The man returned the scroll then lifted a vase from another shelf. ‘Then you need not follow me about like an anxious shopkeeper.’
‘Ha!’ A finger pointed from the murk obscuring the seat of the throne. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you’ll try … whatever it is you mean to try, then … won’t you!’
Osserc turned a rather puzzled glance upon the throne. ‘I’ll do … what?’
‘Exactly!’
The tall man frowned and cocked his head, attempting to work his way through that. Shrugging, he replaced the vase. ‘Well, you need worry no longer. I am finished here.’
‘You most certainly are!’
‘I go to speak with another.’
‘Another? Who? Who would you speak to?’ Osserc ignored the question and walked up a darkened hall. The murky transparent figure on the throne leaned forward as if listening. ‘Where are you going?’ The flickering light in the main hall changed, dimming even further. ‘Osserc? Hello?’ He leaned back. ‘So … gone! Ha! Drove him off, the fool!’ A fisted hand banged from one armrest. ‘But where has he gone?’ Hands flew to a head cowled in shreds of shadow. ‘Gaa! I must know! I must know everything!’
A tiny monkey-like animal came waddling from a corner. In one hand it turned something bright which glimmered and flashed. ‘You!’ the figure on the throne yelled. The monkey whipped its hands behind its back and peered about innocently. ‘You! Do something!’
The animal’s expressive face wrinkled up with something resembling determination. It sat on one of the steps leading up to the throne and proceeded to stare off into the distance. It stroked the tuft of hair at its chin as if deep in thought.
‘Oh, you’re a big help.’
CHAPTER II
There are many tattooed men and women. Tattoos are often religious incantations or symbols. They are held to offer protection against illness, curses and to ward off the attention of ghosts. The more superstitious the person, the more tattoos they are apt to have. Since tattooing is very painful, the victim chews mind-dulling leaves or inhales stupefying smoke, without relent, for the days of the operation.
Matha Banness
In Jakuruku
THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT attack upon the army came on the fourth night of the march through the border region of jagged limestone mounts, sheer cliffs and sudden precipitous sinkholes, the Gangreks. Golan had fallen asleep at his travelling desk. Long into the night he’d been reading U-Pre’s disheartening progress reports while the candles burned out one by one around him. Screams and shouts from the edge of camp snapped his head from among the sheets of cheap pressed fibre pages. The candles had all guttered out. Wrapping his robes about himself, he stepped out of the tent and met the messenger sent to bring him word of the disturbance. He waved the man silent and set off.
His yakshaka bodyguard fell in about him, swords drawn, and Golan sourly reflected that this was hardly where their swords were needed. Still, they were not to be blamed. It was not their job to patrol the camp perimeter. He found most of the troops and labourers up and awake. They murmured among themselves and strained to peer to the south. The whispers died away as Golan and his escort passed. He felt the pressure of countless eyes following him from the dark, all glittering as they reflected the dancing flames of the camp torches. He recognized the gathering panic fed by the darkness and their destination – a smothering animal coiling itself about everyone.
The south was a trampled battleground of torn tents, overturned carts, slaughtered men and animals. The butchery appeared indiscriminate, savage. Corpses lay where they had fallen, sprawled, revealing hideous wounds, and Golan gritted his teeth. Where was U-Pre? He expected better than this of the man. Droplets of blood and other fluids spattered the grasses and slashed canvas. Here and there limbs lay completely torn from torsos. He studied the corpse of a labourer eviscerated by a ragged gash across his stomach. Blue and pink-veined intestines lay thrown like uncoiled rope. Someone wearing sandals had walked across them. As reported: a fanged monstrosity emerging from the forest to rend men limb from limb. What else but an opening move from Ardata?
He sighed, and, chilled by the cool night air, slid his hands up the wide silk sleeves of his robe. Thankfully, a cordon of troopers had been organized and these, with spears sideways, held back the curious.
Yet even so, stamped on the faces of those survivors, in their wide staring eyes and sweaty pallid features, lay their obvious terror and near panic. Must separate these from the rest; such fear is contagious and grows in the recounting.
