Mike Wild - Engines of the Apocalypse

"Your friend the archer said there is usually a moment like this." Jakub Freel said.

"What?" Kali asked, without much interest.

"Crisis. Doubt. A stage in every one of your adventures when you feel you have failed and let down all who placed trust in you. A moment when you freeze, impotent, scared, feeling like a lost little girl…"

Kali flinched, Freel's words hitting close to home, but looked up indignantly.

"Slowhand's been talking about me?"

"I asked him whether he thought you were truly capable of doing this. He answered."

Kali bridled. "You sought me out. I guess you must think so."

"Oh, I do. But it isn't what I think — it's what your friends think."

"Slowhand might be dead, for all I know. Does it matter anymore what he thinks?"

"I think so. Especially when he says that after moments like these you invariably pick yourself up, dust yourself down and… make it up as you go along."

"Make it up as I go along," Kali repeated, looking to the skies. "Not a phrase that inspires much confidence today, is it?"

"Maybe not. But doing so, I am told you almost always succeed." Freel sighed. "Tell me, Miss Hooper, are you going to make a liar out of your friend?"

Kali stared at him. What is it about this man? She wondered. She'd seen from the start how different he was to Konstantin Munch, but it was more than just the way in which he approached the job he'd inherited. There was a confidence about him, a way with words, a bearing that made him difficult to dismiss. In a way she wasn't surprised that Slowhand had opened up the way he had.

"Are you playing mind games with me?"

"Is it working?"

Kali bit her lip. Things so far had gone badly against plan, but there were always other possibilities that might yet succeed, and didn't she owe it to the dead to see if they did?

"Freel, do you truly understand what we're up against? Things could get ugly."

"Miss Hooper, 'ugly' is my middle name."

Kali laughed, despite herself. "That sounds just like something Slowhand would say."

"Maybe he and I are more alike than you think."

"Opposite sides of the same coin?"

"Precisely."

Kali raised her eyes to Freel's, half expecting to see a smile. But if there had been one, it had already faded. Her gaze returned to the enforcer's hand, and she drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and then slapped her palm solidly into his, allowing herself to be hauled to her feet.

"For Slowhand," she said.

Kali and Freel were no sooner upright than they froze again. While they had been talking, a number of shapes had detached from the roots around them, Kali didn't need to hear the dry cracking of their joints to recognise some of the forest's nastier progeny. Her heart lurched as the stick-like predators unfolded, drawing themselves up to their full height, and the cracking came, like the breaking of baby's bones, from six of them in all.

"What in the name of the Lord…?" Freel breathed.

"They're called brackan," Kali said. "They're tough, fast and — "

Kali didn't finish. Three of the brackan hurled themselves at her and three at Freel, though one was instantly decapitated by his chain whip. As its body flailed blindly in the confines of the bajijal roots, the enforcer yelled at Kali to duck and spun in a full circle, scything over Kali's head and slicing two more of the brackan in half. The remaining brackan slammed into the pair of them, flattening them to the ground. Kali and Freel struggled beneath the creatures, rolling from side to side to dodge their sharp, pointed, jabbing limbs, and trying to ignore the fact that the brackan Freel had already incapacitated were even now splintering and regrowing.

"You were trying to say?" Freel growled.

"A pain in the arse," Kali growled back. She stabbed at her attacker with her gutting knife.

"Not much help," Freel went on. He gasped in pain as the brackan broke through his defence, gouging a thick red runnel down his cheek. "They must have a weakness!"

"Oh, they do, they do," Kali gasped. "Unfortunately, we're a little out of — "

"Fire?" A voice said.

Two flaming arrows thudded into the backs of the brackan and suddenly the things rolled over, desperately defending. Not that it did much good, their panicked flailing setting fire to the others in turn, transforming all of them into thrashing torches. Kali and Freel booted the brackan off them and backed out of the bajijal roots, soot-streaked but otherwise unharmed. Their weapons remained cautiously trained but the brackan began to break apart, collapsing into a pile of burning wood. Kali and Freel watched as a dishevelled, tall, blond figure walked to the fire's side, sat, and casually began to roast a chunk of meat skewered on the end of a dagger.

"Hells of a morning," Killiam Slowhand said.

"Nice shots," Kali responded. "Is that breakfast ?"

"Mmm. How you doing, Hooper?" As an afterthought, he added, "Freel."

Jakub Freel waved away the offer of a piece of meat which Kali then took and devoured.

"You two don't seem particularly shocked to see each other," he commented.

"Oh, you'd be surprised how we keep popping up together."

Freel's expression became more serious. "Other survivors?"

Slowhand looked up, swallowed, and shook his head slowly. The gesture might have seemed casual but there was pain in the archer's expression.

"Guess it's time for Plan B, huh?" Slowhand said.

"Plan B," Kali said. "The three of us finish the job ourselves."

She stared up through the dense forest canopy, which, while it defeated most attempts by daylight to brighten the murk, could not fully obscure the brilliance of the pillar of souls as it lanced into the sky.

"We're close enough to the necropolis to make it without portals now," Freel observed. "But we still have a journey ahead of us."

Slowhand stood and snuffed the remains of the brackan with his boot. "Then the sooner we get started…"

They moved on into the forest, trying not to think of the dead they were leaving behind. For some hours they worked their way through the treacherous terrain, which grew still denser as they neared the necropolis. The vegetation was changing, from the vines and sub-tropical plants Kali associated with the Sardenne to thick patches of dry scrub and coarse, thorny bushes. They felt wrong somehow, tainted, and the further they moved, the more hostile the plants became, until at last there was little doubt that they formed a defensive barrier around Bel'A'Gon'Shri, likely conjured by Redigor himself. As Kali and the others hacked their way through she reflected that the Pale Lord had missed at least one trick by not infusing the vicious barbs with poison. Still, knowing that bastard, she supposed there was time yet.

Kali approached Slowhand and spoke quietly.

"What were you doing, talking about me to Freel?"

Slowhand looked surprised. In truth — considering what had happened on the train and all — he wasn't really sure.

"What? Hey, it was a trek, Hooper, and you and Dez were busy with girly talk."

" Girly talk?"

Slowhand nodded. "Nothing wrong with that. Nice to see you making a friend." He paused, smile fading. "Kal, I'm sorry she didn't make it."

"Me, too. Don't change the subject."

"What is the problem? I'm willing to bet you talk about me, don't you? Don't you?"

"Actually, no. What would I tell people? About the collection of underknicks pinned to your bedroom ceiling? Or how a girl would be lucky to get through a first date without your clothes falling off?"

"Hey, I took the underknicks down, didn't I?"

" Pshyeah . And then kept them labelled in a drawer. How was Luci Lastic, by the way? Or Nikola Start? Those were their names, ri — "