The Descent to Madness (The Graeme Stone Saga) Read online

  How the hell do I let Arnoon talk me into these things, thought Neroo, holding his breath as yet another fearsome barbarian guard sauntered past on patrol, wicked-looking scimitar at his hip.

  The three of them, Arnoon, Neroo and the lumbering Rico had left the troupe far out, sneaking under cover of darkness to where the Steppes raiders kept the stores of grain for their precious steeds, Neroo and Arnoon with bows slung across their backs, Rico hefting a huge, bronze-bladed axe, its gleam dulled with soot.

  Neroo looked down at the pouch of Venomberries attached to his belt; this had better work, he thought, or we’re dead.

  The group, through stealth and luck, finally made it to the grain-store undetected, hiding behind a wagon of firewood, eyeing up the solitary guard that stood between them and the stocks of feed. Glancing left and right, Arnoon sized up the scene with a seasoned eye; this one barbarian stood guard next to the grain-carts, two more were on a looping patrol that took them past here every five minutes. The other barbarians were all either fast asleep or towards the centre of the camp, drinking and talking by the roaring fire. Making some quick calculations in his head, Arnoon held up his hand to tell his two companions to stay down and quiet.

  Another guard walked into view right on cue, one of the patrollers, stopping and exchanging a few brief words with the grain-sentry, before pulling out a flask of vile smelling liquid and taking a swig, proffering the canteen to the other who gratefully accepted it. Arnoon wrinkled his nose at the acrid chemical smell; Vorda, he’d heard the shaman Wrynn mention before, a distilled concoction that rendered you pleasantly senseless, but you paid for it in the morning. I’ll stick to the pipe weed, thanks, he thought.

  The patroller eventually left to continue his intoxicated meander about the camp perimeter. That left the Youngbloods with a little over two minutes to act.

  With a smooth, easy action he brought his bow to bear, arrow nocked, picking his target with care before loosing. The arrow took the guard clean in the throat, rendering it impossible for him to scream in pain, falling on his knees before crumpling face first to the ground.

  The three Youngbloods moved, time of the essence, over to the carts, each taking one, leaping on top to get access to the grain but low enough to stay out of the firelight.

  Neroo took his pouch of Venomberries, squeezing it hard in his fist so that the lethal liquid oozed out the bottom of the linen, taking care to not get it on his skin; the stuff was potent, he’d seen a child die of eating them before, wracked with terrible pain, vomiting blood as his stomach ate itself from the inside out. Not even Shaman Wrynn had been able to help.

  The juice had the consistency of water, spraying in droplets all over the grain and sinking in easily, soaking the feed right through to the bottom. Finally, his pouch of death was dry. He looked over to the other two, nodded and they began to slink away as fast as they could without risking detection.

  The deed was done; upon daybreak, the horses would be fed and they would be dead before noon, rendering the barbarian raid impossible, for the supplies of an army could not be dragged without pack animals, nor could slaves be brought back to the Barbarian City.

  Even as they fled, the three exchanged subtle glances of triumph, Rico in particular beaming his simpleton grin, not paying heed to the ground in front of him as the two wiser warriors did, not seeing the rock until too late. Balance lost, he sprawled out, catching a wagon as he did, his considerable bulk knocking barrels tumbling to the ground in a great, crashing crescendo of noise that echoed through the night.

  “Shit!” hissed Arnoon, through gritted teeth, as cries in foreign tongue pierced the air about the camp. “Run!”

  Neroo obeyed, darting off into the distance, back to the troupe, fear lending his feet wings, but Arnoon hesitated, for Rico was behind and struggling with a twisted ankle. In the firelight behind the slower, bigger Youngblood, figures could be seen speeding towards them, winding their way between carts and steeds in an effort to cut them off.

  “Go, Arnoon! I will hold them off.”

  Arnoon ran to him, quickly placing his hands on the shoulders of his big companion.

  “Die with honour, friend.”

  The bigger man nodded and, as Arnoon turned and fled, he span, taking up his huge war-axe and charging towards the approaching foe with a lop-sided gallop.

