by Col Buchanan
Clouds of firemoths danced the dark clearings, aglow with their own amber light; congregating as they did on the wintry hilltops of Khos in a frenzied festival of breeding. The group hurried through them, scattering the clouds into lesser ones that were no less fascinating to the eye. Nico was hardly the only one to stare at the shining moths flitting about him. They lit up whatever they flew close enough to, so that the trees glowed here and there with passing dabs of yellow light, and with their wings beating fast they cast flickering shadows that made it all the more eerie and unreal.
It was just like the time his father had woken him once late at night, to bring him out into the crystal stillness of the moonlight to see the firemoths mating on the grove of a nearby hill.
Dusted with combustible properties, the wings of the male firemoths were beating against each other so hard they released little clouds of smoke into the air, which seemed to attract the females towards them. Successful males grappled with their female counterparts in flapping, twisting mid-air dances that were the brilliant culminations to their lives, their wings beating ever faster until finally – climaxing in their most frenzied moments – the wings caught fire in a flash of light and carried away the males to their burning deaths, floating up into the night sky like those glowing paper lanterns people released as prayers.
Nico’s eyes stung from the oily smoke of their wings. The sight of them sent a chill through his bones, glimpsing his own fiery death in their final brilliant moments. But there was no time to dwell on such things, for the hunting horn was blaring just below them now, and Nico hurried on after his father.
‘What are you looking for?’ he asked Cole, who was searching about him as though for something familiar here on the brow of the hill.
‘Pampa vines. The firemoths like their resin. It’s why they gather in these places.’
‘So?’
‘They’re not the only critters who like the presence of the vines. There – this way.’
Cole veered off in a different direction without waiting to see if they were all following. The infant was crying softly now in the arms of Chira, perhaps startled by the sounds of the hunting horn or the sudden jitteriness of the zels as they approached a large clearing floored by trampled snow. Both zels were snorting now and refusing to go any further. Cole stopped to instruct those on their backs to ride well around the clearing, then led the rest of the group directly across it where mounds rose here and there, a musky smell emanating from the many holes at their bases.
‘Shoth sets,’ Nico remarked aloud in alarm.
‘Aye. Now stay quiet and follow my tracks.’
In a line the escaped captives wound their way between the mounds, knowing that the shoths would be asleep in their burrows. Not all of them though. A hiss sounded not far from Nico and he spotted one of the creatures ambling towards them, sniffing at their human scent. Even in the gloom he could see its spiny fur striped black and white like a zel, and its long snout and body and six short legs.
He froze as the shoth inflated the ring of flesh around its neck and hissed with its rattling tongue. The animals were known as spitting shoths for good reason. The very last thing he wanted was to be spat at by one of these creatures, for the scent was so bad he would gag on it relentlessly, and with no way to scrub it from his skin it would linger for days.
Zels, too, went crazy at the smell of shoths, Nico recalled.
In front of him his father held a hand aloft and clucked his tongue at the lone creature to gain its attention. He plucked a handful of something from a pocket of his jacket, red winterberries, which he scattered on the ground before the shoth, then motioned for the others to keep going. They didn’t need telling twice, and in moments they were across.
On the other side of the hill the ground dropped away more gently and they followed it downwards, grateful for the easier going. They could see the Bitter River down there again, ox-bowing around a hill.
They had barely made it to the valley floor once more when a commotion sounded from above – men shouting in alarm as their zels cried out in panic. In the broken silence of the night they heard the hissing of a great number of shoths risen in fury, spitting at the men who had followed their trail through the animals’ sets. With a crash, a riderless zel bolted from the trees at the top of the hill and fled across the slope. They could hear more pounding away in other directions.
‘Nice,’ said Nico with sudden admiration. ‘The shoths smelled them coming and woke up. Smelled all that urine they walked through!’
Cole was leaning on his longrifle as the rest of the group caught up one by one.
