He thrust his hands forward, fingers extended, and the cloud surged skywards and began to flow towards her.
Leoni paid attention to her direction of flight – back the way she had come, back to find that lightning-struck oak where she’d last seen Ria.
But her first concern was speed and escape.
Until now she’d only encountered Sulpa’s little monsters in ones and twos. Though foul, they were quite small and easy to kill – if you could catch them.
But being pursued by a whole pack of them was quite another matter.
They were as non-physical as she was; yet if she could bash their smoky brains out and tear off their heads then what would they be able to do to her when they overtook her and swarmed her aerial body?
This wasn’t the land where everything is known, nor Don Apolinar’s dungeon, where consciousness was clothed in alternate physical forms. If the body you inhabited in such realms was destroyed, the Blue Angel had said, your soul was carried off to another domain. She had called it ‘the Between’. You could get lost there for eternity. Or with skill you could find your way out and back to your body on Earth.
Was it the same deal if your aerial body was destroyed? Was it simply another form in which your soul was expressed – in some sense disposable like the avatars in the land where everything is known?
Or was it your soul itself?
The distinction was crucial because no matter how fast or high or far she flew, Sulpa’s creatures continued to gain on her, red eyes gleaming, fangs bared in the moonlight. In the few seconds it had taken him to set them after her she’d already flown a thousand feet. Since then her lead had been cut to a tenth of that distance and glancing back over her shoulder she saw that three of the scaly little bastards were far in front of the others, just twenty feet behind her.
As always when she travelled in her aerial form, Leoni flew with her head forward, her arms folded across her chest, and her legs and feet stretched out. She was ten thousand feet up when two more of Sulpa’s creatures – they must have dived like hawks from an even higher altitude – smashed into her at shocking speed. One sank its talons into her thigh, the other into her shoulder, and both held fast, beating their wings and rending her. She felt pain, sharp and hot, and then the other three were on her.
She plucked one from her side, wrung its neck, threw it away in a burst of smoke, snatched two more from her legs – their talons tore her as she ripped them loose – and crushed the little creatures in her hands. The gargoyle that had alighted on her shoulder, and the last one, which had anchored its talons in her back, she smashed together until they became smoke.
Before she could dart forward again the entire swarm caught her and fell upon her in a seething mass, covering her from head to foot. The sensation was a horrifying one of toxic suffocation, like being smothered in horse blankets impregnated with smallpox and razor blades, and she was overwhelmed by the foul smell of sulphur and burnt plastic that the creatures gave off.
She roared her anger and flailed her limbs, twisting and turning in her efforts to be free, but nothing she did made any difference. The monsters had deprived her of the power of flight and, no matter how hard she fought, she could feel her aerial body disintegrating under their sustained attack, slipping away from her little by little.
A terrible lassitude stole over her as the creatures bit and tore and she felt an overwhelming urge to sleep. Simply to sleep. Would that be so bad?
But then, faint as a radio signal from the dark side of the moon, she heard four words spoken deep inside her mind in the familiar voice of the Blue Angel: ‘Remember you are a lion.’
And she remembered, when she’d fought Sulpa, how her aerial body had taken on the form of a mountain lion and broken free from his stranglehold.
She was a lion, not a victim.
A burst of pure, hot anger hit Leoni, giving her the strength to strike out one more time, and as she did so the process of transformation took hold, the outer human form of her aerial body began to shift and change, and she became once again a lioness. She was still cloaked in a boiling horde of Sulpa’s creatures, but now she exploded into action, shaking herself, throwing off all but a handful of her attackers in an undulating wave and smashing them out of the air with great swipes of her paws.
Some could have escaped but it seemed their master had sent them on a suicide mission because they kept on attacking her, and she kept on destroying them, until she’d turned every one of them to smoke.
Leoni resumed her human form and paused to look down at herself.
She didn’t like what she saw.
