Spellbreaker

by Dan Morley

in Issue 76, May 2018

He curled into a ball, his arms wrapped tightly around himself while he shivered on the ground, his flesh sloughing off in green and purple trails. Asmarean magic. Spectres tormented his mind while throbbing pain wracked his body. It felt wrong, diseased, foul, like he was being cooked alive while his limbs froze.
 
It was the price of victory.
 
He dragged himself to the edge of the dais, for the backlash would worsen while he remained in the circle, and cast himself down the steps. He cracked his head. Blood streaked the pale stonework, smearing the runes chalked upon it.
 
Your name is Ivar Felstone, he reminded himself. The Raven hired you. Ivar Felstone.
 
The mantra helped ground him. Backlash scoured the mind and disorientated. After one of Ivar’s men had survived a battle only to fall senselessly to his death in a stupor, Ivar made a point of developing the technique. A simple mantra but it worked.
 
Footsteps sounded over his thumping head, followed by the chink of coin. Ivar opened his gummy eyes to see a leather purse. His will drained at how slack it was.
 
‘Half,’ someone said. ‘I got you half. It’s the best I could do.’
 
Ivar convulsed in a coughing fit. Blood flecked the stone before him. It was dusk, he thought, or perhaps dawn. Scattered coals from a toppled brazier still glowed in a heap, though their heat did little against the cold gnawing his bones.
 
‘Killian?’ he croaked, searching for his blade. ‘They got to you then.’
 
Sharp metal nicked his questing fingers. It jolted his memory. The ambush, the battle; it had worked. Tilting his head, he spotted the sorcerers lying prone on the dais, two dead by his knives and another three by crossbow bolts. Two of his allies also lay dead, Agi and Filias. The backlash hit them worst of all. Ivar was glad he couldn’t see more than their vague outlines in the detritus of the ritual circle.
 
‘Why?’ Ivar asked.
 
‘Averine Hill,’ Killian said. ‘You should understand better than anyone.’
 
Ivar slumped as Killian’s footsteps receded. His vision fogged. Alone and battered, he gave in to pain and exhaustion.
 
 
 
Ivar recognised the bloodstains on the ceiling, even by dim candlelight. They comforted him. He shifted on the bed, sending shockwaves through his nerves. But at least he was warm.
 
‘Three days and eleven hours, before you ask.’ Krogh leaned over the bed, his aging face passive considering the horrific damage to Ivar’s flesh. Tattoos peeked through the dried blood smeared over the physician’s forearms. ‘You’re extremely lucky.’
 
‘You always say that. I doubt you know what it means,’ Ivar grunted.
 
‘Next time kill the sorcerers sooner and you won’t have to suffer the backlash. I assume you don’t remember much?’
 
Ivar shook his head and pain lanced from his neck to his feet. His gaze flicked back to the stairs. ‘Fragments. Why am I in the basement?’
 
‘Because you’re not worth my life. I need you gone tonight.’ Krogh busied himself with dressings and cooling unguent that tingled Ivar’s skin.
 
Ivar frowned. ‘Krogh?’
 
‘Tonight, Ivar. Your things are on the dresser.’
 
The physician had always been detached but had never been so eager to be rid of him before. Ivar glanced to the stacked boxes that served as a dresser.
 
‘There was a purse. Dark leather.’
 
‘That’s all you arrived with.’ Krogh sounded impatient. ‘I take it you can’t pay.’
 
Ivar cast around, scattering his clothes from the dresser. His belt landed with a metallic thud. His memory was so sketchy, he recalled nothing of the journey here.
 
‘Take my sword as payment.’
 
Krogh met his gaze. ‘I save life, mercenary, and that sword of yours is worthless.’ He paused, his expression softening. ‘Why not just join them, Ivar? They’re not going to stop, and if it prevents another Averine Hill, that can only be a good thing.’
 
The guild. Mention of it turned Ivar’s mood sour. Naturally Krogh knew about it, he was the go-to physician in this town for downed mercs who disliked questions, and he’d been patching up Ivar’s band for years. Still, it surprised him just how much the physician knew about mercenary politics.
 
