Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (30 page)

“Pretending has helped you before?” “Works well until you find out otherwise.”

Agapenor urged his horse forward and they rode carefully across the clearing and into the shadows of the mossy arch.

Rhywder knew the jungle. He had felt his way through foliage denser than this, but never had the darkness seemed so thick. The air itself seemed to crawl across his skin, damp and thick. They were soon riding slow, searching their way each step, enveloped in dark fog. Rhywder could hardly make out trees only a few feet away.

“This is impossible,” muttered Agapenor. “It is another trap.”

“We are moving north—that is good enough for now.”

“How would you know? You see stars through this?”

“I sense north. It is a talent, taught me of my grandmother.”

“Way I feel right now, I wish your grandmother were here with us.”

There was a scream, not human. A piercing howl. The trees shook violently. Rhywder looked up. Dropping from the high foliage were howlers. Howlers never hunted humans in packs. Uttuku again, just as the wolves, coming fast, only this time they had not lain in wait. The Uttuku had fresh bodies a long way from decomposing.

“Kill them quick, Agapenor!”

“You saying I should not be gentle?”

Agapenor ripped his axe free. Rhywder reared his horse as one clamped onto his shoulder with picket white teeth. He stabbed it in the back until it dropped off. Two others hit him so hard he went over the flanks. On the ground, he saw the neck of his horse shorn open. As his old friend dropped to its knees, struggling, he noticed one of the creatures clinging to its side, desperately sucking blood from a severed vein.

He heard Agapenor growling as he slew.

A howler rushed Rhywder, moving so quickly it managed to rip out a swath of flesh from his thigh. It left hot, burning pain. Rhywder swore, coming to his knees, then broke the howler's sternum with the pommel of the short sword. He slit the throat of another. He stabbed the face of one clawing up his leg. One he grabbed by the head and wrenched back, breaking the neck. And that was it. The killing had been quick. There had been no shortage of howlers; they had simply been easy kills.

Agapenor knelt over mounds of bodies beside his dead horse. His tunic was nearly torn away; there were gouges and scratches everywhere. The axeman still clutched his weapon in one sticky, bloodied hand, but his other hand was cupped over one eye. Blood streamed between the fingers.

“Bastards took my eye,” Agapenor hissed through clenched teeth. “I been through motherless dark and killed giants and Nephilim alike, yet it is a damned monkey is what gets my eye!”

Rhywder came to his side and steadied him. “We have to stop that blood, Agapenor.” He wadded a torn strip of cloth and stuffed it into Agapenor's empty socket, feeling the skull cavity as he did. Agapenor moaned slightly and started to reach up, but Rhywder pushed his hand away. He wound the rest of the cloth about Agapenor's head and tied off the end.

“No worries, friend,” said Rhywder. “I know a good stone worker in a village east of Galaglea. Best you can find. He can cut you an eye from onyx and sapphire that will leave you the envy of all.”

Agapenor studied him a moment. “You say that as though you believe we are getting out of this thicket alive.”

“We are.” Rhywder helped Agapenor to his feet. “I have seen worse than this.”

“Not I, Captain, not I. We are two and behind us is an army like the sands of the endless sea. They smelled us, you and I both know it. If I were a wagering sort, my guess is there would be heavy odds against us making it through this glade alive.”

“We continue moving north. Forget everything else. Besides, if you were the wagering sort, you would have learned to never think on the odds.” He grabbed Agapenor's arm and pulled him forward.

“Worse than this,” the big man muttered. “You tell me you seen worse than this?”

“Try to keep focused. West and north there was a Galaglean village—horses.”

“Something wrong in me. Some manner of feeling crawling through me like I am coming unhinged.”

“It was your eye—hard thing, losing an eye. Stay with me, Agapenor, we keep due north until we find open ground.”

“Aye, open ground. Would not mind dying if it were open ground. Or a forest. Forest is good dying ground. But this here, a stinking motherless jungle? Somehow it is Elyon's amusement I get to die in a place like this?”

“Nobody is going to die.” Rhywder paused to pull a wad of coca leaves from one of the pockets of his belt. “Here, suck hard on this—steadies your nerves.”

