by Sam Bowring
Fazel looked at him a long time then, but for all his reaction he may as well have still been a skeleton.
•
Gellan offered to sit first watch.
‘I’m not sure you are the wisest choice,’ said Bel. ‘If the Mireforms come after us, you will not sense them.’
‘Neither will you,’ countered the mage, ‘but my eyes work just as well as yours.’
Bel did not argue too hard, for he was tired, and soon was lying on a bedroll with Jaya snuggled up close against him. As he was just about to doze off, a sound in the distance made him sit bolt upright.
It was soft at the start, a low and mournful howl that seemed to strain with great pressure behind it. The pressure released, and the howl erupted into full-bodied despair, on and on in one wavering note, until the trees around them shook. It rose and fell, ululating between rage and sorrow, echoing throughout the wood.
‘I think the son may have found his mother,’ said Fazel.
The sound ceased abruptly and they waited for a long while, listening . . . but there was nothing more.
‘Better try to get some sleep,’ said Fazel, almost good-humouredly.
As Bel lay back with his eyes wide open, somehow the canopy of branches above them did not seem adequate cover from the starry sky.
•
Daybreak brought with it a feeling of being more tired than when he’d lain down. Bel guessed that he’d managed an hour’s sleep at most, and the ground seemed harder and more uncomfortable than ever before. He rose to find M’Meska tucking into a raw rabbit.
‘Want eat?’ she said, proffering a half-chewed corpse. ‘No fire, don’t want risk for to be seen.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Bel.
Soon they were on their way once more. As dawn turned into the blaze of day, they found themselves at the forest’s edge. Beyond lay Valdurn . . . and the scent of meat cooking and the sight of smoke rising. Bel’s stomach growled before he had the terrible thought that what he smelt could be the funeral pyre.
‘Very quiet,’ said M’Meska.
‘Let us move carefully,’ warned Bel.
They stepped out amongst the huts, but this time there were no bodies to be seen. The man they’d met must have done the grisly work of clearing them all away. Bel wondered if he was still here, or what miserable shape they would find him in.
‘Seb?’ called Hiza. ‘Kera?’
‘Shhh!’ said Bel.
‘We should never have left them,’ said Hiza.
‘What choice did we have?’ said Bel defensively.
He led them around a slashed-up hut, coming in sight of the village square. A great black pyre smouldered there, in which could be seen bones not yet reduced to ash. A short distance from it, a group of figures hunched around a smaller fire, roasting meat.
‘Survivors?’ whispered Jaya.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Bel. ‘Survivors would not fill their bellies so close to the remains of their still-smoking friends.’
One of the figures glanced up, got to his feet. They were men, six of them, wearing leather armour and carrying swords and shields; they were battle-scarred and grizzled. They looked like a band of mercenaries.
‘Ho there,’ called the one standing. ‘We didn’t realise anyone was left alive here!’
Behind him the others all but ignored the newcomers.
‘Bel . . .’ said Gellan warningly.
‘I know,’ said Bel. ‘Everyone stay close.’
He moved to stand on the other side of the square, then came to a halt with his hand on his sword hilt.
‘I appreciate your wariness,’ said the man, ‘but you have nothing to fear.’
‘How did you come here?’ asked Bel.
‘From the south,’ replied the man. ‘We heard this village was beset by monsters, and thought to offer our services. As you can see,’ he gestured around, ‘we arrived too late.’
‘There were people still here two days ago,’ said Hiza.
‘Must have moved on,’ shrugged the man. ‘Wouldn’t you? Nothing left to stay for. By Arkus,’ he laughed, ‘who could do such a thing? I’ve seen monster attacks before, but nothing like this. Maybe it was the dragon?’
Behind him the other warriors started to rise. As they did, the spit roast became visible. Perched above the flames was a man’s arm, some of its hair still frizzling in the heat.
‘I trust you are enjoying this little charade?’ said Bel, drawing his sword.
The man cocked his head quizzically, then glanced at the fire and the smoking appendage. His gaze returned with a smile on his face. The other warriors began to fan out beside him.
‘Waste not, want not,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘Now, give us the Stone, and you and your friends can walk away unharmed.’
