9,990Willas
He'd been home in Highgarden for the best part of several days and he still didn't feel right at he sat in what had been Father's desk in Father's solar. The table was piled high with all the business of the Reach and more, he had his duty to do to his lands and sworn banners… but he still felt ill at ease, as if he was an interloper.
"It doesn't feel like it's yours, yet, does it?"
He looked up and smiled at Grandmother, who was standing there, leaning on her cane and looking about the room herself. "No. It does not."
"Your father felt the same after his own father, my dear Luthor, died. He sat there with the same look on his face for some weeks afterwards. You'll get used to it my boy. I swear you will."
He sighed. When he'd forced Father to go 'hunting' he'd run the Reach from his own rooms. Now that he was Lord Tyrell himself, he had to use the solar. There was so much to do and organise but… "I keep expecting him to wander in and complain about the 'latest insolence from Dorne' or something." The words left his lips without thinking. "Sorry, Grandmother."
She clacked her way to his side, using her cane and then sat down next to him and patted his hand. "Grief is like that, my boy. It settles over you like a dark blanket and keeps surprising you. I couldn't look at a pigeon pie for almost a year after your grandfather died without getting weepy. A certain path in the grounds still makes me think of him. Little things will always make you recall people." Her eyes seemed to focus on something far away for a long moment. "A terrible thing grief. No parents should ever have to bury their child. But so many do."
There was a long moment of shared sorrow and then Grandmother shook her head. "Enough! Now, my boy, you have a lot of decisions to make."
"I know," he said grimly and pointed at the reports to one side. "The blight is gone, the crops are recovered and we have a lot to do to make the most of the next harvest. The coopers of the Reach are going to be busy and richer than many after all of this. The millers too. Every scrap of land needs to be used where possible and then the unused land made ready with fertiliser. A lot of dung needs to be flung."
"The more done now, the better," Grandmother agreed. "That Stark motto has never been more apt." She pursed her wrinkled lips. "And speaking of sowing, you-"
"Must marry, I know," he groaned. "The business with Ned at the Hightower was too important for me to ignore. But now I must… look at my options. Gods, that sounds cold-hearted. Like I'm a prize bull at the market. I always wanted to find my own wife by falling in love. And now…"
Grandmother patted his hand again. "I know exactly how you feel. However – you must marry and quickly, because various dogs and foxes are circling."
He eyed her. "The Florents?"
"Of course! Alester Florent has never stopped whining about how unfair it all is that House Tyrell got Highgarden when House Florent had the better claim. Well, with the Call still popping the earwax out of people's ears, he's probably telling people that House Florent is terribly First Men in origin. Watch him carefully. Plus, Alekyne and Delena Florent are on their way to Winterfell to visit young Edric. What a co-incidence." Her voice was dryer than the sands of Dorne.
"Luckily Delena is married to Norcross," Willas sighed. "Otherwise she'd be on her way to Castle Black after that to meet the King."
Grandmother nodded. "The succession is still in the air. There's word that Selyse Baratheon is pregnant again in Winterfell and there's the other legitimised bastards to cloud everything. But… if Edric becomes King, we need to be on guard in the future. So – options."
He shuffled through a number of the proffered papers that Grandmother had thrust into his hands. "Talla Tarly – too young, surely?"
Grandmother shrugged. "Nonsense."
"Meredyth Crane? The plump one?"
"Cheerful. But fat."
"Delena Rowan. Do I know her?"
"Terribly pious."
"Oh, that one. Gods no, she probably thinks that children are spawned from under mulberry bushes or something."
"Possibly."
"Ella Ashford."
"Five years younger than you, large breasts and possibly not a maid."
"Then why is she on the list?"
"Major house and I did say 'possibly', but then you're not a virgin either."
He looked at Grandmother, who smiled sweetly at him. "Yes, thank you for pointing out our hypocrisy. Janna Kidwell?"
"A year older than you, narrow hips, no sense of humour."
