The apparition had unquestionably once been human. 'Taimgring!' The shriek soared above the yammer of battle. 'O Ust, it cannot be!'
Jennas's bear had halted and refused to budge. Anticipating the horror's advance, Jennas reslung her sword and seized her lance. At the despairing cry she twisted in her saddle.
A tawny bear lunged past her, slobbering foam in its panic. On its back rode a woman taller than Jennas, with braided black hair flying from her helmet. She plunged her sword into her animal's rump to goad it into motion. 'No!' The black-haired woman howled, an explosion of agony. 'My daughter!'
All action stopped. Even Kleta-atelk's changelings ceased battling to watch the dreadful reunion. The amorphous head turned. The streaming dish-sized eyes saw the demented woman who had lost a child and now found it transformed into the essence of a thousand nightmares. Its arms reached.
Its tentacle-fingers wrapped around its mother and lifted her to its breast. The black-haired woman dropped her weapons and embraced her ghastly child. Then she screamed.
The lips had pressed beneath her breasts as though in a caress of love. They peeled back to reveal sharp, chisellike teeth that cut through mail and skin and ribs with equal ease.
Fost's heels dug into Grutz's side. The red bear coughed and broke into a run. Abashed at having to carry a lowly outlander into battle, Grutz displayed none of his fellows' dread of the once-human monstrosity.
Sucking its mother's entrails into its belly through the tube of its mouth, the behemoth turned its eyes on Fost. A sickening stench wafted from it. Its gelatinous flesh wriggled as it stretched a hand toward the courier.
Grutz roared. Fangs flashed. A squeal of anguish bubbled from the thing. Still feeding on the writhing body of its mother, it tried to wrest its hand from the bear's jaws. Fost's broadsword hacked the arm through. Blood hosed over him.
The monster's keening rose to a petulant crescendo. Fost lunged. His sword tip sundered iron links and struck through the heart of the black-haired woman. Dropping her corpse, the being reached for him. His sword rose high and fell again and again, until the bloated face with its questing, sucking proboscis had been butchered to red ruin. With a final slobbering cry the being flopped to its side, convulsed and died.
The fight had surged to life again as Fost, sick to the depths of his soul, turned Grutz away from the mountain of cooling flesh. Badger-riders had appeared to take the attackers from the flank. With shield and spear the lighter defenders took heavy toll of the bear-mounted People of U.st, whose formation had been ruptured by the onslaught of the monsters.
'Jennas!' Fost shouted at the sight of the Ust-alayakits' leader. Though her greatsword had slashed their riders down, three grunting badgers held her bear by snout and two legs while the warrior-woman fought a caricature of the beast she rode. Covered with squirming pink tendrils instead of fur, the bear-thing obviously held the upper hand.
Again Grutz charged. Fost smashed in the skull of a badger. Jennas's bear whipped the freed paw around and disemboweled the animal that clung to its nose. The bear-riders' chieftain struck at the final badger with her sword as the monster turned its wrath on Fost.
The round shield was pushed far up Fost's arm, enabling his left hand to grip the saddle horn. He wasn't going to chance failing beneath all those stamping, clawed feet. Unable to shield himself, the courier chose attack and drove his sword into the bear-thing's hanging belly.
The blade became bloodied. The thing's own fat armored it as well as any bear's. Blinking, Fost barely had presence of mind to lean back in the saddle to avoid a sweep of its paw. The talons raked the front of his helmet, skirring jaggedly against the metal.
Fost fought for balance. Grutz backed slowly away from the beast, sparring with it, swiping with his paws. Gashes hatched his shoulders. The monster had a longer reach. Fost shook his head to clear it and raised his sword, steeling himself for a last suicidal lunge into those lethal claws.
A brown battering ram smashed into the bear-thing's side. It went down, squalling and snapping at the splintered end of Jennas's lance, which jutted from its side.
'Come on!' the hetwoman shouted. Her brown bear galloped away from the cliffs. Fost sent Grutz lumbering after.
