An Excerpt (taken from Chapter Twenty-Three)

‘Cauldrons!’ Windchaser-General Rackyard called, wondering if it was wise to use all of their tricks on this first assault. With one glance she acknowledged the speed of the horde’s ascent and realised that if they did not, there would not be any need for a second. The men obeyed, dragging the reliquaries to the crenels and upending their consecrated contents upon the advancing Hellspawn. Daemons fell away from the walls, dragging their fellows with them to splash into the deadly moat. Many avoided the downpour and continued their climb, and Rackyard knew it was only moments before they reached the parapet. Cursing was becoming a bad habit tonight.

At the other end of the crenellations, Jharek Doon was beginning to doubt his ability to make sane decisions. He and his men stood with frightened anticipation, clasping windcannons and blades as though the weapons might save them. He sighed, inwardly cursing himself: he could have been halfway to the Wastes by now. There might be a good deal of nothing there, but at least every daemon in Hell and its brother wouldn’t be so keen to get their claws on it. He chuckled to himself – if he made it through tonight, he’d be gone come the morning.

As he awaited the landing of the first claw like a grappling hook on the parapet, Rueger nudged his side. ‘Sire? What the Hell are those?’

Jharek followed the footpad’s pointing finger and his eyes widened with shock and fear. From among the seething mass below, several creatures were lifting into the night sky on leathered wings. Jharek pushed through his men and waved his arms to get the General’s attention.

‘Eyes up, beauty! The bastards’re flyin’ an’ all!’

Rackyard looked up and swore: varls, several score of them, had taken flight and were hurtling towards the Greathouse. ‘Aim for the wings!’ she roared, levelling her long-barrelled cannon and squeezing off two shots. The bolts tore through the wings of the lead daemon and the beast pitched into the moat below. Crossbows and windcannons swept up, peppering the varls with a volley of silver death.

The men at the walls fell back aghast as the first of Gothmarok’s foot soldiers swung up onto the battlements. The beast was seven feet tall, long arms ending in sharp claws over a foot long. Its face was flat, bat-like, its skin scaled and red and slick with viscous, oozing perspiration. The claws swung out at the nearest marshal, tearing his face apart with one stroke. Galleo leapt forward, dipping under the belkor’s next swing and ramming his left-hand, talon-like shadowblades into its chest. The beast roared and Galleo tore his blades free, spinning and slicing its head from its shoulders. Before the body had a chance to fall he kicked it back over the wall. The man beside him staggered back in fear as another belkor came into view, but was plucked from his feet by a swooping varl.

All became chaos and Rackyard swung towards the vestibule where the Gathering of Ten were huddled. ‘If you ladies and gentlemen have anything terribly clever up your Saints-damned sleeves and you’re waiting for the right moment – this is it!’

Behind her three varls landed on the farthest catapult and began to tear the weapon apart, slaughtering the four-man crew who stood around it. A volley of windcannon fire hurled them back over the walls, but several more took their place and the weapon was destroyed, the crew swept to their deaths.

‘Luveers!’ Rackyard shouted.

‘A moment more, Lorena!’ Gennen hissed, his voice betraying his fatigue, and Rackyard realised the awesome physical and mental toll that such high-level magicks drained from the Luveers. For good measure, she swore again, then swung away from the vestibule and levelled her windcannon. The bolt she launched tore another varl from the sky.

A daemon alighted beside her, black wings shimmering in the air. Rackyard let her cannon drop to swing from the leather carry strap she wore; her hands flicked out, unleashing two crescent shadowblades that opened up like Shojinese fans. The varl’s double jaw opened wide, revealing four rows of blackened teeth, and Rackyard swung both weapons, ripping deep gashes in the daemon’s abdomen. As noxious vapour pumped from the wounds, Rackyard retracted her right-hand blade long enough to toss a Rhynn Prism onto the toppling corpse...

An Excerpt (taken from Chapter Twelve)

Darkmalian moved slowly into the village, listening intently. The sunlight cast a bright patina over the smouldering buildings as wisps of smoke floated by, twinned with soft shadows. Although, as his eyes drifted over the squat wooden buildings of the empty settlement, he could not sense the presence of daemons, he knew they could come at any time. Most broods were weakened by sunlight and many were destroyed completely by it – but not all. Like tangible life, the Fell had many forms and evolutions, and even against the bane of a thousand broods there were those that were immune.

