VOIDBRINGER

Author/Co-creator: Rose Zemlya

Editor/Co-creator: KA Harchak

Book Two

DECEIT

12

They came to a stop at a steep, muddy bank. Laid out below them was a green pool of stagnant water, almost big enough to be considered a lake. Galen led the way, picking his way carefully down the hill and pausing at the edge of the water to wait for Cattie-Shai. The surface was technically still, but ripples and distortions danced across it, caused by the myriad of bugs eating the mossy film that covered it, or simply grazing the water on their way by to elsewhere. Not far away, a vividly blue bird sang loudly as it bathed itself, pausing occasionally to snack on the oblivious insects. No streams or tributaries disturbed the small lake, and it was impossible to see deep into it through the plant life.

Cattie-Shai regarded the murky water with a dubious expression as she came to stand beside her brother. “Doesn’t look like much,” she noted. “Are you sure this is the right spot? I don’t see an entrance.”

“It’s under the water,” Galen explained, tightening the straps that held his maul in place on his back.

“Yeah, but how do you know this is the right lake? There’s only a million of them in Qirast, and you’ve been away for a long time.”

He offered her a mocking smirk. “Big Fury warrior afraid of getting wet?” he demanded, and took juvenile pleasure in watching her bristle.

“Big Fury warrior not a fan of wasting time in a swimming hole when there are more important things to be doing,” she snapped, and the beads and feathers on her mask rattled menacingly.

Galen grinned at her and shook his head, pointing out over the lake. “Look closer,” he said. “Ever seen a pool so perfectly circular, hmm?” Cattie-Shai turned away from him to look at the perimeter of the lake and blinked in surprise as she realized he was right. “Man-made,” he explained, and arched an dark eyebrow. “Believe me now?”

She huffed. “Okay, okay,” she said, waving him off. “You’re right, I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“Apology accepted,” Galen replied, then gestured at the moss-covered pool. “Ladies first.” But the invitation was unnecessary; Cattie-Shai had already waded into the water, leaving a trail through the yellow film and sending a cloud of insects flying for cover. “There’s a drop-off right ahead of you,” Galen warned her. “The entrance should be at the bottom of it, set into the wall. The tunnel actually cuts into the ground under us.”

Cattie-Shai cast a look at him over her shoulder and winked a pale blue eye, then turned without a word and plunged head-first into the water, disappearing into the murk in moments. Galen shook his head and counted to ten; no sense jumping in right after her and landing on top of her. He had to give her enough time to get down and find the entrance before he followed.

Hurry, the presence urged him. I believe someone is approaching.

“Several someones,” Galen grunted, whirling around at the unmistakable crashing of a large group through the thickly grown trees. He couldn’t see them yet, but they were close and it sounded like they were headed toward the lake. He swore under his breath and wasted no more time, turning and pushing through the water at a hurried pace.

Your maul is going to be a problem, the presence noted as he approached the drop-off.

My maul would only be a problem if I was trying to go up, Galen corrected it. I’m trying to go down, so if anything it’s going to be a help. He sucked as much air as he could into his lungs and jumped off the edge of the drop-off without waiting for the presence’s response.

The world disappeared in a green and yellow haze as the weight of his maul dragged him down through the water. The light grew rapidly dimmer as he fell, counting the seconds. It was harder and harder for it to penetrate the dirty lake. By the time he had counted to 30 the light had shrunk to nothing more than a distant star far above him, having little impact on the dark waters that now surrounded him. The water was deeper than he remembered, and it occurred to him belatedly to hope that nothing large and hungry had moved into the otherwise vacant pool.

His attention was caught by a flicker of light below; a bone-torch shone stubbornly through the murk, flickering with blue light where it had been placed ages ago by the Priests who had built the tunnels. He could see the ground in its glow, as well as the edge of the cliff that was the drop off and the dark entrance way carved into it. He struck the mud and silt that made up the lake’s floor and sent a cloud billowing up into the water as the weight of his maul pulled him down into the soft earth, burying his ankles. He waited for it to settle before trying to move.

You’re stuck, the voice said dryly, an unspoken ‘I told you so’ evident in his tone.

No I’m—shit.

He was stuck. He pulled his leg up, attempting to dislodge his feet from the mud, but it just sucked him down harder. The pressure of the water above was making it much harder than it should have been. The extra weight of his maul was definitely not helping, but what could he do? Cast the weapon away and lose it forever? That wasn’t an option. He heaved himself forward with a heroic effort and had to desperately flap his arms to keep from falling over when his feet did not follow.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. He viciously shoved his panic back down before it made him start thrashing and just got him stuck deeper. It was not a simple thing to accomplish – no matter how hard he tugged at his feet they remained firmly planted in the sediment, and his lungs were beginning to burn with an unholy fire. He cast a desperate look around for something to use to pull himself out and his eyes fell across the words inscribed in the archway ahead, over the entrance to the Necropolis – DUTY INTO DEATH. Galen paused and made a face. Not the kind of help he’d been looking for.

