The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (57 page)

Something emerged from the den entrance. Rowan stopped, then sidled to her right, seeking a clear view.

Merely a single female demon. Rowan found herself disappointed.

But the demon stood at the entrance for a long moment, motionless, while the others slowly grew equally still, and Rowan suddenly had the freakish impression that this creature was about to take a breath and declaim some great speech, and that the other demons were waiting for it to begin.

Naturally, no such thing occurred. The demon stepped away from the entrance, moved left, picked its way through the crowd, and eventually disappeared around the curve of the street.

There was no cess-garden entrance on the street around the next corner nor around the next or the next— and then Rowan was back at the crowd again on its opposite side.

For the entire block, the dens were completely contiguous. There was no access from the back.

But contiguous dens, Rowan recalled from site two, were interconnected inside. Enter one, and you enter them all.

Rowan backed away from the crowd again and around the corner.

This street was deserted. Rowan crossed and very cautiously pressed the side of her head against one den.

A hum through the bones of her skull; a demon within.

She tried the next and the next.

The fourth: no hum.

Rowan waited while two demons passed, dragging an entire mud-lion that trailed its own viscera from its slashed abdomen; waited longer while the calf that followed them snagged a loop of intestine, resulting in a brief tug-of-war; waited again as the calf, after slicing its prize free, slowly fed the entire length up, and then down into its maw; waited an eternity while the calf indulged in one of the typical, incomprehensible demon pauses; waited while it took its own time wandering down the street; waited until it was gone; waited until she was sure it was gone; and entered the den.

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nd waited while her eyes adjusted.

Diffused light spilled through the entrance, casting a hazy oval on the floor; slanted slits showed on the back wall.

There were no interconnecting doors. This den was isolated.

Rowan set her talisman on the ground, slightly back of the center of the chamber. Protection spilled invisibly out the entrance, guarding her back.

The uppermost slit in the wall was just below eye level, but the aperture was too narrow to afford her any good view. Nevertheless, where there was light, there was access to the sky. An open area, perhaps, like a central air shaft or courtyard, with dens all around.

Lower down: more slits, closer together. By stooping and rocking from side to side, the steerswoman acquired an assembled image of the area beyond.

Flat, earth-floored, the backs of other dens beyond, a number of objects that seemed constructed by the same method as the dens but standing perhaps three feet tall and showing no openings.

No demons visible.

Rowan inserted the point of her sword into one of the slits, applied a slow pressure, checked the result.

A small nick. It might take an hour or more to create an opening sufficient for her pass through, even on hands and knees. And the act was surely not silent; she had felt the abrasive rasp as her weapon cut through the sandy material.

The talisman would not protect her through the wall: any demon that entered the central area would hear her sawing sword instantly. There was no chance of being overlooked by an animal with no front or back, and with “eyes” completely around its body.

But none at all on top.

How very interesting.

Picking up the talisman on her way out, she crossed the street and stood regarding the roof-line of the row of dens.

Some sort of rope seemed called for. Unfortunately, she had brought none.

Still, the den before her was only seven feet tall at the top of its dome. A handhold or foothold might help.

She used her sword to chip at the face of the den, quickly creating a two-inch-deep gouge at the height of her own head. She backed off and stationed herself at some distance, to observe the reactions of passing demons to this wanton destruction.

Four individual creatures passed down the street, showing no interest. A fifth executed the surprise motion, then crossed to inspect the niche, prying at it with its talons, paused motionless for some moments, then walked away.

The creature was apparently not instinctively directed to immediately repair the damage.

Rowan then waited, with great impatience, while some natural flow of traffic caused no less than twelve demons to pass down the street, in groups and singly. Eventually there was a pause.

She could not waste the moment. She sheathed her sword, backed against the opposite den to acquire the best amount of running room, and ran.

A jump, and up, and her toe caught in the niche, pushed her higher, and she scrambled up the slope. Finding a stable position, she turned around to sit on the curve just shy of the crest of the dome.

She waited to see if any creature had noticed her act. She thought she had been very quiet.

So far above the demon line of sight, it might be possible for her to tuck the talisman into its kerchief, freeing her other hand— and she found a dozen reasons not to take the risk. Like an awkward, three-legged, inverted spider, Rowan cautiously worked her way around the dome toward the courtyard.

She rested, gazing down. No living thing was visible.

Three dead things were, however: an entire adult goblin jack; the skull of a mud-lion; and one limb, either arm or leg, of some unidentifiable other animal. All of them stank.

To jump down would be easy; to escape the same way with less running room, and objects to dodge, more difficult.

There must be access from the courtyard into at least one of the other dens. But she might need to fight her way out; she needed to be sure it was worth it.

Her sense of smell had helped her before. Resisting the impulse to close her eyes, she breathed slowly through her nose, letting her mouth fall open, smelling and tasting the air.

There, under the other odors: Urine. Human. Male.

She jumped— and rolled, drew her sword, and moved back against the wall—

And spun away again, swinging and striking at the creature standing behind her, then retreating to give herself sword-room—

The creature, a goblin, did not advance; nor did it fall. Rowan stood waiting for it to move. It remained in place. She lowered her sword, stepped forward.

The goblin was already dead, had been so for months. It stood upright against the wall, in a pose weirdly natural, held at critical points by thick wads of sand and gum. Rowan eyed it suspiciously, then cautiously crossed the courtyard.

