Ian Esslemont - Blood and Bone

He sighed, and, chilled by the cool night air, slid his hands up the wide silk sleeves of his robe. Thankfully, a cordon of troopers had been organized and these, with spears sideways, held back the curious.

Yet even so, stamped on the faces of those survivors, in their wide staring eyes and sweaty pallid features, lay their obvious terror and near panic. Must separate these from the rest; such fear is contagious and grows in the recounting .

Walking unconcerned through the muck and steaming spilled viscera came the equally fearsome apparition of the Isturé Skinner himself. His ankle-length armoured coat glimmered like mail, though Golan knew it was actually constructed of smooth interlocking scales. As he stepped over the sprawled corpses his coat dragged across staring faces and slashed wet torsos. It shone enamelled black except where spattered fresh gore painted it a deep crimson.

‘And where were you and your people during the attack?’ Golan demanded.

‘Elsewhere,’ the foreigner responded, unconcerned. He clasped his gauntleted hands behind his back to study the field of dead. Golan strove to shrug off a feeling of unease at such a blasé attitude to this bloody business. ‘Well … now that you are here it is time you were useful.’

The foreigner, so tall as to literally tower over Golan, cocked a blond brow. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes. Track down this servant of Ardata. Slaughter it.’

In a scratching of scales Skinner crossed his armoured arms. ‘It is hardly a servant of Ardata.’

Golan waved a hand, forgetting momentarily that he wasn’t carrying his rod or fly-whisk. ‘What more evidence is necessary? It is a monster! It attacked us! We are entering Ardata’s demesnes!’

‘I would suggest that what we have entered is this thing’s hunting grounds.’

Golan eyed the man more narrowly. ‘Regardless. You have pledged certain obligations to the Circle of Masters.’

The foreign giant waved a hand in its banded, articulating gauntlet. ‘Yes, yes. You have in me a partner for the campaign.’

‘Very good. Your first task awaits.’

Turning heavily away, the foreigner murmured, ‘For all the good it will do …’

Golan followed his retreat to the dark forest verge. All the good? Well, yes, Ardata’s servants are no doubt many. But that is your half of the bargain, foreigner. The throne of Ardata’s lands could hardly be won so easily. And if you should destroy each other in the process … well … Golan shrugged, then waved away a swarm of flies drawn by the spilt warm fluids.

In the woods Mara awaited Skinner. With her stood Shijel and Black the Lesser, younger brother of Black the Greater, who had remained with K’azz. ‘Well?’ she demanded as her commander appeared.

Skinner gave a slow shrug of disgust. ‘Our noble ally wants it killed.’

‘Ridiculous! In a few days we’ll be out of its territory.’

‘Regardless …’

Mara kicked the ground. ‘Damned useless …’

‘Who’s coming?’ Black asked.

Skinner studied them. ‘We should do it. Mara, tell Jacinth she’s in charge until we return.’

‘Very good.’

‘The trail?’ Skinner asked Shijel.

‘A blind tinker could follow it.’

‘So be it. Let us track it down. I’d like to be back by dawn.’

Shijel did the tracking. He wore light leathers and gloves on his hands, which were never far from the silver-wire-wrapped grips of his twin longswords. The trail, obvious even to Mara, led them on. The nightly rains returned, thick and warm. Mara’s robes became a heavy encumbrance that she cursed as she stumbled over roots and through clinging mud. The possibility of returning by dawn slowly slid away as they failed to reach the creature’s lair until a feathering of pink touched the eastern sky. The four gathered short of a jungle-choked opening in a tall cliff face and Mara cursed again. ‘Could go on for ever,’ she muttered, keeping her voice low.

Their commander pulled on one of the hanging vines as if testing its strength. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I do miss Cowl.’

Mara flinched at that mention of her old superior, now dead. ‘Meaning what ?’ she demanded.

Skinner turned to her, frowned his puzzlement, and then nodded his understanding. ‘Ah. No slight intended.’ He drew on his helm. ‘I simply meant that I could just have sent him in and wouldn’t have to go myself.’ He waved them on.

Mara followed, stepping awkwardly over rotting logs and fallen rock. Well, there was that , she admitted. Cowl would actually have gone in alone. And no doubt Skinner did miss his old partner in scheming. Together they’d proved a formidable team. Always it had been just the two of them hammering out stratagems and tactics. Now that Cowl was gone Skinner was well and truly utterly alone. And it seemed to her that the man was even less human because of it.

She knew this cave was just one of the countless sinkholes and caverns that riddled this mountain border region. Over the millennia rains had rotted the limestone into a maze of grottoes and extended underground tunnels where one could suddenly find oneself exposed in open sunlight yet lost hundreds of feet below the surface. Some argued this was the true face of Ardata’s realm. As if she were some sort of queen of the underworld. But Mara knew this to be false. The Night-Queen’s demesne was open countryside. Yet likewise over the millennia, her presence had altered the entire jungle until it too resembled this border region where the unmindful traveller could suddenly find himself wandering half immersed in a Warren-like realm: the legendary enchanted forest of Himatan.

They pushed through the hanging leaves and vines then paused to allow their vision to adjust, and to become used to the stink that suddenly assaulted them: the overwhelming miasma of the layered urine and guano of untold thousands of bats.

‘You have the sense of this thing?’ Skinner asked Mara.

‘Yes. Downward and to the right.’

‘Very good.’

Shijel led. Mara summoned her Warren to improve her vision. The swordsman was on his way across the main section of the cave when she sensed a shimmering of power there on the floor — which to her vision seemed almost to seethe. ‘Halt!’

Everyone froze. ‘Well?’ Skinner murmured.

‘The floor of the cave. Something strange there …’ Mara summoned greater light, then selected a stone that she tossed on to the oddly shifting floor. The stone disappeared as if dropped into water. The surface burst into a flurry of hissing and writhing. It seemed to boil, revealing a soup of vermin: centipedes, ivory-hued roaches, white beetles and pale maggots. Amid the slurry of legs and chitinous slithering bodies lay bones. The skeletal remains of animals. And of humans.

‘Strip you of flesh in an instant,’ Mara commented.

Shijel peered back at her, unconvinced. ‘They’re just insects.’

‘There is power there.’

‘D’ivers?’ Skinner asked sharply.

Mara cocked her head, studying the pool more closely. ‘Not as such. No. They are … enchanted , I suppose one might call it.’

A disgusted sigh escaped Skinner. ‘Himatan already …’

Mara nodded. ‘Under here, yes.’

‘No wonder the thing fled this way. Very well …’ Skinner gestured to Black the Lesser. ‘You lead. Mara, follow closely.’

Black unslung his broad shield and drew his heavy bastard sword. Mara fell in behind him, directing him to keep to the walls and to watch his step. They descended in this order for some time; Skinner bringing up the rear, perhaps as a precaution against their quarry’s attacking from behind. The route Mara dictated narrowed and they slogged on through knee-high frigid water. From somewhere nearby came the echoing roar of a falls.