The Iron Wolves (37 page)

Across the battlefield, where the mud-orcs marched and the units of splice waited for their chance to rend and tear and murder, something was happening under the light of the full moon. There was a disturbance, as
something
slammed through their lines with an unstoppable force. The mud-orcs seemed to notice little, as they were advancing on an enemy fortress and not expecting the enemy to be coming the other way; and, as events became clear, it was obvious the creature appeared – superficially at least – like that of a advancing splice.

Narnok, now changed to an
Iron Wolf,
charged between the ranks of advancing mud-orcs, his muzzle low to the ground, his powerful legs pumping, his iron-dark eyes seeing everything with a ghostly aura. He spied the mud-orcs, the splice, the war tents with the central one still roaring with flames – and there was Orlana and
there
were the other Wolves and a connection rioted through him, and he accelerated yet more, claws pounded across frozen grass and soil, for he had the
message
and he had to get the
message
to Kiki…

Splice seemed suddenly aware of him, and charged at Narnok. Snarling, with eyes full of rage, he shouldered them out of the way, sending them squealing and wailing into fires and one another. Closer he came, closer and closer. He watched Orlana spinning, sending out pulses of raw energy and he felt them and absorbed them for he carried the power of the Equiem. He carried the magick of Desekra.

“KIKI!” he bellowed, as the Iron Wolves gathered for another charge.

“Join with us!”

“No, that is not the way! I was trapped under the tunnel and Desekra joined with me; filled me with her Knowledge! You are our captain because you are
shamathe,
you are in tune with Nature and the elements and the Old Magick! You must use the power of your youth, of your childhood… think back, travel back,
regress
… you are not like us, because for you this is not some magick imposed curse. You were
born
like this. You are shamathe, one of the Old Shaman, and you command the power of the World Tree!”

Orlana screamed, the pitch so high it could not be heard by human ears and then dropping fast so it instantly rendered anything within a league’s radius temporarily deaf. Kiki’s mouth had dropped open, and for a moment everything seemed to click into place. It was like finding the final piece of a puzzle.

Desekra, Dalgoran and the Equiem had not
cursed
her.

No.

She had been born this way. It was part of her bloodline. Part of her descendancy.

She was a shamathe.

One of the Old Protectors.

With the power of Nature in the palms of her hands… She did not have cancer, she did not have a tumour expanding alongside her heart. No. That growth was her
second
heart. The heart of the magicker. The heart of the Old Shaman.

Orlana’s scream was blasting out, and the Iron Wolves were cowering; in fact, the battle had halted with the suddenness of a lightning strike. Mud-orcs had covered their ears, which were bleeding, slammed dead in their tracks; the splice were writhing in the dirt with blood pouring from every orifice; and every living organism on the vast plain before Desekra Fortress was disabled and down and slammed to earth…

Except for Kiki.

She walked forward, slowly, cowed a little by the power that flowed through every atom of her body, and the vast and profound understanding which surged through her, like blood in veins, sap in trees, spirits in the wind… like magick through the heart of the leylines that criss-crossed the world.

The whole of creation and its energy opened up to her.

And she finally understood the true nature of Desekra Fortress.

It lived. It breathed.
She
lived.
She
breathed. She needed to be saved, before this savage horde born of evil and sacrifice and murder and death took her and spilt so much blood it would stain her stones for an eternity; she would never be clean again. Not because of death on her walls, but because of the nature of the enemy. Because of the way they had been summoned, created through genocide, born through an act of pure evil.

“I stand before you,” said Kiki, looking up defiantly at Orlana, the Horse Lady.

“Kill her!” screamed Orlana, pointing, but the splice and mud-orcs stayed down, and she was alone on the plain of battle. She was alone in the world, as she had been alone in the Furnace and the Halls of Chaos.

“You cannot kill me,” said Kiki, softly, and slowly the magick of the shapeshift began to regress; the fur shrunk, her limbs returned to human proportions, her muzzle retracted, the claws and fangs of iron disappeared. Kiki was a woman again. Kike was a girl again, with the strong, rhythmic beat of two hearts in her chest. The beat of the human, and the beat of the mystic.

“Then we have a stalemate,” said Orlana.

Kiki tilted her head. “You think so?”

