whomever was crewing these thirty, forty, fifty or so boats did so with such precision that not one raised shout marred the quiet tableau.

  The ex-wall-captain didn’t have any answers – and worse still, she was running out of time.

  “Get me that thing. The telescope-thingy!” Vharn barked at her.

  “How?” Suriyen gestured at her tied up wrists, and, with a snarl the chief undid all of his careful work and slashed through the knots with his knife, before holding it up to her.

  “No funny business, or I’ll gut you just as easily as I could gut one of these pigeons, y’hear me?” He nodded once more to the telescope. “Get that. Tell me what you see.”

  He doesn’t know how to use one, Suriyen marveled, turning to drag the brass and wooden tube and its entire stand over to the window, before aligning it and shifting it until she had a good view of the docks.

  The twilit boats were steadying with an uncanny precision against the docks. Not the usual thumps and near misses of a busy working dock. No, this was too precise.

  Lines were thrown from the blackened ships, and there were the silhouettes of people leaping onto broken piers. An eerie grace filled their movements which set Suriyen’s teeth on edge. She saw the many boats – the armada, she realized – being tied off, and then other sailors take to the city. But their movements were all wrong, the wall-captain thought. Any individual shadow could alternate between grace, speed and precision, to suddenly jerk and twitch as if bitten by a scorpion, before emerging back to the fleet and agile movements.

  It’s almost like they don’t know how to use their bodies… Suriyen suddenly realized. She had seen such movements before. Of course she had, because she had been trained to recognize the signs.

  “Those things are demons,” she whispered. “Hundreds, and hundreds of demons.”

  34

  ‘We’re here.’ Vekal was awoken by Ikrit’s words in the back of his mind, and the imp sounded, if anything – scared.

  “What’s wrong?” the priest said immediately. If even that hellish little thing inside of me is scared, then I know that I should be as well. Vekal realized that he had what at best could be described as a strange relationship with the thing that hid inside his skin. It wasn’t affection, but familiarity. He could feel how it still burned with longing for its dead love, Eiver, and he could sense how that longing had turned into sour and bitter resentment at the entire world, and at the entire creation of the gods. So perhaps it wasn’t strange that he found himself swept up in a sympathetic feeling of fear.

  ‘This is it, priestling. Everything that you’ve been waiting for, working for. Now is the time that your actions count,’ Ikrit said, sounding almost humble – or as close to humble as a devil ever gets.

  “Our actions always count,” Vekal whispered into the dark hold, as the ship rocked slightly. But it wasn’t moving anymore, he could tell. It was instead rocking as if stabilized against a mooring of some kind.

  ‘Your actions might do, priest. But the goddess didn’t seem eager to cry her mercy over me now, did she?’ Ikrit said, full of self-loathing.

  “She didn’t destroy you either though, imp. Maybe if you act well, if you work to save Kariss and find a way to seal the gate, she will take pity on you. The Lady Iliya is the regent of Mercy, after all,” said Vekal.

  ‘Ha. Save your sermons for someone with a soul, priest,’ Ikrit snapped, as one of the trapdoors suddenly banged open and a figure jumped down.

  “It looks like it’s your lucky night, Ikrit,” said Khoulash-Eremund, stalking closer on his stolen legs. In his hand he had a very sharp knife.

  “What do you want?” Vekal asked, fear shivering through his limbs. The devil inside of him was being suspiciously silent.

  “I’m not talking to you, human, but your master,” Khoulash-Eremund spat. “Get him for me.”

  “He’s not my master.” Vekal glared back.

  ‘Hush, priest! If he thinks that you are in charge of this relationship, he will just kill you, and send us both to hell.’ Ikrit surged into life, before opening the priest’s mouth.

  “Where are we, Khoulash?” Ikrit-Vekal said.

  “That’s more like it. You are to join us as we meet an old friend of ours. You remember Marzu, don’t you?”

  “Marzu?” Vekal heard himself say, accompanied by a sense of loathing. “That vile little worm. What is he doing topside?”

