Assail

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Kyle parried and countered lazily, disguising his own speed. Willow returned to circling.

  And so the duel slid into a pattern. The two circling, darting in to test one another, sometimes counter-attacking, sometimes feinting a move, always watching their opponent’s reactions, searching for openings.

  Twilight thickened. Their shuffling feet raised clouds of dust that wafted heavily off to the east. The man was quick, Kyle realized. Probably faster than him. Yet he seemed to be losing patience. Most of his duels must have been long over before this. Even weakened, Kyle believed he could probably outlast him. And so he pulled back, circling more, parrying, holding himself loose and relaxed, conserving his energy. Just win, Greymane’s words returned. The only ugly fight is the one you lose.

  Willow streamed with sweat now, his arms quivering with suspended energy. He glared, enraged. ‘You are frightened, yes?’ he taunted. ‘You would run away if you could.’

  Kyle decided that silence would frustrate the man further and so he didn’t answer.

  Willow darted in with breathtaking speed, weapons reversed, slashing low. Kyle slid backwards, parrying. He managed to kick one knee, bringing Willow to the ground, and came down hard with one hatchet, but the man rolled aside. A flame of pain erupted across Kyle’s shoulder.

  Sharp! A voice screamed in Kyle’s mind. So sharp! Already a warm wetness was spreading down his back. From behind he heard a suppressed gasp from Dorrin.

  Not even thinking consciously through the mist of pain, he allowed the left arm to hang loose. He circled, even warier.

  Willow was panting, sheathed in sweat, but grinning now. He nodded to himself. Kyle kept his right side to him, hatchet extended. The warrior darted in, batted the hatchet aside; Kyle shifted backwards without bringing his left arm up. Willow slashed with both weapons but chose not press the attack, easing back instead, watching. It looked to Kyle as though the man was ready to let him bleed out.

  He loosened his left hand and let the hatchet fall free to thump into the dust.

  Willow suddenly changed direction, hunched, weaving the obsidian blades before him. Kyle followed, shuffling slowly. He still had his reserves and he meant to expend them all in one burst.

  The warrior’s feet shifted, his weight easing forward. He held one blade high, the other low. Kyle knew the danger lay with the raised blade. He faked his own falling back, as he had done so often already. Willow lunged in, the high blade ready to dart for neck or chest.

  Kyle reached behind to his belt with his left hand to pull free a knife and snap throw from his waist all in one motion. The Silent warrior was so fast he managed to shift so that the blade only grazed his side. But in that moment of distraction Kyle swung his hatchet up and the raised obsidian blade exploded in a burst of fragments. The low blade thrust for him but Kyle deflected it with his left forearm.

  Willow stabbed Kyle’s side with the remains of the shattered blade still gripped in his hand even as Kyle brought his hatchet up between them to thrust the killing spike up behind the man’s jaws, piercing his palate and entering his brain.

  They stood locked together. Held in each other’s arms. A moment that seemed frozen to Kyle. Long enough to watch the man’s gaze fade from bewilderment to unfocused emptiness. Still, they held one another’s arms. Then Willow slid down to slump to the ground. Kyle stood panting, his blood roaring so loud in his ears as to drown out all other sounds, his vision blurry with lancing agony. Hands took him, arms, and he relaxed into them.

  He awoke to glaring sunlight and he winced, hissing in pain. ‘It’s all right,’ Lyan said from nearby. A shadow occluded the glaring light; a hand pressed his chest. ‘We’re safe. We have food and water. Thirsty?’

  He nodded. Turning his head he could just make out that his torso was wrapped, as was his shoulder. Lyan held the spout of a waterskin to his lips, gently squeezed the skin. He drank.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You won. Barely. It was stupid, but impressive. He was fast, that one. Damned fast. You have all the time you need to recover. We’re guests of the Silent People now.’

  ‘I see. Well, if you don’t mind I’ll pass out again.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  It was night when he opened his eyes once more. He tried to rise and failed when agony shot up his side. He relaxed back on to the blankets. In the morning Lyan spooned him a mush of boiled vegetables and grains. ‘I need to get up,’ he told her.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to … you know.’

