Hyman let him sleep, laying down on the opposite side. The ground was cold and hard, reviving every ache and pain.
Better than being dead.
Despite the discomfort, the weight of sleep was heavier, and he was no longer able to hold it off. His thoughts moved to Hyrian, his porcelain beauty. “Don’t call me that, dad,” she’d scold, hands on hips and looking up. “I’m tough and can kick your ass.” Glorian didn’t appreciate the language she learned hanging around soldiers, but he couldn’t keep Hyrian away from the training grounds for very long, she’d always show up and watch them spar, spit, and curse. It wasn’t much wonder where she picked up the rough tongue. At seven namedays, Hyrian was tougher than most boys and could sling a stone thirty yards to knock an acorn from a branch. She had yet to use her skill to hunt or kill, but it was still impressive. Hyman intended to teach her to use a bow when he got home. She’d soon trade in her dirty-old, rag doll for a quiver of arrows, and move from striking acorns to sticking arrows into strawmen. Glorian wouldn’t be pleased, but—
A loud scream jolted him from his sleep. Hyman reached for his sword, to remember everything had been lost. He stood in his small clothes, moon shining through the trees, and grasped the branch used to hold up his lean-to. He wrenched it and the side collapsed. He held it like a club, searching around for the noise.
Weeping sounded off to his right and he saw Amyl outlined in firelight, kneeling before Gillard. Nathanael stood to the side along with several other men. They stared in shock. The only one absent was Frey. A quick glance and he found Frey laying under his lean-to, hands folded on his chest as he watched events from afar.
“What happened?” Hyman asked
“He’s dead,” Amyl said, though Hyman knew that before he saw the pasty face. He also noticed dried fleck of vomit and bruising around Gillard’s neck and jowls. Death’s Hood poisoning. The victim vomited up the first bunch, but then strangled to death as his throat swelled shut, drowning him in his own stomach acid.
Hyman reeled on Nathanael.
“Did you give him any?”
Nathanael took a step back, confusion on his face.
“Any what?”
“Mushrooms.”
Nathanael shook his head.
“I didn’t go anywhere near him.”
Hyman glared over at Frey. Frey tipped him a finger salute. It wasn’t a confession, but close enough to count. Hyman hefted his branch and marched over to Frey. His longtime war companion didn’t move.
“Fucking bastard!” The rest of the words locked up in his throat. He wanted to bash Frey’s head in, but doing so without proof would cause only more trouble, possibly a mutiny.
“The Creator brought him solace,” Frey said, giving embellished sympathy.
“You murdered him.” Hyman’s body was shaking, the way it did on the verge of battle. “We could have helped him.”
“He was helped,” Frey said. “Only it wasn’t by my hand.”
“Don’t you lie.”
“Look to your own before you accuse me.” Frey stood, all mock sincerity gone and his body tensed. “While you were sleeping and Amyl hunting in the dark, I kept watch.”
“The boy was with me,” Hyman said.
“Look to your own,” Frey repeated, nodding at the turned over lean-to.
Hyman backed away and stalked over to where the boy had almost eaten the Death’s Hood mushrooms. There wasn’t a single one left, but that didn’t mean the boy didn’t sweep them away out of fear of accidently poisoning himself. The ground looked undisturbed. Even if they were here, he could have gotten more where he found the first.
“Was it him?” Amyl asked, motioning to Frey who was settling back into his lean-to. “If it was, I want the bastard’s head to take back to Mona.”
“I don’t know,” Hyman said. “Was there any growing by him, any he could have reached out and eaten unaware?”
“You think I’d leave my wife’s brother where he could accidently kill himself?” Anger heated Amyl’s voice. “Do you think I’m that foolish or careless?”
“No.” But weariness and worry make us overlook many dangers.
“Do we beat it out of him?”
“We wait,” Hyman said. “Perhaps someone else gave it to him thinking it would do some good.”
“Who?”
Hyman nodded to Nathanael. The boy stared at the corpse.
