by David Hair
Is this the most perfect moment in my life?
Then came a horrendous ululation, a moaning, shredding sound from the mountainside above. It was as if Hel itself had opened up as a host of massive things burst into the daylight from the caves and from the ground at the feet of the riders and from the river behind him, erupting in dust and spray, all flailing talons and blades.
His perfect moment crumbled.
He saw Vardel take a spear in the back that erupted through his chest, saw malformed figures come up beneath the horses and gut them, then butcher the riders as the steeds went down. One came up with a sweep of the blade and beheaded a khurne and he realised the muscular torso was set atop a serpent’s body. His brain froze momentarily at the impossibility of it all. A lamia? Impossible – they’re just fairy tales!
Then a man burst from the burning tent, smeared in dirt and ash but very obviously wholly intact, and came straight at him. Elena’s rukking mudskin! The youth blurred forward at an impossible speed, slashed a lancer in half from behind, shearing effortlessly through his armour, then threw out a hand at him – Gurvon’s shields were up, of course, but a wave of force battered him over as if they weren’t there, an unfair blast of telekinesis that was far above anything he’d ever endured. He flew head over heels like a thrown toy and struck the ground, skidding to the very edge of the river and lay there for a moment dazed and shaken, his shields sparking crimson. Dimly he recognised his attacker – a Hadishah youth from the group whose attack had freed Elena from Rutt Sordell’s scarab a year ago in Brochena – but he looked far more experienced and calm now, and he was bearing down on him with menacing single-mindedness, hacking his way through anyone who got in his way.
There was a roar and a great concussion of gnostic force struck him and echoed across the valley. He tore his eyes away from the mudskin warrior and looked up to the cliffs: boulders the size of catapult stones were raining down onto his remaining riders, who shouted helplessly as they went down, crushed like grapes underfoot. He turned his head to where Hetta had been, but where she had stood and waved at him, there were only serpent-people, tearing bloody strips from something ruined.
No … no no no … He found his feet somehow, and wobbling, went for Elena, still lying alone on the riverbank. I need a hostage. The Keshi youth saw him as he staggered towards her, but Arnulf Rhumberg interposed, quite by chance, as his khurne started bucking away from a serpent-man, then lunged in to skewer the creature on its horn, right through the chest. Blood erupted over the steed’s head, painting it scarlet, then it wrenched it free and spun to face the Keshi youth. Gurvon ran, his eyes fixed on Elena’s prone form.
How is this happening?
But there were small flashes of hope: as he scanned the ground he saw one of his riders driving his lance into the back of one of the creatures – they must be constructs – and further away, a knot of men fighting for their lives had formed up properly and presented a phalanx of steel. Then another wave of boulders crashed down and the phalanx caved in, stamped into the earth like beetles, juices bursting from the broken carapaces.
Another line of creatures emerged from the river now, smaller and mostly female but little less fearsome. They swept past Elena’s prone form and into the fray, shrieking like Hel-beasts. One paused, a more mature female, and dropped over Elena, and Gurvon slowed in his headlong rush.
Then a giant male serpent-man detached from the mêlée and came at him, a massive brute brandishing a sword as long as a Schlessen zweihandle. There was no parrying his blow; Gurvon ducked under it and came up punching through its weak gnostic shields; his two-handed thrust carved into the thing’s belly and he wrenched his sword upwards. Blood and entrails erupted as the thing screamed and thrashed and its tail swept around. He pulled out the blade, leaped the tail and drove his sword into the thing’s back and it went down face-first and jerked into stillness.
Gurvon staggered clear, grunting in satisfaction, and found that the thin line of females had gone past him, leaving Elena just a few yards away, alone, except for the one female who was tending his former lover.
The serpent-woman came erect with shimmering grace. She was almost hypnotically beautiful as she swayed and spread her arms and hissed at him through a mouth filled with thin hooked teeth. The largest were as long as fingers. Her twinned snake legs weaved as she put herself between him and Elena.