His nose caught a scent upon the air, a noxious reek that all Windchasers recognised instantly: brimstone. Ordering Pagan and Merrick to wait beside the stone-built well, Darkmalian moved to the opposite end of the village. He noticed splashes of congealing blood on the hay-strewn ground, as well as other signs of the massacre: here a gnawed limb hung from a doorway, the body to which it belonged concealed by a broken building; there a torn strip of cloth – the hem of a dress doused in blood – was caught on the window bar of a small house, flapping in the breeze. The bodies were most likely indoors, where the daemons would have taken them to feed. This brood were blood-drinkers then, Darkmalian reasoned, and – given that the coagulation of the spilled blood indicated that the slaughter had taken place around six to seven hours ago – they feared moonlight rather than sunlight. The Windchaser swore: without further immediate evidence, this deduction still left over fifty possible broods.

Following the acrid stench, Darkmalian came upon the treeline and knelt to examine the scorched ground. It was still warm to the touch and the sulphur stung his eyes. He lifted his black hood over his hair and pulled the mask of his threft up around his mouth and nose, the specially woven mesh lining blocking out the stink. He found three more Hellsprings upon the ground, which meant at least four daemons but possibly as many as twelve; the tracks in the dirt suggested the latter. The brood still eluded him, but out of the fifty or so species singled out by aversion to moonlight, less than a dozen moved in packs. Standing, he returned to where the scribe waited with Pagan. Merrick seemed visibly shaken but the Amberchild looked almost angry.

‘Where are the villagers?’ the scribe asked, his tone indicating that he already knew the answer.

‘Dead,’ Darkmalian told him anyway, his eyes sweeping the still, silent buildings. ‘We should move on – with haste.’

‘What is happening, Merrick?’ Pagan asked, sensing the tension.

‘I don’t know,’ replied the scribe. ‘Was there a battle, Darkmalian?’

‘A slaughter. Bring the girl.’

As he turned to walk away he caught a sound in the air, carried to him on the high wind. It was a male voice, quiet, broken. He froze, holding up a hand to halt his dependants. Looking to the eastern side of the village, beyond the high chimneys of the smithy, he located the source of the noise. His eyes widened and he raced forwards, rounding the large stone building and halting as he beheld a vision from nightmare.

A single tree grew here, gnarled and ancient, rising into the sky like a titan above the forge. Cut into the trunk were runes that Darkmalian recognised, each archaic glyph glowing with a faint red light. The leaves of the tree were rotten, the branches scorched and curling upwards so they pointed to the bright sky like the spikes of a perverse crown. Thick roots had burst through the earth and now writhed like fornicating lovers, intertwined and pulsating with false life. The very air around it was dark, crackling with flashes of crimson and white energy, and upon the tree, a splinter of oak speared through each black wrist, hung a creature as insubstantial as shadow, slowly burning under the murderous afternoon sun.

The roots became alert as the darkling approached, rising up from the ground as though regarding him hungrily. He extended his shadowsteel blades, stepping lightly, just beyond the tree’s reach. Pagan and Merrick halted near the side of the smithy and the scribe gasped, his hand flying to his mouth. ‘Saints!’ he breathed. ‘What the Hell is that?’

‘It’s a Cano Tree,’ Darkmalian told him, looking back. ‘Once used to imprison and execute sinners, but now corrupted beyond even that.’

‘Corrupted how?’

‘Well, look at it, scribe.’

Signalling for silence, Darkmalian focused on the tree. He had read of Cano devices in the Kade Bestiaries, though they were not actually daemons at all. Traditionally stones were used, but there were instances in Old Realm lore of mirrors, orbs, animal-corpses or plants serving as alternatives. The object would imprison a soul until the owner performed whichever duty the controlling Old Realm deity desired, then the soul was released in payment – absolved of all transgressions – and the sinner’s physical body was executed. What stood now before Darkmalian, however, was a perverse incarnation of that ancient device. Instead of taking the offered soul of a willing and repentant servant, whoever had constructed this device had unleashed the spiritual residue of all the sinners who had ever been executed upon the tree’s branches. Its purpose was not to contain a soul for bargaining, but rather to keep its Loro’cai prisoner held fast in the bright sunlight – and to hold any would-be rescuers at bay.

The darkling edged forward, testing the reflex speed of the sentient tree. As he moved closer, one of its roots lashed out and he sidestepped to avoid it. He refrained from counter-attacking, instead turning his eyes away for the briefest instant. Immediately all eight roots speared towards him and he jumped back out of reach. He had learned what he needed to: the abomination was fast, but he was faster; it was aware, but he wouldn’t give it the chance to surprise him. He darted forwards, rolling his left wrist, his shadowsteel blade cutting a cold arc in the air. One of the roots rose up as though studying him and suddenly split, its tip flaring open like the head of a horrific flower to become a fang-lined mouth that chomped hungrily at the air. A moment later the other seven roots underwent the same transformation.

Darkmalian retreated a step, slashing his blades in front of him, loosening his shoulder muscles. There was only one way to do this: he spread his arms and leapt forwards...