The White Towers (23 page)

Narnok lifted his hands, and cupped them to his mouth. Kiki slapped them away with a fast audible
slap
that left Narnok standing in shock, eyes wide and falling quickly to a thunderous scowl on his savagely scarred face.

“What you do that for?” he snarled.

“No shouting,” hissed Kiki. “You want to fucking announce us to every man and his cunt? Keep your mouth shut and your hellos to yourself. This ain’t a fucking reunion for old soldiers. This is odd, Narnok.”

“We need to find another way in,” said Trista. “Find out why they’re locked down. Is it something to do with this bastard being kidnapped?” She kicked Yoon, but he did not respond. “Hey? Hey you? Is this what happens when a king of the realm gets kidnapped by the fuckers he tried to hang? Do they lock down the cities and search them from wall to wall, arsehole to scrotum?”

Yoon looked at Trista, then slowly and deliberately, spat on the ground.

“I think we should just bang on the door,” said Narnok.

“Try not to think, sweetie.” Trista patted him on the shoulder. “Leave that to the pretty ones.”

“Hey, fuck you, bitch…” but Kiki was there, a flash of sudden movement, both hands on his shoulders, face on, braced against him, staring into his good eye and shaking her head with a narrow smile.

“No, Narnok. Not here. Not now. Control yourself. We need you.
I
need you obeying orders, soldier.”

Narnok considered this. Then said, “Yes, Captain.”

“I know a way in.” They turned and looked at Dek, and he seemed suddenly sheepish. “Last time I was here, was for a pit fight. Against a big rabid bastard, Black Horse Jonny they called him. Dirty bastard. Teeth, nails, ripping off of bollocks. He thought it was all fair. Well. I did him good.”

“What did you do to him?”

Dek inspected his dirt-encrusted fingernails, and gave a little cough. “I killed him. Didn’t mean to. Just a fight, after all, right? A fight for money. Would never want to kill a man for that, would I?” He looked up. Everybody was staring at him impassively.

“Go on,” said Kiki.

“Delivered this right hook, broke his fucking neck. He must have had a weak spine or something. I broke his neck and he lay there screaming something rotten. Couldn’t shut him up, we couldn’t. And then the City Watch came flooding in and we had to do a runner, and I was teamed up with Bad Grolf and Lazy Wilf, and they led me down into the sewers. Showed me a way out of the city.” Dek looked up, then back over his shoulder. “There’s an air vent, over that way somewhere. We had to smash a lock, but we got out of Zanne and headed for fucking Drakerath where a pit fighter can lose himself in anonymity and whiskey.”

“Can you find it?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t mind getting covered in shit.”

“Sometimes,” said Kiki, softly, “it feels like my whole life is covered in shit.”

Dek led them out into the darkness. It began to snow again, and the Iron Wolves were chilled to the bone and beyond. They stood around like useless idiots as Dek searched, occasionally glancing back at the dark, silent walls of the dark, silent city. Trista herself shivered to the centre of her being.

Something bad in there, whispered a voice in her soul.

Something real bad.

After an hour, with the others fanning out to help, they found the narrow aperture of which Dek had spoken. It had a thick metal grille, barely big enough for an adult to squeeze through, which was jealously guarded by a thick padlock that, under Dek’s expert hands, felt substantial indeed.

“Narnok, need your brute force here.”

Narnok puffed out his chest and, dropping to his belly, took a hold on the thick iron. “It’s a big one,” he said.

“I bet that’s what all the boys say,” grinned Zastarte.

Narnok threw him an evil glare, lost in the darkness.

Snow tumbled down, and the world was silent and dark and cool. Narnok took hold of the padlock in both hands and squeezed and pulled and tore; but it would not come apart. He tried again and again, but it was just too strong, even for his mighty muscles. Finally, exasperated, he stood up and snapped at Dek, “Give me your jerkin.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

“No, fuck off, it’s freezing. Use your own jerkin.”

