‘Cannibals!’ someone screeched.
Cannibals? Pon-lor wondered, quite astonished. He shifted to put his back to one of the immense tree trunks. He edged his head aside as something darted towards him. A slim arrow slammed into the thick spongy bark next to his head. Paint and feathers decorated the deadly graceful object and he understood. Ah, these villagers are from the border region. They grew up hearing the stories of the natives of Himatan. Ardata’s Children, call them what you will. Cannibals, head-hunters. Of course such a reputation for ferocity serves these locals well – it keeps everyone away, doesn’t it?
A sudden wash of enormous power, like a huge wave, thrust him back into the tree. The witch was raising her aura. And what strength! He stared, stunned by the depth of it. How came she by such might? She screamed however, then, and her aura flickered, snapping away just as it burgeoned to life. She clutched her leg where an arrow now pierced her thigh.
Jak and Myint had pulled together a group and this knot now charged the jungle, probably meaning to break through the encirclement. Showing surprising speed, the yakshaka scooped up the witch and stormed off in the opposite direction, crashing through the undergrowth like an enraged elephant.
Pon-lor searched for, and found, Thet-mun’s frantic gaze where he peered out over the top of a root. Pon-lor motioned aside, after the fleeing yakshaka, and after scanning his fallen cohorts around him the lad gave a curt nod.
His arms still tied behind his back, Pon-lor ran after the yakshaka. Arrows hissed past him. One plucked his arm. As he ran he sensed a growing numbness in that arm – a toxin. He suppressed the blood flow to that limb and hoped to live long enough to deal with it later.
Lying among the dead leaves ahead was one of these Himatan locals. The warrior was painted head to foot and wore a kind of armour over his chest of bent bamboo and rattan strips lashed together. His head was crushed as from some terrific blow. The yakshaka. At least he was still on the right trail. Soon, however, he knew he would lose his way. He believed he could now sense this witch should he put his mind to it; but the question was how best to get from here to there, what to eat, and what not to step on.
He ran on then, not certain of his direction, but wanting to put some distance between himself and the ambush behind. After some time, pushing through hanging vines and tracing round the fallen rotting logs of these forest giants, he paused for breath, panting. This time he was not faking it; Thaumaturg training, it seemed, was perhaps negligent of raw physical endurance.
He flinched, then, jumping, as someone emerged from the thick dripping fronds next to him: Thet-mun. ‘You’re too loud,’ the youth growled, peering warily about.
‘Cut my bonds.’
‘What for? What will you do for me?’
‘Get me back and I’ll see to it that you’re richly rewarded.’
The youth grinned. ‘That’s more like it.’ He pulled out a large, wicked-looking curved knife.
After which I’ll see you executed as a criminal.
He sawed through Pon-lor’s bonds. ‘You’re wounded,’ he yelped, indicating his arm.
‘Yes.’
The youth stared, confused. ‘But … there’s poison on them arrows.’
‘Yes, there is.’
The youth’s face revealed unguarded wonder. He drew a small packet from within his shirt. He offered it to Pon-lor. ‘Well … try this.’
Pon-lor unwrapped it to reveal a whitish paste. ‘What is this?’
‘Should kill that poison.’
Kill it? Ah, an antidote of some kind. Perhaps an alkaline agent. I am impressed. He smeared some on the cut. Thet-mun tore a strip of cloth and bound it. ‘How did you learn this?’ Pon-lor asked.
‘My ol’ aunt taught me the recipe. Come to think of it, some called her a witch, too.’
‘Ah. So, which way now?’
The youth pointed the blade. ‘That way’s west.’
‘No. Which way to the yakshaka?’
The scout flinched, hunching. ‘Wha’? No one said anything about trackin’ him down.’
‘I have to return with it. That’s the only way I – we – can get our reward.’
Sheathing his blade, the pock-marked youth glanced away, frowning, sullen.
Pon-lor could see his mind working: how he was thinking that maybe he would have a better chance alone after all, and so he murmured, ‘What will you do when you run into those cannibals again?’ A shudder of terror rewarded him. ‘Or the Night Children? They say the man-leopard, that legendary killer, still haunts these forests. Tell me, Thet. What will you do if he comes for you in the night?’
