by William King
Stars danced before Kormak’s eyes and all the wind was smashed out of his body. He smelled the monster’s breath on his face even as he watched the light die from its eyes. He struggled to push himself upright as Massimo raced closer. It was a struggle pushing the wolf-man’s huge weight off but it became lighter by the second and pinkish pus leaked over Kormak as it transformed back into a large, handsome, silver-haired man.
“You killed me,” Jaro said. He sounded as if he could not quite believe it. Kormak pulled himself upright just in time to confront Massimo. The wizard held his staff ready to strike. Kormak did not doubt there were potent and deadly spells woven into it. It would be best not to let it touch him, even wearing his protective amulets.
Massimo came to a halt and stared at Kormak. Fear and hate warred on his face. Kormak’s legs felt as if they were about to give way. His body felt battered beyond belief. His chest felt as if it was on fire. He let none of his weakness show in his voice when he spoke, “There’s just you and me left now,” he said. “Soon there will be only me.”
Massimo took a step back. He knew that physically he was no match for a Guardian, potent wizard though he might be. He needed time to weave his spells.
“There’s no need for us to fight,” the wizard said, his eyes darting around the temple. Was he expecting help to come, Kormak wondered? He doubted any men at arms would come to investigate the goings-on up here but perhaps Razhak would summon them. The thought of the demon and what he had done to Petra made Kormak snarl. He owed the girl his life and he had allowed her to die. Or worse. He took a step forward.
“I can help you find the demon,” Massimo said. Kormak took another step forward. Massimo took another step back. They were walking towards the open balcony at the far end of the sacred space.
“I doubt it,” Kormak said.
“It is hurt.” Massimo said. There was an urgency in his voice as if he was desperate to convince Kormak that he had something to bargain with. “All the centuries stuck in the jar have weakened it, damaged it in some way. It does not have its full power and it needs to find new bodies or it will die from lack of energy.
Kormak took another step forward. Massimo moved away. “It told you this, did it?”
“Yes but it did not need to. I could tell just by studying its aura. It wanted my help. It wanted me to weave spells that would strengthen it before it made its journey.”
“What did it offer you in return?” Massimo licked his lips. Sweat beaded his face.
“Secrets, many magical secrets. The Ghul knows much magic that has been forgotten in this modern age.”
“And you were willing to help it in return.”
“I do what I need to do to protect my people. Its knowledge would have been helpful.”
“It will leave a trail of death across the lands. It has already begun to.” Massimo’s back was against the wall now. He held his staff out with both hands as if it could form a barrier between him and Kormak. He did not look so powerful or confident now, just a large, flaccid man with fear in his eyes.
“I can tell you where it is going,” said Massimo.
“Oh you will,” said Kormak. “One way or another. There are many ways to make a man talk and I know all of them.” He kept his voice flat and emotionless. He knew it would sound more menacing that way.
“It’s going to the dead city of Tanyth. It has to. It’s where it was born. There are magical engines there that will heal it. If it does not, it will surely die and soon.” Massimo was babbling now. The front of his robe was stained with urine. “Don’t kill me,” he said.
“You have committed crimes against the Holy Sun and his people. You have had commerce with demons. You have broken the Law. There can be only one penalty.”
Massimo suddenly swung his staff at Kormak. It was what the Guardian had been waiting for. He parried the blow and stabbed forward. Massimo’s flesh did not sizzle but he died like any other man would as Kormak’s blade pierced his heart. Kormak looked up. The full moon gazed down on him mockingly. He turned and looked on the scene of carnage. Bodies were strewn all through the temple space. There was an army waiting in the valley.
Kormak stripped off the tunic that had belonged to the Wolves. No one had opposed him when he rode out of the valley. The sentries even answered his questions when he put them.
Yes, a girl had ridden through claiming she was a courier sent with instructions to the Wolves. She was heading east, along the main road, bound for Steelriver. Kormak doubled back and took the path to where his horse waited with what remained of his gear. It was a delay but some of the things in his saddlebags would prove useful and a second steed would do no harm in the pursuit. He knew where Razhak was going now. He knew what his present form looked like. He would follow and he would kill the demon and he would take revenge for Petra and her brother and the others it had killed.
It would not escape him, even if he had to follow it to the edge of the world.
THE FLESH STEALER
“BE VERY STILL, stranger,” said a voice from behind Kormak. The beam of a lantern fell on him, illuminating the hideously decomposing corpse he had been inspecting.
The highlander glanced up from the body of the murdered man, squinted down the alley, towards the light. There were two men there, wearing the conical helmets of the Vandemar city night watch. He said, “I am not the one you are looking for.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” said one of the watchmen. He was tall, almost as tall as Kormak and even broader although most his weight was fat. His massive form blocked one exit of the narrow alley.
He held a crossbow with the negligent ease of a man who knew how to use it and the bolt was pointed at Kormak’s heart. Kormak doubted that even his mail shirt, forged by dwarves in the ancient days before they departed the surface world, would be able to stop it at this close range. He was in no hurry to find out. He had no intention of dying in this dark alley between the massive tenements of Vandemar if he could help it. He still had work to do.
