The Bloody Frontier (Pistols and Pyramids Omnibus Book 1)
Page 3
“Indeed. The efforts of my slaves and your newborn brothers and sisters will help us to reactivate the ancient gateways, and then with those open to me and my Housekin, we will slip into the very fabric of Kekhmet with a legion of your kind and take the empire with one swift strike. We will usher in a new era of prosperity and strength unimagined in this day and age. The House of Gintenka will begin a new dynasty of rulers, one that will defy the ages.”
He took a deep breath that caught in his chest and coughed into his hand. The spasms got worse and he had to gather a small kerchief off his desk to stifle even harder coughs. This damned frontier dust was doing no favors for his sensitive lungs. He would have preferred to remain in the cooler, more comfortable heights of his homeland, so far away now, but necessity had brought him to this forsaken place, and so he would weather the illness that had plagued him for the last few years. The Great Mother would tolerate no less than his very best, illness or no.
Zezago wiped his mouth and, out of habit, glanced at the kerchief. The phlegm he’d coughed up was clear of blood, so he folded the scrap of fabric and tucked it into his belt with a sigh of relief. He returned to his stool, determined to try and translate just one more passage before tending to his mundane physical needs. The tools for advancing his and his House’s goals were under his fingertips, contained within the scrolls, if he could but only recover enough of the past to learn how to unlock the terrible power of the ancients.
CHAPTER 5
ROUGH WOODEN PLANKS SHUDDERING UNDER HER back roused Ruia to a painful wakefulness. Her body jumped as the floor beneath her shifted suddenly, and then a child’s wail and a muffled curse in a strange language caught her ears.
Her body ached all over, but especially her head. She opened her eyes but closed them almost immediately, the glare from bright torchlight somewhere nearby enough to pierce her eyes with agonizing pain. She reached up instinctively and felt a large knot on her bare head. That ugly one-eared man had hit her hard with the butt of his rifle when he had caught up to her in the village. The bruise pulsed with every racing beat of her heart.
She was sure she and her friends were in trouble, but didn't know what they had done to deserve it. She pressed her hands against her face, against her eyes, hoping her fingers were enough to block the worst of the blazing light. Holding them there for a long moment, she risked sliding her fingers apart a bit, then a bit more. She peered through her slatted fingers and took in her surroundings.
The floor underneath her bounced again, but this time she realized it wasn't really a floor at all. It was the bed of one of the village's simple covered wagons, and it bounced up and down on its rusted metal springs as if someone had just leaped off the driver’s bench. She was on her back, her head against the back wall, just under the open canvas flaps that were letting in the torchlight.
She squinted around the inside of the wagon. Several other children from her village were here, some still asleep or unconscious. One of the younger girls, Nauny, had her arms tucked around her legs and was staring at nothing with tears that carved wet furrows in the dirt on her face.
Ruia cleared her throat, grimacing at the dryness of it. She glanced toward the front of the wagon and saw that the canvas flaps there were tied closed. Ruia gingerly crawled over two sleeping children to move next to Nauny.
"What happened?" Ruia whispered.
Nauny glanced at her, then said in a shaky voice, "We’re in trouble, Ruia. I...I saw my da fall into the dirt, blood c-coming out of his nose and mouth. The men who attacked us...hurt us...they threw us all into these wagons, and, and those things..."
Ruia frowned and rubbed the knot on her head again. It was warm to the touch. She didn't know if that was good or not, but guessed it was bad. It felt hot like when she got very sick and her mother got worried and would press cold cloths on her head to soothe her. She wished her mother was here, but no. Her ma had been struck down to the ground during the attack.
Ruia glanced at the other children and then darted a glance at the wagon flaps. "Where are we?"
Nauny shrugged. "I...I tried to listen but they're talking strange. I think they're Hesso, or at least it sounds like it. I heard Hesso tradesmen talking once when da took me with him to the fort for supplies."
