The Sword of Feimhin (37 page)

Mark drew back his arm and, with all of his physical strength, he hurled the twin-bladed battleaxe at the cockpit. It spun as it lifted with a low-pitched hum, then struck with an explosion less loud than the earlier missile strike, but deadly with dark energy. The sky above Mark became brighter than day for several seconds, aflame with a crackling fireball of blue-black lightning. The pilot was dead. Mark crouched down in the small coppice, watching the pilotless machine shoot off at a crazy angle, then spin out of control and hurl itself at the dark mass of the ground, maybe sixty yards away. The returning battleaxe struck his uplifted hand just as he was forced to duck
from the explosion of the crash of the chopper. The conflagration was so fierce there would be no survivors.

He sensed Nan's return and saw the headlights of the Harley cut through the smoke and confusion. He heard a more distant explosion, followed by the unmistakable sound of automatic machine gun chatter: Cal and Sharkey firing the RPG and the Minimi. He doubted that the paramilitaries would win that one. This was one crew that was determined to survive.

Alan stared up into the green late afternoon sky to watch Iyezzz swoop down with what looked like a sense of urgency. There was no need to alert Ainé, Mo and Qwenqwo, who were already hurrying over to join him, all of them sensing, even from a distance of a hundred yards, that the Garg prince was the bearer of news. It had taken the army three days of grindingly slow progress to make their way this far down the steep moraine of slippery stones and treacherous gullies, where any temptation to hurry could lead to a broken ankle or worse. They had lost three of the supposedly sure-footed onkkh, but the Shee and aides had suffered nothing worse than a single broken wrist and half a dozen sprains. Although they calculated they were halfway down the northern face of the Flamestrucks by now, the air remained so thin they still felt breathless. It had stayed frigidly cold, but that was bound to change quite soon as they descended. They could already make out drifts of snow below them on the lower
slopes. But for now, the attacking wind and lack of moisture still prevented any snow this high. They hurried to where Iyezzz had alighted, his taloned feet skidding over the scree that still extended ahead of them. The scree led into a valley that ran between charcoal black rocky foothills.

The gill-like slits in the Garg's throat gaped with his efforts at breathing. ‘You head into a strange valley, still dry as any desert, but with signs of intelligent life.'

‘What sort of signs?'

‘Pyramids of skulls.'

Alan hugged his gloved hands under his armpits, trying to warm them. ‘Have you seen anything of the people who made them?'

‘Nothing.'

‘We've already crossed a river of bones. I don't think we need to be overly worried about pyramids of skulls.'

‘These are not skulls I recognise.'

‘You mean, they are not the skulls of people?'

‘Not Eyrie people, nor Cill nor humans – those I would recognise. Nor are they the skulls of any beast I recognise. But then, what possible creatures could inhabit these inclement valleys?'

‘Do you think it a warning?'

‘I do not know, but it is something meaningful, a declaration of territory, perhaps.'

Alan looked first at Ainé, then at Mo and Qwenqwo. The gathering was accumulating small clouds from their exhaled breaths.

‘We have little choice other than to proceed.'

‘Then do so with due caution, Mage Lord. You may be heading into a trap,' said the Garg.

An advance party of Alan, Ainé, Bétaald, Mo, Turkeya and Qwenqwo, flanked by guardian Shee, moved ahead of the main army. Because of Iyezzz's warning, Alan made certain that Mo and Turkeya kept close to him, and where Mo went Magtokk wouldn't be far behind. The increasingly close relationship between Mo and Magtokk was both intriguing and disconcerting. But for the moment Alan needed to concentrate on whatever mystery and danger might lie ahead. After two hours of steady advance, they arrived at the first of the strange monuments.

The structure really was a pyramid, ascending into the air through a series of platforms of decreasing diameter, tapering to a point thirty or so feet above the base. But Alan could see what had rattled Iyezzz. The basic building blocks were skulls, many hundreds of them, all carefully knitted together with what looked like limb bones and ribs, so that the pyramid held fast against wind and weather.

Alan approached it cautiously, wary of the possibility of traps, but found that he could touch it without mishap. Iyezzz alighted and watched from nearby as Alan looked closely at the individual skulls.

‘Whoever – or whatever – these creatures might be, they're huge.'

Alan reached out a gloved hand to feel the strange shape of the skulls, which were as big as the skulls of some
dinosaurs he had seen in museums. But their shape was different. They were elongated front to back and the projecting jaws were mounted side to side, with curiously incurved canines that met in the middle, sharp as needles. The eye sockets were unusual – grossly oversized even for the size of the skulls.

