The Iron Wolves

by Andy Remic

  More came, climbing from the Mud-Pits and Zorkai’s hackles were standing on end, his heart thumping hard in his chest, mouth dry, bladder full, as these creatures, these visions from nightmare, from the darkest dreams of terrified children, climbed from the Mud-Pits in their tens, then their hundreds. Gradually, the whole plain of rock and pits was alive like a writhing, shifting ant nest as the mud-orcs were reborn, climbing gleaming from the lakes of mud, and they moved in a great stream of green and blood-red flesh towards Orlana, where she stood, arms apart, palms outwards in greeting, smiling at the abominations emerging before her…

  “Is there a captain amongst you?”

  “He will come, Lady,” hissed, and growled, and spat one mud-orc with long yellow fangs and a dark, intelligent gaze.

  “Go, assemble on the plains below alongside my war tents, and when your leader arrives, send him to me.”

  They moved like huge cats, agile and supple despite their size, loping off down the trails towards the fluttering white tents Orlana had erected. A huge stream of mud-orcs flowed down onto the plains and, without instruction, they began building their own camp. Tuboda was down there, giving out weapons and tools. Before long, several units headed off to distant stands of woodland; maybe a hundred mud-orcs in all.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Building a camp for when their captains arrive. The captains will come later; and you’ll know about it, when they do.”

  “Big, are they?”

  “Big, and mean, and more than a match for one of my splice.”

  “You sound like you’re a fan,” said Zorkai, weakly.

  “I am. We’ve worked together before.” She took his hand and tugged him towards her. “We have time. Come down to the tents. I have need of you.”

  Zorkai could feel the need emanating from his new queen, and in deep shame, and his own deep lust, he could not bring himself to refuse her.

  It was the middle of the night when Zorkai rolled from the blankets and furs, in desperate need of a piss. He could see the flickering of many fires beyond the canvas walls, but what he witnessed as he opened the flap and stepped outside made him gasp…

  The mud-orcs spread away across the plain like a dark ocean, their fires burning, their low, grunting songs chanting with a primeval rhythm. Drums beat, and the screeches of stressed steel reached Zorkai’s ears.

  “What the hell are they doing?” he muttered, and then turned – to find himself an inch away from the silent mud-orc captain, with its arms folded, eyes watching him. The creature was massive, and stank like a corpse. Zorkai looked slowly upwards, from the heavily muscled chest, with its thick, rippled green and red skin, full of warts and lesions, up to the wide brutal face and head, where tusks protruded from the lower jaw and gleaming black eyes surveyed him with an intelligence he did not enjoy.

  Slowly, the mud-orc captain lifted a great, swarthy hand and pushed Zorkai in the chest. His hand went to his sword-hilt and the mud-orc gave a wide, evil smile. “Where is Horse Lady?” he rumbled.

  But before Zorkai could speak, Orlana was there, her hand on his arm, nuzzling his ear. “Don’t upset him,” she said. “He’s very, very hungry.”

  “Hun...!” but Zorkai snapped his mouth shut.

  “Reporting, Horse Lady,” said the creature, fangs chomping, a huge string of saliva drooling from his face. “Can I eat the human?”

  “Not this one. I need this one.”

  “Oh.” The mud-orc looked crestfallen.

  “What is your name?”

  “Vekkos.”

  “This is your order, Captain Vekkos. Take your battalion, scour the country for a hundred miles in every direction: every hut, every village, every town; find weapons, and armour, and food; but more importantly, bring me people. We must still feed the Mud-Pits. We must still build your ranks!”

  “What we eat? We hungry! We mud-orcs need feed!”

  “Pigs, cows, camels, snakes, whatever you find; but not the horses, Vekkos. Never kill the horses.” Orlana smiled, cold eyes glittering. “Bring them to me,” she said. “I have a very special treat in store.”

