Beyond the Bulwarks

by K. J. Coble

  The leader, himself, sat on a felled tree trunk on the far side of the clearing. As Anzo guessed before, Durrim was a young man, his mustache sandy blonde and full to disguise narrow, unmarked features. But he wore his corselet in comfort and honed a long, broad-bladed sword notched from many fights across his lap while the balding, silver-haired bard paced among the circle of warriors, plucking a harp of make too fine to be anything but plunder.

  “All right, then.” Anzo touched Heathen’s arm. “Friend, if this goes badly, promise you’ll get back to Varya.”

  Anzo could hear the young Vhurr’s teeth grind. “It won’t go badly.”

  Sudden fondness for the youth burned in Anzo’s chest, and a hint of regret. He’d formed his own retinue, these last few desperate days. He thought of Varya, hated himself for having to leave her in that wretched, deadly cave, hated himself more for worrying. “I hope not.”

  Anzo breathed deeply, raised his saber across open, upraised palms, and strode forward into the clearing.

  “Durrim, son of Eyeloth! I come to lay my sword at your feet!”

  Hamrak splashed away from Anzo with bellows of surprise. The bard’s harp work cut out with a discordant ring. Swords and daggers flashed into scarred fists. In the scramble to arm themselves, one warrior reeling with drink crashed into the spear stack and scattered them. A huge man leapt before Durrim, shielded him with his body and spear. To Anzo’s either flank, Hamrak swept in with upraised weapons.

  Durrim sprang from his tree trunk perch. “Hold!”

  The Hamrak froze at Anzo’s sides, one with a sword inches from gutting him, another with his axe hovering just behind Anzo’s neck, its edge a chill, deadly tickle. The rest of the retinue quivered around him, the air explosive with a dozen killers’ primed reflexes.

  “Orkall’s greasy ass!” The warrior shielding Durrim barked. Silver lined his faded auburn mane and beard, scar tissue bunched where his left eye had been. “Who in the Endless Hells are you?”

  “I am Anzo Severnus, late of the Flinarr, come to you now to offer my blade to a real chief.”

  The Hamrak answered him with ferocious scowls and silence. The bard’s fingers worked mindlessly at the harp strings and produced a faint, dissonant chord. Thunder drowned it out, lightning flashes turning the warriors’ stares white with still unsettled shock that stoked quickly to outrage. Glances went Durrim’s way, shifted from the leader to the scarred brute guarding him.

  “How are you here?” Durrim’s guard took a step forward, hefted the spear up in preparation for a throw.

  “If you would accept me, I could teach you much of war.” Anzo showed his teeth. “I would start with the proper posting of pickets.”

  Growls and the jingle of gear prefaced a tightening of the circle around Anzo.

  “Tricks,” Durrim’s bodyguard rumbled. “Either that, or you’re some kind of ghost.”

  “More like—” Anzo flicked a glance into the dark beyond the clearing, sought some sign of Heathen still there “—a weasel.”

  “More like a worm!” The bodyguard snarled. He shot a look at his chieftain. “Let’s stomp him like one and leave him twisting in the flames.”

  “Hold, Skarvus.” The Hamrak prince hopped down from the tree trunk and stepped by his man, lowering the other’s spear with a patting hand. His fist still held the well-used sword, though. “You have other men, do you not?” The young leader searched the darkness. “Tell them to reveal themselves.”

  Anzo knelt and set his blade in the dirt. “Heathen, Geasid, Ilus! Show yourselves! Do it now!”

  Heathen appeared behind Anzo to the hissed surprise of the Hamrak at his sides. The grinning giant dropped his cudgel contemptuously at their feet and stood with arms crossed. Undergrowth rustled and the night produced Geasid and Ilus a moment later, half-dressed in Hamrak gear, to the rising grumbles of Durrim’s retinue.

  “I could have slipped an army in here,” Anzo said, getting up from his knee to look Durrim in the eye. “Of course, I have none, only Greaus’ leavings.”

  Durrim’s mustache twitched. “What do you want of me?”

  “You said you wanted to talk,” Anzo replied. “A few of us decided that sounded better than starving in those caves.”

  “It’s a trick,” Skarvus rumbled at his leader’s ear.

  “If it was, we’d already be cutting throats, wouldn’t we?” Anzo glared at the man. “Check your outposts. You’ll find your men alive, though with a hangover I don’t envy.”

