The Beauty of Destruction (22 page)

‘You will stay here,’ Moren told the Brigante and
gwyll
guards that had accompanied Bladud and Guidgen. The Brigante started to protest. The two
gwyllion
looked to Guidgen, who nodded. Moren gave them directions to a local longhall where they would receive hospitality.

‘Why does Madawg go with us?’ Guidgen asked.

‘He has seen Crom Dhubh,’ Bladud told them. Britha heard something in the Witch King’s voice.
Is he nervous?
she wondered.

‘As did we,’ Guidgen started.

‘But he did not attempt to deny the Red Chalice to the people,’ Moren pointed out. Guidgen was glaring at him. Britha wanted to wipe the smug expression off Madawg’s face. Guidgen opened his mouth to retort but Britha put her hand on his shoulder.

‘Come, all will be settled,’ Britha told him and they climbed into the boat. Moren blew a different note on the horn and another horn answered them. The boatman – or woman, it was difficult to tell under the hood – paddled back into the mist.

Bress backed away from the brass scorpion quickly. He could not parry the snapping pincers; at best they would trap his sword, at worst snap it, so all he could do was avoid them. While he was concentrating on the pincers, the sting was swaying backwards and forwards as the scorpion tried to find an opening. He stepped backwards, and pincers snapped shut where his leg had been a moment before. The sting darted forwards. He ducked out of the way, batted at it with his sword, but it was fast. He had to throw himself to one side. He had run out of room. The scorpion scuttled around to face him. He backed up, though he instinctively knew he was running out of passage. Behind him was the thirty-foot drop into the previous cavern. It was ridiculous. This thing, this construct, was probably the most dangerous thing he had faced since arriving in this realm, with the exception of Fachtna during his
riasterthae
frenzy.

Bress was tottering on the edge of the drop. The brass scorpion continued forwards. Bress bent his knees and somersaulted backwards off the ledge and into the darkness. He was quite surprised when the scorpion pounced after him. The sting was powering towards his face. Bress risked a swipe at it mid-air, severing the tail just behind the sting. There was an odd metallic cry.

They landed. Bress tried to scramble backwards. One of the pincers closed around his leg. Armour hardened, skin and flesh hardened. The powerful mechanism sheared through them, stopping only at immortal bone. Bress fell back, bringing the sword down with a clumsy blow, the impossibly sharp blade biting into the creature’s armoured carapace. He cried out, and shuddered, almost dropping his sword, as the smaller, sharper part of the scorpion’s other pincer speared him in the side, and then the pincer closed, tearing a chunk out of his flesh. The scorpion darted forwards, pincer closing around his head.

This would be a
poor way to die
, he thought. He smeared his hand into the wound in his side and wiped it into the crack in the creature’s carapace, willing his blood to do his bidding. He felt the pincer close around his face.

Deep in the mist, the water was still. They may as well have been nowhere. This felt more how Britha had imagined the crossing between worlds to be, before she had actually done it. The boatman, or woman, followed the sound of the horn. Fire flared, a faint glow in the mist and the boat changed direction slightly. Britha glanced at Moren. She wasn’t sure if it was a signal fire or just an attempt to instil awe in their guests.

Britha could make out a beach. There were figures on it. Behind those she could make out what looked to be a very broad, black wall. As they got closer to the beach she could see that the wall was in fact a dense tangle of trees made naked by the winter. Standing in front of the woods were a number of women in dark furs, bearing burning brands, their faces painted with dyes of black and red. More fires burned deeper in the forest. She could hear the rhythmic thud of the
bhodran
. She glanced over at Guidgen. He smiled and shrugged. Bladud, however, was starting to look very worried, his brow covered in sweat.

‘Are you all right?’ Britha asked. Bladud looked around at her.

‘I … this place is difficult for me,’ he told her.

‘Old age has not mellowed Nils’ temperament then?’ Guidgen asked, but not unkindly.

Moren glanced around at the sound of the arch
dryw
’s name. Bladud just shook his head.

Once they had landed, Moren led them through the thick tangle of wood. Many of the trees were oaks, though smaller than those on the mainland. Britha suspected that they had been shaped by the harsh winds blowing off the western sea. Egg-shaped menhirs were spotted throughout the forest. All of them had patches that were stained brown. There were people moving among the trees, most of them brown-robed, though there were a number of initiates in their white robes, and she had seen one other black-robed
dryw
. One brave woman had been tending to the carcass of a black pig on a cromlech, naked. Her hands pulling its entrails out, running them between her bloodied fingers.

