The Drakengrat Mountains flared for a moment with a light so intense that it whited out the eyepiece through which Merrit Moon watched the event occur. The old man turned quickly away, rubbed his eye, and then frowned deeply. The ancient elven telescope — a rune inscribed, hand-lathed and polished thing of great beauty — was infinitely more powerful than any such device humans could have made. However, even though, at full magnification, its lenses permitted him to gaze across what amounted to a third of the peninsula, it should not have made what he had just seen seem quite so intense or immediate. That could mean only one thing. The explosion in the Drakengrats had been incredibly powerful and, consequently, the catalysts or combustants involved, like the telescope itself, had to have been infinitely more powerful than anything his own race could have manufactured.
The conclusion was inescapable. Something Old Race was up there — had been up there — but what?
Moon bent back to the eyepiece but any details on the far distant mountains were now obscured by a strange, mushroom-shaped cloud and he'd see nothing for a while. Besides, the sun was coming up, and it was time to open the shop. He was about to turn away when a slight nudge to the telescope shifted its focus down to the plains of Pontaine and something there caught his eye.
What is that?
It looked like some strange black cloud moving over the landscape, or at least would have done had it not been at ground level. And it appeared to be heading towards Gargas. There was something else, too. Something familiar. In the middle of it. A bulky black thing with something on it, moving at speed, as if trying to outrace the cloud. Moon adjusted the magnification on the telescope but, by the time he had done, the object and the cloud had become obscured by what few hills existed in that part of the province.
This was surely a day for mysteries.
Moon sighed, covered telescope with a cloth, and made his way over to the spiral staircase that wound down through two floors to ground level. The old man grunted as he began to negotiate the creaking risers, the wooden stairs having always been a tight squeeze but having become something of a tortuous ordeal since his unfortunate 'accident' in the World's Ridge Mountains. Though in the months since the events of the Clockwork King he had managed to concoct a number of potions and medicines that kept Thrutt's ogur form in relative check, his physical mass and bone structure remained twice what it had been. This left him with a physiognomy that had a tendency to make babies cry and small dogs bark. He had to force himself to be philosophical about this, however, as he had learned on a number of unfortunate occasions that what seemed to trigger the Thrutt transformation was a rise in his blood pressure. A condition flagged by a tendency for his nose and ears to turn a bright red, his eyes to bulge and his mood to become very, very angry. It was embarrassing, yes, but he supposed it could have been worse, even if he wasn't sure exactly how.
Calm, he told himself as he squeezed between the stairway's walls, dislodging pictures and ornaments as he went, cursing the resultant clattering. Calm.
The old man emerged into the shop, found it dark and, yawning, moved to the two windows and door to flip their blinds. Azure dawn light flooded Wonders of the World and, through a criss-cross of dusty motes, he took a quick inventory of stock, working out which lines he would need to replenish from the cellar. Goblin death rattles, for sure, always popular with the babies. Shnarl fur dice and the stick-on elf ears, too — the only non-authentic line he carried. And there had been quite the run on troll testicles of late, but then it was spring and they were always popular at this time of year.
The cellar, however, could wait. Despite the required restocking, things had been pretty quiet around Gargas of late, and there would likely be no customers for a while. It was a state of affairs Moon attributed to the rumours of new predators on the peninsula. He didn't know how much truth there was in the rumours — certainly there had been no sightings of the creatures this far east — but once these things got started, that was that, people simply weren't prepared for the unusual. Peering out through the glass of the door, however, everything looked normal to Moon. The market was gearing up and the flummox was starting to bubble on the Greenwood's nearby stall. When it was ready he might even be tempted by a glass, maybe dunk some redbread to kick start the day, slurping the juices from his chin. Since he had become part ogur his appetites had changed, though thankfully not so far as getting the munchies for the heads of the babies who squawked interminably when they saw him. The temptation, though, had been there.
Moon flipped the open sign and suddenly a figure loomed in his face, leering in at him through the glass. A customer, already? And a fop from one of the cities or larger towns by the look of him, even if he seemed slightly on the down-at-heels side. City dwellers were the worst kind of customer, because even though everything in his store was genuine they never believed it so, for the simple reason that they had never encountered it — as closeted as they were in their own, small and so-called 'civilised' world. Moon sighed then opened the door, and even before he could say good morning, it started. Except this time it wasn't about the provenance of his stock.
