Farlander hotw-1

by Col Buchanan

  The woman stared with eyes hard as glass, unblinking. It seemed that if he kept talking she might stop fixing him with that hungry stare. Nico wanted away from it. He wanted to return to his own private space. He talked of Cheem, and the monastery in the mountains there. He talked of Aleas, Baracha, old Osh. He talked of the ancient Seer up in his hut, how he might scratch at his lice but could do things Nico still did not understand.

  Stop rambling, demanded the woman, and she clutched his face in her talons.

  She asked of his master again: what he was planning on doing next. Nico told her of the Temple of Whispers, how they had considered ways in which they might get inside it, so they could find Kirkus, and slay him.

  She became angry at him then, though he didn't know why. Perhaps he had forgotten his chores again. Perhaps he'd had another shouting match with Los.

  She squeezed his face hard, then stood up.

  Perhaps your grandmother was right, she said to the young man by her side. If this is what they're training to be Rshun these days, there is little to be feared.

  She hovered over Nico. A drop of spittle appeared between her thin, ruby lips. It stretched and fell, plopped against his closed eye.

  You came here to murder my son, little Rshun. So I tell you now, your friends will soon be dead, your order destroyed, and you – she prodded him with a toe, and he flinched from it – we will make an example of you.

  The young man was breathing heavily. He wanted to tear Nico apart. I'll finish him now, myself, he growled.

  No. You may have some fun with him, but keep him alive. The games are to be held again tomorrow. We'll send him there. Are you listening, young pup? Again she nudged Nico with a toe. We'll send you to the Shay Madi, where you can meet your death in front of the crowds. They can witness how fierce the Rshun truly are, and how we must tremble before them.

  She swept away, her robe a billowing mass behind her.

  The young man grinned with sharp teeth.

  He stamped hard upon Nico's hand, so that something cracked inside it.

  Nico screamed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Bravery of Fools A procession was leaving the Temple of Whispers. It was a royal procession, a fact made apparent from its size and grandeur and the banners it displayed, those of the Matriarch herself, showing a black raven on a white background. From the rooftop, Aleas, Baracha and Ash watched as it crossed the bridge over the moat and wound its slow way eastwards, where the games were to be held today, in the Shay Madi.

  Along the streets, red-garbed devotees rushed in their hundreds to see this unexpected procession of the Holy, crying out as though their wits had fled them entirely. Columns of Acolytes emerged and disappeared again in the thick fog like ghosts of men, some detaching in squads to hold back the press of devotees. Palanquins borne by dozens of slaves swayed past, one after the other, their occupants hidden behind heavy, embroidered curtains. Lesser priests pounded on drums, or gyrated in a rising frenzy, or whipped their bare backs with the branches of thorny bushes. Aleas watched closely, counting them as they went by.

  'It might help us,' said Baracha, tensely, 'with so many gone from the Temple.'

  Ash replied with a shrug, then he straightened up and began to sort items from a canvas bag that lay open on the concrete roof. Today he was dressing for vendetta, as they all were. He wore reinforced boots, tan leather leggings padded around the knees, a stout belt, a loose sleeveless tunic, and bracers. Over this he threw on a heavy white robe that reached down to his toes. Baracha donned an identical robe. They stood facing one another, flexing their limbs in their new garments.

  'Stiff,' Ash grunted.

  'Like wearing a sack of canvas,' Baracha agreed.

  These priestly robes would have to do; they had been easier to replicate than the fully armoured dress of the Acolytes.

  Beside the two men, Aleas tugged a cloak from his own bag and began to shrug it over his head.

  'No,' ordered Baracha, 'not yet.'

  The big man hoisted a harness of heavy leather, slipping it over Aleas's shoulders so that it was fastened in an X across his torso. To this, he and Ash began to secure the various tools of their trade, or at least those they had been able to gather together, throughout the night, from the various black-market traders they knew within the city. These consisted of a set of throwing knives, their blades perforated with a series of holes for lightness; a small crowbar; a foldable grappling hook and climbing claws; pouches of ground jupe bark mixed with barris seed, along with pouches of flash powder; an axe with separate haft extensions; crossbow bolts; two bags of caltrops; a medico, and a coil of thin knotted rope; a leather flask of water; two small casks of blackpowder, air-tightened with tar, more difficult and expensive to procure than all the rest of the equipment combined. It was a ridiculously heavy burden, and Aleas soon felt his legs buckle beneath the weight.