  “He has been for decades, Ikrit. You know what they say about the plans of hell: they can take centuries – well, now that plan comes to completion.” Khoulash-Eremund slashed the bonds of its old superior, and grinned as the priest-devil stood up.

  “What do you mean, the plans of centuries? This was my plan. To open the Lockless Gate,” Vekal heard his demon say.

  “You think?” Khoulash-Eremund laughed. “Oh, Ikrit. Even you weren’t told. Let me tell you a story, master of mine…” Khoulash slowly walked around the priest, toying with the blade in his hands as he did so.

  “After you got yourself incarnated – possessing that little Menaali girl – the hells were in turmoil. No one knew why you’d done it. Where you were going. Or so the rest of us under you thought.” Khoulash pulled a dramatic face. “That was of course, until Marzu came along.”

  Who’s Marzu? Vekal inquired of the demon.

  ‘Scribe of Hell. A functionary, like a record-keeper, but an important one,’ Ikrit internalized back, before turning its total attention to its old right-hand lieutenant.

  “He told us that it was all a part of the Greater Hell’s plans. To make you think that you were acting alone, because Heaven, when it found out, had to believe that they weren’t facing another whole-scale uprising.” Khoulash threw the knife, before catching it by the blade.

  “You’re telling me that I was played?” Ikrit-Vekal snarled.

  “Of course. You don’t think that the Greater Hell would ever let their Great Abomination free to run off to his beloved dead lover, now, do you?” the devil-smuggler snickered. “You were the fox, and we were the hounds. You ran off topside through the world, drawing the attention of heaven as you did so – and you did only what you could do, Ikrit – you managed to turn the Menaali Horde back from its suicidal mission to the north, and turned it east instead, across the Burning Sands to take Fuldoon, right next to the Shattering Coast and the Isle of Gaunt.

  “As soon as you left, Marzu told us how he had been working on the Menaali for a long time,” Khoulash continued. “That he had a faithful servant. A witch, whom he could use. He plans for the Horde to be the new vessels of demon-kind on the earth. Can you imagine it? A new chapter – a Hell on Earth! A Demon Paradise!” Khoulash-Eremund clapped his hands. “And it is all because of you, my friend. You broke open the Lockless Gate, and now there is nothing to stop us from taking Heaven too. No one thought that you would get so far, or be so successful! Marzu will want to congratulate you himself when we meet him.”

  “Where is he?” Ikrit asked. Where are we? Vekal added.

  “Here, of course. Fuldoon. The City of Devils!” Khoulash-Eremund smiled, gesturing to the trapdoor. “Come now, Ikrit. It is time to take your rightful place, not at the side of some whimpering woman in heaven, but at the side of Marzu, as Councilor of Fuldoon, and I shall be its General, and together we will crush the world of man.”

  We cannot. You cannot! Vekal said suddenly, as Khoulash continued.

  “Now that we have the Saint of the Age, we will keep her with us for all time. She will tell us what is to come. We will never be surprised or outwitted. We will kill our enemies before they are even born,” the devil crowed, as he threw and caught the knife, threw and caught.

  No, Ikrit – I beg of you, Vekal pleaded with the creature.

  “Very well,” he heard himself say, just as infernal power flooded into his limbs. Ikrit was angry. Terribly angry. The sort of anger that slow-burns for a millennium like
a subterranean volcano, before finally having a chance to escape.

  Ikrit-Vekal moved, as fast as lightning, and whisker-quick. Time seemed to slow down all around them as Vekal saw his hand snaking out towards Khoulash-Eremund (whose eyes were widening in shock). Even with all of the powers of a Greater Abomination, it seemed that the devil Khoulash was still able to react.

  Ikrit-Vekal’s hand snatched the descending dagger from the air with a swipe, right above the smuggler’s hand, and, reversing his grip he slammed it into the devil’s neck.

  Khoulash-Eremund didn’t have a chance to even make a sound apart from a wheezing choke, before he thumped against the mast that Vekal himself had been tied too, and slowly slid down, his eyes still blinking and looking in shock at what its old ally had done.

