Dolorosa considered she had better things to do than chase a herb up and down the hillside. The preparations for Kali Hooper's memorial evening — a drink-till-you-drop session which all the Flagon's regulars considered the most appropriate way to remember her — had taken the best part of two days. The last of them, a surprise stew for the evening — which was, of course, no surprise to the regulars, though none of them had told Dolorosa that — was all but done. But the hunt for one of its more vital ingredients was proving to be difficult. Said task had occupied her for the past half hour and, in that time, something of a murderous glint had appeared in her twitching right eye.
"I will 'avva you, you leetle red bastardo!" she threatened, her arm swooping down to grab the skittering bunch of macalorum.
But once again the leafy herb evaded her clutches, bouncing and flapping away down the hill towards the Flagons and causing the tall, thin woman to lose balance on the slope and flip heel over head, her skirt flapping after her and enveloping her like a tent.
"Bastardo!" she hissed again, from beneath the cloth.
A group of drinkers outside the tavern stared open-mouthed at an exposed pair of skull and crossbones bloomers and — possibly as a release of tension at the bad new they had all received — there was much pointing and loud and raucous bursts of laughter. Dolorosa's head popped out of the bundle of cloth and she flipped her skirt back over her dignity and squinted at them, hard. It was a squint that some said could kill — some even said it had killed — and the laughter stopped. Dead.
Dolorosa straightened, then squinted down at the tavern again. The drinkers had disappeared inside but she could still see their faces pressed up against the tavern's windows and she strained to listen for the merest titter from them. But there was none and they seemed only to be checking that she wasn't striding down the hill after them.
Lucky fora them, she thought, because if they hadda tittered, I would havva to keel them horribly and withouta mercy.
After she had keeled the bastardo.
Dolorosa span as she saw that the macalorum had taken advantage of her unexpected halt to turn around and bounce back up the hill, chittering as it passed her. Once again she made a grab for it, and once again missed. What had made this essential ingredient of her surprise stew quite so skittish she wasn't sure — it was normally such a docile little herb — and she wondered whether it had anything to do with the reports of strange creature sightings to the west. These things nicknamed the k'nid. Certainly macalorum wasn't the only thing around here that was uneasy at the moment, as most of the smaller wildlife in Tarn seemed to be that, or worse. Whatever the cause, the macalorum's determination to avoid becoming an ingredient only made her all the more determined to catch it.
Dolorosa bent and slid her fingers into the rim of her right boot, then rolled up her sleeves and began to stomp after the herb.
The stiletto she had extracted from her footwear gleamed viciously and the woman grinned evilly and tossed it in her palm, weighing it up, before flipping it so that she held it by the end of the blade. All she had to do now was time her moment right. And there it was, she thought, where the herb was about to hop over that small ridge into the trees beyond. The macalorum tensed it roots and Dolorosa threw.
Victory issa mine! she thought, and began to scramble up the hill towards the impaled and struggling herb.
She was almost upon it when she found herself staggering backwards. The sky above her tipped dizzily, as if she were going into a swoon.
Greata Gods of the Seas, I havva overdone myself, she thought. My 'usband, in moments of passion, hassa warned me ovva this.
There was only one problem with that theory, she realised — she didn't feel remotely dizzy or weak. Why, then, did she continue to fall backwards, landing on her behind with a thud and a puff of dry soil?
Anda wotta wassa happening to the hill?
To her confused eyes it seemed to be getting bigger.
Pah! Eet ees impossible.
Impossib -
"Greata Grandma of the Gods!"
Above her, no more than a yard from her upturned feet, the grass that covered the hill was breaking apart, spilling roiling piles of soil onto the otherwise green landscape, like a pan that had begun to bubble over. Dolorosa scrambled back, thinking that perhaps she was being visited by a rarely seen undermuncher, but it soon became clear that it was bigger even than that. The roiling soil was spreading ever outward now, so much so that her feet and the bottom of her legs had begun to rise with it, tipping her further backwards so that she had to steady herself on the palms of her hands. The old woman watched, mesmerised, as the mound turned into a small hillock, and then one not so small, and her eyebrows raised as something suddenly poked its nose through the surface. Something big.
