Orcs: Inferno

by Stan Nicholls

  “She’s close,” Dynahla replied, “as always.”

  “Any clue where?” Stryke said.

  “Not exactly, no. But does it matter?”

  “Does it matter? Of course it matters!”

  “No, you don’t get my meaning. We don’t need to know precisely where she is because she’ll soon pop up where we can see her. She’s playing with us.”

  “I think we worked that out,” Haskeer remarked sourly.

  “Yeah, it’s all a game to her,” Spurral added.

  “Maybe,” the shape-shifter conceded. “Though her motives could be more than just mischievous.”

  Stryke eyed him quizzically. “Such as?”

  “Who knows? Perhaps this is all for the hell of it. Even I find her hard to fathom.”

  “Even you? What makes you such an expert on Jennesta?”

  Dynahla hesitated for just a second before answering. “I’ve spent a lot of time with her father, remember, and Serapheim’s… very informative.”

  “Heads up!” Jup yelled. “There she is, right on cue.” He indicated the headland at the end of the beach, a decent arrow shot away.

  A group of figures were there. They stayed long enough to be seen, then vanished.

  “Do we have to follow her, Stryke?” Dallog said. “I mean, if this is some kind of crazy game, do we have to play along with it?”

  “What choice do we have? And what about Thirzarr? You want me to abandon her?” He glared at him.

  “No…” The elderly corporal looked abashed. “No, of course not, chief.”

  “Do what you have to, shape-changer,” Stryke ordered.

  Dynahla worked on the instrumentalities.

  “If I could just get my hands on that bitch…” Haskeer muttered, staring at the spot where Jennesta had been a moment before.

  “You’d have to stand in line,” Coilla said.

  They materialised in night-time, which would have been a lot blacker if it wasn’t for a big, full moon and a sky crammed with stars.

  There was nothing special about the landscape as far as they could make out. Underfoot was rough grass, there were some ghostly trees in the middle distance and what could have been a mountain range at the limit of their vision. The temperature was balmy and the air dry, with no wind to speak of. Which was fortunate as they were all wringing wet.

  Standeven, still huffing and wheezing after his dip, had plonked down on the ground. They let him be.

  “So where is she?” Haskeer said, anticipating Jennesta’s appearance with his sword drawn.

  “Hard to see anything,” Coilla replied.

  Breggin pointed into the gloom. “What’s that?”

  They all strained to see. A cluster of shapes, darker than the night, appeared to be coming their way.

  “Right,” Haskeer declared. “This time we don’t wait for her to call the shots.” He began to run in that direction.

  “Wait!” Stryke called after him. “There’s no point! She’ll only… Oh, what the hell.”

  The others seemed to share Stryke’s opinion, or else they were tired enough by now not to give a damn. None of them followed Haskeer.

  As they watched him dashing nearer to his goal they expected the group of shapes to flick out of existence. Given the distance and bad light, it was near impossible to make out what did happen, but it wasn’t that. The figures remained, and he seemed to engage with them.

  “Do you think she’s actually staying for a fight this time?” Coilla said.

  Jup raised his staff. “If she is, let’s get over there!”

  The band was all for it, and they were about to rush into the fray.

  “Hold it!” Stryke barked. “Looks like Haskeer’s coming back.”

  He was, at speed, and the figures were right behind him. As they got nearer, the band noticed something odd.

  Spurral blinked at the scene. “Are they running on all fours?”

  “And they look bigger than humans,” Pepperdyne added.

  “Ah,” Jup said.

  Haskeer arrived, arms pumping, breathing hard. Half a dozen fully grown brown bears were chasing him.

  It was one of those times when the band instinctively fell back on their training and experience, and they’d dealt with plenty of wild animals in their time. They immediately formed a defensive ring. Blades and spears thrust out, they began shouting and beating their shields. The bears’ charge slowed right down, and they took to circling the band from a distance, looking for a weakness in their defence.

  “Toche! Vobe! Your bows!” Stryke instructed.

  They nocked arrows and he pointed to the biggest of the brutes, which was rearing up on its hind legs. Both arrows struck true. The shafts jutting from its chest, the bear fell, rolled on its side and was still. Its companions let out howls and quickly withdrew. But not completely. They resumed their circling from afar, dimly visible in the dark, still hoping for a chance to attack.

  “Must be hungry,” Noskaa observed.

  “Lucky they didn’t bite a chunk out of Haskeer’s fat arse,” Jup said. That raised a laugh. “They would have spat it out, mind.” The grunts roared.

  Most of them stopped when they saw Haskeer’s face.

  Stryke wasn’t overjoyed himself. “Eyes front! They’re still out there.”

  “Something’s out there, Captain,” Gant said, nodding at the gloom.

  He was right, and it wasn’t the bears, which by some means, quite probably magical, had been scared off. What was in the dark now came as no surprise to any of them. They knew the sound of her mocking laughter well enough.

  Dynahla got to work on the instrumentalities.

  Rain pounded down on them. A bitter wind was blowing. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed.

  “Oh, great,” Coilla grumbled. “Another soaking.”

