But in the lead, rushing faster than any of the other warriors, was a shape out of deep time, a two-legged reptile rattling its quill-like scales in warning, keening at the enemy at a pitch that sawed into the brain. Running Lizard, they named it, Swift Reaver, Killing Claw. It was the Champion of the River Lords, and its shape was worn by Asman of the Bluegreen Reach.
Lekat felt the Terror reach for the man like a child for a flame, and he burned it. It could not touch the Champion’s soul within him. The darts of their killing rods went wild and then he had leapt – as high as two men and half again as far – and driven his sickle claws into the heart of them, scattering them and shattering the fear so that his warriors could flood in after him.
There was a signal somewhere – one of her fellows flashing colours across one hand to tell her to go; she did not need the prompt. She was already running in, feeling the colours flow across her skin, hunting. The Plague warriors were beset on all sides – from the water, from the land. For a moment they held together, blades out and making bloody work of the River Lord vanguard, but Asman tore into them and abruptly they were fragmenting, bands of them taking to the skies and coming down elsewhere, trying to escape the scaled tide but finding jaws and spears everywhere they went.
Lekat watched, seeing more colour language from her fellows. There. One of the Plague People was rallying his fellows, some chief of theirs gathering his warriors to him. She ducked into the water and eeled her way past the rolling bodies of crocodile tearing off flesh from their prizes. Suicide at any other time, but for once the beasts were on her side.
The Plague warriors were trying to defend a hut. Beneath the water she saw Shellbacks already cutting at the ties that held the wood together. Chumatla would give the enemy no stronghold to regroup in, and Lekat would give them no leaders to obey. She slipped from the water with barely a ripple, feeling the air around her dance with the killing darts of the enemy. They did not see her, though. Her skin crept with the colours of the earth and the water, the wood and the moss. Their leader was bellowing out: yaps and hacking sounds that must be commands, and his followers aimed their rods and killed crocodiles and toads that thronged in the water, but they did not see Lekat.
She swayed as she moved, and she moved with them, each step closer made a part of their own pattern. Her knife was cupped in her hand, blade along the line of her arm so she could hide it.
She saw their leader point, mouth open for another order. One moment her arm was folded close to her, pulled tight; then she had lashed out to full extension, the movement swift with the ease of long practice. The point of her knife jutted out of his nose; the hilt she left sticking down from under his jaw. She caught his own metal blade as he dropped it and then she was gone, before the enemy even knew she had cut off their head.
Asman felt the instant when the Plague warriors broke. One moment he was leaping and darting amongst their gleaming blades, cut already and knowing that at any minute they might pin him down and make an end to him. Then they were flying, or trying to. Some obviously lacked wings or were too hurt to flee, and those died swiftly, dragged into the water by crocodiles and torn apart, run through with spears or hacked down by the heavy blades of maccans. Asman himself pulled back from the fighting, from warrior to leader as he Stepped. Some Plague warriors were trying to get away overhead – a few would doubtless make it, but there were a lot of arrows up there and the Wryneck were merciless. Others were trying to group together towards the north end of Chumatla, plainly hoping to force a path back to where they’d come from. For a second Asman thought his attack’s final set of horns was not in place, but then the north edge of the lake was thronging with Plainsfolk and Horse archers, all the displaced and the broken who had fled to Tsokawan’s shadow. He had not trusted them to be his front line, not beaten and grieving as they were, but now the Plague People were in retreat they would make a fine chasing force to kill as many of the runners as they could. After all, there were few who could outpace one of the Horse.
The beasts their foes had brought with them, the lumbering insects, had not fought. He had dreamt up strategies for dealing with their hard shells and their shearing mouthparts, but the creatures had just milled or blundered into the water and drowned; another element of the Plague People legend that was not as fearsome as the stories had led him to believe. They were just mute animals in the end.