Dolorosa rapidly muttered a small number of hail glorias, and then far more curses, as she was once more tipped heels over head, her skirt enveloping her again, though this time perhaps mercifully as it shielded her gaze from whatever monster was emerging from the depths. She rolled down the hill in darkness, aware as she went that whatever was emerging from the ground was rumbling loudly and that it stank of the depths and something old. Totally unnecessarily, considering she was under her skirt, she closed her eyes and waited for whatever fate was going to befall her.
Suddenly the rumbling stopped.
The unknown beast hissed loudly.
And then… nothing happened.
A second passed. Two. Three. And then, with a gulp of apprehension, Dolorosa flung her skirt off her head, squinting ahead. There, silhouetted by the evening sun, something shadowed and bulky obscured the hillside. Something with a number of projections on its front, like cannon, that seemed to distort the air in front of them. As she stared the beast disgorged something from its side. No, not something, Dolorosa realised — a figure. A strangely familiar figure, as it turned out, witha what appeared to be a bum sticking out ovva its pants.
The figure looked around, taking in its surroundings.
"Pits of Kerberos," Kali Hooper said, "it worked."
She leapt down from the cabin of the machine she had nicknamed The Mole and limped past the prone and gaping old woman, pausing only to point back and declare with girlish enthusiasm; "Dolorosa, you have GOT to get yourself one of those."
"Bossa lady?" Dolorosa said. And then again: "Boss?"
She picked herself up and, with a backward glance at the strange machine, raced after Kali as she hobbled purposefully towards the Flagons, circling her as she walked and squinting with some concern, but mainly suspicion, at the bedraggled, dirt covered figure. Once she had truly established its identity, she poked it in the chest with a bony finger.
"You are notta dead?"
"Nope. But I am thirsty. Very."
"Beer eet issa notta good when you arra dehydrated."
Kali snorted. "Yeah, right."
They reached the doors to the Flagons and Kali flung them open, frowning in puzzlement at the fact the bar was adorned with a great strip of bunting inscribed, in Dolorosa's strangled peninsulan, with the words: 'Kali Hooper — Resta Inna Peas.'
Rather unnecessarily, Dolorosa declared to all within that "the boss lady issa back", but before the expressions of joy had even had time to settle on the regulars' faces, Kali was already seated at the bar, pointing silently, but self-explanatorily, at the cask thwack. Much to his wife's apparent disapproval Aldrededor was already pouring a tankard, and then another, and then — because he knew the occasion would demand it — another still. Kali downed them all in rapid succession, wiped her mouth with her forearm, sighed and burped long and hard.
"That," she gasped, "I needed. Hi, guys," she added, waving at the regulars and smiling as they welcomed her back.
"'Allo, Kaleeee!"
"Good to see yer, halfpint…"
"So — you are not dead," Aldrededor declared, taking the last empty tankard and placing another frothing one in her hand. "It is very good to see you home, Kali Hooper."
"Likewise, Aldrededor." Kali slapped the empty on the bar. "What made you think I was dead?"
Aldrededor shrugged. "The fact that you have been missing for six weeks. That there has been no news at all and, of course, this — " The one-time pirate pointed at Kali's battered and torn equipment belt, hung in pride of place behind the bar. "It washed up on a beach near Nurn. Luckily, Mister Larson was there on his holiday and managed to retrieve it. Thank you, Mister Larson."
"Six weeks?" Kali repeated. She nodded to Ronin as she reclaimed her belt. "That place really threw me out of whack. So have I missed anything?"
"Oh, the usual," Aldrededor said casually. "Red was arrested three or four times, Miss Scrubb has been nibbling the Dreamweed again and — " Rather surprisingly, Aldrededor stopped and suddenly busied himself wiping glasses.
"Aldrededor?" Kali prompted, but the swarthy Sarcrean only shrugged and devoted all his attention to erasing a tiny spot on one of the tankards, one that was seemingly never going to disappear no matter how hard he tried.
Suspicious now, Kali span on her barstool to face the gathered regulars, but where a moment before it had been all "Here's to Kali!" and "We should have known you'd be fine!" there was now a totally uncharacteristic silence.
