The Iron Wolves (15 page)

Narnok stopped by the door to the Pleasure Parlour and checked around with his one good eye. He spat a heavy ball of phlegm, as if by removing the bad taste from his mouth he could remove the bad memories of Katuna, his ex-wife, from his skull.

I wonder where you are now, he mused, and opened the door. Hopefully, some scumbag has cut your throat and left you dead in an alleyway.

And Dek. Oh, you bastard of a bastard. I wonder if you still breathe our fine Vagandrak air? Or did some pit fighter break your spine? Maybe gouge out one of your eyes? See how you like it?

Narnok’s final words to his sword brother, blood brother, friend, had been screamed in hate across the army mess as men sought to restrain them both, and a runner was dispatched for Dalgoran; “I’m going to fucking kill you!” bellowed Narnok, “and when you do fucking die, I’m going to ride into Hell and the Furnace looking for your bones and your fucking soul, and I’m going to tear you apart again!” before he was dragged out by warriors and threatened with military prison by General Dalgoran.

Old days.

The
bad
old days.

Long gone, down, lost and forgotten; but not too readily forgotten. Not now. Not in times like this.

He unlocked the door and stepped carefully inside, closing it with a click and waiting in the darkness, allowing himself to acclimatise and his vision to adjust.
Were the Red Thumbs waiting for him? Did they know?
But of course, they did not know, and Narnok descended into the basement, screwing up paper balls and building kindling into a small pyramid before adding larger chunks of wood to the burner. Soon, flames were crackling, slightly damp wood popping, and Narnok set an iron bowl of water to heat on the hob whilst he stripped his clothes free, tossing them into the fire.

There, naked, covered in blood, he thought again of Katuna.

And he thought again of Dek.

A week had passed, and Narnok thought he’d got away with it. He opened the Pleasure Parlour as usual, and Maria arrived. She seemed edgy, tired, with huge bags under her red-rimmed eyes, but Narnok thought little of it. The girls arrived on time, and Saridia was complaining of a sore back; but then, she always did that.

Narnok sat in his “office”. He let Maria perform the front of house work, as his heavily scarred face and milky eye had the effect of putting many with a weaker constitution off the act of copulation. Once, a drunk had grinned, saying, “If that’s what happens to your face when I sleep with one of your girls, I’d better recommend this place to my enemies!” He left with a broken nose.

So, Narnok sat in his office; it was a quiet night. At about 10 o’clock Maria brought him a cup of warm milk and sugar, his usual evening tipple, and he sipped it as he read the book before him detailing a history of Zalazar, penned by the esteemed scholar Kazellius, Professor of History at Drakerath University. Narnok didn’t drink alcohol when he was working, because if there was any trouble, it would impede his performance when he most needed it. Not that they had much trouble at the Pleasure Parlour. News, like Narnok as a leg-breaker, got round most taverns pretty quick.

Which was why, after a half hour or so, Narnok found it strange to feel dizzy and extremely sleepy. He rubbed his temples with big, strong fingers, yawned, and frowned at the page where letters seemed to drift and shift and swirl. “That’s not right,” he mumbled, and got slowly to his feet. His left leg buckled at the knee but he caught himself, hands flat on the old scarred desk. He yawned again. “Not right at all.”

He didn’t hear the door open; movement caught his eye. They came into the room. There were eight of them, big men, each carrying a pick-axe handle or iron bar. They flooded the office and Narnok grunted, turning towards his axe on the bench behind, but the whole world was spinning, and he felt like he’d drunk a barrel of wine. Narnok hit the ground like a sack of shit, but the impact didn’t bother him, because darkness had already fallen.

The first thing he noticed was the sour taste in his mouth, and a gritty feeling on his tongue, like the dregs of some bitter pill.
She drugged me,
he realised.
Maria! Faithful old Maria!
Had she turned against him? No, he thought. She was as reliable as clockwork. So, they had a hold over her. Something small and hard filled Narnok’s soul. The Red Thumb Gang. Red Thumbs. He scowled, anger rising. So, they wanted a war, did they? They wanted a fucking
war?

He listened, and could hear the heavy, slow flow of deep water. He was cold, shivering in fact, and some intuition told him he was underground. A cellar? But a cellar
where,
though? He listened, but could hear no voices. Were they standing there, waiting for him to wake up so the pain could begin?

Narnok’s head was thumping, and he resisted the urge to frown or wince. It beat inside his skull, like a trapped lion roaring to get free.

He was seated on a hard wooden chair. His feet were tied together, and his hands bound behind his back; to one another, as well as to the chair. Not good. A torturer’s position, and that was a place Narnok had been in once before. It was a place he never wanted to visit again.

