Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 54

He dropped back down. Adica still slept. Rage snuffled along the cave's wall." I thought you said we were in the land of Shu-Sha's tribe."

"So we are. But the Cursed Ones have killed or enslaved most of her people and have driven the rest into hiding."

"Why do the Cursed Ones hate humankind so much?"

She regarded him with a quizzical look." They need blood, or else their G.o.ds will turn against them. Maybe, too, they are like old man Joa, who buried ten skins and six stone axheads in the ground so n.o.body else could have them. Then he died, and when a girl accidentally found them two summers later, the skins were no good anymore. So maybe he did keep them for himself by spoiling them for anyone else. There are some people who are always wanting more, an extra piece of deer meat even though they already have enough, a handful of extra spear points even if another person must go short."

"You think the Cursed Ones are selfish in that way."

"Don't they have enough already?"

"I don't know," he admitted. He sighed sharply." If this isn't the land of the dead, then where are we?"

"In the land of Shu-Sha's tribe-" But she broke off, seeing that wasn't what he had meant.

"I have seen dragons, and a phoenix, and lion women. I have seen a great city beneath the sea, where the merfolk live. I have seen the land underground where the ones called skrolin bide. I've seen the Cursed Ones, and I think they look very like the man I knew as Prince Sanglant." He fingered the head of his staff, rubbing his thumb along the snarling dog's mouth, touching each car-ven tooth." The valley where your people live I saw in my dreams. But other people lived there once, who called themselves the Rock Children and whose mothers were like living stone."

Laoina looked troubled." These I have not seen, my friend. I know of no people calling themselves children of the rocks. As for the rest well, I am a Walking One, so I have seen many things, more than most. I admit that the city of the Bent People and the sea city of the merfolk confuse me, for how can it be that they have such strong magic and we have so little knowledge of them?"

"They live in rock and in water. How could we know of them, who live where we cannot?"

"Then why do they not show themselves to us? Nay, there is an answer already. What if they do not care for those of us who live where they do not? What if they do not need us as the Cursed Ones do? Maybe we have nothing they want."

"I have seen merfolk in my dreams," he murmured, thinking of Stronghand." But they were like beasts. Such creatures could not have built a great city." He knelt beside Adica, stroking her hair, wanting to wake her up gently." All that matters, here and now, is that I protect Adica. But sometimes I just don't understand where I am."

"Maybe it is better that way," she said softly, but when he CHILD or FLAME looked up, surprised at the compa.s.sion in her tone, she had turned away as if to hide her expression.

Adica still did not stir, although she breathed evenly enough. He kneaded her clenched hands but could not get them to open, tapped her knees, stroked her under her chin, but she gave no response. At last he sat back on his heels." She's in a trance." He'd seen it before; it was one of the things that made her a Hallowed One, fits taking her, convulsions, long sleeps." How do we escape this cave?"

Laoina made a sign against evil spirits, then spat. After that she crouched beside Alain and regarded Adica dispa.s.sionately. After all, she must have been used to the twitching and drooling, the blank stares or the sudden unbreakable sleeps, since her younger brother was the Hallowed One of the Akka tribe." First we must wait for night."

Maybe there was a more harrowing way to descend into a defile overlooked by a ruthless enemy's fort than on a moonless night with an unconscious woman tied to your back and the knowledge that your two faithful companions, left in a shallow cave, would die of thirst if for any reason you didn't return to them within two days. At the moment, Alain couldn't think of one.

Laoina climbed right below him, murmuring directions: a ledge off to the right broad enough to brace his left foot; a fall of shale to be avoided; a st.u.r.dy root grown out of the hillside, suitable for grasping.

Better to imagine himself blind as he negotiated. His arms ached horribly, and his healing hand had begun to hurt like fire. His fingers were sc.r.a.ped raw, and he kept inhaling dust stirred up by his pa.s.sage. Adica wasn't particularly heavy, but she was a dead weight, and the ropes that bound her to his back cut into his chest and hips. Her breath tickled his neck, but she did not respond at all. Maybe she would never wake up.

Nay, better not to think like that. He had sworn to protect her, and he would.

