by Tom Lloyd
Peness gasped, the breath driven from his lungs, and whimpered. Raising one hand above his head to ward off any further blows, he kicked feebly against the ground as though trying to run. Out of instinct he reached for his magic again and sparks crackled into life all down the silver thread of his robe and cast a ruby light from his blood-spattered fingertips.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and whipped round with a fistful of raging energies, but even as he cast the magic at his assailant he felt a shadow fall over him and the magic fell apart, withering to nothing. A sudden chill ran though his bones and the mage stopped dead at the sight of the small, smiling face of Ruhen rather than Ilumene’s weathered scowl.
‘Peace, brother,’ Ruhen said softly. ‘No more fighting.’
Peness stared up at the child in wonder, his mouth dropping open and hanging slack as the shadows in Ruhen’s eyes washed cool and soothing through his soul. The pain of his injuries faded, numbed by the sweep of shadow. He tried to speak, but he could only wheeze after Ilumene’s kick.
‘Peace,’ Ruhen repeated. ‘Forget your pain and breathe in the beauty around you.’
Peness blinked in surprise and looked around. There were frightened faces at windows and the mouth of a nearby alley, pinched with poverty or scarred by disease. Stinking grey water slopped over an abandoned rag in the gutter near his feet. The uneven cobbles on the ground were stained and dozens were missing A flitter of movement caught his eye: up on a windowsill the tiny form of a bird peered down at him, then returned its attention to the grey bricks of the wall beside it. Its wings were a bright green, its head was marked with a long golden stripe. The bird hopped forward along the sill and Peness saw at the end a bowl-shaped blue flower growing in the gap between bricks and a beetle the colour of finest amethyst. In a sudden burst of movement the bird darted forward and plucked the beetle from the wall, then carried it up to the slate roof of the house where wild roses were nodding in the breeze. There it sat and stared defiantly at Peness, beetle in its beak, before vanishing away over the houses.
‘Peace,’ Peness croaked, shakily trying to get to his feet.
Ilumene came forward and hauled him up. ‘Peace,’ he agreed, less than impressed with the idea, but unwilling to argue with Ruhen.
The pristine white of Ilumene’s clothes were now spotting with blood — his blood, Peness realised belatedly. He tried to find the anger inside him, but nothing came though the stiffness and returning pain.
‘How?’
‘Got my ways,’ Ilumene said with a half-smile. ‘Don’t think I’d go up against a mage without a little protection, did you?’
Peness stared at the man. He couldn’t see a charm or anything on Ilumene’s armour, but there was a silver chain peeking out from behind his tunic. ‘I suppose not,’ he admitted.
Surreptitiously he opened his senses and tried to discover what it was the man was wearing. He detected some small presence of energy in the air around Ilumene, but the weave of magic was too subtle for him to unpick further. That alone told Peness something, however: he was the most skilled mage in Byora, and if he could not discern the shape of the magics Ilumene wore, that meant it was of the highest quality, most likely ancient, and Elven-made.
‘Nah, I’d have already cut your throat by now if that was the case.’ Ilumene made a show of dusting the mage down as he spoke. ‘Best you remember in future, though: whatever you throw at me, I’ll get a shot in before I go down.’ He paused and grinned evilly at Peness. ‘And I only need one.’
Before the mage could reply Ilumene had sauntered past him and taken Ruhen’s offered hand. Incongruously the burly soldier allowed himself to be led by the child out through the gate without even a glance back. Once they were through it, he jabbed a thumb in Peness’ direction. On the other side Peness saw the tall shape of Koteer, the Demi-God, with his two remaining brother Jesters. Koteer beckoned for Peness to join them and, still wincing at the stinging rib, he did as bidden.
Ruhen continued walking into the fading sunshine of the open ground beyond the wall. Peness couldn’t hear any conversation between them, but after a while Ilumene left abruptly and with a minimum of fuss he rounded up the traders and labourers who were working just beyond the gate and ushered them all inside the wall.
‘And now we wait?’ the mage complained. ‘This is madness.’
