“If it is a tree,” he said, “it’s the first tree I’ve ever found that’s not made of wood!”
Tomas rushed forward now, his face flushed with a sudden eagerness. He helped Stefan cut away at the mass of tangled vegetation. “I know what it is,” he said. “You’re right, it’s not a tree. It’s the remains of a column, cut from stone.” He scraped back a last fibrous strand and stood back, triumphant. Where the creeper had been cut away, a length of moss-speckled stone was clearly exposed, its surface curved and undoubtedly the work of some craftsman.
“A column?” Elena said, incredulous.
“I think it’s part of a larger structure that’s long since disintegrated,” Stefan said, running one hand over the pitted surface of the stone. “A monument, perhaps. Or the base of a tower.”
Elena was far from satisfied. “A tower? And who would want to build such a thing, way out here?” she asked.
Stefan ran a hand thoughtfully along the mottled stone. “The same race who once built towers all over the Old World,” he said at last. Tomas nodded enthusiastically, encouraged that Stefan had picked up on his line of thought.
“Elves!” he said, excitedly. “It’s the remains of an elvish settlement!”
“Rubbish,” Alexei scoffed, “The elves never came this far.”
Stefan wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know,” he said. “Who knows what they may have achieved before the time of our reckoning.”
“Well, tower or tree, we have to get round it,” Alexei concluded. He climbed back into the saddle and nudged his horse forward, using his sword as a scythe to cut a fresh path around the obstacle. They pressed on, cautiously. Tomas continued to scan for any evidence of the ancient race, and before long he called them to a halt again.
“Look at this,” he insisted. All of them, even Alexei, gathered round. Tomas worked quickly with his knife, attacking the vegetation covering a low object to the side of the path. Eventually he stood back, clearly pleased with himself. “What do you make of that?” he asked, indicating with his hand.
Stefan squatted down to inspect what might have been the low wall of a building or house, the upper portion long since broken or rotted away. Underneath the carpet of moss the stone was smooth. For all that it was old and crumbling, the stonework was unusually fine, and in places it was sculpted with the faint imprint of runes, the likes of which he’d never seen before.
“Well?” Tomas demanded, totally absorbed now in this new mystery. “What do you think?”
Stefan was still considering his reply when they heard the noise. It came from the direction of the sounds from the night before, and sounded like a muffled explosion, followed by harsh voices raised in dispute. He got up, quickly.
“We don’t know who or what that might be up ahead of us,” he said, lowering his voice now to almost a whisper. “And until we do, we’re going to be careful. Come on,” he said. “And not a sound now.”
They moved on, slowing the pace of the horses to make as little sound as possible. As the clamour of voices grew louder, further evidence of a settlement right there in the forest began to emerge. Now that they knew what they were looking for, the foundations of houses, walls and even the remains of what might have been a small temple became visible through the gloom. The forest had long since reclaimed them as its own, muffling the shapes in layers of choking green, but the mark made by the ancient architects was clear.
Stefan found his imagination starting to run away with him. The shapes were unusual, beautiful in their way, but alien. What if it had been the elves? What if they had returned now to their ancient dwellings in the forest? What sort of encounter would lie ahead of them? He tried to visualise the tall, noble warriors of legend for a few moments, then reality and instinct pulled him back. Up ahead, jumbled sounds of many voices raised against each other in anger or confrontation. Elves? Almost certainly not. But they might not be men, either.
Smoke was visible now, a spiraling wisp of grey winding through the branches of trees no more than half a league ahead. Stefan reckoned it to be the remains of a breakfast fire, kindling wood set alight by their fellow explorers, oblivious or indifferent to the tell-tale marker left behind.
“Now I have them,” Tomas muttered. “Strike a path due north and we’ll be on them in a matter of minutes.”
“Steady,” Stefan cautioned. “It looks at the moment that we know about them but they don’t know about us. Let’s keep it that way until we know what we’re dealing with.”
