The Iron Wolves

by Andy Remic

  Now, as they descended into the dungeons, into the mine labyrinth, flames burned yellow, then on another level blue, another green, another red. As if each subterranean level beneath the Desekra Fortress was composed of different air, different chemicals, different atoms, different magick. The levels went down and down and down and down. Eventually the steps stopped, and became corridors, and halls, and caverns, and sometimes arched walkways over vast bottomless chasms. Darkness flooded in, so that even the brands seemed to illuminate little, providing only small circles of light in a vast unending darkness that surrounded the Iron Wolves. Flames sputtered and spat. The cold increased, not the cold of a savage winter containing snow and ice, but the cold of the deep; the cold of the grave; the cold of a bottomless tombworld.

  “I hate it down here,” said Trista. “Where is the sunlight? Where is the world? Where is life?”

  “We’ll be out soon enough,” said Kiki.

  “These mines are unnatural. The internal magick of the mountain drawing on the weak, of mind and spirit and flesh. They were not a place designed for human presence. There is a great evil down here.” Trista shivered.

  Kiki nodded, and they pushed on, finding the first huge portal. It was a gate of iron, intricately carved, maybe ten feet high and over a foot thick. It must have weighed a hundred tons. Within the ornate ironwork was the intricately formed shape of a howling wolf, head lifted to a full moon. The key turned easily, with a heavy clunk. As Kiki touched the metal, tiny sparks ran along the aged black iron and discharged against her skin. She felt this power pulsing inside her. She felt like it was exploring her. She felt magick tingling in her veins.

  Desekra Fortress knew she was there, she, Kiki, Captain of the Iron Wolves. Finally, the Great Fortress seemed to come awake and it knew; knew all the Iron Wolves were alive and wriggling in Her belly, in Her womb; like tiny embryos. Her unborn. And She, Desekra, started to feed them; an intravenous delivery of energy, strength, power, magick. She fed the Curse inside them all.

  They moved into the corridor beyond the massive iron portal, and the tunnel narrowed here so it could be defended, if discovered. Following protocol, Kiki turned and locked the gate behind them. They all exchanged a solemn glance. There would be no quick retreat when this thing was done; or not done. And if the splice were hot on their heels following a failure, they would be trapped, quite literally, between a rock and a hard place.

  They followed the narrow winding tunnel, which sometimes sloped steeply down, sometimes climbed until their leg muscles were burning. All sense of direction and depth were soon lost and gone, drifted away like smoke. The Iron Wolves forced themselves to trust the winding tunnel, and when they came to hubs where tunnels spun away like complex spider webs, they then relied on Kiki’s memory.

  They came to another gate, then another, and another. Each portal ten feet high, over a foot thick and carved with a different representation of a wolf every time; on one, a pack hunting; on another, two wolves fighting for supremacy; on yet another, a wolf standing above a man, fangs tearing into his throat. The black iron gleamed and the workmanship was intricate and incredibly detailed and showed no rust, despite the cold and damp atmosphere in which they existed.

  Finally, after passing through twelve gates, the ground rose up steeply, and Zastarte muttered through his sweat and lank hair, until they reached the final gate; the thirteenth. Through this they passed, Kiki solemnly locking the portal, and then they climbed again, feeling a cool breeze drifting down to meet them. They stepped into a cave with a soft sand floor, itself burrowed deep within a giant standing stone. Carefully, they edged around a series of vertical pillars that hid the tunnel from the cave mouth and that, Kiki knew, gave an optical illusion of a solid wall when viewed from the entrance.

  Warily the group stepped free and drew weapons. Night had fallen during their journey, and they could hear a rumble of drums, smell fire and woodsmoke and roasting meat. They moved to the entrance to the cave, and stared out at the other huge standing stones – as they had twenty years earlier.

  The mud-orcs were camped in a vast arc stretching away into the night. In the distance, they could see Desekra Fortress, fires burning on the walls, the slick granite glowing under the pale light of a full moon.

