by Andy Remic
They sat and ate a cold meal of dried pork strips and chunks of hard cheese, eating in silence, each lost in their thoughts. Their horses stamped and snorted steam, and Kiki moved to her mount, patting the gelding’s neck and digging out a handful of oats. “Here you go, boy,” she said, words gentle, and the horse ate, then turned, nuzzling her with quiet affectionate sounds. “We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we? And here I am leading you on a crazy mission to quite possibly a certain death. After all, we can’t fight all the elf rats in Zalazar, can we? We can’t possibly battle our way to the Mountains of the Moon through ten thousand enemies. We just haven’t got the… the strength, any more. I’m tired, boy. Tired of this world.”
They climbed for another hour, breaching the current peak only to see more, and higher, peaks unfolding ahead of them, like an undulating mass of mountain flanks, each one hiding a further, higher summit. “False summits”, they’d called them during their training days. Designed by the gods to sap a soldier’s morale; especially when humping a large, heavy pack up eternal, leg-breaking slopes.
Distantly, thunder rumbled.
They followed a trail well marked by the recent, passing elf rat army; and then onto another section of steep ascent. Dek was leading, and when he suddenly stopped up ahead, Kiki looked up from her morbid contemplation and halted her own mount.
“What is it?”
“There’s been a rock fall. An avalanche of sorts. The fucking trail has gone.”
Kiki and Zastarte hurried forward and stopped, dismay flooding them. The path had indeed gone; what now existed was a steep sideways slope of churned rock and gleaming ice and snow, cutting across right before them. It carried on, for as far as the eye could see, curving around the side of the mountain and out of sight.
“Horse shit,” said Kiki, voice a monotone.
“There no other way around?” asked Zastarte.
“No. No other path. We’ll have to risk it.”
“We’ll not get the horses across that,” said Zastarte, frowning. “They’ll slide to their deaths.”
“You have to guide them,” said Kiki, “but keep the reins loose in your hand. If you feel the creature begin to slip, let go, or it’ll damn well drag you off the mountain.”
Zastarte stared at her. “That seems a little harsh,” he said, but forced a smile to hide his fear.
Kiki shrugged. “It’s reality, my friend.” She slapped him on the back. “Come on, it’ll be all right. I’ll look after you! After all, we’re the Iron Wolves and we’re on a mission of mercy to save Vagandrak! Chin up, be brave, you foppish dandy bastard.”
Zastarte grinned, and gave an extravagant bow, extending his arm in a sweep. “After you then, good lady. Show me how it’s done.”
Dek went first, approaching the slope warily, his eyes scanning the lower flanks of the avalanche sweep, then looking up to see if it was likely more would come tumbling down on top of him. He looked back at Kiki. “You ever seen one of these bastards go?”
“A couple of times,” she said, breathing deep. “But we have no other choice.”
Dek nodded, and eased his way out onto the silent, gleaming slope. His mount, a solid chestnut gelding of south Vagandrak stock, was game for the traverse and, with only a little goading, stepped onto the sloping icefall and followed Dek, body tilting, rear haunches bunching as it fought to keep its weight moving forward.
Kiki gave a short prayer to the Seven Sisters, left a reasonable space, then followed Dek out, her own mount a little more skittish, but with kind words, and holding the reins loosely in her left hand, she started to make the crossing.
She glanced back. Zastarte was pale with fear. She gave him a smile, but he did not return it, instead, looking up at the sky where the clouds had darkened. Again, thunder rumbled in the distance and Kiki cursed.
“We have to cross now. Now, Zastarte. If that blizzard comes rushing in, we’ll be truly fucked.”
He gave a short nod, and stepped out onto the slope, his boots sliding a little. He gritted his teeth, felt his heart leap into his mouth, and cursed everybody from his mother to the gods to the demons of the Chaos Halls.
“Bastard, bastard, bastard,” he muttered, and urged his mount forward with several clucks and clicks and “Come on, boy, come on,” with gentle tugs on the reins. His horse stepped out onto the slope and gave a loud whinny of fear, ears laid back flat against its skull. Zastarte, leaning to the right to compensate for the steep, slippery slope angle, urged the beast on.
