by Dan Rabarts
“Oh no,” Zaertha shook a claw at him as they walked away from the dead wyvern. “Don’t you try to make this my fault. If not for me, you’d still be limping down the side of a mountain and Akmenos would be halfway up the Eternal Stair. Now we’re stuck with walking; we have no idea where Akmenos might be, or if he even escaped Hal’alak; and the forests are crawling with hornung on the lookout for him. They’re just as likely to find us. I’d say things could be better.”
“We need to get a message to the Hood, tell him where to send agents to look.”
“You know where the plinths intersect?” Zaertha sounded surprised.
Shambra nodded. “I’ve studied them. We may not be able to control them, but it pays to understand the workings of the enemy.”
“So Hal’alak will also know where to start looking for him. Akmenos won’t have much time.”
“Perhaps not, but he’s bested me twice. I suspect he’ll prove more dangerous than we, or she, anticipate. If he no longer trusts her, he may prove a cunning adversary.”
“Don’t give him too much credit on account of his tossing you into a bush. He’s still only a cook, and for all that he’s been blessed into the most base ranks of the Coven, he’s no warlock. There must be a reason why both the Eternal Stair and the Holy Flame want him.”
“If we could know the workings of the Flame—”
“We would be gods, and not merely their pawns. Now, save your breath for walking. We’ve a long way to go.”
~
The meadow stretched out like a pastoral painting, an acre of rolling green speckled with wildflowers, the river chuckling over a shallow ford. On the far bank, a narrow path wound into the looming trees.
“That’s where he crossed?” Eldarian was dubious. “Seems awfully exposed.”
“Our quarry is no woodsman, Silverblade. His trail should be easy enough to find.”
Eldarian scanned the vale and the gurgling ford. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. His battle instincts told him not to descend into that valley, but if Larthia’s murderer had crossed here, his men could surely hunt him down and bring him to justice. Yet Hrodok was not to be trusted. The hornung plotted something, he could feel it. Eldarian, however, was a soldier, not a politico. Whatever manoeuvring might be running through the mind of a Coven warlock in his ascendency, Eldarian couldn’t guess. And with every passing minute, the trail grew colder. “Lead on.”
Eldarian followed Hrodok down through the meadow, leading the horse which bore the corpse of their dead prince. Whatever else Hrodok might be scheming, Eldarian was not letting Larthia’s body out of his sight. Hrodok’s warlocks and soldiers started spreading out.
Eldarian stopped, throwing up a hand, and his elves snapped to action, bows and blades flourishing in an instant. His warriors had lived by their Silverblade’s instincts a long time, and they knew his sense for danger.
“If we know where he crossed the river, why are your forces spreading out in an attack formation? What treachery is this?”
Several paces ahead, Hrodok stopped and turned, his face a glib mask. “Why did it have to come to this here, elfling? I wanted it to take place at the river’s edge. These things are so much more…” He rubbed his clawed fingers together, searching for the right word. “…picturesque when they take place on a river. All that splashing about, blood spilling and flowing, mingling with the water, you know.”
“What?”
Eldarian’s response was cut off by the shriek of hornung warcryers, singing their song of death as they arced through the air. The sky above the meadow darkened with a converging cloud of screaming steel. The elves turned every which way, some lifting shields in time to deflect the rain of death, others not quite fast enough. The screams of the falling arrows were drowned out by the howls of the wounded, as the long grass came alive with dozens of hornung soldiers. Screaming guttural war-cries they charged, hooked axes and curved blades lifted high.
“Hrodok!” Eldarian bellowed and leapt forward.
Black fire erupted around the elf and he stumbled backwards, the world dissolving into darkness and pain. Blinded, he lashed out, regathering his feet and leaping towards where he’d last seen the traitorous warlock. Hrodok had betrayed not only the Landarians, but also Emperor Rathrax. For a lone assassin to strike a blow against the Landarians in the house of their liege lord was one thing; that could be explained, as was the delicate art of diplomacy. But one offence was not enough. The entire embassy must die, so Landaria would have no choice but to turn against Hornung. Eldarian focused on the sounds of feet scuffing through grass and struck, spun, ducked, stabbed, hunting for a mark.
