‘So, what?’ said Dave. ‘I need you riding psychic shotgun on me from now on?’
‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘But for now, we need each other.’
06
‘We’re gonna need some more Threshrendum. Or a Sith Lord. Dude, that’d be awesome rocking a Sith Lord in our thrall. But even some thresh’d be cool.’
‘To what end, Superiorae Compt’n?’
Guyuk and Threshy had returned to the lord commander’s crib. The snacks and finger food had all been cleared away by Guyuk’s attendants, which was a bummer, but Threshy was confident there’d be a whole heap of fresh, hot man-meat coming down from the Above long before he starved to death. Besides, having escaped the mortal danger of close proximity to the Dave – anywhere within 100 miles of that motherfucker was too close for Threshy – he was excited. Even busted out a little dance move that would have totes impressed Britney. The early, hot Britney, natch. Not the hot mess of late-stage Britney. Threshy was full to brimming over with powerfully charged memories, that were not exactly memories, of the calfling Trevor Candly coupling with the hot Britney.
Now that he had safely removed himself from the unexpected threat of the Dave, Compt’n ur Threshrend had a clearer idea about what had just happened topside. A Threshrend daemon, a powerful elder, had somehow constrained Hooper and his crazy ninja bitch by reaching into their minds and . . . doing something.
It was frustrating as hell that Threshy couldn’t figure out exactly what his thrall had done, but whatever it was, that bastard Hooper had been crippled by it. Or at least hobbled. Threshy had been able to feel that through the connection to his slain underling. And that was exciting. That was worth a little victory dance.
‘By the suppurating sun, Threshrend, what are you doing?’ Guyuk demanded as Threshy shook his fucking tail feather.
Then he stopped.
He didn’t have a tail feather, just a stump.
‘Sorry, boss. Just had to bust a move, you know. ’Cause this Dave douche bag, I think we got his number, my man. Or, you know, man-eater.’
And to acknowledge the moment, he indulged himself in a few seconds of celebratory twerking.
‘Oh yeeeaah.’
Guyuk furrowed the scarred and leathery folds of his brow, bringing Threshy’s victory dance to a halt.
‘This is good, Superiorae, because it did not feel as though we had the measure of the human champion when we fled from him.’ He paused and corrected himself, ‘No, when we fled from the mere spectre of him, like cowards.’
‘Pfft. We didn’t flee, we just withdrew. We were like in tactical withdrawal and shit. Like in Aliens 2, with the fucking space marines shootin’ and scootin’ . . .’
He stopped for a moment, considering the metaphor.
‘Except, I guess, we’re the monsters.’ Compt’n ur Threshrend heaved a very human shrug. ‘Meh.’
The lord commander did not appear convinced. His furious glower was enough to tell Threshy to get on with it.
‘Okay. Okay. So I’m up there, you know, in the Above, working my mojo. I gots my loyal thrall on the job. A full Talon of big throbbing brainiac motherfuckers feeding me like daemon CNN. And they’re totally fucking winning it, not just with the live coverage but also with the terror, amping that sweet shit up to eleven.’
Guyuk, still clad in his field armour and mail, took a seat on his favoured rock. The old prick would never admit it, but you could tell he was feeling his eons.
‘Continue. I think I follow your babbling so far. From the Threshrendum you had the knowing of all the actions in which they were engaged.’
‘Fuck yeah. And it’s cool. They’re all doing that thing they do, latching onto the fear and shit that peeps naturally gets when they meet a monster, even a baby Hunn without a battle name. And they be cranking on the fear like Stephen fucking King. Turn the volume up! Am I right? Gimme a booyah!’
Guyuk nodded warily, ‘The . . . booyah is given. But such is the role of the Threshrendum, minor as it might be.’
‘Hey, don’t harsh my mellow here, big guy. My Threshrendum, they be fucking kicking it up there. So I’m like, in the park, with you and my homes, watching my monster YouTube channels on the psychic interwebs. Are you still with me?’
‘Barely.’
‘Awesome. And we’re good, right? We got our soldiers all up in their grill for a change. Bringing the awesome, putting the fear on motherfuckers. Next thing I know, some crazy ho is stepping to one of my boys, some gnarly old Threshrend with a big throbbing head full of mad powers and she’s like BOOM! Have some of that back in yo face.’
