They Fly at Çiron: A Novel

  Between them, Uk saw Nactor on his side, one hand above his head, the blindfold still looped on three fingers, one eye wide, one closed, and drooling blood. Uk looked up again and recognition hit. It chilled him, turning all possibility of dream into the nightmare whose specific horror was that it took place in one’s own bed, in one’s own room, in one’s own house, in a world that was, indeed, supposed to be precisely his. If, in fact; he had dreamed some beast had, howsoever, been thrust with him into his sleeping bag, and he’d waked to find it clawing and biting at his unarmored belly and unhelmeted face to get free, it would have been exactly as frightening as the realization that this incarnation of evil, who had wildly and insanely . murdered Mrowky, was now wreaking death and murder (an arc of blood followed the Çironian’s ax blade through the air) among the dozen men around him!

  Uk was terrified; but he was also a brave soldier; moreover, he was an intelligent one, which meant he’d already had several occasions to learn that terror in battle—a different thing from ordinary rational fear—had best be moved into and through, so that you came out the other side as quickly as possible—if it were at all possible. That, indeed, is what bravery, military or otherwise, was. Uk took a great wet breath, that had a lot of noise in it—much like a sob, had anyone heard it among the shouts and shrieks. (The damned traitor of a lieutenant was on one knee, firing to the right. Would Kire’s beam be what cut Uk down? No matter. This other one had to be stopped—had to be!) Uk crouched, his sword back for the thrust, and ran forward, hammering the ground with his boots, gasping air, one fist pumping at his side, the other, holding his sword, awkwardly poised, his whole body aimed for the space between the backs of two soldiers who were already feinting at the ax-wielder with their blades.

  *

  RAHM! THE ONE COMING UP

  ON THE RIGHT OF—

  Rahm swung his ax, and one of the feinters dove aside and rolled away. The other danced back. And Rahm saw the big soldier, crouched low, coming at him—for an instant.

  It was a very long instant, though.

  Beneath the helmet’s rim, the soldier’s eyes, as gray as stone, seemed only a moment away from magma red. The effort that twisted the face (the soldier’s teeth were bared), seemed to Rahm an image of absolute, blood-stopping evil.

  Recognizing it, Rahm felt himself lose purchase with his right foot on the grass and earth that had grown so black and slippery. The part of him that knew how his own blows were timed, saw, as clearly as if it had been written out on one of Ienbar’s scrolls, that the only back-swing he could get in would not connect with any vital part—maybe knock aside the running man’s forward arm, if that. This mad creature—who had started to holler now—would collide with him, surely cut him, and likely stab him and stab him and stab again …

  Then something fell between them—ropes? But they were moving, Rahm saw, backward, away from him. Rahm glanced left and right. The ropes—tied together in some sort of net—had taken several others of the soldiers, too.

  If a big man runs head-on into a rope net, the net should give some—two feet, three feet, maybe even twice that. The berserk soldier was no more than five feet from Rahm when the net caught him and started sweeping back.

  The big soldier hit those ropes as though they were solid. His free hand grasped a cord near his head. His sword arm went directly through, between thick strands. If you were a wall, and someone ran smack against you, that’s the only other way you’d ever see that expression on a man’s face: the jaw-jarring jerk—when his chest hit—shook Uk’s whole body. The sword flew forward from his hand—Rahm winced to the side, slipping more.

  But the blade went clear of Rahm’s right hip, by a palm’s width—before it slid, spinning, back from grass onto gravel. Rahm reeled again—but kept his balance.

  Winged Ones—fifteen, twenty of them, or more—pulled the vine web back across the common. Soldiers stumbled back behind it. At the sides Winged Ones ran with it. At the top others flew with it. Some cords in the web were of a lighter color than the rest; and from the way some soldiers within were struggling to pull one loose from a face or an arm or a, leg, Rahm realized in a strangely attenuated knowledge, those lines were cave-creature filaments! The Winged Ones at the net’s top now descended, making the web a cage. Within were at least twenty-five Myetran soldiers. And the Winged Ones had their own, strangely gripped blades—

  “… Friend Rahm!” It was not Kire’s voice, but a familiar mew.

