Moontide 04 - Ascendant's Rite

by David Hair

  Fury kicked in, overcoming her fear.

  Her gnosis was primarily mind-magic, Clairvoyance and Divination, but she could also wield Mesmerism and Illusion. As the Inquisitor turned on them, she took all of Sabele’s hatred from centuries of pogroms against her kind – the Souldrinkers, God’s Rejects, the magi’s oldest enemy – and sent it pounding into this devoted knight of the Church. For a few seconds his shields gave her no grip, but she was an Ascendant. The Illusion of darkness took: for a split-second, the Inquisitor couldn’t see, and then his mind-shield cracked and she could sense his sudden terror, blinded in the face of his enemies. She melded that fear into an attack, feeding it while closing down his senses with more illusory darkness, grimacing in satisfaction as he shouted in horror, his eyes searching blankly. Then one of Xymoch’s Dokken punched a spear into the Inquisitor’s khurne and yanked and the barbed spearhead pulled out bloody coils of the beast’s intestines. It shrilled horribly and collapsed, breaking the Inquisitor’s leg as it fell, and before he’d even hit the ground Toljin had driven his scimitar through the knight’s chest. He looked up despairingly, his vision clearing only to see his own death.

  One down, she thought grimly, looking at the carnage about her. She had a method now, a way to attack. She stepped to the edge of the platform again and checked out the battle below: immediately beneath, four Inquisitors were penned in a circle of blue fire. To her right, Malevorn and the crozier were locked in combat. And above, the venators were circling closer, unhampered by the trailing vultures.

  She began to fear that eighty against eleven might not be enough after all.

  It has to be.

  She selected her next target: the commandant.

  *

  Malevorn’s scimitar struck sparks on Adamus’ crosier as he ducked under a sweeping counterblow aiming to take off his arm and spun away. Another close-range mage-bolt flared off his shields, staggering him backwards towards an edge he’d momentarily lost track of. He hurled loose rubble at the churchman with a gesture, planted his feet again and piled forward.

  When he’d planned this attack, his first priority had been to isolate Adamus and take him alive – he’d been certain that he was the man’s better with both blade and the gnosis. He was beginning to revise that opinion now: the crozier’s gnosis was rooted in Fire and Air, but he was using other disciplines with flair to create a potent mix of mental and physical attacks, wielded with cunning and guile. And his crosier was a surprisingly effective weapon, one that could be switched from defence to attack in a heartbeat.

  They circled again, both panting heavily, and Adamus puffed out, ‘We can heal you, Brother. Nasette’s fate is known to us – we’ve studied it. We can restore you to what you were, this I swear.’

  The plaza below was a deadly maelstrom of flaming fire and clashing blades and ripping claws, and the flashes and blasts were coming ever closer. He couldn’t tell what was happening except that shouts of triumph were few. Inquisitors habitually fought in near silence, but the Dokken were savages, and their silence was ominous.

  Are we losing this?

  ‘I wrote to your family when you fell,’ Adamus added slyly. ‘I told them you were dead. Can you imagine their despair? Think on their shame, if they could see what has really become of you . . .’

  Before he’d even finished speaking he attacked, whirling into a spinning flurry, alternating between each end of the staff, then slashing low, an attack Malevorn barely managed to leap – but it was all a distraction, he realised too late: a shadow fell over him and his eyes went upwards just as a reptilian head with jaws wide enough to engulf a pig plunged towards him. Behind him, Adamus sprang into the air – and just kept going, elevated by swiftly deployed Air-gnosis.

  There was no time to do anything but scream in dismay and fury as the giant beast ploughed into him and the open jaws fastened onto him with a metallic crunch. A dozen knife-long teeth slammed into his torso and thighs.

  His cry was torn from his throat as he was snatched into the air.

  *

  Artus LeBlanc saw the moment the battle changed. They’d flung back the wave of Dokken and the walking dead, pouring mage-fire and lightning and flames into the mass as they came, incinerating them en masse as they crossed the gnostic barrier. Then they started targeting individuals, singling out the biggest and deadliest attackers, like the axe-wielding man with the garish tattoos and the screaming woman with snake-hair, roasting them alive, leaving Magrenius to use his own Necromancy to snuff out the violet light of the animated walking corpses. For a few moments, he really thought they would triumph.

