The White Towers (48 page)

They stopped. Sameska turned and looked at Mola. They were in an ancient series of passages, hewn from some kind of rock chamber. The walls were rough. Mola suddenly realised they were underground; probably underneath Zanne Keep itself.

“Yes?” he found himself saying, and kicked himself mentally. He sounded like a dog panting and begging to its bloody master.

“Through this door is Bazaroth aea Quazaquiel. The elf rat sorcerer. Servant of the elf rat king, Daranganoth. Are you ready to face your nemesis, Mola of the Dogs?”

“Well, actually, I’ve just been thinking about that…”

“We must act now!”

“Er. I meant to say, Sameska, I’m not your average hero-type material, you know? I mean, I have my fighting dogs and everything, but to be brutally honest with you, all that war and hero stuff was a long time ago.” He waved his sword. “I haven’t used this thing properly in years. You could say I’m a bit rusty.”

Sameska stared at him. “You are one of the Iron Wolves of legend,” he whispered. “You
will
overcome.”

And with a quick movement, he blasted the oak door from its hinges. Duchess and the others began snarling in vicious hate and surged forward, then stopped just within the interior. It was an incredibly ancient chapel, rough hewn walls carved from the rock itself beneath Zanne Keep. There was a throne, but this was not like the pompous, glossy, glitzy Yoon throne that squatted up in the main hall of Zanne Keep like some actor’s prop on a stage. No. This was a basic chair hewn from the living rock of the chamber itself. It was inlaid with strange bones, their shapes unrecognisable to Mola’s eyes in his swift appraisal of the scene before him.

But what he
did
see was the sorcerer, Bazaroth, seated on the rock chair with his face displaying… ecstasy?

Mola stepped forward, sword out, his dogs growling at his knees and midriff. Saliva drooled from fangs ready to kill. Muscles were bunched. Mola’s dogs were poised, ready to attack. Ready to kill.

“Welcome,” said Bazaroth.

There were others in the chamber, which was lit by soft candles in alcoves which circled the room. In fact, it seemed more than just a chapel. It felt like some deep religious altar. It felt, to Mola in those fleeting seconds, like some portal to a different time, a different world, a different religion.

The Equiem,
whispered something in his mind, in a cracked voice of breaking tomb lids.

“I think we need a talk, mate,” snapped Mola, puffing out his chest and reverting to his brisk military stance. It was all he knew. All he could do. He felt Sameska come in behind him, drifting like a ghost. He eyed the figures in heavy brown robes and frowned. There were some shapes there he recognised. Some…
faces
that in the candlelight looked a little bit like…

“
No
,” mouthed Mola, eyes widening.

Narnok smiled, throwing back the hood of his brown robe. A fist of tentacles thrust from his mouth, and it appeared he was screaming in silence as they wriggled and squirmed before his face, hissing like a writhing pit of snakes.

And they were all there. Trista. Veila. Randaman. Faltor Gan. Meatboy. Darkdog. Even Cunt turned, his shaved and tattooed head glowing under the soft light of the candles and, as his mouth opened, so tentacles squirmed free and wriggled in front of his face like so many oiled eels in a tube…

Bazaroth lowered his head. His eyes were old. More ancient than the mountains.

Narnok drew out his double-headed axe, and his eyes were dark and evil as the parasitic snakes in his mouth and throat and chest squirmed and fought and stretched out towards new fresh meat…

“Kill them,” said Bazaroth, and his servants charged.

Kiki and Dek travelled in silence for the rest of the day, each lost in philosophical contemplation of their friend, now gone and dead, their mission to
save
Vagandrak yet further compromised. Even as a trio it had been going to be a tough assignment; but with Prince Zastarte dead down some dark mountain crevasse, and just the two of them to now carry the torch, their increased vulnerability weighed heavy on sombre minds.

The storm had continued for a while, thunder rumbling through the mountains, ancient gods battling with sword and shield. The path wound on to higher and higher peaks, the wind biting like a fighting dog, snow flurries further making progress and comfort more difficult.