“Step away from the body, stranger,” said the big man’s partner, the one holding the lantern. He was small and wiry and looked the smarter of the two by far. He rang his hand-bell loudly. “Keep your hands away from your sword. You have the look of a man who is quick with his hands but believe me you’re not as fast as a crossbow-bolt. No one is.”
Kormak did as he was told. He kept his hands out from his sides and he made no sudden moves. “I tell you, you are making a mistake. There’s not much time before the killer strikes again.”
The weasel faced man grinned appreciatively. “It’s good that you are so co-operative. Not many of those we pick up are. But I doubt the killer will be doing much killing while we have you here though.”
“Look at the body then tell me that,” said Kormak.
“Take a few steps back and I will do just that thing.” He kept ringing the damn bell and Kormak knew it was only a matter of time before more watchmen came, even in this dingy run down part of the city.
Kormak backed away. The guard’s eyes did not leave him. “What happened here, anyway?” he asked. “You and Ana come to some sort of arrangement? She lure this poor bastard up here and you knock him off? It won’t be the first time but it’ll be the first time she’s been caught. You’ll both swing for this.”
“Ana?” Kormak asked.
“Don’t play innocent. You know her. Red-haired trollop. This alley is her patch, has been for years. You her new pimp?”
Kormak grinned a wolfish grin. “I am a Guardian.”
The guards laughed. “Sure and I am Our Lady of the Moon,” said the bigger one of the two.
“You picked a strange place to step out of the old stories,” said the smaller one. “I thought I had heard them all but this is a new one. Wait till we tell the lads down at the watch-house.”
“I don’t have time to argue,” said Kormak. “Take a look at the body and then tell me that a mortal man did that.”
The weasel f
aced man shrugged and squatted down by the body. He looked at it, looked up and then turned and bent double. The sound told Kormak that he was being sick.
“What did you do to him?” the small guard asked when he had finished dumping the contents of his stomach on a pile of offal. He stood up straight and began to jerk his warning bell frantically. Its loud clangour rang out through the alley, scaring even the rats that had started to gather for their feast.
“I did nothing,” said Kormak. “The Ghul did it.”
“A Guardian and a Ghul,” said the big man. He was still chuckling. He had not inspected the body as closely as his companion. “This is an interesting tale for the lads.”
His companion did not look amused now. He looked scared. “You a wizard, big man?” he asked. “You know some sort of Shadow magic?”
“No—I hunt those who do.”
“Yeah and next you’ll be telling us you kill the Children of the Moon as well.”
“Not always,” said Kormak. “Only when they break the Law and will not repent it.”
“That’s crazy talk,” said the bigger guardsman. “It’s the bedlam lockup for you, my friend.”
“Look at the body then tell me I am crazy,” said Kormak. He spoke slowly. He was starting to lose his patience. The big man kept laughing but the crossbow did not waver. His companion leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. He looked down then and he stopped laughing. As soon as their eyes were off him, Kormak sprang forward, lithe as a panther.
The crossbow swivelled. Kormak struck the side of it with his fist. The bolt flickered off down the alley, clattering against the wall. Kormak punched the big guard in his ample stomach, dropping him. A second blow sent the smaller man spinning into the wall. Kormak grabbed him, smashed his head against the wall until he fell. The big man was groaning and trying to unsling the club from his belt. Kormak kicked him in the head then raced off down the alley. He jumped a midden heap, vaulted over a low wall of crumbling brick and turned left, racing under ancient balconies and the wooden walkways that ran between the upper stories of the tenements.
The alleys were dark and dingy but he kept moving, knowing with every minute that passed his task was getting harder. It had been little more than luck he had found the body. A passing trader had described Razhak’s last victim heading this way with a red-haired girl. Kormak had not been sure whether to believe him at the time but it was the only lead he had got so he took it and found the familiar looking corpse.
Razhak had stolen the form of pedlar called Nial after he had abandoned the form of the girl, Petra. Now, unless Kormak was greatly mistaken, the Ghul was wearing the body that had once belonged to Ana. He knew he had only a few hours before it stole another and left behind a hideously decomposing corpse.
Or it would if it was sensible. It knew Kormak was after it. He had almost caught it in Steelriver and in an inn along the Holy Road. It would want to make at least one more shift, to a body for which it would be much harder to find a description. That would make the task of finding it much more difficult, and the watch would be after him now and Kormak would be out of time.
He should have killed the watchmen. He would have bought himself some time by slitting the watchmen’s throats. It was what Razhak would have done. The Ghul would leave no witnesses. He could not do that. The men had done him no harm. They were not his enemies. They were not creatures he was hunting. It was no part of his duty to kill men who were just doing theirs.
It was going to cost him though. Soon the watchmen would wake up with a grudge, and they would know what he looked like and what he sounded like. They might even be able to spot him by the way he wore his blade. He had told them he was a Guardian, after all, in the slight hope that they might aid him. Well, there was one thing he could do about that. He unbuckled the sword belt from around his chest, where it supported the scabbard at his left shoulder. He buckled it around his waist. He forced himself to walk more slowly as he approached the torchlit shambles of the Mall. He slouched his shoulders, and assumed a drunken, stumbling walk.
