She stopped abruptly.
The forest had turned quiet.
There was silence to the edge of her hearing. She turned a circle, listening in each direction, and gave a frustrated huff when she found she was surrounded. Soft buzzed quietly on her shoulder and went silent.
“Well?” Nana shouted. “You little scrags have your game yet?”
If she was lucky, it would be nothing. If she was less lucky, it would be something but not human. If it was human, she was probably dead.
She heard a whirring noise, and a teen-age boy stepped from around a tree, not thirty feet away. He was swinging a bolo and he had a serious look.
“If you stand still for me, I think I can knock that creature off your shoulder,” he said.
He was an alert, handsome Tachba youth just Nana’s age. He was of regular size—large but not ungainly, and dressed in forest clothes with a thick coating of dust. He was on his shaping trip, she guessed, and since Nana didn’t recognize his accent he was probably far, far from home. Traveling in the land of dreams without repercussion.
He said, “Do you think it would hurt if I knocked him off?”
Another voice spoke behind Nana: “One week of walking, young miss, and we haven’t yet caused a lick of trouble. You see our problem.”
Nana didn’t move her eyes off the first boy, and answered him. “Certainly it would hurt, and if you’re the craven type of boy who gets off on that, then go ahead. But it’s only fair that I warn you against hurting this killkrack.”
“Why?”
“Soft, here, is magic. You should hear what he can do.”
“Perhaps I should.”
Two more boys emerged, carrying eight-foot stickers. Nana waited for more, but none appeared. Two boys who talked, and two with long spears—in some families only blood-fed carried spears. That made them two pairs of young twins, effectively two people. Manageable. She saw them studying her with interest, their eyes traveling over her hand-me-down shorts and the halter tied over her breasts. Her stomach sank...manageable.
“What’s your name?” she asked the first boy.
“Sephis-la, and that’s my Hodge behind you. The others are idiot one and idiot two.”
Idiot one waved at her. “Hullo pretty slight girl! We-raping you?”
“Slight girl?” Sephis was surprised. He looked at her more closely. “He’s right! Sorry, boys, there’s no wife here.”
“But there might be fun,” said Hodge.
“Yeah, slight girls won’t go factory on you, so they’re game. What do you say?”
Nana had difficulty following Sephis’s meaning with her heart thudding in her ear. She settled for shaking her head.
Disappointment flickered across his face. “That flies in the face of everything I’ve heard about slight girls being wanton sluts. We’re good lads, nothing impolite about us. I’ve even heard that sex can be fun for girls, sometimes.”
“Not until it’s my choice,” said Nana. Where was Soft when she needed him? The animal was quiet as a cinder-block on her shoulder. It seemed to be sleeping.
Sephis saw her glance at the killkrack. “I think that magical animal is magically influencing your mind. We’ve all heard of the forest playing tricks on the unsuspecting.”
“Sephis, there isn’t any such thing as magic,” Hodge said, his voice even closer behind her.
Nana stepped away, trying not to move too quickly. If she broke and fled, it would certainly be over.
“I know that, Hodge. But this slight girl has a fairy-tale she wants to tell us about her magic killkrack. Go ahead, surprise me.”
Nana’s hope drained away.
Sephis saw her expression and gave a surly nod. “Which I have not one, but two slight witches in my house, forever trying to confuse and control us with little stories.”
“Zsalft,” Nana said again, this time with some voice, and she caught the hesitation when Sephis circled to close her in. The deep word had something on him, at least. “Zsalft is magic, but not in a fairy-tale way. He’s trained—have you ever met a trained killkrack? Answer on your honor.”
“This is the first one I’ve ever seen sit still.”
“I trained him to hunt, and to crack skulls like eggs. I trained him to call his friends in the forest.” Certainly she had done none of these things, but the boys could only suspect a lie, they couldn’t know one unless it beggared belief. “Zsalft cares about my happiness because I raised him from a grub.”
“And you nursed him, too,” said Hodge, slightly uneasy.
“I did,” Nana turned to him. “Every morning, I put the grub to my breast and he fed from me.”
