The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) (38 page)

Mo spoke in a whisper. “She’s calling for help, isn’t she?”

Alan shook his head. “Gee—I guess she must be.”

Suddenly his oraculum began to pulse strongly. Instinctively, he searched for the cause . . . and sensed something the Kyra must have sensed already. There was another presence—a malignant force nearby. As if detecting his probing, it turned its awareness from the Kyra toward him.

Then he heard the sound of screaming. Mo clutched his hand as they started running back to the camp.

Under Attack

The Olhyiu camp was in uproar, and Alan saw the cause of their alarm down in the river, where a pillar of crackling green fire was rising high into the sky. A dense mushroom of smoke billowed out of the flames, gusting and spiraling over the surrounding slopes, carrying an acrid odor on the wind, that same rank smell he remembered from the ambush north of Isscan.

“No!”

He heard Mark’s cry even as his own heart fell. The fire and smoke were rising from the Temple Ship.

Siam was attempting to restore order. Milish reached out to hug the tearful Mo. Ainé had also returned, and she spoke decisively. “We must leave this place immediately. We are too few to resist any coordinated attack and this position offers no protection.
I have discovered a breach in the fosse that will allow us through.” She made no mention of her signaling for help. Alan assumed that she wanted to avoid increasing the panic that was already overwhelming the frightened people.

But the shock of the attack on the Temple Ship had resurrected all of the Olhyiu’s fears. A frail old man spoke, his voice trembling with conviction, worried aloud: “This forest strikes a chill in my heart. I will not take another step into this graveyard of history.” The old man turned his wrinkled neck around, eliciting the support of others, all equally fearful.

Siam took command of the situation, striding among the crowds of murmuring and gesticulating Olhyiu. “Old Canim here sees phantasms in his dotage.”

“So you say,” someone else spoke up, “but the hairs on our necks speak louder than words.”

Siam strode among them, knocking heads with his hat. “Don’t allow yourself to be panicked. The Olhyiu have prevailed in worse adversity than this. Go pick up your bundles or we leave you behind. And leave you we will, just like my witless son, who is still out there on some fool’s errand.”

So it was, with the Temple Ship ablaze in the river below and with Turkeya still missing, that the long column set off for the breach in the outer walls. Mo huddled up close to Mark as, once more, they made their way through the trees, where sparks of wintry sunlight pierced the canopy, mottling green needles
or a half-seen edge of granite, while flitting shadows hovered around their path or seemed to watch them from only a few yards away in the stillness. A mile or so beyond the breach they came upon another of the giant heads, half buried under a rotten tree that was festooned with brilliant yellow crescents of fungi.

Resting the shaft of the Spear of Lug against the ground, Alan glanced skyward, where the eagle hovered, little more than a speck, high above them. Despite the chill, the effort of climbing brought out a sweat that trickled down over his back, where it felt like spiders’ legs crawling down his spine.

During a subsequent halt about midmorning, he watched one of the Aides pull down a creeper, hack it through with a knife and drink the juice that pattered from its cut surface. One family and then another copied the Aides in slaking their thirst. Ainé came to stand beside him in the gloom, her oraculum pulsating. “You feel it as I do. We are not alone here. Something other than the Death Legion stalks us here.” As his eyes fell, Alan saw a third giant head, no more than a few yards from where he had halted. Brooding in the shadows, with those dark pits of eyes, it appeared to observe him as closely as he studied it. This one still retained a crystal insert in the brow strap.

“Here! Will somebody give me a hand to get a closer look?”

Siam threw his stout legs apart and signaled with his hand. “Climb on my shoulders.”

Alan did so cautiously, bringing his face up to the level of the eyes. The steam of his breath bathed the stone as he reached up to touch the crystal in its brow. Its surface was hard, like polished glass, yet, as far as he could make out in the murky light, a dull, semi-opaque green.

“Jade, I think!”

They forced several more hours of marching before pausing again at noon. Alan didn’t need to search for long before he found another of the heads. He called out for Milish to come and give her opinion.

“Take a good look. See if you agree with me!”

Milish studied the head thoughtfully for several moments. “I see what you mean—the face is different from the previous ones.”

“Right! Every face is different.”

He figured that the heads were spaced at regular intervals, and very close intervals at that, considering the ease with which they were coming across them. There must be a vast number of stone heads forming some kind of a grid through the forest.