‘When I was young, I rode into a shoth set once without realizing it. They scented me on the wind and were spitting at me even as I saw them. After I was thrown to the ground I never saw that old zel again.’
‘My brother was once sprayed by a shoth he surprised in the woods,’ panted one of the women. ‘I couldn’t believe the smell of it. Made my eyes run! Half the family ran out when he stumbled through the door into the kitchen. My mother made him stay outside for a week. He said he couldn’t sleep the whole time, the smell was so bad.’
Nico chuckled, and like the others he looked up to the top of the hill where the clamour and dismay of the soldiers was still ringing out.
‘They say it takes days of scrubbing to get the worst of it off your skin.’ It was young Kes who spoke. Her eyes shone in satisfaction.
‘Better get moving again,’ said Cole. ‘They’ll still be after us even with their zels gone. And now they’ll be pissed.’
Groans and moans protested at his words, the first collective complaint all night. As though just now their spirits were lifted enough to finally voice how exhausted they really were. They needed to catch their breaths first. They needed to take the weight off feet that were lumps of agony. No one seemed able to move.
Nico shrugged at his father’s worried glance. What could they do, whip them into action like a pair of slavers?
‘If I remember right, there’s a bridge not far from here,’ said Cole. ‘We can all rest a while once we make it across the river.’
‘Five minutes,’ said Shandras. ‘That’s all we’re asking.’
‘We don’t have five minutes. We need to move now.’
Still the women refused to budge, and so Cole swore aloud and snatched up his rifle.
‘Nico,’ he snapped, and spun around on his feet, fully intent on marching onwards no matter what they had to say.
But then his father stopped in his tracks, and when Nico joined him by his side he froze too.
‘Hey there,’ said a grinning voice in the darkness, and a stray fluttering firemoth cast just enough light to suggest the form of several armed figures standing in their way.
A dash of white appeared in the gloom between them; someone’s teeth emerging in a grin.
*
Through the morning chill they ran, with the long dark night receding in memory, their new companions leading the way ahead.
They were Contrarè, this trio of figures who had surprised them in the darkness at the foot of the hill, a fact that was revealing itself ever more in the brightening daylight as they hurried along the course of the river. Their black hair was back-combed into wild contortions sporting feathers and river shells and sticks of carved wood. Nico could see the bows and hatchets the trio carried, and how their clothes of leathers and skins were striped in the green-grey tones of a twilight forest. Their sharp faces were painted too, slashed red and black in their warrior fashion just like the stories said.
Yet these three Contrarè were well south of the Windrush forest here, closer to the city of Bar-Khos than anywhere else. A remarkably rare sight indeed.
Even more surprising was the appearance of the largest of the trio by far – the big fellow who had greeted them so unexpectedly in the night with his shining grin. The giant of a man bore spiral horns tattooed on his temples and as many facial scars as his father, and when he had spoken his acc
ent was plainly Bar-Khosian.
‘You’re Bull, the pit fighter,’ said Cole in surprise as he ran by the man’s side, catching a proper look at him at last. ‘I saw you fight in Bar-Khos.’
‘I was Bull. Now I’m someone else,’ answered the big fellow, panting hard.
They bounded over bare rock now. The Contrarè led the way while the women kept up as best they could, following the river as it coursed towards the south, its waters turning a riotous white and falling towards the plain below, dropping further and further away from their feet. The group had reached the southern limits of the Breaks, and were low enough now that the hills were absent of snow. It felt good to be clear of it at last, not having to drag his feet through the cold drifts. Even better to be able to feel his toes again in his boots.
An hour ago in the pre-dawn darkness, with their pursuers still making a commotion on top of the hill from the effects of the spitting shoths, the looming figure of Bull had startled them into a stunned silence. He had taken one look at the ragged group before offering to lead them to a place of safety, mentioning the same bridge that Cole had spoken of. No one had protested when they heard his Khosian accent. None had even dared to scare off this unexpected boon by asking what they were doing there.
‘Better hurry,’ declared one of the women from the back of a zel. ‘They’re getting close again!’
