Karavans

by Jennifer Roberson

  The spotted horse flagged. Rhuan leaned forward, patted the soaked neck, and promised, in his milk-tongue, that the horse would receive the finest of care when they were free of the storm, when they had time to rest, to drink, to eat.

  But the earth shuddered and abruptly split asunder. The horse, too weary to change his direction even as Rhuan tried to rein him aside, went down, front legs collapsing into the widening rent in grass and soil. The horse screamed and floundered, trying to scramble up, but the earth was unforgiving. It crumbled away into chasm, soil and grass falling out from under hooves.

  As his mount went down, Rhuan threw himself sideways, striking the ground and rolling aside, then scrambled up to lunge away from the chasm that had opened immediately in front of his horse. Raw earth boiled up, was hurled away by the wind. The horse’s face was caked with dirt, his eyes rolling in terror. As he fought to pull his front legs free, the chasm widened beneath his belly. It was now too wide for Rhuan to reach the reins without falling in himself.

  He felt the shivering of the ground. It squirmed, writhed, broke apart in a rumble far deeper than the thunder’s song. Only moments remained.

  The terrified gelding screamed. Lather coated him, foam dripped from his mouth. But there was nothing Rhuan could do. The earth had every intention of eating the horse.

  Rhuan strung together a twisted, tangled skein of curses, exhorting the horse to break free, damning the chasm. Already it was beginning to close. The horse, when swallowed whole, would suffocate.

  Rhuan hissed between his teeth. He had only two choices. The first was untenable; he owed far more to the horse than to walk away from his terror. The second was a mercy, albeit one he hated to render. It was also dangerous.

  But nonetheless worth the doing. Rhuan knew that.

  The wind was too strong for throwing knives. He drew his bone-handled, long-bladed knife. He ran two long paces, then sprang.

  He landed crouched atop the saddle with his legs doubled up, swung forward under the horse’s neck as he clung to mane with his left hand; with his right, he stabbed deeply with the knife. Once. Twice.

  As the horse floundered and screamed, gouts of blood spraying, Rhuan used the impetus to leap free, to leap far, to land crouched again, legs doubled again, one hand pressed against the earth to steady himself while the other, still gripping the knife, he kept away from his flesh.

  He thrust himself upright and turned to see the horse. So much blood. The white patches of hair between the black spots became red.

  After a moment, the horse stopped screaming. The spotted head bowed slackly.

  In the rain, in the wind, in the midst of crimson lightning, Rhuan paid tribute with the only thing he had: words of sorrow, words of thanks.

  The earth opened. It took the horse down. It swallowed him utterly.

  Rhuan cleaned and sheathed his knife. Then he turned west—and heard the woman’s shout carried upon the wind.

  ILONA HUNG ON to Jorda’s belt. She felt shaken nearly to death and her head was aching. The uneven lumbering gait of the draft horse was worse now than it had been when their ride began, and since they rode bareback there was no security in their seats. They clung to the horse with their legs, and Ilona clung to Jorda, who kept up a steady stream of invective, all of which concerned the parentage of the horse as well as the gelding himself.

  They still rode east, she thought. Though in the midst of the storm she wasn’t certain which direction was which. She was no more certain which end was up or down.

  They had lost track of the exodus from the settlement. For all she could tell, in the midst of the storm, they were the last surviving humans in the world. One man, one woman … one incredibly uncomfortable horse.

  And then the uncomfortable horse took it into his head to stumble badly.

  Jorda went off, and Ilona went with him.

  She landed hard, and alone. At some point she had lost her grip on Jorda’s belt. Blinded by the storm, she could see nothing of the ground. She fell hard, facedown, left arm doubled under her body. Her left hip struck stone. She sprawled flat upon the earth.

  The pain in her arm was immense. She could not restrain her outcry. And she could not restrain her body’s impulse to seek relief; she rolled over onto her back, cradling her left arm against her chest.

  Hot rain struck her face, fell into her open mouth. She lay gasping on her back like a landed fish. Long strands of dark hair stuck to her face and neck. Sweat broke out. Tears ran from the corners of her eyes to the earth she couldn’t see.

