The White Towers (49 page)

The White Towers.

Or… what lay within them.

Eventually, Dek and Kiki rode out onto a green hillside. They climbed slowly, weary, tired to the bones. As they reached the summit, they stopped.

Below them, sat a motionless army of elf rats.

Kiki hissed.

“Fuck me,” said Dek, eyes wide, teeth forming an unholy grin. “Are they waiting for us?”

There must have been ten thousand soldiers. Winter sunlight glinted from their black armour. Violet fire shone from the points of ten thousand spears. They turned, in gradients, as one single unit.

Kiki shrugged, and stared down at the warriors who looked up, dark eyes under matt black helms fixing on her. There was no doubt about it. They were there, between the two remaining Iron Wolves, and their goal: the White Towers.

Dek’s horse pawed the frozen grass.

“What do we do?”

“We ride down.”

“They’ll fucking cut us to pieces!”

“Then they cut us to pieces.”

The soldiers spread away like an ocean. Armour glinted. The sun shifted and extra rays of light glittered across the warriors ranged before them.

“There’s two of us,” said Dek.

“Yeah,” said Kiki.

“We’re Iron Wolves.”

“Damn. Fucking. Right.”

“I reckon we can take a couple of hundred,” he growled. “What do you reckon?”

Kiki scowled. “I reckon we’re going to find out. Because I turn back for no man, woman or fucking toxic elf rat.”

She kicked her horse into a canter, and rode down the hillside, hooves crunching snow and icy grass. Dek followed, unsheathing one of his swords in a smooth, fluid movement. If he was going to die, it was going to be with a blade in his hand. A man could ask for no more. And his mam would damn well expect it.

They cantered down towards the elf rat army, and Kiki reined in a hundred paces from them. Their black and silver uniforms were immaculate. Their spears were held in perfect stillness. They stood, eyes turned to Kiki and Dek without emotion. They made no move, no sound, no gesture.

“I think it’s time to die,” said Kiki, and kicked her horse forward.

“I’m with you, girl,” growled Dek, and followed, his heart racing.

They approached the army, and smoothly it split apart, soldiers marching aside and stamping to attention. They created a road through their ranks, and stood, eyes staring straight ahead, now ignoring Kiki and Dek.

Kiki halted at the opening of this elf rat road. She gave a wicked grin. “You’re joking, right?”

Nobody answered.

“
You! Elf rat
!
Fucking answer me!”

Nothing. No indication the Iron Wolves even existed.

Kiki kicked her horse at the nearest solider, reining in at the last moment with a savage tug, the gelding twisting its head. The elf rat did not move. Did not flinch. She drew her short sword, and held it to his throat.

Nothing. No reaction. No attack.

Kiki looked back at Dek. “I expect,” she said, “that we’re expected.”

“I expect we’re going to be tortured,” muttered Dek.

“I truly don’t think that’s the case.”

“What is it then? Idle curiosity?”

“Aren’t
you
curious, Dek? Come on. Ride beside me. Let’s end this adventure together.”

Dek kicked his horse forward, and together they cantered through the ranks of thousands and thousands of elf rat warriors. Perfectly armed and armoured soldiers. Crimson painted their helms and breast plates and spears and swords. They could have killed Dek and Kiki in a minute. In an instant. But they did not.

The hill dropped, and Kiki and Dek rode side by side through the elf rat ranks, until they reached the end of the army and entered another woodland road. Kiki rode with her shoulder blades itching, expecting some shaft at any moment to punch between them, skewering her lungs.

But it did not come.

“I cannot believe that,” said Dek, shaking his head.

“I know.”

“I thought we would die.”

“Me, also.”

“What now?”

Kiki turned to him. “We ride to the White Towers,” she said.

 

The snow came; a wild blizzard blasted across Zalazar. And in the midst of the blizzard, emerging from a forest of twisted black trees towering high above them, the great limbs like the crooked arms of dead and cooked burn victims, Kiki and Dek came across a second army. There were less soldiers this time, maybe four or five thousand. Once more they stood in silent ranks, blocking the way to the White Towers. These had swords drawn, and were stood perfectly motionless, as the snow whipped and blasted around them. Their black armour was crusted with ice and snowflakes. They were taller than men, but still twisted, poisoned by the very land and trees that had spawned them; they wore black helms and black eyes gleamed like glass behind visor slits.

