by Robert Brady
“I don’t want to go back to Outpost IX,” Raven said.
“Because you have not been to Kor,” Jahunga informed her. “However, we’ll find my countrymen there, and I think we will find friends.”
Jerod sighed. He didn’t know what to make of Glynn agreeing with him so easily. The Uman-Chi would have her own motives, and they were unlikely to be his.
Nothing for it now. He couldn’t argue against the idea if it was his. The others sparred over how likely they were to go but Glynn had made her mind up, and he had to think she’d win out.
He turned his head and spat where a spittoon might have been strategically located, but hadn’t. One of the Uman servants saw him and made a face, but the Volkhydran didn’t acknowledge her. He focused on his meal and ignored the conversation until they all stood up, ready to meet this Slee.
* * *
Bill, now ‘Jack,’ pushed the barn door open and grunted at the pain in his belly the effort brought with it. Jerod might be six inches shorter and two thirds his weight, but he was almost solid muscle and he could really pack a punch. Bill hadn’t been in a fight in thirty years and hadn’t actually won one in longer.
Dust hung suspended in the air, shining in the sunshine that streamed in through the door behind him. The horses were snorting and stomping in their stalls to his right, a giant pile of hay to his left, reaching two thirds of the way to the ceiling—with two eyes in it, staring at him.
His heart might have actually skipped a beat.
“Well, hello,” he said to the eyes.
Behind him he felt Melissa—Raven—put her hand on the small of his back. He could hear Jerod and Jahunga to either side behind him.
Xinto stepped past him, and hissed something at the pile of straw. He dropped a leather sack in front of them—even Jack could smell the red meat. The two eyes blinked, regarding the bag, then the hay moved.
The lizard-thing that called itself Slurn slithered out of the hay and into the open. It was exactly as Melissa described it, except it also wore a belt of shells around its waist, bound with some kind of black wire.
Glynn hissed something at it from behind them. It turned to her, standing upright, its back straight and its shoulders held back.
It hissed something and made a sweeping gesture with one hand. Bill turned to Xinto.
“He says he felt an irresistible curiosity about Galnesh Eldador months ago, and left its people to travel up through Andoran and along the shores of Tren Bay to get there. When he finally arrived in the port, he was swimming under the ships in the port and saw Raven.”
“Ray—enn,” he hissed, and pointed at her. She stepped up next to Bill.
He hissed more, and Xinto translated, “He saw Raven with the sun behind her, and he knew he’d found whom he was looking for. He’s heard Glynn sing her song—where?—when she sang it in her room for Jahunga and Jerod.”
Bill nodded. “If he can hear the song,” he began.
Glynn interrupted him. “We know only a select few can hear it.”
“Xinto speaks true,” Jahunga said. “He could be the one who eludes prying eyes.”
Jerod nodded. Bill found himself agreeing with them.
He didn’t like this sound of this place ‘Kor.’ He’d studied enough history to know what pirate towns could be like—order by the strongest strong man, lives sold cheaply. Even if they could get there, it didn’t mean they’d be safe, just that they’d face newer dangers.
Slurn hissed again. Glynn said, “He’ll go with us to Kor. He’s not asking me, he’s telling me. I believe, my compatriots, that we have another.”
“And a devil of a time getting there with him,” Xinto said, turning. “Every peasant farmer who sees us travelling with a Slee will tell everyone else he meets, and then the Emperor will be right behind us.”
Slurn hissed again, turned on his heel and dove back into the hay. The pile shook once and then was still.
“I don’t think we’ll find a series of giant hay piles for him to hide in between here and Kor,” Xinto protested.
They heard a hiss behind them. They all turned to see Slee in the doorway to the barn, the light behind him. A moment later he hissed again and slipped off to his left.
“Well, isn’t that a trick,” Jerod said.
Bill found himself agreeing.
“I believe if we set out for Kor, then it will be as a collection of travelers, and no mention of a Slee,” Glynn informed them. “Let us away without delay, then.”
