The White Towers by Andy Remic Page A

logic – or lack of it. And Grenan cackled as he pulled his new winnings towards himself and thought about the exotic whores down Mary Street at Old Cassandra’s. Some new ones had come in on a ship via the Crystal Sea, said to be from deep south in Zakora, foreign with all sorts of neat and dirty tricks. One man, Big Nank, had told him lots of stories. Dumb Big Nank, they should call him. Spent a whole month’s salary in less than a week, and left his wife with no money for rent or food for the five children who nagged him relentlessly.
    Grenan chuckled to himself, and knew he had to be more wary…
    He realised Johan was speaking to him.
    “Eh, lad?”
    “I said, ‘What’s that noise?’ Didn’t you hear it? Or were you thinking of those new uns down at Old Cassandra’s?”
    Grenan stared at Johan with his mouth open. Sometimes the large, simple, apple-eared farmer could be surprisingly intuitive. Yeah, either that or Grenan was showing his lust and deep dirty secrets openly on his face. Like reading a bloody book with rude lithographs!
    Johan was on his feet, now, sword half drawn.
    “There it is again. Like a slithering sound.”
    Both guards drew their swords and Johan opened the hut’s door. Outside, the night was still and black and rank. The water’s edge from the tannery lake lapped gently against the stained and scummy stone jetty.
    Grenan and Johan tumbled from the cosy interior and both men felt suddenly, incredibly, vulnerable. The darkness crept in, like a bat closing its wings. For some reason, both men thought back to their childhoods.
    A cold wind blew. It was edged with ice, like a glittering razor.
    “I don’t like this; not at all,” mumbled Johan, sword slippery in his sweating hand. Suddenly the blade fell and clanged on the stone walkway. The sound reverberated across the tannery lake and Grenan almost jumped out of his skin.
    “You big dumb bastard!” he hissed, snarling and spitting at Johan as he rounded on him. “You nearly made me shit my pants!”
    “I’m sorry, Grenan, really. I didn’t mean it.”
    The slithering came again, louder this time, and suddenly the tannery lake went from still platter, softly lapping, to a frenzy of activity as if a hundred barrels of eels had been suddenly upended into the stinking, rancid depths.
    Johan took a step back.
    “What is it, Grenan? What is it?”
    But before his companion could answer, the water surged up and out, and from the froth leapt figures, twisted and deformed with skin like glistening bark. All along the lake they came, leaping from the waters and Johan and Grenan raised their swords in sudden terror but the seething mass of creatures rolled over them, sharp teeth biting at their flesh, claws slashing. Johan went down an instant before his friend, as teeth tore strips from his face, chewed off his fingers, bit off his cheek, and he was screaming and thrashing as Grenan hit the ground also. Grenan’s hands clamped around the neck of one of the creatures, which stank worse than a rotting fish corpse, and for a moment he stared into glistening dark eyes filled with insanity and hate. The creature thrashed, surprisingly strong despite its twisted physique and odd broken image, but then another was alongside it, long curved black claws sinking into Grenan’s head and he screamed suddenly as intense pain crashed through him, and he let go of the creature atop him, which surged forward, fangs burrowing into his throat. Blood bubbled into his mouth and he felt himself being eaten, slick gore running down over his chest as his hands slapped helplessly at the creatures, then at the ground, until an attacker chewed off his fingers.
    With both guards still and silent and half eaten, the elf rats suddenly paused, almost as one: a gently seething mass of perhaps three hundred, maybe more, hidden in the gloom. Then their heads turned as if controlled by some central hub, a hive mind, and they looked up the long, straight street that led