by Mike Wild
She swallowed and used her words slowly. "Yes. Cancel. Contract."
"Pff," the moon said, throwing up its arms. Hairs the length of mools tails sprang forth from dim and horrible pits. "How can you, wisp of a thing, demand she cancel contract?"
"Because I own the place."
The Hells' Belly guffawed and Kali was blasted with the odours of stale and cheap wine, cigars, and the assorted yellow remains of potato crunchies still providing their money's worth where they were stuck between huge, horse-like teeth. "Missus Dolorosa, she owns the place. She told us this is so."
Kali turned to Dolorosa, but the door to the Flagon's courtyard was already slamming shut behind her.
"Look," she said, wearily. "I'll pay you twice your contracted fee to cancel the remaining performances."
The moon loomed again. A hand snapped a garter on a thigh the thickness of a tree trunk and Kali turned away before she was involuntarily mesmerised by what happened to the flesh around it as a result. "Our fee is nothing compared to the tips we receive from our... gentlemen."
Across the room, Red Deadnettle and Ronin Larson coughed in embarrassment. Kali stared at them and sighed.
"Fine. I'll give you three times your fee. How's that?"
The offer was clearly tempting but a frown still crossed the Hells' Belly's face. It thrust itself at Kali interrogatively. "If we leave now, how will you guarantee our safety?"
"Your safety?"
"These are dangerous times, strip of a thing. What if we are attacked on the road?"
Kali pictured bruised and screaming grabcoins flying through the air. "Are you serious? Who in their right minds would take on you lo -?"
She stopped as a hand suddenly rested on her shoulder and Aldrededor whispered in her ear.
"I do not think she is talking about grabcoins, Kali Hooper. I believe she refers to the k'nid."
"The k'nid?"
"Those things that have flooded our land and will soon be everywhere. The... Wait, you do not know?"
"There wasn't much news where I've been." Kali frowned. "Tell me."
Aldrededor told her of the reports of strange creatures coming from the west, of the deaths and invasions of towns, and Kali absorbed the information, worried but simply nodding. Again, she sighed. "All right... ladies. For now you can stay. But under one condition. While I'm around I do not, repeat do not, want any danc -"
Her words fell on deaf ears. The Hells' Bellies were already skipping, if that was the word, to the makeshift stage, clapping their hands in glee, and Red and Ronin turned their stools toward them appreciatively. As if from nowhere, a number of small, thin and sallow looking men - their husbands? - appeared and took up the instruments that lay on the stage, stroking, blowing or strumming them respectively to produce a discordant wail that would have repelled a Vossian army. Then, without any tuning up, any rehearsal, it just... began.
Thudding.
Kali grabbed her tankard of thwack before it wobbled off the bar and looked around as others did the same. She stared up at the ceiling as streams of dust began to fall in columns. She gazed at the windows, expecting them to crack at any moment. She bit her lip. There was nothing she could do here. But there was something she could deal with outside. And her name was Dolorosa.
Kali slammed the main door to the Flagons behind her and stood with her back to it for a second, sighing in relief. Then she jumped away as the entire tavern shook. She moved across the relative silence of the courtyard and then frowned darkly as she spotted Dolorosa pottering about near the stables. Kali moved up behind her slowly and quietly, saw that the old woman was hastily wrapping what looked to be a new tavern sign in folds of cloth. It appeared that the Here There Be Flagons had been in the process of being renamed - as The Olde Crow's Nest.
Should be the Old Crone's Nest, Kali thought. By the Gods, I go away for a few weeks and when I get back my pub's been boarded by pirates.
She was about to prod Dolorosa in the back, give her the fright she deserved, when her attention was distracted by a noise from the main stable. A low rumble, in fact. A strangely familiar sounding low rumble.
Horse? Kali thought.
Horse!
