Darksoul

by Anna Stephens

  She put her hand to her belly, swollen with food and nothing else – not yet – and smiled to herself. Little warrior. Nothing’s going to stop you, is it? As tough as your Da … but that led to thoughts she didn’t want to contemplate. Not here and now, anyway. As tough as me, then. And loved. So loved.

  ‘What do you think they’ll do?’ she asked when she’d finished eating and licked her spoon clean.

  Gilda’s mouth twitched. ‘Congratulations,’ she said sourly, easing herself back against the wall and draping the blanket over her legs as Rillirin took the empty bowl from her, ‘you managed to wait until after the meal to begin your interrogation again.’

  Rillirin raised her chin. ‘It’s a valid question.’

  Gilda snorted. ‘And one you’ve asked me four times already, which means you know that I don’t know. We’ve given them all the information we can, and my time as Lanta’s pet at least ensured I was privy to some of their plans, so Hadir understands the urgency. Hopefully it will be enough, and my authority as high priestess should count for something. It’s clear to us that they must reinforce Rilporin, but we don’t know the situation here. Krike has always been belligerent; if they get wind of the invasion, they may stage one of their own just to see how much of the Western Plain they can claim while our backs are turned.’

  ‘We …’ Rillirin trailed off.

  ‘What? Speak up, girl.’

  Rillirin stood tall in the face of Gilda’s impatience. ‘I was going to say, if Hadir – when Hadir – decides to go to Rilporin, we’ll push on to Krike.’

  Gilda glowered at her. ‘Why would we go to Krike?’

  Rillirin opened her mouth and then closed it again, confused. ‘What?’ She said eventually. ‘Going to Krike was your idea. On the way here you said we’d go there and convince them to fight for Crys, tell them who he really is.’

  The scorn in Gilda’s face made her blush.

  ‘I was half out of my head with fever, lass. Of course we can’t go to Krike. No one would believe us. Krike’s only an ally if we offer them something in return for aid. Telling them their god walks the earth won’t do it – we can’t prove it. It was a fever-dream, Rillirin. I can’t believe you’ve been pinning your hopes on it all this time.’

  Rillirin blew out her cheeks and folded her arms. ‘Fine, so I’m not very good at this. I still feel we should be doing something.’

  ‘We’ve only just stopped doing lots and lots of somethings,’ Gilda pointed out, before heaving a sigh and closing her eyes. When she opened them again, her expression was softer. ‘We’ll talk to Hadir again tomorrow. That really is all we can do. Come on, get into bed. Us old folk need our rest, and so do you pregnant ones. And ignore an old woman’s short temper,’ she added. ‘Talk of amputation makes me … unsettled.’

  Rillirin hauled off her boots, stripped down to her linens and eased into the bed next to Gilda, swamped with relief. She kissed Gilda’s cheek and then blew out the candle. ‘No one’s taking your arm,’ she promised.

  ‘Healer, are you?’ Gilda said, and then huffed a breath. ‘I’m sure you’re right. And despite my protestations to the contrary, I’ve never been the best of patients.’

  ‘I’m astonished,’ Rillirin muttered, was rewarded with a grudging chuckle in the dark. She grinned and closed her eyes.

  ‘The worry never goes away, you know,’ Gilda said after a long silence. ‘Nor the grief – for Cam, for Sarilla and, aye, for Dom too, though a part of me will always have hope of his redemption, no matter what the rest of me thinks. I have to, lass, have to believe he can be saved. Because if he can’t … But spring is here and there are thick walls between us and the enemy and a healer to fix my arm. The Dancer teaches us to take what pleasures we can, when we can. Let’s do that, at least for now.’

  She yawned and her voice grew softer, distant with dreams. ‘The trials will start again soon enough. That’s the only certainty in this world.’

  Rillirin lay with her hands on her belly, staring at the flickers of light from the fire dancing orange on the ceiling as Gilda’s breathing deepened and she began to snore.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll get much sleep with that racket,’ she whispered to the babe and smiled. ‘But she’s right, though. We’ll win this war, and by the time you’re born, it will just be an evil memory. Nothing for you to worry about, little Wolf. You’ll be born into peace and plenty, with Grandma Gilda and Uncle Lim and your Da and me all around you, loving you. I promise.’