They pushed on in silence, treading as softly as they could upon the brush-strewn floor of the forest. Soon they were close enough to smell the smoke and an acrid stench of burning meat. The voices were louder now. The words remained indistinct, but sounded foul-tempered and arrogant, and still engaged in the running feud that Tomas had been tracking them by for the past half hour.
Stefan raised his hand. “Wait,” he commanded. “Alexei and I are going in to take a closer look. Bruno, Tomas, stay back here with Elena.”
He nodded briefly to Alexei, and the two men advanced on foot into the undergrowth, using their swords to cut back the tall rushes and low-hanging branches. “Quietly, though,” Stefan urged. “Let’s keep the element of surprise while we can.”
The path through the woods led up a gentle slope until they found themselves atop of a wide, circular valley. The two men stood amongst the ring of trees around its edge, and looked down towards the base. There beneath them, seven or eight large figures, masked by the trees, sat or stood clustered around the still smoking fire. Stefan edged forward to listen to the argument that seemed still to be simmering between them.
“I can’t make out a word,” Alexei whispered.
“Nor I,” Stefan said. “It’s not Reikspiel, that’s for sure.”
Alexei leant forward as far as he dared over the lip of the crater. As he did so, one of the circle stood up and turned about so as to face Stefan and Alexei square on. The figure reached up to its full height and slowly turned its large, horned head before propelling a gobbet of phlegm onto the ground with a sullen grunt.
Stefan and Alexei exchanged glances and pulled back, simultaneously.
“That’s settled, then,” Stefan said quietly. “Let’s get back to the others.”
* * *
“Beastmen,” Tomas repeated, uneasily. “That’s bad news, isn’t it?”
“Very bad news,” Stefan confirmed. “The good news is they don’t know we’re here. Yet.”
“What would they be doing out here?” Elena asked.
“The depths of the forest is where they’ll often be found,” Tomas offered. “It may be no more than that. Just—”
“I know.” Alexei interjected. “Just bad luck?” He looked at Tomas, and raised one eyebrow.
“No,” Stefan replied. “Definitely not bad luck. I don’t think they’re here by chance. From what we saw, I’d say there was some kind of tribal gathering about to take place.”
“Something of the sort,” Tomas agreed. “Or a council of war.”
Elena shivered. “I don’t much like the sound of that,” she said.
“More to the point,” Bruno said. “What do we do now?”
“Well,” Stefan replied. “They’re right in our path. So we either go round them, or we go through them. If we go round them, there’s no guarantee they won’t start tracking us. So the alternative is, we take them straight on.”
“Which means we fight,” Alexei added, in case anyone had missed the point.
“Which means we fight,” Stefan concurred. “We only saw seven or eight of them. There’s probably more, but at least we’ll be fighting on our terms, and we have an element of surprise. It’s our best chance.”
Alexei guided them back towards the ridge cresting the crater. By now they were trying desperately to silence every footfall, but, as they closed on the beastman camp, it became clear that the sound coming from inside the hollow would easily block out any sound of their approach.
St
efan raised his head cautiously above the lip of the hollow. The scene below had changed. Most of the beastmen had pulled back into a circle at the base. Two that remained at the centre were squaring up to each other over the embers of the fire. Whatever their dispute was about, it looked to be reaching its critical point.
“Let’s take them now,” Alexei whispered beside Stefan. “They’re so caught up in their own quarrel, they won’t even know we’re here until we’re amongst them with our blades.”
Stefan shook his head, slowly. “Not just yet,” he breathed. “I want to find out what they’re doing here first.”
The bigger of the two beastmen was a figure some seven feet in height, a thick, muscled torso topped with a head grown in the likeness of a bull. The creature seemed to be haranguing the second, much smaller beastman, a half-man creature rearing up upon the hindquarters of a goat. The second beastman was shaking its head from side to side in apparent disagreement with the first. As it turned its head, the tall, curling horns growing from its skull darkened to a blood red, and a flush of rainbow colours ran the length of the creature’s body.
The second beastman began speaking in a coarse, guttural voice. The other replied with a snorted contempt, spraying knots of dark mucus over the forest floor. It goaded the goat-like creature, jabbing it in the chest with a crude staff fashioned from firewood.
