The Carpet People (3 page)

A little way on he turned off the road, and soon the dazzling white wooden cliff of the Woodwall rose above the hairs. Roland's hooves made no sound on the thick dust that lay about, and the Carpet closed in. Snibril felt the great immensity of it all around him stretching far beyond the furthermost limits of the Empire. And if the Dumii road might lead to distant places, where might this old track lead?

He sat and watched it sometimes, on quiet nights. The Munrungs moved around a lot, but always in the same area. The road was always around, somewhere. Pismire talked about places like the Rug, the Hearth and the Edge. Faraway places with strange-sounding names. Pismire had been everywhere, seen things Snibril would never see. He told good stories.

Several times Snibril thought he heard other hooves nearby. Or were they black paws? Roland must have heard them too, for he trotted along smartly, always on the edge of a canter.

Dust had drifted up between the hairs here, forming deep mounds where herbs and ferns grew thickly and made the air heavy with their scent. The path seemed to grow drowsy, and wound aimlessly among the dust mounds for a while. It opened out into a clearing right by the south face of the Woodwall.

It had dropped from the sky, many years before. It was a day's march long, and a good hour's walk wide. Half of it had been burned-unimaginably burned. Pismire said there had been one or two others, elsewhere in the far reaches of the Carpet, but he used the Dumii word: matchstick.

Pismire lived in a shack near the old wood quarry. There were a few pots lying around the door. Some thin half-wild goats skipped out of the way as Roland trotted into the clearing. Pismire was not there. Nor was his little pony.

But a freshly-tanned snarg skin was hanging by the cave. And someone was lying on a heap of ferns by a small fire, with his hat pulled down over his face. It was a high hat that might once have been blue, but time had turned it into a shapeless felt bag about the colour of smoke.

His clothes looked as though they had gathered themselves round him for warmth. A tattered brown cloak was rolled under his head as a pillow.

Snibril left Roland in the shade of the hairs and drew his knife. He crept towards the sleeper and made to raise his hat brim with the knifepoint.

There was a blur of activity. It ended with Snibril flat on his back, his own knife pressed to his throat, the stranger's tanned face inches from his own.

The eyes opened. He's just waking up, Snibril thought through his terror. He started moving while he was still asleep!

"Mmm? Oh, a Munrung," said the stranger, half to himself. "Harmless!" He stood up.

Snibril forgot to be frightened in his haste to be offended.

"Harmless!"

"Well, by comparison to things like that," said the stranger, indicating the skin. "Pismire said one of you might show up."

"Where is he?"

"Gone off to Tregon Marus. He should be back soon."

"Who are you?"

"I like the name Bane."

He was clean-shaven, unusual in anyone but young Dumii boys, and his red-gold hair was bound up in a plait down his back. Although in some ways he did not appear much older than Snibril himself, his face was hard and lined except for his grin. At his belt hung a fierce-looking short sword, and there was a spear beside his pack.

"I was following mouls," he said, and saw the blankness in Snibril's face. "Creatures. From the Unswept Regions, originally. Nasty pieces of work. They ride around on these things."

He indicated the skin again.

"Weren't you afraid of the eyes?"

Bane laughed, and picked up his spear.

Then Pismire was with them, the rangy figure riding into the clearing, long legs almost touching the ground on either side of his pony. The old man showed no surprise that Snibril was there.

"Tregon Marus has fallen," he said slowly. Bane groaned.

"I mean fallen," said Pismire. "Destroyed. The temples, the walls, everything. And snargs everywhere in the ruins. Fray has crushed the town. It was at the epicentre-right underneath," he went on wearily. "It has been a long, horrible day. Where've the tribe gone? Burnt End? Good enough. Very defensible situation. Come on."

Bane had a small pony, grazing among the hairs. They set off, keeping close to the wooden cliff.

"But what is Fray?" said Snibril. "I remember you telling stories about old times ... but that was long ago. Some kind of monster. Not something real."

"The mouls worship it," said Bane. "I'm ... something of an expert."

Snibril looked puzzled. The Munrungs didn't have gods. Life was complicated enough as it was.

