by Andy Remic
“Down you fucking disobedient wretches!” stormed Mola, stamping forward, and all four dogs lay at his feet, gazing up at him, and competing for his love.
Slowly, Mola lifted his gaze to Narnok, who stepped down onto a chair, then to the floor, axe easy by his side but there just in case he needed it; for man or beast.
“You’re a lucky man,” growled Narnok.
“How’s that?”
“I don’t like killing dogs. So I let them live. Men, on the other hand,” he smiled a grim smile, “that’s a different story.”
“Point taken, Narn. Point taken.”
There came an awkward silence, and Trista stepped forward looking both men up and down. She tutted, and stroked her chin.
“You still owe me that money, though,” said Mola.
“I agree. This changes nothing. You ripped me off, you bastard.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” hissed Trista, her own eyes flashing dangerous and she glanced between them. “This is, and I say it with absolute sincerity, fucking insane. There’s a horde of deviant elf rats out there just dying to rip you apart. If you feel the need for some fucking aggravation, just step outside the front door of this museum.”
Mola shrugged.
Narnok turned and looked away.
The dogs growled on the floor.
“Shake hands,” said Trista.
“Eh?” snarled Narnok.
“Over my dead body,” growled Mola.
“I can fucking arrange that,” snapped Narnok.
“Stop, stop, stop,” said Trista in exasperation. “What is it with you two? It wasn’t like this back in the day, was it? I would have remembered. Then stabbed you both through the heart when you were asleep.” She smiled, grimly, and they both realised it wasn’t just a figure of speech; she actually, really, actually meant it.
“Bardok? What’s going on there?” The voice was lazy, casual, sensuous, authoritative. It drifted like woodsmoke from the rear of the museum hall, where deep shadows lay, where tall sculptures cast esoteric images on the marble and the matt white walls.
“Bardok?” hissed Narnok. “What game is being played?”
Mola’s eyes went wide. “Play the game, horse dick, or we’ll all be dead.”
“Eh?”
“Explain,” whispered Trista.
“These are the Red Thumbs,” said Mola, waggling his eyebrows in what would have been an amusing gesture if it hadn’t been for the raw terror the simple name the “Red Thumbs” was capable of conjuring. “Play along, Narnok. They fucking hate the Iron Wolves. I mean, fucking hate them.”
“Not as much as they hate me,” muttered Narnok. “I’ve, er, had some dealings with them in the past.”
“What kind of dealings?”
“I killed some of them.”
“Which some of them?” Mola’s eyes were even wider, now.
“Er. Some important some of them.”
“Fuck.”
“Time to leave?”
“Just play it cool.”
“I’m a hard man to hide.”
“It’s too late to run.”
A shadow detached from the other shadows at the back of the museum hall. It drifted forward, casually, with an air of natural grace one might associate with decadent royalty, or maybe a natural, drunken warrior.
He was tall, and dashingly handsome. He wore his dark hair long to the nape of his neck, his face was finely chiselled – a square jaw, handsome humour lines, piercing blue eyes – broad shoulders, narrow hips, a natural swagger that spoke of confidence and conquest and arrogance. He carried narrow curved swords on each hip, and knives at boot, thigh, hip and chest, which spoke of profession in real combat. These weren’t ornaments. This almost-dandy was a killer.
“Randaman,” said Mola, turning and nodding. “Found these here people wandering. Thought I’d check they weren’t… you know. The diseased. The twisted. The… elves.”
“Of course.” Randaman strode forward, and Narnok noted he kept a certain distance from the axe and swords on display. He was experienced. His every movement screamed it. Narnok immediately despised him. Randaman reminded Narnok of all those ale-house male whores, those smooth charmers who took the virginity of innocent young farm girls and left them to rot with a baby to feed; he reminded Narnok of the slime who ran the gambling pits, making money from the needy and the desperate in society; but most of all, Narnok despised him because he simply looked like a cunt. Thus, he kept his mouth shut and let Trista do the talking. After all, she had blonde curls and a figure to die for. What competition an old soldier with scars for a face?
