The Hollow: At The Edge (21 page)

“He should have killed
me when he had the chance,” Dhulrael replied. “Because if I am
right, I can help you stop him. Captain, do you have a map?”

Serrel watched Caellix
and Jurgen having a heated discussion with Dhulrael. Beside him,
Mouse sat on a log eating a huge piece of salted meat ravenously.
Caellix’s remaining dog, Vost, sat at his feet, looking
forlorn.

“Do you believe all
this?” said Holly aloud.

“Ancient relics and
magical crystals?” asked Brant. “Sure. Why not?”

“Who cares?” said
Dogbreath, who was lying on the ground with a leather skullcap over
his eyes. “Find Ferine, kill Ferine. And if there’s time, eat
Ferine. All that other shite is just... details.”

Holly sighed and poked
at the campfire. “Remember when we used to fight normal people? I
miss those days. Give me an old fashioned bandit company any day.”
She glanced over at Victor, who sharpening one of his many knives.
“So what’s your story?”

“What do you mean?”

“I just heard that you
were a mage.” Holly glanced at his black clothes and his collection
of sharp, pointed objects dubiously.

“I am a mage,” replied
Victor.

Mouse swallowed loudly.
“He likes to stab people,” she explained. Then continued
eating.

“I also do magic,” said
Victor. “I have many talents.”

“That’s true,” agreed
Serrel. “His stitching is beautiful. Who’s your new Captain?” he
asked Victor.

“You’ve never heard of
Jurgen, the Master of Assassins?”

“Also known as Jurgen
the Blackblade,” explained Brant. “Or Jurgen the Vicious, Evil
Bastard. Or Jurgen the Man You Should Never Accept a Drink From,
Ever.”

“He kills people,” said
Holly. “What else is there to know?”

“You kill people,”
pointed out Serrel.

“Only people who try to
kill us,” said Brant. “We’re soldiers. But Jurgen is...
pre-emptive.”

“It’s the job of the
Nightblades to go into places without being seen, in order to...”
Victor searched for a tactful phrase. “Deal with events before they
get out of hand.”

“By murdering
people?”

“If need be.”

“Meaning: usually,”
clarified Holly.

“So what’s with the
sergeant? She and Jurgen don’t seem overly fond of each other.”

“Difference of opinion,
Fresh Meat,” said Brant. “Jurgen’s always wanted the sergeant on
his team, and Caellix believes all assassins should be stabbed in
the throat and buried in a shallow grave... Uh, no offence,” he
told Victor.

“None taken,” said
Victor, not looking up.

Serrel glanced at him.
“So you’re an assassin now. To be honest, I’m not that
surprised.”

“It didn’t surprise me,
either,” put in Mouse.

“Serrel,” Victor
explained, “my entire life was more or less leading to this. If I
wasn’t in the Legion, then I’d probably be some dark alleyway
somewhere, being paid in silver to take other peoples’ lives. At
least this way, I’m killing people who are actually worth it.”

“Define, “worth it” for
me, Victor.”

Victor looked up at
him. “You’ve haven’t been in the Faelands as long as you have
without bloodying your hands. Who have you killed?”

“Ferine. A few of those
damn wolf creatures.”

“And you actually felt
bad about it?” Victor asked in amusement. “If you had a choice,
would you go back and not kill them?”

“Of course not. Then
I’d be dead.”

“So you kill, if only
to save your own life. Well, the Nightblades, we kill a few people
so that thousands of other people don’t have to die. A single blade
here, and a little splash of poison there, and an entire war can be
averted.”

Serrel gestured at the
surrounding woods. “How’s that working out?”

Victor shrugged. “Maybe
if we had killed Vharaes earlier, this all could have been
avoided.”

“You sound like,
Jurgen,” pointed out Brant. “And you may have noticed, but he is
one truly mental bugger. I mean Caellix is crazy. Really, foaming
at the mouth crazy. But Jurgen, that bloke is... What?” He trailed
off when he realised the others were looking over his shoulders.
“He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?”

“You wish,” said
Caellix.

“Oh, thank gods.”

Caellix slapped him
hard across the head, and joined Serrel at the fire.

“I meant crazy in the
nicest possible way,” Brant explained.

