Ugh, Aoife responded.
The teeth continued for hundreds and hundreds of yards.
Have there really been so many people in all the world? Vykers asked.
Seems rather excessive, doesn’t it?
“Corpse!” Number 4 called out.
Vykers pushed through the Five and looked for himself. A figure in rusted chain mail and helm slumped against the left wall. His feet – one of which was bare – splayed out across the group’s path. There was a battle-notched axe across his lap and an empty wineskin on the floor next to his right hip.
Arune? Vykers said. Why haven’t I been thirsty?
Now, he asks! She sighed, melodramatically. It’s one of the many things I do for you.
What do you mean?
It’s complicated.
All the same.
Another sigh. Very well. I extract moisture from the air – and that’s getting harder and harder to do down here, by the way – and give it to you magically. I can also blunt or forestall your hunger, but…
But?
I can’t extract food from the air, so you need to eat, eventually.
Vykers nudged the body with the toe of his boot. “What do you figure? He died of thirst?” he asked the Five.
“Mmmm,” Number 3 replied. “There is a faint odor of corruption.”
“Huh,” Vykers said, before kneeling to examine the floor. “Hard to say which direction he came from, he’s been here so long. “Corruption? Might be. I don’t see any killing wounds.”
You recognize this armor? He asked Arune.
A brief silence, and then, I don’t know much about military history, arms, armaments, that sort of thing.
“Well, he’s old, you can say that for a certainty,” Vykers muttered, mostly to himself.
Yes, hundreds of years, perhaps.
The Reaper dusted his hands off, took a final glance in the direction they’d come and said “Might as well keep moving.”
Without another word, the Five moved off.
Vykers heard a soft clinking, followed by Arune’s cry, Look out! But his sword was already sweeping in a great arc behind him, crunching through the dead warrior who had somehow risen and chosen, unwisely, to attack. By the time Vykers’ whole body had turned to face the creature, its torso was toppling away from the waist, which, in turn, teetered sideways in opposition. Before the thing hit the ground, the Reaper’s long sword chopped through the skull from the tip of its helm to the bottom of its lower jaw. It fell in a writhing heap on the ground, and Vykers stepped back to admire his handiwork. Misinterpreting the stares of his companions, he said, “Lotta men like to cut through the neck horizontally, taking the head clean off. I’ve always liked cuttin’ vertically, though. Dunno why. Guess it just seems more…violent.”
As Vykers and the Five continued to ponder the still-moving remains, Arune set them afire. In short order, there was nothing left but bits of charred armor.
“Never seen that before,” Vykers observed.
“Fire?” Number 3 asked.
“Dead men walking around.”
“Ah, of course.”
“If there’s more of those, this could get interesting right quick.”
Number 3 nodded in acknowledgement and gestured to his brothers. Again, they all moved out.
The mosaic of teeth continued, a staggering monument to…what, exactly? After several hours, Vykers had to stop thinking about it, altogether. It didn’t seem possible, and yet, there it was, all around them and seemingly always with them. Like the tunnel itself, it went on without end.
Except the tunnel did end. Just as the group was about to camp for the night, Number 12 spotted a wall: they’d reached a dead-end.
None o’ this makes any damned sense! Vykers complained to Arune. These walls are as smooth as you please – not a stone out of place, not a crack, no rubble to speak of. I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s the point? He drew his sword and started lightly tapping on the wall with the pommel.
You looking for a false wall, a hidden passage of some sort?
Yes.
Don’t. There’s nothing here.
“I fuckin’ hate wasting time!” Vykers growled aloud.
“I don’t understand,” Number 3 admitted.
“We should have gone right back at the fork, like you said.”
The chimera was wise enough to say nothing in response.
*****
Almost a day later, they were back at the fork. This time, of course, they took the tunnel first chosen by the Five. Vykers was expecting some kind of comment, but his companions remained as inscrutable as ever, and Arune, as silent. As a younger man, Vykers would have been full of piss and vinegar about the incompetence of any leader as stubborn as he had been just twenty-four hours ago (and old Hobnail would’ve kicked his ass for it). He had expected the same from his “men,” but it seemed such was not in their natures. Or maybe it was that Vykers had been kicking himself for the past day and merely wanted someone else to take over for him. He was painfully conscious of the time lost in following that dead trail; now all he wanted was to find the alleged sword, get back out into the open air and on the march towards his meeting with the End-of-All-Things. Mahnus forbid that whoreson wizard a single extra minute to build his host.
The most frustrating thing was that this new tunnel showed evidence of heavier and more-recent use, if only Vykers had taken the time to scout ahead. As the group progressed, they found bits and pieces of clothing, armor, abandoned weapons and more. Once, they found something scrawled on the wall, but no one – including Arune – could read the cryptic message. A few hours later, they found signs of an ancient camp fire, or, more accurately, an ancient attempt at a camp fire. It was time to sleep, but Vykers felt driven, certain their destination was scant moments away.
