He nodded to the woman, as did Heredrew.
How will these elders cope with two spokesmen?
At least he and the tall Falthan seemed to be of similar mind.
They refused to speak to us, so we should be slow to answer their questions.
“That plateau our heartland. Outsiders not allowed in our heartland. Unless you supply best reason for this, you will be ended
in traditional manner.” Such a beautiful voice.
Heredrew laughed. “I haven’t heard the Wordweave used so clumsily in some time,” he said. To the others he added: “It’s a
form of basic magic. The speaker weaves a surreptitious meaning between her words. I believe we are supposed to feel safe,
among friends, and therefore willing to answer their enquiries. You realise she just promised to kill us all?”
Yes.
Noetos had heard the words, had even known what they implied, but it simply had not disturbed him, so sweet had been her
voice. Magic. How he hated it.
“The Bhrudwan Recruiters use it,” he said, remembering that night in Fossa. He was about to explain about the Recruiters,
but Heredrew nodded.
“They are trained in all the arts of the Voice.”
How does he know?
Now he understood what the woman was doing, her voice didn’t sound quite so compelling.
“Do I explain traditional way enemies of Padouk are ended? They are taken to tallest tree in Canopy and cast to ground. Is
noble death for Padouki. Not so noble for guests. So unless you wish to descend more quicker than you came up, please tell.
Tell now.”
“Here are our reasons,” Noetos snapped, tired of the manipulation. “First, your man Siy gave us leave. This was after he filled
our companion, the god Keppia, with arrows.”
“He kill Keppia?” the woman said, her mouth stretching wide, whether in surprise or in a smile, Noetos could not tell. “Keppia
dead?”
“No, even the andali did not hurt him,” the man Siy said. “This man is correct. I granted them leave because there was no
other choice; they were in the company of the god. We have not seen him for many years, and all Padouk remembers what happened
when last we resisted him.”
“Ai, he slaughter Fumi Canopy,” the woman said, and the women on either side of her pulled their lips back, exposing their
teeth in an expression of grief. “All who live there die when mother tell Keppia not to take daughter. He kill Canopy and
take daughter anyway.”
“You are angry at Keppia,” Heredrew said. “So are we.”
“You his friends. You still-awake ones maybe gods too, little gods. Now he not here to protect, we likely end you quick.”
Noetos took a step forward. “You told us we were to be judged because we went into your heartland. You lie. You want to kill
us because you think we are Keppia’s friends. But we are no friends of Keppia. We want him dead, him and his sister Umu both.
In the House of the Gods we slew his body, but he has escaped us. The body may have come back to life. Please give us leave
to pursue the body and end it forever. If you have any ability to sense the truth, believe me when I say we have devoted ourselves
to destroy the gods.”
One of the old women eased herself to her feet and began shouting in a language full of consonants.
The spokeswoman nodded. “Ai, Ashana is right. We not want Keppia dead. He die, we lose our gift. We want him to leave us alone.
Go away, not come back.”
“What gift?” Heredrew asked.
“Too many question,” said the woman. “We end you.”
“NO!” Lenares strode forward. “You are afraid Keppia’s death will mean you die too. I can see your numbers: you are very old,
and these, your aunts, are even older. Many hundreds of years old. You are afraid that the gods will take your long lives
from you. But if you listen to your selfish fear, the gods will win.” Another pace towards the elders and now she was shouting.
“You must not kill us! We are the only ones who know what is happening in the world! Do you know about the hole in the Wall
of Time? Have you sensed the forest behaving strangely? Are the trees falling without explanation? Are the rivers overflowing
out of season?
“I have held Umu captive. There are powerful magicians among us. We are trying to prevent the gods breaking into the world
from beyond the Wall of Time. We have to keep them out. If we can close the hole, we can stop the gods destroying the world
and you can keep your long lives.”
The five elders stared at her, mouths open. Two of them rocked back and forth, hands on their heads.
“You are dangerous as gods,” said the woman. “We end you and Keppia will be grateful. Padouk become great once again, Bhrudwo
die, we are content. Siy, take them to place of ending.”
