Blood and Bone

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘I mean aware. We met. Calls herself Celeste. Might be listening right now.’

  Now the mouth pursed tight. The hatchet lines bracketing it deepened and lengthened. A worrier, this one, always thinking. ‘I see …’

  ‘Might be best to let the lads know. Watch their mouths. Act respectfully.’

  A brief nod. ‘I understand. I’ll have a word with them. A way off.’ He straightened, cast one lingering glance to the litter, then offered Murk a nod. ‘Later.’

  Murk fought the urge to salute. ‘Cap’n.’

  Sour returned carrying a bowl of something steaming. He offered it and a fist of hardbread. ‘Reminds me too much of Blackdog.’

  Murk winced. ‘I don’t want to hear about Blackdog.’ Gods, that mess! It still made him shiver. Just a lad then, fresh from his ’prenticeship with old blind Eghen. The man never did forgive him for joining the enemy …

  ‘ ’Cept it’s a lot warmer,’ Sour continued, musing. ‘An’ there’s way more rain. An’ it’s a jungle and not a forest or a bog.’ He wriggled down into a nook of dry roots close to Murk under the protection of the tall tree. ‘What’s the difference anyway? ’Tween a jungle and a forest?’

  Murk edged away from him. ‘Damned if I know. Just words.’ He sucked on the bread, held the bowl between his knees, which were drawn up close to his chest. ‘I guess they mean places people feel threatened, where they don’t feel in charge or in control. Makes ’em want to hack it all down, that fear.’

  ‘What about the people living here?’

  ‘Hunh. Good question. ’Cause we’re foreigners to these lands we might think they feel the same fearful way about it, hey? But I don’t think they do. I think they call it home.’

  Dusk came quickly beneath the cloud cover and the thick canopy. Sour’s eyes glistened in the dark and they shifted to the litter, and its burden, under guard of five soldiers. ‘And our guest? Somethin’ to fear? We don’t control it, neither …’

  Murk chewed on the bread and winced as he bit down on a stone. He felt about for it then spat aside. ‘No. Not just now, anyway. It – she’s – curious right now. It’s as if …’ He swallowed any further speculation. It seemed premature. His partner’s attention swung briefly to him, then away. He tucked his hands up under his armpits and let his chin fall to his chest. Almost immediately the rise and fall of the fellow’s chest steadied and to all appearances he was asleep. But Murk knew he wasn’t; Sour had cast his awareness outwards and was watching the surroundings for anyone’s approach. Halfway into the night it would be his turn and so he wrapped his arms around his knees, set his chin on to his knees and let his eyes close.

  What he hadn’t said was that this shard, or sliver, or whatever it was, seemed to have acted as if it had never met anyone before. As if it had always been alone, or imprisoned, or lost, or whatever. Innocent of everything. Naïve. An ignorant god. Laughable idea, wasn’t it? But there it was.

  So, question was – what was he to do about it? Teach the thing the ways of the world? Him? A failed cadre mage and thief? No. Not for him. Way too much responsibility, that. Not in the job description. Still … there were others around this region who’d jump at the chance, weren’t there, Murk me boy? Would you want these Thaumaturgs teaching it what to believe? Or this Ardata and her menagerie? Who else was there? Maybe this Yusen fellow? Gods – did he want to be the one to offer someone such a dangerous choice? To be responsible for – well, for the disaster that could follow? Dare he do that to the man? Or anyone, for that matter?

  A stick poked him and Murk cracked open one eye. Sweetly stood peering down at him; the scout looked to have been dragged through a mud pit. ‘Way?’ the man asked, hardly moving his lips, his hair plastered down by the rain.

  Murk blinked up at him. ‘Way? You mean … which way? To go?’ The scout just stared, his jaws bunching as he chewed on something. ‘You mean tomorrow? Which way to go tomorrow?’ More silent chewing, the eyes flat and devoid of any emotion. Murk held up his open hands. ‘Look, Sweetly … this mysterious man of few words act is really getting up my nose. I’ve seen the act a thousand times and frankly, I’m tired of it. Okay? So … what do you say to that, hey?’

  The eyes slid aside to squint into the dark for a time then returned to him. The scout chewed, thoughtful, then he ventured, ‘South?’

