From the Ashes (17 page)

             
Pol found this out the hard way, a ravenous, behorned creature leaping towards him through the air. He reached out his hand, launching forth a flurry of fire bolts, but they pattered off the demon’s hide. The beasts were from another world, unnaturally resistant to the powers of the spirits. The creature landed atop him, pinning him down, the youth calling upon the earth to lend him strength as he sought to keep the snapping fangs at bay.

             
A deafening report, the monster blasting away from him before disintegrating in a cloud of flame and smoke. They weren’t immune to the brute, destructive force of a cannon.

             
Pol rose, dusting himself off, nodding in thanks to Marlyn who scuttled off to Gwenna’s side yet again. Like her own personal bodyguard, the young shaman sneered, before chastising himself. This was not the time or the place.

             
With a throbbing mind he called forth the power of the air; maybe lightning would work better against these foes.

             
On the other side of the Causeway, Wrynn piled into the midst of the horde; mighty arms surging with seasoned spiritual strength as he tore the demons limb from limb to the cheers of the men. But such mewling creatures as these were nought but vanguards, he knew; precursors to the horrors they would face on the island proper.

             
A demon spawn lunged at him, murder in its primitive eyes, but it stopped just short of reaching him, gazing about in confusion, then fear, its face almost pitiful as it seemed to drain away before vanishing in a cloud of flame and smoke. All around, all the other demon spawn that surrounded the men did the same, dying away and vanishing without a trace, untouched by human hand, as though being withdrawn from the world against their wishes.

             
A cheer from the ragtag army on the empty stretch of Causeway, men slapping each other on backs as though victory had been won, but Wrynn held up a hand.

             
“Silence.”

             
His booming word cut through the din, every ear turning to him as he spoke, his voice low, ominous.

             
“Something bigger this way comes…”

             
A violent tremor began to shake the bridge, as though the earth itself were buckling in protest at the horror to come. A reek of brimstone, the stone beneath them beginning to burn as orange lines flared up, snaking along to form the pattern of a giant pentagram, men staggering backwards in fear to get away.

             
Wrynn sank to his knees, the ground shuddering beneath him as he roared to his men.

             
“To the other side!”

             
As one they rose up, sprinting at full pelt, putting their trust in him as they ran to cross the pentagram, to make it to the island side of the circle. Not quick enough.

             
A roaring vortex of flame and smoke erupted from the centre of the pentagram, the section of the bridge it covered exploding in a shower of stones, the searing fireball sending those shamans, Guards and Foresters unlucky enough to still be crossing hurtling into the air. Most of them were dead before they even hit the sea.

             
Ahead of the fleeing army, a roaring wall of flame reared up, blocking their path, forcing them to turn back, trapped now between the hungry flames and the broken bridge. The roiling column of smoke and flame that rose from the gap in the ruined bridge began to disperse upon the stormy gale, revealing behind it a horror of horrors.

A beast to haunt the dreams of each man for years to come.

              Only the top half of the demon was visible, its lower portion hidden below the waves, yet half was enough. It reared fifty feet high from the waist alone, its torso massively swollen with musculature and black as night, wrought with scarred symbols that twisted and hurt the eyes to gaze upon for any length of time. Atop its monstrous shoulders, a head, horned like that of a bull only a hundred times enlarged, the horns stretching out the length of a bowshot, reaching round as though to embrace them all in their lethal grasp. No eyes could be seen, the skin where they should be smooth, as though the beast was blind, but it had a maw, a great yawning abyss filled with fangs the length of men. Its arms stretched out on either side, like oak trees in size, each with the strength of a thousand men and ending with vast hands armed in fearsome, obsidian claws.

             
The men shouted, screamed, soiled themselves in fear, dignity forgotten in the face of the beast. For this was a creature beyond nightmare, a construct of beings far beyond man’s pathetic concept of horror. It was a monster to end all monsters. A monster to end worlds.

             
Wrynn fought down the urge to retch violently, as so many were around him, his terrified heart hammering in his chest as he sought to steady himself for his men. He had seen glimpses of such monstrosities in the visions the Avatars had granted him from time to time, but to see such an infernal creature in the flesh…

             
Break free from this terror, his wisdom called to him. The men need leadership. But I can’t, screamed his senses, his frozen limbs, his turning stomach. This being is too large, too powerful to be defeated. What is the point in fighting it?

             
“Men of Tulador! Rally to me!”

             
The unexpected call rang out over the roar of the beast and the boiling of the seas, rising over the howl of the gales and the whimpers of men, steeling hearts with its confidence and shocking people into action as they turned to gaze at its unlikely source.

             
Arbistrath stood, windswept and heroic, sabre held out before him as he defied the beast, a mouse before a charging tiger.

             
“I am no pawn!” he yelled into the raging storm. “I am Arbistrath, Lord of the Land, heir to the mantle of my forefathers. I will not be cowed any longer!” He grinned in fervent anger, even as the army looked on in disbelief at his courage. “Tulador Guards, to me!”

             
The troops arrayed about him in disciplined ranks, shaken into movement by his bold call. Hofsted by his side, eyes glistening in his lined face as he watched his lord with pride, seeing, at last, the courage of his noble ancestry shining through.

             
Arbistrath nodded to the Lieutenant.

             
“Give the word, old friend.”

             
Hofsted grinned, teeth bared as he roared to the troops.

