Gods & Mortals Page 9

  To see them laid low – to see them broken and crushed, like mere mortals… It shook him, and he felt a flicker of doubt.

  ‘What has done this?’

  ‘Zeyros,’ Blisterback growled.

  ‘Not alone. True, Zeyros is a doughty knight, despite his persuasion, but this – what man can stand against an army of heroes?’

  ‘Better hero.’ Blisterback picked among the dead with interest. Scavenging was second nature to beasts, and Gryme restrained the urge to chastise his servant. He sniffed the air and caught the stink of Change. Once, this forest would have reeked of delightful stagnation. Now, there was wind, and the smell of flowers, of running water. He gagged and shook his head.

  Blisterback appeared at his elbow, holding a battered shield. ‘Need shield.’

  Gryme took it reluctantly. ‘It didn’t do its previous wielder much good.’

  The pestigor shrugged. ‘Knight has shield. Want to be a knight, take shield. Or not. Die the same, either way, probably.’

  Gryme sighed and slid the shield on. ‘My thanks, old beast.’ He turned, studying the trees. They were not the bent, crooked things they should have been. Instead, they stood tall, their leaves wet with morning dew. Songbirds sang in their branches. A light, airy song.

  ‘There,’ Blisterback said, pointing.

  Gryme saw that the trail of flowers widened as it passed among the unbent trees, stretching deeper into the glade. The Stalking Keep was close. He could feel it. This was all too new, the deaths too recent. He looked down at a nearby body.

  ‘Abigos spoke of thirty knights – but there are only half that number here. Come. We press on.’

  He advanced, trampling the flowers beneath his feet, hoping to silence their ebullient caterwauling. Their song melded with that of the songbirds in the trees. It grated on his nerves, incongruous as it was. As if they were celebrating the deaths of so many great warriors. Gryme plucked a rock from the ground and made to hurl it at the nearest branch.

  ‘No,’ Blisterback snarled, grabbing his wrist. Gryme shoved him back.

  ‘Unhand me,’ he snapped. ‘I grow weary of their chirping.’

  ‘Listen,’ Blisterback said, lifting a finger. ‘Listen, master.’

  Gryme started to retort, when he heard it.

  Silence.

  The birds were quiet. And they were watching. Every little black eye in the glen was on him and his servant. As one, the songbirds rose into the air. They swooped and dived in perfect harmony, sweeping past him in a multicoloured swirl of tiny, feathered bodies. They skated low over the ground, and he heard the harsh clatter of armour. Bits and pieces of war-plate tumbled across the ground in the wake of the songbirds.

  Gryme drew his sword, as the birds spilled upwards – a vibrant cyclone, the armour caught in the darting, spinning vortex of small shapes. The cyclone spun faster and faster, sending the bodies of the dead tumbling like leaves. Wind pulled at Gryme, and he raised his shield to block it, as Blisterback huddled behind him.

  Only when it had died away did he lower his shield. Before him, a warrior stood – or, rather, hundreds of songbirds, in the shape of a warrior – blocking his path. Their wings fluttered, and the pieces of armour had been assembled roughly in the right shape, including a helm. A single gauntlet rose, clutching a broken sword. The whirr of their wings sounded almost like a voice, though Gryme could not tell what it was saying.

  ‘I have no quarrel with you, whatever you are,’ he said, striking the edge of his shield with his sword. ‘Stand – fly – aside. I shall not ask twice.’

  Go… back… the birds sang.

  Gryme frowned. ‘What?’

  Go… back… go… back… go… back…

  ‘No. I made an oath. Stand aside.’ He set the flat of his blade across the top of his shield, as his tutors had taught him. He set his feet, ready for what he knew would come next. Wings whirred, and the mass – the knight – raced towards him, on legs that were nothing more than many small forms moving in concert. The sword struck, glancing from his shield. He returned the blow, but his own sword found no purchase. The songbirds were too quick, darting about the blade.

  He backed away as the bird-knight struck at him again and again, singing shrilly as it – they – advanced. Unable to wound his foe, he settled for trying to disarm them. The birds slid over him, chirping and pecking. He swept his shield out, trying to scatter them, and almost lost his head. His foe’s blade slashed past him, quicker than any mortal arm would have managed. The birds’ song swelled as they undulated about him, encircling him and then drifting away, in a parody of a man’s movements.

