Authors: Daniel Hardman
Cordimancy (32 page)
“I’m here, stonecaster.” He sounded much more distant than the clatter they’d just heard. And the direction seemed wrong.
“Is there anybody else?” Malena asked.
“I killed all but two,” Oji said. “And they stopped at the edge. Too afraid to follow.” His disgust was unmistakable despite the distortion of his words. Once again, he seemed to speak from a new direction.
“Stop moving,” Shivi said. “We might lose you.”
“I’m
not
moving,” Oji said. “I boulder-smashed my ankle just now. That taught me. But your voices come from behind me one moment, and in front the next. I entered right where you did, but you sound far away.”
“This mist is cursed,” said Paka. “Remember the blackness that came after Malena before?”
Toril felt his wife shiver.
In
the end, they found Oji by feel. Shivi and Paka dismounted, and they made a chain: Paka held the reins with one hand, and Shivi’s hand with his other; Shivi reached out to Malena, who gripped one end of the staff while Toril held the other and stretched into blackness. They swept half a circle before detecting Oji on the far side of the horse, opposite from where they’d expected.
They heard no human noises as they searched, but they began to notice a pervasive layer of hum and whisper in the haze. It reminded Toril of the echoes left behind by magic wielders when they died. It seemed to swell and fade unpredictably, almost like wind—except that the air was motionless. It hung cloying and thick, with a strong odor of mold, ash, and phosphorous, swallowing the eerie susurrations as fast as they arose.
There was a brief moment of joy when Toril’s finger brushed an ear, and the human chain pulled back into a circle, amid happy exclamations from Oji. Toril heard Paka clap a shoulder, and felt Malena shift as she leaned into an embrace.
He smiled.
Then silence fell.
“So what do we do now?” Oji said. “How can we cross twenty leagues of this? We can’t even see the ends of our noses.”
“We could try to find our way back out,” Shivi suggested. “The horse was facing into the mist when we stopped. If we used our chain to make a straight line back, we might hit the edge.”
“Not sure the horse stayed steady while we searched,” Paka said. “Besides, what would be the point of going back? I bet the ahu are standin’ watch.”
The thought of two warriors patrolling nearby made Toril queasy. Even if they had no courage for the mist, they might shoot into it. “The staff said to cut across,” he said.
“Maybe it will be brighter in the morning,” Malena suggested. “Even a little bit could help. In the meantime, I’m too exhausted to think straight, and we don’t seem to be in any immediate danger. Should we move far enough that the ahu can’t find us, and then rest?”
Toril prodded his ribs with fingertips, found a tear in cloth, sucked in his breath. The adrenaline seemed to drain from his system, and he felt light-headed and sore.
“I need Shivi or Oji to take a look at an arrow wound,” he muttered. “Or feel it, I suppose, since we can’t see a thing. Make sure it’s clean and salved up. Then I need to rest; we all do.”
Malena inhaled sharply. Her hand ran up his arm.
“Are you okay? Where were you hit?”
“My ribs. Arrow didn’t stick me deep. Maybe it’s not serious. I can’t tell.”
“Come on,” said Paka. Toril felt a tug, and the whole group shuffled toward his voice. “A couple hundred steps ought to be safe. Then we check that wound, and the one in our horse’s shoulder. And we rest.”
Kinora
stroked hair as she hummed, running fingers across the stem of the skyflower that she’d braided there. The little girl whose head she cradled continued to tremble, but her whimpers had subsided, and her breathing had become slow and regular.
Behind, the steering oar creaked. Overhead, the moon hung almost full, reflecting pinkly off the silver of the river’s surface as they glided along.
A couple of the ten-year-olds still blinked sleepily, but most children had collapsed hours ago on the damp barge deck, exhausted from fear and hunger. The golden warriors had disappeared below as soon as they embarked; soldiers had followed when dark fell. At least some of the men were still awake, though; subdued voices emanated from the hatch.
Far away on the banks, insects chirped; the faint chorus turned her thoughts once again to the toddler she’d named. Had she done right to leave Cricket behind? Was he lying cold and still in the reeds, ants exploring sightless eyes—or had those who chased Gorumim found him, as she’d hoped? The soldiers had been in a hurry to load barges and take to the river, and they’d talked of someone in pursuit.
Who was following?
How far behind were they?
