Authors: Tim Akers
“Castian, no!” Malcolm yelled. He rushed forward, grabbing Jaerdin by the shoulders and dragging him back. The gheist rushed forward, oblivious to the thick frairwood smoke and the dozen wounds from the bolts in its flesh, scuttling insect-like to where his prey had been standing. Malcolm backed carefully away, pulling Castian with him. They bumped into the high elector.
“Watch yourself, priest!” Halverdt yelled. Hesitant now, he backed up to the Sedgewind throne that dominated the room, its foliage of banners and blessing swaying in the breeze from the open door. “That one bites!”
“Stop being such an imbecile, Halverdt,” the priest hissed. “You have a godsblessed sword. Fucking use it!”
“Can’t you banish it or something?” Castian whispered to the high elector. “Pray it away?”
“I was never that sort of priest,” Beaunair answered. “My mistake.”
“Give me the sword, Halverdt!” Malcolm yelled across the room. The gheist stalked between them, looking lost and languid. “If you haven’t the balls to stand up to the demon, let me have a go!”
“As though I would put my life in your hands,” Halverdt answered. “Very well.” He took one step forward and raised the blessed sword over his head like a banner.
At the sight of the blessed sword, Sir Dugan changed. The rag-doll limpness in his limbs fell away. The bones of his arms split through the skin, hands wrenching open to form scythe-like fans, fingers crooking into talons, flesh hanging like a ragged sleeve around the new limb. His legs distended, the bones crackling as they split and split again. Splintered fragments of bloody white bone curled out of Dugan’s body, creating a roiling stump that looked like the roots of a tree given seething, snake-like motion.
The possessed knight’s ribs pierced his flesh, growing into a cage of bright white teeth. The bones that grew from his back unfolded into diaphanous wings, their webbing as insubstantial as fog. And from his mouth spilled a column of beetle-smooth teeth, prehensile and sharp. A gasp went up from the collected guardsmen. Someone in the loft began retching, a sound that spread throughout the room in seconds as more followed suit.
“Gods spare us,” Beaunair muttered. The fat priest drew an icon from his robes and went to his knees. The gheist ignored him. Instead, it stalked toward Gabriel Halverdt.
Malcolm wished he had brought his quiver of bloodwrought spears to the council, but they rested among his things, back in the suite of rooms he and Sorcha occupied. His longtime friend’s face hung loosely around the slithering mass of teeth that gnawed at the air. The sword in Halverdt’s hand glowed, the linen strips that wrapped the blade wafting away from the gheist, as though a light wind blew from the demon’s heart. The duke of Greenhall’s face was calm as he faced the creature.
“I see your treachery now, Blakley,” he yelled, still playing to the audience. “You hide a shaman in your retinue and think to strike me down. A pity the high inquisitor armed me with a blade blessed by the celestriarch himself. I’ll make short work of your little god, and then I’ll see to you.”
“Are you mad? Dugan was a good man, faithful to the church and loyal to my house. He was no shaman!”
“We’ll see what we find when we search his quarters,” Halverdt said smugly.
Outside, the slow, deep horn of the gheist alarm continued to sound. Shouts filled the courtyard. More guards crowded into the doorway, only to shy back when they saw the abomination of Dugan’s flesh.
“If we live that long,” Castian said. He pushed Malcolm farther into the room, maneuvering around the kneeling form of the high elector. “On your feet, Beaunair. We have to keep moving.”
The priest didn’t respond. In fact, the round man doubled forward, the icon slipping from his grip. Their attention had been so thoroughly on the gheist that none of them noticed the high elector’s distress. Malcolm glanced down. Beaunair’s face was white, his mouth bubbling.
“The demon has killed the priest!” one of the guards yelled. The man, dressed in clean Blakley whites and only recently arrived in the doorway, threw down his spear and ran for the door. “This castle is cursed! The pagans have betrayed us all!”
A wave of fear went through the crowd. A half-dozen guards followed the first, and then a dozen. The shouting in the courtyard was becoming a general terror that threatened the entire castle.
“What in hell?” Malcolm muttered. He went to one knee beside the priest. Beaunair turned to face him, his eyes wide with terror. Foam trickled down his fat cheek and, as Malcolm watched, his eyes rolled back into his head. He slumped against Malcolm, then fell to the floor and went into seizures.
