by Mike Wild
It was at this stage that Kali instigated the second part of her plan to negotiate the Sardenne successfully. Her main reason for including the mages in the party was not for them to help tackle Redigor - five hundred, not fifty, would have been nearer the mark for that - but because she knew they did not have time on their side. Travelling in a normal fashion, it would take days to reach Bel'A'Gon'Shri, and the pillar of souls would have touched Kerberos long before that. But by using the mages to generate portals - effectively teleporting their way through the forest - they could reduce a journey of days to one of hours.
The ploy was not without its logistical problems, however. For one thing, the effort and energies involved meant that the mages would have to work in turns, and would only be able to move them a league or two at a time. For another, they would be teleporting blind. It was the reason they could not use the same technique to bypass the soul-stripped - the last thing Kali wanted was to materialise in the middle of a mass of them - and they could only hope that more of them, or other hidden hazards, did not lie ahead.
Slowhand looked uneasy as the first wave of mages began to weave the threads. They were helpless to sudden attack from the forest while the weaving took place, so the Swords stood vigilant around them.
"You've done this before?" The archer said to Kali.
"Sure. The old man and I travelled from Gargas to Andon during the k'nid invasion. It's what gave me the idea."
"And you arrived okay? I mean with... all your bits?"
"My bits? Gods and hells, Liam, is that all you ever think about?"
"Did you?"
"Of course I did! Stinking pits, I would have thought you'd have noticed by now!"
Slowhand faltered. "Oh. Right. Yes. They seemed okay."
"Okay?"
"Dammit, Hooper, you know what I mean!"
Before them, the mages had completed their weaving and the portal had formed, a shimmering circle that flared outward briefly before just hanging in the air a few inches off the ground. Slowhand swallowed as, with a distinct squelching sound, Jakub Freel stepped into it and vanished. DeZantez, Fitch and the ranks of the mages and Swords followed.
"Our turn," Kali said. "Want me to hold your hand?"
"I don't think so," Slowhand answered through gritted teeth. "Much as I love you, Hooper, I don't want us spending the rest of eternity as some three-handed, twenty-fingered thing."
"Be a bit more optimistic. We might end up joined at the groin."
"Yeah?"
"Dammit, we are not going to end up either way, okay?" Kali said, but Slowhand still seemed unconvinced. "Fine then. Go by yourself."
"If we end up on a different planet..."
Kali had had enough, and pushed him through the portal. She materialised beside the archer a second later, turning away quickly when she saw him looking down and squeezing himself unashamedly. She looked up; the pillar of souls was considerably closer. The portal had worked.
Spurred by their success, another portal followed, and another, and another after that, by which time the party had progressed so far into the Sardenne that Kali was certain she could smell the faint tang of the long burnt-out shell of the Spiral of Kos. The forest felt different from when she'd fled the explosions that had destroyed the Old Race site, however, wildlife still conspicuously absent. What had been a vital, if life-threatening, region of the forest back then now felt abandoned, as if every participant of its predatorial food chain had deferred to a far greater appetite and retreated into caves and broad burrows, or beneath large stones. Even those creatures who hunted not for food but fun had disappeared. The worst thing was, Kali sensed it was neither the soul-stripped or Redigor that had caused this, but something else.
She had to admit to being quite relieved when Gabriella DeZantez joined her at the front of the ranks. The Enlightened One was fully armoured once more and recovered from Fitch's attack. They walked together in silence for a while, but then Kali found herself broaching a subject that just had to be broached.
"That fireball thing last night. You feel like telling me what that was about?"
"I wondered how long it would take you to ask."
"Well, hey, a fireball brushed off as easily as a nibble from a worgle? People tend to notice such things."
"Does anyone ever interrogate you about the things you can do?"
"Things?"
I saw you in action in the library, remember? And some of the eye witness accounts of your exploits in your file - well, let's just say they raised eyebrows."
Kali faltered. "Generally I try not to show off."
"Show off what?"
"I wish I knew."
Gabriella seemed genuinely surprised. "You don't know?"
