The White Towers (36 page)

Out on the salt plains, before the mammoth, trapped ship, there were
statues
formed from salt. Kiki stepped out, sword raised, looking about. Dek followed with Zastarte, and they moved to the massive salt statues, arrayed like some artist’s gallery, vast, towering sculptures which had not been there just a few hours before.

Suddenly, the storm dropped. It was binary. Gone, in an instant; as if simply switched off.

Kiki stepped forward a few more paces, neck straining, taking a deep breath, and staring up at the vast figures which now surrounded her. There were men and women, regal in bearing, and the detail in the salt figures was incredible, as if they’d been meticulously carved from ice. And they seemed to
gleam,
as if polished.

“I don’t fucking understand,” growled Dek, spinning slowly around, long sword before him, face writhing with uncertainty and primal fear.

“The storm has carved these figures for us,” said Zastarte, and grinned. “Maybe it’s a gift from the gods of the salt desert?”

“Or maybe a warning,” said Kiki, gesturing to the bloated figure of something horrific.

Suddenly, the salt surged beneath them and around them, and many of the sculpted figures collapsed in great crumbling heaps. The salt beneath their boots became fluid, and all three collapsed to their knees, and felt as if they were sinking. Waves of salt rolled around them, and mocking laughter echoed through the bleak blackness of the night.

The Iron Wolves,
whispered the hiss of the salt. Waves rolled around them as if they were standing on an ocean, and suddenly they were sucked down deeper, up to their thighs. Dek lashed around with his long sword, but a swirling tendril made from salt granules leapt up like a thrashing tentacle, and took it from him like a sweet from a young child; and he was stranded, weaponless, teeth bared in a grin of horror.

“What’s happening, Kiki?” he yelled above the hiss and whirl of salt and wind. “I don’t like this!” He thrashed around, but the salt sucked him in deeper. He was up to his waist now. They all were. It was like sinking sand. Lethal.

“Keep still,” yelled Kiki. “Stop all movement!”

They stopped struggling, and the remnants of the storm seemed to fall. Salt pattered to the ground. Everything was terribly still, and silent. In the tunnel to the ship, they could hear the frightened whinnies of their horses; but eventually, even they were quiet. Silence rolled across the world like a great veil of ash.

“What now?” growled Zastarte.

“Wait,” said Kiki, holding up one finger.

“I don’t want to die like this,” whimpered Dek. “I want to die with a fucking sword in my hand!”

“
Shhh
!”

Kiki turned her head, looking about her. Around half of the sculpted figures remained, towering ten and twenty feet in height. And then she turned to look straight ahead, due to some primitive intuition, and particles of salt started to jiggle and vibrate before her eyes. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but there came a sudden uprush, a wave of salt gushing towards her like a tidal wave and she lifted hands to protect her face, protect her eyes, but it halted, hanging there, spinning, turning like a mini maelstrom, and twisting, finally, into a huge face. It was the face of a woman, hanging in the air and made from gently spinning particles. Silence fell. And the face smiled.

Kiki,
hissed the salt.

“Yes?” she said, mouth dry, a great and terrible fear worming into her heart, which suddenly dropped, like a black stone down a bottomless well.

It is your time, sister of the
Shamathe
. I do not wish to do this. Truly, sister of my heart. But unfortunately in life, we have to do those things that are the most painful for us. Say farewell to your friends. It is time for you to merge with the Salt Plains of Eternity
…

 

Narnok thrust Faltor Gan away from him with incredible force, kicking back as a snarling elf rat landed right before him and the great, double-headed axe swept up with a song of chaos, cutting into the creature’s chest with a thud and a shower of blood. It howled, claws slashing for Narnok’s face, and the whole world plummeted into a madness of elf rats landing, weapons slashing out, claws raking at eyes and faces. Narnok drew a knife and stuck it in the howling elf rat’s guts as another flew at him, a sword smashing for his head. He swayed back, dragging his axe with him, and kicked out, but the creature came on, dropping its sword and lunging with both twisted arms outstretched, dark, gleaming claws scrabbling for his throat and flexing. His axe sang, slamming in a horizontal strike that left two clawed hands twitching on the marble. A second return strike cut the head free. Narnok searched out Trista. She was fighting with Mola, the two Iron Wolves back to back. An elf rat leapt at them, but Veila sent a shaft through its open, screaming mouth and it was punched back, twisting, limbs flailing in a diagonal kick. Narnok roared and leapt forward, cleaving two elf rats in half as he waded towards Trista and Mola, and they parted for him, so they formed a trio of bristling steel. “
Dogs to me
!” roared Mola, and the beasts, snarling and chewing, muzzles red and black with blood and gore, returned to their master, great jaws fastening on elf rats along the way.

