Unholy War (76 page)

The next morning, he gathered his magi: Arnulf Rhumberg; a Brician half-blood named Niklyn Vardel, a Fire-mage with a temper to match; and Hetta Descholt, a Hollenian pure-blood, a noblewoman’s legitimate daughter who’d run away to join the legions. She was no beauty – her snub nose and flat features reminded him of a Brevian bulldog – but he liked her strut. Her affinities were Air-gnosis and sylvan gnosis, specialising in herb-lore, which she utilised in her main skill: archery using poisoned arrows.

‘Last night I saw a light down the valley,’ Gurvon told them, ‘but the footing is too treacherous for the horses for us to move in the dark. We need to get closer – but not too close.’

‘Get me above their camp and I’ll feather them for you,’ Hetta Descholt said confidently.

‘I want Elena alive.’

‘So I’ll shoot her in the legs for you, no problem,’ she replied evenly. Hollenians were not known for harbouring doubts on anything, which was refreshing after years of Rutt’s nerves and Elena’s second-guessing.

Rhumberg scratched his beard. ‘Elena is not the sort to be taken by surprise. I remember her: eyes always open. She might even know we’re here.’

‘We slept with no fires last night,’ Niklyn Vardel whined. ‘She won’t know we’re here, not unless she can see five miles in the dark.’ He looked at Gurvon. ‘Leave the cavalry behind and let us four take her.’

‘That’s a variation on what I’m thinking,’ Gurvon replied. ‘I want three of us to get close and pin her down so she can’t move when the cavalry sweeps down the valley.’

‘Two hundred soldiers to catch two people?’ Hetta wrinkled her little nose. ‘I know you say she’s good, but aren’t we being just a little over-cautious?’

‘We don’t know she’s alone,’ Gurvon replied. ‘If it were me, I’d have gathered others. That Noorie is probably renegade Ordo Costruo, and they might have a whole band with them by now – not necessarily magi, but whoever she recruits will certainly be handy in a fight.’ He looked at Rhumberg. ‘Arnulf, you’ll lead the cavalry; find a place close as you can get to where we saw that fire, but not visible to it. I’ll take you two’ – he looked at Vardel and Hetta – ‘and we’ll pin them in a three-way cross-fire. As soon as the fighting starts, Arnulf will sound the charge. It should be easy, as Niklyn says, but I don’t like to take chances around Elena.’

‘Do we kill her, or take her alive?’ Hetta asked, her button eyes glinting.

‘Alive if possible. Mater-Imperia wants her, for what I hope will be a horrible and lingering death.’

‘Can we make a start on her here?’ Vardel asked. ‘We’re owed some payback for having to tramp all the way out into this Helish wilderness.’

Rhumberg growled his agreement.

Gurvon looked away for a second. He’d been thinking about this very point half the night. It had been one thing to force Rutt’s scarab into her, but could he truly sit back and watch her get carved up for pleasure? Could he hold the knife?

Then he thought of all the suffering her treachery had put him through. ‘Sure,’ he replied airily. ‘Why not?’

*

The approach down the valley was not easy. The khurnes managed to negotiate the steep scree slopes, but the horses slipped frequently, and one broke its hind leg, which forced a delay as Hetta had to use her healing-gnosis on the animal. There were more delays as they got closer as they had to check ahead constantly to ensure that Elena wasn’t sitting on the next ridge with a spyglass and a well-armed welcome party.

Finally they found a staging zone for Rhumberg’s cavalrymen, half a mile from where the light had been spotted. Gurvon and Hetta found an excellent vantage point from where they could actually see the remains of the fire – and, better still, a tent. ‘A large fire for just two people,’ Descholt commented, her face calm, ‘but there are no other tents, just that one next to the river.’

Neither of them could see any movement in the tent.

Gurvon stared at the cliffs above, then he drew Hetta aside. ‘If you could get up there, you’d have them at your mercy.’

‘I’ve already picked my spot, sir, and the best approach.’