He stopped his slow advance.
“You think a pretty girl like me would walk defenseless in the forest? A girl who could be your loving sister? Have I shown any fear yet? Because a regular girl would show fear, all alone, surrounded by four virgin-scrags with their dicks half out. Dost think me dim?”
“So, what are your defenses?” Sephis asked. “It’s only fair to tell us.”
“This is where I might sound proud.” Nana gave him a cold smile. “You know at least how killkracken eat the eggs they steal? I’m talking about those big, gourd-sized things the brain-birds lay. The ones that crack your skull you when they fall out of the trees.”
“The crackers stick ‘em, la!” said one of the blood-fed, lifting his spear.
“Yes! They pierce them with their claws. You are very clever,” said Nana, and he smiled with pride. For every boy, a different lever. “Killkracken suck the yolk into their forelegs. But how do they get the shell soft? They lick the shell, and the shell sloughs away. They lick it some more and the inner membrane goes soft. And then they drink it with their claws.”
Sephis stared at Soft with disgust. “We already have some soft heads between us. Zsalft won’t have to work very hard.”
“That’s not the magical part. I’m a forest mistress and I have trained my killkrack with a special trick. When he leaps at you, faster than you can possibly expect, he does not leap for your face.” She added that last detail because she suspected Sephis was a little proud of his handsome face. “He will leap for your groin. He will tear open your pants and spit on your boy-dicks. Can you see that in your mind? He’ll hit you like a cannonball and you won’t be able to pry him off. He’s hissing and spitting and you can feel him on your skin. Can you imagine that?” They could not have imagined it so fully without her guidance. “But don’t worry, there will be no pain,” Nana finished.
“My dick is thankful?” said Hodge.
“Killkrack spit doesn’t burn, it digests. Remember the forest-stories you’ve heard, how a Tacchie too long in the forest comes out changed. Think: you walked into the forest as boys on a shaping trip, and you’ll come out shaped into men…but not if Soft makes your dicks permanently soft and shrunk.”
“Shrunk!” It was simply too much, and now the blood-fed stared with fascination. Stories of pain and death would only goad them, but there was something unfair and unjust about the threat of this killcrack, as if the forest wanted to break their toys before they even brought them out. The story was the entirety of her surprise, and she hoped it resonated with them. The only thing left was to pile more on and dare them to disbelieve her.
“I was changed myself,” she said slowly. “I was changed from a normal pretty girl into the sickened, grotesque, and degenerate slight girl you see before you. With my big head and no hips. Thinkst I was born slight? I wasn’t. Am-a truly as I am. The forest re-shaped me to serve the killkracken, and they will defend me.”
She stared into Sephis’s eyes with all the quiet menace she could muster. She watched as he made connections—the killkrack, the odd girl alone, her indifference to danger. She could almost see him arrive at his decision. He was just lowering his bolo when Idiot One said, “Jeh-mistake, Sephis, to let her talk.”
“And from the simplest comes wisdom.” Sephis shook his head admiringly. “That was a good story, and nothing less
than what I asked for at the start. Girl, you would have been a great witch, if only you had lived.”
“So we can finally begin?” said Hodge, coming up behind her.
Nana tried to speak but found her mouth dry and her voice gone. She had two marriageable sisters she might’ve played earlier—they were just idiot enough to be flattered if these boys wanted to try a proper kidnapping or even a siege of the compound. But she couldn’t get it out. Her skin was clammy, finally she felt fear, and it stole all her strength.
Soft gave a raspy complaint as his perch shivered, and the animal’s slight movement made the boys hesitate.
“Why don’t we peel that thing off her first?” Hodge suggested.
Behind Sephis, something moved in the forest.
Nana almost didn’t notice when Gole rose out of the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. His movement was swift and timed to the fluid ripple of the brush in the breeze. For a full second, she couldn’t properly distinguish him from the rest of the forest, and then he threw something.
