Breaking the Lore

by Breaking the Lore (retail) (epub)

  Thumping and shouting rose up from the street. Complaints in rough dwarven voices mixed with orders barked in the indecipherable demonic language. Paris couldn’t see what was actually happening through the thatch, but he could make a pretty good guess.

  ‘They’re going door to door,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘You were right.’

  Tergil nodded. ‘They were able to track us to Jallengard. However, they now cannot find us.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Grarf. ‘None of thee hath a strong scent. ’Tis good that thou be not a rock troll, Nipparis.’

  As compliments go, thought the cop, it was a slightly backhanded one. He’d take it, though. Given how the demons tracked Rocky through the station, he was also quite glad he wasn’t a rock troll.

  He considered how the scheme was working out. The stinky herb Tergil, Eric and he had used to disguise their scent had dissipated all too quickly. So when the Vanethria worked out what had happened, they would track the smell of elf and dwarf – and the undisguised odour of Bonetti – through the valley to the town. Once he and his team got here, though, they merged into the general aroma of the population. Plus trailing through the smallholdings on the outskirts and the dirty streets near the centre hadn’t been just to avoid being seen. They’d managed to pick up enough local pong to blend in a bit more. The demons wouldn’t know if they were hiding somewhere or had already headed out. Even if he did really need a wash, it was a good plan.

  Although the local residents having their belongings ransacked might not appreciate it quite so much.

  ‘What do we do now?’ he asked.

  ‘We wait,’ replied Tergil. ‘They are not aware of this secret storeroom. We let them search the town fruitlessly, then we move off when night falls.’ He held up his sword. ‘This is simply a precaution.’

  Paris nodded. As usual he couldn’t argue with the elf’s logic. And this time, he didn’t want to.

  ‘Why are the demons still here anyway?’ asked Cassandra. ‘I don’t mean here in town, obviously; they’re looking for us. But they’ve seen that they can’t beat our army. So why are they still camped out near the portal?’

  ‘That,’ said Tergil, ‘I do not know.’

  ‘I do,’ said Bonetti.

  All eyes turned towards the sergeant.

  ‘How did you find out?’ asked Paris.

  ‘Well, Boss, after the questions about magic, they asked me about our soldiers and their weapons. Then they wanted info on cars and food and all sorts. And they told me why they were hanging around.’

  Paris frowned. ‘Why would they tell you anything?’

  ‘The only reason,’ said Tergil, ‘is because they intended to kill him afterwards. Which raises a very interesting question. Sergeant Bonetti, why are you not dead?’

  Bonetti shrugged. ‘Dunno. But I guess it’s because they wanted to show a real, live human to some bigwig who’s turning up today. Think he’s called Zalgot.’

  Paris saw Tergil’s eyes flash with anger.

  ‘That’s the name you told me,’ said the inspector. ‘The big boss, right? What’s he doing here?’

  More crashing and banging interrupted before the elf could answer. Banging that came from directly below them.

  ‘They’re in this building,’ whispered Eric.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tergil. ‘And although their noses are now redundant, their ears are not. We must be quiet.’

  Everyone stood motionless, listening. All Paris heard was the pounding of his own heart. Cassandra grabbed hold of his hand.

  ‘Isn’t this exciting?’ she asked.

  Paris stared at her. She beamed. Maybe he’d been right all along: nothing fazed her because she really was completely bonkers.

  ‘Exciting?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I feel like Anne Frank.’

  ‘I don’t remember that bit of the story,’ he said. ‘Dear diary, here I am in the attic with a dwarf, a demon, an elf and a talking crow.’

  Paris shook his head. He didn’t recall Anne Frank’s book in any great detail. But he remembered how it ended.

  Another thump rang out from beneath them.

  ‘They’re on the landing,’ hissed Eric.

  ‘Remain calm,’ whispered Tergil. ‘Douse the lights.’

  Grarf and Bonetti snuffed out the lamps. The room was plunged into darkness. From below came yet more bangs, accompanied by stomping feet and the noise of things being broken. Then silence.

  Paris swallowed, trying hard to keep his cool. He clutched Cassandra’s hand tighter.

