Engines & Demons - The Undest...

By MattParker0708

79.8K 8.1K 2.2K

Grand-commander Morath is dead, and the fragile peace between the Order of the Plains and their former allies... More

Prologue
Chapter 1i
Chapter 1ii
Chapter 1iii
Chapter 2i
Chapter 2ii
Chapter 3i
Chapter 3ii
Chapter 3iii
Chapter 4i
Chapter 4ii
Chapter 5i
Chapter 5ii
Chapter 6i
Chapter 6ii
Chapter 7i
Chapter 7ii
Chapter 8i
Chapter 8ii
Chapter 9i
Chapter 9ii
Chapter 10i
Chapter 10ii
Chapter 11i
Chapter 11ii
Chapter 12i
Chapter 12ii
Chapter 13i
Chapter 13ii
Chapter 13iii
Chapter 14i
Chapter 14ii
Chapter 15i
Chapter 15ii
Chapter 15iii
Chapter 16i
Chapter 16ii
Chapter 16iii
Chapter 17i
Chapter 17ii
Chapter 18i
Chapter 18ii
Chapter 19i
Chapter 19ii
Chapter 20i
Chapter 20ii
Chapter 21
Chapter 22i
Chapter 22ii
Chapter 23i
Chapter 23ii
Chapter 24
Chapter 25i
Chapter 25ii
Chapter 26i
Chapter 26ii
Chapter 27i
Chapter 27ii
Chapter 28i
Chapter 28ii
Chapter 29i
Chapter 29ii
Chapter 30i
Chapter 30ii
Chapter 31i
Chapter 31ii
Chapter 31iii
Chapter 32i
Chapter 32ii
Chapter 32iii
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35i
Chapter 35ii
Chapter 36i
Chapter 36ii
Chapter 37i
Chapter 37ii
Chapter 37iii
Chapter 38i
Chapter 38ii
Chapter 39i
Chapter 39ii
Chapter 40i
Chapter 40ii
Chapter 41i
Chapter 41ii
Chapter 42i
Chapter 42ii
Chapter 42iii
Chapter 43i
Chapter 43ii
Chapter 44i
Chapter 44iii
Chapter 45i
Chapter 45ii
Chapter 46i
Chapter 46ii
Chapter 46iii
Chapter 47i
Chapter 47ii
Chapter 48i
Chapter 48ii
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
Appendix A - Dramatis Personae
Appendix B - Sentient Creatures & Critters
Appendix C - Food & Plants & Other things
Appendix D - Place Names
Grifford's Song
Dakskansia's Song
Maddock's Song
Tahlia's Song

Chapter 44ii

435 61 11
By MattParker0708

Merchant Dres was seated at one of the betting tables, surrounded by ledgers and paperwork. He did not look up as Master Tzarren strode across the canvas chamber, Karek at his heal. He did not even show any unease as six knights of Klinberg entered behind them, followed by units of soldiers who spread out to cover the other doorways within the tent. A pair of Merchant Dres' guards were stationed outside each one, and though they tightened their grips on their weapons, they made no move of aggression. The two savage women from the south lands that Karek had seen on his previous visit stood behind the merchant's chair.

Svell SanMartin had entered the tent before them, but they had given him little time to announce their intentions. He stood now beside Merchant Dres, his face unreadable.

Karek stopped beside Master Tzarren in front of the betting table, and at first it seemed that the merchant intended to ignore them. A few seconds passed before he spoke.

"I thought your search here was complete, Unit-leader Karek."

He continued writing in the ledger, before Master Tzarren leaned forward and closed it, causing the merchant's chamber-pen and fingers to be caught between its heavy pages.

"It seems it is not," said the Lance-master.

It was then that Merchant Dres showed the first signs of irritation. He pulled his fingers from between the pages of the ledger and looked Master Tzarren slowly up and down.

"Tell me," he said, once he had fully taken in his faded uniform and unshaven features. "What authority does a Lance-master have to force his way into the tent of a merchant of Naddaran, uninvited?"

"This," said Master Tzarren.

The two southland women tightened their grip on their spears, and on the knives at their belts, as he drew his sword and dropped it on the table in front of the merchant. The sword clanged down, knocking over a tall stand of chamber pens and sending its contents rolling over the table's surface.

Merchant Dres looked at the sword with distaste, then raised his eyes once more to Master Tzarren. His mouth twitched in an assured smile, which Karek did not like.

"Unit-leader Karek has searched these tents, and Commander Kralaford's child is not here."

Master Tzarren met the man's smile with his own, leant forward, and rested his fists on the table's edge.

"Unit-leader Karek has done his duty admirably well," he said. "But the child we are looking for in this instance is not the Commander's."

Karek thought he detected a hint of unease in Merchant Dres' features, before his calm demeanour returned.

"I believe you have me at a disadvantage regarding my understanding," he said as he pushed the ledger he had been writing in, and the sword lying on top of it, away, clearing a space on the table in front of him.

Master Tzarren remained where he was, his fists still resting on the table.

"Commander Kralaford's child is not here," he said. "But you know where he is, because you are holding the son of his nursemaid as hostage."

Merchant Dres took a sheaf of papers from a pile at his elbow, and placed them in front of him.

"I am afraid I do not know what you are talking about, Lance-master." He then retrieved one of the chamber-pens from where it had rolled across the table, unscrewed its top, and signed the first piece of paper on the pile. "Seior SanMartin," he said, as though his betting tent was not filled with knights, soldiers and an aggravated Lance-master. "Please ensure that these orders are carried out."

He then laid the chamber-pen down and picked up another, finely enamelled in metallic green. As he unscrewed its top, Lance-master Tzarren picked up his sword from the table and placed its keen point under the merchant's chin.

"If you pick up one more pen, Merchant, then the next thing it signs will be in your blood."