‘Not going to happen.’
 
‘A merc with principles; you’re a wonder, Ivar.’ Krogh shook his head. ‘You probably won’t die but you’ll want to for a few days. If you return, discretely, and with coin, I’ll give you a tincture to ease it. Use the back door. Nobody sees you leave.’
 
The physician departed, taking the only candle with him. He left a sliver of light from the crack in the door at the top of the basement stairs. A reminder to leave.
 
For a successful job, Ivar reflected, he’d come out better. Feeling like death, he eased his legs over the side of the bed. They hurt and felt like they were encased in lead, but they held his weight. His shirt crackled as he ducked into it, dried blood and grime flaking off. Evidently Krogh no longer provided a laundry service.
 
Ivar’s heart skipped when he scooped up his belt. His sword was ruined, his knives missing. No crossbow. Even his hidden blades were missing from their pockets. Whoever looted him was thorough.
 
Whoever looted him knew exactly where to look.
 
They also left him a note. Crumpled within the folds of his trousers, it fell out as he tightened his belt. It read: You can’t fight the future.
 
Cautiously, wincing at each step, Ivar crept from the basement and into the yard. The light staggered him. He shielded his stinging eyes against the crimson sun, low on the horizon, and stumbled his way into the alley. By the time he’d navigated the twisting streets to his nearest hideaway, the sun had long set. Exhausted and with a barren stomach, all he wanted was to collapse as he fumbled at the complex of sliders and locks. All open.
 
He already knew what to expect. It was empty. No furniture, no food just chipped plaster and an empty hearth. Ivar dropped to the floor, nudging the door closed.
 
Then the nightmares came.
 
The backlash. No longer bound by a sorcerer, the summoned energy of an interrupted spell discharges onto the nearest host. It scrubs the mind while the body absorbs it, and almost always results in death.
 
Ivar thrashed as he relived memories scoured by backlash. He watched his team creep around the chamber, the ritual already underway. A cloaked sorcerer with an avian bone-mask mutilated a body on an altar. Someone familiar, yet Ivar couldn’t place who. Other sorcerers spoke guttural words and etched sigils in both the stonework of the dais and their own flesh. Ivar felt the energy building up, crawling under his skin, spreading an aura of foulness.
 
He recalled his disgust at his quarry, but, more intensely, his frustration that he had to fight them at all while unknown foes beset the empire. A shattered empire, thrown into disarray by natural disasters, unforseen skirmishes and usurpers seizing power in the chaos.
 
His shared glances with Agi and Filias flashed before his eyes before they ambushed the sorcerers. They all knew the consequences of interrupting the spell. Another band of mercs might have abandoned at that point, but never Ivar’s. They picked their jobs. They saw them done.
 
Ivar’s thrashing stilled when he saw Killian deviate from their plan, stepping back from the dais while the others sprang upon the sorcerers with knives and swords.
 
The sorcerers should have died in seconds but Killian’s target remained free. The masked man unleashed a torrent of the fizzing, dark energy that whirled around him, blasting the spellbreaker from Ivar’s grasp.
 
Ivar downed the sorcerer with his hand crossbow just as the spell collapsed. The spellbreaker offered no protection while lying on the floor. His allies’ horrific deaths burned into his memory; the bloody explosion of Agi, and the rapid decay of Filias’ body.
 
He relived the scenes repeatedly, each time waking and retching as he remembered the purse hitting the floor and Killian leaving for the guild.
 
Finally the dreams ended and his fever dropped. He lay in the cold, empty room, covered in vomit, saliva and dried blood. He felt cored. He shook and could barely stand, feeble from hunger and exertion, but he’d survived. And it stoked a burning rage at the guild, at the betrayal and self-interest, and at the hell they’d put him through.
It didn’t take long to confirm the cupboards bare and even the privy gone. There was something though; ash near the filth he’d left on the floor, discoloured stuff from flavoured tobacco. It took a trained eye to see it but someone had been watching him. He doubted Krogh had checked on him.
 