They’re entering the pool, the voice informed him tersely, all smugness gone from its tone. You need to get out of there now. Galen whipped his face upward, resisting the urge to waste precious time snapping at the presence. The star at the top of the pool flickered and moved oddly as the several-someones he’d heard in the jungle above began to drop into the pool and disturbed the water.

Swearing profusely to himself, Galen dropped into a crouch and began to manhandle the buckles on his boots. If he couldn’t get the boots out of the mud, he’d have to get his feet out of the boots. Between the water and the lack of air his fingers may as well have been sausages for all the dexterity he could muster, but he somehow managed to undo the buckles and pull his feet free of the boots. He shoved himself through the water as fast as he could, getting close enough to the archway to pull himself away from the mud before the weight of his maul could drag him down into it again, and at last got his feet on the cold stone floor.

Swimming with the maul was out of the question, so he walked through the water as quickly as he could, following the sloping corridor upwards. Flickering bone-torches lit his way, but they blurred alarmingly as his need for oxygen began to trump his need to see.

Just as the sound of his own heart grew deafening in his ears, and he was sure his lungs would burst for lack of air, he spotted the ladder set into a wall ahead. Unwilling to contemplate what would happen if it was the wrong one, he threw himself at it and hauled himself surface-ward as fast as he could. His vision filled with black spots as he pulled himself hand over hand and he struggled to keep his body from forcing him to breathe in and fill his lungs with stagnant water.

Hand over hand over hand until he finally burst through into the stale, musty air above with a great, painful gasp. He collapsed over the top of the ladder, half in, half out of the water and lay there trembling for a long moment, drawing in great, heaving breaths of air and dust, until the fire in his lungs began to fade and the ache in his throat receded.

It was a moment before he realized that Cattie-Shai was pulling him up out of the water and onto the stone floor, a puddle already forming under them. The last vestiges of panic were still on her face as she hastily looked him over to make sure he wasn’t hurt.

“What happened?!” she demanded. “I was about to go back in after you!”

“Mud,” he managed between gasps. “Maul dragged me down…got me stuck.” Even without saying anything he knew the presence remained smug about that. He pointedly ignored it, groaning as he rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. “Come on. Company’s right on our heels. We need to hide.”

The room they were in was an antechamber of some kind. Its decorations were non-existent but for a large map carved into the wall on one side of the room. It was almost impossible to tell now, but Galen guessed it had once been a map of the Necropolis. Someone had brutally vandalized it, smashing the intricate carving with a large hammer or similar tool, leaving nothing legible but the image of Qirast in the top-left corner, with a marker for the entrance’s location. They were, he noted automatically, very close to the city.

So much destroyed, the presence said and Galen was startled by the heaviness of its voice. So much ruined so blindly. I can barely remember why…

Galen would have asked it what it meant, but Cattie-Shai was pulling him toward the exit opposite the map. He could see where the Order had brought down the hallway beyond. He could see, too, where someone had dug it out again, stacking rubble along the wall and leaving a rough path wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side.

“We’ll get inside,” Galen said as they slipped into the ruined hall, climbing over loose rubble and broken wood. He winced as his bare feet slipped into the wet dust and he fought to maintain his balance without stepping on something sharp. “Find a place to hide.”

“Where?” Cattie-Shai demanded. “Have you seen the trail we’re leaving? They’d have to be blind not to see it.”

Galen looked back and swore between his teeth. They’d stirred up dust that had lain there for the gods knew how long, and a trail of water stretched all the way back into the antechamber. Cattie-Shai was right, but there was nothing they could do about it. “It doesn’t matter,” he said shortly, turning around and continuing on his way. “We’ll figure it out.”

They said nothing more but picked up their pace. The hallway emptied out into a large ovoid room with multiple exits extending from it like a web. It was much grander than the first room, though equally vandalized. Carvings and statues depicting Zasi had been shattered; once grand tapestries, their charred remains so covered in dust and mould as to be irreparable, had been set alight; and someone had crudely chiselled a rough image of the symbol of Amen into the floor. Galen’s steps slowed to a stop at the mouth of the hallway and he stared uncomprehendingly at the defacement – he remembered it, in a distant way, from his younger days with the rebellion, but seeing it again, now.... His eyes moved from the unnecessarily thorough destruction, to the symbol of the God of Duty, and a tidal wave of disgust so powerful it flirted with nausea overcame him. He braced himself on the broken stone wall and struggled to tear his eyes away from the hewn floor.

