19​ A Battle Lost

HIS HEADACHE HAD worsened. The cold pierced Taver’s clothing, numbing his bones. Ice encrusted his patchy excuse of a beard, his body an invisible mound. It was proving harder to remain awake. Was he imagining those shadows in the blackness or were they in his mind? He knew he should force Tezcat to turn back. He also knew her stubbornness.

She was silent and motionless, lost within the flurries of snow. Whatever was going on, the wights weren’t taking the bait. There was no sign of the replicas, but the angel dead should’ve sensed Tezcat’s presence. He was torn between worry over what was going on, and relief that maybe they hadn’t discovered her after all. Then again, maybe they had, but they were up to something.

He felt terrified she would attempt something with her magic, to draw them to her. Terrified she would be successful. I can’t defend her against those things. I’m her Aidari, but I’m useless to her.

He knew he loved her in a manner of speaking. It was difficult, knowing what she was, that her body would decay despite all efforts. The process might take centuries if not millennia – since the undead had ways of holding it at bay – but he would be long gone anyhow. Knowing all sorts of facts didn’t matter when it came to feelings. He knew he would die to protect her. Perhaps it was all he needed to understand. Tezcat often said the living thought too much. In this case, he supposed she had a point.

Feeling aches in his limbs as he forced them to move, he crept towards her. Once closer, he hissed, ‘Cat ... hey!’

She turned her head to regard him, and then back again. The motion suggested a worsening stiffness despite her magic. ‘Her replicas is out there,’ she said in a normal voice, as though nothing was amiss.

‘We need to go,’ he whispered, wishing she’d keep her voice down. ‘The Necros want to use you as the bait. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Something isn’t right here.’

She offered him a shrug. ‘Them wights is playin’ games. They was angels once and they isn’t stupid you know. They knows some virals can hurts them, just not which ones. Nisk showed ’em afore, and Beez, and Lyrin.’

‘We need to go.’

‘They knows we is here. You can talks louder. It’s not sound what draws ’em, anyhow.’

He found he couldn’t raise his voice, despite her assertions. No harm being cautious far as he was concerned. ‘What’d you mean? What sort of games?’ And do we know any of the rules?

A dull screech sounded from far below, but not from where Tezcat had been watching. It came from behind them, in the direction of the fortress. Then Taver noticed the rope that had linked him with the others below, had gone slack.

‘Not very nice ones,’ said Tezcat. Her limbs made a creaking noise as she struggled upright. ‘Suppose we needs go and see. It won’t be nice.’

Taver, who’d spun at the sound turned back to stare at her. Go and see? Is she nuts? He knew they had no choice, though. He’d freeze to death if he didn’t get moving, and besides, she’d said the wights knew she was there. They’d come for her at some point. He tried drawing his sword not knowing what use it would be, and found it stuck. The blade was bronze and the scabbard made from tinned gilded bronze. He tugged at it, and then tried spitting on it to loosen it. Damn useless hunk of metal, he thought, but he didn’t toss it away.

The long screech turned to a gurgle, then silence. Human cries followed, so faint he wasn’t sure he’d heard them. It seemed the wights had avoided the ridge, choosing another way around.

They began a stumbling descent. Going back down was slow, as they tried to pick their way carefully. Several screeches and a flurry of cries reached them on a gust of wind, like a slap in the face.

Taver stumbled, and Tezcat tried to catch him. He ended up dragging her with him. They went into a slide. Fumbling for the pick tucked into his sword belt, he tried using it to claw at the snow, but lost it. He saw nothing but moonlit cloud, snowflakes, and Tezcat’s boots, until he collided with something. It took a few moments to realise it was Dever Marks, and that the captain was in several pieces. Getting to his feet, Taver first checked on his friend. She was already up and moving, bent with stiffness, and examining the others. The moon re-emerged and he saw they were all in pieces. Ten Necros Guardians, several Aidari and three mages. Dead.

He stared down into the valley he couldn’t see as the thunder of magic rattled his bones. Dawn was but a pale splotch on the horizon. He didn’t think the sun made much difference to wights. After all, they were not like the ghosts of people. Wights had a power of their own.

Ten minutes later, as they reached the valley floor, they discovered more carnage. The sounds of battle, punctuated by the concussive bark of magic came from further within the predawn fog. It seemed the rebels had arrived in force. Beezer’s plan to divide them up had failed. Unless, he thought, it was to see us all torn to pieces, in which case it’s going smoothly.

