Terapex motioned for a trio of her raiders to eliminate the sentries and continued to the first small house near the shore. She kicked down the light wooden door with ease. The house was barely more than a common living area, where the family bedded. A metallic snap of her lacerator split the sternum of the young man who had barely wiped the sleep from his eyes at the sound of the alarm bell. Blood sprayed from the fatal wound, glistening black in the dim rays of Laris and spattering Terapex’s face. She licked the droplets from her lips and let out a shrill battle cry heralding the man’s last night on Caen. Soon the banshee-like wail was echoed across the town.
Terapex’s celebration was cut short as a hard blow connected against her back, knocking her forward. Instinct took over and she spun about, ignoring the dull pain that throbbed where the blow had struck and using the momentum of the blow to speed her movements. Her animalistic snarl became a wicked chuckle as she caught sight of her attacker. The man’s wife stood clutching a heavy iron skillet in her trembling hands. She was barely older than twenty years. Though the woman stood squarely with the Satyxis who had just murdered her husband in cold blood, Terapex could see the terror barely held in check behind her wild eyes.
“You’ve got spirit, girl, I’ll give you that,” Terapex said, amusement coloring her voice. It looked like she would get her sport tonight after all.
With slow, exaggerated movements, the Satyxis dropped her whip and slid her pistol back into the holster. She spread her arms in invitation. “Come now, girl. Avenge him.” When the woman made no move Terapex growled. “I don’t give this chance to most. You’d best take it before I run out of patience. Or else I’ll open you like a fish just as I did your mate.”
The taunt snapped the woman out of her torpor. With a strangled cry she lunged at Terapex, swinging the heavy pan in a well-aimed crossbody strike the Satyxis narrowly avoided. For the briefest instant as the housewife brought the pan around in a powerful backswing, Terapex wondered if she might have misjudged this human.
Terapex deftly slipped under the attack and slammed her fist into the woman’s gut, doubling her over and causing her to cough violently as the wind was driven from her lungs. Instead of pressing the advantage, however, the raider turned and patiently waited for the woman to recover her breath. “Come on, now,” she chided. “You can do better.”
The woman came on again, but this time her attack was slower, weaker. Terapex sighed to herself in disdain as she easily slipped under the woman’s guard and brought her horned head down in a vicious head-butt. The wet, crunching sound of bone and cartilage being pulverized filled the small house, and the woman’s scream of pain was quickly cut short as she choked on the blood pouring from her ruined face and fell heavily to the floor.
Ignoring the woman’s gurgled moans, the Satyxis casually picked up the heavy skillet from where it had dropped and tested the weight of it in her hand. She grabbed the woman’s hair in her other fist and turned the ruined face to look into her own.
“I want you to know, girl, that by the time dawn’s weak rays touch this pathetic smear of a village, naught will be left of all you know and love but corpses and ash.”
Terapex didn’t bother to wonder if the woman even heard her but only released her head and brought the heavy pan down, ending her moans of pain with a dull thud and a sickening crack of splintering bone.
The Satyxis straightened herself over the corpse of the housewife and looked down at the gore-slicked pan before tossing it aside to land with a heavy thump. Instinctively she cased the house for valuables but was unsurprised to find nothing of worth. The iron skillet likely represented the greatest treasure these people had owned. She shook her head dismissively.
It did not matter. This night her orders were not to plunder but to sow terror and death among the mainlanders. Fulfilling such orders was a reward unto itself.
A predatory smile split her lips as she took up her lacerator whip and headed toward the door and to the promising sounds of screams and battle beyond.
TONGUE-TIED
By Aeryn Rudel
The tent flap opened abruptly, letting in the cloying reek of the swamp. Torfal looked up from his scroll, waved his hand to dismiss the smell, and glared at the young trollkin warrior bursting into his tent. “Torfal,” the warrior said, “you have to come!”
“Burnok,” Torfal said slowly, “how many times must I tell you to leave me alone when I’m translating?”