Walking unconcerned through the muck and steaming spilled viscera came the equally fearsome apparition of the Isturé Skinner himself. His ankle-length armoured coat glimmered like mail, though Golan knew it was actually constructed of smooth interlocking scales. As he stepped over the sprawled corpses his coat dragged across staring faces and slashed wet torsos. It shone enamelled black except where spattered fresh gore painted it a deep crimson.
‘And where were you and your people during the attack?’ Golan demanded.
‘Elsewhere,’ the foreigner responded, unconcerned. He clasped his gauntleted hands behind his back to study the field of dead. Golan strove to shrug off a feeling of unease at such a blasé attitude to this bloody business. ‘Well … now that you are here it is time you were useful.’
The foreigner, so tall as to literally tower over Golan, cocked a blond brow. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Track down this servant of Ardata. Slaughter it.’
In a scratching of scales Skinner crossed his armoured arms. ‘It is hardly a servant of Ardata.’
Golan waved a hand, forgetting momentarily that he wasn’t carrying his rod or fly-whisk. ‘What more evidence is necessary? It is a monster! It attacked us! We are entering Ardata’s demesnes!’
‘I would suggest that what we have entered is this thing’s hunting grounds.’
Golan eyed the man more narrowly. ‘Regardless. You have pledged certain obligations to the Circle of Masters.’
The foreign giant waved a hand in its banded, articulating gauntlet. ‘Yes, yes. You have in me a partner for the campaign.’
‘Very good. Your first task awaits.’
Turning heavily away, the foreigner murmured, ‘For all the good it will do …’
Golan followed his retreat to the dark forest verge. All the good? Well, yes, Ardata’s servants are no doubt many. But that is your half of the bargain, foreigner. The throne of Ardata’s lands could hardly be won so easily. And if you should destroy each other in the process … well … Golan shrugged, then waved away a swarm of flies drawn by the spilt warm fluids.
In the woods Mara awaited Skinner. With her stood Shijel and Black the Lesser, younger brother of Black the Greater, who had remained with K’azz. ‘Well?’ she demanded as her commander appeared.
Skinner gave a slow shrug of disgust. ‘Our noble ally wants it killed.’
‘Ridiculous! In a few days we’ll be out of its territory.’
‘Regardless …’
Mara kicked the ground. ‘Damned useless …’
‘Who’s coming?’ Black asked.
Skinner studied them. ‘We should do it. Mara, tell Jacinth she’s in charge until we return.’
‘Very good.’
‘The trail?’ Skinner asked Shijel.
‘A blind tinker could follow it.’
‘So be it. Let us track it down. I’d like to be back by dawn.’
Shijel did the tracking. He wore light leathers and gloves on his hands, which were never far from the silver-wire-wrapped grips of his twin longswords. The trail, obvious even to Mara, led them on. The nightly rains returned, thick and warm. Mara’s robes became a heavy encumbrance that she cursed as she stumbled over roots and through clinging mud. The possibility of returning by dawn slowly slid away as they failed to reach the creature’s lair until a feathering of pink touched the eastern sky. The four gathered short of a jungle-choked opening in a tall cliff face and Mara cursed again. ‘
Could go on for ever,’ she muttered, keeping her voice low.
Their commander pulled on one of the hanging vines as if testing its strength. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I do miss Cowl.’
Mara flinched at that mention of her old superior, now dead. ‘Meaning what?’ she demanded.
Skinner turned to her, frowned his puzzlement, and then nodded his understanding. ‘Ah. No slight intended.’ He drew on his helm. ‘I simply meant that I could just have sent him in and wouldn’t have to go myself.’ He waved them on.
Mara followed, stepping awkwardly over rotting logs and fallen rock. Well, there was that, she admitted. Cowl would actually have gone in alone. And no doubt Skinner did miss his old partner in scheming. Together they’d proved a formidable team. Always it had been just the two of them hammering out stratagems and tactics. Now that Cowl was gone Skinner was well and truly utterly alone. And it seemed to her that the man was even less human because of it.