‘A calfling female? Protecting its young?’ said Guyuk, recalling the pathetic attempts of full-grown human nest mates in the dungeons to guard each other and their offspring.
‘Nope. Not even,’ said Threshy. ‘This bitch be like Agent Romanoff or something. And she’s got the Dave with her.’
Guyuk frowned again.
‘The Dave follows this one? In her thrall?’
Threshy made an equivocating gesture with his fore-claws.
‘Meh, not so much I don’t think.’ He sucked air in through his fang tracks. ‘I think she might be another champion.’
He let that sink in for a moment. The lord commander glowered at the revelation, but not at his Superiorae.
‘So this city we have invested, it also boasts a champion? And she is in league with the Dave?’
Threshy threw up his claws. ‘Like I fucking know. Thing is, she’s not like the Dave. She’s like . . . me. And my guy she put down. She got like the mind bullets, bro. And she and my Threshrend they’re like, I dunno. You ever watch Harry Potter, when the wizards are in the Octagon? No, scratch that. Dumb question. Anyway, the take-away. My guy, his radar somehow picks up the Dave and Romanoff when they get close and he does . . . I dunno . . . he does something to them, gets inside their heads somehow, and it totally fucks them up. Well, not totally, but it does fuck them up. Stops the Dave from doing that thing he did to Scaroth and those Djinn bitches, you know?’
Guyuk obviously did not know.
‘Look, he’s super fast,’ Threshy tried to explain. ‘Too fast for us. But it’s not a Jackie Chan thing, you know. The Dave didn’t train himself to be that fast, he just sort of thinks himself into it. And my guy, because he’s got his awesome psychic mojo, he could mess with that. Or, you know, he could mess with it until Romanoff cut his head off.’
The lord commander took a moment to consider everything Compt’n ur Threshrend had just said.
‘There is much we do not know of these champions,’ he said at last, unable to mask his aggravation. ‘And we must take this female as a champion. Another one,’ he grunted, not at all happy with the idea. ‘This is vexing. Bad enough that our cattle have risen to the level of warrior sect. Now we must contend with a female Dave. What if they should breed a whole race of Daves?’
The very idea was too horrible to contemplate. The part of Compt’n ur Threshrend which was Compton above all else was especially offended.
‘Yeah, that’d be just like fucking Hooper. Always falling ass backwards into the pussy pool.’
Guyuk ignored the remark.
‘But if what you say is true,’ he continued, ‘and a Threshrend has discovered a weakness in these champions, we must move to exploit it. So yes, Superiorae, you are correct. We will need to deploy more empaths. But first,’ he said, ‘we cannot hide from our enemy. Your plan is in effect at this moment, Compt’n ur Threshrend, and we must forge on.’
‘Yep, yep, totally with you on the forging,’ said Threshy, ‘but, hear me out. My plan doesn’t involve me climbing into a cage fight with Super Dave. That asshole wanted to kill me in Vegas. Probably best we don’t give him a chance to now.’
Lord Guyuk frowned at him.
‘The Dave did not wish to kill you, Superiorae. As I understood it, his antipathy was for the human Scolari whose soul you took up. Compton. The one from whom you have taken your sect name.’
Threshy paused for a moment too, his jaws agape.
‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘That was weird.’
He knew who he was. And that wasn’t some pissant professor. He was the Superiorae dar Threshrendum ur Grymm. He was the motherfucking eater of souls. And that Compton asshole was just a snack. Threshy shuddered and tried to throw off the moment of dissonance. Hurrying on, still dancing around the lord commander’s chamber, but mostly just skipping, he returned to his plans.
‘The plan is good, the plan is working, and even though we didn’t plan for the Dave or his lady friend to roll on us, we can deal. I can deal. We just need to figure out where this asshole is, and then not be there when we go back up. Let him be the fucking hero and we’ll . . . hell yeah, I got it, we’ll force him to be the hero, and while he’s all tied up doing that, we clobber him with the plan. Just like we planned? You cool with that?’
Guyuk shifted on his sitting rock. His armour and chain mail rasped and clinked on the granite.