  The song had changed from one of warning, to being mocking. Wings beat at his helm, deafening him.

  Go… back… go… back…

  ‘No!’ Gryme roared, hacking at the shape before him. ‘Not until my quest is complete, and my oath fulfilled!’ He swung his sword wildly, trying to break up the flock, to scatter them. He flailed with his shield and felt feathered bodies thump against it. But not enough. ‘Blisterback – where are you, old beast?’

  ‘Here, young master,’ the pestigor brayed. Gryme caught a glimpse of Blisterback, readying himself as if to lunge. The brute sprang, long arms shooting out. Gnarled paws clapped together on something, and the bird-knight suddenly came apart. ‘Got you,’ Blisterback roared. Birds flew chirping in every direction, leaving their stolen war-plate to tumble to the ground.

  Gryme shook his head to clear it of their song. ‘What happened? What did you do?’

  ‘Heart-bird,’ Blisterback said, raising a finger to reveal the crimson bird trapped in his hands. ‘Always a heart-bird. Catch it, others don’t know what to do. Can’t think.’ The bird trembled in his grip, shimmering feathers ruffled.

  ‘What do we do with it?’ Gryme asked.

  Blisterback looked at it for a moment. Then, he stuffed the struggling bird into his mouth. Tiny bones splintered, and the chirping stopped. In the trees, the other birds sang what might have been a song of mourning for their fallen leader. Gryme shook his head and turned back to the trail.

  ‘Enough foolishness. Our quarry lies somewhere close to hand, I can feel it. Let us hurry.’

  As they passed through the trees, the birds followed them. Their song had become aggressive, dissonant – almost savage. But they made no move to attack. Gryme did his best to ignore them. But what he could not ignore was the way the trees changed the closer they came to the heart of the glen. They became pale, almost colourless, and finally almost… crystalline. Their reflections marched alongside them, stretching and warping all out of proportion in the faceted bark.

  Blisterback snorted unhappily. ‘Bad air,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Quiet,’ Gryme said, softly. The birds had grown loud, screaming from every branch, beating at the air with their wings. A shimmering miasma rested just above the ground. As they strode through it, it stirred, thinned and parted. ‘There.’

  More bodies slumped in slaughtered piles at the heart of the glen, left to rot where they had fallen. The last of the knights Abigos had seen, Gryme knew, though he could not tell who they were. Creeping vines of silver, shaggy with heavy, golden blossoms, crawled across the bloody ground, all but shrouding them from sight. Crystalline trees leaned forward like penitents, their glittering branches twitching.

  The stink of raw Change hovered over everything. A sickly radiance that was all colours and none clung to the trees and the soil, and motes of pallid light danced on the convulsing air. And sitting amidst the dead, like a fox among slaughtered hens, was that which Gryme sought. The refuge of Ompallious Zeyros.

  The monster which men called the Stalking Keep.

  The birds fell silent as he stepped into the heart of the glen. All at once, they rose in a multicoloured cloud and sped away, as if abandoning him to his fate. He watched them for a moment, and then turned back to his qu
arry.

  It resembled a grey tower, no taller than a gatehouse, but wide and ill-formed. Gates and windows bulged from its flat walls, seemingly at random. Its roof was shingled with bone and flaps of raw meat. Vibrant feathers tufted its parapets and sluice gates, emerging from the stone. It crouched on two great, knobbly legs, like those of some immense bird. The legs were flesh, unlike its body.

  Where its clawed toes gouged the earth, flowers of shimmering hue sprouted in clumps and bunches. They wept and sighed in the voices of children, and some sang a soft, unintelligible song. The structure stirred as he moved further into the clearing.

  ‘Very well,’ he muttered. ‘I am a knight, and I will conduct myself accordingly.’ Raising his sword, and his newly procured shield, he took a step towards his quarry. He heard stone rasp against stone, and the edifice trembled slightly. Like a beast, readying itself to leap. The great claws clenched, digging into the earth. Unseen things laughed. Faces, wide and unnaturally pink, grimaced and grinned from within the crystal trees.

  ‘Wait.’ Blisterback caught him by the arm. ‘Look,’ he growled. ‘Horn.’

  Gryme shoved him back. ‘What are you– Oh.’

