The Descent to Madness (26 page)

             
He cringed, fully expecting divine retribution, but instead, deep, rhythmic waves of pressure began to pulse outwards from the funnel. Confused, realisation dawned.

             
Laughter.

             
The laughter grew lighter, less elemental and more human as, slowly, impossibly, the funnel began to condense in on itself, until it became a floating sphere of tightly-packed, churning water. It floated over to him, laughing all the time, until it hovered a few feet from him, over the ledge. The sphere collapsed in a spray of salty foam to reveal  the shape of a woman, small of stature, with pretty features, but no skin, instead, her body composed entirely of the raging ocean.

             
Slowly, patiently, she walked towards him, foam splashing from her feet as though she walked through surf, examining him, curious.

             
He could feel waves of incredible power emanating from the begin that stood beside him, masquerading as human, the energy of an entire element of the universe harnessed in a woman-sized package.

             
You amuse me, human. But you also puzzle me. How is it that you can breathe my water with no gills? How can you best one of my guardians in combat? I do not sense the work of my brother Earth in you, so I fail to understand.

             
Her new size seemed to diminish the power of her voice, a fact that Stone was thankful for. He answered her, honestly.

             
“I’m afraid that you probably know more than I about all of that. I don’t even know where I’m from before a few weeks ago.”

             
The Avatar of Water nodded.

             
Yes, I sense something of another world about you, but I cannot read it in your mind. It is locked away. Perhaps one of my other kin will have better luck than I?

             
Stone paled, shaking his head in anticipation of what he knew was to come.

             
The Avatar of Water smiled knowingly, raised her arm to touch him gently in the chest, before the power of the raging oceans sent him flying along the river to be propelled clean into the air above a waterfall a mile tall.

             
His voice was lost in the roar of wind as he plummeted, but his meaning was clear.

             
This was not his finest day.

***

The troupe moved fast, sticking to the shadows, the gullies, the little-known paths and cut-throughs that no-one but they knew about as they made their way through the second night of their journey back to the village, yet all the same Neroo couldn’t shake from his mind the feeling that they were being followed.

             
He quickened his pace slightly, moving up towards the front of the group to draw alongside Arnoon. The leader had been quiet for the journey, withdrawn, not his usual brash self; Neroo suspected the loss of a Youngblood had affected him more than he even knew it himself.

             
He spoke sidelong to Arnoon, his tone hushed so it didn’t carry in the night.

             
“I think we’re being followed.”

             
Arnoon nodded, to Neroo’s surprise.

             
“We are. Five Steppes scouts, they’ve been following us since we left the barbarian camp, hoping to find out where our village is.”

             
“What do we do about it? We can’t lead them to our homes.”

             
“Where do we come to next?”

             
The question took the younger Youngblood by surprise.

             
“The Boar’s Eye…”

             
Epiphany struck Neroo as he watched the sly smile creeping across Arnoon’s face. Of course, the Boar’s Eye! The natural tunnel  carved by a long dead river ran through a steep ridge that split the southern plains from the northern plains, the only way through to the lands of the Plains-People, an easily defended point. But it was not defence that Arnoon had in mind, but attack.

             
No Barbarians knew it, but a steep, winding path ascended the narrow ridge, allowing a small force to cross. Or backtrack and set up an ambush, as the case may be…

             
A caw from above drew Neroo’s attention from his contemplation of the plan.

             
“There’s that raven again. I’m beginning to think the Barbarians have the birds acting as spies for them.”

             
Arnoon grunted, disinterested, mind distracted with the minutiae of his developing plan to pay attention to wildlife. One of the troupe had tried to shoot the beast earlier, so closely was it following their route that they thought it might give them away, but the beast had evaded the shot with ease and they’d decided just to put up with it rather than waste more arrows.

             
As they drew nearer to the tunnel, Arnoon had Neroo spread the word, slowing his walk to draw alongside each Youngblood in turn to whisper the plan, so that their pursuers wouldn’t notice that something was afoot.

             
At last, they reached the ridge of steep hills and disappeared into the tunnel.

             
The raven, black feathered with streaks of grey, settled on a tree branch to watch with interest as the barbarians ventured out of hiding in readiness to follow their prey into the dark, narrow pass.

***

Huntmaster Laret of the Clan Five-Tongues gathered his men about him as he surveyed the steep cliffs that rose above them. Where the Plains-People used youths as their scouts, Laret’s men were all broad, muscled and veteran warriors, faces blackened with soot to aid stealth, their usual warrior topknots absent, long hair tied back in pony-tails to avoid being silhouetted and giving them away.

             
His second, Magnar, approached him, his tattooed face concerned.

             
“Huntmaster, do you think they may be waiting in that tunnel for us? Their leader seems a canny one, I’m sure they know we’re following.”

