Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (53 page)

'Watch over the Ransomer!' Jemel shouted. That man was lying still, hadn't moved, needed little watching. Jemel's abruptness had simply freed him to tackle the 'ifrit in his own way, without argument and without that draining, distracting urge to keep Marron safe at all costs.

He wasn't safe now, of course, there was nothing safe about being on foot beneath the brute power of an 'ifrit in its strength, but Jemel was hoping to keep its attention diverted towards himself and his scimitars edge. He looked up at last to find that poised and perilous head—

—And found it turned away from him, saw the savage eye fixed on Marron as he ran towards the sprawled black body of the Ransomer.

Did
n't have time or breath enough to curse. He wheeled the horse with a brutal wrench and forced it forward to the river
’
s edge, where the vast mass of the 'ifrit's body emerged from the water and rested its weight on the bank.

Perhaps one day he would learn to leave the thinking to others, leave his wild ideas to blow away on the wind. For now the wind of his own wild speed was in his hair and he feared that it was not enough even as he crouched low beside the horse's neck and screamed encouragement into its ear, as he beat it on with the flat of his scimitar, as the dank darkness that was the 'ifrit's shadow above and below them gave into the damp darkness of the living wall that was its body directly ahead.

Now, at last, Jemel let the reins slacken in his hand, he gave the horse its head just in time. Its body veered heavily, its hooves bit deep into the turf, it managed - just - to keep its balance and its speed; it swerved past the rising column of the 'ifrit's body, close enough that Jemel could have kicked the thing without taking his foot from the stirrup.

Instead he swung his scimitar, putting all his strength into a single backhand slash as he passed. This close, he could see that the 'ifrit was clad in scales, rather than the inflexible chitinous casing he was used to: a myriad scales, small as his fingernail and overlapping, each one seeming to gleam wetly even in the shadow, each one doubtless as impervious as chitin to any common blade.

His blade was nothing extraordinary, though it was well-made and he kept it wickedly sharp. It was, however, uncommon in the one thing, the blessing that overlaid its edge. So Jemel hewed at the 'ifrit, and there was nothing more extraordinary in the stroke than there was in the weapon, only a young man's determined and desperate strength, his last hope to save his friend. He hewed and felt the blade cut something, cut into something as though through hide and into belly-fat, resistance followed by soft sucking matter that tried to seize the blade. The mad speed of the horse beneath him tugged it free with a jerk that almost snatched the hilt from his hand, that wrenched his weary arm from wrist to shoulder.

It took him just a moment to recover, while the horse tried to outrace the eager river; it took a little longer to steel himself to what must come next. Then he was hauling on the reins again, hauling its head around, turning his own head to see.

A slim straight figure standing above the fallen, the glitter of a sword raised high to poke and prod, the dark swaying shadow over all: relief blurred his vision, so that he had to dash the back of his hand across his eyes and look again.

Marron stood like a symbol of defiance, and should not have lived so long; should not be living now except that the 'ifrit was ignoring him suddenly. Its head wasn't swaying, it was turning: turning to gaze down at its own body where Jemel had slashed it and then turning further, turning to find whatever small thing had committed this outrage.

Jemel could be defiant too, standing in the stirrups and waving his scimitar; but that was gesture only, his eyes and thoughts were furiously busy at other work. Marron had held off the 'ifrit somehow, for too long to be easily explained. He himself had hurt it but not badly, enough to distract if not enough to harm; when he glanced back he saw water gushing from the darkness of the creature's body, like a spring discharging from a basalt pillar.

It had been smoke before, he'd never seen them bleed anything but smoke and decay had followed, disintegration. This one had come from the river, true - but they'd done that before, he'd seen them erupt from the Dead Waters like a plague of crabs. And those that had eaten rock in the siq, they hadn't bled rock or rock-dust when they died, only that same black smoke, so how was this one holding so much water in its gut?

