The Traitor God

Chapter 29

Finally a sphere of blue light flared bright above the warrens. “That is our signal,” Shadea said.

We ran west. Shadea’s guard ringed her with those massive shields held high while the armoured bulk of the siege-breakers ranged ahead. Our little group kept pace off to one side of the middle of the pack, two coteries on the opposite side keeping a safe distance between them and the sanctors, and the last formed a rearguard.

Cries of ravening hunger and gibbering insanity spewed from the Magash Mora’s mouths, and the ground shook with each lumbering movement it took towards the masses of people trapped between it and the Skallgrim. My stomach churned as I caught glimpses of that mountain of deformed flesh and jutting bone through gaps in the buildings and drifting smoke. Flames scorched my hair as we clambered over debris and followed the road that curved in a crescent following the path of the Seth. We passed several pitched battles: wardens holed up in defensive positions fighting off looters and packs of Skallgrim infiltrators. Home owners and shop keepers had banded together to defend their families and property, and were laying into anybody poorly dressed that came too close.

A man screamed for help, his legs pinned beneath a fallen beam, flames slowly creeping up the wood. Shadea kept running. The distant phwoosh of burning missiles soaring through the air announced an escalation of the Arcanum’s attack.

I was already out of breath and sweating like a pig. I glanced back, scowled at the sight of Martain and all the wardens making it look effortless while I puffed and panted and plodded onwards.

A thousand voices screamed from human and inhuman throats as super-heated rock and metal blasted holes in the Magash Mora’s hide and began burning deeper into flesh. It was about as effective as throwing hot grit at an enraged bull for all the damage they did. But it did get the thing’s attention. It didn’t turn – the amorphous thing didn’t seem to have a front or back – but the writhing mass of flesh and bone slowed its advance on Pauper’s Gate and the masses of panicked people trying to flee the city, then it stopped and flowed in the opposite direction, gradually gathering speed towards the insects stinging it.

“Faster!” Shadea shouted. I didn’t bother muffling my curses as I somehow dredged up enough energy to pick up the pace even with a wounded leg. All we had to do was get to the other side of Westford Bridge and then our job would be done. Charra stumbled, barely righting herself, labouring as much as I was, but I didn’t have any way of sending her back to safety.

Across the river, Lust loomed through the smoke, a dark and deadly giant awaiting the return of her cruel heart. Alone amongst the titans it had been given a beautiful female countenance. Unsurprisingly, it had been named Lust by male magi. They were still men after all, still cursed to think with their cocks more often than was wise.

A knot of armoured Skallgrim blocked the far end of the bridge, their faces drenched in sweat from a forced run; they linked round shields to form a wall and hefted beaked war axes. A wild-eyed man with a face more scar than skin shrieked incoherent curses. I assumed it was the usual “I’m going to kick the shite out of you and fuck your mother” sort of boast. He began gnawing on the iron edge of his shield and frothing at the mouth, a vein pulsing angrily on his forehead as he worked himself up into berserk fury.

An old man and woman stood behind the shield wall, their cracked faces scarred with sigils and a motley collection of bone, hide and feather amulets around their necks marking them as Skallgrim shaman. The old woman opened her palm with a serpentine knife and began a droning chant in perfect Old Escharric. She sprinkled her blood in a circle. Not a good sign.

“Destroy those halrúna!” Shadea shouted, air shimmering in a sphere around her as she focused on protecting the activation key. The siege-breakers thundered towards the Skallgrim. A bolt of flame from one of our pyromancers roared towards the halrúna while the sanctors pulled us back to give the other magi room to manoeuvre on the bridge.

The male halrúna lifted a tattooed hand and a gust of wind deflected our firebolts to explode across the riverbank. It felt unnatural to be so close to magic and feel absolutely nothing; bloody sanctors! But the ghost of Lynas’ pain still throbbed in my head, and it would be far worse if they weren’t suppressing my Gift.

“How did they know we were coming here?” Martain said. Then his voice hardened. “More treachery.”

The six siege-breakers smote the shield wall like an enormous hammer, wood and steel exploding from an impact that catapulted a dozen Skallgrim warriors backwards through the air. A few fell screaming into the murky river where their armour – and other things – dragged them under. The siege-breakers thundered straight through what was left of their line, hacking a path through mail and flesh towards the halrúna. Their enormous swords wreaked bloody ruin, limbs flying, heads smashed to pulp. Axes clanged off thick armour as berserkers picked themselves up and flung themselves back into the fray.

