Valkeryn 2: The Dark Lands (16 page)

Arn smiled down at him. ‘Penny for them.’

Grimson frowned, and Arn translated.

‘What’s on your mind, Grim?’

Grimson tilted his head, and tried an imperious look. ‘You know Arn, if I had a big brother, he’d be just like you.’ He raised his chin a little higher. ‘And that would make you a prince as well.’

‘A Man-Kind for a brother?’

The youth laughed. ‘No, I mean he’d be smart and strong, and ah, my friend.’ He grinned. ‘Like you.’

Arn bowed his thanks, and once again as he stared at him in the morning light, he thought the Wolfen’s features seemed a little less wolf-like, and a little more… normal to him.
Perhaps I’m adjusting to the way they look
, he thought.

‘Well then, Grimson, consider me your honorary brother, and friend for life.’ Arn held out his fist. Grimson looked at it, and went to grab it.

Arn shook his head. ‘No, no, you make a fist too.’

Grimson did as he was requested.

‘Now punch my fist.’ Grimson raised his eyebrows and followed the instruction.

‘Good. It means we agree, and will work together, fight together, and always be there for each other forever. Because we are… friends.’

‘Do it again.’ Grimson’s face had broken open in a wide smile.

Arn lifted his fist once again, and Grimson punched it with gusto. ‘Brothers!’

*

Arn and Grimson leapt from stone to stone. The going was a lot easier on the river’s edge even if it meant they were more exposed than when they were worming their way through the dense jungle. The bank of the river mainly consisted of sun-warmed, rounded rocks, worn smooth by moving water that was once deeper or faster than it was now – either it had been wetter in the past, or the area was subject to flooding – Arn would need to watch the skies.

Some of the boulders were enormous, rubbed so smooth they looked polished, and had the most magnificent colored striping. Grimson would often scale some of the biggest for the view, or simply for the challenge. At the top of one of the largest, he stood with his hands on his hips, looking further up the stream. He got on his toes, trying to see over the tops of some far trees, and then leapt into the air to gain an extra foot of height. When he landed, he frowned and looked down at his feet.

‘Strange.’

Arn stopped a few feet ahead and turned. ‘What is?’

‘This big rock.’ He took out his small blade and turned it around to pound on the surface with the pommel. ‘Sounds hollow.’ He brought he knife down again, harder.

The rock moved. Grimson got to his face, his brow creased. The rock moved again, this time rising a few feet.

‘Whoa.’ Grimson had his hands out to his sides, surfer like. The massive boulder rose up beneath him, and a grey trunk like neck began to extend, glistening in the sunlight. When its head reached a length of about nine feet, and as thick around as Arn’s thigh, two smaller stalks extended from its very tip. Bulbs appeared on the end of each stalk and they popped open, swinging around individually to blink slowly at the small Wolfen on its back.

Grimson fell back on his rump as the thing rose out of its resting hole, and slid towards the river. Arn ran towards him, holding out his hands.

‘Grim, jump.’

Grimson was now lifted on the back of the giant snail to about twelve feet in the air as the monstrous thing slid soundlessly to the water’s edge. The ever-present fish swarmed around it momentarily, but then parted, leaving the great gastropod alone – either the sticky looking flesh was unpalatable to their taste, or its hide was a lot tougher than their razor teeth could penetrate.

The snail didn’t slow, and proceeded slide out into the clear water. Arn guessed it was either amphibious or aquatic, and was about to use the water to dislodge the annoying thing that had taken up residence on its back.

‘Get off now, Grim, before it’s too far out.’

Too late. Already, he was marooned a dozen feet from the riverbank, with the moving island continuing out to deeper water. Arn knew that Grimson’s flesh would be far more enjoyable than the giant snail’s, and even though Wolfen were extremely athletic, the leap now was beyond him.

The snail started to sink and Grimson backed up, ready to leap.

Arn knew he’d never make it. ‘Wait; when I say…’

Arn sprinted down the stony bank several dozen feet and entered the water to his knees. He began splashing in the shallows, and almost immediately the water rippled with the carnivorous fish jostling each other to greet him.

Arn cupped his mouth. ‘Now!’

