Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth

by David Drake

  Corylus straightened; he wobbled, then clapped his hand against a scale-barked tree with fronds like a palm dangling from branches. Except for the interruption he might have been able to continue running for another five minutes or so, but now he was finished until he got time to recruit.

  Time that he wasn’t going to get. Only those two Ethiopes had managed to flank them, probably cutting the chord of their swing to the left, but he could hear the rest of their enemies crashing through the woods nearby.

  “Princess, keep running,” Corylus said, breathing through his open mouth. “I’ll hold them here.”

  The Ethiopes wore leather harnesses rather than proper garments. Corylus knelt and wiped his sword on the thigh of the one he had cut nearly in half, leaving parallel lines of blood on the mottled hide. He straightened.

  “We will both wait here,” the Princess said. She tugged the spear from the hand of the dead Ethiope. The shaft was heavy and had a noticeable kink, but it was better than nothing.

  Corylus had reacted without thinking when the Ethiopes appeared, doing what training had conditioned him to do. He started laughing, despite the situation or maybe because of it.

  “I knew I might die in the forest,” he said without looking away from the approaching pursuit. “I just thought it would be somewhere in Germany.”

  Behind them was a screen of saplings whose branches curved toward the ground in showers of feathery foliage. Half a dozen Ethiopes burst through them.

  Corylus didn’t trust his legs for a rush, so he stepped back to the tree that had sheltered the initial ambushers. He felt the sprite stir in the darkness, a sturdy woman with almond eyes who was shivering at the violence.

  Four Ethiopes charged the instant they saw him, calling in musical voices. They sounded more like huge birds than the horses their heads resembled. Each was at least seven feet tall, and one was nearly eight.

  Corylus waited. It was like fighting Germans—but the Ethiopes were even bigger, even clumsier, and even stronger than Germans.

  As he expected, the two in the middle collided because their fellows were crowding inward to get to their victim first. When the middle pair tumbled, they tripped the Ethiope on their right also.

  The remaining attacker was raising his axe for a blow that would have split its victim to the crotch if it had landed. Corylus stepped forward and stabbed the Ethiope through the top of the thigh, severing the artery and bringing him down twisting onto the pile of his fellows. Corylus flicked the sword tip twice, breaking an Ethiope’s spine and opening the neck veins of the fellow with whom he was tangled.

  Corylus couldn’t finish the last of the four because the pair who had hesitated were now galloping toward him. One leaped the pile of thrashing bodies, holding his spear like a vaulting pole. He had feet like a camel’s, not horse hooves.

  The Princess threw her spear, catching the Ethiope in the belly. The flaked point poked out from the Ethiope’s back as he doubled up. Corylus didn’t think he could have done better himself with so awkward a missile.

  The other Ethiope came around to the left of the pile of his fellows. Corylus hoped he would collide with the survivor who had risen to all fours, but the attacker avoided that mistake. My luck’s been too good already.…

  The Ethiope had a long cudgel studded with chips of flint. He swung it horizontally, four feet up from the ground. Corylus ducked under the blow without thinking—there was no time to think, time only to observe and react—and thrust through the Ethiope’s leading wrist.

  The cudgel hit the tree trunk with a crash like nearby lightning. It bounced out of the Ethiope’s remaining hand. He trumpeted in surprise at the blood spurting from his right wrist. Corylus thrust again, this time into the rib cage with the flat of the blade held parallel to the ground so that the steel wouldn’t grate through bone and maybe catch when he tried to withdraw it.

  The point slid in and slid out with no more trouble than stabbing a wineskin. Bright blood from the lungs gushed out instead of wine.

  Which left the last of the original four—

  The Princess swung an axe sideways, driving the edge into the Ethiope’s temple with a hollow thunk. She stepped back as the Ethiope thrashed. The blunt stone blade remained buried in his skull.

  “We’ve—,” Corylus said/gasped.

  More Ethiopes—a dozen or so; Corylus didn’t have leisure for a proper count—crashed through the undergrowth hooting. The dryad said many.…

  Too many.

