35 From Darkness

HE FELT AS THOUGH he floated in a sea of emptiness. He was aware of himself, if not his name. There had been a lot of screaming, but it had stopped.

A pinprick of light ahead. He attempted to move, but he had no limbs, no body and could not get closer to it. It seemed vital he do so, although he couldn’t remember why. It was like there was a fog over his thoughts, obscuring ... something important.

A shadow of a memory pricked at his mind. Was there something he was meant to do? Maybe the light had something to do with it. He tried everything, but nothing worked as his frustration grew.

He thought he heard screams again, but they were distant, as though they were ... outside, wherever that was. They frightened him, but there was another part of him that felt angry. He didn’t like either feeling, but they didn’t go away. In fact, his anger grew. He realised it was a rage at himself, at his failure. What he had failed at, he couldn’t remember.

Then he recalled something: speaking to an angel, about someone who’d mattered to him. Someone who’d meant a great deal. His memory of those words seemed fuzzy at first, but he persisted, focusing until they formed in his mind.

‘... he had faith in you, Fin. Much more than you have in yourself.’

‘We are done talking, angel.’

‘He had faith in you, as do I. What you need most is faith in yourself.’

Threadfin remembered his own name. Staring at the light, since there was nothing else to look at, he focused his anger on it. He also remembered that person’s name, the one he cared about. Podral Pole, and with that name came his words from long ago.

‘I have faith in you, lad.’

The light began to grow larger and he realised he was approaching it, or maybe it was coming to him. Either way, he was succeeding, and with the light, his faith in himself grew. Failure didn’t matter. Everyone failed. All that mattered was not giving up, especially on himself.

He would have given a whoop of triumph if he’d had a voice. He burst into the light, leaving the emptiness behind.

His triumphant feeling was short-lived, however. Threadfin’s eyes opened and he found himself flying above fortifications. He noted his wings, his horned tail snaking behind him, and it all came rushing back to him. Who he was, where he was, and what had happened. Astra Dar and the Book of Souls. He felt the Watcher too; it was enraged that he had returned. It had thought him vanquished. This time, holding the beast at bay proved easier. Simply put, he knew he could, and so he did.

He noticed other dragons like him, all attacking the Gulley walls and forts, slaughtering the imperial legions. Dragons who had once been viral mages, who had fought alongside those same soldiers.

Feeling something in his right foot, or rather his claw, he lowered his great head and saw a limp armoured form in his grip. On instinct, he let go, and the soldier’s body plummeted, green cloak flapping around him, enveloping him like a funeral shroud.

Uh oh, he thought.

Threadfin wheeled, taking in the scene below. Flames leapt high in numerous places inside the Gulley. Dragons and Titans, among other evils, had breached the defences and the living died or fled. Those few who chose to stand didn’t last long.

The battle was as good as over, Lucifer’s victory at hand. Then he spotted her walking towards the walls, which had several breaches where the fortifications had been reduced to rubble. Astra Dar held her tall staff in one hand, the Shathra Stone like a beacon in the growing darkness. The black tide washed over the defences as the sorceress, her fractured form like a dying star, stepped through a breach and entered the imperium.

‡

Threadfin thumped onto the ground and regained his human form. He strode against a sorcerous gale, cloak billowing around him. It felt good to have arms and legs again. He didn’t quite remember everything about the experience, but the feeling he’d had of not having a body, remained.

The weather had taken a decidedly nasty turn, although he knew it was Astra Dar. Also, it seemed focused just on him. The wind whipped at the imperial standards close by. Rain and hail lashed at him, turning the desert earth to mud.

The ground shook and fractured. In the distance, new mountains rose, slow and inevitable. Lightning lit the skies though there was no thunder. The remaining walls of the Gulley, including the forts, crumbled like biscuit.

Threadfin could not have said how many thousands of breathers perished in those moments, but he knew millions more were at grave risk. All that stood between the Darkness and the living was a lone foolish undead mage. Alone, because his kin had not awoken from their dragon-sleep. Foolish, because what self-respecting mage would stand against such odds? Once, he might have fled, but today was a different day and Threadfin Todder a different mage.

The cracks in Astra’s body bled light as though they burned her from the inside. A smoke-like ichor leaked out of her. The Shathra Stone atop her staff blazed bright, and he knew no breather could have looked at it and not have gone blind. It was an effort even for him. Its light was focused, however; wherever it touched, chaos and death reigned. Whenever it swung towards him, he produced a dark gaseous cloud of magic to diffuse it.

