Ghoulslayer

Prologue

One by one, the lights began to fade. They burned brighter for a moment, like votives kindled by a breath, then blinked into oblivion. All across the Eventide they slipped from view, and a shroud spread over the sea, mobile and impenetrable, consuming everything.

‘What is it?’ whispered Veliger. He was at the uppermost rib of the Twelfth Prominent, resting his elbow on the head of his scythe, leaning out from the battlements. He had manned the walls for decades, but he had never seen anything like this. ‘There’s Lord Samorin,’ he whispered as, several leagues away, the Sixth Prominent pulsed brighter, its shell-like whirl illuminating the waves before the fortress sank from view, adding another pool of darkness to the growing void. Before the light faded something shimmered over the Eventide. It looked like gossamer caught in the breeze. ‘Rain?’ said Veliger, but there was something odd about how it flashed and banked.

Veliger wore the uniform of the Gravesward – a thick cloak of glossy white feathers clasped at the neck with an iron skull brooch and draped over lacquered black armour. He pulled the cloak closer as a breeze whipped through the shadows, even colder than usual, tightening around his chest and snatching his breath.

‘And there goes Lord Ophion,’ replied the figure next to him as another temple grew suddenly brighter. Meraspis wore the same uniform as Veliger. He was also carrying a scythe and a tall white shield designed to resemble a wing. Like Veliger, his head was gaunt, pale and hairless, but he was older, his forehead networked by lines and locked in a permanent frown.

They watched in silence as the fortress blazed then sank into the sea.

Veliger turned to look at the walls behind them, half expecting the light of their own temple to be fading. The Twelfth Prominent was unchanged. It was a mountainous edifice – a crumbling, spiral curve of bone, perched at the crest of an ancient, dusty wave. Souls burned at its heart like purple fire, bleeding through its walls, spilling amethyst over the peaks and troughs of the Eventide, and the fortress’ outline was clouded by white moths, circling in their millions like sea spray crashing over a hull. Light shimmered across the moths, radiated through the walls and flashed in Veliger’s eyes as he looked at Meraspis.

‘What’s happening?’

Meraspis did not seem to hear. He kept his gaze on the horizon. ‘What if they all vanish?’

Veliger looked up at the heavens, imagining a world without light. The stars would not help – they were ghosts, echoes of the living realms, with no interest in illuminating the underworlds of Shyish. Without the light of the prominents, the Eventide would be in darkness.

As he stared into the growing darkness, Veliger heard an unfamiliar sound. It was like pebbles clattering across a table. At first it was distant and gentle, but as the minutes passed it grew louder, becoming a roar.

The two men looked at each other in confusion as millions of white shards rattled across the Eventide. The sea that had never moved suddenly looked storm-tossed, and as the downpour moved closer it crashed violently against the fortress walls, filling the night with a deafening roar.

Meraspis stepped forwards and reached out from the embrasure. ‘Is that hail?’

Then he cursed and whirled away from Veliger, hissing in pain and clutching his hand.

‘What?’ cried Veliger, rushing over to him.

Meraspis shook his head, hunched over and gripping his hand. ‘By the Shroud,’ he muttered.

Veliger helped him stand, then gasped. Meraspis’ flesh had been torn apart. The rain had punched through his skin and bone, tearing the ligaments so badly that his hand looked like a scrap of bloody meat.

Meraspis cradled his butchered hand in his good one, groaning, cursing and staring at the rain.

Most of the shards had punched straight through his palm, but one of them was still wedged between his knuckles, gleaming white against the dark, exposed flesh.

Veliger gently plucked it from the wound and peered at it. ‘Bone?’

They both looked out at the storm, baffled.

Veliger dropped the shard and quickly bandaged Meraspis’ hand. The cuts were deep. He doubted the hand could be saved. But he could at least stem the bleeding.

Meraspis grimaced as Veliger worked, but did not cry out, despite the terrible pain he must be in.

‘We should go to Lord Aurun,’ he said hoarsely.

Veliger looked south to their nearest neighbour, the Barren Points. It was still smouldering with a steady, unruffled light.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Lord Aurun will know what to do. He’ll know what this is.’

Meraspis straightened up and clutched his broken hand to his chest. ‘Look,’ he said, nodding out across the battlements. ‘It’s stopping.’

The storm was already fading, the bone shards hitting the walls with less violence as the clouds rushed off to the south.

They watched the storm move away across the Eventide, still shocked by what had happened, then Veliger fastened his helmet and checked that the rest of his armour was fully attached, turning on his heel and heading for the stairs. ‘Aurun will know what this means. It will only take a couple of hours to get there.’

Meraspis shook his head. ‘We can’t leave the Unburied unattended. You go. I would slow you down anyway. I will wait here and tend to my wounds.’

Veliger hesitated, looking at Meraspis’ hand, then nodded. ‘Very well. I’ll find a Cerement priest. I’ll bring him back with me.’

Meraspis waved to the stairs. ‘Just go. And go quickly.’ He looked up at the clouds. ‘Even your armour might not protect you for long if that storm comes back.’

Each fortress was linked to its neighbour by a bridge, miles-long walkways slung from the gates like iron tendrils. The bridges were called wynds, and they stretched over the Eventide in graceful arcs. Some were only wide enough for five men to pass down them side by side, others were vast highways, and all of them were illuminated by the light of the temples at each end. As Veliger sprinted down the south wynd, his boots clanged against the ancient metal, scattering dust and moths. It was a long time since anyone had passed this way. Each fortress was almost self-sufficient, able to feed its garrison for months before requiring new supplies from the capital. The guards at the Barren Points would be shocked to see him rushing towards them. No, he realised, correcting himself, they would not. They must have seen the lights fading too. They would know exactly why he was coming.

