An Affinity for Steel, page 163
“This, for the record,” Lenk shouted after him, “counts as ‘cryptic.’”
Lenk came hurrying up to find the Shen assembling around the foot of the stairs once more, Mahalar seated upon the stone once more. He forced his way through a gap in their ranks, found Gariath and Kataria standing nearby, Shalake hovering protectively over the elder.
“And this is why I said ‘no cryptic gibberish,’” Lenk snarled. “Because somehow, it always ends up with me, rushing up to some smelly creature I’d rather not be around, demanding what the hell is supposed to happen now.”
“Now?”
Mahalar smiled broadly, dust seeping out through his teeth, amber eyes shining dully. He drew back his cloak and there it sat upon his knee, like a baby made of leather black as night, sitting smugly in Mahalar’s hands.
The book.
The Tome of the Undergates.
He remembered the book. He remembered paper smiles, paper eyes, dusty mutterings and writings that made sense only to him. He remembered reading it and hearing voices going quiet, replaced by voices that grew darker in his head.
But he didn’t remember this.
The tome upon Mahalar’s knee was the tome, to be certain. But it was just a tome. Something leather and paper. No smiles. No eyes. A book.
Perhaps he had left more in the chasm than he thought.
Not his senses, though. He still knew something insane when he heard it.
“Now,” Mahalar said bluntly, “you kill Ulbecetonth.”
“What?” Kataria turned a scowl upon Lenk. “You were gone for a quarter of an hour. How the hell did you come to this conclusion?”
“We didn’t!” Lenk protested, turning on Mahalar. “And I’m not! We came here for the tome. The Tome of the Undergates. The thing that’s going to get us paid so I can move away from islands full of freaky dust-lizards and go live on a patch of dirt somewhere. Remember?” He turned to Gariath. “Remember?”
“Barely,” Gariath grunted.
“And you didn’t think to mention this to them, what with all the time you’ve been spending with them?”
“I didn’t come here for that,” the dragonman replied. “I came here for them.” He gestured to Shalake. “They stood with the Rhega against the demons. They know the Rhega. They have told me stories.”
“Great, fine, good,” Lenk grumbled. “Stay here with them, then. Scratch each others’ scales, play tug-the-tail or whatever it is people with more than four appendages do. I came for the tome.” He swept a hand out over the assembled Shen. “You’re obviously not too fond of me. Just give me the stupid book and we’ll leave.”
“We killed thousands to see our duty done,” Shalake snarled, stepping forward. “We will kill one more to do it.”
“We cannot give you the tome,” Mahalar said, nodding. “It was too precious to be penned in the first place. It has knowledge that no one should have. It was designed only for woe.” He fixed those scrutinizing eyes upon Lenk. “But it can be used for good.”
“No,” Lenk said.
“You have the power,” Mahalar insisted.
“No.”
“There are stories,” Shalake said, “stories of those who came and cut the demons down.”
“No.”
“Listen to them, Lenk,” Gariath said, “I’ve heard them, too. People with hair like yours, eyes like yours, who cut like you can. You’re the only one who’s been able to hurt the demons.”
“NO.”
“We can kill her,” Mahalar said, “before she breaks out. We can summon her, on our terms, with an army of Shen to assist you.” His eyes lit like the barest flicker of a candle. “Forgive me for my selfishness, but think of it. My people can be free, Lenk. Our duty can be fulfilled. We will no longer have to live with the burden, the agony, the screaming, if only you can—”
“He can’t.”
The voice came from Kataria. Not with great volume, or great joy. But everyone turned and looked to her, all the same. She did not look up to meet their stares.
“He can’t do that anymore.”
When she did look up, she looked only at Lenk.
“I followed you earlier. I overheard you. Talking to the dead girl. You didn’t want me to know, so I pretended I hadn’t. But . . .” She swallowed something back, then looked to Mahalar. “Whatever was in him is gone now. He sent it away. He can’t kill her. He can’t do anything for you.”
