The Iron Wolves (29 page)

“Ragorek!” screamed Dek, as the Iron Wolves attacked the beast… weapons raised and hacking down with ferocity and need.

“Take it alive!” bellowed Kiki over the melee, and the Iron Wolves hacked at the splice, cutting at limbs as Dalgoran pulled a coil of rope from his pack and tossed it to Kiki. Amongst the scattered fire they battled and bludgeoned the splice, cutting free all four limbs in a frenzy of slamming sword and axe strikes… until it lay there, panting, single remaining dark insect eye fixed on them, glistening, intelligent, understanding…

Dek ran to Ragorek and crouched by the man, crouched by his brother. Ragorek was breathing fast and shallow, staring down at the limb like a thick spear inside him. He looked up at Dek and understanding passed between the two men. Ragorek was dying, and dying fast. There was no way Rag was walking away from a wound like that; to pull the limb free would be to unplug a river that would empty him like a bucket gushing free.

Dek held out his hand, and Ragorek took it in the warrior’s grip. His grip was awesomely tight and he grimaced at Dek, blood frothing at his lips.

“I’m sorry, brother.”

“I know, brother.”

“I never meant it to end like this. Between us, I mean.”

“I know that as well.”

“I don’t want to die with us full of hate.”

Dek lowered his head and looked at the ground, and Ragorek realised the pugilist was crying. His head lifted slowly and through his tears, Dek growled, “I forgive you, Ragorek. Anything I said before, I said it in anger. All those hot words of fury, I cast them away. You’re my brother and blood is thicker than water. We sent her away together, my friend, and at the end of the day, I reckon that’s enough.”

Ragorek nodded, and his head tipped forward a little. More blood frothed at his beard.

“I’m so thirsty,” he croaked, and Kiki was there, passed Dek a canteen. Dek allowed water to dribble inside Rag’s mouth, and he spluttered for a moment, then drank a few swallows.

He looked up suddenly, eyes bright and feverish. “It’s gone dark, Dek. Why’s it gone dark?”

“The clouds have covered the moon,” said Dek, squeezing his brother’s hand. “Don’t worry, mate. I’m here. And soon the sun will be out.”

“Good. I… like the… sunshine.”

Dek nodded, holding his brother’s hand as he had held his mother’s, watching his brother die as he had watched his mother die, and a great and massive weight moved slowly down through him, like ink poured into water; like a devil gnawing through his soul.

“I’m here for you, Ragorek. Just like you were there for me. When we was kids. Remember that mine shaft? I fell down that, sat in the dark for a full day until you found me and rescued me. I’d be dead if it hadn’t been for you.”

“Yes. I remember.” He smiled, a weak smile rimed with pink froth.

“Somebody’s coming. Across the black desert.”

Dek gritted his teeth, muscles squirming along his jaw. “Who is he?”

“He’s wearing black armour, and a black helm, and rides a huge black stallion with no eyes.”

“Bring him here, brother, I’ll kill him for you.”

“My sword, I need my sword!” screamed Ragorek, suddenly, hands scrabbling, and Dek grabbed the man’s blade and pressed the pommel into Rag’s quivering fingers. His hands curled around the weapon and he relaxed back with a deep sigh.

Then his eyes closed.

And his breathing stopped.

Dek sat, holding his hand for a long, long time, until Kiki put her hand on his shoulder. “Dek?”

“Hm?”

“Dek, we have the splice. Thought you might like a chat with the twisted bastard?”

“Oh. Yes.”

Reluctantly, he released Ragorek’s hand and stood, stretching his mighty chest. Then he turned and looked down the corridor of rock, to where they’d dragged the splice and bound what was left of the creature more tightly.

Dek strode towards the beast, Kiki close behind, and he pulled free a knife and knelt beside it.

“You killed my brother,” he said, breathing harsh.

“It is the consequence of battle,” said the splice, great jaws working hard to pronounce human sounds; the sight of this beast speaking seemed unreal. Surreal. Impossible even.

“Well, now you will give us some answers.”

The splice stared at him from that one remaining insect-like eye. “As you wish,” it rasped, then its jaws worked soundlessly, drooling. It squirmed a little bit, but Narnok had been excessive with the ropes and the knots.