‘You see for yourself,' Iyezzz huskily insisted. ‘Not Eyrie People, not Cill – and certainly not human!'

‘I agree.' Alan took a few steps back to look again at the pyramid as a whole. ‘From what you say, there are more of them?'

‘Many hundreds.'

‘All the same?'

‘All similar – as far as I could discern from the air.'

‘It suggests that the creatures who built them must have lived here for a very long time. Yet I assume the Eyrie people have no knowledge of them?'

‘None.'

‘But what do they mean? Are they totems of identity – or meant to frighten strangers off?'

‘It is hard to believe that their makers expected to encounter any strangers in this inhospitable land.'

Alan looked at the dwarf mage, who was standing to his right, his protuberant nose and broad cheeks purple with cold. ‘What do you think, Qwenqwo?'

‘Who knows how ancient these landmarks might be? Is it not possible that their makers are long dead and gone? Perhaps the pyramids are a relic from a time long ago when these slopes were less arid and forbidding.'

At a signal from Mo, Ainé gestured for them to be quiet. ‘Hush a moment – we should listen.'

Alan hushed. There was a sound coming from somewhere, a buzzing sound, almost like a choir humming a tune. But now that the Kyra had drawn his attention to it, Alan could even feel the humming as a vibration through the rocks under his feet.

‘It's coming from the pyramid.'

As he stared at the structure in bafflement, there were cries from a party of Gargs further ahead. A group of them had been probing another pyramid, but now they were scattering, hurriedly taking to the air, while smaller, flying bodies buzzes around them, like a swarm of extremely large and disturbed wasps.

‘We'd better go see what's going on.'

Alan and the other leaders moved cautiously forwards, to observe lids of rock being thrown back to expose holes in the rocky ground. It was from the holes that the swarms of wasp-like creatures were erupting into the air. Closer to, the creatures were unlike any he had ever seen before. Their wings were more insect-like than those of the Gargs, yet the bodies of the creatures, only a foot or so in length, were humanoid with disproportionately large heads. Their eyes were bulbous and glaring and their mouths held vicious fangs.

‘Methinks these look like a hybrid of wasp and goblin,' said Qwenqwo.

‘Don't harm them!' Mo was hurrying forward, her cry echoed by Turkeya.

‘Tell the Shee to hold off.' Alan waved a cautioning hand to the Kyra.

‘Stay back,' the Kyra commanded.

‘What is it, Mo?'

‘I think we should observe and no more.'

Some of the attackers were forming a protective swarm around the disturbed pyramid. Other creatures, much larger than the attackers, were issuing in twos and threes from the holes in the ground. These slug-like creatures, about the size of a hippopotamus, were more lumbering. They were heading for the disturbed pyramid. As Alan and the others watched, they began to repair the structure, restoring the skulls and knitting them back into formation with elaborate care, using a glittering thread-like material which they manipulated with the same incurved canine teeth that Alan had noticed in the skulls.

‘The skulls – they must be theirs!' Alan said to Mo, who was sticking close to his side.

She nodded. ‘I don't think they mean to harm us. The pyramids must be totems. Altars to the dead. But these are the first living creatures we've come across since we left the Garg homeland. I, for one, would like to know more about them.'

Alan didn't know what to make of the pyramids, or the creatures. ‘Okay, Mo. We'll explore a little, but keep our distance.'

The Kyra was unmoved. ‘Mage Lord – we mustn't forget that this is the Tyrant's land. We should stay alert.'

‘Have the Shee stand by. I'll get Iyezzz to calm the Gargs down. We need to see if it is possible to communicate with them.'

‘Mage Lord Duval!' Alan turned at the call from Magtokk. ‘Before you attempt any form of communication, I beg to speak to you.'

Alan turned to observe the orang-utan squatting with his short legs criss-crossed before him in the arid dust. His coat, enclosing his immense bulk, looked even thicker than usual, maybe a response to the biting cold.

‘Ainé – is there any possibility of a windbreak – or a fire?'

As the Kyra signalled the aides, Alan made room for the dwarf mage to take a position by his side. He almost envied Mo when Magtokk wrapped an arm around her. Turkeya took a seat on the opposite side of the circle from Magtokk. Alan sighed, lifting an eyebrow to Qwenqwo, who hissed when his ageing buttocks made contact with the icy ground, huffing and puffing and tamping a couple of pipes against the heel of his boot.
If ever there was a time for that warming flagon of liquor to make its appearance
, he thought,
this has to be it
. He half fancied one of Qwenqwo's pipes full of red-glowing tobacco himself, if only to cradle the piping hot bowl in his hands.