'Did I save you or you me?' he asked, dazed. 'I don't know,' Jennas flung over her shoulder. 'All I know is that we have lost.' Moisture gleamed on her cheeks. On both sides of them the surviving People of Ust turned their mounts and fled.
Behind the routed bear-riders, Kleta-atelk's chant droned like a dirge.
Feeling as weak as if she had fought at Fost's side, Moriana slumped back onto her heels. 'He lives,' she whispered, wanting to affirm it, hardly daring to belive it.
'Indeed,' said Erimenes judiciously. 'I believe I've judged the boy too harshly. He put on quite an excellent fight, don't you agree? Especially the way he rescued that buxom wench who appears to lead the bear-folk.'
'He could hardly have let the monster kill her!' Moriana snapped. Erimenes smirked. With a weary gesture Moriana dismissed the image.
'What do you intend to do now?' the philosopher asked. The princess shrugged. 'Await Fost here,' she said. 'I could use the rest, and this valley is fair.' She looked at the spirit with sudden suspicion. 'No heat-seeking birds lie in wait here, do they?'
'No.' Moriana rose, stretched, felt the wan warmth of the sun on her upturned face. Her duty urged her onward, to forge ahead across the Ramparts and take the amulet for herself. Her need for it was greater than his; all he desired was eternal life for himself, whereas her sole motivation was the welfare of her people.
Now that you know he's alive, you owe him no more, her conscience told her. Go on.
She shook the thought away with a toss of her long, blonde hair. She had left Fost once, and guilt had nearly crippled her. She wouldn't do it again.
'I'm surprised to find a valley this lovely in these desolate mountains,' Moriana remarked. 'I wonder if it has a name?'
'It does,' Erimenes said. 'The Valley of Crushed Bones.' Her head snapped toward him. A spectral arm pointed up the valley. At its head several hundred yards away, the green grass was littered with what appeared to be sticks gleaming whitely in the sun.
CHAPTER FIVE
'Attack without our bears?' the clansman roared. 'Impossible!'
Fost scowled, returning the bear-riders' glares in kind. Overhead the sun shone meekly through a high haze. The wind blew from the South, a chilling caress. The false summer had gone, and winter would soon follow.
The abortive assault on the badgerclan had confirmed Fost's earlier suspicion. In matters of cunning the Ust-alayakits were competent enough; their trapping of Rann's Guardsmen demonstrated that. But methodical military planning wasn't part of their makeup. If no simple stratagem suggested itself, their response was a headlong charge, and Istu take the hindmost.
It was a phenomenon Fost had noted among other mounted tribes. Nor did the reluctance of the bear-riders to part with their mounts surprise him. The nomads' bears were the central fact of their lives, of war, the hunt and worship. Going into battle in any other fashion except on the backs of the ferocious beasts was, to them, simply inconceivable.
Yet they had to start conceiving of it soon. Or they would have no hope of defeating the Hurinzyn in their cliff dwellings.
'Listen,' Fost said. 'I ask you again. How do you intend to reach the caves of the badger clan?'
'We can stand on our bears' backs,' a man suggested, rubbing his moustache with the back of his hand. 'That would bring us high, enough to get a hand-hold on the ledge.'
'And what will the Hurinzyn be doing while you're climbing up? Jabbing you with pikes and dropping great whacking rocks on your ugly faces, that's what. You can count on it.' Fost waved his hand contemptuously. 'Not that the opportunity would ever arise. You were in that charge as well as I. The Hurinzyn light cavalry and
Kleta-atelk's atrocities would rip you to shreds before you got within javelin-cast of the cliff.'
&nbs
p; 'Aye, we were in the charge,' a scar-faced blonde woman spat, 'and well we marked who first it was to run from the wizard's beasts. You're no sending of Ust, outlander; a common coward, I call you. We should take you out for the winged foxes to eat.'
