Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (31 page)

Ash flicked up a discarded spear. He jumped sideways, kicked off the wall and thrust the tip square between the creature’s shoulders at the base of the neck. Spinal column severed, the lizard collapsed. Ash stood on its head and heaved the spear all the way through. The beast gurgled and coughed up dark red blood. Ash twisted the spear back out.

He ran until he met a crowd of refugees. They were fleeing, pouring out of side tunnels into the wide thoroughfare that led to the main gates, carrying what few belongings they had or just running empty-handed but with blind panic in their eyes. They knocked over those who were too slow, and Ash had to push and shove to help a man back up before he was trampled. There were lupine howls from behind and the people ran like sheep.

We’re being herded.

But he couldn’t stop them. Ash shouted for them to turn back, but no one could hear him over their own screaming.

Then, carried by this tide of fear, Ash stumbled out into the main cavern and to the third gate.

Two Carnivals of Flesh tore at the walls, huge, cumbersome behemoths crouched so as to reach into the low-roofed area of the rear of the central cavern. Harpoons bristled over their bodies and another boomed from its launcher, punching through a metre of melded flesh, sacks of blood bursting out, the broken bodies twitching and falling off the Carnivals as they reassembled themselves around the fresh wound.

Parvati and Rani fought side by side upon the battlements, knee-deep in the dead. The urumi sang its song of slaughter and Rani’s fangs, her two lethal tulwar swords, reaped heads and limbs with each swing.

Ash watched Ashoka jump from ledge to ledge, his bow launching arrow upon arrow. He kicked off a spider rakshasa and knocked back a pair of rodent demons with a thrust of his bow. Men fought beside him, fighting beyond their exhaustion and fear with broken weapons or their bare hands. Ashoka was the eye of the storm.

But he can’t beat them all
,
thought Ash
. There are just too many of them.

The refugees flooded out into the melee, pushing from the rear, unaware of the vast demon army in front of them, just desperate to escape those behind.

The gates themselves had been ripped down. Ash struck left and right, but it made no difference; when one demon fell, another two, another four, took its place.

Ashoka spotted Ash, and the danger. He signalled and shouted for the people to stop, but it was hopeless; his voice was drowned out by the cacophony of battle.

Metre by metre they were pushed forward. Soldiers abandoned their posts to protect the swelling mass of frightened civilians, their own people.

What could he do? It had turned into a rout. Ash grabbed a woman who was trying to hang on to a dozen crying children. “Stick with me!” he shouted. She stared, then dumbly nodded.

The first and second walls were utterly demolished. The trench was so thickly filled with dead demons you could just walk across it now. Ashoka scrambled down the cliff face and beat his way to Ash’s side. His face was a mask of blood, yet he smiled. “Still alive, I see.”

“Pleased to see you too,” said Ash. “The Kali-aastra?”

Ashoka drew it from his quiver. “Safe. But …”

“No Savage yet.”

Then the refugees stopped. The soldiers paused and Ash pushed his way forward.

In front of the cave mouth stood, waited, the demon army, swollen so large that there was hardly a patch of sand visible from the cliff all the way to the sea. Countless torches illuminated the hungry, bloodthirsty faces of jackals, of bears and crocodiles and things neither one animal nor another, but built out of evil fury and hate. Swords and crude knives and claws and talons and teeth caught the amber light of the flames, and the moon shone down on horns and scales and fangs.

Behind them the howls lessened; their job was done. The cave complex had been overwhelmed. Ash caught a glimpse of movement above him and saw the roof was teeming with black hairy spiders. The wings of bat rakshasas beat the air as they swooped in and out of hundreds of alcoves and cracks too high and inaccessible for humans.

Parvati and Rani joined him. Rani’s armour hung by its straps and Parvati’s scales were soaked with gore. Ashoka stood ready, another arrow notched.

“What are they waiting for?” asked someone.

Ash looked around. The ruined gates were filled with their people. Even the elderly men had weapons ready. Children hefted rocks in their small fists. How many of them remained? A few thousand? But every one of them was going to go down fighting. They’d gone far beyond fear and now all that remained was steel resolve. “The rakshasas are afraid of us.”

