Golgoth waved a hand and, though he could not hear them, he knew Hath and Tarn were sliding along to join him, with his warriors just behind them. They would have their blades and axes drawn just as Golgoth had, held out in front of him, with their shields unslung and tethered to their wrists with lengths of cured sinew.
“Ready?” whispered Hath at his ear.
“Not yet,” said Golgoth.
The caravan was passing right beneath them. The attack would be just like any other—the first wagon would be hit, then the last, then the one in the centre. Hath would take a handful of warriors to attack the last wagon, while Tarn would lead the assault in the middle, where the guards would be trapped and the slaughter would be at its hottest.
Golgoth would lead the initial charge on the first wagon. Not just because it was his right as leader to take the first blood, but because that was where the sorcerer was.
The centre wagon was passing under them. They could hear the lowing of the pack-beasts as they hauled the wagons over the ripples of stone.
“Yet?” asked Hath.
“Now,” said Golgoth, and leapt to his feet.
The glassy rocks of the Snake’s Throat were slippery, but Golgoth kept his balance as he led ten men down the steep side towards the lead wagon. The guards were alert and had their weapons drawn as Golgoth reached them.
“For the Sword!” he yelled, and barged into the nearest enemy—a man with a single wide scar dividing his face in two, wielding twin handaxes in a shining figure-of-eight defence.
Golgoth led with his shield, letting his opponent rain blows against the cured hide. He kept his head down and swung low with his own double-headed axe, catching Grik’s man on the knee and feeling the bones shatter. There was a cry of shock—Golgoth didn’t need to look over the edge of his shield to know his enemy would be stumbling backwards as he tried to put his weight on his shattered leg. Golgoth pushed with his shield and stabbed down with the spiked butt of his axe, feeling the crunch of breaking ribs as he punched through the man’s ribcage.
Voices rang out around him. The harsh crack of iron against stone told of a wild swing missing—the rush of air exhaled in shock told of another that hit. A glance backwards told Golgoth that Lonn, the Touched lad, had managed to blood himself, for he was rolling a spasming corpse off him and drawing his short sword from its belly.
His other warriors were barrelling down the slope to attack. Vrash was dead, taken through the eye by that stag’s horn bow. The eight others were heading for the guards, battle in their faces.
Another arrow sliced the air and narrowly missed the massive Varkith. A man, Golgoth knew from experience, who would take that sort of thing personally. Knowing Varkith could look after himself, Golgoth ran forward over the moaning body of his opponent, heading for the lead wagon and the sorcerer.
Another of Grik’s guards stood in his way, but Golgoth was feeling that rush of battle-lust that he had first tasted as a boy and never grown out of. He swung his shield like a club and backhanded the enemy across the face, dodged the wayward sword-cut the guard made as a return, and hacked deep into the enemy’s shoulder with his axe. The guard was dead before he hit the ground, the axe blade biting through his collarbone and into his spine.
Golgoth felt a flush of heat and he knew that it was more than just the blood rushing to his head.
He threw himself to the ground as a whip of fire lashed out at head-height. Golgoth didn’t see who it hit but he heard the scream.
The sorcerer was standing, no, levitating a few hand’s breadths above the top of the lead wagon, waving his hands in elaborate gestures. His fingers were aflame and spat fire that formed a long burning tongue, swirling like a sea-snake. The tongue lashed again and this time Golgoth saw one of his warriors fall, his torso sheared in two by the white-hot fire. The flame caught one of the reptilian beasts and it roared in pain, rearing its huge scaly body and rocking the wagon behind it.
Golgoth leapt up and scrambled up the hide-covered cargo on the wagon. He could smell the sorcerer, sweat mixed with spices, smoke and ash layered over the strange alchemies he had anointed himself with. The white tattoos on the sorcerer’s black skin seemed to shift as Golgoth hauled himself on top of the wagon, as if they were alerting their owner to the danger.
It was time for Golgoth to put what he had learned into practice.
