Scarred Man (32 page)

‘Tatya!' a voice shrieked. ‘No!'

The spurre, her front paws pinning Myrrhini to the ground by the shoulders, snarled savagely. She
bared her fangs and Myrrhini could feel the predator's rank breath wash over her face. Hot saliva dripped from teeth and lips. Myrrhini stared up, unable to move or even speak, her mind blank with terror. But death did not come. Tatya closed her mouth, stopped snarling and stepped back off the helpless woman beneath her claws.

‘Later, Mertian,' the spurre rumbled as she turned and walked away.

Myrrhini was about to rise when Maida gave a piercing scream of terror, mingled with agony. Tatya dropped low to the ground in a hunting crouch, her mane bristling, her ears folded back.

Maida rose from where she had been hiding in the long grass. Her hands were pressed hard to the sides of her head and her eyes were wild. The screaming stopped abruptly. Maida dropped her hands to her sides and stared at Myrrhini.

‘Eye,' she said in a low, harsh voice not her own. ‘I have waited a long, dark time for this opportunity. And you have given me what I want.' Maida's mouth stretched open impossibly wide and she made a guttural sound, like she was vomiting up all the filth, all the violence and hatred she had ever seen. Blackness spewed from her mouth, splattering on the ground around her. She kept coughing, vomiting more and more of the vile muck until she staggered and collapsed into it, utterly spent.

For a moment, nothing happened. All the Agents stood silently staring at the hideous scene, unbelieving until, with a gurgling bellow, the black slime sprang up as if alive. It engulfed six Agents
before anyone could move. They died, screaming, dissolving before the shocked eyes of the rest. Six more Agents, including Huitzilin, suddenly cried aloud as if in incredible pain. Their cries were short-lived, fading into silence in a heartbeat, leaving them motionless and silent once more.

Myrrhini stepped back hurriedly, bumping into Itxtli. Neither of them moved as Huitzilin drew his sword.

‘Kill them all,' Huitzilin grated. His voice was the same as the one that had torn its way from Maida's throat. Around him, the other Agents who had screamed raised their hands. Incoherent roars of malevolence burst forth and a stream of coruscating colours sprang from their fingers. The colours rippled through the air like heat rising from a stove, spreading out quickly to form a hemisphere that enveloped the Agents.

It touched, then engulfed a man who had paused to watch. He gasped once before flaring into brilliant blue light and vanishing. At this, the rest of the Agents turned and ran, Myrrhini and Tatya among them.

‘This way,' shouted Itxtli, grabbing Myrrhini's hand. He dragged her towards the low wall. Myrrhini staggered and fell as he wrenched at her, but he simply dragged her along the ground, scraping the skin from her legs and ripping her clothes on the harsh dirt. She tried to scramble to her feet, but he was running too fast.

He ran straight at the wall without pausing. Myrrhini flinched in expectation as he seemed to be about to collide at full speed, but he ran straight
through, dragging her with him. She squawked, but felt nothing. Once through, Itxtli slowed to a walk before stopping and releasing Myrrhini's hand.

‘We're safe now,' he panted.

Myrrhini winced as she rose to her feet before gasping in utter disbelief at what lay around her.

‘Where are we?' she whispered.

‘Home,' said Itxtli. ‘The city of the Blindfolded Queen.'

Tchinwukana urged his horse on, pushing up to a gallop. Behind him, Slave and Keshik followed suit. The ground beneath the hooves was black and powdery, rising in plumes with every impact. They had been riding hard for days across this apparently endless grassland.

They rode during the cool of the evening and the early morning, resting during the blistering heat of the middle of the day. Tchinwukana had left his wounded colleagues back at the inn and taken their horses together with all their gear for Slave and Keshik.

‘Buy new stuff,' he instructed them, handing over all his money, ‘and follow when you are well enough.' They had protested, but he ignored them.

So far, he had yet to speak a word to either of his new travelling companions. His silence suited Slave, but Keshik chafed for days before finally starting to talk to himself. He talked at length about his past, his adventures, people he had met and Maida. He talked a lot about Maida.

Slave listened with growing fascination to the swordsman's story. At first, he heard the words, but as time went by, he started to hear what was being left out. Keshik, Slave realised, never spoke about why he was exiled from the Tulugma, neither did he mention what had happened beneath the city of Vogel. Eventually, Keshik ran out of stories and he fell silent once more, leaving them all to their own thoughts.