“No weapons of iron or steel or wood or fire can harm me. You have neither the power nor the understanding of the magick that flows through your veins to be able to do anything worthwhile; and we stand here facing one another.
Join me, Kiki!
Join me, and together we shall rule not just this world, but we shall conquer the Furnace. We shall rule the tombworld together as well. Together, we will be unstoppable. Like no force this universe has ever seen. Liken nothing since the creation of the stars!” Orlana’s face was wide and open and totally beautiful; perfectly fired porcelain. Perfectly created flesh.

Kiki stared at her. “No, Orlana. For you are born of pain and hatred and bitterness and despair. I have felt those emotions, yes, but ultimately I was born of pleasure and love and honour and kindness. I could never be like you. I could never rule alongside you.”

“Wretched child!” hissed Orlana, stooping a little, eyes flashing with lightning, hands with their long perfect white fingers curling into claws. “I will cast you into oblivion! We shall see how your magick serves you there!” and her arms came back and she seemed to grow, to stretch upwards towards the heavens, her whole body elongating, her arms and legs stretching out as her eyes flashed silver with stored lightning and her fingers became long jagged silver swords.

Kiki stood her ground, staring up, as Orlana mouthed the most powerful incantation ever seen on the face of the world. The skies grew dark, huge towering black clouds scudding across the sky as lightning flickered and the mountains groaned and rumbled and clashed like titans at war.

Orlana screamed, and fire erupted from her mouth, smoke from nostrils and eyes and ears and quim. She screamed, and both arms came together with a thunderous smash, both fists joining into one meld of flesh and bone and sinew as dark power and dark magick poured from her, channelled from the roots of the world; from the Beginning. From the Equiem.

Kiki turned, looking down at her frozen, pain-riddled friends: the Iron Wolves.

Then she glanced back at Orlana as the magick hit her, and she opened her mouth and swallowed the pulse. Her teeth clacked shut.

Orlana blinked.

Kiki smiled.

“Now it’s my turn,” she said. And she lifted her head and stared at the sky, where red streaks smashed through the black of night. Then she stared at the towering vast range, the Mountains of Skarandos. And then her eyes came to rest on Desekra Fortress, the creation of a Great Mage: Esekra. She reached out a hand towards the fortress and felt the magick stored there, as if in a great battery. This was a Well of the Elder Shamathe. A Well of the Equiem.

Words would not do it.

Nor screams, nor tears, nor blood, nor sacrifice.

Slowly, Kiki lifted her hand. And she smiled.
No.
Kiki did not lift her hand. Kikellya Mandasayard Dalgorana du Tebija lifted her hand, and she summoned the mountains and the roots of the world, she summoned the lightning and the power of the storm, she summoned the forests of Vagandrak and the spirits of the dead. The world gave a sigh. The mountains groaned and trembled. Desekra Fortress shook.

Orlana stared at her in disbelief. “No,” she said, holding out a hand. “No, it cannot be! You cannot do this!”

“But I can,” said Kiki, and her clenched fists came together, and then came apart again, and it was like the dying of worlds. The earth began to violently shake and she felt both hearts beating as one, and power surged through her, she became a channel, she became a portal, and yet she controlled the portal and the ground and mountains shook and a roaring grew from out of nowhere, vast and titanic and overwhelming. The whole world and the mountains groaned and moved. An earthquake took the Pass of Splintered Bones, and the Desekra Fortress, and the Mountains of Skarandos, and the Plains of Zakora, and began to hammer them in a clenched fist, hard and fast, and it built and built and built until the world was buzzing, humming, a mammoth charge of non-discharged power. And Kiki stared at Orlana, and she screamed, and her mouth became a vast white hole, blinding and searing like white fire which radiated out as the earthquake increased and built and roared and the whole world was shaking, wailing, dying. And the plain before the Desekra Fortress started to collapse with mammoth roars and a grinding of rock and a smashing of mountains collapsing, and suddenly a huge pit opened up and swallowed a thousand mud-orcs screaming down into the fire and churning rocks and wrath. More pits opened up, and jagged lines ran from the Sanderlek wall of Desekra right up to the war tents of Orlana the Changer, and Kiki stood with arms above her head, foaming at the mouth, her eyes rolled back in her head showing nothing but fresh new-forged silver iron. The earthquake smashed across the plain, eating the army of mud-orcs with a feral mouth of collapsing rock and dirt and fire. The splice were taken dragging screaming and clawing into the bowels of the opened world. Fire billowed up in high columns as tall as the mountains. The sky went blacker than black. The stars were put out.