Sometimes, Kron had said, a warrior has a favoured weapon, or a design he must have on his shield, or a verse he must recite to himself on the eve of battle—something that gives him focus, something he can hold on to in the chaos of conflict. But the same principle could be used more deeply. A word here, a gesture there, an image in the mind’s eye at the right time, would all help to link the warrior’s mind and body and drive him to new heights.
Golgoth created the image as Kron had taught him. He imagined a bear, the long-toothed, grey-haired kind that had roamed around the Bladestone village of his youth. He imagined that the bear’s fangs were in his mouth and the bear’s claws were his axe. He spoke a few syllables that Kron had told to him, and leapt at the sorcerer.
Suddenly, he was everywhere at once. He saw Torvendis, a jaundiced orb surrounded by the boiling nebulae of the Maelstrom. He saw the Canis Mountains like a ridge of scar across the land. He saw how their peaks and valleys formed patterns in the stone, patterns that converged on a central point. He realised that he was at the centre, and that at that moment, the whole of Torvendis existed solely to witness his strength. Torvendis was full of stories, but in that second, the tale of Golgoth was the only one worth hearing.
The sorcerer was nothing. Golgoth threw his axe aside and grabbed the man by the throat, swatting aside the hands that tried to conjure a bolt of flame. He hurled the sorcerer away and marvelled at how light the man felt, watching him slam into the glassy stone of the Snake’s Throat that shattered around him. Golgoth leapt off the wagon and bowled one of the guards to the ground as he landed. He reached down and ripped the man’s arm off, then forgot about him as three more guards rushed to confront him.
Golgoth caught the blade of the first in one hand and shattered the second’s jaw with the other. He wrenched the sword out of the first attacker’s grip and rammed it hilt-first into the stomach of the second, in time to slam a head butt square into the face of the third.
Golgoth heard, impossibly, a gurgle from the sorcerer, a last message from the dying magician. Instinctively, Golgoth looked towards the skies.
Harpies. Three of them, half as tall again as Golgoth, with great leathery bat’s wings that sent them diving towards him. With the hard light of the Vulture behind them Golgoth could see their muscular, brown-black bodies covered with bands of thick, shaggy hair, their pointed canine faces, the enlarged breastbones that pulsed with the beat of their wings and the yellow, filth-crusted claws that stabbed from their hands and feet.
Their tiny yellow eyes were fixed on Golgoth. He could see the sharp animal teeth behind their snarling lips and smell the carrion on their breath. He could hear the breath rasping in their throats. He could taste the blood that matted their fur.
He was supposed to dive to the ground, and hope those talons didn’t sink into his back. He was supposed to lie flat and pray they took one of the other warriors instead.
But Golgoth was stronger and quicker now than any man had a right to be. He was supposed to die here, amongst the blood and the futility and the never-ending cold. But he had never been one to do as he was told.
He caught the first harpy, turning sideways and ducking between the splayed talons of its feet, reaching up and ramming his hand into its throat. He felt a shoulder pop but ignored the pain. With his free hand he grabbed the harpy’s wrist and twisted, feeling the gristle of the elbow give way, pulling the monster close by the throat and holding it in the path of the two that followed it.
One harpy’s claws speared into the back of its packmate. The other checked its descent with a massive beat of its wings, shrieking as it realised it
faced a foe rather more impressive than the usual scraps that wandered the mountains.
Golgoth pulled the first harpy to the ground and stamped down on its throat. The second was disengaging its talons and rounding on him. Golgoth batted its swinging paw aside, barged with his shoulder, felt it jink to the side and used his momentum to step behind the monster. He grabbed a wing and yanked, snapping the hollow bone and tearing the membranous skin. He grasped the other wing and pulled in opposite directions, hearing the crackle of the creature’s ribcage splitting open and grinning wildly at its gurgling howl.
It wasn’t dead when he dropped it, but he knew it would be soon. The third harpy was keeping an almost respectful distance, hovering with huge wingbeats in the air above Golgoth, spitting in rage and frustration.