He lowered the papers. "Grandmother, your memory is excellent but you seem to be steering me in but one direction."
Grandmother looked at him and did not even blink for a long moment. "I'm proud of you, my boy."
He sighed. "A raven to Horn Hill, please ask Melessa Tarly to come here with her daughter Talla Tarly. And a raven to the Hightower to ask if Ser Sam Tarley can come here at once. We have much to discuss."
Grandmother looked at him quizzically as she stood up. "Such as?"
"Euron Greyjoy broke through a lot of wards to reach the Gate in the Hightower. Given the fact that he seems to be insane, vindictive and with knowledge of magic, I want to make sure that Highgarden and the Hightower are well protected."
Grandmother leant on her stick for a long moment as she considered what he had said, her face pale. "Good gods. Yes, quite right. I'll send the ravens myself."
Maerronar Aneryr
It was good that the Great Temple of Volantis had so many doorways into its cavernous interior, because the time it took to climb down from a palanquin on the back of an elephant could be considerable, especially given that some worthies had brought their families.
He folded his arms and glowered as the latest group of almost-silver haired members of the First Families of Volantis swaggered through the doorway he was standing near, making sure that so many people in the gawking crowd could see them.
This was not religion, this was an opportunity to strut like peacocks in front of the people and raise a profile or three.
He did not care. He was not there to worship on that day, he was worried. He looked around. Still no sign.
"Maerronar!" Called out a jovial voice to one side and he turned to see his old friend Jaqaro Vynatis approaching, wife at his side. "Are you waiting for your family?"
"They're not coming," he said tersely and his friend frowned at he saw the strain on his face.
"What's amiss?"
He beckoned them closer. "I've told you of my youngest son, Tycho?"
Jaqaro frowned. "You hinted that he has dreams."
"Dragon dreams we think. And last night he dreamt a dream that had him screaming in fear. A dream of today, this place, this time."
Jaqaro swapped a troubled look with his wife. "Are you sure it was a dragon dream? He's, what, ten, eleven?"
"Twelve and these dreams keep coming. He dreamt that blood flowed from the doorways of the Great Temple, that a great darkness flowed over the Temple itself and that the sphinxes on its roof all screamed in warning."
Jaqaro's eyes widened, but it was his wife, Minola, who spoke next: "Your son dreamt that the sphinxes screamed?"
"I know, that's not possible, but-"
"It's happened before," she whispered. "The statues of the sphinxes all screamed aloud on the Day of the Doom."
"But why?" Jaqaro asked as he looked about the place. "What could be wrong?"
Maerronar pulled a face and was about to shrug when a familiar face emerged from the Temple at long last. "Garrano! Here!"
His brother hurried over, looking flustered. "The First Families are assembling in the pews, but you're right, there's something wrong, there's no sign of the any of the Triarchs, even though they ordered the damn ceremony. No-one's seen them for days and for all the word of them being in conclave over a great decision, no-one's seen them or their guards or even heard from them. I talked to a priest who said that he'd heard one of them barking an order at someone in the temple earlier, but that there was something wrong with their voice, like they were muffled or something. I don't like it."
His stomach turned over with deep unease and he pulled a face. "I don't like it either. We should alert someone."
"And tell them what?" Garrano had a good point. You couldn't cancel a major religious ceremony based around a claim of a dragon dream and a bad feeling.
"And who?" Jaqaro looked at his wife. "Minola, go home and-"
Something juddered under his feet for a heartbeat, something that they all felt based on the wild looks that everyone sent in all directions. And then they heard it, the crashes as the doors to the Great Temple all started to slam shut, no matter who was caught in the doorways. Screams went up, some curtailed, some agonised, as whoever was caught by the doors was crushed in an instant or lost a leg or an arm. The doors in front of them swung closed, with no-one pushing them, with a horrible suddenness and a terrible crunch as they caught a tall silver-haired man between the leaves and killed him instantly, leaving the blood and debris to ooze down the outside of the doorway.