‘Thought you might have,’ he replied, approvingly. ‘Take Vardel to the near end of the cliffs, then press on yourself so you’re got two points of fire. I’ll come in from across the river to ensure she’s got nowhere to run to.’

He glanced back to make sure the column was well out of sight, then gave her his
I find you interesting
look. ‘What does Endus pay for a woman of your talents?’ he asked, and when she told him, he put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Would you like to double it?’

She looked at his hand pointedly, but didn’t object. ‘I’m told your people tend to wind up dead, Magister Gyle. Leaving a larger purse for my daughter is all very well, but I’m better able to support her if I’m alive.’

‘You have a daughter?’

‘Uh huh. I was stupid enough to get knocked up in my first week in the legion. That was three years ago and she’s grown up half-wild in the baggage train. But I love her.’

‘Endus is the father?’

‘Nah, he likes ’em prettier than me – and dark-skinned, mostly. It was just some ranker with a nice smile. He’s dead now.’ Her voice betrayed little regret.

‘You must have plenty of suitors, a pretty, wealthy young woman with mage blood?’

She frowned, clearly a little uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. ‘I’m disinherited – and actually, most people think I’m a bitch. And I poison people who do me wrong, like my daughter’s father. I didn’t kill him, mind, that was some bandits in Verelon. I just made him sick enough to stay away. Most people take a hint from that.’

‘Treble the money?’

She laughed. ‘I’ll think about it.’ She rolled on her side and looked him over appraisingly. ‘This Elena Anborn was your women, wasn’t she? Then she screwed you over?’

‘That’s about the size of it.

‘But you didn’t sound all that excited about carving her up when we talked this morning.’

‘I’m not entirely heartless,’ he said, because women preferred men who showed a little sensitivity, and he quite liked this Hollenian. He could use someone with a positive attitude.
Who knows, it might rub off on me
. ‘But I’m well over her.’

Hetta took that in with a bob of the head. ‘Let’s talk again once this business is done.’ They shared a moment of understanding, then turned back to the distant view of the river valley and the tent.

After a few minutes he saw a distant shape crawl out of the tent and stand. It was too far away for details, but it was clearly a man, stark naked and dark-skinned. A few seconds later a smaller shape with short, sunbleached hair and slightly paler skin joined him. They kissed, then splashed into the river.

He was surprised to note how his temper rose just to see that brief glimpse of affection.

‘No sign of anyone else, Magister,’ Hetta commented.

‘Call me Gurvon, Hetta.’ He scanned the cliffs. One of the men had found a discarded snakeskin during the descent, and the cliffs looked to be riddled with dark spots that might be small cave-mouths. ‘Be careful when you traverse the cliffs. It looks like snake country to me.’

Hetta acknowledged with a relaxed wave of the hand. ‘Look – there are crops growing, far side.’ She pointed beyond the tent. ‘Perhaps she’s been here some time, on and off?’

‘She does know how to live off the land.’ He looked at her and warned, ‘Be careful of Elena, Hetta. She’s one of those rare people with no strong affinities – it means she’s got a wider palette of skills than most. She’s a half-blood, mostly a Water-mage, but a trance-mage too – and the best swordswoman I’ve ever met.’

Hetta tutted. ‘A lot of admiration in that appraisal, Gurvon.’

‘It’s respect, that’s all,’ he replied tersely. ‘How would you take her down, given that assessment?’

‘I have a plan for anyone I might face,’ Hetta replied. ‘She and I have similar skills, but my blood is purer, while she’s arguably the better with a blade. I’d take her down from a distance – that’s my normal plan anyway. I like to bind my arrowheads with Contact-runes – it’s draining on me, but when they strike they unleash a counter-spell against shielding and wards. The second and third arrows are shot to kill or maim.’

‘And the mudskin?’

Hetta peered at the bathing figures. ‘He’s a big brute, isn’t he? We know nothing of him, but he looks physically strong, so again, I’d stay clear. Let Vardel distract him, then hit from the flank, from a distance.’

‘What range?’

‘I can hit a stationary target or a someone moving predictably from over a hundred yards, but beyond that even the very best can’t count on hitting every time.’