“Come on!” he screamed at the monster, knowing but not caring that it could only understand the dead sorcerer’s tongue. “What manner of prey am I? How do I taste?”
As if it knew when it was being taunted, the harpy dived, slashing with its taloned feet. Golgoth ducked and sprang up, shattering its shin with the edge of his hand. It squawked and dropped a metre, and Golgoth was on top of it. He leapt and brought his weight down on the harpy’s back, crashing to the ground on top of it. Kneeling in the small of the creature’s back he slammed his fist over and over into the bestial skull until it had given way and his arm was slick with blood to the elbow.
He picked up the dead creature to cast it aside, but suddenly the weight of corpse was heavy in his hands. Golgoth stumbled and the cold, raw air scoured his throat. His vigour drained out of him, and it was all he could do to keep from slumping to his knees. He dropped the corpse and looked around him, his head swimming with the heat of blood on his hands and the brittle lightness of breaking bones.
Five of Grik’s men lay horribly mangled, the sorcerer amongst them. Three harpies, twisted creatures born of Chaos, were broken on the ground like fowl savaged by a fox. Had Golgoth done that? With his bare hands? He had always been strong, but this was the work of a daemon, not a man…
What had happened? What had Kron taught him?
Hath had done his job. His warriors had chased the guards from the rear wagon into the centre of the caravan, where they were surrounded by Tarn’s men and those who had survived the assault on the first wagon. This was where the slaughter began, and where Tarn proved his worth. He slit men’s throats as his fellow warriors held them down. When there was no need for a shield he fought with a dagger and axe, pinning men down with one and cleaving open their heads with the other.
Normally, Golgoth would watch Tarn and admire the cold-blooded artistry of the man. But Golgoth felt drained all his energy channelled into a few moments of butchery. Now the stench of harpy blood was making him dizzy. Pain throbbed in his shoulder. And there was something else that he had never felt before.
He was horrified. He was horrified at what he had done.
Grik’s last half-dozen guards had been herded together, back-to-back with their shields held up in desperation. As Golgoth watched, Varkith wrenched a shield out of the nearest guard’s hand and threw it aside, Tarn at his side hurling a dagger into the man’s eye. The other warriors joined in, some battering at the enemies’ shields while others struck around their guard. Soon, they were all battered and broken on the floor, and Tarn was finishing off the wounded with a dagger through the throat.
Hath strode across the blood-slicked rock.
“Good killing, Golgoth!” he exclaimed, grinning. “Grik’s lapdogs were no match for real men. And the harpy beasts! Never have I seen such a thing! I feel there truly is hope for the Emerald Sword, Golgoth!”
Golgoth forced himself to stop shaking and choked down the urge to vomit. He had learned a long time ago that he must never show weakness, not even to his closest comrade, Hath. “Yes, good killing. I must speak with Kron. Check the wagons and see what we can do without.”
Hath nodded and turned to organise the surviving warriors, who were singing crude victory songs over the corpses of their enemies. Golgoth clambered to his feet and headed back up the smooth stones. The harpy blood was beginning to dry and it pulled at his skin in thick clots. He would never get the stink out of his clothes—he would burn them all, once they found some suitable replacements in the wagons.
Where was Kron? The old man seemed to simply melt away when no one was watching him. It was one of many unnerving habits that Golgoth was only starting to notice now, when Kron’s power was becoming apparent to him.
From the edge of the Snake’s Throat, Golgoth could see clear across the Canis Mountains. He could just glimpse, in the far distance, the rolling foothills silver-blue in the light of twin moons. Somewhere between the fang-like mountains and those foothills was Grik’s encampment, a nomadic tented city that moved with the currents of tribal politics, and at the centre of which was the chieftain’s tent.
One day, Golgoth would walk into that tent and call out the weak-willed Grik to decide the fate of the Emerald Sword. And now Golgoth had the tribute caravan, that day was suddenly very close.
Golgoth gulped down the cold, clean air, trying to douse the nausea that still rose within him.