“What about the wyvern?” he growled. “What was that, some warlock illusion?” If he could draw Hrodok into a dialogue, he might locate him by the sound of his voice and strike him down.
“That? No, no illusion on my part, but no less fortuitous. Made the lie much easier to swallow, didn’t it? No doubt I’ll have to deal with them soon enough, but for now all I really need to do is destroy you.”
Eldarian whirled towards the voice, blade raking the air. The darkness was lifting, and he glimpsed a shape. “Hornung will pay for this!” He lunged, slashing, and his world erupted in cascading arcs of dark energy. He fell, his tormented limbs stiffening.
“Yes,” Hrodok said, quite calmly, “yes they will.”
Something heavy slammed into Eldarian’s head, and all went black.
Chapter Nine
Akmenos lifted a hand to shield his eyes from sudden glaring sunlight, lost his balance, and fell on his rump. All around, nothing but barren rock and drifts of dirt. Wiping sand from his face, he fought the urge to whimper. There was no sign of Scimitar, nor any evidence that anyone might have ever come this way, apart from the carved stone plinth beneath him.
Akmenos found his feet somewhere under the gelatine tangle of his legs, picked a direction, and ran with all the speed his besieged limbs could muster. As he ran, jars and knives clattering and clanking against his thighs, he choked back what might’ve been tears, not that he’d admit it if anyone asked. Grit in my eyes, he would’ve said, that, and I squashed one of the onions in my pocket and accidentally rubbed it in my eyes, that’s all. Nothing to do with the blade that had first passed through his hand, and then his heart.
The wind chased him down the hillside, howling around the desert rocks. The sky grew dark with a rising storm. A blurry sea of dunes spread out before him. Behind, sawtooth ridges of desert peaks grated the sky. The damned onion stung his eyes even worse. Lost, alone, betrayed, on the edge of a desert, with a pocketful of potatoes and not so much as a pot of water to cook them in. Could it get much worse?
Moments later, a sandstorm boiled up off the desert. Akmenos let his eyes cry freely—just to rinse away the grit, of course—and ran towards a tumbled pile of boulders. Somehow, he reached them before they were obscured by stinging sand, and he burrowed in, finding a sheltered hollow between the rocks. There, he endured the howl of wind and the rasp of sand on stone, and he sliced his crushed onion and ate the rings raw, because you could eat onion raw, but not potato. Raw potato could make a fellow rather ill. As he chewed and listened to the wind, he let a few more tears fall, just for good measure, big fat ones to clear the sand from his eyelids.
He’d read about deserts, places where nothing grew except spiky fruitless trees, and snakes, and scorpions. Jackals, too. Deserts offered nothing but death. Just as Scimitar had promised, the sorcerous plinth had cast him into the void. Never had he felt so alone. And soon, he’d be hungry. Very hungry. Akmenos wasn’t sure which he feared more, the isolation, the possibility of his dying out here, or being hungry. They were all pretty terrifying prospects.
Some time later, the sandstorm passed. With difficulty, Akmenos wormed out from between the boulders—how had he managed to get in there in the first place?—and surveyed his desert prison. Unaccustomed to the feeling, despair came as a shock. Maybe he could return to the plinth, but t
o what end? He hadn’t the magic to operate it. Scimitar, the cause of all his trouble, could appear there any moment. He should be getting as far from the plinth as possible. The foothills seemed a safer option than the encroaching dunes. In search of shelter and maybe a kitchenette of some sort, he set off across the cracked detritus of crumbling mountains.
He sweated and felt very small. For someone who’d lived his life painfully aware of his size, he relished the sensation.
He clutched his throbbing hand to his chest, wishing he had some water to rinse it clean. The idea made him thirsty. Remnants of high clouds cleared to reveal the blazing orb of the sun. Pummelled by the heat, Akmenos again sought refuge among boulders, crushing himself into a patch of shade. His mouth grew dry. He could chew on another onion, but it was all the food he had, and it must last him until he found sanctuary. Best keep his meagre reserves for when he really needed them. It’d also be a shame to drive away anyone he should chance upon out here because he reeked of onion.
