by Andy Remic
“Can I join you?”
“I knew he’d send the woman.”
“I’m not just any woman.”
“I know that.” But he patted the log beside him and Kiki moved forward, hand on her sword hilt, boots crunching through a thin layer of snow and frozen dead pine needles.
“It’s getting too cold to camp out,” she observed, making conversation. Dek was a huge, threatening bulk beside her.
“Dalgoran says we’ll camp at Skell Fortress tomorrow night, if the snow continues.”
Kiki shivered. “I think I’d rather freeze to death.”
“Don’t be foolish, woman.”
“Woman, is it?” grinned Kiki, drawing a long knife with a hiss of steel. “Once, I would have thrown you from the battlements for a comment like that. Broken your leg. Cut off a finger. I didn’t earn Captain of this squad without cracking a few big dumb skulls.”
Dek turned towards her, his face painted white, ghostly, in the moonlight, in the snow. She tried to read his features, but could not. A long silence developed between them, until Dek leant a little closer and she felt the warmth of his body.
“You used to love me,” he said, gently.
“I still love you,” said Kiki. “Despite being just a woman.”
“Ha. Always a quick joke to avoid what needs to be said. You were always this way.”
“Really? Well, I remember giving my heart and soul to you, and I remember you betraying me. And not just me: Narnok. Your sword brother. Your blood brother.”
Dek remained silent, and then lowered his head, rubbing his face with both hands.
“How did it get so messed up?” he said.
“You messed it up,” said Kiki, regretting the words the minute they passed beyond her lips. She cursed herself, and felt Dek stiffen. She placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. It was a long time ago. Best to forget.”
She thought about the honey-leaf, then. Her addiction. Contemplated her own betrayal; more subtle, but still a betrayal of her unit, her lover, herself.
“Can I kiss you?”
Dek moved close in the darkness, and reached towards her, and she placed a hand flat on his chest but did not push him away. He came close, and kissed her, and his lips were unexpectedly soft, his kiss surprisingly tender.
He pulled away.
“Don’t get any ideas,” said Kiki.
“I needed that. Our parting words were… harsh. Your words were harsh.”
“I’m sorry. Actually, no, I’m not. You slept with Narnok’s wife, Dek. You abused his trust and mine. You broke us all up. You killed the Iron Wolves more effectively than Morkagoth ever could.”
“It was a seduction,” he said softly, large eyes filled with sadness. “She drugged me. I was out of my mind. And I never meant any of what followed.”
“Have you seen Narnok? Since it happened?”
“No.”
“Have you seen what she did to him? What those bastard mercenaries did to his face?”
“No. But I heard.”
“Hearing isn’t enough,” said Kiki. “But you’ll see. You can apologise firsthand to his fucked-up face. That’s if he doesn’t kill you first, of course.”
“I’m a hard man to kill,” said Dek.
“We’re all hard to kill; that’s why we’re Wolves.”
Dek stood, a sudden movement. “I still love you, Kiki. We’ve been apart… too long. We can leave. Leave this place: now. Saddle our horses and simply ride away. We don’t need no trouble. We don’t need another battle, another war.” He came close, kneeling before her, bathed in moonlight, shoulders dusted with snow. “I’ll take you away, Kiki, to the mountains. Build you a cabin. We can live out our years together. It’ll be like we were never apart, like none of those bad things ever happened.”
“We can’t. Dalgoran needs us. He has a dream, a vision.”
