by Erron Adams
“Thank you, Rain Dog. I'm honoured.”
The Rory looked at him. “These ranges aren't the soft woodlands we hunted after the battle with the Kasina. It’s mostly rough rocks here, and the animals know humans; they’re harder to hunt. And while we track, we’ll likely be tracked ourselves, as Yalnita said. Have to be on your toes,” he said with a wink. Then he sauntered to the Pack's lead to confer with Yalnita.
***
Roop and Bowman brought up the rear on the narrow track. Roop looked straight ahead. Bowman’s eyes drilled into Yalnita’s back. At length he laid a hand on Roop's arm and said, “Roop, could we have a word?”
“Several, John Bowman. That is one of the many areas in which I excel!” the warrior answered in mock boast. He continued in a voice loud enough for those in front to hear, “what is it you wish enlightenment upon?”
Bowman increased his drag on the man's arm. “Er, just…something. Just you and me, Yeah?”
Roop raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Bowman blanched, and Caylen turned around. “I think he wants to talk about the sleeping arrangements.”
Roop’s eyebrows knotted in confusion.
“Sex, Roop! He wants to know about Huntresses. Don't you, Mister Lost?”
For the second time that morning, Caylen had put Bowman on the back foot. His ears burnt and the claustrophobia of the track that snaked between walls of forest claimed him. He laboured for breath and ran with sweat.
Why had she said that? She’d completely misread him, and now the rest of the Pack were amused at his expense. Little bitch, he thought. Kick her if I could do it without looking even more foolish.
She skipped back to him. He pulled up just before they collided. She extended one finger to below his jaw and snapped his mouth shut. “Don't go swallowing tree spirits, John,” she said, but now there was no trace of smile. She seemed genuinely concerned for him, or about something.
Before he could reply, she was gone, past the others to the Pack's head; half running half skipping, a girl edging into womanhood, unsure and delighted. She spoke to Yalnita and they both looked back laughing.
Bowman halted and groaned. He suddenly wanted to be very much alone but was glad when Roop sat on a fallen tree by the path's edge, motioning him to do the same.
“What do you want to know?” the Rory said, his eyes gleaming.
The look exasperated Bowman. “Well, for starters, I don’t give a damn about the sex life of Huntresses! That was just a bad guess on Caylen’s part.”
Roop shrugged. “So?”
“Well, it does concern Yalnita, I suppose. I mean, what’s her game? All this crap about me going back for weapons. She doesn’t really think I’d be in that, does she?”
“Why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because I did, once - involuntarily - and it was a disaster! I damn near got killed! Besides, I think that little trip back was what brought Keemon here. Who knows what I’d bring with me next time?”
Roop considered his boots a moment. Then he looked up at Bowman. “Well, that is your decision, of course. Speaking for myself, we Rory could certainly use the kind of weapon Keemon had. The Kasina outnumber us, and now that they have a way to enter Grealding, I fear for my people. At any rate, I don’t think you’ll rest well while Keemon is still alive. You are obviously in his plans. And if we can’t kill him soon, he’ll be back with Kasina troops. This time he’ll be better prepared. We won’t be able to hold out. What will you do then?”
“We’d better not let it come to that, Roop, because I’m not going back. Get used to it: here I am and here I stay. Let’s find that bastard first and,…and…”
“And kill him? Does that appeal, John Bowman? Killing doesn’t seem to sit well with you, from what I’ve seen.”
They both knew Roop was right. It was Bowman’s turn to shrug.
“Well, we’ll just have to let things run their course, I guess. I don’t know, I wanted to kill him at the Mirror Guard. But you’re right: I’m not much of a fighter; it makes me sick. Anyway, this going-back business, it wouldn’t work. Everything metal goes missing in the passage. My belt buckle, watch, car keys…even my wedding ring! They all just disappeared. How do you suppose I can bring weapons here? They’re metal.”
“Keemon managed, somehow. Who says you can’t?”
That’s right, thought Bowman, the bastard did! How in hell did he manage that? I'm always underestimating him!
