[Bastion Wars 03] - Blood Gorgons by Henry Zou

Author:Henry Zou
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-05-24T15:58:16+00:00

Opsarus appeared to him as old as the world itself. His power armour had a petrified, granular texture, as if a mantle of minerals had risen from the ground to streak it with 92

opaline, jade and sickly lime and white. Its surface was studded with bolts, weeping with rust. Looming over Muhr, Opsarus was a rising ocean wreckage, dragged from the bottom of a powerful sea.

‘Get up, Muhr. Act like my lieutenant for once.’ The turbines of Opsarus’s power pack whirred with a rhythmic hum, constant and powerful. His face was a deathmask of sculpted turquoise, its moulded features noble, almost angelic in bearing and set in the middle of his hulking shoulders. When he spoke, the voice that issued through the metal lips was garbled and distorted.

Muhr got up quickly. ‘Why do you bring me here, Overlord?’ he asked.

‘Be quiet, sorcerer. Listen first, then ask questions,’ Opsarus snapped impatiently. ‘Too much talking, that’s your failing, sorcerer.’

Muhr lowered his head.

‘Sabtah seeks to invoke Yetsugei to reveal your true ambitions?’ Opsarus chuckled.

Muhr nodded.

Opsarus chuckled again. ‘And you are frightened? Yes?’

‘Of course, lord. Yetsugei sees all, and the Chapter will listen to the daemon’s words.

They will discover the truth. It will lay bare our plans.’

‘Yetsugei is a jester. A king among men, but a fool among daemonkind.’

‘Yet the Chapter heed his words. They will know.’

‘Another failing of your Chapter and your gene‐seed, sorcerer.’

The words stung, but Muhr knew it was the truth. The Blood Gorgons lacked the favour of the gods. While Opsarus could invoke the power of the Great Unclean One, the Blood Gorgons were left to grovel to some petty daemon prince. It reminded him of their inferiority.

‘What can we do, Overlord?’

‘All part of the plan,’ Opsarus said, laying a hand on Muhr’s head. ‘I have known this for some time.’

‘I’m sure, Overlord. Your wisdom has never led me astray.’

‘Take this.’

Opsarus pressed a small, hard object into Muhr’s palm. It was a crystal. Unremarkable and entirely mundane. Yet when Muhr peered closer, he saw a scintilla of movement within. When he squinted, Muhr could see a peculiar little thing – a tiny figure was trapped in the fragment. Sure enough, the creature moved again, dancing and prancing inside the crystal. Although Muhr could not see the microscopic expression of the creature inside, there was a malevolence that exuded from it. Muhr was sure the thing was sneering at him.

‘Thank you, Overlord. What do you–’

Opsarus cut him off. ‘Listen first, Muhr, then questions. Use this shard to disrupt the summoning. Cast it into the wards as you invoke. It will release the daemon within.

Yetsugei will not heed the call.’

‘Overlord…’

Opsarus turned away. ‘Leave.’

Muhr blinked and felt his consciousness resettle in the physical plane. When he opened his eyes, he was in his tower again, surrounded by the familiar pipes and boilers of his laboratory. He rubbed his eyes blearily. As he did so, he realised he clutched something in his palm.

He opened his hand slowly. There, cradled by the folds of his flesh, was a crystal shard.

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