And then Kiki stared at Orlana, the Changer, the Horse Lady, and she pointed, and her arm became black fire, her arm became retribution and lightning and rock and the earthquake all screamed and roared as the land beneath her feet suddenly crumbled, and her eyes flashed silver as she spoke words of power long lost, and the ground distorted, and Orlana was sucked away down in a sudden fast river of collapsing rock and soil and fire and lightning. Down down down she was dragged, deep beneath the world; and in the blink of a splice’s eye, she was gone.

Slowly, Kiki came around.

She stood on an island of rock. A pillar, amidst a sea of collapsed earth and rock and world. At her feet lay Dek and Narnok and Trista and Zastarte, all staring up at her in awe; true awe, shining in their eyes alongside fear, and horror, and raw terror.

Then Kiki fell to her knees, and her forehead touched the warm rock, and around her the earthquakes gradually rumbled to a halt. Gradually subsided. More rocks and columns and walls fell away, crumbling into the huge pits which now formed the majority of the plain before Desekra. And yet the fortress itself remained unharmed. The pits and chasms ran in jagged lines all the way up to the foot of Sanderlek, where they had swallowed many thousands of mud-orc corpses.

Kiki looked up, and Dek took her hand.

It began to snow, and amidst the snow was black ash.

“What did I do?”

Dek grinned at her. “You tore apart the world.”

Kiki stared at the insanity before her, the chasms and voids and random zig-zagging walkways of what remained of the plain. She turned her head, from left to right, astounded, truly astounded, by the act of destruction.

“I did this?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t like to be on the wrong side of
you
on a bad bloody morning,” said Dek.

“Nonsense,” grinned Narnok, slapping Kiki on the back and nearly pitching her to her face. “She’s the Captain of the Iron Wolves! She’s our friend! Our comrade! Our ally! We have nothing to fear! Not like those sorry bastards down there!” He peered over the edge, and stones trickled treacherously.

Kiki smiled, then pitched to her side, shaking uncontrollably. She frothed at the mouth and her eyes went blank.

“Let’s get her to the surgeons,” said Trista, quietly.

“Agreed,” said Dek. “Who will help me carry her?”

And together, they bore Kiki’s unconscious body across the narrow, jagged walkways of rock, above mammoth fiery chasms filled with bottomless drops and raging fires and crumbling stone. She was limp, and spent, and done, and empty.

And happy. Kiki was happy.

Orlana was defeated. Vagandrak was saved.

Dawn broke, cold and full of ice. Snow fell heavily across a silent, broken, collapsed plain before the fortress of Desekra. Dek, Narnok, Trista and Zastarte stood on the battlements of Sanderlek, staring out at a fractured, malformed world beyond.

“We won,” said Dek, half in disbelief.

“Kiki beat them,” said Trista, grinning. “She fucking beat them.”

“What did she do?” asked Dek, voice filled with awe.

“She used the power of the elements, the power of Nature, the magick of the Equiem, the magick of Desekra,” rumbled Narnok, slowly. “She is a
shamathe.
A bloodline descendant of the shaman who used to rule this world. Remember Zunder? That bloody volcano? We should have known then.”

Dek shook his head. “She said she did not remember her childhood. Her early childhood.”

“Did not remember, or chose to repress?” said Narnok.

They were quiet for a while, staring out across the fractured plain. The world had changed. The Iron Wolves had changed.

“She sure killed the shit out of Orlana,” said Zastarte, softly.

Narnok looked at him. “I’m not sure she did,” he said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning just that. Powers like Orlana don’t just simply die. She’ll be back. Mark my words. That bitch will be back. With her army. We’ve not seen the last of those mud-orc bastards. Gone, but not forgotten, eh?”

“Well,” said Dek, rolling his shoulders, “I don’t know about you, but I think we’ve earned a fucking drink.”

“Damn well said!” snorted Narnok. “But it has to be said, Dek my pretty little pit fighter, you’re buying!”

“And how do you work that one out?” snapped Dek.

“Because of what you did to my wife.”

“Ahh. Fair enough. But… you’ll never let that one lie, will you?”

Narnok stared hard, with his one good eye. “Never, ever, you back-stabbing bastard.”

Dek slept the sleep of a man after eighteen flagons of ale. When they came for him, he was ill-prepared. The helves beat down breaking his nose, eye-socket and jaw; breaking his arm and shin, and fracturing three ribs. They dragged him groaning to the dungeons of Desekra, where he was chained up tight against the wall and, still stunned beyond belief, wondered what the fuck had hit him.

