On the other hand, the Arabian thought, the crocodilian monsters were unlikely to be able to chase him through the crowns of the trees, like the goblins could, despite their ability to stand upright. Was it conceivable that they might be capable of gratitude, if he were to shoot down a few goblins on their behalf?
Meanwhile, the orc with the ruined sword had jumped down from the altar, and was ready to cut and slash with its blunted and twisted blade. The goblins were hurling everything they had at their new adversaries, who had formed an arc and were closing in on them. At least six of the scale-and-bone creatures had been struck and wounded, but there did not seem to be any blood flowing from their wounds. Not one had fallen. Their progress was measured but inexorable.
Ashraf reached a position which satisfied him: crouched on the broad back of one of the more batrachian idols, where he was half-hidden from both the altar and the gap in the roof by a barrier of branches. The goblins of the second party were now on the top of the ramp outside the temple wall. They could see what was happening well enough, but they were in no hurry to assist. Ashraf knew that the bonds of loyalty between goblins - even if they were brothers - were weak at the best of times, and the goblins confronted by the walking reptile-men were certainly not enjoying the best of times.
Not one greenskin had fallen as yet, but that was because the crocodilians had such short ”arms”, and bore no weapons. They were showing their teeth now, snapping at the heads of their tormentors, but they seemed to be doing so merely by way of intimidation rather than with murderous intent. The orc was by far the tallest of their opponents, and he was wearing a spiked helmet that would make it very difficult to crush his skull. The goblins were trying desperately to reach the branches of the trees, so that they might make use of their agility. They had wasted too much time inflicting ineffectual wounds. The bony horrors were encircling them now.
Ashraf came to a decision. If he were to intervene at all, it would be best to do so on behalf of the greenskins. It was obvious by now that they needed all the help they could get.
The Arabian brought his bow from behind his shoulder, and reached back to his quiver for an arrow.
Then he froze, trying with all his might to be as still as the statue.
While he had been biding his time a tiny snake had coiled itself around his bow, and another had somehow contrived to wind itself about the shaft of his selected arrow. Each snake had reacted to its sudden displacement by setting its mouth threateningly agape, showing needle-sharp fangs moistened by the gleam of some viscous secretion.
Ashraf dropped both the bow and the arrow, but he had time before they fell away to see that each snake had two little horns on its head, above the eyes. He had never encountered such horny asps before, but he was not deluded enough to think that their miniature size would make their venom any less deadly.
Suddenly, the network of branches surrounding him seemed horribly unsafe.
Neither snake had struck at him fortunately. And he considered himself doubly fortunate because he could see no more of their kin in the branches above his head, but he had to move to a clearer space, and be far more vigilant in future.
He looked around for a more suitable location, forgetting the three goblins and the orc who continued to hack at their adversaries with desperate abandon.
They were inflicting cut after cut, but to no avail. The slender crocodile-men still did not bleed, neither did they fall.
As Memet Ashraf moved, he observed that the greenskins in the roof-cavity had begun to fire arrows of their own. The goblins were making their way through the canopy of the indoor forest, and the orcs were hacking at the crumbling fabric of the roof, so that they could follow two abreast, firing arrows as they went.
It was not bravery that impelled them, Ashraf realised, but the same greed that had brought the first orc to the altar. They too were trying to even the odds, because they hoped that the last survivor of the conflict would have a clear run at the glowing red sceptre.
The Arabian reached a far safer spot, close to the wall of the temple and far from the gap through which he had gained entrance. There were branches nearby, but they were all dead and desiccated, offering no useful cover even to subtle serpents. He had a clear view of the space around the altar, and of the conflict that raged there.
At long last the crocodilian monsters had been able to bring their forepaws into play - but they had no fingers or thumbs, so their ”hands” were exceedingly clumsy, and their blunt claws were no use for stabbing or tearing. They had struck the various weapons from the goblins’ hands, and the sword from the orc’s, but had inflicted no wounds. In the end, each of the four greenskins was seized by one of the crocodiles in what might have seemed in other circumstances to be a loving hug. They were held tightly, but they were not crushed.
