The sight of this magnificent creature dead and crumpled before her was not easy to bear and although she hadn’t known him well his passing affected her almost as much as the sight of the children, lost and hopeless, in the kitchen. Her heart lurched as another wave of determination swept through her.
‘You were kind to me,’ she said as she remembered him in the Winged Realm, standing by Torn Moon’s side.
Words failed her and, unable to speak or think any further, she left him and headed for the door opposite the one she had come through. Opening it, she found herself in a large antechamber. Rich red carpet blanketed the floor; treasures and paintings of exceptional beauty graced the marbled walls. Directly in front of her was a broad, spiked door that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a castle with a moat and portcullis.
And between her and the door stood three gigantic Stomen dressed in luxurious black robes. Green haloes of power hovered over their heads, flame fluttered down their arms and words of chanted Stonesong echoed from their lips. After her misadventures with Edge Darkmount, Charlie immediately recognized them as Stone Bishops.
Masters of Stone.
As she entered the antechamber, each of the bishops ripped great chunks of stone from the floor and rapidly shaped them into weapons. The first held a brutally large axe, the second a spear and the last a heavy warhammer.
Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, Charlie drank deep on her Will and stepped forward.
61
Stone Bishops
The fight had not favoured Charlie. Breathing deeply, she wiped the blood from her mouth and jumped back to avoid a sweep of the axe. She felt the wind from its passing on her cheek. Spinning round, she dodged the spear and tried to lash out before the bishop with the warhammer could strike.
But her blow never landed. She was instead knocked across the room as the first bishop kicked her squarely in the back.
Blood dripping a little faster from her torn mouth, she picked herself up, ignored the pain in her body and returned to circling her adversaries. Each of them was insanely powerful. To face one of them alone would have been a desperate challenge; having to deal with three at once was a Herculean task.
But the lump of determination lying in her heart wouldn’t allow her to stop.
Flowing from K’Changa stance to K’Changa stance, she twisted through the air … only to be slammed back against the wall as two of the bishops countered her blows while the third struck her with his warhammer.
Stone Bishop
Charlie was wheezing a little as she picked herself up yet again and, ignoring the blood and saliva that dribbled from her chin, smiled at her foes.
‘Oh, you’re good,’ she chuckled. ‘I’ve got to give you that.’
The three didn’t reply. The only sound to escape their lips was Stonesong and the occasional grunt and groan of exertion.
‘Don’t talk much do you?’ said Charlie in a casual voice that hid the tempest of emotions boiling inside her chest.
She ran at them again. Lunging for the two on the right, she ducked beneath the axe, jumped over the spear, then rapidly jinked left, rolled and punched the third as hard as she could. She rolled back and was about to kick one of the others but was instead forced to block the spear as it whistled towards her. Before she could move away the third Stone Bishop, now recovered, grabbed her by the forearm, whipped her round and flung her against the wall again. She bounced off in a shower of sparks and landed heavily on the floor.
Laughing to herself as though she had just discovered something wildly amusing, she used the wall to help heave herself back to her feet.
‘Yeah, you’re good. Powerful too.’ Standing straight, she looked each of them in the eye. ‘But I’m not too shabby myself and what’s more …’ She raised her flaming hands and looked at them over her knuckles. ‘… I’ve just learned how you guys like to move.’
With a growl so loud and so ferocious that a Winged One would have stared at her in surprise, she sprinted towards the Stone Bishops.
‘Did you think you would stop me?’ she cried.
Slamming the heel of her palm against the first, she knocked the axe from his grasp.
‘Did you think that after all I’ve endured I would whimper and give up?’
She kicked the spear from the second’s fist.
‘Did you think I would be a pushover?’
Grabbing the warhammer, she twisted it from the last’s grasp.
‘Well, you thought wrong!’ she shouted. ‘Nothing is going to stop me from reaching Bane. Nothing!’
Still growling, she fell upon the three gigantic Stone Bishops with stubborn resolve in her heart and golden Will churning from her hands.
