Blood River Down

by Lionel Fenn

  There was a silence that took on tangible weight.

  A tiny cloud of dust wafted on the breeze from the spot where the bolt disappeared beneath the grass.

  Somewhere, behind one of the distant farm buildings, a dog began to bark hysterically.

  The birds took flight and winged with eerie quiet into the sky, the only sound the frantic beating of their wings.

  Then the ground began to writhe in a series of rhythmic undulations that seemed to turn the very earth to a horrid green liquid. Leaves snapped and trembled; boles swayed and snapped like the crack of a palm slapped against another. There was a sensation of intense dry cold, and stability as it relates to the crust of earth lost all definition when the grass began to part and the surface broke open.

  Ivy flung herself at Gideon, landing at his side and hugging the breath from his lungs. Red's eyes darkened, and his great head swung back and forth in his limited caprine attempts to understand why his long silky fur was standing on end. Whale covered his head with a moan. Tag began to whimper.

  And still the ground split, into zigzagging chasms arrowing their way through knolls, rises, humps, and burrows, dropping entire trees into their black mouths, spouting clouds of smoke-like dust into the air, filling the land about with the deafening roar of a locomotive bent on slamming itself into the side of a granite mountain, the thunderous rush of water newly released from a dam, the voice of the gods pounding their fists on celestial tables.

  The ground humped, and Gideon was thrown into the air, landed four feet from Ivy, who gaped in dismay at her empty arms.

  The ground rolled, and Tag was slapped against a tree, crying out once before he dropped unconscious.

  The ground twisted in anguish, and Red raced into the open, not about to be thumped by a falling trunk, adroitly spanning the cracks and canyons, stubbornly digging in his hooves to prevent being toppled.

  There had been only seven or eight moments of more exquisite terror since he had arrived, and Gideon thought of them all with something akin to nostalgia as he watched in victim-like fascination a gap in the ground making its way toward him. He was caught in a thorned bush, and try as he might to thrash his way free, he only managed to entangle himself further. A call for help was useless, he knew; the others were too busy attempting to save their own lives.

  The gap widened.

  An uncovered grey boulder toppled slowly into it.

  A branch fell from the tree nearest him and smashed part of the bush.

  The gap tore at the ground and advanced more rapidly.

  Another branch landed close to his legs and pinned one ankle beneath it with a thicket of smaller limbs and twigs.

  He caught a glimpse of Red hopscotching across the field.

  He saw Ivy crawling toward him, her face lined with scratches, her hair disheveled and clotted with beads of black earth.

  The gap was less than a man's length away, and the ground heaved again, wrenching the bush from its roots and tossing both it and Gideon into the air. He flailed, reached to grasp the air and land on the gap's lip, felt himself slipping, and did not look down into the bottomless dark.

  A hand closed on his wrist; it was Ivy, and she was weeping as she tried to pull him free. The toes of his boots kicked into the instant cliffside, slipping, then giving him tenuous purchase when he threw up his free hand and grabbed her arm. Together, then, they pulled and climbed, exhorted and cursed, until, at last, he rolled free onto his back and stared into her eyes.

  The ground fell still.

  The birds wheeled in a great flock, calling for a weather report so they could return to what was left of their homes.

  The dog shut up.

  Red rolled on the grass to flatten out his hair.

  "Thanks," Gideon said, aware that his voice sounded anything but manly.

  Ivy said nothing. She only pushed at her hair, nodded once, and sat cross-legged beside him.

  "The others?"

  She shrugged; she was getting a little fed up having to keep saving the damned hero.

  Then Tag came into his line of sight, smiling bravely as he pulled a quivering Whale behind him. It didn't take long, however, for the smiles and expressions of gratitude to fade, replaced with the grim knowledge that proximity was not healthy when it came to Wamchu's wives. Nor were they surprised when a monstrous dark bird rose from the center of the city and coasted on the currents over the field. Its single cry of anger was all they needed to know to understand that Thong had seen her failure.

  "We'd best go," Whale said without enthusiasm or spirit.

  "So it is written," Gideon muttered, and accepted Tag's hand to pull him to his feet.

  —|—

  The way was less difficult once they'd left the area of the earthquake's devastation, but it was not easy. Red took the lead, using his claws and horns to tear them a trail when the paths they found vanished. Whale and Tag came next, keeping their eyes on the foliage for instances of ambush, while Gideon and Ivy brought up the rear, checking behind, to either side, and watching as the light shaded to dusk. They stopped to rest frequently, but only for a few minutes at a time; they ate what they could find, none of them daring to try the red berries Gideon and the lorra popped into their mouths; and they each brought out one of the floating blue globes to keep the shadows at bay when they reached a clearing surrounded by the dark green trees.

  There was little talk. Whale had assured them that it wouldn't be long before they'd pass beyond the range of Thong's particular powers, yet even once that had been reached, none could quite keep from an occasional glance over a shoulder, a pause to listen for footsteps or something streaking at them from Rayn. When Tag asked if the wives just couldn't follow them on foot, Whale told him no. Wamchu seldom let them out of his sight while he was away from the Lower Ground; the man would obviously be confident that he could entrap them, or annihilate them, once they'd reached Umbrel.