“Gheists and poison!” Gabriel spat. “From your bottle, no doubt, Blakley. Do you believe me now, Jaerdin?”
“Stop making accusations and do something, you bastard,” Castian snapped. He grabbed Malcolm by the shoulder and dragged him away from the twitching priest. The gheist loomed closer.
Halverdt laughed and took a step toward the creature. The strips of linen on his sword snapped tight, the invisible wind of the gheist’s presence rising to hurricane force. The sword wavered and he faltered, gripping it with both hands, grimacing against the force.
“Now witness the power of the gods!” Halverdt yelled. “Now witness the justice of Lord Cinder!”
The gheist took him in the space of a thought. One second Gabriel Halverdt was grinning maniacally at the rogue god, and the next the demon’s prehensile teeth had burrowed into his chest and torn out his ribs. The duke of Greenhall slumped to the ground, shock on his blood-spattered face. The sword slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. When it struck, the blade shattered, as though made of glass. Splinters of it sprayed through the room, cutting the survivors with a sharp hail. The wounds burned like fire.
The room erupted in hysterical yelling. Spears clattered to the floor. The guards began pouring out of the doors, the loft, running for anywhere that was away from the gheist.
“Sweet Strife,” Castian sputtered. “Bright lady save us.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Malcolm spat. He pushed Castian behind the table and turned to face the gheist. His sword was worthless against this god, nothing but steel and the weight of his arm, but he couldn’t stand aside. He whipped the weapon across the gheist’s back. Pale shreds of skin fell away, exposing bony carapace beneath.
Dugan’s broken face turned to his former master.
“Run!” Malcolm snapped. “Someone find the priests, the fucking inquisition if you can! Just run!”
Castian stumbled to his feet and made for the door. The gheist ignored him, drawing itself up to stand over the butchered body of the lord of Greenhall. Malcolm waved his blade again.
“Come on, Gordon. You always hated going to doma, but that’s no reason to grow a new god in your heart,” he muttered, tears streaming down his face. Dugan’s face wavered at the end of that demonic neck. “You stupid, loyal, goddamned fool! They’re going to kill you, so you better try to kill me first. Come on!”
The gheist lumbered forward. It broke the table, scattering papers, many of which fell into the fire pit where they flared briefly before rising as cinder and ash. The frairwood incense swirled around the razor-sharp talons in thick clouds. The high inquisitor had set the fire himself, assuring them the wood was properly blessed. He had promised Halverdt he was safe.
Sacombre had promised.
Malcolm spared a glance at Halverdt. The man seemed dead, but his mouth was still moving, opening and closing like a fish out of water. The shards of his godsblessed sword sprouted out his skin like spines. The blood that pooled beneath him was black in the dim light. Malcolm had spent his life opposing this man, but now he felt a touch of horror at his death.
He looked again to the gheist.
“What are we supposed to do, Gordon? How are we supposed to fight something that takes our friends and gives us common cause with our enemies?” The demon loped closer, talons scraping through blood, across stone, tapping. “How am I supposed to kill you?”
“You never could,” Sorcha said from the door. His wife stepped into the room, double braces of bloodwrought spears crossing her chest. She let the first spear fly, catching the gheist in the wing, tearing bones and fog. As quick as the first spear was gone from her hand, Sorcha loosed two more. The spears bristled from the gheist’s body. It stood still for a moment, shivering, Dugan’s limp face looking from Malcolm to Sorcha, his eyes weeping blood.
Sir Dugan fell apart. The bony talons of his hands, the carapace that bristled through his skin, the wings and prehensile teeth, all of it became a puzzle, and came undone. The splintered bones slid away like shale, collapsing to the floor in ever-increasing piles. They clattered like dice on the stones. The rag of Dugan’s body split like an overstuffed bag.
Malcolm stared—first at the corpse, then at his wife. He crossed the room and hugged her close. There was a loose crowd of guardsmen trickling back into the room, encircling their lord and his wife.
“Not much of a god,” she whispered.
“No. But it was enough.” Malcolm pulled away and looked down at the ruin of Dugan’s body. “Halverdt is dead, and it looks like the high elector, as well, though I don’t know what that had to do with this. Castian will testify to that.”
“Where is he?”