‘Now we wait,’ confirmed Koteer in an expressionless voice.
Koteer was significantly taller than Ilumene, and he too was dressed for war, in strange armour of curved scales. But what four warriors thought they could do here was a mystery to Peness. He’d been the one to send the warning to Duchess Escral in the first place, when, for once, his daemon-guide had been unambiguous: there were scores of daemons, perhaps as many as a hundred, marching on Byora.
The boundaries of the Land, like the Gods, had been weakened. Daemons still shunned the daylight, but dusk was fast approaching. The people of Byora had rejected their Gods, and consequently the border was weakest here. Byora would see a feeding of daemons not witnessed since the end of the Great War, when the Gods’ strength had been taxed almost to extinction.
‘What did he do?’ Peness whispered, then cringed as he realised he’d spoken the words aloud.
Koteer turned to face him, his expression hidden behind his white mask. ‘Who?’
‘The, ah, the Menin lord. The Gods must remember how weak they were left after striking Aryn Bwr’s name from history — what could have made them do so again?’
Koteer regarded him for a long while, then turned his attention back to Ruhen without replying. Peness stared at the grey-skinned son of Death and wondered at his motivations too, but this time he managed not to speak them aloud. The Jesters had lived as Raylin mercenaries for centuries now; violence would always be their first recourse.
At last Ilumene returned to Ruhen’s side and the pair stood on the road out of Byora, looking towards the treacherous, spirit-haunted fens in the distance. The sun had dropped behind the montain called Blackfang now and Byora was in shadow again. Even in summer the ghost-hour started early there. The evening gloom was still further advanced over the watery fens, where solitary ghost-willows lurked on the banks of ponds and lakes, and copses of marsh-alder hid the deepest parts from sight. Still waters were gateways to the other lands and it would be through the fens that any daemons came to Byora — the people’s innate fear of that place would ensure it.
‘Not long now,’ Ilumene commented to Ruhen as Peness watched them from a safe distance. ‘How many do you bet there’ll be?’
‘You are not a King’s Man now,’ the child said. ‘A wager serves no purpose here.’
‘Keeps me from getting bored.’
‘There is enough to consider already.’
Ilumene sniffed and inspected the bloodstain on his gauntlet. ‘The fabric of existence ain’t really my department. What the Gods have done to the Land I’ll leave to greater minds.’
‘Flattery is one lie that does not come easily to your tongue. Tell me your thoughts.’
‘On the weakening of boundaries? Not much to tell. I’ve no idea how Emin managed to force the Gods into that position — he must have known the result. Most likely the only God walking the Land right now is the Wither Queen and that’s only with Jackdaw’s help.’
‘Perhaps the Gods did not fear it. Their enemy was Aryn Bwr; the Menin lord was their potential rival. We do not figure by comparison, not in a way that threatens the divine. The Menin lord defied them, turned from the path they had prophesied, so he appeared a threat, but they do not care to involve themselves in the power-struggles of nations and men, and with both threats defeated they had no reason to hold back.’
‘Well, whatever the reason, it speeds up our plans another notch. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear the Farlan boy was the one who started it off somehow, gave Emin the means or something.’
Ruhen stopped dead and laughed, high and innocent, as realisation struck him. ‘We gave him the means
,’ the child said. ‘We sacrificed it for the journal — the Skull of Ruling, the prize we dangled before Emin so he would kill the abbot in Scree for us. How else would he compel the Gods to expend such power?’
‘That’s what did it? Worked out better than we’d planned, then.’
‘Indeed. Your king has embraced its chaotic nature with greater relish than anyone could have anticipated. Now he just needs to bring the Key of Magic into play and every piece will finally be on the board — more than we even need, now the Gods are so weakened.’ He raised a hand to stop any reply from Ilumene, and took a deep breath of the evening air. He glanced back at Blackfang and saw the halo of evening sun dimming around the broken mountain’s ragged brow. ‘I smell them,’ he murmured.
‘Here?’
‘In the air. They’re waiting, watching and waiting.’
