Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04

by Chaz Brenchley

  How many 'ifrit there were, he could not tell; they were enough to have struck all along the length of the road, where it was contained within those sheltering, concealing walls. The sudden collapse of so much stonework must have accounted for many of the brothers or their mounts in the first moments of the attack, the last moments of their ignorance. He could see men, horses, weapons all lying scattered in and among the heaps of rubble. Those fallen would not fight again. Some few men were heaving themselves free or trying to, hauling or dragging at stones they could barely lift; some few horses were kicking where they lay or struggling to rise, falling back with broken legs and bloody froth at their muzzles; most of the bodies were simply bodies, no hope of life in them.

  Even the collapse of so long, so high a run of walls without warning could not bury an entire army. There were pockets of fighting all along the road, but this was nothing like the disciplined drill of the Ransomers in their troops, nothing like the way they had fought Hasan and his Sharai at the Roq. Disorganised, disrupted, distressed; ill-led through sheer confusion where they were led at all, where their officers or confessors had not been killed already; vulnerable, unready and afraid, the knights and brothers of the Order were fighting, yes, but they were dying too. Even where they had weapons that must have been blessed, that could pierce the shells of the 'ifrit — largely those towards the front of the march, he noted, those who had most closely followed Sieur Anton - they showed little wisdom in their use, only a desperate courage that led them to buy any damage they could achieve with their own speedy deaths.

  He saw men charge hopelessly into reaching jaws, saw them crushed and broken, hacking at the chitin that gripped them as they died; and where their blades sliced through that chitin, he knew they must be dying with a sense of satisfaction, as at a victory dearly bought

  But the 'ifrit could lose their jaws and still kill men. They had taken an insect shape, as they so often did, to haunt the nightmares perhaps of those who escaped them; fear was a weapon as deadly as any pincer, any claw. These insects were monstrous, though, with great plates of chitin - fit for pushing walls over - above their deep-set eyes, and vicious spurs projecting from their shell all around. Men with swords would find it hard to come close enough to harm, even where their swords were blessed. Except by hurling themselves into those cruel jaws, of course - and that still left the 'ifrit with the speed and lethal sharpness of the claws that capped its many legs, with the crushing power of its armoured head, with its questing intelligence that sought ever new ways to kill.

  There were ghuls too, coming from the fields behind their masters the 'ifrit. They didn't join the dozen brutal little battles that were like knots on the string of the road; instead they made their way along that string, long arms reaching for the wounded. Man or horse, it made no difference; those claws could kill, and did.

  He saw what was happening and knew what would come, what must come unless help came first and swiftly.

  Alone, he would have gone himself to help, and so died at Sieur Anton's side, perhaps, or struggling to reach him. He was not alone, and did not run to help, but ran to fetch it: ran along the tops of the fields' walls, leaping the openings and sometimes leaping corners to save an extra step, the slowness of a turn. Not that he was very slow, at all. Undistracted by the slaughter close below him, undisturbed by the long falls on either side of his narrow path, he ran as though on solid ground, and left all the fighting behind him.

  He rah, and came to the final wall and the trees beyond, the first thin forest of the mountains; and here he found the remainder of the Ransomer army and their new recruits, gathered in rank and waiting while Marshal Fulke paced with his officers.

  Paced and prayed at a little distance from the grooms who held the horses, and cast sidelong looks along the empty road. He might be waiting for news to come back before he sent his next divisions down; he might have sent outriders to find out why there was no news, and be wondering now why he had no outriders. Certainly he knew that all was not well. Probably he was beginning to calculate the nature of the trap into which he had sent so many men, what the sorcerers of Surayon might do with a single track bounded by high walls and an army caught between them. Certainly he did not know, he was not capable of imagining the true strength of what lay ahead of him. He must have been warned of the dangers, he might even have believed the warnings - this was a cursed country, after all, of course he must expect to find cursed creatures at large within it — but he would still believe above all in his own righteousness, and the victory of the righteous.

