The Iron Wolves

by Andy Remic

  Young lads with buckets of water were doing the rounds, and the Iron Wolves gratefully received cups of water, drinking and then washing blood from their faces. Then they sat, backs to the parapets, and Kiki placed her hands flat on the stone battlements.

  “Can you feel it?”

  The others looked at her.

  “Eh?” said Narnok.

  “The magick,” she said. “The curse, it is here, within the stone. It emanates from this very structure.”

  “What did Dalgoran tell you?” rumbled Narnok.

  “I will explain. When the job is done; when we achieve what we came here to achieve.”

  Dek stood, climbed onto the parapet and stared out, shading his eyes. The enemy stretched for as far as the eye could see, and he shivered when he saw the units of splice, many lying down and tearing at chunks of meat which looked suspiciously human.

  “Do you see her?”

  “No. They have war tents set up, right far back. It looks like yet another fucking leader who leads from the rear.”

  “We need to get to her.”

  “I have a plan about that,” said Narnok, and grinned.

  “You’re obviously thinking of the mines. But do they go far enough? No point popping up in the middle of a party of splice and having our heads ripped clean off before we even get near the bitch.”

  “They’ll get us close enough,” said Narnok. “They did last time.” He stood and shaded his eyes next to Dek. “You see the rocks, off to the right. There’s one of the exits.”

  “We’d still need to sneak through ten thousand mud-orcs.”

  Narnok nodded. “I thought about that as well. We skin some of the mud-orcs, wear them like a suit.”

  Kiki stared at him. “That will convince nobody, Narnok. Have you been on the honey-leaf?”

  “In my experience,” the axeman said, somewhat haughtily, “the mud-orcs have poor eyesight and track more by sound and smell. Well. Stench,” he corrected himself.

  “I’m not sure that would work. But maybe… if we soaked ourselves in mud-orc blood, that would disguise us. To some extent.”

  “Sounds good to me,” rumbled Narnok.

  Kiki pulled back her hair into a tight pony-tail and tied it up. “We’d also need the gate keys.”

  “Dalgoran had the keys!” said Zastarte.

  “Yeah, but that’s twenty years past,” muttered Narnok.

  “We’ll find them,” said Kiki.

  Just then a runner arrived, panting. “You’re the Iron Wolves?” Kiki nodded. “General Vorokrim requests your immediate audience back at Zula. He says there has been an amazing breakthrough! King Yoon has finally become involved and sent soldiers!”

  “Come on,” said Dek, reaching out and hauling Kiki up. “There’s no rest for the wicked.”

  “Yeah. We’ve had that all our lives,” muttered Kiki, and as they descended the steps she noticed a large group of armoured warriors heading for the gates. They wore black armour, which was nothing incredible in itself, except it looked more ceremonial and had not recently seen battle. Too smooth. Too polished. Unusual, for soldiers in a fortress under siege.

  They walked through the cold chill across the killing ground between Sanderlek and Tranta-Kell, passing through the narrow tunnel with its massive oak portals and piles of stone waiting on the other side to seal the tunnel closed when the time came. Up a steep incline towards Kubosa, (after all, no need making it easy for an attacking enemy, is there?), through that tunnel and towards Jandallakla, then on towards the Keep. Here, the runner halted, hopping from foot to foot.

  “He said for you to go up.”

  Kiki nodded, and led the Wolves up the first set of stone steps. Here, there was a short platform and a stern faced man waiting for them, backed by five other stern faced men. They all wore neat, black, armour which had seen little or no battle. Kiki gave a quick narrow smile. So then, a set-up, she thought idly.

  You deserve nothing less, bitch, said Suza in her mind, and gave her a long, low, mocking laugh. They’re going to cut you up and spit you out, bury you all in unmarked graves for not complying with the King. He’s gonna gut you like fish. Cut out your insides, including that funny little tumour friend you’ve got poking at you in there, and leave you hung and helpless from the battlements to appease Orlana and beg her forgiveness. Then he’s going to open the gates and just watch those lovely splice come pouring through...

  How do you know this?

  Just call it female intuition.

  “I am General Rorgell, of the King’s Elite Guard. King Yoon is here. In the name of His Majesty, the King of Vagandrak, give up your weapons and follow me.”

