Blackhand (20 page)

Binding the frayed threads of his senses, Quintel forced his attention back to the battle between Siyer and the mountain. Their combat agitated the spiritual realm like a tempest upon the sea. His vision pitched wildly against the wake of their power. The sight he captured was tragic. He could already see the outcome of the struggle.

Quintel tried to find some way to help Siyer. His confused mind bounced from one futile hope to another. But he could do nothing in his disembodied state. He was only an observer.

Although he lay in a comfortable nest of thick blankets and pillows, Quintel's body was rigid, contorted in a pose that made his guards believe he was demon possessed. At times he writhed upon the bed like a whipping serpent.

Quintel saw Siyer’s strength fading. The battle moved at blinding speed and his old friend fought fiercely, but the monster was far stronger and faster, swooping down from the sky and striking before Siyer could react. The creature was playing with its prey.

Siyer knew he was about to die. The minion parried a combination of blows and broke from the fight for a second. In that breath of time, he cast a line of thought toward Quintel's consciousness. It was a message, hastily scribed but full of meaning.

It was: “Do not despair.”

Then the killing blow fell. A crescent-shaped claw with an edge like a sword pierced Siyer's heart, cutting a wound beyond mending.

Amidst the turbulence, he felt Siyer’s soul break from its fleshy bonds and leave his century-old body. It exploded in a starry fountain of wisdom. Two lifetimes compressed into one, a blinding flash of days.  Then it was gone. Blank, silent, with not even a void left in its absence.

“No!” Quintel screamed and his cries echoed down the stone hall of the castle. Siyer’s death eviscerated him, opening him up like a gutted fish. A flaming lance of grief pierced the core of his being. His mentor, his friend, was gone in a breath. The agony of loss spread through his form and he felt the god convulse in sorrow.  Tears spilled from his eyes.  An abysmal sense of emptiness crashed down upon him. He knew he could not let it carry him away and drew upon his human side, his Abanshi side, to bring himself back into control. He had to control the pain. 

Siyer was dead.  His friend and sole ally. The only one who could help him. Gone.

Do not despair. Do not despair.

He fought against the sorrow. He could not let it take him.  He had to get a look at what he was up against.

Quintel’s mind hovered above the scene as the razor-clawed victor tore Siyer’s body to shreds. Pain stabbed through his center at the sight. He pushed it down and looked upon the mountain.

The creature was much different than the Thogs. Twice their size, leaner in build, its body was covered in thick, black, triangular scales. Instead of hands, sharp white claws curved from the ends of its arms like ivory scythes. Two bony wings, gloved in rough hide, spread from its back. At its heart, a red fire burned far brighter than the oily glow from the Thogs. The stone had depth, layers, swirling currents. It was more than some kind of propelling force. This stone was a container.

And it had a soul inside of it.

Quintel knew what the creature was. His human mind searched the mythology of his boyhood for its name.

Demonthane.

This was the aid Ru had pulled from the spirit realm. The monster felt Quintel’s invisible presence and turned towards him. That’s when he saw its face. Nothing but teeth. Fangs as long as swords interlocked its top and bottom jaws. It had no eyes, but he could tell it could see.

The Demonthane cast one word toward his disembodied mind.

“Abomination.”

With that, it spread its wings and climbed into the sky.

Quintel pulled back, cruising over the dark legions of Thogs. He saw the Abanshi warpacks pulsing through the network of tunnels beneath the mountains, pouring to the surface from various hidden portals to meet the horde. The avalanche machines stood ready to drop their crushing payloads. They had known about the Thogs and were ready.

Among the sallow glow of the black stones, he saw the shimmering light of several hundred humans. Huk's men. Some of them were on horseback herding the monsters toward the gate. Others were archers and pike men following, exhausted, toward the rear of the army. They did not share the blinding rage of their inhuman allies. Many had already been broken by the days of punishing travel. Others were so terrified of the Thogs, they doubted their own loyalty to Ru.

