The Gods and their Machines (16 page)

Riadni’s head poked out of the tent.

‘What was that?’

‘The biggest bloody dog I’ve ever seen,’ he shuddered. ‘I think we’d better get going, somebody’s bound to have heard that.’

He held out the pistol in a shaking hand.

‘And reload this bloody gun for me. Quick.’

They walked for another hour that night, lighting their way with a carefully shielded candle Riadni had brought with her. When they set up camp again, they were both tired and in bad moods. They went without a fire and the tent, Riadni bedding down under her poncho and leaving Chamus to take first watch again as penance for falling asleep last time. After his encounter with the howler, he was in no shape to sleep anyway.

Five

I
n the morning, they broke camp at first light and got moving again. They were only a few miles from
Naranthium
and Riadni used the time to explain some more of the local customs to Chamus, so that he would not
embarrass
her in front of her cousins, two young men who ran a farrier’s, making and fitting horseshoes. She had no idea what Chamus did and didn’t know and she didn’t want to take any chances.

‘There’ll be a basin of water by the door. Take off your shoes and socks and wash your feet. Don’t enter a building with your shoes on.’

‘Right.’

‘There’ll be a prayer before we eat. Cover your eyes when you pray. Don’t lift your head or uncover your eyes until you hear everyone say “Glahmeth”, that’s the end of the prayer.’

‘Right.’

‘Don’t refuse food if it’s offered. Thank them and eat all of it. It’s rude to refuse food. Wash your hands before you eat, and don’t use a knife at the table. It’s a sign of hostility. Food will be cut up before it’s served.’

‘Right, no knives.’

‘Eat your own food with your hands, but serve yourself from the communal dishes with the ladles and spoons. Never touch food that someone else has to eat. There won’t be much talking during the meal, but afterwards there will be tea, and then we’ll talk. Don’t interrupt the host when he’s talking. My cousins are not married, but if there is a woman there, don’t speak to her unless a man introduces her. Never, never stare openly at a woman…you’re doing it to me right now. You’re not supposed to do that.’

‘Right, sorry.’

‘My cousins smoke tobacco, which is forbidden under Shanneyan law. Don’t tell anybody about it and if they offer you a pipe, refuse it politely …’

They walked on, Chamus listening to his guide and soberly wondering if he would ever understand all the rules and customs. There seemed to be an infinite number of ways to offend someone in Bartokhrin.

They crested a low hill and Naranthium came into view once more. It was a medium-sized town with a population of several hundred and there were a number of three- and four-storey buildings in the centre of the town, which Riadni told him was unusual for a region that suffered from the occasional earthquake. All of the buildings were
whitewashed
adobe with protruding rafters and small glass
windows
. Her cousins’ workshop was on the near edge of town and as they approached, she could see riders outside in the yard. They drew closer, and Riadni stopped short, and then dragged Chamus down behind an overturned, rotting cart.

‘That’s my father,’ she said, pointing out one of the men
on horseback. ‘The man standing beside him is called Quelnas. He’s from the Hadram Cassal. There are two of my brothers with him as well.’

Chamus groaned.

‘So your
father
is in with these sods too? He’s going to know everything you know, isn’t he? He’ll be able to guess where you’ll go.’

Riadni was still reeling from the sight of her father helping their hunters, but she could guess what had happened. They would have promised to go easy on her in return for his help. They wanted Chamus. She didn’t matter to them. Papa had no choice. Being so close to her family again made her feel desperately homesick and she yearned to just go home with them and go back to her life the way it was. But she knew she couldn’t. Things had gone too far for it ever to be the same again. She leaned back against the bed of the cart and thought about what to do next. They had to avoid Naranthium. In fact, they had to avoid anywhere her father might be able to find her. She didn’t know what to do.

‘There’s vehicles coming,’ Chamus said. ‘Trucks, I think.’

Riadni peered around the edge of the cart and saw some lorries leaving town in a cloud of dust and coming towards them on the road. Bartokhrians used trucks, but a group of them together was still an unusual sight in the countryside. Chamus squinted against the sun, holding his hand up to his forehead.

‘They’re flying some kind of flag,’ he commented, ‘a white cross inside a red one. I think I know it from somewhere …’

He frowned, staring hard at the approaching vehicles. Then his face lifted.

‘They’re from Advocate! It’s an aid convoy. They’re from Victovia!’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘They’ll get us out of here.’

Riadni looked back to where her father was, but the farrier’s yard was obscured in the dust cloud. The aid convoy was coming up fast, but she had mixed feelings about asking the strangers on the trucks for help.

Chamus ran out and waved down the lead truck, which slowed and rumbled to a halt. A woman leaned out of the cab’s window and looked down at the boy. She was dressed in a shirt and jacket, not in Bartokhrian clothes and Riadni was taken aback by the fact that she was not wearing a wig or make-up. At the same time, Chamus noticed that each truck had men hanging from the back and sides, Fringelanders armed with revolvers and semiautomatic rifles. He was suddenly struck with doubt. Were these Hadram Cassal who had taken over the trucks?

‘Hi, you’re Altiman, aren’t you?’ the woman greeted him. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I’m from Victovia,’ he told her hesitantly, glancing up as another man opened the driver’s door of the truck and leaned over to get a better look at the two fugitives. He was a tall, lean, hard-bitten man with long hair tied back and several days’ growth of beard on his face, which was unusual for a Bartokhrian. They didn’t go in for facial hair. Most of them did not even need to shave.

