As River ran he was more vigilant than ever, waiting for the strike to come from the growing dark. But that strike never came, and when he found himself at the city’s southernmost rooftop overlooking the docks, he finally stopped.
River realised he had been running in a daze, no rhyme or reason to his direction, but it had brought him here.
To a place from which he might flee the city.
He turned back, looking out across Steelhaven’s rooftops towards the palace in the distance. Towards his love.
Could he trust the Father of Killers? Would Jay be safe if he kept his part of the bargain? His Father had certainly never given him any reason to doubt his word.
But how could he go without first speaking to Jay? She would never know what had become of him. She might think he had abandoned her.
If he stayed, if he tried to complete his vow to murder the Father, he would surely be killed, and Jay left with no protector. But if the Father kept his word, and there was no reason to think he would not, she would be spared death at his hands. All River had to do was leave.
Surely it was the only way.
He climbed down from the rooftops, bracing himself against the tight walls of an alleyway as he eased himself to the ground, then walked out into the dockside, making his way down to the crescent bay.
It was hard to believe he could do this, could run away and leave her, and more than once he stopped, turning back to the city, feeling the pull of it.
But he had no choice.
Gripping the bag of coins tightly in his hand, River ran down to the dock. Countless ships were moored, and it did not take him long to find one bound for Keidro Bay. As he approached it, he saw the name emblazoned on the side, painted in stark white against the black bow –
The Maiden’s Saviour
.
River almost laughed. Was this some kind of portent? And if so, was it telling him he was doing the right thing, or that he should turn back?
Without thinking on it, he walked up the gangplank and was quickly confronted by a grizzled sailor, his head covered by a bandanna, the tattoos on his thick arms still visible in the waning light.
‘Not a passenger ship,’ he said simply, regarding River with cold eyes.
‘Not even for this?’ River replied, tossing him the bag of coins.
The man weighed it in his fist. ‘You must be desperate or rich to pay so much for passage to Keidro. What is it? You got business with the Lords of the Serpent Road?’ He laughed at his joke then, and busied himself on deck, leaving River alone.
Whether these men, these pirate lords, were as evil as Forest had said, River did not know, but that would not stop him. Better for them they did not know River was coming.
Coming with only murder in his heart.
T
he brass gates to the Chapel of Ghouls lay open. Waylian stood outside them beside the Magistra and two Raven Knights. Despite their presence this place still filled him with dread.
‘Should we wait for the Greencoats, Magistra?’ he asked, looking sideways at the two dark-armoured warriors. They were imposing, their beaked helms hiding their faces, but Waylian wasn’t sure they would be enough to stand against a man schooled in the Ninth Art.
‘There is no time,’ said Gelredida, moving forward across the threshold, the Raven Knights at her shoulder. ‘You are free to wait here if you wish.’
Those words were a challenge, and Waylian knew it. Of all the tasks she had given him over the months, Waylian knew this one was the most significant.
Would it win him her respect?
There was no way to tell, but refuse and he would most definitely lose it, of that he was certain.
Reluctantly, Waylian followed.
Archmaster Laius had directed them to this place, and as they entered, Waylian began to wish the old diviner had been less proficient. It had taken him no time at all to scry his astrolabe and rummage in chicken gizzards before he’d specified the Chapel of Ghouls. To Waylian, Laius’s divination had looked almost comical, as he went about his business like some sort of street charlatan, but Gelredida trusted his assessment without question, castigating herself for her stupidity, and had immediately rushed here after demanding the service of the first Raven Knights she saw.
So it had brought them to this – this eerie monolith in the north of the city.
Waylian tried to stay as close as he could to the Raven Knights as they made their way up towards the Chapel itself, spears held out in front of them. The place gave him an uncontrollable sense of foreboding, elevating his fear, but he knew he couldn’t turn back. The Magistra was relying on him. Hopefully she just wanted moral support, because he doubted he’d be any good if this came to violence.
The four of them moved up to the stone building, to the entryway that had previously been blocked by a massive stone, only to find it lying beside the Chapel, crushed and broken as though a giant had smashed it asunder with an enormous warhammer.
