Exile's Children (54 page)

He led his men on. All wore furs—bear, buffalo, and wolf—with more for the horses, and blankets and skins for shelter at night when men and animals both might freeze to death. They each carried a lance and a bow, spare strings and quivers filled with arrows tipped with sharp Grannach steel; also knives and tinder and packs of dried meat, and fodder for the horses—the equipment of a raiding party. They wore no paint, but each man daubed his eyes with black against the snowblindness; and all rode cautious, as if they
were
out raiding.

They came to the catfish river and walked their mounts over the ice to the oakwood beyond. So far they had seen no sign of the invaders. They camped inside the wood and chanced a fire. Racharran calculated the timber should hide the smoke, and without that heat they might well die. Before the light went, he checked the forest trails for spoor, but found only trunks scratched deep and high, as if lions had tested their claws against the wood. The score marks were level with his head as he sat his horse, and he guessed them made by the beasts Bakaan had described. He marveled at their size, and wondered if such creatures might be slain.

The forest was a day and half's ride across. It would likely have been swifter to skirt around, but the trees afforded shelter from the relentless wind and cover from unwelcome observation. It ended on the rim of a wide and shallow valley edged on its farther side with broken hills,
drumlins that scattered in a hundred directions, the gulches between all wide and deep enough to hide a raiding party.

On the far side of those breaks, where the land flattened again to a broad plain dotted with stands of winter-bared trees, they saw their quarry.

Bylas was out ahead, and came cantering back with his lance held up horizontal in sign of warning. Racharran halted the rest in the shelter of a low ridge.

“The Maker blind me if I lie,” Bylas said even as he dragged his horse to a panting stop, “but I've never seen such creatures. They're all Bakaan described and worse.” He shaped a sign of warding.

Racharran asked, “How far away?”

“Just out of bowshot,” Bylas said. “Out on the flat where the stream turns past a wood. They're hunting buffalo. No!” He shook his head and spat onto the frozen snow. “Not hunting—slaughtering. Ach, I've not seen the like of it.”

His eyes were wide and his face drawn. Racharran knew him for a phlegmatic man, not given to excitement or fear: now he looked horrified.

“Wait here.” Racharran passed his rein to Bylas and swung to the ground. “You others, come with me. Bylas has seen them—I'd have us all witnesses.”

Bylas said, “Carefully, eh?”

Racharran nodded and drove his lance into the ground, then took up his bow and looked to his companions. “We only watch, you understand? Not fight, save they attack.”

Bylas muttered, “The Maker grant they don't.”

“The wind's in our favor,” Racharran said more confidently than he felt.

“What if … ?” asked Bishi, and had no need to end the sentence.

“We run,” Racharran said. “We are watchers now. We need only to know their strength and what they are, and bring that word back to the clan and all the People.”

“But if they see us or scent us,” Zhonne asked, “and attack?”

Again Racharran said, “We run. This is not war with the Tachyn—brothers though we be, we do not go back for any fallen. We run, that some, at least, live to take back the word.”

“That is not our way,” said Lonah. “To leave a fallen brother?”

“I think,” Racharran said, “that these are not such enemies as we've ever faced. I believe it our duty to warn all of the People, and to do that we must survive.”

“And if you fall?” asked Motsos. “Are we to leave you?”

Racharran said, “Yes,” and stabbed a finger at each of them in turn. “I charge you with this duty—that no matter what happens here, you will endeavor to go back. Not look to save a fallen brother or boast your prowess, but only take back word of what these creatures are, and the threat they are, to the Commacht and all of the People. Do you swear to this?”

They liked this not at all, but one by one, under the ferocity of his gaze, they agreed.

“Then let us go,” Racharran said, more cheerfully than he felt, “and see what Bylas has seen.”