The footmen who lined the walls of the Throne Room did not show it but they were jittery. Explosions, booms and distant thuds had been shaking the palace for the last hour. Long lines of Shades and mortal messengers had filtered up to the Devouring Throne to deliver messages to their lord and receive fresh orders to carry back to waiting captains, colonels and lieutenants.
From what they could glean, it sounded as though their lord was managing two battles. One that was distant and conducted on Treman soil and apparently going well; the other too close for comfort and seemingly in some state of confusion as conflicting reports kept coming in. There were whispers of Winged Ones too.
But the footmen knew better than to show any doubts. Although it was considered a position of honour to stand and serve in this inner sanctum, it was not an easy task … nor a safe one. All of the Stomen that stood in the Throne Room were well aware of their lord’s fabled rages and knew that, no matter what, they were never to speak until spoken to.
That discipline was put to the test when shouts and sounds of struggle erupted from just outside. But as the noises carried on and their lord showed no concern they relaxed somewhat.
BOOOOOOM!
The great door to the Throne Room suddenly rocked on its hinges. The hugely muscled men-at-arms who stood amongst the footmen stared in amazement. As their training overcame shock they hastened forward to fall into aggressive formations, facing the besieged door.
BOOOOOOM!
One of the footmen dropped a tray of refreshments. The clash of shattered glass caused the Shades to spike their rubbery flesh in alarm.
BOOOOOOM!
The lord held out a hand to still a messenger’s garbled report and turned, curiously, towards the cause of the disturbance.
BRRA-BOOOM!
The door exploded. Striding through the dust and splinters came, not a Winged One, as they had expected, but a Human girl, draped in golden flames. Behind her, in unconscious heaps, lay the Stone Bishops.
62
The Throne Room
Charlie strode into the Throne Room, ignoring the rows of armoured guards. She only had eyes for the giant sitting on the Devouring Throne.
‘You chump!’ she shouted. ‘You and I need to –’
She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. A large guard swiped at her with his sword. She grabbed it with her hands and scowled at its owner. The Stoman stumbled as he saw how hard her eyes were. Letting the blade drop with a clang, she took a step forward, expecting the others to lose their nerve and move aside.
They did not.
With a bloodthirsty roar, they charged at her in a mass of spiky armour and glittering weapons. Shades, dark and elemental, scampered between them and lashed at her with claws of shadow. And rising from a recess at the back of the room came two Stowyrms.
‘Bane!’ she snarled. ‘I’m coming for you! I’m going to –’
A serrated sword slammed against her shield of Will, cutting her words short yet again. Irritated by the interruption, she knocked the warrior aside only to discover that she was nearly surrounded. It came to her in a flash of unpleasant realization that she had become so focused on Bane that she had failed to appreciate just how fierce and loyal his guards were. Furious at her own lack of foresight and hoping
that she didn’t fluff it, she was forced to retreat several stumbling paces.
Shades hissed and snapped at her. Men-at-arms bellowed and tried to punch, stab and kick her. She retaliated with whips of flame and a barrage of blows and such was her power that she knocked great clusters of them aside and even managed to reclaim several feet of lost ground. But when the Stowyrms, with a shriek and a hoot, barrelled in and tried to rip her to pieces she was forced to retreat further until she was beneath the arch of the splintered doorway.
She stood, sucking in great lungfuls of air, then began to move far faster than before. Hands blurring, feet racing, she knocked weapons from hands, sent Shades flying and pummelled Stomen backwards, leaving great dents and rips in their armour. Growing more confident, she waited until a Stowyrm wriggled close, loaded up one of her fists with as much Will as possible, then leaped up and brought her hand hammering down.
There was a great crack. Charlie grinned as the Stowyrm slowed but her expression faltered when it started moving again. ‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,’ she muttered. All she had to show for her efforts was a spiderweb of cracks across the Stowyrm’s rocky skin.
