More of the creatures stumbled out of the gate. Others dragged themselves over the squat wall. The orcs met them with steel and spear. But Stryke's sense that the brutes' speed and mobility was growing proved right. One of them, moving surprisingly fast, landed a powerful arm swipe to the side of a grunt's head, knocking him senseless. Ignoring menacing blades, another crashed into an orc and encircled him in a crushing bear-hug. They pair of them collapsed struggling.
Coilla did as much dodging as fighting to get to Wheam. The creatures were noticeably gaining rapidity, though still reacted slowly compared to the living. But that wasn't an issue when a hulking specimen blocked her path with arms spread wide. She skidded to a halt. The putrefying figure instantly lashed out, cuffing her hard in the face. Coilla went down.
She rolled and quickly regained her feet. Spitting a mouthful of blood, she went on the attack, sword extended. Her opponent strode forward into her driven blade. It entered a little above his heart, or where his heart should be, and exited through his back. The blade met no resistance. Nor did it do any harm. Coilla tugged it out and switched from point to edge.
Her hacking caused more damage, cleaving chunks of rotten flesh, but didn't halt the advance. Then she cursed herself for not seeing the obvious solution sooner. Leaping to one side, out of the creature's course, she stooped and swung her sword. It sliced through the creature's leg, and the limb was so desiccated that one blow was enough. Amputated just below the knee, the creature lost balance and crashed to the ground. Coilla left it thrashing about.
When she got to Wheam he was still trying to get away. And Coilla saw that his captor was female. She had straggly, once blonde hair, and a hint of almost vanished comeliness in her gaunt features. One hand remained clamped to Wheam's wrist. With the other she had hold of his jerkin front, and was drawing him to her.
The corpse jerked Wheam close to her blotchy face. Her mouth gaped open, revealing a pair of unusually long, yellow-stained incisors. Darting like a venomous snake, she buried the fangs in Wheam's neck.
Coilla rushed in, yelling and brandishing her sword. The female pulled back, blood trickling from the corners of her rancid lips. Wheam looked to be in a state of shock, his complexion ashen, a seeping wound at his jugular. Keeping hold of his wrist, the creature turned. There was a large cavity in her chest that exposed the ribcage and viscera. Wheam's blood dribbled from it.
Carving a downward arc with her blade, Coilla cut through the creature's arm. Wheam fell away, the withered hand still attached to his wrist. Fangs bared, her features hideously distorted, the female let out a guttural hiss.
Coilla swung her sword again and sliced off the creature's head. It bounced away into the darkness. The decapitated body stood swaying for a second, then fell, crumbling to a heap of arid skin, dust and bones.
" Bloodsuckers! " Coilla yelled.
They heard it at the wall. But Stryke and the others needed no warning. The undead they faced were also trying to target orc throats.
"What kills 'em?" Haskeer shouted, holding a ravenous corpse at bay with jabs from a spear.
"Beheading!" Stryke hollered, slashing at an opponent of his own.
"Right!" Haskeer yelled back. Discarding the spear, he brought out a hatchet to do the job.
"And fire!" Dallog added.
Having parted the head from his adversary's shoulders, Stryke barked an order. " Use fire! Deploy your bows! "
A handful of archers peeled off from the fighting. Some already had tar arrow tips, and quickly attached them. The rest used windings of cloth smeared with oil. Flints were struck.
The night air was filled with fiery streaks. Incendiary arrows smacked into the bloodsuckers, engulfing them in flame. Turned to fireballs, the creatures blundered about, wailing.
Dallog tackled the problem more directly. Producing a flask, he threw a copious amount of brandy over the nearest undead. An applied spark converted the corpse into a walking blaze.
Stryke was impressed. "Good thinking!" He dug out his own flask and drenched another of the creatures. Aflame, it collided with a fellow, igniting it too.
Haskeer looked resentful at his captain's approval of Dallog's initiative.
