She walked in a daze.
There was always this moment of confusion when combat finished, win or lose. Sometimes there was only a second of quiet while you realised you had won, that the enemy was fleeing. Sometimes long hours of reflection on how you had lost and what it would cost you.
Sorha was still not used to losing and in the moments after the creature – the god? – left she was stunned. Locked in a darkness within herself deeper than the darkness of this place. She could not stop seeing it, the thing – though she had never actually seen it. There had only been glimpses, a huge body, a screeching beak clacking open and closed, ridges, spikes and rills of glowing blue, dripping strange liquids.
The curling, shivering, writhing of tentacles.
And that last moment when it had taken him, the noise Cahan had made. A strangled scream, part fear, part fury, that twisted, increasing in volume, becoming something else.
He had become something else. His armour changing, blue fire flashing around him, his voice turning as harsh and cracked as the voice of the creature. Agony cutting through the darkness as long tentacles grew from his back. He too became a thing of spikes and rills and darkness; he resembled the creature in the final moment she saw him, two arms, two legs, four tentacles: in constant motion as he was pulled into the air through the forest of roots.
Then he was gone.
And she was alone.
Breathing hard. Feeling lost in a way she never had before. Not understanding why. He had helped her, yes, but only for his own purposes. Only because she kept in check what was within him, not because she mattered to him. But despite that, she had begun to feel a camaraderie with him. She had never had that with anyone, she had always been alone. Down here, they only had each other. And he had not hated her the way others had. Did he like her? No, he did not like her. She did not like him. But she felt that they were tied together in some way, and, Osere curse it, she owed him her life.
But there was more than that. As she had watched him taken, as she had seen him change, as she had fought that great beast, she had known it was wrong. Past the horror of the creature, she felt some ancestral memory deep within her, some loathing that rose up, overriding the gut-wrenching fear the beast made her feel.
She looked around. Found Ulan, he was lying on the floor with two of the Osere stood over him. She walked over, feeling the mask she had worn since Cahan took her power away slot into place, the hardness of it. She pushed Osere out of the way, sending them sprawling and grabbed Ulan, pulling him up and making him shriek. Not thinking it may be dangerous, that she may take a spear in the back, only knowing, deep within, that something must be done. The creature wanted Cahan so badly it could be for nothing good.
“Where has it taken him?” she spat at him. “Where?” Shaking Ulan and he cried out in pain. She could not see a wound, but in the darkness that did not matter. If she had seen a wound it would not matter, she was gripped with a certainty. She must get Cahan back and with every moment that certainty grew. “Where?” she shouted again. Ulan did nothing but whimper.
“Anjiin.” The word came from behind her and she turned. It was the Osere leader, Frina. She had a spear, pointed at Sorha’s throat and other Osere were gathering. “Put down,” said Frina, nodding her head at Ulan.
“We have to stop it,” said Sorha. The words were raw in her throat, she felt near to tears and knew it for battle fatigue, the wearing on her body and mind of so long in the darkness, to have come so far and through so much and then to lose.
“Yes, stop it,” said the Osere leader. “We need his words.” She pointed at Ulan and Sorha nodded, let go. Once more the Osere were around Ulan, treating his wounds. Then they pulled him away, groaning and moaning to sit against a root and Frina took Sorha’s arm, pulled her over to him. The Osere spoke to Ulan, a long stream of words. Now she had time to look at him she knew what ailed him was deep hurt. He was struggling to concentrate, his eyelids fluttering.
“She says, it will have taken him to Anjiin, to one of the great temples where the gods once ruled from.”
“Why?” she asked. Ulan looked to Frina who spoke again. Then she turned to one of her soldiers, spat words out into the darkness and the soldier walked away, quickly swallowed up by the darkness.
“The gods were banished from the land,” said Ulan, “their connection severed.”
“I know the myths.”
“Not myths,” said Ulan, the words coming out as gasps. “Truths. How it escaped, we do not know. But those who attacked us, they are us.” Behind her she heard the sound of dragging as a body was brought forward.
