The Descent to Madness (6 page)

With a grimace of disgust he spat the transparent flesh from his mouth and flung the rest of the carcass away. Though his See-Through-Salmon was the size and shape of the fish from his patchy memory, the taste was vile, the texture rubbery and greasy at once. He rushed to the bank of the river and plunged his head into the flow, the icy chill of the water refreshing and exhilarating, but more importantly washing the bitter tang from his mouth. Lifting his head from the water, he sat back on his haunches and shook his long, unkempt hair dry, freezing droplets spraying the ground about him.

With nothing better to do and, in the hope of perhaps finding something tastier to eat, Stone stood up and loped downstream from where the salmon had come, his hard legs and calloused feet making short work of the ever thawing terrain.

***

The horses were nervous, stamping their feet and shying away from every noise that rustled from the undergrowth. Raga didn’t blame them, he hated the foothills of these mountains; he was a horseman by nature and his heart cried out for the sight of the wide-open steppes surrounding the Barbarian City, the feel of galloping steed beneath him, his long, brown top-knot streaming in the wind. That was horse country. This; this land was wild, untamed, fit only for the beasts.

No civilised man lived here.

              He reined his pale mount to a halt and surveyed the clearing, stroking his long, brown moustache. This would do for now; the evening was drawing in already, the sky beginning to darken into an orange haze and it would not do the horses to be making their way through this forest at night, not with the wolves ready to pounce at every turn. It had been a long ride, first across the foothills to pick up their cargo, now homeward bound and they were still at least another week from home.

             
“Halt!” he shouted. He turned his brown, almond shaped eyes to the men following him. Twenty Savaran, light cavalrymen, all clad in fur and leathers, with a caravan of four covered wagons behind. Their cargo, bound for the Barbarian City. “We camp here tonight. Haresh, Janibek – see to the horses. The rest of you, make camp.”

His men fell about setting up camp with practiced ease, the wagons forming a circular perimeter within which sat first the men’s tents, then the horses
, finally the campfire being built in the very centre about which the grateful men sat down to rest their weary backs. Large curved swords, bows and quivers were all scattered about them but within easy reach if needs be.

The wolves were always around once they caught the scent of horse...

              Raga dismounted, stretching his tired legs, patting the muzzle of his steed as Haresh led it away to be tied up with the others. He laid his pair of curved scimitars to the ground near where his tent was being pitched, gently and reverently, admiring the ivory handles carved with the shapes of rearing horses and the long, thin blades ideal for striking from a mounted position. The swords were ancestral, part of his clan’s heritage and he looked after them jealously as a mother might a newborn baby. Alongside them he set his trusty bow, the signature weapon of all Savaran horsemen. His throwing knife, however, remained as always in the leather strap about his ankle.

Raga accepted the gourd handed him by one of his men and took a big gulp, the Vorda burning his throat as it went down, then, handing the drink back he looked across the camp, fixing his eyes on a large figure with a wolf-pelt drooped over one shoulder. The boisterous man was guffawing loudly with his fellows as he struggled with his tent, obviously already intoxicated from drinking on the ride. Raga’s eyes narrowed and he stalked over, the more sensible of his men backing away to clear a path as they saw him coming.

“Zoltar!” he growled, in a low and menacing voice that meant business.

The bigger man turned slowly from his efforts, his previous humour forgotten, his moustachioed face now an impassive mask, eyes a well of barely disguised disdain. Raga was no small man, his youthful twenty-year old frame well-muscled with the rigours of training and well-nourished by the wealth of his clan, but even he had to look up to the gargantuan bulk of Zoltar. It was said that he went through a horse a season, their backs inevitably giving out under his barrel chested, forty-year old mass. Raga could well believe it.

But it intimidated him not in the slightest.

“Yes, Marzban?” the larger warrior slurred, the honorific dripping with sarcasm. The stench of alcohol washed over Raga’s face, almost causing his eyes to water. The tension between the two men veritably crackled the air like the static build-up before a thunderstorm, speaking of past arguments unresolved.

