The Trials of Trass Kathra

by Mike Wild

  “Jerry,” Kali asked cautiously, “was there ever a wife number one? Was Brogma ever... real?”

  The dwarf’s eyes lowered, and when he spoke it was softly, fondly. “Aye, she was real. So many thousands o’ years ago that I’ve lost count, she was real.” The dwarf sniffed; a strange sound through three nostrils. “The old girl lasted almost seven hundred years, not a bad age fer one o’ our kind, not a bad age at all. Didn’t want to leave me on me own, ya see?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Smoothskin, it were so long ago they could ’ave named a geological age after it. Besides, she went in her sleep. Never knew a thing. No chance ta worry about me wakin’ up alone.”

  “That’s good. Is she... buried on the island?”

  “What? And let the Hel’ss Spawn have her bones? No chance. No, lass, ah took Brogma to the mainland and our clan’s burial grounds ’neath what yer now call Freiport. She lies there still.”

  “I’ve never found that site,” Kali said. “I’ll make sure I never do.”

  “I thank ye.”

  Kali let Brundle’s response hang in the air, unsure of what more, if anything, there was to say, but as it happened she was spared the problem. The mention of the Hel’ss Spawn seemed to have galvanised the dwarf back into his old self, and his mind seemed focused on his task once more.

  At least she thought so.

  “Wife!” he shouted. “Have yer finished that knitting yet?”

  “Yes, dearest!” came the echoing reply.

  “Then what are ye waitin’ for? Bring it through.”

  “Coming, dear.”

  Kali said nothing, merely waited while Brogma waddled into the cave with the armful of wiring she had been working on all the while. Kali wasn’t sure what to expect – an overly baggy jumper, a scarf, some baby bootees? – but it certainly wasn’t the tangle of wiring that looked to her exactly the same as it had when she’d first begun. She frowned as Brundle took it and then shooed his wife away. Brogma returned to the main cave without protest. Of course she did.

  “Brundle?” Kali said.

  “Ah had the wife start knittin’ before ah left for the mainland,” he said. “Just in case ah was compromised and that bloody Black Ship got here after all. Should o’ been ready but me old darlin’ isn’t as fast as she was.”

  “She isn’t?” Kali asked, remembering the blur.

  “Nah. Which is why ah told her to hurry up, on the slim chance that you were right. About yer know, up top.”

  “Jerry, what the hells are you talking about?”

  “Oh, this is beautiful work,” the dwarf said, ignoring her. He picked at and examined the wiring as he might fine filigree. Then he started to pull chunks of it away, opening the chest plates of each of the Brogmas as he did, and stuffing the handfuls inside. That done, he started to finger each bit of wiring individually, delicately, and, in turn, each Brogma started to exhibit further signs of life, the rotation of an arm here, the bend of a leg there, the sudden turn of a head followed by a wink in the dwarf’s direction.

  Kali watched as he worked.

  “Jerry, I don’t understand. Belatron’s clockwork warriors were part organic but these aren’t. They look like his army but they’re not. I’ve never come across this kind of technology before, even at the Crucible, where they were building spaceships, for fark’s sake.”

  “Interestin’, isn’t it?” Brundle said as he continued to tinker. “Scraps that washed up a long, long time ago. The remains of... well, to be honest wi’ ye, ah don’t know what, but ah know they had silver eyes and must ’ave walked this world long before I did. Took me centuries ta work out their ins an’ outs an’ what went where’s but, when ah did, ah was able to build the Brogmas without the need for any poor sod’s brains bein’ scraped off some battlefield. Brogma – the latest Brogma, that is – is a mistress of knittin’ some o’ the more advanced functions together.”

  “More advanced functions?”

  “See, when ah first built the Brogmas, they weren’t just for company but designed for defence, too. Defence o’ the island. Trouble was, they sat here for thousands o years wi’ nothin’ to defend against, an’ started gettin’ trigger happy. The day one o’ them almost blew me brains out when all ah’d asked for was a light for me pipe was the day ah decided to strip them o’ their sentry circuits.” The dwarf sighed and stepped back from the Brogmas, closing their chest plates. “Well, now, here they are, restored to what they should be.”

