Fierce Gods

by Col Buchanan

  Sweet Mercy, but it was Creed and the rest of the surviving riders, charging right for him with all the force and momentum of three hundred zels and riders at full gallop. While the enemy soldiers scattered around him Bahn stared in amazement, elation, then bitter disappointment. He blinked back tears as Creed bent low in his saddle, the general’s teeth clenched hard and one hand thrust out for him.

  For a moment Bahn almost let the Lord Protector rush right past him. But at the last instant Bahn’s legs started to pump and his arm went up of its own volition and Creed grasped at it, swinging him onto the back of his zel as though he weighed almost nothing.

  ‘Thought we’d lost your there, Lieutenant,’ Creed shouted over his bearskin shoulder.

  His throat in a knot, Bahn could only slap the general’s back in gratitude, in forgiveness.

  Soon Creed was leading them clear of the camp and turning south towards the city. Whooping now in cocky victory the riders tore off across the plain, flanking the many thousands of soldiers assaulting the walls and the main gates.

  Smoke tussled in the breeze from a siege tower on fire. Skirmishers cleared out of their way, firing bows and slings without effect. Creed turned them towards the same side-gate from which they had sallied out, the ground before it still clear of enemy forces all the way up to its protective berms of earth.

  Ahead, the city’s wall and its many towers rose higher. Smoke puffed along the crenellations where rifles fired at enemy riders still giving chase.

  ‘That was damned easier than I was expecting,’ Creed was shouting. ‘You were right, Bahn. I’ve a mind to hit them tomorrow again even harder!’

  I should tell him now while I still can. Warn him of my betrayal.

  But now that they were clear of the enemy positions and returning to the city, Bahn’s blood was indeed beginning to cool.

  He tried to speak, to raise his voice in the general’s ear. But shame smothered him, choking him to silence; that and the deep conditioning of the Mannian priests.

  Already his thoughts were growing sluggish, turning once more towards bitterness and spite and envy. Bahn felt himself slipping again into his previous state of waking sleep.

  Up there on the parapet, he could see the faces of Khosian defenders cheering the returning cavalry as they wound their way through the snaking berms. Again he tried to speak aloud, but then he glimpsed the gate opening ahead of them onto a busy city street and he stifled a sob, knowing it was hopeless.

  Perched on the back of the general’s zel, Bahn began to weep quietly, a man sinking fast into his own torpid condition.

  My wife! My children!

  And then the gloom of the gateway swallowed him up just like the shadows in his mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Nico

  Under the tree bridge they rested in the fork of two massive branches, a knobbly space that was big and flat enough for the entire group to huddle upon, even to lie down. Chira and some others fussed over the infant child, though most of the women were trying to snatch what sleep they could under furs they had taken from the slaver camp.

  The world was a haze of rain out there beyond the boughs of the mighty tree bridge. But here where they had taken shelter under the roof-sized leaves it was dry enough, snug even, considering the conditions.

  ‘You’re lucky we ran into you when we did,’ said the big man Bull, in a hush. He sat with one of his Contrarè companions lounging beside him, chewing on some jerky, while the other lay on his back nearby, watching the women. In the daylight, Nico could see the mixed blood in the giant’s features, the Khosian and the Contrarè, and the spiral horns tattooed on his temples.

  ‘Aye,’ said Cole, sitting against a backdrop of cascading water. ‘Lucky you just happened to be out there in the middle of the night.’

  Bull’s companion smiled, and gave a toss of his head that threw his long dark hair back from features painted red and black. ‘We Longalla are a curious people,’ he answered, and he spoke in a voice rich as the earth. When the native shifted around to face them better, Nico saw the surprising blue dazzle of his eyes. ‘We heard the hunting horn calling in the night. We thought we would have a look.’

  ‘Well it’s a damned fine thing you did,’ said Nico with a glance to his father.

  ‘Please. Call me Sky In His Eyes.’

