“Take a look around Maras-Dantia,” the dwarf advised. “You’ll see one hell of a lot of very different races. Apart from being plug ugly, what’s special about the Sluagh?”
“In a way, that’s my point. How do you think this land came to be shared by so many different races? Why do you think Maras-Dantia’s so rich in the kinds of life it holds? Or should I say Centrasia?”
“Only if you want your throat cut!” a grunt called out. “This is
our
land!”
Stryke shut him up. Turning back to the human, he said, “What kind of a question is that?”
“Probably the most important one ever put to you.” He held up a hand to still their response. “Bear with me, please. You’d understand me best if you concede for a moment that all the elder races came here from elsewhere.”
“The way the humans came here, you mean, from outside?” Alfray asked.
“In a sense. Although we mean different things when we say . . .
outside.
”
“Go on,” Stryke said, intrigued despite himself.
“The elder races came here from other places. Believe that. And the artifacts you call stars are part of how they came here.”
“This is making my head hurt,” Haskeer complained. “If they, us, don’t come from here, then where?”
“I’ll try to put it in a way that can be grasped. Imagine that there are places where only gremlins dwell. Or pixies, nyadds and goblins. Or orcs.”
Stryke frowned. “You mean lands where only these races live? No mixing? No humans?”
“Exactly. And were it not for the instrumentalities, none of you would be here at all.”
“Including humans?”
“No. We have always been here.”
An uproar ensued. Stryke had to use his best parade-ground roar to stifle it. “A story like that’s all the better for proof, Serapheim. Where’s yours?”
“If my plan succeeds, you’ll have it. But we can’t afford much more delay. Will you let me finish?”
Stryke nodded.
“I understand your disbelief,” Serapheim told them all. “This place is all you’ve ever known, and your parents before you. But I assure you, much though you believe we humans are the invaders, we are not. The truth of what I’m saying lies here, in Illex, and if we help each other it can be confirmed. Perhaps used to your advantage.”
“Put some flesh on the bones,” Coilla said, “and maybe we’ll see it differently.”
“I’ll try.” He took counsel with himself, then continued, “That truth has to do with the abundance of magical energy here in what you call Maras-Dantia.” Many present resented his choice of words, but they held their tongues. “Or at least the richness of energy there once was. Generations ago, as you know, humans began crossing the Scilantiun Desert in search of new land, and settled here, leaving their homes on the other side of the world. They came on foot and on horseback, trekking across the burning sands, leaving their dead behind them with their graves to mark the way. Only the strongest came, the most determined. With this lush continent providing everything they could possibly want, they had no need to breed cautiously. If this patch of earth was exhausted, why not move on to another? After all, who else was using it? Nobody who
settled
. Nobody who put down roots in one spot, or mined its riches. So they built, and they dug, and they burnt the forests for their crops. Most of them having no sensitivity for the earth energies, for the magic, they had no idea of the havoc they were causing. To them magic was just some sleight of hand, a little conjuring, a firework or two. Only a very few, who took the trouble to acquaint themselves with the elder races, knew this not to be so. That was the origin of the Manis.”
“And you are one such,” Alfray divined.
“I’m not a Mani, or a Uni either, come to that. But yes, a practitioner of the art. One of the few my race has produced.”
“Why are you telling us this? Why involve yourself with our troubles when you could just stay clear?”
“I’m trying to rectify wrongs. But this isn’t the time to say much more. Soon the Sluagh will wake from their slumbers in the ice. We have to act.”
“Can you get us out of here?”
“I think so. But simply trying to escape isn’t my plan. And where would you go in this icy waste?”
“What
is
your plan?” Stryke wanted to know.
“To retrieve the stars and have them effect your leaving this place.”
Sanara spoke up then, reminding them all of her presence. “The portal?”
“Yes,” Serapheim responded.
Stryke frowned. “And what’s
that?
”
“Part of the mystery I seek to open to you. But first you must lend your sword arms.” He looked around at them. “Let me guide you,” he appealed. “If you see no benefit in what we’re doing, what have you lost? You can abandon me and go your own way, brave Illex’s fury and try to reach warmer climes.”
