Tiny white dots fizzled in the corner of her vision and she could taste blood. Her opponent hovered above, staring down with a smile playing on her lips.
“Not bad,” chuckled Ejan, as she tucked the toe of her boot beneath Elora’s fallen sword and flipped it up into the air and caught it deftly with her free hand. “You put too much weight into your lunge and over reached.” She passed Elora her sword back and pulled her to her feet. “But never the less, a good attempt. That will do today though, I’ll teach you more when we reach Thea.”
“Which won’t be too long,” said Zionbuss, staring off into the mountains that were so close now that Elora could make out cliff faces, rocks and boulders on the jagged peaks.
“Looking forward to it,” Elora said, sliding her sword into her smuggler’s pouch. Bray came up behind her and began to massage the shoulder.
“You ok?” he asked.
“Fine. In fact, I don’t even feel tired at all,” she answered, finding the fact odd because they must have been practicing for hours.
“Things work differently here. The place isn’t right,” Bray said.
Elora was about to say that she didn’t mind it when she saw movement at the base of the mountain. “What’s that?” She pointed at a swarming dark mass which she at first took for vegetation but realised that nothing grew here. She felt Bray’s fingers suddenly press tighter.
“Takwiches. It’s a swarm,” he said, then pointed it out for the rest to see.
Zionbuss hissed through his teeth, forked tongue poking between fangs. “They’ve sensed there’s a gate close by. We’ll need to fly above and lower you down directly into the opening. Drop you if needs be.”
Elora watched the insectoid creatures as they crawled, squirmed and skittered over each other as they climbed the rocks. “There’s so many.”
“Solarius’s best weapon,” said her uncle, frowning down on the swarming mass. “They can crawl silently into enemy ranks. Undetected, it would take a single bite from each takwich and an entire army would suddenly become your father’s legion without losing a single soldier.”
“So, Silk was one of those originally?” Elora asked.
Nat nodded. “Him and all his men.”
“There’s enough down there to take control of the entire British army,” said Bray.
“And more still. Enough to take all the armies in Europe, Asia and India,” said Diagus, white pearl scanning the base of the mountain before turning on Elora. “We cannot fail. Earth will surely fall if we do.”
“I remember the last time a swarm came through to Earth. That was a couple of thousand years ago. Somewhere in the middle east,” offered Zionbuss.
“Aye,” agreed Diagus. “Took a Shadojak and several battalions of Shades to bring it under control.”
“But wouldn’t something like that have been in the history books?” asked Elora, her mind trying to picture a mass of takwiches back in ancient times.
“Not history books, but it’s in the bible,” said Bray. “Moses - a plague of locusts, sound familiar? And it wasn’t the eldest son of each family they took. It was anybody they could sink their teeth into.”
“And the angel of death?” Elora asked.
“A Shadojak by the name of Donifymed the Great. Using the very blade Diagus has now - your father’s; carving the rot that would surely have spread throughout Earth and turning the Nile red with their blood. Afterwards, Moses led the Israelites to their new lands, taking the credit for saving his people and, like a lot of history, the facts were warped in favour of the church.”
Ragna spat over the side. “Isn’t there a way we can kill this swarm here?”
“Not really,” answered Diagus, shaking his head. “Not without going down to their level and start picking them off, but we’d get swamped in them before we even killed ten score ourselves. And if we get bitten then we’ll be fighting each other. Best we avoid them altogether. A swarm that size and there’s bound to be a spliceck.”
“Spliceck?” This from Otholo.
“Yep. Maybe one in every few thousand is a spliceck. Nastier than the average takwich, they’ve got the ability to produce another shell after they’ve taken a body. Unlike a takwich, which will die once the host is killed. A spliceck, given a day or so can move from host to host, even if the body itself is killed and they can take the memories from each possession. Come across one of those then you’ll need to kill and burn the body then wait for the creature to escape its host and kill it as well. Never met one myself, but rare as they are, they do exist.”
Elora gazed down at the tiny insects and shuddered at the thought of having them crawling on her skin. Bray must have sensed her unease as he slipped an arm around her. She leaned into him and switched her gaze to the bare peak they were rising to. A large rock formation lay scattered around a man-size crater; at first appearing random but as he she stared she found it had a kind of symmetry, almost a pattern.
“The swarm senses our approach, you best not waste any more time. Bard, open the gate,” ordered Zionbuss.
Otholo put a foot upon the rail, Cuban heel tapping a beat against the bone as his fingers teased a playful arpeggio on the lute. Then before Elora’s eyes a layer of frost sparkled around the crater, white runes standing out against the red rock and at its centre, an onyx black circle shimmered.
Zionbuss shouted at his crew and several of them jumped from the ship and surrounded the gate, swords and axes at hand. The demon then turned to the group.
“Once you’re through I’ll destroy the gate. Then burn as many of the takwiches as I can.”
“You’re not coming?” asked Elora, realising that an eight-foot horned demon might have come in handy if they got into any trouble.
“This is where I leave you my queen. I am, after all said and done, still a demon. The barrier prevents me from passing into the worlds unless I take another’s body.” His black eyes found Otholo and he grinned. “I take it there’s no volunteers?” He laughed when the bard leapt behind Ragna. “Don’t worry yourself, Otholo. I’ve work to be doing here.” His gaze swung back to Elora “I will meet you again my queen. The Shadowlands are as much your home as they are mine.” He nodded at one of his crew and the skeletal mate rolled the rope ladder over the edge, directly above the gate. “Safe journey.”
Ragna slapped Zionbuss on the arm and descended the ladder, closely followed by Ejan who gave the demon a curt nod, but nothing more. After they disappeared through the inky black gate her uncle climbed over the gunnel, took a final look around the ship as if recording it to memory, maybe to write in his journal later, and began to climb down. Otholo swung a leg over the edge next, his lute clattering into his back as he scowled at Zionbuss.
“I still hate you,” he said, then made a hasty retreat down the ladder after Elora’s uncle. Bray then followed, giving Elora’s hand a reassuring squeeze before simply dropping off the ship without using the ladder. Elora rushed to the edge to see his body slip into the hole.
“Now you.” ordered the Shadojak, staring at her, hand hovering around his smuggler’s pouch.
“Of course,” replied Elora, mildly annoyed at his mistrust, but respecting that from his point of view she could just as easily leave with Zionbuss and set off across the Shadowlands.
As she passed the demon she gave him a hug, the top of her head coming level with his bare chest. “Thank you for keeping your word. I hope we’ll meet again.”
“It is inevitable, my queen.” His voice echoing through his chest into Elora’s cheek, feeling like an earthquake; the runes and symbols on his skin swirling, making it hard to focus.
Elora smiled at him before swinging her legs over the rail and climbed down the ladder. The sound of a million clicking limbs and claws tapping at the rocks came to her ears as the crew of the Necrolosis began striking the approaching swarm of takwiches. She dropped into the inky black gate before they were over-run with the body snatching insects.
