Bazil Broketail (38 page)

Chok spat on the ground. The city was an evil place, a place that destroyed men, at least as far as the Baguti were concerned. It was not good to hear it mentioned.

“We not go all the way.”

Thrembode nodded. “Of course not. Just to the Fist. But I need only twenty or so men. My pursuers are reduced to very few now. We ambushed them in the forest.”

Thrembode enjoyed a warm feeling of euphoria at the memory. Such a victory he had wrought. Of course it had all depended on Gasper Rakantz’s sharp-eyed scouting at the Ossur Galan, but still it had been a victory to spice his report when the time came.

He just hoped he didn’t have to go on, into the Hazog beyond Tummuz Orgmeen. The city was the nearest he liked to go to the heart of the Great Power. It was always so insufferably cold and disciplined there. Everyone was so paranoid, and the secret police were so ubiquitous.

The Doom could tell Them anything they might want to know. Surely They did not have to interview him personally?

The chieftain of chieftains spoke up. “Whole tribe is going same way you need to go. We take whole tribe, then you really safe.”

By the dark gods why did it always have to happen to him?

Thrembode felt accursed. First Captain Ushmir, then a collection of defective trolls that couldn’t fight their way through a silk sheet let alone a pair of battledragons, and now these mad Baguti, who were going to make him amble along in their stinking, dusty column for days. But there was little to be done about it. With only five men left he didn’t have the resources to risk crossing the Gan on his own.

He’d mauled the enemy at Ossur Galan, but they had won the field of battle and annihilated his force of trolls and imps. The enemy still had a couple dozen effectives left and they had horses. So he needed an equal force, at least, for a swift passage across the steppes.

“I would be perfectly safe with a small group. Then your tribe can remain south of the Oon and feed your animals as much as they like.”

The chieftains nodded at this. Chok chuckled and said something in Baguti. Then he said to Thrembode, “You must like Bagut to speak this way.” He chuckled again. Thrembode did not get the joke.

No one in the whole world liked the Baguti, and with damned good reason.

Chok controlled himself. “We have to go soon anyway, we have good slaves for the Power. So we go now, quickly and then we return for another visit south of the Oon.”

So that was it. They had more slaves than they wanted to feed, and they wanted to get them to the market as quickly as they could.

Damned greedy nomads
! Thrembode seethed, but internally. He still needed them.

Dodbol suddenly spoke up. “We travel together. You lend us your woman. We lend you ours. This is ancient custom of our tribe.”

Thrembode strove to keep his face from betraying any emotion. “We travel together, but we may not exchange women.”

Dodbol leaned forward, his squat features contorted in sudden anger and suspicion.

“What? You insult men of Bagut?”

“Not at all, not at all. But this woman goes to the Doom itself. To be interrogated, you see.”

“So what?” said Dodbol with a shake of his shoulders. “Doom is just big rock. Power live in rock, but it no need woman.”

“You don’t understand, do you? The woman is a very important prisoner, the Doom might even want to breed her with selected men. She must be in condition to breed.”

Dodbol scowled.

“Why does big rock want to waste good woman?”

Thrembode licked his lips and looked to Pashtook— could he not see the impossibility of this?

Pashtook could see. He knew that the Doom might never forgive tampering with such a prisoner. But Pashtook was equally sure this magician was tampering with her, and besides there were ways to pleasure that did not involve her power to have children. But Pashtook had lived to rule because he was a careful man, and so he ruled against Dodbol with a chopping hand gesture that silenced the spear chieftain.

“It not matter why. If the Power want woman then no Bagut will get in its way.”

Just then Besita returned, swayed past them and went inside the tent. The Baguti looked at her like wolves watching a chicken.

Thrembode cleared his throat. There was potential trouble in the spear chieftain’s eyes, but before anyone could say any more there came a loud interruption.

Shouts from the perimeter of the camp and the thudding of hooves.

The Baguti were on their feet in a flash. Thrembode peered over their heads. Two Baguti came riding in; they had someone tied over the saddle on the third horse.

