The detritus tumbled away. As it did, Brys saw something beyond it. Stationary, blockish, vertical shapes rearing from the plain.

He walked towards them.

Dolmens.

This beggared comprehension. It seemed impossible that the plain before him had once known air, sunlight and dry winds.

And then he saw that the towering stones were of the same rock as the plain, and that they were indeed part of it, lifting as solid projections. As Brys drew nearer, he saw that their surfaces were carved, an unbroken skein of linked glyphs.

Six dolmens in all, forming a row that cut diagonally from the angle of the trench wall.

He halted before the nearest one.

The glyphs formed a silver latticework over the black stone, and in the uneven surface beneath the symbols he saw the hints of a figure. Multi-limbed, the head small, sloping and squat, a massive brow ridge projecting over a single eye socket. The broad mouth appeared to be a row of elongated tendrils, the end of each sporting long, thin fangs, and it was closed to form an interlocking, spiny row. Six segmented arms, two – possibly four – legs, barely suggested in the black stone’s undulations.

The glyphs shrouded the figure, and Brys suspected they formed a prison of sorts, a barrier that prevented the emergence of the creature.

The silver seemed to flow in its carved grooves.

Brys circled the dolmen, and saw other shapes on every side, no two alike, a host of nightmarish, demonic beasts. After a long moment’s regard, he moved on to the next standing stone. And found more.

The fourth dolmen was different. On one side the glyphs had unravelled, the silver bled away, and where a figure should have been there was a suggestive indentation, a massive, hulking creature, with snaking tentacles for limbs.

The mute absence was chilling. Something was loose, and Brys did not think it was a god.

Mael, where are you? Are these your servants?

Or your trophies?

He stared up at the indentation. The absence here was more profound than that which reared before him. His soul whispered… abandonment. Mael was gone. This world had been left to the dark, torrid currents and the herds of detritus.

‘Come for another one, have you?’

Brys whirled. Ten paces away stood a huge figure sheathed in armour. Black, patinated iron studded with rivets green with verdigris. A great helm with full cheek guards vertically slatted down to the jaw-line, reinforced along the bridge of the nose to the chin. The thin eye slits were caged in a grille mesh that extended down beneath the guards to hang ragged and stiff on shoulders and breastplate. Barnacles crusted the joints of arms and legs, and tendrils of brightly coloured plants clinging to joins in the armour streamed in the current. Gauntlets of overlapping plates of untarnished silver held on to a two-handed sword, the blade as wide as Brys’s hands were long. The sword’s blunt end rested on the bedrock. From those metal-clad hands, he now saw, blood streamed.

The Letherii drew his own longsword. The roiling currents suddenly tugged at him, as if whatever had held him immune to the ravages of this deep world had vanished. The blade was turned and twisted in his hand with every surge of water. To counter such a weapon as that wielded by the warrior, he would need speed, his primary tactic one of evasion. The Letherii steel of his longsword would not break clashing in hard parry, but his arms might.

And now, the currents buffeted him, battled with the sword in his hand. He had no hope of fighting this creature.

The words the warrior had spoken were in a language unknown to Brys, yet he understood it. ‘Come for another one? I am not here to free these demons from their sorcerous cages-’

The apparition stepped forward. ‘Demons? There are no demons here. Only gods. Forgotten gods. You think the skein of words is a prison?’

‘I do not know what to think. I do not know the words written-’

‘Power is remembrance. Power is evocation – a god dies when it becomes nameless. Thus did Mael offer this gift, this sanctuary. Without their names, the gods vanish. The crime committed here is beyond measure. The obliteration of the names, the binding of a new name, the making of a slave. Beyond measure, mortal. In answer I was made, to guard those that remain. It is my task.’ The sword lifted and the warrior took another step closer.

Some fighters delivered an unseen wound before weapons were even drawn. In them, raised like a penumbra, was the promise of mortality. It drew blood, weakened will and strength. Brys had faced men and women with this innate talent before. And he had answered it with… amusement.

The guardian before him promised such mortality, with palpable force.

Another heavy step. A force to match the roiling waters. In sudden understanding, Brys smiled.

The vicious current ceased its maelstrom. Speed and agility returned in a rush.

The huge sword slashed horizontally. Brys leapt back, the point of his sword darting out and up in a stop-thrust against the only target within reach.

Letherii steel slipped in between the silver plates of the left gauntlet, sank deep.

Behind them a dolmen exploded, the concussion thundering through the bedrock underfoot. The warrior staggered, then swung his sword in a downward chop. Brys threw himself backward, rolling over one shoulder to regain his feet in a crouch.

The warrior’s sword had driven into the basalt a quarter of its length.

And was stuck fast.

He darted to close. Planting his left leg behind the guardian, Brys set both hands against the armoured chest and shoved.

The effort failed as the guardian held himself upright by gripping the embedded sword.

Brys spun and hammered his right elbow into the iron-sheathed face. Pain exploded in his arm as the head was snapped back, and the Letherii pitched to one side, his left hand taking the longsword from his fast-numbing right.

The warrior tugged on his own sword, but it did not budge.

Brys leapt forward once again, driving his left boot down onto the side of the guardian’s nearest leg, low, a hand’s width above the ankle.

Ancient iron crumpled. Bones snapped.

The warrior sank down on that side, yet remained partly upright by leaning on the jammed sword.

Brys quickly backed away. ‘Enough. I have no desire to kill any more gods.’

The armoured face lifted to regard him. ‘I am defeated. We have failed.’

The Letherii studied the warrior for a long moment, then spoke. ‘The blood seeping from your hands – does it belong to the surviving gods here?’

‘Diminished, now.’

‘Can they heal you?’

‘No. We have nothing left.’

‘Why does the blood leak? What happens when it runs out?’

‘It is power. It steals courage – against you it failed. It was expected that the blood of slain enemies would… it does not matter now.’

‘What of Mael? Can you receive no help from him?’

‘He has not visited in thousands of years.’

Brys frowned. Kuru Qan had said to follow his instincts. He did not like what had come to pass here. ‘I would help. Thus, I would give you my own blood.’

The warrior was silent for a long time. Then, ‘You do not know what you offer, mortal.’

‘Well, I don’t mean to die. I intend to survive the ordeal. Will it suffice?’

‘Blood from a dying or dead foe has power. Compared to the blood from a mortal who lives, that power is minuscule. I say again, you do not know what you offer.’

‘I have more in mind, Guardian. May I approach?’

‘We are helpless before you.’

‘Your sword isn’t going anywhere, even with my help. I would give you mine. It cannot be broken, or so I am told. And indeed I have never seen Letherii steel break. Your two-handed weapon is only effective if your opponent quails and so is made slow and clumsy.’