Beyond the Burning Lands (12 page)

I took my hand away and the animal rushed on. King Cymru shouted something. His own crossbow fired again and I saw it score a hit. The sow was running across our front and it took her in the flank. She crumpled and fell, gushing blood. For a moment I thought I would be sick.

Within five minutes all was over, with half a dozen beasts lying dead and perhaps as many more having made their escape, some pierced with arrows, past the covers and along the river bank. The king stood to stretch his legs and I did the same. He asked:

“Did you see the one I got?”

I nodded. “Yes, sire.”

“I did not notice you fire at all, Luke.”

“I was—taken by surprise.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “You look white. It requires a little time to get used to the sight of a charging boar.”

Especially, I thought, when the charging boar is a gravid sow, desperately running for safety. I said, trying to make conversation that would not be offensive:

“The beaters were lucky to find so many. I suppose they must often draw blank.”

“Not on my hunts!” He winked at me. “There is an earlier chase. The beasts are taken in nets and brought here. There are delicacies that keep them from roaming for a day or two. The Master of the Hunt sees to it, but the notion was Snake's. It is well arranged, do you not think?”

“Yes,” I said. “Very well.”

The beaters were dragging in the carcasses, the King's kill first. The sow was not only pregnant but polybeast, with an extra rudimentary pair of legs dangling uselessly from its sides.

“A fine specimen,” said King Cymru.

•  •  •

We moved on up the valley, heading for another thicket where we could ambush more beasts. I had a brief opportunity to speak alone to Edmund. He was as shocked as I, but warned me to be cautious.

“You show too much of your feelings, Luke. As always.”

“I cannot help it.”

“The King will notice.”

“He has done. And thinks it due to fear.”

“Do you not . . . ?”

“Let him think what he likes,” I said. “He is a butcher, not a huntsman.”

Blodwen rode up to us and I held my peace. The road had parted from the riverside and climbed over high ground. We reached a crest and saw a village in the dip a few hundred yards ahead.

It was very small, no more than a score of huts clustered round the road, and approaching we saw an oddness in it. Many of the huts had collapsed. An earthquake? But we would have felt it also. There was no sign of life. Then from close by a man rushed out of the cover of the trees. He was in panic fear and gabbling. What with that and his accent I did not take his meaning until others repeated the cry:

“Bayemot . . . Bayemot!”

I had heard tales of these things, which were said to live in the sea and swallow whole the boats of men foolish enough to venture out from the shore. It was also said that at times they emerged onto land, and then destroyed and devoured every living thing in their path, leaving a trail of stinking slime.

I was with the King. I said:

“It cannot be true. You have told me—there is no sea-coast within thirty miles. The man has imagined it.”

“I think not,” King Cymru said. “The sea is a long way off but less than a mile up the valley there is a lake. There were rumors that a Bayemot had its lair there. It seems they were true.” He spoke to the man, who trembled in front of him. “Where is the beast?”

“Gone, your Majesty.” His whole body shook. “It came . . . and killed . . . and went.”

The King nodded. He said to Snake, who was close by:

“It will be interesting to see what a Bayemot leaves behind it. Let us go and look.”

So we advanced again. A whiff of filth and corruption came from the ruined village and then the stench was all round us. The sun's rays struck through the clouds, showing more clearly the shattered cabins ahead, and I saw that they were coated with a slime which, though transparent, gleamed in the sunlight. Something wet dropped with a squelch from a jutting plank. I was glad that Blodwen and the ladies had stayed on the crest of the hill.

At close quarters both smell and sight were more hideous. The slime was everywhere and in places frothed with a nauseous bubbling sound. Nothing moved. The villagers had presumably fled up into the woods: those that had escaped. We reined our horses, even the Wilsh nobles brought to silence.

Then someone cried: “Up there!”

I looked over the ruins to the next rise of ground, and saw the Bayemot.