Randaman took careful, wary stock of Narnok. This man was no fool. He saw the experience laid out in the chips and metal-scars on the axe blades. Then his eyes, only a cursory scan to begin with, fell fully upon the beauty that was Trista. Yes, she hadn’t washed in a while, and had been involved in various battles leaving bloody stains on clothing and face and hair, and she was filled with exhaustion and pain and fear, which laid itself out across her grey face like a pastel painting. But there was no disguising a goddess. And Trista was the most beautiful of them all; as many a man had found, to his peril. And indeed, his terminal curiosity.
“Lady?” said Randaman.
“That sounded like a question,” purred Trista, turning to keep up with his traversal. The turn made her head and body turn against itself, and the image was intoxicating. “You think, maybe, I am not a lady?”
“Oh no; no, no, I am certain to the nth degree that you are fully a woman, and indeed, one of the most incredible women I have ever witnessed.”
“I haven’t heard that one before,” smiled Trista, although it was an ice-cold smile and her eyes were diamonds trapped in ice for a million years.
“Come now.” Randaman stopped his dandy’s waltz. Narnok nearly puked with the theatricality of it all. “No need to be modest. Not here. Not in this company.” He smiled a heart-winning smile which Trista returned. She’d seen it all before. On a million fake advertisements for love.
“I’m not being modest,” she said. “We’re just trying to stay alive. Out there… out there…”
Narnok noted how she turned her voice a little. Now, she was a desperate princess in need of rescue. Narnok grinned through his remaining teeth. Fuck, he thought. How did you get so fucking cynical? But then, people – and cunts – kept proving him right. Once, the world used to be a pleasant place filled with people willing to help one another. Now, it was a charnel pit filled with death and scum and shit.
Yeah? Why did you fight at Desekra Fortress then?
For the money and the fame, bitch. Always for the money and the glory.
“You have come a long way?” asked Randaman. Trista looked at Mola, who kept his face straight and neutral. No help there. Mola was playing the solo game. Mola was simply looking after his own base survival.
“We’ve been holidaying with a rich uncle at the foot of the Mountains of Skarandos,” lied Trista smoothly. She’d had a lifetime of practice. “We were there a month. Then we travelled north to Zanne, and… the whole city was locked down. Screams came from within. It was terrifying!” She played the fraught virgin with expertise, despite hints to the contrary. No woman of Trista’s age or beauty was a virgin. Well. Not often. Still, Randaman was sucked in and you could see it in his eyes, in his face, in his stance. He was intoxicated by Trista. Body, heart and soul. He wanted in. Inside. In that warm place. They all did, till they felt the reverse fuck; the slide of cold iron into their hearts and throats. A double penetration. Who fucks who?
“These are dangerous times,” nodded Randaman. “You… you should come with us. For protection. For safety.”
Narnok snorted a laugh. Randaman slid his gaze to the huge axeman; a sideways shift. “Something amusing you, pretty boy?” he snapped.
Narnok cooled himself, and turned full on to Randaman. Just to show him exactly what he was fucking with. “I recognise,” said Narnok, slowly, as if addressing a
simpleton, “that my face resembles a steak dinner after the dogs have chewed it. However, the one thing no cunt can ever take from me is my pride. The last man who called me pretty boy in puerile sarcasm,” Narnok considered this for a few moments, hand across his chin and lips as if solving some great conundrum, “well, lad,” he growled, “I cut him in half with my axe. And I fucking mean in half. From the top of his skull, to his dangling slack ball sack. A dissection of skin and meat and fat and bone, a neat cut of organs and bowel and bloody shit. As I sat around the fire that night, with the lads, picking bits of sliced bollock from the chips in my axe-blades, I asked myself a question – is there a time when you’ll grow up, and stop taking needless offence from the pointless hot-air of yapping idiots? And you know what my answer to myself was? It was a fucking no, lad. Because if you ain’t got no self-respect, then what have you got in this shit, pointless life?”
Randaman stared at Narnok impassively for a few moments. Then he gave a beaming smile. He took a small step forward and patted Narnok on the shoulder. “I like you, Big Guy. You’ve got a fucking good sense of humour. You can stay.”
“Oh. So you’re letting me then, are you?”
“Yeah.”