“Who sent you?”

“You already know, little man. I told you.” Its pincers clicked together several times, tongue lolling within its mouth.

“Remind me.”

“The Horse Lady.”

“Orlana,” said Dalgoran, stepping forward and crouching beside Dek. “She is known as Orlana the Changer; also the Horse Lady, because she takes horses and uses the old magick. She turns them into beasts like
this.
”

Dek nodded. “How many of you are there?”

The splice’s eye met Dek’s, then shifted to Dalgoran. “You are too late. We are coming.”

“How many?” growled Dalgoran.

“Mud-orcs? Fifty thousand. A hundred, maybe. We are still growing, you petty, shitty little human.” It cackled, thick tongue like a black sausage rolling around within the cage of its massive jaws. “And there are thousands of splice. We will riot over your walls. We will crush your army. We will ransack your world. There is nothing you can do, human.”

“You will hit Desekra Fortress?”

The splice grinned at Dalgoran. “In days. If we are not already there. How does it feel to be a member of a soon extinct nation? An extinct species?”

Dek weighed the knife thoughtfully. “How do we kill Orlana?”

The splice’s mouth lolled, and it did not answer. That eye was watching the knife.

“I can make your death last for days,” said Dek.

“Do what you wish,” said the splice.

Dalgoran put his hand on Dek’s arm. “I know of Orlana. She is a creature of the Furnace. Like Morkagoth, killing her will not be easy.”

“You talk of your own magick,” rumbled the splice, and Dek stood and reached towards Narnok, who frowned, then nodded in understanding and handed the pit fighter his huge, double-headed axe.

“And how do you know of
our
magick?” said Dalgoran, voice stiff.

The splice grinned again, a most terrifying sight. “Orlana knows of you, Iron Wolves. And she knows of your… talent. She knows of your
threat
. She knows of your
curse.
We have been sent to kill you. To remove you from the equation.”

Dek rolled his shoulders. “You said ‘we’?”

“I am the first. More will follow. You will see. I was the test. I am one of the weakest.”

Dek glanced sideways at Dalgoran, who gritted his teeth in a snarl. “Make it quick. We ride for Desekra Fortress at the Pass of Splintered Bones.”

The axe smashed down, cleaving the splice’s skull in two.

The Iron Wolves did not bury Ragorek, but instead collected rocks which they piled about his body, after first removing the splice’s claws and throwing the limb onto the fire. More rocks piled up until only Rag’s face remained, and Dek lifted a large, rough-edged chunk of black volcanic rock, staring down into Rag’s features, relaxed now in death.

“Goodbye, brother. Rest well in the Hall of Heroes.”

Then he covered his brother’s face, and the man was gone.

The Iron Wolves rode hard, for long, long hours. Using the mounts from the pursuing guards killed by Dek and Narnok, they were able to swap between horses every couple of hours, resting one group of mounts whilst pushing themselves on without sleep.

Thankfully, the snow had stopped falling, but the world was a cold, bitter place, every tree and rock and wooded hollow and rolling grassland peppered with a thin scattering of snow or ice. The wind howled mournfully over moorland and shivering grass, a sorrowful sound of death and desolation.

Hooves cracked icy puddles and streams, and the following dawn saw them strung out in single file, tired, riding in silence, by instinct, each man and woman lost in their thoughts.

They were angling south and west now, towards what was known as the Drakka, Old Drak, a deserted and supposedly haunted city, and the shores of the Plague Ocean beyond. This would then cut them west, fast, taking a narrow path through the eastern arm of the Mountains of Skarandos, to emerge in the Pass of Splintered Bones where they could finally travel the rocky, bone-strewn valley floor, to join their comrades at Desekra Fortress.

Dalgoran was looking older than ever, hunched inside his cloak against the cold. Kiki rode in grim silence, the weight of Ragorek’s death like a chain of guilt about her. If it hadn’t been for their mission to reunite the Wolves, then Ragorek would never have died. That sort of shit always burned her worse than any brand.