Chapter Twenty-One:
A Devil, Born and Raised
Jack rode into the east on Little Storm, Xinto sitting behind him. Raven rode her Angadorian mare beside Jack, Jerrod and Glynn behind them.
The ten Toorians and Jahunga loped along in a circle around them. They shunned horses and preferred to feel their feet touch the face of Earth. Xinto knew this was typical of their people—they rode no horses in their jungles.
Eldador had been a collection of city-states once, loosely ruled by King Glennen in Galnesh Eldador. Dukes and Earls built walled cities and raided each other, paying taxes to the capitol when forced. The country had seemed too large for the capitol to manage, especially from its remote port location. There had been a time when a person could do almost anything he or she wanted to in Eldador, if his or her sword arm was strong enough.
The Emperor had changed that, even before becoming the Emperor. In his early days as a mercenary for hire, Lupus had ingratiated himself with Glennen somehow and become the Earl of Thera. As an Earl he’d worked some magic he called ech-nomics, and figured out a way to tax peasants less and get more gold and silver from them. A lot of commons became fantastically wealthy in Thera under Lupus’ rule, and the King had named the Earl a Duke.
With peasants flocking to Eldador from all over Fovea, as more and more Duchies and Earldoms and baronies adopted this ech-nomics, a decision was made between high-ranking persons in Trenbon, Sental, Dorkan and Volkhydro that Eldador had become too dangerous, and that Lupus and his allies needed to die.
Lupus’ allies were called the ‘Daff Kanaar,’ a strange expression in Uman which meant a union of allies, entered into freely. Assassins had been assembled to eliminate the lot of them, starting with Lupus himself in his home.
Something had gone wrong, and the assassins had killed the queen of Eldador instead. No sweeter soul had ever walked the face of Earth, Xinto knew from personal experience. Rumor had it the assassins had tortured her for information on where to find Lupus and his allies, and had done so in Lupus’ own home.
The berserker reaction to that assassination had rocked Fovea. Members of the Daff Kanaar had sailed out and sunk Dorkan ships, marched up the Llorando and destroyed every bridge between Sental and Volkhydro, killing every armed warrior they found along the way, and Lupus himself had sacked the unsackable Outpost IX, killing members of the Fovean High Council and destroying the city’s gates.
That sort of attack would become characteristic of the Emperor. Don’t just strike, crush. Don’t just kill, slaughter. Plow the bodies of the dead into the ground so that the bones haunted the survivors’ children. Don’t settle for a statement where an atrocity will do.
Now Eldadorian duchies ruled earldoms which ruled baronies, and no one city thought to raid another. The major cities in Eldador were surrounded with smaller villages, towns and even smaller cities which had no walls, which were little more than collections of farmers and their local markets, with roads stretching clean between them. Now none of the people in Eldador ever feared that their neighbors from another duchy would come surging over a hillside if their crop was bad—they just sold them their excess goods.
Xinto had crossed the nation of Eldador twenty years before and not seen a person for a week at a time; had seen gazelle running wild across wind-swept plains, had surprised a covey of rabbits or come across a lonesome hawk’s nest on the ground.
Now they travelled a flat, cobbled road from one village to the next. They moved quick
ly and stayed in hostels. People greeted them, Uman and Volkhydran and Confluni and even the occasional Scitai.
For a week they pressed on, closing on the port of Kor and the Salt Wood which completely enveloped it. As they drew closer to the wood, the villages became more sparse and more likely to be logging camps, wide farms and open spaces. On the seventh day of their journey, and the 21st day of Weather’s month, they actually found themselves having to camp outside at night.
They slept in bedrolls because the nights were warming. They had a cook fire made from local scrub. They picketed their horses together, Little Storm at the center of them, and they chose a watch consisting mostly of Toorians.
Xinto piled his own bedding and laid down on top of it as the sun was setting. The members of their little band who were Men, the Toorians and Jack and Raven and Jerod, would talk their idle nonsense as Men would. Glynn kept her own council most of the time, and that left Xinto very little to do.