Kali stared at Pete Two Ties on whom she could usually depend, but his head had descended into what was obviously a particularly challenging cryptosquare. She stared at Fester Grimlock and Jurgen Pike, who in turn stared at their quagmire board despite the fact their game was clearly over. Then she stared at Ronin Larson, the ironweaver, and Hetty Scrubb, the herbalist, who were staring hard at their feet or out of the window, the former humming something tremulous and the latter giggling uncontrollably. Of Dolorosa herself, there was at first no sign, then Kali caught sight of her peering warily from behind the bravado barrel at the far end of the bar. The bravado barrel was a game of nerve with a single arm-hole in its front and there were a number of… interesting creatures provided by Red hidden inside it, but having someone hide behind it was a first.
Something was definitely up.
"Dolorosa?" Kali said, cautiously.
"What?" Dolorosa objected loudly, throwing her hands in the air. "You thinka that iffa there is something you will notta like it hassa to be Dolorosa's fault?"
That clinched it.
"Dolorosa?" she said again, emphasising her question. "What will I 'notta like'?"
Dolorosa squinted at her, saying nothing, but from the corner of her eye Kali saw Red Deadnettle pointing towards the rear of the tavern, mouthing something that looked like 'band.' Kali turned and stared up the few ramshackle steps that led up to her Captain's Table and saw that what had traditionally been her domain, had been filled with a number of strange musical instruments, including a road-worn, sweeping, stringed affair that looked almost elven — what she thought was called a theralin. Frowning, she mounted the steps and saw that the Captain's Chest — storehouse of her papers and sanctum sanctorum of the peninsula's history — had also been buried beneath a spread of tattered music sheets for such appropriately forgotten classics as 'Boom Bang-a Thud', 'What A Wonderful Pie' and 'Yes, She's Heavy, She's My Mother.
"What," she asked Dolorosa, "is this?"
The thin woman threw up her hands in protest but, nonetheless, looked guilty. "Wotta you theenk eet is? Eet is, eet is — "
Her words were lost as one of the thick timber beams, supporting the rooms above, suddenly curved downward with a stressed and prolonged groan that drowned out every other sound in the bar. Kali looked upward, blinking dust from her eyes. The next beam along bowed down, as did the floorboards in between, and then the next, and then the one after that. It was almost surreal, as if the whole infrastructure of the tavern had suddenly turned to rubber.
Then the top step of the stairs sounded as if it were splintering.
"Oh Gods," Pete Two-Ties said. "They're waking up."
Kali double-taked. "What? Who? Pete — who's waking up?"
"Them," Pete pointed.
Kali span. Whatever it was she expected to see, the last of it would have been a small mountain range, but that was exactly what appeared at the bottom of the stairs. A small mountain range squeezing itself into the bar and made up entirely of flesh. One of the mountains spoke. "Coo-ee, boys," it said, with a wink.
Oh Gods, Kali thought. No, it couldn't be. Not here.
"The Hells' Bellies," she mouthed with dread. Her ordeals of the last few weeks notwithstanding she turned as white as a sheet.
The eyes in the peaks of the talking mountain lit up. "Our fame has spread! This young lady, she has heard of us!"
Kali was tempted to point out that the entire peninsula had 'heard' of them and that their fame wasn't the only thing that had spread. But she held her tongue and, instead, glowered at Dolorosa.
"Explain," she demanded, darkly.
"What issa there to explain?" Dolorosa said in a slightly high pitch, clearly going on the defensive. "We thoughta you dead and so we thoughta we woulda make a few changes…"
Kali caught Aldrededor waving from behind his wife, desperate to catch her attention. He was shaking his head vigorously and pointing at Dolorosa.
"Changes?" Kali asked, flatly.
"Entertainment!" Dolorosa declared. "Cabaret! Culture! And so I contracted the most popular dancing troupe in the two provinces!"
Kali felt her heart seize. "Contracted? For how long?"
"They havva performed for three nights," Dolorosa said, "and they havva forty one left."
Kali did a quick calculation. "You've contracted them for a month?"
Pete Two-Ties head thudded down onto his table in defeat and shook back and forth slowly.
