by Mike Wild
“Kane?” Kali said. “I met him. He was something more than your average thief.”
“Exactly. And from what I read, this Silus isn’t your average fisherman, either. You heard anything about him?”
Kali shook her head.
“Apparently, he now commands a ship by the name of the Llothriall. A ship stolen from the Final Faith. What’s more, the Llothriall is an –”
“Elven ship,” Kali finished.
Gabriella shrugged. “I suppose the clue’s in the name.”
“Not really. I found the plans for it.” Kali sighed. “This world gets smaller every day.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kali paused. “What if I told you that a year or so ago I had an encounter with something beneath the waves? Some form of water dweller, who spoke to me in my head. Mind to mind.”
“Water dweller?” Gabriella said.
“Water dweller,” Kali repeated. “Most of what it said was couched in riddles, about it being part of the Before, the After. But it also spoke about a group of people known as ‘the four’.”
“The Four?”
“‘Four known to us. Four unknown to each other. Four who will be known to all.’ That was what it said.”
“And you know what that means?”
“Haven’t the remotest idea. But it’s one pretty big coincidence, don’t you think?” Kali paused, frowned. Despite her reservations about discussing the subject with Gabriella, the situation had clearly changed and she deserved to know something more. “In fact, it’s two.”
“Two?”
“Tharnak, the dwelf creature I encountered in the Crucible, also spoke of ‘four.’ In his case, of four humans who were being prepared to travel to Kerberos – alive, that is.”
“In that ship you found? But why?”
“To save the world, I think. The point is, these four had been changed, altered, somehow physically manipulated so they could survive the journey. Their abilities had been enhanced.”
“Surely you’re not suggesting...”
“Gabriella, I’m not sure what I’m suggesting – but what I know is the Faith is keeping files on you, me, and two others. Four. The question is, why?”
The Enlightened One was silent for a second, then said, “Maybe the person who holds the halo versions of the files has the answer.”
“Halo versions?”
“Faith security classification. Halo files contain additional information. More sensitive information. The locations, for example, of supporting physical evidence on their subjects.”
“Who has these files, do you know?”
Gabriella nodded. “But you’re not going to like it when I tell you.”
“Who?”
“Querilous Fitch.”
Kali stopped dead. Without a word, she turned and began to push her way back through the ranks to where Fitch, avoiding Slowhand, trailed at their end. Gabriella followed, ignoring the confusion on the faces of the archer, Freel and others who had been pushed aside, catching up to Kali as she neared the psychic manipulator.
“Lord of All, we’re in the middle of the Sardenne. Are you always this impulsive?”
“Yes.”
Kali was almost in Fitch’s face now, his features all the more gaunt in the wan light. He started slightly but smiled coldly, as if knowing what Kali had just learned and knowing, too, that he held all the cards.
“You –” Kali was about to say, “have got some farking explaining to do!”
But she had barely formed the first word when a massive shape swung into view between them, brushing by her and Gabriella and dashing them to the ground. Fitch was not so fortunate. Struck full on, his cadaverous form was sent hurtling away through the trees with a shrill scream – gone, just like that.
Kali and Gabriella scrambled to their feet, trying to adopt a defensive position, although they had no clue what they were defending against. As they did, the shape swung again, and they ducked. Whatever the hells was coming at them, it was huge; the Swords charging, weapons drawn, into its path had no chance against it. Kali heard the crunch of metal and bone and dimly registered their broken forms flying into the undergrowth. She and Gabriella stared at each other, horrified, and rushed for cover. Others nearby were not so well practiced and, as the massive shape swung back for a third pass, another four Swords shrieked as they were knocked away by the impact.
“What in the name of the Lord of All?” Gabriella breathed, and a great, primal roar erupted from the darkness above them, sending those below into a panic, colliding with each other or freezing on the spot.