Mumbling and cursing, a red-faced Narnok struggled out of his thick fur and wrapped it around the gleaming double heads of his axe. “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered, kissing the blades, “you were meant for more noble tasks than this,” and hoisting the weapon above his head, he brought it down with consummate skill and murderous rage. The padlock held. Again he hammered his axe into the iron, and again, and again. Until, under the tenth blow, there came a massive dull metallic
crack
and Narnok grinned around like a toddler winning a pissing contest.

“Done it,” he said.

Dek scrambled down, and threw aside the mangled block of iron. Then he strained, and with a squealing of rusted hinges, the grate came up. He looked up, grinning, then saw the serious looks on their faces, and the smile dropped.

“Who’s first?”

“You are fools,” said King Yoon, sombrely. He was kneeling in the snow, staring forlornly at the ground.

“Shut that maggot up,” snapped Kiki.

“You do not know what lies beyond!” wailed King Yoon, suddenly grabbing the rope around his throat and trying desperately to scramble backwards. “You will all die! You will all be doomed!”

“You know what?” snapped Kiki, suddenly. “I’ve had enough of this fucking horse shit.” She advanced on Yoon and he crawled back fast, hands and boots kicking up snow. But he wasn’t fast enough and Kiki loomed over him, a snarl on her lips, hate in her iron dark eyes. Her intentions seemed obvious and even Trista tensed, licking her lips, eyes growing just that little bit wider.

“No,” said Yoon, lifting his hands. “No!”

“Is that what Sameska said when you came at him with razors and fire?” snarled Kiki, all femininity suddenly gone, all slipping away in anger and a rage which highlighted just
why
she had earned the rank of captain in this, the greatest elite force ever created by the Kings and Queens of Vagandrak.

“No, please,” whimpered the King, and for a long, long drawn out minute it seemed as if his will had been broken; stretched out like a piece of elastic, getting thinner and thinner and thinner until, at last, finally, with one short, sharp action, it snapped and left the mind within the shell, a broken fucking useless thing.

Kiki’s sword hacked down, and cut through the rope.

King Yoon stared at her, slack jawed and useless.

“Go on,” she said. “Fuck off. I can’t look at you any longer.”

“Don’t let him
go
,” snapped Narnok.

“Yes, I
will
let him go. He’s no use to us. He’s just a fucking embuggerance; he saps morale, and let’s be honest, who hasn’t wondered, if he got free, would we all wake up dead with a dagger in the kidneys? No. He can fuck off with this promise.” She fixed her iron gaze on the King; on
her
king. “Yoon.” She lowered herself, and delivered an awesome stinging slap that rocked his head from east to west. “Yoon!”

“Yes.
yes
?” He gazed up at her, eyes as wide as if he’d spent a month on the honey-leaf.

“Go on. Go away. And if I ever see you again, I will put my sword through your guts.”

“I can go?”

“Yes. Go.”

Silently, Yoon rose. He stared at Kiki for a long time, and for a moment she thought he would launch himself at her. Then his features softened.

“Do you know what’s in there?” he said, softly, words little more than a chill winter breeze. “Inside the city?”

“Yes. I think so.” Kiki’s face was impassive. Carved from stone.

King Yoon’s eyes glittered with a sudden, burning intelligence. “If this thing is truly happening, Kiki, Kikellya Mandasayard, Captain of the Iron Wolves –
if
we are both right,
if
the darkness has come to overshadow Vagandrak with evil, then there’s only one thing you can do. Sameska told me things, back in the Box. About the elf rats, their history, their heritage, their
magick
. About their homeland beyond Zalazar. Kiki. Deep within the Mountains of the Moon there is a place, a fortress born of elf rat sorcery; this place is known as the White Towers. And inside the White Towers lies the Elf Heart. That, my girl, is the only thing that can save us when the elf rats come back…” and then he turned, and with the severed piece of rope flapping around his throat, scuttled off into the darkness, limping away into the snow, into the chill blizzard. Into a wilderness full of hungry wolves.

“He may die out there,” said Trista, voice soft. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he
will
die out there.”

“Fuck him. He asked for it. Because he’ll fucking die if he stays here,” promised Kiki. Then she turned to Dek. “Soldier. You seem to know the way. We need to get inside that city. We need to find out what the hell is going on.”

