Only the Merell could have understood his words but Ria saw everyone gazed at her with the same rapt intensity. For a moment there was total silence. Then in a swirl of movement Sebittu was back on his feet and he and Ligar stooped and lifted Ria, surprised and laughing, onto their shoulders. Bont and Grondin, Driff and Oplimar linked arms with them and they carried her through the crowd.
She didn’t know who shouted her name first, although she was sure it was a woman, but very soon hundreds of people, wearied and bloodied, were chanting – ‘RIA! RIA! RIA!’ – and she was looking down at a sea of faces raised towards her in something very like adoration. Many were the hands that reached out to touch her as she was carried past, as though they might absorb from her the blessing of the spirits.
Ria’s head felt light. All through the battle she had not thought for a moment what it might mean to win. But now, with the flash of a blinding revelation, it came to her that victory meant power.
Not personal power over others – she cared nothing for that – but the power to move men’s minds, to overcome their differences, to inspire them to action, and to bind them together into an unstoppable force. Today she had fought the Illimani in their hundreds and proved they could be beaten. But the time was not far off, she knew, when she would have to face Sulpa and thousands more of his warriors on the battlefield.
He wasn’t going to let her get away with what she’d done to him today – which was why she’d done it. She would need more men – a lot more men – but she had an idea where she might find them.
Still on her friends’ shoulders, still being carried through the crowd to roars of acclamation, she was lost in her plans for Sulpa’s destruction when she sensed Leoni’s presence again, just a shimmer on the morning air. ‘There are twenty Illimani you didn’t see,’ Ria heard her say. ‘They’re going to kill the children. You’ve got to stop them.’
Ria looked back to the little stand of bushes and trees a thousand paces away where the prisoners were sheltering. A great outcry of children’s voices rose up.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
As the battle unfolded fifty feet below her Leoni saw the whole mechanism of Ria’s plan: an ambush within an ambush, a powerful enemy caught off balance and fatally duped into dividing his force. The naked women were the bait, the archers the spring and Bont’s men the hammer in a perfect trap.
While it lasted, the battle moved too fast for Leoni to risk distracting Ria. Besides, although Ria often seemed in danger as the fighting swirled around her, she was astonishingly agile and deadly and had uncanny survival instincts. Again and again she dodged lethal blows by a hair’s breadth, and her lean body – naked, dusty and blood-smeared after the fight – had suffered just one new wound. Some jagged edge, perhaps a knife or a spear point, had sliced open her left breast from nipple to armpit. The gash was ugly, and oozed blood, but Ria seemed unaware of it as her triumphant warriors carried her across the battlefield shoulder-high, and cheers and shouts of victory rose all round her.
Leoni was in far worse shape. Since she’d made the choice to return, she’d known that the restoration of her aerial body by Ruapa and Baiyakondi could only be temporary. As she hovered over the battle, following its shifting fortunes, she once more become aware of the awful lassitude and creeping numbness that had afflicted her before, and of the frightening thinness and attenuation of her aerial form which seemed to be slowly evaporating and drifting away. It was difficult to resist the warm shelter of her meat body and the call of her own place and time. She felt its strong pull upon her and sensed she needed only to unlock her focus from Ria and she would be back in an instant with Don Leoncio and the Tarahanua shamans who would heal her wounds.
As though triggered by her thoughts of return, a tunnel of light opened in the air a few feet in front of her. It was inviting and she began to drift towards it when a distant flutter of movement – that yet had a sort of purposive flow about it – made her look off to her right. A thousand feet back across the curve of the valley, near the stockades, she saw a group of men, crouched low, running.
The tunnel would have to wait. With the power of flight Leoni reached the place in an instant and swooped down amongst twenty Illimani who all Ria’s forces had somehow failed to root out. Some were armed with axes, some with long flint knives, and as she watched they ducked out of sight between two of the stockades and squirmed forward.
What were they doing? Leoni soared higher and saw their target could only be the two hundred women and children, formerly their prisoners, gathered in the shade of the bushes and small trees growing along the opposite side of the valley. It seemed crazy for these warriors to take time out for murder when they had a real chance to slip away and escape, but no doubt these were the kinds of decisions people made when they’d sold their souls to a demon.