  A wondering smile crossed Rillirin’s face in the dark and her hands stroked the skin of her stomach. ‘Little Wolf. You’ll be absolutely perfect. And nothing will ever hurt you.’

  CORVUS

  Fifth moon, night, day forty-three of the siege

  Grand temple square, First Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  The need to kill every enemy of the faith rose up in Corvus like a storm, every other instinct and emotion drowning beneath its red darkness. It didn’t matter what happened afterwards, whether he was ever crowned king of this shit-stinking hovel of a country or even if he survived. There was a hole carved into his heart by the Dark Lady’s destruction and Corvus had one imperative, one single, all-consuming purpose: to fill that hole to overflowing with the blood of these fucking savages.

  He’d charged after the Wolves and Rankers, howling a wordless war cry, sword cleaving Rilporians’ arms, hacking into faces and chests and elbows, stabbing guts and thighs. He waded through them like a man through wheat. Corvus was filled with the loss of a god and the rage of another. Unstoppable. Unkillable. He knew no fear, knew nothing but the need to kill. And kill he would, until all the world was gore.

  And the Godblind. The traitorous shit who’d managed to fool them all was here somewhere; Corvus had seen him, seen him take a knife to the Dark Lady – he screamed at the memory – and kill Her. Amid the utter shock that had followed his actions and the arrival of Holy Gosfath, he’d disappeared, but that wouldn’t save him. Corvus was going to find him and he was going to give him a death that would last for years, utter destruction of mind, spirit and body, so that all he knew, all he was, was pain.

  It wouldn’t be enough, nothing he could devise would ever be enough, but Corvus pledged to do it anyway, to find new depths of depravity, to invent new torments, and use every one of them on the deicide.

  He sliced a man across the eyes and sent him reeling, shrieking, back into the melee.

  Gosfath had travelled back through the veil to marshal His strength for the fight to come, for the search for His Sister-Lover. Corvus suppressed the voice that whispered Gosfath had fled, abandoned them as the Dark Lady had, left them spiritual orphans in a hostile land.

  No, never. His bloodlust flows in my veins, in all of us. It is His presence that sustains us now. His love. He gives us strength and demands that we use it to annihilate this city and all within it. We must not fail Him as we failed Her.

  Neither Corvus nor Skerris nor the Blessed One had issued any orders, but the Mireces and Easterners moved as one, harrying the defenders and pushing them back, shoving them through the streets, herding them like so much dumb, lowing beef through gates and districts, and then from First Circle into Second, and then Second into Third.

  Dusk came while he killed and the growing darkness didn’t matter, the madness gnawing at the ragged tatters of his soul didn’t matter. What mattered was the fight, was the blood spilt in Her name. Sacred blood and heathen blood, the Blessed One had said back in Eagle Height all those months ago, they would spill it all if it would bring the Red Gods back to Gilgoras. Now they were spilling it to bring back the Dark Lady, to atone for what had been done to Her. To call Her from beyond death and back into their hearts. Tears rolled down his face as he killed.

  There were Mireces around him now, and Valan of course, still alive, still protecting his king despite the agony racking his heart. The men and women ahead of him were civilians, and they were running, running and screaming, some armed with scavenged wea
pons, others with sticks or kitchen knives. Most carried bundles, as though sacks of precious things would save their lives. Others carried children, more precious and just as useless.

  Corvus hadn’t spoken a word he could remember in hours, but his throat was raw from screaming and his sword heavier than a mountain, his legs like lead and his chest labouring to breathe the smoky night air. The roaring in his head and heart compelled him after the runners but he paused, leant his sword against a wall and flexed stiff fingers as he breathed, as he tried to think.

  His heartbeat pounded out the imperative: kill, kill, kill. The God of Blood’s need, lacking the Dark Lady’s meticulous planning. They were killing blind, hoping. The sacrifices in the temple were structured, ritualised. This slaughter had none of that.

  ‘Valan,’ he croaked. ‘Where are we?’

