Carnivores of Light and Darkness (30 page)
They raced past one of the immense hooves as it rose up and started forward, an action matched by every alternate hoof under the length of the Wall. When they descended in unison, so would the Wall itself, swallowing them up once again together with everything and anything too slow to get out of its way. But by the time those hundreds of cloven hooves had begun their downward step, Ehomba and his companions had already emerged on the far side of the barrier.
Pausing to catch their breath, they stood and watched as it completed its ponderous single-stride advance, descending quietly to ground with a single long, exhausted
Whoooom
. Dust rose again, scattered, and began to settle. It was done. They were through, across, under.
Whoooom
. Dust rose again, scattered, and began to settle. It was done. They were through, across, under.
“Nothing to it,” quipped Simna. He was, however, showing more perspiration than the short sprint and tepid evening ought to have generated.
“No room for mistakes there.” Tilting back his head, the herdsman gazed up at the top of the Wall. No shapes or bodies were to be seen. The Chlengguu were all on the far side, watching for mischief among the Queppa. No need for them to guard their impenetrable rear. “Let us go.”
Turning, they headed north, traveling at an easy trot. No one came forth to question their presence or challenge their progress.
They found an abandoned farm and, without any sense of guilt, made themselves at home in the comfortable surroundings presently denied to the rightful owner. Discovering a still-intact and unpillaged pen of domesticated razorbacks, Ahlitah quickly and effortlessly supplied a feast not only for himself but for his companions. With so many structures still smoldering throughout the length and breadth of the Queppa lands, Ehomba conceded a fire to Simna, who refused to eat his pork uncooked.
There were fine, soft beds in the house, and linen. While the delighted swordsman guilelessly availed himself of the former, Ehomba discovered he could not go to sleep on anything so yielding. He found peace by wrapping himself in a blanket on the wooden floor and trying not to think of the fate of the thousands being squeezed between the Wall and the eternal sands of the south. Thousands for whom such pleasures as a simple good night’s rest were denied.
XXIX
M
ORNING WAS FULL OF MIST
,
AS IF THE SUN HAD BEEN
surprised in its bath and risen too quickly, spilling a blanket of saturated sunlight upon the world.
ORNING WAS FULL OF MIST
,
AS IF THE SUN HAD BEEN
surprised in its bath and risen too quickly, spilling a blanket of saturated sunlight upon the world.
It induced the travelers to linger longer in their appropriated beds, a condition with which the always sleepy Ahlitah was wholly in accord. When Ehomba finally awoke and ascertained the true position of the fog-obscured daystar, he found himself unsettled in mind.
“What’s wrong now, wizard of worries?” Sitting up in the elegant, carved bed, a well-rested Simna ibn Sind stretched and then scratched unashamedly at his groin. “We did our running, and all went well. Why don’t you try relaxing for a change? Who knows? You might even find the sensation agreeable.”
Quietly agitated, the herdsman was staring out a many-paned window at the farm’s mist-swathed environs. “I will rest when we are out of this ill-starred country and safe aboard a ship bound for the far side of the Aboqua. Not before.” He looked back. “Get up and cover your ass. We should be away from here.”
“All right, all right.” Grumbling, the swordsman slid his legs out from beneath the heavy wefted bed sheets and began fumbling with his attire. “But not before breakfast. Who knows when we may again have a chance to eat like this? And for free.”
“Very well.” Ehomba was reluctant, but understanding. “After breakfast.”
While most of the dairy products that had not been looted from the forsaken farm stank of spoilage, there remained a substantial quantity of dried and smoked meats. Another section of the walk-in larder was filled from floor to ceiling with jars of preserved fruits and vegetables. Rummaging through the stores, Simna found a couple of loaves of bread decorated by only a few spots of opportunistic mold.
“We should fill our packs.” He bit enthusiastically into a mouthful of meat and bread.
“This is not our food.” Though uncomfortable at rifling another man’s pantry, Ehomba consoled himself with the realization that if they did not eat the bread and other perishables, they would go either to the Chlengguu or to waste.
“Hoy, that’s right—leave it for the despoilers. Misplaced good intentions have been the death of many a man, bruther. But not me!” Daring the herdsman to take exception, he began stuffing strips of dried meat and small jars of olives and pickles into his pack. Ehomba simply turned away.
When at last all was in readiness they stepped out into the fog. If anything, the herdsman thought, it had grown thicker since they had arisen. It would be difficult to tell north from any other direction. But he was not about to linger in the homestead until the mist lifted. If they could see any patrolling Chlengguu clearly, then the Chlengguu could see them. Better to take their chances under cover of the low-hanging vapors.