‘I might indeed be cool, had I any idea of what you speak. Please explain yourself, Superiorae. And assume that unlike you I am no empath, just a battle-scarred and increasingly impatient Lord Commander of Her Majesty’s Most Terrible Legions Grymm. Imagine I have a very large sword that might cleave you asunder were my impatience to get the better of me. Should it help focus your explanation I could show you this sword.’
‘No need, bro. I can tell you ’zactly what we need to do. But I’m gonna need to get one of my Threshrendum back down here. Just to give me a sense of where this asshole’s hanging now.’
*
The Threshrend who attended them was a veteran of the majorae ranks, an elder of its clan, long pledged in fealty to the Grymm. It hunkered in the chamber, eyestalks down, deferring to Compt’n ur Threshrend as was only proper, he being the lord commander’s pro-consul. Guyuk did not need to be an empath, however, to understand that the much larger and more battle-scarred creature was not much impressed with its little master.
M’randm ur Threshrend had first served the Grymm Legions with distinction at the Battle of Nahin Chasm, in the thirteenth war under the capstone, the fourth campaign against the Morphum, at least in the modern era. That made him nearly as old as Guyuk. M’randm ur Threshrend had battle scars older than the human city from which he’d just returned. The scars hidden beneath those wounds were older than any human city.
‘My Lord Guyuk,’ he said, before adding just slowly enough for the pause to be noticeable, ‘Superiorae. I serve at your will.’
‘Fuckin’ A you do, Mandy,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend. ‘So what’s with the ’tude? Am I your overlord or what?’
‘Superiorae,’ warned Guyuk. ‘You are not long come to your high station and having taken such an unusual path there you might yet be unaware of the great and valuable services rendered to Her Majesty’s Regiments Grymm by the majorae these eons past.’
Guyuk bore down on the words ‘eons’.
‘Yeah, yeah. Threshy digs it. Mandy is a valuable member of the team. Employee of the month or the millennium or whatevs. I’m sensing some ’tude, that’s all.’
‘What is this ’tude of which you speak?’ asked Guyuk.
‘I bring no ’tude,’ M’randm ur Threshrend assured them, ‘only those reports from the Above which you have requested of me.’
‘Perhaps we might hear them,’ Guyuk said, with another warning glance at the Superiorae.
‘Fine,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend, throwing up its tiny fore-claws. ‘Don’t bother with me, I’m just pro-consul to the –’
‘Excellent. Threshrend Majorae, bother yourself no longer with the pro-consul and report. How stands the human city and its champions?’
‘I could suck his brains out and tell you myself,’ Compt’n ur Threshrend muttered.
‘And I would need another Superiorae when they dragged your carcass out of here and down to the rendering vats in the kitchens,’ said Guyuk. ‘Majorae?’
The veteran empath bowed deeply.
‘My Lord, the calfling island of Manhatt’n stands besieged as my Superiorae directed it be, from within, by the least of our Horde. Unnamed Hunn with soulless blades run amok with no tactical discipline. They are watched by my clan and by the Diwan’s scouts, but no attempt do we make to control them. They sow great fear and much uncertainty among the foe.’
‘And the Dave. Where he be at?’ Compt’n ur Threshrend demanded to know, seeming slightly mollified by the success of his plans.
‘The Sliveen report the Dave and this other champion, a female calfling of many clans and names, feed and recover near the site where she slew Angrbult ur Threshrend.’
‘Midtown, coolio.’
‘You are familiar with this quarter of the human settlement, Superiorae?’ asked Guyuk.
‘Sure. We’re golden, boss. We just keep him down there and away from us. Might even be able to lure this jackass into a trap.’
Compt’n ur Threshrend turned back to the majorae.
‘That thing old Angry Bull did, messing with the Dave and his bitch. Can you do that, Mandy? Could you teach me?’
M’randm ur Threshrend’s lips peeled back from the fang tracks that occupied most of his head.
‘I cannot teach you, no, Superiorae. You have not yet matured enough to practise the technique. But all of the Clan Threshrendum currently in Manhatt’n sensed the contest between our fallen one and this female calfling. The knowing of it is common. Angrbult ur Threshrend engaged in a contest of randorii with her.’
‘Dunno it,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend.