She hadn’t spoken loudly. Somehow, everyone heard. The same despair settled over every scaly face present. Lenk looked to her, an apology carved across his face in his frown.
“I really didn’t want you to know,” he said.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Well.”
He smiled sadly. “If you were dumber, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“I sincerely hope you don’t think you were particularly clever about it,” Kataria snapped. “I knew something was wrong with you from the day I met you. It’s just now I know exactly what is wrong with you.”
He laughed. No one else did.
Mahalar merely settled back and breathed a cloud of dust.
“That,” he said, “is a problem.”
“One that gets worse, Mahalar,” someone said.
He—or at least, it looked and sounded like a “he,” it was hard to tell with lizardmen . . . or lizardwomen—came stalking out of the forest, tall and scaly and bearing a long, carved bow on his back. Many more emerged behind him, Shen armed and glowering as they slithered out of the coral and onto the great sandy field.
“Leaving a warwatcher’s post is a grave offense, Jenaji,” Shalake said in a gravel-voiced snarl.
“There are few things you don’t consider grave offenses, Shalake,” the tall and lanky newcomer replied, his voice smooth and heavy like a polished stone. “And there are fewer things I consider worth answering to you over.” He turned his eyes, bright and sharp as the arrows in his quiver, to Mahalar. “We have an issue, Mahalar.”
“An issue?” Lenk muttered. “Just one?”
“We have many problems, Jenaji,” Mahalar replied. “Or have you not been listening?”
“I have only just arrived,” Jenaji said. “And I did not come alone.”
The Shen parted to expose pink, familiar shapes amidst their greenery, trudging wearily up to join the congregation. There were no smiles on their faces as they approached, no relief at seeing their companions again. Only weariness, wariness and, in Denaos’s case, just a pinch of resentment.
Lenk looked them over. Dreadaeleon’s clothes were soiled with soot and worse. Asper’s eyes betrayed a drained weariness that went beyond the flesh. Denaos stood bandaged, bloodied, battered.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“Longfaces,” Denaos replied. “You?”
“Shen, shicts, snakes,” Lenk said.
The rogue sniffed. “It’s not a contest.”
“It is bold of you to bring outsiders here,” Shalake said, narrowing his eyes. “These ones at least fought their way here.”
“Ah, so you are more honorable because you failed to stop them?” Jenaji said with a sneer. “I didn’t come to compare tails. They have cause to be here.”
“They say that?”
“They do not.” Jenaji stepped aside. “She does.”
Weapons immediately were drawn by the companions at the sight of Greenhair standing amidst them, like a pale white flower amidst endless green stalks. Hatchets and machetes came out in response as the Shen closed in protectively about the siren. Lenk flashed an accusatory glare at Denaos as the rogue stood with his daggers hanging at his belt.
Denaos merely shrugged. “Yeah, I was like that at first, too. But she helped us and she has something to say.”
“Something you need to hear, Mahalar,” the siren spoke in her liquid voice. “I bring dark words to you. I bring doom. I bring disaster.”
Mahalar looked up. Mahalar smiled a dusty smile.
“Maka-wa,” he said, “we have plenty to share with you, too.”
Doom, as it turned out, needed only half an hour to summarize.
The companions, Shen, and siren exchanged their stories, their experiences, all—or at least all that was pertinent and didn’t involve parts without pants, Lenk noted—that had happened since they had set out.
They spoke of netherling armies fueled by the dying Gonwa. They spoke of demons stirring beneath the earth. They spoke of Mahalar’s plan to draw out Ulbecetonth, to use Lenk to kill her, and its subsequent and tragic failure.
And there they had fallen silent. An hour after death had been summarized, they sat on the edge of disaster, waiting for someone to put it to words and dreading it, too.
If Mahalar held that dread, though, it showed in neither gleam of eye nor sigh of voice.
“How many?”
Would that everyone could boast such calmness at the question; as it was, every face went to wincing.
“Many,” Greenhair replied. “Three males, with all their power. Boats full of females, with all their swords. Great, savage beasts, teeth brimming with—”
“Did anyone bother to count?” Kataria piped up impatiently.