  He spoke Trade well. He was not at all what Nico expected of a forest native of the Windrush. Not at all like the stories he had heard about these dangerous, bandit-like folk of the trees. With his feathers and face paints, his grace of motion, his sheer wild beauty, Nico thought he was the most splendid-looking fellow he had ever seen.

  The women too seemed fascinated by the Contrarè men, an interest divided between Bull and the handsome young native with the blue eyes. Nearby, their partner’s scowl was something of a contrast to Bull’s straightforward manner and the smiling ease of Sky In His Eyes. Lying there in his gleaming warpaint, the man’s gaze was fierce and proud as he surveyed them all; a reminder that they were still invaders to these native people, even now, a thousand years since they had settled in the lowlands of Khos.

  ‘Can’t say I’ve seen many Contrarè this far south,’ said Cole. ‘What is it you’re doing down here?’

  ‘We’re headed for the city,’ rumbled Bull’s heavy voice back at him.

  ‘Heck of a time to be headed for Bar-Khos. There’s an imperial army in your way right now.’

  ‘Still. We have a great need to get inside. I have a warning I must give to the Lord Protector’s staff.’

  Cole inclined his head thoughtfully, glancing to Nico then back to the big man facing him.

  ‘A warning?’ said Nico.

  ‘Yes. There are Khosian traitors in the city. Conditioned by the Mannian priests to bring about your people’s downfall.’

  Your people, he said, for all that he had once been a famous Khosian pit fighter, and before that, according to Cole, a soldier of Bar-Khos.

  ‘And you know this . . . how?’

  Bull didn’t much like that question. He set his mouth in a thin line and rocked backed on his haunches.

  ‘Because I was supposed to be one of them.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I fought in the chartassa at Chey-Wes. Afterwards I was captured. We were drugged, manipulated, by their priests. But some of us managed to escape.’ He pulled a face at the memory of it. ‘When the others headed back to the Khosian lines, I headed into the Windrush instead, where my people found me.’

  So he was a deserter then, just like his father. Indeed Cole stirred at his words.

  ‘My brother escaped after being captured at Chey-Wes. Bahn Calvone.’

  ‘You must be Cole, then,’ he said with surprise. ‘He spoke of you. How is Bahn – you have spoken with him?’

  ‘Yes, back in Bar-Khos.’

  Bull lowered his eyes.

  ‘What is it?’

  He would not answer for a moment, and Nico felt a sudden tension gathering in his chest.

  ‘Bahn is one of the people I must warn them about.’

  ‘Are you calling my brother a traitor?’ Cole’s voice had an edge to it, enough to draw the attention of some of the women listening to the conversation.

  ‘No. I know your brother to be a good man, an honourable man. But they have played with that mind of his. I’m guessing he will not even know what he is doing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Nico, horrified now. He had never been close to his uncle, but Bahn was family, and his family had been through more than enough already.

  ‘After my escape,’ explained Bull, ‘I suffered from nightmares, terrible nightmares. Until a Sky Hermit took a look inside my head, and saw what the priests had done to me. How they wanted me to betray Bar-Khos.’

  Cole straightened with his longrifle and took a few steps away, his back turned to them all. Bull watched him closely.

  ‘Now I can only hope to make it to the city in time to stop the others, before it is too late.’
r />   ‘You have a way inside?’ asked one of the women, and Nico saw that it was young Kes.

  ‘I know a place we can get through the wall. Maybe. The trick will be making it that far, heh. Tonight, we plan to try it.’

  ‘You can take us into the city with you?’ exclaimed another woman.

  ‘Well that’s getting a little bit ahead of ourselves now.’

  ‘You have to take us,’ said Kes, trying to catch his eye with her blonde-haired beauty. ‘We have nowhere else to go!’

  ‘It isn’t that simple, lass. We’ll have to sneak through the enemy lines. I don’t see how we can do that with all of you trailing along.’

  ‘But we’ll die out here, or worse. Cole, Nico, tell him what it’s been like! They have to take us with them!’

  But Cole only lowered his head, hand gripping the barrel of his longrifle. ‘They helped us already,’ he grumbled, not liking it any more than she did.