The tearing claws and teeth of the little creatures had drained her life-force, leaving her insubstantial as a ghost. The translucent envelope of her aerial body was faded, no longer a glittering evanescent soap-bubble but something dull and dim that seemed to flicker on the edge of complete fragmentation.
How far away was Ria?
At least a hundred miles from Sulpa, she was sure of it. And though the Illimani were obviously hard men she didn’t think even they could march a hundred miles in a single night.
So her first mission – nothing else mattered if this failed – was to warn Ria that Sulpa’s spies had found her, that one had lived to report her position to him, and that Sulpa himself was coming for her with all his forces.
Leoni searched for what seemed like many hours as the moon slowly tracked from east to west across the sky. But just as her energy had fallen to its lowest ebb, she recognised the lightning-struck oak she had chosen as her landmark and was soon streaking along the wide track that Ria’s people had left in their wake.
It was hard to estimate distances, but after what she thought might have been another five miles Leoni came to a point where the trail forked. A very large group had turned off to the left of the main track and entered the pine forest that grew alongside it; a smaller group had continued straight ahead.
Leoni followed the broad trail into the trees and found herself amongst a thousand ragged, frightened-looking people, dressed in plaids and skins, pitching camp in the heart of the forest around the banks of a small hidden lake. A glance confirmed these were the women and children, as well as some of the older men, from the large band she’d seen Ria leading earlier. But Ria herself was missing.
Leoni streaked back to the fork in the trail and caught up with the smaller group five miles further along the track. At a quick count it consisted of more than three hundred men – all armed in their Stone Age way – plus a contingent of around two hundred women, also armed. Moving at a fast march, they had entered a long moonlit valley and seemed wary and nervous, primed for a threat, weapons held at the ready. Ria strode along in the lead with a determined look in her eye.
Still not attempting to tell Ria she was back, Leoni shot ahead to scout for danger and within two miles came to a place where the valley narrowed and avalanches of broken rock littered its floor amongst tumbled boulders piled into weird formations. Behind these, in the moon-shadow, she found a small party of Illimani warriors – she counted fifteen – spread out at intervals, apparently on guard. They were facing the direction from which Ria was approaching and it could not be long before they detected her own much larger force.
The sentries were few, but what were they guarding?
Less than a mile further on Leoni found a ravaged and burnt-out nomadic camp by a river where the valley curved. Hundreds of bodies lay scattered about, hundreds of prisoners were penned inside thorn-bush enclosures, and lording it over them were hundreds of victorious Illimani. She recognised the bizarre headdresses of the huge warriors whom she thought of as Bear-Skull and Bull. A small group of their men were butchering captive women amidst dreadful wails and screams. But many of the Illimani fighters were drunk, staggering around singing, and many more were already sprawled on the ground, snoring in pools of their own vomit.
As Leoni darted back along the trail to take the news to Ria another draining lurch of weakness hit her,
the moon at last dropped below the horizon and complete, overwhelming darkness fell in an instant.
Chapter Ninety
The non-combatants had been left under cover of a forest, close to the edge of a small lake, and Ria and her five hundred fighters were far along the deep, steep-sided valley overgrown with tough grasses, gorse and heather that led to the Naveen camp. Guided by Moiraig, Aranchi and Noro, they had made good time while the moon was still in the sky. Now it had set, and the camp loomed close, they’d been forced to slow down.
Ria didn’t think the Illimani conquerors, confident of their own power and most of them in a drunken stupor, would have troubled to post sentries. But she was about to send scouts forward to make sure when her senses tingled.
What was that?
The sensation hit her again and then it was almost as though a voice had whispered in her ear – yet no one had spoken. She stopped in her tracks, raised her hand, and hissed ‘Halt!’ Bont, who was right behind, walked into her, treading on her foot, the front two ranks piled up, followed by the third and fourth, and several men fell with muttered oaths. Clunks and bangs could be heard all the way along the column as people and weapons collided.