Kali slammed open the stable doors, making Dolorosa jump, and there he was, a living, breathing armoured tank desultorily poking his snout into a pile of hay. His big green eyes looked up as she entered and, as Kali said "Horse" once more, his head rose and a serpentine tongue curled out and slobbered itself with abandon all over her face. Kali moved forward and slapped his neck.
You came back, she thought. You didn't return to the Drakengrats, after all. Hells, it's good to see you, boygirl.
There was, however, something wrong. As pleased as Kali was to be reunited with her mount, Horse's whole demeanour seemed off kilter, eyes duller than usual, chitin plating less polished, and his general presence - usually quite comment worthy - less, well, imposing. Kali patted the bamfcat, murmuring a soothing hey, hey...
"Eet ees the worgles," Dolorosa explained from behind her. "They havva all gone away."
"Worgles?"
The small furballs were Horse's favourite snack - almost his staple diet, in fact - and were usually to be found in abundance all over the peninsula. It had taken Kali some time to get used to Horse's habit of scooping the poor little creatures up with his serpentine tongue, but used to it she had got, and the fact that they were apparently not around was even more unsettling than Horse's carnivorousness before their disappearance.
"Worgles, poongs, bladderrips, all of the small creatures they hide a fromma the k'nid. But the worgles, especially, seem to fear them greatly. It ees almost as eef -"
"These k'nid? Where do they come from? What do they look like?"
Dolorosa shrugged. "Where they come from, no one knows. Whatta they looka like is difficult to say. I have hearda many reports. All I know is thatta they are deadly. Butta you need notta worry, Dolorosa doubts they will find their way here to the Cro - erm, to the Flagons."
Kali frowned. "It doesn't strike you that the worgles and the rest have gone into hiding because the k'nid might be somewhere near?"
"Fff. No, the Flagons is special, isolated. Dolorosa feel it inna her plumbing - they will notta come here."
Kali grimaced and forced a certain image from her mind. But the grimace froze as, in the vitreous of Horse's eyes, she caught a glint of something low and dark behind her, moving into the Flagon's courtyard. "Think again," she said.
Working its way around a bush into the courtyard was an almost indescribable shape. It reminded Kali of the brackan she had encountered in the Sardenne Forest, but of many other things also. Somehow that made it seem many times worse. Moving slowly, and crackling strangely, like an open fire, it began to work its way around the edges of the courtyard, probing in a way that made Kali think it was some kind of scout. And where there was a scout, there would be the main party not far behind.
"I take it," Kali said with some distaste, "that's a k'nid."
She moved slowly out of the stable, shutting and bolting it behind her. Then she peered along Badland's Brook where, in the darkness, she could just make out what appeared to be a blanket of deeper darkness on the ground, extending back to the horizon. The blanket undulated and rippled slightly.
"Walk slowly back to the Flagons," she instructed Dolorosa. "Make no sudden moves."
The old woman nodded and did as bade, walking sideways so as not to lose sight of what lay outside the tavern's grounds.
They had only made it halfway across the courtyard before the scout k'nid reared and its friends tumbled forward, as if they were leaves swept into the courtyard on a breeze. Before either of them knew what was happening one leapt straight for Dolorosa, and the old woman screamed.
Kali stared, shocked and unable to believe what had just happened. One second beside her, the next not, Dolorosa was gone, as if she had never been.
That bloody woman, she thought, watching the door to the Flagons once more slamming
behind her. Hidden athletic depths or not, she and I are going to have to have serious words. But not now. Because, right now, there are more pressing things to deal with. Namely, thanks to a certain someone, that I'm now the only target.
As the k'nid rushed at her in a sudden, swarming sea, Kali did the only thing she could to get out of their path. With a grunt of pain from her bad leg, she leapt upwards to grab the guttering of the stable roof, using this to flip herself up and over so that she ended up crouched on the lip of the roof itself, watching as the k'nid impacted with the stable wall.
