Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  Stomping ground. Never was a phrase more appropriate, because Kali felt her prey before she saw it, vibrations in the forest floor that resonated in her bones.

  Kali moved forward cautiously, weaving her way through the undergrowth. The trees thrashed and snapped back and forth, as if caught in the throes of a violent storm, but the sky above was clear of clouds. Abruptly, the air was split by a series of angry, deafening roars.

  She eased her way to a clearing ahead.

  Kali had been presuming that the creature that had attacked their party had been a juggennath, she had been calling it a juggennath, and it certainly smelt like she imagined a juggennath should smell, but it was only now, setting eyes fully upon on it that she really appreciated what a juggennath was.

  Legend had it that the elves had grown six of these creatures in huge vats. They were unnatural, undying behemoths nurtured of thousands of gallons of offal, sinew, hide and bone, the mashings of huge creatures, individually terrifying, who roamed the peninsula long ago. Elven alchemists had grown them with one purpose – to empty the battlefields of the dwarves they had fought in the oldest of the wars. It was said that the six could reduce a line of ten thousand men to a bloody smear. Armoured in spiked metal plates, shaped over vast anvils, and armed with stone hammers hewn in blocks higher than a man, they were said to be unstoppable, and only by choosing their battlefield cleverly – in a place known as the Hollow Fields – had the dwarves eventually rid the world of their destructive blight. The abyssal caverns of the Fields, lying beneath thin layers of topsoil and roots, had swallowed even the juggennaths whole, and the dwarves had given those caverns a name, too – in dwarven, Yan’Tuk – which in human speak meant something roughly along the lines of ‘Up Yours’.

  Okay, Kali had never been sure about that last bit. But she liked it.

  Clearly, though, one juggennath had survived. The thick, heavy mass that blocked her view was its legs. She craned her neck as far back as it would go, past legs the width of redwood trunks and a torso the size of a small hill, to a head and shoulders as high as the treeline, if not above.

  The only thing that Kali could think was, no wonder the dwarves wanted rid of them.

  Well, that was precisely why she was here, wasn’t it? But before she made a move she needed to work out a route.

  Kali studied the juggennath further. On a colossal scale, the creature resembled the primates of the higher World’s Ridge Mountains – the ogur, for example – and was covered almost entirely in hair, muscular arms and legs concealed by the thick and straggly coat. In places jagged sections of rusted and tarnished metal clung to its body, some pieces still bearing the remains of the spikes that had once covered it. They would come in handy. The remains of some of her party were strung and slung about its massive frame, at least thirty men and women bounced lifelessly against the juggennath as it shifted, and whether they were worn for decoration or for food, Kali almost turned away seeing the state they were in.

  She had seen what she needed, and was ready. All she had to wait for now was for the juggennath to move again.

  It did so, the trees and branches about it thrashing and breaking as a wave of shrikes and razorbeaks circled its head, at least twenty of them taking it in turns to dart at the giant figure as it flailed against their attacks. The giant batted them out of the air but there was no way it could stop them all, and they dived for its flesh, returning with chunks of bloody flesh and matted hair held in their beaks. The juggennath roared in irritation and frustration, the wounds insignificant, but the attacks had clearly been going on for some time – and the reason that they had commenced them was, she believed, the same reason that the rest of the wildlife had emerged from its cover in the forest. For the first time in its impossibly long life, the juggennath had been injured – slashed by Gabriella DeZantez and the Deathclaws – and the great beast that had so far held dominion over them had seemed weak, as they had smelled its blood.

  Kali almost felt sorry for the ancient creature, the bemused beast once king of its domain, but there was little she could do to help it. Wouldn’t have helped if she could, in fact. She was banking on the distraction to make the next part of her plan easier.

  She had to act quickly.

  If the juggennath decided to flee its tormentors, went pounding off deeper into the Sardenne, she might never catch it again.

  It was time to hitch a ride.