‘I hope they will cook that later,’ Britha said. She had never agreed with sacrifice for the sake of it. It should serve some other purpose as well as that of trying to tell the future. Of course she’d had piss-all luck trying to tell the future anyway, other than guessing based on her knowledge of the circumstances at hand.

Coins, pieces of metal, broken weapons, jewellery, polished copper mirrors, and many other items adorned the trees, obvious offerings to the southern gods.

Another fire was lit in what looked like a large, roughly circular clearing. Moren led them towards it and brought them to a halt in front of the fire. On the other side of the flames Britha could see an old, frail man sitting on a litter made of wood and furs. He looked ill, and she suspected his legs were useless. His skin was covered with the spots that came with age and it was pale enough to display his veins. He had a long, wispy, tapering beard running down over an expansive gut. He was attended by three of the painted women, and two brown-robed
dryw
who looked as though they had been chosen because they had the strength to carry his litter.

Moren walked around the fire to stand on the old man’s left side. Britha noticed the look of irritation the old man gave the ambitious young
dryw
.

Britha had seen the trick with the fire before. By having them look through the flames it forged a connection between those they viewed and the power of fire. The shimmer in the air from the heat made people think there was something out of the ordinary happening. She had used this tactic herself in the past.

‘Again, Bladud? Do you never grow tired of punishment and hearing the word no? No, we will not put aside ancient laws that have stood us in good stead all this time just for you. No, we cannot make things as you would have them. No, we cannot remake Ynys Prydain in your image. No, you are not yet a god.’ The old man’s body might have been frail and crippled but his voice still sounded full of life. He was craning his neck, looking from side to side, trying to get a good view of the man he was castigating. The Witch King had his hood up, his head down. He looked like a scolded initiate. Britha assumed the old man was Nils, the arch
dryw
.

‘This is about the chalice,’ Moren said quietly.

The old man glared at him. ‘That nonsense? Well, is it here?’

‘Has my old friend grown so close to death that he does not have the time to introduce himself?’ Guidgen asked. Britha was pleased to see him smiling again. The elderly
dryw
looked through the flames.

‘Show some respect!’ Moren snapped. Guidgen flashed the younger
dryw
another look of contempt.

‘He is!’ the old
dryw
snapped. ‘He is the first in many months to not have spoken to me as if I was a twig who would snap at the sound of a harsh word.’

‘Oh, this is foolish!’ Guidgen snapped and walked around the fire. Britha could see the old arch
dryw
’s face light up when he saw Guidgen. Moren didn’t look so pleased, however.

‘I never thought to see you again. I thought you were too old to make the journey in this weather! What were you thinking?’ Nils said. Britha moved round the fire to join them as well.

‘It’s good to see you again,’ Guidgen said. They shook each other’s arms and then Guidgen knelt to hug the older man. Britha saw him glance down at the old
dryw
’s legs as they broke the embrace. She suspected Guidgen was hiding his shock at the arch
dryw
’s frail appearance.

‘Nils, this is Britha. She is
ban draoi
to her people, the Cirig. Who are …’ Guidgen trailed off.

‘No more,’ Britha said and nodded.

‘Taken by the black
curraghs,
were they?’ Nils asked. She nodded. ‘I hear stories that you are a betrayer, that you have lain with our enemies from the Otherworld.’

‘There is truth to them,’ Britha admitted.

‘But more truth yet?’ the arch
dryw
asked, looking her up and down, a shamelessly calculating expression on his face.

She said nothing.

‘I mislike how you look. It is strange, and I have never known anything dressed in black that came from the north to mean anything other than ill.’

Britha nodded, considering his words, then she leaned in closer to him. ‘Do you think you’ll snap like a twig if I break your back for discourtesy?’ she asked quietly. He stared back at her.

‘You dare—’ Moren started.

‘Obviously she does,’ Nils said, meeting Britha’s eyes, holding her look. ‘And shut up, Moren.’ Then he started laughing. ‘I wonder if I can still sport an erection!’

‘Well, I’ll never know,’ Britha said, straightening up.

‘She carries the child of a demon inside her,’ Moren told the arch
dryw
. ‘You will have to sit in judgement as to whether or not it should be cut out and given to Nodens.’

‘Oh, will I?’ Nils asked, craning his neck up at Moren. ‘I think you sometimes forget who the arch
dryw
is, but we make that clear now. I’m going to say no. I think the two-faced god has seen enough blood for the time being.’