  ‘So where do we go from here, then?’

  ‘My son and I are heading into that camp, down there on the plain. Where we intend to rescue his mother. What you do from here is your own concern.’

  ‘Nico! Tell me you’re not leaving us here.’

  They were all watching him now, the women who were still awake, Chira with the child nursing at her breast.

  ‘No. We’re not leaving you,’ he told them firmly.

  And his father growled and walked away.

  *

  ‘We have to leave them here,’ whispered his father, where he squatted further along the branch with his hunched back turned to the others. ‘We’ve no other choice.’

  ‘How can you say that so easily, Father?’ Nico asked him.

  ‘Because it’s true. If we want to save your mother we’ll have to ditch them sooner or later anyway. There isn’t another option, Nico. We already saved these people from captivity. They can wait until nightfall and then head for the nearest town, probably Husson. Take their chances like the rest of us.’

  Nico was appalled at the sense he was making. Appalled to find life being reduced to this awful formula of necessity.

  Kes glanced his way through a tangle of vines, and brushed the hair from her face with a smile. Chira sat rocking the child to sleep again. A few others sat around talking about what they should do now. Nico took in the frayed and spent condition of the women, their faces dark with grime, a few chewing on what morsels of food they had. As tough as they seemed, their time in captivity had taken everything out of them, and then had come the desperate flight through the dark. Now they were understandably shattered.

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ said his father. ‘So long as they only move at night like the Contrarè have been doing. It’s three nights’ walk to Husson. I’ll give them sound directions.’

  Three nights!

  ‘They won’t be fine and you know it. Look at them, they’re starving and exhausted! And Bull says that enemy patrols are everywhere. We leave them here, they’ll be caught for sure. I can feel it.’

  ‘What you’re feeling is horniness for that girl over there. Do you want to save your mother or not?’

  ‘Of course I don’t want to save my mother. Why would I ever want to save my mother from a lifetime of slavery?’

  ‘Then what is it you’re suggesting? How do we save your mother and these women at the same time?’

  Of course Nico had no answer for him. If he did, they’d hardly be arguing about what to do.

  ‘Son. We can’t tarry here any longer. Once it’s dark we need to make our move. If we follow the river down onto the plain we can reach the imperial siege camp by tonight, and start looking.’

  A thump sounded overhead, and heads craned to look upwards.

  ‘Ssh!’ hissed Sky In His Eyes from further along the branch, and the Contrarè man rose to his feet and cocked an ear.

  Footsteps clattered above them through the drumming rain; zels snorted in the cold air so that they saw the mist falling over the side.

  ‘Might be those bastards who were chasing us, heading back this way,’ someone said in a hush.

  ‘Or a patrol,’ voiced another.

  ‘Ssh!’

  They listened in silence as the footsteps passed them by.

  Nico stared hard at his father.

  ‘I tell you, I have a really bad feeling about this.’

  *

  Nico hated these short days of winter.

  Already the sun was falling into the western hills in a blazing stew of clouds, the whole day nearly gone, and all they had done with it was hang around beneath the tree bridge, sheltering from the torrential rain while they caught up with their sleep and slowly recovered their strength for whatever lay ahead.

  Cole had told the women about the town of Husson three days’ march from here, and how it was likely a good bet for sanctuary since it had strong walls. Some of them had wept, hearing this confirmation that he was intent on leaving. Most though were too exhausted even for that, and simply stared at him with wide blinking eyes, as though he was describing a trek to one of the moons for all that it was possible.

  Some of the freed captives, now they had time enough to think beyond their present situation, wished to return to their farms to see if any of their family had survived the raids. But others managed to rouse themselves enough to dissuade them of such notions, pointing out that the countryside was crawling with slavers and enemy patrols. Besides, they said, any family members who had survived would have taken refuge where they could, in forests or hills or in the towns. Something the women needed to do themselves now, since no one was willing to help them reach the protection of the city.

