The Pilgrims

60

High up as he was, Eric was mercifully too far to see many details in the gruesome picture below. The distant sounds of it, the screams and thuds of heavy rocks toppling, were bad enough. Then had come the huge logs, soaked in flammable oil and tossed down amongst the scrambling bodies, to be lit by fire-tipped arrows.

The war mage hadn’t shown much interest in proceedings down there; once or twice it had made rasping speech Eric took to mean it wished for them to leave. ‘The city is just over there, isn’t it? Is it safe there?’

‘Not safe,’ it answered, surprisingly lucid.

‘Are you sure? That army lost a lot of men.’

It clawed the air with its fingers, irritated. ‘A ship sails on … churning waves. A wave crashes into … churning rocks. Rocks fall on … churning ground …’

Eric nearly succumbed to the urge to kick it. ‘Fuck! I wish you could speak clearer. What do you intend for me, then? To take me to Anfen?’

It looked confused. ‘A servant.’

‘A servant, great. Know what? I wish you’d change clothes. Is the human skin really needed? It’s supposed to look like human skin, to make you feared, right? In fact, is that human skin?’

A high-pitched garble sounded in its throat.

‘Great. You’re wearing human skin. Just great. So is Anfen at the city or not? Let’s find him. Take me inside.’

The war mage spat and made a rasping sound of disapproval, but grasped him again and leaped off the ledge. For two seconds they plunged straight down until it veered away from the deathly scene in the pass, making a curved line through the sheer walls for the northern gate. From this short flight, with no visible magic in the air its body was soon almost too heated to bear, its breathing a deathly rattle. Flight in skies thick with magic had heated it up much more slowly.

The huge gate approached. Beyond it plumes of smoke poured into Elvury’s skies and horns blew like pained cries. The first invaders to make it through the pass gathered off to the left in an area free from raining arrows and rocks, and waited for others to catch up.

The war mage perched up on a high turret on the gate itself, smoke and stink puffing from its overheated body. The city unveiling beyond was bigger than Eric had anticipated. The far southern gate was too distant to see, even from this high up. Thousands of rooftops and steep roads extended out across ground that dramatically sloped away from the mountains on the right and left of the gate. They’d landed on the highest part of the city’s wall, atop of which was a thick platform with room for defenders to take places for shooting below. In both directions were bows, shields, quivers and slings lying discarded. It took a moment for him to realise that what defenders remained did not face the pass, where the invaders still streamed through. They faced back into the city, and from the walls occasional arrows rained down inside it.

Directly below on the city’s side was what might have looked like a child’s messy room, with toy soldiers scattered around in broken parts, were it not for the litter of organs and blood spread thick on the pavement. Screams and distant sounds like explosions could be heard, and fires raged. There were few survivors moving about.

Still as statues down there — still for the most part — were Tormentors, and suddenly Eric understood: dead city; the reason the pit devils had been driven north; and the timing of the troop build-up. There, the reasons stood motionless or stalked around in that jagged, lurching stride, like badly controlled puppets. A mass of spent arrows littered the ground, many of which had hit their targets and bounced away, only the most powerful bows and crossbow bolts piercing the monsters’ hides. No foot soldiers remained standing to fight back. In the far distance was the unmistakeable shape of a Tormentor, only it was massive, striding between buildings, then lost from view. ‘Holy shit,’ Eric said.

‘Not safe,’ rasped the war mage, clutching at his sleeve, its foul breath like rotting meat. ‘You’re Shadow.’

In places, the odd Tormentor corpse lay in broken pieces, though each one was massively outnumbered by human bodies. Eric wondered if Anfen’s corpse was down there too, and supposed it probably was.

Behind, the arrows and rocks had all but ceased raining down in the pass. There was a bustle of activity on the ground just outside the city, where among the sizeable crowd of invaders who’d survived, battering rams were being prepared for an assault on the gate. The war mage’s bird-like feet scratched and tapped impatiently at the ground, as though trying to communicate what its voice had failed to. For the first time, Eric wondered how the locals here would react to the sight of it. He said, ‘Stay here. OK? Don’t move. I have to go speak to one of those archers, but they might think you’re an enemy. Understand? I’ll be back.’