“They clustered in groups of thirty-three,” Dreadaeleon said. “Each one to a boat. There were at least ten boats.” He scratched his head. “Maybe more.”
Whether or not the Shen excelled at math, they could grasp the severity of the statement. Most of them, anyway.
“The longfaces have attacked before,” Shalake snarled. “We have killed them before. Stalk them, hunt them, and then,” he hefted his club, patted it into his palm, “shenko-sa.”
“Are you willfully stupid or does it just come easily to you?” Lenk snapped. “Do you not grasp the numbers here? Ten boatloads. Thirty-three each. There are . . . how many of you?”
“Not that many,” Jenaji muttered.
“We strike swiftly, from the forests,” Shalake replied. “Hunt them like animals, as we have done before. We cut them down and feed them to the sharks.”
“They’ll burn the forests down,” Dreadaeleon said. “They have the power, the fire. Their magic is infinite.”
“So you say,” Shalake said, suspicious. “But this is much to ask us to accept from people we would have killed a moment ago, had maka-wa not vouched for you.” He glanced over them, sought a stooped, green figure amongst the masses. “Hongwe, did you see this?”
The Gonwa lifted his head reluctantly, said nothing. His eyes seemed heavy enough to roll out of his head, his frown deep enough to slide off and follow. He had worn the expression ever since the fate of his kinsmen had been revealed to him. He had said not a word since. Whatever bonds still linked the Gonwa and the Shen, they were enough to keep Shalake’s voice stilled.
“And they come for the tome,” Mahalar muttered.
“The tome is inconsequential,” Dreadaeleon said. “They come for fuel. Whatever it is they’re coming through, it can’t be powered by the Gonwa. They succumb too easily. A demon, however . . .”
Mahalar loosed a low groan. “They fight one another, and whoever wins . . .” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. “We stand and fight, against that many, against that much metal and fire, and . . .”
He didn’t need to finish that one.
“Not that it’s entirely unexpected that I suggest this,” Denaos began softly, “but has anyone considered running?”
“The Shen don’t run,” Gariath growled. “Neither do I.”
“Well, good, no one invited you, anyway. The rest of us can just hop in Lenk’s boat and—”
“Ours got destroyed,” Lenk interrupted. “What happened to yours?”
“These damn lizards sank it before we could get close enough to tell them not to,” Denaos said, rubbing his eyes. “So, did you commit any crimes against nature before I got here? Some horrid blasphemy to make the Gods hate us as much as they do?”
Lenk exchanged a quick glance with Kataria. “Define ‘crime.’”
“It does not matter,” Mahalar said wearily. “The longfaces have found their way through the reef before. They can do so again. The way out would put you in their path. They come. And they come with many.”
In the deathly silence that followed, in the bow of heads and the swallowing of doubts, the sound of grains of sand shifting atop one another could be heard as clear as a bell.
Asper’s voice could be heard only if one strained.
“There is a way,” she whispered.
The eyes that turned upon her were so intent it seemed as though they might pierce her flesh. But she did not flinch or shy away, even if she did not look up to meet them.
“They don’t act on their own. They follow one man.”
“Sheraptus,” Dreadaeleon muttered the name like a riddle.
“He controls them, the females. They obey him totally.” She cleared her throat, swallowed something back. “If you can kill him, their numbers won’t mean anything.”
“If.” Dreadaeleon spared a black laugh. “If you can kill someone with an entire furnace of blood and flesh feeding him fire and frost and lightning and whatever else the hell he feels like throwing at us.”
“She’s right, though. I’ve seen it,” Kataria said. “They bark like dogs at his command.”
“It’s worth a try,” Denaos said hesitantly, as though he himself hadn’t expected to say it.
“No, trying to jump over a wall to get into a farm is worth a try, you bark-necked dimwit,” Dreadaeleon said snidely. “What you are proposing is the equivalent of trying to beat down the wall with a twig and the wall is sixty feet high, made of metal and when you hit it, it electrocutes your genitals and makes your head explode.” He took a breath, then snorted. “It is impossible, in other words.”