No matter how. No matter how it sealed the wound either, how the gush slowed to a trickle, to a halt. What did matter was that head, those eyes that pinned him with their hot stare, the long and flexible body twisting back on itself to bring the head down atop him. Mouthless, featureless but for the eyes it would crush, batter, pulp him into this wet earth and leave nothing worth saving, nothing worth the journey back into the Sands.

But he stood as best he could in the low stirrups and yelled, whirled his scimitar, pointed it at the thing's dull snout. If he could only hold firm as the 'ifrit drove down, it would impale itself before ever it reached him. He had no illusions, that would help him not at all, the vast weight of the thing would still fall entire on his head; but if the 'ifrit had any seat of reason, it should be there between its eyes, and his blade might find it out
..
.

If the 'ifrit had any physical seat of reason, it shouldn't be able to exist in its own country as a twist of darkness, less palpable even than smoke. In this world, though, it had to form itself a body. Perhaps it had to form itself a mind also. He didn't know, and he thought he never would. He thought he would be dead in moments; he thought it was probably a dream that said perhaps the 'ifrit would be dead also, or hurt enough to die.

He had time for so much thought, and more yet. Puzzled, he stared up at the 'ifrit where it bulked huge in the sky above him: huge but not expanding, not filling his sight, not falling. Huge but growing smaller, receding, drawing back
...

He must have been right, then, there would be deadly damage done if it skewered itself on his scimitar in trying to reach him. It knew that, it saw that in some shadowed future path, and so it turned away, and so once more Jemel did not die when he was ready to.

But it had done the same with Marron, pulling back from his raised sword; and that was only Dard, a weapon of fine work and lethal edge but it might as well have been a muddy stick, raised against an 'ifrit
...

No matter. Jemel was alive, and that mattered; Marron was alive, and that mattered more.

And Marron was standing guard above a fallen Ransomer, and there were half a dozen mounted men riding towards him now and going to reach him before Jemel could get there; and they were all Ransomers, and that mattered most of all just now, because Jemel couldn't imagine what he would say to them, except that it was likely to be something stupid, dangerous, disastrous. His name, perhaps, and his history
...
?

If he had the time to do it. The 'ifrit hadn't gone away; it still loomed above the gathering men, the weight of its body imprinting grass and ground between the road and the river, breaking the bank where it trailed down into the water. And even if it were shy of Jemel's blade and shy of Marron's too, it had shown no such shyness with regard to the Ransomers. A body of men riding in under its shadow now, they must surely attract more than its attention.

Marron and their own man were both boosted up onto others' horses. The Ransomer cried out as they lifted him, sharp enough for Jemel to hear it above the muted thunder of his own mount's hooves and the gusty wind of its breathing; he couldn't be too badly broken, then, if he could hurt so much and still have air to scream it.

Riding behind a black-clad brother, Marron kept his sword aloft. Jemel wondered briefly if any of the Ransomers would recognise the blade, but that was a small concern if it could keep the 'ifrit at bay, by whatever miracle the boy had manufactured now.

It did that. Somehow Dard was giving the monster pause, holding it back from its strike. He was riding one-handed himself with his scimitar held high in the other, more a reminder than a real t
hreat as his eyes moved constantl
y between the black above and the black ahead, the creature that could kill in a moment if his attention wandered and the group of men on horseback who were bearing his friend away.

They cantered beyond reach of the 'ifrit, beyond its furthest conceivable stretch, and drew rein on the road. They stood their horses so close together, Jemel could not see Marron among them now that Dard was no longer waving above their heads like a banner, like a needle of light to stitch the eye. He didn't know whether his friend still sat another man's horse, whether he'd slid gratefully to ground the first chance he'd been given, whether he was crouched above the wounded man to offer what small help he could or whether he was lying hurt or dead himself already, victim to a swift and cruel justice.

All he did know was that there was a body of men, a wall of men between himself and Marron: men he'd been fighting with only minutes previously, brothers to men that he'd killed in their full view. And he was Sharai, and he was in Surayon. They ought, he thought, to be merciless.

