Healer's Ruin (18 page)

And then he understood where the Wielder had got his sorcery from.
He drew his energy from this place, using this well to power his magery. No wonder he was so powerful!
Those had been his animal hides and it had been his campfire they had discovered in the tower.

So there must be a way down... and a way back up.

He turned his attention back to the alcoves and noticed now that one of them held a deeper darkness than the others. Not just shadow, but a portal. Chalos ran towards it and found a sloping passageway curving up towards the surface. Hurrying, the names of his loved ones flaring again in his mind, he emerged in another chamber, this one smaller, with a passage that led out into the street.

It didn't take him long to find his bearings. To his right, the street was clogged with thick dust and a few chunks of masonry lay scattered and smoking. Pressing the edge of his robes to his face, he pressed forward into the dust, narrowing his eyes as he went. Soon he came upon the site of the tower and his heart sank.

An enormous pit barred his way, the edges jagged and warped. Stone and wood had been blasted with extreme heat leaving what could only be described as a grievous architectural wound. Cautiously stepping to the edge, Chalos looked down into a miasma of cooled lava-like sludge that was only now paling from harsh violet to chalky grey.

Samine... Mysa...

The bird, perhaps, could have escaped. But the Dread Spear? Without thinking, he found his mirror and plunged, landing thigh-deep in the mire. The pain was immediate and extreme, but his determination – now hardened by an edge of crazed passion – enabled him to focus on the magic as he poured energy into his lower body. The flesh sizzled and melted, blistered and burst from his bones over and over, but was each time remade. Now almost numb with the overload of agony, Chalos thrust his right hand into the sludge. Then his left hand. Now, a constant, livid circuit was open between his body and the world of magic.

A hand flopped into his grasp, slender and brittle. The healer's heart leapt.

Gritting his teeth, his crazed eyes flaring, he delved deeper into the volcanic sludge and with a loud grunt pulled Samine's body free. He turned, waded to the edge of the pit and tossed her onto a broken ledge, all that remained of a basement room. He then threw himself in after her, dumping a mass of magic into his arms and legs. The pain, again, refused to subside as his mind and nervous system failed to recognise the unnatural repair of his flesh, but although he was still in pain, at least he wasn't crippled.

Samine was a charred skeleton, utterly annihilated by the deluge of power. Whether it had been her magic or the Wielder's that had destroyed the tower did not matter. Theirs had been a duel to the death.

No. Not death.

Chalos put his hands on the corpse and hurled whole columns of magic into the warped black bones. For a moment he felt something, a resisting force, something ragged and meagre but definitely there, the ruined tatters of a soul. It felt like a small bitrd in his hands, fluttering softly. Then it was gone. Exhausted he fell back onto his haunches, arms hanging by his sides. A hacking cough dislodged the dust that was clogging his throat.

His desperate, roving mind fixed on the well of magic in the underground chamber.

OK, Wielder... you drew from it, why can't I?

He felt for it, like a blind man looking for a bannister. Still connected to the world of magic, he treated the well as if it was a mirror, finding its fierce gleam on the edge of his perception and creating a three-pointed cell of surging magical energy, his quivering soul at one point, the world of magic and the Ruin's well at the others. A warm hand seemed to descend upon him and the well gave up its power to him.

With a crash of exhilaration he swamped Samine's skeleton with all the power he could manage, his body shaking like loose guttering in a rainstorm. The magic flowed through him, battering at the walls of his mind, pulling at the fixings of his soul, fraying his senses.

He was so entranced by the tumult that he did not notice something  break from the sludge below and arc towards him. It struck him hard on the temple, knocking him over. He slid across the stones with a gasp.

Groaning, the healer raised himself up. A small form had arranged itself between him and Samine. A tiny, pebble-like skull regarded him eyelessly. It shook from side to side.

'Mysa...?'

The wretched thing hopped closer. It had no beak and no wings, resembling something that had been left over from a banquet. Tiny ribs poked through disintegrated flesh.

She must have fought so hard,
Chalos thought.
Used her own magical power, potent as it was. Accomplices are tough to kill indeed.

Tears sprang from the healer's eyes and he collapsed before the bird.

'Why?' he asked. 'Why can't I bring her back? Why?'

With a series of clumsy movements the bird skipped closer and hopped onto his arm before clambering up onto his shoulder. The tiny cool skull nestled against his neck.

