Moonrise

by Mitchell Smith

  Empty, taking great choking breaths, he heard the big Made-thing say, "Comes of doing good... probably killed him."

  "Did not!" With a little snarl. It seemed to Bajazet the girl was quick-tempered, and while he considered that, his head aching savagely, a tide of exhaustion rose within him, and he slid from her arms and lay down in his vomit to rest, not caring whether these two, like the riding-beasts, had a meal in view.

  * * *

  He woke at sunrise, in a different place — a little ragged clearing of early grass and weeds, so steep on a mountainside that he lay half upright on a spread blanket, his cloak drawn over him.

  He was being mopped at; that was what had wakened him. His forehead being dabbed with cold water.

  Bajazet turned his head, which hurt him, and saw a woman — a girl — he didn't know... then remembered from firelight.' She was dirty, smudged with grime as he supposed he must be. Dirty, and not very pretty, with too sharp and bony a face. She was doing something with a little wet cloth... touching his forehead where it hurt.

  "Stop it." He tried to sit up, and was sorry. His arm hurt as his forehead hurt. He pulled the cloak aside and saw his shirt and jerkin were off, and his left arm had been bitten. Tooth marks, and two blood-crusted punctures.

  "... What the fuck?!" A classic Warm-time inquiry, found in so many copybooks.

  "Here." The Made-girl was offering a dark strip of fire-dried meat. Baj took it thoughtlessly as a baby, chewed and munched it — then reached for another. When he finished, she offered a small water-skin, and he swallowed and gulped from that.... Then, no longer quite such a baby, he clambered to his feet — stood swaying, dizzy — and looked for his sword-belt, his bow. At least his trousers were on, and his boots.

  The girl sat cross-legged, looking up at him. Startling eyes. They were... the pupils were yellow, the irises almost slit as a cat's. Not human eyes.

  Bajazet saw his sword-belt neatly coiled in the grass, the sheathed rapier and dagger. He stooped for it, buckled it on, and drew both blades.

  The girl sat watching him, and seemed concerned, though not by razor-edged steel. There was a glinting small silver medal — a little three-quarter moon — on a fine silver chain around her neck.

  The other thing... Bajazet spun in a half circle to guard against it, heard giggling behind him — the girl was certainly laughing, and showed a flash of sharp white canine, though she covered her mouth with a narrow hand.

  "We won't hurt you," she said.

  As she said it, the We became evident. The big Made-man stepped hunching out of a greening vine tangle just downhill, as if born from it. Then came loping, wide as a tree, the great double-bitted ax seeming only a hatchet in his hand.

  Bajazet looked to his bow and quiver — no time. He stamped to be sure of his footing, and stood on guard.

  The creature padded to a stop only Warm-time yards away. It looked more human in sunlight than in firelight, its small brown eyes seeming humorous as a bear's might as it ate short-summer's honey, brushed aside swarming bees. The Made-man was dressed in a loose shirt of woven raw wool — a silver medallion hung tiny against its cloth — and wore rope-belted homespun trousers cut short. Its forearms and hands seemed almost human, though massive, and lumped with muscle, but the legs were very strange — short, thickly bent, and hugely knotted at the knees, as if they might almost bend the other way.... The skin on the legs was tufted with black-and-silver hair.

  The girl stood. "This is Richard. I am Nancy. And we will be friends."

  "Not," the deep, deep voice, "— not until he puts down the points."

  "Leave me alone." Bajazet was relieved his voice was steady. "Let me go. I need to go, and have nothing to give you."

  "We don't want anything," the girl said. Girl, or something very close to a girl. Nancy. He wondered what animal's tiny twisted ribbons had been mixed with a man's, to put into her mother's belly.

  "Listen..." Bajazet's head ached as if he'd struck it again. "I have nothing to do with you people or your masters —"

  "We have no masters," the Made-girl said. "We are not beasts to have masters — or humans to have masters, either. We are Persons, though tribesmen call us Moonrise people, since they think we are changed under its light — while they greet sunrise always the same."

  "Then listen, whatever you are. The king... there are people hunting me. I have to go. I have to go now."

  "Yes," the Made-girl said, "— very soon."

