by Tom Lloyd
‘Are we there yet?’ Ilumene asked, unimpressed with the bare rock chamber.
‘Less than halfway,’ Ruhen replied, facing away from them.
Isak looked past the boy and saw more tunnels leading off into darkness. Which path was the right one, he couldn’t tell, but he felt a flicker of hope as he looked around the room. There still was time for the army to break through; he just had to hope they would do so in time, and that someone like Legana could follow the link between them through these tunnels quicker than Isak was moving.
The room swiftly filled behind him, the Harlequins and Acolytes forming neat squads while they waited for their saviour’s directions.
‘Koteer, leave some Acolytes here,’ Ruhen said suddenly, turning to face the dozens filing briskly in.
As the boy spoke Venn began gesturing with his Crystal Skull, and trails of darkness followed his movements; the magic gave the curling gestures an elusive life of their own as they spread out and lingered faintly on the walls and rocky formations. Koteer spoke a few words in his own dialect and a group of five Acolytes bowed in acknowledgement, followed by a pair of Harlequins who did the same at a gesture from Ruhen.
‘Let them blunder in the dark, led a merry dance,’ Venn intoned, his Crystal Skull pulsing with red-tinted light.
Isak heard a dry whisper race around the edges of the cavern; he wasn’t the only one there to look for the source. The black Harlequin laughed as he saw the surprise on the faces of those around him, but instead of explaining he gave a theatrical flourish and bowed to the assembled figures.
‘What was that, an invocation?’ Tiniq asked from behind Isak.
Venn inclined his head to the man just as a sudden stink of decay filled the cavern. Isak’s stomach lurched again and he dry-retched as the stench betrayed a presence he recognised only too well. A gust of wind rushed up from nowhere, sliding greasy fingers across his brow, and as Isak recoiled at the touch, a cold cruel voice whispered, ‘ Now I see you bound and kneeling, a slave as you tried to make me, white-eye.’
Her presence momentarily surrounded him, but before Isak could attempt to respond the Wither Queen was dragged away again. He shuddered as the stink of plague washed over him in her wake, but he forced his head up to see the Aspect of Death manifest at Venn’s side. In the magic-suffused air Isak could sense enough to see he was not the only one shackled by Ruhen’s disciples: the power Venn held contained her just as effectively — and without it she would be almost as stricken as he was.
‘My Queen,’ Venn said, the echoing voice not quite his own, ‘you will haunt these tunnels too, distract any who follow us, lead them astray as you play your games.’
The Wither Queen’s dead eyes flashed with hatred. ‘I will do as you command,’ she croaked in the rasping voice Isak remembered only too well from his own dealings with her.
At a tug on his leash Isak forced himself on again as Ruhen started off down a tunnel set just behind a stalagmite. Venn turned to follow without a further word, secure in his hold over the Goddess, and an escort of Harlequins padded along behind.
Through the rock and dirt underfoot Isak thought he felt some distant shudder — the roar of daemons, or the heave of great beasts fighting. Again he tested the silver chain, but with magic running through it, its strength far exceeded his own. His thoughts on the friends no doubt fighting and dying on the surface, Isak stumbled on as slowly as he dared through the dark towards his enemy’s final victory.
‘ Now. ’
The command went out as the sky filled with noise. Vesna heard no response, he just had to hope Nai and the other mages had heard him as the Farlan heavy cavalry charged. Behind, ahead, left and right: the voices rang out with hatred and fury, the soldiers screaming down their fear as the shuddering impact neared.
He didn’t look; there was no time, and the God in him already knew. With near-perfect timing the centre hit their enemy positions almost as one, the Menin and Ghosts making up ground with a mad, reckless burst of speed, the left flank not far behind.
The Devoted infantry stood behind a shield-wall at the foot of the hill. The irregular slope and narrow front meant their packed thousands could not all fit, so the first line of defence was set at its base. Arrows hammered down from the slopes, regiments of archers perched on every precarious ledge on the rocky hill, while more legions of spearmen waited in a second line on the slope.
