The bearded titan strode forwards, chuckling, his whip lashing playfully back and forth leaving streams of smoke in the air.
“What’s wrong, old man? I heard you were tough – did I hear wrong?”
The Shaman shook his head, incredulous; the stupidity of the man was beyond understanding. Even now, his army falling apart around him, he could think of nothing more than the fun to be had in this duel, here and now. The giant stalked towards him and Wrynn prepared himself for further punishment, bracing himself for the hideous, unnatural touch of the dark energy that surrounded and protected the brute.
Kurnos eschewed his whip for the moment, swinging instead a mighty fist with juggernaut force. Wrynn’s tired arm whipped up, catching the fist in the palm of his hand, the impact driving him to one knee.
Even as the looming Huntsman bore down on the shaman with all his weight, Wrynn began to chuckle, the chuckle erupting into a booming laugh.
The Huntsman growled as he strained.
“What are you laughing about old man?”
The Shaman smiled, his eyes filling with the raging power of the storms as he spoke.
“It is not I who laughs, Huntsman. It is the spirits.” He laughed once more, hearty and full of joy. “It appears your patrons have abandoned you…”
A moment of confusion in the Barbarian’s eyes, before a cataclysmic booming of thunder split the air and the titan was hurled away to land in an unceremonious heap. Kurnos shook his groggy head, righting himself, before looking over at his adversary, his eyes filling with an emotion he had never known.
Fear.
Wrynn rose, the air about him growing dark, even as he was wreathed in a silver web of pure, natural lightning that sparked and danced, his eyes glowing furnace-white with the power of the spirits.
“Behold,” he spoke in booming tones of thunder that roiled out across the Steppes, “the full fury of the elements.”
An outstretched hand, a crack of thunder, a bridge of silver lightning that linked the two, and the Huntmaster screamed in agony, trembling and spasming beneath the onslaught. The titan struggled to his feet, trying in desperation to throw off the energies that enveloped him, but his efforts were futile. He cried out from within the singeing, smouldering beard, his trembling hand still clutching his whip of fire with white-knuckled fingers.
“You… cannot… kill… me…” he gasped out in bellowed outrage. “I… am… IMMORTAL!”
A final, cacophonous boom and an explosion of raging orange fire that flattened the scattered warriors and rocked Wrynn backwards on his feet. Finally, the smoke cleared, leaving a scorched and steaming crater of blackened earth, the air thick with the reek of sulphur.
Of Kurnos, the Huntsman, there was no sign.
Wrynn relaxed, allowing the energies he’d gathered to drain away, flowing from his body and back to their respective spirits, the familiar claws of spirit-sickness threatening to steal his senses as he fell, unsteady, to his knees. Supportive hands grasped him. Faces swam blurrily in front of him. Voices calling out his name as though underwater.
Iain. He focussed on the face, straining to stay conscious.
“Master Wrynn… are you okay?”
A weary nod from the shaman and the Forester turned to gaze, almost in disbelief, at the crater before them.
“The Huntmaster… is he… dead?”
The Shaman drew deep breaths as he slowly regained his composure following his exertion, before shaking his head.
“I don’t think so…” he replied. “The dark powers we face have invested too much in him to allow him to fall.” He sniffed, breathing in the taint of brimstone and fire. “But he’s gone. Gone back to whatever hellish domain they call home. For now, at least, he is out of our hair…”
The Foresters helped the Shaman to his feet as he turned to gaze over to the battle proper, spying with great relish the unleashed power of the spirits that even now assailed the former-Clansmen.
“The tide is beginning to turn,” he told Iain, his words laboured, but getting stronger. “Soon we shall have to leave the fate of the battle in the hands of the Plainsmen and make headway to our objective.”
Iain nodded.
“And hopefully, en route, we shall find our lost leader.”
Wrynn smiled.
