The Iron Wolves (24 page)

Captain Zelt of the Timanta City Guard looked up from his desk as Feest, one of his men, entered. Feest’s eyes were gleaming. A single candle burned, and outside snow fell. The wind howled outside the single pane of glass.

“We’ve found him,” said Feest.

“You’re sure?”

“A whore heard a cry and looked out of her window. She saw a man matching Zastarte’s description lift what looked like a body from his carriage and carry it down into a cellar under a shop on Fish Market Lane.”

“To hide the smell.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Get the men together.”

“All of them?”

“All of them. We’re going to hang this bastard. All we need is evidence, no matter how weak. You and I both know he’s guilty.”

Feest stared into Zelt’s eyes and did not see justice there. No, this was way too personal; it had been going on for far too long. Young men and women, sons and daughters of the wealthy in Timanta, had been disappearing for nearly a year now. There were sixteen cases of missing persons and not one body had been found. However, in the last month the numbers of abductions had increased; as if the kidnapper, or indeed killer, was getting greedy. Or overconfident. Whatever, there was massive pressure on Captain Zelt and his men to catch the bastard. And not just catch him. The clamour of the wealthy demanded serious payback.

“Let’s go. And warn the men. This Zastarte, he’s one dangerous fucker.”

“What shall we do we when get him?”

There was a moment of pure, unspoken understanding.

“Let’s just say he can’t be allowed to leave the building with his heart still beating in his chest.”

The raven circled high on the air currents, gliding under a cold, vast, blue dome of sky. Its glossy black feathers glowed beneath a winter sun, and its black eyes were like glass, observing the world below it, a huge gameboard spread out for its sole entertainment.

It gave an echoing croak and changed direction, dropping a little and giving slow, flowing wing beats. To the north the mountains reared, distant and massive, the rock black, peaks white and cloaked in a single massive layer of mist that stretched away across the world. The raven croaked again, and circled, dropping in height. Its eyes fixed on the plains to the south and the far northern city of Pajanta Kin. Thick black columns of smoke still rose, and the raven could make out fires burning. It could not miss the destruction; the whole city burned.

And from the south came a slow flood of darkness oozing across the land. Like ants, they progressed across the gameboard, watched by the raven with nothing more than idle curiosity. There were thousands of them, marching at a steady pace. There were tens of thousands: mud-orcs in mismatched armour and bearing rough-forged weapons. They did not march with any structure; there were no ranks or units, just an untidy straggle seemingly as wide as the horizon and many ranks deep.

The raven flapped towards the seething mass in the distance, like giant insects that had overrun the huge city of Pajanta Kin and absorbed its citizens into their own numbers, growing them massively; and onwards they came. Marching, marching, boots stomping the hard barren earth as they headed ever north.

The raven blinked, black eyes moving past the mud-orcs. If it could have counted numbers, it would have realised they had swelled their ranks, and were now close to one hundred and sixty thousand green-skinned beasts. And behind them came the splice, galloping disjointed, most either swollen, distorted horses, some a mix of horse and man; or a few other clusters where Orlana had used her shapeshifting magick on wolves, or bears: huge broad-shouldered lumbering monstrosities with tufts of orange and black fur and muzzles twice the length of a normal bear with hooked crooked black teeth. In total, Orlana’s army neared two hundred thousand creatures, and they moved across the land like a plague of insects, taking everything, destroying everything, creating nothing.

The raven beat its wings, heading high above the marching army. It stank, and the raven gave a final croak, eyes gleaming. The raven was intelligent enough to know that when an army travelled, it was often followed by battle. And after every battle, it was time for the raven to gorge.

Zorkai slumbered, and awoke with a start to see Orlana, her head resting on one hand, propped up on her elbow, as she watched him. He licked his lips. Fear was an ever-present shadow, like a stain across his soul, but he tried to pacify it with thoughts of conquest and victory and immortality and strength and power. Somehow, there was always an imbalance. Somehow, he never felt pure.

