The first streaks of dawn spread above the old, worn mountain tops; the hovering smoke they took for mist, for morning fog. The road made a twist, and then opened up where it branched toward the bridge. From there they saw the village clearly; the smell of the carnage overtook them even as their weary brains registered the desolation.
The smoke was a vaporous cerement. No buildings were left standing. Smoldering mounds of rubble indicated where they had been. Faubus raised his hand for his men to rein in.
He selected four of them and sent them across the bridge and up the pass. The rest he sent ahead of him into Ukobachia.
As they entered the village, the soldiers saw a few figures scurrying amidst the smoke and debris. Most of these were animals, but a few were people who moved like animals, whose humanity had been torn from them. At the soldiers’ approach, these creatures paused, lifted their heads in alarm and fled for the forest. Faubus saw nothing that might indicate how this had happened.
From the bridge someone shouted, “Captain!” Faubus broke away from his group and rode back.
Two of his men had awaited him at the bridge. They had apparently disobeyed his order to ride to the pass. He knew there had to be a good reason. One of them stepped forward and saluted as he drew up. “Sir,” he said, casting a glance at the other soldier, “we have something to show you.”
“Yes?”
The soldier turned. “It’s over here.”
The captain climbed down and tied his horse to the railing, then followed the duo. His legs ached. He was glad of the opportunity to stretch them.
The two soldiers stopped, their backs to him, looking down. They moved apart so that he could see.
The head lay on its side, mouth clogged by the tongue, eyes open wide but glazed. The oily hair stood up like thorny spikes. Faubus thought he knew the face, but, as he had never been to Ukobachia before, could not imagine how. Whoever it was, he had died horribly. “Do either of you recognize him? Was he someone important in their village?”
The second soldier, who had not spoken before, said, “Not their village, captain. That is, well—I used to ride patrol round by Chagri’s temple in the city. This man was there a lot.”
“He’s a priest?” Even as he said it, he was thinking that he must have seen him before, too.
“Sir, this is the priest the Hespet sent to Trufege.”
“Trufege.” He glanced back at the razed village. “You bastards,” he muttered. “Stay by the bridge until the other two have returned from the pass.” He walked past his horse, into the village. The fatty-sweet smell assailed him again, much stronger this time. Faubus drew back his head and pressed his lips tightly together. He came upon one of his men softly entreating a woman who sat cradling in her arms what appeared to be a log. On closer inspection, he saw that the “log” was the charred remains of an infant. His man was trying to remove it from the woman’s inflexible grasp. Faubus went over, tapped the soldier on the shoulder, and shook his head. “Let it be for now, come with me,” he ordered. The soldier obeyed. The woman began to sing abruptly a quiet, lugubrious lullaby. The two men shivered as they walked away from her.
“The baby’s dead,” the soldier began to explain. “She must have picked it up when it was still burning—her hands are all swollen and blistered, terribly blistered, but she won’t let go, she won’t let me—”
“That’s enough.”
The soldier’s mouth worked slackly; then he seemed to find himself again, and he came to attention. “Begging pardon. What should I do, then, sir?”
“Tell me what you’ve found. Forget everything but what goes in your report.”
“Sir. We’ve found virtually nothing. The Kobachs are either dead or have fled into the woods.
The few left have, I think, returned to search through the ruins for someone. But there aren’t any bodies, there’s nothing…we…we had to kill two of them—there was no helping it, we couldn’t save them.”
“Of course.”
“But that’s no more than five or six people. The rest are gone. We’re still looking.”
“Good. Then the rest will be alive.” He thought of the priest on the bridge. “Perhaps someone sounded the alarm.”
They walked along in silence until they came to another group of men who were carrying away a survivor, an old man who was babbling in short, disjointed fits. Another soldier came up, nodded at the man being taken away, then said, “He told us Trufege came down out of the hills. Sounded rational for a minute, but then he got on about hordes of krykwyres swoopin’ out of the clouds.”
Faubus looked up into a clear dawn sky.