Caellix ignored him,
and patted Vost on the head. The dog licked her hand
consolingly.

“I’m sorry about your
dog,” said Mouse.

Caellix stiffened. “He
was just a dog,” she replied. “Just a big, stupid dog.”

“But he was your dog,”
Mouse went on regardless, either not seeing, or purposely ignoring
the
cease-and-desist
hand gestures Brant was making at her.
“You must be sad. I remember when my cat died, I cried for
weeks.”

“Really?” Caellix
looked coldly at her. “I suppose your cat was a gift from your
father, trained by you from the moment it could walk to hunt at
your side? I suppose that you and your cat had a bond so great that
when you were together, you moved perfectly as one being? I suppose
that when your cat was gutted by an abomination, you felt like one
of your limbs had been torn off, and you weren’t sure if you could
ever feel whole again?”

Mouse chewed
thoughtfully, and swallowed. “No. Not really. He was a little white
kitten I found hiding in the stables. I called him Snowy, and used
to feed him kitchen scraps, and then one day the head butler
drowned him in a water barrel and left his body on my bed for me to
find.”

Sympathy given and
story completed, Mouse returned calmly to her meal as the others
gaped at her.

“I
really
preferred it when she didn’t talk,” muttered Victor.

“That is easily the
most horrible thing I have ever heard,” commented Holly.

“Give her time,” said
Victor. “You’ve only just pierced the top of a very deep wellspring
of despair, fear and utter, unadulterated rage.”

“But I’ve been feeling
much better lately,” replied Mouse, offering them minor
comfort.

“Anyway,” Caellix
started, trying to get back on track. “We’re moving out soon, so
get your things ready.”

“Where are we going?”
Serrel asked her.

Caellix hesitated.
“We’re heading north, to Vollumir. But first, we’re making a quick
diversion off to the east. There’s an old quarry not far from here,
where they got the stones to build the bridge. According to the
elf, the area’s one of these... thinner places, where the ether
bleeds through. He thinks that’s where the Ferine would take their
magical relic of doom to recharge.”

“And if we find it, we
destroy it, right?” said Holly.

“If we find it, most
likely it’s going to be heavily guarded. Jurgen and the elf want to
go in and destroy it, but there are only about a dozen or so of us
here that can still fight. If we go against them, it’s going to be
brutal. Especially if this relic is as powerful as the elf says it
is.”

“What other choice is
there?” asked Serrel.

“We scout the location,
then head to the rest of the Legion and come back with more
people.” Caellix snorted. “By then the Ferine would have moved on,
or filled that relic with enough energy to kill us all. It’ll be
bloody either way.”

“It always is,” said
Dogbreath with a grin. “But you know me. I follow you anyway.”

“Sure, but you’re an
idiot.”

“I’d have to be.
Heheh.”

“Then get ready, you
lot. We’re moving out in fifteen minutes.”

Altogether, fourteen of
them set out for the quarry Dhulrael was adamant the Ferine would
be using to recharge their Illudin. Fifteen if you included Vost. A
few other soldiers were left behind to guard the wounded and dying.
Along with the Hounds, and the three Nightblades, there were four
other soldiers who had survived the attack on the Legion and were
still in good enough shape to fight. And Mouse. She got up and left
with the group without a word, as though it were just expected of
her.

“You don’t have to
come,” Serrel told her. “I saw you weaving before. You used up a
lot of energy. You sure you don’t want to rest and recover your
strength?”

“Don’t you?” Mouse
replied, but without malice.

“I have to go. The rest
of my squad’s going.”

“The rest of my unit
are all dead,” said Mouse. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.
Besides. You might get into trouble if I’m not there to save
you.”

Serrel opened his mouth
to object, feeling that he didn’t exactly need someone to save him
from anything, but Victor clapped him on the back.

“I’m glad you’re coming
along, Mouse,” Victor said.

“Thank you.”

“Just so long as I
don’t get caught between you and the enemy,” Victor went on. “I
don’t want to get incinerated and your weaving seems a bit...
uncontrolled.”

“I know,” Mouse
conceded. “I’m trying.”

“You really have
changed a lot, you know that?” he commented unexpectedly.

