OBSIDIAN 3.1: SWAMP HAG

“When war becomes a game, you have ceased to be a warrior. This malady afflicts both the child whose playground battlefield vanishes into the movements on a fortify board, and the veteran whose long years at arms become a dream when the general’s mantle falls upon their shoulders. The toys atop the felt-cloth table are shaped by the blade, but they do not bleed. Imagination is not reality and remembrance is no key. Only violence sharpens. If you would be shaped by the blade, you must bleed.”

– from the Ismethic Creed

As we crossed over the Greywater and prepared ourselves, Em taught me the trick of using a glyphstone while maintaining my flight – I didn’t know if I could manage it with just my wings, but under her spell it was doable.

Six sites affected and counting. Sticktown among them.

But Sticktown was already in-hand. I had to trust everything would be going smoothly back home, just like usual. The damage would be minimal. The loss of life, minimal. I did my best to not imagine the twins lying there dead, but, just as after the heretic attack, it came to the front of my mind inescapably.

I was glad I wasn’t an arch-diviner right then, because something like that rolling around in my head would definitely suffice to drive me mad.

Sticktown, Rivertown, the two eruptions in Treetown – all four were in-hand. Oldtown, Hightown – those were areas in need of immediate assistance. And the Rivertown occurrence was smaller and far to the south – no closer to us than Oldtown, especially once we’d already gotten started flying north-east.

A miasma of burning sewage hung over the city and the sky was dark, but the clouds were moving fast and the moon was waxing. With my fey-sight the distances occluded little as we approached our destination.

Yune be with us, I prayed as I saw what was going on, and then, needing something more realistic in terms of aid, thought: Zel, it’s happening. The Bells.

“About time, really. If you were into demons, this would be like Yearsend to you.”

I… don’t really think of demons as gifts…

“Even still, you’re going to use them tonight. You have to – or many more of your city’s inhabitants will perish.”

Perhaps she was right.

“Of course I’m right – that’s what I’m here for.”

I missed you, today. I’m sorry, for losing it with you.

“Completely forgiven. Now, how about we just focus on getting you through this, Kas.”

We were still thirty seconds away from the site of the attack in Oldtown. Thirty seconds to study the chaos, decide where to go… what exactly to do.

Under the broken planks and the rubble, dozens of trapped people were screaming – hands and voices were lifted out of the dark, dusty crevasses where buildings had tumbled into piles of sticks and bricks, straining, grasping. Worse were the hands that did not strain, the hands coated in brown-looking blood, lying flaccid against the splintered beams, the shattered brickwork. The broken bodies of at least ten magisters, scattered across the devastation like crushed leaves. And worst – the voiceless, buried alive with little hope of rescue.

I couldn’t help them. Well, I could, but that would mean leaving even more to die in the meantime. I had to deal with the perpetrators.

There were four big demons in the neighbourhood. One was a bintaborax, a ‘hammer of fire’ – vaguely minotaur-type things with orange-burning maces, the creatures which Lord Obliterated and the Cannibal Six had been so fond of. The other three I didn’t recognise. A porcelain doll as big as the bintaborax, complete with painted-on-looking features, frizzy hair and massive pudgy limbs. A many-legged horse with no lower jaw and twelve-inch fangs. And a white-armoured knight with nothing visible behind the bars of his lowered visor, a knight whose gauntleted hands incinerated wood and pulverised stone.

Each of them were currently killing people.

Zel named them in turn: the towering doll was a mekkustremin, third rank; the fanged horse was an epheldegrim, second rank; the white knight was a thinfinaran, tenth rank.

And those were just the big ones. Streams of thick fluid sloshed over the kerbs, slug-like creatures swimming through their own slaver. Gibbering, jubilant cries came from the rafters of half-collapsed structures where imps cavorted in droves. Men and women – normal-seeming to eye and ear other than the fact that they, well, weren’t running and screaming in terror – walked nonchalantly and aimlessly through the clouds of smoke and dust; a look in their blank faces was enough to reveal that something had happened to their minds to make them act this way, but what it was and how to reverse it I had no idea. If it even was reversible. They might’ve been luckier to have been buried alive for all I knew.