  A good thing to know, Gideon decided as he chopped at a low-hanging branch with his arm. It would, he thought, give him time to prepare his will and settle his mind to the fact that he wasn't ever going to leave this mad place.

  They forded a stream.

  They climbed a low hill on their bellies and waited nearly an hour before moving on.

  They slept in a series of depressions—footprints, Whale explained, from some of the creatures living in the deepest part of the woods, near their destination. Gideon wanted to know if they were carnivores; he was told that meat was only supplementary to their diet.

  During the second day they began to hear rumblings in the distance, as if something, or a number of somethings, was preparing to explode. Whale led them far to the east before returning to their initial direction. Gideon didn't ask why; he didn't want to know.

  The second night was spent in the trees.

  Midway through the third day, Gideon spat out some berry seeds and wondered aloud at Ivy's ability to hunt the dreaded poisonous footh with only her knife. She explained that she had good aim and knew when to duck. He told her not to use that word and ate another berry.

  Toward the end of the fourth day, he decided Whale was lost, then stopped when they broke into a glen and he saw the other side.

  Behind him, though not precisely pastoral, the trees were tall and lush and the air redolent with the scent of unseen blossoms and flowing sap; ahead, the trees were dark, nearly black, and they were stunted, twisted, a march of vegetation perpetually blasted by unholy lightning. There were no shrubs, no grass covered the ashen earth, and he knew he wasn't imagining it when he saw shadows moving contrary to the wind.

  Whale suggested they stop and wait until they had a full day ahead before pressing on. Tag scowled his impatience, but a one-eyed glare from Ivy had him on the ground, stabbing his dagger repeatedly into the earth. Red grazed, though he never turned his back on the land they faced.

  It was long after dark, then, and Gideon was sitting against a bole, his knees drawn up and his hands tucked under his arms
. It wasn't cold, or even chilly, but he couldn't help thinking that winter had somehow overtaken them when he wasn't looking.

  "Thinking about her, right?" Ivy asked, plopping down beside him and offering a footh steak.

  He took it, blew on it, and began to nibble. "About who?"

  "Glorian."

  He shook his head.

  "I would, if I were you. She's very pretty. She's a pain in the neck half the time, but I suppose she can get away with it because she's so pretty."

  He looked without turning his head. If she was fishing, she was using a harpoon.

  "I mean, this"—she swept a hand toward the glen's other side—"is silly. We can't go in there. We'll get killed."

  "I wouldn't know."

  "Oh yes you would, if you'd been in there before."

  "Have you?"

  "No. I've just heard stories, that's all."

  "Want to tell me about them?"

  She told him with a look he was out of his mind.

  He watched Red nestle down on his other side and stretched out a hand to bury it in the lorra's hair. "Can I ask you about the duck?" he said then. "I don't want to offend you, mind, but I think it's about time someone let me know, don't you?"

  Ivy lay on her stomach, her head by his crossed boots. "I already did."

  "Right. It's a duck. A white duck. Nothing more, nothing less."

  "See?"

  "Ivy, it isn't enough."

  She refused to answer for several minutes, but he had a rein on his impatience and he merely stared at the back of her head until, at last, she sighed and rolled over, her fingers drifting to the buttons of her blouse.

  "And no," he said, "it wouldn't be better if you took off your clothes."

  She sat up, indignant. "I wasn't going to suggest it!"

  "You did once."

  "You had your chance."

  He pointed at her chest. "It looked to me like you were giving me another. If I was wrong, I'm sorry."

  "Well, you weren't," she said. "But it's too late now."

  "For god's sake, too late for what?"

  "To hear about the duck!"

  "You mean I can't hear about the duck unless you're naked?"

  "Naked!" Her voice broke. "Naked?"

  "It's what happens when you take off your clothes."

  "Who said anything about taking off your clothes?"

  "You did."

  "I did not."

  "The hell you didn't."

  She raised a fist and he leaned away, causing Red to grumble in his sleep.

  "I was going to take off my clothes, not yours," she said in a dangerously low voice.

  "That's what I said."

  "No you didn't. You said you were going to take off your clothes."

  His voice lowered now. "Ivy..."

  "And it's too late. Besides, who'd want to see you naked?" And she flopped down again, cradled her head on her arms, and closed her eyes decisively.

  What do you mean, who'd want to see me naked? he thought as he thumped against Red's side and fluffed the hair into a pillow; lots of women want to see me naked. Jesus.

  He tried to curl himself into a ball, stretched out, curled again, rolled over onto his right side, his left side, pushed at Red to move over, draped himself over the lorra's back, neck, and finally haunches.

  Jesus.

  Red lifted his head slowly, reached out a front claw, and shoved Gideon away.

  "Well, damn," he grumbled, and stretched out on the ground, not realizing he was next to Ivy until she shifted to her side, propped her head up on a palm, and grinned at him.

  "Men are all alike," she said.

  "I am not."

  "Sooner or later they come crawling."

  "Ivy, I am here because Red wants at least one hour's sleep tonight."

  "Sure, I understand." She unfastened the blouse's first button.

