Hesprec thought of the obsessive spider imagery on all sides, seeing it for what it was. The Pale Shadow People were diminishing, and they laid the blame on the emptiness within. They were trying to entice some non-existent Spider to bless them with its patronage. She tried to decide if that was better or worse.
‘So what are the Plague People then?’ she asked. ‘Will they not just die as well?’
‘Do you believe that?’ Now Galethea’s smile was sharp. ‘Will you wait for them to shrivel like slugs? I do not think they will. They have brought their own dream with them, Serpent. It is a dream where nobody changes skins. Animals are animals to them, and people are people, and the two are nothing alike. They bring this dream to your land and they do not even know they are dreaming it.’
In Hesprec’s mind was the panicked jabbering of the Crow, Feeds on Dreams, speaking of a terrible Fear, of his friend who had been a girl of the Coyote, but now knew nothing of human speech or a human shape. She shivered, and Galethea marked it.
‘But enlighten me,’ she said. ‘Surely this is what you want, this dream of theirs. You will not need souls in a land that does not dream of them.’
‘There are some families who have said just that,’ the Pale Shadow woman confirmed, ‘but the rest of us have seen your dream now. If our kin the Plague People win, then perhaps we will not die, but we will never live either. And perhaps they will kill us anyway. When we came here, we were fleeing our kin. We are not them any more, but we are not you either. We are . . .’ Her hands made a tearing motion, and abruptly her weaving was nothing but loose threads, blowing away across the garden. ‘Speak to your gods. Beg them to open the way so that we may have souls, and be true people in your dream. You may live with us in your kingdom if you will. The greatest of us will share their thrones with you, if only you will transform us.’
‘And the Plague People?’ Hesprec asked.
‘We will help you,’ Galethea insisted.
‘How will you? You fear them almost as much as we do.’
‘I will go with you to face them, as my queen’s emissary.’
‘How will that help against their dream?’ Even speaking of it, Hesprec felt sure things had gone terribly wrong in her absence. Abruptly she was desperate to be rid of this place. What good were these decaying creatures?
‘I can stand before them, and their dream will not destroy me,’ Galethea said fiercely. ‘The very thing that is our curse can be our strength! And I can speak with them. It is hard to learn your language, but that other language comes easily to us, the speech of our past, of the old lands we left. It creeps into us by dreams. We speak it back to our mothers almost before they speak to us.’
That feeling of being at the edge of revelation was abruptly tight about Hesprec’s chest again. The world dream, she thought. The Pale Shadow are of that other land’s dream still. Can we bargain with the Plague People? Can we give them gifts to go away? Can we blunt their hunger somehow, if they can hear our words?
She let out a long breath. I am too small for this whole world to balance on me. But there was nobody else. ‘Help us turn away the Plague People and I will speak to the Serpent on your behalf. I do not know if what you want can ever be made real, but we will grant you such wisdom as the Serpent has, to help you.’
There was a terrible hope in Galethea’s eyes. I am making deals with an old, old enemy, Hesprec knew, but she felt the world burning around her. She must hope that these creatures, these bywords for treachery in all the old stories, had somehow grown honest in the years that had passed since.
‘What about your friend, the other Serpent?’ the Pale Shadow woman asked at last.
‘I do not know what she will do,’ Hesprec admitted. Save be very angry that I’ve done this and not just done her bidding. I don’t think letters in the dust will suffice for our next conversation.
* * *
The town of Umethret sat on the north bank of the Tsotec, three-quarters of the way between Atahlan and the fortress of Tsokawan. It had been just another little village once, but three generations ago the Plains raiders had grown bold, and troops from the fortress could not march out swiftly enough for punitive retaliation. The Kasra had ordered Umethret fortified and garrisoned, and since then it had become the muster-point for troops levied along that stretch of the river. Asman had sent messengers ahead, and by the time his barge arrived at the town the first troops were already trickling in. Some were regular soldiers, well trained and equipped and come from their posts along the river. Most were levy, farmers’ sons and daughters with spears or slings and a little practice under their belt. Asman chose to believe that all were proud to answer the Kasra’s call.
