by Mike Wild
“I know that, dammit! Can you just get us the hells out of here?”
“I am endeavouring to prepare a return portal. Continue in your current direction and please be patient.”
“Patient!” Kali repeated breathlessly as she glanced behind her.
The residuals had formed themselves into one amorphous mass that was pursuing them with even greater speed. What was worse, they seemed no longer content simply to chase. From within the mass they were hurling or firing the weapons they wielded and, disturbingly, they shot ahead of the mass in whip-like tendrils before snapping back to their owners to be launched at them again and again, narrowly missing each time.
“What the hells are those things?” Pim shouted. “Remember I’m only getting half this conversation.”
“Er, can we go into that some other time?” Kali requested in a slightly higher pitch than normal.
She ducked as a hail of elven arrows pierced the air where her head had been a moment before, petering out into wisps ahead of her before, again, snapping back. Pim’s question had raised one of her own. Namely why it was that Domdruggle’s assistants – if she was right about the time he had conjured the Expanse – possessed such archaic weaponry. She could only put it down to some kind of race memory manifestation of their forms. It didn’t really matter, though, did it? What did matter was that they were deadly and were not going to miss for much longer.
Kali muttered something as she continued to run, still seeing no escape route ahead of her.
“What?” Pim asked, breathlessly.
“Oh, just reflecting on something Sonpear said.”
“What?”
“Just that this is a farking big pin.”
“The portal is forming now, Miss Hooper,” Sonpear advised. “Please try to stay alive a few moments longer.”
“Oh, right,” Kali responded. She couldnow see something materialising a couple of hundred yards ahead of her – like a small storm cloud. “Actually, I was going to stop, turn and blow them a kiss.”
“There is no need for sarcasm.”
“Well, for pits’ sake!” Despite her words, Kali did turn, if only to glance over her shoulder to gauge the gain the residuals had made, and promptly wished that she hadn’t. Because something else was materialising behind them, looming over them – something spectral and massive that, in the brief moment she saw it, she could have sworn was a giant face.
“Pim, I don’t want to worry you but –”
“Now what?” the thieves guild leader said.
He, too, snatched a glance over his shoulder and promptly turned white. For what Kali had seen was indeed a giant face; gaunt, sunken and haunted. It regarded them hungrily with huge shadowed eye sockets and an oval of a mouth that was slowly widening into an all-encompassing maw.
It swooped down towards them, clearly intent on sweeping them into that maw. And it roared deafeningly as it came.
“What the hells!” Pim shouted.
“Domdruggle, I think.”
“Ah. Run faster?”
“Run faster.”
The pair of them put on a final, desperate burst of speed and closed the gap between themselves and the now partly formed portal. Kali thought that she could see the interior of the Underlook through it and, despite its current circumstances, nothing had ever seemed so welcoming. The only question now was, would they make it? Because behind them Domdruggle had accelerated beyond the amorphous mass of his assistants and the maw that had been his mouth seemed, like some dislocated jaw, to be stretching unnaturally forward, ready to scoop the pair of them inside. Kali could no longer hear Pim’s shouts of alarm as the Expanse seemed now to consist only of a looming darkness and a deafening roar. For a second her own scream of protest at her faltering body was completely lost as the maw drew alongside, and then around, her running form.
Her last thoughts as the Expanse faded were: Jump now, Pim, now! Sonpear, this had better farking work.
Suddenly, she could hear herself screaming, and then she was crashing into something hard. The realisation that she was back in the Underlook was interrupted as she felt something collide with her equally hard. She and Pim found themselves in a tangle on the floor, being stared at by a number of the Grey Brigade and Gargassians whose mouths were agape. She was vaguely aware that, across the room, Sonpear was gesticulating madly, managing to just close the portal as a grey and fog-like snout burst through with the haunting echo of the roar that had been deafening her only moments before. Then, it was gone.
Kali coughed. “Okay, that was interesting.”
