The Broken Isles (Legends of the Red Sun 4) by Mark Charan Newton Page B

passed
straight through and struck into the earth beyond.
    Frater Mercury emerged onto the field of combat and rode out into the centre. Fulcrom heard commands for the Jamur soldiers to hold their position and for the archers to cease firing. After
Frater Mercury pulled his horse to a stop, the scene fell eerily silent. The ghost-warriors ceased their movements across the clearing then began to confer with each other, their movements oddly
fluid. More of them came in from behind, brightening the night with their glow. They seemed to swarm, ooze and drift rather than make coherent progress, but soon they began moving towards Frater
Mercury, slower than before and more cautious.
    Frater Mercury stared at the approaching figures and began wailing in a bass tone, almost melodic at first, then something far harsher.
    The spirit figures paused on the spot and their glow faded to something duller. When Frater Mercury ceased his noise they became more obviously animalistic and less supernatural. The god-like
man held up a hand and Fulcrom watched in awe as a sword whipped from the grasp of one of the Jamur soldiers and travelled – through the air – towards his outstretched hand. He snatched
it firmly, dismounted from his horse and advanced on foot towards the former ghosts, who were now cowering like frightened children at his approach. He held up his other hand and another blade
emerged through the air and landed in his palm with little effort.
    Fulcrom now struggled to understand the action, but he saw Frater Mercury lurch forward and bury one blade into the chest of an enemy. As the sword connected, the creature began to redden at the
point of impact, and burst into flame. Screaming horrifically, it lurched back and forth, burning from within, before retreating off into the distance. Several others of its kind began to follow
and, with their backs turned, Frater Mercury threw another blade like a spear: it connected with one of them, creating yet more flames and high-pitched screams. Again, he held his hands aloft, like
a prophet, and – again – he seemed to haul more swords from the clutches of a nearby soldier. One by one, Frater Mercury warded off the remainder of the ghosts until the last of them
scrambled, alight, along the periphery of the forest.
    Satisfied his work was done, he slowly walked back to his horse, without acknowledgement of the events or his actions, mounted the mare and nudged her in a slow arc around the row of shocked
soldiers and back towards the east.
    *
    It was the dignified thing to do, Fulcrom thought, to light a pyre for the fallen.
    Fifty-three people in total had been found dead, the vast majority of them with burns or weird abrasions from physical contact with the ghost-warriors. Those who had survived were in agony and
many remained unconscious long afterwards.
    As Fulcrom was on his way back towards the chain of refugees, he thought he caught sight of Lan crouching by a body at the edge of the forest. When he came closer he noticed she was shivering
and in tears. The body resting on the damp earth beside her was one he knew all too well.
    Tane . . .
    He took a deep breath and bent down beside them.
    ‘Is he unconscious or is he . . . ?’ Fulcrom asked, gesturing to Tane’s body.
    Because of the late hour and Tane’s dark uniform, Fulcrom struggled to make out how much blood the werecat had lost, but the open wound below his right ribcage was enough to tell Fulcrom
what he needed to know. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
    ‘Yes, he’s dead,’ was all Lan could manage.
    They rose together.
    ‘We hadn’t always got on,’ she breathed, ‘but I had very few people I could rely on in this world. It shouldn’t have happened to him . . .’
    Fulcrom didn’t say anything. He had found Tane frustrating to work with, but very effective – if a little too brutal – at helping to reduce crime in Villjamur. But he felt a
fatherly attachment to him, and was deeply