by David Drake
“No,” said Garric. He drew his sword, wishing he had a whetstone to touch up the blade. Carus—and therefore Garric—had always carried a small stone beside the dagger on the other side of his belt from the sword scabbard, but Ceto hadn't been as careful of his tools.
“Right,” said Vascay quietly. “Then let's join the others. I think we'll do better to stay close for the next while.”
They stepped forward. Vascay walked easily now, no longer concerned about his footing. He twirled his remaining javelin like a baton between the fingers of one hand, then those of the other.
Two of the Archai stopped arguing with Metron and rushed toward the millipede's hindquarters. The driver faced frontward again; Metron began drawing words around the heptagram he'd already sketched on the creature's glossy black armor.
Thalemos spoke. The wizard ignored him. Thalemos tried again, then straightened stiffly and marched back to join the bandits just as Garric and Vascay arrived. Several of the men eyed him with hostility.
“Lord Thalemos, do you have any idea of what's going on?" Garric asked, speaking in part to make the youth "one of us" in the minds of the Brethren.
“I'm sorry, I don't know any more about this than you do,” Thalemos said. “Metron has been too busy to keep me informed.”
His voice sounded thin. The young nobleman was irritated at being treated disrespectfully, Garric guessed; but he was too well bred to admit the fact, especially since Metron probably was busy trying to save them. To save Metron's own life, anyway, but the rest of them might benefit.
Something was running beside them in the forest. It stayed parallel to the millipede's course and about a bowshot distant, a repeated flicker of movement glimpsed through the great grass stems.
“Look there,” Garric said, pointing with his left hand.
“They're on the this side too,” said Halophus, his voice rising. “They're closing in!”
The shriek at the bounds of audibility sounded again. It seemed closer this time, but Garric couldn't tell which direction it came from. The figure he'd spotted in the near distance finally came into full view.
It looked like a corpse wrapped in its winding sheet; it had neither legs nor arms, but it coursed effortlessly over the broken ground at a pace no man could have matched for long. Two similar figures came out of the forest behind the first, all closing on the millipede.
There was a jangle of gold: an Archa had tossed a boarding ladder over the millipede's side. The links jounced against one another and the creature's armor. The Archa climbed down though the ladder was swinging wildly as the millipede strode forward.
The Archa leaped when it neared the ground, meeting the trio of shrouded attackers with a flurry of its saw-edged forelimbs. The sharp chitin ripped through the skin of the first of the strange creatures, letting out pale ichor and coils of violet intestine.
A fog of light spread from the other pursuers to bathe the Archa, searing the warrior black where it touched. The Archa shrilled in agony, but its forelegs were still chopping into a second shrouded figure when the millipede carried Garric out of sight of the battle.
“There's more of 'em coming,” said Toster, rubbing the flat of his axe on his tunic sleeve as he looked into the forest.
Despairing cries from the other side drew the humans' heads around. Riding the millipede was like being on shipboard: if you were on one railing, you couldn't tell what was happening near the opposite side of the hull. Another of the Archa warriors was gone, presumably over the side to sacrifice itself against their attackers.
“I don't like the bugs,” Toster said quietly. “Those things like slime molds're worse, though.”
The attackers did look a little like slime molds, Garric realized. The disemboweled one had seemed to be an animal, but there was nothing in this place Garric would've wanted to swear to.
He smiled with the dark humor he'd picked up when King Carus shared his mind. Silently he added, Least of all that I'm going to leave it alive.
A dozen shrouded creatures were approaching from the right side. Across the millipede's back Halophus cried, “Ten! Thirteen! Oh may the Shepherd guard me, the woods're full of them!”
The Archa pumping the levers of the strange machine redoubled its efforts. His fellow rotated his head from one side to the other, then sprang to the left and disappeared over the millipede's side. From the suddenness of the Archa's decision, it was probably committing suicide rather than making a real attempt to solve a hopeless problem.
“I could take one down,” Vascay mused, tapping the javelin gently into the palm of his hand. “But I think I'll wait, eh? For a better target.”
