by David Hair
Xoredh reeled, then stormed forward, with a new plan: he kept his defences high and his stance aggressive, going for the head – and meeting a defence so perfect the man could as well have been a wall – and then came the expected riposte.
Let it through . . .
He took the blade right through his belly, roaring in agony, howling as the old man tore the blade sideways and it lodged against his spine. He lost all feeling in his lower body . . .
. . . but his arms still worked. He dropped his own blade and as he toppled forward, his guts spewing through the rent in his abdomen, he caught the old man’s arm. With the last of his vanishing strength, he pulled that arm towards him . . . and bit.
Then he crawled away to pull in healing gnosis as the old man tried to fight the ichor – the blood of the dead – and he failed, because he too was already dead.
‘No . . .’ the old man whispered as he realised the inevitable, and then, ‘Mother—’
And then he was gone, clothing and weapon lying lifeless on the snowy rock, his body collapsing into pale smoke that blew away.
Got you, khinzir . . .
It was a long time before Xoredh could move again, though: the gnosis was hard to reach here, even with the old man gone. By the time his flesh had reknit and his spine reset, too much of his blackened blood stained the frosted stone. But he managed to stagger upright, pulling on Abraxas’ powers like never before. He could feel the very aether quivering, as if lightning strikes were pulsing through it, a rhythmic discharge of energy that grew ever stronger. It felt as if all of creation were being unravelled.
It took him a moment to realise – and then he screamed in fright, ‘The Master has begun – it’s TIME, and I’m nowhere . . .’
Hauling himself upright on kinesis, morphic-gnosis and sheer will, he reclaimed his blade and staggered for the tunnel: surely the place Waqar had come to find.
In a few paces he was striding; in a few more, he was running on limbs that shrieked for mercy, his leg-bones, shattered by three falls and barely reknit, grinding agonisingly. But he had to go on.
Waqar must die . . . I must do as the Master commanded, or I’m lost for ever . . .
*
Waqar ran, pounding down the tunnel as it descended past stalagmites and stalactites, a path smoothed with Earth-gnosis zigzagging past ancient rock pillars and around still pools of luminous water.
Behind him, he heard blades hammering together, the clanging of a dozen blacksmiths.
Xoredh will prevail, logic told him. Caedmor can’t hold against the daemon.
His breathing was ragged, his head beating dizzily as he tried to take in more air – the healer hadn’t been lying; he was a long way from battle-ready, but he had no choice.
He lost the sounds of battle as he plunged deeper into the mountain, until all he could hear were his own gusting breath and the slapping of his boot soles. He rounded another bend – and staggered to a halt in a wide-open space like the inside of a volcano, open to the sky.
There was no lava pit, though, but the roots of a vast tree extending up into the heavens. ‘The Elétfa,’ he gasped. Valdyr’s tree. He looked into the branches and saw a green and blue orb wreathed in white, spinning slowly in the bower of the branches. The whole of it was impossible. Already too vast for the space that contained it, it grew as he approached.
Above it he could see a naked man and woman locked together, coupling in the skies. It took him a moment to realise the white-haired skull-faced woman was Jehana – and her face was contorted in horror and revulsion.
He cried out in shock and rage even as he realised that an old woman clad in a simple dun shift was standing before the tree, her arms raised in rejection and horror.
She turned to him, her face wild with desperation, and shouted, ‘You must make her stop!’
He barely registered the woman, for his eyes had locked on his beloved sister, writhing in the dark other’s grasp, her head thrown back as she cried out in agony and dread.
He pushed past the old woman – then turned back to her to beg her aid, because he knew nothing of the dwyma or what was needed. I should have stayed with Valdyr Sarkany at Cuz Sarkan, he realised belatedly. I should have embraced this power, not run from it . . .
But even as he opened his mouth to speak, a dark shape flashed from the shadows and scythed the woman down: a double-handed slash of a scimitar passing right through her waist and spilling her in two pieces on the ground, sending blood spraying all round her. Her body dissolved into speckles of glittering dust that was sucked into the Elétfa . . .
Leaving Waqar alone with his cousin.
