Time slowed, then, in the molasses of panic. I could see the great muscled thing pounding toward me, gigantic and growing taller with every step forward. Its teeth sharp as razors and an unfathomable grin on its face, hands out like the talons of some fearsome raptor come to bear me away.
I kept the pistols between us, rising and firing and for an instant the expression on its face changed, to one of outrage, to one of alarm. My shots were finding their mark.
And then, like I’d been hit by the Valdrossos herself, the great monster barrelled into me, its thigh catching me in the ribs and sending me flying, senseless, pistols tumbling away and all the air in the world knocked clean from my chest.
I knew not much more but dimly heard the sound of more gunshots and felt the despair of Hellfire as daemon upon daemon were loosed.
Then I closed my eyes.
‘All right, pard,’ Fisk said, slapping my face lightly. ‘Where’dya keep it?’
‘Keep what?’ I said, chest aching.
‘The grog, Shoe. Cacique.’
‘Waterbag on Bess,’ I said.
Fisk disappeared but returned shortly, placing the bag to my mouth and letting me drink the burning, spicy liquor.
‘Keeping the cacique in a waterbag? Think I’m gonna steal your hooch, Shoe?’
Shaking my head hurt. ‘I’m old,’ I said. ‘And know all the wiles of man.’ Where did that come from? I thought.
Fisk smiled. ‘Can you sit?’
‘Yes. I think so. Winfried?’
‘Right here, Mr Ilys. You took a terrible blow,’ Winfried said. Her wild-eyed look had disappeared. She seemed calmer now, cantered.
‘Bah. I’m fine.’ When I moved, something in my side was a tad crunchy and there was pain, a whole world of it in my chest. I tamped the pain away. Ignored it. With great effort, I sat up and, after some effort (and support from Fisk) rose to my feet. I took another long pull on the cacique and then surveyed the damage around me.
‘Godsbe,’ said I, looking around. ‘We’ve got two more dead stretchers here.’
‘And a dead horse,’ Fisk said. His face was unreadable. He turned to me. ‘That’s why I don’t name them, pard.’
His black lay in the dirt, neck slashed and bled out, making a muddy swath around its head.
‘She was a good mount, Fisk,’ I said, bowing my head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not as sorry as those who killed her,’ he said, looking at the dead vaettir with an awful expression. ‘Now go ahead and tell me the stretchers are more than just killers,’ he said, and spat.
‘How did they—’
‘Came in close after you dropped that big bastard and I managed to hit the other two a few times – enough to scatter them.’
‘Buquo can carry one stretcher, I imagine, along with you and Winfried.’
Winfried sounded alarmed. ‘We’re bringing them with us? The vaettir corpses?’
‘Oh, yes. Get them stuffed and shipped off to Rume, we could make a pretty penny,’ I said, thinking back on Livia’s letter to Fisk. ‘But that one,’ I said, indicating the stretcher that Beleth had bound and marked up with glyphs, ‘We need to show to our friend Samantha Decius. An engineer. If there’s anyone that can tell us what Beleth is doing – or trying to do – it’s her.’
Fisk nodded. ‘You can ride, pard?’
I toddled over to where Bess stood. She busked me with her head and then nipped at my coat.
‘I imagine so,’ I said, testing the damage done to my ribs. They were barking with pain, sending out burning rings around my chest. Every breath was an agony. But I’m dvergar and we can push it all aside. ‘I can make it to Porto Caldo.’
‘Lighten the mule’s load, and we’ll sling this other stretcher on the back and make a beeline for the Big Rill. At the shore, we can cut saplings for a travois,’ Fisk said. ‘You need help up, Shoe?’
I dumped some pots and pans, an extra bedroll, one of the large sacks of oats. Bess, her head turned toward me, watched implacably as I removed all the unnecessary and replaceable stores. With all three of us pitching in, we got the stretcher on the rump of Bess, who groaned and gave me a sullen stare. The vaettir’s arms and legs hung down and dragged on the ground. Using rope, we bound up the corpse’s ungainly limbs as best we could, so that Bess could move, but it was a precarious load.
We moved slowly for the rest of the day, and every step Bess took was a misery. I could feel my breath catching with each hoof-fall. She was a steady, indomitable beast, but had a jarring gait. By the time we stopped for the night I was in a cold sweat and half insensible from cacique.