  His second came to a twitching halt at his side, eyes locked on the fleeing Rilporians, sword arm flailing gently. ‘Third Circle I think, Sire. Or Fourth. Does it matter? Kill them.’

  Corvus turned, looking for landmarks. He pointed with his chin. ‘That’s the palace? Then that puts us in Third. Further than I realised and a good place to organise. We need to hold here, bring up reinforcements. I want every single Rilporian trapped in Fifth by this time tomorrow. Drive them in, kill if necessary, but I want as many alive as we can manage.’

  A frown cracked the dried blood on Valan’s brow and sent flakes tumbling on the breeze. ‘Not kill them?’

  Corvus grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. ‘Not yet. We hold here, wait for others to reinforce us, then start sending out runners with the order.’ He looked up at the house on his left, mostly intact. ‘See if there’s water or ale in there, any food. We’ll be fighting through the night. We’ll be fighting until this is done. We’ve already got them on the run; we can’t give them a chance to regroup.’

  Valan finally tore his eyes from the fleeing citizens and met Corvus’s. ‘Your will, Sire,’ he said, and something in his face told Corvus he knew what his king was planning and approved. One final mass sacrifice: if that wasn’t enough to draw the Dark Lady back, nothing was.

  First and Second Circles were aflame. Smoke swirled through the streets, catching in throats and blurring eyes, constricting lungs and drizzling ash on to tongues. Soot insinuated itself into every wrinkle and fold of skin and cloth, dulling the shine on weapons and armour, brightening the feverish zeal in the eyes of the righteous.

  The silver light that the Dark Lady must have sent as a last gift before She vanished, the light that had healed them all, hadn’t reappeared; new injuries sustained in the intervening hours behaved as normal – bleeding, slowing, killing. Their numbers were thinning, but they had enough to see this last great assault bring them victory, though every step he took felt like defeat without Her presence in his soul.

  Corvus paused to wipe black snot from his upper lip and spit phlegm on to the stone. He hacked out a cough as the wind blew hot and foul down the street. The city was backlit in orange, the pursuers outlined by flame, and the fleeing soldiery had finally organised. They knew they were being driven now, and they knew the city better than the Mireces ever would. Progress had halted completely in some areas as fierce fighting broke out or ambushes felled a squad of his men, and at least two Mireces bands had been forced back into fires they themselves had set, caught between flame and steel.

  Small bands of Rilporians had wriggled past his flanks and fled into the burning city, twisting and turning through streets and alleys to throw off any pursuit. Corvus had ordered them hunted down, every last one. None would escape, none be allowed the succour of an easy death in the flames. They were destined for sacrifice, for an act of devotion so monumental that gods Themselves would weep for joy – and return to honour Their worshippers. Gilgoras would know the touch of its true gods once again: the scabbed slices in Corvus’s arms promised it; the hole in his heart demanded it.

  He would reduce Rilporin to a blackened skeleton knee-deep in blood. With the Blessed One at his side, Corvus would kill the world if that was what it took.

  MACE

  Fifth moon, night, day forty-three of the siege

  Noble quarter, Fourth Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  The war didn’t make sense any more.

  One minute he’d been standing over Dalli listening to healers explain how unlikely it was that she’d survive, and the next the entire city had begun screaming at once, so much so that he’d left her there and sprinted outside. And witnessed the impossible.

  A god.

  It could be nothing else. Gosfath, God of Blood, towered over the city and then moved through it, leaving carnage in His wake. Men who’d fought for weeks without hesitation or visible fear had thrown down their weapons and fled, screaming, as Gosfath tore through the city. Mace neither blamed nor condemned them; it’d taken all he had not to piss his linens.

  Hundreds, thousands, had died while more fled, tearing open the gates they were supposed to be guarding and running heedless through the streets among the fleeing citizenry, the raining stone, their only thought to get as far away as they could. And then the Mireces, at first knocked to their knees by what he’d later learnt was Dom’s execution of the Dark Lady – and he wouldn’t have believed that if he hadn’t seen another god with his own eyes – were tearing holes through the fleeing Rilporians and raining bloody fucking murder on every man, woman and child they could find.