When the sun began to drop, Akmenos forced himself to walk again. His hooves stumbled, and the horizon took on a hazy roll. He’d heard of folk becoming sick on the sea, with the deck of a ship rolling under them. Although he’d never been aboard a ship himself, perhaps this was the same, except it was him rolling, while the world stood still. He stumbled on.
Occasionally, he saw shapes on the sand, but dared not run to them. They might be jackals. He had no idea what a jackal looked like, but they were rumoured to be fearsome. He hunkered over in an effort not to be spotted by the desert predators and staggered on. His hand burned where he clutched it to his chest. Sweat dripped off his chin, and his tail dragged a long line in the sand behind him.
His tongue grew thick in his mouth.
The shapes lurking amongst the dunes darted and shimmered, sometimes real, sometimes not.
The horizon toppled, tipping him into burning darkness and scouring sand.
~
Hal’alak knelt on the plinth and recited the words. The carved glyphs glowed with an ethereal light. In the distance arose a howling that echoed with gnashing jaws, bloodlust and fury. A foul wind preceded the moondogs, pushing back the fog as the beasts surged along the interstices between here and there, towards the eldritch gateway. The first one arrived like a hungering ghost, its pale skin shimmering and translucent, revealing the flex and strain of muscles beneath. The hound bounded out of the light and circled Hal’alak, lips drawn back from yellow teeth. It growled low in its throat, locking its cold pale eyes on her, its summoner.
Hal’alak stood firm. Show fear and these creatures would feed on it. Another appeared, and a third, and more. The pack snarled, straining to break the unseen chains binding them to Hal’alak. They growled and snapped at each other, circling the plinth, claws scraping stone.
Hal’alak arose. “Sit.”
The pack sat. Canine voices rumbled in a low chorus of defiance, but they obeyed. She held out her bleeding hand to the closest hound. As if drawn by a string, the dog trotted forward, its muzzle darting in to sniff and then lick at the blood that stained her fingers. Its black eyes shone, and its ears folded back.
“Go,” she commanded. “Seek. Return when you have found the blood, or when you hear my summons.” The hound vanished into the swirling light.
Hal’alak turned to the next beast, who padded closer, eager for the taste of blood. One by one, the dogs departed, each following the paths she opened for them, until she stood alone on the plinth. She allowed the power of the place to subside, so she could hear their calls when they came, and open it again quickly to gather the pack for the hunt. What her still damnably mortal eyes could not see, the hounds from the nether wastes could certainly find. If he was out there, they would track him down.
Poor fat little fool. If only you knew what lies in store for you.
~
Something warm and wet pattering onto his face brought Akmenos around. He spluttered, coughed, tasted salt, heat. Hot urine. He gagged, jerked, tried to roll, and fell. The ground was as much of a shock as the piss in his face, and he spat to clear his mouth. Somewhere, something was shrieking.
“Wassa madda?” Akmenos heard a voice call out. “Mista no wanna watta?”
More shrieking, a vile sound like a jester might make if someone were to tickle their armpits with shards of broken glass. In another world, it might’ve been laughter.
“Mista fat-horn no wanna drink? So ungrateful mista fat-horn. Don’t know good thing in the desert. Drink keeps mista fat-horn alive.”
Akmenos blinked enough of the sand and urine from his eyes to make out the shapes around him: hairy, long-limbed creatures with blotchy fur and toothy muzzles. There were at least five, carrying crude spears with flint tips, held awkwardly in paws that looked better suited to running and ripping flesh then wielding weapons. A shiver stole through him, and he backed away, coming up against something hard. He spat again. “Are you…jackals?” His voice was as rough as pork crackling forgotten under a flaming grill.
“Jackals? Why mista fat-horn gotta go an’ be making widda insults, heh? Jackals! We no jackals. Jackals are weak. Nay, mista fat-horn, we who foun’ you be hyenas. Yus. An’ now, you’s ours.”
Akmenos shrunk back as the hyena advanced, while the others continued to shriek like banshees in a cheese grater. “Well, I’m certainly pleased to meet you, mister Hyena sir. This is quite the fortuitous encounter, in fact, because I, ah, was hoping to find someone who might help me find my way out of the desert, and you certainly look like you know your way around, and—”
“Shuddup!” the hyena barked.
