by Angus Watson
“There was more. But you don’t want to know.”
“Wulf, much as I’d like to be, I’m not afraid of anything in this world. If there’s something in the next that’s going to scare me I’d like to hear about it.”
“That’s the problem,” Wulf shook his head, “I don’t think it was in the next world. It was in this one. And we’re heading for it.”
“Tell me.”
“I was a bird, flying above The Meadows.”
“How did you know it was The Meadows?”
“Big black pyramid, shitloads of monsters stretching for miles in every direction around it. Some of them were huge, much larger than our crab friend back there. So many that I couldn’t see the ground for miles in every direction around The Pyramid.”
“And beyond that?”
“Brown and red mountains surrounding the basin.”
Sofi nodded. It tallied with her vision.
“I could feel the minds of the monsters,” Wulf continued, “as if they shared one mind. Strongest of all was the urge to kill, but there was more. They were waiting until there were even more of them, then they were going to head out and kill everything they found.”
“And you think this is real?”
“I don’t mean to sound like a dick, Sofi, but I know it was real. Or at least I think I’m certain. I could be wrong.”
“Were there paths leading to The Pyramid? Any route in?”
“Nothing but a mess of monsters. The Pyramid was like that chunk of rock we took refuge on back there, and the monsters were the worms and spider-lizards, but, like I said, a whole lot bigger.”
“Anything else?” Sofi asked.
“There’s one more thing. I felt the Warlock Queen’s mind. I felt what you said, that she was mourning her missing child and raging, but there was more. I felt that… I…” Wulf wiped his eyes. Was he crying? “Sorry. I understood something that I didn’t before.”
“What?”
He set his jaw and looked ahead. “I know why we’re taking Ottar to The Meadows.”
Sofi nodded and they walked on in silence until Wulf asked, “Is there another way?”
“I mean to find one.” Sofi realised that she meant it. She didn’t want the child to die.
“Perhaps we could—”
Wulf stopped because Freydis and Ottar were waiting for them.
Sofi liked to think she was hard-hearted–she knew she was–but she couldn’t look little Ottar in the eye.
“There are two routes we can take ahead, according to Ottar,” said Freydis without preamble. She pointed. “It depends which side of that rise we go. One way is in the open, the other is along canyons. Some of them are narrow.”
“Shall we put it to a vote?” asked Wulf as they approached the split in the path.
“Canyons,” said Sofi.
“Me, too.”
“Canyons it is then.”
“I meant everybody could vote.”
“No, let’s not do that.” Sofi felt strongly about voting. Some tribes made important decisions by asking the opinion of every adult: the children, too, in the really dumb tribes. That was fine for decisions like what to have for breakfast, when everyone’s view was as valid as everyone else’s and the answer didn’t matter. When the options demanded insight, experience and knowledge, however, asking people who didn’t have insight, experience and knowledge was insanity. You’d do just as well throwing stones to pick at random. Better, in fact, since the majority of people were jealous, self-centred and mean and would always choose the path that best suited them and best fucked over people they didn’t like.
“If we ask everyone’s opinion,” said Wulf, “then it’s their fault when it goes wrong.”
Sofi smiled. “There is that, but then we also have to endure their smugness if they’re right. Let’s go into the canyons. Either choice might kill us, but the canyons will be cooler.” She could hear by their breathing and heartbeats that the Wootah were struggling with the day’s extraordinary heat.
“All right,” Wulf nodded.
The children turned to follow the others. Sofi made to follow them but Wulf took her arm.
She waited.
“Yoki Choppa knew, too,” said Wulf. “It’s why he gave his life for the boy.”
Sofi looked Wulf in the eye. He held her gaze. He was not as dumb as he looked, this golden-maned hunk. “All right,” she said.
“And please understand that I’m grateful to Nether Barr,” said Wulf. “Beyond grateful. If I’d had the choice I’d never have taken her life for mine. But it’s happened. We will call our child Nether Barr, we will think of her every day, and I will do the best I can with the years she’s given me.”