  Durrim nodded to his men and a trio detached themselves to scramble into the woods. Shouts clamored over a peal of thunder, more starting from other fires as the rest of the Hamrak became aware that something was amiss. Someone called from the dark and a bleeding man was led into the firelight, one of the pickets, wobbling from the knot on his skull. The bard suppressed a chuckle that was joined by a few others.

  “A weasel, indeed,” Durrim murmured. The youth appraised Anzo, his mustache quirking with a half smile. “And what of your lord Greaus?”

  Thunder crashed, shook trees, the ground under foot, Anzo’s empty, trembling stomach. “Not my lord, any longer,” he replied. “Know this, son of Eyeloth: I do not take treachery to a war leader lightly. But Greaus has turned from Orkall, from sanity altogether. He feeds our blood to something not human.”

  Durrim frowned. “What is this, you say?”

  Anzo glanced at Heathen. “Something preys upon men in those caves, something at Greaus’ command. We would be free of it.”

  “My prince—” Skarvus began.

  A shriek seared across the sky. The air fluttered. Anzo spun from his crouch in time to see a fork of lighting gouge the night. Silhouetted against its hellish glare, a pair of wings spread darkness that enveloped him with a crash.

  He was on the ground, pawing for his saber. Bird feces stench and hot, bloody breath filled his nostrils. Pain lanced through his forearm, flung up in reflex as fangs flashed whitish-pink. Weight crashed down upon him, pinched air from his chest. Wings hammered, filled the clearing with shaken down and filth as screams of panic sent Hamrak scattering.

  Yellow eyes stared with inhuman hunger into Anzo’s own.

  Heathen’s battle cry rent the night. A sinewy forearm latched around Henna’s neck, tore the creature backwards off Anzo. She writhed in the giant’s grasp, a clawed hand shooting up over her shoulder to flail at his face. Blood flew and he released. She shook free, wings lashing, hammering, stirring embers free of the Hamrak’s blaze in a cyclone of searing brilliance. In the midst of its fury, she was clear to all, an unearthly amalgam of woman and vulture. What Anzo had supposed was a cloak was wings and pelt—the reality of her, seeming to shift and flow, even as he watched, as though her two forms fought for control.

  Ilus shrieked and charged her, spear-first. She batted aside the thrust and leapt onto his chest, mouth seeking and finding his neck. His voice drowned in gurgles and jets of gore as fangs glistened and claws rent his torso.

  Skarvus bellowed and threw his spear. A lightning flash caught it as a shaft of white before it pierced Henna’s wing, pinned it to the earth. She screamed, voice shearing through eardrums like a whetstone catching nicks in a blade. Men fell cupping their heads. Casting aside the bloody rags of Ilus, Henna tugged at her trapped wing, wrenched it free. The motion sent the weapon spinning. Skarvus, charging her with his sword halfway drawn, took the hurtling shaft in the forehead and dropped, senseless.

  Hamrak war calls overcame mewling terror. Hand axes hurtled. One glanced off Henna’s shoulder, sent ichor the color of puss spouting. A warrior with a shield held before him lunged in. Pounding her wings, she vaulted up on the shield and kicked out, sent the man flying backwards into a knot of comrades rushing to assist. Wings floundered in the dirt and beat again, the Henna-thing beginning to gain altitude.

  Finding his sword and his senses, Anzo scrambled back to his feet. Henna was nearly clear, bounding airborne on thin, scaly legs. Anzo slashed wildly, caught a taloned fo
ot. Ichor spurted and two inhuman toes spun free. Henna’s scream went on forever, rasping above the thunder claps and the cacophony of the stirred Hamrak camp. Then she was clear, a stain of dark shivered into the tossed overcast of the stormy sky, her wails of pain and hate trailing behind her.

  Heathen lay by Anzo’s feet. He knelt at the giant’s side as he rose with blood across the side of his face. Three gashes lined the side of his head, his earlobe in tatters. “Bitch,” he rasped. “I hate birds.”

  “This is what you offer?”

  Anzo turned to see Durrim stalking towards them, sword in hand and murder on his face. The Hamrak boiled up behind their leader. Skarvus wobbled to his feet, a welt the shape of his spear shaft swelling diagonally across scars and shaken frenzy.

  “This—” Durrim jabbed his sword skyward “—is what you’d bring to us?”

  Realizing he’d adopted a defensive guard, Anzo cast his sword down. “No, my lord. That was what Greaus would bring to you!”

