Kerderan staggered and dropped the sword. Blood soaked down into his cloak and clothes. He fumbled for the knife and tried to pull it out. It was not mortal. All he needed was a little time.
The wind whispered loudly. He dropped to the ground, already almost delirious, and raised his eyes toward the flags of Anthirion. The wind rasped against his ears as he tried to crawl, and brought to him the scent of smoke, the sight of something like a fleet of bats flying in formation toward the army of Anthirion.
The general glanced from side to side and saw in the distance the copse of trees. “What do you mean by ‘alliance of peace?’” he asked uncertainly.
“It should meet with your approval,” Stuart said. “Oris has agreed to forego its bid for political independence in exchange for release from the economic sanctions it is currently undergoing at your hand and from its obligation to partake in this ridiculous sun-worship cult of yours...hear me out! In addition, Oris and all the eastern states—Andel, Ariante, and Steed—pledge to fight alongside Anthirion’s armies in times of attack from external enemies, such as may be necessary sooner than we thought.”
For a long and deadly moment the general was silent, and the fields west of the monument hill seemed to flicker in the fog. It seemed, for a time, as though he surveyed his lands, west, south, north, and east.
Heao whispered to Jevan, “It must be a better deal than he expected.”
Finally the general spoke, without turning to face his addressee, and said, “What of Therion? What of Ristoria?”
Stuart replied, “You know we will fight with you against this threat.”
“Under what general command?” asked the general.
“Taravon, the guardian prince,” Stuart replied. Heao looked to Jevan but Jevan didn’t notice.
At that moment Stuart, who was facing west, became aware of the smoke rising out of the west, all along the horizon. “That is not fog,” he scowled. “General; how is it you have ridden out against us this morning without armor?”
The general glanced back over his army, feeling suddenly insecure. The knights were dressed lightly in tough leather armor and helmets. “The king’s orders,” he said. “Speed was of the essence, and we were not marching out against an army.” He seemed unconvinced now.
“The king’s orders? Or…,” Stuart tested him.
“Directly from the royal chamberlain’s office…,” the general murmured. He, too, had seen what Stuart was looking at. “Quick; someone bring me field glasses.” General Rigel had the nearest pair, and he handed them to the general. The general peered through them quickly and turned to Stuart. “If this be the work of you or your scoundrels, it will be your woe.”
“It is not our work,” said Stuart. Stuart glanced at Jevan. “General; may I borrow the service of your good scribe?”
“This man? Be off with him,” General Matthagg replied, returning to his field glasses.
“Excellent. Master Delossan,” Stuart said, “if I find the boy for you, will you take the news of what has befallen here back to my people and to the Therians?”
“Yes; but how...,” Jevan started.
At that moment, a hunter’s horn sounded a long, urgent alarm from somewhere to the north. “To arms!” shouted the general. “Drakes! To arms! To arms! To arms!”
Stuart dismounted, sword in hand. “Get on my horse, scribe—you and your young charge—and hold on fast as you can. He will take you to Ristor, and they will know you by my animal. Swear to do it!”
“We will!” cried Jevan. He noticed for the first time that the horse was unbridled and unsaddled, and he hesitated.
“Get on!” Stuart urged him.
From out of the mist and the tall grass on every side, a harsh squealing and a leathery thunder began. The grass fluttered wildly in the wind and an acrid vapor of smoke filled the air. Jevan jumped part-way on the horse, caught hold but didn’t quite make it, and was pushed up by Stuart. Heao mounted behind him with his help. At that, the horse lunged forward, as smoothly as glass, and sprinted straight down the eastern side of the hill. Then the drake fleet fell in mass on the soldiers around the hill, gripping them like a whirlwind nightmare and shredding them apart.
III.i. floris
A
s evening fell, glowing embers drifted down through the obscured sky like a fleet of invading ships with lanterns, raining down across the miry mud and shaggy green fronds on the southern banks of the river that marked the boundary between Anthirion and the wild southern rain forests of the Northern Waterwood.
Deran crouched beneath the brush line and put his hands to his eyes. There was a low granite rise (known as the Architect’s Block to the Anthirians) jutting out into the river about two hundred yards off between him and the setting sun and the flickering embers of Anthirion. Deran could make out the outline of a tall, lean, grizzly man; the shorter, thinner outline of a small girl in a dark coat, and the malformed shapes of a phalanx of large, ogre-like creatures around the crest of the rise. He drew his dark cloak around him, knowing that if he could see them, they might very easily be able to see him. He watched as a few small bat-like shapes landed around the man and the girl and several others fluttered into the air. There could be no doubt as to who it was, but what he was doing there was another matter. He certainly wouldn’t have been one to breath in the drifting embers of his handiwork...or was he? Deran had been reckless in the city; perhaps he had been seen. If so, perhaps his motive had also been guessed, which meant being followed. Or perhaps that man on the hill was following some motive of his own. Whatever the case, his best bet was to hurry up and find the boy...even if that meant fording through every inch of infested jungle swamp around.
