God of Broken Things

Chapter 28

With Abrax-Masud temporarily indisposed, our hopes lay with Cormac, whose skills as a geomancer were our only real way of slowing down so large an army – ambushes and arrows could only do so much, and against the numbers we faced they were no more than insect bites to an angry giant’s ball sack.

While Eva, Secca and Vincent prepared for the inevitable running battle, Bryden and I went north with Cormac, taking along an escorting force of warden archers and sneaky locals who would try and keep the enemy as off-balance as possible. Some of our best shots would wait to strike at night, hidden by darkness from the eyes of their archers and halrúna. A warrior warming his hands around a campfire was a tempting target indeed. If we could gift a large number of them sleepless nights fearing an arrow in the back then we would be doing well.

Cormac got to work sending massive boulders tumbling down to block the path. He grinned and made me watch the valley floor as he forced shards of rock, narrow and sharp as a knife, to stab through the half-frozen earth into the snowfall. The stone caltrops were barely visible beneath a thin layer of snow except for when the sun was directly overhead and the path out of the cliff’s shadow.

“Think that will slow them down?” Cormac asked while taking a piss, his robes bunched up around his waist to expose extraordinarily hairy legs.

“Some,” I answered, imagining my own trepidation if faced with such a thing. “I suspect they find that which drives them on far more terrifying.”

He grunted, waggled his cock northwards and pulled down his robes. “Well let’s make this even more fun then.” Much larger jagged spikes erupted all around where the enemy would have to pass, a forest of razor edges rising to eye-height that would tear anybody trying to squeeze through to bloody tatters.

I left him to it and got on with my task. I was there to keep watch for anything coming our way, not to fight. I sat on my arse with my Gift open, sweeping the surroundings for hints of thought.

Bryden was our eyes in the sky, and our best defence against the winged daemons that periodically swooped in to try to eat our faces and make nests out of our bodies, or whatever the bloody things wanted. After seeing the insides of that frozen farmstead I wouldn’t put anything out of bounds, and I took great pleasure in every one he plucked from the sky and sent plummeting to its death.

Every so often I stood and gave early warning that the enemy were approaching. We packed up and fled south to the next narrow, uneven bit of path to repeat the process. Some of our archers stayed behind to harry the enemy, and if they got very lucky, to put a halrúna face down in the snow before they too were forced to retreat under a hail of arrows or worse, magic.

There was never enough time. The enemy had one or more geomancers and while they might be slower removing the obstructions than Cormac was in constructing them, they would still be able to take apart the worst of what we were able to throw in their path as their army approached. We took pleasure at hearing distant howls of pain as men stepped on spikes, and we were successful in slowing down their march to a full day of grinding, gruelling pitiful advance that tired out their Gifted for little gain. Of course Cormac was left exhausted as well, but the grumpy bearded git could take it and bounce back the next day.

At dusk I began a roaring argument with Eva. She had ditched her heavy armour for soft, quiet snow-white cloth covering her from hooded head to toe and was determined to go in under the cover of darkness alone to kill as many of their leaders as she could.

I thought that was fucking stupid and told her so with none of my usual charm. She finally had enough of my squawking and started walking away and I had to grab her arm to stop her. Or I tried to. I might as well have tried to stop a whole team of enraged oxen. She dragged me stumbling along behind her, slowed not at all.

I didn’t let go. “I won’t let you do this.”

She stopped and used two fingers to prise off my hand. Her two fingers were stronger than my hand and arm combined. I winced as she bent my hand back. “They are two days from our camp. We need at least three before our reinforcements arrive. I need to buy us one more day. What else would you have us do?”

I shook my head. “I don’t fucking know. Something that doesn’t get you killed might be a good start.”

“I came here knowing that I would sacrifice myself if it proved necessary.”

“I know that, but I’m not going to let you. I’m in charge here, remember?”

She snorted and her single eye studied me from behind her steel mask. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because I just do!” I shouted. “Not everything has to be complicated. Sometimes you just bloody well care about someone.” I looked her right in the eye. “And probably far more than I have any right to.”

She was silent for a time but I felt her yearning for something normal in the middle of this battlefield so far from home. “There can be no future for us.”

I shrugged. “Never said there was. I’m no great catch.”

She coughed, choking on her own surprise. “You? I meant me.” For a moment I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “Oh. I hadn’t even considered your burns.” I had only been thinking about her personality and her mind. She was brave, loyal, hardworking, intelligent, sarcastic, drank like a fish and boasted a sharp tongue. What more could a man want?

She did not know how to reply to that, shocked and unsure if she was angry or not. Instead she shoved it all aside and focused on her goal. “You cannot come. You would only slow me down. If I can kill my targets and retreat to safety then I will.”