  “This is where we see if it was a good idea,” muttered Kiki, and pulled a large flash from her pack. The others did the same and, grimacing, especially Zastarte who started making retching noises, they began to smear mud-orc blood on their faces, hands, arms, clothing, armour, and rubbing the foul-stinking liquor into their hair, massaging it down to the roots.

  “This is the worst thing I have ever done for King and Country,” murmured Zastarte.

  “Even worse than the secret mission where you had to make love to a syphilitic whore down by the docks?” queried Trista.

  “At least there was a little pleasure to be gained from such an activity; this, my love, hardly climaxes with joyous ejaculation.”

  “There’ll be a joyous ejaculation of your head from your shoulders if you carry on talking,” hissed Kiki. “Now keep your mouths shut. We all know what we have to do.”

  They stepped within the lee of the huge standing stones, and a cold wind snapped at them like a dog. They watched for long, dragging minutes. The mud-orc camp was a bustle of activity. They were indeed, as intelligence gathered by Vagandrak scouts suggested, getting ready for a night attack – the first of its kind, and the first time Orlana had tried such a tactic.

  The Iron Wolves waited, until with a roar the lines of mud-orcs flowed out across the plains and hundreds of arrows arced into the sky from the Sanderlek battlements, a dark hail against the moonlit heavens, thudding home and taking down a huge swathe of the enemy. Growling and howling the mud-orcs flowed on, a green sea of bile and hate, and grappling irons sailed over the battlements and ladders thudded against parapets as the enemy swarmed up Sanderlek and the brave defenders of Vagandrak met them with sword and axe and spear.

  The remainder of the army was reorganising into units, huge leader mud-orcs snarling and spitting in their grotesque language. Kiki set her eyes on the white tents of Orlana and, taking a deep breath, led the Iron Wolves from the protection of the standing stones.

  They skirted the rear of the camp, moving slowly, the energy of Desekra Fortress flowing in their veins, the might of the magick, of the curse, filling all four up to the brim with a bubbling power that threatened to spill out, to overflow at any moment...

  There was a central tent, larger than the others and fashioned from white Zakoran silk. There were guards outside the front but they seemed excessively relaxed; after all, they were the ones attacking the enemy.

  Kiki signalled in military sign. That one.

  Advance, came Dek’s reply. Zastarte and Trista brought up the rear.

  Reaching the rear of the tent and hunkering down, Kiki produced a dagger, and glancing left and right, cut into the silk a short distance from the ground. Silently, she opened the silk with a razor edge.

  Inside the tent was dark, with just a single brazier burning, allowing soft golden shadows to flicker inside the silk walls. The sounds of battle were close here, screams, cries, the clash of iron on iron, all echoing back from the battle on and below Sanderlek, and rushing across the Zakora plains like an ocean of misery.

  Kiki unfolded, delicately, like a rose opening its petals.

  There, lounging naked under silk sheets, was a tall woman with short white hair, and a powerful man with a forked black beard and thick, bushy black hair, whom she recognised with a start; it was King Zorkai of Zakora. There was considerable trade between Vagandrak and Zakora – or there had been, before the attack of the mud-orc army. Kiki had travelled to the capital city of Zak-Tan on several occasions during the last decade, and on her previous visit had seen him address his people of the desert.

  Kiki’s fist clenched around her sword pommel, and with Dek to her left, and Trista and Zastarte to her right, the Iron Wolves moved carefull
y, silently, across thick rugs and between piles of gold-embroidered cushions towards Orlana, the Changer, the creature known as the Horse Lady…

  WOLVES UNITE

  Narnok coughed and choked on dust, and wondered for a split second how much being crushed to death was going to hurt. He hadn’t wanted to die so young, although he acknowledged he was far from being a spring chicken. Indeed, most days he felt truly invincible, despite his age, despite the scars, despite having only one eye! But here, and now, acting like a damn fool hero in a role he should have left to the young and the strong, to those more readily willing to carve themselves a pedestal in the Hall of Heroes, he’d gone and got himself fucking killed. You stupid old fool, he chastised himself.

