The Third God sdotc-3

by Ricardo Pinto

  Fern walked to the edge and gazed down. The din from the Plainsman panic was ringing out into the night. ‘Perhaps he’s waiting for the dawn. You said yourself he wants the Master alive. He’d not risk a night attack.’

  Carnelian became lost in pondering what they should do. It would be foolish to assume Aurum had learned nothing from his previous attempt at encirclement. The handover was now being forced on them. Were they far enough north to be certain Aurum would choose to immediately quit the Earthsky with his prize? What about the Plainsmen? Would Aurum let them go?

  ‘Why did you want me up here? I’d be more use down there.’

  Carnelian had a notion. Perhaps he could negotiate with Aurum. If he went in person the auxiliaries would have no choice but to take him to their master. He suppressed sympathy for those men who, for setting eyes on him, would suffer death. Perhaps he might be able to convince Aurum that he had come to betray Osidian. Betrayal was something Aurum might believe. Besides, it was not so far from the truth. Could Carnelian persuade Aurum to let the Plainsmen go by saying it was more likely he would get Osidian alive? It was a narrow hope. Then there was the problem of the Marula. The warriors might let Osidian go; Morunasa would not.

  ‘I’ll go down then,’ Fern said, his voice tinged with anger.

  Carnelian rose, apologizing. It was instinct that had made him bring Fern. He now knew why. ‘Fern, the only hope we have to save the Plainsmen is through you.’

  Fern gave a snort. ‘How?’

  Carnelian explained his plan. ‘They’ll follow you out of the trap. I don’t know if Hookfork will let them go, but you’ll have a chance to break out. I might even be able to send you a signal.’

  Fern’s head dropped. Carnelian waited, knowing he was talking about them separating for ever. Fern looked up again. ‘And Poppy?’

  ‘Take her with you. I’ll slip away… not say goodbye… She wouldn’t go with you if I said goodbye.’ Carnelian was surprised he was feeling nothing.

  ‘And the Marula?’

  ‘Leave them to me.’

  At that moment they heard a scrabbling from the steps and a figure appeared. It was Morunasa. Carnelian’s first feeling was outrage that the man had chosen to defy the ban set on him and his people from entering the grove. His next feeling was anxiety: how much had Morunasa heard? With relief, he realized that he and Fern had been talking in Ochre. Fern was regarding Morunasa with anger, but, since he chose to say nothing, Carnelian decided that, in the circumstances, it was best to let Morunasa’s defiance pass.

  Morunasa was surveying the night. ‘Are we surrounded?’

  ‘I imagine we are,’ Carnelian said. He gazed eastwards. ‘Dawn’s not near yet. We’ve time to prepare a breakout. Go ready your men.’

  ‘And you?’ Fern asked.

  ‘I’ll remain here a while alone.’

  Carnelian watched them leave before returning to sit upon the rock, where he fell prey to his doubts, his failures and the contemplation of unavoidable loss.

  On the summit of the crag, sitting among funerary trestles, Carnelian saw the brightening east. He rose but, however much he strained his tired eyes, he could see nothing of his enemy.

  As he waited for dawn others came up, Fern and Morunasa among them. They joined him anxiously watching the creep of light across the land.

  ‘There,’ cried one.

  All eyes followed his finger south to an encampment of men and aquar. Carnelian scanned the land in an arc. The other encampment was there to the north; but of Aurum and his dragons nothing.

  As the Plainsmen began arguing among themselves Carnelian turned desperately to Fern. ‘Can you see them?’

  Fern shook his head. He raised his eyebrows in a silent question, but Carnelian had no answer for him. He had no idea whatever where Aurum might be. He regarded the two encampments, noting they were equidistant from the koppie. Such a precise deployment had the flavour of a trap. He searched again for the dragons, this time more carefully, seeking out rocks or any fold in the ground where Aurum might be concealed. He gave up, exasperated. A dragon would be hard to hide anywhere, never mind a legion of them and on this plain. He considered that Aurum might have sent his auxiliaries forward to hold them until he arrived. But then what was it that had passed them in the night if not dragons? A saurian herd?

  Carnelian gazed north then south. Estimating how far the auxiliaries were from the koppie brought understanding. Their deployment was actually an encirclement. There was no direction in which he and the Plainsmen and Marula could ride out that could avoid them being caught between the two forces of auxiliaries.

