CHILDREN OF AMARID

by DAVID B. COE

  Orris sat up and glanced northward. Had Baden and Sartol departed, he would have heard their horses galloping, or at least felt it through the ground. He had not, and he could see a faint glimmer of light in the distance, where their cerylls lay in the grass. He assumed that they had gone to sleep, and that it was safe for him to do so as well. One of these nights, as the Owl-Masters slept, he would steal up to their camp and kill them, or die in the attempt. But tonight, exhausted and still recovering from his battle with Sartol, he needed rest.

  Sitting down heavily on a large, sunlit rock along the riverbank, Glyn dropped his walking stick, with its glowing red stone, and commanded the huge black bird to hop from his shoulder to the ground. Then, gingerly, he removed his leather shoes and inspected the latest damage they had done to his feet. Seeing the raw, bloody blisters, he let loose with an impressive string of profanity.

  “Calbyr says we’re supposed to speak Tobynese,” Kedar told him, struggling slightly with the alien language. “Someone might hear us, he says. So if you’re going to swear, don’t do it in Bragory.”

  “Tobynese curses don’t make me feel any better,” Glyn answered irritably in his native tongue. “They’re boring. Besides,” he went on, gesturing with both hands, “we’re by the river; there’s nobody within five quads of here. Who’s going to hear me?”

  Kedar shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied in Tobyn-Ser’s language. “Sartol said that the sorcerers can see us. Maybe they hear us, too.”

  “The sorcerers don’t scare me,” Glyn grumbled in Tobynese. He stared at his feet, and swore again. “Look at my heel, Kedar. It’s torn to bits.”

  “I don’t want to look at your stinking feet. Mine hurt enough without you reminding me of it. Now put on your shoes and let’s get going.”

  Glyn shook his head and hobbled closer to the water. “Not until I soak my feet. You should do it, too.”

  “I don’t want to,” Kedar said, his voice tinged with annoyance. “I want to get moving. We were supposed to be there last night. Now the sun goes down in two hours, and we’ve still got four or five quads to go. At least, that’s what I think,” he added, looking around. “It’s harder to estimate distances here than it is at home. There’s too much grass and not enough buildings. It might even be farther.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll be ready in a minute.” Glyn sat down and put his feet in the cold water, wincing at the sharp stinging of his wounds.

  “Now,Glyn!” Kedar insisted.

  Glyn looked back at his massive, light-haired companion. Kedar looked a bit absurd in the green hooded robe. He was a killer—Glyn had seen him tear a man’s arm off in a fight—and here he was looking like an Oracle with a big bird. It almost made Glyn laugh. He tried to imagine himself in the same getup, with his short beard, and the bent nose that he got, in the same fight, as it happened, from a man who was now dead. He probably looked pretty silly as well. But not as bad as Kedar, he decided. He couldn’t look as bad as Kedar.

  “Come on, Glyn!” Kedar barked. “Calbyr wanted this thing done already. Do you want to explain to him why we fouled up his plans?”

  “I’m not afraid of Calbyr,” Glyn said. But he stood and carefully made his way back to his shoes.

  Kedar threw back his large head and laughed, his small eyes closing until they were mere slits. “No, of course you’re not afraid of Calbyr. And Nal-rats aren’t fond of sewers.”

  Glyn glared at his friend, saying nothing.

  “Oh, don’t get sore, Glyn,” Kedar said gruffly. “I didn’t mean anything by it. We’re all afraid of him. I know I am, and I’m twice his size.”

  Glyn remained silent, but, after a moment, he nodded and gave a half-hearted smile. Kedar was right: everyone was afraid of Calbyr, even back in Lon-Ser. And, to be honest, every one of them who had come with Calbyr to Tobyn-Ser also feared the sorcerer Sartol, especially after what he did to Yarit the first day they encountered him. He shuddered involuntarily at the thought, and concentrated on putting his shoes back on without aggravating his tender feet. The cold water had helped, but only a little. He doubted that he would make it all the way to the next town. What was it called again? Watertown? That didn’t sound right.