Without fear, the Thogs charged the Iron Gate meeting a storm of masterfully aimed arrows. A handful fell from their wounds, but most rushed forward, oblivious to the attack. The arrows brought them no pain.  Some of the beasts had dozens of shafts protruding from their bodies, but continued to fight.

An earthquake rumbled through the canyons as the avalanche machines released their burdens. Quintel saw a thousand of the Thogs flatten beneath the tons of gray stone. To his horror, he realized they were not dead. While their bodies were ground to black pulp, the spheres that gave them life still glowed with inky power. The stones were not even scratched.

Survivors of the avalanche rushed the base of the Iron Gate. With an apparent burst of coordinated intelligence, the beasts entwined their arms and legs, interlocking in an instant, forming platforms out of their own bodies as if performing some acrobatic trick they had rehearsed for a lifetime.

The first tier formed in moments. A second group jumped upon their backs and entangled themselves with the same precision. A third climbed and repeated the action. Then a fourth. Within moments, a living ladder of the creatures had violated the battlements of the Iron Gate. A stream of Thogs raced up the undulating ladder of their brethren without missing a fleshy rung. Abanshi guardsmen met them valiantly on the parapets with sword and spear. A few even scored blows before being torn to pieces. Their deaths stabbed him like daggers.

The dark vision before him spawned an emotional thread Quintel used to pull himself back to his body.

He reeled the bits of his spilled mind back into the confines of his flesh. Once reunited, he heard commotion outside of his room. The shouts of guards and servants, the urgency of running footsteps. He felt panic rise across the kingdom as word of the Thogs’ arrival spread. The Abanshi were a disciplined and brave people, but this was an enemy they had never seen before.

The time of decision was upon him. He was too weak to leave his quarters, or even to stand, but his consciousness was sharp. He relived Siyer's death. Nausea filled his stomach. The grief dragged him into a swamp of inaction. He could not move. All he felt was failure. His plans had been ridiculous, flat and without alternative. The god half was a weakness and everything he had learned from the game seemed false. But there was something else in his guilt-heavy grief. Something in Siyer's final words to him. Something he could use. The thing burned red in the center of the darkness within his heart. His human portion swam towards it, hoping for buoyancy. As his heart embraced the spark, he saw the nature of the beacon. Anger.

His god half knew nothing of these things and cringed at the first touch of his rage. Here was the weapon he needed. Not mysticism. Not divine insight. Just pure fury.

With this fire, he filled his body with the strength to stand from his bed.

He again let himself see Siyer's death, but this time he did not burden himself with blame. Instead of turning the emotion upon himself, he directed his anger outward, piloting the flame to a productive harbor, steering it toward the source of his rage.

The Thogs would die. The Demonthane would die. Sirian Ru would die. Quintel would be damned if they wouldn't.

Power flooded his body and he shook the weakness from his limbs. He stood from the bed and felt the tingling satisfaction of being a vengeful god. An Abanshi god.

“Open the door,” he called into the hallway. He could see through the stone walls as if they were ice. A single guard stood watch in the hallway. The guard cocked his head, but did not respond to Quintel's command.

“I said open the door!” With a flat palm Quintel pushed the portal, ripping it from its hinges. Splinters and bent iron exploded against the facing wall.

The lone guard drew his sword. Quintel twisted the blade from the man's grip and slammed him against the wall with enough force to knock the wind from his lungs but not cause harm.

In one lunge, Quintel covered the distance down the hallway to the nearest window and dropped five stories to the ground below, landing on his feet in a hard run.

Quintel now knew his role. He was not a general sent to command. He was not a king meant to rule. He was not a leader of any kind. He was a warrior there to fight.

This was his divine strategy: Hack to death as many of the beasts as he could reach.

He jumped over the walls surrounding the castle, much to the disbelief of the posted sentries, who didn't even have time to react before he was gone. Soon he was outside the city, charging through the stone wilderness toward the Iron Gate.