Xoredh extended his blade, then gazed upwards, his face alive with wonder – and fear. Waqar extended his own weapon, but he could barely hold the scimitar, so badly were his hands shaking with exhaustion and horror. It was painful to drag his eyes from Jehana’s torment in the vastness above him, but he had no choice.
‘Xoredh,’ he said, ‘we must stop this—’
‘Stop it? You jest, Cousin – what I have to do is to take your head and ensure it happens, for my place in Paradise – the reward my Master promised me – depends on it.’
He lunged with his blade, Waqar parried and the fatal dance began . . .
*
Xoredh tried to kindle gnostic energy and failed, only then realising that this place was too steeped in dwyma for his daemon-enhanced power.
Waqar could still use the gnosis – his shields were intact – but he was already wheezing, and his spittle was bloody . . . He was almost dead on his feet.
But physically, Xoredh wasn’t a lot better off – from the moment he’d entered the chamber, all the spells repairing his battered body had begun to fail, forcing him to take the initiative. He battered Waqar’s blade aside, lunging in, his belly straining the newly healed scars holding him together even as he began to bleed internally again.
But Waqar countered, again and again, and as Xoredh’s limbs started to wobble, he suddenly realised that this was not the foregone conclusion he needed it to be . . . but immortality and eternal might were at stake. Xoredh roared and attacked again, worked an opening and then thrust in, hard, with all his fading strength—
—only to be blocked by Waqar – and this time the stomach wound inflicted by the old man’s blade did split and Xoredh howled at the pain ripping through his abdomen and grabbing at his belly, trying to prevent his intestines from bursting out again.
Then Waqar’s boot lashed out, kicking him in the thigh, and the barely reformed bone snapped again. Howling in despair and traumatised by unspeakable pain, he fell to one knee, the impact jarring through him. He lost his grip and dropped his scimitar, then Waqar kicked it away even as he tried to lash out with a spell that never caught.
The old man beat me after all . . .
He looked up at Waqar’s blade kissing his throat, reeling in disbelief that all his careful plotting and limitless dreams could end so.
‘Mercy,’ he croaked, knowing there would be none.
Waqar drew back his sword arm.
‘Do you know,’ Xoredh croaked through the pain, ‘that when Naxius gave my father a place in his cabal, for any of his family, he considered offering you? Ironic, ai?’
Waqar’s blade flashed.
Xoredh felt a wave of icy coldness and his vision spun. The floor smacked into his head and he lay blinking . . . three feet from where his neck stump was pumping black ichor onto the rock.
‘I think Rashid chose well,’ Waqar said, as Xoredh plummeted into a well of darkness.
34
The Fall
Inevitability
The sucker-punch that wins the bout. The hidden card that scoops the game. The dazzling riposte when all looks lost: these are what fire our dreams and make us imagine that on any given day, anything could happen.
But the truth is that we only remember these moments for their rarity. In reality, in the arenas that truly matter, the powerful have all the weapo
ns and hold all the cards. The outcome is preordained by the years of preparation that have gone into reaching that moment. The result is inevitable.
ERVYN NAXIUS, FATE: A LECTURE, RYM 935
The Celestium, Pallas, Rondelmar
Martrois 936
He kept the link open a moment longer and received Solon’s response:
. . . and stared at the knife-point poised over his right eyeball.
‘I did it,’ he panted. ‘It’s done. You promised to release me.’
‘So I did,’ drawled the lean, whiskery Volsai holding the dagger. Patcheart turned to the watching Endus Rykjard, who was looking very much alive. ‘Are you satisfied, Capitano?’
Rykjard considered while Roland waited, unable to breathe, let alone think past that silvery steel tip filling his vision. Then the Hollenian nodded. ‘Yes, release him.’
Patcheart nodded – and then the point slammed into Roland’s eye-socket in a blaze of searing, brief pain, that ended a moment later.
*
‘And so is he released from this mortal torment that is life,’ Patcheart remarked casually, pulling out the dagger and wiping the blood on de Farenbrette’s tunic before sheathing it. The knight hung lifeless in his bonds, blood running from the ruined socket. ‘Are you convinced, Capitano Rykjard?’