“We need to get out of here!” yelled Narnok.

“No shit,” snapped Mola.

“To the doors!” shouted Trista above the sudden din of battle, and they began cutting themselves a path through the gloom-laden charnel house, Mola’s vicious bastard dogs forming a spearhead of snapping teeth and iron jaws as they forced their way forward. They saw Badograk, with his two-handed axe, and Narnok called to him, but before he could turn, the heavily-muscled fighter went down with three elf rats on his back. Their claws gouged his eyes, tore out his throat and they bore him like a dying bull to the ground where a curved black blade lifted, and hacked down, cutting his head free. Trista saw Shafta, fighting bravely, both knives covered in blood. But as he backed away, an elf rat loomed behind him, jaws suddenly wide, wider than they had any right to be. They clamped down on the young lad’s head and he screamed as he was picked up, legs thrashing up into the air, knives clattering to the hard marble floor.

They made the double doorway, panting, covered in elf rat blood, and were joined by Veila, now out of shafts and fighting with a curved silver sabre, by Dag Da, and then by Faltor Gan. “Follow me,” said Faltor, his pale face speckled with black droplets, both fists drenched in gore.

“And why should we?”

He faced Narnok, and gave a narrow smile. “You were right, axeman. We need to stick together against the common enemy. Against these…” he savoured the words, “
elf rats
.”

“And how do I know I can trust you not to stick a knife in my back?”

Faltor grinned then. “Because, my belligerent friend, I heard what you said about taking Zanne Keep and slaughtering General Namash, and that sorcerer bastard, Bazaroth.”

“Ha! We’d need an army,” snorted Narnok, and cut his axe through a charging elf rat, showering them all with blood.

Faltor wiped glistening droplets from his face, and said, “You know that Breakneck Prison you were talking about?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I found out where the prisoners went. They’d been digging a tunnel, and when Zanne was invaded, overrun, they killed what few guards remained and broke out. A good few hundred of them. All hardened criminals, wondering what the
fuck
was going on, and trapped in an old iron works.”

“You think they’ll fight for us?”

“Not for us,” smiled Faltor, grimly. “But they might just fight for me.”

 

There were sixteen of them left, survivors from the museum, plus Mola’s dogs, which had been wounded by slashing claws, but didn’t seem to display any feelings of pain. Panting, they ran alongside their wiry master, who winced occasionally at his snapped clavicle and clicking ribs, but tried not to show it. The streets were dark and mostly deserted. The survivors hugged the walls of buildings, moving mostly in single file, Faltor Gan leading the way. They passed twisted, blackened trees, which grew out from beneath paving stones, pushing the heavy slabs of stone upwards and away and making the roads uneven, buckled. Some of the toxic trees were even growing up through the walls of buildings, and had pushed out bricks and supporting pillars, causing walls to sag, and roofs to collapse. The whole city of Zanne had an air of despondency; of bleakness, and poison, and emptiness. A cold wind blasted down the snow-filled streets. The air smelled of oil fire, of rotting vegetation, of despair.

Their boots crunched on snow and they stopped when Faltor held up a hand, still crusted in blood. Narnok shouldered his way to the front and poked Faltor in the ribs. “You’d better be right.”

“You’d better shut up.”

“Or what?”

An elf rat leapt from a roof, bearing down on Narnok who twitched, mighty shoulders rolling, axe flashing up and cleaving the creature damn near in half. There came a sound like rope unravelling as bowels and internal organs plopped and slopped to the snow, followed by the thud of the body.

