Vonders climbed from the tent next and the worried expression on his face made clear he knew exactly what Nolan did, that their three companions would not survive this trip. With Vonders along they might survive themselves, despite the lack of horses, but he was having doubts.
Tolpen was a hunter. He’d spent the last day looking for anything he could hunt, but so far had failed. If there were creatures out there, like the rider they thought they’d seen, then the wind was scouring away any tracks that might have been left in the drifts of dirtied snow or on the rare patches of dirt.
And off to the left was the wagon Tega slept in. The damned thing seemed nearly unaltered by the ice and sand and wind. The ground under Nolan’s boots crunched with every step he took, a mixture of snow and dirt, but the wagon remained untouched by it. He resented the damned thing with an irrational dislike. It had certainly proved a worthy shelter when they had stayed in it.
One of the men in the tent let out a moan and Nolan closed his eyes. At least one of them would die today, he could feel it.
The sun was up, which meant that the darkness was kissed with lighter shades of gray and brown.
The structures around them, the towers and lumps that made up the Mounds, took on detail again. The closest of the things had a beauty to it he’d deliberately refused to acknowledge before but after days on end of nothing, he allowed himself the pleasure of staring at the texture of the thing. There were striations of what looked like ice or glass, fused with flecks of metal and layers of different stones. The feeble sunlight washed the surface and let him see all of that under the thin layer of ice that had grown over the last two days. No noise from the Mounds, which meant nothing to break the ice away and so it was growing again, like a scab over the open sore of the slanted tower itself.
“Maun won’t make it.” Vonders’ voice was soft, just loud enough to make the distance between them past the wind
Nolan nodded. “I don’t think any of them will. We’ve no way to take care of them properly.
Vonders glared at the wagon and Nolan knew he was thinking Tega was to blame. She had saved them. She had damned half of them. That was still something to consider. She was powerful but she had flaws. Didn’t they all, really?
Tolpen came out of the tent, his face pale and grim. “Stradly is dead.”
Vonders spit. Nolan nodded his head. “Best tell Tega.”
Without waiting for one of the others to do it, he headed for her wagon.
So he saw the thing first.
It was moving not far from the wagon, not really looking at anything but the ground as it shuffled forward. He doubted it could have moved faster if it had to.
There was no sense to it. The skin of the thing was mottled gray, and covered in several places with bubbled clusters of watery blisters. At the very best it made him think of the monstrous lumps they’d fought on the road to Tyrne, but the comparison was merely because, like those beasts, it hurt his eyes and head to look at the thing. It was bloated and its body was squat. The torso was as wide as three men and none of the limbs on it made much sense.
It moved forward on one foreleg and two rear legs, none of which matched in thickness or length, which lent it a very uneven shuffling gait. A second forelimb was there, but like the rest did not seem to fit. It was much shorter than the – it hardly seemed right to call it a mate – other foreleg, and ended in a mass of stubby clawed fingers, and a thumb. The body was heavy, yes, but muscular. The four legs differed so much that none even matched in width. Judging by the mass dangling from its hindquarters he suspected the beast was male, but frankly he didn’t want to consider that appendage, as it was as malformed as the rest of the thing.
None of which prepared him for the face. There were two eyes, but neither of them matched. One was as large as his balled fist and the other, higher up on the left side of the face, no bigger than a grape. Both gave off a pale gray light that Tega said the Sa’ba Taalor also cast from their eyes. The nose was a gash in the front of the face. The mouth was a great, drooling, uneven thing, an angry slash that had somehow sprouted teeth and a tongue.
Nolan noticed all of that at the same time that the thing saw him and looked him over from his head to his boots.
For exactly four heartbeats he thought the thing might simply keep going. His hands shook a bit and he almost reached for his axe before he remembered that it was back in the tent. He’d only come out to relieve his bladder and had certainly not planned to meet a fiend or learn that one of his companions was dead.
And then that great mouth opened and the thing grunted.
And then it charged him, screaming out a shrill battle cry. It did not roar. He knew a battle cry when he heard one. Hell, half the soldiers he’d trained with tended to let them out when they attacked.
Nolan threw himself sideways and dodged as the malformed brute came for him. His elbow slammed into the thing’s face, hitting and mashing the oversized eye on its right side.
It yelped and the foreleg it ran with slapped him across his chest and staggered him backward. Had he not already been in motion it would likely have caved his ribcage in.
“Attacked! Arms!” It was all he could think to say.
The thing looked like it could barely stand, but it charged him again, as fast as the attack dogs his uncle had trained. Nolan let out a scream of pure panic and cuffed the thing in the face a second time, feeling its wet breath blast across him. Gods, it gave of a frightful heat.
His knee came up into the side of the thing’s face as it lost balance and tried to recover. The blow was good and it fell back, grunting again. Nolan danced back, repulsed, his heart hammering and his eyes wide.
Vonders called out, but Nolan didn’t have time to focus on him because the thing was coming again, loping forward and as he watched, the thing planted both rear legs, squatted and then jumped at him, clearing the distance with ease.