Leoni darted down to Ria, where her men still carried her on their shoulders, and projected the thought urgently: ‘There are twenty Illimani you didn’t see.’ With every atom of her will she fought the weakness spreading across her aerial body: ‘They’re going to kill the children. You’ve got to stop them.’
‘Sister!’ exclaimed Ria. ‘It’s so good to have you back.’ In the same instant her gaze swept towards the valley side where a distant chorus of screams now rose up and figures could be seen scattering. Her expression changed to one of fury and as she sprang to the ground, yelling orders, Leoni streaked back along the valley, expecting the bloodbath to have begun.
Instead she saw flights of arrows pouring down off the ridge line above the copse sheltering the women and children and thudding into the twenty Illimani where they’d charged across the open ground from the stockades. All but three were already down, two more fell in the next second and only the last one got anywhere near the copse before a dozen arrows smashed him off his feet. Another flight arched from the ridge, thudding into the lifeless and bloody bodies, then another, and then it was all over. Not a woman or child had been harmed.
Leoni soared up to take a look at the rescuers. There were twenty of them, under the command of the third Neanderthal – the one whose name she didn’t know – and they occupied the very position she’d suggested to Ria as a good spot to place some archers. They’d got here late, it seemed, because they’d missed the main fighting, but that had put them in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to save the innocents.
Ria was coming down the valley at a run with fifty of her fighters, but when they saw the threat had been dealt with they slowed to a walk. Hovering transparent and invisible above the ridge line, Leoni watched as a milling joyous crowd streamed towards them from all sides, victorious warriors mingled with the women and children they had saved, and whirling dances broke out amidst wild hand-clapping and exultant whoops.
A tunnel of light blinked open again at Leoni’s side and in the same instant she saw that two of Sulpa’s little creatures had appeared in the valley – no doubt he had sent them out in their hundreds to search the countryside. The gargoyles flew closer but they didn’t seem to see her, perhaps because she was now so insubstantial or because their eyes were fixed on Ria. Leoni made no movement to attract their attention. She only knew she must catch them and kill them. All would be lost, and Ria would be followed and hunted down wherever she tried to flee, if she failed to do that.
Leoni stayed above the ridge while the creatures flew past and watched as they descended to hover directly over Ria’s head.
Now!
She dived, swept up behind them and snatched them out of the air.
That was the easy part, but she feared that her hands and fingers might no longer have enough substance to hold them as they lashed and squirmed away from her. She tried smashing them together as she’d done before but couldn’t get the same degree of force – SMACK! SMACK! It just seemed to make them more angry. Then SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! – one of the creatures burst apart in a puff of smoke.
Now she could deal with the other one. She wrenched its head away fro
m its body with her free hand, but even as it died it raked its talons down her side, filling her with a stabbing mortal pain.
There was no time to explain to Ria.
Leoni felt an instant shocking drain of power and all at once, like a cloud of mist in a breath of wind, her aerial body gave up the unequal struggle to remain whole, was scattered into gossamer threads and vanished.
The last thing she knew was falling away into nothingness.
Chapter Ninety-Eight
The labyrinth of caves that led from the outside world into Secret Place was an impressive and terrible obstacle. Without personal knowledge of it, or a guide, or sorcery, it was difficult to see how attackers could ever find their way through its confusing twists and turns, dark deadfalls, circuitous tunnels and blind passages. Still Ria was surprised and concerned to discover Brindle had posted no sentries to guard the exit. As she started the process of leading her horde of injured and exhausted refugees out onto the hillside she reflected they might as easily be Illimani warriors ready to sweep down on the campfires of Secret Place that twinkled in the night just a few bowshots below. With an enemy like Sulpa it was best to take nothing for granted, but now was not the time to scold her friend for this lapse: ‘Brindle.’ She sent out her thought-voice: ‘I’m back! We’re all back. We all made it. Something amazing happened.’
There was no reply and Ria became alert. ‘What’s up, Grondin?’ she asked. ‘Why can’t I reach Brindle?’
