One-by-one the orange skir dived into the gray woods after him. A high-pitched buzzing rose from where they’d entered the burnt forest, followed by the horrible clacking.
Two of the remaining four dreadmen spun around and turned their bows on Harnock. But Harnock didn’t slow or change course. There was no way Harnock could avoid those arrows at such a close range.
Suddenly a swarm of wasps shot in among the dreadmen, attacking their faces. One dreadman released his arrow, then flinched, slapping his cheek. The arrow went wide. The other dreadman swatted his neck, then arm.
That brief moment was all Harnock needed. He rushed in, knives in both hands. He stabbed one slayer, turned and slashed the throat of another.
A tall dreadman charged Harnock with an axe. But Chot bowled into him, knocking him to the side. Then the rest of the woodikin poured in. They bore the remaining dreadman down to the ground and finished him. The battle ended before Talen could run the last fifty yards.
Talen arrived to find the woodikin preparing to cut open the dreadmen’s bodies and remove their hearts. Talen turned away. He did not want to watch.
A wasp darted past Talen’s face. The bodies of a few others littered the ground, but most were flying back to the wasp lord’s basket.
Harnock pressed his hand to the wound in his back. When he saw Talen, his face lit up. “Ah, there he is!”
“Are you okay?” Talen asked.
“Am I okay?” Harnock’s face crinkled with delight, and he laughed.
“I can’t believe we just beat a Divine and a fist of dreadmen,” Talen said
“We?” Harnock asked. “You!” He shook his head in wonder. “Maybe they didn’t scrape you off the bottom of the barrel after all.”
River joined them, blood splattering her face. “You’re free?” she asked Harnock.
Harnock held up his wrists. The tattoos there had changed. “Your eel of a brother chewed the thrall to pieces.”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
Talen walked over to where Nashrud lay. He picked up the man’s bloody knife and examined it. “Let’s hope this blade wasn’t poisoned,” he said.
“We will know soon enough,” Harnock said.
A few of the woodikin sucked on their wounds. Talen hoped there wasn’t poison there as well.
One of Chot’s warriors barked. The others turned. A moment later, the trees on the other side of the clearing boiled with Orange Slayers. The warriors split, left and right, and began to circle around the clearing.
“Up!” Chot shouted.
Talen estimated there were fifty, and then revised it to seventy-five, then a hundred. Their numbers kept growing. When the last had come through, he was sure there were close to two hundred woodikin formed up in a wide arc. Then three wasp lords walked up through the middle.
“Oh, Lords,” River said.
Chot held a piece of liver in his hand. Its red juices stained the fur around his mouth. He cast the liver to the dirt. “Now we die,” he said. “It is good to die by the hands of woodikin instead of filthy skinmen.”
With his roamlings Talen looked about for the orange skir, but the ones that had chased after Nashrud were still down in the trees.
“We are not going to die,” Talen said. “Not here. Not in this place.”
He had to be able to do something. The wasp lords would send in their minions to distract. Then the woodikin warriors would charge. How many wasps were in each nest—a hundred, two? The baskets of the Orange Slayer wasp lords were much bigger than the one of the wasp lord in Chot’s troop. There were probably more than a thousand—far too many wasps for Talen to kill with his roamlings.
A woodikin wearing a mantle of bright blue feathers shouted at them. Chot responded.
“What did he say?” asked River.
“He said he wants the skinmen. He said he will pay well.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him his mother spawned him from a lizard.”
Talen nodded. “I’m sure that came as a heavy blow.”
Chot grinned. “Fight well, skinman.”
There was no escape. They couldn’t outrun so many enemy troops. Furthermore, the woodikin weren’t dependent on weaves for strength. So he couldn’t ravel their strength. He couldn’t kill all their wasps.
