She blinked and focused on the trio standing in front of her. The nearest had a scar running from the middle of his cheek to the corner of his mouth. His pockmarked face wasn’t improved by an untidy moustache and a mass of greasy black hair. He looked fit in an unfit sort of way. The one next to him appeared even more dissolute. He was shorter, leaner, slighter. His hair was tawny and a near-transparent goatee clung to his chin. A leather patch covered his right eye, and his leering grin revealed bad teeth. But the last of them was the most striking. He was the biggest by far, easily outweighing the other two combined, but it seemed like all muscle, not flab. His head was shaved, he had a squashed, abused nose and deep-sunk piglet eyes. He was the only one not holding a weapon, and probably didn’t need to. All of them gave off the distinctive, faintly unpleasant odour peculiar to their race.
They stared back at her. There was no mistaking their hostility.
The one with the bad skin and oily hair had said something, but she hadn’t taken it in. Now he spoke again, addressing his companions, not her.
“I reckon she’s one of them Wolverines,” he said. “Matches the description.”
“Looks like we struck lucky,” the one with the eyepatch decided.
“Don’t put a wager on it,” Coilla rumbled.
“Oooh, she’s
feisty
,” One-Eye jeered in mock dread.
The big, stupid-looking individual appeared less smug. “What do we do, Micah?”
“She’s but one, and a female at that,” Pox Face told him. “You ain’t afeared of a little lone orc, are you? We’ve dealt with enough of ’em in the past.”
“Yeah, but the others could be about,” Big and Stupid replied.
Coilla wondered who the hell these characters were. Humans were bad enough at the best of times, but
these
. . . Then she noticed the small, rough, blackened objects hanging from Pox Face’s and One-Eye’s belts. They were shrunken orcs’ heads. That left no doubt about what kind of humans she’d fallen among.
One-Eye was glancing warily into the surrounding trees.
Pox Face scanned the terrain too. “Reckon we would have seen ’em if they was.” He pinned Coilla with a hard gaze. “Where’s the rest of your band?”
She adopted an air of sham innocence. “Band? What band?”
“Are they in these parts?” he persisted. “Or did you leave ’em back in Scratch?”
She kept silent and hoped her face didn’t betray anything.
“We know that’s where you were heading,” Pox Face said. “Are the others still there?”
“Fuck off and die,” she suggested sweetly.
He gave her an unpleasant, thin-lipped smile. “There’s hard ways and easy ways of making you talk. Don’t much matter to me which you want.”
“Should I start breaking her bones, Micah?” Big and Stupid offered, lumbering closer.
Coilla had been putting an effort into re-gathering her wits and strength. She centred herself, getting ready to act.
“I say we kill her and be done with it,” One-Eye offered impatiently.
“Ain’t no use to us dead, Greever,” Pox Face retorted.
“We get the bounty on her head, don’t we?”
“
Think
, stupid. We want all her band, and so far she’s our best chance of finding ’em.” He turned back to her. “So what you got to tell me?”
“How about eat dung, scum sucker?”
“Wha—?”
She kicked out at him with all her force, the heels of her boots cracking hard against his shins. He yelled and went down.
The other two humans were slow to react. Big and Stupid literally gaped at the speed of her movement. Coilla leapt to her feet, despite the pain in her legs and back, and snatched up her sword.
Before she could use it, One-Eye recovered and piled into her.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs and slammed her to the ground again, but she held on to the blade. They fought for possession, rolling, kicking, punching. Then Big and Stupid and an enraged Pox Face joined in. Coilla took a whack to the jaw. Her sword was dashed from her hand and bounced away. Delivering a roundhouse punch to One-Eye’s mouth, she twisted from his grasp. She scrambled away from the scrum.
“Get her!” One-Eye yelled.
“Take her alive!” Pox Face bellowed.
“Like
fuck
you will!” Coilla promised.
Big and Stupid charged in and grabbed one of her thrashing legs. She turned and swung at him, battering his head with her fists, putting all she had into the blows. It did about as much good as spitting to put out Hades. So she slammed the boot of her other foot into his face and pushed. He grunted with the effort of hanging on, her boot sinking deeper into his reddening, fleshy cheek. The boot won. His hold on her leg broken, he staggered backwards and fell awkwardly.