“Might have been an accident,” Hyman said. In his gut he knew this was planned. But as to which one did it, there was no clear answer. “I’m going to keep watch. I’ll take the boy and see if he confesses.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Amyl said, close to tears.
“Nothing out here ever does,” Hyman said and patted Amyl on the shoulder. “I’ll find out what the boy knows and deliver the consequences.”
Amyl stared off into the night, a hard expression, the kind a man gets before killing, softened and he sighed.
“I’ll get a few others to help me dig up some stone. I won’t leave him for the beasts to gnaw on.” Hyman watched Amyl return to his brother by marriage and ask for help. Several men followed him and they laid Gillard out, forming a carrion for him. Nathanael was one.
Hyman dressed, though his cloths were still damp.
“Come with me, Nathanael.”
“Where are we going?” Nathanael dropped a rock on the growing pile.
“It’s our turn to keep watch. Get dressed.”
“I want to help.”
“You will be,” Hyman said. “Let’s go.”
They moved away from the noise in the camp. Nathanael was sullen, like he expected to get a lecture. Hyman wasn’t the lecturing type. Actions spoke louder than words. From what he saw of Nathanael, the boy was loyal. Hyman wanted a son and Nathanael was the closest he got.
“I should have left you at camp,” Hyman said.
Nathanael’s shoulders slumped.
“Then I would be left wondering if you died.”
“I would have got word to you,” Hyman said, “but here we are. You and I. The Creator put us in this spot for a reason. Up to us to make it work. Now, I don’t know what happened to the mushrooms—”
“It wasn’t me,” Nathanael said. “I would never hurt one of our guys. Not Gilliard. He was nice to me. Gave me his extra ration of pudding, once.”
“I’m not blaming you.”
“Sounds like you are.”
Hyman stopped and turned to Nathanael.
“You didn’t feed Gilliard the Death’s Hood?” He searched the boy’s face for a lie.
Nathanael stared him in the eye and said, “No.”
“That’s all I need.” He patted Nathanael and let him go. They walked further on and found a fallen tree to sit on.
“What happened to Gillard would have happened to me if I ate those?” Nathanael asked. “You saved my life, again. You’re right. I should’ve stayed back at camp. I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”
“We all learn lessons in this life,” Hyman said, repeating what his father had told him. “It’s what we do next that’s important.”
When dawn broke, they spoke words for Gillard, ate a small meal of starfruit, and returned to their journey. Nine remained. Nine out of twenty thousand men. Hyman had trouble wrapping his head around that number. That would be twenty thousand or more grieving widows, mothers, children. All because of those women. They were the pox marks on the beauty of creation. Hyman knew they wanted to cast the land in shadow and bring Nazglum back to fuck up everything. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Hyman followed Amyl’s advice. He mixed a plaster of mud and leaves and vines, slathering it on the soles of his feet. The impact of was less—he couldn’t feel the sharp stones unless they were larger than his toes. What he wouldn’t give for a nice pair of boots. He’d trade his home for some worn leather and a skin full of wine. Three more sunrises, he figured, and he would be home free. Let everyone else go back to fighting; he had a wife to f
uck and a daughter to teach how to shoot a bow, alternating between the two. Everything else could go to the shadow for all he cared.
“How’d they do it?” Nathanael asked.
Not now, kid. Hyman held back a groan.
“How’d they bend those trees and flood the valley?” Nathanael was not one to sit on his questions. He always had more questions than there were answers Hyman could give. He chirped them out like a bird waiting to be fed by its mother.
“Their song,” Hyman said. It was no different than the answers they gave on day one of training. ‘If you’re close enough to hear the song, then you’re gone.’
“I sing and it doesn’t bend trees.”
“It moves my hands to my ears,” Timonen said, mimicking the action. Timonen wasn’t much older than Nathanael, but had spent more time in the field. He joined their group not long after the death of Finch, drawn to them the same reason moths were to flames: because they burned the brightest.