  Her brows rose. ‘Ah. You shouldn’t, really. But … all right.’ She took hold of him under the arms and gently lifted him so that he could draw his legs beneath himself. He snarled and hissed in suppressed pain but managed to stand. ‘Help me walk a bit.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve nursed a lot of men – no need for shyness.’

  ‘Humour me.’

  Tsking, she took his weight so that he could limp off a few steps.

  ‘Good,’ he said, his voice taut. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Fine. Call if you fall down.’ She walked away.

  ‘I most certainly will.’ He unlaced the front of his pants and eased his bladder. How embarrassing that when you were wounded you couldn’t even get up to see to the most basic of things. He resolved not to be wounded again.

  Slowly, very slowly, he tottered back to camp. Lyan came and took his arm. ‘I should lie down,’ he gasped. He’d broken into a cold sweat. She eased him back down.

  ‘I will call for their healers,’ he heard her say as through a roaring waterfall.

  When he next awoke he felt much better. The stabbing pain was gone from his side. It was late afternoon. Dorrin dozed in the shade nearby. ‘Hey, lad. How are you?’

  Dorrin jerked awake, sat up. ‘I’ll get Lyan.’ And he ran off.

  After a moment Lyan jogged up, wearing only a sweat-soaked shift and trousers, her sheathed sword in one hand. ‘You are awake.’

  ‘Yes. What happened?’

  Her face grew serious. ‘A needle of obsidian was left behind in your side. It was digging in, slicing you up. They found it and drew it out. The old lady used her teeth for that, by the way.’

  ‘I’ll have to thank her.’

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ She cleared her throat, then motioned to his throat. ‘That necklace you wear. A remembrance, perhaps? From a girl?’

  He raised a hand to touch the smooth amber stone at his neck. ‘From a friend. He was of the Thel Akai. An ancient race. Giants, some name them. You have heard of them?’

  ‘You mean a Toblakai? We know them in the north.’

  ‘Related.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  Lyan peered down at herself, jerked. ‘Oh, yes. Practising.’

  He nodded. ‘Good.’ He thought the view from down here looking up at her was wonderful and she seemed to see something of this in his expression.

  She gave him a sour face. ‘Rest. I’m not done.’ She walked off.

  He eased back, then frowned; he smelled something disagreeable. He realized it was him: he smelled to the heights of stale sweat and urine – and worse. He must have had a touch of fever. Of course: Lyan’s taking care of me and I stink like a pig.

  Yet he was too weak to get up to wash himself. For now. He shut his eyes. Great Wind he was hungry.

  At dawn the next morning he decided to try to get up. With Lyan’s help, he managed. She’d fashioned a kind of crutch from one of the poles of the travois and with this he hobbled off into the tallest grasses to squat for his toilet. This took a great deal of time, and by time he’d managed to straighten he was sheathed in sweat from the effort of bending down. But he was standing. He hobbled back to camp.

  That day he limped about, regathering his strength. In the afternoon Dorrin came running up, pointing to the south. ‘Look! Look what’s coming!’

  Kyle squinted, shading his gaze. Up a slight valley
between two gentle rises came one of the Silent People leading three horses. Kyle stared, amazed. Gods. Horses! Rare as pearls on this continent. Where’d they come from? What were the Silent People doing with them?

  The one leading the horses was the old man from the challenge. He nodded to Kyle. ‘You are recovered.’

  ‘Getting better.’

  ‘Good.’ He gestured proudly back to the horses. ‘You can ride, can you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked to Dorrin. The lad nodded vigorous assent. ‘Yes we can.’

  ‘Good. We Silent People do not. These are yours, then.’

  ‘Ah, may I ask … how did these come into your possession?’

  The old man was untroubled by the question. ‘Foreigners bring them from their houses that float. They land them and try to ride through our lands – but they still do not escape our blades.’

  Kyle blew out a breath. ‘I see. Well … we thank you for the gifts. They will aid us greatly.’

  ‘Very good. Fare well, then. Remember us to the ancients. Prove your worth and bring honour to us all.’

  Kyle inclined his head. ‘I will try. Fare well.’

  The old man walked away. Lyan already had a hand on the neck of the biggest of the three, a broad roan. ‘That one’s mine,’ Kyle called.

  ‘No she ain’t. I’m heavier than you in my armour, so she’s mine.’

