by Andy Remic
“Yes. That’s them. They rule pretty much all the gangs and shite in Vagan, Drakerath, Kantarok, Zaret… all the major cities. Well. Let’s see. How can I put this… I owe them some money.”
“How much money?”
“A lot of money.” He grinned. “A lot of money.”
“What did you do?”
“Gambling, mostly. After the fights in the Pits.”
“And you lost?”
“Yeah. More than that. I lost. And I lost this.”
“This? What’s this?”
“This house. This fucking house.”
“It wasn’t yours to gamble!” screamed Ragorek, surging to his feet. “It belonged to our mother! It was her home! How could you gamble her fucking home? You little bastard shit.”
“At last! A show of emotion! Is the fear of losing your inheritance stinging you, little boy? Yeah, I bet the house on the pit fights, and I know what you’re going to say; you’re going to whine and moan and bleat like a fist-fucked goat. You’re going to say now, now our mother is dead, then half the house is yours. By the Law of the Land. The Law of our fine King Yoon. By all the courts and the Law of Vagandrak, yeah yeah. But unfortunately for you, you old bastard, the Red Thumb Gang don’t listen to the Law of the Land. They’re going to come here. They’re going to come here tonight and take what they want.”
“I don’t believe it!” raged Ragorek.
“You’d better believe it. I made a few mistakes. This house is forfeit. But then, that’s academic because our mother, our fucking mother, is dead. And the only loser I can see here, and now, is you.” He laughed out loud, and grinned at Ragorek. “I believe the gods show their pleasure in numerous different ways.”
Ragorek stood. He drew his short sword. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Be my guest. There’s a fucking line of bastards waiting to do it!”
There came a shout from outside. Firelight flickered from brands; many brands.
“They’re here!” hissed Ragorek.
“Yeah. I know.” Dek poured himself another tankard of ale. “Funny, ain’t it?”
“Oh, you bastard! You knew they were coming, you knew the Red Thumbs were coming and you let me sit here and drink and talk! Oh Dek, you’re the lowest form of horse shit.”
“And that’s where we disagree.” Dek rose and drew his own short sword. “You see Ragorek, you owe me. You owe me in blood, and in honour, and in your pathetic show of compassion; you owe me in family shame. You owe our old mum. Now, I’m happy to let you die here. By the sulphur of the Furnace, I’m willing to die here myself. By all the gods, I don’t rightly give a shit.”
“Hoy! You in there! Come out and throw down your weapons! We have a warrant from the Red Thumb Governor.”
Dek grinned. “But tonight, by all the gods, I’m going to burn this place down and cremate our mum. It’s where she wanted to lay. She wanted go by fire, here, in the grounds where our father is buried. Now, you can help me, Rag, or I can cut off your fucking head and do it all by myself. What’s it going to be?”
They stared at one another, across their mother’s coffin.
Ragorek’s face contorted. He gritted his teeth, and growled, and then spat.
“You cunt, Dek.”
“Never said I wasn’t,” rumbled the big pit fighter.
“I’ll do this. For our mum. And to show you I never was interested in the money.”
“Your face betrays the words that puke from your mouth like disgorged maggots, but whatever. Let’s get to it, if that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We need to entice the Red Thumb boys inside. Deep inside. Lead them into the Heart.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ve taken care of it,” said Dek, grinning, and showing his missing teeth.
Dek stood. His face narrowed.
Firelight glittered in the courtyard from many brands. Ragorek stood, and the two men looked out the window. There was a large group, dressed in dark clothing and bearing many weapons.
“There must be twenty men,” said Ragorek, and gave Dek a sideways look. “Shit, brother. They must want you pretty bad!”
“I did say I owed them money.”
“But… twenty men?”
“Let us say my reputation precedes me.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Get out your sword, follow my lead.”
Outside the group had gathered. Firelight shone on damp cobbles and various ancient, moss-darkened statues from the family’s distant past. One man foregrounded himself; he was a tall, athletic man, a warrior by his stance. He held his brand high and the firelight shone from his brown forked beard.
“Dek, this is Crowe,” he bellowed. “Come on out. We know you’re in there. Show yourself. You have some questions to answer, old friend. You have three minutes.”
