The Defiler (7 page)

Sláine stepped forwards to meet them.

It was a mistake.

They were evolved for the climate and conditions, bred to kill. This was their natural habitat. They surged up the narrow street, scaling the walls, and onto the rooftops. More came in behind the initial five, coming over the rooftops and dropping down into the street. Their chittering spiralled into a hungry chorus as still more came pouring out of the cracks in the stonework, through the dark windows and up through the webway of gutter and sewer beneath the streets. As they neared, the full repulsiveness of their physique became apparent: the creatures were huge, twice Sláine's height and more, and four of their arachnoid legs ended in either savage pincers or wicked saw-toothed blades. Their jewel-encrusted carapaces were covered in scraps of rancid flesh worn like trophies. Fetishes of bone and tooth were draped around their throats.

"Far be it from me to interrupt a family gathering," Ukko said, as the insectoids continued to spill out of every nook and cranny until the street was alive with the hellish chittering and clicking of their mandibles, and he took off running.

The black-carapaced hunters swarmed forwards.

Sláine clenched fists around the hilt of Brain-Biter, kissing the axe's blade. "Come to me then, my uglies. Who wants to be the first to bleed for me?"

Sláine rolled his shoulder, slamming the axe down in a shocking display of raw power, splitting the nearest of the giant insects in two right down the length of the carapace. Blue-green viscous ichor leaked out of the rent as he tugged Brain-Biter free. Sláine stood on the back of the insect, crushing it beneath his foot like the bug it was.

"You die too easily, there's no sport in a bug hunt!"

Two of the critters dropped from the roofs on either side of him, pincers and claws clashing and snapping around his legs. Sláine blocked one set of blades as they scythed towards his ankles, but couldn't parry the second set of pincers as they snapped around his arm, cutting viciously into his bicep. He roared, kicking out at the first of the insects, burying his foot into the soft flesh between its crusted underbelly and the plates protecting its ridged head. The creature's death rattle was grotesque. Before it hit the floor two more had replaced it, blades and pincers blurring into a whirling dance of death. Sláine ducked beneath one cut, barely getting Brain-Biter between his gut and the saw-toothed blade, before having to throw himself out of the path of another. The pincers clashed close enough to scrape whiskers from his chin. Sláine launched himself upright, gasping hard, blood streaming from the slash in his arm as he drove the axe through the insect's hard-cased coxa.

He blocked three more blows on the blade of his axe, and countered with raw fury, scything Brain-Biter through the chittering mandibles of the closest foe. The blade sheered through the spindly legs and dripping fangs. The creature cried out in outrage. Sláine shifted his body weight and reversed the momentum of the axe, cleaving it into the insect's head. The blow split the ridge of shell and buried itself deep into the eye, severing the nerves as it sank all the way through to the mash of the dead critter's brain stem.

Sláine yanked Brain-Biter free; the great stone axe was covered with gore.

He cut the legs out from under the next of the hellish spawn, reckless from the scent of his blood, which got too close to Brain-Biter.

He spread death across the sands, leaving them slick with malignant blood.

Still the creatures came at him. There were too many to count. The air
thrummed
with the lethal harmonics of their pincers and blades, as their tarsi chimed off and scraped against stone and flesh.

Sláine cleaved a set of claws from its surprised owner, then stepped forwards, slipping as his foot came down on a ruptured compound eye that had been rent from a cleaved skull. Losing his balance, Sláine fell to one knee and drove Brain-Biter upwards, ramming the axe's point up under the labrium of his monstrous attacker, sinking it deep into the soft flesh of the insect's brain. The creature howled its pain, torn by paroxysms of agony as its body succumbed to the inevitable death rattle and slumped down on top of Sláine. Its weight dragged him to the floor. Even as he tried to thrust the dead shell aside more of the insects surged forwards, overwhelming him.

Ukko stopped running twenty paces down the narrow street and turned. For a moment it looked as though Sláine would fend the giant insects off, but there were simply too many of them. Ukko watched in horror as Sláine went down beneath the weight of insects.

It was a vision fit for the Underworld itself.