“You have a knack for understatement,” Pim said, dusting himself down. The thieves guild leader wasted no time in getting back to the business of their own reality, frowning as he listened to the k’nid battering still at the outside of the hotel.
“How’s the situation?” he asked one of his lieutenants.
“The walls won’t last very much longer. Reckon maybe ten minutes or so before they’re breached.”
Pim sighed. “Then it’s time we took the fight to them.” He dumped the bundle of crackstaffs on a table. “These are weapons. Anyone who feels they’re up to it, take one. We’ll show you how they work in a moment.” Pim’s men hesitated. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
“There’s another problem,” Sonpear announced, stepping forward. “The fireballs, the k’nid, they did something to your friend. He went crazy when the turret room exploded, changed. And he went outside, as if looking for revenge. The old man’s out there in the middle of the bastards. He’s missing.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
KALI HAD NO idea how long she and Pim had been in the Expanse, but it had been long enough for Andon to turn into a full-fledged warzone.
The city was all but obscured by smoke and dust, filled with the sound of explosions and agonised screams. Her plan to take the fight to the k’nid began as soon as she, Pim and the other volunteers flung open the doors of the Underlook and began blasting their way out of the alleyway. Bolts of blue crackled into the narrow space, filling it with so much magical energy that it was at first difficult to tell whether the crackstaffs were effective against the k’nid. But the gratifying crunch of their blasted and twitching chitinous bodies beneath their feet, as they continued to advance towards the Andon Heart, soon told them what they wished to know. Their fight had just got a little more even.
Kali and the others burst into the marketplace and fanned out, beams lancing out to take down the k’nid who had made it their business to consume the market stalls. Their targeting was not random, each shot chosen quickly but carefully, and Kali found herself impressed by the marksmanship of Pim and his men. K’nid after k’nid were blasted, screeching, scuttling and dismembered. She supposed the dexterity of hands trained to slip a wallet from a pocket, without a hint it had ever been there, had other uses, too.
She wished only that the same were true of the Three Towers. The spires continued to blast away above them and this close to the structure, in its very shadow in fact, she could feel the raw power. A power that made her limbs feel weak and her brain tight. Such power did not, however, stop those k’nid who had chosen the towers as their target from flinging themselves at its sides. As she watched they joined an earlier assault wave, working away at the tallow-like walls to find a way to the mages inside. Kali debated giving the mages a helping hand by blasting the k’nid away, but only for a second. As far as she was concerned the League could stand or fall by its own devices, as they had so callously left the people outside to stand or fall by theirs.
The marketplace cleared, Kali and the others moved on into the streets where they split up to cover the warren of small streets and alleyways individually.
As she worked her way along one such street, Kali could hear the discharge of crackstaffs echoing all around her, and she smiled slightly at the damage that was obviously being meted out. Firing as she moved, her attention was nevertheless split between the next target and the location of Merrit Moon.
She thought she caught sight of the old man – in his ogur form – once, but only as a possible presence amidst a small hill of swarming k’nid who were being batted and tossed aside. The chaos of the streets, however, prevented her from reaching him before he had moved on, leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Soon after, their paths almost crossed once more – but this time the old man’s presence was announced only by a prolonged and savage roar of fury that was carried to her from beyond the rooftops, a street or maybe three away. By this time, however, Kali was beginning to realise that she had other, more relevant concerns.
The fact was, the sound of discharging crackstaffs that had been so prevalent not so long before was lessening somewhat. What was worse, she was beginning to hear cries of alarm and screams that she somehow knew came from Pim’s people.
It did not take her long to work out why. The alarm bells from the city walls were ringing again and, glimpsed in streets all around her, Kali saw more k’nid were entering the fray, flocking to their unnatural brethren and bringing reinforcements into the battle that seemed inexhaustible. She and Pim and his people had made a difference in the defence of the city, but the fact was there were just too many of the creatures and more were coming all the time.
“We have to pull back!” Kali shouted to one of Pim’s men as he stumbled out an alleyway nearby, his crackstaff firing into the shadows.