Gently, he tested his bonds, but they’d been entwined and knotted by a professional.

Reluctantly, Narnok eased his eyes open. He was in an underground warehouse of some kind. A huge stack of crates lined one wall, stamped in a language he’d never before seen. To his right, and emanating cold, flowed a deep, fast river. However, these were just subliminal background images. What interested him – or horrified him – even more was the man seated directly before him. He was a small, wiry man, with a bald head and pointed features. His aged face was lined, indeed lined considerably more than the last time Narnok saw him. Yet he was still instantly recognisable. After all, you never forgot your first torturer.

“Good day, Narnok. I am sure you remember me.”

“Xander!”

“You’re looking well. I see my handiwork scarred nicely.”

“Fuck you.”

Xander smiled. “So crude. So brutish. So very much what I expected. I see your scars and acid-kissed eye did little to improve your manners. And yet, the romantic part of my soul truly believed my…
gift
to you would calm you down a little; teach you a grade of…” he savoured the word, “
humility.
”

Narnok heaved against his bonds, and his chair scraped across the stone-flagged floor. Behind him, the river hissed. He was growling, spitting hate, wanting so bad to get to the man who had not just caused him intense physical pain, but effectively, in Narnok’s mind, ruined his life.

Finally, he calmed down enough to speak. He was a deep crimson, fists clenched and straining against the arms of the sturdy oak chair. His single working eye was narrowed and focused with unalloyed intensity at Xander. If looks could kill, Xander would be chopped pieces in a bucket.

“I’m going to kill you,” said Narnok, gently.

“Ah, yes. The threats.” He stood, revealing a small wooden table containing an opened leather case. It was small, the sort many doctors carried. Narnok caught the gleam of polished steel. Sharp steel. Needles. Knives. Curved dental equipment. The tools of Xander’s trade. “They always come first. In fact, you should remember! This is how we began last time. And yet it ended so differently, did it not?” He moved closer and Narnok jerked against his bonds, trying to reach the man who had taken his face and his eye. “And now I work for the Red Thumbs,” said Xander, voice low and intimate, “and in a massive twist of comedy, and fate, I believe, I find you seated before me once more. Oh, how I do believe the gods like a joke as much as the next man!”

“Bastard! I’ll rip out your throat! I’ll tear out your fucking spine!”

“Tut-tut.” Xander smiled, as if berating a squawking tantrum child. “I fear I must remove some of this foulest of language. One way, I have discovered, with other guests, is to begin with the teeth… and then we’ll talk about Galtos Gan – whom you murdered – and the fact that he
was
cousin to Faltor Gan, one of the three rulers of the Red Thumbs.” He reached out and picked up a pair of heavy-duty silver medical pliers, normally used by battlefield surgeons. “Although, of course, you
won’t
be able to speak. But you can grunt. And spew blood. And spit teeth. And sign a declaration of confession.” Narnok’s eyes came to rest on that tool, on that weapon, all the time straining at his bonds. His muscles writhed along his arms, neck and chest, and his thighs and calves burned with the effort of straining against the chair legs.

A cool breeze drifted through the underground warehouse.

The river hissed by, on its journey to the ocean.

Narnok could smell distant fire and hot oil. All his senses seemed to come suddenly alive. As if he knew he was about to suffer incredible pain and then die, horribly. This was his last chance. He could smell Xander’s sweat and a lotion the man used to soften his skin. He could smell his own sweat and fear and piss. The river carried some sewage, which prickled Narnok’s nostrils. The subdued light came from fish-oil lanterns, and the light suddenly burned Narnok’s brain. But this was as nothing, he knew, compared with the pain to come…

He grunted, heaving with all his might as Xander drifted closer, those silver pliers in his wrinkled, liver-spotted hand.

Xander smiled, and it was a smile with no humour; it was the smile of Death.

“Welcome back, Narnok,” whispered Xander, with the intimacy of a lover. “I missed you.”

It was dawn.

Pale light filtered around the edges of the great iron shutters surrounding the Main Hall of the Zak-Tan Palace. A huge bonfire glowed in the centre of the hall, blackening the marble. An hour earlier it had been roaring, filling the great chamber with dancing light and frightened shadows; but now the coals pulsed with orange and white, and most of the log chunks had burnt away.

Three carcases, with spears from anus to mouth, still roasted by the edge of the fire. The skin was golden, blackened in places, and meat had been cut free in generous quantities; but even now, the three roasted creatures were still vaguely recognisable as Shanaz, Hunta and Marella, King Zorkai’s former wives.

