Unholy War (51 page)

21

Religion: Sollan

A
NONYMOUS
, R
YM, 386

Waking at all was a surprise, Malevorn thought dimly, as a jolting rhythm bumped him from the darkness. He immediately wished it hadn’t. Everything hurt, ached, itched, stung or simply blazed with pain. And his face – no, his whole body – was being buffeted. He forced open his eyes and found his face was pressed against a bony, grey-furred back. The tuft of a tail sprouted from right beside his right eye, and the noxious stench of animal and shit filled his nostrils. His arms and legs were lashed tightly together around a living cylinder of bone and muscle. Below, packed dirt – a
path
– bobbed past.

After a few moments he worked out that he was naked and chained to the back of a donkey; his skin was raw and blistering in the fierce sunlight and he had a host of minor wounds, all chafing or bleeding. Whoever had done this to him had positioned him facing backwards for extra humiliation. The creature’s arse stank to high heaven.

Gagging, he twisted, and managed to make out that the donkey was being led behind a horse. A Keshi girl – the one who had crushed his mind after capture – was riding it as if born to the saddle, which dimly surprised him. But he had more urgent facts to ascertain: whether his bonds were secure, and where the Hel he was.

There were other creatures alongside; some were beasts and others walked on two legs, though many of those had animal features. For a few minutes all he felt was the sickness of dread:
The Souldrinkers have me …
It was every mage’s worst nightmare. He closed his eyes and fought for composure. His gnosis was locked away, of course. He could feel the strength of the Chain-rune like a python coiled about his heart. He was helpless, utterly and entirely.

She said I must serve her … Never!
That led him to think of the consequences:
They will torture me, for information and pleasure. Then they will kill me and consume my soul. Kore will never welcome me to Paradise, and my family will never be restored to honour.

His eyes stung with the bitter unfairness of it all.

I was destined for greatness!

His waking brought no outcry, but they noted it all the same, those beasts trotting alongside with their jaws curved as if laughing at him. A few of those in human form raked claws down his back as if branding him, the fresh wounds stinging and bleeding, instantly drawing the flies that clustered maddeningly all over his body, the touch of them a horror all in itself.

They left him on the donkey for three more days, or maybe even longer; he’d lost all sense of the passage of time. He was left to shit and piss down the beast’s flanks. The flies in his wounds drove him insane; the chafing got worse and his humiliation was unbearable. He screamed at them, raged, begged, wept, but they ignored him, just laughing as his pride dissolved. His joints tortured him mercilessly, and every wretched step the donkey took was a fresh torment. Delusions mingled with reality: he saw his father, plunging a knife into his own heart, over and over; the Arcanum masters mocking him; Alaron Mercer and Ramon Sensini, merchant-magi in fine robes, selling him at a slave market; Francis Dorobon and Seth Korion turning away in disgust; Adamus Crozier forcing him to suck his cock; and Raine Caladryn being torn to ribbons by a pack of rats, only her face visible as she screamed for him. Consciousness came and went, and only the darkness soothed him, though it brought little respite.

Then water splashed down his throat, making him splutter as he choked, and he realised he was on the ground at last, his limbs so feeble he could only writhe in the dust. A jackal barked in his face, leering at him with laughter in its eyes. Then the Keshi girl appeared, swaying towards him like a temptress in diaphanous silk, her dark heart-shaped face splitting into a vivid smile. Thankfully, though the compulsion to do her bidding lingered, he was able to restrain himself from grovelling before her this time: that spell had run its course. But she didn’t need to bespell him to fill him with fear as she approached.

‘Well, well,’ she said in accented Rondian. ‘Our guest has awakened.’

More beasts, jackals, wolves and leopards, padded closer, and human and semi-human forms as well, all snapping and growling at him. He spat blood and phlegm and tried to find something approaching dignity. ‘Call your animals off, witch,’ he said. It was supposed to come out resonant with Imperial might, but instead it sounded like begging.