A dagger thrummed into the nearest blood-fed’s chest, hitting his body like a punch. The blood-fed’s arm snapped, loosing his sticker, and then he sagged to his knees. Nana only heard the ripping sound of the spear’s tassel as it flew through the air, all of its enormous speed concentrated behind the needle-sharp tip.
Gole jumped forward into the spear’s path and put it aside with both arms, seeming to push it out of the air. Nana was amazed, as if she hadn’t seen him do it a thousand times in the training yard. Move the tip, and the sticker follows…now she had finally seen it done for real. Gole drew his boot sword fell into a crouch.
“Nice trick! You do’em two times?” The other blood-fed stepped forward and hoisted his spear.
“I’m stabbed!” cried the first. “Jeh-daggie-meh, I’m stabbed!”
“So you are!” said Sephis merrily. He had a truncheon out, and moved quickly to get out from between Gole and the other spear. Gole closed distance, crabbing sideways to keep Sephis’s body in front of the other blood-fed, to block his aim.
“There are eight more of my brothers behind him!” Nana shouted, “You must run, boys, if you’re to find my beautiful sisters.”
It was just the sort of thing that might have been confusing enough to let Nana and Gole flee.
But Gole only snickered. “Nana and her stories! Don’t believe her. It’s just me, and no others.”
However, the blood-fed with the spear had turned back to Nana at the mention of her sisters. He was just in time to see Hodge grab her from behind and see Soft finally spring to life. The killkrack erupted like a hive of shrews, doubling his size into a borderless haze of claws and teeth. He buzzed into Hodge’s flesh while the blood-fed stared in confused amazement.
Gole finally closed with Sephis, and they grappled at close quarters. Sephis was clearly as well trained as Gole. His truncheon whistled and drove Gole back, stumbling.
Hodge didn’t let go of Nana, but he did turn his shoulder to the killkrack’s fury. For a long moment, Soft did more damage to Nana than Hodge. Then the second blood-fed boy stepped up with a judicious stab of his spear. The sharp tip slid into the killkrack’s body and emerged the other side.
“No!” Nana shrieked. Soft’s cry warbled through the glen. His eyes opened above the wound—and then below it, as he scrabbled around the wood with his claws. With a mewl of abject hatred, Soft pulled himself deeper onto the spear, and then clawed up the shaft, leaving it thick with gore.
“Ugh!” The blood-fed dropped the spear and reeled away, but Soft caught the boy’s sleeve with one prickly limb, and then quickly snagged the cloth over his chest. The bottom of the spear fell through Soft’s nightmare body, freeing him, and the killkrack darted up the boy’s front and opened his throat like a rotten melon. The blood-fed fell in a heap, all thrashing body, spurting blood, and blood-slicked spear. As Hodge stared, horrified at this sudden turn, Nana reached into her hair and brought out her finger knife. It was just a slim blade with a wooden ball for a handle, but it slid smoothly under Hodge’s chin and into his brain.
Sephis saw Hodge fall. He gave a cry and rushed over to the body. Gole kept close behind, and took Sephis’s head off with his boot sword.
Gole gasped air with his hands on his knees. Though he was too squeamish to pull Soft off the blood-fed’s throat, he was vain enough to have already cut trophy ears off the fallen, and brotherly enough to have taken Nana’s trophy for her. Nana scooped her baby up, and examined him closely. Soft didn’t seem to be in pain. He moved easily but unwillingly, and the wound closed as she watched it.
“That just isn’t natural,” said Gole. “But maybe if he licked me I could take a sticker through the chest too.”
“I guess you heard my story.” Nana rolled Hodge over and retrieved her finger knife. “Why were you following me, anyway?”
“I just wanted to see what you do out here, all alone.” He surveyed the carnage. “And now I know.”
“Is that my brother Hodge, dead on the ground?” asked the first blood-fed.
Gole crossed over and spoke loudly into his ear. “The talkers are both dead. The other blood-fed is over there-la, holding his neck-flap closed so he don’t dirty up the ground. I am going to take my knife back out of you, and then you and throaty will walk home, or as far as you can make it.”