“I’ve killed plenty of longfaces,” Gariath grunted.
“And yet, none of us have even been able to scratch this one. Even Bralston couldn’t hurt him,” Dreadaeleon said. “I’d say it could be done, but I also said that magic had limits and he went and disproved me there. We don’t even know if he can be hurt, much less—”
“He can.”
Asper only barely whispered, but she commanded their attention nonetheless.
“I hurt him.”
“How?” Lenk asked.
“He came to me and he did . . .” She swallowed a breath. “And I hurt him.”
“If anyone was to kill him, it would be me,” Gariath grunted. “You expect me to believe that you could do anything to him?”
“Take a step back, reptile,” Denaos said, stepping protectively in front of her. “And then continue going that way until you fall off a cliff. If she says she hurt him—”
“Humans lie. Humans are weak. Humans are stupid.” Shalake stepped beside Gariath, hefting his club. “Which is why they threaten a Rhega in front of the Shen.”
“And everyone fears the Shen.” Kataria stepped in front of Denaos. “My arrows feared them, too. Must be why they tried to hide . . . in Shen gullets.”
“Look around you, pink thing,” Yaike growled, narrowing his good eye on her. “Look what surrounds you.”
“Yeah? Why? Is it harder for you to see with only one eye?” She clacked her teeth together.
“ENOUGH.”
Mahalar’s voice was a hungry thing, eating all other voices, all other sounds, even its own echo. Muscles relaxed, weapons were lowered. He turned his stare to Asper.
“What did you do?”
She looked at him intently. She spoke resolutely.
“I hurt him.”
Mahalar was silent.
Without looking up, he raised two fingers and waved them at Shalake. The immense lizardman grunted, reached to his hip and pulled free an immense warhorn. He trudged heavily up the stone stairs. Then raised the horn to his lips and blew.
The noise was no shrill, shrieking warcry. It was something deep, heavy and inevitable. It blew across the island, through the forests, through the coral, scattering fish and sending eels slithering back into their holes. It ate the sound, as the clouds overhead ate the light. And all was silent.
For a moment.
Then, the other horns came. One, two, three, blowing from the forest and shores and walls in response.
Shalake came back down, belting the horn at his hip. He nodded at Mahalar, who merely grunted back. Lenk blinked, glancing to the ancient lizardman.
“What?” he asked. “What just happened?”
“The watchers are summoned. They will come. We will fight. We will bleed.”
“That’s it?”
“That is not enough?”
“I mean, just like that? One horn and that’s that? Everyone comes to fight?”
“We took the oaths, human,” Mahalar said. “Every Shen is born dead, knowing that they walk with hell under them and that they will kill . . . and die to do so.”
His sigh was older than even he was. No dust came from his mouth. The light behind his dull ambers dimmed and he closed his eyes with such heaviness that he didn’t seem to see much point in opening them again. He said softly, he said sadly.
“That is duty.”
TWENTY-SIX
AS THE STARS
The last footfall came heavily, crunching upon the sand as Gariath reached the other end of the ring. He stared at his feet, sunk slightly into the moist earth, before looking back over his shoulder.
Fires burned at the foot of the stairs. The coral burned brighter than wood; he hadn’t thought it would, but he supposed that was the least weird thing about Jaga. In ever-increasing numbers, more warbands of Shen continued to emerge from the forest. From here, they seemed like tiny lights, fallen stars burning out on the earth.
He didn’t know how many paces he had taken, how far he had come. He was sure he had started counting, but after a while, as the sand went on and on, he stopped thinking about how long it was he walked and instead wondered about this earth.
And how much blood it had drank.
He had heard the stories.
This is where it happened, the Shen had uttered. They uttered everything. They never laughed or whispered or wept. Here, in this ring. This was where she held court. This was where she fell. She was driven back, into the mountain to be sealed away forever.
