A single dagger and a sling was almost no defense at all and, besides, she didn’t think she could use them on people. If only she could zap them. Lightning bolts would be nice. A vision came to her, of men curled on the dead land, smoke rising from their bodies. No. That was a bad, bad thought. Never would she think that again.
They soon had to slow and alternate between jogging and walking. As the morning dragged on, their pace became ever slower. They were both fit, young and healthy, but there was no comparison between this heart-sapping marathon and their daily walk alongside the theater carts, when they could sometimes cadge a rest up on the driver’s seat.
The wet leather of her shoes rubbed her feet raw. Sweat coursed down her face, soaking into her already damp clothes. When she took her turn carrying the pack it felt as if someone had lit a small fire on her back. She tried not to think about what had been in the other pack: all her precious things, Beth’s letter. Whenever they stopped to catch their breath she glanced behind and overhead, dreading the Bloodmen’s appearance.
Perhaps they had not managed to cross the river and no one followed them. She began to dream of how it would feel if that ever-present worry were lifted from her mind.
They would be free, untracked – for a time at least.
Perhaps enough time to lose themselves in the vast spaces of the empire. There were towns, ports and roaming tribes, traveling merchants – the Andonny among them. There were refuges and places of worship where the lost, mad or lawless were taken in without question. Surely there would be somewhere they could hide?
Chapter 9
The Leper
At midday or thereabouts, with sun obscured by the thick canopy above them, they squeezed between close-grown saplings into a sunken nest of rotten tree trunks and ferns.
A timepiece and compass would be handy, but only the rich could afford such instruments. They lowered their aching bodies to the ground. Ellinca drew up her knees and rested her head on folded arms.
It was several minutes before she bothered to look up. A wood cockroach trekked across her black leggings, tiny hooked feet catching here and there on the fabric. Harmless. She watched, envying his simple life. On one of her arms she noticed a parallel series of livid purple and black stripes. Of course – the bruises from the lieutenant holding her arm. It was a strange, distant memory, as if she recalled a past life, or heard a story told about another person.
“How would you judge our chances?” she asked quietly.
Pascolli looked at her from under his thick, black eyebrows for some time. He blinked, shifting the focus of his gaze to study something over her shoulder. Slowly, he moved closer to her. A strange red streak ran down the back of his neck to beneath the edge of the shirt.
He held a finger to his lips then used fingertalk. “See that huge mountain ash? The one with the C-shaped scar and the mound before it?”
She moved to look. “Uh, I think so. Yes, the mound with the fallen log and more tree ferns?”
He nodded. “That one. See just in front, that lump? It’s a rusted helmet and inside it is a skull.”
To her the helmet – pitted and with a large moss-like growth of rust-red – was just barely identifiable as such. “What about it? There have been many battles over the years, between the Grakkurds and our soldiers. Or are you saying our chances are about as good as his?”
She was only half-joking but he swallowed as if something nasty had occurred to him.
“No. But if you look between the helmet and the fern...you will see one of the Bloodmen.”
“What!” Startled, she whispered the word. She strained to see. There was something in the shadow.It might be a face – a face looking back at her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “I thought I saw one of them an hour back.”
The innocent noises of the surrounding forest made her skin prickle. Sinister meanings came to her. The slurp-slurp call of a honey-eater might as easily be a signal between the Bloodmen. A distant rustling of leaves became a misstep as another tracker closed in to watch.
She shrank back farther, as if the leaves could protect her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged, wincing as he did so. She raised an eyebrow in query. She must find time to check his wound again.
“I wasn’t certain then. He is just watching. Waiting.”
She leaned against a thin tree trunk. If they hadn’t lost them by now, what hope had they of out-pacing them?
What if we ambush them – how, when they couldn’t see them most of the time? Or run in opposite directions – crazy, they would still be out-matched. Or, or... She imagined them both running screaming at the Bloodmen with their single dagger and sling. No.
