Read Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Online
Authors: Walt Popester
Tags: #horror, #fantasy, #heavy metal, #dagger, #walt popester
Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (22 page)
“
There’s a reason we were
shipwrecked on this island. This is not just any place. They must
know it.”
“
What do you
mean?”
“
The Portal to Golconda is
on this island.”
carrying twelve men wearing the military outfit of Melekesh, and
the shadowy figure leading them. Black silk robes covered his
entire body, even his face, shaded by a large hood. Only two
armored boots stack out from those clothes. When he saw the living
electricity that ran through them, giving the impression that the
shadow was walking on light, he realized they were made of the same
metal of his knife. The Mayem.
Kugar woke him from his thoughts, “He’s the
one who’s looking for you,” she said. “And whom you are looking
for— the Divine. He uses an armor of pure Mayem to move, an ancient
and cursed artifact. It’s alive and answers the will of its wearer.
How strange life is? Once Skyrgal used his body to move about our
world, now he uses that to do the same. The pitcher goes so often
to the well…”
They were far enough not to expose
themselves, close enough to see what was going on. the Divine
raised a hand and soon a flying Gorgor reached the wreck. He got
off the back of his Cruachan, keeping in perfect balance on a
broken beam, while the winged beast, with total peace of mind,
begin to lick the wounds on its dark wings of membrane. He drew his
Hvis sword and clung to the edge of the gash to look inside. He saw
something and turned to his dark comrades, shouting acute and
ungraceful cries that, although they reminded the Cruachans’
bestial cries, were articulated into syllables and had to be a real
language.
“
What’s he saying?” Dagger
whispered.
“He found someone alive. A bald man,” she deduced. “He’s making fun
of his weight. I think it’s Moak.”
Other Cruachans landed on the wreck,
anywhere, while most stood in the sky. The Gorgor looked inside the
ship once again, but jerked back. An arrow flashed just above his
head, struck from the inside, and a distant scream was heard, “Come
here, son of a leper Tankar!”
“
Olem!” Dagger
said.
“
Shit! This time he will
manage to get killed!”
“
What do we do?”
“
We wait!”
his Cruachan and, with a flick of the reins, jumped back in the
air. The winged beast circled over the ship’s carcass a few times,
then it spread its wings to the wind and remained suspended in
midair. It fell swoop into the crack, to pop out, a little later,
with its claws planted in Olem’s bloody shoulders. The Cruachan
dropped him in the midst of his companions, as a predator who
throws the helpless prey to the hungry chicks in the nest. The
Dracon immediately tried to get up, but he was disarmed with a kick
on the hand and another one on his back. A shadow had already
unsheathed his sword and looked on the verge of killing him, but
the Divine admonished him and they all stopped. He yelled something
in their hard language, consisting of guttural consonants and
characterized by the almost total absence of vowels.
“
What’s he saying?” Dagger
asked.
“
He’s ordering the Gorgors
not to kill the prisoner, because he’s more useful alive than
dead.”
“
And they’re listening to
him?”
“
It seems so.”
lowered themselves into the belly of the ship. They gathered a
total of five survivors, including Moak and Olem, then began to
feast on the bodies of the dead: a couple of Cruachan amused
themselves quartering the corpse of a Guardian, feeding on his
viscera under the complacent eyes of their riders. They were soon
imitated by the rest of the squadron. The wreck became a huge
slaughterhouse for human flesh, with entrails and blood sliding on
the side of the wooden ship toward the pink sea foam. Moak looked
confused as did the other survivors. Olem alone still had the
strength to yell at those beasts, before being silenced by a kick
in the face.
The Gorgors began to beat up the prisoners,
screaming all the way.
“
They are looking for you,”
Kugar said. “They knew you were on board. They are forcing Olem and
the others to talk. You’re lucky that it’s them, I would not have
thought twice before selling you out.”
Guardians until they lost consciousness. One of them lost his life
too and was thrown into the sea, to become immediately prey of a
Cruachan who had not yet had his ration of meat. The Divine went
back on board the ship anchored in the bay, while the survivors
were loaded on a boat and taken ashore, escorted by ten Gorgors; an
abundant escort for four stunned and shackled Guardians. The other
ones got back in their saddle and flew to the island’s
interior.
Dagger noticed that one of the Gorgors
remained on the ground was sniffing around.
“
The wind is changing,”
Kugar noticed. “We must get away before they smell you.”
to see what was happening as well as to hear the horrible Gorgor’s
cries.
Kugar looked uncomfortably at the trees
that surrounded them. “We need to steer clear of them.”
“
We have to follow them,”
Dagger corrected. “If they are transporting prisoners by land, it
means it’s from here they pop out. We must understand from
where!”
brought him face-to-face. “We must go home. It’s already hopeless
as it is, why complicate our lives even more?”
Dagger drew back her hand, looking straight
in her eyes. “You will all end up in the stomachs of those beasts
if you don’t understand where they come from! I spent my life
hiding from those who wanted to kill me, I can give you a
hand!”
“
Give me a hand to do
what?”
“
To descend into the depths
of the wolf’s den.”
“
It’s not what we were
ordered!”
“
A Guardian does always what
he is told?”
“
Well, yes,” Kugar
replied.
I’m not surprised things precipitated so far. There won’t be other
opportunities to follow them without being seen. Decide now, or
never!”
The girl bowed her head, thinking in
silence. “The wind blows from the north.”
“
So what?”