Pattering rain against the window shutters made him smile. He swung them open and leaned out into a blustery dawn. Not caring who saw–he knew he’d been watched and a sickly child could have performed a coup de grace on him so they wanted him alive–he let rain shower his head and shoulders, reveling in the sensation while cupping his hands to catch and drink it.
 
He scooped water from the gutter to wash himself before heading down to the street. First he needed food, then to resupply. A mercenary without weapons didn’t get much work. He’d still need a couple of days to recover; backlash sickness may drag you through hell but at least it’s quick.
 
Even the dregs and villains of this side of town avoided Ivar like a leper as he headed for another bolt hole, a disused storage chamber in what used to be an industrial district, but someone had beaten him to it. Empty again. So were his next three bolt holes. Worse, the morning traders he’d known for years refused to speak to him.
 
In desperation, he distracted a hawker and snatched some pastries from his stall. By the time the man had noticed, Ivar was two streets away. They tasted of guilt and shame but they kept him alive.
 
Fed and watered, Ivar made for the Runoff, a cluster of tin shacks where a man might buy anything and where some people owed him their lives. Situated downwind of a tannery, the stench kept most people away. As he approached, a group of men with hard, greasy faces and dirty clothes eyed him. They were a rabble of broken noses, scars and cauliflower ears. One approached, leaving the others sat on upturned crates around a fire. Hard faced with dark, sunken eyes, it was a black market trader Ivar had dealt with on occasion.
 
Before Ivar reached the shacks, the man grabbed his arm and shepherded him away, ducking out of sight. ‘You can’t be here, merc,’ he hissed, his breath thick with moonshine.
 
Ivar raised an eyebrow at the man’s hand on his shirt and stared until he removed it. ‘I need weapons–’
 
‘No.’ He glanced around again, ducking further into the shadows. He nodded to a makeshift gallows where two men hanged from their necks. ‘Guild’s made it clear that anyone dealing with mercs on their list is in for consequences.’
 
Ivar had spent his life in death’s shadow, saw all its forms, yet only the senseless and the tortured disturbed him. Like most in the Runoff, these probably deserved it, but displaying them as a message angered him. ‘You’re talking to me just fine.’
 
The man gave him a dark look. ‘I got the short straw–we figured you wouldn’t let it be without explanation. This way only one of us loses our good looks. My advice: either join them or leave. But you’re not going to do either, are you?’
 
‘I’ll take that list,’ Ivar said. He maintained composure despite the icy rage building in him.
 
The trader’s protest didn’t even reach his lips by the time Ivar had his arm twisted behind his back and cheek shoved against the wall. The watching men scattered.
 
‘I ain’t got a list,’ the man blurted. As Ivar increased the pressure on his arm, he cried out. ‘But I got some names! Oris Gunsilk, Evelina Djinn, the Snake and the Spider… Forrester Vinstock and you. And anyone talking to them.’
 
Ivar released him and stormed away towards quieter streets to gather his thoughts before he broke someone. He’d vowed never to be bullied again. That alone gave rise to panic and anger in him, and a spike of fear.
 
People crossed the street or ducked into the nearest doorway in the face of Ivar’s glower. Behind him, though, someone kept pace. Ivar didn’t look back, instead watching through the reflections of windows. It was a man, tall and lithe wearing a long coat and sturdy boots. Too affluent for this district. Ivar worked his fingers and loosened his shoulders as he strode. He may have been unarmed but he was never without a weapon.
 
He cut a few sudden turns through alleys and doubled back on himself, ending up in the busier Wright Street. He ducked into a market and emerged through a beaded curtain into a passageway which led to a small, open square. He’d hoped to find an ally. Instead, he gaped at a burnt-out building. Smoke wisped from it in the drizzle.
 
They’d got to Evelina too, and recently.
 
Anyone on the merchant’s list could have been an ally, though he’d rather avoid the Snake and the Spider. He and Forrester had clashed more than once, and he’d only had frosty relations with Orin Gunsilk whenever their bands had been hired together. Evelina had been his best bet.
 
Or a trap.
 
The beaded curtain clattered behind him and he dashed behind some barrels near the ruin. Using the scuff of boots as a guide, he ghosted around the remaining buildings to emerge behind his pursuer. The man was alone but a sword with an elaborate, silver hilt guard showed at his waist. He’d never draw it.
 
