Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

Ruth waited at the foot of a winding stone staircase. She held up a hand to halt Church and Veitch, then jabbed her spear up the stairs. Blades shot out from both walls and snapped back into place; they would have sliced off the legs of anyone climbing them.

With the sounds of pursuit drawing closer along the revolving corridor, Ruth yelled, 'See the gaps in the walls from which the blades extend? If you're careful, you can go over and under.'

'We haven't got time to be careful,' Veitch barked. 'Move!'

Almost rigid with fear, Virginia was helped by Ruth and Miller. The others followed as quickly as they could. The ka-ching of the blades became a steady, terrifying beat as they worked their way up the steps. A cry rang out as one clipped Tom's boot and he sprawled, narrowly missing another blade. His stream of abuse told everyone he was all right.

A quaking at the foot of the steps warned Church that the Iron Slaughterman was close behind, the sound of shattering blades revealing how he was putting his sword to good use.

Freezing air, brilliant white light and the dying blizzard greeted them as they stumbled from the top of the steps onto a stone terrace on the side of the mountain. Across a dizzying gulf, on another rocky slope of the range, they could just make out what had to be the Groghaan Gate, a soaring arch of gleaming gold. A bridge had once spanned the gulf between the two peaks, but it had been shattered at intervals so that sections were suspended on either side of columns that dropped down into the white wastes below.

'We're never going to get across there,' Veitch said, peering over the lip of the first section of bridge. Vertigo made him wobble and he took a step back from the edge.

'Then we make our stand here,' Church said.

In the chamber in the depths of the Halls of the Drakusa, Jack frantically wrenched at the door handle, but it remained resolutely closed.

Standing his ground before the chained giant, Hunter's face revealed the strain of keeping the creature out of his thoughts.

'Who are you?' Hunter asked.

'Who are you?' the giant said.

'Okay, we could keep doing this all day, but it's already getting old.'

'Getting old.'

Wiping away a dribble of blood from his left nostril, Hunter continued, 'Clearly the Drakusa saw you as too much of a threat to leave you wandering around. Are you responsible for all the bones in the basement?'

'Bones.'

'Of course, if that's what remains of the Drakusa, it doesn't explain who chained you up here.'

Hunter became aware that Jack was no longer rattling at the door in panic. The boy now watched Hunter with hooded eyes, his body held in an odd posture with one shoulder slumped. Before Hunter could ask what was wrong, Jack attacked in a murderous rage, screaming and attempting to tear at Hunter's flesh, throat, eyes.

It was an effort even for Hunter to hold him off, but as he wrestled Jack back, an insidious darkness crept into the back of his head. He saw himself pressing his thumbs into Jack's throat and squeezing the life from him before tearing off his skin, ripping out his eyes, brutalising his body beyond all recognition. His head swam with the last, desperate expressions of all the people he had killed, their fear of what was to come on the other side of death, their grief for the ones they were leaving behind, the terrible sight of the intelligence winking out in their eyes. And then he was hanging himself from a short rope in the corner of the room, his face turning black, the skin decaying, the insects moving in.

For anyone else, the creeping infection of morbidity would have destroyed them, but death had been Hunter's companion for too long. He wasn't scared of it; nor did it revolt him. It was simply a necessary if distasteful part of life. He snapped himself back from the flood of oppressive images and forced his thoughts to right themselves.

Jack rolled on the floor, gasping for air, his throat still bearing the red marks of Hunter's fingers. The death-images assaulted his mind, driving him slowly insane.

The giant cocked his hooded head towards Hunter. 'I am El-Di-Gah-Wis-Lor, the final judgement of the Drakusa, the dark at the end, the breath of the grave,' he began. 'I am death, and I bring death. Brought into being for one purpose, to end the plague of the Caraprix, I was not allowed to fulfil my destiny. And so I have waited, and waited, and my urge for death has risen with each season. And now you are here, and I will have my way.'

Blood flew in droplets as Hunter shook his head to clear his mind. 'All well and good, except you're unfortunate to have the wrong person in here. You see, I am death, and I'm a bigger, badder death than you.'

Hunter tore open his bag and rammed his hand into the Balor Claw. It sang eagerly when it bonded with its master. 'Now we'll see. Skull for skull and bone for bone.'

From beyond the door, he could hear the low, rumbling sound of the approaching Fomorii. Jack whined, spat blood, drawing them closer.

Bounding at the giant, Hunter tore off the hood. Red eyes that had not seen in an age rolled in a devastated face that resembled a melted candle. When they fixed on Hunter, he saw within a monstrous intellect, unknowable, uncaring, whose sole purpose was to destroy him, destroy every living thing. For the first time in his monstrous, debased life, he shuddered.

And then he brandished the Balor Claw in front of the giant's face and said, 'This is worse than death. It can reduce you to nothing in an instant. Do you understand?'

Hunter wanted to look away when those hideous eyes revolved back to him. 'I have learned your words. I know your mind. We are death.'

Despair washed through Hunter when he heard his worst fears given voice. 'Leave the boy alone,' he said.

The red, staring eyes focused on Jack, then snapped away as if they were removing a hook and line. Jack rolled onto his back, gasping and crying.

The door throbbed with a ferocious pounding that would rend it open within seconds. Hunter glanced at the stone steps winding around the chamber walls, but then a notion struck him.

'You can control minds,' he said. 'Can you control them?'

'The Nightwalkers. They nested here in recent times. I have felt them scurrying and searching. Directionless. Hopeless.'

'Can you control them?'

The answer was clear in the giant's red eyes.

'Then open the door.'

The blizzard blasted across the terrace again, limiting visibility to one little world of brutality and strife. Bodies of the rat and wolf creatures were scattered all around in shocking Rorschach blots of colour on the blank canvas, but the Iron Slaughterman remained impervious to Church, Veitch and Ruth's attacks. His skill and speed with the sword belied his enormous size, a wall of iron that deflected their attacks and forced them on the defensive. Only the limited space on the terrace prevented the Iron Slaughterman from destroying them, but they all knew it was only a matter of time.

'Find a way to get across to the next part of the bridge!' Church yelled to the others as they shielded their heads from the raining chunks of rock in the far corner of the terrace.

'Does he expect us to fly?' Tom snapped.

'At least Janus has not ventured this far,' Shavi said. Peering over the edge of the terrace, he could just make out the next section of shattered bridge through the blizzard. 'If only we had a rope,' he said.

'If we don't hurry we won't even be able to see where it is,' Miller whined.

'I might be able to help.' Her voice filled with uncertainty, Laura joined Shavi at the edge and showed him a handful of seeds she had retrieved from her pocket. 'I brought these from the court. Thought they might come in handy some time, you know, with my freakish ability to make things grow.'