Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  From their prone positions on the floor, Dolorosa and Aldrededor cast worried glances at each other, knowing full well what this was about. The bastards were finally coming after those near and dear to Kali, presumably in an attempt to flush her out. It wasn’t for themselves they looked worried, however, but for the innocents in the bar – Peter, Hetty and the rest – whose only connection to Kali was to provide her with a cheery welcome home after one of her adventures. They didn’t deserve to be treated this way.

  “The old man and woman, these others,” Aldrededor pointed out, “know nothing. Let them go.”

  Morg smiled coldly and stepped off the stairs so that he towered over the Sarcrean.

  “If I let one old man go, then I would have to let another go, too,” he said, clearly referring to Aldrededor. He sneered. “Along with his ancient crone of a wife.”

  Dolorosa spat on his feet.

  “Calm, my darling,” Aldrededor soothed. He stared up at their captor, touching the sword held at his throat. “Do you intend to execute us, is that it? Send a message to Kali Hooper?”

  “Then you do not deny your association with the outlaw?”

  “Would there be much point?”

  “Not really.”

  Two other Swords of Dawn entered the tavern. “The perimeter of the property is secure, sir. No sign of further insurgents.”

  “You have checked all of the outbuildings?”

  “All apart from the stables, sir. They seem to be locked.”

  “Then unlock them, man!”

  “We tried, sir, but the lock is strange. Inscribed with patterns.”

  Morg’s eyes narrowed and he grabbed Aldrededor’s chin and forced it up. “Runes. What do you keep in the stables?”

  “What do you normally keep in stables, Gregory Morg?”

  “Behind a rune-inscribed lock?”

  Aldrededor grinned widely. “We stable some rare breeds.”

  “The bamfcat. If it’s here, the girl may be close by. Shatter that lock and slay anything within.”

  “Horse isn’t here,” Aldrededor said. “Neither is Kali Hooper.”

  “We shall see. As for our captives,” Morg said, “bring the wagons.”

  “Wagons?” Aldrededor repeated.

  Morg smiled. “You’ll all be taking a little trip. Relocated, as it were.”

  “Interesting,” Aldrededor commented. “I hope somewhere sunny.”

  “My ’usband,” Dolorosa whispered urgently in his ear, “we cannot allow ourselves to be taken, and we cannot allow them into the stables.”

  “I know this, my lovepeach,” Aldrededor responded through still grinning teeth. “Be patient.”

  Dolorosa looked about herself, confused. What was her husband on about, patient? They all of them had swords at their throats and as far as she could see there was no immediate way out of this predicament. Then her eyes caught sight of what Aldrededor had obviously been referring to. While the rest of them had simply dropped their weapons her husband had managed to conceal his. The crackstaff was perched at an angle between the flaps of the bar and, what was more, remained charged, crackling softly to itself, out of sight. Dolorosa did not fully understand these strange devices but one thing she did know was that, if left idle like this, the crackstaff would eventually purge itself of pent-up energy.

  There was going to be a bang.

  “Everybody,” she said, meaning her own people, “I suggest you sticka your heads between your knees.”

  Regulars and Swords alike looked at Dolorosa questioningly, but it was already too late.

  From the tip of the crackstaff erupted a bolt of darting, twisting blue energy that blew the flaps off the bar and struck a Sword who had the bad luck to be standing in its way. The energy bolt tore through his body armour into his chest, exposing the white bone of his sternum. He was punched into the air, slamming into and smashing another of the tavern’s windows. The flaps, meanwhile, both solid chunks of wood the size of sewer grates, blew to the left and the right in an explosion of splinters, hitting two more of the Swords, decapitating one and shattering the sword arm of another. These men, or what remained of them, flailed into their own, and in the chaos that ensued Aldrededor and the others made their moves.

  The swarthy Sarcrean pushed his captor from him, leapt and rolled back over the bar, then snatched the crackstaff from where it now lay on the floor. He discharged it into the face of a Sword who tried to follow. Dolorosa used far more primitive but no less effective weapons, snatching her twin blades from beneath her and simultaneously thrusting them back and up, hissing in satisfaction as she felt them puncture flesh. As she rolled from beneath the Sword’s collapsing body, she booted Red’s club over to where the giant poacher could grab it. As he bent to do so, a Sword who tried to stop him found himself with a new and unique perspective on life as Red’s club swung round solidly, knocking his head permanently sideways.