“Stop fooling,” Nathanael said. “Did anyone ever wonder how the songs work?”
“No,” Hyman replied, hoping to end the conversation.
“Why does it matter?” Timonen asked. “Our duty is to silence them, you know, like our name means. Silent Men.”
“I thought it was to keep you fools quiet,” Frey said, coming up from the side. “Especially since we’re being followed.”
“It matters,” Nathanael went on, ignoring Frey and earning a disapproving frown. “If we can disrupt the harmony, we can find a way to counteract it.”
“Followed by who?” Hyman looked back. They were going down hill and could see nothing but the switch backs and rocks they had passed.
“Not who,” Frey said and pointed at his ears.
“We don’t know if their ability comes from the words or—Ouch!” Nathanael rubbed the arm where Hyman punched him.
Hyman held up a hand and they stopped. At first, he heard only the wind blowing through the yellowed rag-grass. He looked at Frey and Frey nodded. The sound was there, faint as parchment rustling over a candle flame. Then he saw the shadow and another. Over them flew two carrion eaters. Ugly birds that looked like they had their heads bashed in from smashing into a tree or three, their pale underbellies made them difficult to spot unless you were looking directly at them, or their shadow cast on you. If you saw the shadow, then it was too late to run. Carrion eaters were not dangerous—it’s what they trailed that got them their meal that worried Hyman.
“Get ready to run,” Hyman said.
“Will it do us any good?” Frey asked, his face going white to match the carrion eater’s underbelly.
“Some of us,” Hyman said.
A faint cough sound beyond a rock outcropping, almost like a child with a cold, except this was a creature with teeth and claws that would tear out your intestines. Hyman’s heart raced as he scanned the lower rock outcroppings. He couldn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean the ridge cats weren’t lurking beyond them. Bold bastards that didn’t care how much noise they made once they were in killing distance. Seldom did they hunt in more than pairs, or attack large parties of men. This felt like one of those exceptions because every-shitty-thing else was happening to them.
Traditional reactions to large cats was to stand tall, arms out and yelling to show you were bigger than they were. Hyman watched men die trying such maneuvers on ridge cats. They say not to run because you act like prey, but the truth was, you were prey running or standing still. Hyman quickened his pace, and he heard men grunt behind him trying to keep up. He couldn’t out run, out climb, or out hide the ridge cat, no, he just had to be faster than the man they eviscerated. Hyman was half way to the bottom when the first screams began. The urge to stop and look back was strong, like the story of the man who looked back as Nazglum sucked the souls from the living and ended up the last victim before the Void was sealed.
Another scream and he stumbled, nearly teetering over the edge of a large drop. Nathanael caught him around the waist and kept him from going over.
“I got you,” Nathanael said and yanked him back onto the path. The grade was steep, and Hyman slipped, skidding down on his heels and landing on his ass a few times. The screams didn’t stop at two, but increased to three. Three of his men fallen victims to the fucking cats. He heard that sometimes they killed one and moved on, for the sport, before going back and feeding. He hoped this wasn’t one of those occasions. To the left was an open meadow and he could run far enough where the cats would tire ad leave them for their meal. He took a step in that direction and stopped.
Go right, the voice from the mountainside said. When he looked in that direction, he caught a shape of a figure moving beneath a tall tree. He blinked and the figure was gone. Another scream broke his surprise and he began to sprint for the tree.
“Where are you going?” Nathanael stopped at the intersecting paths. “They can climb.”
Hyman ignored him. The words of wife rung in his ears. Keep climbing. Come back to me. Hyman paused, glanced over his shoulder and witnessed three more of his men sprinting his direction. Behind them was a ridge cat, big as a small horse. Its orange face speckled red and it flowed through the grass like water in a river.
Hyman grabbed the lowest branch and pulled himself up. One branch, two, three and he felt the tree shake. Shouts and curses below drove him up higher. He found a solid branch and clung to it, drawing his legs up. A white flower bloomed with a red center. Hyman plucked it and stuck it in his shirt, because it seemed important, like a talisman of sorts. A heavy cough drew his attention back to the base of the tree. Nathanael followed by Fey were right beneath him.