“Hold onto that hope, young friend. For hope seems to be seeing us right thus far…”
***
Those final, harrowing moments of Jafari’s life still replayed over and over in Naresh’s head as the Nine ran from the Temple, making their way through the winding streets towards the Pen. The sacrifice. The grief. The nobility. Yet also the desperation. The determination to end the suffering. Had it been bravery? Had it been fear? Who could know what maddened thoughts had gone through the Nomad’s mind at the last?
Whatever had motivated his demise, Naresh was truly grateful to have known the man, no matter how briefly. He sent up a brief prayer to the ancestors, to watch the Desert Man’s soul, as the men ran, low and fast, towards the servant’s entrance that he’d told them about. No guards about still, despite Elerik’s earlier apprehension, and they slipped inside without trouble.
Naresh paused at the door, looking back and out over the city that spread before him. Somewhere, out there, amidst the sprawl of the metropolis, his family dwelt. Did they still live? Would he see them again? He doubted either. A sob threatened to burst out, but he quelled it, steeling it into a rage, harnessing the grief and turning it into an anger to better keep him alive. With one last look at the city he called home, he turned and followed the Woodsman into the darkness of the Keep.
The men trod carefully, squeamishly, hands held over mouths, for the slaughter of the corridors beneath the Arena was as nothing compared to the scene before them now. Gagging, Naresh stepped over a pile of glutinous innards, before looking about, trying to discern amongst the smell and the crimson exactly where in the Keep they were.
“We’re on the opposite side of the Great Hall to the kitchens,” he finally realised. “Follow me,” he told the troupe, as he made his way to a door. “This way.”
He pushed the door open on well-oiled hinges and made his way through, the others following, making it a few steps in before they stopped, craning upwards and gazing about in abject, open-mouthed wonder.
“The Great Hall…” whispered Narlen in hushed tones, as he looked upwards to the high-vaulted ceiling, lit, as ever, by the great burning torches held in their mounts on the walls. At one end of the great room, a raised dais, upon which sat the throne of the King himself…
Elerik nodded.
“Impressive. But let’s keep moving.”
They followed the ex-servant further into the cavernous room, making their way past table after empty table, sweating slightly as they passed the gently smouldering orange firepit that lay, forever lit, in the centre of the room. Without warning, Naresh stopped, staring. Alann followed his eyes.
“Know these people?”
People was a generous description for the scattering of ruined corpses that lay about the table. Naresh nodded, gesturing to a headless torso that lay, sprawled, across the table, where the food still lay, congealed and uneaten.
It was Elerik who spoke first, stealing the words from Naresh’s mouth.
“Lord Alathar…”
Naresh nodded.
“I was the last person he ever spoke to…”
The Woodsman grunted.
“What was he like?”
Naresh sniffed.
“He was a dick.”
The door through which they’d entered slammed shut, the bang echoing throughout the Hall and causing them to start and spin, weapons held out in readiness as pulses began to soar.
“Quickly!” shouted Naresh. “This way!”
He began to run, towards the steps which led down to the kitchens, but a blur of motion, almost imperceptible, and they heard that door, too, slam shut. One by one, the torches high up on the walls began to splutter out, the s
hadows encroaching on the men from both ends of the Hall.
Alann roared, thinking quickly.
“To the firepit!”
The men followed him, making the edge of the pit just as the last of the torches went out, the room plunged into thick and impermeable darkness, save the dim, orange circle cast by the smouldering logs at their back. They gathered together, facing out into the gloom, weapons held out before them as Alann called out.
“Who’s there? Show yourselves.”
His voice echoed back at him from a dozen angles, bouncing about in the vast space. After a few moments, a reply; laughter, cold and mocking.
“You call upon the shadows to show themselves?” The voice was cold, clear and sent shivers down their spines. “All you need do is look about you. We are everywhere…”
“Who are you?” Alann repeated, refusing to be intimidated.
“You’ve never met me, Woodsman. But I know you. I’ve seen you. I watched you slay the beast in the Arena. Impressive. But you’ll find us a different proposition. Cold-blooded we may be, but our reactions are somewhat… swifter.”