They all flinched back from the gate, Jaqaro pulling his wife desperately back and shouting for their guards to help him and as Maerronar stumbled back he looked at the blood pooling at the doorway and remembered the words of his youngest son.
Something started to scream, a scream at the sky, a scream that made his mind hurt and he looked up at the roof of the Great Temple, where the shutters were also slamming shut one by one. Oh. Oh. The sphinxes – all of the statues were unfolding on their perches somehow and lifting their faces to scream into the sky. How was this possible?
The crowd was running away from the Temple now, howling in fear – and then a new sound could be heard, something strange and terrible. It was as if something was bubbling and boiling under their very feet – and then a black oil, or something like that, started to bubble up from the foundations of the Great Temple, before flowing, somehow, upwards, over the sides of the building. As it reached each sphinx they slumped back into their normal pose, before reaching the very top of the temple itself.
And then the screaming started inside.
Ned
The mountains were red in places, the peaks not capped with white. This was the Dornish Marches, the place fought over so very many times by the Stormlanders and the Dornish, fought over until the ground should be dark red or black underfoot from all the spilled blood.
As they drew closer to the place where the Tower of Joy had once stood, he found his mind filled with that last terrible battle of the war, a minor skirmish in the greater story of Robert's Rebellion, but one of the most horrible days of life, after that of the news of the deaths of Father and Brandon.
The men had picked up on his mood, riding almost in silence apart from the occasional wicker from a horse. All men of the North they were all sweating and he'd heard quiet oaths about the heat and he'd lad to laugh and tell them – to their horror – that this was not even the hottest part of Dorne.
Only Frostfyre seemed to not feel the heat and he wondered why. She also seemed to be unconcerned and he had relaxed a hair as he realised that they were not being watched.
As the stub of what had been the tower came into view he looked for the cairns – and then let out a sigh. They were still there – two on one side of the remains of the tower and five on the other. He drew rein as they approached – and then he dismounted, threw his reins to Wyl and walked over to the graves of his friends.
He was amazed that the cairns were still more or less intact. A few stones had fallen here and there, but they could have expected no less. Animals, perhaps, but at least not the more serious animals that like Dornish scavengers or looters. No graverobbers had been here and he thanked the Old Gods for that.
"Right." He sighed as he pointed at the cairns in turn. "Lord Dustin. Ethan Glover. Martyn Cassel. Theo Wull. Ser Mark Ryswell. Let's take them home lads, away from this heat. They were good men – treat their bones reverently."
The men nodded as they removed their jerkins and then with careful hands started to dismantle the cairns. As they did he walked with Wyl to the other two cairns. "That one's Whent – he was a relative of my wife, so he's to go back to Harrenhall. And that one's Hightower. Who needs to go back to the Hightower, as I promised."
Wyl knuckled his forehead and then started work on Hightower's cairn. As the men steadily demolished the cairns and then started to gesture at the bones beneath Ned walked away and stared at the base of the tower. Gods, he hated this place. So much death – pointless death at that. Three Kingsguard had been 'protecting' his dying sister and her babe – and for what? What plan had they had, once Rhaegar Targaryen was dead, once the Targaryen dynasty was dead – what?
He looked at the dust that had been stirred up by the demolishing of the cairns and how it billowed and swooped in the dry wind – and then Frostfyre turned her head sharply and he looked in the same direction. There was a shape there in the dust, shaky at first but then forming slowly. It was that of an armoured man, with what had once been a white cloak but which was now smeared with blood and dust. He held his left hand over his right hand, but no sword was at his hip, no helm was on his head.
It was Arthur Dayne and he was almost translucent at first, before coming into sharper focus. And he was watching the bones being removed from the base of the cairns and looking deeply conflicted.
None of the men seemed to react to him being there – and then Ned realised that they could not see him. Only he and Frostfyre could. He swallowed. Was this a ghost? A spirit? A vision? There was no threat, there could not be from the sad spectre and Ned made sure not to look at him.
