by Andy Remic
Zanne Keep reared above them as they came through the trees and shrubs, ferns and withered flowers. It was vast and black, dominating the area, the walls formed from huge blocks and offering only scant handholds in the cracks.
Narnok looked up at the sheer expanse. “That’s one hell of a fucking climb,” he said, hissing, and wondering in his heart if he could really make it. He was a big lad, heavy, and fingertips could only support so much mass. It was one thing to talk about it, in some fire-warmed hall after a couple of honeyed ales; but another to put a broken neck on the line if he slipped on the damn icy wall because he had two left feet and gammy ribs. “Damn.”
“What about my dogs?” said Mola, looking around at the others. “My dogs can’t possibly climb up that.”
“Leave them behind,” said Faltor Gan, face impassive.
“I… I wouldn’t like to be leaving them at the mercy of these elf rats.”
“They’ve fought the elf rats before and survived,” said Randaman. “They are hard and vicious indeed.”
“Yeah, but… but we were together. Like a pack. If I leave them, and something terrible happens, something where I could have given my life to save them…”
“You love those mangy mutts so much?” barked Narnok. Then he saw the tortured look on Mola’s face. He grinned. “Yeah. I expect you do. Why doesn’t Mola wait here, guard the ropes so to speak. That way he can shout and scream if trouble comes forcing in from behind. A rearward entry.” He said it with a straight face.
“Whatever you think best, axeman,” said Randaman, voice smooth, and turned his attention to the treacherous climb. “We’re going to need some psychopath to go first. I reckon at least half these men couldn’t make a climb like that.” He looked around himself. There was a surplus of bulk and heavy boots. “Probably more.” Fighting, yes. Heavy infantry, yes. Treacherous wall climbs in the dead of night? He’d brought the wrong crew.
“I’ll do it,” said Trista, stepping forward, breath smoking. “Who’s got the rope? I’ll climb up, tie onto something, toss it down.”
Veila, also, stepped forward. “I’ll climb with you.” Trista eyes scanned the lithe fighter, who had at least put some more realistic clothing on since their hours together in the museum. Still, the wool coat clung to her incredible athletic figure like a second skin.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I may be of some help.” She flashed Trista a bright smile, all white teeth and pretty lips.
“As I said, I work well alone.”
“You don’t have a choice in this, sweetie.” Trista looked to Faltor Gan, and saw the man watching her with a strange expression. Then he smiled.
“Veila is simply offering assistance. She is a fabulous climber; the best thief in the Vagandrak Red Thumbs – and by that, I mean across the whole of country.”
“You mean you have fucking competitions in this?” snapped Trista, taking a proffered coil of rope from Narnok and looping it over one shoulder, then settling the thick band against her hip. She watched Veila do the same with a second coil. “Not taking no, eh?” She gave a skull grin. “Well, let’s get to it, bitch. It’ll be nice having some company when we fall from a great height and crack open our skulls like rotten eggs.”
Trista moved to the great smooth wall, and placed both hands against the surface. It was terribly cold, an ice sink that had readily absorbed the winter. She wanted to pull on thin leather gloves, but knew they would impede her progress; perhaps condemn her. She felt for the edges of the first block, then hauled herself up, right arm extending upwards to find the next crack, pulling her up again with a jerk, her toes edging neatly onto the top of the first. To her right, Veila did the same, and they began the long, long, cold climb upwards; towards the velvet sky, and a yellow moon half covered by black, ominous clouds.
Within a minute, Trista’s fingers were aching, her toenails painful in her thin boots. She glanced up, pausing for a moment, breath steaming ahead of her to spread across the black wall. This is fun, my dear.
Yeah. Almost as much fun as killing a newlywed.
Well, if I fall I’m sure there’s a few of those waiting in their smart suits and white gowns on the other side of the door leading to the Chaos Halls. I bet there’s a few with axes to grind.
You talk too much. Focus on the climb.