No matter how extravagantly the greenskins wriggled, they could not get free. Like parents restraining unruly children, the creatures that held them quelled their struggles in a conspicuously gentle fashion.
The crocodile monsters that were still unburdened turned away from their kin, and directed their attention towards the newcomers. But two of them had finally fallen, disabled at last by their bloodless wounds. The four captive greenskins immediately began shouting advice to their free companions instructing them to aim at the eyes and the hind legs of the monsters.
Ashraf realised that the two snakes that had threatened him might have been adopting the same attitude as the crocodile-men were to the three goblins and the orc: they had not even tried to strike. Perhaps their real purpose had been to capture him, or to prepare him for capture. There was, after all, a sacrificial altar here, and there might also be a priest with a sacrificial knife, yet to emerge from the darkness.
Memet Ashraf had always laughed at men fearful of evil magic thinking that they took ominous delight in proclaiming that there were fates worse than death. Now, for the first time, he wondered whether they might be right.
This place was a trap. Its treasure was intact, because it was too well guarded to be taken away, but it was on display as a lure to tempt thieves and soldiers of fortune.
The Arabian took great care to remind himself that it was certainly not an inescapable trap… But he could not help wondering whether Elisio Azevedo had really escaped, even though he had found his way home to Magritta. The alternative possibility was, of course, that Quintal’s cousin had been bait: bait better by far than a glowing sceptre that had long since ceased to be the stuff of legend, even in the world of men.
LUIS QUINTAL HAD no difficulty at all making his way back to the temple, now that he could see perfectly in the deepest darkness. Nor had he any fear of so doing, given that the ushabti had not made the slightest move against him. He did not suppose that the goblins posed any danger to him now, even if there were six of them waiting, with six orcs to back them up.
Even so, when he came to the doorway he hung back, content to remain in the shadows while he watched the progress of the battle.
He watched the ushabti close in with mechanical efficiency upon their immediate prey, not caring in the least whether they were cut about the belly. They did not act as individuals, but as components of the same intelligence. He deduced that they were not really alive; they were merely reanimate instruments of the evil god that had been worshipped here thousands of years before. Perhaps they were patchworks of the corpses of men and crocodiles, neatly sculpted into their new forms and placed in a state of suspended animation, like a kind of death without decay, from which they might be roused as puppets to do the bidding of their preserver.
I know you, Quintal said, silently, as he saw them remove weapons with clinical efficiency, from the greenskins’ hands. The greenskins had not known what kind of battle they were fighting, and they had wasted their thrusts, realising far too late that no anatomical elements were necessary to the movement or the nature of their monstrous adversaries.
Quintal really did feel that he knew something of the bei
ng into whose untender care he had delivered himself. Estalia was a ragged patchwork of rival city-states, but its best ports had long histories of trade with a rich variety of nations. Elves of the kingdoms of Ulthuan had been entertained in Magritta, as well as elves of a darker kind, who were more inclined to gossip.
Quintal knew that there were many names attached to malign gods by their various and multitudinous followers. The names referred to a mere handful of great powers, each one of which reflected a different kind of primal force: violent wrath; self-indulgent greed; intellectual ambition; and bilious envy. He had often said that if all roads led to damnation - as they certainly seemed to do - then he would rather follow the one that took him by the most luxurious route. Now, he felt that his unholy wish had been granted.
The captive greenskins continued calling to their free companions, advising them how to fight their uncanny opponents. Quintal knew that they had no altruistic motive in doing so; they were hoping for rescue. The advice was nevertheless good. The second party of goblins and orcs had only two bowmen, neither of them as accomplished as Memet Ashraf, but they were working at close range and the thick hind legs of the ushabti were more sizeable targets than their lean bodies. None of the other four had yet released a spear, they were cleaving to the branches of the half-dead trees and using their javelins to stab at the eyes of the monsters.
