Engines of the Apocalypse

The psychic manipulator began to tremble beneath him, waiting for the arrow that, in all likelihood, he would never feel. And in the eternity that he seemed to wait he became aware that Slowhand could play mind games, too.

'What are you waiting for?' He hissed. 'Do it!'

'Get up,' Slowhand said.

'What?'

'On your feet, you bastard. Move away from the shield.'

Fitch sneered. 'What is this, some kind of trick?'

'No trick. Do it.'

Dazed and pained, Fitch regarded him with confusion. But Slowhand's attention was fixed above him. Because what had stayed his delivery of the fatal arrow hadn't been sadism on his part. As he'd been about to loose his killing shot something had drawn his gaze. Something beyond the energy barrier.

A horde of people — hundreds of them — were approaching. And each and every one of them appeared to the archer to be dead.

He plucked Fitch up and span him around. 'You wanna tell me who they are?'

Fitch gasped, actually staggered back. The apparently dead things, meanwhile, walked into the barrier in a single mass, recoiling from its charge in waves, but otherwise unharmed.

'I think they want to come in,' Slowhand said. 'Fitch, are these things your doing?'

'No,' Fitch said quietly.

From his expression, though, he clearly recognised what he was seeing, and his face was as white as those beyond the barrier. Even when he'd been facing death Slowhand wasn't sure he had looked so afraid.

'So,' Fitch continued, 'the First Enemy moves at last.'

'The First Enemy?'

'We have to get out of here,' Fitch declared, pushing past him. 'Now.'

'Whoa, whoa, whoa, tiger,' Slowhand persisted, grabbing him by the arm. 'Whatever these things are, we're safe behind the barrier, right?'

'It was designed to be impenetrable.'

'Then why are you so afraid?'

It was Fitch's turn to rail on Slowhand. 'Because the barrier is shutting down.'

'What?' Slowhand said, and saw that what Fitch said was true.

The Final Faith's shield was flickering on and off, as if something was interfering with the magic that made it whole. He stared at the figures pushing against it.

'Are they doing this?' He asked. 'The First Enemy?'

Despite his evident fear, Fitch began to chuckle. 'They are not the First Enemy, archer. They are only his representatives here.'

'Fitch, what in the pits of Kerberos is go — '

Slowhand didn't finish his question. The barrier had vanished completely. His nose wrinkled as it was flooded with the stale air of the long unused tunnel, but it was nothing compared to the stench of those who approached them now.

Slowhand could see that his first impression of their health hadn't been entirely accurate, but neither had it been wide of the mark. Grey of flesh and white of eye, with chests that barely rose with breath, they were alive, but not in any usual sense of the term. They seemed suspended, somehow, between life and death, and had an odour about them that reminded him of an outbreak of the tic. An odour that came when bodies ceased to function properly, when things were fundamentally wrong inside. The odd thing was, none of the people seemed wounded or showed any obvious illness. It seemed to Slowhand to be more of a spiritual thing.

That was it, he thought. The clothing these people — men, women, and even a few children — wore was blackened or torn but still recognisable, and it betrayed them as being from the woodcutting villages that bordered the Sardenne. He knew these people, had spent time with their kind, and they were hard-working, rugged individuals. But now, from their empty eyes, to their emotionless expressions and the way they moved as one, they may as well have been the walking corpses he had first taken them for.

They began to move towards himself and Fitch. Each shambling figure brandished an axe, cleaver or scythe.

'What the hells?' Slowhand breathed.

The archer raised Suresight and unleashed an arrow which thudded into the chest of a man at their front. He faltered slightly but continued walking. He hadn't made a sound. Slowhand swallowed and unleashed another into a different target, with the same effect. As the group continued to advance towards them, he backed Fitch along the tunnel and loosed Suresight again and again, into hearts, necks, right between the eyes. The shambling group just kept coming.

'That will do little good, archer,' Fitch said. 'As you've seen for yourself, these things are no longer normal flesh and blood.'

'What happened to them?'

'They have become puppets. As such, even an arrow into the brain will barely slow them.'

'Whose puppets? No, forget it. You wanna tell me what can stop them?'

'I can,' Fitch said after a second.

Slowhand shot him a look. The psychic manipulator was displaying his bandaged hands, clearly seeking permission to use his powers without penalty.

'Magic is the only thing that can stop them,' Fitch insisted.

'Do it.' Slowhand said.

Fitch raised his arms towards the group, his temples pulsing. But moments passed and there was no sign of lightning bolts or fireballs or any offensive magic at all. Not a fizzle.

'Fitch,' Slowhand said, 'this is no time for projectile dysfunction.'

'I–I don't understand,' Fitch said.

'What's to understand?' Slowhand countered. 'This, Fitch, is the day the magic died.'

The stick insect gave him a horrified glance. 'What do we do?'

Slowhand glanced towards the approaching figures. The walking pace which they had so far adopted was turning into more of a trot.

'Run maybe?'

'For once, archer, we are in agreement.'

The two of them began to pound back along the tunnel, but at the same time the pace of their pursuers increased even more, until it was almost a charge. The eerie thing was that, other than for the sound of their footfalls, they proceeded in absolute silence. There was no need for them to utter a battle cry to chill the blood because the thud, thud, thud of their relentless and accelerating progress was chilling enough. Within seconds, Slowhand and Fitch were near to being overwhelmed, and the archer pushed the manipulator to the side of the tunnel, deciding the only thing to do was to make a last stand.

He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or offended by the fact that, other than an instinctive swing of weapons from those on the group's edge, their supposed attackers passed them by. It made him sure of something else though. These things weren't interested in the two of them, they were merely in the way. The horde's purpose was to reach the cathedral.

'We have to warn them,' Slowhand said, and pushed Fitch on.

Paralleling the horde's advance now, he could see the light of the warehouse sublevel and, silhouetted before it, the wagons Fitch had dodged between on his way in. There were now also a number of workers who, guided by some Eminence, were delicately loading boxes onto them, oblivious to the deadly wave heading towards their way.

Slowhand had no love for anyone of the Faith but they were people. 'Get out of there!' He shouted. 'Get out of there now!'

The workers looked toward the sound of his cry, and tools were instantly dropped. They stared in incomprehension, something for which Slowhand could hardly blame them, but that reaction and their position — right in the path of the horde — cost them their lives. The horde met them and they were reduced to a pile of