Ascendance (14 page)

Dave shook his head and jumped back to his feet, throwing off the last of his disorientation. The Grymm had lured them here. Another Guyuk trap most likely. And he’d stepped into it again. Only the flames, which even the Grymm cringed away from, and the twisted steel beams prevented the elite daemonum warriors from swarming the apartment. The Sliveen were down, one shot and the other opened up like a piñata by Karen’s sword work, but she was out of ammunition and fighting two of the Grymm on her own. The daemons held cleavers and wielded them with greater speed and skill than any ham-fisted Hunn, dominant or otherwise. Karen was moving so quickly to block and deflect and parry that she was just an impression of movement rather than something you could perceive and analyse. Dave had a flash of insight, understanding that she was using and being used by her weapon, just as he had been by Lucille. The bright blur of razor sharp steel rang like bells and neither of the Grymm were able to close with her for a killing stroke of their own. But nor could she break through their defences.

Another Grymm emerged from the breach and joined the assault on Karen. She started to give ground against them. Dave took a step in their direction, meaning to charge into the fray with Lucille, but he realised with a start that he no longer held her. He could hear her, muted and far away, but the mad beauty of her song was not in his head. It was nearby but distant. Another Grymm, this one armed with a war hammer of its own, made it through the tangle of steel and fire and ran straight at Karen, horned feet pounding on the hardwood floor.

For the briefest instant they were all silhouetted against the backdrop of the burning city and then Dave was charging into the fray too. He was exhausted, all but drained, and he wasn’t sure how he’d moved so quickly. He was dizzy and confused and not completely certain what he was doing, just that he’d picked up the nearest heavy object he could find and set his course for the daemonic threshing machine bearing down on Karin Varatchevsky. The words of his old football coach came back to him.
Leave nothing in the tank Dave. Nothing in the tank
. Well, he was running on fumes when he slammed into them with an enormous crash, like a truck running a stop light, and then three of the Grymm and one large, brushed steel refrigerator were flying through space, out of the window and tumbling down, end over end to the street far below. Dave almost followed them out into the void, but felt himself jerked back at the last second. Karen’s fist was bunched up in the collar of his coveralls, which ripped under the strain. He choked as she drove a kick into the remaining warrior, not targeting its well-protected centre mass, but the knee joint of its leading leg, which was planted firmly to provide a solid base for the mighty swing of its war hammer. Dave heard the joint come apart with a wet, crunching explosion of shattered gristle and bone. The Grymm’s shout of pain and surprise died to a gurgle on the point of her sword.

It was too late though. There were too many of them. Lucille was nowhere Dave could see and only a faint mournful sigh reached him from where she lay. He had nothing more to spend in this fight. Karen was hunched over, trying to draw in a ragged breath, her eyes dark hollows as more Grymm poured into the room. Her gun was gone. She had trouble holding her sword. They were done. Nothing left. No reserves to draw on.

It was time to die, the hero’s journey over.

14

N
obody ate the camera guy, but he did have a Sliveen bolt through his thigh, an injury he’d picked up attempting to flee. Threshy was torn between relief that the asshole hadn’t escaped, and irritation that he couldn’t do his job properly. The Grymm were not equipped to tend the wounds of human captives, or even remotely disposed toward the idea. In the end, they were all going into the blood pot, so why bother? If one died and spoiled there was always another tasty, slow-moving snack to replace them.

Polly, the helpful intern, put another down-payment on her deliverance by suggesting they patch the cameraman up with the first-aid kit in the news van, and another woman, a midwife who’d been making her way home to the towers when she was caught up in the ambush, helped with cleaning and binding the wound. The camera guy wouldn’t be running any marathons, or even putting any weight on the injured limb for a long time, but they found a couple of plastic milk crates for him to sit on and that was enough. His sound man was missing, most likely fled, but the ever-obliging Polly proved more than equal to the task of holding a boom mike.

Compt’n ur Threshrend had his press conference.

A pre-record.