  That all changed in a blink of the eye.

  He’d glanced upwards to determine how far they were from the stairs and reaching the crozier above, but that brief glimpse took in the Keshi girl, standing at the lip of the platform to his left, pointing at Quintius, then he saw one of the venators engulfed by Dokken, the beast and its rider thrashing about desperately in the air. The other venator was diving with jaws wide open towards Malevorn Andevarion’s back.

  Get him! Artus thought, his eyes glowing with elation – then an arrow with a glowing tip blasted through weak shielding and shot the venator in the eye.

  Its jaws slackened even as it struck Andevarion, closing on him convulsively, but as the arrow entered its brain and the tip exploded, all its strength vanished as completely as a snuffed candle. The venator died instantly, its neck flailing convulsively as the left wing caught the leaping Adamus in mid-air and slammed him with massive force into one of the giant statues. The clergyman crumpled limply while the beast ploughed on, striking the platform with its hind legs and flipping, crushing its rider in a hideous crunch of metal and flesh before catapulting into another tomb, breaking the roof and crashing through.

  For an instant all eyes followed it, then flew back to the crozier, lying twisted and still on the stairs. Artus felt stunned, disbelieving, and for an instant his brain couldn’t grasp what he’d seen.

  Then the Keshi girl shrieked in triumph and black unlight engulfed Quintius. It was as if night itself had become a living entity and snatched Quintius away. He heard the commandant roar in defiance, then bellow in horror; he tore the darkness away with a blazing counterblow of light, but it was too late; the Dokken were pouring in. Leblanc saw a man with snakes for arms and a cobra’s head leap onto Nayland, and all three venomous jaws plunged into the Inquisitor’s flesh, punching through armour as if it were cloth.

  Artus LeBlanc cut another draug in half, kicking the still animated body away. A serpent bit his shin-guard and he stamped on its head, then drove his sword right through Cobrahead’s left eye as something hit him from behind and latched on, gnawing at the back of his neck. He reversed his blade and stabbed blindly as a ropy coil of snake whipped about him. As his khurne toppled, its legs tangled in a seething mass of serpents, he caught a glimpse of Quintius, staring blindly upwards, then plunging his fingers into his own eye sockets. Magrenius, still with a khurne horn sticking out of his back, was felled by a draug: it took the Inquisitor’s skull in both hands and twisted, and the snap of his neck echoed clear through the din.

  Then Artus yowled in agony as a blade crunched through his left leg at knee-height and he lost his balance and fell. As he rolled on the ground, he gaped down at his body, past the snake coiling around his torso to the gushing stump where his left knee should have been. A python head reared in front of his face; he screamed, and after that the darkness came swiftly.

  *

  Huriya Makani turned from the blood and death below, panting like a dog. She was standing alone in the mouth of the giant crocodile-headed statue, amidst the wreckage of the Inquisitor and his steed and the Dokken dead. Below, the plaza was seething with serpents and the Dokken were backing away: the snakes, whipped to a frenzy by the Souldrinker Animagi, were beyond control; it would be hours before they slunk back to their holes and reverted to simple beasts again.

  Her skin was slick with sweat, her bloodied
clothes clinging closely to her as she trembled in the aftermath of the carnage. She recalled what it had been like to stare in helpless dread at the end of her life.

  But I survived. She felt stronger, somehow, for that brush with death.

  She turned to Toljin, who was staring at her with rabid hunger and lust, pounding with blood and life, alive as only surviving such moments could make one; she recognised those feelings in herself. He wanted her, palpably, and for a moment she was tempted to give in, to let him do whatever he wanted.

  No. If I want to rule these people, I have to master myself.

  But that inner voice wasn’t even her own, she realised. It was Sabele, thinking for her. She quelled the panic; Sabele and her skills had kept her alive today. She was beginning to doubt she could do this alone . . . and to realise that maybe she didn’t need to.

  I’ve been trying to rule my body alone. But this isn’t a war . . . it’s a merging.

  Yes, girl, a dry inner voice responded, drawing near. At last.