  A louder crash. Light shone up the stairwell. Paris recoiled.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he mumbled. ‘They’ve found the panel!’

  Eric backed away from the steps as the stench of sulphurous demon breath wafted upwards.

  ‘You in the loft,’ growled a voice inside Paris’s head. ‘You will come down now.’

  He looked at Cassandra, her face barely visible in the dim light.

  ‘You hear that?’ she mouthed.

  Paris nodded. His heart pounded like it would explode.

  ‘We know you are there,’ said the voice. ‘We know who you are. Our escaped prisoner, two more humans, Tergil Vos, Eric Tubthumper, the accursed Malbus and the traitor Grarf. Come down.’

  Paris and Tergil exchanged confused glances. How could they know that?

  ‘Come and get us,’ snapped the elf. ‘You can only enter one at a time. Prepare to be slaughtered.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Down the stairs now,’ said the voice. ‘Or stay there while we set fire to the building.’

  49

  The surrender, thought Paris, had been quite straightforward and unexpectedly civilised. First you dropped your weapons and made your way down the attic stairs when you were signalled. A quick search for any hidden knives, hands tied behind your back, then line up ready to march through the inn. No threats or violence were involved. Malbus was even being carried, after complaining that he couldn’t walk properly with his wings strapped to him. He’d now been gagged for his trouble, his beak tied up with a bow. Everyone seemed to be unharmed, though, so Paris knew things could be worse. In fact, since the crow had to keep his gob shut for a change, it wasn’t a bad result at all.

  He peered around the corridor as they waited, looking past the Vanethria guards on either side. He examined details with an experienced policeman’s eye. And grew increasingly uncomfortable as he did so.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Tergil.

  ‘Well,’ replied Paris slowly, ‘the secret door to the loft has no signs of damage at all. The bedrooms near us appear to be decidedly un-ransacked. So I’m thinking the noises we heard weren’t from searching; they were just normal demonic stomping.’ He took a deep breath. ‘They already knew where we were. Mandy’s sold us out.’

  Tergil glowered at him.

  Paris shrugged. ‘Going door to door was a con, so the locals wouldn’t find out what he was up to. I bet they’ve told everyone we broke into the inn and took him prisoner.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said a gruff voice inside Paris’s head.

  It was the same voice he’d heard in his mind up in the attic. Tergil and the others obviously heard it too. Paris looked about, trying to identify the source. It became apparent as Shadrak came up the stairs from the ground floor, his black and yellow striped bat’s head even more peculiar close up. The battle mage was followed by the innkeeper, beaming away like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  ‘The human is correct,’ said the mental voice.

  Shadrak’s lips never moved, though the words sounded inside Paris’s brain. He had to admit it was a pretty neat trick, this mystic telepathy.

  ‘No!’ said Eric.

  ‘Nay!’ said Grarf.

  ‘Buggy hill!’ mumbled Malbus.

  Mandy held out his hands, palms upward.

  ‘You got me,’ he said. ‘Demons come to Jallengard three weeks ago. Say they looking for someone to tell them what happen in town.
I say, why not? Friendship and loyalty good things. But Vanethria pay better.’

  Paris glanced at Tergil. The standard poker face had been replaced by one of barely contained fury. The inspector considered. Deception and treachery in the magic world. It was getting more like home all the time.

  Shadrak emitted a small, almost pleasant chuckle, which snapped Paris out of his musing. It was an incongruous sound, like hearing a decent guitar solo in one of those godawful modern songs. The inspector reconsidered. Deception and treachery might have reached here, but so far they’d kept out rap music. The place hadn’t gone completely to the dogs.

  ‘The person you went to for help is the person who betrayed you,’ growled the mage’s thoughts. ‘It is a good joke.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Paris. ‘Hilarious.’

  ‘You want to hear a better one? I will tell you. Why did the road cross the chicken? Because the stupid dwarves put the henhouse in the wrong place!’

  Shadrak grinned, showing rows of pointed green teeth. Paris stared back blankly as conceptual tumbleweed billowed across the corridor. Shadrak grunted.

