Oh, she could muster enough power to level a town, and, of her generation, perhaps only Christina had been more capable on her best days. Yet overall, given all she’d learned in Grefe in that short time, Tallah couldn’t help feeling she’d wasted a century mastering an anthill.
Grefe’s builders—those ancient, possibly mutated humans—wielded illum in a way that made modern understanding seem infantile. They didn’t just harness it for basic effects; they’d devised complex weapons around its applications.
Modern philosophy for using illum cantered on forcing change in the environment—basically storing illum and releasing it in a single powerful burst.
It was an unimaginative approach, relying on repetition. If a channeller could only form a fireball by chance, they were useless. If they could do it a hundred times without fail, they were a prodigy. It was simple, and Tallah had excelled at simple—like all her peers.
But the Grefe builders didn’t think in terms of simplicity—only degrees of complexity. Sometimes, in their writings and studies, they presented diagrams of devices that offered glimpses into their alternative use of the power. If illum could become anything, why reduce it to one basic form? Why fling it about like savages casting stones?
In that light, Tallah realised there was little difference between her lances, Christina’s bolts, or Anna’s blood needles. They were all essentially doing the same basic thing: flinging power around like children flinging mud.
It was depressing that the whole of human understanding of magic could be reduced to that simple comparison.
She watched the fireballs climb skyward and met them easily with her fireflies. They were barely a challenge.
“Cinder!” a voice boomed. “We know you can hear us. We’ve come to parlay.”
The three down below stood in a line with an army of daemons massed behind them. Even the flies parted to make room for their appearance.
Hardly the kind of welcome one would expect to a parlay, don’t you think.
‘That is a very interesting effect they’re using,’ Christina said. ‘I’ve read of it—casting one’s voice across a wide area. Some pissant developed it during the Solstice revolts. They were shouting from the walls to—’
“How do you suppose she expects me to answer?” Tallah cut in. “Does she think I’ll descend there to talk, within flaming range?”
‘You could try shouting back, I suppose. They can’t be that daft to expect you to shout your lungs out just to answer.’
“Come down, Cinder. We only wish to talk,” the voice boomed, grating on the ear. “There’s no reason for us to kill each other. There’s no reason to die for the empire.”
Tallah sighed. The three were daft enough to assume she’d willingly come within range.
Christina and Bianca began weaving, taking time to assemble the effect Tallah meant to test. Tallah reached into her rend and extracted one of the tomes given to them by the spiders. Bianca took it, floating it up and out of the way so she and Christina could better follow the instructions.
If modern channellers did one thing right, it was reinforcing learning by repetition—great for memorising how an effect was supposed to go once they’d done it several times.
This would be their first field test and Christina preferred following a diagram.
Tallah wove several of her own fireballs in midair and kept them there, floating above her head, their light spilling over the wall. She could go down there with little fear, but she didn’t want to. Whatever these three had to say, they could shout it out.
“You are needed, Cinder,” came the voice again, shrill and nasal. Tallah hoped it was the pyromancer speaking. “There are great plans in motion; you needn’t die here. You can still have your revenge on the puppet empress. You can still see a new dawn. But you must stand down and let us finish our work. We are too close for you to interfere.”
Liosse stepped up behind Tallah.
“Those three,” she spat. “They’re our turncoats: Savetha and Lille. We know the other one too. Ternar, from the Rock. A pox on their arses.”
“Which one’s the pyromancer?” Tallah asked.
Bianca reached out and drew two swords from soldiers hiding behind the charred and impaled daemon corpses, bringing them in front of Tallah so they nearly touched. They formed two parallel rails.
“Savetha. Should be the one in the middle. It’s her voice calling out.” Liosse eyed the floating swords and orbs. She gripped her axe tighter. “I trust you’re not planning to listen?”
“I’d back up if I were you,” Tallah said, shooing the older woman back. “I hope you won’t miss your old colleagues. I plan to kill two and torture the third.”
“Kill ‘em all for all I cares.” She spat again. “They ain’t no friends of mine. I’d jump down there meself if I knew I could get one of them before the daemons bit my arse off.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Power crackled in the air as Tallah watched it flowing out of her. Christina was following the instructions with painstaking patience.
“Got a silver coin on you?” she asked Liosse. “I’d like to pay them for their treachery.”
A coin flew up, and Tallah snatched it—an empire silver, perfectly round, precisely weighted. She flipped it into the air, and Bianca caught it, wedging it between the two blades. There would be less than a hair’s width between blade and coin.
Tallah prepared to do her part, weaving the heat connection between blades and fire balls. It was more delicate work than she expected it to be.
“Step back and cover your ears,” she said. “But enjoy the show.”
‘I am not perfectly confident I will generate sufficient power,’ Christina said. ‘They describe instruments to measure the output and we have none of those. I can only assess my conversion rates.’