He pulled gently on the rein, easing the lathered, exhausted horse down through its paces to a steady walk; at a safe distance from the 'ifrit he wiped his scimitar on the saddle-cloth and sheathed it at his side. Sitting straight in the saddle, proud and calm, he rode towards whatever doom they held for him.

Weapons drawn but not raised against him, simply held in hand, and that was nothing but good sense at such a time; he'd have kept his drawn if his position had been less vulnerable or his confidence greater. Faces watchful, wary but not he hoped judgemental, not condemning, in so far as he could read Patric faces, which was not so far at all. First a silence, and then a voice:

'Sieur Parrish, Fra' Colcan, brothers, this is Jemel of the Sharai, and you have seen what a warrior he is, and what a foe even to that devil
...'

And that was
Marron
's voice, and the relief in hearing it might have had him tearful in a moment, if so many hard-eyed men had not been watching him. He tried to peer through the shifting hedge of their bodies to spy his friend, but was distracted by another voice, bitter and resentful.

A fine warrior, aye - he killed Sim, and Breck too if those were his arrows come from the bridge
...'

'Leave be, for now.' The officer, the knight came shouldering through his men, his authority as heavy, as forceful as his destrier. 'We killed our share.'

'Not of his people. And what's he doing, fighting with the heretics? He'll not be alone, make no doubt of that. If we take him back and put him to the question—'

'Leave be, I said! You, Jacquel - I'll have silence from you, or we'll all hear you after service tomorrow night. Unless you'd rather follow the Sharai, and ride alone against that - thing?'

'I'll do that, S
ieur,' sullen but determined, from a broad, scarred man in his middle years who pushed his hood back suddenly to show Jemel his face, and his contemptuous scowl. 'I'm not afraid
...'

'Then you should be,' Jemel said softly. 'Has Ma— my friend not told you what that is?'

An 'ifrit, he said. And so? Demons die before the true faith, as heretics die in the God's fire and unbelievers at the sword's edge.' He
hefted his own sword significantl
y, Jemel moved not a muscle, answering the challenge only with his stillness. 'I say I'm as fit to face it down as any hell-damned Sharai boy - that's if the devil-dealing boy didn't summon the thing himself. Would you trust him, sieur? Or this dog of his, this cur who came to-feed on our wounded?'

Now Jemel's hand did move, despite all resolution; it gripped his weapon's hilt and would have drawn it, but that the knight forestalled him with a gesture,
patience, leave my men tome
...

'Who came to stand over our wounded, Jacquel, and protect him from the 'ifrit. See the world as it is, man; there is honour even here, however tainted. Yes, I will trust these men, both of them, though I think you might be wrong about who dogs whom between them. It would honour you to do as the Sharai has done, it would honour any man. I will not order you to it, but—'

'You should forbid it, rather,' Jemel interrupted. 'Not you nor any man can ride against that and live.'

'What, only you, Sharai?'

'Yes, though I intend no insult by it.'

'What else is this, but insult? Our horses are as fast or faster; that's Sim's stolen mount beneath you now. Your horsemanship is superior, perhaps, but not by much, and our beasts know and trust us. Our arms are as strong as yours, boy—'

'Stronger,' Jacquel growled, 'he's a mocking puppy, nothing more.'

'Stronger, sure,' Jemel admitted, 'and yet the 'ifrit would kill you, where it holds off from me who hurt it once and from my companion, who has not hurt it at all. The virtue lies in our weapons, and those we cannot share with you.'

'Our swords are as sharp as yours, and better made.'

'Doubtl
ess so, and yet they will not bite that hide. No normal edge, no point will mark it unless the weapon's been blessed by an imam. Mine is, yours are not and cannot be. You saw how it scorned your own man's weapon,' with just a flick of his eyes to find that man, laid on the grass now, pale and unmoving, 'and you saw how it feared my blade, how it withdrew. It
’
s too big, though, a scimitar alone can't hope to slay it. . .'