Unholy War (30 page)

Wornu heard it too and backed away, his eyes round as saucers. ‘The camp, gypsy! The camp! We have to go!’

You might, but I rukking well don’t.

‘Peace, girl! Pax!’ He threw his hands up, searching for her wildly. ‘I must go!’

,> she urged him.

She wasn’t sure if he had heard, but either way, he turned and ran.

Thank you, Mater Luna! Thank you thank you thank you.

She cancelled the spiratus and her form dissolved into a streak of unseen mist that tore across the desert. All she could see was light, all she could feel was pain as her spiratus started fraying and burning as she sought the faint call of her own heartbeat.
Closer, closer …

There!

She fell into her body and it jerked upright, almost hitting her head on the rock ceiling above. Her heart thudding, she wriggled out of the crevice and crawled into the open. Far above, giant ravens were streaking across the sky, flying southeast. If any of them saw her, they didn’t care.

Not a single part of her wanted to follow them. She turned her face to the north and ran for her life.

*

The greybeard and the Keshi girl had vanished by the time Malevorn was in position. The birdsong was gone and the air was deathly still. He twirled his longsword in his hand idly, facing the badlands and the risen sun. The terrain looked like the aftermath of giants having a pottery-smashing competition; the low sun turned his vision into a dazzling smear.
Brilliant tactics, Quintius. Are you trying to get us killed?

Probably
, was the chilling answer.
They don’t want us – probably don’t need us. And Adamus can always find a new arse to fuck
. He turned to Dominic, on his right. The young Acolyte looked jittery.
,> he sent.

He saw Dominic blanch and urge his khurne closer. Beyond him, Raine and Dranid were holding steady, surveying the mess before them. There were any number of breaks in the rubble from where an attack might come. He glanced behind him to where Quintius’ men were slaughtering babes and pregnant women and no doubt calling it glorious.

Is Mercer in there? Is the Scytale?

He muttered instructions to his steed and edged closer to Dominic, wishing it was Raine at his flank. She would hold her nerve, but something had cracked inside Dom and it made him vulnerable to predators like Adamus Crozier.

He widened his call.

He saw Raine wave in acknowledgment and spur her khurne towards him, Dranid following at a canter.

He began to wonder if the flogging they’d get for disobeying their orders might be better than what was to come.
What’s a few scars on my back if that’s the price for getting out alive?
From out of sight came a chorus of howls and shrieks and deep-throated roars: a cacophony of bestial throats venting all at once. He readied his wards and kindled fire in his left hand. Somehow he felt calmer as the moment approached.

Maybe there’re just a dozen or so of them out there. Maybe I’m worrying about nothing.

Then with a yowl, a leopard came bounding between two immense smashed boulders and hurtled towards him, eating up the hundred yards separating them in huge strides. More creatures followed, most on all fours, but some were bipedal: immense, ape-like forms who bounded semi-upright. Massive birds zipped along above them, their cries rending the air as they came.

He raised his sword.

I am an Andevarion. I refuse to die here.

‘Mal, what do we do?’ Dominic called in a shaky voice.

‘It’s too late to run – they’re faster than us. Close up, Dom. We hold on until Quintius comes.’ He glanced beyond him and saw that Dranid and Raine were coming towards him at full-pelt now. He felt a surge of gratitude and loyalty. They were a Fist of the Kore: bloodied, depleted, but still strong. Still the elite.

‘Let’s give these animals Hel!’ he shouted.

He set sights on the leopard and hurled the ball of flame in his hand.

*

Huriya sucked in her breath as the Dokken flowed towards the four Inquisitors and their horned beasts. Beside her, perched on top of a great pile of boulders, Tomacz growled, his jaw reshaping into something more primitive. He hunched over as blood and drool began to run from his mouth. Above and behind were their kindred, swarming towards the enemy. Huriya recognised two of the Acolytes, the handsome young dark-haired male and the ugly woman: they’d been in the group which had assailed them at the Isle of Glass – so they were obviously still trailing them.

She bared her teeth at the effrontery.

she urged her Brethren.