Winfried and Fisk took watches that night, and for the first time in nearly a hundred years, I went to bed early and rose late. Whatever numen or old gods that guard the wanderers of the plains were with us, though, and the new day dawned dry and bright. Nevertheless, I’d developed a ragged cough that hurt like a bitch every time it erupted from my outraged throat.
‘Shoe, you’ve got some broken ribs. Might be a pierced lung. Will you be able to make the ride? We push hard today, we’ll make Porto Caldo by midday tomorrow.’
I pulled heavily from the cacique. Nodded. ‘I’ll make it,’ I said, a tad too forcefully. Even speaking had its difficulties. ‘You might have to tie me down, though.’
Fisk raised his eyebrows. ‘That bad?’
‘Bad enough.’
‘All right, then, let’s get started.’ He took some hemp and tied me to the rings of my saddle. Bess, who must’ve known something was amiss, did not bite or stomp on his boots or any other such mischievousness.
After giving me a serious look, Fisk took the lead rein, and mounted behind Winfried on the massive draught horse.
‘Hie,’ he said, nudging the big creature with his spurs. ‘Hie, Buquo.’
We rode.
We reached the gurgling waters of the Big Rill by dark and Fisk left Winfried to tend a fire on the shore as he cut four taller gambel saplings with a hatchet to make travois. The Big Rill was high and rushing and still frigid. Under Fisk’s watchful eye, I stripped naked and waded out as far as I could while keeping my feet. The cold helped kill the pain, an old outrider’s remedy.
‘You look like a wee little bear whose hair has been rubbed thin on his arse.’ He thought a moment. ‘And belly,’ Fisk said. Winfried, who had been only slightly alarmed by my undressing – my pain was great enough that I didn’t care whether she inspected me from crown to crotch – did her best to hide her smile.
Dvergar are hairy, that’s for sure, but when I can I keep my head and beard well-groomed. The rest of me? Way I figure it, it’s just extra-insulation for those cold winter nights.
‘No need to kick a man while he’s in pain, pard,’ I said, neck deep in the icy run-off from the White. I couldn’t feel my feet. Nor my chest.
‘Remarkable, though,’ Fisk said to Winfried. ‘For such a stout fellow to have such dainty—’
‘That’s enough of that,’ I said.
‘You could use a bit more meat on you, Mr Ilys,’ Winfried said and I knew she was trying not to laugh. ‘You look burly enough when clothed, but you’re white as a grub naked and could use some fattening before winter.’
‘The greenhorn now? Oh, damn this all to hell,’ I said, and walked from the waters. I used a rough wool blanket to towel off as gingerly as I could and dressed in fresh duds, not as trail-grimed. For the moment, due to the cold waters and cacique, I was relatively pain-free.
The night was mild and the cacique bladder was quite a bit lighter before I shut my eyes.
In the morning, it was overcast and a colder wind whipped down from the White’s skirts. It can get chilly even in summer on the plains.
‘Any sign of stretchers?’ I asked in a thick voice. I coughed into my sleeve, heavily. Black tracers swam in my vision and I felt like I was going to expire between the need to cough again and the apprehension of the pain each cough caused me. I was chilled to the bone now and no blanket or extra coat could warm
me to my satisfaction.
‘None,’ Fisk replied. He looked haggard. I imagine he’d been up all night on watch. ‘The one you dropped must’ve scared them off.’
‘Must have ’em all out of sorts, what with—’ I hacked into my sleeve, each convulsion full of pain. ‘The marked up one.’
Fisk didn’t respond. Winfried went about camp, rolling blankets and feeding Buquo. Fisk rigged the travois to both Bess and the larger horse. When he was through, he said, ‘You want to go in the sling or on Bess?’
‘I’ll ride,’ I said. ‘Until I can’t ride any more.’
‘No need to break yourself over pride, Shoe. I can feel your fever from here,’ he said, holding out his hands like a man warming himself over a fire.
‘No,’ said I. ‘The travois is for the stretchers.’
Fisk pursed his lips but nodded.
It was harder to mount that morning, and in the end, Fisk had to help me up and tie me to the saddle once more.
‘Drink the cacique, Shoe,’ Fisk said, frowning. ‘As much as you can.’
