The Scarred God Read online

  The cry was so weak he almost missed it.

  The sound repeated as Pan stumbled on, and brought him to a halt when it was issued a third time. Something was alive out here. He scanned the horizon, but there was nothing clear; he was at the bottom of a shallow dip that obscured his view. The cry had gone away, and he feared he was too late. He ran up to the top of the rise. There was nothing around, just a shallow collection of rocks that cast little shade.

  The cry came again.

  Pan looked closer at the rocks. Perhaps … He broke into a run and skidded to a halt at the outcrop. Carefully he picked his way over the rocks, looking for a place of shade where sufficient moisture could remain. The sapling was hidden in the deepest recess of the boulders, barely surviving, but defiantly wrapping itself around the dribble of water. Pan was always astounded at how the trees would cling on even when the environment was almost impossible. He wrapped his hand around the sapling with the care of a man holding a thing made of glass.

  Come home. We are under attack. Come home. We need all of us …

  Pan felt his heart lurch. Danu had sent the message, and the words felt as if they had been carried on a wave of pain. The message tasted of smoke and blood. A presence lingered in the background. Familiar. The tree was scared. Its fear was palpable. There was the pain of trying to survive in the desert; the tree did not understand why it was here or how it had been born. The forest had sung to the sapling in the dark of night, but the tree had been driven half-mad by loneliness and the heat of the suns. Now the forest was screaming. The only voice of friendship the sapling had known was in anguish, and the tree could not help.

  Pan didn’t know what to do to comfort the little tree. His own fear was a real thing in his belly, twisting and flipping like a trapped fish. I must return. That his quest was at an end already was a bitter disappointment, diluted by the dilemma of how he could get back in time to make a difference.

  You know what you must do …

  ‘What do you know of it, little one?’ replied Pan out loud.

  You can fold the world. Make the distance like moving from one foot to the next.

  ‘It will cost more than you know,’ said Pan. ‘If I am too weak to help, then I have done nothing.’

  If you arrive in three weeks, you will be too late …

  Pan did not reply. The sapling was right. There was a reason Pan had walked for three weeks just to get to this point. He loathed the magic that would take him back in the blink of an eye. It would hurt as if he were dying and being born again. It would leave him as fragile as a mortal child. He rarely used that power when he was in the forest, where he was strongest. The idea of performing it here, where he was barely stronger than a mortal … was laughable. He would need any strength he could take.

  Pan looked at the sapling.

  What are you going to do?

  ‘Sorry,’ said the god, thrusting his hand into the soil around the sapling.

  Pan returned to the forest on the wooded edge of the glade, where he would be hidden from view. The forest screamed, and Pan, utterly undone by the journey, was driven to his knees. The additional contact with the soil increased the volume of the screams, and he collapsed. He landed on his back, which was the only thing that saved the sapling he was cradling from being crushed. The young tree was whimpering in his hands. The sapling would die if he didn’t get it into the ground soon.

  This part of the forest was ancient. The trees were as wide as cottages and stretched so far into the sky that the canopy appeared like a roof in a holy place. The only daylight came from where the suns poked through the gaps in the foliage. The smell of smoke on the air made the whole place seem threatening in a way Pan had not expected.

  The god forced the noise in his head down to a manageable level. The cacophony of voices was overwhelming, making it harder for him to stand. Pan took what felt like an eternity for him to will his body to move, and then he could only manage to get to his knees. He crawled, one-handed, the other hand cradling the sapling, to a part of the undergrowth where there was no sign of disturbance and the tree could grow. He dug the sapling in with his bare hands. He allowed himself a moment of indulgence as the sapling, despite its pain, sang with joy at the moisture in the earth and the proximity of other trees.

  The soil on his hands helped. Pan could feel a little strength returning. He pushed himself up to his feet and turned in the direction of the smoke. The glade had been burned. He drew his short sword and began the careful journey to his sister’s home.

  He saw Bacchus first.

