The White Towers (6 page)

Haleesa felt the
flow.
It surrounded Lorna with a warmth which radiated and Haleesa sank to the ground, ignoring the cold of the snow in her bones as her eyes widened and she stared at the young child before her… a child performing the impossible… the channelling of the sun’s direct energies…

Lorna laughed, a truly joyous sound from such an ugly shell.

“It feels wonderful,” she breathed. “It tickles!”

“You must stop.”

Lorna’s gaze suddenly snapped to Haleesa, and the old woman saw the child’s eyes had turned from deep iron to a soft copper.

“You must stop,” cried Haleesa.

“I will never stop,” whispered Lorna, and her eyes glowed, then faded, and the ugly little child smiled. She stepped towards Haleesa, but the old woman scrambled away across the snow.

“What you did, child… it was impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” said Lorna. The child turned her gaze back down on the village. Gwynneth was there once more, returning to her hut with her golden-haired young girl, and waddling with the awkwardness of her internal passenger. Haleesa wondered what was going through the mind of her protégée.

“Let us go home,” said Lorna. “I am very hungry.”

Kiki, captain of the Iron Wolves, led the way into the subterranean gloom under Desekra Fortress. Her face was grim, hand on the hilt of one short sword, her bobbed brown hair tied back into a tight pony-tail, her iron eyes grim, hard set, and scowling. Her instinct was to turn around, face King Yoon – her King,
the
King of Vagandrak, Chief Warden of the North, Defender of the Skarandos… and hack her sword into his fucking head.

Dek padded up close behind, and she half-turned, seeing his grinning face in the flickering light from the brand she carried. “What are you smiling at?”

“It turned out okay in the end,” rumbled the broad-chested, badly tattooed pit-fighter. “Didn’t it, Keeks?”

“Hmm. That’s one way of looking at it, Dek. If it hadn’t been for Narnok snapping those ropes, we’d be dangling corpses over the mud-orc killing ground right about now. And all thanks to that insane, maggot-infested bastard, Yoon.”

“Well. I’m sure he had his reasons.”

“Had his
what?
Have you gone fucking insane?”

“Kiki, calm down. I said he had his reasons, not that I agreed with them. I like my neck unbroken, thanks very much, although I’ve got to admit, I’m a hard man to kill. It’d have to be a very strong rope.” He thought about it. “And a very long drop.”

Kiki stared, and coughed. “Well it was both of those; I think the fall from the walls of Desekra is big enough to crack even your unfaltering warrior’s ego. The problem here is what kind of liability Yoon is going to prove. He’s been nothing but a scourge against the people of Vagandrak.”

“You should talk to him. When we stop,” said Dek. He smiled amiably. “If you’ll let us stop. He may yet be a man who surprises you.”

Kiki nodded, but found a rage boiling inside herself, bubbling dangerously. She did not dare speak to Yoon. Yet. She knew she would lose her temper – and the last time that happened, she awoke a demon in her soul; she awoke the
Shamathe
and collapsed the battleground before the Desekra Fortress into a thousand caverns and ancient mines deep below the ground, sucking down thousands of warring, battling mud-orcs; sucking down Orlana, the Changer – otherwise known as the Horse Lady – down to her Eternal Doom.

Kiki took a deep breath and tried not to think about what nestled inside her. Tried not to think of her past. Her childhood. Of the Seed. And her sister, oh, her terrible, brooding, dark sister.

Well, I won’t allow it
, came the slithering voice of Suza, her tomb-demon, her eternal tormentor, sliding sideways into the charnel house of Kiki’s skull and bringing flashing images of maggot-infested corpses, of dead babies in coffins, of priests staked out to die, of death and putrefaction and a certainty of every single mortal man’s own imminent useless stinking death.

You cannot stop me
, thought Kiki, gritting her teeth so hard there came a crack.

You did well, back there. Very clever. Very noble. Honourable Kiki! Saving the people of Vagandrak from the slavering, terrible, unholy mud-orcs
;
God bless her little golden glowing soul. You fucking idiot. Where did it get you? Yoon turned on you. Stabbed you in the back. Ripped your heart from your chest and your womb from your abdomen. You think that maniac wanted his people saving? He was giving them over to Orlana; sacrificing you all to the Horse Lady.

Why not?
cackled Suza
. Like you really care, bitch. Like you really give a bejewelled fuck.