“When you put it that way,” Stryke reasoned, “I’m inclined to go along with you.” He allowed his tone to become menacing. “But only so far. Any hint of treachery, or if we don’t like the way things are heading, we will go it alone. And you’ll be paying with your life.”
“I expect no less. Thank you. Our first task is to get to the palace cellars.”
“Why?”
“Because there lies the portal, and your salvation.”
“Believe him,” Sanara added. “This is the only way.”
“We’ll go along with it for now,” Stryke agreed. “But talk of cellars is all very well when we can’t even get out of this room.”
“I can take myself out, the same way I came in, but nobody else,” Serapheim said. “The dying of the magic has depleted my powers as much as everyone else’s. And no, I can’t open the door from the outside. Only the Sluagh can do that. I’m sure I can find how in their minds, but I don’t want to get that close to them. My idea is to find and lure one in here. But once I have, it’ll be your task to overcome it.”
“They can be killed then?”
“Oh yes. They are not invulnerable or immortal, although they are incredibly tough and long-living.”
“What about their pain weapon?”
“That’s where Sanara and I come in. We’ll assault it mentally while you attack it with whatever comes to hand. Though of course you have no weapons.”
“We’re good at improvising,” Jup assured him.
“Good. Because you must not underestimate the Sluagh’s powers. You must attack without let and in numbers.”
“Count on it,” the dwarf said.
“Then ready yourselves. It begins.”
Serapheim moved back into the shadows.
He kept to them once he was outside the room.
His boots made no sound in the thick dust of the corridors. He opened door after door, ready to flee at an instant’s notice, but as he suspected the Sluagh had not yet risen from their icy cradles.
At last, as the sky began to lighten the south-east, he felt the rumble in his mind that meant Sluagh were talking nearby. Flattening himself against a wall’s marble slabs, he peered around a corner.
There were four of them, their grey shapes shifting from one ugly conformation to another.
Cautiously, Serapheim withdrew.
He had hoped for fewer, but there wasn’t time to search anymore. Steadying his resolve, he stepped boldly out in front of them, touching fingers to brow in a mocking salute.
Instantly pain whipped out at him. But he’d been expecting it and took to his heels.
They came after him. Two had fearsome insect limbs that propelled them swiftly along the passage. A third threw out scaly wings that creaked as they slapped the air, but the passage was too narrow for it to extend them fully. Instead it barely rose, floating ponderously above the last one, a slug-like being that left a shining, rancid trail.
Serapheim outpaced them. Pelting along past open doors, he headed through a long, dusky gallery. At the end of it he leaned panting against the wall.
Now he had reached the spiral staircase. It was like a nightmare, running throughout eternity up a neverending flight of steps, and with each stride he was slower. His pursuers were catching up to him. Serapheim was beginning to think he’d never make it.
He gasped and forced himself to greater speed, lungs burning, legs as heavy as logs. It was all he could do to put one foot in front of another. He grasped the banister and used that to haul himself higher. A glimpse over his shoulder showed him clawed tentacles reaching towards him. Terrified, he put on another spurt. Around and around the spiral stairway he staggered, thinking he’d never make it close enough to the room to transport himself inside. The Sluagh were almost at his back.
Pain lashed through his mind. His shields were weakening.
Inside the room at the top of the tower, Stryke looked around. They’d tossed their furs and their packs against the walls, clearing a space to fight in. There was nothing resembling furniture and all their weapons had been taken from them.
“We can always throw Jup at ’em,” Haskeer suggested. Coilla swatted his head.
Stryke had an idea. “You and you!” he snapped at a couple of grunts. “Climb up those gargoyles and bring down the curtain poles. And the curtains as well, come to think of it. Then stand ready.”
Time seemed to pass too slowly. The Wolverines were beginning to eye Sanara suspiciously, wondering if she was in on some plot with the human.
At last Serapheim wavered back into view, like a mirage turning to solid flesh. He took a couple of tottering steps and dropped to his knees on a pool of yellow cloth between Coilla and Haskeer.
“They’re coming,” he panted. “Four of them.”
A heartbeat later the door burst open and slammed back against the wall. The entrance wasn’t wide enough to accommodate more than one of the beings at a time. Stryke saw the others out on the landing, one hovering in mid-air on its rippling grey wings.