He raised his hand and sent a mage-bolt at her – and was stunned when she deftly warded it. But she had no weapon and he kept closing in, still firing. He took a moment to glance sideways, only to see Rhumberg’s khurne rearing, then the Keshi youth making a gesture that flipped both beast and rider over backwards. Rhumberg went down with the full weight of the beast on him and his shields flashed to scarlet. He came up again, though, and Gurvon heard his and the Keshi youth’s blades hammering together like bells.
He turned back to the serpent-woman protecting Elena and went in fast, leaping over the sweeping snake-leg she unleashed at him, and thrust at the spot between her magnificent blue-green breasts, gnosis-fire springing along his blade, ready to shear through shielding and flesh.
Her narrow eyes went round as he crashed into her, his hands on his hilt as he thrust, but she caught his wrists and twisted as they collided and they both went over. She landed on her back with him on top, and his blade punched through her and into the dirt beneath her body, pinning her to the earth. She still fought on, wrestling for the hilt of his blade to push it out, her fanged mouth snapping at him and her snake-limbs wrapping about his waist as if they were copulating like the Lantric demigod Perios and his lamia lover Calystra. She was strong, but he could feel her weakening by the second. He finished it by hammering his forehead into her face, her nose crunched, her head lolled sideways and her whole body sagged. He scrambled clear, oddly disturbed by the intimacy of the struggle, and staggered on.
Elena lay on her back where he’d left her. He drew his dagger.
An eruption of the gnosis tore his eyes back to Rhumberg’s fight just in time to see the Noorie’s blade scythe through Rhumberg’s waist. For an instant the pair of giants stood facing each other, then with a sound like a sigh, Rhumberg fell in half.
Gurvon gaped and backed away. For a second his eyes locked on the Keshi’s, and he read death there. His gnostic sight saw other things too, a complex interlocking of tendrils in the man’s aura, skeins of power reaching out, pulling energy from about him, and a thick cord running to the woman on the ground beside him.
He’s a fucking Dokken! And he’s got his fangs into Elena!
He felt his legs waver in shock and almost superstitious fear, but that didn’t stop him from darting to Elena and bending over her. His maniple was being ripped apart and she was now his only way out. He pulled her until she was sitting upright, threw his arm around her neck to use her as a shield and put his dagger to her neck.
The Keshi looked at him blankly, though he clearly heard his words. He and Elena must communicate in Keshi, he realised, and for some reason this stunned him, as if she were an alien being he’d never really known at all. But more importantly, he felt Elena stir as the gnostic link with the Keshi pulsed. He jabbed his knife into her neck, just enough to cut her skin, and shouted out loud in Keshi, ‘Stop or she dies!’
The boy froze, and for the first time since this nightmare was unleashed, he felt a thread of a chance of getting out alive, though all around the slaughter of his men went on and he was powerless to intervene.
*
For Kazim the last few minutes had been a blur of violence. It had been a massive feat of restraint to not leap into the fight the moment Elena was assailed, especially as it quickly became clear that she was in terrible trouble, but they had to wait until the cavalry were beneath the cliffs. To finally attack was a supreme relief, but his terror for Elena sent his sight red. He’d charred men, broken them with telekinetic-gnosis, carved them in
half with his blade, neither armour nor shielding anything to him, barely aware of his actions even as he moved through the forms his Hadishah master and then Elena had drilled into him. Enemies barely registered; there was only her, lying beside the river, barely alive, with the man she hated standing over her.
Gurvon Gyle: her former lover. We crossed blades in Brochena. That was the day his and Elena’s lives had collided. He remembered the man had been extremely skilled, very economical and precise with his sword – too fast and too clever for him then.
But that was then.
Gurvon pulled Elena upright and put her in front of him. He said something with the gnosis in his own tongue; it was gibberish, but the meaning was clear.
The energies flowing between him and her told him she still lived, but the blade at her neck chilled his blood. He wants to live … so he won’t harm her if it means he can live …
He stepped forward warily, his blade high, but he stayed out of reach.
‘Stop or she dies!’ Gurvon shouted in serviceable Keshi. Kazim complied, concentrating on the energy flowing between he and Elena, both ways. He could feel the venom in her, could feel also some kind of spell disrupting her gnosis. It was a complex thing, but its heart was in a little core of light, buried in her latent shield … he snuffed it out, and felt her stir.