  “No one plays me, Khoulash. No one,” Vekal heard himself say. “I want to get to Heaven you miserable little slug.”

  The dying man and devil both made a hissing sort of sound, before his head drooped over the knife, and he went still.

  “Ikrit?” Vekal said in alarm, once again in charge of his own voice and body it seemed, although the devils power still flooded through him, wiping away all exhaustion and fear.

  ‘If the devils succeed then we will never get to heaven. I will never get to Eiver, and you will never have your life with that woman and her brat,’ Ikrit said. ‘Come on, we have to go kill Marzu.’

  “What?” Vekal said.

  ‘Marzu. He is the orchestrator of this mess. He needs to die. And after that we’ll kill all of the angels that stand in our way too!’

  Vekal felt not the anger but the cold and hard hatred billowing from the devil inside of him. Vekal wondered if he might even be able to achieve it.

  ***

  ‘Don’t run. Walk,’ Ikrit told him as he closed the trapdoor. ‘The other demons must think that I am one of them.’

  Vekal did as he was told, stalking carefully down the corridors as he heard the slap of feet and creak of ropes above. But no voices. All of the devils were working to secure their boats with an eerie precision.

  “This is it.” Vekal turned the final corner to the rooms where he was sure that they had locked the others. He could feel the impatience of the devil inside of him, to tear through the ruined city outside and burn a line straight to this Marzu, but Vekal would have fought him every step of the way if they didn’t rescue the others first.

  “No keys,” Vekal hissed in alarm.

  ‘As if the likes of you and I need keys,’ Ikrit said, filling his body with strength as Vekal stamped at the door.

  Surprising to the priest, the door buckled and crashed from its hinges into the room, to a trio of gasps and the worried faces of Mother Aldameda, Talon, and Meghan. Kariss herself, lying on her bunk and looking at the door, did not look worried at all.

  “Vekal!” she said excitedly with a grin. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I’m here,” Vekal heard himself say, but he wasn’t sure if it was him, or the devil, or both, as he looked at the others. “Come with me. I’m getting you out of this hellhole.”

  35

  He looked… different somehow, Meghan thought, as she clutched her daughter to her and followed the tall and rangy form of the Sin Eater through the Red Hand’s galleon.

  The woman barely had time to breathe, and less time to think, before she found herself rushing after him – trusting him. What is wrong with me? she thought. Hadn’t Aldameda and the others said that he was evil? That he was consumed by something?

  But the priest didn’t feel evil to her; which she knew was a strange thing to say, but it was true. He also didn’t move like the other possessed pirates. His gait wasn’t a mixture of fast and slow, jerky and shambling. In fact, he didn’t appear possessed to the herbalist at all. If anything, his actions appeared fluid and graceful, and his eyes burned with a clear light. Could they have it wrong about him? But the devil-smuggler, the one who had taken their ship, had recognized him, had talked to him.

  What is going on? she thought in frustration as they paused before the final stairs to the deck.

  Aldameda sucked her teeth. “He’s probably going to lead us right into the middle of them…” She scowled, and at her side, Talon gripped at the knife he held in his hands. “Be ready, Talon,” Meghan heard his master say.

  “Give him a chance,” Meghan hissed at them. “At least this once!”

  “We’ve given him loads of chances,” Talon said darkly. “Chances that got Suriyen killed.”

  “You don’t know that!” Meghan said, as Vekal turned back to them, his face burning with worry.

  “We may have to fight our way out,” he said warily. “I’ll do what I can, but…”

  “We’ll be ready,” Meghan said resolutely, her hand slipping to the handle of the hatchet that Aldameda had stolen for her just recently. “We can fight, if it means getting out of here.”

  Vekal’s face darkened for a moment, and Mother Aldameda seized upon it.

  “And afterwards? After we’ve made it to the city, what then? You know that the place is overrun with barbarians and devils, don’t you? Or was that your plan all along?”

  “I know,” Vekal said, causing a flash of victorious scorn from Mother Aldameda.

  “See! He is leading us into a trap!”