  Jorda.

  She said his name. She said it twice. It took immense effort to speak his name at all, with an arm screaming at her. Broken, she thought. No; broken, she knew.

  “Jorda.”

  The rain was hot.

  “Jorda!”

  When no answer came, Ilona gritted her teeth and rolled onto her right side. The arm continued to scream at her; she pressed it firmly against her chest, levered herself with her good right arm onto her right hip, and drew her legs up. She took a breath and heaved herself upward, face set in a grimace. She managed to get her legs under her so she had support, then used her right arm to brace herself against collapse.

  The world around her spun. She thought it might be the storm. She thought it might be the pain.

  She had no time for pain.

  “Jorda?”

  No answer came.

  ELLICA TRIPPED AND FELL. She landed on hands and knees and bit into her lip. Blood welled up. She spat. Her tangled mass of soaked hair hung down on either side of her face. “Gillan?”

  “Ellica!”

  She spat blood again. “Where are you?” Her grip on his hand had broken when she fell. Her eyes were gritty, lashes crusted with dirt. Wind whirled around her. “Gillan!” She stood up, shielding her face with her hands. “Where are you?”

  Through the roaring of the wind she heard him calling for her. His voice sounded more distant.

  Panic swept through her body. “Gillan?” She ran three steps, then stopped. What if she was moving away from him? What if he was going in another direction as he looked for her? “Where are you?”

  This time she heard nothing.

  In her head she said: Mother Mother Mother … O, Mother of Moons …

  She was alone.

  Ellica grabbed up her skirts and began to run.

  IT OCCURRED TO Audrun to doubt herself when she saw the human-shaped form. Was it the guide? Could it be the guide? Or was it a hallucination, a wish wished so hard, a prayer prayed with all the conviction of her body, with such an investment in belief and hope that she fooled herself?

  It was him. It had to be; she wanted it too badly.

  His features were indistinct. The only thing recognizable in the rain now beating down was the shape of his body and the telltail swinging, as he turned, of multiple braids. It was. It was.

  She shouted his name. And took such sheer joy in relief that weariness dissipated. She could run again, and did, even as he, echoing her movements, came running in her direction. She registered braids, the gloom-dulled shine of ornamentation, the shape of his body, so lean and fit, and the burgeoning of a grin, as he arrived, that displayed white teeth and deep dimples.

  And then she saw the grin fade, saw horror reshape his features. Saw a helplessness in his eyes.

  Fear replaced relief even as she gasped for breath.

  “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer. He drew his knife and cut into his left wrist. Before she could speak, he sheathed the knife and took the single stride necessary to stand very close.

  With one hand he cupped the back of her skull, holding it still; he pressed his left wrist, his bleeding wrist, against her mouth. “Drink.”

  Audrun recoiled, stunned, but his right hand held her in place. She jerked her face aside hard, feeling the warmth of blood on her face. Mother of Moons, what was this? His blood? “What are you doing!”

  “Drink it.” Grim determination and an
unshielded desperation shaded his tone. “I know—I do know it sickens you … but you must. I swear it. You must.”

  She struggled to break free, but now his right hand gripped hair as well as her skull. Her lips pulled away from her teeth. “Are you mad?”

  He turned her then with both hands, blood still flowing freely from his left wrist. “Look. See it?” Fingers bit into her shoulders. “This is to keep you safe—to keep you as you are. Do you wish to be changed? Be certain of this: Alisanos will do it.”

  He was close to her, so close, right arm around her ribs, the left wrist once again pressed against her mouth. But now she didn’t move. She didn’t protest. She stared across his forearm, transfixed.

  Blackness crawled across the ground. It was flood tide, it was wildfire; it was consumption of everything. It crept forward inexorably, swallowing earth and air.

  IN THE SHELTER of the boulders, shielded by close-grown trees, wrapped in blankets and oilcloth, Torvic scooted closer to his sister. “Meggie, don’t cry. They’ll come find us. The guide said so.”

  But she cried all the harder.

  “Meggie, stop.”

  Sobs wracked her words. “I want Da … I want Mam and Da!”