  Dolorosa snatched a glance at Morg, whom she noticed had retreated a few risers back up the stairs from where he watched the battle with narrowed eyes, and then at her husband, who was sweating and grinning as much as she.

  “Justa like the old days on the sheep!” she declared and, though it showed her skull and crossbone bloomers for all to see, couldn’t resist bounding onto and from a table, using a curtain as she might a sail to swing out across the room and boot two more of their captors in the face and off their feet. She landed on the bar and from there urged on Red and Ronin. The giant first swung his nailed club up between the legs of another Sword, and then grabbed the poor unfortunate by the neck, racing him across the tavern to ram his head into the bragging box, where he collapsed twitching and screaming, stung by whatever was inside. Ronin, for his part, moved through the Swords with his hammer swinging in a blur, forcing all before him to dodge or duck the momentum of the heavy blacksmithing tool. Even Hetty Scrubb and Pete Two-Ties helped out, the former reducing one Sword to a spasming heap by blowing him a faceful of her latest herbal concoction, while Pete confounded another by more intellectual means.

  “Stop!” he shouted, as the Sword was about to bring the hilt of his weapon down on him. The Sword was surprised enough to do so. “I half faint, sorting out these idiots!”

  “What?” the Sword said, bemused.

  “Anagram!” Pete emphasised, punching a finger at the cryptosquare in the newssheet he held. “Five, five…”

  “What the fark are you talking about, old man?”

  Pete rammed the rolled up newssheet into the Sword’s eye, causing a cry of pain. “The answer’s ‘Final Faith’ you moron,” he announced.

  It wasn’t the deadliest of attacks but it served its purpose. Pete slipped by him while the Sword stumbled against the wall clutching his face.

  Slowly, he and the others fought their way to the exit, Aldrededor providing covering fire with the crackstaff as they moved. Furniture, glassware and ornaments were shattered or sent flying from the blasts, and Aldrededor comforted Dolorosa as she watched the inside of her beloved tavern blown apart. Both knew there was no choice in the matter, however, as their first priority was to protect what was within the stables, to say nothing of their friends. But as they, the last to back out, emerged from the door of the Flagons, they noticed an unexpected quiet in the courtyard behind them.

  Both ex-pirates turned slowly. Their friends were lined up before more Swords, weapons once more at their throats. Behind the line of prisoners two barred prison carriages stood waiting.

  The regulars of the Flagons stared at them apologetically.

  “Sheet,” Dolorosa said.

  A slow crunching from the doorway of the tavern heralded the reappearance of Gregory Morg as he walked slowly out to them. He took the knives and crackstaff from their hands.

  “What do you think this is?” he said. “A game?”

  For the first time, Morg hefted his own weapon, a cruel looking battleaxe that had been slung on his back. He walked to the line of prisoners, considering each but
then choosing one seemingly at random. He nodded to the Sword holding Fester Grimlock and, as he moved away, span with a roar and sliced the battleaxe up through Fester’s torso. The merchant was thrown off his feet, twisting in the air with the force of the impact, and when his already dead body landed with a thud, his innards were forcefully spewed from his body in a glistening, steaming heap.

  Hetty gagged, while the rest of the regulars railed ineffectually against their captors.

  “Bastardo,” Dolorosa said slowly.

  “Any further resistance and I kill another of you,” Morg said, reslinging his weapon. The murder of Fester Grimlock had meant nothing to him.

  Dolorosa studied the mercenary, and Aldrededor smiled as she spoke. His beloved had always possessed a keen tactical mind. “It is my guess that we are being taken as some kind offa insurance, yes?” she said, nodding at the wagons. “A deterrent against our Kali acting against Jakuba Freel. If that issa the case, I doubt he woulda be very pleased if he discovered you had keeled any of us, hmm? Or arra you going to prove me wrong?”