  Kali stared at the Brogmas. They looked exactly the same.

  “Nothing’s happening.”

  “Battle stations, girls,” Brundle said. “We’ve got an elven arse ta kick.”

  “Yes, dear,” said ten Brogmas in unison.

  The Brogmas stood to attention and Kali watched in amazement as their forms expanded, arms thickened and legs extended, so that each Brogma was now as tall as she was. They didn’t just grow either, they sprouted – small hatches and panels sliding or flipping open on their forearms and their thighs, on their chests and in their torsos, each cavity whirring and clicking as it unleashed a weapon of some description or another, designed to operate independently or in the construct’s hands. Blades, hammers, axes, small, star-like discs designed to be fired, morning stars and flails, each of Brundle’s wives became in an instant a one woman arsenal. Simultaneously, they all span full circle at the waist, and as the weapons sliced the air or were beaten on their open palms with the rhythm of a war drum, their eyes flared with power.

  “Oh,” Kali said, numbly. “Oh, that is so cool.”

  “Aye,” Brundle said proudly. “Now, are we goin’ to take back Trass Kattra, or what?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BRUNDLE HAD INFORMED Kali of all the exits onto the surface, and she chose the lowest, the one closest to the beach where the flutterbys had landed, from which to begin the assault on Redigor. The dwarf had left the planning to her, and the first thing she had decided was to send him in alone.

  What might have seemed counter-productive folly – a lone figure emerging at the furthest point from their target – was, she’d decided, the best route to success. Because as she’d seen through the vertispys, Redigor had proven himself quite the tactician, doubtless a throwback to his days of being Lord of the Ur’Raney, where he would have led his forces into many a bloody battle. Deploying his sentries in positions perfectly calculated to offer uninterrupted and mutually supported surveillance across the island, he had the place sewn up tight. Each sentry kept an eye on not only his territory but two or more sentries, depending on their position on the rocks, at the same time. The result of this was that there was no way through them and no way other than this one to emerge onto the surface without being observed. To try to take out any one sentry elsewhere would instantly alert the others.

  She could, of course, have had Brundle deploy the Brogmas to take out more than one sentry, but as impressive as the mobile arsenals were, they were hardly built for stealth. The last thing she wanted was for Redigor’s major force – the one on Horizon Point – to be prematurely alerted to their presence as that would likely result in the execution of the prisoners, either through the sword or being fed to the Hel’ss Spawn before their time. No, they had to make it up there while Redigor was still involved in his negotiations with the parasite. Negotiations that she suspected would end not only with the sacrifice of the prisoners but those guarding them as well. It was a pity she couldn’t just tell them what a bastard Redigor could be.

  No, the Brogmas would have their moment, but it wasn’t yet. For the time being, it was Brundle’s play.

  The dwarf emerged from an unsealed hatch concealed in a tangled mess of scrub grass and washed up kelp, grumbling not only because of the effort it took to shrug the detritus from the long unused exit but that Kali had chosen him for the task. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her damn fool plan – in fact, it was rather good – but, all things considered, he’d rather be where she was, preparing to do w
hat she was going to do. Now that was the fun part, not this floprat like scrambling up out of the ground. But she’d wanted – really, really wanted – to do it, and who was he to argue? He was, after all, only the caretaker, while she... well, she’d find out soon enough what she was, wouldn’t she?

  Apart from being a bloody annoying little girl.

  Brundle sighed and quietly lowered the hatch behind him, then pulled his Cloak of Many Contours fully about his body, shoulders and head. Had any eyes been watching at that moment the cloth might have transformed from its rank and basic dingy state into the semblance of wind-blown seaweed or perhaps a chunk of driftwood that rolled in the tide. But a second later, when Brundle actually stepped out from the small lee in the seashore and into the view of actual eyes, it, and he, resembled a berobed member of the Final Faith.