Laoina had many skills. She, too, was heavily laden. The only things they had left behind with the hounds were the last of their provisions and all of the water, poured out into a shallow depression in the rock. She was a patient climber and a good guide as they crept down the steep slope. It was a different world than the one he knew, even than the one he'd grown used to at Queens' Grave. The tough shrubs smelled different, resinous or sharply aromatic, and bore narrow-bladed leaves. Many of the plants had thorns that stung his skin or caught in Adica's corded skirt. Once they came across a narrow cave mouth where a large bird had built its nest, now empty. Here he rested on his side in a hollow of twigs lined with gra.s.s and hair and skin and the bones of the small creatures it had carried here to feed its young.

"When we make war," he said to Laoina, who was crouched beside him, "it's like feeding the bones of our children to our enemy and even to ourselves, isn't it?"

"They'll eat our children whether we fight them or not." Wind sighed along the slopes, rustling the shrubs around them." I'd rather fight."

"That isn't what I meant-" Out of the gulf of air, he heard a man's laughter, high and sharp.

They kept still, knowing how exposed they were, yet surely with only the stars to light them they couldn't be seen from above.

"Come," whispered Laoina." There's better cover along the stream."

They half slid down the last incline before it bottomed out where a stream cut through the rock. Alain was so scratched up that his skin wept trickles of blood. The pain in his injured hand had settled into a dull throbbing. Laoina held branches aside as they pushed through the dense curtain of trees to get to the stream itself, a gurgling channel of water flowing over exposed rocks, but he still stung everywhere from branches sc.r.a.ping him. With Laoina's help he untied Adica's limp body and finally settled on slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of turnips, except maybe a sack of turnips was less unwieldy.

It was hard work wading downstream in the darkness, even with Laoina testing every step before him and with his staff to steady himself. He slipped once on a rock that tipped as he brought his weight down on it. The b.u.t.t of his staff glanced off a stone and flew up as he fell down to bang his knees so painfully that tears flowed, warm salt tears sliding away into the cold spring-fed waters.

"Let me carry her," whispered Laoina.

"Nay. I can manage. She isn't a burden to me."

The sound of wind and water serenaded them; otherwise, it was silent. Where had the laughing man gone?

Stars blazed above. The Queen's Sword rode at zenith, almost directly above them. Adica called the Sword by a different name. She called it the Heron and had shown him how the stars outlined its broad wings, head tucked back against its shoulders, and trailing legs.

He braced himself on the staff and, with a grunt, pushed up to his feet. Adica moaned softly, whispering inaudible words. Crickets chirped. A whirring insect brushed against his face. He flailed, taken by surprise, just as Laoina hissed sharply and grabbed his arm. He heard the man's laughter again, closer this time and answered by a second voice. A rustling disturbed the trees. He heard a grunt from the same direction he'd heard that laughter, a "gaw" of pain, a cry, broken off and rolling into a horrible gurgle.

Throats slit. Men dying silently.

A child swung out of the branches just in front of them and landed nimbly in the stream. She-or he-held a bow in one hand and with the other gestured impatiently. A length of white cloth was tied around its hips; otherwise, the child was naked except for sandals and dark stripes painted across its thin chest.

"Come," whispered Laoina urgently.

They cut away into the underbrush, Alain stumbling over the rough ground as he followed Laoina and the child. They hadn't gone more than a hundred steps when a dozen figures blocked their path, each one armed with a round s.h.i.+eld and a short sword. Because they were all painted with dark stripes across their bare chests and faces, they were hard to distinguish in the darkness since the blend of shadow and light against their skin made them fade into the night and the vegetation. Their leader, a stocky young man, spoke quickly to Laoina.

"You heard our call."

"We did. Where is the Holy One?"

"No one knows. But it is certain that the Cursed Ones have taken her prisoner. The Horse people are on the move."

"What must we do, then?"

"Go quickly. The queen needs the strength of the deer girl." He nodded toward Adica, looked again, and hastily came over to examine her." She is caught in a vision," he said to Laoina, ignoring Alain." We must get her to Queen Shuashaana at once." Without asking permission, he began to untie the ropes holding Adica over Alain's shoulders.

"Let them carry her," said Laoina as Alain began to protest." You are tired."

"The hounds." It was the one point he was fixed on, like an arrow shot true.

"Ah." She turned back to the leader, and the two fell into an intense exchange that he was too tired to follow." So it will be," she said at last to Alain as three men separated themselves from the others, trading packs with their comrades." Once the Cursed Ones find the bodies of their patrol, this defile will swarm with them like hornets. You must get your dogs now, before the sun rises, or you will never get them. We will take the Hallowed One to Shu-Sha's camp. These men will help you with the hounds. That one-" She pointed to a middle-aged man wearing a necklace of jet beads." -is trained as a Walking One and can speak for you. I will go to be the words for the Hallowed One. Then you will follow after."