Waylian stared into the black entrance, into the abyss, the fear clasping his heart like the gripping of an armoured fist. Magistra Gelredida suddenly grasped his robe, holding her hand up for silence. At first Waylian could hear nothing, just wrinkled his nose against the strange smell, but soon he heard it: a low chant, words repeated over and over again in a language he had no comprehension of.
And then the Magistra was moving, her urgency clear. The two knights clattered after her as she rushed through the entrance and Waylian could do nothing but follow.
They hurried along a dark corridor, coming out into a gigantic atrium. It was impossibly large. From the outside, the Chapel of Ghouls was a towering monolith, but it could in no way house an interior so massive. It made Waylian’s head spin with its vast basalt walls intricately carved with sigils and friezes, each as grotesque as those depicted on the gates outside.
Several flights of stairs, each carved into the rock, twisted and wound their way upwards to a platform high above. Gelredida did not pause, mounting the stairs followed by her knights. Waylian barely had time to catch his breath, barely had time to marvel at the Chapel’s interior, barely had time to register his panic before following them.
The stairs came out onto a platform high above the Chapel. Windows carved in the rock let in the night air and a stiff breeze threatened to throw Waylian over the edge and to the ground fifty feet below. However, what he saw on the platform made him forget the imminent danger of falling. The floor of the high dais was covered in black sigils, pictograms daubed and etched into the stonework. Something dark and foul was smeared all around, some kind of black gore that stank like death.
Rembram Thule was at the platform’s centre, chanting his foul incantation. He did not stop as the four of them appeared. He was too enrapt in his ritual, too focused on the object of his rite … Gerdy.
She was staked out, her eyes glazed and staring, her mouth gagged tight with a knotted rope. Waylian saw she was naked, and thought for a moment he should do something to cover her modesty as he had done some nights before, but right now that was the least of her worries. Her main worry was the dagger in Bram’s hand.
As he saw what was happening, one of the Raven Knights bellowed, charging forward with his spear held out menacingly. Gelredida shouted something Waylian didn’t hear, a warning that was lost above the knight’s battle cry – a battle cry that only served to alert Bram to their presence.
The boy looked up, but Waylian could see he was a boy no longer. His eyes were dark rimmed and there was no colour in them, the irises now two jet pools of black hatred. As the knight charged, Bram stood fast, a mirthless smile spreading across his lips, a black mist already emanating from his clenched fists. What dark magicks he was conjuring, Waylian could not comprehend, but he knew they were steeped in evil.
Rembram’s smiling lips twisted into a silent incantation as he thrust out his fists. The Raven Knight suddenly stiffened in his charge and Waylian could hear a sickening crack from within his armour, as though every bone in his body had suddenly snapped as one. Without a sound the knight crumpled to the ground.
The second knight was more wary, circling round to the right as Gelredida held a hand up.
‘You have to stop this, boy. You have no idea what you’re doing.’
Bram only grinned. ‘I know exactly what I’m doing, you old witch. I’m going to watch this place fall. I am the bringer of oblivion. The Maleficar Necrus.’
With that he raised the knife high over Gerdy’s supine body.
Waylian screamed wordlessly, a cry of fear and pain and regret.
Gelredida stepped forward, already uttering something from deep in her throat, fingers twisting into some intricate formation.
The remaining Raven Knight stepped in, raising his spear high, his arm poised to bring it down in a death blow.
As Bram’s knife thrust towards Gerdy, Gelredida unleashed her magicks in a flurry of purple light. Waylian could feel it sucking the energy from the atmosphere, from the stone of the rooftop, and it took his breath with it, as though it had reached into his chest and stolen the very air from his lungs.
It shot towards Bram, and Waylian watched as it travelled, leaving a contrail of enervating mist in its wake. The energy turned in the air as it reached Bram, seemingly drawn to the knife he gripped in his fist and drove down through the air towards Gerdy’s bare chest. Before the dagger could pierce her flesh it was consumed by the purple light, but this did not stop Bram’s strike. The dagger, now wreathed in magick, plunged into her body, right up to the hilt.
