From the Ashes (22 page)

Far off, in the distance, he noticed, many miles away, the red sky turned into a sickly hue of pale green. The portal.

A laughter chilled his spine from behind him. He turned, regarding the hulking great demon that chuckled.

“You see now,” it lectured him in tones that dripped ancient malice, its eyes glowing the red of dying embers, “the futility of your resistance. We have been gathering here in readiness since before you were even born, Stone. Our numbers swell daily,” it pointed behind it, to the glow of infernal orange that scorched the horizon, the ranks of demons  streaming from that point. The beast turned back to him, smiling with a cold and predatory confidence. “It is inevitable, mortal. Your world will burn.”

Stone looked thoughtful.

Are you the orchestrator of this invasion?
Stone asked in genuine interest.

The beast laughed again, the bass of its voice rippling the air about it.

“No, godling. I am merely a lieutenant of powers far great than I.” It made a mock bow before him. “Baron Asmodeus, at your service…”

Stone nodded, Dexter held low at his side.

Very well. Given your lowly rank I shall forgive you your two mistakes.

The Baron frowned.

“What mistakes?”

The titan of light smiled.

Firstly, nothing is inevitable. Secondly,
he hefted the crystal Glaive in his hand
. I am no mortal.

The demon’s eyes widened in bestial rage as it bent backwards to avoid the razor sword that whistled through the space its head used to occupy, before righting itself again, only to receive a white-wrapped foot to the face in reward. The beast went skidding along the dark stone, nearly flying off the edge of the column, its long, black talons scoring lines into the rock as it arrested its flight. It rose, spitting boiling blood, looking up to see Stone careening out of the sky to land on it, but the
Baron rolled out of the way, spinning to connect a great punch to the side of its opponent’s head, sending Stone stumbling away.

The combatants parted, circling each other on the confined arena a mile in the air. At a thought, an axe of dark orange flame appeared in the Baron’s clawed hand and he snarled.

“You only prolong the inevitable, godling. I know your tricks. Even now I can feel the power draining away from that toy of yours…”

Stone smiled, but the demon was right; he had charged the Glaives with power and was relying on that power now, his connection to the elements cut off here, in this hellish pocket in space and time. The energies that brimmed the blade were draining fast keeping him powered up so. The beast leapt forwards, bringing its axe down in a double-handed blow that left a trail of smoke and rippling haze in the air and Stone moved fast, raising his own weapon up to shield him.

The impact drove him to his knees; the demon’s strength beyond belief, the column of dark rock beneath them straining and buckling beneath the collision as a spider’s web of cracks worked their way down its height. Roaring, Stone summoned further on the fast-fading power at his command, rising up and driving a hard kick into the creature’s knotted midsection, hurling it away, before lunging forwards once more, Glaive poised to kill.

Asmodeus span, flying out of the way of the blow and bringing his hard elbow into the back of Stone’s head, sending him sprawling dazed to the ground. Stone went to turn, went to face his opponent, but not fast enough, a blinding, searing pain contorting him in agony as it felt like his back had been split in two. He looked down; his white robes alight, burning away about his chest.

The beast chuckled behind him, the head of his infernal axe buried deep within Stone’s spine as his victim moaned in pain. But his mirth was short lived; a blast of light enveloping the fallen titan, shattering the axe of flame and launching the demon away.

Stone rose, eyes closed as he concentrated. The axe had caused serious damage; the ethereal nature of its blade bypassing all the natural defences of his superhuman body. No matter; a thought, yet more of the elemental power flowing into him from the Glaive, and the injury was healed. He looked down at Dexter, the blade glowing more faintly now, its power all but depleted. He turned,
walking to the edge of the column that rocked and crumbled still, following the fury of their exchange.

The beast was still alive, clinging by black talons to the edge of the rocks, dangling a mile above the ground below.

I don’t know much about the physiology of demons,
admitted Stone.
Perhaps you’ll die from this height. Perhaps you won’t.
He smiled, readying Dexter to deliver the killing blow
. But it’ll be interesting finding out.

The Baron of Hell smiled in return, hissing out his reply as they were both enveloped in sudden, darkening shadow.

