BEASTS LIE HERE

KALEN OSRIC

DARK CHRONICLES

By S. K. Zuidema

CHAPTER ONE

The shade stands with his hand around my throat, motionless save for the gleam in his eyes. His fingers press into my neck and the silken metal of my armour pushes back, keeping me from choking and feeling any pain. My feet dangle inches from the ground. I am a rag doll in his grip. I grope for my daggers on the brace of knives at my waist, and my fingers close only on the course fabric of the hooded scapular I wear over my armour.

"Looking for those?" The shade jerks his head to his left.

All three of my daggers spin in mid-air, moonlight running down their silver blades. In the instant it takes me to think about reaching for them, they shoot into the tree behind me. Once again, I smash my fist into his nose. Once again, his head merely snaps to the side. Never mind that my armour lends me the strength of a dozen bulls. He snorts, and judging from the way he curls his lips, he is amused rather than annoyed. He tilts his head slightly, no doubt unable to comprehend how such a thing as a human boy can possibly exist.

Scowling, I think of how easy—how extremely easy—it would be to summon my power and end him after just one look in his eyes. Doing that, however, would obliterate the barrier around my soul, a barrier I would not be able to rebuild on my own, a barrier whose sudden destruction would leave me physically weak for days, weeks even, and then Chief Reed would discover my secret and I would be shackled and dragged off to hang at the gallows. I need to use only my training as a warrior priest to end this fight.

The thought of the descent strengthens my resolve. I see them now in my mind's eye, the gods and goddesses. How on that day over a century ago they came down from the Heavens in a hailstorm of fire and ice after deciding that man needed to be salvaged from the seven spirits that sought to destroy him, from his sins, from himself. Dark, dense clouds gathered over the entire Earth, plunging the world in a darkness that rivalled a moonless night. Lightning split the sky and thunder blared, shaking even mountains. In the battle against the spirits and those who stood with them that soon followed, most of the world's population perished as casualties. In the end, the spirits were banished to the seven Hells, and from the ruins of the world, the gods and goddesses built their new chiefdoms.

And then they destroyed my life.

Now I am going to destroy them.

"Is the Avower of Akuji still in the chiefsdom?" the shade demands, his voice gruff.

I remain silent, wondering why a shade would specifically ask about the whereabouts of a man the gods and goddesses chose through the chief of Akuji to enforce their law. If I asked questions, the chief of Kaldah would know when I took the shade in for questioning and punish me for it. My task as a warrior priest is not to ask questions but to extinguish any threat to the chiefdom of Kaldah and to the other four chiefdoms.

He spreads his two sets of wings, each with a wingspan of at least ten metres, and the flames and shadows from which they were made flicker in the breeze. A warning, it seems. He intends to take me as high as the stars and send me hurtling to my end if I maintain my silence. I won't die, of course. About seventeen years ago, Dagon the god of death vanished and left the world deathless. What is supposed to kill one now merely leaves them in a coma-like state in which they will remain somewhat sentient until the end of days.

"Is that muzzle keeping you from talking?" He raises his free hand and taps the mask that covers the lower half of my face. "Maybe I should rip it off you?"

A rush of panic sweeps through me. It would be better to have him drop me from the stars than to have him rip my mask off. The sleek black metal from which my mask and my armour were forged melds with my skin every time I wear them. I can only remove them while immersed in the blessed waters of the underground river that connects all thirteen temples of the gods and goddesses. If he removed them now, he would tear my flesh from my bones in the process and then, to protect the divine secrets of the metal, the mask and the armour would then burn into nothingness, incinerating most of whatever was left of me. And without death . . .

I raise my arms back behind my head and jab my thumbs into his eyes, pushing them deeper into their cavities. He growls and flings me to the ground. Though my armour absorbs much of the impact, my shoulder blazes where I strike the hard-packed dirt. There is no time to feel pain. I scramble to my feet and pull a dagger from the tree. As I whirl around, I hurl the blade at him. He screeches and crumples to the ground, the hilt of the dagger sticking out from his left eye.

I turn around to free the remaining daggers, and when I face my quarry once again, a great wind blasts me. I merely blink—the shade stands chest to chest with me, the hilt of the dagger in his eye cold against my brow. His breath is fresh, minty. Nothing at all like one would expect from a creature bent on destroying man.

"You do not want to get me angry, Lucian Greaves," he says.

My heart hammers against my ribs. That name has not passed my lips in over two centuries. No one alive, save for my sister, knows of it. The shade could not have possibly plucked it out of my mind, for the armour was designed to frustrate any such efforts. Before I can stop myself, I say, "How do you know my name?"

"Oh, he speaks," he says, his smile a slash across his disturbingly human face.

"How do you know my name?"

"Don't be melodramatic—"

I plunge both my daggers into his flanks; he screams and rams his fist into my jaw. I hit the ground with a surprised gasp, black spots swirl into my vision for a heartbeat. Another gust of wind. A boot in my midriff. My head bangs against a tree stump and liquid warmth slides down my forehead. I push myself up—a pain lances through my side and I collapse back to the ground. He looms over me, blocking both moons. The force of his boot crashing into my chest knocks out every wisp of air from my lungs. For a brief moment I think that I am not wearing my armour.