Dreams of Darkness Rising (10 page)

A glistening horse slowed to a canter as the rain eased off. Her legs slipped slightly on the slick rocks that lay strewn almost carelessly about the hillside. The grass was short and springy, covering the terrain like a quilted cloak. The autumnal heathers conveyed a bruised quality to the landscape. The horse, a rich dappled brown mare, righted its footing and then slowed its step. It approached a stream that cascaded down the incline and it took deep gulps of the water.

The horse glanced with curiosity up the slope. The gradient flattened out some three hundred yards above her as the heath reached the edge of forestland. The green of the pine trees appeared even more vivid with the glisten of the spent rain. The horse looked back down the hill as two riders approached, shaking their cloaks dry now the shower had ceased.

Kervin, the forerunner, was a broad man dressed in a brown leather doublet and tanned soft leather trousers. His bow was secured to his saddle, with a quiver of arrows on the opposite side and strapped to his back was a broad sword in a black leather scabbard. His hair was a sandy brown and was tied in a ponytail. He wore a shaggy beard and had the look of the forest about him.

His Pyrian companion, Ygris, was a strange vision in red and black robes, sat atop a gelding that appeared as gloomy as he did. His face was a rich light brown and his deep chocolate eyes peered from beneath enormous bushy eyebrows. Ygris’s beard was clipped and greased to a point and beaded with glittering gems and small gold rings. His shaved head was decorated with dark red tattoos.

The pair slowed as they neared the riderless horse.

“Has the rain muddied the trail, Marthir?” Kervin asked.

The horse shook her head, water spattering from her mane. The air warped around her strong shoulders and the mare melted away, like a candle placed too close to a fire, to be replaced by a tanned woman.

She stood five and half feet tall with light brown hair that was cropped short, like that of a boy. Her freckled face was round and her eyes a warm green. Her curvaceous body was naked and covered in tattoos that ran across her chest, abdomen and arms.

“They’ve cut up the hill and into the woods,” she said.

“That’s a fair change of direction. Do you think they know we’re on their trail?” Kervin asked. He tugged loose a dark green robe from his saddlebag.

“It’s a fair bet. These two aren’t some dumb goblins scampering back to their dark hole in the hills. I suppose the question is when are they going to turn and tackle us?” Marthir said, stretching her smooth hairless legs.

“By the smoking buttocks of Shurk!” Ygris said. “My clothes are more frigid than an Eerian lady’s britches. I would rather scoop out my tired orbs with spoons than endure another fell day skittering on the rock strewn arse skin of this soggy excuse for a country. And Marthir, my vision of inked glory, can you not put some clothes on? I fear your proud nipples will take my beady eye out if you turn too swiftly.”

Kervin smiled to himself as he saw Marthir begin to bridle at the grumbling of their companion. He threw Marthir a green robe which she reluctantly began to slip on.

“I’m afraid not all nations can be as baked and dusty as your own, Ygris,” Kervin said. “Perhaps on our next jaunt you should pack a satchel full of Pyrian sand and then spread it on your bed-roll each night to rest that heavy brain of yours. Or dazzle us with some pyrotechnics so I can dry my saddle sore rear before it becomes merged with the horse’s tack.”

“The Fire-magic should not be mocked, my friend and ally Kervin,” Ygris said. “If I had but a copper for each time that the coursing magma that I command has enabled you to escape certain doom and a death more unbecoming than the demise of Fabian the Foolish who drowned in a vat of blood slugs whilst foraging in the wilds of Foom, then I should have enough malleable metal to create a statue a mile high.”

Kervin laughed, a rich booming sound and slapped his comrade on the shoulder. Ygris shook his head and grumbled yet more. Kervin had heard once that the Pyrians, in an age past, had learnt the Imperial tongue from old works of Eerian literature. It would certainly explain their lyrical turn of phrase.

“I mean to say, Marthir, my damsel of the fertile forest, pray tell me yet again, why exactly are we stumbling up a hill in the rain to cavort on the tips of some rather well used blades like the wailing whores of El-Tuhor?”

Marthir turned, her intense green eyes meeting those of Ygris. Kervin could see the flicker of rage on her face and the effort she was utilising to suppress the animalistic rages that often arose within her.

 “What they did was an evil, Ygris,” Marthir said. “The balance has to be restored. You know that’s what I think.”