             
The Huntmaster guffawed, playing with his long, drooping moustache.

             
“Let them lie in wait, we will tear them apart. The tunnel is wide enough for two-abreast and each of us is the equal of ten of those scrawny primitive whelps.”

             
“But the Marzban’s orders?”

             
Laret spat on the ground.

             
“We will leave one to run home, crying to his folks. And we will follow him as he does. Forward men! We have blood to spill…”

             
The barbarians sauntered into the darkness of the tunnel under the watchful eyes of the raven, their scimitars stayed at their hilts, instead, their daggers drawn in readiness for close-quarter bloodshed.

             
The gravel was slippery underfoot as Laret led his men slowly forwards, quietly, eyes peeled yet still next to useless in the gloom of the tunnel. The enemy could have been an arm’s reach in front of them and they wouldn’t know.

             
Suddenly, the creak of bending wood ahead and Laret roared a bestial warning to his men, who ducked down, leather padded arms raised as a hail of arrows soared towards them through the tunnel. Most of the missiles splintered as they bounced off the walls, the rest thudding harmlessly into the sturdy leather vambraces designed for just this situation.

             
“At them!”

             
The barbarians needed no further encouragement, charging forwards into the dark to smite their enemies, bloodlust surging through their veins.

             
A primitive came out of the gloom, a bronze dagger in his hand and a war-cry on his lips, but Laret smashed into him with a mighty shoulder barge, crushing the wind out of him and sending him to his knees, before bringing him own dagger down in an arc to stab through the top of his foe’s skull, plunging the blade deep into his brain. He pulled it back out with a snarl of glee and a spattering of blood and the youth crumpled lifeless, face first into the gravel.

             
All about him in the dark and cramped confines of the tunnel, the battle was joined, brutal, close-quarters combat, and before long it seemed that his men would crush their foes, their power and berserker rage carrying them to victory, but a sudden cry and whistle of air from behind them caused him a moment’s pause.

             
Ambush. They’d been tricked by primitives!

             
A barbarian went down, cross-eyed, the shaft of an arrow sticking out from the centre of his fore-head. Another struck Magnar in the shoulder, who roared in rage, tearing the barb free in a spray of gore, before another one took him in the leg, sending him to his knees, then a final one smashed into his heart, silencing him.

             
Three barbarians now fought in the tunnel, the fight descending into chaos as the primitives charged in from both sides, the battle now nothing more than a flickering slideshow of elbows, fists, daggers and flying blood.

             
Another barbarian went down, dragged to the ground by three youths, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Then finally the last of his men fell, choking, his throat slit by an ivory knife.

             
Laret was alone.

             
Enraged, he lay all about him in the dark, feeling his dagger scoring flesh, puncturing muscle, feeling the wetness of blood and sweat on his face and forehead, knowing this a fight he could never win but determined to take as many of the scum with him as he could, to do his Clan name honour.

             
As a space cleared about him, he saw an enemy warrior in front of him, tall, noble of bearing, the leader, the orchestrator, no doubt, of this trickery.

             
With a roar of vengeance, Laret charged this foe, the youth standing his ground in an unexpected show of bravery.

             
In the pitch-dark of the cave they fought, each barely able to make out the other, till both were bleeding heavily from a score of wounds. The youth was fast, skilled and Laret enjoyed the challenge, but soon his barrel-chested bulk and mighty arms began to tell and, with a whoop of glee, he disarmed his opponent, grabbing him about the neck with one meaty fist, pinning him, struggling against the wall of the tunnel.

             
He brought his dagger around, resting the sharp point against the neck of the choking youth, hoping to see some fear in his eyes, some understanding of his demise, but to his dismay he saw nothing but contempt. It was almost as though this youth, in his limited experience, had already faced death and come up trumps.

             
Laret sniffed. Not this time, primitive.

             
He looked about at the other youths who crowded in on both sides, fearful for the safety of their leader but afraid to move closer lest they drive the barbarian to kill him sooner.

             
The Huntmaster laughed at their cowardice and indecision. So typical of the primitive tribes. Only one warrior amongst them and, soon, not even that.

             
He turned back to his opponent and drew his blade back to end his life.

             
The blow never landed, a piercing caw washing down the tunnel, echoing, rebounding and startling all assembled into inaction. Laret turned, just in time to see a  huge, black raven soaring towards him through the darkness, the youths jumping aside to move out of its way.

             
In an instant, it was upon him. He turned, ready to smash aside the pest with one blow, but the beast performed a barrel roll, exploding into a cloud of feathers and smoke before a great bulk crashed into Laret, sending him skidding down the tunnel, scattering the youths like so much chaff.