Out-fight the Bloodmen? Maybe when the heavens fell. “Pascolli, if you go on without me...they may not follow you.”
He dismissed this idea with a cursory grimace. “The question is, why are they waiting?”
It was a very good question. A fixed, grim air settled over Pascolli. Stiffly he opened the haversack and removed the sling, straightening the cords, putting one of the lead pellets into position.
“Give me the dagger.” He held out his hand, palm upward.
She did nothing.
“I’ll take them on. You get away as fast as you can. Run for that smoke we saw. If it’s people, maybe they will help you.” He faltered and she knew why. Anyone out here, between Hull and the Grakkurd lands, was unlikely to be helpful. Grakkurd, army, smugglers – all were unsavory options.
“No.”
“No?” He deflated a little. If she could redirect him, he might forget this suicidal idea.
She followed her own thought trail with slow-whispered words. “You asked, why are they waiting? Either...they’ve been told just to follow us...unlikely...or...”
“Yes?” He wiped a trickle of sweat away with his sleeve.
“Or they’re afraid of us.”
“After all this running the only thing about me they could be afraid of...is my smell.” He lifted one arm and sniffed delicately.
She stifled a laugh. “Sure.”
How normal her hands appeared on the outside. She waggled her fingers at him. “Are they afraid of me? Because if they are...”
“Yes? What are you thinking?”
“If they won’t attack us, all we have to do is go somewhere they will not follow, and we’ll lose them!”
“Ah, right. Like where? Where won’t they follow?”
“To the Grakkurd lands.”
“The Grakkurd lands? No.”
Like her, Pascolli knew all the stories about the Grakks. They herded sheep up in their secluded mountain valleys, a breed called Duraviandes that could leap and bound up the steep sides of ravines as ably as any goat, sheep that could eat the bark off thousand-year-old fossilized trees and survive, sheep that were really tough. So tough it was said the Grakks far preferred the succulent flesh of humans, and they never ate their own tribespeople.
Though they argued back and forth the answer soon came down to the same thing. Either they could head farther north, past the foothills and ascend the mountain until the Bloodmen gave up, or they could continue westward in the same way until the Finder caught up.
As they talked, a whirring above drew their attention to a tiny flying object. With its little ivory wings whizzing round, the thing weaved rapidly up through the angled branches of the trees, heading skyward until it vanished among the foliage. The Bloodmen had released a homing fly.
“Well-equipped, they are,” Pascolli finger-talked.
It was all that needed saying. The homing fly, the joint product of trinketologists and bio-energeers, could carry messages to its owner from a hundred miles away. The Finder would soon know exactly where they were, and possibly even what they had for lunch.
They packed quickly and quietly and headed northward, trying not to pay any attention to the place where the Bloodman hid. Ellinca insisted on taking the haversack even tho
ugh she had been the last to carry it. To her surprise Pascolli gave in quickly. That meekness worried her as much as the persistent feverish flush on his face. Blood poisoning, maybe? There’d been no time to check.
If she killed him with this strange power of hers, Ellinca would have something else she could never, ever forgive herself for. But then, if he died because nothing had been done, how could she bear that either?
Yet could that be part of what made someone a mage? Overstepping one’s natural boundaries and doing what one knew might be wrong?
They plodded onward. She saw no evidence the Bloodmen still followed but they were there, she felt certain. Her legs burned with exhaustion. Her breath rasped so loudly in her ears she would not hear an earthquake if it opened a crack in the earth next to her.
Over the hours Pascolli worsened. The small thickets of ferns, vines and shrubs they used to easily dodge around became his nemesis. Despite her warnings either he did not see them or was too tired to find another way. Scratches soon crisscrossed his face and hands, and there were many holes torn in his shirt sleeves.