“I don’t have enough information for that… get an enchanter to look into it later.”

The section of Oldtown we were nearing had been a big ring of houses, partially built into the side of the hill, with other buildings in the centre. The slope here was gentle, the ground almost level. The ring of houses encapsulated the entire neighbourhood – there was only one way in and one way out by road, so now the inhabitants were penned into the circle by the hellspawn. Unless they were brave enough to try breaking through the already-shattered buildings around the outside of the ring – which none of them were. Those who had survived the initial assault and whose paths had led them into the centre were ripe for the taking – their blood flowed in pinkish strands into the rivers of slaver.

And that blood was being used. I couldn’t see it, couldn’t hear anything to tell me of that fact over the ringing of the Bells – but I could feel it nonetheless. Gates to Infernum were opening everywhere. More and more demons flapped through the air or slouched through the shadows with every passing moment and every time that happened there was a chance another big one was about to find its way through into our world.

Our world, damn it, not yours.

Em headed off, surging towards the white knight with his empty helm – from her fingers she flicked small arcs of lightning that moved at a hundred times even her prodigious speed, slamming into him at a distance even as she closed the gap.

I landed, pointing at the bintaborax.

Slowly, it turned its great horned head to face me. A few of those still alive near it struggled to crawl or limp away, cradling mangled arms or holding their hands to gushing wounds inflicted by its six-inch spikes.

I stared back at the demon; bit by bit, a smile crept over my lips, and by the time I was done it was lowering its head in a gesture of respect –

It’s mine.

I heard and felt something approaching behind me, something heavy but taking dozens of steps, rocking the ground – I span on my heel, instinctively tensing myself – but it was just the stupid lumbering doll-demon. I felt a jolt as it loomed over me, hammering at my super-reinforced circle with a shiny, oversized fist.

I met its eyes now – the big, glittering eyes any little girl wanted on a toy, except these were crimson – and it met mine.

There was no immediate acquiescence.

Drop it, I thought savagely. This is no time to mess with me!

I kept my gaze fixed on the mekkustremin.

A single sudden wail cut the air, high-pitched, like metal scraping on metal – it was emanating from the permanent smile pasted on the doll-demon’s face, not six feet from me.

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And then its shoulders sagged, its head drooped, and it too was mine.

It used the bunched-up fingers on its hands to smooth down its tent-sized dress and cocked its head, looking at me through its frizzy hair. Looking at me – if I had to put a word on it – nervously.

It… does my stare always hurt them like that?

“Well done, Kas.” Zel sounded more than moderately self-satisfied. “Mekkustremin are quick. You should consider joining with it, and seeing what powers you can manifest when –“

No.

“Just shut it up like Zab and Avaelar…“

Don’t make me shut you up, Zel! I pleaded.

She shut up of her own accord, at least temporarily.

I eyed the mekkustremin and the bintaborax.

“You’re fast?” I snarled in Infernal at the doll-demon. It nodded jerkily. “Go fetch the wounded, bring them here.” I invoked as much dread as I could with my tone: “Do not suffer any sentient creatures of this plane to come to harm.”

Now I got to watch it move. Its motions were as clumsy as one would expect, but its body seemed to be filled with unnatural energy; it barrelled away, pudgy porcelain legs pumping furiously at the debris-littered ground like the wings of an insect beating, its arms swinging away almost merrily with every step. It covered a hundred feet in a few seconds, and started wading into the rubble.

“You!” I said to the bintaborax, the horned wall of spiky iron twice my height; and it pawed at the ground with one foot in response. “Use your hammer! Smash every demon you find that does not serve a mage within a hundred feet! Then return here and protect those brought by the mekkustremin.” Belatedly, I gave it the same warning: “Do not suffer any sentient creatures of this plane to come to harm.”