“Ran,” Malcolm said. He crossed to Halverdt’s body. He kicked through the remnants of the sword, brushing shards across the floor. “This blade was shit. Certainly not bloodwrought. I’m surprised the high inquisitor…” Malcolm paused, looked from Halverdt to Dugan, back again. “It was a trick. It was a trap. For Halverdt, as much as for us,” he muttered.
They were startled by a sound from the corner of the room. Sir Volent leapt from the shadows, brushed Malcolm aside, and ran out the door. The knight had soiled himself. As he disappeared into the night, he was clutching his blade so tightly that his knuckles were bleeding.
“Where’s Sacombre?” Malcolm barked. “We need to find the high inquisitor—preferably before that madman does.”
“T
HIS DOESN
’
T FEEL
like east,” Elsa said. They were most of the way up a shale-littered slope, Gwen in the lead, with the vow knight helping Frair Lucas close behind.
“You should depend less on the sun,” Gwen said. She scrambled to the top of the hill and sat down, sending an avalanche of small stones down the opposite bank. “We are going the way we’re meant to go.”
“That doesn’t sound encouraging,” Elsa muttered.
“Patience, Sir LaFey,” Lucas said. “The huntress will get us where we are needed—wherever that might be.” The pair of them reached Gwen’s side and paused. The priest looked around, tutting and shaking his head. His injury was wearing on him. Despite Elsa’s best efforts, the naethermancer was slowly dying in front of them.
“Where are we, exactly?” Elsa asked.
The land around them was swollen with color and light. Patchy copses of wirewood sprang clean and strong from pure rock outcrops; the streams were clear and bitingly cold, flowing lazily between smooth stones. Lady Strife was brighter than usual, the air itself taking on the sun’s glow until everything pulsed with warm, golden light. It was a dreamscape.
“I have been dizzy for three mornings,” Lucas announced out of the blue. “I thought it was my wounds, but that’s not it, is it, Gwen?”
“Call me ‘Huntress,’” Gwen answered. “Titles are important in this place.”
“Where are we?” Elsa asked again tersely. “
Exactly.
”
Gwen shrugged to her feet. The hill descended in a smooth slope to a river as broad and smooth as the Tallow, though Lucas couldn’t recall anything like it on his maps. Surely they hadn’t traveled that far south? Beyond the river the forest closed ranks, the trees standing tight together like a shield wall. In the distance a hill of bald rock rose above the forest. Everything seemed more alive.
“You said you wanted to see my little pagan site,” Gwen said quietly.
“You brought a frair of the Celestial church to…” Lucas paused. “Is it safe?”
“For whom?” Gwen asked. She started to scramble down the hill. Lucas watched her go, turning to Elsa once the huntress was nearly upon the bank of the strange river. The fever in his eyes held a twinkle of curious mischief.
“Be on your guard,” he said. “Be holy, but keep that blade in its sheath, unless I say otherwise.”
“That’ll be something,” Elsa said. “A vow knight raising her blade in the court of the pagan gods. Strife give us strength.”
“And Cinder see us through,” Lucas added. He reached out, grasped Elsa’s shoulder, then started down the slope. “But go slowly.”
* * *
This close to the hallow, the pagan wards that protected the shrine were sharp and thick. Elsa was focused on supporting the frair, and when she looked up the river had moved, the slope leveled, and the sky turned. It took her a few minutes of deeply considered panic before she could find her way forward. There were trees around them again, and they were closing in, their shadows as dark and wet as wounds.
Gwen tumbled out of the underbrush.
“This is more dangerous than I suspected,” she said, dragging Elsa around to the true path. “You left the frair behind.”
“I didn’t!” Elsa insisted. “He’s right…” She glanced to her shoulder to see that Lucas was not on her arm, nor anywhere to be seen. She was scrambling for her sword when Gwen slapped her hand away.
“No threats, not from a vow knight of Lady Strife. Even in my company, that would be fatal.” Gwen pulled her forward until they stood beside the frair, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Lucas was on all fours, staring at the ground and muttering to himself. “We need to keep moving,” the huntress said. “The gheist is getting interested.”
“Gheists?” Elsa asked. “I see no gheists.”
“The forest itself.” Gwen helped Lucas to his feet, then got between the two of them and started toward the magically shrouded river. “We’re deep into the everealm here, my friends. Right at the source. The gheists are not forest spirits. The forest itself is the spirit. All gheist. Keep moving.”
Elsa looked around nervously. The trees lurked closer.