The Third God sdotc-3

by Ricardo Pinto

  At last he came to a halt at one of the crossroads. Carnelian fell to one knee, his head swimming. Glancing up, he saw his father’s mask turning as Fern tried to spy out the way. ‘I don’t know where we are. I can’t see anything through this thing.’ He gave out a growl of frustration and reached back to loose the bindings of his mask. Carnelian glanced round and saw faces giving them frightened looks, expecting at any moment some syblings to come careering into sight.

  Fern sighed his relief as the mask came away. Carnelian was glad to see his dear face. Fern looked at the mask.

  ‘Throw it away,’ Carnelian said.

  Fern hesitated, then threw the thing down, grimacing. He pointed. ‘I think it’s this way.’

  Soon they were up and stumbling along. A clump of guardsmen appeared before them. Fern was about to turn away at a junction when Carnelian, with a grim laugh, threw back his cowl to expose his face. The guardsmen’s faces suddenly sickened and they ducked back from where they had come and he and Fern moved on.

  Suddenly, they found themselves on the edge of a ditch whose depths were lost in shadow. Along its further edge a road ran, dense with dragons and squadrons of riders. They had worked at digging ditches long enough to be shocked by the vast labour this represented. The ditch curved round and out of sight: a stupendous work that seemed beyond the power of men. Again Carnelian gazed across to the other side and saw, beyond the vast melee of the camp, the wall of red dust full of a slow, blossoming life and his heart raced.

  ‘I’ve no idea where your father’s tent lies.’

  Fern stood at bay regarding the route they had come, his head turning slightly from side to side as he listened out for the cries of their pursuers. Carnelian wanted to ask about his father, about Poppy, about how Fern had come to save him disguised as a Master, but that Fern was here was answer enough. To ask for more was to risk the decision he felt stirring in him. He tried to clear his mind enough to work things out. Notions of finding his father, his brothers, rolled together with other, inchoate feelings. One thing he knew: as things stood, in joining them he could only bring them more suffering. He focused on Fern, trying to think of a way to save him. He shook his head, letting out a growl that caused Fern to turn to him. It was those dark eyes that seemed the only solid thing in the world. ‘I’m going to cross this ditch.’

  Fern scowled. ‘What about your father?’

  ‘You go and find him, but I’m going to cross this ditch.’

  Fern looked surprised. ‘You want to fight in the battle?’

  Carnelian had not thought that far ahead.

  ‘Is it because you want to help defeat the Master?’

  Carnelian shook his head. ‘I don’t care about him.’

  ‘But is he going to lose?’

  It was a strain for Carnelian to give any thought to that. He regarded the vast turmoil of the camp. ‘He has all that ranged against him.’

  ‘But you still believe he will win?’

  Eyeing the red dust, Carnelian nodded.

  ‘So you want to fight on the losing side?’

  He regarded Fern, feeling sadness welling up in him. ‘I no longer care who wins.’ He felt doubt fall from him; a burden he had been carrying for so long, he had forgotten how much it weighed. ‘I just want to be free.’

  ‘So do I,’ Fern whispered. He raised his hand tenderly to Carnelian, but his fingers hesitated short of touching him. ‘Are you strong enough?’

  Carnelian caught his hand and pulled it to him. ‘I will be.’

  Fern began to cry, but also to laugh. Carnelian let his tears join Fern’s and the laughter came bubbling out of him. Like sun after a storm, Fern’s smile stirred Carnelian to joy. ‘It’s a good day to die.’

  Together, like children, they slid down the earthy wall into the ditch, leaning back against the slope, using clawed fingers and heels as anchors to try to control their descent. Soon they had plunged into a region in which night yet dwelt. Here the earth gave way to a stinking mulch that sucked at their limbs. The stench intensified until they felt their feet sinking into some noisome pool. Carnelian tried to gather up his cloak, but its edge was already heavy and dripping. He peered across, but could see nothing. They could easily have been on the edge of some filthy swamp. Carnelian raised his gaze to the black sky and saw the upper edge of the further wall of the ditch rising like a cliff into the morning light. He searched along the rim until he saw a gully leading up from the darkness. He reached out and found Fern’s arm and lifted it to point at the gully. ‘We can climb that.’