Dek saluted her, with a grin. “Iron Wolves. Follow me, into the city. Zanne waits for us with a big smile and open arms.”

“Open bowels, more like,” snorted Zastarte.

“Yeah, that as well,” said Dek, and, with a step, dropped down into the darkness of the sewer outlet.

 

They moved through the darkness.

The sewers of Zanne were old. Ancient. Far older than the exterior walls suggested, and harking back to a different time, an older world when a different race ruled not just Zanne, but Vagandrak in its entirety. The walls were fashioned from uneven black bricks, crumbling in many places, and the Iron Wolves passed beneath high brick arches, ornate in an industrial fashion, displaying unexpected pride from previous architects and builders. After all, why have ornate and decorative sewers? But these sewer tunnels contained a brutal kind of art. Urban; filled with decay; strangely decadent, and dark, and beautiful.

Not so the stench. The sewers were still operational, and Narnok mouthed his disgust loud and long, whining until Kiki hissed at him to be quiet. Zastarte sprayed a little perfume on a silk handkerchief and held it over his mouth, cursing the sewage ruining his finely tailored trousers. The rest just waded in grim silence.

The elf rats, whispered the words in Kiki’s mind. Who are they? Where do they come from? Are they as old as they claim? Were they really driven out by Vagandrak’s people of old? King Yoon’s ancestors? Had they come back now for vengeance? To reclaim their land? Or was it something more sinister they planned?

“There’s something up ahead,” said Dek, slowing his pace. The water – the
sewage –
was knee deep and stank like something horrid. Dek coughed as he spoke, almost vomiting, as thankfully
unidentifiable
lumps bumped against his knees.

They stopped as a group, squinting into the gloom, silent, staying their movements, swords held poised and ready. Narnok’s twin axe blades glinted like evil demon butterflies.

The tunnels were narrow, narrow enough so that only two could walk abreast and would probably be hampered, and hamper one another, in a combat situation.
Probably.
Kiki grinned at that, a baring of skull teeth in a face drawn and tense. She had thought the weight loss was because of the cancer in her chest, a tumour near her heart; but that was now so much horse shit.
That
fucking abomination was her
Shamathe
heart. Her second heart. Beating with a second rhythm; like an echo. Like a… dark twin.

Hello,
whispered Suza, sliding into Kiki’s mind like a corrupt cock into her quim. She shivered violently and felt suddenly sick to her core. The shudder came from the centre of her being, working its way outwards, gradually, carefully, and making sure she felt it through every single atom of her being.

I want to help.
Suza sounded… odd. And Kiki could remember her pouting, fake pretty features scrunched up, lips enlarged as if ready to deliver a big kiss. Hell, she’d taken enough boyfriends from Kiki. The self-centred,
notice me
, bitch. But did that come before or after the fire? Kiki frowned, metaphorically, in the cave of her own mind. It was all so foggy and jumbled. All so confusing. Because…
because
Kiki thought Suza was only a child when she died.

I want you to remember
more
, you fucking whore. You wouldn’t give me the time of day when my own fucking baby was on the chopping block and I suffered, suffered worse than I can ever remember; I had trauma, you evil cunt, trauma like you could never
fucking believe
!
The last was delivered in a sudden pitch-raised scream that Kiki had not anticipated, and she winced, as if physically slapped.

I had a fucking baby! And it nearly died. It did die. And if it didn’t die, then it fucking should have.
She started to sob, head held low and cupped in hands wet with tears, too many tears; eternal tears. With Suza there were always tears. Always bloody tears. It was something you got used to.

Kiki felt herself go just that little bit cold.

Suza paused. Kiki felt the hiatus, and it blew like a cold wind over a grave she had yet to inhabit. Dead roses rustled in the breeze, their scent gone, their stems brown and lifeless. Kiki looked up slowly, and saw Suza, the sun to her back, her face in shadow like it always had been. It was as if she wasn’t human. Had never been human. Like she was the blackened side of a coin. Like she was a bad dream, made flesh and real.