Zorkai himself sat on a blanket by the edge of the fire furthest away from the roasted women. He felt confused, and just a little sick. Not just from partaking in a flesh feast of his former lovers and the bearers of his children; although that did trouble him deeply. No. He felt both pure and impure, hallowed and yet tainted, free and yet enslaved by his coupling, and his conversation, and his future plans with Orlana, the Changer; whom some called the Horse Lady.

Before the murders, she had taken him to his bed. A bed he knew so well, and scene of thousands of pleasant evenings of sexual couplings with his women. But this had been different. His lust has been all consuming, so great it blinded him, so great it blanketed his fears and sent his mind to another place, where he was no longer in control of his actions, no longer in control of his feelings or self-preservation. Orlana had removed her clothes, and that fabulous body welcomed him into its soft, warm, supple, powerful embrace. He entered her, and it had been fabulous, the most amazing sex he’d ever experienced; but then it stepped up to a new level, and he’d gasped, and felt a physical sensation so pure and beautiful he could not believe this was simply sexual congress with a woman. It felt as if they merged, there, rutting, twisting on the black silk sheets. He vaguely remembered looking down, and it was as if their legs were one, the flesh melted together, their flesh sucked together and inside one another; not just a fuck, but a complete organic joining, a total melting together, a unique experience of the flesh. With clever muscle control she held him in thrall, denying him ejaculation until it became painful and he wanted to scream and beat at her with his fists. The pain grew and grew until this was no longer sex but a massacre, no longer enjoyment but pure white hot fire filling every atom of his body. And just when he thought he could contain himself no more, when he thought he would have to reach for a blade and slit her throat just to end the agony, so she relaxed and allowed him to fill her with his seed. His ejaculation went on, and on, and on, until he felt like he must have emptied himself totally into her, not just his sperm but his blood and water and organs and bones. And then he lay, panting, and realised suddenly that he was still alive. He hadn’t emptied his flesh inside Orlana; but he had surely emptied his soul.

After what could have been minutes, could have been hours, Orlana stepped from the bed and pulled on a robe of white cotton. Its simplicity heightened her beauty and Zorkai watched him from his slumber. She glided from the room and his heavy-lidded eyes folded and were closed.

The scream brought him awake with a vicious start. It was so high and pure, even though muffled by walls and doors, that King Zorkai believed he would never sleep again. Sword in hand and naked, he pounded down tiled corridors with high-arched ceilings and an excess of gold and crimson. He skidded around several corridors, making for the stairs to the Main Hall, and he leapt down the top set of steps and then froze at the sight which greeted his disbelieving eyes…

Orlana stood, Marella held out with one hand, half bent over, as Orlana forced a long spear into her anus, twisting with each thrust and subtle crunch; Marella had gone limp, but was held erect by this forced internal brace. Her mouth and eyes were still open, but she no longer screamed, and even as Zorkai watched, Orlana made a final thrust and the slender spear blade emerged in a shower of blood from her mouth, tilting her jaw wide open.

Orlana tossed Marella aside, where she slapped the marble beside the already skewered figure of Shanaz who was, incredibly, still shivering and shaking, clinging to life with some final, desperate threads.

Orlana reached out, grabbing a cowering Hunta, whose eyes suddenly fixed on her husband and King.

“Zorkai! Please! Help me! By the Seven Sisters, please stop this!”

“No!” screamed Zorkai, kicked into action. He sped down the steps, bare fleet slapping, and charged Orlana with his sword held high. She glanced at him, made a casual gesture and it appeared as if he were struck by the side-swipe of a giant, invisible hammer. Folded, in half he crashed across the Main Hall, connecting with the wall and slamming to the floor, groaning. Orlana hefted the final spear, grinned at Hunta, and said, “No more carping from you, bitch,” before shoving the spear blade into the woman with a rectum-tearing
crunch.

When Zorkai had awoken, he’d felt groggy, and for a moment wondered exactly how much spirit he’d consumed, before recent horrific events came rushing back in a blink of disbelief. Surely, it had all been a terrible nightmare? Surely, this Orlana, this
Changer,
was a rabid element of his over-stressed imagination and bad dreams? But the raging, roaring fire at the centre of his marble hall had told him something different, that and the sight of his three dead wives roasting over the flames as Orlana idly turned an improvised spit and hummed a gentle tune more in keeping with flowers opening their petals, or moonlight skimming over glimmering ocean waves, than the cooking of her lover’s dead wives.

Orlana had lifted Shanaz’s ornate, razor-sharp dagger and cut a piece of flesh from the dead woman’s thigh. She’d tasted it, thoughtfully, as if she were a chef deciding how much seasoning to add to the broth.