By the time Tchinwukana reined in, Slave was ready to eat his horse. He hated riding and this extended stay in the saddle had not changed his mind. He ached from head to foot; his nose, eyes and mouth were full of the black dust and he felt sick from the constant jolting. During the ride, he had watched Tchinwukana and tried to emulate how the Agent of the Blindfolded Queen rode, but he knew he had a long way to go before he could claim to be a competent rider. And he was not sure he wanted the practice necessary to achieve that aim.

‘Here,' Tchinwukana said.

‘What?' asked Slave.

‘Home. We have arrived.'

‘Where?' Keshik pulled his horse in alongside Tchinwukana's to stare at the vast, unbroken plain of waving silvered grass. ‘There is nothing here.'

‘Ha! You fools, you know nothing.' Tchinwukana dug his heels into his horse's flanks and sprang forward. After three strides, horse and rider vanished.

Slave narrowed his eyes to closer examine the empty space into which Tchinwukana had disappeared, but could see nothing. If it was an
illusion, it was perfect. He had read of such things: mystical gates that were rumoured to take adepts into distant places. Could the Blindfolded Queen be such a powerful adept? Or did she command others with such power? Either way, she was an opponent to be reckoned with.

Keshik unsheathed his blades and slowly advanced his horse to where Tchinwukana had vanished. Slave watched as the swordsman veered away, heading north, seemingly without him noticing his change of direction. It was only after he had completely turned that Slave called out.

‘Where are you going?'

Keshik spun around. ‘How did you get over there?'

Slave shook his head. ‘You were turned around by the magic hiding this place. It's how they have stayed hidden for so long.'

‘So how do we get in?'

‘I don't know.'

Keshik fell to muttering, as Slave had noticed he was wont to do, and stalked away, heading south. Slave watched him, then trotted along to join him.

 

They walked south, Slave in silence and Keshik muttering, for the rest of the day and most of the next with neither plan nor purpose beyond hoping to find some hint of how to penetrate the mystical barrier that shielded the home of the Blindfolded Queen.

It was late on the second day when the sounds of battle reached Slave's ears. He pulled out his Claw and cocked his head to one side to concentrate.
Keshik, seeing the Claw, tried to listen. Slave raised his right hand and pointed south.

‘There,' he said softly.

Keshik followed his gesture to where he could see a small dark patch in the grasses.

‘What is it?' he asked.

‘Agents.'

‘Don't like Agents,' Keshik grunted.

‘Me either.'

They ran. Keshik had both swords out and Slave carried his Claw as they ran towards the group of Agents. There would have been at least twenty armed men milling about, but neither believed for a moment that they would not prevail. It also never occurred to either of them that attacking these men was unreasonable or unwarranted.

The earliest inkling they had that things were not as they seemed was when the first Agent saw them. Instead of raising an alarm, he screamed incoherently and ran at them with his arms outstretched, as if to tear them apart with his bare hands. Keshik sliced through him with a single blow under the breastplate across the belly that almost cut him in half. He went down with a gurgle, spilling his life onto the grass.

On hearing the scream, the other Agents turned as one to face the two charging men. An Agent raised his arms above his head and bellowed in a language that neither Slave nor Keshik knew. Flames rippled along his arms and rose into the air above him.

As he engaged an Agent, Keshik muttered, ‘That doesn't look good.'

Slave rolled under the swing of another Agent before springing back up to his feet and slicing upwards with his Claw, tearing the man open from waist to throat. ‘Leave him to me,' he said. ‘But stay away from me. You know what happens when I fight.'

Keshik planted both feet to receive the charge of an Agent armed with a polearm. He swayed sideways and deflected the thrust with his metal blade before driving his sorcerous blade through the man's groin. As he whipped the blade out, leaving his opponent to fall screaming, he grunted in acknowledgement. Slave ran towards the man casting the spell. He dodged blows and parried as he ran, not stopping to fight, just evading, his mind intent on the flaming man.

