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

  Raga picked himself up off the floor, unhurried, relaxed. He took his Clan Scimitars, drawing them out of their scabbards, the polished bronze gleaming in the orange glow of the sunset, and walked slowly towards his defeated rival. Silently, he looked down on Zoltar, his face betraying no emotion, no joyous victory or murderous bloodlust.

  Just pure, simple faith in his authority over this moment.

  “Times are changing, clansman” he quietly told the fallen giant. “The age of you old veterans is at an end. You need to move aside.” He raised his voice for all his men to hear. “The halls of the Barbarian King will soon be echoing to a new name, mark my words. The world will soon see an Empire the likes of which it has never known.”

  A flock of birds took off from the treetops in noisy flight, the sound of their flapping wings echoing throughout the evening air and lending a sense of omen to his words. Returning his eyes to Zoltar, Raga raised both swords.

  “Care to regale us with some dazzling final words?”

  His only answer was a desperate gurgling of impotent, blood-choked rage.

  His swords swept down like a pair of scissors, neatly cleaving Zoltar’s head from his shoulders. It fell one way, eyes and mouth still wide open in disbelief and shock, his body falling the other, a spouting geyser of crimson spraying over the frosty ground.

  The gathered soldiers stood silent in a circle about the Marzban and the corpse. Sheathing his swords, Raga soaked in the silence of the victory, not just victory over his opponent, but victory over the hearts of his men. They were his now, by will or by fear.

  “Haresh, feed the cargo. We need them in good shape for when we get home. Janibek, put the rabbits on the fire. I’ve worked up an appetite. And someone bury Zoltar. He makes the place look untidy.”

  ***

  It drew him in with the same primal attraction that drew lightning to the ground. How far he’d been tracking the scent, he didn’t know, but at least a mile now, for sure. The smell was getting stronger and stronger with every step and, for the umpteenth time, Stone stopped, closed his eyes and drew in a long, lingering breath through his nose.

  The sweet, savoury, warming notes caused his skin to tingle with pleasure. It was a smell he hadn’t smelt in all his limited memory, but he recognised it at once – the unmistakably delicious aroma of roasting meat. Though he was perfectly at ease of late with eating raw fare, his body seemed to crave the easy, denatured texture of cooked food. And he was not about to deny it if he had the chance. The wolves had shown up within the last ten minutes, no doubt tracking the same smell, so for now he was keeping to the trees out of harm’s way. Another useful skill he’d mastered, leaping from branch to branch to keep his scent off the ground.

  Avoided a lot of drama that way.

  Closer to the smell he leapt, his tough and agile feet keeping him all but glued to the branches, no chance of falling, his lean, muscled arms swinging him effortlessly from tree to tree, wolves loping along beneath him. All of a sudden he noticed that he was now alone. Squinting back into the darkness of the night-time forest, he saw the wolves prowling around but venturing no closer, their senses – keener, even, than his – obviously warning them of some hidden danger ahead. No doubt the roaster of the meats…

  It wasn’t long before the gloom ahead was broken into flickering shadows interspersed with orange light. Getting closer, Stone could see a bright campfire, upon which were cooking the promised meats on a spit, rabbits by the looks of the carcasses. The golden, juicy, crispy-looking carcasses…

  Tearing his attention away from his appetite, he surveyed the camp. About the fire sat four men, still awake despite the late hour, chatting quietly amongst themselves in a rough and guttural language that he didn’t understand. None of the men were sitting more than two paces from a weapon, be it a curved sword or a long bow and all of them looked powerful and mean. Obviously, they were on guard duty, making rabbit acquisition all the more difficult.

  Staying to the shadows of the trees, he slunk forward making as little sound as he could. He’d become practiced at this over the last couple of weeks; once he’d awoke to find a horned bear directly beneath the branch upon which he lay. He’d virtually held his breath for the entire ten minutes the bear had sat there before it had wandered off. As he drew closer to the camp, he took a moment to further examine the scene before acting. Wagons surrounded the entire encampment. There were horses tied up a bit closer to the fire, tents too. He counted the horses quickly; twenty one. That must mean that his hunch was right; these four were on guard duty while the rest were asleep. He needed only distract these four long enough to dash in, grab some food and run right back out again.

