Page 7

Chapter 7

Nice Wars

‘Have I mentioned how stupid this idea is?’ Corrigan asked. His arms outstretched, he sent gouts of black and red Tempestoral fire erupting from the centre of his chest to assail the twelve-foot-thick outer walls of the small prison that had been constructed in a forest less than ten miles from a city which had recently signed a pact with the Infernals. No doubt this added to the frustration of the three diabolic spies being interrogated under torture so close to where their comrades were enjoying the manifold pleasures of high society.

Who knew the Aurorals could be such cheeky bastards?

Aradeus’ mystical web of rat scouts had eventually found the hidden enclave for us, although it had taken several days, because their beady little eyes had not at first recognised the pristine twelve-sided building as a prison. It was only when they’d conveyed their amusing anecdote about a delightful secret palace hidden away from ordinary humans that we’d saddled up our horses and ridden for two weeks to get here.

The pace had been gruelling, but Galass, ever more determined to find ways to use her blood magic that didn’t involve killing people, had helped. With guidance from Shame and, surprisingly, Alice, she’d designed a sanguinal spell that reinvigorated our mounts, enabling them to gallop faster and longer than ever before.

Alas, she hadn’t yet come up with a spell to improve Corrigan’s mood.

‘Fucking waste of my talents,’ he complained. The rippling flow of Tempestoral lava sizzled as it struck the walls, slowly spreading across the surfaces, fissuring the stone and crumbling the mortar at a pace that did nothing to shorten his list of grievances. His hair and beard were already drenched in sweat: burning through Auroral-blessed stone is nobody’s idea of a good time.

We could hear the prison guards massing on the other side of the walls, preparing to rush through the gates. Not that they needed to bother, since we were making them a much larger opening.

‘We had a perfectly sensible strategy,’ Corrigan grumbled as huge chunks of once-flawless stone crumbled away. ‘We go into an Infernal-aligned town, kick the shit out of their troops, deliver a speech to the townsfolk about the perils of selling out their children’s children’s children’s future to a bunch of warmongering immortal fuck-sticks, then find supper and a nice brothel.’

‘It was a good plan,’ I agreed.

Corrigan wasn’t finished. ‘Then the next week, we pick an Auroral town and kick their arses. Spread the love, as it were. Peace in our time.’

‘Forgive my confusion, Brother Corrigan,’ said Aradeus, drawing his rapier and, passing a fingertip along the edge, imbuing the blade with an evasion spell that would make it near-impossible to parry. ‘Are we not about to, as you so eruditely phrased it, “spread the love” to an entire troop of Auroral soldiers?’

‘It’s not the same thing,’ Corrigan replied crossly. The muscles in his arms and jaw clenched tighter as he struggled to bring forth more of the lava-like destructive energies from the Tempestoral realm. ‘Instead of bedding down in a nice inn after blowing shit up, we’re busting into a prison in the middle of fucking nowhere – so no beds, no brothels, and I still won’t get to deliver a proper speech.’

‘We’re here for information on that other coven, remember?’ I reminded him, then poked the knife in a little deeper. ‘Are you saying you’re content to let a bunch of second-rate wonderists run around pretending to be heroes and calling themselves the Apocal — ’

‘Don’t say it,’ he warned. ‘Don’t you fucking say it.’

Galass had doubts about my plan too, for entirely different reasons. ‘Why are you so confident the Infernal spies will reveal anything? Or that they’re even still alive?’ she asked. ‘The Glorians don’t take prisoners of war, which means the interrogators have either killed their Infernal captives or haven’t been able to break them yet. So what makes you think we can make them talk?’

The dramatic, thunderous collapse of the fortress walls saved me; giving up any pretence at structural integrity, they crumbled beneath their own weight, unleashing choking clouds of dust. Alice darted in front of me, whispering an incantation under her breath while spinning her whip-sword in an impressive spiral swing. The whirling blades conjured a tornado-like gust that sent the dust cloud pouring away from us and into the faces of the Auroral soldiers rushing to defend their enclave.