  Corylus was trying to breathe and praying not to fall over. His muscles burned, his lungs burned, and everything he saw was blurred and tinged with red.

  The tone of the Ethiopes’ cries changed. They were leaping, toppling as though a squadron of archers were shooting into them. Horse-headed hunters flopped to the ground in bloody confusion.

  Two rushed Corylus. They were trying to escape rather than attacking, though it would amount to the same thing. He chopped to deflect the spear aimed at his torso. His sword bit deep into the spear shaft, but the Ethiope’s point scraped his ribs as it passed under his raised sword arm. Mithras, but these bastards are strong!

  The Princess threw an axe at the other Ethiope. It was good for line, but it struck handle first, staggering him without serious injury.

  Corylus grappled with his own opponent. The Ethiope swung him aside, clearing the sword from the spear shaft. Corylus cut downward into the Ethiope’s left ankle. It was a poor blow, but good enough to chip bone and cause the victim to bleat.

  Instead of falling, the Ethiope shook Corylus off his right arm and raised the spear to stab him like a carp in a tank. Corylus tried to twist away. His right arm was numb and he couldn’t raise the sword into even a pretense of defense.

  The Princess was trying to tug free another spear, but the weight of bodies held it firm. The Ethiope whom she’d hit with the axe pitched forward, causing her to jump back. The back of his neck gouted blood.

  The Ethiope preparing to kill Corylus fell like a windblown pine. Corylus managed to curl his legs so that the massive body didn’t land on him.

  Behind where the Ethiopes had stood was a pair of Singiri with short, serviceable swords of the sort that a beasthunter like Veturius kept in the arms locker of his compound. The weapons dripped with blood, as did the warriors holding them.

  Corylus tried to stand. He got to his knees, but he couldn’t rise from that posture. He let go of his sword hilt and gasped air on all fours, hoping to quench the fire in his lungs.

  Two more Singiri appeared. One held a boar spear, while the other was the elder whom the Princess had called Tassk. These were Veturius’ four lizard-monkeys.

  Tassk didn’t have a human weapon, but his fingers wore the clawed rings that had masqueraded as a necklace in the cage. He still had the loop of heavier chain around his waist.

  “I hope your warrior doesn’t mind us getting involved in a fight he seems to have had under control, Princess,” Tassk said in Latin as well modulated as the Princess’ own. His arms were red to the elbows, as though he’d been reaching into the chests of Ethiopes. That probably hadn’t been necessary.

  Corylus managed a smile. “The only thing I had under control,” he croaked, “was the grass I was lying on. And that’s pretty sparse.”

  He glanced at the ground, then lurched to his feet. A Singiri warrior stepped close but didn’t offer help unless it were needed, which it wasn’t, quite.

  “We took the Ethiopes from behind,” Tassk said. “Which was easy, because they were wholly focused on the warrior who had killed so many of them already. Perhaps another time we will all stand together.”

  The younger male Singiri faced outward around their leaders and the human, just in case there were other enemies, Ethiopes or otherwise. Corylus had seen too many ambushes to imagine that what these warriors had done was easy, though complete surprise had made it possible.

  “Can you get us out of here, sir?” Corylus said. “You’re a magician?”

 
Tassk’s expression was probably a grin. “Not like my princess,” he said, “but I can dissolve the maze which held you now that it’s been breached from the outside.”

  “Corylus?” the Princess said, speaking for the first time since Tassk and his warriors had rescued them. “We will go back to our own world, which this no longer is. You are welcome to come with us, but I believe you have duties of your own.”

  “Right,” said Corylus. He was starting to feel human again. He wasn’t ready for another fight, but he’d be able to make a showing if one was forced on him. “If you need help, I think I can arrange a ship back to Africa.”

  He picked up his sword and wiped it on another corpse. The edges would take careful sharpening, and there was a chip out near the tip where he must have struck one of the stone weapons … or possibly a tooth.