Grimson leapt, landing six feet from the bank, and in water to his waist. Half the fish swirling around Arn turned toward the Wolfen, but Grimson was already tearing out of the shallows by the time they arrived. Arn spun with bumps, grazes, and bites accompanying him back to the riverbank.  As he stepped up on the sand, blood once again streaming down his legs, he turned back to see a flash of orange and silver create a hump in the water close in. This fish, like a giant groper, was easily eight feet long.

‘Ouch, and ouch.’ Arn flopped down on the warm stones and exhaled long and loud. The
feninlang
would soon stop his bleeding, but it could have done nothing for a missing leg. Grimson plonked down beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder. Together they watched the huge snail disappear beneath the water’s surface.

‘That was close. Thank you, Arnoddr.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ Arn closed his eyes. ‘I hate snails.’

‘You have those in your world – horrible.’

Arn sat forward and looked at Grimson with a crooked smile. ‘Sure do, but they’re smaller… and people eat them.’

‘Blech. By Odin’s beard – eat them?’ Grimson stuck out his tongue. ‘I think I hate snails too.’

Arn finished wiping some of the feninlang salve on his legs. ‘Let’s go, and no jumping on big rocks, or going in the water, or touching anything without asking me first. Got it?’

Grimson held out his fist. Arn punched it.

They made good time until they came across the large carcass of a recently slaughtered animal. Grimson looked at it and sniffed, the hair on the back of his head and shoulders rising.

‘Not good. Fresh kill… and not finished.’

Arn stared hard into the dark jungle, his small knife in his hand. ‘Know what it was?’

Grim shook his head, but backed up. ‘Smells like reptilon.’

Arn grunted. Reptilons were tiny skink like lizards that darted around the Valkeryn kingdom. The animal that had been attacked was easily five hundred pounds, so the attacker was something Arn didn’t want to face with just a tiny knife. It was obviously using the riverbank as its hunting ground.

Being caught between some large carnivorous reptile and a river full of flesh-eating fish was not a bottle-neck Arn wanted to find himself in anytime soon.

‘Let’s get out of here. We need to find a way across this river, and quick.’

They trotted now, Arn trying to watch the river, the jungle, what they were about to step on, and keep a lookout for a place to cross the river so he could continue his search for the strange people he had first encountered at the waterfall rim. He needed somewhere shallow, or even better, dry. He looked up – maybe thick branches reaching across and touching the opposite bank would do.

They had been following the river upstream for an hour now as it steadily rose to a mountain in the distance. Arn stopped to wipe his brow, and looked back at Grimson who trailed a few paces behind him. Standing on the broad bank, his hands on his hips as he sucked in air, his view was temporarily free of the canopy cover, and he could see across the treetops, all the way back to where they had first entered the jungles of the Dark Lands.

He grunted softly, surprised to see they had travelled so many miles from the cliffs. Even while he watched, the mist was rising as the final rays of the sun cut through. The mighty cliffs now appeared like a sheer white wall in the distance. The trees below it looked like one single living organism – impenetrable and crowded together, the wisps of mist or steam rising in some areas to lay like a gossamer sheet over some of the great green heads. It looked ancient, prehistoric.

‘And this is supposed to be the future?’ Arn raised a hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the sun, the huge yellow orb making the shadows on the gigantic rock face shrink in the golden light.

His mouth fell open in wonderment. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’  Arn stepped further out onto the bank, to get a better view.

‘Grim, look.’  He stared back at the cliffs – they would have been indistinct up close, but now he could see massive reliefs carved into the stone.

A giant figure was hewn into the cliff face. Not quite of Mount Rushmore quality, but not surprising considering it looked ancient and time-worn. It was depicted as wearing robes, and stood with arms by its sides, its body hundreds of feet high. The giant carving wasn’t perfect – how could it be, after countless seasons of weather and natural erosion? It was missing a face, so Arn couldn’t tell whether the figure was meant to be human or one of the other biped races now existing on the planet. However, something about it was recognizable, familiar.

Just below the mighty image there were carved words; his own language, and relatively clear. The distance forgave the deep cracks, fissures and rock falls that time had added.

Arn mouthed the words.

‘Hmm, something… STILL… LIVES. Okay, could be, HE STILL LIVES.’

‘Maybe that’s it. One of the legends about the disappearance of the human race was that we ascended to the stars. Perhaps before we did that, we left a message for the new peoples of the planet, telling them that one day we would return, that in fact we
still live
somewhere in the stars.’ He nodded, congratulating himself on his analysis of the giant message.