Ivar sprang from hiding and wrapped his arm around the man’s neck, trapping the airway. The man tensed and tugged at Ivar’s arm.
 
‘If you’re another recruiter, I’ve already told your guild master I’m not joining. If you’re here to finish the job, you’ll need backup.’
 
Something clicked above him. Rack and pinion.
 
Ivar held his grip. ‘Crossbow on the roof? That bolt will go through me straight into you so I suggest you tell your man to stand down.’
 
Flicking his gaze to the roof, Ivar’s heart sank. A man smiled at him, crossbow resting against his shoulder. The Snake. Which meant the Spider wasn’t far away.
 
Cold steel against the back of his neck told him where.
 
‘All right.’ Ivar let the man go. The blade left his neck but the Spider could kill him just as quickly from three feet away. ‘What do you want?’
 
Working the feeling back into his jaw, the man turned to face him. His beard was trimmed square and his moustache curled upwards at the ends, dark, flecked with grey, and he cut a stern expression. A raven was embroidered on his coat, black on dark grey. ‘To offer you a job.’
 
At the man’s request, the four made for a private room in a tea house, somewhere too clean for Ivar’s liking. A bit of dirt or clutter told a story, something about who lived there. Scrubbed cleanliness was a facade. Walking with the Snake and the Spider at his back set Ivar’s nerves on edge. As his name suggested, the Snake was fast. Ivar thought they might reach an impasse were they to fight. If Ivar wasn’t unarmed, he reflected. The Spider, though. She won a fight before it started.
 
He knew they weren’t with the guild, at least, but they were never reliable allies. In all his years as a merc he’d never been able to discern their motives, often playing unexpected angles in a protracted conflict. Bodyguarding seemed far removed from their usual roles as assassins.
 
‘I am Overseer Vankrieg,’ the man said, tapping cinnamon tobacco into his pipe. ‘You’re acquainted with my associates.’ It wasn’t a question and Vankrieg didn’t wait for a response. He was well-spoken, lacking the deep, western empire accent. ‘I have a job I think you’ll like.’
 
‘Let me guess: the guild.’ At Vankrieg’s raised eyebrow, Ivar continued. ‘You’ve been watching me since I got backlash sickness. You know the guild’s sacked my bolt holes and blacklisted me with every merchant in town. Well, you can forget it if you think I’m killing for vengeance.’ He made to leave.
 
Snake flinched but a look from Vankrieg settled him. A blade tip glinted from the end of his sleeve.
‘I know,’ Vankrieg said, palms raised in a calming gesture. ‘Hear me out. If you’re not interested, well, I’m sure a trade blacklist is a minor inconvenience to a man of your resourcefulness.’
 
Ivar retook his seat, watching the assassins in his periphery. ‘What’s your problem with the mercs’ guild?’
 
‘Averine Hill.’
 
Ivar scowled at the overseer, the scars of that day still angry: most of his mercenary company dead, half a dozen other bands too. The survivors either retired, fled or joined the guild, and who could blame them?
 
In the wake of storms and earthquakes that had battered the empire, a force of inhuman aberrations had overrun Caster’s Ley. An alliance of mercenary companies held the Averine Hill while Duke Varstingol shepherded their enemy into the Augustine Plaza, the killing ground. At a signal from the duke, the mercenary companies attacked from the hill. All but one.
 
By the time anyone noticed, arrows rained down on them. Six mercenary companies obliterated in a single action. What the arrows didn’t kill or maim, the aberrations butchered. Less than a tenth survived. Ivar got lucky. When he turned to the commotion, two arrows thudded into his spellbreaker, arrows that would otherwise have pierced his back.
 
‘Have you seen a map of the empire recently?’ Vankrieg asked. ‘No? That’s because nobody knows what it looks like now. Natural disasters, enemies sacking the borders, enemies within the borders; we’re in disarray and a private army the size of that guild makes me nervous. You’ve already seen how its influence has spread. Whatever you know, it’s worse.’ He paused. ‘What if I told you that one of the guild masters paid the archers to change sides?’
 