“Big swinging horse bollocks to his vision! We have a right to happiness, Kiki. We did our fighting for Vagandrak, for Tarek. We spilt blood and cracked skulls and gave everything to rid the land of Morkagoth. But you know what I learned? Nobody truly gives a damn. The people, I mean. Those bastards I supposedly fought for. Ungrateful fucking City Watch; moaning teachers, shit-spouting academics, back-stabbing politicians; even the fucking farmers! Happy for us to do the dying. Not so happy if we needed their bloody help. I learned it real fast, Kiki. As long as they all have their warm beds, their ale and wine, soft open legs and one another to rut with, snotty nosed children to care for, they just get on with it, and leave the killing and the dying to the likes of us. We’re fools, Kiki. We need to get out of this life. Out of this world. We’re too old for this horse shit. What I’m trying to say, is, that I always loved you, even through the long lean years, and I always will love you. You’re my soul mate. I should never have let you slip through my fingers. And now it’s time; now it’s time to retire, and let others do the fighting. And the dying. Especially the dying.”
Kiki stared up at him, bathed white and pure. In this light, on this evening, she could see past the scars and broken features. She could see the young man again, giggling with her on the first wall of Desekra, Sanderlek, whilst they waited for the enemy horde. Young, foolish, full of their own legend-to-come.
He wants you, whispered Suza, a black snake in the night grass. You should take him. Use him. Get rid of him. You’ve done it a hundred times before. Piss him away, in the same way he discarded you.
No! That’s not how it happened!
It’s exactly how it fucking happened. I was there. I saw everything.
How could you possibly be there?
I’ve always been a part of you, Kiki. We came from the same broken egg. Sisters. Twins. Only you got all the luck, all the breaks, all the favours from father; I was left to rot and burn and crumble. And then, when I lost my…
Don’t start with the sympathy shit again. Why can’t you leave me in peace? I want to be at peace!
I will make a pact with you, said Suza, words a gentle caress. Like a blade kissing a sleeping throat.
Go on.
When you are no longer an Iron Wolf, then I will leave you alone.
That’s a hard ask.
I’m a hard bitch.
I noticed. A traumatised one, too. Well, how about this? I’ll put up with your constant whining, your reluctance to let go of the past, your exaggeration of anything petty and bad that ever happened to you, and when I finally die, and I see you in the Halls of Chaos, or the Furnace, or wherever the fuck Den of Hell I end up… well, I’ll stamp out your teeth and break your skull and send you to oblivion. How does that sound, sister bitch?
“I’m going back to the fire,” said Kiki, shivering.
“Stay with me. Come away with me.”
“No. Dalgoran needs me. He is like a father to me.”
“And I can be a husband to you. And a father to your children.”
He turned and she looked up into his face. He doesn’t know, she realised. But then, only Dalgoran knew, and if he blabbed it to cheap whores and word got around, she’d cut his throat like all the other scum who’d abused her. No. Dek didn’t know. How could he know? She stared at the hard brutal features. Once, he’d been ruggedly handsome. Now, he was just rugged. She could live with just rugged.
“I’m dying,” she said, softly.
“What?”
“I have a cancer. Inside me.”
“Have you seen a doctor? A surgeon?”
“Of course I have, Dek,” she said, and stepped in close, putting her head to his chest, holding the big man. “They can do nothing.”
“Who did you see? Did you see Corialis of Vagan? He used to tend the King. I have money.” He thought about this. “I can find money. As much as you need. I can help you, Kiki. We’ll get you the best!”
“Remember all that gold showered over our heroic heads by King Tarek? I already paid for the best, Dek.” She took his hand, pressed it to her breast. “They cut me open. Here. To remove
the growth. But it was too close to my heart. They said to remove the cancer would be to kill me on the operating table. And so they sewed me back up and it’s there, growing, poisoning, consuming: eating me from the inside out.”
Dek pulled away and stared down at her face. Snow settled on her upturned gaze. “That cannot be, Kiki,” he said, with great gentility.
“It’s a hard fact. So, I would ask you, Dek, in all and total unfairness, having laid this great news at your feet, that you do me several favours.”
“Anything, Kiki. I’d do anything for you.”
“Make an effort with your brother, Ragorek.”
Dek remained silent, though his teeth ground together.
“Make an effort with Narnok, when we see him; no matter what your reasons, in his eyes you stabbed him in the back. You betrayed his friendship, his brotherhood and his love.”
“And the third?”