“Kiki!” rumbled Narnok, from the back, where he’d looped some rope around Yoon’s neck and was dragging the bound king along like a dog. The King’s eyes were wide and mad, his mouth muttering curses in a language Kiki had never before heard as spit drooled down the rich embroidery of his silk and cotton robe. “If my memory serves, there’s an old storeroom up ahead. One of Dalgoran’s little stashes for the Old Raids.”

Kiki nodded, and she noted the sudden gleam in Narnok’s single eye amidst the writhing mess of his razor-scarred face. “Go on. Ask the question.”

Narnok’s voice dropped to a hiss, like the fevered insistence of an insane zealot.
“The curse, Kiki! You promised us; said Dalgoran told us how to lift the curse
!”

“And I shall,” she said, uneasily, remembering Dalgoran’s words – shortly before the old, noble general died by his own hand.
Deep below Desekra Fortress, beneath Zula, the keep, there is a chamber. Inside it there is a chest. Everything you need to lift the curse is inside that chest… This key unlocks both the chamber and the chest. You will understand, when you see it.
He’d given her a bronze key which she wore on a loop of leather against her breast even as they spoke. Involuntarily, her hand came up, feeling the solidity of the bronze key through the soft cotton of her shirt. Nobody knew she had the key.
Nobody.
And if they did? She glanced around at her companions; at her
Iron Wolves.
Would they still be standing, talking?

First came Narnok, the huge axeman: bitter, twisted, hating humanity because of what his wife, Katuna, had done to him – over, ultimately, money. He also hated Dek, for Dek had been drawn into the spider’s web of seduction and deceit, and had betrayed one of his most trusted friends by taking Katuna to bed; Katuna, with her long dark curls, flashing eyes, and perfect olive skin. The fact she had then employed Xander the torturer to cut up Narnok’s face and put-out one of his eyes with acid had done nothing to temper the huge axeman’s view of the world and the insects that scurried about on its surface. Damaged wasn’t the half of it; but then, deep inside, weren’t they all?

Dek. Handsome Dek! A tall, athletic pit-fighter, with a broken nose and a hatred of his brother after what went on with their dying mum. But now Ragorek was dead, and Dek seemed to have mellowed, remembering a time long ago when he and Kiki had been young recruits, and more: lovers. But when Dek slept with Katuna, betraying Narnok, he had also betrayed Kiki. She still remembered the pain in his eyes when she’d screamed at him, screamed that she’d slit his throat, cut off his balls, eat out his heart. She hadn’t meant it, but it had had to be said. And now, years on,
decades
on, after so much sleep and wine and the addictive curse of the honey-leaf… well. That world seemed another lifetime, filled with different people, different lovers; lovers who’d helped dilute the pain.

The next Iron Wolf was Zastarte: handsome, dashing,
stunning
, with his slim rapier and witty banter, his expertise at giving women pleasure and his love of burning people alive. Amoral, twisted, decadent, he had changed since the old battles with mud-orcs and the sorcerer Morkagoth; or had he? Kiki remembered Zastarte from the Before Times – he’d always had a merciless streak. Had always been… mean? Ruled by money, sex, and later fame after the Iron Wolves became heroes; his merciless, amoral streak had grown dominant, yes; but, more importantly, it had always been there: more powerful than the curse that ran through all their blood, all their flesh. You could trust Zastarte, as long as there was good solid gold at the end of the mission. And maybe a few buxom wenches to lighten the darkness in his soul.

Trista was the very essence of beauty and the beast, yet another twisted individual. A great swordswoman, her husband had betrayed her and she’d spent many an evening hunting down newlyweds and murdering them in their conjugal bed – so, as it appeared in her twisted reality, they could be together… forever. No betrayal for those visited by Trista. No cheating lies and backstabbing treachery. She also had an unusual, predatory streak; Narnok had once compared her to the female spider that mated, then ate its mate. He said she was a predatory cannibal; and to sleep with her, was to die. Although Trista had been offended at the time, Narnok had been pretty astute with his observations.

