The women and the warlords coaaod-3

by Hugh Cook

  Hiding in the shelter of the trees, she closed her eyes to adjust her vision to the darkness, and listened. Opening her eyes again, she saw the figure moving through the night. Soundlessly. Whoever he was, he must have seen her break for the trees, and now he was coming after her. Stealing a glance over her shoulder, Yen Olass waited. She was ready.

  'Yen Olass,' said the man.

  Spitting out the breath she had been holding, Yen Olass got to her feet and stalked out of hiding.

  'You bastard!' she said. 'You whoredog rat-rapist, how long have you been skulking around in the dark?’

  'Give you a fright, did I?' said Morgan Hearst.

  'Fright!' said Yen Olass, inserting the gollock between his legs. 'I'll give you fright! How would you like to sing soprano?’

  'Not today, thanks,' said Hearst, reaching down to remove the cold steel. 'Anyway, you've got the blunt edge uppermost.’

  'For sure,' said Yen Olass. T wouldn't want to hurt a pathetic old cripple unless I had to. What've you been doing out here?’

  'Practising,' said Hearst. T have to stay sharp.’

  'For what? Is it true what they say – that your, last trip to Sung was to kill a man?’

  'My lips are sealed,' said Hearst. 'I'm a professional. Remember?’

  'Okay, professional, how did I do?’

  'You did well,' said Hearst. 'A regular nightfighter. But I still think you should build a back door.’

  'Come and stay for a few days with a few of your braves,' said Yen Olass. 'You could get it done in no time.’

  The door opened, and a small figure stood in the doorway illuminated by the glow of firelight.

  'Mam!’

  'It's all right, Monogail.' 'What're you doing, mam?' 'I'm chasing a chiz.’

  'Oh, really? Have you caught it? Can I help?’

  'Go back inside,' said Yen Olass. 'It's cold out here.’

  But Monogail came racing out into the night. Shouting.

  'Gnaar! Dragons! Ah! What? Uncle Hearst!’

  'How's my darling?' said Hearst, scooping Monogail into his arms and giving her a kiss.

  'Put her down, you lecherous old monster,' said Yen Olass. 'Now come inside – but don't sit on the dragon.’

  'Dragon?’

  'Not a dragon, mam,' said Monogail. 'A ghost. His name's Vex. He was a dragon once, but now he's dead. You killed him, Uncle Hearst. Killed him dead.’

  'Did I?' said Hearst. 'Which one was that? Tell me about it.’

  With Monogail clutching his hand and chattering excitedly, he led the way inside.

  ***

  Morning.

  Yen Olass woke, and yawned. The door was ajar. Quelaquix had come in while she was asleep, and was now curled up on top of Monogail. Yen Olass couldn't imagine how her child could sleep with that great lump of a cat on top of her.

  Careful not to disturb child or cat, Yen Olass got out of bed and opened the shutters, and looked out to sea. The tide was in, with a brisk wind sending waves surging up the beach.

  Going outside, Yen Olass found Hearst practising with his sword. She watched, till his shadow-fighting brought him wheeling round to face her.

  'You left the door open,' said Yen Olass sharply. 'Were you born in a tent?’

  'No,' said Hearst cheerfully. T was born under a boat. What's the problem, anyway? Afraid of land octopuses?’

  He sheathed his sword and came to the door, grinning. He looked strong and healthy.

  'What's for breakfast? Vegetables? How's the seaweed growing?’

  'It needs nourishment,' said Yen Olass. 'How would you like to be manure? Come on, let's go to the fish-garth.’

  As they walked inland, Yen Olass wondered whether to ask Hearst about his business. He was too much a man of affairs to have come here for pleasure. Although most of the Rovac had left the Lesser Teeth two years ago, abandoning all dreams of power in Argan, Hearst remained the leader of a hundred warriors who had chosen to stay in Brennan. With these fighting men and five ships at his disposal, he was rapidly becoming a rich man, daring his vessels past the Orfus pirates to trade for steel in the island of Stokos. He was now building a warehouse, and a big residence for himself made from imported cedar.

