by Andy Remic
Dek considered this, and Kiki saw it in his face. The raw animal energy to say fuck you. I won’t tell you anything; why should I? This is my damn life, not yours. But then something buckled, something cracked, and Dek looked down at the ground with its brass pipes and dials and intricacy.
“Talk about your father.”
“I don’t see why I should.”
“I think it might help you.”
“Really?” Sudden animal ferocity. “You fucking reckon, do you?”
Kiki stared at him. He subsided.
“Sorry.” His words were mumbled. “Don’t know what came over me.”
“We’re not in the Red Thumb Fighting Pits now, Dek.” She smiled, to take the sting out of her words. She took his hand – his large, scarred hand, more like a shovel with bony ridges in all reality – and she squeezed it hard.
“I’ve never told anybody before.”
“That’s all right.” She looked up at him in the surreal witch-light of the surreal chamber, deep within the bowels of an alien salt-ship.
“Kedd was a hard man. His father had been a hard man before him. It wasn’t so much that he beat me, but he did whack me whenever I was bad – and that was all the time. I was always breaking stuff, smashing stuff, even down to furniture. And I was naughty. Fighting – that you know about, but it didn’t bother Dad that much. There was this one time down at the Dead Dog Tavern, I was with Dad because we’d been to market and Dad’s on his stool with a soothing pint of ale, and I’m sat in the corner, keeping quiet like, ’cos they didn’t like kids in the taverns, then, and a landlord could get into a whole lot of trouble with the Watch. But Dad was a regular, knew the landlord, Big Pete, and even though Dad was well known as somebody you didn’t tangle with – you only had to look at the size of his fists and the bent and broken nose from scuffles in his youth, and later, from boxing in the army – well, he wasn’t a trouble maker and Big Pete allowed him a lot of leeway. So I’m sat there, with a bowl of dried pork strips to keep me quiet and not tell Mam we’d stopped off at the Dead Dog, when a man known as Boxing Buttley, big as a horse he was, and about as clever, comes over. Had a few too many ales, he had, accuses Dad of staring at his wife’s arse. Dad smiles at him, cool as anything, and says the only reason he’d stare at an arse that big would be to wonder how the fuck she could squeeze it through the door. Buttley stares at him, gawping, mouth flapping, until he worked out the insult. Throws a right and Dad just… kind of twitches, the slightest movement, and Buttley misses, spins and crashes to the floor. Everybody laughs, until Buttley gets up and glares around with his small piggy eyes. He was a mean bastard, and well known to be a mean bastard, him and his brothers.”
“What happened next?”
Dek pulled a flask from beneath his jerkin, and unscrewed the cap. He offered it to Kiki, who took it and knocked back a large slug. She choked, and coughed, red in the face, eyes streaming, and handed it back.
“Rancid fish oil?”
“Rokroth Marsh Fire.”
Kiki spat on the ground. “Of course it is. I should have known that taste… anywhere. Dek, they make it from fucking eels.”
“Fucking eels?”
She smacked his arm. “You know what I mean.”
“I ain’t told no one this story before.” He took a hefty swig. Then another. Then a third. He grinned at Kiki, and she could see the fire ignite his eyes from the inside. They glowed like dragon eggs. They glittered beautiful, like stolen diamonds.
Outside, the wind howled like a spear-stuck pig. Salt pattered against the walls of the ship; it sounded like distant snow.
“Yeah, you already said that.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “It’s OK. I’m here to listen. I’m here to help. I’m here to care. I’m here to love you, Dek.”
He nodded. “I know, Keeks. I know.”
“Go on then. Boxing Buttley.”
“Launches himself at Dad, and there’s me with a dried pork strip to my mouth and holding my breath. This time, Dad kicks back off the stool and they set to like nothing I’ve ever seen. Boxing Buttley had his name for a reason, but Dad fucking pulverised him. Broke his nose and both cheekbones and one arm and his ankle. Left him whimpering on the floor like a little child. Then Dad stamps on his chest, breaking his sternum. I can still remember the cracking sound.” He gave a little shudder.
Kiki frowned. “Dek, you’ve done much worse than that. I’ve seen you!”
“Yeah. I know. But that was war. This was a pub brawl.”
“Dek, I’ve still fucking seen you do much worse than that.”