As if to punctuate his words, a blur of shadow shot out from the dark, whipping past the clustered men before disappearing just as fast. A gurgling cry, one of the Nine falling to the ground, blood pouring out from the deep cut in his throat. With a final gasp, he lay still.
Eight.
“Show yourselves, cowards!” bellowed Narlen into the dark.
“Oh, Plainsman,” replied the mocking voice. “That hot-blood of yours, so typical of your race. Be patient, your turn will come.”
Another flurry of motion in the dark, faster than the blink of an eye, and another man went down, writhing in pain as fast-acting poisons coursed through his blood before foaming at the mouth. One last twitch and he, too, lay dead, agonised eyes staring lifeless into the dark.
Seven.
Alann snarled, hands gripping tight the haft of his simple workman’s axe.
“This is the type of cowardice I expect from assassins, Memphias,” he spat.
A slow clapping in the shadows.
“So, even a Woodsman can put two and two together. Well done. Here’s your prize…”
A rippling of motion once again, a blur of pure shadow streaking out from the dark. Alann span, reflexes honed by ten years of being hunted saving him as a poisoned blade nicked the wooden handle of his axe and held fast. He heaved the shadow towards him, driving his knee into the shapeless, swirling form, before wrenching his axe free and thrusting it, butt-first, to where the head should be.
A muffled whine of pain and the shape collapsed to the floor, the shadows dissipating like smoke, revealing the prone form of a black, leather-clad Khrda. It looked up at him, trembling in pain as its form began to steam, eyes with no irises gazing out from its mask, mouth revealing sharp fangs as it hissed and tried to rise. The axe swung down, biting deeply into the Khrda’s neck and, with an inhuman screech, the creature was still.
“Enough games!” came the frustrated roar from the Councilman. “Slaughter them!”
A hideous shriek as the Khrdas came at them en masse, the orange circle of half-light filled now with the blurring, trailing shadows of the once-human assassins. As fast as they came, they retreated, as though unable to stay in the light for long, as though their new, shadowy forms that gave them such speed could only survive in the dark. The men span, frantically dodging and parrying, but the speed of the creatures was beyond comprehension.
Here, another man went down, a dagger through his heart, blood spraying from his mouth.
Six.
There, a head taken clean off shoulders by a razor-bladed vambrace.
Five.
A cry, receding into the distance, as another was catapulted off his feet and dragged off into the dark to fate unknown.
Four.
Naresh span, flailing wildly with his hammer. A roiling shadow came at him and he ducked, slamming himself to the ground, feeling the breeze as the creature passed close over his head. He rose, spinning again, eyes straining to pierce the darkness, too preoccupied with moving, dodging, ducking to even ponder his soon and inevitable demise. A rush of wind, a glimpse of smoke through the corner of his eye and he dove sideways to the floor. He rose. Unscathed once again, he realised, with a laugh.
Why, then, the burning in his arm?
His hand spasmed, dropping the hammer to the floor as the creeping pain began to work its way up his limb. He looked down; the tiniest of nicks on his tricep where a dagger had just caught him. A sudden wave of vertigo and he fell, his body now a raging cauldron of pain as he writhed on the floor. This was it.
Gazing upwards, mouth open and drool beginning to spill down his cheek, he saw the form of Alann turning, looking down at him in alarm as the battle raged about. He was shouting something at him, but Naresh couldn’t make it out, not through the rushing of blood in his ears. His eyes widened as he saw a figure standing in the darkness behind the Woodsman’s back, the barest glimmer of cold, grey eyes in the firelight. He tried to shout warning to his leader. Turn. Save yourself. But the toxins froze him, denying him the ability to help his friend.
The scene played out in slow-motion before Naresh’s drug-addled eyes; the figure drew a throwing star, small, but no doubt tipped with the same lethal venom. Alann finally followed the direction of Naresh’s gaze, turning, but too late, the shuriken already arcing its unerring course.
No time to duck
No time to parry.
No time.
No time.
