Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (78 page)

He backed away, but not from the spear's point; from the body, rather, humiliated by his fear but fearful yet.

'Beware, beware of that,' he stammered. 'You cannot kill it so easily
...'

'Can I not? Looks dead enough to me.' The spear jabbed and twisted, to make sure. The Dancer's body jerked, like a fish on a gaff; Jemel almost squealed, almost scuttled further off.

The Ransomer laughed scornfully, then sobered in a moment with a glance over his shoulder, to where 'ifrit were pressing forward.

'Quickly, boy - why should I not skewer you also? You are Sharai, as he was; and he was killing our men.'

'I am not of them,' though he had no way to prove it. 'We fought, you saw. I cried out to warn you
...'

'You cried out because you were afraid. That's what I heard, what I saw.'

If he could have reached the man, Jemel might have killed him, in that moment before honesty reminded him that he had indeed been afraid, even if the fear came after the scream.

He stepped back, and never mind what the Ransomer thought about his courage: once out of the spear's jabbing range, he could look along the curve of the rampart and see what good - what other good, beyond that spear that had saved him - his screaming had wrought.

There were more spears at work on this side of that wet and slippery bank of bodies, and swords too. Once alerted, the Ransomers could outmatch their assailants in sheer numbers; and it seemed that where their blades cut or stabbed, the normal world applied. Jemel saw one man die, and not recover from it. Then another, and that was enough for the rest; they flickered out of sight, reappeared some distance off across the plain, beyond anything but arrow-range and these Ransomers had no arrows.

Jemel had arrows, but no bow. He was casting about in hopes of finding one when he remembered, realised, saw what he'd forgotten.

The Saren sheikh might walk and slay with Dancers now, but he was still no Dancer. He couldn't work that trick that took them walking between the worlds, winking in and out of view, here and then not here, not available for killing. He was very solidly there, facing a dozen swords alone.

He should have died then and there, and so stolen another of Jemel's oaths from him; but he cast one glance up at the sky and then turned and ran, away across the grass towards where the Dancers waited.

Several of the Ransomers started after him, but found themselves quickly called back. 'Ifrit were threatening to break through again, and keeping those penned had to be the knights priority. Jemel still had his spearman on watch; he had also just spotted the bow that he wanted, lying with other weapons beside a line of dead men. Honour to the fallen, an armoury to him, he could throw away the Dancers useless scimitar; but first he glanced up at his wary guard and said, 'Tell Sieur Anton d'Escrivey that he owes me for a death, and perhaps for a life too, and that I will claim for both when this is over.'

Startled, the man stared down at him, his spear jutting forward like an acknowledgement of the impotence of power against understanding. 'What do you know of Sieur Anton?'

'Enough that I mean to kill him — but not yet. Wish him joy of the 'ifrit, and much honour - and tell him my name is Jemel of the Sharai. Another day we will meet, if God allows it.'

And then, without so much as a glance along to see if the knight were watching, he turned and ran in his turn: first to that place of the dead, where he discarded the scimitar and seized the bow instead, and then away on the sheikh's trail, leaping through the grass with great strides. He could have matched Marron's speed, he thought, and his endurance too, so long as
the
jereth
lasted; he could match the fleeing sheikh also, but could not catch him. They seemed to be pacing each other with no gain, except that with every step they drew closer to the distant Dancers, and if that were a gain for either one it ought to be for the man Jemel pursued.

He felt it for himself, though. He was grinning savagely as he ran, as he breathed, as he felt the pulse and fire of his blood; he would lay down some bodies on his own account, a line of honour to show the Ransomer knight, Marron, anyone. To show that spearman, if he survived to see it. Was that a scream of fear, did he think? Well, he should learn—

And then there were distant cries behind him, that were shock and fear indeed. He wondered if the 'ifrit had broken through, but did not pause to see; he kept running, and saw sudden shadows overtake him on the grass.

His eyes wer
e dragged upward in simple startl
ement. He saw black shapes against the sky, and remembered 'ifrit in flight; and tried to set an arrow to his bow-string as he ran, and nearly tripped himself. Stumbled, but kept running: and saw monstrous creatures swoop low ahead of him, to snatch up the Dancers where they stood.

Not 'ifrit, these were ghuls with wings, slaves to their spirit overlords. The Dancers didn't try to run, or to resist; they looked as though
they had been waiting for exactl
y this.

Another ghul, lower and closer; this one swooped on the running sheikh, and took him as an eagle takes a rabbit. Jemel cried out in frustration then and did stop running at last, did nock his arrow to the string; and was bringing the bow up to aim a desperate shot when he felt a tremendous blow on his back that should have flattened him, except that great claws had curled around his body in that same moment and so he was lifted up from ground and swept away.

There were seven ghuls, and four men: two Dancers, one sheikh, and Jemel. He could still count at least, despite the bruising strike, the buffeting flight, the shock.

He could look down and see the river, the plain, the war far below him; that
battle
already behind him and the mountains rising ahead. After a little while, he preferred to look forward. He did not think the ghul would drop him now, but as a means of transport it was less reassuring even than the djinni. He felt very little supported, despite the curl of claws that caged him. Besides, it stank, and groaned to itself with every effortful stroke of its wings that sent another blast of foul air down into Jemel's face.

He watched the ghuls, and the men they carried; he saw them suddenly stretch their beating wings wide and soar, rising like vultures on an uplift of air.

He felt his own ghul do the same, and felt the change immediately. Flight was smooth and easy now, he wasn't being shaken flesh from bone. And there across the mountains was the margin of the Sands, his own country like a glimpse of blessing
..
.

