Lamarchos Read online

  She looked out over the lake, frowning at the steeply rising rolls of earth. Miks, I hope you’re out there. Somewhere, somewhere. Ahai, Madar. I wish I was there with you.

  About an hour later the horde came staggering out of the city, ignoring the dead, ignoring the silent wounded, still locked in that unnatural stillness where men suffered and died without a sound. Having killed and burned in that same eery silence.

  She smelled burning. Rolls of smoke came puffing over the walls followed by leaping red and yellow tongues of flame. The crimson minaret tottered uncertainly, then toppled suddenly to crash on the patterned pavement.

  The city burned.

  Aleytys squeezed the last water out of the skin and splashed it over her face. Holding Sharl pressed against her shoulder she hooked the strap of the skin over her arm. Then she slid cautiously down from the caravan and picked her way through the dead-eyed, reeling death-drunken beings of the horde. A feebly waving hand fumbled at her. She swallowed a scream and winced violently away, repelled by the thought of those bloody dehumanized creatures touching her.

  At the lake she filled the skin and left it lying on the springy grass at waterside while she waded out into the lake, slowly, enjoying the feel of the clean white sand under her feet, the lapping of the brilliant, clear water against her legs. She sat down. With her free hand she splashed water over her face, her shoulders, over Sharl.

  He laughed and wriggled in her hold, reaching out to pat the water, driving his hands into the mysterious coolness, struggling to get hold of it, complaining loudly as it ran away from his small hands. Aleytys used a corner of her batik to gently rub the water over him while he splashed about on her knees, slippery as a fish.

  But the sun was low in the west and the air was beginning to cool. She stood reluctantly and waded back to the shore, slipped the waterskin’s strap over her shoulder and trudged back through the sprawling horde, walking with exaggerated care to avoid touching any of them. She glanced briefly at the guards on the wagon, tossed her damp hair back with a scornful twitch of her head, and walked briskly around the caravan and up the stairs.

  Still isolated within the gentle idyll she had built to separate herself from the violence and insanity of the horde, she laid Sharl on the cot and rubbed him dry with a soft rag. Then she put a clean diaper on him and settled him back among the soft nest of blankets, pulling one of them over him, tucking it around him to keep him warm.

  While she was busily washing the crumpled stinking diapers Maissa had shoved into a drawer, Maissa came back from the city. Aleytys felt the shifting of the floor and went to the front of the caravan to see what was happening.

  Maissa sat stolidly on the driver’s bench, leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands hanging limply between her shins. Arms and legs were thickly crusted with newly dried blood. Large splatters marked her face and breasts. As if she had thrust her face into blood. As if she had walked through blood. Had crawled through blood.

  “I suppose I don’t have to tell you to stay out there.” Aleytys fetched out the bucket and some rags and began washing the blood off Maissa. She undid the pin and stripped the stiff batik off, dropping it over the side with a grimace of distaste.

  Maissa sat like a rubber doll, letting herself be prodded and pulled without the slightest spark of interest, even after Aleytys pinned a clean batik around her.

  Aleytys sloshed the rag in the bucket turning the water into a thick red sauce. She wrung the rag out and hung it over the seat then threw the bloody water in a crimson arc across the trampled grass, splattering a number of dull-faced bodies. She refilled the pail and dunked the rag back in. The water turned pale pink and the rag lost its last tinge of red. She wrung it out again and hung it back over the seat to dry. Picking up the bucket she looked down at the water, looked at Maissa, then smiled grimly. “Worth a try …” She swung the bucket and arced the water into Maissa’s face. There was not a single flicker of reaction. Aleytys sighed.

  Drumbeats throbbed in the leaden silence. Maissa stood up.

  Aleytys started to speak, then shook her head. No use. The jumble of noise was the same as before but quickly beat itself into the monotonous double beat. The horde gathered, stood packed shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, chanting the endless unvarying ah … oh.…

  The master came out of the tent, sat on the mound of leather clutching his head with the last survivor of the candidates seated between his massive knotted knees, staring out bright-eyed at the swaying crowd, his thin, handsome face glittering with an enormous pride.