They drew up, with flashing teeth and lots of exclamations as they explained themselves to the chieftains. Then they got down and threw their prisoner to the ground at Thrembode’s feet. It was an elf, a young male, still alive.

“Spy, we catch him in forest, about a mile from here.”

“A spy, good, well done.” Thrembode was pleased with this interruption. “We will question him now, and see what moves our enemies are making.”

The elf was seized up onto a rude wooden cross and brought to the fire while Thrembode got out his instruments.

Time during torture often seemed to stand still, everything waiting on that moment when the victim would break and confess all. On this occasion time passed very slowly—the elf gave up very little.

They had worked on the elf with hot irons and had peeled much of the skin off his limbs, and still they knew very little about him or where he had come from.

His name was Barritook, and he lived in the Grove of Gavulon, this much he had told them very early on. He claimed to have been sent out by King Matugolin to search for them. He also claimed that he knew nothing of Lessis or a Grey Lady or where she and her forces, including the surviving dragons, might be.

Thrembode was actually coming around to believing the elf. He decided to give it one more try. Using a hot iron he began to blind the elf, first in one eye.

Inside the tent Besita heard the gasps and squeals of the dying elf. For some unknown reason they meant nothing to her. She seemed devoid of feeling, as if a rock had replaced her heart. She wondered what she was becoming that she could be so cold to such suffering.

Still the elf volunteered nothing.

“Stubborn, unimaginative breed,” muttered Thrembode. And so resistant to the Power! If men were like elves, the Masters would rule no more than their freezing vaults in Padmasa.

He put out the other eye. The elf made no noise this time. Thrembode dropped the hot iron in disgust. The blood of the elf was pale and green; it smoked in the fire and smelled like burning apples.

“Kill the damned thing and bury the body,” Thrembode snapped to Caspar Rakantz, and turned back to his tent.

The Gan, here in the north, was not as flat as Kesepton recalled from previous experience in the southern stretches. Nor was it the same semi-desert, dotted with acacias and home to antelope and lions. Instead, tall prairie grass predominated, while in the hollows grew thickets of alder and occasional aspens and pines. The spring had brought fresh green to the short grasses, but the longer types were still covered over with the dead stalks of the previous year.

The first day it had been cloudy with a cool breeze blowing into their faces from the west. That night they camped on a low hill surmounted by rocks. Nearby was a hollow with a small lake where they could water the horses and refill their canteens. No fires were lit, and they ate cold rations boiled up the night before.

Almost as soon as darkness had settled over the land a lion to the south of them started roaring. It was soon challenged by another lion somewhere to the north. The two cats continued to roar to each other every so often for hours.

With no fires the men felt a primeval fear of these animals, and they huddled together as close to the dragons as they dared to get.

The lions were bad enough, but the smell of the men and the horses soon drew a gang of hyenas. The horses grew increasingly nervous. Kesepton was forced to rouse the men and send them out to patrol around the horses and keep the hyenas away.

The hyenas showed precious little fear of man; they had to be speared and struck repeatedly to make them retreat. In the dark, it was a nightmarish business. Then the moon rose and it became easier. Lessis conjured a spell that made the hyenas jittery, although it could not drive them off.

Then the dragons were asked to help. They heaved themselves up, three sudden bulks against the sky and charged out at the hyenas. While the hyenas were unafraid of men, they did have all their kind’s terror of the giant reptiles, and at the sight of the monsters bearing down on them they panicked and fled and did not return.

The lions however continued to roar at each other, and the one to their north moved closer and then drifted westwards. It had got downwind of them and smelled the horses, the men and other—the reptiles. While the horses smelled like food, the men smelled like trouble and the great reptiles were things, like elephants, that lions always avoided. The lion passed on, seeking easier prey.

Slowly the exhausted men sank into slumber except for the watch and Captain Kesepton. Thus Kesepton saw the two figures in grey that slipped away from the camp under the moonlight.

