The King's Thief

This one came slowly at first, like... I don't know, like trying to squeeze that last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube, folding it on itself until you have a bubble of paste, then when you relax your grip to put it on the brush, it darts back inside.
Then I got to a certain point, and suddenly it was like squeezing a full tube. It was just so fluid!

Anyway, here it is!

Chapter 18

Beck’s entire body throbbed with power, his senses completely overwhelmed. If he concentrated he could still feel his naked body, sat on the dusty workshop floor. He was hungry, and thirst nagged at him, but if he relaxed for even a second, control would never be restored. Around him lay the bodies of several cats, fuel for the spell that had allowed him to send his thoughts into the form of his Banshee. Dried blood stuck the hairs of his legs to the floor. His eyes were open, blinking occasionally by reflex, but otherwise barely moving. He gazed deeply into the mirror as it reflected images onto his pupils, trees flying underneath him, the countryside rolling past at great speed. It was nearly over; only the complexities of the flight engine required him to personally direct the movements of his tool; soon he could release her, the raging, driving force of hatred driving her towards his enemy. The mental link was so secure that he could feel the wind buffeting his body, hear the ringing scream that was, frankly, beginning to bore into his own consciousness; Most importantly, he could feel the control he had placed in the Banshee’s hand, a simple button that was magically linked to the pouch on the rear of the flying engine.
That he had been able to create something like this was incredible by itself; he had found the plans filed away haphazardly in a cupboard, deep in the basement of the King’s Library. The engineer had apparently been quite a genius, designing weapons of war, but shortly after submitting this design he had been caught selling weapons to the Sylva; in the private chaos that followed, his work had just been shoved in anywhere, waiting for its moment.
And that moment approached with a rapidity no mortal could match; surely his Banshee, his angel of death, moved in circles that were no longer mortal. Surely he, controlling it as he could, was touched by the Gods himself.
Seeing the escaped prisoner and his band of Sylvan scum coming up fast – how like ants they seemed! – and suddenly it was time. Several of them scattered as his floating viewpoint swooped down.
He pressed the button.