‘I’d say you were a liar,’ Ivar said. ‘The guild killed them to a man. With their influx of recruits scared of other companies going turncoat they weren’t short of volunteers for the job.’
 
‘They didn’t kill everyone,’ Snake said. He pushed against the back wall and a door clicked open. A dishevelled man collapsed to the floor from within what was barely a closet. ‘Meet Justinian Zachariah, former commander of those archers.’
 
‘How many times are you going to make me do this?’ Justinian croaked. He was covered in bruises, dried blood and infected cuts. From the ground, he made a mock bow to Ivar and held his gaze with the haunted expression of a man beyond redemption. ‘My apologies will mean as little to you as they did the rest so I shan’t bother. Ten thousand weight of coin. Up front. That’s what he gave me, along with assurance of safe passage out of the empire.’
 
‘Who?’ Ivar growled, balling his fists. He hated the man. He was everything that was wrong with the merc business.
 
‘Varstingol. Saviour of Caster’s Ley.’ He coughed up flecks of blood. ‘It surprised us that he personally turned up to the battle knowing we were turning.’
 
‘That makes no sense,’ Ivar said, his glare never leaving the man. ‘Why risk losing the engagement? Why attack allies?’
 
‘Bastard had a second force behind the hill. They smashed through my company and helped finish of those things that attacked Caster’s Ley.’
 
The commander looked to Vankrieg who preempted the next question.
 
‘Guild rules ensure no company can turn on another–those mercs betrayed at Averine Hill were the least likely to join the guild so they were motivation for the others.’ He raised his finger against Ivar’s response. ‘Faro might be the face of the guild but there are powers behind it. The duke is one. You are to kill them both. We’ve already infiltrated the guild; meet with our associates outside the cathedral at dusk in two days.’
 
The overseer’s rhetoric was all the chance Ivar needed. Springing to his feet, he snatched the sword from the man’s waist and, in a single arc, opened Justinian’s throat and levelled the blade at Vankrieg’s neck. Knives were in Snake’s hands but Spider hadn’t moved, as though she expected it. That’s what made her so dangerous. She faded into the background, you forgot about her, and then she killed you. Ivar warmed at finishing his stroke before Snake had drawn. It made up for getting caught in the square.
 
‘That’s better than he deserved,’ Ivar said, his focus on Vankrieg, ‘but no man deserves what you were doing to him.’
 
‘Would you have believed me otherwise?’ Vankrieg asked, the colour drained from his face.
 
Ivar relaxed his grip on the sword. He wasn’t sure he believed the overseer now. Who knew what lies a traitor like Justinian might speak when subjected to torture?
 
‘I’m offering you weapons, supplies and allies.’ The overseer sniffed and wrinkled his nose. ‘And a bath and change of clothes.’
 
Along with the target of the guild, it was everything Ivar wanted to hear and that made him suspicious.
 
‘And no coin,’ Ivar noted. ‘What makes you think I’ll accept?’
 
‘Because you know what we’re fighting on the fringes. You survived Averine Hill. I’ve not watched you for days, Ivar, I’ve watched you for years. I’ve hired you a dozen times though you wouldn’t know it. You’re a different breed of merc.’
 
Ivar kept his face passive. ‘Who’s Faro? Never heard of him.’
 
‘You won’t have.’ Vankrieg nodded to Snake who placed a spellbreaker on the table. Ivar’s spellbreaker. ‘But you’ll need that. I am an overseer, Ivar, one of the few holding the empire together. Our problems are getting worse: the storms, the earthquakes and the floods, skirmishes, people wandering into the wilderness. Portents, all of them, and within all this, we have the greedy carving their own little empires. Well, not here.’
 
‘And afterwards? Sure you’re not carving your own little empire?’
 
Vankrieg shrugged. ‘Afterwards, you’re free to pick your jobs like you always have. Keep the sword; you can use it better than I.’
 
 
 
‘Come out of the shadows, Evelina,’ Ivar said. ‘I’ve been followed enough today.’
 
