From the Ashes (12 page)

             
For now.

“Quickly,” bade the Shaman, “to me; the barrier won’t hold for long.”

The guardsmen gathered round and Wrynn turned, holding out a mighty hand to help Arbistrath to his feet.

“I thought you’d  abandoned us,” the Lord let out, in a quiet whimper.

“Never.” The booming voice carried with it confidence, the promise of redemption. “Now rise; let us fly from here.”

The Lord took the Shaman’s hand, rising from his knees, and Wrynn closed his eyes, summoning forth all his reserves of willpower, for the task he was about to tackle was great indeed. The clustered warriors let out a gasp of fear as the circle of power faded from around them, the ghoulish Barbarians charging forwards, en masse, to take them.

But too late.

A crack, like the world being split asunder. A flash of light and the nausea of vertigo. The taste of coins in the mouth.

And the Tulador Guards were gone.

***

A flash of light on the hillside by the shamans and Gwenna started, before blinking away the dazzling colours from her eyes, the shapes of Wrynn and the Tulador Guard coalescing into existence as though they’d always been there.

             
The Shamans rushed over to the wounded men, summoning forth healing powers from the earth as they aided them. Arbistrath, Hofsted both there. Marlyn, too, bent over double, throwing up his lunch; a common side-effect of the spell.

`
              Wrynn stood, looking about, nodding to himself in satisfaction, before falling sideways. With a gasp, Gwenna ran over, crouching down to her mentor with concern in her eyes.

             
“Master Wrynn…”

             
“I’m fine, child, I’m fine.” He pushed himself upright, so that he was sitting, taking deep breaths as he drew upon the earth to give him strength. His head was pounding, his nerves feeling like they were on fire.

             
Not surprising, thought Gwenna; translocation usually required hours of preparation, meditation, communing with the spirits. To do it on the fly… Not for the first time, she wondered at his might.

             
“The men are safe,” she reassured him. “You did amazingly, but you need to rest now, gather your strength.”

             
He cut her off with a curt shake of the head, struggling once again to his feet.

             
“There is no time; even now, the battle on the left flank will be joined; Iain needs my help if he is to defeat the Huntsman.”

             
“Then let me come with you…”

             
“No girl.” He looked her in her green eyes, smiling, his breast filled with the love of a father for a daughter. “Your strength will be better deployed here, healing the Guards, scrying for the source of the dampening. If, in twenty minutes, you still have no luck, then we go to plan B.”

             
She nodded solemnly, red curls falling in front of her face, hiding her expression.

             
“We abandon the Plains People to their fate and make full march for the Beacon…”

             
The Shaman stood tall, a head over her, his hands resting gently on her shoulders.

             
“Take heart, my girl. We fight for the survival of mankind. If there’s any luck in this world then the tide will turn in our favour.”

             
With that, the Shaman disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke, receding into the sky with a caw as he flew over to the left flank of the plain. Gwenna turned, brushing her hair out of her face as she looked over the battle now joined before her, her hands tingling with pent up spiritual power that she itched to release.

             
“If we have any friends in there,” she told the city that loomed high in the background, “then find the source of this dampening. Find it. And kill it.”

***

Alann paused at the end of the corridor, craning his neck around the corner to check the Market for Clansmen; they didn’t want to make the same rookie mistake they did on the way in. The coast was clear and he gestured for the men to follow.

             
How can we get away from the city? he’d asked Naresh. The ex-servant had immediately thought of the tunnels that led to the docks. Get to the Keep, into the kitchens – there’s a direct tunnel straight down to the docks, much less convoluted and winding than those beneath the Arena. So that is where they were headed now, swift and silent, darting from shadow to shadow.

The silence as they moved gave Naresh a moment to reflect on the events in the prison below. The carnage of the forest of cages; none had survived. He suppressed a shudder at the memory of Jafari’s cry of grief. His sisters, both of them, arms wrapped about each other in fear and pain, arrows sticking out from them as they lay in a dried pool of their own blood. The Nomad had said nothing
since then, his face impassive, his eyes vacant, simply following the others. More even than the Clansmen that roamed the city, the Desert Dweller was now a hollow man.

             
His mind drifted back to the small torture chamber he’d found himself in, to the strange, arcane symbols that he’d seen on the wall. The shapes had seemed to almost twist and writhe before him; even now, when he tried to remember them, his mind refused to bring them to the fore, as though rebelling at the very idea of their existence. Dark magic. He’d heard tales, of course, as everyone who worked in the Pen had, of the Seeress and her coven. Perhaps the dark powers with which they treated had turned upon them? That would explain the Clansmen.

             
Abruptly, he noticed the troupe had stopped, hunched in the shadow of a building just outside the Market. Frowning, he looked towards the front of the line, to where Alann stood, mouth open, head cocked to one side. He looked like he was listening to something…

             
The Woodsman turned to them, whispering quietly.

             
“Can you hear that?”

             
Narlen frowned, cocking his head as he strained.

             
“No, what?”

             
Alann didn’t answer, instead, turning his head, narrowing his eyes as he looked past the low buildings and walls to the tall, pagoda-like structure that rose high above them. He gestured to it, questioningly.

             
“What’s that place?”

             
The troupe turned as one to Naresh, for he was the Steppes-man.

             
“It’s the Temple of the Ancestors,” he explained as though stating the obvious. “It’s where the Barbarian Kings of old were laid to rest.”

