by D. P. Prior
“A life as a Dreamer has advantages, even on Thanatos,” Kadee said. “Barraiya people teach our children how to survive in the bush. In its way, Sahul could be just as harsh as this place.”
The husk girl knelt beside Nameless. She touched her fingers lightly to his shoulder. He met her eyes. They were wide, full of concern.
“It’s all right, lassie.” He patted her hand. “Just scratches. Nothing this old dwarf can’t handle.”
Reassured, she nodded. She went to stand, but doubled over, trying to reach behind herself with her hands. Barely suppressed whimpers left her lips, and then she dropped to the ground and writhed side to side on her back, like she had an itch she couldn’t scratch.
“Lassie?” Nameless said, tugging on his boot and leaning over her.
Shadrak spun back round and watched the girl intently.
“What is it?” Grimwart said.
Nameless ignored him. It may have been sight of the black cloak whipping out behind as the Kryptès stood. It almost certainly was. Nameless had never liked the Council’s special cohort, even when he was in the Ravine Guard.
He didn’t like the fact Duck had joined the Krypteia, and reverted to using his given name because of it. What would possess a dwarf with the heart of a hero to sink to a life of spying and enforcement? Had it been Grimwart’s idea, or someone else’s?
“Let me,” Kadee said.
In spite of her appearance, she acted every bit like the doting mother Shadrak had described. She got on her knees opposite Nameless and held the girl’s face in her hands. Spittle drooled from the girl’s lips, and her eyes brimmed with tears. They glistened, too, and it wasn’t all from the moisture. They had taken on a blue sparkle. Well, blue wasn’t doing them justice: they blazed like sun-touched sapphires.
As the girl continued to thrash and moan, Kadee took hold of her shoulders and uttered soft words of comfort. One of the girl’s arms lashed out, and Shadrak started forward. Nameless stood, and blocked his progress. He expected an angry retort, but Shadrak did nothing. The assassin seemed fascinated by the effect Kadee was having.
Gradually, the husk girl’s breathing settled into a steady pattern. Her movements slowed, then ceased altogether. Her arm remained outstretched and elevated, but Kadee was able to lower it with no resistance.
“I don’t want to worry you…” Grimwart said. He was standing a little way apart, looking out toward the mountains.
Kadee pulled back from the girl and got to her feet.
In a flash of movement, the girl sat upright and wrapped her arms round Kadee’s legs. Her back heaved, as if she were sobbing, but when she lifted her head, there was gratitude on her face.
Nameless squinted at her. The diaphanous dress she wore had split beneath both shoulder blades, and what looked like twin canker sores weeped into the fabric.
Kadee reached down to lightly touch one. She raised her finger to her nose, then her lips. Her tongue flicked out, tasting, then she said, “It is clean. No trace of corruption.”
Grimwart turned back to them, an expectant look on his face.
Nameless still ignored him. He was more concerned about the girl.
“So, not to do with this place, then?” Shadrak said, clearly thinking about what had happened to Kal at the arch. “Not insect bites, or some scutting disease?”
Kadee considered for a moment before answering. “I think it is her.” She extricated herself from the girl’s embrace and helped her to stand. “She’s growing.”
The sapphire glow had dissipated, leaving the girl’s eyes once more dull and gray. Her hair had a new sheen, though. Nameless had barely noticed it before, it was so drab and mousy. But now it was like spun gold, glittering, even in the perpetual gloaming of Thanatos.
“Wonderful,” Grimwart said, in a voice laced with sarcasm. “Maybe now you could give us your expert opinion on that.” He pointed in the direction he’d been looking.
A dark cloud had appeared above one of the peaks, swirling around the summit.
“What’s that, then?” Shadrak said. He flicked a look between Nameless and Kadee. “Volcano?”
It looked more to Nameless like a flock of swallows. He was about to say so, when Kadee answered.
“Harvesters.” Her voice was so low, Nameless nearly missed it.
“Then you should go back,” Shadrak said. “Into the forest.”
