Beyond the Bulwarks Page 8

  “And what about her—”

  “Quiet.”

  One of Ulfun’s enforcers materialized from the forest behind them and crawled the last few feet to their spot. Anzo noted the man’s grip on his spear, fingers clenched to the point of trembling. His eyes mirrored Ulfun’s when he’d spoken of the Marovians’ fate.

  “What?” Ulfun asked in a taught voice, clearly picking up on his comrade’s agitation.

  “It was a camp,” the man said. “Now...” he shivered “...you need to see this.”

  Ulfun’s brow knotted. “Stay here.” He waved Anzo along with him.

  They descended a gentle, heavily-overgrown hillside. The stink of smoke thickened. The warble of the Lydirian seemed unusually loud with the air stilled and devoid of birdcalls or even the rustle of the wind in branches. Anzo found he’d unsheathed his sword without thinking about it, a dread he’d not known since the Temple of Thoth awakened in his thundering heart.

  A soft whistle to their left picked out the other Vhurr, crouched in the brush behind a twisted tree. They joined him and he gestured through the woods to where blades of sunlight cut through twists of smoke, lit on dark shapes huddled in an open patch at the bank of the river. “They’re down there.”

  “How many?” Ulfun asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.” The Vhurr’s voice was as hollow as an echo in a fresh grave.

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” Ulfun cuffed the other man’s shoulder. “What’s gotten in to you?”

  The Vhurr shook himself, some of the old bandit’s menace returning. “Go and see for yourself. No one’s going to stop you.”

  “Gutless whelps,” Ulfun growled as he started forward. He paused to glare at Anzo. “Unless you’re too busy wetting yourself?”

  Anzo followed.

  The soil grew spongy as they crept the last couple dozen feet down to the clearing by the river. It was a lousy spot for a campsite. A wagon loomed before them, sunk to its wheel hubs in the muck. Ulfun halted at its side and nodded. To one side a pair of tree trunks had been felled and stripped. One smoldered fitfully, a cavity chiseled into it and coals glowing in the bottom. Anzo had seen this before: the Vhurrs used a slow burning fire in the hole to speed the carving out of a makeshift canoe for river crossing. But it looked as though the work had been abandoned, an oversight stupid to the point of dangerous, even for a Vhurr.

  Anzo stepped over the half-finished craft and froze as his foot came to rest on the man whose neglect might have started a wildfire—not that he’d care anymore. What remained of the Vhurr lay in bloody shreds, chest splayed open, ribs peeled wide like fingers, yellow-white in the growing sunlight and glimmering with tags of viscera. A gore-splashed hand and forearm lay detached ten feet to one side, a crude carving tool still in its grasp.

  Ulfun blinked one, twice in disbelief. He gave himself a shake and gestured for Anzo to move into the clearing while he backtracked around the wagon to angle in from another direction.

  His gorge rising, Anzo prowled into the open. The air hung heavy with moisture and the ripe reek of spilled bowels. Two more wagons completed a trio, an arch that had served some measure of defensive value as the refugees prepared for their crossing. A badly-trampled campfire lay at the heart of the semicircle, a corpse half-sprawled over it, what remained of a leg burned down to an oily crisp of bone. More bodies piled around it, large bundles that might have been torsos, smaller tangles that could have been body parts—or smaller bodies.

  A hiss jolted Anzo’s attention away from the scene. Ulfun was at the rear of one of the other wagons, looking into its bed. He flinched away and put the point of his sword into the dirt to steady a wobble. Nausea yellowed hard-bitten features for a moment before he seemed to compose himself and wave Anzo to finish his sweep.

  Anzo had seen murder and battle, had seen massacre, but this went beyond his experience. Wandering as though through a nightmare, he made his way to the bank of the Lyrdirian and found more bodies in stagnant pools stained black with old gore. Again, these were in shreds, rent asunder by something with superhuman strength and speed. Wild animals might have been to blame, but he saw no tracks, save those of the victims, scrawled amongst blood, muck, and pebbles.

  He turned slowly, deep breaths forcing back illness. A pattern began to emerge as he suppressed horror with a professional’s focus. The slaughter had started at the riverbank, the duo there probably fetching water when their attacker happened on them. The hell had spread inward from that point. He followed carnage, cast-aside tools plied unsuccessfully as weapons, and wild ruts in the mud where feet had clutched desperately for purchase. The fight—if it could be called such—had ended around the campfire. After that—butchery.