Rykjard looked round the room at his second-in-command, Hanzi Bochlyn, a bluff Hollenian with a priestly demeanour, at the stolid Brigeda and finally at Calan Dubrayle, a small, dapper figure in the corner.
‘De Farenbrette did just as you said he would,’ Rykjard admitted. ‘And Takwyth has indeed isolated my legions, one inside Esdale and the other outside the northern gates, also as you predicted, so clearly you were right: they had no intention of paying me – or letting me or my men leave.’ He drummed his fingers angrily, then turned back to Dubrayle. ‘You swear you can buy off the Pallacian legions?’
The Treasurer answered, ‘They can see how Takwyth’s reign is going to be: their kin are being starved in the docklands and only Corani are being advanced. People say Pallacian soldiers are Esdale men, but they forget it’s the poor who join the army – and that means docklanders. Esdale men are just transplanted docklanders – and they’re furious about the brutality Takwyth’s meting out on their kin. They’ve heard his rants – and they heard the Sacrecour prince’s words about his false queen when she pardoned him. They know Takwyth’s seized the Celestium and they’re hearkening to the rumours that he’ll even execute the Grand Prelate, an act of utter infamy and sacrilege.’
‘And don’t forget that Lyra promised the people a place at the table of power and now it’s been snatched away,’ Patcheart put in. ‘The whole city is seething right now. With the right nudge, that’ll overcome their fear.’
‘The right nudge being?’
Dubrayle smiled coolly. ‘I’ve secreted away enough bullion to buy off every Pallacian legion commander in the region. For the right price, they’ll swing. But we need you too, Capitano Rykjard: two legions, ten thousand men already on site – that’s enough to make a huge difference. You’ve seen how Takwyth wishes you dealt with – wouldn’t you rather be on the winning side – and paid?’
Patcheart glanced at Brigeda, hoping.
‘Where’s the queen in all this?’ Rykjard asked. ‘I accept your claim that the woman Takwyth is keeping isn’t her – but where’s the real Lyra?’
‘In hiding,’ Dubrayle replied. ‘Deepest concealment. I can’t say more.’
‘That’s the truth of it,’ Patcheart threw in, although Basia hadn’t seen fit to tell him, so he didn’t actually have a clue.
‘She’ll come out when she’s ready,’ Brigeda added.
Rykjard’s fingers rattled the table again, then he said, ‘I can’t go back to Hollenia right now, so I may as well dig in. But I want the Knight-Commander role – with commensurate land and titles – as well as the money. And Takwyth gets the axe: no reprieves, no exiles, no mercy. He ordered de Farenbrette to kill me. And Lann Wilfort was my friend.’
Dubrayle considered his demands, then smiled. ‘I think the queen would welcome a non-partisan presence as Knight-Commander after all this. Capitano, I accept your terms.’ He rose and extended a hand. ‘Thank you, Lord Rykjard.’
The mercenary captain smiled.
Patcheart grinned at Briggy. ‘Let’s be about it,’ he drawled. ‘We’ve got some rabble to rouse.’
Tockburn, Pallas
Ari Frankel came awake from the grey misery of another nightmare in which the bodies of his family and friends dangled just above his head, covered in feasting, fighting crows. But as the dream faded, the cawing of the crows was replaced by a boisterous chanting sound that carried to his below-ground hideaway.
‘BRING OUT THE QUEEN,’ he heard. ‘BRING OUT THE QUEEN—’
What in Hel? He pushed aside the blanket and stood on tiptoes to peer through the shuttered window above his head. The people marching past were just dark shapes smeared with the red of the setting sun, but their tramping feet made the stones quiver, sending tremors through his bones.
‘BRING OUT THE QUEEN . . .’
People say the woman in the royal suite isn’t Lyra – that’s what they say the Sacrecour prince screamed on the gallows . . . What if it’s true?
He emptied his water cup and stood, dazed from lack of food. There had been no food brought into the city since Takwyth sacked the docks. But the chanting woke him, the irresistible lure of the crowd.
They’re angry, they’re hungry and they’re desperate.
