by Angus Watson
“Do you know,” Luby asked, “where the rest of the Owsla are and why we’re about to march on the Badlands?”
“I do,” said the girl, with a smile that made the breath catch in Luby’s throat. “But why don’t you relax for now?”
Chapter 2
An Uneasy Alliance
“Isaw a tornado once, over Olaf’s Fresh Sea,” panted the Mushroom Woman, lolloping up to Sofi Tornado at the head of the procession. A gang of glossy blue and white swallows skimmed past southwards over the shifting green sea. High above, flotillas of brilliant clouds traversed the overarching blue.
The woman was Bodil Gooseface, Sofi knew, even though she didn’t care about their ridiculous names. Her resolve to slaughter all the Mushroom Men the moment this fool’s mission was over stiffened every time one of them spoke to her.
“And we saw another tornado just a few days ago.”
The captain of the Owsla didn’t show the dimmest flicker of interest. Gooseface blathered on regardless: “It lifted Chnob the White up and up and up and he didn’t come down. Is that why you’re called Sofi Tornado? Do you throw people into the air? Is that your special power?”
The fiercest warrior in the most fearsome fighting squad in the world deigned to turn her head. Bodil’s eyes were wide and her mouth hung open like a head-whacked fish. She actually expected a reply.
Sofi sighed. This was the sixth day walking west with the Mushroom Men. She was buggered by a bear if she was going to call them the Wootah tribe as their leader Wulf the Fat kept insisting (Wulf the Fat, for the love of Innowak. What was wrong with them?).
“Yes, I’m called Tornado because I spin round and throw people into the air. I also destroy huts, flatten crops and when I’m done I disappear into the clouds.”
“Do you?” The woman wasn’t much brighter than a goose. Was that how she’d got her name? Sofi didn’t care.
“Yes. Most often I attack when I’m walking point and listening out for trouble and I’m interrupted by—”
“My mum used to call me Bodil the Loquacious. I think it means that I’m a good swimmer because I am.” Sofi was not used to being interrupted. She may not have consumed her power animal for a few days, but even without alchemical powers she’d be able to kill this woman and slaughter the rest of them before they’d realised she was attacking. Her fingers tightened around the shaft of the weapon that she’d taken from one of the Mushroom Men; an astonishing piece of metal called a sword.
“I used to swim in Olaf’s Fresh Sea every day. I’d go quite a long way out but not too far because—”
The warlock Yoki Choppa had stopped feeding the Owsla their power animals and destroyed his supplies on purpose to weaken them. He’d justified his actions, but there was no escaping the truth, that if he hadn’t sabotaged their powers, they’d have caught and killed the Mushroom Men on the east of the Water Mother, back in Calnian territory. They wouldn’t have needed to cross the Water Mother and Talisa White-tail wouldn’t have drowned.
No matter how justifiable his reasons, Yoki Choppa had acted without consulting Sofi and his actions had led directly to Talisa’s death.
Despite her anger at Talisa’s death, Sofi believed that letting the Mushroom Men live and escorting them west was the right thing to do; not because she just knew or any crap like that, but because Yoki Choppa said it was. He was the most intelligent, reasonable person she knew, free from ego and ulterior motives, as near to infallible as made no odds. If he said that guarding these freaks was the right thing to do, then, annoyingly, it was.
One of the Mushroom Men was a boy with a damaged mind called Ottar the Moaner. Yoki Choppa had seen that this boy would destroy a force far, far to the west at a place called The Meadows. They knew little about this force, other than that it was bent on destroying the world. If they didn’t escort Ottar there, every man, woman, child and animal on earth would be killed. Sofi didn’t give the tiniest of craps about most men, women, children or animals, but saving them all did seem like the right thing to do.
First of all, however, if she was going to get this gang of idiots through the horrors that no doubt lay ahead, she’d have to replace the power animals that Yoki Choppa had destroyed.
The warlock had tracked down some caribou meat in the Water Divided tribe’s market, so they had their stamina back, but they were still missing the diamondback rattlesnake and tarantula hawk wasp which gave them speed, strength and other qualities.