“I’m sorry, Elder.” Burnok was breathing heavily and his eyes were wide. “I wouldn’t bother you unless I had no choice. But you should come before Gorthane . . .”
“Before what?” Torfal asked and set his quill down on the makeshift desk—a knotty board propped across two stumps. “Gets drunk, drops his axe, and chops off two of his toes again? Or is it something more dire?”
“Some . . . things came out of the swamp,” Burnok said. “Gorthane wants to kill them.”
“What things? Farrow? Gatormen?” It wasn’t uncommon for bands of those savage peoples to offer their services to the kriels, and they sometimes made useful, if unreliable, allies. They also frequently raided for food and treasure, and Gorthane and his champions had been called upon to defend the kriel from their marauding more than once.
“No, Elder. I don’t know what they are. No one does.”
“Then why is Gorthane considering attacking?” The brainless oaf, Torfal thought. Always itching for battle even when it isn’t in the kriel’s best interest.
This was intriguing, though, and now Burnok’s urgency seemed reasonable. The young trollkin had more sense than most of the young warriors did, and he knew that Torfal, unlike many stone scribes, did more than simply record the deeds of great trollkin heroes. Over the years the elder had developed a keen interest in the tales and myths of other races, which had forced him to learn at least a smattering of many human tongues as well as farrow, gatorman, and other more obscure languages.
“Very well,” Torfal said and stood. He lifted his axe from where it leaned against his desk, grunting slightly at its weight. It had been some time since he’d had reason to take it up, but the kin were at war, and the young warriors expected their leaders to be armed. He offered a silent prayer to Dhunia that he wouldn’t have to use it. “Take me to Gorthane.”
The ground was a thick mire as Torfal made his way toward the outskirts of the camp. The swamps around Lake Scarleforth were treacherously deep, and the only firm footing amounted to mud that didn’t rise past the ankles. It was a tiring slog to where Gorthane and the other warriors were gathered; Torfal was breathing heavily by the time they arrived.
Gorthane was a massive trollkin, almost ogrun-sized, and his war maul had crushed more enemies than could easily be counted. His champions—sizable kin but nowhere near as big as their leader—stood clustered at the edge of the swamp, weapons in hand, where the firmer mud gave way to a soup of brown water, tangled vines, and rotting vegetation.
“We were handling this, old one,” Gorthane said as Torfal approached. The champion held his maul before him, and his face was set in a petulant frown. “This doesn’t concern you or your . . . studies.” Gorthane had little use for kin who didn’t fight, and although he saw the chronicling of heroic deeds as important, he had less respect for Torfal’s other interests.
“I’m sure,” Torfal said. “Show me these creatures you are so eager to slaughter.”
“There.” Gorthane pointed to a weedy boulder about ten feet into the swamp. When the boulder shifted and a pair of great yellow eyes opened on its surface, Torfal realized he was looking at the massive head of a swamp troll. “They’re hiding in the water next to Blugg.”
“I don’t see—” Torfal began, and then three shapes rose up out of the swamp. They were humanoid and roughly the size of trollkin, but beyond that they seemed completely alien. The first word that leaped into Torfal’s mind was frog. That’s what th
ey most resembled: tall, gangly, humanoid frogs. Their slick skin was bright green, and their eyes jutted from their heads on short stalks. Each carried a short spear in a four-fingered hand, the fingers ending in round suckers. The frogmen held their weapons before them point-first—a defensive stance but not overtly hostile. Torfal noticed an iron manacle around the wrist of the lead frogman, trailing a short length of broken chain.
“They fled into the water before my boys and I could attack,” Gorthane said. “I thought Blugg would just eat them, but the stinking, ornery troll seems to like them, if you can imagine that.”
“Elder,” Burnok said, drawing a scowl from Gorthane, “that’s a skorne manacle on the leader’s wrist.”
The skorne had been active around Lake Scarleforth for some time, and the trollkin warband had clashed with them often. The eastern invaders were notorious for using enslaved creatures to fight for them.