  Durrim halted, reason beginning to chase fear and rage from his face. He glanced at Skarvus, who wobbled still and spat blood.

  “Please, my lord!” Anzo waved to where Ilus lay in gory ruin. “That thing came for us! It came because we have turned against its master! It goes now to the caves to kill those we left behind—” Varya, gods help me! “—those that we care for! It will want vengeance. Greaus will want vengeance!”

  Durrim’s fingers worked at his sword grip, even as calculation worked in his youthful features.

  “Come with us, my lord.” Anzo stood and shook his fist. “We will show you the way! Come with us for glory, for conquest, for sanity!”

  Thunder smacked the clearing. With a cool rush, rain began to fall, rattling on steel, hissing as it dampened the fire into weighty purls of smoke. Rivulets of it poured across Durrim’s face, whetted his twitching mustache.

  “Come with us,” Anzo plead, “please!”

  ***

  The brothers were gone from the entrance to the Narrow Stairs when Anzo reached it, his companions and the Hamrak seething behind him. Some rearguard... He paused and held up a hand to the others. With the rain lashing down in chill sheets, Durrim and the Hamrak were a steel-shot blur bunching around him.

  “Let Heathen and I go first, in case someone’s waiting.”

  Lightning lashed, but not from the sky. The Narrow Stairs channeled purple-white brilliance into their faces, followed by a crack like rock splitting and a billow of dust. The Hamrak spun away, groaning in pain.

  “Orkall’s ass!” Skarvus bellowed from Durrim’s side. “What was that?”

  Blinking away tears, Anzo sought Heathen amongst the huddle. “Varya...” He whirled down into the cave, the giant’s mass pressing at his heels.

  Another ripple of witch-light speared through the passage. His hand already up in anticipation, Anzo wasn’t dazzled this time, but the rush of air from overpressure blew into his face with the hard bite of sulfur and burnt meat. He stumbled onward, could hear screams. Behind him, the corridor rang with shouts and scuffling. Heathen beat against his back, urging him on.

  He emerged into the cavern proper to chaos. Torches crisscrossed the darkness, forms raced to and fro, limbs flailing and voices shrill in primal terror. No one awaited their return. All had been carried away in the anarchy.

  A flashed ripped a corner from Anzo’s vision and he flinched away, forks of eldritch power scrawling afterimages across his eyes. Something tumbled across the floor of the cave, trailing fire and scattering Flinarr before it. Varya staggered after the shape, one hand up still aglow with snakes of purplish energy. By their light, her face was a rictus of effort and pain, her hair lashing wild about eyes gone nearly volcanic.

  Wings twitched open and Henna wobbled to her feet, the one wounded by Anzo’s steel clenching gingerly. One of her arms hung limp, steaming and shrunken to blackened crisp. With eyes smoldering yellow-white, she keened as Varya advanced. The Initiate stumbled to one knee, her free hand clutching the side of her head as the energy flickered and died on the other’s fingertips. Seeing opportunity, Henna shook out her wings to take to the air again.

  Heathen burst by Anzo with a roar, eyes impossibly wide and fiery blue against the crimson mask of his bloodied face. Henna spun at his charge, lashed a wing about as a shield. He pummeled through it, bent it down against stone, stomping, swinging. She folded under the assault but a hand darted through the flurry of his blows. Claws sliced into his tunic, washing it in blood. Reflexively, he fell back and she was looming over him, a black bird of death.

  Anzo came hurtling over the fallen giant, the point of his saber plunging under one strange, bulbous breast. Henna stiffened and tried to wrench free. Heathen tumbled about her feet, got a grip and dragged her down onto the blade. Anzo leaned into the handle, felt steel grate against bone as the creature’s hellish voice rose to stone-shattering heights and shook. Warm puss gushed across his hand and forearm. Her head thrashed back and forth, filthy mane of feathers and hair whipping into his face. She wrenched again and Anzo couldn’t hold as she tore free.

  Hamrak poured into the cavern, wild with triumph. Flinarr bawled in despair. Stone echoed and re-echoed a din like the belly of Hell opened.

  The Henna-thing flopped like a stomped sparrow as she tried to rise again. Her form shifted with the war between beast and woman Anzo had seen before. One moment she was a howling harridan trapped under the bulk of her shattered wings, the next she was the wild killer-thing. Ichor pooled and slopped on rock as she struggled, jetted out around the sword in her torso. She flipped onto her arching back, kicking and squealing as the motions caused the steel to rend her innards further.

