by David Drake
“Everything's fine,” she said, raising her voice. She was a natural right-hander, so turning onto her right side would be uncomfortable. “I apparently just realized that the sea is bigger than I am. That doesn't say much for my perception, does it?”
Carus laughed—and choked silent on seawater in his turn. They kicked on in companionable silence.
Bonfires and lamplight gleamed for the full arc of the bay holding Count Lerdoc's vessels and army. The fires weren't large enough individually to silhouette a ship, but as Sharina slanted toward the coast she got a feel for the anchorage. Lights vanished and reappeared as her angle to this hull or that one changed.
The camp's size staggered her. From the land, by daylight, she hadn't appreciated just how big it was. She knew that Blaise discipline was loose, so the number of fires was relatively greater than it would've been in the royal army; but she knew also that the count's forces were very great.
The moon was nearly full, gleaming on the swells and turning foam to silver. A watchman in the stern of a moored transport blew his trumpet. He didn't see Sharina and the king; he'd been blowing the same long note at intervals since sundown. What he thought he proved, other than that he was awake, escaped Sharina.
The shore was coming closer. Sharina wasn't tired, but it was time to get a better view. She stopped kicking and lifted her chest onto the buoyant sack of clothing. For a moment she saw nothing but upward-slanting water; then she went over the crest and took in the shoreline less than three furlongs away.
Some of the biggest ships were anchored even farther from the beach than she and Carus—twenty feet to her left—had already penetrated. The shoreline here shelved more gradually than that of the smaller bay just north where the royal fleet had landed, so vessels too large to draw up on land had to stay well out.
Carus came over to her with kicks and three fierce sweeps of his right arm. “They can lighter the cargo and passengers ashore...” he said, nodding to the nearest of the thousand-tun vessels. “Those ships won't have a chance if a storm breaks, though.”
Sharina glanced up at the clear sky, and said, “Do you think the wizards of Moon Wisdom are still controlling the weather?”
Carus chuckled. “I think Count Lerdoc's a neck-or-nothing madman who's praying a storm won't wreck him if the danger even crosses his mind,” he said. “The problem with an enemy who takes risks is that sometimes he gets lucky.”
His moonlit smile was wry, as he added, “Which my enemies have often learned.”
The trumpet called again. The tock! tock! tock! of wood on wood sounded from the western arm of the bay. Sharina couldn't guess if it were a signal or just late-night carpentry to repair a shelter or a ship.
Carus pointed with his whole arm. “There, we'll come ashore where those boats are beached. The bigger ships might have somebody on board, but those lighters won't have anything but a watchman, if that.”
“If there is a watchman?” Sharina said, kicking occasionally to keep her at arm's length upcurrent of the king.
“Then we'll deal with him,” Carus said. “One good thing about a beach is we don't have to worry about how to get the blood off.”
Sharina ducked and resumed kicking her way toward shore. In a peasant village, you slaughtered most of the herd at the first touch of frost. That way the remainder would be able to winter over on the fodder you'd stored. In a war it was men you killed, in order that the kingdom itself survive.
Maybe in another age it wouldn't have to be that way. Sharina had enough to do simply trying to save this age and the myriads of innocent people who lived in it. If a few rebels died, well, that was the way of the world.
Sailors on watch shouted to one other from ship to anchored ship. Sharina passed close enough to a vessel with a high, rounded stern that she could've thrown a pebble to it; Carus was closer yet. A lantern burned on the deckhouse. Its light didn't illuminate the water, but it would blind a watchman to the blotches on a swell that were swimmers instead of driftwood or flotsam lost when the army disembarked.
The ships' boats were pulled up at the tide line and fastened to oars driven blade first into the sand. Sharina lowered her head and, with her left hand, gripped the cords tying her bundle. She used her right arm and both legs to drive her the rest of the way ashore. The bonfire higher up the beach silhouetted the men around it and the boats below, but if there was a watchman, he was asleep in the belly of one of them.