  He was an alert man, a wary man; he had paused in his pacing the moment he saw movement, a runner high on the walls. He had spoken swift words to his generals and sent them to join their divisions, not to have all the army's heads grouped together where they might be cleaved with a single blow. Other men came running at a signal, archers among them. This was no messenger of theirs for sure, this boy in a Sharai robe who was so fleet of foot, so casual of his balance on a height.

  He was interested to see how near he could come before one of them knew him, and whether they would see his eyes before they saw his face; and, in either case, whether any man would shoot an arrow before he came close enough to speak to them. Or after.

  They did not, but they came dose: twice close, and he might have died at either time if either man had loosed, if the arrow had flown true to heart or head, if it had been faster to strike than his hand to knock it aside. He had the speed, he could be ready for it before it left the string; but there was that distance to consider, that same curious detachment that might decide not to make the effort because he might be interested to die at such a time, when it could so much matter.

  He heard the pound and suck of his own body, wetly working; he heard the thud of his feet striking ground as he leapt from the wall, and then their steady rhythm on the earth, and the earths reply; he heard what they thought he could not possibly hear, their voices at this distance. He heard:

  'Magister, it is a demon, see its eyes! The Sharai are possessed, I always said it, let me shoot...' And he heard:

  'No, Magister, that is not Sharai. That is the heretic squire, Marron he called himself when he was with us; he that passed himself off as a brother first and then Sieur Anton took him, but he showed himself friend to both Sharai and Surayon. His dress betrays him, and his being here, what evil else he has done, I dare not know, to make his eyes glow so. He comes as a messenger, but there is nothing he should say to you; his words are poison and deceit. His death is decreed, demanded ...'

  And in response to each, he heard:

  'No, let him live for now. If he acts as messenger, I should like to know from whom, and why'

  'We have no friends in this country, Magister, to send us messages.'

  'All the more reason to hear what he has to say. Quiet now, say nothing to him; this is for me alone. If he has come here to learn, better that he has only one guarded voice to learn from; wickedness is subtle, too much so for you lads. Just keep your arrows nocked and watch me, be prepared to kill him at my gesture ...'

  So they came to stand face to face, and within almost a sword's-strike distance; and if ever he could have lost his sense of distance, of being far away and untouched even when he was closest, this should have been the moment and the man to make it so. Fulke's clothes were rank with blood and smoke; his gaze was fixed, his mouth was set and grim. There was no mercy in him, for a rebellious land open to his harrowing nor for a people who had abandoned true religion in the very heart of the God's own country.

  Marron had feared and hated him, when Marron was alone. But Marron couldn't find himself, or his simple passions. He felt disinterested, unconcerned; he said, 'You are waiting for news of your men. I bring it to you. Those on the road are lost. You may yet save some of those who have reached the river, but you cannot go this way.'

  'Magister, he is a demon, he lies, you must not listen to him...!'

  'Be silent.' Fulke didn't turn his head to a
dminister the rebuke, didn't shift his gaze; he went on staring levelly, with a slight frown and no sign of fear. ‘What are you?' he asked, directly but musingly, as though it was a question he was putting to himself, to his own wide knowledge as much as to the figure now before him. 'Once, you were a boy; I remember him. Then you were traitor, renegade, apostate, and I hunted him and lost him in the hills. Now, though - now you come back with hell in your eyes, and I wonder what you are, what you have become — ?'

  'I am wiser than I was, when I was a boy. Else I would not offer you this news. If you wish to save any of your men, Magister, you will take them to the river by another way.'

  'What, have the Surayon sorcerers set a devilry to work upon the road?'

  'Not the Surayonnaise, but there are demons, yes. The 'ifrit are waiting for you, and killing as you come.'

  'We were told our weapons would be good against 'ifrit, if we said a blessing over them.'