The enclosed area was approximately thirty feet across, with three knee-high constructions spaced across it, each some five feet long, four feet wide. Touch confirmed that they were constructed as dens were, but they seemed solid.

Atop one: the first goblin-corpse, which she had sighted from above. She had assumed it was whole, but now she saw that each joint had been cracked or severed, and the pieces laid down in their proper configuration on the raised surface. She prodded the head with her sword tip; it rolled free, fell to the ground, scattering a group of small case-objects.

The severed arm appeared to belong to some massive relative of a pincer-beetle. A number of case-objects stood beside it. The mud-lion’s skull was reduced to mere black bones, its huge jaws lying separate, displaying the fearsome triple rows of needle teeth. A single, simple case-object lay in the cracked hollow where the creature’s brain would have been.

All around: the slitted back walls of dens. Only one showed an entrance. Rowan backed away from the center of the courtyard, approached the entrance by sidestepping around the walls, needing at one point to sidle past the upright goblin corpse, its dead arms outspread as if to embrace her.

Above, a cloud obscured the weak sun; the courtyard grew gray.

Good. Her eyes would need less time to adjust.

At the entrance, she paused to listen: no demon-voice. She sent her left hand with her talisman into the opening before her, then cautiously looked inside.

Only a chamber, empty but for five distinct groups of case-objects on the floor. No exit to the street outside, but there were two apertures, to left and right. Rowan entered the chamber, checked the left exit: another chamber, with another door and case-objects but no demons. The right aperture: another chamber with a similar configuration, also abandoned.

Which way?

She followed her nose. It was not difficult. Left.

Three, four, five chambers, connecting only to each other and never the outside. Some had case-objects in neat collections about the walls. Others contained bits of trash: empty pentagonal seashells, little chitinous leg joints, the odd branch of tanglebrush or blue-leaf.

No demons, neither by sound nor sight.

She estimated the size of each room she passed, noted its doors, set it in place in a slowly growing map in her mind. She marked the angles of the turns she took, found she was doubling back into a parallel set of chambers, far darker than the first. Air became stale and still and fouler, and ventilation slits no longer admitted outside light.

Eventually her sense of smell told her that she had come too far. She turned, retraced her steps.

The chamber she stopped in seemed empty. But the odor was strong, rank, and fresh; and if he was not here now, he had been recently, and for a long time.

The odor included that of old blood.

Trash all around, difficult to identify in the dim, twice-filtered light. No sound of a demon.

By the far wall, one pile showed a faint and incongruous splash of pale green. Rowan approached it, reversed her sword hilt, reached with the fingers she could spare from her grip.

The glove on that hand lacked two fingertips; her skin touched old silk.

No motion, and then sudden motion, all violence. She scrambled away, back against the wall beside one of the exits.

He was a vague, dim shape; but her senses were so keenly attuned to demon movement, demon shape that the human form and human stance almost glowed with logic. She half-saw half-reasoned that he was crouched back against the wall, left hand flung out on the wall beside him, right arm forward, fending her off, protecting his face, his head tucked downward.

Demon-voice, but distant; but she must stay silent.

She moved toward him; he shrank back.

Because she had recognized shape and movement in the dimness, she thought he might, also— so she stood erect, arms spread, giving herself the most human silhouette possible.

The warding arm dropped slowly, the head was raised. She could see the moving glint of his eyes, first on her shape, then on her sword, then on her face.

She approached. He permitted it.

Close up, his eyes were wide, wild. The green silk shirt was stained dark in places. Rowan paused to listen to the distant demon-song that still did not approach, and then risked saying, in a voice of only breath, “Janus.”

She thought he would faint. Then he did.

She dropped her sword, set the talisman down behind her, searched in panic for his heartbeat, felt it stuttering too rapidly beneath her hand, too close behind the sharp bones of his chest. She felt his face, his head: old, scabbed scratches across forehead and one cheek; hair in mats, some damp, some crusted. His shirt adhered to his body in places. She thought he was holding his right hand in a fist, but touch informed her that under the crusted wrapping of torn silk the fingers of that hand were missing. She drew back her own hand sharply.

He was, at the least, alive. Rowan sat back on her heels in the gloom, calming herself, thinking. Even half starved, Janus was far too heavy for her to carry.

She unknotted the kerchief at her belt, wet it from her water sack, applied it to the hollow of his throat, wet her bare fingers and let water drip onto his lips.

She waited, looking around the littered chamber: two exits, to adjacent chambers. She reviewed the route back to the courtyard.

But even conscious, Janus would not be able to clamber up the walls to escape. They must find some way out to the street.

The only street exit of which Rowan had certain knowledge led directly into a mob of demons.

And there was at least one demon, inside, somewhere. She could hear its voice growing fainter, then closer, then fainter again, as it moved among the other chambers.

But no voice was nearby. And she could deal with the one demon, should it come here.

Movement, from the corner of her eye; Janus was stirring. She turned back to him, wet his lips again, helped him to sit up, then held the water sack while he awkwardly drank.

Movement, again. She turned.

Nothing visible; and the demon-voice was still far.

And again, motion; across the chamber by the other exit. Rowan left the water with Janus, left the talisman to guard him, picked up her weapon, rose.