After a brief rest, they struggled on to make the most of the afternoon daylight, the weak having to be supported or carried.

Resting again hours later, with his tired back against the bole of a tree, Alan noticed that the Shee were increasingly restless, searching and peering into the formless shadows.

After a wearying climb lasting several more hours, they arrived at another wall of massive stones, which proved to be the second barrier of the island’s defenses. Darkness had fallen as, through a gate with inwardly sloping stone jambs, they entered a cluster of buildings ravaged by time and lichened with age. One of these was clearly a temple, its walls sculpted with scenes of what appeared to be warriors fighting monsters.

It was enough to provoke renewed exclamations of fear among the Olhyiu. No one would shelter inside the walls.

Siam, with a worried glance about him, took Alan aside. “It’s even worse than before. There’s a malevolence here that withers the spirit. Surely this place is one with those heads. Who among us does not feel their brooding evil, stalking us at every step we make? Mage Lord, I beg you—there can be no stopping here. We are but a day from sanctuary. Exhausted as we are, we must march through the night.”

Kemtuk cautioned against any night march, insisting that there were too many exhausted among them. But the chief was adamant. And Ainé did not disagree with him.

Struggling with fatigue and dread they pressed on deeper into the night, even as the slope became steeper and more difficult, so that at times they were sliding backward down banks of mud coated in a slimy mulch of leaves and bracken. Alan found himself relying on the Spear of Lug, leaning heavily on its shaft for purchase. Yet
even on these difficult inclines, mired in tangled roots, they still came across more stone heads. The Aides now took the lead, feeding back ropes to help the exhausted Olhyiu climb through rock-strewn slurry and thorny scrub. The small wiry women appeared to be tireless as well as excellent climbers. So dark were their surroundings and so treacherous this terrain that the Olhyiu were obliged to forgo the meager light of the glowstones and accept the risk of torches, even though it would inevitably give away their position. After three or four hours of halting progress they heard a distant thunder in the air. With every step the thundering became louder until they emerged into the open from a screen of giant ferns to be confronted by an astonishing spectacle.

The noise came from a cataract spilling over the table of rock at the top of the slope. Catching the pallid light of the moon, it dissolved in a curtain of mist and spray that cascaded like rain through the moonlight and shadows over the cliff face. The thunder arose from the impact of the main waterfall against the rocky floor, where it threw up a freezing mist. A deluge of streams and rivulets ran downslope, fast flowing and bitterly cold. While the Shee and the stronger men among the Olhyiu might risk the crossing, for the majority it presented an impassable barrier.

Dismayed, they gathered on the wet rocks, buffeted by the wind and icy spray, the women and elderly sitting on their bundles, some quietly weeping or cuddling the fretful children.

Approaching the waterfall, Alan’s hair was immediately soaked, his clothes molded to the outline of his flesh. Ainé stood beside him in a watchful silence, her sword unsheathed. He felt a dreadful premonition that caused him to look around them into the encroaching night.

“Mage Lord,” the Kyra warned him, “your brow is aflame.”

“I sense danger!”

“Do not speak of it aloud!” Ainé’s eyes glanced over at the frightened women and children.

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “This creature that terrifies you—this Legun! Tell me what you know about it.”

“The Tyrant has an inner circle, the Septemvile, and each being in the circle is a reflection of a different facet of his malevolence.” Her fingers brushed the scarred left side of her face with a grim reflection. “The Legun who did this to me is known as their captain. Its name is pride and its face is death. Had it wished other than to torment me, my death would have followed that of my sister-mother in the arena of Ghork Mega.”

“Is this what I am sensing? Are we going to be attacked by a Legun?”

“Yes.”

His fist squeezed the shaft of his spear so tightly it hurt. “Well—so what can we expect?”

“When a Legun attacks, it may do so in spirit as a bane of darkness—or it may attack as its incarnate self.”
Her voice was lowered, so nobody other than Alan could hear her. “In the spirit we may fight it. But if it attacks in the flesh no mortal force will prevail against it.”

“What are you saying? You’re telling me that this thing, this Legun, is what—immortal?”

“So we believe.”

Alan’s hand rubbed distractedly at his brow. His mouth felt as dry as a desert in this landscape of freezing waterfalls and streams. “Oh, man! Jeez!”