‘And yet look what has befallen—’

‘Moren?’ Britha said. The young
dryw
turned to look at her. Britha felt the satisfying crunch of his nose breaking as her knuckles made contact. Moren landed hard on his arse in the snow.

The other
dryw
from the island looked appalled. Nils clapped his hands together. ‘Splendid!’ he cried. Moren was rolling in the snow, trying to focus, speak, and use his limbs with little success. ‘Now perhaps we’ve suitably awed our guests, so we can get out of the cold, see if we can find something soft enough for me to eat, and offer our guests some proper hospitality.’

Throughout it all Bladud remained on the other side of the fire, his hood up, and his head down. Madawg was standing close to the treeline, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Bress sucked on the teat that the scorpion had grown. It fed him a disgusting grey gruel that was helping him heal and regrow his damaged and missing flesh. His casting had worked. The demons in his blood had sought out the construct’s dumb animal mind and possessed it. Just before the possession had succeeded, a fire had burned through the brass scorpion’s mind, destroying any thoughts, memories, and instructions it had known. He still did not know where it came from, whom it had served, and whether or not it had been looking for him.

He took his mouth away from the teat in disgust and moved around to sit against the wall, taking some of the food he had brought with him from his bag. His flesh had healed enough to function. His armour had mended itself as well, but was not quite as strong as it had been. The brass scorpion was smaller now. It had clearly used some of its form to repair itself and feed him. The teat was sinking back into the machine and its sting had regrown.

Bress came to a decision. With a thought he ordered the construct to bleed off much of its form. It shrank. Soon it was the size of a cat. It climbed up Bress and secured itself to his armour at his shoulder.

14

Now

Beth killed the first one with her great-grandfather’s bayonet. She had instinctively partitioned her mind. One part of her was calm, able to assimilate her newly uploaded skills, use them with her technologically transformed body. She was the good soldier, the calm, detached killer. The other part of her was screaming inside, panicking as she jammed the World War One weapon into a living man’s throat and felt hot, salty, red life course over her hand in time with the fading drumbeat of the man’s heart. Regardless of the partitioning she knew that this was her doing. All the uploaded skills and tech did was provide her with the ability. She was giving the orders. She was the killer.

At the other end of the gateway to the long, thin yard that led to the
DAYP
’s warehouse, the other guard was turning to face her when the top of his head came off, and he left a red smear on the wall behind him as he fell over. She carefully lowered the guard she’d killed to the ground. The other guard had been shot from a nearby rooftop that overlooked the warehouse just off Massachusetts Avenue. Du Bois’s suppressed, bolt-action Purdey had sounded deafening to her augmented hearing on the quiet street.

Her first trip to America and she had come to a broken and burning Boston, dotted with plane crashes. As they had flown in she had seen a coastguard cutter sailing out of the mouth of the burning Boston River. A US Navy battleship, flying a black flag, had fired on them before continuing to shell the city, apparently at random. Du Bois had taken the Harrier down among the broken towers of the city to evade the anti-aircraft fire. Flying just over deserted ruined streets, through the smoke in Northend, she saw the golden dome of the State House, her neuralware providing the tourist information. Someone had written the word
Patriotism
in red across the building. Someone else had crossed out the second I and the M, and written the word
Redsox
underneath it.

They had taken small arms fire over Boston Common, where people dressed as Washington’s blue-coated Continental Army, carrying modern military weapons, were lynching others in business suits. Du Bois gained altitude over the Back Bay area. The Central Artery Tunnels running under Boston had been blockaded with piles of stacked cars. Beth had caught a glimpse of movement in the tunnels. It looked like people were living down there. Du Bois banked right, heading north over Fenway Park. The huge baseball stadium looked packed for some sort of gladiatorial combat. Beth had felt as though she wanted to be sick but her modified body wouldn’t let her. She knew this had been done
to
humanity but she couldn’t help but wonder how much humanity had wanted it, whether this had always been lying beneath the surface, waiting for an excuse. She wondered about those who hadn’t been on the internet, watching TV, or hadn’t answered their phones. What chance did they have?

The
DAYP
’s base of operations was an old book warehouse in an otherwise residential part of Cambridge in Boston’s greater metropolitan area. It was only a few blocks from the strangely intact-looking MIT campus. Du Bois had landed the Harrier in Pacific Street Park, hopefully far enough away from the warehouse so the
DAYP
wouldn’t immediately connect the Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft to them, but close enough to make a quick getaway if need be.