‘Stay here!’ Ria pulsed to Bont. ‘Keep these fuckers quiet.’ And, without explaining, she strode a little way off and stood peering into the night right in front of her, her head tilted to one side.
It was a very strange moment, but she was certain the girl the blue woman had talked about, the girl from the future, the girl called Leoni, was present with her again.
More than that, she was pretty sure she could see her – or see something. How weird. Like a thin cloud of light.
‘Hello,’ she pulsed. ‘Are you there?’ She said these words in thought-talk, in the Clan language, and repeated them out loud in a friendly tone of voice. She felt Bont, Driff, Sebittu and many others close to the front of the column watching her – and listening – but she didn’t care. This was important, and they already expected her to do odd things.
Ria tried the greeting and the question out loud in Merrell and Naveen as well before she realised the other girl was already speaking to her, in thought-talk, in what at first seemed a strange language but which she soon grasped. ‘I don’t understand you.’ That was what the words meant. ‘I don’t understand you, Ria, and we need to understand each other. There are things you have to know.’
‘Go ahead,’ Ria pulsed in the same language. ‘I understand you well enough.’
She couldn’t see Leoni’s face but sensed her surprise and relief at being able to communicate at all.
‘Go ahead,’ Ria repeated. ‘I have the gift of languages from the blue woman.’ She was in no doubt that Leoni would know who she meant. ‘Speak to me.’
‘Sulpa has these little creatures that fly around spying for him,’ said the other girl. ‘They look like this’ – thought-pictures of the monsters came to life in Ria’s mind, and with them a powerful pulse of the fear and horror Leoni felt for them. ‘Two of them found you. I killed one but the other got away. I followed it but I couldn’t catch it and it got back to him – so he knows where you are.’ Into Ria’s mind came an image of thousands of Illimani assembled under moonlight on a great plain, with Sulpa at their head. ‘He’s gathered his whole army to come after you,’ Leoni said.
‘How far?’ Ria asked. It was the only important question. Regardless of its size, she wasn’t frightened of Sulpa’s army if she had time to finish her business here and be away before it arrived. ‘How far?’
‘How far what?’
‘How far is Sulpa from where we are now?’
‘A hundred miles, maybe a little more.’
‘I don’t understand “miles”,’ said Ria.
‘It’s a name we give to a distance. I guess a hundred miles is the kind of distance really tough people could walk in two days,’ Leoni said.
‘Two days! Pah! In two days we’ll be long gone from here. But there are five hundred Illimani up ahead I plan to kill first …’
‘I’ve just seen them!’ Leoni exclaimed, and a new thought-picture filled Ria’s mind. This time what the other girl was showing her was a great camp of Naveen tepees, utterly destroyed, prisoners penned up in thorn-bush enclosures, corpses scattered everywhere, and the blood-smeared men of Martu and Sakkan’s five hundred gorging on the fruits of victory. Some of the Illimani were still killing but many were dead drunk, staggering or already flat on the ground.
Ria took it all in with growing feelings of excitement. It was exactly as she’d hoped. ‘You bring me good news,’ she said.
‘Good news?’
‘Drunken men are easier to kill.’
‘I guess they are,’ said Leoni. ‘But be careful. They have sentries.’ Ria received a thought-picture of boulders piled across a narrow point of the valley floor and Illimani spearmen lurking in the shadows behind them. ‘Fifteen sentries,’ Leoni said. ‘I counted them.’
Exchanging thoughts and images at great speed, Ria worked out a plan of action with Leoni to deal with the sentries.
‘Started talking to yourself, have you?’ said Bont when she returned to the column.
‘Not to myself but to a spirit who will guide us.’
‘I don’t believe in spirits.’
‘After tonight you will, Bont. After tonight you will.’
Bowmen weren’t needed for this mission in the dark, and spears would have been an encumbrance, so Ria went forward with Bont, Driff, Grondin, Oplimar and a squad of forty Merell woodsmen, hand-picked by Sebittu and armed with knives and tomahawks.
