Swarm and Steel, page 15
He stood to leave and stopped, staring at the condor-fletched arrow protruding from the corpse’s throat. Could he make wings for his puppet? That might make escaping whatever killed him easier. The bones of birds, however, were much lighter than the bones of men. If Aas used even his smallest finger as the puppet’s spine, how long would the wings have to be to get enough lift? Would Hexenwerk even be strong enough?
Cursing, Aas dropped from the roof and went to collect his feathers. It couldn’t hurt to try. He tugged at the small finger of his left hand as he walked. Soon it would have to come off. He needed Hexenwerk ready before his situation got worse.
And now to see to Nimmer. What did Pharisäer mean when she said it was a puzzle?
She knows you too well, knows you can’t resist a challenge.
NINE
Show me the artist who is not insane
For all art is suffering, torture, and pain
We dream in colours you can not find
For we are the artists, you are the blind
—Halber Tod, Cotardist Poet
AFTER COLLECTING WHAT FEW supplies Zerfall found, she tied them about the corpse of her horse using the billet and cinch straps from the saddle. Tod looked awful. With his guts no longer distended, his torso had collapsed. Tattered skin hung fluttering about his ribs like a wind-torn tent. Even his face, already gaunt, seemed to have fallen in on itself. The sockets, once filled with big, beautiful, brown eyes, were gaping maws of wriggling rot. She scratched his ear and her hand came away coated in clumps of hair.
She heard Jateko’s shuffling approach and turned to face him. He didn’t look much better than the horse. Devouring Gogoko may have strengthened him and filled out his scrawny chest a bit, but the lad looked starved and dehydrated. It didn’t help that his tan desert robes—oihal he called them—were spattered with puke and blood and caked stiff with sand.
Thank god I’m dead. His stench would probably kill me otherwise.
“We need water,” she said. “There’s enough to last you a day. Maybe.”
“Harea will provide.” He licked wind-chapped lips. “I hope.” He didn’t look particularly convinced.
THEY RODE WEST, JATEKO sitting behind Zerfall. He’d clearly never been on a horse before. They talked briefly, Jateko asking incessant questions, but falling to silence when her answers became little more than grunts. Eventually she fished the small book of Halber Tod’s poems from its place within her mouldering clothes. Cracking it open, she read to the Basamortuan youth. He listened in rapt amazement.
“That’s beautiful,” he said after each poem. “I didn’t understand most of it, but it was beautiful.”
Tod grunted in dusty disagreement and plodded ever onward. He might not tire, but Jateko did.
“What is Geld like?” he asked.
“Much like any city-state.”
“I’ve never seen a city.”
“Well, there’s lot’s of stone. And mostly they stink.”
“Oh.” He examined her, eyes lingering, brow crinkling as he tried to form a question. “Are most of the women fat and soft?”
“Some.”
He seemed disappointed. “We need to stop,” he said. “I need to sleep. I’m going to fall off the horse soon.”
When had the sun risen? She hadn’t noticed. It now sat high in the sky.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” she asked, sliding from Tod’s back.
He shrugged, more falling off than dismounting. “Didn’t want to be a burden. My mom always says I …” He muttered something under his breath, looking away.
Something punched Zerfall in the back three times in rapid succession. She glanced down to find three viciously barbed arrow heads protruding from the left side of her chest. She reached up and touched the point of one with a numb finger. Well that lung won’t be holding air. She knew enough anatomy to know all three had punctured her heart. Nice grouping.
Jateko rolled to his feet and stood wobbling. “Etsaiaren. We’re dead.” He glanced at her and laughed.
“Run,” she said.
“Are you running?”
“Run,” she commanded. He turned and fled, long legs stretched in an ungainly sprint of nobly knees and flapping feet, faster than she would have thought possible.
Zerfall drew her knife and turned. Six men approached, their oihal catching the light desert breeze and dancing about them like ghosts. All shared the dark skin, lean strength, and narrowed eyes of the desert born. None had drawn weapons. They moved cautiously but showed no sign of fear. Judging the distance separating her from the men—at least two dozen strides—she noted three carried bows slung across their backs.
