by Luke Scull
‘Mhaira,’ he said, distraught, overwhelmed with disgust for himself. ‘I’m sorry. Please. I’m sorry.’
She walked slowly past him. Crossed the garden and didn’t look back, not until she was standing right beside the door leading back into the house. Then she turned to him, and her face as white as a ghost. ‘I told them no,’ she said quietly.
Kayne stared at his stinging palm in horror. There was a rustle of movement, and he looked up.
To see Magnar watching him from the wall near the door. His son’s grey eyes were filled with something that made the Sword of the North, the most feared warrior in the High Fangs, want to scream in anguish.
It was hatred.
Friends Old and New
‘All right, lad?’
Brick glanced up and nodded. The boy was restringing his bow by the light of the campfire, his tongue poking out in concentration. Kayne considered clapping him on the shoulder, then thought better of it and wandered over to sit by Jerek. His knees creaked as he lowered himself to the hard, stony ground. The Wolf gave him a nod and shot a dark glare at the lone female face beside the fire.
Jana Shah Shan had been travelling alongside them for days now. In all that time, Kayne couldn’t recall Jerek uttering a single word to her. Even Grunt had made more of an effort to communicate, a sorry state of affairs considering he didn’t even have a tongue.
Jana didn’t seem to be enjoying the biting cold that had descended on them as they travelled north through the ruins. The Jade Islander wore a stoic expression, pretending to be unperturbed by the sudden drop in temperature – but the way she kept inching nearer the fire, rubbing her hands together when she thought no one was watching, told a different story.
‘Want to borrow my cloak?’ Kayne asked. ‘It’s a bit dirty but it’ll keep you warm.’
Jana stuck out her chin. ‘With my training I need no protection from the elements. Discomfort is but a state of mind.’
Jerek muttered something under his breath. ‘I’m going for a piss,’ he announced, climbing to his feet. At least his wounded leg was looking a good deal better now. If there’d ever been a harder man in the High Fangs, Brodar Kayne had yet to meet him.
Jana crossed her arms and watched the Wolf’s departure with a frown. ‘Your friend doesn’t seem to like me,’ she observed.
‘He don’t like many folk.’
‘Is it because I am a woman? Or because I am from the east?’
Kayne shrugged. ‘If I had to guess, probably both.’
‘You seem like a man of principle. I’m curious why you would keep the company of such a close-minded sort.’
‘Jerek hates everyone,’ Brick piped up unexpectedly. He examined his bow and nodded in satisfaction. ‘He’s an angry bastard. But he’s all right when you get to know him.’
Grunt murmured in agreement. Jana seemed to be expecting one of them to add something more. When they didn’t, she shook her head in exasperation. ‘The men from this part of the world are most peculiar. I’ll be glad to return to my betrothed once my mission is complete.’
‘What’s he like, this young man?’
Jana rested her chin on her palm and stared into the fire. ‘He’s not so young. But he’s a good man, and honest.’
‘Ain’t too many of them around nowadays. Not in this part of the world and I’m guessing not in the Confederation, neither.’
‘We live in difficult times, it is true. My betrothed… taught me a great deal about myself, and many other things besides. Our relationship is not without its complications.’
Kayne grinned. ‘Just till you’re married.’
Jana’s eyes narrowed slightly, but a moment later she seemed to catch the joke and smiled sheepishly. ‘I would ask you a question. Please be honest with me.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘The Imperial Academy requires that every student learn the language that you westerners call “Common”. Do I speak it well? At least well enough to make myself understood?’
Jana must have mistaken the confusion on Kayne’s face for something else, as she reddened and appeared slightly ashamed. ‘I rarely had the opportunity to practise your language before I departed the Isles. I apologize if I sound foolish.’
‘No, no, that’s not it at all,’ Kayne said, waving his hands in embarrassment. ‘To tell the truth, I ain’t that familiar with the nations beyond the Unclaimed Lands. Never occurred to me that your people might not speak the same language as us. You say you speak two languages?’
‘All who graduate from the Academy must be fluent in at least three languages. I speak six. Though as you’ve heard, my Common is a little rusty.’