Except in size it was something like the bubbles of jelly that make up frog spawn. But it was almost as high as three men, one above the other, and being flattened from a true sphere by the earth's pull was even greater in breadth. It was motionless but quivered, although the wind had dropped, and though it was nearly transparent there were darker shapes within. Were they eyes, I wondered? Was it regarding us now? Or did it move blindly, swallowing everything in its path as legend told? And the reality was more terrible than the legend. It was hard to see how anything could withstand such a monster.

It moved. With a small lurch it began to roll down the hill in our direction; slowly at first but fast gathering speed. There were cries, and with the rest I spurred my horse back up the slope. We halted on the higher ground and saw that the Bayemot too had stopped in the midst of the slimed ruins.

Snake said: “We are safe here. They travel fast downhill, as a ball does, but uphill a man, let alone a horse, can easily outdistance them.”

The King said: “Look! That fool . . .”

A man, a beater probably since he was on foot, had run up the side slope of the valley. He too was safe there if what Snake said was true, but he came down again and took the road toward us, perhaps from fear of being alone. As he moved, so did the Bayemot. Things like tentacles grew from its side, gripping the ground to pull it forward. I no longer doubted that it could see, and was seeking prey.

The man was in no danger until he fell, looking back as he ran. His foot must have gone into a pothole because he went down heavily. Someone cried: “Get up, man!” He tried and cried out in pain; he must have sprained his leg or even broken it. He made a second effort but no more. The Bayemot reached and rolled over him and his cry of fear died on that instant.

For a moment there was silence. Then I said:

“We must save him.”

“No good,” Snake said. “He is a dead man already.”

“He moves!”

I saw, or thought I saw, an arm feebly press against the jellied horror which bore it down. Snake said:

“He has no hope.”

“We cannot leave him there,” I said.

“We can do nothing else,” King Cymru said. “We know the courage of you southern warriors, young though you are, but that is the Bayemot. It cannot be killed.”

It may be I was mistaken in finding a sneer in his tone. The Wilsh were given to banter and I was not used to their subtleties. But I had thought he read my whiteness at the sow-killing as fear, and guessed this to be sarcasm. My anger rose and would not be controlled. It was through that more than out of compassion for the man that I suddenly pressed my horse forward. There were cries but they could not stop me, and none was fool enough to follow.

Yet although I had made the move on impulse, a part of my mind worked hard and clearly. I had noticed something about the Bayemot. It resembled a frog's egg also in having a smaller black sphere within, not in the center but high up toward the top. This must surely be the brain, or what passed for brain in such a thing.

From the ground it would be unreachable. I remembered a skill we had learned when the horses were taken out into the meadows in the spring and we boys rode them without saddles. I unfastened and dropped my sword belt, freed my feet from the stirrups and pulled up my legs until I was kneeling on Garance's back. She did not jib at this but I wondered if she would face the Bayemot at close quarters. I guided her away and then, with a quick pull on the reins, back onto a course that would take her past the beast, a few feet from it.

I drew my dagger and stood up, balancing. Then I saw the full abomination of what faced me and thought I could not make the leap. The darker shapes lower down were parts of men, limbs half dissolved. I saw the roundness of a head, with hair still on it but the face melted to the whiteness of bone. Fear and nausea overcame anger and I hesitated. But pride was stronger still: I could not face a return, defeated and unscathed, to those who watched. I tensed my legs and sprang.

The very feel of it was hideous—soft and resistant at the same time, glutinously wet. It was as though my body were pressed against a giant slug. But disgust quickly gave way to pain. Where my naked flesh touched the surface of the creature it burned like liquid fire. My one reaction was to free myself. I tried to push clear; and if I had succeeded would have fled, with no more thought of pride or anger or the poor wretch whom it had been my purpose to save.

But this I could not do. The Bayemot's surface not only burned but clung. I managed to free one leg and found the other more firmly caught. It was like quicksand, but quicksand which was alive, and hungry.

My left arm was fast but the right was free and had the dagger. I looked for the small black sphere. It was deeper inside the beast than I had thought. The burning in my leg and arm spread and deepened and I wanted to cry out. But to cry would be an expense of energy, and I could spare none.