Nolan did exactly as his father had trained him to do and caught the immense weight, pivoted his body at the hips and helped the thing on its way, adding his strength to its momentum.
It crashed into the side of Tega’s wagon, hitting one of the wheels and disproving his thought that magic protected the wagon. The wheel broke, several spokes snapping, and the wagon rocked on its axles.
The thing was back up before he could even congratulate himself on the maneuver. That mouth, that ugly slit in its face, bloomed open until it was large enough to give a Pra-Moresh feelings of inadequacy. Those mismatched eyes glared at him as the thing jumped again and Nolan met it head on, slamming his body against the thing’s bulk, hoping to kick it aside.
And failing. He staggered backward, tried to find his footing and instead slid and skidded like a skipped stone, bouncing along until he ran into the side of the tent. His ears rang and he tasted blood in his mouth.
Tolpen put an arrow through the hellish thing’s fat, bruised right eye. It let out half a squeal and fell on its backside. It was possibly dying, but it was not dead. It kicked and shrieked and rolled itself to hands and knees and then flopped down on its face. Still, it managed to get back up, its one remaining eye glaring undying hatred in Tolpen’s direction.
The hunter let out a curse under his breath and reached for another arrow from the quiver at his feet. His hand was shaking and the first arrow slipped from his fingers. His calm demeanor broke as the thing came for him, once again leaping instead of running.
Vonders tried to step in with a spear to stop the thing’s charge, but instead was knocked aside.
Tolpen gave up on the arrows and swung his bow like a great sword, clubbing the misshapen face with all the strength he could muster. The thing fell to the ground again and let out a squealing noise.
The wagon door opened and Tega stepped halfway out. Without even considering, Nolan moved to stand between her and the monster. His duty was to protect her. His father had always taught that duty was all a soldier had to concern himself with. The rest was dressing.
To
lpen whapped the monster’s head four more times with his bow, screeching with each blow delivered. As his arms rose up for a fifth, Vonders caught his elbow and shook his head. “Might need that bow yet.”
Vonders glared for only a moment and then calmed down.
The thing let out one long sigh and seemed to deflate a bit. The body relaxed to the point where Nolan knew it must surely be dead. He stayed exactly where he was, however. Some dead things didn’t stay as still as they should. That was a lesson he would not easily forget.
Tega stepped from the wagon with surprising calm and looked down at the dead thing.
Nolan turned to her and relaxed a little. “Stradly is dead.” He had no desire to protect her from the truth and no reason to. She had seen as much as they had and still she held herself together.
Tega’s face lost composure for only an instant and then she nodded. “I had thought it would surely be Maun first.”
She pointed to the dead thing on the ground. “Roll that over, please. I want to see it better.”
Nolan almost told her where she could take her desire to examine it, but remembered that while here, he worked for her. Instead he nodded and with Vonders’ help maneuvered the thing onto its back.
The monster obliged him and remained dead.
He silently thanks all of the gods for that small blessing.
And then he watched in mute surprise while Tega studied the body and cut samples of the hair and the skin from it.
***
Drask watched the fight in absolute silence. He did not move. He did not consider helping either side. Instead he studied every move the Fellein made and filed the information away. Better to know an enemy than to guess what might be in their hearts.
The Broken they fought was not very skilled. They killed it with ease and all of them lived through it. Still he stayed where he was as the girl – he thought it might be the sorcerer’s apprentice, Tega, but could not be certain from this distance – first looked the corpse over and then began cutting.
If she planned to eat the flesh it would go poorly for her. The Broken had poisoned flesh. That was part of the punishment the Daxar Taalor rewarded them with for their failures.
They could no longer offer anything to anyone. They were useless. They were broken.
They were godless.
The men with the blonde girl stepped away as she started her examination, and shortly entered the tent and came out with the body of a man who was older than the rest of them and flabby besides. Drask shook his head. He had seen several people in Tyrne who were overweight and the notion horrified him. That anyone could consider themselves capable of fighting when they weighed so much… Still, there were a few among the Sa’ba Taalor who were as large and carried extra flesh and they were only alive because they were skilled combatants. Physical prowess alone did not make a warrior.
After a bit of discussion the group decided the man needed to be burned. They managed to start a small fire and lit the man’s clothes, which smoldered and sputtered and finally burned. When his remains were burning well enough, they dragged the Broken over and cast it into the flames.
Through it all, Drask stayed on his perch, moving his legs from time to time and carefully stretching to avoid letting his muscles cramp or his joints lock.
And that was how they spent the day, killing a Broken and burning corpses.
It was a wonder to him that the Fellein ever managed to accomplish anything.
***
From his perspective Drask saw the troops moving from the Seven Forges toward the place the Fellein called the Temmis Pass. He nodded his satisfaction at the careful movement of the soldiers. He did not know exactly what Tarag Paedori was planning, but he also understood that there were no better tacticians for a land battle among his people.