  ‘Unless we drown in this filth,’ came back Fern, his tone enough for Carnelian to imagine his face twisted with disgust.

  Together they began to wade through the sewage. It climbed up to their knees, but no further. Carnelian made sure to breathe through his mouth, giving a shudder every time he put his foot back into the sludge.

  At last they reached the other side and, moving sideways, found the mouth of the gully. Then they began the long, careful clamber up its slippy, slimy course, clawing at clods of sewage-sodden soil. As they climbed, Carnelian began to feel a tremor in the earth. Glancing up, he wondered if it was thunder, but the higher they went, the more the tremor resolved into an arrhythmic pounding he recognized.

  As they emerged into the light, they saw their limbs were sheathed with dark slime. Carnelian’s cloak dragged and he wanted to discard it, but it was all he had to wear. The pounding intensified so that it seemed the earth itself was alive. A fine red dust settled upon them and rouged their filthy skin. The closer they came to the rim of the ditch, the louder grew the din. At last they pushed their heads up over the edge and their ears were assaulted by a roar. They gaped. Dragons were thundering past, the leprous pyramids of their towers scratching the stormy sky. Their horns were huge bone scythes. Their heavy heads were rising and falling like beaked ships upon a swell. Walls of hide stretching, rucking, flexing as massive muscles pistoned beneath. Tree legs lifting improbably, swinging forward, settling with a thump that sent a rumble and shudder through the earth. Among this heaving tide of hide and flesh and bone, squadrons of aquar cantered past, their riders watching the monsters nervously. As the vast procession slid from left to right across their vision, Carnelian peered among the reed legs of the aquar and the forest of the passing giants and caught glimpses of the camp beyond, from which an inexhaustible torrent was pouring out to join them. In this distant melee, a few twinkling flashes made him look round and see the watch-tower rising behind him, from whose summit a constant stream of instructions was being transmitted. This seeming chaos was being directed by the Wise, perhaps relaying instructions from Molochite.

  He turned to Fern. ‘The battle will soon be upon us. We need some beasts to ride.’

  Grimly, his friend nodded. Carnelian saw in Fern’s face that he was still determined to fight.

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  Pulling his cowl over his head, Carnelian clambered up onto the road, a rough mosaic of blocks and fractured stone probably cannibalized from the demolished leftway. Glancing round to make sure Fern was close, he made his way along the edge of the road, all the while keeping a wary eye on the massive lumbering dragons, until he saw a squadron of auxiliaries approaching. When he stepped out in front of them, they came straight at him. He raised his arms aggressively. As they slowed he thought they were responding to him, but then he saw they were gazing past him. The object of their scrutiny was Fern. Though spattered with filth, encrusted to knees and elbows, the paleness of his commanders’ leathers was still unmistakable. One of the auxiliaries cried out a challenge, his face distorting with anger and confusion. Perhaps the man could see that, in spite of his costume, Fern was not a Master. Carnelian sensed that the man was about to order his squadron to resume their march and he strode towards him. The man regarded Carnelian with some uncertainty.

  ‘Give us two of your aquar,’ he said, in a ringing tone of command.

  The man hesitated. Carnelian realized that all the
man was seeing was a tall figure in a filthy cloak. He became aware that the auxiliaries were impeding the flow of traffic along the road. Voices were rising in angry consternation. He drew back his cowl to expose his face and continued to advance towards the auxiliary. The man grew sickly pale as if his face was seeking to mirror the whiteness of Carnelian’s own. Faces everywhere were averting their gaze with such violence that this communicated to their aquar, whose plumes raised in alarm. Carnelian had nearly reached the man who was bent forward in his saddle-chair moaning, when he felt a vast shadow looming up and saw the great horned head of a dragon above him. The monster’s reek oppressed the air. Suddenly a screaming roar tore the air, making Carnelian’s teeth rattle. Its commander was sounding his trumpets to clear the road, or perhaps he had seen the Master below. Carnelian did not care. He clasped the auxiliary’s thigh. ‘Down!’

  The man was not so lost in terror that he dared disobey. His hand pulled the reins and the aquar sank to the road.

  ‘All of you down!’ Carnelian bellowed.

  As the whole squadron sank, he grasped the auxiliary’s arm and pulled him out of his chair. Looking round, he saw Fern. ‘Take this one.’