The tree line was still visible behind them, black branches intertwining overhead, a protective ward for those who had died but once.
Nameless was inclined to agree. There was no further need for Kadee to guide them. They could already see the walls of the city some miles off, and before it, the sprawl of villages skirting valleys or cresting hills.
“If we move now, we can make it to the closest village,” Kadee said. She’d clearly made up her mind she was staying. “They might lose my scent in among so many people.”
“Might?” Grimwart said.
“Will,” Kadee said. She was watching Shadrak for a response.
They hadn’t lost her scent before, judging by what Tarik had said. Nameless knew Shadrak would have realized the same thing. There wasn’t much that slipped past him.
“Then, let’s move it,” the midget said.
Clearly, he’d made a choice, and it wasn’t necessarily based on what was safest or most logical. The need that infected Kadee was equally as strong in him. It showed a side of the assassin Nameless had not seen before. It would have been touching, if it weren’t putting them all at risk. And not only them, but Cordana and the dwarves of Arnoch.
There seemed no point arguing. Once Shadrak made his mind up, he rarely changed it, and with the emotionally charged air between him and Kadee, the chances he would on this occasion were practically zero.
They set off at a pace. Even the husk girl walked briskly, though she’d once more reverted to walling herself off from what was going on outside her head. Nameless had an inkling her withdrawal wasn’t absolute. He’d seen enough to know she heard what she wanted to hear; saw what she wanted to see.
Keeping to the ash-covered ground—Nameless had to wonder if someone had put it there to kill off the grass—they hurried toward a cluster of huts dotted about the mouth of a gully between two rolling hills. The huts were grouped in a circle, as if keeping watch over each other. It made sense, given the hostility of the native flora and fauna.
It was a relatively short stretch, no more than a couple of miles, but the going was hard due to the arid heat coming off the obsidian sun. It looked wrong, that wavering orb of darkness suspended in the charcoal skies. Wrong, and utterly malevolent. Nameless felt the strength leeching from his limbs under the sun’s punishing glare. How could such a thing give off heat? How could it give off light? But it did, though it was barely twilight.
Bypassing the huts, they followed the gully down into a broad valley. The ash was thicker here, coating the banks like snow, and layering the valley floor in ankle-deep drifts.
A much larger settlement lay at the rise on the far side. Even above the hilltops, the looming walls of the city stood out, their battlements saw-toothed and silhouetted on the horizon. It still seemed miles distant, which told Nameless something of the scale of the place.
From the city side of the valley, a wagon train was wending its way down a road etched into the ash. It was too far off to make out any details, but there must have been four, maybe five wagons, each pulled by a team of what had to be horses.
The near side of the settlement was dominated by an enormous white tent, a pavilion, only far larger than any Nameless had seen, even among the armies of New Londdyr.
Something buzzed in his ear. He flicked out a hand, striking a pulpy body the size of a bird. It hit the ash on the ground with an angry buzz, and he brought his foot down on it. When he lifted his boot, spiny legs bristling with barbs continued to clench and unclench around the squashed and oozing remains of a segmented body. It had a hooked stinger you could have landed a fish with
, a drop of venom at its tip.
Nameless turned to Kadee for an opinion, but she was still looking out across the settlement at the wagons approaching from the far side.
“What I was talking about,” she said. “They come from the city bringing supplies, but they take back more than they give.”
“More supplies?” Grimwart said, resting the bottom edge of his shield on the ground.
“People, I was told.”
“So, we give this village a miss?” Shadrak said. “Skirt around it and make straight for the city?”
Kadee drew in a long breath and let it out in a sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Grimwart said, casting a look toward the black mountains, where the cloud of harvesters had splayed out in a spiral pattern that gyred above the peaks.
It looked to Nameless like a giant anemone, and it was growing at an alarming rate. He cast a quick glance at the husk girl, half-expecting her to have had another growth spurt. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d doubled her height and sprouted two heads, but she didn’t seem to have changed.
