The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy - vol 05

by Bill Congreve (ed) (v1. 0) (epub)

  The blackfellas made no gesture or sound, just watched.

  “That was a new dreaming, full of anger and strength,” said the Dappled Man, when they’d passed. “When the land becomes quiet, as it is here, such dreamings sink down into the rock, and wither away over time. This dreaming, here and now, will be old, from deep in the ground, with little of it left, otherwise it would’ve attacked the town already.”

  “But how did it come up? There’s no mines.”

  “Caves?” the Man suggested, and suddenly Bowley saw it all: Del Mar kids with lanterns, daring each other to go further and further into the grottos up the back of the property. Or young Del Mar men, maybe, down there looking for veins in the rock, one of them putting a hand on some old stone, under which a nightmare slept, that would have slumbered away to nothing if one poor fool hadn’t happened upon it.

  The spook was watching him intently.

  “Del Mar’s,” Bowley said. “Up the top of the Loop.”

  “How many people there?”

  “Maybe forty, plus kids.”

  “It probably won’t have been strong enough to use all of them,” the Man said. “But expect there to be children among those it’s taken.”

  Bowley didn’t need to ask what would’ve happened to the rest. He felt a sharp little hurt behind his breastbone. He saw Maise’s sister Lucy, putting a hand on his shoulder the last time he’d visited, interrupting his conversation with the Del Mar men to ask him if he wanted tea. A plumper, warmer, motherly version of Maise, almost invariably with a smile on her face. Her daughter Jemima had served the tea, a willowy child with her father’s height, barely into womanhood, her cheeks flushing at the gentle teasing of her great-uncle Javier.

  Maise’s face came to his mind’s eye, jaw quaking and eyes brimming before she dipped her head and he turned his back on her and rode away. Bowley’s hands were shaking again. He fumbled for his flask, was surprised for a moment to find it empty.

  He flung it into the bush. “Fucking hell.”

  ~ * ~

  The Del Mar house was an overgrown cousin to the cottages in town - the way a mastiff is to a terrier - a great, brooding thing of raw timbers and tar. Timber roofed, too, with a cavernous loft space where the children slept. They had some talented runesmiths among them, the Del Mars - Oscar had learned the craft in his native Andalusia - so they had no need for English slates to press the building on its runestone foundations. The whole house was covered in a mesh of flowing Arabic script and the angular English runes that Oscar and his sons had learned since they left their homeland. New wings had been added, over the years, as sons and daughters married and brought their wives and husbands back to live. Only a handful, like Maise, had made their lives elsewhere. All of the extensions connected back to the main house, with just the stables and feed barns standing separate, and they were connected to the house with paths of rune-carved corduroy.

  It was a fortress town in all but name, Del Mar’s, and stronger in its defences than most towns. But perhaps, Bowley thought to himself, its greatest strength was also its weakness. Because dreamings understood matters of blood and hearth - of place - intimately. No dreaming was intelligent, but some were clever. The rare one was strong enough to roam over an area, not tied to a single spot like a willywilly or a bunyip. If a dreaming of that kind got into a man’s shadow, then it might ride him to his home and maybe no density of warding signs, English or Arab - or blackfella, for that matter - would keep the contagion out and stop it spreading to his kin.

  The Dappled Man reined in at the edge of the cleared ground that surrounded the farm buildings. There was no sign of the cattle that ranged freely over the hills, but which often hung around near the house. The farm was shuttered and silent. Bowley halted Clay beside the Dappled Man. Young O’Shane pulled up beside him and Alby and German on the Man’s far side. Alby snuffled into his handkerchief.

  Bowley drew his carbine from its sleeve and laid it across his lap. Alby and German followed his example. O’Shane drew two of his four pistols.

  The townsmen’s horses whickered and danced as the Dappled Man’s hunting shadows returned and wriggled up his mount’s legs. The Man straightened in his seat, but still he seemed less than he had the day before. A breath of wind rolled curling fingers of mist from the trees beyond the house. Bowley searched the grey above for some sign of a tear in the veil. There was nothing.

  The Dappled Man walked his horse a few paces into the open. Another breath of air chilled Bowley’s face and ruffled the horses’ manes. It tugged the man’s coat, collapsing the side of it inwards. Bowley saw him clearly, then: as a scarecrow, a mockery of a man, a creature with limbs and head but only shadow at his centre.

  The Man’s horse stopped dead in its tracks. It’s ears twitched furiously. Clay whickered and tossed her head. Then all the horses were at it, fidgeting and complaining and dancing on their hooves. The air seemed suddenly thin in Bowley’s lungs, as though there was a big storm approaching.

  The Man’s head whipped to the left. Bowley looked that way in alarm, but could make out nothing untoward among the trees. He ran his fingers over the killing runes etched into his carbine’s stock. The Man turned the other way, stared.

  Bowley thought he heard a whisper of sound, a distant yelping and howling.

  “No.” The Dappled Man spun his horse on the spot. “Run!” he barked. “We can’t face it here.”

  His horse launched itself towards them.

  “Run!” the Man cried.

