Prince Maesa, page 16
‘Be a shame to leave my rope behind,’ he said.
Maesa drew his bow and shot off an arrow without looking. The rope went slack, and a few seconds later came racing down the cliff, tangling up the merchant.
‘My thanks, master aelf!’ Stonbrak said, his voice muffled by the line. ‘Ow!’ he shouted, as Maesa’s arrow bounced off his head. Shattercap scampered up to him and snatched it up with a glower.
‘Come on!’ Barnabus said. His teeth were chattering, and he was running about to keep warm. ‘We’ve come a long way, I have to get back. I have to see if Master Hor–’ He paused. ‘If my father is all right,’ he said firmly. He started off.
Stonbrak untangled himself from the rope and began to coil it. ‘Don’t run far, lad! The night might be over, but there are many perils in these parts!’ he called.
The striding god had covered miles, and had taken them high into the foothills. On the grey plains hung a mist turning gold in the light of rising Hysh. Maesa looked up towards the mountains. He saw, far off towards the snow line of the highest peak, a glint of bronze catch the sun. It flashed as it proceeded upwards, then was lost.
‘Brazen claw indeed,’ he said.
‘Your highness!’ Barnabus came running back. ‘Your highness, look what I found!’ The boy held out an eager hand. He turned it up, and opened it.
In his palm was the lost eye of Aturathi, the sage of Hysh.
‘Oooh,’ said Stonbrak and Shattercap simultaneously.
‘You should take it, your highness,’ said Barnabus. ‘Please!’
‘Perhaps you should, to pay your way,’ said Maesa. ‘You have lost much. It will be some recompense.’
‘No!’ said the boy in horror. ‘It bears a curse. Besides, it is worth a fortune. Horrin’ll want to keep it, but we will be in danger if we do, not just from the dead,’ he gabbled. ‘Take it back to Hysh. Put it back where it came from. Then we’ll be safe. Then…’ He became downcast. ‘Ninian…’
‘She died protecting you, my boy,’ said Stonbrak, gripping the youth’s shoulder and shaking him. ‘Remember her bravery, and honour her. Now, if you’ll give me that pretty thing, then…’
Before Stonbrak’s eager fingers could pluck the gem up, Maesa’s hand closed over it.
‘I will do as you say, Barnabus, and return the eye to Hysh, in memory of your foster mother. Maybe Aturathi will give me his counsel. There are matters he could help me with. For that I thank you.’
‘Oh no you don’t!’ said Stonbrak. ‘We won that bauble together!’
‘Then you are more than welcome to accompany me, master duardin.’
Stonbrak stroked his beard, his eyes beady and fixed on Maesa’s palm.
‘Knowing the Lumineth, they will be grateful to have their treasure back, once adequately prompted. There will be a reward.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Then I might well come with you,’ said the duardin. ‘To see the world set to rights. Any treasure paid for tasks done and all that will be gratefully received. But even if there’s not riches involved I’ll come,’ he added hurriedly, ‘it’s the moral thing to do.’
‘Come with me or not, I do not care,’ said Maesa. ‘First we must make our way back to the site of the inn, and deliver this boy to his father. I must recover my steed, and my belongings. We cannot make the Argent Gate by land. The Plains of Teeth are deadly. We must hope that the sky-lords are true to their schedule and return to the site of the Claw.’
Stonbrak looked up into the lightening sky. ‘It’s not natural, duardin living in the clouds. We need stone under our boots and stone over our heads! Nonetheless, they are duardin, and now the storm is done they will return to their schedule.’ He looked out over the misty landscape. ‘Ten miles, I’d say.’ He sniffed. ‘We’d better get on with it.’ He’d wound his rope into a fine coil, and he now secreted this beneath his beard. After he did, he peered at his chest and moaned. ‘It’ll take ages to fix the links on my mail coat, it’s damn near practically ruined.’
‘Then ask your cousins on the boat for aid,’ Maesa said. ‘They are also skilled smiths, are they not?’ Shattercap scampered up onto his perch on Maesa’s shoulder. When the spite was comfortable, the prince strode off down the hill. Barnabus followed. ‘The voyage will take three days or more, and there will not be much to do.’
‘What shall we do to pass the time? It’s customary to swap tales on voyages, and I’ll guess you have many more to tell,’ said Stonbrak, trotting to keep up.