They moved at night, and from this distance they were little more than a smudge on the horizon. He doubted that any of the people below him would have spotted the column moving.
He could not guess how many of the Sa’ba Taalor were moving in that column, but part of him longed to walk with them.
***
Andover Lashk stepped from the castle at Prydiria and moved into the daylight. The skies above were mostly clear, and the temperature was pleasant. His skin felt dry after what seemed like days in the intense heat of the god’s heart. Seemed like days. In truth he could not begin to guess how long he had been in the presence of the Iron God.
All he truly knew was that he was changed. Again.
Some truths seemed to remain constant no matter what. One did not face a god and come away unchanged.
The second Great Scar on his face was larger, and bisected his mouth. He could feel the changes in his flesh far more easily this time. Below his nose to just above his chin there was a line of flesh that split his mouth in half. That line could move and could open, and when it did he suspected he looked like a monster. He understood now why the veils were important. Anyone not prepared for the ways of the Sa’ba Taalor would have been terrified by what they saw when they looked upon the warriors.
Andover knew that he should have been horrified but he was not. The culture he was with admired scars as signs of achievement. Great Scars even more so. A person with no Great Scars was either young or in the eyes of the people of the valley, godless. What could be worse for them?
He had never cared much for the gods when he was growing up. The gods, it seemed, had never much cared for him, either. But here, in the Taalor Valley, the people and the gods had a relationship that was extremely different. He was only beginning to understand it, but it seemed to him that it might be something wondrous.
He looked at his hands and the iron rings that he held in his grip. The rings, like the scar, were a gift from the god of the mountain. He suspected he knew what they were for.
Delil waited nearby, sitting on a flat stone that had been carved, smoothed, sanded and polished until it was as flawless as still water and almost as reflective. The woman was sharpening one of her swords and had several other weapons nearby. There were daggers and throwing knives and several long, thin darts that looked like they should have been harmless. He’d seen her use them and knew better.
She smiled at him as he approached and he smiled back. Her face was revealed to him. Andover felt like she and the rest of her people had given him a great honor by taking their veils away around him.
She looked at his face and saw the new scar and as he came closer she stood up and ran one callused fingertip across it gently.
“You are blessed indeed, Andover. Two gods have favored you in less than a week. That is very rare.”
He looked into her eyes and smiled. “Where did everyone go?” The last time he’d been outside there had been vast crowds of armored Sa’ba Taalor around, most of them with weapons and supplies aplenty.
“They have gone to meet with your rulers to discuss whether or not a war will happen.”
He felt oddly relieved. He’d felt a certain dread that the king would make him go along. He was supposed to be an ambassador, according to Drask. “Is there anyone left here?”
“Oh, yes, there are many people left here. But they are training.”
“Training for what?”
“If there is to be a war, everyone must be prepared.” Her voice carried an odd tone to it. He couldn’t decide if she was disappointed that she was still with him instead of with the rest of her people. He also wasn't quite brave enough to ask her. Andover had dreamed of being with a woman and Delil had made that dream come true, but he didn’t know the intricacies of what happened next. He had never been close to a woman before this journey.
Delil stood up and started putting away her weapons. He was amazed even after months of being with her by how quickly she could slip the various blades into their sheaths. “We should go now. There are places we have to take you yet and time is short.”
“It is?”
Delil looked at him and nodded, her expression solemn. Behind
the scars and the gray skin and the odd silvery light of her eyes she was rather average in looks, but that did not matter. He’d grown very fond of her and knew he could trust her and the lingering memories of what they had done together made her lovely.
He pushed away thoughts of what they had done, how her flesh had felt in his hands and touched by his lips, and made himself focus as she started to speak. “Time here is short. There are places you must see within this valley and there are other places you must go as well, Andover Lashk.”
“How do you know that, Delil? How do you know what I must do?”
She tilted her head in that odd way of hers. He understood what it meant now. The way she looked at him sometimes was both an expression of surprise at how naïve he was and exasperation that he could ask so foolish a question. “I know because Wrommish tells me. You have been marked by the Daxar Taalor, Andover Lashk. You should start listening when they speak to you.”
Shame washed through him quickly and was shoved aside by irritation. “This is new to me, Delil. You have had a lifetime to learn how to listen to your gods. I have not.”
“And that is why I am here. I am here to help you listen.” Her voice was surprisingly light. She finished strapping her weapons in place and grabbed the bundle of clothing she’d been carrying. Somewhere along the way he had left his behind. He was about to start cursing when she reached to the side of her previous perch and lifted his supplies. “Come.”
“Not yet.” He shook his head.
“What?”
“The Daxar Taalor have spoken to you and they have spoken to me, too. I was told to finish this before I go further.” He unrolled the bundled good and took out the separate sections of obsidian. Putting them back together was easy. They fit as if they had always belonged together.
Andover stared at the assembled axe with a critical eye and considered how best to make sure the pieces would stay together. Delil looked with him and finally nodded her head.
The Blasted Lands Page 29
