The Call of Kerberos (34 page)

"Take cover!" Dunsany shouted as more spikes flew towards them.

Using the power of the stone from the
Llothriall
and Emuel's song, Kelos threw up a magical shield. However, it didn't encompass everybody and more spikes found their mark.

A Moratian woman ducked behind one of the stone spires, only for a spike to pierce both the rock and her. Another man was pinned to his friend as he turned to run; the spike entering the back of his head and continuing through his friend's right eye.

The barrage lasted no more than ten seconds and when it was over they had lost half their army and the survivors stood in a forest of shivering black quills.

"What the hell was that?" Jacquinto said.

"I suggest we fall back," Kelos said, as the sea began to churn.

"The monoliths should hold off the Chadassa," Dunsany said as he followed them in-land.

"Yes, but I don't know for how long and I don't want to be standing anywhere near the stones when they go."

"So what are we going to do?" Jacquinto said. "We can't just fight them all."

"We have to hope that Silus will come through for us," Kelos said. "Otherwise, gentlemen, it has been a pleasure sailing with you and I hope to see you in the next life."

There was nothing but clouds.

The first time that Silus had communed with Kerberos - in the temple on Morat - he had sensed something like a vast consciousness, a planet-sized intelligence that may well have been the planet itself.

Now there was only the storm.

As he fell through the lightning and the wind he called out to his ancestors, whose spirits surely resided here, but there was no response. In fact, it felt to Silus as though he truly were the only living thing here.

Then what had been calling to him?

"What are you?" Silus shouted.

"What are you?"

Just an echo, Silus thought. Though hadn't those last few words seemed to overlap his own?

"What are you?"

"... you... you... you... you..."

The single word echoed around him and kept on echoing, as though it had become trapped within the clouds.

This was pointless. Bestion was mistaken. There was no benevolent and just god here.

Silus began to search for the thread that would lead back to his body.

"... you... you... you... you..."

"Shut up! Bestion, help me!"

"... you... you... you... you...."

The thread wasn't there, but then something about the word cut through his panic and made him stop and think.

You.

You.

You.

There was something here.
He
was here. Silus had been looking in the wrong place. Even before the ritual had been completed - even before he had left his body - Kerberos had entered into him.

Silus reached out and the lightning arced around him in a nimbus of power that lit up the clouds for miles around. He reached even further and now he could hear the roar of Kerberos itself as it turned in the void, could feel the immense energies that held it together.

At the heart of the storm, at the centre of it all, Silus burned.

"... you... you... you... you..."

"Yes," Silus said, "
me
."

Kelos watched the others nervously watching the shore as they took up their fallback positions.

The blue fire burst from the monoliths and a dome of shimmering energy closed around the island. Kelos felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as, at his feet, the stone from the
Llothriall
began to pulse in sympathy with the magic. Beside him Emuel was singing, the tattoos that covered his body dancing to the strange rhythms he weaved. Along the line, the rest of the crew stood with their weapons readied. Only a handful of the Moratian refugees stood with them, the rest having fallen in the attack by the urchin thing. Kelos was impressed that the survivors had chosen to fight on, even as the blood of their comrades sank into the blazing sands.

There was still no sign of the Chadassa themselves, though they must have been close else the monoliths' power would have remained dormant.

The sea began to withdraw then, as though the tide were going out, though no tide that Kelos had seen had ever retreated so rapidly. Already the sea was five hundred metres from where they stood on the beach, and thousands of dying fish lay flopping in the wet sand while crabs raced to keep up with the dwindling tide. Now seaweed draped rocks were uncovered, some the size of houses, and among them Kelos could see the wreck of an ancient ship.

Beyond that the water fell away even more swiftly, revealing the Chadassa army.

There were thousands of them and, at their head stood the Great Ocean, clothed in the ruins of Snil's flesh. Zac still hung from the Chadassa's torso, giggling as the dark god's energy coursed through him. Bringing up the rear, like a line of siege engines, was a phalanx of monstrous crustaceans.