Confidence now dented, she moved back through the arch and into the antechamber. The few Shades and warriors still standing hesitated to follow but the Stowyrms were not as timid. Screaming like something dragged from the abyss, they skated forward and started to squirm through the door frame.
Charlie grabbed the large stone axe that lay next to one of the Stone Bishops, heaved it over her head and brought it down as hard as she could upon the first Stowyrm. There was another thunderous crack, louder than the first. The axe shattered and a great shard fell from the Stowyrm’s head. But even that didn’t stop it. Shrieking belligerently, it continued to force its way beneath the door frame; the second, just behind it, battered its head against the first’s tail as it too struggled to get at her. Charlie, growing desperate, picked up the spear that she had only recently knocked from the Stone Bishop’s hands and tried to jam it down the thing’s gullet. It thrashed and gurgled and if it had been made of flesh it would have impaled itself upon the weapon. But it wasn’t and as it continued to press forward the spear started to bend until it snapped apart, showering Charlie with a cloud of splinters.
She shouted wordlessly as the Stowyrm successfully squeezed through the doorway, slithered forward and reared over her. Drenched in shadow, she summoned all her Will but before she could defend herself the wall behind her shattered.
For a split second her tired mind convinced her that it was Last Laugh, returned from the dead and surging in to defend her, but when she rubbed at her eyes she realized her mistake. Nonetheless, she wasn’t disappointed to see that it was Hotstepper, Jensen and Nibbler charging through the rubble. The sight was most welcome; even more so when Hotstepper and Nibbler unleashed crackling jets of lightning to push back then shatter the first Stowyrm that threatened her. Hearing an unusual snick-snack noise, she spun round to see Jensen burying his sword in the remaining Stowyrm.
It didn’t move.
‘How …?’ she began in shock. There was so much she wanted to know that she mentally tripped. She didn’t know what to ask first: how had they succeeded in finding her or how had Jensen managed to destroy a Stowyrm when she couldn’t achieve such a thing with all her Will? ‘How did …?’ she began again, only to stutter to a stop.
‘Remember me Thornsword? Well, I’ve gone one better. Say hello ta Bramblesword!’ said Jensen, assuming she was asking after his weapon. He pulled it free with an effortless motion.
‘I, uh …’ Still lost for words, Charlie stared at her friends. ‘Timing. Good.’ She knew she sounded like a caveman but she didn’t care. Her friends were awesome.
Hotstepper leaned low so he could peer through the door into the chamber beyond.
‘Shall we?’ he said.
Charlie grinned.
Marching back into the Throne Room, she slouched into the most insolent stance she could think of. ‘Hey, Bane. I’m back and I’ve brought friends!’
Jensen and Nibbler stood by her side and Hotstepper loomed behind them.
Charlie knew that with the Will boiling from her hands, the flames flickering from Nibbler and Hotstepper’s nostrils and the torchlight reflecting off the tip of Jensen’s Bramblesword, they were an impressive, even an imposing, sight. But Bane was not moved.
‘Childish,’ he muttered. ‘Scum,’ he added as a discordant afterthought.
Grabbing the armrests of his Devouring Throne, he slowly pulled himself upright. A dark nimbus of shadow flickered over his shoulders and head. Growling, deep and low, he slowly clapped his hands together.
Eight maggot-like shapes detached themselves from the ceiling and fluttered downward to reveal themselves as Stowyrms.
‘It is time,’ said Bane, ‘to teach you a lesson.’
Mr Crow stopped with a lurch. The glowing wire he had been following led to a plain brown vase. The sort that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Greek or Roman display in some dusty museum. The sight was so unusual and so unexpected that the lawyer looked over both shoulders to see if anyone was watching him or playing some kind of trick. But he was all alone in this weird environment apart from the Stowyrms and Bane’s god, and they were hundreds of metres away.
‘Huh,’ muttered Crow.
Ignoring the pounding in his head and gathering what measly courage he had left, he reached out and rapped the vase with his knuckle.
It sounded hollow. He picked it up, peered inside and nearly dropped it in shock when he saw what it contained.