"I have theories," said Pismire. "I've read some old books. Never mind about the stories. They're just metaphors."

"Interesting lies," translated Bane.

"More like ... ways of telling things without having to do much explaining. Fray is some kind of force. There were people who used to know more, I think. There were old stories about old cities that suddenly vanished. Just legends, now. Oh, dear. So much gets forgotten. Written down and then lost."

The little old tracks that ran everywhere in the Carpet did not go straight, like the road, but wound in and out of the hairs like serpents. Any traveller who walked them, and few did, rarely met anyone else. Yet the paths were never overgrown. The Dumii said that they had been made by Peloon, the god of journeys. The Munrungs privately held that the Carpet itself had made them in some mysterious way, although they didn't say this in front of the Dumii. They didn't have any gods themselves but were generally polite about those belonging to other people.

Beneath the rugged tip of the Woodwall that was called Burnt End the track divided, going west and north. Glurk stopped his cart and looked up at the burnt, black crags. For a moment he thought he saw a movement high above. He sniffed the air.

"I have forebodings," he told his wife. "We'll wait for Snibril."

He jumped down from the cart and walked back along the track. There it was again, something scrambling away ... no, just a shadow. Glurk sniffed again, then shook himself. This was no way to behave, jumping at shadows. He cupped his hands round his mouth. "Gather the carts round in a circle," he cried. "We'll camp here."

If you could put up with the unpleasantness and the ash, Burnt End was a safe place to be. The hairs had broken, when the Woodwall fell on to the Carpet, so there was not much cover for attackers. And the sheer white wood wall on one side reduced the chances of an attack. But the feel of the place was unsettling. Glurk bullied the tribe until the carts formed a wall, ponies and cattle penned inside. He ordered an armed man to sit on top of every cart, and set others to lighting fires and readying the camp for the night.

Keep 'em busy. That was one of the three rules of being chief that old Grimm had passed on to him. Act confidently, never say "I don't know", and when all else fails, keep 'em busy. He'd hunted around Burnt End before, and the deathliness around the blackened wood could be unnerving even at the best of times. The only thing to do was work, laugh loudly or sing or march about with spears, before everyone's fears got the better of them.

Soon, cooking fires sprang up within the ring. Glurk climbed on top of his cart, and peered back down the track. Fires got seen by ... things. Yet there was nothing like it to embolden the heart, and a hot meal did wonders for the courage. Were snargs out there? Well, they could deal with snargs. They had always been about, the nasty cowardly things. Snargs had just enough brains to know not to attack a village. They preferred to track the lone traveller, if the odds were high enough. Glurk didn't like the change.

After a while Glurk climbed down and took his hunting knife from under the seat. It was carved out of a snarg's thighbone and as good as a sword if it had to be. He thrust it into his belt, and accepted a bowl of soup from his wife.

Night wore on, and the guards nodded. Outside the bright ring deeper shadows padded among the hairs ... and it seemed as though, around the ring of light, a darker ring had grown.

They attacked to the south of the ring. There was a howl. Then a cart rocked. Its guard leapt for his life. It was Gurth, Glurk's eldest son.

"All arm! All arm! Hold the ring!" cried Glurk, and leapt across the fire with a spear in either hand. One he hurled as he ran, and he heard it hit.

These were not like the snargs he knew, came a cold thought out of his mind. They were daring to attack, and they carried men on their backs, or things like men at least, with green eyes and long teeth. For a moment Glurk hesitated, and an arrow grazed his arm.

Horses screamed and pulled the picket stakes out of the ground, stampeding through the running people.

Glurk saw another cart go over, and then above him loomed a snarg with a shining collar. There was a roar, and a crash, and ... darkness spread along his arm, and drifted across his mind like nightfall.

The fires made a beacon for the three as they led their mounts down from the hidden path.

"We should head into the Empire," said Pismire. "Things won't be any-"

He stopped. Bane was drawing his sword. He dismounted quietly, and inched forward. With his free hand he motioned Pismire to go on talking.

