The Defiler by Steven Savile

become full-blown shaking. He straightened slowly, drawing a deep breath. Smelling the dank wood of the tree's ruptured soul, the scoundrel felt the ground beneath his feet shiver, small tremors in the sand churning up earthworms and insects and the foetid stench of death. Fingertips broached the bark, pressing out towards his face. The wood blackened and charred beneath the bite of fire, flaking away until all that remained were the questing fingers covered in a swirl of blue-inked tattoos. The fingers clawed at the air as the Skinless Man emerged from the tree inch by agonising inch. The hands tore free of their prison then turned on the jagged splinters of wood, shredding the pulp as the conflagration swelled to engulf the entire tree.
    The Skinless Man's arms were free; the tattoos continued up the hands in amazingly intricate detail. As more and more of the bark and blackened pulp fell away Ukko saw that there wasn't an inch of skin uncovered.
    The flames parted around the Skinless Man's arms; they didn't touch them.
    The flat bone of his fontanele breached the bark, breaking through in a perverse re-enactment of birth.
    Ukko stared at the Skinless Man's head as it pushed out through the wound in the tree.
    Like his arms, every inch of the Skinless Man's head was inked with intricate images.
    "Thank you," the man rasped, spitting splinters from his mouth. His arms straightened and started to press down against the burning trunk of the tree, the sheer strength alone pushing his body gradually free of its prison. Half in and half out of the flaming tree, the man reached out for Ukko. "Help me, please..."
    Ukko reached up and grabbed the tattooed hand. It felt peculiar, cold as though no blood pumped beneath the inked skin. He tried not to think about it. Instead he heaved with all of his might, throwing his bodyweight behind one massive wrench. The wood splintered all around the Skinless Man as he threw his head back and screamed, dragging the remainder of his body from the burning tree.
    Even as he fell free Ukko saw, with horror, that his eyes retained a wooden veneer; as though part of him had failed to escape.
    He collapsed into Ukko's arms, barely clinging to consciousness. The resurrection had been brutal.
    As he lay sprawled in the sand at the foot of the ruined tree Ukko saw that the endless knot of tattoos formed a single grand design.
    The flames roared up the ruptured trunk of the lone tree, consuming everything they touched, every inch of bark and wood, spreading voraciously along every branch, crackling and snapping as the wood blistered, charred and died. A series of sharp cracks resonated through the heart of the old tree. A withered branch fell, still burning. Then another, and another, falling on the upturned face of one of the repulsive gaseous insectoids. It opened its mouth as though to scream, and fire blazed out ripping into the hide of a wolfen man-animal rearing up to strike a savage blow into Sláine's unprotected side. The beast went down, the skin scorched on its back, leaving it raw and bloody and black, blisters and welts oozing as it writhed on the ground in agony.
    Sláine put the wolf-man out of its misery, crushing its skull beneath his boot as he decapitated another of its kin with ruthless efficiency. He was covered in a score of shallow cuts, the worst of which ran from his temple to his nipple, bleeding into his eye. Another wound opened across the barbarian's chest as he parried a leonine warrior's claws on the head of Brain-Biter. The slash hadn't touched him, yet the wound bled as freely as any of the others on his body. Ukko understood instinctively what the impossible wound signified.
    "Sláine!" he yelled in warning as another fell beast launched itself at the young Sessair's unprotected back.
    The Morrigan's crow cawed harshly, its wings beating down on the rising flames as it circled the burning tree. The heat from the fire was overpowering, the stink of burnt flesh joining the