“Or days.”
“We’ve come this far, Sofi. We’re going to finish this.”
Sofi sighed. “Not all of us.”
A short while later the path forked and they took the northernmost trail.
The stony-floored valley narrowed into a sandy slot canyon. It was cooler, but hard, stone walls loomed above. The canyons were probably the wrong choice, thought Sofi, especially given the recent run of earthquakes. She was still walking next to Wulf, but now they were leading the group.
“The creatures were made of plants and minerals and water,” Sitsi was explaining to Freydis behind them. “Plants eat earth and water, and animals, including us, eat plants and other animals. We are made out of what we eat, so we are made of earth and water. The spirit of the Warlock Queen–or whatever it is at The Meadows–can make her own creatures out of earth and water, it seems, skipping the stages that normal animals need to exist.”
“But why were they so horrible?” asked Freydis.
“Because she is horrible, I presume.”
“Why the spider-lizards?”
“Perhaps she’s amalgamating animals she remembers, or perhaps they’re creatures from her nightmares. Perhaps she has no direct control over what’s created.”
“Why were they trying to kill us?”
“It isn’t personal, Freydis. They’re trying to kill everyone.”
The gully opened into a sun-bright bowl, busy with green-leaved trees, bushes and butterflies. Several birds of prey wheeled overhead and Sofi could hear dozens of scurrying mammals and lizards. She was just thinking that this place was more full of life than anywhere they’d seen for a while when she spotted the corpses.
It was a family: a man, a woman and two children no older than ten, lying in a heap half in the bushes on the edge of the path. By the tracks, they’d fled from the direction in which the Owsla and Wootah were headed, where the canyon narrowed into a dark corridor again.
She leant closer. The corpses were covered in dozens of dark welts.
“Stung to death,” said Sitsi.
Sofi strained to listen. She could hear buzzing, but only the bees, flies and the few wasps that one might expect in the pocket of vegetation. Leaving Sitsi to organise the burning of the bodies and Sassa and Paloma distracting the children, Sofi walked ahead.
Fifty paces into the slot canyon it curved and she was out of sight of the others. She pressed a palm against the cool canyon wall.
What a joy it was to be alone.
She followed the tracks of the fleeing family deeper into the canyon. They’d started sprinting next to an overhang which sheltered damp mud from the last time water had flowed. Sofi heard something moving and she squatted to look. A couple of red-spotted toads stared back at her from their shaded nook.
The doomed family had begun to jog twenty paces further along. So they’d heard or seen the wasps here, jogged for twenty paces, realised they were in serious trouble and sprinted another two hundred paces out into the open where they’d died. By the way they’d been lying, the children had fallen first and the adults had tried to shield them with their bodies.
Waves of sorrow and pity made Sofi almost weep as she imagined their terror and desperation. She bit her lip. This new sentimentality was a pain in the ar
se.
She closed her eyes and listened. Nothing unusual. The walls of the cliff were pocked with holes like a sponge. She guessed that the wasps had come out of these, but there was no evidence to support that theory.
It was a long slot canyon, a couple of hundred paces from the clearing and who knew how much further to the end. She jogged on. A hundred paces along, the canyon widened a little and there was a natural ramp in the rock on the north side. It led up to a cave. Sofi wasn’t the first to find it. On the ledge outside the cave were a multitude of footprints and the traces of several fires. In a cleft beyond the cave was a tank of dark, cool water. Sofi tasted it. It was good.
She heard the pyre whooshing into flame in the clearing. She ran back.
“So we could go back and take the open route,” she told Wulf after reporting her findings, “or keep on through the canyon.”
“And there’s no sign of the wasps?”
“If they’re there, they’re not moving.”
“And there could be worse things in the open.”
“Sure.”
“Stick to the canyon, I reckon.”