  Kyle just shook his head. He wasn’t about to argue with her over that subject.

  * * *

  Aiken was out hunting birds when he saw the smoky ochre cloud to the south. A storm, but one unlike any he’d seen before. He shouldered his bow and ran for the village.

  When he arrived many of the elders were already out peering to the south. They were quiet, and to Aiken they appeared strangely troubled by a mere storm. He found his mother standing before their hide and pole hut. ‘A storm!’ he announced, excited. He’d always enjoyed storms: the lighting and thunder of gods battling overhead.

  ‘I see, little grub,’ she answered distractedly, her gaze still to the south. ‘Get inside.’

  ‘But Mama!’ She clenched his arm and thrust him within. ‘Mama!’

  A warband ran past the hut, led by Hroth Far-seer. They ran with their knives in their hands.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked, now wondering if perhaps he should be afraid.

  ‘Stay within,’ his mother barked. She pulled her blades from her belt, and ran.

  A rumbling and crackling reached him, as of thunder, and a dark wall burst over the hut obscuring almost all the light. Dust washed within, choking him. Of course! A dust-storm! He’d seen one of these before. But what was there to fear? Save the animals wandering lost?

  Footfalls sounded all about, sifting and thumping. He heard the crack and grating of weapons clashing, gasped breaths, hisses of pain, and the grunt of mortal blows taken. He stared out of the opening, now an ochre curtain of shifting and gusting dust. Blurred shapes ran past, wrestled, duelled.

  He recognized the outline of his own, and was chilled by the hoary shapes they battled: cloaked in wind-blown rags, skeleton thin, some bearing armour of animal bones.

  The demons of his people’s legends. The demons of dust. Come for them at last, as their oldest myths warned.

  Then he screamed as a shape darkened the doorway. His mother burst within. Her head was bloodied, her hide trousers slit at the leg, streaming blood. She scanned the hut, her eyes wild, found him, took his arm and thrust him amid piled hides and blankets.

  Tears streamed down her face. ‘Quiet, love,’ she croaked, hoarse.

  ‘Mama –what …?’

  ‘Quiet now as a woodlouse, yes?’

  She pressed her hand over his face, left behind a smear of warm blood, pulled the hides over his head.

  Through a gap in the layered hides he watched her feet as she crossed to the doorway. From her stance he could see she was crouched, blades ready. The feet shifted, scuffing. He heard blades clash and scrape, heard his mother growl and gasp. The feet shifted anew, weakly. Blood came running down one leg. Something hissed through the air and his mother’s feet tilted and she fell.

  New feet entered the hut. Inhuman. Earth-brown bone and sinew in tatters of thick leather hide. The skins were yanked aside and he stared up at a demon face of bone, dark empty sockets, and naked amber teeth. Riding atop the head of patchy hair was another skull of some sort of gigantic horned beast.

  ‘This one?’ the demon asked someone outside.

  ‘Nay – the scent is too thin. Come, they are fleeing.’

  This demon thrust him back into the hides, stalked from the hut, was swallowed by the swirling dust. Aiken crawled to his mother. She lay staring sightlessly skyward, thrust through the chest. He rested his head upon her breast, and weeping, gently closed her staring eyes.

  Three days later a lone rider came galloping up from the south. Aiken happened to be with the mourners that day. He’d brought flowers to his mother where she lay in her tall raised bier, exposed to the sun’s kiss and the wind’s embrace. Others were out as well, his neighbours, cousins, and aunts. Those who’d survived the demons’ attack.

  Everyone snatched up their weapons, of course. Even Aiken: as warriors were few now.

  But it was an old woman. She threw herself from her lathered mount and ran to them. Her hunting leathers were dust-caked. Bead necklaces rattled about her neck. Her hair was a thick tangled nest.

  ‘How many?’ she gasped; she clutched a thin weathered hand to her throat. Aiken thought her a maddened survivor from another village.

  ‘A full third of our people,’ answered Jalia, Aiken’s great-aunt. Then she hissed, flinching from the newcomer. She pointed to her waist. Aiken glanced there and saw that the knives thrust through the old woman’s leather belt were of nut-brown stone, knapped, the grip leather-wrapped.

