The Iron Wolves (32 page)

Kiki awoke with a start. She’d been dreaming about her brother, who slipped a noose around his neck and stepped off a bench. The rope made a snapping sound as it cracked tight. At the top of the stairs she screamed, lurching forward to save him…

And she blinked.

Was it real? Did it happen?

Smoke curled from the embers of the fire. Kiki stared at the sleeping figures of Narnok and Trista. And then… Prince Zastarte, who stood, rapier drawn, his eyes gazing down into… the fire.

“No,” murmured Kiki, and leapt from her blankets, lurching across the short space and grabbing Zastarte as he stepped forward – into the flames. He blinked, and looked first at his rapier, then down into the glowing embers, then up at Kiki. Confusion flooded him and he rubbed his jaw, then his eyes, and coughed and stepped away from the fire.

“What was I doing?” he said. And he was like a child again. Lost, and lonely, and alone.

“You were going to burn,” said Kiki, gently.

“That makes sense.”

The others came awake. The night forest was, if anything, more ethereal and deeply frightening than during the wintry daylight, such as it was. The only light came from the slumbering fire. Orange ignited the features of the Iron Wolves. They stared at one another, like newborns, like amateurs, like the idiot naïve.

“What happens next?” whispered Trista.

“We get the fuck out of here,” said Kiki, voice level.

And the trees… groaned. For the first time in nearly three days the trees
spoke
to them. Branches shifted and creaked, leaves hissed, and the forest seemed to come – alive. Like snakes through grass, tree roots curled along the ground and Kiki danced back from several questing tendrils. Branches bowed as if blown by the wind, leaning down towards the group and Dek snarled, “This bastard place wants us, wants to keep us!”

And a high-pitched gibbering sound sailed between them, like an army of ghosts, like a battalion of the murdered.
Stay with us be with us play with us; we want you we need you, you are ours to see and touch and hold and taste and be with for evermore. Stay with us and play with us, you need us like nothing you ever needed before, you can feel our love and our understanding and our purity. Come and be a part of something bigger, something great, something eternal, an essence you could never understand, a calm place, a loving place, join with us, you can feel what it’s like on the other plains of reality… we praise the Equiem, and worship those who existed Before.

“No,” said Kiki, forcing growled words between stubborn lips.

And the sighs and joy and laughter turned to serpent hisses and groans and the cries of the tortured.

You WILL stay with us, fuckers, you will become a part of this place; for you have invaded our realm and the only way to survive our realm is to become a part of it, to exist here, to worship here and understand and become part of our Ancient Lore…

They came, from the darkness, the hung, the gouged, the cut, the bled, the poisoned, the dismembered, the sad, the necrotic, the dead, the dead, the dead, the dead. Moving slowly, many trailing the ropes of the noose, they advanced slowly from between the trees, coming from the darkness, hands outstretched, eyes white and blank and lifeless…

“No!” screamed Kiki, as all around her the Iron Wolves stood, motionless, unable to react, unable to do
anything.
And the slaughtered, the murdered, the suicide cases from the last hundred years emerged and tugged and nagged and muttered and persuaded…

Narnok stepped forward, axe slamming around, and a head was cut from stooped shoulders. There was no blood. The body collapsed, deflated, to the woodland floor. The spell was broken, and the Iron Wolves drew weapons and, back to back, faced this new enemy, this spirit of the woodland, these victims of a dark, invasive possession.

“We need to get to the horses,” growled Kiki.

The Drakka dead shuffled forward, gathering the coils of their nooses as weapons, and with a scream Kiki launched herself at the moaning, shuffling throng, sword slamming left and right cutting limbs and heads from bodies without blood, without screams, without emotion; like a fishmonger pares pale white fish flesh. It was quite the most sickening slaughter Kiki had ever delivered, and she felt like she wanted to puke. There was no joy in battle. No sense of bettering a foe. It was just sick. And sorrowful. And pathetic.

The others followed, weapons cutting left and right through the walking dead, a tunnel through the resurrected flesh of the forest until they reached their mounts and Zastarte, Dek and Trista formed an iron wall whilst Kiki and Narnok tied Dalgoran to his mount.

