Unbound (22 page)

Alinder silenced her with a scowl. “If the enemy that overthrew Peradain has struck against us, we—”

“
I
t cannot be the same enemy,” the captain said. “Even if they had come by river on the day Peradain fell, they could not be so far south after three days’ journey.” Of course, this is what Alinder had told herself before she agreed to accompany the troops to the station. Now that they were close, she began to doubt her certitude. The captain looked over her head at the troops behind them. “At worst, this is the work of Veliender bandits. We continue.” Clearly, the tyr’s family was welcome to join them or return south alone.

“Mother, it will be fine,” Shawa insisted. “The scout said the enemy has withdrawn. Are we not safer with all these troops around us than alone on the road? At the first sign of danger, Shoaw and I will flee. We’re faster than any northern soldier.”

She wasn’t faster than an arrow, but before Alinder could say it, Shoaw’s bodyguard cleared his throat. “We’ll watch over them.” He nodded to his partner. “We swear it.”

Shoaw was already at the fore of the column of troops; his sister ran after him. The bodyguards hurried to catch up.

“They’re good soldiers,” Elz said. Alinder was startled to hear his voice. Her own bodyguard was with her always, of course, but she rarely noticed him anymore.

She followed the troops northward, wondering if the tyr her brother—her little brother, even though he was almost into his fourth decade—had also realized they could return to the old ways of their people.

* * * * *

Whatever Alinder had expected to see when they reached the fortified outpost, this was not it. The wooden gates were not broken, they were splintered. And the dead before the walls . . .

Not just bodies. Body parts. These soldiers had been torn apart.

The captain surveyed the carnage. “All ours,” he said.

For a moment, Alinder thought he was claiming the victims’ possessions for himself, but then she could see it, too. Every tunic, shield, and fallen banner bore the Holvos black and green. Either the enemy had carried away their dead, or the attack had been a one-sided slaughter.

“And here!” a soldier cried, much too loudly. Alinder and the captain turned toward the river and looked behind them. A wooden walkway led down the slope to a small pier. Two high-backed little canoes were tied off there. In the grass were the mutilated bodies of Holvos scouts.

“This was no battle,” she said.

The captain said, “Take your children south.”

A soldier gasped, and they turned toward the outpost. There, strolling through the gateway like a well-fed mountain bear at its leisure, came a creature like nothing Alinder had ever seen before.

It was huge, and it went on all fours, with its hindquarters low on crouching legs. Its shoulders and head resembled a bear’s, but its torso was broad and flat, and all four of its legs ended in hands. Strangest of all, the fur that covered it was the same delicate pale color as the purple nightshade Alinder’s grandmother had grown in her garden.

It turned away
the
n, looking north. Alinder noted that its head came halfway up the wall. This thing was half-again as tall as the captain; they were all like children beside it.

“One moment, Captain.” Alinder said as he was about to shout an order. She slid the sword from Elz’s scabbard and ran behind the okshim. With all her might, she stabbed the tip deep into the haunch of the beast on the left.

It did not kick immediately—an okshim had flat, horned feet, which could have torn her leg off—but it did let out a high-pitched cry that gave Alinder goose bumps. She scrambled back, and the beast’s kick missed her.

The cry of pain and fear startled the other okshim into motion, driving it forward. Both beasts went together—okshim always pressed flank against flank, if they could—jolting the cart so severely that a cask rolled off the back.

The captain waved the spears back, and they cleared a path. The huge creature that had emerged through the broken gateway turned toward them, alerted by the okshim’s cry.

Alinder turned toward her two children. Their bodyguards stood behind them—
behind them
—gaping in surprise.

“To Rivershelf. Now.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a tremendous roar sounded from behind her. The guards began dragging Shawa and Shoaw down the road. Elz took back his weapon.

Alinder spun toward the sound of that terrible roar. Fire and Fury, it was like nothing she’d ever heard before. A grass lion might roar this way, if it were burning with rage and hunger.

The okshim balked, their forward flight from Elz’s blade halted by the sudden threat from the front. The captain had already withdrawn his spears, putting the animals in the vanguard, and though the okshim lowered their great curved horns, they did not charge.