Du Bois had wanted to go in but Beth had pointed out that as the most experienced shooter he would be better off providing overwatch. Du Bois had been unconvinced but had finally agreed. Beth wondered if she was trying to prove something to the centuries-old soldier.

Du Bois had taken the Model 0 light machine gun, and she had taken the SA58 FAL carbine with the underslung M320 grenade launcher. They had swapped over the modular ammo pouches on their webbing for the weapons as well.

Beth had tried to ignore the dead people with dogs gnawing at their carcasses as they moved through the streets towards the warehouse.

Now she moved to the other side of the gate, glancing up at the
CCTV
camera. She could see clearly in the darkness now, so she magnified her sight and saw where the lenses of the cameras had been spray painted over. The sophisticated card and keypad lock on the razor-wire-topped gate had been blown by what looked like an entry charge, according to her newfound knowledge.

Like du Bois and herself, the gunmen guarding the warehouse couldn’t risk comms infected by the alien madness. They still might not know they were being attacked.

She had no idea what she was doing. Why she was helping du Bois. Why she was killing people in the streets of America. She should have stayed in the castle. There was no need to do this. Besides, if what Azmodeus had said was true, and du Bois seemed to agree, it was pointless anyway. Like pissing into a burning building. As she adjusted her grip on the SA58, at once familiar and completely alien, she wondered how much of this stemmed from the feeling of power her newfound abilities and all the weapons provided.

She had to find calm. Blank her mind, concentrate on the task at hand, no matter how insane.

She could hear movement inside the yard. It sounded furtive. She didn’t think the alarm had been sounded yet. She heard another subsonic round in the air. Someone hit the ground on the other side of the gate. Beth wrenched the sliding gate open enough to allow her entry.

Beth stepped through the gate, the SA58 carbine snug against her shoulder, eyes piercing the dark, looking for more guards. She saw a pair of boots lying between two of the four black
SUV
s parked against the wall on the left-hand side of the yard.

She found herself looking down the barrel of a carbine. The gunman’s goateed face seemed to cave in on itself and turn red as he collapsed to the ground when du Bois shot him.

There were two more guards further down the yard, backing away from the gate, presumably to warn more gunmen inside. They wore civilian clothes under body armour and military webbing. She fired three subsonic rounds and the first gunman went down. She knew the other was going to have time to fire but the top of his head came off as du Bois shot him from above and behind her.

Beth moved quickly down the yard, checking above, between the
SUV
s, glancing at the bodies, making sure they were dead. As she got closer to the safety door she could see a hole in it from another breaching charge, like the gate. The gunmen did not work for the
DAYP
. She wished she had radio contact with du Bois.

The sky lit up behind her. The report from the massive .50 calibre rifle would have startled her once. She heard masonry explode as the huge bullet turned it to powder with its passage. Her augmented hearing had worked out a rough area for the source of the noise. Another sniper had overwatch on the warehouse and was firing, presumably at du Bois. Her best analysis suggested he didn’t have the angle to hit her. They knew she was here, though.

Flickering muzzle flashes from the rooftop behind her backlit her final approach to the warehouse’s door. She heard the flat staccato crack of du Bois firing the
LMG
, presumably in a bid to suppress the sniper. The returning fire from the .50 calibre sounded like thunder as it rolled across the Cambridge rooftops.

Beth reached the door and pulled it open as she stepped to one side. Nothing. She risked glancing in. To her left she could see a collection of expensive looking customised cars, trucks and vans. She checked to the right but saw only the wall of a short corridor that branched out into a wider area. Nobody fired. Carbine up, she moved in. She immediately began taking fire from the far corner of the garage. She couldn’t be sure but she thought that one of the shooters had his penis out.

Is
he wanking over a car?
A bullet hit her in the chest. Her clothing hardened. She couldn’t breathe but she was still moving. She went down on one knee and fired the carbine’s grenade launcher. The 40mm high-explosive, armour-piercing grenade punched through the side and rear of a van and exploded inside the pickup truck the two shooters were crouched behind. The force of the explosion sent the pickup truck tumbling back into the corner of the warehouse. She didn’t know if the shooters were dead but they had stopped firing. Her diaphragm allowed her lungs to inflate again. She was up and moving along the short wall, rapidly ejecting the spent grenade casing in the launcher and replacing it with a flechette grenade.

She came wide around the corner into the open space, the central part of the warehouse. The corner was suddenly chewed up by gunfire. She had a moment to take in the situation. The open space was cluttered with various toys, from gym equipment to sex swings. There was a mezzanine floor with lots of monitors and computer equipment. On the ground underneath the raised platform were a number of servers that she guessed were full of alien madness now. Oddest of all, between where she stood and the mezzanine floor was a cage which looked like it had a big dead cat in it, though the shape of the animal was all wrong.

