Finally he opened his mouth to gulp air down and felt the cracked skin on his top lip tug and tear, followed by the luscious taste of liquid on his tongue. His finger was halfway to his mouth when another sound came and he froze.
A moan, as soft as the absent breeze, but too abrupt. With shaky hands Breytech pulled his dagger out and gripped it tightly. Hunched low, like a nervous rabbit, he looked over to where the sound had come from – there! Across the street, behind a brutalised facade of a shop. It came again, and Breytech felt a tiny trickle of terror.
As he watched, a pale, hairless head rose slowly up from behind the shop's counter. His whole body trembled as he saw the head turn and cast about the street, searching for him, like a wolf that has caught the scent of a deer. In his fear he hardly noticed that his teeth were buried hungrily in his split lip until the taste of blood flooded his tongue.
The tang of blood made him swallow eagerly, but as he did so, the strange head flicked around like it was on a spring, and a loud, hoarse moan broke the silence. A second head appeared and the sound grew.
Breytech could stand no more. He tried to run, but his stiff muscles refused to comply. He forced himself into a stagger, and lurched for¬ward a few steps, until he tripped on a broken piece of brick and fell to his knees. There was a crash from the shop and he heard the clatter of feet behind him, and voices, now loud and insistent, rather than in the corners of his mind but still furious, still awful.
'Priest! Servant of Gods!' someone howled.
A choir of rabid shrieks took up the call. 'Priest! Prayer!'
Breytech looked down at his robe and a finger of dread crept down his spine. His robe – because of that, they thought he was a priest? Before he'd barricaded himself in his room – before the city had fallen completely to madness and ruin – he'd heard whispers that people had turned on the priests. Children had thrown stones at the temple acolytes, a priest had been murdered on stage, and the city guard had done nothing.
He ran, and when he picked out the curve of a dome up ahead and he recognised it, he was filled with a sudden surge of energy. Six Temples. The Gods. If there were still soldiers in the city – if the streets had not been entirely given over to howling lunatics – then surely they would be defending the temples? It wasn't close, but he had no choice. He prayed that the monsters pursuing him were as starved and thirsty as he.
As he ran, more guttural voices broke the stultified afternoon air, ringing out from all over as wrecked doors and broken shutters were flung open. Breytech kept his head low, his eyes on the ground ahead of him, trying to pick a path through the rubble. He didn't look back, but after a hundred yards he realised they weren't gaining on him and a flicker of hope sparked in his heart. Ragged figures swarmed out of gutters and through archways, but while the voices grew in number, they came no closer.
His grandmother's mantra returned to him and he muttered it with every heaving breath until he turned the corner and realised he was almost there. A square building surrounded by shattered benches and tables and a screen of withered vines on the far side was all that stood between him and the Temple Plaza.
He barrelled around the building and-
A pain exploded in his chest-
The sky flashed black and pink as the great temple dome ahead of him vanished from sight-
Breytech felt himself spinning as the air was driven from his lungs. He crashed to the floor in a confused heap. The howls of daemons battered at his ears, but he could see nothing except a fierce bright¬ness that burned at his eyes. Instinctively he raised his arms to cover his face and felt a stab of pain. He blinked and tried to focus on the arm, eyes widening when he saw the livid red gash. He flinched as a man's laughter cut through the monstrous barks and yelps from his pursuers.
'Taken a wrong turning?' said the man, from somewhere nearby.
'Please,' Breytech babbled, tussling with the local dialect, 'you've got to help me!' He struggled up to his knees and looked back at the rabble that had been chasing him. They had stopped well short of the Temple Plaza and were pacing back and forth nervously. Only now could he make them out: emaciated figures, half-naked and blis¬tered under the afternoon sun. They were covered with grazes and scrapes from head to fool, with numerous fat, dark scabs that looked like plague pustules. Their unwashed, unkempt hair was matted and patchy, and many had great patches of scalp exposed where clumps had been torn out. Breytech realised he would have pitied them, had their faces not been so deformed with rage.
'Help you?'
The man's accent sounded strange until Breytech placed it as from Narkang. He looked up and saw a face tanned enough for a Chetse – and no offer of help.
'Why would I want to do that?' the man said, shifting his shoulders under his armour, which shone in the sun. Thick trails of sweat ran from under the battered skullcap. Slung on his back was a steel-rimmed round shield and a bastard sword hung from his hip, gems glittering on the hilt.
'But you're a soldier. You're protecting the temples.'
The soldier cocked his head.
Breytech heard shuffling footsteps behind the man and looked around him into the Temple Plaza. Past the ring of shrines that en¬circled the six huge temples were two figures dragging a third towards the Temple of Death. Three figures, no more, and none apart from this one looked like a soldier. Other than them, the plaza was completely deserted.
'Where are the others? Where are your men?'
The man gave an evil chuckle and looked back towards the three near the temple. 'My men are there, but I wouldn't say we're protect¬ing the temples.'
Breytech whirled around to look at his pursuers. They had remained on the edge of the plaza, loitering uneasily, but when they realised he was staring at them they began to hiss and stamp their feet. One or two took a hesitant pace forward and Breytech quickly averted his gave.
The men by the temple caught his eye once again as the dark-haired captive shook himself free and made a feeble bid to escape. He was hampered by a stiff leg and his hands were bound behind his back, and he was caught easily by a small man bizarrely dressed head to foot in black who scythed the other's legs from under him with a sweeping kick.
Breytech felt himself sway and his knees threatened to buckle as the sun's heat became a physical force pressing on his shoulders, but he steeled himself and stood firm. He checked his own pursuers again.
They were slowly creeping closer, like nervous children. He took a step back and turned to the soldier, but the man was already walking away, tossing a thin-bladed dagger up into the air and catching it, again and again.
'Wait, they're coming this way,' Breytech croaked, catching the man up.
The soldier stopped. 'Of course they are,' he said. 'They're not frightened of the temples. The Gods have left this place; they have no need to fear it.'
'Then why did they stop?' Breytech asked, bewildered, his head spinning. He slipped and fell to one knee, his palms flat pressed against the grit and dirt on the ground. Breathing in, Breytech tasted the dust on the air, as dry and dead as a tomb, and realised he could go no further.
'They stopped,' said the soldier, 'because while they do not fear the Gods, they know to fear me.' With that, he started off towards the temple again, cheerfully calling over his shoulder, 'But I'm leaving now, and all they have left is a man dressed like a priest.'
Breytech gaped at the steel-bound shield on the soldier's back, flinching as it caught the sun and reflected into his eyes. Then he heard the slap of feet on stone behind him and turned to see the pack descend. He opened his mouth to scream but the words died in his throat as he stared into the fevered eyes of the one leading them, a young boy of no more than fifteen winters whose chest was stained with dried blood. Teeth bared, the boy howled like a creature of the Dark Place and raised his thin hands ready to strike, fingers bent like eagle claws. They tore towards him and at last he found his voice again.