None opposed her. Those that were too hidebound to accept the suggestions of a foreigner bore too much respect for their het-woman's strong sword arm to contradict her.
'Very well,' said Fost, leaning forward to prop his square chin on the backs of his hands. His elbows lay on his knees, and like the Ust-alayakits, he squatted by a dispirited yellow fire of dried grass and bear droppings. 'I propose to scale the cliffs at that landslip five miles from the Hurinzyn's caves. We'll signal you when we reach the heights above their dwellings. You'll attack, Kleta-atelk will emerge to call forth his pets and find us dropping in on him from above. You've ropes with you, don't you?' Jennas nodded. 'Good,' said Fost, feeling almost pleased at the progress he was making with them.
He stood up gradually, his joints stiff with cold and fatigue. 'So who goes with me?' he asked.
No one spoke. He looked around the circle of warriors, male and female. None met his gaze. He sighed. The little progress he felt he'd made slipped away like sand through his fingers.
None of the bear-riders wished to face the disgrace of fighting on foot like a thrall. The raiders were willing to acknowledge the necessity of it, now that a bear-borne assault had proven fruitless. It was just that no one personally wanted any part of it.
Fost decided not to force the issue. The bear-riders who would go with him would be rebellious and resentful. Unbidden, the image of Moriana flickered through his mind. Irritation tautened his nerves. He realized he couldn't stay here among the bear-folk much longer, playing at their war games. What if Moriana went after the amulet without him? His concern was compounded with worry over Moriana and worry over his own prospects of immortality. In what proportion he couldn't easily decide.
'If that's the way you want it,' he said heavily, 'then I'll look elsewhere for my storming troops.' He turned to Jennas. 'Have somebody bring me the senior among your helots.'
Uttering its hunting cry, a hollow, dismal moan, the vast shape of the winged fox spun across the colorless sky and dropped, wings folding to its side. Teetering on the knife-edge of a hogsback, Fost watched the creature drop into the grey shadows at the bottom of a ravine. Below, a dog-sized shape fled with rapid, agile bounds, dodging and weaving around boulders to throw the hunter off its aim. The flyer descended on its prey, and its wings covered the running beast.
'The thulyakhashawin falls on its prey from above,' said Ixrim from behind Fost. 'We'll do likewise?'
Fost turned back to see the gnarled little helot grinning at him with a set of teeth as incomplete as Prince Rann's morals. The man's hair-looked grey beneath the grime that coated him from toes to crown, and one eye watched the world through the milky film of a cataract. A more unprepossessing sight Fost had seldom seen. Yet Ixrim was neither the best nor the worst of the score of thrals he led. He grunted and set off.
The outlander had yet to unravel the relationship between the lordly bear-riders and their helots. The slaves lived in abject misery and filth, subsisting on scraps thrown them by their overlords. Yet the ragged helots were trained by their masters in the use of arms and had been known to fight savagely in defence of the bear-riders' camps. In Fost's experience slave-owners were obsessed with keeping their human chattels unarmed for fear of servile revolt. Somehow the concept of turning against their owners had never dawned on the bear-riders' helots. He had met no resistance from the bear-folk at his suggestion that he take a party of armed slaves for his assault on the Hurinzyn's caves.
The slaves had been promised their freedom if their attack succeeded, a prospect they had greeted with apparent apathy. One of the bear-folk had told Fost the helots were both sons and daughters of slaves and captives taken in raids. As far as the outlander could tell, the possibility of becoming a slave was an implicit part of the steppe nomads' culture, which they accepted with resignation if captured. He wondered if the strapping, buxom Jennas could ever meekly consent to being another's property. He doubted it.
'Master.' At the timid voice from behind he turned, missed his footing on a loose rock and flapped his arms to keep from pitching off the narrow trail into the depths of either side. His right leg ached abominably. The stab-wound Rann had dealt him had been superficial, and Jennas's healing magics had done much to mend it overnight. But theclimbing and walking hadn't done the injured limb any good.