The hillside felt oddly silent, as if the birds that chirruped and called above had paused in curiosity at the druid’s comment.

“The balance, the balance!” Ygris said. “It is with the matter of my banking balance I am truly concerned and I have saddlebags bulging with goblin gold to such a degree I fear they look like the belly of an Azaguntan trollop I once allowed erroneously to wriggle on my knee. Pray don’t get me wrong, those priests have my sympathy at their misfortune but, well really, Marthir, it’s not our problem is it? Friend Kervin, I should welcome your counsel, if you please.”

Kervin looked between the druid and the mage and raised his eyebrows. If the truth be told he had never been able to refuse Marthir since they had first met eight years ago and that was before she got so irresistible and “druidish.” He reflected that he would sooner face a fire bolt from Ygris than the primeval wrath of Marthir.

“I’m with Marthir I am afraid, Ygris. The priests at Sandar’s Beck housed me two or three times in the past and they didn’t deserve that fate,” he said softly.

“Then the prospect of a bountiful winter at the halls of Sir Tinkek remains but a fantasy in the deviant mare that is my nocturnal imaginings,” Ygris said. “Are we to pursue these villains to the Wastes themselves before we accept that winter’s chill kiss may convey both them and ourselves a shivering fate? Would that the garrison of knights at Fort Niliot, but a week south of here, spend their days delivering justice to such villainy rather than empty words to innocent maidens. ”

Marthir and Kervin were silent as they looked once more up the hill to the green of the forest. Kervin considered that Ygris might have a good point, although perhaps motivated by desire for a scalding sun rather than the rashness of this chase. The Artorian Knights were now an impotent order, concerned more with tournaments and show than true valour. Marthir had the courage of the lion and the focus of the predator stalking its prey but that could make her impulsive and dangerously blinkered at times.

Four days ago they had ridden down from the foothills and into Sandar’s Beck, returning from a trip into the hills raiding an old tower-house occupied by a band of goblins. The goblin raiders had proven a good source of gold for the winter ahead, which they aimed to spend in Belgo with Sir Tinkek and Ograk, the absent pair from the group.

They could sense that something was amiss as their steeds had taken them down the slopes towards the small shrine and mill of the Beck. A dark cloud of crows had greeted their arrival, feasting on the corpses of the kind priests and retainers that resided in this outpost of North Artoria.

They had searched through the desolation, weapons at the ready. The clerics, worshippers of the god Umar, had long faced threats from the goblins that populated the hills. To this end they had hosted a small force of men-at-arms whom provided both reassurance and protection. It had been such a long time since any danger had threatened that the soldiers had taken to assisting the priests in attending the Beck’s water mill.

As a consequence they had clearly been caught unawares and the slaughter was complete. Bodies lay strewn about and several had been cut down as they had fled; their backs were split open like the pages of the books they had so cared for. Rain had merged their blood in with the mud of the settlement. Some had been charred by an intense heat. Kervin, a tracker, could discern hoof prints interspersed between the corpses. Marthir investigated the interior of the shrine, tears shining in her eyes, whilst Kervin and Ygris examined the bodies. The bolts that jutted from the spattered robes were unusual in design and Kervin confessed he had not seen their like before.

Marthir had emerged shaken from the priests’ library. Mysteriously, only a few books had been taken. Their curiosity had deepened as Kervin was forced to conclude that the tracks indicated that there was but two riders whom had wreaked such devastation.

Ygris had used his magic to burn the bodies lest goblins descend and take parts of the corpses to wear as jewellery. Marthir’s dismay was apparent, for she believed that bodies should be returned to the womb of Nolir, the Earth mother. They watched the fatty smoke of the burning bodies irritate the circling crows. Marthir, anger burning as hot as the pyre, declared that this evil must be punished and thus their current stalking had begun.

Now as they moved up the slope, Marthir walking slightly ahead, Kervin was beset by apprehension that whatever warriors could slaughter two dozen men would be no easy prey for the huntress.

***

The woods were gloomy yet the air carried the welcome scent of wet pine. The floor of the forest was damp and boggy and soon the horses were fatigued. Marthir whispered to them and then indicated to the others that the time to make camp had come. They tied the horses to a branch and Kervin gathered some logs to make a small fire with. Ygris waved his hand and fire sprang in an instant, the wet wood sizzling.