He emerged into an area that was comparatively well lit by flickering torches over the alley mouths and red-lanterns over the doors of the cathouses. Big men with hard-looking glances inspected him as he passed. Girls called for his custom. They smelled of alcohol and cheap scent. The cleaner, better looking ones were all in the bars and brothels. When they saw he was not interested, they left him alone and went in search of more attentive clients. There were plenty of those. Vandemar was where the Holy Road met the Great Silk Route. From its harbour ships bore the spices of Marathay and the silks of Vendalaya all the way to Taurea and the kingdoms of the Sunlanders. From here Oathsworn Templars set out along the Holy Road to defend the Sacred Lands of the Sun.
The red light district was full of men from half a dozen Solari kingdoms. He saw massive Taurean warriors with full golden beards, garbed in the heavy armour of Templar Knights. There were dusky skinned magii from Skorpea and the hot lands of the Far South, robed in silk, carrying staffs carved from human bone. There were men wearing the silver crescent signs of moon-worshippers and the golden disks of those who followed the Holy Sun. A snake-charmer from Far Kothistan played his pipes in the street while his iridescently scaled pets danced to his wailing music, their poisoned fangs clicking shut close to the naked ankles of the fakir’s diaphanously clad twirling wife.
There were more than just men present. Two green-haired elf-women walked passed. They studied him with huge almond shaped eyes, arms around each other’s waists. One beckoned to him enticingly. He shook his head. A giant strode along, a noble-woman’s palanquin strapped to his back, and a retinue of fork-bearded desert-born guards trailing in his wake.
Kormak saw two monstrous grey-skinned orcs, a head taller than he was and twice his weight. Just the sight of them made his hackles rise. He had fought in the orc wars and the idea of being able to pass them in the street was alien to him. One of the creatures saw him staring and grinned, showing its tusks, wrinkling the multi-coloured scar tattoos on its face. There was no mirth in the expression. To an orc a smile was a challenge. Kormak looked away, and heard the orc grunt contemptuously to its companion. A gobbet of spittle landed on his boots. Kormak forced himself to keep his hand away from his sword hilt and walked on.
A girl grabbed at his arm as he passed. “Looking for some company, mister?”
Kormak turned. The girl did not look like a typical street girl. She was not dressed so revealingly. Her face, though thin, was pretty and there was no makeup. Her eyes had a glint of humour in them and an alertness that made Kormak wary. “You know Ana?”
“You thinking of a threesome?”
“You know her or not?”
“A regular of hers, eh?”
“You seen her?”
“Big Ana: tall girl, red hair, white skin, freckles? Getting a bit old for the game?”
“That sounds like her. Can you tell me where to find her?” Kormak jangled his purse. “There’s something in it for you, if you can.”
The girl looked up and down the street. She did not seem particularly busy. She stuck out a slender hand with bitten nails. “Hand it over.”
Kormak gave her one of his silver pieces. It was the ancient type, with a hole in the middle, meant to be strung on cords around the neck. She looked at it in the torchlight, held it up to her eye and laughed. “This is three hundred years old,” she said. “Reign of Albigen the Third. Where did you get it?”
“Give it back if you don’t want it?”
“I want it. I could sell this to a collector. Got any more? We could split the difference on what Miser Tala pays me.”
“I am looking for Ana,” Kormak said. “Tell me where she is. It’s important.”
The girl looked at him and shook her head. “You got it bad for her, eh? Who would have guessed?”
“Yes. I really want to find her,” said Kormak. “You going to tell me or you going to give me the coin back?”
“You said there was more if I could tell you.”
“If you tell me true, I’ll give you another of those but I need to find her fast.”
“I’ll show you where she is then and you can hand over the gelt.”
The girl turned and walked along ahead of him, pausing occasionally to make sure he was still there. Kormak wondered if he was making a mistake trusting her. After all, she could be making this up or she could be thinking of the wrong girl entirely. He shrugged. What choice did he have? This was the only lead he had and if it was wrong he would need to find another way to pick up the trail. He had already followed it too long. One way or another he was going to end this tonight.
“Where you from?” the girl asked. “Not from around here, I can tell.”
“Aquilea.”
“That’s somewhere far west, isn’t it? An island on the verge of the Outer Ocean where the great waterfall drops of the Edge of the World.”
“It’s a mountain land north of Taurea, keep heading north from there and you’ll reach the Plains of Ice.”
“The way I heard it,” the girl said, “head north from anywhere and you’ll hit the Plains of Ice eventually.”
“I heard that too.”
“So you’re a westerner then. You’re a long way from home. Trading in spice and silks I suppose, looking for a ship back.”
She was fishing for information, he knew. Trying to figure out how much he was worth. A thought struck him. “Lead me into a robber’s lair, girl, and you and your friends will all die.”
She laughed in his face. “You’re that tough, eh?”
“Tough enough,” he told her.
She stopped laughing and looked closely at his scarred face. “Yes, I believe that,” she said. “You’re older than I thought at first and I’m guessing you did not get those grey hairs and those scars by being anybody’s easy mark. What you do anyway? Mercenary?”