'Who was it who gave grace to ledre, when all else sat and gaped in terror?' Jennas's voice cracked like a whip. She stood aloof from the circle, moodily staring at the distant cliff. The other bear-riders stared at her. None could mistake what was on her mind. The canker of defeat plagued the proud war leader and concern over her daughter's fate wore heavily on her. 'Who came to my aid when I was sorely beset by those monsters?'
The nomads looked at one another, shamefaced. 'We may as well admit mere valor won't save our children,' Jennas said bitterly. 'If the stranger suggests new and troublesome ways to meet our problem, I ask, why else did Ust send him? Perhaps our thinking has become like a bone broken and improperly set. Perhaps we must break our ways that they may knit and grow strong again.'
None opposed her. Those that were too hidebound to accept the suggestions of a foreigner bore too much respect for their het-woman's strong sword arm to contradict her.
'Very well,' said Fost, leaning forward to prop his square chin on the backs of his hands. His elbows lay on his knees, and like the Ust-alayakits, he squatted by a dispirited yellow fire of dried grass and bear droppings. 'I propose to scale the cliffs at that landslip five miles from the Hurinzyn's caves. We'll signal you when we reach the heights above their dwellings. You'll attack, Kleta-atelk will emerge to call forth his pets and find us dropping in on him from above. You've ropes with you, don't you?' Jennas nodded. 'Good,' said Fost, feeling almost pleased at the progress he was making with them.
He stood up gradually, his joints stiff with cold and fatigue. 'So who goes with me?' he asked.
No one spoke. He looked around the circle of warriors, male and female. None met his gaze. He sighed. The little progress he felt he'd made slipped away like sand through his fingers.
None of the bear-riders wished to face the disgrace of fighting on foot like a thrall. The raiders were willing to acknowledge the necessity of it, now that a bear-borne assault had proven fruitless. It was just that no one personally wanted any part of it.
Fost decided not to force the issue. The bear-riders who would go with him would be rebellious and resentful. Unbidden, the image of Moriana flickered through his mind. Irritation tautened his nerves. He realized he couldn't stay here among the bear-folk much longer, playing at their war games. What if Moriana went after the amulet without him? His concern was compounded with worry over Moriana and worry over his own prospects of immortality. In what proportion he couldn't easily decide.
'If that's the way you want it,' he said heavily, 'then I'll look elsewhere for my storming troops.' He turned to Jennas. 'Have somebody bring me the senior among your helots.'
Uttering its hunting cry, a hollow, dismal moan, the vast shape of the winged fox spun across the colorless sky and dropped, wings folding to its side. Teetering on the knife-edge of a hogsback, Fost watched the creature drop into the grey shadows at the bottom of a ravine. Below, a dog-sized shape fled with rapid, agile bounds, dodging and weaving around boulders to throw the hunter off its aim. The flyer descended on its prey, and its wings covered the running beast.
'The thulyakhashawin falls on its prey from above,' said Ixrim from behind Fost. 'We'll do likewise?'
Fost turned back to see the gnarled little helot grinning at him with a set of teeth as incomplete as Prince Rann's morals. The man's hair-looked grey beneath the grime that coated him from toes to crown, and one eye watched the world through the milky film of a cataract. A more unprepossessing sight Fost had seldom seen. Yet Ixrim was neither the best nor the worst of the score of thrals he led. He grunted and set off.
The outlander had yet to unravel the relationship between the lordly bear-riders and their helots. The slaves lived in abject misery and filth, subsisting on scraps thrown them by their overlords. Yet the ragged helots were trained by their masters in the use of arms and had been known to fight savagely in defence of the bear-riders' camps. In Fost's experience slave-owners were obsessed with keeping their human chattels unarmed for fear of servile revolt. Somehow the concept of turning against their owners had never dawned on the bear-riders' helots. He had met no resistance from the bear-folk at his suggestion that he take a party of armed slaves for his assault on the Hurinzyn's caves.
The slaves had been promised their freedom if their attack succeeded, a prospect they had greeted with apparent apathy. One of the bear-folk had told Fost the helots were both sons and daughters of slaves and captives taken in raids. As far as the outlander could tell, the possibility of becoming a slave was an implicit part of the steppe nomads' culture, which they accepted with resignation if captured. He wondered if the strapping, buxom Jennas could ever meekly consent to being another's property. He doubted it.