  “Hey, Kedar. What’s the name of the place we’re going to, anyway?”

  Kedar rolled his eyes. “I told you already, twice: it’s Watersbend.”

  “Watersbend,” Glyn repeated, “right.” He looked at the big man again. “And there’s no need to get grouchy about it. These names make no sense to me. Watersbend, Kaera, Woodsrest, the Moriandral. I can’t keep them straight.”

  Kedar shook his head. “Are you ready yet?” he asked impatiently.

  Glyn stood and tested his weary feet. “As ready as I’m likely to be.” He retrieved his walking stick and called to the large, black bird. Immediately, it flew to him, its glittering, golden eyes catching the sunlight. “Let’s go,” he said to Kedar, “but you should prepare yourself: you might have to carry me before the day’s over.”

  Kedar snorted skeptically. “Not bloody likely.”

  They climbed up the steep bank away from the water and back onto the plain. Then they continued southward, following the course of the river along its eastern shore. Within minutes, the throbbing pain in Glyn’s feet returned, and he walked behind Kedar muttering Bragory curses under his breath. He hated Tobyn-Ser, with its strange language, its tedious food, and its simple-minded people. And he had become bored with this job; he was exhausted from the endless walking, sick to death of sleeping on the ground, and tired of looking at this useless wilderness. He felt ridiculous wearing the stupid green cloak and he was ready to throw these horrible, stiff shoes into the river. Most of all, though, he had grown weary of taking orders from Calbyr. Yes, he was afraid of the man, with his wild, dark eyes, the evil-looking white scar, and his lithe frame, which Glyn had seen kill so many times he had lost count. But just because he feared him, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t hate him as well. At that moment, Glyn would have given everything he had in the world, which, admittedly, was not much, to be back in Bragor-Nal, sitting comfortably in his favorite bar, waiting for another job to come along. Calbyr wasn’t the only Nal-Lord around, after all. Glyn had done all right before he met the man; he could do all right without him. Jobs in the Nal had never demanded this much work, or offered so little comfort. Here, even the weapons were odd. He found the long stick with its glowing red stone unwieldy. He missed the compact efficiency of his normal hand weapon. He felt safer with it: more secure, better able to protect himself. I bet Yarit could have saved himself if he had been carrying a normal thrower, he thought, deepening his own uneasiness. Still, he had to concede, this weapon carried more firepower than anything he had ever used at home. It had done quite a job on Kaera. He grinned at the memory.

  In truth, he didn’t hate everything about this job, and things hadn’t been going so great in Lon-Ser before he left. Calbyr might be insane, but, if they succeeded, and if their payment amounted to even half of what he had promised them, Glyn would never have to work again. On the other hand, Calbyr had promised all of them a painful death if they failed. Later, in private, Glyn and Kedar had joked about it, wondering which Calbyr wanted more: the money or an excuse to kill them. The point was, however, none of them had any intention of failing. Calbyr had been able to choose his team from all the break-laws in Bragor-Nal—gangmen and independents. This crew wasn’t likely to fail, not with the promise of unimaginable wealth spurring them on. When it came right down to it, Glyn was not about to give up his share of the spoils for a bit more comfort. It didn’t really matter how miserable he was. He grinned, although without amusement: no doubt, Calbyr had counted on just that attitude in making his plans. Well, if he had, that was fine. As long as Glyn received his fair payment, he would allow Calbyr his small victories.

  By far the best part about the job was the magnificent bird Glyn carried on his shoulder. He had grown quite fond of it during the training an
d work that had consumed much of the last two years. Watching its graceful flight and seeing the intelligence in its sparkling eyes, he found it easy to forget that the creature was actually synthetic. Real or not, though, the bird was just about the most proficient killer he had ever seen. Glyn respected that a great deal.

