Motherstone (8 page)

By night they had climbed out of wet into dry. They slept on shaly stone warmed from underground and Susan had nightmares as though covered with too many blankets. She felt a stirring as if the hill she slept on was shifting. In the morning she saw they were on the inner slope of a huge pit.

‘Here a mountain was swallowed,’ Steen said. ‘O is hollow underneath and feeds on herself. And spits herself out.’ A rumbling came from the west. ‘That is her sound. She has no manners.’ He smiled – the first smile she had seen from him. It lit his heavy face and seemed to give a lighter colour to his slaty eyes. ‘We should reach the sands by afternoon.’

They went round the pit and crossed a trembling plain and climbed the flank of a long low mountain stretching north. Lava wormed from holes blown in its sides. It crumbled as it nosed down the slope. Smoking stones rolled on ahead. The mountain itself was lava-built. Great flat tongues lay on the landscape south.

It took them all day to get across. By nightfall they were in the scrub. Steen wrapped blankets round them to save them from the thorns. He kept on to the edge of a dry-grass plain, where he gave Susan meat and fruit and water.

‘The sands are close. We will not stop but go straight across. Slarda cannot be far away. She will hope to pick up our trail on the sand. But when we reach the jungle I can lose her.’

‘How long will we be on the sands?’

‘All night and all the morning. Perhaps we’ll sleep an hour, we’ll see. Before the hottest sun we’ll reach the jungle.’

That did not seem bad. It was no great desert. And though she was tired she would rather keep going if Slarda was close.

The night was black. She followed the rope. Soon they left the grass and climbed in dunes. Steen had some way of finding firm-packed sand and she found the walking easy at first. In places a brittle grass still grew. It pricked her legs. Later it was gone and the sand was finer, shifting and sliding. She felt as if she were trudging in mud. It grew harder to lift her feet. Steen let her rest twice but would not let her sleep. He kept a tension on the rope and she felt as if she were a broken car being towed along.

At last he said, ‘Midnight. Sleep a while.’

‘Can I have some water?’

He gave her his flask.

‘Have we got enough?’

‘There’s a water-hole halfway across. We should find it at sunrise.’

She drank, and covered herself with a blanket. When he woke her she thought no more than a moment had passed. But he said, ‘Morning in two hours. We must get close to the water-hole. Slarda will find our trail. She will be fresh and we are tired.’ He led her among dunes cresting like breakers. Then he found a plain of hard flat sand and they walked more easily. Soon she felt dry grass brushing her legs. The sky behind them lightened and he took the rope and looped it in his belt.

‘Over the rise. Can you smell water?’

‘No.’

‘It is the smell of life in the sands.’ He moved again, but stopped uncertainly.

‘What is it?’

‘Ashes. Dead fires.’

‘Who?’

‘Hotlanders. I hope they’ve gone.’

He went on until they came to the rise. It was like a bank round a fortified village. Steen put his hand back and stopped her. She saw his eyes gleaming in the dawn-light. ‘Stay here.’ He climbed, bent at the waist, and crouched below the rim of the bank. She lost hope. If no one was there he would have called. Then he beckoned, putting his fingers to his lips. She crept up to his side and looked where he was pointing, at the oasis. Colours moved about it as if a cloth were rippling on the ground. It took her a moment to understand that people, men and women, naked except for loin-cloths, shaven-headed, painted over their bodies blue and red, were moving in a silent ritual dance about the few black bushes, the yard or so of water.

‘They dance to welcome the sun. He is their god, or one of them.’

‘The god of fire.’

Blue lines rippled through the red. Clusters, splashes, formed here and there; and suddenly the dance had a burning core, a concentration of red so bright it seemed to throb. The sun came over the bank. A shout rose to greet it, an exultant yell. That was all. The simplicity of it startled Susan. The Hotlanders broke up and moved to their morning tasks. She was able to look at one or two and see them more closely. They were tall and sinewy, with a mantis angularity. Their colours made them beautiful, yet in a way that was frightening. She got from them a sense of threat and savagery, a sense of suddenness. They would, she thought, see and kill, with nothing in between – a single action. They looked as if they could run all day, exist on a mouthful of water. The desert was theirs, they belonged.

Iron age, she thought, looking at their weapons; yet they did not seem that civilized. The women, tall and stringy as the men, were painted blue. They were the axe and club warriors. The men carried whippy spears, red like themselves.

‘Is it war paint?’

‘No,’ Steen said. ‘It wards off the sun. They paint themselves differently for war. This must be a band on its way to join Osro.’