  The days passed. The mud-orcs brought hundreds of people; thousands of people. All were forced struggling into the Oram Mud-Pits. The mud-orcs made their own weapons, and their ranks expanded; and this larger force headed out, further afield, bringing back hundreds and thousands more. Only Zak-Tan remained totally unmolested, and the remaining population stayed in their homes out of sheer animal terror. The more mud-orcs were born, the more fresh battalions headed out scouting for flesh, now with carts for the living, piled high and soon to be fed into the mud.

  And the wind howled mournfully. A song for the dead. For the dead.

  After a month, Orlana called Zorkai to him. She was dressed in full battle armour, all black; a stark contrast to her beautiful white face.

  “Yes, my Queen?”

  “Now for the real test. We have forty thousand mud-orcs, and near five thousand of my beautiful splice. We will head west, across the borders into Kenderzand; they have been your blood-oath enemies for millennia. We will slaughter them. We will enslave them.”

  Zorkai lifted his head, eyes reading the madness in Orlana’s face. But he smiled, and licked his lips, and said carefully, “We are not at war with Kenderzand; we currently have good trade relations. They are a much more prosperous people than we. We have contracts. We have treaties.”

  “Fuck your contracts and treaties. When we slaughter them, and take everything they own, and feed their flesh into the Mud-Pits, then you will see; then you will know that we cannot be stopped. This is our first real test, Zorkai; this is where we trial the mud-orcs, to see if they’re as brutal as they look. To harden them in battle. To ready them, for the real war.”

  “There are three passes through the Kender Straits, all protected by high walls, and with sea to either side.”

  “Well,” said Orlana, pulling on a plain black helm. “This is where it begins.”

  THE WAREHOUSE

  “Welcome back, Narnok,” whispered Xander, with the intimacy of a lover.

  Narnok had been rocking the chair to which he was tied. He had felt the weakness in the front leg, and kept levering his weight on the flawed joint, until… There came a crack, and the chair leg snapped. Narnok was jerked forward into Xander, who jumped suddenly as Narnok lurched and his head struck Xander’s nose. Xander went down hard, blood gushing, and Narnok kicked free one leg from the broken chair, the rope unravelling from his other ankle, and he stamped down on Xander’s balls, then on his sternum, then on his face with three hard sudden blows.

  Xander squealed, a long high pitched noise, his hands not knowing where to grab, and a door opened somewhere amidst the crates. The eight heavies who’d abducted Narnok back at the Pleasure Parlour piled in, armed with iron bars and helves; one also carried a sword. Narnok eyed the weapon coolly and stamped free of the broken chair legs and rope.

  “Ahh, my lovely boys,” he said, grinning, and delivered another heavy stamp that broke three of Xander’s ribs. Xander groaned, wheezing.

  The men spread out as Narnok backed to the tray of Xander’s torture implements, grappling with a scalpel. It parted the rope and the remains of the chair fell away, rope trailing from both of Narnok’s wrists. “Come on then, let’s see what you’ve got,” he rumbled.

  The men were all a touch taller than Narnok and more heavily muscled. They sported a range of beards and pock-marked faces, and wore rough woollen clothing and cheap boots. But their eyes glittered with the promise of a coming fight and they were secure in numbers. The man with the sword gestured, and two men with iron bars approached warily. Narnok still held the tiny scalpel in one hand, the broken chair in the other. The two men rushed towards him and he hurled the chair, took an iron bar on the forearm and slashed the scalpel across his attacker’s eyes in a horizontal stroke. The man went down screaming and Narnok kicked the other in the knee and took his iron bar as he writhed on the ground, leg
folded back the wrong way. He cast the scalpel aside with a bright tinkle of steel and weighed the bar thoughtfully.

  Narnok rolled his shoulders and tilted his head left, then right, with terrifying cracks of released tension. The two men at his feet were groaning at different pitches, and Narnok stepped over them, testing the weight of the bar and muttering, “Not as good as the axe, but it’ll do.” He looked up. And grinned. “What’s it to be, then? Two at a time or all six at once?”