Orlana was naked beneath the thick silk sheets, and Zorkai’s eyes travelled down. One breast was exposed, small and firm and pale white, like delicate porcelain. She saw him look, and he quickly transferred his gaze. Orlana’s sexual appetite was insatiable, and Zorkai’s lust and strength and stamina were prodigious; and yet… and
yet
after every single act, he could not help but feel a little bit – dirty. Not dirty in a sexually frisky sense; but in a purely physical one, as if a fine oil residue was left covering his entire body after the act. An oily film of perversion he could never, ever wash free.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, suddenly, voice low and melodious.

“I am thinking our army is massive beyond belief.”

“And still it grows.”

“For how long?”

“Until I have enough.”

“For what?”

Orlana smiled, then, and reached forward, kissing his head as she would a simple child. “You do not need to worry yourself about such matters; soon we will be at the Pass of Splintered Bones and we will smash the Desekra Fortress. Even now I have splice and mud-orcs crossing the mountains by treacherous, hidden paths; many hundreds will not succeed, but enough
will;
and these will hunt down those I know oppose me. These will work to open the Desekra gates from the inside.”

“This I know,” said Zorkai.

“Come here, my lover.” She leant forward and kissed him, and he returned the kiss. But he was getting tired. Not just physically, or sexually; but in his soul.

“I have a question.”

“Nothing more dangerous than a man who thinks.”

“Ha! You think I built my own fucking empire by not using my mind? You think I murdered my brothers and sisters, my cousins and their cousins, without having a single element of strategy in my body? You frighten me. Yes, I know that you know. And yet you thrill me, also, and your promises are an incredible drug; not promises that I trust, but a heady drug aroma which entices me on for more and more and more. I am not a stupid man, Orlana. I see your power. I watch your army. I recognise I was a puppet that helped get things started; and I will be faithful and true to you for as long as I live, for yes, I am a vain man, yes I am in love with power and an eternal line for my children. I know you can achieve your dreams, Orlana; but I cannot help you do this, and secure my place by your side, if I do not know what those dreams really are!”

Orlana considered his words. She looked at him in a new light.

She reached out, fingers curling around a fine stem of crystal and drinking deeply of the strong red wine within.

“Very well,” she said, finally. “Ask your questions. And I will not patronise you. I will treat you like a man. I will treat you like a general. I will treat you like a king.”

“You have built a massive army. There are paths over the mountains; you do not need to take the fortress. And yet I think it is faster to take the fortress than risk the high passes. Correct?”

“Yes. Go on.”

“Why Vagandrak? You do not need this land. What do you seek?”

“I seek to pass through.”

“On a road to where? To what treasure?”

“I seek to travel the Plague Lands.”

“Why?”

“There are three long deserted cities. Ratad, KaCarca and Eyusdan-Fall.”

“What lies in these cities?”

“A terrible weapon,” said Orlana, her voice low, eyes hooded. She drank again from the crystal; wine stained her lips, which glistened crimson, as if tainted by blood.

“But this is a race? Against time?”

“There is a time element, yes,” said Orlana softly. “And I also need to continue to build the army. To expand. The people of Vagandrak will act as fodder for my mud-orcs. A genetic base. Food for creation. We will expand until there is no room left for us… and then…”

“Yes…?”

“I cannot speak now. My enemies are great. My enemies are terrible. To even think the thought is to risk annihilation.” She stood and glided naked to the tent’s flap, which she snapped back. The mud-orc camps spread away as far as the eye could see, hundreds and thousands of camp fires, burning, roasting meat, roasting human meat, boiling bones and eyes in huge cauldrons, talking in guttural growls.

Zorkai stepped up behind her, pressing in close, his hand tracing a curve down her spine. She shivered and he smiled. It made her seem more human, although he knew deep in his heart that she was not.

“So, the people of Vagandrak, they are just an obstacle?”

“Yes. We will smash Desekra Fortress and finish the business Morkagoth could not.”

“There will be many deaths,” said Zorkai, his heart filling with sadness for the days of blood and horror to come.

“You all die eventually,” said Orlana, without emotion, and turned, returning to the silk sheets.