Behind him, Vesna sensed a powerful pulse of magic break like a storm-cloud over the charging cavalry. A shockwave raced through the ground, causing his own hunter to check its stride mid-charge, but the magic flashed forward ahead of them in a heartbeat. Without looking back, he knew Legana’s Crystal Skull was blazing with power, the magic gathering up stones and dirt around the defensive trench dug by the Devoted. In his mind Vesna heard her scream with pain at the power she wielded, but ahead the loose ground jolted and writhed before rising up across a hundred yards of ground.
The line rushed up to meet them in those final yards, and Vesna tightened his grip on his sword and roared. His horse leaped in that final moment, and the whole leading line followed suit, the horses’ minds soothed by magic to be unafraid of the solid wall ahead of them. His head down, Vesna felt the impact on the beast’s barding, bodies and shields smashing against it, a spear punching into its belly and snapping under its momentum. All around him the tidal wave of cavalry smashed forward, crushing the ranks of Devoted infantry in an explosive impact.
The black, bitter taste of incarnating daemons blossomed in his mind and he tasted their unholy scent away on the right flank. He bellowed with renewed strength, colours and flashes of light dancing before his eyes, the Land moving too fast even for his God-blessed vision. Impacts rocked him one way then the other and his horse writhed and screamed beneath him as the stink of blood and bowels filled the air and added to the chaos and clamour.
His feet slipped from his stirrups and he threw himself forward, not waiting for his horse to fall. The golden lion helm blazed with unnatural light as Vesna unleashed his Skull’s power and before his feet touched the ground, one Devoted was dead on his sword. Vesna charged on with terrifying speed, driving his shield at a standard bearer, and as the man’s helm crumpled under the impact, his sword sheared through the shield and breastplate of another, spraying blood high into the air. He moved on through the reeling ranks, chopping and battering so fast they could do nothing but watch their deaths come.
All around him Vesna sensed his brothers driving forward, killing and bludgeoning, falling from dying horses or impaled upon the spears of their victims. Many of the first charge had died, and Vesna sensed their deaths with sudden intensity as the God of War honoured their falling, but their loss had been accompanied by hundreds of the Devoted, rank after rank killed in one swift burst; three legions broken so quickly many of their number did not yet even know it.
Behind came more mounted Ghosts, driving into the last remaining space with slaughter on their minds. Vesna felt the blood spatter and gush over his black armour while the roar all around only got louder.
Larim, Lord of the Hidden Tower, looked around in confusion. The charge had been astonishing, driven by a desperation he could not understand. They had advanced under a hail of arrows, tramping forward while they died in their hundreds, but never wavering. When the charge had come a white corona had surrounded Larim and the mage gloried in his new power, while waiting for a magical assault.
On his right, black shadows blossomed, daemons raging out across the weakened boundaries and leaping for the first line of the defenders. Larim sent a dozen golden arrows to answer them, each shining dart the length of a man, but he gave no order; it was a feint, he knew it. Within the Menin ranks, men were ripped apart, golden light enveloping their bodies and charring their flesh before they even fell to the ground, but Larim held back the full force now at his command.
The daemons had been only half-summoned into the daylight; they were easily driven off. Larim laughed, realising it w
as that fool Nai who’d dragged them forward. Even without the Skull he was a far more powerful mage, his necromancy far more refined than that shoeless worm’s.
There.
Larim found his gaze dragged right, where the attackers had yet to close on the rise. Thirty yards left to go, and deadly rain was hammering through shields and armour, when a burst of magic rippled the ground between them. From nowhere dark figures appeared; tall, ragged barbarians rushed forward, outstripping their allies in the last yards of the charge. Magic flashed out from the ranks, cutting forward into the defenders with red and white light, and fire erupted around one legion standard just as the unnatural barbarians reached the Devoted spear-points.
At last he unleashed the power of his Skull; churning the earth across the defending ranks as he threw wave after wave of golden arrows at the Legion of the Damned. In his mind he shouted up to Vorizh, circling up above, never slowing his assault, even as the air screamed around him under the force of bucking energies. Man and undead alike were torn apart, the nearer flank shattered by his furious assault, even before the dark shapes of the crimson wyverns dropped down from the heavy clouds above. A larger one followed — Ruhen’s grey dragon, called from Byora — and landed awkwardly on the furthest edge of the attacking Legion.