He was only a few yards from the house, turning in the direction where he imagined north to lie, when a thunderous roar shattered the tenuous silence. Whirling, he saw only the last flash of motion as the heavy net landed atop Ahlitah. The great cat bellowed furiously, claws ripping at the material, powerful jaws snapping, but to no avail. Whoever had designed the ambush had made their preparations well: The mesh was made of metal, woven into finger-thick cords like rope. Ahlitah could dent but not tear it.
Chlengguu seemed to come from everywhere: back of the farmhouse, behind bushes, over fence rails, everywhere but straight up out of the ground. Dozens more dropped from the roof to clutch frantically at the fringes of the net, for while the litah was unable to break it, his convulsions were sending panicked Chlengguu flying in all directions. It took forty of them finally to pin down the net and the outraged, wild-eyed feline within.
No nets came flying at Ehomba and Simna. Instead, they found themselves overwhelmed by another half hundred of the forceful Wall masters. The herdsman had hardly begun to lower his spear and Simna to draw his sword when rough hands fell upon them, wrenching their weapons out of their hands and reach. Hobbles were brought forth, and their hands were bound behind their backs. Thoroughly trussed and tethered, they were shoved rudely forward as their captors barked incomprehensible commands at them in the exotic Chlengguu tongue.
“I hope you enjoyed your breakfast,” Ehomba muttered as they were marched away from the farmhouse and into the fog.
“That I did, bruther.” Exhibiting considerable aplomb in the face of a less than sanguine situation, the swordsman studied their captors. “They’re not especially big, but the little buggers are fast.” He smiled amiably at the Chlengguu warrior striding along next to him. “Ugly, too.” Unable to understand, the soldier marched along stiffly, looking neither to left nor right and certainly not at the grimacing captive.
Behind the herdsman, dozens of warriors bore the frustrated, spitting Ahlitah aloft. So tightly wrapped and rolled in the steel net was the litah that he was unable to shift his limbs. Nor if they had any sense at all would his captors allow him the slightest range of movement. If so much as a single set of claws slipped free, Ehomba knew they would find their way into one of their abductors’ necks. Always cautious, the Chlengguu were taking no chances with the biggest and most powerful of their prisoners.
They were excessively thin, the herdsman saw. Slim enough that he looked bulky beside them, and Simna positively squat. They had narrow, sharply slanted eyes that were set almost vertically in their faces, long hooked noses, and small mouths. The two canines protruded very slightly down over the lower lip. Their ears were thin and pointed as well, and the narrow skulls showed no hair beneath their tight-fitting, embossed helmets. Many of these were decorated with long quills and spines appropriated, no doubt involuntarily, from sundry unknown animals.
Coupled with the narrowness of their skulls and faces, the slight natural downward curve of their jawlines gave them a permanently sour facial cast. In hue their skin shaded from dark beige to umber heavily tinged with yellow, as if they were all suffering from jaundice. Fingernails were long, thin, and painted silver. Their finely tooled leather jackets, leggings, and boots were engraved with diverse scenes of mass unpleasantness. The great majority of these were also tinted silver, but Ehomba saw gold, bronze, and bright red bobbing among the argent sea as well.
Most carried two or three tempered lances no thicker than his thumb. A finely honed sickle hung from each waist—a particularly nasty weapon in close-quarter combat. A few of the more discriminating soldiers favored slim-handled spike-studded maces over the more delicate lances.
“I wonder what they have in mind for us?”
“By Gnospeth’s teeth, not wining and dining, I’ll venture.” Simna continued to make faces at his guards, who resolutely ignored him. “Though there’s some dancing houris I wouldn’t mind introducing them to. Where’s the soul-sucking Eupupa when you need them?”
They were marched on in silence for more than an hour before the mist finally began to lift. Tents began to materialize around them. From time to time Chlengguu soldiers busy attending to their bivouac glanced up to examine the prisoners. Those that made the effort to do so generally ignored the two men in favor of the trussed and bound black litah.
Probably they think we are ordinary Queppa prisoners, Ehomba decided. Simna and I look not so very different from the poor people whose land they are stealing.
With sinking heart, he saw a familiar sight looming up in front of them. The Wall. They had lost all the distance they had gained during their flight of the night before.
They were paraded past several large and elaborately decorated tents until the officer in charge halted outside one that was a veritable villa of cloth and canvas. Multiple standards of red and gold flew from its poles. Ehomba was sickened to see the flayed skins of human bodies alternating with the silken pennants, the grisly trophies snapping noisomely in the wind.