A path sprang up before Bel thick and fast, pulling at him like a powerful current.
‘Please,’ he managed to mutter to the others, ‘protect each other. Don’t . . . worry about me.’
Frenzy blazed through him and before he knew it, he was speeding towards the warriors with his blade held high. For a moment they stood, startled, not expecting such a sudden attack. As Bel’s sword sliced down upon one of their arms, fierce joy zinged through him. The arm fell away, mud spurting from the wound, and the warrior roared, his mouth elongating to widen his head. Another warrior drew his sword, and as he did his arm changed, sword hilt becoming an extension of ropy limb, blade fanning out into a brace of knife-like claws. Bel surrendered wholly to the fight, whirling amongst them as they began to change. Leather bubbled and became muddy skin, arms and legs extended, tendrils burst free. One of them, still mostly a man-shape, opened its mouth and shot out a needle-tipped tongue at Bel’s chest.
‘No!’ gurgled the leader, half-transformed, and snipped the tongue from the air with the tips of its claws. ‘He must not be harmed!’
Bel sensed their confusion as pathways spread out amongst them – there were now many ways in which he could travel to take advantage of their hesitation. He feinted then rolled, hacked out a pair of bandy legs, and a Mireform went down roaring. It kicked its stumps and new legs grew, thinner than before.
‘Restrain him!’ bellowed the leader, all vestiges of humanity melting away.
Claws closed over his arm. He did not feel the pain as he twisted free of a grip that cut him but had no real purchase as long as he was willing to suffer the consequences.
‘Get the others!’ the leader yelled.
Bel spun and saw Hiza and Jaya standing with swords drawn as the leader advanced on them, and M’Meska leaping up onto the roof of a hut, loosing arrows. Does no good, he thought dimly. Got to cut, not pierce. Then the path swept him along and, without even looking, he rolled away from a tendril that sought to entangle him. The sword followed him around and the tendril went flying.
‘Fazel!’ he screamed. ‘Gellan!’
He caught a brief glimpse of Gellan standing with his hands out, looking lost, as if unsure what spell to cast.
‘Do something!’
‘What is wrong, little light mage?’ laughed a Mireform, looming over Gellan. ‘Could it be we have no orders not to kill you?’
Gellan waved a hand and the earth split beneath the Mireform, which suddenly found itself falling. The mage flicked his wrist and the hole closed up, swallowing the creature. Immediately, a clawed hand burst up through the ground like some abnormal bloom. Seconds later, the Mireform was pulling itself up, dirt showering from its back.
‘Think you can bury what is already earth?’ it roared.
•
Stop this, Losara tried again. The thought slid off the Mireform, failing to penetrate its magically resistant hide.
They can’t hear you, came Fazel’s thought. You will have to reveal yourself to call them off.
The undead mage gestured at a hut, ripping wood free and sending pieces spinning towards the Mireform, beating it backwards, delaying it, but doing no real harm.
•
A tendril wrapped around Hiza’s leg, yanked violently and sent him to the ground. Jaya found herself facing the Mireform leader alone. She swiped at it but the grinning thing rocked backwards, easily avoiding her blade, while at the same time its tongue shot out towards her. Her reflexes kicked in and she somersaulted backwards, landing amongst the huts. Suddenly she could not see any of the others.
The Mireform gurgled with laughter and tottered forward. Fear came upon her, a kind of fear she had never known. She turned to run, and her legs almost got away from her. She found herself crashing through the door of a hut and sprawling on a rug. There she lay dazed for a moment, her eye a finger’s breadth from a colourful flower woven into the fabric. For a moment the banal little picture was the only thing she could concentrate on, a pretty motif amidst the ruin.
‘Think you can hide in there?’ came a mocking burble.
She rolled off her stomach and elbowed herself backwards along the floor as the Mireform lurched outside the door. It gripped the doorframe and pulled, tearing away half of the hut.
‘Plenty others had that idea when we were here before,’ it said. ‘Suppose it helped them?’
Clicking its claws, it ambled inside.