  The fortress around him rumbled and groaned, shaking, filled with dust and falling stone, and for a moment it felt like the whole of Sanderlek had come down on him. The world was rocking as if in the throes of a huge earthquake, and Narnok tried to turn and run but was swiftly battered down, hit in the head by a huge block which knocked him sideways and instantly unconscious.

  Narnok’s dreams were sweet. He dreamt of Katuna, holding her close after making love, his seed in her womb, praying that it would find its way to her egg, so they could produce children, so he could become a father! He smelled the oil in her dark curls, and she slept with his great arms around her, protecting her from the evils of the night; the evils of the world. Even in the dark he could see her olive skin, soft and smooth and gorgeous, and he ran his fingers down her arm, marvelling that a woman so ravishingly beautiful could have not just taken him to bed, but chosen him to spend the rest of her life alongside; partners in crime, for the rest of eternity. “We will die together, my sweet,” he whispered to her sleeping form, “and we will be buried together at the old cemetery on Heroes Walk.” Then Xander’s face flashed into his mind, mouth wide and screaming, teeth sharp like daggers and plunging down to tear off his face…

  He woke up coughing, in a panic, trying to turn but realising he was trapped, pinned down by Xander who had his razors sharp and ready and the acid in its bottle dripping to burn out his eye.

  He breathed in deep, confused, choking on dust, and panic was his master for several minutes and he screamed and heaved and pushed and struggled and tried to escape. Gradually he tired enough to pause, and engage his brain, and think, and retrace his steps.

  Mud-orcs. Splice. Invasion.

  Sanderlek. Tunnel breach!

  He’d brought down the roof. Ahh. Ahhh! Horse shit.

  Narnok lay there for a long while, and he could not feel his legs. That wasn’t good, that wasn’t. He flexed both hands, and could move them, and most of his arms. The darkness was complete around him, so utter and total and black he could be lying in (shhhh) his tomb.

  Fear gnawed at him. Like a rat feeding on his intestines.

  Yes, there had been the possibility of being crushed alive when he embarked on his foolhardy bloody stupid attempt to bring down the roof and seal the tunnel from the splice. He’d kind of romantically imagined he would flee along the tunnel, rocks tumbling down behind him, before making a last desperate dash and flinging himself out onto the winter grass beyond. The soldiers would laugh and pat him on the back and call him a hero. He’d beam at them like a village idiot, and say something inane and uproarious. “When I party, I always bring the roof down!” Har har har. Indeed.

  What he hadn’t anticipated was being buried. Truly. Buried alive.

  “HEY!” he shouted, but the sound reverberated back, stinging his own ears with its amplified volume and he winced. He quietened down and listened, to see if he could hear any sounds of digging. Surely they’d rescue him, wouldn’t they? But then, they were in the middle of a battle. Would they even have time, between fending off mud-orc attacks and simply trying to stay alive?

  Of course they wouldn’t. They’d assume him dead. And they all had their own problems.

  “Damn. Damn and bloody bollocks,” he muttered, and touched the stone above him. It was a huge flat slab. Subtly, he felt it shift. His hands explored the parameters; it was a damn sight bigger than him. If it came down, it’d crush him like a bug under a boot.

  So, what now? Dig my own way out?

  He lay for a while, wondering what to do, before he realised there was nothing he could do. He was good and trapped. Good and buried. Good and fucking dead.

  He touched the block above him with both hands, tracing the smoothness of the stone. When they had been made Iron Wolves, Dalgoran and the others, the magick makers had explained that the magick came from the bones of the thousands slain in the Pass of Splintered Bones. It was part of the death-magick that ran through the very bedrock of the mountains. And Desekra Fortress was part of the mountains; part of that bedrock, built and created from the very stone infused with the power of life and death and law and chaos.

  “Help me,” he said, staring into the darkness. “Desekra! I am one of your Iron Wolves. My friends are heading into the heart of darkness and I need to be there with them! I invoke you! I invoke the power of the Iron Wolves!”