“And what makes you think I won’t just lop off your grinning fucking head and stay anyway?”
Randaman gestured, almost languorously, to the darkened, hidden balconies lining both sides of the chamber. “Archers,” he said, and gave a sick little smile. “I’m sorry. You need to come with me or we’ll cut you down like rabid dogs in the street.” The smile stretched a little wider; like a cat that was pleased with itself, licking cream from its whiskers.
“And there I was, thinking you were a gentleman,” said Trista, tossing him a haughty look.
“Alas, dear love! These savage times force us into modes of address one would not normally embrace. I eschew all forms of antagonistic behaviour. Truly, I do. But as you have seen for yourself outside,” he gestured broadly, and his voice hardened. “We have to protect ourselves.”
“We’ll come with you,” said Narnok, brows furrowed above his heavy facial scarring, “but we keep our weapons.”
“You are hardly in a position to barter, dear boy.”
“That’s the deal,” said Narnok, frowning. “Else I’ll cut you down now and take my fucking chances with the arrows.”
“You think you could?” Randaman’s eyes were narrowed.
“You know I could,” growled Narnok, with a smile.
There was a moment of intense tension, then Randaman suddenly relaxed and stepped forward, slapping Narnok on the arm. “Of course, no worries, old timer. No need to be so grumpy about the whole show! Now, if you’d like to follow me,” and he turned, whilst Narnok was still blinking and grumbling and favouring the tight stitches, and Randaman offered his arm to Trista.
She linked with him, surprising even herself, and they walked down the ornate marble hall, connecting with long flowing corridors lined with rich oil paintings depicting the violent past of Vagandrak and its outlying cities, towers and lands; they moved past display cabinets filled with all manner of antiquity, Narnok shuffling along in his battered boots, his eye dark, the other empty socket itching him like a bastard.
Some of the archers padded down carpeted stairs leading from the deeply shadowed upper balconies, falling in behind Narnok and Trista. Narnok turned and stared at them. They were clad in black cotton, more like assassins than the kinds of archers Narnok knew, and they kept their notched bows not-quite pointing at the huge axeman.
Mola, with his growling dogs now on leads, came bellowing and snarling through the midst of the archers until he walked alongside Narnok, who gave him a curious sideways glare. Mola grinned at him, then winced.
“You suffering?”
“Aye. Chucked from a horse. Broke some ribs and my collarbone.”
“That pain suits you.”
“And you! What’s that? Sword wound?”
“Dagger, I think. Or maybe claws. It was a big battle. Hell, lots of big battles. I’m starting to think my whole life has just become one big battle, and I’m starting to get a little tired. Maybe I should become an onion farmer. Or something.”
“I know how you feel,” said Mola, rolling his neck and shoulders. Duchess took that moment to growl and snap at something that was apparently invisible, and Mola hauled her back with a snarl. “DUCHESS! DOWN!”
“I’m not sure who’s leading who,” grinned Narnok, suddenly. He burst into laughter, and Trista glanced behind, from where Randaman was explaining the ancestry of an encased and particularly fine set of pearl earrings hanging on a carved wooden head. “I knew, if I ever met you again, you’d still be hanging around with a bunch of dogs.”
“Well, that’s the thing about dogs,” said Mola, and it was his turn to smile. “They’re a damn sight more loving, more trustworthy, than any woman.” His eyes were gleaming. “How’s your wife, Narn? You married that fine filly, didn’t you? Kahuna. Black curls. Flashing dangerous eyes, if ever I saw them on a woman.”
“Katuna,” corrected Narnok. And stared at Mola, smile frozen; then dropping from his face like a widow’s veil. “Not with her anymore,” he mumbled.
“Seen Dek recently?”
“Oh yeah,” said Narnok, eyes gleaming. “Me and Dek had a good little chat, we did.”
“He still alive?”
“So you did hear, then. Grak’s Balls! Is there any bastard on this continent who hasn’t heard of my fucking woes?”
“You’re an Iron Wolf, mate,” said Mola. “We’re worse than any gaggle of fish wives.”