“Perhaps you should be spending less time quipping and more time looking behind you, godling…?”

Stone span, gazing up in eyes-wide awe as the cathedral-sized dragon hovered above the column. It regarded him, for a moment, as a lizard does a cricket, before its serpentine head snapped down and a fanged mouth the size of a house surrounded him in darkness.

***

An impasse. The Foresters and the Shamans surrounded; Iron Centaurs at their rear, the looming figure of Bavard to their fore. None dared move, for fear of being the one to set off the inevitable carnage.

              The General of the Legions no longer bore any resemblance to the humans that stood before him; sealed now, from head to toe in his armour, he was, the gleaming silver-plate of before now the dirty black of an old stove, encrusted with vile runes that glowed a dirty, hellish orange. His hammer enlarged along with the rest of him, fused now onto the end of his right arm, no separate hand discernible from the handle of his weapon. From a visor-slit in his helmet, twenty feet above the ground, maddened eyes stared out, darting this way and that to the tune of manic laughter, that of the deranged and the damned.

             
A whisper amidst the silence; Alann, turning to the wise Wrynn for advice.

             
“How do we take him?”

             
The shaman narrowed his eyes, reaching out with his mind as he took in the scene; the General’s armour was covered in the same anti-spirit runes that bedecked the shields of the Centaurs. Magic would be useless against him. And a simple look at the inches-thick plate told one that arrows would splatter like raindrops against it.

             
“I’m… unsure,” he admitted.

             
A great bellowing roar of mindless hatred from the General that shook the very platform they were on and, like great iron pistons, his legs propelled him forwards to meet the assembled host.

             
Alann whipped up his axe as the men scattered.

             
“Well, think fast!”

             
With the hideous inevitability of a trebuchet, the hammer swung overhead in a slow, unstoppable arc, smashing into the flagstones where men had been only moments before. The scattered warriors returned fire, arrows and magical bolts leaping out in futile response, to patter harmlessly from his armoured sides.

             
The Centaurs stayed put, content to watch their gibbering master at work.

             
Rolling away from yet another cataclysmic hammer blow, Alann sprinted towards the General, ducking under a wild swing from a monstrous left hand and lashing out with his axe; a trail of sparks as metal squealed off metal, and Bavard roared out as though in pain, the runes in his side flaring up in angry protest at the touch. The armoured warrior span, trying to reach for the Woodsman, but the lean, fast hunter was within his guard, keeping out of sight of the lumbering behemoth as he worked his way round, his plain axe leaving scores across armoured flanks as he lashed it two and fro with double-handed swings.

             
At last, the swollen giant grew tired of the play, spinning around the other way without warning. Alann froze as his cover disappeared in an instant, unprepared for the iron-clad foot that span towards him. A sickening crunch, the boot hitting him in the chest and sending him flying, tumbling over the flagstones, to land, broken and twisted in a spreading pool of his own blood.

He tried to rise, but couldn’t; his splintered ribs roared at him like a furnace within his chest. The world went quiet, muted, muffled as though underwater. Figures swam blurrily into view,
concerned, even as the bright flash and roars of the battle continued in the background. The red-haired girl, her petite frame in view now; she went to place her hands on his chest, but was pushed aside by the looming figure of Wrynn, that grey-haired shaman that had led them thus far. An argument, it seemed, between the two, before the girl gave in, making off to rejoin the battle. Wrynn crouched down beside him, his eyes full of concern, even as the vision left Alann’s eyes and the world faded to blackness.

“Rest now, Woodsman.”

***

As his men unleashed their futile missiles at the roaring beast, Iain stood, shaking with the conflict of emotions that raged within.

              For mere minutes they had had their leader back. Now, there he lay, broken and twisted at the hands of this creature; whether he lived or died now in the hands of the greying shaman that crouched over his prone form. Anger flared up, bitter resentment at the ill fortune, but then his eyes caught a glint of silver on the flagstones, its shining surface reflecting the myriad flashes and sparks of the magical fusillade.

             
The Woodsman’s Axe.

