Part 31 (2/2)

'There, Sol,' Leki whispered tenderly. 'Aeon arrives.'

Chapter 20.

witness Aeon gave them a chance, Venden thought. Before Aeon lay evidence of humanity's squandering of that chance a bloodied snow, bodies, flaming pyres, and at the battle's centre another act of violence about to take place. The message it had sent with his father and the woman had been cast aside.

Now, Aeon was gathering itself, its aura of sadness pushed aside as something began to rise. Venden sensed a shadow deep within the ancient being's mind, forming inside and ballooning outward, and at its heart was such violence, turmoil and hatred that he had never imagined.

What is that? Venden thought, but Aeon did not respond, and he quickly realised why. That's ... they're ... Recoiling in horror, Venden could not turn away.

Soon, they would soon be released.

Sol kicked his pistol aside and drew his bloodied sword, angry at himself for dropping his weapon, shocked, staggered by what he saw, but already he was struggling to gather his senses. Tamma was behind him, standing and shaking. Gallan was to his right, edging sideways closer to his Blader and showing no external signs of his shock. Sol knew that it must all be inside.

He had seen one of his Blade press a knife to his eye and fall on it. Suicide was a mortal sin amongst Alderians, and even more so for a soldier during the height of battle. Each Spike soldier bore the weight of the brothers and sisters within his or her Blade, and to remove one's own life a in whatever circ.u.mstance a was to put the rest of the Blade in danger. Sol wanted to rush across and stab at the soldier's corpse, slash and ruin his body as punishment for what he had done. But his soul had already filtered to the Fade, and any punishment was now in the hands of the G.o.ds.

'Sol, what is that?' Gallan said. Tamma answered from behind them.

'Aeon,' she said. 'The Skythian G.o.d, Aeon.'

'It's what we all came here to kill,' Sol said. Such a statement seemed so foolish in the presence of this thing.

'You can never kill it,' Leki said. She had regained her feet and stood almost within Sol's reach. Almost. She was not afraid.

As the huge shape drifted closer to them, ambiguous, difficult to discern fully in the s.h.i.+fting shadows and dancing firelight, Sol was overcome with awe at the history it implied. It was a manifestation of the purest blasphemy a devout Fader could imagine a a player at being a G.o.d, in denial of the Fade. He could understand why the Skythians believed it a deity, but in the same thought he hated the very idea of such beliefs, and hated Aeon for attracting them.

Around him, captured Skythians had dropped to the ground and lay p.r.o.ne, faces averted.

'This is why we brought the Engines,' Gallan said.

'We can't run away,' Sol said.

Gallan turned to him. 'I wasn't suggesting we should.' His tone betrayed the lie in his statement. Fighting this was the last thing he wished to do, and Sol could not blame him.

But Spike never ran. There were countless stories about the Ald's soldiers holding out against all hope, succeeding against all expectation, triumphing against overriding odds. Stories, too, about heroic defeats.

'Blade, re-form!' Sol shouted. Gallan blinked, afraid. But he pressed his lips tight together, and nodded once at Sol.

'Alderia,' Gallan said, the fighting call barely a whisper.

'Sol!' Leki said. She moved closer, holding his arm as she used to. But her touch had changed. 'Sol, listen instead of fighting, and perhaps you can learn something.'

'Don't condescend to me!' Sol hissed, shoving her away. She tripped over a discarded spear and fell close to the man Sol should have killed. But there was something larger to kill now. She was welcome to him.

'Sol ... you're so wrong.'

Traitor, he thought, but he did not respond. His wife was lost to him, and Sol turned his back on her.

The remaining soldiers had formed into three groups, each placing itself between two of the Skythians' large fires. Aeon paused at the edge of the battlefield, its pale body reflecting blood-tinged flames in streaks of red and orange.

'Alderia!' Sol shouted. Without another glance at Leki he hefted his sword, charged Aeon, and knew with complete faith that the remainder of his Blade followed.

Bon surfaced, blinking away pain, and wondered if he was the only person to notice the sky.

It was smeared with dawn in the east, and the snow had stopped, yet the sky was ominously heavy with something ready to fall. He noticed Leki close by, looking up and frowning.

'Something wrong,' he said.

She turned, surprised at his voice. 'Yes,' she said. 'Laden with doom.'

Bon sat up and Leki helped him, and her words struck home. Laden with doom. His whole time here on Skythe had felt like that, and now it gathered towards a climax. Doom watched him, and he looked around to see what else it saw.

Fires burned, piled bodies cast spiky skeletal shadows, and Aeon was here. They were attacking it, but ineffectually. Spears ricocheted from its body, some snapping in two. Swords wielded by experienced hands seemed not to touch its legs, nor its stomach where it dipped low enough for them to reach. Its huge head turned lazily, knocking two soldiers to the ground almost by accident. It's not fighting back, Bon thought. It's almost as if ...

'Waiting for something,' Leki said.

'I think so too,' he said.

'What about ...?' Leki nodded at the Skythians, scores of them still lying on the ground.

'Waiting as well.' Aeon doesn't need them to protect it, he thought. A pile of Skythian corpses burned close to the bridge, grotesque shapes of bone and simmering flesh thrown out by the flames, and he felt so sad. Tears blurred his vision. It sent those as well as us, and ...

'What if we've both failed?' he asked.

'What do you mean?'

'Look at the sky,' he said. Dawn was brightening, but the sky was still rank with something terrible.

'Oh, by all the G.o.ds,' Leki said, and she slumped against him. 'Bon, I see it now. I smell it. I think maybe one of the Engines is working already.'

'Already?'

'Magic draws close,' Leki breathed.

'And this is growing warm.' Bon had pulled the bone-thing Aeon had given them closer with his foot. Wet mud steamed around it, slushy snow melted. He was about to kick it away again when Venden spoke in his mind. The voice was his son's when he was very young, barely able to talk. But the words carried great weight.

Hold this part of Aeon's heart, and close your eyes again, father. Whatever you hear, whatever you sense ... close your eyes.

Sol Merry had fought Outer rebellions, dissenters in western Alderia, a plague of rabid Ban Chock tribesmen in the east, and a rash of rawpanzie attacks on the Chasm Cliffs. But he had never faced an enemy like this. Aeon was beyond imagining, because it was blasphemy to imagine a false G.o.d. To even consider them capable of being imagined was heresy, and as he drove a spear towards the monster's underbelly, and darted between its legs to hack at the heavy swinging parts either side of its head a tentacles, or other appendages a he felt the G.o.ds of the Fade moving with him. He was fighting for them and every honest, devout Alderian who paid them the homage they deserved. He was fighting for his dead father's warrior heritage, his politician mother who strove to better her town's outlook and future, and his sister and her burgeoning family.

But he was no longer fighting for his wife, and that left a knot of scar tissue at the centre of his soldier's b.l.o.o.d.y heart.

Aeon did not seem concerned at the attack. It moved towards the river, kicking apart one of the Skythian's fires, and the Spike followed. It swung its huge head from left to right, knocking two soldiers aside. But their fall was an accident, not a deliberate attack.

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