“Harnwe,” Perian said. She was tying back her hair and gathering things in a small bundle. Harnwe grunted in reply without opening her eyes. “Harnwe, I have need of you.”
The young archer sat up. Perian had never asked her for anything in all the time they had tented together on this campaign. Though they supported each other in various ways, as the only two women in the company, their connection could hardly be called a friendship. In fact, Perian seemed to treat everyone except the captain with an aloof disdain, and had barely spoken a score of words to the skirmisher since their first meeting.
“I have a plan which may save the company and ensure victory in the coming battle. I cannot succeed without your aid. We must leave now, at once, and unseen.”
Harnwe was grateful that the dim tent hid her flushed cheeks, but she couldn’t keep the disgust from her voice. “If you want to run, go ahead. You’re not a soldier. None will stop you.”
Perian stopped what she was doing.
“I’m not running,” the woman said, slowly and emphatically. “I am trying to save us all.”
“I won’t talk to a coward.” Harnwe rolled over on her bedroll, giving the raff her back—
—and found herself pinned to the blankets by a sinewy arm, a slim blade pressed against her throat. Harnwe froze, aware that her lifeblood bubbled within a hair of the dagger’s edge.
“I do not run. Call me a coward again, Kerathi, and I will end you.”
Harnwe turned suddenly, throwing her weight against the other woman and rising to her knees, ready to grapple. Perian leaped back, crouching in the darkness as the two faced each other.
Then the barbarian sheathed her knife and held out her hands to show them empty.
“I tell you, I have a plan. The captain has forbidden me, but it is the only way. I need help, and I thought to find it in another woman, one who could see what these single-minded men do not. Perhaps I was wrong. Tell me I am not wrong.”
“What plan?” Harnwe managed, rubbing her throat with one hand to make sure there was no cut.
“We are going back to the lumber camp. We will lead the mekkilak here.”
“Mekk…?”
“The centipede. The monster that laid its eggs in the pit back there. It will be a swift, hard journey. We both may die a gruesome death, but if we do not bring new force to bear against the Silverpath, they will kill us all.”
Harnwe sighed and rubbed at her eyes. She knew Pelekarr held Perian in high esteem and counseled with her. But now the raff was leaving to enact some new plan, against the will of the captain? “Sergeant Grutt said that—”
“It is of no importance what the sergeants say, or even what the captain says. On this hinges the survival of the company.”
“What do you need me for? I’m just an archer.”
“To summon the creature, I must enter a trance, and I will lose track of my surroundings. I need you there to assist me, to tell me when to awaken and move onward. Otherwise the beast will consume me, and then you.”
Perian moved closer in the darkening tent and gripped Harnwe’s shoulder.
“Will you help me in this? I tell you if we do not go, all else is in vain. If we hurry now, we may return just in time to turn the tide of battle. If we delay, everyone will die.”
Harnwe considered it. The feeling among the ranks was that they were indeed facing their final hours. If she could indeed bring hope to them all, it would change everything.
“If we leave without orders… the penalty for desertion at a time like this is death.”
“If we are caught, I will swear that you were obeying me under duress.” The White River woman patted her knife’s handle. “Come. They will not miss one archer tomorrow. But they will miss the aid we are bringing, if we fail, to their certain defeat.”
Harnwe knew her officers would expect nothing but blind obedience. And yet the entire enterprise of the Tooth and Blade was a step away from that Kerathi dogma, an opening up of thought and decision in war-craft. Then, also, she was Ostoran at heart, not Kerathi. The White River shaman’s plan was bold, and her will unrelenting. She sighed.
“If we stay and fight as the captain directs, there’s a chance—”
“No chance, Harnwe. No chance, I am telling you. I have lived my whole life in dread and hatred of Kultan’s warriors. We can only overcome them if you and I now go and do this thing. Are you with me?”
Slowly, silently, Harnwe nodded.