“Enough with your attitude, clansman,” the leader snarled. “I
am
Marzban and you
will
respect me. Your breath reeks enough to attract every beast within a day’s ride and you make enough noise to raise the dead from their barrows! This may have been how Adilah used to run things, but no longer; these Savaran are mine now and we do things my way. So forget about that old man and learn to show some respect to me.”

“RESPECT?” Zoltar roared.

A crowd of the men had gathered loosely now, sensing the unfolding confrontation, like animals sense an earthquake moments before it happens.

“Respect?” he repeated and gave a great, booming laugh that carried only a faint trace of mirth. “What does anyone from the mighty Clan of the
Two Scimitars know of respect?”

Raga balled his fists, trying to quell the rage within him at this blatant insubordination.

“You overstep the mark, clansman…”

“NO!” spat Zoltar, “YOU overstepped it when you took command of this unit with your subterfuge and your politics,
clansman
.” He took a step forward towards his leader, looming over him, his lined face red behind his grey moustache, his traditional topknot flicking about with every word. “Adilah, ancestors rest him, was a true Marzban, a man who had earned his command by right of countless blood-victories, who had personally saved the lives of each of us here in a hundred raids. I have put up with your naivety until now, Marzban, but you disrespect Adilah and you disrespect every man here. You are unfit to lead us.”

Raga glanced about at the men
gathered around the pair, noting the veteran warriors nodding and murmuring to each other. He had felt events leading to this over the weeks since being appointed this command. The political influence of his Clan had gotten him into this position far earlier than most and that was bound to earn him some enmity from the old guard.

This was his chance to end it.

“So that’s what it’s about, is it?” He spoke quietly, a wry smile on his face despite the proximity and simmering anger of the huge warrior. “Petty jealousy? You want that you should be Marzban instead? I had you pegged as a man of honour and duty, Zoltar. It seems I was very wrong.”

The giant veteran roared and flung himself at his superior, a cheer and gasp going up at once from his fellow Savaran, but Raga was ready, ducking down to the side and bringing his knee up into Zoltar’s midsection as he had trained countless times with his Clan’s blademasters. His leg jarred in pain as though he’d just kneed a tree, but it had the desired effect, the wind going out of Zoltar’s sails, doubling him up in pain. Spinning about, Raga brought his two hands down hard in a club-like motion on the back of his opponent’s neck, then again and again, until his hands felt like they would break. He took a step back to surmise the situation and
, with begrudging admiration and not a little fear, he watched as Zoltar slowly straightened himself, unharmed, teeth bared in a feral and savage grin of enjoyment.

Not allowing his foe time to recover, Raga launched a quick punch with his right hand, aimed at Zoltar’s ruddy nose. Zoltar’s hand shot up, catching Raga’s fist in his meaty palm. Features
wrought with shock and pain, the Marzban cried out as his fist was slowly crushed like so much dry leaf in the vast hand of his traitorous soldier, joints cracking loudly one after another. Using his left hand he delivered a punch to the cheek of his foe in an effort to break his grip, then another, the second having as little effect as the first. With a bellow of laughter Zoltar brought his own right fist into play, smashing into Raga’s stomach and driving all wind from him in a surge of crippling pain. Stunned, Raga could do nothing as the bigger man lifted him clean off his feet and over his head in a tremendous show of physical power. With his wolf-pelt cloak flapping in the breeze and his vanquished foe lifted above him in his grip, the bigger man looked every inch a warrior giant of legend. Roaring his triumph to his cheering comrades, Zoltar slowly turned around in a circle for all to witness his commander held helpless above him. Then with a mighty heave he threw Raga ten feet to land in a heap on the floor.

He rolled as best he could to reduce the impact, but still the cold, hard floor rattled his every bone. Wheezing, his vision swimming, he hauled himself to his knees. Behind him, he could hear the bellowing of his foe, the cheering of his once-loyal men. He could hear the creaking stretch of a bow-string growing taut.

