Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  The second close call came immediately afterwards. Kali was about to salute the small sphere as it sailed away into the sky, but with her hand half in the air noticed she’d been targeted by three bowmen who had come out of nowhere. Their weapons primed, their arrows aimed directly at her heart, there was no way even she could avoid them. Then, suddenly, all three flew backwards into the air, as if they themselves had been hit in the chest by arrows, and crashed away behind a ridge into oblivion. At first Kali thought Poul Sonpear had been released from his scrambling collar and had despatched her assailants with projectiles of his own summoning, but then she saw that one of Pim’s people was still trying to free him from the restraint and there was no way he could have done what she had thought.

  Strange.

  Kali turned, wading back into battle, and found herself joining what was effectively an advancing line consisting of Pim and his men, Brundle, the Brogmas and herself. All of the separate skirmishes were over and all that was left was a retreating line of the survivors of Redigor’s forces. Those that put up any resistance were swiftly taken care of by the whirring blades or swinging flails of the Brogmas, and those that didn’t – or decided there and then that they really shouldn’t – began to stumble away in shock. Brundle raised his axe to behead one in front of him but Kali stayed his hand. They’d surrendered; let them live.

  Unfortunately, Redigor had other ideas. Whether as a demonstration of his dissatisfaction with these men or of his last line of defence, each of them transformed before Kali’s eyes into a cloud of dust, the result of the crackling strands of energy fired from the clifftop by the Pale Lord’s shadowmages. Redigor himself stood, as he had throughout the battle, with his back to them, still engaged in whatever business he was conducting through the Hel’ss Spawn, but it was clear that a part of him was still controlling the proceedings.

  Proceedings that, one way or another, were about to come to an end.

  The six shadowmages stood steadfast before Kali and the advancing party. Their balled fists crackled with an energy more powerful than she had ever seen. It arced between them, across their line, forming an ever intensifying curtain of blue. It made her brain hurt.

  “This could be a problem,” Brundle said.

  The shadowmages flipped backwards, as if hit by arrows, disappearing over the cliff.

  “Or not.”

  “What the hells?” Kali said. She looked behind her for the source of the attack. Nothing.

  “Does it matter?” Brundle growled. “We have the bastard now.”

  “Not we,” Kali said. “He’s mine.”

  Brundle was about to protest when he saw Kali’s expression. He turned and looked at the Brogmas, who were juddering on the spot, ready to advance.

  “Stand down, girls,” the dwarf sighed. “Everybody stand down.”

  Kali nodded and began to stride up the slope to Horizon Point where Redigor remained with his back to her. The higher she rose, the worse the wind became, and as her clothing slapped against her, she was forced to shout to get his attention.

  “Hey, Big Ears!”

  At last, Redigor did turn, and Kali saw that her description, although facetious, hadn’t been far off the mark. For what had been occupying the Pale Lord all this time was clearly the Hel’ss Spawn’s – or, more accurately, the Hel’ss – response to the sacrifices it had been offered earlier. Redigor had given it a little, and it, in turn, had given a little back. Jakub Freel didn’t resemble Jakub Freel as much any more. The Pale Lord Kali knew and loved was on his way back.

  The process, however, was far from complete. No doubt pending genocide. But if her plan worked, it would be nipped in the bud right now.

  “Is there a problem, Miss Hooper?” Redigor asked.

  “Yes, there’s a problem, shithead. This island’s my destiny, not yours. And I’ll not have you destroying my world just because you don’t have the sense to know when to die.”

  “Brave words, Miss Hooper. But can you back them up? All by yourself?”

  “Ah, well,” Kali said. “There’s the thing. Because I’m not all by myself, am I?”

  Kali hoped that Redigor would interpret that as meaning Brundle and the others who waited impotently down the slope, but in actual fact that wasn’t what she meant at all. She’d gone up against Redigor before and had only survived the encounter because of Gabriella and the Engines, and in a straight confrontation she knew she had little chance now. No, what she was gambling on was what she had learned during that encounter in the Chapel of Screams, when Redigor had revealed a little of the nature of the Hel’ss. If she was right, it could not only be used to her advantage but might even, however fleetingly, bring the Hel’ss onto her side.