The flames between the man's arms now extended three or four paces above his head, rising with every heartbeat, spreading evenly outwards in an inverted triangle. They writhed like a living being, caged and angry, seething with barely restrained fury. Slave tried to keep his eyes away from the flames, concentrating instead on the man's unprotected body. Standing as he was, with feet apart, arms outstretched, he was easily vulnerable to either a thrust or a thrown weapon. An Agent screamed maniacally and drove a sword at Slave as he made his way through. Slave avoided the clumsy blow and sliced off the man's hand as he passed, still driving towards the magician.

Two things came crashing into his mind simultaneously, almost undoing his concentration. The first was something that had been nagging at him ever since seeing the swirling melee. These men were
supposed to be trained as soldiers — disciplined and skilled — so why were they acting like thugs? And who had they been fighting? There were no opponents here, only Agents. A moment of battle clarity opened his eyes to see that Agents were fighting Agents. There was a clear delineation and in the heartbeat before it faded he realised there were two distinct groups, and that one was about to be destroyed.

The second thought did bring him skidding to a halt. There were three points of light, dancing within the sheet of flame, which spun and whirled before coming to rest, looking down at him. Fear, unwelcome and strong, swept across him suddenly. He felt the first sense of panic and with it, the blackness started to close in around him. His eyes lost focus and darkness trickled into the edges of his vision. He roared an answer to the man's earlier words — in the same language although he did not realise it — and sprang forward.

He brought his Claw up in a slicing blow that should have ripped the man open from groin to shoulder, but the blade refused to bite, instead skidding across naked flesh. The blue uniform fell open, sliced easily, but the body remained untouched. Slave allowed his momentum to continue and slammed his shoulder into the man. This should have at least sent him staggering back, but Slave felt like he had collided with a wall. He rebounded slightly, the impact jarring him. Above him, within the flames, the three points of light continued to regard him impassively.

‘You again,' the man said. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Who are you?' Slave asked, hoping to distract the man while he regained his balance to prepare for another strike. As he spoke, the black fury subsided, leaving his mind clear.

‘I have already destroyed your kind.' The voice was powerful, deep and profoundly inhuman: no human throat could have produced such a sound.

‘Then go back to where you belong.'

‘I cannot, not while you live.'

‘Then try to kill me.' Slave raised his Claw, holding it in front of his face, blood dripping from the blades.

A sound like a wyvern's screech issued from the man's tortured throat and his arms swung down. The flames erupted, and Slave was engulfed in writhing, shrieking fire, enveloping him in a wash of red agony. He could feel his skin blistering, peeling and breaking. His hair caught fire, his clothes burned. He raised his Claw in defiance and slashed at the flames. To his shock, they parted at his blows. Again and again, he slashed, sending the flames recoiling at every contact. Another cry burst from his lips and he sprang upwards, through the fire, to land on the man.

His opponent staggered under the impact, losing control of the flames. They dropped from Slave's body like water, to fall hungrily on the grass, but Slave only dimly noticed their departure — his whole focus was on the man beneath him. Unarmed, the man pounded at him with fists that landed like hammer blows. He bit and kicked, each blow leaving Slave wounded and bloodied. Slave slammed his Claw down again and again, smashing with every
trace of strength. Technique was forgotten as he pounded, slashed and stabbed in fury at the man who simply would not go down. Sparks flew whenever the Claw met flesh, leaving tiny dark spots, but the blades could not penetrate. For the first time, Slave felt a moment of hope, hope that the black rage would come over him again and give him the strength, the mindless frenzy that would carry him through, but it would not come. He felt his strength start to wane, trickling away with his blood. The Claw glowed, his inhuman eye flared into silver brilliance and he kept pounding as the blows of the man beneath him kept pace.

Another blade flashed past Slave's vision. It sliced cleanly through the man's shoulder, opening it to the bone. A scream ripped through the air and the man staggered back. Slave followed, his Claw a blur as he landed blow after blow, all aimed at the savage wound. Blood spewed out.

Keshik swung again, this time aiming at the man's torso. Again, the blade sliced through flesh. Again a scream rang out.

Suddenly, the man fell.

Every blow Slave had landed on the body sprang open, leaving it shredded. Three points of light shot up from the dead body and vanished into the sky. The flames that had been spreading through the grass flickered and died. Slave dropped to the ground, wanting to do the same. His last conscious thought before sweet oblivion stole in was that he had never known such pain.