  Kali burst from the treeline and raced across the glade. She made it with only a couple of minor scratches into the shadow of the juggennath itself. Only one, particularly persistent brackan tried to take a slice out of her, but with a running twist she managed to manoeuvre it into the path of a hackfire toad and, with a cheery wave, it was goodnight stickface. This done, she threw herself upwards with a grunt, grabbing two fistfuls of the matted hair on the giant’s legs. She hauled herself up onto the limb proper and took as firm a purchase as she could, the giant pounding about the glade in its efforts to defend itself, and was flung to the left and the right like a small doll, but she gradually scaled the phenomenal creature. Kali doubted that the giant even recognised her presence.

  Kali rose higher and higher, aiding her climb with a couple of somersaults from spike to spike, and at last she found herself on its shoulder, headed for the neck and clung onto the nape as she might cling to an exposed rockface. There, she took a breath.

  Before she could move further, Kali found herself snatched from the juggennath’s neck by one of its giant hands, swung around to the front of the creature and held before its face. If, that was, it could be called a face. She had never actually considered what a juggennath saw if it shaved in a morning. There was no nose or mouth as such, only a twitching orifice where both should be, and above that a single, bar-shaped eye that stretched almost across its forehead from left to right, giving it a perpetual frown.

  “Gods, you’re ugly.”

  Kali struggled in the giant’s grip as she stared into its looming eye, and wondered why everything had gone suddenly quiet, the attacking shrikes and razorbeaks gone. Then she realised that the eye, previously a feral brown, had become as white and dull as those of the soul-stripped, so that she felt as if she were held before a cold, snow-filled sky. Whatever intelligence the juggennath possessed – and Kali suspected it wasn’t much – seemed to have been replaced by another.

  The fist of the juggennath tightened ever so slightly around her.

  “Who are you, girl?” A voice boomed. “What are you doing in my forest?”

  The voice was arrogant, cold and cruel. Bastian Redigor, it seemed, was introducing himself.

  “Hello, Baz,” Kali said. “You don’t mind being called Baz, I hope?”

  “I asked you a question. What do you want?”

  “Er, world peace? A cure for the hic? No – how about an all-over tan?”

  The fist tightened.

  “Okay, okay, just breaking the ice.” Kali leaned forward and peered into vast orifice. “Dark and smelly in there, huh?”

  “I am not here, stupid child. This beast is but a means of communication.”

  Kali rolled her eyes and tutted. “Farking hell, I know that, elf. I should have known the Ur’Raney would have no sense of humour.”

  Redigor laughed. “So you know who I am. Would it surprise you to know that I, in turn, know who you are... Kali Hooper?”

  Actually it did, but Kali didn’t let it show. Maybe there was something in what Fitch had said about Redigor’s gaze being so penetrating it could read minds. She concentrated on keeping her true thoughts – and plans – to herself.

  “I see the little girl, wide-eyed with stories that I would come for you,” Redigor went on. “I sense the fear, the desire to run and curl beneath the bed...”

  “Forget it, Redigor. I wasn’t afraid then, I’m not afraid now.”

  “I would not say that. I can feel your sweat leaking onto this creature’s pores.”

  “You sure it’s my sweat?” Redigor’s laught
er was a rumble this time. “Listen, Puce Lord or whatever your name is, I’ve been in tighter spots.”

  “Really?”

  The juggennath’s grip tightened suddenly, not enough to crush her but enough to squeeze all of the breath from her lungs. She had no doubt that Redigor could have crushed her had he wished, but was enjoying playing with her. Knowing his predilections she wouldn’t be surprised if the immense fingers of the giant he controlled soon started to peel away her clothes.

  “I ask you again,” Redigor’s disembodied voice said. “What are you doing in my forest?”

  “I’ve come to stop a dirty old man returning his perverted rule to my world.”

  “Bel’A’Gon’Shri is sealed and the exchange will soon begin. And I hardly think you are in any position to stop it.”

  “No? You don’t know me very well, do you?”