The periphery of the ornate shelter was embellished with threads drawn from precious metals. Two unusually large Chlengguu flanked the twin support posts of an imposing rain flap. Silk drapery provided privacy to those within. Each pole, the herdsman noted expressionlessly, was grounded in the bleached skull of a great ape.
One of the few among their captors who was not clad in silver leather paused to speak to the guards. Conversation was brief, whereupon a bony hand jammed hard into Ehomba’s back, sending him stumbling forward. He heard Simna curse behind him as his companion was subjected to similar indelicate treatment. As for Ahlitah, the cat had been quiet for some time. Biding it, the herdsman decided.
If the outside of the tent had been designed to impress, the interior was calculated to overwhelm. Peaks of fabric soared overhead. Sewn into the material, fine jewels simulated the constellations of the night sky. There was richly carved furniture whose lines reflected the slenderness of its owners: tables, chairs, lounges, comfortable but not luxurious. The tent was located in an arena of war. While impressive, its furnishings were anything but dysfunctional.
A quartet of aged Chlengguu seated at an oval table looked on with interest as the prisoners were marched inside. Customarily slight of build, these withered specimens looked positively skeletal. But their sharp, inquisitive eyes belied their physical appearance. They muttered and mumbled among themselves while making cryptic gestures in the direction of the prisoners.
Ahlitah’s cortege did not depart until the big cat had been securely staked to the floor. Without even room in which to struggle, the muscular black specter lay still, with only the steady, infuriated heaving of his chest to show that he was alert and unharmed except in dignity.
Three Chlengguu rose from a table groaning under the weight of food, drink, maps, and assorted alien accouterments whose functions the provincial Ehomba did not recognize. One of them was female, though the extraordinary lankiness of the Chlengguu form made it difficult to sex them at first glance. Spidery fingers resting on all but nonexistent hips, the nearest of the trio cocked his head sideways to peer up into Ehomba’s face. The sharply angled eyes were unsettling. The herdsman had encountered eyes vertical and eyes horizontal, eyes round and eyes oval, but never before had he gazed back into angular oculi that were anything like those of the Chlengguu.
“Sirash coza mehroosh?”
Ehomba kept his face blank. “I do not understand you.”
The Chlengguu noble tested the same phrase on the silent Simna, who to his credit had sense enough to keep his extensive farrago of ready retorts locked away in a corner of his brain where they would, hopefully for the duration of the foreseeable future, not get him killed.
Retracing his steps to confront the much taller herdsman the noble asked, in the common voice of men, “Who are you and where do you come from?” His voice was as soft and prickly as hot grease. Gesturing at Simna, he added, “This one could be Queppa, but you—you are different. You have the look about you of someplace else.”
“We are both from the south,” Ehomba replied. “As is our pet.” Behind him he thought he heard the litah stir, but he did not turn to look. From the noble’s manner he surmised that turning away from him while he was engaged in his interrogation might be construed as an unforgivable insult. Judging from their extravagant surroundings and the carriage and posture of their interrogators, he and his companions would have to be careful not to give even the slightest offense.
“The south.” Daintily, the noble tapped the tip of a painted fingernail against one excessively long canine. “Why should I believe you?”
“Why should we lie?” Ehomba imperceptibly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, an instinctive herdsman’s adjustment. “The Queppa hate the south. Who of them would claim to come from where you are driving them?”
The corners of the nobleman’s tiny mouth twitched slightly upwards. “If you are not Queppa, how do you know what they hate or where we are driving them?”
“They told us.” Ehomba chanced a nod in the direction of his homeland. “Coming up from the south, we had to pass through them to get here.”
“You had to pass through more than the stupid Queppa to get here.” The female fairly spat the accusation. “The only way from south to north is over the Wall. That is not possible.”
“We did not go over the Wall,” Ehomba corrected her. “We came under it.”
This claim set the quartet of oldsters to arguing agitatedly over their table. It also prompted the third member of the interrogating trio to speak up. “No one is half-witted enough to try digging under the Wall.”
“Who said anything about digging?” Simna was smirking now, virtually strutting in place. “We just waited for it to make ready to step, and when it rose up, we ran under.”
The initial questioner dropped his finger from his lips. “Such a thing is possible, of course.” He nodded once, curtly. “Very well. I, Setsealer Agrath, accept your explanation. You are courageous half-wits.”
“This is not our fight,” Ehomba told him somberly. “I personally have no quarrel with the Chlengguu and no affection for the Queppa. This lasting strife is your own. Let us go.”
Turning slightly away, Agrath chose a long, thin knife, very much an oversized stiletto, from the assortment of cutlery lying on the table behind him. “Why should we?”
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