They would keep coming over the next days, and he met with the clan head who governed Umethret and told her to keep bringing the recruits in, and to send men to all the villages to ensure nobody was having difficulty in finding their duty. Asman and his scouts were going to look at the enemy and make cautious contact with the Plainsfolk.
They took their leave soon after, travelling as swiftly as they could after so long on the cramped barge. At night, when the dry heat of day fled the world and left an icy chill in its wake, they made camp on a tall rock, setting a watch of crocodiles whose eyes were better than a human’s after dark had fallen. Asman huddled close with Venat, grateful that the old pirate had stuck with him. Oh, he’d been rewarded for his service to the Sun River Nation – treasure had been sent to his tribe, the Black Teeth, and the fires his people had set along the river had been forgiven, his victims compensated by the Kasra. Still, profit had never been Venat’s motive and Asman had half expected him to either slope off to the Dragon Islands or else start a new wave of raiding and piracy along the Tsotec. Instead, the man was still at his side, and could he hope that so meek a thing as companionship might motivate so brutal a man?
That night they spoke of many things, yet not the most important things. They talked about the first time they fought, when Asman and his father had tracked Venat’s drunken band of pirates down to apprehend them. They spoke about the cold north, though never how Venat had been a slave then. Venat chewed over stories of his people, which were all the same and began, continued and ended in blood. Asman remembered Maniye Many Tracks and the Wolf hunter Broken Axe, whom he had admired, and who had died.
He did not speak of Tecumet the Kasra, his mate, nor did he speak of hopes for the future, and where his divided heart might find its rest. Venat knew that heart, after all, in all its sharp-edged pieces. His followers were optimistic about the war with the Plague People, but a darkness was heavy on Asman. He was no priest, to read omens and foretell dooms, but still he could look to the east and see a change to the quality of the sky. It was as though the stars, which he knew were the gods and heroes of the stories, were changing. And true, they were different gods and heroes to different tribes, but now it seemed they were just pale and distant lamps that meant nothing at all.
The next day they met the first refugees heading for the river. Not so many, but then the Plains people had learned not to associate the banks of the Tsotec with a friendly reception. The first group was perhaps a score of the Boar, none fit to fight. They were of the Tooth Marker tribe, they said, when the soldiers had risen up before them and brought their journey to a halt. Their village had been taken by the Plague People. Even with Riverland spears and stone-toothed maccan swords pointing at them, they were still more frightened of what they had left behind.
Asman found an old woman who was the closest thing they had to a leader, a solidly built grandmother who looked as though she could grind corn in her clenched fists. He sat with her and talked, while his followers grudgingly donated some of their rations. In other circumstances, Asman guessed, the old woman would have been no friend to the River, but right now she was willing to share the burden of what she had seen, for all her words could barely stretch to describe it. Hollow men had come, yes. They had dropped from a clear sky, and the very sight of them had bre
d a terrible Fear. They had imprisoned the souls of those closest to them, and anyone else who had not run fast enough. Asman questioned her choice of words and she looked him fiercely in the eye.
‘The Fear attacked their souls,’ she said harshly. ‘These hollow men, just the being of them is more than a soul can stand. And when we are men and women, our souls are here, in our mouths, so we can talk.’ She stared at him as though he should know this, and he had no idea if it was her personal creed or some secret of the Boar. ‘But they would suck the soul from our lips, if it stayed there, or burn it out with the fire of their being. Those who were caught by them, the souls fled deeper – they Stepped, and that was the end of them. Mute brothers and sisters, all who could not escape. No more going on two feet for them. No more singing or painting or telling the old stories.’ She spat the words at him as though it was his fault. Only then did he realize she was fighting the tears back, for close kin lost when the Plague People came.
He gave her the name of the governor of Umethret, and words that would show the woman that the Boar came with his blessing. At that point he had no idea how many more fugitives he would meet.