  “Get him!” screamed the swordsman, and the heavies charged. The rest was a whirl of chaos with Narnok at the centre. He ducked a helve swing, jabbed the edge of the bar into a man’s throat, kicked another in the balls, leant back to avoid a sword swing, smashed a left straight to another’s nose, smashed a man straight over the head with his bar, took a blow on his shoulder, smashed his bar across a man’s knees, jabbed his outstretched fingers into another’s throat, deflected a sword swing, charging forward so the bar ran up the blade with a shower of sparks and his knee came up in the man’s balls, his fist hammered him to the ground – and he took the blade. He threw down the bar, swung the sword in a whistling figure of eight, then glanced at the four men still standing. “Let’s finish this,” he growled, and in five strokes left four corpses bleeding on the stone flags.

  Silence descended, except for occasional groans from the wounded, and Narnok bent over, ripping a man’s shirt free. He cleaned the blade, admired the weapon, then looked up as a figure stepped through the doorway.

  It was Kiki. Kiki!

  Narnok did a double-take, then grinned from behind his scars and milk-eye. “Well, well, well; don’t tell me you’re behind this little skirmish, Captain?”

  “You did well, Narnok.” She moved closer, and he read the pity in her eyes as she gazed upon his ruined features. “Those were pretty severe odds.” He nodded. “For a normal man, at any rate.”

  “But then I’m not a normal man; I’m a Wolf,” he said, softly.

  He reached out, and they grasped hands, and Kiki stepped in yet closer, hugging the big man. Into his shoulder, she said, words a little muffled, “I missed you, Narn. Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “You too, little Kiki.” He pulled back and gazed down adoringly. Then he seemed to remember his scars, and he pulled away from her grip, turning his back on her. “I’m sorry you’ve got to see me like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t patronise me, Kiki.”

  She grabbed his arm, pulling him back to face her. Moving close, she repeated through gritted teeth, “Like what? Yeah, so you have your scars. We all have scars. Yours are on your face. So what? The point is, you’re still an Iron Wolf, and you can still fight like a bastard. That’s all I need to know.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Maria. She was a Red Thumb sympathiser, shall we say. I persuaded her to explain where you might be.”

  “Ahh. I confess. That… surprises me. I trusted that one.” He grunted, and turned back to stare at Kiki. “So, you have a mission?”

  “I like that. Straight to the point. No, ‘Where have you been the last ten years, Kiki?’ or ‘You’re looking younger and slimmer than ever, Captain’. Yes, I have a mission. One of considerable… challenge. I need you, Narnok. I need my axeman.”

  Narnok stared at her for a long time, and she met that gaze, unflinching at the milky eye, the horror-show of razor lines and criss-crosses, some white, some red, some puffed and infected, some narrow and healed and permanent; a crazy patchwork duvet of the flesh.

  “Is it paid work?” he said, at last, watching her.

  “Yes. Of course. As much loot as you can carry in an ox-pulled wagon.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t need the money, you understand; but it’s nice to be appreciated. Dalgoran set this up?”

  “He’s waiting with the others.”

  “Others?”

  Kiki paused, biting her lip. Then she blurted, “Dek’s here.”

  Narnok stared at her. “I’ve had better news.” One of the wounded attackers suddenly reared up behind Narnok, a knife in his fist. Without a word he turned, and back-handed the sword across the man’s throat. Blood spattered like rain, and the body flopped to the ground. “Dek.” Narnok contemplated this. “I remember what he did. That bastard.”

  “You’ll have to put that behind you.”

  Narnok blinked, slowly, like a cat. “I’ll think about it,” he rumbled, then seemed to come out of a daze. “I need my axe,” he said. Then glanced around. His eyes fell on Xander. His smile was not a pretty one. Even without the scars, it would have been horrific. Now, it was obscene. “And I need five minutes with that bastard.”

  Kiki gave a nod. “Make it three. We’ve got fifty Red Thumb bastards on their way. Bad news like you travels fast.”

  “Well, I reckon three minutes will be long enough,” rumbled Narnok, stooping to pick up a glinting, silver scalpel, a toy in his huge bear paws. Then he moved towards the quaking figure of Xander, who tried to scramble backwards, away from the looming axeman.

