by Angus Watson
Chapa Wangwa led Sassa Lipchewer, Wulf the Fat, Erik the Angry, Keef the Berserker, Finnbogi the Boggy and Thyri Treelegs eastwards, back along the ridge of the Badlands massif, towards the arena where Finnbogi had defeated two snakes three days before. The three Empty Children followed.
Wulf fell back to walk alongside Sassa. He took her hand and squeezed it. He was smiling, but she could tell he was as nervous as she was. He was worried for her, obviously; he wasn’t one to be troubled for his own safety. Had he guessed about the baby?
The Badlander turned north along a less well-worn track. They followed him.
“This isn’t the way to the arena,” said Finnbogi. “Or at least it isn’t the way I went when I—”
“When you beat the snakes by frightening them away. Yeah, yeah,” said Keef. “Well done you. There is nothing more heroic than shooing away reptiles. We all remember that fine saga about Tor spooking the lizard. And what about the time Loakie frightened a tortoise so much that it—”
“Mine were very big reptiles,” Finnbogi complained.
“Sure they were. Very big, cowardly reptiles.”
Sassa smiled. Keef was incensed that Finnbogi had been picked over him to fight in the arena. She had heard much more over the last couple of days about how Keef would have beaten the snakes than about how Finnbogi actually had. In fact, Finnbogi had been strangely unwilling to talk about his time in the arena. They only knew what they knew by asking questions which he’d answered reluctantly. Sassa wondered if his reticence meant he was maturing into a modest man, or whether more had gone on than he was admitting.
They crossed the track that they’d walked up from the Plains Strider six days before, and approached the highest part of spiky, soil-stripped hills. The day was hot and bright, but still Sassa felt a chill of deathly fear.
“They’ve gone!” said Thyri, and for a moment Sassa was confused, but then she saw. The rock was bloodstained, but the hanging people and hammered-up hands had disappeared.
“They have served their purpose!” cried Chapa Wangwa. Wulf squeezed Sassa’s hand again.
They came to a ridge and climbed the steps hewn into it. It was hot work.
“I came this way with Beaver Man,” said Finnbogi at the top. “I wish I’d known there was this easy way up. We climbed up just there and—oh.”
Swan Empress Ayanna gazed at the spire-topped wall of the Badlands and shuddered. She hadn’t dreamed for a moment that it might be so high and so daunting. Nor so red. It was like something from a nightmare; impossible and impenetrable.
“The rock is soft,” said Chippaminka, appearing to read her mind. “It will crumble before our assault. The Badlanders know it. Look! Here they come to surrender.”
A man was walking towards them holding aloft a spray of white peace feathers. He was dwarfed by the enormity of the Badlands looming up behind him, a white point against the yellow and red vastness.
Six others followed. One of the six was huge, around the same size as Chogolisa Earthquake.
They neared. The lone figure morphed into a young, strikingly handsome but oddly shiny man. He was carrying a spear with white feathers attached to its head. Perhaps two hundred paces behind him were Yoki Choppa, Sofi Tornado, Sitsi Kestrel, Paloma Pronghorn, Morningstar and Chogolisa Earthquake. Talisa White-tail and Sadzi Wolf were missing.
“Don’t worry,” said Chippaminka. “Luby Zephyr’s Owsla killers will destroy these traitors. We will build a new Owsla.”
Ayanna nodded. Chippaminka was right. They’d made one Owsla, they could make another. She might have lost Yoki Choppa, but she had Chippaminka now. Chippaminka was better. It was all going to be fine.
The spearholder stopped, as did the Owsla, a long way behind them. Ayanna stood tall, in her I am an empress and a goddess stance. Milk-swollen breasts and a slackened waist didn’t help, but she thought that she still made a pretty good job of it.
“I am Beaver Man, chief of the Badlanders,” said the attractive young man. There was no slackening in his waist. A shame she couldn’t decree that men bear children.
“Beaver Man. Be The Man,” Ayanna pronounced. “I’d heard that was your name. I’d assumed it was a joke.”
