On an island of blood and pain

Shall the darkness stir again.

Hawk broke into a run at the sight of Mekka kneeling in the ruins. He dropped to his knees in the dirt beside the Angel.

“Carmine!” he gasped.

She lifted her head from Mekka’s shoulder and folded into Hawk’s embrace.

“Be careful,” Mekka warned. “She is not… herself.”

Hawk barely heard his words, hugging Carmine fiercely. The only thing that mattered was that she was alive, and he was holding her.

She clutched him back tightly.

They remained that way for a long moment. Finally, Hawk pulled back.

And that was when he noticed the glint of black.

“What… Car, what are you wearing?!”

“Hawk...” Mekka said carefully. “The armour, it… it won’t come off.”

Hawk stared back at him, uncomprehending. “Wh… what do you mean, it won’t come off?”

Mekka swallowed, looking pale. “It… the trigon appears to have sealed itself to her body. There is… no way to remove it.”

He looked back at Carmine, but her head was lowered, unwilling to look at him.

“Like hell there isn’t!” Hawk said angrily. “There must be a way!”

It was too horrible. He shook his head in denial. Carmine could not become one of those insane soldiers. Or a… a wraith. He would not let it happen…

“We will need to find Requar as soon as possible,” Mekka said. “He may know how to help her.”

Hawk swallowed, shaking his head again. His hands tightened on Carmine’s shoulders. “He went off to fight some Dragon thing,” he replied.

“Then we should make haste.”

Hawk looked off into the burned remains of the camp. He didn’t want to waste time chasing after the sorcerers. He wanted to get that armour off Carmine now, rip it off with his bare hands…

He reached for his sword.

Mekka grabbed his arm. “Hawk, stop! That will not work!”

“Why not?” Hawk demanded. “It’s silvertine!”

“It does not work that way!” Mekka sighed in exasperation. “The weapon and the armour are both hardened. They will likely just repel each other. It requires magic to destroy one with the other!”

Hawk didn’t care. “I’m going to try it anyway.”

“Hawk!”

Throughout their argument, Carmine had remained still and silent. Now she lifted her head. “Why is it so dark?” she said in a small voice.

They fell silent.

She was right. A strange gloom had settled around them, though they had arrived hours from dusk. As they watched, darkness fell around them in a great shadow, sweeping across the sky and the ruins, like onrushing night.

Hawk felt the wave of shadow pass right through him, leaving him feeling shivery and ill.

Mekka tensed. Carmine’s eyes grew wide.

“GET DOWN!”

Without warning, Mekka threw himself on top of them both, his wings spread to shield them. Hawk heard the distinctive sound of a blade swish overhead.

The Angel rolled off them at once, and there was a clash of metal, sparks flaring in the darkness.

Hawk and Carmine scrambled up.

Before them stood a thing of horror. It was clad in black armour that had melted into grotesque forms that moved languorously about its body, so that it was impossible to tell where the armour ended and the figure it had claimed began – if there was such a difference. Its cape hung in ragged tatters at its back – or perhaps it was a cloak of mist. Beneath its helmet, its face was a grey, ethereal skull; gaping holes in place of eyes, nose and mouth. These features constantly moved, twisting and shifting horribly between solid and insubstantial in a manner that made their stomachs lurch.

Oily, smoky mist poured off the thing in all directions, rising up at its back like a mockery of wings. Its right hand gripped an oversized black sword with a blade shaped like a Dragon’s wing.

“What,” Hawk choked, fighting an urge to be sick, “is that?!”

Mekka stood in a half-crouch nearby, his spike extended. “I believe,” he replied grimly, “it was General Dreikan.”

Carmine screamed.

It was full of anguish, rage and terror, wrenched up from the pit of her soul. It caused every hair on the back of Hawk’s neck to stand on end, and his breath to catch in his throat. He had not imagined her capable of uttering such a terrible sound.

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He drew his sword.

“No!” Mekka cried. “You cannot fight this thing, Hawk!” He gave his friend a desperate look. “It killed Sirannor!”

Hawk went cold. His hand tightened on his sword. “Get Carmine out of here!” he ordered as the thing moved forward. “Take her to the ship!”

“Hawk!”

The wraith attacked.

Hawk blocked its fierce blow, but the force of it staggered him.

To his left, Carmine surged forward. She had found a weapon somewhere…

Mekka caught her around the waist and disarmed her in a swift movement. “NO!” she shrieked. “HAWK! NO!”

Hawk ducked a swing and parried the next. “Mekka! Get her out of here!”

With a growl of frustration, Mekka did so. Carmine screamed and struggled as he pulled her away. “HAWK!”

Mekka dragged Carmine to the docks. She fought him the whole way. “LET GO OF ME!” she half raged, half sobbed. “Mekka!”

Gritting his teeth, he ignored her. The sound of clashing weapons in the background sent his blood racing.

The pall of unnatural shadow fell away abruptly after only a few feet and sunlight washed over them again. The sea was dazzling as he reached the pier, where the Blueflower was moored.

“Everine!” he shouted.

The blonde-haired woman came to the rail, looking pale and frightened, her blue eyes wide at the sight of the black shadow behind them.

“Fetch some rope!”

She did so without question.

Mekka spread his wings and leapt aboard, carrying Carmine with him. He swept her over to the main mast, pulled her arms behind it, then took the rope from Everine and bound Carmine securely.

“Mekka!” her voice was high pitched with despair. She heaved with sobs.

Mekka stood up and turned to Everine. “Watch her. If she tries to escape, knock her out.”

Everine nodded mutely, to afraid to argue.

“Be ready to cast off.” He strode to the railing.

“Please,” Carmine begged. “Mekka! Don’t… let him die!”

