The Iron Wolves (31 page)

The years rolled by…

And then Farsala died.

Tears rolled down Dalgoran’s cheeks. Above him, the trees shifted in a kind of ethereal witch-light. Around him, the Iron Wolves slept in complete silence. No movement, no snoring, no rustling.

They slept like the dead.

Slowly, Dalgoran reached down under the blankets and pulled a short dagger from a sheath in his boot. More tears rolled down his cheeks and a single bright pinprick of light focused his entire mind, his being, his soul. He relaxed back in his blankets, and exhaled, and the world felt right, the time felt right, and the trees moved above him like a soothing lover, and he hardly felt the bite of razor steel as it crossed his wrist. A flood of warmth eased over his arm, then over his chest where he held his clenched fist to his breast. He could hear the beat of his heart, a rhythmic thumping, and there was no pain, there was no hate, his mind was bright and white and clean, and Farsala would be waiting for him on the Other Side.

They would spend eternity together.

He listened to the beat of his heart. Gradually, it started to slow.

Dalgoran closed his eyes.

He smiled.

He remembered Farsala’s first smile.

Their first kiss.

Their first child.

And his heart stopped, and General Dalgoran died.

Kiki had moved Dalgoran’s chilled lifeless body to the centre of the stone circle, and the Iron Wolves sat in a semi-circle around the old man. His tunic was stained with blood; a lot of blood. His face was grey, hair white, face relaxed and completely at peace. Winter sunlight glimmered from above, from between the high branches of the eerily silent trees, and for a few moments dancing patterns of light played across Dalgoran, as if some ancient God was blessing him for the last time from on high. Then the light shifted, and the baubles of glowing gold spun away and were gone, and winter returned, and the bleak cold of the forest rushed in and filled the Iron Wolves with its desolation.

“Why?” said Kiki, softly. She leant forward on her knees and took Dalgoran’s hand in her own, and squeezed his freezing dead fingers. Her eyes strayed to the other hand and the wrist with the neat razor slash. She turned and stared at the faces of Dek, then Narnok, then Trista, and finally Zastarte.

“This place got to him,” rumbled Narnok. He shuddered. “I had very, very bad dreams.”

“Me also,” said Dek.

“Did you want to kill yourself?” Narnok turned his harsh scarred face on Dek, who flinched, seeming to shiver, then looked down at the dead pine needles on the ground.

“I’m… not sure. I was filled with hate and melancholy.” He glanced up suddenly, head swaying left and right, eyes sweeping the trees. “It’s this fucking place! It’s… evil. There’s something here that wants us to die; to join it. Them.”

“Angry spirits?” said Trista, softly.

“Maybe,” said Dek.

“We can’t leave him here. His body, I mean.” Kiki glanced around.

The others stared at her. Finally, Narnok said, “That’s ridiculous. We’ll bury him here and be done with it. We’re not dragging a corpse across half the damn country.”

“It’s not a corpse, it’s Dalgoran,” said Kiki through clenched teeth.

“No, my dear, it’s simply dead meat. Dalgoran has gone.”

Kiki stared at Narnok. “Don’t cross me on this, Narnok.”

“We are not taking his body across Vagandrak.”

“You try and fucking stop me, and I’ll cut out your other eye.”

Narnok scowled. “You think you can threaten me and I’ll stand here and take it?” He hefted his axe. “You really think you’ve got what it takes, bitch?”

Kiki stood and unsheathed her sword. She stared at them, slowly, one after the other. “I’m taking Dalgoran out of this place. Anybody stands in my way, I’ll kill them. I can’t say it clearer than that.”

Dek rose and placed a restraining arm on Narnok. “Leave her be, Big Man.”

“Or what will you do? Find another way to stab me in the back?”

“Guys, guys, guys,” said Zastarte, standing, tossing back his dark curls, holding both hands out, palms flat in some form of supplication. “This is ridiculous. Sayansora
does this
to people, can’t you see? This place wants your souls. It wants your blood. Instead of standing around squabbling like a bunch of village idiots, we need to mount up and
get out.
And I kind of agree with Kiki; there is no honour leaving Dalgoran in a place such as this. It could well be a condemnation for his eternal soul.”

“Who are you calling a fucking village idiot?” snarled Narnok, rounding on Zastarte.

“Er. You?”

“I’ll carve you a new quim, mate.”

“Thus I rest my case.”

They stared at each other, and Zastarte’s hand inched towards his rapier.