And she did. She powered upwards, from edge to edge, block to block. She found ice and her fingers slipped and she hung for a moment by one set of fingertips, turning slowly like a pig on a spit. A grin fastened on her face. I think it’s time to fucking die, she realised, before gently swinging herself back around and finding purchase – just as her other finger gave in.
Veila came level with her, and her face was lathered with sweat. “But damn, my fingertips are killing me.”
“Mine too.”
“Guess what?”
“Yeah?”
“I broke a fucking nail.”
Trista bit back a peal of laughter, and looked into Veila’s bright eyes, and realised suddenly she liked the woman. Liked her a lot. That was a novelty. An event that was bloody unique. “You’re not married, are you?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” Trista gave a cold smile. “I suppose it’s too late to turn back?” she said, frowning.
Veila glanced down. The Iron Wolves, Red Thumbs and escaped prison inmates were distant toy figures surrounded by a cacophony of winter shrubbery. Lots of faces were turned upwards, watching their progress; little white and black circles as random shafts of moonlight illuminated them, before plunging back into a heavy, foreboding darkness.
“I think there’s a few relying on us,” said Veila.
“That there are.”
“You like Randaman, don’t you?”
Trista looked into Veila’s eyes, into her face, and realised the woman was a lot younger than she’d first realised. Put a sword in her hand, call her a killer, bathe her in enemy blood and suddenly the youth falls away, and decades of experience show in lines around the eyes; in the demons glittering in tear-filled orbs.
“Yeah. I like him. He’s a regular party animal.”
“I like him a lot, as well,” said Veila.
Trista smiled. “Well, I have one piece of advice.”
“Which is?”
“Don’t fucking marry him.”
“Why not?”
Trista’s eyes drifted, distant. Then she smiled. “Because everything always falls apart,” she whispered. And then she was off, climbing again, hauling herself elegantly and painfully up the vast vertical wall of black stones and slick ice.
Beneath, the gardens fell away, now, and stopping, panting again, Trista could see far off over the walls that surrounded the Gardens of the Winter Moon. The Royal Walk stretched off, arrow-straight, towards the Royal Gate at the south. Casting about, she could see the many thousands of elegant buildings of Lily Gardens, unofficially known as the “Rich Quarter”, which itself was dominated by the South Palace. She cast her gaze to the other side of the Royal Walk, with its trees – many now twisted and misshapen, even from this distance, and great gardens filled with glistening white moonflowers, until she came to Haven Church and the cowering, squatting, black-mass bulk of the Haven itself: the slums. The homes of the less than fortunate.
“Quite a sight,” said Veila.
“Yeah.”
A cool wind stirred across the two women, gazing out from their high vantage point. Up here, it was silent as death. They could see distant fires, which were suddenly extinguished. Darkness flooded back in, like ink into a well.
“This is a war,” said Veila, her own breath flowering like ice white petals.
“No.” Trista gave a small shake of her head. “This is just a battle; there’s a war to come.”
“You think there will be more elf rats?”
Trista fixed her gaze on Veila. “Many more,” she said, shivering.
The rest of the climb was made in silence and, reaching the
summit, Trista slowed her movements, anticipating enemies on the other side of the lip. Her fingers found purchase on the slippery rim of stone, and she pulled free a dagger, placed it between her teeth, and with great care eased her eyes over the ledge.
Nothing. Deserted. Cold, the wind howling mournfully between carved gargoyles, with a large drop to various sloping and flat roofs beneath.
Trista’s boot found purchase and she squatted, reaching back to grab Veila’s hand, wrist to wrist. She hauled the younger woman up and they both crouched, balanced on the precarious ledge, the whole of Zanne falling away behind them, the plain spreading off beyond laden heavy with snow, and distantly, when the moonlight shone just right, the faraway and mighty peaks of the Mountains of Skarandos.
They both leapt down onto a sloping, iced roof. The entire roof at the top of Zanne Keep was a massively complex array of perhaps a hundred separate interlocking roofs; there were slats and spars, vertical sections rising up with lean-aways and stone joists and other sections jutting free at seemingly irregular and random angles. It was a mess of badly added architecture.