  'So they are, or can be. Are they good against stones? The 'ifrit have collapsed these walls atop your men, and are destroying those who survived. Weapons may score, but it takes strength and numbers to kill, and sometimes luck besides. Your men have none of these.'

  'Then we will ride to their assistance.'

  'Then you will die, as they are dying. The road is a trap; it would be folly to follow the dead.'

  'Then perhaps we should pitch our tents here, and go no further. Any 'ifrit that ventures this far we can despatch, to protect the world beyond; meanwhile they will do our work for us, in scouring this polluted land.'

  And will you abandon your men, to share the fate of those who belong here?'

  'You said my men were lost already.'

  'Those on the road, I said. Those who won through to the river, some of them may be saved, and the world with them.'

  'The world, I think, can save itself, with the God's guidance; but I cannot reach my men, except by that road which you tell me I may not use. Your advice is a snake that eats itself.'

  'Not so. There is always more than a single road.'

  'Not in this pass, and I have no time to go back and ride around the mountains, west or east.'

  'You have candles, you have priests. Open the King's Eye, and lead your army through; you know the way. All hope dies else.'

  Hope for whom, he did not say; perhaps he could not. Perhaps he did not care.

  Jemel had known this before: the desperate sense of being trapped, caught in a body that he could not move, breathless and panicking and utterly unable to save himself.

  Usually it was a dream or a half-dream as he drifted towards sleep, and he would jerk himself out of it with a cry just before he dreamed that he choked to death; and there would be comfort on waking, more than just the comfort of being awake and not choking, not trapped. There would be Jazra, or latterly there would be Marron; and being awake would be a fine thing then, and being vulnerable would be easy, no harm in the world.

  Once before, it had not been a dream. Then the choking had been real, and the paralysis also; and he had felt himself fall and fall until he had entirely fallen away, into some deep deep place inside himself from where he thought he could never climb out. But Lisan had come to find him, sending her questing spirit to seek through his body and blood and bring him up again. She had mended what was torn in his throat, and he had opened eyes on a golden world and the naked body of a girl who was not his own. An imam might have thought himself in Paradise; Jemel remembered only doubt, wondering where Marron was, why not there, why her to be his shadow?

  Because she could had been an answer, and acceptable. But now again he was held in that waking nightmare, his body somehow robbed from him, only an oppressive weight of flesh and bone that was a dead cage around the quick of him and would kill that too in just a little time.

  He lay helpless and irredeemable, and nothing changed; he felt as though he hung on the point of death like a moth on a thorn. This would be a cruel way to spend eternity, feeling the blade in the heart and its stillness after, waiting and waiting for that stillness to reach his mind ...

  He was lucky, though, if this was luck. It did not last for ever, it only seemed to do so; and he was neither helpless nor irredeemable, only that he could neither help nor redeem himself. He felt her come, whom he had not dared to hope for: fire against his ice.

  She walked in the ways of his body, and made herself free of them. Where she went, he felt the warmth and power of her passing, and never mind if he felt it as pain. Better to have his body hurting than to have it not at all. Her trail was his path back into possession, and he followed where she led.

  Followed eagerly, tirelessly, riding on the surge of pain as though it were a wave that lifted him floating and free; and felt he could do this for ever and not regret it.

  And was wrong, of course, because pain is a measure of time and he was back in the blood's beat of his body again. He followed her up from the core to the skin of him, and then she left him and he tried to follow her out.

  And so felt her first, warm and firmly pressed against his skin, wherever she could reach; and so defined the limits of himself, rediscovered that he had skin because that was where she ended, and so he began. And then his eyes opened, because he was still trying to be as free as she was with the world, to come and go; and he could not do it, but the closest he could come was to let the world come to him.

  So his eyes opened and he saw her eyes, her face just a moment away from his. No smile, only a fierce determination, a glare that would not permit him to be weak, to die after so much effort had been expended on his behalf. It had been effort, it always was a terrible effort for her: that familiar ferocity floated like a scum atop extreme exhaustion. He could feel a tremble beneath all her skin, as though she'd physically dragged him further than her strength could bear.