“Better, sir?” asked Thalemos.
The chieftain smiled. “For a target that might make a difference,” he said. “Cheer up, lad. We haven't been hung yet.”
Metron shouted, “Sieche!” and held the sapphire above the figure he'd drawn. Blue wizardlight flared in sheets, tearing out of the sky and through the waving grass.
The Archa at the machine shrieked. Crackles of azure light enveloped the gold, shrivelling the Archa like an ant dropped on live coals. The gears began to whir at a speed that concealed all but shimmers.
Garric felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck and arms. He wasn't sure whether that was a natural response to what he was watching or if a thunderbolt was gathering to strike.
The millipede continued to pace onward as before, but the surrounding forest shifted. The light went from a wan mixture of browns and greens to a red almost too deep to register on Garric's eyes. The trunks seemed to grow broader, then went gray; the landscape vanished into a moving blur like the flow of a spillway. Bandits cried out, and Garric heard the moaning call of Halophus' horn.
Metron slumped, his right arm under his body and his left with the ring stretched out toward the millipede's head. The forest began to come back into focus; daylight regained its normal hue.
Garric staggered but caught himself. His eyes'd been tricked by the appearance of the landscape slowing down, but his body didn't feel the change in motion. Beside him Hame fell to his knees and cursed.
Vascay touched Garric's arm and nodded toward Metron. The wizard had slipped slightly. His left hand twitched, trying to grip the gold net but unable to close properly.
Garric sheathed his sword and started forward. Thalemos tried to follow him but swayed dangerously. Vascay grabbed the youth's arm and held him despite his attempts to jerk free.
Garric didn't like or trust Metron, but they needed him: he caught the wizard by the shoulders and lifted him upright. Metron's face was blank. His eyes focused on Garric, but there was no understanding behind them.
The driver rotated its head back to stare at the humans for a moment, then faced front again, Garric stayed where he was, feeling the wizard's pulse steady and his breathing slow. Only when Garric was sure Metron had recovered from the ordeal of the incantation did he stand again and look around him.
The landscape through which the millipede strode was much the same as that they'd seen ever since they entered this world. There was no sign of the shrouded monsters who'd attacked earlier.
The Archai machine had slumped into a gleaming mass; its gears had melted together. The only sign of the operator was a smudge against the gold. The creature's arm was fused to the lever it'd been working. That, and the driver, were all that remained of the Archai.
Something called in the distance. The forest stretched on, and the millipede paced forward.
Either the Helpers chanted nonsense syllables just to keep time, or they were singing in a language Cashel didn't understand. They seemed very cheerful, even the youths leading the procession who stumbled occasionally from the effects of the poison they'd rubbed into Cashel's body.
For Cashel it was like floating on his back in a gentle stream. He couldn't move his head, but the tree they carried him toward was generally in his field of view. Its foliage shivered in anticipation, and a branch lowered with the lazy grace of
a vulture's wing adjusting to the wind. At its tip, a huge leaf unfolded.
Cashel wondered what the little people would do with Tilphosa. Perhaps they'd let her go; he was the one who'd hurt the tree they—what? Tended? Worshipped?
Perhaps; but he didn't believe it. If the tree required human flesh, then the Helpers'd be glad for the girl's presence as soon as Cashel had been digested. Though a slight thing, Tilphosa would make two of the tiny natives.
Except for touch, Cashel's senses were even clearer than usual. He could see and hear perfectly, and he smelled the tree's unfamiliar perfume as they neared it.
Twenty-second called a sharp order, bringing the Helpers to a halt two double paces out from the trunk. Cashel heard a rustling as the great leaf slithered across the soil toward him. He couldn't feel the little people change their grip, but they slanted his feet to the ground and tilted his torso upright. The poison turned him not only numb but stiff as a board.
The Helpers had rotated Cashel's body when they pushed him into position, so he was now looking back the way he'd come. At first he thought the trail of smoke rising from the village was a hallucination from the poison. Then the smoke thinned and bright flames shot up; it was a real fire.
