'As much as I can. Till I burn out — or blow the universe to kingdom come.'
Facing the Lament-Brood, they were struck by the eeriness of the scene. The Whisperers stood like statues, facing the four of them, with only the rusding sound of their despairing voices to indicate that they were alive. There was a sea of them, all monsters that had once had living shapes but were now twisted and broken, with bones protruding, skulls gleaming, unnatural but perversely improved, turned into killing machines. The purple mist blew back and forth in a light breeze, leaking from the orifices and the ruptures in their bodies. And as the mist hid and revealed and hid again, Matt had the impression that there was only one beast waiting for them, a massive organism with one mind and one terrible purpose.
Mahalia saw the weapons — the swords and spears and axes — and wondered how long the four of them would last: three minutes? One? Thirty seconds?
She expected Matt to give a signal, but he just pulled out the scimitar he had brought from the Court of Soul's Ease and charged down the slope. She followed, her Fomorii blade rusted and bloodstained, ready to take as many of them with her as she could manage.
Jack was at her side, but then he flexed himself and let out a small burst of the white light he kept coiled within him. It wasn't the full destructive force she had witnessed at the entrance to the Court of the Dreaming Song, but it was enough to blast five of the Lament-Brood into pieces. He was trying to eke his power out before he was struck down by the debilitating exhaustion it always left in its wake. The old, familiar Mahalia wished he would go for broke and take out the whole of Existence; she didn't want to think of it going on without her.
And then they were at the foot of the slope and into the first rank of Whisperers. Matt took a head off at the shoulders, then brought his sword down sharply to cleave another skull from temple to chin. The Lament-Brood didn't wait to be attacked. They surged forward, wielding their weapons like automata. The only thing that saved Matt from being overwhelmed was that the Whisperers were packed so tightly they could barely swing their swords.
Matt parried, ducked, tried to counter-attack, but they already had him on the back foot. Though she fought wildly herself, Mahalia was aware of what a good fighter he was, striking and defending with all the skills of a professional.
The thought was gone in an instant as the sickening whispering rose up around her and the purple mist washed into her mouth and nostrils. All she could see was a wall of bodies pressing against her. She put her weight behind her sword and drove it into a belly; the cruelty of the Fomorii design allowed the serrated edge to rip through the skin and entrails with ease. She pulled it out, soaking herself in a spout of cold blood, and rammed it up into a bared throat.
Two were down, yet already her arms were ringing from the force of her attack and her muscles stung. She wasn't strong enough to keep it up for long. She wished she'd trained more, not been so arrogant, thought ahead, but she'd always considered that in the event of any crisis she'd be away, leaving some other sucker to stand and fight. Her concentration slipped and one of the Lament- Brood broke through to ram a spear towards her chest. Jack came in from nowhere, deflecting the weapon with his arm before releasing a concentrated blast of his explosive power that reduced the attacker to atoms. Mahalia was half-aware that Jack's eyes were smoking as if a mighty fire raged within him.
Time stretched out for ever, every second packed with cut and parry, ducking and striking, feeling every ache and pain, every scratch racked up on their bodies. But they had made hardly any inroad into the ranks.
And then an enormous roaring rose up behind them, like a jet taking off. Mahalia had a half-impression of something scarlet and gold rushing past her shoulder and then a fifty-foot square of Lament-Brood exploded ahead of them, showering body parts over a wide area and smelling like a bonfire at a landfill.
The shockwave knocked her on to her back. When her head had stopped ringing, she looked back to see Crowther striding from the slope on to the plain. From her perspective, it looked as if he had grown in size, was still growing, filling with a terrible power. Walls of light shimmered off the silver mask — red, blue, green, yellow. Things formed in the air all around him, seemingly out of the very air itself. She saw a rose fold in on itself, becoming a spectral face in agony, becoming a hawk; and nearby, a lizard, more haunting faces in various stages of torment, lightning, cloud-forms, fire. The emotional aspect of the mask made him even more terrible, and it seemed that every step shook the ground.