“That’s what I mean,” said the soldier, “but the old fellow insisted all the same. Says they came and took the bodies to Mordus himself. He says the god actually strode through the village, passed no more than an arm’s length from him, bright as a star, and had no face. He has to be mad.”
“Probably. I cannot believe this has happened.”
A trio of his men came running. They called out, “Is that the captain there with you?” then gestured for him to come with them. Faubus and the two soldiers beside him followed them to a larger group, clustered around one of the mounds of rubble.
Faubus stared in wonderment.
In the midst of the smoking heap of a building, a small girl lay, apparently asleep, on the remains of her bed. She had, it seemed, lain there while the fire raged around her, for the edges of her hay mattress were blackened; but an unscorched circle surrounded her. Some fathomless power had protected her. “Maybe we won’t all follow Mordus,” Faubus muttered.
“Sir?”
“Never mind. Let’s take her out of there, shall we?”
“We’ve tried, captain, but something protects her—we can’t touch her or pick her up.”
“Try waking her, then. Call out to her.”
“Well, what’s her name?” someone asked. Laughter answered, nervous and sharp. Before anyone could call to the child, one of the men pointed and said, “Look at that!” Above the little girl, a tall milky figure began to appear. They could see through it while at the same time discerning the features distinctly. It was the shape of a woman—a Kobach woman, for she had the strange designs inscribed on her forehead. She gazed down at the child with undisguised reverence and her lips moved although nothing could be heard. Then the ghost lifted her face to the sky and vanished.
The child’s eyelids fluttered open. A moment later she awoke and raised her head to see the group of awestruck soldiers crowded around her. She began to shake and, seeing the ruin of her home, began to cry for her father.
Faubus stepped carefully through the glowing coals. He bent down, but let the girl make the move to come to him. Her arms looped around his neck, and she huddled against him. He whispered softly to her, lifted her and took her out of the ruin.
Behind him, the circle of preserved straw ignited.
The soldiers looked at one another with awe, then turned away and followed Faubus and the child as they might have attended the Oracle of Spern.
At the other end of the village they came upon the four men who had been sent across the bridge, who now stood with bowed heads over the body of the woman who even in death still clutched her dead child to her bosom.
At the sound of the main party’s approach, the four men silently distanced themselves from each other and the body. They were all too happy to rejoin their comrades.
Chapter 11.
The castle Ladoman—a chalky white-walled fortress with squared-off buildings—rose out of a rare expanse of solid ground.
Encircling it, trees taller than the castle walls stirred gently in autumnal breezes. Wild rushes below them hissed against one another.
Within five steys in any direction, the land turned brown and treacherous, the watery earth stank of sulphur and tar. Lyrec knew this well—he had crossed it all. And he could not believe, when he topped the rise, that an oasis such as the castle could exist in this sodden land.
The owner of the castle, Ladomirus, was, at that moment, bathing in his lake on the far side of the castle. As lakes go, this one more closely resembled a private pond. However, King Ladomirus would not have it referred to as anything other than his
lake
. His enormous body bobbed, a soft pink island, not far from shore. To the people who stood on that shore attending him, he discoursed loudly about his past achievements—a list his attendants had heard enough times to memorize. The king had only a handful of credits to his name.
His bodyguard, Talenyecis, was among them. She was a fierce red-headed warrior, golden-tanned and freckled. Her head rested on a drawn-up knee that was braced against the stump on which she sat looking through slitted eyes at the king. The sunlight in her lashes turned the lake around him into bright fire. She contemplated him cooking in his own juices while she turned the spit on which he was impaled. It was not an unpleasant image and made her deaf to his annoyingly incessant registry of deeds.
On the bank between Talenyecis and Ladomirus sat the fat king’s current woman. As with the lake, “woman” was an inaccurate depiction of his concubine. The flaxen-haired child was fifteen, if one believed the child herself. More likely she was younger. The girl pulled at her wet tangle of hair and tried in vain to comb her fingers through it. Talenyecis abandoned broiling the king and concentrated on the concubine, taking in dispassionately the sinuous line of backbone beneath the white skin, a spatter of pimples on either side of the girl’s fleshy buttocks. The girl was otherwise clean, though, and safe, as had been all of Ladomirus’s concubines. Talenyecis always saw to that, just as she ensured that their physique was to
her
liking, for the king would inevitably discard the girl after a time and Talenyecis would inevitably take her.