“Get the fuck off me!” Amyl kicked at the cat’s paw that had a claw caught in the side of his leg. There came a tearing noise and Amyl screeched. For a moment, it appeared he was going to slip, but Amyl recovered his grip and pulled up out of the ridge cat’s reach.
Hyman looked around for anything to throw. He broke off thin sappers and tossed them, hoping to distract the cat. It stood on its back legs and leapt up onto the lower branch.
“Told you they could climb,” Nathanael said. “What do we do now?”
Go higher. The same voice, the one of the cloaked-figure, he figured. It had served him well to this point.
“We go higher.”
Hyman gripped the next branch up and pulled. He climbed until the branches became too thin to hold him. Don’t look down. He kept waiting for the tell-tale scream that the cat caught his prey. None came. Hyman risked a look down, because there was no were else for him to go. Nathanael made it to a branch on the left and Frey below him.
“Amyl, you doing alright?”
No response. The ridge cat wasn’t in view either.
“Amyl?”
“Here,” came a faint, pain-filled response.
“Can you see the pussy cat?” Frey asked
“I think… it’s gone.” Amyl let out a cry. “My leg, my fucking leg! Nearly pulled it off.”
“How bad is it?” Hyman asked.
“Bad,” Amyl said. “I won’t know until we can get back down where I can look better. It hurts like Nazglum is probing it with his forked tongue.”
“Did you see if any of the others got away?” Nathanael asked.
“I was too busy running my own ass off to worry about any one else’s,” Frey replied.
“Timonen went the other way,” Amyl said. “He ran to the meadow, like he was trying to draw the bastard away.”
“It didn’t work,” Hyman said.
Amyl grunted.
“I hope he got away.”
At least one of us will.
“What’s the plan, now?” Frey asked.
“You tell me,” Hyman grumbled. “Seems like everything I say almost gets us killed.”
“We’re alive because of you,” Nathanael said. “You’ll help us get back to the Silent Men. Then we can take our revenge on those bitches.”
Frey began to laugh. The kind that was near hysterics
. Close to breaking after surviving so many times when friends had died. Hyman was close to cracking, himself, but the thought of Glorian kept him glued together.
“That’s the spirit kid,” Frey said. Don’t let several thousand dead men keep you from fighting back. While you are planning big, why don’t you grow us some wings and fly us out of here.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nathanael said. “Grow a pair of balls and skin the cat.”
“I would take yours, but they haven’t dropped yet.”
“Shut your yaps, the both of you,” Hyman said. Come back to me. “I’m going to climb down and see if it’s still there.”
“Let me,” Amyl said, and groaned.
“Stay there,” Hyman said and began dropping down to the lower branches. “Try not to fall, if you can.”
“No promises,” Amyl said.
The branch where Amyl sat had a large red spot and his torn breeches continued to drip. When Hyman got close, he saw Amyl’s face was pale. He wavered on the branch, like he’d been drinking and gave a weak smile.
“How are you holding up?” Hyman asked.
“I need to get down before I fall down.” The drop was close to ten yards, enough to break bones if not outright kill Amyl. “I can’t wait much longer. Damn cat almost nicked the sweet spot in my leg and then you would all be stuck while it feasted on me.”
“Let me take a look around and then I’ll come back for you.”
Amyl nodded.
Hyman reached the lowest branch and waited. A breeze rustled the grass, but he heard no other sound. They won’t be heard unless it wants to. Creator, bless me, what am I doing? He jumped down and made a widening circle, keeping the tree at the center. At the slightest noise he would scurry back up the trunk like squirrel escaping, well, a cat. He walked to the edge of the hill, smelling the air. Dry grass and the faint smell of blood. Five more companions were dead, maybe even six. Was that their blood he smelled in the breeze? Hyman returned back to the tree.
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