As well as the three power animals that all the Owsla were conditioned to eat, each of the women had her own special animal from which her distinct skill was derived. Sofi Tornado’s was the burrowing owl.
Apparently burrowing owls were easy enough to catch, but you had to be in their territory and that territory was a few hundred miles to the west. Already her hearing had suffered greatly. At the pace they were going it might be as long as a moon before they found her power animal. Without it, she felt disarmed and nervy. These were two entirely new sensations that she was not enjoying.
On the brighter side, they’d already found Chogolisa Earthquake’s strength-giving dung beetle, Morningstar’s punch-powering mantis shrimp and Paloma Pronghorn’s speed-fuelling pronghorn, so those three women’s special powers were almost back to normal.
Without the diamondback rattlesnake and tarantula hawk wasp, however, they were all weaker and slower than before. Moreover, as well as Sofi Tornado’s own power animal, they were still missing Sitsi Kestrel’s chuckwalla, which gave her extraordinary eyesight and ability with the bow. The chuckwalla came from the Desert That You Don’t Walk Out Of, on the far side of the Shining Mountains. They were headed there, but, at best, given the snail pace of the Mushroom Men, it would take them weeks or even a few moons.
If they got there.
The Owsla were still a stunningly effective fighting squad but as well as being weakened, they were reduced from ten to five. If the Badlanders found them then—
Someone was running up behind. Bodil’s constant blather—it seemed the woman used the musician’s technique of circular breathing to speak continuously—had almost masked the sound.
Sofi’s hand went for her weapon, but it was only Gunnhild Kristlover, oldest and possibly most useless of the useless Mushroom Men.
“Bodil, shush for a moment,” said Gunnhild, “I’d like to talk to Sofi.”
Bodil stopped talking mid-word, unoffended.
“And do try to remember, Bodil, Listeners learn, talkers stay stupid.”
Bodil nodded and fell behind, no doubt to find someone else to talk at.
Gunnhild strode along, keeping level as Sofi’s pace accelerated.
“I saw you sewing last night,” said Gunnhild.
Sofi didn’t reply. She had been sewing, a frustrating business. She was not a good sewer, but she was not interested in sewing and did not require a lecture on how to improve.
“You were making small bags. I guess they’re for your women to store their power animals, in case Yoki Choppa loses his supplies again.”
Sofi shook her head. How did Gunnhild know about their power animals? She should have banned her women from talking to the Wootah. Paloma, Chogolisa and Sitsi were all far too friendly. Morningstar got it right. Don’t talk to them and don’t answer if they talk to you.
Gunnhild wasn’t going to go away, however, so eventually Sofi said: “I made two bags.”
“And you tossed those on the fire this morning because they weren’t good enough?”
Sofi nodded.
“How many do you need? Five? One for each of the Owsla?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll make them for you. Rabbit leather will be better than the fawn you were using. You’ll want them light and waterproof?”
“That would be … useful.”
“I’ll leave you to yourself now, Sofi,” said Gunnhild, “but please remember, enemies are people whose tales you don’t know.”
“No, Gunnhild. Enemies are the people that my empre
ss orders me to kill.”
“Rulers order. Sheep follow. Lions question.”
Sofi remained silent. She didn’t want to encourage the woman.
“If I see Bodil pestering you again I’ll come and get her.” Gunnhild fell back.
The captain of the Owsla strode on, scowling.
Grass, grass and more boring grass.
Finnbogi the Boggy trudged along, glowering at Foe Slicer, his sword, bouncing on Sofi Tornado’s astonishing thigh. Finnbogi had been attracted to strong women for as many of his nineteen years as he could remember. When he was tiny, he’d wanted to please and impress them. For the last couple of years, Wootah women like Thyri Treelegs and Sassa Lipchewer had left him confused, as horny as a goat and doomed, it seemed, never to do anything about his passion other than stare at them and dream.
So, teaming up with five magic-powered female super-warriors who’d been selected for their good looks from an entire empire should have been the pinnacle of Finnbogi’s fantasies. But it hadn’t worked out like that. Six days with them and not one of the Owsla had even acknowledged his existence, let alone talked to him, and he was far too awe- and lust-struck to approach one of them.
