Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

The icescape about her was dotted with bones, human and animal, mainly old but some not so, seemingly torn from their respective bodies and stripped utterly clean, some lying in small piles, others resting alone where they had been dragged by… something. What was the most disturbing was that the something had precisely the same odour about it that had stopped the bamfcat in its tracks far below.

Here, the air was redolent with it, its strength almost overpowering. Kali trod cautiously in the direction of the cave, without doubt the source of the stench. She entered slowly, eyes alert for any movement or sound in the darkness. But she saw nothing, and the only sounds were those of her own feet crunching on the tinier deposits on the bone-strewn floor, along with a languid and incessant drip-plop-drip from the moisture-laden ceiling that echoed hollowly within the rock.

There should have been no light to see by, but as Kali inched her way inwards, her knife at the ready, she saw that the cave was illuminated by a dull green glow emanating from crystalline formations in the rock. It was hardly daylight but it was bright enough to stop her stumbling blindly over the body that lay mutilated on the cave floor a few yards in.

Merrit! she feared instantly, but quickly realised that it was not. Instead, she looked down at the body — the remains of a body — of what could only have been one of Munch's party, the corpse lying broken and missing an arm and both legs, eyes staring blankly and mouth frozen in a rictal, agonised scream. A black and glistening trail of blood led further back into the cave, and Kali guessed that the poor woman had tried to drag what remained of herself to safety.

Not Merrit. Merrit would not be capable of this.

There was nothing she could do for the woman, so Kali closed her eyelids and moved on. But it wasn't long before she came across another body, and then another, each in an equal or worse state of mutilation. Like the first, they appeared to have been trying to drag themselves to the exit but had never made it, the loss of blood from their amputations too great. Something in this cave had torn them apart like mools in a slaughterhouse, and it was beginning to look like it, not Munch's people, was the biggest danger here.

Kali could feel every fibre of her being warning her to get the hells out of there, but she knew she had no choice but to carry on, to find Merrit Moon, whether he was alive or dead. But as it happened, she did not have to look much further. No more than ten yards on, the cave opened out into a chamber where she found three more bodies heaped together in a small pile, almost indistinguishable from each other, they had been so badly torn. And next to them, covered in their entrails, lay Merrit Moon. The old man was face down on the floor, a staff and opened backpack scattered beside him, a dark pool of blood seeping from beneath his torso. But he was breathing shallowly. He was alive. Just.

"Oh gods," Kali said. She hurried to him and turned him gently over, cradling the back of his head in her palm. The old man sighed and his eyes fluttered open slowly, focusing on her with difficulty. From his complexion he had lost a lot of blood.

It was clear nothing could be done. Merrit Moon was dying.

Kali swallowed.

"Hey… old man," she whispered.

Moon coughed. "You have the smell of Vos about you," he said slowly, having to force the words out. "Have you ridden my faithful friend somewhere less than healthy once again, young lady?"

"No, Merrit, Horse… I mean, yes. But don't worry, Horse is fine… fine. He's waiting for me." She hesitated. "He's waiting for you."

Moon smiled. "You've been looking after him?"

Kali nodded briskly, trying not to let him see her tears. "Of course I have, you old fool. Bacon stew every day." She stared at her mentor, aware that they were both avoiding the issue, and what she really wanted to say erupted out of her. "Pits, old man, I told you not to come here alone!"

Moon shook his head, took her hand. As he spoke, his tongue clicked dryly in his mouth. "Here or elsewhere, it would not have mattered. It wasn't the mountain's cold embrace that finished me, Kali. It was the cold embrace of steel."

He slowly pulled up his tunic, wincing as the cloth tore from drying blood. Kali stared at three distinct puncture wounds in his torso — two in the gut and one near the heart — fury rising. The shape of the blade that had made them was unmistakable — a jagged-edged gutting knife. The worst thing about them was they could so easily have been killing blows but weren't — Moon's soon-to-be murderer had inflicted these mortal wounds and seemingly left him here to die.

"Munch," she hissed.

Moon nodded. "Kali, he took the key. Knew I had it…"

Kali sobbed. "I told Munch about you, old man. Gods help me, I didn't mean to but I told him."

Moon stroked her cheek. "Hush. Whatever you did, I know you couldn't help it. I told you, the Final Faith are zealou — "

"Damn them!" Kali shouted, interrupting him.

"Hush," Moon said, again. "Hushhhhh."

"Don't hush me! Damn you, Merrit Moon, stop treating me like a baby!"

Despite his dire state, Moon chuckled, coughed, his breath rattling. "Actually, I'm trying to save your life," he said. His eyes seemed to lose focus on her, stare beyond her. "More outbursts like that one and you'll… arouse them."

"Arouse them? Who?" She pointed at the bodies. "Are you talking about the things that did this? Merrit, for the gods' sake, what happened here? What killed these people?"

Moon sighed heavily, seemingly losing the thread. "The key. I meant to take it deeper… to where they live… but these old muscles are slow and Munch and his men weren't far behind… they found me here before I could…"

He took a shuddering breath, remembering. "Munch didn't even ask for the key. He just pulled me towards him, towards his knife, and then… my blood… the smell of my blood brought them up from below."

Kali's face darkened. "Where's Munch now?"

"I… don't know. I… think he ran from them…"

"Them, again," Kali said. For the first time she thought she could make out a low rumbling in the cave. "I guess we're not talking run-of-the-mill mountain cats here are we?"

Moon shook his head. "Creatures as old as the Old Races, probably much more so. They've lived in these mountains since the world was young, since before even the Sardenne grew — they, and their no-less-legendary cousins." His eyes flicked to the side, and he swallowed. "But I don't have to tell you about them, you can see for yourself."

"They're coming?"

Moon shook his head. "No, Kali. They're already here."

Kali felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise along with an overriding need to hunch down, to make herself small. Because even as the old man had spoken she had sensed the presences all around her, and she raised her eyes slowly and nervously from the old man to the shadows of the chamber. There were six of them, all but naked things, their flesh a green that had nothing to do with the crystalline light. Half as tall again as a human, their thickly muscled bodies and hunched shoulders made them seem shorter, especially while at that moment they squatted in what appeared to be their personal niches in the rock walls, regarding her. Not just regarding her — because as they looked on with their deep-set eyes, their hair lank about their bodies and their mouths protruding teeth, each gnawed droolingly on chunks of meat and bone identifiable as pieces of thigh, an arm, and even a head; meat recently ripped from the corpses around them.

These things. She'd heard tales of them as a child. Tales told in the Flagons meant to scare her but which instead intrigued her. Bogey men. She didn't know what their true name was but she knew what humans called them.