The Crucible of the Dragon God tok-4 Read online

  The Crucible of the Dragon God

  ( Twilight of Kerberos - 4 )

  Mike Wild

  Mike Wild

  The Crucible of the Dragon God

  Chapter One

  This is how Kali Hooper would have escaped the things that had slaughtered four men before the first of them could scream. The same things that were coming to slaughter him.

  That huge, seemingly unscaleable rock, there, the one just ahead? That she would have scaled with ease. And that frozen vine beyond? The one ready to snap? On that she would have swung without thinking twice. The vine would have snapped at exactly the right moment, of course, and she would have soared with it over the abyss. This would not have worried her, though, because that ledge further on and down — yes really, that one, way over there — she would have flailed towards, rolling like some circus tumbler to soften her impact as she came in to land. And she would not have stopped there — oh no, though she might be grunting now — kicking up scree as she ran on and threw herself towards that crumbling ledge, and then the one beyond that, flipping, twisting and spinning, stretching all ways to grab the next small lump of salvation that would save her from a plummeting, broken death.

  She would have made it, too, though rocks might have fallen in her wake — knowing her, perhaps there might even have been an accidental avalanche that would have destroyed half the mountainside — but, as usual, she would make it because she had to succeed. There, dangling from that last ledge, she would take a moment to catch her breath before her piece de resistance, a full body flip that would take her up and over until she could climb the rockface to safety. Her flight would have been done then and, from her refuge on the clifftop, she would have turned, bitten the cork from a bottle of flummox and downed the beer. And then, with a smile and a burp, she would have spat the cork at her pursuers. If she were feeling particularly mischievous, she might even have shown them her -

  No. He did not want to think about that particular part of her anatomy. It seemed, now, somehow… disrespectful. Because this is how Kali Hooper would have escaped the things, had Kali Hooper not been dead.

  That's right, he thought. Dead. Gone. Twelve hands under. The desperately running, blonde-maned archer had struggled to accept it but had come to realise that it had to be true — had to be given the facts. Hooper had been missing for weeks now and in that time there had been no sightings, news or contact other than that over which she'd likely had no control — the return to the Flagons, alone, of a half-starved and agitated Horse, and the discovery, washed-up as jetsam on a Nurnian beach, of her equipment belt attached to a blood-stained piece of her dark silk body suit. Where she had met her end he could not — might never — know, because she had left the tavern with a frown, telling no one what her destination was. But what he did know was that under no circumstances would she have missed the rendezvous she was meant to keep with him eight days before, at the base of the Drakengrat Mountains. He knew that because he knew she knew how important to him this expedition was. No, without doubt Hooper was gone, and whether she had met her end in the Razor Ruins of Rarg or the Blood Bogs of Bibblebobble or whatever other malignantly named hellshole had peaked her interest this time, it seemed the secret history of the peninsula she had worked so hard to unearth had, ultimately, buried her instead.

  The painful truth was that he missed her like hells but it was what he, Killiam Slowhand, did that mattered now, and frankly, as far his imagined escape for Kali went… well, there wasn't a chance in the hells.

  There'd be no impossible leaps up the rockface, no suicidal swings on snapping vines and no fairground acrobatics to leave his pursuers stymied. Because he wasn't Hooper. No, he was just her sometime lover, sometime sidekick and — oh, by the way, mere mortal. If he didn't spot a way out of this that was within his capabilities he wouldn't even be that. All he could do was run for his life. Oblivious to all but the pounding of his feet beneath him and the mountain winds that whistled around him, all he could do was keep moving and hope that something provided him with a means of escape.

  The k'nid, he reflected as he ran, spinning occasionally to fire a volley of arrows in their direction, hoping to slow the blurry, crackling things down. Named by a Malmkrug baron after the local term for bogeyman, they had begun to appear near the town about the time of Slowhand's arrival there. Already a number of its inhabitants had fallen victim to them, lost to their sheer speed. They were not only fast, they were deadly and seemingly impervious to harm — and they seemed to be growing in number. People in Malmkrug had already shored up their homes in defence against them and their attacks on the town were as sudden and inexplicable as their origin was unknown.

  Or, at least, had been until now.

  For as he had ascended higher and higher into the mountains and seen the trails of more of the unnatural creatures — though most, thankfully, from afar — Slowhand knew something those below did not. That the k'nid, whatever the hells they were, seemed to be coming from somewhere around here.

  It was typical. Pure Slowhand luck. To have fetched up in the apparent spawning ground of a plague of the deadliest things the peninsula had ever seen — and he had no one but himself to blame.

  Over the past few months he'd put out a number of fresh feelers regarding his sister, and while the vast majority of them had returned nothing, the one that had led him here had shown promise. He had learned from a trader in Malmkrug that some two months before, a party of adventurers had purchased sufficient supplies for a prolonged ascent into the Drakengrat range. Despite the fact they seemed to have gone to considerable length to disguise themselves, their attitude, bearing and general demeanour very quickly gave them away as Final Faith. There was nothing, apart from the obvious, wrong with them being Faith, but the fact that they'd felt the need to disguise themselves meant they had to be up to something clandestine. That in itself was worthy of investigation. What was more worthy of investigation, however, was that the trader had said the party was led by a woman — a woman whose description he had found achingly familiar.

