‘I’m sure most of you are wondering exactly what I have to grumble about,’ Styrax began suddenly.
Dev flinched at the unexpected sound. He looked quickly at the tachrenns to see if anyone had noticed -his position was tenuous enough without them seeing him jumping at shadows - but their attention was fixed on the white-eye.
‘Well, to answer that,’ Styrax continued after a moment, ‘the breaking of the curfew vexes me.’
There was a pause.
‘The curfew?’ Dev asked eventually, feeling a little confused. Since Lord Salen’s death and the massacre of his troops, the streets of Thotel had been relatively quiet. Other than a few hundred youths throwing stones at patrols, there had been no trouble at all. ‘A handful of children throwing stones shouldn’t be causing you many problems.’
‘It doesn’t cause me problems,’ Styrax said, closing on Dev, ‘but it does sadden me. My men are forced to retaliate against children and that breeds hatred -a hatred that could last generations. ’ The big white-eye swung around to glare at the Chetse soldiers. ‘Old men send out children to be killed on the streets so the hatred stays alive,’ he growled. ‘Unrest is to be expected, but to fuel it with the blood of innocents: that is shameful.’
‘My Lord, I am sure it is not being organised,’ Dev said after a tense pause.
‘As am I,’ Styrax replied in a level tone, ‘but neither is it being dissuaded by the men they look up to, men like you, soldiers, and the men of the priesthood. I would not be surprised if there are some who are actively encouraging it. That I call cowardice, and it shames you, leaders of cowards.’
Is he offering to help stop the raids in the east in return for order to be restored in the city?
Before Dev could think of how best to reply, the ground shuddered -once, then again, and again, like the heavy footfalls of an approaching giant. Dev looked around in alarm. The sound was coming from the Temple of the Sun itself, but all he could see was the Menin lord’s helm and the great altar with the eternal flame whispering insistently above it. For an instant, Dev thought he saw a shadow moving across the furthest pillar, as though something massive had stepped between it and the eternal flame.
‘What in the name of Tsatach’s balls was that?’ Tachrenn Lecha breathed, his hand feeling in vain for an axe that was not strapped to his back.
‘That,’ said Lord Styrax, staring fixedly at the temple, ‘is the demand for a price to be paid.’
‘My Lord?’ asked Duke Vrill, a slightly anxious look on his face. Clearly he was as much in the dark as any of them.
‘A little personal business,’ rumbled Lord Styrax. ‘Gentlemen, I suggest you stay very still, no matter what happens. You might have heard the rumour that a creature of the Dark Place thought itself clever enough to enslave my son’s soul through a suit of magical armour.’ As he spoke, he unfastened the cloak he’d been wearing and let it fall to the floor, revealing the armour he’d stripped from the vampire lord Koezh Vukotic after beating him in single combat. Hanging down his back was the great twin-fanged broadsword he’d won from his predecessor.
This is no coincidence
, Dev thought.
You wouldn’t be wearing a full suit of armour if you hadn’t expected this. You’ve summoned it!
‘General Dev, if I remember my scripture correctly, Tsatach is a God with exceedingly strict views on honour and oath-breaking; am I correct?’
‘You are -but surely your son has made no oath to this daemon?’ the general answered. ‘I thought daemons could only incarnate if they were given a means to do so.’
Oh Gods
, he thought to himself,
is a daemon about to incarnate and take its prize? You think that Tsatach will allow this to happen inside his own temple because of bonds of honour?
‘I believe that is correct,’ Styrax said as he gestured towards his sickly-looking son, ‘and so I have given it that means. To free my son from his enslavement I had to give the daemon something in return. I gave it a pledge of service.’
A gasp ran around the assembled Chetse. None of them were mages, and despite their positions they had very little to do with the supernatural side of the Land, but any sane man knew the price of such a pledge.
‘You are making pacts with daemons?’ Dev spluttered.
Lord Styrax gave a growl as he tore Kobra from its bindings. ‘I will not stand by and let a daemon play its games unhindered, whether it is a prince among its kind or not. Now my son is free and I have been able to choose what comes next.’
‘What have you chosen?’ Dev murmured, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.
‘What do you think?’ the white-eye laughed, sparks flashing in his eyes. ‘The creature can pluck my soul from my cold, dead body, but it won’t get it without a fight.’