  Kali suddenly rammed her gutting knife into the tender flesh of the juggennath’s palm and, with a roar of pain, the creature opened its hand. She had gambled on the fact that, even though Redigor was ostensibly in control of the mammoth creature, its reaction to pain would remain instinctive. Of course, she’d hoped that the giant’s grip would simply loosen enough to allow her escape from it, and hadn’t expected to be dropped.

  Time to improvise.

  As the juggennath’s other hand swept around to swat her from existence, Kali twisted in mid-air, booting herself away from it, and once more found herself heading towards the hairy hide of the beast, somewhere about its midriff. She struck, clung, and began another slow climb.

  She didn’t want to know what it was she was climbing up and as she ascended the thick, matted hair she instead concentrated on what mattered – that it was getting her where she needed to go. One way or another she had Bastian Redigor by the short and curlies, and when she had finally returned herself to the juggennath’s neck she told him so, whispering into the beast’s ear, “Redigor, I’m coming.”

  Kali heaved herself up on top of the living mountain, avoiding its hands. She leaned forward, holding her gutting knife in both hands, and plunged it viciously into the creature’s eye. Vitreous humour spurted forth and the creature reacted once more as she had hoped.

  Roaring and slapping at the eye, the juggennath staggered forward in the direction from which the pain had come, seeking out the cause and attempting to crush it. There was, of course, nothing there, and Kali had already flipped herself away. She dangled, now, on a length of hair by the left side of the beast’s head, and after a few seconds kicked herself around and delivered another blow with her knife, this time to the juggennath’s cheek. Again, it roared, turning to identify its new attacker, but once more there was nothing there. As the beast lurched forward, she did a quick calculation, working out that only one more application of the knife would be needed to get the creature to go where she wished it to go, and then she could effectively sit back and enjoy the ride.

  Kali returned to its head and this time used the fringe of the beast to drop herself down until she dangled directly in front of its eye. The blinded eye had reverted to a natural state, a sign that Redigor had departed his host, most likely in response to the pain. That suited her needs perfectly. Glancing behind her to double check that she, and more importantly the creature itself, were on the course she wanted, Kali rammed her gutting knife into the eyeball once more.

  The creature roared louder than ever, scaring away those of its predators that still remained in the nearby undergrowth, and charged through the forest, swatting its great hands before it as it did, trying to locate and remove its tormentor. Kali, however, was once again, gone, perched now just above the beast’s forehead like a driver. From that position she occasionally jabbed her knife into the wrinkled flesh of its brow, reminding it, when needed, of where she wanted it to go. Then the first of the traps she had laid became visible just before its stomping feet, and just before the rampaging beast triggered it, Kali wished herself luck and hung on tight.

  The trap caused the beast no pain, of course, but it roared anyway, this time in confusion, as Kali’s meticulously arranged vines wrapped themselves around its feet, throwing it off balance. The trap was not enough to bring it down, of course, but it was enough to send the giant stumbling blindly and out of control further through the forest and towards the second trap she had laid. This one was strung at a different height to the first, and this time the tension in the vines turned it as well, sending it careening to her goal. Kali tightened her grip on the giant’s matted hair as it slammed through the trees surrounding it. She could make out the remaining traps ahead of them and, beyond those, the gorge that led towards the necropolis.

  She couldn’t help but yell out loud – “go, boy, go!” – as the juggennath impacted with her next trap, this one designed to catch the giant at the waist, throwing off its centre of gravity.

  Kali suddenly found herself atop a rampaging mountain that could not stop itself from flailing forward, a victim of its own momentum. The last two traps she had lain came into their own now. As the giant stumbled into the complex arrangement of crossed vines, breaking each with a sound like a musket shot, the branches and, in one case, log that Kali had secured in place sprang from their lairs and struck the juggennath full on, slapping it forward. The giant roared in protest and confusion, brain unable to register what was happening in such swift succession, flailing all the more.

