“I thought you said they didn’t work here,” Stryke complained. “You’ve let her get away!”
Jennesta’s parents and her sibling looked truly mournful. Vermegram and Sanara might even have had moist eyes, as was the way with humans.
It was Serapheim who spoke, his tone weighed down. “No, they don’t work here, and she hasn’t got away. That was our plan.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Working together, because that’s what it took, even with a counterfeit set of instrumentalities, we managed to alter them from afar. Jennesta thought she could use them to get away, and no doubt had the coordinates for a safe location. We changed those coordinates.”
“Where’s she gone?” Coilla asked.
Serapheim looked up at the sky. “I’ll explain.”
The world Serapheim created was in every respect artifice, fuelled and maintained by magic and the force of his will. But for all practical purposes it was real. The food it produced could be eaten, the rain that fell was wet, the perfume of flowers was just as sweet. Pleasure could be experienced there, and pain and death. The reality extended to its sun. It was no less the giver of warmth and light than any that existed in the so-called natural universe.
And so it was that as Serapheim explained what had happened to his depraved daughter, on the surface of the sun he had brought into existence there was the tiniest blip. A minute, incredibly short-lasting flare of energy as a foreign body, newly arrived, was instantly consumed by that terrible inferno.
Jennesta’s going had a number of effects on the battlefield. Her human zombies simply stopped functioning, and fell to dust. The entranced orcs had the chains binding their minds severed, and came to their senses. Others, of many races, also felt her influence seep away, and they threw down their arms. Yet others, those far gone in depravity who followed the sorceress willingly, fought on. As the battle descended into part dazed chaos, part fight to the death, it was one of the latter who was responsible for what happened next.
Stryke and Thirzarr stood with Coilla and Pepperdyne, a little apart from the others, watching the turn of events when a fighter on the battlefield took aim and unleashed an arrow.
Given the unpredictability of a conventional longbow, it could have struck any of them. It chose Pepperdyne. The arrow plunged deep into his chest, passing through the side of his heart as it travelled. He fell without a sound.
The cold hand of horror clutched at Coilla’s own heart. She went down on her knees to him, and if confirmation of what had just happened was needed, she saw his white singlet rapidly turning scarlet.
On the battlefield, the archer who sent the bolt, a Gatherer perhaps or some other form of lowlife, was cut to pieces by an avenging pack of Wolverines.
Stryke got hold of the arrow jutting from Pepperdyne’s chest, thinking to remove it. Pepperdyne winced and groaned. Stryke let go. Spurral caught his eye, and almost imperceptibly, shook her head.
Coilla took her lover’s hand. Pepperdyne’s eyes flickered and half opened. He stared up at her face.
“Take it easy,” she whispered. “We’ll patch you up and-”
“ No… my love,” he replied almost too softly to be heard. “ I’m… beyond… patching up.”
“Don’t leave me, Jode.”
“I’ll… never… leave you.”
Coilla squeezed his hand tighter. “How can I go on? How can I live without you?” She turned to Serapheim and his kin. “Can’t you do something?” she pleaded. “With your great powers, surely-”
Serapheim shook his head sadly. “There are limits to even our abilities. Some things must take their course. I’m sorry.”
Desolate, she returned her gaze to Pepperdyne. He tried to speak again, and Coilla had to put her ear to his mouth to catch what he said. Whatever it was, it brought the flicker of a smile to her face before grief replaced it.
Epilogue I
Stryke, Jup, Spurral, Pelli Madayar and Standeven stood in the semiarid wastes of a drought-ridden slice of Maras-Dantia. The sun beat down without mercy, the air was verging on foul.
“This isn’t fair,” Standeven whined. “You could at least have brought me somewhere other than Kantor Hammrik’s fiefdom.”
Stryke pointed across the desert. “I reckon if you walk for about three days in that direction you’ll be out of it.”
“I’ve no supplies, no proper clothing, no-”
“Here’s a bottle of water. You better make it last.”
Standeven snatched it. “I was as upset about what happened to Jode as any of you, you know.”
“Yeah, right.”
He was still whining and muttering curses when the others vanished and left him to it.
Stryke, Jup, Spurral and Pelli looked out at a considerably more pleasant world. It was blessed with fecundity and almost entirely unspoilt. In the valley below was a small village of round huts and longhouses. Smoke lazily climbed from cooking stoves, and in an adjacent field cattle were grazing.
“A world comprised solely of dwarfs,” Pelli said, sweeping an arm at the scene. “The Corps has had contact with the inhabitants before, and we’re on good terms. They’re expecting you down there. Just mention my name.”
Jup and Spurral thanked her, then turned to Stryke. Pelli moved off to a discreet distance.
“Well, we’ve already had our goodbyes,” Jup said, “and you know I’m not one for emotional gestures, so I’m offering you my hand, Stryke.”
Stryke took it in a warriors’ grasp and squeezed hard.
“You and your I’m not one for emotional gestures,” Spurral teased as she shoved past Jup. “Well, I am.” She gave Stryke a powerful hug, her head not quite up to the level of his chest. “Thank you, Captain. For everything.”
“And you,” he returned.
Spurral had tears in her eyes. Jup pretended there was a speck of dirt in his.
They didn’t linger, but set off down the hill to their new life.
Stryke and Pelli watched them go.
“Is Coilla going to be all right?” she asked.
He sighed. “I hope so. There’s a great sadness weighing on her now. But just before we came here she told me about something that I think is going to keep her mind off it for a while.”
“I trust time will heal her. Oh, there’s just one more thing, Stryke.” She held out her hand.
He dug into his belt bag and produced the instrumentalities. For a moment he studied them, then handed them over.
“Sorry to part with them?” she asked as she slipped them into her tunic.
“No.” He thought about it. “Well, yes and no.”
She smiled. “They do have an enticing quality. But the Corps is right. They shouldn’t be abroad.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“Come on, let’s get you all home.”
Epilogue II
In the months that followed, the destruction Jennesta had brought to the orcs’ settlement on Ceragan was cleared up. New longhouses were built and corrals repaired.
The more personal hurts took longer to fade.
Stryke wandered through a fine summer’s day. The sky was blue, the birds were singing, there was abundant game in the vales, forests and rivers.
He passed Thirzarr, sitting at a wooden bench outside their lodge, chopping a carcass with a razor-keen hatchet. They exchanged a smile. Nearby, Haskeer was fooling on the grass with Corb and Janch, the hatchlings fit to burst with laughter. Stryke increased his pace a little at that point, lest Haskeer collar him to say, once more, how right he’d been about Dallog.
Wheam and his father, Quoll, were sitting on the steps of the chieftain’s longhouse. Wheam was plinking on his battered goblin lute. Quoll was acting as if he enjoyed it.
Farther along, in a quieter corner, he spotted Coilla sitting on the ground by Pepperdyne’s grave, a spot she still came to frequently. He went to her.
When she saw him she said, “What do you think Jode would have thought of it
here?”
“I reckon he would have liked it. Might have been a bit of a change from what he was used to though.”
“I don’t think he minded change. None of us should. Didn’t somebody say the only thing that stays constant is change?”
“Probably. And it’s just as well you feel that way.” He reached out and gave her greatly swollen stomach an affectionate pat. “Because nothing’s going to be the same again.”
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Inferno ob-3 Page 33