Parvati shook blood out of her hair. “They want to finish this, but they know however they do it, it will cost them. No one wants to be the first to die.”

Rani spoke. “There’s been enough death.” She stepped forward, into the no-man’s-land between the two armies.

What’s she doing? They’ll kill her.

Ash stepped forward, but Parvati stopped him. “Let her try.”

There were about twenty metres between them, a space where dwelt only the dead, demon and human alike. And into this silence went Rani, swords aloft, head proud and defiant.

A spear thrown, an arrow fired or rock hurled true, a sudden charge, and it would be over. But no one moved.

The only sound was the waves beating against the empty ship hulls down on the shore.

“You know me,” said Rani. She didn’t shout but her voice carried to every ear. “You knew my father. Many of you fought beside us in our last war against humankind. You know what followed.

“War is coming; this is but the first battle. The seeds we sow tonight on these sands, seeds of hate, of cruelty and pain, will only lead to the most bitter of harvests.” She cast her gaze over the demon army. “Is that what you want?

“Rakshasa or human – I don’t choose one side over the other. I choose both. Rakshasas, we are creatures of eternity. We remember and know so much, have acquired wisdom over centuries. And how do we use our wisdom? In games of tyranny. Humans, we live for the moment. Our passion drives us to achieve so much in our brief lives, to reach such heights, but how we squander that fire and chase the most temporal of things: wealth, fame, illusions that last as long as a candle flame.

“You have a choice today, and only today.” Rani turned her swords in her hands. “Take up your weapons and slaughter each other. One will conquer the other by dawn’s light, but the victor will know no peace. No restful sleep will come to him, nor to his family. There will be no comfort and he will watch his children grow with one eye on the door and one hand on his sword, ever afraid. He will fear uprisings, he will fear rebellion, he will fear the night his slave comes seeking revenge for the defeat they suffered tonight. It might come in a year, or a hundred, but it will come. You have lived long enough to know this is the truth.”

Rani thrust both swords into the sand. She buried them until they were half-blade-deep. Then she stepped back, holding out her hands to show she was defenceless. “And this is the other choice. Choose this and you will sleep peacefully. You will rest knowing the one you fought today guards you as you slumber. You will watch your children grow to joy, knowing that the man you once sought to kill will protect them as he would his own. Two choices. Follow the path of war. Or follow me.”

The air did not stir; it was as if the world held its breath. No one moved. All eyes remained on Rani.

We’re too different, rakshasa and human. How can there be common ground between us?

The hate ran too deep and for too long. There was barely peace between humans, and they were all but identical. Mankind made war upon itself over the smallest things: the colour of skin, the style of clothing, the way they worshipped. So how could there ever be peace between demon and human?

Then someone threw down their sword. The weapon struck a pebble and the sound rang out over the battlefield.

Another dropped their shield.

Ash searched the crowd, trying to find the one who’d done it, his heart racing with … hope. A small hope. Hope and trust. Trust that between the two armies there was something they both valued. He looked at the demons, watched the strands of webs drift overhead. He looked at the blade in his hand, the blood encrusted on the chipped metal. He let it fall.

The trickle became a stream, then a river, then a tidal wave as rakshasas and humans alike discarded their weapons. People stared around them in bewilderment, as if waking from a nightmare.

Ash let out a breath.

Rakshasas crossed the ground and bent down before Rani. They touched her feet, prostrating themselves in the bloody sands. They kissed her hands.

Ash blinked, wiping sweat (it was sweat, not tears) off his face. He was the Eternal Warrior; he’d been in countless battles. None had ended like this.

Parvati took his hand and looked at him. “Ash …”

The cliffs trembled. Rocks cracked and boulders shook free, bouncing down and crushing the rocks and the shanty towns beneath. The sands swirled, gaining a strange sort of life.

The waves rose and stirred with anger.

Ash had known it. He picked up his sword. There would never be peace. War was eternal.

Ashoka steadied himself as the ground shook. “What’s going on?”

“He’s here,” said Ash.

Lights burst in the night sky. The air groaned, a deep sound that went down into the bones. People screamed.