Dek considered this. “You reckon?”
“Oh, I know!”
“Well. Dad goes back to his ale, and the landlord brings out an ice-pack for his right fist because it was swollen something horrid. I carry on munching on my pig snacks, and ten minutes later the door opens and these five big fuckers come marching in, each one a bruiser and a brother to Boxing Buttley. ‘We’re looking for some cunt called Kedd,’ says the biggest one, and man, was he big. A head taller than my father. But then, as I learned that day, doesn’t matter how fucking big you are – sometimes, you’ll just never be big enough. Dad stands up and lamps him one, knocks the so-called hard cunt out with one right hook to the temple. The others wade in, and Dad just stands there like a fucking… machine! It’s like he’s untouchable, and within about a minute he destroys them all. Utterly smashes them to the Chaos Halls. Then, he coolly finishes his ale, nods at the landlord, and walks through the hushed men of the tavern like he was a god. It was the most incredible thing I ever saw. Then we gets outside, and on the way home he gives me this big talk about how fighting is wrong, and you should always talk your way free of problems, and how Mam will be really pissed with him and it’s not good to bring possible future trouble down on your family. And all I’m thinking is, ‘Fuck, my dad is the hardest man in the world! He’ll never die! He’s indestructible and could even fight the mountains and win!’ because that’s the sort of hero worship bullshit a twelve year-old boy has for his dad.”
Dek lowered his head, rubbed his stubbled, weary face with both hands. Kiki squeezed his hand again. “What happened next?”
“The next day, down at the docks, they were unloading massive freighter crates using high cranes and steel cables. The Buttleys turn up in force looking for my dad, there’s ten of them this time, cousins with clubs and iron bars. But it was too late.”
“What was too late?”
“They were too late. He was already dead. A steel cable snapped, and a huge crate – big as a house – fell on Dad and three other men, killed them instantly. Crushed them. They sent one of the office managers to tell us. She was very sympathetic. But it still couldn’t stop my mother’s wails. Or stop my hate. Some reason, I blamed the Buttleys. Like, I don’t know, like it was their fault. If they’d left Dad alone, none of it would have happened.”
“Didn’t stop you though, did it?”
“Eh?”
“Logical thought and reason. Didn’t stop you hunting them down. Fighting them? Beating them into a bloody pulp? All of them?”
Dek gave her an odd look: sideways, confused, admiring. He shrugged. “That’s another story for another day. I told you about my dad. How he died. And that wrenched my heart from my chest and left it dangling on a hook for any shark to come and have a nibble on. I changed that day. I became a bad person that day.”
“You’re not a bad person, Dek. Never have been, never will be.”
He gave a little shrug. “It feels like it, a lot of the time. And there’s a lot of people out there with healed broken bones and bad memories who think I deserve to die. And there’s a lot of dead people waiting for me beyond the threshold of death; waiting with helves and iron bars, just waiting for me to step my little foot over the barrier. Then whack. Time for some serious retribution. Ha ha.”
Kiki leaned forward, and wrapped her arms around his massive frame. She couldn’t reach all the way around, but
he got the idea.
“Your turn,” he said, and looked up at her.
“Ha. I knew you were going to say that.” And then the smile fell by gradients, and she looked into Dek’s eyes, at the love there, at the caring, and something gave a little shiver inside. “You want to know about my sister, Suza. But by telling you about Suza, I have to tell you something else. Something about my childhood. Something… terrible.”
“We all carry ghosts,” said Dek, gently.
“This is… different. It’s about the way I was born; born, that is, to be a Shamathe. It’s about the way I was born, and the way I was treated. It’s about how magick then… shaped me. Changed me. Healed me. But it’s a terrifying story for me to tell…”
“Why?” and Dek was there, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
She looked up at him, looked into his face. “Because I’m afraid you’ll leave me when you know,” she said.
“I’ll never leave you. Ever.” Hard words. And final.
Kiki gave a nod, but Dek could tell she didn’t believe him.
“What is it, Keeks? What’s so bad you think I could ever lose you again? Because you’re fucking wrong. I’ll love you till the stars burn out. Love you until the sun dies and falls from the heavens. I’m yours, baby. I’m yours forever.”
“I was born… different,” said Kiki, slowly, refusing to look up. “The first sounds of the midwife were a sharp intake of horrified fear. I…”
And then the horses started screaming.