“Touch it and I’ll remove your hand,” growled Narnok.

“The very same words spoken by the last man I tortured, disembowelled and set on fire whilst he was still breathing. He stank like a burning pig as he screamed and begged. I had his skull mounted in a glass case in my home. Go easy with your threats, Narnok One Eye, or maybe you too can experience the pleasure of my dungeon.”

“Wait!” snapped Kiki. “Truly. There is no need for this. I will take Dalgoran’s body and bury it myself when we leave the Drakka on our way to the Pass of Splintered Bones.”

There was an uneasy silence, and Kiki looked at the Iron Wolves once more. Then she frowned. “What is it?”

“You say it,” muttered Dek, nudging Narnok.

“Well,” rumbled the large axeman, “the thing is, this mission to Desekra, it was all based on Dalgoran and his prophecy and shit. The thing is, he offered us gold, lots of gold, and now he’s dead.”

“So?” Kiki’s words were acid.

“
So,
we was wondering if now Dalgoran is dead, would we still get the gold? I mean, who’s to say what he promised us or not? We might get there and do all this fighting and save the fucking realm again, and still be penniless afterwards. That King Yoon, he’s supposed to be crazy, so they say. Why would he back us up? Why would he honour any debt? Why would anybody honour the debt of a dying old general?”

Kiki stared hard at Narnok, then at Dek, and Trista, and Zastarte.

“So, you’re all here for the gold?”

“Not all of us,” said Dek.

“But it would come in handy,” said Trista. “It always does. And let’s be honest, we are mercenaries. Each and every one of us.”

“Dalgoran is…
was
my father.”

“So?” said Narnok. And gave a semi-toothless grin.

“Are you refusing to come with me?”

“No, of course not,” said Dek smoothly. “I’m with you, for one. For old times’ sake. For the years we spent as the Wolves; for the past, the present and the future. I’ll stand beside you, Kiki. I love you like no other.”

“You loved my wife more,” mumbled Narnok.

“Shut your mouth, fat man, lest I hack out your tongue.”

“Guys, guys, really, I implore, we need to leave this place. Before it kills us.”

They nodded and started to move to their mounts, but Kiki gave a cough and held up a hand. “Wait. There is one last thing. Before he died, before he
committed suicide,
Dalgoran told me one thing of great importance.”

“Spit it out,” rumbled Narnok.

“He told me how to lift the curse.”

There was a stunned silence.

Eventually, Dek spoke. “But he said it was impossible! After we made the binding, after we spoke the lore, after they used their magick; it was a one way process. Dalgoran and Jagged, Meyton and Dalgerberg; they said it could never be taken back. We were cursed. For eternity. Or at least, till the day we died.”

“Apparently, they lied.”

“Give me his body,” growled Narnok, hefting his axe, “I’ll cut up the old fucker right now!”

“Back!” snapped Dek, his own blade singing free. “Can’t you hear what she’s saying? Don’t you fucking
understand,
you big oaf? She can free us.” His eyes were gleaming as he looked around at the Iron Wolves. “She can free us all!”

“Are you sure, Kiki?” asked Zastarte. His face was impassive, but his eyes were shining. “He told? Told you how to do it?”

“Yes. I swear it. By the Seven Sisters.”

“How?” growled Narnok.

“Yes, how?” said Dek.

Kiki gave a narrow smile. “I’ll tell you when we reach Desekra.”

“Reach…” Narnok gave a broad, nasty smile. “So, you’re holding us to ransom to get where you want?”

“You said to Dalgoran, each of you said you would come to Desekra and help turn back the mud-orcs and the Changer. What else has altered? Only now I offer you a greater prize. I offer you your…”

“Freedom,” said Dek, eyes narrowed.

“You must tell us, sweetie,” said Trista, moving close. But Kiki stepped back and lowered the point of her sword to Trista’s belly.

“Drop the fucking blade.”

Trista sighed, and the concealed iron dagger hit the frosted ground.

“And the other.”

A second knife followed.

“If you kill me, you’ll never find out. If you help me, we can all win this game.”

“Sweetie, I was simply going to mention that
if you die,
on the journey, for example, if we are attacked by mud-orcs or splice, then the secret will die with you. We will always be cursed.”

