God of Broken Things

Chapter 26

A number of Clansfolk warriors tried to challenge me as I passed through their halls with my newborn blade writhing eagerly in my hand, lusting to feast on more blood. “Follow me,” I said, and they did. My magic twisted in their heads and gave them no choice. Even a few druí tried to stop me but their relatively untrained magic was nothing to me now, and their pacted spirits were busy elsewhere.

I was no longer afraid of what I could do if I let myself go.

I was the monster.

I left the stone doors of Kil Noth with a small army at my back, found my coterie and acquired yet more warriors from the town below. Once I boasted enough swords and spears the recruitment carried its own momentum and most followed me by their own choice – people saw the swelling numbers and felt that irresistible call to glory. They were sucked in as if I were the very centre of a whirlpool. I had manipulated crowds before but this was something deeper. My magic mixed with their feelings to form an army burning to fight. It was a heady thing to know that my will would be done without having to say a single word.

The Worm of Magic reared its ugly head inside me and shouted YES! This was what it had always wanted for me, but I was in total control of my magic. Instead of giving into it I was bending it to my will to open up my true potential as a tyrant. This is what I was born for: not to be a sacrifice for my grandmother’s goals, not to be used and disposed of as troublesome trash for my old mentor

Byzant. Oh no – I was meant to lead armies and save the world of humans.

It felt a little like being a god.

A warband of ritually scarred and heavily tattooed warriors from Dun Clachan and a few other Clansfolk from all over met me at the edge of town, having just arrived after hearing of the fall of Dun Bhailiol. They were spoiling for a fight, especially if it was not on their own holds’ doorsteps. They shoved into the crowd to marvel at and mock the weak-kneed warriors of Kil Noth for accepting a thin-blooded Setharii as their war leader.

“I’m half Clansfolk,” I shouted back. “And boast the black-hearted bastard halves of both our peoples. Follow me if you want to take some heads, or stay and whine like those toothless elders and mewling babes cowering in their hold.”

That sort of bravado seemed to tickle their fancy. I subtly encouraged that: a prod here, a suggestion there…

The Free Towns Alliance was still three days off if their last report was accurate. If we could hold the Skallgrim until then we had a chance of survival and it would offer us breathing room to figure out what to do about Elder Magus Abrax-Masud, the ravak and whatever blood sorcery-using halrúna accompanied them. The human warriors and daemons I would leave to Eva’s superior knowledge and skills.

We loaded up every cart and pony with food and supplies and marched north towards the Setharii camp. I’d learned a lot about leadership simply from watching Eva, but I couldn’t always rely on her martial prowess to pull my arse from the fire, so I spent the time learning to become a warrior by dipping in and out of people’s thoughts. Sword techniques, the use of shields as lethal weapons crushing faces and throats, small squad tactics, ambushes, using terrain to your advantage… some of it was useless to me, things that had to be learned more by muscle repetition than by the head. Others were now safety nestled inside my mind, borrowed memories integrating with my own, more than I had ever tried to absorb before. My head began to ache and I was forced to stop. It seemed there was a limit to how much my brain could absorb at once.

By the time we reached camp my head was pounding with a knowledge-hangover, but I felt almost competent now. I surveyed the forces at my disposal, at least a thousand added to the Setharii forces left in the camp. We were outnumbered by five to one at best but our magi were worth far more than haphazardly-trained halrúna. Secca and Vincent were there to meet me, their coteries closed around them until they realised that it was me in charge of this horde of Clansfolk. Then they closed up even tighter, shields up.

“Has Eva returned yet?” I demanded, as I strode right on past them and into the camp.

“Not yet,” Secca answered, seeming surprised to see me. She ordered her wardens to stand down, which they did with great reluctance. “We thought you had fled this place for good.”

“None of us are that lucky,” I replied, distracted as pain spiked in my skull and then subsided. The worst was over with, and now it was time to concentrate fully on the war ahead. “The terrain is rough but she should be back from the front shortly, everything going well. Then we can begin to form a battle plan. Oh, and Granville is dead.”

Vincent hissed. “How?”

I paused. “Best we discuss this in private.”

I took them into my tent and told them everything they needed to know of recent events. I left out any mention of my exploits within the daemonic realm and the foul rite, Dissever, and what I did to my grandmother. Best not to terrify them completely.

