Best Laid Plans (52 page)

‘Quickly,’ Thindamura croaked, flicking his tongue from side to side. ‘We must go up.’

Albert ducked inside the fissure and set the box down.

‘What are you doing?’ Thindamura said.

‘Buying us some time.’ Albert opened the box. ‘You hop along and I’ll catch up.’

Thindamura looked back at his fellow hybrids, saw the futility of helping them, and bounded up the slope before him.

Mamba backed into the opening, swinging his mighty arms and pulping rotten flesh. Baru fought for every inch of ground, snapping with his jaws and using his huge hands to break necks or batter limbs. The tide of undead continued to swell and the two hybrids were forced to retreat.

Mamba almost stepped on Albert as the assassin snatched up three glass orbs and hurled them. Light flared amidst a deafening crash and scores of corpses were blown apart. The smell of cooking meat wafted into the fissure. Albert shuffled up the slope a little way, pulling the box behind him. Mamba’s bulk filled the opening; he was pounding and hissing as he fought to keep the mass of undead back.

Albert selected a couple of pitons and a mallet and proceeded to hammer one either side of the fissure. Mamba retreated before the horde as Albert pulled out a fluid filled cylinder with a metal nozzle. He turned it around to get some sort of understanding of its mechanism. There was a trigger of sorts, like those he’d seen on crossbows. He wedged the body of the device into a crack, secured it with scree, and began to rig it to his tripwire. Mamba stepped over him and Baru backed into the opening still clubbing left and right, but tiring visibly. He swung his head towards Albert.

‘You need to go. Now!’

Albert made a few adjustments and then scrambled up the slope after Mamba. He looked back as Baru cried out. Bloodless hands grabbed the hybrid and dragged him down. Albert knew he should have gone back, but that really wasn’t his style. He was about to resume his ascent when he saw a vast shadow descend upon the undead. Murgah Muggui ripped into them with her mandibles, pinned them down with her legs, and angled her bulbous body to bring her stinger to bear. Baru broke free and reached the fissure whilst the giant spider thrashed about, cutting a swath through the corpses. Her bulk backed towards the opening as she held off the throng of undead, but then something silver glinted in the cave. It was a sphere that sped through the air to the accompaniment of a shrill whirring whine. Murgah Muggui must have known what it was and tried to withdraw, but a beam of blinding light discharged from a nozzle in the sphere and she screamed. For an instant, Albert saw her innards, as if she had been struck by lightning, and then Murgah Muggui burst into flame. Her flesh roasted, giving off gouts of black smoke, and her limbs twitched and contracted.

‘No!’ Baru cried, stepping towards her.

‘It’s too late,’ Albert said. ‘You have to keep moving.’

He scurried down, took hold of Baru by the shoulders, and turned him towards the slope. The hybrid let out a mournful cry and clambered upwards. Albert retrieved the box, stepped over his tripwire, and followed.

He’d gone only a few feet when he heard a high-pitched whir behind him. Instinctively, he hit the ground and light lanced over him, blasting a hole in the rock. He dragged the box around a bend, opened it, and fumbled around inside until he found another of the cylindrical weapons. He cradled it in his arms, located the trigger, and waited with his back pressed to the wall.

Baru turned and started back towards him.

‘No,’ Albert hissed. ‘Get out of here.’

The silver sphere rounded the corner and Albert pressed the trigger. Flame gushed from the nozzle and struck the sphere, hurling it into the wall. It spun frantically, emitting a shrill scream and discharging beams of light in random directions. Albert kept firing as it turned first red and then white. The screaming rose to a crescendo and the sphere crashed to the ground. Albert didn’t release the trigger until the flames ran out.

The dead lurched through the fissure, jamming each other in the opening as they blindly sought out prey. Finally, one of them squeezed through and lumbered forward, right into Albert’s trip wire. Flame shot across the passageway, melting flesh and filling the fissure with acrid smoke.

Albert nodded his satisfaction before setting off after the hybrids, dragging the box with him.

What the hell was he doing? He should never have been here. First Master Frayn’s madcap scheme, and then Shadrak’s double-edged rescue. This wasn’t Albert’s kind of work. He was a poisoner, not some desperado making a last stand just to save a bunch of freaks worshipped by savages.

Strong hands grabbed him and pulled him further up the slope.

‘Give me the box,’ Baru said. ‘You must move quickly.’

Already, the dead had passed through the flames and were closing inexorably.

‘How far have we got to go?’ Albert asked.

‘A long way. We will tire before we reach the top, but these dead things will not.’

‘You go,’ Albert said. ‘I’ll see if I can slow them down.’

Baru glared at him and then nodded, clambering up into the darkness.

Albert carried the box around another bend and then scooped out the rest of the orbs. He’d used up all the fire cylinders and had no time to rig another trap. Instead, he placed all the orbs but one on the ground— fifteen of them. Holding the last orb, he backed away and waited.

Within moments, groping hands appeared, followed by a great swarm of cadavers lumbering towards him with frenzied eyes.

‘Here we go,’ Albert told himself. ‘Trusting it all on one last throw of the die.’

He hurled the sphere into the midst the others and threw himself around the corner. The passageway shook as a thunderous roar rolled along the fissure and a blast of heat scorched his back. Howls went up from the undead and the smell of burning flesh followed.

Albert waited for the heat to pass, found his feet, and ran as fast as his chunky legs would allow him.

The hybrids waited further up. Baru dropped behind to guard the rear whilst Thindamura kept the lead, hopping ahead and then crouching impatiently as the others caught up. At first, Albert thought he’d stopped the dead, but after half an hour of arduous climbing he could hear shambling and groaning pursuing them up the fissure.

