Destroyer of Worlds

3

Beyond the walls, the Great Plain stretched to the purple mountains on the horizon where the dark smudge of the Enemy gathered. Faint tremors already ran through the ground. The approaching threat was starkly contrasted with the peace of their surroundings, where only the gentle breeze stirred the long grass, accompanied by the sound of crickets.

'All right,' Ruth said. 'You got me. Where are they?'

Veitch continued to scan the grasslands before announcing, 'Got to be some kind of magic. Hidden in plain sight kind of thing.'

'Glamour,' Church replied. 'The Enemy won't see them till we want them to be seen. They won't be able to judge the scale of our forces, or make preparations for our secret weapons.'

He led them forwards a few paces until they felt the sensation of passing through a heavy curtain. With a pop, they emerged into the same scenery now filled with more than a hundred Brothers and Sisters of Dragons standing in ranks. Decebalus's barking voice emerged from their midst.

'Blimey,' Veitch said. 'He's got some lungs on him. Mallory made a good choice for sergeant major.'

'We are all going to die!' Decebalus bellowed as he marched through the Army of Dragons. 'Enjoy your last moments, and take five of the enemy with you when you pass!'

Behind the Brothers and Sisters, a flag bearing a blue dragon on a white background fluttered above their small, hastily assembled camp.

'You may think you are few in number, but you are worth more than ten, more than twenty, more than a hundred of the Enemy!' Decebalus roared. 'The Pendragon Spirit glows within our hearts, joining us together as one. One mind, one body. We care for each other, we protect each other and we strike as one weapon!'

Filled with pride, Church watched the brave, determined faces as Decebalus split the army up into groups of five to prepare for the tasks he had assigned them.

'Do you think they're up to it?' Ruth asked. 'We learned on the job, and they've not been through a fraction of the things we've experienced.'

'Look at them — they're great,' Church replied.

Decebalus summoned the three of them over to a group of five strapping themselves into silver and blue armour. 'Greet our brave,' Decebalus said. 'They have volunteered to scout the Enemy lines. A dangerous task.'

Church felt uncomfortable when the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons looked at him with clear awe. 'Who are you?' he asked.

'Sound off!' Decebalus shouted when the group simply gaped.

'Leon Corbett,' the first said, with a strong Midlands accent. He towered over the others and had long, wavy hair and a tribal tattoo around his upper right arm.

'Kelly Broadbent,' ventured the woman next to him. She had auburn hair and something of Ruth about her, Church thought.

'Adam Garrett.' This one had spiky brown hair and dark-brown eyes. Hunter or Veitch, Church thought. He was still astonished how Existence played out the same archetypes through each team.

The fourth introduced herself with the lyrical name of Aurelia Verdin. She was in her early twenties. 'I'm the horse expert,' she said confidently. 'The others won't be able to keep up.'

'And I'm Richard Flynn.' Church saw he was definitely the Shavi of the group, a gentle Glaswegian barely out of his teens, with green-grey eyes and a touch of the mystical about him.

'I'm proud of you all,' Church said, shaking each of their hands in turn. 'It's a dangerous mission, but the information you bring back will help us win.'

Once the group had mounted their horses and were looking towards the horizon, Ruth said, 'Decebalus introduced them to us because he thinks there's a good chance they're not coming back.'

'They looked like a strong team. If any can get back, it's them.'

'How many of these people are going to die, Church?' Ruth pressed. 'You saved them all from being killed in their own times…' She flashed a glance at Veitch, who didn't meet her gaze. 'Only for them to die now.'

Veitch studied the groups as they put on their armour and inspected their weapons, a jarring combination of strength and innocence. 'Nobody lives for ever.'

'That's a cliche.'

'It's true. All of us, we're privileged. For a short space of time, we've been given something that no one else gets to have. That connection with something big. Knowing that we've got a part to play. That we mean something. That we're not just here to work and earn and eat and drink and die. That's a big thing.' His eyes blazed. 'There's a price for everything. That's one of those hidden rules you lot keep banging on about. And if the price for that is you give up your life, I reckon it's worth paying. And I bet that lot do too. Once you've tasted it, nothing else compares.'

Tom waited on the edge of the Army of Dragons' camp, smoking furtively. 'If you've finished with your morning constitutional, there's something you ought to see,' he said. He gestured towards a vast expanse of rolling grassland.

'What?' Church said.

'Why isn't Shavi here?' Tom snapped. 'He's the only one of you with any sense. Look!'

Church, Ruth and Veitch looked again, and this time they saw a faint wavering in the air over the plain, like a heat haze.

