Stryke frowned. “You mean lands where only these races live? No mixing? No humans?”
“Exactly. And were it not for the instrumentalities, none of you would be here at all.”
“Including humans?”
“No. We have always been here.”
An uproar ensued. Stryke had to use his best parade-ground roar to stifle it. “A story like that’s all the better for proof, Serapheim. Where’s yours?”
“If my plan succeeds, you’ll have it. But we can’t afford much more delay. Will you let me finish?”
Stryke nodded.
“I understand your disbelief,” Serapheim told them all. “This place is all you’ve ever known, and your parents before you. But I assure you, much though you believe we humans are the invaders, we are not. The truth of what I’m saying lies here, in Illex, and if we help each other it can be confirmed. Perhaps used to your advantage.”
“Put some flesh on the bones,” Coilla said, “and maybe we’ll see it differently.”
“I’ll try.” He took counsel with himself, then continued, “That truth has to do with the abundance of magical energy here in what you call Maras-Dantia.” Many present resented his choice of words, but they held their tongues. “Or at least the richness of energy there once was. Generations ago, as you know, humans began crossing the Scilantiun Desert in search of new land, and settled here, leaving their homes on the other side of the world. They came on foot and on horseback, trekking across the burning sands, leaving their dead behind them with their graves to mark the way. Only the strongest came, the most determined. With this lush continent providing everything they could possibly want, they had no need to breed cautiously. If this patch of earth was exhausted, why not move on to another? After all, who else was using it? Nobody who settled. Nobody who put down roots in one spot, or mined its riches. So they built, and they dug, and they burnt the forests for their crops. Most of them having no sensitivity for the earth energies, for the magic, they had no idea of the havoc they were causing. To them magic was just some sleight of hand, a little conjuring, a firework or two. Only a very few, who took the trouble to acquaint themselves with the elder races, knew this not to be so. That was the origin of the Manis.”
“And you are one such,” Alfray divined.
“I’m not a Mani, or a Uni either, come to that. But yes, a practitioner of the art. One of the few my race has produced.”
“Why are you telling us this? Why involve yourself with our troubles when you could just stay clear?”
“I’m trying to rectify wrongs. But this isn’t the time to say much more. Soon the Sluagh will wake from their slumbers in the ice. We have to act.”
“Can you get us out of here?”
“I think so. But simply trying to escape isn’t my plan. And where would you go in this icy waste?”
“What is your plan?” Stryke wanted to know.
“To retrieve the stars and have them effect your leaving this place.”
Sanara spoke up then, reminding them all of her presence. “The portal?”
“Yes,” Serapheim responded.
Stryke frowned. “And what’s that?”
“Part of the mystery I seek to open to you. But first you must lend your sword arms.” He looked around at them. “Let me guide you,” he appealed. “If you see no benefit in what we’re doing, what have you lost? You can abandon me and go your own way, brave Illex’s fury and try to reach warmer climes.”
“When you put it that way,” Stryke reasoned, “I’m inclined to go along with you.” He allowed his tone to become menacing. “But only so far. Any hint of treachery, or if we don’t like the way things are heading, we will go it alone. And you’ll be paying with your life.”
“I expect no less. Thank you. Our first task is to get to the palace cellars.”
“Why?”
“Because there lies the portal, and your salvation.”
“Believe him,” Sanara added. “This is the only way.”
“We’ll go along with it for now,” Stryke agreed. “But talk of cellars is all very well when we can’t even get out of this room.”
“I can take myself out, the same way I came in, but nobody else,” Serapheim said. “The dying of the magic has depleted my powers as much as everyone else’s. And no, I can’t open the door from the outside. Only the Sluagh can do that. I’m sure I can find how in their minds, but I don’t want to get that close to them. My idea is to find and lure one in here. But once I have, it’ll be your task to overcome it.”
“They can be killed then?”
“Oh yes. They are not invulnerable or immortal, although they are incredibly tough and long-living.”
“What about their pain weapon?”