Beyond them, the camp was in flames and Inquisitors were milling about in the middle of it, hacking into the women and pounding the children beneath their hooves. Only these four guarded the perimeter. The shapeshifters flowed towards them, an incoming tide – then fire and lightning blossomed from the hands of the riders and struck the oncoming beasts in a torrent of coruscating blasts.

She blinked, faintly dazed, even at that distance, as the front ranks of the attackers were engulfed. Amidst the fires she saw blue cones of light, the gnostic shields of her Dokken, winking out as the combined fury of the four Inquisitors burned through them. The heat and choking smoke rolled over the ground, blinding them all, and the attack faltered. Chasander, the leopard who’d led the charge, was a crisped husk, all those near him likewise burned to skeletons. The whole pack felt their agony, linked as they were in mind and soul, and they screamed together.

But the fallen had absorbed the first fires of the Inquisitors, allowing the second rank to leap over their fallen kin and into battle. And more were arriving all the time, coming in threes and fours from the other sides of the Noose, desperate to join battle. Some she recognised, like big Darice, goat-headed Kraderz, and Elando with his fanciful bat-form, but most were just bestial shapes, hurtling into the fray.

She saw a giant bear launch himself at the dark-haired Inquisitor, who cut the bear in half with one savage blow. A jackal flew at the woman and was skewered on a lance then hurled away. The older Inquisitor on the left spurred his steed into the press and as she watched, hooves and horn and blade were all dealing death. More fire bloomed about the fourth one; he might look like a stringy weakling but there was nothing weak about his gnosis. Close-up images of the dead and dying, shadow-bursts of pain and all the psychic debris of wounds and deathblows resounded through the pack-link. She willed the link away and gripped the rock beside her for support.
How do they endure it?

She saw other pack-members staggering as she was, overwhelmed by what was happening to their family. Beside her, Tomacz was completing his change. Great canines had sprouted from his mouth as his lips retracted and now he was dropping to his haunches as the wolf within him fully emerged.

Huriya concentrated her mind and prepared to take part. She focused her gnosis on the slender young knight, the vulnerable-looking one, who was preparing to face big Darice. She gathered her mental forces. ‘You’re first,’ she whispered.

*

Malevorn’s khurne reared up and drove its front hooves into the skull of a jackal. He clung on, as much with telekinesis and instinct as training, and hacked blindly at a dark shape looming up on his right. His gnostically enhanced blade crunched into the shifter’s skull and a black bear fell to the ground. He hauled on the reins, gathered more gnosis and blazed fire at a massive raven that raked at his head. The bird’s bones appeared, a shadow in the flare of red-orange, and he blinked and spun round in time to see Dominic go down.

Raine had just beheaded a ram-headed man wielding a battle-axe and Dranid was pressing back a whole snarling group of creatures. Dominic had been fighting confidently, taking heart from the feats of those with him, when suddenly he gasped and clutched his skull and his shields fell apart.

‘
Dom!
’ Malevorn spurred towards him, but the damage was done: he’d been rendered momentarily helpless and in that instant the Dokken surged forward, yowling like nothing he had ever heard. Jaws clamped on Dominic’s legs and those of his khurne. The construct went down, screaming like a human as jagged teeth ripped it open and its entrails spewed onto the ground. Malevorn bellowed, hurling beasts aside with his gnosis as he tried to reach Dominic, but he was already too late. Dominic’s boyish face had vanished in a spray of blood and fur as a giant she-bear ripped him apart.

Raine’s voice tore him back to sanity. He yanked on the reins and shouted at his khurne to get clear. The steed thrashed about, seeking an opening, and Malevorn rained down more fire and lightning, trying to drive the shifters away, to get a few seconds’ respite, though exhaustion was crowding in and he felt breathless, drained.

The Dokken fell back from Dominic’s corpse, snarling triumphantly. But more were arriving every minute, and now they’d started circling around to cut off the three surviving Inquisitors. He reached Dranid and Raine and threw a look back at the camp, but it was lost in a haze of smoke.

he bellowed into the aether.