“You'll not enjoy it,” Bylas said, nor did they. The buffalo were in a small draw—a herd of thirty or so, half that number already dead, their bloodsmell panicking the rest so that they milled about and charged uselessly up the ridges or toward the entrance. Racharran could not decide which he found the more disgusting—the creatures that attacked or the creatures that paced the rims and the entrance. The latter he supposed men: they wore the shapes of men, the heads and arms and legs all encased in bright armor that shone and glittered and tricked the eye so that it was just as Bakaan had told him. They were hard to see, to define, and they carried swords and lances that seemed possessed of their own power, so that when only a single strangeling sprang out before the terrified buffalo brandishing his weapon, the beasts snorted and turned away, driven back toward the other predators.

And those were no less horrifying than Bakaan had said—each big as a buffalo bull, but not such creatures as Racharran had ever seen. They ran on wide and padded feet that sprouted claws large as daggers, and their bodies were fur and scales combined, with lashing tails like those of rats. They had massive shoulders and heavy heads, sharp-eared and longly jawed, with savage fangs and hot red eyes. They seemed to Racharran abominations, as if different and unrelated creatures were joined in horrid amalgamation. And their appearance was matched, even surpassed, by their bloodlust—Racharran must hold himself back from crying out at what they did to the buffalo.

The People hunted the buffalo. Like the Matawaye, they were part of life's circle, creations of the Maker, set down in Ket-Ta-Witko that they might multiply and grant their bounty to the People. Their skins made robes and tents, their bones implements and glue, the sinews cords. All was designated within the Ahsa-tye-Patiko, and the People took no more from the herds than met their needs: that was the Maker's Will.

This was not. This was wanton slaughter, neither for meat nor shel
ter but only for lust of killing, of destruction. The strangeling beasts clawed and bit and roared as the buffalo bellowed in terror and pain, and stumbled in the tanglings of their own entrails. Racharran saw a cow brought down and gutted and left kicking behind; a bull tossing helpless horns and running as two of the beasts mounted its back and chewed away its spine, and then left it to course and gut another. A yearling died at a single bite.

It was all he could do not to flight arrows against them. But he fought that impulse and made himself still and watched, even as bile rose in his throat and he felt such hatred as he had never felt, not even against Chakthi. He heard a sound and turned to see Lonah spitting vomit. At his side, Bishi thrust a finger between his teeth and bit down, that he not cry out in disgust. Zhonne and Motsos lay white-faced as the snow under them.

The buffalo died, all of them, and their slayers gorged on some and left the rest all bloody and ruined and pointlessly slain. Then the manthings came down and carved off steaks and ribs and set to eating the meat raw.

They were easier to define against the dark shapes of the buffalo carcasses, and Racharran saw that there were no more than seven of them, and seven of the creatures. For a moment he thought of rescinding his own orders and attacking, but he knew—for all his outrage prompted him to believe otherwise—that such monstrosities as these could not be defeated by six Commacht. They were too terrible, too given to wanton slaughter: what they did had nothing in it of humanity, but only … 
otherness,
such strangeness as spoke of generation outside the Maker's creation. He felt he looked on blasphemy incarnate, as if all the darkness and ugliness of the very worst of sins were released into the world and become rapacious flesh.

He watched aghast, scarce daring to breathe for fear these things sense it and slay him before he had chance to tell the People what he had seen. He watched them end their feast, and the man-things call up the beasts and set saddles on them, then mount and ride away. He was ashamed he felt so glad when they went away from where he lay.

“What now?” Zhonne asked, his voice harsh with disgust.

Racharran thought a moment. Then: “I think those must be scouts.” He did not want to say what he knew he must, but he was akaman of the Commacht—he had a duty. So he said, “We must go after them and see where they go. Likely they join a larger band. We need to know how large, and where it is.”

“Likely we go to our deaths,” Motsos said.

Racharran said, “Perhaps. Would you turn back?”

Motsos glanced sidelong at Zhonne and Bishi, then shook his head.

“But a long way behind them, eh?” Lonah said. “And very wary.”

“Yes,” Racharran said, and forced his mouth to smile. “But look you, they go toward the Tachyn grass. Shall we dare that?”

It was a poor jest, but it elicited smiles, albeit grim.