‘It sounds damn near perfect to my old ears. What d’they teach you at the Academy, other than languages?’
‘Everything a man or woman needs in order to serve their emperor. Only the brightest and most talented are accepted. It is a great honour for one’s family.’
‘This Unity you spoke of. They teach that at the Academy, too?’
‘Yes. It is a tradition dating back to before the Cataclysm, when the iron mages of Gharzia turned our own weapons against us.’
‘The Cataclysm? I’m guessing you mean the Godswar.’
Jana nodded. ‘The Cataclysm shattered the two great empires of the east. Gharzia and the Jade Isles are at peace now, but Gharzia still has its iron mages and a wise ruler knows that friends can quickly become enemies.’
A shadow fell across them as Jerek returned. The Wolf hunkered down and then poked at the fire with a stick, checking the bubbling pot hanging above it. ‘Stew’s almost ready,’ he grunted. He rummaged around in his backpack and withdrew a loaf of rock-hard bread. From across the fire, Jana groaned.
‘This is the seventh night in a row that we’re eating warm stew with a heel of bread. Don’t you ever tire of such food?’
‘I like stew with a heel of bread!’ Brick said reproachfully.
Jana reached into her own backpack and pulled out what appeared to be a fruit. It was yellow and covered in black bruises and, if Kayne were to be honest, brought to mind a certain unflattering part of the male body. ‘This is the nana fruit. It grows on trees in the islands south of my homeland. Even after it is picked, the fruit remains fresh for months within the skin.’
Kayne stared at it doubtfully. In his view, eating anything that yellow probably couldn’t be good for a man’s stomach.
‘I wonder if my angry friend would care to try?’ Jana said, tossing the strange fruit across the fire to Jerek, who stared at it as he might a venomous snake that had just dropped into his lap. ‘You remove the skin and eat the fleshy part.’
‘I ain’t eating this shit,’ the Wolf rasped. ‘Probably some kind of poison.’
‘I assure you that the nana fruit is perfectly good for you. It is highly nutritious and even helps the body to cleanse itself.’
‘Cleanse itself?’ the Wolf grunted.
‘I think she means take a shit,’ Brick explained.
‘Fuck it then.’ Jerek ripped the skin off and took an experimental bite. ‘Ain’t bad,’ he said grudgingly, swallowing it down. ‘Tastes sweet.’
Jana smiled. ‘You swallow too fast,’ she said. ‘You need to masticate it first.’
Jerek instantly froze, the nana halfway to his mouth. He stared at the fruit in horror. ‘The fuck did you just say?’ he whispered savagely.
‘You need to masticate it first.’
‘I don’t think she means what you think she means,’ Brick cut in desperately, but the Wolf was already on his feet, the half-eaten nana fruit raised like a weapon.
‘I’ll shove this up your arse!’ he bellowed. Jana Shah Shan leaped to her feet and took up a fighting stance, arms outstretched and legs tensed to spring into motion at any moment. Things were about to turn ugly.
Kayne tried to scramble up, thinking to put himself between them and calm things down, but a sudden sharp pain in his chest stole the breath from his lungs and he almost pitc
hed into the spitting campfire.
‘Kayne?’ Jerek rasped, his rage immediately forgotten. The Wolf was across to him in an instant, taking his weight effortlessly, his bald brow furrowed in concern.
‘I’m all right,’ the old barbarian said, though his legs felt like water. He sat back down, breathing hard.
Jana Shah Shan hurried around the fire and crouched over him, then began to massage his chest and arms, her deft hands rubbing life into his tingling limbs. ‘Your body needs rest,’ Jana said. ‘You push yourself too hard for a man of your years.’
‘I ain’t that old,’ Kayne complained, but the truth was he felt ancient. Once Jana had finished checking him over, he lay down on his back and stared up at the bright stars in the night sky overhead. A long silence followed, everyone shocked by what had just happened.
Eventually Brick broke the silence. ‘What’s your home like?’ he asked. ‘Your house, I mean. Up in the mountains. You have houses, don’t you? My uncle said the Highland people are savages who dwell in caves.’