  Anzo glanced over his shoulder, to the river, to the far bank. For one shameful instant, he calculated how hard and fast he’d have to swim to make the Imperial side.

  “Orkall’s flea-infested...” Ulfun prodded a corpse splashed against one of the wagons’ wheels. “This is...I think this is Urvus.”

  Anzo joined Ulfun, looking at the heap of bloody rags. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the man when he and Varya had been ambushed, wasn’t certain anyone could recognize the stripped, eyeless wreck as another man’s face. The cudgel propped against a mangled thigh looked like those common amongst the Flinarr, though.

  “The poor, stupid simpleton,” Ulfun knelt at the body’s side, “he probably joined up with this lot, figured he’d had enough.” The Vhurr shook his head. “He was soft and worthless in a fight but...Orkall’s curse, no one deserves this.”

  Anzo set his hand on Ulfun’s shoulder. “It wasn’t wolves or bears or men. What did this?”

  “You think I know?” Ulfun shot back to his feet to glower at Anzo.

  “You said something happened to the Marovians. Was it like this?”

  “No!” He drew his helm off with a swipe and dabbed matted hair with his forearm. “Orkall, no. That, at least, was the work of men. This...” He stiffened and some new, unsteady flicker shimmered under the blue of his stare. “Well...there have been stories of late...”

  “Stories...” Anzo glanced around at the destruction, didn’t let his gaze linger too long on anything. “There are always stories. ‘Stories’ didn’t kill these people.”

  “Well what do you want me to—” Ulfun cut off. Rustle in the woods above set both men to hiding behind the wagon. A moment later, one of Ulfun’s men emerged. One look at the scene hit him full in the face with shock.

  “What is it?” Ulfun growled to hide his distress. He stalked to the man. “You’ve never seen death before? What is it, fool?”

  “The...the others are back.” He blinked and forced himself to focus on Ulfun—and nothing else. “We’ve got to move. Someone’s on our trail.”

  Ulfun grabbed the man by the tunic. “Who?”

  “Hamraks, by the look of it.”

  Ulfun’s teeth bore. “Pretty-boy cowards. How many?”

  “I’m told many more than us.” He shook himself out of the grip and began to backpedal. “We have to hurry. If we don’t, they’ll cut us off from the lair!”

  ***

  Running, branches lashing by, stinging the flesh with their blows. Breath tore in the lungs. Sword felt like an anchor dragging him to death and the desire to cast it aside filled Anzo’s mind in a rising wave of panic as he sprinted to keep up with Ulfun and the others. They hit a steep incline, knobby with roots and rocks, and recognition flared. Hope blossomed as the path became familiar and the rumble of the falls weighted the air.

  Shouts and yipping like a pack of dogs sighting prey echoed through the forest. A glance through trees showed Anzo flashes of blonde hair, steely glint of weapons, the momentary flash of sunlight on a helmet, and broad-shouldered forms. The racket of their pursuers spread to their flanks, began to close around them in a clenching fist.

  Ulfun’s toe caught a stone and he went down. Anzo, bringing up the rear, stopped to wrestle the man back to h
is feet. He chanced another backwards look as the Vhurr lurched on. A figure in scaled armor stepped from behind a tree and flung out an arm. Air fluttered and the thin pine to Anzo’s left smacked. Anzo spun with the skin of his back crawling and dashed after Ulfun. A small throwing axe quivered in the trunk, had missed his skull by inches.

  The Flinarr party topped the spine of the hill facing into the gorge and scrambled along the narrow path to the stone bridge. Their lead members were already scuttling across with cries of alarm. The face of the Flinarr’s crag boiled with churned-anthill movement, campfires catching the flick of weapons being readied. The ever-present rattle of Henna’s drum took on a staccato urgency.

  Ulfun paused at the near side of the bridge. “Go!” Anzo bellowed and pushed the other man ahead of them. Waterfall spray speckled the two as they staggered across.