Impressive.
‘I wish we’d met earlier.’

They shared another silent moment and he wondered what her little mouth would taste like. There was a sense of danger that he liked.
I think she means it about going slow, though
. Well, right now, so did he. He reached out and patted her arm. ‘We should get back.’

She smiled appreciatively. ‘Sure. When do we go in?’

‘They will likely sleep when the sun is at its zenith, so let’s move then.’

35

The Creation of the World

Though there was no gnostic scrying, Elena could feel eyes on her as she dried herself. She had weak shielding up, but she was more worried for Kazim than herself. He wasn’t capable of the subtlety required, so he had no shields at all and was relying entirely on her warnings.

The lamiae always kept a watch on the various approaches to the river valley, and when one of their scouts had hurried in the previous night and reported a large force of mounted white men on the upper slopes where the remains of the
Greyhawk
lay she’d known at once what they were facing. The description the scout gave of the Yurosian leaders told her exactly who they faced.

The last thing she wanted to deal with now was Gurvon Gyle, not when she was still trying to process the astonishing discoveries of the days before, when the lamiae elders had revealed that Alaron Mercer, her wayward nephew, had somehow managed to help them reach this place – their ‘promised land’. The lamiae were refugees, fleeing the Pallas Animagi who’d clearly been breaking all the Gnostic Laws on constructs – and probably doing so with imperial sanction. But even those facts weren’t what playing most on her mind, astonishing as they were.

The Scytale of Corineus!

Somehow this fabled artefact had come into Alaron’s possession – his, and some gypsy girl who was also the daughter of Justina Meiros, the granddaughter of Antonin Mieros himself! She couldn’t imagine how this might have happened, and Kekropius knew little – but he’d held it in his hands: the most valued artefact on all of Urte. It made no sense, that the emperor’s most prized possession was abroad in the hands of her nephew and a Rimoni girl, but however unbelievable, that did indeed appear to be the case.

Kekropius told them Alaron and the girl had left almost nine months ago, seeking Justina Meiros, and had never returned, which is why the lamiae – who seemed to regard her nephew as some kind of patron saint! – prayed for his return daily.

Elena loved her nephew, of course, but whilst she’d never have said as much to Tesla or Vann, she’d never been overly impressed by the boy. He’d been vague and naïve, and appeared to have no self-belief at all.
It’s hard to believe he could ever amount to anything, let alone become the saviour of a whole new race of beings!

The next obvious question was:
Should we be going after him?
She’d been turning that question over in her mind, but hadn’t reached an answer; both heart and head said he was well beyond her reach.

Anyway, right now we have more urgent issues.

She’d already warned Kekropius of the possibility of pursuit, but the lamiae were not prepared to move, not with crops in the ground and several of the females due to give birth. And they weren’t afraid.

She looked at Kazim, who was very self-consciously trying not look like he might be aware of danger. ‘Did you see the glint on the spyglasses upstream?’

He shook his head. ‘Can we get inside? I feel’ – he grinned nervously – ‘quite naked out here.’

She jiggled her breasts at him. ‘So you don’t want to give them a show, then?’

‘No!’ he said, uncharacteristically prudish. ‘You are my woman, not a performer.’

She snickered at him, shifted her hips from side to side. ‘Last chance, lover.’

‘Just get in the tent,’ he growled, lifting the flap and gesturing at her.

Once inside, all trace of levity vanished. The lamiae had excavated a tunnel, leaving them just enough room to dress, which they did, as rapidly as possible. Her sword was hidden by the riverbank so that she would look unarmed to any observer. Kazim squeezed past her and buckled on his scimitar. ‘I hate to leave you out there,’ he told her as he lowered himself into the tunnel.

‘I’ll be fine. They’ll try and take me alive, but they won’t be so fussy with you.’

‘I will not be fussy with them either.’

‘Take care, my love. These lamiae aren’t trained, but there are more than sixty of them ready to fight. That’s more firepower than most armies have. Now go: they’re already in position.’