Zerfall glanced at Tod. On the dead horse they’d never catch her. If I flee they’ll have Jateko in minutes. Could she buy him time to escape? To what end? He was weak, dehydrated. Without her, he’d die within two days at the most and probably less. Probably a lot less. She watched the men spread out, moving to encircle her but drawing no nearer. That was bad. If they cut off her escape, she’d have no choice but to fight.
Hölle. The Täuschung. Swarm. She had to return to Geld and end it all.
And still she didn’t move.
“What little I have I will share,” she offered the approaching warriors. “No water, but we have a little food.”
They ignored her, moving until they had her surrounded. Did they understand her? Jateko did, but this was apparently some other tribe.
“I don’t want to kill you,” she said, “and I’m already dead. This is pointless.”
Three of the men drew cudgels the length of her femur, each with a knot of what looked like unworked iron attached to the end. The tendons in their forearms stood taught betraying the weight of their simple weapons. The other three drew long coils of rope she’d mistaken for part of the tribal clothing and began spinning it in snaky loops over their heads.
Lassos. It never occurred to her they might not be here to kill her. The thought of being bound and helpless sent an unexpected shiver of fear coursing through her.
“You can have the horse,” she said and Tod shot her a wounded look. “Sorry, Tod.”
The three cudgel-carrying men approached, circling to their left, while the others remained beyond.
This looks too practised. They showed no fear and moved in perfect concert. Each man wore a long curved knife, barely short of a sword, at his hip, and yet they chose the cudgels.
It made sense. She was dead. Stabbing her would achieve nothing, while breaking her bones would immobilize her.
They’ve fought corpses before. How many dead wandered the desert? Apparently more than she would have thought.
One of the warriors stepped forward. Smaller than the rest, he was whipcord thin and roped with muscle. Pale scars latticed oaken skin like veins on a leaf. He eyed her with the look of a man judging a horse.
“I am Abiega Guerrero,” he said, his accent indistinguishable from Jateko’s. When she didn’t react he added, “Of the Etsaiaren.”
Zerfall shrugged apologetically, examining the man, the easy way he stood, relaxed, but poised and ready. He moved with deadly grace and perfect balance. “You’re a warrior.”
Abiega waved her words away with his empty hand like they fouled the air. “Hiria ero words are prisons. Labels mask ignorance.”
“I was a warrior of sorts. Before.” God damn she wished she had Blutblüte now. This small man would be meat in seconds.
He perked up, looking interested. “Really?”
“Why don’t the three of you come find out?”
Abiega turned to the largest of the warriors, a huge man with bulging arms and legs like trees. “Mozolo, you are a brave warrior, no?”
Mozolo grinned disdain at the smaller man. “None braver.”
Abiega gestured toward Zerfall. “Could you subdue this hilen deabru on your own? She looks small and weak, soft like all hiria ero, but she might be dangerous.” The small warrior gave the larger a doubtful look. “I’d understand if you didn’t want to. None in the tribe would question your bravery if you chose not to face this … girl.”
Mozolo rolled his shoulders, loosening the muscles. He waved the other men back. “Watch.”
Abiega winked at Zerfall as he retreated, seemingly pleased with the outcome. What the hell was that about? They had her outnumbered six to one, why endanger themselves at all?
The big man advanced, crouched low, his stance wide and solid like rooted stone. Zerfall reacted without thought, her movement liquid like water. He feinted at her with his cudgel and spinning in a complete circle, swept low with his leg. The move was fast for such a large man but the set of his hips and the position of his feet announced his intentions. Instead of retreating, Zerfall stepped forward, skipping over the sweeping leg, and stabbed the warrior six times in the liver and kidneys before he completed the turn. By the time he once again faced her, she’d retreated a step and waited with calm readiness.
Mozolo grimaced, once again rolling his muscular shoulders. “Your little knives—” Then his knees buckled and he looked up at her from where he knelt in the sand, eyes wide with confusion.
“Well done, hilen deabru,” said Abiega, clapping as he stepped forward. “Mozolo, she has killed you.”
