God of Clocks

The Sombrecur were now pouring out of the wicker in greater numbers. Others closed in from east and west, pressing Hulfer's men closer together. This may have been what the Riot Coasters had intended all along, for the enemy, thus confined amongst their own, could not deploy their bows effectively. The dark giants performed a strange and brutal dance amongst the lighter-skinned warriors, wheeling to divert strikes as though they knew exactly where and when to expect them.

The survivors remember!

Finding herself momentarily unassailed, Rachel heaved two more corpses closer to the thaumaturge and split them open. “That's five,” she said.

Mina was on her knees, her eyes closed, whispering rapidly to herself. Rachel thought she heard the word forest. Basilis sniffed around the dead, thoroughly unconcerned by the mayhem all around.

Hasp roared suddenly. He had disposed of his batons in favour of a larger weapon. In one glass gauntlet the god wielded one of the Sombrecur's own warriors, whirling the limp body around him as any normal brawler might use a club. Opponents flew under his blows, knocked senseless and reeling back into their own ranks.

The Riot Coasters had meanwhile arranged themselves into a spearhead phalanx and were driving back through the Sombrecur rear guard, opening a route back into the forest. Arrows lanced in from the east, striking one of the unarmed giants in the neck as he fought against two opponents. He made a gurgling sound and clutched the shaft. Before Rachel could yell a warning, a Sombrecur spearman had plunged his weapon into the wounded man's side.

She spotted Dill amidst a group of four enemy warriors, and she then watched him vanish from sight.

Unable to injure his opponents conventionally, the young angel was using a stranger and more ghoulish tactic against them. Rachel stared as Dill's body flowed into one of the Sombrecur. That warrior jerked, and cried out. And then, now limned in blue radiance, he spun round and thrust his spear into the chest of one of his own companions. Dill had just taken possession of the man's body.

The two remaining Sombrecur backed away from the possessed fighter. Dill charged wildly at the nearest of them, raising his spear for another attack. But his opponent reacted with a sudden downward thrust, piercing Dill's stolen body low in its left side.

The angel abandoned his wounded host. In a vapourous rush, his spirit moved into the flesh of the warrior who had just stabbed him. Thus possessing his own attacker, he now drove the spear deeper into his former body, and then turned to face the final opponent.

Basilis barked.

Rachel turned round.

Mina's eyes were open again, but now with a faraway stare. She looked pale and exhausted, her chest rising and falling rapidly under her thin robe. Fresh blood steamed on her hands. “It's done,” she said.

“What is?”

“I've summoned a forest.”

Rachel frowned. “We're already in a forest, Mina.”

The thaumaturge got to her feet and gazed around her as though for the first time. The air was alive with the clack and snap of spears, men grunting and growling, the cries of the dying. “Gods, look at Dill,” she said.

The angel's ghost darted between the enemy like a firefly, possessing one warrior after another, and then turning their weapons against their own comrades. Scores of Sombrecur had already fallen in his wake. Whenever one host body died, Dill simply shifted his soul into a fresh one. Unable to slay this phantasm, the Sombrecur were simply butchering each other.

“Too much bloodshed,” Mina said, and then she shouted over to him, “Dill! Don't-”

Another noise cut her off.

It seemed to Rachel to issue from the earth itself-a low creaking sound like the hull of a ship protesting in a heavy squall. The Sombrecur had noticed it, too, for they were eyeing the ground with frantic suspicion. A roar went up from the Riot Coast warriors, who had used this distraction to push through the Sombrecur ranks and reach more open ground. Only two of their number had fallen so far.

Rachel felt the earth shuddering under her feet. A powerful smell assaulted her nostrils, an odour of terrible decay. From out of the forest floor snaked thick white tendrils.

Roots?

All around, these extrusions broke free of the soil, wrapping around each other, around the boles of trees and the legs, spears, and torsos of the panicked Sombrecur. The tendrils quivered, growing rapidly, enmeshing the natural forest in a vast pale web. They engulfed the Sombrecur completely, binding them where they stood, but miraculously they left the Riot Coast fighters untouched.

Within moments every bole and branch had been ensnared by these white roots, their thin blanched fibres crisscrossing the canopy overhead or hanging like ropes. The Sombrecur cried out from their cocoons, but then the tendrils contracted with a series of spasmodic creaks till finally the scene became silent. To Rachel it seemed like one forest had been consumed by a second, parasitic one. She clutched her nose against the stench, for Mina's forest smelled of a plague pit.

“Now we have to run,” Mina cried. “Get out of here while the new trees are still pliable. Once they've hardened, we'll be stuck here.”

“Trees?” Rachel said. “What sort of forest is this?”

“The forest of bone,” Mina replied. “It's an aspect of Basilis. I had the idea when we first reached Herica and I saw its remains along the lakeshore. These forests take thousands of years to decay.”

“You knew we would be coming back here?”

Mina grabbed Rachel's hand and hurried her along through the strange white forest. Hasp and Dill, joined by the Riot Coast men, quickly followed behind. Mina glanced back at the god and then whispered to the assassin. “I'm afraid I asked Sabor to lie. Hasp needed to believe that he was going to die here, that this was to be his glorious end.”

“Why?”

“So that he'd rediscover his passion for life. Confronting the Sombrecur gave him the opportunity to fight as a free man… or god, I suppose.”

Rachel stopped suddenly, dragging Mina to a halt. “You dragged us into this deliberately?” she growled. Then she lowered her voice. “You forced me to kill so that he could relive his past glories.”

“It already happened in our world's past,” Mina said. “In Riot Coast legend we were always present here. Even the last stanza of John Anchor's song mentions a ghost, a god, a witch, and a maiden.” She shrugged. “I don't know why they'd think you were a witch, but that's not the point… If we hadn't lived through these events, we'd have corrupted this timeline even more than it already has been. Don't you see? The further back in time we go, the more dangerous our actions become.”

“What else have you tampered with, Mina?” Rachel demanded, grabbing the sleeve of Mina's robe. “Exactly how far back does your meddling go?”

Mina pulled away from the assassin. “We need to get out of here!” she urged.

“Who roused the Sombrecur against Sabor in the first place?” Rachel persisted. “Mina, who sent them to their deaths? Was it Menoa?”

The thaumaturge hurried away through the tangled white roots.

“Was it Menoa?” Rachel repeated.

But Mina wouldn't answer her.

Carnival didn't require a mirror to gauge the extent of her restoration. She could feel the tight pressure of her wings against her back and shoulders, the powerful muscles flexing as she beat them. Her long hair, now dry and ragged, blew about her shoulders. Her heart thundered with anticipation. She turned her naked arms over and examined the tracery of scars there. Her skin tingled with the memory of old wounds. She felt renewed, angry.

Dangerous.

It was as if that single taste of the bastard god's blood had acted like a key to unlock her mind from its cage.

Here in Hell, all form was a matter of will. Carnival had won the freedom to exist as her own will dictated.