  "Besides," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, "there's the boy to consider."

  "The boy," she said, undoing the second button, "is less a boy than you think, and knows his place when the adults get down to business."

  "And Whale?"

  "He ain't stupid." The third button popped open.

  "Ivy, listen, you are undeniably an attractive woman, and it is certain that some of us may not survive this madness, and we may even be dead by morning for all I know, and life is too short to waste haggling with convention when that convention demands a certain amount of propriety even in the most desperate of situations, but I really don't think this is either the time or the place to demonstrate our mutual if somewhat jaded attraction for each other."

  She stared at him.

  He stared at the tantalizing expanse of her chest barely visible, but visible enough, in the blue glow hovering slightly behind them, marveling at the faint wink of gold he saw snuggled against her skin.

  "On the other hand, this may be the only opportunity we have to—"

  "Are you married?" she asked suddenly.

  "What? No."

  "Do you have a lady friend?"

  "No."

  "I didn't think so," she said sourly, rebuttoned her blouse, and went back to sleep.

  I've missed something here, he thought glumly.

  But as he pulled out the alabaster penny whistle he found in his pocket and played it tunelessly to himself, he didn't miss the singing that suddenly erupted behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Gideon was instantly on his feet, bat in hand and eyes scanning the surrounding trees through the glow of the bluelight he had neglected to extinguish. Ivy was slower to her weapon, Tag couldn't find his knife, and Red only swung his great head around, growled in a lorra-like fashion, and fell back asleep.

  "Who?" Ivy whispered huskily, wiping the sleep from her eyes with the back of a hand.

  "I don't know. First time I ever heard of a raiding party accompanied by an overture."

  "My goodness, for heaven's sake," Whale said as he came up beside them. "Put those nasty things down. Don't you recognize the intricate five-part harmonies? The tune? The fat man in front?"

  Gideon stared into the forest and finally, slowly, and very cautiously, relaxed.

  "Oh great," Ivy said in disgust.

  It was Vorden Lain and his band of twelve, boisterously entering the glen with much laughter, more singing, and a goodly quantity of edibles, which they immediately set to roasting over an open fire. Though it was late, and though Gideon knew he should sleep in preparation for the morrow, he couldn't help but grin at the smell of nonberry food. Even Red stirred himself with a rippling shake and wandered over, sniffing each offering until he found something he liked.

  And once they were seated around the fire, the forest a black screen around them, Gideon asked what fortuitous stroke of fortune had brought him here.

  "You whistled," Vorden said in surprise. "It was you, was it not?"

  "Well... I suppose," he answered, looking down at the whistle in his hand, then back up to the woodsman.

  "Then here we are!" Lain said expansively. "Ready and willing to remain at your side, my dear fellow, until such time as we have roundly defeated the Wamchus. Not a pleasant task, I grant you, but one does have one's duty, doesn't one."

  Croker Boole, who was busily pouring rations of the woodsman's potent water, inquired innocently where they were heading.

  "Umbrel," Whale said before emptying his cup in a single swallow.

  "On the other hand," Vorden said, "there is rather a lot of forest to be guarded hereabouts. And we being only a baker's dozen, it doesn't pay to stretch one's forces too thin, does it." Before anyone could answer, however, he clapped his hands once and swept off his emerald tricorn. "But let no man say that Vorden Lain is a coward, nor his men. If Umbrel is the goal, then Umbrel it shall be."

  Whale expressed his gratitude with a broad smile and a broader belch. "Every man will be needed, Vorden, believe me. I'm pleased you've consented to go with us."

  "He has, I haven't," Croker B
oole said from the shadows beyond the fire. "No offense, but there's nothing that will make me go in there, day or night." The other lads murmured their assenting rebellion. "I'm really sorry, Vorden, but that's the way it is."

  Lain's meaty hand closed briefly on the gold hilt of his foil, then dropped away slowly. "Have I ever asked you to do something you didn't want?"

  "No," the younger man said.

  "And I shall not ask you now. Eat, drink, and in the morning, if you still feel the same, you and the others are free to go."

  "Do I get the sword?"

  "Over my dead body."

  "Just asking," Croker said with a smile.

  "A good man," Vorden said in an aside to Gideon. "He has the makings of a fine leader someday. I suspect he'll have his own band before long."

  "Do you—" Gideon cut himself off and looked up at the dark sky, puzzled because he thought he had heard a loud buzzing up there.

  "It's not your imagination, my friend," Lain said, gesturing to his men to arm themselves.

  Gideon stood while Whale and the others moved closer to the fire. None seemed to know what the sound was, but they all knew it meant them no good at all.

  And they were right.

  A sudden bellow from Red, and the air was instantly filled with large flying things, which reflected the firelight on their glass-like bodies, which filled Gideon's ears with a horrendous chainsaw whine, which ducked and darted around his blows while they snapped with astonishingly large teeth at everything that moved that wasn't them.

  Lain laughed and sliced several in half, one of the pieces landing on Gideon's arm and, to his amazement, melting almost immediately. Ice! he thought then; these things are made of ice!

  It was a keen observation his sister would have been proud of, and then she would have asked, So what? You gonna use them as ice cubes?