"By the Lord of All! The butcher across the way was right"
"Excuse me?"
The fop jabbed him in the chest, and Moon got a whiff of a pungent underarm. "This ogur thing — great idea and I have to say you have it almost bang on. The perfect way to advertise your shop. Harmon Ding, by the way, consultant to the retail trade. Consultancy's quite the big thing in the cities, you know."
Oh, it would be, Moon thought.
The Old Races constructed unimaginable wonders but now that man was the dominant race, it concentrated its efforts trying to find a better way to sell sprabbage. But what was the man on about regarding 'this ogur thing'?
"Something I can help you with, Mister Ding?"
Ding gave a cursory glance around the shop, clearly uninterested in its wares. "Maybe, maybe. All in good time. The important thing is you. Like I said, almost bang on." He shook his head and sucked in a breath. "This ogur thing," he added slowly, "not quite right."
Moon stared at him, nonplussed. "Not quite right?"
Ding stared back, in a way that suggested he was dealing with someone with the brains of an ogur. "The costume! The mask!" He narrowed his eyes, leaned in and then whispered conspiratorially. "Between you and me, looks a bit fake."
"Fake?"
Ding nodded. "Fake, yes. It's like you're half man, half ogur. Look, I know ogurs — I've seen pictures of them in storybooks — and while we both know they're not real, if you're going for the effect, you've at least got to go all the way."
"Oh, ogurs are quite real, Mister Ding. Trust me, I know."
"Yes, yes, of course, of course. What else could you say with this," he waved his hand dismissively, "novelty shop being your going concern?"
Novelty shop? Moon felt a rumble beginning in his throat and the lobes of his ears warmed slightly. "Let me rephrase my question, Mister Ding. Is there anything you would like to BUY?"
"Buy, Mister Moon?" Ding looked almost aggrieved. "No, no, not buy. I'm here to sell. My services. For a period of one month. For a one off fee of fifty full silver."
"Why on Twilight would I pay you fifty full silver?"
Ding stared at him, swallowed slightly, and then suddenly snapped an upright finger into the air, as if to demonstrate a point. Unbidden, he began to prance around the shop, pointing things out and occasionally gazing at the ceiling as if he were somehow receiving divine messages from the old man's bedroom.
"Because I'm seeing special ogur days to bring the punters in. I'm seeing spit-roasts and I'm seeing chase-the-child competitions. I'm seeing captive princesses, donkeys, face scribing and pig's bladders on strings. But most of all, I'm seeing you — yes you! — in a brand, spanking new costume designed by me. Huge, flappy ears. Big teeth. Green." He paused, finally, then pointed directly at him. "You, Mister Moon, will make a fortune!"
There was a moment's silence, then -
"I'm not paying you fifty full silver for anything."
"Forty, then!"
"No."
"Thirty?"
"Nothing at all."
Ding gazed at him, open-mouthed. "You're making a big mistake."
"I don't think so. For one thing, you're clearly not a full tenth. For another, I'm not wearing a costume or mask." His voice deepened. "Of any kind."
"And you're saying I'm not a full tenth?"
"Twilight is an unusual place, Mister Ding."
Ding laughed. "Oh, here we go! You mean the Old Races and their ancient technology? The Pale Lord? The Clockwork King? And these new things — the k'nid?" Ding curled his fingers at Moon and made nibbling sounds with his teeth. "Just stories, my friend — tales to be told around the fire during Long Night and that's all. Not real."
"Oh, you'd be surprised."
Ding smirked. "Trust me, Mister Moon. There is nothing in this world that could persuade me otherw…"
Ding trailed off, his mouth hanging open as, right in front of him, there was a crackle of energy, a whoosh of charged air and a yelling, half-naked woman appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of the shop.
The woman was riding a roaring horse. Except it wasn't a horse, not really, but a huge, armoured, horned thing that looked like a Vossian siege machine. And clinging to the Horse — apparently trying to eat it and its rider — were a number of thrashing, clawing, slashing things that Ding found… indescribable. He would have blinked and rubbed his eyes, had he not been busy flinging himself out of the way, because the horse had arrived moving, and was still moving.