Kiki rode towards the front ranks, and they parted, the entire army splitting down the middle to create a road between their ranks. Kiki rode in a straight line, looking neither left nor right, and Dek followed, hand on his sword hilt, marvelling – and dreading – this turn of events. Because something was quite obviously wrong. There was a game being played, and Dek hated not knowing the bloody rules.

The thousands of black-armoured elf rats made no move, until Kiki and Dek had passed through the entire army. And then, with a many-replicated clink of armour and stamp of boots, the ranks closed to form an impenetrable wall of swords and shields and armour.

Dek glanced back, face grim, but Kiki did not.

“I guess we’re not going home in a hurry,” he said, voice bitter.

“I don’t think we ever were.”

“Well I fucking was,” snapped Dek. “There’s still an ocean of whiskey to drink; a million hog roasts to consume; and I’d hoped, one day, we might have children…”

“Children?” Kiki halted her horse, and turned, and stared at her lover. “Oh, Dek…”

“It’s all right. Don’t get soppy now, you hard-hearted bitch.” He smiled to take the sting out of his words. “Just a dream I had, that’s all.”

“Why did you never have children before?” Snow settled on her hair and shoulders. To Dek, Kiki looked like a queen.

“Because it was never with you,” he replied, voice husky.

They rode on. Towards the White Towers.

 

Light was failing as they emerged from another forest. Zalazar was practically one huge forest, from the White Lion Mountains all the way to the Mountains of the Moon – which loomed above them now. Maybe because every elf rat had to be linked to a tree? A Heart Tree?

They stood their geldings, stamping and snorting, and gazed up at the White Towers ahead of them.

“I expected another army,” said Dek, breath steaming like demon-smoke.

“Me, also.”

“Are we going in?”

“I think that’s the plan.”

Kiki led the way down a narrow path, which led into a valley. The White Towers dominated a central position, and shot up into the heavens with smooth, slick sides like polished marble. There were no doors or windows in the entire twin structures, just solid walls of gently glowing white; gleaming, as their polished surfaces reflected the winter sun. Above, maybe a thousand feet in the sky, the twin White Towers curved inwards, ending in perfect points.

Kiki slowed her approach, and Dek mimicked her pace. Finally, she stopped, and kicked herself from the saddle. Her eyes searched for doorways, an entrance of some kind. But there was none. She put her right hand on her right sword hilt, and walked forward with Dek close behind. But there came a sound, from the edge of the trees, and they emerged like four dark wraiths, gliding through the snow, each one bearing two drawn swords. It was the Tree Stalkers.

“Shit,” snarled Dek, drawing his own weapon. “I thought they were dead!”

“They have tracked us over the mountains,” said Kiki, and drew both her own swords.

“Shall we run?” hissed Dek. “I don’t think we can take all four!”

“I agree,” said Kiki, bitterly, standing her ground.

They moved closer, each nearly seven feet tall, their limbs twisted just a little, their black glass eyes fixed with fanaticism and hate on the two Iron Wolves. There was Villiboch, his bow slung over his shoulder, his swords black and matt and razor sharp. There was Sileath, the female, her face long and pointed – a little like a rat’s. There was Ffaefel, taller and more elegant than the others, and finally Ugrak, hulking, broad shouldered, a power-house of a creature.

The Tree Stalkers halted ten feet away.

“You have one missing,” smiled Kiki, her eyes glinting.

“You killed Aeoxir in Skell Forest,” said Villiboch, stepping forward. “Now, however, you have come far enough.”

A distant howl echoed through the forest, as if punctuating Villiboch’s statement. It was long and mournful. Nobody moved.

“Do that thing,” muttered Dek from the corner of his mouth.

“What thing?”

“That thing with the earthquakes and the storms and shit,” he muttered. “Go on. Throw some fucking trees at them.”

“We are in their world now,” said Kiki, eyes locked on Villiboch’s. “That power is denied me.”

“Horse shit. So we have to rely on good old Vagandrak steel?”

“It would appear so,” growled Kiki.