*    *    *

There was instant chaos; Kaliss turned at the sudden shouts behind him. Several of the warriors had kept their formation, a shield wall, but they seemed unaware that Winraer had already turned, sprinting after Faergaldan and Kaliss. Ryn had stayed long enough for the silhouette of a bird to resolve into something far more terrifying; what seemed to be a backpack made of yellow metal, spreading out to each side as if wings, while underneath hung a woman, another helmeted screamer. It seemed to run on some sort of magical source, heavy straps keeping the woman strapped in, though even from here it was obvious that she was thrashing around, trying to get free. His mouth suddenly dry, Ryn abandoned his post to follow Faergaldan.
As Kaliss watched, Ryn turned and began to run, then suddenly the flying monstrosity was above him, large lumps falling from it. As it shed its load, it climbed higher.
Suddenly, a tremendous explosion of light and sound rent the air; yellow flame, tinged with green, bloomed like a death-laden flower over the shield wall, a wall of force throwing the nearest fleeing Sylva – including Ryn – to the ground. Even as far away as he was, Kaliss felt a waft of hot air slap into his face, and he stared at the point of impact in dismay.
Not a single warrior had survived; some were mere shreds of flesh, an occasional leg or arm, still clutching a weapon in a death-grip. Some of the Sylva that had been thrown flat by the explosion were staggering to their feet, but they were few; of maybe fifteen that had held the line, only three had managed to escape harm, including Ryn. Kaliss let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding.
He turned his eyes back to the winged figure; it was hovering, as if scanning the ground; keeping his head low, he turned and continued running. The Sylva were going to have to fend for themselves for now.
His muscles burned and his breath came in short gasps as he pushed himself to run. The treeline came nearer, and then suddenly he was running between the huge boles of oak trees. Kaliss turned and was nearly bowled off his feet; Faergaldan had all-but matched his speed. Kaliss bent at the waist, hands on hips, trying to draw air into his lungs. In contrast, Faergaldan seemed barely winded.
Winraer joined them, and in quick succession Ryn and another Sylva, one Kaliss didn’t recognise, arrived, carrying a third between them. Finally catching his breath, Kaliss looked out; there was no movement at all. This was the entire unit of warriors, the five of them. One attack had wiped out three times that number.
“What is that thing?” he panted.
Faergaldan swung round and grabbed him by the shoulders. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth curled into a snarl. “You tell me!” he growled. “The first one seemed to like you so much, now there’s two!” He released Kaliss, pointing out at the hovering figure. “Think! Who could it be?”
Kaliss stared round at the faces of people who were dying to protect him. Behind his eyes, pieces were starting to fall into place. “The first one was Sibel… she was my first romantic encounter after I got to Theria. And the similarities here are just too many to ignore. But, what’s happened to them?” Kaliss felt the blood draining from his face; his arms hung loosely by his side, and suddenly his bowels felt as if they had turned to water. “When I left Theria, as far as I know, they were fine. Apart from… apart from Sayela.” He swallowed, pushing that memory aside. “Sibel would have been about to give birth, and Lydia, erm…”
Faergaldan knelt, never taking his gaze away from the enemy. “This is Lydia, then? How do we kill it?”
“It’s a woman! She was pregnant!”
With fire in his voice, Faergaldan shot back “You saw the first one! That was no woman! It killed my soldiers, and now this one has done the same. Now how do I stop it?”
“Do you think I made her this way?” Kaliss shouted in desperation; suddenly he stopped, realising the mistake he had made. He turned his eyes fatalistically towards the angelic figure. It had stopped, and was pointing straight at their hiding spot.
Suddenly, it split in half; the wings stayed in the air, but the female form fell like a stone, landing in a cloud of dust. All was silent.
“Is that it?” someone whispered.
With a sudden movement, the woman leaped out of the dispersing cloud before zig-zagging across the intervening ground, almost faster than the eye could move. Legs pumping like a machine, it was clear that they would be intercepted in less than a minute. Even from this distance, the bundle in her arm was easy to pick out. Kaliss stood, rooted to the spot by indecision, loathing and fear. The ringing sound emanating from the helmet cut through him like a saw.
Kinroc Faergaldan shot Kaliss a look of understanding. “They follow you! Quickly, man, run!”
The spell broke, and Kaliss ran headlong through the undergrowth, around tree trunks and large stones. He had no idea in which direction he was running; he could feel himself cringing, almost expecting a spade-like hand to appear in his chest; his stomach turned somersaults and his testicles felt as if they had shrivelled to nothing.
Finally, Kaliss darted behind a tree, lungs heaving and burning hot. Trying desperately to draw air in while remaining quiet, he chanced a look behind the tree, half-expecting death to be waiting for him.
All was quiet. A few leaves drifted down to land gracefully on the woodland floor, amongst the undergrowth. The silence was uncanny. Pushing away from the tree, Kaliss stumbled out, turning round in panic, seeking the attack.
“Shit,” he muttered. He was no longer sure which direction the attack would come from. Snapping his head this way and that, he saw only trees stretching off in each direction. Reaching behind him, he gently slid his knife out of his belt, followed by the black-hilted stiletto he had recovered from the dead centaari chieftain. It fit neatly into his hand, strangely ornate compared to the simple wooden grip of the Sylvan knife which was more akin to a chef’s knife. He quickly reversed his grip on both knives, leaving him able to lay both along his inside forearm if he needed to protect his vitals, while still allowing him slashing and stabbing attacks. Crouching low, he chose a direction and began to make his way between the thick trunks, his eyes never still for more than a heartbeat.