Only once the men were done and the bones were bundled into separate and labelled bags did he finally step forwards. "Good work. We'll head back West again, towards the Torentine and then get passage down to Starfall and then on to Oldtown. And after that home." He looked up at the sun. "There's a cave half a mile south-west that should shield us from the worst of the mid-day son. I'll join you there. I have some words to say at the place where my sister died."
"My Lord," Wyl started to say, but he cut him off with a shake of the head.
"Go." They went.
Only once they were no more than several hundred yards away did he turn to the ghost. "Dayne."
The spectre of Arthur Dayne started with shock and then looked at him. "You… you can see me?"
"Evidently." He said the word drily, his hand on the Fist of Winter. "I was making sure that you were not a threat to my men. What are you?"
The dead Kingsguard laughed for a moment. "I wish I knew. I… there was…" He straightened. "The Sword of the Morning always swears an oath, an oath to bind them even in death. If the Call is sent, the Sword of the Morning must answer. I was not the Sword of the Morning when I died, but I… I must answer it. I must. I swore oaths, I broke oaths, but that one is important. The Others come. The Stark calls for aid, I am needed. Even in death."
He stared sadly at the man who he had once hoped would be his good-brother. "There is a new Sword of the Morning and he has answered the Call."
"I know," Arthur sighed. "I… I was not the Sword of the Morning when I died, Dawn had rejected me and there is no greater shame for any Dayne than that. I was not worthy. But I can feel Dawn, now, far to the North. And it's… complete again. In a way I can't describe."
"Complete?"
"Dawn was forged by a Stark who married a Dayne. Our two families have been linked for thousands of years. But with time came… distance. Separation. Dilution. Call it what you may. However, the new Sword of the Morning… Dawn feels as if everything is right again."
He looked at the ghost. "The new Sword of the Morning is Eddard Dayne. Ashara's son. My son."
The ghost's eyes brightened. "Ah. Prophecy."
He looked at the sad spectre for a long moment. "Arthur, why are you here?"
"I died here. But I awoke after the Call was sent. I had to… do, something. There was a need. A need to help." He shook his head and then laughed softly. "At least I'm not cursed, like the others."
Something prickled at his scalp. "The others?"
Arthur Dayne looked at him. "You shouldn't be able to… wait…" The ghost's gaze sharpened suddenly. "You are different, I sense it now. What did you do? What is that mark on your face?"
Mark? And then he realised. "I killed the Drowned God. I had the help of the Old Gods, but I killed the Drowned God."
"Then no wonder you can see me. You're different now, I can see it. Come, you need to see this."
"See what?" But Dayne said nothing as he strode across the dusty red ground and then gestured at the base of the ruins of the Tower of Joy.
Ned stared – and then he saw it. There were shadows there, indistinct at first but then, as he stared clearer and sharper. They started upright, those of proud men in armour from the shape of them, with cloaks – but then they seemed to shake as if hit by blow after blow after blow, blood shadows appearing and then disappearing as they slumped down into the dirt. And then the figures quivered and he could suddenly see faces appearing in the ground where the shadows lay, the faces of Whent and Hightower, screaming at first and then still in death and then rotting into skulls, but with the mouths opening and closing in silent screams – and then everything in reverse before it all started again.
Ned stumbled back in horror. "Gods! What Are they going through?"
"Your sister cursed them. No – she cursed all of us." Arthus Dayne's face was drawn with shame and horror. "We… held her down, Lord Stark. Rhaegar ordered us to. A command from a Prince that shattered my oaths as a knight but I still did it. I was a fool. A cruel fool. And when it was over, as your naked sister wept in the corner of the room, her hair over her face as she tried to hide herself in that corner, as Rhaegar tried to tell her that it was for the good of the Realm, as Hightower stood there like a block of stone and Whent wept quietly and I knew that I was no longer a knight, she cursed us. By earth and water, by fire and air, in the name of the Old Gods we were accursed, to never know rest even in death. Ever."