“We found a skorne patrol a few miles from here yesterday,” Gorthane said grudgingly. “All had been killed. Their bodies were puffed and black, like they’d been poisoned.” He stared at the frogmen. “I’ll bet our friends here had something to do with that.”
One of the frogmen had reached the shore and stood patiently, spear point up. The two behind him held their defensive posture.
“Looks like they want to talk rather than fight, Gorthane,” Torfal said, casting a black look at the champion. “You’re aware that not everything that lives in this swamp is an enemy, especially if it’s been held prisoner by the skorne.”
Gorrthane scowled. “My job is to protect this kriel, not negotiate with every slimy toad that hops out of the muck.
“Lucky for you, that’s my job,” Torfal said. He stepped forward and held his hands out, empty palms up.
“Who are you?” Torfal ventured in quor-og, the burbling tongue of the fishlike bog trogs. It was as good a first guess as to their language as any.
The lead frogman held his ground and kept his spear up. He cocked his head at the words and rapidly blinked his eyes twice, but he made no other movement or reply.
Torfal nodded, not knowing if the frogmen would even understand that gesture. He tried his question again in quor-gar, the language of the gatormen, which drew the same response: nothing. He then ran through a number of human tongues, each eliciting blank stares and little else.
“Well?” Gorthane said. “Are they hostile?”
Torfal turned and scowled. “I don’t speak frog. Do you?”
Gorthane shrugged. “Then try skorne. They were skorne prisoners, right?”
Torfal nodded, irritated that he hadn’t thought of this before the war-mongering champion. He’d picked up a bit of the language from the few warriors they’d captured and interrogated. His understanding of the language was elementary at best.
“Who you?” Torfal said. The words felt sharp and alien on his tongue.
The lead frogman’s eyes rose on their stalks, and he bobbed his head up and down, an obvious gesture of excitement. Then he spoke in a deep, croaking voice, his skorne as bad as Torfal’s. “I Swamp-Walker,” he said. “Fish-Hunter and Loud-Singer.” He pointed the butt of his spear at the two frogmen behind him. “We no fight blue-skins.”
Torfal was delighted he’d managed to communicate with the strange creatures and that, likely to Gorthane’s disappointment, they were not hostile. “Torfal,” he replied, tapping his chest. “Storyteller,” he added.
Swamp-Walker took a step forward, keeping his spear pointed up. “You fight sharp-heads?” he said, then held up his manacled wrist, shaking the chain attached to it.
“Yes,” Torfal said, smiling at the oddly appropriate description of the skorne. “We fight and kill many sharp-heads.”
Again Swamp-Walker bobbed his head. “You master long-tongue?” he pointed his spear at Blugg. The swamp troll had moved toward the shore, listening. Torfal had never seen the lazy, cantankerous swamp troll so interested in anything.
Torfal considered the question. No one could be said to truly control the swamp troll, but like most trolls, Blugg fought willingly for the kin. In the end, Torfal thought it better not to muddle the situation with too much information.
“Yes,” he replied. “Long-tongue fight for us.”
Swamp-Walker held his spear out to Torfal, the shaft of the weapon across both open palms. “We fight sharp-heads for blue-skins.”
Torfal accepted the spear. He didn’t know what else to do, so he held it for a few seconds, then returned the spear to Swamp-Walker in the same manner it had been given to him. That seemed to be right. The frogman bobbed his head again and accepted the weapon.
“Well, old one,” Gorthane said. “What did he say? Are we eating frog tonight?”
Torfal turned to the towering champion and poked a finger into his broad chest. “Absolutely not.“ He smiled. “You have new recruits.”
SCRAP ANTE
By Howard Tayler
Northern Thornwood Camp #248, Doloven 605 AR
“Deal me in,” Kerne said.
At least that’s what Trencher Corporal Kerne Mallory thought he had said. He had practiced his pronunciation so the Gobberish phrase ulada nito had a solid, confident sound to it, but the tent full of card-playing gobbers went silent. All eyes were on him and the bag of battlefield scrap he held at his side.