‘I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands, Inquisitor.’

I was the star pupil.

I am my family’s last hope.

I’m so sorry, Father.

‘Get it over with,’ he said despairingly.

She tinkled with laughter. ‘Get what over with?’

‘Killing me. Just do it.’ He swallowed. ‘Please …’

She waggled her head from side to side in a weird way. ‘When I’m ready. But we need to talk first.’

‘No. Please.’ He closed his eyes and willed his heart to stop, but the damned thing kept pumping.

‘My name is Huriya Makani,’ she said amiably. ‘Malevorn, isn’t it? I got that from your mind when I chained your gnosis. Listen, what have you got to lose? Words are just words. If you don’t speak them voluntarily, I will have to pull them out of your head. Think of the damage that will cause.’

‘You’re going to kill me anyway. What difference does it make?’

‘We both know that if I enter your mind unwillingly, I risk destroying your intellect and most of what I seek to learn will be lost.’ She walked around him, her nose wrinkling. ‘I will do that, if I must. But civilised people find other ways to relate.’

‘Civilised?’ He spat derisively. ‘Animal! Do you prefer to lie with your vermin in beast or human form?’

The pack snarled, almost as one, and behind him, jaws snapped and slathered. Some lunged closer and a vision of Raine being torn apart filled his head. To his shame, he cringed.

‘Enough!’ Huriya snapped at them.

The beasts backed off and began to change: a ghastly display of bodies twisting and warping, skin bulging as bones mutated, features melting and remoulding. The agony and ecstasy on their faces was obscene. He had thought himself immune to any sight after his initiations into the Inquisition, which had included assisting in the torture of heretics, but this was truly a vision of Hel. He averted his eyes and closed them tight before they imprinted on his brain.

Kore has abandoned me.

As did Adamus Crozier and Commandant Quintius …

‘Do you want to know what happened to your comrades?’ she asked lightly.

He grimaced and opened his eyes again. Her expression was all mock-sympathy and he hated her for it. But when he thought of how Raine had died, he hated Adamus and Quintius as much, or even more.

‘When your
friends
saw you were hard-pressed, they could have come to your aid. Instead they left, in no great hurry. You were sacrificed like pawns in a tabula game.’

He looked down, hid his face.

‘Did they not esteem you, friend Malevorn?’

My heroic brethren slaughtered the women and children while Dranid, Dom, Raine and I fought the warriors. Then they ran away.

Presumably Quintius would only help Adamus if we weren’t involved.

Huriya’s pack had by now regained what humanity they retained. There were some forty of them, mostly male, just a handful of women remaining, and no children at all. They were bloodied and filthy, and had a uniform look of thirst in their eyes. ‘When do we kill him?’ someone asked.

A massive man with a tattooed scalp stomped forward, holding a spear. ‘Tonight!’ he roared, and the pack bellowed its exultation at his pronouncement.

‘No, Wornu!’ Huriya snapped in reply. ‘He is
my
prisoner.’

‘He is a prisoner of the pack!’ This Wornu was massive beyond anyone Malevorn had seen. He spoke Rondian – they all did, apparently – but the tattoos were Sydian; the curse of the Souldrinkers had apparently spread to many races.

‘He has knowledge we will need for the mission we spoke of,’ Huriya responded in a reasonable voice.

‘How so?’ Wornu answered cautiously. A woman joined him, a lean creature with dark skin and silver-black hair cropped short, definitely Antiopian. She held a bow and had a quiver over her shoulder. Malevorn recalled the arrows that had slain Dranid.

‘Let the one who consumes him gain his knowledge and share it,’ the archer rasped.

‘That won’t work: unless the soul passing is willing, memories are lost.’ Huriya spread her hands apologetically. ‘Believe me, I too want nothing more than to kill him, but we need what he knows first.’

The pack growled as one, their frustration clear.

‘Seeress Huriya, I am Eldest, now that Tomacz is dead,’ an older male said. ‘What are you seeking? Why do Inquisitors also seek it? Why have we left our packlands?’

