Cazia was still tied into the driver spot in the cart. Tejohn gave her a loaf of meatbread, knowing she would not be able to land safely again until she reached the Freewell holdfast, if then.
The others stared at the food with gaping mouths, and Tejohn took his own share of the provisions and broke it apart, splitting it among them. To the mother, he gave three portions, one for the boy and one for the new addition to their group.
“It’s time,” Cazia said, tucking the remains of her provisions into her robe.
“Past time,” Tejohn answered. “The town is overrun, so go straight up before you start southward. Far up. Fire pass you by.”
She smiled at him. He smiled in return. It is already too late. The fight is already lost. “And you, too.”
He stepped back as the cart began its ascent. She had a long way to go before dark, but she took the time to gain a great height before heading southward through the Salt Pass.
Tejohn turned to the others. They didn’t look quite so dispirited any more. “Get weapons. Three each. I have questions for you and you need to understand how all this works.
Chapter 21
All of them stood in the middle of the wall. There were no grunts in sight, but it was best to stand vigil anyway.
The ash-covered man was named Shollisk, and the last thing he remembered was being held captive by The Blessing when Fort Caarilit fell. He did not seem surprised at all to hear that the Gerrits were gone, their cities and towns burned and empty. Tejohn briefly wondered if he had been among the squad sent to assassinate him on the river, but what did it matter now?
The elderly woman hefted one of the spears he’d given her. “No arrows?”
“No fletcher,” Tejohn answered.
Explaining how the kinzchu spears worked was the work of only a few moments, but giving them the rest of their orders took some time. Tejohn wanted the Evening Person lying at the foot of the wall to be brought inside. He wanted a cart--a normal one--to bring the bulk of the spears into town with him. He wanted their promise that they would not kill any more grunts, and he wanted to know everything they knew about the situation in Saltstone.
The last was easiest, since they knew so little. The holdfast had been sealed tightly with granite blocks by the new tyr, Doctor Twofin, but the grunts somehow overcame the wall in force the day before Tejohn arrived. Since then, the creatures had been moving from house to house in Saltstone, spreading their curse. Everyone who had been bitten was being held in the courtyard near the southern gate. Ilb and two hundred others had fled to the Marsh Gate, hoping to escape into Durdric lands. Instead, they had been trapped here on the wall. They were the only ones left.
And Doctor Twofin had left them out here, alone. Once again, Tejohn flushed with shame that he had not hunted down the old wizard before going north. Every life Twofin had taken in that time was on his head. Every single one.
Tejohn found the others infuriatingly reluctant to swear not to kill more grunts, only cure them. They had a dozen excuses why, but it was clear that they were too afraid to think strategically.
The stone stairs leading from the yard below to the wall walk had been crumbled by a scholar who had been killed during the night. They found a length of rope in a shed by the staging area.
Tejohn knotted it to one of the crenellations but didn’t lower it right away. The town of Saltstone lay before him. The little rows of houses and shops were strung like beads on the rising slope, and he couldn’t see any movement there at all, not even the scavenging of crows.
The frizzy-haired mother stood beside him. “How many humans,” Tejohn asked, “do you think are left within the walls?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Outside the locked doors of the holdfast?”
Tejohn nodded.
“None,” she answered with finality. “We might well be the last human beings in the world.”
Tejohn dropped the rope to the courtyard and climbed down.
He quickly confirmed that both gates had been blocked by granite blocks. “Now take this rope,” he called up to them, “and bring that Evening Person inside the wall. You’re going to need his magic.”
Shollisk nodded while the others nervously glanced at each other. Good. One of them at least would do what was necessary.
Tejohn could not find a functioning cart, but he did find a wheelbarrow. Ilb dropped the kinzchu spears down to him and he loaded them up as neatly as he could, stones forward.
No grunts charged at him.