'What is it?' he asked, more gruffly than he'd intended. Recovering his balance, he stooped and began massaging his bandaged thigh.
The speaker was a woman, ageless in her rags and filth, who carried a hide shield and a hand axe. As with their owners, helots of both sexes bore arms.
'Kleta-atelk is a sorcerer of great power,' she said, her voice a monotone, as if the question she asked and the answer she received, whatever its portent, were of only the mildest interest. 'How shall we defeat him?'
Fost was none too sure of the details himself, trusting to his own resources to provide a solution at the appropriate time. Plans too closely laid tended to go far awry where magicians were concerned, even mad hunchbacked tribal shamans. His assault along the cliff tops was simply meant to bring him in striking distance of the sorcerer.
'I'll say his name backward,' he said, grinning. The woman's expression remained blank. After a moment his own smile faded and he limped on. In the depths of the ravine to his right, the winged fox tore at the body of its prey.
The sun had fallen halfway down the western sky when they stumbled across the Hurinzyn pickets. Fost had lapsed into blank reverie, his mind numbed by the herbs Jennas had given him that morning to soothe his leg. He reacted a fraction of a second too late when a figure sprang from the rocks ahead and lunged at him with a bone-tipped javelin.
The javelin caught him full in the chest. He gasped, staggered back and sat down battling for breath. His mail shirt had stopped the point, but the force of the blow stunned him. Flaps of his fur cap flaring, the Hunrinzyn lunged at Fost with his javelin poised for the kill.
Someone hurled past the choking courier. A shield turned the javelin, and an ax licked out to split the badger-clansman's cap and skull. He fell. Other Hurinzyn had emerged from the rocks and struggled with the helots. As Fost got to his feet, he saw his benefactor turn to him and smile. It was the black-haired woman who had spoken to him earlier. A javelin transfixed her throat. Fost stared at her as she collapsed, wondering why she smiled.
The fight was done. A half dozen bandy-legged Hurinzyn lay dead with two of the helots. Shaking his head to rid himself of a feeling of unreality, Fost led the party onward.
They had long since left the treacherous hogsbacks and walked along on the tops of the cliffs into which the badger-people had dug their homes. Glancing over the edge, Fost saw the terraces of the Hurinzyn village not a quarter of a mile ahead. No signs of unusual activity showed. No one had heard the brief combat.
Keeping back from the rim, Fost and his helots moved forward. The cl ifftop was a shelf of rock a hundred yards across that rose sharply on the far side to merge with the mountain's flank. Boulders the size of the bear-riders' tents littered the broad ledge. Fost led the way into a cluster of rocks he judged nearest to Kleta-atelk's cave. Motioning them to stay in place, he crept forward and peered over the verge. Below and to the right was an outcrop of rock that marked the sorcerer's dwelling-place.
Fost looked around. A number of sizable rocks lay nearby. The first glimmerings of an idea came to him. He smiled.
He returned to the helots, who huddled among the boulders without speaking. They had acquitted themselves well enough against the Hurinzyn sentries, but he was glad there'd been no serious fighting yet. He uprooted a dead shrub, carried it to the edge of the cliff and drew out his flint and steel.
He had just set the bush on fire when a wild scream brought him round. The bush flared amid tan smoke, the signal to the bear-riders to commence their diversionary attack. Fost forgot it as he saw the cause of the desperate cries. The peculiar, fecal reek of one of Kleta-atelk's playmates rolled across Fost's palate. His swor
d rasped free of its scabbard.
One of the boulders had come to life - or so it seemed for an instant. The thing was as big as a boulder but its hue was a shiny, bluish white, the colour of a drowning victim. Obscenely glistening tentacles waved, as fat and pale as maggots and as thick as his thigh. He watched one of the tentacles curl around the waist of a helot and lift him into the air. Great suckers sprouted like concave mushrooms from the back of the moist bulk. The thrashing helot was brought down close to them. The suckers clutched his flesh and clung horribly. The man went stiff in agony.