A Whisperer who ventured too close was taken apart, the skin, muscles, organs, bones all unpeeling to scatter on the ground. And Crowther didn't even give him an instant's attention. Mahalia rolled away to get out of his path. He strode by, another blast of energy roaring out to devastate another section of the army. The Lament-Brood were rooted, not really understanding what they were facing. For a second, Mahalia entertained the fantasy that they might win; that Crowther could just keep walking right up to the House ofPain, blasting anything that came near him, with Mahalia, Jack and Matt hurrying in his gore-soaked wake.
But two things made her realise this would never happen. As Crowther marched on, a bolt of scarlet lightning roared from his head, twisted and crackled in the air and then rushed towards Matt. It was only his battle- heightened reactions that allowed him to throw himself out of the way at the last instant, and even then the blast threw him head over heels, the soles of his boots smoking with heat from the explosion. Crowther could no longer control the mask.
The second thing happened at the same time. The Lament-Brood regrouped and drove forward. With the luxury of the space around her, Mahalia had a better view across the plain, and there, in the midst of it all, she was overwhelmed by the weight of numbers ranged against them. A hundred thousand didn't do it justice; it was just a number. The Lament-Brood reached to hell and back. Even Crowther, with all his elemental fury, could not get through them.
And so they battled, for fifteen minutes or more, with Crowther laying waste to vast numbers of the Lament- Brood, but with more always flooding in to take their place. Mahalia, Matt and Jack took up the rear, preventing any of the Whisperers from coming up on Crowther's blind-side, but with eerie prescience he was always aware of any attack at his back, and picked off the warriors with unceasing accuracy. Mahalia, Matt and Jack hacked and slashed, and occasionally danced out of the way of the mask's wild blasts. Some came too close for comfort, and they were all soon sporting burn marks on arms or face. The Lament- Brood replaced each fallen warrior almost instantly. The intense background noise of the constant whispering reached out with its infection of despair. On more than one occasion, Jack's sword-arm began to drop and Mahalia had to knock it back up.
It was Matt, always on guard, never missing anything, who saw the movement along the rise. He kept glancing up as he fought, unable to give it his full attention, so he couldn't be quite sure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Eventually he couldn't deny it.
'I think,' he shouted breathlessly, 'we've got help.' Caitlin was the first to crest the rise. With eyes that could pick out a grain of sand a mile distant, she instantly took in Mahalia, Matt and Jack battling in the sea of swarming bodies. It was difficult to miss Crowther, who appeared, to her eyes, to be enveloped in a scarlet mist.
The vast army of the Lament-Brood had only given her a few seconds' pause — she had expected some kind of defence to prevent a frontal assault on the House of Pain, and so she had come prepared.
She felt the others appear at her back. The warriors of the Djazeem numbered no more than five hundred, but Caitlin knew the Lament-Brood would find them as difficult to fight as the desert sand. She hoped it would give them enough of an advantage.
Oddly, in that moment, her thoughts turned to Matt. She realised how close she had grown to him before she had been flung out into Birmingham and how much she had missed him. It was coupled with a dull sense of anger now that she was close to finding out who had murdered Carlt
on. She was convinced she knew who it was, and there would be a terrible price to pay. When she tried to picture Carlton's face, she saw only Liam's, driving the thump of blood in her head.
As if falling from a lofty peak, Caitlin plummeted into the wind-blasted Ice-Field at the back of her head and the Morrigan rushed forth. Everywhere was red. The thunder of war drums was all around. She moved forward.
She'd loosed all the arrows in her quiver in rapid fire before she was halfway down the rise. Every one had hit its target, carving out a small opening in the ranks of the Lament-Brood. They were all facing away from her, their attention focused on Crowther and the others.
As she sprinted past the first victims, Caitlin plucked up a spear and used it to pole vault over the heads of the first Whisperers. As she came down, she whipped the spear around, taking out eyes, ramming it into faces, hacking at anything in range.
Bodies fell under her. She was a blur of violence, discarding the spear and snatching up a sword when that became the best option, spraying herself with gore, moving so quickly she opened up a space around her.
