The Warrior Returns - Anteros 04

by Allan Cole

  I expected to see fields of tall yellow grass spreading from shore to shore, waving in the chilly breeze. In the center would be the dock. Ringing that dock would be the two dozen or more sleepy homes that housed our friends. When last I saw them, they'd completed their quarters and were proud of the colorful roofs of bright green and red and blue they'd added to remind them of home. At this hour I knew a few early risers would be about. My nose twitched for the smells of good Orissan breakfasts sizzling on the hearthfires.

  But the gods had not been so kind.

  Our luck had changed.

  My heart lurched as we closed in on the settlement. Spread out before us were the smoking ruins of disaster.

  The outpost at Antero Bay had been overwhelmed and burned.

  THE SCENE WAS ghastly—fit to wrench a soul from its moorings. That it was entirely bloodless made it more ghastly still. The ruins were still warm from the fires that'd swept the outpost. There were no bodies, but there were the white ash outlines of where bodies had once been. Only chimneys stood, fingers of stark stone poking through the smoking ruins. In the black pebbled cores of the homes we found shards of exploded clay jars, runnels of tin from trunks that had melted in the heat, a speck of gold and silver here and there from what had once been jewelry, and bits of bright-colored tile from the roofs.

  We were silent as we combed through the ruins for some sign of what had happened to our friends.

  My first discovery was that the fire had not been caused by natural means. I quickly sensed, then confirmed, that the source was magical. There were bootprints among the ashes, so many that it was difficult to pick out one from the other. But we had no doubt that a large force of soldiers had come through.

  As we investigated the remains, I saw tears in the eyes of my shipmates and once I heard Lizard sob. He was examining a twisted kettle that contained the rock-hard remains of what appeared to be a traditional porridge. None of us thought the less of him for his display of emotion. For as we stood there in that desolation, it felt as if the blow had been against Orissa herself. Our home away from home had been defiled, its citizens terrorized and slain.

  There was a nip to the air and the skies were clear, making the desolation seem even more stark. We'd come dressed for the chill, donning furs and warm water-resistant boots. A mild wind brushed away a few wisps of smoke that rose from the larger heaps of rubble.

  Carale and I poked through one of the smoky areas—the main trading center where the guards slept. Just as in the other sites, there were no signs of a struggle, only the white outlines of men and women who had died and burned in their sleep.

  Adjoining the barracks was the weapons room. It shared a common fireplace with the barracks and was built of stone. The stone walls had been blasted apart by the fire, and the weapons were a melted mass on those stones. The chimney and fireplace still stood, easily twice the size of the hearths in the burned-out homes. The fireplace was double-sided, and a low wind whispered through the opening.

  The only sign of life was a hysterical dog that crept out from nearby rocks and barked and howled at us without stop. Donarius, who had a soft spot for animals, tried to calm him but suffered a slashed arm in the process. The dog was so stricken by whatever had occurred here that he couldn't be consoled. He would not eat, would not drink, but only howled incessantly. When he had no more strength for that, he cowered in the ashes trembling so hard we thought he'd break his bones.

  Donarius finally killed him out of kindness. After that it was many hours before he could speak again.

  Down by the charred heaps of what had been the docks, we found scores of footprints in the mud where the attackers had disembarked. These were much clearer than the others. There were also the heavy marks of longboats, at least half a dozen of them. The enemy had come by sea.

  Carale put his boot alongside one of the footprints. They were about the same size.

  "Weren't giants this time, me lady," he said. "Unless we got giants with very small feet."

  "I'm not surprised," I said. "After all, how many giants can there be? When the gods made them large, they kept their numbers sensibly small. I doubt if there's enough in all the known world to make up a city the size of Orissa."

  "What's sensible abou' it, me lady?" Carale protested. "There was no sense to makin' giants in the first place. And in the second ... why, it's plain daft, I say. Daft!"

  "You wouldn't say that if you were a giant, my friend," I murmured.