  The slughorn hung from a branch to his left. Had it been there before? He did not know. It did not matter. It was a war-horn, shaped like a mollusc shell. It dangled by a strap of frayed silk, and as he took it, it moved like a thing alive.

  ‘Just as Abigos said,’ he murmured as he sheathed his sword. Carefully, he took the horn down.

  Gryme pulled off his helm and lifted the slughorn to his lips. The Stalking Keep rose on its birdlike legs, talons clicking. Unnatural muscles bulged, as if in readiness to leap. Gryme licked his lips and blew a single, quavering note.

  The Stalking Keep froze. Roof-slates clattered like dragon scales. Windows seemed to thin, like the narrowed eyes of a wary beast.

  ‘Again,’ Blisterback muttered. ‘Blow it again.’

  Gryme blew again, and louder. The note lashed at the air, clear as a sword-stroke. The Stalking Keep shuddered, with a sound like an avalanche.

  Then, with a sound that might have been a disgruntled sigh, it sank back down on its bestial haunches. Crenellations of stone writhed back with a hideous grinding sound, exposing a portcullis of bone and iron. The portcullis ratcheted upwards with a groan, as unseen chains rattled. A gust of foul air washed through the glen.

  ‘Come,’ Gryme said, knotting the cord of the slughorn to his belt. As they approached the monstrous edifice, it suddenly made a rumbling sound – almost a growl. Gryme stopped short. He glanced at Blisterback, and then at the dark aperture behind the portcullis. ‘I think – I think I had best go on alone,’ he said. ‘Stay here.’ Blisterback began to growl a denial but subsided at Gryme’s glare. ‘Stay here, old beast. Someone must live to carry word to Festerfane if I fail.’

  Blisterback was silent for a moment. Then, he grunted softly, ‘Trust in Grandfather, young master. Hope is the weed in his garden, and failure, his mulch.’

  Gryme swallowed and nodded. ‘Hope is the weed,’ he said. Hope was the enemy. Only by seeing the world as it was could a knight attain true serenity. All things fed the garden, in the end. But even so, he could not help but feel a flicker of – what? – joy, perhaps. Excitement. But not hope. Never that.

  He turned back to the portcullis. It rustled invitingly. Taking a deep breath, he stepped beneath it, and into the darkness. As he did so, the portcullis slammed down behind him with a satisfied clang.

  For a time, there was no light. Then, slowly, he became aware of a growing radiance. It emanated from curious gemstones set haphazardly into the walls, revealing the crudely carved passage before him. The gems flickered with an eerie light. It had no colour that he could perceive, and he felt a creeping chill on his pockmarked flesh as he followed the passage. It sloped vaguely upwards, and the stones beneath his feet were unsettlingly soft and spongy. The passage narrowed and widened at random intervals, and he felt as if the walls were somehow moving, if imperceptibly. Like contractions of breath.

  There was a smell on the stones, like raw meat turning sour in the sun. It reminded him of home – of the death’s-head orchards in the sprouting season. But it was not enough to settle his unease. Something was dripping, he could hear it. He could hear other things, as well. The sound of crashing stones, and laughter. Something that might have been music, playing in the distance.

  He stopped. Ahead of him, the passage had given way to a set of slabbed steps, rising ever upwards. The steps were crude things, chipped and broken. Veins of gold ran through the dark stones, and they seemed to twist and squirm in the light.

  At the top of the steps, there was a great archway, wrought in the shape of a bird’s open beak. To either side of the archway were two vast windows of coloured crystal. Things moved within them. Shadow-shapes, twisting and dancing in the light, stretching insubstantial hands out to him. Something told him not to look too closely at them.

  Gryme steeled himself and climbed the steps. They were slick and wet, like the throat of an animal. His boots rang against the steps as he climbed towards the archway. There was a heavy, wooden door, set within the great stone beak.

  The door trembled as he reached for it. It pulsed like living flesh. At his touch, it swung inwards with a raspy sigh. Behind it were curtains of tattered silk, which he parted with his sword, revealing a chamber greater in size than was possible. Somehow, it was larger than the Stalking Keep itself.

  The walls were red and raw, and beams of bone rose from the floor to intersect overhead, like the join of a ribcage. The red places flexed and throbbed with silent heat, and the floor was made of what looked like yellow slabs of vitrified bile. Great mirrors of crystal were set in the wall at intervals, and within each he saw not his reflection, but other chambers. He saw gardens and laboratories, armouries and bedchambers, and places of strange purpose and function – great thickets of statuary, and galleries of black mirrors, stretching away into seeming infinity.