Kali wanted to shout to them to move, move, move, but she was desperately trying to process what it was they were dealing with. She remembered many things about her last visit to the Sardenne, but none were stamped quite so indelibly on her mind as the one she was remembering now.
It had occurred during her desperate flight from the Spiral of Kos when, with vast swathes of the forest lit by the detonations behind her, the creatures who dwelled within had flocked to her. As she and Horse, bless his bacon-lardon-loving heart, had galloped towards safety, they had been assailed by the full spectrum of nightmares that called the forest home, wooden things and armoured things, things of bone and of things of blood, things of moss and mud and stone. But there had been one creature, felt more than seen – a giant fist, registered fleetingly as Horse pounded along, swinging down at them from behind the trees. It had impacted with the forest floor with such force that Horse had momentarily lost his footing and she’d almost been thrown from his back. Naturally, they hadn’t lingered to meet its owner, and Kali had no idea of what kind of creature it was, but it had to be the same creature that was attacking their party now.
“Move, move, move!” Kali shouted, but the command would do their ranks little good.
She stared up into the trees, trying to make out the creature that was attacking, but could see little. In truth, she didn’t really need to see it. It was obvious that for every hundred yards their people could run, a single stride would bring their attacker back into reach. Gabriella DeZantez made the same assessment and unsheathed the Deathclaws in a determined, if futile, attempt to defend herself.
Nor was she the only one. Amongst the group – most of whom were torn between running or standing their ground and fighting – she saw Slowhand flip Suresight from his back and unleash a volley of arrows into the trees above, and Freel snap his whip from his side, eyes narrowed, scanning for a target. Some of the Swords, who had at last pulled themselves together, unsheathed their weapons as the mages unleashed bolts of fire or ice or lightning. Many still panicked or blundered around. The attack had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that with the first swing their battle readiness had been reduced to a complete and utter shambles.
The fist returned, and while the soldiers were ready for it, throwing themselves out of its path in a clattering of weapons and armour, a second fist slammed down on the spot where they moved. There was an explosion of weaponry, bone and gore and the unfortunates were crushed like bugs. Now the creature’s feet pummelled the ground too, stomping onto a growing carpet of crushed bodies. The survivors were not idle, however, Slowhand having fired at least twenty arrows into one of the feet as soon as it appeared, and Freel having lashed out at the wrist of one of the hands with his whip. Neither seemed particularly effective, though. Freel found himself being swung through the trees as the creature tried to rid itself of his weapon. Gabriella, too, was moving, racing at the behemoth to slash at its exposed flesh with the claws, using the corpse of a soldier as a springboard to launch herself into the air, twisting her body as she flew to slash through a briefly exposed forearm and bring forth a rain of blood.
Green blood, Kali noted with horror.
Few creatures that had ever stalked the peninsula had green blood, and there was only one that she knew of that was this size, and it had been extinct as long as the Old Races, primarily because it had been created by one of the Old
Races and used as their pet. Gods, she thought, could that be what they were dealing with here – an elven juggennath? Had it somehow survived here in the Sardenne for all of those countless years? The juggennath was a relentless, all-but-indestructable killing machine without emotion or mercy, and it absolutely would not stop in its efforts to crush them beneath it. They had to get out of here and right now.
It was easier said than done and Kali had difficulty reaching those she needed to warn.
The wound inflicted by Gabriella seemed to have opened an artery in the giant’s arm – serious but not serious enough, apparently, to slow the bastard down – and as it swept back and forth once more, its blood soaked the vegetation and defending ranks, obfuscating and adding to the chaos and carnage unfolding before her eyes. DeZantez wasn’t to have known but one of the more unpleasant aspects of juggennath blood was its corrosive nature, burning and mutilating those it struck. Kali could do little to help those caught in the heat of battle, but grabbed those she could and flung them towards cover. She shrank back from a soldier who wheeled on her, clutching his face, smoke pouring from his helmet as he collapsed to his knees.