One of the limbs of the spiral broke away and drifted toward the Forest of Lost Souls.
“Going back is out of the question, then,” Nameless said.
Kadee frowned.
“But if they’re scenting you, or whatever it is they do,” Shadrak said to her, “why ain’t they making a beeline?”
“They didn’t before,” Kadee said. “Only if I lingered in any one place would they pick up the trail. I’ve thought about it since. I think the land communicates with them, like Sahul speaks to our Clever Men, warns them when a storm is coming, or a great wave, or a plague. Thanatos does the same, only it tells its creatures where to find prey. The longer I stay in one place, the more residue I leave; and that is what draws the harvesters.”
“So,” Nameless said, “if you keep on moving, they’ll never find you? A spot of training to build up your stamina, and we’ll have you roaming carefree as a baresark in a beer hall.”
Kadee didn’t smile like he’d expected. If anything, her expression was haunted. “Sooner or later, my imprints would surround me, as I went from place to place. Then the cordon would start to close. With skill and planning, I might elude them for a time, but eventually…”
She didn’t need to finish her thought. To Nameless, it sounded like these harvesters followed a trail of breadcrumbs. At least, that’s what he thought Kadee was saying. If they kept moving, there was still a chance they could keep Kadee with them long enough to find the Dwarf Lords. That is, if anyone could tell them which way to go. All the same, he couldn’t suppress the sensation of pending doom creeping up his spine. Time, it seemed, was not unlimited for Kadee; and it sure as shog wasn’t for the dwarves of Arnoch.
Shadrak must have been thinking along the same lines. “Then we don’t hang about,” he said. “But believe me, if they catch up with us, the scuts are gonna regret it.”
Grimwart banged his mace against his shield. In response, a fierce buzzing rose from beneath the carpet of ash.
“I do wish you wouldn’t do that, laddie,” Nameless said.
Grimwart looked warily at the ground, but Shadrak was already heading deeper into the valley, and without prompting, everyone followed his lead.
“What kind of a name is Grimwart anyway?” Nameless said, walking beside the Black Cloak. “Sounds like a grumpy growth, something you’d expect to find on a witch’s nose.”
“Like you can talk,” Grimwart said. “I mean, what kind of a name is Nameless?”
“Fair point,” Nameless said. “But I still prefer Duck.”
The massive tent was a magnet, pulling in people from the villages. Those queuing outside in a long snaking line struck Nameless as anxious. Most kept a watch on the passage of the wagons from the city, while others made impatient gestures toward the wooden kiosk outside the tent’s entrance.
The people were dressed outlandishly, at least in comparison with how folk dressed back home.
The men wore pleated trousers and matching jackets. Mostly, they were in blacks and grays, but one or two had opted for browns or deep blues. Many were pinstriped, though some were checkered. They wore wing-collared shirts, white and stiff-looking, with strips of dour-colored cloth tied around their necks. Hands were hidden beneath leather gloves. Some carried canes, many of which were heavy-headed, and looked like a toned-down version of Grimwart’s mace. They sported hats, too: tall hats, bowl-shaped hats, flat caps, and skullcaps made from padded silk. Mustaches were everywhere, but very few beards.
The women had impossibly narrow waists beneath laced-up corsets and ballooning skirts. Hardly an inch of flesh was in sight, exposed areas covered by shawls, scarves, and hardy boots of worn leather. Their faces were wan, but whether from the peculiar light of the black sun or from something else, Nameless couldn’t decide. Most wore their hair bundled up into buns on top, or either side above the ears.
The children were dressed in coarse britches or ankle-length skirts. Like the adults, their skin was covered, except for their faces.
“Must be scared of the bug life,” Shadrak said, waiting for the others to catch up.
Eyes were turned toward them, and those at the back of the queue began to murmur and point.
Kadee went on ahead and approached a woman in a dress the ruby red of wine. At first, the woman seemed reluctant to engage her, but Kadee won her over with the same gentle gestures and touches with which she’d soothed the husk girl. Another woman further up the line called out to Kadee and waved, and then more people acknowledged her with tips of their hats and curt nods. Clearly, she was known here.