Merchant Dres' lips twitched in a smile.

"The time and manner of my death is not something you are at liberty to decide, Lance-master."

"Sir!" said Karek urgently.

He had seen the way the merchant was holding the green cylinder in his hand, and it was not the way a pen would normally be held.

He was gripping it like a sword.

"And besides," said the merchant. "This is the last pen I shall need."

The smile remained on his face as he swung the pen upwards, and buried its point deep in his neck.


* * * * *


Vlambra took a step towards Tahlia and reached out to grab the front of her tattered dress. She stepped back out of his reach, but stopped when she heard Dak give a frightened whimper. Cravit had his knife at her throat again.

"Play nice, girl," said Vlambra.

He took another step forward, and as he reached towards her, the chamber was filled again with the lusty sounds of Kralmir's crying.

"Damn that brat!" spat Vlambra. He spun on his heal and stamped back across the platform. "I swear that if I was not having my ghat shit orders, I would happily cave in your brother's skull. Watch them!"

He stamped back across the walkway, sending the platform bouncing once more. Sabstan, after first waiting for the man's bulk to disappear into the doorway on the walkway's far side, left the platform's edge, and still holding Tahlia's bow, went to where her quiver and her mother's knife lay, and picked them up.

"Vlambra is a fool, Cravit," he said as he held up the knife to take a closer look. "Even you have more sense than that oaf, and I am sure you will appreciate the quality of this blade."

"That blade was made especially for my mother," said Tahlia, raising her voice above the noise of her brother's cries. "There is no other like it, and the bow was made for me. Any Engineer will be able to place the work. Do you want to be sentenced to the Pride?"

Sabstan continued his study of the knife.

"Oh, Vlambra is right about the implications of their sale, but I am not fool enough to sell them where they might be recognised. There are plenty of places outside the provinces where good blades are in demand."

"You will never leave this fortress alive," said Grifford.

Sabstan just sneered.

"Brave words from a dead boy. Once Vlambra gets back from silencing your brat of a brother, it is you who will soon be..."

"Sabstan!" hissed Cravit from behind them.

Sabstan spun around to where Cravit was standing, grip still tight on Dak's arm. He had pulled her around and was staring at the walkway behind him. Something was crawling across its metal surface, making a scratching sound as it came.

* * *

Dak gave a sharp indrawn breath of recognition. The thing was a metal crousk, much bigger than the one she had seen on that long ago day with her father. Its sharp legs scraped at the walkway's edge as it came. The two long feelers protruding from the front of its head were both over a metre long, and its oily sheened segmented body was twice that size again. Even in her fear, a glimmer of logic in her brain surmised that it must have come to investigate Kralmir's screaming, though the noise of the child's cries had abruptly stopped again.

"What, by Fortak's arse, is that!"

Dak turned at the man, Sabstan's shout, and saw him drop Tahlia's bow. He transferred her knife to his left hand and drew his sword.

The answer to the man's question formed on Dak's lips. She did not have time to give it, though because Cravit pulled her savagely, stepping backwards away from the beast as its feelers started tapping at the platform's edge.

"Kill it!" he called to Sabstan. The metal crousk had stopped, the feelers at its front, and the twin sets protruding from its back, waving back and forth as though trying to find the source of the noise. "You have a sword. Kill it!"

With Cravit's second panicked cry, the feelers stopped their waving, and the creature started its slow scratching crawl towards him. He backed away, pulling Dak with him. His knife was no longer at her throat. He had it pointing at the advancing crousk.

"Be silent!" came Vlambra's hard voice from the doorway across the tower. It was not a shout, and was barely loud enough to be heard over the other noise in the chamber. "And be still."

"What is it!" shouted Cravit over his shoulder.

"I said be silent, fool!" said Vlambra. "It is one of the tunnel's vermin hunters."

"What does it want?" Cravit whispered.

Only Dak heard him, and she recognised the fear in his voice.

The crousk was getting closer, its feelers tapping at the metal at Cravit's feet. She held her breath. If she did not move and remained silent, then all would be well. It would not attack if it did not feel threatened, but the answer to her plight did not lie in doing nothing.

After all that long morning, Dak was more scared than she had ever thought it possible to be, but the man holding her, who had threatened her throat with a knife, was now just as scared as her. That knowledge helped to give her a solution, and just as her fear had been quelled in the tunnels above, when she had to make her own decision in finding a route down, the answer to what she must do calmed her. It was like one of Engineer Drasneval's number puzzles, which the brain could not solve if it were in turmoil, but once you saw the logic of it the answer became as clear as glass, and the turmoil ended.

"What does it want!" said Cravit again, terror keen in his whisper.

"It is wanting you," said Dak. "It has a desire to eat your heart."

Cravit's fear broke.

"Get away from me!" he shrieked, and kicked the creature on the side of its armoured head. The crousk screeched, and the sound was like the tearing of strained metal. In a movement, which Dak would not have thought possible of such a ponderous looking thing, it leapt. Its segmented body snapped rigid, propelling it up at Cravit. As she glanced under the carapace of its head, she got an impression of a hundred sharp blades, wound in a circle that suddenly sprang open, before the crousk hit the man in the chest and knocked him to the floor.

His hand was still tight on her arm, and she was pulled down with him.

"Fool!" spat Vlambra.

Cravit screamed, and the scream ended in a gurgle as blood filled his mouth and flowed over his face. There was a wet crunching sound from where the crousk had its head clamped to the man's chest, and Dak closed her eyes and turned her head away, unable to move with the dying man's hand still clasped around her wrist.

"Kill them!" she heard Vlambra shout. "Kill them now!"

Dak felt the platform begin to shake as Vlambra advanced across the walkway.

'Yeltov preserve us,' she thought, as she squeezed her eyes tighter shut.


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