He threw himself sideways, the barbed arrow thudding into the ground exactly where his heart would have been a split-second before and, in one smooth motion, reached down to the strap around his ankle, grabbing the small, perfectly weighted bronze knife, nocking it expertly  in the palm of his hand and launching it through the air with one fluid swing of his arm. The dart flew straight, a blur of speeding metal, his arm strong and his aim perfect.

The giant’s hands went to his throat, clutching in a futile gesture of survival, but the dark
warmth that began to steadily trickle through his fingers betrayed the severity of the blow. He fell to his knees, eyes wide and boggling, unable to talk for the blood filling his throat.

Raga picked himself up off the floor, unhurried, relaxed. He took his Clan Scimitars, drawing them out of their scabbards, the polished bronze gleaming in the orange glow of the sunset, and walked slowly towards his defeated rival. Silently, he looked down on Zoltar, his face betraying no emotion, no joyous victory or murderous bloodlust.

Just pure, simple faith in his authority over this moment.

“Times are changing, clansman” he quietly told the fallen giant. “The age of you old veterans is at an end. You need to move aside.” He raised his voice for all his men to hear. “The halls of the Barbarian King will soon be echoing to a new name, mark my words. The world will soon see an Empire the likes of which it has never known.”

A flock of birds took off from the treetops in noisy flight, the sound of their flapping wings echoing throughout the evening air and lending a sense of omen to his words. Returning his eyes to Zoltar, Raga raised both swords.

“Care to regale us with some dazzling final words?”

His only answer was a desperate gurgling of impotent, blood-choked rage.

His swords swept down like a pair of scissors, neatly cleaving Zoltar’s head from his shoulders. It fell one way, eyes and mouth still wide open in disbelief and shock, his body falling the other, a spouting geyser of crimson spraying over the frosty ground.

The gathered soldiers stood silent in a circle about the Marzban and the corpse. Sheathing his swords, Raga soaked in the silence of the victory, not just victory over his opponent, but victory over the hearts of his men. They were his now, by will or by fear.

“Haresh, feed the cargo. We need them in good shape for when we get home. Janibek, put the rabbits on the fire. I’ve worked up an appetite. And someone bury Zoltar. He makes the place look untidy.”

***

It drew him in with the same primal attraction that drew lightning to the ground. How far he’d been tracking the scent, he didn’t know, but at least a mile now, for sure. The smell was getting stronger and stronger with every step and, for the umpteenth time, Stone stopped, closed his eyes and drew in a long, lingering breath through his nose.

The sweet, savoury, warming notes caused his skin to tingle with pleasure. It was a smell he hadn’t smelt in all his limited memory, but he recognised it at once – the unmistakably delicious aroma of roasting meat. Though he was perfectly at ease of late with eating raw fare, his body seemed to crave the easy, denatured texture of cooked food. And he was not about to deny it if he had the chance. The wolves had shown up within the last ten minutes, no doubt tracking the same smell, so for now he was keeping to the trees out of harm’s way. Another useful skill he’d mastered, leaping from branch to branch to keep his scent off the ground.

Avoided a lot of drama that way.

Closer to the smell he leapt, his tough and agile feet keeping him all but glued to the branches, no chance of falling, his lean, muscled arms swinging him effortlessly from tree to tree, wolves loping along beneath him. All of a sudden he noticed that he was now alone. Squinting back into the darkness of the night-time forest, he saw the wolves prowling around but venturing no closer, their senses – keener, even, than his – obviously warning them of some hidden danger ahead. No doubt the roaster of the meats…

It wasn’t long before the gloom ahead was broken into flickering shadows interspersed with orange light. Getting closer, Stone could see a bright campfire, upon which were cooking the promised meats on a spit, rabbits by the looks of the carcasses. The golden, juicy, crispy-looking carcasses…