Avenger, page 32
part #2 of Swords and Skulls Series
Whoever these beings were, they seemed to be in a highly advanced stage of metamorphosis—or some ghoulish alchemy at least, at which Vetra shuddered to guess. They hunched with otherworldly confidence, like strange beings from a far world rooted of their own making, and as if guarding some secret knowledge. But deadly danger burned in those carrot-coloured eyes and their wavering stalks jutted out from their shoulders like spikes, as if ready to grip a man and squeeze the life out of him.
“A pleasant day to you, gentlemen,” said the one called Grebu, or the ‘plant king’ as Vetra referred to him. He gave Tas a sardonic bow. “Can I offer you some beverages, or maja juice, a mix with lemon and cactus?” The voice was deep-throated, matching the man’s heavy-barrelled frame.
Tas grimaced. He looked as if he’d rather drink rattlesnake poison. “You know why we’re here, Grebu.”
“A pity. ’Tis quite soothing to the palate, this beverage, quenches thirst like no other.” He shrugged, took up a goblet of his own and downed it in a single ceremonious gulp. On closer inspection, Vetra saw that this man’s hands seemed to have retreated into themselves, deformed, undeveloped appendages like the hands of an aborted fetus. All his minions had dark green bottles of the precious bulbs’ mash at their belts, like a milky elixir for an infant.
“In good faith I agreed to this negotiation,” Tas growled, his eyes cast of steel. “On your turf, even at great risk to myself.”
The plant king raised his eyebrows in interest. “Where would you have us gather, in the middle of the bridge? Remember, our last meeting turned ugly after your most wanton behaviour.”
“Right after you started firing arrows down our throats.”
Grebu sighed, a soft sad sound. “I see you are intending to inveigle more leverage out of our forces. In addition, you have brought some new faces; indeed, more men than I had specified—” he tipped his head toward Vetra and Basineus. “My band is quite spartan in comparison.” He swept a plant-like hand to his immediate minions. “Meet my three lieutenants—fine fellows. As are yours, doubtless. Replacements for the men you lost on the ridge?”
Tas waved carelessly. “Just my men. Why do you ask? You would do no differently.”
“I don’t think so,” said Grebu. “I am meticulous in these matters. Yours are well-trained men, I can tell by their disciplined stances, their hardened gazes, their well-muscled bodies, something you could do well to emulate. Not your regular stooges, like Kraddus and Nurus here.”
Nurus grinned a good-natured grin but Kraddus seemed to recoil in indignation, for reasons Vetra could not altogether fathom. Why would the captain care what the mutant thought of him?
“New terms,” growled the drug lord with impatience. “I continue to traffic maja to Lausern; you take your sword-swinging men and lose yourselves in the backwoods, I don’t care, maybe Umbria, Mercia? In exchange, I offer you a sack of gold and fifty pounds of product, a small pittance of the spoils I intend to spread to cities of Xalgossa and Masern in the north.”
Tas spoke through gritted teeth. “Your demands are unreasonable. ’Tis I who came to propose concessions. Back off Lvendar and take your miserable trade elsewhere, preferably south or east. No more flow of the accursed maja to Lausern. In return, Lord Ragnum promises not to attack you on his borders—and to join no alliances with other territories to shut you down.”
Grebu looked about without humour. “Gentlemen! Does a river stop flowing because some dullard wishes it? It’s all about supply and demand. I have the supply; you have the demand. You know how business goes.” His face was twisted in a sinister leer and the snake-like vines on his shoulders twitched in insolent anticipation. “I think you have nothing to offer. A bit of talk, some idle threats, and much gilding of the lily thrown in for effect.”
Tas compressed his lips.
Grebu smiled. “Yes, I see. Only bluster. It’s the power I hanker for, Tas, command over all the kingdoms. One way or other I will have it, with or without your petty counteroffers and concessions.”
Tas persisted, “Lvendar will crush you with an army, if they must.”
“Where is this army then?” sneered Grebu. “I see none. The Lord Vizier and his cowardly allies—fools and braggarts! Present a few washed up mercenaries to intimidate me?” He snorted. “It’s laughable. The problem with Lvendar and its arrogant lords is they underestimate the reach of my power.”
“You flatter yourself, Grebu.”