             
The youth made his way over, reaching down with a trembling hand to grasp the weapon by its wooden haft, raising it into the air. He stood, for a moment, confused, as he regarded the weapon. What had he been expecting? A surge of divine power? A brief glimpse into the heroic soul of his commander? Nothing so romantic was forthcoming; the weapon he held, merely an axe. Yet hadn’t he seen it scoring lines across the armoured beast’s flank? The very runes wrought across those metal plates had howled in pain at the touch of this blade.

             
No. There was something magical about this weapon.

             
He turned, lip curling into a snarl as he regarded the behemoth that roared and span in the midst of the battle, before unleashing a roar of his own, charging across the flagstones and into the fray. Both hands gripped the axe with white-knuckled fury as he drew closer to his foe and as he swung, he put every ounce of his being into the blow; every frustrated day of not knowing whether their commander was alive or dead; every fallen comrade since this war had begun; his rage, against the Hunt, against the bloated, vile Kurnos; the bitter memories of his brothers carted off into the distance as he lay, trapped beneath the burning remnants of their home.

             
All of this he put into the blow; a swing to end all swings; retribution on the edge of a silver-blade, poised to split this foe asunder and turn the tide of battle, once and for all.

             
A dull clang of metal on metal, the shockwave reverberating up his arm and jarring his shoulder as the axe-head bounced away from the unmarked iron. He stood still, numbed, shocked at the futility. There was no magic. The axe was, truly, just an axe. Though it may as well have been a sausage for all the damage he had done. There would be no retribution today.

Or, indeed, ever.

              The youth gazed up with empty eyes as the monster turned, chuckling, looming high above him like a house. It looked down on him with crazy eyes, ignoring the magic and the missiles that sparked harmlessly from its pauldrons, raising an armour-plated finger that it wagged in admonition, before hefting that huge, unstoppable hammer high, high above his head and bringing it crashing down.

             
Iain opened his eyes, the air rippling above him like water on a lake as the metal-clad titan roared in frustration. Bavard hoisted his hammer again, bringing it down in another thundercrack blow, again the stone head rebounding off the coruscating dome of air above, as the very ground about him split and cracked. The Forester turned, the red-haired young woman beside him, hands raised high and green eyes blazing with power as she strove to maintain the barrier about them. Sweat beaded her forehead at the effort. A thin rivulet of blood dripped freely from one slim nostril.

             
“Why bother…?” the Forester asked her, looking down at the axe in his hands. “There is no magic that can save us…”

             
A voice from behind, calm, confident, carrying with it the hope of an entire people.

             
“That’s because you’re looking in the wrong place, my young friend.”

             
A muscled forearm, a powerful hand grasping the haft of the axe and Iain looked up, tears stinging his eyes as Alann strode past, whole and well. He turned to the youth, pale blue eyes twinkling beneath his hair, so fair like straw.

             
“The magic’s in here.” He patted the youth’s chest with the flat of the blade. “Not bound in steel or carved into runes. As long as you hold true to the memories of the past, taking from them hope and joy, not anger and bitterness, then nothing can stop you.” He smiled. “Stone taught me that.” He turned to the shaman beside him, placing a calloused, workman’s hand on her shoulder. “Relax, girl. We do not die this day.”

             
She looked at him for an instant, as though he were stupid, but something struck her about his expression that softened her cynicism. With a deep breath she stood up straight, lowering her hands, the rippling dome that surrounded them fading into the air. The General cocked his head, puzzled as he looked down on the puny mortals before it.

             
“Given up?” His once strong and youthful voice now a twisted, metallic mockery of its former self.

             
The Woodsman smiled up at the monster, even as the two figures at his side paled and looked at each other.

             
“Try us…”

             
Bavard roared, hammer raised high to squash these insolent bugs, but then a golden-light, a booming of man-made thunder, and the armour-plated leviathan stumbled away from the trio, falling to his knees.

             
Iain and Gwenna stared over in shock and joy to where the stairs met the platform. There, amidst the smouldering and lifeless piles of iron that once stood guard, a figure stood, braced and bloodied, wreathed in the smoke of his victims as his weapon recharged with a rising whine.

