‘Tseshya?’
‘No. Don’t think so. He … I saw him go out. With one of the girls. I … went to stop him!’ He scowled defiantly when some of the others chuckled.
‘Forget that for now,’ ordered Asquan, who had stayed leaning over the hole, apparently untroubled by the stench. ‘Something else stirs down here!’
In the end they lowered him over with Darzhan, dangling torches from other lines, igniting the mephitic air in little splashes and spurts of blue light.
‘Only about ten feet!’ called Asquan, coughing. ‘But the foot – faugh!’
They heard Darzhan vomiting; and when Chiansha looked over, so did he.
‘Someone alive!’ shouted Asquan. ‘And … another! It’s the scholar! Send me down a line!’
‘Two lines!’ said Rysha flatly.
‘But the other one …’
‘Two,’ said Alya. ‘But Tseshya first.’
The scholar was unconscious when they found him wallowing among the unholy mix of filth and carrion, half naked, bleeding from cuts and grazes about his head and one bad wound in his side, again from a cane spear. Luckily his shirt seemed to have held it back somewhat, and staunched the worst of the blood. ‘Miracle he didn’t drown in that mire!’ growled Kalkan.
‘Would have, most like, if he’d been properly out when they threw him down!’ said Fazdshan. ‘Tougher than he looks, this lad!’
‘He’ll need to be! Chances are it’ll fester. What of this other, then?’
‘She’s half dead, too!’ grunted Alya, as he hauled up the second line, and Rysha dragged the inert and filthy shape over the edge.
‘Our gracious hostess!’ said Asquan, following her up. ‘But something more than that, it seems!’ And he held up several pieces of something, into the torchlight – a strange shape, monstrous, gaudily painted.
‘It’s a bloody mask!’ exclaimed Chiansha. ‘Or it was till lately! Like those louse-ridden Seers use for their tricks – saving your presence, o’ course!’ he added hastily to Alya. ‘Savin’ your presence!’
‘Feel free!’ said Alya wearily, looking at the fragments his sword had made of the gaudy, potent thing. ‘I’m no longer much of a shaman. But I’d remember this design if I’d seen it before. It’s none I know of – an Ekwesh totem, probably. Scales and feathers – some sort of serpent-spirit, I guess. Beautiful and powerful; you can feel it. Not a drug, then. She was working on our minds directly. I should have been on the alert for that. And she could gather the mists somehow, too. Well, we’ve got to get them all back to the house, and tended – yes, her as well! I’ve questions to ask her.’
He lingered, fingering the broken edges left by his blow, and the fall that followed. ‘But this thing – I could have used this! Maybe found another path to the Wall, one I could still take!’
‘Can it not be repaired?’ asked Asquan.
‘As wood and metal, yes. As the guise of a Seer, no.’ Alya sighed. ‘It’d need to be refashioned in many ways. As soon make another from scratch, almost; and even then it would lack the strength these things gather with time and use. This one was very old and potent.’ He held it out over the reeking pit and let the pieces fall, splashing back into the liquid mix of sewage and the carrion corpses of those the mask had lured. ‘Now that’s the best we can do with it. Let’s get back with the others.’
Nobody wanted to sleep. It felt uncommonly good to bar the door behind them and stoke up the stove to a blaze, and when Asquan demanded hot water to tend the wounded, they formed a party of five to go down to the river. They came hurrying back in earnest, looking anxiously into every shadow.
‘Did you see something?’ demanded Alya, as they scuttled down the steps.
‘Nothing much!’ admitted Chiansha. ‘But you start at every shadow. Even a few swans flying low …’
‘Swans?’ Alya swung out of the door and up the steps in haste.
‘To the north!’ called Chiansha. ‘Flying north!’
Alya scanned what he could make out of the sky, but it was little enough, and he came back down thoughtfully. ‘Big swans?’
‘Very big. Didn’t see much more, the moon being so low. They were just shadows. Funny, now you mention it; you’d have thought they’d shine more, being white an’ all!’
‘Maybe they weren’t!’ said Alya. ‘Come on, let’s get this water to the stove!’
They boiled it in the women’s crude earthen cauldrons and pots, and Vansha washed himself, while they sponged the stinking mire off the wounded. ‘Duck your head and I’ll wash your hair!’ Rysha told him, then, as he surfaced, dripping, she gleefully added, ‘Probably won’t be the first head there’s been in here!’