Ruia nodded offhandedly, struggling to focus on the words. Nauny did have a tendency to natter on. She shook her head gently, trying to clear the fog. Her head throbbed anew, and there was something else, like a whispering voice in her head, too muffled to make out words, but present enough to know that there was something there. She carefully shook her head again. Probably just a side effect of getting smacked with a rifle butt.
She smoothed out her dirty and torn knee-length dress and scooted over to the back end of the wagon. There, she sat down against the back board, and reached up a hand to carefully pull aside one of the canvas flaps, just enough to get a better look outside.
There was a second wagon visible off to the right, the one that Elder Ramer used for carting baskets of salted fish to the fort when the village had enough to trade with. Unlike the wagon she rode in, it didn't have a canvas top. More than a dozen of her village friends and elders pressed against each other in the open wagon. Some were slumped against each other and some had their eyes closed. She couldn’t tell if her ma or da were in that wagon. Strangely, none of them seemed to be moving. They were just sitting there or laying in place. It was like they were all playing the kid’s game of standing statues.
Why didn't they just jump out of the wagon and run away? Or fight? She clenched her fists against her thighs. If her and her friends had put up more of a fight, maybe they wouldn’t be in this wagon, but back home in the village enjoying the day’s catch and the night’s songs and dances in the communal hall.
Two dirty men walked into view on the far side of the second wagon. They were angry-looking and wore dark leather tunics and grimy kilts and colorless headcloths. They were swearing at each other in an ugly language, which she guessed had to be the Hesso Nauny had mentioned. She squinted to try and get a closer look at them, and heard that strange whispering in her mind again.
She rubbed the knot on her head distractedly, and then noticed that the two men had pistols in holsters strapped to their waists, and each had a long rifle tucked into their arms. That had to be why her village friends weren't trying to move or run away. They'd get shot down.
She watched the two men as they moved past the open wagon and headed toward the village’s third wagon, covered just like the one she and the children were in. That wagon, though, had armed men all around it. The flaps to the wagon were tied shut and the guards seemed to be keeping a close eye on it. Quiet chatter and sobs sounded from that wagon. She recognized some of the muffled voices but couldn’t make out their words.
She risked opening the flap wider and peeked her head out of the back of the wagon to get a better view.
Nauny hissed at her. "Ruia! They'll see you!”
Ruia gestured at her to be quiet, and craned her head around to the left. At first all she saw was the broken road and the rough clearing the wagons occupied, and then, through the trees, the glittering blue ribbon that was the blessed Iteru, moonlight shining off her slow-moving waves.
The sight of the river lightened her spirits somewhat, but then they came crashing down when several hideous forms shambled into view, moving between the road and the river. The forms staggered and shuffled and made strange hollow sounds from the remains of their throats. Her mouth unhinged in a silent scream. The creatures were dressed in shabby, moldering linen strips, and looked for all the world like the justified dead risen from their tombs to walk the earth anew.
“But…that’s impossible.” And yet there they moved before her living eyes. She forced herself to focus on them, alternately tamping down a strong feeling of being sick and flinching at a fresh burst of unintelligible whispers in her mind.
Each of the creatures had a sort of unearthly greenish glow. She'd never seen anyt
hing like it before. One of them turned its partially caved-in head toward her and seemed to stare at her with eyes that glowed with a bright green fire.
She uttered a little shriek of surprise and fell back into the wagon, letting the flap close again. She held her breath for what seemed like forever, but the thing didn't move the flaps aside, didn't make any sound.
Maybe it hadn't seen her after all? She clung to that hope and silently repeated it, over and over.
CHAPTER 6
NAUNY SHIFTED IN THE WAGON AND moved close enough to nudge her, making Ruia yelp in surprise. "What's wrong? What did you see?"
Ruia took two long breaths and tried to gather her senses. She blinked, then said, "There's another wagon out there with our people in it. Men are guarding it with guns. And..."