Halfway across the city the Arcanum pressed their attack, sky flashing incandescent with fire and lightning and more exotic energies. Flocks of chitinous daemons fell as burning rain. Closer to home, fire and wind writhed around the halrúna as our magi struggled for elemental supremacy. The old woman’s murmurings intensified as she finished her circle of blood and began drawing unsettling runes inside. Bone charms around her neck blackened, somehow protecting her from the pyromantic flames raging all around.

A vicious melee erupted as the Skallgrim warriors used their superior numbers to try to drag the knights down so they could stab knives through joints in the siege breaker armour. They had no idea what they were dealing with and attached no significance as to why the wardens hadn’t joined the fight yet. Four tackled Eva and succeeded in knocking her down onto one knee. She headbutted one on the way down, helm exploding through his face to leave a spurting stump, and elbowed another, caving in breastplate and chest. As they fell away she rose clutching a third by the throat. Her hand clenched and his neck burst like rotten fruit. She proceeded to beat the fourth to death with his friend’s corpse, sounds of manic mirth bubbling out from her armour.

I’d never seen knights in a real battle before. It was terrifying and Eva was laughing. I was very glad she was on my side.

The enemy panicked and broke, leaving their halrúna to die. The male halrúna fell to his knees, drenched in his own blood, flames charring his skin as our magi overwhelmed his powers and protections. One of the siege-breakers charged the woman. She smiled and said, “My blood, your blood. My flesh, your flesh…”

A shiver rippled up my spine at her horribly familiar words.

A blade split her skull in two. Droplets of the dead shaman’s blood hung in the air, then began spinning around her corpse with increasing speed. All the blood shed during the battle streamed over the ground towards the circle and was swept up into the ritual. A spike of gleeful alien hunger pulsed inside me, growing stronger with every second that passed – anticipation, as if a part of me knew what was coming. I gripped Dissever tight but the sanctors now had more to worry about than me.

Shadea hissed. “Too late – back away.”

The whirlpool of blood drained down into the woman’s corpse, far too much for any human body to possibly contain. Dark magic pierced the Shroud between worlds and opened a doorway. The shaman’s belly bulged outwards and then ripped apart as something scaled with black iron emerged from a far-flung daemon realm.

The knight that had killed the old woman began backing away. A six-fingered hand tipped with metal claws burst from the old woman’s flesh and speared through her killer’s cuirass, exploding from the back in a shriek of steel. A second limb erupted from the corpse and buried claws in the ground. Sinews rippled and bulged as it pulled itself into our world. The reptilian daemon’s massive form squeezed through a portal of flesh and blood much too small to possibly allow it, sloughing off corpse-meat as its serpentine tail slithered free of the portal.

It was easily ten feet tall and twenty long, with a serpent’s head armoured in black iron crested with a jagged crown. Six golden slitted eyes opened and its jaw dropped in a mockery of a grin, revealing curved iron fangs the size of daggers. It tore the knight in two and tossed the halves into the river on either side of the bridge. Its eyes were not fixed in bone as ours were, instead freely sliding across flesh and metal plate alike to peer in every direction. Three eyes swivelled to look down at the male halrúna, now on all fours and weeping. A trio of forked tongues flicked out, tasting the air.

Shadea looked ill. Her wardens surrounded her in a nervous wall of steel. “It is a ravak queen,” she said, eyeing the black crown. “During the Daemonwar their kind led entire armies of lesser daemons through the holes in the Shroud. I fought against one and almost died.”

The creature’s spiked tail lashed in agitation, and a dozen small serrated claws opened out on both sides all along the thing’s torso like it was the bastard offspring of snake, scorpion and centipede. The creature’s claws wrapped around the Skallgrim shaman’s waist. Greasy vapour rose from its body as it lifted the old man to its maw, its flesh mottling with spots of grey as corrosion crept across the iron scales embedded in its flesh. Whatever power protected the shard beasts and the shadow cats from Setharis’ virulent air did not extend to this daemon.

“You dare summon me to this place of atrocity?” it hissed in perfect Old Escharric.

“Mercy!” he begged. “We had no choice. The Scarrabus have our children.”

Who or what are the Scarrabus? I’d never heard the name before. Perhaps this was who was behind the Skallgrim tribes’ sudden organisation.