She wandered back to the companions, clinking coins in her hand: the money she’d taken from her gourd.
“The people are desperate to get into the tent,” she said. “‘Pressers’ are coming—the people with the wagons. They drop off supplies, then round up villagers to take back with them. It seems they don’t interfere with the show.”
“Show?” Shadrak said.
“Circus, the woman called it. It travels between the villages. She said we should wait inside, till the Pressers return to the city.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Nameless said. Last thing they needed was unnecessary trouble. Time lost dealing with it wasn’t something they could afford.
“And it’s not like we can wait around outside,” Grimwart said, swatting at an insect—a regular-sized once this time, not that that meant anything. As far as Nameless was concerned, the little ones often carried a worse sting. You only needed to look at Shadrak.
Nameless threw a look back the way they’d come. The hills surrounding the valley stood between them and the black forest. If the harvesters were coming, they were still some way off, but it was only a matter of time. The way Kadee had described it, there was something inexorable about their pursuit.
He took the husk girl’s hand and led her to the back of the queue, watching her for any reaction.
“Come on, lassie, buck up,” he said. “People will think you’re a Wayist.”—The cultists that had sprung up all over Malkuth with the Technocrat’s passing. All that peace and love and navel-gazing was enough to make anyone look glum.
In answer, she pressed up close to his side, nestled her head into his chest.
By the time they reached the kiosk, the specks of harvesters fanning out across the gray skies could just about be seen in the distance. They must have checked out the fringes of the Forest of Lost Souls and picked up the trail.
Kadee handed some coins over to the girl on the kiosk. In exchange, she received painted wooden balls, one for each of them entering. These they passed to a midget inside the entrance, a chubby fellow with arms that were too short, and legs like a dwarf’s. He wore a motley outfit of patches upon patches, and his face was painted white around the mouth and black around the eyes. He did a little jig as those going in handed over their wooden balls, but he frowned nervously when he got to Nameless and Grimwart; m
ore so at Shadrak.
“Reckon he thinks you’re after his job,” Nameless said.
“Shog off.”
“Want my advice? Wait awhile, till you grow up. Finish your schooling first.” He was taking his life in his hands.
Uncharacteristically, Shadrak just shook his head.
A scantily clad woman with a whip ushered them through to the main belly of the tent. The atmosphere was thick with smoke that had a pungent aroma, similar to weedsticks, though richer and less cloying. It was coming from the audience seated in a makeshift amphitheater. Tiers of bleachers surrounded a ring of brightly painted wooden blocks. Many of the men had long brown weedstick-like things sticking from their mouths, sending up plumes of dirty smoke.
Grimwart nudged Nameless with his elbow. “I’ve got to get myself one of those.”
To Nameless, it looked like they were smoking the dried-out waste from a donkey’s podex.
The ceiling of the tent was higher than that of King Arios’s throne room. The circular performance space must have been more than forty feet in diameter. Above it, so high it made his stomach lurch, a near-naked woman walked across a taut rope, with only a long pole to keep her balance. As she gingerly stepped out into the center, Nameless caught sight of another rope, this one slacker and lower down, upon which two men in oversized britches, with painted faces like the midget on the door, were fighting with wooden swords.
The crowd laughed at their antics, but every now and again let out a collective gasp as the woman on the high wire teetered.
Nameless lowered his gaze. It made him dizzy just looking, and the thought of what would happen if she fell…
Kadee led them to an aisle between banks of tiered seating, and they sat on a bleacher toward the back.
The near-naked woman made it across to the other side of her rope, much to Nameless’s relief.
One of the motley-clad men with the painted faces took a wooden blade between his arm and his torso, gurgled out his last, and pitched to the ground. Nameless was halfway to his feet, but the man tumbled and came up grinning, spreading his arms wide to receive the audience’s enthusiastic applause. The sword fell from under his arm, but he nimbly caught it and tossed it into the air.