"Come on, Haskeer!" Stryke snapped. "What about yours?"
"My brandy ration?" His hand went to the flask at his belt, protectively.
"Haskeer!"
"All right, dammit." He took the flask and ripped out the stopper. Then he had an idea of his own. Snatching a scrap of clothing from a decapitated bloodsucker, he crammed it into the flask's neck. He used the flames from a burning corpse to light it.
Bringing his arm well back, he lobbed the flask at a group of three undead. It exploded in their midst, showering them with burning liquid. They staggered and fell, aflame. There were cheers from the orcs.
A further ten minutes of beheading and incineration put paid to the last of the creatures.
Stryke called out, " Is anybody down? "
" Here! " Coilla yelled back.
They ran into the graveyard. Wheam was sitting on the ground, Coilla bending over him.
"What happened?" Stryke said.
"He got bitten."
"Trust him," Haskeer muttered. "Stupid little bugger."
"I'm all right," Wheam told them.
Dallog knelt by him. "You don't look it."
"I'm… fine. Really. What… what were those things?"
"They were humans to start with," Stryke explained.
"Is that what… humans are… like?"
"No," Coilla replied. "They're vile, but not usually this disgusting. Well, not quite."
"So what — ?"
"I think it's the magic," Stryke offered. "This land's steeped in it. Or it was until their sort came. Their greed and plunder let most of it bleed away. I reckon what's left went bad, got corrupted… I don't know; I'm no sorcerer."
Coilla took up the notion. "And when these humans died and were buried here the tainted magic brought them back like this?"
"Can you think of a better reason?"
"I don't know about that," Dallog said, examining Wheam's neck, "but I do know this wound needs binding."
"It needs more than that," Stryke replied.
"What do you mean?"
"We've run across vampyrs before. Not like these, but close enough. And they pass on the infection."
Coilla was nodding. "Stryke's right. If this isn't dealt with right now, Wheam's going to become like them."
"What?" Wheam squeaked.
"The bloodlust's a contagion, and it's in that wound. It has to be purified."
Dallog was rooting through his medical satchel. "How?"
"Not with some herb or salve, that's for sure."
"It needs the same thing that killed most of them," Stryke added. "Anybody got any brandy left?"
"I'm sure it'll be all right," Wheam protested feebly.
"Here." Coilla handed over her flask.
"Somebody get a flame going," Stryke said. "And hold on to him."
Wheam's puny resistance didn't amount to anything and they got him pinned. Dallog poured brandy on the wound, which had Wheam yelping. With ill-concealed delight, Haskeer applied the flame.
Wheam shrieked.
He carried on doing it for a good half minute while they let the brandy burn itself out.
"He's fainted," Dallog pronounced.
"Typical," Haskeer sneered.
"Think it worked?" Stryke wondered.
Dallog surveyed the damage. "Looks like it. But I suppose we'll know soon enough. I'll get him bound."
Stryke and Coilla stood. On every side, corpses smouldered and crackled.
"So much for no fires," she said.
8
A rough diamond lying among a fall of hailstones. A beetle moving unhurriedly across a table strewn with grapes. A wind-tossed lily petal caught up in a distant flock of doves. None are less real for being hard to see.
So it was in the limitless ocean of existence, where p
arallel worlds teemed in numbers beyond reckoning. There were anomalies, constructs that differed from the norm though superficially identical. They were rare to the point of improbability, but genuine enough.
One singularity of this kind was a radiant sphere created and maintained by the vigour of unimaginably potent magic. Within was a world whose entire resources and population were devoted to a single cause. This enterprise was carried out in secrecy, and its heart lay in their only city.
The city was as remarkable as the curious world fashioned to house it. Had an outsider been permitted to see it, not that any ever were, they would have been awed by its startling diversity. It embraced myriad architectural styles. Crystal spires and squat enclosures, soaring arches and faceless blocks. Grand amphitheatres standing adjacent to lofty tree houses; groups of round huts overshadowed by multi-turreted citadels. The city was made of stone, glass, timber, quartz, seashells, congealed mud, iron, brick, marble, ebony, canvas, steel and materials that resisted identification.