‘Nice trick,’ I complimented her. ‘When did you figure that one out?’

‘I’ve been crafting a spell to drive away Corrigan’s breath when he gets drunk at night and starts reciting his growing litany of complaints about the lack of restaurants, brothels and other facilities.’

‘Clever. I’m impressed wi — ’

‘Do not seek to curry favour with me, Fallen One. It’s your obstinacy which triggers the big brute’s tantrums. You should have let him give the speech back in that last Infernal town.’

‘Exactly!’ Corrigan said. He paused in his assault on the walls to turn to Temper, hopping about impatiently, no doubt eager to get to some good old-fashioned pummelling before the main event, gorging on the blood of the recently deceased. ‘You ask me, buddy, you’re the one who ought to be leading this crew.’

The assault on my leadership qualities didn’t bother me half as much as Corrigan thinking Temper understood him.

‘You recall he’s a kangaroo, right?’ I asked. ‘Not a totemist somehow attuned to whichever plane of reality produces monstrosities like Temper, but an actual kangaroo.’

Never one to be swayed by logic, Corrigan countered, ‘That’s just your bigotry talking. If you’d bothered to spend more time with him, you’d’ve figured out that the only reason Temper doesn’t talk is because he’s a genius and some of us lack the cerebral and philosophical capacity to appreciate his brilliance.’

Alice sounded curious now. ‘Yet he considers you his intellectual equal?’

Ignoring her, the big thunderer gestured elaborately to Temper. ‘Go on, boy, show these ignorant heathens a fraction of your peerless mental talents.’

Even Shame was concerned now, although given she currently looked like a bipedal, two-headed alligator, that concern was probably more to do with the fact that Corrigan was embarrassing us in front of her former Auroral compatriots. ‘Perhaps we could save this demonstration for after we’ve freed the spies?’ she suggested.

‘Shut it,’ Corrigan said rudely, urging Temper to demonstrate his genius. ‘What’s six hundred and ninety-six multiplied by nine times the average length of the summer season at the equator divided by the speed of a drop of water falling from the mouth of a south-flying falcon?’

‘Corrigan, remember those inner walls you were supposed to be knocking down before the Auroral troops on the other side get their shit together and launch a counter-assault?’ I asked.

‘Shh,’ he replied, although he did resume hurling Tempestoral hell at the fortress. ‘Just watch.’

For several seconds, the kangaroo stood there looking confused, as if wondering what he was expected to do. His weight shifted from one hind leg to the other, his ears went back and with one paw he scratched the side of his furry head.

‘The animal looks constipated,’ Alice observed. ‘Is he about to leap up into the air and land on his face again?’

‘Don’t distract him,’ Corrigan warned. ‘This is different . Surely you can recognise his concentrating look?’

Surprisingly, the kangaroo grew still, a placid grin appearing on his muzzle as he leaned down and scratched numbers into the dirt with his front paw.

Aradeus gasped. ‘Has he — ? Are those — ?’

Galass peered closer. ‘It looks like he’s written. . . forty-two?’

‘Behold!’ Corrigan declared triumphantly, indigo bolts erupting from his outstretched hands to take the place of his earlier lava spell. He started obliterating the stone with increased fervour. ‘My boy’s a genius! I bet not one of you even knows the speed a drop of water falls from a south-flying falc — ’

‘You idiot ,’ I interrupted, ‘I may not know the speed of a– whatever the hell you said– but it doesn’t take a genius to know it can’t possibly be forty-two. Temper’s off by tens of thousands, at least.’

As the other walls fell, Corrigan ceased his assault and glanced down at the numbers scrawled in the dirt. ‘Still impressive,’ he grumbled.

Alice snorted, her bat wings twitching– that’s how you know when she’s laughing, since nothing approaching mirth ever crosses her lips. ‘I can no longer tell which of the two of you, man or beast. is more stupid.’

With impeccable timing, Corrigan and Temper simultaneously pointed at each other.