Flexing his massive shoulders under that unnatural black armour, detailed with beaded whorls, he loomed large and terrifying in the early morning light. The cruel fanged tip of his sword glowed with savage power and the Crystal Skull fused to his cuirass caught the weak dawn rays to momentarily dazzle General Dev.
The old man took an involuntary pace back, shrinking away from the palpable sense of furious strength. In the distance, he felt a shudder through the rock beneath his feet, closer this time. The daemon was near.
The white-eye turned and stalked into the temple, heading for the helm he’d left there. The Chetse soldiers exchanged glances, unsure what to do. Dev gathered his senses and looked to the Menin for answers, but Duke Vrill and General Gaur showed no emotion. Either they knew exactly what was going on, or they had the presence of mind not to show their own confusion.
More worryingly, Kohrad Styrax suddenly looked animated. There was a new gleam in his eye, an alertness to his poise, as if he were anticipating what was about to come.
Inside the temple, Lord Styrax had donned his helm and was going through a complex weapon drill as though this were nothing more than morning exercises. Again Dev felt a tremble run through the ground, but this time it was a constant shudder, like the footfalls of an army of souls. Dark shapes began to flit around the inside, but Lord Styrax paid no attention to the amorphous forms, intent instead on the slow, smooth movements of his drills.
Behind him, Dev felt a sudden wind whip up from the ground, dragging trails of dust around his heels and swirling in tight spirals towards the massive pillars of stone that supported the temple’s apex, growing in intensity until it shrieked across the carved stone, the sound so piercing that the watching men all flinched and clamped their hands over their ears. Inside the temple, the air darkened.
‘What’s happening?’ whispered one of the tachrenns.
‘The Dark Place,’ croaked Kohrad gleefully, ‘the boundary between their land and ours thins as the daemon tries to cross over. Listen hard; those are the voices of the damned!’
Dev listened. As the shrieking wind grew it was all too easy to imagine a chorus of wailing voices ringing out as the air inside the temple shuddered and wrenched, as if under some invisible assault. Only the dark knight, calmly moving through his drills, was unaffected, standing impervious to the fraying boundaries of the Land, apparently untouched by the storm swirling all around them. Something skittered away from the stone at his feet and was picked up by the wind and dashed against the underside of one of the walkways that skirted the temple.
Dev followed the sound and went white as he realised shadowy figures had assembled there, drifting in and out of existence as the howling ebbed and flowed. He narrowed his eyes, but he couldn’t fix his attention: the figures faded when he looked directly at them, it was only in his peripheral vision that he could make out that they were all staring intently down at the temple floor. A finger of dread crept down his spine and he lowered his eyes.
There, standing just before the altar and towering over even the massive Menin white-eye, was the daemon.
Kastan Styrax didn’t react as the daemon flickered into existence, though, distantly, he heard both the Chetse soldiers’ alarm, and his son’s hoarse cry of anticipation. Kohrad was still weak after the exhausting rituals, spells and surgery that had removed the armour from his body, but the young white-eye had every intention of witnessing his father’s vengeance.
He stepped forward, sizing up his enemy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d faced someone larger than he, for the Menin were the tallest of the Seven Tribes. The daemon was twelve feet tall, far bigger than he, and its head was half-obscured by a black cowl which cast a shadow over a face covered in a criss-cross pattern of dark, deep scars. The daemon turned its head towards Kohrad, and the boy started spouting a stream of invective.
Styrax smiled; Kohrad must have complete confidence in him to be hurling obscene abuse at a daemon-prince when he could hardly swing the sword at his side. He had no idea just how powerful it was - not that it mattered; Styrax knew he had to fight it now. The daemon haunted his dreams nightly, looking for a way to gain his soul. He knew it would come as soon as it was called.
How many birds will I take with this one stone?
he thought.
To be free of the daemon would be enough, but if these tachrenns see me defeat it - a feat Lord Chalat could never have managed - they’ll follow me across the entire Land. If in the process the temple is unfortunately destroyed -well, we shall see if a Crystal Skull does indeed feed the eternal flame.
