The Standing Dead (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  ‘We must go now,’ roared Fern as he vaulted into Ravan’s saddle-chair. Carnelian ran over to where Krow was still holding Blur. He climbed into her chair and hooked his legs over the crossbeam.

  Krow clambered in on top of him. ‘Make her rise.’

  Carnelian pressed his feet into her back and Blur swayed them into the air.

  ‘Follow us,’ Fern cried. Over Krow’s head, Carnelian saw Ravan’s aquar lurch into a run, then Blur was loping after her.

  INTIMATIONS

  What choice has a river in running down to the sea?

  (from the ‘Ilkaya’, part of the holy scriptures of the Chosen)

  EASTWARDS, BENEATH A GLOWERING SKY, CARNELIAN COULD SEE nothing moving but Ranegale and the other raiders until he noticed, obscured by distant rainfall, a mass of riders scudding towards them.

  Fern and Ravan’s aquar fell back to ride alongside Blur. Fern squinted round his brother. ‘You lead the undirected aquar deep in among the others, we’ll stay behind to make sure none stray.’

  Krow jerked a nod and Carnelian rocked his feet to make Blur pick up pace. Krow shifted his weight as he looked behind them.

  ‘They’re following.’

  Soon Blur was moving up among the other raiders whose aquar were maintaining a steady pace.

  ‘We must go deeper in,’ said Krow.

  Carnelian urged Blur forward until they had almost caught up with Ranegale and Loskai. They scowled when they saw Carnelian, but it was when they saw the dead tied into their chairs that their eyes widened with disbelief. Ranegale began haranguing Krow, speaking too fast for Carnelian to follow. He squinted into the faces of the riders around him to see if he could read in them what was being said. Brittle with fear, the youths were gazing past Ranegale oblivious to the quarrel. Carnelian saw that the auxiliaries were still pouring towards them, but it was something beyond that was the focus of the youths’ gaze. A shape was interrupting the regular pattern of kraal towers. Carnelian turned to stone as he realized he was seeing a dragon.

  Ranegale fell silent as he became aware of the fear stiffening every face. More dragon silhouettes were appearing among the kraal towers, dwarfing them. Squadrons of riders welled over the ground before them. The auxiliaries they had seen before were beginning to veer away, northwards. The gap between them and the scouring line was occupied by a single dragon.

  ‘His pipes are lit,’ cried Cloud in Vulgate and Carnelian looked for and found, rising from the dragon, a tiny scratch of smoke that reminded him of plague sign.

  ‘We can swing round to the left of him,’ said Ranegale, pointing his mutilated hand north-east. ‘You see where the auxiliaries have left a gap?’

  ‘He must see us,’ said Cloud, his voice tight.

  ‘Let’s make a dash for it,’ cried Loskai.

  ‘No,’ roared Ranegale, ‘we mustn’t commit our aquar until we’re sure the gap is real.’

  Tension grew as more and more of the scouring line came into sight. The dragon from which smoke was rising was well ahead of the others. Behind it, the line stretched north and south as far as Carnelian could see. He kept glancing off to his left, expecting to see the auxiliaries there charging towards them.

  ‘That lot won’t catch us,’ muttered Krow, as if he were trying to convince himself. Carnelian could see that, to get that far in front of the line, the auxiliaries must have been running their aquar for some time.

  Cloud was craning over the back of his saddle-chair speaking to the youths. The tone of his voice was reassuring but his eyes were starting from his head.

  ‘Let’s go now,’ shrilled Loskai.

  Carnelian tried to ignore the trembling in Krow’s body as he watched the squadrons of aquar positioned between the dragons becoming more distinct.

  ‘Soon it’ll be too late,’ pleaded Loskai.

  Ranegale gave out a wailing cry and the raiders sent their aquar into a run. Carnelian saw Osidian’s creature slipping after them and the dead jiggling in their chairs.

  Krow’s voice exploded. ‘Come on. Come on!’

  Through his toes Carnelian could feel Blur’s heart racing. He rocked his feet and she leapt forward. The clamp of his knees over the crossbeam kept his legs safe from Blur’s thighs as they pistoned higher and higher with her lengthening strides. Krow pushed back into him as if he feared he might be thrown on to the ground. Carnelian blinked away the tears the wind put in his eyes. They were heading straight for the smoking dragon. He could make no sense of its size except that it rose mountainous above the riders running before it. Its four curving horns seemed even larger than his uncle Crail had claimed, so too the pyramid tower upon its back from which smoke was rising in two threads.