The band of enemy that had split off along the edge of the lake was done for by now, as well. The Foot Cutters had attacked them from the water, fighting viciously with hatchet and shield, while the few warriors the Rain Watchers could muster had come from the trees, backed by more River Lords. Asman could see the victors dancing at the water’s edge now, the Plague People scattered or dead. The Terror, which was the enemy’s greatest weapon, could be broken, or at least held back long enough to break the enemy, and who feared a foe that was running away?
He took a deep breath, seeing the last of the fighting coming to a close, the last arrow-struck body dropping from the air to fall amidst the thrashing tails and jaws. They had beaten the Plague People.
We have beaten these Plague People. This force was only a fraction of the creatures squatting at Where the Fords Meet and their other strongholds in the Plains, though he hoped it was a significant fraction. And we outnumbered them many to one, and I do not know how many of us died to bring them down.
But for now he must grin for his people, lead them in cheering. The enemy dead were one thing, but knowledge that the enemy could be driven back was surely the greater victory, a future shield against the Terror that might save hundreds of lives.
And Tecuman would be happy with him. And word would race upriver to his mate, Tecumet, and perhaps news of this would even go as far as the Dragon Isles where it would reach other ears. Asman smiled fondly, and let his followers take it as joy in their triumph.
He set watchers to keep an eye out for more of the enemy and began organizing his army for the return march to Tsokawan.
The scouts were not long in reporting. Messengers had scarcely been dispatched upriver before Wryneck were descending on the fortress. Something was coming: something like a bulbous fortress suspended in the air. Its course, cutting across all wind and weather, was directly for Tsokawan itself.
15
At night, they could see the lights of the Plague People. Their unwavering white lamps, like a hundred little moons, sent a cold, pale light out across the surrounding Plainsland and made their white walls gleam.
Shyri had caught a moment’s glimpse of the hollow creature Hesprec had brought back from the south at the River camp. She had heard the old Snake legends too, far more than most of her people. Easy enough, then, to see that Hesprec’s creature was distant kin to those occupying the Tooth Marker village. Easy enough, looking at those web-strung walls, to know that ‘Pale Shadow’ did not refer to their pallid skin.
And yet here were the Hyena, trotting across the midnight grasslands with their shadows thrown long by that dead still light.
And Shyri was at the back, behind even the men. While Effey’s word was on her, she was less than a slave. Any curse they had, it was for her. Any frustration became a cuff or a kick, a snap or a snarl directed at her. And if Effey herself had some spleen to vent, well . . .
But it was Hyena’s way. There was always someone at the end of the boot when a kicking came around. Shyri had put that boot in, had bloodied her teeth on some wretched male often enough. She had never thought it would be her.
Beyond the Tooth Marker village was another Boar camp that the Plague People had not spread to yet, despite it being within sight of their beacons. It was a cluster of huts that probably the Boar herdsmen had used when grazing their cattle. Effey had the pack circle it, sniffing out any ambushes, but the Plague People seemed oddly complacent. Rivermen would have a sentry or two out here, at least, to deny their enemies haven. Effey remained suspicious. Eventually she Stepped, crouched in the long grass, and nodded to Shyri, who knew
it was no more than her due.
She crept amongst the huts on soft feet, nosing about the open doors and ready to flee at a moment’s notice. First impressions continued to hold, though: the Plague People’s shadow had not fallen on this place.
For a moment Shyri found herself considering how that might be used against them. A force could muster here, under cover of the huts, and be at those glowing walls before an attack was even suspected. She pictured Asman leaping into their midst with his keening warcry, Venat’s long dragon shape launching at them from the grass.
Then she stopped, and unthought all those thoughts, unsaw the inner images, because that was not the Hyena’s way, and why was she doing these menial tasks if not because she had forgotten what she was?
She had a further sniff around because, despite the absence of the enemy, her nose was telling her all was not right. Perhaps it was just the cattle that had trampled about the place after their masters had gone, and still stomped between the huts like noisy white ghosts . . . but no, there was more in the air: blood and a touch of smoke.