She wasn't sure how to describe it, but pushed forward as best she could. "And there are things walking around. Ugly dead things with…with glowing green eyes."
Nauny shuddered and hugged herself close. "Those were in the village too, grabbing people and hitting them. One of them hurt my da."
Ruia nodded absently as she rubbed the knot on her head. "One of them knocked my ma to the ground." She glanced at the children, then at the closed flap at the front of the wagon. Another long, fearful cry sounded in the night, then was suddenly silenced by a gunshot that sent a shudder down her spine. The finality of that noise was what scared her the most.
The coarse laughter following the gunshot chilled her soul. Something deep within her, below her heart, maybe down into her immortal ba, started to harden. It was a strange feeling, as if she had lost something she didn’t know she had.
She didn't know why they had been taken from the village or why any of her friends hadn’t tried to escape, but she was going to do all she could to stay alive. There was no way she was going to let these terrible men hurt her.
Ruia said, “We’re caught like stupid fish in this wagon. If we stay here, we’re going to die.” She wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but it sure felt about right.
Nauny gave her a wide-eyed stare. “What are we going to do?”
Ruia covered Nauny’s mouth with her hands. “Shhh!! If they hear us, they’ll come after us for sure.”
She held her hands over Nauny’s mouth until the girl nodded in understanding. Ruia dropped her hands to her lap. “You should come with me.”
Nauny shook her head. “With those bad men and things out there?”
Ruia nodded. “Yeah, but we can be sneaky.”
Nauny gave her a sour look. “You’re better than anyone in the village at hiding, Ruia. You should go.” She gave Ruia a little push toward the back of the wagon.
Ruia shook her head. “I’m not leaving you. We should go together.”
Some of the children, roused awake by their talking, perked up and gathered around. A plaintive chorus of “Take us too!” and “What’s happening?” sounded in the wagon.
Ruia lifted her hands to encourage them all to be quiet. “Hush, all of you! I don’t know what’s happening or where we can go.”
Nauny nudged her again. “You’re the oldest here, Ruia. Go and find help.”
Ruia nodded distractedly as the welt on her head throbbed anew. “There are some adults in an open wagon a few steps away. I’ll go to them first. They’re not being guarded.” Ruia paused and considered that, the glimmer of a dark thought forming in her mind. She shook it off and then stared at Nauny. “Promise me that if I don’t come back, you’ll all run if they come for you. Don’t let them take you.”
Little Khemi piped up, “But what can we do? We’re so small!”
Ruia shushed her and patted the girl’s bald head, raking a finger along her short sidelock. “Hush now, Khemi. I’ve seen you run faster than some of our horses. If the bad men come for you, you get out of the wagon and run. The Iteru is to the left, through the trees. Follow the river as far and as fast as you can.”
Khemi gave her a big-eyed look and then nodded, wiping her tears away with a brave hand.
Ruia gave Nauny a final nod and then turned toward the back of the wagon. She crouched near the entrance as the voices buzzed anew in her mind. She shrugged them off, focusing on the camp around her.
The guards still stood around the other covered wagon and those strange shambling creatures ambled here and there. Without another word to the children behind her, she pushed opened the flap and slipped out of the wagon. She lowered herself to the hard-packed earth, flinching as her bare feet touched the cold ground.
She paused for just a moment to steel herself, then ran for the open wagon. She got there in several long-legged strides, and then crouched and crawled underneath it as fast and as quietly as she could. The ground under the wagon was muddy and cold and smelled foul. She glanced down but the light was poor here. It was muddier under the wagon than it was around the rest of the camp.
She looked around the wagon. None of the guards or any of those terrible creatures seemed to have noticed her movement. She lifted her mouth to the bottom of the wagon, and in a harsh whisper called out, “Hello? Hey, it’s Ruia. I’m under the wagon.”