As they recovered from the impact, it was a good position for her to study the creatures. She certainly couldn't disagree that they were ugly little bastards, flooding the courtyard like a colony of insects that had been disturbed from beneath some rock. But whatever rock that had been, she had certainly never come across one like it. These things struck every fibre of her being as unnatural.
They did not, however, seem to be quite the destructive force Aldrededor's reports had suggested. They were certainly making no moves to destroy the Flagons.
Now, why exactly was that? she wondered.
It took her a second to realise that the k'nid seemed to be reacting to the vibrations from inside the tavern - actually shying back each time a thud occurred. Was it possible, she thought, that these things had worked their way across the peninsula, attacking all in their path, only to be stopped here, by a dance troupe?
Kali chided herself, almost laughed. No, that was plain daft. In fact, it was the stupidest thing she'd ever -
The Flagons suddenly fell silent, doubtless in response to Dolorosa informing everyone that the k'nid had come to eat their face, and sure enough each lit window was suddenly eclipsed by a number of shapes peering into the night. What mattered more, though, was that as soon as the thudding stopped the k'nid had become more agitated and their attention had turned to the tavern - and consequently the people inside.
There was a sudden rush against the side of the tavern and Kali cringed as she heard masonry and wood splintering before the assault.
Dammit.
She had to warn those inside, but there was no way she could get back to the door. Instead, she raced along the stable roof, leaping from there onto the Flagon's outhouse, and from there onto the roof of the tavern proper. She clambered up its slates, slipping back twice as some broke from their fixings beneath her and then, at last, reached the apex. There, she found herself doing something and saying something - especially to its intended recipients - that she would never, ever, in a thousand lifetimes, have imagined she would.
"Dance!" she shouted into the Flagon's chimneypot. "Dance, or die!"
There was a few second's silence and then a puzzled and weak reply came back
"Wotta you say? Who issa speaking, please?"
Kali couldn't believe it. "Dolorosa, it's me."
"Who issa me?"
"Kali!"
"Kali? Why arra you uppa the chimaney?"
"I'm not uppa the chimaney, woman! Dammit, Dolorosa, just listen..."
Kali explained what was happening - what she thought was happening, at least - and how it was imperative not only that the regulars stay inside the tavern but also that the Hells' Bellies keep on dancing. She explained also that she wouldn't be joining them for her memorial evening or any evening in the foreseeable future. As she did she tried as best she could to hide the excitement in her voice. For her one glimpse of the k'nid had sparked in her a familiar and - considering the alternative - quite welcome feeling: the thrill of the hunt. No, these things weren't natural and to her that shouted Old Races from the veritable treetops. So, she was off on her travels again, and she knew already what her first port of call was going to be, a certain market town and a certain half-ogur who just might have some theories as to what they dealing with.
All she had to do was get there. But was Horse up to it? After all, he'd had better days.
She should have known better than to even question the fact as, at that moment, as if sensing her impending departure, Horse's growl was clearly audible from his stable. Then the door buckled slightly on its hinges as he gave it a gentle nudge with his snout.
Kali worked her way back down the rooftops until she was above his stable and then, keeping her eye on the k'nid, stretched down to unbolt the door.
As Horse trotted slowly out, his armour flaring slightly at the creatures, Kali reversed the manoeuvre that had got her on the rooftops in the first place, flipping herself down onto Horse's back. Then she eased Horse out of the courtyard, keeping him at a walk as they passed through the ranks of k'nid, which growled softly as they passed. Horse, in turn, growled at them and Kali could feel every inch of his body tense, ready to activate his armour fully at the merest sign of movement from the predators. The vibrations from the Flagons, however, still seemed to be rendering them passive. Passing without harm into the open countryside beyond, Kali spurred Horse first into a trot and then the beginnings of a gallop. There were likely more k'nid out here, she thought, and away from the Flagons their behaviour might be a different story, so she suspected it was going to be an interesting journey to Gargas.