  'You're going to be acting as our pack mule,' his master explained. 'Which means you stick to us no matter what, and whenever we call out for something you pass it to us quick.'

  Baracha hefted a small, twin-firing crossbow. 'When you're not passing us gear,' he said, thrusting the crossbow into the young man's arms, 'you'd damn well better be shooting at someone.'

  Aleas jerked his head, straining a nod. The tension was growing in him.

  Ash helped get the robe over his sudden additional bulk.

  'You look like a pregnant fishwife,' he said, clapping a hand to the lad's shoulder.

  Aleas frowned, and waddled around, making exaggerated movements. He could tell from their expressions that he wasn't a pretty sight.

  The temple bell struck eight o'clock.

  'Your army is late,' commented Baracha.

  'Have faith. It will be here.'

  Ash returned to the parapet. He set one foot up on the ledge, supporting his crossed arms on his raised knee. He watched the last of the royal procession pass by. He looked up at the tower. For a time, he simply stood and took it in.

  They were located on the safest vantage point they had been able to find, the high-up roof of a casino built on a street that ran along the perimeter of the moat. The premises were still open at this early hour, if the lights and sounds pouring from a few open windows below were anything to go by. Aleas shifted his weight from one foot to the other, afraid to sit down, in case he could not get up again unaided. He joined Ash at the parapet, though after a moment of looking at the tower he gazed out instead over the rest of the city, the merest outline of it visible through the fog.

  I might die today, echoed his mind, as though detached from the fact.

  His stomach seemed on fire.

  Behind him, he heard his master reciting the morning prayer. He knew, without looking, that Baracha would be kneeling with his arms folded across his chest, his face turned towards the faint hint of the sun. Today he would ask for courage in his prayer, and the blessings of the true prophet Zabrihm.

  Ash, too, knelt on the flat rooftop, and assumed a posture of meditation.

  'Come,' he said to Aleas. 'Join me.'

  Why not, thought Aleas, and struggled with his load until he was kneeling beside him.

  Aleas breathed deeply, seeking stillness. It would not come easily, though, for his body was agitated, tense. It was at times like this that he wished he genuinely believed in the power of prayer like Baracha. Instead, he performed his own litany: his own private call for meaning.

  I do this for my friend, he asserted. Because he deserves my loyalty, and because I was born of Mann, and have much to redeem for my peoples' ways. If I die, I do so with righteousness.

  If I die, I -

  Footsteps, sounding from across the rooftop.

  'Your army,' announced Baracha dryly, climbing to his feet.

  Aleas turned his head, as a man appeared out of the fog and stepped towards them, his eyes goggling as he took in their attire.

  'So you crazy fools really mean to go through with it, eh?'

  'You're
late,' responded Baracha.

  The man plucked the tattered top hat from his head. 'My apologies,' he said,' and he bowed so low that the hat in his hand almost scraped across the concrete roof. 'The directions your girl gave me were somewhat scant, but I'm here now, and I have what you need.'

  As they all gathered to face him, Aleas could smell the man's stench even across the distance of several feet. His thinning hair hung in lank strings from his scalp, flaked with dandruff, and his scrawny body hunched unprepossessingly beneath a soiled flapcoat. When he scratched at himself, Aleas could see the man's fingernails were caked with dirt. When he grinned, his teeth resembled a brown mush.

  The newcomer exhaled wetly as he extracted something from the deep pocket of his coat. It was a rat, and the creature began to struggle as he held it out by the tail. The animal was entirely white, its eyes pink.

  From another pocket the man took out a sachet of folded paper. He opened it up with one hand to reveal a minute amount of white powder.

  He blew it into the face of the rat. The creature twitched and made a sound that might have been a sneeze.