  Jenna.

  Slowhand still felt a burning rod of anger inside him every time he thought of what those bastards had done to his sister — recruiting and forcefully indoctrinating her into the Faith — and the thought that she was involved in something they found necessary to disguise their involvement with, made him as concerned for her safety as he was angered by her involvement in it. Unfortunately, that anger had had more than enough time to cool, the lead that had seemed so promising a week ago turning out to be as much of a wild frool chase as so many had before. Because if Jenna was up here, then she had discovered some chameleon spell that had transformed her into just one more of the endless snow covered rocks. No, there had been no Jenna, not even a sign of Jenna, and her presence had been supplanted by the k'nid, and all he could do now was cut his losses and run.

  Slowhand's chest felt leaden now, and his breath was hot and rasping; symptoms not only of the altitude but of a speed and distance covered that he had not attempted since what his army passing out class, impressed and more than a little jealous, had dubbed the 'Night of a Hundred Wives.' And that had been quite some years ago. He was maintaining his lead on the k'nid, though, if only because one of his volleys of arrows had caused a rockfall on the narrow mountain path along which he fled. The rockfall hadn't harmed the k'nid, or even slowed them down, but it had forced them to take a detour, which was good enough for now. As he continued onward and upward, struggling more and more, he was even starting to think that he might lose them. But that was when he ran out of ground.

  Slowhand came to a skidding, skittering stop, gasping with exhaustion and frustration, watchi
ng in disbelief as stones pushed by his sliding soles tumbled away only a few inches in front of him over a precipice. What made his predicament a hundred times worse was that not only had the terrain come to an end ahead of him but, unnoticed until now, to his left and right as well. In fact, there was little more than a half foot of rock on either side of him before -

  Slowhand's focus zoomed in and out at the same time, and there was a vertiginous rush in his ears.

  Oh boy.

  Battered by wind, the archer turned slowly and carefully in a circle, taking in his precarious situation.

  He was standing at the tip of a very long, very narrow outcrop of rock that, by all rights, should have collapsed under its own weight. Instead, it thrust itself defiantly and dizzyingly out into the night sky, seemingly ignoring gravity. In profile he guessed it would look like some part constructed bridge, stretching halfway across the deep chasm over which it jutted. But where a bridge might have had supports to stabilise itself, here there was nothing beneath it. Nothing at all. For a very, very, very long way down.

  As Slowhand looked down at a river that height had reduced to the width of a hair, he realised his perch was impossible. A thing that should fall but didn't. And that realisation brought another — where exactly he was.

  My Gods, this is Thunderlungs' Cry.

  He recalled Kali telling him how she had travelled here once with Horse — the original Horse, that was — to experience the legend that had been a favourite girlhood tale.

  Two tribes, split by this vast chasm in the mountains, had met only once when freak weather had driven them both into the valley far below. That meeting had led to romance between two individuals but war between the tribes themselves. When each tribe had returned to their own side, the two lovers were prohibited from ever meeting again by their elders, and all paths to the valley were barred to them. The man, who became known as Thunderlungs, managed, however, to despatch a message to his lover, Mawnee, using a carrier bird, telling her that if their ancestors favoured their bonding, they would provide a bridge across which the two of them could be reunited.

  He had come one Kerberos-lit night, and there she had stood, far across the chasm. He had cried out to the souls who scudded across Kerberos's surface, asking the aid of those who had gone before to unite the pair once more. This they had done, by growing a half bridge of rock from the side of his chasm, and another from that of Mawnee's side, and the two had begun to cross towards each other's outstretched arms. The ancestors had warned, however, that if their love faltered, even for a moment, then the bridge would be no more.

  Thunderlungs' love was strong but something that night made Mawnee falter. To her lover's horror the bridge beneath her crumbled away, and she fell to her death.

  It was said that Thunderlungs roared his heartbreak into the night — a roar that some said those who had lost loved ones could still hear — until he had frozen solid where he stood. Whereupon his ancestors had laid him down and made him part of the bridge itself, so that his shadow might touch, once a day, the place where his love had fallen.

  It was a sad story, Slowhand reflected, and one that might have brought tears to his eyes if they hadn't already been streaming from this farking wind. And it was not as sad as his own would be if he didn't get off this rock right now. Because there had been that sudden, strange crackling behind him once more — as if he were listening to a tavern fire — and he had spun to see the k'nid had caught up with him, reaching the start of the Cry in a clammering rush but there coming to a dead stop, as if assessing what lay before them.

  Now that they were at a stop, it was the first chance Slowhand had had to properly study the creatures.

