The Wanderer's Tale (34 page)

She looked deep into the Peladane’s eyes, but he did not even flinch.

‘
Civilian!
’ he spat at her. ‘You may have us at your mercy, might torture or kill us, even damn our souls, but do we really have to put up with this
poetry
-crap?’

‘Ha!’ she replied, pointing at him girlishly. ‘The leader.’

She still held onto the arm, and in one sybaritic stroke of her tongue rasped his blood into her mouth.

She finally let go of him and turned instead to Finwald, awake now, but huddled with his back against the far wall. His expression was difficult to gauge.

‘I am the stab in the back,’ she spoke at him, swallowing him with her gaze, ‘the wind in the woods, the walker without rest—’

‘I am the pain in the backside,’ Finwald mimicked suddenly, ‘the whinger in the woods, the talker without rest.’

Nym hesitated a second. Then she simply said, ‘Your death, priest, will be
unbelievable
.’

‘Quite possibly,’ Finwald replied, ‘but at least you won’t be around to see it.’

She looked down then, and noticed the remains of the cage he had blown apart.

‘Look what you’ve done . . .’ she said, like a weary parent, and at a glance from her, one of her creatures approached the priest. The next moment Finwald found himself prostrate upon the floor of Wodeman’s cell, moaning slightly.

She turned away, leaving him to his pain. Walking on, she caught sight next of Appa, crouched at the back of his cage with a look of dread on his face. She began softly stroking the bars of his cell. The look of horror on his face redoubled when he noticed the length of her talons, and his eyes almost popped out of their watery sockets. As she glared at him, he groped for his amulet.

‘You don’t like me, do you?’

She waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming.

‘Cat got your tongue, old man?’ She laughed, then became serious. ‘We always were in your way, weren’t we?’ She looked from Appa to Finwald, then back again. ‘Two priests of the White Light,’ she went on, ‘two flambeaux of the Great Purger, and such finely arrayed lackeys. I am truly honoured to have you as guests. Have you come to cleanse me also?

‘
Swift is my right hand in greeting, bearing a gift beyond price
,’ she quoted from a famous Northlander prayer. ‘But swifter still my left, the one behind my back that holds a dagger. Your gift shall be returned to you, priests. The only question is, by whom? Hellhound or huldre?’

‘We have no quarrel with you, Blue Hag.’ Finwald spoke up from his dark corner. ‘We are bound for Melhus on business that does not concern you or your kind. We would have passed by your realm if your Ganferd had not led us here.’

Far from flaring up in anger, Nym-Cadog merely laughed.

‘You need not tell me of your task, pale one. My Spriggans have been with you ever since you came down from the mountains, and brought to me dispatches of your every utterance. I know what it is you intend to do, and, believe me, it has a great deal to do with my kind. Ever since you first emerged from the South you have encroached on our land; you have built over our holy places, destroyed our sacred woods and groves with your farms, and desecrated our barrows—’

‘Yes, sorry about that,’ Finwald muttered sarcastically.

‘—And with this you bring your lies, your sweating confessions, your puny, weak-eyed austerity. For countless ages we had lived in these lands, enjoying the wild, free life that burns like fire through our veins. Now even this our last haven of wilderness is threatened, for you go to stir up an evil long dead and bring him down upon us all. But I will
not
be harried by a Hell-Hound! Seen off by a Sea-Wolf! Flung out by a Fiend! Driven away by a Daemon! And definitely not ridden down by a Rawgr – he of the fetid breath, the flaming eyes, the noisome stench and the black finger—’

‘Your shoelaces are undone, did you know?’ Wodeman commented.

‘—And
you
should know better!’ she spat, spinning round to face the Torca. ‘Would you dig up an evil that others once had stilled? Exhume a cadaver just to see if it yet stinks?’

She turned back to them all, and her ranging expression was now one of pondering with a hint of sadness. ‘Could I not just have anointed you with the fairy-ointment, to take away all knowledge of this place, and of Nym, of your
mis
adventure to the North? Sent you back home with nothing but bemused smiles on your soggy faces, nothing in your cabbage-heads but vague memories of pretty ladies?’

She hesitated but briefly. ‘Only to be reminded of your quest as soon as you spoke again with your masters? No, I have thought on it; and my thoughts are this. Any that can overcome yon Ganferd in the swamp are too dangerous to be set free. You must face the Afanc, one by one.’

