Never one to discount the fantastic, Kro harvested and began to test every part of the seal-thing. Proceeding as ever, with the alchemist's creed held firmly in mind. Especially that part at the end--unearth, unveil and know.
Cognizant not to fritter away too much of the irreplaceable ingredients, Kro discovered a superfluous gland at the base of the brain stem. A gland that held nearly a pint of a dark, viscous oil that smelled peculiarly of wet dog.
Unfortunately, initial tests showed that the oil affected neither fish nor worms. But then, one very late night, after having drained an entire decanter of blood dark wine, Kro noticed something he hadn't before. Looking through his concentric lenses, a correlation slid into place. The animal's tissues were not arranged like that of any mammal, fish or reptile he had ever studied. As hard as it was to believe, structurally, the flesh of the strange eyeless thing had more in common with plants.
The revelation caused new hope to flicker but it wasn't until after Kro had successfully filled his tent with around a thousand feet of seaweed, that he knew for certain. Size-shifters were real. And the oils produced by that superfluous gland at the base of their brain stem was undoubtedly the key to their remarkable ability. Now he knew. Not just that, but the answer to the only question that mattered.
How do you kill a witch? The question had driven him for seven, hellish years. And there, on that distant beach, Kro could finally see that the answer wasn't force but rather, deception. A one-of-a-kind bait constructed from meat, size-shifting oil and one final ingredient. Seeds.
Providing he could get the witchwyrm to take the bait, the damage would be done. Stomach acids would dissolve small glass containers hidden in the meat, allowing the special oils of the size-shifter to mingle with the seeds of the vampire rose. Then would come the growth. The glorious, explosive growth.
Kro had pictured it many times. Thorny vines erupting glistening and red from holes where eyes had been and out of new ones in that long, serpentine throat. Had imagined the exquisite music of the witchwyrm's screams as she died, too stupid to comprehend the genius of her own undoing.
It was a perfect plan. One which Kro had ruminated over for many months, as he made his way back by ship and over roads to the region of his birth. Back to the pitiless edge of the world, where people were as cold as the wind. A good, well-crafted plan which had burned to ash, in the flash-bang folly of a single moment.
Back at the camp of Mannis Morgrig, something had happened. The heat, the smoke from the kindling boy--something unexpected. A chain reaction that could not be reversed.
Kro had lost it all. The components, the plan, and every shred of hope he'd cultivated--all of it, wasted on the wrong damned enemy.
Another horn blast shot straight through Kro's stomach. It made clear that however many wolves had been slain in the smoke-filled camp, their leader was very much alive. Mannis Morgrig was at his door, and the Red Wolf was hungry for blood.
The horses slowed, then stopped, at the end of the corridor. The gate was still shut, still latched and secured. Kro dismounted and peered through the thorns.
"Shit."
"What is it?" asked the blackfoot. "Damn it, Kro, who's out there?"
Kro turned around, wearing a guilty expression. "Do you remember what I said about what happened after I left you on the forest floor? About my big revenge quest?"
Belmorn looked annoyed. "Yeah. You said you kicked the hornet's nest."
"And so I did," said Kro, unlatching the gate. There was a ruckus going on outside--the jeers and ribbing of brigands. Kro peaked through the beams and the bramble. "Damn it," His voice leaked out, half a sigh. "I don't know how he found us, but that's him alright. Mannis shit-kicking Morgrig." Kro mounted his horse. Then he looked back to Belmorn and the girl. "This is all my doing. If there were another way, believe me, I would take it. But we have to fight this fight. Even if their damned racket doesn't bring the witch down on our heads, the damned fools brought torches. Belmorn, I-- "
Again the horn blared.
"Rose man!" the voice bellowed from outside, nearly as loud as the horn. "We know you're there! My man saw you. Followed you all the way up that hill. We haven't found your secret door, but I know it's close."
"How many are there?" asked the grim voice of Rander Belmorn.
"Less than ten, I think," said Kro, brandishing his Maldaavan blade.
"Wonderful."
"Hey, be thankful. There were more the other day." Kro smiled crookedly. "Anyway, I say they're outnumbered."
"What? Why?"
"Because, Belmorn, we've got you."
"Me?" Belmorn scoffed.
"This is no time for modesty. You're a man of the Black River, a blackfoot! You've probably ridden hundreds of giant eels to their graves on the shore!"
"Hunting and battle aren't the same, Kro. And eels are not men." Belmorn's scowl deepened. "You are going to get us all killed."
"Probably," Kro pulled up his hood. "But if we don't shut that damn horn-blower up, we're going to have worse at our door than a few unwashed bandits and I think you know that."
Belmorn didn't know, Kro realized. Not exactly. But by now, he must definitely have an idea. The man sneered.
"Rander, he said they have torches." The girl's hand touched his arm. Her small, unexpected voice was full of resolve, well past her years. "We can't let them set fires. The Pershten will die. Mothers, children--all of them."
Belmorn's mouth tightened into a thin, mirthless line. He reached back to touch his axes, and the act seemed to drape a calm over the riverman. He drew in a breath, letting it out in a slow plume that wreathed his face.