He managed to free his short sword as they ran into a scouting party. It consisted of one Necros and four Aidari, and some ordinary islanders. Unfortunately, these ones were on the wrong side of the argument.

Taver struck down one of the Aidari, who looked about to try out a spell. The idiot wasn’t advanced enough, and had taken too long. Unfortunately, on his heels was a real soldier. Taver managed to fend off the Necros’ attack, but he knew he was no match for the warrior.

The Necros jerked, blood gushing from his mouth as he fell. Stood behind him was the corpse of the Aidari Taver had killed moments earlier. The Necros began to convulse and then he too rose, sword in hand. Both corpses turned on the others who then fled.

Taver grumbled when he caught sight of Tezcat’s wide grin. ‘You know, I had him where I wanted him. I see you’re enjoying this.’

‘You is welcome,’ she said with a mock bow, but her smile faded as four wights appeared from within the fog. He grabbed her arm intending to pull her after him.

Two women then rushed past Taver, viralic magic unveiled as they unleashed a dark wave of power at the wights. It rebuffed the creatures, but the Nisky replicas could not destroy them. They needed to get closer, Taver suspected, or perhaps they were tiring. They both looked ragged and bloodied. One of them was missing an arm.

‘Time to run,’ he suggested, hauling a reluctant Tezcat with him, as they went around the trapped wights.

A few minutes later, they heard the twin voices of the replicas scream. The original Nisky, if she was the original, was in Reaper’s End. She would have felt those deaths and screamed along with them. He’d seen it once before. Hers wasn’t a gift, but a curse. He would find a way to save his friend, and then he wanted nothing more to do with magic. No matter who Beezer thinks I am.

***

AFTER RUNNING TO THE point where Taver was wheezing, hands on knees, they reached the edge of the main battle. As luck would have it, they’d flanked both armies on the correct side. They were some fifteen feet above, the incline increasing as they climbed the rocky slope. All hope of tackling the wights in small ambushes, nullifying their numbers, had vanished.

Loyal Necros, bolstered by magic from their mages, formed the front line. Viralic power rippled along their ranks, strengthening armour and shields, lending deadliness to swords and spears. The front line was three hundred in strength. Ten feet back, the second line was interspersed with older Aidari or students who’d shown promise. Behind them, higher up on the ridges, which climbed towards Reaper’s, were the clots. Mages clustered in groups of three or four, either aiding the Necros with magic, or flinging it at the enemy.

Beezer must have anticipated this, else how had he gotten the various clots regrouped in time? His original plan had fallen apart, but he’d obviously planned for that too. Several undead and Necros did join the battle late, forced into bolstering the reserves.

Most of the enemy, the living ones at least, hung back. They didn’t bother to engage, and from what Taver could see, would never need to. The wights, in shimmering waves, crashed against the Necros lines. The warriors stabbed with magic-enhanced blades, often injuring and on occasion, destroying their foes.

Thunderous bolts and rippling pulses of magic pounded into the angelic dead. Some of them succumbed. Their screeches were far louder than their surviving kin. However, there were thousands of them. He felt Tezcat holding close to him.

Some three hundred wights broke off from the main attack. They climbed towards the mages, who in turn had to redirect their efforts to defence. Now temporarily without the backup of the mages, the front line buckled and broke. The second line, didn’t last long either. While some Aidari produced impressive responses to the wights, they were overwhelmed in minutes. The angel dead didn’t care for their own, didn’t hesitate. Undead magic incinerated them by the dozen. For all that, there were too few mages with the ability to combat the threat.

Onward came the tide.

Taver recalled the waves thrashing the rocks at his feet, when life had been simpler. The exhilaration he’d felt, the belief he could do anything. His breathing now came in gasps and no longer because of his exertions. He was sweating, hand slippery as it gripped Tezcat’s. He’d been such a fool.

She then pulled him in the direction of the wights. No one could call her a coward at last. Nuts, yes, but not a coward.

‘What are you doing?’ he hissed, and for a wonder, she listened. It was then he caught sight of what had drawn her attention. Rade Wyn strode through the battle towards a clot. Blue-white lightning swirled around her like she was some sort of spectral mage. He supposed that was exactly what she was.

With her, and forming a protective cordon, were scores of wights. The battle itself was over, all loyal Necros and Aidari dead or dying. The other wights converged on the hapless mages in a spiralling wave. He knew there was no hope.

All because of her.

He felt his face burn with rage, as he stared at Rade. The woman had the nerve to turn and stare back, as if sensing him. His so-called mother.

