by Angus Watson
They walked on, through the semi-verdant valley. The tortured, bleeding, hanging people were again a galling juxtaposition to the singing, chirruping, gambolling, albeit bloody-muzzled animals.
The canyon narrowed into a winding, rock-walled corridor, perhaps two paces wide and mercifully free of hanging people, then opened into a deep cliff-sided bowl around two hundred paces across. They followed Beaver Man out onto a wooden platform. The sides of the bowl were the normal pale powdery Badlands rock until about halfway down, then they were dark and glistening, as if liquid was oozing from the rock and flowing into the bowl. Far below, the base of the hole was filled with a lake that shone like dark, polished metal. A dozen little islands protruded from the lake, each about fifteen paces long.
Sitsi Kestrel gasped. As Finnbogi’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he understood why. The shapes were moving. The lumps, far too large to be animals, looked alive. He could now see that the dark and glistening substance was blood, seeping from the walls of the rock bowl and pooling at its base.
“Badlanders and Calnians are proud of their alchemical abilities,” Beaver Man announced, his voice matter-of-fact. “But, as with all proud humans in every age, our hubris is misplaced. There is a more ancient, more powerful magic fuelled by life or, as the men and women hanging from our hills might argue, death. It depends on perspective. Their lives are reclaimed by the land and channelled into the animals you see below you.”
“What are they?” asked Sitsi Kestrel. “Whales?”
“You’re right to guess whales, since those are the only animals alive today that can come close to matching these in size, but, no, they are not whales. Many many years ago, more years ago than you can comprehend, large animals walked this land for a great, great deal longer than humans have scratched about on its surface.”
Finnbogi saw Sitsi bristle. Beaver Man had no idea how many years she could comprehend.
“The large animals died out, as all life will,” Beaver Man continued. “Still an unimaginably long time later, the sea flooded the land and the bodies of the animals were covered in mud and sand. Mud and sand, trees and weed, beasts and birds sank in that sea and lay on top of each other in layer after layer, over millions of years, being pressed by so much weight that they became rock. Then, still longer ago than your minds can even begin to imagine, the seas flowed away, leaving behind these layers of new rock that you can see.” He pointed at a cliff side, which was indeed made up of clear bands.
“Which god told you all this?” asked Sitsi.
“No god. I learned from elders and have observed it myself. Look around, perhaps you will see it, too.”
Sitsi did look.
“You are clever. I can see that you are beginning to think I am right.” Beaver Man nodded, a smile in his eyes.
“I’d always thought,” said Erik, “that the land was formed by rivers and streams cutting down over innumerable years.”
“That comes next. The rock is left behind by the sea in bands, as we can see, then the rain collects into streams and rivers and erodes the rock. Forebears with more patience than me discovered that rivers cut downwards about a pace every thirty years here in the Badlands, but here the rock is soft. Usually it is slower.”
Finnbogi was lost and bored by this bollocks, but Erik, Sitsi and a few others—Wulf, Sofi Tornado, Sassa, Thyri—were lapping it up. Finnbogi suspected that Thyri was faking her interest.
“I’ll end the lecture, and get to the point of it, as I can see poor Finn is flagging.”
“I’m not.”
Beaver Man gave Finnbogi a look that he might have given to a son with sodden trousers who’s claiming not to have wet himself, then continued. “As Erik said, down, down cuts the river. Eventually it exposes the bones of the beasts that died all that time ago. The bones have become rock, but they still hold the essence of life. Now, we take a current life, filter the magic of that life through the deep magic of the rocks themselves, pour that on top of the ancient bones, flesh grows back and life returns. This is a simplification, there’s a lot more going on, but it’s all you need to know. The result is that the most fearsome beast you can imagine walks the earth again. We call them lizard kings. We control them through the Empty Children and we could use them to, for example, rip a Calnian army to pieces.”