  Murk let his head fall until his forehead pressed against his knees. ‘Yes. South. For now – south.’ He heard nothing but knew the man was gone. May the gods learn wisdom! What choice did he have? It would have to be him.

  No one else around here seemed sane enough.

  * * *

  It was perhaps the constant unchanging drone of the insects that did it. That insistent buzzing that grated on one’s consciousness, sleeping and waking. The only defence was to block it out. To raise walls. If only to protect one’s mind. So would Shimmer sometimes come to herself, blinking and twitching, like a sleeper breaching the surface of a deep slumber. During these moments she often found she was standing at the rail staring at the murky river’s surface where branches and other wrack drifted past – even the occasional fat and gorgeously bright flower blossom. Sometimes it would be day, the sun blurred as if seen through air like a thick sticky soup; other times it would be night, the Scimitar glowing deep jade behind the cloud cover of the seasonal rains. It did not seem to matter. In any case, the scenery never changed: thick impenetrable jungle choked the shores. Occasionally she glimpsed what might have been the decaying remains of a dugout canoe lying on the muddy shore, or an overgrown clearing of cultivated land, or the rotted woven walls of what might have once been a collection of huts.

  But all this was merely the mundane scenery. Bizarre visions also assaulted her. Storms of gaudy multicoloured birds would gyre past the vessel. Immense creatures resembling giant bats – wyverns? – glided through the night. Sometimes it seemed that faces appeared beneath the river, met her gaze, then drifted away. And she would catch glimpses of the oddest silhouettes of creatures she had no name for stalking the shores to either side: creatures half human and half beast. D’ivers? Soletaken? Or something completely unknown to her?

  All the while some nagging irksome worry plucked and tugged at her. Something was wrong. Something … Blinking, she glanced about to see her fellow Avowed standing silent and immobile, as if dead, or enchanted. Broken branches cluttered the deck along with leaves and fallen equipment; the masts and yardarms hung draped in shreds of rotten sailcloth; vines the ship had scraped from trees dragged in the weak wash behind the vessel.

  Shimmer blinked again then jerked, wrenching her hands from the rail. No! K’azz! Where was he? Must find him. In an immense lurch of mental effort she forced herself to turn to her nearest companion: Cole. She prodded the man, but he failed to respond. Drawing back her hand she slapped him across the face.

  He rocked, his sandy hair flying. Then he touched at his jaw and frowned. ‘Shimmer?’

  ‘Where’s K’azz? Find him.’

  ‘Yes … right.’

  Shimmer moved off, stepping carefully over the litter choking the deck. She found him near the bow, leaning on the railing. Rutana stood with him; she seemed to be studying him. ‘K’azz!’ He did not respond. She leaned close, trying to catch his gaze. ‘K’azz!’

  His attention slowly rose to her. His pale hazel eyes focused. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We haven’t eaten in days. We need to put in. We’re all weakening.’

  He cocked his head as if trying to recall something, then nodded thoughtfully. ‘Ah, yes.’ He turned to Rutana. ‘We must put in.’

  Leaning on the railing, hands clenching her upper arms, the woman crooked her maddening half-smile. ‘You can try …’

  ‘I demand it,’ said K’azz and he moved to the unmanned tiller.

  Shimmer glanced ahead and pointed. ‘There! A clearing.’

  K’azz slewed the tiller arm over. At first nothing happened. Perhaps it was K’azz’s will, or a grudging acquiescence on the part of
whatever drove the vessel, but gradually the bowsprit, draped in its hanging creepers and branches, edged over towards the shore.

  The servant of Ardata pursed her wrinkled lips, as if determined to appear indifferent.

  ‘Wake everyone,’ K’azz told Shimmer. She went to obey.

  When the vessel neared the shore Cole and Amatt dived in, swam to the root-choked slope and dragged themselves up. The best ropes that could be found were tossed, and they tied them off where they could. A tiny dory was lowered. All this, Rutana and her compatriot Nagal watched from the rail, arms crossed, their expressions set in mild disapproval.

  Turgal, Amatt and Cole set off into the dense woods as a hunting party. Shimmer and the two mages walked about the shore, relieved to be free of the river for a time. Like everyone, Shimmer had long since abandoned her metal armour and now wore only her long padded gambeson, metal-studded, and hung with straps and buckles. She carried her long whipsword on her back, a knife belted at her side. Her hair hung loose, sticking to the back of her neck. She knew it stank of old sweat.