‘Not much left,’ I said, raising the water bag.
‘Drink it.’
I did, though it didn’t leave me feeling much better. We started off and at some point I passed out either from the pain or the drink, I couldn’t tell you. When I woke, I was in the travois and the stretcher was trussed on Bess’ back. When Fisk heard my groans, he had Winfried slow Buquo and from on high, on the back of the draught horse, he looked down on me.
‘You were gone, pard. Hot as an ember to the touch. Like you’ve swallowed a daemon. Weren’t gonna stay on even when I tied you.’
I couldn’t respond. I was locked in some physical half-world where I had to cough but couldn’t. Where fire burned me but I was never consumed.
‘We’re almost there, Mr Ilys,’ Winfried said in a concerned tone. ‘I can see the smoke rising before us. We’ll be on a ferry to Porto Caldo within the hour. In two, we’ll have you in a barber or doctor’s care.’
‘You’re not gonna leave me behind, Fisk,’ I managed to get out.
Fisk was silent for a long while. ‘You’re deathly ill. You say the word and I’ll sit by your side and we’ll pick up the trail once you’re better.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘It’ll be colder than Brujateton by then, though, and no telling if Beleth will still be on the continent.’
‘Gods damn it, Fisk,’ I breathed. ‘That ain’t fair.’
I cursed then, cursed my luck. Cursed the vaettir. Cursed the non-existent gods. Cursed Beleth.
‘Go, damn you. Get that sonofabitch.’
‘I will keep you informed of the hunt, pard. And you can join us when you are better.’
‘Bah,’ I said.
We reached Porto Caldo before the afternoon was old and Fisk had Bess stabled and my person ensconced in a cheap quay-side hotel before dark. Porto Caldo is the small harbour on the Big Rill only an hour or so ride down-mountain from Hot Springs. Indeed, when I was young, Porto Caldo was Hot Springs, until they found silver in the Whites.
Fisk must’ve gone round to tithe at the crossroads college of the Mater, for two of the mother’s acolytes versed in bloodwork came by my room to examine me with cold hands and serious expressions. They made me drink a cloying honeyed concoction that would’ve had me swooning if I’d been able to stand upright, but merely obliterated all vestiges of consciousness. I passed out as the acolytes chanted over me and waved myrrh incense around the hotel room.
When I woke, the room was empty. My cough had eased and there was less pain in my chest. Maybe from the quality of the light or the sounds without the room, I knew days had passed. There was the clanging of a steamer’s bell, and the rough hollers of stevedores moving freight onto a barge, and the smell of cooking onions coming from downstairs and horseshit, river, and dead fish from the open window.
A note sat on the bedside table, along with a piece of parchment, some herbs, and a pitcher of water, a pitcher of wine. There were embers smouldering in the room’s small hearth, and a cast iron kettle above them, so someone had checked on me in my unconsciousness.
I picked up the note. It read:
2 Nones Sextilius, 2638
Shoe, my friend,
I’m sorry to have had to leave but there was nothing for it except to go. I waited until the Mater’s acolytes told me your internal wounds would not kill you and your fever had abated. I could not tarry here any longer.
I am bound south for New Damnation. I have taken a steamer and the Lomax woman accompanies me. I plan on buying a horse (or commandeering one) there and contacting Andrae to learn if he has any more information on Beleth.
Things in the larger world are deteriorating swiftly, my friend. Your predictions of war have proven true. As you already know, war has been declared by Mediera on Rume. News of the ambassador’s death travelled fast, and Mediera has withdrawn all its nationals from Rume and instituted a blockade in the Bay of Mageras. Now, there’ve been two naval skirmishes on the east coast of Occidentalia – both targeting munitions and silver bearing vessels. All of Rume’s legions are mustered and her navies roused into their most watchful and bellicose positions. I have this information from Hot Spring’s garrison commander who has it from on high – the information is, without a doubt, fresh from the commander’s bloody and cooling Quotidian.
The blockade in Mageras might be a boon to us in the hunt for Beleth – it will be that much more difficult for him to get off continent now. The other side of that denarius is that if he does gain passage, we will never reclaim him.