My only hope was to jab with the dagger. A single thrust might not reach the target, and if I failed that arm too would be gripped and I would be helpless. So I stabbed, hard, but instantly withdrawing. Even so it was like pulling one's hand out of a treacle jar, and treacle which stung like a thousand wasps. The flesh of the Bayemot parted but closed up as the blade came clear. But wetness had run from the wound down the monster's side, and the skin was dimpled there. I jabbed a second and third time, and went on jabbing.

The burning in my leg and arm was making me feel faint. The dimple had become a hollow but the black thing seemed as far as ever from my reach. Could it be that it was moving farther back inside the Bayemot as I stabbed? If so, I was lost: a dead man already, as Snake had said.

Darkness falling on my mind sealed off the fiery agony as well. I struggled up through it, to consciousness and the lick of flame along my flesh. It would be easy, it seemed, to drop back, let go. What did death matter if only the pain would end?

But not a death in the maw of this creature of slime and filth! Rousing myself I knew that now I must thrust hard and deep, staking everything on one last blow. I punched my hand, with the knife clenched in it, with all my force into the hollow. The wetness yielded but also clung. I was straining to see if my blade's point had reached its target. It was not easy to make out through this viscous jelly but with a sickness of despair I thought that I had failed. The darkness was falling again and I knew I could no longer withstand it. I closed my eyes because it made no difference.

Then beneath and around me there was a vast shivering which drew me back to consciousness. Once again I thought of earthquakes and in my mind's eye saw the pinnacles and domes of Klan Gothlen falling shattered to the ground. I was glad that Blodwen was in open country. The shivering became a ripple, a throb. Whatever was happening was taking place in the heart of the monster to which I was pinned. I pulled my dagger arm and with no more than a small sucking resistance it came free. As it did everything turned liquid, a vast bubble of water which, collapsing, dragged me down with it.

I struggled to rise and my hand fastened on the half-dissolved head. But I was too far gone for nausea or even for relief. I managed to rise and totter a few yards up the hill. As I fell again I saw the horsemen coming down toward me

•  •  •

I awoke in my bed in the palace of King Cymru. The beds of the Wilsh were absurdly soft and they slept, the nobles anyway, in silken sheets. After the first night of tossing and turning I had got Hans to find a board for mine, to slip between frame and mattress. I realized it had been taken away and called out something about this. Footsteps crossed the room and Hans's face looked down into mine.

He asked: “How are you, Captain?”

It was only then that I felt the pain in my leg and arms. They burned as they had in the embrace of the Bayemot, though less fiercely. My mind was fogged. I asked for water and Hans brought a pitcher and gave me some, supporting me so that I could drink.

“How long . . . ?”

“Since yesterday, Captain. It is nearly midday, and time to change the dressings on your wounds.”

I watched through a mist as he did this. The burns had been covered with rolled pads of linen, smeared with a yellow ointment. He removed them and cleaned my skin, which was raw and blood-red, oozing a thin ichor in places. He was very gentle, but it hurt. When I could not help wincing he drew back.

I said between my teeth: “Get on with it!”

“There is a drink they have which eases pain. They gave you some before. I will get it.”

“I think it also dulls the mind. I feel as though I have cushions inside my head. Do what has to be done. And then I will have my board back before I smother in softness.”

The drug was powerful. I stayed dazed until evening, swimming in and out of sleep. People came to see me: Greene, Edmund, the King himself with Snake silent and smiling in the background. I remember them being there but little else: nothing of what they said.

Blodwen came also, and her words I remember. She was not wearing white but a dress of soft brown, the color of beech leaves in winter, and her hair curled gold against it. She stood by the bed and took my hand in its clumsy encasement of linen.

She said: “You are a fool, Luke. But very brave.”

I shook my head and it hurt. Although I had tried to keep my head away from the beast my skin must have grazed it. Part of my face and neck were raw, though less so than my limbs.