Quest for Lost Heroes (17 page)

A movement came from the undergrowth to their right. The spearlike leaves parted . . . and a monstrous head came into sight. The face was semi-human and black as pitch, the eyes small and round. It had long sharp fangs and, as it reared to its full height of around six feet, its enormous arms and shoulders came into view. Beltzer dragged clear his axe and let out a bellowing battle-cry. The creature blinked and stared.

'Move on. Slowly,' said Chareos. Warily the group continued on the trail, Chareos leading and Finn, an arrow notched to his curved hunting bow, bringing up the rear.

'What an obscenity,' whispered Kiall, glancing back at the silent creature standing on the trail behind them.

'That's no way to talk about Beltzer's mother,' said Maggrig. 'Didn't you notice the way they recognised each other?' Finn and Chareos chuckled. Beltzer swore. The trail widened and dropped away towards a low bowl-shaped depression, cleared of trees. There were round huts there, and cooking-fires still burned. But no one would use them. Bodies lay everywhere - some on the ground, some impaled, others nailed to trees at the edge of the village. Huge, bloated birds covered many of the corpses or sat in squat and ugly rows along the roofs.

'I think we've found the Tattooed People,' said Finn.

*

Kiall sat on the slope above the devastated village and watched his companions moving about the ruins. Finn and Maggrig skirted the round huts, reading sign, while Beltzer and Chareos walked from hut to hut looking for survivors. There were none. Kiall felt a sense of despair creeping over him. This was the third time in his young life that he had seen the results of a raid. In the first Ravenna had been taken, but other, older, women had been raped or abused. Men had been slain. In the second he had witnessed - and taken part in - a wild, frenzied slashing of swords and knives, his blood hot, fired by a need to kill. Now here was the third - and the worst of all. From his vantage point he could see the bodies of women and children, and even his unskilled eye could read the mindless savagery which had taken place here. This was no slave raid. The Tattooed People had been exterminated.

After a while Maggrig shouldered his bow and strode up to sit alongside Kiall.

'It is revolting down there,' said the hunter. 'It seems that nothing was taken in the raid. Some two hundred warriors surrounded the village earlier today, moved in and killed almost everyone. There are some tracks leading north and it looks as if small groups of the Tattooed People fought clear and fled. Maybe a dozen. But they were followed.'

'Why would anyone do this, Maggrig? What is gained by it?'

The hunter spread his hands. 'There is no answer I can give you. I took part in a raid on a Nadir camp once. We had found several of our men tortured over camp-fires, their eyes burned out. We followed the raiders to their village and captured them. Our officer, a cultured man, ordered all the children to be brought out to stand before the captives. Then he slew them in front of their parents. After that the Nadir were hanged. He told us the Nadir did not fear death, so to kill them was no real punishment. But to butcher their children before their eyes - that was justice.' Maggrig fell silent.

Kiall looked back at the village. 'There is no justice in any of it,' he said. The others joined them and the group moved back from the slope to make camp. Finn was unable to light a fire because the wood was too damp, and the questors sat in a circle, saying little.

'Was Okas among the dead?' asked Kiall.

Chareos shrugged. 'Difficult to tell. Many of the corpses have been stripped almost clean, but I saw no tattooes I could remember."

'Have we arrived in the midst of a war between them?'

'No,' answered Finn. 'The Tattooed People are small, and pigeon-toed. The tracks of the raiders show them to be tall. I found this,' he went on, pulling a broken gold wristband from the pocket of his deerskin jerkin. Behzer gasped as he saw it.

'Sweet Heaven!' he exclaimed. 'How heavy is it?' Finn tossed it to him. 'It must be worth around a hundred Raq,' said the giant.

'The owner threw it away when it broke,' said Finn. 'Gold cannot be worth that much here.'

'It isn't,' agreed Chareos, producing a small, barbed arrow-head - it too was gold.

'I am beginning to like it here,' remarked Beltzer. 'We could go back to Gothir as rich men.'

'Let us be content to be going back as live men,' snapped Chareos.

'I am with you on that,' whispered Finn, holding out his hand to Beltzer, who reluctantly returned the wristband.

