Swordmistress of Chaos (15 page)

This time Gondar did not bury his dead. Rather, he set them to one side of the path, using the dank moss to trace the eye of the All-Mother upon their foreheads before starting forwards again, venting his impotent fury on the vines and branches that hung across his path.

Raven, her armour chafing in the dampness and the heat, fell into step beside Spellbinder, noting the brooding expression on his pale face as he stared warily about him.

‘Where is the bird?’

He shook his head, shrugging. ‘I know not. It comes and goes as it chooses.’

‘Are we on the right track?’ It was difficult to speak, for the very air seemed to fill her mouth with a cloying warmth. ‘Or are we lost.’

‘I know not.’ Again he shrugged. ‘I doubt it, for I’ve a feeling the bird led us here deliberately, brought us to the one path that will lead us to the Skull of Quez, and left us to fend for ourselves.’

‘And how many more must die before we find it?’ Her question was largely rhetorical, borne of discomfort and unease, the inability to take direct action.

‘Not many, I hope.’ Spellbinder’s voice was bitter, though Raven sensed it was not directed at her. ‘We go where we must. We do what we must. So it goes.’

He quickened his pace, as though unwilling to continue answering her questions, and Raven let the matter drop, concentrating on the path. It was difficult going, for the way was soft and sticky, the miasma of rotted material carpeting the jungle floor clinging like mud to her boots. Great bloated spiders scuttled before them, and iridescent creatures with too many legs and rattling pincers scurried madly away. She gritted her teeth, fighting down the nauseous loathing that prompted her to turn and hurry back the way they had come. Had she ventured into this rotting green hell alone she would, most likely, have followed her natural instinct. Her hatred of Donwayne and her instinctive trust in the Stone and the bird, however, urged her on, those things and a resentment towards whatever had killed the rievers. So, the silver sword clutched firm in her right hand, she pressed forwards after Spellbinder and Gondar, grinding spiders and ground-runners savagely beneath her feet.

That night they found a clearing and sufficient dry wood to make a small fire. The sea-wolves were nervous and irritable, unused to so long a journey inland, anxious to come to grips with their unseen enemies.

And at dawn their impatience was satisfied, for it was then that the Beastmen of Ishkar attacked.

‘Suffering, while never a pleasant experience, may sometimes prove a powerful tutor.’

The Books of Kharwhan

Screams like the baying of a crazed wolf-pack echoed across the clearing, and woke Raven from her tortured dreams.

The sounds were magnified by the putrescent trees, the lowering ceiling of vines, until they filled their air, ringing in ears that protested the sudden clamour. Four men died before the shield wall knit together, locking the rievers behind a barrier of metal and stone hard Xand hide. Axes and swords flashed in the dim light, eyes gummed with sleep and the ichor of crushed insects probed the shadows where only shadows were to be seen.

Swift and silent came the Beastmen, creeping like were-creatures through the phosphorescent undergrowth, stalking the sentries as a cat stalks its prey. Killing as brutally.

They came on two legs, though they appeared equally capable of loping on all four as they darted around the defenders, shadow on shadow, fleeting shapes that raced in, jaws snapping, and were gone again almost too fast even to touch.

At first they sought to take the sea-wolves by stealth and surprise, but the four sentries were their only victims of that tactic. Raven screamed a warning, dragging her blade up to cut and slash at the surge of the obscene creatures. Tired as the rievers were, their reflexes were battle-swift, their tempers, short and eager for a fight. The first rush broke on the overlapping shields, slammed together before the rievers were full awake. The second found probing blades and swinging axes awaiting a blood-feast, and the Beastmen fell back into the obscuring jungle.

The third attack came from three points and for the first time Raven saw what she fought; and gagged on the knowledge.

The Beastmen belonged to neither the human race or the animal kingdom. Rather, they were an obscene amalgam of both, the joining adding an element of deformity that was simultaneously graceless and malevolent. Standing tall as a man, they were massively built, great sloping shoulders supporting unnaturally long arms that ended in gnarled and twisted hands with curving yellow talons extending from the fingers. Their bodies, covered with bristling hair, sported huge chests, powerful legs that twisted wrongly to a human’s eye. Splayed feet, that were closer to paws, churned loam as they ran, long, sharp claws probing from hairy toes. They were naked, save for their hair and enormous genitals swung horribly between their thighs. Their heads were of many animal types, wrought loathsomely into vaguely man-like configurations. Raven saw things that resembled cats with glowing yellow eyes and needle-pointed fangs; dog heads that slavered and snarled through curled, pink lips; porcine snouts with twisted tusks and dripping bristles; horned heads that rammed and butted; and others she could not describe.