"I can't leave Adica!"

Laoina cut him off." Then must you leave your dogs. One, or the other. We will go swiftly to Shu-Sha's camp. The Hallowed One will be safe with these warriors, even until you come."

Looking them over, he thought she was probably right. The dozen warriors, three of them women, looked strong, determined, and ruthless. He hated to leave Adica, knowing that the Cursed Ones might still ambush the party carrying her, but clearly these people knew the ground better than he did and he already knew they would kill. To follow her now, he would have to abandon Sorrow and Rage.

"Very well. So must it be. I will take the waterskins." He kissed Adica's warm cheek before a man hoisted her over his back. She gave no response. Her hands remained clenched, and it was hard to make out her features in the darkness. She was only a shadow, really, blurred and indistinct. As the other party faded into the darkness, he lost sight of her hanging helplessly off another man's back.

Fear for her made tears burn hot in his eyes. It gnawed at his gut, but he forced it to keep still, to crawl into his aching arms and legs and feed them with its dark energy. He would catch up to her in Shu-Sha's camp. By believing it, he would make it happen.

He turned toward his new companions, who eyed him with interest. Two of them looked so alike that for an instant he thought he was seeing double. They wore, like him, neatly trimmed beards, but they had coa.r.s.e, wiry black hair.

"We should take water. The hounds will be thirsty. I am called Alain."

The man wearing the jet beads looked him up and down. He had silver in his beard and a swarthy complexion." I am called Agalleos. These two are my brother's sons, born together, Maklos and Shevros. Be quick."

The twins parted the bushes, stationing themselves up and downstream from Alain as he filled all four waterskins." How did you come to stumble upon us?" he asked.

"The queen saw you in a vision. She sent us. The Cursed Ones have a fort here. She feared they would capture you. Then that would be the end. You would have been sent to walk the spheres. Skau!" He hissed the word, making a sharp gesture at his throat like a knife cutting into the skin.

"What does this mean, to walk the spheres?" The phrase niggled at the back of his mind, but he couldn't place where he had heard it.

"Hurry," said Agalleos." We must get these spirit guides and be gone before dawn."

They waded back up the creek. Alain smelled death before he saw it. Luckily, the tumble of corpses was mostly hidden in the darkness, five soldiers lying dead under a sycamore tree where Agalleos' party had caught them. They had been only a few hundred paces behind Alain and Laoina when they had been struck down.

Maklos whistled softly, like a bird, and pointed to the scar cut through the undergrowth where Alain and Laoina had thrashed down from the hillside. The waning quarter moon was rising. Agalleos scooped up mud from the streambed and streaked Alain's arms, legs, and face with it. They started up with Shevros in the lead.

The twins clearly had experience climbing rugged hillsides; they swarmed up so fast that Alain, less sure of where to place his hands and feet, had finally to ask them to slow down. The moon rose higher. They rested at the abandoned nest and continued on, glancing over their shoulders toward the fort looming darkly on the ridge behind them. They weren't anxious, precisely, but they were as taut as strings pulled tight. How keen sighted were the Cursed Ones' sentries?

Shevros reached the cave mouth first. Low growls trembled in the air. Alain scrambled up beside the young man, heaved himself over the lip, and slid down inside. Sorrow and Rage practically bowled him over with their greeting. When he'd gotten them down, he let them drink. Agalleos dropped down beside him, struck fire, and got a torch burning before moving into the cave, wary of the hounds.

"Are your spirit guides too heavy to grow wings?"

"They have no wings. But we have rope."

Keeping well back from the hounds, Agalleos prowled the cave, thrusting the torch into every crevice and hole in the limestone wall." It was the Bent People who brought you here? On what manner of s.h.i.+p or beast did you travel?"

"I don't know." Alain did his best to describe their journey, but gave up after Maklos, who had climbed down after, snorted loudly, and skeptically, when Alain told of the great marketplace where skrolin and merfolk traded their wares.

"Peace," said Agalleos sternly. Maklos had a c.o.c.ky lift to his chin, the kind of young man who believes, with some justification, that the young women of his acquaintance persist in admiring him." He and his brother are learning to be Walking Ones. That's made my brother's son believe he knows more than he does." His tone changed as he addressed the young man." Do not forget the lesson of your cousin, who thought he was smarter than the rest of us and became food for the crows!"