A thin and decayed voice sounded behind the healer's eyes. It was breaking up as if all the power in the world was being used to push a final message through before oblivion reigned.

'You brought us back, Chalos... all that power... but truly saving us is beyond even the well's power... all you are conserving is bones and pain... she is gone... let her go... let us both go.'

Chalos hung his head, the tears coming freely. And there he stayed, for goodness knew how long, long after the collection of bones on his shoulder had crumbled apart and long after what had once glowed faintly in the heart of the corpse had faded to an ember and then vanished, dust swirling up and surrounding them all like a shroud.

Beneath the city, power pulsed in invisible beams. A wave of energy swept upwards and outwards, stretching to the fields that lay in the shadows of the Ruin's great towers.

Unlocked after centuries... triggered at last.

True, the little Riln had tapped into the well's frozen sliver of pure magic, but that was all. He had not pushed hard enough to break the sacred seal that lay over the object, content to sup from it periodically rather than break the floodgates. But the foreign healer... he had reached in with both hands and unleashed the well's true power.

Now it could perform the task it had been designed to do. Now it could conquer death...

So thick was the dust, so utter was his grief that Chalos did not feel the tremor from beneath the city as the well gushed forth its energies. Nor did he sense, at first, the vague rustling in the streets above the basement room. Small whorls of air were twisting over ancient shards of bone, nudging the long dead from the grooves, cracks and alcoves that had become their resting places centuries earlier.

We live! We live!

It was a rushing wind, a hissing breath, carrying with it the voices of those whose departed souls had been gathered into the well. Centuries after the golems had fallen on the city, slaughtering its army and scattering its inhabitants, punishing its mages for the unnatural and meddlesome sorcery, the souls had become beaten wisps like patches of cloth that had been washed so many times they were now almost transparent. Little remained of the personalities and intelligence of the army that was being returned to life.

But what had endured was the will to stand, to brandish weapons that seemed to reform from the air, to adjust helms and breastplates that formed from countless ancient flakes of metal, and to march to their positions, ready to defend the city against any and all enemies.

They're coming, they're coming, to your posts!
The voice was incessant, a chorus of dessicated throats that groaned like the wind through the dusty streets of the Ruin. Who was coming? These rotted minds no longer knew, nor did they care. All that concerned them was defending the city, defending the lands around it, from something... from anything...

As rank upon rank of the ancient warriors reformed, they pulled harder on the strands of power emanating from the well, and harder on the unwitting portal through which the energy was pouring.

Chalos gasped, falling forward onto his hands, his eyes bulging. He felt like a narrow tributary that had been forced to accommodate the roaring waters of a whole ocean. His soul was hammered, torn, punctured and then the edges of the rift battered smooth, making it a ferociously gleaming ring of protesting energy through which the magic of the well forced itself. He screamed himself hoarse, scrambling around in a panic, until the torrent eventually subsided. Then he lay moaning, his hand pressed to his chest.

He could feel them.

How many strands, a thousand? No, ten times that. A hundred times that. Each one a fine, strong wire of energy that ran from the heart of the resurrected being to the healer's soul. There, the strands converged, bound together like the strands that make a rope, and this cord ran straight to the well where it was anchored fast in the frozen sliver of pure magic the city's mages had procured in an era long past.

Chalos could hear the clamour of the voices.

'They're coming,' the chorus went. 'They're coming!'

Over and over they yelled the same warnings, the same orders. Chalos willed them to shut up, pressing his hands to his temples and squeezing his eyes shut. He bellowed, but they didn't hear him. So he focused on the cord of energy that flowed from the well and through his soul. He focused on closing the halo tight, choking off the flow of magic.

It worked.

With a sigh the voices stopped and a hundred thousand warriors slumped. Chalos did not see the whorls open in the air around the city's resurrected defenders, but he did feel the defenders slip away from him, pulled back into nonexistence.

It took come concentration to release his grip on the cord. When he did, the clamour returned and he heard boots hammering on the streets above as the warriors headed for the walls, arranging themselves on its rough, time-savaged battlements.

I can't control them, but I can restrain them,
he realised.
Like dogs on a leash. Or, like restricting the blood pumping to a limb simply by applying a tight grip.

For one versed in anatomy, this analogy made sense.

So this, he knew, was the dreadful magical experiment the mages of the Ruin had been carrying out. A way to create an immortal army. A force that could never be bested, never be driven from its position, never be broken. Warriors that could never die.