Coilla started to get up. An arm came round her neck and tightened. Gasping for breath, she drove her elbow into Pox Face’s stomach, hard. She heard him gasp and did it again. He let go. This time she got as far as standing, and was trying to draw one of the knives holstered in her sleeve when One-Eye, mouth bloodied, crashed into her again. As she went down, the other two returned to the fray.
Still suffering the after-effects of her fall, she knew she was no match for them. But it wasn’t in her nature, or that of any orc, to surrender meekly. They fought to pin down her arms. Twisting about to escape this, she found herself in close proximity to the side of One-Eye’s head. Specifically, his ear.
Coilla sank her teeth into it. He shrieked. She bit down harder. One-Eye thrashed wildly, but couldn’t free himself from the tangle of limbs. She tore at the ear savagely, provoking ever louder agonised howls. Flesh stretched and began parting. There was a salty taste in her mouth. With a final jerk of her head, a chunk of ear ripped off. She spat it out.
One-Eye struggled free and rolled on the ground, clutching the side of his head and wailing.
“
Bitch . . . whore . . . freak . . . !”
Suddenly Pox Face was looming over Coilla. His fist came down several times on her craggy temple, knocking her senseless. Big and Stupid clamped her shoulders and finished the job.
“Tie her,” Pox Face ordered.
The big man hauled her to a sitting position and took a length of cord from the pocket of his squalid jerkin. Roughly, her wrists were bound.
Stretched in the dirt, One-Eye was still shouting and cursing.
Pox Face lifted Coilla’s sleeve and took away her knives. He commenced patting the rest of her for more weapons.
Behind them, One-Eye moaned loudly and thrashed about some more.
“I’ll . . . fucking kill . . . her,”
he bleated.
“Shut up!” Pox Face snapped. He dug into his belt pouch and found a piece of grubby cloth. “Here.”
The balled cloth landed beside One-Eye. He took it and tried to staunch the blood. “My ear, Micah,” he grumbled. “The fucking little monster . . .
My ear!
”
“Ah, stow it,” Pox Face said. “You never did listen anyway, Greever.”
Big and Stupid boomed with laughter. Pox Face took it up.
“It ain’t funny!” One-Eye protested indignantly.
“One eye, one ear,” the vast human cackled, jowls undulating. “He’s got . . . the set!”
The pair of them roared.
“Bastards!” One-Eye exclaimed.
Pox Face looked down at Coilla. His mood changed instantly and completely. “I reckon that wasn’t too friendly, orc.” The tone was pure menace.
“I can be a lot more unfriendly than that,” she promised him.
Big and Stupid sobered. Muttering, One-Eye climbed to his feet and tottered over to them.
Crouching beside her, reeking fetid breath, Pox Face said, “I’m asking again: are the other Wolverines still in Scratch?”
Coilla just stared at him.
One-Eye kicked her in the side. “Talk, bitch!”
She took the blow and repaid it with another show of silent defiance.
“Cut it out,” Pox Face told him. But he didn’t sound overly concerned about her welfare.
Glowering, One-Eye pressed the cloth to his ear and looked murderous.
“Is it Scratch?” Pox Face repeated to her. “Well?”
“You really think the three of you could go against the Wolverines and live?”
“
I’m
asking the questions, bitch, and I’m not good at patience.” He pulled a knife from his belt and held it in front of her face. “Tell me where they are or I start with your eyes.”
A slow pause and some quick thinking occurred. Finally she said, “Hecklowe.”
“What?”
“She’s lying!” One-Eye interjected.
Pox Face looked sceptical too. “Why Hecklowe? What are they doing there?”
“It’s a freeport, isn’t it?”
“So?”
“If you have something to sell, it’s where you’ll get the highest price.” She made it seem that she was giving this out with reluctance.
“Hecklowe’s that kind of place, Micah,” Big and Stupid offered.
“I know
that
,” Pox Face retorted testily. He returned his attention to Coilla. “What have your kind got to sell?”
She baited the hook with a strategic silence.
“It’s what you stole from the Queen, ain’t it?”
Coilla slowly nodded, desperately hoping they’d buy the lie. “Seems to me it must be something real precious to go renegade and upset the likes of Jennesta. What is it?”