There was no answer, not even a shift of weight on the wagon benches. She frowned, and tapped quietly on the wood slats making up the base of the wagon. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
The suspicion grew in her mind that maybe the adults weren’t playing at being statues after all. With one more look around the camp, she crawled out from under the wagon and lifted herself up.
A long, stunned look at the closest adults confirmed her most desperate thoughts. They weren’t playing at being statues—they were all dead.
CHAPTER 7
THE MOON HUNG BRIGHT IN THE sky, bright Khonsu staring down impassively, surrounded by thousands of pinpricks of starlight. Tjety kept Heker at a steady trot, following the trail Meret and the other bandits had left behind. Meret had at least one bullet in him, he was sure of that. He siphoned some of his fading reserves of hekau to push away the exhaustion bearing down on him, and felt the results take effect.
The spell was a stopgap measure at best—he knew he’d have to get some proper sleep eventually. For now, though, he pushed his exhaustion aside and focused on tracking down Meret and rescuing the villagers.
As he guided Heker along the trail, he wondered how far ahead the rest of the bandits and their prisoners were. Based on the tracks they left behind, they had at least two wagons. With forty villagers in tow, they couldn't be moving all that fast.
He shook his head in tired frustration. How much of a head start did they have on him? How long had Pashet and the others been at the village?
He paused from time to time to try and get a better sense of the tracks laid out before him, regretting not having paid more attention to Master Paheri, known as the best tracker the Rangers had ever produced. Tjety had always managed to show up for his training in less than ideal condition, and while he had no regrets about how he had spent the nights before, he still wished he had spent more time on the basics before getting thrown out into the field with the Rangers’ headcloth on his head and iron on his hip.
He focused his hekau and examined the tracks. He’d been wrong before—there were actually three wagons—large, four-wheeled affairs, each pulled by two horses. Given the depth of the tracks, all of them had to be weighed down. The wagon tracks were easy enough to puzzle out but the horse prints were harder to interpret. He couldn't separate which horses were part of the caravan and which ones Meret had taken from the village during his escape.
He didn't expect an ambush from Meret. He figured the man, wounded, would want to ride quickly to meet up with his mates. There was safety in numbers and the Kekhmet frontier was not a place to be alone for any length of time.
He chuckled. "Unless you're just stupid or a Ranger. Right, Heker?"
Heker strung together a series of snorts as he trotted along the road. Tjety chose to interpret them as agreement, though knowing Heker, it was probably sarcasm.
After another half-hour of steady trotting, Tjety pulled on the reins to give Heker a break and dismounted. He left Heker to free-graze along the river shore. He stretched his legs and then took a swig of water from a waterskin.
He moved over to some of the blurry tracks and knelt down. He splayed out his fingers above the tracks, careful not to touch them. He closed his eyes and reached out with his hekau, hoping to find some answers through his enhanced senses.
Some of the tracks were mundane, but some, especially the shuffling tracks, had a taint of darkling energy about them. His hekau flickered in time with his jigging hackles. He opened his eyes and sat back on his haunches.
Tjety mused on those feelings for a few long minutes. When no great insights struck him, he took a few deep breaths and watched the moonlight reflect silver off the river. He was tired. He indulged in the thought of setting up a picket line for Heker and spreading out his blanket near the river, but no. That bastard Meret was still out here somewhere, and those villagers surely had no one else to come to their rescue.
Fort Sekhmet wasn’t that far away, but definitely too far for anyone there to have heard the commotion at the village. And being a border fortress, he doubted any of the soldiers would be out scouting. They’d be wrapped up inside their fort, snug behind their walls, with good beer, good food, and plenty of camp followers to fuck. They wouldn’t give a damn about the frontier citizens they were supposed to be protecting. Useless army regulars.
Tjety clucked at Heker, who pricked his ears but kept his nose buried in the lush grass. In spite of the lingering anger in his heart and the exhaustion creeping in, he smiled and walked over to his trusted horse.