He took a step towards the battle, and this time, Tezcat had to hold him back. Something in him had snapped, the horns on his neck and shoulders growing. He wanted to stride down there and confront her. He wanted to grip her neck and strangle the witch. The wrath he felt inside both shocked and comforted him. On the edge of his anger, lay a power, a yawning furnace which sought to seduce him. He felt inclined to let it.

Surrounded, Beezer and his surviving mages fought a sorcerous battle against Rade. She paused in her advance, lashing out with what were often invisible strikes. The only evidence she did anything was the exploding body of a mage, or another crushed by unseen hands. All the while, her own actinic power crackled and spit, blackening the earth. Undead magic hammered into her, and the wights sacrificed themselves to shield her.

Though the mages held her back, they could not destroy her. Beezer stood at the apex of the last clot, his own power a match for hers. For how long? Taver wondered. You led them all here to this horrible end. Why?

Beside him Tezcat groaned, and he felt her pain. He looked on, confused, as an ethereal figure appeared beside Beezer. He thought it was the same ghost who’d appeared to Tezcat. She touched Beezer’s arm and something strange happened.

The viral mage quit fighting.

The viralic attacks ceased as the other mages surrendered. Both the wights and Rade’s spectralic magic smothered them whole. Nothing remained where Beezer and his mages had stood. Nothing, but Rade Wyn, who turned her head a second time to look up towards his position.

‘Time to go,’ he whispered.

Tezcat said nothing as they raced up the dirt path, away from the battle. Beezer and the others were gone. Tezcat wanted to fight, he knew. She wanted to give answer to the hatred, to the destruction, the insanity. He knew, because it was what he wanted.

Taver, however, knew something else.

There was no answer.

***

ADAL, ONCE KNOWN AS Petraeus, stepped over the cold corpses. Cloying mud, fouled by blood and piss, sucked at his moccasins while the smell of burning bodies roiled across the battlefield. It had begun to rain, adding a dampness to the stench. The dead littered the earth in a variety of poses, each ghastlier. The dead ... such a misnomer for most of them. After all, what did dead mean these days? There were the so-called angel dead, and here at his feet the dead of the living, and the undead who had never lived. What was death or life? What did it mean to live, to die? What was existence? As an angel, he’d once thought he’d had all the answers, but no longer. Do I even care anymore?

Here, he’d waited until the battle had ended. Waited until the dead numbered unto the thousands, until the dying had wept for their mothers, and then quietened. Throughout it all, he’d not lifted a finger, no, just observed for some things had to be. Information was his game these days, accumulating it, disseminating it, and adjusting it. He wondered what he was supposed to do with this?

Officially, he was a body servant. Not a respectable position within the imperium, but it had kept him close to the imperator. Tolan had believed him to be his spymaster, and some knew him unofficially, as such. He was more than that, more than anyone, even poor old Xanthus, had realised. Secrecy was a necessity, but anonymity was invaluable. Countless deaths were required to maintain it. He believed the toll this time, however, to be too high. In this instance, he was not thinking of the living.

The virals had organised into clots, which had congealed into an army as Dares Avitus had predicted it would. Destroying them had cost the imperium eighty percent of its forces, but in the end the living had won. Why? Well, because they’d had thousands of wights to aid them. At least in the beginning, since they’d vanished after Antipa’s death.

From the perspective of the living, they’d been victorious, but Adal knew better. Knowledge was often bitter. It is why, we so often lie to ourselves, he thought. The truth can leave a horrid taste, like bile on the tongue. Lies are comforting, like a musty old blanket on a cold night.

Future generations would want to read about the heroes who fought against the evil undead. None would want to know the truth. None would want to know thousands had died for imperialistic greed, and ... something else.

There was a hand behind it all, and it possessed an ancient feminine touch. No one would write about any of that.

Yes, Astra Dar was a name to inspire gibbering terror in the masses, if they could but remember her. The fools, he thought, as he stared down at the shattered fire-blackened visage of a viral. They’d severed the head of every one of them, those the wights hadn’t destroyed. They had begun to gather them, to burn the bodies. Others would remain out there in the world, hiding. Adal knew the hunt for them would continue for decades.

The living feared the Grim, calling on his name in dire curses, in the belief it would ward him off. An ironic twist of logic. It wasn’t the Grim they needed to fear, at least not right now. Adal knew this for truth, for he’d known the Grim a long time, and knew his mind.

