'I cannot do that,' said Gorian, his voice soft and melodic, carrying the gentle timbre of nature's beauty. It was beguiling. 'We have chosen a different path. Join with us.'
'Cannot,' spat Jhered. 'Then we will take him.'
Jhered was fast. The years had not diminished his speed and the rage boiling bright within him gave him more. He rose from Mirron, blade in hand, and hacked it into the thick twines of root covering Gorian's neck. Kessian shrieked. The blade bounced from the roots and out of Jhered's grasp, leaving barely a scratch. Gorian laughed.
'You do not understand, Exchequer,' he said. 'You cannot kill the earth. And I am the earth, and the earth is me. And all that walk upon it, all that grows from it, and all who lie beneath it, are mine.'
Jhered took a pace back and glanced about him. People crowded around the edge of the clearing. The dead, staring silently on. Arducius could feel the mass of them growing increasingly dense as they arrived. The weight of their grey, lifeless energy, the energy that Gorian had first sampled and that Arducius still did not understand, overwhelmed the force of nature. Leaves began to wither, bark to curl and discolour. Grass to blacken and die. Soon, only the small circle around the Ascendants would remain alive, all about them would be dark.
'Listen to me, Gorian,' said Arducius. 'You don't need to do this. You can't understand what you are doing. You can't mean it. You are one of us. An Ascendant.'
'And I have ascended further, my dear brittle brother. I am sorry for your pain but it will fade. Everything I do, I must do. It is the work of Gods to create paradise for their people.' 'You are no god.'
Arducius looked to his left. Ossacer had regained consciousness and was propped up by a tree that clung to life because of his presence alone. He was a hand's breadth from the touch of the dead.
'Am I not, Os-sick-er?' A chuckle that rumbled through the ground. 'You fought me. You are stronger than I thought. But you have not limitless power. That is what I have. We must become the elements to control them. A God must have absolute power.'
'It is you who is sick,' said Jhered. 'And it is you who will die.'
Gorian blinked and looked at Jhered. A sigh whispered through the dead surrounding them and across the grass beneath their feet.
'You are mortal and I can snuff you out if I wish. Look about you. My people await my command. Even the great Exchequer Jhered cannot hold back so many.'
'So what are you waiting for. What do you want?'
'Come to us, Mother. Then he will let me go. He promised.'
Kessian's words hung in the air. The sound of innocence. Mirron's chest heaved and she broke down again.
'No, no, my love, no. He is lying to you. Don't believe him, fight him. Please.'
Jhered was with her again, trying to comfort her. His eyes were on the dead briefly but they came to rest on Gorian. Arducius felt a pulse in the life map. He had seen it before. Desire.
'But it is what must happen,' said Gorian. 'We must be the family we always should have been. The one destined to rule this earth. And we can be merciful. Those we loved might be spared. Mirron. Come to me. Come to us.'
'Don't you move a muscle,' said Jhered. Mirron had reacted, made to reach out. 'He'll kill us all.'
'But I won't if Mirron comes to me,' said Gorian. The gentleness had deserted him now. This was far more like the Gorian of old. 'We will not harm you then. Would you deny Mirron the touch of her son?'
Mirron sagged in Jhered's embrace. She said something to him that Arducius couldn't catch. He let her go with his arms but not his eyes. Mirron turned to look at Arducius and at Ossacer who had dragged himself to Arducius's side. And in her eyes was all the loss and desperation of the world. All her desires for her son clashing with her loneliness and leaving a void that only his touch could fill.
'No, Mirron, don't do it. You can't do it.' Arducius felt Ossacer clutch his arm and the both of them reached out to her, beseeching her to come to them.
'For the good of all, sometimes one must go,' she said.
'Not to him,' said Ossacer, words strangling in his throat. 'He will deceive you. He never stopped deceiving you.'
‘I
will not desert my son.'
Jhered turned his head. His expression said he understood but he did not. Whatever words Mirron had spoken, he had misconstrued.
'We must live if we are to fight,' he said.
Arducius shook his head. 'This will not be life.'
Mirron stood and took in a deep breath. Gorian and Kessian were watching her. Gorian's eyes betrayed his triumph, Kessian's his yearning.
'Mirron?'
She turned one last time, it will be all right, Ardu. I promise.' Gorian was beaming, triumphant.
Mirron smoothed her hands down her fire-cleaned skin and wiped imaginary hair from her face. She walked the short distance to Gorian and laid a hand on his head.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
859th cycle of God, 12th day of
Genasfall
'It's not working, it's not working!' Yola's voice was a screech, desperate and lost. She was crying even as she tried to Work. 'I can't force the map out, it won't connect.'
The catapults on the walls of the palace were sounding. Onager stones whistled away to land amongst the dead marching down the processional approach. Panic had consumed the courtyard. Citizens were still trying to batter their way past their fellows to gain entrance even though flight into the parks was by far the safest option.
The security around the fountain had increased. The rest of Iliev's squad were on station and Vasselis stood with them too, bringing over a hundred Ascendancy guard with him. Palace guard were in amongst the citizens, trying to direct but it was a task doomed to failure. Others were still trying in vain to close the gates.
Iliev looked down on Yola and felt her despair. The other two Ascendants were looking to her for guidance but she could offer none. She was the hope of everyone in the palace, everyone left alive in Estorr for that matter, and the knowledge was too much for her.
'The dead are at the back of the crowd,' rumbled Kashilli. 'We should face them.'
'No,' said Iliev. 'Our place is here, defending the innocent. Keep your promise. Stand your ground.'