*    *    *

Faergaldan kept his eyes on the woman racing towards them; “If,” he thought to himself, “She can still be referred to as a woman.” She certainly seemed to be moving at a ridiculous speed, zig-zagging but obviously heading straight for them.
He spared a look for the injured man, Ryerth, but knew that he had only seconds to act in. “Follow me!” he called, and the remaining four he commanded reacted instantly. He quickly paced out twenty paces away from the path of the incoming enemy before standing in clear sight, gesturing. “Get behind the tree! Get Ryerth out of sight!”
Ryndaele and Jalb, the other survivor, complied quickly, then stood with Winraer waiting for orders, their eyes uncertain. “What now, Kinroc?” asked Ryndaele.
“We wait.”
Ryndaele and Winraer looked at each other in confusion, but it was left to Jalb to ask the question. “We wait? What for? The monster, it-“
“You’ve seen what it can do,” said Faergaldan, cutting him off. “If it finds us, we’re dead. We got lucky last time, and unless you’ve got any other ideas…?”
Winraer shrugged. “I can’t just drop a tree on it this time. I’m worn out. I’m just…” she stopped. Her eyes sparkled with tears.
“You fought well yesterday,” said her Kinroc, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Besides, if I’m right, we won’t need to fight. Now, defensive line!”
Jalb and Ryndaele sprang to obey, putting themselves, swords drawn, in front of Winraer; she closed her eyes, but her trembling betrayed a lack of calm.
Faergaldan pulled his sword out of its scabbard and crouched, ready to fight.
There was silence.
Suddenly, a blurred form flashed past them, not ten paces away, the ringing sound that accompanied it seeming to rise, then fall in pitch; it didn’t even stop to acknowledge the threat but, with barely a leaf disturbed by its light footfalls, it penetrated deeper into the forest. A small rustling followed in its wake, and then all evidence of it was gone.
“That’s it, then,” Faergaldan said.
The others turned to him, their looks of confusion eloquent.
“That… thing, that ergling, is following Kaliss. It’s somehow locked on to him, though no power I know could do that; he is invisible to the humans as much as he is to Winraer.”
Ryndaele brandished his sword. “Then Kaliss is in danger! We must go to him!”
Faergaldan’s voice lashed out, stopping him before he could move an inch. “And what will you do when you get to him? You will die. You will die, and you will have wasted your life. He is dead.”
Ryndaele stumbled back a pace, his face vacant. “No…” he mumbled. Then his expression turned feral. “NO!” he shouted, before turning and pelting off into the forest.
Faergaldan watched him go; something inside him seemed to go with the young warrior, but he remained stiffly upright until Ryndaele was out of sight.