  The shaman darted from the tent prodding a shambling dull-eyed lakelander ahead of him. Stumbling and swaying, the captive approached the master and fell to his knees under the pummelling hands of the hysterically exultant shaman. He buried his fist in the captive’s hair and jerked his head back. The boy jumped up, knife in one hand, bowl in the other.

  Hastily Aleytys wrenched her eyes away and stared down at the ground shuddering at the suddenly silenced shriek that cut through the rumbling tamm-tumm of the drums. When she looked up, the boy was lowering the bowl, wiping the red from his laughing mouth with the back of a slim strong hand.

  The chanting and the drums went on and on, until Aleytys thought she would go screaming out of her mind. Then a thin wail came from the caravan.

  “Sharl!” She plunged into the caravan. He was kicking his feet, waving his arms about, whimpering fretfully. She watched a minute before touching him, then smiled with weak relief as she saw he was not under the spell of the drums. She touched his diaper and laughed aloud. Wet. And he was mad about the discomfort.

  When she had changed him, he murmured drowsily and then went back to sleep with a concentrated intensity that please her immensely. She flipped his curls about with a forefinger. “My son.…”

  She pushed the curtains aside and stood leaning against the seat back, her body aching for sleep. But she was determined to last the night if necessary to find out what happened when the chant ended. If it ever did. After an hour she stretched stiffened limbs and moved around to sit beside Maissa.

  The drums stopped. Aleytys glanced at the moon. Only two hours. But it felt like years. She stretched and yawned.

  Maissa tilted farther and farther forward until she reached a point of instability and began to topple off the seat. Aleytys jumped over and caught at her then manhandled her back on the seat. She was completely limp, mouth hanging slightly open, eyes closed, a ragged doll with the sawdust running out. Aleytys scowled at her, startled by this new manifestation.

  Maissa was drowned deep in sleep. As if drugged. “What next,” Aleytys muttered. She looked around. On the battered grassy field, silvered by the moon, the creatures of the horde lay tossed around, lying where they fell in a tangle of limbs and bodies. She turned towards the master’s wagon. The silver-helmeted guards were back, moving about in front of the tent, alert and dangerous. “Damn,” she growled. “We’re stuck here in the middle of the horde.”

  Shaking her head in disgust, she hauled Maissa off the seat and pulled her into the caravan, stretching her out on her bunk. Then she stepped out the back and looked around. All over the ground lying one on top of the other, the horde slept, a few of them twisted into painful contortion against the wheels of the caravan. She unhooked the limp waterskin and slipped the strap over her shoulder to have a ready excuse if anyone challenged her.

  Stepping carefully over the bodies, trying to avoid stepping on out-thrust arms or legs … or worse, into a half-hidden stomach … Aleytys picked her way around the edges of the horde. As she walked, several of the guards came to the hedge of blades and stood watching her move, but none of them said anything. Distracted, Aleytys stepped suddenly on a pile of arms and legs. Tottering, arms flying about wildly, she found her feet again and straightened, struggling to control the nausea that wrenched at her.

  None of the sleepers moved. They might have been dead except for occasional snores and the rise and fall of chests marked by shifting gleams whe
re the moonlight slid over taut skin.

  She filled the waterskin and came back, circling widely to avoid the bulk of the sleepers. As she pulled herself up onto the seat, she glanced casually at the master’s wagon. “I can do it,” she murmured. She tapped her temple and smiled grimly as the diadem chimed its answer. “We can do it.” She lifted her head and laughed, brilliant eyes measuring and dismissing the guards. “Mighty fighting men. We’ll get through you.”

  Chapter X

  Aleytys woke with her stomach clamoring for food. But she forgot momentarily about her hunger when she felt the shake and shimmy of the moving caravan. She tumbled off the bunk and thrust her head through the curtains.