  The sentry standing on the shore above started slightly but Brundle simply nodded and strolled on by as if about his business, which seemed to put the man at ease. Beneath the hood of his cloak, the dwarf smiled. The first chink in Redigor’s armour had just been exploited, and he suspected the sentry was more disturbed that he’d allowed what he perceived to be one of his comrades patrolling the beach to get so close without noticing, than anything else.

  Brundle continued along the beach, passing the base of the path that led up into the ruins and towards the hostages that had been left behind under guard there. Nodding to the men who stood in a group watching over them – four, a number deemed sufficient not to have to be overlooked by other guards – he casually continued to their rear and then, producing the twin-bladed battleaxe he’d held under his cloak, swept the weapon around in a silent arc. Its sharpened edge cut cleanly through the necks of all four men and their heads bounced away into the tide.

  “Now then,” Brundle said. “Which one of you sorry looking bastards is Jengo Pim?”

  Most of the prisoners watched their guards’ bodies collapse onto the sand and up at the dwarf, shifting uneasily in their bonds. One, however, regarded him with steady, dark eyes and thrust himself unsteadily to his feet.

  “I’m Pim.”

  “Well now, Mister Pim,” Brundle explained as he released his chains, “your friend Miss Hooper has a message for ye...”

  “She’s alive?”

  “Do I look like a clairvoyant?” Brundle snarled, and then realised he was still shrouded in his cloak. “Oh, sorry, maybe ah do.” He shrugged the garment off and some of the prisoners gasped as for the first time in their lives they set eyes on a dwarf. A dwarf with what appeared to be a large trident stuck to his back. “Yes, she’s alive, and very soon she’s going to be kicking. That’s where you come in...”

  Brundle asked Pim’s men to identify themselves and then moved to release their chains. The other prisoners he left as they were. The last thing he and Kali wanted was for a number of panicked civilians to be running around while there was a job to be done.

  Brundle explained Kali’s plan as he worked, and by the time the last of Pim’s men was freed of his bonds, they and Pim himself knew their part in it. The leader of the Grey Brigade knelt in front of his people and gestured to each, then at the rocks above. Each man nodded, his instructions clear.

  “Good luck,” Brundle said, patting Pim on the back.

  The group was about to move out when a figure appeared from behind the mass of one of the flutterbys. A tall, dark-haired, swarthy looking man with a peculiar x-shaped scar on his cheek, he had to be one of Redigor’s men. But as Pim and his men froze, the stranger simply nodded to them. Carry on.

  Nodding back, Pim and his men slid into the lee of the rocks, as silent as the shadows that swallowed them. Brundle, meanwhile, regarded the stranger.

  “Whoever ye are,” he said. “Jerragrim Brundle thanks yer. I’ve already enough blood ta clean from me blade.”

  He began to move off into the rocks himself but a question from his rear stopped him.

  “Wait,” the stranger said, pointing at the trident slung on the dwarf’s back. “What is that?”

  Brundle looked quite pleased to be asked.

  “This, my friend is a transmitting aerial. A little something I call ‘faraway control’.”

  “Faraway control?”

  “A-ha.”

  The stranger frowned, none the wiser. In the rocks above, so did Pim. Why was it, he reflected that any encounter with Kali Hooper seemed to bring out the weirdest in people – or, to be honest, just the weirdest of people. He quickly returned his mind to the task at hand, however, for in the few seconds he and his men had been moving, they had already come close to the first of the guards on the steps. Hooper wanted he and his friends removed from their positions silently and, more importantly, simultaneously, and Pim watched as one of his men peeled off from the group, melting into the shadows behind him. More men peeled off the higher they climbed, concealing themselves directly behind the guard that Pim had allocated to them, and Pim, having reserved the highest of the guards for himself, continued on alone. The Grey Brigade’s leader seemed not to exist at all as he used the patches of darkness on the rugged landscape to his advantage, darting from one to the other with the silent surety of a man who had spent a lifetime being where he was not meant to be. Without generating the merest amount of suspicion from the guards he passed between, he took his own place and waited for the rest of Kali’s plan to unfold.