“
It’s a headwind. It will
blind them, at least until it changes direction. Then it will take
your smell straight to their nostrils and we’ll find ourselves in a
trap.” She reasoned about that one last time. “Damn you, Dag!” she
growled. “Let’s go!”
* * * * *
7. Fear of the dark
innumerable forks in the road, Dagger thought. Life was wandering
in a pathless forest where a dark shadow seemed to lurk at every
corner, ready to pounce when you least expected it, to take away
everything for which you had always fought. Even if it was mere
survival.
Insects as large as grapes marched up his
legs, planting their feet into the skin with greater force when he
tried to pull them away. Thorns scratched him, branches held him,
every single drop of icy water seemed to have the only purpose to
get under the collar of his armor, and slide there where he could
no longer dry it. He was already lamenting the mud and the slippery
cobblestones of Melekesh. All roads in a city led somewhere, even
if straight toward death. In the maze of a forest it was
different;you had to create a way and often it did not lead
anywhere. In this situation, he could only do what he had always
been no good at—relying on those beside him. So he followed Kugar
blindly, wherever she might have brought him.
After hours of marching in lockstep, she
grabbed him by the arm. Climbing on the branches of a tree, they
saw the Gorgors had tied the prisoners. Everything, in their
behavior, suggested that they did not consider the idea of being
followed. Olem had come back to his senses and was cursing them
once again. Dagger wondered how long it would take before he
managed to be killed. Moak was still unconscious, as well as the
other two Guardians.
One of the Gorgors unsheathed two Hvis
saber and rubbed their blades, making everybody pull back when the
flames rose in the air. When he walked over to the prisoners, two
of them cried out in terror.
“
Shut your mouth, Guardian!”
Olem cried. The shadow turned to him and pressed the back of the
blade against his shoulder. The sound of the frying meat came up to
them, but Olem didn’t yell as he gritted his teeth and endured the
pain with discipline.
“
Are they are torturing
them?”
“
Not precisely,” Kugar
answered. “They’re having fun disinfecting their wounds with
fire.”
of disinfection, yet practical in its own way. He knew other
methods, perhaps even more effective: he couldn’t count the times
he had used his own urine as a disinfectant on himself or Seeth. He
had never seen a wound getting infected that way. When he saw one
of the Gorgors urinate in a corner, he realized why they didn’t:
his green jet pierced the bark of the tree, penetrating deep and
raising an acid vapor. One of the other Gorgors trilled something
and the one who was urinating laughed. He got in front of the
Guardian bound between Olem and Moak, the most run down, and
splashed urine on his head. Dagger’s hand flew to his mouth when he
saw the Guardian’s face melt under the acid spray.
In the torpor that preceded death, the
Guardian shouted, spitting out blood and bits of tongue. The
Gorgors untied him and threw him face to the ground, still
laughing. One of them drew his saber and scraped his back, baring
his muscles. Then he urinated above his naked meat, digging a hole
from side to side through tissues, bones, and organs. Then he stood
up, pleased to see his creation, and decided to finish him: he put
his hand into the hole he had created and ripped the heart from
behind, throwing it to one of his companions while it was still
beating.
Dagger turned and vomited his breakfast,
trying to do it noiselessly. Then he leaned his forehead against
the tree. “They melted his face! Oh fuck. They—”
“
They don’t want to kill’em
all, at least not right away,” Kugar deduced, not at all upset.
“They did away with the one who slowed their march. Extremely
practical.” She grabbed him by the arm and forced him to look.
“Watch them, kid. Imagine what they would be able to do to you
to—”
“—
pull out my blood and
bring my father back to life?” Dagger answered and then paused, his
eyes still closed. “I know. If you’re trying to convince me not to
throw myself into their arms it’s a waste of time. I’m not planning
to.”
Guardian, cutting him in half, gutting him and tearing his limbs
into small pieces. They packed the muscles for the trip and ate raw
what they could, especially the liver of which they seemed
particularly fond. Then they resumed their march.
“
When a prisoner slows their
march it becomes useful only to be eaten,” Kugar said as she led
him through a patch of larch trees, so dense that a second green
sky now stretched above their heads.
pattering of rain filled the cold and moist air. When the drops
penetrated the leaves, falling on the invisible path they were
following, Kugar had to bend down more often to search for enemy
footprints. Sometimes it passed some time before she decided which
direction to take. He began to think they got lost when they
arrived, suddenly, in the presence of a high rock wall, an
impenetrable barrier placed on their path, enclosed in a horseshoe.
There was no way to continue. Under their eyes, hundreds of tracks,
old and recent, crowded on top of each other.
“
It would seem a dead end.
Instead, this is a point of passage,” Kugar asserted, bending down
to look at the footprints. “And not just for Gorgors.”
lead?”
“
Begin to
search!”
looking for a passage. They searched everywhere, until the thing in
front of their eyes turned out to be just an impenetrable stone
wall.
Kugar walked away
thoughtfully. She planted her sword into the ground and sat down,
resting her chin on her fist. “
Uhm
” she mumbled. “Man can go even
through the gray stone.”
“
What?”
“
It is a saying of Golconda,
probably invented by someone who has never faced a real wall of
gray stone.”
“You have to go though, somewhere!” He tried to push the rock with
all his strength. When he heard a strange sound, like the wail of a
wounded beast.
“
Stop!” Kugar
urged.
in the girl’s eyes. He pulled away from the wall.
“
He’s looking at
us.”
“
Who?”
off any other question. Her senses were more sharpened than his, it
seemed, this is why Dagger continued to trust her even when he saw
her bring one hand behind her back, to reveal a throwing
knife.