  Krow gave a start. Cries broke from the raider youths. Carnelian saw a mass of riders had appeared from nowhere to block their path.

  ‘A trap!’ The word blown past him in the wind.

  Overcome by panic, Carnelian let his feet leave Blur’s back. As her running faltered, he quickly pressed them back. Ranegale was wheeling them southwards. Carnelian felt Blur’s desire to follow and let her go by putting pressure on his right foot.

  ‘High Father,’ moaned Krow.

  Carnelian shared his dismay as more squadrons of auxiliaries sprang into view. The dragon was looming in the corner of his eye. Blur straightened up and increased speed.

  Krow groaned: ‘Where’s he taking us?’

  Ranegale was not fleeing back the way they had come but, instead, running them along the front of the dragon line from whose towers more smoke was beginning to rise.

  ‘How far can they breathe their fire?’ Carnelian cried.

  Unable to take his eyes off the advancing monsters, Krow answered him with a vague shaking of his head, over which Carnelian saw the watch-tower Ranegale was heading for. Squinting, Carnelian could make out the road into which it was embedded. The Ringwall, a fortification that enclosed the Guarded Land. Ranegale must be trying to take them through one of its gates. Carnelian prayed the barbarian knew what he was doing.

  Following Krow, Carnelian craned round and saw auxiliaries racing to hit them in the flank. Even though he could already feel the first muscle tremors of Blur’s fatigue, he rocked his feet to try and coax more speed. Krow sang encouragements, but still they were slowing and the watch-tower seemed no nearer. They clung to each other, willing the tower closer, despairing that they would make it in time. A glance showed the auxiliaries resolving into single riders. Their swelling battle-cries seemed separate from their gaping mouths. It became an agony anticipating their crashing impact.

  Krow pushed back into Carnelian, who, gazing up, saw watch-tower ribs stark against the grey sky. Relief turned to despair. These towers rarely slept. For its lookouts suspended high on the ribs in their deadman’s chairs, to sleep was to lose hold; losing hold, the mechanisms would drop them to their deaths. The tower would have had plenty of time to bar the gate it guarded in the wall.

  Then Blur was striding up the ramp on to the road. Carnelian saw the wall and tower caught in a net of scaffolding awrithe with sartlar. A few strides more carried them across the width of the road. Astoundingly the gate beside the tower was open. Through its gape red mud stretched off as far as he could see. Then they were through and, fighting fatigue, Blur sped them away from the Ringwall and their pursuers.

  ‘Great Father above! Why have you brought us here?’ Leaning past Ravan, Fern was glaring at Ranegale.

  ‘You’ve the gall to challenge me,’ bellowed Ranegale. He pointed at the corpses in the saddle-chairs. ‘Did you learn nothing from the last time?’

  The raiders were staring at the corpse riders. Cloud grimaced as he looked from them to Fern.

  ‘You really oughtn’t to have done it again. And as for you …’ Cloud looked straight at Krow and Carnelian felt the youth flinch then attempt a shrug.

  Ravan sat up, his face fierce. ‘We couldn’t just leave them there.’

  Ranegale turned on him. ‘Why are you and your
kin so determined to bring a curse down on us? Wasn’t the death of your father warning enough?’

  ‘Don’t you dare say that,’ bellowed Fern, and his aquar lurched forward carrying the brothers towards Ranegale, whose beast raised its plumes in alarm. Ranegale brought it under control with his feet and fixed Fern with his single eye.

  ‘I can understand the boy might be too stupid to know better, but you?’ he said. ‘And why did you bring the Standing Dead?’ He shook his shrouded head. ‘If the auxiliaries didn’t see them, the tower lookouts certainly did. What do you imagine will happen now?’

  Cloud forced his aquar between Fern and Ranegale. ‘We’re alive and free, that’s a lot more than any of us had a right to expect.’

  ‘They’ll hunt us down,’ cried Ranegale.

  ‘You know as well as I do that when the Ringwall gates are open, the laws of the Standing Dead forbid the legions to pass through.’