  Fascinated, Aleas watched as their visitor began to swing the rat to and fro, the animal struggling all the while. At a certain moment he exaggerated the swing, so that the rat sailed upwards, around, and right into his gaping mouth. He clamped his mouth shut, the pink tail dangling limp from between his lips.

  The man looked, in turn, at each of their faces, registering shock save for Ash, who had known what to expect.

  The rat man hunkered down on his hands and knees. With his chin almost touching the roof he tugged at the tail, drawing the white rat from his mouth. He lay it out upon the concrete, where it appeared to be dead.

  He blew air against its tiny face. The rat stirred, twitched its whiskers: its eyes cracked open. It rolled on to its side and gazed at him as if mesmerized. The man gathered up the creature into his hands, then he climbed carefully to his feet. He next approached each of the Rshun in turn. At each one, he squeezed the animal so that it ejected a squirt of urine on to their clothes. The stench of it filled Aleas's nostrils.

  The stranger drew a canvas bag from another deep pocket. He dropped the rat inside it, then with great care he plucked one of his hairs from his own head and used it to tie the bag closed. The rat started to struggle within, the bag hardly seeming secure.

  'Here,' he said, offering Ash the squirming bag. Ash squinted at it. He gestured to Baracha, and the man offered the bag to the Alhazii instead.

  Baracha was even less keen. 'The boy can take it,' he decided.

  And so Aleas was burdened with yet another item to carry: this time a sack containing a struggling rat.

  'He is a king amongst rats,' explained the man to Aleas. 'They will come for him, when he calls them.'

  'And when will that be?'

  'Right now.'

  Aleas looked about him. He could see nothing, certainly no rats.

  'Our thanks,' said Ash gruffly, and handed the man a purse of coins.

  The man bowed again, less pronouncedly this time. He tapped the top of his hat after he had replaced it upon his head. 'I would wish you good luck, but that seems a rare commodity these days. Anyway, it's hardly worth squandering on fools. Goodbye, then, Ash. May your end be a glorious one.'

  With this final blessing he hobbled away.

  *

  'When I said we required an army,' muttered Baracha, as they crossed the street and approached the bridge, 'I was talking in a literal sense. Men and such. Men with weapons. Armour. Discipline.'

  From the edges of their vision they could see shapes emerging and scattering in the fog. The rats were coming out.

  'These are better,' said Ash.

  The Rshun stopped before the squat sentry post that barred their way on to the bridge. A masked Acolyte stepped out, hand resting on his sword hilt. He began to speak, but stopped abruptly when Ash thrust a knife into him, twisting it up into his lung.

  Ash withdrew the blade, air whistling from the gaping wound. The man toppled on to his side, gasping like a fish out of water behind his mask.

  Baracha stepped over him. A brief scuffle sounded from within the sentry post. He emerged grim-faced. They stepped on to the bridge.

  Aleas still carried the bag in his hand, limp now. The king rat had stopped squirming. He cast a look over his shoulder and saw a shapeless mass following behind them. The tower loomed overhead, hidden eyes watching their approach. Loopholes ringed the lower reaches of the temple, jutting out from its sheer sides so that archers could fire straight down. Aleas tried to walk normally in his robes and with his heavy burden.

  They halted at the base of the tower itself, in front of the massive iron gate. A grate slid open, at waist level, revealing only blackness beyond.

  Aleas moved as instructed. He pulled open the neck of the bag, easily snapping the hair which bound it, and emptied the animal through the hole.

  Almost immediately its fellow rats emerged from the fog and rushed for the gate. The three Rshun swung away to either side, batting the swarming creatures from their legs. Against the gate, the rats piled upwards like a drift of leaves until they were able to squirm through the open grate.

  'Smoke,' demanded Ash, flapping his open hand. Aleas fumbled beneath his robe for one of the small bags filled with jupe bark and barris seed, and tossed it to him.

  Shouts sounded from within. An alarm went up, a bell clanging fiercely.

  The farlander bent and lit the bag's fuse with a match. He tossed it to the ground, where it began to spew clouds of white smoke that helped to augment the natural cover of fog. A bolt shattered at Aleas's feet and without even thinking he raised his double crossbow to aim at a loophole some twenty feet above his head, and snapped off a shot. From a different loophole a rifle spurted a blast of smoke and a hurtling lead shot, which couldn't be seen save for its bloody and instantaneous progress through Baracha's left ear.