"Bloody stupid heroes... going on stupid quests. Dumb idea to listen to the crow. Now look at what's happening... Don't you dare die on me, Sláine!"

He didn't know what he was going to do until he was already doing it. The little man pushed open the nearest door and rushed into the room. Like all the others it reeked of death; he knew why now. He looked around the room frantically but couldn't find what he needed. There was no fire grate, no logs waiting to burn. "But why would there be?" He chided himself, grabbing a stiff-backed chair and slamming it against the wall again and again until it splintered and he was left holding two splintered legs. All he could think of was the body they had found trussed up on the dining table like a side of pig. That wasn't the way he intended to go - not that he actually intended to go
any
way. "What the feth am I supposed to do with these against a ravening horde of man-eating insects?"

He threw them on the floor, dropped to his knees and shucked out of his sack. "A good thief always comes prepared, Ukko, my boy."

He rummaged around inside the sack until he found the grease he had used to loosen the odd lock along the way. He scooped out handfuls of the oily substance and smeared it along the broken chair legs until he was happy they were coated with the stuff. Without thinking, Ukko fetched his tinderbox out of the pack and struck it over and over until it caught, igniting the oil and turning the chair leg into a blazing torch. He stuffed everything back into his pack and shouldered it, lighting the second wooden leg as he charged, screaming like a banshee possessed out of the hovel and down the street, brandishing the flaming spars like weapons.

Ukko ran straight into the chittering and shrieking mass of insects that had swarmed over the fallen barbarian, thrusting the blazing torches into what he hoped were their faces.

They skittered away from the fire, retreating fearfully from Ukko as he brandished the flame like a madman, slashing around in wild arcs, trying to force them back. "Come on, Sláine! Get up!" Ukko didn't dare look back, he just kept on with his wild dance, waving his arms around and jumping up and down. And then he understood why the insects feared the fire so much. One of the broken chair legs slapped into the side of one of the critters and it erupted in a violent fiery ball. The explosion threw Ukko from his feet, but he rolled and came up grinning as it set a chain reaction in motion: the insects too close to the burning insect shrieked as the gases leaking from their slathering mouths ignited and tongues of fire lashed down their throats, detonating within their guts. Faggots of charred flesh clung to the walls and smouldered on the sand. Fragments of burned-out shell steamed where they had slashed like shrapnel into the carapaces of the remaining spawn.

"Their guts are filled with gas!" Ukko yelled triumphantly, laughing manically as he threw himself forwards again, slashing fire into the faces of the retreating insects to send them skittering away down the street. "That's it, go on! Get! Go! That'll teach you to tangle with a coward!"

His laughter rang down the street.

The sudden heat wrenched the breath from his lungs.

Sláine tried to stand. The fires of agony burned through a thousand cuts across his body.

He couldn't understand why they had let him live.

The giant insects had engulfed him, pincers and claws cutting away at his flesh until he lacked the will let alone the strength to fight back, and then, as he had surrendered to the notion of death here in this hellish place, they had fled.

Ukko stood over him, brands burning in either hand, face lit up like a demented demon, eyes burning twice as feverishly as any physical fire could.

"That's it, go on! Get! Go! That'll teach you to tangle with a coward!" Ukko mocked, flourishing the flaming torches. Sláine wanted to laugh but couldn't because it hurt too much to even
think
about it. He didn't want to contemplate the mess his body must have been in back in the mortal realm. It was a miracle he was still alive.

They had cut him badly, one slash wide enough to open his stomach. It ought to have been a mortal blow. Instead it began to fuse and knit beneath his fingers as he tried to feel out the extent of his injuries until it was nothing more than a white line running across the musculature from his groin to his belly. He tried to sit. The world swam, lurching violently beneath him.

"You look like-" the dwarf stopped speaking as Sláine's fingers found another ragged wound and sealed it. "I thought there was no magic here... I mean... how did you?"

"I don't know," Sláine said, and in truth he didn't. There was no thrill of the Earth Serpent surging through him, no connection with Danu or the land. He couldn't begin to explain it. Was his spirit drawing the last dregs of healing from the land his body lay on back on the fringes of Dardun? Was it an illusion, those wounds still bleeding out from his flesh even though they appeared healed here?