“The first time is the worst,” said a clear and knowing voice behind him. Golgoth turned and saw, as he knew he would, the cloaked form of Kron, silhouetted against the pale disc of the Widow. “You are young, Golgoth. You think you have little to learn, but in truth you hardly know anything. The fear you have now is that you were something that you never realised, that you can commit acts you thought were impossible. You never knew you could be so savage, Golgoth, did you?”
“What have you done to me?” gasped Golgoth, struggling to keep from sinking to his knees.
“Nothing, Golgoth. You did it all. This is not mere sorcery, conjuring something out of nothing. I simply taught you how to reach into what lies within you already. There are few like you, Golgoth, and fewer still who ever discover what they are. You have depths of rage and hatred that will never be exhausted. You are angry now, and tired. But there will be a next time. How else can you hope to challenge Grik?”
Kron was right. If Golgoth could learn control as well as strength, Grik would cower at his feet and the Emerald Sword could march down the path Golgoth hacked through the bodies of his enemies. But could there ever be control, when Golgoth had torn five men and three monsters apart, and lusted for more?
“You have potential, Golgoth. But at the moment, it is nothing more. You have enough ambition to take a handful of warriors across these mountains in pursuit of a lost cause, and I can help you realise those ambitions. But you must follow me, and learn what I teach you. You have seen what you can do with my help. Are you too afraid to learn more?”
Below, in the bloodstained Snake’s Throat, Golgoth’s men were stripping the dead and taking the iron medallions that signified their allegiance to Grik. Hath, seasoned veteran that he was, was checking the broken body of the sorcerer—sorcerers were said to keep creatures sewn into their skin, who would bite their way out and inform their employers should the sorcerer die. Tarn and a number of the warriors were laying the stripped corpses in neat rows, as an invitation to the carrion harpies that would soon follow the scent of blood. The wagons’ coverings were off and the warriors were rifling through the tribute to take the personal trophies that were their due.
Anything small and valuable was quickly hidden in pouches and folds of lupine skin—jewels that were the frozen tears of maidens, necklaces of twisted golden snakes, mined alive from the mineral-rich mountains to the north. Several men took weapons or shields, or strapped pieces of armour to their bodies, before pulling the coverings back.
Each warrior took care to make sure he had one particular item of value—a small iron circle crossed by four bars, the symbol carried by all Grik’s warriors. They would identify the men as the caravan’s guardians, at least until Grik or one of the elders came to meet it. By then, it would be too late.
Soon, Hath
would soothe the lowing pack-beasts and the warriors would move the stolen caravan towards Grik’s encampment. It struck Golgoth that he and his men had succeeded in the most perilous part of their plan, at least until they reached Grik. Perhaps he would pay a great cost for the strength Kron was offering, but if it was enough to ensure success as they had won here, there were few prices Golgoth would not pay.
The thought made him feel much better. The taste of bile in his mouth was gone. He tested his shoulder and felt the sort of pain that troubles for a few days, but heals. Kron walked past him, down towards the caravan and Golgoth joined him, already eager to learn more.
The twin moons faded in the brightening morning sky. Low on the horizon, small but bright, the Slaughtersong still shone down.
CHAPTER TWO
While there are volumes of legends about Arguleon Veq, his greatest foe—the Last—is ever mysterious. Some say there were once many, and that all but one were swallowed when Chaos first bled through the Maelstrom into realspace, leaving the Last as the sole vengeful survivor of its race. Others say that it was, in itself, a creature of Chaos, a daemon who refused to accept the yoke of a god, a creature that in its madness desired the symbolic world of Torvendis for itself. Both scholars and liars claim many other things besides—that the Last was from another time, or a vast alien creature that became trapped in the Maelstrom like a fly in tree sap, or a sentient war engine from the insane times of the Dark Age of Technology.
But these tales are like oil on the surface of a lake. As if Torvendis was somehow embarrassed by stories of the Last, they shimmer on the surface of that planet’s legends, sliding into obscurity when other tales remain stacked deep in the consciousness of the world.
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