Orcs First Blood - Legion Of Thunder Part 32

'G.o.ds,' Coilla murmured on seeing the queen's face. 'The resem-blance to Jennesta's uncanny.'

'Yes,' Alfray agreed. 'A bit sobering, eh?'

'And they left her alone at the end,' Jup said.

'Says a lot about what they thought of her, doesn't it?' Coilla re-plied.

'The point is, is she still alive?' Stryke wanted to know.

Alfray checked. 'Just.'

The elder, forgotten, sneaked to the door. He got through it and sped along the corridor yelling, 'Guards! Guards!'

's.h.i.+t.' Stryke said.

'Leave it to me,' Coilla snapped.

She flew to the doorway, plucking a knife. Back went her arm. The missile struck the fleeing elder in the back of the neck. He twisted and fell, displacing gouts of water.

'Said they were good blades,' Coilla remarked.

Stryke a.s.signed a couple of grunts to watch the door and they re-turned their attention to Adpar.

'We've been lucky so far,' he told them. 'It won't last. Do you reckon she can hear us, Alfray?'

'Difficult to say. She's pretty far gone.'

Stryke leaned into her. 'Adpar.Adpar! Hear me. You are dying.'

Her head moved slightly on its emerald pillow.

'Hear me, Adpar. You are dying, and your sister, Jennesta, is re-sponsible.'

The queen's lips began to move. She grew more agitated, albeit weakly.

'Hear me, nyadd queen. Your own sister did this to you. Jennesta was the one.Jennesta.'

There was some fluttering of eyelids and quivering of lips. Her gills pulsated a little. Otherwise there was no reaction.

'It's hopeless,' Coilla sighed.

Haskeer weighed in with, 'Yeah, face it, Stryke, it ain't going to work. There's no use just standing here repeating Jennesta, Jennesta. Jennesta.'

Stryke was crestfallen. He began to turn away from the deathbed. 'I just thought-'

'Wait!' Jup exclaimed. 'Look!'

Adpar's eyelids were flickering, blinking almost.

'It started when Haskeer repeated Jennesta's name,' Jup reported.

As they watched, the lashes of Adpar's eyes moistened. Then a single tear appeared and ran a little way down her cheek.

'Quickly!' Alfray urged. 'The phial!'

Stryke got out the tiny container and tried laying it against Adpar's flesh. His hands were clumsy.

'Here,' Coilla said, taking the phial. 'This needs a female's touch.'

Very carefully, she got the neck of the little bottle under the tear and gently compressed the cheek. The tear rolled and was caught. Coilla replaced the stopper and handed it to Stryke.

'Ironic, isn't it?' she said. 'I'll bet she never shed a single tear in her whole life for the suffering she inflicted on others. It took self-pity to do it.'

Stryke studied the phial. 'You know, I never thought we'd do this.'

'Nowhe tells us,' Haskeer grumbled.

'And the G.o.ds were with us,' Alfray announced, lowering Adpar"s wrist. 'She's dead.'

'Fitting that her last act should be the healing of one of her victims,' Stryke judged.

'All we have to do now is get out of here,' Jup said.

22

Jennesta was in the middle of a strategy meeting with Mersadion when it happened.

Reality reconfigured itself, became pliant. Changed. She had some-thing like a vision, only it wasn't precisely that. It was more an over-whelming impression ofknowing, a certainty that an event of great importance had taken place. And parallel with the knowledge came an-other thing, a distinct and vivid message, for want of a better word, that she found equally exciting.

Jennesta had never before experienced anything like the sensation that possessed her. She supposed it resulted from the intimate telepathic link she involuntarily shared with her sibling.Had shared, she corrected herself. Adpar was dead. Jennesta knew that without a doubt. And it wasn't all she now knew.

She hadn't realised that her eyes were closed, nor that she had reached out for the back of a chair to steady herself.

Her head began to clear. She straightened and took some deep breaths.

Mersadion was staring at her, a look of alarm on his face. 'Are you ... all right, Majesty?' he ventured.

She blinked at him. uncomprehending for a moment, then gathered herself. 'All right? Yes, I'm all right. In fact I've rarely felt better. I've had some news.'

He couldn't see how she could have. She had simply stopped mid flow and looked set to faint. No messenger had arrived, no notes had been pa.s.sed into the tent. He snapped out of gaping at her and said, 'Good news, I trust.'

'Indeed. A cause for rejoicing. In more ways than one.' Her some-what dreamy, detached manner melted away. In a determined tonenearer the style he was used to, she snapped, 'Bring me a map of the western region.'