             
Alann nodded, digesting the information, yet still had a puzzled frown on his face.

             
“I… I think we need to go there.”

             
He looked as confused at the statement as they did.

             
“Erm, why?” Elerik ventured, ever the pragmatist. “What use we with bones and dust? We need to fly, get to the docks, maybe steal a boat.”

             
Murmurs of agreement, but then Narlen spoke.

             
“I vote we follow the Woodsman. His instincts have led us right thus far; it cannot hurt to take a detour of a few minutes. If it turns out to be nothing, then we simply continue on our way.”

             
Elerik paused for a moment, thinking, before nodding in acceptance.

             
“Fine, let’s do it. But we hurry. The streets are quiet, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay that way.”

***

The rumbling thunder beneath him. The wind whipping through his hair and beard. The thrilling power of his dark masters flowing through his veins. This. This is what it felt like to be a god. This is what that fool, Invictus, had been hogging all these years.

             
Kurnos roared in glee as his Infernal Hunt raced across the Steppes to smash the pathetic shaman army in the flank. The sweet plains air laced now with the smell of smoke. The steeds that drew his chariot, swollen, eyes red with flames, hooves leaving a trail of sparking steps in their wake. His whip, that he cracked about him in the air, a long tendril of orange fire.

             
His minions were on either side of him, racing in war machines of their own, froth foaming their mouths as they darkened the air with insane battle-cries and gibbered oaths. Yes, those behind the Veil had seen fit to bless his men in different ways, ways that suited the fast and frantic nature of their sport. The Infernal Hunt was a sight to behold, but few who beheld it would live for long.

             
Though he had long been an immortal, Kurnos felt at last, truly, like a god.

             
A creak of wood, almost imperceptible amidst the noise of the charge, and a bed of grass ahead in the plains rose up, as if pulled by hidden ropes; wooden spikes, long and thick, sprouting forth to form a barrier. A chariot to his side flew straight into the wall of stakes, the war machine smashing to kindling, the riders torn to shreds by the impact.

             
Another creak, a ramp rising up this time, hurling a chariot upside down as it passed over it, the weight of the contraption crushing the charioteers as they were dragged, screaming, upside down along the ground.

             
A flurry of arrows, as if from nowhere, taking men in the neck, the arm, the shoulder, the heart, chariots out of control everywhere, dogs howling with rage and pain. Chaos.

             
Yet who could be hiding, here, in open sight atop the plains of the Steppes…?

             
Kurnos growled in rage and anticipation, for he knew these tricks and the minds behind them.

“Left, you fool!” he bellowed at his driver, as a ramp erupted from the earth before them.

The massive chariot veered, just missing the trap, and Kurnos’ dark eyes scanned the plains before them, his senses, now enhanced, spying the hidden ropes that snaked through the grass, and he grinned. His whip lashed out, a strand of fire, like orange lightning, to a patch of grass almost indiscernible from that about it, but the point of the whip punched through the disguise and Kurnos heaved, a screaming, smouldering Forester being wrenched from his hiding place to land, fifty yards off, broken and ablaze.

“Such sport!” the giant roared, with a barrel-chested guffaw, casting about with his gaze as his chariot circled, hunting for yet more victims.

The Foresters sought to distract them, stop them even; but all they did was provide an entertaining diversion, at least for a while.

A glimmer, faint, almost invisible, as the sun reflected off a tiny shard of metal in the grass. The arrow was loosed, but Kurnos was quicker by far. The whip of flames lashed out, hauling the concealed Forester out with the speed of a striking snake, dragging him along the earth, then up to the Huntmaster atop his chariot in an instant. The man goggled for a moment, in the grip of Kurnos’ meaty fist, but a split second later a wet thud, and the man’s eyes glazed over, his head sagging. With a great, guttural snort of laughter, the Huntmaster hurled the smoking corpse to the ground, the Forester’s own arrow protruding from his back.

              All about, now, the battle was joined. The men of the Hunt, if men they still were, gibbered and howled as they lashed out. The Foresters as they attacked, clean and clinical, striking with quiet precision before retreating, only to strike again, moments later from a different angle.

             
A challenge, that is what Kurnos craved. A real fight. There must be a leader here, a whelp risen up to take over the mantle of the Woodsman. The Huntmaster focused his senses, straining with the powers bestowed upon him, in an effort to locate the man they called leader. His head snapped round, teeth bared in a feral grin, as he saw a slight youth issuing orders from behind a cleverly constructed hide of woven grass.

             
The Huntsman called his chariot to a halt, dismounting, the ground thudding beneath his darkly swollen mass as he paced his way, whip leaving a trail of scorched grass, towards the hide. The concealed archers saw his approach, unleashing a hail of arrows, the missiles thudding into the leather of his jacket, piercing his skin and lodging in the flesh, but he merely smiled, lashing out with his whip and tearing the hide in two like a knife through parchment, the smouldering halves of the construction falling to either side.

             
Like some foul titan of myth, the warrior towered over the three Foresters. One of the three charged him, a woman, a sword brandished as she cried out in revenge for a slaughtered family Kurnos had long since forgotten, but the Huntmaster’s hand shot out, grasping her by the neck and lifting her from the ground, feet dangling as she choked. One of the other two gasped in horror, on the verge of soiling himself, turning and fleeing as fast as his legs would carry him, but the whip of flames lashed out, taking the man’s head clean off in one cracking blow.