‘Will they really follow him?’

‘The Hotlands are theirs. They believe darkness lies outside. But Osro will lead them with his Weapon. Fire and light. They will follow.’

‘Will they stay here long – at the water-hole?’

‘The men are setting up targets for their spears. They will stay all morning. And Slarda comes behind. So …’ He shrugged.

‘What about water?’

‘A mouthful each.’ He looked at his flask. ‘We must reach the jungle by midday. Otherwise …’

They backed down the slope and rounded the water-hole to the south. Soon they crossed the trail left by the Hotlanders and struck out into the dunes. Steen kept them in hollows and when he climbed at last the water-hole was gone and sand was all about like a sea. Susan looked ahead for the jungle but only pale sky showed on the horizon. Later it vanished in a pool of heat. Steen tore head-coverings from his blanket but heat burned through and clung to them, dry and sticky at once. The sand radiated heat, at the same time dragging their feet. Susan felt she was walking up to her knees, but floating too, horizontal, squeezed flat by the pressure from above and below.

‘Steen, I need some water.’

‘One sip.’ He pulled the flask away. ‘We’re not halfway there.’

They went on. She had a time of clarity and fierceness. She followed Steen, stepping in his steps. If this was the worst then she would do it.

‘Steen?’

‘Yes?’

‘How close?’

‘An hour. The jungle. See.’

Something was forming in the heat. It would not stay still.

‘It looks alive. It looks like a snake.’

Steen gave her the flask. ‘Finish it now.’ It made a hollow rattle and was empty before her mouth was wet. Steen let the last drops fall on his palm. He licked them off and fastened the flask on his belt. ‘Water in the jungle. Can you get there?’

‘I think so.’

Half an hour later she wasn’t sure. The dunes had a steep side and a flat side, and the steep always faced them and had to be climbed. Steen began hauling her up like a swimmer from a pool. Then he stood her and pulled her to the next climb. She heard him grunt and pant, and when she managed to look at him his eyes were blind from his exertions. She wondered why he made them go so fast.

‘Steen?’

‘We must keep moving.’ He was using himself up and she saw no need for it. The jungle was close. The glassy wall of heat was lifted away. She saw individual trees, and green round heads printed on the sky.

‘Steen?’

‘Slarda is coming.’

‘Where?’ She looked back. Nothing was there, only dune-tops, salty-white. Then a brown speck showed, and swelled from the surface into a questing four-legged shape. She thought it was a dog, but it stood, grew into a stick-limbed man or woman, treading quickly; and shrank again, sank into a hollow between dunes, and went from sight.

‘Is it her?’

‘Yes. She’s closing. I have watched her.’

‘Has she seen us?’

‘She follows our footmarks. That is her way. We can’t get to the jungle, there’s no time. Not both of us.’

She stared at him with fear. He was going to leave her. But he shook his head, smiled in his flat-mouthed way. ‘I cannot save myself. I don’t know why. I must stay and fight. She has her crossbow, so I must hide and ambush her.’

‘If she sees you first …’

‘Then I am dead. It doesn’t trouble me. All things die. But I die as Steen, not Osro’s man. And not as priest. I thank you for that.’

‘Can’t we both – ’

‘No. While I fight with Slarda you must reach the jungle. Wait there, I will find you.’ He gave his smile again. ‘If it’s her – then I’m sorry. Quickly. Go.’

She tried to say thank you but could not make her mouth work. Instead, she touched his hand. Then she turned and left him. She walked down the slope of the dune and reached the face of the next. When she looked back Steen was gone. She climbed the face, using hands and feet, and looked again from the top. Wherever he was, he was hidden well. But Slarda was there, topping another dune two hundred metres back. It was like watching someone over a river. Slarda made no sign of seeing her, but sank into a hollow. For a moment her head seemed to float on the sand, then was gone. Susan ran, stumbling down to another sand-face. This one seemed more steep. She slid back as she climbed. At the top she rolled until she was hidden, then ran again, and climbed; and so it went on, three more, four more, five more dunes. She looked back but had no sight of Slarda. By now the woman must have reached the place where Steen had left her.

A cry came from the desert. It crossed the huge silence like an arrow, and was gone. Male or female? Susan could not tell. She ran across sand that did not fall as she had expected but seemed as flat as a low-tide beach, and came to the final climb. The jungle stood there, silent, at the top of a wall white as sugar. It seemed almost straight up and down and taller by several times than the ones she had climbed already. She started up, and slid back, and knew she had no strength for it. But she tried again, and made several metres, digging her fingers in the moving surface. Far away, black creepers hung like strands of hair on a forehead. If she could reach one – but she fell, and rolled like a log to the bottom. Her eyes were blind with sand and her mouth gritty. She squatted hamster-like at the foot of the wall and waited for whatever was to happen. After a little time her eyes were clear. She wiped them and looked across the sand-flat at the dunes. Slarda stood halfway across, watching her.