"And of course Ware is so nice at this time of year," said Pismire hurriedly, "And there are many interesting byways and historic-"

"Have you known Bane long?" said Snibril, watching the stranger walk warily ahead.

"He's an old friend."

"But who is-"

Bane took one step forward, then whirled round and brought his sword whistling down into the shadows at his side. There was a grunt, and a body fell silently across the path, a crude black sword dropping from its hands.

Snibril gasped, and drew back. It wore armour of black leather, sewn with bone rings. At first sight the figure was manlike but when Snibril went closer he saw the hairy pelt and paws, and the long animal face.

"Mouls," said Bane. "I can smell 'em!"

"We must make haste!" said Pismire. "They never move alone!"

"But it's like a human!" said Snibril. "I thought there were only monsters and animals in the Unswept Regions."

"Or a cross between the two," said Bane.

The distant fires were blotted out for an instant, and a snarg cried.

Before it had died away Snibril was in Roland's saddle and away, the others in close pursuit. There was shouting up ahead, and black shapes were moving across the light. As they entered the clearing and the broken ring of carts Snibril felt the horse bunch itself together for the leap.

He clung on tightly as they cleared a cart's roof with some inches to spare and landed, lightly, inside the ring. His arrival was hardly noticed in the battle that flowed around him.

In one place the fallen carts were on fire, and that stopped the creatures. But some had broken through, and each was roaring at the people that slashed at it.

Glurk lay still beneath one huge paw of a snarg, the biggest Snibril had ever seen. The great burning eyes moved, and saw Snibril. He wanted to run, but the horse did not budge. The rider on the snarg's back had also seen him. It grinned unpleasantly.

Snibril slipped from the horse's back and picked up Glurk's spear. It was heavy-Glurk went in for spears that other people could barely lift, let alone throw. He held it cautiously, keeping the point aimed directly at the snarg.

The snarg and its rider turned to follow him as he moved around. He could see the huge creature tensing itself to spring.

And he could see Roland. He'd sidled in a half circle, and now the snarg and its rider were behind the horse. Roland's tail twitched.

And he kicked. Both hooves struck together.

The rider sailed past Snibril's shoulder. He was dead already. No-one could look like that and still be alive.

The snarg growled in astonishment, glared at Snibril, and leapt.

You should never have to chase prey, Pismire had always said. With proper observation and care, you should be waiting for them.

Snibril didn't even think. He left the butt end of the spear wedged in the ground, and held on tightly. The snarg realized that it had done something stupid when it was in mid-air, but by then it was too late, because it was hurling itself not at some weak creature but at a spearhead ...

That was the first battle.

When Snibril awoke the night was nearly past. He was lying by a dying fire, a pelt covering him. He felt warm and aching. He shut his eyes again, hurriedly.

"You're awake," said Bane, who was sitting with his back against a barrel and his hat, as usual, over his eyes. Roland was tethered to a nearby hair.

Snibril sat up and yawned. "What happened? Is everyone all right?"

"Oh yes. At least, what you would call all right. You Munrungs are difficult to kill. But plenty were injured, your brother the worst, I fear. Mouls rely on poison on their swords, and they cause a ... a sleep that you don't wake up from. Pismire is with him now. No, stay there. If anyone can cure him, then Pismire can. It won't help to have you under his feet. Besides," he added quickly, when he saw the look in Snibru's eyes, "how about you? We had to pull you out from under that creature."

Snibril murmured something, and looked around him. The camp was as peaceful as a camp could be, which was to say the early dawn was filled with noises and shouts, and the sounds of people. And they were cheerful sounds, with a note of defiance.

The attack had been beaten off. For a moment with first light glimmering in the hairs, the Munrungs felt in the mood to take on Fray and all his snargs. Some, like Bane, who never seemed to sleep, had stayed up by their fires, and early breakfasts were being cooked.

Without saying a word Bane raked a bundle out of the ashes. Warm smells rose from it. "Haunch of snarg, baked in its own juices," he said, slitting the burnt outer crust. "I killed the owner myself, I'm pleased to say."