The presence said nothing, but Galen could feel sadness and guilt radiating from it; some private grief it was unable to put into words. It flinched back from his attention.

“Wow,” Cattie-Shai breathed almost reverently. Her mask rattled and rustled as she moved into the room and stared around with wide eyes, following the walls as they were swept up into the high domed ceiling, laced with intricate buttresses and other delicate architecture that remained intact, high above where the paladins’ could reach. A massive mural was carved into the stone ceiling, depicting a story Galen didn’t know from the Priests’ mythology. “It must have been so beautiful…”

It was, said the voice in a pained whisper, barely a ghost of its usual richness and power.

The sound of splashing from behind them abruptly pulled them all from their reverie and directed their attention down the hallway toward the underwater entrance. Galen could see shadows dancing in the antechamber at the end of the hall over his shoulder and swore.

“Hide!” Cattie-Shai hissed.

“Here,” Galen replied, already part way through a barefoot dash for nearby cover. An ebon statue of Zasi had been toppled onto its side, the shattered pieces left where they’d fallen. Half its body lay neglected on its side and was more than large enough to hide the siblings. They darted behind it, crouching down in its shadow and all but holding their breath. Zasi’s dismembered head stared reproachfully at them from where it had fallen, its tongueless jowls twisted into an accusatory frown. Galen stared back for a moment, and a wave of melancholy washed over him. Looks like Amen’s people weren’t the only ones abandoned…

Cattie-Shai tugged at his sleeve and he broke the stone jackal’s gaze, turning to look at the once grand archway through which they’d come. Figures were clambering over the rubble in the hall, stepping out of the shadows and into the blue light of the bone-torches in the large room. His breath caught in his throat and it was a moment before he understood what he was seeing.

Shuffling in through the door in pairs, were relatively fresh undead; their slack faces were still recognizable – not just as humans, but as the people they had once been – and unless their limbs had been broken and the flesh stripped away while they lived, no bones showed through the heavy armour and dark skin; their eyes were empty and glazed, but there was little more than a hint of their skull in their face, just a preview; they had not mouldered long in rest before being raised. A few days at most.

But – and Galen had been reasonably certain that this was impossible prior to that moment – they were not Unyielding.

The Unyielding moved in death as they had in life – fluid or clumsy, graceful or heavy – but the stiff, stumbling walk of these ambulatory corpses was unmistakeable if you’d had the unfortunate luck to have seen it before. They lurched and tripped and seemed to list to one side or the other. Their armour – Order-issue full plate mostly, though without the skull masks that should have accompanied it – clanked loudly as they bumped into each other and the rubble barring their path. One of them gave a terrible moan, as though in pain, and its voice lacked the internal echo of an Unyielding.

As he stared at them and his brain finally broke through the wall of disbelief that had been his first reaction to the sight, Galen’s vision swam red with a sudden, undeniable rage – echoed in the back of his mind by the presence. It was fierce enough that it took him a moment to realize Cattie-Shai had an iron-grip on his arm and was struggling to keep him from drawing his weapon. He shook his head sharply at her, his scowl remaining on his face, but she squeezed his arm hard enough to hurt and glared fiercely. Galen’s scowl darkened, but he knew she was right – he couldn’t attack now; he’d get them both killed. They didn’t know yet how many were there, and the strength of these undead would depend on the strength of their master’s will – unlike the Unyielding their strength did not come from within; nothing did, nothing could. They were empty inside, like an abandoned shell.

He watched them stumble into the room and it burned him to suffer their continued existence, but he released the haft of his maul. He may not have been a paladin of Amen anymore, but he was still kin, and there were some duties that had nothing to do with which oath you had sworn. Cattie-Shai was staring at him as though he’d grown two heads; she was tensed and ready to grab him again if he gave her cause. He met her stare with a grim look and pointed at the undead, mouthing a word at her: Unhallowed.

She gave a start, the rattle of her beads lost beneath another moan, worse even than the first. She whipped her head around to stare at the undead, then turned back around to look at him and hesitated, unsure. Galen scowled and pointed insistently at them until she raised her hands in a placating gesture.

The Unhallowed were little more than legend for the bulk of the kin – nothing more than Ghost stories conceived after a night of drunken revelry abroad (or, in some cases, at home) – but that was because they didn’t exist in Qirast. Even those few Unhallowed brought in by unwise invaders didn’t make it very far – they were little more than walking corpses, lacking the intelligence and speed to get partway through the first ring without getting lost or killed. Any “survivors” were torn to shreds within moments by the Unyielding in the second ring, who could no more abide their debased cousins than could the kin. Simply put, most kin – with the exception of the Ghosts and those few priests who crossed over – had never actually seen the Unhallowed.