  He could also feel that she was naked, he could see it as she pushed herself suddenly away from him, but no matter for that. It had been so before, the last time she saved his life; it meant nothing. What he needed to know, he could not tell by looking: how it was that she had saved his life again, how he had come here, where this was and who had brought him. Even those questions lacked urgency, though. For the moment he was content to let his curiosity slip back inside himself and work there to find how badly or how deeply he was hurt, how much she had mended, how weak he was.

  Lisan stirred, struggling to sit up; Julianne appeared at her side, to lift her onto her knees and ease a robe over her head. The smaller girl looked grey and ill, in need of healing on her own account. Julianne fussed with her dress briefly, then produced a flask and held it to her lips.

  Lisan drank, then spluttered.

  'Julianne, how did you—? I thought it was water!' She ran her hand across her face and licked it, to salvage what she could of what she'd spat or dribbled.

  ‘I know you did,' smugly. ‘I fetched it before I came to you this morning, I thought we might have need. This is all I've brought, though, so don't waste it. If you're going to cough the rest of it around, you can have water indeed. Shall I fetch some, or do you want to drink this decently, like a civilised woman in company?'

  'Give me.'

  Julianne gave her another drink, then brought the flask to Jemel. At that moment, his last doubts faded. Not one of their Patric wines, if she would offer it to a Sharai; only one possibility, then.

  'Please ...' he whispered, trying to haul himself upright, falling back.

  'Easy, Jemel. I'll help. Here ...'

  An arm slipped under his shoulders, a quick heave and the tall girl lifted him as simply as she had Lisan. His head lolled disgracefully against her shoulder; he scowled, tried to straighten his neck and found that he could not, even so little effort was too much strain.

  Julianne laughed in his ear, reading his thoughts with transparent ease. 'Don't be afraid, you'll be running around quarrelling with everyone again soon enough. It's only weariness, and weakness. You must have been in a terrible fight, there were so many wounds on you
; Elisande's only healed the worst of them, all she had the strength to cope with. The rest I've patched up myself, in mortal fashion. With no proper dressings. You'll yelp when they're changed; best ask me to do that too, you won't want Marron to hear you. But at least you're not bleeding any more. You're an awful colour still, worse than she is, and she doesn't look good. You need to rest, that's all. Now stop talking so much, and drink...'

  He would have opened his mouth, obedient as a child, impatient and greedy as a child; but it was hanging open already, a fact he only realised when she set the flask's lip against his and tipped gently.

  Bitter and sweet in subtle balance, herbs and fruits: potent beyond medicine, the jereth coursed down his throat like a renewing draught of the desert. Gold for the Sands, green for the oases — and it was in the gold that the sweetness lay, he thought as he always had thought, and bitterness in the green. Green could be for all the wet lands beyond the borders now, and gold could be for the land of the djinn, which was nothing but gold; he'd learned so much at least, that understanding changed as the world changed, as it grew wider.

  The Patrics had never understood jereth. They drank it for a drink, and nothing more; they had never known its meaning. Blood-dark in their glass goblets, it showed them nothing of its sources; they misunderstood its making and its uses both, the sheer burning power of the thing. Even Lisan: she wanted more, but had no true idea why she craved it so.

  He felt that first mouthful lying like a liquid fire in his belly, like gold transmuted into oil, as though a lamp's fuel could contain its own flame. Let his body only absorb it, and he could shrug off this dreadful feebleness; he could draw strength from jereth as the Sharai had done for many, many generations. Properly taken and properly appreciated, jereth would drive back weariness, stiffen aching muscles and lend as much support to flagging spirits. It had saved many a life in the Sands; many a man who had lost his water and been given up as white bones walking had walked into his camp fully fleshed and lucid, thanks to the little flask he kept within his robe.