  It was difficult to see what kind of place they were in through the downpour. Wherever it was, it was awash, with flowing water ankle deep. The ground seemed to be bedrock, in all probability any topsoil and vegetation having been washed away.

  A chunk of tree and a couple of dead fish floated past.

  Stryke wondered if it always rained here. As if in reply, the furious black sky opened up and dumped even more rain on them.

  He got the band to search the immediate area for shelter, but there was nothing, so they huddled together miserably for a while, uncertain what to do next and getting wetter.

  Then they became aware of a purplish glow in the deluge. It grew stronger, until they saw that it was Jennesta, dry inside a bubble of ethereal energy. A protection she hadn’t extended to her soaked retinue, including the comatose Thirzarr. It was an act of casual meanness that enraged Stryke almost more than anything else the sorceress had done. Even though he knew it was futile, he snatched a bow from one of the grunts and sent an arrow Jennesta’s way. The force field vaporised it.

  As he thrust the bow back into the grunt’s hand, she and her followers vanished.

  The Wolverines followed.

  They were somewhere high. Dizzyingly high.

  It was the top of a building that seemed to be impossibly tall, and the view it afforded was startling. As far as they could see in all directions the landscape was completely urbanised. There were other towers just as tall, and a number even taller than the one they stood on. Looking down, they saw nothing but buildings, jam-packed together, of every conceivable shape and design, and many with an appearance they couldn’t have imagined.

  Highways sliced through the gigantic metropolis, and wove over and under each other, like strands of ribbon dropped at random by a wayward giant. The roads were host to numerous vehicles of a kind they couldn’t identify, and they seemed to move without the aid of horses or oxen. The whole place was in motion and resembled nothing less than a gigantic ants’ nest. Even from their great height the band could hear the distant, discordant sounds of it all.

  More astonishing were the things that inhabited the sky. They weren’t dragons, griffins, hi
ppogryphs or any of the other airborne creatures a sensible being might expect. Some didn’t even have wings, and they reflected glints of sunlight as they flew, as though, unfeasibly, they were made of metal or glass.

  “This must be the billet of mighty wizards,” Wheam reckoned, awestruck.

  “If it is they’ve built themselves a hellish place,” Stryke said, expressing the sentiment of them all. “Who’d want to live so cut off from natural things? Where are the trees, the rivers, the blades of grass?”

  “And where’s Jennesta?” Coilla pitched in.

  “I think she’d feel right at home in a hive like this. It’s vileness would appeal to her.”

  “But not enough, apparently,” Dynahla announced. “She’s left.”

  “I won’t be sorry to follow her this time.”

  The place they turned up in would normally have struck them as either lacklustre or potentially hostile. Compared to where they had just been it felt welcoming.

  It was a desert. Sand from horizon to horizon, broken only by occasional dunes. It was hot, but not unbearable, and there was even a gentle breath of wind. There didn’t appear to be anything immediate that might threaten them.

  “Everybody all right?” Stryke asked.

  “I feel sick,” Wheam said.

  “You would,” Haskeer came back.

  Standeven didn’t look too bright either, but he knew better than to complain.

  Although they didn’t know how fleeting their stay would be, the band took the chance to rest, and most sat or lay down on the fine sand. Stryke was content to let them.

  Coilla found herself beside Dynahla, both of them a little apart from the others. It was an opportunity to ask him something she had been pondering.

  “Tell me, does carrying the stars have any kind of effect on you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they certainly did something to Stryke’s mind once, and to Haskeer when he was close to them for a while.”

  “Objects as powerful as these can have an influence on those exposed to them, particularly for long periods. They’re not playthings, you know.”

  “What kind of… influence?”

  “Good or bad, depending on the nature and preparedness of the individual. I’m guessing that with Stryke and Haskeer it wasn’t good.”

  “Maybe strange would be a better word.”

  “Each set of instrumentalities has its own signature. And because every set is unique, its effect will differ. But whoever possesses them will feel it strongly nevertheless.”

  “But not you?”

  “I’m trained to resist their negative power and to utilise the positive. And remember that Serapheim created this set.” He patted the pocket containing them. “What better teacher can there be than their maker?”

  “So they’d affect Jennesta too?”

  “Oh yes. That’s one of the reasons why her having a set is so dangerous. She would certainly prosper from their negative emanations. Although she has an ersatz set, of course, copied from these. I don’t know if that would make a difference. It’s almost unprecedented.”

  “Thanks for telling me that. Though I can’t say I understood it all.”

  Dynahla smiled. “The greatest adepts have never got to the bottom of all the instrumentalities’ secrets, even Serapheim, and I certainly haven’t.” He paused, and briefly closed his eyes. “She’s on the move again.”

  “It amazes me that you can tell.”

  “As I said, I’ve been trained.” He turned and called out, “Stryke! Time to go!”

  Stryke came over. “Already?”

  “Yes. I think things are going to take a slightly different turn now.”

  “How would you know that?” he replied suspiciously.

  “I’ll explain later. Meanwhile—”

  “Trust you. Yeah.”

  He shouted an order and the band gathered round.

  The crossing was the longest and most disquieting they had yet experienced.

  They opened their eyes to a place like no other.