They sat in appalled silence. “How do we deal with an elder tyrant?” Secca asked, staring at me with wide eyes.

“Luckily you have a tyrant for a leader,” I said. “We will find a way, even if it is fucking petrifying. Abrax-Masud is everything that the Arcanum always feared I would become. Granville and I bought Eva and Cormac enough time to get out of there, or so I hope. We–”

A distant voice cried out and a rumble of chatter began to rise from the army gathered around us. Jovian poked his head in. “Clansfolk arriving from the north. They ask for you. They have a prisoner.”

I rubbed my hands together. “Excellent. Bring him here.” He caught the malevolent look in my eye, grinned and nodded.

Secca and Vincent seemed less pleased. “What will you do with him?” Vincent asked.

“What I have to,” I replied. “It should be painless and far more productive than any alternative.”

They shifted uncomfortably on their seats but couldn’t think of any reasonable objection. The naked prisoner was ushered in and shoved onto the bed. His hands were bound tight enough to turn them purple and he looked far more worse for wear than I recalled. His flesh was mottled with bruises, eyes swollen and black and his lips split like a log, red and puffy and sore. It was more or less what I had expected of the folk I’d put in charge of him. At least he was alive.

I cut his bonds with Dissever and stepped back. “Have no fear, you will not be harmed.” I massaged his thoughts to put him at ease and place him into a compliant frame of mind, then I slid deep into his brain like a knife through the eye, and just as deadly if I wanted it to be.

“What do you wish to know?” he asked in guttural Setharii. He was an educated man of some influence if his surface thoughts rang true. Certainly his fancy helm and clothing had been indicative of that when I chose him.

“Why did you attack Setharis?” Vincent demanded. “We were forced to,” he answered honestly.

Secca’s gaze flicked to me and I nodded. “He cannot lie, or withhold information.”

“Explain,” she continued. “Tell us everything.” “Since beyond my great-grandfather’s time the honoured halrúna have paid well for salvage from ruins of a vanished empire far to the south across the Cyrulean Sea.”

I winced, knowing exactly which ancient magical empire they had in mind.

“Some ships go and are never seen again. Others return with clay tablets, trinkets and pots. Thirty years ago my grandfather returned with a wise man dark of skin and black of hair, an ancient ruler of that old empire.”

“This must be false,” Vincent said. “Ancient Escharr was destroyed and the last of their magi sought refuge in their outpost at Setharis. They all died far too long ago to be here, now.”

“Nay,” the man said. “It was the aftermath of a great storm and new ruins had been revealed to brave Skallgrim explorers long of limb and sharp of eye. He was dug from an undisturbed tomb buried below mounds of rubble, a place only the snake and the scorpion had entered for untold years. They found him alive and waiting.”

I swallowed. He had been buried alive for as long as my home had existed. How could he have survived and stayed sane for all those years? Not even an elder magus could endure over a thousand years without proper food and drink. He must have already had the Scarrabus inside him keeping its host body alive as it waited patiently for the world to change once more.

It seemed that Secca had reached the same conclusion. “If these parasites were around in the days of Escharr, could they have caused that empire’s fall?”

“Why don’t you ask him when you see him?” I snapped. “What matters is he is no fake and possesses ancient knowledge we lost in the fall of his empire. That’s not going to work out well for us.”

The Skallgrim continued, his eyes glazed. “It took him only two years to become the chief of all halrúna across the land and be worshipped as a living god. In eleven he had forged all far-flung tribes into one.”

“How did he manage to seize power so thoroughly?” Secca asked. “Your people were riven by blood feud.”

Our prisoner simply stared at me.

Secca winced. “Ah. Understood.” She avoided looking at the tyrant in the tent.

“What has he been doing in the years since then?” I asked. “Seems to me he’s been a bit of a lazy git.”

The man shuddered despite my mental control keeping him immobile and compliant. I glimpsed the answer in his mind and felt bile sear the back of my throat.

“Not lazy,” he said. “Waiting for their eggs to mature and bless our chiefs with more of its kind. Now there are hundreds of Scarrabus among us, and among the leaders of this land.”

That was not all I had seen. “Tell them about the pits.”

The poor man wanted to throw up. He licked cracked and swollen lips. “That was not all he did in those years. He had us build… workshops, to breed unnatural beasts crafted from flesh and bone.”

I sat down on the bed beside him, head in my hands as I shared his misery.