  “He went to find them. He went to find all of them. They’ll come, Meggie. Don’t cry.”

  Lightning sliced through the trees. Accompanying thunder crashed over their heads.

  “We have to wait,” Torvic said. “He told us to wait. He’ll bring them. He said so.”

  Megritte cried.

  Torvic wormed an arm behind her back. It wasn’t long enough to curl around her ribs the way Da did it. “They’re coming, Meggie. He promised. Don’t cry.”

  But as Torvic hugged his sister as best he could, tears ran down his face.

  FERIZE SHED HER clothing. Brodhi, still smiling into the storm, watched her dance, shared her joy, understood the exuberance of her spirits.

  Nude, she thrust her arms into the air over her head as the wind whipped at her hair. She spun and spun, and with each revolution color came into her flesh. He watched as the scale pattern asserted itself, climbing from naked toes up toward her knees, slipping earthward from her neck. Bit by bit she was clothed in scales, in the complex latticework of multihued opalescence. When all of her flesh was colored she stopped her spinning, stopped her dance. Her eyes, as she looked at him, were green. The pupils were no longer round. Her tongue, as she opened her mouth, was forked.

  Despite the human-shaped body, what looked at him now had no humanity in her.

  “Go ahead,” Brodhi said indulgently. “You know you want to.”

  Ferize laughed at him. Then she leaped into the air and exploded in a shower of crystalline flakes as she sought to ride the wind.

  He grinned. She was nothing now but a blot in the sky, stretching wings and claws and tail.

  Heated rain, crimson lightning, unceasing thunder. Earth that shuddered.

  Brodhi fell to his knees. He stretched out his arms, arched his spine, tipped his head backward, turning his face to the heavens. He laughed for the joy of it.

  Alisanos was coming.

  PAIN WAS A KNOT in Audrun’s chest. “My children!”

  “Drink,” the guide directed.

  But she could not. It sickened her.

  “We can’t escape,” he said, “not anymore. But if you take my blood into you, there may be some protection.”

  She knew exactly what it was, the devouring blackness. He had warned all of them. He had tried to keep them from placing themselves at risk. He had tried to see them to safety after risk became reality. She trusted him.

  But to drink his blood?

  Once again he pressed his bleeding arm against her face. “Please.”

  Her gorge rose. She wrenched free, spinning in place, turning her back on the black tide consuming the grasslands. She caught one glimpse of the knowledge in his face, of the fear so like her own, though she knew, without knowing how she knew, that his fear was for her. Not for himself.

  Because Alisanos would change her.

  Panic put her to flight. He leaped, and caught her. Dragged her close. “We have to stay togeth—” But the world went black around them, smothering her scream, stealing the air in her lungs. It took her into itself and slammed the door shut behind her.

  As consciousness waned, Audrun was visited with a vision: an old, filthy man with claws in place of hands, begging her to take him back to Alisanos.

  To take him home.

  And then the guide was torn from her, or she from him, as her presence in the human world was erased.

  Chapter 48

  THE EARTH BENEATH ILONA SHUDDERED. A bolt of crimson lightning hissed across the heavens with thunder on its tail, thunder loud enough, strong enough, to threaten her hearing. Ilona hunched shoulders against it and ducked her head, flinching. And the reflex hurt. Badly.

  She cradled her injured arm against her breasts and gasped in pain, clamping teeth shut on a moan. She could see nothing; the day itself had been swallowed by a frightful dance of harrowing wind, blinding lightning, and burning rain; of dirt and debris and the turgid blackness of roiling clouds. Her hair hung loose and heavy, tangled and wet, straggling down into her lap as she sat upon the trembling earth.

  She drew in a breath—and held it. For a moment she believed she was imagining it, but no. The rain had slackened. It had been a hard, painful rain, scalding against her scalp, unlike any rain she had endured. This was a rain created by Alisanos.

  But now it ceased. Ilona released her breath on a murmured prayer to Sibetha.