Sharina's left elbow touched sand. She hunched over her bundle and let the receding surf ground her. When it did, she ran in a crouch to where the bows of a large dory and a smaller boat formed a sheltering V.
Carus was already there, untying his clothing with his left hand. He grinned at her.
At the nearby fire a sailor was shaking time on a tambourine while a comrade sang, “... just another fatal wedding, just another broken heart...” No one was on watch at the boats.
That was just as well for him. In the king's right hand, shimmering in the moonlight, was a dagger. Its blade of polished steel would open a man like a trout before he even had time to gasp.
Chapter Twenty
“You are staying at the Hyacinth,” one of the Nine said to Cashel in a voice no more human than the speaker. The smell of rotting flesh puffed from its beak in time with the words. “You should not have come here.”
“I couldn't let you eat my friend!” Cashel said. The spray had hardened on his neck and right cheek; his skin strained painfully when he spoke.
The Nine were right when they said Cashel shouldn't have come here. By Duzi! they were. There was nothing else he could've done, though; and even now, Cashel guessed he'd do it all over again if the only choice was that or doing nothing. He hadn't made any difference, but at least he wasn't going to have to live remembering that he didn't try.
A creature brought its abdomen close to Cashel's right hand. A pore opened. Cashel braced himself mentally for a gush of fluid that would harden over his mouth and nose.
Instead there was a stench of ammonia and the glue holding the quarterstaff to his hand dissolved. Cashel sneezed violently.
The creature tugged. There was still a hardened loop attaching the staff to Cashel's ribs. He couldn't turn his head to watch, but another of the Nine touched its body there and sprayed more ammonia till the staff slipped free.
“Your friend was the woman from the Hyacinth,” a creature said.
“The woman from the Hyacinth was entranced, but she was not dead,” said another. Their bodies and their voices were identical. Cashel could easily have called every sheep in Barca's Hamlet by name, but the Nine were indistinguishable.
“Our business is with the dead,” a third creature said. “We would not harm your friend. We will turn her loose when she has recovered.”
The creatures passed the quarterstaff from one to another. Each ran a delicately pincered "hand" along the hickory before giving it to the next. Fresh ammonia bit as one cleaned a last daub of glue from the shaft.
“She has recovered now,” said the first of the Nine to speak. “We will turn her loose with you, man from the Hyacinth. But you both must go away.”
“What?” said Cashel, trying to understand what he'd just heard. He didn't suppose he ought to be complaining, but...
He said, “But you eat people!”
The Nine bobbed back and forth on their two pairs of walking legs, looking for all the world like a set of children's dipper toys. They rubbed their beaks sideways, back and forth, to make scraping sounds.
Cashel thought for a moment the Nine were laughing. On reflection, he decided he didn't believe they understood humor.
“We do not eat people, man from the Hyacinth,” said a creature who hadn't spoken before. “We eat dead flesh.”
Two of the Nine moved away. Trussed as he was, Cashel couldn't see what they were doing. He tried to roll and look back the way he'd come, but he couldn't shift his torso quite enough to overbalance.
“Hold still and we will r
elease you,” a creature said. It twisted its abdomen up, brushing Cashel's wrist. The touch was dry and scaly like a snake's skin, not hard.
A cool mist settled over Cashel's arms and torso. He closed his eyes but the ammonia odor set him sneezing again. The glue loosened. When Cashel twisted, chunks of it dropped away like ice from slates in the sunshine.
On either side of the passage were open-fronted alcoves. Stone couches complete with carven pillows were built into all three sides of each. The corpse of an old man lay across the left-hand alcove. Two of the Nine were helping Tilphosa up from a side couch. She wore a dazed expression and kept trying to wipe her eyes with the back of her wrist.
“Well, who ... ?” Cashel said. He glanced at the meal he'd heard the Nine devouring when he burst in.