It lowered its fiery warhammer and crouched, then leapt with all its hideous force at one of the nearby buildings where I’d spotted imps lurking, grinding the cobbles to dust under its feet before it left the ground.

The brutish demon brought its weapon up as it soared, and span end-over-end before it crashed into the brickwork, meeting the half-crumbled second-storey wall with the flat of its hammer.

The remaining brickwork shattered like old plaster.

The bintaborax disappeared inside the building and the place fell down around it; within seconds I could see flicks of molten light piercing through gaps in the tumbled bricks as my minion started tenderising the lesser fiends that were now trapped in there with it.

I couldn’t sense gates opening under the rubble anymore. I cast my gaze around. The slug-creatures, swimming in the pools of slime permeated by strings of blood, had noticed me. They were fleeing.

The effing-grim thing – the horse with what looked like seven legs and wicked barbs hanging down from its upper jaw into empty air… It had noticed me too.

Before it could join the exodus I raised my hand to it.

“Eff-ell-duh-grim!”

That’s what I said.

“No you did not!”

Zel sounded a trifle testy.

“No I do not!”

But that was nothing new.

“Yes it is – I mean, if I were being testy – which I most certainly am not!”

As I wound up my faerie queen I beckoned the seven-legged hell-horse over and it trotted to my side, instantly obedient. It could’ve been a normal animal at a distance, without the three extra legs hanging in a line from the centre of its body. The missing-lower-jaw stuff was pretty horrid close up, if I was being honest with myself – the black fur which covered its body stopped at the neck, then there was just an opening from which the awfully long-looking tongue dangled, flapping around like a big wet chunk of knotted rope that had a mind all of its own.

All the same, it just had to be done.

“Down. I’m getting on, boy.”

It stuck out its three forelegs and leaned back on its four hind legs, thrusting its backside and long black tail into the air – it achieved a pose no horse from Materium would’ve been capable of, almost distending in an effort to execute my command.

I swung my leg over, and sat astride it as it rose back up to its full height. It was a little bigger than most horses, and certainly bigger than any horse I’d ever happened to mount. The horses used to pull wagons tended to be broad of shoulder but stocky, and this fiend was broader of shoulder but taller too, and somewhat longer than an ordinary steed.

I used Em’s flight-spell to steady myself as we charged the fleeing slime-creatures. I’d kept my wings out just in case, and felt the wind rushing through them, their transparent essence buffeted as we galloped.

The seven legs not only allowed the hell-horse to move as fast as an arrow, they allowed it to change direction in an instant. At my orders it lowered its head and stomped its hooves in the slush; I guided it with the merest pressure of my heels in its flanks.

We slew dozens, pulping the slug-things into masses of jelly and broken antennae.

What are these things?

“Unranked, insentient. Think of them as, I don’t know, the gnats of the Twelve Hells. They aren’t even demons, technically. I think they’re parasites.”

Then what’s actually been doing the summoning here?

Zel drew my eyes across what was now a rubble-strewn clearing, to where Em was still struggling with the white-clad knight.

Seriously?

“Thinfinaran are truly evil. A tenth-rank might be too much for you. Be careful.”

I let out a little sigh, then muttered to the epheldegrim: “Keep up the good work – do not suffer any sentient creatures of this plane to come to harm.”

I let myself rise up off its back, watched for a second to make sure it was still giving me a hundred percent, then, satisfied, I sped off across the clearing.

Em was keeping a fixed distance from it, speeding away each time the knight approached her, and was hurling attack after attack at it – but again and again it raised its hands as it walked, blocking or absorbing the energies she unleashed. In a matter of seconds I watched the bone-white substance of its gauntlets deflect lightning, sear-away ice, and swallow fireballs. She’d raised at least two elementals from the wood and stone littering the ground, but, even as I approached, the pair of elementals she was currently employing both got blown apart by a single strike from the white-plated fists.

At first I’d thought it odd that the demon, being arrayed in full battle regalia, didn’t carry a weapon.

Now I knew better.