“Come with me. Follow Dalgoran. Let’s see where this adventure leads. But together. I want you by my side again, Dek. I’ve been alone for too long.”
He leant forward and he kissed her. And she sank into his embrace.
The snow was coming down thick and fast. Dalgoran was pushing a fast pace, and Ragorek cantered up beside Dek, horses kicking through snow. “He’s a hard bastard for such an old bastard.”
“Tougher than you could ever know,” grunted Dek, eyes straining to see through the thick flurries. “By all the gods, this snow will be the death of us.”
“We are fools to still be on the road.”
“Dalgoran reckons it’s another hour and we should hit Skell Fortress; haunted, empty shit-shell that it is. But still. A broken roof and crumbling walls are better than another night in the open. I could barely sleep last night!”
“Because of the cold, or because of the extra warmth?”
Dek eyed his older brother. “Don’t get smart, fucker, or I’ll knock out some more teeth.”
“Ahh, your friendly banter is ever a tonic for this winter chill.”
They rode in silence for a while. Finally, Ragorek said, “Listen, Dek, I wanted to explain something. I want to…”
“No.” Dek held up his hand. “Let’s stop there. The fire burned hot and took her away. Let’s leave it there; draw a line in the sand and walk forward from this point on. How does that sound, Rag?”
“It sounds good, brother.”
Dek nodded, and they both returned gazes to the trail.
“You have been to Skell Fortress before?”
Dek nodded.
“Isn’t it… haunted?”
“Worse than haunted, brother; Skell carries the souls of demons. It’s a real bad place, through and through,” and with those words he huddled under his cloak, and tried to ignore the cold, the wind, the ice and the snow.
SKELL FORTRESS
Wind screamed across the land. Night had fallen. Thick snow swirled in a harsh blizzard. Skell Fortress, a thousand years old, at least; crumbling, abandoned, it loomed from the snow and dark with a shocking suddenness and a distressing, massive oppressiveness. As if it were some great and terrible beast that would suddenly reach out, plucking them from their mounts and crushing them totally.
Cowering against the weather, they plodded under the massive entrance archway where once a huge gate had stood. Now, its tattered, shredded remains hung from rusted iron hinges thicker than Dek’s waist, and did little to block the gathering snow drifts.
Kiki stopped just within the arch. She’d heard the stories of Skell Fortress. Or Skell’s Folly as it had become known; but had never visited this supposedly haunted relic. Until now.
It was big.
No.
It was huge. Bigger than any fortress had a right to be.
Kiki’s head lifted back, chin tilting to the dark heavens as she surveyed the massive, vast array of towers and bulkheads, walls and blocks and warehouses. Desekra Fortress guarding the Pass of Splintered Bones through the Mountains of Skarandos was BIG; four walls and a keep BIG. Skell had only one surrounding wall and a central keep, but its vast vertical size was something to blow a soldier’s mind.
“What was it guarding against?” she said, words whipped away by the dog-snapping wind.
“Who knows?” said Dek.
“But… here. Beside the marshes. There is nothing worth guarding.”
Dek nodded. “Maybe the landscape changed?”
“Or the mountains grew legs and shuffled away? Who would build such a thing? Here, on a flat plain, on the edge of the Rokroth Marshes. What’s the damn point?”
“They had a reason,” said Dalgoran, looming from the darkness. He kicked from the saddle and boots thumped old, weathered cobbles. “Or they wouldn’t have put in so much effort. Come on. We can stable the horses up here.”
“And build a fire,” said Dek, shivering. Not because of the cold. Dek could stand the cold. This was more to do with the… ambience. An umbrella of protection. From… bad things.
Kiki dismounted, and calming her horse, walked the mare towards the low-lying stable block ahead. Again, age-old stone, a thatched roof that had almost caved in and was bowed under a weight of thick, glistening snow.
