The White Towers

by Andy Remic

  “No, please,” whimpered the King, and for a long, long drawn out minute it seemed as if his will had been broken; stretched out like a piece of elastic, getting thinner and thinner and thinner until, at last, finally, with one short, sharp action, it snapped and left the mind within the shell, a broken fucking useless thing.

  Kiki’s sword hacked down, and cut through the rope.

  King Yoon stared at her, slack jawed and useless.

  “Go on,” she said. “Fuck off. I can’t look at you any longer.”

  “Don’t let him go,” snapped Narnok.

  “Yes, I will let him go. He’s no use to us. He’s just a fucking embuggerance; he saps morale, and let’s be honest, who hasn’t wondered, if he got free, would we all wake up dead with a dagger in the kidneys? No. He can fuck off with this promise.” She fixed her iron gaze on the King; on her king. “Yoon.” She lowered herself, and delivered an awesome stinging slap that rocked his head from east to west. “Yoon!”

  “Yes. yes?” He gazed up at her, eyes as wide as if he’d spent a month on the honey-leaf.

  “Go on. Go away. And if I ever see you again, I will put my sword through your guts.”

  “I can go?”

  “Yes. Go.”

  Silently, Yoon rose. He stared at Kiki for a long time, and for a moment she thought he would launch himself at her. Then his features softened.

  “Do you know what’s in there?” he said, softly, words little more than a chill winter breeze. “Inside the city?”

  “Yes. I think so.” Kiki’s face was impassive. Carved from stone.

  King Yoon’s eyes glittered with a sudden, burning intelligence. “If this thing is truly happening, Kiki, Kikellya Mandasayard, Captain of the Iron Wolves – if we are both right, if the darkness has come to overshadow Vagandrak with evil, then there’s only one thing you can do. Sameska told me things, back in the Box. About the elf rats, their history, their heritage, their magick. About their homeland beyond Zalazar. Kiki. Deep within the Mountains of the Moon there is a place, a fortress born of elf rat sorcery; this place is known as the White Towers. And inside the White Towers lies the Elf Heart. That, my girl, is the only thing that can save us when the elf rats come back…” and then he turned, and with the severed piece of rope flapping around his throat, scuttled off into the darkness, limping away into the snow, into the chill blizzard. Into a wilderness full of hungry wolves.

  “He may die out there,” said Trista, voice soft. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he will die out there.”

  “Fuck him. He asked for it. Because he’ll fucking die if he stays here,” promised Kiki. Then she turned to Dek. “Soldier. You seem to know the way. We need to get inside that city. We need to find out what the hell is going on.”

  Dek saluted her, with a grin. “Iron Wolves. Follow me, into the city. Zanne waits for us with a big smile and open arms.”

  “Open bowels, more like,” snorted Zastarte.

  “Yeah, that as well,” said Dek, and, with a step, dropped down into the darkness of the sewer outlet.

  They moved through the darkness.

  The sewers of Zanne were old. Ancient. Far older than the exterior walls suggested, and harking back to a different time, an older world when a different race ruled not just Zanne, but Vagandrak in its entirety. The walls were fashioned from uneven black bricks, crumbling in many places, and the Iron Wolves passed beneath high brick arches, ornate in an industrial fashion, displaying unexpected pride from previous architects and builders. After all, why have ornate and decorative sewers? But these sewer tunnels contained a brutal kind of art. Urban; filled with decay; strangely decadent, and dark, and beautiful.

  Not so the stench. The sewers were still operational, and Narnok mouthed his disgust loud and long, whining until Kiki hissed at him to be quiet. Zastarte sprayed a little perfume on a silk handkerchief and held it over his mouth, cursing the sewage ruining his finely tailored trousers. The rest just waded in grim silence.

  The elf rats, whispered the words in Kiki’s mind. Who are they? Where do they come from? Are they as old as they claim? Were they really driven out by Vagandrak’s people of old? King Yoon’s ancestors? Had they come back now for vengeance? To reclaim their land? Or was it something more sinister they planned?

  “There’s something up ahead,” said Dek, slowing his pace. The water – the sewage – was knee deep and stank like something horrid. Dek coughed as he spoke, almost vomiting, as thankfully unidentifiable lumps bumped against his knees.