Quintel caught the Abanshi warpacks within a few hours. He avoided the army, taking to the mountain walls on all fours, invisible to the endless line of troops below.

He could feel Aul ahead of him at the vanguard of the advance. Knowing the Iron Gate had been bridged, she bore a fearless resolve, but was weighted with the anticipation of defeat. She believed they were going to lose.

When Quintel swept the emotions of the army, little variation appeared in the feelings of the men. Now that the might of the Thogs was known, a single thought formed among their ranks. They all believed they marched to their deaths. All fifty thousand of them.

Yet Quintel sensed little despair among the ranks. So conditioned were the Abanshi for battle that the thought of the kingdom's annihilation was not as horrible as the possibility of dying without a fight. Many even believed this was, indeed, the end of the Abanshi, and it was their destiny to be the final gesture of defiance. Quintel was intrigued by this self-perception. In some way, it was how he saw himself.

In the far distance, Quintel sensed the Thogs penetrating a land that had never known the tread of an enemy. Their human masters struggled to control the frothing mass. The beasts were on the verge of frenzy. With snapping jaws, they devoured the fallen corpses of the Abanshi soldiers to the disgust of their human allies.

Calculating the distance and speed of both armies, Quintel saw that Aul would meet the attackers at the plains, where the mountains opened up into a tabletop landscape that stretched for miles. To enter the flat expanse, the Thogs had to pass through a chokepoint that was only a few hundred feet wide. He sensed her plan was to spread her army and focus their catapults and archers on that narrow entrance. She hoped that her cavalry and heavy infantry would stifle the Thog advance, pinning them beneath a rain of stone and arrow.

Quintel knew the strategy would fail. The Thogs were almost invulnerable. Their only substantial casualties had come from the avalanche machines. Archers accounted for a lucky handful of killings. The black spheres that animated the beasts were too hard to reach beneath their thick hides. Once on the battlefield, the hordes would plow through Aul’s forces. Quintel estimated that after the last arrow had been released, Ru's forces would have lost a fraction of its might.

As he ran to meet the onslaught, Quintel wasn't sure how he would affect the odds. He only knew the stolen sword felt good in his grip. It made him feel like he could make a difference. His god half trembled. Quintel ignored it.

He passed the front of the advancing Abanshi army and saw Aul there, mounted on her war horse, clad in full battle armor, their father's sword hanging from her hip, jaw set, riding to her death.

Night draped the world. Aul's army continued its march into the darkness while Quintel pulled farther ahead at racing horse speed.

His greatest fear was not knowing how his god half would react during the battle. Already it cowered in the recesses of his thoughts, terrified of its host, not only in fear of its own life, but afraid that Quintel would kill again. The god reminded him of some huge and powerful animal trembling at the sight of a shrew.

The canyon opened and the plains spread to the horizon before him, an open expanse of windswept stone ringed by mountains. The possibility of a final Abanshi battle there had often been discussed in wives' tales. If a foe ever managed to cross the wilderness, if they ever breeched the Iron Gate, this was where the final battle would occur. Now folklore would prove fact.

He ran to end of the expanse and stopped near the choke point. The Thogs would be there by morning. Aul's army would arrive at almost the same moment. The battle grew near.

Quintel felt the attention of Sirian Ru overlooking the entire scene. The god's mind was not splayed and disjointed like his own. Its attention was sharp and focused. On him. Quintel realized the god had been watching him for some time. How much had Ru figured out? Did he know Quintel did not have control over his powers? Did he see the grief he felt over killing Huk? Did he see his fear over the coming battle? He felt bare beneath the god’s gaze.

A strong wind gained speed over the flattened surface of the plains and whipped his clothes and hair. His eyes did not blink as they looked out upon the world. He knew where the Thogs were. He knew where Sirian Ru's attention was. But where was the Demonthane? Waiting to join the Thogs in the attack? Waiting to ambush him after grief had weighted his limbs and heart?