Their leader had taken Foe Slicer that first night, without even looking at him, let alone asking for it. The sword wasn’t really his; it had been looted from the grave of Olaf the Worldfinder, and it wasn’t as if he knew how to wield it, and a magic-powered super-warrior would definitely get more use out of it. But, still, she could have asked … But she’d just taken it and tossed her crappy little stone axe at his feet and made him look like an idiot in front of Thyri Treelegs and the others.
Finnbogi had been going to let it go without saying anything because he was a coward, but Wulf the Fat had intervened because he was a hero, and demanded she return it. It had looked nasty for a moment, until the warlock Yoki Choppa had asked Wulf to take a short walk with him.
The Wootah leader had returned a minute later, looking glum. “Keep the sword, Sofi Tornado. Sorry, Finn.”
Sofi Tornado had glanced at Wulf as if to say whatever, I don’t need your permission, and that had been that.
And now Finnbogi couldn’t stop looking at Sofi. Like all the Owsla, she wore what looked like leather socks up to her knees, a short breechcloth and a jerkin that left her arms and midriff bare. He wasn’t looking lustfully, he told himself, as he eyed her again from head to toe. Thyri Treelegs was the only woman for him. He simply contemplated the Owsla women’s figures in the same detached but appreciative manner that he might regard a healthy-looking lion or a sunset reflecting in a lake, that was all. He loved Thyri. He admired the Owsla simply as peaks of physical perfection and there was nothing wrong with that, he told himself again and again.
Behind Finnbogi, Sassa Lipchewer and Paloma Pronghorn were chatting away like gossipy sisters who hadn’t seen each other for a year. He was glad that Sassa was getting on with the Owsla, of course, but surely she could ask him to join her conversation? He wanted to talk to Paloma Pronghorn even more than he wanted to talk to the other warrior goddesses. Because she looked the most interesting, that was all. He could objectively observe that she was the most beautiful too, but that wasn’t why he wanted to talk to her so much.
A dozen yards behind Sassa and Paloma Pronghorn, his newly discovered father Erik the Angry walked along next to the giantess Chogolisa Earthquake. Erik had Ottar the Moaner on his shoulders and Chogolisa was carrying Freydis the Annoying. Erik was tallest and broadest of the generally tall and broad Wootah tribe, but he looked tiny next to the colossal woman. Despite her size, Chogolisa wore a sweet smile on her incongruously pretty, girlish face and was jigging lightly to the song that Freydis was making up as they walked along. Most of the time Finnbogi couldn’t see Ottar’s two young racoons, Hugin and Munin, because of the long grass, but he could hear their yickering and see their tails every now and then.
The four humans and two racoons looked happy and bonded, like a family to which Finnbogi did not belong.
He looked back to try to catch Thyri Treelegs’ eye. She was walking on her own, too. She nodded at him in a way that wasn’t necessarily unfriendly, but did manage to convey the message “keep walking, Boggy, I do not want to chat.”
They’d resumed their evening training sessions, but Thyri had been frosty. She still thought he’d caused Garth Anvilchin’s death. Finnbogi was aching to tell her that Sassa had shot Garth when the evil lunk had tried to murder him, so she’d see that her former lover was a bellend and then fall into Finnbogi’s arms. But he couldn’t. Telling tales was a serious taboo for Hardworkers, or Wootah as they were now called, possibly worse than murder itself. It was so unfair!
Thyri hadn’t spoken to the Owsla either, as far as he knew. While he yearned to talk to them and didn’t because he was spineless, he knew that she wasn’t talking to them because she didn’t want to. Thyri was two years younger than him and about fifty times as cool.
Finnbogi walked on, along the track worn into the plain by centuries of people walking the same route. Or possibly animals. He didn’t know who’d made the path and he didn’t care. All of the rest of it, animals and people, all fitted together, uniting in some greater pattern that he wasn’t part of.
Sitsi Kestrel and Morningstar were on watch that evening, standing back to back on a hummock some hundred paces from the Wootah and Calnian camp, looking out over the endless plain. Washed with a golden fringe by the low sun, the wind-swished Ocean of Grass became ever hazier until it blended into the pale horizon.