There were two shooters, one with a squad automatic weapon, the other with a carbine, firing at her from the mezzanine floor. They had fired on the corner as soon as they had seen movement, which was why she had gone wide. There were another two gunmen running for a heavy sliding door just past the platform. The sliding door was open a crack and she could see moving images on the wall in the next room.

She fired at the gunmen on the mezzanine, the carbine twitching between them. A three-round burst for each. But they had ducked down and the bullets just sparked off the metal framework. She risked a burst at the two fleeing gunmen, targeting graphics overlaid in her vision to show her where to aim. A round caught one of them in the body armour on his back; he stumbled and fell face-first through the doorway. Then her carbine jammed. It was a common problem with cold loads. Because of the cartridge’s reduced powder charge the gun didn’t cycle properly. Beth was using her left hand to sweep the carbine out of the way as she drew the Colt
OHWS
pistol from the holster at her hip, firing one-handed as she moved for cover. Both gunmen on the mezzanine were back up now. A third was firing through the crack in the sliding door.

It felt like she was being beaten in the chest with hammers. Something hot tried to tear the side of her face off. Her watch hat was torn from her head as she hit the ground behind a sturdy looking weight machine. The Colt was empty. She reloaded it quickly and hunkered down, part of her mind panicking, the other part assessing the shitty situation.
Christ, there are a lot of them
. She had been hit in the head but her hardened skull had deflected the 5.56mm round. Her body was utilising her fat reserves to create new matter to help with the wound.

Beth holstered the .45 and rolled out from behind the weight machine. Almost immediately she was hit again. She fired the flechette grenade from the carbine’s grenade launcher. Effectively she had turned the weapon into a massive needle-firing shotgun. The SAW gunner disappeared from view. She swept the carbine to one side again as she re-drew her pistol. The other gunner on the mezzanine floor was staggering back. She knew she hadn’t hit him. It looked like he had some sort of spike sticking out of his face but she only caught a glimpse as she fired at the gunner through the sliding door. The gunman ducked back out of sight. The slide locked back on the Colt, the weapon was empty again. She jammed it awkwardly back into its holster and grabbed for a stun grenade from one of the pouches on the front of her webbing. Pin pulled, the spoon flipped out, everything seemed to be happening slowly, the gunman reappeared, she threw the grenade, he disappeared from sight again, shouting a warning. Beth drew the Benelli M4 NFA from its back sheath, extending the stock with her left hand as she brought it over her shoulder. She turned her head and closed her eyes. Her audio filters made her deaf for a while to protect her from the explosion. The flash leaked through her eyelids, but again the tech dealt with it. She could still see fine when she opened her eyes again. She was up on her feet and moving forwards now. Beth glanced up at the mezzanine floor. Blood was dripping down onto the servers but there was no movement. She knew she wasn’t doing this properly. She should have confirmed her kills, but then one person wasn’t supposed to clear a building this size with so many bad guys in it.

She was through the crack in the sliding door. It looked like a man cave. Sofas everywhere, junk food, empty bottles, and it was snowing cocaine. The projector was hanging off its bracket but still projecting images.

The first gunman had blood coming from his ears. He was still blinking as he tried to bring his weapon to bear. The shotgun pellets removed his face as Beth shot him at near point-blank range. The other gunman, the one she had shot, was clawing at the holster for his sidearm with his left arm. Beth had thought she had hit his body armour, but it looked like the bullet had hit him in the upper right arm.

‘Don’t do it!’ she shouted at him, overriding her instinct to fire. She knew he wouldn’t be able to hear her, he would just see her mouth move, but he had to realise that she would kill him if he drew his sidearm. Beth wanted to know who they were, what they were doing here.

‘Fucking bitch!’ he screamed. His voice had the warped quality of someone who couldn’t hear what they were saying. His face was red with hate. He wrenched his sidearm awkwardly out of its holster. Beth shot him in the face, moving forwards, and firing again before his body had hit the ground.

‘Wanker!’ She wasn’t sure if she was angry at him, or herself for the things she’d done. She turned around and shot the other gunman a second time in the face. Working quickly, she collapsed the shotgun’s stock and slid it into the back sheath. She reloaded and re-holstered the Colt, all the while keeping an eye on the sliding door, though she couldn’t hear anything outside.