kicks?'
Callow slipped his hand into his threadbare jacket and pulled out a knife whose blade was smeared with dried, brown blood. Church tried not to look at it, but he knew it was the blood of his friends. Callow weighed it in his hand, smiled.
His bonds gave suddenly. He kept his face emotionless, his arm muscles taut. Pace yourself, he thought. Wait until he bends forward. His eyes flickered towards the Malignos; they were too far away to stop him if he was quick enough.
Callow struck like a snake. Church didn't even see the blow, but he felt his forehead rip open and hot blood bubble down into his eyes. He cursed, threw his head back, but Callow, in his crazed state, was sweeping in with eager blows. Church dodged one, but another took his cheek open. The next one might hit his jugular.
He threw himself forward at the same time as did Baccharus, whose own bonds had been sliced. They piled into Callow, who folded up like a sheet on a line, and then their impetus carried him with them as they drove towards the door. The Malignos exploded into a frenzied activity of snapping jaws and flashing limbs. One of their talons caught Church's other cheek and it burst open as cleanly as if it had been sliced with Callow's knife. Their speed was frightening. With reptilian sinuousness they had swept round to attack Church's and Baccharus's exposed backs, but by that time the two of them had reached the door. Baccharus shouted a word, twisted his left hand and the wall shimmered into the waterfall.
They rolled into the corridor with Callow screaming before them, his face contorted with rage. Church silenced him with a sharp headbutt; not wholly necessary, but it made him feel good. Then he grabbed Callow by the collar and hurled him into the path of the approaching Malignos. They fell backwards in time for Baccharus to seal the door.
'That will not keep them for long,' he said.
'Doesn't matter.' Church fingered the sword that Callow, in his arrogance had failed to remove. 'We need to raise the alarm-'
The words died in his throat as the ship came to a sudden, lurching stop. Baccharus's expression told him all he needed to know. The Fomorii had seized control.
Chapter Eleven
It was a graveyard, though why there should be a graveyard in the land of the dead made no sense to Veitch at all. It stretched as far as the eye could see: stone crosses, gleaming white like fresh-picked bones, or chipped and mildewed, some standing proud, others bowed and broken as if they had been forced from the earth; single standing stones and ancient cairns; mausoleums styled with fine carvings of angels; rough built stone tombs. Mist drifted languorously at knee height. The sheer weight of the monuments brought an air of severe melancholy.
As he emerged from the tunnel into the city of the dead, the view triggered all his primal fear of death. His more immediate fears were more prosaic: what if each of those graves and tombs and mausoleums contained one of the dead, ready to rise up the moment he walked amongst them? His heart beat faster.
There was no alternative. He placed a foot next to the first grave and waited for a hand to grab his ankle. Nothing. He proceeded to the next one.
After several minutes the tension was starting to tell. It felt like walking through a minefield. He couldn't let his concentration slide for a moment: if the dead were present, they would choose the moment he least expected to strike, when he was in the midst of the graves with nowhere to turn. He looked around slowly; there was nowhere to run. A million graves, packed so tight he could barely move amongst them.
The direction he had chosen-from the view presented to him by the eggproceeded past one of the largest mausoleums in the vicinity. It haunted the edges of his vision and he found himself drawn back to it continually. Its size made it out of place in the surroundings, but there was another aspect that did not feel right. As he approached it, his gaze snapped back, and back again, on the heavy, marbled door, waiting for a crack to appear, on the way the mist appeared to be drawn towards it. A few feet away he was convinced he could hear something dimly scrabbling within, like an animal, but not.
When he was parallel with it, a small droplet of sweat trickled down his back, like water off a glacier. Even when he had passed by, his anxiety did not diminish, and he could feel it on his back for many moments after.
Eventually, his attention was drawn by what appeared to be a giant crow, sitting on a low, stone box. Shavi had his eyes fixed on the horizon, as Veitch had seen him in the vision presented by the egg. It didn't seem right that he was so still. He wanted to call out to his friend, but the thought of his voice, loud and hard in that place of whispers, filled him with dread.
And so he hurried on, his heart beginning to soar, hardly daring to raise his expectations. His mate, his pal, his buddy, his best friend; alive.
As he neared the unmoving form, he finally found the courage to speak. Shavi's name drifted across the final feet between them, as dry and insubstantial as the spindly trees that poked up amongst the graves. At first there was no response. Veitch's heart started to beat faster: it was all another stupid game, dangle the prize, then snatch it away at the last minute, laughing at how foolish the Fragile Creatures were.
But then a shiver ran through the hunched, dark form, as subtle as wind on long grass.
'Shavi?' Veitch repeated hopefully.
Another tremor. Slowly Shavi's head began to turn. Veitch caught his breath. Would he see something terrible in that face? The eyes of someone driven insane by the experience of dying?
Shavi's limbs moved with the gradual adjustment of a man waking from a deep sleep, and when he did look round, Veitch was relieved to see his old friend as he had always looked. Shavi blinked long and slowly, squinting slightly as he focused on Veitch.
'I was having the strangest dream.' His voice was strained, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time.
Veitch ran forward, beating down his surging emotions, and awkwardly put a celebratory arm round Shavi's shoulders before quickly pulling back. 'You're all right, mate. It's all going to be all right now.'
Shavi smiled faintly, brushed a lock of hair from Veitch's forehead. Veitch didn't flinch. As his waking became sharper, his attention was drawn to his surroundings. 'Where are we?'
'Don't worry about it,' Veitch said hastily. 'I know it looks like the biggest bleedin' graveyard you've ever seen, but you're not dead, all right?'
Shavi's brow furrowed. 'A graveyard? Is that what you are seeing?'
Now it was Witch's turn to be puzzled. 'Don't you?'
Shavi covered his eyes, then slowly ran his fingers through his long, black hair before letting them drop cautiously to his chest. He tentatively probed the area around his heart. 'Callow. He stabbed me.' He examined his fingers for any sign of blood. 'The pain was… intense. Like needles being forced through my veins.' He looked up at Veitch with panic flaring in his eyes. 'He killed me.'
'Calm down, mate-'
'Lee was here.' He looked around wildly. 'He brought me into the land of the dead-'
Veitch took his shoulders roughly. 'Pull yourself together, pal. You're not dead. One of the freaks-the big, horny-headed bastard-he saved you. Well, not quite, but he kept you sort of half alive and half dead. I'm here to take you back.'
'This is not still a dream?'
'I'm here. Hit me if you want. But I'll hit you back, you dim bastard.'
Shavi smiled, calmed. 'Just a different kind of dream, then.'
'You can't wait to start talking bollocks, can you?' He helped Shavi to his feet. 'We've got to get you back to your body-' Shavi stiffened. 'Your body's not here.'
Shavi thought about this for a moment, then nodded in understanding. 'My essence has created this form to house it. There is so much to assimilate. You need to rejoin my essence to my body.'
'We don't know how much longer you can carry on like this before you really do peg out.'
Shavi took a few shaky steps, his legs quickly regaining their poise. 'The others?'