‘You would not,’ Lord Guyuk explained. ‘M’randm ur Threshrend is correct, Superiorae. Randorii is an ancient combat discipline of the empath clans. It is a contest, always fatal, between the most skilled and knowledgeable Threshrendum. You are an eon from mastering it. Do not forget that only a few turnings past you were not even Threshrendum, but mere thresh.’
‘Yeah, yeah, everyone’s down on the new guy. So your randy-roaring technique. It’ll shut down the Dave when he tries to go all Flash on a motherfucker?’
M’randm ur Threshrend appealed to Guyuk.
‘I do not understand, my Lord.’
‘I think the Superiorae asks whether the randorii is an appropriate counter to the Dave’s ability to move with great and terrible swiftness.’
‘Ah,’ the older empath said. ‘It is. The Dave and his companion do not simply move with this noted swiftness, you see? It seems a matter of their thinkings rather than their exertions. Hence, the randorii.’
‘I see,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend, turning his attention fully to Guyuk. ‘Looks like some motherfuckers gonna be getting some respect for Team Threshrend then, doesn’t it?’ And back to the majorae. ‘You done good, Mandy. Make sure all my threshies who are cool with this randorii kung-fu thing know about it before you go back topside, though.’
‘The knowing and thinking of it already spreads fast through the clan, Superiorae. But I shall do as you insist.’
‘Dude, that’s all I ever ask.’
*
Lord Guyuk had to concede that as difficult and annoying a counsellor as the empath had become after absorbing the minds of so many different humans, his advice was sound. Guyuk was now convinced that humans were no longer the unvarying herd of cattle written of in the scrolls. To have raised themselves so far above their natural station in the absence of the Horde, it must be the case that just as a legion was composed of officers and lower ranks, so too must the clan of humanity.
Thresh-Trev’r had been useful in the way of a very crude and simple tool, but Compt’n ur Threshrend had the tactical and strategic capacity of a regimental commander; and a regiment of Grymm too, not just Hunn. His plan was indeed unaffected by the abrupt and unexpected intervention of the human champion. Or champions, Guyuk reminded himself.
‘You see, we’re cool,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend after Lieutenants Grymm escorted the Threshrend Majorae from Guyu
k’s chambers. The lord commander did not need to pause to translate the strange human vernacular. He knew the Superiorae meant the attack could proceed as planned.
‘And so we return to the Above?’ Guyuk said.
‘Totes.’
The lord commander grunted in satisfaction. He had also learned this was a human term appropriate for signalling affirmation.
‘My homeboy there,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend, indicating the door through which the Threshrend Majorae had just disappeared, ‘tells me the Dave is still scratching his nuts around midtown. We’re gonna keep him there, maybe even kill him, for bonus points.’
They returned to the great chamber where the Lieutenants Grymm awaited them, a cohort strong, drawn up in armour and weapons, a band of Sliveen scouts attached this time, again at the insistence of Compt’n ur Threshrend who would have them maintain a screen around the lord commander’s party.
And who was Guyuk to quibble with such sound tactical advice? Sliveen would deploy with them. Not the Diwan’s Finest, of course. They were still engaged in a greater mission. But the scouts waiting in the chamber with Lieutenants Grymm and a Master of the Ways were old and experienced veterans of a hundred encounters with foe like the Djinn and Morphum. They would serve well.
The chamber was a vast rock-ribbed space with vaulted ceilings, stained black by volcanic smoke, which drifted up from rents in the stony ground. Dark mouths yawned open all around the cavern walls, leading away to other chambers, to regimental barracks and training plains, down to the dungeons, up to the palace and out to the marches and salients of the other clans ur Horde. The strongholds of the Horde were vast indeed, greatest of all the contending sects in the UnderRealms. And yet . . .
The lord commander held his thoughts close, lest the heresy undo him. There was no denying the vast scale of the human settlements he had seen, both through the visions of the Diwan, and with his own eyes on the island stronghold of Manhatt’n. Where once he would have ventured forth trusting to the power and prowess of his elite guard, he could not now find that confidence which attended his ascent through the ranks of the Regiments Grymm. Lord Guyuk knew that, just as any normal human who encountered one of his warriors must surely be slain, his entire guard detail might not survive an encounter with one of the war bands of the upstart cattle.
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