He ought perhaps to call th
e djinni, try if it would wrestl
e him from the ghul and take him back. But his mind was working at last, catching up with his body: seven ghuls, and four men. At first he hadn't thought at all, he'd been as stiff and stupid as a rabbit in an eagle's claws. Then he'd assumed that he was of course a captive, a rabbit in an eagle's claws, being carried off to imprisonment or death.

There was littl
e sense in that, though — he had no value as a prisoner, and why delay his death? — and ghuls were notoriously slow of mind, slower even than he had been, and less likely to catch up. He thought the ghuls had been sent by 'ifrit, their masters, to collect whoever survived among the Dancers and the sheikh. Death defied foresight, they wouldn't know how many. He thought they had seen men in Sharai robes, running from the Parries; if those big horse-eyes were sharper than they looked, they might have checked for maimed hands, missing fingers.

He thought they had seized him alongside those he chased, mistaking him for just another Dancer; and now were carrying him to wherever the Dancers were being sent. Out of the valley, and into the Sands: he didn't understand it, but no matter.

He had a right grip yet on the Patric bow, and arrows in his quiver. He knew he could trust the arrows, where the abandoned scimitar had betrayed him. These long glides gave him a chance to aim; the ghul s tight grip held him steady.

It might of course realise what he was doing, and simply let go. If it did, he would shriek for Esren and see what befell, whether he did. But he thought the ghul would not open its claws. Dull terror and enforced obedience, the stone in its tongue — he was sure that it had one — would keep it numbly on its course, whatever he did.

He hoped.

Without his feet on solid ground, he couldn't draw the bow as it was meant to be drawn, standing and a full arm's draw to the ear. Sharai bows were far shorter, lighter in weight, meant to be used on horse or camelback; that was his skill, and he thought he could replicate it even in a ghul's grip, while his blood still tingled and his body felt steel-sprung, inexhaustible.

He held the bow horizontally against his locked left arm, and drew it to the chin. With his first shot, he thought his strength and eye would be good enough, he'd been shooting from the saddle all his life; he loosed at the nearest of
the
Dancers and saw his arrow drift wide, far wide and fall uselessly lost to the sand below.

One he could afford; more would come expensive. He worked another carefully out of the quiver and nocked it to the string, puzzled and thinking hard. He'd missed by so much, an unblooded boy could have done better. As an unblooded boy, he had certainly done better from his first day with a bow.

He had stood on towers and on clifftops, and felt winds when the air below was not moving at all. Up here, he thought there must be a wind indeed: wind enough to give the ghuls lift, burdened as they were with the weight of men. His movement, the Dancer's movement, he had allowed for both - but the air between, that must be moving too, and fiercely.
The jereth's
fault, that he was unaware.

He drew the bow again and
this time made allowance, an esti
mate - a wild guess in truth, he could do no better - for a wind he could not feel. And loosed, and saw the arrow fly; and saw it strike, hard home into the belly of the Dancer.

That man screamed, and writhed around the shaft; then something seemed to leave him quite abruptly, nothing that Jemel could see but it was not quite like a death, and the aba
ndoned body slumped in the ghul’
s talons.

The ghul flew on, unheeding.

The other Dancer, the sheikh, both had heard the scream; they stared around, saw the man dangling, saw the arrow.

And could do nothing, they seemed not to have a voice between them to cry to the creatures that bore them, if crying would do any good. It was 'ifrit that controlled these beasts, Jemel thought, not the men they carried.

He took another arrow, and a careful aim. It was less than a perfect shot; it struck not the Dancer, but the ghul above. The creature bellowed, and buckled, and fell out of the sky.

Jemel watched it shrink below, and thought he saw it drop the Dancer as it fell. It was possible, he thought, that they would both survive the drop. Not likely, but possible. If so, though, they should still be separated and alone in the Sands, a long way from comfort or aid. No trouble to him, at least

And then there was the sheikh, and Jemel would not kill that one with an arrow at a distance, though he had countless opportunities as they flew.

They flew, and as they went he used his remaining arrows to pick off the other ghuls one by one, till there were only the two left, his and the sheikhs. They paid no attention to their nestmates' sudden disappearances, slaved as they were to a distant will, a single driving urge. There was a mission here, Jemel thought, and it was the sheikhs now to perform; the ghuls were not even messengers in this, only beasts for transport.

The Sands were broken up with outcrops, ridges of black rock rising. It was hard to be sure of his ground from this unimagined angle, but he knew their direction from the sun and thought he could recognise what tribal lands lay below. He had travelled those lands once with Jazra and then again bare weeks ago, with and without Marron.

Then he saw a landmark that was unmistakable, and he knew exactly where they were and where they were heading, though not why.

The Pillar of Lives rose like a pinnacle above a ridge of rock.

From a distance it might have been a natural finger of stone upthrust, one of the many bizarre formations that God had set in the desert, or else that wind and sand together had shaped in defiance of God's original creation. Come closer, though, and it could be seen to be man
's work entirely, built of countl
ess gathered stones into a needle-shape, an arch for an eye and then a high, high tower.

Jemel knew it well, he had c
limbed it once and left his own
contribution, his own stone at the top.

It was the top of it now that the ghuls brought them to. Brought them and left them, dropping them heedlessly onto the uneven surface and then flying on without ever touching the rock themselves.

Jemel was the swifter to recover, if only barely; he would just have had the time to fling himself onto the sheikh's back and sink the man's own dagger into his ribs.

He was curious, though; he wanted to see what the man did, why they had been brought to this of all places. The Pillar of Lives was a Sand Dancer creation, one stone for every Dancer who had ever taken the oaths and forfeited a finger in signature. It was also the place where Marron had first learned to control the Daughter, where he and Jemel had first stepped through the eye into the land of the djinn.