"The whole of Cantar?" Kali said in disbelief. She signalled to Aldrededor to pour another thwack, which she grabbed and downed in one. "No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO! Cancel it, Dolorosa, now."
A small moon suddenly orbited in front of Kali's face. Except that it wasn't a moon but another face. It took a second to fold itself into a jowly frown. "Cancel… contract?" it said, and Kali wished that Merrit Moon was there so that the Hells' Belly and the Thrutt side of his personality could communicate on equal terms.
She swallowed and used her words slowly. "Yes. Cancel. Contract."
"Pff," the moon said, throwing up its arms. Hairs the length of mools tails sprang forth from dim and horrible pits. "How can you, wisp of a thing, demand she cancel contract?"
"Because I own the place."
The Hells' Belly guffawed and Kali was blasted with the odours of stale and cheap wine, cigars, and the assorted yellow remains of potato crunchies still providing their money's worth where they were stuck between huge, horse-like teeth. "Missus Dolorosa, she owns the place. She told us this is so."
Kali turned to Dolorosa, but the door to the Flagon's courtyard was already slamming shut behind her.
"Look," she said, wearily. "I'll pay you twice your contracted fee to cancel the remaining performances."
The moon loomed again. A hand snapped a garter on a thigh the thickness of a tree trunk and Kali turned away before she was involuntarily mesmerised by what happened to the flesh around it as a result. "Our fee is nothing compared to the tips we receive from our… gentlemen."
Across the room, Red Deadnettle and Ronin Larson coughed in embarrassment. Kali stared at them and sighed.
"Fine. I'll give you three times your fee. How's that?"
The offer was clearly tempting but a frown still crossed the Hells' Belly's face. It thrust itself at Kali interrogatively. "If we leave now, how will you guarantee our safety?"
"Your safety?"
"These are dangerous times, strip of a thing. What if we are attacked on the road?"
Kali pictured bruised and screaming grabcoins flying through the air. "Are you serious? Who in their right minds would take on you lo — ?"
She stopped as a hand suddenly rested on her shoulder and Aldrededor whispered in her ear.
"I do not think she is talking about grabcoins, Kali Hooper. I believe she refers to the k'nid."
"The k'nid?"
"Those things that have flooded our land and will soon be everywhere. The… Wait, you do not know?"
"There wasn't much news where I've been." Kali frowned. "Tell me."
Aldrededor told her of the reports of strange creatures coming from the west, of the deaths and invasions of towns, and Kali absorbed the information, worried but simply nodding. Again, she sighed. "All right… ladies. For now you can stay. But under one condition. While I'm around I do not, repeat do not, want any danc — "
Her words fell on deaf ears. The Hells' Bellies were already skipping, if that was the word, to the makeshift stage, clapping their hands in glee, and Red and Ronin turned their stools toward them appreciatively. As if from nowhere, a number of small, thin and sallow looking men — their husbands? — appeared and took up the instruments that lay on the stage, stroking, blowing or strumming them respectively to produce a discordant wail that would have repelled a Vossian army. Then, without any tuning up, any rehearsal, it just… began.
Thudding.
Kali grabbed her tankard of thwack before it wobbled off the bar and looked around as others did the same. She stared up at the ceiling as streams of dust began to fall in columns. She gazed at the windows, expecting them to crack at any moment. She bit her lip. There was nothing she could do here. But there was something she could deal with outside. And her name was Dolorosa.
Kali slammed the main door to the Flagons behind her and stood with her back to it for a second, sighing in relief. Then she jumped away as the entire tavern shook. She moved across the relative silence of the courtyard and then frowned darkly as she spotted Dolorosa pottering about near the stables. Kali moved up behind her slowly and quietly, saw that the old woman was hastily wrapping what looked to be a new tavern sign in folds of cloth. It appeared that the Here There Be Flagons had been in the process of being renamed — as The Olde Crow's Nest.
Should be the Old Crone's Nest, Kali thought. By the Gods, I go away for a few weeks and when I get back my pub's been boarded by pirates.
She was about to prod Dolorosa in the back, give her the fright she deserved, when her attention was distracted by a noise from the main stable. A low rumble, in fact. A strangely familiar sounding low rumble.
Horse? Kali thought.