  And it came to him, he felt it, the magick in the stone, the energy stored deep within every atom of this massive fortress. And Desekra did not speak to him; there were no words or thoughts or ideas, simply a feeling. And that feeling was: prepare yourself. And Narnok prepared himself, and felt that surge of raw power like which he had not experienced for so many years; he felt the magick of the shapeshifter, and it started deep inside his bones, at their core, and he felt them turn to iron. They began to grow, and Narnok readied himself for the pain, and readied himself for the change, and readied himself for the absolute total agony to come.

  Queen Orlana had stood outside her war tent, breathing the cold winter air of this human world. She watched, a little in dismay, as the tunnel was brought crashing down and she realised: King Yoon’s favour was gone. Either by understanding, or death, or betrayal. It did not matter. The fool with whom she had communicated was no longer in control. The idiot with whom she had bargained was no longer in a position to bargain. And she smiled. At least it had been an interesting situation. To watch one in such a position of power crumble like cheese.

  Still. It mattered little.

  She gazed across her ranks of mud-orcs. Ninety thousand strong and still growing as her scouts scoured the lands of Zakora for more flesh to feed the mud-pits, feeding the magick, growing the mud-orcs, creating the soldiers she needed to achieve…

  Ahhh.

  No need to know that, just yet.

  Yoon had amused her greatly. “What do you want with my land? My home country? My Vagandrak?”

  “I do not want your pathetic world,” she’d said.

  “Then why invade?”

  “I want what is beyond.”

  “Explain?”

  “Use your mind, man! It was what you were born with!”

  And still he did not understand. And now, probably, he was dead. She shrugged. She examined her fingernails. It did not matter. Tomorrow, she would throw everything at Desekra. She had three thousand splice in the Skarandos Mountains, and surely thousands had died. But many would have survived, and would mass behind Desekra, where it was at its most vulnerable, where they least expected attack. She would hit them from both sides. Take the damned place. Overrun it, and head…

  Beyond.

  Into Vagandrak.

  And beyond.

  But now, she stood and enjoyed the evening air of this alien place. This alien world. She had summoned two of her generals, and chuckled to herself as she realised one was not necessarily a general, but considered himself a king. But then, all idiots realise the truth too late, she thought. All are consumed by arrogance and ignorance and vastly exaggerated self-importance. It was simply the way of the world. From politicians to academics to the ones supposedly in power.

  For Orlana, it was one of humanity’s greatest triumphs.

  A natural order, an in-built pre-programmed aptitude for self-destruction.
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  The need to better the next man, to the exclusion of all fellow men.

  It made her life so much easier.

  Zorkai had been taken to bed, and Orlana fucked him like she’d never fucked him before. He felt them fuse together, as one, as he pumped himself inside her and felt himself turned inside out, and he saw black stars in a black endless universe and suddenly understanding came to him: she was using him for something elemental, something to do with earth and blood and soul magick. And after the long hours, when she finally allowed him to withdraw like a withered, shrivelled shell, he felt utterly dirty and used and usurped. He was no longer the King of Zakora. He was no longer king.

  He turned over on the sheets, head on his arm, and listened to the distant sounds of battle. Where once it had been music to him, now it was pain. Where once it had been a prelude to immortality, now it was a prologue to oblivion.

  Zorkai rolled from the sheets, where Orlana slept like a pale white statue, and slowly he reached for his short sword. His brow furrowed. Yes. It was decided. He would run the bitch through, and go home... and the Vagandrak soldiers? Well, they were all big boys. They weren’t his problem. He’d had enough. Enough of the slaughter of his people. Of the stench of the mud-orcs. Of the squealing and drooling of the splice. But most of all, most sickeningly of all, of being the bastard pointless puppet of another human being. Well. Another creature, he told himself. And shuddered.

  He lifted the blade. It felt good and solid and real in his hands. He would decapitate the bitch. Remove her fucking head. See if that didn’t send her flowing back to whatever shit-hole she’d squirmed from like a poisonous cold-skinned reptile…