  Here, between deluges of the rainy season, the ground was dry, the undergrowth long dead. Perhaps new shoots were soon to arise. The humidity in the close confines of the jungle, the rankness of rotting vegetation, all oppressed her. Exploring, she found the remains of an old village, perhaps even the layered remains of many such. Decaying bamboo poles stood from the ground. Stones lay half buried: for grinding? For building? She picked up one worked into a haft or long handle. A pestle? What could they have been grinding here? She’d seen only small gardens.

  The snap of branches brought her attention round; her absent-minded wandering had brought her far from the others, and much farther from the riverside than she’d intended. Shapes moved through the woods around her. Hunched forward they were, gangly, with long arms and long heads. They closed now from all sides. Shimmer turned in place, reaching back to draw her whipsword.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  One of the creatures stilled, rising back on its rear legs. ‘Impertinence!’ it coughed, as if barking. ‘That you should demand such of us!’

  ‘We who live here,’ said another, from close behind, making Shimmer spin about.

  Closer now, they resembled Soletaken, yet not. A great deal of the man-jackal Ryllandaras looked to be in them as they resembled half men, half dogs, with long dark muzzles, and coats of hair striped tawny and black across their backs. She even glimpsed multiple teats on one – females, too?

  ‘What do you want?’ she demanded, striking a ready stance. It surprised her that though it was distorted and slurred by their canine mouths, they were speaking an accented Talian.

  ‘You should ask that of us!’ the first growled again. ‘You who invade our lands!’

  ‘Your lands?’

  The creature threw its taloned hands wide as if enraged. Grey hair lined its stomach. ‘Who else? Stupid trespasser.’

  ‘You speak Talian …’

  ‘We speak your Isturé tongue, yes. You brothers and sisters of betrayers and turncoats.’

  ‘You mean Skinner …’

  Many about her hunched, hissing and growling at the name. ‘Yes. Now, get back in your thing that floats and go away. We do not want you here. You are not welcome. Go away.’

  ‘Ardata invited us.’

  The creatures snarled anew, hands spasming as if eager to tear at her. Long carmine tongues lolled as they panted. ‘Speak not her name! You are unworthy. You are betrayers and untrue.’

  ‘Betrayers? So Skinner—’

  Enraged, they closed all at once. Shimmer spun, the keen blade of her whipsword flashing in the light. The nearest lurched away clutching at slashed forearms, muzzles, throats. In the pause of surprise that followed, she warned, ‘I mean you no harm!’

  Something struck her from behind and she fell, twisting, to look up at another. ‘Eat the bitch!’ this one howled and threw its maw wide, teeth reaching for her.

  Flames lanced over Shimmer, roaring like an opened furnace. The creatures yowled their agony. She clenched her eyes, holding her breath, and turned her face into the hot dry earth. A great rushing wind pulled at her and the heat dissipated. She lifted her face to dare a glance. The dry brush was aflame all about her. Smoking blackened carcasses lay amid the ash, seeping boiling juices. She straightened, gingerly, whipsword ready.

  To one side stood a figure as familiar as it was impossible that he should be here: her dead fellow Avowed, Smoky. He appeared just as stunned as she. He studied his hands, obviously quite bewildered.

  ‘How …’ she began, amazed.

  ‘Got no damned idea,’ he said before he dissipated into blown dust that drifted away on the anaemic wind.

  Someone approached, steps crackling in the burnt grass. Shimmer turned to see the Jacuruku witch Rutana. She was kneading the many leather straps that encircled her arms as she studied the seared earth. She lifted her chin. ‘I told you not to leave the ship.’

  ‘Foreigner …’ a voice grated, weak and wet.

  Shimmer glanced about searching for the source of the faint call. She found that one of the blackened shapes still breathed. ‘Yes?’

  The dog-creature licked its lips. It breathed in quick short pants. ‘Leave,’ it grated. ‘You do not deserve her. You will never – you will never … love her …’

  ‘Love her?’

  The creature’s short breaths slowed. The light in its brown eyes dimmed and they took on a fixed stare. Shimmer turned her puzzled gaze to Rutana. ‘Love her? Ardata?’

  The witch watched her silently for a time while reaching some sort of decision, then scorn twisted her slash of a lipless mouth. ‘We do not want you here. Nor do we need you.’

