Twilight of the Dragons (12 page)

“You'll never let it lie.”

“Let what lie, Dek?”

“Fuck off.”

There came a roar as part of The Fighting Cocks' roof collapsed. Sparks rioted into the evening sky. Beyond, the sun was dropping low over the horizon, casting a deep red glow over every building, every wall, every cobble.

The fire burned, crackling through wood and thatch.

Men and women stood on the cobbles, stunned, staring upwards.

And then, through the pulsing waves of smoke, there came a song. It was long, and haunting, and beautiful. It reminded one of long-lost lovers, dreams of hate, of lives that might have been, of world's end, of dead children, of dying babes, of long hard regrets, of dying, of death. It came through the smoke, through the world, beautiful, and terrifying, and eternal.

“What is that?” said Trista, dropping to her knees.

“Music,” said Dek, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes.

“It's beautiful,” said Kareem.

“It's death,” said Narnok, and staggered, pointing. “Look!”

And they looked.

Through heavy coils of surging smoke, black and grey and pulsing like oiled snakes, they could see
Isvander's Folly.
The Tower of the Moon. Glimpsed in shadow. Glimpsed through smoke. Glimpsed as the blood-red sun set beyond the world.

“What am I looking at?” said Dek, tilting his head, battered face crushed into confusion.

“There's something up there,” said Narnok.

“
What
could be up there?” whispered Trista, and even though her voice was low, it cut through the smoke, the fire, the confusion, like a razor blade.

They all stood, staring.

There was a shape. A dark shape. Atop the tower.

Salt suddenly coughed, and was born into consciousness. He writhed around for a bit, but the men and women on the cobbles ignored him. They knew he was Red Thumb, but recently the populace had turned. Whereas
once
the Red Thumb Gang had been seen as saviours, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, recently,
recently
perception had started to shift. They were no longer social terrorists intent on saving the world. Now they were seen as what they were. Criminals out to fill their own pockets. Which was why, in his hour of need, Salt found nobody willing to help.

He sat up, and snorted blood and snot onto the cobbles. He scowled, looking around, trying to catch somebody's eye. None gave it. He got to his hands and knees, and wobbled to his feet.

“You! Kareem!”

“Fuck off.”

“What's wrong with you all? What are you staring at?”

“We're enjoying the smoke, idiot,” drawled Dek.

Salt turned, and squinted, and focussed. Salt had good eyes.
Very
good eyes. He might have been fat, and decadent, and
evil,
but his eyesight was impeccable. Better than anybody he had ever met.

“The Tower of the Moon,” he said, words a murmur.

“Give the man a chocolate,” snapped Narnok.

Salt chuckled. “Do you know what you're looking at?”

Dek, Narnok, Kareem, Mola and Trista turned and stared at him. Hard. He felt the animosity of their gathered looks and cringed.

“I meant, do you comprehend what you see?”

“It's a fucking
tower
,” snapped Trista, and a blade appeared in her hand.

“No,” said Salt, his voice dropping low. “
Look.
”

And they looked.

And they frowned.

And slowly,
slowly,
an impossible reality started to sink in.

“It's a
dragon
,” said Debanezeer Salt.

“Horse fucking
shit,
” said Narnok.

They stared.

The song filtered down, coming through clouds and layers of smoke. It was beautiful. It was deadly.

The shape, the body, the
creature,
lifted from the summit of the Tower of the Moon, and there came a
whump
as heavy wings abused the air. The creature described an arc, then dropped towards the burning carcass of The Fighting Cocks.

“What's it doing?” murmured Narnok, scowling.

And the dragon turned, and fell, and glided in silence. A terrible silence.

They watched it. Like some huge bird.

“I'm confused,” frowned Trista.

“Don't be,” said Salt, a strange look on his face, and he hit the ground and covered his head.

Everybody looked at him.

“What the fuck's wrong with him?” scowled Kareem.

The dragon came screaming through the smoke. It was a perverse act. The Fighting Cocks was already burning, already destroyed. This was an act, as if to say,
you call that fire? I'll show you.