“That’s where Sanara and I come in. We’ll assault it mentally while you attack it with whatever comes to hand. Though of course you have no weapons.”
“We’re good at improvising,” Jup assured him.
“Good. Because you must not underestimate the Sluagh’s powers. You must attack without let and in numbers.”
“Count on it,” the dwarf said.
“Then ready yourselves. It begins.”
Serapheim moved back into the shadows.
He kept to them once he was outside the room.
His boots made no sound in the thick dust of the corridors. He opened door after door, ready to flee at an instant’s notice, but as he suspected the Sluagh had not yet risen from their icy cradles.
At last, as the sky began to lighten the south-east, he felt the rumble in his mind that meant Sluagh were talking nearby. Flattening himself against a wall’s marble slabs, he peered around a corner.
There were four of them, their grey shapes shifting from one ugly conformation to another.
Cautiously, Serapheim withdrew.
He had hoped for fewer, but there wasn’t time to search anymore. Steadying his resolve, he stepped boldly out in front of them, touching fingers to brow in a mocking salute.
Instantly pain whipped out at him. But he’d been expecting it and took to his heels.
They came after him. Two had fearsome insect limbs that propelled them swiftly along the passage. A third threw out scaly wings that creaked as they slapped the air, but the passage was too narrow for it to extend them fully. Instead it barely rose, floating ponderously above the last one, a slug-like being that left a shining, rancid trail.
Serapheim outpaced them. Pelting along past open doors, he headed through a long, dusky gallery. At the end of it he leaned panting against the wall.
Now he had reached the spiral staircase. It was like a nightmare, running throughout eternity up a neverending flight of steps, and with each stride he was slower. His pursuers were catching up to him. Serapheim was beginning to think he’d never make it.
He gasped and forced himself to greater speed, lungs burning, legs as heavy as logs. It was all he could do to put one foot in front of another. He grasped the banister and used that to haul himself higher. A glimpse over his shoulder showed him clawed tentacles reaching towards him. Terrified, he put on another spurt. Around and around the spiral stairway he staggered, thinking he’d never make it close enough to the room to transport himself inside. The Sluagh were almost at his back.
Pain lashed through his mind. His shields were weakening.
Inside the room at the top of the tower, Stryke looked around. They’d tossed their furs and their packs against the walls, clearing a space to fight in. There was nothing resembling furniture and all their weapons had been taken from them.
“We can always throw Jup at ’em,” Haskeer suggested. Coilla swatted his head.
Stryke had an idea. “You and you!” he snapped at a couple of grunts. “Climb up those gargoyles and bring down the curtain poles. And the curtains as well, come to think of it. Then stand ready.”
Time seemed to pass too slowly. The Wolverines were beginning to eye Sanara suspiciously, wondering if she was in on some plot with the human.
“They’re coming,” he panted. “Four of them.”
A heartbeat later the door burst open and slammed back against the wall. The entrance wasn’t wide enough to accommodate more than one of the beings at a time. Stryke saw the others out on the landing, one hovering in mid-air on its rippling grey wings.
“Now!” he yelled.
The two orcs hurled their poles like javelins. They were flung hard enough to penetrate even the Sluagh’s unnatural skin. Sticky black ichor began to flow from the nearest one’s chest. It swayed in the doorway, blocking its companions as it changed from a six-limbed wolf to a snake that dropped in coils to the floor.
A gang of grunts rushed in and commenced stomping it enthusiastically. Their boots began to steam, but that didn’t stop other orcs from joining in. One and all, they took out their frustrations on the slithering serpent. Little by little its strivings ceased, though its beady eyes continued staring at them implacably.
Flickers of pain rippled through the warband’s minds. Then the winged Sluagh arrowed down at them with its pinions folded behind it like a stooping hawk. Coilla and Haskeer sprang into action, holding the curtain up between them. The monster flew straight into it. Quickly they wrapped it then Haskeer dropped onto the bundle with all his weight. Another orc thwacked the netted Sluagh with his rod of iron. Foul stains began to seep through the yellow cloth.