  Gasping, Rahm turned to see, like a huge and moving shadow beside him, wings spreading, beating in dawnlight—

  “…Vortcir?”

  “Jump on, friend Rahm!”

  While the wings turned before him, Rahm dropped the ax and staggered forward. He threw himself at the furry shoulders, caught himself. As they lifted, he called out, sliding, holding his breath then letting it all out: “…Vortcir! I cannot hold thee—!”

  “Of course you can!” declared, the Handsman. And he banked, so that they moved in a far gentler rise; and Rahm, pulling himself forward on his friend’s back, sucking in exhausted gasps, looked over Vortcir’s shoulder. They sailed left, swooped around, then sailed right, then left again, gaining only a dozen feet each sweep. Wings labored either side of Rahm, as Vortcir circled and circled the common.

  On the ground, with their long blades, Winged Ones were not being kind to the soldiers under the net. But Rahm’s eyes fixed on the lieutenant.

  Kire stood, head hanging and powergun pointed straight into the air. He looked as exhausted as Rahm felt. Slowly Kire’s arm went down—and his head rose—so that the gun was pointed at the Winged Ones fighting around the netted Myetrans. There were far more Winged Ones about than Myetrans …!

  KIRE, NO—!

  (Vortcir’s translucent ears jerked. Beneath Rahm, the jerk went through all of Vortcir’s body, as if it were a moment’s pain.) Kire’s arm dropped to his side. Then his gloved hand, with the gun, started to rise again.

  KIRE!

  (Vortcir’s ears flicked.) The gun dropped again.

  And over Vortcir’s shoulder, Rahm saw Naä reach the ground at the light tower’s base and run toward Kire, to take his arm. He saw Kire try to shake her off, once—saw her take his shoulder again…

  Vortcir soared higher, and, beyond the trees and hut roofs, Rahm could see the Myetrans’ tents. Moving among them—and occasionally taking off from among them—were not Myetrans, but Winged Ones! Not twenty or thirty, but what seemed hundreds!

  “Look there, beside us!” Vortcir called in the wind.

  Rahm looked out to his left. By some kind of rope, two Winged Ones pulled something through the air—a kind of glider. It was a larger version of the wood and leather toys Rahm had seen skimming between the flyers in the mountains. Much larger, though—larger than one of the Winged Ones! Piled on the upper side of this one—and there were more of them, many more of them in the air—was a bundle of net. On another was a rack of long-handled knives. On still others, were bound-up balls with spikes jutting from them, whose use Rahm could not even imagine.

  “You smell of blood,” Vortcir remarked. “But that’s better than your skinny friend who stinks of garbage. And—” because, on Vortcir’s back, Rahm had started to shake and could now see only shimmering and shifting cloud and light—“you are crying.” Though—certainly anyone could hear—they were the grinning sobs of relief.

  “What’s going to happen to us? Hey, Uk—what’s going to happen? I’m bleeding bad! I’m bleeding bad, now—what’s going to happen!”

  “Shut up, boy—!”

  “Shut your mouth—and be quiet!”

  “What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen—”

  There was a grunt in the darkness. “You want to know what’s going to happen? You’re going to have a red hot fever by tonight. And in three days that gash in your leg is going to be filled with little white worms. And you’re going to have flies crawling all over you. And your mouth’s gonna dry up, and you??
?re going to cry for water, only if somebody brings it to you, you won’t be able to drink it; and if somebody pours it in your mouth it isn’t going to make no difference, and you’re gonna hang around like that for seven, eight, nine days, with your tongue cracking and bleeding, turned all black—then you’re going to die. That’s what’s going to happen. An’ I just hope I’m dead already when it does—probably will be. Cause what I got’s a lot worse than what you do.”

  “Don’t tell him that, Uk. You don’t have to tell him—”

  “Hey, Uk? That’s not what’s going to happen—is it, Uk? That’s not what’s gonna happen… ? Oh, no—don’t tell me that!”