Within the heart of the battlefield, he found her, surrounded by twisted death. Amid churned earth and detritus, she lay perfectly formed within a crater. A ring of bodies was splayed outward at the edge, blasted into a perfect circle. Oh, yes, there was perfection in death, and dying too, another nasty truth ignored by most.

Naked, her pale skin was muddied and streaked with blood not her own. Long silver hair covered much of her form. She lay face down and so he couldn’t avoid seeing the protrusions on her body, silver-white horns. Broader of shoulder, and taller than most men, she was finely muscled. A powerful being, drawn to death and destruction. Thus, during the height of battle, her thunderous arrival. With sorcery flung from one side to the other, this rather major event had gone unnoticed.

Adal offered thanks to the Spectrum for that much.

A Torment; oh yes, he knew what she was. One of ten, or eleven, depending on one’s perspective. He knelt at her side and laid a gentle hand to her warm flesh. He’d known she was coming, and had known it would be here and now, for he had drawn her.

Torments, oh, he knew all about those beings. How could he not, having tolerated the name himself although it was a title he disputed on principle. They were servants of the Grim, an occupation he had scorned. His angelic nature had allowed him to escape that trap, but these ones had not been so fortunate.

Perhaps he should have killed her, ended her miserable existence. He knew agony coursed through her veins without surcease. This was a huge gamble, after all. He had the power to do any number of things, but he did not for she had work to do. He needed powerful allies for what was to come, and having one so close to the Grim was essential.

She stirred into wakefulness.

A revelation of what she was might tear the imperium, and the world, apart. Riots would fill the capital’s streets, the new imperator thrown to the mob before his scrawny ass could warm the throne.

Calac currently stalked the battlefield somewhere to the west, sycophantic retinue in tow. A reluctant participant, pretending to grieve for a grandfather he’d never loved, while actually grieving for a sister who had been his entire world.

‘Welcome,’ he said to the Torment. ‘You must come with me, now.’

She screamed, long and hard, a shriek to curdle the soul.

A flock of crows and gulls had risen at the sound, but there were many screams upon that field. None who heard would desire to venture near such a tortured soul, or so he hoped.

Bloody tears leaked from her golden eyes as they searched his. She snarled, revealing overlong canines. Yes, a beast in truth, but only in the ways that mattered. An intelligence beyond mortals also burned within those molten eyes. ‘You have been reborn into this world,’ he told her. ‘Do you understand my words?’

She nodded, breathing hard.

‘What is your name, Torment?’

At mention of her title, a dangerous look entered her eyes. There was a pause, and then she spat blood. ‘Striga,’ she whispered, voice hoarse from all the screaming.

Adal moved closer. He was taking a risk, but an ally such as this would prove invaluable. If he failed, it would not be so easy to send her back to where she came from. ‘Well, you are most welcome, Striga. I’ve been expecting you. We must get you from sight. No mortals must know of your presence.’ Not that many had heard of Torments, for even in the stories they proved rare. The White Daemoni mentioned them but twice.

Striga struggled to her knees, head bent to the earth. Silver-white hair spilled in waves. Her body heaved in spasmodic jerks. ‘You summoned me?’

‘Let’s say, I stole you from him. For a while.’ No, the Grim would not be at all pleased if he found out, which Adal would do everything in his power to prevent.

‘I know who you are,’ she said, looking up at him. She glanced around at the slaughter. ‘What ...?’

‘Ah, a terrible crime, a betrayal that must go unanswered, at least for the moment. The one responsible is far from here, and you’re not ready, not in your condition. You will need time to recover.’

‘Yes, I do know you. What is your name?’

Adal, once named Petraeus, smiled. He removed his cloak and draped it across her shoulders, though she did not appear cold. ‘I’ve had many names over the centuries and many faces. Does your name matter? Does mine? I don’t care about names. Do you care about names?’ To that, she shook her head, likely more confused than before. Good. Keep her off balance until he could control the situation better.

‘There is someone, yes,’ she said, ‘I ... sense him. A lost brother! Is that why you brought me here?’

Petraeus paused. What? Was there another Torment already in this world? There was no one else with the power to summon one. After all, it had taken the deaths of thousands to achieve. He didn’t like surprises. No one did. No, no matter, there was time to fix all that. So much to do, so many strings to pull, plans to thwart. ‘The war is coming my dear. The real war. You’ve arrived just in time.’

‘In time for what?’

‘To prepare, for you are now a soldier in this war, and for once, on the right side.’

It was then she began to laugh, and it proved a horrible sound.