“People usually say my parents had a sense of humour to explain a name like mine,” sighed Beaver Man. “It’s obvious that mine didn’t. Perhaps it was meant to be a joke, but my parents are the only people who ever laughed at it. It’s why I killed them.”
“Why haven’t you changed your name?”
“I need to be reminded that I’m not a god.”
“My army will help with that.”
He smiled, not a flicker of fear. “And you are a god?”
“Officially. But I, too, have a way of reminding myself that I’m human. If you listen carefully you may be able to hear him screaming.”
“Ah, yes. Congratulations on your son.”
“You are well informed. Now, you have my Owsla.”
“My Owsla now.”
“Come forward, Owsla!” she called to them.
Yoki Choppa and the women didn’t budge.
Beaver Man shrugged, his boyish beauty at odds with his strong-shouldered warrior’s frame. “Like I said …”
“What are those boxes on their necks?”
“A sign of fealty to me, like Calnia’s strangulation cords.”
“You’re controlling them! What is in the boxes?”
“They simply prefer a winning side. Now, how would you like to surrender?”
“How would I like to surrender? You’re well informed, so you know the size of my army.”
“Twenty thousand warriors, give or take, plus support and followers.” Beaver Man shook his head sadly. “A shame to kill so many. If you surrender now, I’ll let your son live to return to Calnia with a tenth of your army.”
“A tenth?” The young man’s self-delusion was almost impressive. Or perhaps he was mad? “What do you plan for the other nine-tenths?”
“I have my hobbies.”
“Beaver Man, think of your people. You haven’t a hope against my numbers. Think of the Badlander children who will be orphaned today. It needn’t happen. I will take the Badlands into the Calnian empire, and you will pay tribute. I’ll let you live. You can come to Calnia. You will thrive there.”
“It is you, Ayanna, who should surrender to save your own child. I will spare him, but not you, if you surrender now. Otherwise I’ll take him from his mummy’s dead body and raise him as my own. I’ll talk about you a lot. I’ll tell him you were a demon who tried to kill him.”
A long way behind her, Calnian screamed. Ayanna felt her rage coming. She knew she should control herself, but also knew that she couldn’t. Not when her son was threatened.
“You shit,” she spat. “I’ve indulged you long enough. Fuck off back to your little rocks and take my traitorous Owsla with you. I’ll see you again before the day is over, but I will tell my warriors to take your tongue first. I will not suffer your oily buffalo shit again.”
Overhead a whitecap eagle screeched, surely a sign that the sun god Innowak was with the Calnians.
“Sure, whatever, goodbye.” Beaver Man was aggravatingly unmoved by her tirade. He walked three paces then turned back. “If I were you, I’d send my fastest runners back to the Water Mother with young Calnian. It won’t help. I’ll send faster troops after them, but your death will be less awful if you know you’ve done everything you can to save your son.”
Sofi Tornado watched it all with her toes clenched, every fibre fizzing with frustrated fury. She gripped the hilt of Finnbogi’s wonderful but useless sword.
She heard every word. She tried to catch the empress’s eye, but she was too far away. Beaver Man had promised that their spiders would bite if she or any of the Owsla took a step forwards, said anything or made any move that might be discerned as an attempt to communicate with the Calnian army. She could hear their spiders tapping their feet as if impatient to sink their fangs into Owsla nec
ks. It was possible they were all as resistant as Paloma, so they might not die, but they would endure horrible agonies, be knocked out for a few hours and brought low for days. The only option was to stand there.
Why was the Calnian army here?
Beaver Man had known they were coming long enough ago to prepare his lizard kings, which meant he’d known the Calnians were going to invade a long time before the Calnians had known themselves.
So what the fuck had happened?
The only person at the Swan Empress’s side for the powwow with Beaver Man was a girl who didn’t look far into her teens. Sofi had seen her before. During the Goachica raid that had started this whole ridiculous mission, she’d heard a girl shout: “They’ve killed Chamberlain Hatho!”