The pain itself lingered even if the wounds did not. He felt it inside, beneath the skin, as though he had been cut and cut and cut, each one searing as he made even the slightest move. Getting out of Purgadair was not going to be a simple case of running - he wasn't even sure he'd be up to
walking
out of the hellish city.

"I'm not being funny, but these faggots are going to burn out soon and then the bugs will be back with a vengeance, so how about we don't sit around here contemplating miracles and instead run for it?"

He held up a hand for Ukko to help him to his feet, and had to stifle a scream as he was tugged upright.

"He isn't here, is he?" Ukko said, casting an erratic gaze left and right as though trying to take everything in at once. "It was a trick. The Morrigan wanted us here so she could do whatever she has to do without us around to interfere."

Do you believe that, son of the Sessair? Truly? Do you believe yourself so important I would
need
to dispose of you to carry out my schemes? Vanity is the last resort of the fool. Find the Skinless Man for yourself, your people.
He didn't know if he imagined the Crone's denial, but he found himself believing it. A being of her power would not need to trick them into some foolish quest - there had to be more to it than that. There always was with the Crone; deceit came as naturally to the ancient one as did any kind of truth. But, he suspected, the promise she had extracted from him was worth too much to her to waste so frivolously.
Good, use your brain, barbarian.

"He's here," Sláine said, knowing it to be true. "But he isn't
here
. What did the Crone say? What were her exact words?"

"I don't remember," the dwarf admitted.

I do,
the voice goaded.
A city on the edge of Nàimhdiel, a harsh and utterly barren desert. The Skinless Man you seek resides there, but beware child of Danu, this is a cruel place, this city.
The Crone's words rose in his memory, the subtlety of the sentence had misdirected their search.

"He is in the desert, not the city."

My clever, clever barbarian,
the voice of the Crone mocked.
Learned to listen at last.

Sláine took one of the burning brands; more than half of it was charred to the breaking point. "We need more, before these burn out."

Ukko nodded and gestured for Sláine to follow him into the nearest house. "Go crazy," he waved towards the wooden chairs and began rifling through his pack for the flammable grease. Sláine shattered three of the chairs, wrenching the legs away from the rest of the frames and passing them to the dwarf. Ukko liberally applied the grease and stuffed two into his belt, making sure he didn't hold the naked flame too close. Sláine took the remaining staves, lit one on the burned-out torch Ukko had used to save him and stowed the rest.

They went back out into the street.

The vile insectoid creatures lined the rooftops, antennae twitching as their multi-faceted eyes caught and reflected and refracted the light from the twin suns.

"We're going to walk out of here nice and slow," said Sláine, wincing as he shouldered Brain-Biter. "No sudden movements. We don't want to set them off."

Ukko nodded without saying a word.

They walked slowly side by side down the narrow street. His skin crawled, prickling with goosebumps. The hair on the nape of his neck rose like hackles as they passed the first of the lurking insects. The creature's antennae began to twitch furiously, its mandibles grinding together coarsely.

"Just keep walking," said Sláine, advice that was easier said than followed. His eyes roved from high to low, left to right, trying to keep all of the angles covered in case of sudden ambush, but it was impossible.

One of the monstrosities leaned low, distended jaws crunching towards them. Thick yellowish saliva drooled from the fangs, sizzling as it hit the floor. Sláine realised then what had caused the pinhole wounds that had burned into his arm. The knowledge sent a sick shiver down his spine. He walked on, his foot grinding the blistering sand beneath it. Sláine thrust the blazing torch towards its nose, forcing the creature to skitter back. It gave him a grim sort of satisfaction to frighten the insect even as more loomed over them, crouching on the rooftops, only held back by the flame.

"You do realise when we get out of here I am going to be merciless with the next earwig I see," said Ukko. "And daddy long legs, forget it, those legs are coming off. Ants, flies, cockroaches. If I never see another living insect it'll be too soon."