Kayne chuckled, though it hurt to laugh. ‘Aye, we got houses. It’s not so different up in the mountains than down in the Lowlands. I had a house, a decent-sized one with a garden and fields and all. Got a lot of memories of that place, not all of ’em pleasant.’
‘I wish I had a home,’ Brick said glumly.
‘Home’s wherever your heart says it is,’ Kayne replied. ‘Find someone that makes you feel like you belong and you’ll never want for a place to call home again.’ He turned to Grunt. ‘Where’s home for you, friend?’
The big green mute pointed a thick finger towards the north. He made a series of movements with his other hand, his yellow eyes filled with sadness.
‘He says his people lived a nomadic life on the southern steppes before the coming of the Yahan,’ Brick translated. ‘But eventually the humans grew too many and his people had to flee their homeland. They went north, beyond the Frozen Sea. Those that remained behind scattered and slowly died out. Grunt’s ancestors were among them. He thinks he might be the last of his kind, at least this side of the Frozen Sea.’
‘Ain’t nothing beyond the Frozen Sea,’ Kayne said doubtfully. ‘Just ice. The world ends at the High Fangs.’
Grunt gestured again and made a flapping motion with his oversized hands.‘He says the distance is vast and impossible to cross by ship. But there is another land far beyond the ocean of ice. He thought he could fly there on the back of a giant… lizard. Is that right? Lizard? I don’t how to translate that.’
Jana Shah Shan raised her head from where she lay perilously close to the fire. ‘My people have a similar legend,’ she said quietly. ‘A legend of great flying reptiles whose kind ruled the world before the Ancients and their machines. They were called dragons.’
They rested the next day and the morning after that. The temperature continued to drop, the chill claws of autumn gripping the land and bringing with it an icy wind that blew down from the mountains. Kayne was feeling a good deal better by then, and so they finally broke camp and resumed their journey deeper into the ruins. The hills grew steeper and more treacherous as they progressed north, passing more of the standing stones along the way. Now and then Jana would translate the underfolk script, which as it turned out was one of the six languages she had learned back at the Academy.
‘This tunnel once led to the residences of the nobles,’ she was saying now. ‘The underfolk had a strict caste system. The only way to advance in their society was through the relentless accumulation of gold.’
‘Swap gold for blood and I reckon the same applies to the High Fangs,’ Kayne muttered. Most of the chieftains he’d known over the years had achieved their positions largely through prowess in battle. The problem with that approach was that once a man became good at killing, it was hard for him to stop. The likes of Targus Bloodfist and Krazka One-Eye weren’t ever satisfied. Even the Shaman’s will hadn’t always been enough to thwart their ambitions. He thought of Red Valley and flinched.
An hour later they reached the next standing stone. Jana checked the runes carved on the stone and announced that it marked the site of a major crossroads of some kind. They were about to move on when suddenly Grunt let out a low growl and his amber eyes narrowed. He cocked an oversized ear and appeared to be listening for something. Then he pointed to the tunnel entrance cut into the hill far below them and gestured frantically to Brick.
‘There are men coming down that tunnel,’ the youngster translated. ‘A lot of men. We should hide.’
They sought cover behind the standing stone and waited. Sure enough, a minute later a stream of bandits began to pour from the cave mouth. Kayne’s failing eyes couldn’t make out their faces, but he counted at least fifty. One of the men was unmistakable, as wide as any two of his fellows put together. ‘Fivebellies,’ he muttered.
‘Thought they let us go,’ Jerek growled. ‘Looks like those pricks followed us here.’
‘The Seer arranged our escape,’ Kayne explained. ‘That don’t mean Asander was in on the plan. I reckon the bandits that attacked Jana were part of this group.’
As they watched the men swarm from the tunnel, it quickly became clear that something was wrong. The bandits were breaking in all directions, their faces pale with terror. A few began to climb the hill just below, scrabbling desperately to get away from whatever was down in the tunnel with them. Fivebellies himself was in the lead, setting the pace despite his great bulk.
Just then the ground trembled, and the source of the bandits’ hysteria emerged into the afternoon light like a nightmare of fire and shadow stepping into the waking world.
