Stone Rising (14 page)

             
“My Lord.”

             
Marlyn had drawn near, his face a mask of fatigue and worry.

             
“Yes, lad?”

             
“The attacks are getting more frequent. I think the bulk of the force may be catching us up again. They move slower than we, but they do not tire. Plus, the noise from that battle will surely attract them to our position.”

             
Arbistrath considered this.

             
“Right you are. What do you suggest?”

             
Once, perhaps, he may have sneered at the idea of asking this youth for suggestions. Was this boy not merely some green youth from a backwater village in the most rural fields of Tulador? And he, a high-born and educated Lord, schooled in tactics, warfare and history? Once, perhaps. But no longer was Arbistrath so naïve.

             
“We need to put water between us and them. This city has a water supply; there must be lakes, rivers, a sea, something nearby that we can use to our advantage.” The young Tulador’s eyes flicked about, searching, before alighting on a shattered storefront across the way.

             
Gift Shop, what remained of the tattered sign read.

             
“A map,” he murmured beneath his breath. “Yes, that’ll do.” He turned to Arbistrath. “Back in a moment. Hold position, I shan’t be long.”

             
“Be sure you don’t. Take Thom and Reno with you.”

             
The three, Marlyn, Reno and Thom moved out, slowly, but purposefully, towards the dark store before them. Behind them, the Tuladors formed a defensive circle, tense and ready for action, expecting at any moment that the silence of the city would be shattered by the inhuman shrieks of impending doom.

***

The store was eerily silent, the rows of shelves and racking lying smashed in places, the aisles of the shop overflowing with books, posters and trinkets. This place had once been a shop for tourists, Marlyn mused. This city must once have been a vibrant place, to attract crowds of visitors from lands afar.

             
He pondered, not for the first time, whether there remained anyone else alive in this entire world. And, not for the first time, he pushed the thought from his mind lest it still his heart with fear.

             
His eyes penetrated the gloom, his cannon sweaty in his hand. It was close, in here, the air thick, musty, lying undisturbed for a long while. There, towards the rear: maps and guides. He made his way over, looking side to side, listening out with his ears as much as looking with his eyes. Danger was everywhere here, he had learnt over the months. Yet there was nothing to hear save himself and his two companions.

             
Further down the aisle he walked. Yes, that’d do. He picked it up, the pamphlet of folded paper. City Map, it read. He unfolded it, cannon dangling from its harness as he examined it. The city was completely alien to him, foreign, yet somehow his mind focused, showing him local landmarks, large stores and buildings that he remembered from the signs on the frontages, as well as recognising the layout of the roads they’d travelled. Yes, there they were, in the triangular clearing between two of the longer roads and bisected by two others. Fie- but this city was big! To a country youth such as he, even Tulador had seemed a metropolis. But this was place was on a different scale entirely.

And yes, he was right; there was water nearby, an ocean of it, in fact. With islands, just off the coast of the city.

              Ideal.

             
He made to move, made to turn, but a noise caused him to pause, quiet, yet there, coming from a room just off the aisle. He squinted into the gloom, but though the door was ajar, it was dark, too dark to see. It was a storeroom. There was the noise again, a shuffling, moving noise. Perhaps it was a rat, or feral dog, rummaging for scraps to eat?

             
Or perhaps not…

             
He raised a hand to his comrades.

             
“Stay here,” he whispered. “I’ll check it out.”

             
The Tulador folded the map back up and tucked it into his belt, hefting his cannon, feeling the reassuring warmth of its muted power, before walking forwards, slowly, cautiously. His heart cried at him not to bother; why invite danger? Whatever was in the room might not even be aware of them. Yet his head knew that to leave a potential foe behind them where it make sneak up unawares would be foolishness in the extreme.

             
He walked forwards, reaching the door. Slowly, his heart beating loud in his chest, his breathing shallow, he gently prodded the half-open door with the barrel of his weapon, pushing it open. To his relief, the hinges made no creak as they eased open.

              He was right, it was a storeroom. Pallets full of boxes filled the space, full of trinkets and souvenirs that would never be displayed, never bought, never brought home to waiting families and gifted to excited children. He scanned the gloom. There, the noise again. It was around the corner, hidden out of sight by a large pallet of goods. Marlyn held his breath, gripped tight the handle of his cannon, finger brushing against the trigger, then whirled around the corner, weapon poised to unleash its destructive power.

             
His jaw dropped.

             
The figure stood there, staring at him. Yet no ravaged and grimacing face did this one wear. No hideous wounds of battle, nor tell-tale signs of rot and decay.

             
No. This figure wore instead a face at once intensely familiar and terrifyingly out of place. It was a face that belonged in the past, not here and now. The young Tulador could not believe his eyes, but the proof was there before him. From the shining silver plate, to the cocky and self-sure grin, he knew it to be true yet could not bring himself to believe.

             
“Hello, Marlyn,” the figure spoke, the voice exactly as he remembered. “Long time, no see.”

             
For long moments, the guard merely stood and gawped, unable to frame a response. Then finally.

             
“H…how?”

             
Daveth smiled, his face exactly the same as it had been all that time ago, bringing with it a disarming rush of memories and feelings, visions of carefree days spent adventuring together in the forests and fields under Tulador’s lush summer sun.

             
“How? Why? Is that all you have to greet me with, questions?” He laughed, his voice sounded sing-song, playful, each word as if just on the edge of being mockery but not quite. There was a humour to his eyes that had always been there, yet also a glint of something more.