The youth ground his teeth, almost whining in his frustration and fear. ‘You made yer damned point.’
‘Very good. Now, which way?’
He gestured onward. ‘Couldn’t miss it if you was blind.’
Pon-lor invited him to lead the way.
* * *
Alone in the jungle a woman knelt drinking water she cupped in a hand from a thin stream. She wore only a cloth wrapped about her loins. Her breasts were high and firm, the areolae a dark nut-brown. Sweat-caked dust and dirt smeared her limbs, face and torso. Her hair stood in all directions as a wet black nest. Hand at her mouth she paused. Her bright hazel eyes shifted aside and she smiled, humourlessly.
Straightening, Spite kept her arms loose at her sides. She cocked her head, scanning the bamboo thicket surrounding her. She called in a sing-song voice: ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are…’
The amber light of dawn fought the lingering emerald glow of the Visitor, which now bruised the sky all the night and the day. Mist coiled among bamboo shafts and through the vapours low hunched shapes slunk forward. Spite turned, scanning the grove; she was surrounded.
The nearest creature reared up on its hind legs, squat and wide, yet far taller than she. It was vaguely humanoid with thick muscular limbs bristling with hair, and a wide deep chest. It stood hunched as if unable to straighten fully. Its wide blunt head, likewise thick with bristling hair, boasting thrusting tusks and black glittering eyes, resembled more that of a giant wild boar than anything human.
Spite sneered her distaste. ‘Soletaken degenerates. Gone feral, I see. What would you have of me?’
The creature waved a wide, black-taloned hand. ‘Begone.’
‘Begone? How dare you? Do you know who I am? My lineage?’
‘Aye,’ the boar-beast growled deep in its throat. ‘We know you. Thus – we wish you gone.’
‘Well … no. I will not. I seek something stolen from me. This has nothing to do with you.’
‘We do not care. We want you gone.’
‘Sorry to disappoint.’
The boar-beast raised its gaze to indicate the way she had come. ‘There is a pit in the north that awaits you, Spite. Perhaps we shall shove you back in.’
Spite’s bright amber eyes hardened and her lips compressed. ‘Do not tempt my anger, you pathetic night-beasts. Slink away before I tire of you.’
The boar-beast drew itself up even taller. ‘We tire of you!’ And it leaped.
A blast of argent power met it in mid-leap. The creature spun away, crashing through the bamboo. Another beast slammed into Spite, sending her tumbling. Wide and far more burly than any human, it shambled off on all fours, its thick black hair all grey down its back.
Snarling her rage Spite climbed to her feet and wiped the mud from her face. ‘I’ll have all your heads for this!’
‘But the muck and mire is a fitting place for you, Spite,’ commented a new voice, one much more smooth and cultured. A man emerged from the mist. Lean and muscled, this one’s hair was a short tawny yellow, like a pelt, and his eyes glowed as brightly amber as Spite’s. The fangs of a hunting cat dominated his mouth.
Spite hunched, now wary. ‘You I know.’
The man inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment. ‘We have warned you, Spite. We ask that you go. Just leave and you will live.’
A scoffing laugh b
urst from her. ‘None of you are a threat to me.’
‘Not now, no. But who knows when – on some day or night to come – you will suddenly feel my teeth upon your neck.’ He raised a hand and snapped it shut into a fist. ‘Then, well … it will be too late and I will break your spine.’
‘Well. In that case. The prudent course for me would be … to kill you now.’ Her power flickered to life about her, licking in crimson and argent flames.
The man-leopard raised his eyes to the tops of the bamboo forest lost in the mist above her. ‘It is not I you must worry about today, Spite.’
Her mouth curled her annoyance and she turned, raising her gaze. ‘Oh, what now? Surely not your fabled bird-women.’ Seeing a hint of movement she squinted. The mist swirled, disturbed by the descent of a something massive. Darkness blossomed immediately above her; an immense yawning mouth, close to three fathoms across, set in a slim featureless albino head resembling that of a salamander.
Spite’s shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, shit.’