  The god of wine had been decapitated by a weapon swift and sharp, but not a sword from the look of it. A spear, perhaps? Why was that familiar? His body, nearby, had a gaping wound where his heart had been, and the golden blood of the gods soaked the soil around him. Pan picked up his cousin’s head and held his forehead to his own.

  ‘Oh, Bee. What have they done?’

  Pan’s fury was a cold thing. He placed Bacchus’s head by his body and added the god’s scimitar to his own sword. He would not go down without a fight.

  He made his way to the edge of the glade, passing body after body of minor and major gods and goddesses. Apollo had been nailed to a tree and skinned in addition to his heart being ripped out.

  In the glade, the grass had been scorched away by the magic that had been cast in a battle that had been vicious in its ferocity. Danu was laid out on the soil, her chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. Her hair was matted with mud and blood. Her skin was pale as if she were sick, and her hands pawed at the ground. A cage made of ancient magic pulsed and vibrated, giving off an orange glow nearly the colour of the suns. She was a prisoner.

  But of whom?

  Pan looked around to see if he could see anyone guarding her in person, but there were no guards to speak of. He still felt shaky, weak. He gripped his swords in each hand and stepped out into the clearing.

  Danu turned as soon as Pan’s foot made contact with the glade. Her eyes were wide with panic, checking for the enemy – whoever that was. Pan sent his view into the forest but could see no sign of anyone else, just the pain of the forest at the slaughter of what had happened. Pan thrust his swords into the ground by the cage. He put his hands hesitantly towards the burning bars.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Danu, sitting.

  ‘I’ve got to get you out of here.’

  ‘You cannot. This is beyond you. Do you think I would let myself be contained like this?’

  Pan bowed his head.

  ‘It’s not your fault …’ said Danu. ‘If it’s anyone’s, it’s mine. I should have stopped him …’

  ‘Who?’ replied Pan, placing his hands on the ground.

  They both felt it.

  The returning god was like electricity coursing through the soil. An alien thing, a corrupted and twisted presence that was almost unrecognisable from the last time Pan had felt it.

  ‘Cernubus …’ whispered Pan. ‘Cousin …’

  Danu shook her head. ‘Not our cousin. He is no longer a god, he is something else.’

  Pan could feel the god drawing near. He buried his own flickering power deep in his core, trying to mask his presence. Danu shifted and reached for him through the glowing bars of her prison. She clasped his right hand. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

  ‘You must bring the woodsman.’

  ‘The forestal?’ Pan was surprised. He failed to see what the trained monkey could do to help that he, a god, could not.

  Danu nodded. ‘He can help, though I doubt he realises. There’s someone else with him, a girl, Thrace’s granddaughter. She can help our cause as well.’

  Pan felt dizzy. The power approaching was like cancer made alive. The strength of the sensation was unsettling, but the real horror was the wrongness of it to the forest. The ancient soul of the wood twisted and coiled like Pan’s stomach in response to the oncoming storm.

  Pan had not thought of Thrace in a long time. Another monkey who caused nothing but t
rouble.

  ‘The forestal cannot be trusted,’ said Pan. ‘He thinks only of himself, even when he purports to love one of us.’

  Danu’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘Listen to me, little goat, you will do as I say, or we will lose all that we have worked for.’

  Pan felt her grip digging into him.

  ‘All right.’ He nodded. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘On the edge of the forest,’ she replied, her grip easing. ‘But I cannot sense them clearly from in here.’

  Pan’s shoulders slumped. ‘I have no power for another jump. I need rest.’

  Danu let go of his hand and touched his cheek.

  ‘I am sorry to ask this of you,’ she said. ‘You must send a message somehow. Hurry. He is drawing near.’

  Pan let himself enjoy the touch of her hand on his cheek for a moment. He stepped back and plunged his hand into the soil, aware that he was lighting up his location for Cernubus, and let his message pulse through the soil and the trees in a wave. Only his allies would understand the instruction, but that would not matter to the scarred god. He would just want to know who had intruded.