“Betrayers, it is in the name.” Ulan nodded, a weak gesture, his energy fleeing.
“Not as simple as it sounds. The blue glow, they force it on those taken. They become part of it. It uses them to talk to the land. To try to break through. But they have never given enough for it to be so brazen as to attack us. It always hid, always ran. We hunted it. It feared the power inside the Osere. The cowls.” She stared at the Osere, so these people did have cowls, or some form of it. Cahan had explained how you needed one to use the taffistone network. “It wants power to escape, they all want to escape.”
“But it has escaped,” said Sorha, confused. “We saw the broken tree, the bubble within.”
“Not escape the tree,” said Ulan. “Escape the here.”
“And escape from here is in Anjiin?”
“Yes,” said Ulan, air hissing painfully through his teeth. “The stories tell that the gods rose through Anjiin. The taffistones, they do not reach above. Anjiin can if the beast can channel enough power. That is why it wants Cahan.”
“Then we are going to Anjiin,” said Sorha. “I can stop this. I need to get near it though.” Ulan looked up, smiled.
“I hope you can, the gods bring nothing but ruin. The fire of their escape will destroy everything.” He coughed. “But I am afraid my journey, it is over now.”
“No.” She tried to grab him but was held back by the Osere. Found herself fighting them but they were many and they held her tight, pulling her away from Ulan.
“I am sorry,” he said, and with a flicker she saw the life leave him.
“Anjiin,” said Frina, and Sorha turned her head to look at the woman. “You go to Anjiin?”
“Yes,” said Sorha.
“We go to Anjiin.” The Osere leader touched her chest, then motioned toward her people. Sorha nodded, wondering how they could do anything when they barely understood one another. Frina barked words and Sorha was let go. She said more words – names, thought Sorha, as each bark of her growling clicking language brought Osere to her. Standing around her, touching constantly in the way of them. Then the leader’s hand was on Sorha’s arm, pulling her on. Frina touched Sorha’s chest.
“So’ha,” she said. Then touched her own chest. “Frina.”
“Frina,” said Sorha, and the Osere woman nodded, then pointed, and together with the Osere all speaking soft words to one another now, she began her journey through the darkness.
“Itafston,” said Frina pointing ahead. As they moved she thought she counted twenty Osere with her, all had bows and spears and they ran almost entirely soundlessly. She had not noticed that before, never really thought about it, or them. When she found herself tiring they pressed food on her that filled her muscles with energy and allowed her to run with them. They never slowed, never stopped. As they ran they guided her with a touch here and a touch there, subtly altering her course so she did not trip or fall. Sometimes Frina would point at a thing and say its name and Sorha would try and copy her, then say it in her own language. Inside she worried about what they would face, what fate awaited Cahan and the world above, but she also felt strangely comfortable. Accepted. When they reached a taffistone they barely paused. Just long enough for Frina to point at and say “Itafston.” Then she felt a disturbance as the stone opened and she was guided through.
A moment of dislocation. A feeling of nausea.
Through.
Then knocked aside by the impact of a body and she felt something pass close to the side of her head. One of the Osere that ran with her fell. Frina threw a spear, a cry answered and the rest of the Osere spread out. Froze. Sorha did the same.
Trying to not make a noise.
Trying not to breathe.
Letting her eyes adjust to this new place. It smelled different, in the north the air was drier and smelled of the earthy mushrooms that grew everywhere and leaked their weak light. Here, in Anjiin, the air was dry and smelled of deserts. It made her think of the great grasslands in the heat of Plenty when she had been young, before her cowl, when the world was full of old gods whose statues stood in every field, whose straw-built effigies were found on every corner.
The tell-tale blue glow of the Betrayers around them. First it was so faint it was like something floating in her, but as she became accustomed to it she could make out individuals. None of the four-legged “seeing” ones, thankfully. Slowly she took a bow off her back, she had no memory of retrieving it and she was not confident with it the way Cahan had been. She would rather have a handful of spears but the bow was small and, more importantly, quiet to draw where her spears would clatter as she took one out of the quiver. She began to pull the string taut.