Many structures appeared incomprehensible, with no obvious practical or aesthetic function. Some melted into one another as though they had grown rather than been erected. A few appeared to disobey gravity, or continuously shifted, flowing into different shapes as they subtly remade themselves.
Highways and watercourses riddled the conglomeration. The twisting roads, elevated at some points, or burrowing into subterranean labyrinths, defied logic, and only a percentage of the canals and conduits contained water. What ran in others was viscous and of varying colours, and in certain stretches could be taken for quicksilver.
The whole bewildering muddle seemed hardly to qualify as a metropolis at all, yet it had an eccentric kind of organic coherence. Given enough time, a visitor, of which there were none, would realise that the city was best understood as the coming together of numerous cultures. A glimpse of its inhabitants would confirm it.
At the centre of the city there was a particularly imposing cluster of buildings. They were topped by a tower made of something that looked like polished ebony. It had no windows, or need of them; those inside saw infinitely more than mere glass could show.
The hub of the tower was a large chamber near its apex. Had a stranger entered they would have seen that the walls seemed to be covered in hundreds of framed works of art, all of the same size and uniformly rectangular. Closer inspection would reveal that they weren't paintings or sketches, and far from still life. They moved.
The frames were like apertures, through which a perplexing variety of constantly changing landscapes could be glimpsed: deserts, forests, oceans, cities, villages, rivers, fields, hamlets, cliff faces, towns, marshes, jungles, lakes and other, unrecognisable terrains, bizarre and alien.
One wall consisted of a single enormous aperture, its surface faintly rippling as though covered by an oily, transparent film. The scene it displayed was less easy to grasp than the others. It was entirely black, except for five pinpoints of golden light, clustered together and glowing like hot embers.
There were beings of many races present, and they were engrossed by it.
The highest ranking was human. Entering late maturity, Karrell Revers had silvering, close-cropped hair and beard, though he remained vigorous and straight-backed. Astuteness glinted in his jade eyes.
"That's it," he declared, pointing at the image. "We've found them."
"You're sure?" Pelli Madayar asked. She was a young female of the elf folk, dainty of form and with features so delicate she looked almost fragile. An appearance that belied both her stamina and the force of her will.
"You've not seen instrumentalities via the tracker before, Pelli," Revers replied. "Over the years, I have, though seldom. Believe me, we've found them."
"And they've been activated."
He nodded at the screen. "As you can see."
"Do we know who by?"
"Given where the artefacts are located, we can make an educated guess. I think they're with the one race not represented in the Gateway Corps."
"Orcs?"
"I'd bet on it."
"So you take this to be the set created by the sorcerer Arngrim."
"Almost certainly. We're sure they were fashioned there," he indicated the screen again, "in the region known locally as Maras-Dantia, and that they passed through many hands before being seized by a band of renegade orcs."
"And then they disappeared."
"Several years ago, after we picked up their last flaring. Which indicated, of course, that they must have transported whoever possessed them to another habitation. Where that may have been, we have no idea. Tracking is an imprecise art, relying more than a little on luck. Wherever they were, the instrumentalities have lain dormant until now."
"So we don't know it's the set Arngrim made."
"Their provenance can be established. As you're aware, every assemblage of instrumentalities has a signature. Its own song. We can verify their origin once we've recovered them. That's not important. What is important is that a set has been activated, and the possible consequences of that are dire at the best of times. But to think they could be in the keeping of a race like the orcs — "
"We don't know that either. Perhaps they've passed to someone else."
"Someone capable of taking them from orcs? Unlikely. And I can't see the orcs trading them once they realised what they were capable of."
"Could they? See their potential, I mean. They don't have a reputation for being the brightest of races."