The man screamed – briefly – as the daemon bit his face off and wolfed down the rest, jaw extending grotesquely as it swallowed the squirming man whole: clothes, charms and all. The young sanctors gagged.

The ravak’s tongues licked the air in the direction of the Magash Mora as it screeched. The distant booms and crackle of Arcanum attacks reminded us of our haste. Swarms of smaller daemons wheeled through the smoke-dark sky on iridescent wings, hazy forms darting down to pluck people from the ground and drop them screaming from a great height. Lightning flashed and a dozen blackened daemons fell. If the magi could hold out a little longer those smaller daemons would die off in droves.

We looked to Shadea. “Leave or be destroyed,” she said, her power rising around her like a vast tidal wave ready to be unleashed. Everybody cringed back, instinct screaming danger!

The ravak didn’t reply, didn’t hiss, didn’t do anything at all. What was this thing that it could ignore something like Shadea? It seemed to be listening to something. We waited nervously.

Its head snapped in our direction and it came for us, arcane energies crackling around the spikes of its crown. “The Scarrabus command your death. The lords of flesh cannot be disobeyed.”

The wolf-ship raiders had lost two of their revered halrúna shaman trying to stop Shadea activating the titan – what power was this that could force them to sacrifice holy leaders more important than their tribal chiefs?

The daemon stretched out a hand and six feet of jagged black iron burst free from a sheath of flesh. I stared in shock at that vicious, barbed blade, then to Dissever. My knife was smaller but the resemblance was undeniable. An alien hunger tinged my thoughts, as if Dissever lusted to eat this ravak creature.

Shadea pressed the titan’s activation key into Eva’s arms. “It is primed and ready. Bring it to Lust and the war engine will carry out my command.”

She moved to stand between the daemon and us. “This creature is beyond you. Run.”

Some of her wardens stayed, loyal to the point of suicide. The rest of us fled as the elder magus and ravak queen unleashed their dread magics upon each other. The ground shook and air thundered.

The building to my left collapsed in on itself, angry flames roaring up beneath a cloud of black smoke shot through with sparks like dying stars. Smoke spun and writhed around us like a living thing, obscuring everything. We covered our faces in a futile attempt to keep the choking clouds from our eyes and mouths. Tears ran down my cheeks and my throat hurt worse than if I’d smoked a bucket-load of harshest tabac. The wardens were hazy shadows, but my sanctor gaolers stuck too close, giving me no chance to slip away even if I wanted to. Charra shadowed me, keeping me safe. Layla shadowed her, doing the same.

Somebody screamed. Hot blood spattered my face. Steel clanged all around. Our pyromancer staggered towards us, reddened eyes pleading as he pawed at the gaping wound in his neck in a vain attempt to stem the spurting blood. He went down and a pair of red-bearded Skallgrim burst from the smoke, vaulted his corpse and swung their axes at Martain’s head. He sidestepped, his blade licking out across a face to leave jaw and neck a gaping ruin. He turned to exchange blows with the second. It was a mistake. That first ravaged warrior was deep in the red mist of rage and didn’t even notice his mortal wound; he swung his axe at Martain’s back. I instinctively rammed Dissever into the madman’s side and cut it free. That seemed to do the trick; he dropped like a stone, almost in two halves. Martain glanced back, surprise writ all over his face, then had to focus on the warrior in front of him.

Charra fought beside me, nodding as she flicked blood off her sword, not a scratch on her. She had always been handy in a scrap. A horrendous childhood I wouldn’t wish on anybody, but it had given her that. An axeman went for her, then fell with a knife through his eye. Charra scowled at the twisted hilt of the knife, and then at her daughter who had thrown it.

“Get your sorry behind over here!” Charra yelled.

Layla was in no real danger, dancing through the enemy towards us, leaving them pawing at slit throats and spurting blood. “I knew fine well where you had sneaked off to. I’m not leaving – you need me.”

Charra grunted, knocking aside a wounded Skallgrim’s axe and running him through. “Just stay close.” It was far too late to argue and no chance of sending her to her room without any supper.

A massive, hairy beast of a man charged through the wall of smoke behind two of the siege-breakers. Tattoos and runic scars covered every visible area of skin, and the fine mail and helm marked him as a wolf-ship captain. He swung a two-handed beaked axe glowing with runes and malignant magic, once, twice. Both knights went down, heavy helms split.

He headed straight for Eva, mowing down every warden in his path with bewildering strength and inhuman speed. Gifted! She ducked, and his blow tore off her helm rather than her head.