And the golems had taken one horrified look at what was happening and lain waste to the city and its people.

Of course, it makes sense,
Chalos thought as he lay in the basement room, staring through the ruined ceiling at a sky that was obscured by the dust of ages that had been disturbed by the shockingly sudden reconstitution of so many beings.
In their travels the golems had seen so much war, so much slaughter...  coming upon this place where the most fearsome army ever contemplated was being amassed must have disturbed them greatly.

Had Chalos himself not seen how death was the only thing that stopped empires? That death was the only barrier to endless tyranny? The greed of Kings ended with their last death-bed whisper. But what if there was no death? What if the tyrants and their armies could live forever, march forever, conquer forever? And having all the time in the universe, there would be no place, however distant, that would not eventually fall in the aeons that stretched before them.

The golems killed everyone here. But they didn't destroy the well. The secret source of its power.

He imagined the Wielder happening upon it, a cocky and curious young slinger from Aphazail on an adventure, peeking through the Ruin looking for treasure. Happening upon the well, and discovering that it bolstered his meagre magical abilities, lending force and strength to his illusions.

Then we invaded, and he found his calling. The hero.

Chalos laughed then. The hero of the tale was dead, buried beneath a volcanic flow of magery. But the healer remained. The coward, the fool who had gone to war without even strapping on a sword. Yes, he remained. Alone and in constant pain.

No. Not alone.

He flexed the cord. The army of ghosts rose and fanned out, brandishing its weapons. He tightened his grip. They paused and slumped. He smiled.

Suddenly, and for the first time, he had a part to play in the future of the world. Suddenly, he had what he had always lacked.

Power.

'I don't like this,' said General Pardo Zalan of the Aphazail Silverclad. 'It feels like a trap.'

Nchalak, Commander of the Sabres of Tchiqua, nodded. Her gaze was fixed on the approaching riders and her right hand itched, strong leather-clad fingers inches from the pommel of a finely crafted longsword. Her horse sensed her anticipation and shook its grey mane anxiously.

The man next to her took a deep breath and fidgeted in the saddle, his exquisite armour clanking. Zalan's own horse, heavier than  Nchalak's, simply stared ahead. It was bred for frontal assaults, being more powerful and more dumb that the Commander's slender animal.

'I did warn you,' Nchalak said. 'But then, what choice do we have? We can't camp out here forever.'

Zalan grunted his agreement.

Through the morning mist came two riders on fearsome-looking shadamars. The men wore inky black Baldaw mesh and were hulking purple-skinned brutes, taller and wider and any Riln had ever or could ever be. The smaller of the two had a battle-scarred face, his black hair arranged in braided rows. He had an eye-patch and carried a standard on which blazed a single black claw rending a simple crimson gash.

The Black Talon
, Zalan knew.
Krune.
He thought about the terrible stories his own scouts had told him about how these fiends of the southern continent had carved their way through the Dallian Woodland before smashing an army of ten thousand Riln to pieces.
Not men to be trifled with.

The other rider sat strangely in the saddle. Both legs were slung over the right side as if he was about to leap from the horse but his waist was twisted at a ninety-degree angle so that he faced forwards. He held the reins in one gauntleted hand, his other hanging down by the scabbard of his wide-bladed sword. He wore a towering dark helm with a disturbing demonic face carved into the front. His eyes were hidden behind the grilles.

The two Krune stopped a couple of metres distant.

'Hail, you bloody invader bastards,' said Zalan with a mirthless grin and a curt, sardonic bow. 'And good morning.'

The Krune in the demon helm cocked his head.

'And to you, Riln,' his voice boomed. 'You hide your fear well.'

'I am General Zalan, and this is Commander Nchalak. We thank you for agreeing to this meeting.'

'It is an honour to meet the last living officers in all of Riln, General,' the masked Krune said. 'I am Jolm, master of the Black Talon.'

Zalan frowned.

'I was expecting Duke Elas.'

'Well, you can meet his boots if you like, because that's all that's left of him,' said Jolm with a shrug. 'Your golemns cared not for the cut of his jib.'

'I am surprised the King did not send his own banner,' Zalan said, nodding at the Black Talon standard. 'Does he not bless this meeting? Is he so cowed by the battering he has taken at the hands of this land's protectors that he sends an underling to do his bartering?'

Jolm chuckled.