The leaf began to fold about Cashel, starting at his feet. He felt a tinge, the first feeling of any sort that he'd had since the youths had bathed him. The leaf's touch didn't hurt but it tickled, and his frozen throat wouldn't let him laugh.
There was a shower of sparks in the air above the village; a moment later came the crackling roar of flames rising from whatever it was that had fallen. One of the Helpers heard it also. She looked over her shoulder, then began to scream like a leg-snared rabbit. The whole village turned, moving together the way pigeons wheel as a flock.
Tilphosa came out of the blazing village, staggering slightly. She held a torch in her right hand and with the other dragged Cashel's heavy quarterstaff.
Twenty-second pointed to her, trying to force a command through dry lips. Tilphosa slashed her brand through a figure eight. The Helpers screamed and scattered in all directions. The vegetation nearby couldn't hide a vole—but it hid them.
The leaf continued to fold over Cashel, as slowly as the light fails on an autumn evening. It had covered his legs and torso now, and it was beginning to blinker his face. His bare arms tingled, and the darkness coming over his eyes may have been more than just the leaf's steady progress around them from both sides.
Tilphosa stood in front of him and dropped the quarterstaff on the ground. The fire had left smuts all over her head and body, and her wrists were badly burned.
“I'm not strong enough to do what Cashel did to you, tree!” she shouted. “I'll use this instead.”
She raised her torch, the ridgepole of one of the huts. The flaming tip was out of Cashel's range of vision. He heard the sizzle of sap bubbling from the bark above him.
The tree made a sound like canvas tearing. The leaf holding Cashel started to unravel from the top down. He tilted forward and tried to stick his hands out in front of him.
“Burn!” Tilphosa screamed. She caught Cashel's arm with her left hand and used him as a brace to jump higher, slashing her torch. “Let him loose or die!”
The leaf crumbled. Cashel toppled outward. He couldn't move his arms quickly enough to get them under him, but he took the shock on his left shoulder. It wouldn't have hurt much even if he hadn't still been half-numb.
Tilphosa grabbed Cashel by the wrist with one hand and tried to pull him away. Her right arm held the torch up, threatening the tree if it tried to snatch them again.
Even with both hands and putting her whole body into the effort, the girl couldn't have lifted Cashel by herself, but he managed to move his own arms enough to crawl forward. His legs were a dead weight dragging furrows in the dirt, though feeling was starting to come back.
When Tilphosa saw that Cashel was moving by himself, she let go of his arm and picked up the quarterstaff. Cashel found that, as he crawled, he gained more control over the muscles. He was properly up on all fours by the time he and the girl'd gotten beyond the circle of the tree's limbs.
“How did you do it?” Cashel wheezed. He could form words again, though his lips didn't bend properly to close some of the syllables. “How did you get loose?”
“I used this,” Tilphosa said. She dropped the staff and held up her crystal pendant. The sun glittered dazzlingly on its polished surface. Steadying the disk, she concentrated a white-hot pinpoint of light on a scrap of the leaf Cashel had ripped from the body of Fourteenth when they first saw the tree. Smoke rose, then cleared into a flame that drew the rest of the leaf curling toward it.
Cashel drew a deep breath, then rocked his torso backward so that he was kneeling upright. “Would you give me my staff, please, mistress?” he said politely, pausing to suck breaths deep into his lungs. “I'd feel better to have it.”
Tilphosa dragged it to him, apparently unable to lift the iron-shod hickory with her one free hand. Her face looked gray beneath the tan, and her wrists were badly blistered.
Cashel took the staff, feeling strength flood back with the touch of the smooth wood. “The jewel burned through the ties?” he asked. His voice was stronger, too.
“No,” said Tilphosa. She managed a smile. “I couldn't point the lens there because of the way I was tied. I lit the hut beside me and used that fire to free my wrists.”
Cashel looked at her. She meant she'd held her wrists in the flame till the wool straps burned off her skin.
