The Spook 9 - Slither's tale (9 page)

Where was Slither? I wondered. Had he managed to rescue poor Bryony?

THIRTY-NINE KOBALOS WARRIORS
faced me in the cellar. Thirty-nine warriors between me and the human child I had come to claim. They wore armour but were without helmets, as was customary on such occasions. The hair on their faces was long and obscured their mouths.

Then there was that most dangerous opponent: the pigtailed Shaiksa assassin who now held a blade to Bryony’s throat.

For a moment the room became almost totally silent; all that could be heard was the crackling of the logs in the fireplace. Then, with a roar of anger, a warrior charged towards me, lifting a huge double-edged sword, ready for the kill.

I gave no ground, moving only at the very last second. I
stepped
to the right, ducked under the descending blade and struck out sideways with my sabre. My blade bit into his neck and severed the spinal column so that my would-be killer fell stone dead at my feet.

Then I slowly flexed the fingers of my left hand so that the knuckles cracked, and then, with a wide, cruel smile, reached into my coat and withdrew my second blade, a dagger, so that now I faced my enemies with a sharp weapon in each hand.

‘Give me what is rightfully mine. Give me what I demand. Do it quickly and I may let some of you live!’ I shouted, amplifying my voice so that the dishes rattled and the knives and forks danced on the table-tops.

I had used those words as a distraction – because immediately, without waiting for a reply, I leaped up onto the nearest table. Then I was racing across the table-tops towards the fireplace, scattering silver dishes and golden goblets with my feet, all my will directed towards one end: to prevent the assassin crouching over the child from slaying her.

To control the assassin while dashing through my enemies was not easy. Shaiksa assassins are trained in a multitude of mind disciplines and can sometimes resist even the will of a mage.

Thus, even as I jumped down from the final table, he began to slice the blade up towards the child’s throat. The blindfold had fallen from her eyes, and she shrieked as it approached her. But I struck out with the hilt of my own blade, driving it hard into the temple of my opponent so that he fell backwards, stunned, the weapon falling from his hand.

It did not pay to kill such a being wantonly. The Shaiksa never forget, and even as one lay close to death, his dying mind could reach out over a great distance to tell his brothers the name and location of his slayer. So it was pragmatism, not mercy, that had guided my hand.

I snatched up the child. She screamed as I lifted her, but I used the mage skill called
boska
: adjusting the chemical composition of the air in my lungs, I breathed quickly into her face and she fell instantly into a deep coma.

Then I turned back to face my enemies, who were approaching me with weapons drawn, faces filled with fury. I began to increase my size, simultaneously using my will to hurl into their faces a twitching pulse of naked fear so that, as I grew, their eyes rolled in their sockets and their mouths opened in dismay.

Then, with one final effort of will, I reached out with my mind and extinguished the thirteen torches that lit the subterranean banquet hall. It was instantly plunged into darkness, but through my mage eyes I could still see: for me, the room was lit by a silver spectral light. Thus I was able to escape the melee, passing safely through my enemies.

I had almost reached the door when I sensed a threat behind me. It was the Shaiksa assassin. He had recovered quickly and, unlike the warriors, was resisting my magic. Now he was racing towards me, twirling a blade in his left hand and a war-axe in his right. Every fibre of his being was focused upon slaying me.

Had it been possible, I would have stopped him using minimal force. In combat, one usually has options to choose
from
in order to counter an attack. But such was the ferocity of his assault and his determination to end my life that I had only one chance and was forced to employ it to save myself.

I ducked below his first blade, but I knew that I could not escape the second: this was arcing downwards towards my head, threatening to sever it from my neck. So I pierced the assassin’s heart with my own blade. The effect was instantaneous – the axe dropped from his nerveless fingers, reaching the ground fractionally before his dead body.

With this victory I had saved my life, but I had changed it for ever. In killing the High Mage, I had made myself an outlaw in the eyes of the Triumvirate; but in killing the assassin I had directed the wrath of his brotherhood onto my head. They would seek vengeance and hunt me to the ends of the earth until I too was dead.

I ran into the yard not a moment too soon. Nessa and Susan had brought three horses out of the stables. Nessa was holding a knife uncertainly, trying to ward off four purrai who were converging on her. Susan was screaming hysterically.

But then I noted a fifth slave. She was cradling her arm, which was bleeding profusely. So Nessa had shown some courage and got at least one blow in! Another few moments, however, and it would have been all over. I ran towards them, and the other purrai shrieked and fled back towards the stables.

I glanced quickly at the three piebald mares – none were the mounts we had brought with us to the tower. In one respect that was good because these were shod in the Kobalos way, with wide shoes that afforded a better grip and prevented them
from
sinking into all but the very softest fresh snow. The rest was bad – very bad. All were saddled but they lacked saddlebags and provisions. There was no grain for the horses. All they carried was the customary two small sacks of
oscher
, which could be used as emergency food for them. It was made of oats with special chemical additives that could sustain a beast of burden for the duration of a long journey. Of course, afterwards the horse would die and oscher was therefore only used as a last expedient. But what choice had Nessa given me?

With a curse, I leaped up onto the back of the nearest horse and draped the unconscious form of the child over the pommel.

