The White Towers (10 page)

Feeling suddenly melancholy, and realising maybe he shouldn’t really be drinking brandy on duty, Belton stood and moved to the rough-plank door. He opened it and chilled air rushed in, destroying the cosiness of the barrack room. The street was deserted, as he would have expected at this time during the middle of the night. He shivered. It felt like somebody had walked over his grave and, frowning, he realised his life as a soldier was done. Done and gone and buried. He’d fought at Desekra Fortress against the mud-orcs; he’d nearly died a score of times. But now, he realised, he had a little baby girl to look after, to bring up in the cold cruel world, and a massive responsibility shifted and lay across his shoulders like a heavy leather cloak. What would little Mia do if Daddy got killed in a stupid pointless battle? Who would be there to look after her?

He pocketed his brandy. No.

It was time to finish this life of soldiering. Time to put it behind him.

And do what? mocked a sardonic part of his consciousness.

He smiled. That didn’t matter.

Belton would find a way. He always did.

To the left, two cats shrieked as they came flying from the gloom of a darkened alley. They crouched in the middle of the road facing one other, hissing, each with a paw raised threateningly, ears back, fangs displayed.

Belton grinned.

Nature of the fucking beast, he thought.

The cats attacked, an insanely fast scrabbling of claws as tufts of fur flew. And then… Belton blinked, turning right, as at least a hundred figures drifted and limped down the street from gates now twisted from their hinges. A blast of…
something
hit Belton, a warm wind, filled with the scent of… of pine? Like a pine forest after heavy rain. And Belton staggered, eyes wide, staring at the creatures filling the street, moving past him, ignoring him… until he drew his sword, mouth suddenly dry because this…
this
was not a fucking good place to be, and he had to get back in, grab the bell, sound the alarm–

“Atta–” he started to scream as three of the creatures detached from the flood and launched at him. He grunted, side-stepping, sword hacking down to chop into a creature’s neck. The iron blade bit deep, crunching through bone and flesh, but the creature seemed to shrug off the wound and came on, claws slashing for him, pushing past his own considerable strength like a root easing through the cracks in a stone wall and it all happened so fast, panic splashed across him and he felt fangs puncture his neck, biting – no
chewing
,
burrowing
– into him. He started to punch the beast as the other two bit into his arms, and with legs kicking he was dragged out and away from the barracks, into the throng of creatures that, in the sudden panic and chaos of thrashing, seemed to have the faces of elongated rats…

Belton lay on the cobbles, gasping, blood bubbling on his lips.

The creatures had moved on. Past him. He needed to ring the bell.

His hand came up to try and stem the flow of blood at his neck, and with horror he realised all his fingers had been chewed off. Only his thumb remained, his whole hand looking misshapen and strange and frightening.

I’m going to die.

The concept arrived suddenly, completely formed, and a shiver racked his body. He could feel the thump of his heart. Felt it slowing.

No, he thought.
No!

Who would look after Mia?

And he pictured the beautiful babe in his arms, her little scrunched up face, that little upturned nose.

And silver tears glistened on his cheeks.

 

Chalandra was having a very bad dream. Dressed in her white wedding dress, the one she’d never had a chance to wear, she walked through never-ending fields of black poppies. She stopped, knelt, plucked one – and recoiled as she realised the centre of the flower was the screaming face of a man, face writhing, teeth gnashing. She strained to push herself away from the flower, and although she could gain distance at arm’s length, she could not force her fingers to open; could not drop the abomination.

She awoke with a start, the taste of last night’s liquor bad on her tongue, sour against her teeth. Her daughter, Torney, stood in the doorway, a figure of shadows highlighted against the background of lantern light.

“Mummy? I’m frightened.”

“Tush. Come here, child.”

Torney padded forward, bare feet slapping naked floorboards. Chalandra held back the covers and Torney climbed in, snuggling up to the warmth of her mother, head tucked neatly under Chalandra’s chin as the woman stroked her girl’s long, luscious hair.

“It’s dark, Mummy.”

“Yes, Torn. It’s still night. There’s no need to be scared of the dark.”

“I had a dream, Mummy.”