‘Don’t mind them,’ the woman waved generally at the men around them. ‘They’re just guards for the convoy. They won’t hurt you.’

‘My plane ran out of fuel,’ Chamus went on. ‘I’m trying to get home.’

‘He’s the one the Hadram Cassal are looking for, Leynid,’ the driver said. ‘They’ve got people all over the area out hunting him and the girl. The word is out everywhere.’

‘We’d better get you off the road, then. We’re on our way to Yered, but you’ll be better off there with us than
wandering
about here,’ Leynid said to Chamus, her face going from amused to serious and back again. She opened her door. ‘Hop in.’

‘That’s a bad idea,’ the driver shook his head, ‘if they’re found with us, we’ll be up to our necks in trouble.’

‘What are we going to do, Paronig?’ she asked him. ‘Leave two children to fall into the hands of Lakrem Elbeth?’

‘Better that than the whole team,’ he grunted. ‘I’m
responsible
for your people’s safety. They’ll put us all in danger. I say leave ’em here.’

‘Oh, you are ruthless,’ Leynid chided playfully, ignoring his icy stare. She then turned to Chamus and Riadni. ‘Don’t mind him. His heart was removed at birth and replaced with a hand grenade. But he does what he’s paid to do. Hop in.’

She got out and stepped down, so that Chamus could climb in. Riadni followed more reluctantly. She was
bothered
by Paronig’s hostility and did not know what to think of Leynid. She had never been in such a large, modern truck before either. The cab was big, but even so the four of them had to squeeze together on the leather seat, Chamus next to Paronig, then Riadni and then Leynid next to the door. Riadni was uncomfortable being so physically close to these strangers. It was not proper. She risked a covert glance at Leynid, fascinated by the way she was not ashamed to bare her skin and the fact that she seemed to be in charge of the
men. It was alien and exciting at the same time.

‘This is going to make things bad for us,’ Paronig muttered, as he shifted the truck into gear and started it forward.

‘Well, I’d hate to think your men were carrying all those guns for nothing,’ Leynid said primly. ‘We’ll radio the Bartokhrian army base in Maskadrin when we reach Yered. They’ll take them off our hands.’

‘If we announce this over the radio, we’ll have every Hadram Cassal group in the area jumping us long before the army can get to us,’ Paronig shook his head. ‘We’re not going to say a word about this. Not a word.’

Chamus and Riadni listened to this exchange and looked at each other for a moment. It felt good to be among friendly people, but it sounded like they were still a long way from being safe.

Daruth sat on a steel-framed chair that was bolted to the floor of the small, bare concrete room. He had gone back to the flat after meeting Thomex Aranson and walked in to find Benyan dying on the floor of the front room. Helthan and Mance lay in dead and broken heaps in the back room, no doubt at Benyan’s hand. He should have taken care of it himself. Armed men had burst into the flat a minute later and fired tranquilliser darts into him before he could turn his gun on them, or himself. He had woken up in this room.

He knew that this was not a police station and the men who held him were not police. He also knew that Thomex Aranson had betrayed them and the realisation surprised
him, he would not have credited the old man with that kind of strength. His hands were handcuffed to a bracket on the back of the chair and his ankles shackled to the front legs. Daruth knew what was to come and he was frightened, but he focused his mind on nothingness, distancing his
consciousness
from his body. They would get nothing from him. A man in a dark grey suit opened the door and walked in, followed by another dressed in the same way. Both carried leather cases. They closed the heavy metal door behind them.

‘I have two questions for you,’ the first man said. ‘Answer them and this will all be over very quickly. Where is Chamus Aranson, and what do you know about Operation Heavy Rain?’

Daruth was puzzled by the second question, but it didn’t matter. He would not say a word from now until his death. The man waited for a reply and then shook his head with a resigned expression and opened his case, revealing an array of metal instruments and bottles of chemicals.

‘This is going to take some time.’

Advocate was a charity which campaigned for fair treatment for the countries that did business with Altima. Leynid Lefburoc explained as they drove, that because Altima was so much wealthier than their neighbours, the countries they called the Fringelands were kept in a subservient role, without any hope of achieving true independence. In Bartokhrin, farmers and other small businesses could lose everything at the whim of Altiman companies. The Bartokhrian government even had
to tolerate Altiman bombing raids on suspected terrorist camps, their own people, because they still relied so much on the good will of Altima.

There were people in Altima who were outraged by what was going on in the Fringelands and they financed groups like Advocate to try and counteract the damage caused by their own country. Chamus listened quietly. His mother was a member of Advocate and talked about this quite a lot. His father couldn’t be a member because it would have cost him business with the military. His grandfather thought it was all nonsense, saying they were just after money and regularly argued about it with his mother.

Riadni did not say a word. To her it was like hearing someone congratulate themselves for offering a bandage to a person they had just slashed with a knife. The column
carried
food and medical supplies for the village of Yered – the village that had been attacked a few days before by the Altiman Air Force. She remembered seeing the planes
dropping
their bombs and how her concern then had stretched as far as having a good story to tell over supper. Now she was fearful of what they were going to see there and worried about the people she knew in the village. Despite her
disdain
for the well-meaning Altimans, she knew Yered would need all the help it could get; it was a poor village in an area where the farming was hard. A thought occurred to her. She nudged Chamus.