At that moment, a second creature leaped onto the wall from inside the station. Then a third. A fourth followed the first though the shattered gateway. All stared at the assembled soldiers like starving men before an unguarded feast.

With his spear, the captain jabbed at the wounded okshim again. It mewled and jolted forward. Both beasts, encumbered by their cart, charged toward the gigantic creatures.

The captain had understood her plan. Let these creatures feast on injured prey, while the troops—and the tyr’s family—withdrew. Alinder’s skin crawled when she looked at them. There was something supernatural to them, she was sure of it. One of those Fire-taken Peradaini scholars must have gone hollow and, in their madness, created these
things
. Song knew it wouldn’t be the first time.

The first of the creatures grunted as the okshim charged, but barely glanced at them. Its gaze, and the gaze of its fellows, remained fixed on the humans. The limping okshim and their cart rumbled by them unmolested. The animals continued north, fleeing up the road.

The first of the great creatures—Alinder thought they needed a name but she could think of nothing to call them except nightshade-bears, and her grandmother wouldn’t approve—stepped toward them, moving almost tentatively, as though worried it might spook its prey.

“Sprint line!” the captain called, and Alinder moved to the edge of the road so the spears could form up. These were a contingent from Fifth Rivershelf, and the tyr her brother had outfitted them with steel helms and the latest long spears. They drilled all through the day, shouting and sprinting in full armor through the streets and courtyards of the city.

And it showed. They came together effortlessly, five wide and eight deep, then ran toward their enemy with shields high and close, their points steadily aligned.

It did them no good. One of the enemy grabbed a corpse by the ankle and flung it, gore spraying from a crushed skull, into the line. The body knocked spears down like a stone from a catapult, and then the thing was among them, swatting aside spear points and slamming soldiers into the ranks behind.

Other creatures leaped down into the marshy borders of the road, coming up on the soldiers’ flanks even before the captain could call for a defensive redeployment. Spears found their mark—many of them—shedding the monster’s awful gray blood and eliciting roars of pain, but none of the wounds seemed to be mortal, no matter where they struck.

A cold shiver ran through Alinder. These soldiers were going to die. The entire column could not have killed two of these creatures, let alone four.

She glanced back along the road. Shoaw and Shawa were making good time, but the outpost had been built on a high point of the ridge road. They would be visible for miles.

The okshim had been no distraction at all, and Fifth Rivershelf would not be enough of one. Not to save her children.

“We must withdraw,” Elz commanded, seizing her elbow. “We should have—”

“No!” Alinder yanked her arm free. “The tyr’s heirs need time. Nothing else matters.”

He looked into her eyes, his expression going blank with surprise. She intended to die here, for her children. It occurred to her that he might abandon her.

“I will guard you,” he said, his expression going flat, “as best I can.”

They turned just as the last half-dozen spears lost their will to fight. As their fellows lay broken and moaning around them, the last rank threw down their shields and spears and fled toward Alinder, and Rivershelf beyond.

It did them no good. One of the creatures pounced on them, slamming them to the ground, then lowered its head and bit.

“They aren’t killing them,” Elz said. It was true. Most of the spears were grievously injured but still conscious. The creatures moved among the fallen soldiers, biting each as though tasting them.

“Perhaps they have already eaten their lunch,” Alinder said.

Glancing back at the road behind them, she saw her children and their guards. Fire and Fury, couldn’t they run any faster than that?

One of the creatures raised its head and looked at her.

“It’s time.”

Alinder knew they could do little against the creatures themselves—every wound Fifth Rivershelf inflicted had already healed—but maybe she could move them off this high vantage point before they saw her children.

She ran down the wooden walkway toward the pier. He followed, backing up with his shield high and his spear point low.

“Hoh-wa!” Alinder shouted. “Follow us! Come down among the tall grasses!”

Elz immediately began to shout similar remarks, although of course the creatures couldn’t understand. Alinder took hold of his sword belt, steering him along the walkway so he wouldn’t step off and fall into the mud.