  Bajazet kept his guard, the weapons' hilts comforting in his hands. "If he catches me here, he'll have you both killed as well. He has soldiers with him."

  "One hundred and seventeen," the big Made-man — Richard — said, "with foresters and kennel-men counted."

  "Your new King of the Great Rule has chased days too far east," the girl said, "— and with too few. It's a known thing in South Map-Tennessee. All the tribes know it, though they muffle their drums." The girl, Nancy, shook her head, the mane of red hair feathering down her shoulders."— Why is he so eager in the hunt? It's really..." She turned to the Made-man. "Remarkable?"

  A nod of the great head. "So perfectly the proper Warm-time word. Remarkable."

  "We thought it very remarkable," she said to Bajazet, "— that a man of power would do such a foolish thing."

  "I killed his only son." It seemed odd he felt ashamed to say it. As odd as standing in a sunny mountain meadow with sword and dagger in his hands... speaking with these creatures.

  "Ah. Then no longer remarkable." Richard had a wonderfully rich voice.... The girl had covered her mouth with her hand, as he'd seen sweat-slave tribeswomen do on the river, shocked or surprised.

  "Cooper killed my brother — all our friends."

  "But it's so sad," Nancy said, lisping her s's slightly. "Does he imagine that two young princes dead are better than one?"

  "I suppose so, miss." Bajazet had answered as he would have any gently-born young lady — and wondered if he might be dreaming, since it didn't seem a waking sort of conversation.

  "We were puzzled," Richard said, "— why he chased and chased.... Would you please put down your points?"

  Bajazet sheathed sword and dagger, but kept his hands on the hilts. "I'm going to gather my things, now, and go." He bent, picked up his bow and quiver.

  "And have you pity for your sad king?" The Made-girl's head cocked to one side in inquiry. She seemed, except for small tender human ears, very like a curious fox. "Your sad king, who has lost his son?"

  ".. . Pity?" Bajazet's head still ached, pounding slowly to the beat of his heart. His bitten forearm hurt worse. "That fucking traitor is hunting me down!"

  "But are you now hunted by a traitor king?" The Made-man squatted oddly in spring grass, his small brown eyes curious. "— Or by a father whose only son is dead?" He did appear more human in daylight. More human, but not human. He was too big, his face too muzzled to be only a face... and there was the crest of fur, silver-black, and skin mottled a dark gray. The huge hands, resting on its odd knees, were almost thick as they were broad.

  "We are curious," Nancy said, "— whether moral matters are important to princes? They are somewhat important to us, though not to Errol." She came close, peering at Bajazet's forehead. "That was a bad bump." A slightly vulpine odor came with her... and a girl's sweet breath. She took his left arm in a small hard-calloused hand, its nails pointed, short, and black, and turned his forearm so the bite mark showed in crusted blood. "— But this has bled very well; not many too-tinies should grow in it."

  It seemed to Bajazet she looked better than the Made-man, though still very odd. Small, slender, and angled. Her face — long-jawed, long-nosed — was a face, even in daylight, though it was a face people passing by would always turn to see again, with its widow-peaked pelt of long dark-red hair as fine as fur, and eyes yellow as Map South-Mexican lemons. When she'd spoken, her teeth had glinted white in morning light.

  "— We've been traveling just north of you, several days." She'd been staring
at the bite marks — and suddenly bent her narrow head and began to lick at the wound as a dog might.

  "Don't!" Bajazet tried to jerk his arm away, but she held it, looked up and said, "Silly. You're a silly prince."

  "Let her do as she wants," Richard rumbled. "It helps healing — her bite, after all — and if you argue, we'll hear about it till the dear moon changes."

  So Bajazet, supposing he must be dreaming after all, stood still in storm-cleared sunshine while his injury was licked, its crusted blood mouthed away... the girl as attentive as if she performed for love.

  Something behind Bajazet clicked its tongue. Startled, he twisted half around, his free hand crossing to his dagger's hilt. Sitting fairly close behind him — and come quietly to do it — a skinny freckled boy, looking no more than eleven or twelve in stained rough-weave shirt and pants, smiled and clicked his tongue again. He wore the same little silver moon-medallion as the others. There were two long knives at his belt.