Another blare of the horn shot through the marrow in the alchemist's bones. Kro turned anxiously toward the shouting and then back to the blackfoot. Belmorn was fastening the last in a series of buttons. His collar was erect, obscuring most of his face, just as it had when the two first met. His grey eyes were set. Determined. The storm in them now seemed a hurricane.
"That damn horn," Belmorn glowered. "We have to get it. To stop them from using it before--"
A wail from behind answered the call of Morgrig's horn-man. The wail carried a note of mourning, clutching and gripping all who heard with finger-claws of ice and dread. Then came the barks. One, then two then one more.
The necks of all three riders snapped to look in the direction from which they had come. The tunnel was darker than it had been only moments before and seemed to twist in their vision.
Crashing, snapping, breaking sounds--as if twigs and thorny branches were being clawed away--echoed in their skulls and grew louder. Something big was coming from the other side of the moat. Judging by the sounds, they only had seconds.
"It's her," the girl squeaked.
Belmorn met the eye of Tenebrus Kro, who answered with a slow nod.
"What do we do?" the riverman asked.
"The only thing we can." Muted fury brimmed in his voice. "This is not a fight we can win, blackfoot. Not now. Not like this. We have no course. No path but away."
"But the Pershten," protested Belmorn. "By Rinh, we have to do something."
"We can't help them now. Pray or mourn, do what you feel is best, but do it later. If you really care for that girl or if you still hope to see your son again, riding away from that sound is our only option. Before anything else, we have to silence that fucking horn. Do you understand?"
Behind his collar, the blackfoot frowned. He addressed the girl, "Rivka."
"Yeah?"
"I need you to hold onto me, okay?"
The girl wrapped her arms around the man, weaving her fingers together on the other side. "Okay."
Alchemist and blackfoot exchanged another silent conversation. After an almost imperceptible nod, both maneuvered their horses in the confined space of the tunnel. As Kro backed his mare away from the door, Belmorn turned the adamandray the other way around. And when Magnus' back hooves connected with the old wooden beams, they did so with an explosive CRAKK!
The impact sent the gate outward and open--snapping old vines and sending thorny twigs flying and spinning through the air.
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Roughly three hundred feet back from the face of the thorn wall, seven men sat on six horses. Aback the largest, a blood bay stallion, was Mannis Morgrig.
Even amongst the thick stock of men he surrounded himself with, the man was vast. Appearing, at quick glance, like a species of beast unto himself. A veritable pack's worth of wolf pelts hung from his shoulders and back. And where there wasn't fur, one could see an incomplete set of silver-white armor. The suite was Roonik, and it told the grim story of a previous owner. Around a central wound, the metal of the chest plate flared outward, as if some great monster had fought to get at the good meat beneath.
In a sudden gust, the man's bush of reddish beard blew to one side, but his eyes were unwavering. Morgrig regarded what was left of a gang he had spent over three years putting together. The two men who shared a painted mare both held torches and stupid expressions, but the one in front had a bow in one hand. Morgrig had never bothered to learn their names and would have gladly traded both for his good lieutenant, Alberg Voss.
Morgrig sneered--spat on the ground. If only his sword had accidentally found one of them instead.
To his left sat the tracker--a tall, thick necked man called Raigar who wore a scarred scalp in place of hair. Next to him was the idiot, Dirk, on his swaybacked, roan farm horse.
Further down the line was the one in the mask who rode a pale mare. Morgrig had come to think of the man in the plague mask as his personal butcher. Ugly, cleaver-like swords were strapped firmly to either side of his saddle. Though most assumed otherwise, not even Morgrig had seen the man's face. And in the thirteen months they had ridden and plundered together, he could count the number of muffled words he'd heard on one hand. When it came to the man called Slagter, only two things could be said for certain--he wielded those strange, pointless blades the way a poet wields verse and he was sure as hell no doctor.
"Scheepers," Morgrig addressed his seventh man and the horn-blower turned at his name. One of his eyes stared intently, but the other had been shut forever, sealed by flame scars. Over that eye was a generous swath of red paint.
"You need me to tell you every time?" Morgrig growled impatiently. "Blow the fucking horn!"
As Scheepers pressed the mouthpiece to his lips, something stole his breath.
From miles ahead or paces behind, flowing like a poison torrent through the air and over the seven men on six stolen horses, wailed a wave of pure mourning. But instead of inspiring sadness, the sound brought only one thing. Fear.
"Mannis?" The voice belonged to Dirk. The scrawny fool who had set his sights on the recently vacated role of lieutenant. Dirk was as much a coward as he was an idiot. Whatever he was about to say, Morgrig did not want to hear it.
Fortunately for the Red Wolf, before Dirk could say anything, a piece of the sheer thorn wall erupted outward, as a hidden gate was exposed and obliterated in one thundering impact!
All of the bandits gaped, staring, as the biggest horse they had ever seen galloped out of the newly made opening and onto the dale. Riding the animal was a man of dark and sinister aspect. He had the look of a highwayman--all black but for the green head scarf that flowed and snapped behind. Next appeared a second horse--silver, carrying a familiar hooded figure.
I see you Rose Man.