Alik crept through the soupy mire of green mud into a rough outcropping of vegetation above the crowd. A few drakes had remained to chase the Anthirians into the swamps, to set fire to the life rafts of those still stranded in the river, and to cull out the stronger survivors fleeing into the swamps. Moans and wailing rose up from the river and from the fiery city across it. Many men and women and little ones were slashed and gnawed, burning or injured, showing bones, scorched flesh, bloody lacerations. All were crying out to whoever might hear and have mercy on them, to bring them water, or healing, or simple consolation before death. There was no one to help them, though: the entire crowd of survivors had become bogged down in the mud and could barely save themselves. Except a few.
Here and there among the crowd there moved short, bone-thin creatures with clothes like bark and leaves and mud, living pieces of the swamp by every appearance. Alik could not tell what they were at all. They distributed water and treated wounds where possible, and elsewhere they pulled people out of the mud and guided them along in thin caravans into the safety of the swamp. Alik followed on the periphery.
It was the strange dress of these creatures that threw him off most, and if they hadn’t been moving he would have taken them all for bushes and trees. But night was coming on and his eyes still tingled from his blindness or from whatever his warrior-friend had done to cure him. That man—he did not see him anywhere among the people, but he knew simply that he must have gotten away: he and his silent giant-telepath.
But here there were so many people. People in pain, calling out...for what? For help, for commiseration. When they had gone to sleep, life had been hard enough, if nominally peaceful. They were not the rich and powerful: only the denizens of the poorer quarters of the city near the river had escaped, their homes now in ashes, their friends and family members returning to dust upon the wind. All their means of living and ways of warding off bad luck and bodily harm were burned away. Only the swamp and a wreckage of a past remained for them. He did not know how, for certain, but he felt they were somehow responsible in part for this suffering—not through their guilt, but through their ignorance—and he regarded them as one might regard people with a mysterious and revolting disease.
He followed along for several minutes, more-or-less at ease. The jungle swamp
above the thin trail being navigated by the swamp-dwellers and the people was too thick for any but the smallest and most dexterous of animals to pass, and Alik was unnoticed.
The chanting of the swamp-creatures seemed to start suddenly, from the direction of the column head, but had the feeling of having been picked up in the middle. Soon all of the swamp-dwellers joined in. First one would chant a verse, then the others would respond one after the other, as though in conversation but without sensible words. They chanted:
Ed Algahrlin, al Efthrel Algahrlin an Cienthe Ciar; aye—
Ceil Ceihr, al Engrethin Ceihr an Adhag Adhareil; aye, cat-cat—
Eathe’ Ciaraghe, al Breth Ciaraghe an Greilen Brithgrilm; aye an trey—
Thiargil Emihl, al Efir Emihl al Emihlel, an Thia Methrigen, aye an cinq—
Algahrlinim—all blessings an welcomes home.
With this last verse Alik suddenly realized the chanting was actually a formalized greeting, and the strange words were merely names. And almost at the last minute he noticed something like a village before him. He crawled closer through the brush and reached the edge of a sort of clearing, where many of the Anthirians were laid down or sitting on leathery blankets around a central fire that was almost completely masked by an earthen mound. Then he became aware of the dwellings, which before he had mistaken for brushy mounds. He leaned closer and put his hand out to balance himself on a mossy tree trunk at his side. The tree gave way and grasped his arm, and he turned in surprise to find one of the tree-like swamp-dwellers holding and observing him.
At close range, Alik could see that the swamp person was a human—a man, even an Anthirian, perhaps—but simply adapted for life in the impenetrable and infested jungle swamps. He shook himself free. The man was well camouflaged. His skin was knotty and muscular and very hairy. He wore no sword but carried several large knives, a horn, a dart-pipe, and an entire array of useful objects.
“Son, come in,” the swamp person said. As soon as he had spoken Alik realized the man was actually a woman, and flushed. The woman parted the brush in front of him to usher him into the camp. He nodded awkwardly and entered the camp, and she put her voice—a low contralto—into the voices of all the other swamp people in their strange chanting, the chant of introduction and welcoming of guests into the village of the Chellaeia Clan of the Anthirian Waterwood.
Alik wandered toward the periphery of the village, not entirely sure why he was there or what he was doing, but wanting to stay as far away from the litters of the wounded as possible. There were, however, so many of these that the entire camp was filled with them. A number of the Chellaeia noticed him, but as he did not appear to have any immediate injuries or needs, they ignored him.
He had nearly reached the opposite side of the camp and made up his mind to leave when a wave of agonizing shouts erupted just behind him and one of the swamp people took hold of him by the arm, saying, “Son, help us, please!” He turned, panicked for a moment but soon sobering at the sight of a large woman, clothed in bloody red from the middle down, shouting and struggling in pain with her nurse. “Hold her, here,” the Chellaei who had apprehended Alik told him, spreading the woman’s arms out above her head and bracing them with Alik’s hand just above the elbows. For a moment she was so wild she nearly threw both of them off; then a gripping wave of pain struck her and she fell still enough for the other Chellaei to take hold of her feet. She convulsed, and a wave of odor and repulsion struck Alik. He closed his eyes and tried not to let go.