Do what you can. If you fail, I’ll kill them the old fashioned way.
“Cinder, don’t make us do this,” Savetha yapped on. Tallah only half-listened. “We are not your enemies. Lord Ryder is not your enemy. We are here to help you. Our goals are the same.”
Well, that caught her attention: Ryder. Again, she felt the unseen hand of a puppeteer pulling on her strings. Panacea had mentioned him. The creature of the maze had mentioned him. Now these three. She almost called off the attack to go down there and shake the truth from them.
But, if one knew of this character, all of them would. She only needed one alive to answer questions. Worst case, Anna could eat their brains and gain their memories, or something equally gruesome.
She let out a slow breath that misted white in the chill evening air. “When you’re ready, Christi,” she said.
‘I really hope this works,’ Christina said, longing in her voice. ‘It would change everything for us.’
A powerful current buzzed in the air. Tallah’s hair rose strand by strand. A humming buzz filled her ears and the smell of ozone her nose. The old woman scurried away as instructed. The two blades glowed red-hot.
“Cinder, this your last warn—”
Christina ignited her weave, dumping all her power into the two blades, curving the current around out the tip and feeding it back in through the hilt—a concept quite similar to a Punishment’s feedback loop. Bianca held the blades tight and perfectly aligned. Tallah siphoned off the excess heat and dumped it into her fireballs.
The coin blasted forward with a thunderous boom as it cleared the swords’ tips. In the next instant the middle channeller exploded, her head atomised when the coin struck at unimaginable—incredible—speed. Her words cut off and the walls shook under the sonic boom.
Tallah and her ghosts had braced for that.
They hadn’t expected the sheer force, especially given their shaky and spotty translation of Grefe’s language, even with Vergil’s help. He’d called the thing they were attempting a railgun. A pity he wasn’t here to witness it in action.
‘I may have exaggerated,’ Christina said, awed. ‘Do you think that was supposed to happen?’
Tallah dug a finger in her ear and opened her mouth, trying to pop the pressure. She was effectively deaf from the blast, eardrums likely ruptured. Most of the soldiers, including Liosse, had covered their ears. An eerie stillness descended across the walls. The army below was still and silent, as were the two remaining channellers.
Then the corpse—what remained of it—toppled.
Tallah’s hearing returned with a pop, Anna painfully regenerating her eardrums.
‘You are a madwoman,’ the ghost said, giddy at the spectacle.
‘This changes everything!’ Christina exclaimed, still ecstatic despite having purged all her illum to achieve this. She was already rebuilding her charge.
It did change many things, yes. The biggest counter to any of their powers was an Egia. As long as Catharina possessed one—perhaps even implanted within herself—it would be difficult to surprise the empress. But this little trick evened the battlefield considerably.
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All channelling happened on Tallah’s side, with no direct link to the projectile. Tracking or negating it would be close to impossible. It was a miracle the coin had survived to achieve its goal, but the experiment proved, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that there was much more to be achieved with illum.
Bianca, for her part, had tried to accelerate objects before, but she was limited by her own capacity. Her vectors kicked right back against Tallah’s body. She could launch an arrow fast enough to pierce armour, but Tallah got the kick every time.
They could only grin wildly as the ranks below broke into chaos. Nobody had ever seen anything of the sort. Those remaining channellers stood frozen, watching the corpse, bracing for another.
Tallah stepped off the edge, hurling her fireballs at an angle down into the daemons. Even they felt fear now. Though they staggered, they didn’t break ranks as a human army would. The overloaded fireballs careened down into the horde, exploding in mushroom clouds of ash and smoke. Heartbeats later came the screams.
Bianca caught her fall and pushed against the wall to launch her at the left-most channeller. That one spun around and flung a bolt of lighting straight at her.
‘Found the metal mind,’ Bianca noted, dragging Tallah aside. They had enough warning through the Ikosmenia to dodge easily.
“We kill them,” Tallah declared. She didn’t care what the other was, this one was closest.
She saw the telltale signs of frantic weaving. Before the metal mind could unleash another attack, Tallah fired her lances—white-hot rays of power still carrying some of Christina’s illum. She hadn’t needed to expend much power while firing the first volley, and the shock of the attack still threw daemons off their feet.
The metal mind never stood a chance. Tallah’s lances punched through easily, setting the body alight in white-hot fire. The woman wailed as she burned, her voice guttering out with her toppling corpse.
That left the other one—a manipulator by the look of things. He had turned to run, a small figure flying over the masses of beastmen, trying to put as much distance between himself and Tallah as possible.
Daemons rallied. They roared and raised weapons. Crude arrows punched up through the ash cloud. A pulse of Bianca’s power swept them all out of the sky. There was no point to purge all the creatures. Without their leaders, the horde behaved much more as Tallah expected it to: feral, impulsive, and predictably blood-lusted. They were already throwing themselves at the walls.