It was nine days since Sitsi had last eaten her personal power animal, the chuckwalla lizard, but she could still see a good deal further than any other human they were likely to meet. There was nothing threatening on the plain, only innumerable buffalo, eagles, cranes, wolves, coyotes, a few bears, a lion or two, a variety of deer and other plain-dwelling birds and beasts. There’d be several dozen types of smaller animal going about their business hidden by the long grass, and countless more if you started worrying about the smaller scurrying and buzzing creatures.
A long way off was a cloud that she suspected was a millions-strong flock of crowd pigeons, milling near what she guessed was an unusually straight-sided outcrop of rock. Had she had her chuckwalla that morning, she would have been able to see the individual birds and cracks in the rock. The loss of her ability filled her with fear. She’d always known that she was the least brave of the Owsla, with the possible exception of Luby Zephyr, but the limb-weakening dread caused by the decline in her power was new to her. Was this how old people felt as their strength waned, she wondered? That would explain why so many of them looked so miserable.
Yoki Choppa, the cause of her angst, was nearby, searching for burrowing owls or tarantula hawk wasps that may have strayed eastward from their traditional territory. There was no chance of a chuckwalla this far from its home in the Desert You Don’t Walk Out Of.
“What do you think about our new friends?” Sitsi asked Morningstar, without turning. She took guard duty seriously.
“The Mushroom Men?”
“Who else?”
“I’m looking forward to punching them to death. I cannot believe that Sofi Tornado agreed to nursemaid them. They look bad, they smell worse. We should have killed them when we met them.”
“They don’t smell bad, do they?”
“They look like they smell bad. They’re not from this land. They’re not meant to be here. They’re disgusting. Don’t you think?”
Sitsi thought. “Not really. Obviously, I don’t like them … well, I do like the children, especially the little boy.”
“Only because he’s fucked in the head and that reminds you of your brothers.”
“Maybe that’s true, although not perhaps how I’d put it, but I think I’d like him anyway. And his sister. They’re so innocent it’s difficult to dislike them.”
“I find it very easy,” said Morningstar.
“Really? Those little children?”
“Keef the Berserker was brave when Talisa cut off his ear and took his eye,” Sitsi protested, “and Wulf the Fat stood up to Sofi when she took the sulky one’s sword. What’s his name? Thinsoggy?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. He’s not fit to lick goat shit off the sandals of the person who licks goat shit off my sandals, let alone have me remember his name. They don’t belong. The sooner we kill them all the better.”
Morningstar was the daughter of Zaltan, who, as well as being emperor of Calnia before Ayanna, had been a torturer, mass murderer and pervert. Given her background, Sitsi Kestrel thought Morningstar had turned out pretty well. Buried below her snobbish exterior was a good and kind soul, Sitsi was almost certain. It was just buried quite deep.
Keef the Berserker, the one whose ear and eye they’d removed, ran into view, sweeping his long-handled axe around and seeing off imaginary foes. He spent most of his days fighting invisible enemies.
“Do you think we really will kill them when we’ve done whatever we’ve got to do at The Meadows?” Sitsi asked.
“I’m amazed we haven’t slaughtered them already, and eaten them to prevent them coming back. I cannot believe that Sofi is disobeying Ayanna’s orders on that grubby little warlock’s say-so.”
“That grubby little warlock who gave us our powers …”
“Who was one of three people who gave us our powers, and very much the junior according to my source.”
“Would that source be the warlock Pakanda?”
“Yup.”
Pakanda had been chief warlock before Yoki Choppa, exiled by Emperor Zaltan for abusing his daughter, Morningstar. Everyone who knew Morningstar suspected that the abuse, which had entailed Morningstar tossing off the old man in return for information, was at least ninety-nine per cent instigated and driven by Morningstar. She wasn’t one for doing anything she didn’t want to do. But many also suspected that Pakanda had had his way with younger, more vulnerable girls who weren’t emperors’ daughters and hadn’t been alchemically empowered to protect themselves. All in all, no one missed him.