“No. It’s just …” Mozolo sank back to his haunches, dropped his cudgel, and reached back to feel the wounds. His hand came away splashed with blood. He glanced down to see the sand greedily swallowing his life as it leaked from his body. “The sorgin can heal—”
“She is a day away,” said Abiega. “You have a few hundred breaths at most.”
Mozolo slumped sideways into the sand with a groan, trying to staunch the many wounds. He bared white teeth in agony as his body came to terms with what had been done to it.
“And they’ll be painful breaths,” added Abiega. “An unpleasant way to go,” he said as if commenting on the weather.
Zerfall watched, confused. Abiega seemed far more interested in Mozolo than he did in capturing her.
“Please,” hissed Mozolo between clenched teeth.
“Quiet,” cooed Abiega as if calming a child. “I know you planned to challenge me. You’re as predictable outside a fight as in.”
“You wanted me to kill him,” Zerfall said.
“Either outcome was acceptable.”
“Why? Did you fear he’d win his challenge?”
Abiega made a gesture with his hand she didn’t understand. “You hiria ero call it efficiency; a concept as ugly as the word. We call it bide sinplea, the simple path.”
“But the six of you might have subdued me without anyone dying.”
“Which would have been bide sinplea had I not wanted Mozolo dead.” He gestured at Mozolo. “He was a fearsome warrior.” Abiega touched his own chest. “Abiega is not a warrior. He is more. I manipulated Mozolo unto his death and didn’t lift a finger. Bide sinplea.”
“And you got a chance to see me fight,” added Zerfall.
Abiega grinned like a little boy. “Yes, that too.” He hefted his cudgel and approached. “I will find somewhere beautiful in the Santu Itsasoa.”
“What is—”
Abiega closed the distance between them faster than she would have thought possible, slapped the knife from her hand, and shattered her right knee with his cudgel. The force of the blow spun her to the ground. She lifted her head to see shards of dry bone stabbed through the parchment flesh of her knee.
The slight warrior, dark sun-wrinkled skin on bone, stood over her. The cudgel swung loose and lazy in his hand. “I’d rather not break you apart” he said. “You’re easier to drag in one piece.”
“Drag?” Zerfall asked, frowning at the wreckage of her knee. Dead or not, no way she’d stand on that.
“To Santu Itsasoa, the Sea of Souls.”
“That doesn’t sound so—”
“Where you will await the arrival of the All Consuming in perfect vigilance.” He shrugged non-committally. “Unless Harea forgives you before then.”
“Is your desert god a forgiving god?”
“Is this a forgiving desert?”
“Right. So what happens when the All Consuming arrives?”
“The end of the world,” said Abiega as if nothing could be more obvious. He gestured at one of the lasso-men, a youth not much beyond the first awkward throws of puberty. “Gazte, bind her.”
The young man approached, not looking pleased. He bent to bind her hands behind her back with his lasso. Were she alive, Zerfall had no doubt the circulation to her hands would have been cut off, so tightly was she bound.
“Don’t forget the arrows,” said Abiega.
Gazte dragged the three arrows impaling her chest free and returned them to their owners. When finished, the warrior turned to Abiega. He gestured at the lasso binding Zerfall. “This leaves me short a weapon.”
“Take Mozolo’s,” answered Abiega.
The youth eyed Mozolo squirming in the sand. “He’s not dead.”
“Kill him and take a weapon, or do not.”
“I thought you—”
“No.”
“His belongings—”
“Go to the man who kills him.”
“Or woman?” asked Zerfall.
“True. Though women rarely join demon hunts.”
“Too dangerous?” she asked sarcastically.
Abiega examined her, eyes lit with humour. “No. They’re too smart.”
“Oh. In that case shouldn’t I get his weapons?”
“No,” said Abiega. “As Gazte so astutely pointed out, Mozolo is still alive. Although,” he glanced at the downed warrior still twitching in the sand, “he does appear to be fading quickly.”
The young warrior who’d tied her stepped forward and, drawing a knife not much longer than his hand, stabbed Mozolo repeatedly in the neck until the huge warrior stopped moving.
“Congratulations, Gazte, you have slain a great warrior.” Abiega flashed Zerfall a quick smile mocking his words. “Mozolo’s possessions are yours.”