She could see that the time was coming for this one. The girl had given up pretending to look as if she were listening to what the king said. He would have noticed that by now. Within a week or two this would irritate him to action and the girl would discover that he had a darker and more unpleasant side even than his sexual preferences. Talenyecis did not mind taking the scraps from Ladomirus’s table. He took one girl at a time and when he was done never went to her again. Talenyecis managed much more enduring relationships with those who liked her attention; from the cast-offs she had built up a substantial seraglio from which to select her own pleasures. She looked forward vaguely to the girl’s imminent punishment.
Gazing beyond the concubine, Talenyecis was the first to see two figures coming toward them from the south gate. She stood, gracefully for all her size, and snapped her fingers. Two male attendants, who had been ogling the naked concubine themselves, twitched at the sharp sound and jumped to attention. They looked to Talenyecis for orders.
“Get his cloak ready,” she said. “We have visitors.”
The attendants glanced at the people coming toward them. One was a soldier, striding forward through the tall grass with some effort. The other figure, taller and more slender than the soldier, wore a wide-brimmed hat that cast his face in shadow. Not far behind these two, the rushes shook as if a diminutive third party—a dwarf, perhaps—accompanied them. The attendants went about the business of unwrapping a heavy green robe that they were careful to keep above the ground.
Ladomirus continued to chatter away, oblivious to the changes around him. Then, as he did each time he proclaimed some essential and redundant point about himself, he glanced at the shore to assure himself that his audience was paying attention. He saw the robe held out and took notice of the approaching figures. His traveling gaze met that of Talenyecis, and he glowered at her for the small reproach she showed him by not announcing the arrivals. He rolled over and paddled back to shore, his buttocks rising and falling like the bleached humps of a sea-monster. The concubine paid no attention to any of this. She continued to work her hair into wet strands.
The fat king crawled out of the water and shook himself. He accepted the robe, and belted it. The attendants, their job done, released it
. A
s the king strode forward, the embroidered hem dragged along the ground.
The soldier leading Lyrec had come to attention. Ladomirus looked Lyrec over, but spoke to the soldier. “What have we here?”
The soldier went to one knee with his head bowed, then stood. “Lord, this man wishes to join our cause.”
“A recruit. Ha!” He clapped his hands. “You see, Talenyecis, just as I said. They know a leader, these mercenaries. Word would get out, I told you, yes I did, and lead them all back to us. And it has done as I said.”
“Yes, you did, Lord,” adding to herself,
On too many occasions
.
She studied the volunteer. He was studying her, too, and looking somewhat surprised, as if he recognized her from somewhere. She had seen comparable expressions many times before, and she hoped he would not prove to be like so many of the others who came here. Stupid, rough men with mud-soaked brains who had forced her again and again to establish her superiority as a fighter. Within the castle at this moment were men who wore a scar or lacked an ear on her account. This one, though, did not have that look about him. He seemed more intelligent and observant. A careful man. Talenyecis wished then that he had been dull and bellicose like the others—at least with them, once the initial conflict had concluded, she never had to worry. This man made her uneasy in the way he seemed to read the scene and know his place within it.
Her observation was not shared by Ladomirus. He waddled up to Lyrec and gripped his shoulders. Lyrec smiled back.
“Now that’s a rare thing,” said the fat king. “Good teeth. You find few good teeth around, heh?” His attendants nodded. “You must do well to stay so … clean, yes. And you look fed.”
“I get by.” That he neglected to add “Lord” to his answer went unnoticed by the king.
“You do, of course, of course. Or you’d be dead, in your line of work, heh? So, so. Your name is?”
“Lyrec.”
Ladomirus pulled at his numerous chins. “From Novalok, then.”