  The sun was crawling over the eastern horizon. The air was cold and damp with a bright freshness that whipped the sleep from her mind. In the sky the false thunderheads were unknotting and starting to stream across the vivid blue. Around the caravan the fields were empty, stock driven off before the horde could slaughter them. Aleytys sighed with relief. The warning had been passed on. She pushed through the curtains and climbed up on the seat beside Maissa, scanning the horizon ahead of the horde. No sight of one of the minarets. Not yet. There was time. She lowered herself carefully and went back inside the caravan.

  Sharl woke and demanded attention. She changed him, dug out more of the dried meat, found a cache of dried huahua, scooped up a handful of the wrinkled purplish brown fruit. Dumping her gleanings on the bunk, she lifted Sharl from his nest. Then she climbed on the bunk and settled herself comfortably, back leaning against the side of the caravan. While Sharl sucked greedily at her breast Aleytys chewed the rock-hard meat and the rather too-sweet fruit, feeling a remnant of the contentment last night had produced. After a while she chuckled, then chuckled again.

  “Sharl-mi, look at us. You, little one, thank the Madar, are too young to know what’s happening. Me, I should be feeling sunk in the pits.… I don’t. You know, right now, I can’t even feel very bad about all those killed, like they’re there all right, but not real … ghosts.… Oh hell.” She lifted Sharl to her shoulder and began to pat the air out of him. “Only a little while longer … tomorrow night, I think. We’ll do it then, and be on our way. On our way.”

  She settled Sharl back in his blankets, then stretched out on the bunk. “Miks … to the east … you said you’d be there.…” She closed her eyes and let her empathic sense flow out and out, seeking the cooly green touch like the color deep in the heart of winter ice.

  Glowing red spots circled to the east, hot with hate, hot with anger, hot with frustration. She reached beyond … beyond … sighed with relief … cool pale mint green glow … on a hill … waiting. She opened her eyes, smiling, knowing she could find him whenever she wanted. She rolled off the bunk and went back outside, too nervous to sit still any longer.

  To her left a section of the horde swarmed around an isolated horse run. The buildings were already blooming with fire, smoke starting to roll in black greasy puffs from the mossy roof. She looked away. Up ahead a speck of red thrust up over the treetops. She ran her hands through her sticky hair. “Damn …” She glanced at Maissa then at the horses. “Time to get to work.”

  After considerable struggle she got the reins away from Maissa. Gradually she maneuvered the caravan toward the eastern side of the marching horde.

  Yelling screaming riders galloped from behind a grove, stringing out into a line as one by one they let off a spate of crossbow bolts. One buried itself deep in the wood by Maissa’s head while a second burned a slight groove in Aleytys’ shoulder. She jumped to her feet, cleated the reins, then swung up onto the seat holding herself steady with a deathgrip on the gingerbread carving.

  “Hey!” She leaned out and waved her free arm in vigorous protest.

  The lakelander lowered his bow and waved the others back. He turned his mount and rode along with the marching horde, keeping a wary eye on the dull-faced riders and a prudent distance between them and himself, his young face puzzled and intrigued. “Hey what?” he yelled back.

  “Quit shooting at me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “I didn’t say stop shooting at them.”

  “What’s so special about you, woman?”

  “You know Loahn Arahn’s son?”

  “I know him.”

  “He’ll tell you about me, what I’m doing here. Lahela gikena. Meanwhile, could you aim your quarrels in another direction?”

  He frowned at her. “You tell me. What’re you doing with those?”

  She slapped her forehead in exaggerated disgust. “Look, friend.” Her voice broke. She coughed and spat. “I don’t plan to scream the story of my life. Besides I don’t know how much these zombies take in. Get to Loahn, will you. And tell him Lahela said tomorrow night.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  He flourished the crossbow in a wide sweeping gesture, pulled the horse around, and galloped off ki-yi-ing at the top of his lungs.

  Aleytys settled back on the seat and retrieved the reins. The band of lakelanders rode past again and again, killing … no slaughtering … slaughtering beings of the horde who fell and were lost under the plodding hooves of the shaggy little mounts. The horde fought back in one way … only one way … with its numbers. It ignored the flea bites, death was its purpose here … the more that died, the quicker its purpose would be accomplished.