"Hells, no."
"And yet you always seem to show up where your abilities are most useful. Almost as if it were -"
"Don't say it," Kali interrupted. "Predestined? Well, if it is, I wish to gods someone would tell me, because believe me, all I do is make it up as I go along."
The two of them lapsed into silence again. But only briefly.
"It's happened before," Gabriella admitted. "In Solnos. A fireball full in the face and... and nothing. There was another time, too, when I was a child, in some ruins south of Andon. We... that is, my friends and I, used to play there."
Kali's eyebrows rose. "The Seventeen Steps? Every level is an inaccessible deathtrap."
Gabriella nodded. "Because of the Dust Curtains."
"So named because they strip to the bones anyone who comes within fifty feet. I've been trying to crack them for two years."
"Not me."
"I'm sorry?"
"The Dust Curtains. I walked right through them." Gabriella took a slow breath. "My friends didn't react well to that and it wasn't long after I signed up for the Swords of Dawn."
Kali felt her heart thud. After all her efforts, all she should have wanted to ask was what lay beyond the Dust Curtains but what DeZantez had just admitted to her was a revelation that made the secrets of the Seventeen Steps utterly insignificant. She turned to face Gabriella, and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Are you trying to tell me you're immune to magic?"
Gabriella swallowed. "I guess I am."
"Hells."
"Hells? That's all you have to say?"
"What do you expect me to say or do?" Kali hissed. "Abandon you like your friends - turn you into some kind of freak, outcast, pariah? We're more alike than that, remember?"
Gabriella stared at her, then nodded. "And I'm not sure we're the only ones."
"What?"
Gabriella sighed, but it seemed a relieved sigh because she could finally talk to someone about what she knew. "I told you I sneaked a look at your file in the Faith record but what I didn't tell you was that next to it I found one on me too. And two others."
"What the hells are you talking about?"
"Two other files, each relating in some detail the strange abilities of their owners. A thief based in Turnitia, by the name of Lucius Kane. And another, a mariner called Silus Morlader."
"Kane?" Kali said. "I met him. He was something more than your average thief."
"Exactly. And from what I read, this Silus isn't your average fisherman, either. You heard anything about him?"
Kali shook her head.
"Apparently, he now commands a ship by the name of the Llothriall. A ship stolen from the Final Faith. What's more, the Llothriall is an -"
"Elven ship," Kali finished.
Gabriella shrugged. "I suppose the clue's in the name."
"Not really. I found the plans for it." Kali sighed. "This world gets smaller every day."
"I don't understand."
Kali paused. "What if I told you that a year or so ago I had an encounter with something beneath the waves? Some form of water dweller, who spoke to me in my head. Mind to mind."
"Water dweller?" Gabriella said.
"Water dweller," Kali repeated. "Most of what it said was couched
in riddles, about it being part of the Before, the After. But it also spoke about a group of people known as 'the four'."
"The Four?"
"'Four known to us. Four unknown to each other. Four who will be known to all.' That was what it said."
"And you know what that means?"
"Haven't the remotest idea. But it's one pretty big coincidence, don't you think?" Kali paused, frowned. Despite her reservations about discussing the subject with Gabriella, the situation had clearly changed and she deserved to know something more. "In fact, it's two."
"Two?"
"Tharnak, the dwelf creature I encountered in the Crucible, also spoke of 'four.' In his case, of four humans who were being prepared to travel to Kerberos - alive, that is."
"In that ship you found? But why?"
"To save the world, I think. The point is, these four had been changed, altered, somehow physically manipulated so they could survive the journey. Their abilities had been enhanced."
"Surely you're not suggesting..."
"Gabriella, I'm not sure what I'm suggesting - but what I know is the Faith is keeping files on you, me, and two others. Four. The question is, why?"
The Enlightened One was silent for a second, then said, "Maybe the person who holds the halo versions of the files has the answer."
"Halo versions?"
"Faith security classification. Halo files contain additional information. More sensitive information. The locations, for example, of supporting physical evidence on their subjects."