Stillness fell, shroudlike. Fost and the helots watched, stunned, as the man's face contorted, purpled and seemed to fall in on itself like a collapsing tent. At the same time his body shriveled. With a rippling, smacking sound the tentacles pulled the empty husk from its multiple mouths and tossed it away. Blood drooled from the suckers.
A spear drove into the monster's side. Black ichor jetted out with a reek that contracted Fost's nostrils and caught at the back of his throat. Their apathy gone, the thralls hurled themselves against the horror, hacking at its tentacles and jabbing its bloated side.
Keening, the monster fought back. Its tentacles swooped like serpents, coiling around the helots and dashing them to lifeless rags against the rocks. Fost saw Ixrim seized, his dark face set in lines of determination as he sawed with his sword at the member holding him. The blade cut through rubbery flesh, causing the tip of the tentacle to fall away in a gush of corruption, but other tendrils lashed in to trap the wiry little helot. He was still resisting grimly as the suckers met his belly with a kiss that sucked the vitals from his body.
Down on the plain the bear-riders must be attacking the Hurinzyn again, Fost thought, and it seemed to him that he could hear the drone of Kleta-atelk's chant. The Ust-alayakits could fight the enchanter's monsters for only a short time before they were overwhelmed. He had to act fast to defeat the shaman in time to aid them.
But he had already stood by while slaves sold themselves as dearly as any free folk. He could stand by no longer. He raised his sword and approached the horror.
Tentacles dipped toward him, to fall writhing like snakes as his basket-hilted broadsword cut them through. The monster's cries of agony rose to an intolerable pitch, but still Fost came on, swinging his blade until he waded knee-deep through slimy black foulness.
Then he was beside the pulsating fat body of the thing. He cocked his arm to drive the sword to the hilt. From behind the bulk, like a sun rising, came a Face.
It was a face of unearthly beauty, shining with a golden light. A high-cheeked, full-lipped androgynous face smiled an invitation. Fost looked into its eyes, great orbs of amber. The strength drained from his limbs.
'You are different,' the Face said. 'Unlike these twisted rabbits. Your limbs are strong and straight, your chest broad, your face alive with arrogance.' The lips smiled. They gleamed like moist jewels. 'I would love you, outlander.'
Fost's veins swelled with desire. It was as if the Face existed alone, discrete from the obscene bloated mass that was its body. The Face embodied all that he desired. His manhood burgeoned at his loins.
Tentacles enveloped him, caressing, beguiling. He let them urge him forward. Their tips, facile and as dainty as a maiden's fingers, undid the thongs that sealed his breeches to peel the garment away.
A coral tongue made a lascivious circuit of the lips. 'I would taste your flawless manhood, feel your virility flow into me. Come, come unto me, my love.' Lust and adoration glowed in the eyes.
The lips waited, subtly parted. Desire filled Fost, but a small voice of rebellion spoke within him. Illusion! it cried. Beware! Yet he couldn't believe it. Within the circle of those red, red lips awaited beauty and satiation.
Then he saw the gleam of sunlight on a tooth like a dagger's blade. 'Come,' urged the Voice. 'Give me your masculinity. Impale me with your hardness!' And Fost obeyed.
The eyes closed ecstatically as his hips moved forward. But his arm moved too, and the eyes shot wide again as the tip of his sword sliced through the perfect lips, cleaved the pink tongue and punched out the back of the creature's neck. Rage blazed in its eyes. Its scream spattered Fost with blood. Then a dying spasm of the maggot-pale tentacles cast him away.
He slammed into the ground, rolled over and lay retching until his stomach knotted spastically on nothing. His sword was still in his hand, the blade smeared with stinking black ichor. He glanced down and saw that his arm, the front of his body and the limp worm of his penis lolling across his thigh were all drenched with the foul stuff. He tried to vomit again but his belly had already emptied itself.