The thief looked at her, his face desperate, and Kali staggered back as she realised half of it was a bloody mess, all but gone.
“They just keep coming,” he gasped. “There’s no stoppi –”
As he spoke, two k’nid sprang from the alley and enveloped him. In the time it took his face to crumple in horror he was no more than a pile of steaming bones on the ground. Kali could do nothing but fire off a couple of bolts in retaliation and then, as more k’nid poured from alleyways and began to pursue her, she turned and ran. All she could do was try to carry the message to Pim and the others herself now.
Spinning occasionally to fire her crackstaff at the pursuing k’nid, Kali raced along the street, weaving from side to side as the fireballs from the Three Towers continued to pummel down, obliterating buildings all around her and forcing her to duck or roll as great chunks and shards of stone exploded across her path.
Damn the League, she thought.
They actually seemed – probably in increasing desperation – to be intensifying their bombardment and if their self preservation protocolcontinued like this, they’d be responsible for as many Andonian deaths as the k’nid themselves.
And she’d be one of them if she didn’t get into some kind of cover soon.
Kali dodged into a side alley but there found herself tripping over her own feet, her route blocked by a man busied with another pack of k’nid streaming in from its other end. He was holding his ground well but, whoever he was, he wasn’t one of Pim’s men and he wasn’t using a crackstaff to defend himself. In fact, he wasn’t using any kind of weapon at all, except himself.
Bursts of fire, ice and magical energy roared and cracked from his fingertips, wielded against his attackers to devastating effect. She’d seen shadowmages at work before – mainly using their magics against her – but never one who handled the threads with such absolute confidence, dexterity and power. Tall and becloaked – with a handsome, if weather beaten, face visible beneath the hood – he wove complex patterns with his hands that seemed less the result of years of dedicated training than a natural, instinctive affinity with the craft.
“Nice handiwork,” Kali said, running to his position. K’nid followed her in, thrashing at her heels. Too many of them.
“You, too,” the man said. “Saw you earlier – some of the moves you pulled off. Look out!”
Kali spun, firing burst after burst at the k’nid, and found herself pressed back to back with the stranger. She could feel him lurch with each magical bolt that he unleashed and they balanced each other as she expended the power of her crackstaff.
“Yes, well, I seem to have a peculiar knack for what I do,” she shouted over her shoulder.
“Me, too.”
“The name’s Kali Hooper.”
“Lucius Kane.”
“Pleased to meet you, Lucius. But unless we break this up and get the hells out of this pitsing bottleneck, we’re stuffed.”
“Not quite the language I’d use to describe our present predicament, but wholeheartedly agreed. Ideas, Miss Hooper?”
Kali glanced upward, at the walls tightly confining the alleyway. High and sheer, they seemed to be the only buildings in Andon that hadn’t been buttressed with balconies, makeshift extensions or dropbogs of some kind. As such they would be near impossible to scale. She knew she could make it up with a few well-timed moves but the question was what good would that do her new comrade-in-arms?
“The only way out seems to be up. But…”
“Up it is, then. Shall we?”
“Shall we wha – ?”
Before Kali could finish, she felt Kane’s back detach from her own, and then caught a glimpse of a flitting and dwindling shadow above. There might have been nothing for the man to cling on to but he apparently didn’t need anything, rapidly flinging himself up some invisible ladder in the wall that only he could see. As far as Kali knew, there was no ‘invisible ladder’ spell in the grimoire or whatever it was these people used. So what the hells was he doing – using the threads themselves as rungs? Gods, yes, it seemed that was exactly what he was doing, using the threads as physical things, manipulating the world itself to his own ends. She had never seen any – any – shadowmage do that before.
He was looking back down at her and grinning.
Bastard!
Despite their predicament, he was clearly throwing down a challenge and, with a roar of determination, she kicked off after him, booting two k’nid out of the way. She used the subsequent scramble of the pack’s bodies as a launching pad to throw herself up against one wall and then another, each time higher and higher, repeating the process until she had caught up with Kane.
