To the side, Delia warmed her fingers over the fire’s flames. At Tylar’s bidding, she had joined them in the shop. The three gathered around the fire. The others kept guard out in the streets.
Delia stared at Rogger’s shouldered satchel. “The skull must have come from one of the rogue gods out in the hinterlands,” she said.
Rogger nodded. “Aye, my thought, too. With Myrillia as tensed as a maiden on her wedding night, I’d have heard if any of our illustrious settled gods had gone missing. But at last count, all of the gods were secure in their castillions.”
“But secure for how long?” Tylar asked.
Better than anyone, he knew Myrillia was no longer safe-not for man, nor for god. Tylar fingered the buttons over his chest. Beneath the wool and linen, he bore a black handprint, the dying mark of Meeryn, goddess of the Summering Isles. He had gone to the god’s succor as she lay dying, the first to fall in this new War of the Gods. In her last breath, Meeryn had imbued Tylar with her Grace, healing his scarred body while granting him a sliver of herself, that sundered dark shadow that lived in the depths of naether, her undergod.
As if aware of his attention, Tylar could almost feel the smoky daemon shift inside him, trapped behind his healed ribs, waiting for a break in his bones to free it again. Tylar had refused its release since the Battle of Myrrwood. Still, its presence served a purpose. As long as Tylar bore Meeryn’s naethryn, his humours flowed like those of a god, rich in Graces.
Delia noted Tylar’s fingers at his chest. He forced his arm down. Too often, she had urged him to explore the bond with the naethryn inside him. He was loath to do so. He would rather be rid of it.
Still, it was such a gift that allowed him to wield the sword at his belt.
His hand settled upon its gold pommel, but he found little comfort there. Rivenscryr. The infamous Godsword.
Four millennia ago, the blade had ended the first War of the Gods, sundering their lost kingdom and raining the gods down upon Myrillia. Their arrival here heralded three centuries of madness and destruction until the god Chrism chose this first god-realm and imbued the land with his Graces, sharing his powers to bring order out of chaos. More gods followed, carving out various god-realms, forever binding gods to their individual lands. Beyond these settled territories lay only the hinterlands, spaces wild and ungoverned, where rogue gods still roamed, unsettled and untamed.
But the gods had not come whole to this world. As the Godsword had sundered their former home, the blade had done the same to the gods themselves, splitting them into three. One part was driven down into the darkness below all substance, into the naether, where they lived as undergods, shadows of those above, while another part sailed high, vanishing into the aether, never to be seen again, unknowable and aloof. And between them both strode the gods of Myrillia, beings of undying flesh and ripe with powerful Graces.
Now, after four millennia, this balance among the gods was threatened. Among the shadowy naethryn, a secretive Cabal plotted and lusted for Myrillia, reigniting the War of the Gods. Was the Cabal responsible for the corruption of this rogue god? If so, why?
Tylar turned his attention from the flames to Rogger and the strange skull. “Where did you find such a cursed talisman?”
“Down south. In the Eighth Land.”
“What were you doing in the hinterland down there?” Delia asked.
Rogger shook his head. “I didn’t go into any blasted hinterland. I know better than to traipse those wild lands alone. No, I found the skull in Saysh Mal, the cloud forest of the Huntress, the latest stop on my pilgrimage.”
He hiked his leggings out of his boot to reveal the sigil of that god freshly burnt into his flesh, representing his completion of that part of his journey.
Rogger tucked his leggings back in with a sour set to his lips. “Something is not right about that realm.”
“How so?” Tylar asked.
“Can’t exactly focus on anything you can grab. Just something off-kilter. A ragged edge. A loose thread waiting for a hand to pull it. But I’ll tell you what-I’m skaggin’ glad to be rid of that place.”
“Doesn’t that god-realm, Saysh Mal, border one of the largest hinterlands in all Myrillia?” Delia asked.
“Aye,” Rogger agreed. “And maybe that’s it. Like something seeped out from there and tainted the blessed land.”
Tylar nodded to the satchel. “How did you come upon the skull there?”
“Now that’s a story best told over a flagon of your best-”
A flapping of wings silenced him.
All eyes glanced upward. The noise was too loud-too leathery -for any crow or raven. Something dark swept low over the bare joists, blotting out the stars, then away again.
A cry rose from the street.
Tylar’s sword slid from his sheath as he turned, rising unbidden to hand with a ring of silver. The gold hilt warmed with a feverish welcome, seeming to clasp his fingers with as much certainty as his own will. The length of blade trapped the starlight into a single shaft of brilliance.
More shouts from the streets.
Kyllan’s voice bellowed. “Hold your ground!”
“Stay here,” Tylar said and headed for the front of the shop.
Rogger ignored him and followed, drawing Delia with him. “If there was a roof up there, maybe, but as we’re bare-arsed to the sky and something up there has wings, I’ll stick with the man with the big sword.”
Tylar led the pair into the front hall. “There’s a roof here. Keep with Delia. You still have your knives?”
As answer, Rogger parted his outer heavy cloak, revealing the crossed bandoliers weighted with daggers.
“Keep hidden,” Tylar said and headed away.
Chaos greeted Tylar as he reached the shipwright’s broken door.
He heard Kyllan shout from around the corner, out of sight. A pikeman raced into view, panic-footed, weapon clutched to his chest. His eyes were on the nearby canal as he fled.
A mistake.
From the sky, a spindly creature dropped out of the air, appearing half spider, half bat. Its limbs were skeletal, stretched as long as the creature was tall, webbed between forearm and back. Its body was hairless. Head misshapen, face split in the middle as it screeched, revealing a gnash of shredding teeth.
It fell upon the man before he could bring his weapon to bear, wrapping him in a cocoon of leathery wings, tearing into his throat.
A single scream, then the creature ripped away just as quickly. Its talons dug into the guard’s belly and pushed off again, wings snapped wide. Trailing gore, it climbed again into the dark sky and twisted away beyond a roofline.
The pikeman tumbled to the stone, bowels roiling out his rent belly, blood still pumping from his ruined throat.
Tylar edged out the door, back to the wall. It was too late to help the man. He watched the skies. The creature had moved with unnatural speed. Tylar had noted the swirl of refuse as the beast lit back into the sky. As if the winds themselves aided its escape.
Tylar had also noted one other detail, revealed as the wings snapped wide: a pair of breasts. The bosom of a woman-or rather, she was a woman, one ilked into a beast.
Scowling, Tylar reached the corner and checked past the edge.
Kyllan and a knot of pikemen had something trapped amongst them. It thrashed and screamed as spears plunged repeatedly into it. Yet it refused to die. One man was knocked off his feet, his left leg severed at the knee by a scything blow.
“Don’t let it reach the waters!” Kyllan shouted.
The creature bulled through the break in the circling men.
Kyllan grabbed the fallen man’s spear and tossed it with all his strength. The pike pierced clean through the creature’s shoulder and jammed into the first plank of the dock, pinning it in place.
Tylar hurried forward. The beast appeared more oil than form, amorphous of shape, pale as milk, streaming with ripples of ink. There was something disturbingly familiar about the pattern.
The creature yowled with a final tug. Its flesh flowed around the impaled pike, slowly freeing itself.