Zastarte rolled awake, sword out with a hiss, and Kiki and Dek drew weapons and ran down the short tunnel, pausing carefully at the turn. The horses were rearing and stamping in the short space of tunnel, and Kiki leapt forward, grabbing reins, calming them down. Outside, the wind and the salt storm were shrieking, but it seemed to have lessened; grown calmer.
The three Iron Wolves advanced down the tunnel.
Outside, the sky was black, and salt whipped about, forming patterns in the air from the gusting violence.
“Still too harsh to travel through,” growled Dek.
“What upset the horses?” Kiki glanced back at him.
He shrugged.
Then Zastarte pointed. “What… is that?”
They stared through the gloom, where the salt danced above the hard-packed plain and rolling dunes.
And it was Dek who said it.
“Holy Mother, where the fuck did those come from?”
Out on the salt plains, before the mammoth, trapped ship, there were statues formed from salt. Kiki stepped out, sword raised, looking about. Dek followed with Zastarte, and they moved to the massive salt statues, arrayed like some artist’s gallery, vast, towering sculptures which had not been there just a few hours before.
Suddenly, the storm dropped. It was binary. Gone, in an instant; as if simply switched off.
Kiki stepped forward a few more paces, neck straining, taking a deep breath, and staring up at the vast figures which now surrounded her. There were men and women, regal in bearing, and the detail in the salt figures was incredible, as if they’d been meticulously carved from ice. And they seemed to gleam, as if polished.
“I don’t fucking understand,” growled Dek, spinning slowly around, long sword before him, face writhing with uncertainty and primal fear.
“The storm has carved these figures for us,” said Zastarte, and grinned. “Maybe it’s a gift from the gods of the salt desert?”
“Or maybe a warning,” said Kiki, gesturing to the bloated figure of something horrific.
Suddenly, the salt surged beneath them and around them, and many of the sculpted figures collapsed in great crumbling heaps. The salt beneath their boots became fluid, and all three collapsed to their knees, and felt as if they were sinking. Waves of salt rolled around them, and mocking laughter echoed through the bleak blackness of the night.
The Iron Wolves, whispered the hiss of the salt. Waves rolled around them as if they were standing on an ocean, and suddenly they were sucked down deeper, up to their thighs. Dek lashed around with his long sword, but a swirling tendril made from salt granules leapt up like a thrashing tentacle, and took it from him like a sweet from a young child; and he was stranded, weaponless, teeth bared in a grin of horror.
“What’s happening, Kiki?” he yelled above the hiss and whirl of salt and wind. “I don’t like this!” He thrashed around, but the salt sucked him in deeper. He was up to his waist now. They all were. It was like sinking sand. Lethal.
“Keep still,” yelled Kiki. “Stop all movement!”
They stopped struggling, and the remnants of the storm seemed to fall. Salt pattered to the ground. Everything was terribly still, and silent. In the tunnel to the ship, they could hear the frightened whinnies of their horses; but eventually, even they were quiet. Silence rolled across the world like a great veil of ash.
“What now?” growled Zastarte.
“Wait,” said Kiki, holding up one finger.
“I don’t want to die like this,” whimpered Dek. “I want to die with a fucking sword in my hand!”
“Shhh!”
Kiki turned her head, looking about her. Around half of the sculpted figures remained, towering ten and twenty feet in height. And then she turned to look straight ahead, due to some primitive intuition, and particles of salt started to jiggle and vibrate before her eyes. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but there came a sudden uprush, a wave of salt gushing towards her like a tidal wave and she lifted hands to protect her face, protect her eyes, but it halted, hanging there, spinning, turning like a mini maelstrom, and twisting, finally, into a huge face. It was the face of a woman, hanging in the air and made from gently spinning particles. Silence fell. And the face smiled.
Kiki, hissed the salt.
“Yes?” she said, mouth dry, a great and terrible fear worming into her heart, which suddenly dropped, like a black stone down a bottomless well.