Then again, what difference does it make, anyway? Keemon might be able to port metal into Animarl, but I can’t. And even If I could find out how it was done, I’m not going back. That decision’s been made.
Bowman shrugged again, and the topic was left hanging. Then he asked, “Another question, Roop. What the heck is a Migril?”
Roop’s hands opened palm-up like a supplicant. “Ah! Migrils! They are servants of the Dragon. They see to the balance of things here, and usher out evil when it slips between the serpent's scales. Helpful creatures to the Dragonspine, but quite opposed to those who mine,” Roop allowed himself a snicker at the rhyme. “Keep a hand on your sword hilt when you sleep here, or it'll be gone before you wake!”
Roop rose and stretched. “Best to not let too much path grow between us and the others.”
“Yes,” Bowman said. “Look, Roop, thanks for talking. I’m struggling to fit in here; it’s still a little strange.”
Roop nodded and motioned to Bowman to get up.
As Bowman stood, it seemed to him that Roop grew an extra head above one shoulder. A Halloween pumpkin head it looked, whose filthy, lank hair trailed over pupil-less red eyes to a frizzled, grey beard beneath. Bulging lips rimmed blackness that was punctuated by a few broken teeth. The head rose from Roop's shoulder, and Bowman realised it belonged to an animal he'd never seen before. The creature dealt Roop a sideways blow to the head, and the Rory tumbled to one side, the startled look in his eyes his last act of consciousness.
As Roop fell, the animal bounded over him towards Bowman. They eyed each other a moment. It snorted through holes in its face where a nose might be expected, growled and threw its hands up at Bowman, making movements to force the taller man away.
But Bowman stood his ground and drew his sword. When the creature saw the silver slide out, his eyes flared and he twitched with rage, but when the blade continued upward in readiness to strike, fright took him and he bounded off.
Bowman connected: a Migril! He leapt after it.
The forest threw darkness on them as they entered. Bowman cursed and thrashed in equal measure, and to equal effect, as his quarry effortlessly stretched the gap between them. There was thunderous power in its legs, to be sure, but it was its wings that soon rendered pursuit completely useless. They transformed the ungainly creature as it lifted above the undergrowth with a few gentle flaps. In no time, it disappeared. Bowman strained to hear the faint wingbeat as sound and Migril receded.
He wondered which direction the track lay in and cursed his thoughtless impulse to give chase. He poked the undergrowth here and there with his sword, looking for his own footprints. But Rain Dog’s training failed him; he couldn’t pick a thing out in all that leaf litter. He was lost.
After a few minutes of panicked probing, he stopped and cocked an ear at the sound of the wingbeats’ return. Too late: stinging shock crashed through his head. From his back-tilted face he saw the forest canopy blur and spin. Then a black wind ripped everything away.
When he came to, it was almost night. He could just make out the sun as it shrank in the West. He took bearings from it - remembering he'd struck South from the path - and cut back through the undergrowth as fast as safety allowed in the growing dusk. The left side of his face was tight with dried blood; at his temple he could feel abraded skin hilled over fluid. A red hot wire twanged between his ears.
When he stumbled onto the path again, he fell to his knees, exhausted and grateful for the small reprieve. But there was little time on hand, and he was s
oon up, guessing which way - left or right - led to where he and Roop had stopped to speak. His guess proved wrong, and by the time he'd doubled back and found the right place, Roop was gone and the last of the light was dying in the distant West.
It became suddenly cold, and stillness and silence fell with the dark. Soon he could hear night's creatures begin to move, and with his sword gone, taken by the Migril, Bowman felt no better for the company. He scrabbled for the stickbow in his back quiver, and the kind of relief that had sometimes come from finding his lost wallet intact, swept him when his hand gripped its solid limb. He still had his weapon of choice then. As Roop had said, the Migril's interest was in metal only.
He quickly strung the bow and notched an arrow, settling down to think about the coming night and how he might best pass it.
