Revenant

by Bevan McGuiness

  24

  Keshik stalked along the arrow-straight lines of Tulugma warriors. Every able-bodied member of the Kuriltai was standing rigidly in formation as the self-proclaimed Ogedei examined them. There were several bruises evident, not the least of which being the impressive one on the side of Li’s face.

  ‘You will probably all die in the coming battles,’ Ogedei Keshik informed them. ‘And, as I will be leading you, so will I. But we are facing the very thing that our ancient founder, the Mertian Tulugma, summoned into the world and if it is not stopped, the world we know will cease to exist. No matter what manner of death you meet, it will be worthy.’

  A murmur of interest rippled across the nearly fifty warriors. It ceased at Keshik’s scowl. ‘We are leaving when the sun touches the first mark. It is already late, so get some sleep. You will need it.’ He turned on his heel and went back to see to Slave. Behind him, the Tulugma warriors started to disperse, some of them pausing to regard the carved lines on the western wall. The shadow of the eastern wall moved quickly up them during the morning and the first mark, close to the ground, was the accepted measure of dawn in the Kuriltai. Most then hurried away to their beds. Li, staring at Keshik as he stalked away, absently rubbed at the aching bruise on her face.

  Keshik, unaware of her scrutiny, entered the room where Slave was resting after being tended by the Kuriltai healers. He was heavily bandaged and the whole room was redolent with the stink of the various salves and potions used on his wounds. Slave was asleep, which was the best thing for a man so badly injured. Maida, sitting by his bed, looked up at Keshik.

  ‘How is he?’ Keshik asked.

  ‘Alive.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘It’s surprising.’

  ‘Not for anyone who knows him. He’s a tough one.’

  ‘Surviving that takes more than being tough.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Maida pointed at a savage wound across Slave’s chest. ‘That was through to the bone. Now look at it.’

  Keshik squinted. ‘Healing nicely,’ he observed.

  ‘So soon? It should not have stopped bleeding yet, but it is closing already.’

  ‘Are you saying he’s getting magical help?’

  Maida shifted her gaze to the softly glowing silver eye, visible beneath the torn eyelid that had never closed over. ‘What do we know about that?’

  ‘It’s ugly.’

  Maida smiled briefly. ‘What else? What does that eye see? Does it do anything else for him? Is there anything else …’ she hesitated, seeking the right word ‘… inhuman, no — more than human — about him?’

  ‘Just his speed, his senses, his strength and those berserk rages of his.’ Keshik stopped, scratching at his chin. ‘Ice and wind,’ he whispered. ‘Is he human at all?’

  Maida shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then what is he?’

  ‘Scaren,’ came a voice from the doorway. Keshik and Maida looked around sharply to see Li silhouetted in the door.

  ‘We know that, Li,’ Keshik said.

  ‘But do you know what it means?’

  ‘What do you know?’ Maida asked.

  ‘He’s pureblood Scaren Beq. There was a reason the Mertians fought them to the death, even to the point of summoning that thing to the world to defeat them.’

  ‘They summoned it to counter what the Scarens had already summoned.’

  ‘And what exactly was the thing the Scarens summoned?’

  ‘They call it the Revenant,’ Keshik said.

  ‘A Revenant of what?’

  Keshik frowned. He had never paid any attention to the thing’s name and it suddenly seemed meaningful. It was stupid that he had not considered it before. ‘What do you know?’ he asked Li.

  ‘Nothing really,’ she admitted. ‘Just some old stories my mother told me.’

  ‘Was she Scaren?’ Maida asked.

  Li went strangely still. Her stillness seemed to flow out from her, filling the room with a chill sensation. Keshik felt his body grow cool, his limbs became heavy, his eyelids started to droop. He shook himself to throw off the sensations. Li was looking at him with her strange pale eyes intent.

  ‘What just happened?’ asked Maida, her voice disconcertingly loud.

  Li stirred, breaking the feeling. Keshik felt the warmth flood back into his body.

  ‘What did you do?’ Keshik asked.

  Li shook her head. ‘Nothing. What did you do?’

  Keshik took a step towards Li, but felt the coolness start to return to his limbs. He stopped and took a step back. The feeling faded.

  ‘We’ve been asking what Slave is,’ he accused, ‘but what are you?’

