Paragaea (30 page)

With the conclusion of the fete, the company was escorted to apartments in one of the round-topped structures that ringed the clearing.

“Consider these apartments yours for as long as you need them,” Sebek said as one of his Tannim started a fire in a pit at the center of the common room. The room was ringed by five doors leading to small chambers, separated by hanging curtains of beads.

“Your hospitality is most appreciated,” Hieronymus said, bowing slightly. “We'll most likely be on our way with the morning's first light, but the prospect of sleeping indoors tonight is an appealing one.”

“Particularly if we don't have to worry about rising tides or advancing armies of giant ants,” Balam added, grimacing.

“Is there anything else you require?” the fire-lighting Tannim asked deferentially.

“No, I think we should have everything we need,” Leena answered.

“In that case,” Sebek said, clacking his teeth together with a note
of finality, “we'll leave you to your rest.” With that, he and the other Tannim turned, and strode back into the night.

“Mannerly for such fearsome-seeming creatures, aren't they?” Benu observed, pacing the circumference of the room.

“Thou shouldn't be fooled.” Spatha watched the doorway through narrowed eyes. “Our hosts may be properly schooled in manners, but they also have been quite well trained in the arts martial. The two I fought in the mangrove might have done for me, had they their better wits about them.” She paused, and turned to look at Benu with an accusing glare. “To speak of which, why didst thou not come to our aid, artificial man? I saw proof of thy strength in Masjid Empor, when thou clunked two constables insensate to the ground. Were thy attentions better served elsewhere while the Sinaa and I earned our new wounds?”

Benu shrugged. “You seemed to have matters well in hand. I suppose if things had taken a fatal turn, I could have intervened. But as it was, I was fascinated by the giant ants which swarmed out of their burrows. I found their level of organization and coordination remarkable. I've long known that ants communicate not only by brushing antennae, but by secreting pheromones that drift on the air, but I'd never before seen such a coordinated attack on such a large scale, over such a short span of time. It was almost as if—”

“I'm sure this is fascinating to someone,” Balam said, stretching his arms to either side as his face split with an enormous yawn, “but I for one am for bed.”

“As am I,” Hieronymus said, unbuckling his sword belt and swinging his pack off his back. He parted one of the beaded curtains with his hand, and glanced over his shoulder as he ducked through into the chamber. “Pleasant sleep, all. And may the only giant ants we encounter tonight be in our dreams, at worst.”

Benu shrugged, and took a seat near the fire pit. “I needn't occupy one of the rooms to rest my systems,” he said, “so the rest of you may take a sleeping chamber apiece.”

Spatha did not respond, but slipped her baldric off her shoulders and disappeared through one of the curtains. Balam made for another, and Leena paused for a moment, glancing over at Kakere.

The Ichthyandaro had not spoken since the fete, not since the night's “entertainment” had been wheeled out. Now he lingered by the open door, glancing out into the night.

“Kakere?” Leena asked. “Is there anything the matter?”

The fish man turned around, his expression unreadable through the folds of his robes. “No, nothing,” he said, his voice muffled. “Just…just going for a walk.”

Leena shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, and stepped into the remaining sleeping chamber as Kakere slipped out into the darkness.

Leena lay on a woven mat within the sleeping chamber, firelight filtered through the beaded curtain playing on the ceiling and walls. Her arms, legs, and neck ached, as they seemed to always do these days. Since they had left Laxaria, long months before, she had been in constant motion, whether by foot, or airship, or horseback, or ship. Always moving, but in her darker moments, she feared that she was only running in place, and that all of her exertions were not bringing her any closer to home. Would she wander the wide world of Paragaea for endless years, as Hieronymus seemed content to do, never returning to fulfill her duty?

The firelight danced on the ceiling overhead, and when Leena finally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she dreamt of flames.

Leena awoke to shouts of alarm, out in the township. She leapt to her feet and, grabbing her sword belt and holstered Makarov, raced out into the common room. She had been asleep for only a few hours, and through the open door she could see that it was still full dark outside.

Benu was on his feet, standing near the entrance and peering out into the darkness intently, and as Leena rushed to stand beside him, Balam, Hieronymus, and Spatha issued forth from their sleeping chambers to join them. All of them, Leena included, were barefoot and in various stages of undress, but all were armed and ready for action.

“What are we looking at, Benu?” Hieronymus asked, hand on his saber's hilt.