Goachica dispatched, Sofi Tornado had found Chamberlain Hatho’s body. His alchemical bundle carrier, a new girl he’d apparently picked up on his travels, had emerged from hiding, wailing horror at his death. She’d been able to tell the girl’s grief was false, but that hadn’t surprised her. Sofi herself would have faked grief if the slimy but powerful man she’d been shagging had died on arrival in his home city.
Here was that girl again. Coincidence? Of course not. The girl had to be Beaver Man’s warlock who’d persuaded Ayanna to invade. Persuaded? No, she must have bewitched her to lead such a foolish, empire-ending offensive.
Was Yoki Choppa part of it? The Wootah? Had the Wootah mission and all that had happened since been Beaver Man’s doing?
“I’m going to kill him,” said Morningstar through gritted teeth, echoing Sofi’s thoughts. “I cannot stand this a moment longer.”
“Hold,” Sofi Tornado whispered.
“What can we do?”
“We have to hold.”
“That’s a shit option.”
“Careful, Morningstar.”
Morningstar glowered and Sofi did, too, desperate to act. Her spiders tickled, a reminder that doing anything would be suicide.
She looked from east to west, at the vast host of Calnians. She’d never seen so many gathered in one place. It was the entire Calnian army.
Sofi thought about the dagger-cat cavalry, the moose cavalry and, worst of all, the lizard kings, and felt sick to her stomach.
“Oh.” Finnbogi was looking over the edge. Sassa and the others joined him. They were above the blood pit where Beaver Man had said they were growing something called “lizard kings.”
It took her eyes a few heartbeats to adjust from the glare of the pale, bare rock to the darkness of the pit, but then she saw a dozen huge, sleeping animals. They had grown in the few days since they’d seen them. Their torsos, rising and falling with each peaceful slumbering breath, were the size of the largest of Sassa’s family’s farm buildings back in Hardwork. They had stout, pointed tails, each of which must have weighed twenty Sassas. Their egg-shaped heads were enormous, as big as two buffalo tied together.
“Come on, Wootah!” shouted Chapa Wangwa. “They are amazing, but soon you will see them in action!”
He led them along a terrifying path which skirted a spire high above the lizard king pit, then through a twisted, vegetation-free valley in which Wulf annoyed and cheered Sassa by pointing out penis-shaped rocks.
From the gap where Finnbogi said he’d seen Beaver Man sing, Sassa recognised the place where they’d finished their long journey on the Plains Strider. There was no sign of the Plains Strider, nor the smaller craft that had been there, and the previously thriving town of Badlander workers was not just deserted, it was gone altogether. The hundreds of huts and tents that had been there when they’d arrived had disappeared.
More amazing than the town’s disappearance was the sight of an enormous army spread out across the land.
“The Calnian army!” chimed Chapa Wangwa happily. “Beaver Man wanted you to watch its destruction, so I will leave you. The Empty Children will be watching you.”
He looked around at all of them, grinning. “Stop looking so glum. Enjoy! We all love watching death, all of us! Po-faced party poopers will say they do not, but they lie to us and themselves. So watch, enjoy, and, by all means leave this vantage point if you like, but your spiders will bite and you will die.”
He left them looking out over the plain and the army, which, despite its numbers, suddenly looked very vulnerable.
“How many people do you think are there?” Sassa Lipchewer asked, placing her hand back on her stomach.
“I reckon thirty thousand,” said Thyri.
“Thirty thousand?”
“More like a hundred thousand,” said Keef.
Although she could see them, Sassa found it hard to imagine that so many people could exist. Each would have their own cares, secrets, worries and fears. So much humanity. She wanted to weep for all of them, and she was angry. They’d live, they’d scrape by, they’d die. What was the point? How could she or her growing child be of any consequence in a world that contained so many?
“Where are the Badlanders?” asked Thyri.
“In the hills to the left and right of here, I should think,” suggested Erik. “There are an absolute fuckload, sorry, I mean there are loads, of big stones and boulders up here. They’re probably waiting until they get close before chucking those at them.”
“Or they’re going to watch while Beaver Man’s monsters eat the Calnians,” Keef added.
