Krow's eyes flamed. 'Why ask when you can command?'
'I'll risk my blood but not that of others against their will.'
Krow rode his aquar in among the other men crying: Though we be of different tribes, we're all Plainsmen. Can we allow such defilement to go unpunished?'
Grimly, all there gave their assent.
'Very well,' said Carnelian. 'But if we are to approach unseen, we must wait for dusk.'
***
They found what shade they could within the earthwork and sheltered beneath blankets. Carnelian found if he sat very still, the heat rising from his body would lift his uba from his skin. As sweat trickled down his back, he carefully sipped sun-heated water from a waterskin. His slitted gaze lost hold of the white world. In a stupor he sat, tortured, imagining the disasters that might overcome their expedition.
The night was as cold as the day had been hot. Shadows in the starlight, they streamed across the lagoon bed and then began the long ride across the plain to the koppie of the Darkcloud.
A sliver moon rose as they neared the outer ditch. The Darkcloud led them across a bridge into a ferngarden. The ride to the next ditch was shorter than it would have been at the Koppie. Once across, Carnelian saw that the inner ferngardens were much wider than he was used to. To approach as silently as they could, they made their aquar walk. Carnelian had plenty of time to search the hill with its cedars and the irregular crags rising above them. All was in blackness and there was no sign of life except for the cedars shifting in a breeze that carried on it a hint of smoke.
At last they reached a bridge leading over the innermost ditch. Carnelian and Krow dismounted with the Darkcloud and watched them cross the bridge and disappear into shadow.
As he waited Carnelian listened to the sighing of their mother trees. Watching a canopy round to the north, he was sure that every so often it opened a chink through which he glimpsed what might have been a flicker of light on branches.
A single shape returning over the bridge made him jump. The Darkcloud came close enough for Carnelian to smell him.
The huskman's still in his place, Master,' said the Darkcloud. 'Some of us have gone in to scout around.'
'You should've waited for instructions,' said Krow, his voice seeming loud after the man's whisper.
Carnelian reached out and gripped Krow's shoulder, wanting to calm him. 'We need to know where they are.'
They crept back to where the others were still mounted and waited, listening, watching.
At last the Darkcloud returned. Even though they were nothing but shadows, Carnelian could sense their rage. Their voices rose as they all began to speak at once.
'Choose one of you to speak,' Carnelian hissed.
One of them was pushed forward.
The filthy bastards have cut down two mother trees.' They could hear that the man was close to tears.
'Manila?' asked Krow.
'A plague of them.'
'How many?' Carnelian asked.
'Hundreds.'
Carnelian grimaced. It was what he had most feared. 'Are they camped?'
The man's snort was echoed by the others. They're sprawled out over the rootearths of Magnolia, Erth, Ceda -'
'How many hearths? How densely?' Carnelian interrupted.
'Six.' He shrugged. 'Less than a hundred at each. All in a tight cluster in the north of the grove.'
Carnelian nodded. 'In the shade of the crags.' The Manila outnumbered his men at least four to one. There might be too many of them.'
The Darkcloud began protesting and Carnelian hissed them to silence.
'I'm with them,' said Krow, coldly.
Carnelian leaned close to the spokesman. 'Anything else?'
The western edge of the grove where they came in is crowded with aquar.'
They're covered in sores,' someone said from behind him.
The spokesman nodded. 'By the looks of them, the bastards haven't unhitched their drag-cradles or unsaddled them for days.'
'Probably don't know how to,' said Carnelian.
'Drag-cradles?' said Krow.
'Loaded with djada, water.'
Carnelian did not need to be able to see Krow's face to know they shared the same thought. Stolen from another massacred tribe.
That made Carnelian's mind up. 'Are they sleeping?'
The spokesman nodded. 'Fires dowsed, they lie around them.'
'Well, let's make sure most of them never wake again.'