When it was loaded, he pushed the barrow along the path. The civilians atop the wall watched him go. Shollisk was nowhere in sight—presumably, he was already climbing down the rope to tie it to the Evening Person—but the others stared at him as if desperate for a rousing speech.
Well, he wasn’t going to shout one from down in the yard. The kinzchu spears and the last of his provisions would have to be enough of a morale boost. He pushed the barrow up the hill.
Somewhere, far in the distance, he heard a roar. It was The Blessing, calling its name. Worse, he heard several answering roars.
The first time he’d come this way, it had been in the darkness before sunrise. Now, in the late hours of the day, he could clearly see the crooked rows of houses on the stony slope up the pass, the steep cliffs that loomed over them on both sides, and the rice paddy terraces built everywhere they would fit.
Tejohn had not been a farmer for many years, but it didn’t look like enough land to feed the whole of Saltstone. The Twofins must have relied on trade, and there would be few humans left in the world to trade with.
That was a problem for tomorrow, assuming he lived to see it.
The path from the yard ended at a broad stone road that lead up into Salt Pass and through the town. It had not been created by scholars; it was instead just a cleared, flat strip of stone slope lined with white-painted rocks. Tejohn hadn’t paid much attention to it during his nighttime escape.
Another roar of a grunt echoed through the pass, but Tejohn could not tell if it was truly farther away or if he was just fooling himself.
He pushed the wheelbarrow onto the road and started up the hill. Fire and Fury, there was a lump in his stomach like a knot of wet rope. He was going into battle, something he’d done dozens of times before, but he had no sense of inner momentum, no growing urge to kill.
In its place was a deep unease—no, Song knew what it was, so he shouldn’t be afraid to name it, either: fear. He was a single soldier in a town that had been overtaken by The Blessing. One man against hundreds, maybe thousands.
The last time he’d faced a grunt on Twofin lands, the beast had been alone and he’d been surrounded by humans. The damage the thing had done to him had been terrible…
There was no one to carry him to a sleepstone now. There was no one to create granite blocks to seal the door where they were hiding. He was alone against an army, and the only way he was going to survive was if he did not fight. Just like at the mining camp with Reglis and Arla, he would have to strike at the enemy when it could not strike back.
Unlike the mining camp, the grunts did not drink themselves into a stupor. He would have to—what? Strike from hiding? Lure them away one at a time?
Thousands of people had lived in Saltstone, and there was no way to tell how many remained.
The first building he passed at the edge of the yard was a squat, imposing block house. The top was crenellated to protect archers, and the windows were arrow slits. The heavy oaken door had been smashed in. Above the doorjamb was a crude painting of a few silver bolds. A counting house. More than ever, he was certain that he had been led out of Salt Pass by a different road.
Taking two spears off the wheelbarrow, Tejohn crept to the doorway. Inside was silence and ruin. A pair of clay lanterns lay smashed on the floor, a torn robe here, a split sack of silver bolds there, yellow seashells scattered everywhere. He could smell old blood.
Carefully setting one of his kinzchu spears against the wall, Tejohn leaned into
the doorway and clucked his tongue several times. It wasn’t the sort of sound to travel far outside, not in this windy pass, but inside the building, it echoed against the stone like a call to dinner.
The knot in his stomach made him feel sick, but when there was no answer, he did it again. Nothing. Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way. There was no enemy to fight here. Not yet. The grunts might have withdrawn to the southern end of the pass. Tejohn had never known grunts to lie in wait when they could charge at their prey, but they were smart, too. Maybe smart enough to change their tactics. He had to be careful.
He laid the spears back onto the wheelbarrow and continued up the hill. That fat sack of bolds called to him. Before the empire fell, it would have been enough to buy back his father’s farm—plus a full season’s worth of seed and a few sheep—but it was as useless as his title now.
Beyond the counting house was a series of wrecked stalls. They had the look of temporary structures that had not been moved in a long time: a marketplace. Tejohn examined them as he passed, ignoring tools, blankets, jugs of oil, and more. The only thing he took was an unbroken crock of compote to replace the meatbread he’d given away.