Horse!
Kali slammed open the stable doors, making Dolorosa jump, and there he was, a living, breathing armoured tank desultorily poking his snout into a pile of hay. His big green eyes looked up as she entered and, as Kali said "Horse" once more, his head rose and a serpentine tongue curled out and slobbered itself with abandon all over her face. Kali moved forward and slapped his neck.
You came back, she thought. You didn't return to the Drakengrats, after all. Hells, it's good to see you, boygirl.
There was, however, something wrong. As pleased as Kali was to be reunited with her mount, Horse's whole demeanour seemed off kilter, eyes duller than usual, chitin plating less polished, and his general presence — usually quite comment worthy — less, well, imposing. Kali patted the bamfcat, murmuring a soothing hey, hey…
"Eet ees the worgles," Dolorosa explained from behind her. "They havva all gone away."
"Worgles?"
The small furballs were Horse's favourite snack — almost his staple diet, in fact — and were usually to be found in abundance all over the peninsula. It had taken Kali some time to get used to Horse's habit of scooping the poor little creatures up with his serpentine tongue, but used to it she had got, and the fact that they were apparently not around was even more unsettling than Horse's carnivorousness before their disappearance.
"Worgles, poongs, bladderrips, all of the small creatures they hide a fromma the k'nid. But the worgles, especially, seem to fear them greatly. It ees almost as eef — "
"These k'nid? Where do they come from? What do they look like?"
Dolorosa shrugged. "Where they come from, no one knows. Whatta they looka like is difficult to say. I have hearda many reports. All I know is thatta they are deadly. Butta you need notta worry, Dolorosa doubts they will find their way here to the Cro — erm, to the Flagons."
Kali frowned. "It doesn't strike you that the worgles and the rest have gone into hiding because the k'nid might be somewhere near?"
"Fff. No, the Flagons is special, isolated. Dolorosa feel it inna her plumbing — they will notta come here."
Kali grimaced and forced a certain image from her mind. But the grimace froze as, in the vitreous of Horse's eyes, she caught a glint of something low and dark behind her, moving into the Flagon's courtyard. "Think again," she said.
Working its way around a bush into the courtyard was an almost indescribable shape. It reminded Kali of the brackan she had encountered in the Sardenne Forest, but of many other things also. Somehow that made it seem many times worse. Moving slowly, and crackling strangely, like an open fire, it began to work its way around the edges of the courtyard, probing in a way that made Kali think it was some kind of scout. And where there was a scout, there would be the main party not far behind.
"I take it," Kali said with some distaste, "that's a k'nid."
She moved slowly out of the stable, shutting and bolting it behind her. Then she peered along Badland's Brook where, in the darkness, she could just make out what appeared to be a blanket of deeper darkness on the ground, extending back to the horizon. The blanket undulated and rippled slightly.
"Walk slowly back to the Flagons," she instructed Dolorosa. "Make no sudden moves."
The old woman nodded and did as bade, walking sideways so as not to lose sight of what lay outside the tavern's grounds.
They had only made it halfway across the courtyard before the scout k'nid reared and its friends tumbled forward, as if they were leaves swept into the courtyard on a breeze. Before either of them knew what was happening one leapt straight for Dolorosa, and the old woman screamed.
Kali stared, shocked and unable to believe what had just happened. One second beside her, the next not, Dolorosa was gone, as if she had never been.
That bloody woman, she thought, watching the door to the Flagons once more slamming behind her. Hidden athletic depths or not, she and I are going to have to have serious words. But not now. Because, right now, there are more pressing things to deal with. Namely, thanks to a certain someone, that I'm now the only target.
As the k'nid rushed at her in a sudden, swarming sea, Kali did the only thing she could to get out of their path. With a grunt of pain from her bad leg, she leapt upwards to grab the guttering of the stable roof, using this to flip herself up and over so that she ended up crouched on the lip of the roof itself, watching as the k'nid impacted with the stable wall.
As they recovered from the impact, it was a good position for her to study the creatures. She certainly couldn't disagree that they were ugly little bastards, flooding the courtyard like a colony of insects that had been disturbed from beneath some rock. But whatever rock that had been, she had certainly never come across one like it. These things struck every fibre of her being as unnatural.