He was wrong, again. The tunnel continued for three more days, and although Vykers was faring reasonably well on travel rations, the Five were becoming noticeably irritable in the absence of fresh meat.
“I just wanna get this out,” Vykers announced one morning – or what he assumed was morning. “If any or all of you try to eat me, it’ll be the last mistake you ever make.”
The immediate looks of umbrage and hurt that greeted him shocked the warrior into silence.
Strong and brave you may be, but you’ll never put the diplomats out of work, Arune chided.
Vykers might have felt embarrassment, if he’d been capable, but a doleful blue light up ahead swept his mind clear of self-examination. Outside of a little fire now and then, light was something they hadn’t seen in days.
*****
Long, Captured
On those rare occasions when he’d had reason to imagine himself with a noose around his neck, his current predicament never arose as a possibility. Granted, this was probably the least lethal scenario of the lot, in the short term; still, Long was not comforted or mollified in the slightest. For one thing, even setting aside the noose (as preposterous as that was), the virtual forest of weaponry bristling around him assured Long’s delivery to a fate that was almost guaranteed to be worse than strangulation. The End-of-All-Things would inspect him, torture him for information and then, Long had no doubt, kill him slowly. And he’d been bored of the gigolo’s life!
For a moment, he stumbled. The noose, held by a man on horseback somewhere behind him, tightened mercilessly. Long stopped moving in order to create some necessary slack in the rope and was rewarded with a smack on the back of his head by a different rider.
“Move your carcass, worms’ meat!” the man yelled as he rode by.
Long moved his carcass. His tether allowed him just enough range to catch intermittent glimpses of Mardine, D’Kem and Spirk through the stream of warriors on his left and right. They, like him, struggled to remain upright and ambulatory at the end of their own ropes. Mardine, he noticed with a mix of anger and shame, was bound with multiple ropes and one chain.
He blamed himself. Of course he blamed himself! H
e’d known it was folly the instant Janks and Short first proposed this harebrained adventure. The world had changed – if, indeed, the world of his youthful fantasies had ever existed in the first place – and everything and everyone was a good deal less forgiving than Long had ever hoped or supposed. Even the weather seemed hotter, colder or wetter than at any time in his past. And evil? Evil had gone from abstract concept to something very, very real.
Gods, he was tired. His feet were killing him, his legs ached, his neck was chafed raw, and, unable to hold it any longer, he’d pissed himself a few hours ago. Such was his misery, he didn’t even notice when his captors slowed to a stop and began setting up camp for the night. Although he was no hero, Long was no coward, either. He might have wished for death to find him in his sleep, but he still felt the need, the responsibility, to see his giantess free of this nightmare, one way or another.
*****
A week later, Long and his friends were, miraculously, still alive. In fact, the closer they’d gotten to the End-of-All-Thing’s host, the better they had been treated, as if their captors wanted to deliver them in the best possible condition. During that week, that eternal week, Long had learned a number of things just by keeping his ears open, despite being only semi-conscious most of the time.
For instance, he had learned that the enemy’s host was composed mostly of thralls of some sort – farmers, peasants, craftsmen and the like who had been ensorcelled to obey their master’s every command. A much smaller percentage of the wizard’s host was made up of professional soldiers, mercenaries and other men of experience and ill reputation. At the very top was a small collection of Shapers, renowned warriors and the End-of-All-Things, himself. Long’s immediate captors were some of the enemy’s mercenary troops. They were a motley bunch, to be sure, sporting armor and speaking tongues from all over the continent; fortunately, most relied on the Queen’s tongue to communicate with one another.
When he wasn’t listening, Long was thinking. Strategically, he and his friends were of no value to the Queen and thus could not be ransomed, and this End-of-All-Things would realize that pretty quickly. No, he would mine them for every last scrap of information they possessed, no matter how small and then…That part didn’t bear too much consideration. The question was whether Long would find the time and the means to free Mardine while Spirk or D’Kem was being interrogated. Long realized he could – and would – die to buy her a little extra time to flee. But try as he might, he couldn’t force himself to believe she could outrun or outfight a battalion of mercenaries on horseback.
“You! Come!”
One of the mercs stood over him with his sword drawn. Long got to his feet and glared at the man. Nothing wrong with a little last minute bravado. The man glared back. He was potbellied and missing several teeth in front. Long wasn’t sure he could best the man in a fight, but he was fairly certain that attempting to read a book would kill the fellow outright.
“That way,” the man grunted, pointing to a corralled-in area some fifty paces away.
Long noticed with no little shame that his companions were being shuffled into line behind him. To her credit, Mardine was noticeably defiant, which bolstered Long’s spirits considerably and rekindled his pride. D’Kem, though, was his usual unreadable self. And Spirk? The young man was in the worst shape of them all – haggard, frightened, literally and figuratively at the end of his rope.