They started the traverse, and after a couple of minutes he looked up, sweat dripping from his forehead and off the tip of his nose. He saw the other side of the slope, where the path started once more. It looked like a thousand leagues away. He watched, as Dek made it safely, and he ground his teeth as the fear piled on and on and on, and he felt the beginnings of panic clamp his heart. His boot slipped, but he righted himself, and forced his mind into a state of calm.
Focus on each footstep.
Focus.
Just one at a time.
He glanced up. Kiki’s mount stepped with a kicking of hind legs and a shower of stones and ice onto the pathway; and she led him forward, patting his mane and whispering words of encouragement into his twitching, laid-back ears.
Then she turned, almost in slow motion, to look back at Zastarte’s progress…
At that moment, his horse slipped.
It screamed; the gelding screamed, and legs began scrabbling in a mad chaos of flailing limbs and a powerful shower of stones and ice. The horse slid down a section of the slope, hooves flailing, and Zastarte’s arm was nearly wrenched clean from its socket. He was jerked, yanked after the sliding beast, his boots scrabbling, losing his footing on the scree and he hit the ground, and slid after the beast.
“Let go of the reins!” screamed Kiki, panicked, leaping forward onto the slope. “Let go!” But Zastarte could not let go, for in an unbidden, unconscious act, he’d wound the reins tight around his fist. He was connected to the horse by a tightened, thrumming umbilical – only this was a cord promising death, not life.
They slid further down the slope, the gelding losing its footing, hooves and legs flailing as it slammed onto its side. Zastarte slid after the creature head-first, his right hand trying desperately to free his sword so he could cut the reins; but his sword was trapped in its scabbard beneath him.
Rocks and ice tumbled around them. Again, thunder rumbled and the skies grew yet darker; more foreboding. Lightning split the sky in the distance, a brilliant flash that illuminated Zastarte’s plight with an actinic crack.
“Zastarte!” yelled Kiki. Both her and Dek were on the slope now, beginning to edge down towards him as his mount, slowly, gradually, slid and ground to a halt. Zastarte carried on sliding, then bumped into the creature. It was snorting, chest rising and falling, and gave a feeble whinny, and Zastarte breathed deep, face ashen, looking up through lank rat-tails of sweat-streaked hair.
“Fuck,” he breathed, then reached out slowly, and patted the gelding’s muzzle. “Keep still, old boy. Keep real still.”
Zastarte looked up the slope, to where Dek and Kiki, stick figures, had begun their own descent to help him.
“Get me some rope!” he shouted, and watched Dek turn back.
Zastarte peered left and right, but could see no edge to the slope. How far did it go? He could not see beyond the gelding’s bulk, and he began to wriggle, trying to sit up. Pain lashed through him from his hand where the reins had dug in deep, cutting through flesh. Blood dripped from the leather leash, down his hand, trailing down his fingers and staining the ice.
Snow started to fall. Thunder growled like a caged bear. More lightning, closer this time. Cracks and booms echoed around the mountains. Zastarte managed to sit up, rocking himself into position, and gazed up at the snowflakes landing gently against his face. A strange serenity fell over him. A perfect, inner peace.
I am going to die, he realised. And he was not afraid.
<
br /> “The rope isn’t long enough!” boomed Dek, from the top of the slope.
“Kiki?” Zast’s voice was perfectly calm. Kiki had halted her descent, and was staring up at the sky, then back up the slope, past the place where it had cut off their trail. There came a strange, rumbling, growling sound; only this time, it was not thunder.
“Kiki!”
“Yes?” Her head snapped around. She was too distant for him to see her face, but he knew in a moment of intuition that she knew. Understanding passed between them like a crackle of lightning.
“Tell Trista I love her,” he said, the words slipping out.
Then, from further up the slope the rumbling turned suddenly into a roaring, grinding chaos and the gelding started to struggle violently, eyes widening. This set the horse sliding again, and Zastarte was yanked after the creature. From the upper slopes came a second wave of avalanche – a wall of snow and rocks, sliding, tumbling, racing down the slope. Dek leapt back from the edge and Kiki was sprinting, her boots sinking, as the wall loomed over her like a curl of violent, towering white surf.