He’d broken a link between Harnock and the master of that thrall. But how would one master control so many? The image of a wagon master holding the reins to a dozen horses came to his mind. He’d assumed that the weave in Harnock created the link. But what if the link was like the reins held by a man on a wagon being pulled by a team of ten or twenty horses? There was the harness for each horse, but they all connected so the driver held just two lines. You could try to cut each horse free, but it would be quicker to sever the reins being held by the driver. One cut, and the driver loses his connection to all the horses.
Talen sent his roamlings speeding across the clearing. He picked the wasp lord in the middle, the one wearing the most feathers and opening the largest wasp basket.
He carefully examined the wasp lord’s body, the beautiful weave of woodikin flesh. He found the tattoos on the woodikin’s palms. They were so much more than decorations. So much more than tribal identifications.
The wasp lords began to murmur to their minions. A few huge orange wasps began to emerge and take flight, zigzagging about as if getting their bearings. With one roamling, Talen rushed to the open mouth of the basket and examined a wasp closely. Upon its thorax grew a tiny weave.
Talen turned back to the wasp lord and searched the rest of his body. He didn’t want to strike until he knew he was attacking the right place. But there were only two weaves: one on each palm. Just as with Harnock, tendrils and roots grew into the flesh.
The wasp lord rose and lifted his arms to the sky. The other two did the same. Their wasps began to crowd the mouths of the baskets and take flight, moving in a wide circle overhead.
The wasps were huge, and Talen didn’t think anyone could sustain more than a few stings; such large creatures must inject an enormous amount of venom strengthened by whatever the Orange Slayer wasp lords fed them.
He had to act now. Talen attacked the palm of the main wasp lord. Every time raveling became easier; this time he was in and biting almost immediately.
The wasp lord cried out and grabbed his hand. He tried to close his doors, but Talen was ready and attacked the presence, the delicious soul. It fled before him. He let it run so he could focus on the weaves.
And he realized he could feel the echo of the wasps through the weave. They were agitated, angry. One broke free and sped down to land on an Orange Face warrior and sting him. Another broke free of its bonds. Talen bit and tore. Fire rolled up out of the mouths of the weaves like smoke. The whine of the wasp wings rose, and then the whole swarm heaved in chaos and dove at the Orange Face warriors.
Talen moved to the next wasp lord.
“What’s happening?” River asked.
“I’m freeing the wasps,” Talen said. “It appears they dislike being enthralled as much as Harnock did.”
Chot hooted in shock. “You?” he asked. “You do this?”
“He does this,” Harnock said.
“You lied to the queen,” Chot said to Harnock. “The skinmen didn’t want you. They wanted him!”
Chot turned to the other woodikin and spoke with great animation. They all looked over at Talen. The wasp lord regarded Talen and said, “Shallog.”
Harnock laughed.
Talen bit into the second wasp lord’s weaves, tore, drank up the Fire and lusted after the soul that cowered from him, but he pulled himself away from the soul, and focused on the weaves.
“Shallog,” the woodikin repeated.
“What are they saying?” Talen asked.
“The shallog is the woodiki
n nightmare,” Harnock said. “I’ve never seen one, although I have seen sign. The woodikin have all sorts of stories. It comes in at night, slaughters a family in their sleep. Maybe carries off a child to devour later in its lair. The wasp lord thinks you’re one of them.”
The wasps from the second basket began to break free from their master and attack the warriors on the slope.
“I’m no shallog,” said Talen.
“You are shallog,” said Chot. “That is all the Orange Slayers need to know.” Then he turned to the Orange Slayers and began to shout. Talen didn’t know what he said, but he clearly heard the word “shallog” repeated a number of times.
The wasp swarms were in a frenzy, attacking the warriors who themselves were swatting and barking in panic. Those on the extreme edges of the line began to back away. The third wasp lord motioned for two of his servants to pick up his wasp basket and flee back through the lines of warriors into the blasted woods.
Talen was going to chase him, but he heard a clack in the sky and looked up. An orange skir was streaking toward the meadow. Talen let the wasp lord go and pulled his parts back, brought them in safe behind the wall of his flesh, and shut all his doors.