“I thought it would be flat,” said Veila.
Trista nodded, and dropped down onto another angular ledge. Veila followed, as Trista peered around, searching for enemies. Nothing.
Trista turned, to head back and drop the rope. Veila placed a hand on her arm. Trista gazed at her, a question in her eyes.
“Don’t trust Randaman. Or Faltor Gan.”
“I don’t trust anybody.”
“You can trust me…”
“Why?”
Veila stepped in a little closer. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Trista paused, and blinked, and laughed. “You’ve picked a fine time to declare your undying love for me, woman.”
“Not undying love. Just lust.”
Trista met her gaze, then leaned forward and their lips met, a gentle brushing, then Trista pulled away. “Maybe later,” she said, voice husky. And thought: As long as you don’t fall in love with me, child. For my heart is given to another. And she doesn’t even realise it. And as they rut under the stars, his cock deep inside her, bringing her wailing with clenching hands to a cat-clawing orgasm; that should be me. That should be fucking me.
I miss you, Kiki. Always have. Always will.
She leapt back to the wall, and looped her rope around a solid protrusion of stone. She stepped up onto the precipice and allowed the rope to uncoil as it fell. It hit the ground with a distant thump and Narnok pulled it tight, giving several tugs. To one side Veila was doing the same thing, but she was gone for Trista, everything was gone as she gazed out with tears on her cheeks, stared at the vast expanse of space before her – and thought very seriously about jumping. A long cool fall. Instant release.
To float through the sky for an eternity. There will be no pain. There will be no hate, any more. No hate, or anger, or grief or love. Mostly though, it’s the hate.
“Whoa,” said Veila, grabbing Trista’s arm. A blade flashed by her throat, and soberly, Trista sheathed the blade.
“You nearly lost your windpipe,” she said, throat husky.
“I… I thought you were about to fall.”
Trista glanced down, where men were busy climbing and sweating and cursing. Then she smiled across at Veila, and released a deep breath.
“I fell a long time ago,” she said.
They moved through an intricate maze of corridors. Narnok had visited many years before, but he’d drunk a damn lot of whiskey in the intervening years and his dim memories were nothing but lost shadows.
Again, they had weapons out, but there were no signs of the enemy. Of the elf rats. The tension was killing them.
“There must be guards here,” whispered Narnok as they stopped at a balcony which overlooked a huge hall, with a patterned red and black tiled floor far below. Moonlight spilled from skylights far up, giving the room a bleached, ghostly look. He shivered.
“Unless you were all wrong,” pointed out Trista, “and this Bazaroth sorcerer bastard and his pet general prefer to live in the sewers.”
“I’m not wrong,” said Narnok. “It’s pride. It fucks with a man’s brain. If he’s in charge, he takes over the biggest, the best, the most dominant place of residence; it’s just the way it is, and I don’t give no rabbit’s fart what race or type of creature you are; if we’d been invaded by queer, tap-dancing dragons wearing top-hats and breathing cabbage fire, they’d still come here for their centre of command.”
They descended wide carpeted stairs. There were blood stains, and further signs of struggle. Overturned suits of armour. Sword-hacked tapestries. Several broken vases, the shards scattered across mosaic tiles like bone knuckles in an abandoned game.
“There,” said Veila, stepping in front of Trista, almost protectively, and pointing. It was a body. A corpse. But a corpse that was…
“What am I actually looking at?” said Trista, moving forward, wary.
“Don’t touch it.” Randaman was there, his hand on her elbow. “We’ve seen this before, on a few occasions out in the city.”
The body, a heavily bearded, broad-shouldered man, was pale-white of face, eyes closed, blood at the corners of his mouth and trickling into his grey-streaked beard. It appeared he had been wrapped in vines, or roots; around and around, almost forming a cocoon of yellow strands. But the worst bit was the wrist-thick bunch of strands that were forced into his mouth, so that his head was pushed back, mouth forming a silent “O”.
Narnok shivered. “By the Seven Sisters, that’s no way to die.”
