Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,90

were primed for this. Subject to this fate by our birthright.”

Crow frowned but conceded a nod. “Whatever Maghdlm has set into motion, we will stop.”

The last of the soldiers came up the stairs and Tancho and Crow ran through their lines to the front. They ran back out the way they had gone when they’d left Aequi Kentron the week before, through a small courtyard toward the stables.

The light of the sun was strange. Golden and muted, as though someone had put a gold silk curtain across the sky. There were no sounds but the fall of their feet on the stones. Not a bird, not another soul, creature or human, and as they neared the stables. Tancho realised not even a horse made a whisper.

And the smell soon told Tancho why.

In the stables, any horse that had remained was now dead in its stall. Slaughtered . . . No, not even slaughtered. Butchered without respect for the life that was lost. Hacked open, innards spread and ransacked, limbs and skin hewed off, leaving only the peeled and rotting remains.

“I think we just found out what those creatures have been eating,” Crow said, his mouth a grim line.

Tancho hadn’t expected alien creatures to be well-practised cooks in a human kitchen, but this . . . this was a cruel carnage.

Crow raised his hand and gave the signal for the soldiers to keep moving. They made their way through the stables in lines of two, along the cobblestone paths toward the entrances they’d been shown to when they’d first arrived.

That’s when they heard it.

Cries of battle and the bellows of monsters from the other side of the castle.

“Samiel and Elmwood,” Tancho whispered. “They’ve encountered the Ascii.”

“Then now is our chance,” Crow whispered. “The grand hall will be left empty if the creatures run toward the fight.”

Tancho nodded, his heart in his throat, and together he and Crow ran side by side into the main building of the Aequi Kentron . . . and right into a legion of Ascii monsters.

Tancho and Crow both skidded to a stop before them. Their huge shoulders and arms were like boulders, their hands the size of baskets, with talons for nails. Those ugly ridges down their foreheads, their eyes too far apart, they had teeth like wild hogs. They wore their blue armour over blue mottled, skin and one of them opened its jaw and screamed. The sound was so loud and awful, so piercing it raised bile in Tancho’s throat and turned his belly to ice.

He almost dropped his katanas to cover his ears, but Crow swung his sword, almost pirouetting like a dancer, slicing the creature’s throat. The scream cut off with a gurgle and then all bedlam broke loose.

The soldiers advanced and swung and sliced, pierced and punctured. Necks, knees, and under the arm, as they’d been told.

Soon enough, twelve Ascii creatures lay in pools of green and blue blood and guts, to the stench of sulphur and rot. Only two of their soldiers had been injured, with gashes across their arms and a graze to the neck.

Uninjured, Tancho could hardly catch his breath. “What was that noise?”

“I don’t know,” Crow murmured. “But a warning sound if I had to guess. We can expect more.” He touched his shoulder, and while time didn’t slow down because it wasn’t skin to skin, the touch itself gave Tancho strength. “Are you well enough to continue? You were worse affected than I.”

Tancho nodded. “I am. Apologies for my inaction. I’ll be better prepared next time.” He took a smoke bomb from his stash Samiel had given them. “And I’d rather hear them sleep than scream.”

Crow nodded and they moved on, into the corridors of the Aequi Kentron that now seemed neither familiar nor welcoming.

Gone was the pristine appearance and immaculate cleanliness, and in its place was dirt, discarded and half-eaten rotting food thrown to the floor and kicked out of the way or trampled into the stone tiles. The stench was cloying and thick, and it stuck to the back of Tancho’s throat.

They rounded a corner, nearing the western quarters Tancho had stayed in, where the corridors diverged into two. Crow signalled for half the soldiers to head along the northern hall, while he and Tancho made their way to the grand hall. About halfway along, another team of Ascii creatures came running toward them.

They were still some forty metres away and Tancho signalled for the Southlander with a bow and arrow to take aim.