She’d sung her song a few times, and they all speculated on it. None of the Toorians except Jahunga could hear it. They had argued as to where the Sacred Place could be, as to what the missing weapons were, and where they might find them. Once in a while Slurn would show his face, but it seemed mostly to want to check on Raven and then he would slither away.
So double Xinto’s surprise when it found him lying on his bedding.
“There is danger,” the thing hissed at him.
There had been a time when the Slee had wanted to push past what was called the Black Lake now, the junction between the Safe and Mid Rivers where the Emperor was building a city called ‘Wisex,’ into southern Conflu. The Confluni didn’t want that, and they’d enlisted Xinto to convince the Slee to stay in their swamp. Because the Slee actually ate Men and Uman, Xinto had found the greater challenge not to be eaten by the Slee than to negotiate with them.
He’d satisfied that challenge by ensuring them of his hatred for another species.
“There is a Swamp Devil stalking us,” Slurn said.
That was the other species.
Xinto sat up and scanned the horizon. His hearing, much more sensitive than that of most other races, told him nothing, but that didn’t mean much. He’d met with Swamp Devils as well, and even though they ranged between eight and ten feet tall, they could move as quiet as mice if they wanted to.
“Where?” Xinto asked.
“To the south, against the blowing wind,” Slurn said. “He’s hunting us.”
Xinto nodded. The Devil wasn’t within sighting distance yet, or Xinto would have marked him. He pulled a collapsible bow from his voluminous cloak and then knocked a dart to it. He pulled a vial with hemlock essence in it from a pocket and dipped the dart.
“Track him,” Xinto said. “Don’t fight him. Let me know when he’s close.”
Slurn hissed and turned on his heels back into the scrub, disappearing almost immediately. The grass was short and most of the large weed growths and scrub brush were brown. The thing would have a hard time getting close to them. When it was ready to strike, it would come at a sprint.
Xinto trotted over to the fire, where Jahunga, Jerod, Raven and Jack were talking.
“There’s a Swamp Devil stalking us,” he said.
Jahunga and Jerod were both on their feet, the Volkhydran with his sword out.
“Put that up, you thick-witted Man,” Xinto said. “Do you want him to know we know of him?”
Jerod made a face and sheathed the weapon. Hopefully it was fast enough.
“Where?” Jahunga asked.
“To the south, against the wind,” Xinto said. “The Slee marked him and he’s stalking him. I told him not to attack it, but a Slee won’t tolerate a Devil for long.”
Jahunga nodded. “I’ll tell my men,” he said, and left the fire. Jack and Raven stood. Glynn approached the fire from where she’d been meditating, in the shadows away from them.
“I don’t sense this Devil,” she said. “If he has magic, he is making an effort not to use it.”
“He’s deep into Eldador,” Xinto said. “He probably has magic. You sometimes hear of them raiding into Angador, but never this far north.”
“If he has magic and he’s not using it, then he knows we have it,” Jerod said. “So he’s been following us.”
“A devil, born and raised?” Jack asked. Leave it to a Man to announce the obvious.
“I’d feared this,” Glynn said. “A Swamp Devil is a poor ally. He’ll kill just for the pleasure of another’s suffering. His words are mostly lies. They’ll swear an oath and keep it, but then look for a way to turn it on the one they made it to, just out of their own meanness.”
“Won’t the song…” Raven said, looking from face to face. “I mean, Slurn, he wouldn’t normally—”
Glynn nodded. Jerod answered her, “The song brought me in, and Jahunga, too. He wanted to be a part of it, I still don’t. Maybe it will make him join us, but maybe he’ll kill half of us before he figures that out.”
“If he’s stalking us he means to kill,” Xinto said. He looked out over the horizon. “He may have already.”
No sooner had he said that then Jahunga returned with nine warriors. No need to ask them about the tenth.
“This thing is coming,” he said. “Our southern-most guard can’t be found.”
Slurn appeared as if from magic out of the scrub. “It approaches,” he hissed. Xinto translated.
