Chapter Eight: Falling

Spoiler Alert!

Please note that this is the most recent chapter in the novel, The Marsh.

Chapter Eight:
Falling

As usual, Joshua threw up. It was a harsh repulsion that stretched his diaphragm enough to threaten with snapping. A fine stream of sputum and gruel dribbled from his lips, Joshua could not have cared for how it ran down his chest. He barely realised that he had vomited over the wood in his arms. The gruel hardly nourished his body, causing him to grow ever thinner with each passing day that he toiled for his masters.

Every day, by the rising of the sun, he felt weaker. His strides became smaller and smaller, and the pile of wood he could carry became lighter and lighter. Soon, he knew, the Manashe would realise that he could no longer serve them. He knew that they would throw him into the fire.

He shuffled, almost wading his way through the ash. Joshua’s eyes were raw with sleep deprivation and the effects of the Guyren’s fumes. He was a boy on the verge of collapse, and soon the Manashe would pounce on him like vultures to a rotting carcass. He could see them watching him as he passed, their hungry eyes staring at him from beneath their hoods waiting for him to slip up or stumble.

Once again, he passed through the tunnel, though this time the heat physically knocked him backward. Sweat and life evaporated from his skin, drawing yet more energy from his limbs. This is it, he thought. I can’t go on.

Joshua looked upward, on the walkway the Manashe began to group together, each of them yearning for him to stall or collapse. Some how, they knew that he was failing. Ahead of him, just beyond the exit of the tunnel, another of the masters tightened its grip on its whip.

Again, a blast of heat was thrown from the Guyren, baring its force down on him. His knees struggled with the fundamental job of keeping him upright, but with little energy left they faced an almost impossible task.

And yet, almost against all odds, he moved. He leaned into the heat, now like a blizzard in his current condition, and fought onwards. Above him, the Manashe were taught with anticipation, even hunger.

The mezzanine had never seemed so hellish. Fumes spiralled upward, forming the plume of smoke into a noxious tornado. Below, roaring with a fierce intensity, the Guyren burned with a deadly purpose.

At the edge, Joshua held the wood precariously in his arms. A bombardment of flames, fumes and gases threatened him. As he leaned forward, attempting to release the wood, he was hit by the tremendous ferocity the Guyren had taken on. The skin on his face almost boiled. Reactively, he threw himself back. He landed unceremoniously on his back, the ash not only bared the brunt of his fall, but may as well have sucked the very life out of him.

Instead of struggling to right himself, his limbs merely lolled in their sockets, hardly registering the commands that his brain was firing at them. Get up! Get up! Come on!

But he couldn’t move, there was nothing left. The world around him began to fade; he heard the rumble of the fire and the ecstatic glee of the Manashe’s caws in a muffled cacophony of sound.

A blurred, hunched figure walked towards him. Something uncoiled from its hand, dropping to the ground. Joshua blinked and the world came back into focus, and an explosion of sound bombarded his ears.

One of the Manashe stalked towards him, pulling back its whip and dribbling from its long orange beak. Its golden eyes shone with the light of the Guyren’s fire; two orbs filled with murderous intent. Its arm tensed, ready to whirl the whip about itself and bring its punishment down on Joshua.

The master was cut shot. A sharp, shrilling call cut through the air. Panic filled the tones of that call, something had the Manashe spooked. The master left Joshua alone, quickly hobbling away along the tunnel, cawing in reply. Above, the rope walkways emptied as the Manashe dropped to the ground and hurried to exit the tunnel.

Joshua managed to struggle to his feet. Looking around him, he saw the Fremani had been thrown into confusion. They called to each other in their rumbling language, causing the ground to thrum. Curiosity drove him forward and he found the energy to trot past the other slaves.

As he ran along the length of the tunnel, children and Fremani alike cowered from the sound of his rushing footsteps as they would from the crack of a whip. But Joshua did not care for this; it was the Manashes’ fear that compelled him, that drove his body beyond its exertion.

Outside, just beyond the light the tunnel cast into the night, the Manashe had huddled together on their knees. They muttered what may have been incantations into the ground, occasionally cawing into the night.

Without warning the air began to buzz. In fright, the Manashe jumped backward and began feverishly looking into the sky, their heads darting from one direction to the other. Soon the air rumbled and the sound of an approaching hurricane over powered the night.

