by Angus Watson
The Plains Strider turned north and Sitsi nodded with satisfaction. She’d been right about the location of the Badlands. A little later, they passed two smashed huts. Next to them were the bodies of several people old and young, perhaps two extended families.
“We are nearly there!”
Finnbogi jumped. Chapa Wangwa had sneaked up behind them.
“I’m so excited!” the grinning Badlander continued. “How noble of these fine people to lie here dead and remind us what awaits in the Badlands!”
“What happened to them?”
“Perhaps they annoyed Beaver Man? He will kill people for annoying him. Perhaps they didn’t annoy Nam Cigam? The chief warlock will kill people for not annoying him.”
“Is Nam Cigam a reverser?” asked Sitsi.
“… Yes …” Chapa Wangwa’s smile stayed, but his eyes narrowed. “How can you know about reversers?”
“She knows everything,” said Finnbogi.
“I don’t know exactly how far it is to the Badlands.”
“We are so close now. Wait until we come over this rise. Wait, wait … and …”
“Wow,” said Finnbogi.
The Plains Strider crested a rise and the ground fell away in front of them to a broad valley. Towers and domes of rock protruded from the valley floor like giant versions of the prairie dogs’ hills. On the valley’s far side, the grassland soared upwards to become an unbroken line of spiky cliffs. It was like a great barrier heaved from the depths which stretched east to west for miles and miles, horizontally banded red, yellow and white. The astonishing colours of the rock ridge shone in the sun, but the purple-black sky that loomed behind it was about as foreboding as a sky could be.
Yoki Choppa prodded the flesh where Bjarni Chickenhead’s arm had once joined his shoulder as the patient slept on. Erik the Angry didn’t need to ask. He knew from the smell. The wound was putrefying.
He shouldn’t blame himself. He couldn’t blame himself.
“Erik!” shouted Finnbogi from the other side of the deck. “You’ve got to see this!”
“In a moment.” He held shallow-breathing, rot-stinking Bjarni while Yoki Choppa pressed a new poultice into the wound, then wrapped it with fresh bandages. The bandages had been supplied by the Cuguai. They’d been helpful, but shown no remorse or apology over Bjarni’s accident. Why would they? They’d warned him and he’d been an idiot. For the same reasons, Erik knew he shouldn’t blame himself but … if only he hadn’t left Bjarni. If only he’d checked on him when he’d come back from the river and got into his own sack.
You die when you die, but Erik was still sad to see life taken from someone who’d been as full of it as Bjarni Chickenhead.
By the time they’d finished bandaging and dressing Bjarni, the Plains Strider had come to a rest and the crowd pigeons were flapping down. Erik could feel the birds’ relief at being home, coupled with their joy of being part of such a multitude. Since Chapa Wangwa’s warning, Erik hadn’t attempted to communicate with the animals but, more and more, their emotions came to him unbidden. From the pigeons, he mostly felt a desperate desire to be surrounded by millions of their fellows. From the buffalo he heard bovine resentment. From the spiders, nothing. Their silence was creepy.
Erik and Yoki Choppa stood and looked over the deck rail. Erik knew from the pigeons that their odyssey across the Ocean of Grass was over, and he’d understood that the Badlanders’ base was a spectacular place, but he hadn’t expected anything like this.
“Wow,” he said.
Around them, dagger-tooth riders were leaping from their cats and leaving them with meek-looking lackeys with spider neck boxes. Other worker types were rushing towards the Plains Strider, accompanied by a knot of Empty Children on bighorn sheep.
Off to the west, another pigeon-lifted vehicle creaked off the ground and rolled away. This one was perhaps a quarter of the length of the Plains Strider and had a less impressive flock of crowd pigeons. Instead of buffalo supporting its rear, there were perhaps fifty wolves.
To the east of where the Plains Strider had settled was a collection of buildings, tents, cages and dwellings carved into the rocky outcrops that rose from the prairie. The town was several times larger than the main Lakchan settlement.
Towering over all of this to the north was a jagged cliff hundreds of paces high, striped red, yellow and white, cutting into the sky like the lower rack of an aligator god’s teeth. The Badlander leader Rappa Hoga was galloping on his dagger-tooth cat along a track that led up and into the spiky rocks. The big man and his huge cat looked like a child’s toy in comparison to the domineering cliffs.