“Not ulada nito, Corporal Mallory,” said Mo. “Ulada only means deal like ‘clever bargain.’ For dealing cards it’s shidda. You told us to bargain you under, and the way you said it very clearly told us all to cheat you.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s what we’re going to do if you decide to play.” Mo turned to the rest of the tent and rattled off some Gobberish. All Kerne caught was “He something play something told apple happy cheat,” after which the other gobbers cackled with laughter. Kerne realized his Gobberish was okay when he was listening to Senior Mechanik Gersten shout it across the field, but this was somebody else’s trench entirely. He pulled his coat tightly around himself and prepared to wander back out into the rain where he could be bored and broke among people he could talk to. When they actually talked to him, anyway.
“So,” said Mo, “what did you bring?”
“I can stay?”
“Sure. Just don’t mangle our language. I’ll translate, and we’ll cheat you gently.”
“Well, okay then.” He upended his sack on a side table, spilling out muddy bits of torn metal, shorn bolts, and wire. “It’s all I could find.”
“Where has it been?” asked Rala, the only other gobber here whose name he knew. She was speaking very slowly, and Kerne followed pretty well.
“I picked it out of a crater over by the 221st.”
“She’s not asking where you found it,” said Mo. “She’s asking where it has been.” He picked a piece of wire from the table and wiped it clean. “Like this. Looks like part of that wire fence you trenchers cut through last fall. It probably got tangled around the foot of a ’jack and got dragged for miles.”
“I . . . I have no idea. All I did was dig it out of the crater.”
“Oh.” Mo looked unhappy. “If it had a story, it would be worth something.”
Kerne blew out a sigh of despair. “Mo, I’ve lost all my scrip and my liquor rations playing cards with Corporal Duffock. I don’t care about the money. I just want to play cards. It’s cold and boring here. You guys play for scrap, so I thought if I dug some up, I could have a game.”
“Tallpink clumsy shovel-fix,” said one of the gobbers, pointing at his pack.
Mo scowled at the speaker. “Nicetalk never tallpink, something, something.”
Kerne ignored the insult. It was their tent, and he was tall and pink. “He’s probably talking about my lucky shovel,” said Kerne, pulling his entrenching tool from his belt. “I’d fix it properly, but the socket threads are stripped.
It’s okay. The bent nail holds the head on just fine.”
Mo eyed the shovel. “How’d you break it? Why is it lucky?”
“Well, Manny, our Grenadier, was throwing a hole for us when one of those troll spears knocked his leg out from under him. Next thing we know, there’s blue-skins rushing us, and ol’ metal Manny has gone bolts over boiler into the hole we were supposed to be in.
“Duffock and the guys piled in anyway, and I jumped in last, but by then we’d run out of hole. Half of me was sticking out of it, and in the rush my pack was climbing up my back sideways.”
“Sounds like you’ve told this story before,” said Mo with a sly grin. “Get to the part about the shovel.”
“Right. So I’m sticking out of the hole, and then a team of pygs popped out of the brush and started laying down cover fire. Bullets whizzed around, and I tried to get low but just couldn’t. Then something slapped me in the head, and I was out. I missed the part where Captain Reinfeld dropped artillery practically on top of us, breaking the trollkin charge and opening them up for a counterattack. I woke up with a headache, wondering why I wasn’t being eaten by a troll.
“I saw Rala. She was trying to repair Manny’s leg. My shovel head—” Kerne held it up, “—had popped off the shaft. It had my hair and blood on one side and this dent on the other. Near as I can tell, it’s from one of those blue-skin bushwhacker bullets.”
Mo looked up at the shovel, then looked for a long moment at Kerne. The stare was just starting to feel weird when Mo turned to the rest of the group and began spouting Gobberish.
Kerne could only make out about one word in five, but he could tell that Mo was re-telling the story. The rest of the gobbers nodded, and Rala slapped her head when Mo referred to Manny. Then Mo got to the end of the story and everybody got very, very quiet.
Iron Kingdoms Excursions: Season One Collection Page 6