She realised they didn’t know about the instrumentalities, the artifacts she and the band called stars. No way was she going to enlighten them. “It’s a . . . trophy. A relic. Very old.”
“Relic? A valuable of some kind? Treasure?”
“Yes, a treasure.” She meant the word in a way he’d never understand.
“I
knew
it!” There was avarice in his eyes. “It had to be something big.”
Coilla realised these bounty hunters, which was obviously what they were, could accept that the Wolverines had gone rogue in pursuit of gain. They would never have bought the notion of them acting for an ideal. It fitted their jaundiced view of the world.
“So why ain’t you with ’em?” One-Eye butted in, glaring at her suspiciously.
It was the question she was dreading. Whatever she came out with had to be convincing. “We had some trouble on the trail. Ran into a bunch of Unis and I got parted from the band. I was trying to catch them up when—”
“When you ran into us,” Pox Face interrupted. “Your bad luck, our good fortune.”
She dared to hope that he at least believed her. But Coilla knew she was taking a risk if they did. They might decide she’d served her purpose, kill her and be on their way. Taking her head with them.
Pox Face stared at her. She braced herself.
“We’re going to Hecklowe,” he announced.
“What about her?” asked One-Eye.
“She’s coming with us.”
“Why? What do we need her for now?”
“A profit. Hecklowe’s just about the best place to strike a deal with slavers. Some pay plenty for an orc bodyguard in times like this. Particularly for an orc from a crack fighting unit.” He jerked his head at the big man. “Get her horse, Jabeez.”
Jabeez trudged toward her mount, which was grazing a little way off, unconcerned.
One-Eye, still fussing with what was left of his ear, didn’t look happy. But he kept his peace.
To Coilla it seemed like a good time for token objections. “Slavery.” She almost spat the word. “Another sign of Maras-Dantia’s decline. That’s something else we owe you humans for.”
“Shut your noise!” Pox Face snapped. “Get this straight, orc. All you mean to me is the amount you’re worth. And you don’t need a tongue to ply your trade. Understand?”
Coilla breathed an inward sigh of relief. Greed had rescued her. But all she’d done was buy a little time, both for her and, she hoped, the band.
The band.
Shit, what a mess. Where were they? Where was Haskeer? What would become of the stars?
Who was there to help?
For a long, long time he had done nothing but watch. He had contented himself with observing events from afar and trusting fate. But fate couldn’t be trusted. Things just got more involved, more unpredictable, and chaos loomed ever larger
.
The draining of the magic brought about by the destructive ways of the incomers meant that when he finally decided to act even his powers were too unreliable, too weakened. He had to involve others in the search and that proved a mistake
.
Now the instrumentalities were back in the world, back in history, and it was just a matter of time before somebody harnessed their power. Whether it would be used for good or ill was the only question that mattered a damn now
.
He couldn’t argue to himself any longer that none of it affected this place. Even his own extraordinary domain was threatened. With his abilities diminishing it was all he could do to maintain its existence, notwithstanding that his small elite of acolytes called him Mage and believed he was capable of anything
.
It was time to take a more direct hand in what was happening. He had made mistakes and he had to try rectifying them. Some things he could do to help. Others he couldn’t
.
But he saw what had been, and something of what was to come, and knew he might already be too late
.
The large, spherical chamber, deep in the underground labyrinth of Scratch, was poorly lit. Such light as there was came from innumerable, faintly glowing crystals embedded in the walls and roof, and from a few discarded torches scattered about the floor. Half a dozen ovals of pitch blackness marked tunnels running off from the cavern. The air was unwholesome.
Above, two score trolls were gathered. Theirs was a squat, beefy race, covered in coarse grey fur and of waxen complexion. Incongruously, their heads were crowned with a mass of vivid, rusty orange hair. Their chests were expansive, their limbs overly long, and their eyes had evolved into vast black orbs to cope with subterranean darkness.
For all Stryke and Alfray knew, the chamber was only a small part of the troll kingdom, and these warriors were only a fraction of its population. But separated from the rest of their band by a rock fall, the Wolverine captain and corporal were destined never to find out. Their hands were bound and they stood with their backs pressed against a sacrificial altar. The trolls arrayed against them were armed with spears, and some had bows.