  ‘Perhaps that would be so,’ growled Ranegale, ‘if we didn’t have two of them here captive.’

  Fern glanced at Carnelian. ‘We had to bring them. They know we are Ochre.’

  Loskai and Cloud gaped at him in horror.

  ‘Which one of you told them?’ Ranegale said in a dangerous voice.

  Fern splayed his four-fingered hand and touched the palm. ‘That one,’ he indicated Carnelian with a nod of his head, ‘saw it in my father’s recruitment tattoo.’

  Carnelian watched as the men looked at their hands as if for the first time. Ranegale squeezed his into a fist.

  ‘Even if that’s true, it’s all the more reason why we should kill them now.’

  Carnelian withstood the menace of Loskai’s stare. Even Cloud was nodding as he looked at him. Carnelian considered whether he would be able to eject Krow without hurting him. He felt bitter that his decision had so quickly brought him and Osidian death. He had abandoned his father for nothing.

  Fern moved his aquar to shield Carnelian. ‘I’ll not let you harm them.’

  ‘You’ll not let us?’ cried Ranegale, widening his shoulders.

  Carnelian saw Loskai’s hand straying to the spear hitched to his saddle-chair.

  ‘Look, we can argue this out later,’ cried Cloud. ‘For now what’s done is done and arguing here in sight of the Ringwall is just asking for trouble. What we must decide now is where we go from here.’

  Ranegale allowed his head to fall. He pointed eastwards. ‘Out of sight of the Ringwall, we’ll ride all the way to Makar.’

  ‘How will we get into the city?’ demanded Ravan.

  Ranegale gave the youth a withering look but, when Ravan with-stood it, he answered him: ‘Since we’re postponing decisions, we might as well leave that for later too.’

  Ranegale raked them with a baleful eye and then, turning his aquar, he walked her off across the red mud.

  They rode away from the Ringwall down muddy gullies. When they had lost sight of the wall, they turned east only to find their route slashed across by more gullies. Over and over again the aquar were forced to clamber down, then scrabble out the other side. Carrying two riders, Blur often needed more than one attempt. Sometimes they would climb on to a bony escarpment scored into slabs as if by some god’s knife. There, the aquar had to pick their way carefully for fear of breaking their legs. To add to the misery, the sky opened and released a deluge. Soon the gullies were filling with water the colour of blood. One pool came up almost to the saddle-chairs. Fearing some might be even deeper, Ranegale began to go around them.

  Every diversion took them further south. The gullies deepened, the ridges between them slicing up as sharp as shoulder blades. Soon they were being forced to follow the streams for long periods before they would find a gap through which to climb over into the next gully. When Blur was perched on one of these, Carnelian glimpsed the land stretching away to the north as far as he could see, all bony runnels thinly skinned with soil.

  They sank into the land, her rock rising around them in leprous walls. Among the towers and pinnacles, Carnelian could almost believe he had returned to the Valley of the Gate that opened into Osrakum except here the pillars were pale and faceless. The gully they were following was swollen by others into a valley along one edge of which they filed, trying to avoid its torrent.

  Suddenly, with a foaming roar, this tumbled in cascades into a ravine which, far below, framed in its narrow jaws a misty infinite world roofed by a stormy sky.

  Ranegale held up the reckoning cord dripping in the rain. All could see it now only had two knots.

  ‘If we return,’ he said, indicating the way they had come, ‘we’re not likely to find a way to Makar. At least, not in the two days we have before our people give up waiting for us.’

  In their saddle-chairs, the raiders sagged as miserably as did the corpses.

  ‘So what do we do?’ asked Loskai.

  The cloth clinging to Ranegale’s face was so drenched Carnelian saw with horrid fascination that the barbarian had a hole where he should have had a nose.

  ‘We camp here,’ said Cloud.

  Storm clouds were conspiring with the approaching night to blacken the sky. Everyone peered through the gloom at the bare rocky valley.

  ‘This’ll have to do,’ said Cloud.

  There were a few unhappy nods. One of the youths found some shelter under a shelf of rock that projected out from the valley wall. Carnelian urged Blur to follow the other aquar towards it. It was a relief when he and Krow were able to climb free of her saddle-chair. They were stretching their limbs when Cloud approached. He stood over Krow.

