Wrath of Kerberos (32 page)

Beside himself and the wizard Keldren, all that remained of their party were Katya, Zac, Kelos, Dunsany and Emuel. Just seven people to venture to the World’s Ridge Mountains and there face a dragon, along with whatever else lurked amongst those forbidding peaks. As a child, Silus had been told many tales of the horrors that lurked at the edge of the world, and he hoped that none of them were true. But no matter the risk, they must try and get back home. Kelos had told him all that Keldren had revealed about Hel’ss and, remembering Illiun’s stories of the entity – the terrible god that had ravaged their world – he knew that they must return to their own time and warn the Final Faith about what was coming. Perhaps, Silus considered, he could use his ability to commune with Kerberos in the fight against this last remnant of the pantheon. Twilight might not be much, just a small peninsula surrounded by impassable seas, but he would fight to his last breath to save it. If that meant communing with Kerberos again, after all that he had learned concerning the true nature of the deity, then so be it.

Keldren took out a large sheet of blank paper from a pocket in his robes and placed it on the ground, weighting it with stones to prevent it from blowing away. Next he extracted a small bottle of ink and a pen, and inscribed all of their names upon the parchment, surrounding the writing in strange, arcane symbols.

“The ink is that of the chasm squid,” Kelos confided in Silus. “It has unique properties that will make the translocation that much smoother. Really, you’ve no idea how fascinating it is for me to see a practitioner such as Keldren at work.”

Silus would have shared in his friend’s enthusiasm, were it not for the memories of the pain the elf wizard had inflicted upon him in the course of his experiments. But Kelos trusted him, and that was what mattered.

Emuel didn’t appear quite so convinced by the wizard’s performance. The eunuch stood slightly apart from the group, his arms wrapped tightly about himself, his face closed. Out of all of them, Silus felt that Emuel had suffered the most. He was still barely in his teens and already he looked like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.

“Gather close,” said Keldren, “and link hands.”

The last time that Silus had been involved in a ritual circle, most of the participants had been immolated, so it was with some trepidation that he took Katya’s and Dunsany’s hands. Keldren stood in the middle of the circle, the paper in his hands.

“If you close your eyes, you may find this less disorientating.”

Even so, Silus kept his open. And when reality began to fold around him in a fractured and nightmarish origami, he wished he hadn’t.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
T
WO

K
HULA HAD SEEN
it come down several days ago. Its impact shook the mountain and set off a landslide that would have buried their village, had it not been for the intervention of one of their shamans. Early one morning, part of the sky had simply disappeared, with a sound like a great sheet tearing, revealing a ragged black patch of... nothing. Khula had looked into the void, wondering whether the whole of the heavens was going to tear away, when a light had blazed out of the darkness, burning with such intensity that she had to shield her eyes against the glare. Through the gaps between her fingers, Khula made out the suggestion of wings and a horned snout, and she thought she knew what was falling to earth. When the mountain had finished groaning and the dust had settled, Khula sent a party of scouts to report on what had just landed in their territory.

Several hours later, only one of them made it back. Yana staggered into the settlement, holding her guts in with one hand and waving desperately to get the attention of the matriarch with the other. Black blood streaked her torso and her dark-green skin was swiftly turning a pale apple. Despite her obvious pain, she still managed to drop to one knee before Khula.

“Matriarch, as the prophecies have foretold, the beast has returned to our world. It slew eight of my comrades and dined on their flesh, yet even this did not sate its monstrous hunger. Though I am a dead woman walking, I find the strength to tell you that the day of the dragon is upon us. Look kindly upon your servant.”

Having finished, Yana dropped her hands and allowed her innards to spill onto the ground at her leader’s feet. Khula examined the steaming loops of intestine and scattering of dark organs, as though searching for confirmation of the prophecy, but she knew that Yana had spoken the truth.

All in Khula’s tribe knew the story of Scaroth the Inept; the legendary orc king who had fed his people on the flesh of his wives when food was scarce, and even when food wasn’t. The cruel patriarchal society under his reign had almost been brought to its knees when Scaroth’s wives finally turned on their tormentors and a mighty battle ensued. Though the rage that drove on the women was pure and awesome to behold – and though a great many men were slain that day – many of the wives themselves were killed, the remainder forced to flee into the hills, or follow their sisters into death. Yet even separated from their people, the wives remained nearby, to observe the tribe from which they had been forced. They were delighted when that which they had awaited for so long – the destruction of Scaroth and his men – came to pass.

That Scaroth led his people’s death directly into their midst spoke volumes of his ineptitude, and the women in the hills made sure to record every detail of the massacre that ensued.

The dragons immolated Scaroth’s men, breathing flames that clung to those they touched, reducing them to ash in seconds. The orc wives breathed a thankful sigh as the black dragon opened its mouth, exhaled, and consumed Scaroth with its cleansing fire. From that day on, they swore that if they ever had to face a dragon themselves, they would fight and defeat it, thus proving themselves Scaroth’s betters.