And then, as the Djazeem army attacked, she drove forward, and she was terrible to behold, an engine of destruction cutting a swathe through the ranks of the Lament-Brood. Never in the history of the Far Lands had so many fallen before one Fragile Creature. Nothing could deter her. She was too quick, too brutal, darting, ducking, leaping on to shoulders and then using them as a springboard to drive forward. She turned acrobatic loops, but the sword never stopped slashing and she never tired.
The warriors of the Djazeem formed a phalanx, driving in behind her. As much as the Lament-Brood attacked, they could do nothing to deter the new army. Swords and spears hit hard but found nothing but sand. Occasionally one would catch a glancing blow on the tiny figure buried within the armour, but it would shift its position instantly to find a safer haven in a boot, or a leg. They were still only few in number, but the Lament- Brood had been wrong-footed enough for Caitlin to claim a slight advantage. Her ferocity spiralled to new heights. The Morrigan ripped through the ranks, spraying body parts all around, her eyes blazing, her hair a furious mane. Crows came from nowhere and surrounded her, pecking at eyes, feeding on the bodies even before they knew they were dead.
Such was her fury that the Lament-Brood fell back from her; not because they were scared, for they had no conscious thought processes, but because they couldn't comprehend what was coming at them. It looked like a Fragile Creature, but it was destruction incarnate; nothing could stand in its way. Mahalia was stunned when she saw Caitlin approaching. At first she didn't quite believe it, and then her guilt struck hard, but their situation was too desperate for her to dwell on it. Yet when she saw the full force of Caitlin's viciousness, she was scared; she couldn't understand how the gentle woman she had known previously could now act with such monstrous brutality; and what would she do when she came on Mahalia?
Matt, too, was shocked, but when he saw how quickly Caitlin was cutting through the Lament-Brood, he fought with renewed purpose. Whatever had happened to her, it meant they had a chance. When the Morrigan reached Crowther, Caitlin surfaced.
'Professor! If you can hear me, don't attack randomly!' she yelled over the ringing cacophony of battle. 'Focus the mask on blasting a tight tunnel across the plain!'
Crowther didn't appear to hear. Energy lashed back and forth, sound and fury condensed into a storm that could blow the world apart. But then the display ended with a suddenness that left an eerie silence.
Even the Lament-Brood paused, trying to comprehend what was happening. Purple mist blew back and forth. The world hung still. And then Crowther convulsed and a beam of pure white light burst out of the mask, smashing through the Lament-Brood, shearing bodies in half, disintegrating everything in its path. It stretched right up to the gates of the House of Pain.
'Run!' Caitlin yelled.
Matt led the way along the charred path, with Mahalia and Jack following close behind and Caitlin close to them. Crowther brought up the rear, and if anyone had thought to look they would have seen that he was floating half an inch off the ground.
The path was lined by walls of burned Lament-Brood, their broken, dismembered bodies fused together. The burned-meat smell was sickening. On the far side of each wall, the Lament-Brood reeled. They struggled to comprehend what was happening, then pressed hard against the walls of their dead comrades, but they didn't have the intelligence to try to climb over.
Adrenalin drove Matt and the others on. As they ran, the House of Pain rose up before them, growing clearer and more defined the closer they got to it. It was as black as volcanic rock, but its design was like no building they had ever seen before. It loomed over the plain like a giant spider, with twisted leglike extensions reaching out through the air. There were curves and spikes, what looked like a carapace, but no straight lines. It gave the impression that it had crawled there from whatever foul place it had originated in, then settled, waiting to suck up anything that crept into its vicinity. And perhaps it had.
It was enormous. As Matt ran into its chilling shadow, he estimated it was at least five miles high. The atmosphere surrounding it was dense and sickening, infused with dread.