But they kept coming: men, women and children of a half-dozen tribes, and all with similar stories. The luckiest had fled just on hearing the news from others, the worst-off were those who claimed they were all that survived of a whole people. But they told the tale of warriors gathering with the Black Eye tribe, who were to bring the fight back to the Plague People. Some were hopeful, speaking of a quick tomorrow when they could return to their homes. Those who had laid eyes on the Plague People did not waste time on optimism.
And then the refugees were behind Asman, and he was left with the knowledge that the trail of them fleeing south must be only a fraction of those who had fled west, to the Black Eye lands or beyond. Still, there was a muster of warriors, and he picked up the pace, driving his soldiers in the hope that they might play some part in the fight that was coming.
He expected Venat to be twice as keen to get his teeth bloody, but the old pirate was unusually subdued. His lantern-jawed face was closed and brooding. Asman asked him what ate at him, and he shook his head irritably.
‘Even the Dragon tell the oldest stories, you know that?’ Venat scowled. ‘Just about the only stories where it’s not us against the world, because it’s the whole world against the Eaters – what we call ’em, in our tales. Eaters of Everything.’
‘That’s not just you,’ Asman told him. ‘I’ve heard that, in some versions.’
‘Well we only have the one way we tell it,’ Venat snapped. ‘But if you know it, you ever thought about that? I never did, but I’m thinking now. Eaters of Everything.’
‘They took all the food and lived on all the land and—’ Asman began to recite, but Venat broke in.
‘That’s not “everything”. That’s just what we do, only bigger. You heard that old woman. You saw what they ate, of her people. And the Crow was saying similar, wasn’t he? They’re not come to eat our food and houses and things. They’re come to eat us, what we are.’ The thought obviously unsettled the old pirate more than Asman would have believed possible. He thought of the Dragon, who lived for their fearsome reputation. They did not build, and they did not write. What they were was all they were, moment to moment. If the Plague People came to the Dragon Isles there would be nothing left to show Venat’s people had ever lived, save for a few huts and stone blades.
Then they met another wave of refugees fleeing a new fight in the Black Eyes’ lands. Hearing that, Asman pushed his soldiers on even more, but in his heart he knew he would be too late.
Soon after that, it was just cold fires, abandoned tents. The turned earth showed how many had been here, and how recently, but they were gone now. Some had marched east but from that direction few had returned. Animal tracks Asman found in plenitude, but they were meandering and random, a panicked rout of beasts and not the ordered retreat of men.
Asman thought of what that might mean, given what he knew of the enemy and their weapons.
‘We’re going to get our blades wet now?’ Venat asked him. He had his own greenstone meret out, that was sharp as a razor and harder than metal.
‘That’s not the plan,’ Asman said. ‘We’ll go east, but keep your eyes open, and be ready to run the moment we see them.’ He didn’t like saying it, and was ready for Venat to chew him up for a coward, but the old pirate just nodded soberly. Truly it must be the end of the world.
The vultures led them to the first bodies, boiling about them like gigantic flies, lurching off their feast only reluctantly. There was a people of the Vulture out on the Plains, Asman thought, but if they were here they did not Step to welcome their southern guests. Or else they could not.
Most of the bodies they fed on were unrecognizable now. The scatter of weapons and effects showed they must have been Plainsmen, but the marks of their tribes and their deaths had been erased by the scavengers already. Asman looked at the sky, in case any of those circling wings belonged to something worse than vultures. Then he looked east. He saw a distant village out there and a road of vultures leading towards it. The walls shone bright, like the sun on water, yet cheerless.
‘Trouble,’ Venat snapped, and abruptly the Rivermen had their spears levelled, pulled together into a defensive circle. It was not the Plague People, though, but a particularly Plains style of trouble. Slinking through the trampled and bloody grass came a pack of spotted hyenas, grinning and snickering at the southerners.