He stood there, his mind ablaze in horror. He knew what they had done, but to hear it – and then the curse! "That's an old curse," he finally said, forcing the words out. "And a dark one."
"She was right to curse us so," Dayne said, his eyes on the ground. "Three times Rhaegar dishonoured her so. And three times she cursed us all. And he felt it the worst, because he was the target of the curse, The last time – afterwards, he ran from her."
There was a long moment as they stood there, he shaking with rage. And then he paused. "Why," he said in a voice choked with fury, "Are you not like them?"
Dayne slowly raised his head – and then he raised his left hand from his right and Ned realised that the hand that had been hidden was blackened and withered. "Because Dawn started to reject me. I was not a knight, not any more. I knew what I had done, I knew what I had enabled to be done… the title of Sword of the Morning was being lost to me, I was not worthy." He hung his head in shame. "Your sister knew. She suspected. She saw the slowly growing burn on my hand, as Dawn rejected my grip. And one morning I broke before her – I went on my knees and I begged for her forgiveness. And she granted it."
Ned took in a long breath – and then he finally released it. "Lyanna was better than I, then." He looked at the writhing shadows on the ground – and then at the melancholy shade of the former Sword of the Morning and his nostrils narrowed. "Are they in pain?"
"In torment."
"I cannot forgive and I cannot forget." He sighed. "But I can find it in me to stop suffering. Whent – Hightower! Go to your rest. I lift my sister's curse."
The faces in the ground, which had just started to rot, both stilled – and then they seemed to sigh and vanish into the earth.
He looked at the ghost to one side. "And as for you – Lyanna forgave you. For the sake of your sister, who I loved, and our son, who I can't acknowledge, go to your rest as well. The Sword of the Morning has answered the Call. Sleep, Ser Arthur Dayne. Sleep – but wait one moment. You said that Rhaegar felt the curse that my sister laid on you all the worst?"
"He did," Dayne said as he started to fade from view.
"So, if Whent and Hightower are here, where they died, Rhaegar must be at the Ruby Ford, in a similar state?"
"Worse. Oh – far worse."
"Then go to your rest knowing this – me and mine will never visit the Ruby Ford. Some things can never be forgiven." And as the ghost faded from view he mounted his horse and rode away.
Maerronar Aneryr
Volantis did not sleep in the days after the Great Temple was sealed from within and covered in that terrible oily darkness. Volantis dared not sleep. The Great Temple was watched for any sign of that… substance, spreading.
At least there had been no more attempts at breaking into the temple. One fool had ordered a group of slaves to pick up a great stone bench and try to break down one of the doors. But the moment that the stone had met the black oil it – and the slaves – had been somehow pulled through the doors in the blink of an eye, before the screams had started. Brief screams at that. All too brief.
Another, seemingly cleverer, man had ordered that a wagon be filled with stones, taken to the slope that led down the hill to another set of doors to the temple and then released. Once again the moment that the rumbling cart had reached the oil it too had vanished through the doors, like a stick through water.
It was not normal, it was magic – and foul, evil magic at that, all agreed. The other temples in Volantis had all sent their most senior priests and all had been left shaken by their first sight of the substance, let alone their second. One Red Priest, a tall man covered in flame tattoos, had been unnerved enough to call it a 'skin of evil' – and to then admit that he could not vanquish it, as it was beyond his power, something that was unlike anything that any Red Priest (who always claimed that their Lord of Light was all-powerful) he'd ever known had ever said.
So Volantis waited. Volantis watched. And Volantis did not sleep.
Maerronar had created a headquarters, of a sort, at a great inn that overlooked the Temple. He had sent his family away for safety, he dared not put them at risk. The number of First Families who were in the Great Temple was such that the city was almost headless. It was certainly Triarch-less. No word had come from them, they must be in the silent temple, and with most of the First Families in there as well, there were few left.
