Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (42 page)

She wandered at random in this disorienting new world, but then she picked out the cracked dome of the garden rotunda, and she made her way over to it. Ben’s statues of Banos and Arcus had been smashed to bits; an alabaster hand jutted out of the broken masonry as if in greeting (or perhaps farewell) and Kal saw a white head—she wasn’t sure which god it belonged to—face down on the scorched grass.

The plinth still covered the stairs that led underground. Kal grabbed a broken length of iron railing and jammed it in the crack that ran down the middle. With all of her strength, she levered the plinth apart. It was dark down the hole, and a blessed cool breeze escaped and washed over Kal’s grimy, sweat-soaked face. She paused for a moment to regain her breath, then turned to her next task: ripping off the sleeves of her black silk shirt, and winding the material around a fallen branch to make a torch.

Three hundred steps led down to the stalagmite-strewn Forgotten Tomb. It was the first time that Kal had been here without Ben. They had discovered it together, and every time since he had been waiting for her, feet up on the sarcophagus, usually with some crazy mission to send her on. Kal lit the braziers that surrounded the stone coffin. She trailed her fingers along its rough edge. Ben always wanted to be buried here, with his divine ancestors. But would she ever find his remains now?

Kal put all gloomy thoughts aside for later. She had to hurry; now that she thought she had deduced the killer’s identity, it was only a matter of proving it, and then all she would have to do was hand the matter over to … well, there had to be
someone
she could trust in this city. Kal turned to the far side of the cavern, where a stout wooden door marked the tunnel by which she and Ben had entered the tomb all those years ago; the tunnel that led to the endless maze of secret passages and troll caves … and ultimately to a stone door that bore the flaming fist sigil of Feron Firehand.

She lifted the heavy wooden bar that secured the door from the inside, then heaved it open.

And as soon as she did so, she stumbled backwards in shock.

The armoured ghost of Feron Firehand was waiting for her in the darkness on the other side.

Kal backed away until she felt her behind touch the stone of the tomb. The ghost advanced a few steps into the cave and then stopped. It held a two-handed broadsword point-down in front of it. Standing perfectly still, the ghost resembled the effigy on a tomb of a knight.

Then it spoke.

Leave
, it said, the words sounding as hollow as knocking bones.

Kal opened her mouth to reply, but her tongue was thick and dry in her mouth. She swallowed painfully.
Why am I afraid?

Leave
, the ghost repeated.
Now.

Kal found her voice. ‘I know you won’t kill me,’ she told it. ‘
I’m not on your list.
’

The ghost said nothing; it just stood there blocking the way. Kal made a move to step past it, but the ghost raised its blade threateningly. She paused—could she be
sure
the ghost wouldn’t hurt her? Kal thought she knew who was behind the helmet … but how well did she really know that person?

This stalemate continued for another long minute, and then was broken by the sound of several pairs of boots on the stairs down from the ruin of the mansion. General Cassava appeared, followed by three of her soldiers.

Kal’s eyes flicked between the ghost and the general. ‘So you finally decided to come and help me after all?’ she said to Cassava.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Cassava growled. ‘Help you? After the stunt you pulled at my games? No, Moonheart, I’m here to finish what we started. And if I can’t beat you at dragon killing, then I’ll beat you at ghost hunting!’

And with that, Cassava raised her axe and charged across the cavern. She dodged the stalagmites, jumped up onto the tomb, ran its length, then leaped at the armoured figure of the ghost, swinging her axe in an overhead arc directed at her target’s helmet.

The ghost was fast: fast enough to raise its sword in time, and quick-witted enough to realise that clashing blades with Cassava’s falling axe wouldn’t be wise. Instead, it aimed its counter-strike at the axe handle, and knocked the weapon out of Cassava’s grasp. The general hit the cavern floor weaponless, and rolled away, calling for her troops to step in to attack.

Kal had been skirting the fight, and found herself within grasping distance of the general’s axe. She lifted it up, but it was too heavy for her to consider using herself. Instead, she looked over at Cassava, who was staring back at Kal, while between them the ghost battled with all three of the soldiers at the same time. One of them was already on his knees, blood spurting from a mortal wound.