  “The boy don’t need to know that kind of thing—”

  “Then why’d he ask, if he didn’t want to know? They pulled their damned blades—when they had us under that net, hacking at us. They didn’t cut to kill—you can’t fight a war like that! You can’t do it like that! That’s not the way to do it!”

  “They’re not going to let that happen to us, are they? You don’t think that’s what they’re going to do? Oh, don’t tell me that—”

  “You can’t pull back when you’re fighting like that. If I had my blade, boy, I’d kill you now. Put you out of your misery—and if you don’t shut up in here, I may just try it anyway with my bare hands. Only I’m too weak—too bad for you. But keep quiet, I say!”

  On the council building’s cellar floor, at first making figures like red feathers, blood leaked out to mix with the urine still there from the village prisoners released that morning.

  “Oh, don’t say that—I’m bleeding, Uk. I’m bleeding so bad—”

  “Will you shut up, boy? Are you a man or are you a howling dog? There’re men dying in here. And there’re going to be more men dying. So will you have some respect and shut up… ?”

  But after minutes, all form to the red shapes spreading the wet floor was gone.

  CHAPTER VII

  FROM high in the mountains a stream drops in feathery falls, to bubble along beside the grassy fold through the quarry at Çiron.

  When Rahm threw a last handful of sand and grit back to pock the water and, elbows high and winging, waded up the bank, his hair was a black sheet bright on his back and his dripping skin was raw—but both were free of blood.

  Vortcir perched on a log jutting above the rocks, wings waving like a great moth’s.

  A leg still in the foamy rush, Rahm looked down to finger up the chain around his neck.

  “They were planning to come through the mountains—to Hi-Vator. Hi-Vator was right in their line.” Vortcir cocked his head to the side, above his own Handsman’s chain. “We heard what they’d done to you and your village. Certainly we couldn’t let that happen to us. No sense of weapons, god, or money—you’re not far enough along toward civilization for anyone to take you seriously. Still, I did not like these Myetrans—and my aunt said attack. Then, my friend, I heard your name through their accursed speakers—and after that your own call. Well—these are all things to put out of your mind. You are free. Your village is free. A third of the Myetran soldiers run wildly even now, away in the woods. My scouts say most are heading southeast, in the direction of Myetra Himself. More than a third are dead—and the few captured are penned in the basement of your council building. It could be a lot worse.”

  Along the path to the bank, dappled light spilling bits of even brighter copper down his braids, Abrid ran half a dozen steps, stopped; and, copper spilling hers even faster, Rimgia overtook him. Behind, wings waving in their own rose dapple, the female Winged One who’d once told Rahm about money came after them. “These are the ones you wanted, the two with the red hair—yes, Handsman Rahm? These are the ones, no? Certainly they must be!” Her voice was between a piping and a whine.

  “Rahm!” Rimgia declared, Abrid right behind. “The Winged Ones—they drove off the soldiers…!” and she began to tell him, excitedly, many things he already knew; and, while Abrid looked excited and kept silent, they started back to the village.

  The path crossed the bristle of a burnt field. Halfway over, Rahm stopped. “I’ll see thee back in town in a little, Rimgia, at the common,” and he turned across the field toward the remains of the shack.

  As he came around where half a wall still stood, he stopped.

  *

  On her knees, Naä looked up from where she had been pulling earth from under a charred log. “Rahm . . ?” she smiled up briefly, then dug some more.

  Three double handfuls of black, cinder-filled dirt, and she leaned to reach in under with one arm. Sitting back, she lifted free the harp and unwrapped the charred cloth. Two dead leaves were caught in its strings. Fingering them loose, she pulled the base back into her lap, laid her hand against the strings, but did not pluck.

  Rather, she reached down to her hip and loosed the knife from her sash. “This is …this was Ienbar’s.” Clearly unsure what to do with it, she held it out to him. “Rahm …?”

  He didn’t take it; so she put it on the log.

  “The children—” Rahm nodded across the field. “Rimgia and Abrid. They’re all right. A Winged One found them—”

  “Oh!” Suddenly she stood. “They found them—” She smiled at him, looked across the field, at Rahm again—then called: “Rimgia, Abrid… !” Pushing her arm through the strap, shrugging the instrument to her back, with Rahm following Naä began to run across the charred grass.