And as they ran closer to it, images flashed unbidden into their minds: scenes of torture, the worst acts of inhumanity, death on a universal scale, pain and suffering that never ended. Tears sprang to Mahalia's eyes. Matt thought he was going to vomit. Jack continued apace; he had been through such things all his life. Finally, the plain gave way to black granite boulders that reached up to the foundations. Breathlessly, they clambered up them, but before they had got far, Caitlin leaped with astonishing agility, passing the others by. They couldn't understand why she was so eager to overtake them until they heard a thundering cry bouncing off the rocks all around.
It was the sound of the half-reptilian, half-horse mount carrying the leader of the Lament-Brood effortlessly across the boulders from the plain beyond the wall of bodies. Of all the Whisperers, he was the only one who bore the fire of intelligence; it flickered in his eyes, was evident in every aspect of his movement. He carried a sword in one hand and a spear in the other as he bore down on them.
As Caitlin approached, the Whisperer hurled his spear. Caitlin dodged it easily, but it would have plunged through Mahalia's chest had Jack not thrown himself to knock her out of the way. Caitlin didn't slow in her attack; wielding her sword with both hands, she flew at the enemy.
The mount reared up, its fierce jaws torn wide to reveal rows of sharp teeth, like a fish from the deep. It attempted to trample her with hooves that raised golden sparks from the granite, but Caitlin was too quick, easily evading it to try to stab at a soft spot beneath its neck.
Their dance went on for five minutes before Caitlin finally found her opening. With both hands, she rammed the sword into the beast's throat. Hot, black blood gushed out and the mount's cry became almost human, high and pained. It floundered around with the sword still protruding from it.
Its rider fought to control it for a few seconds before leaping clear just as it crashed to the boulders, thrashing in its death throes. The leader of the Lament-Brood maintained perfect poise on landing, both hands coming to the sword as he moved in to attack. Caitlin was defenceless. Without thinking, Mahalia stepped forward and threw her Fomorii sword. Caitlin caught it with one hand without looking and instantly launched into the fight. She parried, struck, parried again. Their skill was so great, the others could barely see the movements of the swords, hearing only the reverberations of their clashes.
They battled for five minutes, but Caitlin's face remained impassive throughout, as though she were in some trance state, immersed in a work of art rather than a fight to the death. As the crows flapped around them in a black cloud, it became apparent to the others that she wouldn't be beaten; probably could never be beaten. Battle was her life, bloodshed her reason; she existed at the point between life and death, where both were experienced to their e
xtremes.
And finally she ducked the Whisperer's strike, swung her sword with two hands and took off his head at the neck. It bounced down the boulders as the body crashed to the ground. Purple mist swept out of it, enveloping them all before being blown away across the battlefield.
Caitlin turned to the others, drenched from head to toe in blood and looking like hell itself. She waved for them to follow her before leaping up the boulders towards a flat area in front of a door resembling a gaping mouth.
Mahalia's anguished call made Caitlin turn back. Crowther was slumped on his knees on the rocks, the Lament-Brood leader's spear rammed through his body. The front of his overcoat was already soaked in blood. The distressing sight drove the Morrigan back and brought Caitlin as close as she could be to control. Awkwardly, she clambered back down to where Mahalia, Jack and Matt were attempting to aid the professor. His head had lolled forward on to his chest; the mask's power had retreated inside it.
Jack went to pull the spear out, but Matt cautioned him. 'You might do more damage,' he said.
The warriors of the Djazeem had followed the five of them along the tunnel of bodies and had now fanned out around the base of the rock on which the House of Pain stood.
'Let's get him up to the top,' Caitlin said.
They lifted the professor over the boulders to the flat surface, where they propped him against a rock. Matt pulled Caitlin to one side, searching her face to see if there was still any sign of the woman he had known. Satisfied that there was, he said, 'He's dying. There's nothing we can do.'
After all the suffering she had seen, Caitlin felt drained of emotion. She looked back at the billowing purple mist and replied, 'We can't take the risk of staying here with him.'
'I know.'
'I don't want to leave him to die alone.'
'He's probably not aware of anything in that mask. It's pretty much taken him over.'
The Queen of sinister da-2 Page 34