  Pan felt the last of his energy leave his body with the message, and the weight of his eyelids felt like the heaviest stone. Danu waved him away.

  ‘Go, hide, far from here, and recharge,’ she said.

  Pan felt himself rise sluggishly, as if drunk. He bowed low and then staggered, swaying, back to the treeline, where he continued to move as fast as he could without making himself sick.

  Crack!

  Thunder rumbled behind Pan.

  ‘Where is he, Danu?’

  Cernubus’s voice was still recognisable but had taken on a deeper, throbbing quality that made Pan feel like his spine was being rearranged by the timber. Pan moved as swiftly as he could up the northern slope leading away from the glade, sticking to the trees and avoiding any kind of path. Cernubus roared in anger at not getting an answer.

  The howls started.

  In an instant, the forest was alive with the sound of wolves all about. Cernubus had brought his servants with him to help in his invasion of the gods’ territory. The god himself came bursting from the clearing in his stag form, antlers down as he caught the scent of Pan, and as he streaked up the slope towards him, the trickster god realised he only had one chance. Pan leapt off the ravine at the top of the slope before he could be seen, and plunged towards the waiting ground below. He was a god, but landing was still going to hurt.

  Chapter Four

  The day had been good until the girl appeared. Vedic had been chopping wood, which always cleared his head. The atmosphere spoke of a coming storm that would do the same for the humidity that had stopped him venturing further than the edge of the clearing. The feeling of the axe splitting the logs, the transfer of his will from tool to wood, was sublime in its simplicity. It wasn’t like people. Thank the gods.

  Vedic was a big, broad man standing at warrior height and had the muscle to go with it. Age was nipping at his heels: his closely cropped beard was greying in patches; a slight paunch hung over his belt; and the suns looked down on an ever-expanding pink canvas that had once been covered in golden hair.

  He watched the girl, his hands still on the axe embedded in the wood in front of him, as she blinked and blundered in the sudden light. There was an arrow in her right hand. He would have known the weapon was Kurah even if one of their warriors hadn’t followed her into the clearing. Vedic couldn’t allow one of their kind in this place.

  Vedic pulled the axe from the wood and threw it with practised precision that sent it into the man’s skull. Vedic ran for the body, ignoring the girl as she folded to the ground, and pulled his axe free from the fallen Kurah.

  There were more warriors in the forest. He could hear them. The trees were unsettled. He could feel them. Two more Kurah appeared on the treeline, in search of their mate and the prey. Vedic was forced to cover more ground, weaving out of the way of an arrow that grooved his left arm, before he was close enough to strike. He ducked under the blade of one warrior, burying his axe in the man’s throat and stealing his sword in one fluid motion that allowed him to block the other’s strike. The woodsman swept his leg out, taking the Kurah to the ground as if he were tussling with a small child.

  The woodsman held his blade to the man’s exposed throat.

  ‘How many more? A full battalion?’

  The warrior stared at him in confusion and terror.

  ‘Who are you? Why are you helping her?’

  Vedic felt himself relax. There was no battalion. The man’s fear was too palpable, too alone. The woodsman plunged his blade into the man’s throat, ending his life, and threw the weapon away into the treeline. ‘I’m not a nice man.’

  The fourth Kurah caught him by surprise.

  The man burst from the treeline, screaming a battle cry as he swung his broadsword. Vedic just about managed to get his hands up to stop the man from bringing his sword down on him, but the momentum carried them both down to the ground. The warrior’s blade rattled away as they rolled over and over, trying to get into the other’s guard. Vedic’s strength carried him through, allowing him to pin the man’s arms to the ground and freeing himself to headbutt the warrior again and again. When the man went limp, Vedic twisted around and broke the warrior’s neck. Leaving him alive would’ve been too risky.