The young archer took two cavalry spares down to the lake, ostensibly to water them. They were the fleetest she could find, yet docile enough to be manageable by the two women, neither of whom was an expert rider.
The evening light was dimming fast, the air was smoky from the cook-fires, and most of the troops were bedding down in exhaustion. Sentries were watching the forest, but not the lakeshore. She let the horses wander farther from the fort, following leisurely, and when she was sure no one was paying attention to her she walked the horses swiftly into a clump of trees a few hundred paces down the beach.
Perian was already there, having slipped out another way without raising an alarm. Harnwe wasn’t surprised; the White River woman moved like a ghost.
“No one follows?” Perian asked.
Harnwe shook her head. “Seems there’s a hole in the sentry line facing the lake. I should report it.”
“There is nothing we can do there now. Let’s be off.”
Silently they mounted and made their way from the small lakeside copse into the denser forest beyond. The animals carried them far more swiftly than if they had attempted the journey on foot, despite needing some time to accustom themselves to the animals. Once they were a half-league from the fort, they urged their steeds into a gallop. By keeping to the open parts of the terrain, they soon left the lake far behind.
Perian was unsure of herself on the back of the spirited mare, and Harnwe was no cavalryman herself. But she knew enough of riding and helped the White River woman settle into a more graceful cadence as they traveled through the night.
By sunup they had ridden several leagues, and Perian had learned the way of her mount. Traveling light, without even a spear between them, the two women made excellent time. Their horses were excited to be moving quickly again, with riders that weren’t nearly as heavy as an armored cavalry soldier. They continued onward, and by pacing the animals with occasional breaks they traveled far that day.
The back trail was doubly easy to follow after the passage of the mercenaries to the lake fort, and it allowed them to pay less attention to the ground and more to their surroundings. Speed was far more important than stealth on this journey, but they couldn’t afford to blunder into an ambush from man or beast. Harnwe kept a keen lookout and paid attention to her horse’s senses as well. Perian remained focused on speed above all else.
Fortunately, the weather was perfect for a hard ride—bright but cool. They flashed through sun-dappled meadows, forded foaming streams, and cantered down the dark avenues of trees. Despite the danger and urgency of the task ahead, it was exhilarating to be free and unencumbered, riding a fleet horse on an important mission.
Harnwe relished being on her own again, after so long under the control of the Tooth and Blade sergeants. She felt no small doubt and the occasional twinge of guilt for leaving, but she had to believe in the barbarian woman’s urgent decision to go. If they succeeded, all would be forgiven and she would be an instant hero. If they failed, there would be none left to tell the tale or censure her memory.
It was small comfort.
“When we approach the lumber camp,” Perian explained as they rode, “we must be careful not to blunder into the centipede. If it has already arrived and found its nest destroyed, it may have advanced along our trail, or still be waiting in the area. If it has not yet come, we will lure it back toward the lake.”
“Will it follow all that way?”
“I will make it follow us.”
Harnwe didn’t understand the details. She
didn’t want to. She had not been a part of the nest destruction, but she had heard the stories from those who had, and had seen their shocked faces.
When night came they camped without fire in a small copse of evergreens near a stream. Before dawn they were riding again, slower now, with more frequent breaks.
This day passed without incident as they turned to the southeast, and as the sun lowered on the second day they came into view of the abandoned fort. They’d made excellent time, riding light and unaccompanied by marching hoplites. Now their destination loomed before them, lonesome and forbidding in the evening light.
It stood, apparently untouched, squat against the river. The two women sat their horses for some time, hidden in the trees, staring out across the open ground for any sign of barbarian or monster. The bare earth around the timber structure was covering over with new weed growth now that no one was left to clear it, but there was no sign of recent passage of man or beast.
“Looks clear,” Harnwe said.
Perian nodded slowly, but the look in her eyes made the archer uncertain.
“Give me a moment,” the White River woman said. “I will try to sense it.”