  One of the Plainsmen confronted him. ‘We leave now.’

  His fellows echoed him with much nodding. ‘Nothing you can say, Master, will change our minds. We’re going home.’

  When Carnelian turned away, Fern stepped in to argue with them. Carnelian lost awareness of them as he pondered the position of the auxiliaries and the ground that lay between them. East, a lagoon was beginning to burn in the dawn. A breeze seemed to flow from it that was caressing his face with the earth’s musk. As he breathed it, an idea began growing in his mind. He let it blossom. He controlled his excitement as he checked it through. Only then did he turn back to the Plainsmen. The look on his face made them fall silent. ‘If you go south you’ll be caught between them like this.’ Clapping his hands made them blink. He silenced their protests with a gesture. ‘If you ride east there may be a way to confound them.’

  If there was doubt in their faces, there was also a wary hope. As Carnelian explained how they could use the Earthsky against the invaders, the Plainsmen began frowning. They looked at each other for support, but none voiced opposition. Fern was looking at him, then he glanced at Morunasa. Carnelian had not forgotten the problem of the Marula. However much Plainsman blood was on their hands, the fate he had in mind for them saddened him. Morunasa had good reason to look uneasy but, for now, he would have no choice other than to go along with the Plainsmen.

  As they slaughtered enough aquar Carnelian took Poppy aside to say goodbye to her. He expected tears when he told her that the time for their parting had come, but she gazed at him steadily, saying nothing. So much loss and horror had perhaps made her woman enough to accept the inevitable. When he told her she would be returning south with Fern she gave a slight nod. He felt too numb to kiss her. He was thankful that neither of them cried. Tears might thaw their hearts to grief.

  Together they returned to watch the Plainsmen tearing strips from their robes then steeping these in aquar blood. What the Plainsmen did not catch pumping from the creatures’ severed throats soaked dark into the earth.

  Osidian’s back arched as he convulsed, eyes rolling back into his head. Fern gave Carnelian a look he understood. There was something in Osidian’s condition that recalled the time they had carried him across the swamp. Carnelian sensed that Fern was seeing an omen in this. He dismissed doubt and crouched to slip his arms under Osidian’s back. As Fern took his feet Morunasa appeared. He looked down at Osidian.

  ‘They are eating their way out of him,’ he said, pointing.

  Carnelian saw with disgust a shape like a finger moving under the skin of Osidian’s neck.

  ‘It is always the moment of greatest pain… and of the deepest communion with our Lord.’

  Carnelian made no attempt to keep from his face his contempt for Morunasa’s god. He gave Fern a nod and together they lifted Osidian and carried him to the waiting saddle-chair. When they had settled him in they stepped back and looked at each other. Carnelian searched Fern’s face for feeling and saw only confusion. In a short time they would part for ever, but they had lost the ability to talk, never mind touch. He turned away. Besides, neither wished to make a display of their emotions before Morunasa.

  The Plainsmen swarmed across the whole arc of the outer ditch from north to south. Hoping to conceal his intentions from the auxiliaries Carnelian had first marshalled them in the inner ferngardens. Once everyone was
mounted they had begun to leap the second ditch and fan out over the outer gardens towards the final ditch.

  Carnelian glanced over at Osidian convulsing in his saddle-chair. He had made sure to put himself between Osidian and Morunasa. Around them were ranged the Oracles. Marula formed a wall of beaded, gleaming flesh on either side.

  As he saw the last Plainsmen scramble up out of the ditch, Carnelian urged his aquar forward and the Marula lurched into movement. The feet of their aquar drummed a rumble into the earth. He held onto his chair as his aquar stumbled down into the ditch. As she scrambled up the other side, he kept an anxious eye on Osidian being shaken around as if he were a full waterskin. Then they were striding over the plain. Turning, he saw the Marula emerging up between the magnolias. He rocked his feet on his aquar’s back and she picked up speed. He was relieved to see Osidian’s beast keeping pace with his. Ahead, black against the incandescent blade of the lagoon, the Plainsman line was thinning as it widened to shield the body of Marula in its crescent. Fern was there at its centre with Poppy and Krow. Carnelian glanced to his right. Morunasa showed no sign he suspected anything. His yellow eyes trained north then south to where the auxiliaries were moving towards them. Judging their speed, Carnelian gave a grunt of satisfaction. The auxiliaries were not racing to intercept them, but seemed content merely to match their pace. So far so good.