“I think,” Lonah said, “that after what I've seen this day I am not much afraid of Chakthi's wrath.”

“Then we go,” Racharran said. “And see what worse things lie ahead.”

The strangelings' stranger mounts ran swift and sinuous, their wide paws better equipped for traversing the snow than the smaller hooves of the Commacht horses. Racharran held his men back—those paws left a clear trail, and he'd not risk battle with such beasts. At least, not yet, for in his soul he knew that fight must sooner or later come. But not yet, he prayed. Not until all the People understand and join together to face this threat. So he waited as the invaders disappeared into the snowy distance and only then took his men out.

They crossed the flat and, as the light began to fade, came to a band of low hills bearded with windblown pines. The tracks went into a gully that shone with harlequin patterns of shadow and starlight. Racharran halted at the entrance. He did not know if these creatures traveled by night or would make camp, but he was loath to stumble on them. He bade his men wait and himself went forward on foot. He saw, as he tracked them, that his own feet were easily encompassed by the massive paw marks: he clutched his bow tighter and willed his pounding heart slow down. Then, where the gully turned, he saw the reflection of fireglow on the snow and heard the rumbling growls of the beasts interspersed with guttural voices. He tested the wind. It was tricksy amongst the hills and dividing channels, but came mostly from ahead: he decided to chance it, and crept closer.

Hugging shadow as if it were Lhyn's body, he moved into the angle of the gully and saw ahead a widening, a shallow bowl where the strangelings made their camp.

The riders sat about a fire, still armored save for their helmets, and he saw they were not, in the generalities of their shaping, so very different from men. He was surprised to see that three were female. This he assumed from the angling of cheekbones and lips, for all of them were of similar physiognomy and length of hair. He was even more surprised that they were so … the only word he could think of was
beautiful
. Their hair was long and fair, falling in soft, smooth folds about faces
that, even planed and shadowed by the fire's light, were lovely, as if physical beauty were cynically contrasted with horrid nature. Their brows were wide and smooth above large, gently slanted eyes, their noses straight, their mouths generous, their teeth broad and white, tearing at raw chunks of buffalo meat that dribbled blood down their chins so that they wiped and licked it from their fingers, laughing.

Racharran stared at them awhile, fascinated and horrified, and then to where their monstrous mounts lay on the snow. They were not tethered, and from time to time one rose and paced and growled before lying down again. He thought them all weird and horrible, and thanked the Maker the wind blew as it did and that they set out no guards. He supposed them too confident for that.

He crept away with held breath and returned to his men.

That night none of the Commacht slept nor lit a fire, but only sat huddled with their horses close at hand, praying the wind not change direction or the animals betray them with a snicker. When cold dawn came up, Racharran once more ventured into the gully. The invaders' fire was only embers, their trail leading out. He called up his men, and they continued their wary pursuit.

Beyond the hills lay open plain, then forest, and they must hang back for fear their quarry sight them. But the tracks ran clear, as if the invaders had learned what they would and now returned to report.

It took them three days to traverse the forest, and when they reached the edgewoods they could see the pinnacle of the Maker's Mountain far off in the distance, shining brilliant under the winter sun. Save for brief obeisance, they paid the peak scant attention, for their eyes were entirely occupied with what lay between the woodland and the mountains.

An army such as Ket-Ta-Witko had never seen camped there, spread bright and brilliant across the snow. Racharran stared in horrified wonder. These invaders did not put up such lodges as the People used, but rather great pavilions that might hold whole families and were all rainbow-striped and hung with gaudy banners that bristled and crackled in the wind. And amongst them, down the wide avenues between, went folk armored in colors to match the kaleidoscopes of the pavilions, so that the vast area covered seemed to shimmer and glitter with a myriad of hues that hurt the observing eye. Fires burned there, but seemingly only for their heat. Those invaders who ate consumed meat taken raw from the buffalo that stood penned and terrified to one side of the camp. On the other side were the riding beasts, not penned but watched by folk in black armor who wandered the perimeter of the unmarked enclosure with long goads like strange-bladed lances.