Then, from the edge of the trees they came, padding on silent paws through the snow and iced grass. They were wolves, a pack of large wolves moving fast, four feet tall at the shoulder, their fur the thick grey of heavy winter coats. There were thirty or forty of the beasts, and the Tree Stalkers saw Kiki and Dek look past them…

Villiboch spun and swiftly strung his bow. Three shafts hissed through the air, taking down three of the great beasts, which rolled, blood staining the snow in great, pissing arcs – but the wolves increased their pace, charging across the clearing with growls and snarls to leap, and they were on the Tree Stalkers in an instant, growling and tearing, jaws snapping and breaking and the fight was incredibly brutal. Three wolves dragged a screaming Ugrak to the ground and chewed through his throat. Sileath’s head was snapped clean off with one giant bite. Within seconds, the Tree Stalkers were reduced to so much strewn and bloody meat and severed limbs.

During this fast, savage battle, Dek had backed away, face pale, and readied himself for attack. But Kiki was cool, her eyes watching the wolves. Then she turned to Dek. “It’s all right,” she said, voice low, and husky, and filled with an incredible well of emotion. “They are… not our enemies.”

“Bollocks!”

“Sheath your sword, soldier,” she said. Her eyes were fixed on his. “Do it, if you want to live.”

Dek sheathed his weapon at the third attempt.

Kiki, ignoring the wolves with their bloody muzzles and narrowed eyes, turned her attention back to the White Towers – and walked swiftly towards the gleaming white walls. As she walked, she closed her eyes and felt the magick of the land. Felt the
polluted
magick. This place was poisoned beyond repair; toxic, beyond cleansing; dark, beyond the possibility of light. And yet these two towers stood like beacons. And inside, she knew, was the Elf Heart – a device created by the ancient kings and magickers of Vagandrak in order to twist their enemies, the elves, imprisoning them here; and in the process, polluting and twisting an entire nation.

Kiki searched outwards, and downwards, and felt the incredible power charged in the land; in the rocks and twisted trees, in every blade of grass, in every tiny worm that crawled and struggled through the soil.

Her eyes flickered open, and she stopped a foot away from the wall. She reached out, but did not touch the surface.

“This place has been waiting for me,” she said.

“Yeah, but how do we get in?” said Dek uneasily, one eye still on the bloody, panting wolves which made no attempt to attack. It’s a bloody miracle, he thought. A bloody bastard miracle!

Kiki closed her eyes again, and tentatively felt her way forward with her spirit force – there came some kind of sudden
crack
and Kiki was picked up and accelerated backwards across the clearing, hitting the snow hard and rolling over maybe twenty times, like a broken rag doll. Dek stood for a moment, mouth open in shock at what he’d just seen, then ran to her, dropping to his knees and cradling her head. Her eyes opened, and blood trickled from her mouth.

“Get away from me!” she hissed. “Bazaroth… he is inside me… usurping my powers… sucking out the Equiem magick…”

“What can I do?” cried Dek, feeling helpless, like a young child again.

“Nothing…” murmured Kiki, and she began to change; like some terrible vision, her hair started to crawl back into her skull, retreating and changing to a jet black, like a clump of thick wires, until only a central clump remained. Her skin paled, bleaching yellow, and became gently ridged as if she had scales. Her nose twisted, and her teeth cracked and narrowed to little points. And then there came more snapping sounds, and Kiki’s skin shrivelled around her hands, her fingers closing, fusing together to form solid spikes. Within her boots, her feet did the same, and the useless items were kicked away as she began to thrash and scream and Dek stared down at this horrible creature below him, his Kiki changed into some incredible monster. There was a hiss as his sword cleared his scabbard and confusion slammed like a meteor through his brain. Was this Kiki?
Really
Kiki? Where had his love gone? Emotions raged through him, burning him and turning his mind inside out. What can I do?
What can I fucking do?

There came a feral growl, and the wolves moved towards Dek and this shivering, horrible creature vulnerable on the floor.

“
Kiki
!” screamed Dek, looking around frantically as the wolves loped towards him with blood-slick muzzles. He knew he was fucked. There was no way one man could fight three wolves, never mind this pack of monsters. And they had shown how terribly efficient in the art of death they really were. The massacre of the Tree Stalkers had proved that.