  The night before, they had talked about Resbit, about the exploits of young Elkordansk, and about Aardun's first birthday. Aardun, son of Resbit and Morgan Hearst, was their second child; the first, the ill-fated Nesh Enelorf, had died of colic a few days after birth. With gossip over, it was time to talk seriously, though Yen Olass could not imagine what Hearst might want.

  Inland, amidst the hath grass and the gallows trees, the sward pond lay in the centre of a piece of marshy ground. With a hand net, Yen Olass fished a dozen kellings out of the confines of the fish-garth, and placed them in a string carry. Hearst, hungry, snatched another from the water, and ate it raw. His hand hovered, poised to snatch one more.

  'Hey!' said Yen Olass. 'Ease up!’

  'Breaking into next week's rations, am I?’

  'Something like that,' said Yen Olass.

  'Now that's what I call poverty,' said Hearst. 'How would you like to earn some money?’

  'This is a proposition? If you want my body… a hundred crowns to you. And ten more for not telling Resbit.’

  'And Monogail?’

  'For five crowns you can have her. And her pet dragon. But seriously…’

  'Yes,' said Hearst. 'Seriously… who or what is the Silent One?’

  'The what?’

  'The Silent One. Of the Sisterhood.' 'Oh…’

  Yen Olass got to her feet. With a dozen dripping quick-kicking fish in her string carry, she set off toward Skyhaven, with Hearst walking along beside her. When they came in sight of the house, they saw Monogail running over the sand, pulling along a piece of twiner vine. Quelaquix was chasing it. They settled down in the shelter of a saltwater pine and watched.

  'She's a very vigorous child,' said Hearst.

  'Yes,' said Yen Olass. 'And a virgin.’

  'A virgin?’

  'Don't sound so surprised!’

  'Sorry,' said Hearst. 'It's an odd thing to say, that's all. You don't really think I…’

  'You might want her when she's older,' said Yen Olass. 'But I spoke of virginity because you asked about the Silent One. She's a virgin. She's head of the Sisterhood.

  Head of all the oracles. And an oracle is… well, a storyteller, if anything. Sometimes an oracle shows people the hidden side of themselves. Sometimes she shows… possibilities.' 'Possibilities?’

  'An oracle sometimes describes a possible future. She shows the consequences of actions.' 'For what purpose?' 'To discipline the lives of men.’

  'She sounds like the kind of person I could live without,' said Hearst.

  'You could,' said Yen Olass. 'You can. You do. But the Collosnon Empire needs this… this secular priesthood. If you had a week to spare, I could teach you why. But I don't know that I could feed a big hungry man like you for that long. Come on, let's go inside.’

  Yen Olass cooked breakfast, and they ate together. Unlike the Yarglat, the Rovac saw nothing odd in sharing a meal with a woman.

  When breakfast was over, Yen Olass bullied Hearst into helping her bring some driftwood back from the piles cached along the beach. While they were about this labour, Hearst reviewed, aloud, what he knew about Yen Olass. He had heard some of her life from her own lips, and had got much of the rest from Resbit. He knew the outlines of her life reasonably well. He knew of the three apples she had shared with the Lord Emperor Khmar.

  'Do I know what I know?' said Hearst, when he had finished his story. 'Or have I been fed a fantasy?’

  'It's true enough,' said Yen Olass, vaguely, watching the falling tide.

  Soon the flats would be exposed, and it would be time for her to begin her day's work.

  'Then I've got a proposition for you,' said Hearst.

  'A hundred crowns then,' said Yen Olass. 'I told you that before. Kisses are extra.’

  'No,
' said Hearst. 'This is not a game. Listen: I want you to be the Silent One.’

  'Too late for that,' said Yen Olass. 'I've lost my virginity long ago.’

  'Let me explain,' said Hearst.

  'You want your own Sisterhood in Brennan?' said Yen Olass. 'You're crazy. Why don't you have your own Rite of Purification as well? We could make ceramic tiles, just like all the Collosnon soldiers wear, paint them with spiders and-’

  'Yen Olass.’

  'All right,' said Yen Olass. 'Tell me what you really want.’

  And she listened as he talked. When he had finished, she gave her answer: 'No.’

  When Hearst tried to argue, she elaborated: 'This time, you really are crazy. It'll never work. And I'm not going to have any part of it. There are much easier ways to die much closer to home.’