“Walker?” Secca asked. “What is wrong?” “During Black Autumn a halrúna said something that puzzled me at the time. He said ‘They have our children!’ These Skallgrim we fight are not evil – they are desperate.”

The prisoner continued. “He bred monsters from those who angered or failed him and their children went into the pit to be twisted into things other than human. Some were forged into unholy beasts that fed on magic. We dared not disobey.”

“Magash Mora,” Vincent gasped. “How many?” “Dozens,” the man replied. “Much smaller than the one grown in the belly of your corrupt and degenerate city, but still unkillable, or so the war leaders of the Skallgrim believed.”

We three magi exchanged horrified looks. I cleared my throat. “We have seen none in the Clanholds. If Abrax-Masud is here, where are they?”

“The town you call Ironport. They will feast on your Gifted and then make their way towards your undefended city.”

Secca clutched a hand to her mouth. “Sweet Lady Night…” The Arcanum army had marched right into the jaws of a trap and we had no way to help them.

The tent flap opened allowing Eva, Bryden and Cormac to enter. Each was scuffed and caked in dust but otherwise intact.

“What goes on here?” she said. “I am told you have a prisoner.”

We looked at them, each of us brimming over with despair. “We are beyond fucked,” I said. “The Arcanum army will not be coming to save us. They will be lucky to save themselves.”

I told them everything he had relayed, and all that I knew of the Scarrabus.

We slumped there, threatening to cry for some time. “Then we fight,” Eva said, finally.

We looked up in surprise. “What else can we do? If we fight, we die; if we flee, we die. At least if we fight we have a chance. The Free Towns Alliance is three days away. We can hold for three days, and then their numbers will turn the tide.”

“What of the elder magus and the two ravak?” Vincent cried. “How can we hope to prevail against that?”

She shrugged, steel scraping. “Maybe we can’t. Maybe all we can do is buy Setharis and the Arcanum some extra time, and pray that will be enough for our legions in the Thousand Kingdoms to cross stormy winter seas and arrive in time to reinforce the city’s defences. What I do know is that if we stand back and let them wander right on through, then our world falls here and now.”

“A maybe is better than nothing,” I said. “We have jumped into worse with less hope.”

“And look at the price that was paid,” Vincent cried, nodding to Eva.

She stiffened. “What was paid is not regretted. I would suffer it all over again to save thousands of innocents.”

Her honour and iron will stiffened my own spine. “We fight.” “This is suicide,” Vincent said, shaking his head and edging towards the door of the tent. “Granville is already dead and I will have no further part in this madness. I am heading home.”

“Sit down, lad,” Cormac said. “You are better than this.” “Die if you want,” he spat. “Fools.” He moved to leave, then gasped as I speared into his mind. It was a morass of panic, his defences pitiful and disorganised. I felt sad doing it because I agreed with him, it was suicide, and half a year ago I would already be several hills over fleeing as fast as I could. “Stay,” I said.

He choked and turned back to us. “Walker,” Eva snarled. “Don’t you–”

Bryden cut her off. “Walker is right. If he won’t fight then he must be forced. We have all sacrificed enough over the last few months and we will again. This is what it means to be a magus. We protect the weak and ignorant against the perils of blood sorcery. Is… is that not right?” He faltered and looked to Cormac.

The red-bearded magus stroked his chin and grimaced. “Needs must.”

“This is not right,” Secca protested. “You cannot simply enslave him and force him to do your bidding.”

I sighed. “Would you sacrifice everything in exchange for one coward’s free will, Secca?”

Her mouth opened and closed, then her head drooped to look at the ground.

“When he wakes, say nothing of this to him.” I twisted his thoughts and memory around and constructed a new course of action. He was a weak man who envied the brave and the strong and bitterly wished he was built of stronger stuff. Well now was his chance. I set that urge in place and heightened it to a burning desire. He would become the hero he always wished to be.

Vincent blinked and then turned to me, eyes full of deep sincerity. “You have indeed jumped into certain death on less before. That was a truly heroic deed and I aspire to nothing less than that. We fight to the last.”

His brows fell as the rest stared at him. “Let’s fuck these bastards up,” I said. “We need only hold for three days,” Cormac reminded Vincent. “Then we will be reinforced by more Gifted and thousands of warriors.”

Secca laid a queasy, disturbed look on me. “We fight.” “We are agreed,” Eva said.