  He knelt down and picked up a smooth pebble, throwing it over to the far side of the clearing to knock gently off a tree. The sound was only quiet, but in the silence of the night it was enough. The men ceased their talking immediately, getting to their feet, hands reaching for bows. Move, he willed them. Go investigate. But they weren’t so keen to leave the warmth of their cosy fire. Stone snarled to himself in frustration as the men shrugged and made to sit back down, their murmured conversation resuming, imagined threat quickly forgotten.

  Wracking his brains for a way to distract the guards, he thought back to the wolves he’d just passed on the trail. These men, by the looks of them, were seasoned travellers. No doubt conscious of the wolves, wary of the danger they posed. The people in these forests were few and far between – weren’t these the first he’d come across? – therefore it stood to reason that the guards were on duty to protect mainly against the predators that roamed the dark.

  Almost subconsciously, Stone cupped his hands around his mouth and emitted a howl. The sound was deep, bestial and uncannily like that of the blue-eyed wolves. With an expert skill that he’d never learned, Stone threw his voice across the clearing, giving the impression that a wolf was howling deep in the forest. This elicited the exact response he’d hoped for, the guards jumping up to a man, hushed but urgent words darting back and forth, before grabbing their weapons once again and moving off into the forest, away from the campfire and, more importantly, the rabbits…

  As soon as they had vanished into the dark, he made his way forwards, padding barefoot as quietly as he could for fear of waking any of the other slumbering warriors. He slowed and approached the fire almost reverently, captivated for a moment by the heat and the dancing flames, before coming back to his senses. He reached out tentatively and touched the wooden spit gently – it was hot and he recoiled. He reached out and touched again and it seemed slightly less so this time. He grabbed hold of the wooden pole and pulled it off the fire, the powerful aroma of the three skewed rabbits almost knocking him off his feet with its potency at this range, causing him to close his eyes in pleasure. Shaking his head free of the soporific effect, he began to make off with his prize, passing one of the wagons as he did so. Out of pure curiosity he sneaked a quick peak in the back of the covered cart.

  And stopped dead.

  The wagon ended with a wooden-cage-door and inside people lay asleep. They were clad in dirty, smelly clothes, their pale skin covered in muck showing that they hadn’t left their confines for some time. They were predominantly fair-haired and there was a range of ages and both genders. Each of them had their hands bound with thick ropes. It didn’t take him long to work out what fate had befallen these people; they had been captured, torn from their homes to be sold as slaves.

  Stone felt sick in his stomach and was torn between a desperate empathy for these people and their plight and the need to make his flight quick before the guards came back. He wasn’t sure that he could break open the cage before either the guards returned from the forest, or some of the slumbering slavers awoke. Even if he could, would the slaves be able to escape without being mercilessly cut down by the enraged captors?

  His quandary was cut short by the quiet, lethal rasp of metal against leather…

  ***

  Raga had struggled to slee
p that night, his mind replaying the events of the evening, thinking of ways he could have done things better. Such was the curse of his Clan, the men of the Two Scimitars trained from birth in the art of politicking, of thinking. It was this trait that had helped their rise to become one of the more prominent Clans at the court of the Barbarian King. Their influence helped their youth to gain good positions as leaders of warbands, as with Raga himself. And this had invariably caused enmity with the other clans.

  Hence the fracas of earlier.

  He had lain, still clothed and wrapped in furs, his breath misting in the inside of his tent, listening to the muted conversation of the guards outside. When they had all disappeared off into the forest he’d cursed under his breath. Damn amateurs! The men often talked of his youth and relative inexperience, whenever they thought him not listening, but now at the first howl of a wolf they all go haring off into the forest, not even leaving one sentry at camp! He snarled as he snatched up his swords and parted the curtain of his tent, blinking in the bright orange glow of the fire – and that was when he saw the intruder.