  As shadows shortened, Carnelian had watched the two lines of pursuing auxiliaries join. North and south their new line now stretched to match that of the Plainsmen, whose wavefront was separating and reforming around what appeared to be rocks but Carnelian knew to be raveners lazing in the heat. Soon he and the Marula were moving through this region. He too eyed the striped dark mounds nervously. Fear rippled through their ranks whenever one of the monsters stirred. Carnelian breathed more freely when he and the Marula reached the relative safety of the clear ground between the raveners and the earther herds. He watched the wall of Plainsmen encouraging the earthers to lumber off towards the lagoon. It was their experience with herding the creatures that he had used to justify to Morunasa why the Marula must ride behind the Plainsmen. An earther stampede now could wreck his dispositions.

  Satisfied that events were proceeding as he had hoped, Carnelian led Morunasa, his Oracles and Osidian back through the ranks of the Marula warriors until there was nothing but open fernland between him and the auxiliaries. He watched their line being disrupted by aquar shying away from raveners. He chewed his lip. He needed the auxiliaries safely on this side of the raveners. Glancing round, he saw Fern had brought the Plainsmen to a halt. Their line now stretched so far that, at either end, the heat made its thread waver away to nothing.

  Carnelian resumed watching the auxiliaries approach. Their commanders probably believed they had their quarry trapped against the lagoon. His heart became a war drum as he watched their line smooth. The raveners were now behind them. He made sure everyone was in place. Death was in his hands as he raised them to comb the breeze flowing over him towards the auxiliaries. Behind him there was a flutter like flamingos taking to flight. Glancing round, he saw the Plainsmen holding aloft red pennants, scarlet and russet banners, all tainting the wind with the iron smell of blood.

  The auxiliaries were now close enough for their brass collars to stitch a glint along their line. As time stretched, Carnelian began to fear his plan was failing. Suddenly a section of their line buckled as something forced some riders forwards. Then another eruption at a different part of the line. Two more. Squinting, he saw the dark shapes looming up behind each focus of disturbance. Thinned by the distance, he could hear the screaming of men and aquar. Military order dissolved as more and more raveners, woken by the odour of blood in the air, came in to feed. Raggedly, the auxiliary line fled towards him. He looked round the back of his saddle-chair. The Plainsmen seemed ready to leave. He tried to pierce their ranks to see Fern and Poppy one last time. Of course it was hopeless. The Marula were gaping at the oncoming auxiliaries. Carnelian was getting ready to charge when he noticed Osidian’s eyes were open, staring. He hardly had time to register this before Osidian’s aquar lunged forward. Cries erupted around him. He glimpsed Morunasa’s face, frozen in a silent scream as the whole mass of the Marula began sliding forward. Carnelian sent his aquar after Osidian, riding the thunder of the Marula charge.

  Osidian struck the auxiliaries like a thunderbolt. Two aquar were flung on their backs. One staggered to her feet with a shattered mess of flesh and wood on her back. Carnelian noticed too late he had not unsheathed his spear. An auxiliary was bearing down on him, bulging eyes in a face marbled with dirt, teeth bared. Carnelian reached to deflect the bronze spearhead slicing towards him. Felt the burn of the shaft rasp his wrist. Then it jammed into the wicker back of his chair. His aquar, turning, snapped the spear, flaring splinters in Carnelian’s face. He caught the broken haft and yanked. The auxiliary snarled as his arms pulled taut, trying to keep hold. Carnelian forced the spear butt back into the man’s belly, grinding it in until the blood came.

  Nearby, Osidian’s white Master’s face was instilling terror in the auxiliaries as he slid through them gouging, impaling, disembowelling. Carnelian tore his uba from his face. It seemed unfair to unleash such a weapon, but it was necessary he be taken alive. Auxiliaries cringed away from him, shielding their eyes as if blinded by his skin. He pushed his aquar through a space roofed with splintering spears. Snarling, the Marula were breaking them with their hands or lunging at the auxiliaries with their blades. Carnelian watched flesh slice open. Blood drizzled warm onto his forearms, then his face. He reached Osidian easily. The terror of their faces made them invulnerable.