Yellow eyes shone bright in the darkness and the daemon opened its mouth to reveal a double set of thin, pointed teeth. Lord Styrax was more concerned with the double-headed flail the daemon had in one hand and the cleaver-like weapon in its other. Its tri-toed feet sported massive hooked talons. Through the ripped and tattered cloak it wore he could glimpse plates of bone and slabs of muscle, all overlaid by scarred skin and, in parts, bony protrusions that looked almost like a scrappy pelt of curved fangs. Even in the warm air, the daemon’s breath was clouds of vapour.
‘
Your promises are empty, your word is broken
,’ it snarled. ‘
This temple yet stands; my name is unspoken and unworshipped in this place.
’
‘Do you think I ever had any intention of serving you?’ Styrax replied calmly, walking around the daemon, forcing it to turn awkwardly to remain facing him. Those powerful legs were impressive, but as Styrax had guessed, they weren’t designed for turning in a circle. ‘Do you think I would defile this place by speaking your name?’
‘
You are nothing compared to me, little mortal, and your arrogance has earned you a place in Ghenna. My realm waits to welcome you.
’
Styrax stopped circling. He didn’t want to give the creature time to get comfortable. It came from a place where magic dictated everything, and now it would have to adapt to the requirements of the physical world and its physical laws. ‘You don’t own my soul, daemon; you never did.’ Drawing on the Skull he carried, Styrax wove a protective web about himself. His magical skills were proficient, and with the Skull he was probably more powerful than the daemon, but it was an ancient being, and he didn’t want to risk getting into a magical struggle. He was banking on the fact that it would be unused to single combat with weapons alone. With a shell of raw energy from the Skull around him he would be safe from the subtle spells that would come so naturally to such an entity.
Now all I’ve got to contend with is the strength and speed of a daemon-prince
, Styrax thought to himself wryly.
The daemon, feeling the white-eye’s protective energy, gave a bestial roar and glared, jerking its flail, ready to strike.
Keeping one eye on the daemon’s feet as its talons clacked on the stone floor, Styrax moved fast across the centre of the temple, and the twin mace-like heads whistled harmlessly past as, predictably, the daemon swung the flail at his head. It wasted no time in following up the attack, spinning gracelessly around and attacking with the cleaver, forcing Styrax to back up and shift his balance.
He was on the alert now, careful to keep his broadsword from being snagged by the flail’s chain-links. He slashed at the daemon’s left hand; Kobra glanced harmlessly off the daemon’s wrist as Styrax side-stepped the flail as it came back around. He hacked down at the elbow joint, but missed, shuddering in pain as the cleaver came down onto his own shoulder-plate.
He was forced into a crouch by the power of the blow, but the armour held and, roaring his defiance, Styrax drove upwards towards the daemon, slamming the scored shoulder-plate into its gut and putting his full weight into pushing it back. He swung Kobra, smashing aside the cleaver as it came down again and following that with two deep cuts across the daemon’s midriff. As it fell back under the force of his attack, Styrax caused a greyish slab to appear at an angle under its feet. Unbalanced, it staggered sideways and he dropped to the ground, lashing out with one tree-trunk of a leg and connected with the daemon’s knee.
Propelling himself upright, Styrax slashed with all his prodigious strength, a straight cut up that would have split a normal man from groin to scalp, but the daemon jumped back with unnatural speed. Styrax readied himself for the counterattack, but it never came.
Instead, the daemon gave a deep, cold laugh. ‘
Your skills are impressive, but you are still just a mortal, little man,
’ it mocked.
Styrax didn’t reply, beyond shifting to a more comfortable grip on the hilt of his broadsword. The exchange had lasted only a few seconds, but it had been long enough to tell him what he wanted to know about the daemon. When it struck, it moved with blurring speed, and not even a white-eye of Styrax’s ability could match that. But the daemon had revealed its greatest weakness. It had no imagination.
He leapt forward, slashing from first one side, then the other. The daemon gave a little ground but it parried each blow with ease. It could not see the satisfied little smile on Kastan Styrax’s lips, for his mouth was hidden by the black helm he’d won from Koezh Vukotic, his greatest test so far. Koezh was a superb swordsman, his skill had been considered supernatural even when he had been a normal man marching under his father’s banner during the Great War. Against Koezh the ancient vampire, Styrax had needed every ounce of guile he possessed, blended with the unnatural speed and skill granted by his patron, Karkarn, the God of War himself. Against this daemon-prince, all he needed was a brain. It mocked him for being a mortal, yet it was exactly this that would prove its undoing.