The Gods Return

by David Drake

  Liane read, “Alar alarioth . . .” She stood just as straight and calm as if she was talking to Sharina about how formal to dress for a meeting. As her words spilled out, Rasile sang them back in Corl fashion.

  The air was turning red like the surface of the stone. The crowd and soldiers had all run off by now. Some had opened their mouths open to scream, but Cashel hadn’t heard anything over a sound like the wind rushing through a stand of hemlocks.

  Amineus was gone too; back into his office, Cashel supposed. If you hadn’t seen it before, this sort of business was scary and no mistake.

  “Orthio!” said Liane, and there were more Coerli screeches. It seemed to Cashel that Rasile was responding even before she heard Liane, though he hadn’t any real way to tell. He couldn’t understand the words either one of the women were using.

  The air glowed brighter than a ruby, as bright as pure flame. Cashel stood behind Rasile and Liane, his quarterstaff crossed before him. He wondered if he ought to turn to watch their backs, but this seemed the right choice just for now.

  A flash of intense light swept everything else away. Dry heat engulfed Cashel and his companions.

  SHARINA COULD HEAR the click of tiny claws as Burne patrolled the mosaic floor. He was much more active at night, though he adapted to a human schedule as he had to.

  She smiled against the pillow. A year ago—a week ago!—she’d never have believed that she’d feel soothed by the sound of a rat walking around her bed . . . but she did. Still smiling, she slept; and as she slept, she dreamed.

  “Come to me, Princess,” the voice called. She didn’t see Black this time. Perhaps he was below her on the blue world rotating slowly. “You have nothing to fear. Lord Scorpion exalts you over all women: He has chosen you for His priestess.”

  Land turned into view from the edge of the sphere, set off by a white border of surf. Sharina recognized the outline of the Isles against the Outer Sea: they’d been etched on the crystal floor of a room in the palace. Around the map cut by a great wizard of the Old Kingdom was written a legend added in the blocky New Script by a Duke of Ornifal before he seized the throne of the Isles: THE NAVEL OF THE COSMOS.

  That had been a lie, of course. It was doubly a lie now that the Isles no longer existed as an archipelago but had rather become the periphery of a great continent. Valles was becoming a ghost town, sinking into a swamp because the River Beltis had drained into an Inner Sea which no longer existed.

  “You will submit, Princess,” Black said, cajoling her in a voice of thunder. “And even if you could resist, you would be mad to attempt it. From Lord Scorpion you will receive power and unexampled riches, but if the Gods of Palomir should take this world under Their suzerainty—”

  The new continent had rotated so that it was directly beneath Sharina’s vantage point. For the first time since she’d begun to dream tonight, she realized that she had a body. Pandah swelled in her awareness; not the real Pandah of mud and wicker around a core of ancient palaces but Pandah as rebuilt in black granite to honor Lord Scorpion.

  “If the Gods of Palomir came to rule this world, Princess,” crooned Black as the great temple grew toward her, “then your best hope will be to be sacrificed quickly. Lord Scorpion alone can defend you against Palomir. You will have power second only to that of the God!”

  Black stood in the middle of the plaza, his arms spread to receive Sharina. She rushed downward with no more control of her movement than water in a torrent has. The scorpion on Black’s shoulder curved its barbed tail into the sky. Above, clouds swept together into a monster image of the God, as black and dense as the granite temple.

  Sharina fought, but there was no escape and—

  Black shouted and looked over his shoulder. Sharina sat bolt upright in her bed; shards of the dream shimmered down the sides of her consciousness.

  Burne bounced back from the wall to the floor; he must’ve leaped while she was still asleep. His jaws clicked, scattering bits of chitin.

  “Go back to sleep, Sharina,” he said. “No scorpion is going to reach you.”

  “You can’t do anything about my dreams,” Sharina muttered, but she put her head down on the pillow anyway. To her surprise, she felt sleep returning as soon as she closed her eyes.

  She slept soundly until her maid Diora woke her at dawn.

