“
Shit!”
The ground could have been boiling hot going by the speed with which she pulled out her fingers.
“
Ssshhh!
Keep it down,” Jup whispered. He saw how she looked. “What is it?”
“I just used the sight. Think I picked up what you did, only this seems a hell of a lot stronger and closer. It’s really intense,
Jup.”
“Where?” Stryke demanded.
She turned and pointed to the darkening plain behind them.
Stryke looked up and down the Wolverine line. “Anybody see anything out there?”
Nobody could.
“If that’s another bunch of Jennesta’s supporters,” Coilla speculated, “it could be a flanking action.”
“That makes us sitting ducks. All of you: back from the edge and down to the plain.”
They withdrew, moving furtively. They knew Jennesta would have more guards stationed around the camp, and probably patrols.
The last thing they needed was to alert them.
Back on the plain, they peered into the gathering gloom.
Haskeer glared at Jup. “You sure your female’s right about this? I can’t see a fucking thing.”
“
His female
,” Spurral told him, “is quite capable of speaking for herself; and yes, I’m sure.”
Haskeer grunted but otherwise kept quiet.
They all stood motionless for several silent minutes, surveying the plain. Stryke wasn’t alone in starting to think it was
some kind of mistake.
It was Pepperdyne who pointed and said, “What’s that?”
Stryke strained his eyes. “Can’t see anything.”
Coilla chimed in with, “I can! Look, just to the right of that stand of trees.”
Something was coming out of the murk. As it got nearer they realised it was someone mounted on a white horse. A slight figure,
lean and straight-backed.
It came near enough for them to make out what kind of being it was.
“What the
fuck
?” Haskeer exclaimed, voicing the amazement they all felt.
The rider was unmistakably of a race that didn’t exist on Acurial.
Halting just short of the band, the rider lifted her hand in a gesture of greeting. “I’m here in peace. I intend you no harm.”
Stryke found his tongue. “Who are you?”
“My name is Pelli Madayar.”
“You’re an elf.”
“Very observant of you, Captain Stryke.”
“How do you know my name? What the
hell
is —”
“There are some things you’ll have to take on trust.”
“Like a member of the elfin race turning up here?” Coilla said. “We need more than trust to take that in our stride. Where
are you from?”
“That’s not important.”
“Is there a tribe of elves living in Acurial we didn’t know about?” Stryke persisted.
“As I said, that’s not important.”
“If you’re not from this land you must have come from… elsewhere.”
“As you did.”
Stryke was taken aback by that, as they all were. “You seem to know a hell of a lot about us.”
“Perhaps. But I repeat: it’s not my intention to do you harm.”
Jup said, “You wouldn’t have come from Maras-Dantia, would you?”
“No. My kind are not confined to any one world. No more than orcs are, as you have found.”
“You with Jennesta?” Stryke wanted to know.
“No. My allegiance lies elsewhere and shouldn’t concern you.”
“Helpful, ain’t she?” Haskeer muttered.
“There are some things it’s better you should not know.”
“Is that so? So how about we beat it out of you?”
The elf was unruffled. “I wouldn’t advise you trying that. We don’t want to hurt you.”
Haskeer laughed derisively. “Hurt us? You and whose army?”
No sooner had he spoken than some of the grunts started shouting and pointing along the plain. A group of riders, about equal
in number to the Wolverines, were emerging from the shadows. Many in the band went for their swords.
As the newcomers slowly advanced, their nature could be seen. There were goblins, trolls and harpies in their ranks, along
with centaurs, gremlins, gnomes, satyrs, kobolds, were-beasts, changelings and individuals from many other races, including
some the orcs hadn’t seen before.
“This just gets creepier,” Jup remarked, clutching his staff with rapidly whitening knuckles.
“Who the hell are you, Madayar, and what do you want?” Stryke demanded.
“We’ve come to parley.”
“About what?”
“You have certain things that don’t rightfully belong to you. Our duty is to retrieve them.”
“What things?”
“She means the stars, Stryke,” Coilla reckoned.