To her right a noise. A sudden shift of feet and a groan of pain. A body falling. Spears cutting through the air and she threw herself down. The noise drew Betrayers to her. A glow of a movement as a spear was raised. A shadow in the darkness cutting it down. Sorha had the impression, from nothing more than faint shuffling, the occasional groan, that all around her a vicious, silent and slow battle was happening. One fiercer than they had fought before. This must be a rear guard, left by the creature to stop any who followed. Sorha had no idea who was winning. She stood with her bow slack in her hand. She could not use it, she did not know if Osere stood between her and the glowing patches of the Betrayers.
The ground shook.
She was used to quakes, Crua had been shaking all her life in some form or another. The regular, calendared quakes that were known and the increasingly frequent tremors that ran through the country creating new cracks and crevasses like the one she and Cahan had fallen into.
This one was different, deeper, stronger. It tossed the Osere and her and their opponents from their feet. It shook the great buildings of Anjiin, dirt rained down and she worried that the roof, the land above, may come crashing down on her. The noise of it, a deep, basso roar took over Sorha’s body, stole all control from her. It made her muscles limp as if the life was cut from them.
Then it stopped.
Light flickered into being, running along the buildings. Sickly blue lights everywhere. Control of her body came back and she pushed herself up. In the light she had the advantage. Dropping the bow she began striking out with her spear, cutting down Betrayers left and right. Frina was being pressed by three of the enemy and Sorha attacked, a spear through the back of the nearest. One turned on her, raising their weapon to strike back and Sorha dodged, let them strike at thin air and thrust her weapon into their side. The last of the three Frina dealt with in a single strike.
The earth shook again.
Not as powerful this time, and Sorha managed to keep her footing. Staggering over to lean on a wall, waiting for the tremor to subside. It did not, and in the sound of it was something grinding, like great stones being forced together, and above it a great wail, as if some vast and foul creature were being tortured and felt a pain beyond bearing.
More lights. Blinding her and she had to shade her eyes with a hand. The lights threw both the Osere and the Betrayers into confusion. Though they may not have been able to see it they could sense it in some way Sorha did not understand. They stood in small groups facing towards the light and Sorha lowered the hand shading her eyes.
One of the temples was rising into the air. A black, slab-sided pyramid surrounded by eight short spires. The whole of the construction was wreathed in curling, twisting, lines of blue. Like the roots of some great plant had grown over it and it was from these the light was coming. On the centre of the pyramid, at its apex was the god, tentacles raised, writhing upward towards Crua as the plinth and pyramid slowly rose. It left the spires behind, ripped itself loose from the pulsing blue roots as it rose.
Below where the creature, the god, writhed she could just make out the tiny figure of Cahan – he had been stuck to the pyramid, plugged into it by a spike through his chest. Blue fire danced around him. The screaming, the tortured noise she heard, it came from him and she was as sure of that as she was of the ground she walked on. He was being used as a power source so that this creature from the past could emerge once more into the world above.
“Over. It is over. Osere failed.” She turned. Frina dropped her spear. The rest of her people were falling to their knees. The Betrayers had lost all volition, one by one they began to collapse into the dirt and it was as if, now the god had got what it wanted, they were no longer of any use to it. They were discarded like the husks of seed grasses.
“No.” Sorha picked up Frina’s spear and took her hand, placed the spear in it. “We will not give up. If I have to climb that thing,” she looked back. The temple was mounted on a smooth-sided pillar growing beneath it, pushing it up. As it did, it bathed Anjiin in a sickly blue light, “then I will climb it.” Frina cocked her head, pointed her spear towards the grinding sound made by the rising temple.
“Up?” she said.
“Yes,” said Sorha, and she stared towards the noise and the light and the terrifying, waving figure of the god above it. “If it can go up,” she said, “so can we.” She grasped the hand of the Osere leader. “Will you come, Frina?”
There was a pause, the Osere leader cocked her head as if studying Sorha with eyes she did not have. Then she squeezed her hand.
“We will come.”