Exile's Children

by Angus Wells

  The foremost Breakers entered the pass. Their beasts growled and snarled now, the sound like the rumble of falling stone or the grumbling of floodwater filling up the passage. Twenty abreast they came, racing their mounts onward, urging them to the slaughter, more than Racharran could count.

  They filled the pass and he turned his head to where the Grannach’s new-formed wall blocked the egress. He saw the vanguard haul their animals to a stop, the lion-beasts rearing, pawing the air, roaring their frustration. The riders struggled to turn them back, shouting to those who followed. But the beasts’ howling dinned too loud and the press came on too eager, driving the forerunners up against the wall. The strangeling animals fought one another as they were forced together, rearing up to claw and bite their fellows, even the riders.

  Then Baran’s chanting, and that of his companion Stone Shapers, grew louder, rising to a guttural crescendo. And ceased.

  It seemed then that the earth itself moved. Racharran felt himself lifted up and dropped as the pass caved in. The sound of it deafened him—not even the running buffalo herds made such a thunder. He saw the rimrock shudder and bulge, then fragment and topple down. Vast blocks of stone rained onto the Breakers, crushing riders and their mounts like bugs under the terrible fury of the Stone Shapers’ magic. It was a brief vision, fragmented as the rock that rained down to fill the pass along all its length. And the sound lasted far longer, as if the stone bones of Ket-Ta-Witko roared in triumph. That seemed to echo off the sky itself, so that men covered their ears and flattened on the ground, awed by this demonstration of Grannach power. A cloud rose, hiding the stars and the moon, and small shards of rock exploded upward, as if the broken walls ground ever deeper onto their prey, expelling the lesser pieces.

  Beyond the entrance to the pass, the horde halted as boulders tumbled outward, bouncing and rolling across the grass to claim more victims.

  The poles that dangled the severed heads of Juh and Hazhe, Tahdase and Isten, were broken and buried, and where the pass had stood, there now existed only a barrier of stone. It blocked the ingress and its face was unsound, all filled with treacherously loose rock and spills of shale. Before it, spread in a wide fan, the ground was littered with boulders.

  The dust cloud fell back and the thunder ground to a reluctant halt. Then the night filled with a new sound as the Breakers raised their heads and howled their anger. Their beasts roared as the advancing army pushed those closest to the wall against the tumbled rocks, and for a while confusion reigned.

  Then the lone horn sounded and slowly order was imposed on the milling throng. The snarling, fighting creatures were forced to snapping obedience as the riders drew them back, regrouping. Once more they clustered in a solid mass and, by the light of the burgeoning moon, the watchers on the rimrock saw armored figures dismount, stripping their beasts of harness as others, carrying poles that ended in long spikes with recurved hooks, came forward. These wore night-black armor painted with sigils on chest and back that glowed the dull crimson of old, dried blood.

  “We’ve fought these,” Colun said. “They’re beastmasters of some kind.”

  There was no need of further explanation: the jet-armored figures drove the beasts forward through the toppled boulders, goading the creatures to the wall, to the foot of the cliffs.

  Like enormous cats, they began to scramble upward.

  “Our work, this.” Baran rose and shouted across the length of the new-formed wall. “Do you call your men back from the rim.”

  The Stone Shapers began their chanting again. Racharran watched the Breakers’ beasts climb. Fifty of them, he guessed; less as some lost footing on the unsure rock and fell, yowling furiously, to the ground. Those limped and licked at hurts, and snarled irritably as the beastmasters drove them back to their task.

  Fresh stone came loose from the wall and the cliffs’ edges, and it seemed the rock shifted under the weight of the clambering creatures, no longer packed solid but become suddenly impermanent. The beasts screamed and fell, and from above them boulders tumbled, flinging them away or crushing them until none remained on the slopes.

  Twice more the dark-armored beastmasters forced the surviving animals to attempt the climb; and twice more Baran and his fellows sent stone against them, thwarting the attempts.

  The horn belled and the beastmasters fell back, bringing the animals with them. Only nine lived still, and they limped, favoring wounds.

  “A lesson taught them, eh?” Colun’s voice was triumphant. “I doubt they’ll try that again.”