She knew this cave was just one of the countless sinkholes and caverns that riddled this mountain border region. Over the millennia rains had rotted the limestone into a maze of grottoes and extended underground tunnels where one could suddenly find oneself exposed in open sunlight yet lost hundreds of feet below the surface. Some argued this was the true face of Ardata’s realm. As if she were some sort of queen of the underworld. But Mara knew this to be false. The Night-Queen’s demesne was open countryside. Yet likewise over the millennia, her presence had altered the entire jungle until it too resembled this border region where the unmindful traveller could suddenly find himself wandering half immersed in a Warren-like realm: the legendary enchanted forest of Himatan.
They pushed through the hanging leaves and vines then paused to allow their vision to adjust, and to become used to the stink that suddenly assaulted them: the overwhelming miasma of the layered urine and guano of untold thousands of bats.
‘You have the sense of this thing?’ Skinner asked Mara.
‘Yes. Downward and to the right.’
‘Very good.’
Shijel led. Mara summoned her Warren to improve her vision. The swordsman was on his way across the main section of the cave when she sensed a shimmering of power there on the floor – which to her vision seemed almost to seethe. ‘Halt!’
Everyone froze. ‘Well?’ Skinner murmured.
‘The floor of the cave. Something strange there …’ Mara summoned greater light, then selected a stone that she tossed on to the oddly shifting floor. The stone disappeared as if dropped into water. The surface burst into a flurry of hissing and writhing. It seemed to boil, revealing a soup of vermin: centipedes, ivory-hued roaches, white beetles and pale maggots. Amid the slurry of legs and chitinous slithering bodies lay bones. The skeletal remains of animals. And of humans.
‘Strip you of flesh in an instant,’ Mara commented.
Shijel peered back at her, unconvinced. ‘They’re just insects.’
‘There is power there.’
‘D’ivers?’ Skinner asked sharply.
Mara cocked her head, studying the pool more closely. ‘Not as such. No. They are … enchanted, I suppose one might call it.’
A disgusted sigh escaped Skinner. ‘Himatan already …’
Mara nodded. ‘Under here, yes.’
‘No wonder the thing fled this way. Very well …’ Skinner gestured to Black the Lesser. ‘You lead. Mara, follow closely.’
Black unslung his broad shield and drew his heavy bastard sword. Mara fell in behind him, directing him to keep to the walls and to watch his step. They descended in this order for some time; Skinner bringing up the rear, perhaps as a precaution against their quarry’s attacking from behind. The route Mara dictated narrowed and they slogged on through knee-high frigid water. From somewhere nearby came the echoing roar of a falls.
Mara sensed it as it happened: she opened her mouth to shout a warning even as a shape lunged from the dark water to latch itself upon Black and the two went down in a twisting heap. From the slashing water rose the monstrosity to launch itself upon her. She had an instant’s impression of a glistening armoured torso like that of a lizard, sleek furred arms ending in long talons, and a humanoid face distorted by an oversized mouth of needle-like teeth. Two swords thrust over her shoulders impaling the creature in its lunge and it shrieked, twisting aside to disappear once more beneath the water. Black emerged, gasping and chuffing. His right shoulder was a bloody mess. He cradled the arm. Mara nodded her thanks to Shijel, just behind her.
‘It went for you,’ he said.
‘It knows who’s sensing it,’ Skinner rumbled. ‘I believe you wounded it, Shijel. Mara – is it far?’
Still shaken, she jerked her head. ‘No. Not far.’
‘Very good. Black, fall in behind Mara. You lead, Shijel.’
They found it close to an underground waterfall. It lay up against rocks, half in the water. Blood smeared its chest and naked torso. Its dark eyes glittered full of intelligence and awareness, watching them as they approached, so Mara addressed it: ‘Why did you attack us?’
Its half-human face wrinkled up, either in pain or annoyance. ‘Why?’ it growled. ‘Stupid question, Witch.’ It gestured a clawed hand to Skinner. ‘You are a fool to return, Betrayer. She will not be so patient with you a second time.’
‘We shall see,’ he answered from within his helm.
‘Again I ask,’ Mara said, ‘why attack? You are no match for us.’
It bared its teeth in something like a hungry grin. ‘No. But our mistress has spoken. You are no longer welcome and I honour our mistress. You …’ it gestured again to Skinner, weakly, ‘Himatan shall swallow you.’