‘Thank God!’ Nessa cried, but even now warriors might be running to lower the portcullis in order to prevent our escape from the courtyard. I pointed towards the gateway and urged my horse across the wet flags towards it. Nessa struggled to push her still-sobbing sister up onto one horse, then quickly mounted the other. Within moments, we were through the open gate and galloping down the cinder path into the whirling snowflakes.

For a while we rode in silence, save for Susan’s infernal sobs, while I thought over the consequences of what I’d just done.

‘Why are we heading north?’ Nessa called out at last.

I did not bother to reply. Heading north was the only chance of life I had. And it was a slim chance at that. I had just two remaining options. The first was to become a fugitive, fleeing my enemies for as long as I was able. The other was to journey straight to the source of the danger and confront it – to head for Valkarky.

I GUIDED US
north towards the best chance of survival that remained. In two hours we reached the ruins of a farmhouse. It was very old and had been overrun when the climate had changed more than two millennia earlier. At that time my people had pushed their boundaries further south, meeting little opposition from the small, weak kingdoms of divided humans.

Now all that remained of it was two stark stone walls in the lee of a steep hillside. As I approached the ruin I sensed something, an unseen malevolence. I halted, prompting Nessa to ask, ‘Why do we stop? We must get inside!’ But I ignored her and raised my tail to search for the source of my unease. As I
did
so, a shower of small stones began to fall onto my shoulders and head.

In a moment I had found it. It was a bychon, a spirit able to manipulate matter. Some were very dangerous and could hurl large boulders with great accuracy to crush a victim, but this one seemed relatively weak. I nudged it with my mind and it retreated to a dark corner. Then I whispered to it so that the purrai behind could not hear my words:

‘Soon we will be gone from here and then you may reclaim this place as your home. Do not behave in a way that will force me to drive you out permanently. Be still and keep hidden. Do you accept my offer?’

No more pebbles fell around me, so I took the bychon’s silence as acceptance of my offer. I immediately made good use of the old wood that lay scattered about the site. First I constructed a lean-to to provide some shelter against the blizzard. Some of the remaining wood I ignited by force of will – a fire to provide life-giving warmth.

In their sensible purrai clothes, the two older girls were quite well protected, but when I had snatched the child, she’d been readied for the blade and was almost naked. My use of boska had placed her in a deep coma, but it was dangerous to keep her in that condition too long. Thus I was forced to awaken her, whereupon she immediately began to shiver and cry weakly and I knew that she lacked the strength to survive for long.

I am comfortable even in the coldest of temperatures so I could manage without my long black coat. However, it was not
for
warmth that I wore this garment; it was a mark of my vocation and status as a haizda mage, its thirteen buttons representing the thirteen truths that it has taken me many years of study to learn. I was reluctant to remove it, but I knew that the child would soon die without its protective warmth and felt bound by my trade with Old Rowler. So I took it off and wrapped her in it, handing her to Nessa, who then crouched with her close to the fire, whispering softly to her in reassurance.

‘Little Nessa,’ I asked gently, ‘where are our saddlebags? Where is the food that will keep us alive?’

Nessa hung her head. ‘I was afraid,’ she said. ‘We just took the first horses we saw. I could hear Kobalos voices at the far end of the stables. Then those fierce women interrupted us – I threatened them with the blade and cut one, but they kept creeping closer. My sister was weeping with fear. I thought I acted in our best interests.’

I could see that she was troubled by her actions. ‘Then I will do what I can,’ I said. ‘Do you still have my blade?’

Nessa nodded and withdrew it from beneath her cape, handing it to me handle foremost. I accepted it with the hint of a smile and readied myself for what had to be done.

I removed my boots and, wearing just the thin diagonal belt with the scabbards securing the two short blades, trudged up the hill into the teeth of the blizzard. In truth, I enjoyed the conditions; for a Kobalos, such a storm was exhilarating.

Soon I reached a large plateau, an area of high moorland, and there dropped to all fours and began to run swiftly with
my
tail arched high above my back, seeking for likely prey.

Little moved in that blizzard. Distantly, I sensed arctic foxes and rodents and a few hardy birds, but all were too distant. It was then that I came upon the wolves.

It was a large pack, heading south with the storm wind. They would have passed by me at least three leagues to the west, but I exerted my will and summoned them; they hurried towards me, scenting easy prey. To give them more encouragement, I turned and began to flee before them, loping easily across the snow.

Only when they were almost upon me did I increase my speed. Faster and faster I ran, until only the leader of the pack, a huge white wolf – sleek, heavily muscled and in its prime – could keep me in sight. Together we drew away from the remainder who, without their leader, soon tired of the chase and were left far behind, wandered aimlessly, howling up at the invisible moon.

When the wolf was almost upon me, I turned to meet it. We both charged, fur against fur, teeth snarling, to roll over and over in the deep snow, gripping each other in a death-lock. The wolf bit deep into my shoulder, but to me the pain was nothing; with my own teeth, I savaged its throat, tearing away the flesh so that its blood spurted forth bright red upon the white snow.

I drank deeply while the huge animal twitched beneath me in its death throes. Not a drop of the hot sweet thick blood did I waste. When my thirst was sated, I drew a blade and cut off the beast’s head, tail and legs and, walking upright, carried its body across my shoulders, back to the ruin of the farmhouse.