The Iron Wolves (2 page)

The creature pawed the ground and, with a deformed whinny, lowered its head again to charge.

“Here!” screamed Ragorek, waving his arms. The creature swayed, crazed blood eyes staring from under random tufts of black and brown fur. It turned on Ragorek, as Skellgann loosed another quarrel which thumped into the beast’s back. But this time, the creature ignored the impact and bore down on Ragorek, huge jaws wide open, folded back almost, wider than any horse’s mouth should ever physically be. Ragorek found himself staring into that cavernous maw, all bent and broken fangs, a black tongue curling and snapping like a spitting snake, thick strings of saliva and dead men’s blood forming a glutinous web and Ragorek realised he was screaming as those huge jaws moved swiftly toward his face…

Dek slammed into the beast, shoulder first, with his speed and weight and might, and it staggered sideways, jaws instantly snapping around to tear at Dek’s head. He twisted. Crooked fangs tore through muscle above his clavicle, which parted like rancid meat pared under a blunt blade, and blood pumped down his left arm in a thick surge.

“Dek, swords!” screamed Weasel, who had run back to the Fighting Cocks. Dek’s head came up and his right arm reached out. The blade whistled, turning over and over, and Dek snatched the weapon from the air as huge hooves reared to crush his head.

For an instant, Dek stared at the blade as if he held some alien thing, something terrible. Every man watching in hushed horror knew Dek must be crushed by those huge, flailing legs, those crooked iron hooves. But the warrior stepped neatly to one side and hooves struck a shower of bright light against the cobbles. Dek hacked the short iron blade into the creature’s neck. It snarled, head half-turning, teeth and fetid breath an inch from Dek’s blood-spattered face. Fangs snapped at him, like a lunging dog. Dek felt he was staring into the depths of some evil, cavernous pit; some charnel house, where near-dead things squirmed in pools of necrotic bowel; in pits of slithering, poisoned, headless snakes; in hollows of toxic fumes and severed cancerous growths. Dek froze to his very core as the evil magick of this beast swamped him, took his brain in its gauntleted embrace and crushed and broke his courage in half like a tortured man on a rack.

Ragorek screamed, leaping forward to hack his own sword into the creature’s spine. Fangs clashed like steel in front of Dek. He blinked and, point first, rammed his own blade up through the creature’s throat. Through the dark maw tunnel and strings of saliva he saw the sword slice up into the mouth, skewering the tongue; with a grunt, he jerked it up further, watching the blade slide further into the brain.

The creature reared, tearing the sword from Dek’s grip – roaring, squealing – and black blood sprayed from its broken jaws in a great arc. It staggered around, hooves and claws and fangs snapping and stamping. Ragorek darted in, plunging his blade into the beast’s flank. It staggered sideways under the blow. Skellgann came closer and, taking careful aim, fired a quarrel into the monster’s mouth. It gave a deep groan. More men had gathered arms, and rushed in as a group, spears jabbing at the creature which accepted the blows, the wounds, the slices, the impalement, and simply refused to go down. Only when Dek took a long sword from a bearded man with fear bright and brittle in his plate-wide eyes, and with a great swing hacked off one leg, then a second, did the beast finally topple to the ground to lie, panting, wheezing, coughing blood, crazed eyes switching from one man to the next to the next as if remembering and storing their faces for some future retribution. Dek stepped in close and hacked free the other two legs which lay, oozing black blood from jagged stumps, as twisted scarred iron hooves jittered and trembled as if still connected to some crazed puppeteer. The legless body squirmed and shifted, a dark slug, moving slowly around in a circle, and Dek realised everybody was watching
him
; eyes wide, terror coiled around their limbs and sword arms, horror and disgust holding them in thrall.

“So, then, I’ll do it, shall I?” snapped Dek, annoyed at the group, and spat and moved in close to those snapping jaws. And the monster’s eyes were watching him, piercing into his own from that great flat head, and they made him shiver as his mouth went dry and fear flooded him. For in that instant, the orbs looked nothing less than human.

Dek’s sword hacked at the neck, and it took six blows to break through thick sinews of muscle, tendon, ligament and spinal column.

Only then did the beast lie still, slowly collapsing down, deflating, onto a freezing platter of expanding crimson.