What the hell, Cassava could take all the glory if that was what she wanted. Kal swung the axe and lobbed it with an underhand throw. It sailed over the heads of the combatants and fell directly into Cassava’s hands. ‘Take the killer
alive
!’ Kal shouted. As Cassava waded back into the fight, Kal nipped behind the ghost and plunged into the tunnels beyond.

* * *

She ran blindly for a while, just to get clear of the sounds of combat. Kal’s torch barely lit the way, and it was almost impossible to tell which tunnels were man-made, which were carved by monsters, and which were natural caves. She tried to take the downwards sloping passages, if possible, and head east, although her sense of direction was the first thing that deserted her.

Kal paused to catch her breath. In the distance she could hear noise and running footsteps … getting closer! She feared the ghost was coming for her, desperate to stop her entering its secret lair. Kal took a deep breath and hurried on.

The noise of pursuit sounded suddenly closer than ever, and at that exact moment Kal found herself coming up against a dead end. Panic began to rise deep within her. She turned back, but as she approached the previous junction she saw one of Cassava’s guards run past it. Was he chasing … or being chased? Kal lingered at the corner for a while, but now there was not a single sound to be heard.

She went on, cautiously. The explanation for the silence became clear a hundred yards further down the tunnel. The soldier she had just seen was lying on his back, his throat slashed out. A couple of steps further on, Kal found the head of the final soldier. There was no sign of a matching body. Kal squinted into the darkness ahead of her. Would she find Cassava’s corpse next? Would she herself
live
long enough to find it?

An ear-splitting scream broke the silence. That didn’t sound like a scream of pain … it sounded like a battle cry! Cassava! It came from the direction Kal wanted to go—they must have gotten ahead of her when she took the wrong turn. She extinguished her torch when she saw light up ahead. Perhaps she could slip around them again.

In an open cave, surrounded by a ring of dropped torches, General Cassava battled the ghost of Feron Firehand. Despite the armour, the ghost was the fastest of the combatants, dodging and twisting away from the general’s ponderous axe swings. But the general wasn’t a clumsy fighter by any means: she wielded her axe with a varied, imaginative style: as well as slicing, she was stabbing with the sharp corner of the blade, then sliding the axe head down to her hand, and hitting out with unpredictable thrusts from the shaft.

As Kal crept up on them, the fight suddenly ended. Cassava blocked a sword strike with the shaft of her axe, then, while still holding her weapon out horizontally in front of her, shoved forward and impaled the ghost’s right shoulder with the sharp heel at the bottom of the axe blade. The ghost dropped its sword, and Cassava stood back to prepare a finishing blow.

But the ghost’s sword hit the cavern floor point first, and in the instant before it toppled over, the ghost took it up again in its left hand, and ran it straight through Cassava’s stomach.

The general collapsed to her knees without a sound, and the ghost turned and fled. Kal ran to the fallen general’s side, only to find her grinning and laughing as she coughed up blood.

‘Well, get after it, Moonheart!’ Cassava spluttered. ‘I winged the bastard. Now you go and finish the job!’

‘How can I stop it if even you couldn’t?’ Kal said, as she checked Cassava’s wound. Blood was leaving her body so fast that a small red lake was forming on the cavern floor.

‘Well if
you
don’t, then we’ll call it a draw!’ Cassava took a ragged breath and looked Kal in the eye. ‘The game is up for me, Kal. You win—it seems that you’re the true hero of Amaranthium after all, not me! Maybe I was wrong to try and take you down, but I won’t ask for your forgiveness. I had dreams of fame; I wanted a statue in the Forum; I wanted to rule the city through force of will alone. So I failed, but what a day! What better way to die than fighting to save the city from monsters!’

Kal didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t have to say anything, though, because Cassava died quickly in her arms, a joyous smile on her face.