Agapenor stuffed it in his cheek. “Never needed anything to steady my nerves afore. There is something unnatural in me, Little Fox. Was those damned monkeys, left some manner of curse working in me.”

Suddenly there was singing—women, voices rhythmic and smooth that seemed to float through the air.

Agapenor drew up, stunned at what he was hearing.

Rhywder quickly grabbed the big man's shoulder. “Ignore that, understand? Do not listen.”

He turned Agapenor and looked dead into his remaining eye. “Stay with me, Agapenor, stay with me.”

Agapenor half-nodded. “Aye …”

“We just keep moving! Block it out, do not listen.”

Agapenor stumbled a few feet, then just stared into the dark. “But … can you not hear that, Rhywder?”

“Agapenor, you are being spellbound. Listen to me!” He shook Agapenor and the axeman finally looked down at him. “Try to keep your mind on something, anything else. Just keep moving; keep your mind on moving north and nothing else!”

He managed to jerk Agapenor back into a run, but after a bit the big man pulled free and stopped once more. It was useless. His remaining eye was glossed over—he was gone.

The lure began to work into Rhywder, as well. It was a choir well taught, well schooled, all young voices, girls. Rhywder was slowly being spellbound, and even though he fought with all the magick he knew, the song twisted through his brain like worms. He glanced up. The fog was gone. Above, the horned moon of Dannu's last harvest was bright and mid-sky. This was the night of sabbat. It was sacred to all those who practiced Ishtar's arts, to the Followers of Enoch as well, but here in the south, the sabbat's song was twisted into mockery and the voices were lacing every word with a siren enchantment. They worked in the names of the fallen, all in vulgar tongue: Abaddon, Asmodeus, Astaroth, Leviathan, Semyazza. And in the background of the vulgar names, one singer whose voice was pure and light as fresh rain sang over and over the known name of Azazel.

“You wait here,” said Agapenor. “I shall come back for you.” He began to push forward through the bushes toward the singing as if he were walking blind.

“Agapenor, wait!” Rhywder circled around in front of him, trying to push him back, while desperately fighting the spell himself. “Those are not girls you hear, they are”—Rhywder paused, unsteady, the song working through him—“witches,” he stammered, “siren song—it is a siren song …”

Agapenor was now out of sight—vanished into the dark.

Rhywder could no longer feel the pain of his wounds from the howlers. The song swept away all gloom of dark and stilled the whisper of the jungle. It had even begun to arouse him. He turned and started in its direction. Whatever it was, it would help; it would give him rest, and he needed rest so badly. But even then, as he walked, he tried to use the edge of his sword to keep from fully being spellbound, slicing through his palm, hoping the sting of pain would wake him, but the lithe voices were numbing all his thoughts and promising sweet balm.

He stepped into a large, circular clearing hewn out of the jungle. A bonfire raged, sending sparks into the night. Women were gathered, singing, moving as though the summer wind had taught them the dance. They were naked, oiled—long, night-black hair. Light red skin. Perfect, every one, as beautiful as anything he had ever seen. He was wrong, there was no danger here. They welcomed him, lured him closer, their arms waving, fingers beckoning.

“Come, Little Fox.” They knew his name!

With a screech, one dropped onto his back. The suddenness of it jolted him, and Rhywder was able to break the spell just as her teeth came for his throat. Rhywder took hold of her arm, slammed her into the ground, and planted his blade through her left breast. He stood, pulling the blade free, flinging blood. More were coming, some tumbling, others dancing, spinning as they came for him. He could hear Agapenor screaming.

He knew the intent now, the spell was broken, all these Unchurian women wanted was his blood. They thirsted madly for human blood, and the blood of warriors was the richest of all. The blood of the valiant was like the finest, richest wine to them.

Close, they rushed him. Rhywder was able to kill two before he was seized, arm and leg. To keep them from getting the sword, he shoved it through his armband, anchored against his lower arm.

He was being carried by girls toward the fire. He noticed their painted eyes, their naked shoulders. One hissed at him, catlike. Her lips were full and bloodred, her teeth a brilliant white, the canines elongated, fanged.