  *

  Malevorn came to himself lying in semi-darkness soaked in fluids he couldn’t identify, his body feeling like a giant ruptured boil. Anything that didn’t sting ached. There was something or someone scrabbling in the rocks above. He blinked furiously, tried to will movement back into his limbs, deathly afraid that whoever was coming for him might be here to administer the coup de grâce. He sat up painfully, couldn’t find his scimitar, but his knife was still in his sword belt. He drew it, trying to ignore his shaking hand, and kindled a gnosis-light.

  For a moment he was stunned motionless. He was lying in a tomb chamber laid open to the night sky by a massive hole in the roof. There were no grave goods, so it was likely it had already been found and robbed, but the walls were covered with pictograms and depictions of Gatioch’s old gods. In the midst of it all was the dead venator, an arrow jutting from its right eye: a miracle shot, to penetrate shields on a venator in full flight at just the right place to actually do real damage if it got through. Incredible, he thought. Fluke or genius? Right now he didn’t really care.

  The venator’s rider was still strapped into his saddle, but his body was so badly contorted he couldn’t possibly still be alive. His head hung at a sickening angle, and his limbs were all snapped or twisted.

  The noise was someone who’d been climbing down into the chamber. Now she stepped into the light: Hessaz, an arrow nocked and trained on him. Her hard face showed no emotion as she recognised him.

  Holy Kore, we must’ve won . . .

  He could see the war in her eyes, but he had his faculties back now, enough to shield fully. Shields could hinder unseen blows a little, but against known attacks they were at their most effective. Even though the Dokken were not well-trained in the gnosis, she’d know that.

  Good to know where I stand with you, Hessaz, he thought, though I think I knew anyway.

  ‘Is the crozier alive?’ he asked, standing shakily, pretending he had no doubt she wouldn’t shoot him.

  Her face split into a rare smile. ‘He is.’

  Praise Kore . . . Then he smiled at himself. I must learn some different oaths; the Kore ones are hardly appropriate any more.

  7

  New Alliances

  Daemons

  The souls of the dead are not the only beings in the aether. There are many spirits native to that element. Most are insignificant and of little threat, though they can be useful tools. A Wizard can use them to perform simple tasks for him. But there are large aetheric entities too, predatory beings that prey on the living and dead. Some believe there is no Paradise and no Hel – that all that awaits us are these daemons, waiting to harvest our souls as we pass from the world of the living to the long slow night of death.

  ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, HEBUSALIM

  Near Brochena, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia

  Shawwal (Octen) 929

  16th month of the Moontide

  Gurvon Gyle, drably clad in browns and cowled against the sun, nudged his horse forward. Rutt Sordell, similarly attired, followed close behind as they made their way along the causeway through rice paddies southwest of Brochena. Canals carried all the fertile filth of the city to these growing fields, and the verdant lushness here was a stark contrast to the arid dust and rock that bordered the heavily irrigated paddies, making them look garish and overripe, almost diseased. Many were dried out though, through lack of manpower, as so many farmers had fled the area.

  ‘Boss, here they come,’ Rutt said, his voice tense.

  Gurvon squinted against the glare of the sun at the two riders trotting toward them. As they drew near he could see both were richly attired in Imperial purple and sweating heavily in the Rondian clothes, woven for far colder climes than this. ‘Perhaps if we keep them talking for long enough they’ll faint from the heat,’ he remarked.

  As usual, Rutt took the jest seriously. ‘I doubt it – they’ll use gnosis to regulate their body-heat if it becomes—’

  ‘I know that, Rutt,’ Gurvon sighed. ‘Never mind.’ He looked the newcomers up and down, assessing their threat. Both wore their empty scabbards ostentatiously, but that meant little; there were plenty of places for hidden weapons, which was to be expected – he had one himself. And both were magi: weapons in human form. It just came down to caution: don’t give the other party reason to think they could get away with treachery.

  I really do just want to talk today.

  ‘Magister Gyle,’ rumbled Governor Tomas Betillon as he reined in forty yards away. He glanced at Rutt appraisingly, then introduced his companion, a grey-bearded Kirkegarde knight with the usual humourless face and steely eyes. ‘This is Blan Remikson, Seer of the Fourth Kirkegarde Legion.’