In the smoldering ruin of Evelina’s house, he sat honing the blades that Vankrieg had provided him. The overseer had been true to his word, providing clothing, weapons, food, plans of the cathedral, even numbers and timings of guard patrols, including their names. Ivar had shared drinks with most. It would break his heart to kill them, most of whom clung to the guild to protect them from other mercs. The irony was not lost on him.
 
He gestured to the rations stacked beside him. Evelina looked half-starved and gaunt of face. On principle, she wouldn’t have stolen to eat like Ivar had, not that she had the talent for it. She was no assassin–nor was Ivar when it came to it but he turned his blade however the work required–but he couldn’t want a fiercer shield maiden.
 
He’d hoped she would come. From the guild’s blacklist, she was the only one he trusted. She was also ravenous and attacked his stores with abandon.
 
‘Ever heard of Faro?’ Ivar asked.
 
‘Never.’ Her eyes brightened at the array of blades and bludgeons in one of Vankrieg’s cases. She rifled through and settled upon a polearm with a wide, curved blade. ‘You going after the guild?’
 
Ivar nodded. ‘You in?’
 
Evelina turned the weapon in a series of wide arcs, finishing with an overhand strike which rattled the steel blade. ‘I like this!’
 
‘Cover my back and it’s yours.’
 
 
The cathedral was more fortress than place of worship. Silhouettes patrolled crenellated spires, light spilled from murder holes and Ivar’s skin pricked with the sense of magic.
 
‘I like what they’ve done with the place,’ Evelina said. ‘Let’s tear it down.’
 
Focused on the defences, Ivar failed to notice Evelina sauntering into the light, polearm resting on her shoulder, until she approached the arched doorway. Cursing, he ghosted between trees and statues, wary of the torches burning around the cathedral grounds and the moving shapes on the walls.
 
As the two door guards challenged her, Evelina scythed her polearm across both men. It was a heavy weapon, designed to topple cavalry. They dropped instantly. She then slammed the spiked butt of her polearm between the double doors and wrenched them apart in a crack of splinters.
 
‘It’s open,’ she called.
 
Ivar stared in horror. What did the guild do to you, Evelina?
 
Cries of alarm sounded and guards poured into the porch. Evelina’s ferocity had always impressed Ivar, but now it terrified him. She turned her polearm in a flurry, cutting with the blade, tripping and impaling with the spiked end.
 
Six defenders charged from a side door. Ivar waited until the last had passed him then sprang from behind a statue, embedding his knives in the man’s sides. Striking the rest from their backs made for easy killing and he soon reached Evelina. They fought their way inside, Evelina a destructive whirlwind, Ivar plugging the holes in her advance, eschewing his knives for his sword’s longer reach and the defence of his spellbreaker.
 
They broke the first wave of defence as the porch opened into an expansive hall. Ivar had expected heavy resistance considering their target was a guild of mercenaries but the sheer number of defenders gave him pause. Far more than required for a meeting of guild officials.
 
Because it wasn’t just a meeting.
 
Ivar scanned the hall. Statues of the Gargantuans dominated the walls, looming over ranks of benches which housed armoured mercenaries, easily two dozen. Another group, wearing dark tunics, formed a semi-circle around the focal statue, Asmareus, the Veil of Death. Ivar gripped his spellbreaker tighter at the sight of a ritual in progress, and his sword at the sight of Varstingol, the traitor of Averine Hill. Ethereal faces whirled around the sorcerers and spiralled around the statue. The Ghost Wind. At best there would be backlash. Even if he survived this, it was going to hurt.
 
No sign of his allies. No associate of the overseer’s to meet them. Foolish as a frontal assault seemed, he was only supposed to be a distraction. And there weren’t supposed to be this many defenders. With simmering rage, he searched the faces for his betrayer. Where are you, Vankrieg?
 
And there he was. Tied to the altar at the statue’s base, beaten bloody.
 
Behind Ivar, the doors slammed closed. Evelina hauled their heavy bolt into place.
 
‘Should’ve joined us, Ivar,’ she said.
 