Perian slowly dismounted and handed her reins to Harnwe. She stood, wavering, clearly unsure of herself. Now that they were on death’s doorstep, the terrible risk seemed greater, the likelihood of success slimmer.
The archer patiently watched as Perian sat cross-legged on the ground and closed her eyes. Working her hands down through the grass into the earth beneath, the woman began leaning from side to side, her necklaces swaying with each movement. Harnwe scanned the trees, the open ground, the fort. Her bow was in her hand, arrow nocked to string.
Suddenly Perian’s eyes flickered, and Harnwe saw that they were rolled back into her head. A low, wordless moan escaped the woman’s lips.
Harnwe became alarmed; Perian seemed no longer to be in full control of her body. Yet the archer dared not interrupt.
The barbarian woman’s body stilled, and after a moment she opened her eyes and knelt, leaning forward on her knees as if she might vomit. She took a long breath, then let it out.
Finally she stood. “It is not here. Not yet. But it is coming, and it is close. We must be quick and cautious so as not to be caught inside the fort when it comes.”
Harnwe wondered at the strange ritual. Did the White River shaman truly possess the power of a seeress?
The archer knew little of such things, coming from a simple upbringing among the rough streets of frontier towns in Ostora. But she had heard the tales about the tribesmen, and this barbarian woman seemed so self-assured. Perhaps there was mystical knowledge to be gained from the shaman and her tribal ways.
She sighed, eyeing the fort nervously. “We’re going inside?”
“Yes. We can use some of the scent from the egg-pit to lay a trail.”
Perian re-mounted and they spurred into the open at a lope, eyes on the ramparts. The walls ahead were ugly and cold. Raw wood, still marked by axe and adze.
Eyes seemed to watch them, evil eyes staring malignantly from the forest, from the river, from the palisade wall of the fort. Just because the centipede monster hadn’t arrived yet didn’t mean there weren’t men or apes infesting the place in the absence of the soldiers. Harnwe gripped her bow tighter.
The stench from the pile of dead apes outside the wall wafted toward them on the breeze, mingling with the warm muddy smell of the river. They circled the fort just out of arrow reach, heading toward the gates, daring an enemy to expose itself. But the only sound was the wind, sighing softly around the walls.
The gates still stood propped open as the company had left them. The only tracks visible on the earth were the hoof and boot prints of the soldiers exiting the fort several days before. None of them went the other way, inside. It was reassuring, but meant little. The walls could be scaled, as the night attack of the pale apes had proven.
They reined to a halt just inside the gate and surveyed the fort’s interior. Nothing had changed. A few more weeds, some scattered leaves. The hut doors yawned like open mouths as the wind whistled through chinks in the walls, a lonely, desolate sound.
They moved forward. Both horses were alert, ears swiveling this way and that, nostrils flaring. It might have been a residual stench from the cave; the horses increased their nervousness the closer they approached the central building.
Dismounting, Harnwe and Perian tied their reins to the porch rail of the magistrate’s office. Sticking close together, they walked around the building to the rear. The signs of hasty digging were still evident.
Together they wrestled two boulders out of the way, exposing the dank hole. A foul stench poured out, and Harnwe gagged. Perian breathed tightly through clenched teeth.
“I need a torch,” she wheezed. “I’m going in there.”
They tore some thatching off of the nearest hut and constructed a crude torch, which flint soon ignited in a smoky blaze. Harnwe was glad of the smoke, as it masked the unrelenting reek of the opened den.
Perian dropped into the pit, and the archer cautiously peered after her. The barbarian disappeared entirely from view, but Harnwe could see the flicker of torchlight moving on the walls. Only bare patches on the slickened walls attested to the grisly things that had hung there. From her vantage point, Harnwe could see the uneven sandy floor speckled with the sprays and spattered remains of destroyed eggs—the source of the vile stink.
Inside the pit, Perian coughed. “Ugh. My nostrils burn!”