  They stopped as a group, squinting into the gloom, silent, staying their movements, swords held poised and ready. Narnok’s twin axe blades glinted like evil demon butterflies.

  The tunnels were narrow, narrow enough so that only two could walk abreast and would probably be hampered, and hamper one another, in a combat situation. Probably. Kiki grinned at that, a baring of skull teeth in a face drawn and tense. She had thought the weight loss was because of the cancer in her chest, a tumour near her heart; but that was now so much horse shit. That fucking abomination was her Shamathe heart. Her second heart. Beating with a second rhythm; like an echo. Like a… dark twin.

  Hello, whispered Suza, sliding into Kiki’s mind like a corrupt cock into her quim. She shivered violently and felt suddenly sick to her core. The shudder came from the centre of her being, working its way outwards, gradually, carefully, and making sure she felt it through every single atom of her being.

  What do you want?

  I want to help. Suza sounded… odd. And Kiki could remember her pouting, fake pretty features scrunched up, lips enlarged as if ready to deliver a big kiss. Hell, she’d taken enough boyfriends from Kiki. The self-centred, notice me, bitch. But did that come before or after the fire? Kiki frowned, metaphorically, in the cave of her own mind. It was all so foggy and jumbled. All so confusing. Because… because Kiki thought Suza was only a child when she died.

  I want to help you remember.

  I already remember.

  I want you to remember more, you fucking whore. You wouldn’t give me the time of day when my own fucking baby was on the chopping block and I suffered, suffered worse than I can ever remember; I had trauma, you evil cunt, trauma like you could never fucking believe! The last was delivered in a sudden pitch-raised scream that Kiki had not anticipated, and she winced, as if physically slapped.

  You made that up, Suza. You were never with child.

  I had a fucking baby! And it nearly died. It did die. And if it didn’t die, then it fucking should have. She started to sob, head held low and cupped in hands wet with tears, too many tears; eternal tears. With Suza there were always tears. Always bloody tears. It was something you got used to.

  You said you want to help. How?

  I will help. I will help you, Kiki, help you overcome the problems you are about to face.

  Problems?

  The elf rats.

  Kiki felt herself go just that little bit cold.

  What do you know about the elf rats?

  Suza paused. Kiki felt the hiatus, and it blew like a cold wind over a grave she had yet to inhabit. Dead roses rustled in the breeze, their scent gone, their stems brown and lifeless. Kiki looked up slowly, and saw Suza, the sun to her back, her face in shadow like it always had been. It was as if she wasn’t human. Had never been human. Like she was the blackened side of a coin. Like she was a bad dream, made flesh and real.

  They are old, said Suza, voice low, gravelled, and for the first time in Kiki’s memory she seemed… unsure. Nervous. As if she was spilling some great secret that could dump her in a world of shit. Ironic. She was dead. What could be worse than that?

  That hardly qualifies as news.

  They have come back.

  Again, Suza, you ain’t fucking surprising me…

  Shut up!

  The screech rent the air like steel talons down a blackboard. Kiki winced behind the bars of her own caged skull. She ducked a little, as if imagining hurled projectiles. She wondered about her own
sanity, and the fragility of her mortality.

  Silence followed.

  Kiki blinked in her reality, in the dark tunnel following Dek who was just a few steps ahead of her. She could taste copper. She must have bitten her tongue. She would have preferred the honey-leaf. That bitter-sweet drug crushed delicately under her tongue, tasting vaguely of lemon and cinnamon and something else altogether more alien. And then the head rush, and the pulsing in her veins and heart and head and womb. All parts joined together by the thumping pleasure that welled through a person, like wild surf storming a beach.

  They’re coming, said Suza. There was a hint of joy in her voice.

  Kiki blinked, still remembering the honey-leaf. Oh gods, it had been so long and she missed it, missed it worse than her dead fucking mother and father, missed it worse than the best ever hot hard sex, driving, pushing her hard to a thumping, thrusting, slick orgasm. She missed it. Missed it more than life.

  Hmm? What?