‘How … how can that be?’
Feeling the remnants of sanity threatening to leave him, he looked again, hoping that he had been mistaken.
He had not. The vase contained stars. Hundreds upon hundreds of stars.
A cackle of laughter escaped his lips and with it his final hold upon reality. The madness he had been holding back since he had first encountered Bane slammed past his thin mental barriers and rushed forward to crush his mind beneath a wave of insanity.
‘Stars!’ he cried. More manic laughter bubbled past his mean lips. ‘It’s full of stars! Whoever heard of a galaxy in a vase? Ha!’
Finding this uproarious, he grabbed his sides and laughed like he had never laughed before.
When he finally managed to regain some measure of composure, he wiped the tears from his face and held the vase aloft for better inspection. As he turned it from side to side his mind whirred. The glowing wire that he had followed dangled from the vase’s side.
‘Is this where the charcoal monster lives when it’s not making those things?’ he croaked. He gave the glowing wire an experimental tug. ‘Like a shell for a sea mollusc or …’ He paused as his dazed mind considered further possibilities. ‘… Or a genie in a lamp … Or a spirit in a bottle. Could it be …?’
Rubbing his nose with his skinny fingers, he smiled uncertainly. If this was indeed the thing that housed Bane’s god, then perhaps he had found a way to rid himself of the charcoal monster forever.
His lips peeled back to form a horrible smile. Lurching down the bridge on legs that quivered with fear and uncertain excitement, he made his way back towards the one thing that scared him almost as much as Bane.
His master’s god. The charcoal monster.
63
Bane
The Stowyrms charged forward but Charlie was in no mood to tangle with them. All she wanted to do was get to grips with their boss. She burned with the need to confront him. Sprinting forward, she built up enough speed to launch herself on to the closest Stowyrm. She avoided the gnashing teeth and ran between the blur of its wings, down its tail and leapfrogged over it and the others to land at the foot of the dais.
Trusting to her friends to keep the winged beasts occupied, she stared at the menacing figure that had haunted her nightmares. ‘Bane.’
‘Squishy little maggot.’
The giant cocked his head to one side as t
hough scrutinizing some strange little insect. Charlie stared right back at him, boldness overcoming any trace of fear. She tried to make out some shape, some features beneath his hood that would hint at a face but all she could see was impenetrable shadow.
‘I despise you, little fleshy Human. You are weak and soft and yet you are the source of all my woes. You brought the pendant into my world and now you mar my kingdom with the return of those meddling Winged Ones.’ His finger stabbed towards Hotstepper and Nibbler. ‘I will rip your limbs from their sockets and beat you with them.’ He descended a step. ‘I will tear open your stomach and feast on your squishy innards.’ He descended further. ‘And when your corpse lies lifeless I will harvest your skin, your tendons and your cartilage and use these to make a cloak that I will wear once I have crushed the Winged Ones beneath my feet.’ His foot thudded on the next step. ‘And if any scrap of your meat remains I will impale it upon the spikes of my Devouring Throne and leave it there to fester and rot. What say you to that, Charlie of the Keepers?’
Charlie fought back her fear and forced herself to stare right back at the looming giant.
‘I say …’ she began, but faltered as a thousand possible replies screamed through her mind. This was the man who had ripped her parents from her life; this was the giant who had trampled entire nations beneath his feet and wherever he went had left death and destruction, misery and gut-wrenching sorrow in his wake. There was so much she wanted to say, so much that needed to be said, but rather than risk tripping over her own tongue she resorted to instinct and replied as only she could, with all the cheekiness she could muster: ‘I say that you’re a bully and a chump and that you have the dress sense of a depressed dinosaur, and I also have a sneaky suspicion that you practise your evil poses in front of a mirror when no one’s looking, but if you want to give up and surrender right now I might go easier on you. But no promises because, let’s face it … you really, really need a good beating for everything that you’ve done.’
Blood and Fire (Book 3) Page 28