“Let’s go, everyone!” she called. “Silently, please. Whatever stung these people to death may be dormant in the canyon walls.”
“And,” she added more quietly to Wulf, “we don’t want them to be woken by grown men giggling at rock formations.”
Finn the Deep walked between Thyri and Paloma at the back of the group heading into the slot canyon. He was feeling heroic.
He’d saved them all. Again. It had been easy. Or at least the concept had been simple. The animals attacking them had one desire–to kill humans. All he’d had to do was change that to kill a giant crab. He’d then encountered a difficulty. He couldn’t tell the minds of the worms and the spider-lizards apart, so his idea to get one of them to attack the other was foiled. But then he’d told them to attack anything different from themselves, and that had worked.
Simple but, arguably, ingenious.
He could get used to saving people’s lives. It made him feel, finally, like he was worthy of being in this group of superb people. He could walk along with Thyri and Paloma without craving their attention. He already had their attention. And, he thought, he was no longer so desperate for Paloma to—
“Run!” shouted Sofi. “Follow me!”
Cocks! thought Finn. Was there never any rest?
Thyri, Paloma and Finn paused for a moment as, ahead of them, Chogolisa handed the ropes for pulling the coffin to Erik, then scooped up Freydis and Ottar. Finn saw something moving on the canyon walls.
Wasps the size of small birds were crawling from the holes in the rock. They were black-bodied with red wings, exactly like the wasp that had attacked him on the beach in Hardwork, shortly before this had all begun.
One unfurled its wings, took flight and made a beeline directly for him.
“Run!” he shouted. He flapped an arm, but the wasp dodged it and stung his neck. It was exactly where Gunnhild had been stung before she’d died. He grabbed the beast, crushed it and flung it away. The pain was excruciating. He screamed.
Another stung his buttocks, another his leg.
Ahead, Erik yelled as he too was stung.
Finn was stung again on the shoulder, then on his back. The light clothing of the Pothole people was great protection from the sun. Not so good against wasps. One sting, he remembered, one sting on the neck had killed Gunnhild.
By the time they reached the rock ramp, Finn was whimpering. His ear! One of them stung him on the fucking ear! He slapped a hand onto the side of his head and crunched the huge insect against his skull. The pain was staggering. His whole body screamed at him. He screamed back. He’d been stung at least twenty times. He was going to die.
He stumbled. His ear was ablaze and he felt like he’d been stabbed all over with red-hot knives. He was struggling to breathe.
He stumbled again, nearly tripping, but strong hands gripped his arms and held him. He had no idea whose. He couldn’t see any more, he could only scream in agony. He felt his bowels empty. Least of my worries, he managed to think as a wasp stung him on his other fucking ear! For fuck’s sake!
Then he passed out.
He woke up Loakie knew how much later. His head was on Thyri’s lap and her hand was on his head. He’d know that musky maple scent anywhere. Also sitting in the gloom, with her legs underneath his, hand resting on his shin, was Paloma. If his head hadn’t felt like a thousand rats were devouring it from the inside, he would have thought he’d died and gone to a very indulgent god’s hall.
They were in a cave. There were sleep sacks and ponchos draped across its opening, hence the gloom. There was a loud, angry buzzing behind the barrier.
He blinked. Apart from the pounding in his head, he felt more or less okay.
“Is everyone here?” he asked.
“No,” said Paloma, “we’re the only ones that made it.”
“What? Really?” Tragedy flooded his mind, along with the realisation that it was just him, Thyri Treelegs and Paloma Pronghorn now…
“No, not really. Everyone’s fine,” said Paloma brightly. “Apart from you. We tried, but we couldn’t save your arm.”
Finn lifted his hands. They were both there. “What is wrong with you?!”
“I get bored cooped up like this.”
“Thyri, please can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Everyone’s fine. You were stung more than everybody else. We’re guessing the wasps are attracted to people who wash less. And it seems that Owsla skin is too tough for the wasp stings to penetrate.”