  Howls resounded from the woods opposite the lair. Trees and underbrush shook with motion. Midday sun splashed off swords, spears, and armor as the Hamrak emerged in a mob from the forest to stand shrieking and cackling along the bare edge of the gorge. Fair hair danced in wild tangles about faces full of gnashing teeth and frenzied eyes. Weapons clanged against shields of hide stretched across battered iron rims. The mob bunched near the stone bridge, a group of men pausing to debate, iron helms embellished with horns or wings bobbing together in animation.

  “Get Greaus,” Ulfun gasped to one of his enforcers as they huddled in the cave mouth.

  Anzo eyed the Hamrak and felt despair sink its fingertips into his gut. He could count the better part of two dozen in the open and the shift of shadows among the trees at their backs hinting at many more. His best estimate of the Flinarr, even with rousting out the older men, put their fighting strength at not even half that.

  A Flinarr from the party that had stayed behind that morning joined them, even as Ulfun’s enforcer darted away. “What about the fishing party?” Ulfun asked the newcomer. The man shook his head and Ulfun swore. His hands shook with exertion and perhaps the horror of the morning’s find.

  The debate raging amongst the Hamrak near the bridge ended with one of their number stepping out onto the narrow stone way. The cacophony of his men stilled. Anzo recognized the scale mail armor and the small throwing axe, thrust now into a broad belt ornamented with silver, sap shining on its tested edge. The man took a testing stride further, hands away from his hips, sword sheathed. Sun picked out details of his helmet, Aurridian-make, though with the cheek pieces removed from their hinges and a boar’s skull affixed over the iron with fangs hooding bright green eyes.

  “And who’s this dandy?” Ulfun growled. He gave his sword a shake to loosen his arm. “Stay here.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Anzo said.

  “At least it’d be a hero’s death,” Ulfun murmured, apparently to himself. He strode forward before Anzo could react.

  The Hamrak leader stiffened at Ulfun’s approach, the sword arm that had been held high in a show of supplication dropping an inch closer to his hilt. Behind him, Anzo spied the glint of throwing axes being readied. The range was long, but a flurry of them would find a mark.

  “Hamrak sissies!” Ulfun bawled. “Have you bored of oiling each others’ hair and come to find your manhood?” He halted a third of the way across the bridge to glare at their leader. “Do you seek Orkall’s Test, boy? You will find it with me.”

  “I come not for blood, Flinarr,” replied the leader—whose youthful features midday light indeed revealed. “I come for talk.”

  “Talk is for Aurids and women.” Ulfun clutched his sword at a low guard, waited for the Hamrak to approach. “Unless you want to talk with steel?”

  The Hamrak youth’s smile held a hint of exasperation. “I am Durrim, son of Eyeloth, King of the Hamrak. And I’m not here to trade insults with a cur I just chased yelping like a bitch into her burrow.”

  Laughter erupted from the far side of the gorge. The Hamrak pounded their weapons and chests, a storm of jeers drowning out the waterfall roar. Ulfun’s frame quivered with the approach of frenzy and Anzo wondered if he’d have to join him on the bridge to keep him from suicide.

  “So, you’d rather trade insults with Greaus of the Flinarr?”

  Anzo pivoted to look up at the booming voice. Greaus stood in one of the caves overlooking the bridge, wolf skin cloak rippling about his shoulders, sunlight winking in the links of a mail corselet as he hefted his axe up into both hands. Henna crouched at his ankles, hands beating their insane pattern on her stretched-hide drum. Even in broad daylight a stain of shadow seemed to cling to her feather-shrouded form, a greasy, vulture-thing caught unawares outside her nest.

  “My Lord Greaus.” Durrim put a fist to his chest. “Greetings.”

  “You are known to us, boy.” Greaus’ words rasped harsh and hoarse against the rocky faces of the gorge. “Your father, too, though it amuses me that your father styles himself ‘king’ of anything.”

  Growls and a few shouts began on the far side of the defile, but a glare from Durrim silenced them. “In truth,” he said, turning to glower up at Greaus, “my father knows not of my coming.”

  “Oh, indeed.” Greaus shook with suppressed laughter. “It has come to me, too, your sad, sad tale. How long has it been, boy, since your father cast you out from his hall, decrying you a coward?”

  Shrieks exploded from the Hamrak. One of Durrim’s well-equipped retainers began to stride out onto the bridge, red-faced and shaking an axe while the rest of their line rippled with beaten weapons and threats. But Durrim spun to his followers, drew his sword and held it up high before them until the din of their fury subsided. He turned away from them slowly, a weary smile still pulled over the pale flesh of his young face as he regarded Greaus.