  All along, Calbyr had remained noticeably tight-lipped about the identity of their sponsors. No doubt Cedrych was behind this, but, on his own, the Overlord didn’t have the resources to come up with sixteen of these birds. This should have meant that the Sovereign was involved, too, but Calbyr had gone out of his way to avoid the Sovereign’s security squads. Glyn knew from personal experience that avoiding the squads was always a good idea, particularly when trying to get any so-called “advanced goods” out of the Nal. But if the Sovereign knew about this operation it wouldn’t have mattered to Calbyr as much as it had seemed to. Not that Glyn had ever really understood the Sovereign’s paranoia about such things. From what he knew of Oerella-Nal, it seemed that the Matriarchy was uninterested in weapons technology. And nobody in Stib-Nal had brains enough to use any of it. Certainly the Sovereign couldn’t be worried about anyone in Abborij or Tobyn-Ser attacking the Nal. But given the zeal with which the squads did their job, there could be no doubt that the Sovereign was concerned about someone.

  Glyn shook his head and turned his thoughts back to the bird he carried on his shoulder. Whoever Calbyr’s superiors were, they had spared no expense when it came to these creatures. The mechanical hawks moved like live birds, responded to commands like trained pets, killed like mercenaries, and even anticipated the tactics of their enemies. The technology required to create these creatures went beyond anything Glyn had ever encountered. He would have liked to keep his bird; he almost would have been willing to give up some of his payment for it. Almost.

  In addition to the bird, the work itself wasn’t all that bad either. Actually, aside from the walking, and the bad food, Glyn liked what he was doing. For all his adult years, going back even to his early teens, when he fancied himself an adult, Glyn had known that he possessed but one true talent. It was not just that he had a certain amount of skill as a killer. He knew of many who left Bragor-Nal to fight as mercenaries in the Abborij; wars, never to return. They, too, had known how to kill. But Glyn had a knack for bringing death to others while minimizing the risks to himself, either of reprisal or capture. He had learned to end human life in a variety of ways, both subtle and conspicuous—for the murder of one, made manifest in the proper way, could convey a message to hundreds—but always discreetly. Most likely, it was his care and his caution that had drawn Calbyr’s attention in the first place. That was what set Glyn apart. At first, Glyn had been skeptical about this job. He preferred to work in Bragor-Nal; he knew the rules there, and he had valuable connections. He had never spent any time outside of Lon-Ser, and he had little interest in exploring the rest of the world. But Calbyr had assured him that his skills would be put to good use here, that the challenge would lie not just in killing, but in leaving enough evidence to implicate someone else. And finally, with the job at Kaera, Calbyr had been right.

  For their first year in Tobyn-Ser, Calbyr had them doing petty stuff: vandalism, theft, arson. It was important that they follow a natural progression, Calbyr had said. This job could not be rushed. Glyn had quickly grown bored with it, though. Any kid could have done this work; Calbyr didn’t need him. But, with Kaera, everything had changed.

  “From now on, hold nothing back,” Calbyr had told them at their last meeting. “Destroy everything, kill everyone; just leave yourselves one witness.”

  That was more like it; that was what they had been brought here to do. The attack on Kaera had been fun, and it had gone very well. They encountered few surprises; no one escaped. The throwers functioned perfectly, and the birds were nothing short of magnificent. Still, for tonight’s job at Watersbend, Glyn would have to remember to tell Kedar to keep his stone covered until they got close to the town. Glyn did not relish the idea of facing another angry mob armed with clubs and farm tools. That seemed an unnecessary risk. He would also tell the big man that he was free to select their witness again. Calbyr had left it to each group to choose its own witnesses, and Glyn had left that to Kedar. Glyn didn’t care one way or another, and he didn’t really see the point. It wasn’t as though that little girl in Kaera had survived to live out such a great existence. They had killed her family and burned her home; sparing her life didn’t seem to be such a big favor. But Kedar had a thing about murdering kids, and Glyn would respect it, even if he didn’t understand it.