  Arnoon flew away from the camp and into the safety of the darkness. He felt no pain or grief for the certain loss of his friend, not due to callousness – his friendship with Stone had knocked that out of him – but due to the fact that he was still a ruthless tactician and leader of men; in his heart, he knew that the loss of one to save many was an acceptable one, any day of the week.

  At least this way, they still had a chance to live.

  As Arnoon disappeared into the gloom, Rico met the first of his enemies, almost cleaving the barbarian clean in two with a mighty double-handed swing of his axe. Another dared come near, attempting to tackle him to the ground, the Steppes raiders always preferring to take living slaves where they could, especially burly, strong youths such as this. He lost an arm for his efforts, screaming as he was sent sprawling in a shower of blood and torn ligament.

  Rico roared, swinging the axe this way and that with a skill that belied his brutish appearance, challenging his circling foes to charge him.

  In an instant, his cries were silenced, a strangled choking coming from his mouth. Dropping the axe, he looked down to his bare chest, seeing a single, small, bronze throwing-knife embedded perfectly where his now-impaled heart was. In his chest, the wounded organ struggled to beat, despite the injury, flailing about like a fish out of water, before giving up and becoming still.

  Rico’s face went cold as the blood stopped flowing. Like a fallen tree, he crashed down onto his knees with a thud, before finally collapsing on his side.

  The last thing he saw was the approaching hide boots of a barbarian warrior who stooped down to look his vanquished foe in the eye, topknot trailing down, scarred, pock-marked face cruel and twisted in the flickering firelight.

  ***

  Raga stood over his fallen enemy, admiring the build of the primitive and lamenting the loss of so valuable a slave. He turned, face contorted in rage and his Savaran, to their credit, backed away in a show of fear.

  “Janibek…” he growled, low and menacing.

  The guard shuffled forwards out of the crowd, face downcast with shame.

  “Yes, Marzban?”

  “You were on guard tonight, yes?” His words dripped venom with every syllable.

  “Err… yes, Marzban.”

  The barbarian leader nodded, opened his mouth to speak again, but was cut off by a cry.

  Hurrying over to the grain-stores, they found more warriors crouched about a prone figure, the shaft of an arrow sticking from his throat, mouth agape in a silent cry for help.

  “We found him like this, sir. It looks like the primitives were tampering with the grain.”

  Raga walked up to one of the carts, scooping up a handful of the feed and smelling it. It smelt fine. He thought for a moment, grinned evilly, before turning.

  “Jan.” The warrior stiffened to attention as his Marzban marched over, hand of grain held out to him. “Eat this.”

  The guard stared at the handful of grain as though it were a serpent.

  “Marzban…?”

  “Now…” The single word was laden with the promise of bronze-pointed death should he disobey.

  Hesitantly, the guard took a scoop of the grain with his fingers, hand shaking as he moved it towards his mouth, nearly spilling it. With a sharp intake of breath and closed eyes, he shovelled it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing, gagging at the rough, dry texture.

  His leader watched, amused.

  “How do you feel?”

  The warrior went to answer, but found he couldn’t, his hands going to his mouth where his tongue had started to swell. Eyes wide with confusion and terror, he began to scream, a gurgled, ch
oking sound, grasping hold of his captain’s fur-trimmed jerkin, falling to his knees in both pain and a desperate plea for help.

  None forthcoming, he began to crawl, slowly, painfully away from the camp, before stopping, vomiting fresh, red, foamy blood all over the floor and collapsing into a twitching heap, mouth frothing with pink saliva. Finally, his seizures stopped and he was still, eyes staring in horror.

  Raga nodded as his warriors looked on in disgust.

  “Just as I thought; Venomberry. Barjeen!”

  His burly second in command grunted in response.

  “Destroy these three carts of grain and bring up the reserves. Then send our best trackers out to find our new friends. Tell them to follow, but do not engage. They will lead us right to their village.”

  “And then?”

  “Then, my friend, we strike hard and fast before they can call for aid from any neighbouring villages. We capture everyone, we bring them home, we make a profit.”