  ILNA SET THE lantern on top of the box she’d just freed and backed slowly away. There might be a way out of the cave in the direction the hulking creature was coming from, but she wasn’t going to try going past the monster until all else had failed. There might be an exit on the other end too. That didn’t seem likely, but Ilna wasn’t in a mood to pass up even slim chances.

  She was reasonably confident that the pattern dangling from her right hand would hold the thing, whatever it was, but she wouldn’t be able to do anything else while she held it. Eventually she’d fall asleep, or faint, or the candle would burn out. She’d rush the creature with her little bone-cased kitchen knife rather than use her strength up in delaying what would shortly become inevitable.

  The creature walked on its hind legs, placing its feet with obvious deliberation. The rock shook beneath each step. She couldn’t be sure how tall it was since the shadows might be exaggerating, but it was at least half again her own height and much, much broader.

  Ilna took the box with her because both Brincisa and Hutton had thought it was valuable. She took the lantern because without light the creature couldn’t see her patterns, so they’d be useless.

  There was always the possibility that it was friendly. She figured that was less likely than her walking through a solid wall, but she was willing to be pleasantly surprised for a change.

  The creature suddenly lurched onto all fours, throwing its face into the lantern light. Its muzzle was as long as a baboon’s; great tusks in the upper and lower jaws crossed one another. The deep-set eyes glittered a savage red. It snuffled Hutton’s corpse, then lifted its head in a howl that made the cave shiver.

  Ilna’s shoulders hit rock. There was no way out in this direction—

  And she no longer entertained the slightest hope that the creature was friendly.

  It stepped forward like a beast, then rose onto its hind legs and shrieked in fury. Turning its head away, it clawed toward the lantern. Its arm, covered with coarse reddish hair, was longer than that of a man of the same impossible height.

  It’s afraid of the light. Ilna lifted the lantern to the height of her arm.

  The creature howled and staggered back. Filth matted its long hair, and its breath stank like a tanyard. Ilna waggled the lantern overhead, then regretted it: the candle guttered, dimming the light for a moment.

  Nothing in the cave would make a good blaze. The cloth was shot through with damp and mold; it would resist burning even if tossed on a fire, let alone be able to sustain one.

  The creature turned its shaggy back on her and hunched. It didn’t have a tail. It lifted Hutton’s corpse, then snarled over its shoulder as if afraid Ilna would try to take away the prize.

  She drew in deliberate breaths. The flame had steadied, for which she was thankful.

  The creature bent and bit off the face of the corpse. Thin bones crackled like a fire in dry bracken. It swallowed, then took a bite from the base of the neck. The ghoul’s great jaws must be as strong as a sea wolf’s; Hutton’s collarbone snapped loudly as the fangs sheared it.

  Throwing the rest of the corpse over its shoulder, the creature returned to the darkness. It didn’t look back at Ilna, but it paused before its shadow disappeared into the greater shadows. Lifting its head, it gave another shivering cry.

  Surely they must hear those bellows in Gaur? But perhaps the townsfolk were still under the weight of Brincisa’s spell.

  Ilna set the lantern in a niche in the cave wall. The candle would burn out shortly. By what light remained, she examined the box.

  It was wooden, which meant she could break it open with the hilt of one of the daggers rusting on th
e cave floor. Even better, it was unlocked so she wouldn’t have to.

  That pleased Ilna, because the craftsmanship of the box was good enough to impress her. She’d have regretted smashing the dovetailed joints and the panels fitted so that the grain was almost undistinguishable each from the next—though she would have broken it if she’d had to, of course. She wondered if Cashel would be able to identify the wood.

  Ilna slid the simple catch and lifted the lid, tilting the box toward the light so that she could see the interior. Packed in raw wool—which was so white that first glance made her think it was bleached—was a human head no bigger than her clenched fist. The lips were sewn shut with knots easily as complex as those which had bound the box to Hutton’s chest.

  Ilna ran her fingers over the knots. They’d been tied by a different hand; a human hand, she suspected. Hutton’s? She couldn’t be sure because she hadn’t seen his work, but she didn’t think so.