  ‘Part Scaren, I think.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This coldness, this stillness. Are you doing that?’

  Li looked around quickly before giving a quick nod. ‘It’s an old mountain trick. My mother taught me.’ She shifted her gaze to Slave. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Nearly dead,’ Maida said.

  ‘Will he survive?’

  ‘He will,’ Keshik assured her.

  ‘Why do we need him?’

  ‘When we get there, ask again.’

  Li sniffed disdainfully. ‘I will.’ She turned on her heel and left.

  ‘That was strange,’ Maida said when Li was out of earshot.

  ‘She’s skilled. Remarkably, for one her age. Can you imagine an army made up of people like her and Slave?’ Keshik asked.

  Maida shuddered. ‘It’s not something I’d like to face.’

  ‘It’s what the Mertians faced, and survived for generations. I wonder how.’

  Maida stood. ‘I don’t want to think about it at this time of night. I’m tired.’

  Keshik grunted. He took one last look at Slave asleep in his narrow bed and joined Maida as she walked out the door. Together they made their way across the sands of the training arena to their room.

  Slave slowly sat up, a perplexed expression on his face. His rib stabbed pain through his chest with every breath, his head ached and the pain from the many wounds inflicted by the Tulugma warriors rippled through his body like boiling water. He raised his hand to his silver eye, wondering about what Maida had said. What did this strange eye see? Since receiving it, he had not noticed any difference in his vision. Not apart from the fact that he could never truly close his eyes any more. With the torn eyelid, he could see through the gaps. It made getting to sleep sometimes difficult, but meant he was rarely surprised. He could also watch as well as listen when people thought he was asleep. And this recent exchange was interesting.

  Li. Was she like him? Could she be Scaren, or perhaps part Scaren? If so, where was she from? Who was her mother? Her father? Could Slave’s own parents still be alive somewhere? Keshik said she was skilled. Was that a shared Scaren heritage?

  Slave lay back again on the narrow bed, almost worn out by the exertion of sitting up. His wounds were as serious as any he had yet endured and he was not as convinced as Keshik seemed to be about his likelihood of survival.

  Sleep came slowly and painfully, but it came eventually, leaving him with the final thought that if the things he and Keshik had loosed on the world could not be defeated, speculating whether there were other Scaren alive was pointless.

  The morning shocked him awake with brilliant sunlight washing across his partially closed eyes and the noise of warriors gathering. He groaned and tried to sit up, but the weakness from his injuries prevented even that movement. A hand pressed down on his chest.

  ‘Stay down, Scaren,’ a voice said. Slave fixed his eyes on the speaker. It was one of the Tulugma healers, a tall, powerfully built man of middle age. His face was hard, with steady brown eyes beneath a thatch of greying hair. He looked more like a veteran warrior than a healer. Certainly the strength in his arm was more that of a fighting man. ‘I don’t want you tearing out any of the stitches I put in y
ou.’

  ‘Stitches?’

  ‘Yar, stitches. If more stitches had been used before you would look less like a tapestry than a man.’ He scowled. ‘I have been treating these Tulugma for most of my life and I have never seen such scars.’

  ‘You from Lac’u?’

  ‘Yar. A long time ago.’

  The light from the doorway dimmed as Haron landed in wyvern form. She shrieked, causing the healer to recoil and press his hands to his ears.

  ‘Did you have to do that?’ he shouted.

  Haron shimmered into her tall, naked, gangly human form. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I did. We’re ready to leave.’

  ‘You couldn’t have said so?’

  Haron barked a harsh laugh. ‘I did. Twice.’ She blurred back into wyvern and flew away. The healer shook his head.

  ‘I just can’t get used to them,’ he muttered. ‘Right,’ he went on, raising his voice. ‘Let’s get the wounded out of here.’

  At his words, three younger healers seemed to appear out of thin air — so quickly and quietly did they move — one carrying a rolled-up stretcher. He unrolled it and another man helped him hold it while the other two healers carefully eased Slave off his bed onto the stretcher. Despite their care and gentle hands, waves of agony shot through every part of Slave’s body. He cried out once before he could clamp down on the sound.

  ‘Easy,’ the older healer chided. ‘We want him to get there.’