  “Likely not.” Racharran smiled wearily. “But what shall come next?”

  He realized the sky grew light. The moon was gone away to the west, and along the eastern horizon a band of brightness presaged the sun’s rising. The disc came up red-golden as fire and sent long lances of brilliance across the plain. It shone bright on the Breakers’ rainbow-hued armor and on the furred and scaled hides of their mounts. It seemed to Racharran they covered all the grass, and he knew they were not defeated; would not give up. He knew they must, sooner or later, overcome by sheer weight of numbers.

  And tonight the Moon of the Turning Year would reach its full.

  Morrhyn, wake!

  For want of occupation, Lhyn spilled leaves into a pot and set the tea to brewing. Through the hides of the lodge she could hear the sounds of battle, distant but yet horribly clear. She wondered if Racharran lived—and Rannach—and prayed they did and were not wounded. She prayed that Morrhyn wake, and fought to still the doubting voice that whispered he would not, or if he did, it should be too late.

  She looked at the sleeping man, his snowy hair spread loose on the furs, and saw him shift, turning this way and that, the lids of his closed eyes moving twitching.

  Kahteney said softly, “He dreams. Surely, he dreams.”

  Lhyn turned to the Lakanti wakanisha, but said nothing. There seemed nothing to say that had not already been spoken. Kahteney smiled wanly and shrugged.

  Hadduth only sat, his lean-planed face unmoving as his dark eyes, which neither blinked nor shifted from Morrhyn’s face.

  Lhyn wished he were not there. No matter Chakthi’s vow, no matter the Tachyn fought with the rest, she could not feel comfortable with Hadduth. There was something indefinable about the man, something secretive and hidden. She thought his eyes were bland and unyielding as a snake’s.

  Maker, she prayed, let him wake in time.

  And stirred the tea and waited.

  “We can do no more.” Baran gestured angrily at the jagged rimrock. “Do we bring down more, there’ll be no cliff left—only a slope they can climb.”

  Racharran nodded, accepting. The cliff’s edge was no longer a regular line but all indented and broken where the Stone Shapers had sent it down onto the Breakers. The ground below was spread with rocks and shattered bodies, those of armored attackers and beasts alike. He nocked a shaft. Colun and his Grannach, warriors and Stone Shapers alike, drew heavy axes.

  “We bowmen will look to shoot them as they climb.” Racharran addressed the Grannach creddan. “Do you take those who reach the rim.”

  Colun smiled and Racharran called out the order to the Matawaye.

  The sun stood high now, the sky all blue and cloudless, marked with the wheeling shapes of the crows and ravens that gathered in anticipation of carrion feast. At least, Racharran thought, we’ve the advantage of height. The Breakers’ arrows fell short of the rimrock, and the breaking of the cliff edge crenellated the stone so that the warriors enjoyed some small measure of cover from which to fire their shafts.

  Even so, he thought, it can be only a matter of time.

  At his side, Rannach tensed his bowstring and grinned. “This is a good day to die.”

  Racharran answered, “Yes,” and wished they might live.

  “They come again!”

  Kanseah’s shout brought him to the edge. More Breakers attempted the ascent. They seemed like brightly colored insects as they clambered upward, limber for all
the weight of their armor. Racharran angled his bow and drew the string to his cheek, let fly, and saw his shaft pierce an armored shoulder. The Breaker slowed, a hand falling free of its hold, and Rannach’s arrow drove down between pauldron and helmet. The Breaker jerked, arching back from the slope, and fell away. The body dropped and was trodden down as more rushed to the climb, careless of their dead. They seemed to Racharran not at all like men, but entirely insectile in their grim determination. He thought that did the warriors slay enough, the rest would likely use the bodies for a ramp and climb the cliff on a ladder of corpses. Save the Matawaye would run out of arrows before that, and it come to hand-to-hand fighting. He nocked a second shaft and took aim.

  “Look! What do they do?”

  Rannach pointed to where Breakers turned their weirdling beasts from the mass. Two groups there were, each of hundreds, riding off in opposite directions along the line of hills.

  “They seek to flank us,” Racharran answered grimly. “They look to find an undefended place to climb.”