“Yes,” the elf confirmed. “The artefacts more properly known as instrumentalities. They cannot stay in your possession.”
“They’re ours by right!” Stryke thundered. “We fought and bled for them. Some of us died on the way.”
“Yeah,” Haskeer added, “you want ’em, you rip ’em from our corpses.”
“You have no understanding of their power.”
“We’ve got a pretty good idea,” Stryke said.
“No, you haven’t. Not their
real
power, and what they represent. What you’ve seen so far is just a fraction of their true potential.”
“All the more reason not to hand them over to the first bunch of strangers who come begging.”
“We’re not begging, we’re asking.”
“The answer’s no,” Haskeer told her. “Now fuck off.”
She ignored that. “The instrumentalities pose a terrible threat. Our task is to make sure they don’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“And yours are the right hands, are they?” Stryke came back. “I don’t buy that.”
“In the name of reason, consider what I’m telling you. If you knew what you were meddling in —”
“So tell us.”
Pelli faltered. “As I said, some things must rest on trust.”
“Not good enough. You want something from orcs, you’ve got to take it. If you can.”
Her tone became more conciliatory. “The ferocity of the orcs, and their bravery, are well known, for all that so many malign
you. I know of your tenacity and of your valour. But you can’t hope to prevail against us.”
Stryke looked to the rest of her group, now at a standstill a short arrow’s flight away. “In our time we’ve killed many from
just about all the races in your ranks. Nothing I see makes me think you’d be any different.”
“Don’t judge us by your past experience, Stryke. Your instinct is to fight, I understand that. It’s your birthright. But you
don’t have to surrender to that impulse this time. Rather than lift your blades against us, try thinking instead.”
“You saying we can’t think?” Haskeer rumbled.
“I’m saying that in the end you have no choice but to surrender the instrumentalities.”
“Surrender’s a word we don’t grant,” Stryke replied icily.
“Don’t see it as surrender, but rather as a triumph of good sense.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then I have to demand that you turn over the artefacts. Now.”
“We don’t take demands either.”
“This is pissing me off,” Haskeer fumed. “You’re
pissing me off
, elf!”
“That’s your final word?” Pelli asked.
Stryke nodded. “Any other parleying gets done with blades.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t reach an agreement.”
“What you going to do about it?”
“Reflect, and consult with my companions.” She turned her mount and began to leave.
“You reflect away!” Haskeer shouted after her.
“And all the fucking good it’ll do you!”
In common with others in the band, several of the new intake had nocked arrows when the strange group appeared. Now one of
them, raw and jumpy, accidentally let loose his string. The arrow shot past the retreating elf’s head so close she felt the
air it displaced.
Pelli Madayar swung about to look their way.
Stryke started to shout. He wanted to say that it was an accident. That the band would fight to the last drop of blood and
without mercy, but had no need to put an arrow in the back of anybody under a truce. He didn’t get the chance.
The elf pointed her hand their way, then swept it left to right, rapidly. A wave of energy, red-tinged, flew at the band as
fast as thought. It hit them with the force of a tempest. All of them. The entire company went down, knocked off their feet
as surely as if they’d been struck with mallets. With it, the wave brought pain that coursed through their bodies for a good
couple of seconds.
“Gods,” Coilla groaned as she struggled to get up.
“
Stay low!
” Stryke hissed. “All of you: head for the tree line. But keep down!”
They scurried for the trees, bent double, trying to zigzag and make themselves harder targets. Halfway there, the air above
them lit up with intense, multicoloured beams of light. Rays crackling all around them, they put on a burst of speed and made
it into the tiny wood.
“Anybody hit?” Stryke panted.
Miraculously, it seemed no one had been.
“Who the fuck
are
this bunch?” Haskeer said.
“Doesn’t matter. Main thing is getting out of the way of their magic.”
“A frontal assault’s not on then?” Coilla ventured.
“What do you think? Magic that strong, we’d be lucky to get ten paces.”
“They’re coming!” Dallog warned.
The bizarre multispecies company was approaching, riding in a line, steadily.
“We’ll get to safer ground and figure out how to fight this,” Stryke decided.