It cocked its head, but gave no indication of having understood. Eric ran to the nearest huddling shape, some way along where the top of the wall met the iron gate. A young archer — fifteen, sixteen at most, with a chubby freckled face and drooping bottom lip — looked towards him with blank, shell-shocked eyes. The kid made no motion to use the curved wooden bow which lay on his lap, one hand limply resting on its string. Eric kneeled beside him and could smell the kid had pissed himself in fright. ‘I’m a friend,’ he said lamely. ‘My name’s Eric. Are you OK?’

The kid shrugged without a change of expression.

‘What happened here?’

‘What does it look like?’ the kid said, his voice flat.

‘I’m the wrong person to ask. Looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’m going to find a man named Anfen. Do you know of him? He works for the Mayor. Do you know where I’d find him, or the Mayor?’

The kid shrugged and pointed across where the shelf jutted from the mountainside, held up by thick pillars and running like a halo above the city. Perhaps some magic had gone into its construction, for in many parts it seemed to defy gravity. Here and there ramps ran down to the city below, but guards were posted behind barricades closing them off. Rich-looking buildings were lined along the shelf where the young archer had pointed, and people were moving there in heavy traffic. ‘Why don’t you come over there with me?’ Eric said. ‘They look safe over there.’

‘They’ll die soon,’ the kid said in that same flat voice and shrugged. ‘Everything will.’

It occurred to Eric that the kid just may have seen colleagues, mates — even his own father — slain directly below. He crouched down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Maybe, but it’s less lonely over there. And wouldn’t you like a bite to eat? I sure would.’

The sound of footsteps shuffling behind him. Oh shit. The war mage had come. The kid’s face broke out of its shocked blankness and his eyes went wide.

‘Don’t worry, he’s with me,’ said Eric. To the war mage, ‘Don’t hurt him! You don’t need to protect me from him, OK? He’s a friend.’

‘Ah, but,’ the war mage rasped, hands moving expansively, face animated, voice fast. ‘Once a man approached his mirror not thinking the glass to be liquid and in he fell. Drawn sideways he was from a high place such as this into a sea-sized pool of reflection, battered by his own fists from the other side of the unshattered glass, as per falling rocks into the churning broth …’ Its cat-yellow eyes flared wide and it began that swaying dance, side to side on its feet, arms raised high, a growl in its throat. The kid instinctively raised an arrow to the string. ‘Certain fires are not for warmth,’ the war mage rasped, a warning finger raised, its voice melding with the growl in its throat. ‘Certain flames don’t touch candle wicks but burn them down.’

‘Settle down, don’t attack him!’

‘Where spells fail are claws and teeth …’

Eric felt heat building in the war mage, saw it crouching in the pose it used during its fight with Far Gaze in the woods. A single thread of hair-thin discoloured air wound down from the sky and touched the diamond-shaped tip of its staff.

There wasn’t even time to think about it: he took the gun, held it to the war mage’s head and pulled the trigger. The Glock’s huge noise made Eric almost drop it in shock, made the young archer drop his bow and throw himself sideways, hands over ears. The war mage staggered back a pace or two, its staff clattering to the floor, and its body toppling stiffly over the edge. Just before it fell, its head revolved very slowly towards Eric, mouth slightly open, eyes wide with what was — he assumed — a look of profoundest surprise.

The body tumbled down. A dozen Tormentors, perhaps drawn by the gunshot, ran towards the city wall and took apart the war mage’s body. Eric swallowed, expecting to feel the way he had after shooting the Invia, but somehow he didn’t. It felt like he’d just put an animal down, perhaps regrettable but perfectly necessary. There was no more time to reflect, for arrows began to fly from the invaders outside the gate, glancing off the turrets, some landing close to them.

The archer stared at him, not yet recovered from his surprise. Eric put the gun in his pocket. The brief rain of arrows ceased and he chanced a look down. On the wall’s other side the invading castle army prepared the battering ram for its assault on the door. Many heads turned upwards seeking whatever had made the gun’s noise. ‘Come on,’ said Eric. ‘We have to go. I don’t think it’ll be safe here much longer.’

‘You saved me,’ the kid said with no more conviction than someone commenting on the weather. Eric couldn’t tell if he was grateful or not.