  He turned, shouting for Colun, and indicated the departing Breakers.

  “Leave them to us.” Colun bellowed for Baran to join him. “We’ll crush them like bugs.”

  He summoned his Grannach and sent a runner across the blockage of the pass to advise those on the farther side. Soon two parties of the Stone Folk went trotting to meet the flankers. Racharran sent a hundred warriors with each group.

  And still the Breakers continued their assault.

  “Shall we win?”

  Arrhyna stroked absently at her rounded belly, staring toward the pass, her head cocked as she listened to the clamor.

  “It’s in the Maker’s hands now.” Marjia stroked a stone against the edges of a blade. “I pray he favors us, but …” She shrugged.

  Arrhyna looked down at her, seeing a face so calm, it seemed carved of stone. “I’d know how Rannach fares,” she said. “I’d go to him.”

  “No!” Marjia looked up from her sharpening. “That’s warriors’ work up there. And you’ve a child to think of.”

  “You fought.” Arrhyna scowled her frustration. “You told me of the fighting in the caves.”

  “That was necessity.” Marjia inspected the blade and found it satisfactory; sheathed it on her ample waist. “And do they get past the men, I’ll fight them again. But they’ve not yet, and so we’ve hope still.”

  “Have we?” Arrhyna sighed and made herself settle beside the tranquil Grannach woman. “I told Rannach to have faith, but the moon shall be full this night. And Morrhyn said that was when …” She, in her turn, shrugged.

  “Then there’s still time, no?” Marjia took Arrhyna’s hands. “Perhaps Morrhyn shall wake soon and show us the way.”

  Arrhyna clutched the comfort of the hard, warm hands and looked into Marjia’s blue eyes. “Even does he,” she said softly, ashamed her faith faltered, “how can so many escape? He spoke of a new land but, even does he wake, I cannot understand how we shall reach it.”

  “The ways of the Maker are mysterious,” Marjia said. “And not always for us to comprehend. That’s the duty of your wakanishas, no? Perhaps our duty is only to believe, to have faith even where it seems impossible hope can exist.”

  “Like here?” Arrhyna smiled sadly.

  “Yes, like here.” Marjia answered her smile with one more confident. “Now, do we prepare food? Our men will grow famished—fighting’s hungry work.”

  Arrhyna nodded: better to work—to do what she could—than wonder if Rannach lived, or if at any moment Breakers should appear.

  Motsos grunted as the arrow struck his shoulder, then cursed as his hand went numb and dropped his bow. The Maker-bedamned Breakers should not have the range—surely their bows could not flight shafts so far.

  Unless …

  He jumped back as a second arrow whistled past his head, and cursed again. Along the line he saw an Aparahso stagger, a bright yellow shaft protruding from his throat. Then a crimson shaft, and a black, sprouted from the man’s chest and he fell down.

  “Magic!” Motsos risked standing to shout his warning. “There’s magic in their arrows!”

  He heard his call taken up and passed along, and others scream out the same as they realized a new power was in play. He sat down and twisted his head to study the arrow thrusting from his shoulder. It was a pale blue, very much like the color of the sky, and as he grasped it, he wondered if the head was barbed.

  When he tugged, he got his answer: yes. Fire ignited in his shoulder and he cursed some more and let go; drew his knife and gritted his teeth and set to cutting through the shaft. When he was done, his left arm hung useless by his side and he could no longer feel his fingers or move them: he hoped the head was not poisoned. He stretched on his belly and crawled back to the rim, intent on retrieving his bow. It was too good a weapon to leave—a full winter in the making; the work of a peaceful winter when the world turned as it should and Ket-Ta-Witko had been safe.

  The bow was fallen into a gap made by the Grannach. Motsos bellied his way forward and reached out.

  His fingers were closed tight on the bow when the arrow pierced his eye. His last thought was that now he would see Bylas and the others again.

  “Get back!” Racharran took a fistful of his son’s shirt and yanked Rannach from the cliff edge. “There’s magic in their shafts!”

  Rannach struggled free, his face dark with anger. “Then how can we fight them?” He nocked an arrow even as he spoke. “Must we stand back and let them climb?”