  “That will not be necessary,” Tassk said, undoing the chain around his waist. “The other end of this is connected to the temple from which we came to recover our princess.”

  Corylus frowned, trying to make sense of the words. The chain wasn’t connected to anything. Though … the end that had dangled loose when Tassk wore it was fuzzy, somehow, out of focus.

  “Good Fortune to you, Corylus,” Tassk said. “Perhaps another time.”

  The three Singiri warriors each gripped the chain with one hand. They watched Tassk silently.

  The Princess took the last link of the chain in her hand. She smiled at Corylus and said, “I will not forget that you helped me, warrior, at my time of greatest need. There will be a time when your need is great also, and I will remember.”

  She did something with the chain that he didn’t understand, then handed him a single link. “Keep this,” she said.

  Tassk hissed a syllable that may have been a word. The chain began to fade as though it were being hauled into a pipe, and the Singiri faded with it. When the Princess disappeared, the world in which Corylus battled the Ethiopes vanished like a soap bubble.

  Corylus stumbled. He was at the edge of Melino’s property, about to step into the street. His tunic and limbs were bloody, and the edge of his sword needed attention.

  But the steel blade was clean.

  * * *

  VARUS SHIVERED IN THE WIND COMING off the water. He had felt no breeze while they were crossing the sea in sunshine, but darkness had chilled the air and was driving it hard enough to pick up scud from the surf. He and Lucinus lay among straggly cedars and knee-high shrubs with sparse, fat leaves the size of thumbnails; neither provided any shelter.

  The magician moaned and trembled under Varus’ cloak. He’d laid it over the older man, thinking he could better stand the cold himself.

  Varus smiled wryly. That might be true, but it didn’t mean that he was comfortable. It would be even less comfortable to spend the rest of his life on this island because Lucinus had died of exposure, of course; and a philosopher should remain unmoved by whatever his fate sent him.

  It would be easier to remain unmoved if the air were a little warmer. He might be able to get to sleep then himself.

  There were images in the hull of the boat. For the most part Varus saw only swirls of faint light, too dim even to have color. They reminded him of moonlight reflecting on a woodland stream. But occasionally—

  Corylus stared out clearly. He was snarling and his face was speckled with blood. Behind him were bushes whose limbs wept down to the leaf litter on the ground.

  Then Corylus was gone. The hull was a window onto lightless fog, and Lucinus gurgled as though he were choking. Varus glanced at the magician. There had been no change; the gurgle subsided into a whistling breath.

  Varus looked out to sea again. Pastel lanterns approached in a line that stretched to right and left as far as he could see. They moved slowly but steadily just below the surface of the water, regardless of the movements of the mild surf.

  Varus laid a hand on Lucinus’ shoulder, wondering if they would need to flee deeper inland. He hoped that the magician would be able to move under his own power by now. Varus knew that he wouldn’t be able to carry the older man any distance, and he wasn’t sure that he would even be able to lift him into a standing position.

  Brush crackled ten feet away. A creature pushed through the lower branches of a cedar, then rose onto its hind legs. It was an ape with a huge, shaggy head and deep-sunk eyes. It turned and stared at the humans.

  Varus held still, praying that Lucinus would also. The magician moaned or mumbled something, but the sound was softer than the breeze. The only weapon they had was the knife Lucinus used as a scriber, and even that was still in the boat. Varus didn’t imagine he’d be able to kill an ape so large even with a proper sword.

  The beast resumed walking toward the sea; its feet curved inward. Other apes were shambling across the beach to left and right. A female with four teats passed close enough that Varus could have leaned across Lucinus and touched her. She ignored the humans as she strode awkwardly toward the water, occasionally dropping onto her knuckles.

  The lights rose from the water as they reached the shore. They were fleshy bulbs on stalks growing from the heads of creatures that looked like dolphins or small whales. The sea animals waited in the surge and ebb of the water, raising their forequarters on arms that ended in flippers. Sometimes one opened its mouth to gulp air; the glowing lantern waved when that happened.

