Isak gestured towards the unlit house. ‘So why don’t you tell me why your criminal friends are interested in that house?’
‘Why should I? What are you doing here?’
‘Watching out for a friend. He has business with someone in that house.’
Mayel frowned. ‘What sort of business?’
‘A personal dispute.’
‘And you’re just sitting here watching?’
‘It’s personal,’ Isak replied gravely. ‘If he wanted my help he would ask, but he won’t need it.’
‘He will once my cousin’s men arrive,’ Mayel blurted out. ‘They’ve also got business there, and you don’t want to get in their way.’
Isak cocked his head to one side. ‘Now what sort of business could they have with that house?’
‘People have been disappearing in the city; we hear it’s got something to do with the man who lives in that house. My cousin runs this district and he doesn’t like madmen preying on his people; he’s going to have a look around that house and see what’s there.’
Isak stared at the house. It was completely dark, and silent; he couldn’t even see any movement within the grounds. That struck him as a little odd; while Doranei hadn’t explained fully what was going on, Isak would have expected anyone the king was interested in to have posted guards, or at least to inspect the grounds once or twice. He’d been watching a good while now, and he’d have guessed the house was deserted.
Emin would soon be making his move, then they would see just how dead it was around here.
To be on the safe side, Isak reached down and picked up a couple of small stones lying near his foot. Ignoring Mayel’s curious expression, he tossed them over his shoulder and they pattered away into the darkness. Within a matter of heartbeats, Major Jachen was crouched down at Isak’s side, betraying no surprise at the presence of the young stranger.
‘Where are the others?’
‘I sent most back to the house with the tart,’ Jachen replied, keeping in role. ‘I know what you’re like for getting into trouble, so I kept Leshi, Tiniq and Jeil with me.’
Isak grinned. Lesarl had added the rangers Leshi and Tiniq to his party. They were Ascetites, men whose latent talent for magic had never developed, but instead they had natural and learned skills pushed beyond normal limits. The pair were as stealthy as Mihn and almost as quick and strong as the white-eyes of the Palace Guard. Tiniq was the twin of a white-eye, General Lahk, which was apparently impossible, while Leshi had the remarkable ability to be able to stand so perfectly still that he faded into the shadows. In a forest, even another ranger could walk within a few yards of the man and never see him.
With the losses to Isak’s personal guard and the great danger posed by entering Scree with so few soldiers, it had been prudent to fill the gaps with more unnatural troops. In addition to a squat, bearded battle-mage who’d introduced himself as Mariq and said nothing else since to Isak, there was a knight from Torl whose remarkable skill with a bow meant he too had to be an Ascetite, and Shinir, one of Lesarl’s female agents, who had only a loose relationship with gravity whenever climbing was necessary -she was also the most spiteful and unforgiving woman Isak had ever met.
Their addition had already provided one unexpected bonus. As they were trying to work out how Mariq and Isak would get past the White Circle mage attending the gate, their Ascetites had gone through, and their strange abilities had so thoroughly confused the mage that she’d developed a migraine and abandoned her post, leaving Isak free to walk straight in.
‘Tell them to keep their eyes open,’ Isak said, pointing down the empty road leading towards the heart of the city. ‘I have a bad feeling about all this; tell them to be ready to raise the alarm.’
Mikiss sat in the broken chair and sank slowly into its cushioned back. They were in the cellars of the house, a damp, cramped network of rooms that served as home for Isherin Purn and his servant Nai. The smell of mould and stone was overlaid by the scent of dead vegetation and dank earth which crept in through a grille near the ceiling. There was no one else around as far as Mikiss could tell, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were not entirely alone. A presence seemed to linger in the dim corridors and gently creaking rooms above; Mikiss knew nothing about necromancers and had no wish to, but his imagination was producing any number of alarming ideas.
‘What you thinking about, sir?’ Shart asked from opposite Mikiss. ‘You’re looking kinda spooked over there.’
‘Aren’t you? You do remember what our host’s calling entails? ’
‘Sure,’ Shart chuckled.
‘And you don’t find it at all unnerving?’
The soldier grinned, chiefly out of amusement at Mikiss’ discomfort. ‘Of course all this daemon crap is weird, but you serve in the Cheme Third and you get used to it after a while.’