“Not a friendly chat by the fire,” Stefan murmured.
“They’re using the dark tongue,” Tomas replied.
A momentary look of suspicion flickered over Stefan’s face.
“I learnt a few words, knowledge passed on from other woodsmen,” Tomas explained. “In the forest, it pays to understand your enemy as well as you can.”
Stefan nodded. “All right then,” he said. “Tell us what you understand of this.”
“I can make out a little of what they’re saying. They’re arguing—something about a battle plan.”
The second beastman regarded the first with pure loathing, but retreated a step or two back beyond the fire. The goat-man’s eyes flicked around the rest of the beastman group, weighing up what support he could count upon. More than half of the horned beasts roared their support, and a daemonic, bestial wail filled the forest.
Emboldened, the second beastman turned back to face the bull-creature and let loose what sounded like a string of insults.
“What’s happening?” Stefan demanded of Tomas. “What is he saying?”
Tomas’ brow furrowed as he struggled to make sense of the ancient tongue. “He’s invoking a name,” he whispered. “Sounds like Kyra, or something similar. Kysos, perhaps.” He paused. “There’s something else, too—I’m fairly sure they’re arguing about Erengrad.”
The bigger beastman jabbed again with his staff, but the caprigor’s speech seemed to have had a sobering effect on him. He took a few steps back, circling the smaller creature cautiously. The goat-creature looked round, taking confidence from the sullen nodding of the other beastmen, and snarled a further insult.
The bovigor let fly a bellow of rage and charged towards the smaller creature, ready to lock horns with his opponent. The surrounding circle of beastmen broke up in confusion, supporters of each camp squaring up against the other.
On top of the crater, Alexei turned calmly towards Stefan. “Now might be a good time,” he suggested.
“There won’t be better,” Stefan agreed. He drew his sword and turned to Elena. “Sorry, you’ve got to stay here.” He intercepted her protest with a hand across her mouth. “No arguments,” he said. “These are monsters, not men nor even animals. There’ll be plenty of other times for bravery.”
He nodded once towards Bruno and Tomas, then vaulted into the bowl of the crater.
He focused on the two leaders, locked in combat at the centre of the clearing. He was closing on them fast. The big, ox-headed creature was still oblivious to Stefan behind him; his focus was still upon exacting revenge from the smaller caprigor. At the last moment, the second beastman saw Stefan and the others piling down upon them. His warning to his comrades was cut short by the ox-head cracking open his skull with the heavy staff. One down, thought Stefan.
A moment later and he piled into the back of his target, with enough force to knock the heavy beastman forwards off his feet. The others knew they were there now. The moment of surprise had gone, but the advantage it had bought might yet prove precious.
The bovigor rolled on the ground, crushing his former opponent. The beastman was bellowing curses in the dark tongue, unable to fathom where the counter-attack had come from. Stefan soon let him know. As the massive creature clambered upright, Stefan drove his sword down, cleaving the beastman’s shoulder from the bone. The beastman gazed at him with a look of dull shock.
“Don’t worry about Erengrad,” Stefan told him. “We’ll save you the journey.” Clasping his sword two-handed, he swung the blade a second time and sliced deep into the bulbous neck of his opponent. The beastman staggered and fell, his thick cloven hands still groping for his weapon.
“Look out!” Stefan registered the voice in his ears and ducked instinctively, just in time to see a blade flash over his head. Stefan spun round, and was sprayed with a stinking gore as Alexei’s sword laid low his attacker.
Three down, Stefan reckoned. How many did that leave? The forest seemed to be alight with the rainbow-hued hides of their enemies. Bruno was under attack from two beastmen at once; his tattered shirt was already flecked with red where blades had found their mark.
Stefan battled his way in amongst them, drawing one of the attackers off. To his left, Tomas was in single combat, under pressure but managing to hold his own. And Alexei, he knew, was in his element. All of them could better the beastmen for speed; Alexei alone could match most for bulk and brawn as well.