* * *

Kal picked up a torch and followed the ghost the rest of the way to the secret door. She only had to follow the splashes of blood. Eventually, she recognised the long winding passage that she and Ben had got lost down on their journey under the city six years ago. She put out her torch again when she detected light ahead. The stone door was up ahead, and torches flickered in sconces on either side of it. The ghost paced back and forth before the door, occasionally stopping to peer back up the tunnel. It was clutching its injured right shoulder with its left hand.

Kal watched patiently. Eventually the ghost decided it couldn't wait any longer, and marched in her direction to resume its search of the maze. Kal hid herself in a dark crevice until it had passed by. When she was sure it had gone, she ran up to the door.

She found herself facing an impossible barrier: a solid wall of stone inscribed with the intimidating flaming fist. The only clue that there was indeed a way through was the small square hole in the direct centre of the block of stone. A keyhole …

Last time, Kal and Ben had been trapped against the door by a troll, with no way through.

This time, Kal had the key.

She knelt and opened the pouch at her belt and took out a small oblong walnut box. She opened the lid and tipped the five bone dice onto the cave floor. Then she slid out the long metal pin that acted as a hinge for the lid of the box. The skull-faced dice were unusual in that the number one spot was directly opposite the five, not the six, and this allowed for a narrow slot between the two centre spots. The pin was twisted and shaped in such a way that the dice could be fitted onto it in only one order. Kal fumbled with the puzzle for a few nerve-wracking minutes before she finally slotted all five dice onto the pin.

She fed it into the square hole in the door. She could feel the slight resistance as the dice lifted the tumblers. Kal took a deep breath, and twisted the pin.

The cylinder turned. Kal put her palm against the stone and pushed. With only a light touch, the door split in two and swung silently open.

There was total darkness beyond. Kal grabbed a torch and stepped through the door. She got the impression of a vast open space around her. Twenty yards into the cavern, she arrived at the edge of a deep pit. There was an unlit torch here, fixed to a eight-foot pole, so Kal reached up and kindled it.

The torch burst into bright light. Kal couldn’t help but gasp when she looked into the pit and saw what was revealed. She also noticed that the pit was massive, its extremities cloaked in darkness, but that there were more torches on poles all around the rim.

It took her ten minutes to encircle the pit and light all the torches. The cavern was the biggest that she had ever seen beneath the city, and the pit was fifty yards across. When she finally arrived back at the first pole, the truth she had suspected was finally laid bare; something that Feron Firehand had alluded to in his journals, but could not bring himself to write down; something so terrible that even Amaranthium’s Lord Protector could never have justified it as a necessity of war …

The pit was a sea of bones; millions of bones; the remains of thousands of men and women. Skulls, rib cages, arm and leg bones, all mixed up with ancient scraps of armour, helmets and weapons; a secret mass grave that had been hidden under the city for five hundred years.

The lost legion of Amaranthium—the soldiers honoured by statues on the Field of Bones—had not given their lives defending the city from monsters. In fact, they had never left the city at all. In his mad grasp for power, Feron Firehand had murdered them—the entire legion, down to the last soldier.

Kal had never felt more alone than she did then: deep underground, carrying the weight of a terrible secret. She had to get back to the city and tell people. She turned to go, but someone was standing right behind her.

Leave
, the ghost said once again, but this time Kal detected a faltering tone in its voice.
Please.

The sight of the bone pit had confirmed Kal’s worst fears. Unbidden tears welled up in her eyes.

‘I knew it was you,’ she said.

V.v

Hurt

The ghost joined Kal at the edge of the bone pit. It stood, sword sheathed, clutching its wounded side, and looked out over the sea of skulls, rather than directly at Kal.

This isn’t your fight, Kalina Moonheart
, it said.

‘It’s not yours either,’ Kal replied. ‘Nor is it the fight of the people you killed. What happened here happened centuries ago.’

The ghost turned slowly to regard her.
What do you know of that?
it said.
What do you know of who I am and why I do this?

Kal shook her head sadly. So they were going to play this game, then. ‘Everyone knows about the lost legion,’ she said. ‘How could anyone not, when a whole line of twenty-foot-tall warriors greet you at the gates of the city. They died fighting for their king when the city was besieged by monsters.’