Harnwe started at a sound coming from the far side of the building behind her, but a second and more pronounced snort told her it was only the horses, even more affected by the smell than the human pair. No doubt the animals would be eager to get away from the place. For her part, Harnwe didn’t think they could leave quickly enough.
A strangled cry came from inside the cavern.
“What is it?” Harnwe cried, near panic.
The barbarian woman coughed, grunted, and finally approached the opening again.
“An egg. A cursed egg, intact and near hatching!”
Perian’s upper half emerged from the dark hole, tossed her torch out, and began to climb upward cradling a glistening round object in her arm.
Harnwe was simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by the thing. She’d heard tell but hadn’t seen any of the eggs. This one, apparently missed in the rush to cover the pit and dispose of the victims’ bodies, was the size of a small melon, but elongated and curved like a huge bean.
Perian handed it up to her. “Take the deerskin from my saddle. Wrap this in it, and take care not to touch the egg with your hands.”
Harnwe ran to the horses and retrieved a fold of supple deerskin. Coming back to the pit, she used it as both glove and sack, gripping the slimy egg. It came free of Perian’s hands with a jelly-like squelch, leaving strings of mucus clinging to her.
Now that Harnwe held the thing, it seemed to pulsate and wriggle slightly. Holding it up to the fading light she saw a long worm-like shape coiled within the greenish egg sac. It moved of its own accord, shifting languidly in the jelly that nourished it.
“Gods preserve us,” Harnwe breathed. “What a monster.”
She wrapped the egg carefully, retching at the smell. Making sure that it was completely enclosed, she twisted the rudimentary sack shut and handed it to Perian. The barbarian woman swung the precious cargo over her shoulder to return to the horses, which neighed shrilly and tugged hard at their tethers.
Mounting was difficult; in the end Perian had to climb into the saddle and calm her mount forcefully before Harnwe handed the gooey bundle up to her. Still the horses pranced, skittish and ready to bolt.
They left the area quickly, without taking the time to cover the entrance again. In the fresh air on the far side of the magistrate’s building they both breathed deep, then looked around at the still, silent fort.
Something in the air made the hair on the back of their necks tingle, and it wasn�
��t just the smell still wafting around on the breeze.
Suddenly, without reason, something close to panic seized the two women.
“Go, go!” Perian urged. “Don’t stop for anything.”
Rounding the corner of the building at a gallop, they made for the gate. The smell of the thing hanging from a strap on Perian’s saddle made the horses run even faster, and Harnwe didn’t try to slow or stop hers. But it took all her concentration just to stay in the saddle, and once clear of the gate Perian’s frightened animal twisted its neck and bit at the woman, desperate to rid itself of the reeking, dangerous load.
They charged from the fort and covered the muddy flats outside at a dead run. The animals quit their bickering as they began to gallop in the open terrain, and the two riders urged their horses faster and still faster. In seconds they were away from the hated fort and thundering through the trees again.
It was a straight ride now, muscle and sinew against the passage of time, back the way they’d come. Damp earth flew up in clods from the pounding hooves. Harnwe gulped the rushing air and nearly cried in sheer relief.
They crossed a stream and Perian dismounted briefly to wipe her hands thoroughly in the grass and wash in the stream. She repeated this a few times before riding out again.
“That ought to do it,” she told Harnwe. “When the thing comes, it will follow. Now that we have this, nothing will stop it.” She held up the sack with the egg in it. “It’ll smell the egg from leagues away, and be driven mad with the urge to save its last hope of offspring.”
Trailing an invisible cloud of fetid scent in the humid air, the two women disappeared onward into the trees, heading northwest.
In the rapidly increasing distance behind, something eyeless paused and tested the air with its feelers. Then it hurried onward through the vegetation, cutting branch and root from its path wherever it encountered obstacles. Minutes later it left the trees and approached the wooden fort, scuttling up and over the wall without hesitating.
It took several seconds for the tail of the thing to join its head inside the fort.
Red Valor Page 24