They fell on them with mattocks as if they were beating undergrowth to drive game. A quarter of the Manila had their heads staved in as they slept. The rest woke to mayhem. Carnelian swung against another skull, memories of the Twostone massacre, of Poppy orphaned, driving away his instinct that this was dishonourable. Still, he was relieved when a number of the Manila found their spears. Butchery became battle and the Marula still outnumbered them. Carnelian cast away his bloodied mattock, took his spear in both hands and leapt to the attack, baying. Though dwarfed by the black men, the Darkcloud crashed into them and pushed them back. Some of the invaders fell, their ankles catching on the cedar roots. Others rolled, lost their spears, stumbled to their knees and were up trying to run down the slope. Their ranks were dissolving as Carnelian impaled one in the chest. The man fell clasping the spear haft, his teeth set in a grimace of surprise. Carnelian put his foot on the man and pulled. The spear came free, spurting hot blood onto his legs. He paused, reeling, watching the Manila fleeing, falling, rolling while Krow led the Plainsmen down the rootsteps after them, screaming with battle-lust.
Carnelian turned slowly, seeing the hillside in the light of the smouldering fires. He approached one, seeing the great bough in its midst from which the flames had taken a wide charcoal-edged bite. The soft bark showed it was cedar wood, the amputated limb of a mother tree. He wandered emotionless up towards the mutilated trees. He touched one, her proud head fallen into the earth, her branches broken, her waist splintered. He glanced down the hill and saw the Manila had fled out into the fern-gardens where he had set Plainsmen to hunt them on aquar.
Something pale caught the corner of his eye. He whisked round and saw a house of bones nestling up among the crags. Smoke was leaking from it. He remembered the charred floor of the Twostone Ancestor House. Hefting his spear, he strode towards it. He found steps cut into the rock and climbed them. When he set his foot upon the porch the smoke was thick enough to sting his eyes. A leather door was set into the wall. He crept to it and listened and heard nothing. Tearing the door back, he entered.
Three Manila were lit by a blaze set into a pelvis in the floor. Two lay as if asleep. The third sat against a frieze of skulls, regarding him with disdain. Even under then-powdery covering of ash, Carnelian could see this Maruli was much younger than the other two.
'Are you what you seem?' the Maruli asked in smooth Vulgate.
Carnelian stared. 'You speak…?'
The man grinned his sharpened teeth and displayed a pale palm upon which there were some service glyphs. 'I served long in the service of the Masters.'
Carnelian saw that the man was identical to the Manila who had escorted him from the sea to Osrakum. When he indicated the other Manila, the man shook his head. They never served the Masters.' He raised his eyebrows.
'Yes, I am a Master,' Carnelian said in response to the man's earlier question. He put a finality in the tone that told the Maruli he would answer no more. The man showed his feral teeth again.
'And I am Morunasa,' he jabbed an arm in the direction of his older companions, 'with these others, Oracle and slave of the Darkness-under-the-Trees.'
'What are you doing here?'
Before the Maruli had a chance to answer, Carnelian was aware of someone coming in behind him. Turning, he saw it was Krow, staring in horror at the fire smouldering on the bony floor. His gaze jumped to the two Manila and settled on Morunasa. Carnelian moved to intercept him as the youth, teeth bared, raised his spear. He caught hold of Krow, who struggled.
&
nbsp; 'His filthy feet.'
Carnelian held him fast. 'Don't you want to know why your tribe was massacred?'
Krow searched Carnelian's eyes. As he felt the youth relax, he let him go. Krow threw his head back to indicate the world outside.
The Darkcloud will be here any moment. Do you imagine you'll be able to stop them killing,' his lips curled in disgust as he looked at Morunasa, 'that ravening bastard!'
Carnelian addressed the Maruli. 'If the others find you here in their holy place, they'll kill you.' He pointed at the other two Manila. 'Wake them.'
Morunasa shook his head. 'They will not wake.'
'What's wrong with them?' cried Krow.
Morunasa regarded him with yellow eyes. They commune with our Lord.'
Carnelian could see Krow was unsettled by this. 'We can carry them.'
Too late. Men pushed into the room past Krow: Darkcloud, their bloodied faces becoming childlike in their dismay. One fell to his knees sobbing. Another advanced, a spear shaking in his hand, tears drawing channels through his mask of gore.
'Would you defile this place further with their stinking blood?' said Krow in Vulgate.
The Darkcloud hesitated, his brow creasing with agonied indecision. One of the others said something, swinging his arms and looking out, and the rest nodded grimly, their eyes fixing murderously on the Marula.