  The quality of light changed. She looked up into the sky. Black clouds were thinning. Lightning had ceased, and thus the thunder. Even the wind was losing strength, fading to a breeze that was also dying out. And the sun, occluded for so long, burned through the thready remains of dissipating clouds. Day dawned again.

  But Ilona closed her eyes.

  Day dawned—but was it over Sancorra province? Or did she live now within the confines of Alisanos?

  IT TOOK HIM. It tasted him. It spat him out.

  Rhuan, rousing, could only laugh hoarsely.

  No more wind. No more lightning. No more thunder. No more rain. No more world as he had known it, living among the humans.

  He lay upon rock, arms and legs sprawled, face upturned. The primary sun was very white in a pale sepia sky, while the small secondary sun burned yellow. The double suns of Alisanos heated the stone beneath him. His body answered the comfort, aches and pains fading. He found himself disinclined to leap up, or even to sit up. Upon stone humans would find hot, he lay and reveled in the heat. He was a creature of such warmth, was a child craving it.

  The membrane in his eyes covered them against the brilliance of two suns, turning the world red. But as he came back to himself, the membrane lifted. It slid away, banishing the haze, and he saw clearly again.

  Sepia sky, not blue. White sun, yellow sun. Trees grew up from the earth twisted, not straight, rose from the tangle of roots serpentining upon the earth from tree to tree to tree; rose from the heavy underbrush of thorns, briars, and needles. Blackened trunks knotted, branches latticed, bearing wide, sharp leaves and twining purple vines. Vines that reached to other trees like humans holding hands.

  Humans.

  Rhuan sat upright. But Alisanos was never gentle; he groaned as a headache took possession of his skull. He crossed his legs, planted elbows atop them, and leaned his head into his hands, willing the pain to go. But his will was not answered.

  His tongue was not hindered by the headache. He spat out invective. But gently.

  Then he remembered he had cut his wrist. A glance showed him the purplish line of scar. He no longer bled. Alisanos had sealed the wound. By morning, such as it was in Alisanos, the scar would turn pink; by nightfall, white. Healed. That much Alisanos would do for him.

  Someone groaned.

  Memory, sharp as a knife, sliced through the pain in his head.

  The woma
n.

  He recalled now that he had clung to her as Alisanos took them; that he had tried, without success, to offer her assistance, the kind that would shield her in the deepwood: his blood. But she had refused, refused again and again. And Alisanos, scenting prey, had taken advantage of those refusals.

  She groaned again. This time Rhuan rose. All around him lay stone, a massive rounded platter striated rose and white and green, a huge shallow hollow with a rim of tumbled, ruddy rock circling it and a border of thin-limbed, knotted trees bowing down over the platter. Not natural, this; it was built for something. A purpose he didn’t know. Perhaps it was a womb. Or perhaps a crucible.

  He had survived his birth, though it killed his mother. He wasn’t sure that he could survive the crucible. Alisanos had taken him before he was ready.

  Audrun. Audrun was her name.

  She had not drunk his blood. Thus she was prey.

  A third groan rose, was transformed into a choked-off sound of extremity. Rhuan heard rustlings in the thorny underbrush surrounding the womb of stone, He heard the noise of those who wanted the prey. Who wanted to feast upon her.

  He saw faces, then. Open to them now, letting his senses come alive, he felt them as well. Heat from bodies, from panting mouths. Elongated yellow eyes. A wide nostril here, scales there, a tail writhing briefly. He felt the low thrumming hum of predators drawn by the human, the female, the woman carrying young.

  No. No.

  Yet again he ran. He left behind him the massive stone platter, the rim of stone, tore through the bowing, twisted trees and ruthless underbrush.

  AS THE STORM died out, so did Mikal’s chest pain. Bethid, who had positioned herself by him as a windbreak, opened her eyes as he stirred. She saw instantly that his color was improving. The horrible grayness of his flesh was gone, and the bluish tinge to his lips had been replaced by a healthy pink. She was no moonmother or healer to know what to do, but she had eyes to see. Mikal was better.

  Still on his back, the ale-keep rubbed at his chest. Bethid could see lucidity return to the eye not covered by a patch. “It’s gone,” he said on a profound note of relief.