This strategy was far better than the one the captive greenskins had unthinkingly adopted. Three more ushabti fell on all fours as the wiry ligaments in their legs were cut, and a further three began to blunder about as their eyes were blinded.
I had best not take my own eyes for granted, Quintal thought, for this new power of sight is a treasure to be carefully guarded.
He had counted the greenskins: there were four captive and seven still free. An orc was missing. It may have been left behind to guard the boars and the wolves, or even to guard the well. But it could have been killed before it had the chance to climb down into the temple. Quintal knew what an ingenious man Memet Ashraf was, and he was prepared to believe that the Arabian was also hereabouts, watching from a position of relative safety.
As he formed this hope, Quintal began to wonder whether his truce with the Arabian was still in force - or whether it could endure even if it were.
I suppose I am some sort of priest or a magician, now, Quintal said to himself. And Memet Ashraf might not be the kind of man to form alliances with the favoured servants of maleficent gods.
‘There are only two kinds of men,’ the tiny voice in his ear informed him, reassuringly. ‘Great fools, and little ones. In either case, your friend is mine.’
Quintal knew that he had already bartered his soul, and was not in a position to ask questions, but he hoped that his protector might be the kind of god who would respect a proper measure of imaginative daring. Instead of having the temerity to wonder how an entity so powerful could have allowed an entire city of worshippers to vanish from the face of the Earth - leaving nothing behind but a snare for exhausted travellers and stupid soldiers of fortune - he boldly set out to find the logic of the situation himself.
If I were a god, he thought, with incalculable power and potentially-eternal existence, my greatest enemy would be boredom. If I were a god of wrath, I might take the edge off that boredom with never-ending orgies of violence. If I were a god of envy, I might become a connoisseur of disease, decay and all the other forms of catastrophic change. If I were a god of intellectual ambition, I might become a creator and solver of intricate puzzles and bizarre games. But if I were a god of lust and luxury, a proud creature dedicated to sensual self-indulgence, I would always be vulnerable to satiation. I would have no option but to give in to my boredom, again and again and again, amusing myself with every toy for a little while and then putting it away, but the advantage of the situation would be that whenever boredom struck, I would have a storehouse of old instruments of amusement available for resurrection. Any one of them might have regained its potential for amusement during the long years… or the millennia… of its neglect.
Satiation is, after all, a temporary thing even for men. Hunger, thirst and lust, no matter how successfully they are appeased, always return; every appetite fed always gives way to an appetite renewed in the fullness of time. So it must be for the gods, with their vast appetites. I believe that this city has served its interval of neglect, and is making ready to be born again - in which case, I am no mere priest or magician, but a veritable redeemer, whose role will be a thousand times more glorious than that of my silly cousin.
Quintal noticed that the balance of the skirmish in the temple had altered yet again. The three goblins and the four orcs were tumbling from the branches where they had had the advantage of height. It was as if they had been frightened half to death by some invisible menace. They were all on the floor now, close to the surviving ushabti, who had already grabbed two of the orcs in their unloving embraces.
The other two orcs were stabbing wildly at the monsters’ faces and feet, but it was the agile goblins who were doing the most damage as they had got the measure of the fight. One had been knocked down and hurt, but the other two had easier targets now that the ushabti were not so seamlessly massed into a single organism.
Quintal knew that it was time to take a hand. He moved out of the dark mouth of the corridor and picked up a brace of discarded weapons: a light sword and a mace. The single-edged sword was far cruder than his own sabre as well as shorter, but it had been nicely honed. He had never wielded a mace, as he considered such weapons far too brutal for a gentleman’s use. But he had picked it up in preference to a javelin because he was even less of a gentleman now than he had been before.