             
“First rank… FIRE!”

             
Man-made thunder eclipsed the storm, the beast roaring out in pain as it was peppered by a dozen cannon shots. The army cheered as rents opened up in the muscular chest, foul, reeking ichor oozing out to steam in the air. The paralysing fear that held sway began to loosen its grip on the assembled warriors as Wrynn stared in profound admiration at the youth that led the assault.

             
“Small wonders…” he breathed, before turning to his own troupe of wonder-workers. “Shamans!”

             
“Already on it…”

             
Gwenna smiled as she swept up her arm, tendrils of silvery-blue lightning launching out, joined by those of her comrades as they lent the weight of their power to the fusillade. Iain cried out too, the Foresters sinking to their knees as they aimed their bows, firing with quiet skill and determination, every arrow hitting its mark, for the target was impossible to miss.

             
The beast howled its frustration as it raised a vast arm to shield its face from the hail of fire. This cannot be, the howl seemed to cry out. I have lain waste to a thousand worlds, armies have quailed before me. How do these mortals, a mere hundred, dare strike back?

             
Its raised hand balled into a fist the size of a horse-cart, and Hofsted’s seasoned eyes saw the attack before it came.

             
“Scatter!”

             
The order was obeyed just in time, the balled fist smashing down like a meteor, a crater of ruined stone now where the Tulador Guard were but seconds before. Lesser men would have balked at the display of primeval power, but leadership prevailed, the rallying cries of Arbistrath and Wrynn combining to keep the men focused, the stream of missiles and magic continuing unabated.

             
The outstretched arm swept to one side now, sweeping the bridge and catching those too slow to move out of the way, smashing into them like a landslide and hurling them from the Causeway to land in the foamy brine below.

             
Again the men rallied, pouring their hearts and souls into their attack as they sought to bring the bellowing behemoth down.

             
It’s not enough, thought Wrynn, sweat beading his forehead as he strained his every ounce of being into the rain of fire that erupted from his fingertips. A shaman beside him fell to the floor, unconscious, the claws of spirit-sickness having taken its toll. We cannot hold out much longer…

             
The beast reared, both hands rising into the sky now as it readied itself for a double hammer-blow that would smash the bridge section asunder completely, sending them all to a watery grave. There would be no running, not with the wall of fire to their rear.

             
The demon paused in its attack, as though in gleeful anticipation of the carnage to come. The pause drew on, men’s hearts thundering in chests as they waited for their doom. Seconds dragged, when suddenly a keening wail began to erupt from the monster’s gaping mouth, a hideous screech, as though in pain. Its arms fell down with a rush of wind to its sides and the torso rocked, unsteady, from side to side.

             
Wrynn gazed up in wonderment and confusion before yelling out in warning.

             
“Back off! To me, quickly!”

             
He ran backwards as far as he could, as close to the wall of seething flames as he could bear and the others followed, packing in tightly. With a great, creaking groan, the titanic demon fell forwards, smashing face first into the stone of the causeway, its horns on either side piercing deep into the dark water. The dark flesh began to smoulder, great billowing clouds of dark smoke rising up and twisting away in the wind as flames began to lick across its body.

             
There, in the back of the beast’s head, a tiny fleck of shining silver, a spider’s web of cracks trailing out from it as though anathema to the demon’s flesh. A fleck of silver, with a handle of plain, unassuming wood.

             
The army, as one, craned their necks, even as the wall of flame began to die away behind them, gazing in awe as figures began to emerge from the cloud of smoke that now enveloped the fallen demon.

             
Four men strode forth across the creature’s back, climbing into view as they traversed its neck and walked onto its head. Bloodied, battered, wearied and tattered, the men looked no more than common peasants; an ex-servant, a Plainsman, a farmer. And, to the fore, a woodsman, who bent down to retrieve his axe, the blade untarnished, unmarked by blood as he tore it free.

             
A gasp beside Wrynn, and he turned, seeing Iain falling to his knees, tears of wonder streaming down his face. The other Foresters too, all collapsing, faces wrought with joy at the sight before them.

             
A voice atop the smouldering demon.

             
“Stone sent us,” smiled Alann the Woodsman. “He said you’d have use for us…”

***

The lightning flashed out, bleaching the soaring bridge momentarily, but Stone’s eyes were beyond blinding these days. He smiled as he looked out across the yawning chasm that divided the Pen from the Isle, noting with pleasure the heroic efforts of the army as they left behind the corpse of the smouldering demon.

             
“Your joy will be short-lived,” called the cold voice from the other end of the flying bridge.

             
Memphias stood, taut and ready, lethal godbane daggers in each hand, their blades flickering with black lightning that hungered for the taste of Stone’s immortal flesh. A clamouring of vile hisses from Stone’s back, a roiling cluster of smoke and shadows in the doorway behind him that led to the Seers’ Tower, but Memphias snarled.

             
“Back, men,” he ordered the Khrdas. His eyes narrowed as he smiled. “This is my fight, and I’ve waited a very long time…”

             
Stone held his hands out to either side to show that he was unarmed.

             
“Then seize your chance, traitor.”

             
A snarl then a blur of dark motion as the assassin charged, the air shrieking in protest as he moved at supernatural speed. Stone leant to one side, the whistling tips of daggers missing him by an inch, then flipped past his foe, landing on his feet, hands on the smooth, cold stone of the railings as he looked out at sea.