Sliding further down the slope, Zastarte gazed up – and it looked as if the whole mountain had reared above him, a violent contrasting oil painting of chaos and panic and anarchy; a massive fist of rock and ice and snow and bent dead trees and crumbling blocks of granite… and it seemed to pause, this great terrible wall, and then came crashing down, enveloping him, slamming him and the screaming gelding spinning down the mountain and over the edge of jagged black cliffs, where they tumbled… spun silently, down into the deep black abyss below.
ENDTIMES
Mola stood in the snow-filled Gardens of the Winter Moon, rubbing his hands together, stamping his feet, blowing warm air into cupped hands, and wrapping his arms around his body. He was cold. No. He was fucking freezing. His breath streamed like dragon smoke. His teeth occasionally chattered, coming on in waves, then easing off again, for he was a wiry slim man, not a man with a lot of body fat.
His dogs paced around him, despite multiple warnings to “Sit!” and “Lie!” and “Fucking lie down, bitch!”
Mola looked around himself, wary. It had been over an hour since the others had scaled the walls and entered Zanne Keep, and he felt isolated, alone – despite the dogs. He felt more alone than he had in years and this puzzled him.
He checked his swords and knives.
Yeah. Right. Like simple steel would be much use against a horde of wandering elf rats intent on cracking his bones and sucking his blood and turning him into some tree-hugging motherfucker – because, and let’s be honest here, Mola old chap, if the enemy decide to take you, really decide it, then you’re fucked; no matter you have the best fighting dogs in Vagandrak at your heels. These elf rats are merciless bastards. Just like you. They’ll chew you in a spit you out. You, and your hounds.
Mola blew into his hands, and rolled his wounded shoulder. Damn, that hurt. It just didn’t feel right. Felt out of place. A little disjointed. A little… broken. And he knew with a sinking feeling that the injury would cause him shit for the rest of his life. Then smiled, a narrow affair on his brutal bleak face. That “life” might be a much shorter timeline than he realised.
Duchess whined, and looked up at him.
“Shh, girl.” His hand touched her muzzle. The simple contact was enough to settle her. She gazed up at him. She was a pretty bitch; most beautiful. Her eyes shone with adoration. And that, that was why he loved dogs so much – much more than fucking people. A dog’s love was unconditional. People always let you down. People always stabbed you in the fucking back when you least expected it. Best friends fucked you over. Brothers betrayed you. Cousins took your money or property. And where was it going? Did they love you? Nephews betrayed family by marrying into psychopathic, fucked up gene pools. And even lesser relations? The greats? Those who didn’t even know you, much less care whether you lived or died? Why would they ever truly give a fuck? No. Just take a hefty slice of ill-gotten inheritance when you kicked the bucket, blood money of the worst order, and who gave a fuck where it came from, right? As long as they got their coin and pissed it away on pointlessness, the mercenary motherfucking pieces of shitty scumbags. Should be on a fucking noose hanging, neck bones grinding away as they loosened their bowels in their fancy pants trousers and pissed their way to the Chaos Halls.
Ha, he thought. I’m spending it all!
Or leaving it for the dogs.
Thrasher, the largest and most brutal of his beasts – fuck, he was almost as big as a pony, and Mola often wondered what beast, be it wolf or fucking bear, was in his lineage – stood and shook himself, and looked up at Mola, although not by a long way, and their eyes connected and Mola got that thrill that fucking thrill that he always got from the huge fighting dog. Would the bastard even do what Mola asked?
“Down, boy. Lie down.”
By some miracle, the slab of muscle and savage rabid death lay down and put his head on his huge tufted paws. Mola breathed a little more calmly. It was always a close thing with Thrasher. Indeed. With all of them.
They were good boys and girls.
He loved them dearly.
But by their very nature, they lived close to the edge.
Close to the edge.
Just like him.
He grinned, a grin without humour, and wondered what he could do.
So.
Problem.
Zanne Fortress. Locked down to fuck, obviously. Or was it really so obvious? Were the elf rats really so… accurate? Or were they, like every other power-hungry bastard Mola had ever met during his miserable existence, were they filled with thoughts of their own supremacy and narcissism? Were they in love with their own fucking ideology and icons and pathetic fucking gods?