Maesa kept his eyes on their destination.
‘Like at the inn? I beg your leave, master duardin. I for one have had enough of tales for now,’ he said.
PART FOUR
THE HUNGERFIEND
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE PLAINS OF TEETH
The airscrews of the duardin ship chopped at the sky. Beneath the keel, forest thinned and gave way to plains of grey grass that raced with silver waves. Further on, the grass became patchy, the black earth around its roots exposed. Ivory blots appeared between, growing bigger and merging together, until the grass and earth became islands in a plain of yellowed bone, and eventually petered out completely.
Heavy steel boots thudded on the riveted deck as the crew attended to the ship. At Prince Maesa’s side, Captain Thringsson rested armoured hands on the rail. His sigh of pleasure at the view rattled metallically in his breathing pipe. Though the sky-cutter sailed only a few thousand feet above the ground for the benefit of its passengers, the duardin crew retained their high-altitude gear. A metal facsimile of a duardin’s face served Thringsson as a visor. Morning light glinted from the bronze and steel. It was ornate, as befitted a person of his status, with eyepieces of clear crystal.
‘The Plains of Teeth,’ said Thringsson. His voice echoed in his helmet. ‘A spectacular sight.’
‘It looks like sand at this height, even to me,’ said Maesa.
‘Aye, but as we go further into the desert, the teeth increase in size,’ said Thringsson. ‘At the edges they are tiny, the teeth of crawling things, fishes, frogs and other small creatures.’ The duardin looked at Shattercap, who sat wrapped in Maesa’s hood against the cold. ‘Teeth like yours, forest spirit.’
Shattercap slowly looked down and curled his lip before returning his attention to the bone-white wastes.
‘Deeper in they become immense, the teeth of leviathans, and dragons, and godbeasts, so large you can see them easily from up here. You can practically count the wealth.’ Thringsson sniffed loudly. Although these duardin of the air were strange to Maesa, they were still duardin, and had mannerisms that matched Stonbrak’s. ‘Some of my people come here to mine the wastes. A pretty penny in ivory, just waiting to be picked up. There’s a clan up Barak-Zon that do nothing else but carve the stuff. Wealthy as the karak kings of old, so they say. Rumour is, at the desert’s heart, there’s mountains made of molars, and fells of fangs.’ He chuckled, and his mirth echoed beneath the golden beard of his mask. ‘The teeth of gods and monsters, can you imagine such a thing?’
‘You have not travelled to see?’ asked Maesa.
‘And risk this old lady?’ Thringsson patted the gunwale. The metal of his gauntlet clicked. ‘Not likely. I’ve a good trade going here, running the packet through to Ghur. It’s dangerous enough sailing the skies of Shyish without looking for trouble. There are bad things out there.’
‘I have heard there are dangers in the desert,’ said Maesa.
‘Aye, there are,’ said Thringsson. ‘In the air above it too.’ They looked out across a sky that was unusually bright for Shyish, almost the same blue as that of kinder realms. Thringsson sucked his teeth thoughtfully. ‘It’s getting worse everywhere in Shyish. Strange tidings. One thing’s for sure, I and my crew won’t be heading back this way for a while.’
Maesa turned his steady gaze on the captain. ‘What rumours?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Thringsson. ‘All sorts of talk. The dead are restless.’ He grunted. ‘Well, more restless than usual. They say the Great Necromancer is on the move, that he has designs on the other realms.’ He lowered his voice. ‘They say he plans war. I am surprised you have not heard.’
‘I have errands of my own,’ said the aelf.
‘We’ll keep a sharp lookout while we’re sailing here. The Argent Gate is the swiftest road for Ghur, but it is a perilous one. We might need that bow of yours, lordly aelf, before our voyage is done.’ He gave one last look to the horizon. ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said, then sauntered away.
‘Not if I see thee first,’ said Shattercap darkly, though not quite loud enough for the duardin to hear; he was nervous of Thringsson’s pistol.
Maesa patted him absent-mindedly. A side wind blew the aelf’s hair into long, whipping cords. They flew directly away from the dawn, and the desert was still in the grip of earliest day. Further out, it remained dark, yet already Maesa could see what the duardin said was true. The ground became uneven, badlands made of teeth. Clouds rushed in scattered groups, their undersides stained orange by Hysh’s swelling power. It was beautiful. Despite his long life, Maesa had never before flown upon a Kharadron sky-ship, and the experience fascinated him.