I need to delay this man, buy us time.
‘What do you want?’ he asked. All round him those lamiae no longer fighting began to slither closer, swaying menacingly. One was lying motionless in the grass. His heart froze: Kessa! Kekropius was weaving closer and Kazim saw his eyes going wide as he took in his stricken mate. The elder reared up, then fell upon Kessa’s body, cradling her limp form. Terror and fury filled his face, then he looked up at Gurvon and his mouth flew open, teeth jutting.
Gurvon took a step away, pulling the limp-limbed Elena with him. ‘Keep back!’ he shouted in Keshi.
Kekropius didn’t speak Keshi, but Gurvon didn’t know that. He just looked blankly as Kekropius’ arm came up and then the lamia roared in Rondian, ‘Take him alive!’
Gurvon’s jaw dropped as the snake-men swarmed in. If he’d stabbed Elena no one could have stopped him – but then he would have died. Instead he flung away his blade a second before they buried him beneath their writhing bodies.
*
The sound came in waves, but it was a good sound and she clung to it: Kazim’s voice. ‘Alhana! Ella!’ His hands were on her shoulders, shaking her gently. She couldn’t see a thing – she had to think carefully before she realised that it was because her eyes were closed. There was something like an ice-shard through her thigh and another in her side, her left hand stung like Hel’s fire and a stampede of wild horses had pounded over her body.
Other than that, she was fine.
The last thing she remembered was Gurvon’s blade twisting in her side, but her healing-gnosis was holding, re-knitting flesh despite her being out of it, and the venom was finally beginning to recede, combated in ways she couldn’t understand but that were clearly to do with her link to Kazim. Somehow he’d fed her enough energy to allow her own healing power to fight the venom, and that disrupting spell too. So she bathed in the sound of his voice, and opened her eyes.
Kazim’s face was inches from hers, looking down at her anxiously as he cradled her. A complex wave of emotions crackled between them: love and fear and the sheer need to be in physical contact. Strength flowed into her, from him: the Dokken, feeding the mage …
The sheer uncharted miracle of their love was encapsulated in that phenomenon. Kore’s Heart, I adore him. She let that show unreservedly on her face.
Then she looked around, and for the first time she realised the extent of the slaughter. Gurvon had brought two or three hundred mounted men here and they were all dead, and their beasts too. The lamiae had hurled half the mountainside down on the riders, crushing and maiming en masse, before wading in and striking at superhuman speed. Her respect for – and fear of – the Pallas Animagi grew.
The lamiae were all round them, shouting in victory, embracing each other. She looked about for familiar faces. Kekropius was near, cradling a bloodied Kessa just as Kazim was holding her. The symmetry caught her eye. Then Kessa stirred and looked at her mate with love, and then at Elena.
Then she saw the bloody hole in the lamia woman’s chest.
No! Sweet Kore, no!
She pushed out of Kazim’s arms and crawled to Kessa’s side. There was a hole in the lamia woman’s chest and she couldn’t move. Though Elena tried to seal the wound with healing-gnosis, Kessa died before the spell could take effect full effect.
Kekropius threw back his head and howled.
Elena dropped her head to the ground, blinked away tears of fury, then noticed the one other living human on the battlefield: Gurvon Gyle.
He was pinned down by a pair of burly lamia males, and bleeding badly from dozens of scratches and bites. He looked groggy and his right arm was swelling below the elbow – the flesh visible through his shredded shirt was greenish-purple. Poison. But his face was composed; he was doubtless busy concocting his lies.
Kessa had been supposed to stay out of the fight. She’d sworn she would. Elena looked at the distraught Kekropius and felt the same sort of wail build inside her. Slowly, she stood, and felt Kazim join her and feed her strength, and the whole gathering went silent, even Kekropius. The only sounds were the moans of the few wounded and the growing hum of flies. The sun beat down oppressively. She inhaled the warm breeze and finally found the strength to face her former lover.
‘We await your assent to kill him,’ Kekropius told her, his voice bereft of emotion.