  Vedic pushed away the body as if it were on fire. He lay on the grass, looking up at the sky. He hadn’t killed anyone in thirty years. His entire body ached, and the cuts, which were now covered in the mud of the forest, throbbed and itched with the power that would heal him in a few hours. He didn’t know why the magic worked. Right now, he didn’t care. He just wanted to let himself catch his breath. He was getting old.

  Not before your time, came the voice in the back of his head. He ignored it.

  The forest was different. Vedic did not have the gods’ sense for the forest, but he had worked with the trees long enough to know that the difference was wrong. The constant harmonious hum in the back of his mind, their communication in a language he did not understand, had become discordant and shrill. He forced the sense to the back of his head. What he needed to know was whether there were any more Kurah in the woods. He could not hear anything: the forest was unusually quiet, and even the birds were silent. Only a single fawn was visible, winding its way through the bush and bracken of the clearing edge. The fawn looked up under his gaze and refused to look away.

  A wolf howled. Vedic smiled.

  The pack would save him a great deal of digging. He rolled to his feet and tried not to think about when he would have been young enough to nip up. He picked up his axe and limped back towards his cabin. The cleaners of the forest could deal with the bodies.

  What about the girl?

  ‘Not my problem,’ he muttered to the voice in his head.

  She wouldn’t like that.

  ‘She doesn’t see me anymore,’ he snapped.

  Whose fault is that?

  The pain started slow. Vedic was hurting already, his body a topography of bruises from the short, sharp battle he had just fought. His left arm, the one he had used to break the man’s neck, already hurt before the pain started to throb and grow. Agony extended up his arm and wrapped its invisible hand around his heart and began to squeeze. Vedic stopped. He was halfway across the clearing, and his cabin seemed miles away. There was no way he could reach safety. There was no one here to help.

  Is this how it ends? She promised to keep me safe, he thought. This isn’t what I expected.

  The voice in his head replied, faintly. Not yet.

  Nevertheless, the pain drove him down onto his right knee. His right hand went fist first into the ground to help steady him. His left arm had an angry welt, like a recently healed scar from an arrow. There was no one but the girl and himself in the clearing. Was she even still alive?

  Vedic turned to look at her. She was prone near the first of the Kurah, but unlike him, her chest was ri
sing and falling with ragged breaths. The pain in his chest subsided as soon as Vedic looked at the girl. Agony returned as he turned his gaze back to the cabin. He looked back. The pain subsided again.

  Was the girl …?

  No, that was impossible. She was bashed up to the point where she would almost certainly die if she did not get any help. Vedic looked away again, and the pain returned once more. He forced himself to his feet and staggered back towards her, leaving his axe where he had dropped it. The pain subsided, and he started to feel good for the first time in a long time. He stopped. He retraced his steps back to the middle of the glade and was driven back down to his knees.

  ‘Spell,’ he hissed between painful breath after painful breath.

  Would you respond to anything else? The voice in his head was too close to how he used to talk. Vedic pushed the thought away and staggered back to the girl. Wolves continued to howl in the distance.

  Vedic scooped her up in his arms and made his way across the glade without being attacked by pain. The rain started just as he reached his simple porch. He kicked his front door open and took her into the kitchen, where he slammed her down on the table.

  Vedic’s arm and chest were aflame.

  ‘All right,’ he hissed. ‘I am helping.’

  The pain subsided to manageable levels but did not go altogether. The familiar smell of wood smoke from the oven fire and the sound of the wolves in the distance meant all Vedic really wanted to do was lock the doors and fall asleep until the pack had passed. Whoever had set the spell that was forcing him to help had put paid to that.

  Vedic looked at the girl. She was not more than seventeen and had been beaten up pretty badly, and sliced more than once. Her thigh had an ugly wound from a sword strike that had gone through her trousers, which were made of the thick leather Shaanti cattlemen and women favoured. The leggings weren’t as good as armour but a damn sight better than if she’d been wearing a dress – she’d have lost the leg and probably her life. There was another slice on her forearm. The right hand had a nasty-looking arrow protruding from it, and she was bleeding from somewhere on her back. Blood was pooling on the table.