She was right, I would not be able to move quick enough to get in and out in one piece and all my mental trickery could not take on an entire armed camp at once. “Then I will ride along inside your head. I can do that now.”

She groaned. “As long as you stay quiet and let me get on with my work. I have nothing to hide.”

I knocked on her thoughts and she grudgingly let me into the courtyard of her mind, but her innermost thoughts and feelings were locked away tight behind thick keep walls. “Stay where you are put,” she said. “I am in charge here.”

Sure thing, my lady. I will try to keep you safe.

My body stood senseless and vulnerable once again. I reached out to Jovian’s mind and ordered him to take it to safety and guard me as I rode along in the back of Eva’s mind.

That lanky, good-for-nothing wastrel of a man is beyond infuriating, she thought. He needs a few good kicks up the rear to keep him in line.

I can hear you, I said indignantly. You do know that right? Oh, wait, of course you do. Bitch!

Bitch? she snorted. Weak. Then than makes you a gangrenous, dog-faced, leper-fucker!

I had to admit to being impressed. Another reason why I liked her. Eva reached up and undid the buckles that held her steel mask in place and carefully set it down where she could find it again if she returned. This was no place for metal reflections.

For the first time in months she walked out in the open without her mask. She tried not to think about that hideous sight. The chill air bit into the holes in her ruined face and nipped at exposed sensitive teeth.

I said nothing. It wasn’t like my usual uncouth and inappropriate self, but I knew if I said anything at all about it then she would immediately kick me out of her thoughts and never trust me again.

Eva took a deep breath and let her magic seep into every part of her body, granting strength and hardness beyond anything human. Armour was not necessary for anything less than a direct hit by a war hammer or spiked axe swung by a giant of a man, and even then it would be more likely to scratch than kill. Magic was a different matter, and speed was her best defence. Might rose inside and with it the urge to rampage among the enemy like a god of war.

Enveloped by darkness, she ran swift and nimble towards the enemy camp. Her magically-enhanced eyesight was superior to theirs and she could see every sentry they had placed: around fires warming frost-bitten hands, and also those huddled in the shadow of icy rocks waiting to see if anybody would attack the visible guards. Eva avoided them all with ease, laying low when their eyes swept across the area and then flitting past, silent as a spirit.

Insectile daemons with luminous green eyes and armoured carapaces stalked the snowy night where humans dared not tread, sniffing the air as Eva drew close, antennae twitching. A swift punch through the head silenced them as she passed, barely slowing as they slumped down dead. She flicked gunk off her fists and sped towards the lights and tents.

There were three tribal standards in this camp, the boar, the eagle and the sea serpent. All should have separate war leaders here in the larger tents.

Careful, I advised her. I feel halrúna in these two large tents to your right, and we are in luck – one of those is a geomancer. Take her out and they won’t be able to counter Cormac. To your left is a fancy tent with an eagle emblem on the side; it’s a ruse, the war-leader of the Eagle Tribe is actually in the smaller one just to the left of it and his sub-chiefs in the large one. The war-leader of the Boars is absent but the Sea Serpents’ chief is on the far north of the encampment. I doubt you can make it there and back unseen.

Her sensitive eyes and my mental senses worked well together, and Eva was only just discovering the joys of having somebody along for the ride who could read minds and steal information.

Oh yes, you are a joy alright, she thought. Now cease your prattle and let me do my gods-damned job.

I did as she asked and got up to no good by infiltrating Skallgrim minds in the vicinity. Sooner or later a distraction would probably come in handy.

The halrúna were her primary target, the closest war-leader with the eagle banner was the secondary objective and his two sub-chiefs a tertiary goal. She wanted to cut the head from the body and if everything went well, have them thrash about mindlessly for a good few hours until somebody else took over.

Eva wasn’t one for lingering about and wasting time. With my Gift for detecting minds guiding her path, she ducked and dived and crawled through snow and dashed through the camp until she was right outside the tent of the halrúna. The snoring was thunderous, deep in sleep after a day’s exertion removing Cormac’s geomantic handiwork.

She slit a doorway up the side of the tent and slipped through, drawing another knife ready to impale the first skull.

Wait! I said, drawing her attention to a perfect circle of dog’s teeth on the floor by the beds, each tipped red with human blood – some sort of crude heathen ward.

If you give me a little time I can unpick those, I suggested.