Sorrow padded over to Maklos, sniffing him up and down while the young man held very still, one hand twitching at the hilt of his sheathed sword.

"Nay, it matters not," said Alain, whistling Sorrow back." I have seen many things hard to believe. Have you seen the Bent People with your own eyes?"

"Not I." Agalleos shook his head." Nor any I know. It sounds like a good tale told at the fireside to me. But our great queen Shuashaana knows many things beyond the understanding of simple men like you and I. She is a woman, isn't she? She is a word worker, a crafter, I think you call it in the language of the Deer people. She is the heir of Aradousa, who was mother of our people, the daughter of bright-eyed Akhini." He finished his examination of the cave's depths, easily plumbed, and returned to Alain There are caves all through these hills. My grandfather called them 'the mouths of the old ones' and he said people would get lost in them and never come out."

Maklos grunted." An old man's smoke dreams!" Agalleos eyed him sharply." Say what you will about the old stones. My grandfather was a wise man. I do not ignore his wisdom." Then he grinned at Alain." Lucky for us that you're a Walking One, too. That makes it easy to talk." "I'm not a Walking One."

"How comes it that you speak our language, then?" "I only know the language of the Deer People, and that of my own country."

Agalleos measured the hounds, and then Alain." This is a mystery," he admitted, "since I started speaking to you in my own language once it seemed to me you understood me well enough."

"How can that be?" demanded Alain, alarmed and confused by Agalleos' statement.

The sound of a horn calling soldiers to battle rang faintly in through the cave's mouth. Shevros scrambled in through the opening and jumped down to stand beside his brother. The resemblance between the two was uncanny; Alain could tell them apart only because Shevros had a scar on his belly and because Maklos had belted his linen kilt-the only clothing except sandals that the men wore-lower along his hips than the other two, exposing a great deal of taut belly.

"The Cursed Ones come," said Shevros." The horn has been raised at the fort. They have found the dead ones."

Agalleos frowned." This is bad. They will swarm like locusts into the defile. Now we cannot go down again by the low ground." "Are we trapped here?" Alain asked.

"There is a longer road back. We must move quickly, before light comes."

It wasn't easy to wrestle the hounds out of the cave's opening, nor to maneuver them into position. Alain carried Sorrow as a heavy weight draped over his shoulders, and brave Maklos took Rage. Shevros led the way, climbing up toward the ridgeline above, while Agalleos hung back at the rear. Clouds drifted across the crescent moon, but Alain still felt the p.r.i.c.kle of unseen eyes watching his back as they ascended. The horn blasted thrice more. Calls and shouts drifted to them across the gulf of air. Just as they reached the ridgetop and let the hounds down, throwing themselves on the rocky ground to rest, a line of torches sprang into life along the fort's walls, spilling out the unseen gate and scattering like falling sparks down the slopes of the defile.

Agalleos regarded Sorrow and Rage solemnly." From here we know only two paths which can lead us safely back to the camp of our queen. But the shorter of these the hounds cannot walk." "Even with ropes, and our a.s.sistance?" asked Alain." Even so. It is a worm's path, underground and underwater. We cannot risk it. We will have to go north and circle around the river."

Maklos hissed sharply." Go soon," said Shevros." Look."

Torches had reached the bottom of the defile and a dozen now began to search for a way to climb while the rest followed the course of the stream. Cursed Ones spread everywhere, as numerous as a nest of baby spiders spilling into life. Pink painted the eastern horizon, the brush of dawn.

"Will Adica reach Shu-Sha's camp safely?" Alain whispered, horrified that he had let her be carried away. He should have gone with her to see her to safety. Yet Sorrow, lying beside him, whined softly, and Rage licked his hand.

"Nothing is certain," agreed Agalleos, "but theirs was the safest, swiftest path. Os.h.i.+dos is a strong fighter, and they'll go anyway through the labyrinth. The Cursed Ones have never caught any of our people in there."

With an effort, Alain buried his fear. What use would he be to Adica if he got himself killed by the Cursed Ones because he wai worrying about her? "Very well. North of the river, if that is the only path. I have come a^long way with these comrades, a! won't abandon them now."

"Crazy outlander," muttered Maklos.

"I can see they are powerful spirit guides. The G.o.ds have woven a mystery about you, comrade." Agalleos pushed himself up to a crouch, poised and ready." To get out of Thorn Valley we'll have to go by way of the Screaming Rocks. Shevros, you lead the way. Maklos, you'll take the rear. You must set the trap and follow by the ladder."