‘The Afanc!’ Wodeman hissed. His face blanched in disbelief.

‘Trollmollet! Trollapluck!’ Nym turned to her massive henchmen. ‘Bring the boy; we’ll start with him first.’

Leering dementedly, the two huldre-creatures wrenched open the cell door and plucked Gapp out. Between them the pathetic jabbering bundle of rags and bones was carried, kicking and screaming, up the steps and out of the room. Amid seething cries of vengeance from his companions, he disappeared through the door leaving nothing behind but a last echoing wail of utter despair.

As Nym-Cadog reached the top of the steps, she turned and faced her clamouring prisoners.

‘I should save your strength, if I were you,’ she said, then glared steely-eyed at the mage-priests. ‘Especially you two, vile purgers! You will need it if you are to stand any chance against my two Kobolds. Trollmollet and Trollapluck are no friends of the White Priests, having been driven into the hills by the raucous and unhallowed din of your steeple bells. The boy’s fate, bad as it may be, will be merciful compared to yours.’

And with that, she disappeared into the darkness whence she had come. The dungeon door thudded hollowly, sounding as though it had shut upon their lives.

With a shuddering cry of anguish, Gapp was flung through the portal to sprawl upon the floor.

For a while he just lay there, too terrified to move, his face pressed against the floor. It felt like cold sand, but had the colour of charcoal, and smelt of rotten jasmine. There was also a strong animal smell in here, blending unpleasantly with fragrances reminiscent of the leafy, green vegetation that grows over quicksand.

Gapp could hear the Kobolds close behind him, hear their ragged breath and the irregular patter and hiss of their saliva hitting the floor. The witch was there, too: he could sense her, though she made no sound. All three of them were just standing there, waiting.

Slowly he raised himself up on all fours. He shook his head in an attempt at clearing it of the dizzying effect of the sickly smell. With a nauseous knotting up of his innards, he slowly raised his head to look about the room.

It was small, and reminded him of those little chapels of the Lightbearers back home. Indeed, it did have a certain air of sacredness about it: the austerity, the simplicity, and sanctity. Tallow candles burned in each corner.

Yet somehow it seemed all the wrong way round: perverted, desecrated, brooding; like being on the wrong side of a mirror. The black candle-smoke stung his eyes, and the very air was infused with darkness, sickness and a hidden primal dread . . .

. . . And then there was the Thing that emerged from the shadows.

Gapp’s face froze, his chest became tight. His throat closed in on itself, almost strangling him. He stared in wide-eyed horror as the figure began to reveal itself, a great shape clothed in a robe with both the smell and hue of rain-sodden ashes, and his gagging sobs became ugly, heaving rasps.

Slowly, savouring the torment it could see in its victim’s face, the thing approached. Claws like jagged shards of steel reached up and drew back the hood as it came on, and finally Gapp cried out aloud as if he had been speared through the head.

It was like a creature that had stalked from the dark places in his mind but that he had never suffered himself to acknowledge before.

The abomination stood proudly before its prey, relishing the effect it was having. Through wide nostrils composed of bone and slimy black gristle, it breathed in deeply the hot waftings of the boy’s sweat. Thick, dirt-encrusted horns struck out from its domed skull to curl round behind its head, and hide like set wax stretched glistening and livid over its cranium. Hunched over it stood, with arms trembling in weird excitement, as featureless black eyes fixed Gapp with their malefic intent.

Slowly, but eagerly, it advanced.

‘. . . And then there were five,’ the Peladane breathed heavily.

In all his years of campaigning, he had never known the like of it. At his father’s side he had faced hordes of enemies, vast battalions of the infidel, and still come out victorious. Whether as a sergeant in charge of fifty, Thegne in charge of two and a half thousand, or as part of an entire Toloch of fifty thousand, he had never yet tasted defeat. He –
they
– had been invincible! There had been casualties, there had been madness and confusion, and Death was ever present; but courage, strength and determination had always seen them through.

Nothing, however, had prepared Nibulus for this. He was only just realizing that up till now all that his battle experience had ever taught him was how to succeed. And now began the next stage of his education: how to fail. Clearly, however, it was not as easy as it seemed.