It couldn’t be her tat, she guessed. Kinora wasn’t certain who had survived the razing of Noemi, but her last glimpse of the village had been a jumble of burning thatch and lifeless shadows in the streets. And she’d heard Gorumim complain about a survivor. He made it sound like there had only been one.
That couldn’t be all, could it? She must not have understood.
Who might be following—the golden face she’d seen? Or Semya Toril, maybe? She remembered the urgent look on his face as he bartered with Tat to hire an apprentice for his kitchens. She thought of how he’d complimented her voice, how he’d presented her to Cook with elaborate instructions about incorporating song into the daily baking rituals. Cook, who had begged and wept before she died.
If Hasha’s son had survived, he would come for her, wouldn’t he?
Yes. He was one who would come. If.
She stopped humming long enough to sniff and wipe her nose on a sleeve.
It probably wasn’t Hasha himself; she’d spied him in the courtyard, looking frail as he lifted an axe—even if he was alive, she couldn’t picture the old man worrying these soldiers.
Was Elesel’s body rotting in the cobbler’s shop where he’d been apprenticed?
What about Maco? She hadn’t seen her younger brother since the day before the attack, when she’d jogged home to bring Tat her wages. She recalled the circle of his scrawny arms around her waist. She’d been half-hearted in returning his hug. Now she regretted that.
Shoulders eclipsed the candlelight flickering through the forward hatch. Two dark forms emerged—one unnaturally short, the other tall and slender. They glided to the prow, forming a shadowy dent in the stars along the horizon.
“You haven’t put your men to the oars,” growled a raspy, accented voice.
“The barge is too big to make speed that way,” murmured the other shadow. Kinora recognized Gorumim’s cold tone.
“I thought you wanted to be at the capital for Harvest Festival.”
“Yes. By then the raja will be panicked with news of violence on the border, and he’ll have read the letter I sent ahead by voice. I’ll ride in with the osipi prisoners to reassure him. The pomp will make him careless.”
“But how do you propose to get there in only six days? It’s more like ten or twelve to float so far.”
White Hair grunted. He lifted a hand and held it out over the river.
A burble sounded in Kinora’s ears. The surface of the river seemed to swell; waves flowed toward their barge. She felt the deck lift beneath her and surge ahead.
“We will be at the
Kirte
Fords in four days time,” Gorumim said. “That’s only a day upriver from Kikal Pilar. It’s the nearest I’ve dared approach in the past without re-enchanting myself in a thrall of loyalty to the crown.” He turned; from his posture, Kinora thought he must be gazing at the children sleeping on the deck. “This time will be different.”
Toril
cracked his eyes. His back ached. His thighs ached. His side ached, and he could feel half-dried blood stiffening the crude bandage that Shivi had fashioned. Despite the moistness of the noxious fog, his throat was parched, and his arm was numb where he’d used it as a pillow for too long.
But he felt more clear-headed than he he’d been for days.
How long had they slept?
His stomach growled.
Beside him, Malena breathed. A couple paces beyond, he heard snores from Paka.
He realized that he was seeing something—a creamy blur with a hook of chestnut. He blinked three times before he recognized the curl of hair around Malena’s ear. Now he caught a dim suggestion of the horse’s bulk off to one side, and a smaller outline that might be Shivi, seated hugging her knees, on the other. The smokiness still hung thickly, and the smell of mold remained, but he could see a few paces, at least.
Gingerly, he sat.
“You’re up,” said the old woman’s voice.
“Yes.”
“How’s the wound?”
Toril sighed. “Not fatal, I guess.”
“I couldn’t tell much when I doctored it,” she said. “Felt like maybe a chip in the bone, and a nice long slash. You were lucky. A finger higher or lower, and it might have been your lung.”
“I think it’s stopped bleeding,” Toril said.
“Good. I hope the salve keeps infection away.”
“I can see. A little bit, anyway.”
Shivi’s silhouette nodded. “I can’t find the sun to tell direction or time, but it’s been that way for two or three hours, now.”
“You’ve been awake that long?”
Shivi shrugged. “I’m not much good in a fight, but here at least is one way an old woman can help: I don’t sleep much. You were all tired. I took the first watch. Then Oji spelled me and I had a nap. When I woke up he went back to sleep, and I’ve been watching ever since.”
Malena’s breathing changed. She rolled over and propped an arm beneath her head.
