Destroyer of Worlds

9

Navigating the deserted, barely lit upper reaches of the palace was not easy. Hunter led the way with a torch snatched as they climbed the stairs in the east tower. To his left, Mallory's sword provided its own blue light to guide them, while at the rear, the Morrigan had risen in Caitlin, who now moved like a jungle cat. The possession brought physical change too, her eyes becoming a deeper black, her muscles tauter. Gripping her axe effortlessly, she appeared to hear things beyond even her comrades' sharpened perceptions.

Climbing the last flight of stairs, they entered an echoing loft space beneath the ancient oak rafters that supported the palace's pitched roof. Sleeping birds rested on every beam and in every nook and cranny above their heads, the floor white with their excrement.

Caitlin rested an unnaturally cold hand on Hunter's shoulder, her head half-cocked as she listened. 'There's someone up ahead.'

'You need to get yourself a sword,' Mallory said.

'Don't you worry about me,' Hunter replied. 'Now, who loves the stink of bird droppings enough to hide out up here?'

The loft area branched right and then broke off in three directions over the palace's wings. As they reached the junction, an ear-splitting, high-pitched shriek ripped out of the dark. The birds erupted from their roosts, driving Mallory, Hunter and Caitlin apart as they surged around the enclosed space.

One glimpse of Caitlin wielding her axe in a cloud of feathers and blood reached Mallory before he was driven away by talons and beaks, bodies battering him like stones. Disoriented by the beat of wings, he staggered back until he felt the wall against his shoulder.

Amidst the chaos he glimpsed a figure ahead, seemingly unmoved by the storm: a woman's hair, a cheek, an eye. In the gradual accumulation of information, a deep cold ran through him, driving out all rational thought. He propelled himself through the birds towards her.

His worst fears were confirmed: a woman in her late twenties stood before him, blond hair tied back, face weary from too much struggle too soon. A woman from his old life, before he was a Brother of Dragons, forced to endure an atrocity of Mallory's making that ironically set him on the path to becoming who he was.

The emotions her face dredged up blinded him to the knowledge that she couldn't possibly be there. He grasped her hand, desperate to tell her all the things he should have said but never had the chance, but all that came out was a weak, 'I'm sorry.'

The woman's eyes glittered hatefully. Through the haze of his crushing guilt, Mallory finally noticed something off-kilter about her. Pain jabbed into the back of his hand, drawing his attention to fingers that were no long the slender, pale ones he had grabbed but made of twisted blackthorn. A drop of his blood gleamed on the end of one sharp protrusion.

The woman's face unpacked, altered, until what remained was a head that appeared to be constructed of crumpled paper with black, blinking eyes hovering above a malicious grin. The body was now constructed wholly from the same twisted strands of blackthorn.

Mallory threw himself back. 'I saw you. In Ogma's library.'

The creature lifted its hand high, tilted back its head and dripped Mallory's blood into its open mouth. 'Now we are joined for all time,' it said in a voice like rustling paper, 'and that will not be for long.' It advanced on Mallory, one finger outstretched as if accusing him.

Scrambling to his feet, Mallory hacked off the blackthorn creature's arm. With a crackle, the forearm regrew from the stump, the index finger extending into an even more brutal point.

'You cannot stop me,' the creature said. 'Nothing ever stops me.'

Mallory lopped off the arm again, but it grew back just as quickly.

From out of the whirling birds, Hunter exploded into the creature. An instant later Caitlin was at his side, axe at the ready.

'Should have brought some defoliant.' Hunter watched the creature pick itself up and turn those chilling black eyes upon him.

'Take it easy,' Mallory said. 'Your weapons can't hurt it.'

For a second the creature weighed an attack, and then another high-pitched shriek increased the birds' wild activity. Battering her way through the wall of feather, beak and talon, Caitlin searched for their adversary, but there was no longer any sign of it.

They retreated to the only entrance to the loft space and waited until the birds had calmed and returned to their roosts. A careful investigation throughout the branching wings of the loft found only a ragged hole into the night and a potential escape route across the roofs of the city.

As they looked out over the lights of the Court of the Soaring Spirit, Hunter said, 'You hear that?'

At first they thought it was the thunder of an approaching storm until faint metallic notes rose up amongst the pounding. 'The Enemy,' Caitlin said. 'They've reached the Great Plain. It won't be long before they're at the city walls.'

Mallory's attention was caught by the distant outline of the Burning Man simmering in the night sky. 'The fire's rising within it, see?' he noted. 'It's nearly done. Soon the Void will here, and when that happens the clock stops. It's the end of the world for all of us.'