"But we can credit them with a certain base cunning. Which seems to have served them well enough to employ the instrumentalities. Though to fully direct the artefacts requires magical ability, and we should be grateful that's something orcs don't have."
"As do few of your race, Commander," she gently reminded him.
"You're not suggesting they're capable of mastering sorcery?"
"Who's to say what rogue intellect nature might have thrown up? Or perhaps they have help from someone who already has the necessary skills."
"So we have two alarming prospects. Instrumentalities in the hands of an ignorant race wedded to bloodletting, or somebody directing the orcs for purposes of their own. The ramifications of either are incalculable."
"What do we do?"
"We fulfil the remit the Corps was established for; the duty our forebears have carried out over the centuries. We do what we were all born to, Pelli. Whatever it takes."
"I understand."
"This needs dealing with at the highest level. As my second-in-command, I'm entrusting you personally with the task of recovering the artefacts."
She nodded.
Revers turned to face the rest of his team. Dwarfs, gnomes, brownies, centaurs, elves and representatives of half a dozen other races stared back at him. All were dressed in variants of the black garb he and Madayar wore, with a stylised field of stars motif on their chests.
"We have a crisis brewing," Revers told them. "Instrumentalities falling into unauthorised hands is such an uncommon event that, for some of you, this is the first time you would have experienced it. But you've been trained for such an eventuality, and I expect you to act in accordance with the highest standards of the Gateway Corps." He looked to the screen and its five luminous points of light. Everyone followed his gaze. "We take for granted the multiplicity of worlds. We don't know who first discovered their existence or the means to move between them. Some conjecture that it was an ancient, long-extinct race. Others among you credit your gods. We can speculate on that endlessly and never find an answer; any more than we will ever know the true origins of magic. But that doesn't matter. Our purpose is not to plumb the mystery but to bar irresponsible access to the portals." He scanned their faces and saw resolve there. "The Corps has never failed to recover known instrumentalities, or to punish those responsible for their misuse. This will be no exception. You all have your duties. Attend to them."
The crowd dispersed.
He returned his attention to Madayar. "We have to mo
ve quickly, before the artefacts are used again and we lose sight of them. Pick whoever you want for your squad and take any provisions you need."
"Do I have discretion in how I deal with this?"
"Act in any way you see fit. And I know it's asking a lot of you, Pelli, but bear in mind it's vital that the existence of the Corps remains secret."
"That won't be easy, particularly if we have to use force."
"Try persuasion if you can. Though I've little faith in that approach working with orcs. They're beyond the pale. Remember, you serve a higher moral purpose. If it's necessary to exterminate any who stand in your way, so be it. You'll have weaponry superior to anything you're likely to run into in Maras-Dantia."
"I hope it doesn't come to that. We elves like to think that few beings are beyond salvation. Surely even orcs are susceptible to reason?"
9
Stryke dragged his blade from the human's gizzard and let him drop. Spinning, he slashed the throat of another man-thing, unleashing a scarlet gush. Then he bowled into a third, thrashing at his sword with brutal, ringing blows.
To left and right, the Wolverines were joined in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Coilla and Haskeer dispatched two adversaries, she with a pair of daggers worked in harmony, he wielding a lacerating hatchet. Dallog impaled an opponent with the spar the band used to fly its standard. Underfoot, the withered sward was slick with blood.
It was dawn, and they fought in a makeshift campsite set in a hollow, screened from the trail by a thick copse. A covered wagon was parked, with over a score of horses tethered nearby. The same number of humans battled to defend it.
The conflict was intense but short-lived. With more than half of their strength downed, somebody on the human side yelled an order. They pulled back and fled.
"Let 'em go!" Stryke barked. "They're leaving us what we want."
Coilla glimpsed one of the retreating humans. It was a woman, and she had long, straw-blonde hair.
"See that?"
"What?" Haskeer said.
"Those humans riding off. One of them was a female. Young, barely adult."
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