The Ikosmenia showed the manipulator’s vectors. Bianca followed as Tallah loosed into the masses of monster leaping to attack. Arrows rained from above, covering her pursuit of the channeller.
Running was fine and all, but Tallah still had a mission to achieve. She couldn’t chase for long, so she cut off the manipulator’s retreat. She wove a wall of fire in his path, raising it as high as she could in a single burst. Beastmen screamed in the flames, their ranks fracturing further.
The manipulator stopped dead, paces away from the flames, power spiking in every direction, seized by indecision.
In a heartbeat, Tallah was on him, gripping the back of his neck as Bianca pushed them straight upward, skimming alongside the inferno. Its heat was ferocious; the man screamed until Tallah cleared her own fire wall, and Bianca whisked them back to the Anvil.
“Try anything,” Tallah yelled over the rush of wind, “and I’ll cook your brain in your skull. Don’t test me.”
He flailed for her wrist, power flickering with panic, discipline crumbling. Tallah had always known there was a gulf between her and most others, but she felt it more keenly than ever.
Was this how Catharina felt? Or Falor?
She might have not needed the new attack against these three, but it had made a clear statement to anyone watching: she was not to be trifled with.
They soared over the dying beastmen ranks, up the wall’s sheer face, and hovered above the spiked ramparts. Liosse stood there, eyeing the man squirming in Tallah’s hold.
Bianca suspended him in midair, his face reflected in Tallah’s mask.
“What is going on?” Tallah demanded, her voice low. “I won’t ask twice.”
“You must stop!” the man wailed, kicking as Bianca held him in place. “You weren’t supposed to be here. You should’ve been heading for Aztroa. This was all in preparation for you facing Catharina.”
“What are you on about?” Tallah shook the man. “I have no plans of going anywhere near Aztroa.”
Wild green eyes regarded her. The manipulator panted heavily as he licked his lips. “You are expected there. Not now. By winter. The decoy is already heading there. Our plans are all in motion.” His eyes grew wider. “You’re the only piece not in place.”
Tallah frowned beneath the Ikosmenia. What was this madman going on about? What sort of unhinged plan were they following?
“Speak plainly,” she demanded.”How was I supposed to go to Aztroa? What decoy are you about?”
“You must come with me and meet with the dregs. They will reveal all.” He grinned. “We are on your side. We serve the same goals.”
A knot of worry formed in Tallah’s stomach. A decoy heading to Aztroa Magnor… could that be Mertle? Could the Storm Guard have recruited Tianna of Aieni Holding ahead of schedule? Some gesture to appease the Aieni Holding after the Night of Descent?
It couldn’t be! Nobody could know of Mertle, least of all in a place as distant as the Cauldron. She tried to push the thought out of mind, but it kept niggling her.
The man took her silence as encouragement to continue. “Lord Ryder knows all. He’s told us much through his servants. We… we knew you were close to Aztroa Magnor. We were waiting for the signal to unleash the hordes.” He swallowed as Tallah said nothing. “Then you showed up here. This wasn’t the plan. You were going to go to Valen, then to Aztroa.”
Tallah recalled the white-faced daemon saying something along very similar lines. She wasn’t supposed to be here.
If the wretch didn’t know more about the larger plot, she asked the most burning questions, “Who is Ryder? How does he know me?”
This put a crazed smile on the man’s face. “He is a true god!” Spittle flew and his fear drained away. “He is here to help us throw off the yoke of the empire, to gives us back control of our lives.”
“And you do this by unleashing hordes of daemons on unwary people?” Tallah’s frustration was distilling her anger into fury. “You’ve killed hundreds.”
“Sacrifices must be made. You’re too late to change what was done, too late to change what’s happening.” The manipulator panted like a dog. “It can’t be stopped. The crater has critical mass. The portal will erupt. With you in Aztroa or not, everything will still happen. You must go there!”
“Well, you’re wonderfully cooperative,” Tallah said as the man began to relax. “But you’re not telling me anything useful.”
He kept his grin but it began fraying as she manoeuvred him about. A corpse had sloughed off one of the spikes, falling in burnt chunks.
He wasn’t smiling anymore when Tallah placed him just above the black tip of the spear.
“Where does the white-faced daemon fit in?” she asked, trying to find some sense in the madness. “How do you control it?”
Words came out in a torrent “The dregs? We don’t control them. They are Lord Ryder’s, his instruments. They are here to help. Please, you must go to Aztroa. You must kill the empress. Only then will we all be free.”
‘I am not a fan of having our plans executed for us,’ Christina said. ‘Nor of anyone knowing things they shouldn’t.’
“You keep insisting I must do this or do that. Why must I do anything?”
She lowered him until the spike was just beneath his crotch. Lines of power spiked off the man, but Bianca annulled them with almost no effort.