  Opposite the doorway was another set of steps, curving upwards in a tight spiral. But at their foot was set a throne, carved into the very stone of the base. And in that throne slumped an armoured figure. Gryme stopped. Sweat beaded on his flesh and ran beneath his gambeson. The heat of this place had grown steadily more oppressive, and he murmured a prayer to Nurgle for the strength to endure it.

  As the words left his lips, the armoured figure straightened. ‘What is that I hear? The puling whimpers of one of the Plague God’s curs?’ Black gauntlets gripped the armrests of the throne and the figure stood. ‘I thought I had killed all of you.’

  Gryme stepped back, staring. The armour resembled his own, but it was older by far. Antiquated and baroque, even by the standards of the Blighted Duchies. The warrior wore a frayed tabard of white, bearing only the eight-pointed star of Chaos. He reached down beside the throne and hefted a great blade. The sword seemed to writhe in his grip, like an ill-tempered cat.

  ‘Who are you?’ Gryme demanded, hoping the unease he felt was not evident.

  ‘Do you not know my name, mortal?’ The warrior lifted his blade. ‘Am I truly forgotten in this benighted age?’ He twisted his sword, letting the light play along its length. It was an evil-looking thing, and Gryme could feel the heat of its hunger from where he stood. ‘In this time out of mind, is the lamentable tale of Mordrek, whom men call the Damned, remembered at all?’

  ‘I do not know you. But I do not fear you.’

  ‘Then you are a fool. All men should fear me, for I am the ­allchosen, and proof of the gods’ whimsy.’ Mordrek stepped down from the throne. Something about his movements spoke of an incredible weariness. Gryme was reminded of Abigos – here was a warrior for whom existence carried an incalculable weight. ‘I am the price manifest – loyalty, honour, all knightly virtues cast aside or trammelled by my oath to the Dark Gods.’

  ‘Nevertheless, s
tep aside. I have no quarrel with you.’

  ‘Then why do you come here, boy? Why disturb my solitude?’

  ‘I come to rescue a lady fair, and slay her captor.’

  Mordrek was silent for a moment. Then he laughed. ‘Go back, boy. Show better judgement than your fellows.’

  ‘I cannot.’ Gryme shook his head. ‘I swore an oath.’

  Mordrek extended his sword. ‘Then I fear your soul is already lost.’

  ‘My soul is my own. I give it freely, and if it is my fate to be mulch for Grandfather’s garden, well then – let me be mulch.’ Gryme lifted his sword. ‘Stand aside, Sir Mordrek. Or prepare to defend yourself.’

  Mordrek gave a hollow laugh. ‘I cannot stand aside.’

  ‘Then have at thee,’ Gryme shouted, lunging forwards. Mordrek reacted with inhuman swiftness, and his blade nearly split Gryme’s shield in two. The force of the blow sent Gryme stumbling towards the shimmering mirrors. Mordrek pounded after him. His second blow tore the ruined shield from Gryme’s arm, and numbed the limb to the shoulder. Gryme reeled back, and fell against one of the mirrors. The silvery surface split like water, enveloping him.

  He fell backwards, and then upwards, slamming into a set of stone steps. More steps rose all around him, rising up and falling down, running parallel to him, or horizontal. A chamber of hundreds of steps, all going nowhere and everywhere at once. The scrape of metal echoed as if from far away, and he heard what might have been a door slam.

  ‘Mordrek?’ he called out. The echoes of his voice taunted him.

  …Mordrek… drek… drek…

  ‘Here.’

  Gryme spun.

  Mordrek stood above him, standing upside down on the steps that curved overhead. He leapt, and for a moment, it seemed as if he were falling towards Gryme. Then, something twisted and Mordrek was charging up the steps towards him, blade held low.

  Gryme interposed his blade at the last moment, and was driven back. Mordrek was strong – incredibly so. They traded desperate blows in tight spaces, the echoes of their duel rippling outwards through the chamber of steps. As Gryme was driven back and up, he felt the steps beginning to move. Around and above, they seemed to oscillate like immense clockwork gears. He could hear them scraping against one another, like some enormous, unseen millstone.