Skinner grimaced his distaste. ‘Again? He is most insistent.’
The three faced the tent portal where the dusk was obscured by a shadow and the ragged figure of a beggar or itinerant monk slipped within. He glared as if enraged, his eyes black and wide behind the strings of his matted hair. ‘Your cowardice and delay have cost us dear!’
Skinner’s frown deepened. ‘What is this?’
‘While you have sat upon your hands others have moved against us!’
‘Clarify …’ Skinner ground out, his voice low and menacing.
‘My lord demands you accompany me now.’
‘Where?’ Petal asked.
‘To where you should have been and gone had you any shred of initiative.’
‘Explain-’ Skinner began.
But the priest gestured and the interior of the tent seemed to blur. ‘Enough! We go.’
It seemed to Mara that the tent spun while the damp earth of the floor grew soft. They sank as if through a slew of mud, the soil tinged by a hot acidic burn of chaos. After a sickening plunge and twist they emerged into rain. Petal straightened nearby, slapping at his robes and snarling his outrage. Mara leaned over, her stomach roiling from the obscene touch of raw chaos, and vomited violently. A hand in an iron gauntlet steadied her: Skinner. She straightened while wiping the bile from her mouth.
Beneath massed clouds a plain of standing stones surrounded them. Lightning illuminated the scene, slashing almost continuously. It seemed to be concentrated … sizzling energy overwhelmed her groping senses. Its waterfall coursing blinded her and drove a spike into her forehead. She turned away, gasping her pain, to face the scowling priest of the Crippled God, who glared, free of any sympathy. Through the stars flashing in her vision Mara blinked at the man and grated: ‘Do that again and I will kill you.’
He ignored her. ‘Know this place, King of Chains?’ he demanded, sneering.
‘The Dolmens of Tien,’ Skinner answered, his voice oddly hollow.
The Dolmens! Mara turned to him but his back was to her. Where he and Cowl imprisoned K’azz. With, some whispered, Ardata’s connivance.
‘Yes! Where what lies within ought to have been ours by now!’
Skinner adjusted his full helm and advanced into the forest of standing stones. Mara and Petal followed. The priest trailed in a curious hopping and jerking walk. Soon a shimmering wall of Warren-magics came into view. ‘Hold!’ Mara called to Skinner.
‘I see it,’ their commander answered, sounding annoyed.
She and Petal exchanged a wondering glance. He sees it?
‘Can it be breached?’
‘Perhaps,’ Petal answered.
While Skinner waited, arms crossed, she and Petal examined the layered warding. ‘Kurald Galain,’ she opined. Petal gave a ponderous nod of assent.
‘And more. Something very rare. Something I haven’t seen since …’ His gaze flicked to Skinner then held hers. ‘Starvald Demelain.’
That most ancient Warren! Some said progenitor to all magics. And one accessible to … Ardata. She nodded in answer to the man’s silent message. She knew she was out of her depth here in any case; stone and earth were her strengths. Petal was the researcher into the ways of the Warrens. Was this her work? If so, it had come too early. Their plan called for a much later confrontation — if any at all. ‘A slide?’ she suggested.
Petal nodded again, his chins bunching. ‘Yes. It appears to have been woven to allow passage … we merely have to find the correct …’ He hissed a breath between clenched teeth as he worked his Warren manipulation: a personal admixture of elements of Thyr and Mockra. The borderlands of both, he’d once told her ‘… the correct … note … and we may pass as well.’ He grunted then, and wiped the rain from his face with a sleeve just as sodden. ‘There we are. Safe enough.’
She eyed him, as did Skinner. Neither moved. Petal smoothed his robes down the broad slope of his stomach and sighed. ‘Very well … if I must.’ He stepped through in his ungainly rocking gait then turned to them and described a mocking bow.
Skinner gave a laugh of appreciation. ‘Well done, Petal.’ And he stepped through. Mara followed. The priest hopped past, flapping his arms as if he could push the churning energies aside. Skinner led them to the edge of a central circular marshalling ground or plaza. Here he stopped and crossed his arms, seeming to survey the scene.
To Mara at first it appeared completely still. Then she noted how the stones shifted and humped as if something beneath were heaving or turning. Like the surface of a lake where huge creatures swim. And just what creature might this be?
Aside, she noted the many impressions of footsteps. Most of similar kind: heavy boots. Uniform. A military force? And recent excavations around the inner stones. These pits now pooled in rainwater. Come and gone, in any case.
Something punched through the surface of the fine white gravel and Mara jerked, startled, a hand going to her throat. She immediately pulled the hand down, growling her anger at the instinctive reaction. Skinner had knelt to one knee. The black skirting of his armour rustled and spread about him like a pool of glistening night.
It was an arm, human, seemingly, and it scooped at the stones as a swimmer might pull at the water, making for shore. Another hand appeared and as they flailed closer Mara came to doubt their humanity. The fingers appeared more like bird’s claws, the flesh scaled and ending in amber talons. Scraped and raw, they dug at the gravel, making a slow advance towards the stone ledge of the field.
Mara cast an uncertain glance to Petal whose brow was furrowed as he studied the amazing demonstration. Skinner, his back to them, had tilted his head aside as he watched, neither shrinking away nor offering aid of any kind.
In time a scalp of grimed long black hair broached the surface and was thrown back with an exultant yell and gasp of air. It was female, whatever it was. Her eyes blazed in the night like twin flaming suns.
‘Get me out of here!’ she demanded.
‘Where is that which was within!’ the priest yelled, now daring to dance in closer.
The woman ignored the priest: her gaze was fixed upon Skinner. She threw out an arm, reaching for him. ‘Take my hand! Break the bonds … you can do it.’
Their commander did not move. ‘What happened here?’ he asked gently.
‘Pull me out and I’ll tell you,’ she snarled as she dug at the stones like a drowning swimmer.
Skinner straightened. He shook his helmed head. ‘Nothing better than that?’
‘Damn you to the Abyss,’ the woman growled. With an immense surge of effort she managed to lurch forward and slap one hand on to the cut stone ledge. Her thick talons scraped and gouged the stone.
Skinner continued to shake his head. ‘No. I think it best you remain out of contention for a time.’ And he drew back his armoured boot then swung it forward, kicking the woman across the face.
She slewed backwards into the wide field of stones. If her gaze had been furious before it now fairly crackled with dazzling insane fury. She drew a hand, all sinew and amber talons, across her bleeding mouth as she was dragged backwards, sinking, and she yelled: ‘Jacuruku will consume you, Skinner!’ Then she disappeared once again as the stones hissed and collapsed in a smoking slurry.
Skinner turned away, murmuring, ‘As has been prophesised.’ He now regarded Mara and Petal from behind the slit of his helm. ‘Well? Which way have they gone?’
Mara started, jerking a quick bow. As did Petal. ‘Yes — of course. Right away,’ she said shakily, still rather shocked by the brutal — and audacious — act. They headed off, following the trail.
The priest came along hopping and jerking at Skinner’s side like a mongrel dog. ‘You were too hasty,’ he complained. ‘We could have questioned her …’