  The apes took places on the shoreline, one or two facing each of the sea creatures. An ape raised his right foot and brought it down on the sand, the sound absorbed by distance and the faint burble of water. He raised his foot again and this time other apes drummed with him. Varus felt the vibration, though only because his eyes told him to expect it.

  A sea creature tilted its head higher and bellowed like the wind blowing through a tomb. One after another, the remaining creatures took up the tortured call.

  The apes were beating the sand in unison; the edge of the surf danced to their hammering feet. The drumming sound was lost in the tuneless bellows of the sea creatures. Their dim lanterns wobbled and swayed.

  Varus didn’t know how long it lasted. He awoke abruptly at a relative silence. I must have slept after all.… The inhuman but somehow meaningful noise had swaddled his discomfort like a cloak of down.

  The sea creatures had left the beach. The lights of a few were visible far out to sea.

  The apes were retreating from the shore with the same clumsy certitude with which they had arrived. The two that passed close to the humans again ignored them. Varus couldn’t be sure whether or not they were the same two that had come near going the other way.

  Lucinus was silent. Varus thought he was still breathing, but—he grinned tiredly—there was nothing to be done about it now if the magician had died.

  Varus lay on the gravel and pillowed his head with his arm. He slept till dawn, however long that was, and roused the groggy Lucinus for the next stage of their voyage.

  * * *

  HEDIA SAUNTERED OUT OF THE CAVE, twitching her tail. It hadn’t been cropped, and its long, feathery hair snapped to and fro like a flag.

  The dog followed her but sprawled at the entrance, all three heads flat on the ground. One of his throats whined. Hedia looked over her shoulder, yipped, and flicked her tail as she walked away.

  I haven’t had a night like this save once in my life, and that time there were six men involved. I think it was six.

  She paused and stretched, her forepaws scraping straight out in front of her until her deep chest rubbed the ground. Her tail was straight up in the air, fluttering in triumph; her tongue lolled from her long jaws.

  Melino stood just back from the edge of the clearing. His left hand held the leather-bound book from the dead man’s lap; in his right was his staff.

  He pretended to look to the side, but Hedia’s keen vision noted that he was watching her from the corners of his eyes. Her tongue waggled in silent laughter.

  Beside the magician stood a figure of glowing red light in the form of a Salu
ki bitch. It watched Hedia approach with an air of cold unconcern.

  Hedia paused again and growled. The demon didn’t react.

  Hedia tossed her head and walked proudly out of the clearing. She laid her cheek on Melino’s knee and rubbed it firmly in a gesture of ownership. The demon watched, showing no emotion. She had no soul, but the greyhound Hedia sensed as surely as the human Hedia did that the demon was more than an automaton as Melino claimed.

  Instead of using the Book, which he had been at such pains to get, Melino pointed the ruby ring at Hedia. The demon spoke what was for a moment mere human gibberish.

  Hedia felt herself slipping through a crimson membrane. She came out the other side as a human being, nude and—she stretched again, rising onto her toes and pointing her fingers upward—aching.

  But that would pass. As it always had before. She grinned.

  “Your clothing is there on the ground,” the magician said. He gestured with his index finger. He was staring into the jungle in the opposite direction.

  Hedia pulled on her tunic, the silk inner one and then the other of soft but tightly woven wool. She would have to untie her sandals before she put them on again; her dog feet had stepped out through the straps.

  “I’m terribly sorry for what you had to undergo,” Melino muttered. “If there had been any other way…”

  Hedia looked at him. The demon was in human form again, smiling sardonically.

  “You’re a sweet boy,” Hedia said, patting Melino’s cheek. “It’s really all right.”

  Melino grimaced but said nothing further.

  Hedia finished awkwardly retying her sandals. It was normally a task for a junior maid under the watchful supervision of Syra. As Hedia rose, she felt a flash of cold as though someone had suddenly showered her with water.

  Melino cried out in horror. Hedia looked around for a cause, but nothing appeared to have changed. The demon’s smile was impassive.

  “What happened?” Hedia said. “I felt a chill.”