“This way,” growled Dek, and ran through the dark and shadow-filled house. Both men had spent their childhood there. They knew every corridor, every step, every stairwell, every room and cut-through and nook and cranny, every cupboard and wardrobe, every window and which way they opened, every statue and pillar and panel and table and hideaway. Even in the dark, intuition kicked in, from a childhood playing at being soldiers and heroes, of fighting mock battles with sticks and small wooden figures, of lying in the dark, long into the night, talking excitedly about strategy and how they would both join the King’s army and help rid Vagandrak of evil wherever it may be found! Now, some of that evil, members of the Red Thumb Gang, Vagandrak’s biggest underground scourge, were here to do them harm. It was an ironic turn of events.
Dek slowed, and Rag mimicked his younger brother. They were approaching the rear of the house and the servants’ kitchen, quarters and entrance. As they entered the long kitchen which had, in former glorious years, been able to cater for more than a hundred guests, Ragorek’s nostrils twitched. What was that smell? Lantern oil?
Dek and Rag approached the rear door, solid oak, and, even as they arrived, so a narrow, flat, paper-thin blade was inserted through the crack and jiggled the lock. Dek gave a two strike gesture with his index finger, and in the darkness Rag nodded. They separated, swords out, moving to stand with backs to the cupboards that flanked the door. Dek crouched, and Rag did the same. The door creaked open on purposefully un-oiled hinges.
Three men crept in, bearing swords which had been blackened with gun-oil and soot, and as they came into range Dek let them move past, then reared up, his own blade hacking at the rearmost man. The blade tore into his neck, grating on bone, and the man gave a ragged cry, trying to turn. Dek front-kicked him away, and smashed his blade in a backhand sweep, cutting the second gang-member’s throat. He went down on both knees and Dek slid the sword into his eye socket. During this, Ragorek cut down the third man, ramming his sword into the man’s back. He followed the gang member to the floor, kneeling on his back and plunging the blade a second time through his kidneys. The man lay still, blood leaking out onto ancient stone flags.
“He’s here! He’s here!” came a scream from outside. They saw dark shapes running towards the rear door.
“An excellent plan,” murmured Ragorek. “Discovered immediately.”
“No. It’s perfect. Come on.”
Dek pounded through the house, and Ragorek glanced back. Men were flooding through that thick oak door, past the large grooved preparation table on which ten thousand carcases had been skinned and gutted and carved over the decades; and past a stack of barrels. Barrels?
There came the sounds of smashing glass, from several parts of the building. And the splintering of wood from the front door.
“This way.”
They headed for the cellar steps, but five men blocked their way.
“Dek!” bellowed Crowe. “Stop! Don’t make me come after you!”
Dek said nothing, but veered right with Ragorek close behind. They pounded down the wide main corridor, back to the central living r
oom where their mother’s rough-sawn coffin rested. Dek moved to stand behind the coffin, as did Ragorek. Both their swords were bloody, and only then did Ragorek realise the room stank of oil. Lantern oil. He blinked in the gloom. In the short time they had been away, the coffin had been soaked in oil. And now, several barrels flanked the coffin, and a cool breeze drifted into the room from the window behind.
Crowe and ten of his men entered, bristling swords and knives and grim faces.
“Welcome, old friend,” said Dek.
“What horse shit is this?” scowled Crowe, rubbing his forked beard. “You know what you have to do, Dek; you need to give me good hard coin, and lots of it! Killing my men will not find you favour with the Red Thumb Gang. And you fucking know we control every damn town and city from here to the Skarandos Mountains in the south, and all the way up to Kantarok and the Skell Forest. You are fucked if you don’t cooperate, Dek. You and your pretty brother.” He gave a nasty grin which showed his tombstone teeth. “Unless, Ragorek, you wish to come and work for us? We always have use for pretty boys like you. I’m sure we can come to some kind of understanding.”