             
Dazed, confused, the barbarian rose to his feet and, in the space where he had been standing, there now loomed a huge and imposing tribesman, his face lined, his hair in long black braids, streaked with grey, his eyes fierce beneath his feathered headdress.

             
With a snarl, Laret rose to his feet and charged the newcomer, his mighty fist swinging round in a decapitating punch, but the tribesman took the blow on the cheek, his head turning aside but not otherwise flinching, not even a gasp of pain escaping his lips.

             
The primitive turned back to him unharmed, smiling as if amused, then headbutted the Huntmaster, exploding his nose and sending him crashing to the floor in a sea of blood and pain.

             
Tears streaming from his eyes, broken nose dripping his lifeblood down his fur-jacket, the Steppes Barbarian rose again, backing away, eyes widening in terror as he felt a crackling of elemental force raising the hairs on his skin. The mighty tribesman’s eyes glowed with a build-up of tremendous power, flames raging where his pupils and irises should be, and the barbarian turned, fleeing down the tunnel, pushing aside his forgotten enemies in a desperate bid for escape.

             
He managed ten paces before stopping, frozen in place like a statue.

For he was already dead.

The fire incinerated him from the inside out in an instant, his skin and flesh turning black, before he crumbled into a pile of ash that was kicked up and blown away in twisting twirling eddies by the gentle draught that blew through the tunnel in a long, drawn out sigh.

***

Finally free from the tunnel, the Youngbloods took stock of their losses. Five of their number had fallen in the Boar’s Eye skirmish, the other wounded being saved by Wrynn’s healing skills.

              The Shaman looked haggard and drained as he approached Arnoon, his strength exhausted by his previous exertions but his eyes still strong as ever.

             
“You did well, Arnoon; without your efforts the Barbarians would have found our village. Trust me, your men died well.”

             
Arnoon nodded, looking at the corpses of the Youngbloods that had been in his charge. That made six now, some of them no older than fifteen. He shook his head to himself; he hoped that these deaths made enough of a difference.

             
The troupe sat about, some on rocks, some on grass, all fatigued and in shock at the confrontation, for most of them the first life or death situation they’d ever faced.

             
Wrynn stood, watching them, arms folded, proud of them all, proud most of all of Arnoon, for the lad had grown up a lot these past few weeks. He noticed the Youngblood leader fiddling with a cord about his neck, recognising it as the cord from the amulet he had helped Lanah create. Yes, he had grown up indeed.

             
“Tell me of the situation, Arnoon. I followed you for a lot of the journey, but I didn’t see the camp of the enemy. What do we face?”

             
The youth looked up at the Shaman, eyes serious, tone grave.

             
“It’s no small raiding party, that’s for sure. We counted perhaps two hundred men, well equipped, with horse and wagon. We tried to poison their steeds with Venomberry, cripple their ability to march, but they found us out. Chances are they may have discovered our tampering. Hopefully, like you say, with their scouts dead they might not be able to follow us. With luck, we may have time to send word to the other villages, gather a force large enough to repel them.”

             
He didn’t sound convinced of his own words.

             
Wrynn pondered all this new information, eyes staring off into the far distance as though he could see the enemy camp, before replying.

             
“You did well to bring us this information, Son of Narek. I wish we’d taken the threat more seriously from the start, but what is done is done. Set up camp, rest your troupe. I will make my way back to the village, inform the Chief of what you’ve learnt.”

             
With that, he took a step back, nodding farewell, before imploding in on himself, one instant a man, next, raven, taking off through the sky with a final, parting caw.

             
As Arnoon watched the Shaman fly off in front of the three moons, he suppressed a shiver of dread; for all Wrynn’s comforting words, if they’d only observed the barbarians rather than trying to sabotage them, perhaps they’d have passed the village by. He felt that, perhaps, all he’d managed to achieve was to rouse a sleeping giant.

***

He was falling, so great a distance as to be incomprehensible, so far that he finally gave up screaming, the depths below rushing up at so glacial a pace that, despite everything, he found himself almost becoming bored.

              And so it was that it came almost as a relief, a break in the monotony, when the Avatar of Air decided to show up.

             
The first he knew of it was when swirling trails of light began to circle him in the darkness, buzzing past, watching him tumble, darting close to touch him before zooming off again.

             
Sylphii.

             
He could hear them whispering, chatting, laughing with one another at his predicament and he shouted to make himself heard over the rushing of the wind as he plummeted.

             
“Fairies! I wish to speak to your master!”

             
They darted closer at his words, circling him in great looping orbits as they kept pace with his fall. One spirit flew closer, right in front of his face, a woman in miniature with multi-coloured translucent wings like that of a butterfly and long, raven hair.