             
“I saw you die…”

             
“You saw me fall.” There, again, that glint, yet the familiarity was winning through, each word a torrent of emotion that threaten to bowl the Tulador over in a tide of grief and relief. “I came to after the Khrdas had left the walls. Their poison wasn’t as strong as they had thought, it appears.” He smiled. “I laid low for a while, then made my way to Merethia, where I mingled with the crowds for many months, making a living begging on the streets of the market square. When the once-men began to appear and battle came to the gates, I snuck out, finding myself on the bridge to the Beacon Tower. Somehow, through luck or skill, I made my way to the Portal. I cast myself in it rather than face the hordes that had begun to appear. I found myself here. I thought I was the only one left alive in this land. I can’t believe you found me…”

             
Marlyn couldn’t believe it either. Something didn’t add up, didn’t seem right. As much as he wanted to believe that the impossible had happened, he couldn’t bring himself to. As much as he wanted to simply be glad and grateful that his childhood friend was alive and well, his reasoning argued against the evidence before his eyes.

Once-men, he had said. That was term they hadn’t adopted till they had been translocated to the Retreat. How could he know that phrase? And how could he have made it to the tower by himself, unscathed? How could the portal have led him here, when it was only Stone’s power which had kept them on their path through dimensions? Without the guiding influence of their lord, they would have merely vanished into the ether, sucked in and spat out into who knows what hellish realm…

He could tell by Daveth’s face that the other youth was aware of his suspicions. His friend raised his hands, a smile on his face, honesty and trustworthiness dripping from his words like honey as he spoke.

“I know this is a lot to take in, Marlyn, my old friend. I know. I was as confused as you, at first. But now’s not the time or the place for such talk. Let’s join your men; I heard Arbistrath’s voice outside. Let’s flee here, to somewhere safe, then I will explain everything you want to know at our leisure. Promise.”

His eyes, those intensely familiar eyes, bored into Marlyn’s and he could feel his resolve weakening. Slowly, slowly, he lowered his cannon. The smile on Daveth’s face broadened. He took a step forward.

The earth-shattering boom of Cannon-fire leapt out, the dim room erupting in a golden flash as twin balls of plasma raced past Marlyn on either side. They smashed Daveth twenty feet backwards to impact against the far wall, silver armour buckled and melted as he slowly slid in a lifeless heap to the floor.

Marlyn’s ears rang to the cacophony, mouth dropping once more in stunned disbelief as he rounded on the two guards behind him.

“That was Daveth, you fools!” He roared out in rage as he charged the stunned Thom, the other guard completely bewildered and unsure how to react as Marlyn tackled him, forcing them both into a pallet of boxes with a clang of metal on metal. Cannon dangling by its harness, Marlyn’s hands found their way to Thom’s neck, fingers trying  desperately to throttle as Reno in turn wrapped his own arm about Marlyn’s neck, struggling to pull the two apart.

“That wasn’t him, man!” hissed Thom through gritted teeth. “You were being deceived!”

“Liar!”

The sounds of struggle continued as the two sought to overcome the enraged Marlyn, but then a fresh sound rose up, quiet at first, but then growing, insistent and pervading. Otherworldly, inhuman.

Laughter. Dark and brimming with malice.

The smell of brimstone and fire began to permeate the air and the three shook their heads, as if awakening from a dream, before turning to gaze down to the far end of the storeroom,  to the source of the deep and bellowing laughter.

The mangled and scorched corpse of Daveth had risen, pulled upright onto tip-toes as though by the invisible strings of some master puppeteer. The head snapped up, but where before there were human eyes, now there were but pools of gleaming blood-red, filled which an ancient hatred that was at once alien yet hauntingly familiar.

“Children! Fools!” The voice boomed out from Daveth’s mouth, even as his ruined form began to twist and swell, metal armour and leather, flesh and bone all flowing as liquid as this form was shed to be replaced by the true figure that spoke to them. “Such is the folly of mankind to always fall upon each other in times of fear, eyes blinded to the world outside by their own petty bickering.”

Dark laughter again, the form now fully coalesced, revealing an inhumanly tall being of black muscle, horns and infernal, hate-filled eyes of red fire. The shadows of the room swept forth to shroud the beast in a raiment of darkness, a cloak of night-grey and gleaming armour of dark bronze that seemed to solidify into existence as though from smoke. The creature exuded an air of knowledge and hunger and had an aura of stupefying terror that rendered the three unable to do ought but stand and listen as it continued to berate them.

“Such was the fate here, outlanders. Invasion was easy, with mankind’s disparate tribes and nations forever at one another’s throats. Our armies and ships fell upon this world like comets from the burning blue. The skies burned. The seas boiled.” The figure closed its eyes, sucking air through its fangs as though savouring a delicate treat. “And the souls we reaped. They tasted of innocence.” Its eyes snapped open, gleaming red with hunger. “And this world was just the start. This whole galaxy so ripe for the picking. Oh, how long we had waited, children, thanks to the efforts of your cursed lord. But, what meaning a hundred years, a thousand years to such as us?”

It fixed them with its glare, a stare that would have frozen the hearts of lesser men, then took a step forwards, one hooved foot leaving a flaming print on the smouldering tiles of the floor.

“But I knew that some of you might one day appear here in this world after going through that portal. And I was never one who could resist a snack…”

It licked its lips, then tensed as though to pounce, but Marlyn was the quicker. His cannon swept up, delicate lever pulled back to unleash full power once more, before his finger found the trigger. In the confines of the room, the blast caused the three to wince in pain as the plasma leapt out to smite its target. Thom and Reno, too, joined in the assault, weapons unleashing their full destructive force on their taunting foe.