“And a few moments ago, that was the way you thought it was always going to be. So, nothing will have changed, will it?
Sweetie.
” Kiki swept an angry gaze across the group. “I thought better of you people; I thought we were locked in kinship by bonds of honour stronger than any iron chains. But I see I was sorely mistaken. You were the Iron Wolves, but you have fallen a long way since then, fallen faster than any dark angel plummeting to earth and the Furnace deep below. I see I will have to watch my back. But listen, and listen good. The only way I’ll help lift the curse we all suffer is if you help me get to where I want to be. We have a common goal. Do we understand one another?”

“I’ll stand by you,” said Dek, voice hard.

“And I,” said Narnok. “You can rest easy, Little One. I’ll see nobody harms you. I want this dark magick out of my blood. Out of my soul. I would cross oceans and kill armies to achieve it. If that’s what it takes.”

Kiki nodded. “So, not for honour and old times’ sake, then. But for personal gain. But I can live with that. At least I understand the mercenary part of your soul.” She turned on Trista and Zastarte. “And what about you two? Do I have to worry about a knife in the back, or can we agree that for your help, I can help purify your blood? And your souls.” She gave a narrow smile. “You know only I can do it. You know only I hold the key.”

“You have me,” said Zastarte with his easy flamboyant smile. “No catch. I’ll do what it takes. You want us to fight? Be the Big Heroes? Drive out the mud-orcs? Slay Orlana? We can do all that. Or die trying.”

Kiki nodded.

“And you, bitch?”

“No need to get personal,” smiled Trista, running a hand through her golden curls. “I, like the others, would like my… freedom returning. You all know, as do I, how this affects our everyday lives. I would enjoy living my final years as a…
normal person
. That would give my life a certain… equilibrium.”

Silence followed.

Kiki nodded. “Mount up. Let’s get through this damned forest as quick as we can.”

They rode as fast as the forest trails would allow. Still the silence was oppressive and complete, and Kiki felt the eroding consequences of the place; her mind turned more and more to her mental torture by Suza, to her need for honey-leaf stimulation, to the cancer that was wearing her down and, finally and ultimately, to the death of her beloved friend and father-figure. Dalgoran. Gone. She could not believe it was possible! It was heart-wrenching, terrifying, horrifying and deeply, deeply heartbreaking. So sad she wanted to crawl into a hole and… (
hush
) die.

They stopped mid-afternoon for a much needed rest, and Dek helped Kiki ease the body of Dalgoran from the back of the general’s mount where he had been tied. Narnok went about making a pan of stew, as Kiki took a long drink of water from her canteen and gazed about her.

Motes of light danced through the forest.

It was a beautiful place, but terribly sombre; utterly melancholic.

She shivered.

Truly, it was a place to die.

They sat and ate from wooden platters, and then scratching his stubble, Dek mumbled about going for a piss. He wandered a short way from the makeshift camp and urinated into a bed of ferns, sighing to himself as he laced up his trews and cursed Narnok for not adding more salt to the stew. It’s what every good stew needs, he thought, a good bit of generous salt. Adds flavour and replenishes lost reserves. Nothing like a good bit of salt to really make a meal stand out.

He turned, and screamed…

The others came running, weapons drawn, poised and ready for combat with mud-orc or splice, and stopped dead. Dek was staring at them, face ashen, a fake smile on his taut face. “Sorry about that,” he said, deepening his voice. “Gave me a bit of a shock, it did. Not what you’re expecting when you’re stowing your cock back in your trousers.”

The Iron Wolves stared at him, then slowly turned to see what had startled the pit-fighter. It was a body, strung up by the neck. A woman, by the clothing, although it was now impossible to tell from the features. The withered skull, still with a covering of paper-thin dead skin, was a pale brown in colour, with sunken sockets containing no eyes. A grey rope fixed the corpse in position against an ancient, twisted tree trunk, and the belly and legs seemed curiously bloated, expanded, whilst the arms had withered away to little more than bones. The hands, also, seemed bigger than they should; probably an effect of the skeletal limbs. One hand was missing, and the arm seemed to end in a tuft of grassy tendons. The clothing, a flowery dress, was muddied and torn. The feet wore expensive boots, crusted in mud and pine needles.

“By the Seven Sisters,” murmured Kiki. “That is truly horrific.”

“It gets worse,” rumbled Narnok, who’d taken several steps ahead, up a short embankment and between two massive ancient oaks, which seemed to act as pillars bordering some great portal into…

They scrambled up the soil and leaves, and stood, mouths open, eyes wide, staring out at a massive glade of hanging corpses. There were perhaps seventy or eighty bodies, each hung by their own hand on short tattered ropes, wearing a disarray of clothing, dresses and shirts and trews, some in boots, some barefoot, all crusted with mud and dirt, as if they’d been hanging for years. Poppies grew all around the glade, adding bright red clusters to a very sombre place.