Flecki Grimsdottir’s Pride was not particularly big; Maesa had trod the stones of floating castles, and islands in the sky as large as countries. The realms were replete with wonders of all kinds, yet the ship was remarkable, a hundred-foot-long artefact of metal held up against gravity’s insistence by a combination of ingenuity and magic. Three globular aether-endrins took the place of sails. It was richly appointed to attract paying passengers, of which it carried a score in small but luxurious cabins. Cannons manned by watchful duardin sat upon the forecastle and the poop deck, and more guns bristled from the sides.
‘There are enough firearms upon this vessel to put a hold tower to shame,’ said Idenkor Stonbrak as he joined Maesa at the rail. His words were neither said as a compliment or in envy, but were a dour, grumbling mixture of both.
‘The captain insists this is not a ship of war,’ said Maesa, ‘but must sail dangerous skies.’
‘It’s a lot of unnecessary firepower, that’s what it is. Show-offs, they are,’ he pronounced. ‘What kind of duardin lives in the sky?’
Stonbrak popped his pipe in his mouth and cursed as he attempted to light it, as each match he struck blew out in the wind. Over his armour he wore a fur-trimmed coat, and slitted goggles over his eyes against the light. Being a duardin of Ulgu, the brightness pained him, and made him irritable. He groaned and gave up when a match head sparked, fell free and burned a hole in his beard before blowing out like all the rest.
Shattercap giggled. Stonbrak scowled.
‘Aren’t you cold, aelf?’ he said.
‘I am rarely cold,’ said Maesa.
‘Typical,’ said Stonbrak. He looked into his pipe bowl disappointedly.
A crew member came up and stopped directly in front of the merchant. Stonbrak peered at him. For a moment they stared each other down like bull tauruses about to fight, slit goggles to crystal lens, then the Kharadron lifted up a small blowtorch, which ignited with a button push. A soft, roaring spike of blue flame burned steadily. Stonbrak put his pipe back in his mouth. The other duardin lit it for him and went away without a word.
‘See, show-offs,’ grumbled Stonbrak. His beard blew back over his shoulder. His mane of grey hair pushed flat against his head. ‘Still,’ he said grudgingly, ‘this Thringsson’s got a talent for commerce. He was bragging about it to me. The passengers are where the real money is.’ He gestured with his pipestem at the few other passengers strolling the deck. ‘Carrying mail between the free cities of Sigmar avails him of the licences necessary to enter each. But the passengers pay more. Quite clever, I have to admit. He makes so much from them, he offered to rebuild the inn of Master Horrin so passengers have still got someplace to gather, though Horrin’s going to need a new name for it, and the money will only be a loan.’
‘What do they hide beneath their helmets?’ said Maesa, watching the crew. Condensation beaded the metal and the rigging of the Flecki Grimsdottir’s Pride. The duardin were busy mopping water up from the deck, and knocking the hawsers holding the ship to its endrin globes, making them vibrate and sending the water leaping off in bright silver sprays.
‘What? Their faces, of course,’ said Stonbrak. ‘They rarely remove their helms, but I hear they’re duardin through and through. Apart from showing off so much,’ he said in the direction of a passing crewman. ‘And apart from living with thin air under their boots rather than good, honest stone!’ he added, even more loudly.
‘Many a wicked face has hidden behind a fair mask,’ said Maesa.
‘True, but can’t you see these are honest folk?’ said Stonbrak, suddenly leaping to the Kharadrons’ defence, now they were being criticised by an aelf. He shook his head. ‘You are suspicious people. They gave me the tools to fix my armour.’ He knocked his knuckles against his chest. ‘They found me the gold to make this!’ He grinned broadly. A finely made replacement for the tooth lost at the inn glinted in the morning. ‘Fine people.’
Maesa raised his eyebrow, but said nothing.
The lookout by the bowsprit straps leaned back in from his perch and called through a cupped hand ‘Realmgate ho! The Argent Gate is in sight!’