  Then he was past them and all of them were cursing, their horses skittering about and bumping into each other while they tried to get them turned around. Bowley glimpsed figures in English clothes racing through the trees. The howling had grown rapidly more distinct. It was in his head, Bowley realized with a stab of horror, but not in his ears.

  The riders got themselves moving. Alby and young O’Shane galloped ahead of Bowley, down the slope, Alby riding one-handed, as Bowley was, his rifle pressed across his lap. Bowley glanced back and saw that German was already falling behind, fat Bismarck struggling under his rider’s weight, German with one fist in his horse’s mane and the other flailing his rifle about for balance. Their conjoined shadows stretched out ahead of them, straining to drag horse and rider along. “Move it, you fat bloody Kraut!” Bowley yelled back, which wouldn’t help German at all, but there was nothing practical Bowley could do for him.

  Clay jerked her head as something flew past her nose. A second object struck painfully against Bowley’s arm. He tucked his head down. In his peripheral vision he saw running figures closing on either side, arms pulled back and whipping forward - throwing rocks as they ran. He caught jumbled impressions of bloody chins and blood-stained shirts, of mouths open wide in silent anguish.

  Then he was past them. He looked back. German made it through a heartbeat before the first pursuers spilled onto the track. The blacksmith had lost his hat. Bowley saw a splash of red across his forehead. But German was still in his saddle, gritted teeth and wide eyes stark in his dark face.

  Clay gained quickly on the three riders ahead. They’d already slowed their horses to a canter. Bowley did the same as he came up to them. The Dappled Man twisted in his saddle. Bowley wished he could see the expression on the spook’s face. Alby looked back, too, and gave a shake of his head. Whether the gesture was one of exasperation with Bowley, or the spook, or the situation in general, Bowley wasn’t certain.

  German hadn’t caught up. And wasn’t going to, Bowley saw. Bismarck was labouring even harder, now, the horse’s gait uneven, favouring a hind leg. Bowley swore under his breath and reined Clay back into a trot. He felt the tug on his flesh as her shadow and his both resisted. The gap between them and the three riders ahead widened again. The mist closed between them.

  He scanned the bush around as German caught up. Bismarck didn’t need any instruction from his rider to slow to a trot.

  “Look’s like he’s lame.”

  German dabbed a
t the cut on his temple with his handkerchief, examined the resulting mess on the white cloth with distaste. “Stone hit him in the leg,” he replied. Bowley could see where - a patch of torn hair just above the gelding’s hock. German drew a shaky breath and added, “Veil, that vas a vasted trip.”

  Bowley heard the note of hysteria in the other man’s voice, and in his own chuckle in response. “We’ll hold a trot for a bit, see if he works the lameness out. We should stay ahead of them at this pace.”

  German nodded. “Ya, but they vill go straight down the hill vhile ve follow the track.”

  “Better keep an eye out then, hadn’t we?”

  German gave a rictus grin. “I notice those other bastards didn’t hang around.”

  “Spook’s getting back to town quick,” Bowley said. He hoped - to get them ready. By rights, he should be riding ahead, too, and leaving German to take his chances. There had been a lot of people in the scrub at Del Mar’s, enough for it to be the whole damn clan taken by this dreaming. And, Christ, he couldn’t get those half-seen faces, or the silent howls of the thing that possessed them, out of his head.

  They were - it was - coming after them, he was certain, like a tiger snake that’d chase you for a mile even after it’d struck at you once, just because it was pissed at the world and you happened to be a part of it. He hoped like hell this Dappled Man wasn’t lighting out on them, that Alby’d shoot the son of a bitch in the back if he was.

  They passed the spot where the blackfella tribe had been camped. No sign of them now.

  A tortured whispering brushed his mind. He felt a sucking at the soles of his feet. His and Clay’s shadows snapped free of the horse’s hooves and lit out across the bare rock ahead. German’s shadow on Bismarck’s was close on their heels.

  “Gruene ...”

  “... Christ!”

  Running figures emerged from the mist, off to their left. Bowley kicked frantically at his horse’s ribs. “Move!”

  Clay leapt into a gallop. Bismarck whinnied, in pain, and terrified of the thing that pursued them.

  A man lunged out of the trees on their right. Clay’s hooves struck the edge of the rock shelf, clattering like gunshots. Behind them, Bismarck screamed.

  Bowley looked back. The gelding staggered out onto the open rock. A pick handle hung obscenely from his belly. The horse’s his eyes bulged as he cried bewilderment and pain.

  Bowley hauled back on Clay. Her hooves skidded on the bare stone. Her back end dropped before she found purchase again. Bowley loosed the reins and spun her with his knees.

  Bismarck collapsed. German leapt clumsily but got his legs clear of the horse’s weight. Bismarck’s cries drowned out the dreaming’s dingo howls.

  The attacker charged out of the trees, empty hands raised like claws. Francisco Del Mar, an iron-haired Andalusian bull. He was barely recognizable, with sticks in his hair and the animal snarl on his face. His feet were bare and he cast no shadow. German was still on his back, no runes between him and the thing that ran beneath Franscisco and his kin. Bowley was acutely aware of how vulnerable they were, with their shadows far from their feet.