  They’re coming, grinned Suza through her dead white skull features, through eyes with maggots crawling deep and wriggling in rotting sockets; grinning, teeth dropping out, fingers clacking impatiently against her coffin lid as she drummed them, drummed them repeatedly as she waited to be buried and laid to rest.

  Who’s coming?

  But it was too late. They were already there.

  They swarmed down the sewer in the gloom, surging through sewage, and they carried no weapons, but their fingers were long talons sharp as any razor. Kiki recognised them in that half-light, in the gloom from distant memories and ancient fairytales, and a distant, faded association with Sameska that had been all too brief; all too brief because she hadn’t learned half enough, hadn’t learned a hundredth of what she really, truly needed to know.

  They’ll kill you, you know, grinned Suza.

  And then Dek was screaming, and Narnok was bellowing, and Kiki came slowly into bubbling consciousness as if rising from a deep dark pool. Dek was staring at her, hard eyes, his sword lifted in a defensive position, and she looked up fast to see the elf rats storming towards them through the narrow tunnel, sewage splashing and surging up the walls…

  “Glad to have you back… at last!” snapped Dek, on the verge of panic.

  “You should have woken me sooner,” smiled Kiki, sliding free both short swords as the first wave of elf rats hit them in the narrow tunnel confines.

  “Let me through!” bellowed Narnok, but it was too late, the tunnels too narrow, and Kiki and Dek were shoulder to shoulder in the gloom.

  Claws raked for Kiki’s face and she swayed, sword lashing out. It thumped, cutting the hand free at the wrist which splashed into the water. She saw a dark skinned face, ridged and twisted to one side as if roots grew through cheek to temple. Wide bright white eyes loomed at her and she took a step back, lowering her left sword and as the elf rat came on, despite its severed hand; thrust the blade up into its belly, the second blade hacking down through its clavicle with a crunch. She half expected the creature to be made of wood, for her blades to have no penetration; but the creature was flesh and blood, and the sharp honed steel bit deep and savage and the elf rat stumbled forward, deflating, going down under the sewage. Dek blocked a blow on his forearm, turned the block into a right-hand overhead punch to the face, then slammed his blade down vertically. It chopped the elf rat from shoulder to breast, cleaving it open. A second blow saw its head cut free in a shower of dark crimson.

  If the narrow tunnel meant the other Iron Wolves could not join the battle, so it rendered the same restrictions on the attacking elf rats. They were snarling, rabid, savage, clawing at one another to get to the Iron Wolves as Kiki and Dek took down two more with hacks and cuts, and the bodies started to pile up, making it harder for the elf rats to advance, presenting stumbling blocks as Dek and Kiki took more steps backwards.

  Trista unslung her bow, notched an arrow and let fly. It whistled past Dek’s ear and took a snarling elf rat through the eye. It looked stunned for a moment, black fletch quivering beside its nose, and then it collapsed.

  Dek glanced back. “Be fucking careful with that thing!” he yelled.

  “I’m accurate, nine times out of ten,” she smiled sweetly, face shadowed and eerie in the gloomy tunnel half-light.

  More elf rats, clawing over one another. These had knives and swords, and for the first time the clash of steel rang out in the tunnel. Kiki, blocked an overhead swing, stuck her left blade through the elf rat’s throat in a quick thrust that left it choking, clawing on its own opened windpipe. Then she was attacking the next even before that dead one went under the shit, a fast hammer blow to the face with the hilt, and a diagonal slash from high right to low left, slapping through the elf rat’s leg to cut it free just above the knee and sending it crashing sideways into a comrade, stunned, as Dek removed its head.

  Trista sent two more arrows flashing down the tunnel in quick succession, and two more elf rats went down with steel barbs in their eyes.

  An elf rat blocked both Kiki’s blades with its own and front-kicked her. She stumbled back and the elf rat leapt at her, almost on her but Narnok was there, towering over it as his great battle-axe swung, removing the elf-rat’s head and missing Dek by a thumb’s breadth. Dek flinched sideways and snarled something incomprehensible at Narnok, who grinned and strode forward, great axe slamming through the three remaining elf rats in a figure of eight that removed two heads, followed by a final overhead slam that split the creature from crown to crotch in a bloody spray that cut the fucking thing clean in half. As its insides spilled noisily into the sewage, a sudden silence filled the tunnel, broken only by the lapping of water and faeces and dead elf rats against the crumbling black bricks.