They halted at one point, huddling in a shallow cave whilst Dek made a hot thin soup with their meagre rations. They ate in silence and warmed hands over the fire. Kiki found herself lost, deep in thought; she remembered the early days with Zastarte, his well-groomed beauty, his witty lines, the fights, the wine, the drugs, the sex…

“I’ll miss the dandy bastard,” said Dek, eventually. “Although I hated his perfume. He stank like a rancid prostitute.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“But to be fair, you hadn’t seen him for a couple of decades.”

“Yes.”
 “And he had taken to torturing young women. Don’t forget that.”

“Yes. I know.”

“So, to all intents and purposes, he was a stranger to you.”

Kiki stared hard at Dek. “Are you intentionally trying to fuck me off?”

“No! No, not at all. I just…”

“You just what? Wanted to desecrate the memory of a man who fought with us, died for us, and his corpse isn’t even fucking cold yet?”

“It’ll be cold in that ice, I can promise you that.” He saw Kiki’s face. “However, I can see what you mean,” he mumbled, and ladled more soup into his maw, averting his eyes and trying to absorb some of the meagre heat from the fire.

Kiki said nothing. And they repacked in silence.

 

Another night travelling through freezing darkness. Another bleak morning catching a few hours beneath too-thin blankets and wondering if the ice demons would take them in the night.

Never had Kiki needed the honey-leaf more. And she took what little she had, and kept her addiction at a stable level, and did not tell Dek. After all, would he understand? Could he ever understand?

Dek was torn and exhausted and done. He hadn’t meant for it to sound like he didn’t give a fuck about Zastarte. Zastarte had saved Dek’s life on thirteen separate occasions, and he’d had a certain fondness for the bisexual, sartorially challenged, murderous and murdering motherfucker. But at the end of the day, they weren’t in this thing as a game. The odds were serious shit ­– stacked against them. They were Iron Wolves. They’d fought through a million battles. They knew the fucking risks and Zast knew the fucking risks. And his luck had run out. On a long enough mission, all their luck ran out.

The stars were twinkling diamonds.

The horses were unhappy, snorting and stamping.

The path was a weaving, winding, nightmare.

Days seemed to blend into one another, and time no longer meant anything, no longer mattered; and Vagandrak no longer mattered, and the elf rats no longer mattered. They were battling the White Lion Mountains. And the White Lion Mountains were a savage, merciless mistress – willing to snuff out life in an instant. No regrets. No emotion. That’s the way it was. Life and death. But shit, mostly death.

They sat in a cave Dek had carved out of a snow wall with a hand axe. They were slowly freezing to death. They had burned the last of the wood bundles they’d brought on their mounts, and food was running low. The next stage was to kill one of the horses, eat as much as they could, bundle up the rest of the best cuts and travel on. Dek seemed nonplussed at the thought of slaughtering one of the geldings; Kiki, however, couldn’t even bear the thought.

A blizzard had driven them to shelter, and the hours blended into one another. Kiki and Dek shared the last of the honey-leaf, entwining under their blankets. They had no idea how long they’d been travelling. No idea how long it was since Zastarte was swept over the mountain and claimed by the Ice Demons. Disorientation ruled them.

They ran out of food, and Kiki said she would not, absolutely
would not
kill the horses.

So they embraced one another, and got high, and waited to die.

 

The sun rose, painting a strip of violet across the horizon. Kiki opened her ice-encrusted eyes, and drank in the view beyond their tiny cave entrance, and breathed. The blizzard had subsided. And the view that opened up before her was one of an awesome, vast world – beyond the White Lion Mountains.

“Dek,” she croaked. “Dek!”

She looked down, and his face was deathly white. At first she thought he was dead and panic slammed her in the chest like a sledgehammer. She shook him, and slapped his face, and he murmured and gradually came awake. Sombrely, they realised how close to death they were. Skipping along the edge of a razor.