  Perfect, Kali thought from her position at the creature’s summit. All she needed to wait for now was the final trap and she could be off, leaving nature – and gravity specifically – to take its course.

  The Juggennath broke through the thorn barrier surrounding Bel’A’Gon’Shri, and was in the gorge leading to the necropolis’s front door. From her height Kali could actually see the stone slab ahead of them. She encouraged the Juggennath once more, ramming her knife into what remained of its eyeball. As the giant beast roared in pain she saw two tiny figures on top of the necropolis – Freel and Slowhand – turn at the sound.

  The Juggennath staggered forward and Kali counted down the seconds until it triggered the trap.

  If she did say so herself, there was no doubt that she had saved the best for last.

  As the two tensioned vines stretched across the gorge floor were snapped by the Juggennath’s staggering feet, a complex series of weights and counterweights were set rapidly in motion, and the two overhanging trees that Kali had tied back using ropes and pulleys sprang out from the gorge wall and slapped it hard in the back, somewhere in the region of each shoulderblade. Flung forward, the Juggennath roared and swung its mighty arms, trying to regain its balance, but its enforced momentum had already tipped its centre of gravity, and its mass was far too great to recover from such a complication in time to save it from its inevitable fall. It careened forward head-first, the heavy and uncontrolled pounding of its feet travelling up its body and shaking Kali to the bone, and she knew it was time to leave. She turned away from the eye and began to scramble down the back of the beast’s neck, then unexpectedly flipped forward with a yelp, suddenly halted in her flight.

  What the hells? She thought, and twisted her body, struggling to look above and behind her.

  She saw that her foot had become entangled in a knot of the Juggennath’s hair and she was now dangling from it like some kind of decoration.

  Oh, that was great. Just great. Just farking great. How many seconds did she have before her plan came to fruition? Three? Two? One?

  Roaring herself now, Kali flipped herself upward, tugged at the constraining mass of hair and then, realising she could not get free, instead heaved herself around the side of the Juggennath’s neck as far as she could go.

  One, in fact.

  The last thing she saw with any clarity were the figures of Slowhand and Freel on the upper lip of the sealed entrance to Bel’A’Gon’Shri, their mouths agape. Then she saw the two of them throw themselves out the way.

  By an odd coincidence, her cry echoed their own.

 
“Ohhhhhh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...”

  The Juggennath struck the sealed entrance to the necropolis like a battering ram, cracking the thick stone. For a moment it seemed that that might be it, that the slab would give no further, but the Juggennath’s vicious spikes had embedded themselves in it. Clinging still to its neck, having at last managed to kick loose from its hair, Kali felt the Juggennath strain and lurch as the spider-web cracks widened and the slab crumbled before it. The Juggennath let out a last great roar of pain and protest and fell through the gap, hitting the floor with a force that rocked the very foundations of the necropolis. The Juggennath tried to pick itself up, but the remnants of the broken slab broke free and crashed onto its helpless form. It seemed unlikely that it would rise again.

  A dusty, coughing figure picked itself up from next to the crushed, bloodied mass and stared into the darkness ahead. It wasn’t exactly how she’d planned to make her entrance admittedly but, what the hells, the end result was the same. She’d promised Redigor she was coming and here she was.

  “Knock, knock,” Kali growled.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE FIRST THING Kali noticed as she moved into Bel’A’Gon’Shri was how old the necropolis felt. It wasn’t the usual sense of age she experienced when finding Old Race sites, but a feeling that she had somehow stepped backwards in time – not into the past exactly, but certainly out of the present. It was as if, when the place had been built, it had somehow clung onto its time and never been willing to let go.

  Her world seemed suddenly far away and she was therefore grateful to see Slowhand and Jakub Freel silhouetted in the entrance, descending together on one of the archer’s whizzlines. The pair climbed over the debris to join her.

  “Quite the entrance,” Freel commented.

  “That?” Slowhand countered. “You should have seen how she got into the Hoard of the Har’An’Di.”