  Battlecries, then a shuddering crash as a front of riders struck. Grimly, he turned. Now, enveloped by the auxiliary wings, the Marula would be slain. He sensed the auxiliaries faltering, then gaped in disbelief. It was Plainsmen who had charged into the fight. This was not supposed to happen. Scanning their fury, his eyes snagged on Fern’s face. He looked deranged, shouting something, pointing. Carnelian searched in that direction. It was Poppy in the midst of the auxiliaries. He dug his toes so hard into his aquar’s back it bucked, but then leapt forward. Unhitching a mattock he swung it, bludgeoning a bloody path, his gaze fixed on Poppy in the very throat of carnage. She saw him coming and cried out. He veered his aquar as he closed on her so that their saddle-chairs slid side by side. He reached over and pulled her onto his lap. As he did so, something stung his arm. He cleared a space around them with his Master’s face.

  ‘Krow,’ she cried and Carnelian saw the youth had been there protecting her.

  ‘Take her to safety,’ cried Krow.

  Carnelian longed to help the Plainsmen, but he could feel Poppy warm against his chest. He gave Krow a nod. Behind him the Plainsmen were pressing forward four ranks deep. He groaned, knowing there was only one way out, and urged his aquar into the auxiliaries.

  Using their terror of his face to open a path, Carnelian rode with Poppy through the auxiliaries, as untouched as if they had been lepers, but, as they came through into open ground, the aquar suddenly reared up, blinding them with her eye-plumes. He leaned forward and saw a ravener not far away with an aquar in the talons of one foot at which it was tearing. Poppy slipped her feet to the aquar’s back, stroked her, soothed her and coaxed her past the monster. More raveners were being drawn by the odour of blood that even Carnelian could now smell wafting on the wind. As he watched the monsters lope towards the heaving wall of the battle, he was desperate to return, to share Fern’s fate, Krow’s and that of the other Plainsmen. First he had to carry Poppy to safety. That meant taking her back to the koppie.

  Soon they were coursing through the ferns having left the raveners behind. As they rode Carnelian grew calm enough to be able to talk. ‘Why did Fern lead them in?’

  Her head gave a tiny shake against his chest. There was something in the smallness of that movement that made him probe further. He felt her hand upon his arm. Looking up at him she focuse
d on first one of his eyes then the other.

  ‘It might have been my fault, Carnie.’

  He must have looked confused for she added: ‘When I saw you riding away, I decided that, after all, I would prefer to go with you to the Mountain.’

  Some figures were waiting for them on the half-collapsed earthbridge that led into the koppie. Carnelian was surprised to see they were sartlar. As he swept up they fell prostrate on the earth. He made his aquar kneel. Poppy climbed out, then he followed her. As he stood over the sartlar one glanced up. He knew the face. ‘Kor?’

  The sartlar abased herself. He wondered at her being there, but was relieved. ‘Get up.’

  The hag rose painfully to stand, head bowed.

  ‘I’m going to leave this girl in your care.’

  The sartlar looked up at him. ‘Yes, Master.’

  The skin of her branded forehead almost made her eyes disappear as she frowned. She was looking at his wrist. He raised it and saw the wound there. It was just a graze. Quick as a snake she reached out and touched him. The graze stung. He raised his hand to strike her, but she cowered back to her knees. Her fear of him made him ashamed of his anger. She raised her face through her lank hair. She had her finger in her mouth. She withdrew it. She indicated his graze. ‘Blood.’

  Her face had resumed its passive mask. What was she after? The scar around his neck itched. He recalled another sartlar woman, on the road when he had been a slave. He ran his fingers over his scar and remembered the soothing salve she had put on it. Kor was wiping her finger on her rags. Carnelian was anxious to get back to the battle, but he became worried, imagining what might happen to Poppy if they should be defeated. He dismissed this fear. There was nothing else he could do.

  Poppy tugged his hand. He could see in her face that she knew where he was going. He bent to kiss her.

  ‘Come back,’ she said.

  He nodded, told Kor that she and the sartlar must protect Poppy with their lives then, mounting, rode back towards the battle.