And then they looked out beyond the mountains.

Zalazar stretched away beyond, endless rolling plains, and lakes, and forests.

Zalazar. The elf rat lands.

In silence, they descended sweeping paths down this, the final border mountain to Zalazar. With each hundred feet of descent the wind dropped, and the temperature started to rise. There was no greenery of any kind, but the warmer breeze was a welcome break from the relentless buffeting of snow and ice. Gradually, the snow started to disappear and there were more glimpses of black rock breaking up the endless white; huge jagged boulders dotted the mountainside, and maybe half way down Kiki and Dek sat on two large rocks and surveyed the elf rat lands.

Rolling hills spread away, green and patched with rocks, patched with snow. The winter was less harsh here. To the north and southeast were great swathes of… forest. But instead of the evergreen they’d expected, these forests were entirely black. Black tree trunks, black leaves, black pine needles. Branches were crooked, disjointed, like arthritic limbs. The soil was soaked with something like fish oil.

Distantly, more mountains lined the horizon.

“It never ends,” said Kiki, sighing.

“The Mountains of the Moon,” said Dek, quietly. “We’ve seen them before.”

“I remember.”

They scanned the landscape. It had been a long time. Twenty-five years, or more. A different world. A different lifetime.

“There they are,” said Kiki, with reverence.

“The White Towers.”

“Yes.”

And they both stared at the distant towers that rose from the centre of a matt black forest sprawl. Twin needles of glistening white, as if the towers were created from ice. They shot up from the forest, impossibly high for structures made by man. But then, they were not made by man. They had been built by the Elves, over a thousand years previous.

“This is an impossible mission,” said Dek, his chin on his fist, despondency his mistress.

“Perhaps.”

“Look at it. The pride of the elf rats. The seat of their power. They’re in the process of taking Vagandrak apart – with absolute fucking ease. Yoon’s armies are in disarray; ignore that. Yoon’s armies are non-existent. Disbanded. Demoralised. Those who weren’t killed by Orlana’s mud-orcs have probably run off home to wives who deserve them. Those who stayed… well. There can’t be that many Yoon didn’t send home.”

Kiki looked at him. “I love you, Dek. You know that.”

“I know it, sweetie,” he rumbled, with a broken-toothed smile.

“As long as you know. In case we don’t make it.”

Dek chuckled.

“What is it?”

“If we go down there, Kikellya Mandasayard, there’s no going home.”

“And yet you’ll still come with me? Knowing we ride to certain death?”

“Of course.” He frowned. “What the fuck else have I got to do?”

She laughed, then, a genuine peal of laughter that brought a ragged wide smile to Dek’s face, and they got up, and brushed themselves down, and checked their weapons, and headed down the mountain with two battered, wild-eyed horses looking very much the worse for wear – and maybe unconsciously aware they’d escaped the cooking pot by the skin of their equine teeth.

It was early afternoon when they reached the valley floor and rode into the first forest of black trees. It was silent. There were no birds, no leaves, no sound at all. It was perfectly still. Still as a church. Still as a thousand year tomb.

The horses’ hooves clopped on a road of frozen mud. The trees were large, angular, unreal. They were like no other trees Kiki had ever seen. Their branches were angular, as if beaten from old iron swords. And yet they were living.
Must
be living, after a sort.

“The elf rats are bonded to their Heart Trees,” said Dek, eventually, when the eerie silence had become too much.

Kiki nodded. “Yes.”

“We should burn the forests.”

“No. That’s not the way.”

“Sounds like the right thing to me.” He tilted his head.

“Trust me, Dek. This is not about murder. This is about salvation.”

They rode for hours through the endless trees of black. Occasionally, they came upon a clearing and saw the distant spikes of the White Towers, the twin glittering spires of bright white, white, as if they were glowing, as if they were the exact antithesis to these twisted, stunted, warped and blackened trees. As if the White Towers themselves had sucked all the life out of the land: all the colour, all the energy, all the spirit.