David Gemmell: Bloodstone

Sixty rifles came to bear, bullet after bullet hammering into the man — glancing from his skin, flattening against bone and falling to the grass. Infinitely slowly he pushed forward against the wall of shells. Closer and closer to the men lining the paddock fence.

One hundred and fifty yards. One hundred and forty yards. .

Even through the terrible and debilitating hunger Sarento began to feel pain. At first the bullets struck him almost without notice, like insects brushing his skin, then like hailstones, then like fingers jabbing at him.

Now they made him grunt as they slammed home against increasingly bruised skin. A shot hit him in the eye and he fell back with a scream as blood welled under the lid. Lifting his hand to protect his eyes he stumbled forward, the sweet promise of sustenance driving him on.

He was so close now, the scent so strong that he began to salivate.

They could not stop him.

'Sarento!' Above the sound of the gunfire he heard a voice calling his name. Turning his head he saw an old man being supported by a black woman, moving slowly out to his left away from the line of fire.

Surprised, he halted. He knew the woman: Amaziga Archer. But she was dead long since. He blinked, his injured eye making it difficult to focus. 'Cease fire!' bellowed the old man and the thunder of guns faded away. Sarento stood upright and stared hard at him, reaching out with his power to read his thoughts. They were blocked from him.

'Sarento!' he called again.

'Speak,' said the Bloodstone. He saw that the old man was wounded; his hunger was so intense that he had to steel himself not to drag the life force from the two as they approached. What helped was that he was intrigued. 'What do you want?'

The old man sagged against the woman. Amaziga took the weight, while at no time taking her eyes from the Bloodstone. He tasted her hatred and laughed. 'I could give you immortality, Amaziga,' he said softly.

'Why not join me?'

'You are a mass murderer, Sarento,' she hissed. 'I despise you!'

'Murder? I have murdered no one,' he said, with genuine surprise. They're all alive. In here,' he added, tapping his chest. 'Every one, every soul. I know their thoughts, their dreams, their ambitions. With me they have eternal life. We speak all the time. And they are happy, Amaziga, dwelling with their god. That is paradise.'

'You lie!'

'Gods do not lie,' he said. 'I will show you.' He closed his eyes, and spoke. The voice was not Sarento's.

'Oh, dear God!' whispered Amaziga.

'Get back from him, Mother,' came the voice of her son, Gareth. 'Get back from him!'

'Gareth!' she screamed.

'He's the Devil!' shouted the familiar voice. 'Don't bel—' Sarento's eyes opened, and his own deep voice sounded. 'He has yet to appreciate his good fortune. However, I think my point is made. No one is dead; they merely changed their place of habitation. Now what do you want, for I hunger?'

The old man pushed himself upright. 'I am here to offer you. . your greatest desire,'he said, his voice faltering.

'My desire is to feed,' said Sarento. 'And this conversation prevents me from so doing.'

'I can open the Gateways to other worlds,' the old man said.

'If that is true,' responded Sarento, 'then all I have to do is draw you into myself and I will have that knowledge.'

'Not so,' said the other, his voice stronger now. 'You used to understand computers, Sarento, but you will not have seen one like this,' he went on, tapping the box clipped to his belt. 'It is a portable. And it is self-aware. Through this machine I can control the Gateways. Should I die, it has instructions to self-destruct. You want to feed? Look around you. How many are here?' Sarento transferred his gaze to the farm buildings. He could see around fifty, perhaps sixty riflemen. 'Not enough, are there?' said the old man. 'But I can take you where there are millions.'

'Why would you do this?'

'To save my friends.'

'You would sacrifice a world to me, for these few?'

'I will take you wherever you choose.'

'And I am to trust you?'

'I am Jon Shannow, and I never lie.'

'You can't, Shannow!' screamed Amaziga, lunging at the portable. Shannow backhanded her across the face, spinning her to the ground. The effort caused him to stagger and his hand moved to his side, where blood oozed through the bandages. Amaziga looked up from the ground. 'How could you, Shannow?

What kind of a man are you?'

Sarento reached out and touched Amaziga's mind. She felt it and recoiled. 'So,' said Sarento, 'you are a truth speaker. And wherever I name you will take me?'

'Yes.'

‘The twentieth century on earth?'

'Where in the twentieth century?' responded the old man.

‘The United States. Los Angeles would be pleasant.'

‘I cannot promise you an arrival inside a city. The points of power are usually found in less crowded areas.'

'No matter, Jon Shannow. You, of course, will travel with me.'

'As you wish. We need to make our way to the crest of that hill,' said Shannow. Sarento's eyes followed where he pointed, then swung back to the group by the paddock fence. 'Kill even one of them and you will never see the twentieth century,' warned Shannow.

'How long will this take? I hunger!'

'As soon as we reach the crest.' The man turned and walked slowly towards the hillside. Sarento strode alongside him, lifting him from his feet. He began to run, effortlessly covering the ground. The old man was light, and Sarento felt his life draining away.

'Don't die, old man,' he said. Reaching the summit, he lowered Shannow to the ground. 'Now your promise!'

Shannow swung the microphone into place. 'Do it!' he whispered.

Violet light flared — and then they were gone. .

Amaziga staggered to her feet. Behind her the riflemen were cheering and hugging one another, but all Amaziga could feel was shame. Turning from the hillside, she walked back to the farmhouse. How could he have done it? How could he?

Beth came out to greet her. 'He succeeded then,' she said.

'If you can call it success.'

'We're still alive, Amaziga. I call that success.'

'Was the cost worth it? Why did I help him? He's doomed a world.' When the Bloodstone had appeared Shannow had called her to him.

‘I have to get close to him,' he said. 'I need you!'

‘I don't think I can take your weight. Let Sam help!'

'No. It must be you!'

Sam came out to join them now. Laying his hand on Amaziga's shoulder, he leaned down and kissed her brow. 'What have I done, Sam?' she asked.

'What you had to do,' he assured her. Together and hand in hand they walked away to the far fields.

Beth stayed for some time, staring at the hillside. Zerah Wheeler and the children joined her.

'Never seen the like,' said Zerah. 'Gone, just like that!'

'Just like that,' echoed Beth, holding firm against the yawning emptiness within. She remembered Shannow as she had first seen him, more than two decades before — a harsh, lonely man, driven to search for a city he knew could not exist. I loved you then, she thought, as I could never love you since.

'Has the bad man gone?' asked Esther suddenly.

'He's gone,' Zerah told her.

'Will he come back?'

'I don't think so, child.'

'What will happen to us, to Oz and me?'

Zerah chuckled. 'You're going to stay with old Zerah. Isn't that a terrible punishment? You're going to have to do chores, and wash and clean. I suspect you'll run away from the sheer torment of it all.'

'I'd never run away from you, Zerah,' Esther promised, her face suddenly serious. 'Not ever.'

'Me neither,' said Oz. Lifting the little pistol from his coat pocket, he offered it to Zerah. 'You'd better keep this for me, Frey,' he said. 'I don't want to shoot nobody.'