“’Liam!” Kali cried, “DeZantez, Freel!”
No response came and, having rescued all those she could, Kali leapt into the fray herself, aware of how pitiful her gutting knife was. All she could hear was the shattering of limbs, the clatter of blades and arrows. But despite all these efforts, there was no respite in the assault at all.
A cry of frustration drew her attention. Gabriella was attempting to pull an injured Sword out of harm’s way, and was too preoccupied to notice the giant hand swinging towards her. In the instant before it struck, however, she saw Kali racing to help her, and for the briefest of moments their eyes locked.
Thanks for trying, DeZantez’s expression seemed to say.
Kali felt each impact of her feet as they thudded onto the forest floor, her legs dragging beneath her, bringing her to a skittering halt, and as a cloud of leaves thrust up in her path she could only cry out and look on in horror at what unfolded.
Gabriella had turned slightly, attempting to throw herself away, but it simply wasn’t enough, and the juggernnath’s swipe caught her on the side. The cracking of bones echoed in Kali’s ears like the shattering of wood. As Gabriella was hurled into the air, Kali heard her armour crumple beneath her surplice. She sailed towards the edge of the glade and slammed into the base of a tree. The Enlightened One’s body crumpled, folding into a grotesque distortion of the human form.
At that point, at last, things seemed to quieten. The ground shook as their attacker retreated into the forest, and the frantic sounds of battle were replaced by the wails and pleas of the injured or dying.
Kali looked slowly around. Though there was no sign of Slowhand or Freel. Gabriella remained where she had fallen and Kali moved to try to help her. The last thing she remembered before rough hands bundled her away was Gabriella’s face, blood trailing from her mouth, staring at her once more.
But this time the Enlightened One’s head lolled to the side and her eyes grew dim.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GODSDAMMIT, GODSDAMMIT, GODSDAMMIT!
Kali hunched in the roots of the bajijal tree, hugging her knees, sucking in deep breaths. She ignored the look from Jakub Freel, the only other survivor of the assault and the one who’d pulled her from the melee. Now here they were beneath this overgrown pot plant – hiding, dammit, hiding – and while Freel’s look was concerned rather than accusing, as far as Kali was concerned it didn’t matter an ogur’s turd. The Faith enforcer had enlisted her to help him sort out this whole mess and instead she’d managed to turn it into even more of a mess, and people were dead as a result. There was no two ways about it. Freel had put his trust in her and she’d farked up badly.
Pits, she had been stupid. Fitch, Gabriella and, gods knew, even Slowhand. How many had died in the last hour? How many more lay maimed in the undergrowth, never to be found again or, worse, found by something they couldn’t imagine in their darkest nightmares? Gods, she had become embroiled in this whole affair because, for just a while, she had wanted to forget about how she’d endangered the lives of Dolorosa, Aldrededor and the rest, and now she hadn’t just endangered lives but ended them. Oh yeah, ‘stupid’ was the word. Stupid to expose the uninitiated to the Sardenne. Stupid to have become self-obsessed and let her guard down. Stupid to have thought she could even start to second guess an elven psychopath who had been preparing for these moments since the towering trees about her were striplings.
“Your friend the archer said there is usually a moment like this.” Jakub Freel said.
“What?” Kali asked, without much interest.
“Crisis. Doubt. A stage in every one of your adventures when you feel you have failed and let down all who placed trust in you. A moment when you freeze, impotent, scared, feeling like a lost little girl...”
Kali flinched, Freel’s words hitting close to home, but looked up indignantly.
“Slowhand’s been talking about me?”
“I asked him whether he thought you were truly capable of doing this. He answered.”
Kali bridled. “You sought me out. I guess you must think so.”
“Oh, I do. But it isn’t what I think – it’s what your friends think.”
“Slowhand might be dead, for all I know. Does it matter anymore what he thinks?”
“I think so. Especially when he says that after moments like these you invariably pick yourself up, dust yourself down and... make it up as you go along.”