They lined up to the south of their fire, the Toorians at their center with Jahunga leading them, Glynn actually to the north of the blaze standing in its smoke.
That made more sense. If she needed to use her magic, then the fire might give her a few more moments.
“I know you’ve seen me,” something growled from the south, out of the darkness. Xinto could see its red eyes now. It was tenth of a daheer or less away, laying on a rise, its body pressed into the dirt. Its skin was black as night; the moonlight glinted on its horns.
“I have it,” Xinto whispered to the others.
“Send me one of your horses, and you can go,” it informed them.
“Why would it want a horse?” Jack asked them. “Do they ride?”
“We’re supposed to think he wants to eat it,” Jahunga said. “If we send it, he’ll kill it and eat some of it, but he’ll torture it first where we can hear. The horses will be skittish and we’ll fear him, and then he’ll come again, and we’ll have one less horse.”
“Send it now,” the thing roared. It voice was baritone and gravelly, dripping with evil.
Glynn drew herself up to her full height and straightened her back. She inhaled and Xinto knew she was going to make the greatest mistake she possibly could.
She was going to negotiate with it.
“I advise against that,” Xinto said, interrupting the Duchess.
She pressed her lips together and regarded him. Jahunga was speaking in hushed tones with his warriors, Jerod with them. Jack and Raven kept to each other’s company alongside the fire.
“It’s pointless to negotiate with him,” Xinto informed her. “His word means nothing unless he takes an oath, and he won’t do that just to please you.”
“Sirrah,” she said, her deprecating tone not lost on the Scitai, “I have, in my century and a half, in fact met Swamp Devils before.”
She probably had, Xinto knew. But she’d met them in the company of other Uman-Chi with more experience than she, and under better conditions than this.
This banter, of course, distracted Xinto, which was unfortunate because that left the thin-brained Men to their own devices and, left to their own devices, thin-brained Men do only one thing.
Three Toorian warriors crept off to the east, four more to the west, leaving two with Jerod and Jahunga, who began to march south, bold as a brass penny and no more valuable. Jerod took a moment to spit to one side as he walked alongside the other warriors.
“War’s beard,” Xinto swore. They were going to engage it, and they thought with twelve they had e
nough. They didn’t know Swamp Devils.
“Wait here,” Xinto commanded Jack and Raven, who as like would have done nothing else. He adjusted his overcloak and trotted out after the Men. If they were willing to die, he might as well use the opportunity to put an arrow in this thing’s eye, if it presented itself.
The Devil didn’t say another word, and Xinto didn’t see it where it had been last. Challenged, it would fight, Xinto knew, and it was cunning enough not to give its position away. Swamp Devils are ambush hunters and it would press its body to the ground and wait until an enemy was almost upon it, then rise up bellowing and strike.
The Men pressed forward. Xinto could see that Jahunga and Jerod wanted to draw the thing out and let the other warriors flank it. They counted on their superior fighting ability to be able to hold the monster long enough for the Toorians to put a few spears in its back.
But those spears were metal-tipped and most metal weapons would bounce off a Devil’s hide. Their swords would likely be no different. If a person could penetrate an ear, or an eye, or the mouth, then one could damage a Devil, but then, the Devil knew this, too.
The night fell deadly quiet. Xinto could hear the Men’s feet shuffling in the loose earth and scrub. He could smell the swamp stink off of the Devil and, to his west, that of the Slee, who was closing in like he was. Slurn had also likely guessed what the Men were doing and would wait for them to entangle the Devil, then strike.
His mind racing, Xinto waited for the explosion of violence that a mixture of these three species was guaranteed to deliver.
A moment later a roar like an angry lion’s ripped the night and the Devil rose up before the four Men moving south, his red teeth and eyes gleaming in the moonlight, his arms spread wide and his talons bared. His muscles stood out gleaming and black. The thing’s long, black hair almost touched the ground behind it, waving to the left and the right as it slashed with one claw, then the next at the surprised Men.
It wore a steel breastplate. Xinto stood stunned for a moment. He knew this Swamp Devil—he knew it well.