Ragorek approached, still holding his sword in swollen fingers.

“Well done, little brother.”

“I reckon it’s your turn next, you bastard,” snarled Dek.

“Not tonight,” breathed Weasel, eyes still wide. He held up both hands, palms outwards. “Not now… not after… this.”

“This changes nothing,” growled Dek, but suddenly his sword clattered to the ground and he dropped to one knee. He cursed, and looked at the deep glossy wound in his shoulder. He struggled to rise. “Damn it, I have a job to finish!” But blood loss left him weak, and he slumped over, onto his side.

Skellgann rushed over and rolled Dek to his back. “Who’ll help me carry him back to the tavern?” Men rushed forward, and they bore the huge fighter away leaving Weasel and Ragorek standing, weak and limp, staring at the steaming carcass of the slaughtered beast.

“What is this creature?” breathed Ragorek.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Weasel, rubbing his eyes wearily. He smeared stray droplets of blood across his own skin, and then stared at his hands for a moment, confused.

“I fear the world is changing,” said Ragorek, gently, the tip of his sword touching the icy cobbles with an almost inaudible
cling,
“when beasts such as this can invade the home lives of good, honest men.”

“Changing?” Weasel gave a bitter short laugh, like a slap. He poked the massacred beast with the toe of his boot. “This
monster
is not a product of our mortal realm. A raven-dark wind blows, Rag. I feel it, in my soul. This is just the beginning. I sense it. In my blood, like honey-leaf drugs. In my bones, like rancid marrow. There’ll be nowhere to hide for the likes of us, when this thing starts proper.”

“You reckon?”

“I promise you, mate,” said Weasel, and turned, heading back for the tavern, the light, the warmth, the camaraderie and an illusion of sanity which promised to nurse him to a bitter, drunken oblivion.

It was death. It was birth. It was fire. It was rape. It was exquisite murder. It was cheerful suicide. It was acid in her veins. Poison in her heart. Sulphur in her soul. A sincere abortion. A child’s coffin. An army of necrotic lovers. A giggling genocide. All of those things, and yet none.

It ravaged through her, burning, burning, pure hot honey in her veins and eyes and womb, and she screamed but she had no mouth, and she cried but she had no eyes, and she fought, for that was what she knew, that was what she did, that was all she could do. She fought for life, and she fought for death, and she fought to be free of the Furnace, for they had forced her there with powerful magick charms and magick oil, sacrilegious paedophiles, religious zealots and holy bastard whores, with their blood-oil and song-magick, with their sacrifice and genocide and betrayal of the
Old Gods,
the
Bad Gods
…
the Equiem
… she screamed, and fought, and thrashed, and gouged, and spat, and pissed, and every fucking inch was a million fucking years, and every fucking bite another fallen star, every savage slash of claws another decadent miscarriage, every scream vomited from her solid, mercury-filled throat was another worthy charnel house of sliming fish-head corpses waiting to be filled…

But then.

Then it was done.

And the world spun cool.

She knelt, crouched naked in a ditch, in the mud, slender and white and vulnerable; like a worm; a porcelain worm. The rain slammed down with cold needles that bit her tingling flesh. Slowly, she breathed out, and then in, and then out, savouring the acidic cold air, sulphurous from the Osanda marshes. But it tasted better than any succulent honey, any vintage wine, any ripe erection; for the air was
fresh
and the air was
free.

She
was free.

She stood, uncurling fast like the strike of an albino cobra. Her head lifted, and she stared up at the cold stars through the rain. A billion miles of hydrogen and frozen, chilled light.

She lifted her head, and she screamed, a noise so high and long and loud it seemed to split the world, split the heavens, and it sliced through the night and the darkness, disturbing the peace of a nearby mudland village.

She breathed, then. Breathed deep, and low, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm she thought she had forgotten.

So, this was life.

She… remembered.

Slowly, her hands touched herself, as if in wonder. She gazed down, at her fingers, her toes, her legs, her flat naked pale white belly. She touched her own breasts, cold and white as pared fish flesh. Finally, she gazed at her finger tips.