  Shimmer brushed past the woman. ‘Funny – that’s exactly how I feel.’

  On her way back to the vessel, Shimmer shouted a recall. She found Lor and ordered her to spread the word. K’azz she found exactly where he’d been earlier. Something in her anger must have communicated itself through the stamp of her booted feet because he turned at her approach, one brow raised.

  ‘Yes, Shimmer?’

  ‘Why in the Abyss are we here?’ she demanded.

  He crossed his arms, sighing, and seeing these old familiar mannerisms worn by this old man made Shimmer wince yet again. What has happened to him? Is the power of the Vow doing this to him? Eating him alive? Should I feel pity? All I feel is revulsion.

  ‘We are here to deal with Skinner.’

  ‘You have already disavowed him.’

  ‘It seems that is not enough.’

  ‘You mean he is still bound?’

  He gave a slow reluctant nod. ‘Yes. It appears so.’

  ‘Then we will never be rid of him!’

  A sad smile crossed his aged face. ‘Like family, Shimmer.’

  She slumped against the rail. ‘Damn it to Hood!’

  Gwynn and Lor joined them. ‘What has happened?’ Gwynn asked. ‘There’s a familiar smell in the air …’

  Shimmer nodded. ‘I was attacked. The locals don’t want us here.’

  ‘I could have told you that,’ Lor murmured, peering down to where Cole, Turgal and Amatt struggled in the mud to push the vessel from the shore.

  ‘I was rescued by an Avowed – but a dead one. Smoky.’ She tried to catch K’azz’s gaze. ‘How could that be?’

  The man would not meet her eye. Head lowered, he began, ‘The locals call this region Himatan. They claim it is half of the real world and half of the spirit realm. Perhaps the Brethren are closer to us here …’

  Ahh, K’azz! So smooth a liar to others. Yet so poor a liar to us! What are you hiding? She turned her attention to the mages and found them just as uneasy as she. ‘Perhaps,’ she allowed. Her gaze promised the two words later. ‘Yet for now we—’

  The vessel’s lurching interrupted her. Everyone righted themselves as the ship ground free of the shore. Shimmer glanced down to see the three Avowed all standing in the waist-high waters
and staring their bemusement at a grinning Nagal as the big man brushed his hands together, appearing quite self-satisfied.

  Shimmer frowned, thinking, Did that fellow alone just …?

  She broke off as K’azz walked away. ‘What about Smoky?’ she called after him.

  ‘In time, Shimmer,’ he answered without turning. ‘We’ll see – in time.’

  * * *

  Saeng had never before dared enter the Gangrek Mounts that marked the formal border between Thaumaturg holdings and Ardata’s lands. Some named them the Fangs, or the Dragon’s Fangs, for their similarity to jutting teeth as they shot so suddenly from the flat jungle to rise sheer for hundreds of feet. They seemed to have grown so swiftly they brought the jungle with them; it hung down their black rock faces in vines, creepers and roots. Verdant greenery topped them like mussed shaggy pelts.

  Hanu led, hacking his way through the denser brush and carrying her over the deeper sinks and the mires of choked pools. A troop of monkeys shadowed them, hooting and shaking the leaves amid the high canopy. Brightly coloured birds shot from branches in explosions of flame crimson and sapphire blue. They shrieked and chattered their irritation. Some flew on to roost high in the vegetation hanging from the rearing mountains. Closer now, she knew that mountains was something of a misnomer. Mountains, she understood, could be as big as countries. They took days, sometimes weeks, to climb or cross. These features were in no way as gigantic.

  What these mounts did possess that made them potentially just as dangerous, however, were sudden sheer drops into seemingly bottomless sinkholes. Some of these were immense, containing entire lakes that she and Hanu were forced to detour around. The pits and openings dotted the ground, making it impossible to move after dark. And so come the evening, as the clouds thickened for the nightly rain, they would seek shelter amid these caves and sit out the rains, awaiting the dawn.

  And it was into one of these pits one dark twilight that Hanu disappeared.

  He was there one moment, cutting the brush from their path, and then he was gone. So sudden and silent was his disappearance it was as if the jungle had snatched him away. Saeng froze. ‘Hanu?’ she called, still not believing he was gone. ‘Hanu?’