Days passed. Days, melting into weeks.

Gradually, Dek learned that the others were in adjoining cells. Trista. Zastarte. Narnok. Kiki. All had been taken in their sleep, beaten to within an inch of their lives, then chained up in the dark and the damp, waiting for… what?

It came, after a month.

King Yoon, in all his finery, his silk, his lace and his velvet. He strode in with Captain Dokta and several others of his elite force. Yoon stared for a long time at Dek, who eventually spat vaguely in Yoon’s direction.

“What do you want, you fucker?”

“You dare…!”

“Oh yeah, fucking save it for the people. You were going to sell us out to the witch, and Kiki saved your backside and your kingdom. We all fought for you. Fought to save your lands, your palaces, your riches. And what thanks do we get? Broken bones and chained in your dungeon.”

“Well,” whispered Yoon, moving in close, “you’re going to like the rest of it, then, Mr Iron Wolf.”

“I think I might not,” said Dek, meeting Yoon’s gaze in utmost hate.

“You saved us, yes. But nobody here knows that. The soldiers out on the walls think they were saved by a simple earthquake; a random act of nature! Of course, you and I both know different, but I can’t have a random psychopathic bitch like Kiki running around with that sort of…
power
.” He stared hard at Dek. “Or indeed, any of
you
with that kind of power. So, you have been tried. You have been found guilty. And you have been sentenced.”

“Sentenced?” snarled Dek.

“Sentenced to death. By hanging. On the morrow.”

The sky was the colour of iron. The clouds were bruises inflicted against the sky. A cold bitter winter wind blew down the Pass of Splintered Bones, howling, mournful and desolate; and low as a tomb. Carpenters had erected a makeshift gallows on Sanderlek, protruding out so that the victims would be hung out over No Man’s Land. Without honour. In complete disgrace.

The convicted Wolves stood on the battlements where, only a few weeks earlier, they had fought, giving their lifeblood to defend their nation and its people.

A thousand soldiers of Vagandrak lined the walls. Sergeant Dunda stood to one side, face solemn, impassive, his great hands clenched behind his back, his armour and boots polished to an unholy shine.

Standing, chained, with black silk hoods over their heads, were the Iron Wolves.

Kiki. Dek. Narnok. Zastarte. Trista.

“The Iron Wolves have been found guilty on twelve counts of treason against His Majesty, King Yoon of Vagandrak,” read a small, pompous fat man from a vellum scroll. “These counts amount to theft, extortion, the murder of General Dalgoran, the kidnapping and imprisonment of various members of the royal family…”

“I’ll fucking show him imprisonment,” murmured Narnok, bristling.

“If you hadn’t had your pants round your ankles, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” snapped Dek.

“Thus proclaims Mr Two Kegs,” growled Narnok. “Maybe if
you
could hold your ale a little better, you might have heard the stampede to your door?”

“Silence amongst the prisoners!” squawked the bureaucrat.

“Or what?” bellowed Narnok. “You’ll fucking hang us?” His laughter roared across the walls of Desekra Fortress.

The list of misdemeanours continued, and Yoon watched from a specially erected stand built from oak and nails.

Eventually, the five members of the Iron Wolves were led to makeshift gallows. Rope nooses were placed about their necks.

Yoon watched on, impassively.

“I hereby pronounce a sentence of death,” whined the bureaucrat. “You five, members of the Iron Wolves, Kiki, Dek, Narnok, Zastarte and Trista, will hang by the neck until dead. Have you any final requests?”

“A longer rope?” boomed Narnok, laughter echoing.

Nobody answered his jest.

“I have one thing to say,” came the demure, measured voice of Kiki. Yoon made a throat-cutting gesture, but it was too late. Kiki continued, “Orlana the Changer, the Horse Lady, is far from dead. She will be back, Yoon. Back real soon. And who will protect you from her Equiem magick then?”

“Now,” said King Yoon, dark eyes flashing dangerously at the hangman. “Do it now. DO IT NOW!”

The hangman reached out, and with trembling, gloved fingers, took hold of a brass lever that operated the simple pulleys, which in turn dropped the trapdoors beneath the hooded victims.

Silence and shame rolled out across Desekra Fortress. Across the sundered plains of Zakora. Across the waiting, breathless World.