“I’m thirsty.”
“We’re all going to be thirsty, I suspect,” Shivi said. “The bags on our horse have some soldier’s gear in them. Knife, whetstone, tinderbox, hatchet. Soap. Bit of rope. Plus some baati, dried peppers and tomatoes, sunflower seeds. But no water.”
“You try a fire?” Toril asked.
“Nothing to burn. And besides, I didn’t want to attract attention.”
“Attention?”
“The stories say this land belongs to demons.”
Toril said nothing. Something had to be making the eerie noises. But whatever it was, it had left them alone so far.
“Maybe it will rain,” Malena offered.
“Feel the dirt,” Shivi replied. “It’s dry and hot. No dew. I haven’t seen a blade of green, or even an ant.”
“We have the potatoes…” Toril started to say. Then he stopped. The provisions Corim had provided were tucked in the saddlebag on the other horse—the one they’d left outside the Rift.
A queer chittering sound swelled, then faded.
“I brought a waterskin,” came Oji’s voice, possibly from beyond the horse. “I filled it at the last stream we crossed on the climb last night. But I don’t suppose it can go far, split five ways.”
Paka stopped snoring. “I hear something about water?” he croaked.
Shivi snorted.
Footsteps approached. A small shape knelt. Toril heard gurgling.
He licked his lips. He felt unusually thirsty himself. Perhaps the blood loss had depleted him.
“Oji, you told us you have a strong sense of direction,” he said. “Do you know which way is north?”
There was a pause. When Oji answered, his voice sounded troubled. “Most of the time, I sense it with ease. Now I’m not certain. It might be that way.” An arm pointed into the brume.
Malena
wiped grit from the corner of her eyes and swallowed. The pebble she’d placed in her mouth hours ago had alleviated thirst at first, as she sucked—but now it wasn’t helping.
She lifted the rag she’d tied around her nose and mouth, and spat out the stone; it faded into haze before landing.
They’d been walking all day, following the dim silhouette of Oji. Occasionally he paused, consulting an inner compass, and the rest of the group bunched together well enough to see each other, while he adjusted their heading. She was glad for the breaks; her feet and ankles throbbed.
They’d found a compass in the salvaged gear, but the needle just spun uselessly. Oji worried aloud that he wasn’t much better, but at least they hadn’t gone in circles.
At first, there’d been a gentle downhill trend. The soil underfoot—about the only terrain they could see—was sandy, flecked with gravel and a smattering of larger stones. Easy going.
Then the path had grown steeper. They’d started zigzagging. Cracks appeared in the ground—not eroded gullies from rain, but raw, gaping rents that stank of sulfur, and that hissed and radiated heat. Before entering the Rift, the near-autumn temperature in the mountains had been crisp—but now they were back into the range of an uncomfortable summer day, and it was still growing hotter. Malena’s tunic was soaked with sweat.
It made the thirst worse.
Jagged volcanic rocks—some as small as pinecones, others reaching the wound on the horse’s withers, littered the ground. They’d detoured, again and again, searching for gentler inclines or smoother surfaces. They’d slipped and stumbled downward, straining to keep their footing and stay together. Malena had scraped a knee, and her palm was cut.
In good conditions, a healthy adult walked about a league in an hour. They’d managed most of that pace, maybe, as the march commenced. Now they were traveling much more slowly; whether they were making any forward progress at all was debatable. So much for an easy short-cut. How many days would it take Gorumim to float two hundred leagues? A week or more, she hoped. Could they cross as quickly?
They must.
For the hundredth time, she wondered about Tupa. It was a question that haunted her more than the eerie, ever-present sounds in the mist. It had dogged her through the mountains, and in the river, and even in last night’s mad scramble. It never went away.
The little boy they’d found had bruises and a split lip. Oji said he’d been near death when he was rescued… Gorumim seemed to want the children somewhere other than the wilderness to satisfy his black purpose, but they had no guarantee he’d travel all the way to the capital before he carried out the murders he planned. What if they confronted the kidnappers too late?
What if Malena’s sister was suffering the same kind of assault that she herself had endured? Tupa was still skinny and awkward, with a body that gave little hint of the womanhood in her future. But her face was pretty…
It was too much. Malena shook her head angrily. Her thoughts always came to this.
She had to think about something else—
anything
else.