'I like your vigour, General,' he said. 'It will be a shame for us not to clash swords on the field.' He paused for a moment. 'As I'm sure your pesky spies have already told you, the King has fallen back to Doyu, where he awaits resupply. The Black Talon holds the Plains to the south and the Dallian Woodland beyond, and for now, it falls to us to represent the might of the Ten Plains King.'

Nobody holds the Woodland, you idiot,
Zalan mused.
Gods, even we don't hold it! There are horrors there that will forever leave that place uncivilised.
Still, it buoyed his spirits to note how little the invaders understood the kingdom they had attempted to conquer.
Small wonder they failed in their task.

'Very good,' Zalan said. 'Let's talk.'

'Wait,' said Nchalak, raising a hand. 'We have an audience.'

'Eh?'

Jolm laughed again.

'Sorry, General,' the Krune said. 'This is war, after all.'

Shapes emerged from the thick morning mist. Massive and jagged, the Krune edged forward, swords sliding from scabbards. Zalan's horse attempted to wheel and the General hissed at it to hold firm. Nchalak merely watched the thirty or so enemy ambushers appear, a wry eyebrow raised.

'These brutes can be quiet when they want to be,' Jolm said. 'Now, you can surrender, but death will be slow. So my advice is to demand a duel. I promise to be quick. The Tarukaveri can tell you,' he added, gesturing to the Krune on the right hand side of the detachment, whose armour differed slightly to the rest. 'I don't play too much with my prey.'

Zalan's mouth twisted and he leaned over to spit into the grass, never taking his grey eyes off the Black Talon leader. When he leaned back into the saddle, he turned to his companion, his eyes still fixed on the demon helm's dark grilles.

'The lack of trust these days... a terrible state of affairs, eh Commander?'

Nchalak nodded primly.

'Indeed, General.'

'It is a good job you are wiser than me, my friend.'

The Sabre Commander raised her chin at the compliment.

'It is good that you are wise enough to listen,' she replied.

With that, she stuck out a long, lean and muscular limb, opening her fist out wide. From all around there came a clamour. Two thousand Riln, half mounted, the other with bows drawn, appeared from the mist. Amongst them were cowled men and women, powder blue robes wrapped about them. When she closed her fist, the soldiers halted their approach.

'Our slingers might not have the shock and awe of your sorcerers and Coppermasks, Krune,' said Zalan. 'But they are excellent tricksters.' Watching the small detachment of Krune waver, he allowed himself a smirk. 'Your victories against us have made you arrogant and your arrogance makes you careless.'

Jolm cursed under his breath.

'So,' Zalan went on. 'Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, shall we do what we came here to do?'

'Very well,' the Black Talon leader grated.

Leaving their forces behind, the two men turned eastward and rode into the mist. It was not long before they started to see the first of the gaunt figures unveil themselves. Zalan shivered and touched the amulet about his neck, the coin-sized engraving tapping against his breastplate as he rode.
Guardians protect me.
Even Jolm tensed. There was something hanging on the grey warriors who loomed from the mist, a shroud of doom and despondency. Their eyes were baleful and dry as stone, lips almost sealed through countless centuries of silence. But their armour, though it bore the mark of countless years of rust and decay, was still in place, swords and spears still sharp enough to slice and skewer the unwitting.

'So many of them,' Jolm said, the peculiar joviality in his tone surprising Zalan. 'What power it must have taken to raise them.'

'Indeed,' the Riln General replied. 'Now we know what dread experiments the mages of the Ruin were conducting, and why the golems wiped them out.'

'So that's what laid waste to this city...'

'So the legend goes,' Zalan said. 'More than a thousand years ago, the golems discovered a den of wizards practising necromancy. They punished them by destroying their entire city, and everyone in it.' He shrugged. 'Some fled, of course, but never returned. The golems have watched over it ever since. When you marched on the Ruin, the golems returned to protect its secrets.' He glanced at the Krune. 'If your King had come in peace, we might have warned you about the dangers of provoking them.'

Jolm chuckled.

'He doesn't even go to the bathroom in peace,' the Krune said.

Zalan could not help smiling at the comment.

'To bring back the dead...' Jolm said after a few moments of silence, glancing at the shrouded warriors that crammed the field and shaking his head. The leather fixings of his towering dark helm creaked. 'Is there nothing more abominable? See them: soulless, fearless, hopeless. Fixed in place, consumed by their final duty – to defend their already devastated city.'