Leading a crew of mentally deranged and morally compromised wonderists on a quest to prevent an eternal supernatural war really is more trouble than it’s worth sometimes.

I felt a tug on my arm and turned to find Galass staring at me tentatively. The wan expression on her face told me I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

‘Cade, these soldiers– they’re ordinary humans, not angelics. Most of them aren’t even Glorians.’

Ah, shit. I’d assumed any clandestine Auroral enclave would be guarded by high-ranking angelics, or maybe Glorian Justiciars and Parevals. Does that mean whichever Celestines authorised this prison have been keeping it secret from the rest of the Auroral Hierarchy?

Even without supernatural oversight, the tiny fortress was impressively garrisoned. I counted more than forty soldiers in gleaming armour bearing pikes and shields.

‘Brother Cade, you yourself affirmed this as our coven’s one unbreakable rule,’ Aradeus said.

I considered reminding him that no rule is unbreakable– to be honest, I hadn’t expected this one to last as long as it had. Look, I get that my plan of convincing the Aurorals, Infernals and their respective human recruits of the tragic consequences of war by literally raining bloodcurdling hells on them might not fit with traditional pacifist ideals– but show me a war that was prevented by pacifism and I’ll be the first to shackle myself to a post in the middle of a battlefield and go on a hunger strike.

I’d spent almost seven years selling my services as a mercenary wonderist. I’d fought in dozens of armed conflicts and I can attest that every single one of them was a pointless waste of life in service to a cause no one remembered the year after it was over because by then there was some new enemy to fight. My experiences had taught me two important lessons: first, there’s no such thing as a just war, and second, armed conflict is best understood as an extension of economics.

Your country is suffering too many bad harvests? Hmm. . . didn’t someone from that neighbouring nation once insult the long-dead ancestor of your monarch? About time we avenged that unforgivable slight, don’t you think?

Your nobility’s overloaded with too many daughters and second sons, all remarkably well-armed and likely to turn to violent thuggery once they figure out there aren’t enough estates for them to inherit? No problem: there’s a rich land far to the south filled with lush territory and currently occupied by infidels badly in need of a jolly good smiting.

Of course, war isn’t guaranteed good for business; it’s always a gamble. But watch any addict at the card tables and you’ll quickly observe that they’re prone to inflating their odds of winning the next hand. So our job, as dutiful crusaders of peace, was to make war an unprofitable business by convincing the gamblers on both sides that the next hand would be a loser– for everyone .

However, murdering ordinary human beings for the crime of being gullible and getting swept up in the propaganda of a holy war where unknowable beings were promising to transform mere Mortals into legendary heroes was too cold-hearted, even for me.

The Auroral recruits had fought their way through the dust clouds and were forming their shield wall. The whole ensemble was beginning to look like a rather ugly metal hedgehog.

‘Corrigan. . .’ I began tentatively.

‘You know something, Cade? I liked you better when I hated you.’

Loudly, to ensure I’d be heard by the soldiers crouched behind their shaking shields, I declared, ‘On my mark, destroy every man, woman and– well, I would hope there wouldn’t be children among them, but if so, kill them, too. Leave nothing but corpses for the vultures and blood for the soil.’

To Corrigan, Alice, Shame and Temper particularly, I quietly clarified my statement. ‘And by kill everyone , I mean, don’t fucking kill anybody , understand?’

They all replied:

‘Typical weak-kneed indecision, Fallen One.’

‘Huzzah, my captain! Let our blades be merciful and our hearts rejoice!’

‘Death delayed is no less inevitable, child.’

‘Thank you, Cade.’

‘You pussy.’

‘Grrrr — ’ followed by a burp which ended with somebody’s severed finger being coughed up.

Buoyed by my comrades’ enthusiastic endorsements, I gave the order to attack the defenders, whereupon we proceeded to– very gently and not at all fatally– kick their arses.

It’s hard to imagine why there aren’t more heroes clamouring for the chance to save the world.