Fire screamed from the dragon, a scream like a stabbed baby, and consumed the walls, the roof, the timbers, the cobbles. The tavern went up like a fish-oil soaked bonfire, and there came
cracks
as wings beat the air again and the dragon flashed low overhead, tail whipping out, smashing the high chimney. Bricks tumbled down, bouncing on cobbles and men and women, who screamed and cried and wailed.

A brick bounced from Dek's arm and he got up, scowling. “A fucking
dragon
!” he hissed.

“That's not good,” said Narnok, scratching his tufted beard.

“Show me something that is!” snorted Dek, and drew his short sword.

“You think that's going to work?” wailed Salt, still on hands and knees, arms covering his head as he peered up with terrified eyes. “You think you can use a simple sword against a great wyrm?”

Dek smiled, a long, low, lazy smile; like a lizard.

“I don't know, mate,” he said. “But I'm going to fucking try.”

T
he underground lake
lapped softly at the rough stone shore. It was like an ocean of spilled tears, he thought. Like a well of agony, trickled from the five cities above. And, when he thought about her, tears came to
his
narrow, slightly slanted eyes. He loved her, he realised, in his own strange way. And it
was
a strange way. A strange kind of love.

He remembered touching her face, her soft, olive skin, perfect under his rough, calloused miner's fingers which shamed him to his heart. Her dark hair was a cascade of thick woven strands which fell down her back to her waist, she had deep black eyes, pools of ink into which he could dive, could fall, tumble down end over end for an eternity… fall, until she loved him, or until he died. For without her love, death was all he craved.

But more than anything, it was her scent. She was exotic, strange, natural, and drove him wild. He remembered, painful memories, pushing his face close to her neck, smelling her skin, her femininity, inhaling her like some crazy drug which sent his mind spiralling out of control. Her hands were on him, strong, forceful, but he was stronger, and he pushed her back to the blankets of the cold cell floor in the depths, the heart, of the mountain; and he inhaled her like the heady smoke of the Honey-leaf.

Stuttering images crashed through Val's mind as he
remembered
, as he considered the woman from over the mountains, the lady of Vagandrak, whom he had claimed, whom he had taken for his own. Yes, he loved her, he realised, in his own way. As much as anything he had felt which resembled love. Admittedly, he realised forcing himself upon her, causing her pain, was not in itself an act of love, but he believed with enough understanding, enough nurturing, she would come to understand him, and ultimately come to love him in return.

Or she would die.

Val breathed deeply, and lifted his head to face the gathered throng. Newly appointed as Slave Warden of the mines, reports had come in thick and fast after the three great wyrms had escaped from their imprisonment in the Dragon Engine. The reports also told of Skalg, First Cardinal of the Church of Hate, and his plot to assassinate King Irlax. But worst of all, there had been sightings, reports of the Vagandrak “heroes” and their further descent into the mines in search of the fabled city of Wyrmblood. Or so the rumour went.

What do you want?
thought Val, idly, as he surveyed the motley crew before him. Here were the toughest, the nastiest, the hardest, the
elite
of the dwarves to serve under the Royal Guard and the Church Guard. And they had been sent to him. To protect the city of Wyrmblood… if it existed.

If.
Such a little word.

So.
What do you want? Foreigners. Aliens. Why head deep under my mountain, when you could have followed the destruction of the three dragons, upwards through the Five Havens, to freedom, back to your own land? Your own world? Your own fucking kind?

It didn't make sense.

Unless… they
knew
something.

He frowned, mind ticking.

“Slave Warden?”

Val jerked, coming out of his reverie. At the forefront of his mind floated the face of Lillith. With her, he had been given a gift. A silver spoon. And he was damned if he going to let this opportunity slip through his coarse-skinned fingers.

“Yes… ” he squinted, trying to remember the hulking warrior's name. It slid away. “Yes, my friend? What concerns you?”

“We are awaiting your instruction.”

“I am considering all options,” said Val, and gave a narrow smile which sat badly on his narrow face.

The gathered men and women, all warriors, all fighters, surveyed Val. Recent subordinate of Krakka, the original Slave Warden killed by Beetrax the Axeman, Val was tall and slim for a dwarf, not carrying the broad, stocky shoulders so renowned in his species. A treachery of genetics had left him with features that bred a natural mistrust in his fellow dwarves, and he wore a close-cut beard in an attempt to hide what, he was continually reminded, resembled a weak chin. His eyes were black and emotionless, like a doll's, and his quick movements spoke that
here
was the master of the knife in the back, the brass knuckle-duster, and a droplet of poison dribbled onto panting lips as one slept. Val did not appear a warrior, and yet he'd achieved his considerable and advanced position by
some
means. Every dwarf present respected that intrinsic warning, and awaited his words with patience.