Chot’s warriors began to shoot arrows into the confused troops of the Orange Slayers.
“Shallog!” Chot continued to shout. “Shallog!”
A section of Orange Slayer warriors on the left side broke rank and began to flee back into the woods. Then the whole line faltered, and the Orange Slayers turned and ran.
Chot’s warriors began to bark and hoot. “Ha!” Chot said. “They are worms. You will look at them.”
“And what would you do,” asked Harnock, “if your own swarms turned against you?”
Chot raised the knife in his hand. “I would kill the shallog.” He looked over at Talen.
Harnock folded his arms. “You would die.”
Chot sized Harnock up and down. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I would first bite out your throat.”
Chot’s warriors continued shooting the last of their arrows into the Orange Slayers. Then Chot grunted an order, and they ran out into the meadow and began taking the arrows from the dead and dying Orange Slayers.
Harnock said, “We need to leave while we have the chance. Some of them may start thinking like you, Chot, and turn around.”
“We will take you to the tanglewood,” Chot said. “We will celebrate this victory.”
“We don’t have time,” River said. “We need to get back and warn Argoth and Shim.”
“A warning won’t be enough,” Harnock said. “We’re taking your brother back to ravel Mokad’s army. He’s going to ravel the thralls on the skir. He’s going to ravel the dreadmen’s weaves. When Talen’s done with them, it will be Shim with the multiplied might in his hands, not Mokad. It is time for Mokad to face their own shallog.”
“I am no shallog,” Talen said. “And it’s not going to be that easy.” Talen only had three uninjured roamlings, and there was the matter of the orange skir and who knew what else. Furthermore, Mokad’s Divines would probably have more than spirit blades. But it was true that he could fight. If all he did was break the thralls the Skir Masters held, that might be the difference. Like the woodikin, it might put the whole army on its heels.
Harnock turned to Chot. “We cannot go to any sister tanglewood. You must get us back to skinmen lands quickly. We need to be there by tomorrow. Can you get us to the Great River?”
Chot spat, glared at Harnock, and then he and the wasp lord exchanged a few comments in Woodikin. Finally, he turned and said, “It is agreed.”
“Will we make it in time?” Talen asked.
“It depends,” Harnock said. “If they’ve gone south, maybe.” Then he winced and pulled his bloody hand away from the wound on his back.
“Lords,” said River. “Let me tend to that.”
* * *
They collected Scruff and the dreadmen’s mounts. The woodikin claimed the dreadmen’s weapons, then searched their bodies for anything else of value. Talen found Nashrud’s spirit blade. It was black as coal. He took it and its sheath from Nashrud’s waist and strapped it to his own. Then he found a small pouch with two other weaves, including his governor.
On the other side of the clearing, the dead woodikin lay in the sun. The giant orange wasps buzzed about them, probably feeding. One, as big as Talen’s thumb, came a little too close to the horses, and he swatted it away with a branch.
Then they mounted up. Just as they were leaving, Nashrud’s dog came out of the woods. Talen wondered where the crows were; after all, there were enough dead woodikin here to make a feast for a whole flock. The dog sat on its haunches and watched them as they rode out of the clearing.
River sat upon Scruff. Talen and Harnock each had their own horse with a woodikin behind. The other woodikin rode two and three to a horse and tried not to show any fear, but they’d never ridden before, and it was not an easy thing, with our stirrups or training, to stay on a horse at a good trot. They hooted and grunted. The woodikin sitting behind Talen decided it would be easier to stand. So he held onto Talen’s shoulders and shouted at the others. Chot, who was bouncing along with two other woodikin on another horse, saw him and followed his lead. He took a wide stance in the saddle, bracing himself with a foot in front and back. Talen told him to sit down, but Chot ignored him, holding the reins out like he was in some sort of parade.
