Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘Lancers!’ Toil yelled, slamming her heels into the horse’s flank.

  They leaped forward almost as one, charging across the top of the escarpment until trees narrowed their path and they were forced to slow. It was still a fast pace to maintain and Lynx just had to hold on and follow, heart juddering in his chest as the horse laboured beneath him.

  ‘We can’t outrun lancers!’ Anatin yelled over the drum of hooves. ‘We’ll have to turn when they catch us!’

  ‘Fuck that!’ Toil replied. ‘Look, there.’

  She pointed up ahead. Lynx couldn’t make out much other than a high outcrop of stone abutting the ridge, a lone tree at its peak. The hump of grey rock was draped in strips of scrappy grass, which made Lynx think of a flayed skull, but the others charged straight for it. He glanced back. The lancers were covering the ground fast and he realised he couldn’t hesitate any longer. He spurred the horse forward and leaned low in the saddle as he raced to keep up. Toil was out in the lead, guiding her horse over the uneven terrain with as much skill as Teshen close behind her. The rest followed at a remove, Reft and Sitain at the rear as they struggled to match the pace.

  By the time they reached the outcrop Lynx could see Toil was right. The brow of the skull was a low overhang with a twenty-foot void beneath, as though the face had been shot clean through. As Lynx reined in, Toil was already on foot and scouting around the entrance.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Anatin asked as he unhitched his saddlebag and slung it over his shoulder.

  ‘Looking for spoor,’ she called back, not looking up. ‘No good if this is something’s nest these days.’ She continued on into the dark space until Lynx could barely see her, before giving a small yelp. In the next moment he’d slipped from his saddle and brought his gun up, advancing on the cave. He stopped abruptly as Toil reappeared, relief on her face.

  ‘Looks clear, think we got lucky.’

  He glanced back at the path where the lancers would be following very soon. ‘How’s that, then?’

  ‘This is Wisp forage ground,’ she said, pulling her mage-gun from the scabbard on her horse and her pack onto her back. ‘Follow me and watch for the tripwires.’

  With a slap on the rump of her horse she sent it back the way they’d come and headed on inside. The other mercenaries looked at each other dubiously. Lynx doubted any of the others would have met a Wisp either and there was enough fanciful rumour about the underground-dwelling race that he doubted anyone knew anything real about them. When the alternative was waiting for the Knights-Charnel, however, lingering would do no good.

  ‘Come on,’ Teshen said finally, heading after Toil. ‘No lancer’s following on foot without orders, but we don’t want to get pinned down.’

  ‘I see in the dark better’n most folk anyway,’ Sitain muttered as she followed with the rest. Soon it was only Lynx again, standing dry-mouthed with a crawling sensation on his neck. He drew his gun and held it so tight his knuckles went white, but the feel of the wooden stock under his fingers only reminded him of the pickaxes he’d once wielded.

  He couldn’t say how long he was stood there. It was probably only moments until Toil headed back out again.

  ‘What’s the hold-up?’

  ‘Caves,’ Lynx croaked.

  ‘Scared o’ the dark?’ she asked, a brief laugh dying when Lynx’s expression tightened further.

  She edged forward, mage-gun slung over one shoulder. ‘We don’t have time for this.’

  ‘I know,’ Lynx croaked, throat so tight he could barely breathe. Some part of his mind was raging away at the back of his head, screaming for him to move and get to safety, but that part was locked behind walls of stone and bars of iron.

  Toil slowly reached out and put her hand on Lynx’s arm. He flinched but managed not to smash the butt of the gun into her head the way every instinct screamed for him to do. His body was so rigid with the conflict of emotion that Lynx couldn’t even speak, but Toil drew herself closer with the care of horse trainer.

  ‘We need to move,’ she whispered as softly as a lover. ‘Do you hear me, Lynx?’

  Toil moved closer still, one hand on his arm and the other rising slowly to touch him on the cheek. Her skin rasped against the dark stubble, strong fingers resting tenderly along the line of his jaw.