'You are scared, little one.' Kashilli was speaking to Yola. 'But we will not let you fall.'
'You don't understand. I can't reach the dead and I can't make the map work and I can't save anyone and no one can help me.'
Vasselis stepped into the fountain pool and crouched by Yola where she knelt in the cold water. She responded to his touch. Vasselis handed her a cloth which she put to her face.
'Dry your eyes, Yola, you are already wet enough.' Vasselis sat down, the water covering him to his midriff,
‘I
always like to be comfortable before telling a story.'
Yola giggled.
'A story?' hissed Kashilli. 'I can tell him one of those. Coming through the gates right now.'
Iliev put a finger to his lips. Vasselis continued.
'When my son was young, your age actually, he wanted to do great deeds and win battles and save everyone. Just like the heroes of the old Conquord, or so we read. But the truth is, we can never do that. The task is too much for any one person. A legionary can only defend those he stands next to. A surgeon can only save the one lying on the table. It is the same for all of us. We can only hope to save the one we love the best and then hope that they in turn can save another. And in the end, that is what my son did. He saved the one he loved more than life itself. And in so doing he set a chain in motion. You are here because of it. And so am I. Don't think of saving everyone here, Yola. You know who you love. Who you would die to save. Save that person and that person alone. Not such a big task, now is it?'
Yola gazed up at him, tears shining on her face and her eyes sparkling. She shook her head. And then she turned and looked at another of the Ascendants. The boy. He raised his eyebrows but Yola merely smiled.
'Let's try again, shall we?'
Iliev patted Kashilli on the back.
'Here they come. Be ready. They're like dogs on a scent and we're standing in front of their quarry.'
Kashilli rolled his shoulders and circled his head on his bull neck. 'Let them come.'
Citizens spilled away from the gates and a gap opened up in the courtyard. Arrows flew into the open maw of the Victory Arch. People hurled stones, knives, anything that came to hand. Nothing stopped the dead. The dull thud of their feet and the mould that spread out before them forced people further and further back. There was screaming, so much that it hurt the ears.
In front of Iliev on the ground, the guards were edgy, beginning to look over their shoulders.
'Stand,' said Iliev. 'Stand with the Ocenii. Be heroes for the Conquord this day. Keep your spears level and firm. You can hold them back.'
Iliev became aware of a sluicing sound behind him. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Water was cascading over the three Ascendants, drawn up from the fountain pool around them. It covered them in a second skin. The air crackled with power. Next to Iliev, Kashilli was bouncing his hammer in his hands, growling. Nature and power clashing. Man in the middle.
The dead marched towards the fountain. The front line was ordinary citizens and a scattering of militia. They barely looked dead but for the sick taint to their skin and the mould that covered their clothes. At their feet, the disease spread more slowly than it had. Like the force driving it was weakened or looking elsewhere. Kashilli had seen it too. He grunted. Iliev knew what he was thinking; the odds had evened just a little bit.
The living ran away where they could, leaving the fountain exposed to the dead who surrounded it completely. Squad seven were atop the lip. Ascendancy guard on the ground. And they would not stand for long.
'Kashilli, a dying wish?'
'Steady ground under my feet,' he said. 'And the freedom to swing one last time.'
Iliev nodded. 'Then let's do it as one. Squad seven! To the fore. Move!'
Kashilli and Iliev leapt over the ranks of guards and landed between spears, pushing them aside. Squad seven filled in around the fountain, one thin line of the Ocenii. Kashilli did not pause. He ran to the dead, whirled the hammer two-handed over his head and swept it through a rotting body, smashing through ribs and spine, smearing the corpse into two others.
Iliev dropped to his knees and chopped his axe into the knees of a dead citizen and his hammer in to the ankle joint of another. Both stumbled and he bounced backwards, dashing skulls as they fell, chopping into hamstrings on his way to the next.
The press was enormous. The dead just moved on. Those under attack did not stop and though the Ocenii could make holes in the line, they were quickly filled in. Step by step, they were pushed back. Kashilli brought his hammer down again, destroying another citizen.
Kashilli took a pace back and swung low to high, catching a dead under the ribcage and catapulting him up over the heads of those behind. Squad seven battered and hacked, chopped and kicked. Perhaps they slowed the advance. Perhaps they didn't. Iliev found he didn't care. It felt like buying time and if he was to die, it would not be standing still.
Iliev backed up another pace and felt the point of a spear. The dead closed. A festering hand reached out to touch him. He heard a woman scream. The dead man's hand froze.
The penultimate flask hit the stairway. Dead were smeared aside. The stone grumbled again. There was a sharp crack and dust billowed into the air. The stairs wobbled. They juddered and began to fall backwards, spilling dead from them.
'Yes!' Davarov punched the air.
And they stopped falling, wedging against the causeway behind. The gap was three feet. Nowhere near far enough. 'Shit,' said Roberto.
The dead on the upper half climbed without looking back. Davarov swung his long blade, feeling it bite deep and shove three Tsardon back on to the ground of the compound. The numbers did not seem to have diminished at all. Behind them, dead were beginning to reach the roof. The living were being pressed back but they had no place to go-
'We have to make it move sideways, bring it down into the compound,' said Roberto.
'Fine,' said Davarov. He decapitated a dead and kicked his body off the top step. 'I'll fetch a hammer and chisel and get started.'
'One flask might do it,' said Roberto. 'Right down at the base.'
'What about here at the top? Take out these eight steps and they can't jump the gap. Too high and too wide.'