“Do you think we’re safe?” asked Sassa.
“Safe?” said Keef. “Well, let’s see. We have the world’s most venomous spiders attached to our necks, there’s a pit of monsters behind us and an army that’s already tried to kill us in front of us, we’re prisoners of a murderous weirdo who’s told us he’s going to kill us all and—”
“That’s enough, Keef,” said Wulf. “We’re safe here.”
With the Empty Children guarding them, there was nothing to do but watch the Calnians’ advance.
When the first wave was perhaps three hundred paces from the massif, a long, deep cracking sound shuddered up from the very bowels of the earth. The ground beneath the Wootah’s feet trembled, then lurched.
“Back from the edge!” called Wulf.
A low rumbling grew fiercer. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Everyone looked varying degrees of scared, apart from Keef who was inspecting his fingernails for dirt. The ground began to vibrate sickeningly.
“Crouch!” called Wulf. They all did, apart from Keef.
The vibrations increased. The rumbling became a roar. Pebbles and stones bounced down the peak to the west of their gap. Sassa closed her eyes and put her hands over her head. She felt two people—Wulf and Thyri—crouch over her.
The roar subsided to a rumbling, and, surprisingly, suddenly it stopped. Sassa opened her eyes and stood up. The Wootah were coated in dust and blinking. The peak to the west was unchanged, but the peak that had stood just to the east of them was gone. It had collapsed down and out onto the plain, along with a huge section of the massif stretching back towards the arena. Had the Wootah been ten paces to the east, they would have fallen with the rock and been lying in the broken rubble underneath the clouds of dust below.
Behind them, the three Empty Children sat astride their bighorn sheep, coated in dust but still regarding the Wootah with their dead eyes as if a mountain hadn’t just crumbled and fallen only paces away.
“The dicks!” said Keef, coughing. Standing and watching while the others crouched, he’d sucked in more dust than the rest of them.
“What?” asked Thyri.
“That rock fall didn’t just happen. I don’t know whether it was alchemy or mechanics—more likely the latter and I think I know how, I’ll tell you later—but the Badlanders made it happen. It was their big weapon. They meant to drop a mountain on the Calnian army. And they missed!”
Sassa crept back to the gap. The Calnians’ advance had paused but it was undented, well clear of even the outlying debris from the massive rockslide.
“How do you throw a mountain at someone and miss!
” Keef continued, “Dicks! I would have waited right until—”
There was a roar. For a moment Sassa thought the ground below them was about to collapse, but this noise was different. It was more animal, like a deep-pitched scream. Another rang out, and another. It sounded like several very large, very angry creatures.
“I’m not sure that the mountain was their big weapon,” said Erik. “Listen.”
There was bizarre, loud skittering coming from the cloud of dust where the land had collapsed. Something, some things, were coming towards them quickly.
The animal screams grew louder.
The Wootah turned to face the new peril. Sassa had both hands on her stomach.
An Empty Child riding a bighorn sheep galloped around the corner, followed by another and another. He or she clattered past the Wootah and up the remaining pinnacle to the west. The others followed, until there were twenty bighorn sheep, each bearing an Empty Child, standing confidently on a slope that a human would find difficult to climb.
The first of the screaming animals appeared, below them to the east, bounding across the piles of stones and great boulders that moments before had been a mountain.
“Spunk. On. A. Skunk,” said Sassa.
It was a lizard king.
The great beast stopped, raised its appalling reptile face to Sassa and the Wootah, sniffed a couple of times, opened a mouth that could have swallowed a two-man canoe and the two men paddling it and scream-roared. Every hair on Sassa’s body stood on end. She forgot to breathe.
The monster had grey-green skin like an everyday lizard, but the largest lizard Sassa had seen on their travels was the size of a large rabbit. This one was bigger than a kraklaws, much bigger, tall as a tall tree and stocky as Chogolisa Earthquake. It must have weighed as much as a tribe of people. Its head was disproportionately huge even for such a monstrous beast, and its gigantic mouth was filled with teeth like sax blades.