"Gods, they're not leaving anything to chance are they?"

Indeed, Kelos considered, why did the Chadassa feel the need to put such a mighty force up against just a handful of humans?

Then, even in the face of such overwhelming odds, Kelos felt hope renewed. Because, if the Chadassa were leaving nothing to chance that meant the Great Ocean knew what Silus was doing at the temple, and feared that he would succeed.

When he saw the Great Ocean give the signal to advance, Kelos reached for the threads of elemental power before dropping to his knees and burying his hands in the sand. Channelling a thread of energy from the
Lothriall's
stone he spoke the words of an elven spell. It had originally been created to protect a coastal town against raiders. Whether or not it had been successful Kelos didn't know, as he'd never found the town on any ancient map of Twilight. That was the thing with practicing Old Race magic, he considered. Sometimes you only had a vague idea of the results you were going to get.

The spell cast, he looked up. The Chadassa hoard were even closer. Kelos spoke the last word of the spell again, borrowing yet more power from the stone, but nothing seemed to happen.

But then, with a dull thud, the sand beneath the first wave of the Chadassa army turned to liquid and they were quickly sucked under. Kelos estimated that he had taken down at least three hundred of the creatures.

A cheer went up from the line of human defenders, but they were far from out of the woods. Kelos's magic would only stretch so far, and once the power of the monoliths was breached they had only a dozen or so swords against thousands of wicked talons.

In a matter of seconds the Chadassa regrouped and the next wave came for them, this time with the Great Ocean itself at its head. The line of gigantic crustaceans launched rocks at the island as they followed. For one brief moment Kelos managed to pull the fallen missiles into the form of a rock elemental, which ground several Chadassa into paste before a counter spell from the Great Ocean took it down.

Above them, light strobed across the surface of Kerberos and it looked to Kelos as though the planet were beginning to turn more swiftly.

The magical barrier that protected the island was now screaming with the force of the Chadassa against it and Kelos could see several of their mages working to undo the power of the stones.

He remembered how swiftly the stones on Maladrak's Cauldron had fallen. On the Isle of the Allfather they fell in less than half the time.

Silus could no longer tell which part of him was Kerberos and which was his own spiritual essence. Even though he had no body, he felt each flash of lightning, each rumble of thunder as a deeply physical sensation.

When he looked down at the blue-green globe that turned below him a lance of energy erupted from his mass and struck the planet. He felt the deaths of some of the Chadassa as the bolt hit and a shockwave rippled through the dark moon in his orbit. Silus's laughter raced through the clouds as Kerberos began to turn faster and faster. He reeled drunkenly for a while, but he was careful lest he turn too fast and dissipate himself into space.

Silus slowed down, turned his face away from Twilight and stared into the star flecked void.

Wouldn't it be something, he considered, to just leave Kerberos behind? To send his spirit out as far as it would go. Perhaps he would find a new world more beautiful and less troubled than his own. He was almost tempted to let go, but as he turned to look back at Twilight he could feel the needs and fears of the people there, and he could feel the taint of the Chadassa that lay itself across all creation.

Silus gathered the storm within himself. For the first time in millennia Kerberos was perfectly still. He enjoyed the peace for a time as the turbulent energies built within him.

Then, Silus opened his eyes, reached down and touched Twilight.

They began to run, even before the first of the monoliths exploded.

Father Maylan was the fastest - his robes flying out behind him as he sprinted away from the shore - but then he was the least encumbered of them, carrying, as he did, only a lightweight dagger. Kelos's progress was rather less swift, as he had the stone from the
Llothriall
in his arms. There was no question of leaving it behind. Without it, their ship would be next to useless. He almost regretted asking Dunsany to remove it now.

The last to join the retreat towards the temple were Jacquinto and Ignacio. Ignacio even made a stand for a short time, side by side with one of the Moratians, throwing rocks at the swarms of Chadassa racing towards them. However, when a considerably larger stone than the ones they were wielding flattened the man from Morat, Ignacio decided to run.

