Brent Weeks - Beyond the Shadows

He looked back to the army across the plain. He saw the krul, but this time, he saw through their flesh. Each of them held one of these creatures. My God, these are the Strangers. Dorian saw them, and he understood. The Strangers carried hell with them wherever they went. They fed on human suffering not because it sustained them, but because it was a distraction from their own suffering; it was entertainment. Wearing flesh was no escape. Rather it was simply the best distraction of all, a chance to feel, if only for a time, to experience the pleasures of food and drink, if only in a muted way, and to kill. That was the pinnacle, to take away that which men had and which they had no more.

“Odniar!” the voice was in his ear. Dorian turned and for a moment, he could see with his natural vision once more. Every one of his men was staring at him, fearful. Then his vision bifurcated and he could see fear rise like a fragrance from his men—to the delight of the swirling Strangers. He felt the fingers on his shoulders, bony fingers, but before he could turn to face what he knew must cling even to him, he felt natural fingers grab his bicep and squeeze hard.

Jenine swam into his vision, which was natural once more, then it split. She was pregnant, right now, but not with twins. A Stranger spun in tight circles around her, but hadn’t yet found a place to rest. It wanted—by the God, it wanted their baby!

Dorian cried out and saw a fresh wave of fear rise from his men. A mob of the Strangers, now aware of his awareness of them, had congregated around him. They were walling him in.

“ODNIAR! Rodnia! Adimmt! Dornia. Dorian!” Jenine was whispering fiercely in his ear, her body pressed against him, turning him away from his men. He blinked, and saw only ground, and soldiers, and krul, and his wife. She’d called him back from madness, maybe using the thing which best anchored him to reality: his own name.

“I’m back,” he said. “I’m here. Thank you.” He shook himself, willed himself not to see beyond the veil again. He looked over his shoulder, nodded to General Naga to let the frightened man see that Dorian was well, and then strode forward.

Beneath the cloak, Dorian—Wanhope—had decided to go bare-chested. A god felt not the cold. He strode forward, decisive to cover for his earlier hesitation, great knots of vir rising in his skin. He gestured and a young man was brought forward. Dammit, Wanhope hadn’t wanted Jenine to see this. But it was too late, and there was no way she would go where she couldn’t see him after he’d almost doomed them all by standing around looking lost.

The young man’s name was Udrik Ursuul. All of the aethelings in Khaliras had been killed, but seventeen who’d already left for their Harrowings still lived. Udrik had impregnated the wrong Modaini oligarch’s daughter and had to flee, thus failing his uurdthan. He’d come home to beg mercy.

“Do you know, Udrik, if you raise thirteen legions of krul, you can command them yourself, but if you raise just one more, you have to master an arcanghul?”

“A what?” Udrik’s brows were still heavily kohled, menacing despite his fright.

“It’s a creature that these wild men didn’t dare try to master,” Wanhope said. “Tell me, brother, is it better for one man to die, or the whole people?”

Udrik’s eyes widened, and then widened again as Wanhope cut his throat with the obsidian knife. He dropped to his knees, throat spurting, then tumbled awkwardly on his back. Dorian felt—or imagined—the jubilation of a thousand Strangers. He blinked. Control, Dorian. Control it. He didn’t dare to watch what this next part looked like from that other reality.

Wanhope extended his arms and his wings toward the host before him. “ Arcanghulus! Come! Be known to me!” The weaves spun out from him easily as if the vir itself was helping him, as if he’d done this a thousand times. Green lightning danced around him. A train of blue fire looped around him. Then the ground began to boil around Udrik’s corpse. Clumps of dirt burst and stuck to the body. Flares danced over Udrik and the corpse’s muscles tore, skin ripped.

The shamans saw their mistake. They hadn’t dared raise an arcanghulus, and Dorian had. An aurochs-horn bugle called the wild men to charge. But only half did.

A bolt of lightning cracked the earth before Wanhope, blinding him, and thunder ripped over him and over both armies, dropping men to the ground on both sides.

When Wanhope’s vision returned, the wild men’s charge had faltered and broken. There was a man standing where Udrik had been and every eye was on him. He was easily seven feet tall, with hair of molten gold falling to the nape of his neck. Though his skin was the color of polished silver, it wasn’t shiny or artificial. His eyes were an arresting emerald of a shade barely within human possibility. Perhaps one man in a million had such eyes. Perhaps mimicking Wanhope, he too was bare-chested, though his body was lean and angular. He was the most beautiful man Wanhope had ever seen.

The arcanghulus laughed, and even his laughter was beautiful. “We’re Strangers, Godking, not monsters.”

“What is your name?” Wanhope asked.

“I am Ba’elzebaen, the Lord of Serpents.”

“Awfully cold in the Freeze for a snake.”

“I’m not in the Freeze any more, am I?”

“I would have you serve me, Ba’elzebaen,” Wanhope said. He desperately wanted to look at Ba’elzebaen as he was, but he didn’t dare. If he lost himself to madness now, Ba’elzebaen might take Dorian’s body instead of Udrik’s.

The Stranger chuckled. “And I would have the sun and moon bow down to me.”

“But one of these things will happen.”

Ba’elzebaen laughed as if at a precocious child. “I am stronger than you.”

“It is only the will and the call that matters. I have called you, and my will is implacable.” The stunning green eyes locked onto his, and Dorian had only to think of how Jenine would be taken if he didn’t compel this snake. He felt the arcanghulus’s will rise against him, higher and higher. Ba’elzebaen was ever so much more than this body before Dorian. He was immortal, omnipotent, there was nothing Dorian could do to stop him. It was hopeless. He should bow and beg for mercy.

Dorian knew that this was the arcanghulus’s attack, and he held onto what he knew. The arcanghulus would obey, would bow, would serve. I am Godking. I am implacable. I will destroy those who challenge me. I will not serve. I am a god.

Ba’elzebaen relaxed and the attacks stopped. “Very well, Godking, I will serve you.”

“Where is my half-brother Moburu?”

“He attempted to take over the ten tribes. He failed. Only one tribe joined him, but he did take enough bones to raise a legion of krul. He’s heading for Black Barrow.” A legion was about two thousand krul. It wasn’t good, but it was far better than facing Moburu at the head of this army. “But it isn’t Moburu you have to worry about.”

“Neph,” Dorian said, his suspicions confirmed.

“Yes. Neph is the one who taught the wild men to raise krul. All this was nothing more than a diversion to keep any Ursuul away from Black Barrow.”

“What’s he trying?”

“To make himself Godking, whether by raising a Titan or by giving Khali flesh.”

Surely Neph Dada didn’t mean to raise Khali herself. It would be madness. If what Dorian had seen of the Strangers’ nature was true, giving their leader flesh would be inviting the devastation of all Midcyru. The good news was that no one since Roygaris Ursuul had been powerful enough to raise Khali. A Titan, on the other hand, was far more probable, and plenty frightening enough. Where in the Strangers’ hierarchy did a Titan fall? Two ranks above Ba’elzebaen? Three? By the God.