House of Chains

‘Lady’s luck to you,’ Cord replied, then he gestured. ‘Everyone else, let’s go.’ At the stairway, the sergeant glanced back at the assassin. ‘That demon… did it get the captain and the lieutenant, do you think?’

‘No. It said otherwise.’

‘It spoke to you?’

‘In my mind, aye. But it was a short conversation.’

Cord grinned. ‘Something tells me, with you, they’re all short.’

A moment later and Kalam was alone, still racked with waves of uncontrollable shivering. Thankfully, the soldiers had left a couple of torches. It was too bad, he reflected, that the azalan demon had vanished. Seriously too bad.

It was dusk when the assassin emerged from the narrow fissure in the rock, opposite the cliff, that was the monastery’s secret escape route. The timing was anything but pleasant. The demon might already be free, might already be hunting him-in whatever form fate had gifted it. The night ahead did not promise to be agreeable.

The signs of the company’s egress were evident on the dusty ground in front of the fissure, and Kalam noted that they had set off southward, preceding him by four or more hours. Satisfied, he shouldered his pack and, skirting the outcropping that was the fortress, headed west. Wild bhok’arala kept pace with him for a time, scampering along the rocks and voicing their strangely mournful hooting calls as night gathered. Stars appeared overhead through a blurry film of dust, dulling the desert’s ambient silver glow to something more like smudged iron. Kalam made his way slowly, avoiding rises where he would be visible along a skyline.

He froze at a distant scream to the north. An enkar’al. Rare, but mundane enough. Unless the damned thing recently landed to drink from a pool of bloody water. The bhok’arala had scattered at that cry, and were nowhere to be seen. There was no wind that Kalam could detect, but he knew that sound carried far on nights like these, and, worse, the huge winged reptiles could detect motion from high above… and the assassin would make a good meal.

Cursing to himself, Kalam faced south, to where the Whirlwind’s solid wall of whirling sand rose, three and a half, maybe four thousand paces distant. He tightened the straps of his pack, then gingerly reached for his knives. The effects of the salve were fading, twin throbbing pulses of pain slowly rising. He had donned his fingerless gloves and gauntlets-risking the danger of infection-but even these barriers did little to lessen the searing pain as he closed his hands on the weapons and tugged them loose.

Then he set off down the slope, moving as quickly as he dared. A hundred heartbeats later he reached the blistered pan of Raraku’s basin. The Whirlwind was a muted roar ahead, steadily drawing a flow of cool air towards it. He fixed his gaze on that distant, murky wall, then began jogging.

Five hundred paces. The pack’s straps were abrading the telaba on his shoulders, wearing through to the lightweight chain beneath. His supplies were slowing him down, but without them, he knew, he was as good as dead here in Raraku. He listened to his breathing grow harsher.

A thousand paces. Blisters had broken on his palms, soaking the insides of his gauntlets, making the grips of the long-knives slippery, uncertain. He was drawing in great lungfuls of night air now, a burning sensation settling into his thighs and calves.

Two thousand paces left, in so far as he could judge. The roar was fierce, and sheets of sand whipped around him from behind. He could feel the rage of the goddess in the air.

Fifteen hundred remaining-

A sudden hush-as if he’d entered a cave-then he was cartwheeling through the air, the contents of his pack loose and spinning away from the shredded remains on his back. Filling his ears, the echoes of a sound-a bone- jarring impact-that he had not even heard. Then he struck the ground and rolled, knives flying from his hands. His back and shoulders were sodden, covered in warm blood, his chain armour shredded by the enkar’al’s talons.

A mocking blow, for all the damage inflicted. The creature could more easily have ripped his head off.

And now a familiar voice entered his skull, ‘Aye, I could have killed you outright, but this pleases me more. Run, mortal, to that saving wall of sand.’

‘I freed you,’ Kalam growled, spitting out blood and grit. ‘And this is your gratitude?’

‘You delivered pain. Unacceptable. I am not one to feel pain. I only deliver it.’

‘Well,’ the assassin grated as he slowly rose to his hands and knees, ‘it comforts me to know in these, my last moments, that you’ll not live long in this new world with that attitude. I’ll wait for you other side of Hood’s gate, Demon.’

Enormous talons snapped around him, their tips punching through chain-one in his lower back, three others in his abdomen-and he was lifted from the ground.

Then flung through the air once more. This time he descended from a distance of at least three times his own height, and when he struck blackness exploded in his mind.

Consciousness returned, and he found himself lying sprawled on the cracked pan, the ground directly beneath him muddy with his own blood. The stars were swimming wildly overhead, and he was unable to move. A deep thrumming reverberation rang in the back of his skull, coming up from his spine.

‘Ah, awake once more. Good. Shall we resume this game?’

‘As you like, Demon. Alas, I’m no longer much of a plaything. You broke my back.’

‘Your error was in landing head first, mortal.’

‘My apologies.’ But the numbness was fading-he could feel a tingling sensation, spreading out through his limbs. ‘Come down and finish it, Demon.’

He felt the ground shake as the enkar’al settled on the ground somewhere to his left. Heavy thumping steps as the creature approached.

‘Tell me your name, mortal. It is the least I can do, to know the name of my first kill after so many thousands of years.’

‘Kalam Mekhar.’

‘And what kind of creature are you? You resemble Imass…’

‘Ah, so you were imprisoned long before the Nameless Ones, then.’

‘I know nothing of Nameless Ones, Kalam Mekhar.’ He could sense the enkar’al at his side now, a massive, looming presence, though the assassin kept his eyes shut. Then he felt its carnivore’s breath gust down on him, and knew the reptile’s jaws were opening wide.

Kalam rolled over and drove his right fist down into the creature’s throat.

Then released the handful of blood-soaked sand, gravel and rocks it had held.

And drove the dagger in his other hand deep between its breast bones.

The huge head jerked back, and the assassin rolled in the opposite direction, then regained his feet. The motion took all feeling from his legs and he toppled to the ground once more-but in the interval he had seen one of his long-knives, lying point embedded in the ground about fifteen paces distant.

The enkar’al was thrashing about now, choking, talons ripping into the bleached earth in its frenzied panic.

Sensation ebbed back into his legs, and Kalam began dragging himself across the parched ground. Towards the long-knife. The serpent blade, I think. How appropriate.

Everything shuddered and the assassin twisted around to see that the creature had leapt, landing splay- legged directly behind him-where he had been a moment ago. Blood was weeping from its cold eyes, which flashed in recognition-before panic overwhelmed them once more. Blood and gritty froth shot out from between its serrated jaws.

He resumed dragging himself forward, and was finally able to draw his legs up and manage a crawl.

Then the knife was in his right hand. Kalam slowly turned about, his head swimming, and began crawling back. ‘I have something for you,’ he gasped. ‘An old friend, come to say hello.’

The enkar’al heaved and landed heavily on its side, snapping the bones of one of its wings in the process. Tail lashing, legs kicking, talons spasming open and shut, head thumping repeatedly against the ground.

‘Remember my name, Demon,’ Kalam continued, crawling up to the beast’s head. He drew his knees under him, then raised the knife in both hands. The point hovered over the writhing neck, rose and fell until in time with its motion. ‘Kalam Mekhar… the one who stuck in your throat.’ He drove the knife down, punching through the thick pebbled skin, and the blood of a severed jugular sprayed outward.

Kalam reeled back, barely in time to avoid the deadly fount, and dropped into another roll.

Three times over, to end finally on his back once more. Paralysis stealing through him once again.