They stabled the horses, each in silence and thinking strange thoughts. For Kiki, she contemplated the walls of the stable as a starting point. The whole structure of Skell Fortress felt… wrong. Wrong in her skin, her flesh, her bones, her brain. It was subtle, she had to admit; like a gentle infusion. But it was there, tugging at the corners of a person’s mind; at their vision, and twisted imagination. There was something deeply wrong about Skell Fortress.
Rubbing his horse with a handful of straw, then settling a blanket in place, Dek listened to the howling wind, and the over-bearing silence of fallen snow, then cocked his head at Kiki. “What is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s subtle, I’ll grant you, but something is out of place here; out of joint with the world.”
Kiki wanted to disagree, but found she couldn’t. She felt light-headed, like the time she came around from the operating table and found a cluster of doctors, surgeons, nurses, tending her. Bright lights. Feeble excuses. A surreal experience; not of this world.
Without speaking, she stepped from the stable block and simply stared.
The wall was high and thick, gloss black, some sections crumbled away forming huge Vs of erosion. The original stone masonry was exquisite; or would have been in its day. Even now, many hundreds of years later, it gave a feeling of solidity, robustness, so if this place had to be held against the enemy, it would still have the…
Mass, she decided. The word was mass.
“What are you thinking?” asked Dek, stepping out beside her, his arm snaking around her waist.
“I’m thinking the walls are not straight.”
Dek stared. “By all the Gods, I think you’re right!”
“You think? Look at them! A blind man could make out the irregularities. But do you know what’s really strange?”
“Go on.”
“I think it was by design. I think Skell Fortress was built this way.”
Dek stared long and hard at the subtle, disjointed walls. Angles were not quite right. Nothing obvious, but it seemed like the whole place had shifted slightly. Was maybe built on soft foundations. But there were no cracks, no breaks, no missing mortar.
“But… why?”
Kiki frowned, and brushed snow from her long leather coat. “How the hell should I know? I’m just an unwilling observer. But it’s weird. Everything is out of place. Every joint and angle is just that little bit wrong. Like Skell was built in a different time; in a different world.”
Dek held on to Kiki’s words as they moved across a vast courtyard that was insanely proportioned; far too large to be practical. It was more of a…
“Killing ground,” said Kiki, filling in Dek’s blanks.
He grinned, and slapped her on the back. “I like a girlfriend who takes in the details and understand
s military strategy.”
“Girlfriend?” The words held more ice than the entire battlements of Skell Fortress.
“Well, you know, you are my… friend, and you’re…”
“A girl? Really? Dek? Are you truly that goat dumb?”
He slapped her on the back again, dislodging some snow, and gave a laugh like a short bark. “I could call you my wife, but then I’d have to marry you.” He grinned, showing several missing teeth.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Er… yes?”
Tossing her head and carrying her saddle, Kiki stalked away, disappearing down a wide avenue of massive stone blocks, all of which had been cut at irregular angles and yet which still fitted together perfectly, despite the centuries. Dek stood, looking confused for a moment before General Dalgoran came up behind him.
“Son, you’ll give up your whole life trying to understand them.”
“Am I being a simple sheep herder, here? I studied military tactics under Szen Thu!”
“Ahhh,” said Dalgoran, knowingly. “This is the Art of Women, not the Art of War. And I’ll give you five big gold pieces if you can decide which one is the more complex.”
“War?” suggested Dek, and grinned again, wiping snow from his nose. “Come on, Dalgoran. I’ll buy you a drink in the mess.”
“I’ve a feeling your money’s no good here.”
Dek scowled. “With my reputation, my money’s no good anywhere.”
“This is a bar full of ghosts.”
“I don’t care! As long as there’s some hard liquor!”
Kiki, yawning, padded down long stone corridors after Dalgoran. He still wore his armour and his sword was sheathed at his hip. He carried a fire brand, the light of which cast deep shadows on damp stonework. He turned, smiling at Kiki, face lit like a demon, and she returned with a tilt of the head, and a questioning smile of her own.
“We must go to the chapel,” he said.