The wives of Scaroth, now finally free of the shackles of their tribe, formed their own community. Aware that they would not prosper as women alone, they sought out other orc tribes and took their men by force, before fleeing back into the hills. Their prisoners were well treated – they did not want to repeat Scaroth’s mistakes – and after the men could breed no more, they were allowed to go their own way or remain with the tribe. Each female orc born was greeted with great celebration and feasting, and each daughter – once she was of a certain age – was inducted into the secrets of the matriarchy. They were told of Scaroth the Inept, the scouring of the wives and the dragon that had come to kill a king. They were told that – as the shamans had read in the stars – a dragon would come again, and when that day came the Great Matriarch would do what Scaroth had so spectacularly failed to achieve, and slay the beast.

Despite the prophecy, those first mothers never encountered a dragon. Still the story was handed down until it became a vital part of the tribe’s beliefs: images of dragons decorated every home, trinkets depicting the great lizards were worn as good luck charms and wards again evil, and ballads were sung in the honour of each successive matriarch, detailing how the leader would slay such a beast.

Khula almost couldn’t believe that it was she who had been chosen for the task. The prophecy and the stories of those first wives and Scaroth the Inept had become such an ingrained part of her culture that she almost didn’t notice them any more – they were children’s stories. It was only when the first of the shamans knelt at her feet and burned the sacred lichens that the realities of the task hit home, and Khula realised that she was afraid. Not that she would let her people see this; she strode amongst her tribe, proudly holding aloft the enchanted sword that had been crafted many generations ago from midnight steel, mined from the deepest seams in the World’s Ridge Mountains. She allowed each of the women of the tribe to kiss the blade and – as a gesture of goodwill – she allowed the men a reprieve from their nightly couplings.

That night, the shamans joined together to perform the story of Scaroth and the dragon for the last time. The children screamed with delight when the beast of sticks and dyed skins lumbered from one of the caves, manipulated by the shamans hidden within its belly. They giggled as it stomped into the crowd, sniffling this way and that for naughty children to devour, and cheered as it closed in on the cowering Scaroth, with his goofy wooden teeth and bulbous nose carved from a turnip. When the dragon opened its mouth and the shaman in its belly roared for all she was worth, the faux dragon’s call was answered by another; this one far more real, chilling the blood of all who heard it and sending many running for their homes. After that, nobody felt much like continuing with the charade of costumes and make-believe, and as the thing in the mountain roared again, all eyes turned to Khula.

Looking at the women before her, she made her decision.

This task should not be hers alone, but the duty of all the women of the tribe; for within each of them burned the spirits of Scaroth’s wives. It was they who had kept alive the contempt for that long-dead idiot king, they who had raised up a new society founded on the principle of avoiding his mistakes. The killing of the dragon was as much their right and destiny as it was Khula’s.

When she explained this to the women, there was a moment of silence in which she thought she had lost them, but then Yana’s sister – Lynca – came and knelt at her feet. Khula stared blankly at her until Lynca nudged the blade of the enchanted sword and held out her right hand, palm up. She marked Lynca’s hand with the tip of the weapon and as the black blood dripped onto the rocks, each female member of the tribe came forward in turn to be similarly marked.

The women hissed and howled as a strange, dark passion overtook them; they beat their chests and tore their clothes – some even mounted the men not swift enough to flee the mania that gripped the tribe, leaping on them and rutting with savage desire in the dirt. Next, the dragon costume from the play was pulled apart and burned, and the ashes from the pyre used to mark the women’s flesh. Finally one of the men of the tribe was dressed as Scaroth, the women circling and taunting him, clawing at his face and arms – hissing and growling, panting and shrieking – until, with one decisive blow, Khula removed his head from his shoulders.

The women bowed their heads in silence as a warm rain fell.

From somewhere in the mountains the creature roared again.

Looking at those gathered before her – bloodied and marked for battle – Khula raised the obsidian sword and answered the dragon’s roar with one of her own.

“D
ID YOU HEAR
that?” Silus said, bringing their party to a halt.

They looked up at the high walls enclosing them, but all they could hear was the sound of their own breathing echoing through the narrow canyon.

Keldren’s translocation spell had brought them to deep within the World’s Ridge Mountains. So high and forbidding were the peaks here that even at its zenith the sun barely rose above them, leaving them to scrabble and stumble their way along in an almost perpetual darkness.

“Hear what?” Dunsany said.

“It doesn’t matter. I thought I heard a cry.”

“Couldn’t you have located us somewhere closer to our target?” Kelos said, turning to Keldren.

“I can assure you that the dragon is somewhere within these very peaks,” he said. “I have it on very good authority. Alymere the Amazing wouldn’t lead me astray.”

“Sorry... hang on,” Dunsany said. “You took advice from someone calling themselves Alymere the Amazing? What is he, a children’s entertainer?”