“Can’t just stand here all night. Let’s go and find out,” muttered Mola. The dogs, his dogs, looked up at him; like loyal servants to their honourable Master. Mola saw the look. It filled him with pride. He loved his dogs. He loved his dogs.
He gazed around. The wild foliage of the Gardens of the Winter Moon seemed to gaze back; or at the very least, waver gently in the cold winter wind, sighing, and shifting, and casting long shadows.
“UP!”
The four dogs stood in an instant, were quivering, ready. They recognised the command in his voice. Maybe even the fear.
They padded along beneath the wall to Zanne Fortress. It reared high above, black and bleak, a towering vertical prison cell. Mola had his sword out, his eyes constantly scanning, but he knew the dogs were his early warning system, for their senses were far superior to his. Always had been.
Something’s happened to the others. Inside. I can feel it. But the question is, if the Iron Wolves and the Red Thumbs and the Prison Boys weren’t able to do anything – then what the hell can I do, on my own, like?
The gardens sighed in a cold gust. Snow flurries fluttered down, settling across Mola’s shoulders, and his dark eyes flitted around the shadows, eyes narrowing. There was something there, he was sure of it. Something… watching him. He glanced to the dogs, but their senses hadn’t picked anything up; which in Mola’s books, usually meant there wasn’t anything there at all except his paranoia. But still... the hackles rose on the back of his neck.
Damn, but you’re spooked, old man.
He paused at a jutting corner of towering black stone, halted, glancing about. “To me, Dogs,” he said, quietly, and they turned, stood by him, muzzles pointing outwards, eyes scanning, thick rolls of saliva pooling to the frozen ground. Thrasher panted, fangs like razors glinting in the moonlight as gentle snowflakes settled on his raggedy black coat. Mola reached out, patted the dog, and for an instant thought Thrasher would take off his hand. Instead, the great beast licked him, and Mola chuckled.
“Good boy.”
They moved across silent, frozen ground and stopped before the great gates of Zanne Keep. Mola had been here before, during happier times; the gates were twenty feet high and two feet thick. So
lid oak banded with iron and studded with bronze. Impressive. Huge. Solid. Mola prodded the gates with his boot, then poked them with his sword, half hoping they would swing wide; maybe some miracle would occur and Narnok’s scarred and ugly face would peer out and grin at him… but that didn’t happen. There came a solid little thunk. The gates were as immovable as the Mountains of Skarandos.
Duchess gave a tiny, tiny growl. Her round black nose quivered. Mola turned from the gates, and glanced down, then looked up. The gardens with trees and ferns and exotic bushes containing spiked leaves were a solid, inky mass. Snowflakes settled through the air with casual gentility. There was an ornate iron trellis, an archway, matt black and almost hidden in the gloom. Mola blinked, and there was a figure stood beneath its arch.
Mola brought his sword around.
“Horse shit,” he muttered.
It was an elf rat. And a tall one at that.
“Dogs,” he said, and Duchess looked at him. He pointed. “Kill.”
Duchess, Duke, Sarge and Thrasher leapt forward, muscles powering them into attack in a seething mass of fur and snarling jaws, slamming them towards the elf rat. Mola observed. It was tall, seven feet at least, and had narrow bony limbs in skin that reminded Mola of bark. It carried no weapons in hands with long fingers like claws. With a shudder, he realised it was watching him.
It made no move as the dogs charged, and Mola started forward, following them up with his sword in case of other surprises. He was in no doubt his dogs would tear this creature apart, but there might be others. Hundreds of others…
Duchess was quickest, and as the bitch leapt, snarling, jaws glinting, the elf rat’s hand suddenly lifted, fingers together, palm to the ground. Duchess hit the frozen grass limp and unconscious, and in the blink of an eye, the other dogs followed. They landed, Thrasher rolling, and lay unmoving.
“NO!” screamed Mola, and charged forward, his sword in one fist.
“They are sleeping,” said the elf rat, his voice a gentle hiss like the wind caressing oak leaves in a dreamy forest on a summer afternoon. Mola felt something hit him, like a wave of pressure that forced a need to sleep into his system. He faltered, his aggression and hate leaking away, and his sword lowered, his charge slowing.