And finally. Finally? Kiki turned her critical eye on herself. Kiki, Captain of the Iron Wolves, a dazzlingly accomplished warrior. But after the fame of turning back the mud-orcs at the Pass of Splintered Bones, of heading out into No Man’s Land and confronting Morkagoth the Sorcerer, and beating him using the curse of the Iron Wolves… Kiki had discovered she had a tumour close to her heart. The King, Yoon’s father, had showered them with money, jewels, lands, and Kiki had used a small fortune seeking the best medical advice in Vagandrak and beyond. When one brave surgeon finally cut her open, he had immediately sewn her back up again. To operate, he advised her, to
remove
the tumour would be to kill her stone dead. And so Kiki had fallen into bad ways, losing herself in the world of the honey-leaf, self-pity, drugs and liquor and meaningless sex – constantly mocked by the voice of her dead sister, Suza, taunting her inside her own tortured skull. Until the aged General Dalgoran had come looking for her, with a new mission.

And now.
Now
she held the key to releasing the Iron Wolves from the curse they suffered. Just like she had promised, if they accompanied her back to Desekra to face the new threat of massing mud-orcs and the Horse Lady, Orlana. And they had. They had all stuck to their side of the bargain. And, she realised, she could – she
could
release them from the curse, if she so chose. They could search for Dalgoran’s secret chamber and drink the potion or wear the magick fucking ring – whatever secret was hidden in the box which would unbind the magick locking the Iron Wolves together. But…

With a primeval instinct, Kiki knew this thing wasn’t over. Knew the horrors visiting Vagandrak, although it seemed they had been turned aside once more… well, something inside her screamed more loudly than her dead bitch sister. And to release the Iron Wolves from their united curse would be to…
weaken
a massive force for good in the land. Kiki knew she owed it to Dalgoran, to King Tarek, to General Jagged and all the tens of thousands of soldiers who had given their lives protecting the good land of Vagandrak.

This thing wasn’t over. Kiki knew it in her soul.

She gave a cough, and took a deep breath, straightening herself and staring into Narnok’s single intense eye.

“I will do as was promised,” said Kiki, slowly. “But we must head deeper. Deep down under Desekra and towards the north, under the Mountains of Skarandos. Because this thing, this unleashed evil – it isn’t over. To give away that which binds us together, it would be to weaken us out of all context. You understand?”

Narnok gave a grim smile, and a single nod. Kiki felt her heart melt, for she understood his sacrifice. When Dalgoran had brought them all together, they’d been a disparate bunch, filled with hate. Now – they were more a unit. The Iron Wolves were truly back.

“We are with you, Kiki,” said Dek, giving her a smile.

“Good,” she said.

They continued down the steeply sloping tunnel, and after a half hour they emerged into a large, round, stone chamber, with ancient curved oak benches set about the dry walls. They were deep beneath Desekra Fortress now. But the portals which led off from this hub, all heading steeply downwards, blew with stale cold air like the last rattling breath from the sour mouth of a mud-orc corpse.

Prince Zastarte ­– dandy, womaniser – placed a silk sleeve over his mouth. “This place is unholy. It was not made by men and is not fit for men.” He caught Trista’s scowl and flashed her a smile. “Or women, dear heart,” he amended. “You know I meant no offence.”

“Good,” said the beautiful, golden curled Trista, stepping past him, “or I’d have to slit open your belly like I was gutting a rotten fish.” Only then did Zastarte catch a glimpse of the short-handled, jewelled dagger nearly completely hidden in her hand. Trista. Beauty and the beast. The sexual cannibal.

“Charmed, I’m sure, my dear.”

“Enough shit,” rumbled Narnok, tugging Yoon into the chamber behind him on his length of rope. “Kiki has the keys here. We stock up on weapons, provisions, anything we think might be useful. It’s going to be a long journey down under the Skarandos Mountains, away from our enemies, and none of it’s going to be pleasant, that’s for sure.”

Yoon stared at the five Iron Wolves, his eyes bulging. “What? You madmen think you can travel these tunnels all the way under the mountains? Are you serious? And you’re taking
me
with you?”

“Well, what did you expect, Yoon? Turn around and head back out so your elite soldiers can hack us down one by one? No, son, you’re coming with us. We go deep. We go far. And we kill anything that stands in our fucking way.”

Yoon visibly trembled, paled. His long black curls were lank and plastered to his face and neck with damp cold sweat. He looked not an inch the battle king portrayed on the tapestries at the Royal Apartments in Vagan, the War Capital of Vagandrak, despite his athletic build and the fact he’d been trained by the best warriors in the realm.