Taking in its surroundings with insane looking, rolling green eyes, it whinnied and tried to come to a halt but failed miserably, demolishing two of the shop's display stands and heading inexorably for the building's rear wall. Ding continued to watch transfixed as the beast's rider spotted where it was heading, shouted something like "oh, farking hells," and promptly threw herself from her saddle. The woman landed on her feet on a display counter, wincing slightly, and span immediately to face three of the things that detached themselves from her mount to fling themselves after her. As they did, she unsheathed a vicious looking gutting knife and slashed it in an arc across the air before her, sending the creatures scrabbling back with yellow goo spurting from their flanks. The horse-thing, meanwhile, skidded itself into a half-turn as it approached the wall and hit it side on. The things still clinging to it were crushed with a sickening crunch, spraying yellow goo upwards in a fountain of gore.
Ding swallowed hard as dust streamed from stressed, supporting beams and the shop began to creak ominously.
The woman threw herself into the air and across the room, taking the time to wave at the old man as she passed. He, in turn, waved back but Ding could see that he was clearly not as pleased to see her as she was he. As the old man regarded the wreck of a room before him, Ding could have sworn that his nose and ears throbbed a bright red, and that he appeared to grow slightly. This did not, however, stop him coming to the aid of the woman when she needed it. As she was now engaged in a losing hand-to-hand battle with the remaining creatures, the old man opened a cupboard beneath his sales counter and, with a yell, threw her a glove.
Oh, very useful, Harmon Ding thought.
But then his ears flapped as she slipped the glove on and blasted one of her assailants over each of his shoulders with an pulse of energy that drew crackling red circles in the air. Ding watched the two creatures crash screeching through the windows of the shop and then turned back, white-faced now, just in time to see the third creature lunge for the old man. The odd thing was, though, he didn't seem to be the old man anymore, and as the creature reached him something big and green and roaring that stood in his place simply tore it apart.
Nice costume, Ding thought, and fainted.
Or at least tried to. For as he began to collapse something shot from the horse-thing's mouth and wrapped itself about his neck, holding him up.
Oh, he thought, it's a tongue. An impossibly long, slimy tongue.
Instead of fainting, Ding decided, instead, to scream. As the girlish wail erupted from him, the tongue released him and Harmon Ding ran. Ran as fast as his legs could carry him, out of the shop and away. The last words he heard as he headed for the gates of Gargas were: "Fark, what a day. Who was that by the way?"
"That? Oh, don't worry about him. He wasn't real."
Far behind Ding, the old man sighed, not with relief but in an attempt to calm himself down and, as Kali and Horse looked on, his ogur physique began to dwindle until he had returned once more to his half ogur form. Done, he looked around the remains of his shop and then stared at Horse and Kali. His eyebrow rose.
"You could have knocked, young lady."
"Mmm, sorry about that. These things attacked en route, tearing up Horse pretty badly, so we had no choice but to jump here. Should have been outside, of course, but obviously he's not quite himself and overshot." She looked guilty. "A tad."
"A tad?"
Merrit Moon walked slowly forward, feet crunching on broken vials and crushed souvenirs, shaking his head. Despite his obvious dismay about the state of his shop, however, his brow furrowed in concern as he approached Horse. Gently, he ran a palm over the wounds on his armoured flanks — wounds that bled slowly and made the huge beast wince beneath his touch.
"His armour should be stronger than this," Moon observed. "There's a discolouration in it that doesn't look right."
"I know. I think it's something to do with his diet — or lack of it."
"His diet?"
"Worgles. Won't eat anything else. But they've disappeared since these bastards came out of nowhere."
"Really?" Moon said, intrigued. He looked at the tumbleweed like bodies that littered the shop floor. "I take it, by the by, that these are the infamous k'nid?" Kali looked at him and he added: "Oh, yes, I've heard the rumours. I may even have seen them, earlier, out on the plains."
"Yep, that's where they hit us."
"Ah, that was you," Moon said absently. He turned back to Horse. "Well, let's see if we can get some of this fixed up." He collected some balms and a cloth from around the devastated shop began to gently rub them into Horse's armour.