  ‘Maybe that one lost something in translation. I will tell you another.’

  ‘No!’ said Paris. ‘We surrendered in good faith. There must be a rule against torture.’

  He felt Grarf’s foul breath against his face as the demon leant down towards him.

  ‘Verily,’ said Grarf, ‘in mine own tongue, yon chicken joke be most amusing.’

  Paris rolled his eyes. Evidently decent comedy hadn’t reached this world either.

  ‘What do you want, Shadrak?’ he asked.

  ‘I want you all dead,’ rumbled the voice in his head. ‘Soon. First I want you to know how we have outwitted you at every step.’

  Bloody marvellous, thought Paris. It’s not just mad bombers in Manchester, even the nutters here have to make a speech before they kill you. Somebody somewhere must be running a training course.

  ‘We found the portal when we conquered this region,’ said Shadrak. ‘Mandy told us it led to the human lands. We wanted to invade. But in our legends you are horrible monsters and fearsome killers of our race. So we sent a small force on a spying mission. And what did we discover? Humans are much like elves: weak and feeble. With stupid tiny ears.’

  ‘So why kill the fairy?’ asked Paris. ‘Why not attack us straight away?’

  ‘Our main force had moved deeper into rock troll territory. We needed to bring troops back here. Until we were ready, we wanted you to think we would not invade. And we could not simply stay in hiding. Some of our actions had attracted the attention of your crow and his followers.’

  ‘Dim rote!’ mumbled Malbus. ‘Buggy wall toll jew summat wozzup!’

  Shadrak gave Malbus a curious look. Mental telepathy obviously struggled with gibberish. He shook his head and turned back towards Paris.

  ‘We also wanted to test your army,’ continued Shadrak. ‘We attacked a human school to draw them out. What did we find? Dwarves.’

  He nodded towards Tergil.

  ‘And this elf. I came back here to report and Mandy recognised you from my description. His old friend the knight. He knew you had been assigned to the rock troll court all those years ago. If you were in the human lands, the escaped princess must be as well. My spies outside the school located the nearest police base, with the smell of troll hanging in the air. Thank you for leading us to her.’

  ‘You didn’t get her, though,’ said Paris.

  ‘True,’ replied Shadrak. ‘We sent some men to do so. We knew that elves and dwarves could not stop us, especially if we split your forces.’ He glared at Grarf. ‘But you had other helpers.’

  Grarf snorted, thrusting his horrifying head forward. ‘The humans hath a saying: fortune be hard to chew.’

  The mental conversation stopped as several puzzled faces turned towards him.

  ‘I guess,’ said Paris, ‘you mean “tough luck”?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Grarf, sounding slightly peeved.

  Paris nodded. ‘I think that might have lost something in translation too.’ He looked back at Shadrak. ‘So you haven’t beaten us at every turn, have you?’

  ‘We realised we did not need to get her. When we conquer your lands she will have nowhere to go.’

  ‘You didn’t conquer us, though. We fought you off.’

  The bat head was as impassive as a striped bat head could be.

  ‘So far,’ he said. ‘We underestimated the effect of your lands upon our magic. We will not do that again. We also underestimated your weapons. But we now have them too. And that was merely the first wave of our troops. The main force is not yet here.’

  Paris’s mind reeled. More demons were coming? Plus Malbus had said magic creatures didn’t bother with guns, only he hadn’t explained why the Vanethria stole some. Had they somehow made others? Enough to equip an even bigger invasion?

  He opened his mouth to ask further questions. Shadrak cut them off as he held up a hand for silence. The mage’s eyes took on a distant look for a moment, as if he was receiving mental messages from somewhere else.

  Shadrak’s gaze refocused as he lowered his arm.

  ‘Time to go outside,’ he said. ‘There is another reason you are not dead yet. Somebody wants to meet you.’

  He grinned his horrible grin.

  ‘Zalgot has arrived!’

  Paris groaned. The king of the demons, the most fearsome of them all, doubtless accompanied by the rest of his army. This really was not what he wanted to hear. All things considered, he’d rather be listening to rap music.