“Fool yourself, Tas! I breed a new race. Didn’t you know? Do they think I will shut down my enterprise at your lord’s beck and call? Hardly. They have no power in my lands, not even in their own; the law of the jungle will prevail.”
“They’ll bring steel and fire on your heels. Does that not mean anything to you? Terror, blood and slaughter.”
“All pale under the power of addiction. You can’t fight that power. Once it gets in the blood it never leaves, as you readily know. It feeds on one’s blood; devours anything in its path.”
Tas shook his head like a savage dog. “You will not win this war, Grebu.”
The mogul hissed through his teeth. “But I will!” His eyes blazed like a devil’s fire. “’Tis you who do not see the light, you misguided fool.” He glanced around at his audience, who were entranced by his speech, all except Vetra and Tas. The man had a definite charisma. Almost with pity, he bored eyes like snakes into Tas’s soul. “The maja already runs thick in your blood. I see it, Tas. You know how it feels, don’t you? Taking the soul from the inside out. Of course, your mana is now entwined, indistinguishable from the fibres of the maja. But is your desire satisfied yet?” Grebu laughed aloud in an uncontrollable rush, his head tilted back like a howling jackal.
Tas’s eyes reeled about him. A mix of hopeless anger and despair washed over his face. His fists balled like iron. But he did regain his composure and spat full at the mogul’s feet. “Don’t try to subvert me with your taunts and deflections. I’ve killed men better than you.”
Grebu reared up with a snarl. “Try it.” Vines lashed out to take any man who challenged him. The plant king settled down quickly; his voice calm again, like flowing syrup, his tentacles inert. “It brings us to other issues.” He tipped his leaf-clumped head toward Kraddus. “Well, Kraddus?”
“My lord?”
Tas’s jaw dropped in stupefaction. “Lord? Is this some kind of joke?”
“No joke, ‘Tas’,” quipped Kraddus.
Vetra crouched on the balls of his feet, his sword flying out of the sheath.
Basineus whipped out his axe as Grebu’s closest lieutenant moved on him like a panther. Axe crunched full into the lieutenant’s shoulder blade, biting into his neck in a blinding sweep. The half mutant sank to his knees, shrieking, gushing blood.
“Kill him, you fool!” the plant king’s fractured yell smote the air.
Kraddus’s face contorted in indecision. “Gladly, lord, but the ransom—”
Grebu unsheathed his own blade. “I could give a rat’s ass for any ransom. You’re far too mealy-mouthed for a traitor.” He bumped Kraddus aside and lunged for Vetra, whose muscled arm had begun a downward swing. The mercenary’s blade cut a vine that twined close to Vetra’s ear.
The plant king winced but hitched closer, like a belligerent bull, the tips of the feelers questing Vetra’s skin. Vetra jerked as he saw the damaged feeler grow back gruesomely before his eyes.
Nurus’s mouth worked in sick dismay. The slither of steel shivered from his sheath. Basineus sprang over the lieutenant’s corpse he had dispatched, to assist Vetra. The strident rasp of men’s blades echoed from all round.
The man at Tas’s right fell in a splatter of blood and brains, his head cleaved by an axe hurled from the hand of Grebu’s ugliest lieutenant. Arrows skittered down from the caves above from which hillmen emerged, as if by magic.
“You treacherous dog!” yowled Tas.
“What do you expect?” cried Grebu. “Now die!” He turned away from Vetra’s blade and came charging in. Claw fingers clenched, nails not dissimilar to those of the Vizier’s daughter. Bolts pumped from all directions. Vetra caught a glimpse of many figures swarming from beyond the bridge, Tas’s archers, true to his word, pumping bolts into the fray. Swords flew in red loops hacking at both attacker and defender. Grebu’s minions moved with an uncanny precision and parried, despite their ungainly looks, and they were gaining ground over the defenders.
Vetra closed with the plant king, felt a stinging lash swipe across his cheek, almost taking out his left eye. He cursed, wiped away the blood, ducked more of those serpentish feelers as he raised his blade to dice them. Grebu’s other lieutenant advanced to defend his lord. Vetra took him out in a sledgehammer sweep that had the plant-man writhing on his knees.
Kraddus rounded on Tas with a wild yell.
Tas parried Kraddus’s blade. “So, that’s how Grebu’s marksmen got through our net,” he bellowed in Kraddus’s ear. “I thought it was the machinations of this vicious devil.” He cut sideways at Grebu. The drug lord deftly hopped aside. Tas switched back to Kraddus and smashed his blade at Kraddus’s middle. “It was you!” Kraddus caught the stroke on his guard, barely avoiding a blood-letting.