  They were on an enormous, totally flat plain, devoid of any features. Above them, the sky was unvaryingly scarlet, with no clue as to where the light that bathed the scene came from. The ground they stood on was a uniform grey and of some unnatural substance. It was spongy underfoot. The only landmark was a distant, pure-white, box-shaped structure. It was hard to judge the scale of things, but the building looked vast. A tangy, sulphurous odour perfumed the air.

  There was no one else in sight, least of all Jennesta and her minions.

  “Where the hell are we?” Coilla whispered.

  “What do you know about this, Dynahla?” Stryke demanded.

  “Only that there was a good chance we’d end up here.”

  “You knew? And you didn’t think to tell us?”

  “Only a chance, I said. It was by no means certain and—”

  Stryke grabbed the shape-changer by the throat and thrust his face close. “You’d better start telling us what you know about this place.”

  “I can tell you that not everything here is real, but all of it can harm. And that nothing you’ve faced up to now compares with what you’re about to be confronted with.”

  24

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Stryke demanded. “Where are we?”

  “It’d be easier to explain,” Dynahla rasped, “if you let me draw a breath.”

  Stryke had the shape-changer’s collar bunched so tight it was crushing his windpipe. He grunted and let go.

  “Thank you,” Dynahla said evenly, massaging his throat.

  “So what is this place?”

  “It has lots of names. The Barred Sector, the Proscribed Zone, the Perpetual Discontinuity…”

  “Bugger what it’s called,” Haskeer interjected. “What’s it for?”

  “A long time ago, a very long time ago, it was… fashioned. A quartet of great adepts worked together to create it.”

  “Why?” Stryke pressed.

  “Its purpose isn’t completely understood. But the story goes that the four fell out, and they built this environment as a place in which to settle their differences.”

  “Like some kind of arena?” Pepperdyne said.

  “Sort of, though it’s more complex than that. We don’t know the outcome of the battle the sorcerers fought here. They’ve long gone, but this zone remains, and it’s potentially very dangerous. That’s why it’s off limits to those few capable of entering it.”

  “Why are we here?” Stryke wanted to know.

  “Serapheim brought us.”

  “What for?”

  “Because this is where he is.”

  Stryke cast an eye over the strange terrain. “I don’t see him.”

  “Well, it’s… almost where he is.”

  “You taking us for fools?” Haskeer growled menacingly. “He’s either here or he ain’t.”

  “Explain yourself, Dynahla,” Stryke said, “in a way we’ll understand.”

  “Serapheim’s done something similar to what the four wizards of old achieved here. He’s built himself a pocket universe.”

  “I said in a way we’d understand,” Stryke warned him.

  “He used magic to create a private world, a secret retreat outside of time and space.”

  “Why?”

  “It keeps him alive. He’s old, older than you’d believe, probably, and even he can’t hold back the effects of ageing for ever. The world he’s made cocoons him from the worst of growing old. It slows down the process.”

  “How can that be?” Dallog interrupted, showing especial interest.

  “As I said, his world exists apart from space and time. He can reduce the rate at which time passes. So although the conditions there can’t make him immortal, they can help preserve his life.”

  “I still don’t get where he is,” Jup confessed. “How can he be almost here?”

  “It’s more accurate to say we’re almost where he is. Though, to
be honest, it’s a big almost.” Dynahla saw the looks on their faces and tried again. “Serapheim piggybacked on this place when he built his pocket universe. He fused his magic with the magic here to attach his sphere to this one. Think of it as like putting a new wing on a house, or adding a tower to a fortress. The entrance to his domain is here, in this world. We just have to get to it.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “By always travelling north.”

  Stryke took in their bizarre surroundings again. “How do we know where north is?”

  The shape-changer pointed to a spot just above the horizon. A speck of light hung there, brilliant as a diamond. “The northern star. Not that north here is the same as north on Maras-Dantia, Ceragan or any other world.”

  “My head’s starting to hurt,” Coilla said. “Is anything about this place normal?”

  “You can die here.”

  “That sounds like the kind of normal we know. What does the killing?”

  “Almost anything; it’s unpredictable. Things happen at random here. That’s one of its properties, and why travel is so dangerous.”

  “Why do we have to?” Pepperdyne wondered. “Travel, I mean. Couldn’t Serapheim have just taken us straight there, to this pocket universe of his?”

  “No. Even with all his great powers he couldn’t transport us directly to his world.”

  “What’s stopping him?”

  “If it was easy to enter his world it wouldn’t offer him much in the way of protection. We have to make our own way to its entrance.”

  “Why should we?” Stryke said.

  “Because Serapheim’s your only salvation. If you want a chance to have a reckoning with Jennesta, and to help prevent the catastrophe she could bring down on all our heads, you need his aid. In any event we have no choice. The instrumentalities have been nullified. They won’t work in this world.”

  “We can’t leave?”

  “No. Even if we could, that wouldn’t help you find Thirzarr, who’s here somewhere, along with Jennesta.”

  “I’ll have them back then.” Stryke held out his hand.

  Dynahla produced the stars and gave them to him.

  Stryke put them into his belt pouch and made sure it was secure. “Any other pearls of wisdom before we get going?”