Thirty feet away the monster jerked in its death throes. The head hung to one side and the ruined face was slack. The survivors of the assault group crawled away from the dying thing. Its blood fell on them like black rain.
Gagging, Fost pushed himself to his feet. A monotonous chant penetrated the bleariness of his skull and brought about a sense of urgency. Kleta-atelk! He staggered toward the edge of the cliff.
He swayed dizzily on the lip of the precipice. Grinding teeth into lower lip to focus his mind, he looked down. Out on the steppe a battle raged. Hulking shapes, indistinct with distance but obviously unnatural, fought with a pitiful few bear-riders. Gradually the monsters pushed the Ust-alayakits back. Fost saw Jennas, embattled and alone, laying about her with her greatsword. Badger-riders circled her, closing in as monsters tried to drag down her bear. She held her own, but the outcome was inevitable and couldn't long be forestalled.
'Omnegallillagall, Ulltip, nasripul, zazzigazz ra!' The flow of syllables, nonsense to Fost, brought his attention to a point only yards under his boots. Kleta-atelk stood on his ledge, hunched against his skull-tipped staff, peering through round lenses of black glass as he sang his song of control. He must have heard the sounds of conflict so near above his head but he ignored them, trusting to the guardian horror he had left on the clifftops to deal with intruders.
Weak as a newborn child, Fost bent down. His fingers grasped a rock twice the size of his head. Groaning, he swung it high. A twitch of the sorcerer's crooked shoulders showed that he had sensed the presence above him, but he wouldn't be distracted from his song.
And then it was too late. The rock smashed his head into jelly.
An oil lamp burned yellow and wavering inside Jennas's tent. From outside came the sound of merriment as the bear-riders celebrated their victory. A constrained tone underlay their revelry. The price had been high.
Bathed, bandaged and somewhat restored, Fost lay on a bed of furs, drinking freely of heady yellow wine. Across the tent Jennas sat in a folding camp-chair. A child sat on the floor of the tent, slumped against her booted calf. It was a girl-child, not yet blooming into adolescence. She regarded the courier with immense indigo eyes. There was a haunting in those orbs but it faded almost as Fost watched. The girl had seen horror but being young would soon forget. Being not so young, Fost couldn't forget. He gulped down his wine and replenished the emptied goblet from a skin hung from a tentpole.
Her hand lightly stroking the close-cropped plush of the girl's head, Jennas watched him. Golden highlights from the lamp danced in her eyes. On her face showed pity, but also admiration.
'You destroyed Kleta-atelk and freed the land of monstrous evil,' she said, sipping moderately from her own goblet. 'You saved the children of the Ust-alayakits - among them my own Duri.' The girl glanced up gravely at her mother, who smiled in return, not even resembling the bear-riding Amazon who had earlier been sundering Hurinzyn bodies with single sweeps of her greatsword. 'Truly you were sent by Ust.'
Fost grunted. He gazed into the wine, saw images there that made him squeeze his eyes shut and shuddered in revulsion. He felt soiled to the centre of his soul.
For a time Jennas sat, hand on Duri's head, watching Fost. Outside, the celebration waned as exhaustion set in. The bear-riders returned to their own tents or drifted to the cliff dwellings. To the Ust-alayakits' astonishm
ent the Hurinzyn had welcomed them as liberators after the fall of Kleta-atelk. His magic had held them subservient, though he experimented on their living bodies and fed them to the nightmares he created. Their raids against their neighbors, the bear-folk, had arisen from the shaman's grim pronouncement: he would have his victims and cared little how he came by them. The Hurinzyn stole the Ust-alayakits' children to preserve their own. The bear-folk would take indemnity, of course, but having experienced the evil power of Kleta-atelk themselves, they bore the badger-clan surprisingly little malice. Some of the raiders had already paired off with some of the conquered tribes folk, and now retired to conduct further celebration in private.
WoP - 01 - War of Powers Page 27