Threadfin picked his spot, waiting. Astra had seen him, of course, and she now smiled, but he could no longer tell the difference between the young woman he’d known, and Lucifer.

She came to a stop perhaps twelve feet from him, as the wind whipped at her slitted dress, armour fittingly the colour of blood. There were no words spoken, but then he hadn’t expected any. Everything that needed to be said, had been.

Well, here goes nothing. Forming a dark vortex between the palms of his hands, he flung it at her. A flick of her left hand, and it swerved around her, instead striking one of the undead dragons, which had been about to devour a hapless soldier. The vortex burned a hole right through the beast, before imploding, devouring the dragon and soldier until nothing remained. The vortex winked out.

One of my newest tricks, and it didn’t work, he thought, feeling resigned. Will nothing stop her?

The sorceress slammed the butt of her staff into the ground, and an echoing vibration reached him. From beneath his feet, thick root-like tentacles burst forth. They grabbed at his legs, entwining him in a bone-crushing grip. He didn’t bother struggling, knowing instinctively it would lead to a further tightening and his demise. Lucifer was toying with him.

The cracks of light in her body widened, one jagged fissure down the centre of her face near obliterating her features. Killing Astra Dar wasn’t an option any more, for Lucifer was doing it just fine without him. Destroying Lucifer seemed as remote, but stopping him was possible. It had to be.

There must be a way, he thought, as he let his magic leak in little trickles, like drops of water dripping down the thick vines holding him. All I need is a little help, a distraction. Anything!

His magic soaked into the vines, undermining their structure. Lucifer’s magic and his own were identical, for viralic power was the essence of Tartaros. Knowing this, he knew he could stop Lucifer, but just as easily, Lucifer could destroy him.

The vines shuddered, and at first, he believed they were going to turn him into dried pulp, but then they retracted.

Twisting his neck and stretching his arms, Threadfin watched Lucifer’s fractured smile grow in Astra’s damaged face.

I get the distinct feeling this is going to take a while.

‡

Asher had struggled after the Nephilim, but had lost sight of them in the thick of battle, although, to call it a battle was a bit of a misnomer.

Hailing from a relatively peaceful island, he had no experience with such things, although he’d read of plenty and had spoken to those who’d seen them.

Then he spotted the Nephilim king battling the revenants, his massive scarap blade rising and falling, cutting with broad sweeps, and then slicing again on the backswing, taking limbs and heads from bodies, his knot of warriors fighting ferociously at his side. He watched as one of the Nephilim was taken down, three revenants ripping into him with their talons.

Ordinary humans in their puny armour and distinctive green cloaks marking them as imperialists, fought as hard, but far more of them fell to the enemy. Some turned and fled, but they died just the same.

Asher ducked as something huge passed overhead, and he realised he was lying flat with his face in the dry dirt. A dragon, its long tail lashing the ground as it pulled up short, obliterating everything where the Nephilim had been fighting. It moved on to other prey, leaving nothing but revenants and dust in its wake.

The virals have turned on us, he thought in horror. The undead dragons were attacking their own! Any hope he had felt before, however miniscule, was crushed.

Shoving himself to his knees, he remained there transfixed at the sheer scale of it, the gratuitous slaughter and death and never had he felt so small, so insignificant. There was a dagger belted to his waist, but he never once thought of drawing it. What would be the point? How did one slay an undead dragon with a dagger, or one of those revenants or chimera, or those monstrous creatures he understood to be titans, or how could he slay a wight as it tried to suck the life from him? His dagger was no soul shard. It was his first time seeing these creatures, not having really believed all of them existed. It was overwhelming.

All he had was his creation, the ameliorate in its pouch. Without realising it, he found himself stroking the belt, his nervousness rising to panic.

He wasn’t used to feeling this way. Obviously, he’d felt fear before. Who hadn’t? No, this was different, a rising bile in his throat, a desperate urge to pee, not mention a cold sweat tickling his scalp and neck. The only thing in the world he wanted to do was run and never stop.

Then he remembered the words of an old man, ‘Its time will come as will yours, Asher Tone. This I promise.’ It took an extreme effort to rise to his feet and begin to walk towards the carnage. The battle had not ended, but it was going in one direction and not in the favour of all things living. It had by now also begun to move beyond the Gulley walls further into the imperium.