‘What d’you mean?’ croaked Vansha.
Rysha grinned evilly in the smoky red light. ‘You should know, where you’ve been playing around! All those remains – don’t think they let all that good meat go to waste, do you?’
‘I thought they looked plump enough!’ said Alya, chilled. Vansha turned very uneasy, but Rysha sniggered.
‘How does Tseshya fare?’ asked Alya hastily, as Asquan came to the stove
‘Oh, he’ll live to study more follies!’ said Asquan cheerfully, rinsing away clotted blood. ‘A dunt on the head and a shallow stab, nothing vital pierced. They made a careless job of butchering you both, my lord Vansha. Just what you’d expect from a woman!’
‘It worked well enough, for all that!’ said Alya.
‘I call it a nice neat trick!’ said Rysha calmly. ‘Lead a man by the cock, out to where you can cack him undisturbed. And he’ll even keep quiet in case the others all want a bit, too. That’s how it was, eh, me Lord Vansha?’
Vansha snarled and mumbled something about witches.
Asquan glared at the women cowering around the older woman, washing her clean, and the blood from head and arm. ‘And I can guess what wondrous visions they showed young Almur!’ sniffed Asquan. Not just one, but two or three of you, innocent little things surprised in the bushes … Oh yes, pretty please, but don’t let the others see! Gah! You and your demons and monsters!’
‘They’re real,’ said one of the young women sullenly. ‘You wait. You’ll see!’
‘They’ll be cleaner company!’ snarled Kalkan. ‘Murdering bitches! Stabbing decent men, eating them, even! And selling their armour, I don’t doubt!’
‘We should certainly make them pay for it!’ said Asquan evenly. His eyes looked dull and fixed as a dead man’s, and they shrank away.
‘Make us pay?’ It was the older woman’s voice. Awake now, livid of face, she half rose on her sound arm, laughing hysterically. ‘Funny, funny! Pay more than we have already? How can you do that?’
‘I can show you, soon enough,’ said Asquan icily; but Alya waved him back.
‘What have we ever done to you? Did we not share our food, and trust you?’
‘Didn’t you hear me? You’ve taken our men, taken their sons and daughters to be! Never to come back, save on the ghost-rides! Thralls to their death and thralls thereafter, fodder of war, my boys, my boys … You – men! You – warriors!’ She made them the foulest insults she could spit.
‘I told you,’ said Alya quietly. ‘We are not the Aikiya, the Ice-wolves, we are their enemies. We’re rescuers. We are not even warriors, first and foremost.’
‘You? You might be something more, or think you are. Her, maybe. But the rest of you? Him, the cold grey one? Him, with the iron face? Him, like a sharp new knife?’ She meant Vansha. ‘Slayers all! Wasters all!’
Kalkan strode forward and caught a girl by the hair. ‘Permit me to show you a reason!’ He threw her at Alya’s feet. ‘Let Asquan have his way, my lord!’
She snarled up at Alya. ‘Oh aye! Like your little tame demon! Whom like sots you slew for the deed we did!’ She spat at his feet, and made an obscene gesture in his face. ‘Some rescuers! Excuses for more blood! You’re as bad, you’re all alike! You ruin our lives with our fighting, then foul our bodies. Why shouldn’t we gnaw
on your bones, if we can?’
Kalkan took a stiff step forward, but suddenly Rysha was in his way. ‘That’s right!’ she said softly, her voice almost caressing. ‘Why shouldn’t they?’
Kalkan menaced her with his open hand. ‘One murdering witch dares speak up for another? You forget your place, woman!’
‘So do you, my lord!’ she answered. ‘So do you!’
In the stove-lit dimness of the hut she seemed to fade suddenly, to grow. In her place, almost as tall as Kalkan, stood a lean young man, pale, cheeks pinched with famine and fever, the old lord’s unmistakable image. His eyes bright with delirium, his lips cracked and raw, he mouthed soundless pleas and waved his fleshless arms in desperate entreaty. But suddenly his cheeks sank in, his eye-sockets hollowed, his lips drew lividly back over fixed and grinning teeth. The lower jaw sagged and fell away.