“I'm not certain,” Benu answered, glancing over his shoulder, his opalescent eyes glittering like gems in the firelight. “First came a single voice, shouting for someone to stop, and then sounds of violence, and shortly after a half-dozen or so voices calling out for assistance.”

Spatha glanced around the common room, her gladius drawn and in her hand. “Where is the fish?”

Leena looked from Spatha back to the open door. “He stepped out when we all went off to sleep. He said he wanted to take a walk.”

“Well, his walk hasn't yet brought him back here,” Benu said.

“That is an unpleasant sign,” Balam grumbled, popping the claws of his hands, retracting them, and then extending them again nervously.

“Thou hast said a mouthful.” Spatha scowled, tightening her grip on the gladius.

“Come on.” Hieronymus pushed past them, hurrying into the night, leaving his saber sheathed but with his hand still resting on the hilt.

They followed the shouts, and came upon a crowd of Tannim gathered a few meters beyond the arc of buildings, a short distance from the pens where
the terror birds were kept. Flickering torchlight lit the scene, casting dancing shadows on the ferocious countenances of the crocodile men.

At the center of the jostling crowd, they found Kakere, standing unrobed and naked in front of a glassed-in case. At the fish man's feet lay the fallen form of a young Tannim, while in the case the still form of the dolphin floated in blood-clouded waters.

Kakere looked about him, his black eyes wide and frightened, as the Tannim called for his blood.

“What is the meaning of this?” Sebek called out, joining the throng. His hungry gaze took in the scene in an instant, and then his eyes settled on the face of the Tannim lying lifeless in the dirt at Kakere's feet. “Sobek,” he said in a quiet voice, his toothy mouth clenched tight.

“Kakere!” Hieronymus said, stepping forward and interposing himself between the Ichthyandaro and the mob pressing ever closer. “What transpired here?”

Kakere looked from Hieronymus, to the lifeless dolphin in the red-stained water, to the jostling mob of crocodile men, and back.

“He told me to do it, you see?” the fish man began. “I came to speak with him, to join him in the water and exchange sounds as his kind and mine have done beneath the waves since time immemorial. He told me he'd been captured in his youth, beached on a sidebar by the retreating tide, and found by a company of Tannim hunters.”

Kakere's eyes flashed angrily for a moment, and he looked around him at the gathered throng, kept from attacking the fish man only by reproachful glances from their leader, Sebek, who it appeared wanted to hear Kakere's testimony before proceeding.

“The Tannim kept him in bondage all the years since,” Kakere went on, looking back sorrowfully at the state of the dolphin in the tank. “His fluke and fins crippled by his cruel handlers, he knew he could never survive again on the open seas, and that escape was not an option. So he begged me to release him from his torments.”

Kakere held up a bone-handled knife, of the type used by the crewmen aboard the
Acoetes Zephyrus
, its blade slicked with blood.

“And Sobek?” the leader of the Tannim said in a faraway voice, pointing to the dead crocodile man on the ground.

“Oh,” Kakere said absently, and looked at the bloody form at his feet. “It was…I didn't mean to hurt…He came upon me as I was carrying out my grisly task, and…Well, I
had
to kill him, in order to finish matters with the dolphin.”

“You…” Sebek began, and his words choked off in his throat. “You killed my nephew Sobek in order to euthanize a dumb beast?”

At this, the Tannim whose numbers swelled by the moment began to howl for Kakere's blood. One of them, bolder or more impetuous than the rest, pushed past Leena and Balam, rushing towards Kakere with murder in his black eyes.

“No!” Spatha leapt in front of the charging Tannim, taking out a slice of his shoulder with her gladius as she moved past him.

Spatha landed in the dirt before Kakere, the point of her gladius held high, crouching in a martial stance.

The Tannim whom she'd nicked gripped his wounded shoulder and bellowed with rage as two more rushed forward from the crowd, talons out and grasping. Spatha dealt one of the two newcomers a ringing blow to the head with the flat of her blade as the other tackled her to the ground.

“Spatha!” Leena shouted as Balam and Hieronymus charged forward. But before either of them could reach Spatha's side, the Tannim with whom she wrestled had clamped his vicious jaws on her shoulder and neck, and when he pulled away, her side was left a red ruin from her jawline to her upper arm.

Balam hauled the Tannim to his feet, his jaws dripping red with gore from Spatha's wound, while Hieronymus stood astride Spatha's supine form, turning his blade's point to the other two Tannim, who even now were regaining their footing.

“Cease fighting!” Sebek called out, his voice booming. “Stand down.”