The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection (350 page)

Morghien stepped behind a tree to afford himself some protection from any rash crossbow bolts that might come his way. The villagers coming down the road had clattered to a halt at the sudden violence, but now they stared aghast at the felled bodies. Two of them dropped to their knees at the sight.

Not the usual reaction,
Morghien thought to himself as the soldiers behind started to shout in panic.
I’d have thought they’d scatter from any sort of fighting.

‘Murderer!’ shrieked one of the lead villagers, ‘heretic!’

Great, one of those.

His attention was soon caught by screams from the main group of soldiers. He peered around the tree in time to watch the last of the crossbowmen shot.

‘About bloody time,’ he muttered, walking forward without haste while Farlan Ghosts rose from their leafy hiding-places to attack.

A flash of copper caught the light as Shanas, former devotee of Fate, joined the fight, the tattoos on her bare arms blurring as she slashed the nearest Devoted’s thigh. They were outnumbered two to one at least, looking at the fifty-odd soldiers in the column, but a dozen fell to the glaives of the Ghosts in their first charge.

Morghien ran forward and released the power of the Crystal Skull at his waist. The misty form of Seliasei swooped out from his body, buoyed by the sudden rush of power, and reached for the nearest terrified soldier, while three more insubstantial figures followed.

The black jagged shape of the Finntrail ran jerkily along the road, and hooked the leg of one Devoted, dragging him to the ground. A slender wolf-shape darted past it, leaping at another but passing straight through the alarmed soldier, while a grey hawk clawed at the eyes of the next. Though too weak to hurt the man directly, the wolf spirit’s flowing mane of fur filled his eyes for long enough for a Ghost to take the soldier down; he followed the wolf’s path and battered aside the next man’s spear before chopping across his face. Blood sprayed high as the man fell backwards, just as a spear thumped into the Ghost and downed him.

The Ghost flopped back, keening with pain as the spear jerked clear and blood poured from his side. His nearest comrades responded by calling out their battle hymn. Seliasei caught his killer’s spear-shaft and tossed it aside as the words were taken up by the remaining Ghosts. The Devoted soldier was dragged from his feet amidst a roaring invocation of Nartis’ rage, then the dark Finntrail spirit pounced again.

Morghien caught up to the fighting, stepping into Shanas’ lee as the athletic young woman danced past less nimble opponents, never stopping, never getting into a test of strength with the men she faced. Shanas slashed at arms and legs with cruel accuracy, and when they turned to follow her path, Morghien chopped and stabbed in her wake, magic flooding through his limbs to add force to each blow.

The Devoted were boxed in: the Farlan Ghosts pressing in on both sides and a pair of black-clad King’s Men blocked the road behind. Splinters flew as the brutal glaives shattered their shields, men howled and whimpered as they sought to run but were given no quarter. Morghien saw the cowering preachers ahead, one shouting an incoherent prayer as Seilasei rose up before them on a column of flowing mist.

Faced by a minor Goddess rising radiant in the dappled light, the leader of the preachers broke off his beseechings and stared open-mouthed. She looked down at him pityingly, smoky trails of hair moving in a breeze he could not feel, and stepped forward. With the power of the Skull within her, Seliasei’s face now possessed a light and texture Morghien had rarely seen before. The curve of her breasts was more than a suggestion in the dim light, the smooth lines of her belly opaque and alluring.

‘Daemon,’ the preacher gasped as though it were his dying breath.

‘No,’ Seliasei said in a voice like running water, ‘I am a daughter of Vasle, born of the divine. And you: you are my enemy.’ With a movement so elegant it seemed like a caress, the Aspect cupped his face in her hands and looked deep into his eyes for a long moment – then she snapped the man’s neck with barely a twitch of exertion.

The Ghosts cut down the last of the soldiers and put the remaining preachers out of their misery with brutal efficiency. When all the enemy were still, they saw to their own, dispatching those too injured to help, then moved on to search for valuables, supplies and any weapons worth taking.

Morghien watched them with a chill on his neck. No matter how many times he had done the same – food or arrows were always important to an inveterate wanderer – he still lacked the seamless transition between warrior and scavenger that veteran soldiers possessed.