“That sounds fair,” the blood-fed said, his words utterly clear. Nana watched with fascination as the blood-fed gathered himself and stood. His balance was perfect. As it sometimes did, seeing his milk-fed brother die had turned him normal. The Tachba called it bolting.
When the two blood-feds had hobbled off and left Nana and Gole alone in the bloody little clearing, Nana forced her brother the final short distance to the original tree stump where, two years earlier, she had adopted a vicious maggot the size of a loaf of bread.
“See, Soft? Home again, and none the worse for wear, ha.”
“Save me,” muttered Gole. “If I hadn’t seen you brain-stabbing a rapist, I’d call you a girl.”
Soft gave a contented purr and crawled into the stump. He started re-arranging the muck at the bottom, building up a little wall against the entrance. Before he was completely gone, Nana stuck her head in. “Good-bye, sweetling.”
He suffered Nana’s kiss. He stared up at her with his beady, ringed eyes, and then opened his third eye, which she’d only rarely seen. She might have been imaging it, or merely silly with relief and adrenalin, but Soft seemed to be watching her with a certain calmness and gratitude. It was as if the little goblin was glad to finally be home, so he could show her he had always understood affection.
10
Sethlan
~That was quick work by the South.~
So you’re back?
~Yes. And we must talk about what happened. There is a frightful back door into your mind, and it was just waiting for Nana to wave her arms.~
We don’t have to talk about it at all. We learn at the feet of the women, starting as infants of only five or six years. You would not believe how horrible children can be, and the level of magic that is required.
~There is no magic, no such thing.~
Yes, it’s all superstition, I would never contradict you. But there’s nothing more useful for herding children. He and Hopala turned the corner into the throughway, quickly clattering up the stairs. And I don’t think South is reacting ‘quickly.’ I think we accidentally uncovered what they were planning all along. They have probably been moving those new dreadnoughts for months, if not years.
~Can we please take another trip to the artery hallway?~
You just want to play with the telephone. As I said, it probably connects to another phone in the building.
~You’re going to fight me on everything, aren’t you?~
Until I find out who and what you are. I’ll dig it out of my mind if it takes a trenching tool.
“Our prodigal,” Colonel Trappia said when Sethlan arrived. “How are you?”
>
“I’m told I am adequate, sir.”
“You bathed!” Gawarty blurted. He, with several other officers, were hunched over Trappia’s table, hands and fingers keeping place on the map. Diggery hovered in the background, still wearing the front on his face and kit. “You bathed before reporting in from the front!”
“Of course I bathed, I’m an officer,” Sethlan said. “Dignity of the empress, that sort of thing. I used hot water.”
“You’re here now, that’s all that matters. Come stand closer to me than your smelly subordinates.” The colonel rapped the map with a knuckle. “The South has come back at us, with the sun in the sky, attacking in full light like a race of blood-fed. But they came back with four heavy divisions... we only know two of them, the Waning Moons and Finger Snap, and the others are being called Alpha and Beta. They have an umbrella barrage of your ship-shells. They blew the hell out of our trenches and the Happies only saved two of those big rolling contrivances I heard about. The rest are in Southie hands. In ten years we’ll be facing the Southie versions of the war balls—probably shaped like squares.”
“Hopala told me we lost the trenches.”
“We lose them, we have them again. It depends which messenger you listen to. It’s anybody’s guess what is going on.”
“The South sent the Moon Biters against the new forward Haphan trench,” said Captain Cephas. “As sort of a spanking, I suppose, for pissing themselves when the balls rolled over them. Those bastards walked straight into heavy Haphan repeaters, reached the line, engaged by hand, and carried the trench. We got it back with a fresh commitment of troops, as the scene was all chaos and the Moon Biters were by then understrength.”
Hopala said, “But then the South renewed its attack in strength, and we were pressed back—”
“With the last credible report we heard,” Trappia interposed, “the front is stabilized between the first and second trenches. Our spotters on the hill report masses of Tachba moving up, and of course we’re hoofing up reserves as fast as we can.”
The Eternal Front: A Lines of Thunder Novel (Lines of Thunder Universe) Page 25