  Another shadow moved across the doorway. Slave raised his head to see Li standing there. Her figure was silhouetted against the morning light, but he recognised her stance and her scent.

  ‘I’ve been sent to get you to hurry up,’ she said sullenly.

  ‘Sent? Sounds more like ordered,’ the healer said.

  ‘Shut it, Piet,’ Li snapped.

  ‘You still need to sort out your attitude, I see,’ the healer replied. His tone may have been light, but his face was serious.

  Slave lay back down. More trivial bickering and manoeuvrings. He was so tired of this sort of thing.

  Piet ignored Li and ordered the others into action. The two holding Slave’s stretcher shifted their grip and started walking. Slave tried to relax as he was jolted and swayed between the two healers. They carried him outside into the sunshine.

  ‘Tulugma, form up!’ Keshik roared. The sounds of warriors moving changed abruptly into more orderly noises, then they fell silent. ‘Elbar,’ Keshik went on, ‘they are ready.’

  Slave heard the Elbar’s footsteps approaching over the sands, shuffling without the proud determined step of the warrior. He came to a halt near Keshik.

  ‘Warriors of the Tulugma,’ he started, ‘you are about to enter the world called Eztli-Ichtaca by the Blindfolded Queen. It is a strange and chaotic world that will appear different to every one of you. Nothing there is what you would normally call real, but things can hurt you there, so be alert. The most important thing is to stay together. I will guide you through, but if you get lost you may never be found and will wander through the chaos forever.’

  Slave heard a quiet gasp run through the assembled Tulugma. The fear was so palpable he could almost smell it. He wondered if the experience he’d had with Myrrhini near the Great City of the Wall where she took them from one side to the other was Eztli-Ichtaca. If so, he doubted he could survive that much pain in his present state. He tensed as he heard Adrast walking towards him.

  Death, my old friend. Is it now?

  Adrast rested his hand on Slave’s head and the world shifted.

  Slave found himself standing in a vast, high-ceilinged room lined with rows of benches that stretched upward to darkness. It resembled the hall in the Ruthia where the Readers met, the place where he had seen the smeared remains of hundreds of people, left there by Kielevinenrohkimainen. Adrast was standing beside him in the middle of this vast hall. Seated on the benches were thousands upon thousands of people. They had fallen silent when Adrast had appeared, but now they were starting to find voice. They murmured to each other, then spoke, then shouted. The noise rose until it seemed everyone in the hall was bellowing at the top of their voice. Adrast reached out with his hand and pulled back. Keshik and Maida appeared, followed by Tulugma after Tulugma. Rapidly, the area around Adrast filled with startled-looking warriors. Last the shapeshifters. The shouting from the assembled watchers kept growing, swelling with intensity and rage with every additional person until, by the time Tatya padded softly onto the paved floor, the noise was almost unbearable. Most of the Tulugma had their hands pressed to their ears.

  Piet stood close to Slave and shouted into his ear.

  ‘How are you standing up?’

  Slave looked down at his injuries and was amazed to see that every wound was healed. The pain he had been in for the past day or so was gone. He traced the new scars with his fingers. The ones that had been stitched were smaller and less ugly. He smiled.

  ‘Keshik said I could survive. This is the world of could be.’

  Piet scowled and shook his head. ‘Sorcery,’ he mouthed as he stalked away.

  Adrast started to move. He walked quickly. Everyone followed, the Tulugma forming into perfect ranks with Keshik at their head. Maida waited, falling in beside Slave with Tatya on his other side and Haron circling high above.

  It took longer than he expected, but with the noise of the shouting thousands surrounding them, they finally came to the edge of the vast hall. There was a tunnel through the seating and Adrast made unerringly for it. The watchers whose seats were around and above the tunnel screamed. Fists were raised and shaken, faces were red, eyes bulged and voices sounded in insensate fury. Adrast ignored them, but as he came closer, Slave thought he could pick out individual words — words like traitor, betrayer, liar, thief, rapist. He wondered if anyone else could pick out the words.

