Stealing Life

by Antony Johnston

  Hot breath struck his back. Slow breathing sounded loud in his ears. Cautiously, he turned his head to look back over his shoulder. The groak was less than three feet behind him.

  He threw the orb to the ground and ran, frantically breaking through the undergrowth and hanging vines, looking for a tree to climb. But the jungle trees were too smooth-trunked here. The sudden loss of the orb left him blind in the jungle night, unable to see anything clearly. Vines, the only hanging plant under the canopy, slapped his face and body as he blundered onward.

  The groak lumbered after him, crashing through the jungle with a deep, belligerent growl. It gained on him with every second. There was nothing else for it. He adjusted his grip on the walking stick, holding one end with both hands, and slammed the other end into the ground, vaulting himself upward. He grabbed at a vine, clamped his feet around it and started to climb. It was slippery, coated with moisture and sap, and for every foot he climbed he slid back six inches. It was already sagging from his weight, threatening to snap at any moment, but he ignored it and pressed on, because not climbing meant only death.

  With a deafening roar the groak burst out of the undergrowth behind him. He made one last grasp as high up the vine as he could reach, clutched tight and pulled. The groak raised its head and snapped its jaw, missing his boots by a hair’s breadth. He tried to pull himself up further, but his hands were too slick and couldn’t gain any purchase. The groak waved its head from side to side, trying to catch his legs with its frontal horn...

  Then stopped.

  Another roar, louder and deeper, sounded from somewhere nearby. The groak dropped its head until it almost touched the ground, lowered its tail, turned its huge bulk around and trudged back the way it had come.

  The vine snapped, unable to take his weight any longer. He plummeted to the ground and landed in the black, boggy mud, the broken vine still in his hand.

  Two large, threatening horns emerged from the undergrowth. He tried to scramble back, but the mud sucked at his limbs and he only succeeded in collapsing onto his back as two groaks advanced out of the jungle together.

  “Kollok shazoklok?”

  He lifted his head and strained to see through the darkness. The groaks were directly in front of him, just a few yards away, but they’d stopped. Who was it that was asking for his name?

  “Kollok shazoklok? Hulludok!”

  He peered at the groaks and finally saw the source of the voice. Two men sat astride the backs of the beasts, riding them. From that high up, they must have been able to see him over the tops of the undergrowth. He couldn’t make out their dress, but it was a pretty safe bet who they were. And they were very keen to know who he was.

  “Shazomon Turithik,” he replied.

  “Turithik! Ikk zenrrok lok?”

  “Shazomon shlummok Ven Dazarus,” he replied. It was grammatically awful, literally I am the search of Ven Dazarus, but the riders understood it well enough.

  “Shazomon Nicco Salarum.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  IT TURNED OUT that one of the riders knew a little Turithian, but not enough to say much besides hello, goodbye and so on. Through half-words and gestures, the rider made the point that Nicco was lucky they’d been patrolling the area, because a groak was only scared of one thing—other groaks.

  The riders were Kurrethi rebels, wearing the same green robes Nicco had seen on the speaker at the rally in Hurrunda. When he’d mentioned Ven Dazarus, one of them dismounted while the other activated a light orb and levelled an entropy blaster at him. The one on foot frisked him for weapons, but found nothing. Then he tied Nicco’s hands together with jungle vine and secured the other end to his groak’s harness, a rudimentary arrangement of Tallus hide and steel rings.

  Nicco was made to walk alongside the groak as the rebels returned to their camp. The riders seemed to control the beasts with a combination of tongue clicks and low whistles, but deciphering the commands while also trying to stay upright wasn’t easy. Despite its bulk, the groak’s six legs gave it a long, swift stride and an odd rhythm to its gait. For the first fifteen minutes Nicco kept losing time with the beast and falling to the jungle floor. After being dragged through the mud and foliage for the dozenth time, though, he finally got it; by the time they arrived at the Kurrethi camp he was nicely in sync with the creature’s rise-rise-fall-fall motion.