“I know. It’s been a
very trying week. You haven’t changed at all, though.”

Victor shrugged. “I’m
just in my element.”

“And you managed to
find more knives,” noted Serrel.

“Like I’ve always said:
you can never have too many knives.”

Jurgen and Caellix
walked far ahead, Vost at his master’s side, checking the trail was
clear. When she looked over, Caellix noticed Jurgen’s mouth lifted
in a tiny satisfied smile.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking
that I finally managed to get you to work with me,” replied Jurgen
in amusement.

Caellix shook her head.
“Enjoy the moment. This is the one and only time.”

“I still don’t
understand your reluctance,” Jurgen said. “We aren’t that
different, Caellix. How many men have you hunted down in your
life?”

“There’s a difference
between hunting a man and ending his life in fair combat, and
killing a man in his sleep.”

“Semantics,” replied
Jurgen dismissively. “The end result is the same. We kill a few,
and save a few more. We do terrible things so that the world can
keep on turning. Times like this, the Empire needs people like
us.”

“True. Doesn’t make the
things you do any less wrong,” replied Caellix. “And for a master
assassin, you’re making an awful racket. Why don’t you shut up
before something hears you and kills us all.”

Jurgen just
shrugged.

The first sign of
trouble was the sight of an elf, slowly walking through the woods,
clearly patrolling the area. A second could be seen further
off.

The group dropped low
to the ground, staying out of sight. Jurgen made a quick gesture to
Victor, who nodded, and slipped silently off through the trees.
Jurgen turned to Caellix and gestured to the closest elf.

Caellix made a face,
and mouthed,
All yours
.

The assassin pulled up
his hood, and slunk quietly towards the elf.

The elf was Ferine. It
paused in its patrol, and sniffed the air. The scent of humans was
suddenly very strong to its enhanced senses. It turned, trying to
locate the source of the smell, when Jurgen appeared behind it, and
slipped a knife through its back.

The second elf heard
the rustling of the undergrowth, and turned towards his companion.
A knife through the ribs stopped him in mid-step, and Victor caught
its body and lowered it to the forest floor.

Caellix waved the group
forwards. Slowly and quietly they sneaked through the woods towards
their target.

The trees disappeared,
and the ground beyond sloped into a steep incline to the floor of a
fairly small quarry. There was another elf guard on duty at the
edge of the tree line, leaning his back against a tree and wearing
a bored expression. He didn’t even see the black figure who killed
him with a single thrust of a blade.

The group squatted half
hidden behind the trees and stared into the quarry. It was bordered
on two sides by tall walls of white stone. A single road, wide and
clearly well maintained led in and out. The Ferine had set up camp
in the center of the quarry. There were a few threadbare tents set
up randomly across the quarry floor, but they seemed rather small
for the number of Ferine that could be seen loitering around. A
large number of Ferine were asleep around a large camp fire. They
slept curled up on the ground without bedding, rather like
wolves.

Right in the very
centre of the camp, protected by a ring of Ferine, was a tall red
crystal that seemed to pulse from within with red light. The red
light flared and died rhythmically, like a heartbeat. Serrel didn’t
know if this was an Illudin, but it matched the description
Dhulrael had given.

Caellix stared at the
camp with a grim expression, then signalled for the group to
retreat. They slipped a safe distance back into the trees, and
gathered together.

“There’s too many of
them,” said Caellix. “Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but it’s in
the open, in broad daylight. They’ll see us coming.”

“Why don’t we just
shoot the damn thing while its just sitting there?” suggested
Holly.

“Because if I am right,
that would cause the Illudin to explode and kill everything in the
area,” Dhulrael whispered quickly. “Destroying the Illudin will not
be difficult. It is destroying it without destroying ourselves in
the process that presents the challenge.”

“I’d say the small army
of Ferine between us and the shiny rock would be a bit of a
challenge,” put in Caellix. “How long will it take them to charge
that thing?”

“I have no way of
knowing,” said Dhulrael. “Hours, days, seconds, your guess is as
good as mine.”

“We can’t wait for
nightfall,” said Jurgen. “Even if they are still here by then, they
would have noticed their missing guards and come looking for
us.”