They did not, however, seem to be quite the destructive force Aldrededor's reports had suggested. They were certainly making no moves to destroy the Flagons.
Now, why exactly was that? she wondered.
It took her a second to realise that the k'nid seemed to be reacting to the vibrations from inside the tavern — actually shying back each time a thud occurred. Was it possible, she thought, that these things had worked their way across the peninsula, attacking all in their path, only to be stopped here, by a dance troupe?
Kali chided herself, almost laughed. No, that was plain daft. In fact, it was the stupidest thing she'd ever -
The Flagons suddenly fell silent, doubtless in response to Dolorosa informing everyone that the k'nid had come to eat their face, and sure enough each lit window was suddenly eclipsed by a number of shapes peering into the night. What mattered more, though, was that as soon as the thudding stopped the k'nid had become more agitated and their attention had turned to the tavern — and consequently the people inside.
There was a sudden rush against the side of the tavern and Kali cringed as she heard masonry and wood splintering before the assault.
Dammit.
She had to warn those inside, but there was no way she could get back to the door. Instead, she raced along the stable roof, leaping from there onto the Flagon's outhouse, and from there onto the roof of the tavern proper. She clambered up its slates, slipping back twice as some broke from their fixings beneath her and then, at last, reached the apex. There, she found herself doing something and saying something — especially to its intended recipients — that she would never, ever, in a thousand lifetimes, have imagined she would.
"Dance!" she shouted into the Flagon's chimneypot. "Dance, or die!"
There was a few second's silence and then a puzzled and weak reply came back
"Wotta you say? Who issa speaking, please?"
Kali couldn't believe it. "Dolorosa, it's me."
"Who issa me?"
"Kali!"
"Kali? Why arra you uppa the chimaney?"
"I'm not uppa the chimaney, woman! Dammit, Dolorosa, just listen…"
Kali explained what was happening — what she thought was happening, at least — and how it was imperative not only that the regulars stay inside the tavern but also that the Hells' Bellies keep on dancing. She explained also that she wouldn't be joining them for her memorial evening or any evening in the foreseeable future. As she did she tried as best she could to hide the excitement in her voice. For her one glimpse of the k'nid had sparked in her a familiar and — considering the alternative — quite welcome feeling: the thrill of the hunt. No, these things weren't natural and to her that shouted Old Races from the veritable treetops. So, she was off on her travels again, and she knew already what her first port of call was going to be, a certain market town and a certain half-ogur who just might have some theories as to what they dealing with.
All she had to do was get there. But was Horse up to it? After all, he'd had better days.
She should have known better than to even question the fact as, at that moment, as if sensing her impending departure, Horse's growl was clearly audible from his stable. Then the door buckled slightly on its hinges as he gave it a gentle nudge with his snout.
Kali worked her way back down the rooftops until she was above his stable and then, keeping her eye on the k'nid, stretched down to unbolt the door.
As Horse trotted slowly out, his armour flaring slightly at the creatures, Kali reversed the manoeuvre that had got her on the rooftops in the first place, flipping herself down onto Horse's back. Then she eased Horse out of the courtyard, keeping him at a walk as they passed through the ranks of k'nid, which growled softly as they passed. Horse, in turn, growled at them and Kali could feel every inch of his body tense, ready to activate his armour fully at the merest sign of movement from the predators. The vibrations from the Flagons, however, still seemed to be rendering them passive. Passing without harm into the open countryside beyond, Kali spurred Horse first into a trot and then the beginnings of a gallop. There were likely more k'nid out here, she thought, and away from the Flagons their behaviour might be a different story, so she suspected it was going to be an interesting journey to Gargas.
As she and Horse traversed the first couple of leagues she turned back in the direction of the Flagons and the peninsula beyond, thinking of where she would be if she hadn't become trapped in Munch's mine. Because the thought of meeting Merrit Moon had made her think of another meeting she should have had, a certain rendezvous in Malmkrug.
Killiam Slowhand was out there, somewhere in the overrun west, searching for his sister, and wherever he was she hoped he was all right, and that he'd had the sense to keep his head — and the rest of him — down.