  You’ll know when to make your move, the dwarf had told him. This presumably meant that Hooper was going to give some kind of signal, but what form the signal would take he hadn’t a clue.

  Pim therefore waited, as still as a statue, watching the guard above him shifting slightly as he tried to make himself comfortable on his watch. All was silent other than for the crashing of the waves on the shores of the island. There was nothing to hear that was out of the ordinary, nothing to see but rocks. Then, suddenly, Pim’s keen hearing picked out a slight drone coming from the sea, like the buzzing of an insect, and when he looked in its direction he made out a small dark speck, heading towards the island. The guard heard the drone, too, and began scanning the water for the source of the sound. Pim found it, his gaze suddenly locking onto the dark speck, much closer now, its droning louder, and he tensed, ready to call out a warning to his comrades in arms.

  That was it.

  Pim unfolded himself from his crouched position so that he was standing directly behind his victim. His preferred method of despatching him would have been a clean blade across the throat, but as his weapons – along with those of his men – had been removed on the mainland he was forced to use an unarmed though no less effective technique.

  Pim slid one hand onto the side of the guard’s neck and another onto the side of his forehead, locking his head in place. At various positions below him, he knew, his men would have done exactly the same. And in the same moment that Pim snapped the guard’s head sharply to the right, so too were snapped the heads of all of the guards lining the steps. As one they fell to the rocks below them, their necks broken.

  Pim grinned and scooped up his victim’s weapons.

  Miss Hooper, he thought. You’re on.

  SOME QUARTER OF a league out to sea, having swung in on an accelerating course that had skirted the swirlpools and brought her into a trajectory heading directly for the island, Kali watched the distant shapes drop and gunned the scuttlebarge on which she rode. The machine kicked beneath her, far more violently than the last time she had ridden it thanks to the extra two engines that Brundle had installed. The controls of the device fought against her grip and her knuckles whitened as she struggled to keep the scuttlebarge on course, because she knew that the slightest deviation from her target would end in disaster.

  That target loomed ever closer ahead of her; a section of hull that had been sheared away from the Black Ship to be slammed into the rocks of Trass Kattra, where it now rested, thrust up against the cliffs. What Kali knew she needed to do in order not to endanger the hostages was generate as much of an element of surpr
ise as possible, and to that end the section of hull suited her needs perfectly.

  She gunned the engines of the scuttlebarge until they began to smoke and whine in protest, and the dwarven machine slapped and bounced across the waves towards its destination.

  Kali felt the scuttlebarge jerk violently and then tip sideways as it parted company with the sea and crashed down on the shattered section of Black Ship. Kali leaned hard in the opposite direction to maintain equilibrium, and while the engines no longer had anything to work against, the sheer momentum of the scuttlebarge propelled it up the hull, aided in its passage by the slithery accumulation of seaweed it gathered as it went. Sparks flying where it stripped away the growth, its own metal shearing away in chunks, the scuttlebarge reached the top of the hull and, looking like some airborne sea monster, took off. For the briefest of moments Kali caught sight of Brundle below her, the dwarf looking up and shaking his head in some envy, and then of Pim and his men, giving her the thumbs up, and the sense that her plan was coming together was reflected in her own long and drawn out cry.

  “Ohhhhhhh yeeeeaaaaahhhhh...”

  The fact that Kali cried out so loudly was no longer a matter of concern to her, for the fact was that the ‘stealth’ part of her plan was over. Considering the method of her arrival onto the island, it really couldn’t be anything but over.

  Rising higher and higher into the air, above the rocks that had formed Redigor’s first line of defence, the airborne scuttlebarge and its trailing fronds of seaweed came into view of the soldiers the elf had left in charge of the prisoners. As it did, they gaped upwards to a man. It was exactly the reaction that Kali had wanted, for as long as they were gaping they would not be harming those she had come to liberate, who were doing a considerable amount of gaping themselves. Kali winked as, down below, she spotted the cheering forms of Red Deadnettle and Hetty Scrubb, the latter having become so excited that she was attempting to punch the air despite her chains, the action making her repeatedly fall to the ground.