All that time Serapheim hadn’t moved from his place beside the door. Now he stepped forward, Sanara at his shoulder. Fingers intertwined, they raised their hands in a gesture that was far from peaceful. There were no flashes, no puffs of coloured smoke. In fact, nothing seemed to happen at all.
And that, Stryke realised, was the point. Though the two dead Sluagh were still in the room, the others hadn’t entered.
“Cover us,” commanded Serapheim.
Stryke and the others moved forward despite the fierce aches that rolled and retreated through their skulls.
Jup took a peek and bobbed back inside. “They’re having a powwow about half a dozen steps down. No others about.”
“Any advice?” Stryke asked the humans.
Serapheim shook his head. “No. Now that we’ve pushed them that far back, it’s up to you.”
Wielding his metal rod like a club, Stryke led the band out in a wild charge.
Orcs catapulted off the banisters and into a headlong dash down the stairs, or whipped round on the inside of the stairs with one hand around the newel. The Sluagh fled, the slug undulating obscenely and his insect-like fellow stilting away at high speed.
Down and down the band went, spiralling endlessly inside the shaft of white stone. Stryke raced down the middle of the stairs, flailing his curtain rod in hissing arcs that would have broken the neck of a dragon. But the Sluagh moved surprisingly fast. They kept well out of range in what seemed like heedless flight.
Nevertheless, when the demons reached a landing, they whipped round. Agony flared through the orcs’ heads. Most of them fell to their knees, or rolled down the stairs in a whirl of limbs. Now, half the warband were helpless on the level space, unable to back up without trampling their companions.
Coilla’s head smacked into the piers of the banister, her helmet tumbling down into the void. Sick, racked with pain, she lost hold of her weapon and it too clanged downwards from step to step until it wedged itself in an angle far below.
Now the Sluagh began to advance. “Use your magic, can’t you?” Stryke grated.
“We are!” Serapheim yelled back. “That’s why they’re coming so slowly.”
“Call that slow?” Squinting through the whorls of light that tormented his sight, he swung his weapon once more and hurled it with all his might.
It tangled in the insect-Sluagh’s segmented legs. The monster tripped and stumbled, not even its six limbs enough to steady it until it bowled off the landing and down a half spiral. It landed on its back, rocking and waving its legs in the air, unable to turn itself in the tight space. An enraged fire roared in Stryke’s ears.
Then the last monster reared to an awesome height. It seemed to draw itself up and out until it almost filled the width of the stairs. Before their horrified gaze it changed from a slug-like thing. Its lower part forked, forming claws on its massive hind feet, while a tooth-filled mouth gaped in a soundless roar. Tentacles sprouted from its torso once more, wreathing around it. The taloned paws clicked on the stone, then it built up speed and charged.
Haskeer threw himself flat on the floor, face upwards, the curtain rail pointing straight at the charging beast just as Stryke had done with the snow leopard. The Sluagh extended its legs and strode over him untouched. It used its tentacles to hurl other warriors aside, not even bothering to watch where they fell. Intent on reaching the humans, it trampled on the unconscious orcs in its headlong rush.
That was its undoing. The beast’s talons caught in a Wolverine’s jerkin. Just for a second, but that was long enough to unbalance the monster. Crashing to lie dazed on the stairs, it couldn’t even shapeshift. A groaning trooper rolled over, yellow cloth draped over his arms. Another came to help him and just as the demonic creature jackknifed upright, the curtain billowed over his head.
At once it too began to transform into a snake but, by now, enough of the orcs had recovered to give it a pounding. The stink of its black blood rose thickly into the air. Steaming faintly through the fabric, it died.
With that, the dazzling pain was lifted from the band’s minds. Most of them were able to stand, or at least to hang on to a less injured comrade. This time it was Jup who led the way, advancing one step at a time on the overturned insect that obstructed the stairs beneath them. He brought down his weapon on its neck but the metal clanged off its jointed scales. Acid filled the Wolverines’ minds again, its keenness quickly dampening as Serapheim and Sanara came down as close as they dared.