  A little over the length of a stretching man when they unfurled for the kill — a manoeuvre he had seen on four occasions and fervently wished that he had not — he saw now that they seemed to be neither animal, vegetable or mineral. They looked like a tangle of roots of glistening black wood that writhed about each other, as if suffering the death throes of the tree from which they had come. Except that they had come from no tree — the way his arrows had bounced from them proving that whatever it was they were made of, it was not wood. As tough as their bodies were, however, it did not prevent them being infinitely flexible. While they seemed to favour pursuit of their prey while in the form of a rough, gnarled, rolling sphere, chance glances had revealed that form shifting constantly between tumbleweed and what appeared to be a running shnarl and, on occasion when obstacles needed to be negotiated, even the briefly airborne form of some predatory bird. But of all their incarnations, it was the one that had slaughtered his companions that Slowhand could not shake from his mind.

  He recalled his horror as he'd tried to fend off the k'nid who had closed rapidly on his guide and helpers, because while he'd expected them to be simply crushed beneath the rolling forms or smashed from the rocks to fall below, that wasn't what had happened at all. Instead the creatures had unfurled to reveal a red and fleshy interior and simply swallowed their victims before returning to a tangled sphere form. And no more than two or three seconds later each man had been deposited back outside the sphere, but all they were now were piles of stripped and steaming bones.

  And now it was his turn. Unless some miracle occurred.

  Slowhand looked around in desperation for a way out, but there was nothing. Thunderlungs Cry simply projected too far from the rest of the rocks to provide any escape route. As the front rank of the k'nid began to crackle towards him, he was beginning to think the most merciful way out would be to jump, when he glanced something approaching from the north. Something in the sky.

  What was that? A cloud? A bird? No, too small to be a cloud. Too big to be a bird. Unless it was a small cloud, of course. Or a big bird. Yes, a very big bird.

  Then it slowly sank in what it actually was he was looking at.

  It was a thing of inflated cloth like a giant balloon, with a thing of wood, like a gondola, slung beneath it. On the deck of that gondola he could just make out the tiny shapes of people. He realised then that he was looking at some kind of… airship.

  A flying machine.

  "Hey!" Slowhand shouted, desperately waving his hands above his head. "Hey!"

  If the people on board heard him, however, they chose to ignore his cries, as the airship continued on its route without any reaction at all. He shouted again, but once more with no effect. The airship was closer now and he could see the people aboard, busied in the tasks he presumed were needed to keep the craft aloft.

  If Slowhand couldn't bring the airship to him, then he would have to go to the airship.

  Forcing his wonderment aside, the archer calculated its height and trajectory relative to the Cry, and while on the one hand the news was good — it would pass beneath the Cry — on the other it was bad. Too far beneath.

  Slowhand double-taked on the k'nid and the airship. If he jumped from this height he would likely bounce right off the balloon and plummet to his death, so that height needed to be reduced. As far as he could see there was only one way to do that. He would need a rope. A rope he didn't have.

  He sighed in resignation. It was as unbelievable as it was inevitable.

  To make the ladder he needed, his clothes would have to come off. And to make the ladder long enough, that meant all of them. It was certainly the most unusual place he had had to resort to such action, and it was almost a pity he didn't have an audience but then, in the dire circumstances in which he found himself, there would be little if any time to show off his assets.

  Okay, he thought as he pulled off and tore into strips his tunic, pants and shorts, and the mountain wind whistled around his lower regions, his reduced assets.

  Standing there in just his boots, feeling disturbingly exposed considering the proximity of the k'nid, he quickly tied the clothing together and then, in turn, looped it around and secured it to the lip of the Cry. That done, he took a firm grip of the cloth and slipped slowly over the edge, where he dangled f
or a second before lowering himself down hand over hand as the flying machine drew closer.

  A thought suddenly struck him.

  I'm stark naked in a pair of thigh length leather boots, with a bow slung on my back, a thousand feet up in the air, and whoever's on that ship is in for a big surprise.

  It was actually a bit kinky and he made a mental note to investigate the business possibilities of such goings on, on his return. Perhaps he could earn a few extra golds doing this for hen parties, birthdays and the like.

  If he returned that was.

  Because if he was going to do this it was now or never.

  Slowhand hung there, his thighs clenched tightly around the stretched remains of his pants, revolving slightly as the flying machine nosed onward, manoeuvring itself at last beneath him. There was still a hundred and fifty feet or so between him and it, but for a second before it came directly under him and his view was obscured by the bag that seemed to keep it aloft, he could make out in more detail the deck of the gondola that was slung beneath it. There at least eight people continued to busy themselves with piloting the craft, a couple of them agitated, pointing and shouting roughly in his direction. But what they said, was lost in the shrieking of the wind. Slowhand tried waving once more, one-handed, keeping a firm grip on his makeshift rope, but his potential saviours were clearly too involved with their duties to notice him.

  Who the hells were these people?

  Timing his drop to a split second, so that he would impact directly in the centre of the flying machine's airbag, he let go.

  He manoeuvred himself as the wind whistled by him, turning so that he would impact on his back, glancing downward to ensure his target remained dead centre of his fall.

  Slowhand suddenly found himself impacting so hard on the flying machine's airbag that the wind was knocked out of him. He lay there for a second, squirming and cringing in pain — not quite as soft as he'd expected considering this thing was light enough to fly.