Narnok rode next, axe across his lap, scarred face up and stern and focused, the milky eye in his face giving him an even more savage look. Ragorek’s death had not touched him, for he had seen many men die – many in far worse ways. But Dek’s pain touched him. After all, once
they
had been brothers. Now, brothers in hate, but still brothers. Then came Zastarte, his mood curiously dampened, his thoughts dark and old and lingering. Trista rode in silence, shivering against the cold despite her woollen clothes and fur-lined leather cloak. Her features were deathly pale, icy, and asleep she could easily be mistaken for a corpse. A beautiful one, but a corpse nonetheless.

Finally rode Dek, lost in distant dreams of childhood, his mind flooded with memories of an older brother he had looked up to for so long, despite the constant jibes, and jokes, and his apparent annoyance at every question Dek had ever asked, his enquiring mind simply eager for knowledge and, more importantly, acceptance.

They had not been the closest of brothers, and after their father had died Ragorek had taken Dek under his wing – or so Dek thought. But it soon became apparent that his eager questions, despite their innocence and good meaning, were an annoyance to his older brother, and so Dek had shifted inside himself, becoming more and more introverted. His moods had darkened, and at school he’d started getting into more and more fights, brought on by his bitterness at isolation, the death of his father, and the useless wreck his mother had become. He still loved her dearly, but his father’s death had hit her hard, and she was barely a use to herself, never mind her fifteen year-old son. And so Dek had glided further and further from the right path, getting into more fights – most of which he won, until he started training hard, running, lifting rocks, putting himself about the village doing heavy lifting tasks, chopping wood, anything to earn a little money and simultaneously increase his strength and speed and fitness. Soon, he did not lose any fights. Soon, he’d made a name for himself and the big boys from other villages came looking for him. He broke them all, sometimes savagely, until one day a visit from the City Guard and a threat of tossing him into the dungeons and losing the key made him start to think of his future. Where was he going? He couldn’t keep breaking noses and cheekbones, coming home with bloody knuckles and broken fingers. A kindly City Guard captain, Captain Horsell, had taken him to one side and given him a good hard talking to. He said a young man with Dek’s…
enthusiasm
should channel that energy into something positive. He suggested the army, under King Tarek. Said he’d even write the young man a glowing reference, because he’d known Dek’s father and Dek was a good person at heart. Horsell said it was a shame how some things turned out, and without a father, Dek needed guidance.

The next day, Dek had signed up. Been taken in as a grunt, a foot soldier, and quickly stood out not just as adept, but as a natural born warrior; a natural born killer. He’d been propelled forward until Dalgoran noticed him. And the rest was history.

Now, with the threat of Orlana and the mud-orcs and splice hanging over them like a heavy pendulous blade, it almost felt as if they were riding together on one last final desperate mission.

To help save Vagandrak. To help save their souls.

Darkness was falling fast as the Iron Wolves breached a massive hill, and looked down over the vast sprawl of Sayansora alv Drakka. Nearly twenty leagues wide in places, much more in some as it spread south towards the Plague Lands, this dense, vast forest ran from the southern edges of the Rokroth Marshes all the way through Vagandrak, until it effectively blocked any passage between the Plague Ocean and the Plague Lands. From north to south, the Drakka was probably a hundred leagues in total, and the core of the forest was rumoured to be at least a thousand years old, with massive ash, beech and oak forming many sections which were truly impassable, along with a proliferation of
stinga,
large, nasty thorn bushes which could cause serious allergic reactions in people. There were three main roads through the Drakka, although it wasn’t the roads that were the problem.

Sayansora alv Drakka was silent. It was lifeless. Nothing stirred or moved in the vast places filled with ancient trees. No squirrels gathered nuts, no wolves prowled for prey, no birds sang and twittered.

Sayansora alv Drakka. The Drakka.

The Sea of Trees.

The Suicide Forest.

It was not a place for the delicate, the mentally unstable, or the spiritual. It was spoken in hushed whispers that the Drakka was a haunted place; haunted by the angry spirits of those trapped by their own suicide hands.

Kiki shivered.

“It looks dangerous,” observed Trista, squirming a little in the saddle.

“It is dangerous,” said Kiki, turning to look at her old friend and comrade-in-war. She smiled at the pale woman. “You’ll be fine. With me.”