“That’s okay. I had a dream as well.”

“Was it a bad dream, Mummy?” The girl lifted her head a little, eyes searching.

“Yes, Torn.”

“What was it about?”

Imagining the screaming face in the flower, Chalandra gave a little shudder. “I don’t remember, dear. Now shush. It’s time to go back to sleep. I have to get up early to help at the market, remember?”

“But it’s dark, Mummy.”

“Yes, dear. I know that.”

There was a long pause.

“Do monsters live in the dark, Mummy?”

“No, Torney. There are no monsters.”

“But I saw the monsters!”

“In your dream? That’s fine as well, my sweet. They can’t hurt you when they’re in your dreams. They’re just made-up. Shout
go away bad monsters
and they’ll disappear. I promise you.”

Again, a long pause. Outside, there came a shout on the street. Then a clatter. Chalandra gave a frown and hugged her girl closer to her breast. She would be the first to admit they were not wealthy; especially after what had happened to her husband-to-be, Kanda, and the shame that followed.

They lived in one of the poorer districts inside the walled city of Zanne, the most westerly city in Vagandrak. And whilst they had not yet been cast into the Haven, they were still only one-step removed from the happily and misleadingly named
slums
, living above a cobbler’s on the edges of the Factory Quarter, as they did. During the night-time hours all kinds of nefarious activities took place below their window, for this street was a thoroughfare between the Haven and the heavily working class Factory Quarter. Acts of sex and the sale of sex. Honey-leaf peddling, consumption, and the hallucinations and violence that often accompanied the leaf. The trade of illegal weapons, or slaves, or children. So it came as no great surprise to Chalandra when she heard a cry, a smash of glass, the crash of impacting weapons or the scream of an unfortunate.

“Go away, bad monsters,” whispered Torney, placing her hands over her eyes.

Chalandra smiled grimly. She knew, in her world, in the real world, the monsters were men and women of flesh and blood.

There came a
crack
as something struck the window, and Chalandra’s head snapped up. Her eyes grew wide. For there, nose pressed against the glass, there really
was
a monster… twisted and broken, skin more moss and bark than skin and hair. And the head moved back, then slammed forward, crashing through the window and scattering sharp shards of glass across the bare boards of the room.

Chalandra bit off a scream. A scream got you nowhere. A scream was a sign of weakness. A sign didn’t crush the evil strong.

“What do you want?” she hissed, as the horribly disfigured monster climbed in and swayed across the room. It had one leg shorter than the other, and limped a little, although this did little to alleviate the horror of the situation.

The lips formed into a horrible snarl, like brown snakes in a vat of fish oil. “Why, my sweetie, simply your obedience,” said the creature in a voice that was frighteningly human.

Torney opened her eyes then, and screamed, and tried to scrabble backwards across the bed,
through
her mother.

“There, there, little one, it won’t hurt. Much.” The creature grinned.

Outside, screams had started to echo up and down the streets of Zanne, reverberating through dark alleys, bouncing from slick iced cobbles and dark patchy flagstones. There came the sounds of battle. Sword against sword. The slap of iron biting flesh. The crash of bodies hitting the ground. Running boots. The splatter of blood. Cackles. Snarls. Whimpers.

Chalandra leapt suddenly from the bed, scooping up a wicked shard of glass from the broken window. It cut into the palm of her hand, drawing blood which seeped, bubbled, then dripped to the bare stained wood.

“Stay back!” she snarled. She risked a glance behind her. “Go, Torney! Flee! Seek help! Seek the City Elders! Tell them you are Kanda’s daughter! Tell them what you saw here!”

Torney turned and fled, stopping at the door to turn and watch her mother. Chalandra advanced on the creature which held up its hands. Long, thin strings or wires or, or… or
roots
seemed to surge from the flesh and wrap around Chalandra and enter her through nose and mouth and ears and anus… and she was picked up and spun around like a spider spinning a victim in its web… and then ripped suddenly apart into a hundred segments of bloody, quivering flesh that hit the bare floorboards in crimson cubes and chunks and lumps.

“Mummy!” hissed Torney, an almost silent exhalation of air.