Jup, who with a couple of scouts had penetrated the wood farther than the others, came dashing back. He was breathing heavily.
“Not that way. Jennesta’s troops.”
“Shit,” Coilla cursed. “They must have picked up on the racket.”
“Great,” Haskeer grumbled. “Jennesta and a couple of hundred humans that way, the freak circus over here, and us in the middle.”
“What do we do, Stryke?” Pepperdyne badgered.
“Depends how you want to die.”
Coilla shook her head. “No, Stryke. There’s one other course.”
He didn’t have to be told what that was. But he hesitated.
They could hear Jennesta’s army now, tramping through the wood and making no effort at furtiveness. The riders were much nearer,
too.
“Hurry up, Stryke!” Coilla pleaded.
He reached for the pouch where he kept the stars.
Standeven stared, open-mouthed. “Surely you’re not going to —”
“
Shut it
,” Stryke told him as he began pulling out the artefacts. His other hand went to the amulet at his throat.
“There’s no time!” Coilla yelled.
The Gateway Corps had reached the tree line. In the other direction, the foremost of Jennesta’s troops could be seen moving
through the wood, a spit away.
Stryke let go of the amulet and concentrated on the stars, quickly slotting them together in a random pattern.
The whole band instinctively gathered about him.
Standeven started to shout. The words were unintelligible and slick with panic. It almost drowned out the noise Wheam was
making.
Stryke took one last look at the comet through the branches overhead. It shone like a nighttime sun.
Then he clicked the final instrumentality into place.
The bottom had dropped out of the universe
.
They were living sparks, sucked through an endless, serpentine tunnel of light. On its supple walls flashed endless images
of other realities, moving so fast they were almost a blur. And beyond, outside that terrible shaft, an even more breathtaking
actuality: a limitless canopy smothered in countless billions of stars
.
The band’s only sensation was of helplessly falling. A ceaseless and unremitting plunge into the black maw of the unknown
.
Then, after an eternity, they dropped towards a particular chasm, a whirlpool of sallow, churning light
.
It swallowed them
.
They landed hard. The collision with what seemed to be solid ground was bone-shaking. But they had no leisure to recover from
the impact. Wherever they had fetched up was hostile. Murderously so.
The place was in the grip of a violent sandstorm. Trillions of grains of sand lashed them like shards of glass or tiny diamonds,
bathing them in pain. The sand not only pummelled them, it all but blinded them: they could see practically nothing. It was
hard to stand, let alone walk. The heat was terrific, and in no way mitigated by the never-ending, roaring wind. Even for
a group of warriors as toughened as the Wolverines, it was intolerable.
Coilla was vaguely aware of other figures clustered about her. She happened to be standing next to Stryke when he slotted
the instrumentalities together. If she hadn’t, she probably wouldn’t have been able to find him now. But by luck, when she
stretched out her hand she brushed his arm. She took it in an iron grip.
Thrusting her mouth to his ear, she bellowed, “
Get us out of here!
”
Coilla had no way of knowing that was exactly what he was trying to do. The cluster of stars was still in his hands, and hampered
by being unable to see what he was doing, he was battling to rearrange them.
After what seemed an agonisingly long time, choking with the sand filling his mouth and nose, he managed to slot them into
another random assembly.
The void snatched them again. They were back in the swirling, never-ending spillway, taking a stomach-churning tumble to another
unknown goal.
The band was pitched into a blizzard, having exchanged insufferable heat for unspeakable cold. All they could see was white.
Stinging snow pricked them like innumerable needles. The temperature was so low they found it difficult to breathe. Stryke’s
fingers froze instantly, and it was all he could do to manipulate the stars. Teeth chattering, hands shaking uncontrollably,
he finally altered them.
Once more, the cosmic trapdoor flipped open.
They were standing in torrential rain in a landscape that seemed to consist solely of mud that was nearly liquid itself. The
air was uncomfortably humid. In seconds they realised that the rain was corrosive. It nipped at their flesh and singed their
clothing as though it was vitriol. Stryke manipulated the stars.