  Bull, for his part, would say nothing more on the matter. Most of the time he and the Contrarè kept their own company on a bough a little distance away, resting while they could.

  Through the day, Cole dozed too beneath his hat, his scarred face almost hidden by the upturned collar of his coat. Exhausted, just like the rest of them. Nico lay not far from him with his back to a branch, watching the group in the failing twilight. His body was tired but after a few hours’ sleep he had felt no need for more. It was a comfort simply to lie there doing nothing all day, with the water dripping from the roof of leaves and the river mumbling far below, listening to their occasional quiet chatter and watching the women pass the time together, most of all Kes.

  It was the time of Kamasat, one of the group had reminded them. Indeed it should be the last day of the year – Year’s End. Soon, some of the women were exchanging gifts with each other in the traditional Khosian fashion: leaves folded into the shapes of love birds and other animals, morsels of food, songs, kind promises. Their muted celebrations drew a few red-breasted robins to the branches around them, and the birds chirped and flitted about in curiosity at their presence there. For a time it was as though their plight was not so lean and desperate after all.

  In the deepening gloom the women became ever-darker silhouettes against the glistening fall of rain, and Nico’s concerns for them returned even more strongly than before. Yet for all that he had thought on the matter in hope of finding some alternative, he knew his father was still right. What else could be done if they hoped to save his mother?

  A sudden movement startled him. With his enhanced eyes he could see that it was Kes, crouched and stepping towards him where he lay a little distance from the rest of the group. Before he could speak the girl straddled herself upon his lap, the hem of her skirt ruffling all about him.

  ‘Here, handsome,’ she said in a breathy hush, and planted a hat on his head that she’d woven from strips of leaf. ‘Made you a Kamasat gift.’

  ‘A gift? I doubt I have anything for you in return.’

  ‘Oh . . . don’t be so sure of that.’

  Kes grabbed his hands and slid them beneath the hem of her skirt, right against the skin of her thighs. He was growing stiff and she could feel it, for she pressed herself down against him, clasping her hands to his head as they both released a tiny gasp of joy.

/>   She smelled of the sky, the sea, the dark earth from which all things grew and all things returned.

  ‘Leave the old days behind and the new ones ahead,’ she intoned in his ear in an excited whisper as she rubbed against him even harder, her mouth gently kissing his neck. Nico glanced to his father, still asleep beneath his hat, and at the others, near lost now in the semi-darkness, wondering if he was dreaming.

  Dream or not, Kes was fumbling at his belt and the buttons of his trousers while she kissed him full on the mouth now, the flesh of her tongue darting against his own.

  Sweet Kush, this is really happening! She’s really crazy for me!

  Nico groaned aloud as he slid inside her.

  ‘Hush,’ she breathed with a smile. She rocked back and forth now, her fair hair falling against his face. ‘The others will hear you.’

  It felt wilder than he’d ever imagined. Her body was as hard as a sculpture of wood wrapped in soft skin and clothing, yet it yielded in places against his kneading hands. Nico came with a gasp that she stifled with her hand; too quickly, too suddenly, wanting more. Kes kept on grinding, her legs flexing on either side of him while his grasp urged her onwards. He bit at a bare nipple that bobbed and pressed against his grin and heard her stifle her own prolonged moan above him, and when she shuddered and whimpered in his ear Nico came again, exploding this time with all the might of the pent-up years behind him, smothering a primal growl against the scented press of her breasts.

  And still they kept on moving against each other, rocking and panting, seeking more.

  *

  He was lying there with Kes asleep in his arms when a hand slapped his shoulder. It was his father, stepping past him on the bough.

  ‘You’re following the river?’ Cole was asking the big man Bull, who stood there with his pack on his back ready to leave.

  ‘Aye,’ answered Bull. ‘We plan to float down most of the way on a log. What of it?’

  His father adjusted the hat on his head, offering a shrug. ‘Just asking.’

  Darkness had finally fallen and they spoke as dim shapes in the gloom of the branches. At least the rain had stopped for now, though by the look of the clouds it could return at any moment.