             
“Fairies?” it repeated, voice like the tinkling of tiny bells. The others all repeated the word to themselves excitedly, giggling. “Fairies, he calls us? Not heard that word we haven’t, not for a long time. Not here, no, not this place.”

             
Stone was slowly turning as he fell, the Sylphii keeping pace with his spin so that he always faced it. The effect was quite disconcerting.

             
“Fairies, Sylphii, Pixies, whatever you want to be called. I need to speak with the Avatar of the Air.” He gestured downwards, as though stating the obvious. “If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have all the time in the world.”

             
The air-elementals laughed at this, their trails of light changing colour as they did.

             
“Oh, time, what a joke! What meaning time to creatures such as we, human? But human you are not, are you? You masquerade as man yet you are not! We watch you, we see you, how you act with our brother and sister, the tests they put you through, yet here you are, still alive, still alive.”

             
The rest of the Sylphii joined in the chorus, the combined harmonies of their twinkling voices taking a sinister, jarring note that scratched at his mind.

             
“Perhaps more tests, find out what you are, yes, yes, good idea!”

             
“No thanks,” he called above the gale that whistled past his ears, eyes wide with apprehension even as they streamed in the biting wind. “No more tests, I’m all tested out, I promise you!”

             
“Promises, it makes!”

“But it is for us to decide if you are tested enough.”

              “He breathes water like a fish, or so our sister says!”

             
“He can breathe water, but can he breathe with no air?”

             
“Spin, spin, spin!”

             
The spirits whirled about him in a blur of motion, faster than the eye could behold, long streamers of light following them until it looked almost as if he were cocooned in some glowing, white chrysalis. As they span, faster and faster, he could feel the very air being dragged from his lungs as their speed formed a vacuum in the space around him. The feeling of his lungs contracting in the vacuum was excruciating and, before long, he grew light-headed from lack of oxygen; this was not like breathing underwater – there was oxygen in water, just in a different form – this was pure starvation, nothing for his body to feed on at all.

             
“We will kill him!”

             
“Perhaps, maybe, yes, no!”

             
“He cannot breathe!”

             
“Watch, wait, see.”

             
His vision was just on the point of fading when something snapped inside him, a second wind of energy flooding through his system, screaming muscles relaxing, vision clearing, panic subsiding.

             
He wasn’t breathing, his lungs still screwed tightly shut in the vacuum.

And yet.

And yet.

The Sylphii flew about him, confused, puzzled, amused, reaching out to touch him as though he were some exhibit in a zoo. He watched them, just as confused as they, unable to speak for the lack of air in his lungs.

“Interesting.” The chorus taken up in a ripple that spread through the swarm. “Reverse metabolisation.” They sounded at once amused and impressed.

The spirits slowed their orbit, a bang signalling the rush of air back into the space about him, his cramped lungs swelling anew and he coughed, violently, raging at them in a wheezing rasp as soon as his voice allowed.

“Why? Why do you torment me?”

“Our brother, our si
ster, they find you fascinating. So do we. You are an anomaly. You don’t belong, yet we sense you will be useful in times to come. You have a purpose, but good or bad we do not know.”

His weary mind pondered their words as he continued his never ending fall into oblivion.

“Brother? Sister? Are you the Avatar of Air?”

The sprites laughed as one.

“Yes! No! Maybe!”

“Answer me, damn you!”

“We are the air, everywhere,  all encompassing. We cannot be captured or controlled, we cannot be confined.”

“Are you mocking me?”

More laughter.

“No! Not mocking! Handing over! To our brother!”

He frowned.

“Look down, human, look down!”

Down he looked, to see a red glow at the bottom of the drop, racing up to meet him. There was only one thing it could be.

“Oh, shit.”

He turned to the spirits, the magma only two hundred feet below him.

“Slow me, spirits! Help me to land on solid ground!”

“Say please! Ask nicely! So rude, humans!”

“Please!”

One hundred feet.

“Pretty please with sugar on top! Say it!”

Fifty.

He roared, but relented, the heat already causing beads of sweat to form on his forehead, despite the wind.

“Pretty please with sugar on top!”

He closed his eyes.

He opened them.

He was suspended, motionless, ten feet above an island of solid stone amidst of sea of burning magma.

“See, human? Not so hard to be nice!”

He dropped to the ground with a hollow thud, landing on his feet, the Sylphii, or Avatar of air, whatever they were, flying off into the sky, laughing amongst themselves, leaving a trail of light that grew dimmer and dimmer until they disappeared into the gloom.

***

Chief Farr’s face was pale and ashen, his usual cheerful demeanour lost in the midst of the description of their foe. The Steppes-Folk had not raided in such numbers for over a generation and the thought of the danger facing his village, his people, his family stunned him.