"Who has these files, do you know?"
Gabriella nodded. "But you're not going to like it when I tell you."
"Who?"
"Querilous Fitch."
Kali stopped dead. Without a word, she turned and began to push her way back through the ranks to where Fitch, avoiding Slowhand, trailed at their end. Gabriella followed, ignoring the confusion on the faces of the archer, Freel and others who had been pushed aside, catching up to Kali as she neared the psychic manipulator.
"Lord of All, we're in the middle of the Sardenne. Are you always this impulsive?"
"Yes."
Kali was almost in Fitch's face now, his features all the more gaunt in the wan light. He started slightly but smiled coldly, as if knowing what Kali had just learned and knowing, too, that he held all the cards.
"You -" Kali was about to say, "have got some farking explaining to do!"
But she had barely formed the first word when a massive shape swung into view between them, brushing by her and Gabriella and dashing them to the ground. Fitch was not so fortunate. Struck full on, his cadaverous form was sent hurtling away through the trees with a shrill scream - gone, just like that.
Kali and Gabriella scrambled to their feet, trying to adopt a defensive position, although they had no clue what they were defending against. As they did, the shape swung again, and they ducked. Whatever the hells was coming at them, it was huge; the Swords charging, weapons drawn, into its path had no chance against it. Kali heard the crunch of metal and bone and dimly registered their broken forms flying into the undergrowth. She and Gabriella stared at each other, horrified, and rushed for cover. Others nearby were not so well practiced and, as the massive shape swung back for a third pass, another four Swords shrieked as they were knocked away by the impact.
"What in the name of the Lord of All?" Gabriella breathed, and a great, primal roar erupted from the darkness above them, sending those below into a panic, colliding with each other or freezing on the spot.
Kali wanted to shout to them to move, move, move, but she was desperately trying to process what it was they were dealing with. She remembered many things about her last visit to the Sardenne, but none were stamped quite so indelibly on her mind as the one she was remembering now.
It had occurred during her desperate flight from the Spiral of Kos when, with vast swathes of the forest lit by the detonations behind her, the creatures who dwelled within had flocked to her. As she and Horse, bless his bacon-lardon-loving heart, had galloped towards safety, they had been assailed by the full spectrum of nightmares that called the forest home, wooden things and armoured things, things of bone and of things of blood, things of moss and mud and stone. But there had been one creature, felt more than seen - a giant fist, registered fleetingly as Horse pounded along, swinging down at them from behind the trees. It had impacted with the forest floor with such force that Horse had momentarily lost his footing and she'd almost been thrown from his back. Naturally, they hadn't lingered to meet its owner, and Kali had no idea of what kind of creature it was, but it had to be the same creature that was attacking their party now.
"Move, move, move!" Kali shouted, but the command would do their ranks little good.
She stared up into the trees, trying to make out the creature that was attacking, but could see little. In truth, she didn't really need to see it. It was obvious that for every hundred yards their people could run, a single stride would bring their attacker back into reach. Gabriella DeZantez made the same assessment and unsheathed the Deathclaws in a determined, if futile, attempt to defend herself.
Nor was she the only one. Amongst the group - most of whom were torn between running or standing their ground and fighting - she saw Slowhand flip Suresight from his back and unleash a volley of arrows into the trees above, and Freel snap his whip from his side, eyes narrowed, scanning for a target. Some of the Swords, who had at last pulled themselves together, unsheathed their weapons as the mages unleashed bolts of fire or ice or lightning. Many still panicked or blundered around. The attack had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that with the first swing their battle readiness had been reduced to a complete and utter shambles.
The fist returned, and while the soldiers were ready for it, throwing themselves out of its path in a clattering of weapons and armour, a second fist slammed down on the spot where they moved. There was an explosion of weaponry, bone and gore and the unfortunates were crushed like bugs. Now the creature's feet pummelled the ground too, stomping onto a growing carpet of crushed bodies. The survivors were not idle, however, Slowhand having fired at least twenty arrows into one of the feet as soon as it appeared, and Freel having lashed out at the wrist of one of the hands with his whip. Neither seemed particularly effective, though. Freel found himself being swung through the trees as the creature tried to rid itself of his weapon. Gabriella, too, was moving, racing at the behemoth to slash at its exposed flesh with the claws, using the corpse of a soldier as a springboard to launch herself into the air, twisting her body as she flew to slash through a briefly exposed forearm and bring forth a rain of blood.