A chorus of growled agreement greeted this small speech and Malevorn looked about him, interested despite himself.
There is dissent here. Not that it’s going to matter to me in the end …

Huriya stood over him possessively. She had a sultry charisma combined with a steely certainty, as if she were so convinced of her own magnificence that those about her could not help but agree. She spread her arms if she were their mother, drawing them to her bosom. ‘Federi speaks rightly. It is time you all understood. You have suffered so much loss and you deserve to know why.’

‘More than half of us died, Seeress: almost all the women, and every child,’ Federi said plaintively. ‘There are only forty of us left. Our pack has almost ceased to exist.’

‘What could justify this, Seeress?’ a woman called. ‘There are only eight wombs left among us.’

‘You have the right to know,’ Huriya agreed. ‘What we seek is a great treasure, an artefact called the Scytale of Corineus. Wornu and Hessaz know this already, but it is time you all did. Brethren, let it suffice that this artefact is one that could cure our condition and transform us into magi without the need to kill and feed.’

The pack fell silent, stunned.

Federi reacted first. ‘Salvation, Lady?’ he whispered. ‘Salvation in the eyes of the Kore?’

‘Yes: we would become as them, pure magi, untainted by our curse.’

The reaction of the pack members ranged from blank disbelief to holy revelation. Some babbled questions while others fell to their knees and raised prayers to everyone from Minaus, the Schlessen god of war, to Ahm, Sol and Luna, and even to Kore.

‘But why do you protect this Inquisitor scum?’ Federi asked, and every eye turned back to Malevorn. Their gaze beat down on him, but by now he had regained something of his pride and he looked around him defiantly.

‘The Inquisition are hunting this same artefact,’ Huriya told them, ‘which is why they keep crossing our path. And they know far more about it than I do –
that
is why I kept this one alive, to help us unlock its secrets.’

‘Ah.’ Federi bowed his head. ‘I understand now, Seeress. Finally.’ He shook his head. ‘Why could we not have known this before? Would we not still have Zaqri among us? Would we not all have been at the camp when the Inquisitors struck?’

Huriya’s eyes narrowed. ‘It was Zaqri who refused to share this information with you,’ she claimed. ‘He was under the spell of the Rimoni girl.’

There was something in her face when she said this that rang false to Malevorn; all Inquisitors were trained to recognise falsehood.
She’s playing games with them. She’s of them, but she serves herself first.
He then considered what she’d said:
this Rimoni girl must be Mercer’s bint … I wonder where she is?

The pack clearly took Huriya’s words at face-value, though. ‘Zaqri should have killed her,’ Federi agreed, voicing the mood of the gathering. ‘He failed us all in that. But where is this Scytale now?’

‘In the hands of the two fugitives we seek. You know their descriptions already – a Rondian mage and a Lakh woman. I now believe they are going to Lakh, and so shall we.’ Huriya paused, and added, ‘If you will join me?’

The pack roared their agreement, and Huriya used that approval to dismiss them, telling them to set up camp, then she bade Wornu to bring Malevorn and follow her. ‘Let us – you, Hessaz and me – have a
chat
with him,’ she said, preening.

Malevorn felt his heart sink. This was it. He’d fought for advancement every day of his life, fed by the burning need to restore his family’s honour, and it was going to end in an anonymous death far from home. His family would never learn what had happened to him: that he’d been betrayed to death by the plots of a Crozier and a fellow Inquisitor, then torn apart and consumed by God’s Rejects, his soul denied the afterlife. The injustice of it left him sickened and despairing.

The pack dispersed, clothing themselves from the satchels most bore on their backs, then setting up camp. Wornu dragged Malevorn with him to an open bit of ground surrounded by scrub and rock formations and cast him on his back in the dirt. The archer – Hessaz – glared down at him, the beast inside her clear. Huriya sat on a boulder and studied him.