Then they leapt into saddles and were galloping through the gloom, panicked horses knocking aside the pale rotting bodies as their own panic started to rise. There were hundreds of forest corpses, and as they flashed past, stumbling from the depths of the dark woodland, Kiki started to see weapons in brown mottled hands: suicide blades, daggers which had been used to cut own throats or wrists or groin arteries. Her heart was in her throat. She wasn’t breathing. She knew to gallop down this dark trail was suicide in itself, and it would only take one fallen tree to bring them all collapsing down…

A figure loomed ahead, and Kiki leant forward in her saddle, over the neck of her mount, and slashed down a vicious strike with her own blade. The young, dead woman, with pale fish flesh and panther black hair, eyes purple rings, her throat gaping wide like a yellow second mouth, was bludgeoned aside and fell back into the forest to which she already belonged…

And then they were free, and no more came, and Kiki slowed her lathered mount and glanced back. The other Iron Wolves stared ahead, mouths grim, and they walked for a while.

As dawn was breaking over the Drakka, so they emerged from Sayansora alv Drakka and breathed deeply, like struggling swimmers coming up for air. Their mounts plodded up a hillside and they stopped at the summit, turning to look back on the sprawl of ancient forest behind.

Narnok dropped from his saddle, breathing deeply, and looked up at Kiki. “One day,” he said quietly, “I’m coming back here. I’ll bring a cart filled with barrels of lantern oil. I’m going to burn those poor, lost souls.”

Kiki nodded, but did not reply.

Exhaustion was her mistress, and Suza floated into her subconscious like a bobbing corpse on a river.

You were lucky, bitch.

“Oh yes?”

That place is… strange. It knows you. It wants you. It will hunt you down and see you become a part of its legend. It has tasted you, Kiki; you and the other Wolves. It will never rest until you are a part of it.

Kiki snorted a laugh. “Well, it’ll have to join the queue. I’ve got an army of mud-orcs and splice to wade through first. If I make it through that, then I’ll worry about some haunted fucking forest coming and knocking on my back door.”

As you wish, you dying cancer whore. But don’t say I didn’t warn you
…

Kiki glanced around at the others, then she pointed west towards the distant Mountains of Skarandos, visible even from this distance: massive, black, foreboding, peaks and upper flanks encased in ice and snow.

She imagined, for a moment, that she could hear the sounds of battle.

She imagined, for a moment, she could hear the noise of the screaming, the dying, the ring of steel on steel, iron on iron, the snarls of a feral enemy, the high pitched laughter of Orlana, the Changer, the Horse Lady…

In a cold, bleak voice, she said, “Wolves, mount up! Let’s ride.”

Reegez blocked a slash of claws, and the mud-orc’s face thrust towards his, fangs and tusks dripping saliva, the fetid breath blasting him like an evil wind from Hell. He staggered back under the sheer force of the blow, and the mud-orc’s axe lifted and battered down at him, his sword slamming up to block the blow which nearly forced him to his knees and sent pain searing through his spine. Again, the mud-orc lifted its axe, but Reegez back-handed his sword across its throat. Blood bubbled out of cut open flesh and it took a step back, eyes raging with hate. It dropped to one knee and Reegez kicked it in the face, then twitched left as a long, black spear thrust at him, the point inches from his right eye. An axe hit the wielder between the shoulder blades and the mud-orc went down, but on the blood-slippery ramparts it twisted, grabbing the Vagandrak warrior’s legs and dragging him down to the stone with it, where it pulled him into a bear-hug and bit off his screaming face. Reegez leapt forward, his own sword plunging into the creature’s eye, and heard a cry to his right. His head snapped round and he watched two mud-orcs with wicked curved swords hacking at Jagan, the former farmer desperately defending against the blows as he backed away towards the steps that led down to the killing ground between Sanderlek and Tranta-Kell. Reegez ran forward, slipping on blood, and wielding his sword double-handed, hacked it into the skull of the attacking mud-orc. It cried out, a high-pitched keening sound, but did not go down until Reegez hacked again. Jagan cut the throat of the beast before him, then stood there panting, blood dripping from his sword, his armour bathed in crimson, his face grey with exhaustion.

For a moment, they’d cleared the ramparts.

Reegez stared off down the length of Sanderlek and the tangle of bodies, both Vagandrak soldiers and attacking mud-orcs. He breathed deeply and watched several young men come forward with buckets and cups. He took one, thankfully, drinking most of it down then tipping the rest over his lank hair and rubbing his wet face. His hand came away smeared with blood.

“You look like a demon,” said Jagan, and gave a half-hearted grin.

“I feel dead inside.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”

“They’re breaking us, wearing us down,” said Reegez, bitterly.

“WELL DONE!” boomed Sergeant Dunda, striding along the battlements. “WE CAN HOLD, I PROMISE YOU. NOW READY YOURSELVES, THE BASTARDS ARE COMING BACK!”

“Great,” muttered Jagan staring up at the winter sun. It was past its zenith, but there was plenty more daylight left. Plenty more killing to be done. Plenty more dying to be done.