Except for one woman.

Like Val, she was slim for a dwarf, even a female, and taller than tradition would suggest was healthy. She had straight black hair to her shoulders, a narrow, pointed face, dark eyes like pits of evil, and a very, very pale complexion; pasty, like a tub of solidified human fat. Her facial expression was a natural sneer, a snarl of mockery showing just a few pointed teeth, and she always appeared to be looking down her narrow nose in disgust at the rancid specimen who cowered before her – no matter who that should be. She wore plain black leather armour, scuffed and battered, showing a history of violence. She had no breasts to speak of, again, a jolt against dwarf tradition, or what was considered “feminine”, and only a few spider-leg black whiskers poked from her chin, rather than the soft pelt which adorned many a buxom, sexy female dwarf's face. But, despite her apparent delicacy of stature, nobody fucked with this dwarf who'd made a very real name for herself, fighting her way free of the Pits of Yrkseer, possibly one of the most violent slums in all the Five Havens. The fact her face still carried no scars was testament to her skill and ferocity in battle. And, of course, the art of stabbing somebody in the back.

This was Crayline Hew, with the inherited title of Hewardaline de Slathor – or
The Slime of Heward.
It was a title of which she was incredibly proud. And you did not fuck with Crayline Hew, in any way, unless you wanted to wake up dead – with a poisoned skewer injected through your liver.

The group of hardened dwarves drifted silently apart as she approached the front, and the troubled figure of Val, who was scratching his beard and trying to formulate a plan more complex than
wander around the mines looking for the intruders.
And he was hampered by constant visions of Lillith, her naked, pale limbs, her soft dark skin, her wails of pain…

“Val, Slave Warden, may I have a word in private?”

Crayline's voice was high-pitched, almost nasal, coupled with a dangerous glint in her passionless eyes, and a vast array of knives and other, more esoteric, implements arraigned around her various belts.

Val was about to say
no, of course not you fucking idiot, I'm attempting to formulate a plan here,
when he caught her eye. Recognition fluttered across his features like a shivering butterfly. He recognised Crayline Hew.
Everybody
recognised Crayline Hew.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered, and gestured to an area away from the underground lake, which drew his eye, lapping against the sloping rough stone, its gentle sound a mockery to his ears, not just saying his name, but laughing at his frustration for his lost love, the barbarian woman, Lillith.

Out of earshot, Crayline touched Val's arm, stopping him. He frowned. He was aware of the control movement.
She
was in control, and he did not like that. He looked into her face, and gave a little shudder. Here was evil personified, if ever he had seen it.

Crayline smiled. Or at least, tried to smile. It was the kind of smile a snow wolf gives to a wounded rabbit before chewing through its throat, eating the flesh and sucking on the brittle bones.

“Crayline Hew, I believe?”

“Yes. Formerly of Irlax's Guard, before I was…
persuaded
to leave. Personal problems, you understand.”

Val smiled coldly, noting the easy way Crayline omitted the title
King.

“So. Is there something on your mind?” he asked, a little too briskly.

Crayline nodded. A smile spread across her face like a pool of blood across a frozen lake. “It strikes me,
Slave Warden,
that you need a deputy.”

“A deputy?”

“Somebody to help you with those difficult decisions. Somebody who, for example, may have had decades of experience hunting traitors through the Five Havens and executing them. Somebody, it might be said, who has an understanding of the criminal mind.”

“I'm not sure I believe in a second in command,” said Val, frowning, lips tight.

“But you were Krakka's second? When he was Slave Warden?”

“Yes… yes, but that was different.”

“How so?”

Val looked into her eyes. Then he relaxed.
Oh. So that's how it's going to be, bitch.
He smiled. “Let's say I do need some help. I expect you are putting yourself forward for the position?”