  Morg’s eyes narrowed and he sighed.

  “Put them in the wagons,” he said to his men. “I’m going to take a look at this mysterious locked stable of theirs.”

  Again, Aldrededor and Dolorosa shot each other a glance, trying, and failing, to work out a way of stopping him. It was obvious that what they needed was some kind of diversion but what was not so obvious was who provided it.

  Hetty Scrubb nodded at them, then mouthed for them to be ready to get the hells out of there. The ex-pirates’ eyebrows rose – neither had been aware that the perpetually high herbalist even knew they had something to protect.

  Puzzled, they watched as Ronin, Red, Jurgen, Pete and finally Hetty were bundled into one of the wagons, its barred door slammed shut behind them. They shot a glance at Morg, who was fiddling with the rune lock on the stable door, and then were themselves ushered to a wagon. Whatever it was Hetty had in mind, they hoped she would do it quickly.

  She did.

  Just as Aldrededor and Dolorosa were about to be bundled into darkness, the rear of Hetty’s wagon began to pour smoke, a cloud so thick and cloying it immediately threw the Swords surrounding it into confusion.

  “Fire!” one yelled, but Dolorosa knew better than that. This was Hetty’s special pipe in action, the one she’d been forced to ban from the Flagons, and if anything was going to take the Swords’ minds off things, this was it.

  Aldrededor and Dolorosa took their cue, racing through the black hallucinogenic cloud of while the Swords battled to re-open the wagon and extinguish the pipe. They met Morg half way. The mercenary made an immediate angry dash for the two of them and, while Aldrededor steeled himself for a confrontation, Dolorosa shoved him on, rolling up her own sleeves instead.

  “I will ’andle thees. You do what you ’ave to do.”

  “My wife,” Aldrededor protested, “this is not some errant customer you are dealing with, Morg is a dangerous man.”

  “And it is a long time since I have had the pleasure of keeling one. Now, do as I say, ’usband!”

  The Sarcrean was about to protest further but it was too late, battle joined.

  Before Morg could make a move on him, Dolorosa pivoted on her right leg, skirt flying, and delivered a roundhouse kick that sent the mercenary staggering back, snarling at a bloodied lip. It took Morg only a moment to recover and come at her, but Dolorosa was ready once more, meeting him with a flying kick that again sent the man staggering, this time flat on his back. As his wife roared and raced in with the intention of keeping Morg down, Aldrededor made the sign of the gods and left her to it, heading for the locked stable door. Where it had proven problematic for Morg and his men, however, it was nothing for the ex-pirate. As the sounds of confrontation continued behind him the lock fell away before a series of rapid and deft gestures. The stable door creaked open and Aldrededor span back to face Dolorosa.

  “Hurry, my darling. We have –”

  The Sarcrean’s words dwindled into silence as he saw Morg had proven himself the better after all. He held Dolorosa in a neck lock, her back pressed against his front. The love of his life no longer looked furious or determined, only ashamed and defeated – and somehow old. Older than she had ever looked to him before.

  Time, he reflected, was indeed catching up with them.

  “Dolorosa…” he breathed, and then, to Morg, hoping that his wife had been right. “You will not kill her.”

  Morg smiled coldy. “Perhaps not, Sarcrean. But if you do not surrender, I can and I will do almost as much…”

  “Aldrededor,” Dolorosa hissed. “You must go.”

  “Not without you, my wife.”

  “My ’usband,” Dolorosa insisted, eyeing the shadows beyond the stable door. “You know what is at stake – go.”

  Morg’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “What exactly is at stake, old man? I warn you, don’t make a move.”

  Aldrededor’s eyes flicked from Morg to Dolorosa, lingering long and hard over his wife’s distressed face. But as their eyes met and he held her gaze he knew she was right. What he should have known, after Fester’s death, what that Morg would not hesitate to act.

  Morg made good on his threat. Without any further warning, he shoved Dolorosa out in front of him and, as she stood there looking confused, two sharp blades – her own sharp blades – were thrust suddenly through her. Dolorosa stiffened, her eyes widened and, as the projecting lengths of the blades glistened with blood in the light of the sun, she made a sound that was not unfamiliar to Aldrededor but was nevertheless horribly strange.