As he ran, Veliger could not stop thinking about Meraspis’ ruined hand. How could weather do such a thing? Where had that storm come from?

Veliger had not gone far down the wynd when he heard the sound he had been dreading – the same ominous hiss he had heard earlier. Bones were falling across the Eventide again, filling the darkness with noise. He staggered to a halt, shaking his head and cursing. There was no way he could reach the Barren Points without the storm overtaking him. And what if his armour did not hold?

As he looked back at the fortress, he let out a horrified cry. A shadow had engulfed his home. The vast, curved surface of the Twelfth Prominent looked stained – as though someone had poured ink over its battlements.

Veliger stared harder and saw that the darkness was a heaving mass of smaller shapes – men, robed in shadow, flooding over the Eventide and climbing up the walls of the fortress like vermin. It was an attack. The idea was even more shocking than the bone rain. The prominents had not been attacked within living memory. The invaders were crossing the surface of the Eventide as though it were harmless. How could that be? The dead waves were lethal. No one could touch them and keep their sanity intact. Who were these people?

Veliger stumbled back the way he had come, dazed and muttering as the bone storm rushed towards him through the darkness.

He broke into a run, but it seemed agonisingly slow. With every step, the rain rushed towards him, crashing over the Eventide and rattling across the wynd.

He reached the end of the bridge and raced up the steps and through the fortress gates, dashing under the first roof he came to.

As he stood there, trying to catch his breath, the light blazed brighter, dazzling him. His eyes adjusted to the glare after a few seconds, and he saw a familiar figure sprinting towards him across the square.

‘Meraspis!’ he cried out, lowering his scythe.

The man crashed into him, sending them both toppling back down the steps.

Veliger rolled clear and leapt back onto his feet, moving with an agility borne of years of training.

‘What are you doing, Meraspis, have you–?’ His words died in his mouth as the man turned to face him. It was not Meraspis. It was a hunched, slavering wretch, a stooped horror with wild, staring eyes, whipcord limbs and flesh sagging from its bones. It looked like an animated cadaver. It was trembling and palsied, and its flesh was a dark, mottled grey, but it lunged at Veliger with shocking speed.

Veliger stepped back, moving without thought, led by the precepts of his training. His scythe flashed twice, slicing through the creature’s torso, and it slapped to the floor in two halves.

Veliger staggered away, shaking his head, staring at the butchered corpse. ‘What was that?’

With a shuddering groan, the corpse’s upper half jerked into motion and began crawling towards Veliger, dragging itself with its hands, trailing innards, its eyes still rolling.

‘Shroud!’ cried Veliger, hacking furiously at the thing until it collapsed and finally lay still.

Veliger’s relief was quickly replaced by a rush of horror. When he had looked back from the wynd, he had seen dozens of figures. What if they were all like this?

He gripped his scythe tighter and ran on, muttering in confusion.

Before he was halfway up the steps, the shadows began to shift and roll, rising up and gathering to block his way. Dozens of figures lurched towards him, their heads twitching and their breath coming in ragged gasps. They all resembled age-blackened corpses, shivering and frantic as they locked their blank, yellow gazes on him. Some clutched splinters of bone or fragments of broken weapons.

‘Mordants,’ whispered Veliger, feeling as though he were in a dream. He had heard tales of corpse-eaters but had never seen them first-hand. One or two occasionally sniffed their way into the prominents, but he had never heard of them attacking in these kinds of numbers. As Veliger looked at the tide of darkness gathering around him, he guessed that there must be hundreds of them clambering over the walls.

The mordants rushed towards him without a sound, twitching and juddering. They were like dumb animals that had taken human form.

Veliger staggered backwards, unbalanced by the ferocity of the assault, trying to stay calm, scything through the throng, filling the air with dark, treacly blood.

He charged up the steps, hacking and lunging and trying to break through the crush, but it was useless. The flesh-eaters forced him back until he lost his footing, nearly beheading himself in the process.

He leapt to his feet, hacked down more of the mordants and backed away, crying out in shock and anger.

The walls of the fortress burned brighter, scattering shadows across the square.

Several mordants broke from the main group and loped towards the wynd, their mindless gaze locked on the distant lights of Lord Aurun’s fortress.

‘No!’ shouted Veliger, backing towards the bridge. ‘You will not taint the Barren Points!’

The crowd rushed towards him. The prominent was now shining so brightly he could barely see.

He turned on his heel and raced back towards the bridge, barring the entrance to the wynd. He would not let the mordants go any further into the princedom.

Then the light of the fortress failed, plunging him into darkness.

Veliger could see nothing but an after-image of the walls, burned across his vision.

He heard breathing all around him in the dark – ragged, hoarse gasps, approaching from every direction.

There was a drum of rushing feet as the mordants attacked.

Veliger hefted his scythe back and forth, cutting down shapes he could not see, thudding the blade into thrashing limbs.

Hands clawed at his back and face, tearing at his armour, pulling him down.

Pain erupted across his body, and he heard the storm wash across the square, punching bones through his armour and skin.

Blood rushed into his eyes and he fell, crushed by the weight of bodies, howling in agony.