Sentries filtered down staircases into the porch and hall, blocking every exit while the lead sorcerer tore Vankrieg’s shirt open and carved a sigil into his flesh. The Ghost Wind rushed through it and the overseer wailed, his flesh blackening around the sigil. As it emerged from his chest, the wind took on the overseer’s tortured face.
 
Asmarean magic. Outlawed on pane of death.
 
‘Clever of you to have the guild form a monopoly,’ Ivar called. Though he had no interest in what the sorcerer had to say, he wanted time to think. ‘I gather you’re Faro.’
 
The sorcerer regarded Ivar, the Ghost Wind swirling around her, face covered by a cowl and a silk mask over her mouth and nose. ‘Kill him.’
 
She returned to the ritual, paying Ivar no further attention. The mercenary defenders formed into units, kicking their benches aside. Ivar sank into a ready stance behind sword and spellbreaker, not fancying his chances but determined to bleed them.
 
Then one of the mercs cried out and fell to his knees. All gazes turned to the man behind him.
 
‘Sorry, Ivar,’ he said. He pulled his hood back. It was Killian, the last of his company to abandon him for the guild. ‘I didn’t realise what they were doing. I don’t ask you to forgive me, but if I could die fighting on your side, that’ll do for me.’
 
 
Before Ivar could respond, a huddle of lifeless mercs tumbled down one of the staircases. Snake stepped over them and flourished his rapier. He nodded to Ivar and eyed the composition of the defenders.
About time. Ivar took heart. One against two dozen was one thing, but alongside Killian and Snake, it was no longer inevitable death. Just likely death.
 
Wielding their only spellbreaker, Ivar marked his priority. He didn’t want to find out what happened if the Ghost Wind ritual succeeded.
 
Snake broke the impasse, followed by Ivar. Mercenaries flanked him, keeping their advance cagey. Most carried shields, an uncharacteristic choice for many who Ivar recognised.
 
He quickly discerned their delaying tactics. They closed Ivar off every time he struck, a few scratched shields the only reward for his manoeuvring. He feinted left before his next attack, and lucky he did, for a polearm blade whooshed past his ear. He responded with a low sweep of his sword which Evelina danced away from. Ivar had to move fast to avoid the weapon but its wide arcs kept the other mercs at distance.
 
‘You’re fighting for this?’ Ivar hissed at the woman.
 
She went for his middle, forcing him to leap back, and get smashed aside by a merc’s shield. ‘We can’t all live by your standards, Ivar. White Knight of Mercenaries,’ she spat and whirled around at him. The strike overbalanced her and she barreled into one of her allies.
 
Ivar felled a displaced defender before the others reformed then resumed a defensive posture. Another merc in the shield wall that faced him dropped to the ground, spitting blood, though Ivar couldn’t see what hit him.
 
‘Pick your contracts,’ Evelina snarled, coming at him again. ‘Fight for the cause you deem right. Some of us never had that luxury!’ she screamed.
 
Dodging the polearm and keeping the mercs at bay seized Ivar’s attention, much as he wanted to shake sense into Evelina. They all had that luxury. Some just chose easier paths. The Ghost Wind took him unawares. It arced over the defenders and Ivar barely raised his spellbreaker in time. Magic whirled into the disc, its reflective surface now showing the tortured face of the tendril of Ghost Wind. He spun away from Evelina’s ever-moving polearm and backhanded her with the spellbreaker, unleashing its captured magic.
 
Evelina convulsed. Her skin turned ashen. As she fell, so did another mercenary facing Ivar, again from an unseen source. Ivar surged through the opening in the shield wall, shouldering one aside and stabbing another. Bashed by shields and nicked by a morning star, he leapt over benches into the ritual circle. Under the Gargantuan statues’ gazes, the Ghost Wind howled, ferocious, chilling his flesh and stinking of decay. Ethereal faces swirled around the statue of Asmareus, blackening Vankrieg as they passed through him, before disappearing into the statue’s cowl.
 
The sorcerers intensified their spellcasting, the wind’s howls rising to banshee wails. They had dead eyes, inky black, all but Faro. She snarled at Ivar. Sweeping her arms, tendrils peeled from the Ghost Wind and shot for him. He caught one in his spellbreaker but another permeated his sword arm. Icy daggers stabbed with its passing, sending Ivar’s sword skittering.
 