•
Bel swung hard at a grinning head, sending it sloughing away from the shoulders. Mud bubbled at the neck as the head re-formed. He sliced again, this time at the arms. The head appeared just in time to yowl as the arms fell away, and he lopped it off for a second time. As the arms grew back it was off with the legs, then a mighty heave to cut the torso cut in half. Mud splattered his eyes as he relentlessly butchered the thing where it stood, denying it the chance to regain shape. Soon the Mireform was nothing but a puddle at his feet, from which a small worm-shape slithered away into the grass. Bel flung his sword, cutting it in two, and there was a sound like steam shooting from a kettle as it withered.
One down.
He pulled his sword from the ground, and for a moment stood disoriented. The remaining Mireforms had shambled off in pursuit of the others, leaving him alone before the smouldering pyre with nothing to attack.
Further off he saw M’Meska bound from a roof, saw a tendril shoot up and seize her leg, bringing her down somewhere out of view amongst the huts. Where were Jaya and the rest?
He heard her cry out in fear or pain, or both, and the sound was like an arrow through his heart. The bloodlust was not enough to dull his terror, and he raced towards her voice, cursing. He burst into a space between a group of dwellings just as Gellan and Fazel ran in from a different direction. A roar came from within a shaking hut, then the sides splintered as the entire structure fell away. The Mireform leader was revealed, stooping over something, obscuring his view of it. Then the creature lifted Jaya bodily into the air, its tendrils whipping to encircle her, pinning her to its chest as it spun to face them with both arms free. Dazedly she struggled, but more tendrils appeared from the Mireform’s abdomen, restraining her like a fly in a spider’s web. It grinned as it waved claws in front of her face, grinding them together harshly.
‘Look, Bel,’ it said. ‘I wear your woman like a tabard.’
Another Mireform appeared behind it, dragging the thrashing M’Meska by her tail. Then another, with Hiza slung across its back, and the fourth and fifth as well.
‘Don’t hurt her!’ shouted Bel, more anger in his voice than plea.
‘See what happens,’ the leader said, ‘when you deny us? Now the girl dies, and your friends will follow if you will not give the Stone.’
It opened its wide mouth even wider, borrowing substance from the rest of its body to create a cavernous abyss of fangs that closed down upon Jaya.
‘Idiot,’ said Bel.
The Mireform’s eyes rolled to focus on Bel. ‘What?’
‘You’re going to start with her, the one I hold dearest . . . and then work your way back through the others, when you’ll have already done the worst of the harm? That’s like cutting out a man’s heart and then tickling his toes. You have the order all wrong.’
The Mireform managed to look uncertain for a moment, and Bel wondered if his argument, made in near-hysteria, had actually worked.
‘Good try,’ the creature said, and once again its maw descended.
‘Stop,’ said Gellan.
‘Stop?’ one of the others chuckled wetly. ‘No, little mage. We think not.’
Gellan sighed. ‘I guess I can’t let this go on any longer.’
•
Losara dropped his disguise. The mage Gellan, whose real body lay buried many weeks behind them, disappeared. Everyone but Fazel stared at him in shock. Eldew paused on the brink of decapitating Jaya, his spittle dripping on her as his massive open mouth took on an expression of surprise.
‘Lord Shadowdreamer!’
‘I am disappointed in you, Eldew,’ said Losara. ‘This,’ he waved around at the village, ‘was not part of your orders.’
‘We did not deviate from the course you gave us,’ said Eldew. ‘Why not dispatch enemies of Fenvarrow if we find them in our way?’
‘Peasants,’ said Losara. ‘Farmers. We had no cause to fear them.’
‘But they could be made to pick up swords, pitchforks, stand against us in the coming battles.’
‘We killed the dragon,’ added Ectid, almost whining.
‘True,’ said Losara. ‘In that you did well.’
He turned to his counterpart, and was taken aback by the cold, livid hatred he saw in Bel’s eyes.
•
He’s here, thought Bel. He’s been with us for . . . since when? Was he Gellan from the start?
‘How long?’ he said, his voice tense.
‘Remember when you awoke to Gellan’s cry in the night?’ said Losara.
Bel glowered darkly in answer. So there had been a real Gellan, but that man had not been with them for some time. Murdered on the trail, back near the beginning. They had only known him for a few days.