  ‘Why did you involve yourself in sacrilege?’

  Hanging his head, the youth indicated Carnelian. ‘My father, this one claimed he had read the name of our kin tribe in Father Stormrane’s hand.’

  Cloud regarded Carnelian for a while before offering him his hand. Carnelian bent over the palm. He used the method that had worked before to decipher the recruitment tattoos. Having teased out the appropriate sounds, he converted them in his head into the barbarian tongue.

  ‘Twostone,’ he said.

  Cloud went pale. He placed his hand on Krow’s head. ‘You were right to help him.’

  ‘My father,’ the youth said with a nod and managed to slip Carnelian a smile of thanks as the Elder led him away.

  Carnelian saw Fern and Ravan had untied the corpses and went to help lift them out of their saddle-chairs. Struggling with the noisome burdens, they laid them against the rock at some distance from the camp.

  As Fern stood over his father’s body, Carnelian could not tell if there were tears mixing with the rain running down his face. He took hold of Fern’s shoulder.

  ‘You have my gratitude for defending us back there.’

  Fern looked into Carnelian’s eyes. ‘You know our speech, don’t you?’ he said using the barbarian tongue.

  Carnelian’s first instinct was to pretend not to understand, but he saw no threat in Fern’s eyes. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘At the kraal, you answered Ranegale when he threatened you in our tongue,’ said Fern, shifting to Vulgate.

  Carnelian thought back, then nodded, remembering it.

  ‘Is this something all Masters can do?’

  ‘No.’ Carnelian saw Fern was waiting for more. ‘Many in my household were chosen from the flesh tithe your people give … are forced to send to the Mountain.’

  Fern frowned. ‘How many Plainsman tongues do you know?’

  ‘Plainsman?’ said Carnelian, echoing the unfamiliar word.

  Fern touched his chest then indicated the other raiders. ‘It is what we all are.’ He spread his hands as if smoothing a cloth over a table. ‘Our tribes cover the Earthsky. How many of our tongues do you know?’

  Carnelian shrugged. ‘The one you speak. What others are there?’

  Fern regarded him with frowning disbelief. ‘Our tongue is peculiar to our tribe.’

  ‘Surely the languages spoken by other tribes will be similar to your own.’

/>   Fern frowned. ‘We have such difficulty understanding one another we often resort to the Vulgate which the veterans bring back with them from the legions.’

  Carnelian stared at him. Could Ebeny have come from the Ochre tribe?

  ‘It’s a strange coincidence,’ he said.

  ‘Very strange,’ said Fern, clearly troubled.

  Carnelian ran his hand down the blanket covering his leg. It was hard to believe it was not Ebeny’s work.

  ‘That is a woman’s weave,’ said Fern.

  Carnelian looked up. ‘The colour?’

  Fern nodded. ‘Women wear the earth’s hues: men, the colour of the angry sky.’

  ‘Still, I will wear it. It reminds me of my … Plainsman mother.’

  ‘Why have you been pretending not to understand our tongue?’

  ‘It was a weapon I might have need of.’

  They stood for some moments regarding each other.

  It was Carnelian who spoke first. ‘Will you tell the others?’

  Fern chewed his lip. ‘I don’t know yet.’

  Carnelian could see he would just have to trust him. ‘If you’ll help me, we can move my brother away from the others. I’ll stay with him and not bother you.’

  Fern shook his head. ‘I want you to sit with us. The decisions we’ll be making will concern you.’ He must have sensed Carnelian’s reluctance. ‘If Cloud and Ranegale decide you are to die, I’ll stand with you against them.’

  Carnelian stared in disbelief, but the fierce determination in the Plainsman’s face did not invite discussion and so he nodded his assent.

  They carried Osidian between them. Carnelian was certain he had been much heavier. Ranegale and Loskai made angry protests as Fern urged the youths away from the rock to allow Osidian to be laid out in what shelter the overhang provided. Ignoring the stares, Carnelian took a sodden blanket, crouched and smoothed it over him. He looked for life in the discoloured face but it might as well have been wax. Sick at heart, he rose and turned to face the Plainsmen. Though only the men looked directly at him, he could feel the general resentment. Carnelian could not imagine what had possessed him. Even if Osidian were to live, would he thank him for having brought them into the wilderness among barbarians?