The armour definitely had some unusual properties. I could see the bloody slop spattering on his boots and lower legs, but the armour didn’t stay discoloured for long – it was like it was drawing the mixture in, supplying him with its potency.

It’s moving like it knows what’s coming. It’s a diviner too?

“I don’t know… I… I think you’re right.”

Em had at least been able to distract it, I supposed – it’d been awhile since I’d felt any gates opening in the vicinity.

I came silently to a stop near the thinfinaran, coming closer to it than Em, and called down at it, a simple, irresistible order:

“Agar!” ‘Halt!’

It did indeed stop moving in response to Em’s attacks, instead turning the awful void of its helm up at me, as if to look upon me with its eyes of nothingness.

The arch-wizard’s incandescent missile of pure explosive fury streaked through the air, striking the demon in the side of the head, detonating with a force that rippled out at me, driving me away slightly.

When I blinked away the sudden wetness in my eyes I saw it was shaking its head. Not in pain, or grogginess. Not even in anger. No, it was shaking its non-existent head slowly, luxuriously.

It was disappointed in us.

“Vhat do ve do?” Em cried, giving up her assault, for now at least.

I was still staring at the thinfinaran, and then I realised –

Is the pain-gaze, you know, on? Is it –

“Enduring your pain-gaze, yes, it is. I told you. It’s out of your league, Kas. You’ve got to develop your mastery before you’re going to take on the heavy-hitters. If you won’t join with more powerful entities, you won’t get used to dominating others, hurting them –“

I don’t want to do that!

“You’re an arch-sorcerer. That’s who you are.”

I – I –

“You’ve a good heart, Kas, but your soul? Is that what you care about? I don’t think whatever powers granted you your abilities will grant you redemption for using demons like you’re currently using them, but condemn you for simply using them properly.”

Come on, Zel. Being possessed by a fey is one thing, and not strictly advisable, but all the stories say being possessed by a demon –

“Only if you left them awake could they attempt to possess you, and you’re an arch-sorcerer – try it, see how it goes. I’ve only possessed you a few times, and with your consent. If you could control it then you could join with it and then you’d know that it wouldn’t rule your actions.”

The white knight was still glowering. The arch-wizard was still floundering.

I didn’t know how to retort any further, or, more importantly, what to do – so I went with my gut. With my default plan of attack.

“Disappointed, are you?” I cried in Infernal. “Well, you’ve seen nothing yet!”

I stuck out my tongue as I summoned Blodg and Gradagh – or was it Glodb and Graggag? – not twenty feet from him.

The demon didn’t break eye contact with me. Why did it feel like he was smiling?

But when I asked the goblins to imprison the thinfinaran, they both gave me a despairing look.

“Come on, boys! There’s free wine in it for you!”

“Just command them, get it over with!” Zel hissed.

Yet it looked like my offer did the trick – they extended their unbreakable parchment, and then, in a flash, started to encircle the white knight.

The white knight who stood silent and still, implacably staring up at me, as though he were just listening to the Bells and waiting.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

There were the few seconds in which my hopes rose, seeing the way he was bound already, fixed tight in the ever-plentiful material… then there were the few seconds in which those hopes were dashed, as the gods-cursed armour swallowed the parchment, leaving the goblins with two trails that seemed to terminate inside the armour –

They slowed, seeming disarrayed momentarily – perhaps he’d somehow done something to their ability to move in their eerie fashion, but –

He took a handful of parchment on either side and pulled, yanking the goblins in.

And then the thinfinaran was holding my two minions by the throat, one in either hand, hefting my little grey-skinned helpers effortlessly into the air.

There was a moment of consideration, a pause for effect; and then a cold voice rang out from the void behind the bars of the helmet. The words were simple, but they sent a chill shiver through my heart.

“Khashal, ugrel abarax akkar.”

‘Tonight, your city falls.’

Some kind of force rippled through his gauntlets; and then he held nothing but clumps of not-yet disintegrated ashes in his hands.

My goblins fluttered away in a billion pieces.

* * *