The archers ran forward with refreshed quivers and, as the mud-orc army roared and advanced, so shafts slashed through the air and punched hundreds from their feet. But still they came, like a great tide of insects, and the drums beat and beat and beat and Jagan clutched at his head, thinking he must surely go mad.

Reegez grabbed his shoulder. “Hold it together, brother.”

“I want to see my little girl again,” said Jagan, with tears in his eyes.

Reegez gave a simple nod. There was nothing he could say. No words to ease the pain.

The mud-orcs accelerated, and more ladders thumped against the wall, with hundreds of vicious iron spikes curving over the battlements, pulling tight against the parapets with squeals and sparks and injuring a few of the defenders in the process.

Jagan felt something take hold of his brain, and he felt a kind of madness descend upon him like a fallout of ash. It was like nothing he had ever felt before, nothing he’d experienced; he could suddenly feel the thump and echo of his own heartbeat in his chest and mind and taste salt on his lips and hear the drums pounding as if they would eventually pound in his skull. The mud-orcs were screaming and roaring and the Vagandrak soldiers were waiting in grim silence as final shafts were loosed, and the mud-orcs let out a terrifying bellow and came scrambling and leaping up the ladders like great agile cats, their claws raking stonework to be met at the summit by daggers and swords in eyes and brains, great warhammers and axes thudding down to knock them flailing and screaming all the way to the pile of corpses at the foot of Sanderlek.

“HOLD STEADY!” boomed Sergeant Dunda, and the words swirled around Jagan’s mind like a whirlpool of reverberating noises and a mud-orc appeared and he leapt forward, sword thrusting through its eyeball, and he saw the spittle on its lips heard the shrill cry of its curses and hate but it came on, claws grabbing the sword and trapping the blade inside its own head as Jagan was forced back by the sheer weight and ferocity of the creature, his boot slipping on blood-slippery stone and he went down, still gripping his sword pommel, the mud-orc forced atop him, its feet claws scrabbling at his lower legs tearing skin as it wrenched the sword from its own eye leaving a great gaping wound that dribbled blood and eye jelly down onto Jagan’s upturned face, and he was screaming, he realised, as the beast drooled over him, its claws slashing for his face. From the corner of his eye he saw Reegez battling two mud-orcs and he, too, went down under a flurry of claw slashes and Jagan’s head tilted left as claws raked his cheek, opening it like a zip, to clatter off the stone. Jagan’s hands came up, grabbing the mud-orc’s wrists and they locked for a few moments, struggling, with the beast’s fangs snapping and clashing in front of him and it forced towards him, muzzle straining to bite a hole through the middle of his face.

Red mist descended on him and the sounds of battle drifted and merged into a background hum, with no individual sounds. His entire world focused on this creature before him, atop him, its strength greater than his, its ferocity greater than his; and it was snapping and grinding and pushing and straining, he head-butted it suddenly, savagely, snapping a fang against his forehead, then butted it again as he twisted and squirmed, trying to throw it off, but those fangs came back so he dropped his head a little and pushed his head forward, teeth meeting its neck and he bit; he bit as hard and as deep as he could and the thrashing of the creature above him changed suddenly, from forcing itself forward to pulling itself away as Jagan tore out a mouthful of rancid bitter flesh like rubber and spat it aside, and the mud-orc screeched and he went in again, chewing into its throat as claws scrabbled against his breast-plate and leg-greaves, tearing one free to be cast back, clattering across the battlements between the legs of battling defenders. He bit down again, and as he held the creature by the throat he reached down, drawing a dagger from his boot and slamming it up and sideways into the mud-orc’s head. It froze, muscles spasming, locked tight above him. And then, as if it had turned to stone, the creature toppled sideways and lay still. Jagan rolled to his hands and knees, scrambled for his sword, stood and with a scream attacked, sword slamming left and right, hacking heads from bodies with neat precise powerful movements. He cut his way to Reegez, who had dispatched one mud-orc but was losing a savage swordfight to the second, and with a neat stroke Jagan split its head vertically in two, like chopping open a melon. The mud-orc froze, then dropped to both knees, curved sword falling from its fingers.

Reegez sighed a thank you, but Jagan was gone, cutting a path towards the battlements, a trail of heads and limbs behind him, the mud-orcs parting as his dazzling show of skill made them stumble back. A spear jabbed at him, but he batted it aside, blade cutting the throat of the mud-orc. Then he reached the battlements, and hacked off a clawed arm that was just reaching over. He leapt up onto the stone platform, gazing out over the swarm of creatures beneath him, and all he could picture at the heart of his red-mist madness was little Janna, sweet little Janna, at home with her mother, unaware her father battled for basic survival. To hold those fat little fingers again, to stroke her baby-soft skin, to kiss the crown of her head.