  "That's Errol," Nancy raised her head from his injury. "— Be careful." Though not saying what Bajazet should be careful about. The boy at least seemed fully human, smiling, blue-eyed, his dark blond hair, stiff with grease and dirt, falling nearly to his shoulders. He appeared fully human, though as their eyes met, Bajazet found the boy's disturbing; they only watched, offering nothing more. A spider's still, attentive, empty look.

  Richard suddenly heaved up to all fours, then stood, massive head cocked. "Dogs," he said.

  Nancy let go of Bajazet's arm. "Dogs.... Prince, now you must run!" She bent, picked up his pack, tossed it to him.

  Big Richard brought him his bow and quiver, stood looming over him. He smelled of spoiled meat. "You run, now," he said, his voice so deep there was a sort of humming to it. "— Run fast to the crest of this hill... then down its east slope to the valley. A narrow valley, shaded. Go along that, go quickly, and they may not catch you."

  Bajazet was happy to do as he was told, was anxious to run, run from these three self-called "Persons" as he ran from the king — but his weary legs resisted, content to keep where he was.

  The girl shoved him. "Go! Run! We travel just to the north of you."

  Then, much later than these Made-things had, Bajazet heard hounds' faint baying below. — All this not a dream then, though stranger than a dream, with these creatures speaking... advising him.

  But it was as if in a dream that he hung bow and quiver at his shoulder, and began to run away from them, on east across the clearing... then into underbrush. Remembering too late he'd left his blanket behind, Bajazet scrambled up the mountainside, struggling into his pack's straps. He looked back as he reached a stand of evergreens, and saw the three oddities were gone. No sign of them at all, so they might have been only a starvation vision, if it weren't for his aching forehead... the throbbing pain of the girl's fanged bite.

  "We travel just to the north of you." As they must have for days, and seen he was fed and kept warm as he was hunted. — They must have had a reason, of course, but Bajazet found he hadn't the strength to consider it. What strength he had must go to his legs, for now there was no question; the yelps of tally-ho echoed through the hills.

  Good dogs... very good dogs had been brought to the hunt, to keep their tracking only for him, and not for the Made-things whose rich scents must have caused the pack to cast and circle, at least for a while.

  But no thinking anymore. No questions... no compliments to fine hounds. There was only climbing and running to be done, scurrying, ducking branches, shoving past evergreens . .. then more climbing as the mountain's great rounded crest — already greening with the first breaths of Daughter Summer — still lay high above him.

  Bajazet labored up and up. There seemed not enough air in the world for him to breathe, he was so weak and weary. Not enough... not enough. He hauled himself from sapling to sapling — then thought he heard a trumpet call. But certainly too near. Perhaps only the call of some other Boston-thing. Certainly not a trumpet, and so near...

  If he had time, he could stop, unbuckle the damned sword-belt, throw bow and quiver away... wrestle the pack off. He could — if he had time — tug off his boots, strip his clothes, and run naked and too fast for anyone or anything to catch, following such swift, bruised feet.

  Bajazet staggered along the massive granite round of the mountain's crest. Sunlight sparkled along fractures in the stone. He'd lost count of the lower hills come before, now rising to this.

  His breath rattled in his chest like a ruined horse's, and his feet were bleeding in his boots. Might as well have had the damn things off. He would have wept if he'd had the time.... Now, he wished he hadn't killed the king's son. Then the hunt behind him would have been pro forma (was there any fucking word Warm-times hadn't had?) Would have been pro-fucking-forma, and not this furious... unreasonable chasing.

  He thought for a moment — halted crouched, gasping, trying to catch his breath — thought of begging the Mountains' Jesus to somehow save him. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. To plead, then die, was to die twice.

  His vanity made him smile as he stumbled on, unsteady boots skidding, scraping on the stone. And another sound on the granite behind him, quick raspings coming. — He surprised himself by how fast he turned, how the rapier came sliding from its scabbard. It was surprising, as if the staggering, exhausted Bajazet had been one person, and this — drawn and on guard — was another.