  He rubbed his hands in anticipation, his scarred face twisted in a smirk.

  “We will show them what happens when you try to harm a Savaran’s steed.”

  ***

  He flailed, screaming, hands tight about his throat in sheer reflex response as he sank into the bottomless depths of the river, before finally remembering to breathe.

  That’s gonna take some getting used to, Stone thought, as he floated in the dark abyss, panic slowly subsiding.

  If anything, it was darker here than in the cave system, even his enhanced eyesight revealing nothing as he gazed about, gentle strokes of his arms turning him this way and that whilst his paddling feet held him at a steady depth.

  But, whilst his sight was diminished, his hearing was not; a steady whooshing noise, a regular rhythm, getting louder and louder as it came towards him. Memories of the Knocker leapt to mind, so, learning from his lesson, Stone launched into a swim away from the source of the noise, as fast as his aching limbs would take him.

  But not fast enough.

  A sudden increase in pressure behind him signalled the approach of something fast and Stone was swatted aside like a bug as whatever it was smashed into him, rough skin grating against his leg, leaving painful abrasions.

  The beast came at him again, from another angle, again sensing it due to the pressure changes in the water and hearing the whoosh-whoosh tattoo of what he assumed was its tail fins. Ready this time, he raised his fist to strike, but his blow was rendered pitifully impotent by the water and the creature smashed into him once more, this time lashing out with razor claws in an attempt to disembowel him, his leather jerkin being snatched from him and torn away with inhuman force.

  With a garbled underwater roar of frustration, Stone flailed about, blind, knowing that he did not stand a chance down in these depths. Summoning reserves of strength, he kicked upwards as fast as he could in an effort to reach the surface, knowing that stalagmites, and thus dry land, jutted out from the river. If only he could make it there, the creature couldn’t follow.

  As he drew nearer the surface, the water began to lighten, gradually, till he could just make out the amorphous shapes of mountainous stalagmites that rose up on either side of him, as well as the faint outline of a sleek and predatory silhouette that circled him, menacingly. Without warning, it darted towards him with impossible speed, so fast that even had he access to Falcon-Sight, he could never have evaded the attack.

  The unmistakable outline of clawed limbs stretched out towards him as the monster torpedoed into him, razors thrashing, scoring lines across his flesh, his toughened skin no proof against the blows. The water grew red with the loss of his lifeblood, but at last he neared the surface and, with one last desperate surge, he launched himself upwards with a flurry of mighty kicks that propelled him clean out of the river to land with a roll on the sharp, hard rock of a ledge in the side of a stalagmite.

  Lying there on the rocky outcrop, chest heaving with exertion, he allowed the lactic acid to drain from his limbs, his heightened metabolism clearing the toxins from his system, the wounds on his face, chest and arms already clotting despite the water that dripped from his muscled form. With a sigh, he heaved himself upright, so that he was sitting, but, before he could even catch his breath and take stock of the situation, a huge splash that stood out from the steady ripple of running water, then a thud and the shifting of rocks as something landed on his ledge behind him.

  Slowly turning, he gazed up, wondering what shape this fresh, new horror would take.

  The predator that had followed him from the depths rose up to its full height – or should that be her full height? – and, once again, Stone was forced to wonder whether his fevered nightmare so many weeks before had been a premonition of things to come.

  The spirit was female in form, shapely and alluring, with large, dark, slanted eyes and long, dreadlocked hair that was grey to his night-vision, but he could only assume would have been the colour of kelp. It had the aspect of a siren, with an hourglass shape and long legs that ended in webbed feet and about its waist it had a loincloth to preserve at least the lower half of its modesty, though from what he did not know. Yet despite everything feminine about her there was still an aspect of lethality; her hands ended in the black, thin, razor claws that had torn his flesh; her limbs pulsed with barely contained elemental power. He knew that he was in the presence of a predator every bit as formidable as a shark, despite its human size.

  She looked him dead in the eyes with dark, hypnotic orbs that possessed no whites, no pupils, nothing and he could feel an attraction, a mesmerising stupor threatening to overwhelm him. What had Lanah called it? Ah yes – Glamour. With a surge of willpower he forced the effect from his mind and the spell was broken.