Asman thought that was all they were, for a heartbeat, but then half of them Stepped into lean, copper-skinned women who heckled and jeered just as they had when they were beasts. All save one, and that one he knew.
Shyri almost didn’t approach him. He saw her exchange some harsh words with the woman who must lead them, before slinking over to him like a whipped dog. He wanted to be pleased to see her, but for once she plainly didn’t want his praise or his smile. Some terrible thing had stamped itself across her. He had never seen her ashamed before.
‘Laughing Girl,’ he greeted her. She just nodded, standing fidgety in front of him and not meeting his gaze.
‘We heard of a battle, Plainsmen marching,’ he prompted her.
‘And this is your army to help, is it?’ She spared a glance for his little band of followers. ‘Go home, Longmouth.’
‘What’s happened here? You fought?’
The look she gave him was agonized. ‘There was fighting. The Black Eyes, Tooth Markers, all of them, they tried to run down the Plague People. They’re gone now. Dead or changed.’
‘All of them?’
‘One in four got to run.’ At last she was looking at him.
‘You’re scouting?’ He was giving her every opportunity to lie to him.
The muscles of her jaw twitched and she told him, ‘The Laughing Men do not fight the battles of others. We wait until the day is done, and then we come to the field and take what is left. A mountain of bones, remember, Longmouth? The Hyena’s brood will own the world one day, when the rest of you are carrion.’ The words were spat out, infinitely bitter.
Asman looked at the pack of Hyena, no more fit to take on the Plague People than his own followers. ‘Perhaps the Laughing Men have the right of it this time,’ he said softly.
She glared at him, a look that said, And this one time you won’t criticize me?
The lead Hyena called, ‘Shyri, say your farewells.’ Her expression showed she bore Rivermen no love.
Shyri cast a look back at her and then turned round and gabbled out, ‘Asmander – Asman, Maniye was there. She was at the front of the charge.’
Asman felt his stomach drop. ‘Dead?’
‘Taken or dead. I’m sorry.’
‘Shyri!’ the Hyena woman snapped, her patience plainly ending. Shyri snarled and then Stepped, skulking back to her people without another glance at her former friends.
Asman watched her go, wishing he had some magic words that would ma
ke things right between them. His mind worked, thinking about Maniye dead or Maniye taken. Could he storm the walls of the Plague People, a Champion to help a Champion? Was that not the right thing to do?
And yet he knew that, if he had ever been the man to do it, he was not that man any more. He was the Kasrani of the Sun River Nation. He could not just throw himself onto the spike of his honour, simply because it was right.
‘Well?’ Venat asked him.
‘We head for Tsokawan. Tecuman must know what has happened. We need to rally the Estuary.’
* * *
When Hesprec went to find the horse, Therumit was waiting for her. Perhaps the woman had followed her to Galethea and overheard what was said. Perhaps she was just a crawling knot of suspicion. Certainly, finding her fellow priest leaving without saying farewell would confirm a lot of that distrust.
Hesprec had not really thought she could just leave without this confrontation. All her stealth had felt like going through the motions. She might as well have gone to face up to the woman and have done with it.
‘You’re just stretching the animal’s legs a little,’ Therumit suggested, ‘of course.’
Hesprec couldn’t tell if she meant sarcasm or if she was genuinely giving her colleague a way out. Therumit hadn’t been able to say anything pleasantly in living memory, and either way it didn’t really matter.
‘I’m riding for the Tsotec.’ And not alone, but let’s have one betrayal at a time, shall we?
‘No.’ As though the simple word from Therumit would lock the doors and close the borders.
‘I’m going to try and turn back the Plague People. That’s what Serpent did, in the first stories. That’s what Serpent must do now.’
‘And you speak for Serpent?’
‘How else is his voice heard?’ Hesprec shrugged. ‘I’ve heard your plans, Therumit. You want our people to retreat here and abandon the world. Not a path I can follow. Not even for the Oldest Kingdom.’ And then she stepped back, because Therumit was abruptly in front of her.
The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall Book 3) Page 8