"Hey," Kali said. "I'm injured too."
"What? Oh, yes. Yes, yes, of course you are."
Kali threw up her hands but smiled. The fact was, since escaping the mine, which she now realised must have been inhibiting them somehow, her recuperative powers had worked wonders on her leg and, while not perfect, it would do. Horse was the patient now, and it was nice to see the old man tending to him so carefully. Because, despite her elation at finding he still lived on the Dragonwing Cliffs above Martak, there was one thing she'd dreaded, and that was informing the old man that his own beloved horse — the original Horse — had perished during the course of that adventure.
Constant companions, until the day she'd inherited him from the retiring artefact hunter, she'd never known a relationship between man and beast be so close and knew the news would be shattering to him — hells, it had been shattering enough to her. It was during the telling of it, however, that Horse Two had begin to gently nudge the old man's shoulder, and that not only seemed to alleviate the impact of the news but also create the same kind of burgeoning bond that she herself had felt with Horse's more…. unusual replacement. Over the intervening months, either with Merrit visiting Horse's grave above the Flagons, or they him, here in Gargas, that bond had grown until she had begun to think once more that the old man cared more about Horse than he did about her. Or maybe it was just because he was part of her that he cared. That theory made her feel a little better, anyway.
"Old man?" She kicked the remains of one of the k'nid, exposing its soft underbelly — red, turning now to grey. "What are these things?"
Moon regarded them as he continued to soothe Horse.
"First impressions? Hostile. Wrong."
"Hells, old man, I could have told you that."
"No, what I mean is, they don't belong. They're not a part of the order of things."
Kali kicked the k'nid again. "At least they don't seem as indestructible as the rumours make out."
"Ah," Moon sighed. "I wouldn't chance too many arms on that particular theory. These specimens were transported here with Horse, remember. Forcefully separated from their pack. I believe that together they might be far more formidable opponents. Certainly the number of reported deaths reflects that."
"What? So you're saying they're some kind of group entity?" Kali fought for a comparison. "Like fussball fans?"
"You never did like that game, did you?" Moon mumbled. He patted Horse, finished with his ministrations, and moved over to the k'nid, examining it. Suddenly he pulled his finger back with a hiss and flicked a clear liquid from it, which made a small patch of floor warp and burn.
"What is that? Acid?"
"No, some kind of destabilising agent," Moon mused.
He had used many, many substances in his alchemical experiments but this was a new one on him. He studied the k'nid more closely and frowned.
"This isn't right," he said. He took a small vial from his pocket and sprinkled its contents over the corpse. Nothing happened for a few seconds but then the dead creature began to wrinkle and twist, shrink in on itself, until it became utterly unrecognisable.
"Now that was acid, right?"
Moon shook his head. "It's the same potion I use to limit the influence of the ogur upon myself — to hold the change in check, as it were. Except, of course, that I just gave the k'nid far more than is safe to use on myself."
"So, what? You're saying this k'nid was changed like you were? That your potion reversed the changes, made it what it was before?"
"Exactly."
Kali pulled a face. "But look at it, old man — it's just a mess. It isn't anything."
"That's what worries me." Moon stood and sighed. "I saw something happen in the Drakengrats this morning. A great explosion."
"Well, don't look at me. I was nowhere near it."
"For once," Moon said, smiling. "The point is, Kali, the k'nid are swarming from the west, are they not?"
"Moving down in a fan shape from what I've seen. Freiport, Volonne, Miramas, now here. Merrit, do you think there's a link? That this explosion somehow created the k'nid?"
Moon shook his head. "Reports of their appearance precede that. But there may be still be a link. Something else up there."
"Any idea what?"
Moon hesitated. "There's a legend of an Old Race site I came across during research into my own condition. It spoke of a place in the clouds where the Old Races played at being gods. A fearful, unapproachable place. They called it the Crucible."
"A place in the clouds? You think that means the Drakengrats?"
"It seems a likely contender."
"And this 'crucible'? You think that's where the k'nid came from?"
Moon sighed. "Kali, if I'm right I think they might have been born there."
Kali took a deep breath. "Then, old man, I guess I'm going to the Drakengrats."