Gazte stripped the corpse of belongings.
Abiega nudged Zerfall with a sandal-clad toe. “Your friend?” he asked, gesturing in the direction Jateko had fled.
“Are you going after him?” she asked.
“There is no oasis in that direction for many days.” Abiega glanced at the sky. “And many hours until nightfall.”
He waved Gazte over. “How far to Santu Itsasoa?”
Gazte squinted south west, licking his lips and looking rather like a nervous student. “Less than half a day?” he said, sounding far from certain.
“So if we leave now, we’ll get there before we die?” Abiega asked.
Gnawing his lower lip, Gazte hesitated. “Yes? I—”
“We leave now,” said Abiega, slipping a quick wink in Zerfall’s direction. “I hope you’re right,” he added, returning his attention to Gazte. “Or you’ve killed us all.”
Zerfall watched Tod dwindle into the distance as they dragged her away. The Etsaiaren showed no interest in the horse.
JATEKO RAN UNTIL HIS legs gave out and then he lay in the hot sand waiting for the Etsaiaren warriors to come and kill him. He wondered at the odd compulsion that sent him sprinting into the sand but found no answer. Zerfall hadn’t followed.
She stayed to buy me time.
Why would she do that? Why had she saved him? No one had ever done anything like that for him before.
She needs me. Her need drove him to his feet and he stumbled back in the direction he’d come before collapsing again to the hot sand.
He lost consciousness. Or maybe fell asleep.
When he awoke, the sun was high in the sky and his mouth felt like he’d been gargling sand. Come to think of it, he kind of had been. His stomach grumbled at the weight of sand in there. Can I digest sand? He wasn’t sure. Will I crap it out or … He shuddered at the thought.
His tongue had swollen to fill his mouth and when he yawned, his lips cracked and bled thin blood. Sitting up, he glanced around. By his reckoning not much more than an hour had passed. Had he evaded the Etsaiaren, or had they not bothered to pursue him? Probably the latter, he decided.
Jateko stood, his knees shaky. He turned a complete circle and saw he was in a slight depression, surrounded on all side by long sloping dunes. Sand in every direction. With the sun overhead, his shadow told him nothing beyond the fact is shoulders were narrow.
She needs me. He had to move.
He set off, stumbling often as he climbed the dune.
Harea, guide me.
After reaching the crest of the dune he staggered a few paces before collapsing forward to the sand. Something sharp and hard dug into his belly but he couldn’t be bothered to move. I’m too tired. Too thirsty. I can’t do this. How long had it been since he was properly hydrated?
A shadow fell across him and the stench of rotting meat filled his nose. Jateko cracked an eye open to find himself staring up into the pits of Tod’s gaping eyes.
Rising, his toe struck something hard buried in the sand where he’d previously been lying.
He glanced down to see the hilt of Zerfall’s knife protruding from the sand. “Oh.” After offering a quick prayer of thanks to the desert god he retrieved the long knife, tucking it into his belt and eyed the horse.
“Let’s go get her back, Tod.”
JATEKO RODE WITH CARE, keeping his weight balanced in the centre of Tod’s broad back. Each time he adjusted his position the animal’s skin slid alarmingly as if about to come free and slough away in great sheets. He rested a hand on the horse’s back. The beast’s muscles, cold and dead, rolled loose under the skin.
Why were they taking her south west? Nothing lay west except the hiria ero city-states and—Of course. Why didn’t I think of that earlier?
Santu Itsasoa, the Sea of Souls. Etsaiaren sacred ground. They were going to break her apart and rebuild her as a skeletal totem, an eternal guardian, forever staring west across the Basamortuan sands, awaiting whatever it was the Etsaiaren feared. They were an odd tribe with strange beliefs. For the last few dozen generations they’d collected the undying and hilen deabru to use as wards, guards against some threat from the west. Most of the sentinels were delusional hiria ero who wandered into the desert to die, but there were more than a few Basamortuan tribes folk as well. Jateko’s mother even suggested once that his father was somewhere in there, but she was probably lying. She did that a lot.