Nothing moved in this mass place of suicide.

Nothing moved at all.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Trista, quietly.

“What would make so many kill themselves?” whispered Kiki.

“We need to leave,” said Zastarte, no smiles, no flippancy, only a core-deep urgency which spoke to the rest of the Iron Wolves. “Right. Fucking. Now.”

They moved back to their makeshift camp, packing swiftly and lifting Dalgoran to the back of his mount.

“How long till we leave the forest?” asked Zastarte, suddenly, his eyes haunted and glittering as if he suffered some kind of fever.

“Two days,” said Kiki. “Maybe a day and a half, if we kill the horses.” She gave a weak and bittersweet smile.

“Then we need to kill the horses,” said Zastarte, brutally. “Come on.”

They rode fast and hard, pushing their mounts with little mercy, then swapping to the spare horses and pushing them with the same relentless need. But still the day wore on and gradually the sun dropped lower in the sky above the tall trees, the green diffused light getting weaker and weaker and weaker, until the Iron Wolves could do nothing but acknowledge the fact they were going to have to spend another night in Sayansora alv Drakka – the Forest of Suicide. The Forest of Angry Spirits. The Sea of Trees…

They rode late into the night, until exhaustion threatened to cripple one or all with a serious fall. They dismounted, warily, in the unending total blanketing silence. Narnok mumbled something about gathering firewood, and Kiki gestured to Dek to accompany him.

“None of us goes anywhere alone,” she said.

“So, if I need a shit, you’ll come with me?” grinned Zastarte.

“Prince, I’ll even wipe your backside if it stops you drawing a razor across your windpipe.” His smile fell, then, and his handsome features creased into a frown.

Narnok and Dek built a raging fire and dragged various fallen logs to form a semi-protective barrier. Narnok made another of his dubiously famous stews, this time using wild onions Dek had discovered in the forest. This time, when Narnok was not looking, Dek added more salt.

They sat around the fire, eating, and then thinking. The horses, tethered to one side, seemed docile, drugged even. Kiki crossed to her mount, a grey mare, and stroked her muzzle. The creature nuzzled against her, but soon lowered her head and stared at the ground.

“It’s even affecting the horses,” noted Trista.

“Yes.” Kiki retook her seat, and warmed her hands against the blaze as Dek added more chunks of wood he had, along with much moaning and carping from Narnok, hewn using Narnok’s fabulous double-headed battleaxe.

“It’s not for chopping wood,” moaned the large axeman.

“Shut up, or we’ll freeze.”

Now, with the blaze lifting their dampened spirits, Trista started to sing, a lilting sorrowful tune, melodic, haunting, spiritual, in the long dead language of the Equiem. Eventually her notes faded into silence, and the forest crept back to fill their souls with the emptiness of the void.

“It’s just unnatural,” grunted Narnok, finally.

“What, Trista’s singing?”

“No no! That was beautiful. I’m talking about this place. This bloody silence. It gives me the damn and bloody creeps.”

“More than a glade of eighty corpses, you mean?” said Kiki, one eyebrow raised.

“Point taken,” muttered Narnok.

“Listen,” said Zastarte. “Here is the plan.”

“What plan?” said Narnok.

“The plan I’m going to tell you if you listen, axeman.”

“Oh. Well, why didn’t you say?”

Zastarte stared at him. “I remember. I remember this,” he said.

“Oh? And what does that fucking mean?”

“I’d forgotten. Heh. But now I remember.”

“You’ll remember my boot up your fucking arse, lad.”

“Ahh, and now straight to the terrible anal insults. Narnok, you need to relax, my friend, and let people speak, and then, and only then, engage your brain before you open your mouth. I see the last twenty years has done nothing to expand your horizons, nor increase your intellect.”

“Eh?”

“Look. This place is haunted… or infused with… demons, or whatever the hell this phenomena would claim to be. I suggest two of us keeping watch at any one time throughout the night. It’ll be safer that way.”

“But we’ll only get half the sleep,” moaned Narnok.

Zastarte gave a tight smile. “We’ll do it your way then, shall we? And one of us will submit, lay down and commit suicide. Then you’ll get all the sleep you need – for an eternity. How does that sound?”

“Point taken. No need to go on about it.”