"And I'm coming with — "
The old man stopped as there was a distant sound of tolling. "That's the town's sentry alarm. The guards have spotted something on the plains."
"K'nid. They must be spreading faster than I thought."
"There's one way to find out. Come with me."
Kali trailed the old man up the spiral staircase, avoiding falling pictures and ornaments as she climbed, until the pair reached the attic. Moon uncovered the telescope, adjusted its warp lenses, and then tipped it down so that it was aimed towards the town's walls. He peered into the eyepiece.
"Not k'nid," he said. "Not yet."
"Then what?"
"Take a look."
The old man stood aside and Kali took a look, focusing on the main gate of the town through which a great many soldiers were marching. Their grey canvas and lace epauletted livery marked them out as Pontaine militia, forces financed by the local land barons as a kind of home guard, and guarding the home was clearly what they seemed to be doing — quite zealously.
Ranks of them were organising the civilians near the gate into small groups, keeping them in place with what seemed the unnecessary threat of their weapons. Unless the militia had suddenly decided to become a dictatorial force, there had to be a reason for their uncharacteristic behaviour. Kali tipped the telescope upward slightly, focusing first not far beyond the town walls, and then further out, at the almost featureless agricultural plains that surrounded Gargas. She could see them stretching away for leagues, or at least would have been able to were it not for the dark fog that covered them like a shroud.
Except it wasn't a fog, she knew. It was the same pack of k'nid she and Horse had become caught up in. If pack was the word to describe the hundreds and hundreds — if not thousands — of them she could see. It was almost as if, en route, the strange creatures had been replicating themselves. She muttered something with four letters under her breath.
"K'nid?" Moon said.
"Oh, yeah. They're here."
The old man urged her aside and peered into the scope. "By all the gods, they are fast."
"Here within the hour, I reckon."
"Then it's time that we were on the move."
He walked to a chest in the corner of the attic, opened it and extracted an equipment belt similar to her own, a few unidentifiable odds and ends which he stuffed into his pockets and then a pink, woollen cloak he slung about his shoulders. Kali couldn't help but smile. The old man had been wearing that cloak the day they'd first met and she hadn't seen it since the day he'd retired — and it still stank of Horse. This was beginning to feel a little like old times. As Moon began to descend the stairs she too dug into the chest, extracting a new bodysuit she'd asked him to keep there for emergencies, and quickly slipped it on.
"What about your shop?" she asked as she followed Moon down. "You know it'll be at the mercy of those bastards."
"I doubt a thousand k'nid could make much more of a mess of it than you did, young lady."
Kali reddened. "For all the Gods' sake, when will you stop treating me like a bloody chil — "
She quietened. There was a soldier at the bottom of the stairs. Another behind him. And another behind him.
"Come with us," the one at the front said.
"Excuse me?" Merrit Moon responded.
The soldier's face darkened. "You are ordered to come with us. Now."
"The shop," Moon said warningly, "is closed."
Kali looked at him, coughed gently and pointed out the front door of the shop which hung buckled and ajar, then a part of the wall which had started to collapse during their battle with the k'nid.
"Actually," she pointed out, "I think you could say you were still open."
"Funny. You know they aren't here to buy things, Kali. They're here to interfere, as their kind always do."
Kali patted Moon's arm. Much as she shared the old man's healthy disrespect for authority of any kind, there were things going on that they both had to take into consideration — not least the clearly scared and trigger-happy militia. Besides, Moon's temper had become noticeably more fiery since the Thrutt incident and, for obvious reasons, she needed to keep him calm.
She approached the soldier and, despite already knowing what was approaching, asked: "Why are you here?"
The soldier was blunt and to the point, although a slight bobbing in his throat revealed his nervousness. "Gargas is now under martial law. A curfew has been imposed and any transgressors will be summarily executed. The population is to be evacuated to Andon."
"Andon?" Moon said. "That's ridiculous… madness! The journey will take days!"
"We go with them, old man," Kali said, to his utmost surprise. "We go with them. No arguments."
"Young lady?"
Kali patted his arm again, this time squeezing it softly but reassuringly too. Because watching the militia enter through the town gate she had noticed something that he had not. But now was not the time to share it with him.
"Trust me," she said after a second. "We go with them, and we do everything these nice gentlemen say."