And then no space.
No darkness.
No noise.
Nothing, save the bright, bleaching white. The tearing in twain of reality.
And the hot scorching taste of tin.
The infinite white faded, ebbing away, even as Naresh’s life did too.
Through the blur of failing eyes he saw a blazing figure, looming large, towering impossibly tall above them all. He was clad in a robe of radiant light that filled the Hall with its brightness. In his mighty hand he held the throwing star that had been aimed at Alann, looking at it for a moment before casting it aside and turning to Naresh.
His eyes; a gleaming, glowing green like nothing he’d ever seen.
Was he dying? Was he entering the Halls of the Ancestors?
Was this giant that hummed with power the guardian of the afterlife?
The man mountain crouched down, a smile on his face as he spoke. Spoke with words that should have passed the lips of no man.
Be healed.
In an instant, the blurriness vanished from his vision, the rushing of blood fading from his ears, the pain subsiding and fresh strength filling his limbs, his heart, his thoughts, his every atom as though he were born anew; as though the fatigue and pain and misery of the entire day, the years of service, nay – his entire life – had been blasted away, blown away like cobwebs on the first day of spring.
He was alive.
He rose, slowly, gazing about him in disbelief as tears rolled freely down his cheeks.
The Khrdas, those assassins of shadow and smoke, clung, trembling in fear from the rafters, hiding behind anything to keep the burning light at bay. Memphias, the master of the death-dealers himself, stood at a distance, backing off, his mouth opening and closing in confusion as he stared at the newcomer that towered in the centre of the room.
Alann, Narlen, Elerik stood, frozen, as they gazed in awe at the titan of light, feeling the power radiating out from him, soaking in the nourishing, restoring ambience that surrounded him. When, finally, someone spoke, it was Alann, his usual confidence shattered by the impossibility of the being before him.
“Who are you…?” he asked, those haunting green eyes familiar yet the aura so different.
The mighty, white-robed figure paused for a few moments before responding, as though unsure itself, before a slight smile played its lips as it remembered.
Stone.
The name reverberated throu
ghout the Hall and the Khrdas squealed in protest as Memphias sneered, wringing his hands as though unsure of what to do.
Alann dropped to his knees and the other men followed suit as he spoke.
“What would you have us do, my Lord?”
Rise, Alann the Woodsman. You alone, out of all humanity, shall never kneel before me.
He rose, trembling.
“Why, my Lord? You… you don’t know me.”
I know you, Alann. And I know what you have lost in the fight for freedom.
The man gazed up at the giant with stunned eyes.
I have seen beyond this world, Woodsman, and you should rejoice; for those you once lost are at peace. He placed a massive hand gently on Alann’s shoulder. The wheel yet turns.
A decade of pent up pain released itself from the Woodsman in one gasp, tears trickling down his weathered face at the enormity of the words. Stone smiled, warm and reassuring.
Now go, Alann. Take your friends. From this day on, you shall be The Woodsman’s Four. You will play an important role in the years to come. Now go; fly to the docks and make your way to the causeway. There you shall meet with Iain and the leaders of the Shaman army. They will put you to good use.
The Woodsman nodded, gathering himself, his steel returning with a vengeance, his purpose restored with burning vigour.
“Aye, my Lord.”
He nodded to the others who managed to drag their eyes from the blazing form of Stone, staggering backwards before racing after him away from the Hall, to the Kitchens and beyond, to the tunnels that led to the coast.
Stone smiled, then turned towards Memphias, green eyes blazing as his expression grew serious.
And now to deal with you, my wayward friend…
Chapter Five:
The elite of the shaman army were on the move, marching towards the causeway about the sides of the battle proper. Kurnos defeated, the Foresters moved up around the rear and across to the right flank to join with the shamans themselves, as well as the wearied but restored Tulador Guard. The main bulk of the Clansman army had been savaged by the shamans’ fusillade of elemental bolts and beams, enough to render the central battle somewhat less one-sided.
From the Ashes Page 10