But Galen had. He had fought them in the yellow sands at the edge of the Wastes; he had shattered the Zabran revenants and made the sign of Zasi over their bones, even if he couldn’t bring himself to pray for them.

Undeath was a sacrifice to be made voluntarily, or not at all. The Unhallowed had not volunteered; they were, almost without exception, the victims of murder and a metaphysical rape so vile it defied words. And these Unhallowed, still shuffling across the floor, had once been kin…had once been Faithful.

Galen’s rage surged once more and he struggled to fight back the red tide. The voice, despite its own fury at the grotesque spectacle on display before them, still had the presence of mind for a barb: Good to see you still believe in something.

Galen would have replied sharply, but a small group had come out of a nearby hall, opposite the Unhallowed, forcing he and Cattie-Shai to shift position abruptly, or risk being seen.

The newcomers also wore the plate of the Order, but their skull-masks were firmly in place and they moved like the living, not like the dead. Oddly, however, each breastplate was bare, stripped of any of the identifying accoutrements the paladins usually wore. The only decoration in the whole lot was the crimson “M” stamped on the leader’s chest piece, over his heart. Galen felt Cattie-Shai stiffen beside him when she saw it – the man was a Myrmidon, and therefore a warrior of unmatched skill, which meant that if there was trouble, there would be trouble. Despite this complication, Galen felt a grim satisfaction. He watched the unexpected paladins stare at the Unhallowed, sizing them up, considering them. They would realize momentarily that something was wrong and take action.

When they did, however, it was not the action he had been expecting.

“What the Hell is this?!” the Myrmidon barked. There was something unfriendly but familiar in his voice. He did not seem surprised in the slightest. “These are our own men. We can’t feed these back into the Order, someone will notice!”

A frustrated growl pulled their attention to the back of the column of corpses, where 2 priests – the same two that had almost stumbled on Galen and Cattie-Shai in the woods above – had come into the room behind the undead, urging them on like livestock.

“Well what did you expect, exactly?” the woman shot back impatiently, breaking away from her companion to hurry toward the paladins. “There hasn’t been a decent battle in months. We didn’t have enough priests, so we had to use paladins. You didn’t kill nearly enough Ghosts, and they’re hard to raise besides – which, I might add, you know. We have to chase their god-damned souls all over the bloody island to raise them. Ghosts are no good to us.” She came to a stop in front of him, gesturing angrily. “You want more undead? Don’t give us attitude, give us bodies. Hold another inquisition or something.”

“Too soon after the last one,” the Myrmidon grunted, uncaring or insensitive to her irritation. He moved into the room and took his mask off to more closely inspect the corpses. Galen squinted at him through the jackal statue’s legs. He recognized the man’s face – hard eyes, sharp nose, severe mouth disfigured by a scar across the corner of it – but it had been far too long to remember the name. He did not recall having a particular fondness for the man, and something about the scar tugged at his memory. “Civil unrest is growing – nothing serious, relax,” the man clarified when she tensed. “Just the usual rabble rousers, but the last thing we want to do is give them the leverage they need to organize.”

“Gods,” the male priest swore coming forward to join them now that the column had stopped its forward momentum. “Just kill the bastards already. Worked well enough last time.”

“I would love to,” the myrmidon said, his mouth twisting into a bitter expression made worse by the scar, “but what good would it do? The worst of the lot is the son of a Council member so all I can do is throw him in the Vanguard for the night before she comes to get him out again the next morning. And if I start killing the others, she’ll come screaming at me like a demented harpy about how I’m making her look bad for going easy on her son.”

“We have one of those too,” the male priest noted dryly. “A demented harpy, I mean.”

“Seems to me,” snapped the woman, “you’re both showing an alarming amount of disrespect for your superiors, and somehow I doubt they’d take kindly to the news.” The myrmidon rolled his eyes and the male priest made a noise that suggested he was doing the same, but they dropped the subject. “Can we just get this over with?”

The Myrmidon fixed her with a condescending expression that said, quite clearly, what he thought of her and her threats. The expression finally hit something in Galen’s memory, and as easily as that he remembered where he knew him from.

“Sylvan Brokenstone!” he breathed, earning himself a sharp elbow in the side. He winced and clamped his mouth shut, peering around the statue in a paranoid way to see if they had noticed his slip – they had not, busy descending into a heated argument. Galen stared at Sylvan and subconsciously pulled his hood up over his dark curls and made sure it covered his face.

Know him? the voice asked.

Can’t believe I didn’t recognize him before, Galen replied, horrified at himself. He’s changed a lot…

Gave him that scar, did you? the voice guessed, and Galen’s face split into an amused smile despite himself and the situation.