“I knew him,” said Randaman. “Poor bastard. He was butler to King Yoon.”
“Shall I hack off his head?” said Trista.
“Best leave him be,” said Randaman, and his own face was pale. “Leave him in peace. He looks like he’s earned it.”
The large group moved on through the gloom, weapons at the ready, and despite their hardcore nature, many made the sign of the protective cross and prayed to any gods that might be listening to see them cross over in some manner of dignity, with some form of humanity. Because this fight was long from done. In many ways, it felt like it was just beginning.
Through endless corridors they moved, and came across more bodies wrapped tight in vines or roots, their mouths open in silent screams, and stuffed full of the damned sprouting things. The temperature dropped. No fires roared in hearths, and the Keep was suffering the worst excesses of winter.
Passing another body, Trista shivered violently. “They look so alive,” she said, glancing at the dead woman. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, and a bulge hinted at late pregnancy. “What’s happened to them all?”
“Only the elf rats can tell us that,” growled Narnok. “And, hopefully, this sorcerer bastard.”
“You really think we’ll find him here?”
“I know we will,” said Narnok, face grim.
By the stairs, beside a mosaic floor scattered with broken shards of vase, the butler to King Yoon lay, rigid, encased in roots, eyes shut, blood in his beard. Suddenly, his eyes flared open, and he started to thrash – but quickly calmed. There came slapping, whipping sounds, and the roots that entwined him loosened, flowed from him and all around him, emanating now from the portal that was his engorged mouth. Slowly, he climbed to his knees, all the while the hundred or so strands thrashing and quivering about his head and face and shoulders and torso. He walked, woodenly, down the corridor and stopped beside another body – where a similar thing was happening. A teenage girl this time, with blood in her eyes. She climbed unsteadily to her feet, the roots from her open maw quivering around her face and head with tiny whipping, slapping sounds.
These two moved off, almost silent, into the gloom.
And were soon joined by many others.
The endless corridors, with their straights and curves and twists and corners, led, inevitably, to the central throne room. There, King Yoon’s Central Zanne Throne stood on a raised dais at the head o
f a huge, magnificent hall. Normally, huge fires would have roared in hearths to east and west, but as Narnok, Faltor Gan and Randaman led the large group of ex-prison fighting men and women from the shadows, the hall in its entirety was gloomy, cool and still. A single figure sat on the throne of King Yoon. It was Bazaroth aea Quazaquiel, the elf rat sorcerer; ancient and twisted, his body enshrouded in brown robes interwoven with roots from his Heart Tree, his dark eyes, from a face of twisted bark, fixed on the group. He had his chin on his fist, and he was quite obviously waiting.
The group moved warily into the hall, weapons bristling, searching for other enemies. But all was quiet; all was still.
“Come forward,” said Bazaroth, his voice both low and yet carrying the distance.
Narnok, Randaman and Faltor Gan led the way, striding purposefully towards this commanding elf rat.
“Where is General Namash?” snapped Faltor Gan as they grew close.
Bazaroth gestured idly with his hand. “He is charged with bringing the armies south. Even now, they will have crossed the White Lion Mountains; they are a force that cannot be stopped.”
They were standing before the throne now, and closing fast. Narnok noted that the hall’s outskirts were lined with the dead, cocooned, as they had seen bodies throughout their journey into the bowels of Zanne Keep; and something prickled his scalp with the wrongness of it all. It was like they were being kept as trophies. Or… or because they still had some use? Narnok tapped Trista on the shoulder, and gestured, and she nodded. Her face was drawn with fear. This wasn’t like her, but then, they were now facing a sorcerer who had taken an arrow in the eye – one that had surely pierced his skull and brain. And yet here he sat, smiling and breathing and living.
As if reading her thoughts, Bazaroth turned his attention on Trista. “I am linked to my Heart Tree,” he said, gently, explaining a new concept to a child. “You must destroy my heart to destroy me, and she lies far away back in Zalazar. Where your ancestors banished us. Where your ancestors sent us to die.”
“Not my ancestors,” said Trista, eyes narrowing.