‘Hey, dinner,’ she said, sitting beside him, touching his arm and kissing him.
‘It’s tomorrow,’ he said, anticipating her question. ‘You look good. Much better.’ He stroked her bare thighs, sniffed. ‘Smelly, though.’
‘Hey!’ she cuffed him playfully. ‘I’ve just woken up. And you don’t smell so fresh yourself, mister!’
‘I washed a couple of days ago,’ he protested.
‘Yeuwh.’ She shoved him away then stood and pulled off her tunic before wading into the water. For a few seconds all the young lamiae stopped and stared and she felt her face flush. She dropped so that only her head was above the water, and as one the serpent-children went back to their play. Then Kazim leaped in beside her and they spent a good hour in the cool water, laughing and splashing as gaily as the children.
‘What shall we do?’ Kazim asked later, as they lay on the warm rocks in the late afternoon. ‘The skiff is wrecked – Kekro’s people burned the remains. They burned what was left of that bakhtak too.’ He told her about the final few seconds of the chase, when she was out cold. She squeezed his hand afterwards, kissed it.
‘You saved me again.’
‘It is what lovers do.’ He cupped her face, kissed her. ‘So, what’s the plan?’
‘Let’s hear them out. You and I are hard to pin down, so if they do find against us, we still have options. But they could be good allies, so let’s not anger them before we know where we stand.’
‘You are so wise,’ he teased. ‘Look, your hair is grey with wisdom.’
‘
What?
’ She was horrified.
‘Yes, here, and here.’ He touched her temples. ‘It went grey that night, when the bakhtak touched you.’
Strangely, it felt like the ground had shifted beneath her. She’d been grey before, after Sordell’s necromancy attack, but that had been temporary. Perhaps this would too, but it didn’t feel good to be reminded how much older than her lover she was.
‘Hey, don’t look so down,’ he whispered. ‘You’re still beautiful.’
‘I was never beautiful,’ she scoffed. ‘My sister, maybe, but not me.’
‘I think you are beautiful. Like the light of dawn on the mountain snow.’
‘Fancy words.’
‘My people are great poets. Young men are taught how to improvise verse, to woo their wives.’ He sat up, struck a pose. ‘My love has eyes of pure moonlight, that pierce me to the heart. Her skin is lustrous pearl, her breasts the smoothest cream that will feed me all my days.’
She blushed furiously. ‘Oh, you idiot. Stop it!’
‘Her thighs are the cushions that give me repose, her spittle the most luscious honey. I drink of her and am transported to paradise.’ He grinned. ‘You like? Shall I go on?’
‘No!’ She laughed, squirming a little, then, lying back, looked up at him. ‘I do love you.’
‘And I you. If you are wrong about these Nagas, I will kill them before I let them touch a hair on your head.’ He winked. ‘Even the grey ones.’
*
The journey would be only forty miles, according to the map, though it was less of a map and more of a sketch, and every mile was either vertical or horizontal, so it was doubly useless. Travelling in a straight line through these mountains was utterly impossible. Gurvon Gyle stilled his khurne at the top of yet another rise and looked back the way they had come down the narrow, treacherous river valley. He could still see the peak they’d woken beneath that morning.
‘At least we’re moving,’ Arnulf Rhumberg muttered, and Gurvon didn’t have the heart to tell him they gone further sideways than forward. It was their eighth day on the road, and they were –
maybe
– halfway to their destination. He was relying on Sordell’s triangulation to guide him to the required place. In theory, he could scout ahead in spirit form at night, but he wasn’t sure he trusted those around him enough to leave his body in their care.
He’d not just brought Rhumberg’s maniple along; he’d also commandeered the Kirkegarde’s weird steeds for the senior officers once he’d realised just how strong and clever they were. The rankers on ordinary horses were slowing them down, and he was tempted to press on, just him with Rhumberg and a few of his men – but no, that felt rash. Perhaps Elena had bandit friends out here?
By the time I find the site, Elena will either be gnawed bones, or long gone …
He had almost given up wishing he could find her alive so that he could administer the deathblow. Dead was dead, and he had better things to be doing – better, and more urgent too.
I hope you’re being chewed on by jackals, Elena. It’s exactly what you deserve.
The sun was kissing the western peaks and the air was cold and dry. They were still below the summer snowline and the landscape was stark as the face of Luna above, each valley a narrow morass of fallen boulders through which icy streams danced, hurrying onwards as if afraid to linger. At night wolves and jackals bayed, but they never saw them. Once they spied goats, high above, and he found himself wondering what on Urte they found to eat up there.
‘We stop here, boss?’ Rhumberg rumbled, spurring his horse up the slope.
‘It’ll do,’ he replied.
While Rhumberg oversaw the setting of the camp, he climbed to the ridgeline. Nothing but more mountains greeted his eyes, though according to his map the sea was only ten miles further on from where the spectre had caught Elena. He found a high clear place and sat, opening his mind for gnostic contact. It came almost immediately.
Rutt chuckled. He’d been unusually cheery since they’d been reunited, but then, he was a born number two and barely functional when left in charge.
Gurvon looked along the valley ahead: it ran sideways to the way he wanted to go. He sighed.
Gurvon nibbled his lower lip. He wasn’t sure what to make of the Harkun. The nomads were confined to the lower plateau beneath the Rift forts; he was worried they might throw their lot in with the Javonesi.
Gurvon
tsked
irritably.