  Claws rattling on rock, an ambitious hound came bounding — ah, not pure hound, and therefore the ambition. This a half-breed ripper, with talent enough to scent his way once the pack had found the line, and the weight and jaw and muscle to pull prey down, and kill it.

  A big shaggy rust-colored dog, a dog he didn't know. It came for him cleverly and fast, scrambling, not leaping. Seemed to be smiling, its long jaw stretched so wide.

  The still-strong Bajazet, the surprising one, met it as he'd been taught to meet a furiously charging swordsman. The rapier's needle point stayed where it was, leveled low on guard. He held it still, and left it there while he bent his wrist and — as the dog came to him — swung his body back and away in a quarter-circle to the right, like an opening door, and out of the line of charge. In quartata...

  The big dog lunged onto the sword's point, foaming, and drove itself deep onto the blade. Bajazet turned away farther, wrist wrenched into agony as the animal tried to turn with him... then suddenly shuddered, squatted and began to scream. It was the sound a terribly injured puppy made, betraying the dog's adult and ferocious bulk.

  Bajazet yanked... yanked the long blade greasily free, and sheathing it still bloody, stumbled away from the noise of arriving hounds, horses' clattering hooves. The riders were shouting as they came.

  He managed to run, blindly as an animal, labored east on uneven granite, then along a slope of stone... skidded down a steeper pitch — and stepped off the mountain's crest into the air.

  ... Falling, safe from the shouts and snarling behind him, Bajazet would have been happy to continue down through the air to whatever end. But he sailed only twenty or thirty Warm-time feet before striking brush, pitching forward in a cartwheel — sheathed rapier flailing, whipping his leg smartly — then toppling over a sheer edge.

  Bajazet fell, struck — didn't try to save himself — but went tumbling and rolling, spinning and falling again until he struck a small fir tree hard. It drove the breath out of him as it drove green foliage into his face, harsh as a punch.

  He managed to mumble, "Oh, my God." One of the oldest phrases known. Very ancient.

  Managed that, tried to twist away from savage pain in his ribs — and went skidding down and down an endless dirt slope, his face numb, agony lancing along his left side. He no longer . .. no longer wished to be falling.

  The oddest thing — seeming so unimportant — something whipped singing past him as he went. An arrow, he supposed, from one the Light Cavalry's odd uneven-armed longbows. Bottom arm shorter .. .

  Faint echoing orders far above
him. Perhaps "Stop shooting!" The king would want him alive... if the mountain let him live.

  Now it was only slower sliding — a bad bump — then on down with a sore ass and skinned hands. In a shower of dirt and stones, Bajazet dug in his boot-heels, dug too much, tripped, and did a slow somersault, crashing into alders.... Stopped. He was stopped.

  He'd shut his eyes, afraid the branches would blind him. Now, half hanging amid sagging limbs and broken twigs, Bajazet opened them and saw he was almost down the mountain's side. The slope eased through forest below him, down a long descent to a narrow valley, dark in the mountain's shadow.

  ... Trumpets. Those motherfuckers — what a valuable old word — would have found and be riding down a gentler way, to run him to earth at last. At least the dogs hadn't cared to try the pitch after him.

  Bajazet no longer felt the pain of his bitten arm, his bruised forehead. Those now seemed quite comfortable, compared to deep bruises, badly scraped skin, and cracked ribs burning with each breath.... And there could be no waiting, hanging in the trees like cooling venison. No waiting. No time.

  He gritted his teeth, wrestled free of low branches, and had trouble getting his breath; it caught in his throat when the pain came. He clambered to the forest floor — still steep enough — found he could stand, and hobbled down the mountain's wide skirt. The king and his cavalry would be nearly down their easier path, and the long valley — narrow, already shadowed in Daughter Summer's first filmy dress of hazy green — wound away in thick low heather and leafing tangle between looming mountainsides... a very long run.

  Bajazet attempted a trot from the last of the trees — and found, if he bore the pain, that he was able to almost run, though oddly, with a gimping gait. He followed the valley's little creek — a dark shallow flow that barely wet his boots as he splashed and spattered down it — not to lose the hounds, not to lose the horsemen. It was only the easiest way to go.