Kayne glanced down at the headless corpse near Isaac’s feet. ‘Huh. They don’t seem very grateful for another crack at life, all things considered.’
There was another flash of lightning and the manservant jumped. He smiled sheepishly. ‘The spirits are consumed with hatred and rage. Their deaths were not happy ones.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘I read a lot of books. It’s one of the perks of working at the depository.’
‘I ain’t never read a book in my life.’
‘But you’ve fought these creatures before?’
‘Aye. Them and worse. Strollers ain’t the worst of what plagues the Fangs. The demons that come down from the Devil’s Spine, they’re as tough as most abominations and a good deal smarter. And there’s been more of ’em as the years go by.’
‘Demons are little more than children’s tales in these parts.’
Kayne shrugged. ‘The witch doctors say the barrier between the realm of men and the realm of demons is weak up in the Spine, and getting weaker. They say the murder of the gods broke the world.’
For a moment Isaac’s dull face seemed to register a keen interest. ‘What does the Shaman say?’
‘Nothing. He don’t talk about the gods. He don’t talk about the past at all.’
Isaac was about to say something else when a loud gasp nearby drew their attention. Kayne turned, afraid he would find the Wolf making good on his promise to Sasha. Instead the girl was staring off at something across the village.
‘What is it, lass?’ he asked.
She pointed through the rain to a large building in the distance. ‘There’s a granary over there. I saw a light flickering inside. And… there was something else. It didn’t look human.’
‘One of these?’ Isaac asked, pointing at the motionless stroller Jerek had battered against a tree. The Wolf was nowhere to be seen.
Sasha shook her head. ‘Bigger. And it had too many arms.’
‘Can’t say I like the sound of that,’ Kayne muttered. His voice shook. The fever was getting worse and, with the adrenalin from the recent excitement wearing off, he was feeling as bad as before. His wound needed urgent attention. There was nothing else for it. ‘If there’s light, could be there’s villagers within. One of them might be a physician, or know where we can find supplies.’
‘What about the thing I saw? What happens if it attacks us?’
Brodar Kayne gripped his sword tighter and tried to disguise the weakness in his voice. ‘I ain’t dead yet.’
The granary was an old cylindrical structure set back near the fence that surrounded the village. It was built on a low platform accessible by a short set of wooden steps. A couple of holes set high in the structure emitted the faint glow of torchlight, but no one answered when they knocked on the door. On further investigation they found it was barred from behind and likely barricaded within.
‘Shit,’ said Brodar Kayne.
A twig snapped behind them. He whirled around, his sword in his hands and up to strike before his ears had barely registered the noise.
It was the Wolf. ‘Like that then, is it?’ he asked. He sounded almost hurt.
‘Where did you get to?’ Kayne asked.
‘For a walk. Needed to let off some steam.’
Kayne noticed Sasha and Isaac staring at him. ‘What?’ he said.
The girl had an astonished look on her face. ‘I’ve never seen you move like that before,’ she said.
‘Like what?’
‘Like… that. I thought you were hurt.’
‘Ain’t the first time I’ve been hurt, lass. I got a lifetime’s experience of not dying. My body’s learned to take care of itself without any help from my old brain. There’s no substitute for experience.’
‘You must teach me!’ Isaac said excitedly. ‘Oh, I’ve read a lot about swordplay, but to learn from a legend such as the Sword of the North… Now that would be a dream come true!’
‘If we manage to survive the night I might just do that,’ the old Highlander replied. ‘Now probably ain’t the time, though-’
‘Saw some nasty shit,’ Jerek cut in abruptly. They all looked at him. ‘Villagers choked to death. Some with entrails hanging out of their arses,’ he added darkly. ‘Just like that cow. Killed a couple more strollers, too.’
Brodar Kayne felt a shiver run up his spine. ‘That thing you saw, lass. Think it might be responsible?’
Sasha thought about it for a moment and nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And it’s out there somewhere.’ Her hand went to the crossbow under her cloak.
Kayne rapped on the granary door again. ‘Let us in,’ he said as loudly but amicably as he could manage. ‘We’re friends.’
There was no response.
Jerek strolled up to the door and slammed a boot into it. It hardly budged. ‘Open the fucking door!’ he bellowed. When there was no answer, he reached behind him and unsheathed an axe.
Kayne was about to restrain him when suddenly he heard it: a susurration, as of a handful of snakes slithering over snow. The air smelled rotten, like a dozen corpses left to rot in the sun for a week. He knew that odour, had learned to read the signs when he served the Shaman as the protector of the High Fangs.
An abomination was approaching.
As one they turned. There it was, emerging from behind rain-swept trees like a nightmare made flesh. Its torso was humanoid in shape but supported on two thick tentacles instead of legs, and it spouted a dozen writhing tendrils in place of arms. They twisted and curled obscenely, probing as if tasting the air. A small and vaguely human head perched on top of the body, but it possessed no eyes or nose or ears — only an oversized mouth frozen in a death rictus.
One of the tendrils snaked out in their direction, paused for a second, and then retracted. Suddenly the lower tentacles pushed down hard on the muddy ground, raising the abomination high into the air so that it hovered above them. The head began to vibrate, faster and faster until it became a blur.
Jerek shifted and then his axe was hurtling towards the horror, end over end. It sank into the puffy grey flesh, splitting it open. From the sundered chest of the abomination poured a torrent of pus, as though a giant blister had burst. The stench made Kayne want to vomit. The head continued to vibrate, and then the abomination was writhing towards them on its hind limbs like some gigantic spider preparing to engulf its prey.
‘Get out of here!’ he yelled, pushing Isaac and Sasha away. Jerek had his other axe in his hand. The Wolf looked at him, nodded once, and then sprinted forwards, ducking under one flailing tendril to roll and come up just behind the abomination.
His old bones protesting with every movement, his abused flesh slick from fever and the relentless rain, Brodar Kayne lifted his greatsword and strolled to meet the horror. Just need to hold it off long enough for the girl and Isaac to escape, he thought grimly.
A tendril shot down, reaching for his head, but he leaned back at the last moment and it passed in front of him. Another darted towards his chest. He pivoted, felt it brush harmlessly against his leather. Foul mucus dripped from its length, which tapered to a hardened barb at the end.
Jerek was to the right of him, a dozen feet away. The Wolf was chopping away at two of the probing tendrils. He severed one. The other wrapped itself around his ankles and jerked upwards. Uttering a stream of curses, the Wolf was tugged from his feet and pulled along the mud as he tried desperately to line up another slash at the grappling appendage.
Isaac suddenly sprinted into view, a torch in one hand and his longsword in the other. ‘How do you like this?’ he shouted at the apparition, and hurled the torch at its lower tentacles.
Kayne watched the torch land and brush against the wormy flesh of the abomination’s leg-tentacles. He half expected it to catch fire and flare up like a pile of dry old kindling. Instead the flame flickered for a second and fizzled out. He looked across at Isaac.