He wasn’t dumb enough to go live and call down an air strike on their asses. And, as a bonus, if he fluffed a line he could go back and do it again. The Grymm led their prisoners through the grounds of the college, away from the car park which Threshy judged to be way too exposed. Thousands of residents in the project towers had a direct line of sight down on them, even if their attention was wholly taken by the war bands running amok inside the housing development.

A playground area behind the main campus building, with good overhead cover from a stand of elm trees, promised enough space to corral the prisoners off camera, deploy the guard and record the presser. Guyuk was so much taller than Threshy that framing the shot was not a simple exercise. Camera guy, who was more than willing to cooperate for a chance at not being chewed to pieces, eventually declared himself satisfied with Threshy in the foreground, Guyuk looming over him a few metres behind, silently mouthing the line of script he’d been given. A shield wall of Lieutenants, Sergeants and warriors Grymm blocked most of the rainbow motif that would otherwise have rendered the shot even more strikingly perverse.

‘People of Earth,’ roared Threshy, before collapsing into fits of giggles. Threshrendum physiology had not evolved to express delight in humour of any sort, and it was a toss-up who was more unsettled by the empath daemon’s lulz: the Grymm or their terrified captives.

‘Threshrend!’ barked Guyuk when his patience ran out, which was pretty quickly. ‘Compose yourself.’

‘Sorry, boss,’ wheezed Threshy, still attempting to get some control over his laughing fit. ‘Sort of ass-planted into the ironic butt crack between reality and perception there.’

The calflings exchanged confused and worried glances.

The lord commander flexed his fore-claws, giant muscles bunching up and down his arms, causing the elaborate artwork tattooed into his hide to move and twist with sinuous grace. He gathered his temper with an obvious effort of will and growled, ‘Get on with it. Or do you forget the Dave is about in this settlement?’

Threshy bounced up and down, eager to please and only a little sobered by the mention of Hooper.

‘Okay. Okay. I’m on it. And don’t worry about the Dave. We got his number. So, Polly? We good, here?’

She nodded nervously.

‘Still recording.’

‘Okay.’ Threshy banged his fore-claws together, and took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Just edit this bit out. Take it from “People of Earth”. Okay?’

The light on the news camera glowed green. Polly dipped her head to him. The prisoners watched on anxiously.

‘People of Earth,’ said Threshy, managing to control his mirth. ‘I am Compt’n ur Threshrend, dar Superiorae dar Threshrendum ur Grymm. I speak for Lord Commander Guyuk ur Grymm, and through him for our Dread Majesty, She of the Horde.’

He let go a nervous breath and it came out like a serpent’s hiss, which was totally in character, so he went with it. As far as possible, he knew he had to be more Compt’n than Trev’r, but it was not easy. The imprint of the first mind absorbed had shaped all that came after.

‘Your greatest city lies prone before us. Like a bitch . . . Gah!’

He threw up his claws and stomped a few feet away. His video crew stood easy, or as easy as they could on the lip of the blood pot.

‘Come on, Threshy,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Get into fucking character. You can totes do this.’


He heard Guyuk’s low animal growl and spun quickly on the lord commander, whose patience he was sorely testing.

‘My bad! It’s just the, er, the rituals of the calfling speaking ceremonies, they are not simple, my Lord. No, some crazy-ass complicated rituals we’re into here. But, just gimme some space. I don’t want to fuck this up. It’ll bring the Hammer of fucking Dawn down on us.’

A lie, but one he could sell. Guyuk had never played
Gears of War
and any mention of mysterious human dawn hammers was more than enough to quiet an uppity daemon with a sunburn phobia. The lord commander said nothing, but relaxed out of his formal stance. Behind him, armour plate clattered softly and chain mail clinked as the solid shield wall of warriors Grymm relaxed slightly out of their own rigid postures.

‘Sir? Maybe if you forget about the audience and just tell me?’

It was Polly again. Sweet, helpful Polly.

‘Yeah,’ said Threshy. ‘Awesome. Thanks Polly.’