Chareos rose. 'It is coming on towards dusk,' he said. 'I think we should make our way back to the Gate and camp there.' He shouldered his pack and led the others towards the north-west. They moved warily, stopping often while Finn scouted the trail ahead, and Kiall grew increasingly nervous. There would be little chance of hearing the approach of a legion of enemy warriors, not above the cluttering of the dark creatures in the trees, the distant roar of hunting cats and the rushing of unseen rivers and streams. He kept close to Chareos, Beltzer bringing up the rear with his huge axe in his hands.

Up ahead Finn dropped to his haunches, raising his arm and pumping his fist three times in the air. Then he rolled to the left and out of sight. Maggrig ducked into the undergrowth, followed swiftly by Chareos and Beltzer. Kiall stood for a moment alone on the trail. Three tall warriors came into sight, dragging a young woman; they saw Kiall and stopped, perplexed. They were tall men, bronze of skin with dark, straight hair. Gold glittered on their arms and ankles. Two of them carried weapons of dark wood, while the third had a long knife of burnished gold. They wore necklets of coloured stone, and their faces were streaked with many colours. The woman was small, her skin copper-coloured. On her brow was a blue tattoo. She wore only a loincloth of animal skin.

Slowly Kiall drew his sabre. One of the warriors screamed a war-cry and ran at him, his wooden club raised high. Kiall dropped into the sideways crouch Chareos had taught him, then sprang forward, the sabre lancing the man's chest. The bronze warrior staggered back as the sword slid clear. He looked down at the wound, saw the blood burst from it and slumped face first to the ground. The young woman tore herself free of her captors and ran down the trail towards Kiall who stepped aside to let her pass. The remaining warriors stood, uncertain. But from behind them came a score more of their comrades.

Kiall plunged left into the undergrowth as the hunters rushed forward. The ground dropped away and he lost his footing, slipping and sliding down a mud-covered slope to land in a sprawling heap at the bottom.

Half winded, he struggled to rise. Gathering his sabre he glanced up: the bronze warriors were coming down towards him. Spinning on his heel, he raced down a narrow trail. Broad, overhanging leaves lashed at his face, thorn-covered branches ripping at his clothes. Twice he slipped and fell, but the bloodcurdling cries of the pursuing hunters fed his panic, giving strength to his flight.

Where were his friends? Why were they not helping him?

He forced his way through a last section of dense undergrowth and emerged on the muddy bank of a great river, wider than the lakes of his homeland. His breathing was ragged, his ears filled with the drumming of his heart.

Where can I go?

He had lost all sense of direction and thick, lowering clouds obscured the sun. He heard shouts from his left and swinging to the right, he ran along the river-bank.

A huge dragon reared from the water, its elongated mouth rimmed with teeth. Kiall screamed, and leapt back from the river's edge. A spear sliced the air by his head and he turned in time to see a bronze warrior diving at him. The warrior crashed into Kiall, hurling them both back towards the river-bank. His sabre knocked from his hand, Kiall surged up and crashed his fist into the man's face, knocking him sideways. The warrior sprang upright but Kiall leapt feet-first, his boots thudding against the man's chest and propelling him back into the dark water. As the warrior struggled to the surface and began to wade ashore, the dragon's head reared behind him, the monstrous jaws clamping home on his leg. He let out an agonising scream and began to stab at the monster's scaled hide with a golden knife. Blood billowed to the river's surface and Kiall watched in horror as the warrior was dragged from sight.

Kiall tore his eyes from the scene and took up his sabre. He scanned the trees for sign of the enemy. A sudden movement behind made him spin round with sword raised. It was the young woman and she waved him towards where she was hidden in the undergrowth. He ran to her, dropped to his knees and crawled inside the spike-leaved bushes. Carefully she eased leaves back across the opening.

Within seconds more of the enemy arrived on the scene. They stood at the river-side, watching the struggle between the dying warrior and the dragon. When it was over the hunters squatted in a circle and spoke in low voices; one pointed up the trail, and it seemed to Kiall they were arguing about which direction to take. A large spider, hairless and bloated, crawled on to Kiall's hand. He stifled a scream. The girl swiftly leaned over him, plucking the insect from his skin and carefully placing it on a leaf.

