CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT

LYKOS

Lykos stared into the skies, his guts turning to water for a moment as he saw the Kadoshim descending from above on wings of death.

So Calidus has done it, then.

Lykos briefly wondered about the wisdom of opening a doorway to the Otherworld.

Little too late for that. You’ve rolled your knuckle-bones. Just have to hope the Kadoshim are happy to share the world.

One of the Kadoshim flew perilously close, swooping overhead, the wind of its passing staggering him. Lykos ducked, raising his arms to protect himself, but it passed over him, screeching, and grabbed a red-cloaked warrior of Isiltir, hauling him screaming into the air. Its wings beat powerfully, higher and higher, until with a maniacal screech it let the man go. Its victim spun to earth, tumbling and thrashing through the air, then smashed to the ground, abruptly still, his body twisted and broken.

Do they know I am their ally? Or was that just luck?

With the coming of the Kadoshim the battleground had become a place of total chaos: fear, slaughter, panic, death and pandemonium from both enemy and ally alike.

He winced as another of them swooped overhead, skewering one of Ripa’s warriors with its spear. As it began to rise, a white-haired giant ran through the crowd and jumped, swinging a double-bladed battle-axe. It caught the Kadoshim in the chest, cleaving it almost in two. A spray of blood fountained over those below as it plummeted to the ground. A roar went up amongst the surrounding warriors.

So they can be killed more easily than the possessed Jehar. Becoming flesh is a double-edged sword: it brings all the pleasures, but also the dangers. Maybe it’s time I made a tactical withdrawal.

With the coming of the Kadoshim the battle was obviously won, and Lykos was feeling weary to the bone. After he’d slain Krelis the men of Ripa had gone berserk. They’d attacked him and his Vin Thalun with a savagery he’d only seen in the fighting-pits. It had been hard, grim work, and for every man of Ripa that fell, Lykos suspected he’d lost two, maybe three of his own men.

Might be time to save the lads I have left, and go find something tasty for the victory drink that’s surely coming.

Then he heard a chant, words drifting on the wind that chilled his blood more than any Otherworld-spawned demon ever had.

Old Wolf. Old Wolf.

Lykos looked in the direction it was coming from, watching a wedge of men heading his way, a few giants amongst them, cutting his Vin Thalun down at an alarming rate. He saw Maquin, only a dozen paces away, running straight for him. His eyes were fixed on Lykos and they were blazing, with madness, with bloodlust-joy. Lykos took an involuntary step back.

I should have let Jael kill him, never taken him as my slave, never thrown him into the pits. I’ve created a monster.

He saw a Vin Thalun fall away in a spray of blood, throat spurting, another man fold over, a sword through the gut, the next one spinning with his skull crushed by Maquin’s sword-pommel. Then the Old Wolf was four or five paces away, just one more man between them.

Lykos sighed, looked at his twisted buckler, hefted his notched and bloody short sword and snarled.

The Old Wolf needs putting down, and if you want a job done properly…

He set his feet as Maquin slammed into the Vin Thalun between them. Lykos didn’t wait, but ran in, kicked his man in the back, sending Maquin staggering, and swung his short sword. It clipped Maquin’s shoulder, but the Old Wolf had somehow guessed where Lykos would strike and had placed his Vin Thalun attacker between them; Lykos’ blow killed his own man.

Maquin shoved the body back at Lykos, causing him to stumble back just as Maquin’s sword came at him. He threw himself under the sword blow, knocking Maquin’s knife away with his buckler, smashing his sword hilt into Maquin’s face, sending the Old Wolf staggering, blood running from his nose.

“So you bleed, too,” Lykos growled.

Maquin cuffed the blood, gave a feral grin and came at him again.

A flurry of blows, sword and knife, stabbing, chopping, coming fast and furious, from every angle possible, Lykos shuffling backwards, frantically blocking and always steadily retreating before the unrelenting fury of Maquin’s assault.

He looked desperately for support from his men but saw three giants, all with their heads shaved apart from a thick strip down the middle, finishing off the last of his guard.

I hate it when a plan goes wrong.

Maquin stalked towards him, sword and knife twitching.

“To be fair, I didn’t push her over the cliff. She just…let go,” Lykos said.

“Don’t mention her,” Maquin growled, a vein pulsing in his temple.

“She wasn’t as pure as you might think,” Lykos smiled, and Maquin leaped at him. He was expecting it, but still it came almost too fast for him to see or react to. A pain lanced along his hip, Maquin’s knife slicing a red line, and then his left arm with the buckler was in a lock, somehow, Maquin’s arm over it. The Old Wolf shifted his weight, a sudden movement and Lykos was screaming, an explosion of pain in his now dislocated shoulder, his buckler ripping free as he fell as if he were a puppet with his strings cut.

He lay on his back, saw Maquin’s face twist, smile or snarl, and his arm pull back for the death blow.

Then Maquin was hoisted into the sky, a Kadoshim’s wings framing him, a serpent-like face laughing.

Good riddance. I can even live with not killing you as long as this time you stay dead.

Lykos staggered to his feet, swayed with nausea as pain jolted through his shoulder and curled his arm protectively into his chest. He began to stagger towards the safety of Drassil, felt blood trickling down his hip, a burning pain, and his shoulder throbbed rhythmically with every step.

Bastard almost had me. Guess the Kadoshim do have their uses.

He heard a furious screech from somewhere above. Stumbling to a halt, he looked up to see that Maquin had twisted in his captor’s grip and was furiously knifing the beast’s belly, opening its guts. Then the Kadoshim was falling, dead in the air, Maquin holding it tight.

The fall must kill him. They are too high. Please, the fall must kill him. Asroth below, I have sold you my soul, conquered half the Banished Lands for you. Do this one thing for me. Kill that lunatic.

Lykos watched horror-struck as he saw Maquin climb around the Kadoshim’s body, even as they were plummeting, somehow dragging himself up onto its back, wrapping one flapping leathery wing around himself.

They slammed into the ground, a few hundred paces away, earth and grass exploding around the body, a cloud of dust, slowly settling.

Lykos breathed out a long sigh of relief.

Then a wing twitched, was thrown off, and Maquin rose from the Kadoshim’s ruin, a long cut across his forehead, a limp in his left leg, but other than that he appeared to be infuriatingly healthy.

“Elyon above and Asroth below,” Lykos whispered, feeling a cold breath upon his neck.

“LYKOS,” he heard Maquin scream.

Lykos began to run.