Man, it’d be a real shame to have to eat her brains later.

‘Okay. Can you cut from my intro? Pick it up from “She of the Horde”?’

The two humans exchanged a wordless look which spoke loudly to the weirdness of whatever they’d got themselves into.

‘Sure,’ said Polly. ‘We’ll pick it up from the Horde. Mike? You good to roll?’

The cameraman adjusted himself on the makeshift seating of the milk crates and agreed that he was. He shouldered the camera, and Polly moved the boom mic back in, just out of shot. Threshy moved back to his mark, took a moment, and continued on as though he’d never interrupted himself. He heard the Grymm Guard snap to attention again.

‘Okay. So . . .
Your great city lies prone before us
. The least of our Horde makes play within its walls. We are not the dumbasses . . . Fuck! Can we do that again?’

Polly signalled for him to just go on.

‘We are not the idiot foe you met in Omaha and New Orleans. We are the Grymm ur Horde and we could end you this night. The war bands my master Guyuk ur Grymm has unleashed on this city, they are nothing. The least of our untried, untested ranks. Know this, just one of the warriors you see behind me
. . .’

He turned aside to give the camera a better shot of the Grymm shield wall.

‘. . . just one of them could kick the ass . . . D’oh! . . . Fuck. Okay. All right. Let me go again . . . Just one of them is . . . would . . . Damn. Polly,’ he said, dropping out of character. ‘I’m trying to say my guys back there are like these awesome fucking death ninjas compared to these losers we got running around town tonight chewing on people and shit . . . but I’m like . . . what’s a good way of saying that, you think?’

Polly Farrell seemed to take a few seconds to process the question, or maybe just the fact of being asked it.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I guess you could say something like “Just one of my Lord’s Grim soldiers is the equal of”, what, a score of those other ones?’

‘Coolio,’ said Threshy. ‘That works. You could do this for a living. Ha! See what I did there? Again? Okay. Here we go. From the top . . . Just one Warrior Grymm is the equal of an entire, untrained war band. And the Grymm are legion.’

He really liked that bit. It reminded him of his cunning plan to totally fuck up the Dave.

‘You cannot hold out against them. There is nowhere safe. My lord commander . . .’ he indicated Guyuk who knew enough to play along by growling at the camera, ‘can place his forces wherever he chooses, whenever he wants. You are not safe in your strongholds, your homes, anywhere. You know . . .’

He almost said ‘You know I’m not bullshitting you’, but stilled Thresh-Trev’r’s tongue at the last moment.

‘You know this to be true. And we will prove it to you, night after night until you submit to the will and the protection of Her Majesty.’

He paused for a moment to let that sink in.

‘There is only one path . . . Let me do that again, Polly . . . There is but one path to redemption. Submit to She of the Horde. Pay Her the tribute She is due, and She will deliver you from evil.’

Threshy had to concentrate fiercely now as he channelled Compt’n over all the roiling minds he had consumed. His vision greyed out at the edges with the effort.

‘The Horde is not the worst of what is yet come upon you. The UnderRealms are limitless. The dangers infinite. You cannot stand alone. Submit to Her will and find deliverance. Resistance is futile.’

He almost lost it again at that, but managed to hold in the wild braying laughter that wanted to burst out between his fang tracks.

‘She will lay waste to another two of your cities. Then you will come to terms with Her.’

Threshy swivelled his eyestalks toward the Master of the Ways who opened a new portal at the signal. The camera swung in that direction at the gasps of astonishment coming from the prisoners. A protean cell of negative space hovered over the painted asphalt of the playground.

‘GRYMM UR HORDE!’

The roar of the lord commander’s guard sounded as loud as cannon shot. The shield wall turned as one and marched into the portal, disappearing through the rift between worlds, one by one.

Lord Commander Guyuk ur Grymm leaned forward as the camera swung back on to Threshy. This was his cameo.

‘I’ll be back,’ he snarled in heavily accented English.

‘And . . . we’re out!’