Mara frowned, troubled by what seemed a prophecy, and she crouched before it. ‘What do you—’
The heavy mottled blade of Skinner’s sword thrust past her, impaling the creature. Mara flinched aside. ‘Damn the Dark Deceiver, Skinner! There was something there …’
‘Well,’ the giant observed as he shook the dark blood from his blade, ‘there’s nothing there now.’ He turned away. ‘Bring the body. The damned Thaumaturg might yet demand proof.’
At the cave entrance Skinner paused, raising a gauntleted hand to sign a halt. He regarded the wide cave floor, now as still as any placid pool. He then went to the body, which Shijel and Black had dragged all the way. Grunting with the effort, he gathered up the muscular corpse and heaved the carcass overhead and out on to the floor. As it flew Mara flinched to hear it give vent to one sudden despairing shriek, cut off as it disappeared beneath the surface. The pool of vermin foamed to life in a great boiling froth of maggots, beetles, writhing larvae and ghost-white centipedes.
Mara turned away, nauseated. Skinner watched for a time, motionless, then headed for the surface. Passing Mara, he observed, ‘You were right – stripped in an instant.’
* * *
Saeng woke up feeling worse than she had in a very long time. She was shivering cold and her clothes hung sodden and chilled. Her hair was a clinging damp mess, her nose was running and her back hurt. Early morning light shone down through the thick canopy in isolated shafts of gold. She stretched, grimacing, and felt at her back; she’d slept curled up on a nest of leaves and humus piled in a nook between the immense roots of a tualang tree. Her umbrella stood open over her, its handle jammed into a gap between the vines that choked the trunk. Hanu stood to one side, his back to her.
Standing, Saeng adjusted her shirt and skirts and brushed ineffectually at her matted hair. She pulled the umbrella free and closed it. Hanu turned to her.
‘Thanks,’ she said, indicating the umbrella. He nodded within his helm, which glittered with its inlaid jade and lapis lazuli mosaic. A suspicion struck her. ‘You stood there all through the night?’ Again he nodded. That struck her as inhuman, which made her rub her arms and look away, an ache clenching her chest. ‘Don’t you need to sleep … any more?’
‘Little,’ he signed.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t.’
Deciding not to pursue that any further, she scanned the jungle. ‘Hear anything in the night?’
‘Many things come.’
‘What’s that? Many things? What?’
‘Night animals. Wild pigs. Monkeys. A fire cat hunting. Ghosts.’
‘Ghosts? What did they look like?’
‘Dancing balls white light.’
‘Oh, them.’ Wanderers. Spirits doomed to search eternally for some lost or stolen thing. People greedy in life. Sometimes, though, she knew it could have been a sad affair with one hunting a lost love. ‘Any hint of the Thaumaturgs?’
‘No. But close. Must move.’
‘Yes. But first we must eat.’ She sat on a root and dug in her cloth shoulder bag. ‘We have rice for two or three days only. After that, fruit and anything we can catch, I suppose.’ She held up a ball of rice. He worked at his helm to open it. Saeng studied her brother as he popped the rice ball into his mouth and chewed, his gaze searching the woods. So much a figure from her youth. How she could still see the smiling child in his face. Oh, Hanu … what have they done to you?
‘More?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He closed his helm.
No more? For such a large fellow it seemed to her that he ate like a mouse. She packed up the bags and wraps and they set off.
Pushing through the wet leaves she was sodden again almost immediately. She brushed at her skirts in irritation. Hanu, leading, did what he could to break trail. Towards midday the clouds began thickening as the evening rain gathered itself. They exited the tall old forest to enter a broad meadow of dense grass stands reaching higher than either of them.
‘An old rice field,’ Saeng said, wonder in her voice. ‘We must be close to Pra Thaeng, or Pra Dan.’
Hanu signed for silence, now tensed. He motioned Saeng back and drew his long broad blade. She at least knew enough not to say a thing, and backed away quickly. She then heard it: something large approaching, shouldering its way through the thick stands. Great Demon-King! Not another yakshaka! I must help. She summoned her power from within.
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