The remaining siege-breakers charged him, driving him back, leaving Eva and ourselves to run for the titan. Steel shrieked, men screamed and magic burst all around us as we kept our heads down and ran for our lives.

Distant lightning flashed, setting my hair on end. Each flash of light silhouetted a mountain of writhing flesh against the sky. It had grown larger – no, closer. Perspective was skewed, the scale unbelievable. The Magash Mora was no longer heading for the Arcanum army. It was coming for us. We ran faster.

Soon the shadow of Lust coalesced from the smoke.

Eva skidded to a stop and held up the activation key. A rough coughing boomed somewhere high above and the air began vibrating with a high-pitched hum that set my teeth on edge. Then came a grinding squeal of metal and a whomp-whomp-whomp that steadily increased in speed until it became a deafening drone.

By Old Boney’s barren balls I was not getting any closer to that machine! Our remaining wardens had no idea what was happening. Everybody cast fearful looks up into the smog and most began backing away. A prod of pointy steel in the small of my back stopped my retreat. I glanced back to see Martain shake his head.

“Are you mad?” I screamed over the drone. “Why do you want to be near that thing?”

“Shut up,” he replied, the point of his blade pushing in to prick flesh. The other sanctors closed on me, swords at the ready, eyes on Dissever and ready to react. I didn’t have a hope of fighting three of them – even if two were young they’d still been trained to kill rogue magi – so I stayed still. There was no point in escalating an already dire situation; I had to stay calm until a chance presented itself. Charra and Layla edged closer. I shot them a warning glare but they ignored it. Charra would help me or die trying.

The point jabbing my back eased slightly. “Why did you save me earlier?” Martain said.

“This is my home. We’re on the same side,” I said, puzzled. He didn’t reply. “Aren’t we?”

A breeze sprung up, whipping the smoke away to the east. An enormous armoured knee the size of a horse and cart crashed down by Eva’s side, crushing cobbles to dust. A crust of dirt and bird crap broke loose to rain down on us. Lust’s huge and inhumanly beautiful face descended through the thinning smoke. It held a terrible macabre beauty: that haughty metal smile was the last thing thousands of people had ever seen.

A sword the size of a grown tree lanced down through the street, followed by an enormous gauntlet that lowered to ground level. Eva placed the key onto the war engine’s palm. Fingers clanked closed around it and lifted to its face. With a squeal of metal Lust’s jaw dropped and swallowed it. Green flames flickered into life inside the titan’s eyes.

A grinding thunk and screech of metal came from deep inside the great war-engine’s armoured chest. It didn’t sound right, but who knew if the damn thing would even work after all this time. The titan shuddered and ground to a halt. A dozen hollow metal snakes writhed from the titan’s open mouth and began twitching towards us. With them came a tumble of old bones and a human skull.

Martain spoke, cold and hard, “As Krandus feared, the titan’s source of power has been depleted. It requires another sacrifice.”

Damn.

The flat of Martain’s sword slammed into my wrist and Dissever slipped from numbed fingers. I cursed, ducking out of the way as a second blow whooshed past my head. A sick dread filled me. Blood sorcery hadn’t been considered anathema until after the fall of ancient Escharr – the titans were powered by the sacrifice of a magus. It was grossly akin to the monster already ravaging Setharis and I refused to die like that.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” I said. This was what the Archmagus had been instructing him to do earlier during their little private chat. A glare and terse shake of my head stopped Layla from burying her blade in Martain’s neck, for the moment. Whatever happened, I refused to let her or Charra die here. “The Arcanum have always wanted me dead.” I spat on his boots and flexed my numb hand. “You want me? Come take me. I’ll tear your fucking throats out with my teeth.”

Martain growled and menaced me with his sword. “Herd him towards the titan.” Eva did nothing to help or hinder us, torn between obeying orders and committing an atrocity. The remaining wardens gathered around the young male sanctor, hands reaching for me.

And then everything took a turn for the worst. Across the street and out of the sanctor’s range, Harailt stepped from the smoke. White-hot flame roared from his palms to engulf the young male sanctor and the wardens. They shrieked, turned into human candles. The sanctor’s twin screamed and dropped to her knees.

Shock burst across on Eva’s face. “Harailt? What are you–”

“I am so sorry, Evangeline,” he said. “I had hoped you might join this new and glorious Arcanum I am building, but you would only refuse.” I screamed a warning as Harailt’s expression twisted, flickering between contempt, ecstasy and rage far too quickly to be natural. Something was very wrong inside him.