She needed a rest from the weight of the haversack, but he could not possibly carry it anymore. With every step they took the ground was sloping at a steeper and steeper angle, the trees spaced farther apart. They had reached the foothills of Skysplitter. Gray rock ridges and bulging knolls betrayed the thinness of the topsoil. They struggled onward as the glinting sun slowly descended toward the horizon. Half-hidden by clouds a lone airship moved across the sky toward the west.
“Stop.” She weaved on her feet.
Pascolli stumbled, knelt then sagged to the ground. A furry fat potaroo, startled from its shallow nest of scraped-up grass and twigs, scampered away to find a new hiding place. She sat on her haunches. Pascolli had so little strength left that he lay on his stomach for a minute before rolling over.
“Sorry.” His hands shook. His face was covered in dust. “I can’t go much farther.”
“I know.” She thought frantically. She could not carry him and he needed the care of a good healer. No matter who it was, they would have to trust someone after all. If she went upslope to look out over the land for other signs of people... But what might the Bloodmen do to him? Would they simply cut his throat to eliminate the threat of leaving him behind them? She could make a travois to carry him on. One end of it trailed in the dirt, the other end she would pull. She’d have to leave the haversack behind.
Ellinca stared up at the sky, eyeing the wisps of white trailing from the clouds, and came to a decision.
“Pascolli. Will you let me try to heal you? Give me permission and I’ll do it.”
His eyes were rolling wildly in their sockets. She gasped. He had lapsed into delirium.
“Pascolli! Pascolli!”
There was little time before sunset. Her gaze traveled upslope.
A Bloodman stood there, limbs relaxed, face split by a cunning triumphant grin.
He guffawed, clutching his belly in exaggerated amusement. His hands flashed in fingertalk. “You have no power. I watch. I see this. You will come with us.”
To her left, ten paces away, another Bloodman who was perhaps more cautious, rose from behind a boulder. Hurriedly he made the sign for warding off evil before also breaking into a grin and chuckling.
“Well,” she muttered. “Apparently laughing is your tribal sport.” With difficulty she drew the dagger, finding it unusually heavy. Legs protesting their weariness, she pushed herself to her feet. Perhaps she could use the dagger on another human. She tensed her muscles, striving not to let trembling betray her fear.
Ellinca raised her left arm and wiggled her fingers. “Stay back or I will flay the skin from your backs with a flame of, of...” Words churned in her head. “Of unimaginable heat!”
They laughed again and advanced. “Put down your puny weapon,” the first man signed. “And we will spare your companion for we cannot carry him.”
She breathed out shakily. Something had finally convinced the Bloodmen that she was powerless. Probably the way she and Pascolli had been running away as fast as their little legs could carry them. If only she could also convince the Finder. But would she, despite their promises, survive to reach Frope? She didn’t like the look of their sharp, red teeth, or the sound of their fake laughter. Besides, Pascolli might die if left here alone.
She hesitated. The dagger moved in her hand. Her eyes widened. Instead of a shiny leaf-shaped blade, she held a red-black bubbly thing. What remained of the metal blade was as holey as a piece of Kirr cheese. What she thought was the hilt shifted again, and sprouted two leathery eyestalks that goggled in her direction. Even as she panicked she remembered where she had seen the red formation before – on the rusted helmet near the body.
She tried to throw it away only to find the “hilt” was softly holding and sniffing at her hand with several curling limbs. “Gaah!” At the sound of her yell it drew in all limbs and stalks, scuttled up her arm, over her shoulder and leapt away.
The Bloodmen were watching, open-mouthed and astonished.
Oh, my. She was unarmed.
From down the slope behind her came a loud thrashing and crunching as though something large and clumsy struggled through the undergrowth. She itched to turn and look. Had it something to do with the metal-eating thing? It could not be more of these Bloodmen, masters of stealth as they seemed, nor would any wild animal disgrace itself with such a commotion.
She stiffened, but did not dare to turn round. Which would be worse? This unknown, whatever it was, or the Bloodmen? Before she could change her mind, a disheveled figure lurched past, stopping between her and the astonished Bloodmen.