The creature who'd first spoken sprayed Cashel's fettered feet tinglingly. He closed his eyes in reflex, but he'd seen more than he wanted to already. The corpse on the floor had been a man; the beard on the half of his face remaining proved that. His body had been emptied, but uneaten coils of intestine lay beside him spotted with attached blobs of yellow fat.
“You will go from Soong, will you not, stranger?” said one of the Nine. “It is better that you should.”
“We'll go,” Cashel said. “Duzi help me, you bet we'll go!”
He wondered if Tilphosa was really fit to travel, then decided that he didn't care. He'd carry the girl on his back if that's what it took to get away from this city and its charnel house.
Cashel stood. His eyes watered from the ammonia, and his stomach was turning. It wasn't just death in the air; he thought the glue was doing something to his lungs also, though the smell of dead meat was bad enough.
Tilphosa stood, wobbly and still supported by the Nine.
“Can I... ?” Cashel asked, starting toward the girl before he had an answer.
“Of course,” said the creature who'd first spoken. His two fellows stepped aside for Cashel to take their place.
“Cashel, is that you?” the girl said. She clung to him like a spar in a shipwreck. Her flesh still felt cool, but she wasn't a statue of ice as she'd been when he lifted her from the bed this morning.
“Yes,” he said. “We're going to leave in just a moment, when you're feeling up to it. I've got a boat. We'll cross the river and then walk a ways to the east.”
He looked at the creature who'd spoken first and raised an eyebrow. Did the Nine recognize human facial expressions?
“That is a good plan,” said the creature. “We wish you well on your way, but please do not return to Soong.”
Cashel's quarterstaff had made it all the way around the Nine. The last to examine the wood held it out horizontally to Cashel. His pincers gripped the staff so gently that they didn't mark the hickory.
With the staff upright in his left hand and his right arm supporting Tilphosa, Cashel felt his stomach settle. Maybe it hadn't been the smell that was bothering him after all.
“Ah, thanks,” he said, walking slowly toward the passage. Turning his back on the creatures worried him, though that was pretty silly given the way they'd handled him face on when he'd charged.
One of the Nine stepped out the passage ahead of the humans. He seemed to move by rocking his four clawed feet forward in a motion that reminded Cashel of gears in the millhouse rather than that of any animal he'd seen before walking. The legs scarcely moved at all.
Tilphosa's mind or vision must have cleared enough for her to take in the figure ahead of them. She stiffened, but she continued forward with Cashel's left hand lightly touching her shoulder.
“I thought I was dreaming,” she whispered. “I thought I was having a nightmare, Cashel.”
“We're fine,” he said, words to soothe her. They were probably true, but Cashel himself wouldn't really believe what he'd said till they were across the river and going away.
A breeze had swung the outside door nearly closed. The creature leading them opened it fully and stepped through, holding the panel for Cashel and his companion. The remainder of the Nine followed slowly.
“Sir?” he said to the creature. It rotated its narrow, sharp-edged skull to face him.
“Sir,” Cashel went on, “how is it that this ... I mean, doesn't anybody guess what you're doing here? There's only the few of you. If as many people as there are in the city wanted to come into your temple, you couldn't stop them.”
“We were here before humans came to Soong, stranger,” the creature said. His voice seemed to come from the center of his chest; it had a buzzing undertone, sort of like a whole chorus of crickets were singing harmony to make the words. “The first settlers knew who we were; they built the temple we live in.”
He paused. “Their children, the people of Soong, know also, but they prefer not to think about our necessities and theirs. It is better that you go rather than stay to tell a story that others do not wish to hear.”
“But why did they agree to, to feed you this way?” Tilphosa said. As she spoke, her right hand tightened on Cashel's left biceps. He tensed the muscle, because otherwise her pinching was going to hurt. “Did you threaten... ?”
The creature scraped his beak again. That had to be laughter.
“Woman stranger,” he said, “look about you. This valley is marsh up to the ridges. The wood here burns poorly, and every year a flood would float out the contents of the graves.”