Kali flipped herself over the edge of the roof.
“Not very gentlemanly,” she gasped, “leaving a helpless girl alone like that.”
“You’re no helpless girl, and you know it.”
“That’s as maybe but –” Kali stopped suddenly, and it was her turn to shout a warning. “Kane!”
Somehow, one of the k’nid had managed to follow them to the roof, and was leaping for the shadowmage as she shouted. Spotting it, Kane’s arm shot out and, for a moment, Kali thought he was about to unleash another elemental bolt, but that wasn’t what he was doing at all. Instead, he punched the k’nid solidly as it came, but instead of knocking it back, his fist disappeared inside its chitinous shell so that the creature was caught, dangling, thrashing and impaled, on the end of his arm. Impossible enough that the man had somehow penetrated its natural armour, Kali thought, but what he did next actually made her stagger back. His mouth twisting into a grimace, his eyes widening and staring at the creature directly, Kane seemed somehow to suck the very life from it. The k’nid crumpled and decomposed in seconds, leaving behind a brittle and lifeless husk.
The shadowmage shrugged the remains off and crushed them beneath his boot. Clearly, what he had just done had been nothing to him.
Kali stared.
“Who are you?”
Silhouetted by the fiery oranges of the ongoing bombardment from the Three Towers, Kane stared back. And when the shadowmage spoke, somehow Kali knew his words were as much about her as they were about himself. What was more, she saw reflected in his eyes the same inner torment that she had felt ever since the day she had begun to realise that she was... different.
“That,” he said, “remains to be seen.”
With those words, Kane turned and manoeuvred himself over the other side of the roof. Their brief liaison had been, it appeared, just that.
“Wait!” Kali said. “What plans do you have now?”
K
ane inclined his head towards the Three Towers. “I have business at the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige. Suggestions that might help the current crisis. And you?”
“Like you. Try to stop these bastards. But first I have to find the old man.”
“Old man?”
“A friend. He went missing during the assault.”
“And what is this friend’s name?”
“Merrit Moon. Bad haircut, beard, pink horse blanket. Or, actually, he could still be big, green and roaring. It’s, um, a long story. Have you seen him?”
“No. But I might be able to help you find him.”
“Be glad of any help.”
“Call it a professional courtesy.”
“You’re on. How about I take the west gate and you the – ?”
“Not physically. Have you anything that belongs to the old man?”
“No, I –” Kali began, then thought again. “Wait.” She dug in her equipment belt, pulling something out from its very bottom and shoving it in Kane’s hand. The shadowmage regarded the mouldy, half-eaten pie with an unfathomable expression.
“He baked it for me,” Kali said. “About four years ago.”
Kane smiled slightly and, without elaborating, moved his arm out above the rooftops in a gesture that looked half salute and half as if he were sowing seeds, and Kali swore that some kind of fine, shimmering dust took to the air. Kane waited for a few seconds while this dust settled and then pointed in the direction of the city walls, where a faint glow could now be seen rising from street level like a beacon. “There. Your friend is there.”
“How in the hells did you –”
But Kane was gone.
“There one minute, gone the next,” Kali shrugged, and smiled. “Lot like myself, really.”
Wasting no time, Kali took a few steps back from the roof edge and then ran, leaping the gap between the building and its neighbour, reckoning that the safest and quickest way to reach Moon’s beacon was by rooftop, avoiding the battleground below. Thankfully, her progress towards the city walls was taking her away from the epicentre of the k’nid invasion, the creatures – with the help of the towers’ fireballs – having already devastated this part of Andon and moved on. Thus it was that when she finally dropped back down to street level, she found herself in an area of relative calm in the shadow of the city wall itself. There a few scattered guards and civilian survivors had set up a makeshift field hospital that, so far, had gone unnoticed by the k’nid. Still, they were close and while those who tended tried to help those they could, or comfort the maimed and dying where they couldn’t, they were forced to stifle their moans or sobs with their hands as they worked.