Forcing himself to hide what he was feeling, Alan crossed to where Kate was helping Kemtuk distribute herbs among the Olhyiu, who were huddled in exhausted and demoralized groups. A few women, under the direction of Kehloke, were gathering brushwood. Ainé’s voice cut through this activity as a commanding bark: she forbade it, though they were as fearful of the dark as they were of an attack.

Alan froze. The sense of menace was suddenly overwhelming.

Suddenly there was a woman’s high-pitched scream, followed by a heart-stopping silence. Alan could feel a steady drip of sweat fall from his chin onto his chest. He made sure Kate was protected by Shee before heading off in the direction of the scream. His nostrils detected a heavy smell which his instincts told him was blood.

Somewhere nearby, a trembling voice called out, “Great Akoli save us!”

An entire family had been slaughtered. As he neared he was sickened by the foulness in the air. He gagged
on the excremental stench. He glimpsed terror-stricken faces, he heard the patter of running footsteps, the sobbing cries of terrified children. Several were ignoring Ainé’s warning and lighting bundles of twigs to ward away the darkness. One had already thrown burning tinder into the undergrowth, causing more smoke than fire. In the confusion, Alan tripped over a smooth, firm weight. He realized it must be a body. It was too dark to see but he felt the flesh still warm and slippery with blood. He moved his hands about, encountering a heavy leg, the exposed knee above a skin-tight boot.

A Shee—dead.

Inching forward, he peered into the shadows and smoking brush. He made out another body, then another. As he touched one of them, there was a shudder of life, as if the injured person was fighting him, cursing and aiming blows at his head.

“Easy—easy!” he whispered.

“Hah, my friend!” sounded the answering whisper. “It is I, Qwenqwo Cuatzel! My arm is broken—but fortunately not the arm that wields my axe. You should not linger here. Danger is about me—I pray it does not find you.”

“Lie still. I’ll come back for you.”

“Do not tarry over me. It takes more than a demon to make an end of the Fir Bolg!” In the sudden flare of light from the brushfire, Alan was heartened by the fierce courage of the dwarf, his eyes blazing.

But even as he left Qwenqwo where he lay, there was a grotesque tearing, as of a rib cage being ripped apart,
and it was accompanied by an anguished moaning from nearby in the tall rushes. Alan forced aside some giant reeds to find the old man, Canim. He lay bleeding and broken in the reeking undergrowth. The moaning stopped as Alan arrived by his side. Alan’s nostrils recoiled from that stink again and his stomach heaved. The stench was getting stronger. He was breathless with apprehension.

Duvaaalll!

He heard his name, a guttural whisper from the surrounding darkness. A rash of gooseflesh erupted over his skin.

Outside the clump of rushes, the night air seemed to whirl and glisten like an agitated vapor. Anticipation made the muscles in his legs tense, and rivulets of sweat ran from his brow, over the folds of his face, stinging the angles of his eyes. He could actually taste blood in the air.

A presence loomed between the bulk of two trees. He saw how it flickered as if willing itself into existence through the resisting dimensions of space and time. A livid vapor began to coil and then expand toward him, licking at the air, following his scent like a snake’s tongue.

In the past, rage had activated the oraculum. But now, in spite of his rising anger, he felt only a weak throbbing from his brow. There was barely power enough to illuminate the shadows that deepened about him. Coming closer, only a little more substantial than the mist that wreathed the low ground, was
a pale phosphorescence. It condensed to something resembling a wraithlike face a long distance above the ground. With the touch of the light from the oraculum, it retracted in hesitation, as if repulsed by it. And then, abruptly, with what sounded like a roar in his mind, it had gone. The effect was so rapid, its disappearance so complete, he might have imagined it.

For a minute Alan held his ground, staring into the gray darkness, gritting his teeth. Then he shouted for the Kyra. “Ainé! Over here!”

There was shouting now in the background and the sound of running footsteps. Then a torch flared next to him. Ainé was examining him, from his face to his feet. “Trídédana be praised—can it be that you are without a single wound?”

“It was here. Then it disappeared.”

The Kyra lifted the flame to peer into the shadows. With a shudder, she recoiled from the stench. “Never has it been known for a Legun to withdraw from its murderous purpose. It is not over.”