He found more signs that the grunts had been through here. A corpse lay behind a stall full of empty jars, having been torn apart and devoured. Numerous long-toed footprints decorated the ground around it, and the flies had been hard at their work.
Tejohn’s hands began to tremble.
Song only knew what was wrong with him. He’d come on this mission to restore Doctor Twofin and establish Saltstone as a safe station for the larger war, but he hadn’t planned on doing it alone. He’d expected other soldiers, maybe a last valiant stand at the walls, which his weapons would help them turn.
But this? Alone in the empty city with nothing but a sword at his hip and a bundle of blunt spears?
We might well be the last human beings in the world.
Tejohn offered a prayer to The Great Way that the Indregai princess would find an army and a government waiting for her across the Straim, for the sake of his wife and little skirmishers, at least.
Everything is dangerous.
Beyond the stalls was a cluster of permanent storefronts, all seemingly abandoned and, thankfully, free of corpse flies. Beyond that were little houses made of wood and mud, with roofs made of mud-packed slats.
The broad road split. One branch continued uphill to the west and the other wound through the little buildings. The heavy knot in Tejohn’s stomach began to flutter. He couldn’t fight the grunts in such an enclosed space. They were too fast. If one found him while he was pushing the wheelbarrow, would he have time to snatch a spear from the pile and swing it around to defend himself?
Just asking the question was answer enough. He pushed the wheelbarrow close to one of the houses and set it down. Then he lifted two spears again and slipped into the narrow space between two buildings.
Another roar echoed through the pass. Something about this one caught Tejohn’s attention; he knelt low, then moved to the edge of the building.
There was little to see. The street was a dirt path that curved to the south. He heard nothing but the wind and saw nothing but houses, an overturned cart, and the cliffs beyond.
Movement caught his eye. Something was crawling along the surface of the cliff face far away, moving from one shadowy crag to another. It didn’t seem like a very large path, but at this distance, there was no way to tell. Then the creature moved into a bit of sunlight and Tejohn’s suspicions were confirmed. It was blue. Another grunt.
Then he watched in astonishment as it leaped from its perch and plummeted to a paddy at least a hundred feet below.
Was this suicide? Tejohn didn’t believe it. Not for a moment. A lead weight seemed to have dropped into the bottom of his guts, and he watched the paddy for five slow breaths until he saw the grunt stand and begin crawling down the cliff wall again.
“Monument sustain me,” he muttered.
The grunts somehow overcame the wall in force. Here, he was seeing how they did it. They’d found a passage into the Salt Pass that no human could ever survive.
Tejohn thought back to months before when he had led Lar and his companions out of Peradain. He’d struck grunts with his bracer, had seen them fall from the top of the Scholars’ Tower, or take a scholar’s dart in the back.
Had any of them been killed? If the creatures could heal the injury from a suicidal fall like this…
No, this wasn’t a bad thing. It just meant that more people could be cured of The Blessing. It also meant that Lar Italga might still be out there somewhere, running through the wilderness.
Tejohn leaned out, peering at the cliff face to spot the grunt again. Song knew, it was a delight to be able to see at a distance. It was almost like acquiring a magic power of his own.
The grunt raced down a flight of stairs to the paddy below, then to the next and the next. The beast was making its way toward the bottom of the pass. The little hovels across the street were not large buildings, but they soon obscured the creature’s descent.
Tejohn darted across the street, slipping between two little houses. From there, he peeked out onto the next block. It was much like the first, but a bit higher up the slope. The street followed the contour of the hill, and the crooked slope had a wide part in it large enough to accommodate a big building with cracks in the mud showing through the white paint.
The other buildings nearby were small houses, all with their doors bashed in. There were no grunts or corpses nearby.