She let her nose guide her: carrion always spoke loud to the Hyena. Past the edge of the huts there was a dead cow, and that was no unusual thing when the herdsman had been driven away. Probably a lion kill, or . . .
Close enough to see the mound of the body, she froze. Not a lion. Something like a grey knot the size of a man was clasped to the dead animal’s body. It smelled like bitter ashes. For a long while her eyes, good as they were in the moonlight, could not make sense of it.
But then she knew. Their beasts. It was a spider larger than she was, escaped from its spinning duties. Or did the Plague People let them out to hunt, maybe? Were they nearby? Just like the cattle, there was no trace of a master, just this crouching grey monster.
Abruptly the pack were around her, Effey’s patience having run out. Shyri felt their teeth nip at her flanks and legs, their heckling cries ringing in her ears. The thing on the dead cow shifted its many legs, and they fell silent.
Shyri was forgotten. Effey advanced a few paces, growling, her hackles up. The spider regarded them all glassily, enough eyes to go round. When she was close enough it lifted its front legs high, reaching over her, showing fangs like curved yellow daggers.
Shyri stepped, becoming human crouched low, her spear held close to the ground. With a few terse words Effey had two of the pack circling left, two right, surrounding the thing.
‘Now you, runt,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth, meaning Shyri.
Shyri looked at the creature’s fangs and didn’t much like the idea, but there were three of the pack at her back, and Effey right next to her. She took out her knife and then Stepped, touching her teeth together and feeling the metal of them meet.
The spider retreated crabwise a few paces. She wondered if it thought. Was it lost? Or was it glad to be free of its hollow masters? Or perhaps it just killed and ate and rutted and had no thoughts at all.
It didn’t want to give up the carcass of the cow, that was certain. The monster shifted and shuffled, trying to keep them all within its broad view. Shyri moved every time its attention seemed to wander left or right. She felt she must be within the span of its limbs now, certainly within reach if it went for her.
Even as she had the thought, it charged her. She had a brief sense of furious motion, all those legs flurrying, and she fell backwards, human again and knife before her. She felt something hard scrape against the bronze – one of the monster’s fangs. The scream she heard was her own.
But then the rest of the pack had taken the opening she’d made and were snapping and stabbing at the thing from either side, and surely that was the end of it. Except the spider made a shrill hissing sound and abruptly the air was filled with panicked yelps and whines from hyenas, the shouts of women.
The spider, still very much alive, arched over her, trying to bring its fangs to bear, surely venomous as any Serpent priest. Shyri held it off with one hand, stabbing at its leathery hide with her knife until yellow ichor jetted from it, and still its legs clasped about her, trapping her in a living cage.
Something lanced from its hairy abdomen, driving into the earth between her legs, and she screamed again, thinking it had a stinger as well. It was Effey’s barbed spearhead, though, having ploughed through the rest of the monster. When she yanked it free with a yell of effort, the innards of the monster came with it, and Shyri was drenched with its fluids, stained yellow and blue. She scrabbled out from beneath the stiff corpse and dropped to the ground, breathing heavily. Let that be enough, she begged Hyena. I am prostrate before you. Let it be enough. I don’t want to be the runt any more.
But Effey didn’t look as though she was in the mood for making friends. Half the pack had their waterskins out, dousing their faces, their swollen red eyes and gasping mouths. The spider had filled the air with a stinging shower of dust or hair from its back when they leapt at it. Only Shyri’s position beneath its fangs had spared her.
‘Effey, here,’ one of the less affected warriors said, drawing her leader’s attention to the dead cow. She had found something nestling between the beast’s forelegs, a lumpy ball of white like a goitre.
For a moment they all stared at it blankly, but then it moved, just a little, as though many tiny things within it all shivered at once.
‘Eggs,’ breathed Shyri, and the pack fell back with revulsion.
‘Make a fire,’ Effey said. ‘And keep watch.’