I won’t survive this, he thought, even if I run now. I mean, where would I go to anyway? There is no place left untouched, unmarred by Tartaros. If his time had come, then he would make his stand like everyone else. Maybe he was the last Atlantian in the world, but whether he was or not didn’t matter. He was once a prince of Atlantis, and he would not bring shame on his people’s memory.

One foot in front of the other. How was he to find the viral mage in all of this? Was he now a dragon attacking his own people? Would he devour this fool Atlantian on sight?

There were several breaches in the Gulley, and he managed to clamber through holes, beneath fallen stone and over, into ditches and out, all the while trying to ignore the multitude of corpses, not all of them human. Out the other side, he stumbled on through the mayhem, at one point nearly being decapitated though by whom or what he didn’t see. The blow was a glancing one, fortunately, but it had rendered him unconscious for a brief time. Rising again, he spotted a bright light shining, and he knew where he needed to get to.

In between however, was a raging battle as soldiers of the imperial legions fought desperately. There were others there too defending ground, and he realised these were angels. They shimmered in the dying light. A storm had erupted, gusts whipping living and dead alike.

Something happened then, which almost caused him to actually turn and run. He felt something pulling at him and then a sharp pain shot through his arms and legs, piercing his chest, making him cry out.

When the pain subsided, he noticed his hands looked more skeletal, and there were sores on them. Touching his face, he found more. Then he noticed other soldiers had fallen, many in a worse state, curled up in twisted positions with their hair turned white. He pulled out his dagger and angled it and though the image in it was dark and dull, he thought his own hair had also turned a little greyer. There were more wrinkles in his face too.

Glancing towards the light, he saw a lone figure stood before it, and knew it was Threadfin Todder. He attacked us, he thought at first, draining our lives. Then he noticed the battle occurring between what he assumed was this Lucifer he’d heard about, and Todder, and he realised the mage likely had no choice. After all, he reasoned, if he fails, we all die anyway.

There were still some soldiers fighting, many in small groups, phalanxes decimated, holding off the revenants with spears or whatever they could get their hands on. Few of them looked to be in good shape. A bellowing roar in the distance, however, made Asher smile.

The Nephilim king still lived and fought with other survivors, a handful of his warriors left to him, but it still looked like a hopeless cause. They had formed a shield wall with the angelic ranks, and the half-burnt, snow-white wings of a Nephilim king did not look out of place.

‡

It was sometime later when Myral worked up the courage and stumbled up the dunes towards the Gulley. Why she didn’t run in the opposite direction, she didn’t understand. It was as though there was some inner will within her, something she hadn’t been fully aware of, which had taken over her senses. It was perhaps that same primal feeling in her gut. The vampires were somewhere ahead, and she needed to find them.

After some time, she stumbled across the first of her children. They raged, storming the walls of the Gulley amid a plethora of other exotic creatures. Arrows whizzed past them, some striking home, but arrows didn’t bother vampires.

Myral knew they were killing people, men and women of the imperium who stood defending those walls, and it broke her heart. Some of her children lay dead. This also caused her pain, and the conflict within her was confusing. She felt as though she didn’t know who she was anymore.

Massive beasts like she’d seen on the beach, with long tails and broad wings, flew over the battle, swiping at the defenders. Titans, whose height put Nephilim to shame, lumbered through jagged breaches. Through one of those gaps, she spotted wights, instinctively knowing what they were, attacking ranks of shining angels. The entire battle felt surreal.

It was also shifting further beyond the Gulley walls, nothing but corpses left to guard the battlements and towers. Myral clambered over the rubble through one of the breaches, her heart pounding, for any minute something or someone might attack her.

As she got closer to the battle, not knowing what she was going to do, she spotted a light amidst the destruction, like a beacon. Beneath it was the figure of a woman, the light issuing from her.

Threadfin Todder stood within a maelstrom of storms, and somehow, she knew he was in trouble.

What am I supposed to do? At the sheer scale of destruction, she fell to her knees in the arid soil, helpless and alone. Close to her, were the ranks of angelic myriad with shining spears and swords as they battled the various creatures the sorceress had unleashed. They had vanquished many of the wights, but now the titans and chimera took their toll on the angelic host. Winged harpies with vicious blades leapt from the backs of their bulky mounts to collide with angelic warriors.

The titans swept scores of the myriad aside with ease, but more angels took their place, felling the gigantic Fallen Ones with spears of white light.

However, even the angelic myriad began to buckle beneath the onslaught. Then the world shook.