  Racharran clasped his arm lest he go back. “We fire only from cover! Only from safety!”

  “And grant them the rim?” Rannach shook his head, breaking free. “They’ll be on us like ants over honey. They’ll take the hills and enter the Meeting Ground.”

  “And swifter are we dead.” Racharran moved in front of his son. “Listen! Use your bow—yes! But only from a safe place, eh?”

  Rannach smiled sourly. “Where’s safe here, father?”

  “Use the broken stone.” Racharran stepped aside and looked around. The cliff top was wide, and where it ran back toward the Meeting Ground there were stunted trees and scrubby bushes. The reinforcement waited there, watching the Breakers’ bright arrows loft above the rim. He ran to them, thinking the Grannach’s battle-axes should be useful now, and wondering how his allies fared.

  His orders were swiftly issued and as swiftly obeyed: the waiting men were grateful for occupation and set to work eagerly.

  Soon screens of bush and ramshackle bulwarks of felled timber were set along the rimrock. Little of it was sound enough to halt the bright shafts, but it provided some measure of cover for the People’s bowmen. And Rannach was right: did the Breakers reach the rim, all was lost.

  Racharran took up his own bow and found himself a place. The sun was warm on his back, and when he glanced up he saw the bright burning disc was gone past its zenith and moved toward the west. Soon the Moon of the Turning Year would climb above the eastern horizon, and then night fall.

  He wondered how long that night might be.

  He loosed an arrow and ducked as three shafts tore into the screen of bushes. They were so colorful, like the armor the Breakers wore. He thought of those he’d seen, and how beautiful they were, and wondered at that—for it seemed somehow an obscenity that people so handsome should be so evil.

  He fired again and risked a downward observation, cursing aloud at what he saw.

  Too many of the Matawaye were forced back from the rim, and the Breakers climbed easier now. More were on the scarp, moving inexorably upward, and soon it must surely come to hand-to-hand fighting. And then … Racharran cursed again, for then surely all was lost.

  Save …

  Morrhyn, wake up!

  His mouth and throat were dry and his eyes awhile unfocused. He felt both horribly weary and invigorated, as if he returned from a long and arduous journey and must soon begin another. He groaned and pushed the furs away and felt hands on him, a w
etness on his parched tongue.

  He swallowed and groaned and forced his eyes to see.

  Lhyn’s face hovered above him and he smiled. She looked so lovely; and also afraid, as if hope tantalized her and she not quite dare believe it.

  He said, “We shall be saved,” and wondered if that was his voice croaking. He raised a trembling hand to the cup and drank again, and then spoke clearer, louder: “I’ve seen the way and we must be ready.”

  Lhyn smiled as Kahteney’s face appeared above her shoulder. “How?” the Lakanti asked.

  Morrhyn shook his head and said, “There’s not the time for the telling; later.”

  Lhyn asked, “When?”

  And he told her with absolute certainty, “When the Moon of the Turning Year shines on the Maker’s Mountain.”

  Kahteney said, “That might not be soon enough.”

  Morrhyn frowned. “How so?” Then gasped. “How long have I dreamed?”

  Lhyn said, “Days.”

  “The Breakers are come,” Kahteney said. “They’re beyond the hills now and coming up the cliffs. They’ve magic in their arrows and our warriors lose the advantage.”

  Morrhyn pushed the furs aside, careless of modesty. “What’s the hour?”

  Kahteney said, “Dusk. Soon the moon will light the Mountain.”

  Morrhyn looked about for clothing. “Then we’ve truly little time.” He felt his heart race.

  Even now, when the Maker had shown the fulfillment of his promise, there was still doubt, still that sharp knife edge of time to walk.

  No, he told himself as he dragged on breeches, I cannot doubt now. I must not! He showed me the way—he would not be so cruel as to show me that and then take it away.

  Through the folds of his shirt he heard Kahteney ask, “What shall we do?”

  He answered as his head emerged: “Strike camp. Ready the People for departure. Send word to the warriors—tell them they must hold the Breakers awhile longer and then fall back as the moon lights the Mountain. They must be here”—he struck the ground in emphasis—“when the time comes; else they’ll be left behind.”