The ships on the shore began to bend, to mutate. The gigantic structural beams twisted like rubber and rebuilt themselves into legs. The panels peeled themselves into new skins. The fields of spotlights tore free from their frames, blinked into life and reassembled themselves into immense unblinking eyes.

Ash had seen stone statues come to life, even one almost thirty metres high. But these towered over a hundred metres. The dozen dismantled ships merged together to create three monstrous, living automatons.

One was a spider, striding out of the sea on eight legs the size of tower blocks. Cables swung from its body, and cogs and engines and gears screamed into life, controlling its movements. Its eyes were made of hundreds of spotlights and its gaze cast a field of brilliant white over the panicking crowds.

The second metal beast was a giant lion, its teeth over ten metres in length, its claws made of iron girders. It swiped one paw across the beach and bodies went flying.

Then the third strode out of the sea. An elephant. It trampled dozens of people under its massive feet, demolishing more with each swing of its tusks. It was the size of a cathedral, its trumpeting so loud the cliffs cracked. Electric sparks jumped from its body, rising around its legs and over the beast’s gigantic frame, framing it with an azure haze.

A palanquin rested on its back. A mockery of a maharajah’s silken seat, made of black iron. The canopy was ribbed steel and barbed wire. It was a dozen metres in diameter, with room for fifty people, but on it was only one. Stark white against the black sky he stood, a cane in his hand. The wind ruffled his long blonde locks.

The rakshasas charged. Some formed a wall around Rani, but in moments they were overwhelmed. Chaos reigned and the slaughter began again.

And Savage, high up on the imperial elephant, laughed.

T
wo eagle rakshasas swooped down towards Savage, shrieking with their talons thrust forward. Savage raised his tiger-headed cane, its ruby eyes flashed and the two raptors burst into flames and plummeted into the sea.

The elephant marched along the beach, destroying everything in its path. The lion roared and leaped among the army, human and demon, and the spider crawled over the cliffs, hunting. Hundreds of smaller spiders grew from its body and scuttled into the tunnels.

The human–rakshasa army might have won, but with Savage here, many of the demons, most of those infected by his chemicals and others awestruck by his presence, sided with him.

Savage was a disease – he infected everything about him.

A howl carried across the sky, fierce and filled with bloodlust and the joys of slaughter.

Ash gasped. “Jackie …”

A beast leaped across the battlefield, huge as a house and packed with muscle.

What had Savage done?

Jackie threw back her head and roared with manic glee. Her mouth was red, and broken bodies hung from her massive fangs, each as long as Ash’s arm. Her forearms rose like columns and were covered in gore. Spears, blades and bullets merely bounced off her thick tawny pelt.

Parvati stumbled up next to Ash, her own eyes wide in horror. “Savage has transformed her. He’s filled her with too much power. Look at her.”

The flesh mutated under Jackie’s pelt and she shivered with pain. Her eyes were feverish and she grinned so tightly her lips bled. She snapped her jaws and swallowed three men whole.

Then she saw them.

“Go.” Ash pushed Ashoka away. “Go after Savage.”

“We’ll fight her together,” said Ashoka.

Jackie shook her mane as men crowded around her, stabbing and slashing with whatever they had. She barely noticed until, with one swipe of her forepaw, she turned them to red ruined smears. She licked her claws.

“No.” Ash gritted his teeth. “You have to stop Savage. Leave her to me.”

“You’ll never beat her. Look at her!” said Ashoka.

“Then so be it.” He turned to Ashoka. “Now go! Get Savage.”

Parvati flicked out her urumi. “Ready?” Her fangs were extended and slick with venom.

Ash picked up a discarded sword and moved it from one hand to the other until he got a comfortable grip. “Ready.”

Jackie saw them and hunched down, her mane bristled with excitement and her claws dug into the ground. She giggled and her tail swished back and forth, flicking up huge clumps of blood-soaked sand.

She leaped.

The wind blast almost sent them both flying as the hulking mass sprang at them. When Jackie landed, the earth cracked, and suddenly Ash was airborne, spinning head over heels from the impact.

He hit the ground and rolled as a cloud of fetid breath blew down over him. Jackie’s teeth snapped closed, centimetres from where his head had been.