‘Brothers,’ Morghien whispered, a tiny spark of magic crackling on his tongue.

The Finntrail, hawk and wolf-spirit both turned to regard him, revelling in the strength they drew from Morghien’s Crystal Skull. They returned of their own accord, and he shivered as each entered his body: the wolf a delicate brush of chilly fur on his skin, the Finntrail coming as an ache in his bones and a bitter taste lingering on his tongue.

He did not withdraw Seliasei; she was the strongest of them and would do more good speaking to the villagers than he could ever hope to. But as he turned towards them he hesitated. The vil lagers had closed on them, creeping forward while they chopped down fifty men, and that disconcerted Morghien.

He tugged on the invisible thread of magic linking him to Seliasei and the Aspect came forward without question, gliding along the road until she was at his side and watching the advancing villagers with him.

‘
I see a Wall of Intercession, or what serves as one outside the cities,
’ she said, looking past them and into the village. ‘
A hedge of some sort, it is covered in strips of cloth – each one a prayer. I—
’

The Goddess broke off and Morghien felt a wave of revulsion wash through her. His concern deepened: Seliasei was always so assured and calm, and her reaction was profoundly worrying.

‘What is it?’ he urged.

‘
Devotion
,’ she said in a horrified whisper, ‘
worship I cannot touch. It hangs in the air, a festering cloud of prayer surrounds this place
.’

‘Shanas,’ Morghien called quietly, ‘get the men ready to move out.’ He took a few paces forward, then stopped as he saw the leading villagers flinch and tense like fighting dogs going on guard.

‘“We come in peace” might not be the best opening here,’ Morghien muttered to himself, roughly wiping the blood from his weapons and sheathing them. He saw now that several of the villagers were carrying weapons, hatchets or knives for the main. They might not be a soldier’s weapons, but they were enough to kill. There were a few-score of them now, and more were trickling out from the village behind. Now Morghien could smell the anger in the air.

‘Invaders, tattooed daemons!’ shrieked one man.

Before he could continue his tirade a tall woman with long, greying hair raised her voice above the mutters. ‘Leave our lands,’ she called. ‘We want none of your savage ways here.’

‘You would prefer the iron fist of the Devoted?’ Morghien called, ‘religious zealots writing your laws, fanatics torturing anyone who disagrees with you?’

‘Priests have ever ruled us,’ the man spat. ‘Now we are free of them, but assailed by your king’s heresy!’

‘There was no heresy.’

The woman shook her head. ‘Your king weakened the Gods; your king opened the gates of Ghenna! This plague we suffer, it comes from the hand of your lord.’

Morghien shook his head despite the sourness in his gut. He knew the king had done that – Morghien himself had threatened the Chief of the Gods not so many months ago, but the blame was not so simple as one isolated act.

‘It is Ruhen who has weakened the Gods. Ruhen is the heretic!’

‘Lies!’ hissed the man beside her, his face contorted with rage. He was smaller, and dressed in some sort of bleached cloak that Morghien realised was intended to echo those worn by Ruhen’s Children. ‘Your king brings an army of daemons to kill us all – your king brings the end of all in his wake!’

‘Ruhen has murdered priests of the Gods,’ Morghien continued, returning his gaze to the woman who looked to be a village elder. ‘Ruhen has weakened the Gods by killing and driving out their servants. He seeks himself to be made a God.’

‘Go, leave this place!’ the woman shouted, her gaze darting to those edging forward on either side of her, weapons in hand. ‘Your king is not welcome here; your cause is not welcome here.’

‘You prefer this peace promised by the Devoted?’ Morghien replied, aware he had little time before they ran for him and his men were forced to slaughter civilians too. ‘You tell
me
, who stands here with a Goddess at my side, that my enemy is an emissary of the Gods and my cause is a heretic’s?’

The woman stepped forward in front of her more hate-filled neighbours. ‘The Devoted promised us peace. Ruhen promises protection to those who follow him.’ Her tone turned bitter. ‘And you? You offer nothing but the slaughter of our protectors – whatever they might preach, daemons walk these woods at night. We’ve lost several of our children already – livestock have died and the chickens will not lay, the goats do not give milk any more. Will your Goddess fight for us tonight, if the daemons come?’