He regarded Tallah with bright-blue eyes, face twisting in fear. He couldn’t have been more than forty summers, if even that. A young fool? Or someone that knew much more than he let on?
“Catharina is lying,” he said, voice hoarse. His body was tense, coiled tight in terror. “She aims to feed all of us to her false god. Ort will feast on our souls. He is the real enemy. Catharina is only his puppet, his instrument. You must kill her.” Tears welled up at the corners of his eyes. “We are only your allies. You killed the others, but know that we are your friends. We are here help you. We only need the dragon, and then all will happen.”
Now the dragon came into play? It annoyed her that she couldn’t grasp the shape of the man’s madness. “What will happen? What does it mean for the portal to erupt?” She’d never heard of a phenomenon like that.
“Do you know nothing?” he sneered. “Do you not know what the daemons even are? Why they come here and attack us? Why they claw at our walls?”
Tallah knew as much as anyone could about the creatures. They were mindless and hungered for flesh. Their bite was either fatal or madness-inducing. And their ultimate goals were unknowable. They had no language but that which they could mimic, no writings, no rulers, no structure. For all intents and purposes, they were little different to a swarm of locusts.
She didn’t say anything, but only floated there, regarding her prisoner. He went on on his own.
“The portal leads into the heart of a dying god. The daemons come to take our souls and maintain their maker’s existence. This is what Ort wants with all of us. This is why Catharina has made her empire, why she’s kept us here, on this rock, to be raised like cattle. She will feed us all to Ort’s hunger. When we will be spent, she will start anew and do it all again. And again. This is how the maggots feed. This is why they come here.”
Tallah listened. She knew part of this. It was no big secret that there was always a price for anything the gods offered. Christina had been resurrected by Isadora once and understood what had been taken from her. It had sparked her interest in soul magic and its applications.
That this wretch knew this much meant Ryder had proper knowledge on the workings of gods. This caught her interest fully. She would need to capture one of the white-faced creatures and have it lead her to its master.
She filed away the information on daemons for later consideration. “You’ve been here long, attacking the Rock and Anvil. What was your goal?”
There was an increased audience beneath them. Liosse and her men were watching and listening with rapt interest. This must have been on their minds for so long, the reason for all their hardships.
Daemons howled in the Cauldron. They threw themselves at the iron gates but the sun hadn’t gone down entirely. Their strength was paltry.
“Speak, ya daft bastard,” Liosse called out. “Tells us all why. You broke bread with us, Ternar. You drank with us. You were one of us, as much as any not born here could be.” Tallah could hear the barely restrained anger.
If she dropped Ternar, Liosse would rips his tongue out in search of answers.
“Contingency,” the manipulator spat. “If we couldn’t get the dragon, we needed the human souls in its place. Feed the portal back the flesh it disgorges, and it grows unstable. Feed it souls, and it ruptures. Ort cannot reap that which does not live.” He let out a bark of laughter. “Don’t you see? Fire against fire, the hunger of two gods pitted against one another. The war in heaven brought down in the mortal realm. They would annihilate one another. But you must kill Catharina!”
Tallah had heard enough. She had just one more question.
“Who led you?” she asked. “Who was the crepuscular that first opened up the Rock?”
The man’s smile grew feral. “Deidra Aratol. She said you wouldn’t believe a word, but I can see she was wrong. I can see you believe me.”
Tallah gave the silent command and Bianca rammed him down onto the spike. He howled as he was impaled, the push not enough to end him, but enough that he wouldn’t survive the wound if he dragged himself off.
“Why?!” he screamed in agony. “I spoke truth!”
“I believed you,” Tallah said, floating down to Liosse. “Gather your people. Groups of ten. We will begin evacuation to the Rock. Then out of here.”
Her old fighting mentor looked at the man writhing atop the spike. “Why?” she asked, though there was no accusation in the word.
“Because I refuse to be used.” Tallah didn’t spare the manipulator another glance. “If I’m to have blood on my hands, I’ll spill it myself. I will not be an accessory to their insanity.” She took off the Ikosmenia and met the woman’s hard eyes. “I still aim to kill Catharina. That is immutable.”
The man howled on the spike, slipping down as he thrashed. Tallah pointed an accusing finger at him. “I am not doing it for their machinations. I am besieged by requests for compliance.” Her anger rose white-hot from the pit of her stomach as the channeller’s words dug deep hooks in her mind. “I will hang myself on my own hair before I accept a single helping hand from the likes of them. Now, do you still accept my help?”
“Well,” Liosse said with a sigh, “I reckon that black blood’s something for you girls to sort out on your own. My concerns are first to my men and the people we protect. Everything else…” She shrugged, her massive shoulders moving like a rock slide. “Not my donkey. Not my shite t’ clean.”
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