Kalkan screamed aloud, a racking, high-pitched sound to come from such a huge man, and sank to his knees. His soldiers, riveted with horror, turned their weapons on the image, but it was no longer there. Nor was Rysha.
‘We all do things we’d never think possible, don’t we, my lord?’ she said, from the surrounding shadows. ‘When he died, you had food, didn’t you? Not much, but some. I knew, b’lieve me! I was just itching to get my paws on it. But you knew he was dying, and it’d be wasted if you gave it him; whereas you could still live. So you didn’t. And so you did.’
She giggled. ‘Nicely put, that! Still, can’t have been easy, can it? Your own son! But it was right. Why? Because it was striking back. Like I was doing, when they used me worse’n their bloody dog, my dear husband and his dad! And that’s what we’re all doing, aren’t we, in our different ways? Else why exactly are we spending what life we have left chasing some little skirt most of us’ve never even seen? Striking back!’
Alya felt a deep chill about him, like a wind from another world. ‘But their way was cold-blooded murder! As if we were Ekwesh. I told them we weren’t!’
‘So?’ she snapped. ‘What d’you think they know about anything? Like I said, the Ekwesh are all they’ve ever seen of the world outside, and I mean all! Expect them to make nice distinctions? To them you are all the same!’
The round house was silent a while, save for Kalkan’s dry sobbing. Alya gestured to Darzhan and the soldiers, and they came up to lead the old lord away. Alya ran his hand over his brow. ‘Asquan, let her go. Rysha is right. Or rather, she makes a good defence.’
Asquan’s clawed fingers caressed the shaking girl’s neck, like a casual talon. ‘They sought to murder us, without cause. It might have been worse, far worse. Your girl left without any hope of rescue.’
‘I know. I will not easily forgive. But they have suffered badly for the attempt, and that in itself grew out of suffering. That’s enough. We won’t make it worse.’
Vansha began a disbelieving shout, but it died in his throat. There were no other protests, not even grumbles of disagreement, but the silence was almost worse. Nobody made a move. Then Asquan shrugged, without any heat, slapped the girl back and forth across the face, hard, and left her sobbing on the trodden floor. ‘As you will, my lord. Shall I see how the older woman fares? Her wounds also will likely fester. I should examine them, if we’re to spare her life.’
And hurt her a hundred times over, no doubt! But Alya found he could summon up no great guilt over that. ‘Do so, my lord. She may be able to tell us a great deal of interest, not least about the road ahead.’
Asquan nodded thoughtfully. ‘So be it! I may have a little talk with her now, in case fever or festering set in.’
The mood relaxed, at last; and weariness drove them back to their blankets. Alya went over to where Kalkan sat, head in hands. ‘Come, my lord, try yourself no further. He would have understood, your son.’
Kalkan looked at him, absently, his eyes watery and vague. ‘Would he? Do you truly think so? I wonder. It was not only that, you see. It was after he died, when there was no more food … Flesh of my flesh, you see. Was that an act of reason, of love? And then next day they sent whole baskets in, after so many days forgotten. Heavy with rich scraps from some banquet … It was that, that made me sick. Not what should have done. Not him. So you see, I am no better than them, my Lord Alya. Not truly.’
Alya found it hard to speak. ‘I would not say so, not by far. Nor would your son. The vision you saw was a cruel lie. Sleep now, and banish the memory!’
He rose, and went to find Rysha, now laying out her mat protectively before the young women. She smirked up at him. ‘Come to take up where we left off?’
‘I doubt it,’ he said shortly. ‘That was a terrible thing you did to Kalkan. Never do it again.’
‘He would have slain them, otherwise. He, steeped in his own guilt!’
‘After a fashion. As you, in yours.’
She mocked him, making as if to whip up her shirt, as the girl had. ‘And what would you have been deeper in, my lord, but for me?’
‘I know. Myself, and Vansha, and Tseshya. And I’m grateful. If I could give you much more than gratitude, I would.’
She posed a moment, considering, hands still on the hem of her shirt. ‘Who knows? But not now, not tonight. Go dream of your little bit.’
Alya bowed, and made his escape. Vansha, rubbing himself dry over the warm updraught of the stove, grabbed his arm as he made for his mat.