“It’s a good idea,” said Kiki, wearily. “We’ll sleep in shifts, keep one another awake, watch the others for signs of… anything untoward. Who’s going first?”

“I will,” mumbled Narnok, casting an evil look towards Zastarte. “As long as I don’t have some dandy popinjay to keep me company, boring me with tall tales of his exaggerated sexual exploits. Or then I
will
fucking hang myself.”

“I’ll sit with you,” said Trista, and beamed him a smile.

Narnok stared back, his heavily scarred face impassive. “As you wish,” he said.

Within minutes the others were asleep from sheer exhaustion, and Narnok and Trista sat across the fire from one another, watching like two tomcats across a cooked chicken leg. It was Narnok who broke the silence first.

“Why did you volunteer?”

“Why not?”

“You’re a slippery eel, Trista. You always were.”

“You had an eye for me, back in the day,” she said, smiling seductively.

“Just the one eye for you now,” said Narnok, pulling his axe close and hugging it like he would a lover.

“Why don’t you come over here and sit next to me, Big Man?” she said, beaming another smile and patting the log beside her.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I seem to remember that falling in love with you was like a death penalty. How many men died because of you? In the
good old days?
”

“It is not my fault young handsome chivalrous heroes chose to do battle and duel over my exquisite beauty.”

“Ha! You played them for idiots. Gullible fools falling over themselves for a simple kiss or a glance from them fluttering eyelids. You used to make me sick.”

“Only because you never got a slice of my cake,” she smiled.

“I was good looking enough, back then, right enough,” said Narnok, staring at her.

“I have one question, then.”

“Go on.”

“Why did you never try for me? I think you would have found me extremely accommodating.”

“I got pissed once in Vagan,” said Narnok, staring into the fire. “Ended up sharing a bottle of Vagandrak Red with a professor from the university. An expert on insects, he was. Ha! What fucking use is that, I ask you? What point? Anyways, he tells me this story about this little black spider, can’t remember its name, horrible black legs, red markings on its back, deadly as they come. Send you screaming and begging for mercy with one little bastard bite. Deadly to humans. According to this professor type, can’t remember his name, forked beard, cross-eyed, probably from the chemicals. Anyways, he reckons this spider would fuck its mate, get impregnated, then kill him.” Narnok glanced up then, more to see if Trista had fallen asleep than to see if she was really listening to his tale. She hadn’t, and she was.

“Go on,” she said, voice soft.

“Or, more precisely, this little bugger would have sex, then
eat
the male partner. Sex, then dinner, so to speak. Except the father was the main course. Sexual cannibalism, this professor type called it. Horrible!”

Narnok shuddered, then looked long and hard at Trista.

“So?”

“That’s you, that is,” said Narnok.

“What, a ‘sexual cannibal’?”

“Yeah. Sex and death, hand in hand.” He grinned at her. “That’s why I never went near you. I like a good fuck as much as the next man; but unlike this little black spider fellow, I ain’t willing to give my liver and lungs for the privilege.
No
woman is
that
good.”

“Ha! Maybe you should try it. Maybe I’d surprise you.”

“Or maybe you wouldn’t. Tits are tits and quim is quim. It all gets a bit the same, after a while.”

“What happened to your eye, Narnok?”

“Some bastard put it out. I made him eat his own eyes before I chewed out his throat.”

“A shame. And the scars to your face? Cut you up bad, did he?”

“He did.”

“This because of your wife? The one who fucked Dek?”

“I think this is getting too personal,” said Narnok. “Now, what I’d suggest for a happy watch is shutting
your
mouth before I
cut off your head.
”

“And you think you could?”

“I’d make a pretty good stab at it. So to speak.”

Trista smiled sweetly. “I’m sure you would, honeycake.”

They descended into an uneasy silence, watching one other across the fire. Neither spoke for a long time, and eventually Narnok fished out his whetstone and started honing the blades of his axe with short, easy strokes.

“You love that axe, don’t you?” said Trista, eventually.

“More than any woman.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“This true love has never let me down.”

“I wish I knew that feeling,” sighed Trista, and closed her eyes, rubbing her eyelids.

Narnok honed his axe blades. It relaxed him. It reminded him of years ago, in the army, waiting for battle. Always waiting for battle. Ninety-nine days out of a hundred, always waiting for a bloody battle.

The whetstone hissed across steel.

Narnok felt his eyelids heavy. And it felt nice. It felt good. It felt… right.

And… gradually… he slept.