“You dare to challenge me?” the Sluagh shrieked into their minds, so fiery it darkened their vision. It renewed its frantic scrabbling but still couldn’t right itself.
“Damn right, I dare,” Jup snapped, hammering at it blindly.
His blow tipped it over a fraction. Before the dwarf could blink it was spidering straight up the wall above his head. A scorpion tail slashed down at him.
That was its undoing. The extra weight made it bottom heavy. It skidded downwards and landed on Haskeer’s rail. Its own weight drove the makeshift spear through its body. The top burst through the dome where its skull should have been. A pulpy mess fountained out, raining down in sticky black globs.
Stryke sank down onto a step, leaning his back against the balustrade. “Good work, everybody.”
The orcs were rejoicing, slapping each other’s backs or just grinning as they tottered to their feet.
Serapheim spoiled it. “Don’t celebrate too soon. It’s almost dawn and we still have to make it down to the cellars.”
24
Trying not to get any of the disgusting ichor on them, orcs and humans clambered down over the Sluagh’s body. It wasn’t easy on the spiral stairs, but they managed it, eventually reaching the floor of the great hall where they were captured the day before.
Crouching behind the railing, Stryke watched a dozen Sluagh going about their business. In ones and twos they were heading sluggishly in different directions. All would be lost if just one decided to come their way, but miraculously none did. Then the last group had crossed into one of the shadowy arches and none of the hideous creatures was in sight.
Serapheim hissed, “Quick! This way!” and they set off at a lope across the vast hall. They made for another staircase on the far side and began running up it.
“Hold on,” Stryke said. “I thought we were heading for the cellars. Why are we climbing stairs?”
“A small diversion for weapons.” He
motioned for the orcs to be still as they reached a wide gallery overlooking the hall. “See that corridor about halfway along? It leads to the armoury. Stay alert. There are other Sluagh about.”
Indeed there were. Once more, grey-skinned horrors were going about their daily activities below. Crouching, the Wolverines kept in the shadows as they tiptoed along the gallery.
Typically, the way to the armoury was a maze of stairs and passages. But at least this part of the palace seemed to be deserted. The yellow light was patchy here, the dust deep underfoot, muffling their footsteps.
Serapheim and Sanara drew to a halt by yet another bend. The man made a gesture to Stryke, who peered round at what lay ahead.
“Two of them, either side of a door,” he reported in a whisper. Using the band’s hand signals, he split his forces. Jup, Coilla and Haskeer were to take the further creature. He and Alfray would lead half the grunts against the gryphon-headed monster nearest them.
This time the fight was brief. It was much easier to attack when all the warband could come at the Sluagh at once. The creatures themselves were pinned against the wall with no place to retreat. Despite the lancing headaches it didn’t take long before the monsters were no more than an oozing mush.
Stryke gestured to Serapheim to go first. The humans opened the door onto an armoury like no other. More than half the weapons weren’t even things the orcs recognised. They headed straight for the ranks of spears and pikes clipped to the wall. As they went further, daylight from an iced-up window reflected off a heap of metal on the floor.
“My axe!” Jup exclaimed joyfully, sweeping up the butterfly-headed weapon. Soon, each of them had back the arms the Sluagh had taken the day before. In the more exotic part of the armoury Sanara and Serapheim helped themselves to bulbous tubes of what looked like glass.
Pillaging done, Serapheim guided them down a different way. Stryke got the feeling that this had once been the servants’ area, for the stairs were of rough granite and the walls were plain.
The air, already cold, began to grow damp. There was a smell of decay, and mould began to appear in corners. It was beaded with frost. The square windows no longer showed daylight but the strange blue of the glacier outside. Then there were no more windows and they realised they were underground. Eventually they found themselves in the palace’s cavernous cellars. Creeping through a labyrinthine series of tunnels, they had to watch their footing, for ice slicked the stone. Ahead there was more of the yellow glow. The band stopped while Jup scouted cautiously. “There’s eight Sluagh in front of the weirdest doors you’ve ever seen,” he reported.
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