  “Look at you, Redigor – you’re struggling to survive every second, rotting, being eaten from within. Face it. You’re coming apart at the seams.”

  “I will survive long enough.”

  “Really? Because you know what it is that’s eating you alive? It isn’t the fact you don’t belong in a human body, it’s the fact that the body is that of a good, brave and honest man. A strong man. One who’s been fighting you every step of the way.”

  “It’s been over a year, girl. Jakub Freel is gone.”

  “You want to place a bet on that?”

  Kali raised her gaze, addressing Redigor no longer but the Hel’ss Spawn that loomed beyond them both like a giant cowl.

  “I’m willing to bet,” she went on, “that there’s too much of Jakub Freel left in this form for your bargain with this elf to ever work. I’m willing to bet that contact with it will leave you tainted, corrupted, as rotten to the core as he is. Because that’s your destiny this time around, isn’t it? Not to eradicate the Old Races but humans? And how can you do that if you help one spark of humanity to remain alive, even in a different form?”

  The Hel’ss Spawn hung there, silent.

  “This hybrid… this freak isn’t part of your natural order. The elves’ time has passed and we, the humans, walk this world. Humans you have returned to destroy. Isn’t there, then, no other choice but to destroy this man?”

  Redigor laughed softly. “That is very clever but aren’t you forgetting something, Miss Hooper? If the Hel’ss takes it upon itself to destroy me, then your friend dies too. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want that to happen.”

  Kali’s brow creased. “You’re right. I wouldn’t. If I could help it. But I can’t help it. And neither can Jakub Freel.”

  She paused. This was the only part of her plan that was utterly out of her hands, and it depended very much on how good a judge of character she was.

  “Isn’t that right, Freel?”

  Redigor laughed louder. “What are you trying to do? Talk to him? Do you have any idea how deeply he is suppressed? How far away I have sent him?”

  “I said,” Kali reiterated. “Isn’t that right, Freel?”

  “Really, Miss Hooper, this is just –”

  Redigor stopped. His eyes lost focus and he staggered. He snapped a look at Kali – venomous, hateful – and then as his face twisted in an attempt to prevent it, a single word was forced out from between his lips.

  “Yyyyyyeeeeesssssss.”

  “Hello, Jakub,” Kali said, smiling.

  “No!” Redigor protested. Despite his vast age his voice sounded like that of a petulant child. “You will remain where you are!”

  “What’s the matter, elf? Is it that you just can’t understand why someone might be willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause? You wouldn’t, would you, seeing as how you buried yourself the last time this bastard came around. Buried yourself while the rest of your people died. You called yourself a Lord? Well, let me tell you something – a Lord is as much responsible for the welfare of his people as their rule.”

  “O-ho no, girl,” Redigor spat, barely able to stand. The wind whipped at his clothing, making cracking sounds. “I know what you’re doing. Trying to distract me while your friend reasserts himself. But it
won’t work. I’ve come too far, done so much, to be halted now.”

  “Yeah? Well then, why don’t we ask Jakub once more. Freel, tell the man. Tell him that if it stops what’s happening here, you’re more than willing to die.”

  Redigor’s gaze snapped around him, as if seeking some defence from what threatened him. But there was no defence from that which came from within. He doubled over, clutching himself,,and from his mouth came words once more unbidden by himself. This time they came through gritted teeth, even more forced, and all the more determined.

  “Damn. Right.”

  “This… will… not… happen!” Redigor screamed. He span to face the still looming cowl of the Hel’ss Spawn. “This… human has been purged. He is nothing but an echo. You cannot touch me. I am clean.”