Instead it was only Artus Leblanc’s mental voice he heard.

Then in a more intimate sending,

Rukk you! If I get out this …

Dranid reached him, his breath gusting but his face a mask of calm. Blue gnosis-fire licked along his blade, but his khurne was visibly wobbling. He cast Malevorn an ashen look. ‘Quintius isn’t coming, is he? It’s up to us.’

Raine swore, and blasted fire at a jackal venturing too close. The Dokken still circled, catching their breath. Many had flowed past them, heading for the camp, but enough remained to cut them off from help, and they were circling closer.

Malevorn told the other two.

Malevorn felt something frighteningly powerful touch his mind, then retreat. His wards against mental attack flared into life and he followed the point of attack back to an outlined figure on the boulders above. The Keshi girl, he realised, as much from instinct as anything.
Kore’s Blood, how strong is she?

He opened his mouth to call for the retreat.

But the little Keshi witch struck first.

Dranid suddenly yowled and wrenched at his reins, first left and then right, sending his khurne into a mad dance as his defences collapsed, and even as he did, an arrow slammed into his khurne’s neck. The steed wobbled and fell, and Malevorn could hear Dranid’s leg audibly crunching as he struck the rocky ground. The Inquisitor bellowed in pain as another wave of Dokken launched themselves at him. Raine and Malevorn tried to reach their captain, but the press was immense and all they could do was block and shield and fight for their own lives, using whatever came to hand – telekinesis, mage-fire, thrusting swords into mouths and throats.

The whole world
lurched
.

Malevorn’s khurne lashed out as something gripped its back legs and he glimpsed a massive python just before it wrapped itself about the khurne’s hindquarters and dragged it down. He beheaded the snake as he rolled clear, fell onto the body of a wolf and used it to clamber to his feet. He saw another arrow puncture the ribs of Raine’s khurne and she too flew free. He ran to her side, beheading another snake as he went, then cutting a raven in two as he reached her and stood back to back.

Dranid was gone, a shapeless, gory mess beneath a pile of ravaging beasts.

And still there was no sign of rescue from the other Fist.

< Adamus!>
he demanded, pleaded, begged,

Raine’s shields blocked an arrow from the right as they circled, seeking a weak point, something to attack, but they were confronted by an unbroken wall of beasts, slavering and growling. More giant birds shrieked above, eagles and vultures and ravens, all man-sized.

Her mental voice was like his, terse and calm.

Kore’s Blood, she’s wonderful.

A big grey wolf arrived at the fringes, followed by a bipedal bull with a massive war-spear. Then he spotted the archer, a scrawny crop-haired bitch with a hatchet face. They began to close in.

Raine whispered into his brain.

He reached for his Air-gnosis as she gripped his belt.
< Let’s g—>

He began to lift her as the Dokken lunged. The grey wolf leaped and he cleaved its skull, saw it fall back into the maelstrom of beasts, heard Raine shouting in fury as she hacked a raven apart, and then—

—absolute, overpowering agony.

There was a torture device used by the Inquisition called an Iron Maiden: a metal casket, lined inside with spikes which were screwed deeper, slowly, bit by bit, so that the prisoner was pierced all over, and eventually bled to death – those few who didn’t break and spill every secret they’d ever had first.

The Keshi girl’s gnosis struck Malevorn like an Iron Maiden slamming closed on his soul. It was as if his mental shields did not exist. Her power dwarfed his and she rammed fresh bloody pain into every part of his body. Beneath him, he heard Raine scream and he could feel that same agony engulfing her. Her hand lost grip of his belt and before his telekinesis could catch her, she’d plunged to the ground. Bullhead caught her wrist in his hand and snapped it as easily as snapping a twig.

Malevorn tried to reach her, but his whole body was shutting down. The Keshi girl’s telekinesis held him in the air and he watched helplessly as the beasts engulfed his lover. Her mail came apart like tin, and her body like a gutted rabbit. Her mouth spewed a wordless bloody spray, her face bulged and her eyes flew wide, staring up at him as he rotated helplessly in the air.