  She smiled to remember the sound of the ghoul chewing Hutton’s corpse. That was a proper end for people who kept the sort of friends he did.

  Ilna began to pick out the knots. She had no better reason than that it amused her to test herself, but that wasn’t a bad reason. Very few things involving fibers did test her.

  The head felt leathery; well, it was leather, she supposed. It was packed with something, but she didn’t think it was bone. Had the skull been removed and the skin shrunken over an artificial core?

  Ilna removed the last knot and lifted the fiber to the waning lantern light. She couldn’t tell what the material was; it had no feel at all. She couldn’t remember ever having had that experience before.

  The miniature head moved.

  Ilna’s first instinct was to leap up and fling the thing off her lap. Instead she held still.

  Worms—no, tiny hands wriggled from the severed neck. The skin there hadn’t been tied, just folded and shrunken into a tight mass. The hands were on the ends of arms which jerked their way out by fits and starts; Ilna had the impression of somebody trying to find the neck and arm openings in a tunic that was too small.

  And it was too small. The arms were miniatures also, but they were far too large to fit into the shrunken head.

  When the arms were free, Ilna saw that the shoulders had appeared also. What had been a head was now a bust.

  The arms pumped up and down. The hands squeezed into fists and opened, then reached back into the stump of the neck. After much struggling they tugged out the whole remainder of the legs and torso of a man. He was wizened and incredibly ugly, besides being no taller than Ilna’s knee if they were both standing.

  The little man hopped off her lap and looked up at her. “My name’s Usun,” he said. “Who are you?”

  The candle guttered out. For a few heartbeats the wick remained as a blue glow; then that too vanished. The darkness was complete.

  EVEN BEFORE A trumpeter signaled the squadron on watch to mount up, the commotion at the gate roused Garric from the table where he sat with Chancellor Royhas and Lord Hauk. He jumped to his feet, grabbing the sword belt hanging from the back of his chair. That was Carus’ reflex, but it wasn’t a bad one.

  Their meeting on prices and sources of draft animals took place under a marquee set up beside the headquarters tent at the intersection of the camp’s two principal streets, surrounded at a respectful distance by aides. Garric would’ve had a view to the gate if it hadn’t been for the clerks, secretaries, and runners now goggling either at the prince who’d risen or at the gate to see what was happening.

  “Duzi!” Garric shouted. “Will you get out of the way so that I can see?”

  The flunkies who were staring at him looked stricken and mostly dodged to the side, though a pudgy youth from the chancellery simply flattened on the ground as if Garric’s glare were a ballista about to release. Those who were looking in the opposite direction didn’t make the connection between their behavior and their prince’s frustration until he shoved through them to get onto the street.

  Part of Garric winced at his impoliteness. On the other hand, the ghost in his mind was ready to move them out of the way with the flat of his sword and curses much more colorful than Garric using the name of a friendly shepherd god.

  The royal army had built a rampart around its every marching camp since Garric—better, since Carus—began leading it. Fortifications took a great deal of work and meant shorter marching days besides, but Carus firmly believed that no campsite was safe until you’d made it safe.

  Garric had read enough history to accept the truth of that assumption. His ancestor’s vivid memories reinforced his ac cep tance.

  Waldron kept a cavalry squadron and an infantry regiment ready to move on five minutes’ notice. That meant the horses were saddled though their cinches weren’t tight, and the troops wore their body armor—though again they’d have to do up the straps and laces.

  At the trumpet, detachments stood to at the four gates. The whole camp was a clanging bustle as the rest of the army grabbed weapons and equipment in case the next signal was a general alarm.

  There were various ways Garric could respond to the signal, but there was only one way that wouldn’t lead to the ghost of King Carus bellowing in fury inside his mind. He took off running for the gate a hundred double paces away, buckling the twin tongues of his sword belt as he went. Six Blood Eagles ran in front of him, and Attaper at his side bellowed, “Gravis, horses at the gate for the platoon soonest! Move!”