  The Hel’ss Spawn, though, had clearly decided otherwise, and as Redigor turned, it pulled back from the clifftop as if from something horribly disfigured and diseased. Redigor opened his arms to it, pleading, and over the watery roaring of the entity Kali even heard him beg. Words she never thought she would hear from the First Enemy of the Final Faith.

  Please. God.

  It was too late. Severed from the process, the alterations the Hel’ss Spawn had made to Freel’s body were already starting to reverse, the exotic, aquiline cut of his face, the thinning out and elongation of his limbs, the shape of his ears. And as all of these features became more human looking once more, the dark shapes that had roved his body like living tattoos returned to again consume him. Weakened, Redigor collapsed to his knees, and then onto his hands, on all fours, like a dog.

  His gaze moved slowly up to meet the looming Hel’ss Spawn, his body trembling with a mix of fear and rage.

  Before him, the Hel’ss Spawn rose to its full height, and both Kali and Redigor knew what was coming next.

  Redigor’s whole body quaked.

  “No!” he screamed. “I am Bastian Redigor of the Ur’Raney!”

  Redigor’s head drooped, and his back heaved in great, wracking breaths. When, a second later, he looked up again, he spoke with a different voice.

  “NO! I AM JAKUB TREMAYNE FREEL, PRINCE OF ALLANTIA. I AM HUMAN!”

  Kali swallowed as the Hel’ss Spawn darted down, as quick as a snake, enveloping him and lifting him from the ground in an unbreakable embrace. As Redigor/Freel thrashed helplessly in its grip, Kali saw some discolouration as it started to leech his soul, and Redigor/Freel began to scream.

  It was a scream of the damned and Kali wanted so much to turn away, but couldn’t. Freel had made the decision to sacrifice himself for the greater good and the least she could do was stay with him until the end. She steeled herself, therefore, as the Hel’ss Spawn continued to suck at its victim, contenting herself with the knowledge it would all be over very soon.

  It was, though, taking too long. Longer to consume Redigor/Freel, and in a seemingly far more agonising way, than she had witnessed with any of the Hel’ss Spawn’s earlier victims.

  Something was wrong.

  Kali’s first instinct was to rush in, unable to allow herself to condemn Freel to this, but then she forced herself to stop.

  What, she thought, if something wasn’t wrong?

  What if something was right?

  That had to be it, she realised. What was causing this was exactly what she’d said. She’d called Redigor a hybrid, a freak who belonged in neither the old world or the new, and when it came down to it, that was exactly what the Hel’ss Spawn was, too. The Hel’ss had left this spawn behind during its last assault on Twilight, when it had come for the elves and the dwarves, and that imperative had somehow remained with it. In other words, it was following the natural order of things, taking Redigor’s elven soul before it started to consume that of Freel the human.

  Gods, if that were true, Kali thought, she could save Freel. But she didn’t have much time. She had to time this exactly right.

  There was only one question. Time what exactly right?

  Kali realised that she hadn’t a clue how she was going to get Freel out of this but, as usual, that didn’t stop her. As Freel/Redigor continued to scream, the elf’s essence continuing to be absorbed, she tensed, running every kind of scenario through her mind and coming up with nothing. But again, as usual, that didn’t stop her. There was a moment – a fleeting moment – where the Hel’ss Spawn seemed to pause, perhaps sated by elf and ready to begin consuming the human, and in that moment Kali roared and ran right at it.

  She grabbed Freel about the waist, tore his body from the Hel’ss Spawn and, with legs pumping, took the two of them over the edge of the cliff, into the vertiginous drop towards the sea.

  With the wind slapping at Kali like wet sheets of cloth, a more than little confused Freel struggled in her grip as his elven features began to fade. This was good. What was bad was that they were both plummeting towards the tempestuous sea crashing onto the rocks below. It was not an ideal situation to be in, but got instantly worse. Even as the two fell, another raging sea – the liquid form of the Hel’ss Spawn – came at them from the top of the cliff, plunging downward with the hunger and determination of a predator that had momentarily mislaid its prey. The entity roared as it came, and with both it and the sea closing on them at an ever increasing rate, it was like being trapped between two deadly, vertical jaws.