He looked at the nearest sphinx on a nearby small temple. It was turned to look at the Great Temple. They all were, very sphinx statue in the city was looking at the building – or more rightly at the oily film that covered it.
Evil. That was the only think that all could agree to. It was evil. But why had it chosen to appear here? And what had happened to the First Families that were inside the building?
Benerro, the High Priest of R'hllor at the Red Temple here in Volantis, had told him, quietly that he did not know what was going on in the Great Temple. He had sounded shaken about it. Apparently Red Priests could see visions of things in the flames – but in this case Benerro could not, or rather he dared not.
"There is… an abyss in the flames," he had told him a day before, sounding like a man who spoke only because he had to, not because he wanted to, as what he had to say pained him. "And there's something in that abyss, something that is… watchful. There are… eyes in there. Eyes that do not want anyone to see deeper. Eyes with claws and teeth. I cannot look more further, I dare not."
He had been about to ask if this Lord of Light that Benerro so often shrieked about from the steps of his temple could surely protect him from these eyes, when Benerro looked at him again. "One of my brothers dared to look longer than I dared. He sits now in a cell, in a puddle of his own urine, drooling, his mind shattered by what he saw. He will not live long. Something evil is in that temple and it does not want to be disturbed."
There had been a look on Benerro's face that still left him unsettled and he sighed and looked back at the Great Temple. And then he blinked. "Garrano?"
His brother emerged from the room nearby, dressed in armour and looking worriedly at him. He was as red-eyed as they all were, short on sleep. "Brother?"
"Is it my tired eyes, or is there a change to it?"
Garrano squinted at it – and then they both recoiled as the black oily substance seemed to flicker for a moment – and then it simply faded away, like rain vanishing from under a lightened cloud. There was another noise, a great screech in their minds – and then the sphinxes all seemed to turn back to their normal pose on the rooftops and columns.
There was a stunned pause – and then they were both striding out of the building, Maerronar barking orders and Garrano shouting them to various people, as a nervous crowd of soldiers and others started to assemble around them. Maerronar accepted his helmet from a slave, buckled his sword belt on – and then accepted a javelin from a grim-faced Garrano. He hefted it for a moment and then pointed it at the nearest doorway, which happened to be the one that the slaves had vanished into with the stone bench that they had swung. "With me, Volantenes!"
It was hardly the most original or inspiring battlecry, but it fit the mood. The crowd followed him and he could see others leading men down the other avenues towards the Great Temple, their tread steady but cautious. As they approached the doorway they slowed and he looked about the crowd for a familiar face, before finally spotting Benerro's right hand man Moqorro, who looked grim but determined.
"Moqorro – here!" The Red Priest approached, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "What do you sense?"
The white-haired man looked at the Great Temple and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he nodded slowly. "It is gone. Whatever was here, it is now gone. We can enter safely."
He looked at the closed doors. And then he frowned. The wood looked… strange. Warped in places. He frowned for a moment – and then he pulled his arm back and hurled the javelin at the doors as hard as he could. It slammed into the right-hand upper quarter. It was not a bad throw for someone of his age and as he accepted a new javelin from a slave he frowned. It had gone into the wood further than it should have, surely?
And then to his shock there was a groaning noise and the gates slowly fell backwards into the temple, the sound of rending metal as the hinges gave way making many wince. As he slowly advanced into the gateway he paused. The hinges looked… rusty. Which was surely impossible.
"Lanterns," Garrano barked, "Lanterns! There are no torches alight in there!"
Lanterns were brought hurriedly and only then did they approach the dark doorway. The air smelt…. Wrong, musty in some terrible way, with a tang of something grimly familiar as they entered the temple. Death.
They found the first signs not far down the passageway. The stone bench was there. On its side. And around it were the bones of the slaves that had swung it against the doors. He stared at the rags of rotted clothing that still clung to some of the bones and swallowed. "How… how is that possible?"