  Beneath the seats it was quieter, the noise muffled, fading into a sound like waves on a shore, surging and falling in some unrecognisable rhythm. It was dim under the seats. Dim and cool, rapidly becoming black and cold. Slave felt Maida’s hand on his arm, gripping him tighter with every step. A soft glow and a comforting weight in his left hand alerted Slave to the fact that once again he had pulled out his Claw without thinking. His skin prickled. He leaned in close to Maida and whispered into her ear.

  ‘Arm yourself. We are being watched.’

  Maida slid her sword out of its scabbard, while hefting a nasty-looking curved dagger in her left hand. Tatya padded alongside Slave, her yellow mane bristling, a low rumbling in her throat. She could sense the watcher as well.

  Ahead was a patch of light. It shone weakly yellow against the dark of the tunnel, casting barely enough light to see the person closest, but sufficient to know they were no longer in a simple passage under seats in a building. Beneath his feet the ground was earth, no longer a smooth floor. The light ahead grew stronger, illuminating what was now a cave. Slave stopped and turned around. A pair of glowing white eyes stared at him. Heavy feet moved, stomping forward. This thing, whatever it was, was not what Slave had sensed earlier. As it came closer, it grew until, by the time it was close enough to see, it filled the tunnel, or cave, or whatever. It rose on two powerful, scaled legs that ended in large claws suited to a burrowing creature, and spread wide leathery wings. Its body was like that of a massive ape of some sort, with arms scaled like the legs, and naked wings. Hunched atop huge shoulders was a squat, rounded head with a doglike snout beneath the slanted, glowing white eyes.

  It looked like a creation of a nightmare. Slave pitied the man whose mind suffered from such nightmares.

  Maida screamed once when the thing became fully visible, causing the Tulugma to stop and face the beast. Slave paid neither her nor the sounds of the others any heed as he advanced carefully. From the way it moved, Slave decided it was immensely strong but slow and cumbersome. He had to stay away from the claws, and move fast enough to dodge in and land as many blows as he could before falling back.

  An arrow fizzed over his he
ad to slam into the beast’s face. It roared in rage as it snapped the shaft, leaving the head buried deep in its flesh. The distraction was enough to give Slave the opening to sprint in, under the huge arms, and slash across the beast’s thighs. The Claw bit deeply. The beast reeled back, roaring again with renewed fury. It looked down, as if to crush the impudent thing that dared scratch at it, when a flight of arrows, at least twenty, smashed as one into its head. The roar was cut off instantly and the thing slowly toppled backward. The Tulugma warriors scurried forward to retrieve their arrows.

  ‘What was that thing?’ Maida asked.

  Slave shrugged. ‘Nothing I have ever heard of. Probably something that only exists here.’

  When all the arrows had been gathered, the Tulugma reformed their ranks and continued to advance. Slave gave the dead thing a final look, wondering about the benefits of fifty or so soldiers with projectile weapons. He had read records of battles where hundreds of skilled archers had utterly destroyed armies of up to ten times their own number, but had never witnessed anything like this. It was something he had to keep in mind for the coming fight against Kielevinenrohkimainen and his army, whatever form it took.

  The tunnel came to an abrupt end, leaving them facing a world gone mad. The ground surged like the swell on a deep sea while the sky above was a swirling mass of clashing colours — pink, green, purple, yellow — never ceasing, never still. Were it not in constant motion, the ground would have resembled the vast plains of Midacea, dotted here and there with towering rocky spires that danced and waved with the movement of the ground.

  It was not silent, this incomprehensible landscape. Groans and grinding noises appropriate to such a tortured place rose and fell — from the faintest whisper of pain to ear-shattering screams of torment. Adrast took a deep breath and set foot on the surging ground. He staggered slightly as the ground moved, but continued on. Slave watched as the Elbar lurched and staggered along, the earth shifting and writhing with every step. It looked like he was trying to walk on thick porridge. After a moment’s hesitation, the others stepped out after him. Several staggered and fell. Slave took Maida’s hand and stepped out. The ground shifted beneath his weight, changing colour as well as shape with every step. Concentric circles of red, yellow and purple flowed out from his feet, overlapping and interfering like ripples on a pond. Maida slipped out of his grip and stepped further away from him. As she moved, Slave felt the ground become more stable. He watched as the rest of the Tulugma discovered this, and spread out. Soon they had formed up into a single line extending about a hundred paces across with Keshik and Adrast walking a few paces ahead.