The pale white-eye giggled as he saw, amidst the cloud of dust and further, the dragon had crushed a whole section of Devoted defenders. As though inspired by its careless abandon, he redoubled his efforts at the attacking force, though they had closed with the Devoted now, and his magic incinerated attacker and defender alike.
From the broiling maelstrom of fighting, coils of black smoke reached up and whipped across the dragon’s flank. The two wyverns recoiled at the attack, realising the power behind it was beyond them; and they flew up into the air until they were hovering above the fighting. Larim laughed more, and directed his assault on the source of that magic. A white shield formed above the troops and his arrows burst upon it, cutting short his laughter. There were two Skull-bearers there, one deflecting his attack and the other tearing strips from the dragon’s wings while the beast writhed and bellowed in pain.
‘I don’t need to kill you,’ Larim muttered. ‘Enjoy this while it lasts. You cannot afford your attack to be blunted, and even now it falters.’
As he spoke, a figure dropped from the lower wyvern, spiralling down towards the mage attacking the dragon. Magic lashed up to meet him, but Vorizh reached the ground with blade slashing down. The black-armoured vampire disappeared into the press and Larim flinched in shock, sensing a sudden cut-off of energies — but not through a mage’s death; it was the casual abandoning of a spell.
The surging mass of undead troops enveloping the Devoted line vanished in the blink of an eye, and though the dragon and wyverns dipped again to attack, Larim felt it like a punch to the gut.
Mage Endine struggled to keep his seat, one hand wrapped tightly around the saddle horn, the other was outstretched towards the Devoted lines. At his side Emin looked around, craning his neck to try and make out what he could of the left flank.
‘The illusion’s gone,’ Endine reported, sensing the break in Morghien’s spell.
‘Is he dead?’ Emin demanded, watching the three monsters renew their assault. He smacked a gauntlet on Doranei’s shoulder and the King’s Man yelled an order. The foot legion of the Ghosts bellowed and charged forward with the Legion of the Damned, towards their hero, Vesna, raging at the heart of the slaughter.
Endine didn’t reply; he couldn’t tell, and he had only one thing on his mind right now. It wasn’t hard for him to make out the brightly coloured figure of Lord Larim on the hillside, huge golden arrows erupting from the shuddering air around his hands. The small mage narrowed his eyes and felt the Skull respond, momentarily glowing hot before a bolt of crackling white light flashed forward towards Larim.
The white-eye saw it coming and a grey shield briefly obscured him from view, but then the bolt struck — not the shield, as Larim had expected, but at the ground, further down the slope from him.
‘Got the bastard!’ Endine screeched, his lined face suddenly filling with animation. ‘He’s drunk with blood-lust — he’s not thinking properly!’
As he cried out, the ground at Larim’s feet tore open, a jagged wound ten or twenty yards long, and the white-eye was thrown down, together with the mages and soldiers around him. Stones the size of men tumbled down the slope, cutting a path through the second line of defenders waiting below, but it was the sight of Larim falling forward that made King Emin catch his breath. All around him energies corkscrewed up into the sky as the abandoned magic dissipated. The white-eye lurched drunkenly before toppling over, only just catching himself as his head and shoulders went over the edge into the fissure.
‘Close it up on him,’ Doranei demanded from the king’s other side.
‘I don’t have that sort of power,’ Endine snapped.
‘Not even with the Skull?’
‘You’ve been spending too much time around white-eyes,’ Endine said. ‘The rest of us need a little more elegance if we’re to avoid our hearts exploding out of our chests!’ He closed his eyes and with the Skull of Knowledge held in both hands, he began to whisper arcane words under his breath. A bluish aura appeared around him, whipping up from stillness to a sudden fury in seconds. With a grunt of effort Endine pulled his hands apart again and cast the magic forward. It arched through the air towards Larim, tearing through the desperate defences of the lesser mages and plunging directly down onto the white-eye. Larim somehow managed to wrench himself around, and Endine rocked backwards as the white-eye dragged himself from the fissure’s edge. Enveloped in a blue-tinted cloud, Larim’s own Skull winked and sputtered with light while Endine moaned with effort, his exhausted muscles suddenly straining to close his hands again.