Her parents.
They had to be dead. She’d been skirting the thought for days, but now she forced herself to face it squarely. The bandits wouldn’t have let them live, and neither was likely to survive a battle. There’d been gossip about Toril in Two Forks; if there’d been word of her father, wouldn’t she have heard that as well? Her father wasn’t wealthy, like Hasha, but his name was well known…
Maybe.
What did she feel, imagining her parents dead?
For her father, she felt sorrow; it was the reaction of a dutiful daughter to a man who’d been distant and self-absorbed for most of her life. He had not been a horrible man, perhaps, but he’d been one she could care for only in a careful, limited fashion. He’d tried to curtail Malena’s studies, frowning on her interest in language and geography as irrelevant to the family ambitions. And he’d dallied, she thought. Or at least he’d convinced his daughter, in some way that she recognized but could not quite explain, that it was unsafe for a wife to trust her husband without reservation.
For her mam, Malena felt real grief. Sanina was a flawed person, too: prone to complain, prone to nag, too quick to support the social climbing that Malena’s father valued. Sanina been complicit in her husband’s attitude that women were chattel. But she’d been kind, in her way. And she’d borne the hardship and loneliness of her imperfect marriage, if not with selfless courage, then at least with tenacity.
Malena’s mother had intercepted and read Toril’s private love letters, except the one he’d braided into the mane of a marwari in the bride price. And she’d given lots of irritating advice. Yet she’d also taught Malena to pray as a child, and cried when her daughters rode away to their fosterages, and loved Tupa almost as much as Malena herself.
And she was probably lying unburied on a lonely mountainside somewhere. She would never see a grandchild. Never meddle in Tupa’s wedding plans.
Malena sniffed.
About the time they stopped to eat a meager mid-day meal, Shivi and Paka had begun coughing more often. Whatever its composition, the haze was not easy on the lungs—even though the older couple rode.
Now they hacked steadily.
With one hand, Malena held a string tied to her husband’s belt; with her other, she led the horse. Toril plodded ahead, his feet rising and falling, rising and falling. Were his thoughts with the children, or was he worrying about clan politics? Did he think of his father?
Sometimes he looked up, when invisible vibrations crescendoed in the air. But mostly he seemed to study the dirt.
She’d watched the hunch of his shoulders, the gash torn at the back of his thigh by the wolf, his limp.
He had no sister to rescue.
And yet he was here.
He’d defied the consensus of his peers, offended the clan, sacrificed his reputation, maybe destroyed his political career forever, to come. Her father wouldn’t have made that choice, if roles were reversed.
He didn’t seem to care about gold.
Corim liked him. So did Oji. And Shivi. And Paka.
Did she?
He’d cried when they found the boy.
Malena blinked hard at that memory.
She’d seen him glance at his staff from time to time.
What did it say to him?
What iron kept him moving, on an empty stomach, with little sleep, day after day? Ever since he’d pulled her back from death, she’d had a sort of magical rejuvenation taking the edge off physical hardship. Sometimes, she felt the oddness of it; it lurked, like something seen only out of the corner of her eyes, when she least expected. The pain in her palm was gone, and the skin on her knee would be unblemished by morning.
He had nothing.
The gloom had not cloaked him removing boots during one rest, adjusting ragged footwraps to cover blisters better, wincing as he tugged leather back in place. And then turning to offer Shivi the last of the waterskin.
She’d loved him then—loved the half-smile on his lips, the bruise just visible on his forehead, and the stubble on his partly scabbed jaw.
It wasn’t the sort of love she’d imagined she’d have for a husband some day.
Light was beginning to fade again, now, and the mist had thickened as they descended. The hair-raising murmurs hammered away at her nerves. They had a voice-like quality now, almost like the moaning of human beings. Perhaps the stories of ghosts were true.
She swallowed, vainly battling the cotton in her mouth and throat.
Without warning, a rock skittered out in the gray.
Her string to Toril went slack.
The
horse snorted and side-stepped nervously.
Oji melted into view, facing the sound, his arm outstretched to shoo Toril back.
Toril hefted the staff.
The noise in the mist swelled, and now Malena detected a texture of rasping, throaty chuckles above it. A morbid hint of humor made the threat in the sound far worse.
Another rock thudded—this time from the opposite direction. At least that’s what her ears suggested. Malena wheeled around. Were those eyes, glowing back at her?