‘You think it all serves me right, don’t you? This, after—’
‘I didn’t say that, brother. That was a strong sending the woman set upon us, with that mask. Using our own minds to increase its strength, maybe. My father said that could be done, though he never told me how. But you didn’t just follow Tseshya, did you?’
‘Unh. How did you know?’
‘A girl came to me, as well. But I – well, I was half asleep, half dreaming. I must have just dropped off again. And perhaps my Seer’s training helped block the spell; or these forces I’ve been given. But mostly I was thinking of … well, other things.’
‘Don’t say it! Savi.’ Vansha groaned. ‘You must think I don’t know what of me. That I’m an oath-breaker or something …’
Alya felt bone-weary. ‘You didn’t swear off other women. Just not to abandon the chase. I’m not standing in judgement, anyhow. It caught up with me, eventually.’
Vansha sighed in anguish. ‘You know what she did to me, brother? It was the little one, the round-faced one. I woke up with this hand feeling around me, and …’
‘Don’t. Rysha’s bad enough.’
‘It’s been a long time. I just … I felt … A statue would have been stirred! Wouldn’t anyone? And the bitch said we’d be all right out back. And, Powers, it was all right, it was damn good and she was enjoying it too, pumping away like … with those little legs waving, and then … They waited until, you know, and they whipped something around my throat, pulled it tight. And you know, under that damned ’fluence it felt … crazy. I struggled … broke a spear, they couldn’t get a proper stab at me, kept jabbing. But then they got into a rush and just dragged me off kicking and threw me into that … that vat of Hella. Couldn’t even cry out! Isn’t that something could happen to anyone?’
‘I’m for my blankets again,’ yawned Alya. ‘I won’t tell Savi, brother, if that’s what’s bothering you. Provided you let me sleep out the night!’
That was not to be. He slept almost at once; but the groans and whimpers of the wounded invaded his sleep, and the uneasy stirrings of the others. Towards dawn Darzhan erupted out of a yelling nightmare which set the women off in hysterics. Vansha showed no sign of nightmare, but hardly seemed to sleep; he sat up muttering to himself, not in terror so much as anger, darting sharp malevolent glances towards the women. The smell of blood and sickness, and the lingering taint of that ghastly pit, seemed to invade the room and foul the air. It oppressed Alya as he lay there, unable to sleep again or to think properly. When he shook off the horrors, other images haunted him, filling him with great uncertain fears; and though at
last he drifted off, it seemed only a moment before Asquan was shaking his shoulder.
‘Mmmnh?’
‘The sun is well up, my Lord Alya. Or would be, if cloud and mist and cane did not obscure the light. And I was right about our wounded. That filth has set festering and fever in all, even Vansha. Not too seriously, however.’
Alya struggled to sit up. ‘Thanks to your care and skill, my lord, I’m sure. But you’re saying we can’t ride on today?’
‘Nor for three days at least. Perhaps more for Tseshya, for all that he insists he will be ready tomorrow – when he isn’t delirious, that is.’
Alya twisted his blankets in his fist. ‘More delay, more! These bloody-handed whores! Maybe I should’ve let you have your way, after all!’
‘Maybe. But your notions of chivalry and justice are oddly becoming, in their way. I do not wish to rid you of them, not wholly. And the woman is certainly well paid! That was a savage cut you gave her, my lord!’
‘In a savage snare!’ shuddered Alya. ‘Will she die?’
Asquan shrugged. ‘Her shoulder is slashed deep, into the bone, her jaw less deeply. If her own filth poisons her blood, perhaps; I have not the skill to amputate. But I think not. And I did persuade her to speak a little last night, of our road, and other matters that might be worth hearing, since we must wait in any case.’
Alya sat up stiffly. Someone was frying smoked fish, a smell he normally quite liked. Today, with the sickbed reek still stronger, it made his gorge rise. He could tolerate none of it. Wrapped in his great cloak, he strode up and down the wide hut like a caged bear, while the women cowered, and the others kept well out of his way. Once he kicked a stone out of the floor, smashing a cane in the wall. Finally Vansha called him over to where he lay by the stove.
‘Sit, brother! You’ve walked halfway there already, you deserve a rest!’ And, more softly, his voice still croaking, ‘Can you not see how you unnerve them? Just when you need to hearten them? We’ve lost our first man, and near enough more!’
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