“Buck up, lad,” Long said to him. “They can only kill you once.” He’d meant it as a joke, but forgotten that Spirk had no gift for intentional humor. The boy looked back at him as if Long had stuck a knife in his ribs.
The corral was packed with people, most of whom looked a lot like Spirk in appearance and demeanor, a rag-tag collection of terrified nobody-in-particulars, waiting, it seemed, for their imminent executions. Men, women and children of all ages stood shoulder-to-shoulder, some in roughly catatonic condition. Here and there, Long heard weeping. One unfortunate merely babbled to himself incoherently.
“Get in,” the merc growled at Long, prodding him in the back with the butt of a spear.
“They goin’ to eat us?” Spirk asked, as he passed into the corral.
“Who? Our captors or these people?”
“The bad guys.”
Long was about to assure his young friend that their captors would never eat them, when it suddenly hit him that he really had no idea. Maybe they would. Finally, the guards had pushed all four into the pen. Some of the other captives stood back and looked up at Mardine in awe; a rare few were completely oblivious of her presence. In some ways, Long envied them. Looking over at D’Kem, he noticed the old man’s lips moving, ever-so-subtly. Casting? Praying? Gibbering? It made little difference. He doubted the burned-out Burner had anything left in him.
And so, they waited. Long was amazed at the paradoxical feelings of terror and boredom that consumed him simultaneously. Who’d have guessed such was possible? He also smelled shit. The captives had been standing here so long that some had lost – or surrendered – control of themselves. He himself reeked of urine, and he wondered how long it would be before he likewise smelled of shit.
As the sun went down, a skeletal man in travel-stained robes approached the corral, holding a small, pewter casket in both hands. D’Kem pushed through the crowd and fixed on the casket, mumbling more audibly than he had all day. The skeletal man’s chin went up, as if he were listening to something. Abruptly, he opened the casket lid. From his vantage point, Long was unable to determine the casket’s interior, but he again observed that his Shaper companion seemed unusually focused upon it. A strange, prickly sensation began to course through Long’s body and inexplicably subsided before he could make head-or-tails of it.
The rest of the captives grew restive and then suddenly silent as a figure in odd, colorless armor appeared on the outside of their prison. Long found his eyes were drawn to the man’s face, unable to look elsewhere. This was the End-of-All-Things. Of all the people in the pen with him, the man’s pale blue eyes seemed locked onto his and his alone.
Well, that’s it, Long thought. I am going to die. Past due, really. I’m not afraid to die, either; it’s the pain that frightens me.
Inexorably, the other man’s arm rose to chin level and he pointed at Long, calling out “That one. Bring him to my tent.”
Long took a final glance at his companions, only to feel utter bewilderment as D’Kem winked at him surreptitiously. Confused, he looked over at Mardine, who smiled grimly in his direction. Strong to the last. Finally, he looked over at Spirk, who had tears trailing down his cheeks. Long nodded at him, as if to say “you’re a good man, Nessno.” It was a tiny, pathetic gesture, but it was all Long could manage in the moment. Rough hands grabbed him and dragged him away.
*****
Deda, On the Road
The positives in murdering a monk so greatly outnumbered the negatives that Wims Deda couldn’t honestly come up with any negatives. Oh, it was sacrilege; everyone knew that. But, in some religions, innocently enjoying oneself was heresy. In this particular case, Wims enjoyed killing the monk, and the monk, in turn, was given the means to meet the object of his lifelong adoration. It was, in Wims’ mind, a win-win situation. Admittedly, the monk probably would have preferred to go in a somewhat less violent and painful manner, but those accepting the charity of a quick death should not gainsay the quality of said death.
Apart from killing a useless fuck, though, Wims found the monk’s robe quite the opposite of its former owner: it was delightfully useful. Nobody questioned his purpose, anywhere he went. No one cursed him, as folks often did the homeless and unfortunate. No bandits tried to rob him, guessing, perhaps, that being a monk he had nothing of value, anyway. Wims fantasized briefly about joining the brotherhood after his current business blew over. A monastery, he suspected, would be the perfect base of operations for his golden years. First, though, he had to survive the End-of-All-Things and his plans.
It had been more than tw
o weeks since he’d left his master, with orders to infiltrate the Queen’s court at Lunessfor and obtain as much first-hand information about her plans as possible. Originally, Wims had thought this a suicide mission. Now, wearing his almost-magical monk’s robes, he began to feel he might succeed; he might get in and out with the desired specifics, placate the End-of-All-Things and win his freedom -- always assuming, of course, that his master didn’t intend a literal destruction of the world. Freedom in a void did not sound very attractive.
*****
Vykers, At Morden’s Cairn
An enormous cavern opened before Vykers and the Five, a cavern so large that it dwarfed the remains of the ancient city housed within it. The warrior was able to comprehend either thing on its own – the cavern or the city – but seeing the two in juxtaposition made his head hurt.
“What in the endless hells?” he muttered.
Steel, Blood & Fire (Immortal Treachery Book 1) Page 23