'An army of protectors, centuries too late.'

The two men rode through rank after rank of the long dead, losing count amongst the dizzying number of men. Only the mist kept the true scale of the Ruin's defending army from their gaze. Soon, surely, that mist would dissipate or lift and all would see how many of the long dead had been hauled back into service.

'You've tried to fight them, I take it?' Zalan asked.

'Yes,' said Jolm. 'They're graceless and easy to kill, but once slain, they simply rise up again. It eats at the courage of the men to kill, again and again, the same man.'

Zalan agreed.

'We've tried, too. Our archers had a field day, but as you say, they just get back to their feet, the arrows gone from their bodies.'

They reached a yawning gate of stone. Dismounting, they approached, pausing only on the threshold. Above them, on ruined battlements, were grey archers cradling bows. Ancient arrowheads on curiously undiminished wooden shafts were pointed down at them.

'Are you sure about this, General?' Jolm asked.

'What choice is there? You're afraid these grey warriors will suddenly march south against you, and we're afraid they'll march north. We need to meet their master, divine his intentions.'

'And if their master sides with me?'

Zalan shrugged.

'I'll kill him. And you.'

Jolm laughed heartily and slapped the Riln on the back.

'I like your vigour!' he said again. 'I do hope we can duel sometime.'

'To the death?'

'Naturally! Play is for pups.'

They heard soft footfalls ahead. The men stopped to peer into the ancient street where they spotted a solitary figure, clad in several layers of robes and animal skins, face hidden under several layers of hood. Slender, crooked, moving as if in pain, the small man stopped a few steps from the edge of the city's limits, a mere metre from where the two warriors stood. With a gentle wave of his hand the grey warriors closest to them, and the archers on the battlements above, vanished into sudden spatial whorls. Jolm gasped and Zalan touched his amulet again.

'What do you want?' the cowled man asked. His voice was a ragged rasp as if he had spent the night screaming and had woken with his throat raw.

'I am Zalan of the Riln. This is Jolm of the army of the Ten Plains King,' the General said. 'We seek an audience with the master of this impressive army of ghosts.'

'You have it, General.'

'What are you...?' Zalan asked. 'A Riln? A Tabalard? You look like you might be one of my people...?'

The head of the figure lifted slightly, revealing a sharp, pale chin with dark, wiry stubble.

'I am a Rovann.'

Jolm's lips, invisible with his helm, curled into a smile.

'So, it is you,' he said. 'Gods and bones, slinger, we all thought you dead.'

Zalan turned from the cowled figure to the Krune and back again. His hand went to his sword, grasping it as if to draw. He took a breath and held it, making his body light and ready for combat.

'Relax, General,' said Jolm, waving at him dismissively. 'He isn't with us. Not any more. Right, slinger?'

'Right,' said Chalos.

Zalan took his hand away from his weapon and let out his breath in a soft hiss. The relief on his face was obvious.

'So, what do you want?' the Riln asked. 'I mean, what do they want?' His gesture swept over the grey warriors, their ranks stretching into the misty distance of the plains.

'They want to protect their city,' said Chalos. 'I awakened them quite by accident, when I meddled with the power of this place. When I saw how many of them there were, it occurred to me that although they missed their opportunity to protect their loved ones all those centuries ago, they could at least protect this kingdom now.'

'So you're with us?' Zalan smiled.

'No,' said Chalos. 'Nor am I with the King.' He straightened, with some difficultly and threw back the layers of hood. He looked emaciated and pallid, his hair a lank mop of black. His eyes were red-rimmed.

So young to hold such power!
Zalan thought.
How like our Wielder!
Then he realised that, perhaps, this pale Rovann had been the one to kill the hero of the Riln, the young sorcerer who had ventured into the Ruin during the attack of the golems, and not returned.

'So then, what's your plan, slinger?' asked Jolm.

'Tell the King that he can progress no further than the edge of the Dallian Woodland. If he steps onto the plains, I will call on the dead souls of this city and bring them all forth. A million of them, embittered and unkillable, and I will let them slaughter his men to the last soul.' Chalos turned his dark gaze to Zalan. 'Your kingdom, from here to the north, is safe. But do not think of me as an ally. I am simply a man sick of war.'

Jolm grumbled something indecipherable.

'Go now, General. Tell your soldiers they can return to their homes. Tell them to forget about the Ten Plains King. He is no threat to you now.'