  50

  The view from the front of the inn was very different than from the rear. Instead of narrow alleys and passageways, it opened out onto a large square. Wooden buildings with thatched roofs jostled for space on every side, rustic beams dark against whitewashed walls. A typically heroic statue stood at its centre, commemorating some ancient battle or other. Jallengard, thought Paris, looked exactly how he imagined a medieval settlement should do. Apart from the demon army overrunning the place.

  He was standing with his companions outside the Duck and Dragon, ringed by rows of heavily armed Vanethria soldiers. The demons waved their swords and spears as they shouted in their impossible language. As usual they displayed every conceivable combination of horns, tusks and spikes, and came in a bewildering array of colours. It was like being surrounded by an angry rainbow.

  Paris took a deep breath. He’d calmed down a little since being captured, although his heart still thumped anxiously. He had no idea what was going to happen next, but he assumed it wouldn’t be pleasant. He nudged Tergil.

  ‘So what now?’ he asked. ‘Where’s Zalgot?’

  ‘Boss,’ said Bonetti, ‘I think we’re about to find out.’

  The sergeant nodded across the town square. Paris followed his gaze. The rows of demons were spreading out, moving to let somebody through. Dwarves and elves gathered behind them were being unceremoniously shifted aside as well. The crowd parted and he could see a figure heading towards him. And what a figure.

  It was another demon, as tall as Grarf but even more powerfully built. He strode purposefully forward on legs as broad as the gaping dwarves he passed. Arms the thickness of telegraph poles swung in perfect timing beside an enormous barrel of a chest. Muscles rippled beneath snow-white skin, like an earthquake in winter. On top of a neck as wide as a man’s shoulders sat the head of a giant bull, complete with two huge silver horns. Paris gulped. If Grarf was a rugby team by himself, this was the opposition, half of the spectators and the team bus.

  ‘Oh, wow!’ said Cassandra. ‘A real live minotaur!’

  ‘No,’ said Tergil. ‘An unfortunate resemblance. Minotaurs do exist, though they are only slightly bigger than humans. And while your kind has made them into the stuff of nightmares, be grateful that you have never before encountered Zalgot himself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he gives the minotaurs nightmares.’

 
The gigantic creature stopped five metres away across the newly expanded circle of his men, glaring at Paris’s group through blazing red eyes. The inspector stared back, with a mixture of awe, terror – and a somewhat confused sense of style. Apart from the obligatory loincloth, Zalgot wore a purple robe hanging round his shoulders. It was a better garment than Shadrak’s barely-stitched-together effort, being only dirty in places and actually made from a single piece of material. Even if that material did seem to be an old curtain. Paris pondered. Just as well demons were good at fighting; they were never going to win any fashion contests.

  His deliberations were interrupted as another noise entered the general hubbub. From the inn came two more Vanethria soldiers, working their way through the crowd. They placed what appeared to be a couch down behind their leader. At least, reckoned the inspector, a couch for two dwarves. The king of the demons lowered himself onto it, taking up the entire seat. Paris watched its legs bow under the weight. They held, and Paris thought he detected extreme relief on the faces of the two delivery men.

  They stepped away and moved back into the circle. Shadrak took their place, leaning on his staff by the side of his ruler. Zalgot sat back in the chair, studying the collection of bound figures in front of him.

  ‘Boss,’ whispered Bonetti. ‘What’s he doing? It looks like he’s trying to decide which one of us to eat.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Paris. ‘Let’s hope we give him indigestion.’

  He looked up at Grarf.

  ‘We’re all going to die,’ he said. ‘Is there anything we can do? You’re a demon as well; can’t you issue some sort of personal challenge? Have a duel or something?’

  Grarf shook his enormous head. ‘If only I couldst. How I do long to face him, to be able to say the ancient words “I do challenge thee to single combat, as be my right. My right as a member of the house of Kulosh.” But I cannot. I hath been named a traitor to the Vanethria. My noble family be removed from the Scrolls of Honour. Alas, I hath not the authority to protest.’ He sighed. ‘Verily, it be a right pain in the bum.’