‘Shit,’ Kayne whispered, horrified. The thing that came out of the tunnel was humanoid in shape and not much bigger than a man – a good deal smaller than some of the abominations and giants he’d fought over the years. But looking at it, staring beyond the flames that wreathed its shadowy form, he felt as though he was gazing into the abyss. It wasn’t what he saw that made his heart hurt and set his teeth on edge; it was what he didn’t see. The complete absence of light and warmth, as if he were staring into an empty void.
The horror seemed to flow across the ground, leaving a trail of scorched stone in its wake. It reached out a nebulous arm and wrapped it around an unfortunate bandit who hadn’t fled quickly enough. The man screamed, a long-drawn-out sound that rose to an inhuman screech. Seconds later his skin began to smoke and then he began to glow as fire consumed him from within. The bandit grew brighter and brighter, until a thousand tiny cracks ruptured his flesh. Then he simply collapsed inward, leaving nothing but a drifting cloud of ash.
‘The gholam,’ Jana said, her voice thick with dread. ‘Someone activated it.’
‘Can you stop it?’ Kayne said urgently.
Jana shook her head helplessly. ‘Only the key that was stolen can deactivate the gholam.’
‘Then let’s get the hell out of here.’ The companions turned and fled, half running, half climbing the jagged terrain that rose ahead of them. As the minutes stretched on and they ran, Kayne found himself falling further and further behind. Jana was a speck far in the distance, Grunt a green blur just behind her. Jerek and Brick were behind them but still a hundred yards ahead of Kayne. The red-haired youngster glanced back, and a moment later he slowed right down.
He’s waiting for me, Kayne thought in horror. He waved a furious hand at the boy. ‘Go,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t worry about me.’ But if Brick had heard him, he didn’t move. ‘Go!’ Kayne roared again. This time Brick hesitated, and then he turned and sped off after the others.
Kayne tried to keep up but his legs didn’t want to obey him. Every step he took felt as though he were wading through the tar lake back at the bandit encampment. He reached the next standing stone and had to stop to catch his breath. He leaned on the marker, sucking air into his lungs.
He took a quick look around. The others had disappeared. ‘Sod it,’ he gasped, lowering himself against the monument and letting it
take his weight.
He wondered if the gholam was still out there somewhere. Chances were he wasn’t doing himself any favours by sitting there on his arse waiting to find out. He placed his palms on the stone and tried to push himself up.
‘Urgh,’ he said, and he collapsed back down.
He just needed to rest for a minute, that was all. Just a minute to let his thumping heart calm a little, and then he would get right back up and be on his way.
Something cold pressed against his neck. He jerked awake, accidentally banged his head on the solid block of granite behind him. For a second he was disoriented. Then his eyes focused on the multiple chins wobbling just beyond the length of steel shoved against his throat and a face bled into view.
‘Where are the rest of you?’ Fivebellies demanded. He had a haunted look in his piggish eyes.
Kayne held his breath. One false move and the bandit would open his neck like a hog during Beregund’s Midwinter Festival from years gone by. ‘Beats me,’ he croaked.
Fivebellies glanced around nervously. He wouldn’t stop fidgeting, Kayne noticed. It was hard not to notice a quivering razor-sharp edge an inch from your throat. ‘Slowing them down, were you, greybeard? I don’t know how you escaped back at camp, but you aren’t getting away again. I need you as bait.’
‘Bait?’ Kayne echoed. That didn’t sound promising.
Fivebellies nodded and a muscle beneath his left eye twitched. ‘Something came for us,’ he said brokenly. ‘While we was planning to ambush you.’ The bandit’s voice dropped to a terrified whisper. ‘I’m the last one. The rest are… they’re dead. Gone.’
Kayne swallowed carefully. ‘You reckon it’s still after you?’
Fivebellies shook his head in despair. ‘We split up and we laid traps for it and we still couldn’t lose the fucker. It can’t be hurt. It can’t be stopped.’
Such was the horror on the man’s face that Kayne almost pitied him, right up until his very next words.
‘You’re going to lead it away from me.’