‘Emin!’ he croaked, his hands shaking wildly, and the king looked at him, wild-eyed for a moment until he realised what he needed to do.
‘Daken!’ he shouted to the tattooed white-eye on Endine’s other side, ‘grab his hands!’
Emin took one, Daken the other, and together they forced Endine’s palms back onto the Crystal Skull. The mage cried out with pain as they did so, but suddenly they heard a crack and a crunch of bone and the pressure vanished. The mage’s hands crashed against the Skull with force enough that Emin feared he might have broken them, but Endine was already straining to see the figure on the hillside.
Figures fluttered around where Larim had been, but there was no sign of the white-eye, or the magic he’d been struggling to re-gather.
‘Dead,’ Endine confirmed hoarsely after a moment, almost slumping forward in his seat until Daken jerked him back.
‘Then the time’s come,’ Emin announced. He pulled Endine around to look the scrawny mage in the eye again. ‘You have command of the army, my friend.’
Endine nodded weakly as Ebarn forced her way up to his side, the crystal shards on the battle-mage’s jacket shining as she prepared to unleash her power while Endine gathered his strength.
‘I want a defensive square of those spearmen,’ Emin added, directing his words to Dashain as well as Endine. ‘We need this hinge to hold, or we’ll be split apart and butchered.’
‘We know our duty, your Majesty,’ Dashain yelled, ‘now move!’
The king didn’t wait for a response but spurred his horse forward, the King’s Men and Legana’s Sisters close behind. Ahead the ground was stained rusty-red with blood and churned to a muddy mire, but they all knew that was only the beginning.
CHAPTER 42
They walked for what felt like an age. Isak dragged down the pace as far as he could, but whenever Ruhen got too far ahead, Tiniq or Ilumene would hammer at Isak’s broad back with the pommels of their knives — never hard enough to break his bones, but the pain of the blows lingered long after he had dragged himself up again.
The tunnels twisted and turned, forever descending into the bowels of the Land. The oppressi
ve warmth of the tunnels grew and the mixture of sweat and blood dried stickily across his back while the silver chain remained a hot presence against his skin. They passed through another chamber, then a third and fourth, and each time another squad of soldiers was left to hide in the side tunnels, ready to ambush anyone passing through. Twice Ruhen turned back from the path he had taken, doubling back without haste to take another instead. No one questioned his decisions; Ilumene and Venn were the only people even to speak to the child, and it was clear from the brief responses that Ruhen was not interested in conversation. He was too close to his goal; from time to time his serene face flowered briefly into moments of rare animation and expectation before he caught himself.
Isak kept his eyes down, exhausted and pained by the burden of Termin Mystt, enfeebled by the proximity of Ghenna and the ache it sparked deep in his bones. As they descended he felt the silver chain as Death’s final judgement, the weight of his sins bearing down on him as he came ever closer to the Dark Place of Torment. At last he realised they were in a wider tunnel than before, one that was slowly broadening until it suddenly opened out into a vast cavern that made even Ruhen stop in wonder. Isak heard Ilumene breath an oath at the sight, stopping as he stared up and all around.
Isak took the opportunity to sink to his knees.
The cavern was barely brighter than the chambers they had passed through, but magic filled the air with such intensity that Isak felt a stab of pain in his gut. Behind the great twisted scar on his stomach a fire burned, reminding him of the agonising wound that had killed him. He screwed up his eyes in pain, moaning piteously, but Ilumene kicked him in the ribs and sent him sprawling. His eyes flashed open and he stared up at the roof far above.
The cavern was several hundred feet high, with dozens of natural pillars all studded with crystal formations that glinted with orange-red light. As Isak hauled himself upright he realised the light was coming from the centre of the cavern, fifty yards off, and obscured by pillars wider than a man’s outstretched arms. Through them he glimpsed movement, flickering orange flames reflecting off the stone surfaces. Ahead were carved columns marked with ancient runes and angular images.