We have the two vaettir with us – heavily salted. Their flesh does not decompose at the rate of mortal flesh, yet it is fearfully malodorous nonetheless. Be glad you are not sitting atop this particular cargo.
Make haste, Shoe, in your recovery but do not hazard yourself. I know your dvergar blood gives you a resilience that lends an air of overconfidence. Rest until you are well. Once you are hale, come south immediately. I will leave word at garrisons and with Andrae as to my whereabouts.
I remain your friend,
Hieronymous Fiscelion Iullii
I pushed myself out of bed, drank heavily from the pitcher of wine, and then pulled on my trousers and buckled on my guns. My chest hurt, yes, but it was just a niggling pain now and I would not be separated long from the hunt. Gathering what little gear I had – my money pouch remained around my throat – I went downstairs to settle up with the hotel owner and find passage south for me and Bess.
NINETEEN
4 Ides of Sextilius, 2638 ex Ruma Immortalis
I was able to gain passage on a steamer barge downstream that afternoon, though it cost dear – a silver denarius dear – and I had to show the papers Cornelius had provided me and threaten to bring the portmaster before the captain of the barge, a stout, low-slung daemon-fired vessel called Gemina, would agree to my passage. It was the fourth day before the Ides of Sexitilius and I was six days behind Fisk.
The barge was very similar in layout to Maskelyne’s Quiberon, but without the rowmen slaves. It was possessed of a squat cabin for the captain, who was a dour man named Numask, on top of which sat the pilot’s roost. Trailing from those cabins were the crew mess and bunks, and a couple of staterooms that could be easily converted to more bunks. Beyond that was the domain of the engineer, a man whose name I never learned. In addition to the cabins, there was a large roofed cargo hold and livestock pen, on top of which extraneous passengers were allowed to make themselves a slow-moving camp, in the same manner as we had aboard the Quiberon. Captain Numask was kind enough to supply a rather moth-eaten canvas tent, but unlike the brusque Maskelyne, he did not allot any of his crew or servants to assist in its assembly on deck. So many hours into the night I struggled with the fabric and wood contraption and my aching chest proved a great detriment there.
The Gemina had far fewer lascars. Those it did have were libertini and in general a sorry lot, idle and profane, indolent. They lolled about near the swing-stages on the f
ore deck, gambling, smoking, and cursing. From what I could tell, the main cargo of the ship was silver pigs and there was a heavily armed cadre of fierce-looking men, clad in the black and gold livery of the Tempus Union – a militarized delivery company out of Encantata – all speaking Brawley, guarding the precious stuff.
Once erected, mine was not the only tent on the roof of the Gemina. There was a pair of hard-faced female pistoleros escorting what looked like an extravagantly rich sweetboy and, curiously, a clutch of dvergar tradesmen, maybe five all told. Judging from their garb and features, they looked to be of the eastern Eldvatch clans. Like me, they had pitched their tents far down-wind of the Gemina’s sulphurous stacks. They regarded me warily and did not respond to my greetings given in our natural tongue. It was a large vessel, and there was ample room on the warehouse roof and much space between our tents.
After I tended Bess in the livestock hold, I returned up deck to my tent to have a dinner of hard-tack. One of the Tempus Union guards watched me with a baleful glare, as if at any moment I would make an attempt to steal a silver pig twice my own weight. I stared back at him, blatantly, too tired to do anything else. An evil smiled crept across his face, like oil on water. I did not linger about on the lower deck long enough to discover the cause of the man’s mirth.
It was too easy to compare the comfort of the Quiberon to the dearth of it here on the Gemina. Indeed, as I half reclined outside my tent and smoked and watched the stars wheel overhead, the Whites pass by in a ghostly, luminous march, always aware of the thrum and shiver of the daemon-driven paddle-wheel, I allowed myself a short pig’s wallow in self-pity. My cacique gone, my tabac pouch near empty, and once again alone beneath the vault of heaven.
And war was coming.
I might’ve fallen asleep. I don’t know. It was late at night and a considerable time from the first hour. The Gemina was quiet except for the thrum of its daemon within and the occasional nicker of horses below me. We were anchored near the eastern shore, since night travel was perilous on the Big Rill even for the daemon-fired; the paddlewheel was still and all was silent. If there were Tempus Union guards alert and on guard below on the deck, I could not discern them.
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