Rutt sent a warm glow down the link.
He broke the contact, then sat down with his back to a rock to watch the sun go down, a pristine and beautiful reward for another day of toil. Right now everything felt possible. Elena and others had complicated the game, but he could almost taste victory.
*
Elena and Kazim walked hand in hand into the cavern. They were clad in their heaviest clothes, for it was cold below ground, though the lamiae were immune to the sudden drop in temperature, able to tolerate the depths even after days spent basking in the sun. It felt slightly odd to be dressed again, after the days they’d spent naked
–
or nearly so
–
beside the river.
They wore their swords, and no one objected, though the weapons did attract a look from everyone they passed.
The path through the stone was well-lit, and carved as well as any Earth-mage might have managed. Elena had discovered that these beings were all magi, every single one of them: they had shaped the caverns using Earth-gnosis, their most common affinity, and she’d seen some use Water, Fire and Air-gnosis as well. There were about eighty of them, and more were being born every day. The baby lamiae were alarmingly alert, capable and frightening little beings who wriggled and squirmed at an astonishing pace. They were less human, more animal than the adults, and even they had the beginnings of the gnosis, though human magi had to wait until they were twelve or more years before they gained their powers.
The Pallas Animagi made something truly extraordinary when they created these creatures …
‘My love,’ Kazim whispered, ‘are you strong enough for this?’
She squeezed his hand in return. ‘I’ll manage.’
So long as we don’t have to fight our way out.
‘I don’t know why, but I think everything is going to be all right.’ Just being with him made it feel so. He looked so healthy, so
normal
, with his gnosis restored by the simple magic of pulling from hers, energy she recovered naturally just by rest and sleep.
We’re almost one being …
She had to admit it frightened her a little, being so dependent on another: what would it be like to be apart from him?
What if one of us died?
She put aside such thoughts and concentrated on the moment. The path opened into a wide cavern, where they found the entire adult population of the lamiae clan awaiting them. Most, about two-thirds of the clan, were males. Though there was a heavy sense of suspicion in the way the lamiae looked at them, Elena could also sense a clear willingness to give them a chance; that surprised her.
Humans who found a lamia would not be so prepared to listen
:
Kore’s Blood, we’d burn them as demons without even giving them a chance to speak.
Kekropius awaited them at the centre, with three other Elders: his wife Kessa, a lissom and inhumanly striking being who viewed them with considerable suspicion; Simou, a strongly built, bald-headed creature with a massive belly, and Herotos, a small, timid male with big, alert eyes and a cunning face. As different as humans.
One of the males came forward bearing a large gold goblet filled to the brim with a red fluid: wine, she realised, a little surprised. Perhaps it had been onboard the windship they’d come to Javon aboard? Apparently that vessel was hidden near the coast, its keel powered and ready in case they needed to fly away … she would have loved to see it.
Kekropius lifted the goblet. ‘We of the lamiae gather, to give judgement. May the gods above hear us.’
‘
May they hear us!
’ the lamiae responded as one.
I wonder which gods they mean?
Kekropius passed the goblet to his wife, Kessa. Her voice was cool and clear. ‘We give thanks that we eldest have been spared thus far, and pledge our wisdom to the clan in gratitude.’ She sipped, savouring the taste on her tongue, then passed the goblet to Simou.
‘
We give thanks!
’ the whole chamber responded, raising their hands, palms forward.
‘We give thanks to they who birthed us, both our parents and the Makers, though they rejected us and hunt us still.’ Simou held the vessel aloft.
‘
We give thanks!
’
Elena exhaled. The Animagi who made these creatures had apparently given them only a twenty-year lifespan. Though the species had been created only fifty years ago, there had already been several generations. When Kekropius had told her why there were so few visibly old lamiae it had put a lump in her throat, despite their alien nature.
Herotos was last to take the goblet. ‘Finally, we give thanks to our guide, and pray for his safe return.’
The lamiae raised their hands, palms forward. ‘
We pray
,’ they chorused, ‘
for Alaron Mercer.
’
Elena almost fell over. Her mouth fell open and a startled yelp escaped it before she could cover it. The cavern fell silent and every eye fixed on her, affronted. She barely noticed.
‘
Did you say Alaron Mercer?
’ she exclaimed.
*
Twenty days after he left Lybis, with food and patience running low, Gurvon Gyle found a headless corpse and a pile of ash that still had a trace of Air-gnosis about it. Engaging his gnostic senses confirmed that it was the burned hull of a windskiff. The charred corpse found further up the slope was so leathery and desiccated it was barely recognisable, but the crushed skull had traces of Necromantic-gnosis: this was definitely the remains of Etain Tullesque’s eidolon. There was no doubt that this was the last place Elena was known to have been – and there was no sign at all, of her or her pet Noorie.
Who is he?
Gurvon wondered for the thousandth time. All the reports were very sketchy.
I’m sure we can take him, whoever he is. I’ve got more than two hundred men here. If this burnt-out skiff was Elena’s, they’ll be on foot, so they can’t be far away.
A detailed search took several hours and they began to lose the daylight, but that brought its own rewards: as darkness fell, and his men settled into their latest uncomfortable camp, he climbed up the mountain, and saw a distant prick of orange light.
Kore’s Blood, there’s someone alive out here! And evidently not wary of pursuit.
He smiled grimly to himself, wondering if it was Elena.
She probably thinks she’s lost us.