Mekka turned to look at her, his eyes fierce, his fists clenched. “I don’t intend to.”

He took off.

Hawk fought hard, grunting with the effort of fending off the demon-wraith’s attack. The thing was strong, but unlike his fight with Mekka, he was familiar with its fighting style and knew how to counter it, if not to overcome it.

It sickened him, though, to think that this monster had once been his own General, and even more so that it had murdered Captain Sirannor. Even as he fought the wraith, he battled his own anger.

He couldn’t believe that Sirannor was dead.

That thought lingered at the back of his mind, a dark warning. If the greatest warrior he had ever known couldn’t defeat Dreikan… who could?

And now, the General was a wraith, a ghastly thing that could only be destroyed by magic…

For a moment, Hawk’s rage and desperation got the better of him. With a cry, he risked a reckless strike, drawing a line of sparks across its trigon-armoured chest.

He almost paid for it, but managed to twist awkwardly and parry the oncoming brutal blow at the last second. The clumsy defence staggered him however.

He stumbled away, panting. He was weakening quickly, as though his energy drained away with every clash. Sweat prickled across his skin in cold waves. He felt ill.

I’m losing, he thought in sudden despair. Mekka was right, I shouldn’t have tried to fight this thing…

A surge of dizziness passed over him, and he put a hand to his head.

He gritted his teeth, and gripped his sword tightly with both hands, forcing himself to focus. Stop it! he told himself. Stop it! Don’t let it mess with your mind!

He blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision.

The wraith had stopped advancing, however. It lowered its great sword, regarding him with its awful, twisting face.

And then, something odd happened.

The wraith reached out its left arm, black fingers extended. Hawk’s own left arm released his sword and drifted upwards until it was also outstretched, towards the wraith.

Hawk watched his arm in confusion. He tried to move it, but found that he could not. He had lost all feeling and control of that arm.

It hung in the air, like the limb of a puppet on a string.

And then, to his horror, he found that he could not move at all. His entire body was suddenly paralysed.

He was a statue, forced to stare ahead at the foul, changing visage of the wraith.

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw smoke streaming out of his arm, from the wound that Mekka had inflicted there with the trigonic dagger.

The wound that he had forgotten about.

His heart hammered in panic, but there was nothing he could do. He could only watch in helpless, gut-churning terror as black, liquid trigon oozed out of the split in his arm, seeping around the bandages. It formed itself into tendrils that wrapped around his forearm and engulfed his hand. The tendrils coiled outwards through the air like serpents lured forth by the wraith.

Hawk’s ears buzzed, and shadow claimed the edges of his vision. An icy coldness spread outwards from his numb arm through his veins to the rest of his body, rising up his neck and into his head.

The last thing his conscious mind saw was a streak of silver flashing through the darkness.

And then his thoughts dissolved into nothing.

Mekka plunged once more into shadow. Below him, Hawk and the wraith stood with arms outstretched, mist swirling around them, trigon reaching forth from the Freeroamer’s arm in black, gleaming, twisting streamers.

Mekka dropped from the sky to Hawk’s side, snatched the silvertine sword from his free hand and threw himself upwards again, twisting up and over the wraith, coming down behind it, bringing the sword around in a long, sweeping arc as he did so…

The blade flared briefly with a ghostly silver light as it sheared through the wraith’s neck, decapitating it.

There was no scream; no sound at all. The wraith simply turned instantaneously to liquid, droplets spraying outwards with the passage of the sword.

The rest of it collapsed into a formless, dark puddle of trigon at Mekka’s feet.

The mist dissipated at once; the shadow lifted like a cloak being drawn aside. Warm sunlight flooded over them, and the ruins of the camp came into view once more.

It worked, Mekka thought, looking down at the sword in his hand in awe. It worked without magic…

He didn’t have time to dwell on his victory, however.

Hawk lay sprawled on his back on the ground. The tendrils of trigon fled back into his arm.

Mekka flew over the puddle and alighted beside Hawk. Hooking his arms under Hawk’s shoulders, he dragged his friend quickly away from the pool of trigon.

Desperately, he checked for signs of life.

Hawk was still breathing, albeit shallowly, and his heart still beat. His eyes were open, but glazed over, and he was unresponsive when Mekka shook him and spoke his name several times.

Drawing deep breaths, Mekka placed a hand on Hawk’s gleaming breastplate. What have I done to you, Hawk? he thought in despair, staring at his friend’s infected arm.

He glanced over at the pool of trigon, but it did not move; it lay still and eerie and mirror-like in the sun.

Scooping Hawk up in his arms, he bore his stricken friend hastily back to the ship.

Landing on the deck, Mekka set him down carefully against a crate.

“Hawk!” Carmine cried.

Mekka got to his feet, walked to the mast and released her bonds with his spike. She lunged forwards at once, throwing herself onto her fiancé.

“Hawk!” She grabbed his face with her hands. “Hawk! Oh my God!” She began to cry, hugging him against her.

“Everine,” Mekka said tightly. “Cast off. Get us out of here.”

Everine nodded, biting her lip, tears in her eyes as she looked at Hawk and Carmine.

As the little ship began to pull away from the docks, Mekka walked to the bow and gripped the rail with both hands. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“What’s wrong with him?” a quiet voice asked.

Mekka opened his eyes to find young Ben standing behind him. He turned back to watch the spray leaping brightly in front of him. “Something bad,” he whispered. “Something bad that is–” his breath caught in his throat. “That is my fault.”

There was a moment of silence, then Ben said: “Is he going to die?”

Mekka scowled fiercely at the horizon, his hands tightening on the rail. “No,” he replied determinedly. “He is not.”

Behind them, an island of towering, hot red rock gradually dwindled in their wake.

It was a prison now for no one but the dead.