  He brought his carbine to his shoulder. Christ, Maise’s cousin Frank. He sighted and fired. Missed.

  Clay danced on the spot, ears flat.

  Bowley swore and sought the cold, marksman’s place within himself that used to be so easy to find. He pushed down the carbine’s lever to eject the empty shell and chamber the next. It stuck halfway.

  “Shit!” Bowley pounded the jammed lever with the heel of his hand.

  German had his boots under him. Fransisco was almost on him. More Del Mars emerged from the trees. German ignored them. He raised his rifle and shot his dying horse through the top of the head. Bismarck’s cheek slapped loudly against the rock.

  Dingo howling curled through the abrupt quiet.

  “German - behind you!”

  The blacksmith met Bowley’s stare with dazed eyes. He turned, fired at Fransisco from the hip. The bullet caught the Del Mar in the shoulder, spun him all the way around and down to the ground.

  German swung his rifle towards the approaching horde and kept shooting, not bothering to aim. There were a good forty or fifty people: men, women and children, and more than just Del Mars. Bowley spied White Mitchell’s narrow frame among the front ranks. All of them were barefoot, like Francisco, all filthy and bloody and with the same rictus snarl on their faces. Many of them carried farm tools - picks, hatchets and shovels - as weapons. None of them made a sound, only the silent howling of the thing that possessed them.

  “Run!,” Bowley cried, “You stupid bloody Kraut! Run!” He hoped Alby had shot that damn spook, for lighting out and leaving them. He shoved his jammed carbine into its sleeve and fumbled for his service revolver.

  German’s rifle clicked, empty. The dream-taken were almost on top of him. German started to swing his rifle by the stock, spitting curses in his native tongue. Francisco Del Mar staggered to his feet behind him, his right arm dangling. Bowley shouted a warning.

  Too late. Francisco hooked his left arm around German’s neck, pulling him off balance just as the rest reached him. They bore him to the ground. Hooked fingers tore at his clothes. Heads dipped, teeth bared, and German’s curses turned to screams.

  Bile rose in Bowley’s throat, spurting out of his mouth before he could swallow it back down. Most of the Del Mars kept coming. Bowley raised his pistol and fired off all six shots without seeing where any of them struck.

  He heard the deep ‘whooosh-whooosh’ before he saw the war boomerangs come spinning out of the scrub. They tore into the dream-taken, snapping human bodies like stalks of wheat.

  A rider burst past Bowley. The Dappled Man. Shadows writhed all over both the spook and his horse. The Del Mars fell back, closing ranks before him.

  Bowley put his heels to Clay’s ribs, and fled. Among the trees, blackfellas whirled like hammer throwers. A second flight of war boomerangs launched into the air.

  ~ * ~

  The Dappled Man caught up with him near Stink McClure’s shack. Clay had slowed to a trot of her own accord, and then a walk. The Man had lost his hat and his Hessian shawl was scrunched in one fist. Lank, shoulder-length grey hair framed bony features that receded at forehead and chin from his long nose. The complexion of his face was, indeed, the same unhealthy mottled grey as his hands.

  The Man slowed his horse beside Clay. Moving with what seemed to be pained slowness, he shook out his shawl.

  “Where the hell were you?” Bowley demanded.

  The spook glanced his way, a flash of washed-out grey eyes. He lifted his shawl and put it back over his head. Shadows crawled around his face beneath its fringes. He slumped, evidently exhausted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in danger until your shadows caught up with us.”

  “Did you kill it?” Bowley asked.

  The Man shook his head. “A dreaming can’t be killed, only put back in its place. The tribe and I together weren’t enough to subdue this dreaming or deter it. When it’s done licking its wounds, it’ll follow us to town.”

  “Why did they try and help us?”

  Another shake of the head. “Our presence was coincidence. The tribe’s witchmen thought a surprise attack might defeat this dreaming. They underestimated its strength.”

  “So did you,” Bowley said. “And now German’s dead.”

  “It wasn’t my decision to go hunting for it,” the Man replied, softly.

  The riposte struck home. My fault, Bowley thought. I shouldn’t have let him come.

  The Dappled Man extended a hand. “I have something for you.”

  Bowley’s heart gave a lurch. He stared at the spook’s outstretched palm. There was a barely visible tremor in the Man’s fingers. Bowley’s own hand shook noticeably as he raised it. The Dappled Man’s skin was dry as old paper.

  Darkness flooded out of the Man’s sleeve and up Bowley’s arm. Bowley yelped and would’ve snatched back his hand if the sp
ook hadn’t gripped his fingers tightly. The darkness flowed over Bowley’s shoulder and down his side, along his leg and then down his horse’s to pool on the ground beneath them. It resolved itself into his shadow astride Clay’s, before fading in the dull light. The Dappled Man released his hand.

  Bowley clutched at his chest. “Green Christ.’”

  The Man leaned on his saddle horn, his head bowed. Bowley’s rattling heartbeat slowed to a more normal rate. The Dappled Man spoke again, his voice a bare rasp, “The tribe’s intervention has increased our risk when we face this dreaming again. Whenever one of those it has taken is killed, it is freed to steal another shadow.”