She inhaled heavily and planted her hands on her hips. She saw the way he was watching her, like a stranger, calculation and cunning all over his face despite his plight and his obvious pain. The thought of actually talking to him nauseated her, and as for really questioning him, she didn’t have the stomach for such things any more.
I should want to know what you’re planning. I should want to know about troop movements and numbers, about strategies and personnel. About why you had Cera and poor Tarita stoned. I should torture you just for the rukking joy of it! But I don’t think I can stand to be even a minute in your company.
She turned her back. ‘I don’t want to hear his lies,’ she said. ‘Just kill him.’
A ripple of satisfaction went through the lamiae, a hiss like summer winds through grass. She glanced at Kazim, who looked faintly shocked, but he nodded with understanding.
Gurvon’s voice broke then: he was – finally – truly afraid. ‘No! Elena—! You can’t!’
Kekropius cocked his head and raised his hand to signal, but he held it up, his eyes searching her face. When they’d laid their plans they’d spoken of capturing him, and he recalled what she’d said then: that it was vital to take him alive. Even in his grief, with his own overwhelming desire for revenge, he had the wisdom to recognise a decision made out of emotion and question it.
‘Elena!’ Gurvon’s voice rose a note. ‘Elena, I have her, Elena—! She’s alive!’
She turned, her thoughts sluggish. ‘Who is alive?’
‘Cera Nesti.’
*
Elena looked dazedly from Kekropius to Gurvon. ‘Cera is alive?’ She can’t be. ‘A thousand people saw her die.’
Gurvon looked up at her, his face white but his eyes steady. ‘I saved her from the stoning and got her out of Brochena.’
Great Kore! She gripped Kazim’s arm to hold herself up and shook her head, then realised that she was showing Gurvon just how much he’d shaken her. I don’t even know if it’s true. She swallowed, then made a conscious effort to purge herself of emotion. She had to be cool now, cold and composed, or he would hoodwink them all. ‘Why should I care about her?’ she asked in a flat voice. ‘The little bitch sold me down the river.’
All the while her brain was throbbing. Rukka mia! He has Cera! Cera’s alive! She didn’t even know how she f
elt about that. She’d once planned to kill her former ward, but now … ?
‘Elena?’ Kekropius asked, his hand still raised to signal Gurvon’s death.
Utter mental and physical exhaustion washed over her. ‘Wait,’ she whispered. ‘Gods, I’m sorry, Kekropius. I know what you must be going through … but this …’ Why is nothing ever simple? She glared down at Gurvon. ‘Come on, tell me, why the Hel should I care about that double-crossing bint? Even if you did somehow pull that off, why should I want her back?’
‘Because the people will rise for her,’ he replied, his voice stony.
‘They will rise in time anyway.’
‘But now, if she comes back from the dead? She will be a legend. You could do anything you wanted with a tale like that. The whole of Javon would eat from her hand: a new messiah for you to play with.’
‘I notice you’re not doing it.’
‘I had Olfuss killed, remember? They’d hang me before I got two words out.’
He’s holding something back. She was suddenly conscious of the eyes and ears of the lamiae all around. She threw her hands up and cried, ‘Enough!’ She turned away, trying not to show how confused and at a loss she was. Rukka!
‘Is he telling the truth?’ Kazim whispered.
‘No idea.’ She bunched her fists, stared at the ground in utter frustration, then decided. ‘Kekropius, I’m sorry, but this is too important not to explore at least. I know you wish vengeance for all you’ve lost today, and you deserve it: but let us at least take that vengeance with a cool head. Let’s lock him up somewhere once we’ve Chained his gnosis.’
Kekropius’ fury had gone from hot to cold. ‘Very well. Let us deal with the wounded, and the bodies. We must cook what we can to preserve it, and bury the rest.’ His eyes burned into Gurvon, then he whirled and slithered away.
The lamiae would butcher both men and horses, Elena realised. She shrugged internally. Was it even cannibalism anyway? Did they eat snakes as well? The ethics of the matter were of no interest to her; she’d stick to fish. ‘Thank you, Kekropius.’ Then she whispered again, ‘I’m so sorry.’