  Fern jerked a nod. Carnelian went down the line and pulled another auxiliary from his saddle-chair. Taking the man’s lance, Carnelian clambered into his place, feeling the warmth still in the leather as he adjusted himself into a cramped sitting position. He recalled how to control an aquar with reins and made her rise. Fern was already mounted. Again the air was rent by trumpet blasts. Carnelian glanced up, but could not see past the head of the dragon to its tower. He pulled his cowl once more over his head and then sent his aquar loping along the road, glanced round to make sure Fern was following and had soon insinuated them into the traffic up ahead.

  Carnelian and Fern became lost in the march. The smell of fear accentuated the malty musk of beasts and men. Its light in every eye ran like hairline cracks through that monumental procession of military power. Both could sense it lurking behind the grim expressions on every face. Shuddered by the constant thunder of dragon footfalls, their own hearts were quick, uncertain. Watching more and more of the monsters heaving onto the road, and trapped in the narrow canyons walled by their flexing hide, neither could imagine how such might could be withstood.

  At last they neared a junction. Ahead dragons were turning left into a road running away to the east, but to the right a massive earthbridge crossed the ditch back into the Masters’ camp, from which there was coming a strange and relentless grinding. As they came abreast of this bridge, they saw, beyond the cordon of Ichorian bridge guards, that the Iron House was in motion. Two massive dragons pulled it that were the colour of dried blood. Carnelian sought out the standard high above the chariot, but it was side-on. His gaze fell to the chariot wheel, its rim taller than the sybling Ichorians that clustered beside it. Ponderously that verdigrised circle turned, impaled by red spokes that emanated from a dark hub. A map, then, of the Commonwealth: Osrakum at the centre, the barbarian lands at the rim taking turns to bear her crushing weight.

  Carnelian was allowed to see no more, for, at that moment, his aquar made the turn into the east and he and Fern began moving along the road towards the edge of the camp. They made slow progress. As before, dragons drifted slowly onto the road from the left, seeming to be afloat upon the torrent of riders eddying around their feet. To the right a vast field overbrimming with aquar was pouring more squadrons onto the road. Over their heads Carnelian could see the dragons that had been moored within that quadrant of the camp drifting away towards its southern edge in a stately armada.

  The outer ditch approached. Then Carnelian and Fern were crossing it upon another earthbridge. Riding into open ground made them feel as if they were being released from the neck of a bottle. The dragons were sailing in columns south-eastward, up to their haunches in billows of dust. Auxiliaries were coalescing into rhomboids already vague in the haze their aquar were stirring up. Looking south, Carnelian lost hold of that human scale and even the dragons appeared small. For the red plain stretched away to a boiling cliff of dust, churned up by the approaching sartlar, that rose towards the frowning clouds. Black with rain, these seemed the Sky Lord’s wrathful brow. A subtle light played behind that might have been the God seeing in His mind the coming flame. In his bones, Carnelian felt the sky’s growling was warming to thunderous rage.

  Harsh trumpets sounding caused him to turn back towards the camp. Through tearing red miasmas, a dense press of dragon towers was pouring out through the southern gate. Above them hung an apparition that chilled Carnelian’s marrow: the infernal face of the Iron House standard, black and leering, sprouting four horns like scorpion stings. It was only a representation of the Twins, whose other face had given him comfort.

  ‘We’re getting left behind,’ cried Fern, pointing with his lance to where the auxiliary squadrons were moving towards the blinking eye of the sun. As they caught up with them, the sun climbed behind the clouds, instantly plunging the world into a lurid twilight.

  THE MIRROR BREAKS

  Even a hairline crack can shatter a mountain.

  (a Quyan proverb)

  Carnelian gazed at the cliff of dust that countless sartlar feet were driving towards him and the rest of Molochite’s host. The half-light was giving it a darker, bloodier hue. In its rolling depths growled nearing thunder. Sometimes faint lightning, like a twinge of toothache, made him remember his dreams and, for some reason, his voyage to the Three Lands. He gazed up into the leaden heavens dreading the weight of rain above them. Fern was watching the sartlar approach. Before them both stretched more than a dozen ranks of heads and banners, of backs of saddle-chairs, of lances that combed the gale the mountainous wave was hurling at them. Carnelian opened his cowl to sample the air, almost expecting the tang of the sea, the iron of blood, but there was nothing save the smell of aquar, of men and their sweat and, perhaps, the dry musk of the land.