Grebu laughed. Jumping back, avoiding again the hissing blade of his enemy, he ducked Basineus’s sweeping axe that would have lopped off his yellow head.
“What did he promise you?” Tas cried, slashing hard at his Kraddus’s exposed flank.
Kraddus moved in time with Tas’s slices and forced his commanding officer back on his heels with a vicious series of cuts. “A captaincy and ten times the spoil you offered.”
“You fool!—he’d have slit your throat before he gave you a groat. You’ll die for your treachery and greed!” Tas drove in, whirling his blade and stabbing it like a skewer. Kraddus blocked, gasping, and darted in, spitting blood where Tas’s hilt had smashed a tooth out of his mouth.
Tas let out a shrill whistle—the signal for his archers to advance, but his look back became one of dismay. They had risen minutes ago from their place of concealment behind boulders, low shrubs, some covered with sand, only to meet a horde of blood mad Karkassians streaming down the slopes to wreak their blood lust upon them. Some hurled knives or plunged daggers into their backs. Multiple arrows sung, loosed from the archers’ midst. Most flew astray, clattering on stones. Above Vetra and his company, a steady stream of arrows rained down on them from the rocky sanctuaries.
Vetra roared with frustration. “Down! To the ground!”
A shaft cut into the earth at Vetra’s feet. It quivered there like a snake’s head.
Vetra ducked, scrabbling almost flat on his belly, to avoid a whistling shaft that would have otherwise plunged through his throat. He chopped down a vicious stroke at Grebu’s last lieutenant, the ugly one, who was tensed up in fury and hate. Vetra staggered and chopped again, feeling the bite of glimmering steel connect with flesh. The attacker’s mossy reek swirled in his nostrils. An arm came loose, spraying off at the elbow. The mutant laughed. The mutilation was nothing to him. Feelers from his shoulders came writhing out to grapple Vetra. The mercenary dodged, grimacing with horror that a man could endure such punishment and still be standing. A stinging sensation sank into his flesh as one of the loathsome tendrils lashed his upper shoulder and sent a stabbing pain into his nerve ends.
“Stay away from the cursed feelers!” Vetra yelled. “Don’t let them touch you!”
His shout was lost in the fray. There was no getting across the bridge. They were cut off from behind. Raging hillmen flooded in numbers across the quivering timbers. Tas cried out a solemn oath. “Make for the cliff.” The survivors followed his lead, ploughed straight to the cliffside into the teeth of the arrows that streamed out from the caves yawning two men’s heights above.
Men went down in scarlet ruin. Vetra felt a bolt bite into his mail shirt. He slipped on a pool of blood and fell to his knees. He picked himself up again and with a burst of rage grabbed a corpse and shielded himself from a spray of lethal iron. Men rounded behind him as Vetra pushed on. Basineus plucked a bolt with wincing anguish from the side of his boot and hobbled into the sheltered line.
Nurus, straggling too far back, was peppered with shafts, and staggered to a gasping halt, sinking like a straw doll. A vine curled around his throat and the writhing white mass pulled him down on his back. Grebu’s massive boot stomped down on the captain’s neck, crushing his windpipe. Stinging tentacles whipped from the plant king’s shoulders to grapple more defenders who ran behind Vetra and Tas. Kraddus’s foul mouth rang with expletives. Blood dripped from his lips down into his goatee as he cut down like wheat men he once called his own. Grebu laughed with sinister triumph, taking the carnage in with a gleaming eye, latching tentacles onto men’s throats and lifting them off their feet, like man-puppets of straw, not muscle and bone.
Vetra grimaced, gagging at the repulsive scene, and raced for the hill ahead. Basineus stumbled at his heels. There were ravines to either side, dressed in cool shadow. Under no circumstance must they be dragged down by those ghoulish tentacles of Grebu.
Dark openings in the rock gaped to either side, avenues that Vetra instinctively looked to for refuge but liked not at all. Tas had dropped back to pull Vetra and Basineus aside who were scrambling for the higher, leftmost path. “Not there! Down the other ravine. I’ve a bad feeling about that one.”