To continue would be pointless, the path uneven and he without a torch. My kingdom for a knob of sunrock, he thought, and smiled at the image of his kingdom: Rory rags and a stickbow! And smiled more to think he could even be smiling.
For even though he was sore and fearful, it all felt right. He was reacting the way a living human should. He felt his chest rise and fall. How long had it been since he’d noticed his own breathing?
There was just him, and the mountain that might swat away his life without a thought, and the black night full of creatures going about their business. Business that, he hoped and reasonably expected, would not involve a stray Outlander keeping to himself.
And if here turned out to be the place he died, this was the way to die: no more pissing and moaning about the Pain. This is where I stand; this is me, he thought. He'd never felt this free.
As he lay back against an ancient bole to consider options, a little breeze swept in. It tickled stray hairs across his cheek, and he pushed them back. In the deepening dark his useless eyes closed down to slits, and as they did his other senses took up the slack. His hearing flicked in the direction of any noise and his nostrils flared and sorted the air's scents, softly snorting out the bits they didn’t want. His whole skin caught the pricks of everything that moved or made a sound, and in time told him the shapes and mass of things quite near. He became like a baby that tracks its mother’s movements about a darkened bedroom.
As his scrutiny of the night became automatic, his mind wandered to the Migril. The creature had shown up right after Bowman’s question about Migrils to Roop. Bowman wondered at the way his life in Animarl seemed to flow between seemingly confluent events, and how chance mentions sometimes materialized in the possible universe.
His meditation ended when he realized he was on his feet, circling on them, his forearm hairs whiskering the air for information. He glanced down to see his bow almost fully drawn, and when he looked up again the arrow on its shelf swept the perimeter of sight like the scan across a radar screen.
He couldn't tell what it was that had alarmed him - a breeze-stir of leaves that might have been a shuffle, perhaps, or a muffled cough or bark. All he knew now was the strident siren of his senses animating him; something out there had moved too close, or too intently, or just plain smelt wrong. Something that was watching him.
Whatever it was fell silent at his alert state. Then his eyes caught a soft blip in their circuit. He stopped. Far over where he guessed the sun might rise tomorrow - if he could trust the bearings he’d taken from the path's direction - a light glimmered. Too large and solitary for a firefly, he hoped and guessed it was a campfire, and set off to meet it, carrying the bow half-drawn before him. He slowed down each time he tripped on something unseen and shuffled whenever the surface underfoot became too rough for haste.
The path hooked and edged down the side of the mountain to a sheltered glade that contained the fire. Around it sat three men, too intent on the small animal roasting at the end of a crude wooden fork to hear his approach.
They were Outlanders, dressed in the sort of filthy, torn rags he himself had first worn in Animarl. Bowman scrutinized them for a sign, a comforting detail that might let him enter their world with safety. He found it in the shoulder patch of the man closest to him. Smudged and slightly frayed, the stitching that once held it had begun to fail at two corners. But its little stars and bright oblongs were unmistakable. The flag of the American Republic. Bowman's heart leapt.
As he entered the clearing and they finally looked up, he lowered the bow to one side and raised a palm in greeting. The first thing he said was a foolish attempt at woodsy kinship, a line from a film he remembered fondly.
“What's on the spit?”
They were supposed to come back with, “grown particlar?” and toss him a leg. Instead, they leapt up and swarmed over his stupid trust, pinning him to the damp ground before his old mode of self-cursing had time to kick in.
***
Chapter 16
The Centre Of The Story
“What do you mean, he's gone? Roop, get this right: you've left a Pack member out there!” Yalnita's tone blanched the normally articulate man, who could only splutter in defence.
“We sat to talk... Just a minute or so, I think. The next I remember is waking with this foul head, and my sword and knife gone. Obviously a Migril. And no John Bowman. At first I thought he'd run to catch up with you, to get help, but now...now I see I'm wrong.”
Oyen was furious. “John Bowman would never run and leave you in a fight, Roop. I can't believe you'd think that!"