A tusked thing slammed against the shield of the man on her right, the sheer fury of its charge knocking him back. Raven cut down over the shield, carving a crimson wedge from the snout. The creature bellowed, curving its head towards her. She drew back her arm and her shield-mate’s axe hacked deep into the thick neck, severing head from humped shoulders. The pig-beast went down as Raven turned to face a yowling monstrosity that sprang in towards her, seeking to leap over the shield-wall. She rammed her blade up, spitting the thing before it could cross the line, feeling blood splatter thickly over the parts of her face not covered by her helmet. Her blade was sunk deep into the Beastman’s guts, but still it snapped and twisted, dragging the sword down as It fell. Raven twisted the metal viciously, tearing it loose so that the creature fell back with a hole gaping between its hips, long pipes of dripping entrails tumbling about its paws as it began to snap at its own innards.

Most of the Beastmen fought with fang and claw, horns or tusks, though a few swung swords or stolen axes; all fought with the insensate fury of rabid animals. Their attack was guided by raw blood-lust rather than intelligent planning and that, even though they outnumbered the rievers, gave the sea-wolves a fighting chance.

Gondar’s men, though weary, were well-disciplined. And they lusted to revenge their slaughtered comrades. The shield-wall, alerted by Raven’s cry, blocked the first wild rush of howling monsters, axes and swords flickering like lethal tongues of bloodied steel from between the bucklers. Three men were wounded in that first onslaught, and they fell back to the centre of the circle where they cut down any Beastman managing to break through. Raven had seized a fallen shield, setting it on her left arm over the cured and pointed guard of her sleeve-shield. Spellbinder followed suit, flanking Gondar, his silvered helm dark with blood.

Raven glanced towards him; screamed a warning as a dark shape burst from the overhanging foliage.

Screaming, a creature that was more cat than man, the fur covering its body striped with tawny lines, its jaws gaping great fangs, talons extended from hands and feet, dropped upon the warrior. Spellbinder swung his shield up, smashing the edge against the cat-thing’s chest. The Beastman was winded by the blow, but the force of his plunge staggered Spellbinder from the wall. Instantly, shield closed on shield as sea-wolves shifted position to close the gap. Two more Beastmen dropped, occupying the wounded men within the circle, leaving Spellbinder to fight alone.

Off balance, he was thrown to his knees by the second spring of the snarling, spitting creature, using the shield to fend off the tearing claws. A paw slammed against his helmet, smashing him hard onto the ground. Raven leapt across to guard him, lifting her shield. She blocked the attack, slashing viciously across the Beastman’s chest. Her blade carved a line of crimson through the tawny fur and the creature wrenched back. Spellbinder took advantage of its movement, springing to his feet with the Quwhon steel stabbing for snout and eyes. Raven cut it once more, then found her place in the defence line. Like a cornered tiger, the Beastman panicked, directing all his energy into an attack. His legs hunched before straightening like unleashed springs he leapt for Spellbinder’s throat. The black-mailed warrior swung his shield up to defend his face, halting the leap in mid-air. For an instant the Beastman hung from the shield, his clawed feet raking emptiness as he sought to rip Spellbinder’s stomach. Then the black blade curved round in a great arc that ended where the creature’s upper body joined its hips. A spray of carmine fountained over the clearing and the Beastman twisted back, his spine severed. Spellbinder put an end to the thing’s agony with a second blow and left it twitching as he rejoined the outer ring of defenders.

A further rush of Beastmen pressed the attack, seeking to break the defensive ring of shields and drive the sea-wolves into the undergrowth. Gondar bellowed for his men to stand firm though there was little need to remind them of the danger. Each man was aware of what would befall him should he become separated from his companions in the reeking thickets surrounding them.

