Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

Feeling along the wall, they came to the end of the alley. Across the way someone was trying to light one of the streetlamps. In the silence that had not existed in the street for many months, the hiss of the oil resonated, but from beyond it came the measured step of several feet on the cobbles and the ring of metal catching against walls.

Unable to pierce the darkness that lay at the end of the street, Ruth and Tom watched, neither realising they were holding their breath in anticipation. In the distance, tiny lights bobbed like fireflies, the dim torches of people stumbling home. When one winked out, Ruth thought her eyes were tricking her. But then a second and a third disappeared, and when the fourth extinguished it was accompanied by a faint cry.

'The Enemy is coming,' Tom said redundantly.

He tried to pull Ruth back into the alley, but she resisted. 'I want to see what we're up against.'

The soupy darkness didn't give up its ghosts until they were almost upon Ruth and Tom's hiding place. Emerging from the unfolding black were figures that echoed the transformed victims of the blast Ruth had seen in the marketplace: the flesh had been stripped from their skulls, though the roving eyes remained, and into the bone had been embedded studs that created a mosaic effect; red and green feathers tufted from the back of a simple circlet headdress. They wore only a metal band across their shoulders that ended in a gold amulet, and a scarlet and orange cloth bound around their loins and fastened by a thick gold belt. A round shield fringed with feathers was strapped to their left forearm and in that hand they carried a wooden club. In their right hand they gripped a wooden spear with an obsidian blade.

'What are they — Aztec? Mayan? Incan?' Ruth whispered.

Though her voice was barely audible, the head of the nearest warrior cranked around in her direction. Tom pulled her back into the alley. Pressed against the wall and listening, Ruth could tell the warrior was poised to investigate. Before it could make any move, however, it was distracted by a man staggering towards the single flickering streetlamp. Instantly, the warrior ran forwards, driving his spear into the man's gut and up so that the shocked victim didn't even have time to cry out as he was lifted aloft. Thrashing wildly, he expired within a moment. The warrior dumped the body and continued after his comrades, the tip of his spear rattling across the cobbles.

Across the street others from the small band entered the buildings and brought screams within seconds. Though the warriors' numbers were small, their slaughter was systematic.

Levelling her spear, Ruth prepared to run across the street until Tom grabbed her forcefully. 'Take a break from being an idiot,' he snapped. 'There's one of you, and however good you are with that spear and your Craft, you won't last long out there.'

Ruth hesitated, then nodded. 'Let's find the others.'

As they set off down the alley, Ruth glanced back once, but the dark had already swallowed the street. The screams lingered, though, joining together to become one devastating cry of terror.

Church jerked awake from another searing image of himself lying on a table, as pale as death, ghostly faces moving around him. He had started to believe that the recurring dream was not a dream at all, but he refused to examine his nascent suspicions of what it really was. Every time he skirted it, he felt sick to the pit of his stomach; a part of him knew the truth, he was convinced. A part of him was truly afraid.

Exhaustion had left his head nodding as he waited in the rooftop cafe, but now he could see that the planned rendezvous would not be happening. He was alone in the chill dark with only the poor light from his sword for comfort. The sticky jungle smells and the dry desert wind still reached him, but he could see nothing beyond the edge of the roof. The constant screams and panicked cries rising up from the street made him feel queasy. All he could think of was Ruth still out there, trapped in the dark with the mob and, he feared from some of the sounds he heard, something deadlier.

It would have been more sensible to wait there for the others to find their way back to him, but his concern for Ruth overrode logic, and after a while pacing around the table anxiously, he made his way cautiously to the door.

His sword's Blue Fire gave him barely two feet of visibility. He was little better than blind in a sprawling city filled with danger.

Inside the building it was still stifling despite the temperature drop, and deafening with the cacophony of the many, many people crowded into every square foot of the ten floors, with only the cafe level kept out of bounds by the brutal guardians employed by the owner.

Trailing his left hand down the dry plaster, Church slowly descended the stairs to the next level, the stink of sweat and other bodily fluids increasing with every step. Each floor was a single room, used for some public function — a library, a meeting place — but their previous purpose had been almost obscured by makeshift beds and ramshackle tent-homes. The disturbed-hive drone of voices had increased considerably from the last time Church had passed through, the result, he guessed, of news of the descending darkness being passed on to those who were inside when it fell.

Reaching the next floor, he steeled himself for the arduous task of picking his way through the cluttered mass to the next flight of stairs against the opposite wall. Tiny lights bobbed here and there — candles, lanterns — small comfort to their owners but no use to him.

His very first step brought a squeal from someone underfoot, igniting a ripple of panic across the room and cries of, 'What's wrong?' and, 'Who is there?' Holding Caledfwlch before him like a torch, Church picked out his steps carefully, but the flickering blue light was a beacon of hope to any it fell upon. Soon pale faces caught in its glare were drawing up and moving in, curious and desperate. And as hands grasped him and pleas for assistance were issued, the desperate yearning for help swept across the room like fire.

Within minutes, bodies pressed against Church on every side, spinning him around, shaking his sense of direction. Fingers tore at his clothes and his skin, growing harder and angrier when they received no response. At first, he entreated people to allow him passage, but it proved hopeless and he quickly realised his only option was to put his head down and drive himself through the dense wall of bodies.

The next flight of stairs was located more by luck than judgement. Careering down them two steps at a time, he almost fell out of control in the dark, landing roughly on the next floor. The crush of people drawn to him began almost immediately.

Choking with the smell of bodies and the heat, Church continued to drive his way through the mass. Halfway across the room, amidst the pleadings and cries, a familiar, ironic voice broke through at his left ear: 'Don't you just hate them? Stupid, witless sheep.'

Church whirled, but all he saw were troubled, pale faces and grasping hands. The Libertarian had retreated back into the dark.

His heart pounding, Church renewed his efforts to press through the crowd. Faces came and went in the tight circle around him. Rough hands at his back became threatening. However fast he searched around the constantly looming bodies in the limited area of visibility, he knew he would never be able to see the Libertarian until the killer was on top of him.

He resorted to throwing people roughly out of his way, but that only increased the crowd's anger and made his passage even more difficult. Soon they would be attacking him instead of pleading for help. He forced himself to calm down.

The next two floors passed in a blur of tension. Church knew the Libertarian would not have departed; he was sickened to realise he was starting to know him as well as he knew himself. There was a thick vein of sadism in the pacing of his torment: how long could the Libertarian hold off before moving in to strike?