  Gyle vaguely knew the name; Remikson was a half-blood, which was what Betillon had promised, a balance for the mage’s blood in this parley. They all assessed each other silently for a few moments, then he said, ‘So, Tomas, I hear Kaltus Korion wouldn’t send you any reinforcements.’

  Betillon pulled a face. ‘He’s spread thin. No thanks to you stealing three of his legions.’

  ‘And you “borrowing” another two. But that’s old news.’

  Betillon ran fingers through his curling grey mane. ‘Indeed. Listen, Mater-Imperia is concerned that supplies aren’t getting to Korion in the quantities required. We both know why. I’ve got Hytel and Brochena, so I’ve got the supplies, but you control the road south through the Krak. I can ship by air, but we both know windships can’t carry near so much as a wagon, and windships . . . well,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘they don’t grow on trees.’

  ‘That’s also old news.’

  ‘Gyle,’ Betillon began, then he peered at Rutt. ‘Does your man know about the plan?’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Well then, perhaps he can give you better counsel! You know what’s coming: when that Bridge comes down, there’s going to be chaos. Lucia thinks it will all be clean-cut and surgical, but it won’t. Earthquakes are unpredictable, and this will be the greatest ever known. It’s going to be a mess. But if we work together, and keep Lucia off our backs until the hammer falls, we can carve up Javon between us afterwards like roast pork.’

  ‘Lucia can’t touch us,’ Gurvon stated. ‘She doesn’t have the manpower to intervene, not without stripping the vassal-states of their garrisons.’

  ‘Oh yes, she can,’ Betillon scoffed. ‘The empire has clandestine resources beyond even yours, Gurvon Gyle. How’d you like to have Volsai assassins on your tail, or a few Keepers? You know how the empire rewards the faithful: with the ambrosia. Those old bastards like to involve themselves if they feel the Crown is threatened.’

  ‘She won’t send Keepers: she’s as scared of them as you or I.’ Gurvon had a theory about Keepers: when they gained the Ascendancy, they faced a new test of loyalty: how many began to wonder why they weren’t emperor themselves.

  Betillon waved a hand dismissively. ‘There are plenty of loyal Keepers, and she can unleash them
any time.’

  Perhaps he was right; only the most loyal magi were permitted the ambrosia and Ascension. No emperor’s going to be stupid enough to create his own usurper, not even Constant, he thought. Keepers were usually only made once they could barely walk, giving them maybe an extra decade or two of life, in a decrepit body. It was really just a ceremony of recognition, the culmination of a glorious career in service of the emperor, not the creation of a new power in the realm.

  ‘There have been no new Ascendants in decades,’ Gurvon reminded Betillon. ‘The Scytale hasn’t been publically displayed in all that time.’

  ‘But everyone knows it’s there, waiting: House Sacrecour’s ultimate reward for loyalty,’ Betillon responded. ‘And those who have been granted that reward are Lucia’s most fanatical supporters.’

  So no doubt there are a few strong enough to do as said Gurvon suggests. He waved the threat aside. ‘Scaring me with legends isn’t going to change anything, Tomas. I’ve got five legions, you’ve got three. You’ve got the supplies and I control the roads. And I really don’t give a shit whether Kaltus Korion makes it out of this or not. I need a better reason to cooperate.’

  ‘Then how about self-preservation?’ Betillon growled. ‘Gyle, listen: if we appear to be cooperating, Lucia’s going to leave us be. Her only concern is that Kaltus is there in Kesh when the Bridge is destroyed, to hold the gains until he can be reinforced and the sultan brought to heel. With Echor of Argundy dead, her son has never been more secure. She doesn’t care who’s supplying Kaltus; she’ll reward whoever it is – so let it be both of us, and afterwards, we’ll both be in favour.’

  Gurvon doubted it would be so simple, but even so, Betillon was making sense. Already his own mercenary legions were beginning to feel the pinch as they bled dry the regions they controlled, while the Jhafi migrated east to Forensa and the Nesti. Who appear to have plenty of supplies. The east of Javon was the food-bowl of the land: they would have to move against it soon – but that couldn’t happen if he and Betillon were at loggerheads.