  The ‘camp’ was more a loose patchwork of tarpaulins hung between tree trunks and over cave mouths in the mountainside, occupied by people who could have been normal Hurrundan citizens if not for the ubiquitous green robes they all wore tied at the waist. There was some light, from both magical orbs and flaming torches, but not enough to completely disperse the gloom—or to give away their position to anyone looking from above the dense jungle canopy. It set an ominous mood, which was only heightened by the ring of sentries at the outskirts. The sentries stopped the returning rebels and questioned them, before searching Nicco again to confirm he had no weapons.

  Finally, a gruff middle-aged man with a white beard and no neck arrived at the sentry post and questioned Nicco in Turithian. It was the same man who had addressed the rally on Nicco’s first day in the city.

  “You!” said the man, recognising Nicco. “What you want here?”

  “I need to see Ven Dazarus. My name is Nicco Salarum.”

  The man raised an eyebrow at his name. “So you are Salarum, coward! What you want, exactly?”

  “I have a proposal for him.”

  “Tell me. I am second leader.”

  Nicco sighed. “No. I have to see Ven Dazarus himself. If you know my name, he must have mentioned me. Just tell him I’m here.”

  The rebel whipped out a blaster and shoved the business end in Nicco’s face. “Perhaps I tell him you here because I show him your corpse, hmm?”

  But Nicco didn’t flinch. “You could, but I don’t like to think what he’d do to you in response. Tell him Nicco Salarum has travelled here from Azbatha to see him. Tell him Nicco Salarum has found him, when all the cops in Hurrunda couldn’t. Tell him if he ignores me, he will never take back the city.”

  The rebel grunted, looking Nicco up and down. Finally he relented, lowering the gun and taking a step back. “Come,” he said and turned around, motioning for Nicco’s captors to bring him along.

  The riders had dismounted their groaks and given them to a Kurrethi who appeared to be in charge of the beasts, humming and whispering to them as he led them away to an area where more of the animals stood and rested. There was definitely something different about these, compared to the groak he’d encountered on the jungle trail, but when he asked, the ‘second leader’ refused to discuss it.

  Everyone in the camp watched him with suspicious eyes as he was escorted through, and now he was inside the camp it became clear how much of an influence Ven Dazarus’ military past had on them. One in every ten had the unmistakable look of an ex-soldier, an intense gaze that quickly assessed his potential threat.

  They approached a large tent that in a clearing under a tree, its fabric the same camouflage green as the rebels’ robes. Two sentries stood guard outside the closed entrance flap, entropy blasters in their hands and bullet-firing pistols holstered on their hips. The ‘second leader’ motioned for Nicco’s captors to stop when they were ten feet away, and approached the sentries alone. He had a hurried conversation with them, inaudible to Nicco and the others, then pulled back the tent flap and walked inside. A moment later he reappeared and stood to one side next to a sentry.

  The flap opened again. Ven Dazarus stepped out.

  He looked quite different from how he did as ‘Xandus’ in Azbatha, but not shockingly so. Facially he was the same, with the thick black hair and neat beard still present. But the pale make-up that hid his real skin colour was gone, revealing a true dark-skinned Varnian. His clothes were practical and militaristic, consisting of canvas trousers, boots and a plain collarless shirt. Curiously, he was one of the few people in the camp not wearing a gr
een robe. The lights and flames of the camp reflected in Ven Dazarus’ bright blue eyes as he stepped out of the tent and saw the pale-skinned, hollow-eyed, dirt-stained man held between the two rebel riders.

  He laughed.

  “By a groak’s testicle, Nicco Salarum, you looking terrible! You have a long journey, exactly?”

  “Hello, Xandus,” said Nicco in Varnian. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  The rebel leader raised an eyebrow and replied likewise. “Now why on earth didn’t you tell me you spoke Varnian? It would have saved me a lot of trouble learning that barbaric noise you peasants call a language. Oh, wait—that’s right, you thought I was a Turithian wizard!” He laughed again.

  “You don’t seem very surprised to see me.”