The titanic Worm of Autumn lunged, smashing into the muddy ground, snapping the rearing bamboo. The man-leopard leaped aside, running half on all fours. Of Spite, no sign remained. The monstrous beast writhed, flailing, its jaws working. Its length could not be guessed as its segmented mass disappeared into the murky distance.
The Worm’s thrashing reduced the grove to a wreckage of smashed and broken bamboo. It writhed and twisted, gouging great swaths of mud. Thumping blows shook the ground until it boomed and echoed. The battering raged on even as the sun broke the horizon to begin burning off the mist from the night’s rain.
An eruption of power shone blazing argent, for an instant brighter than the rising sun. A thunderclap followed, shuddering the distant standing trees. It blasted leaves from branches in all directions, sending them flying.
The Worm lay still. The gigantic body ended at a tattered stump of blackened smoking flesh. Gobbets of muscle and fat and skin littered the expanse of the flattened bamboo grove. A fresh mist rose from the steaming gore. Among the fat and segments of torn organs the size of a man, something shifted. A shape lurched erect: Spite, sheathed in mucus and pulped flesh.
She wiped the smeared gore from her. She retched and staggered upright. Her frenzied gaze raked the surroundings. ‘You see!’ she shrieked, transported in an ecstasy of rage. ‘You see! Nothing here is a match for me! I will destroy you all!’
A disembodied voice answered from the jungle depths: ‘Foolish girl … we could only lure here … the smallest of them.’
CHAPTER X
The Moon, in his first quarter, was only a fine inlay of silver against a sky of lapis lazuli, which fused into the dreamy serenity of the stream by which I gradually felt impregnated … I would have liked to have communicated with the wild nature surrounding us, to listen to her dark language and to understand her, to become like the simple people of this country. And so I lost myself in dreams that floated from one bank to the other, until a far away voice tore me from my solitude.
Matha Banness
In Jacuruku
Saeng awoke to a jolt that spasmed her and sent fresh knife-edges of agony shooting through her thigh. She sat up and clutched at the leg, finding fresh clean bindings encircling it. What has happened? She remembered the crashing flight through the jungle in Hanu’s arms. The burgeoning searing pain of the stab. Then the terrible slow numbness spreading from the wound until she could no longer feel the leg. Then, horrifyingly, the other. All the while the hardest thing for her to endure had been Hanu’s helpless panic and sorrow – for they both knew what the killing numbness presaged.
She lay now in a small cave, a shrine or jungle temple. Rain pattered down in fat heavy drops beyond its stone lip. A small fire of dried moss, leaf litter and twigs smouldered, offering a dim orange glow. In the darkness next to her someone moved. ‘Hanu,’ she said, relieved.
But it was not Hanu. It was that damned captured Thaumaturg. So stunned was she that he had the time to put a hand high on her bared thigh to test the dressings. ‘Careful of them,’ he murmured.
She slapped his hand away. ‘Where is my brother?’
The young man’s thick black brows rose. ‘Your brother?’ Then he nodded to himself. ‘I see … how very interesting.’
Ignoring him, she yelled, or tried to: ‘Hanu!’ The effort brought black spots to her vision and left her dizzy.
‘I am here,’ came the answer.
‘Where are you?’ she sent in kind.
‘Guarding.’
‘What happened?’
‘The Thaumaturg saved your life.’
‘Really? In truth? Why would he do that?’
‘I believe he means to use you to control me.’
Ah. She studied the young acolyte more closely. I see. One of their officers, plainly. She pushed herself up on her elbows then slid backwards to lean against the cold stone wall. He was pale, like all of them – never working under the sun like everyone else. Unusually, his hair was long and it now hung as an unkempt mess. Facial hair dusted his lip and chin. ‘What is your rank?’ she demanded.
Again the man arched a brow. ‘Not the thanks I was expecting, but I will answer regardless. I have the black, if that is what you mean.’
So, trained to the highest level. But she knew that beyond that threshold lay a near-infinity of subtle gradations of rank leading all the way up to the highest achievement: the ruling Inner Circle of Masters. ‘What do you want?’
Now the lips crooked in a mocking half-smile. ‘Still no thanks?’