  Somehow he found the strength to suck in a breath and nod. Toil brought herself right up to him, close enough to kiss, and suddenly the musky scent of her skin filled his mind. The spice of her sweat on the air overlaid the cold stink of mud and stone. It felt like a flame moving close to his face – thawing the icy hold fear had on his body.

  ‘Come with me,’ she whispered.

  Lynx nodded and she turned away, one hand slipping down to his and tugging him along behind her. Lynx stumbled forward a few steps then the spell was broken. He gasped for air and found strength in his body once more, blinking at the gloom behind him until the jagged shapes of fallen stone suddenly resolved themselves.

  He almost barged Toil over as she stopped in front of him and her free hand slammed against his chest.

  ‘Tripwire,’ she said, pointing down. A white length of cord was strung between two great lumps of rock, spanning three feet of space. ‘You good?’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ he croaked.

  Toil nodded and released her grip on him, picking her way over the tripwire. Lynx followed as closely as he could, able to make out little in the weak light that crept inside, but a second tripwire was obvious enough too and once they headed up a shallow slope of grooved stone he found the rest of the mercenaries on a broad shelf. There Toil stopped and pulled her lantern from her bag. It had a long loop of rope attached to the top and she slipped her head and one arm through so it hung at her hip.

  Through the jangle of his thoughts Lynx remembered that he’d seen it hanging from her horse the previous day. The wall of blackness behind the others seemed to be a yawning maw waiting for him and he closed his eyes against it, fixing on the strange lantern to distract himself. It was a cylinder about a foot long and half that across – a solid case of brass with some strange fretwork cut into the outside. Inside that was some dark shiny substance like tinted glass or jet, so he’d not realised it was a lantern.

  ‘Not lighting it yet?’ Anatin demanded, pointing past the shelf to the darkness beyond. ‘We can’t see a damn thing past here.’

  Toil gave him a look Lynx couldn’t make out and grasped each end of the lantern. She gave it a small twist and … And nothing happened.

  ‘Seven fiery hells, we’re all gonna die,’ groaned Ashis, her head sagging.

  ‘Stow that,’ Anatin snapped, drawing his guns. ‘We’re not—Hey, where are you going?’

  Toil had headed straight past him, lantern at her waist and gun held loose in her hands. She turned and faced them all. Lynx realised there was a now strange tint to the air, her skin taking on a very faint glow as she smiled at them. Beside her the huge pale face of Reft seemed to loom like a phantom above his dark clothes.

  ‘Like I said, the Charnelers won’t have a lantern like this. But if you want to stay and fight, go for it.’

  She headed off and Sitain hurried along behind, the mercenaries frowning at each other in the darkness but wasting little time in following. There was a faint light, Lynx realised, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first. The lantern was emitting nothing, it remained barely an outline in the dark, but a pale glow now seemed to trace the curves of the rock as they walked. He glanced back and saw the darkness had returned to where they’d been standing, while just beyond he could see a sliver of light from the cave entrance.

  It was a tunnel, he realised as the outline ahead tilted right. Wide enough for them to walk three abreast, it continued for a dozen yards before dropping away in stepped sections of grooved slope that spiralled gently down into the belly of the earth. With a heavy feeling Lynx pulled his tricorn from his head and flattened it again, shoving it in the side of his pack.

  ‘This
some sort o’ lichen?’ Olut asked from up ahead.

  ‘Something like that,’ Toil replied. ‘The lantern’s good for a few days underground, but we’ll get up in the daylight before it runs out anyway.’

  ‘The lantern’s working?’

  ‘Of course!’ spluttered Sitain. ‘Can’t you see it is?’

  ‘They’re not night mages.’ Toil laughed, looking askance at Sitain who was walking alongside her. ‘They can’t see like you do in the dark.’

  ‘You all can’t see this?’

  Toil shook her head. ‘Not so well as you, nothing like it I’d guess. We can only see an outline of the walls.’

  ‘Gods,’ Sitain breathed. ‘I knew I was better than others at seeing in the dark, that only makes sense, doesn’t it? But this … It’s beautiful, every line of rock is shining. I could read your book, Lynx, if you wanted me to.’

  ‘No one likes a show-off,’ Kas called.