Finnbogi looked down at the lumps. They were moving, they did look alive, but they were just lumps. They were still a long way from being a squad of monsters that could destroy an army.
“You are sceptical, Finn?”
Thyri narrowed her eyes at Finnbogi, no doubt disapproving that he’d introduced himself to the enemy by his shortened name.
“No …”
“Look over here.” He darted to the edge of the wooden platform. Finnbogi and the others followed. Beaver Man pointed at a rock that looked like a tortoise shell.
“We didn’t carve this,” said the young Badland chief. “It wasn’t here when my father was born. It was revealed as the rock washed away.”
“Is it some sort of burrowing tortoise?” asked Erik.
“No, you’re missing the point. Look, it has fins, not legs. This isn’t a tortoise. It’s a turtle, from the ocean that used to cover this land. Over millions of years it has turned to stone.”
“Fuck me,” said Erik.
Beaver Man was mildly taken aback by his phrasing, but continued. “So there’s proof that these stone animals are the petrified remains of ancient creatures. As for proof that magic can pump life into them? Don’t worry, the lizard kings are not the first creatures we have made. We know it works. These should be up and walking soon. Some of you may live long enough to see them.”
Chapter 3
March to Glory
The Calnian army stopped for a midday break and Luby took the opportunity to squeeze in some training. She’d been given a mixture of the less capable warriors, ranging from the keen but inexperienced down to some serious lackwits who didn’t know their axes from their arseholes. She was training the former to attack as a team and the latter to stay out of the way. It was physically and mentally demanding work that mercifully kept her mind from Chippaminka and the dead captain.
She’d seen Ayanna waver. Until Chippaminka had steamed in and killed the captain, Ayanna had listened. It had shown Luby that the empress’s enchantment could be broken by persuasion. All she had to do was convince herself that she was visiting the empress for some other reason, in order to get around her own enchantment, then find a time when Chippaminka was away from Ayanna. They were five or six days’ march from the Badlands, so she needed to act soon. The idea filled her with fear, but seeing the captain get so close had given her a dash of confidence.
She was demonstrating how a team of two could use leather collars on poles to hold a stronger opponent when a voice said: “Luby Zephyr, might I have a moment?”
She turned. Icy terror gripped at her throat as Chippaminka’s eyes flashed coldly at her.
“I …” She heard herself saying, feeling as if the prairie had opened under her feet and she was falling to her death.
She followed the young warlock through the long grass unwillingly, as if pulled along by an invisible, irresistible tether. They’d gone perhaps two hundred paces when her legs gave way.
She lay on her back. Blue sky and white clouds were framed by blades of green. Chippaminka appeared above her, offering a hand. Luby took it. Chippaminka didn’t help her up. Instead, all the misery in the world flowed through the warlock’s hand into Luby and she was overwhelmed by a tsunami of desperate sorrow. She sobbed and sobbed, for Innowak knew how long.
Finally, the torture eased.
“You’ll keep away from Ayanna,” said Chippaminka, matter-of-factly.
“I don’t want to go near her!” Luby wailed. She didn’t.
“What do you want to do?” The girl raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Train my troops. Attack the Badlands. And anything else you want me to.”
“Good.
Recover your composure, return to your warriors and tell them what an asset I am to the army, the empress and Calnia.”
“I will.”
Chippaminka left Luby sitting up in the grass, wiping away snot and tears. Chippaminka had told her to recover her composure, so she would. Pleasing Chippaminka was the most important thing; the only important thing. She couldn’t remember ever thinking anything else.
Calnian sucked and Ayanna rocked. Walking all day tired her, so she was glad of the excuse to sit and suckle the little boy. Now that it was painless—thanks to Chippaminka’s magic salve—breastfeeding was when she loved her son the most. He was quiet, he was happy and he needed her. She could stroke his soft head and look out over the plains, herds and birds that would soon be her domain. Ayanna would be remembered for ever for adding these vast tracts to the empire, and Calnian would rule over them wisely and justly, as would his children and their children and so on. All would remember the Swan Empress Ayanna as the founder of the greatest empire and the greatest dynasty in the world. Given the amount of souls Ayanna had consumed, it was more or less certain that she’d return as one of her own descendants. Would Innowak bless her with a memory of her time as Ayanna? She didn’t see why not. She’d earned it.