Everything – all their lives, the whole struggle against Sulpa – now depended on the accuracy of Leoni’s information: that they had only fifteen sentries to deal with and no further obstacles or alarms before they reached the Naveen camp. But Ria believed in Leoni utterly – and besides, what she said made sense. The Illimani were so arrogant. Having slaughtered the Naveen they wouldn’t imagine there was any force anywhere nearby that would be capable of hitting back.
She was wriggling on her stomach through tussocky marsh grass, soaking her belly and her leggings in cold water. Grondin and Bont were to her right, Driff and Oplimar to her left, each commanding eight of the Merell fighters, and all of them slithered forward silent as ghosts.
Everyone knew exactly where the sentries were and everyone knew exactly what they had to do.
Chapter Ninety-One
Despite the darkness, Leoni’s out-of-body senses showed her more of what happened next than she really wanted to see.
The fifteen sentries had positioned themselves in five groups of three behind the boulders – some twice the height of a man, some tumbled on top of one another – that formed a natural obstacle course in this part of the valley floor. From time to time a two-man patrol armed with long stabbing spears made its way from group to group, exchanging muttered words and occasional guffaws of laughter.
The plan was to hit the entire guard detail at the same moment, giving no opportunity for any to flee into the darkness and raise the alarm. For this reason, after Leoni had put thought-images into her mind showing her the disposition of the sentries, Ria divided her force into five groups of nine. She herself led one group. In charge of the other four groups she placed two of the men and two of the Neanderthal males who Leoni had seen close to her on previous occasions.
The men, Ria told her, were Driff, a lean, intense, black-haired Illimani who had come over to her side, and the shaggy giant Bont, a member of her own Clan. The Neanderthals, who she called the Uglies, and Leoni could see why, were Grondin – Bont’s size, built like a prizefighter – and bushy-bearded, pot-bellied Oplimar. All of them were telepaths – Ria called it thought-talk – and so the attacks of all five groups would be coordinated in total silence.
Leoni admired the stealth with which the attackers squirmed through the wet grass and amongst the smaller rocks, worming ever closer to the positions of the sentries. She had not been able to reach the oth
ers with telepathy; but even if their minds had been open to her she suspected they did not have the Blue Angel’s ‘gift of languages’. Floating above the whole scene she pulsed directions to Ria as first Bont’s group, next Oplimar’s, then Grondin’s and last of all Driff’s arrived within twenty feet of their targets. Ria in turn must have signalled them because they all came to a halt, awaiting the order to attack.
Now two of the Illimani set off on patrol again, slowly crossing the narrow floor of the valley. They made their first stop and there were the sounds of muffled voices. At the second stop they paused for several minutes and Leoni flew over them to discover that the three sentries at their post had an animal skin, perhaps filled with liquor, which they were sharing with the other two. A few more minutes passed and though it was not yet dawn Leoni thought she could detect the faintest blush at the edge of the sky as the patrol at last moved on.
They were almost halfway to the next guard post when Ria’s entire force rose to their feet and charged in grim silence.
The two patrolmen didn’t see Bont coming and had no time to level their spears or cry a warning as his huge axe scythed out of the darkness. One fell grunting as the blade buried itself in his belly. With a jerk Bont withdrew it, unleashing a geyser of blood, and back-handed the weapon into the second man’s face.
Darting forward, Leoni found Ria behind a boulder. She was stooped over a naked Illimani who lay face down, unconscious, on the ground. There was madness in her eyes and a stifled cry of wild joy burst from her lips as she pulled back a fistful of his hair and slit his throat with a long flint knife. The cut went so deep that his head came almost clean away from his shoulders.
Leoni saw Oplimar and Driff both kill men. Grondin picked one of the sentries up and smashed his spine across his knee. All along the line of guard posts it was the same story – the small number of defenders, surprised and utterly overwhelmed by the sudden unannounced attack, quickly fell and died under the brightening sky.
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