Erik the Angry stared at the wall of rock—he’d never imagined that anything like it could exist—until his gawping was interrupted by Chapa Wangwa shouting for everyone’s attention. The Badlander was standing next to the six Empty Children at the prow of the Plains Strider and grinning widely, even for him.
“Our journey is over, my friends! You have reached the place of your deaths!”
Erik reached up to touch his spider box and stopped himself.
“The craft you can see yonder,” Chapa Wangwa continued, “is Beaver Man’s own transport, the Plains Sprinter. Can you imagine? Something so huge for just one man? It is not so big as the Plains Strider, but oh, it is fast! The wolves are bred to be quick, but even they have trouble keeping up with themselves.
“Over there you see what you think is a city. This is not a city! This is where animals and slaves and the lesser captives live. The journey of the Popeye and the smelly squatch ends here.
“The rest of you,” he looked at each of the Owsla and Wootah tribe in turn, as if savouring their faces, “you will climb down and follow me, up into the Badlands. You may carry your weapons—you will need them—but remember, even looking like you’re going to strike a Badlander means instant death from your beeba spiders. What is that confusion on your face, young Freydis the Annoying? Oh yes, of course, you like to be literal. It’s not instant death. It’s instant broken back, broken face, broken legs, followed by slow, slow death. Silly me.”
Ottar shouted, leaping on the spot, pointing at Chapa Wangwa and shaking his head.
“What is he saying?” said the Badlander. His mouth was still smiling but his eyes were wide and his nostrils flared. He was, Erik realised with some satisfaction, scared of the little boy.
“Before I tell you,” said Freydis, “remember he didn’t make it up. He hears things from other places and he won’t tell me where.”
“Come on, come on, little girl, tell me what he said.”
“Okay! He says you are a nasty and unhappy man who nobody loves and soon you will die in a nasty way.”
“He says a lot.”
“He tells me what he hears.”
“I see. Perhaps he’s right. You will all want to know. You will want to be sure that my death is nastier than that from the beeba spiders, so I’ll remind you exactly of how nasty a beeba spider death can be. I will have your spiders bite you now, Freydis the Annoying.”
“No,” said Wulf.
“Try to stop me, Wulf the Fat, and I will take your wife Sassa Lipchewer too and the little boy for good measure, why not? Will you try to stop me?”
Wulf coloured so swiftly that Erik thought he’d burst into flames. “Please do not kill the girl,” he managed through a clenched jaw.
“Take me instead,” said Gunnhild Kristlover, stepping forward.
“Step back, or I will take you, and Sassa Lipchewer and Ottar the Moaner. And the girl.”
Keef the Berserker took a step towards the Badlander, but Wulf put a hand on his shoulder. Gunnhild backed away. Chapa Wangwa’s grin broadened: “Any of you, please do try to stop me killing the girl. But know that your spiders will bite and the girl’s spiders will bite and the rude little boy’s spiders will bite as well.”
The six Empty Children who’d been controlling the crowd pigeons and buffalo stared sightlessly ahead but Erik could feel them focusing on the creatures
strapped to their necks. His own spiders shifted on tickling legs. For the first time he felt something from them, an emotion so cold and so bereft of the barest breeze of compassion that he knew there was no hope for Freydis. Perhaps he would have sacrificed himself rather than watch the girl die alone, but that meant Ottar would be killed, too. They were helpless.
“Good. You see the control I have over you. You do what Chapa Wangwa tells you. Empty Children, have the spiders bite this girl’s neck on my count of three.”
All of them, Wootah and Owsla—Morningstar, Sofi, Bodil, Finnbogi—all of them were on their toes, desperate to act but impotent. All apart from Ottar, who reached a finger into his mouth, picked something from his back teeth and looked at it. Freydis stood with her fists clenched, staring hatred at the Badlander. She was defiant, but she was alone.
This was it, thought Erik. They all knew it. The moment they’d been dreading since their capture.