  Garric arrived at the same moment as Lord Waldron, who’d been inspecting the horse lines when the summons came. He’d ridden, which wasn’t surprising: he’d come from almost the far end of the camp. He was bareback and using a rope halter, though, which for a man in his sixties was an impressive demonstration.

  “Rats, milord!” shouted a trooper who’d just dismounted from his lathered gelding. He ignored Garric to speak to Waldron—like him, an Ornifal cavalryman. “Foraging parties, not an attack, but Lieutenant Monner thinks there’s three hundred maybe. Five miles southeast. Monner’s watching them, but he won’t try to engage. Ah, unless you want him to?”

  “Why in the Sister’s name did he send back a whole squad?” Waldron barked. “Are the rest of them here to hold your hand, Bresca?”

  “Milord?” the squad leader said. “The rats’re scattered across the countryside from here to the Underworld. The l’tenant, he thought we might run into something on the way back and, you know, he wanted to make sure the message got through.”

  Lieutenant Monner’s subordinates assumed he’d be willing to fight several hundred rats with twenty or so cavalrymen . . . and he had foresight enough not to entrust a critical message to a single courier. Garric didn’t need the grim-faced approval of King Carus to know that Lieutenant Monner should be commanding something more than a troop of horse.

  “Right!” said Waldron. Turning to Garric: “Your Highness, I’ll take the ready squadron, they’re my old command, and the regiment of javelin men from northern Cordin. You follow with five thousand infantry and all but one squadron of the horse as soon as they get organized, right?”

  The ready squadron was divided with a troop at the west, south, and east gates; the north gate was guarded by cavalry from a Sandrakkan squadron. They could be pressed into immediate service if necessary. Waldron had apparently decided it was, because they and their blue and silver pennant was trotting down the cross street to join the Ornifal red and gold.

  In Garric’s mind, Carus was estimating how long it would be before the support element arrived. It’d be an hour before they marched. Besides, heavy infantry regiments wouldn’t move as quickly as cavalry and skirmishers—Cordin shepherds turned soldier, carrying only light javelins and hatchets.

  “We’ll both accompany the alerted troops,” he said. He surveyed the cavalrymen walking their horses through the gate to form in the trampled ground just outside. Carus picked a rangy chestnut.

  “I’ll take that horse,” Garric said. “Trooper, get your
remount and follow.”

  “Your Highness!” said Waldron, looking up from the waxed tablet on which he was scribbling an order. “I’m going, but I have a deputy.”

  “And I don’t, milord,” Garric said, “which is why I’m going. I need to see the rats in action as soon as possible so that I know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Your Highness, that’s pointlessly dangerous!” Attaper said. “Nobody doubts your courage, nobody. Unless you distrust your officers to bring you an accurate information, you’ll gain nothing from this.”

  “I’m going, Attaper,” Garric said, grasping the horn and crupper of the horse he’d appropriated. He mounted. By now he could probably have made a smooth business of it without his ancestor’s reflexes.

  A squad of Blood Eagles rode up, each trooper holding the reins of two or more additional horses. Carus, watching through Garric’s eyes, said, “Attaper knew he couldn’t argue you out of it, so he made sure he’d have a platoon ready to go too.”

  After a moment he added with a mixture of amusement and regret, “I never had anybody who’d fight me as hard as Attaper does you, lad. I’d have taken their heads off if they tried. Which was all right as far as it went, but it meant people with good sense made sure to keep shy of me.”

  A trooper had saddled Waldron’s mount while he was scribbling out orders to his subordinates. Tossing the last tablet to a runner, the army commander swung into the saddle. Checking the four troops waiting in neat columns—and the skirmishers who weren’t in the least neat but were certainly ready—Waldron snapped to his trumpeter, “Sound the advance!”

  The trumpet call and the horns of the line troops—the Sandrakkan unit used a cow horn which sounded harsh and thin in comparison the brass instruments curling around the bodies of the Ornifal cornicenes—set the patrol into motion. Garric’s borrowed horse stepped off even before he tapped its ribs with his right heel.

  “A trained soldier obeys commands in his sleep,” Carus said. “Likewise a trooper’s trained mount.”