She studied the back of the figure, stunned and curious for some clue as to what it did. He, or she, was draped in a tattered gray cloak with the hood raised. Strips of torn cloth trailed from beneath the hood as if an old or poorly applied bandage had unwound. Its black boots, she noticed, were definitely large enough to be a man’s. He held his arms out wide to the two Bloodmen. Not an inch of skin showed for long dirty-white sleeves covered the arms to the wrists where they tucked into yellow gloves.
“Beware,” he cried in a deep voice. “For I am the sullied man. I walk in the shadow of death! I am devoured by death. Beware!” Then he made a sign Ellinca recognized and that was known throughout the civilized world. He was a leper.
Leprosy was one of the few diseases incurable, even by the highest practitioners of magience, and so repulsive that those showing its marks on their flesh were cast out by their families, forced to live on the fringes of towns or in leper camps. Over many years leprosy ate away the face, nose, eyes and hands, and sometimes even the feet of its victims.
The Bloodmen, having taken a few cautious steps backward now refused to go farther. They moved closer to each other as if to pool their courage, their nostrils flaring. The second, more nervous one crouched low with a throwing axe in hand that he had unhitched from his belt.
“Stay back,” the first one signed. “She is our prisoner.”
“No!” said the leper. “She is protected. Go!”
The axe was flung, spinning, at his head. Ellinca gasped but with the casual speed of a frog’s tongue the leper caught the axe in his hand. He tossed it aside.
“Go! Tell your master you failed.”
The first Bloodman sneered. “You pretend. You are no leper.” He spat on the ground and drew a long, wickedly curved knife from a sheath on his back.
In reply the leper reached up and did something to his face. A flap of cloth fell to the side. The Bloodmen’s faces melted into masks of absolute terror. They stumbled backward, feet made clumsy by fear, before sprinting away, glancing back every few yards to see if he pursued them.
Ellinca stood there transfixed. Living daggers, now this.
Most lepers found their way to a leper camp on Barksherr Island. It was not unknown for one of them to be seen begging on the streets of Carstelan, Liste or Hull. She had seen them herself, t
hough they moved on frequently to avoid being stoned. It was common knowledge one had to live almost cheek to cheek with a leper to catch the disease. Why were the Bloodmen so afraid?
She bent over and quietly picked up the axe. It was best to be cautious. She knew nothing of this stranger.
He turned round with deliberate, slow steps. “I will not hurt you,” he said in the precise way of the well educated. “The axe is not necessary.”
Two pure blue eyes looked sadly at her from beneath the hood. The skin around his eyes was that of a young man – sad, but young. The rest of his face was once more hidden by the bandages. He was tall, she thought, looking up at him. He tilted his head slightly. For the fleetest of instants something made her believe he was disappointed in what he saw.
“Why?” she asked him. “Why’d they run from you?”
The bandages moved as if he smiled. “I have no lips and no nose.” At times, above the rich, warm tones of his words, she heard a wet bubbling sound when he spoke. It was hard not to shudder.
“I will not show you, it is too awful for a girl to see.”
She bristled with scorn at that. “I wouldn’t faint, though I still don’t want to see. Anyway, that doesn’t answer my question. They’re hardened warriors and not likely to run at the sight of some...”
“Some rotting flesh? You won’t offend me. As they say, flesh perishes, I live on.” He took a pace sideways and looked down the slope, adding in a distracted tone, “Bloodmen have a superstitious dread of their bodies being made unwhole – bits going missing, that sort of thing. Guess it would make it hard for them to climb trees. Ah, my dog approaches.”
Coming up the slope like a very determined animated log and scattering gravel from under his paws, was the tuskdog, Gangar.
“Your dog?”
“Well, not exactly, he just sort of started following me. Some people think tuskdogs bring luck. Did you know that?” The leper whistled – with what, she didn’t like to imagine. Gangar ignored him completely and plopped down in the dirt with a satisfied sigh. He panted and looked up at them.
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