It worked until the gelding jerked left to avoid a large stone. Chot went flying. He whooped and hooted and tumbled in a cloud of dust. When he rose, his feathers were all askew. The gelding continued on, but to Chot’s credit, he ran after it, latched hold of the stirrup, and scrambled into the saddle. This time he sat.
They rode all the rest of that day, pacing their horses, riding, then running alongside, then riding again. They did not go back the way they had come, but cut at a diagonal that would take them more quickly to the river which fed into the Lion. They made good time.
By early evening, they entered the territory of the Long Stings, one of the Spiderhawk confederation. The Long Stings wanted to eat the horses, but Chot haggled with them. In the end, the Long Stings promised to bring the horses to the skinmen lands in exchange for two of the dreadmen’s swords. Talen and River expressed their fears that the Long Stings would not deliver Scruff, but Chot waved them to silence. “They have agreed,” he said, as if that was all that mattered.
They hurried through the Long Sting territory, and before dark, they were on the river in small round craft guided by three Long Stings. They traveled a number of miles on the river before the sun set. The stars came out. Sometime in the night, the Long Stings beached the craft. A number of the Spiderhawk got off the craft, including the wasp lord. He gave Chot a small basket, and then he and most of the Spiderhawks left.
“What’s going on?” Talen asked.
“They need to report to their queen,” Harnock said. “There’s going to be war with the Orange Slayers.”
And then they shoved off again and continued down the river with the Long Sting boat guides, Chot, and four of his warriors. There were spots with rapids where Talen had to hang on for his life. There were other calmer areas where he had to help paddle, or where he slept. And so they traveled with the stars above them and the soft light of the thin moon shining down on the autumn woods and the swift waters, and the whole time he prayed to the ancestors they would arrive early enough to help Shim and the men of Rogum’s Defense. Early enough to identify the Divine hiding in their midst before he or she plunged a knife into their collective backs.
15
On the Road to Whitecliff
SUGAR’S SECOND MORNING in the dungeon arrived with more cold, hunger, and thirst. Her limbs ached from her bonds, and she suspected if they removed all her fetters, she’d still not be able to run for the stiffness in them.
The guards b
rought a light gruel which Oaks refused. But Sugar didn’t see the point. She ate the food and was glad of it. Then the guards led them out of the room and up the stairs. Even though the morning was chill, she was grateful to shuffle out of the shadows of the castle wall and into the light. She squinted up at the sun.
Three or four dozen other captives were lined up. Most were fettered together with neck irons, one chain connecting a person to the next person in front, another chain connecting them to a person in back. But the captors had obviously run out of chains and irons, for a good number of them were fettered about their necks with rope.
A handful of the largest men were locked into pacifying yokes. Such yokes were made of a large branch or log, four to five feet long, that had been forked at both ends. Into each fork was fitted a captive’s neck. A bolt of iron was run through the ends of the forks so the captive could not pull his neck free. In this way two captives were yoked together. There were six men yoked this way, chains or ropes connecting them to the person in front of them and the one behind.
The guards shoved Sugar to her knees in front of a one-man yoke. It had a fork at one end with a heavy tongue of wood extending about five feet out from it. They fit her neck into the Y of the fork and ran a bolt through the ends of the fork and fastened it with a thick iron pin. One of the guards hauled up on it, forcing Sugar to stand on her feet. They tied her wrists tightly behind her back and put rope manacles on her ankles to keep her from being able to take anything but small steps. They did the same to Oaks.
A guard came by with a black horse hair brush and a bucket of yellow paint. He painted a crude V on Sugar’s chest, then smeared a stroke of paint across it. The small V at the bottom represented a face. The four lines above represented horns. It was the mark of sleth. He painted the mark on Oaks and three other men. Sugar shook her head. They were marked, but this guard served the true enemy.
The captives were strung out in two lines. A guard tied a rope from the back of a wagon to the collar of the lead captive in each line. Sugar was placed into one of the lines, and the head guard handed the tongue of Sugar’s yoke to the man in front of her.
Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 Page 19