Momnasa stared at them, licking his Hps. He fixed his eyes on Carnelian. 'Master, save our lives and I'll tell you everything you want to know and give you incomparable wealth besides.'
The Darkcloud empted into a baying bloodlust but Carnelian dared to stand in their way. 'Hear me,' he bellowed.
They almost turned their spears on him, but he faced them down.
'You will have to give your tribe an account of this defilement of your home. And then there's the Master.'
He saw how that name put fear in them. Their leader began nodding. He half turned to the men behind him and spoke to them in their own tongue.
'What have you decided?' Carnelian demanded.
The Plainsman looked at him and leered. 'We shall keep them alive to give our people something on which to vent their vengeance.'
Carnelian crouched beside Morunasa. He could see from the man's swollen hands and feet how cruelly he had been bound. The Maruli leaned forward towards the embers Carnelian was carrying in a bowl.
The night is cold.'
Carnelian set the bowl down, removed the blanket he had about his shoulders, and threw it over Morunasa, who smiled.
'You're not what I expected from a Master.'
Tell me what you're doing here.'
Without taking his eyes off Carnelian, Morunasa shook his head slowly. Carnelian regarded the man through narrowed eyes.
Morunasa shrugged. 'In time I will speak, but only to the other Master.'
'Before that, you will die at the hands of the people you have wronged.'
Morunasa showed his sharpened teeth in a grin. 'I don't think so. I saw how much you all fear the other Master.'
'He is much more what you expect of a Master.'
That made Morunasa look uncertain but his lips remained firmly closed.
'I could have you tortured.'
Morunasa grinned grimly. 'I have been taught to withstand pain since I was a child. My secrets would die with me.'
It had been an empty threat. Carnelian did not have the stomach for torture. He could wait until Osidian returned. He allowed his gaze to wander away over the shadowy cedars which were here and there lit by the hearths. It was very like the Koppie. He thought of the destruction that lay on the other side of the hill. They had chosen to spend the night on its south side to be as far away as possible from the mutilated mother trees.
'Why did you cut down the cedars?'
'We needed their wood for fires.'
'You must have known these trees were sacred.'
'It is not the trees but what gathers under them that is sacred.'
'Your Darkness-under-the-Trees?'
'Our Lord curls around their trunks like a serpent.' 'But then-?'
'He is malignant when on earth. We coax him back into the sky.' 'How?'
'With man blood.'
Carnelian shuddered at his tone and the glint that came into his eye. Morunasa's teeth seemed ravener sharp. The Maruli gazed up at the starry sky. 'When his blackness hides the sun he returns to the earth as rain. We feed him and he whispers his secrets to us.'
Carnelian did not want to hear any more. He lifted the bowl, and considered taking back his blanket. He left it and walked away. It was indeed cold.
Carnelian came awake to find Krow wide-eyed, shouting something at him that made no sense. He sat up. 'What?'
'He's bitten their throats out.'
'Whose throats?'
The Manila's.'
Anger made Carnelian come fully awake. The Darkcloud agreed not to harm them.' The Manila did it to each other.' Carnelian rose. 'Show me.'
Krow led him to where a crowd of Plainsmen had gathered. Some of the Darkcloud came clamouring towards Carnelian.
'He's cheated us of our revenge.'
Carnelian did what he could to calm them. The crowd let him through to where Morunasa was sitting against a rock, one eye half-closed by a swelling from a blow he had taken to his head. His mouth, nose and chin were thick with gore. The other two Manila lay sprawled beside him. Carnelian crouched to look at them. Under their chins were ragged holes so deep their heads had rolled away at an unnatural angle. A movement under one of the old men's skins made him recoil.
'How can they already have maggots?'
They were Oracles of the Darkness-under-the-Trees,' said Morunasa, as if that were an explanation.
Carnelian turned to look at the man, grimacing as he saw his teeth clotted with dried blood. 'Why?'
'We had a difference of opinion.'
The man's breath stank. 'What're you talking about, you savage?'
Morunasa's grin made Carnelian look for a spear. 'I should kill you now myself.'