From the sky, the clouds twisted and began to drop down, igniting with bolts of lightning. From the forming funnel, a dark unnatural object fell and raced towards them, impossibly fast. It crashed into the ground with such a force that it sent the Manashe reeling to the ground. Even Joshua was knocked over by the following shockwave. The object exploded into a black cloud of vapour that swirled in the air before twisting about itself and collapsing inward, becoming ever denser. As the cloud twisted tighter and tighter it took the form of a being some twenty feet high. At its peak a hood took form and inside, with a burst of argent two eyes ignited into the night, burning its glare onto Joshua’s retina.

‘You have failed me!’ came the Deceiver’s voice, pounding the ground with its power and causing Joshua’s ears to ring.
Joshua had met one of these creatures before, within moments of arriving in this strange land. One of them had condemned him to toil away his life in service of the Guyren’s hunger.

The Deceiver that towered before him was more powerful than that which he had seen before. Every twist of its black form seemed to radiate rage, and the air hummed with the weight of unseen power, like the charged atmosphere on an approaching thunder storm.

‘The fires have dimmed in recent days. The great war machine of Jendor Dar has slowed!’ A clawed hand uncurled a rotting finger and pointed at one of the Manashe. A golden feather clasped its cloak; a symbol that Joshua realised denoted it as the lead master. ‘You!’ the Deceiver’s voice exploded. ‘You have disgraced me.’

The Deceiver lifted the master by its neck, in protest the creature try to caw, but its voice was suddenly silenced as the air was stolen from its chest. The argent eyes of the Deceiver flashed with anger and its grip tightened about the master’s neck.
The Manashe’s body began to collapse in upon itself; its arms and legs broke and twisted into its torso. Its beak cracked as its head disappeared into its neck. The Deceiver’s hand seemed to swallow the torso and the remains of the Manashe’s cloak until all that was left was the golden leaf.

Bending unnaturally, the Deceiver brought its face down to the level of another of the Manashe.

It nearly cowered away, but, instead, a stream of urine gushed down its legs staining the ash.

‘You shall be the new Guyren-dralnala. Build me a fire worthy of Jendor Dar!’

In response the master bowed low into the ground, almost eating the ash.

‘My contempt for your race is nearly spent, prove to me that I can be wrong. Justify your existence to me!’ The Deceiver’s rotting hand caressed the Manashe. ‘Do not fail me again.

‘What is the name of your lord?’

‘Raaj Desemedon,’ the newly appointed Guyren-dralnala croaked.

‘Yes, now serve me!’

As those words reverberated from the stone about Joshua, the Deceiver’s eyes came upon him. That gaze stabbed into him like a cold blade, freezing him to the ground. ‘Foolish boy!’ its voice boomed.

Twisting through the air, with a mane of darkness, the Deceiver dove at him and lifted him into the air. With the purpose of a missile, they raced along the length of the tunnel. The spectre's grip was relentless, locking his chest shut and freezing his bones until his flesh began to burn with pain.

They came to a halt before the edge of the mezzanine. The Deceivers darkness whirled about them, excited by the hunger of the Guyren.

Buffeted between the two extremes of the Guyren’s unbearable heat, and the Deceiver’s unstoppable cold, Joshua thrashed and bolted with pain.

‘You shall fuel the Guyren, and learn to hate the world as I do, boy! You shall watch as the Great Forest burns and cheer as the Man Born of the Earth shall fall.’ The Deceivers voice was clear above the roar of the Guyren’s reaching flames, filling Joshua’s mind with its poison.

Suddenly, the Deceiver released him. In an explosion of darkness it vanished, leaving Joshua to fall. As he fell, accelerating into the heat of the Guyren, his skin began to burn. He would have screamed, but he could not breath – the Deceiver, Raaj Desemedon, had not allowed him to – all he could do was plummet downward.

Again, Joshua saw the flames manifest into clawing hands, hungry to delve into his flesh. Before his eyes could melt, he closed them shut, locking out the terrible sight of those hands reaching for him.

The face of Joshua’s mother flashed before him, he had almost forgotten her, burying her away in the numbness that had overtaken him. She smiled and reached out a hand to him, but the hand was wreathed in flames.

Joshua’s body crashed onto a stone ledge, pain exploded into his right leg. It caused him to take a deep breath and he screamed. His hands instinctively clutched at his leg, knocking his shin bone which had thrust through his skin. Again he screamed, burning his lungs on the rising fumes.

Shock over came him and he fell unconscious. The roar of the fire was snuffed out of existence and for once his body rested. His muscles did not ache, they merely melted, losing their tension. The sensation of movement passed through his mind gently, but not enough to stir him to wakefulness. In the distance he heard the stuttering sound of voices, but his mind could not bring itself to decipher their meaning. Instead, Joshua fell into a sleep so deep only the Fremani would understand.