  Carale didn't hear. He was puzzling over the footprints. "What's this, me lady?" he said, pointing at an area near the shore.

  I looked closer, saw the mass of confused prints, and almost turned back to ask Carale what in the hells did he mean. Then I saw the pointed toe outline leap clear from the muddle. On the heel was the symbol of the Evocators' Guild. I bent down, waved a hand over a set of pointy prints, and felt a faint magical tingle. I knew the scent.

  "They be Evocator's prints, me lady—'less I've gone as daft and blind as the gods," Carale said.

  "You're right," I said. "And from the scent of them, they were made by none other than Lord Searbe. The Evocator 4 left in charge."

  "Don't look like he put up much of a fight," Carale observed. Then he hastened to say, "Course he probably had a sword point at his throat."

  I nodded, although I knew threats probably hadn't been necessary. Searbe had been a bit of a disappointment. Like me, he'd come late to wizardry. And like me, he'd started his adult life as a soldier. He had a big personality—big voice, rough manners, and as plain-spoken as anyone could ask. He made much over honor and seemed to live by that code. I'd quite liked him, had been refreshed by his lack of social graces and frank way of speaking. It was quite a change from the dry lordly types who usually became Evocators. So when Searbe volunteered to head one of the outposts, I'd enthusiastically agreed. But when I'd landed him at Antero Bay, he'd instantly taken on such a self-important air with all the ordinary workers that I'd felt it necessary to admonish him. He'd apologized profusely, said he didn't know what had overcome him. I'd accepted his apology. But after I left I'd thought of him from time to time and wondered if I'd made a mistake. Such a prickly and bombastic personality, which on reflection also seemed self-centered, might make life difficult for others in such conditions.

  As I stared at the prints, that doubt came crawling back. If I'd been mistaken, then it could be a very large error, indeed. If a man like Searbe—who made such a point of honor—was all a bluff, then I had a weasel to deal with, not a man.

  And if so, that weasel was in the hands of the enemy.

  His footprints, along with four other pair, broke away from the others and trailed along the shoreline. The prints were flanked by the other sets, apparently those of his guards. But the boot marks were so widely spaced that the guard seemed casual. The prints were heavy, with iron-edged boot heels and single spiked tips, scooping down like a cat's extended claw and cutting into the mud or scraping the mossy rocks.

  The shore and the prints curved into a broad field of the tall yellow grass that favors that region. It's thick and saw-toothed and seems to thrive on the frigid winter blasts. Several animals—including a large flightless bird—made their nests in that grass. When we came to the field, I saw the grass had been flattened and was littered with still smoky campfires and mounds of animal dung.

  "It looks like a large caravan of some sort camped here, Captain," I said to Carale.

  He scratched his head. "Aye, me lady, tha's so." He looked back at the docks where we'd seen the marks of the enemy boats. "Seems they was two groups of 'em. One come from the sea. Th' other traveled by land t' meet 'em."

  "And for some reason," I said, "the group that came by sea handed our Evocator over to the caravan. I see Searbe's footprints lead into this field, but for the life of me I don't see them coming back out."

  I looked across the heavily trodden field and saw the trail the caravan entered and exited from. It led off into the stony wilderness tha
t surrounds Antero Bay.

  I turned and started trotting back toward our boats. My captain followed.

  "We'd better get to the other outpost," I shouted to Carale. "Just as fast as we can."

  By the time we'd reached the shore, the skies had gone from fair to stormy black. Without warning a wind came whistling in from the bay, growing stronger and colder by the minute. I shouted for the others but my voice was made suddenly small by the winds.

  Then the storm struck full-strength.

  And it didn't relent for a month.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Storm

  IT SLAMMED DOWN on us like a black steel curtain, ringing us in on all sides so we couldn't escape.

  It was as if the hells of the ice demons had been opened up. The wind ripped the surface off the sea and flung it at us in long needles that tormented the flesh. Then it turned colder still and the seawater became sleet, then became sharp pebbles of hail.

