Under A Colder Sun (Khale the Wanderer Book 1) (8 page)

There was no turning back for her now.

Leste went to the Pig Gate and opened it. Looking back, she saw grubby faces peering from doorways. They had seen, but they would do nothing until she left. For some reason, that did not make her feel better about things.

She mounted up and rode out of the gate. She kicked the horse in the side with her heels, driving him to a gallop. She did not let the horse slow until the animal’s breathing began to keen and whistle. By the time she let it slow to a trot, and then rest, she was done weeping.

Chapter Twelve

Khale and his captive came out of the West, making for the line of mountains that separated Colm and its neighbour-kingdoms from the desert known as the Heart of the World. Some called these mountains the Crown of the World, though none knew whether it truly encircled the wastes beyond or not.

Khale knew better; those mountains were raised from the earth in the days before mages were spat upon and burned at the word of Church-preachers.

Neprokhodymh might be damned these days,
he thought,
but it was once all that stood between these fool-kings and jester-lords and a true majesty that few could comprehend.

But the shadows of the past were of no concern to him right now. There was a real shadow out there, breaking the line of the horizon and he was heading towards it. For it was angular enough for him to recognise it as a creation of men, rather than nature.

It was a henge of hewn stones.

He set down his burden. She still slept. The glamour he had placed on her would wear off soon. He wondered what dreams might be troubling her, and then he looked around at where they were. The uprights were crudely cut with sigils and signs that were little more than scars made by crude pieces of flint. It was not a place of the Four, or the Thoughtless Ones, and that was why he had chosen it. His men should have left a horse here and some supplies for travel to Neprokhodymh.

But there was nothing.

He passed among the stones and looked all about for a steed and saddlebags. There was no sign the henge had been disturbed.

Fuck them,
he thought,
and the mothers they came from. I’ll have their guts for this.

His scars, hidden underneath his furs, began to itch.

The bastards never came. This is because of what happened to Ihlos and the others. I’ll kill them for this, every last one.

Without a horse, it would be an even longer and harder journey. He could not afford to run himself into the ground.

As he continued to walk among the stones, a chill seemed to ebb into him from out of the ground itself. He took in the stones around him. Some were leaning precariously or altogether fallen, broken, and wearing away into the dust. A great slab of stone barred the way before him. It was laid across the opening between two uprights with a third set above it as a mantel; a way into catacombs beneath, where the men who once raised the stones were doubtless interred.

He approached the stone slab, flexed his fingers, put his full weight behind it, and then pushed—hard. At first, nothing. He let out a roar, spat on the obstruction, and pushed hard once more. This time, there was a deep grinding of stone. Then, there was a cracking, a sound of sundering, and the stone slab crashed down unlit steps into the depths below. Khale listened as echo followed echo down there before disappearing into the dark. They could shelter below if need be, though, truth be told, he was curious to see what was down there. If there was something to kill, it might take his mind off things.

He was distracted from his discovery by a cry.

Milanda was awake.

*

“What happened to me? Where am I?”

Khale came into view, and she recoiled from him.

“You. I remember you from a dream. Your head, your face, your voice, and I was in a devil’s fog. Who are you?”

“I am Khale. I took you from your bed, and we are now about two days ride or so from Colm.”

He stood over her, making sure that she could see the hilt of the two-handed sword strapped to his back. He needed her to know that running was not wise.

“You took me?”

He nodded.

Her eyes were wide and white. She was trembling, though he could see her muscles tensing here and there. She was trying to master herself.

Your blood is not so weak, Alosse,
he thought.
Maybe even with a few seeds of strength born in it.

“My father will send men to rescue me.”

“He will not.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s dead. I killed him.”

He watched her lose herself. The trembling shook her from head to toe. Tears ran from her eyes and she cried out bitterly,
“You, why?”

Always that word, that question; they could never think of anything else.

“Because he asked me to.”

“Lie.”

“Is it? Do I look like a liar to you?”

“Liar! Evil bastard! Cunt!”

Khale’s lips curled, amused. Some strength and language he had not expected from a King’s bloodkin. “Well, forgive me, my Lady, but I’ll be sure to wear my finest silks and most embroidered cloth next time I speak an untruth so that you will believe it of me.”

“My father wouldn’t ask to die,” she croaked. “He wouldn’t.”

“Would he not? Did you know him so well? Did he love you so kindly over the years?”

“Shut up.”

“Then you admit I could be speaking true?”

“No,”
she said, tears wetting her eyes. “I don’t care if it’s true.
He was my father!”

She threw herself at him.

He caught her by the wrists and held her, careful not to break bones. He did not want her wounded. He continued to look at her, unblinking, showing her the sick yellow of his eyes.

“Stop staring at me with those ...
stop it
... leave me alone.” She kicked at him but her slipper-clad feet did him no harm.

He put her down and waited, letting her weep as much as she wished.

After a time, she asked him a question, “Why did you do it?”

“I told you, girl, because he asked me to.”

“But you didn’t have to listen to him. You’re not one of the guards. You’re a brigand, and you don’t follow orders, do you?”

“I did it because he was my friend once, when he was young.”

“Your friend?”

“Aye, we rode together before things in the world got this rotten. We hunted, we pillaged, and we stole. Don’t believe your father, the good King Alosse, could be a thief, do you? Well, he was. All kings are thieves; it’s how they get to where they are. People, land, ideals: you’ve got to steal these things yourself before you can convince someone else to believe in them and fight for them on your behalf.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“And I don’t care if you do or you don’t,” Khale said. “It never did him any good in the end. He got old, and he hated himself for it. I put my knife through his heart and I could see it on his face. What I did for him was a mercy killing.”

“... bastard ...”
Milanda whispered.