*    *    *
Kaliss had been moving alone for two or three minutes when he first heard the noise. It came from his right, a kind of swishing noise. It put him, bizarrely, in mind of Brother Mordecai, instructing him on how to efficiently sweep the cloister at the Monastery. “You must pay close attention, young man,” his ancient voice had grated, “to the smaller things in life, so that you can appreciate the larger things.” Of course, he had been talking about concentrating on the sweeping so that he might understand their Goddess, or possibly just the cloister; he was never sure. But the swishing sound sharpened his mind; it could only be his pursuer. Lydia… it had to be Lydia. If it were Sayela, he was not sure he could keep his sanity.
Kaliss let his eyes trace the ground nearby; slight depressions, rounded, as if something heavy made them; evenly spaced; many of them; his eyes darted higher. Branches broken, a few plants trampled and there! On one of the trees nearby, a scrap, just a few fibres, of jet black horsehair. This was the woodland in which they had fought the centaari!
The swishing came closer, and with it a renewed ringing noise. Kaliss turned and began to run again, but the gnawing feeling of being chased was replaced by a small glimmer of hope; he ran, not away from, but towards. He quickly secured the daggers again; if he was right, he would not need them shortly.
Suddenly, bright light surrounded him; he was in the clearing again. A startled jerroc darted away, a small carnivorous scavenger; flies buzzed around the huge corpses of the centaari they had killed. The smell was indescribable, assaulting his sensitive nostrils like a sledgehammer, but he didn’t have time to investigate its nuances. The swishing sound grew closer by the second, almost-silent footfalls on dead leaves.
Desperately he looked for what he sought, his mad hope; one of the large crossbows used by the centaari, primed and ready to load, for there was no chance of him winding one himself. Picking one up, he saw instantly that it was useless, the string broken or gnawed through. Cursing, he cast it aside. Behind the makeshift prison lay another, but this one lacked any ammo. As he turned to continue the search, he heard a noise behind him, soft and yet intrusive, to match a crescendo of the ringing. He turned.
Behind him, the woman in the brass helmet had arrived. She stood, seemed to sway slightly as if tracking him. She was muddy, her skin already torn in several places where she had apparently barrelled through tree branches. The bundle of flesh in the crook of her right arm was obviously a child, though it seemed unformed, as if made of melted wax. She had hideous burns on her shoulders and arms, evidently from the flying device she had used. One foot came forward, towards him, then another.
“…” he tried to speak, but his voice was constricted, his tongue seeming two sizes too big for his mouth. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Lydia?”
The figure stopped. Its head cocked sideways, as if listening. The ringing sound that he hardly noticed now, so engrained in his mind was it, seemed to die off a little.
Kaliss breathed again. He had guessed correctly, perhaps. “Lydia, is that you? What are you doing?”
No response came from the helmet. The bell sound continued, but lesser still.
“What can I do for you? Can I help you? Who did this to you?”
The figure did not step again, but merely raised a hand, finger extended. The arm rose until it was pointed firmly at Kaliss. He moved to the right and left, but that accusing digit remained firmly targeted on him.
“Me? I did this to you? Lydia, no…”
His voice died away, and as if taking its cue, the ringing noise returned sharply to its original volume. The altered woman began to stalk forwards again, her hips swaying seductively.
Kaliss threw the useless crossbow at her, but she dodged to the side, seeming to move unnaturally fast. He began to back away, pleading. “No, please, Lydia; I had nothing to do with this! It’s probably not even mine! You were just a whore! Just a whore!” Suddenly he stumbled over something, falling backwards, then frantically backpedalled with his hands and feet, shuffling away. His stare plunged deeply into the strained reflection of his own eyes in the helmet; then he saw it, at the reflection’s feet; without time to even think, he grabbed the loaded crossbow he had stumbled over, and pointed it at her.
He pulled the trigger.
At this range, there was no way he could miss, even if the crossbow had been of a standard type. The centaari, for all their savagery, had long ago take crossbows to new technical heights, and this particular weapon was no exception. It smoothly fired a bolt, the unique design allowing the string to be pulled back almost instantly, ready to fire, while another bolt dropped into place, all of this happening in half a second. The recoil was immense, the weapon bucking in his grip, nearly butting him in the chin, but he held it, clutching the trigger as bolt after bolt tore into the slender body. Making relatively small holes going in, he could not see the immense damage as huge chunks of flesh were gouged out, exploding into the air before falling like a soft rain. Lumps of greyish flesh mixed with blood, muscle and flesh, and still the figure danced crazily over him. Blood spattering his own face, Kaliss could hear someone screaming, overtaking the ringing noise in ferocity and madness, until a dull clicking let him know that the crossbow had finally run out of ammunition. The screaming continued, even as his attacked slumped to the ground. Then, Kaliss realised the one screaming had been him.
He let the crossbow drop to the ground and scuttled away from the corpse. He drew his knees up close to his body and put his head in his hands. Lydia; she believed he’d done this, and maybe he had; her pregnancy had been unplanned – weren’t they all, especially for a licensed prostitute? – but surely she had taken appropriate measures? This couldn’t be his fault. It couldn’t.
A rustling noise made him look up, to see a silhouette of horror looming over him. He could see clearly through the hole in its stomach, but equally clearly he could see the shaky way it brought a hand up, for the killing blow. He could not tear his eyes away from the hand as it prepared to come crashing down. Perhaps it could end now.
Suddenly the hand wavered, and lost its rigidity; he looked across at the head, which seemed to be at a strange angle, before it tumbled from the body. It rolled forwards, landing between his legs. He could only see his reflection in the brass. The now-headless body crumpled, revealing a panting Ryn behind it, blade still raised after the killing blow.
“I came… not a moment too soon, it seems, Kaliss.”
Kaliss could only nod, words escaping him, as he gazed deeply into the eyes of the face reflected in the helmet. Hooded blackness seemed to suck him in, leaving him empty. A subtle warmth at his groin revealed that the head was bleeding on to him. Unheeding, he picked the head up and embraced it.