             
Marlyn smirked behind streaks of blood and dirt that rendered fierce his youthful face.

             
“Never bring a hammer to a cannon-fight…”

             
The General rose with a bellicose roar, spinning about and hefting his weapon as he prepared to charge this newcomer, but out of the smoke came a war cry; Arbistrath charged, his arm smoking from burns but his sabre raised high, the rest of the Tulador Guard sprinting behind him, golden bursts of light erupting from their cannons to smash the beast in the chest, in the shoulders, in the face. Bavard flailed in pain beneath the onslaught; his runic protection kept him safe from magic, but this was something different. No sorceries assailed him from these new and strange weapons.

             
This was science; Marlyn’s genius but advanced a thousand years.

             
Alann walked out calmly into the storm of light, standing before the iron-titan that contorted in agony and wailed in metallic rage.

             
“Listen to me,” he called out as the beast sank to one knee, “and take this message to your masters. We may have shamans. We may have cannons. We may even have an angel on our side. But these are not what you should worry about.” He smiled as the maddened eyes glared out at him from slits now red with heat. “You face the hope of free men, men you have wronged, time and again. And there is nothing, no infernal army, no gibbering demon that can ever take that hope away. So go back to your hell, Councilman. And tell your masters this; whenever they come, we will be ready…”

             
The beast moved towards him, slowly, grindingly, its joints seizing solid beneath the withering heat as he reached out to grasp this puny mortal that stood so bravely before him. Finally, the General stopped, still, motionless; a grey statue, a testament to what could happen to good men should they fall into bad company.

             
Silence now, the platform still, no noise save the incessant howling of the wind and the patter of raindrops on the stone floor. Alann regarded the swollen figure before him, before swinging his axe into its helmeted head. The General exploded into a thousand fragments which fell to the floor, smoking and smouldering, before flaring up with a dark orange burst of flame and disappearing, leaving only the smell of sulphur and the acrid tang of smoke.

             
Figures gathered about the Woodsman, gazing down at the scorched outline that used to hold the General. Marlyn, Hofsted, Arbistrath, Iain, Pol. The other three that comprised the Woodsman’s Four; Narlen, Elerik, Naresh.

Gwenna too, her flaming hair whipped up by the wind as she looked up at the Woodsman before her, eyes glancing over every now and then to the weary form of Marlyn, who stood, eyes half-closed in exhaustion. Then a flash of sudden concern as she noted an absence amongst the sea of faces.

              “Wrynn…”

***

Time had no meaning here. Events blurred into one, with no discernible order. But one thing remained a constant.

             
Pain.

             
Pain such as he had thought left behind now, in his transfiguration. But his power was limited here, wherever here may be. And the teeth that pierced his muscled torso were testament to that fact, his lifeblood dripping down and out of the mouth, trailing over the lizard lips to be whipped away in the rush of air.

             
Where was the beast taking him? They had left that pocket dimension, that waiting room of evil, soaring high and above the armada of hell. A strange feeling, almost like the changing of radio stations; different states of being interspersed with meaningless static. This vast creature, this predator, this – he loathed to use the word;
dragon
– was taking him from dimension to dimension as it flew.

Here, a universe of colour, where the world was spread out in a blurred wash of watercolour pastels, no boundaries or sharp edges to define form from form.

There, a dimension of sound, where everything existed only as patterns of notes; he, a descending call of trumpets, to indicate his fading strength; the beast that carried him, a throbbing, strumming chorus of bass.

Further and faster the dragon flew, transcending space and time with all the aplomb of a fish through the waves, to find a dimension where even Stone’s unkillable form might somehow be destroyed.

“No…”

His power drained, Stone could do nought but grit his teeth in pain and look about in futile frustration. The dragon’s maw was like a cave, a prison even, its fangs bars, the rushing of the multiverse a streaking blur of unnameable colour behind its bite. He looked about for any sign of
weakness, a hint of vulnerability to exploit, but there was none; the beast was seemingly hewn from dark grey stone. Even so, he thought, the gums had to be weaker than the teeth that trapped him. If only he had a weapon.