Cashel nodded. The only real choice for burial was the river. There fish would dispose of corpses in much the same way as the Nine were doing ... but with the likelihood of bloated, half-eaten bodies bobbing to the surface frequently. Cashel could understand the logic, though that last thought reminded him of the corpse on the floor of the main hall.
“We gave up our fish weirs,” the creature said, “and the human settlers gave us privacy to deal with their needs.”
“Right,” said Cashel. No part of him felt it was right, but it was no more his business than some of the things old widowers in the borough got up to with their ewes. He wasn't going to be staying in this region; that was the only important thing. “I guess we'd best be getting on.”
The creature nodded like he knew what Cashel was thinking; as he probably did. The Nine were pretty clear about understanding the locals, after all.
He and Tilphosa set out down the path, the creature walking ahead like a pull toy on wheels. As they neared the center of the garden, Cashel heard a woman cry, “Is somebody there? Help me!”
He put his head down and slanted his staff before him, then charged through the hanging branches like a plow furrowing thin soil. The nuts his rush shook off scattered all around.
Leemay was in the bog. Only her head and the tops of her shoulders still showed. “Help me!” she said. “Pull me up!”
Cashel stretched out his quarterstaff. Something gripped it from behind and pulled it back.
He turned. Their guide released the ferrule it had gripped with its deceptively delicate-looking pincers.
“This is not your affair, stranger,” the creature said. “Let us go to your boat.”
“Help me!” Leemay screamed. “Don't listen to that demon!”
“The Nine aren't demons,” Tilphosa said. Her voice was as cold as her flesh had been when her scream roused Cashel this morning. “The Nine saved my life when a human sent me to die.”
“Sir,” said Cashel, looking from Leemay to the impassive creature, “I can't just...”
“We have no business with the living, stranger,” the creature said. “But this one will be our business soon, and that is justice.”
The rest of the Nine had followed them. They stood now on the path, unmoving and silent. There was no threat in their posture, but Cashel already knew he had no chance if he tried to fight them.
Tilphosa put her hand on his arm. “Come on, Cashel,” she said quietly. “I'd like to get away from here.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Cashel agreed. He followed their guide. There was a path that took them around the bog with just
a single screen of branches to brush aside.
Leemay shouted again, then began to scream. When Cashel glanced over his shoulder, he saw the Nine waiting around the bog. They were as motionless as buzzards on a branch.
Cashel was glad to close the courtyard gate behind him and Tilphosa, but Leemay had already stopped screaming.
“Ready?” said Carus, hunching in the shadow of the boats.
“Yes,” said Sharina. She grinned. “And honored to accompany such a distinguished young officer as yourself.”
Sharina felt as though she was racing down a steep hill. If she ever paused, she'd stumble and maybe break her neck, but for now it felt exhilarating. Running had always been a talent and a delight for her, so the emotions that came with the fancy were good ones.
Carus chuckled, though tightly. His mind would view this risky piece of acting in terms of battle, not of a race. He might laugh in the midst of slaughter, but it wouldn't be the same carefree humor as Sharina's when she ran.
Carus donned the bronze helmet he'd carried in his bundle. He'd clipped on a crest of feathers dyed red and white, the colors of Blaise.
“Let's go,” he said, rising to his feet with a smooth motion. His left hand rested on the pommel of his long sword to keep it from swinging as he walked. He strode out of the scatter of boats and up the beach. Sharina, covered head to ankles with a caped cloak of blue silk, matched the king stride for stride on his left.
Sharina expected a shout, but nobody noticed them appear. The moon lit only one side of a figure, and beyond a short distance firelight glittered from fittings and equipment rather than illuminating the whole person. Two paces on from where they'd hidden, she and Carus were part of the confusion of a military camp in darkness.
“Watch out!” Carus said as his heel brushed a sagging guy rope that he hadn't noticed till he touched it. “I swear I'm tempted to launch a night attack after all. If nothing else, half these idiots'll break their necks running around the mare's nest they call a camp!”