She waved an arm and the warriors moved in over the captives’ protests.
“Make end of them,” said the beautiful voice as Noetos and the others were dragged from the hut.
ARATHÉ! ARATHÉ!
NOETOS DIRECTED
his mind-cry outwards.
Please, speak to me!
No reply came: whether because his daughter could not hear him or chose not to respond, he could not say.
The big fisherman despised feeling helpless. His family sword remained on Captain Kidson’s ship, along with the huanu stone,
but even that powerful artefact would not have been able to protect him here. It was effective only against magic, and it
did not, after all, take magic to throw someone from the top of a tree. The death that followed would be an entirely natural
one.
Why had the Padouki split him from the rest of the captives? He tried to ask, but none would—or could—answer him. Were he
with his children he was sure he could have devised some way to escape. Perhaps the warriors had sensed that, and this was
the reason they had separated him from the others.
He allowed himself to be led across one of the swing bridges. Such a dangerous method of moving from one place to another;
each fragile, wind-tossed bridge less than a pace in width, making it difficult for people to pass if travelling in opposite
directions. Perhaps there was some well-understood collection of routes around this tree-city that kept people from getting
in each other’s way. However it was done, Noetos and his three captors met no one coming the other way.
All the while Noetos looked left and right to see where they had taken his children. He could not see them. They might be
anywhere.
Arathé has magic
, he reassured himself.
So does her brother. They will take care of themselves.
For now it was himself he needed to think about; himself and the others left in the physic hut, vulnerable without magic
to protect themselves.
He hated feeling vulnerable. But if Arathé refused to mind-speak with him, then vulnerable he was. He would have to rely on
natural means.
The natural means left to him were few, but they might be sufficient. Could he do this? His old weapons tutor had spent time
instructing him in unarmed combat, but he had not practised it in years. And this was his enemies’ natural environment.
There are three rules to combat without weapons
, Cyclamere had said.
Get in close. When you are there, fight without honour. And use your weight.
Simple enough.
He feigned a stumble and grabbed at a warrior’s arm. Beneath him the narrow bridge swung in the opposite direction to his
movement, as he had anticipated and allowed for. The man managed a cry of alarm, but did not react quickly enough to save
himself. Noetos lowered his shoulder, got under the man’s chest and stood. Momentum did the rest.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Noetos said feebly as the man tumbled down into the shadows. There would be a moment when the other two
guards would not believe their fellow had fallen, and a moment longer when they would not realise it had been deliberate.
His apology would make them uncertain of what they had seen, slowing them further. He moved before realisation hit them.
The first he disabled with a short punch to the ribs. He threw himself at the doubled-over figure and pushed him into the
third man, who had finally drawn a knife.
That’s the problem with bows and arrows, boys
, Noetos thought as he used his opponent to block the man’s attempt at a thrust. The knife-wielder hissed, then swept his
weapon in a wide arc at throat height—just as his partner stood, having recovered from the blow to his chest. The tip of the
blade took the man under the chin, etching a red line across his throat. His scream faded to a gurgle and he fell heavily
on the slats of the bridge, his blood spraying across Noetos’s feet.
The remaining guard stood for a moment, staring wide-eyed at the knife in his hand, then dropped it and ran. “Khlamir! Khlamir!”
he shouted as he disappeared. In moments he had vanished in the trees, though the fisherman could still hear him calling.
Noetos had not expected that. He would be lost if the Padouki brought numbers to bear against him, but he would not be able
to keep pace with the warrior in his own environment. So he let the man go. Instead, he picked up the knife. A poor weapon,
but better than none at all. Within moments there was shouting in the distance. A response to the warrior’s shouts? Or something
else entirely?
Something else, it seemed. A thin column of smoke rose above the trees some distance away. Noetos considered making for it:
the smoke could be coming from the physic hut. He hoped it was his children causing the trouble, but there were other magicians
amongst them.
Could be Heredrew
, he thought as he stepped over the dead warrior and moved as quickly as he could to the end of the bridge.