Hells, no, he replied, eyes flicking up to the twisted corner of Sylvan’s lips. A vague sort of fondness for the scar warmed him at the memory it invoked. Way, way back – when we were all still just recruits in the last stretch of our training, before we’d run the Trials – he and Farah and I were all in the same cadet group. He got it into his head that he was better than me, and for that reason alone Farah and he were destined to be together, so he challenged me for her hand.

Did you take him up on it? the voice asked.

No, Galen said, and snorted. I told him to go hang himself. Farah’s hand wasn’t exactly mine to give away, was it? So he changed his tactics. Kept at me ‘till I lost my temper, talking about my family, my mom, my dad; talking about hers. Talking about everything he could think of to get me to fight him. You should have heard some of things he was saying…don’t know where a kid learns to be that mean.

Their parents, the voice responded dryly. Did you beat him?

Galen snorted again, louder this time, earning himself another sharp elbow to his side. Are you kidding me? he demanded. He’s at least three years older than me, and has been training with those swords of his since he was five. He laid me flat in about ten seconds.

You must have been pleased, the voice noted.

Oh, I was livid, Galen answered, but I was alive and the beating was enough to get my temper back under control. I won, technically, in the end anyway. For some reason Syl though beating the living daylights out of me would endear him to my girlfriend, but she wasn’t with me because I was the strongest – Gods, I wasn’t even done growing yet – she was with me because she loved me. When he moved in to claim his “prize”, she gave him a warning – just the one. He ignored it in just about the worst way possible, so she pulled his own sword from that fancy sheathe of his and tore it up his face. He shook his head. Gods he hated us.

Well, I can’t believe you didn’t recognize him either, the voice said, incredulous. How do you forget someone who tried to steal your lover?

Galen shrugged. Lots of people tried that, he said, in different ways. Farah was just one of those women everyone wanted.

And I suppose you handled that with your usual poise and grace, the voice suggested sardonically.

With a lot of biting my tongue and letting her handle it, Galen replied wryly. Though Syl’s wasn’t the last challenge I accepted in a temper.

She must have been quite the woman, the voice said gently. Sounds like I would have liked her.

She was, Galen said, surprised suddenly by how much cold grief could still hurt. And you would have. I still…hmm. The voice receded respectfully from his immediate awareness, leaving him to his thoughts.

The respite did not last long. Cattie-Shai tugged again at his sleeve and he turned to look – something was happening.

“Look, I don’t care,” Sylvan was snarling at the woman, cutting her off mid-sentence. “Either do something about them or take them home, because I can’t.”

“Fine,” she said from between her teeth. “Trey, start melting flesh at the back.”

“Oh. My. God,” the male priest spat, whirling on his heel toward the back of the column. “I hate that spell. You know I hate that spell.”

“Don’t be such a priss,” she snapped, moving to the front of the column.

“Just do it, Trey,” Sylvan said tiredly. “And do it fast. They’re going to start to wonder where I am if I don’t get back soon.”

The woman stopped at the first Unhallowed in the line and raised her hand up in front of its face. She began to chant a prayer as she moved her hands in the complex patterns required to weave the magic, and Galen’s heart froze in his chest as the sound of the words. They were harsh and sharp and sounded more like an indictment than a prayer. Cattie-Shai straightened in confusion. The language was decidedly not Qirastian, and as Galen listened intently, hoping desperately he was wrong, the cold from his heart began to seep through the rest of his body.

It was Zabran. The woman was speaking Zabran.

There was no mistaking it. Though he didn’t understand the words, he knew the sound of the language from his years in Haven, recognized the cadence of her prayer from fights with the Zabran priests and mages. He shifted his gaze to the Unhallowed and back to the Priest again, momentarily overwhelmed by the scale and number of the implications.

Why would a Priest of Zasi speak Zabran?

Why would a Ghost with a snake tattooed on his head try to kill you? the voice asked. Why would a group of paladins be meeting a group of priests in the ruins of the Necropolis, when the two factions are at war? Where did the Unhallowed come from, and to where are they destined? Its tone was back to its usual intensity. Do you see, now, how deep the problem runs? Do you see now why we needed you to return?

Galen was unable to respond, his attention transfixed by the grotesque effects of the priests’ spells. As she finished her prayer and moved to the next Unhallowed in line, the flesh on the first began to bubble and pop. The sickening smell of melting meat – a wholly unique and nauseating odour – invaded the stagnant air. As they watched, the man’s once recognizable features began to melt – there was no other word to describe it – running in rivulets down his cheek bones and dripping with a hiss onto his breastplate and the floor. Every now and then a large bubble would expand on his skin and pop, sending the paladins skittering backward to avoid the liquid flesh.