“COME ON!” he screamed at the army of mud-orcs. “COME ON AND FUCKING DIE!”

As if in response to his invitation, the enemy army surged forward.

Kiki and the Iron Wolves rode like the possessed, passing the shores of the Plague Ocean but avoiding the glittering, metallic waters lapping the distant shore. To drink the water was to die a horrible, painful death within a single minute, puking up lungs, stomach sack and bowel. It was not a good way to die. To sail on such an ocean was, by definition, an act of insanity, which resulted in the lapping waves taking an average of two to three hours to eat through the timbers of any hull… whereupon the ship sank and the entire crew died with their lungs ejecting in lumps from behind their melting teeth.

Again they rode, swapping mounts every hour, and had only made one stop to give General Dalgoran a hasty burial. It was a shallow grave in a grove of sycamores, and Kiki made a promise she would return with flowers and a headstone; if she survived.

Now, night had fallen, but the roads had improved and they halted at a tavern for a meal. It was quiet, the landlord a jovial, rotund fellow, but sporting a foul mood. He eyed the Iron Wolves with distaste and an unfriendly air as they removed heavy overcoats and seated themselves around a large, rectangular table of rough pine.

After ordering food and ales, the landlord returned with their drinks, once again eyeing the group suspiciously.

“You ride in from the west?” he asked.

“Aye. We came through Sayansora.”

The landlord made the sign of the Protective Cross. “You did well to walk from that place alive.”

“It was not a pleasant experience,” agreed Kiki. “Tell me, is there news from the Desekra Fortress?”

The landlord nodded, wiping his hands on a dirty rag. “The mud-orcs are there, killing the good men of Vagandrak. People from these parts have been fleeing north. Never has our war capital of Vagan had such an influx of refugees. Unfortunately, there are many terrors out on the night road.” His face was grim, eyes hooded.

“Mud-orcs?”

“And beasts, so I have heard tell. Creatures from nightmare. They have been roaming the countryside, killing men, women, children, dogs, pigs, whatever they can get their stinking claws into.” He looked shiftily to one side, then said, “Not King’s Guard, are you?”

“Mercenaries,” said Dek swiftly. “Beholden to no man, nor king.”

“It is said King Yoon and an army of thirty thousand have camped just north of the Bones. Yet he will not take his men to aid the defenders. Only a rumour, you understand,” he added swiftly, “but if you are seeking paid work, I am sure they will greet you like long lost brothers on those cursed walls!”

“Thank you,” said Kiki, tipping him, and taking a hefty drink.

“We can get there by the morning, if we ride all night,” said Narnok.

“Will we be welcome, is what’s praying on my mind.”

“Who’s in charge there?”

“Vorokrim,” said Kiki. “Or he was when Dalgoran rode out to reunite us.”

“And he’s loyal to Dalgoran?” said Dek.

“Yes. So I believe.”

“We’ll soon find out,” said Narnok, thanking the landlord as a large bowl of stew was placed before him.

“I’m sorry,” said the landlord. “Meat is in short supply, but the stew is good. My wife’s family recipe.”

They ate in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, and after tipping the landlord generously, headed back out to the stables where the ostler had rubbed down their mounts, giving them oats and placing blankets across their backs.

“You are leaving already?” said the man, small and ferret-featured, his eyebrows forming a frown.

“We are heading for Desekra Fortress,” said Kiki, placing her hand on the muzzle of her mount.

“These beasts are exhausted,” said the man.

“That may be so. But we are needed there… urgently.” She smiled.

“So be it. But I’m warning you, ride easy, or you’ll kill them.” He patted the beast’s flank. “These beasts are too noble to ride to death like that.”

They mounted up and left the small village behind, exiting on the western road towards the Mountains of Skarandos and the Bone Channel that would take them through a long, winding valley to the Pass of Splintered Bones.

Snow began to fall again.

Kiki huddled deep inside her cloak, thankful for the filling meal and the ale warming her belly.

The road was wide and well made, and the night stretched off into infinity. As they rode, Kiki thought about her life, her youth training with sword, bow and spear thanks to her father’s military aspirations; she thought about her mad sister, sane back then, normal then; she thought about Desekra Fortress, the Pass of Splintered Bones, and the sorcerer Morkagoth.

Morkagoth. That bastard.