  Kiki handed over her sword and daggers to the waiting soldiers, and slowly the other Iron Wolves complied without comment. Briefly, each of the Wolves met Kiki’s gaze and each of them had the same understanding. This was a trap.

  They followed Rorgell up the steps and into Vorokrim’s chamber. It looked much the same as several hours earlier, except with one major difference. Now, Vorokrim sat in his chair, eyes open and glassy, a thin black dagger through his throat, from side to side, as if he were a skewered kebab.

  Kiki wanted to gasp, but held an iron stance. She strode forward and folded her arms as the other Iron Wolves fanned out behind her. There were another five armoured men in the room bearing naked blades, and the five from the steps filed in behind. The Iron Wolves were effectively disarmed and surrounded.

  And there, against the window, was King Yoon.

  He turned, and gave them a sickly smile.

  “You had General Vorokrim killed?” said Kiki, gently, her eyes meeting those dark glittering orbs of her king.

  “He disobeyed a direct order,” said Yoon, voice rich and vibrant.

  “Of course he did,” said Kiki smoothly. “No man, no matter what rank, should ever question his king.”

  Yoon smiled at that. “Yes, yes. Quite right, my dear. And you are, of course, Kikellya Mandasayard, Captain of the Iron Wolves, and these,” Yoon spread out his fingers as if introducing them to his court, “are Narnok of the Axe; Dek of the Fighting Pits – boy, I’ve won many a gold crown on your exploits; Trista, such a shame you no longer frequent my court functions, but at least now the mortality rate of my guests has improved considerably; and finally, the elusive Prince Zastarte.”

  “Your Majesty,” said Zastarte, and gave an elaborate bow.

  “What intrigues me, my friends and loyal subjects, and I do hope I can call you my loyal subjects, is in the wondering of what you wish to achieve by coming here. As we all know, you are the heroes of the War of Zakora some twenty years past, and you fought the mud-orcs back then. You also slew the sorcerer Morkagoth.” He clapped his hands several times, but his face held no mockery. “Well done. You saved your country! And your country was thankful! However, here, and now, we have this situation under control.”

  “You call that under control?” growled Narnok, pointing to the mayhem on Sanderlek. “Carts full of dead men who will no longer kiss their wives, no longer hold their children; mourning parents having to bury their first born sons; widows weeping over their only children?”

  Kiki placed a hand on Narnok’s arm.

  “You’re starting to sound like Vorokrim,” smiled King Yoon, making them all feel very, very uneasy.

  “What is it you want from us, King Yoon?”

  “I wish you to leave. Your presence was neither requested, nor is it needed. I fear it may upset… negotiations with Queen Orlana.”

  “Queen Orlana?” spluttered Dek. “So, you have met?”

  “We have had, shall we say, some communication. The next step is to open the gates and welcome her into our country. This attack was unnecessary. She makes very grave and important promises about the safety of our people.”

  “You will not open the gates,” said Kiki, eyes hard and focused on King Yoon. She heard the gentle movements behind her as the black armoured soldiers prepared to attack.

 
Yoon frowned. “You dare to question your King?” and he gave the signal.

  The Iron Wolves leapt into action, spinning and attacking in fluid fast movements even as the soldiers launched themselves forward, swords hacking down. Kiki twisted, as the blade whistled past her and she grabbed the man by the throat, lifted him from his feet and punched him three times in the groin. She lowered him, taking his blade and slamming it through his neck. He went down hard, gurgling, as the man behind lunged a jab for Kiki’s eye. Her blade slashed up, deflecting the blow with a clash of iron and she stuck the point of her own blade in his throat. He, too, gurgled as he fell. Narnok slapped away a sword with his forearm, the razor edge cutting a long line across his flesh, and he punched the soldier in the throat with such power he killed the man, leaving him choking and purple curled on expensive rugs. Dek front-kicked a soldier with his blade in the air, pulled a hidden knife from his boot and descended, landing atop the soldier’s breast-plate and plunging his dagger through the helm, into the eye and brain beyond. He took the short sword, blocked a savage cut from another soldier, reversed the blade and cut through the attacker’s leg, severing it just below the knee. The man toppled, screaming, scrabbling at the stump, blood flowing out over the stone and rugs. Zastarte and Trista worked together, feinting, jabbing, as Trista pulled a long pin from her hair and pushed it through a soldier’s eye. Within seconds the Iron Wolves had swords and cut their way through the rest of the soldiers in just a few more seconds. The only people left standing were King Yoon, who had backed away with hands raised at the sudden violent onslaught, and General Rorgell, who held his longsword in stunned disbelief at the savagery and ferocity of the Iron Wolves taking out ten of his elite men.

