The rips in the leggings were all that remained of the ghastly compound fractures. Adjutant Stormy. Annealed in holy fires. Still scowling.
High rock, the sediments stepped and ragged, surrounded their camp, an ancient tree to one side. Cutter sat near the small dung-fire they had lit, watching as Greyfrog circled the area, evincing ever more agitation. Nearby, Heboric Ghost Hands looked to be dozing, the hazy green emanations at the ends of his wrists dully pulsing. Scillara and Felisin Younger were packing their pipes for their new sharing of a post-meal ritual. Cutter's gaze returned to the demon.
Greyfrog, what's ailing you? 'Nervous. I have intimations of tragedy, swiftly approaching.
Something… worried and uncertain. In the air, in the sands. Sudden panic. We should leave here. Turn back. Flee.'
Cutter felt sweat bead his skin. He had never heard the demon so… frightened. 'We should get off this ridge?'
The two women looked up at his spoken words. Felisin Younger glanced at Greyfrog, frowned, then paled. She rose. 'We're in trouble,' she said.
Scillara straightened and walked over to Heboric, nudged him with a boot. 'Wake up.'
The Destriant of Treach blinked open his eyes, then sniffed the air and rose in a single, fluid motion.
Cutter watched all this in growing alarm. Shit. He kicked sand over the fire. 'Collect your gear, everyone.'
Greyfrog paused in his circling and watched them. 'So imminent?
Uncertain. Troubled, yes. Need for panic? Changing of mind?
Foolishness? Uncertain.'
'Why take chances?' Cutter asked. 'There's enough light – we'll see if we can find a more defensible place to camp.'
'Appropriate compromise. Nerves easing their taut sensitivity.
Averted? Unknown.'
'Usually,' Heboric said in a rough voice, pausing to spit. 'Usually, running from one thing throws you into the path of another.'
'Well, thanks for that, old man.'
Heboric gave Cutter an unpleasant smile. 'My pleasure.'
The cliff-face was pocked with caves which had, over countless centuries, seen use as places of refuge, as crypts for internment of the dead, as storage chambers, and as sheltered panels for rockpaintings. Detritus littered the narrow ledges that had been used as pathways; here and there a dark sooty stain marred overhangs and crevasses where fires had been lit, but nothing looked recent to Mappo's eye, and he recognized the funerary ceramics as belonging to the First Empire era.
They were approaching the summit of the escarpment, Icarium scrambling up towards an obvious notch cut into the edge by past rains. The lowering sun on their left was red behind a curtain of suspended dust that had been raised by the passing of a distant storm. Bloodflies buzzed the air around the two travellers, frenzied by the storm's brittle, energized breath.
Icarium's drive had become obsessive, a barely restrained ferocity. He wanted judgement, he wanted the truth of his past revealed to him, and when that judgement came, no matter how harsh, he would stand before it and raise not a single hand in his own defence.
And Mappo could think of nothing to prevent it, short of somehow incapacitating his friend, of striking him into unconsciousness.
Perhaps it would come to that. But there were risks to such an attempt. Fail and Icarium's rage would burgeon into life, and all would be lost.
He watched as the Jhag reached the notch and clambered through, then out of sight. Mappo quickly followed. Reaching the summit, he paused, wiping grit from his hands. The old drainage channel had carved a channel through the next tiers of limestone, creating a narrow, twisting track flanked by steep walls. A short distance beyond, Mappo could see the edge of another drop-off, towards which Icarium was heading.
Thick shadows within the channel, insects swarming in the few shafts of sunlight spearing through a gnarled tree. Three strides from reaching Icarium's side, and the gloom seemed to explode around the Trell. He caught a momentary glimpse of something closing on Icarium from the pinnacle of stone to the Jhag's right, then figures swarmed him.
The Trell lashed out, felt his fist connect with flesh and bone to his left, the sound solid and crunching. A spatter of blood and phlegm.
A brawny arm snaked round from behind to close on his neck, twisting his head back, the glistening skin of that limb sliding as if oiled before the arm locked tight. Another figure plunged into view from the front, long-taloned hands snapping out, puncturing Mappo's belly. He bellowed in agony as the claws raked across in an eviscerating slash.
That failed, for the Trell's hide was thicker than the leather armour covering it. Even so, blood sprayed. The creature behind him tightened its stranglehold. He could feel something of its immense weight and size. Unable to draw a weapon, Mappo pivoted, then flung himself backward into a rock wall. The crunch of bone and skull behind him, a gasp from the beast that rose into a screech of pain.
The creature with its claws in Mappo's belly had been dragged closer by the Trell's backward lunge. He closed his hands round its squat, bony skull, flexed, then savagely twisted the head to one side. The neck snapped. Another scream, this time seeming to come from all sides.
Roaring, Mappo staggered forward, grasping at the forearm drawn across his neck. The beast's weight slammed into him, sent him stumbling.
He caught a glimpse of Icarium, collapsing beneath a swarm of dark, writhing creatures.
Too late he felt his leading foot pitch down over the crumbled edge of the cliff-side, down into… open air. The creature's weight pushed him further forward, then, as it saw the precipice they were both about to plunge over, the forearm loosened.
But Mappo held fast, twisting to drag the beast with him as he fell.
Another shriek, and he finally caught full sight of the thing.
Demonic, mouth opened wide, needle-like fangs fully locked in their hinges, each as long as Mappo's thumb, glistening black eyes, the pupils vertical and the hue of fresh blood.
T'rolbarahl.
How?
He saw its rage, its horror, as they both plummeted from the cliff.
Falling.
Falling…
Gods, this was
Book Two
Beneath This Name
In darkness he came, this brutal slayer of kin, discharged and unleashed, when all but ghosts fled the wild dishevelled swagger – oh he knew pain, twin fires of vast oblivion burning his soul and so the ghosts did gather, summoned by one who would stand, mortal and feckless, in the terrible slayer's path, would stand, this precious fool, and gamble all in the clasping of hand, warm to cold, and be led to the place long vanished, and beasts long vanquished would at his word awaken once more.
And who was there to warn him? Why, no-one, and what found its way free was no friend to the living. When