He touched his fingers to his forehead then his lips. ‘Sal’Ahm, Alhana. May He protect you in the time of trial.’

‘His Light on you also, Kazim Makani. See you in the fight.’

He vanished and was replaced by Kessa, who’d been waiting underground. She was the most skilled of the lamiae when it came to mental communication, so she would coordinate between Kekropius’ warriors in the caves above and Elena and Kazim below. Elena took a moment to be impressed that the lamiae were far less affected than magi by such things as being underground when it came to gnostic communications and scrying. Perhaps that was because they spent much of their time as cave-dwellers.
Something to explore another day, perhaps.

‘Are they coming? the lamia woman asked. ‘We are all ready. I have been speaking to Kekropius in my head. He struggles to keep the young hidden so long.’

‘Patience is for older heads,’ Elena remarked. Kessa was barely nineteen herself; that was old by lamia standards, though she had not yet began to decline physically. She was entrancingly beautiful, especially in this dim light, with her severe, flawless face, her long, hair-like comb and her high, perfect breasts. But that would have been to ignore the bluish-green hue of her skin, and the pair of snake trunks that served her for legs. Although more or less half-human, she was altogether alien, and she clearly regarded herself as an entirely different species. She’d told Elena only yesterday, ‘The Makers made us to be superior to your kind.’

‘You are frightened for your mate,’ the lamia observed now.

‘Terrified,’ Elena admitted, wondering,
What happens to the other if one of us dies?

‘How old is he?’ Kessa asked curiously.

‘Twenty-three.’

‘And you?’

‘Forty-one.’

‘Is it normal for an older human female to mate with a younger male?’

‘No, not at all,’ she admitted, ‘although I am a mage and we generally live longer than humans, and don’t show the years so much – but even so, society would be scandalised.’

‘It would be a good arrangement though, yes? He has much energy.’

‘Ha! He wears me out!’

Kessa grinned wickedly. ‘You and he are much in love. We can all see this with the inner sight. Your magical bonds are very strong. Is this normal also?’

‘No. I don’t really understand it,’ Elena admitted. ‘He is of a different kind of mage, one who can steal gnosis from others. I think that our falling in love has created a unique bond that two normal magi, or even two of his kind, could not forge.’

Kessa blinked in that reptilian way she had. ‘Such creatures as he are spoken of in our tales of the Makers. Our ancestors saw them there.’

‘What? The Animagi had Dokken in their breeding camps? Holy Kore! That’s … appalling.’
Kore Scripture commands that Dokken must be eradicated, not
… ‘What were they doing there?’

‘Our tales do not remember, only that they walked free among the Makers.’

‘Incredible. That goes against everything we’re taught.’
But I shouldn’t be surprised, not with all the hypocrisy I’ve seen coming out of Pallas
.

She had more questions, but Kessa stiffened and her eyes became unfocused. Then she looked at Elena. ‘Kekropius says that two of the humans have passed the cave-mouths above and another has been seen near the river. It is time to show yourself.’

Elena took a deep breath, then nodded. With an alarmingly swift movement of her snake limps, Kessa swayed close to her and pressed cold lips to her cheeks. ‘Good fortune, Aunt of my milkson. Be safe.’

‘Milkson?’

Kessa smiled shyly. ‘Alaron is my milkson,’ she said, her expression complex. ‘You and I are sisters, Elena.’

Elena didn’t know the term, but she recognised the pride in Kessa’s face.
Did she adopt Alaron or something?
She awkwardly hugged her back. Embracing a naked half-human half-snake female was decidedly strange; it left her feeling like she’d stepped into a dream. But she was moved too. ‘I am proud to be kin to you and yours,’ she replied formally.

She clambered out of the tent and went to the riverbank, feeling very exposed. She sat and worked on looking like she was relaxing and enjoying the view across the river, while with her right hand she located her hidden sword. There was a little nagging blur on the far bank: someone cloaked in illusion. They’d know if she focused too closely on it, so she kept her surveillance light. It was enough to know they were there. The hardest part was leaving her shields light, when anything could be about to loosed at her at any moment.