  Narnok grinned at him, scarred face glistening with sweat and blood. “It’s what we do, brother,” he spat.

  Face pale, Rorgell screamed and attacked.

  And lay dead at Narnok’s feet, a third of his head cut free in a diagonal slice.

  Dek ran and bolted the door, with three heavy sliders of iron. Then they turned on King Yoon and advanced slowly across the chamber, the five of them spreading out.

  “Tell me what happened to Vorokrim,” said Kiki.

  “I told you! He disobeyed a direct order from his king!”

  “Was the order to open the gate?”

  King Yoon remained silent.

  “WAS IT TO OPEN THE FUCKING GATE?” screamed Kiki.

  “Yes, yes, yes. Please, don’t kill me! I implore thee!”

  “Narnok?”

  “Yes, Kiki?” He was grinning broadly.

  “Put a bag over this fucker’s head, take him down, and lock him in a faraway dungeon.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, and reached forward, grabbing Yoon. Yoon struggled, and Narnok head-butted him, breaking his nose. Blood flowed down his chest and Yoon howled. Yoon pulled a hidden dagger from his sleeve and Narnok took it from him like sweetcakes from a child. He waggled the dagger before Yoon’s eye. “You try any more tricks, sunshine, and I’ll pluck out your eyeball. Then you’ll look like me.” He grinned through his scars. “Only a damn sight less pretty.”

  “Dek. You and Zastarte gather together a few captains, get down to the gates. I’ve got a feeling Yoon’s elite guards are in the process of opening the tunnel. Stop them. Kill them, if you have to, but I’d prefer a surrender. It’s bad for morale, men killing fellow countrymen when there’s tens of thousands of mud-orcs needing a blade in the skull.”

  Dek saluted her. “Yes, Lady. And, Lady? I really am glad to have you back.”

  “Good to be back,” smiled Kiki. “Meet back here as soon as possible. We need to take out Orlana. And we need to do it tonight.”

  “Er,” said Narnok, suddenly. “We have a problem.”

  “What?”

  “Look!” he snapped, pointing…

  As below, the mud-orc horde advanced... led by the splice.

  Led by all the splice.

  “They’ve opened the gate,” hissed Dek.

  “Get down there!” yelled Kiki.

  “You’re too late, honey-leaf whore,” said Yoon through his mask of blood, grinning, as Narnok found a hood and slammed it over his head. He punched Yoon three times through the cloth, and the King of Vagandrak went silent. Silent and limp.

  “Change of plan,” said Kiki. “Get him to the fucking dungeons; the rest of you come with me.”

  THE IRON GATES

  The splice poured through the open tunnel, and the King’s elite guard stood to one side as hooves and paws and claws gouged the earth and stone and the beasts invaded Desekra Fortress. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty... the Iron Wolves, backed by a thousand Vagandrak men arrived, fifty bearing heavy crossbows, and shafts hissed and snarled through the air, punching splice from their feet, bending them over double and slamming them back into their comrades. With battle cries, King Yoon’s elite guards drew swords and charged the Iron Wolves, but more heavy crossbows smashed them in half, three hundred thick yew shafts cutting through the enemy and breaking them against the stone. Splice snarled and screamed and crawled over their comrades, as more bows were loaded and archers peppered them with arrows. Kiki led the charge alongside Narnok and Dek, and they hit the front splice in a blur of aggression and hacking violence, swords and axes cleaving skulls and brains and limbs, skewering eyes and sending blood flowing into the soil.

  “We need to seal the tunnel!” screamed Kiki.

  “I can do that,” bellowed Narnok. “Just get me deep inside.”

  They fought their way through splice, the brave soldiers of Vagandrak covering their backs, and hacked and hewed their way through walls of splice flesh until they stood within the narrow confines. Narnok put his axe through the skull of a wolf splice, then another, and the bodies blocked the narrow portal. He turned to Kiki.