Maklos seemed pleased to have been given the dangerous a.s.signment. Alain could imagine him boasting of it afterward to his admiring sweethearts.

If they got back safely.

So began the scramble, first along the ridgeline, using boulders and scrub for cover, and after that dropping down into the next canyon over where an escarpment of eroded limestone pillars thrust up out of a tangle of vegetation to form a landmark. Thorn Valley was aptly named, a steeply-sloped vale covered entirely with bushy undergrowth sporting thorns as long as the hounds' claws. There was no way they could get through that.

Shevros vanished into one of the cavelets worn out of the pillars." Go," said Agalleos, glancing behind them. On the ridgeline behind them, a torch appeared, then a second. Inside the cave, cunningly concealed where a fallen boulder seemed to be crumbling into the sloping walls, lay a tunnel. Shevros had s.h.i.+nnied partway down; Alain could see his s.h.i.+eld, glinting where he'd strung it on his back. Alain moved to follow him, but Agalleos held him back.

"He must release the trap before we can pa.s.s through."

The cave smelled of carrion, enough to disturb the hounds, who wanted to find the source of the scent. Abruptly, Shevros' s.h.i.+eld vanished. Alain crawled after him through the dusty tunnel, which dipped down and rose up, emerging into the midst of thorns in a cavelike hollow carved out of the tangle of growth. He could barely see the sky through the skein of branches above, but a person standing on the ridge certainly would not be able to see the people scuttling along underneath. Broken thorns crunched beneath his feet as he followed Shevros down a dim tunnel hacked out of the vegetation. They waited until the others joined them.

"The trap is sealed again," said Agalleos.

They went on, careful of hands and shoulders as the slope steepened. In this way, they headed down into the ravine. Alain had his hands full making sure the hounds did not tumble into the tearing wall of thorns. After Maklos had eased his pa.s.sage through a tight opening a hand's measure of times, Rage decided to befriend the c.o.c.ky young man and even went so far as to lick his face, which made Maklos spit and sputter. Agalleos trailed at the rear, often lost beyond twists and turns. How much labor had it taken Shu-Sha's tribe to cut this labyrinth under the thorns?

Shevros halted at a crossroads to wait and, as if divining Alain's amazement from his expression, spoke." The queen's magic is strong." Then he scrambled on, bent over like a hunched old man as he scurried down the right-hand fork.

Alain's hand was beginning to hurt again, but he gritted his teeth against the pain and went on.

They emerged out of the last thorn tunnel by s.h.i.+nnying along a depression dug alongside a huge boulder that brought them into a confusing jumble of boulders and scree wider across than an arrow's shot, the tail end of a ma.s.sive avalanche that had ripped down the western slope and torn through the th.o.r.n.y cover. Alain expected to hear the wind moaning through the rocks, to hear anything except silence, but all he heard was the scritch of Agalleos' feet as the man walked forward to survey the devastation. It was still morning, early enough that the eastern slope of the valley remained in shadow. The calls and answers of the Cursed Ones' scouts rang in the air as they continued their search down the eastern ridge. Sun crept steadily down the broad western side of the valley; it would reach them soon enough. With heat already rising from the rocks, it promised to be a blistering hot day.

"Come." Agalleos gestured.

The fall of rocks, tumbled, fallen, shattered, loose shale and streams of fist-sized rocks snaking paths through larger brethren, made difficult going. It was hard to be quiet as they crunched over pebbles, negotiated a field of boulders as big as sheep, and squeezed through clefts made by two boulders fallen one up against the next. Shevros knew the twisty, dusty lanes well; he led them unerringly, never hesitating. Had he spent his entire life, from childhood on, engaged in this game of life or death, one step ahead of the Cursed Ones? Alain could not think of the child who had swung down before them, at the stream, without shuddering. So young to be sent out already on the hunt, to be trained for nothing but war.

No plants grew within the rockfall except for an occasional dusting of lichen. No birds flitted to catch his attention. But there was one sign of human encroachment: here and there, tucked away under ledges, caught around a jagged line of sight, scattered out in the open, lay human bones, picked clean by scavengers, scattered by wind and erosion or caught in spring streams that had, by now, dried up. The sun rose higher, light cutting down. The rocks grew hot to the touch as they picked their way forward, bearing on a diagonal line upslope.