‘No doubt. Not much beats a daemon for looking forward to a bit of slaughter.’ Ilumene fitted his round shield properly onto his arm and loosened the ties around his sword-hilt. ‘We’ll make ’em think twice about it, though.’
The pair walked slowly down the road beside one of the many streams that ran from Byora to the fens. The evening grew around them, a steady, stealthy creeping darkness accompanied by the whisper of wind, and faint voices. Ruhen and his protector faced the stiffening breeze in silence until they were fifty yards from the gate and the only visible souls there, all the more obvious for their bright white clothes. A scent of age came to Ilumene on the breeze, the dry and musty chill of a tomb, the silence and patience that was Azaer, reaching out into the twilight and luxuriating in the precarious balance between one moment and the next.
Ilumene smiled as he felt Azaer’s presence surround them both: tiny, delicate touches down his neck — the lightest imprint of a spider footstep, the brush of a fly’s wing — while the twisting threads of shadow in his soul blossomed into dark buds.
In the distance shapes as yet unformed advanced towards them, discernable only as wisps of movement. With each advancing second of evening, the daemons came closer to the Land, and in their wake the howls of the damned echoed. The deepening blue sky was overlaid with a bloody red haze and the shadows of roiling smoke-clouds. Ilumene drew his sword as Ruhen stood and stared, transfixed by the sight of figures coalescing out of the evening air.
Already they could make out individuals, coming on two feet or four, clothed in bright cloth, or plates of bone and chitin, armed with claws and teeth or rusted, hook-edged axes and swords. They marched not with threats or shouts but with a near-silent intensity of purpose and halted when they were no more than forty yards away from Ruhen and Ilumene.
The leader of the pack was a tall beast that stood on a dog’s hind legs and carried a pair of ornate axes. Its muzzle was drawn back into a permanent snarl by iron chains set into its cheeks, shaping its skull into a blunt wedge.
‘Leave this place,’ Ruhen called to them, his child’s voice carrying clearly through the evening air, but it seemed to be followed by strange whispers that raced in all directions like zephyrs through long grass.
The daemon regarded Ruhen for a long while as its fellows hissed and gnashed their teeth. ‘Give us tribute and worship and we will let you live.’ Its voice was a threatening growl, and sounded like random noises that just happened to form human words.
‘No tribute,’ Ruhen said plainly, ‘no worship. This is a place of peace. Your kind are not welcome here.’
‘What are you to make such demands?’ the daemon barked, the anger in its voice echoed by the dozens at its side.
The clamour of their howls hammered at Ilumene’s ears so intensely that for a moment he wondered if he’d missed Ruhen’s reply. Then he realised the child had said nothing; he was waiting patiently for the chance to speak. Inexplicably, the daemons stayed where they were, and eventually they quietened. Peness’ daemon-guide had claimed the warband was thirsty for flesh and blood, that nothing would stop or slow them until they were sated, yet not only had they failed to attack, but they stood well back of the little boy and his single protector.
‘My name is Ruhen,’ he said, ‘and your death stands in my shadow.’
To emphasis the point Ilumene raised his sword, but he was one against dozens.
The daemons started to advance on them, their jaws open and weapons held ready.
‘The Circle City is under my protection,’ Ruhen continued, as if oblivious to the danger closing on him. ‘I will not allow you to harm its people.’
When the leader of the daemons only snarled and increased its pace, Ruhen made a small, dismissive gesture with his hands. ‘So be it,’ he murmured.
From their hiding-places the Harlequins burst up to attack, their white masks shockingly bright in the deepening gloom. They moved as one, converging on the daemons in seconds, weapons already moving for the kill. Ilumene charged the dog-legged daemon with a yell, reaching it at the same moment as a young warrior whose slender sword caught the daemon’s raised left arm.