The men around him shifted and murmured. Carnelian looked round at them and recognized many of them as Darkcloud. Morunasa grinned again.
'It seems I am precious to the Flatlanders, Master.'
'After what you did to their trees, their women will not be kind to you.'
'It seems I shall live at least until then.' He glanced at the corpses. 'How does the Master intend to dispose of their bodies?'
'You would have us burn them, would you not, Maruli?'
Morunasa looked surprised. Carnelian asked the Plainsmen what they thought of this and saw how angry it made them. He turned back to Morunasa.
'Why do you burn your dead?'
The smoke carries the soul up into the sky.'
'It seems to me, Maruli, you should have shown as much care for their bodies as now you appear to be doing for their souls.'
Morunasa shrugged. 'Once they are ashes, nothing is left behind but dross.' He displayed his arms with their dusty coating.
This revelation on top of the murders made Carnelian back off in disgust. He looked from the Maruli to the Plainsmen then back again.
They will be exposed with all your other dead on the plain for scavengers to gnaw on,' he said, and received nods and smiles of approval from the Plainsmen. Carnelian did not like it that he took pleasure in Morunasa's scowl.
The Plainsmen divided themselves into groups, each with some aquar pulling drag-cradles, and moved across the ferngardens gathering the dead. Once they had fully loaded up, they took the corpses out and dumped them on the plain. After that, Carnelian ordered everyone to rest beneath the cedars, drowsing, squinting at the plain, waiting for the Darkcloud to do what they could to staunch the resin bleeding from their mother trees. In the later afternoon, the Plainsman dead were carried up to a summit of the crags where they were left bleaching on the funerary trestles waiting for the birds to return with the Rains.
At last, when the sun was descending the bronze sk
y, they set off back to the koppie of the Ochre. They had unhitched the Marula aquar the night before and applied what salves they could find to their wounds. The drag-cradles with the stolen djada and water they hitched to their own beasts, not wanting to burden the wounded. Morunasa, still bound, was lifted into a saddle-chair.
Though their shadows were long, the day still burned and it was with a desperate delight that they reached the first magnolia shade of the Ochre koppie.
Everything was as they had left it. Carnelian went to see the Bluedancing and found they were well enough and thankful for the days of rest his expedition had gifted them. Next he turned his attention to the captive. Morunasa's fingers and toes were swelling black, though he seemed to be indifferent to the pain. Nevertheless, Carnelian ignored the anger of the Darkcloud and had the bonds cut. He answered their fear that the Maruli might escape by exiling him to share the summit of the Crag with the dead on their trestles. The Darkcloud might guard him from the shaded comfort of the porch of the Ancestor House.
This done, Carnelian and Krow returned to Akaisha's hearth. They allowed themselves the luxury of a little water to wash with. To Krow's amusement, Carnelian prepared a meal. They spent the evening huddled round a fire reminiscing about their journey to the Earthsky. Krow asked what life was like in the Mountain and Carnelian was happy to indulge him. It seemed to them both an improbable fairytale.
It was days later that Osidian came out of the desert, swiftly, with the dawn, his men behind him in a column. News of his arrival was spread by shouts across the Koppie. Carnelian heard the commotion as he was walking wearily down through the Grove on his way to another day's toil among the Bluedancing. He could not make out any words, but knew what it must mean. He ran down the last few rootsteps to the Homing, but then slowed. He walked the rest of the way to the Lagoongate so as to have time to prepare himself. His heart was hammering. He yearned to see Fern alive, but feared him dead. There was Morunasa and the expedition to explain. He tried not to think about Osidian, for he knew he might soon have to kill him.
Standing at the gate waiting for him, Krow lit up. The Master has returned.'
Carnelian put on a smile and tried to appear pleased. Krow was too excited to see through the performance. Through the gate, the morning was hot but not yet unbearable. Carnelian saw his men in the ferngarden and a mass of riders riding up the magnolia-shaded avenue. Osidian rode at their head. Carnelian searched the many dark shrouded shapes behind him. Osidian rode through the waiting men, across the bridge, and Carnelian and Krow had to jump out of the way as he brought his aquar right into the Grove. The creature knelt and he vaulted easily onto the ground.
The Standing Dead sdotc-2 Page 49