  “Ah, Salarum. I am Ven Dazarus, leader of the Kurrethi and soon to be Emperor of the Hurrundan state. My eyes and ears are plentiful... including at police stations. When an Azabathan man called ‘Nicco’ is arrested, did you think I wouldn’t know? That I wouldn’t guess why you were here? You’d been released before I could get to you myself, but my men have been watching for you ever since. Surely you didn’t think you could sneak up on me unawares!”

  “Actually, I wanted you to find me. I was counting on your men bringing me back here.”

  “And yet, by coming here you’ve signed your own death sentence. You know I can’t allow you to leave, not now. Not that you look like you’d last another day out here anyway. You look awful—ill, in fact. Has our local cuisine not agreed with you?” He laughed again with a confidence bordering on arrogance. Or perhaps it had crossed that border long ago.

  “We have unfinished business,” said Nicco. “I’ve come to take the necklace back.”

  Ven Dazarus’ jovial demeanour vanished as quickly as it had come. “That, my old partner in crime, is simply not possible. The old fool Werrdun will die soon—maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, but soon enough. When he does, we shall ride down into the city and overthrow his council of cronies and crooks, with the masses of Hurrunda behind us. And as the whole city watches, I will crush that devil-spawned necklace on the Heart of Kurreth.” He turned on his heel and began walking back to his tent. “We have no more business to discuss, Salarum. You and Werrdun will both die, and the Kurrethi revolution cannot be stopped.”

  “If you don’t give me the necklace, your so-called rebellion will be crushed. You think they don’t know what you’re planning? You think they’re not ready for your pathetic little band of curs and brawlers?”

  Ven Dazarus stopped and turned back to face Nicco, his eyes blazing with anger. “This ‘little band’ are the true soldiers of Kurreth. And I have moulded them into an army! With the support of the people, we cannot be beaten!” He paused, peering at Nicco. “Who sent you? Who says they will crush us, hmm?”

  “Why are you fighting, Ven Dazarus? Do you really believe in the Kurrethi cause... or are you just in it for the power?”

  “Pah! Power is nothing, you fool. Werrdun’s imminent death is proof of that. No, I fight because it’s right. I fought for this country, this state. The people of Hurrunda were lucky—lucky!—because nobody thought they were important. Hurrunda was never invaded, never fought over. These very mountains saw to that, protecting the city as they’ve always done.” He was ranting, equally blind to Nicco’s indifference and the gathering crowd. One overweight man called out to him, but Ven Dazarus ignored him. “But when I returned from the war, I realised very few people understood that. For the first time, I saw how that mobster had made the city ignorant, blind to war and the true values of life. All anyone cared about was profit. Profit, while their husbands and sons were dying to protect their own country!

  “Werrdun and his gang aren’t fit to rule. They have no conscience besides the almighty rakki, no concern beyond their hoard of money and power. Power? No, Salarum, I don’t want power. I want justice!”

  “Lord Ven Dazarus!” It was the rebel in the crowd again, calling out. Ven Dazarus turned and shouted back.

  “Who—oh, it’s you, Gorrd.” The crowd all turned to look at the man, an overweight Varnian with a thick black beard, shot through with grey. “Will you please be quiet? Whatever entrails you’ve thrown or cards you’ve read can wait, I assure you!”

  “But, my lord—”

  Nicco interrupted them both. “Just give me the necklace. I swear you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  Ven Dazarus turned away from Gorrd and scowled at Nicco. “No, I don’t think so. In fact, there’s only one thing I regret.” He walked back to one of the tent guards. “I don’t know how, but clearly four thinmen weren’t enough to kill you. I wish I’d left more.”

  He took the guard’s pistol from its holster and turned back to Nicco.

  “Goodbye, Salarum. May Kurreth have mercy on your soul.”

  Then he shot Nicco between the eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  VEN DAZARUS WATCHED Nicco’s body hit the ground with a dull thud, then turned on his heel and strode back to the tent. He held the pistol out for his guard to take, but the sentry wasn’t paying him any attention. He was looking straight past Ven Dazarus, at something on the ground.

  “Have to do... better... than that...”