‘But . . .’ he said. ‘You cast a light spell, in the wood . . .’ It seemed a strange thing to focus on, and even as he said the words, he wished he could take them back. He had been tricked many times in these last days, that was plain enough, and the details seemed less important than the act itself. His greatest enemy had been in their midst for weeks, and he had not realised.
Fazel, came a thought. Yes – Fazel had been under Losara’s command for most of this time. Now springing into his mind came Fazel’s explanation of why they had journeyed towards Valdurn the long way, through Crystalweb. All lies, all artifice. Tactics of the shadow.
‘Let Jaya go,’ he said. ‘Let them all go.’
Losara smiled wanly at him, then nodded at the Mireforms. ‘Do as he says.’
‘But Shadowdreamer –’ began Eldew.
‘You have sworn to serve me,’ said Losara, ‘so do what I command.’
Uncertainly, reluctantly, the tendrils that held Jaya to Eldew wound away, receding into him. Unrestrained, she collapsed from his chest to the ground, shaking. Bel came forward to grab her by the shoulders, and dragged her away from the hulking monster. The Mireforms holding M’Meska and Hiza seemed equally unsure, but Eldew gurgled at them and they obeyed. Hiza half-crawled, half-stumbled away, while M’Meska sprang snarling to her feet, with apparently little injured but her pride.
Bel realised he was holding Jaya more tightly than was comfortable for her and forced himself to ease his grip. He was disgusted with himself for having let her come so close to harm. He tried to wipe some of the slime off her face, but his hand was too unsteady. What was he shaking with? Rage? Losara may have saved Jaya, but he had also been the one who put her in danger.
Bel stood, bristling to do something, ready to lash out. He noticed M’Meska raising a bow towards his counterpart and shook his head at her, though it galled him. Confused, she lowered her weapon.
Losara, for the moment, seemed to be ignoring him.
‘Off you go,’ he was telling the Mireforms. ‘Back to Fenvarrow, please.’
‘Lord Shadowhand,’ said Eldew, ‘do you not wish us to complete our task? We can take the Stone!’
‘I don’t need your help for that,’ said Losara.
Bel felt his hand creep into his pocket and close around the chain and the Stone.
‘I thank you for certain facets of your expedition,’ Losara continued, ‘though I should have been clearer about your parameters. It was a mistake to use agents I could not find when I needed to. Thus I declare, on your way home, kill no innocents.’
‘What are innocents?’ said Eldew, his tone sounding as though he was genuinely asking. Losara thought about the question but seemed to struggle finding an answer.
‘Anyone who isn’t a soldier,’ he sighed. ‘Or a mage.’
Eldew nodded. ‘And the other dragon?’
‘Behind us now,’ said Losara. ‘Besides, I do not think Bel will accept you as allies should it arrive. Would you, my friend?’
Bel stared at the Mireforms, itching to attack – but he still had his companions to think of.
‘Get out of my sight before I chop you all to pieces,’ he said. ‘And,’ he added to Losara, ‘we are not friends.’
Losara sighed again. ‘I suppose not. Something other than that, perhaps. Mireforms – depart.’
The Mireforms loped away, dispirited, disappearing amongst the huts. As Eldew turned to leave he paused. ‘You are lucky to be obeyed by the Mireform, Shadowhand,’ he said, not facing Losara. ‘There are none before you we would tolerate speaking to us as you have.’
‘Why do you then?’ shouted Bel suddenly, looking for any outlet for his fury.
Eldew chuckled. ‘Have you not seen his eyes, boy?’
The Mireform moved on.
Maybe one day we will meet again, thought Bel. Certainly, at that moment, he hoped so. He wanted to make them pay, but now was not the time. Instead he returned his gaze to Losara, who was considering him curiously.
‘Why?’ Bel spat. ‘Why did you come with us?’
‘To learn,’ said Losara calmly.
‘Why did you save her? You knew they wouldn’t harm me.’
‘I do not wish you ill, Bel,’ Losara said. ‘I do not enjoy causing suffering. Besides,’ and again that fleeting smile crossed his face, ‘if, one day, one of us does indeed become the other, I would not rob him of his great love. I would have to live with that misery too, should you succeed. But,’ he finished, the smile gone, ‘you will not. Now give me the Stone.’