  “I am leading you into danger, but not a trap,” Vekal whispered seriously, his eyes flicking to Meghan. “I want you to hide. We have to find a safe place for you, where you can lay low until this is all over. Until I’ve done what I have to do.”

  Meghan thought that the man looked incredibly sad upon saying that. “What do you plan to do?” she asked in a low voice.

  “He’s going to die,” Kariss said out loud, shocking them all. Meghan saw the man’s face fall into a grimace of despair for a brief moment, before his features returned to their normal composure as he leaned down to give her a very small, almost reassuring smile.

  “I may do, little Kariss. But I don’t want to.”

  She didn’t speak truth, it wasn’t a prophecy, Meghan told herself, again and again, but there was no time for her worry as there was a sudden sound from the stairs. Vekal turned around, holding a hand behind him to warn the rest of them back.

  “Vekal–” Meghan couldn’t stop herself from gasping as the priest swung around the corner, slamming his knife into a large pirate’s throat as fast as a prancing cat. The man gurgled and thumped to the stairs as Vekal took his sword and belt and started edging up the stairs.

  “Come on…” Aldameda pulled Meghan after her as she followed, staying low.

  Most of the pirate-devils it seemed had left the Red Hand vessel. The escapees could clearly see their dark forms moving down the docks, into the ruined city beyond.

  The dead city, Meghan thought. She had only been to Fuldoon a few times – but she had never known it to be as quiet or as lifeless as this, even in the middle of the night. She paused at the top of the stairs to see a skyline of blackened buildings and rooftops, and not a sound in the night apart from the movement of her companion’s feet ahead.

  “Now!” Vekal moved across the deck to the central mast, and he was like a shadow flickering in the gloom. Meghan had seen him in action before of course, but that had been full of the frenzy of the demon, not imbued with all of the training and skill of his Order, the Morshanti. He froze as another two pirates climbed up from a trapdoor a little way away, but by the time that they had seen him he was already among them, using his knife to hamstring one, before spinning to grab the mouth of the other, turning him around and slitting his throat.

  “Don’t look, Kariss.” Meghan held her daughter close as the disabled devil-pirate began to growl in pain.

  He never got a chance to holler or scream, however, as Vekal was suddenly upon him, silencing him with another throat slice, before beckoning towards them with a bloodied hand.

  They moved across the decking at a low run, reaching the edge of where the galleon met the docks.
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br />   “Oh, dear heavens.” Aldameda stopped. There, tied up next to them were many other boats. Lots of boats, Meghan corrected, and they weren’t blackened or scuttled like the Fuldoonian fleet. These came in all shapes and sizes, from other galleons to two mast carracks, to long boats and even a couple of barges. They were either already tied or in the process of doing so by the strangely silent, jerky movements of the possessed pirates – the same devils that were now congregating on the docks.

  There must be hundreds down there. Meghan crouched next to Talon and the others by the side of the gunwale.

  “How can we hope to get through that lot?” Talon breathed in horror. So far, they were lucky in the fact that they hadn’t been spotted, but how long could their luck last?

  “We can’t stay here, that’s for sure,” Aldameda said in a disgusted hiss.

  “No.” Vekal appeared to agree with her. “I don’t know how many of the other pirates were left inside this boat, or when they will find Khoulash-Eremund’s body.”

  “You killed him?” Meghan said hopefully.

  “I did,” Vekal nodded, just as a shout rang up from the docks below.

  “Bring her to me!” The words were hissed and coarse, but somehow they managed to cut through all of the smaller sounds. Meghan froze. She had no illusions as to who they were talking about.

  “Khoulash! Get your pustulant hide down here and bring me the Saint!”

  Peering through the railings of the gunwale, Meghan could see that now a new delegation had arrived at the docks, and they were made of far more people. Hundreds and hundreds more. Thousands. They marched into the docks, approaching the other devils without fear, and their numbers filled all of the near streets like an overflowing river.

  “Who are they?” Meghan whispered. They had topknots or shaved heads, ragged beards or long whiskers, and they wore stained and haphazard leather armor, fitted with metal studs. At their sides they carried axes or long swords – but not one of them carried a torch.