Page 79 of The Malevolent Eight

‘It only took a day,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘We’d stopped for supplies anyway, and I saw this tailor’s shop run by a florinist who uses her abilities to shape and weave all kinds of fabrics. . .’

A day. Most people don’t last an hour under torture, never mind a day. And this hulking brute of a thunderer camped out in a tailor’s shop somewhere for an entire twenty-four hours getting uniforms made instead of racing madly to rescue me.

‘Why are you smiling like that?’ Shame asked, trying to replicate my smile on her own face. It wasn’t working too well.

I wasn’t sure how to answer, because unless you understand the twisted mind of Corrigan Blight, you’ll never be able to make sense of the fact that the only reason he would delay rescuing me to get these stupid uniforms made was because he hadn’t harboured a single doubt– not even the slightest hesitation– that I would not only resist the Pandoral’s torture but find a way to escape before he and the others got here.

Of course he was absolutely right.

Bow down ye gods and devils, for I am Cade fucking Ombra, we are the Malevolent fucking Seven, and we’re here to fuck you up but good.

Chapter 44

Armies of Gold and Crimson

Upon the wide plain outside the ruins of the fortress in which I’d been held prisoner, two armies prepared to wage a war unlike any other– and those preparing to do the fighting had been misled, both about their enemy and about their odds of victory.

‘Smaller than I was expecting,’ Corrigan observed.

The seven of us had left the dubious safety of the town walls to trudge back along the same road where I’d carried Eliva’ren yesterday. We’d passed increasing numbers of other travellers, mostly farmhands and labourers, fleeing in the opposite direction. The two armies had approached the fortress from either side and looked ready to race for the ruins as if it were some giant stone flag to be captured the moment a neutral referee could be found to ring the starting bell. The Infernals had divisions of Demoniac Hellions, Malefic Artillerists, even a handful of Devilish Cavaliers mounted on hideous beasts who looked like they weren’t at all meant for this world and wouldn’t long survive their visit.

The Aurorals had come with a far more magnificent cavalry of Glorian Parevals mounted on silver-coated steeds whose gold-shod feet barely deigned to touch unconsecrated ground. Alongside them were contingents of Glorian Ardentors and Angelic Valiants. As with the Infernals, these elite divisions were small in number. The bulk of each army was made up of ill-trained Mortal recruits, who were being deployed far earlier than anyone had intended. I didn’t expect that would make them feel much better about their imminent brutal slaughter.

I believe professional military strategists refer to these situations as ‘shit-storms waiting to happen’.

‘What do they hope to accomplish?’ Galass asked.

The answer lay in the grim, iron-jawed expressions of the twelve Lords Celestine at the front of the Auroral army, armoured in gleaming gold and bearing silver and gold weapons so classical in design as to be archaic. They looked as if they were posing for heroic portraits rather than preparing to fight.

The thirteen Lords Devilish opposing them bore crimson-etched black armour and weapons more devious and crueller in design.

Neither side cared much for heroism.

‘I never knew,’ I said quietly, more to myself than anyone else. ‘I never really understood.’

‘Understood what, Fallen One?’ asked Alice. The absence of her customary sneer when she called me ‘Fallen One’ unmasked her own disquiet. She and I were perhaps the only beings alive to have been shaped by both the Aurorals and Infernals.

‘This isallthey’ve ever wanted,’ I replied staring at the expressions on the faces of the Lords Devilish. They might look ugly and gleeful compared to the glorious noble countenances of their enemies, but their expressions mirrored those of the Lords Celestine. ‘They don’t care about ruling over the Mortal realm or winning the contest of souls. They don’t mind the prospect of losing and being eradicated for ever. That’s how badly they crave this fight.’

Among wonderists, there’s a kind of unspoken, tacit recognition that magic is addictive: a drug with as many intoxicating variants as there are different spells within each planar attunement. We all talk about magic as if it’s a set of tools that gives us an advantage over others in getting what we want, but that’s just the lie we tell ourselves. Casting spells, exerting power over others and the world around us. . .it feels good. It’s better than liquor or sex or the admiration of the mob. When we speak of spells as breaches into other planes where the laws of physics operate differently, thus triggering a momentary violation to the natural order of this realm, we’re burying the most meaningful word.That’s what magic is, and what makes it so perversely pleasurable: it’s the chance toviolatenature, toviolateother sentient beings.

There’s a word for people who do that sort of thing for pleasure.

But we wonderists are still limited by our human bodies. We can handle only so much magic, which is why Tempestoralists like Corrigan often die drawing too much lighting or aethereal fire into themselves, and blood mages like Galass go mad with the rush of manipulating too much of the life force of others. Even angelics like Shame lose themselves in the twisting of their own bodies to match the desires of those around them.

The Lords Devilish and Lords Celestine aren’t like us. They have made themselves into vessels with almost limitless capacities to channel magical forces. However, in their sudden urgency to destroy the Pandoral threat, they were beginning their war too soon, before they’d finished recruiting every possible Mortal soul to fuel their Auroral and Infernal magics.

From the ruins of the fortress a faint buzzing turned into a gale of beating insect wings announcing the Pandoral. He rose from the debris, the swarm of tiny, gleaming carapaced insects drawing pieces of stone and metal and whatever else they could find into the spaces between them, until the Pandoral loomed like a titan, at least a hundred feet tall, facing opponents whose eagerness to destroy him was a mere prelude to the violations they intended to commit upon one another.

‘Both sides have fallen into the same trap,’ Aradeus said. Rat mages always have especially good insight into the intricacies of tactical situations. ‘The Celestines and Devilish will attack, but their charge will be inefficient, as they won’t be working together. Nonetheless, the combined assault will, sooner or later, overwhelm the Pandoral.’

‘At which point they’ll begin attacking one another,’ Galass said, arms outstretched, fingers weaving in the air in tandem with the scarlet tresses of her hair. ‘Cade, I can feel their bloodlust. It’s. . . it’s all-consuming.’

‘Focus on something else,’ I warned her. ‘Don’t get locked into the flow of their life forces because pretty soon those life forces are going to get snuffed out and you won’t be able to pull away.’

‘What do we do?’ Alice asked, her whip-sword drawn but dangling limply by her side. Neither she nor it had any idea who to fight. ‘How can we prevent this from happening?’

‘You can’t,’ said a voice. I recognised it immediately, with its irritating timbre and perpetually fabricated sincerity. A clawed hand patted my shoulder companionably. ‘Best you and your pals get a move on, Cade,’ said my former Infernal agent. ‘What’s got to be is going to be.’

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