Zorkai had staggered to his feet and grabbed his sword – before realising the blade was bent nearly in two. He’d cast it down with a clatter and moved warily towards Orlana, his steps dragging. He’d touched the back of his head and his hand had come away with blood.

He’d halted before the open flames. “You cooked them,” he’d said, for it was all the imagination he could muster.

“Yes. It stopped their mewling. Care to taste some?” She’d held a slice of pink meat towards him, and he shuddered. The meat had been tender, and steaming gently.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot! They were my women!”

“No, they are dead flesh, dead meat, there to be savoured and enjoyed. We, the victors, have that right. They wished me dead; I killed them. Now, I eat their flesh, their souls, and they will be my slaves for eternity.”

“Truly? Eternity?”

“Or until I die.”

Zorkai’s eyes glittered.

“Before you get any ideas,” said Orlana, voice a gentle hum, “please remember the old magick flows through my veins. I bested three thousand of your warriors. With a click of my fingers, I could have them leaping through the walls, and by through I actually mean
through
just to get at your flesh and bones. So, ask yourself this, King Zorkai. Are you willing to rule by my side, as my king; or do I do it alone?”

“A king has his orders obeyed,” said Zorkai, eyes dark.

“And of course, I will allow such power. But for now, with this, I need total command. You can rule with me, here in this realm, Zorkai; I want it so. We will expand your Empire; we will smash north through the Pass of Splintered Bones and take Vagandrak, we will travel east and conquer the Plague Lands, for with me by your side there is nothing to fear! From thence, we will take Zalazar – I know the White Lion Mountains well – and finally head for the Mountains of the Moon!”

Zorkai had considered this. He pushed back his head and rolled his neck and thought of his mother, and his father, and his brothers and sisters and cousins, who had all perished for him to become king. And now, yes, he was King of Zak-Tan; King of Zakora! But where to go? The southern tribes were a thousand motley groups of wandering warriors; hardly worth the effort. And Vagandrak was guarded by the Desekra Fortress: four massive walls and a keep at the narrowest section of the pass. Vagandrak’s army was an incredible fighting force, indeed had beaten back the first mud-orc invasion when Morkagoth had walked the realm. Zorkai had been a mere child then, but he remembered Morkagoth: tall and oozing dominance, with a flowing white beard and piercing black eyes, he had terrified toddler Zorkai, but also excited the young child, with his sheer electric presence. He even now remembered his father being in thrall to the sorcerer. Now, he was being offered a chance of expansion, of Empire! To take Vagandrak, the bastards who had been a thorn in his side, with their sneering and superiority, their powerful navy and their alien ways.

King Zorkai could conquer Vagandrak.

Smash the Desekra Fortress that had shamed his father, his people.

“We will need a bigger army,” he’d said, moving closer and warming his hands by the blaze.

Orlana had nodded, cutting free another strip of meat.

“I can help with that. You have witnessed what I can do. What I did to the horses. The riders.”

“Even with such beasts, the walls of Desekra are high and brutal; even Morkagoth failed, with his legions of mud-orcs.”

“We can do better than that,” said Orlana, voice hushed.

Zorkai had taken the meat and eaten. It tasted good. His mind had been working hard, and he’d turned suddenly to Orlana. “You would bring back the mud-orcs, then?” he’d said.

“Yes.”

“You have such power?”

“Yes.”

“What do we need to do?” he’d said, chewing thoughtfully, his head full of raging thoughts, of betrayal, and violence, and Empire. If King Zorkai did this, his name would crash through history for the next ten thousand years. He’d smiled and he’d chewed, Shanaz’s thigh meat caught between his teeth, her bubbling fat running into his beard.

In a low, husky voice, eyes glowing by the light of the fire, Orlana had said, “You must round up from Zak-Tan the ill, the lame, the crippled, the diseased, the slow of wit and slow of body; and you must bring together every second child. We must take these to the Mud-Pits. There, I will perform the Rites. There, we will summon the mud-orcs.”

“My people must suffer?”

“We must feed the Mud-Pits.”

“I cannot travel to the Mud-Pits. It is forbidden. The flesh will peel from my bones. Blood will pour from every orifice. I have seen this with my own eyes. The Mud-Pits are a place of evil. A place that is forbidden to mortal man.”

“I am not mortal,” whispered Orlana, “and you will have me by your side. You: the king. And I, your queen. Are you ready for this? Do you seek empire and immortality?”

“I do.”

“Then gather your people. It is time for them to die.”