Mikiss had guessed as much from the stories they had told him on the journey north. The Cheme Third Legion was Lord Styrax’s favourite, made up of men he trusted above even the Bloodsworn and the Reavers.
‘Also,’ Major Amber growled from the corner of the room, a brown earthenware bottle clamped firmly in his lap, ‘the whole stench-of-death thing becomes familiar enough when you serve in the Third. Us three have holed up together with a nice pile of corpses keeping us warm before; had to, else we’d have been caught and spitted.’ His eyes were fixed on the bottle in front of him; from the way the man had been pulling on it, Mikiss guessed it was almost empty. ‘You watch a man you know go through various stages of decomposition and death becomes just another comrade.’
Mikiss watched the oil lamps flicker. They were turned low, just enough for him to make out the lines and corners of the room. The door to the room was open, in the vain hope of a breeze; from where Mikiss was sitting he could see the dim light from the cramped kitchen where Nai was preparing something for his master. Somewhere beyond that, sheathed in shadow, was the door to Isherin Purn’s study, a room Mikiss never wanted to see inside.
‘Karkarn’s horn,’ Shart exclaimed, ‘you’re being miserable tonight -if you don’t mind me saying so, sir. Stench of death and presence of daemons aside, we’ve got food I can recognise bits of, drink so we don’t care what the rest of the food is, and we can make Keneg sleep in a different room to us. In my book, that puts us well ahead of where we were yesterday.’
‘Ah, this house puts me on edge; this whole damn city puts me on edge.’ The major grimaced. ‘Don’t any of you feel it?’
‘Feel what? All I feel is this heat.’
‘The . . .’ Amber’s voice tailed off as he gestured vaguely in the air. ‘I don’t know what it is exactly but there’s something—’
He didn’t get any further as a scream pierced the night air. They all jumped up, scrambling for the weapons they’d left propped against the wall. Mikiss caught himself on the arm of the chair he’d been sitting in and careened into Shart, who ploughed through Mikiss, knocking him out of the way and not missing a step as he went for his axe. From outside they heard men shouting, more than a few, and deeper sounds Mikiss could not place; sounds that reached down into his gut.
‘Shart, keep with Mikiss,’ Amber snapped. His yellowy eyes glowed in the weak light.
‘Prefer to be outside, sir,’ Shart commented, his eyes not leaving the doorway where Keneg was standing ready with both hands wrapped around the hilt of his brutal sword. ‘No room to swing in here.’ Shart hefted his axe, raising it so the head banged against the cellar’s low ceiling. The commotion outside continued, more screams, more shouts. A great hissing began from near the grille, a sibilant rustle of dry leaves and withered skin.
‘Fair enough, just keep tight,’ Major Amber said. ‘Sounds like Purn’s got some tricks, so don’t go looking for trouble because it might not understand friend or foe. The trapdoor is barred so we go up into the house. You two lead and get to the outside door, see what you can see. We’ll go up a floor and look out over the back. Keep your ears open and don’t stray into the grounds.’
The brothers led out into the corridor, past Nai, who was busy murmuring and making strange gestures over a blank wall. With a start, Mikiss realised that the wall had been the door to Purn’s study only a few moments ago.
The spell completed, Nai turned to face them, a purposeful expression on his face and an iron-tipped club in his hands. ‘I doubt they will make it to the house,’ he said with grim certainty, stalking past the soldiers and heading for the stairway that led up into the house. A great yawning groan suddenly cut through the clamour from outside, followed by a pair of heavy thumps, then the shouting came back with renewed intensity.
‘That might prove unfortunate,’ Nai said to no one in particular. The soldiers exchanged glances, but kept silent as they followed him into the old kitchen. The only reminder of the room’s former role was a great iron stove, rusted into uselessness by years of rain sweeping in through the shattered window. Someone had nailed up a few boards so there was no gap large enough for a person to climb through, but there were gaps to see a little of outside. As Mikiss trailed in he pulled out his own sword, as much for comfort as anything else.
Nai, peering between boards, said, ‘Looks like locals. My master’s pets will soon see them off - ah, they’re running in all directions. Some are making for the courtyard.’