Then she fled, and behind her heard the sounds of cracking bones, chewed flesh, and the slurp of consumed blood.

 

“Guards stand firm!” bellowed Sergeant Tilla, and everybody obeyed instantly, for no soldier crossed the wrath of Sergeant Tilla without ending up with broken cheekbones, a broken back, or both.

The hundred and fifty guards locked their shields, fifteen wide on the main thoroughfare that ran through the cultural quarter of Vagan, and ten deep to a man. A formidable fighting company, many of the men having fought either the constantly attacking forces of Zakora to the south, or even having fought the bastard mud-orcs. These were not raw recruits. They were seasoned men, hard men, carrying scars of battle, experience and a cynical eye.

And as the elf rats approached up the street in a hobbling, crawling swarm, and Sergeant Tilla bellowed, “Stand steady! Present long spears!”, there were more than a few veterans who went weak at the knees, dry in the mouth, with full bladders and a desperate urge to piss.

These were not some enemy army.

Not even mud-orcs.

The rumour had gone round faster than a beautiful whore with syphilis. These were
elf rats.
Fucking
elf rats.
Returned to claim the land as their own; as had their ancestors; as the Dark Legends foretold, despite the words and pictures being banned from schools and libraries and museums. What was the song? “With rewritten histories and a fictional past.” The history books belonged to the successors. Victorious kings and their creeping, crawling politician slime, sticking tongues up back crevices for a taste of the spoils.

Elf rats!

“Stand steady, lads!” growled Tilla, giving them strength and backbone. As the great sergeant said in his own words: he hadn’t been killed yet after thirty-five years of battle, and he wasn’t about to fucking start dying now.

As the elf rat charge increased, so long spears lowered. Tilla gave a bleak smile to himself. He’d seen it a hundred times before. The weight of the charge forcing onwards, then suddenly presenting spears from behind a shield wall; the front of the charge would want to falter, to stop, realising they would be inevitably impaled – but the weight of their comrades, eager for battle, and unable to see the low-held gleaming points of iron, pushed them on and on and on...

But the elf rats did not slow.

They came on, accelerating, snarling and screaming and drooling and brandishing short black iron swords…

“Hold steady!” screamed Tilla, sensing a growing panic in his lads as his own adrenaline burst through him and he revelled in the exhilaration.
Damn.
This is better than sex, he thought, and grinned. His old buddy, Jakko, would have slapped him on the back.
That’s because you’re not doing it right, sunshine!

The two lines smashed together and the elf rats threw themselves on spears, impaling themselves and grasping shafts in bloodied, bark-covered claws, holding the spears locked inside their dying bodies to form…
ramps…
which the rest of the charging force climbed and leapt from into the ranks of the City Guards. Swords slashed left and right, iron clashing with iron, as men and elf rat fought in sudden, harsh, closed battle for the first time in centuries. Heads were cut from shoulders, blades skewered torsos and hearts, livers and kidneys, limbs were cut free, men went down screaming, elf rats went down silent and squirming. Elf rat claws and fangs slashed out, bit and drew blood, and many of the City Guards crawled away from the battle scene, bitten and bleeding and
infected.

It was over in a short time.

Sergeant Tilla was the last to die, finding himself in a swiftly decreasing circle of steel and trusted armour. Old Kav went down, sword-cut and bitten to fuck. Llandana, the jammiest bastard in the whole of Vagandrak at cards, bone-dice and Fish Wife Rune Poker, had his throat ripped out and staggered around, unable to scream. Unja lost his eyes, and was stabbed by two elf rats simultaneously through the belly. All these things Tilla saw, and fought on grimly, hacking away hands and ducking low, cutting through legs at the knee. The point of his sword skewered lungs and heart and groin arteries. He kept low, moved fast, seemed hardly to touch the enemy but left a devastating bloody massacre in his wake. Until a spear jabbed out, cutting into his side, lifting him a little. He cut backwards, but a sword blade smashed into his clavicle, breaking the bone, cutting flesh. Tilla gritted his teeth, refusing to scream as he went down under another half-dozen hacking swords.