  The Tern was lost in the first few minutes.

  I remember its going as if it were only yesterday. For in that awful moment all hope was crushed along with the lives of our three comrades who'd stayed behind.

  When the first fury of the storm hit us, we all flung ourselves on the ground and scrambled for cover. I found a low clump of rocks and hugged the earth to escape that icy fist.

  I raised my head—cheeks instantly going numb. I could barely see through the stinging rain, and had to use spread fingers for a shield. First they lost all feeling. Then they began to burn as if I'd plunged them into liquid fire.

  But I had to witness what was happening. I gritted my teeth and peered through the fence my fingers made.

  My eyes went up, up, crawling up the stormswept shore. I saw a gray boil of foam and rock and sand where the land met the sea. I tried to make sense of the confusion, then oriented myself and forced my eyes along the surf line.

  In horror I saw our longboats shatter against the shore, the pounding sea swiftly carrying off the timbers.

  It was all so quick that it could've been my imagination, but I knew it wasn't. And I knew worse would soon follow.

  Then I couldn't stand the elements anymore and ducked down, sucking in air and rubbing feeling back into my fingers and face. I recovered, breathed a prayer to gods I knew weren't listening, and raised my head again.

  My eyes were gulls in a hurricane, fighting forward, surging over the bucking winds.

  Out at sea there was a white sheen flat on the horizon. It shone through the darkness like a grimace.

  And in that grimace I saw the Tern heeled over, struggling with her anchor.

  A loose strand of hair lashed my cheeks, drawing blood. The droplets blinded me and I had to duck down again to clear my eyes and draw breath. When I came up, only the white grimace remained. The Tern was gone.

  I sagged down, struggling with the enormity of what had just happened. There were eight of us left. The next outpost was many days' sail away. And we had no ship to sail to it. Even if we had, that camp might already be in ruins. There was no help elsewhere. The storm might be early, but winter would soon descend and it would be many months before anyone could come and look for us.

  In other words, we were marooned.

  If we lived, that is.

  I pushed away all but thoughts of survival. My first duty was to see that we all made it through the storm. Then I'd take stock.

  Urgency fired me. If I didn't act soon, we'd all die on this shore.

  I pushed my senses out, seeking some magical solution. But it seemed as if they'd become as numb as my fingers and I could barely grope ahead. Clumsily I felt about in the ethers.

  At first the storm seemed a raw natural force. Then I caught an undercurrent of sorcery. Then cold, both real and magical, closed in and I had to snatch myself back. I tried to think through what I'd experienced, but the gale fogged my brain. It was apparent that for the time being I'd have to depend on my physical abilities.

  Very well, then.

  But what should I do?

  I thought... shelter first. I must find us shelter.

  The largest and strongest buffer I could recall in the desolation behind me was the chimney and fireplace in the destroyed trading center. With some difficulty I got my intentions across to the others and we slowly withdrew.

  It took a long time to reach that shelter. And to call it an agony makes light of it. It was all done in darkness, with the wind's hands tearing at us, grabbing us and shaking us about and flinging stones on us and drenching us with a freezing mixture of sea and sand. And by the gods it was cold. None of us had ever felt such intense cold. Even Carale and I, who had experience in these lands, had never encountered such a thing.

  The storm swooped in off the sea as if it had rolled down from the highest, coldest mountain range that any demon king could conjure. It cut through our parkas like they were the lightest summer wear instead of good sealskin fortified by a firm spell of warmth.

  There was some relief, but not much, when we finally got behind the chimney. The storm howled through the eye of the fireplace and tried to crush its fingers around the stone sides. There was no sense trying to speak over the wind, so I made signs to convey my orders: we needed rocks, piled just so.

  I don't know how long it took. It seemed like days or even weeks, although I wouldn't be writing this now if it'd taken more than a few hours. Eventually we stopped up the hole with a rough stone wall. Wind shrilled through the cracks, but it was better. Then we stacked more rocks along the sides, building up a low wall to keep the storm from pinching in at us.