It took a moment before a grunt appeared at the top of the walkway—perhaps they wanted to taste every spear before they went after new prey—but when they did, they seemed hesitant. Two more appeared together, staring hungrily at Alinder and her guard, then warily at the river.

The fourth creature bounded partway down the hill, then scrambled for the wooden planks when it slipped in the mud. Alinder and Elz reached the thick salt grass at the bank of the river. Great Way, they were big.

Were they afraid of water? It seemed so. Every sane person knew to fear what lurked in the deeps, but—

Alinder’s thought was cut short when the nearest creature leaped—splintering the planks beneath its tremendous weight—and struck Elz with its massive claw.

The bodyguard took the blow with a grunt and flew back into Alinder, colliding very hard with the left side of her body. She spun as she fell from the pier onto the nearest canoe, its hard wooden edges digging painfully into her ribs. The cold, briny water of the Red Salt River splashed into her eyes and mouth.

Elz hit the canoe, too, rolling it sideways and crushing it beneath their combined weight. Alinder thought she could hear, under the cracking wood, bones breaking. Great Way, she hoped they weren’t hers.

The current pulled her from the riverbank. Fighting to the surface, she clutched at the shattered bow of the canoe. Her ribs hurt, but she didn’t think anything was broken.

Elz lay still in the water, face down. Alinder had gotten him killed. She felt a twinge of regret, but she would have sacrificed ten thousand just like him for her children.

The creatures had retreated up the slope toward the road. The one that had leaped at her was frantically scraping wet mud from its strange, long-toed hind foot.

As she floated downstream, they followed her, running along the bank to grunt and roar their frustration. Fire and Fury, they were beautiful and terrible.

Alinder was all too aware that she was leading them toward Rivershelf and her children. She kicked toward the sucking mud and thick grasses at the bank, hoping to slow her progress and lure the things to come after her again. Was the river shark nearby? Perhaps it would strike one of the creatures if she could lure them into the shallows.

It didn’t work. The creatures would not approach the water, and soon they were distracted by something on the road to the south.

Alinder knew what they’d seen. It would have been a comfort to lie to herself, to hope that an old paddy farmer had wandered into the road, or a pack of Redmudd raiders were nearby, or
something.

The beasts raced southward, and she floated along after them, clinging to the broken bow of that canoe. She knew what she would find.

Her son was first, lying on the slope beside the ridge road. She didn’t need a second glance to see that he was dead; no living body could be so twisted and so still.

She saw Shawa moments later, kneeling at the edge of the road. Her left shoulder was bloody, but she did not seem badly hurt. Beside her were the two bodyguards. Both were injured; neither was dead.

Shoaw’s bodyguard saw Alinder in the water. The man had the decency to look ashamed, but not to fall upon his sword.

The creatures were also there, of course. They stood over the injured as though guarding a meal. Alinder knew the creatures had faced scores of well-trained soldiers and that every injury had closed without so much as a suture. Still, Elz’s “good soldiers” ought to die in the effort, if only for form’s sake.

Alinder kicked toward the muddy riverbank. If those guards ought to die in the effort of saving her child, so should she. She didn’t even have a weapon, but she knew the emptiness inside her was going to turn into grief and rage soon, and she would rather be dead than endure it. Besides, a distraction might give Shawa a chance to leap into the river—

Her daughter—so frail-looking—noticed her, then shook her head.
Stay away.

That look froze Alinder. Was Shawa telling her not to throw her life away, or that an attempted rescue would only make things worse for her? Alinder did not care a tin speck for the former, but the latter? It seemed that there was something here she did not understand, and if she blundered and made things worse for her little girl . . .

Hesitation made the choice for her; the current carried her slowly away. The creatures roared at her but didn’t leave their victims unguarded. In fact, they prodded Shawa and the guards northward, toward the outpost—

Alinder thought this was the time she would weep, but tears wouldn’t come. Her little daughter, so slender and fragile, had accepted death. Her son, the rangy, serious, restless boy that she’d once believed would become tyr over these lands, lay twisted in the mud like a heap of laundry.