The Red Wolf had expected the son of a bitch to be alone. Not that it changed anything. Whoever this highwayman was, his presence would make little difference. Morgrig tightened his thick fingers around the grip of his long sword and looked around at what remained of his pack. Seven, including himself. Not much as numbers went, but these men had been through something. They had watched as their brothers were picked off and mummified, each of them food for a monstrous, towering thing more animal than plant.
That thing had been put there by a man who now occupied their every thought. A man currently riding straight for them on a silver horse.
"Hold fast, men," growled the Red Wolf. "This is it! Our chance for revenge is riding straight towards us, now! If you want to take it, best keep those weapons up and them torches burning!"
"Aye!" Came the collective roar.
The sound was more practiced than passionate but it would serve. Mannis Morgrig grinned and it was a dark, mirthless thing that creased an old scar on his lip. Red beard and hair billowing, he sat firmly on his blood bay stallion--readying himself. Wearing the practiced grin of a maniac.
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Two horses thundered away from the thorn-wall and across the expanse in a matter of seconds.
Leading the charge was a fearsome looking man on a huge two-toned stallion. Though Kro had mixed emotions about Rivka being there, he knew Belmorn's side was probably the safest place for her. The man's axes were out--both of them. Incredibly, though neither of his hands were holding the reins, the adamandray moved in perfect sync. Straight towards the line of armed men as if animal and blackfoot were privy to each other's thoughts.
Kro snickered. If he had ever doubted it before, he could doubt no longer. Truly the stories of the river men and their horses had not been hyperbolic.
As expected, Morgrig's diminished forces wilted at the spectacle galloping their way. As Belmorn came within twenty feet, Kro saw him shift his legs. With no visible cue from his rider, the adamandray lifted itself to its full height and trumpeted. Magnus whirled then, threatening strikes with huge front legs as a bolt of lightning split the sky. And when those hooves came back down, the very ground shuddered.
The act caused the brigands to stagger back--one man even fell out of his saddle, but there was something else in the air. Something that prickled at Kro's last nerve. Unable to stop himself, he looked behind. Back to the secret opening in the thorns.
To his horror, something appeared in that gaping hole. Something long and glistening that flicked into view like the revolting tongue of a snake tasting the air. Kro's chest seized as he watched it appear. The thing he had remembered at the start of every morning and end of every night for the past seven years. And as more came into view he found that watching was about all he was capable of. His eyes wide, his teeth clenched hard enough to crack a shelled walnut.
First came the snout, then the eyes that shone like green embers. Polished gemstones the size of ostrich eggs, composed not of carbon and light but solid, undeniable hate. These details ran through Kro's mind as a snout and face became a full head and part of a neck.
Within seconds, jutting out of the thorns hovering a mere foot above the ground, was the head of an enormous serpent. Black with silver markings and crowned with a massive crest. Horn was the word that came to mind, but it was more likely just part of the skull itself. The structure was placed just behind the center of the head, just behind where the brain would be. It was a stout thing--pointed and back-turned, like the horn of a rhinoceros.
Frozen in abject terror, Tenebrus Kro stared into the face of his true enemy and with slitted, hating eyes, the Hispidian witchwyrm stared right back.
Move. The thought exploded in the alchemist's brain. Move you useless idiot. Now!
Kro's eyes snapped into focus. He drew in a sharp breath through his nose then, squeezing his knees together, he made the silver mare bolt. Seeing his old enemy face to face after so long was not unlike being struck by lightning. She had grown considerably in the last seven years.
Two nights before, she must have known they were there. Or at least near. Why hadn't she attacked then? Over his shoulder, Kro saw more than ten feet of neck had already appeared. And he knew that anyone else watching would surely identify the beast as a snake of titanic proportions. But, to his own dismay, Kro knew better.
A pair of appendages popped into view. Each of the creature's front legs ended in four clawed toes. These slammed into the ground, then began to pull the monstrosity free of its thorny birth canal.
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The monster's head protruded roughly twenty feet from the Moat's only viable opening. It swung from left to right, elegant in its motion. The fanged mouth at the end of that long serpent's neck opened wide. Then pushing upward with what appeared to be arms, a series of gulping barks was vomited into the sky. One, two, three, then nothing.
After this, more of the creature poured through the splintered gate and into full view. The head and neck of a colossal adder sprouted from an incongruous body--at least sixty feet long from nose to tail with two sets of dragonish legs. Based on spectacle alone, the horrendous silver and black thing had earned every whisper of its reputation.
Now fully emerged, the witchwyrm reared up on its hind legs--standing like a bear and straightening its back to an amazing height. The animal's scales were long--flaring away from the body to give almost a hairy appearance. With a sudden shudder, a rattling sound travelled all the way down its long body and into the tail--moving like a shockwave through those long scales.
One of the back legs was lifted. It came down hard as the creature leaned in the direction of the men. With a flick of a forked tongue, once more the thing tasted the air. Then, with no discernable warning, the wyrm's head snapped in a new direction. Looking past the two galloping horses to lock eyes with the Red Wolf himself. Almost as if the thing could sense the presence of another mighty predator.
Mark of the Witchwyrm Page 18