“Of course not,” said Crayline smoothly. “But what you have out there is a hardcore bunch of mercenary
cunts
,” she savoured the word, as she might a fine Vagandrak red, rolling it seductively around her tongue, “and who better to control the
cunts
than the biggest cunt of them all?”

She smiled.

Val swallowed.

“That would be me, of course,” she said, as if to clear any confusion.

“Of course, Crayline. Of course! Cunts. Big cunt. Biggest cunt. Controlling the other cunts.”

Crayline nodded, without any flicker of any emotion. “And, of
course,
I'd be watching
your
back on this
very
important mission on which we are about to embark. The mission down to Wyrmblood, if I am not mistaken.”

Val stared at her. “How could you know that?”

Crayline smiled. “The biggest cunt always has her sources,” she smiled, showing her pointed teeth.

V
al led
Crayline back to the group. She stood slightly behind him, to the left, hand on the hilt of a long dagger, notched in many places and quite obviously displaying a chequered history of entertainment. Val explained the situation. Vagandrak heroes. Infiltrating further down the mines. Their mission was to hunt down the intruders. Exterminate them. All except one woman who, cough, Skalg wanted keeping alive for questioning over the recent death of King Irlax, their most exalted leader.

“So,” rumbled one warrior, who went by the name of Stitch – on account of his flesh being stitched together so many times he resembled a child's attempt at sewing up a doll after a dog attack – “this is a mission on behalf of the Church of Hate?”

“Not at all,” said Val, smoothly. “This is strictly off the record. This is a simple search and destroy, but sanctioned by
no
official body of the Harborym. If we were to be apprehended, then we know nothing, and the Church will not vouch for us.”

“Apprehended?” said Stitch.

Crayline leant forward, and whispered in Val's ear. The Slave Warden smiled. “You don't need to worry,” he said. “Where we're going, trust me, nobody will want to follow.”

T
hey marched
. And Val dreamed.

Dreamed of the woman, tall and elegant, with thick braids of hair, and a face that had become his perfect image of any female he had ever met. Down long tunnels they marched, through halls with high arched ceilings, rough-cut by the bloodied hands of ten thousand slaves, their moans and groans and blood and piss and sweat soaked into the rock, a part of the chamber, a part of the mines – the mines Val loved so well.

The mines were not just Val's home, a place of residence, for Val was so committed to his job he never left the mine complex deep within the Karamakkos; no, to Val, who was a twentieth generation miner, just like his long line of ancestors before him… this was not just a home – the mines were in his blood, in his bones, in his soul. Never had he set foot in the cities above the mines.
Never
. Not for Val a stroll down the streets, a visit to a Church of Hate to relieve his soul of its sins; not for Val a night in an alehouse, or a whorehouse, although he had heard such pleasures were, well,
pleasurable.
Val had everything he needed
right here,
and after his sudden promotion to Slave Warden after the untimely death – murder – of Krakka, he was proud to say he had never left the mines. Why would he ever need to?

He had power. Wealth enough. And when the overlander slaves had been brought in, Lillith amongst them, he had found a sort of love.

She was perfect.

He remembered lying with her. Touching her soft smooth skin. Caressing her breasts. Even her trembling had brought an excitement to Val, for with her fear came more power to him; he was in control of this beautiful, gorgeous, voluptuous creature. She was his. He could do anything with her. And after long nights, even her complaints and anger had stopped. She'd attained a dead-eyed understanding of the way things were. And the way things were, was a world where Val was in complete control.

However, as events transpired, and with the interference of Skalg, First Cardinal, that crippled old hunchback, so Lillith had been taken away from him.
Taken away!

O Skalg, you bastard, how I wish I could have just an hour with you in my torture room. I'd learn you a thing or two. You think you have pain now with you broken spine? Well, we all know about you, about your personal decadences, you're a fucking scandal within the church; there isn't a priest alive who doesn't know about your drinking, your drugs, your rapes, your murders… your legend goes well beyond the Five Havens, and not a single Harborym dwarf would shed a tear if I was to slice off your hunched back, layer by layer by layer, cutting you into slabs to find out what's inside, to find out what makes you tick, you warped and fucked-up feeble excuse for a dwarf…

Val's eyes flickered open. He allowed a deep breath to exhale.

He realised he'd become sexually aroused at thoughts of torturing Skalg.