Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

‘They must have better options than us.’

‘And they are probably using them in ways we don’t see. The nobody who gave us the S-tech graft for ex—’

‘He seemed more like a street heretic,’ Vic said. Scab just stared at the ’sect. He hated interruptions. ‘Sorry.’

‘Despite your whining, self-pity and lack of self-belief, we are two very capable operators.’

‘But it’s over now, right?’ Scab shook his hand. ‘You once told me that you were a killer, not a detective. They have the resources of the entire Monarchist systems at—’

‘They are fragmented.’

Though apparently it was okay for Scab to interrupt , Vic mused. ‘Even if it’s just one of the kingdoms. We’re two people and a ship you’ve bullied so badly the AI committed suicide.’

‘I killed it, well, lobotomised it.’

‘Whatever.’

‘We’re going to Pythia.’

Vic gave this some thought, feeling himself getting angrier as he did.

‘Why the fuck didn’t we just go there in the first place?’ he demanded.

‘Intelligence pointed to the Citadel. It would have made sense to hide it there.’

Ysgawyn awoke to the smells of earth, rot, decay and horse. It was a comfort. Once you were dead then nobody could kill you. All his people were warriors and all had chosen to live in Annwn. The living were their victims.

Ysgawyn climbed off his shelf in the barrow that he shared with the bones of many generations of his family. He also shared it with his horse. His horse, like him, was covered in lime, both their eyes ringed with black. Rider and mount had disturbing unnatural-looking symbols painted on the lime.

Ysgawyn took a deep breath and then turned to look at the shelf where his father’s decayed remains lay.

‘Soon,’ he said. He would often speak to his father, his grandfather and ancestors from further back. He heard their replies in his head and often took their counsel, but tonight there was little time. Armour had to be oiled and then limed, weapons honed, his mount prepared. Then he would eat the fungus and ride.

They emerged from barrows all across the plain, white like corpses, some leading their horses, others already astride them. The Dark Man had spoken to them. They would ride for the god of death and they would not stop. It would be an end to the living.

There were no war cries, no carnyx sounded, no orders were shouted; there was just the thunder of hoof beats echoing across the flat desolate plain.

Britha felt fire crawl through her, under her skin. Felt the demon in the consumed flesh try and consume her in turn. It burned. Not like a fever but like putting your hand in a fire and holding it there. The burning was pain but the agony was still to come. Her back was arched, her hands claws as she convulsed on the ground. The smell of the river, the feeling of pebbles beneath her, all of it went away as the stars in the night sky went out one by one, leaving nothing but darkness.

She saw a tribe painted white like corpses around a hearth pit, wriggling on their stomachs, so many, so close together, like white worms crawling over each other, in supplication that made Britha sick to see. How could they even call themselves people after such a display? The fire burned cold in the hearth and there was a tall man made of darkness. It hurt to look at him; his shape did not entirely make sense and there was something behind or through him, something she could feel, seething hatred and anger made of nothing. Then the screaming. Eventually, when she felt the blood in her raw throat, Britha would realise that she was the one screaming.

A cage, for people, her people, in the sea. Something inside them, a little crystalline egg waiting to hatch. She sank under the water, still burning, the water bubbling around her. Something came at her, darting through the water, a bestial fury on an alien face.

Then the agony started. It seemed like all the agony, pain and fear. Then she recognised the voice. Her people. Others. Thousands. A sacrifice.

There was too much pain. Britha went away into darkness, her flesh still burning, a cool whisper in her mind promising respite, promising relief, promising freedom from it all. All she had to do was serve the seductive voice. Listen to the blood in her veins. It was the tiniest fragments of a god.

It was all too much. She had failed. Her people would die in agony. If she would serve, what was her could recede into darkness and the pain would end. So easy…

Almost.

Britha’s back arched so violently it almost threw her upright. Violent contortions racked her body, making her writhe across the pebble beach. Her bloodstained face became a rictus mask of twisted facial expressions. The warrior glanced over at his misshapen friend.

‘Do we help?’ he asked.

The warrior’s misshapen friend gave this some thought. It was clear that he wanted to move on. The pair of them had a purpose after all. ‘Do we help?’ the warrior asked again. His misshapen companion said nothing; instead he knelt next to her, his eyes narrowing as he studied her more closely.

Britha’s eyes flicked open. The crystalline skull looked down on her, smiling its rictus grin. Roots grew off the skull, blowing in an invisible and disconcerting wind and ending somewhere that Britha couldn’t see and was sure did not exist. The face of the skull that wasn’t a skull had too many angles. Somehow she knew it existed beyond what she could perceive. The many faceted crystals caught and reflected a strange red light, the source of which was also beyond her sight. Then the crystals seemed to consume the light. Each separate crystal was moving, changing shape as if crawling back into the skull and from there to some impossible place.

Britha started to scream again.

Teardrop held her as she convulsed on the pebble beach. The flesh she had just eaten made her froth bloody. She tried clawing at Teardrop’s face. He just moved his head back to avoid it.

‘I think she can see me,’ Teardrop said. Fachtna glanced over at his oddly dressed, swollen-headed compatriot, then he turned back to look past the distant crannogs at the mouth of the river under the overcast sky and out to sea.

‘We are so far behind,’ he said quietly and then inhaled deeply. ‘I don’t like where the sky is, or the sun.’

‘You’ll get used to it. She’s eaten one of the possessed’s flesh.’

Fachtna did not grimace. Such practices had long since been abandoned by his people but he knew of them. It was a primitive response to what had happened, but he could understand it.

On his back he felt the spear shake and moan. It would need to be drugged and bathed in blood soon.

‘Will she live?’ the warrior asked.

‘She should, but she could also be possessed. The strange thing is that she is fighting it. He nodded towards the body of the huge tattooed warrior. ‘It looks like she killed one of them with their own weapon. I don’t understand how she could do that.’

This made Fachtna suspicious.

‘Someone else has blessed her?’

Teardrop took an obsidian-bladed knife from inside his jerkin and made a small incision in Britha’s cheek. He brought the blade to his mouth, licked it and concentrated.

‘I can taste the demon blood but something wars with the demon blood within her.’

‘What?’

‘Something old and powerful but so faint.’ Teardrop’s eyes widened. ‘I can taste the Muileartach in her.’

Fachtna stared at his companion.

‘Where’s she from?’

Teardrop leaned in to smell her.

‘Local.’

‘Sure?’ Fachtna asked. Teardrop gave him a look that left him in no doubt as to the stupidity of his question. ‘Can you help her?’