'More glamour?' Church said.

'Break out the cakes and ale.' Tom strode ahead. 'An additional layer of camouflage, as much to protect the delicate sensibilities of mortals as anything. Follow me.'

The sensation of the heavy curtain passed again before they emerged into a cacophony of song and music, bellows, roaring laughter, incessant chatter and the clatter of weapons, followed a split second later by an exhilarating blaze of colour and movement.

Sprawling for several miles was a tent city comprising numerous camps merging into one chaotic mess. Banners flew above the largest tents, marked with runes or symbols — dragons, birds, lightning bolts.

Ruth involuntarily put her hands to her ears at the volume. They were all mesmerised by the sensory assault: the rich aromas of roasting meat and campfire smoke, spices and perfumes, the sulphurous blast of furnaces, oiled leather, mead.

Everywhere people surged, talking, wrestling, arguing, fighting, having sex, drinking, laughing, barking orders, calling for aid.

Not people, Church thought. Gods.

The camp nearest to them belonged to the Aesir. Now recovered from the wounds he had received in Norway, Tyr engaged Freyja in sexual banter before winking and moving on through a cascade of sparks where a blacksmith worked an axe-blade on an anvil in the entrance to a smoky tent.

'These are all the gods who've joined the fight?' Ruth asked.

'From every Great Dominion bar one — the Egyptians, which you appear to have decimated,' Tom replied. 'That Hunter has an annoyingly flamboyant personality, but he makes a convincing argument. These gods have barely communed since the beginning of this cycle of Existence, yet here they are, cheek by jowl. And more importantly, they are not killing each other, as one would expect. What you have achieved here is huge, and only the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons could have done it.'

'I don't understand why they listened to us,' Veitch said.

'That's because you're an idiot. They respect you, God knows why. They see things in you that you don't see yourself. They see in you themselves as infants.'

'You mean humanity is going to end up like them?' Ruth said. 'How depressing.'

'No, you'll be better, because you've got the Pendragon Spirit. You're Existence's new, refined model.'

A tremendous clamour drew them to a large tent filled with Aesir swigging from flagons of mead as they cheered and argued around a large oaken table where two men arm-wrestled, the veins on their foreheads standing out, faces like stone from the concentration, sinews bulging. Most were so drunk they could barely stand.

'They have been locked in struggle for two hours, neither of them gaining the slightest advantage.' Freyja appeared beside them, her potent sexuality making their heads spin.

One of the men was Thor, his wild mane of hair a fiery red, his eyes as grey as the skies over the northern wastes. The other was Chinese, his body just as strong, his features marred by a ragged scar that necessitated a patch over his left eye. He was bald with a long, black ponytail. A silver axe etched with red Chinese characters rested against the table next to Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.

'Lei-Gong.' Church recognised the figure from the assemblage of gods beneath the Forbidden Palace in Beijing.

'Stop now!' Freyja called. 'We have honoured guests. Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.'

Reluctantly, Thor and Lei-Gong broke their grip.

'This pretender lays claim to control of the storm and the lightning and the thunder,' Thor bellowed.

'You are the pretender,' Lei-Gong said.

'And so it begins.' Tom sighed.

'Do not heed those two,' Freyja said. 'They are both hot-headed. The rest of my brothers and sisters, and my cousins, have experienced a revelation during our brief time here-'

'A rude awakening,' Tom interjected.

'Do not diminish us, True Thomas. During all our time, we have — each family group — believed ourselves to be the pinnacle of Existence. To accept that we have equals is…' A shadow crossed her face. 'Crushing.'

'Tough,' Veitch said sardonically.

'Yet also liberating,' Freyja continued. 'I have found much in common with my cousins, and a greater understanding of our place within Existence. We all, ultimately, seek wisdom, do we not, and that is its own reward?'

'Will that make you any less manipulative?' Church asked.

Freyja smiled. 'It is the nature of all living things to have their own agenda. And to have their own flaws.' She gently took Tom's hand, and the others were all surprised to see him flinch. 'How I admire your ring, True Thomas. Andvarinaut. Why, is that not cursed to bring destruction to all who possess it?' Her smile felt like the wind across a frozen plain. She gave a slight, ironic bow, and left.

'What's going on with you two?' Church said. 'When you said Freyja gave you that ring to help us find what we were looking for, you didn't say it was cursed.'

'Though your arrogance tells you otherwise, I do not answer to you.'

'What's the curse? What have you done, Tom?'

A terrible, haunted quality sparked briefly in Tom's eyes, and then he almost ran from the tent and lost himself in the throng outside.