Hollein started up. The girl was out there with lions and hyenas and who knew what else and without any man to protect her. He wanted to go after them, and would have except that he knew the witch would be amused at his presumption.

What the hell did they do out there? he wondered. The night before it had been the city of the Demon Lord, now it was the trackless Gan. Every night they went off on some secret mission. Maybe she was talking to more birds and animals. Perhaps there were types that were too wild to approach a group of men.

Unlike the birds of the day, which had flown up to them as they rode and visited quite openly with Lessis. All day long they had come to her, and then depending on their size they had landed on her shoulders or her head or wrist, where they sang to her and ruffled their wings.

After the owl in Tunina, Kesepton realized he should not have been surprised by anything. She was a Great Witch; the birds evidently knew this as well as anyone. Such a witch had enormous powers.

The hours passed, eventually the women returned and Kesepton let himself relax enough to sleep.

The second day was much hotter, without a cloud in the sky or any breeze to ameliorate the conditions. Under the sun they were much bothered by biting flies, until Lagdalen pointed this out to Lessis.

The witch immediately summoned one of the flies to her. Even Lagdalen, who had seen Lessis work her will upon all creatures great and small, was startled when one of the big grey flies buzzed in and sat obediently still on the back of Lessis’s hands for almost a minute while a spell was woven. Then it flew away.

Shortly thereafter the flies ceased to bother anyone in the entire column, all the way back to the dragons. Kesepton saw this deed and felt a chill run up his spine. Birds, flies, did she control men as easily?

He recalled how she had won over the men in the dawn light on the first day. There had been no evidence of witchcraft, no spell casting, no magic dusts, no flames or smokes. Just a simple speech by a woman sitting on a calm white mare. But that speech had had such a power of truth and a beauty of words that it opened their hearts to the witch and bound them to loyalty.

The men had been ready to mutiny that morning. The command had been destroyed in three days fighting. Two-thirds casualties, twelve more dead men buried at Ossur Galan. The witch was responsible for at least half the slaughter, making them march into Tunina and fight again after they had taken such a hammering on Mt. Red Oak.

Now the witch was going to tell them that they had to go on, to ride into the Gan to who knew what horrible fate. And the men had been determined to say no; the witch would have to understand that the men could be pushed so far but no further.

And then she had spoken to them and they quietened. She painted a picture of heroism, citing the battles they had already fought. She had seen each of them perform some act of courage and skill, and she mentioned every name. Each man felt pierced to his heart by her words.

They would be sung of in the Argonath forever, heroes to match those of the wars against the Demon Lord. This was certain, just from what they had already accomplished. But what they were going to do next, she told them, would send their fame around the world. They were going to go on, into the Gan, in pursuit of a deadly agent of the enemy. They were going to track him down and seize him and thwart his evil designs. It was a blow that would save thousands of lives in the near future, it was a task that they had to perform—all the Argonath depended on them.

The words were pretty, and so heartfelt and correct that they were all beguiled. By the time she finished, they gave her three cheers, thrust their swords into the sky and swore to keep on to the death in pursuit of their quarry.

Lessis thanked them all, and they swept into their saddles and were underway. They rode out with their hearts high and their collective will red hot and smoking. It still had not cooled. They were still buoyed up, still ready for anything. Kesepton was amazed; no soldiers he had ever known had gone that long without complaining.

Were they just like the flies? So easy to control?

Perhaps they were all just sleepwalking, mere puppets controlled by some subtle enchantment. Would she sacrifice all of them if she had to? Somehow Kesepton thought she would.

He shook his head to clear it of these gloomy thoughts but others surfaced in their place. Such as his future in the legions. It seemed likely that his career as an officer was over.

The battles at Red Oak and Ossur Galan had destroyed his small command. On the legion’s record of honor it would appear disastrous. They would probably call this the “Doomed Patrol” or some such rubric. He was headed for a court martial and expulsion from the legion.

Unless they hanged him.