  And a little later, she watched him set off for Brennan, limping a little from the wound he had taken in the battle of Razorwind Pass. He was a professional hero, and would be until he died. He had other battles ahead of him – storms to fight, dragons to kill, kingdoms to win, fortunes to gain and world-conquering powers to subdue. But she was a woman with a five-year-old child to raise, and so could not venture her life in such frivolity.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Living by the sea, Yen Olass had to take special care to prevent her fingernails rusting away. She painted them with imported lacquer and wore gloves when she was working out on the flats.

  Shortly after Morgan Hearst had departed, she was following the receding tide out over the flats. She was armed with a probing spike, a digging stick and a swatching knife; on her back she carried a pack.

  As always, there was a certain excitement in discovering what the sea had left behind it. Sometimes, in water channels gouged between sandbanks, there were big fish which she could hunt down, using the probing spike as a spear. Sometimes, after a hard blow from the west, there would be scallops lying exposed on the sand, although usually three or four days of constant storm was needed to force the scallops that far shorewards.

  Today, scanning each new wave-shaped vein of shell-shatter, Yen Olass was glad to be able to dedicate herself to her work, and forget Hearst's hero-talk, so heavily larded with disturbing names from the distant past: Celadric, Meddon, York, Draven, and, most surprising of all, Eldegen Terzanagel…

  Hunking over a big sclop of dark sea-smelling seaweed, Yen Olass found its roots clutching a lump of coal. She knifed away the seaweed and put the coal, knobbled with big pink carbuncular barnacles, into her pack. Rooting itself in the seabed, seaweed often clung to interesting things which were then brought to the flats when storm turbulence uprooted them. Once, in the winter just gone, Yen Olass had even found a glass bottle knotted in the clutches of a mass of seaweed; it was hidden away in her sand scully while she waited for an opportune time to market it.

  When she had first come to Carawell, she had been frightened by these tidal flats, so different from the modest littoral zones she had seen at Favanosin and Skua. Now, after two years, she thought of this as an esssentially friendly environment arranged very much for her own wellbeing and comfort – storms to recruit scallops for her kitchen, seaweed to mine the depths of the sea for her, ocean currents to bring in an endlessly renewing supply of driftwood all year round.

  The further she got from the shore, the more life there was on the flats. There were holes in the sand, in which lurked funny little creatures like centipedes; swimming over the flats in the warm days of summer, she had sometimes seen them venture briefly from their holes. She saw the feeding holes of wedges and tullies; hard-shelled sand snails wormed their way across the sandflats in places where a thin slick of water still persisted; little sea anemones grew on dead shells, as did the convoluted white loops of odd little worms which, when submerged, would extend multicoloured fans – finer than eyelashes and brighter than peacocks – out into the water around them.

  Yen Olass squatted down and dug enough wedges for lunch and dinner. There was an endless supply of these small shellfish; they were a little bit tasteless, but it took very little time to gather enough for a meal. She also picked up two horse mussels and threw them into the pack. Twice the size of her hand, these oversized shellfish were too rubbery for her taste, but Quelaquix would eat them if they were chopped up fine. (And if not, then not – the lyre-cat knew exactly what he liked, and would turn up his nose at anything not prepared according to his taste.)

  With this task done, Yen Olass walked out across beds of black-green seagrass to the edge of the sea, now rapidly retreating toward low-water mark, habitat of whittle-crabs, snerd octopuses, claw-claws and luxuriant orange starfish.

  Out in the water lay a low, dark shape. A whale? She had heard a lot of Carawell talk about stranded whales, and she dearly wanted one of these beasts for herself – a fortune in flesh, bone, oil, ambergris and scrimshaw teeth. Although, to be realistic, if she found one she would probably have to share it with the people at Vinyard, or lose most of it to the next tide.

  Drawing near to the stranded alien, Yen Olass was disappointed to see it was not a whale but a tree. Something moved in one of the few remaining broken-off branches. It slipped down on the far side, as if it had seen her. What was it? Closing the distance, Yen Olass circled round the tree, probing spike poised to strike in case she found herself hunting something edible.

  There was nothing to be seen.