  ‘Demon weapons …’ Jalia snarled, and she went for her own daggers.

  The ground erupted around them. Bone arms yanked clear of the dirt. Skulls denuded of flesh burst free. Aiken backed away, terrified yet fascinated. Jalia thrust for the woman but a demon stepped up between them, taking her arm and tossing her aside.

  ‘Do not harm them!’ the old woman bellowed. Then her wild gaze found Aiken and she yelled to him: ‘Go! Run!’

  Aiken turned and fled.

  *

  Silverfox, alone but for the dead, stood quivering. She wiped her hands down her thighs. She felt intensely cold, on the verge of collapse. She stared about her: funeral biers. The custom of these lands. And how many new? Some forty? From this village alone? She closed her eyes and staggered, righted herself, headed back to her mount.

  Pran Chole appeared at her side. ‘You must rest.’

  ‘They are close, Pran.’

  ‘True. A few days ahead. They flee you, Silverfox.’

  ‘Then I must continue to press. Push them along. They won’t have time … time to kill everyone, will they?’ Gaining her mount, she took hold of the saddle to steady herself. ‘Who were these people, Pran?’

  ‘These clans name themselves the People of the Yellow Grass.’ She pressed her forehead to the saddle. The leather was warm and damp with sweat. ‘It is all my fault … all this. My fault.’

  ‘By no measure.’

  ‘If I had pressed harder for the release …’

  ‘We refused you, Summoner.’

  She nodded wearily, her eyes closed. She tried to raise her leg to mount, failed. ‘Who … who is north of us?’

  Pran turned his dark empty sockets to the north. ‘A far larger confederation of clans.’

  She nodded once more, exhausted. ‘A third here, Pran. A full third! Next it will be half. Then two-thirds. Then, to the very north. None there shall be spared. Who are these next clans?’

  ‘They name themselves the People of the Wind.’

  With a grunt of effort, Silverfox managed to mount. She twined her fists in the reins. ‘I must warn them. And Pran,’ she added, ‘find me another horse.’ She kneed her m
ount and it kicked away, obeying her though exhausted itself.

  Pran Chole stood for a time watching the Summoner ride off. Tolb Bell’al joined him. Tatters of the Ifayle’s hide shirt flapped in the wind revealing curves of age-stained rib. Patches of long hair blew and whipped. ‘She will not rest,’ Pran breathed.

  ‘Just as we,’ Tolb answered.

  ‘What should be done?’

  ‘We will continue to sustain the horse.’

  ‘We are cruel.’

  ‘The need is cruel.’ Tolb’s voice was no louder than the murmuring wind. ‘Lanas Tog must not reach the mountains.’ He turned to face Pran directly. ‘At any cost. In this we are in complete agreement, yes?’

  Pran’s ravaged visage of dried and withered flesh, bared nostrils and yellowed teeth turned slightly to follow Silverfox’s retreat. ‘Agreed,’ he breathed. Tolb knew the ancient man Pran had once been well enough to feel the clenching dread of that admission. He knew the Summoner was as precious to his friend as his own child. Indeed, were they not all their own children?

  And what would a parent not do to secure the future of their own?

  Indeed, what not?

  CHAPTER VI

  REUTH KEPT A wary eye out when Tulan ordered the Lady’s Luck in to land a party to search for water and provisions. This northern coast had proved singularly unpromising; long stretches of black gravel beaches, hillsides of low brush and bare smooth stone highlands. But provisions and water were low, and so Tulan dropped anchor in a bay and lowered a launch carrying a landing party under Storval.

  That was four days ago. Four days since the party was last seen walking inland to be lost behind the lazy curve of a coastal rise. Short trees – large bushes, really – provided the main greenery of this coast. That and lichens and moss. Far inland, on the clearest of days, a distant range of gleaming mountain tops could just be seen. From his research Reuth alone knew their names: the Salt range, east and west. Or, on some charts: the Blood Mountains. Their destination.

  Why then did he dread the sight of them?

  On the morning of the fifth day – the last day Tulan said he would wait for them – the crewman atop the mast called out a sighting. Reuth ran to the side. Two figures came shambling into sight. Limping, running, helping each other along. They heaved the launch out and struggled over its side as it rose and fell in the surge.