  “So, water-spirit, I presume?” He wondered whether the elemental could talk, but he needn’t have worried.

  “Sprite, Nymph, Siren, call me what you will.” Her voice was melodious, babbling, like water running down a brook, not the sibilant, hissing tones of the serpent that he’d expected.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Nagini, though you can call me death.” She smiled, soft, feminine-looking lips parting to reveal razor, needle-fine teeth.

  “Well, you’re just shit out of luck, Nagini,” he replied, one eyebrow raised. “They call me the Nagah-Slayer.”

  “I call you prey.”

  With no warning, she lunged at him, every bit as fast on land as underwater and Stone barely ducked in time to avoid the whistling blur of her talons. He span as he ducked under her sweep, raising his right fist to power through with a mighty punch but hitting only air, for she had darted aside with balletic grace, riposting with an agonising slash across his bare back and he could feel the warmth of the blood as it trickled from the wound.

  With a roar, he whirled about with a left-hook, which she dodged with ludicrous ease, before again, she lunged forwards, stabbing with outstretched talons, giving a triumphant hiss as they embedded deep in his chest eliciting a cry of rage and pain from Stone. Her triumph was short lived, for as she tried to retreat his one hand whipped up, grasping about her forearm and holding her near. With a snarl, he bunched his right fist, this time hitting her in the face with a blow like a hammer, sending her careening across the ledge, even as he fell backwards himself.

  He rose, quivering with adrenaline and so did she, and, it was with a smirk of satisfaction that he noted the thin line of dark blood trickling from her lip.

  She noticed it too and, with a brief look of concentration, the cut healed up in a flash of ephemeral energy. Fucking spirits, thought Stone.

  She smiled, that predator smile.

  “I heal fast, human.”

  He sniffed.

  “So do I.”

  Her eyes widened in confusion as she stared at the already sealing gashes in his chest that she had inflicted only moments before. Stone narrowed his eyes.

  “I can go all day.”

  With a snarl, the two combatants charged at each oth
er once more, neither willing to give quarter, but a booming roar like the crash of a tsunami wave blew them apart.

  Enough!

  The two slowly got themselves to their feet, Stone shaking his head free from reverberations but the water-nymph seeming unaffected, simply glaring at him in venomous, bloodthirsty rage.

  A rushing of water, the volume of which simply beggared belief, the solid stone stalagmite vibrating in sympathy, drew Stone’s attention from his opponent to the raging river, which had now wound upon itself in a great, swirling whirlpool.

  As he watched in amazement, the centre of the vortex, which was many hundreds of yards across, began to rise as a funnel, high into the air, until a pillar of spinning water half a mile tall stood before him.

  Nagini, leave us.

  The voice was less soul-shatteringly loud than that of the Avatar of Earth, but no less forceful, coming at him in a mighty rushing of syllables that threatened to sweep him away.

  With a final, glaring look at Stone, the water-nymph bowed to the Avatar, before leaping gracefully into the river and disappearing into the depths. The voice roared once more, now directed at Stone, and he was in very real danger of being blown clean off the ledge.

  Intruder, why do you come here? Speak, or be destroyed.

  Stone roared his reply into the tempest, the limits of his temper reached.

  “I am a shaman, of the Plains-People. I come in peace to further the learning of my craft, to learn how to work in better harmony with you, yet all I get is attacked by your minions and thrown about like some toy!”

  He cringed, fully expecting divine retribution, but instead, deep, rhythmic waves of pressure began to pulse outwards from the funnel. Confused, realisation dawned.

  Laughter.

  The laughter grew lighter, less elemental and more human as, slowly, impossibly, the funnel began to condense in on itself, until it became a floating sphere of tightly-packed, churning water. It floated over to him, laughing all the time, until it hovered a few feet from him, over the ledge. The sphere collapsed in a spray of salty foam to reveal the shape of a woman, small of stature, with pretty features, but no skin, instead, her body composed entirely of the raging ocean.