The captain from yesterday popped unbidden into her mind. What had she been thinking, listening to her nonsense? There would always be detractors. If everyone is pleased with what you’re doing, then you’re not trying hard enough. She was so grateful for Chippaminka’s love and support. When the army returned to the Mountain of the Sun, she would make Chippaminka her queen. It was unprecedented. Some people wouldn’t like it, but, as with all the best plans, there would always be detractors.
She looked ahead, to the north-west. Tiny white clouds embroidered the horizon. Could those clouds be over the Badlands, she wondered, marking out her target and her place of glory?
Chapter 4
The Pretty Prison
Beaver Man left them by scaling the cliff next to the monster pit like a spider. The Badlander chief was, thought Sassa Lipchewer as they headed back with Chapa Wangwa to the arena, a show-off. But he was a remarkably athletic and undeniably interesting show-off.
Bjarni was breathing shallowly on his litter but Paloma Pronghorn was gone, as was one of the Empty Children. The child’s bighorn sheep was still there, standing obediently next to the bighorn that still had its rider.
Sassa looked around worriedly but was almost immediately relieved to see her new friend tearing around an outcrop of rock towards them. She was carrying the missing Empty Child on her shoulders.
“Wanted a run,” Paloma explained to the Calnians and Wootah, “I didn’t want to get bitten by one of those bastard spiders again and this little fellow didn’t seem to mind me taking him with me, so …”
“Put him back on his bighorn sheep, now,” said Chapa Wangwa.
“Sure thing, Chapa Wanka!”
“What did you say?”
“Sure thing, Chapa Wangwa!”
“Careful,” the Badlander smiled horribly. “You are exuberant after surviving when you should have died, but insult me again and you will be bitten again. You will probably not survive a second attack. Would you like to try it?”
“Not especially.”
“Good. Let us go.”
Chapa Wangwa turned and Paloma made a wanker gesture behind his back.
Sassa smiled, but then noticed that Paloma’s eyes were bloodshot, her usually shining skin was sallow and hair was sweat-pasted to her forehead in ringlets. She was seriously unwell. The running and the cockiness was all bravado. Sassa couldn’t decide if that made her more or less confident that they’d escape this horrible land.
Their captor led them westward, across the path they’d ascended and beyond. The otherworldly scenery of domes, mini mountains and spires of pale rock banded with horizontal red stripes stretched on, but the ground was grassier, there were even more animals and, mercifully, no bleeding unfortunates hanging from their arms. The path was busy with well-camouflaged yellow crickets which showed themselves when they leapt clear of the human approach. Where the track crossed a broad stretch of bare rock, the ground was strewn with boulders and pebbles of all colours, including much shiny quartz.
Sassa thought it was as if they’d left the world controlled by the gods of nature and entered some lawless fringe zone where people and landscape could do whatever the Hel they wanted.
They stopped at a meadow half encircled by a towering crescent of white-pink rock. The crescent was topped with the typical fins and pinnacles of the Badlands and maybe sixty paces high at its highest point. Spaced evenly about the meadow were half a dozen unadorned, conical buffalo-skin tents which looked newly made. Pale rock paths ran from the tents to a cleared area which held an assembled but unlit dung fire, a pile of buffalo dung, cooking equipment and several sitting logs.
“This is where you will stay,” said Chapa Wangwa. “Provisions will be brought to you. You see this line?” he toed the ground where a line had been scored. “This is your boundary. It gives you around two hundred paces to roam from the fire, which is enough. Cross that line and … well, you know what will happen. So this is your pretty prison. We will come to get you when we require you.”