Yalnita slapped Oyen's shoulder. “Enough!” She turned back to Roop. “Well, you'll just have to go back and get him! Take Oyen and Lowery with you, as backup for your befuddled brain.”
“But it's dark, Yalnita!” said Lowery. “He wasn't on the path, so he must have left it. We won’t find him unless we leave it, too. No point in doing that until daylight.”
“I don't care. Take lamps and search back to the place he and Roop stopped. Call out for him; he can't have gone far.”
“Unless the Migril took him,” Roop said quietly.
“That's unlikely for a Migril, Roop; they're gentle souls, as a rule,” said Regrais.
“I'd like to swap my gentle head for yours, in that case!”
“Oh shut up, you two. I'll come with you, Oyen,” said Caylen.
“No!” Yalnita's voice rang sharp in the quiet night. “You'll stay here.” For a moment she opened her mouth to explain, but then she thought better of it. She turned to Roop. “Now go and get your Pack brother!”
***
From the small tree he'd been tied to, Bowman watched them as they huddled about the campfire.
Their speech sounded like nothing he'd ever heard, a stream of high pitched whines, punctuated with nasal grunts and augmented with much hand signing. The whole conversation teetered on the brink of violent outburst whenever more than one spoke, which was much of the time.
It was such an alien spectacle he wondered if they were some native tribe he'd not yet met, and that they'd stolen the rags they wore. But slowly, the reality sank in.
Something had happened to these Outlanders in the passage, something had mauled them as they came through from the old world. Something that resulted in the pathology Elsis had alluded to.
And it wasn't just the way they spoke. Their mangled hands continually brushed at ill-healed lesions on their faces. They wore no boots on their grotesquely twisted feet, though one had tried to make leather rags do the job, cinching the sorry result above the ankle.
Despite his treatment, Bowman pitied them, and he made to break the impasse with an entreaty.
“Look,” he said, and three heads snapped in his direction. Six malevolent eyes drilled him, and he went on quickly, “Look, we're all Outlanders here, we should talk. I…I've seen things that can maybe help you.”
They growled lowly, looking at each other. Finally, the one with makeshift boots shook his broken hands at his companions and stood up, drawing a knife as he did. He came over to the tree and held the blade at Bowman’s throat.
Bowman wanted to swallow, but since the knife was
trembling in its crooked hand he didn’t. The Outlander seemed to be struggling with his mind, the torment showing in his eyes as they twisted about. His breathing fizzed and wheezed by Bowman’s cheek.
Then he was gone. A puff of something powerfully gentle swept him sideways and he lay on the ground, twitching, a red spring bubbling at his temple.
When the sound of the pistol cracked through Bowman's ears he jumped, and when his watering eyes opened, Keemon stood there grinning.
“Guess that's one you owe me, Convict. Generous on my part, when you consider what you did for me in Grealding.” The cop held his other arm up, and Bowman saw a makeshift bandage where the splintered crossbow bolt had entered, just above the thumb.
Keemon turned and walked towards the other two Outlanders. They scrambled for weapons in their bedrolls and came up with short, sharpened sticks. Keemon scowled back at Bowman. “Pathetic, aren't they? They're Malforms: this is what usually happens when someone from our world comes here. Fuckin' cripples!” The cop's face contorted with disgust, and, as though reaching to a light switch, he languidly extended his gun arm to blow away the face of the Outlander nearest him.
As the last Malform fled, Keemon turned back to Bowman. “Now you and me, we're special. That's why we're feted here.” Without looking back, he fired two more rounds into the departing figure. With a short cry, it fell face down on the forest floor's coverlet of damp leaves. Keemon smiled and went on. “For one thing, when we speak, the natives understand, and vice versa. But there's something even more important, something they think I can do. Something I know you can.”
He came up close to Bowman. “Go back!”
At first Bowman felt too sickened to say anything, but when silence didn't stem the nausea, he tried retaliation. “So why am I alright? How’d I get through in one piece? And how come scum like you get off so lightly?”