They had set camp at the edge of a small clearing, a natural dip in the forest floor that brought to Kervin’s mind the appearance of a wood temple. He watched Marthir kneel and begin praying to her goddess in Old Artorian. The words were rich and warm, like the sweetest honey of summer and he thought wistfully of the gentle heat of his boyhood naps in the green hills near Keresh. It was a delight to hear the old tongue again: he spent most days conversing in Imperial, the common language of trade and diplomacy, characterised by the harsh vowels of its Eerian origins.

He unbuckled his sword, rested his back against a tall pine and spread his aching legs towards the fire. Ygris was scratching his chest in annoyance; the rain had irritated the skin that bordered the glowing ruby embedded in his sternum. Kervin felt a gnawing from his belly and concluded that he’d best hunt for supper before the light faded.

Three magpies took to the air with a cry as the foliage at the far side of the clearing burst apart.  Two riders erupted into sight, hooves thundering on the forest floor. Kervin yelled a warning and leapt to his feet, his sword in his hand.

The two attackers were armoured in black plate armour unlike any that Kervin had seen before. It seemed fitted to the contours of their powerful bodies, like the black shell of a huge insect. Their helms were devilish: gargoyle-like faces merged back into black metal skullcaps. Dark cloaks billowed from their backs as they charged with alarming speed.

Marthir was on her feet and her body warped and changed into the bronze form of a mountain lion. The green robe split down its side, the special thickened thread unravelling in an instant. The feline reactions saved her as she lunged from the path of the charging knights, the hooves trampling the emerald cloth. Ygris raised both hands and began casting a flame bolt but the first rider was upon him as a magical inferno erupted from his hands. The black knight swung his long sword in a deadly arc, striking Ygris in his side as the heat exploded into his horse.

The animal’s scream echoed amongst the trees as its flesh charred and Kervin saw the knight’s leg armour glow. Ygiris span back, blood splattering from his side and he fell under the stomping hooves of the steed.

Kervin ran forward to meet the second knight, his sword raised and steadied against the charge. The black warrior aimed a crossbow and fired and the impact threw Kervin back into the pine tree as the bolt impaled his left shoulder. Intense pain flashed into his arm and he felt the wetness of blood flowing down his side. With dismay he realised he was stuck to the trunk of the tree behind him. Fighting through the pain, he lifted his sword in defence as the knight thundered towards him.

A bronze shape blurred in front of Kervin as Marthir leapt at the mounted knight. The impact unsaddled the warrior sending him crashing to the floor of the clearing. Marthir bit into the knight’s neck, her razor sharp teeth ripping the gap between breastplate and helm. The powerful jaws clamped hard and tore the flesh loose. Again and again she shredded the fallen knight, as his attempts to fight her off got progressively feebler. 

Kervin tugged furiously at the bolt. He knew that Marthir was loosing control, driven more bestial by the blood of her prey. Kervin could see the second knight, turning his horse, leaving the trampled and bloodied Ygris in his wake and aiming a crossbow at the lion. Marthir arched her back, evidently preparing to leap. Kervin strained with all his might, Marthir was a sitting duck; even with the agility of the lion she could not clear sixty feet to the mounted knight.

The knight’s finger tightened on the trigger of the crossbow.

A sword swung into the knight’s back as Kervin lunged forwards. His bloodied arm hung limply by his side, the broken shaft of the bolt protruding from his shoulder. Kervin’s blade dug deep, finding the join between breastplate and waist. Blood sprayed in a fan as the sword emerged from the knight’s flank and the crossbow fired.  Marthir was already moving as the bolt hissed harmlessly past and within a few heartbeats she was upon the knight and Kervin.

The knight turned and slashed his sword at Kervin’s head but he easily parried. The wounded horse reared at the sight of an advancing mountain lion and the dark knight fell back abruptly. Kervin marvelled at how swiftly the fallen warrior was on his feet, despite the apparent weight of his armour. Kervin pushed forwards, his sword deftly jabbing and slashing at the wounded knight. Dark blood ran freely down the knight’s armoured thigh as he parried Kervin’s blows, trying to keep both opponents in front of him. He stumbled on a wet log as he stepped back and Marthir was upon him. Her red tinted teeth tore at his arm, the metal yielding as she ripped into the underlying flesh. Bone crushed as she bit hard and her claws gouged at the knight’s helm.