‘I don’t know what you think you’ll achieve, merc,’ Faro said, sending another tendril of magic through Ivar’s shoulder, pinning him beside the altar. More followed, slamming against his spellbreaker. ‘You can stop this with swords and stupidity. The portents are clear. The Gargantuans are rising.’
 
Ivar raised his spellbreaker. He strained as the Ghost Wind drove into it, absorbing some, displacing the rest, but buffeting Ivar into the floor. ‘You’re not releasing this here.’
 
Faro shook her head. ‘Asmareus save me from the ignorant. You don’t even know what you’re trying to stop. I’ve no intention of releasing it upon our power base. This is empowerment. When the Veil comes–and coming he is–the Ghost Wind will be his herald, a deathly tempest driven before him, leaving only the Ashen.’
 
Overloaded with magic, the spellbreaker shook, burning Ivar’s hand. He couldn’t even see his allies and the wind drowned out all other sound. On the altar, Vankrieg had turned black and flaking like ash, hanging limp on his bonds.
 
Betrayal, megalomania, manipulation. Even laid bare, only one of the mercs had turned against the sorcerers. It stoked Ivar’s anger. Were the others inherently evil? Did they follow the Asmareans’ ideals? Or were they too scared to resist, too committed for redemption, too proud to change their minds? It was all irrelevant. Complicity made the mercs as bad as the sorcerers. They had choices. He rose to one knee, behind his spellbreaker, driving against the barrage.
 
It wasn’t enough. He was one man against many linked sorcerers and a spellbreaker had its limits. Ivar had his limits. The magic battered him back to the floor under the uncaring gaze of the Asmareus statue. The robed effigy called to him, sought to lay its veil over him.
 
Then Faro screamed.
 
Spider emerged from behind the sorcerer, her face a blood-spattered horror. She didn’t just kill Faro, she butchered her, knives stabbing and slashing with terrifying fury.
 
The Ghost Wind whipped wildly around the hall. Tortured faces gusted out, through the bodies of mercenaries, convulsing their bodies and turning their flesh to ash. The other sorcerers jerked from their casting. Blood dripped from their eyes. Without Faro directing the spell, they took the brunt of the backlash, their shrieks rivalling the wind itself.
 
Someone barreled into Ivar, casting him clear of the altar as the eldritch winds converged on the statue. The spell tossed the man around like a rag doll before swirling into the statue’s cowl.
 
Then silence.
 
The man collapsed. Ivar crawled over to his saviour. Despite his ashen skin, Ivar recognized Killian.
 
‘I owe you this, Ivar,’ he rasped. ‘I never understood. All those high-pay contracts you rejected. The risks you took. Why you didn’t join the guild.’
 
‘Hush, Killian,’ Ivar said. Looking down at his ally, his emotions roiled. Disgust, respect, contempt and guilt. Killian had chased money and security and paid for disloyalty. That he’d saved Ivar only blunted his betrayal. Choices. It could have been avoided.
 
‘No,’ Killian said. ‘You choose your side. The right one.’ He struggled for breath. ‘Wish I’d understood sooner.’
 
Ivar chewed over Killian’s words as he stumbled to his feet. The cathedral was devastated. Statues smashed, benches splintered, the dead and dying everywhere. Snake lay on a pile of mercs, his body defiled by the winds and punctured by blades. There was no sign of Spider. Vankrieg’s body was a ruin, barely even a husk.
 
Ivar scooped up Vankrieg’s old sword. He didn’t know if Faro’s boasts were accurate but they matched the legends. The Gargantuans walking the earth. Asmareus and the Ghost Wind. The Ashen rising in its wake.
 
Gritting his teeth, he drew the blade across Killian’s throat, and then looked to the rest of the hall. Battered, drained and betrayed, he steeled himself for a grisly task. He may have been able to choose the right side but he didn’t always get to choose the work.

©May 2018, Dan Morley

Dan Morley‘s​ work has appeared previously in Swords & Sorcery and in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.