Finn touched his neck.
“The sting on your neck did swell up a bit,” Thyri touched the spot where he’d been stung. Her fingers were cool. “And Freydis wanted to cut your windpipe and put a pipe in there–Yoki Choppa showed her how apparently and she was keen to try–but we stopped her and slapped on a standard poultice and the swelling reduced.”
“Was anyone else stung?”
“I got a couple, Ottar and Freydis were stung once each, Wulf took a couple, Sassa and Keef didn’t get stung at all and Erik got five, I think.”
“Six,” came Erik’s voice from deeper in the cave.
“You’re the only one who made any fuss,” said Paloma.
“But I got stung about fifty times!”
“Ten,” said Thyri, “if that.” There was a smile in her voice. And his head was on her thigh and she was stroking his hair.
“And are we stuck in here now?” he asked.
“We are,” Sassa answered. “We’re waiting for the wasps to die or go away. Drink a good bit of water then sleep again.”
“But remember to wake up,” said Thyri.
“Like Gunnhild didn’t?” Finn shivered.
“Exactly like that,” smiled Paloma.
Chapter 11
Snownado
Finn the Deep woke. It was bright and cold. Thyri’s thigh had been replaced by a stone. He sat up. He was alone in the cave, the door covers were gone and there was snow on the ground outside.
Snow? He’d been stung by the wasps on the hottest day ever. He must be dead! He was in the afterlife! Nowhere near a god’s hall! Alone!
He touched his neck. There was a slight bump, and now he thought about it, his ears and the other places he’d been stung felt a little fizzy. Surely one wouldn’t carry wasp stings into the next world?
He walked out of the cave and found Paloma sitting on a rock, watching him with an amused little smile on her lips. The speedy Owsla woman was in her scanty Owsla gear, unaffected by the chill. It could still be the afterlife, he thought.
He looked up and down the canyon. There was a light dusting of snow, and footprints and the drag marks of a sled headed west.
“The rest of them have gone on,” said Paloma. “Get yourself together and we’ll catch up.”
“Um?” he said when he got back, shivering a little. It was very cold.
“You’re wonde
ring why everybody buggered off even though you’d been stung multiple times and might have died?”
“I am.”
“People on the brink of death don’t snore quite so deeply nor dream quite so much.”
“How do you know what I was dreaming?”
“You were smiling like a happy cat and calling out names.”
Finn reddened. Fucknuts! he thought. Could the gods not allow him to look cool for more than half a day?
“Aren’t we worried about the wasps?” he asked.
“The temperature dropped in the night and they flew off. We think that the Warlock Queen’s creations can’t stand the cold and go to ground, like insects and lizards in winter.”
“Do you mean Sitsi thinks that?”
“Well, obviously. Put this on.” She held out her poncho. “Gather your crap and let’s go.”
The canyon joined a wider valley. The snow was deeper and Finn wondered if they’d need to don their snow shoes, but they followed the others’ trail to the side of a small river where the snow lay thinner.
The effort of jogging after Paloma kept him warm. She was always ten paces ahead, which meant he couldn’t talk to her, but he wasn’t sure he had the breath to chat anyway.
To their right was a cliff set in a series of enormous rock waves that looked about to break and crush them. Two moons ago Finn could have stared at it all morning. Now he only gave it a glance then went back to watching where he was putting his feet.
They found the others raiding a cluster of half-destroyed skin tents.
“We just can’t get rid of you, can we, Boggy?” called Keef the Berserker, walking towards them with a new fur over his shoulders. “Come and look at this.”
Down by the river was a dead, hairless dog-like animal bigger than a buffalo. Its stomach was opened, its innards gone and there were great chunks missing from its limbs. Finn guessed those wounds had been the work of scavengers. The cause of death looked to be the four spears stuck in its neck.
“There are a couple more over there,” Keef pointed. “But no human bodies. It looks like a tribe here beat the dogs, then headed off.”