an effortless tug pulled the metal apart.
'Very kind,' Randur said, stunned at the display of strength.
They stepped across the fresh graveyard, where limbs lay ripped and broken all about them, a glade of the dead. Rika could not bear to lower her gaze.
'I have been following you ever since Villjamur,' Artemisia repeated. 'All in all, this escape of yours has upset my plans greatly. Had you remained inside your little city then the task would have remained simple. As it is, I have had to follow your trail. It has not been easy.'
'Sorry we inconvenienced you…' Randur offered bitterly. 'Spot of bother with the business of trying not to die-'
'You talk too much, Earthlander.'
'There's no point in trying to silence him,' Eir muttered.
Randur grunted. 'Look, very nice of you to help us out, uh, Artemisia? But… any chance of an explanation?'
'I do the questioning around here, Randur Estevu – if that is still the name you go by.'
'How do you know my name? And how did you know they were from the Jamur family?' He nodded towards the sisters.
'I often wonder,' Artemisia replied, 'how it is you people know so little. I employ a network of sub-agents and lower-rank emissaries from your world – even from Villjamur – although they know not who they ultimately serve.' She pointed them to the spot in the clearing where she had first appeared, and turned her face skyward.
Randur stepped alongside, and followed her line of sight. 'I don't see anything.'
Suddenly something flickered into being up there, a hulking dark shape immediately beneath the clouds. The three humans were soon staring, dumbstruck. How could anything so big just hover there without falling?
Eir finally broke the silence, as she spluttered, 'What… what is that?'
'Exmachina,' Artemisia growled. 'A home, of sorts, for the present moment.'
Eir turned to Randur, to see if he knew what Artemisia was talking about, then shrugged. Rika seemed to be completely in awe of this female giant, which was strange, since she was seldom disconcerted by anything.
Randur studied further the freakish object in the sky. It had the appearance of a small moon, assuming an inverse colour to the sky beyond. As it approached it took on the form of some fat longship, incomprehensibly large, extending widely across the sky. A floating island. Its presence was intimidating and he was becoming genuinely frightened.
Still some distance away, something unravelled down from it to eventually reach the ground by Artemisia's feet. Then another rope followed.
Suddenly the big woman twisted round: there'd been a disturbance in the distance that provoked her. Her head became perfectly still, and she held a big hand out to request silence. Faintly, somewhere, Randur thought he could hear the sound of a pipe. He reached down to pick up a sabre discarded in the recent combat.
Artemisia frowned at him. 'That won't do you much good.'
'You anticipating much of a threat?'
'One could say that, Randur Estevu. There have been certain forces tracking me ever since I've stepped into this blasted world. How they have managed it, I do not know.'
What is she on about, stepping into this world? Randur wondered, sure he could now see something flicker between a couple of tree trunks. He tensed. 'What's after you?'
'Satyr,' Artemisia whispered. 'Do not move for your own safety.' She edged over to the rim of the clearing. There, in the shadows, stood a bearded man that appeared to have animal legs. Two horns extruded from his skull, and his angular features displayed signs of laughter.
Artemisia unsheathed one of those massive blades and stepped after it, but in an instant it had escaped back through the foliage, bursting into the deep forest beyond.
She returned to the hanging rope, and there was a sudden urgency to her manner. 'A minor inconvenience, but it worries me. It isn't after you, it is after me, so we must evacuate immediately. You must hold on to this.' She indicated the rope. 'The fibre will adhere to your skin, so you will not slip off.'
'What, you don't expect us to go up there, do you? Wind's strong enough to blow your arse off, I bet. Surely there's another way of getting to… wherever the hell you want us to go? Can't you suggest something else?'
Artemisia glared at him, eyes burning. Her body was still smeared with the blood of a hundred men. 'Why?' she grunted. 'Do you even have a choice?'
'Good point, that.' Randur shrugged.
There wasn't much else going for them, really. They'd narrowly escaped being carted back to Villjamur: a depressing enough fact. Now this killer had fallen from the skies only to slap soldiers about the forest clearing, and now she had established herself as the one giving the orders. Eir nestled alongside Randur as he took hold of the rope, his heart thumping. When he gripped it, there was a faint glow as his skin touched the fibres, some weird adhesive power making itself evident. She followed his lead, locking her hands in place, and the rope also writhed to fix a loop around their feet. I don't want to do this… we've no idea what's up there.
'Aren't you scared?' he whispered.
Eir regarded him coolly. 'We don't have to automatically fear everything we don't understand.'
'Empress, you shall-'
'Come with you, yes, of course.' Rika stepped forward with compliance, took hold of the second rope, and placed an arm around Artemisia's back, hooking her hand on to the base of her armour.
Eir gave Randur a glance to say, What's that all about?
'Perhaps she reckons she's some sort of goddess,' he whispered, not entirely sure that wasn't the case. The only thing she'd ever shown much interest in was her periodic Jorsalir mutterings. It was ironic how she'd always moan – Oh can't you function without all this killing? – and here she was, happily cuddling up to a seven-foot death machine.
Within seconds they were being hauled upwards.
Drifting far above the tree canopy, they watched it grow smaller, the clearing in the forest below them chequered white with snow and red with blood. Winds assaulted them, as the full panorama was revealed.
The latest bank of clouds had rolled away, heading across the island to the south, so a rare glimpse of hazy sunlight covered the forested landscape, showing them peaks and ridges, and towering plateaus streaked on their flanks with run-off.
Vertigo soon kicked in, and Randur felt queasy, yet his fingers would not budge from the rope. They were in fact utterly safe, but such reassurance only seemed to work on an intellectual level. Eir handled their ascent calmly, which was annoying. 'Are you OK?' he mumbled.
'Of course. What a wonderful view!' she replied. 'Your island is a beautiful place, Randur.'
Behind him, Artemisia and Rika swung in close embrace, the blood from the warrior-woman now staining Rika's outer garments. The material flapped in the breeze, along with Rika's hair, but she herself remained still, her gaze focusing on Artemisia.
Something shot down from above, a streak of darkness so fast he hardly spotted it. Artemisia called out something in an incomprehensible, guttural language. Whatever it was darted up again, and began to fly around them in wide circles. It had a small furry body, with a paler face and veinous webbed wings.
'Eir, is that… erm, a monkey with wings?'
After a moment's observation she replied, 'I've only ever seen one in a book… a monkey that is. But it certainly looks like one.'
The creature swooped up behind them, then away again, so that Randur could not get a proper look. And then he was distracted by the sight immediately overhead. 'Oh hell, never mind it, Eir.'
They were heading for the same hulking shape they'd seen from the ground: an immense structure, on whose underside clustered dozens more of the flying creatures. It was a ship of some kind, rather like a floating island thousands of paces wide, and of similar length. Its underside was jagged, with hunks of wood and metal jutting out, and the closer they got, the more he thought he could see through certain sections, to a light glowing within. Randur gaped in awe, as their ropes carried them directly towards the centre of the massive ship.