The freedom of the spider boxes had lulled them into a false sense of security, but the truth was undeniable—they were going to die. And when Freydis died—their youngest, their most innocent—they couldn’t pretend any longer. Their hope would die with her. The Badlanders would draw each of their deaths out for their own amusement and there was not a single thing any of them could do to stop it.
“One!” cried the Badlander. Sofi Tornado took a step towards him. “One more move from any of you, and that person will die, and the girl will die AND the boy will die. Got it? Good.”
Ottar screamed and they all turned to him. He was screaming at whatever it was he’d picked from his teeth. He saw them all looking at him and giggled.
“Two!”
Nobody moved. Everyone was looking from Chapa Wangwa to Freydis to the Empty Children. What would happen if we all rushed them at the same time? Erik wondered.
“And Thrrr …”
Paloma Pronghorn shot at Chapa Wangwa like an arrow from a bow.
She nearly made it.
Half a pace away, she crumpled. The Badlander stepped aside. Paloma tumbled past him and hit the ground hard. She rolled and came up in a kneeling position, facing them. She lifted her hand to her neck. Her skin darkened, her neck swelled, then her face.
She stood shakily, lifting her killing stick with a wobbling hand. Chapa Wangwa took a step back, grinning in amazement. A spasm racked Paloma, but she stayed on her feet.
“You are strong!” he said.
She grunted as if she’d been punched in the stomach and took another step towards him. Her face was near black now and darkness was spreading along her arms and torso. By this stage, the other beeba spider victim they’d seen had been on the ground with a broken jaw and spine.
For a moment it looked like Paloma might manage to whack Chapa Wangwa, but then the mighty sprinter slumped. She lifted her gaping mouth to the sky, screamed, and fell onto her back, body convulsing, legs and arms flapping.
Erik and others—he couldn’t see who in his urgency—ran in and grabbed her limbs in an attempt to stop them from snapping.
They held her.
The darkness faded from her skin and her breathing, although shallow, became more regular.
After what seemed like an age, Paloma lifted her head and rasped: “I’m going to …”
Chogolisa picked her up and held her so that she could vomit. She didn’t, though. Instead, her eyes closed and she went floppy in Chogolisa’s arms.
“Wow!” cried Chapa Wangwa. “Is she dead?”
Yoki Choppa felt her pulse. “She is not.”
“Amazing! What a tough one! Now, where were we? Oh yes, I was about to have little Freydis the Annoying killed. But I think we will save that for later. Paloma Pronghorn’s limbs may not have snapped, but I think she has admirably demonstrated that you don’t want to cause any trouble. As we discussed, the beeba spider poison does not cause instant death. She will have experienced agony like few will ever know and she will die soon.”
Chapter 2
Rocks That Look Like Cocks
Sassa walked with Freydis and Thyri as the two tribes followed Chapa Wangwa through the Badlanders’ territory.
“Look! Look!” cried Freydis the Annoying, apparently put out not a jot by Chapa Wangwa’s threat to kill her, nor by Paloma Pronghorn’s near death, “white prairie dogs.”
“A child’s fear is like summer rain,” said Gunnhild Kristlover. “Powerful in the moment, but brief and easily forgotten.”
“And both can ruin an outdoor lunch,” added Keef the Berserker.
Sassa looked to where Freydis was pointing. Dotted about the sloping grassland that skirted the craggy cliff were hundreds of pale-furred versions of the creatures they’d seen from the Plains Strider. Hugin and Munin growled.
“Did you invent that name?” asked Thyri Treelegs.
“Prairie dogs? No, Sitsi Kestrel said that’s what they’re called and she is very nearly as clever as my big brother.”
“The Owsla put us to shame,” said Thyri, kicking a stone along the dusty road.
“They don’t, Thyri,” said Sassa Lipchewer. “If any of us had gone for Chapa Wangwa we would have been killed; you, Erik and Wulf included. The Owsla are magically charged. They have hardened bones and Fraya knows what else. You can’t compare yourself to them.”
“I can though.”
“You shouldn’t though. Our time will come. I’m sure you will have a chance to prove yourself.”