Waylian saw with horror the wound instantly turn black. Bram wrenched the dagger free in a flurry of black mist, just as the Raven Knight’s spear came down to impale him.
With preternatural speed, Bram moved, twisting aside and slicing the haft of the spear in two with the dagger. The Raven Knight barely had time to register his weapon was sundered before Bram screamed in his face. It was a fell voice: a daemonic cry that almost burst Waylian’s eardrums, and its power was enough to send the knight hurtling back over the edge of the platform.
‘What have you done?’ Gelredida cried, moving forward.
Waylian could see the wound on Gerdy’s chest spreading, turning her flesh dark and necrotic, branching out like a spider web, following an arterial path like a black flood through her veins.
‘You know exactly what I’ve done,’ Bram replied, a self-satisfied smile creeping across his lips as if he’d just beaten someone at cards rather than murdered a girl in cold blood.
Gelredida pulled something from her robe and flung it while Bram was still talking. It burst as it flew through the air, spreading spore-like dust all over the boy’s head. He reeled back, dropping the dagger and yelping like a beaten hound.
Gelredida rushed forward to Gerdy’s body. ‘Waylian,’ she barked. ‘You have to help me.’
Bram’s face began to burn, coming up in livid welts, and he stumbled back, clawing at the skin.
Gelredida knelt beside Gerdy, laying her hands on the black flesh of her chest.
‘What do you want me to do?’ said Waylian, unable to take his eyes off the dead girl.
Gelredida looked up, her eyes burning into him, into his very soul.
‘Kill him!’ she growled.
Waylian looked at Bram, who seemed to be recovering from the poisonous dust. His face was burned, his flesh peeling in places, but he was regaining some control. He stared at Waylian, then at Gelredida, seeing the Magistra lay her hands on Gerdy’s chest and begin to absorb the blackness from her body, leeching the darkness from her veins. Gelredida’s hands were already turning as black as the dead flesh on Gerdy’s chest.
‘No,’ screamed Bram. ‘You won’t. You can’t stop it!’
He rushed forward, but Waylian was already moving to intercept him. He didn’t know where his courage came from, whether he was more scared of what Gelredida would do if he didn’t act, or whether he knew Bram’s ritual had to be stopped at all costs. Either way he leapt forward, bowling into Bram before he could speak any more foul incantations.
They went down in a heap, rolling across the platform. When they came to rest, by some miracle Waylian was on top of Bram, hands clenched around his throat. Bram only smiled as Waylian did his best to choke the life from him.
Then he gripped Waylian’s belly.
It was like being stuck with hot pokers. Waylian held on for as long as he could, but the pain was too intense. He screamed in defiance, trying desperately to throttle Bram, seeing the spittle rise from his mouth, but it was no good. White hot pain was searing through his innards, and he had to pull away, to wrench himself free of Bram’s grip.
He fell back, suppressing a scream of agony, and as he writhed on the ground Bram looked down at him, his face a mask of contempt.
‘How does it feel to know you’re going to die, Grimm?’ said Bram, the black of his eyes spreading, covering what little white was left in them. His hands twisted into claws, the fingertips turning black and sharp like a hawk’s talons.
This was it. This was how it was going to end.
Something hit Bram hard on the head, sending dust flying as it bounced away. Waylian looked up to see two more figures on the platform – Greencoats, one big and hulking, the other young and fearful looking – but then Waylian could hardly blame him for that.
He tried to stand, but could only flail uselessly on the ground as the two men circled Bram, who was still reeling from a rock to the head.
‘Go on then,’ said the smaller Greencoat.
‘
You
fucking go on then,’ said his tough-looking friend, eyeing Bram’s claws warily.
Before either of them could act, Bram raised himself up to full height, lifting his arms above his head and screaming to the heavens before smashing them into the ground at his feet.
Waylian had enough time to register the deafening sound of the impact, before madness ensued. Cracks appeared in the platform, spreading from where Bram’s fists had struck. The dais began to split, each crack widening. In a sudden conflagration of flying bricks and dust, the floor collapsed beneath them. All Waylian could hear was a cacophony, all he could see was a grey mess of rubble as he fell towards the floor of the chapel fifty feet below.