Whoever, at least we’re fighting back.
He ran towards the smoke, making no attempt to conceal himself.
Speed, speed.
The first few bridges were empty. A group of small children blocked the fourth. So much for his theory of the well-understood
routes.
“Get out of the way!” he shouted.
The children laughed and pointed at him. In the distance a woman shrieked, the chilling sound followed by a detonation that
shook the forest. The laughter stopped.
A shout from behind him. He turned to see the warrior leader two bridges away, sprinting towards him, sword in hand. Noetos
could not believe how fast the man moved.
“Move! Please, move aside!”
The children, oblivious to the concerns of adults, ignored him, mouths wide open, eyes riveted on another rising column of
smoke. “Khlamir! Khlamir!” one called, pointing to the oncoming warrior and then the distant smoke.
The fisherman charged at the children. Cries of exuberance changed to shouts of fear. He fended one little girl away, pushing
her to the ground, and strode through a pair of boys. He stumbled over a fourth child, so young it was most likely barely
weaned, and grabbed at the rope rail. The bridge swung alarmingly, pitching back and forth, and the children shrieked. Noetos
turned; the small girl had been thrown over the rail and clung to it with one hand, her body dangling over three hundred feet
of emptiness.
The other children fled towards the advancing warrior.
Cyclamere, what would you advise now?
He knew, damn his old tutor. He thrust out a hand and snatched the child by her upper arm. She squealed as he dragged her
back onto the bridge, then kicked and clawed at him, spitting ferociously, her little face screwed up with hatred.
Noetos dragged himself to the far end of the bridge, the girl clinging to his leg. He kicked her in the face. She cried out
and let go, then scurried away to join her friends, blood running from her nose.
The warrior leader—Siy, he remembered the man’s name—arrived at the far end of the bridge. Noetos raised the knife.
“No further!” he cried. “Or I take this knife to the children.”
The warrior laughed. “If you had it in you to slay children, you would not have rescued the girl.”
Noetos grunted. Disconcerting to hear such insight expressed in perfect Fisher Coast Bhrudwan. “I’ll cut the bridge down then.”
Another laugh. “Now you are not thinking. Again, you will do nothing that will result in the death of the children.”
“Whereas your people will happily sacrifice strangers to appease the Son.” Noetos decided to gamble. “Not you, though, Siy.
You have Tocharan training. Your tutors would not have advocated such a thing. Even the Neherians would not do this.” He slipped
the knife into his belt.
“The Neherians would do anything,” said the warrior. “You know nothing if you do not know that. I could tell you stories about
those folk fit to freeze your blood. But you are right: this is folly, and unworthy of the Padouki.”
“Then let us go.”
“No. Surrender and I guarantee your deaths will be clean. I vow that I will personally travel to your home town and tell your
relatives how bravely you died.”
“My home town is destroyed.”
Noetos found, as he said the words, a deep regret rising within him. Why he should care for a place he had hated, he could
not understand. He would have sworn he could not have cared whether Fossa sat smugly in the sun or was burned to the ground,
but apparently he had been wrong.
“I will ensure you are buried with honour,” the warrior persisted.
“You must let us go. The cosmographer was right, warrior. We are the only hope of defeating the gods.”
The man called something and the children made their way to his end of the bridge. “You do not understand,” he told Noetos.
“The Padouki owe Keppia a great debt. In exchange for allowing him to make an entrance to the Godhouse in our sacred heartland,
Keppia gifted us with the life of trees.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Padouki live very long lives,” said the warrior. “As long as the trees they tend. I told you I spent time at the Tochar
academy, yes, but this was in the time before the Red Duke of Roudhos. I served the Red Duke, and was already high in his
service when I saw him burn in the war against the Falthans. I marched to Instruere and watched the Undying Man’s victory
and his defeat. Afterwards I assumed another name and served the Red Duke’s son. Yet this is only a short part of my life,
do you understand? Would you give up such a gift to save a few people who have made enemies of your god?”