“I was thinking more about the danger to the
bandits
,” said Trista, offering a cold smile, colder than the grave.

“Bandits are not the problem,” said Kiki slowly. “There are three roads through, but none are troubled by outlaws or brigands. Nothing lives down there. Nothing at all.”

They sat, staring, for a long time.

“It’s totally silent,” said Trista, eventually.

“Yes.”

“Why do no birds sing? Why no sighing of trees?”

“The birds and the wind choose to ignore this place. I don’t know why.”

“I don’t bloody like it,” muttered Narnok, moving his horse forward. The beast seemed a little skittish and stomped its hooves. “It’s a bad place. A place of ghosts.”

“You’ve been here before?” asked Trista.

Narnok nodded, milky eye seemingly fixed on the dreamy, silent world below. “We made it halfway through before two of our party… well, one man cut his own wrists, and a woman called Annabel – she disappeared. It took us three hours to find her. She’d hanged herself from a twisted old oak.” Narnok drifted into silence.

“So, it is a haunted place, then?” said Zastarte. “I have heard rumours, of course, but one casts such things aside as waffle and dribble from those who’ve partaken of too much port and brandy.” His smile was weak.

“Maybe. But still we must go through.” Kiki bared her teeth in a skull grin. “We’ll lose days if we have to head back north to circle the forest
and
the Rokroth Marshes. We have very little choice if we want to arrive at Desekra before the bastard mud-orcs invade.”

“You still harbouring that dream, sweetie?” said Trista.

“As long as you consider the dream a nightmare, then yes.”

“I’ve heard of this place,” said Dek suddenly. “The Sea of Trees. It’s spoken that when you sleep, the tree roots come to life and strangle you before retreating, leaving your death a mystery. And hundreds come here every year to take their own lives.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Trista, dreamily. One hand had lifted, fingers entwining with her golden curls. Her eyes glittered like misty diamonds. “They must have been very unhappy with their lives to even contemplate such an act.”

Dek shrugged. “I don’t know. But why kill yourself, when there’re plenty of other bastards willing to put a knife in your belly?”

“Still. It has a certain… romanticism to it, don’t you think?”

“What?” snorted Dek. “Being found six months later, your body rotted away to bones and skin and dust, old shit still in your pants, your eyes eaten by the fucking birds? No. I’ll die on a battlefield, thank you.”

Suddenly, Dalgoran toppled from his saddle and hit the ground hard. The Iron Wolves kicked from their mounts and crouched around him. Narnok tossed aside his axe and stooping, lifted the general in his arms. “He’s frozen. Let’s find a hollow in the lee of this hill, build a fire, get some hot food into him.”

They moved swiftly, working together. Dek galloped off to the edges of the forest with a spare mount, collecting wood which he piled onto the saddle before tying it tight with rope. Arriving back, he found the others had dug in two poles and made a lean-to with the tarpaulin. Dalgoran was lying on blankets and coughing harshly as Dek arrived, stripping the wood from the spare mount and tossing it to Narnok, who was building a fire in a ring of stones.

Kiki knelt beside Dalgoran, who was trembling, before he went into another coughing fit. When Kiki glanced around, her face was sombre.

“What is it?”

Kiki showed Dek a white cloth which was soiled with blood. She tipped water from her canteen onto the cloth, dabbing it at Dalgoran’s mouth. His face was pale and drawn, and when his eyes opened they seemed very, very old.

“You understand, don’t you?” he said, softly.

“Of course I do,” murmured Kiki. “Lie back, get some rest.”

“There is only one way to avoid criticism, Kiki; do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. I cannot stand back and let evil flood the world in the guise of the mud-orcs; in the name of Orlana. I cannot be that man.” He gripped her arm. “You do understand?”

“Yes. Shh. Lie back now. Get some rest.”

Away from the old general, the Iron Wolves gathered in a small circle. Narnok looked off down the hill, towards Sayansora alv Drakka. Everything was still and completely silent. The forest seemed to give off an ancient, brooding atmosphere.

“Tomorrow,” said Kiki, placing her hand on Narnok’s arm.

“If he lives,” said Narnok.

“If he lives,” agreed Kiki.