“You’ll have to come up with something stronger than that if you want to hurt my feelings, girl. I’ve heard them all. I’ve been called just about everything else there is under the sun. Not that we see much of the sun these days.”

Milanda sat in silence with her arms wrapped tight around her body. Her eyes were fixed on a point somewhere in the middle distance. Her fingers occasionally twitched. The toes of her slippers scratched in the dirt. After a time, she laid down. She wept quietly and then passed into sleep.

Khale sat down on a fallen slab of the henge and took out a small whetstone. He unslung his two-handed sword and began to work the blade with it. The hairs on the nape of his neck were prickling.

He would soon have need of a keen sword.

Chapter Thirteen

Everything was ice-cold, wet, and slippery when Milanda awoke; shivers passed through her as a rarefied electricity. Getting to her feet, she found that she was naked and covered in a dripping layer of clear, oily residue. Her head hurt. Her eyes burned. Her tongue felt heavy, embalmed by bitumen and bitter mineral salts. She wiped clots of a cloying substance from her eyes to better see where she was.

It was an undersea cathedral, with stalactites descending from above, and with grottoes and alcoves creating strange echoes here and there from the most minute of disturbances; water falling, ancient stone crumbling and scattered pieces of limestone and chalk forming natural mosaics across the ground. The sides of the cavern were coated with sea-slime and over-ripe fungus. There was a whisper of salted breezes to the air, a rich draught wafting out from adjoining networks of catacombs.

The surface underneath her bare feet was slippery, soft, and pliant. It gave way when she put all of her weight on it, sometimes crackling, sometimes hissing as buried gases escaped—for there were dead bodies everywhere, all crushed together and somehow interred in this deep abyssal place.

For reasons she did not know, she had risen from among them without memory of what came before. A black space existed where the past should have been inside her head. She tried to remember but could not. Pain was a ghost. Hurt was an echo.    

She walked across the broken spines of the lifeless. The quiet was suffocating and oppressive. The pressure in the freezing air was a tangible weight.

She wondered how deep under the world this stately carven hall of nature was?

How many fathoms pressed down upon this time-sculpted space?

The cavern stretched on before her into a distance where a tinged mist hung as a veil; drawing nearer to the shifting greyish obscurity, she glimpsed something there, hidden beyond. Its size was considerable, and it was not human.

Milanda made her way towards it, and then paused as the mists cleared somewhat, drawing away to reveal a colossus.

I am one of the dead
, she thought,
and should not fear this thing. What can it do but tear me limb from limb, a sensation I will not experience, being extinct of feeling.

What do the dead have to fear from further harm?

Nearer and nearer, she came to it—a maggot crawling over the backs of other maggots before the ponderous goliath. She was in the presence of a true leviathan. Infinitesimal crystals of dirty ice and eldritch frost that had been cast off from the creaking hide of the thing formed the damp shroud of mist that hung over it. The light source in the cavern was its eyes: tumour-hued bulbs set in the mottled grey flesh of the titan. It was hunched over, curled like a foetus in a womb.

She came to a halt before it. Unbidden, she fell to her knees and prostrated herself before it. In her mind, she heard a word—could it be a name?

... Juular ...

*

Milanda awoke with a start. She saw that she was at the henge still. She was covered by a layer of Khale’s furs. She could see him standing close by in his time-worn leathers; the scarred meat of his arms looked like engraved stone rather than flesh.

“What’s wrong?”

He was studying the sky with cautious eyes.

“Look,” he said. “Do you see how the clouds have changed?”

Milanda shielded her eyes and squinted up at them. He was right. They were much darker and heavier. “What does that mean?”

“That we must find other shelter.”

“But we’re in the middle of the wilderness.”

“I know.”

There were tales of storm winds that chased one another out of the Heart of the World and into the wilderness. The same tales told of bodies discovered, the flesh and muscles torn clean away from the bone. The winds were picking up. Soon, they would become fierce enough to bite through furs and into skin. They would have to be quick before it was upon them.

Khale moved against the wind, with Milanda sheltering in his wake. She was still in her nightclothes and barely protected.

The sky overhead became heavy and pregnant, its dark heart seeming to follow them. He kept going. He brought Milanda to a dark entrance that led down into the earth. The storm’s shadow fell as a pall over the land, and the first drops of rain scattered over the surrounding rocks.

“Inside. Go. Now.” Khale pushed her in through the opening and down the steps.

Milanda stumbled over her own feet as Khale lifted and dragged the great stone back over the entrance. The air clapped around their ears as the rock crashed back into place.

Darkness descended, and the storm’s rage became a distant muttering.

“What will we do here?” Milanda asked.

“We will wait,” he said. “Storms do not last forever.”

“But it’s so dark.”

Khale whispered and there was light, a curl of flame appeared above his gnarled palm. He began to lead the way down the steps. Milanda wondered if this was a place where he felt at home.

Here, he was no longer bound to the world of the living.

As they passed the silent stares of crucified guardian carcasses mounted on the walls, she wondered what it felt like to be in such a state of death, rotting before your own eyes, helplessly watching as time and the dark gnawed on your bones and picked away the choicest remaining pieces of your flesh. Such pain, such horror, such suffering—all to protect the superstitious bones of the dead and buried.

A sound echoed up to them from below.

And Milanda wondered if they were alone in this place.

*

Khale’s conjured flame illuminated a doorway scabrous with rust and textured with dead beetle-shells. The barrier of ancient iron was loose, and it took little effort for him to force it open. The light of his flame hurried away into the silty black mire waiting across the threshold, illumining nothing, revealing nothing.

“Strange,” he said.

“What is it?” asked Milanda.

“This place is old, yet here is an iron door—something made by those with greater skill than the men who struck the rocks and arranged the stones above our heads.”