  Kiki was waiting outside. It had started snowing. The world smelt fresh and new to Narnok and he took great lungful’s of bitter cold air. “Still alive,” he muttered, then turned on Kiki. “Where we going?”

  “Timanta.”

  “What, by Zunder? That’s a dangerous city, Kiki. What’s so important we need to go to that shit-hole?”

  “Trista.”

  “Trista!”

  “And Zastarte.”

  “Oh. Him.”

  “Yeah. But don’t be getting any ideas about Trista; she’s harder than she used to be. Apparently.”

  “Well, that’s one diamond-hard bitch, then, because she was unbreakable and unreadable before I ever met her.”

  “Yes. What did you do to him, Narn?”

  “Who?”

  “The old torturer. Back there.”

  “I, er… I returned an old favour.”

  “What favour’s that?”

  Narnok grinned. “I cut out his fucking eyes. When I get my payback, I like it with a little bit of interest.”

  After detouring to the Pleasure Parlour, which was silent and dark, front door open, lanterns extinguished, a smell of blood in the air, Narnok got his axe – his huge, black, double-headed monster of a weapon. He followed Kiki back into the snowy street and, pulling on heavy leather cloaks, they headed across the city, Kiki a few steps ahead of Narnok, the big man constantly checking over his shoulder.

  Dalgoran had rented a suite of rooms in one of Kantarok’s larger taverns, but at this early hour of the morning the revelry was done, the drunks ejected, the floors scattered with sawdust, and candles now burned low and few. Only a complicated series of knocks and taps got Ralph the Landlord to open the door. Ralph had a big round head and a wide friendly face. He was portly and boisterous, even at this unholy hour, his body big and round, his cheeks puffed red behind a bushy black beard. He was a naturally happy soul, content with his role in life; that of drinking heavily, and getting others to drink heavily, whilst experimenting with the Joy of Food – “All Food!” he would studiously point out – as he watched his two girls grow into adulthood, like trees growing and spreading their branches, before they progressed out into the world.

  Ralph eyed Narnok’s axe with utter distaste. “No weapons in here, son,” he said, finally, voice quavering a little as that milky eye seemed to fasten on him and suck out his very soul.

  “I think you’ll find I’m the exception,” said Narnok, coldly.

  “He’s with me, Ralph. He’s OK. I’ll vouch for him.”

  “He doesn’t bloody look OK to me,” muttered Ralph, fumbling to lock the tavern door before leading them through the large main drinking area, gloomy and filled with shadows, and to the foot of the wide bare-board stairs. “I’ll leave you here, Kiki. And you, er, whatever your name is.” He glanced at the axe again.

  “Don’t worry. We just need sleep, then we’re heading out in the morning. Wel
l. Maybe around noon.” She reached over and pecked him on the cheek. “Thanks for all you’ve done. It’s much appreciated.”

  Ralph blushed a deeper red.

  “My pleasure, Kiki, honestly, it’s a great honour and…”

  “Who is it?” screeched Ralph’s wife, Beth, from the ground floor bedroom.

  “I’m coming, love of my life,” hollered back Ralph, and grinned apologetically. “Wedded bliss! Only for the mad!” he said, before disappearing behind a thick oak door, where heated words were exchanged.

  Kiki heard phrases like, “…let them walk all over you,” and “at this unholy hour of the morn!” She grinned again, almost forgetting that Dek and Narnok were about to meet for the first time in ten years. And the first time since… the incident.

  She climbed the stairs, Narnok close behind, and onto a broad landing. They stepped through a door to the left, which she locked behind her, and a short corridor led to a square communal area with carpeted floor and low comfortable couches, and four separate doors leading to four separate rooms. On a table at the centre of the couches was bread, cheese, pickled onions and a glazed roast ham, along with several flagons of Vagandrak Red. Narnok dropped his axe with a thunk. “Food! Fabulous!” He ambled forward, grabbing a carving knife and sawing a thick slab of ham, which he skewered on the end of the knife to gnaw like a dog.

  “Help yourself,” said Kiki.

  “Thank you, I will,” mumbled the huge warrior from behind a mouthful of bread and meat.