Instead he had to wait for Qwenqwo's quasi-ritualistic performance of stuffing the bowls with baccy for Magtokk, whose eyes crinkled with delight over the red-glowing bowl, before they would condescend to grace them with a word of advice.

Alan said pointedly, ‘Go ahead.'

‘Look around you,' Magtokk said. ‘Look hard at the land itself. What does it remind you of?'

Alan cast his eyes around the settling camp, witnessing a ravaged wasteland over which the fierce wind blew the stink of sulphur. Here and there he saw mirrors of icy reflection and rock scorched to malignant shades of orange and red, like the ghosts of leviathan furnaces. Some of the rock had melted to a watery smoothness. He couldn't recall ever seeing a more devastated and tormented world. Other than the winged creatures and their equally strange allies there was no sign of life, not even a bird or an insect or a stain of lichen coating the rocks.

‘It looks like hell.'

Magtokk asked him: ‘Do you not have landscapes such as this on Earth?'

‘Only in the worst pits of industrial damage – or what remains after nuclear weapons testing.'

‘Ah!'

At last the flagon appeared. The dwarf mage was generous enough to pass it to Alan's half-numbed hands first. He took a gulp, coughed, then returned it to its master.

‘What point are you making, Magtokk?'

‘This is the Wastelands – the Tyrant's domain. And throughout the Wastelands, the only communities allowed to survive were those enslaved to the Tyrant or his allies.'

‘Okay, but I still don't get the point.'

‘Do you see evidence of enslavement here?' Magtokk
puffed on his pipe. ‘If this is a place despoiled by mining, where are the taskmasters?'

Qwenqwo joined Magtokk in puffing on his pipe, the two of them billowing out fragrant smoke. ‘My thinking exactly,' Qwenqwo said.

Alan thought some more about it. He could feel the warm, welcoming fire of Qwenqwo's liquor spread through his belly.

Magtokk lifted the pipe from his mouth. ‘I would dearly like to study these creatures to discover how they have managed to survive here.'

‘In other words, you don't know the answers to this mystery any more than I do,' Alan said.

Mo said, ‘Oh, Alan – let's do it. If ever there was a reason why Turkeya and I came with you on this journey, this might be it.'

‘I don't know, Mo. The wasp goblins are aggressive little brutes. Look how they drove off the Gargs.'

‘But the Gargs were damaging their pyramids. The creatures were only defending what precious little they have.'

‘I think,' Qwenqwo said, ‘there may be something in what Mo suggests. I have been observing these pyramid builders now that the Gargs have withdrawn from poking around in the bones. They have done nothing other than meticulously repair the damaged piles. They are withdrawing underground as we speak without further ado.'

The Shee adviser spoke. ‘If I might be permitted to comment?'

‘Go ahead, Bétaald.'

‘It is well known that the Tyrant laid waste to this whole continent to pillage and plunder, annihilating or enslaving all that lived here. Yet our historians, most notably the last high architect, the venerable Ussha De Danaan herself, saw a purpose, however sinister and corrupt, in his actions. Everywhere he tore and ravaged the land, as if searching for something that would aid his purpose. Is it not possible that these curious survivors may have long ago served the Tyrant's purpose here? A purpose designed to exploit these lands, no matter how inclement? It would explain the ravaged nature of the landscape. If this is true, then we might discover something of his purpose in these creatures.'

Mo clapped her hands. ‘Then all the more reason why Turkeya and I should explore this further.'

‘I hope you're not suggesting what I think you are? Mo – don't tell me you're thinking of going down into those holes?'

‘I sense no threat from these creatures. I sense only fear – directed towards us.' She was fingering the Torus hanging on a thong around her neck.

‘Mo, we have no idea what you might encounter. We know nothing at all about these creatures. You might be venturing into a wasps' nest, one in which the wasps are as big and fierce as hawks.'

Mo looked distracted. ‘Oh, Alan!'

‘What is it?'

‘I'm getting an urgent message from the True Believers. Oh, my word! Ignore what I just said; we are all instructed to stay away from the entrances to the labyrinth.'

‘Labyrinth?'

‘The rock below us is honeycombed with tunnels. They run very deep – for miles. We're sitting over an incredible labyrinth of tunnels and … and chambers.'

Alan looked at Mo, eye to eye. He saw the rising excitement there. ‘Hey, Mo? What is it? What's really going on here?'