'Ma'am.' He hurried to comply.

They laid the map on the table and she circled one of her bizarrely long fingernails around an area embracing Drogan and Scarrock Marsh. 'There,' she announced.

He was puzzled, again. 'There . . .what, Majesty?'

'The Wolverines. They're to be found in this vicinity.'

'Begging your pardon, ma'am, but how do you know that?'

She smiled. It was triumphant and cold. 'You'll just have to take my word for it, General. But that's where they are. Or at least one of them-their leader, Stryke. We're moving as soon as you can organise the army. Which is to say in no more than two hours.'

'Two hours is very tight, Majesty, for a force of this size.'

'Don'targue with me, Mersadion,' she seethed. 'Timing is vital. This is the first solid lead we've had to that d.a.m.ned warband's whereabouts. I'm not throwing it away because of your sloth. Now get out there and set things in train!'

'Majesty!' He made for the tent flap.

'And send Glozellan in right away,' she added.

The Dragon Dam appeared a few minutes later. Without preamble. Jennesta beckoned her to the map. 'I have intelligence that the Wol-verines are here somewhere. You'll take a squadron of dragons and go ahead of the army.

Scan the area for them. Butdon't attack unless you absolutely have to. Corner them if you must, but I want them intact when we get there.'

'Yes, your Majesty.'

'Well don't just stand there! Move yourself!'

The haughty brownie gave a tiny bow and slipped from the tent.

Jennesta began gathering what she needed for the journey. For the first time in weeks she felt positive about the turn of events. And she was rid of Adpar, which came like a great weight lifted.

Then it seemed to her that the air in the tent grew somehow more . . . pliable. And the light was dimming, despite the lamps. She thought it must be the return of what she had undergone earlier, and wondered what else the cosmos might have to convey.

But she was wrong. In almost total and unaccountable darkness now, she saw a pinp.r.i.c.k of light wink into existence a couple of feet away. It was quickly joined by scores of others. They swirled and took on a more robust form. Jennesta made ready to defend herself against an attack of sorcery.

A blotch of pulsing light hovered in the air. It coalesced and became something she could recognise. A face.

'Sanara!' she exclaimed. 'How the h.e.l.l did you do that?'

'It seems my abilities have grown stronger,'her surviving sibling explained. 'But that isn't the point.'

'What is?'

'Your wickedness.'

'Oh. You too, eh?'

'Howcould you do it, Jennesta? How could you subject our sister to such a fate?'

'You always thought her as . . .' she struggled for a word '. . . asreprehensible as me! Why change your tune now?'

'/never thought her beyond redemption. I didn't wish her death.'

'Of course, you're a.s.suming I had anything to do with it.'

'Oh, come on, Jennesta.'

'Well, what if I did?' she replied defensively. 'She deserved it.'

'What you've done is not only evil, it adds complexity to a sit-uation already fraught with uncertainty.'

'What the h.e.l.l does that mean?'

'This game you're playing, with the relics. The bid for even greater destructive power. There are other players now, sister, and their abilities may well outstrip your own.'

'Who? What are you talking about?''Repent. While there is still time.'

'Answer me, Sanara! Don't palm me off with plat.i.tudes! Who have I to fear?'

'In the end, only yourself.'

'Tell me!'

'They say that when the barbarians are at the gate, civilisation is as good as dead. Don't be a barbarian, Jennesta.

Make good your ways, redeem your life.'

'You're sob.l.o.o.d.y straitlaced!' Jennesta raged. 'Not to mention obscure! Explain yourself!'

'/think you know what I mean, in your heart. Don't think what you have done to Adpar will go unrecorded, or unpunished.'

The likeness of her face faded and disappeared, despite Jennesta's ravings.

In another tent, not too far away in Maras-Dentian terms, a father and daughter conversed.

'You promised me, Daddy,' Mercy Hobrow whined. 'You said I'd have the benefit.'

'And you will, poppet, you will. I said I'd get back the heritage for you and I meant it. We're working on where those savages might be right now.'

She pouted grotesquely. 'Will it be long?'

'No, not long now. And soon I'll make you a queen. You'll be a handmaiden of our Lord, and together we'll cleanse this land of the sub-humans.' He stood. 'Now dry your tears. I need to attend to this very business.' He planted a kiss on her cheek and went out of the tent.

Kimball Hobrow walked a couple of yards to the fire and the group of custodians. The bodies of three orcs had been laid to one side. The fourth, still alive but only just, had now been finished with.

Hobrow nodded to the Inquisitor. 'Well?'

'They're tough. But this one broke at the last, praise the Lord.'