Ilumene ignored a blow from the daemon’s axe on his shield, instead pushing inside its guard and smashing up at its dog-muzzle with the pommel of his sword. The blow snapped its head back and Ilumene wasted no time in chopping down into the daemon’s arm. He followed it up with a thrust into its gut and the daemon vanished just as the blow struck. The Harlequin had already passed onto the next daemon, striking with blinding speed. The Harlequins moved in a complex dance, each one aware of where the others were, each one constantly in motion.
Ilumene held back, aware his own style, however effective on a battlefield, could not fit into that dance. He marvelled at the bloody ballet being executed before him as eighty Harlequins, a slim sword in each hand, slashed and pirouetted their way through the mass of lumbering beasts in concentrated silence, always moving, each step fluidly transforming into the next lethal strike. Some fell, unable to avoid the wild sweeps of the huge daemonic weapons, but the majority continued in their silent dance. The daemons were now striking out in wild, uncontrolled frenzy. Blows were coming from all quarters, but none of the Harlequins stayed still long enough for the daemons to focus: it was impossible to find one foe to face before that was replaced by another, identical and just as deadly, moving in from a completely different direction.
One monster raised itself up on its hind legs and flexed great talons, ready to swipe down at whatever stood before it, only to have a dozen long cuts appear, circling its belly. A black-clad Harlequin appeared quite suddenly before it, momentarily stepping out of the main dance and into a solo. The daemon roared like a bear, but even before it smashed its taloned paws down on Venn, half a dozen more cuts had been torn through its shaggy hide. Venn dodged the claws with ease and slashed again at the daemon’s flank, each strike cutting to the bone amidst a shower of ichor, then he rammed the point of one sword into the leg-joint and sliced it away entirely.
That done, Venn returned to the dance and vanished into the storm of swords, even as another Harlequin appeared in front of the daemon and sheared through the bony protrusion under its eyes. A third exposed its teeth with a deft cut to the cheek, then another came, and another and another. The daemon howled and tried to protect its face, but the Harlequins had already switched focus to its supporting leg, and cut after cut flashed into that knee-joint until, within a matter of seconds, that too was sheered through and the daemon flopped to the ground, helpless.
One, a lithe daemon with reptilian eyes and a grey spiny coat, tried to batter its way through to Ruhen. It moved with abrupt, darting steps, avoiding the worst of the blows, but it found Ilumene moving to intercept instead as it dodged free of the Harlequins.
The daemon tried to feint one way and nip past, but Ilumene, seeing its intention, threw his shield towards where it was heading, then brought his sword around behind his body and hacked cross-wise at the space he’d just left. Even with a spiny claw outstretched for protection, the daemon was smashed off course by Ilumene’s heavy sword. It staggered a step or two, its ar
m shattered by the blow, by which time Ilumene had made up the ground and with a great roar of triumph chopped through its neck.
Ilumene looked up to see Ruhen with a small smile on his face and the shadows in his eyes racing with delight. His lips were slightly parted, and Ilumene saw him breathe in the stink of the dying daemon’s blood with relish, but before the soldier could return to the fight a sound came from behind the boy and he raised his sword again as they both turned — and wonder fell across Ruhen’s face. Scores of people were streaming out of the city, then the stream became a flood of men and women, soldiers and shopkeepers and labourers, all barrelling towards the mass of daemons, shouting with outrage, crying ‘Byora!’ and ‘Ruhen!’
They brandished whatever they had been able to find: spears and swords, cleavers, knives and clubs: a poor army, but in seconds it was two hundred people, then three, all racing towards the battle without a thought for their own safety. They threw themselves on the remaining daemons even as the Harlequins continued their own lethal dance.
Ilumene gaped at the unexpected turn of events, nearly dropping his own sword in surprise. The population of Wheel had been watching them from the walls — he had expected that — but their love of Ruhen ran so deep that they would attack a horde of daemons? He laughed, long and loud, as more and more of Byora’s poorest ran into the fray.
Ruhen was staring in thrilled silence; his delight at the daemon’s death had paled into insignificance compared with what was plain on his face now. As the people of Byora stabbed and battered and pulled down the last of the daemons, the shadows all around them deepened until there was nothing left to kill and darkness shrouded the victors.