They walked on, Freydis chattering away and Ottar gambolling alongside. Ahead of them, Chogolisa Earthquake and Sofi Tornado carried the unconscious Paloma on a litter. Erik and Finnbogi were carrying Bjarni on another. One of her oldest friends and her new friend were laid low, and Sassa had a horrible thought that it was only going to get worse. Buck up, she told herself. You may die when you die, but both Paloma and Bjarni were still alive.
The flat, broad track cut upwards into the cliff. It looked to Sassa like the plants and soil had rotted away, leaving exposed the diseased, decaying bones of the world. Next to the road the rock looked like piles of wet earth, but up ahead it towered in great fins and spires of white, red, yellow and purple. Perhaps it would have looked beautiful in different circumstances, but Sassa found it oppressive and loathsome, as if the evil of the Badlander tribe was causing the very ground that they walked on to putrefy and shrivel.
The cliffs were pocked with little round caves a pace across and there were several holes the same size on the roadside, leading down to Fraya knew what.
Sassa put a hand on her stomach and shuddered.
“That rock there,” said Wulf, catching up to them, “looks very much like a cock.”
Sassa looked at the five-pace-high yellow and red pinnacle he was referring to. She wasn’t in the mood for puerile joshing, but she had to admit that he was right. The stout tower even had a neatly defined purple helmet. “As does that one over there,” Wulf continued, pointing at another undeniably phallic pillar. “We are entering the land of rocks that look like cocks.”
“We are indeed,” said Sassa, smiling for the first time since they’d arrived in the Badlands. “That one’s the same colour as yours, too.”
“Mine has more red stripes. And it’s bigger.”
“Do you mind?” said Thyri. “Freydis is right here and I am, too.”
“I don’t mind,” said Freydis, “but I can’t see what you mean. Which rock looks like a chicken, Wulf the Fat?”
“That one there,” said Wulf.
“It’s more like a man with no arms, I think … It’s not a cock or any other kind of bird. What do you think lives down all the big holes?”
“Chipmunks,” said Wulf. As if to prove his point, there was a skittering to the right as two chipmunks ran up a vertical rock face, then stood on their hind legs at the top, looking down at the newcomers.
They trudged on, up into the Badlands.
More and more animals appeared, which made the place seem a lot less oppressive to Sassa. Baby rabbits darted between clu
mps of grass garlanded with violet flowers and a pointy-beaked bird or a chipmunk perched on every pinnacle of rock. A pair of bighorn sheep deftly descended a nearby cliff, starting a mini rockslide with every dainty step.
“Wow, that’s got to be the cock of the day,” said Wulf when the largest pinnacle so far came into sight.
“What are you talking about?” Freydis demanded.
Despite herself, Sassa had to stifle a giggle.
This was one reason, perhaps the main reason, that Sassa Lipchewer loved Wulf the Fat as much as she did. He always cheered things up. It was as if his happiness had drawn the animals and flowers from their hiding places to brighten the day. Despite their desperate situation, Sassa felt a spark of optimism.
Then they turned a corner.
The land narrowed and the track passed through a steep-sided gully fifteen paces wide. Hanging from the gully walls, nailed by their hands into the rock, were the bodies of men and women. Below each, the rock was stained red and black with blood. Dotted like decorations all around the pinned people were hundreds of severed hands, nailed in pairs a pace apart. Some looked fresh, recently parted from their owners, some had been picked clean to leave white bones and others were in various stages of decay.
An assortment of birds and insects, including huge red-winged, black-bodied wasps, was feasting on the corpses and the fleshier of the severed hands.
Then Sassa saw one of the corpses kicking at a couple of nibbling chipmunks and she realised. The hanging people, bleeding and feasted on by animals, were all alive.
The road reached the top of the cliff and the land flattened out into a grassy plain dotted all around with outcrops of rock, varying in size from pillars the height of a person, to craggy white, red and yellow mountains, some flat-topped, others spiky. The islands of bare rock were bright in the sun, but the sky to the north remained the mauve-tinted blue of a serious storm.
There were dozens more people hanging from rock faces, and hundreds more severed hands nailed around them. It was as busy with birds and beasts as the most bountiful woodlands in springtime, but all the cute critters had gathered not to eat fruit and fornicate, but to feast off the flesh of the living.