The hybrids seemed deflated by the death of Murgah Muggui, but still they kept moving upwards, although Albert had the impression they did so purely for his sake. To his mind, they had given up.

Finally, Thindamura climbed some knobs in the passage wall and disappeared from sight. A moment later he reappeared.

‘It is here,’ he said. ‘The opening to the summit.’

The groaning of the dead echoed up behind them as first Mamba, and then Albert, followed Thindamura up the natural chimney. Baru brought up the rear.

‘They are close,’ he said, his crocodile jaws clacking. ‘And they are many.’

Daylight spilled through an aperture above them and Thindamura leaned over the lip to offer Mamba a hand. The snake-man did the same for Albert, who emerged into blinding sunlight with Baru climbing out behind him.

Albert blinked and saw that they were on a vast rocky surface high above a sprawling red desert. The expanse of limestone was immense, like a giant’s tabletop that ran for hundreds of yards in every direction. The clouds were so low it looked like he could step on them.

‘Keep moving,’ Thindamura said, leading them away from the opening.

The first of the dead poked its head out and hissed, and soon corpses were spilling from the hole without end.

Albert was too exhausted to run, but he managed to stumble along behind the hybrids as they vainly sought a way to escape. They’d made it no more than a hundred yards when Thindamura stopped, his eyes goggling, tongue hanging flaccidly.

A figure had appeared upon a ridge at the far end of the Homestead. It was more bone than flesh, and wreathed in strips of mildewed fabric and dust-clogged cobwebs. Red eyes blazed at them across the distance.

A grey creature flapped down beside it on bat’s wings, and a shadowy shape drifted to its side.

Mamba hissed, his tongue tasting the air.

‘Is it him?’ Baru asked.

‘I think ssso,’ Mamba said.

Albert looked behind where the undead were still pouring from the hole. There were already hundreds of them, and yet still they came.

‘Look,’ Thindamura said.

Albert turned back to the three figures. The skeleton held its hands high, amber light suffusing them. A jagged black crack rent the air before it, widening like a colossal maw. In the opening, armoured riders appeared astride skeletal steeds. There must have been nearly two hundred of them, all in rusty chainmail and corroded helms. Flames flared from the horses’ nostrils and an icy chill rolled out across the summit.

The skeleton then looked up at the sky, power pouring from its hands in pillars of amber fire. The heavens split like ripped fabric and admitted
a cobalt wash. Black flecks filled alien skies, swooping nearer, until Albert saw they had the faces of feral women and broad leather wings. There were so many that the sky turned black.

The hybrids looked at each other, shoulders slumped in defeat.

‘The Kryeh,’ Mamba said, his voice flat and lifeless. ‘We are undone.’

As scores of winged demons dived from the sky and a horde of undead closed in from behind, Albert could only watch in terror as the knights on fleshless horses charged.

G
eneral Starn felt out of place, but that was nothing unusual. The Emperor was issuing demands to General Binizo of the Templum army and Binizo was politely, but doggedly, rebuffing him. The Ipsissimus stood back from the arguing, his attention focused on the antics of the Dreamer shaman and the boy. Huntsman was standing on one leg shaking a gourd whilst the boy scrabbled around on the ground and occasionally cast dirt into the air. Both seemed enraptured, their eyes almost pure white, their mouths frothing. The Grand Master of the Elect, Ignatius Grymm, looked on with barely suppressed disdain, and Deacon Shader was talking with a sandy-haired lad, his eyes all the while flicking towards a white-robed woman with long black hair.

Rulers, commanders, and heroes, by all accounts. And then there was Starn. Oh, he was officially a general, but titles meant nothing, not when you knew yourself as well as Starn did. He’d always worked hard, he granted himself that, but he was under no illusions about why he’d risen so high. The Emperor considered him a bit of a dullard, a “yes man”, and who was Starn to disagree with him? He’d masqueraded as someone important for too long. Once this battle was over, he was slipping off with Mrs Starn somewhere the army couldn’t find him. He’d saved enough money for a bit of land, and Mrs Starn was as green-fingered as they came. A nice little smallholding outback where no one was likely to disturb them—

‘Don’t you agree, General Starn?’ the Emperor said.

Starn nodded automatically and puffed out his chest as he turned back to the strategic debate. So far, his only role had been to concur with the Emperor. He’d missed whatever was under discussion, but his opinion didn’t seem to carry much weight in any case.

General Binizo was watching him with one eyebrow raised. The man was as proud as a peacock and dressed immaculately in a red jacket and white breeches. His knee-length boots were polished so much Starn could see his reflection in them. Now there was a real general, he thought to himself.

‘You realize what you’re agreeing to, General Starn?’ Binizo asked.

‘Uh, yes. Quite.’ Starn put on his best gruff voice.

‘You’ll be blind to whatever lies on the other side of this…this magical doorway our friends are conjuring.’ Binizo nodded at the Dreamer and the boy, both of whom were now chanting in some indecipherable tongue and making circular motions with their arms. ‘There’s no telling what you might run into.’

Oh.
Starn hadn’t thought of that. If only he’d been listening.

‘Not a problem for the Heavy Foot, eh, Starn?’ the Emperor said, clapping him on the shoulder.

‘The Foot, Emperor?’

‘That’s right, General. Haven’t you heard a thing we’ve been saying? I need my best man in the vanguard. You take charge of the regiment, and I’ll coordinate the bulk of the army.’