Within moments the whole line of Unhallowed had become a bubbling, dripping mess, and the stench was over-powering. Galen pulled his hood across his face and gagged; one of the paladins turned away to vomit. Even Sylvan looked green. Galen was sure he’d hear the steady drip and splash of the liquid flesh in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

Sylvan cleared his throat with considerable effort. “Much better,” he managed, once the bulk of the spells had taken effect. The Unhallowed stood gleaming before him, their stark white skulls a startling contrast against the dusty, dark Necropolis, and their own smudged and stained armour. They shook themselves at a word from the priests, wiping away what remained of their flesh, and discarding clumps of hair. Galen stared at them in mute horror and impotent rage. Would these men be denied all dignity, even in undeath?

“Start stripping their armour,” Sylvan barked at his sick-looking men. “We’ll leave it here and collect it later. Leave nothing on them that could identify them.” He waited until they had set to work again before turning to the priests.

“Listen,” he said, “when you report back let them know that Halei’s dead, but we’ve got Voidbringer.”

Catti-Shai and Galen both stiffened at the unexpected use of their name and exchanged a glance. “Faust?” Cattie-Shai whispered. Galen half-shrugged, half-nodded. Who else?

“What?! Halei’s dead?” Trey demanded incredulously. “How did he die?! He was Halei!”

“Taken down by one of the Blind during the raids; from the sound of it, something happened between him and Voidbringer and he let them kill him. I assume he had no other choice.” He sounded intensely irritated. “Unfortunately he died before he could debrief anyone. So now we have Voidbringer, but no idea what he and Halei might have talked about, including why he’s back and what he was doing over there in the first place, and he’s obviously not talking to us, so we need to know what you got out of the other one.” The two priests exchanged a glance and seemed to shrink, and Sylvan set his jaw, eyes growing hard and cold. “What? What is it?”

“We, uh…we lost him,” Trey admitted, then winced at Sylvan’s growl. “But the Circle questioned him before he disappeared! He said he went over as a personal favour to his brother, but…without Faustus’ story we can’t confirm….”

“You were supposed to kill him!” Sylvan raged, then shrank back, startled by his own echo. One of the Unhallowed moaned painfully, as if in response. “How could you lose him?!”

“It’s not that simple,” the woman snapped. “Our assassin changed his mind at the last minute and got in the way, but relax. He can’t be far, can he? He’s still in the Temple somewhere. We just need time to dig him out. We’ll frame him for the murder of the assassin, and set the whole priesthood on him.”

“Zeera, I swear, if you let him escape—” but she shoved the larger man roughly.

“Worry about your own Voidbringer,” she snapped angrily. “Let us worry about ours. We have contingencies in place for both, anyway, so you can drop the whole look-at-me-I-outrank-you act and get off your damn high horse.” Sylvan set his jaw and opened his mouth but Trey stopped in between the two, waving his hands in a placating fashion.

“Listen, relax, both of you,” he said soothingly. “It won’t be long until we find whatever the Hell it is He’s after, right? And, really, how much of a threat are the Voidbringers? What could they possibly do? Nothing, that’s what. The odds of them actually being a problem – whether they get away or not – is pretty slim. No need to get all worked up over it. Besides,” he added, folding his arms across his chest in a cocky way. “If He’s as all-powerful as He’s supposed to be, I think He can handle a renegade Ghost and a rogue priest, don’t you?”

“Blasphemous wretch,” Sylvan spat, but turned to go take his temper out on his underlings instead of on the priests.

Trey watched him leave, then turned to Zeera. “Stop provoking him,” he said, all previous nonchalance gone from his tone. “Or you’ll get us both killed. He’s too close to the top, and we don’t matter nearly enough.”

She shrugged him off angrily and stormed back toward the door. “They’re all yours, Sylvan,” she called coldly. “Enjoy.”

Trey stared after her in consternation for a moment then swore under his breath. “One big happy family,” he muttered. He darted after her, but skidded to a stop with a startled: “Oy!” Galen winced and shifted his position to peer around the jackal’s body. The priest had finally spotted the trail he and Cattie-Shai had left behind. “Syl!” he called, peering over at the collection of skeletons. “How many corpses you got? I think a couple wandered off.”

“They don’t wander off,” Zeera snapped, but stopped to turn and look nonetheless.

“Fifteen,” Syl called back after a quick count. “They’re all here.”

“Then what—?” As one, all the living people in the room beyond stiffened, their stares following the trail of water and dust toward the Jackal statue. Galen swore explosively under his breath as he hastily pulled his head back into the statue’s shadow.