Tejohn saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. It was low to the ground near the foundation of the big building with the cracked mud walls. Tejohn leaned back, gripping his spears with white knuckles. It could have been a rat or a dog. It could have been anything.
He slipped off his helmet and leaned forward again, peeking toward the building. Was it some kind of barracks for servants? The roof had mostly come off and the window shutters had been smashed open. Someone had punched a gap in the mud wall large enough to peer through. That was where he’d seen the movement. That had been next to the ground. When he looked at it again, the gap held nothing but shadows.
Something had been there. He knew it. Something had moved in the darkness of this dead city.
Tejohn moved quickly. He raced back to the wheelbarrow and picked up a dozen or so spears. Whatever was in that barracks, he wanted to be ready for it, even if it was a whole nest of purple grunts.
Returning, he switched to the street adjacent, moving far enough down the block to get a clear view of the door. It was huge, heavy, and wooden, broad enough for a small cart to drive through. Of course, it had been smashed open. The doorjamb was almost ten feet high, nearly half the height of the building itself.
Nothing moved inside.
He crept to the gap between the broken doors. The interior was lit by sunlight streaming through the holes in the roof. As quietly as he could--which was not nearly as quiet as he’d have liked--Tejohn set his armload of spears as quietly as he could onto the top stair by the entrance, keeping only one for himself. He slipped inside.
It was not a barracks after all. The room was dominated by long, empty shelves along the back wall and freestanding shelves between the windows. The floor was made of wood planking. A free-standing set of wooden stairs lay on its side, along with a few torn burlap bags and scattered handfuls of rice. Otherwise, it was empty. A warehouse, clearly, but although the damage was extensive, it also seemed to be recent.
But what had Tejohn seen? A rat? There was no gap in the walls where something could have peered out at him.
For a moment, he was sure there was a secret room or crawl space there, but the window just above, with its broken shutters, proved that wrong.
He started toward it, his boots thumping on the wooden floor. Of course! Tejohn kicked aside the burlap sacks, scanning the floor until he found it: a seam with a notch that might serve as a handle. A trapdoor.
; The thought that there were grunts beneath the floor made his hair stand on end. He took a deep breath, wishing that old killing urge would come back to him again. He needed it. He needed its urgency and certainty.
There was something here, under this floor. He knew it. Tejohn wedged his finger into the notch and lifted his spear, ready to strike downward. Maybe if he destroyed one or two grunts here, he’d get that feeling back.
He yanked the floor panel up, exposing darkness below and the forms moving within.
Chapter 22
Children. They were all children.
Tejohn checked the downward stroke of his spear as the black stone came near the face of a twelve-year-old girl. She stared wide-eyed up at him, as did so many others.
Fire and Fury. Tejohn went points high, then knelt at the edge of the trap. “Hello,” he said as calmly as he could. A nasty stink of an open outhouse wafted up to him. “Who here has been bitten?”
They shrank from him. “No one,” a boy said. He looked to be about fourteen and might have been the oldest of them. “Song knows we were brought here whole and safe, and not a one of us has taken the curse yet. Fire take me if I lie.”
“No need to be afraid,” Tejohn said. “I’ve brought a cure—”
A broken shutter flew off its splintered hinge with a tremendous crash, and a roar echoed in the room. The children screamed in a high-pitched chorus as Tejohn spun around.
The shutter clattered against the wooden floor with a noise like an avalanche. There was a flash of blue fur among the splintered wood. As the beast stumbled, Tejohn leaped forward and attacked.
The grunt lunged at him just as the spear struck its torso, and the force of the impact jolted the weapon out of Tejohn’s grip. It clattered to the floor, and the grunt collapsed on top of it.
Tejohn leaped backwards out of instinct, desperate to put as much distance between himself and the fallen creature. His back foot landed on the top stair just inside the trap door, and he overbalanced backwards. He fell against the edge of the floor, slapping his hand down on the wood with a noise like striking a drum.
The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way Page 25