  The Wildman was gawping into one of the wagons, the spit in his hands, three rabbits still impaled on it; the guards obviously thinking to treat themselves to a midnight feast. The figure was lean, wiry, with hard, sinewy limbs. His skin was encrusted with filth and his hair long and unkempt. Raga could smell him from across the camp – how he hadn’t been devoured by the wolves whilst living in the forest was a mystery. Either way, he would make a good slave to add to the cargo; this season’s harvest would bring a good income for Clan Two Scimitars once they returned to the city.

  His swords safely slung over his shoulder, he slowly bent down to his ankle, reaching for his throwing knife, and with a confident grin he slid it out of its leather sheath, aiming for an incapacitating shoulder blow.

  It all happened in a blur; his arm swept up, knife soaring through the air, covering the gap between them in a fraction of a second, his target completely unawares. Then, instantly, impossibly, the Wildman span around on the spot, raising his spit like a shield, the knife plunging harmlessly into one of the roasted carcasses.

  He’d missed. Anger flared.

  “I never miss…” he growled, reaching for his swords.

  ***

  Stone looked down incredulously at the small, bronze dagger that stuck out of the middle rabbit and gulped. The slave trader came stalking over, murmuring some low and menacing threat in the same harsh tongue the guards were speaking earlier, unsheathing long and lethal looking swords as he did. Stone glanced left and right; he could hear the guards returning, only paces from the camp now, not knowing whether to dart left or right to escape.

  He was put in mind of his confrontation with the wolf-pack only a few days previous; though he was damn sure that this mean looking warrior edging closer and closer wouldn’t be so easy to outwit. His mind raced.

  “Hungry?”

  He threw the rabbit laden spit hard at his attacker, hoping to distract him long enough to make a break for it, but as he feared the warrior was too smart, batting the carcasses away with the flat of a sword and leaping forwards to attack. Leaning backwards, Stone barely avoided decapitation as a blade whistled past in a dazzling arc. He took a few more steps back, quickly, hoping to open some distance up between him and his would-be-killer, but the seasoned warrior was having none of it, following him with footwork swift and sure.

  With a humourless grin that spoke of confidence in his skill, the slaver lunged forwards with a flourish of blades, each strike a killing blow. A cry of desperation erupted from Stone’s lips as he bent his every spare shred of will towards slowing the deadly sweeps. Sound went muted, as though he were underwater; the flames danced languidly in the campfire and the leaves rustled lazily in the trees above, but still the blades came fast, such was the speed and skill of their wielder.

  Stone dodged left, then right, ducking, weaving, desperately seeking a way out of the web of bronze being weaved by his adversary. A cut appeared on his left shoulder, shallow but painful, then another on his right cheek, the blood welling with gelatinous lack of pace in his heightened state of speed. Such was the skill of his foe that he knew he couldn’t escape; his every ounce of might channelled into dodging the blades, never a moment free to turn and run. The back of his mind burned with the effort of stretching out these long moments.

  His opponent roared with frustration, the sound deep and echoing in this state, his face a picture of rage as he redoubled his efforts to kill his prey. As his eyes followed the swords, weaving about him in a lethal ring of death, bright sparks of realisation erupted within Stone’s mind, a flash of epiphany as he somehow saw a pattern in their motion. A weakness he could exploit.

  Just as the swords described a spinning arc away from each other in order to come back round with a decapitating double-stroke, there was a gap where no sharp bronze defended the attacker’s mid-section. With a snarl, Stone powered his right arm through the gap, the resistance of the air at such speed making it seem as though he were punching through deep water. His open palm impacted on his opponent’s chest and he knew that the blow would grant him a couple of seconds to rest.

  He let go of the moment.