Grimson didn’t look convinced. ‘I think it is a carving of Fenrir, the father of us all. I think it is he that will return. He still lives and will return at the head of a mighty army and drive the Panterran and Lygon from our land.’  He smiled up at Arn.

‘Fenrir? Could be.’
We all see what we want to see
, Arn thought. He raised his eyebrows at the youth, and then looked back to the carvings, knowing that without a head, it could have been anything. Maybe even a member of the people he was now looking for. More reason to find them… and talk to them.

He thought the obliteration of the face was unfortunate – something about it looked strange. Though other areas of the body and words were heavily degraded, the face itself was wiped clean – more like deliberate erasing, rather than the effects of wind and water.

He patted Grim on the shoulder. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’ He turned and strode up the river’s edge again, Grimson hopping along beside him on one side, and the ever-present school of hungry fish on the other.

Chapter 22

Let’s Go Skin Some Cats

Briggs walked about fifty feet out from the group, and squatted down, placing one finger on her earpiece. She listened to a decoded information packet sent from base. The relay of communication spikes planted along their journey bounced their signal all the way back to the mouth of the distortion gate. The signal bouncer was fed more juice than an office block, but even so she had to concentrate as the words tended to drop out or become mushy as they passed through the vortex.

The update hadn’t been as good as she hoped, but it was expected – the distortion was spreading like some sort of giant gravitational infection. Time was now a commodity in short supply.

She checked her watch: twenty hundred hours – and her team had eaten, and had an hours rest. She’d march them for another four hours, rest for two, and then push on. It’d be punishing, but they could take it, and besides, they could sleep for a week when they returned.

At their temporary camps, they were deploying motion trackers and infrared at their perimeter, plus a few walking sentries for line-of sight security. Nothing would be paying them a surprise visit. Still, she was uneasy. She knew the creatures had the home ground advantage. Added to that, they were night hunters. Everything they had seen so far looked to have an ability to function at optimal level in both the dark and light.

I admit it, I’m spooked
, she thought. 

She got to her feet.
Another four hours, and then two hours kip.
She smiled without humor as she felt the stabbing pain in her muscles.
And that’s why they pay me the big bucks
, she thought, and then yelled to Samson to bring them to order.

*

‘It’s a castle.’ Becky sounded almost joyous in her exclamation.

Edward was also thankful, though perhaps not for the same reasons as his friend. He wanted to be cut free from Becky simply because they were now both naked, his small white body looking like some pale, soft grub next to Becky’s long, tanned and athletic physique. He tried not to look at her behind. He knew if he did, it would do something to his physiology, that if caught he knew he could never live down.

A while back, his need to urinate had grown to a point of painful cramping in his lower abdomen. He had leaned as far back from Becky as their joint leash would allow, and tried to walk sideways, in the hope of not splashing her as the yellow stream shot from him like a yellow cable. He knew he needed to be cut free, and soon. This was shameful enough – what would happen when the need to move his bowels came upon him? Already his nerves were making his stomach feel liquid and gassy.

In the shadow of the castle, a fetid smell of corruption began to permeate the atmosphere. The earth of the fields in front of the walls were torn and deeply furrowed, and flies blighted the air. What at first looked like rubbish heaps, were in fact mounds of broken bone, shattered armor, and flaps of ripped skin with the blood-matted fur still attached. Flies swarmed everywhere in a frenzy of feasting.

Edward tried to breathe though his mouth to avoid the smell, but had to clamp that closed for fear of sucking in the furious insects that boiled around them. He settled for short inhalations through gritted teeth. Looking up, he saw that the castle flew black banners marked with the image of a cat with yellow eyes and a merciless gaze. Around the turrets he noticed a mix of the huge orange and black beasts and the smaller hooded goblin-like creatures. Now that he saw the banner, he did think they resembled cats –cats from some demented nightmare. Perhaps these things had once been cats, or were descended from some creature like them. Now, their physical appearance was warped from the once feline beauty by a thousand, thousand generations of pure hate.

He was tugged forward again. The creatures on the wall stopped their sentry duty to stare down. Some of the larger beasts roared, the sound travelling in waves deep into Edward’s bones. He was glad the smaller goblins were able to keep the giants under control, as he knew that without them, they would be torn to shreds and devoured in seconds.