“Fight or run?” Cattie Shai asked, earning an incredulous look from her brother as he turned.

“They have a Myrmidon,” he said. “Obviously run.”

“I can take the Myrmidon,” Cattie-Shai insisted.

“Well I can’t take four paladins, two priests, and fifteen Unhallowed,” Galen replied, making sure his hood was secure. He pulled his mace from his back and risked a glance through the jackal’s legs. The paladins had spread out in a fan and were now closing in on the statue, weapons at the ready. “We run until we lose them, then hide again. Cut down as many as you can without stopping – hit the knees and heads on the Unhallowed. Ready?” The paladins were close now.

“Always,” Cattie-Shai replied eagerly.

Galen grabbed her head and kissed the rough wood of her spirit mask. “All right. Go!”

They moved instantaneously; Galen bolted around the side of the statue, lunging at the startled paladin unfortunate enough to be closest to him. Cattie-Shai vaulted it with frightening speed, screaming a Fury battle-cry as she landed between the two middle paladins and set at them with her spear. All three of the assaulted paladins went down without getting a single swing in, but Galen suspected that was about all the advantage surprise was going to give them, and it wasn’t much. Three down, nineteen to go wasn’t very good odds, and the fallen paladins were more likely than not Crusaders, and therefore nowhere near the biggest threats in the room.

“Take the male!” Sylvan snapped at the remaining Crusader. “I’ll take the savage.”

“We are not savage!” Cattie-Shai snarled viciously at him, advancing with grace and imminent violence. There was a blood-hungry edge to her voice that Galen had never heard before, and it took him a moment to recognize it as hers. “We are Fury!”

Sylvan said nothing in response, choosing instead to lunge for her, snapping his blades from the sheathes at his hips. He moved so fast Galen almost called his sister’s name in alarm, terrified her assailant would get too close for her to use her spear and leave her defenceless against his short swords, but she was faster than he gave her credit for – faster than any human had a right to be, even. Before Sylvan could get in range she had slipped left, like a viper, and his blade whistled through nothing but air. The feathers and beads on her mask whirled around her as she moved, and she snarled from behind the mask with animalistic fury. For a brief moment she really did look like a demon. Sylvan whirled and just barely managed to dodge the vicious stab of her spear.

But that was about all the attention Galen could afford to focus on her. The Crusader, much slower and less confident than his myrmidon companion, had closed the range between he and the elder Voidbringer, and was still advancing, morningstar and shield in hand. Galen narrowed his eyes at the bone-white face of the God that had once been his, and his eyes hardened as he tightened his grip on his maul.

Galen, the voice pleaded unexpectedly, a strange mixture of anger and disgust coating the words – pain too, Galen realized with surprise. It sounded pained. Do not allow him to wear that mask.

What do you care? Galen grunted at it, dodging a clumsy swing of the morningstar and easily blocking the follow-up with the haft of his maul. The Crusader, apparently, was not going to be much of a concern. From the corner of his eye he could see the two priests as they ran behind the wall of Unhallowed, out of Galen’s view. That was more concerning. Casters you couldn’t see were the worst kind. The Unhallowed shuddered as a unit as the priests gave them their commands, and turned to face the unexpected combat. They lurched forward and Galen swore. That was definitely concerning.

I cannot stand the thought of the God of Duty’s face being used to conceal treachery and lies. It sullies everything that mask is, to allow a betrayer to wear it.

He pedalled around, keeping his face toward the Crusader as he tried to angle himself toward an exit and away from the priests’ line of sight. It wouldn’t be long before the Crusader gave him an open shot and he’d need to be free to make a break for it. His opponent appeared to take foolish hope from the fact that Galen remained on the defensive and Galen offered him a disapproving frown for it. The man – kid, Galen corrected himself; the Crusaders tended to be young – should know better. The quality of training had obviously declined since Galen had gone through it. It occurred to him that if he’d been wielding anything smaller or faster than a maul, the kid would be dead already.

Galen… the voice pressed again.

I dunno, Galen replied darkly, irritated by the effort of trying to pay attention to the fight, the priests, the undead, and the voice all at the same time. He spotted his opening, finally as the Crusader swung at him again. Seems appropriate to me. He side-stepped the swing and lifted his maul. To his credit, the instant the Crusader realized his swing had missed, he raised his shield to block the overhand counter-attack he knew would be coming, and Galen did not disappoint him. He swung the maul in an arc and smashed it into the shield, uncaring of whether the weapon actually touched the kid. It didn’t need to – something his opponent should have known. He offered the Crusader an almost apologetic grin as the force of the blow on the upraised shield shattered the bones in the kid’s arm and probably his shoulder too. He at least had the sense to crumple before his spine absorbed the impact, but Galen shook his head as he fell.