  “Orkall’s crab-infested pubes...” Skarvus murmured. The welt across his face had bulged until nearly his whole face was a bruise, but his good eye squinted in piggish revulsion.

  Durrim held his hand out to Anzo, helped him back to his feet. “My man revels in the construction of ever-more intricate curses.” His eyes never left the dying monster. “But this time I think even his imagination fails.”

  “Yeah...” Anzo glanced at Heathen, who offered him a pained nod to ease his concern.

  Henna had stilled, but her ruined, fanged face continued to mouth silent curses at the ceiling of the cavern. Anzo stepped forward. Yellow eyes darted towards him, their light flickering down but still riving with hatred. He forced himself to smile back as his hand went to the grip of the saber. “You took Ulfun and Aeydon knows how many others.” A quick jerk freed the blade from her flesh. He raised it high. “This is for them.” The saber fell, cleaved through neck to clang against rock and send the head tumbling.

  Reality settled slowly upon Anzo again. He felt the sting of teeth marks where Henna had mauled his forearm, the tingling of muscles driven past the point of exhaustion. He heard the cries of Flinarr as the Hamrak took them. Sickness filled his guts and forced him to one knee. But it was over.

  “Anzo...”

  He spun to see Varya standing over him. She fell into his arms even as he rose to catch her. Lowering her to the stone floor, he stroked her hair. Heathen was a shadow enveloping the two of them moments later, mighty arms wrapping wide.

  “I’m sorry,” Anzo whispered. “We shouldn’t have left you. I’m sorry.”

  “I...I thought we were supposed to stop with that.” She shook slightly and Anzo realized it was from a chuckle.

  He squeezed her tight. “We are. But I am, anyway.”

  A deep, shattering bellow rocked the cavern. Anzo looked up from Varya, knew that voice.

  “Greaus...” Heathen rumbled.

  “Stay here. None will touch you now.” Anzo patted Varya’s shoulders and clambered back to his feet. Durrim and his retinue waited. “Do you have him?”

  Durrim’s face glowed with malice in the shivering dark. “We will shortly.”

  Greaus’ voice echoed again. Steel clanged in time to desperate shouts. A melee writhed in front of the chieftain’s hall.


  “Don’t kill him!” Anzo started towards the cave. “Not yet!”

  Flinarr were being crowded into the center of the chamber by jeering Hamrak. A few men had been separated, were on their knees with weapons scattered in front of them while Hamrak warriors kicked and cajoled. Several bunched near the entrance to the hall, throwing catcalls and surging forward in flashes of blade and spear. Resistance within flung them back. One of Greaus’ guards lay trampled in blood at their feet.

  “Don’t!” Anzo jostled to the forefront of the Hamrak storming party. One frenzy-faced brute turned with a hand axe, ready to gash him before Durrim’s shouted order stayed his hand. The warriors backed off sullenly. Uncertain light flickered from within the cave, highlighted a pair of Flinarr with spears held before them, holdouts panicked beyond fear to mindless courage. Greaus wasn’t with them but his howls of agony rattled pebbles loose from the craggy ceiling.

  Anzo faced the holdouts. “Let me through.”

  “S-Slayer...” One of the men shivered back to some semblance of composure at the sight of him.

  “I said let me through,” Anzo repeated. “It’s over.”

  Greaus shrieked, voice rising to a butchered animal’s squall.

  Anzo took a step towards the guards. “By Orkall or whatever gods you pray to, what is happening in there?”

  The second holdout shivered. “He-he said let no one through. He said...” The man trailed off with a whimper and collapsed to the floor, cupping his head in his hands.

  Anzo glanced at Durrim. “Take them alive.”

  Growls started at that, but Durrim’s glare silenced them. Quickly the Hamrak gathered up the surrendering Flinarr.

  Anzo stepped into the hall of Greaus, was glad when he sensed Heathen at his flank. They rounded the short curve of the passage and came together before the chieftain of the Flinarr.

  Greaus sprawled across the stone table, his corselet ripped free, apparently by his own hands, his monstrous, pale abdomen twitching with fevered breaths. Torches guttered down around him, the skull sconces leering. His waxy, sweat-slickened face turned to Anzo, eyes foggy with pain and madness. A hand fluttered to his axe, laid at his hip, but the fingers could not seem to grip.