Torquatar held up his fist and the riders thundered to a halt behind him. Night was falling, and they were far from home, tired to the bone, their mounts exhausted, but General Vorokrim Kaightves had been most explicit in his instructions after receiving the message from King Yoon. The general’s face had paled just a little beneath his thick blond beard, and his ice eyes had turned on Torquatar and the five other cavalry captains gathered in the high draughty chamber at the Keep of Desekra Fortress.

“The King assures us there is nothing to worry about,” rumbled Vorokrim, his face like carved stone, his eyes hard, his vocal inflections offering nothing beyond the facts of his actual words. “He is adamant there is no army of mud-orcs advancing on our fortress, despite many messages from panicked merchants fleeing the south and seeking shelter beyond our walls and beyond our fortress. King Yoon…
reassures
us that all communications with King Zorkai of Zakora are friendly and in place, and that nothing untoward is about to occur. He says we are not at war. He claims all stories to the contrary are simply wild rumours spread by unsympathetic agitators intent on destabilising his monarchy.”

Vorokrim’s eyes swept the men before him. All good men. Strong men. Men who had proved themselves time and again in skirmishes against Zorkai’s warriors in what was a never-ending border war, perpetuated not because of necessity, but down to the pride of the warrior-hearts of Zorkai’s tribesmen.

Ineilden coughed into his gauntleted fist. “With all due respect, General Vorokrim, the King’s assurances seem…
poorly researched
, and thus perhaps flawed, in the current climate of panic spread by merchants seeking shelter in Vagandrak.”

Vorokrim considered this.

“In this missive,” he gestured with the crumpled parchment in his fist, “King Yoon expressly forbids us sending out scouts to the south. He states he is in delicate talks with Zorkai over the future of our borders, and that he does not wish our foolhardy headstrong riders to incite an incident that could jeopardise his talks.”

He allowed that to sink in.

“So, the King forbids any men travelling south?” said Ineilden, voice and eyes guarded.

“Exactly so,” said Vorokrim.

“Then, what do we do?” rumbled Elmagesh, running a hand through his long, sweat-streaked hair. His dark armour gleamed by the light coming through the keep’s archer slits. Outside, the grey light was fading fast.

“Obviously, I hereby forbid any of you to head south on a scouting mission. I forbid you to take your pick of the finest mounts from the stables, and to take your pick from the men available. We only have ten thousand left after King Yoon disbanded three quarters of the standing force.”

He gave a narrow smile.

“What is our expressly forbidden mission, then?” rumbled Elmagesh.

“You have three days,” said Vorokrim, “to
not
search out any possible enemy mud-orc movements. On this mission that does not exist, I would advise you do not engage any possible hostiles unless absolutely necessary. And of course, any information on possible advancing numbers, if indeed there are any, would be treated in a strictly confidential manner.”

“When would you like us not to leave?” grinned Ineilden.

“I would like you not to leave immediately,” said Vorokrim, eyes hard. Then he softened. “I love you all, like brothers; may the gods smile on your mounts, your sword arms and your children.”

“Mounts, sword arms, children,” intoned the men, and left the high room of the keep one by one.

Finally, General Vorokrim Kaightves was left alone. He moved to a slit in the thick stone and peered down at the long sections of killing ground between each wall, and then out, past the seemingly impenetrable fortress to the vast expanse of plains beyond, dotted with jagged rocks.

Silently, his servant Moshkin approached. “A drink, General?”

“Thank you.”

“You think they will not succeed?”

The general barked a laugh. “I know they
will
succeed. And that, my friend, is the problem.”

Now, they had found the mud-orcs. They were camped across the horizon as, in the far distance, the city of Pajanta Kin burned. And it was a big city. A
vast
city.

Hell, thought Torquatar with bitterness, sadness and a low-level, impending horror. Camped across the horizon? They
are
the horizon. His blood was chilled. Never had he seen so many campfires, never mind campfires belonging to a mud-orc enemy horde. Their dark shadows moving around the flames were the stuff of nightmares.

