She wanted Gesler and Stormy to die. She wanted it with all her heart. There was no reason for it. They’d done nothing wrong. In fact, they were about to do precisely what they were meant to do. And they would not shrink from their destiny. They are not to blame for my hate and my fear.
But I want a world without soldiers. I want to see them all kill each other. I want to see kings and generals standing alone-not a single soul within reach of their grasping claws. No weapon to back their will, no blade to sing their threats. I want to see them revealed for the weak, miserable creatures they truly are.
What can bring this about? How do I make such a world?
Spirits bless my ancestors, I wish I knew.
She’d lost her Mahybe, her clay vessel awaiting her soul. For her, death was a nightmare she knew was coming. She had no reason to dream of any future. In this, was she not like those caravan guards? Was she not the same as Gesler and Stormy? What did they see in her eyes?
I am Destriant. And yet I dream of betrayal. When she looked upon the Ve’Gath, the echoes of their agony of birth returned to her, the terrors of the Womb. They did not deserve what was coming, and yet they longed for it. Could she steal them away from this day of dying, she would. She’d lead them, instead, against her own kind. A holy war against the soldiers of the world and their masters.
Leaving only herders and farmers and fisherfolk. Artists and tanners and potters. Story-tellers and poets and musicians. A world for them and them alone. A world of peace.
The Nah’ruk Furies seemed to devour the broken plain as they advanced. The east was bright with the sun’s birth, but the sky above the enemy legions was a vast stain, a bruise, a maw from which wind howled.
Stormy drew his sword. He could see the front ranks of the foe preparing clubs-weapons of sorcery: the visions or stolen memories flashed scenes of devastating magic through his mind. Ready your shields, and pray the iron holds.
He glared over a shoulder to Ampelas Uprooted. A veil of white smoke enwreathed the sky keep. Clouds? Scowling, Stormy turned his attention to his Ve’Gath. They were arrayed upon the ridge as if painted from his own mind-they knew his thoughts now that he’d knocked down his mental walls. They knew what he wanted, what he needed. And they will never break. Never flee-unless panic takes me, and Hood knows, for all the shit I been through, it ain’t happened yet. And it won’t today neither.
‘So, we stand, lizards. We stand.’
A sudden rustling through the ranks as heads lifted.
Stormy swung round.
From the gaping hole in the morning sky shapes were emerging. Towering, black, pushing out from the maelstrom foaming out from the warren.
Sky keeps. None as huge as the one behind him, massing perhaps two-thirds, and none were carved beyond angled plains of black stone. And yet…
Three… five… eight-
‘Beru fend!’
Ampelas Uprooted ignited like a star behind him.
The deafening, blinding salvo of sorcery ripped across the sky. Enormous chunks of gouged, burning stone erupted from the nearest three Nah’ruk sky keeps. Streaming churning smoke and rubble, shattered fragments the size of tenement blocks plunged earthward, slamming into the ground in the midst of the rearmost ranks of the Nah’ruk.
Ears numbed by the concussion, Gesler rose high on his stirrups-Ampelas Uprooted had drawn closer, looming almost directly overhead. ‘Hood’s breath! Ke’ll Hunters-flee the shadow! Get out from under it! East and west-run!’
He charged forward on his Ve’Gath. Stormy! Fuck the stand-charge ’em! You hear? Charge and close!
He’d heard the stories of the Siege of Pale. Moon’s Spawn’s rain of wreckage into the city had broken the backs of the defenders. This deadly rain of rubble could shatter his entire army.
More Nah’ruk sky keeps emerged from the wound.
Lightning crackled, arced savagely out from a half-dozen sky keeps, converging on Ampelas Uprooted.
The detonations thundered. And the rain of slaughter began.
The huge wagons and their scrambling drones vanished beneath an avalanche that lifted nearby K’ell Hunters into the air, tails lashing for balance as they flailed about. Dust rolled out thick as a tidal wave to swallow the spreading horror as massive chunks of stone descended from the battered Uprooted.
Through the torrential, billowing smoke and rubble, Ampelas lashed back.
The saw-tooth line of Ve’Gath lifted as if heaved forward by the ridge itself, and all at once the huge warriors were pouring down the slope, straight for the lines of Nah’ruk.
Sorcery arced out from the wired clubs, crashed into a shield-locked wall of iron. The Ve’Gath staggered, but not one fell.
There was no time for a second salvo.
The Ve’Gath toothed line hammered into the Nah’ruk. The impact of the charge flattened two, then three ranks of the Short-Tails. Weapons lashed down as the Ve’Gath trampled the fallen enemy, closing with the deeper lines still reeling from the impact.
Stormy was at the very heart of the attack. He’d swung his sword twice, and both times his blade had bitten deep into armour-but his targets were in the act of dying anyway, for they had come within reach of his mount. He couldn’t close with anything worth hacking apart. He roared in frustration.
The Nah’ruk warriors were outmatched. They bore no shields. The Ve’Gath simply chewed through them.
Lightning ripped down from the sky, ploughed a bloody, burning swath through the rearmost Ve’Gath ranks, slaying hundreds in an instant.
Stormy snarled, battered by those sudden, terrible deaths. Break formation! Close with the enemy!
Another lash of sorcery scythed down hundreds more.
Close!
Ampelas Rooted burned from a dozen gaping fissures. Massive pieces had shorn clear, revealing exposed innards from which poured black smoke. The sky keep shuddered as attack after attack pounded into it. The edifice’s forward progress had halted, and now it was being buffeted backward. Still it spat its own fury, and Gesler could see one of the Nah’ruk keeps leaning far to one side, billowing flames and smoke, and from this one no lightning winged out.
But there were too many of the damned things. Three had drifted out to the east, and were now angling to draw up behind Ampelas Rooted-where the thick iron plates armouring that side of its flank had been removed to fashion shields for the Ve’Gath. In moments, they would strike a soft target.
And that’ll kill her. Like a knife to the back.
When she’s finished, those keeps will turn on us here below. If they can.
But I won’t let them.
‘K’ell Hunters! Flanking charge from both sides. Cut in behind the contact-hollow out those engaged legions! Don’t piss around, damn you all! Charge!’
The three Nah’ruk sky keeps loosed raging arcs of lightning. Kalyth stared in horror as the lower half of Ampelas Rooted seemed to bulge, limed in red glow. The concussion of the detonation threw Sag’Churok and Gunth Mach down. Kalyth tumbled clear of the thrashing beasts, rocks lacerating her shoulder and face. She rolled on to her back. The sky was burning, and flaming stones rained down.
She cried out, covering her eyes.
At the rush of hot wind, Stormy twisted round. The lower third of Ampelas Rooted was simply gone, and what remained was spilling its guts, everything burning as the wreckage plunged earthward. The impact was driving the keep on to its side-or back-exposing the destroyed maw of its base.