  In a little while she put the reins in Maissa’s stiff hands and closed her fingers around them. Maissa sat stolidly, keeping the horses moving steadily along the eastern edge of the horde. No more quarrels came their way. That was good too. Aleytys leaned back against the slats, waiting to see if she could trust the zombied woman to stay at the side rather than working her way back to the master’s wagon.

  “Hey, Lahela!”

  She jumped up onto the seat clutching at the carving. “What?” she shrieked.

  “Loahn says good luck.” He waved the crossbow at her then rode off, shooting into the horde as rapidly as he could slap in new quarrels.

  “That’s nice,” Aleytys muttered. She climbed down, holding tightly to the carving as the caravan rocked and swayed over the uneven ground. She frowned thoughtfully at Maissa, opened her hands, stared down at them a minute, then went inside.

  “Rope … need some rope …” She began pulling open the drawers and rummaging through the jumbled contents inside. “I know Kale had rope. He cut off a piece for Miks …”

  She rested on her knees in the narrow space between the two bunks frowning and chewing on her lower lip. Still frowning, she wriggled around, carefully avoiding the drawer where Sharl slept. Leaning forward, she explored the panel shutting in the Vryhh-box, scratching at it with nervous impatient fingers. After a frustrating struggle costing her two torn fingernails, she pulled the panel free and pushed it behind her, then teetered back on her heels and shoved the sweaty strings of hair off her hot face.

  The Vryhh-box was still there, cold and hard against her fingers. She passed her hands over the box, explored the rest of the cavity, “Ah.” She pulled out a coil of rope, sissal around a monofilament core. Alien artifact, so put away out of sight. She relaxed and rubbed her forehead, suddenly tired to death, weary of this world, weary of trying to deal with all the conflicting needs yammering at her. Stirred by some vague remnant of the curiosity that plagued her off and on, she probed further into the cavity.

  Cold metal stung a hand. Cautiously, she pulled the object out. A knife. In a worn leather sheath. “How …”

  She pulled the knife from the sheath, touched her fingers against the cutting edge. Kale? Maissa? Stavver? She turned it over in her hands. Maissa? Why would she? The knife wasn’t her weapon. Miks? He had his own knife, had it with him. Not Miks. That left Kale. But he had a knife too. Aleytys remembered him turning it over and over in his hands … She held the hilt up to the light. There was a tiny engraved figure nearly worn away. A wolf’s head. She pinched her lips together. Kale. Before Maissa pa
inted the fakes on … she ran a thumb thoughtfully over the small roughness … wolf’s heads on his cheeks. Why?

  Well. Only Kale could answer that. Aleytys shrugged and pulled herself up, her joints stiff from kneeling so long. She dropped the knife beside Sharl’s nearly cleaned diapers and slid the drawer shut. The panel went back in place somewhat more easily than it came out.

  Sucking a pinched finger, she settled beside Maissa. The stone walls around the city ahead were a dark mass against the sky. Another half hour … she worked the reins from Maissa’s hands and wound them around the cleat. The horses kept plodding ahead, ignoring the lack of guidance, swept along by the horde around them.

  Aleytys put her shoulder into Maissa’s stomach and heaved. With the slight body wrapped around her neck she staggered into the caravan. After stretching Maissa on the bunk, she tied pieces of rope around her arms and legs, then used two other sections of rope to anchor hands and feet to the ends of the bunk.

  She bent over Maissa. “That’ll keep you out of the city, Captain.” She shook her head. “You could’ve been killed yesterday. Then where would we all be?” She patted Maissa’s shoulder and went back outside.

  Chapter XI

  It all happened again. The dying. The burning. The toppling minaret. The drums and chanting. And the sleep-coma.

  Aleytys slipped off the bunk and stretched, working out the kinks that came from sitting still too long. She bent over Maissa frowning at the deep bloody bruises where the maddened woman had tried to tear free from the ropes. She touched the knots, frown lines deepening. “Later, Captain. When we get out of this mess.”