He did not remember how long it lasted. When it was over the Chellaei medics dismissed him somberly but he did not ask or look to see how well the operation had gone. The sky was completely dark by now, and the Chellaei fires crackled his name. Exhaustion took him.
He looked around. A dryish spot beneath one of the Chellaei huts presented itself to him, and he went over to it and threw himself down.
The fires flickered. The camp moaned with the groaning of the wounded, with the murmuring of the healers amongst themselves, and with the continuous droning of other Chellaei returning with new arrivals. He closed his eyes, opened them...noticed a grizzly-haired, gnarled old man on a litter a few feet away from him who was gazing at him, closed his eyes again, and tried to sleep.
He could not. He opened his eyes again—it was irresistible—and looked at the old man. He was still staring at him, but now he had a smile on his face as well. His wounds seemed very bad. His body was covered with blistering burns and wracked with shivers. His dress was simple Anthirian but was torn and smeared and soiled from collar to hem. Alik was too tired to look away and could not close his eyes.
The dying man tried to speak but was too shaken. He tried again, gathering his breath, and managed a few words: “Is...is that you? Son?”
“Do—no,” Alik said. Alik shuddered. He knew very well it was not his father; his father was...buried beneath the ashes of his house, far, far away. It wasn’t that...but he was still afraid.
“Don’t...leave,” the old man spoke, as though reading Alik’s unspoken intention. “Stay...my son...Calar....”
Alik braced himself grimly and silently and did not leave, although he desperately wanted to.
“I never thought,” the old man began, then paused for breath, “I would see you...again...when you left.” Alik didn’t answer. “I...wanted to say...I’m sorry. I wanted to...see you...just once more.” He paused again and then added, “I’m sorry,” and smiled weakly.
Alik was too tired to formulate any further objection and just wanted to rest. Anyway, he thought, the man was obviously dying, and it couldn’t hurt him any. He didn’t expect reasoning would work with the old man at this point, and he didn’t want to elicit any further speech from him anyway. So he rested his head back and tried simply to not encourage him.
“You look...so...young,” the man said. “Like I remember.” He paused for almost a minute but had obviously not forgotten Alik, for he continued to gaze at him. His body trembled beneath a shiver of pain. Then his eyelids fluttered and closed, and only the shallow rising and falling of his body gave any indication he was still alive.
“Would you...,” he suddenly spoke again, “sit here...hold my hand...till the end?”
Alik shook himself back awake but did not at once get up.
“Please....”
He got up, reluctantly, and sat down by the dying man. The man’s hands were also burned and Alik touched them, cringing. The man opened his eyes momentarily but did not have the energy to smile. It would not be long.
It was longer than he expected. Alik fell asleep with his head on his knees, and when he woke up, the old man seemed markedly better and much more lively. Now and then he tried to start a conversation with Alik, which would end up being him talking about the weather or about memorable times in his son’s life. He would let Alik go for only a few minutes, and only when utterly necessary. Alik, however, became more impatient with the man the more he appeared to improve. And by that evening, he was nearly beyond all danger.
The Chellaeia managed to organize a meager vegetable stew and some small, pale, wafer-like breads for the evening meal because of the overwhelming influx of guests they had to serve. Alik ate slowly and finished considerably after the old man, who was not put off by any type of fare. When he had finished, Alik excused himself from the old man wordlessly.
He wandered about the outskirts of the camp for a long while, reluctant to return but unable to simply leave. Beyond the sickly flora of the bogs the towering, verdant canopy of the waterwoods rose up so close he could hear its buzzing, chirping, screeching whirl of life. It called to him—and yet there was this obnoxiously surviving old man whose senile attachment to him called him even more strongly. He sighed frustratedly and turned back.
As he neared the bed of the old man he noticed two Chellaei kneeling over him, examining him and listening for a pulse. The first figure rose and said, “He is gone.” Both figures stood and bowed their heads. Then they lifted the old man up b
y his shoulders and feet and began their chanting once again as they carried him out of the camp. The old man’s head rolled unnaturally on his neck. Its eyes were closed but its mouth lolled open toward Alik, as though trying to call him from beyond the dead.
Alik turned abruptly and ducked behind the corner of one of the Chellaei huts—running straight into a short, black-haired, shallow-nosed, cat-eyed man in a dull, dark brown cloak, a neat black belted tunic, and low-cut black boots. When he spoke, Alik recognized him at once by voice: Deran.
“Alik! I can’t tell you how...I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Deran exclaimed. Alik looked back after the dead man but Deran continued, “I’m Deran. Master Delossan sent me after you, to find you and keep you safe. I thought I wouldn’t find you, though I gave my word, but now, thank the earth, I have.”
“Ce dolsha kae te,” said Alik, disengaging himself and heading out toward the swamps southward.
Deran jogged after him, happily oblivious to his poor reception. “So, Alik,” he said, “where are we going?”
“Alo,” Alik replied, gesturing vaguely toward the darkening waterwoods.
“Heh-heh,” said Deran, slackening his pace, “what an idea. A few hours till nightfall, no provisions, no supplies, no weapons...and he’s going to traipse right out into the waterwoods. Do you know somebody down there, or are you just on friendly terms with the crocodiles?”
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