Vetra threw the corpse off his back, the weight slowing his pace, and he and Basineus scrambled into the ravine to the side that curled around the base of the hill. They watched as Tas and the others beetled into a blue-shadowed cross canyon, with dozens of shrieking hillmen pouring after them.
“Let them run!” laughed Grebu. “Like rabbits, they run. Foil us by splitting up? The maja will kill them all.” His deep-throated laughter echoed like a fiendish jackal about the striated rock.
Vetra and Basineus staggered down the slope into a rocky corridor, flanked by tall, sheer cliffs, half running, half stumbling.
The canyon sported steep sides, blocking out any vestiges of the sun. A gloomy, clinging feel draped the open passage; chill draughts seeped up the avenue like wind tunnels. Shouts of men echoed in Vetra’s ears. He saw crumbling stone arches to either side, and heard the whine of arrows. Bolts snapped off his mail shirt, whizzing by both their ears.
“It’s a death trap,” he snarled. “Run!”
Basineus needed no urging. The bulk of the enemy pursued Tas and the others. For this Vetra was thankful. Tas had disappeared from sight.
Vetra squinted ahead. He knew to stay alive they had to outwit their pursuers, or somehow slit their throats. “This way.” He darted left into a cross canyon through an oval gap three men wide.
Basineus stumbled after him, fresh wounds dripping from his arms and torso.
The pounding of booted feet thundered from behind.
Vetra stopped to flatten his back against the wall of this new canyon. When the pursuers first charged through this opening, he ripped his blade into flesh and teeth. A feather-crowned Galashad crumpled with a thud. Basineus reeled in to skewer the attacker’s closest comrade. Blood sprayed on the canyon wall as the mercenary’s sword severed the victim’s throat.
Vetra paused, snorting wrath through his teeth.
Three more charged in. Vetra felt steel rake across his mail shirt, deflected somehow as he stove in a skull and landed in a crouch to pass sword through the astounded Karkassian’s loins like a skewer. Basineus thrust bloody steel up through the sternum of the remaining rogue and out through his back. The man fell in a crunching heap.
An eerie silence ensued. The distant sounds only of steel and screams of dying men.
“Hide the bodies,” muttered Basineus.
“No time,” argued Vetra. “We’ll toss these jackals’ bodies up this way a bit. Then we’ll backtrack and take the other canyon. It’s time for us to do the unexpected.”
With a vicious sweep, he hacked the head off one of the corpses and Basineus dragged the other body and threw it up the path. The trail seemed to meander to a place up the hill. Good, thought Vetra. Make it look as if the fugitives fled up the crumbling trail. Basineus dragged the last attacker’s corpse after him, and with a grimace of disgust let it fall in a ghastly heap.
“It seems obvious to say we’re in a jam. What now?”
“To Dergath with that! That we ever agreed to this mission, I don’t know. I should have my head examined.”
They slunk down the path. The sounds of pursuit faded.
III
Through a graveyard of fallen rocks, Vetra and Basineus picked their way. They skirted boulders, sidestepped pits, crevasses, and the like. Basineus, breathing heavily, called out a halt and snatched at Vetra’s arm. “Hold up, my leg’s going to fall off. Besthra’s teats.” He gazed at Vetra’s gleaming mail shirt. “Dergath, that’s a fine set of mail. How ’bout we trade?”
Vetra scowled, accelerating his pace.
Basineus winced and hurried to catch up.
The canyon was stark, forbidding and the sides rose sheer out of the bedrock. They were unscalable, like the walls of a giant’s tomb. A patch of clear sky loomed far over their heads. Eccentric forms seemed to grow from the rock face, the stone of which was cold to the touch where Vetra saw animal heads and demons, perhaps carved by some inspired tribesmen.
“Remember that tavern at Ajstan?” Basineus grunted at Vetra, limping in a bent-kneed hobble.
Vetra’s eyes roved ahead, scouting for danger. His fingers itched to lay steel into any howling enemy that might fling themselves upon them. After a time, he sneered. “How can I forget?”
“The brawl was staged, just so you know.” Basineus coughed up blood. “The slut chose you. It was just a bet. Tarkus and his men dared me but I had no idea what was going down. That it was enough to get you jailed, or that Hurdan was your enemy.”
Vetra growled between his teeth. “I never forgave you for that.”
Basineus smiled a grim hound’s grin through his blood-clotted face. “Always a hothead, weren’t you, Vetra?”