“Or that,” said Faltor, and Narnok gave a sombre nod.

“I see what you mean.”

They reached the edge of the Hanging Square as the moon emerged from behind heavy, swirling clouds. Cold wind drifted powdered salt across the bleak space, which was dominated at the far end by the Hanging Oak, an ancient, some reckoned
thousand year-old
, tree of magnificent stature, its lower boughs wider than a horse and carriage, its huge frame a dominating and threatening shape.

“I’ve seen a few friends hanged on that bastard,” said Faltor Gan, and spat on the floor between his bloodstained boots.

“I reckon they probably deserved it,” observed Narnok, voice impassive.

Faltor slid him a sly look, sideways, and then returned it to the Hanging Oak. The tree creaked in the distance, as if recognising one it longed to see dance between its very own branches.

“You notice no evil has seeped through its branches, turning them black and twisting them out of shape?” Faltor gave a nasty, narrow grin. “That’s because The Hanging Oak is already steeped in evil; it’s already a pit leading straight down to the Furnace, and filled with the screaming souls of evil demons.” He spat again, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Well,” said Narnok, “I still reckon you thieving shit-bags deserve what you get. A long jump with a short rope.” He gave a nasty smile. “I probably put a few of you there myself, when I worked these streets with Dalgoran; cleaning up when the City Watch didn’t have the bollocks, so to speak.”

They moved across iced black cobbles. The Hanging Square was surrounded by high buildings of old, scarred stone; civic blocks; another museum; various offices for the hundreds of clerics who attended King Yoon; large trees acted as a modest screen between the windows of these many majestic edifices and The Hanging Square itself, which was used for markets on Thursdays and Saturdays, and occasionally – in olden days – had been the central meeting point for artists, bohemians and protestors. In the days before Yoon ordered his King’s Guard to cut the heads from the shoulders of such people.

It was eerily quiet.

“Look,” said Trista, the surrounding trees had indeed taken on a blackened, twisted countenance, although not to the extent they’d witnessed further south in the city of Zanne.

“It does not bode well,” said Narnok, grimly.

Trista moved with the group, alert, the taste of fear in her mouth. She was unused to being frightened, for it was not an emotion that had touched her in many years; not since her business with her
husband.
His face flashed into her mind and she spat on the iced cobbles under her boots. That bastard, she thought. She remembered their wedding night. It had been amazing. And then afterwards… afterwards…

Tears ran down Trista’s face, and she glanced around to see if anybody had noticed. How bizarre, she thought, to bring this back, here and now, amidst this chaos, amidst this promise of death.

Well, didn’t you bring the promise of death to so many others, you murderous bitch?

Yes, yes, but those asleep on their wedding night had found a perfection of existence; it was the pinnacle of what they would ever achieve. To die then, at that moment, in perfect, blissful happiness, could only immortalise the moment.

You killed them to satisfy your own need for revenge.

No, I killed them out of love.

Trista, my darling, you killed them out of rage.

“You okay, Lady?” Randaman had dropped back, his movements sleek and athletic, and reminding Trista of Zastarte.
Prince Zastarte.
Yeah right, or so he told all those slack-legged young women he wanted to bed.

“I have… felt better.” She rubbed at her eyes, and Randaman caught the movement. Smiled, a caring smile. He reached out and patted her shoulder, and Trista had to force herself not to remove his hand at the wrist. He saw the containment, and slowly took back his hand.

“I apologise if I offend. I meant only to reassure you. You fight with some of the best in the city; and yes, we might be criminals,” his face broke into a handsome grin, “but we’re hardened criminals, despite the rugged good looks.”

“I… am sorry.” Trista was unused to apologising. It felt somehow
wrong.

“You are a beautiful woman, Trista. I wish we had met during happier times.”

Trista was used to receiving compliments. Many of the young men who petitioned her ended up dead. But this felt somehow strange, and a new feeling crawled inside her as she realised, horse shit, she realised she was attracted to Randaman.

Where did that come from?

Just where the
fuck
did that come from?