“Now!” he yelled.
The two orcs hurled their poles like javelins. They were flung hard enough to penetrate even the Sluagh’s unnatural skin. Sticky black ichor began to flow from the nearest one’s chest. It swayed in the doorway, blocking its companions as it changed from a six-limbed wolf to a snake that dropped in coils to the floor.
A gang of grunts rushed in and commenced stomping it enthusiastically. Their boots began to steam, but that didn’t stop other orcs from joining in. One and all, they took out their frustrations on the slithering serpent. Little by little its strivings ceased, though its beady eyes continued staring at them implacably.
Flickers of pain rippled through the warband’s minds. Then the winged Sluagh arrowed down at them with its pinions folded behind it like a stooping hawk. Coilla and Haskeer sprang into action, holding the curtain up between them. The monster flew straight into it. Quickly they wrapped it then Haskeer dropped onto the bundle with all his weight. Another orc thwacked the netted Sluagh with his rod of iron. Foul stains began to seep through the yellow cloth.
All that time Serapheim hadn’t moved from his place beside the door. Now he stepped forward, Sanara at his shoulder. Fingers intertwined, they raised their hands in a gesture that was far from peaceful. There were no flashes, no puffs of coloured smoke. In fact, nothing seemed to happen at all.
And that, Stryke realised, was the point. Though the two dead Sluagh were still in the room, the others hadn’t entered.
“Cover us,” commanded Serapheim.
Stryke and the others moved forward despite the fierce aches that rolled and retreated through their skulls.
Jup took a peek and bobbed back inside. “They’re having a powwow about half a dozen steps down. No others about.”
“Any advice?” Stryke asked the humans.
Serapheim shook his head. “No. Now that we’ve pushed them that far back, it’s up to you.”
Wielding his metal rod like a club, Stryke led the band out in a wild charge.
Orcs catapulted off the banisters and into a headlong dash down the stairs, or whipped round on the inside of the stairs with one hand around the newel. The Sluagh fled, the slug undulating obscenely and his insect-like fellow stilting away at high speed.
Down and down the band went, spiralling endlessly inside the shaft of white stone. Stryke raced down the middle of the stairs, flailing his curtain rod in hissing arcs that would have broken the neck of a dragon. But the Sluagh moved surprisingly fast. They kept well out of range in what seemed like heedless flight.
Nevertheless, when the demons reached a landing, they whipped round. Agony flared through the orcs’ heads. Most of them fell to their knees, or rolled down the stairs in a whirl of limbs. Now, half the warband were helpless on the level space, unable to back up without trampling their companions.
Coilla’s head smacked into the piers of the banister, her helmet tumbling down into the void. Sick, racked with pain, she lost hold of her weapon and it too clanged downwards from step to step until it wedged itself in an angle far below.
Now the Sluagh began to advance. “Use your magic, can’t you?” Stryke grated.
“We are!” Serapheim yelled back. “That’s why they’re coming so slowly.”
“Call that
slow?
” Squinting through the whorls of light that tormented his sight, he swung his weapon once more and hurled it with all his might.
It tangled in the insect-Sluagh’s segmented legs. The monster tripped and stumbled, not even its six limbs enough to steady it until it bowled off the landing and down a half spiral. It landed on its back, rocking and waving its legs in the air, unable to turn itself in the tight space. An enraged fire roared in Stryke’s ears.
Then the last monster reared to an awesome height. It seemed to draw itself up and out until it almost filled the width of the stairs. Before their horrified gaze it changed from a slug-like thing. Its lower part forked, forming claws on its massive hind feet, while a tooth-filled mouth gaped in a soundless roar. Tentacles sprouted from its torso once more, wreathing around it. The taloned paws clicked on the stone, then it built up speed and charged.
Haskeer threw himself flat on the floor, face upwards, the curtain rail pointing straight at the charging beast just as Stryke had done with the snow leopard. The Sluagh extended its legs and strode over him untouched. It used its tentacles to hurl other warriors aside, not even bothering to watch where they fell. Intent on reaching the humans, it trampled on the unconscious orcs in its headlong rush.