In the distance, over the desert, a gash of silvery light split the sky. Its top and bottom were embraced by floating machines placed there in ancient times. Near these the edges of the gap were smooth, but towards the centre, away from the devices, the boundary between the gate and the realm of Shyish was in flux, and shimmered violently.
‘Aha! We are nearly there. Duardin ingenuity. You can’t beat it. You’d never find anything like this built by an aelf.’
‘Thou art bald,’ said Shattercap mockingly.
‘I am not!’ blustered Stonbrak.
‘Yes thou art, I see the shining of pinky skin. The wind has blown your hair flat.’ Shattercap tittered. ‘That is why thou combest it so high! So vain, master merchant.’
A cry from far below distracted Maesa’s attention. He looked over the gunwale of the ship.
‘I ought to knock you from the damn aelf’s shoulder,’ growled Stonbrak, plumping up his hair. ‘Bald indeed.’
‘Quiet, the both of you.’ Maesa’s keen eyes darted across the landscape. ‘I hear something.’
‘What?’ said Stonbrak. He thrust his head over the edge and stared at the desert. ‘By Grungni’s second-best hammer, that is a long drop,’ he said uneasily, though pride prevented him from bringing his head back in. ‘What are you looking at? I hear nothing.’
‘I cannot be sure, a thin screech. There!’ Maesa pointed at movement on the desert floor where a jumbled pile of giant tusks were heaped, their arches making dark caves. Stonbrak squinted through his goggles, not seeing what the prince discerned. By the time he spied the pale bodies of the things below, they were already squirming their way out of their lairs and spreading membranous wings to leap into the air. They flapped laboriously at first, moving up into the sky with effort, but once airborne, their flight steadied, and they beat swiftly towards the Flecki Grimsdottir’s Pride.
‘Is it me, or are those beasts rather large?’ said Stonbrak. ‘I am not one to shy away from a good fight, but we are a long way from the ground.’
‘Captain!’ Maesa called up to the ship’s wheel, where Thringsson was speaking to the helmsman. ‘Captain! I would have a word with you, of some urgency.’
Thringsson caught the tone of warning in Maesa’s voice, and clanked down the steps from the stern.
‘Beasts approach from the ground,’ said Maesa. He pointed to the bat-like shapes rising towards them.
Thringsson cursed and turned back from the rail. ‘All hands, battle stations,’ he bellowed. ‘All passengers below. Now!’ A whistle shrieked three times. The crew stopped what they were doing and their movements stepped up a gear. They hurried about, pulling covers off swivel guns, while the broadside cannons pushed their muzzles out of their hatches. The ship’s purser rounded up the collection of rich merchants and officials braving the cold, and herded them downstairs.
‘Can we run for the gate?’ asked Stonbrak.
‘We can, but we won’t outpace them. Mister Grundun, full speed ahead. All power to the aethermatic endrins!’ he shouted to his helmsman. ‘Best get below if I were you.’
‘My companions and I will aid you,’ said Maesa.
‘We will?’ shrieked Shattercap.
‘Of course, of course,’ said Stonbrak. He loosened his axe in its loops. ‘What are they?’
‘Terrorgheists, undead beasts,’ said Thringsson. ‘These here are unbound, wild, deadly, an odd breed. We’ve got a fight on our hands.’
He shouted out more orders, and made to go.
‘How?’ said Stonbrak. ‘How are they odd? Apart from being undead bats with a forty-foot wingspan?’
They could hear Thringsson’s grin in his voice. ‘This lot eat teeth.’
‘They wants my teeth!?’ Shattercap clasped scrawny fingers over his mouth.
‘Aye!’ shouted Thringsson with a laugh, clambering back to his captain’s station. ‘The fresher the better.’
Shattercap whimpered. Maesa took out and strung his bow. The Terrorgheists were flapping towards the ship, approaching the same altitude now, and gaining from the stern. Flecki Grimsdottir’s Pride hooted from steam vents and aether-whistles, pushing forward. The aft gun boomed, spitting out a long harpoon that hissed back the way they had come at the first Terrorgheist. It shrieked and folded its wings like crumpled paper, causing the gunner to let out a shout of triumph, but the beast had dodged the missile, which fell clearly away to the ground as a thin black line, missing the beast entirely. The Terrorgheist righted itself, and with a piercing shriek beat its wings again and came at the ship, its fellows close behind.