  “What you say is true, of course. I am an outcast.” He waved his sword at his retinue. “These brave souls are deserters with me, sworn to something better.”

  “Now we return to the woman-talk,” Greaus called down.

  “I come to talk of sanity,” Durrim fired back, “something my father would not hear of locked away in his hall with his drink and his fears. I was thrown out for suggesting we forget old grudges and work together for something greater.”

  Anzo stiffened, the words hitting him like a cold splash from the falls. His gaze wandered to the caves above. The Flinarr were all there, watching, some with weapons and hate borne of fear, others catching a glimmer of hope. He spied Varya high above, took relief as her eyes found his. Heathen towered behind her, sagged against a boulder with his hand at his belly, but a smile taking shape on his face, the same smile beginning to kindle amongst some of the others.

  Durrim, judging by the dart of his eyes, saw it, too, saw the new current churning the crowd. “Something terrible wakes in these lands, borne east from the wastes and the vileness that lingers there. You all know it. If all we do is bicker amongst one another, as the Vhurrs have always done, we are certain to be ground under by it.”

  On the bridge, Ulfun glanced over his shoulder at Anzo. Fear and distrust still held their ground in his features, but something new had begun to work at the fringes. Seeing it, sensing it in himself, Anzo nodded encouragement.

  “I come to you, Greaus, Lord of the Flinarr, as one warrior to another, to seek alliance.” Durrim slid his sword back into its sheath. “Together, with others—and there will be others, I swear!—we can return to my father, present ourselves as a growing front in a new war to save ourselves.”

  The Hamrak bawled their approval and for a few instants, Anzo thought some of the Flinarr might actually be cheering with them.

  Greaus spoke into the fading clamor, his tone mocking. “And I suppose the Erevulans, who’ve taken such pleasure in bleeding these lands since the Marovians fell, will simply bow to your wisdom and join this fool’s quest, as well?”

  Durrim’s lip quirked, a gambler’s sighting of advantage. “I get this wisdom from Theregond of the Erevulans, himself. It is his cause to which we are now pledged.” His f
eatures darkened. “It is for that we are cast out from our own folk.”

  The waterfall’s crash smote the silence. Greaus’ harsh laughter filled it. “Now I know that you’re a madman.”

  “Is it madness to join together to survive?”

  “It’s madness to trust a boy who is traitor to his father.” Greaus shook his axe before him. “And now I think we’ve heard enough from you. Be gone from our lands!”

  Murmurs wormed amongst the rocks above, Flinarr shifting as heads bowed together. Ulfun stared up at his chieftain, a struggle in his eyes. He shot a fleeting glance to Anzo.

  “Be gone, I said!”

  Durrim’s shoulders fell. He looked to his retinue and shook his head. “We are going nowhere. The choice is before you, Flinarr.” He let his gaze play across the crags of their lair. “Join us in hope and a new way, or die in your holes.”

  Henna rattled a sharp pattern against her drum and cut it off to slide up her lord’s thigh, hands working in spidery patterns as she reached his hip. Fingertips played at the bulge of his belly and her cowl twitched at his ear. His face darkened to red-black.

  “Kill him!”

  Ulfun flinched as though struck in the face. Fingers worked in furious knots at the grip of his sword.

  “Are you deaf?” Greaus pumped his axe at Durrim. “Slay this whelp, Ulfun!”

  Anzo started out onto the bridge. “Ulfun, don’t—”

  “You turn against me?” Greaus thrashed, nearly knocked Henna aside in his frenzy. “Both of you?”

  “My Lord, maybe if we—”

  Greaus shrieked and spun from sight, his curses working their way into the very rock until they were gone. Silence seemed loud in the aftermath, the Flinarr tense in the expectation of their chief’s fiery return. When he didn’t reappear, Henna sank down into a feathery pile, crouched at the edge of the rock. Twin pinpricks of cold, yellowy menace flashed out from her cowl.

  “I leave it to you,” Durrim called across the gorge. “We will wait, for word or for blood.” He withdrew to the other side. Within minutes, the Hamrak had receded from sight. The rustle of undergrowth and the ripple of the shadows betrayed that they had not gone.