There was no time for that, she thought. All wards had a very short delay before activating and these heathens were no Arcanum experts. She palmed a knife in each hand, and considered throwing them. No, there was no certainty of a one-hit kill against Gifted that way and she wouldn’t have time for a second. She filled her muscles with as much magic as they could stand and then dived forward over the first bed, knife crunching through the centre of the sleeper’s forehead. She let go and rolled, launching herself over the next bed, the second knife punching through the orbit of an eye and up into their brain as she passed over it.

The earth exploded in vicious spikes behind Eva as she burst headfirst through the canvas wall, already running towards the war-leader of the Eagle Tribe as the tent was torn to pieces. There was a guard outside, reacting sluggishly as she blurred towards him. A fist to the face sent his corpse flying. She was into the next tent, found the bearded war-leader unarmoured and in his blankets with a book open. His eyes bulged in shock as she grabbed his head and twisted. His neck snapped like kindling. She dropped him, exited, did the same to his sub-chiefs in the next tent, and then sped north towards the war-leader of the Sea Serpents.

What are you doing? I howled. Are you cracked in the head? You are done here.

She could not let the war-leader live and take charge. All of them needed to die here and now; she was not likely to get another chance. The camp erupted into yells as she sprinted north, keeping pace with the cries of shock and anger. Keep them confused. If they didn’t know where she was and what she was then she might yet survive.

I fell silent, feverishly working on something dark and devious, warping the minds of outraged Skallgrim warriors.

Magic flared above the camp, a burning white magelight turning night into day. Men pointed and lifted weapons as Eva charged past them. Arrows and spears began raining down around her. One or two struck home, staggering her but not anywhere near to penetrating a knight’s iron-hard skin.

There! Right ahead, the leader of the Sea Serpents emerging from his tent with a glowing axe clutched in a meaty hand.

Two guards got in her way. Eva blasted through without slowing, sending them spinning and broken. Then it was their leader’s time to die. Her fist flashed towards his face. He dodged, slipping aside with unnatural grace. A mageborn with enhanced physical abilities! Moving too fast, she skidded in slush and plunged into the tent behind him, momentarily caught up in a tangle of goatskin and canvas. She ripped free and found herself facing three armoured warriors, their mageborn leader with an enchanted axe and… shit, a wizened halrúna festooned with bone charms and beads.

Eva was in a sticky situation but she didn’t let that stop her. She made for the leader of their clan, dodging two axe blows from his guards. A single punch sent one to the snow with a crushed sternum. Their leader scowled and twirled his axe, saying something in their guttural language as he stared at her ruin of a face.

The halrúna lifted his bone wand and flames burst from the end to curl around it. Eva flinched back. Fear and self-loathing filled her as she cursed her fatal moment of hesitation. She wouldn’t reach her target in time.

Fortunately for her, all my hard work had paid off handsomely. The war-leader staggered as the head of a spear burst through his chest. He pitched forward as ten men bearing eagle crests on their shields charged in howling vows of revenge. One of the newcomers hacked at the mageborn’s neck, then lifted the severed and dripping head aloft by the hair, screaming in victory. The rest went for the halrúna. Flames devoured three of the men before he went down, axes rising and falling in bloody arcs above him, lines of red painting the snow.

The magelight went out, plunging the area into darkness once again.

Get the fuck out of there! I shouted in Eva’s head. I have them believing the Sea Serpents betrayed them and killed their leaders. It will be mayhem. Abrax-Masud may have forged the Skallgrim into an army but the old blood feuds run deep.

You scare me, Eva thought as death screams filled the night.

You scare me! I protested. But damn, you can fight.

She smiled, burnt cheek and jaw protesting. I was her silent companion until she escaped the camp and retrieved her mask. The night felt too quiet and she was alone and miserable in drenched and freezing clothing. Such was the comedown after a battle.

I returned to my own body, grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me as I waited for Eva at the edge of camp, worried that despite everything she was still in danger, or wounded, or worse. Her steel mask floated towards me, shining eerily in the darkness, a wraithlike vision of death. Then I could make out actual arms and legs, all soaked and dripping with sweat and blood and brains.

I was furious and relieved, a heap of emotion all rolled into a tight ball of stress that thumped in the centre of my chest. I tossed her the dry blanket.

“We bought a day,” she said. “Don’t say another word about the risk. I’m hungry. Be a dear and fetch me meat and drink.”

I bit my tongue and did just that. Whatever relationship we had was a tentative thing always teetering on outright disaster, and my tongue tended to run away with itself in all the worst ways. That and her battle-blood was still high and she could crack me like an egg with only a single finger.

She had butchered men and was in no mood to talk. Unlike older magi, she still cared about people of no personal importance, though it would not stop her doing her duty. I felt a fleeting sense of regret for what I had lost, but only for a single moment.