She fingered the hilt of her blade and tried to imagine all the ways they might take her down.

If I’ve misread this situation, I’m about to die …

Two heartbeats later, the first shaft was loosed.

Her wider shields, the ones that picked up incoming projectiles, screamed a warning and her reflexes took over. She pumped her inner shields as an arrow punched into them low down. The tip exploded in a jagged burst, like lightning-bolts shooting through her shields and cracking them like a pane of glass. Though she had expected the attack, she found herself crying out in alarm – and then real fear as she felt her shields come apart.

She spun and jerked sideways as an arrow and a ball of fire arced down from two points on the mountain above. The fireball struck the tent and exploded with a force that knocked her sideways. The arrow parted the air where she’d been the moment before the force of the fireball struck and slammed into the earth.

Kore’s Balls, what’s happened to my shields?
She leaped off to the water’s edge so that the bank would block sight of her from the mountainside, and as she did, a trumpet blared from upstream and riders burst into sight, careering across the flats towards her, barely two hundred yards away. If she’d not already known they were there, it would have been the perfect ambush.

She was still unnerved by the sheer number of riders, but she had to concentrate on trying to remove this damned gnostic effect the arrow had triggered.

For a few seconds she couldn’t identify it, then realised it was some kind of static counter-spell.
Clever!
She tried to negate it, but it ate into that spell also, weakened it and then withstood it. She cursed in frustration: not only was this spell new to her, but worse, it’d been cast by a stronger mage.

Time and distance must weaken it …
She looked around warily, but the archer, who must have had a better vantage than she thought, fired again and this time the shaft tore through her frayed shields and slashed open her left arm as it passed. The pain dissipated what was left of her shields and left her wide open …

… just as someone erupted from the water, a long, thin blade extended, and punched it through her left thigh.

She yowled, slashing sideways as she fell.

Gurvon!

His face was frozen in an impassive grin that held no humour at all and his eyes were blazing in concentrated fury as he blocked her automatic riposte and stabbed again. She jerked aside, but her leg gave way in a blaze of pain as blood flooded her thigh. The pain was raw and deep.

He thrust again but this time the drag of the river unbalanced him and his blow slid wide. She desperately battered his blade away as the riders pounded closer and closer – but not yet so close that the lamiae would rise.

I have to survive a few more seconds.

She feinted a jab, then slashed at his face. At least the damned arrows had stopped, but she was frightened to back up and expose herself again. The counter-spell was still distorting her ability to reach the gnosis, leaving her with just her blade and her fast-failing footwork. Gurvon emerged from the water and found better footing, and once he’d clambered up he started battering at her guard. With his hair plastered to his skull he looked like some wide-eyed fanatic. A two-handed blow at her side forced her to block and as their hilts locked he rose and slammed his forehead at her face. She jerked away, at the cost of falling half-upright against the bank and he pushed his weight onto her, rammed his knee into her groin, jolting her pubic bone, then ground the same knee into her wounded thigh. It was both excruciating and numbing all at once. Then her leg gave way and she began to slide below him. With what remained of her strength she heaved upwards, then rolled sideways and out from beneath him, but too quickly he regained his own balance.

She struggled upright again in the moment of respite, her thigh throbbing painfully and unable to bear more than a fraction of her weight. They both extended their blades, rasping them together, testing each other’s strength. All the while the horses thundered closer, and the smoke of the burned tent filled the air.

‘Give up, Elena,’ Gurvon told her, his voice coming in gasps.

‘Puffed already?’ she snarled, then gritted her teeth. The counter-spell planted by that damned first arrow was weakening slowly, allowing her to force a thin stream of healing-gnosis into her thigh, barely enough to matter. ‘You should train harder.’

‘I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.’

‘You’re such a tease.’ She grimaced through the pain in her thigh, which was hurting far more than a clean cut should. Her eyes went to his blade, which she now saw to be coated in a viscous black tar. ‘When did you start using rukking poisons?’