He’d raised an army of mud-orcs through sacrifice and murder. Fed innocent people to the Old Gods, the Equiem, in exchange for an army summoned from the mud. Old magick. Evil magick. And in order to beat him, in order to send him screaming and begging back to the Furnace, a group of the best military minds, scholars and those who had studied not just the Equiem, but the old magick, came together and hatched a plan. A plan of magick… Or rather, what turned out to be a curse.

Nobody could get close enough to Morkagoth to deliver the killing blow. Not that a killing blow would actually sever him from life, but more likely, would open a portal or pathway of recognition – allowing the guardians of the Furnace to find him, to chain him, to drag him back to an eternal oblivion of torture and pain that was the Furnace.

And so the Iron Wolves had… been cursed.

They had welcomed it. Welcomed the power.

But then, what a curse it turned out to be…

Kiki smiled at that and drifted to thoughts of Suza – the bitch – then beyond, tranquil now, nostalgic, floating and gently happy as if taken by the heady fumes of drugsmoke found in the underground dens of Rokroth and Drakerath. And the honey-leaf.
Ahhh, joy
, the honey-leaf. Her eyes misted over and her mouth became dry. Gods, she missed it. Missed it like a child taken from her. Missed it like a lung ripped out. To take that precious leaf, and put it under her tongue, and allow it to slowly dissolve, thick juices carried by thicker saliva running down her throat. To feel that tingling in her fingertips and toes, gently spreading through hands and feet, accelerating into a rush of pure joy, pure orgasm, slamming through her veins and taking her spine in its fist and smashing her down into a well of total beauty total joy perfect harmony; an equilibrium with the stars and the people and the gods and the shit; a total understanding of the universe, of humanity, of life and death and love and death.

They rode on, through the night.

The vaults of Heaven were endless, and vast, the stars blotted out by heavy cloud.

The mountains loomed close.

Snow fell.

Kiki dreamed, and laughed, and reminisced. And realised, in a strange way, that this could be it. This
must
be it. What it felt like to realise,
finally
, one’s own mortality. At first she had been an incredible warrior. Then she’d been cursed in order to defeat Morkagoth; many, she knew, would have seen the ancient magick as a blessing; but she and the other Iron Wolves now knew what it was. No blessing, but a curse. A fucking
curse.
Increased strength, agility, speed, all wonderful, yes. They had become incredible warriors. Unbeatable. But then there had been

(
hush, my dear, it’s time to sleep)

the rest.

“Kiki,” said Dek, riding in close, and she snapped upright. “You were dozing. Falling asleep. Last thing we need is you toppling on your fat head and breaking your stupid neck.” He grinned like a young boy to take the sting from his words.

“Indeed,” she said, almost primly.

“How do you feel?”

“Like the weight of the world lies across my shoulders. Like the whole of Vagandrak is waiting with baited breath. Like it’s not my fucking problem.” She glanced at him, and smiled.

“Do you really think it’ll be like the last time?”

“With Morkagoth?” She considered this, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Dalgoran believed so, and he was one of the bastards who summoned our… curse. Our oblivion. He’d read the books. Studied the lore. Done the math. Ha! The old dead bastard.”

“I think you need a drink,” said Dek, and uncorked a small, steel hip-flask. He took a long draught, then handed it over, reaching across the pommel of his saddle, which creaked.

Kiki took it and knocked back a large drink. Then she choked as fire exploded in her mouth, throat and belly. She handed the flask back, eyes watering, and coughed again. “What, in the name of the Seven Sisters,
is that
?”

“They call it Zunder Fire. ‘Made with the lava from the Great Volcano!’” he quoted, and chuckled. “Hits the spot, right? I bought it back at the tavern. Thought it might warm our bellies against the snow.”

“Warm our bellies? I think it’s burned out my insides.”

“It has that effect as well, yes. How do you feel about the coming battle?”

“The mud-orcs?”

“Yes.”

“Tired. Lost. Alone. Dalgoran’s dead and, to be honest, Dek, the whole world no longer feels real. This whole thing? It feels like… a dream. Like I’ve smoked a bowl, chewed the honey-leaf, and I’m still fucking dreaming two weeks later. But you know what the worst thing is?”

“Go on.”

“I don’t want to wake up. I want the dream to go on and on and on, and unto death.”

Dek considered this. “What you need is a man.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?”

“I don’t mean rutting beneath the blankets, girl. I mean a lover. A friend. A husband.” He stared at her.

The humour fell from her face. “I’m dying from a tumour inside my chest, alongside my heart,” she snapped. “Last thing I need is some back-stabbing bastard breaking the other half.”