He moved smoothly to support the undead crocodilians, aiming to take on the two goblins who still had weapons in their hands. They must have been astonished to see him coming, and they were genuinely uncertain as to whether he had come to attack them or to attack the unnatural monsters assailing them. They were not long in doubt. As soon as he moved to engage them they were quick to retaliate, making rapid progress away from the groping ushabti in order to concentrate their attentions on him.
The Estalian parried their blades easily enough, and thumped one over the head before either of them had time to organise another thrust. When the second thrust came from the one still standing, he met it easily with the shaft of the mace, and smashed the blunt side of the swordblade into the side of the goblin’s head. That one went down too, stunned, but by no means dead.
Ushabti gathered both of them in.
The larger of the two orcs, howling with anger, broke off his engagement with a ushabti to come at Quintal in a berserk rage.
Quintal’s only anxiety was that he might have to run the ugly brute through in order to stop it, but he need not have worried at all. The ushabti lifted up one of its feet and swept its tail along the floor to trip the charging greenskin. The orc fell so heavily that the impact seemed to make the floor shake.
The fight was over; every single orc and goblin had now been seized, although there was not a single effective pair of scale-and-bone arms to spare.
Every one of the green-skinned invaders was ready for sacrifice.
Luis Quintal dutifully looked around for a blade even sharper than the one he already held.
MEMET ASHRAF WATCHED in fascination as his erstwhile ally took up a position behind the altar. Quintal looked to be in a parlous state - as might be expected of a man who had fallen down a well - but he was moving with an alarmingly mechanical sense of purpose. His clothes were in tatters and he seemed to be carrying at least a dozen superficial but bloody wounds. On the other hand, his eyes were gleaming with a fervour that could not be entirely explained by the light of sunbeams flooding through the damaged roof.
It seemed to Ashraf that there was a peculiar redness to Quintal’s eyes, more profound than if it merely reflected the glow of the sceptre as well as the glare of the sun.
Ashraf’s first impulse on seeing his com
panion had been a glad one, but when he saw the way Quintal had tackled the goblins he was not so sure that he had any reason to be delighted.
Whatever miracle had preserved the Estalian’s life seemed also to have transformed him - as his cousin might also have been transformed.
Ashraf had always been too cautious to entirely trust his enemy-turned-friend; it seemed safer now to proceed on the assumption that he could not be trusted at all. So the Arabian remained hidden in the shadows, watching carefully to see what would happen next.
One of the monsters came forward to the altar, clutching a terrified goblin. Its forepaws were woefully inefficient as hands, but once they had a grip they maintained it. The creature had been cut in a dozen places, but it had not lost a single drop of blood. It lifted the goblin on to the altar, and carefully changed its grip to hold the greenskin, stretched out in a supine position.
Luis Quintal cut its throat, and stood over it as if mesmerised. He watched arterial blood rise up in a fountain before falling back into the shallow bowl. Ashraf knew that goblin blood was dark green, but this was so dark as to seem jet black in the uncertain light. While it gushed extravagantly the black blood bathed the Estalian’s face and breast, but once the flood had slowed to a trickle every drop had drained into the concave surface of the altar.
Until this point, Ashraf had not heard any of the chimerical monsters emit the slightest sound. But now they sighed in unison, opening their mouths wide to display unnaturally white teeth and sturdy grey tongues. Even the ones that could no longer stand erect, and those whose eyes had been put out, so that they could not see, joined in the sigh.
‘My faithful ushabti,’ Quintal said, in a voice whose timbre was unfamiliar to Ashraf, ‘this is a new beginning. Greenskin blood is by no means rich and by no means sweet, but as the old saying has it, ”every great crusade must start with a single step”. Blood is blood, after all, even if it is black - and had I not shed a little of mine, voluntarily, into this same avid receptacle, we might have contrived nothing here today but a petty massacre. While we are celebrating the wisdom of ancient proverbs, we might also take note of the one which observes that even the greatest treason tends to begin with a single petty act of self-betrayal.’
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