‘I guess so,’ he answered. ‘Want to do me a favour back? Help me find Anfen or the Mayor.’

The kid nodded and stood, pausing to sling the bow over his shoulder. Eric followed him and tried not to look down on either side. The first battering ram charge boomed out like a massive struck drum, but the iron door didn’t tremble. A few more archers were scattered along the high wall, and more could be heard down on lower levels. Eric was shocked that many were as young as or younger than the kid leading him around.

‘What was that spell you cast?’ the kid paused to ask him. ‘What kind of mage are you?’

‘Spell? No. It was a weapon. I’m from-’ should he tell? ‘-from Otherworld.’

The kid frowned. ‘Where’s that?’

‘A long, long way away.’ For some reason he felt a lump in his throat to say it.

‘And the spell was in your weapon?’

‘I guess you could say that.’

‘Is it the same Anfen who won Valour’s Helm?’

‘Yes.’

The kid nodded and led him on. There came a bridge which led from the city wall to the thick ledge of a cliff, and from there they came to the artificial shelf ringing the city high above. Soon, though Eric didn’t know it, he walked the same path Anfen and the others had walked little more than a day before. Many people stood and helplessly watched the situation below, faces grim or disbelieving, while official-looking groups were led the opposite way, out through the secret passages in the hillsides behind. Eric followed the young archer through the bustling crowd, when suddenly he saw a familiar face among those gazing down at the carnage. ‘Siel!’ he said. The boy, evidently feeling his task complete and debt repaid, wandered away and was gone from sight in the crowds.

She turned and looked at him with a neutral expression, though her eyes showed she’d been crying. She was not, it seemed, half as surprised to see him as he was to see her. She walked towards him slowly. ‘You’re back,’ she said. ‘Have a nice adventure?’

‘Hardly. What’s wrong? Is Anfen dead?’

She scoffed. ‘Shall we send you to check if he’s there?’ A hand went to the curved blade on her belt and he saw she was shivering with anger. When he got over his surprise, he said, ‘Wait! Don’t do it. I can explain what happened.’

She inclined her head with a humourless smile as if to say: I very much look forward to it. ‘And where’s the old twit?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe on his way here with the wolf, Far Gaze.’

She looked with a moment’s pause at the war mage’s staff in his hand, which he didn’t even remember picking up. ‘The charm?’ she said.

‘He still has it.’ Eric told his story, the hardest part explaining his motives in following Case, since he’d done it with her own words echoing in his ears. Siel paced back and forth while she listened, tugging on her braids so hard it surely hurt her. The part about Kiown she asked him to repeat word for word, and her eyes shut when she heard it the second time. She said, ‘Are you sure?’

‘It’s all true. Even the part about Nightmare.’

She said nothing, but gestured for him to continue, wiping a fresh tear from her face. When he told her about the war mage, her eyes narrowed and fists clenched. ‘They want you back with Anfen,’ she said, incredulous.

‘So it’d seem. Case thought the war mage was just nuts, acting on its own, not on orders.’

She scoffed again and paced along the ledge, thinking. People still bustled around them, many now watching the northern gate, at which a steady pounding could be heard from the invaders’ battering rams. ‘So much you think you know,’ she said after a while.

‘Of Kiown, you mean?’

Her laugh was bitter. ‘And Anfen, of course.’

‘What do you mean? You don’t think he’s in league with-?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t know any more. But I see now why Kiown would fuck anything that moved but not me. I’d learn his secrets.’

They both watched the carnage below for a while without speaking. ‘Why not go riding?’ she said at last. ‘Let’s discover the rest of the surprises. If there are provisions left at our inn, we’ll take what we can, but I doubt the important people will have left much behind. No matter. We’ll be riding through safer country this time, provided no Invia come for you, Marked one.’

‘Where are we headed? Is Anfen even here?’

‘He’s off to destroy the Wall at World’s End,’ she said and laughed. She looked down again at the now eerily quiet streets. ‘Maybe he’s right to try it, whatever the Mayors say. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to stop him. We may soon know. Let’s get horses.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘And I hope your friend shows up.’ It was no well-wishing: because I intend to slice him up the middle, her wide dark eyes had said.