  Yen Olass wrinkled her nose and walked right round the tree. Twice. There was something odd here. She scrambled up onto the tree, which was bare-backed, all bark and leaves having been stripped away long ago. There was no hiding place here for anything even half the size of a kitten.

  Yen Olass surveyed her world. The flats stretched away to the sea and the shore; she could make out Skyhaven in amongst the dunes and the saltwater pines, although anyone not knowing where and what to look for might easily have missed the distant cottage. A gull slid through the sky overhead, silently. There was a little wind, just enough to flay a little spume from the backs of the waves guggling at the sea's edge.

  Yen Olass sneezed, three times, loudly. Then wiped her nose. She sat astride the tree as if riding a grenderstrander, and kicked its flanks with her heels.

  'Come on, tree. Where's your rider? Give!’

  But the tree maintained an obdurate silence.

  Yen Olass got to her feet and walked the length of the tree, bending down now and then to inspect marks gouged into the wood. Some were recent. And they sure weren't made by seagulls. She took another look at her surroundings. There were three places to hide: in the tree itself,

  under the tree, or under the sand.

  Yen Olass rapped at the tree with her digging stick. Thunk thunk. It sounded solid. Could something have dug its way under the tree? It looked like it was firmly bedded in the sand… unlikely. She took another look at the sand, considering the nuances of shape and texture. She paid special care to the sand beneath the hair-thick slices of water still easing off the flats. That was the natural place for any fugitive to bury itself, knowing the water would soon confuse the marks of its retreat underground.

  After long and careful scrutiny, Yen Olass identified five sinister low-slung humps in the sand. Each almost imperceptibly raised disc was about the length of her arm. Whatever they were, they had gone to ground, each a horse-length apart from the next. Yen Olass found she was frightened.

  But they had run away from her. Which meant they must be more frightened than she was. And they were small compared to her – whatever they were. Crocodiles? No, crocodiles were thin and lean, like little dragons without wings. Anyway, they were friendly, good-natured beasts, content to live in their own rivers in unimaginably distant warm-weather lands, maybe eating the occasional incautious explorer now and then, but otherwise largely content to live and let live. Unlike…

  Unlike the Swarms, for instance.

  Despite herself, Yen Olass recalled tales Morgan Hearst had told her of the onslaught of the Swarms. Pushing north,
destroying civilizatior.s as they went, they had been defeated in a battle at the southern border of Estar. Mountains had been positioned across the Salt Road, blocking the advance of the Swarms. But now, according to Hearst, the Swarms were building their own coast road, a slick grey highway outflanking the coastal mountains guarding Estar. He claimed to have seen it as he sailed close inshore on one of his trips to or from the distant island of Stokos.

  He had also told her about the monsters that tried to venture north over the mountains… or to come by sea.

  Yen Olass counted her enemies. All five were still there. Creatures of the Swarms? No, the idea was ridiculous. The Swarms were huge. Much bigger than people. And they lived above water, not under it.

  As Yen Olass was thinking this, there was a 'shlock' as a red tube burst free from the sand. It was about as long and as fat as her thumb; it looked like an obscene little prick sticking out of the fiats, waiting to be reaped, but she supposed it was probably a breathing tube. Shortly, there were five breathing tubes protruding into the air.

  So these creatures could not live underwater.

  Whatever they were, they had to count as invaders. Living on the tree for days on end, they were doubtless weak, with little fight left in them. But once let them get to shore, and they would rest up, and feed, and grow stronger. And maybe… yes, maybe they would breed.

  Yen Olass thought about running to Vinyard to get help. Then she remember the mobile, slippery form which had slipped down out of sight as she approached the tree. Once she left, these things would move. By the time she got to Vinyard, they would have hidden themselves in the hinterland. And, ten crowns to half a pickle, nobody in Vinyard would believe her if she came bearing a tale of monsters from the sea. They would think she was seeking revenge for all she had endured in the way of mythical land octopuses and crawling lightning.

  Yen Olass took off her pack and hung it on one of the tree branches. She took out the lump of coal and smashed it. She threw one small piece onto each of the concealed aliens. Then she gathered up her weapons and jumped down to the sand. As she landed, the red breathing tubes retracted smartly, but the pieces of glittering black coal marked each of her enemies.