It is your time, sister of the Shamathe. I do not wish to do this. Truly, sister of my heart. But unfortunately in life, we have to do those things that are the most painful for us. Say farewell to your friends. It is time for you to merge with the Salt Plains of Eternity…
THE KEEP
Narnok thrust Faltor Gan away from him with incredible force, kicking back as a snarling elf rat landed right before him and the great, double-headed axe swept up with a song of chaos, cutting into the creature’s chest with a thud and a shower of blood. It howled, claws slashing for Narnok’s face, and the whole world plummeted into a madness of elf rats landing, weapons slashing out, claws raking at eyes and faces. Narnok drew a knife and stuck it in the howling elf rat’s guts as another flew at him, a sword smashing for his head. He swayed back, dragging his axe with him, and kicked out, but the creature came on, dropping its sword and lunging with both twisted arms outstretched, dark, gleaming claws scrabbling for his throat and flexing. His axe sang, slamming in a horizontal strike that left two clawed hands twitching on the marble. A second return strike cut the head free. Narnok searched out Trista. She was fighting with Mola, the two Iron Wolves back to back. An elf rat leapt at them, but Veila sent a shaft through its open, screaming mouth and it was punched back, twisting, limbs flailing in a diagonal kick. Narnok roared and leapt forward, cleaving two elf rats in half as he waded towards Trista and Mola, and they parted for him, so they formed a trio of bristling steel. “Dogs to me!” roared Mola, and the beasts, snarling and chewing, muzzles red and black with blood and gore, returned to their master, great jaws fastening on elf rats along the way.
“We need to get out of here!” yelled Narnok.
“No shit,” snapped Mola.
“To the doors!” shouted Trista above the sudden din of battle, and they began cutting themselves a path through the gloom-laden charnel house, Mola’s vicious bastard dogs forming a spearhead of snapping teeth and iron jaws as they forced their way forward. They saw Badograk, with his two-handed axe, and Narnok called to him, but before he could turn, the heavily-m
uscled fighter went down with three elf rats on his back. Their claws gouged his eyes, tore out his throat and they bore him like a dying bull to the ground where a curved black blade lifted, and hacked down, cutting his head free. Trista saw Shafta, fighting bravely, both knives covered in blood. But as he backed away, an elf rat loomed behind him, jaws suddenly wide, wider than they had any right to be. They clamped down on the young lad’s head and he screamed as he was picked up, legs thrashing up into the air, knives clattering to the hard marble floor.
They made the double doorway, panting, covered in elf rat blood, and were joined by Veila, now out of shafts and fighting with a curved silver sabre, by Dag Da, and then by Faltor Gan. “Follow me,” said Faltor, his pale face speckled with black droplets, both fists drenched in gore.
“And why should we?”
He faced Narnok, and gave a narrow smile. “You were right, axeman. We need to stick together against the common enemy. Against these…” he savoured the words, “elf rats.”
“And how do I know I can trust you not to stick a knife in my back?”
Faltor grinned then. “Because, my belligerent friend, I heard what you said about taking Zanne Keep and slaughtering General Namash, and that sorcerer bastard, Bazaroth.”
“Ha! We’d need an army,” snorted Narnok, and cut his axe through a charging elf rat, showering them all with blood.
Faltor wiped glistening droplets from his face, and said, “You know that Breakneck Prison you were talking about?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I found out where the prisoners went. They’d been digging a tunnel, and when Zanne was invaded, overrun, they killed what few guards remained and broke out. A good few hundred of them. All hardened criminals, wondering what the fuck was going on, and trapped in an old iron works.”
“You think they’ll fight for us?”
“Not for us,” smiled Faltor, grimly. “But they might just fight for me.”
There were sixteen of them left, survivors from the museum, plus Mola’s dogs, which had been wounded by slashing claws, but didn’t seem to display any feelings of pain. Panting, they ran alongside their wiry master, who winced occasionally at his snapped clavicle and clicking ribs, but tried not to show it. The streets were dark and mostly deserted. The survivors hugged the walls of buildings, moving mostly in single file, Faltor Gan leading the way. They passed twisted, blackened trees, which grew out from beneath paving stones, pushing the heavy slabs of stone upwards and away and making the roads uneven, buckled. Some of the toxic trees were even growing up through the walls of buildings, and had pushed out bricks and supporting pillars, causing walls to sag, and roofs to collapse. The whole city of Zanne had an air of despondency; of bleakness, and poison, and emptiness. A cold wind blasted down the snow-filled streets. The air smelled of oil fire, of rotting vegetation, of despair.