The wide, plush corridor suddenly expanded into a vast exhibition room filled with all manner of artefacts, tapestries, even ancient carriages used by a procession of royalty and preserved, here, gleaming in reds and blacks and golds. Narnok glanced up at the vaulted ceiling, a criss-cross of white arches with intricate paintings mastered within, and giving the chamber an even more regal aspect. Huge pillars supported the high arches, and Narnok’s gaze swept around the chamber, and the history of the realm, coming to stop at a makeshift camp that had been erected here, inside the vast museum’s main exhibition hall.
“Odd place to camp,” said Narnok, stepping forward.
Randaman shook his head. “Not at all. We have access to food and wine from the museum’s stores, we have almost unlimited weaponry,” his arm swept towards the military quarter of the museum hall where all manner of suits of armour, pikes and spears and long swords, from a multitude of historic periods, sat on display, alongside some heavy ballistae and siege engines towering up towards the high arched roof. “If we need them. Come and meet the gang.”
“The gang?” said Trista.
Randaman gave a nod, eyes glittering. “Yes. The Red Thumb Gang.”
Trista, Narnok and Mola exchanged a glance, then followed Randaman. As they approached, the talking stopped. There were about thirty present and Narnok’s eyes swiftly swept over the group, searching for notable figures in the Red Thumb hierarchy; he had a few enemies, and his entire body was tense, and quivering, until he realised nobody recognised him.
Slowly, Narnok released a slow breath and glanced sideways at Mola, who gave a noncommittal shrug.
“We have some new… survivors,” said Randaman, smiling and gesturing. “Here, we have the delectable Trista, travelling with… I’m sorry, Big Man, I didn’t actually ask you your name?”
“Narn,” muttered Narnok softly. “Old buddy of Bardok here. Go way back. Ducking and diving. You know.”
“I’m sure that I do not,” said Randaman. “However. Let us give some proper, formal introductions.”
The Red Thumb gang members had sat up a little, from where they centred around a central camp area for serving food. They were like a group of big cats, following a feeding frenzy. Full, and lazy, but idly curious about the next kill. A small fire burned in a controlled ring of rocks. On this, a pan of something sweet-smelling bubbled and Narnok found his nostr
ils twitching. By all the gods, I’m fucking hungry, he realised, but then turned his attention back to the group of killers. His eyes swept them and he shivered. These were the scum of Zanne underground, if truth be told; the largest, singular gathering of cut-throats, back-stabbers, jewel thieves, coach robbers, rapists and murderers known (or probably, unknown) to modern Vagandrak. And here they were, lazy as lords, full on the spoils of the conquered city. Narnok felt suddenly sick.
“…a fine meal,” Randaman was prattling. He gestured with a flourish that was really starting to get on Narnok’s nerves. He glanced at Mola, who was feigning disinterest as his huge dogs sat, panting at his feet. “Now, then, for the benefit of our new, er, guests, first we have Badograk! Badograk, stand up and say hello!”
Badograk rose ponderously to his feet. He was easily as big as Narnok, his arms huge rolls of muscle. He had black eyes, stubble and a shaved head. He carried a large battle-axe in one thick-fingered paw, and he watched Narnok with unflinching interest. Narnok knew exactly what the Red Thumb gang member was thinking; it was an appraisal. A weighing up. Almost, a challenge. The man couldn’t help it. Narnok knew; he was doing it himself.
“And that, there, is Veila.” A slim, athletic woman sat perched on her pack. She was pretty, lithe, and very feminine. Her hair was long, and black, and knotted into a braid that fell down between her well-defined shoulder blades. She wore surprisingly little for a warrior, a revealing of too much flesh for Narnok’s liking, and she had pointless high boots made more for cavalry. She nodded towards Narnok.
“Scar-face,” she said, and flashed him a smile with small white teeth.
Narnok felt himself reddening, and ground his teeth, saying nothing. Was she mocking him? Toying with him? He wouldn’t take it, just fucking wouldn’t take it and he felt his temper rise immediately and he gripped the haft of his axe tight as his temper started to boil when Trista stepped forward, her hand resting lightly on his forearm, and he glanced down at her beautiful, sculpted face with its gorgeous blonde curls, and her smile said: don’t worry, we’ll kill them all, afterwards. He smiled. And relaxed.