  Kali wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or cheesed that Jakub Freel chose this particularly troubling moment to regain some awareness, staring at her in confusion.

  “Kali Hooper?”

  “All right, mate?”

  The Allantian craned his neck, looking down, and then up, at the pursuing Hel’ss Spawn.

  “Erm, we seem to be falling to our deaths while being chased by a… well, by a –”

  “Yep,” Kali said. “Trying to deal with it.”

  “I’m presuming that, as usual, you’re making this up as you go along?”

  “Yep. Sorry.”

  “Oh, please,” Freel managed, attempting to be polite but unable to disguise a slight break in his voice, “don’t be, don’t be…”

  Kali narrowed her eyes. “I’m thinking,” she said, “that we could maybe separate and dive into those rock pools down there.”

  “Yes,” Freel answered, totally unconvinced.

  “Or perhaps angle our fall so that we glide – you know.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Or –”

  “We could pray?” Freel offered.

  “That’s the one.”

  There were mere moments before the two of them impacted with the water – and rocks – at the base of Horizon Point, and they spent a couple of them staring at the Hel’ss Spawn as it accelerated beyond their own rate of descent, threatening to catch up an instant before the impact came. As a choice between horrible ways to die, it was no choice at all, and both Kali and Freel closed their eyes. With the roaring of the Hel’ss Spawn and the crashing of the waves, neither of them heard the sharp, almost insect-like zzzzzz that played about them for a second before being replaced by a sound something like the lashing of twine.

  They did, however, feel something wrap itself tightly about both of their bodies, and then snatch them up into the air. For a few seconds neither of them had a clue what was happening but then they were swinging across the cliff face, out of the way of the Hel’ss Spawn.

  They watched as, like some great waterfall that had been severed from the river that fed it, the viscous mass plunged by them with a scream that sounded distinctly elven to impact with and dissipate into the sea.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  KALI AND FREEL hung suspended for what seemed like an age, the line that bound them tightly together creaking loudly as it swung back and forth across the cliff face like a pendulum on an overwound clock. They might have been rescued from the Hel’ss but they were not out of danger yet. Twisting and turning on the end of the line, waves crashing beneath them, both Kali and Freel had to take it in turns to kick out to avoid being smashed into projecti
ng parts of the rock, or to prevent the line becoming dangerously snared around them. On occasion their kicks sent them into an uncontrolled spin, one or the other of them colliding with or being dragged painfully across the rough rock face, and after a few such impacts both of them were beginning to wish that they hadn’t been rescued at all.

  Gradually, however, the creaking softened, the swinging became less pronounced, and they came to a stop. The two of them stared at each other – in the position they were in, having little choice – and after a second the line jerked, and they felt themselves being hauled up.

  They rose in fits and starts, their combined weight clearly causing whomever or whatever was doing the hauling problems. The sheer height of Horizon Point meant that they had to wait a good half hour before they found out who or what that was, and in the end they heard it before they saw it.

  A deep grumbling, lots of cursing, and a slight jangling of bells.

  Kali grunted as they finally reached the clifftop and she grabbed onto solid ground, being helped up by Jerragrim Brundle. He did the same for Freel and then unwound the line from about both of them. The dwarf was breathing heavily, eyes bulging and his face inflamed.

  “Thanks,” Kali said.

  “Ye can thank me by going on a diet,” Brundle countered. “Startin’ with that unfeasibly well-rounded arse of yours.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The one sticking out of yer troozers.”

  “Hey!” Kali shouted, then looked behind her. Dammit, she must have caught her bodysuit on one of the rocks. Double dammit, why was it always her arse? She had to get that part of the suit reinforced.

  Normally she would have flattened Brundle but what he had just achieved took the wind out of her sails. “I meant it,” she said, “thanks.”