What were they teaching them now, anyway?

Galen, the voice pleaded. Please…

Fine, Galen said, judging the distance between the Unhallowed and him and trying to spot the priests. He didn’t hear chanting yet, which could be good or very, very bad. He dropped into a crouch and hastily pulled the screaming man’s mask off. The crusader was too busy clutching his shattered arm to try to stop him. His fingers found the familiar clasps and undid them with an efficiency that startled him given the amount of time since he’d worn the mask.

Some things you never forget, the voice said, sounding relieved as the mask came free. Thank you.

Galen grunted. Didn’t do it for you, he said as he got back to his feet and stepped over the fallen paladin, moving away from the Unhallowed and toward his sister. Needed something to throw. Have to end this before the priests remember they have other spells.

The mask was cold and heavy in his hand, the metal thick and strong. He broke into a run and slid to a stop behind where Cattie-Shai was still dancing with Sylvan. He could see her trying to shake Sylvan off and get an open space to make a break for one of the exits, but Sylvan was no Crusader and was keeping her pinned.

It occurred to Galen that he had never actually had the occasion to watch Cattie-Shai fight, and he realized as he did so now – waiting for an opportunity to help – that he was impressed (and just a little intimidated) by how good she was.

Her spear was a blur as she spun and stabbed, forcing Sylvan to duck and weave or be impaled. He darted into close range as she recovered and raised his blade to stab her, but she twisted like a jungle cat, her spear moving again, to catch the blow on its haft. Sylvan’s sword bit deep into the dark wood, and she raised her foot while she had him in range and kicked viciously at him. He twisted to take the blow on his thigh instead of his hip, grunting in surprise at the force of the impact as he stumbled backward, maintaining his hold on his blade. It tore free as he moved, struggling to catch himself before he fell or Cattie-Shai leapt on him, but the motion had unbalanced the Fury as well, tipping her unexpectedly forward.

The fight was done – whoever regained their balance first would win it, but Galen had no intentions of leaving that to chance.

I thought you couldn’t beat the Myrmidons?

Can’t beat ‘em, Galen responded, just surprise them. “Drop!” he called to his sister as she staggered, and, in a humbling testament to her trust, she did, using her momentum to throw herself forward onto the ground. Galen – mask in hand – was already winding his arm back, only to whip it forward again, hurling the mask like a disc. It cut through the air in a streak above Cattie-Shai and struck the myrmidon square in the forehead just as he regained his balance. The blow snapped his head back and sent him down to the ground.

Well played, the voice noted, sounding like it couldn’t decide if it approved or not. Galen ignored it, bolting forward to where his sister was regaining her feet. He caught her arm and continued to the nearest exit, half-dragging her until she finally found her balance again.

“Stop them!” Sylvan screamed, struggling to his feet and clutching his bloodied head, but the priests, who had finally moved back into view, were heading toward Sylvan, not he and Cattie-Shai.

“Let them go,” Zeera said as the siblings ran through the closest archway and down the hall. “We put a—,” but then they were out of earshot, and the rest of her sentence was lost somewhere behind them.

As badly as Galen wanted to worry about what she’d been about to say, he had more pressing issues. It had been a long time since he’d been down in the city beneath the city, and its halls were labyrinthine at best. Was it a right here, or a left? Was this the hall with the dead end or the stairs? He went with his first choice every time, praying his instincts would remember what he couldn’t. Desecrated images of the Jackal peered imposingly down at them as they ran, condemning every choice he made.

He didn’t allow them to stop until his lungs felt much as they had while he’d been underwater; he didn’t know how long they’d been running, but it felt like an eternity earlier. They had taken enough twists and turns that he was sure they were quite thoroughly lost, but they hadn’t yet found any dead ends, and if they could just get a bit of time to look around more carefully he was sure he could remember the way up into the city. The room they were in wasn’t unfamiliar, and that was a good sign. He doubled over and put his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Cattie-Shai was standing as still as a board and had a faraway look on her face. “We don’t think they’re following,” she reported after a moment. “We can’t hear them anymore.”

“They’re not,” Galen said, leaning against the wall and grimacing. “I don’t know why, but under the circumstances, I don’t think it’s good news.”

An uneasy silence fell as they both considered the implications of that, each mentally replaying what they’d just overheard in the chamber behind them. None of it was good news.

“Do you think,” Cattie-Shai asked at length, “Ani’s in trouble?”

Galen, who had been thinking exactly that, looked up with a grim expression. “I think,” he answered, “we’re all in trouble.”

VOIDBRINGER

Author/Co-creator: Rose Zemlya

Editor/Co-creator: KA Harchak

Book Two

DECEIT