  Ven Dazarus turned to see Nicco struggling to his feet. Unable to believe his eyes, he raised the pistol again and shot Nicco three times, full in the chest. Nicco fell back to the ground.

  Ven Dazarus walked to Nicco and stood over him, still aiming his pistol at the thief’s head. How many people could take a bullet between the eyes and survive, even for a couple of seconds? Not many. Even now the thief was still breathing, hanging on to life with a preternatural will. Perhaps there was magic at work, although that seemed unlikely given how the Azbathans despised mages. Something had to be behind it, though, and there was no blood pouring from the pale-skinned thief’s wounds...

  “Ekklorn’s hooves!” shouted Ven Dazarus. “This isn’t Salarum... it’s a thinman!”

  Gorrd, the rebel who’d been trying to get Ven Dazarus’ attention throughout the argument, ran over. “My lord, I felt something here in the camp...”

  Ven Dazarus snorted at him. “You’re a little late, wizard. I appear to have already found the source of your concern.” He shouted to the crowd. “Search the camp! Every inch! There might be more of them!”

  But Gorrd was still standing by the thinman, wringing his hands. “No, my lord, it was something else... I felt a following gem. There is an outsider here in the camp. Someone human.”

  NICCO SMILED. THE golem had been captured by guards, just as he’d hoped. When Hullorik had made the thinman for him, he’d instructed it to be as noisy and visible as possible through the jungle. It had almost got the golem killed by a wandering groak, but it had also paid off. He certainly hadn’t expected the guards to be riding groaks, though. How on earth did they tame the beasts, let alone control them while riding?

  He followed them up the mountain, keeping a safe distance. One of the riders was trying to speak Turithian, but clearly struggled. That was good—it meant there would be less chance of them trying to interrogate the thinman before they reached the rebel camp. It also meant the golem was doing as instructed and pretending not to speak much Varnian until he reached Ven Dazarus.

  The camp was large and ringed by sentries, but to remain hidden from the Hurrundan security forces they had to keep it dark. That suited Nicco fine. He watched them question his thinman, then circled round to the other side of the camp. Everyone was far too busy looking at the pale stranger to see a dark, camouflaged figure in the thick of the jungle. He found a spot where the sentry’s stations were almost thirty yards apart. It was his best shot.

  Nicco threw a fallen tree branch into the undergrowth near one of the guards, but he didn’t move. Either they were used to indigenous animals making noise out here at night or the buzzing drone of the insect population drowned out the branch’s impact. He’d just have to sneak through.

&
nbsp; He picked his way through the undergrowth, careful not to make too much noise. He watched the guards carefully, timing their patrols—five yards left, turn and look, back to position, pause and watch, five yards right, turn and look. The procedure was staggered, so that when one guard was walking the other remained standing at his post, and vice versa. It was effective, but it left a short period where the gap was thirty-five yards, with one of the guards facing the wrong way. All Nicco had to do was get past the other guard somehow.

  Nicco reached into his shoulder bag and took out a woollen green robe. He’d had it made at a market stall run by a seamstress who was probably old enough to remember the city before Werrdun, although not too old to fleece a tourist. When Nicco told her he needed it done before nightfall, she cackled and charged him what he guessed was about three times the going rate. But need it he did, and his skin marked him out as a foreigner to be taken advantage of, so he paid up. If the plan didn’t work, the money would be useless to him anyway.

  He slipped on the robe and moved closer to the edge of the undergrowth. Not for the first time since he arrived in Hurrunda, Nicco bemoaned the loss of his kit bag and equipment. He hadn’t brought much with him, just a few basic tools like a grav belt, omnimag grips and monofilament, but right now he could really have used some or all of it. Instead, he had to make do with what he’d been able to purchase at the market. Besides the green robe, there were other items he’d need to get inside this camp.

  Like clockwork, one of the sentries began his five-yard walk. Nicco slipped on a pair of gloves, pulled the hood of the robe down and edged forward as far as the undergrowth could conceal him. He was less than ten feet from the stationary guard, but the night and jungle noise allowed him to remain unseen. All that remained between him and the guard was two long strides.