"Touch nothing with your bare hands!" Moqorro boomed, his face as pale as someone with his skin could ever get. "Gloves, gauntlets – wear what you can!"
"What do you fear?" Gerrano asked in horror.
"We must take no chances," the Red Priest replied grimly. "Something sucked the life out of those men in an instant. We must be careful."
That was sound advice and after those who were without gloves obtained some, they continued on down the passageway that led to the great hall within the Temple, where the altar to the Gods of Valyria lay. As they walked the smell grew worse but not a bone or a body or anything could be seen. Nothing that anyone had dropped, no offerings for the gods, nothing.
They reached the hall at almost the same time as a number of other groups from the other entrances, one of which was led by Jaqaro in his old armour. And what they beheld was a scene of utter horror.
The outer pews were occupied by the dead. They were all slumped in their seats, eyeless skulls grinning where they could see over the pews if they were still attached to their spines. Here and there they could see some rotted clothing clinging to a rib cage. Men, women, children – they could tell by the size of the skulls at times. All dead. All rotted.
The inner pews were bare of bodies – because the bodies were on the altar, or rather in the great structure of stacked bones and skulls that formed a platform around where the altar must be underneath. In the middle of it stood an empty throne, again made from bones and skulls.
But the true horror was the… thing… that was sprawled at the base of the platform. It was tall thing of bones and bare muscles, covered in a tattered patchwork of skin here and there. Its head was huge and seemed to have several sets of eyes. And it was alive. It was breathing, slowly and laboriously, as if fighting for every gasp of air.
As the various groups saw it they all did the same thing – stumbled to a halt in horror. "What is that… creature?" Someone said the words with what was almost terror in his voice.
The thing stirred, either at the words or the growing light in the hall. It slowly raise itself up on its great but trembling arms and then the great head turned towards the nearest men, which included Maerronar, who had his javelin clutched in one hand ready to throw. It had three sets of eyes and something seemed to be set just above each set. He stared at it in utter horror. "Stand with me!" The words seemed to jolt the men to life and they all pulled out swords or levelled spears and javelins.
The thing slumped a little and then looked straight at him. Its mouth opened to show deformed jaws and far too many teeth. There was a malformed tongue in there as well. "Kirrr…. Uzzzz!"
He stared at it. "It… speaks?" Someone muttered behind him.
The thing shook itself and then pulled itself, trembling, forward again. "Kirrr…. Uzzzz!"
He shook his head in confusion. What was it saying? And then he caught sight of the eyes – and then the things between the eyes. Each set of eyes. Horror stole over him. No… but what if…
His arm came back and then he launched his javelin straight at the head of the thing. It sank into the great misshapen thing and as it bellowed with pain he called on the others to throw their missiles as well. Javelins flew through the air and sank into the thing, which shook with every impact, losing strength steadily. It made a keening noise – and then the others attacked from all sides. More javelins sank into it, whilst spears sank into the things exposed ribs. The thing bellowed one last time – and then it sank down and sprawled bonelessly on the floor. The twisted chest heaved once, twice as its gasped its last – and then went still.
There was a long moment of silence as the men all stared at the thing. Was it now dead? Could anything live with that number of missiles in it?
"It no longer lives – if it can be said to have lived. It was an abomination in the eyes of every god," Moqorro said to one side, his eyes still wide as he looked at it. "What was it saying?"
"It wanted to die," Maerronar said, wearily. "That's what it was trying to tell us. Look at what's next to the eyes."
The Red Priest cautiously approached and stared at the malformed head of the thing. And then his eyes widened. "Are those-"
"Signet rings. A ring for each set of eyes, I think. I'm not sure, but this might be what remains of the Triarchs. It was saying – or trying to say – 'Kill us.'"
If he hadn't been standing in a charnel house of terror looking at the thing that had been made from three people, he would have almost – almost – been amused at knowing that for the first time in his life he had seen total and utter horror on the face of a Red Priest.