“I am alive,” she said, voice deep and musical, and she smiled, and her teeth ground together. She climbed up from the mud pit, slowly, every droplet and splash running from her skin as if her flesh was a charmed distillation and to sully its purity a sacrilegious abomination. She stood on the rim of the pit and watched five riders pick their way towards her from the nearby village. They were woodsmen, she could tell by their garb as they approached warily. The horses snorted and stamped in sudden, raging fear as they
smelled
her. Hooves clattered on rocks and ululating equine squeals marked the start of an uncontrollable fast-rising panic… but the woman lifted a finger and lowered her head and the horses were instantly calm, immediately still.

“A clever trick, lady,” said one man. He was large, stocky, made even more so by his bulky oilskins to ward off driving rain. He dropped from the saddle to the mud. “Are you up here screaming on your own, lady, or do you have friends nearby?” He was wary, glancing about. There had been flashes of lightning cracking the sky. And now… this.

The woman smiled and, quite theatrically, touched her finger to her lips. “Shh,” she said.

“You wish
me
to be quiet?” The man snorted laughter and turned to one of his companions. “Hey, Ebram, this wild woman of the night wants me to shut my mouth!” He turned back and observed her. She did not move, as if relishing his attention.

She was tall, well over six feet and, if the truth be told, nearer to seven. She was very slender, each limb a bald yew bough. Her skin was pale white, almost translucent, and devoid of any mark. Her short hair, flat against her skull, was as white as her skin. The woodsman’s eyes travelled up and down her body, and he found himself deeply confused.

“Lady, we can leave you out here to freeze if you like. Or you can come back down to the village. Dora’s a kind soul, runs the tavern; she’ll find you clothes and blankets, get you out of this rain and chill and give you some hot soup to warm you up.”

The woman gave a single, slow shake of her head. She lifted her hand and the five men watched, eyes narrowed, until her finger came to rest pointing at Ebram’s horse.

“What’s the matter with you? Where did you come from? How did you end up out here like this?”

“I need a mount,” said the woman, voice low, sultry, rich, musical, and her eyes flickered through a million different colours, and she felt the
power
surge within her, up, through her. Suddenly, the horse screamed and reared up, and Ebram stepped swiftly away, slipping in the mud, falling heavily to the ground with a thud where he lay, stunned, watching with mouth hung open, brain failing to decode what his eyes were witnessing…

The horse reared, hooves kicking the air, squealing like a baby, screaming like a stuck pig; then it went suddenly rigid, front hooves held high, and its skin seemed to bubble and roll with ripples like molten copper, and there came heavy
cracks
and its legs thrust out, bent into odd shapes, and a wild wind blew from the storm, and lightning cracked the sky like an egg, and the horse seemed almost to
turn inside out,
and its skull bloated, expanding unevenly, muzzle elongating and still screaming a single high-pitched note, and its body enlarged, crimson and slick with oozing blood; several of its pumping organs squirmed on the outside of its great, swollen, deformed body. The horse screamed and screamed, and its hooves hit the mud and it stood, panting heavily, nearly twice its original size, one front shoulder lower than the other, its eyes now blood red, its long equine maw twisted and scattered with uneven bent fangs. The deformed horse was a huge, malevolent, threatening creature. It grunted, shifting as if in great pain, then it lowered its jaws towards Ebram and with a quick, economical bite, snapped off his head.

Curses and shouts rang through the night, and the woman’s long white finger pointed to the other mounts which screamed and reared, skin peeling, bones cracking, heads elongating, maws twisting, and the men were thrown in panic, scrabbling in the mud, then they were up and running as the twisted horses came down on new, bloated hooves with bent shoes and turned, and charged them, and ate them, bodies, clothes, skulls and all.

Blood lay heavy in hollows. Rain pounded diagonal sheets. A cold wind blew and the slender woman shivered in ecstasy as she moved amidst these five huge, threatening, newborn beasts. Her hand traced lines down their bloodied flanks, and then she leapt easily onto one creature’s back and it reared, and she breathed, and it felt good to be alive; it felt good to be free. It felt good
to be back.

“I can channel the old magick,” she breathed, words drifting and lost in the storm. She smiled. “Interesting.” Her flickering eyes were like fire, like blood, filled with molten magick and overflowing with an ocean of crimson tears for a distant, ancient reckoning; a violent, primeval grudge.

“Now, it is time to claim my rightful throne,” whispered Orlana, the Changer.