“Listen,” said Dek, holding his hands apart, an interesting vision of placation because his sword still dripped blood. “The way I see it, Crowe, it’s like this. Yes, I gambled away a life’s fortune when I was pissed. And you bastards allowed it. Even you allowed it. Old friend. But I recognise a debt is a debt, and as you see, here’s my old mum in her coffin, dead, and now this house here belongs to me and my brother here. I reckon this house is good enough to settle my debt. What do you reckon? You can have it.”
“Dek!” snarled Ragorek.
Crowe raised his dark, shaggy eyebrows, and withdrew some of his aggression. He looked around, eyes widening, nodding in appreciation.
“That’s good, Dek. I see where you’re going with this. And I see you have at last come to your senses. This sure is a fine house. I’m positive the men in charge, the people I have to answer to, I am sure they will value this as being a good way to paying off some of your debt. Then you won’t have to die. Not yet, anyways. So yes, a wise move, and the sensible option, my old comrade.”
Dek smiled a narrow smile. “Yes.”
Crowe’s eyes were fixed to his. “I knew you had history, but didn’t realise you had such good family… connections. You kept them from me. All those years ago.” He smiled. “Lucky for you. It’s saved your life.”
“Crowe. I think we misunderstand one another,” said Dek, face relaxing into a sombre expression. He licked his lips and his eyes gleamed in the flickering light from the single brand.
“We do? How so?” Crowe frowned.
Dek suddenly lunged, grabbing the flaming brand from its bracket. “When I said you could have the house; I didn’t mean by selling it and allowing you to reap the financial rewards. I meant that it would be your final resting place. Your grave. Yours, forever.” Dek dropped the brand to the coffin and a wall of flame shot up. Searing heat lashed out and Crowe and his men suddenly realised they were standing on carpets soaked with lantern oil. Fire roared, billowing out, igniting the carpets, the oil, and the suddenly screaming men. Clothes caught. Beards and hair flared in ignition. Fire, a dancing demon, leapt from man to man to man, scorching flesh, burning, burning bright, and each man screamed and grabbed at himself and tried to escape in a blind panic of desperation and sudden, incredible terror.
Dek and Ragorek stumbled backwards, towards the open window. Bright fire blinded them. They turned and leapt out, boots thudding into soft earth. Weasel and a group of men were waiting. Weasel’s face was deadly serious.
“Are they all in?” snapped Dek.
“Yes. We’ve still scouts out, but these boys didn’t think to leave anybody outside to keep watch. Not too bright, these Red Thumb idiots.”
“Nail it up.”
Men ran forward and started hammering planks over the window from which Dek and Ragorek had escaped. Bangs and thuds echoed across the gardens and cobbled driveway, reverberating from the boles of nearby ancient trees.
“You sure you got all the doors?” asked Dek.
Weasel nodded. “As soon as you lured them all in through the kitchens and started leading them away, we began then. And when you lit the coffin, I gave the signal to the others.”
Now, they could hear the roar of raging fire and the crackling of timbers. Dek walked away from his family home, from his mother’s house, from his own house, and when halfway down the drive he stopped, and turned, and stared up at the magnificent stone edifice which had been in his family for five generations. Now, in his grief, and in his desperation, he’d torched the place.
Ragorek approached. His face was grim and soot-streaked.
“I can’t believe you did this,” he said.
Dek stared. The whole lower floor was on fire, and even as they watched flames could be seen caressing the upper storey. A man leapt, burning, screaming, from one of the upper windows. He hit the ground with a dull thud and Weasel and three men ran over and plunged long knives into the burning body, which lay still, flames flickering.
“No escape,” whispered Dek. “None of them can escape.”
“They’ll still know you did it. The Red Thumbs, I mean.”
Dek shrugged. “I no longer give a fuck.”
They watched the house burn. They watched their home burn.
The roof had caught now, and the whole place was a roaring inferno. Nobody was getting out of the place alive. But then, that had been the whole idea.
Weasel approached. “We’re done, Dek. The whole lower floor is nailed up tighter than a whore’s… yes. Well.”
Dek grasped the small man’s hand. “Thanks, Weasel. To you and your boys. You done me proud.”
“Anything for you, Dek,” grinned Weasel. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
“Yes. Any stragglers come staggering out, and I’ll give them a bit of Dek loving. Ragorek here will go with you. I have some business to attend to.”