They winked out.
The horse stamped. Malena heard Shivi murmur to it.
“Show yourself,” Toril said, his voice loud but uneven.
Total silence fell. Malena held her breath. She felt her heart pounding.
Five beats.
Ten.
Then the gloom erupted.
Oji somersaulted backward, bowled over by a waist-high blur that seemed to have tusks in front and a hump of muscle at its shoulder. He was back on his feet in an instant. Malena heard grunts and squeals behind her, sensed the horse rearing, felt the reins jerk in her hand.
She sprang to the side, stumbled, lurched upright again. Dropping the tether to her husband, she drew the knife she’d tucked in a boot.
Ghostly shapes crowded in.
Toril struck out and connected with something that shrieked and scrabbled away.
For a moment, she thought the attackers had two heads. Then she saw Oji slash at a shadow with his shortsword, and realized that he’d dismounted some sort of... rider. Its body sagged into a grotesque heap at her feet. It had a broad, flat face with no nose, and an underbite emphasized by jutting canines. Outsized, all-black eyes glimmered beneath a horny crest. Its skin seemed to consist of jointed plates that glinted green around the edges, but brilliant orange in the middle. Spindly legs and a swollen body gave it a beetle-like appearance. A puddle of molasses-colored blood seeped toward her toe.
Pishacha.
She recoiled in disgust.
The thing it had been riding vanished. Flickers of color faded.
Silence brooded.
She heard ragged breathing and realized it was her own.
Toril took a step out into haze, staff held at the ready.
“Get us off the horse,” Shivi whispered, her voice full of fear.
“You’re safer up high,” Oji said. “No tusks.”
“It almost threw us,” she responded tensely. “I think I’d rather take my chances on the ground.”
As if to emphasize the old woman’s concern, the horse tossed its head and flared its nostrils. Malena yanked on the reins and felt her arm jerk back at the animal’s resistance.
“What if it bolts?” Paka said.
It was a ghastly question. Last night they’d barely found Oji, standing a few paces away. What chance did they have of locating a panicked horse that galloped off into the dark, dodging in random directions? Any rider it carried would be lost.
Malena experienced a chill despite the heat.
Toril stepped back, still facing unseen attackers, and felt with one hand for the horse’s ribs. “Use my shoulders,” he said. “Faster than climbing down.” He grunted as Shivi leaned clumsily, knelt to deposit her beside Malena, then stood again for Paka. The older man groaned as he slumped off, then reached for the sitar that he’d strapped to the saddle.
Meanwhile, Malena fumbled at the belt securing the saddlebag, dividing nervous glances between her fingerwork and the haze. Food was gone, but the gear in it would be sorely missed if lost. As soon as she was done, she dropped the reins, glad to shed the distraction of managing a terrified animal much stronger than she was.
Beside her, she heard Toril suck in his breath. A deeper layer of darkness was coalescing out of the gloom, now—the silhouette of eight or nine little monsters, each holding reins atop a sort of bristly, savage pig. Some carried spears; one swung what looked like a machete, and the rest held stones to throw. A few had extra arms that intensified the resemblance to insects.
One shape raised its spear as a signal of some kind.
A whistle sounded, followed by a chorus of hoarse cries.
Inky shapes surged.
The horse screamed and reared.
Malena felt a shove against her shoulder. She fell onto hands and knees, saw Toril leaning into a two-handed blow with the staff, caught a glimpse of cloven hooves and a clawed foot in a stirrup. Something raked her cheek. She swung with her knife, connected with flesh at an angle that made her wrist pop. A spear shot past her head. Paka gasped as if from a heavy blow.
Then she heard a rhythm of pounding hooves, receding rapidly. Whoops, shrieks, and grunts followed, fading with distance.
Malena rocked back on her heels, brushed grit from her knees, and looked up to see her husband’s hand extended to help her stand.
Without warning, the far-away gallop stopped. The other noises crescendoed in triumph. Toril’s head turned. He stood motionless, listening.
“Where did they go?” Malena asked.
“After the horse,” said a shadow with Oji’s voice. He trotted past Malena and put a hand on a shoulder shaped like Paka. The old man was down on one knee, apparently. “You all right?”
“Smashed my hip,” Paka said, in a tone tight with pain. “Tusks ripped me, I think.”