‘She will!’ Morghien declared, but the woman just shook her head sadly.

‘But tomorrow you’ll be gone. You have your war to fight; you’re not here to protect us, and the beasts of the Dark Place are legion. Either you go, or you stay and kill us too, but don’t pretend you haven’t condemned many to death already.’

Morghien hesitated. His relationship with Emin Thonal had always been rocky: two wilful men with certainty in their hearts, but of late Morghien had been increasingly nervous of the path they trod. He could see no other that led to victory, but he knew his friend well.

The King of Narkang and the Three Cities was a bold strategist. He had risked much during his conquest, and grown confident after decades of success. That he had only a half-mad white-eye and remorseless Mortal-Aspect of a dead Goddess to temper his plans was little comfort to a man who could sense just how great the upheaval in the Land was.

‘We leave,’ he said with a troubled heart, seeing even the clear-thinking people of these parts were against them now. Folk needed to survive the days and weeks, and only his enemy could ensure that at present.

‘Are we still on the side of right?’ he whispered to himself, though he knew Seliasei could hear him still. ‘Or has this Land been so turned upside down it’s now Azaer who’s right?’

Seliasei touched his arm and urged him to turn away. The Ghosts were formed up, ready to defend him if necessary. Shanas, at their centre, had a worried expression on her young face.

‘
Azaer forces you to do this,
’ the Aspect said softly. ‘
The shadow wounds you wherever it can, and this cuts both you and the king to the quick. The stakes have been raised by both sides. This must end one way or another, else both sides fall and chaos reigns
.’

‘And that is what I fear,’ Morghien said. ‘We’ve both done so much damage in the name of victory – can either of us win now? Can this hurt be undone, stemmed even? Azaer would let it all fall to ruin rather than lose – but if Emin has the choice, what will he prefer?’

By way of reply Seliasei drifted inside him, embracing his soul and surrendering herself to him, as she had for decades now. The act wasn’t submission; he didn’t need to dominate the Goddess they way he did the Finntrail.

But can I trust Emin still?
he wondered privately as he headed to their camp.
Fate’s eyes, do we even know what we’ve done? Are we all damned?

The column wound its way slowly towards the border, through lands scoured clean by the Menin invasion. Villages and towns were half-flattened or burned by foraging parties, the skulls of the slain piled high alongside the road by their newfound allies in honour of their lord.

The silence in the ranks of the Narkang Army was palpable. Emin felt it like a sickness in his gut. He was glad Amber had insisted his troops marched separately – how any general would be able to restrain his men after witnessing this, he didn’t know. The eastern flank of the nation had become a wasteland, a memorial of empty fields and settlements slowly returning to nature’s embrace.

The Menin lord had wanted his enemies to know the devastation he inflicted was as much the price of refusing battle as wanting his own troops to know there was no retreat. He had given them only one stark option: victory was the only way for them to survive.

From his saddle King Emin watched buzzards circling lazily over the fields. ‘The scavenging will have been good this summer,’ he commented sadly to his bodyguard, Forrow, then asked, ‘How many more days of this, Dash?’

‘Before we reach the border?’ Dashain said. ‘Not many – another week and we’ll be into Circle City territory.’

‘And another week on from there before we sight Byora?’

‘Or an army marching out to defend it.’

‘You think they would face us?’ Emin looked back down the long column of soldiers behind them: nearly twenty thousand heavily armed men, Narkang recruits mainly, in this army alone, with Denei mercenaries adding a swift and savage edge.

‘Azaer does not care about losses, only to blunt our advance. It has all the Knights of the Temples at its disposal, so why not throw some in our path to drain our strength? But I for one do not look forward to laying siege to Byora. We can’t encircle the whole of Blackfang and now the Circle City’s unified behind the shadow, we’ll be attacked on all sides as we try to break the Byoran walls.’

The king sighed, hearing the truth in her words. ‘We are the invaders,’ he agreed, ‘and whatever slaughter we inflict will only cement the impression Azaer wishes the Land to hold.’

‘That he’s the beleaguered emissary of the Gods, besieged while his followers are slaughtered across the Land. More and more will flock to his banner until he has enough followers to become a God. Would the shadow usurp Death Himself?’