Covertly, the Vagandrak men returned to their mounts and rode hard and fast north. But they’d been spotted, and mud-orc units sent in pursuit.

“Captain, they’re circling us.”

“Wedge formation. We will ride fast.”

“
They’re
moving fast.”

“I
know
that,” hissed Captain Torquatar.

They rode hard for another twenty minutes, until their horses were about to keel over and die there on the hard-baked plains of northern Zakora. The men dismounted and walked their mounts for a while under a bloated yellow moon which filled the plains with a ghostly, ethereal light.

“It feels like we are dead and walk the shadow world of ghosts,” said Xubadar, shivering.

“Thank you for sharing that,” grumbled Torquatar.

“They’re coming!” screamed one man, drawing free his sword. And they saw the enemy up close for the first time. The mud-orcs, numbering perhaps a hundred, had crept along a low ridgeline of rocks which formed the lower foothills leading to the Mountains of Skarandos. Now they had managed to get ahead, and were streaming out from the rocky cover, forming a wide line, three ranks deep, axes and notched swords at the ready.

“Mount up!” bellowed Torquatar and, alongside Ebodel, formed the point of the wedge. They unhitched lances, and kicked their mounts into a wild charge under the yellow moon, hooves galloping across the dusty, near-frozen plain, moonlight making it difficult to spot uneven ground and holes that would break a mount’s leg.

Bravely, the Vagandrak cavalry charged an enemy four times their size.

As they came close, Torquatar heard the growling, the muttering, the slobbering. He saw the dark gleaming eyes, the spools of saliva, the twisted inhuman faces, the slashes of red through green skin like opened crimson wounds. They seemed not like a hundred mud-orcs, but like a thousand with razor-edged swords waiting under the yellow moon, the terrible moon, to rip and tear and slash and kill.

“KILL THEM!” bellowed Torquatar as they thundered towards the enemy, and the mud-orcs broke into a ragged charge and the two forces raced towards one another under the moon, smashing together with an unmistakable crash and cacophony of metal on metal, metal slicing flesh, hoof beats, cries, noises of shocked surprise and an element of chaos, always an element of chaos when foes collide; Torquatar slammed his lance point into a mud-orc’s face and blood splattered him and he caught sight of the twisting snarling features up close but then he was amongst them, and his sword slashed up and clear, then down and bloody into a snarling face. He blocked a low cut and back-handed his sword across a black/green throat, horse still ploughing onwards with the speed and weight of the charge. He cut a head from a body and then he was free, free of the mud-orcs and the weight of the cavalry forced through and swords slammed and smashed up and down, staining the dry desert plains with orc blood. Axes and swords crashed into men and horses in retaliation sending squeals echoing out across the plain, but then the Vagandrak cavalry unit were through and galloped hard across the baked earth, only slowing another mile away where Torquatar turned in his saddle and peered across the eerie, moonlit plain.

The mud-orcs were not in pursuit.

“Dismount!” bellowed the captain, and the men thankfully slid wearily from saddles. Many were splattered with blood. Many had haunted eyes.

“Captain!” saluted Sauo, approaching.

“How many did we lose?”

“Six, captain. Along with their mounts. Eight wounded, but they can still fight.”

Torquatar gestured for his men to gather round. “You did well today, my friends. We had the first taste of the enemy.”

“Tell that to the dead! Yoon has a fucking lot to answer for!”

“No, what is important here is we
know
the enemy are approaching: fact. And more. We know they are closer than we could have imagined. Yes, the dead do not appreciate this information; but their families will when we petition Yoon for more soldiers and stand strong on the walls of Desekra Fortress. Now, no more talk that makes me think of deserters and sacrilege; we will walk our mounts for a half hour, then head back to the fortress. We have the information General Vorokrim Kaightves did not request.”

“Are we at war, then?” shouted one soldier.

Torquatar waved his hand. He was tired. Tired to his bones. He smiled a grim smile. “Let’s just say, if we are not, within a matter of days the blood will start to flow.”