  They walked for two hours, their shadows stretching across the prairie as the sun swung slowly toward the western horizon. The pain in Glyn’s feet grew worse and worse until, finally, out of desperation, he removed his shoes and, resisting the temptation to fling them into the Moriandral, hid them in the large pocket inside his cloak. As it turned out, Glyn found walking barefoot substantially less painful than wearing the blasted shoes, and their pace quickened. They came within sight of Watersbend just before twilight, and, after pausing briefly to cover their stones, continued on toward the town until they were about a half-quad away from the first houses. Then they stopped, eating a small meal as they waited for the sky to turn entirely dark.

  As Glyn sat in the grass, watching the stars appear overhead, he felt the familiar tranquillity embrace him like an old lover. It was always this way before he did a job: he grew calm, everything and everyone seemed to move a little slower, and he saw the world with a clarity that he lacked at other times. He had never asked Kedar if it was the same for him; he found it difficult to speak at these moments, and, the rest of the time, he never felt like discussing it. But he wondered. Before a job, the big man kept to himself as much as Glyn did; it was one of the reasons Glyn liked working with him so much.

  Finally, when the last rays of daylight had vanished from the western sky, Glyn glanced at Kedar and nodded once. They stood and, unsheathing their stones, began to advance on Watersbend. As they drew close to the first house, Glyn noted with satisfaction that the people inside it seemed completely unaware of their approach. He moved his thumb to the small button along the shaft of his weapon and, once again, gave Kedar a curt nod. Depressing the button, Glyn felt power surge through the shaft of the thrower, saw red fire spurt from the stone, heard it crash with a staggering detonation into the building in front of him. He heard a second explosion as Kedar’s weapon blasted through the walls of a neighboring house. The family inside of his target began to scream. A man ran out of the house carrying an ax, and Glyn felt his mechanical bird jump off his shoulder to attack. He heard shouting from nearby homes and saw people gathering in the distance, some of them with torches. He knew then that they would face a mob after all; knew that it wouldn’t matter, that the people of Watersbend didn’t have a chance.

  After that, Glyn lost track of time for a while. Kedar and he moved through the first cluster of houses with deadly, systematic precision, pouring their red flame in all directions, and sending their lethal black birds after all those who tried to escape. These were farmhouses mostly, not as far apart as the homes in Kaera, but far enough for their proper destruction to require a good deal of time. It took Glyn and Kedar half an hour to reach the center of town, but, once they did, their progress quickened. The mob had gathered there to make its stand, and, as a result, the birds could cut down more of them in less time. Glyn and Kedar turned their fire on the storefronts that surrounded them, as the flying creatures rose and fell again and again, their razor talons wet with blood.

  Amid the chaos and the flames and the screaming, Glyn remained in his deadly, trancelike state. Only Kedar’s sudden cry of alarm alerted him to the two points of light—one of them orange, and the other yellow—that were approaching rapidly from the southwest. And, by then, it was too late.

  * * *

  The fourth day of their journey resembled, in almost every respect, the previous three. Baden, ridin
g slightly ahead of Sartol, set a swift pace and rested just often enough to keep the horses watered and fresh. As he had for the last three days, the Owl-Master rode in virtual silence, speaking only when absolutely necessary, and even then keeping his statements and questions brief. But, whereas during those first few days, Sartol had found Baden’s reticence frustrating and, perhaps, a bit worrisome, he now found it downright disturbing. The relief he had felt last night, as he listened to Baden drift off to sleep, had evaporated under the day’s hot sun, leaving a residue of self-doubt that Sartol thought he had already vanquished. By the time he had fallen asleep the night before, Sartol had convinced himself not only that Baden still believed his version of what happened by the grove, but also that he had managed to draw Baden out of his laconic shell. He now feared that he had been mistaken on both counts. Nothing in Baden’s expression or bearing appeared to have changed, but the silence he shaped had taken on a new, more frightening quality. He no longer seemed a man too absorbed in his own thoughts to speak. Instead, Sartol sensed that Baden had himself tightly under control, as if afraid that he might say the wrong thing.