  ***

  Raga flew backwards, stunned by the force of the blow to his chest, landing hard on his back on the frozen ground, swords knocked from his grip. His mind struggled to comprehend what had happened in the last five seconds; he had attacked his prey with the Five Circles of Noon, a technique that took years to master, providing the perfect blend of attack and defence and that had proven the bane of many of Raga’s opponents in duels past. Yet this scruffy, emaciated-looking Wildman had just dodged virtually every successive strike with mind-boggling speed, then proceeded to attack through the one, sole opening in the defence, as though he himself were a master of the technique.

  The intruder was standing still, staggering and blinking rapidly as though trying to clear away the last vestiges of a bad migraine. Finally, he seemed to focus and come back to reality, his eyes widening as he saw Raga springing back to his feet.

  The Wildman turned to run, but this time Raga was the faster, grabbing a bola from the stockpile of weapons by the fire, throwing it expertly in a looping motion to entangle around his fleeing foe’s ankles, sending him tumbling to the ground.

  At that instant, the guards came flying into the camp, confused, embarrassed and eager to set upon the stricken man who struggled to untangle himself on the floor, but Raga kept them at bay with a mere hand gesture.

  “He’s mine…”

  Raga leapt over to the struggling thief and kicked him hard in the side of the head, stunning him, to the cheers of the on-looking guards.

  “Not so fast on the ground, are you?”

  He walked over to the rabbits on the spit, pulling his throwing knife free, before returning to his dazed opponent, kneeling down and pulling him onto his back to face him. He brought the knife up, blade held downwards to strike.

  “I don’t know who or what you are, but today is not your day” he spat, one hand around the other man’s throat. “To sell you at market, I only need to make sure you have all your limbs. It won’t hurt your value if I leave a few marks. You will learn a valuable lesson; that I am not a man to be messed with.”

  He licked his lips, eyes shining with a feral glee, even as his fallen victim began to recover his senses, a look of horror on his face at the prospect of the pain to come.

  “These scars will forever remind you of that lesson…”

  ***

  Stone would have screamed, but for the throat around his neck, as the bronze dagger swept down to mutilate his face. The pain in his head prohibited any time-slowing antics, but pure instinct and adrenaline led his hands to grab hold of his assailant’s wrist as it descended.

  His two hands managed to arrest his foe’s one, briefly, till the Slaver removed his other hand from about Stone’s throat and used that to help force the knife down. Th
e Slaver was bigger, heavier and with the advantage of gravity, and so slowly, inexorably the knife descended to bring about his disfigurement. The noble features of the warrior were twisted into a terrifying mask of bloodlust as his entire being was bent towards nought but the butchery of his enemy’s flesh. The point of the knife pricked Stone’s cheek, just below his left eye, slowly piercing his skin, millimetre by millimetre; the blood pounded in his ears, every pulse a sharp stab of pain, as the barbarian sought to duplicate the cut that bedecked Stone’s other cheek.

  Stone gazed into that savage visage, fear clutching his innards in its icy grip, just as it did after the mauling at the hands (or rather claws) of the bear. And just as before, something reminded him that he had the power to alter his destiny, escape this pain. He always had. Always would. And with that, the fear went, just as it did before. And that latent power surged once more, to the fore.

  Even as the muscles in his arms strained and buckled before the onslaught, his consciousness seemed to expand, to reach down into the ground beneath him. He could feel the topsoil, compacted hard on top, but softer underneath, wriggling with life despite the harsh winter above. Further down, he could feel the thick clay, then further still the rugged bedrock, within which rushed underground streams of mineral-rich water. Here and there, veins of metal glinted in his mind, copper, tin. Even further down than that, he could feel a distant and immeasurable warmth, but something told him to venture no further, that he could sate his thirst for power with what he’d tasted already.

  As though he were a man dying in the heat of the desert and stumbling upon an oasis of cold and clear water, he supped from the rich, minerally goodness of the earth, feeling nutrients and pure, natural vitality flowing into his every cell, replacing everything that had depleted, suffusing him with renewed energy and strength.