'Them?' Jachen almost shrieked. 'You're summoning Death and Nartis? Oh Gods, you're going to summon Karkarn?'
'Let's see what we can see,' Isak murmured and turned the magic inward to seep into his soul, drawing his senses out into the hot night air. He found his bearings as the confusion of battle and pain cut through him, stirring strange eddies in the drifting currents above. He could feel the warmth of latent power coming from the temples, the familiar call from Nartis' house only a few-score yards away, though overshadowed by the looming shadow of Death, so close behind. After a moment he heard quiet voices echoing through the dark, then the scraping of knives and a low, bestial pant, just on the edge of hear¬ing.
A moment of doubt made him pause as he recalled waking the Malviebrat in Saroc. Adding to their troubles really would be the final nail in their coffin. If, somehow, he brought something other than his intended target into being, there would be no going back.
He held his breath and listened, reaching out as far as he could with his mind to whatever lingered on that plain. A dark cloud hung over everything, and he had to push at every step, trying to find a way around the dulling effect of the minstrel's now-visible magic. After another few dozen heartbeats, Isak made out a number of indistinct presences nearby. He couldn't distinguish them, though he knew they were separate entities. Five stood closest to him. He felt their eyes on him as, lingering at the edges of his perception, they became aware of his questing tendrils of power.
Now they all turned towards him, and there was a taste to the air that sent a shiver through his body, a strange mix of anticipation and bloodlust that felt far from divine. Isak didn't know what else there was to be found here – on sanctified ground they surely couldn't be daemons… but he could sense a gratified ache coming from the beings watching over the slaughter. He wasn't reassured, but now there was no going back.
As he hesitated, pondering the consequences, he got more from his surroundings: the all-consuming hatred radiating out from the horde about to overrun the dwindling lines of soldiers, and a growing terror even closer to hand. Screams cut through the fog of his mind and reverberated in his very bones as the fear of his comrades – his friends – sliced into his skin like hot knives.
He could no longer delay. Whatever the result, he had to try and save them.
Consequences mean nothing if you're dead, said a soldier whose face he couldn't remember, a memory from years back. Carel? It was the sort of thing the veteran would have said in a maudlin moment before stomping away to his bed, but when had it been? A second wave of screams, louder and more insistent, forced Isak to put the matter from his mind. There would be time to remember, if he lived through the next hour, and to do that he needed whatever fell creatures remained in this place, watching and waiting.
He reached out to the shadowy figures and touched them with his mind. At first they recoiled, rising up towards the clouds, then he opened the Skulls and directed their vast power towards the spirits.
Dear Gods, let my ignorance not prove the death of others, he prayed silently.
The entities drew closer, grasping fingers reaching greedily for the roaring streams of power. Isak gasped and shuddered at the searing pain of so much magic rushing through his body, suddenly fearful as lines of heat ran down his arms and legs. Like claws cutting to the bone, the energies from both Skulls took a savage grip and Isak felt a distant cry ring out in the night. The scar on his chest burned like a flame and he realised Xeliath, wherever she was, was pained by what he'd done. Isak's fear deepened.
His lips were cracked and blistered; they tore open, spilling blood down his chin. Only then did he realise he'd commingled Xeliath's scream with his own. Somewhere he heard Aryn Bwr cry out, and felt his hand tighten around the hilt of Eolis. The twitch of movement was enough to awaken him to what was happening, reminding him of his struggle on Silvernight, when the last king tried to take his soul.
Isak drew in a huge gulp of air, and as his lungs filled, he felt ener¬gised. There was no time now for elegance, so instead he used every ounce of strength in his body to wrench the fat, pulsating streams of magic away from the suckling entities, slowing the flow of power. His mind fell back into his body in time to feel himself collapsing back onto the unyielding stone, but in that moment he felt a wash of relief as the burning pain of rampant magic fled from his body.
His eyes flashed open, but for a moment all Isak could see was a dark blur up above and faint bursts of light as his head smashed back against the ground. Lungs burning, he took a raspy gulp of air and flailed wildly until he was sitting upright again. He tried to focus his vision until he could blurrily make out soldiers jumping back from trench.
'Piss and daemons, what in the name of Death are those?' yelled a voice nearby. A name, Jachen? It hovered at the back of Isak's mind as his fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. Jachen, Major Jachen: as awareness flooded back, he scrambled to his feet, cough¬ing and heaving and blinking away the tears that were obscuring his sight.
More voices took up the call and a fresh wave of horror struck Isak, who reeled until he was steadied by an outstretched hand: the ranger, Tiniq, bloodied and battered, yet strangely more alive and potent than Isak had ever seen him before.
'What have you done?' the ranger snapped, his white teeth flashing in the dark. Before Isak could answer, a second shout rose above the clamouring voices of the soldiers.
'Merciful Death, that's the Burning Man!' cried one man in terror. Isak and Tiniq could see the reason for the man's fear: in the heart of the attacking mob stood a figure twice the height of a normal man, wreathed in flame with his hands outstretched, as though blessing the scrabbling citizens around him. Isak remembered a shrine they had passed with the Burning Man's face painted on one of the frescos. He wore an expression of sheer agony as fire curled around his head. Isak could see nothing of the figure before him beyond the dancing yellow flames that soon began to spread out to the people around it.
'Look, with the sword,' Jachen called, pointing with his own blade at another newcomer to the mob. This one was as tall as the Burning Man, but wearing armour and carrying an enormous sword, skin shin¬ing with an inner white light, illuminating gaunt features and grey matted hair falling about the shoulders.
Isak froze; this one too he recognised from the walls of a shrine – probably depicted in the temple behind him as well, standing guard to one side of the entrance.
Jachen found his voice again, almost sobbing with fear as he named the newcomers. 'The Soldier- And oh Gods, the Wither Queen! Look, they're all here – all of them, the Headsman and Great Wolf… the Reapers have come for us!'
Isak grabbed Tiniq by the shoulder and hauled himself upright, almost driving the ranger to the ground as he did so. Forcing his parched lips apart, he shouted at the top of his voice, 'Hold your positions; keep the line!'
'My Lord?' said Jachen in disbelief, staring at Isak as though he too was a monstrous figure from the Land's darkest myths. 'You summoned the Reapers?'
Isak hesitated. I think so – it must have been me, but how was I meant to know? 'I summoned help,' he replied flatly.
'The Reapers?' Jachen yelled. 'The five most violent of Death's Aspects?'
Isak turned back the mob where a panic-stricken howl of fear was spreading through their disordered number. The Reapers; you should have known. Of all the Aspects of the Gods likely to be in attendance as the last people in this city prepare to die, which did you expect to be close enough to incarnate? 'We're defending the temples; they are Aspects of Death,' he said calmly.
'They're the Reapers,' Jachen wailed, almost incoherent in his fear. 'They kill anything and anyone! The Wither Queen doesn't stop to check whether her victims prayed to her that morning!'