Nico looked back as his father did. Their pursuers had stopped calling out with the hunting horn since their misfortune on the hill. He caught a glimpse of them back along the trail, enough to see that they numbered a score of men or more, only a few riding zels now that their mounts had been scattered.
He dropped behind to give some of the struggling women a hand, telling them that it wasn’t far now, they were nearly there.
‘That’s what you said last time,’ breathed Kes with her head down, passing him with a frown.
‘It’s true, look.’
She did look up, seeing what they all saw now – the shape of the bridge spanning a deep and narrow ravine. The Bitter River was a mere white thread far below.
It was one of those tree bridges found all over the island of Khos: a shockingly huge chimino tree trained to grow horizontally across the entire width of the ravine. The chimino’s silver-barked trunk was wide enough for carts and people to cross over easily, and its upper branches had been trained outwards to form a hedge along both sides. Below, limbs the size of lesser trees arched outwards and upwards to catch the light with their mighty diamond-shaped leaves.
Gasping for air they straggled onto a road of frozen ruts and followed it to the bridge. A spit of rain struck Nico’s forehead cold and hard, and he stopped and frowned up at the dark clouds drifting overhead, feeling the air grow cooler against his cheeks as a breeze began to stir. His father joined his side, and waited there for the last of the women to pass them by, their faces pale with exhaustion, while they both stared back along the trail for a sighting of their pursuers.
‘Let’s go.’
It was always the oddest of things to cross one of these on foot. The trunk of the chimino was so wide there was barely a curve to the surface they trotted along, and whenever he looked up from his feet he experienced a moment of vertigo as his mind believed he was running straight up a tree.
Rain started to fall, and inwardly Nico groaned. Within moments fat drops were bursting everywhere, blinding him until he pulled up the hood of his coat. Through the falling haze he could make out women dismounting from the two zels, and Contrarè slapping the animals’ rumps to send them galloping off across the bridge. Bull was already climbing down the side of the vast trunk, and a few women dared to follow him without hesitation.
‘You think we would have thought of that?’ Nico asked his father.
‘What,’ grunted Cole, ‘hiding under a bridge?’
The last of the women were helping Chira down with the infant. With no time to spare, Nico and his father clambered over the hedge of branches and then down the side of the dripping trunk after the others.
Quickly they lost themselves from sight amongst the leaves and the furry vines that hung like loops of hair from the giant limbs. A few squirrels and tree lizards scampered away in fright. Nico was a good climber and he descended easily, scenting the resiny perfume from its bark.
Down there the branches curved upwards into the stronger light found above, forming a cradle of limbs and foliage below. The massive leaves formed a roof from which the rainwater ran off in spouts and watery curtains. Bull and the Contrarè made themselves comfortable where they could and the group did likewise, though some of the women muttered about the great gulf of air they dangled above, with the river threading far below. Others shushed them into silence though – for suddenly, up above on the bridge, they could hear the clatter of a great many hobnailed boots running across.
Their pursuers had finally caught up with them.
In fright young Kes slipped and fell against a limb, dropping a knife she’d been carrying for defence. Nico held a hand out to help her, but either she didn’t notice or didn’t want it. Instead she gripped the much sturdier tree limb and righted herself, staring down at the blade falling through the air, a glitter of steel spinning in the morning light until it vanished into the river.
‘I can’t stand it,’ the girl whispered in white-faced fear. ‘I’ll kill myself before they catch me again, I really will.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Nico. ‘They’re never going to find us down here.’
The footsteps were loud and numerous and right over their heads now.
‘We’re close!’ rasped a voice from above them in accented Trade. ‘I can smell those women’s snatches on the wind.’
‘Can’t see how you can smell anything but that damned animal stink on you, Harko. We ever catch up with these women, they’ll pass out from the stench of us before we can do anything with them.’
‘Who cares? Wouldn’t stop me if they dropped dead on us, my prick’s so hard for it right now.’