“Ragorek is staying where the hell he wants,” growled Ragorek, staring hard at Dek. “It’s my damn house too. My damn mother who’s burning.”
Dek gave a single nod. “As you wish, brother.”
Weasel and his men melted into the night, and Dek and Ragorek stood for an hour, watching the house burn. Flames roared high illuminating the estate almost as if it were day. But here, ten miles north of the city, there weren’t any neighbours. Dek and Ragorek were left alone to watch their mother, and their fortune, burn.
Eventually, Dek sat down cross-legged on the cobbles. Ragorek sat next to him.
There was a mammoth roar as the roof collapsed inwards, shooting a million sparks up into the freezing winter sky. The fire seemed to calm a little then, and the core of the house was glowing white like the centre of a blacksmith’s forge.
“It was a good send off,” said Dek, finally.
“For mother?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t realise that was the plan.”
“That was always the plan,” said Dek, giving Ragorek a skeletal grin. “The Red Thumb Gang – well, they just got in the way, and this was a convenient way to settle an old score.”
“That Crowe man?”
“Yeah. The bastard.”
“You know him?”
“Oh, I know him, all right,” said Dek, eyes filled with sorrow. “Used to be my best friend.”
They sat, their backs freezing, the heat from the burning house throwing out enough energy to make them sweat like armoured soldiers in the sun.
“I miss her,” said Ragorek.
“You do?”
“Yes, of course I fucking do!”
“And there was me, thinking you were a heartless, jealous, childish bastard.”
“Maybe I’m that as well. So, what do we do now?” Ragorek asked.
Dek shrugged and lay down on the cobbles, placing his head on his arm. “Don’t know about you, mate, but I’m going to sleep. It’s been a long da
y. A long week. A long fucking life. And I’m staying here till mum’s gone and done and ashes.”
Ragorek nodded, and stayed up for a while, watching the stones begin to glow.
It was a cold chill bastard morning. The sky was grey and bleak, like iron. The puddles lay frozen in tiny platters; like dead fish eyes.
The house smouldered. The four main walls were still standing, along with the skeletal infrastructure of supporting walls. But that was all that remained. Windows and doors were toothy gaps. The entire innards of the house were gone and several walls had collapsed to form mounds of rubble. The core of the house glowed, and heat emanated to warm the surrounding cobbles. Ash lay in concentric circles spreading away from the centre, and the great mounds were stirred by gentle gusts of winter breeze, glowing bright occasionally as oxygen breathed life into old fire.
The figure trod carefully up the cobbles, looking left and right, nostrils twitching at the scent of charred timbers and wood smoke. The figure stopped, staring at Dek and Ragorek, lying on the ground in uncomfortable slumber, still warmed by the dying embers of their family.
The figure gestured back to another figure, an old military hand signal, and then approached very, very carefully. Eyes took in the two big men, and the empty bottle of whiskey which lay between them.
Dek was snoring, but the snoring stopped abruptly as the long sliver of steel rested against his throat.
He showed no sign he was awake, but she knew he was.
“Are you here to kill me?” he rumbled, finally. His eyes flickered open. “Because if you are, get it fucking done.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” said the woman, gently. “I’m here to rescue you. From yourself.”
HORSE LADY
Orlana rode a huge, jet-black war charger, sitting, back straight, every inch the queen. To her left padded Tuboda, a massive, magnificent example of man and lion crushed together, warped together, with patchy white skin and tufts of golden fur. Every so often his tawny eyes shifted to gaze up at Orlana, with total love, total obedience, and she would smile and nod in his direction, acknowledging his love. Behind, came the two hundred or so horse beasts, the splice, padding along with heavy feet and paws and mangled iron hooves, some running with odd angular movements due to legs of differing lengths, or a twisted shoulder or pelvis where the fusing of man and beast had not gone completely smoothly. But whatever their deformities, whatever their perfection, whatever their evolution, all cut a terrifying spectacle. All oozed threat and menace and a promise of oblivion. A merged cavalry unit from ancient tales of horror. From the Before Times. From the millennia rule of the Equiem.