  ‘If our new Jester of Sun can lead us through all this, I’m inclined to forgive a little showing off,’ Anatin muttered.

  ‘Aye, fair point,’ Kas said, relenting. ‘Show off as much as you like, Jester, so long as you keep an eye out for maspids as well.’

  The spiral stair descended for two full turns, so far as Lynx could estimate. He was finding it hard enough to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, his whole body trembling at the descent, but when the rock abruptly opened out around them even his fear faded into the background.

  He heard someone gasp beside him as the mercenaries stumbled to a halt, looking up and around in wonder. Only Toil thought to have a gun ready, but after a brief sweep of the great tunnel they found themselves in she lowered it again and waited for the others. The air was cool, but lacking the crispness of dawn they had just left. Above their heads the tunnel reached up to a remarkable height, Toil’s lantern only just managing to grasp the rough lines of a curved roof that seemed to undulate in echo of some organic form a good fifty feet above their heads.

  Their view was aided by veins of the pale blue rock exposed on the tunnel walls, glowing in a way that seemed bright after the dim stair. These strata lit the way in both directions, revealing a long empty tunnel twenty feet from wall to wall, while opposite them stood a rounded opening in the rock that revealed some sort of room beyond. Some quirk in the rock had permitted a strange overhang to form above that, a loop through which someone or something had threaded a steel bar that held a rudimentary grille. The builders – Wisps? Lynx wondered with a faint thrill – had dug down into the powdery earth underfoot too, creating a trench in which the grille fitted neatly.

  ‘What’s this?’ Anatin asked, taking a few steps forward until Toil caught his arm.

  ‘Wisps,’ she replied. ‘Keeping out the wildlife.’

  ‘Out of what?’

  ‘Let’s find out.’

  ‘What about the Charnelers?’

  ‘They won’t follow.’

  ‘You’re betting our lives on that?’

  Toil grinned wolfishly at him. ‘If they do, this tunnel’s long and straight. They don’t need to do a lot of catching up before they shoot us down.’

  ‘That’s supposed to reassure me?’

  ‘Nope, but we’ll see them coming if they do have torches; time enough to stand back and fire burners from a safe distance. They’d be mad to follow us underground; they’ll make better time following the ridge to the main ruin on horseback and run fewer risks. You want to stand guard, that’s fine. I’m going this way, introduce myself to the natives.’

  ‘Introduce yourself?’ Anatin said, raising an eyebrow and nodding at the gun she carried.

  Toil sighed. ‘Oh for … Don’t you think we’ve got enough people trying to kill us?’

  ‘The thought did occur.’

  ‘Damn right. The Wisps live here – we start just running round these halls, stirring up nasties and blowing the shit out of their tunnels, they might have something to say about it. If we announce ourselves it’ll help if they’re deciding between friend or foe – and maybe we can borrow their knowledge of the tunnels too.’

  She headed for the heavy steel grille and knelt, releasing some sort of catch at the bottom and trying to haul it up. The weight was considerable and in the end it took three of them to raise it to above head height, but once it was up, Reft supported it alone while the others passed under. Closing it up behind them Toil was careful to replace the catches that held it shut. Her lantern illuminated a broad circular room with a single sloped pillar in the centre. Aside from the pillar it was empty; a second archway and a half-dozen alcoves in the rock walls were the only features.

  Before going any further Toil pulled a small wooden pot from her pocket and carefully unscrewed the lid. Inside was a whitish substance that glowed in the arcane light of her lantern. She dipped one finger in and covered the whole tip before replacing the lid.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kas asked.

  ‘Old relic hunter’s trick,’ she said. ‘Well, the ones who don’t just kill everything in sight, anyway.’

  ‘Ain’t that more your style?’

  ‘Just folk who deserve it or get in my way,’ she said pointedly. ‘You can trust Wisps more’n people, though, and this is their home ground, which could be the advantage we need.’

  With the pot tucked safely away she shouldered her gun and gestured for the others to do the same. That done they headed through the room and into a small tunnel, low enough to make Reft duck his head but short enough for Lynx to cross without rekindling the fear in his belly. Beyond that appeared to be some sort of shrine room. A complex array of interlocking stone arches running from floor to ceiling occupyed most of the centre of the room. At the heart of it on a broad pedestal was a massive crystal geode that glittered with remarkable light as Toil picked her way through the arches.