He couldn’t have resisted if he had wanted to. He had nothing left – no money or food – and his refuge was empty, for Lazar’s men had vanished, slipping away into the countryside like the brigands they’d always been. All he had left were his people, his Sufferers.
He fumbled on his clothes then clambered up the ladder and pushed open the cellar hatch, which felt like a monumental effort, for he hadn’t eaten more than a morsel of bread in three days. But when he stumbled out into the street, the frisson of rebellion revived him enough that he could seize the shoulder of another man and shout along; ‘Bring out the queen—’ while he tried to get his bearings.
Ahead of them was Roidan Heights, a black silhouette against the setting sun. We’re marching on the Bastion, he realised. For a moment he was terrified, then the energy of the crowd took him up and he managed to stand on his own, punching the air in time with his comrades, screaming, ‘Bring out the queen . . .’
‘Bring out the queen . . .’
‘BRING OUT THE QUEEN . . .’
‘Ma, ma, look—’ a child said in an awed voice. ‘Look – it’s Ari
Frankel—’
Bodies closed in and he felt a surge of terror as hands grabbed him, pulling at him, and he opened his mouth to cry for help – but then he was hoisted on a burly young man’s shoulders and he found himself above a sea of faces, big eyes shining in the fiery light of dusk, and mouths were calling his name: thousands of faces, streaming before and behind him, emerging from every alley, every side, all shrieking, ‘FRANKEL—’
‘FRANKEL, FRANKEL, FRANKEL . . .’
He clasped hands, applauded them, punched the air, babbled incoherently as all reached up to touch him, crying his name as if he were Corineus Himself, come down from on high to save them all. Tears streamed down his face and his heart swelled to bursting.
I’m home, he thought wildly, irrationally, honestly. I’ve come home . . .
The Bastion
I don’t understand . . . Solon stared down from the turret of the gatehouse overlooking the Place d’Accord. The fiery glow of sunset was fading into night and the full moon dominated the eastern hemisphere, shining down on the giant square like a second sun. Mater Lune, as the Sollans called her, the Mother
of Madness, was reigning tonight.
The massive square was a sea of torchlight and upturned angry faces – and worse, every gate and postern of the Bastion was reporting the same thing. The entire city had risen, from the docklands to Esdale, from Gravenhurst to Nordale and every block and square between. Men, women and children, craftsmen, dockers, labourers, all with their families in tow – and worse, there were soldiers too, in their uniforms and armed.
‘BRING OUT THE QUEEN,’ they were chanting. ‘BRING OUT THE QUEEN—’
They know, he thought helplessly, sweat beginning to soak his armpits and the hair beneath his helm and running into his eyes. They know.
These are the same people who called my name in praise just a few days ago. I saved them from the Sacrecours and now I’m saving them from themselves – how can they be so fickle?
‘Where’s fucking Rollo?’ he demanded of a quaking Nestor Sulpeter. ‘Kore’s Balls, if he’s with that Hollenian’s wives right now, I’ll have his testicles hacked off.’
‘I can’t reach him,’ Sulpeter bleated.
Dear Kore, how on Urte did I ever think of him as promising?
He turned and planted himself squarely before the young man. ‘Then. Try. Again.’ He sprayed spittle over Nestor’s face. ‘I want him here. Now.’
Nestor stammered something incoherent and fled. The tribunes and battle-magi arrayed around him all shuffled awkwardly. Solon glared at them, flung his arm wide to encompass the crowd in the square below and roared, ‘Look at them—’ He amplified his voice above the clamour below. ‘Pallacian ingrates – we saved them from tyranny and still they want more. Dear Kore, I wouldn’t trade a thousand of the spineless, lying mongrels for a single true-hearted Corani lad. I’ll break them: they can hammer on my door all they bloody like, but they’ll get nothing from me: nothing – I am Solon Takwyth and I concede not one thing: they can all go to Hel—’
As he ran out of breath, his tirade petered out and he heard his words bouncing off walls. The crowd below had fallen silent as he began to shout and he suddenly realised he’d amplified his voice to carry right through the plaza. He spun and strode to the parapet, planted a foot and glared down.