Yes, my mutant friends, Stefan vowed, we’ll make you pay a heavy price for your adventures. He bellowed a battle-cry to match anything the beastmen could muster and set about his new opponent with a blaze of sword-strokes. Though almost a runt by beastman standards, the caprigor still stood shoulder to shoulder with Stefan, and probably weighed half as much again. That gave Stefan an edge in speed which the beastman couldn’t match; he danced around his opponent, dodging the flailing blows the beastman aimed at him with his axe.
Finally the goat-creature threw caution to the winds, and swung the axe wildly at Stefan’s head. It missed him by an inch, scything a lock from his hair as it passed, and buried itself in the trunk of a sapling. Before the beastman could wrest the blade free, Stefan had struck back, his sword slicing through the mutant creature’s forearm above its claw. For a moment the beastman stood staring at the severed claw, still fastened to the axe embedded in the tree. Then Stefan drove his sword deep into the creature’s gut, running the beastman through. A foul stench filled the air as the beast fell backwards, clutching at its ruptured belly.
Four down, or was it five? Stefan drew breath and tried to take stock of the scene. Bruno and Tomas had accounted for three beastmen between them, but both looked very, very tired, and Bruno in particular seemed to have borne a heavy brunt of battle.
In all, six beastmen now lay dead or dying upon the ground. On the far side of the crater, Alexei was trying to take on two that remained. He had lost hold of his sword somewhere along the way and was locked in a desperate struggle, wrestling empty-handed with a half-human apparition clad in a gore-spattered jerkin of leather. The last of the beastmen was circling round the combatants, waiting for the moment to stab Zucharov in the back.
“Alexei!” Stefan shouted, in alarm. In Taal’s name—the man wasn’t immortal. Alexei didn’t respond, but Tomas looked round and pulled himself upright, suddenly seeming to find new energy. Before Stefan could move he was charging towards the beastmen. The creature with the dagger drew back his arm to strike at Alexei. Before the blow could fall Tomas crashed against him, burying his sword in the beastman’s thick body until only the hilt was visible.
Too late, the las
t beastman realised he was outnumbered and tried to break free. Alexei pulled the creature back towards him and smashed a fist twice into its bovine face. “Dagger!” he yelled at Tomas. Tomas wrested the knife from the body at his feet and threw it to Alexei. With his opponent still stunned, Alexei whipped the knife sideways, ripping it across the leathery throat.
The beastman’s dying gasps gave way to a heavy silence that seemed to fill the forest. Stefan and his companions slumped to the ground, succumbing at last to exhaustion and their wounds.
A sudden scuffling at the edge of the crater. Stefan looked around, and was astonished to see the first caprigor back upon its feet, running fast up the slope out of the crater. Alexei saw him too, and hurled the dagger through the air at the escaping creature. The dagger missed, bouncing harmlessly away off a tree. Just as it seemed that the last of their enemies would escape them, Elena appeared at the top of the slope.
“Saved one for me after all?” she called down. The beastman reached for his weapon, but Elena was faster. She parried a blow, then jabbed her sword into the caprigor’s chest. “Keep your filthy mutant claws off my country,” she snarled. The caprigor grunted, then fell backwards, somersaulting back down the length of the slope. He did not rise again.
“Bravely fought,” Stefan said, once he had his breath again. He caught Elena’s eye. “Each and every one.”
“We should be thankful to Elena in particular,” Alexei emphasised. “I’ll warrant there’s more of these scum holed up not far away. If that one had got clear we could have had real trouble on our hands.”
“We still might,” Stefan cautioned. “I suggest we don’t hang around here too long.” His body called for rest, but they would all have to banish such thoughts for now. “Who knows,” he said. “We must get as far as we can before darkness calls another halt.” He sheathed his sword and had begun climbing the slope when he noticed Bruno standing off to one side, his head bowed as though he were studying something lying upon the ground. Bruno’s right hand was stuffed inside his shirt. The grey cotton was soaked through with the lurid red of fresh blood.
[Stefan Kumansky 01] - Star of Erengrad Page 23