Betrayal was carved into her expression in the moment he flung his hands out towards her. Fire blasted her into the air, armour glowing cherry-red and starting to melt. Her flesh sizzled as she screamed through the twisting smoke into the ruins of a house. Nobody could survive that.

Harailt’s expression dissolved into utter horror. “Evangeline, no… I did not mean–”

His expression hardened into an emotionless mask and he turned to face the five of us remaining: Charra, Layla and myself, Martain and the shaking girl sanctor. Martain grabbed her by the armpits and began dragging her away from me, to allow the use of my Gift.

I scanned the ground. Dissever was near my foot. If I could reach it then I could buy time for Charra and Layla to escape. I would die in agony, but there was a small chance I could take him with me. A fair exchange by any account.

A purple flash. A white line burned across my sight.

Harailt glanced at the gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been. “Ah.” He didn’t fall.

Shadea hobbled from the smog, one arm torn and limp and a missing foot replaced with a crutch made from a dead warden’s sword. Her face was split, a red trench running through an empty eye socket. The other boiled over with virulent purple energy.

My jaw dropped as the hole in his chest writhed with reforming flesh. “Shadea,” he spat. “You survived our little pet then. Perhaps nex–”

Light stabbed out from her eye, burning holes through his chest and neck.

“–t time we will find somethi–”

A sphere of blue fire coalesced around Harailt, so hot it drove us all back, the stone melting and sparking around him.

The flames burst apart. Harailt casually dusted off charred ends of clothing. “–ng more worthy of facing you.”

“There is a god inside him,” Shadea hissed. “Harailt is gone.”

His face twitched into a sneer. “Not at all, elder. I am very much alive and in control. We three great powers, magus, god and Scarrabus, work hand-in-hand for our great cause.” He waved to the looming bulk of the Magash Mora coming towards us. “You cannot kill us and you cannot stop the coming glory of the reborn Arcanum. Join us, elder, and we will rule this world entire, as we should, devoid of all restriction and petty politicking. Think of what you can learn from us.” He glanced at me. “Him, we must kill.”

She smiled, a horrific sight even when she was whole. “You are deluded.” She flicked a finger towards him and Harailt was yanked into the air, screaming as he disappeared into the distance. Somewhere across the city a building collapsed from the impact.

Martain looked to the titan awaiting its sacrifice, then to me, and finally to Shadea, a question on his lips.

“No,” she snapped, spraying flecks of blood.

A carpet of flesh now flowed through the streets nearby, gnashing canine mouths and wailing human cries, grasping fingers and horse hooves all crawling towards us, the nightmarish main body of the creature looming dark and terrible behind it.

“Speed is now the essence of victory,” she said, hobbling towards the titan. “As I think young Edrin here might say, I am no longer a dog in this fight. We fight where and however we must.” She let the metal snakes swarm her, hollow heads burying in her withered flesh and lifting her off the ground towards Lust’s mouth.

She gasped in pain. “Fight in my stead, tyrant. Share my wrath. Kill that traitor.” Her eyes flashed with furious hope, “Destroy that traitor god.”

I gave her a single nod as they drew her back into the depths of the titan. Harailt was exposed and the collusion of a god confirmed. It had to be this newly ascended Hooded God who had protected those shard beasts and shadow cats from Setharis’ corrosive influence. Had the god’s newfound power driven him mad?

Nathair, Thief of Life, where are you when I need you, eh? He stood for freedom and independence, everything that Harailt despised. I’d half expected him to rise from the earth and rip the life from our enemies. What use were gods if they didn’t protect their people? Bloody gods, leaving me to clean up their messes again.

Again? My mind shuddered.

Beneath my trembling hands, Artha’s skin is hot as a furnace.

The god’s face twists in agony, “Cut deep and cut now.”

An eerie song shivers through me and I press down, Dissever cracking bone and plunging into his heart…

I scrambled for the knife and clutched the foul weapon to my chest, letting its flood of hunger drown the memory. I killed a god – was this why the Hooded God wanted me dead? Because I was a threat to his insane ambitions? I had killed Artha and that meant there had to be a way to kill the Hooded God too.

Martain was dazed and despairing. He no longer cared to fight me and didn’t think to try to shut down my Gift again. We collapsed beside the foot of the great war-engine, waiting in silent dread to see what manner of horror would be unleashed.