“Sofi Tornado, Wulf the Fat!” Sofi looked up from her breakfast the following morning to see Chapa Wangwa walking up with a small group of warriors and a couple of Empty Children. “Come with me!” he grinned.
“After breakfast,” said Wulf without looking up from his bowl.
Sofi felt her spiders stir and she guessed, by the cries of surprise, that the others did, too.
“No,” said Chapa Wangwa. “Now.”
Sofi was used to fighting in the Plaza of the Sun and she treated this arena no differently. She looked around the several hundred Badland spectators, analysed their sounds and their composition then pushed that information to one side. She would need to focus on whatever was coming.
She closed her eyes and listened. Concealed to the south of the arena were two very large bears, white ones from the far north if she wasn’t mistaken. She tapped the hilt of the sword she’d taken from Finnbogi. White bears were a good deal larger than humped bears, and they were supposed to be more ferocious. She strained her ears. There were other odd things going on. She could hear large animals deep underground, which was a little unsettling, and the breathing of the monsters the Badlanders were creating reverberated through the rock, but there were no other immediate threats.
She opened her eyes and looked at Wulf. He was lost for words for once, staring round at the gawping Badlanders on their benches. He would never, she realised, have seen this many people in one place before. She hoped it didn’t faze him.
He was tall, he was well-built, his padded jacket would deflect a normal person’s knife blow, and that great hammer he held would be a ferocious weapon if well wielded. Sofi fancied his chances against most unenhanced warriors she could think of.
But against a white bear? He’d be dead in moments. Armed with a spear he might have a hope, but that hammer might as well be a turkey’s tail feather for all it was going to trouble the bear.
For Wulf’s sake, she hoped that they were going to let them fight together.
“What do you think—” started Wulf, but he was interrupted by a roar from the crowd as the two white bears were led in on catch poles.
“That’s what I was going to ask!” the Wootah leader shouted above the spectators’ noise. “You keep back, Sofi, I’ll deal with them.”
She raised her eyebrows at him and he smiled back at her.
“Although they are quite big.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps if you distract them, I’ll be able to—”
“Shush.”
He shushed.
The Badlanders’ cheering became a murmur as Rappa Hoga strode across the bloodstained arena floor towards them, his dark skin shining. Sofi was surprised to realise that she was glad to see him.
&n
bsp; “Good morning. Beaver Man sends apologies that he has to be elsewhere but hopes you enjoy his challenge.”
“Hello,” said Wulf, “do you have a spear I could borrow?”
“Let them loose,” said Sofi.
“We’ll let one loose, and Sofi Tornado will fight it. Wulf will fight the second one. So, Wulf, please will you head over to the western edge of the arena until it’s your turn?”
Wulf touched his spider box, said: “Sure thing. Good luck, Tornado!” and jogged away.
“Have you considered my offer?” asked Rappa Hoga.
“I have,” said Sofi.
“Well?”
“I continue to consider it.”
Tansy Burna bounced on her seat as the bear keepers freed the first beast, then realised that people were watching her bouncing. She had the section of bench to herself, which left her exposed and self-conscious. She carried on bouncing. She wasn’t going to stop for the kind of po-faced dicks who didn’t like bouncing. But all of the glee had gone from it.
Tansy loved the shows in the arena, but few of her friends did. Warriors were meant to sneer at arena fighting. Real warriors only liked real war. Tansy didn’t care what she was and wasn’t meant to like, but it was annoying that she hadn’t been able to persuade any of the other dagger-tooth riders to come with her. Surrounded by her comrades, she could have bounced, whooped and waved her arms without worrying that people were staring.
I can’t believe I’m friends with someone who enjoys those shows, one of the other cat captains had even said to her when she’d canvassed for co-spectators. I can’t believe I’m friends with someone who judges others by the entertainment they enjoy, was the clever reply Tansy had come up with the following morning, on the way to the arena on her own.