Rhywder glanced skyward. The moon was at its zenith. Communio—they had timed their feeding to the mid-sky communion of the sabbat.

There came times to die, but this wasn't one of them.

He drew breath and began to fight for all he was worth. He kicked one foot free and rammed it into a pretty face, knocking the girl back, blood flushing from her button nose. He twisted, jerking free of their hold. He almost got to his feet, but they overwhelmed him again and this time threw him to the ground. One tore open the front of his tunic. Another, on her knees, came over him, her soft, puffy lips parting his, sensuous and hot. She snipped his bottom lip with her razor teeth, chuckling a little girl's laugh. He glanced to see one sliding down between his legs, mouth agape. That sight gave him inhuman strength.

Rhywder screamed and heaved two of them off him. Another he grabbed by the hair and flung to the side. He slammed at them with fists, shook them off until he managed to get to his knees. He pulled his blade free and started killing—ripping through windpipes, breasts, eyes, anything he could strike that would be effective. They finally managed to pin his sword arm, but though they tried to get his sword, he clung to the blade so tightly his fingers might have been welded to the bloodied leather wrap of the hilt. New teeth sunk into his neck from behind. One bit into his thigh and began to suck. The sucking stung with sharp, sweet pain, though at the same time it infused him with an opiatelike drug he almost welcomed.

All the singing had stopped. It was feeding time now.

Teeth were shearing through Rhywder's skin everywhere, his legs, arms, sides. It was truly not the way he wanted to die. He looked to the heavens and whispered the name of the mothering star; he called out to the
Light Whose Name Is Splendor.

Suddenly, the Galaglean appeared above him, bloodied, teeth marks riddling his skin everywhere, one arm chewed off, half his right leg gone with gouges and teeth marks spilling rich blood, but still he was still strong. He pulled a girl off Rhywder, flinging her high and tumbling her into the night. He grabbed the hair of another, snapping the neck. He stomped in the back of a third, cracking the spine like a dry branch. He thrust out a hand.

“Take hold!” he commanded.

Rhywder grasped Agapenor's wrist and was wrenched up and thrown clear. He hit the ground and quickly sprung to his feet. “Now run, you little bastard!” Agapenor screamed.

Rhywder did—he ran. He heard them bringing Agapenor down, but he could not help and he did not look back.

He found himself wildly leaping through the thicket, crashing through the brush, racing blindly through trees and creepers. There was a sound of pattering feet and whispered snarling. He glanced behind. They were coming for him—many on all fours. He was not going to outrun them—but he had managed one trick. He had managed to keep hold of his short sword and he ran with it tucked against his chest.

K
rysis waited at the white painted fence Eryian had built them seven years ago. He had purposely chosen rough wood stakes instead of smoothed ones, and he had oiled it and then let the winters, spring rains, and white summer sun paint it. Now it seemed just a part of the forest at the edge of the cabin. Eryian had built the cabin himself and beside it, moorings and dock works, built from the wooden beams of a slaver ship he had once taken at high sea—at the time sailing with Rhywder.

He was young then, Eryian. It was just before the gathering wars, just before he left with Argolis for the northland. His face had been unfairly handsome. Krysis sometimes thought he was embarrassed of it, the way some women looked at him. Though everything about him spoke otherwise, Eryian had always insisted he was nothing extraordinary, that in other circumstances he might have been a cobbler, or a blacksmith, no more warlord than a land plodder. In fact, while his liege, Argolis, lived in the stone and timber castle of Terith-Aire, overlooking the sea, Eryian had found a far piece of land near a quiet bay nestled into the thick forest northwest of the city. Of course, Krysis spent long months never seeing him, raising Eryian's son. When he did return, she could sometimes watch soul and lifeblood return to him as he shed the warlord and let himself look out his eyes at her. He loved her, she knew that. He let himself be almost human when alone with her and she knew he did that nowhere else.

“One day I will not leave, Krysis,” he would often tell her, nights, alone with Little Eryian asleep. “One day, much like an ordinary day, I will ride back and we will become plodders—same as you might find digging potatoes on the outskirts of the East of the Land.”

“I am pleased, Eryian—although I am not going to hold my breath.”