Cashel planted the staff on the ground before him, then lifted himself to his feet with his shoulder muscles. For a moment he swayed. Cautiously, he lifted the staff, then took a step forward. He lurched like an old man, but he didn't lose his balance. The second step was easier.
He looked around. The Helpers had disappeared like dew in the sun. The tree's branches were drawn up close to the trunk the way a terrified old lady covers her face.
“I wonder what happened to the one I saved?” Cashel said. “Fourteenth.”
"I don't care,” said Tilphosa venomously. “They all deserve to die. I hope they do!”
Cashel shrugged. “I wish I had some sheep oil to wash your wrists in, mistress,” he said. “I guess for now we'll pack them in mud and hope to find better before long.”
He turned and looked at the tree again. It was motionless except for a drop of sap falling from the flame-swollen bark.
“Are we going away now, Cashel?” Tilphosa asked.
“Soon,” he said. “Tilphosa, did all the houses burn in the village?”
Tilphosa frowned. “No,” she said, “I don't think so. The breeze was out of the east, so the eastern half should be still all right.”
“Good,” said Cashel. “I'm going to bring a couple of them down here.”
He made a pass with his quarterstaff, just to be sure everything was working right again. The heavy staff slid through his fingers with greasy ease.
He eyed the tree again. His face was still, but there was a smile of satisfaction in his voice as he added, “I'm going to pile them around the trunk of that thing, mistress. And then you can light them off with your torch.”
“Oh,” said Tilphosa. Her lips spread into a cheery smile. “Oh, what a good idea!”
Her laughter was so infectious that Cashel started chuckling too as they walked the short distance back to the village.
Chapter Sixteen
Alecto brightened visibly at sight of the straggling village. She stood straight and paused to adjust her wolfskin cape to show her breasts to better advantage.
People—women and children, as best Ilna could tell—were working in small plots of corn and vines scattered as widely as the houses. There hadn't been any attempt to terrace the slopes, so the plantings were in whatever bits and pieces of soil that nature offered.
Goats browsing the steeper slopes were the first to notice Ilna and her companion. The animals raised their heads and stared, drawing the attentio
n of a herdboy. He made a trumpet of his hands, and called, “Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!”
His cry carried through the broad valley like a hawk's piercing shriek. Everybody looked at the approaching strangers. Men appeared from the woods, some of them carrying tools. One ran into a house and came out with arrows and a bow, which he proceeded to string.
“Why don't they have dogs?” Alecto wondered aloud. “Still, this is the way people are meant to live. Plenty of room between them, but not just wasteland like between here and that cursed city. We'll be fine here.”
“Yes,” Ilna said, though the only thing she agreed with was the notion that she'd be able to handle whatever chanced to come up. The villagers looked wary of strangers—as who wouldn't be, off as they were in a place that saw few visitors if any?—but they didn't seem hostile. The bow was the only weapon she saw, though several of the men appeared with iron-headed axes that could split a skull if put to the purpose.
The stone temple was smaller than those Ilna had seen in cities, but the design was similar enough that she was sure of what it was. Four slender columns held up the low-peaked roof of a porch. The building itself was small and squarish, though only a sliver showed from the outside. The rest was carved back into the hillside.
A man came out of the adjacent house, wearing a red robe with gold embroidery and fringe. On his head was a tiara of mother-of-pearl in silver settings, and he was still trying to buckle a matching belt. It had been made for a slimmer man, and the attempt to lengthen it with cords hadn't been very successful.
There was a real path here, though it was rocky and as steep as any other part of the trail they'd been following. Alecto took the lead and, when the trail forked, followed the branch toward the temple.
Ilna said nothing. One of them had to be in front on the narrow track. While the particular choice of leader wasn't the one she'd have made, she didn't have any real reason to object.
Three men, one of them with the bow and an arrow nocked though not drawn, joined the plump old man on the temple porch. That fellow, the priest, finished tugging at his belt and faced the strangers.