Saeng adjusted her skirts over her legs, crossed her arms, took a deep breath and levelled her gaze. ‘My thanks.’
He tilted his head in acceptance. Leaning forward, he warmed his hands at the anaemic fire. ‘So, your brother, you say? I am very surprised. Well, in any case, by now you no doubt understand that he has developed … how shall I put it? Flaws … problems that must be treated.’ He raised his eyes to meet her gaze. ‘So will you not help me by returning him to Anditi Pura so that he may be healed?’
‘Healed?’ she sent to Hanu.
‘They will no doubt try to erase my mind,’ he answered, radiating amusement at this idea of ‘healing’.
She felt her mouth draw down in a hard scowl. ‘Never mind Hanu. You have far larger problems.’
‘Oh?’
‘Your masters are intent upon bringing the Visitor down upon us. The firestorm will annihilate everyone alive in these lands. Including you.’
The officer threw himself from the fire to lean back against the chamber’s stone wall. She noted how mould and lichen mottled the wall in black, green and white. ‘That again,’ he snorted, derisive. ‘How came you to this insanity? Is this what has driven you here into Himatan? Are you—’ He stopped himself, and she could read him forcing himself to relax. ‘What is your name, anyway, girl?’
‘Girl? I’m no younger than you, I should think. What of you? What is your name?’
He eyed her, his gaze superior, and then she saw him remember that he wanted her cooperation. The natural arrogance of his class was quickly tucked away and a carefully constructed expression of neutrality replaced it. ‘Pon-lor,’ he allowed.
‘Saeng.’
He eased himself into a more comfortable position – though she understood that this was all show as the Thaumaturgs scorned all allowances for the flesh. ‘Well … Saeng. It would appear that we are in disagreement regarding this impending catastrophe. Perhaps after it fails to materialize we could return to Anditi Pura?’
‘Perhaps I could have Han— my brother throttle you in your sleep?’ she suggested with a smile.
He smiled back just as winningly. ‘I believe I could severely wound Hanu, if not kill him, before he succeeded.’
He probably could, at that, she had to admit. Damn him. And I did mention Hanu’s name. Still, he seems to have no hold over him. He can tag along then. So long as he keeps that superior smirk off his face.
A new figure came
scuttling in from the rain and Saeng jerked upright – a damned bandit!
The Thaumaturg actually rested a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately struck aside. ‘It is all right,’ he said, lowering his arm. ‘He’s with me.’
The sopping wet lad made a show of avoiding Saeng to bend close to Pon-lor’s ear and murmur something. He then hurried off, but not before shooting Saeng a look of sullen resentment and fear.
‘What’s his story?’ she asked.
‘He works for me now.’
To Saeng’s surprise she couldn’t detect a single hint of self-satisfaction in that pronouncement. ‘Well, tell him to keep his distance.’
He laughed then, but not mockingly. Through the wind-brushed canopy high above silver moonlight flickered upon them and it struck her that not only was the man a member of her nation’s ruling aristocracy – he was an unfairly handsome bastard too. ‘Pray tell what is so amusing?’ she enquired, overly sweetly.
The Thaumaturg gestured to the cave mouth. ‘Keeping his distance is not his problem, Saeng. It was all I could do to convince him to have anything to do with you. The lad’s terrified of you. He’s convinced you’re a servant of Ardata. He believes you bewitched the yakshaka. That you even summoned the locals that attacked us.’
‘Well,’ she enquired, ‘how do you know I didn’t?’
He merely smiled indulgently, as if to say: come now child, we both know how.
The conceit that he could somehow see through her troubled her more than she thought it would. She was suddenly conscious of her dirty torn skirts and shirt, the awful state of her hair. It occurred to her that she must certainly look the part of a witch. ‘No? What am I then?’ she asked, smoothing her skirts further then hugging herself, feeling very cold in the dampness of the cave.
He studied her in the darkness across the sputtering fire. ‘You are a village girl who has come into power but has no idea what to do with it. You are scared and lost and terrified of what you possess.’ He cocked his head as if struck by a new thought. ‘Come to Anditi Pura with me. We could train you. Teach you how to harness that power.’
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire) Page 307