Slarda!

Susan thought of Steen first. Tears burned in her eyes and slid on her cheeks. She was glad that he had died his own man. Then she was terrified for herself, and tried to stand, but her knees gave way.

Slarda came another ten steps forward. Her lips were drawn back in a grin, her teeth gleamed like porcelain. She held up something, rattled it – Steen’s belt and empty water flask – and threw it aside. She took her crossbow from her back and with two fingers shaped like tongs plucked a short arrow from her pouch.

If only she’d say something, say a word, Susan thought. She could not move. She sat at the foot of the sandhill, leaning her back on it, palms flat, calves burning on the sand, and waited for Slarda to take aim. Grains from high on the hill ran in little rivers by her face. She tried to wet her mouth. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them Slarda had her bow armed. But something about her was wrong. She had sunk into a fighting crouch. She was looking not at Susan but up at the jungle. Slowly she took two steps back.

Susan turned painfully. She did not care much what she saw. It could be no help, whatever it was.

The sand climbed almost straight, as smooth as marble. Jungle frothed across the top of it. A huge red flower bloomed on the green. She blinked and looked again. Not a flower. Jaws and shoulders jutting like a painted figurehead. White teeth winking. Eyes like jewels.

Bloodcat!

‘Cat,’ Slarda said, ‘take the girl.’ Her voice came hoarsely over the sand. ‘Cat, noble cat, we are hunters, you and I. We understand each other. She was mine. But I surrender her. I give her to you. Take the girl.’

The Bloodcat made no sign of having heard. It opened its jaws wide and yawned and the bones of its mouth made a creaking sound.

‘Cat,’ Slarda said, ‘she is tender. She is sweet. But I am tough. No meal for you, King of Cats.’

She was pleading for her life. But she made no sign of panic. She remained in her fighting crouch, with her bow ready. Her eyes, unblinking, watched the cat. Susan watched it too, thinking how much less terrible it was than Slarda. It was not twisted, it would not kill her for its own pleasure. And it would do as it wanted. She felt like telling Slarda to stop wasting her time. This cat would choose one of them, or both. And that would be that.

It placed one paw over the lip of sand, testing it. Then it stepped out and slid down, forelegs stiff and tail like a snake. It was so bright on the sand Susan shielded her eyes. She heard the wooden slap of Slarda’s bow. The cat twisted, almost lazily, shifting its line, and kept on sliding. The bolt pocked the sand and slid down too, a stocky poisonous dart with a needle tip. Sand buried it at the foot of the slope.

Susan watched the cat. It stepped out on the flat and stretched itself like a house cat at a fire. Again it yawned and its jaws creaked. It seemed lazy, bored, but its tail gave it away, whipping stiffly from side to side. Still it seemed to pay no attention to Slarda; and Susan gave her no attention either. She heard the frantic jacking of her bow as she reloaded. Slarda was a movement at the corner of her eye. The cat filled the rest. It stopped its yawning and turned to face her. She saw those eyes again, that she had seen in nightmares – hot and yellow, pupils in a flame-point. They seemed to cut into her like knives, penetrate to where heart throbbed and lungs pumped. She seemed to have no secrets from the cat, it saw into her brain to where the secret of her life was kept.

‘Cat,’ Susan whispered, ‘don’t. Please.’

She heard the slap of Slarda’s bow again. The cat seemed to give no muscular movement, it sprang stiff-legged, it levitated, and the bolt whined under it, a yellow wasp, and struck the sand with a kapok sound. The cat had twisted in its jump. Now it faced Slarda. It began to step carelessly towards her. It was
strolling
. Susan leaned forward, she whispered, ‘Cat.’ For now she saw the marks on its side, the four raked scars running from shoulder to hip, pink and sore and tender in the hair. And saw the mark worn by a collar on its neck. This was him, this was the one. It was the cat the High Priest had kept, and ordered to kill her. The cat Ben had fought, and clawed on its side. And she had taken its collar off and sent it home. And here it was, in its jungle, on its sands – hunting Slarda. She watched. She knew the woman had no chance. She felt sorry for her and wanted to save her, but telling her to run would serve no purpose.