  “What were they guarding?” breathed Dek.

  “Entrance to the city,” said Kiki, face crooked. “Question is, did any more of the bastards hear our little lover’s tiff?”

  The Iron Wolves stood, listening. The minutes stretched out, then Kiki said, voice very low, “Nobody speaks from now on.” The others nodded, and moved warily forward, clambering over the twisted faces of dead elf rats, boots pushing them down into the slime.

  They moved down the tunnel with care, trying not to splash or create too many waves.

  They found the one-legged elf rat a hundred yards on, mouth just above the surface of the sewage, spluttering as it dragged itself forward with surprising speed – no-doubt to warn more of its kind.

  “Let me deal with this,” rumbled Narnok.

  “Oh no,” said Kiki, placing a hand against the huge warrior’s chest. “You stay right there.” She caught up with the elf rat and leaned the tip of one sword against the nape of its neck. It rolled over, looking up at her, eyes gleaming, a twisted smile on twisted lips reminiscent of bark. And then it started to laugh, and a chill crept into Kiki’s soul.

  “Going to warn others of your kind?” she said, voice low.

  “Yes.” The elf rat nodded.

  “Are there many?”

  “A few,” said the elf rat, voice slurred, breath coming in short, sharp pants. Then a dagger lunged up from the sewage and Kiki’s sword slammed down, knocking it aside.

  “Who is your leader?”

  “The sorcerer, Bazaroth aea Quazaquiel, and General Namash, led the forces of Daranganoth. Our king.” The elf rat’s voice was a low, rasping crawl. It spoke slowly, forming each word with care, as if unused to the language. “Human bitch, and I can tell you are a bitch because of the piss and semen stench between your legs, toxic and barren even through this smell of human shit.” It smiled. “Bitch. You are going to die.” Its gaze flickered to the rest of the Iron Wolves. “You are all going to die.” It launched itself at her, claws raking for her legs, long fangs like thorns trying to tear at her juicy, succulent thighs and Kiki stumbled back, her sword plunging down through the open snarling maw. A few teeth snapped. Blood pooled around the tip of her sword. The elf rat gagged, and choked, and died.

  “I’m thinking, maybe to c
ontinue is perhaps not the best choice of action,” said Dek, slowly.

  “Horse cock,” snapped Narnok, striding forward. “Tis nothing but hot words from a defeated enemy. Ignore it. Look how we bested them! They are like wheat beneath the shafts of our iron and steel.”

  “We need to find out what’s going on,” said Kiki. And without further word, she stepped past the bobbing corpse and headed further into the eerie underworld beneath the city of Zanne.

  They came to a set of steps guarded by a thick iron portal, which had been forcibly wrenched and twisted, like straws bent and broken by an angry child. Zastarte touched the thick iron bars, twisted out of shape, and ran his finger along the cold iron with a low whistle. “No human hands did this.”

  “Come on.”

  They mounted black brick steps and stopped, smelling the night air. Kiki peered above the ground, looking quickly about. The night was dark, thick snow clouds filling the sky and blocking out the light of the constellations. No lanterns or brands had been lit. Highly irregular in any city, where every king, prince, guardian, watchman and politician had to at least appear like they cared about citizen safety after dark, no matter what they felt inside their own money-grabbing cock-greasing back-stabbing petty little minds.

  Kiki spied a nearby building, two stories, industrial, towering soot-smeared red brick, long and low. She moved from the sewer steps and darted for the doorway, a blank metal plate, and pushed it open, peering inside. The others followed, and they all stepped into a massive open space filled with benches and odd shapes in the darkness. A few shafts of light fell in through windows protected by steel mesh. Trista closed the door behind them, and they stood still, waiting to get a sense for their surroundings.

  “Oh no,” said Dek, and looked to Kiki, although he could not see her features.

  “What’s that smell?” said Trista, nostrils twitching. “It’s… sweet. But bitter. What is it?”

  “The honey-leaf,” said Dek, quietly.