Beyond a table and bed, and the chamber-pot that had forced him to unblock the door each day and risk being seen, much of the room was taken up with Breytech’s remaining wares, stacked against one wall. He’d removed the canvas sacks filled with bolts of cloth from the warehouse he usually used after watching the owner, a man he’d known for five years, go crazy. Two nights ago the man had burned his own building down, screaming frantically all the while about shadows with claws.
He found his own mind wandering now as the waves of heat radiating from the streets made him drift feverishly away. Images of his children appeared in his mind; their skin untouched by the smallpox that had taken them from him. When he’d rolled over on the straw-packed bed this morning he’d felt his wife’s soft breath on his ear and had turned with a smile to greet her, though she’d been gone these past three winters now. And all the while, there were sounds on the edge of hearing: distant shouts and howls that a part of him wanted to join in with, the quiet hum of a priest’s incantation, the groan and ache of the building as it suffered through another blistering day. On occasion, a faint scent of tainted sweetness found him, like overripe peaches left out in the sun. The stink of waste and decay was all he smelled in Scree now. He’d even forgotten what a breeze felt like . . .
With a real effort of will, Breytech drove the confused thoughts from his mind and muttered an old mantra his grand-mother had taught him, a prayer of sorts against the maddening effect of the sun that could drive men from the road and out into the desert. It had no effect on the pounding behind his eyes but the words were comforting and kept his mind focused. He edged out into the street, eyes flickering nervously around at the baked empty road.
Scree was as still and silent as only a dead thing could be; the diseased city streets looked on the verge of crumbling to dust, all the life sucked from them. Breytech crept forward, mouthing the mantra and keeping in the shadows as best he could, though in truth there was no hiding from the relentless sun. He wore a shapeless white desert robe and a scarf of the same material draped over his head to protect him from the sun. Hidden in one voluminous sleeve was an ancient long-knife, its edge battered and scarred with use, but still dangerous enough to afford him a small shred of comfort.
The main street before him was empty of all life. With the bright sun reflecting off bleached stone and the air shimmering uneasily under its assault, he found it hard to make out details -until he realised with a start that the largest building around, a merchant’s office, he thought, was now just a charred ruin.
Without warning a whisper reached his ear as it raced around the confines of the street. Breytech flinched and looked behind him, pushing his scarf back a little to afford a better view - but it was still empty: no people, nothing alive to move, or speak. Despite the beads of sweat running down his throat, Breytech felt a chill pass through him, as though a ghost had laid its pale hand on his neck.
For a few moments he was frozen to the spot, until a drop of sweat from his brow ran down his nose like a tear and it jerked him into action, sending him stumbling off towards the spot where he thought he’d seen a well. If that looked unsafe, he would have to go further south, to the Temple District, maybe. He’d seen a shrine to Vasle -surely the God of Rivers would not fail him? For a moment he wondered whether he should have brought an offering, but then he thought that Vasle was unlikely to be listening to prayers from Scree. Perhaps only Death walked these streets, with his more awful Aspects, like the Reapers, at his heel. Or perhaps even they had deserted the city and turned their back in judgment. What curse on men, when even the final blessing of Death is denied them?
As he scampered from shadow to shadow he saw bodies. A whimper of fear escaped his parched mouth. Some were burned, limbs curled up in their final moment of pain. Some were missing limbs, even heads; others lay with the weapons that had killed them still in the wounds, eyes staring up to the sky as though pleading for help from Gods that had abandoned them.
He was beginning to feel like the sole survivor of some atrocious cataclysm. He peered into shattered doorways, but with the sun so high, there were only impenetrable shadows within. Slumped against one half-burned door was the torso of a child, missing its limbs. Breytech looked around, but they were nowhere to be seen. He tried not to dwell on why they might have been taken away. The fearful voices in the distant corners of his mind shrieked more urgently, and it was all he could do not to wail uncontrollably himself.