His failure gnawed at him, gnawed away so quickly he felt himself being consumed by the second. But Nibulus Wintus silently swore to himself, and to his god, that if Pel-Adan would grant him but a chance, no matter how desperate, he would do
everything
in his power to help his men. Even if it meant making the supreme sacrifice.

But at the moment it appeared he would not get even this opportunity. He almost
deserved
to die.

He looked around. Gapp’s torch – that pathetic little twist of damp rag – had at last burnt out. But still its dim illumination was retained, for a while at least, in the gold-flecked jade of the walls in this strange place. In its fading light he could see the dejection of his companions, but he was strangely warmed to note that they, too, had not totally given up yet.

Finwald, Appa and Wodeman sat in concentration, trying against all odds to summon up what little priestly power they had left in them. It had been agreed that any magic they might invoke would not be wasted on trying to release them from their cells; they would be out of them soon enough anyway, once Nym returned. Instead they had opted for making an attempt on the lives of the Kobolds. Those monsters seemed to be the main obstacle in their path, once they were out of their cells.

Nibulus, in an attempt to forget the sickening cries of his esquire that still echoed in his head, called out to the others:

‘Do you have any idea what we’re up against here? What
are
these things?’

‘Chailleag Bheur,’ Paulus mused, ‘the Hag of Blue, the Siren . . . these are names I have heard of from the old times of the North. Children’s tales. To be honest, I don’t believe she knows who she is.’

A voice interrupted them. ‘Old stories that were once just that are now reaching out of the darkness to engulf us,’ Wodeman said, breaking his own concentration. ‘It’s a strange journey we’re taking, this one.’

Nibulus was becoming a little annoyed at the pair of them; they both appeared to know things he did not. ‘Well, what is she – are they – then? If there’s anything I should know, tell me. It might help.’

‘We have met up with a huldre,’ Wodeman explained, ‘as I warned you we might, now that we are beyond the lands of men. And a rather potent one, too, to exert dominion over all these others.’

‘
They’re
all huldre, too?’

‘Oh yes,’ Paulus confirmed. ‘Those Spriggans she talked of – Nym herself must be a particularly potent one to hold sway over
those
wilful little devils, all the way from here to the foothills of the Blue Mountains. I’d guess those
villagers
we heard back in the woods were they.’

Paulus was now shuddering almost uncontrollably, and his customary fetor had taken on a new piquancy. ‘They must have been spying on us all the time,’ he whispered shakily, ‘walking amongst us without our knowing. My people say that the Hidden Ones are everywhere, always ready to snatch away mortal souls for their deviant purposes. Not even our beasts are immune from their tampering. Oft have I opened the stable door of a morning to see our horses literally besodden with sweat. We slay them whenever we can.’

Nibulus thought about this for a second, but failed to grasp the Nahovian’s meaning.

‘Making horses sweat doesn’t sound
that
terrible to me,’ he remarked.

‘It means the huldre have been riding them hard all night long at their disgusting carousals,’ Paulus explained in spittle-flecked loathing.

‘Like that young shepherd you got rid of?’ Appa suddenly asked of the Peladane. ‘The one who used to make sheep limp?’

‘No, that was something entirely different,’ Nibulus replied, vexed at being sidetracked. ‘Tell me about the wanderer on the moor.’

‘A Ganferd, as Finwald guessed,’ Wodeman explained.

‘Ellyldan,’ Paulus agreed in his own tongue. ‘They are lamentable souls, pitiable to behold, huldres that fill the hearts of mortals with sorrow and darkness. But troublesome, drawing folk wherever they will, and usually to a sticky end. The Blue Hag must have sent it out deliberately to lure us to her domain.’

‘And the Afanc thing she mentioned?’

‘Odd,’ Wodeman admitted. ‘For Afanc is not just one of her world, but also of ours. I do not understand why she would have such a creature in her employ . . . still less how she could control it.’

‘Perhaps she rewards it in ways we dare not think about,’ Paulus suggested darkly.

‘Hmn, possibly.’ Wodeman pondered. ‘I certainly wouldn’t blame the Afanc for
that
. Yet Afanc is not something to be controlled. Kobolds are one thing, slow, unbelievably dull-witted clods that can be led by any huldre worth her salt, but the Afanc is a creature of great power, a thing of Chaos.’ He paused as if listening. ‘I’m sorry, but I very much doubt there’s much left of your esquire now, Nibulus.’