  “Heeeeeeeeeee…”

  “DOLOROSA!”

  “A crone as scrawny as this,” Morg said, “she’s lucky I missed the vital organs. She will, though, bleed to death unless I grant her medical attention. Now, old man, why don’t you show me exactly what’s in that stable?”

  Aldrededor was about to do exactly that, caring about nothing other than getting help for his wife, when Dolorosa vigorously shook her head. The act clearly caused her great pain.

  “Aldy,” she said, in a guttural voice, “do what I said. ’E will not let me die.”

  Aldrededor swallowed rapidly. “I cannot take that chance.”

  “You must. They cannot get their ’ands on the sheep.”

  It would have been funny, had it not been so true, and Aldrededor knew it.

  “If my wife dies,” he growled at Morg, “there will be no place you will be safe, no sanctuary you can hide in or shield you can cower behind. I will hunt you down, I will find you, and then and I will kill you.”

  “Lika thees,” Dolorosa muttered weakly.

  Aldrededor stared at her wavering smile, swallowed again, and immediately turned. He was inside the stables and slamming the door shut behind him before Morg could make another move. The rune-inscribed lock re-configured itself.

  “You and you, get this woman in the wagon,” Morg snarled to his men, who had just relieved Hetty of her pipe and were working their way through what remained of the smoke. “The rest of you,” he added, releasing Dolorosa’s body and slamming his fist on the doors of the stables, “raze this thing to the ground.”

  Morg’s men responded, and within a minute they had gathered torches and surrounded the stable. The soft thrumming of the flames of their torches was, however, drowned out from a growing sound from within the stable’s walls – a thrumming again, but this time one which made their heads ache and was quite clearly caused by something other than fire.

  “What in the name of the Lord of All?” one of the Swords muttered.

  The roof of the stables suddenly began to rise upwards, not from any mechanism designed to make it do so but from the sheer force and pressure of something rising inside. As the roof broke apart in broad splinters, the walls, too, began to press outward as if the something inside were turning slowly as it rose. The walls began to fall away like discarded cards.

  Bowing to
these pressures, the entire stable exploded outward and something rose from its ruin, a sleek flying shape the length of three carts, that then hovered in the sky. An uncountable number of black vents flapped on its side, shiny and looking like the shifting of reptilian skin, and on the underside of its hull, orange orbs pulsed.

  The Swords, even Morg, staggered back. But Dolorosa, being dragged to captivity, caught a glimpse of her husband at the flying thing’s helm and smiled. Seeing the repaired Tharnak airborne once more, she watched as it hung there for a second, acknowledging her, before banking gracefully and disappearing above the rooftop of the Flagons.

  Morg stared after it, his lip curling in anger. He stared at the Flagons and then at his men.

  “Burn it. Burn it all.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE RED CHAPTER’S cull of Kali’s friends was swift and simultaneous. Their targets tracked by Eyes of the Lord, squads of Freel’s mercenaries struck across the peninsula at the same time Gregory Morg raided the Here There Be Flagons.

  Exiting the Three Towers in Andon, on his way to a certain club in the Skeleton Quays for an engagement he hoped he couldn’t get out of, Poul Sonpear spotted a number of spherical shadows scudding about his own as he progressed down the alley he used as a short cut. He immediately dropped into phase, thinking himself safe in the half realm accessible only to members of the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige, and was somewhat surprised to be joined there by four black-clad figures – shadowmages, by the look of them. Sonpear began to muster defensive spells – skull shield, ball of immunity, flash – but his assailants were ready for him. One countercasted with slow, another with silence, while the final two physically wrestled him against a wall, restraining him while a scrambling collar was clamped around his neck.

  Sonpear recognised the collar as proscribed technology, Old Race, and as he felt its effects numbing his faculties, his mind raced. Why was he being targeted? Who were these men? What did they want? There was only one possible answer, and he tried, but failed, to send a telepathic warning to the one person with whom he maintained a permanent link. The message that would never be sent was, Kali, they’re coming for us…