"Emuel, try to keep up," Dunsany shouted at the eunuch, who was beginning to lag behind. Even as he ran Emuel was singing, though the song did little to protect him as a spear glanced off his shin. He stumbled and fell, but before the Chadassa could reach him, one of the Moratians threw himself in front of the eunuch. Emuel regained his feet and, as he fled, he tried to block out the sound of his rescuer being eviscerated.

Dunsany looked back to see that the Chadassa were gaining on them. The sound coming from the throat of the Great Ocean as it led the charge was like nothing he had ever heard. The long, ululating wail seemed to speak of the darkness of space, the emptiness of the void and the oblivion it would bring to their world.

Ahead of him, Dunsany could see the grove where the temple stood and from within he could just make out the sound of Bestion's chanting.

"Get inside," he shouted to his companions. "We may be able to barricade the entrance."

"That's a terrible idea and you know it," Jacquinto said. "Face it, we're done for."

"This is not a time for arguments," Kelos said, gesturing with his hands. Behind him the stone spires began to explode, showering the Chadassa with fragments of burning rock. However, it did little to slow their advance. "Silus will come through for us, you'll see."

"Well I have yet to see any evidence of his - "

Jacquinto fell silent. For a moment Dunsany thought it was because he had been struck down, but then he turned and noticed what had made the smuggler gaze in awe-struck silence.

The Chadassa had come to a halt, but clearly not at the Great Ocean's command. The god paced up and down the ranks, berating its soldiers. Though it killed several as a lesson to the others, none of the Chadassa even moved to acknowledge the deaths.

"Is this it?" Kelos said.

The Chadassa sank slowly to their knees, settling so gently on the sand that they didn't make a sound. Then, from every eye socket and from every mouth streamed the light of Kerberos as the Chadassa began to sing.

The sound was deafening but glorious.

"My God," Emuel said, "it's the song." Then he turned to the temple and shouted: "Bestion, it's the song."

The strong, high note washed over them all for a second more before falling in pitch and then ceasing altogether.

The Chadassa remained where they were, but now smoke rose from their empty eye-sockets and their open mouths. Gulls descended on the corpses, drawn by the smell of cooking flesh.

The Great Ocean howled at the death of its children, before turning its fury on the humans in its midst.

Far from the Isle of the Allfather, on the coast of Turnitia, the Land Walkers burst from the sea only to be faced with a vast army wearing the crossed circle of the Final Faith.

Though the army before them was formidable, the Land Walkers raised their voices and charged. They had advanced no more than halfway up the beach, however, when a pure, holy light blazed from their eyes and mouths and they dropped dead.

"Well done Anointed Lord," said one of the knights, turning to Katherine Makennon. "Truly such abominations are as like wheat to the scythe before your divine presence."

"Thank you Alonkin," Katherine Makennon said, "but, really, it was nothing."

The Great Ocean's howl was that of a parent bereaved, but Jacquinto didn't give the creature time for its sorrow as he swung his sword. The blade was caught before it could connect and the steel shattered in the creature's grip.

Ignacio, seeing the danger his comrade was in, followed with his own attack. This time the weapon connected, but when the smuggler drew back to strike again, the creature grabbed his skull.

Jacquinto was showered with his brother's blood as the Great Ocean brought its hands together, but he still managed to scramble out of the way when the creature turned its attention on him.

Kelos stepped into the monster's path and raised the stone from the
Llothriall
, speaking words from a long dead tongue as he channelled the power of the gem.

The Great Ocean stood its ground against the sudden gale that howled around it, before taking the stone from the mage's hands and turning it into dust.

Kelos stared in numb horror as hope blew away on the wind. Emuel was shouting something at him, but, though he could see the eunuch's lips moving, he couldn't hear his words.

The pitch black eyes of Zac looked up at him from where was he was fused to the monster's breast. "Give Silus to me now and your deaths will be painless," said the Great Ocean through the infant's mouth. "Otherwise, your agony will be ten times worse than this."