Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

Rounding a turn in the stairs came a score or more of squat, brutish Redcaps clothed in the remnants of their human victims. Mallory braced himself for the fight, but Decebalus said firmly, ‘Go. I will hold them off.’

‘You can’t. They’re killing machines.’

‘Go!’ Decebalus roared. ‘If we both fall here, there will be no one to avenge our dead. Besides, I fight better alone.’

Mallory hesitated for only a second before he clapped the barbarian on the shoulder. ‘You’re a hero. I’m not going to forget this.’

‘Then you buy all the ale when next we meet in the Hunter’s Moon.’

Mallory ran up the stairs. Glancing back, he saw Decebalus crash his axe into the skull of the first Redcap and then kick the body back down onto the ravening horde. His insane laughter boomed up the stairwell. ‘To hell!’

Mallory sprinted up the stairs to the very top of the palace where he knew Niamh would be preparing her defence, or her escape. In the annexe that led into the queen’s suite of state rooms, he found Evgen and five members of the elite guard dressed in black and silver armour and full helmets. They brandished broad, curved swords.

‘One Brother of Dragons,’ Evgen sneered. ‘How disappointing. Pray to your God. You will be with him soon.’

‘I don’t have a god,’ Mallory replied. ‘This is what I believe in.’

He swung Llyrwyn and as he attacked, the Blue Fire became an inferno, fed by his Pendragon Spirit and feeding it in turn. The first two guards exploded into moths before they had even taken a step. The third was more of a challenge, but Mallory would not be contained. The Blue Fire filled him until there was no Mallory, just a righteous weapon that struck with all the strength and skill he had learned as a Knight Templar.

Another guard fell, then another, until Evgen faced him, alone. The captain threw back the mask of his helmet, revealing an expression of incomprehension.

‘You can leave,’ Mallory said.

‘My duty is to my queen. I have neither will nor desire beyond that.’

Mallory felt briefly sorry for him. But then Evgen raised his sword and for five minutes they battled ferociously until Evgen misjudged a strike and Mallory ran through his open defence.

Dropping his weapon, Evgen crashed back against the wall. ‘How can Fragile Creatures defeat the Golden Ones?’ he said in disbelief.

‘This is a new age.’

Once the moths had dissipated, Mallory entered the reception hall. The stifling heat made him choke. The fire in the great hearth roared as if driven by bellows, and all around the room braziers glowed. There was no other light source, and a claustrophobic gloom clustered in the corners.

Niamh stood before the fire. She wore tight-fitting ebony armour etched with silver filigree and a black ceremonial headdress with six horns that resembled the arms of Shiva.

‘Dressed for a funeral?’ Mallory said.

Niamh smiled. ‘Dressed for victory.’

The flames of Llyrwyn licked towards her hungrily. ‘What happened to you? Church told us how you-’

‘How I loved him? Jack Churchill taught me many things. He ignited a fire inside me, and then chose the love of another. A Fragile Creature,’ she added contemptuously.

‘You can’t always get what you want. So is that it — you’ve caused all this misery just because of a broken heart?’

Niamh laughed. ‘How dismissive you are of the signifying quality of Fragile Creatures! Everything you do is because of love! I have observed your kind for an age. If you seek money or power, it is in a pitiful attempt to fill the gap left by an absence of love. Adult lives are corrupted and distorted by the search for love denied them as children. Love drives Fragile Creatures to achieve astonishing things, and love lies behind murder and betrayal and cruelty. Love destroys confidence and creates doubt and self-loathing. Love turns Fragile Creatures into gods. It is all and everything. To dismiss it so only shows your ignorance.’

‘So now you’ve signed up with the Void because you didn’t get the kisses you wanted.’

‘This is the twilight of the gods, foretold in all your stories since your first days. The old ways are passing, for every living being. I choose my path accordingly.’

‘It makes no sense. How can you give in to control? To a universe that denies freedom, belief, magic? You had that spider removed to escape control-’

She laughed. ‘Yes, I had the spider removed.’ She raised her arms wide. ‘And then I chose to be filled with spiders.’

Under her skin, lumps of varying sizes began to move across her hands, her face, distorting her features. She opened her mouth wide and the spiders swarmed out and over her body.

Mallory had hoped he could talk her into giving up. Now he saw there was no hope. He raised Llyrwyn and prepared to attack.

A ferocious wind blasted from a corner of the room, throwing him hard against the wall. Niamh hadn’t moved. The spiders still crawled over her, but now she wore a cruel smile.

From out of the shadows walked another woman in the same black armour and headdress as Niamh. It was Sophie, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘You bastard. You betrayed me,’ she said with devastating bitterness.

Mallory gaped. ‘What’s happened to you?’

‘This.’ She gestured and the wind rushed around the room. From the corner behind her came Caitlin, strapped to a wooden frame with barbed wire, barely conscious, badly beaten and bleeding from numerous wounds. Sophie raised her hand and the torture frame floated forward, a foot above the floor.

‘What have you done?’ Mallory could barely believe what he was seeing.

‘She paid the price for being a duplicitous bitch.’

‘You did that to her?’

Sophie shifted uneasily. There was a faint glassy quality to her eyes that gave him some hope. ‘Of course not! I don’t agree with it-’

‘But you didn’t stop it-’

‘She deserved it! You and her — behind my back!’

‘What? Caitlin and me? That’s ridiculous.’

‘I saw you!’ The wind raged, tossing Mallory across the room.

His head ringing, Mallory struggled to his feet. The wind continued to rush around Sophie and there was lightning in her eyes. He’d had no idea she was capable of wielding such power, and it scared him.

He approached her cautiously, but couldn’t help glancing at Caitlin.

‘See?’ Sophie snapped. ‘You care about her.’

‘Of course I do — she’s hurt. Anybody with any compassion would care.’

His words stung her. She allowed her anger to rise up so she could ignore them. ‘I’m sick of being betrayed by everybody I ever trust!’

‘I’m not going to betray you.’

‘Shut up!’ The wind whisked around him, but this time didn’t punish him. Tears filled her eyes. ‘My mother and father betrayed me, and now you. The only people I’ve ever loved.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They killed themselves when I was nine. A suicide pact. They said they loved me and they left me all alone.’

‘You never told me that-’

‘Didn’t you ever wonder?’ she sneered. ‘The Pendragon Spirit only comes alive in us when we’ve experienced death. Didn’t you think to ask who’d died around me?’

Mallory saw her desperate hurt and suddenly so many things about her became clear. ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked away, her tears running freely.

Niamh watched with detached amusement.

‘You manipulated her,’ Mallory accused. If she had been close enough he would have killed her in an instant.

‘I only allowed what was in her to take form,’ Niamh said. ‘Now she has chosen to be with me. I will not betray her.’

‘Soph, don’t fall for this,’ he pleaded.