“Make it up as I go along,” Kali repeated, looking to the skies. “Not a phrase that inspires much confidence today, is it?”
“Maybe not. But doing so, I am told you almost always succeed.” Freel sighed. “Tell me, Miss Hooper, are you going to make a liar out of your friend?”
Kali stared at him. What is it about this man? She wondered. She’d seen from the start how different he was to Konstantin Munch, but it was more than just the way in which he approached the job he’d inherited. There was a confidence about him, a way with words, a bearing that made him difficult to dismiss. In a way she wasn’t surprised that Slowhand had opened up the way he had.
“Are you playing mind games with me?”
“Is it working?”
Kali bit her lip. Things so far had gone badly against plan, but there were always other possibilities that might yet succeed, and didn’t she owe it to the dead to see if they did?
“Freel, do you truly understand what we’re up against? Things could get ugly.”
“Miss Hooper, ‘ugly’ is my middle name.”
Kali laughed, despite herself. “That sounds just like something Slowhand would say.”
“Maybe he and I are more alike than you think.”
“Opposite sides of the same coin?”
“Precisely.”
Kali raised her eyes to Freel’s, half expecting to see a smile. But if there had been one, it had already faded. Her gaze returned to the enforcer’s hand, and she drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and then slapped her palm solidly into his, allowing herself to be hauled to her feet.
“For Slowhand,” she said.
Kali and Freel were no sooner upright than they froze again. While they had been talking, a number of shapes had detached from the roots around them, Kali didn’t need to hear the dry cracking of their joints to recognise some of the forest’s nastier progeny. Her heart lurched as the stick-like predators unfolded, drawing themselves up to their full height, and the cracking came, like the breaking of baby’s bones, from six of them in all.
“What in the name of the Lord...?” Freel breathed.
“They’re called brackan,” Kali said. “They’re tough, fast and –”
Kali didn’t finish. Three of the brackan hurled themselves at her and three at Freel, though one was instantly decapitated by his chain whip. As its body flailed blindly in the confines of the bajijal roots, the enforcer yelled at
Kali to duck and spun in a full circle, scything over Kali’s head and slicing two more of the brackan in half. The remaining brackan slammed into the pair of them, flattening them to the ground. Kali and Freel struggled beneath the creatures, rolling from side to side to dodge their sharp, pointed, jabbing limbs, and trying to ignore the fact that the brackan Freel had already incapacitated were even now splintering and regrowing.
“You were trying to say?” Freel growled.
“A pain in the arse,” Kali growled back. She stabbed at her attacker with her gutting knife.
“Not much help,” Freel went on. He gasped in pain as the brackan broke through his defence, gouging a thick red runnel down his cheek. “They must have a weakness!”
“Oh, they do, they do,” Kali gasped. “Unfortunately, we’re a little out of –”
“Fire?” A voice said.
Two flaming arrows thudded into the backs of the brackan and suddenly the things rolled over, desperately defending. Not that it did much good, their panicked flailing setting fire to the others in turn, transforming all of them into thrashing torches. Kali and Freel booted the brackan off them and backed out of the bajijal roots, soot-streaked but otherwise unharmed. Their weapons remained cautiously trained but the brackan began to break apart, collapsing into a pile of burning wood. Kali and Freel watched as a dishevelled, tall, blond figure walked to the fire’s side, sat, and casually began to roast a chunk of meat skewered on the end of a dagger.
“Hells of a morning,” Killiam Slowhand said.
“Nice shots,” Kali responded. “Is that breakfast?”
“Mmm. How you doing, Hooper?” As an afterthought, he added, “Freel.”
Jakub Freel waved away the offer of a piece of meat which Kali then took and devoured.
“You two don’t seem particularly shocked to see each other,” he commented.
“Oh, you’d be surprised how we keep popping up together.”
Freel’s expression became more serious. “Other survivors?”