  Left was the vast sweep of auxiliary squadrons bristling all the way towards the pale thread of the Great Eastern Road. Right, a dragon loomed that was the nearest bastion in the wall of monsters that ran unbroken into the west as far as Carnelian could see. Their flame-pipes gave them the appearance of some vast hornwall. Chimneys lit, this whole first line was streaming banners of black smoke back over the second: another rampart that would stand should the first fail, and Molochite’s ancient tactic to counter Osidian’s hollow crescent. Not that such a precaution seemed necessary. Regarding such a concentration of raw power, it seemed ridiculous to imagine that Osidian could triumph. A bleakness at the thought of his defeat alerted Carnelian to what he had not known he felt: that he still yearned for Osidian’s victory. Willing his gaze to penetrate the gloom behind Molochite’s second line, he was sure he could see the demonic face hanging leering above the Iron House. It was a perfect representation of the mind that moved that vast host. Adjusting his position in the saddle-chair made him aware his torn muscles were beginning to seize up. His joints ached where they had almost come apart. His skin shivered, remembering the brutal touch of the cross. He relived his pain, his shame, but also the naked children and Molochite’s bitter malice. Was it strange, then, that he did not wish that monster to triumph?

  Resuming his survey over the heads of the auxiliaries, he watched again the sartlar advance rearing its wall of curling dust. Though it looked solid, it was not. This was no wave of blood that would drown Molochite’s power, merely a mirage behind which lay nothing more terrible than a multitude of starved, poorly armed brutes. Would their flesh resist Molochite’s fire? Would their bones withstand the trampling thunder of his dragons? Carnelian chuckled mirthlessly. Still he could not let go hope of Osidian’s victory. Scanning the dust wall, he searched for any sign of him. A light flickered, there towards the far end of Osidian’s right flank. It flared again. A tiny flicker too close to the ground to be lightning. Dragonfire, then. Carnelian’s heart leapt as he had a thought. Could it be a feint to dra
w Molochite’s strength from his centre, weakening it perhaps enough to land a fatal blow? He looked back towards the Iron House and watched it for a signal. Nothing. The two lines might have been granite walls upon whose ramparts fires smoked.

  Suddenly the air was rent by a ragged, shrill chorus pumped out by many brass throats. The blasts reverberated beneath the heavens. Again the fanfare sounded, so harsh it seemed as if it might pare flesh from bones. Their commander, in the front rank, jabbed his lance as if he sought to spear the clouds. The men behind him answered him with a roar that seemed mild in comparison with the trumpets. Carnelian and Fern could feel the excitement around them heating. The battlecries rushed away along the line, turning distantly to a hiss that set the lances vibrating like a wind through ferns. Fern bared his teeth and nodded.

  Then Carnelian became aware the front ranks of their squadron were sliding forward in a packed mass of flesh and hide, of bronze and wood. He did not even need to signal his aquar. Her head dropped and she sprang forward. He was thrown from side to side. Faster and faster until the rocking smoothed and she was leaning into her run as her feet reached forward, clutched the ground with their claws, then whipped back. Carnelian adjusted his position, wound his wrist into the reins and clutched his lance in both hands. Its grip was greasy, but firm. Around him other riders were hazy jiggling shadows. Only glimpses of Fern’s pale leathers allowed him to know his friend was close.

  Peering ahead Carnelian could see little through the dust their aquar were scratching up from the ground. He lowered his head against the pelting sand, deafened by the furious drum and rush of their charge. From up ahead came muffled, crashing sounds. His aquar rocked him as she slowed, her head rising a little with her plumes. Then the ground became rough, uneven. He was jerked this way and that as her footfalls landed on things that collapsed suddenly like eggs beneath her weight. One of her legs snagging threw him forward. As she yanked her foot free he was punched back into his saddle-chair. Her head was high now, crowned with startled plumes, and she had slowed to a jerky stride. A shudder. Another as her footing slipped and she fought for balance. Carnelian clung to the saddle-chair, his lance lying flat across his knees, and he peered down to see the field of rocks or whatever it was they were fighting through. At any moment she might lose her footing and he would be thrown.