The hunters rose and moved off into the jungle.

Kiall lay back and smiled at the young woman. She did not respond in kind, but touched her hand to her breast, then to her brow, then pressed her fingers to Kiall's mouth. Not knowing how to respond, Kiall lifted her hand and kissed it. She settled down beside him, closed her eyes and slept.

For some time he lay awake, too frightened to leave the sanctuary of the undergrowth. Then he too drifted off into a light doze - and awoke with the moon shining high above the trees. The woman sat up and crawled into the open. Kiall followed. She whispered something to him, but it was a language he had never heard.

'Okas?' he asked. Her head tilted. 'I am looking for Okas.'

She shrugged and trotted off along the river-bank. He followed her through the moonlit jungle, up over hills and rises, down through vine-choked archways and on to a wide cave where she stopped outside and held out her hand. He took it and was led inside. Torches flickered and he saw more than thirty of the Tattooed People sitting around fires built within circles of stone. Two young men approached them. After the woman had spoken to them for a few moments, he was led further into the cave.

An old man, near toothless, sat cross-legged on a high rock. His body was completely covered in tattooes and his lower face was stained blue, as if emulating a beard and an upturned moustache.

The woman spoke to the old man, whose face remained expressionless throughout. Finally she turned to Kiall and dropped to her knees. Taking his hand she kissed it twice, then rose and was gone.

'I am Okas,' said the old man.

'I am . . .' Kiall began.

'I know who you are. What do you want of me?"

'Your help.'

'Why should I seek to aid the soul of Tenaka Khan?'

'I do not know what you are talking about,' said Kiall. 'I am seeking to rescue a woman I love - that is all.'

'Where is fat Beltzer?'

'I lost them when we were attacked.'

'By the Azhtacs, this also I know! Give me your hand.' Kiall reached out and Okas took his hand and turned it palm upwards. 'You lost your woman - and yet not your woman. And now you are on a quest you do not understand, that will determine the fate of a people you do not know. Truly, Kiall, you are a part of the World's Dream.'

'But will you help me? Chareos says you can follow spirit trails; he says that without you we will never find Ravenna.'

The old man released his hand. 'My people are finished now, the day of the Azhtacs has dawned. But soon another day will dawn, and the Azhtacs will see the destruction of their homes, the torment of their people. Yet that gives me no pleasure. And I do not wish to be here when they come for my children. I had thought to die tonight, quietly, here on this stone. But now I will come with you and die on another stone. Then I will join the World's Dream.'

'I don't know how to thank you,' said Kiall.

'Come,' said the old man, dropping to the floor beside him, 'let us find the
ghosts-yet-to-be.'

*

Chareos dragged his sword clear of the dying Azhtac and swung to see if any of his companions needed help. Beltzer was standing over a dead warrior with axe raised. Maggrig and Finn had sheathed their knives and notched arrows to their bows. Nine dead Azhtacs lay sprawled around them. Chareos glanced up at the sun; it was almost noon and the silver-grey Gateway beckoned him.

'Where in Bar's name is Kiall?' hissed Chareos.

Finn joined him. 'I marked as many trees as I could, Chareos. I think he must be dead.'

Beltzer dropped to his knees beside a corpse and began to tug at the gold circlet the man wore on his brow. At that moment Maggrig shouted a warning and a large group of Azhtacs raced from the trees. 'Back!' shouted Chareos. Beltzer cursed and rose. Maggrig and Finn ran through the Gateway. Beltzer raised his axe and bellowed a battle-cry and the Azhtacs slowed. Beltzer turned and sprinted through the Gate, followed by Chareos.

The moonlight was bright on the other side, and the cold was numbing after the heat of the jungle. A spear flashed through the Gateway, striking the ground and half burying itself in the snow. Beltzer moved to one side of the Gateway; when an arm and a head showed through, his axe smashed into the head, catapulting the man back through the opening. Then there was silence.