As she and Horse traversed the first couple of leagues she turned back in the direction of the Flagons and the peninsula beyond, thinking of where she would be if she hadn't become trapped in Munch's mine. Because the thought of meeting Merrit Moon had made her think of another meeting she should have had, a certain rendezvous in Malmkrug.
Killiam Slowhand was out there, somewhere in the overrun west, searching for his sister, and wherever he was she hoped he was all right, and that he'd had the sense to keep his head - and the rest of him - down.
Chapter Four
Despite the glowering and threatening presence of Querilous Fitch lurking behind him, Killiam Slowhand could not take his eyes of what was in front of him. He leaned forward against the rails of the airship, like the excited child he had been on the deck of a far different kind of ship, a lifetime ago. Then, the Merry B had entered the bustling harbour of Freiport after his father had been posted from Allantia to the mainland, and to leave that island with the promise of a new life full of adventure on the much larger peninsula - even if then he'd had no idea just how much - had filled him with awe and a sense of wonder that he could barely contain. That wonder had returned now and Slowhand gazed upward, his mouth open, unable to believe what he saw.
The parallel with Freiport was more than the sense of wonder, however, because the sights he saw here were in many ways similar to those of that long distant shipping port. Moving slowly into a vast, and only partly natural cavern, hundreds of feet inside solid rock, the airship on which he was being carried aloft was entering its own harbour.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Jenna said, joining him at the rail.
She spent a few seconds leaning in silence by his side, watching as the airship passed gantries and loading cranes and other such devices that projected from rock walls and then, staring ahead, towards a strange cradle-looking dock towards which the airship was heading. "Before we came, no ship had docked here in thousands upon thousands of years. No one even knew it was here."
Hardly surprising, Slowhand thought. Human ignorance of such places was common - how many people had heard of Martak, for one? - but he had to admit there was something different about the place they were entering now. Its location, its position, its isolation suggested to him that it hadn't merely become lost like its contemporaries but had always been designed to be lost. In other words, hidden away from the world, even when that world was capable of constructing such a wonder. But, if that was the case, whatever clandestine purpose it had served was long past. Apart from one isolated area that he could see above him, the harbour was neglected, derelict, ill-maintained. Rusted and warped metal beams framed and criss-crossed the cavern like malformed ribs, twisted and time warped gears lay idle in unused machines, and crates sitting in loading bays rotted away along with their contents. Most telling of all, howev
er, was that there were three more airships like this one - or, at least, once upon a time, there had been - and Slowhand simultaneously frowned and gaped as he stared up at the bedraggled remains of what had once been equally wondrous machines. Their canopies were rotted away now and hanging in strips from metal skeletons which would never take to the skies again. Identifying symbols that hung half obscured upon the rotted cloth left the archer in no doubt as to what he was looking at.
This was the remains of an elven skyfleet.
"You were thinking of Freiport, weren't you?" Jenna said. "The day we arrived?"
Slowhand stared at her, his surroundings momentarily forgotten. "You remember?"
"Of course I remember, Killiam. The Faith would have gained nothing destroying that part of me they valued in the first place."
"Your strategic skills?" Slowhand remembered the position she had held with the Freiport military. "They - or was it just Fitch - destroyed something, though, eh? Your free will? Your choice to leave?"
Jenna stared at him, strangely hesitant for the first time since their reunion. "Perhaps there were other reasons..."
"What?" Slowhand said, grabbing her arm and, as he did, part of her robe fell away to reveal a red choker around her neck inscribed with Final Faith runics. It was a wedding band.
"Outside, your man called you Captain Freel," Slowhand said. "Captain Freel. My Gods, you married one of them didn't you?"
Jenna pulled her arm away, straightened her robe. "Sorry you weren't invited to the wedding, brother. The ceremony was in Scholten Cathedral. The Anointed Lord herself officiated."
"And how voluntary was that, Jenna? Who is he, your husband? Is he here?"
"Lord of All, you never change, do you? No, Killiam, he isn't here. He's on special assignment, just like me."