  While the others marvelled at the light – Sitain enraptured – Toil merely sniffed and passed by without a second glance, heading for a wider doorway on the far side. As Lynx neared it he began to detect a warm, organic scent that seemed to have no place underground and he realised there was faint light coming from beyond. Down another spiral slope, this one glittering with crystals, the light grew and Lynx started to be able to make out colours in the rock. As the tunnel opened out on to a large room he saw green and red lichens on the walls and floor with a trodden path running down the centre. Scents filled his nose as he walked, nothing he recognised, while the sound of trickling water came from all around. Sweet and earthy organic odours, a faintly acrid smell of smoke and musky scents he couldn’t guess at all mingled in the air, but as his eyes adjusted Lynx immediately forgot about them as he gasped at the sight ahead.

  They stood on a high ridge of rock that led down to a great dark lake two hundred yards in length. It was studded with small islands that surrounded each of several dozen natural columns which supported the undulating ceiling. Strata of shining rocks shone down over it all, whether crystal or not Lynx couldn’t tell, but somehow a strange sort of garden had grown up across the cavern.

  It was made up of moss-like plants in the main, but larger shrubs rose up from the bigger islands and twisting sprays of blue spotted the edges of most formations. Oval leaves with a white star-shaped flower at each end floated alone or in clumps on the water, while trailing curtains of brilliant green clung to columns and outer walls. Insects darted through the air, some dark and others perfectly white, while V-shapes in the water betrayed the movement of something just below the surface.

  Toil walked to the top of the grooved slope leading down to the first of the columns, but instead of descending she knelt and bowed her head. The mercenaries stared at her in surprise but after a moment she glanced back and gestured for them to do the same. One by one they did, Sitain the last to do so, being too occupied by the dark shadows on the walls until Varain grabbed her arm and dragged her to her knees.

  There was a long moment of quiet, but then the Wisps stepped forward into the light.

 
; ‘Looks like our quarry’s gone to ground,’ Sergeant Oudagan commented. The man was stood beside the empty cave mouth that Exalted Uvrel was glaring at. ‘Want me to flush ’em out?’

  The man was idly tossing a grenade up and down in his hand, an evil smirk on his face.

  ‘I can see that grenade’s not primed, Sergeant,’ Uvrel said, not bothering to look directly at him, ‘but you’re making the cavalry nervous.’

  Oudagan’s grin widened. He tilted his head to look around her at the main troop of Knights-Charnel. ‘Why’d you think I’m doing it?’

  ‘Enough.’ Uvrel went back to staring at the cave in silence.

  The last thing she wanted to do was pursue them underground, for tactical reasons as much as the skittishness of her command. The dragoons and grenadiers would be no problem, but the rest would likely drag their feet or even refuse. The fear of Duegar ruins was ingrained for many and taking a soldier out of their comfort zone was asking for trouble. Lines from the creed of Insar’s worshippers appeared in her mind – to embrace the dark, the holy stillness of night – but she doubted their daily prayers would be in the minds of most.

  ‘Sauren, how are we for torches?’

  The lieutenant hurried forward. ‘Some, not many. Not enough to cross the entire city-ruin.’

  ‘Mebbe there’s light down there,’ Oudagan suggested. ‘Duegar can’t have used torches all the time. Burn all the air bad.’

  ‘They lived there,’ Uvrel pointed out. ‘I doubt they needed to see as we do. Anything that may once have been down there will likely be long since looted by relic hunters anyway.’ She shook her head and turned away. ‘We can’t risk the ambush either. It’s too confined, just takes one burner to hit a grenadier and we’re all dead.’

  ‘Grenades’ll spread fire a lot further down any tunnel.’

  ‘Grenades can’t be thrown too far if the ceiling’s low and unless you can see in the dark, you don’t know where you’re throwing. No – we follow the ridgeline. That runs all the way to the city proper. If we can get ahead of them we can set an ambush of our own.’