His sandal caught a stone and sent it clattering over the open ground. He gave a whimper of terror and crouched down beside the remains of a barrel, the closest thing to cover he could see. The horror of being found gripped like a vice around his stomach and he clamped his lips together to stop himself crying out in fear. At last the stone came to rest and silence descended once more. He didn’t dare even breathe for a few more moments.
Finally he opened his mouth to gulp air down and felt the cracked skin on his top lip tug and tear, followed by the luscious taste of liquid on his tongue. His finger was halfway to his mouth when another sound came and he froze.
A moan, as soft as the absent breeze, but too abrupt. With shaky hands Breytech pulled his dagger out and gripped it tightly. Hunched low, like a nervous rabbit, he looked over to where the sound had come from -there! Across the street, behind a brutalised façade of a shop. It came again, and Breytech felt a tiny trickle of terror.
As he watched, a pale, hairless head rose slowly up from behind the shop’s counter. His whole body trembled as he saw the head turn and cast about the street, searching for him, like a wolf that has caught the scent of a deer. In his fear he hardly noticed that his teeth were buried hungrily in his split lip until the taste of blood flooded his tongue.
The tang of blood made him swallow eagerly, but as he did so, the strange head flicked around like it was on a spring, and a loud, hoarse moan broke the silence. A second head appeared and the sound grew.
Breytech could stand no more. He tried to run, but his stiff muscles refused to comply. He forced himself into a stagger, and lurched forward a few steps, until he tripped on a broken piece of brick and fell to his knees. There was a crash from the shop and he heard the clatter of feet behind him, and voices, now loud and insistent, rather than in the corners of his mind but still furious, still awful.
‘Priest! Servant of Gods!’ someone howled.
A choir of rabid shrieks took up the call. ‘Priest! Prayer!’
Breytech looked down at his robe and a finger of dread crept down his spine. His robe -because of that, they thought he was a priest? Before he’d barricaded himself in his room -before the city had fallen completely to madness and ruin -he’d heard whispers that people had turned on the priests. Children had thrown stones at the temple acolytes, a priest had been murdered on stage, and the city guard had done nothing.
He ran, and when he picked out the curve of a dome up ahead and he recognised it, he was filled with a sudden surge of energy. Six Temples. The Gods. If there were still soldiers in the city -if the streets had not been entirely given over to howling lunatics -then surely they would be defending the temples? It wasn’t close, but he had no choice. He prayed that the monsters pursuing him were as starved and thirsty as he.
As he ran, more guttural voices broke the stultified afternoon air, ringing out from all over as wrecked doors and broken shutters were flung open. Breytech kept his head low, his eyes on the ground ahead of him, trying to pick a path through the rubble. He didn’t look back, but after a hundred yards he realised they weren’t gaining on him and a flicker of hope sparked in his heart. Ragged figures swarmed out of gutters and through archways, but while the voices grew in number, they came no closer.
His grandmother’s mantra returned to him and he muttered it with every heaving breath until he turned the corner and realised he was almost there. A square building surrounded by shattered benches and tables and a screen of withered vines on the far side was all that stood between him and the Temple Plaza.
He barrelled around the building and—
A pain exploded in his chest—
The sky flashed black and pink as the great temple dome ahead of him vanished from sight—
Breytech felt himself spinning as the air was driven from his lungs. He crashed to the floor in a confused heap. The howls of daemons battered at his ears, but he could see nothing except a fierce brightness that burned at his eyes. Instinctively he raised his arms to cover his face and felt a stab of pain. He blinked and tried to focus on the arm, eyes widening when he saw the livid red gash. He flinched as a man’s laughter cut through the monstrous barks and yelps from his pursuers.
‘Taken a wrong turning?’ said the man, from somewhere nearby.
‘Please,’ Breytech babbled, tussling with the local dialect, ‘you’ve got to help me!’ He struggled up to his knees and looked back at the rabble that had been chasing him. They had stopped well short of the Temple Plaza and were pacing back and forth nervously. Only now could he make them out: emaciated figures, half-naked and blistered under the afternoon sun. They were covered with grazes and scrapes from head to foot, with numerous fat, dark scabs that looked like plague pustules. Their unwashed, unkempt hair was matted and patchy, and many had great patches of scalp exposed where clumps had been torn out. Breytech realised he would have pitied them, had their faces not been so deformed with rage.