A third time, then a fourth, the Beastmen hurled their warped bodies at the shields. Riever swords stained darkly red, the hilts becoming slippery with malodorous blood, axes rose and fell like massive cleavers in some horrendous charnel house, and all around the clearing corpses promised a rich feasting for the waiting insects. A fifth rush was repulsed and a lull fell over the battleground. Sea-wolves waited tensely for the animal-things to charge again; Beastmen crouched, snarling, on the edge of the jungle, eyes of yellow and of red glaring insanely at the defenders.

Then there was a strange, shrill howling that set the hairs along a man’s back to prickling, and the Beastmen paused, listening.

The howling was like no sound any of them had heard before. Deeper than the shriek of a cat, shriller than a wolf’s cry, it contained elements of both. Sea-wolves who had hacked flesh with eager battle-shouts joined forefinger to thumb in the sigh of the All-Mother; Raven felt her mouth go dry as a shudder passed through her. There was something in the sound that was even less natural than the ghastly appearance of their attackers, as though some demon yowled from the bowels of a beastly hell. Then it was silent, the Beastmen turning as one to vacate the clearing. They left as swiftly as they had come, fading back into the shadows, fleeting shapes that were gone from sight before the last echoes of that awful sound died away among the reeking, gloomy trees.

For long moments the battered group stood alert behind the, overlapping shields, then, slowly, they relaxed. Axes were grounded, swords sheathed, and men let their shoulders slump with the weariness that follows a long and hard-fought battle. There was no movement from behind the blank wall of the jungle, save for the scufflings of small animals, the growing agitation of insects anxious to plunder the bodies. The Beastmen were departed.

‘We march!’ Gondar’s shout started them from the trance-like state into which they had fallen. ‘Make the turtle.’

Shields lifted, edge lapping over edge above them, others flanked their sides, and three rievers—the last in the line—slung their bucklers over their shoulders to guard the rear of the column. Raven marched beside Spellbinder, Gondar to her left. Shields enfolded them all like the scales of some gigantic lizard that plodded resolutely through the jungle presenting an armoured hide to all comers.

It was hard going, for the protecting shields seemed to hold in the damp heat of the place, making the sweat run down their faces, rendering mail salt-sticky, undershirts damply uncomfortable. Spiders plopped thickly onto the uplifted bucklers, and several times there was the thud of a heavier body, though no one looked to see what it might be. They marched slowly, expecting an ambush, and they covered some ten klis before Gondar called for the shields to go down announcing a halt.

They stopped with an audible sigh of relief, gathering at the centre of the trail to draw on waterbags and cleanse wounds. Gondar motioned for Raven and Spellbinder to join him, and they came together with the king and Toril Gruntson in urgent council.

‘What do you know of these creatures?’ asked the Lifebane. ‘Will they attack again, or are they defeated?’

‘I think we are safe for the moment,’ ventured Spellbinder. ‘I have the feeling they were called off.’

‘By what?’ Toril spoke, his face grim, anger and awe mingling with a hint of fear. ‘The thing that made that sound?’

‘Yes,’ said Spellbinder. ‘Every pack has its leader, and these Beastmen are more animal than human. The creature that made that cry was—I’d venture—the leader of this pack.’

‘There are more?’ Gondar said sombrely. ‘You speak of packs the way a farmer talks of winter wolves: in numbers.’

Spellbinder used a broad leaf to wipe blood from his sword, his eyes dark, the comers of his mouth twisted down as though in disgust.

‘I know little of the Beastmen for they are not creatures given to ordinary communication. That they dwelt within the fastness of the Ishkar jungle, I knew. Their numbers, their organisation—those things are known to no one. Occasionally a pack may be dominated by an outsider, a man strong enough to kill the pack leader in battle; sometimes then, the others will follow that man. In such fashion are they used in battle, though rarely, for they are unpredictable at best.

‘The first killings were intended, I think, to warn us. Now we have penetrated too deep into their domain, so that they feel threatened. Hence their attack.’

‘And now,’ grunted Gondar, ‘that we press on, how will they feel?’

‘Angry, I imagine,’ replied Spellbinder directly. ‘If what little I know of them is true, they will mass a great pack to destroy us. Unless we can reach their lair before they have time to summon in the others.’