*

The small green light on the strange device blinked out. The wounded calfling, the ‘camera-human’ lowered his equipage, and the warriors Grymm came stomping back through the portal into the Above. It all struck Lord Guyuk as a bizarre contrivance. To give the Threshrend his due, however, he seemed entirely comfortable orchestrating the foolishness.

‘It is done then, Superiorae?’

‘Done and dusted, my Lordiness.’

‘Excellent.’ Guyuk barked an order at his senior Lieutenant. ‘Gather the cattle. We shall withdraw to await the –’

‘Whoa . . . Back that up,’ said Threshy. ‘Ain’t no cattle being gathered up here tonight.’

Guyuk’s expression was cold.

‘Say you what, Superiorae?’

‘They gotta go, boss. We promised them freedom if they cooperated and shit, and they cooperated. And shit.’

Guyuk, who alone amongst the highest councils of the Horde had forced himself to think of the cattle as more than just livestock, still had trouble comprehending the Threshrend’s intent. These captives, after all, did not hail from one of the human war clans. They were no armed faction. With no power to demand honourable consideration, they were not entitled to such. Lord Guyuk needed no empathic link to a Threshrend daemon to know that human war clans fought fiercely across the metropolis this night. He could hear the crash and thunder of their weaponry within bolt shot. The night sky, normally a dark cover under which daemonum might pass unharmed by the foul heat and light of the sun, was no cover at all. The iron Drakon of humanity roared across the stars and spat terrible fire down on any war band foolish enough to be caught in the open.

As his thrall was right now.

Compt’n ur Threshrend had assured him the men would not fire on them whilst they were protected by proximity to so many calflings. But that was surely even more reason to hurry them through the portal back to the UnderRealms? A lesser commander would have damned the eyestalks of his impudent consul and backhanded the underling through the rift himself. But Guyuk knew they were engaged in the first moments of a long war, not merely a hard battle, and Compt’n knew more of this enemy than any of Her Majesty’s most venerated officers.

‘Why must we release these captives then, Superiorae?’ he asked, his voice tired but patient. ‘And be sharp with your answer. I would have us quit this field with all dispatch now that our mission be done.’


‘Well, you see, it’s not all done, boss. My intern still has to cut the package together, and then we gots to be sure it drops into the channel and . . .’

‘Threshrend,’ growled Guyuk.

‘I know, I know. Two things. The ritual of communication is only half done. I need to be sure it’s like, nailed, right. And . . . this is important . . . we didn’t come here to just frighten peeps, as much fucking fun as that always is. We came to confuse them. To, you know, sow confusion in their ranks and shit. And I promise you, dude, we let these guys go’ – Compt’n ur Threshrend gestured toward the captured cattle – ‘and they’ll go bleating and mooing and shit about how the Horde can’t be all bad and we can be trusted. And because we
are
bad and we totally
cannot
be trusted, we can totes use that against them later. You see? I’m not being merciful. I’m being a sneaky motherfucker.’

‘Sneaky is acceptable,’ Guyuk conceded. ‘But what now of these rituals? This package that must be cut?’

He raised his war cleaver.

‘Whoa. No. Different kind of cutting. Just lemme check.’

The Threshrend scuttled over to the pair of human adepts who had assisted with the ritual. They conferred in the wet, garbled tongue of the cattle while the other calflings watched on in fear, aware somehow that their fate was being determined. The warriors Grymm encircled their lord commander, looking to the skies for iron Drakon, watching the ground approaches for any sign of human soldiers. Above them, Sliveen scouts flitted across the uppermost battlements of the large stone keep painted in the noxious colours of the sky ribbons one heard of in the Above. Guyuk wondered how the campaign progressed elsewhere in the vast city. It vexed him that he could not follow the small and relatively simple incursion on a sand table or even the Diwan’s altar, as he might a much greater battle. It was not a care for his own safety that pulled him back toward the portal; rather the promise of attending to the reports of his scouts. Unlike Compt’n ur Threshrend, he was no empath.