  We were all exhausted but I knew we didn't dare rest—not just yet. I was so stricken with the cold sickness that I could barely make out the details of my surroundings. I was becoming weaker by the minute. I thought that soon the core of me would be frozen and I'd lose the will to live. And I knew the others must feel the same.

  I had to keep moving. All of us had to keep moving.

  I organized teams to creep out into the frigid blast and grab what hot timbers they could from the ruins of the center. We did it in stages. First one team—the twins, for instance— would reconnoiter a smoky pile. They'd drag back what they could, fighting the winds and deadly cold all the way. Speech was still impossible—the roaring winds swallowed all other sound. So if they had something to communicate—some danger, say, for the next team to avoid—they had to signal with their hands. But sometimes they'd be so chilled they couldn't move their fingers and we'd have to spend precious time and fuel to thaw them out.

  Then the next pair would take its turn in the freezing, body-and-mind-battering maelstrom.

  We made a shallow bed of the coals, just wide enough to hold the eight of us if we stayed close together. We covered the coals with pebbles and stretched out full-length on that rocky mattress. The warmth rising up was like heaven, but we found ourselves turning constantly as the side exposed to the elements quickly became numb.

  There was more I wanted to do, but I could see the weariness in the lined faces of my comrades and knew I couldn't drive them or myself much longer. We had to eat and rest.

  Expecting a short stay, we'd only brought rations for the day—one large meal at most. For that reason I had to make my next, and perhaps most crucial, choice. Either we went on short rations and tried to stretch out the little food we had for as many days as we could. Or we could do what I finally decided. Which was to eat all the food while we still had strength to draw nourishment from it. Then we slept as if we'd joined the dead, the storm howling around us and rattling the stone.

  It was the last deep sleep any of us enjoyed for many a day.

  I came awake as the storm's great hammer battered down on us harder than ever. Wet debris spurted through the holes in the walls like water through constricted pipes.

  I woke Carale, who prodded the others up, and we got to work making our shelter more substantial.

  I had no idea how long the storm would last. But an old hand from these regions—a s
haman from a fishing tribe— once told me that the only way to fight the elements was to assume you might have to spend what remained of your life in whatever situation you found yourself. Nothing can be temporary. And every gain must be as if snatched from the jaws of a tiger shark.

  I had the men make the walls of the rocky shelter thicker and higher, but not so high as to let what little heat we could produce rise out of reach. We made a roof of flat rocks held up by piled rocks that turned the interior of the shelter into small rooms, if you can picture rooms inside a structure about the width of a goat shed and the height of a tall person's waist. You had to kneel inside and crawl about, clambering over the forms of your comrades.

  We stopped up the cracks between the rocks as best we could with bits of debris and earth. This turned out to be a constant job, as the wind seemed to find new places to pierce every time we got one gap plugged A small hole was left in the roof to carry out the smoke. We had to make the fire small—there was no way we'd find enough fuel to maintain that rocky bed of heat. Each trip out to find more bits to burn was an ordeal that left us near dead. Only four could huddle around the fire at a time. One side of you would be barely warm, while the other side was like ice. Meanwhile, your comrades shivered and chattered as they waited their turn at that little space of choking smoke and feeble warmth.

  After warmth—such as it was—food was next. This was even more difficult. The fire had destroyed all the outpost supplies, so there were only scraps to be found, consisting mainly of a few leftovers from our comrades' last meals. It was the greatest misery imaginable to crouch in the middle of that ice storm and paw through the hearths for such poor leavings.

  They tended to be scorched and so hard that we mixed them with water from melted ice to make a gruel. It was barely palatable, and hungry as I was, I came to dread the feel of the mush against my tongue. The only blessing was that the scraps weren't spoiled. Even without the storm, in that area of the south it's always too cold for rot or decay.