  Elbows forward on his knees and gazing at nothing, Lieutenant Kire sat on the blackened block, where he’d been sitting, silent on the common, forty minutes now. The villagers moving about sometimes glanced at him, then—a few and a few more—moved about him without looking at all.

  On foot or in air, passing Winged Ones ignored him.

  Mantice was chattering away at Rahm as they came across the grass: “Four of them we bandaged up and sent south on their way—though, phew!—they’d only been down there six hours, and already it was halfway between a cesspit and a shambles. One of them—a young fellow—was cut bad in the leg and already down with a fever. But Hara took him into her hut and says she can nurse him back to his feet—although, I allow, he’ll limp the rest of his life. But that woman’s as wise with medicinal weeds as she is at weaving. If anyone can save him, it’ll be she. Three, now, I’m sorry to say it, were too far gone. Two of those were already dead when we went in there. And one died even as we were carrying him up the steps and out into the clear air. Thou wouldst have thought the ones alive and turned loose would have had some gratitude—or at least a smile for the favor. But all of them were sullen fellows. Well, they’d been through it too, I suppose. I had them put the dead ones back over in my water wagon—”

  Here the lieutenant looked around, got to his feet heavily, and turned. “Rahm, he says there are more dead about. Myetran dead. In his wagon. May I see them? I…” His rough voice snagged on itself. “I’ve been trying to get an idea whom we lost—among the men I knew, I mean.”

  “Of course,” Rahm said; though, from report, the lieutenant had not done much of anything in the past hour. “Mantice, canst thou take me and friend Kire to see?”

  “But only come thou along,” said the stocky water cart driver. “My cart is this way.”

  Five minutes later, off on a side street, with one hand on the wagon’s edge, the lieutenant peered within. The puma’s head, beside his, save for its sealed eyes, might have been peering too. Standing at Kire’s shoulder, Rahm looked in. The lieutenant’s next breath was a little louder than the one before it. But the one after was quiet again.

  On his back at the cart’s far side by three other bodies, the big soldier had a gaping slash along his flank through which, beneath a carapace of flies, you could see both meat and bone. Rahm recognized him more from his size. The full features, unshaven, held a slight grimace in death.

  “Friend Kire . . ?”

  “Yes?” The lieutenant looked over, across the lion’s muzzle.

  “That one there,” Rahm said
. “Didst thou know him? Was he a bad man… ?” though, even as he asked it, the idea of this dead soldier with his annoyed expression, as the evil figure he remembered, seemed ludicrous.

  “A bad man?” The lieutenant gave a kind of snort. “Uk, there? Uk was the best—he was a very good man. Or at least a good soldier.”

  “Ah,” Rahm said. “I see.”

  The lieutenant took another, louder breath, dropped his hand, and turned from the cart. “Rahm, I want to thank you, for… for my life. Though I guess there’s no proper way to give such thanks formally, now, is there …”

  Rahm grinned. Then he said: “Friend Kire…” but nothing else.

  So finally Kire said: “I must go and look about among the other men, to see whom I can recognize …”

  “Certainly.”

  As the two men turned again toward the common, a young man with his hair tied back hurried up toward them. “Art thou the one they call Lieutenant Kire . . ?” He was a lean flanked youth, with big ears and big hands. (Rahm grinned at Qualt.) “I was just back at Hara’s and Jallet told me—thy prince, he wishes to see thee. Then Hara asked me if I would…” While Kire looked uncomfortable, Qualt glanced at Rahm.

  “Yes, of course—”

  “Thou knowest the house—it’s the one they kept thee in, earlier… ?”

  “Of course,” the lieutenant repeated in his unnaturally rough voice, then started back along the street.

  When the lieutenant was gone, Qualt resumed his quiet smile: “Hey, Rahm—I heard about him and thee, what thou didst together at the common this morning!”

  “And what are we supposed to have done that anyone wouldn’t do who had to save himself and a friend?”