Just then the baby croaked awake in Chira’s arms. Every head turned towards them in alarm. Kes bit her lip and closed her eyes, trembling fiercely. Nico gripped the hilt of the blade he carried in his belt.
‘Is that a zel?’ came another voice from further along the bridge.
‘Where? I can’t see anything in this rain.’
‘Just running from the bridge there. Kush, we’re right behind them, come on!’
Onwards the boots thundered, carrying the voices with them until they were no more.
The Bitter River was a soft murmur far below, barely heard in the chorus of the rain.
Together, the group exhaled a collective sigh of relief.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Coya
On the day of Year’s End, with the clouds brewing above the windy plain, the first imperial assaults began in earnest against the city of Bar-Khos – thousands of enemy fighters rushing across no-man’s-land with a collective roar, only to be dashed against the earthen slope fronting the wall, blown up and shot to bloody pieces.
Coya was there to see the carnage for himself, having climbed to the high parapet to join the city’s defenders: Red Guards and purple-cloaked Hoo, Volunteers and foreign Greyjackets, all wreathed in the gunsmoke of barking rifles and the cannon blasting from the wall’s turrets. Only an hour ago he’d been down in the southern inkworks questioning the Diplomat Ché, until a contact had informed him that General Creed was planning a sortie against the enemy encampment, hoping to surprise them during their first wave of attacks. Not liking the sound of such a reckless endeavour, Coya had hurried to the northern wall to seek the general out.
Yet finding Creed was another matter. In the heat of the action, every person he asked on the wall seemed to have a different answer for him.
‘He was headed for the north-eastern gate, last I saw him,’ answered a Red Guard captain from behind his scarf, and the man pointed off along the wall, in the opposite direction to what Coya had been told
by the last soldier he’d asked.
‘You’re certain of that, Captain?’ Coya hollered above all the noise.
‘That’s what I saw.’
And so onwards Coya hurried along the parapet, flanked by his new bodyguard as soldiers stepped respectfully out of his way.
‘You really think this is wise, my lord?’ asked the bodyguard by his side as a grenade exploded further along the parapet, scattering soldiers from its blast.
He’d already forgotten the name of the woman, assigned to him only this morning by the local League House to replace Marsh. At least while he remained in Bar-Khos.
Coya cast another sidelong glimpse at her through the drifting haze of smoke. A dark-skinned Khosian no older than himself, her lanky body was encased in the tightest, thinnest suit of rubber that Coya had ever seen. As though she wanted the least resistance whenever she moved; as though really she wished to be doing this work entirely naked.
Soldiers stared hard at her as they passed them by: stared hard at her body and the two pistols hanging from the curves of her hips, drawn even now by her cat-like grace.
Yes, that was it – Lynx, she called herself.
Coya tore his gaze from her and stared along the parapet, seeking a sign of General Creed.
Banners were fluttering along the top of the wall, snapping like gunfire above the heads of the defenders. He was heartened to see how many flags were those of the League, flown by Volunteers who had been sent here to aid the city; aquamarine squares of cloth, bearing the sacred Golden Spiral totem of the Free Ports.
‘Look at those devils coming in again,’ hissed the bodyguard, and once again Coya glanced at the sharp-faced features of the Khosian woman, with her dark plaits swinging from the quick turns of her head as she watched the enemy forces attacking.
He grunted, squinting through the crenellations at the waves of imperial fighters roaring towards them once again, his skin reddened by more than just the chilling kiss of the wind.
Down on the plain the host of enemy infantry thundered towards them, even as the cannon along the wall opened up in another murderous fusillade. Spouts of black earth erupted along the front of the approaching enemy ranks, tearing them asunder and tossing bodies through the air like so many rag dolls – a sight that still seemed surreal to his eyes, like something from a dream. With debris raining down on them the Mannian forces hurtled onwards, their banners waving the blood-red hand of Mann as they grew ever closer. Siege towers loomed in the distance.