‘Help you?’
The man’s accent sounded strange until Breytech placed it as from Narkang. He looked up and saw a face tanned enough for a Chetse - and no offer of help.
‘Why would I want to do that?’ the man said, shifting his shoulders under his armour, which shone in the sun. Thick trails of sweat ran from under the battered skullcap. Slung on his back was a steel-rimmed round shield and a bastard sword hung from his hip, gems glittering on the hilt.
‘But you’re a soldier. You’re protecting the temples.’
The soldier cocked his head.
Breytech heard shuffling footsteps behind the man and looked around him into the Temple Plaza. Past the ring of shrines that encircled the six huge temples were two figures dragging a third towards the Temple of Death. Three figures, no more, and none apart from this one looked like a soldier. Other than them, the plaza was completely deserted.
‘Where are the others? Where are your men?’
The man gave an evil chuckle and looked back towards the three near the temple. ‘My men are there, but I wouldn’t say we’re protecting the temples.’
Breytech whirled around to look at his pursuers. They had remained on the edge of the plaza, loitering uneasily, but when they realised he was staring at them they began to hiss and stamp their feet. One or two took a hesitant pace forward and Breytech quickly averted his gave.
The men by the temple caught his eye once again as the dark-haired captive shook himself free and made a feeble bid to escape. He was hampered by a stiff leg and his hands were bound behind his back, and he was caught easily by a small man bizarrely dressed head to foot in black who scythed the other’s legs from under him with a sweeping kick.
Breytech felt himself sway and his knees threatened to buckle as the sun’s heat became a physical force pressing on his shoulders, but he steeled himself and stood firm. He checked his own pursuers again. They were slowly creeping closer, like nervous children. He took a step back and turned to the soldier, but the man was already walking away, tossing a thin-bladed dagger up into the air and catching it, again and again.
‘Wait, they’re coming this way,’ Breytech croaked, catching the man up.
The soldier stopped. ‘Of course they are,’ he said. ‘They’re not frightened of the temples. The Gods have left this place; they have no need to fear it.’
‘Then why did they stop?’ Breytech asked, bewildered, his head spinning. He slipped and fell to one knee, his palms flat pressed against the grit and dirt on the ground. Breathing in, Breytech tasted the dust on the air, as dry and dead as a tomb, and realised he could go no further.
‘They stopped,’ said the soldier, ‘because while they do not fear the Gods, they know to fear me.’ With that, he started off towards the temple again, cheerfully calling over his shoulder, ‘But I’m leaving now, and all they have left is a man dressed like a priest.’
Breytech gaped at the steel-bound shield on the soldier’s back, flinching as it caught the sun and reflected into his eyes. Then he heard the slap of feet on stone behind him and turned to see the pack descend. He opened his mouth to scream but the words died in his throat as he stared into the fevered eyes of the one leading them, a young boy of no more than fifteen winters whose chest was stained with dried blood. Teeth bared, the boy howled like a creature of the Dark Place and raised his thin hands ready to strike, fingers bent like eagle claws. They tore towards him and at last he found his voice again.
Breytech screamed and his terror echoed over the plaza. Their voices added to his until their high shrieks of rage and triumph swamped his lone voice.
Soon all was silent again.
At the Temple of Death, Ilumene stopped and looked back to watch. The creatures that owned Scree’s streets battered the Chetse’s body long after he was dead. They were quiet now; intent on their task, barging each other aside in their struggle to obliterate the remaining vestiges of the man.
He smiled and entered the temple, spitting on the fresco of Death’s cowled image that faced the open doorway as he passed. ‘Run away and hide, you festering relic,’ he said out loud. ‘Your time is over. Scree is a pyre to your failed glory and from its ashes will be born something greater than you could ever comprehend.’