They lit the flames within one of the huts, and then it fell to Shyri to carry a torch to the beast’s corpse and burn the egg sac. The huts stood between her and the Plague People, but she was still keenly aware of them: they could fly, after all. Who knew where their eyes were? But the eggs popped and sizzled fiercely, and no hollow man swooped down to punish her for it.
So how many of their beasts are loose? she wondered grimly. How many eggs to hatch? A spider that could bring down a cow could bring down most other prey, she’d guess. And what predators were there that would contest with such as that?
She Stepped and loped back to the huts, only to find that Effey had unearthed a little unexpected treasure.
Not all the Tooth Markers had fled when the Plague devoured their village. Certainly there were plenty of pigs running about that might once have had human names and faces, but these little piglets had kept their home and their shape, hiding out under the very gaze of the enemy.
There were four of them: an old man, a worn-looking woman, a boy of maybe twelve and a child of five, gender uncertain. They had been hiding in a store beneath one of the huts. Shyri guessed she had smelled a trace of them, but the dead cow and its monstrous rider had dragged away her attention. Now, the pack had them.
What might have happened had Effey’s band all been well fed and content was anyone’s guess. Perhaps they would have been lenient; perhaps things would have played out just the same. Half of them were still stinging from their fight with the spider, though. They would have had plenty of curses and kicks for Shyri, but fate had served them different prey.
When Shyri arrived, they had the Boar family out in the open, ripped clothes and bruises showing that the eviction had been none too gentle. The pack ringed them, some human and some hyenas, their voices rising together in mockery. The Boar were terrified, the adults trying to shield the children.
It was hardly a novel scene to Shyri. Her own tribe had treated captives just the same at times. Effey was different, though. For her, this cruelty was the breath of the Hyena. Shyri could see it in her face. Of course Shyri knew the stories about how Hyena was kept out of the counsels of the other gods, forced to the margins and slighted at every turn; about how Hyena would pick the bones of the others at the end of the world, the sole surviving deity of the sole surviving tribe. Everyone told those stories, but then they got down to building homes and raising crops, herding beasts and raiding the neighbours. And in a bad year, or if the Lion had raided you harder than you raided them, you told those storie
s and took refuge in the thought that one day it would all be carrion and bones for you, rather than the Lion’s leavings. But they were just stories, where nobody asked what people would eat when the last of the carrion was gone.
Nobody lived their lives in joyous anticipation of the end of the world. Except now she had met Effey. Effey had heard of the Plague People and her thought had not been, We must fight them. It had been, Now is our time. Shyri watched her jab at the Boar with her spear, not to kill but to make them dance and beg. She was grinning hugely, Hyena seeing the joke of the world. Effey cared nothing for any future, not her own, not the world’s. She cared only that these were the end times and they were hers to enjoy.
It was a strangely religious moment for Shyri, that here was someone who had swallowed down those stories night after night until she had become closer to the Hyena than any priest. She felt she should throw herself before Effey’s feet and worship the woman. She should grovel with thanks at being allowed to be Effey’s runt. She should kiss the foot that kicked her.
Except she realized then that gods are all very well in stories, or off in that far country where priests and dreamers went. Gods standing before you stabbing at a five-year-old child with a spear were less palatable.
Surely the Plague People can hear this? For the whole pack were cackling and yammering, following Effey’s gleeful lead, and the Boar woman was screaming at them, breaking down past her ability to bear. There was blood on all of them from a dozen shallow cuts.
Then the boy Stepped into the scrawniest boar Shyri had ever seen and tried to charge Effey. She tripped the animal effortlessly with her spear-half and gashed its leg with the tip so that the animal was abruptly human again, a child suddenly reminded he was not yet a man. As the boy howled, Effey’s eyes narrowed.
‘You have forgotten what you are, pigs,’ she told them. ‘And we have grown lazy eating dead meat. It’s time for a hunt.’
The Boar woman cried out, and Effey adopted a pose of puzzlement. ‘Would you not prefer a chance? If you run well enough, perhaps you will outpace this band of fat and idle hunters.’
The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall Book 3) Page 16