  But the ravaging Mireces hadn’t frightened him half so much as Dalli had when she came out of the hospital with her guts safely back in her body and nothing to show for it but shadows beneath her eyes and a thick purple scar jagging across her belly, visible through the tatters of her shirt and the ragged edges of her chainmail.

  Even the realisation that his own burns and wounds had healed themselves couldn’t dilute the primal terror that clawed into his throat as hundreds of wounded soldiers rose from their beds, put on their armour and fell upon the advancing Mireces. The mysterious healing – and Mace recalled the strange silver light that had bled across the city – had only gone so far: Edris’s leg hadn’t grown back and Dorcas still only had one eye, though it had mended enough to give him a little vision.

  But pulled from the brink of death by divine intervention wasn’t an impenetrable shield against the Mireces’ fresh assault. They’d hammered into his soldiers and hacked them open, as though affronted they’d had the balls to stand against them a second time, and the bone-deep exhaustion of near death slowed their reflexes. Some of them lived; the rest gave their second chance at life to ensure others survived. Mace hadn’t wasted their deaths; he’d dragged Dalli away even as the pair of them roared orders for formations that went unheard in the screaming, clanging fury.

  There had been no stopping the Mireces’ advance, no reasoning with the mad or defending against the suicidal. Once the Ranks broke and fled they couldn’t stop, and it had taken hours, the coming of night, the starting of the fires and the realisation there was nowhere left to flee to that finally restored order to his soldiers and the Wolves.

  And now they were here, the remains of his army, the remnants of the Wolves and thousands of hysterical civilians with screaming children and sacks of useless wealth. They’d fled with coin and jewels when they should have brought food, water and bandages, medicines, poultices. Some had brought their animals with them, not just dogs but the goats and yearling pigs they hadn’t slaughtered for food yet.

  Mace and those of his officers who were alive huddled in the remains of Fourth Circle, the district shattered and smoking. They’d propped the gates as best they could and manned the gatehouses and other sections of the wall with those archers who had shafts left.

  The little intel he had indicated that First and Second Circles were burning and the Mireces and East Rankers occupied Third, almost but not quite surrounding them. Fourth was smoky but not burning, while plumes of black lit by whirling sparks still rose from the palace in Fifth. They were trapped between fire and
the enemy and they had nowhere to run and not enough soldiers to defend the Rilporians crowded in with them.

  Running out of options, running out of soldiers, running out of space. How the fuck did it get so bad so fast?

  The ambushes and traps they’d laid as they fled through the districts had slowed the enemy’s advance and given them a small lead, and for reasons Mace wasn’t sure he wanted to learn the Mireces had stopped their outright slaughter and concentrated on herding together as many survivors as possible, pressing them into smaller and ever smaller spaces until even the spacious Fourth Circle was blanketed in people. Herding them like cattle to a slaughterhouse. Mace pushed away the image.

  ‘Count?’ he whispered and then smothered a cough in the crook of his elbow. Gods, he was thirsty, had been for what felt like days now.

  ‘Almost impossible to tell,’ Vaunt said. ‘Couple of thousand Rankers in here with us, at least three times that in civilians, if not more, and a few hundred Wolves. No idea how many soldiers have fallen since the Dark Lady was destroyed and the Fox God defeated Gosfath, but there’re scanty reports that a thousand or so may have escaped into the northern side of the city, or at least taken refuge somewhere safe. It may be they’ll reinforce us when we make our stand, or try and flank the Mireces to give us a way out. With luck, the Trickster leads them.’

  ‘Make our stand? We’re on the run, man. Even if he is the Trickster, he can’t rally dead men.’ Can he? ‘I don’t want suppositions and hope, I want facts.’

  Vaunt dipped his head. ‘All right. Same estimated numbers in here with us, but the thousand we think might’ve escaped are all dead, along with all the others we’ve lost count and sight of. Anyone not in here with us can be assumed lost. We have no idea where the Fox God is and He’s probably the only one who can help us, because there are no re-inforcements and there’s no way of making a stand because we’re fucked and can’t get the civilians out of danger or even out of the bastard way to let us die in lines as we’ve trained.’