Green blood, Kali noted with horror.
Few creatures that had ever stalked the peninsula had green blood, and there was only one that she knew of that was this size, and it had been extinct as long as the Old Races, primarily because it had been created by one of the Old Races and used as their pet. Gods, she thought, could that be what they were dealing with here - an elven juggennath? Had it somehow survived here in the Sardenne for all of those countless years? The juggennath was a relentless, all-but-indestructable killing machine without emotion or mercy, and it absolutely would not stop in its efforts to crush them beneath it. They had to get out of here and right now.
It was easier said than done and Kali had difficulty reaching those she needed to warn.
The wound inflicted by Gabriella seemed to have opened an artery in the giant's arm - serious but not serious enough, apparently, to slow the bastard down - and as it swept back and forth once more, its blood soaked the vegetation and defending ranks, obfuscating and adding to the chaos and carnage unfolding before her eyes. DeZantez wasn't to have known but one of the more unpleasant aspects of juggennath blood was its corrosive nature, burning and mutilating those it struck. Kali could do little to help those caught in the heat of battle, but grabbed those she could and flung them towards cover. She shrank back from a soldier who wheeled on her, clutching his face, smoke pouring from his helmet as he
collapsed to his knees.
"Liam!" Kali cried, "DeZantez, Freel!"
No response came and, having rescued all those she could, Kali leapt into the fray herself, aware of how pitiful her gutting knife was. All she could hear was the shattering of limbs, the clatter of blades and arrows. But despite all these efforts, there was no respite in the assault at all.
A cry of frustration drew her attention. Gabriella was attempting to pull an injured Sword out of harm's way, and was too preoccupied to notice the giant hand swinging towards her. In the instant before it struck, however, she saw Kali racing to help her, and for the briefest of moments their eyes locked.
Thanks for trying, DeZantez's expression seemed to say.
Kali felt each impact of her feet as they thudded onto the forest floor, her legs dragging beneath her, bringing her to a skittering halt, and as a cloud of leaves thrust up in her path she could only cry out and look on in horror at what unfolded.
Gabriella had turned slightly, attempting to throw herself away, but it simply wasn't enough, and the juggernnath's swipe caught her on the side. The cracking of bones echoed in Kali's ears like the shattering of wood. As Gabriella was hurled into the air, Kali heard her armour crumple beneath her surplice. She sailed towards the edge of the glade and slammed into the base of a tree. The Enlightened One's body crumpled, folding into a grotesque distortion of the human form.
At that point, at last, things seemed to quieten. The ground shook as their attacker retreated into the forest, and the frantic sounds of battle were replaced by the wails and pleas of the injured or dying.
Kali looked slowly around. Though there was no sign of Slowhand or Freel. Gabriella remained where she had fallen and Kali moved to try to help her. The last thing she remembered before rough hands bundled her away was Gabriella's face, blood trailing from her mouth, staring at her once more.
But this time the Enlightened One's head lolled to the side and her eyes grew dim.
Godsdammit, godsdammit, godsdammit!
Kali hunched in the roots of the bajijal tree, hugging her knees, sucking in deep breaths. She ignored the look from Jakub Freel, the only other survivor of the assault and the one who'd pulled her from the melee. Now here they were beneath this overgrown pot plant - hiding, dammit, hiding - and while Freel's look was concerned rather than accusing, as far as Kali was concerned it didn't matter an ogur's turd. The Faith enforcer had enlisted her to help him sort out this whole mess and instead she'd managed to turn it into even more of a mess, and people were dead as a result. There was no two ways about it. Freel had put his trust in her and she'd farked up badly.