  “Get back!”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “GET BACK!”

  Kiki retreated, and Narnok looked up. “Come on, you tender little whore, open your legs for me,” he said, and spat into the palms of his hands, one by one. He hammered his axe upwards, chipping stone. Then again, and again, and again, and again. A splice made from horse, man and wolf, snarling and drooling, crawled over its felled comrades and as it was about to leap, received an axe head between the eyes. Brain, skull and blood splashed up the stone.

  “Come on,” said Narnok. Ten more times he hammered the axe at the roof of the tunnel, and dust trickled down, then tiny stones. Outside Sanderlek the splice were massed, the defenders stood on the parapets, archers firing down into their milling ranks. But they took the arrows. They took hundreds of arrows, and their ferocity and dark magick carried them on.

  Again and again Narnok hammered his trusty axe upwards and he knew it, could feel it, could feel Iron Wolf magick coursing through his veins, vibrating through his boots, surging through the very soul of the fortress. Desekra was built for the men and women and children of Vagandrak. And Narnok was a portal for that magick. His legacy. His curse. His pride. His sacrifice…

  He screamed, and the axe rammed upwards, the blades buckling, folding down into a hammer.

  “COME DOWN ON US YOU FUCKING WHORE!” he screamed, blow after blow after blow echoing through Desekra, iron smashing stone, metal beckoning the fortress itself to collapse, to help them, to aid the defenders in their desperate hour of need…

  And Desekra responded, and groaned, and stone blocks shifted, and more splice forced their way through the tunnel opened by King Yoon and crawled over dead and dying comrades as Narnok, like a man possessed, muscles bunched and curling like writhing snakes, his lips moving in silent incantation, bludgeoned the weapon he could no longer call an axe into the roof of the tunnel… and splice snarling with bared fangs and razor claws scrambled like cats over their fallen comrades and leapt at Narnok to tear off his face…

  As the fortress rumbled.

  The Pass of Splintered Bones groaned.

  And the roof caved in.

&n
bsp; Narnok turned to flee, sprinting with all his might. Stones fell down, huge blocks of granite booming and tumbling, and he managed a few more strides then felt himself go under. The whole of the Desekra Fortress rumbled and groaned, as if some great earthquake was taking it in gauntleted fist and shaking it. As a warning. To the future.

  Outside, Kiki watched the wall shudder, trembling and groaning, the whole tunnel collapsing with great bellows of grinding screaming stone. Dust pumped out as if from some natural explosion, and Kiki was hit in the face by a hundred chips of stone.

  Slowly, the wall groaned, and sagged just a little; like a man’s mouth after a stroke.

  Dek stepped forward and went to move again. Kiki blocked him with the flat of her sword.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “But… he’s Narnok! He can’t fucking die!”

  “He’s gone,” she repeated, and the sorrow in her voice was that of a thousand mourners chanting the loss of a hero.

  She turned, and grabbed Dek’s jerkin. “Focus! I need you! We have to travel the tunnels. We need to reach Orlana!”

  “You really think we can kill her?”

  “I am beginning to understand,” said Kiki.

  “The curse?”

  “The fortress. Desekra. The curse of the Iron Wolves does not lie within us; it lies within Desekra. We are not trying to free ourselves, we are trying to separate ourselves from the legacy of the king who built this tomb. Esekra. Esekra, the Lost.”

  She did not know why she said it. But it sounded right. It sounded… true.

  “What next?” panted Trista.

  “We head for the mines,” said Kiki, voice grim.

  Each carried a brand which sputtered through different colours as they descended into the lower dungeons. They had confided only in Sergeant Dunda, who had grabbed two of his most trusted men to help, Reegez and Jagan, both hardened by the last few days fighting on the first Desekra wall, with blades drawn and faces grim, as if the whole sanctity of the nation depended on their actions. Which, maybe, it did. They approached Dalgoran’s old living chambers in Zula Keep warily, and inside found everything preserved as the old general had left it. Kiki headed for the chest at the back of the room, under the polished oak desk. Inside the chest, she found the thick bunch of keys for the gates in the mines. Without them, they would never negotiate the vast portals known as the Gates of Iron.