Akmenos recoiled, banging his head against the rock behind him. He extended his hands, opening his clawed fingers in a gesture of peace. “Now—”
“I say SHUDDUP!”
Akmenos shut up.
He folded his hands back over his chest and felt, to his surprise and relief, the comforting weight of his knives, still strapped to his waist in their trusty leather apron. Perhaps these hyenas weren’t very experienced at taking prisoners. Unless of course, he was not a prisoner, but simply dinner, and even the bevy of sharp steel at his waist was not threatening to these creatures.
“Now, getta back on Doris. We almost home, then we gonna decide what t’do with you.”
“Doris?” Akmenos squeaked. He turned his head slowly.
He wasn’t leaning against a rock but a hard, black carapace. Overlapping plates of shiny chitin flexed with a rustling clatter as the creature twisted its abdomen. An array of multi-faceted eyes peered down from above two enormous mandibles, framed by several spiked legs. One huge pincer lifted silently to close with a sharp, ominous crunch. The louring sun dimmed, obscured by the bulbous black teardrop that hung at the end of a long, armoured tail.
Akmenos had heard of scorpions, had even seen woodcuts of them. He’d expected them to be much, much, smaller. This was a creature born of nightmare, a bad dream which would not end in a convenient waking scream. The gargantuan arachnid’s saddle and the cart hitched to the harness, which gave it the appearance of some beast of burden, didn’t make it any less terrifying.
Akmenos turned back to the hyena. “You want me to…ride…this thing?”
The hyena leaned in closer, his rancid breath almost worse than the reek of urine that stained Akmenos. “Well, you tried walkin’, an’ issa not working out too good for you, yus? So, unless you can run and keep up with us, you betta get on Doris, afore she stick you and we carry you home all dead-like. What you like betta, heh? Live-live, or dead-um?”
Akmenos, mustering all his shredded dignity, wobbled to his feet. With deliberate aplomb, he turned to face the megalith of black plate and gave the beast a polite nod. “Hello Doris,” he said, “pleased to meet you. Do you mind if I…come aboard?”
~
The dog-men loped across the badlands, their spears slung over their backs. The hyenas really could run, broad chests heaving and long, ropy limbs stretching. Nor was the scorpion
any slouch. Akmenos clutched the crude saddle’s pommel, the beast’s legs rattling out a staccato as it skittered across hardpan and sand-drifts. Had his brother Versha ever seen so terrifying a creature on the front lines? The Hornung conquests were moving into the deserts. What would Versha do if confronted with a mass of the giant scorpions? Could warlock magic or the blades of their elvish allies puncture the shells of these fearsome beasts? Would Akmenos’ paring knife be any match for this cold, black armour?
He tried to tune out the scrape of chitinous pincers across the shifting sand, the hideous laughter of the hyenas, and the sorrowful lowing that may have been the wind sawing through the foothills behind him. Then they came over a rise, and the desert valley stretched out below them, dominated by an upthrust mesa of yellowed stone. The hyenas howled and yelped all the louder. Akmenos sat forward, his heart sinking. They were heading for the stone mass, not around it. It was no doubt a haven of shelter from the desert, probably riddled with nooks and crannies and caves and burrows, a fine home for the denizens of the wastes.
But it also looked an awful lot like a prison. The prisoner on the back of the giant scorpion wished he could take his chances with the desert instead.
Chapter Ten
“The chef knows nothing, but he knows more than he realises.”
“Don’t talk in riddles, husband. It’s bad manners,” Arah rebuked him, matching Bane’s pace as he hurried through the halls of Castle Kriikan. Fraag followed close behind, hand on his sword-pommel and his gaze a scythe cutting through the civilians and soldiers alike who scurried obediently aside.
“You’ll see. Grebbeth has news, which I suspect will confirm my suspicions.”
“Which are?”
Bane glowered. “Not here.”
Arah fumed but said no more.
They descended from the high vaulted arches of the sepulchres to the sanctums. At Grebbeth’s door, Fraag assumed a position outside to ensure their privacy. Bane bolted the door behind him and turned on his son.