'Master.' At the timid voice from behind he turned, missed his footing on a loose rock and flapped his arms to keep from pitching off the narrow trail into the depths of either side. His right leg ached abominably. The stab-wound Rann had dealt him had been superficial, and Jennas's healing magics had done much to mend it overnight. But theclimbing and walking hadn't done the injured limb any good.
'What is it?' he asked, more gruffly than he'd intended. Recovering his balance, he stooped and began massaging his bandaged thigh.
The speaker was a woman, ageless in her rags and filth, who carried a hide shield and a hand axe. As with their owners, helots of both sexes bore arms.
'Kleta-atelk is a sorcerer of great power,' she said, her voice a monotone, as if the question she asked and the answer she received, whatever its portent, were of only the mildest interest. 'How shall we defeat him?'
Fost was none too sure of the details himself, trusting to his own resources to provide a solution at the appropriate time. Plans too closely laid tended to go far awry where magicians were concerned, even mad hunchbacked tribal shamans. His assault along the cliff tops was simply meant to bring him in striking distance of the sorcerer.
'I'll say his name backward,' he said, grinning. The woman's expression remained blank. After a moment his own smile faded and he limped on. In the depths of the ravine to his right, the winged fox tore at the body of its prey.
The sun had fallen halfway down the western sky when they stumbled across the Hurinzyn pickets. Fost had lapsed into blank reverie, his mind numbed by the herbs Jennas had given him that morning to soothe his leg. He reacted a fraction of a second too late when a figure sprang from the rocks ahead and lunged at him with a bone-tipped javelin.
The javelin caught him full in the chest. He gasped, staggered back and sat down battling for breath. His mail shirt had stopped the point, but the force of the blow stunned him. Flaps of his fur cap flaring, the Hunrinzyn lunged at Fost with his javelin poised for the kill.
Someone hurled past the choking courier. A shield turned the javelin, and an ax licked out to split the badger-clansman's cap and skull. He fell. Other Hurinzyn had emerged from the rocks and struggled with the helots. As Fost got to his feet, he saw his benefactor turn to him and smile. It was the black-haired woman who had spoken to him earlier. A javelin transfixed her throat. Fost stared at her as she collapsed, wondering why she smiled.
The fight was done. A half dozen bandy-legged Hurinzyn lay dead with two of the helots. Shaking his head to rid himself of a feeling of unreality, Fost led the party onward.
They had long since left the treacherous hogsbacks and walked along on the tops of the cliffs into which the badger-people had dug their homes. Glancing over the edge, Fost saw the terraces of the Hurinzyn village not a quarter of a mile ahead. No signs of unusual activity showed. No one had heard the brief combat.
Keeping back from the rim, Fost and his helots moved forward. The cl ifftop was a shelf of rock a hundred yards across that rose sharply on the far side to merge with the mountain's flank. Boulders the
size of the bear-riders' tents littered the broad ledge. Fost led the way into a cluster of rocks he judged nearest to Kleta-atelk's cave. Motioning them to stay in place, he crept forward and peered over the verge. Below and to the right was an outcrop of rock that marked the sorcerer's dwelling-place.
Fost looked around. A number of sizable rocks lay nearby. The first glimmerings of an idea came to him. He smiled.
He returned to the helots, who huddled among the boulders without speaking. They had acquitted themselves well enough against the Hurinzyn sentries, but he was glad there'd been no serious fighting yet. He uprooted a dead shrub, carried it to the edge of the cliff and drew out his flint and steel.
He had just set the bush on fire when a wild scream brought him round. The bush flared amid tan smoke, the signal to the bear-riders to commence their diversionary attack. Fost forgot it as he saw the cause of the desperate cries. The peculiar, fecal reek of one of Kleta-atelk's playmates rolled across Fost's palate. His sword rasped free of its scabbard.
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