  'Aleas!' bawled the Alhazii. Aleas twisted and fired again.

  While he was at this business of returning fire, Ash and Baracha were working to free one of the two small casks of blackpowder that hung beneath his robe. Baracha ignored the ruin of his ear, which hung in tatters, dripping blood. 'You tie knots just like my mother,' the Alhazii grumbled to Ash, both of them struggling to get the cask loose. More shots crashed down. The noise was deafening, shards of wood flying up around their feet. The cask finally came loose. Aleas reloaded his crossbow and huddled by the side of the gate, knowing they would be shot through in no time like this, smoke or no smoke. But he could hear shouts from the loopholes now, and guards yelling in panic. The rats had reached them.

  His master's gruff voice could be heard above the gunfire: 'We need to use more,' he was shouting. 'We need to use both casks.'

  Ash wasn't listening, though. He laid the wooden cask by the gate, soaked its fuse with water, scurried away.

  'Clear away!' hollered Baracha, and all three jumped down from either side of the bridge on to the concrete foundations beneath it.

  The fuse was a short one, though it seemed an eternity as they waited for it to soak through. The blackpowder cask was constructed from a single piece of wood, with a finger-wide hole at its top filled with thick, semi-hardened tar. The fuse poked through this, and when it sucked the water to the contents within, it would ignite from the sudden contact with moisture.

  It exploded suddenly. An ear-jarring rush of air crashed overhead, followed by reeking black smoke and portions of wood and rat that splashed into the water of the moat in a brief shower of debris. Coughing, they poked their heads back up. The gate was still intact.

  Baracha yelled as he jumped back on to the bridge. He waved his arms at the gate. A shot raced past his head, though he didn't flinch. Instead he straightened and looked up with a scowl.

  Ash leaped up, too, and helped Aleas back on to the remnants of the bridge. Aleas's ears were still ringing from the explosion. No time to think, though. Through the smoke he cou
ld see that planks of the bridge had blown away to leave only the concrete foundation, exposed and blackened; the gates too were blackened, badly buckled, but seemingly intact. Before them Ash stood stroking the scabbard of his sword. He exchanged a glance with Aleas, his eyebrow raised. Aleas bent to reload his crossbow. More shots crashed out. One took the skin from Baracha's shoulder, before it skipped off the concrete, sailing past Aleas's right knee.

  'By all that is holy!' Baracha bellowed up in rage. 'Will you aim at someone else, just this once!' He snatched the crossbow from Aleas and aimed at a loophole still boasting a cloud of drifting smoke. He fired twice. A shout of pain rang out. He tossed the piece back to his apprentice.

  'Now what?' he demanded, rounding on Ash. 'I told you we needed to use both casks.'

  Ash held a finger to his lips, attempting to hush the big man. He stepped through the clearing smoke and placed a palm against the smaller door set into the gate, which was now warped and partly ajar. He tilted himself forwards, pressing hard.

  The door fell inwards. It clanged to the ground without any hint of a bounce. Within lay only smoke and darkness.

  The pair of them swept through. Behind, Aleas hobbled under his load. An Acolyte lay writhing on the ground, smothered in a carpet of rats. They trod a path around him, not looking.

  A wide entranceway lined with murder holes. Another gate at its end. But it lay open.

  Beyond was a large, starkly gas-lit chamber, where several riding zels stood with their reins tied to posts, and next to them a few empty carts. Troughs of water lined two walls and a stable was close at hand, if the smell was anything to go by. Passages led off from the open space. The Rshun chose the one directly ahead, Ash going in front, Aleas taking the rear.

  This passage led into the lower sanctum of the Temple of Whispers, the largest open area to be found within the tower. The walls of the space were the same colour as exposed flesh; a sacrificial altar, of pure white stone, stood at its far end in a pool of gaslight turned low. Columns of pink marble ran in two rows the entire length of the sanctum, rising into the dimness of a ceiling arching high overhead, which was covered entirely in friezes of Mann – images that reflected much of the chaos to be found on the floor below.