‘Pitchforks and flaming brands?’ Shart asked. Nai gave the soldier a deeply unfriendly look as the brothers shared a snigger and barrelled out of the rear door.
Mikiss heard a cry of alarm break off as Keneg roared, then the clash of steel, followed by shrieks.
Major Amber grabbed Mikiss by the shoulder and gave him a shove towards the door. ‘Come on, then, sir, just your average angry mob. You’ve been trained, they haven’t. Stick close to me and you’ll be fine.’ There wasn’t time to argue even if Mikiss had dared, as he found himself swept along into the courtyard where Keneg and Shart were facing down half a dozen men. Two more were already down, lying there clutching their wounds and screaming.
Mikiss realised that Amber was right, so he raised his sword and ran at the nearest enemy. Swords took training, clubs didn’t; the man raised his weapon preparing to smash it down on Mikiss, only to find Mikiss’ blade buried in his gut. On the right, Amber was wielding his two blades with lethal efficiency, catching a club on one and hacking into his assailant’s knee with the other, then following that up with a blow to the man’s neck when he fell to the ground, wailing like a child.
Suddenly there was a bright burst of flame. Everyone hesitated, turning to see what had happened.
Mikiss looked around the illuminated grounds and saw men standing in groups wherever there were gaps in the vegetation, wildly fighting off the strange figures assailing them. One such group was being attacked by three bony, bloody figures dressed in rags. They had no weapons that Mikiss could see, but one stopped a club in mid-swing, then swiped a palm across the man’s face with such force the man spun around and collapsed in a heap on top of one of his comrades.
But the weirdness of that little group paled into insignificance next to what was going on in the centre of the grounds, where a creature something like a massive hairless bear stood hacking at anyone within reach of the double-headed axes it brandished in each hand. When it had cleared a circle, it leapt, a clear ten yards in one stride, and began again.
Mikiss started shuddering uncontrollably when he caught sight of a man just hanging in the air, flailing madly as unseen claws shredded his flesh and droplets of fresh blood sprayed all around him from severed arteries.
The Menin soldiers ignored the horrific scene, but took advantage of their enemies’ momentary distraction to dispatch the last of the men in the courtyard.
‘Where has that light come from?’ asked Amber angrily, scanning the grounds.
Shart reached out a hand, pointing off to the right. ‘There, there’s a mage in that bunch.’
A large group of men had formed a circle just inside the grounds, and were hewing a path through the injured and dead towards the house. One of the walking corpses burst into flames and blundered away.
‘They’re not locals; they’re fighting as a unit,’ Major Amber suddenly announced. The foreigners were now providing the only serious assault on the grounds; everyone else was dead or dying.
When Mikiss saw someone point towards them, he opened his mouth, ready to shout. But he closed his mouth in horror as a nearby bush started shaking violently, then lashed out with supernaturally long branches to envelop the man who’d pointed. A shadow crossed the still-hovering light and the branches slewed sideways and grabbed the man beside him instead, tugging the helpless figure into the body of the bush. Three of the attackers ran forward to help their comrade, but branches whipped at their faces and drove them back.
‘The master will be pleased,’ Nai commented brightly as the attackers struggled in vain to save the man, but all too soon it was over as, with one last shuddering moan, the man fell silent and the bush stopped shaking. Someone called out something, and in the next instant the bush burst into purple flames and an unholy howl echoed through the air.
‘What the hell was that?’ Shart asked.
‘Just one of the master’s pet projects,’ Nai said airily. ‘We hadn’t had a chance to test it properly before.’
‘They’re a determined lot, I must say,’ the major remarked, ‘and as it doesn’t look like your defences are going to stop them, and we don’t have the numbers, we should get back inside.’
The foreign unit was inching its way towards the house, hampered at every turn by the new horrors springing up. The giant creature had killed every man in its vicinity, and now it turned towards the remaining group. The bright flare left Mikiss’ eyes watering as he tried to make it out, but all he could be sure of was the dark skin, a mass of criss-crossing scars and tattoos, a low-hanging jaw with unusually sharp canine teeth, and horns that curled forward past its eyes.