The big Ugly looked worried: ‘Don’t know. I too cannot reach him.’
It wasn’t the same sort of interruption of thought-talk they’d experienced during the battle at the Naveen camp. Then it had been lost to all of them; they still didn’t know why. But now Oplimar, Jergat and Grondin reported open contact with friends and relatives below in Secret Place, and already figures could be seen running up the hillside to greet them – so this was a problem with Brindle alone.
‘No problem with Brindle,’ Grondin announced a moment later. ‘He’s busy. Working in the Cave of Visions. Can’t talk to us right now.’
Busy? Ria was outraged. How dare Brindle be busy? Didn’t he know – didn’t he want to know – about her incredible victory? What could he possibly be doing that was more important than that?
After the battle, and a long day’s forced march, Ria had brought almost two thousand refugees to Secret Place. It was a huge number. Fear had kept them silent and biddable until now but they hailed from a dozen different tribes, with different languages and customs, and their group behaviour tended towards chaos. Getting them out of the labyrinth and marshalling them on the hillside in the darkness was already taking a very long time and then the Uglies would have to find them food, shelter, sleeping spaces and other necessities of life on the terraces below.
Ria felt weary at the prospect. She’d done enough. Her companions could organise the refugees without her help. ‘Sort it all out,’ she told them. ‘I’m going to find Brindle.’
Making her way through the crowd of Uglies streaming up to welcome the new arrivals, she set off downhill towards Secret Place.
Most evenings the broad natural platform in front of the Cave of Visions was packed with little groups of Uglies sitting around fires, cooking, eating, talking and dancing. Tonight the space was deserted except for four guards, armed with spears, who stood at the entrance to the cave.
‘What are you doing here?’ Ria asked as she approached.
‘Keeping everyone out,’ one of the guards replied. He was young, with heavy brow ridges and wispy hair on his chin.
‘I’m going in,’ said Ria.
‘Cannot let you in …’ A second guard was speaking now. Older, grey-haired, with large drooping leathery ears, he had a stubborn slow-moving look about him.
Ria sighed: ‘Don’t even think of stopping me. I’ve killed more men today than I can count.’ She didn’t want to hurt these Uglies but she would not allow them to thwart her. She stepped forward, the older guard tried to block her and in a flash she unsheathed her knife and held its blade to his throat. ‘I’m going in,’ she pulsed again, gritting her teeth. She pushed him aside and walked into the vast cave.
It was midnight black within, but Ria knew from her previous visits that the floor of the Cave of Visions was roughly circular. It extended more than eight hundred paces from side to side under a huge vaulted roof that rose at its peak to a height of almost two bowshots. She paused to be sure the guards hadn’t followed her through the entrance tunnel and to get her bearings. Up ahead she could hear a large group of Uglies giving out a strange, hooting chant – quite different from the one they used for healing – but the echoes in the chamber and the thick darkness made it impossible to be sure where the sound was coming from.
Ria walked slowly towards the centre of the cave – ten paces, thirty, sixty, a hundred – feeling her way over the uneven floor with the toes of her moccasins. There was no light from outside, and no lamps were burning, yet every step forward seemed to offer her tantalising glimpses through the absolute blackness of … something.
She squinted and stooped, felt some disturbance in the air.
There! What was that?
Lit by a faint ghostly radiance, a giant fang of rock went flying past her with its base a hand’s breadth above the floor. It was bigger and faster than a charging rhino and she was close enough to touch it. Fuck! She just had time to realise she would have been dead if she’d got in front of it when another massive rock hurtled out of the darkness and shot past – WHOOSH! – followed by another, and another. They all seemed to be moving in the same direction, not randomly, and not even in a straight line, like an avalanche, but in a weird and unnatural whirling circle.
Then it dawned on her. This was the outer ring of Brindle’s stone circle – the idea the blue woman had given him in a vision that she’d said would help to fight Sulpa. He must have built it. But how was he keeping the stones off the ground? How was he making them fly?
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! Two more of the megaliths whizzed past just in front of her nose.
‘Where are you, Brindle?’ Ria pulsed. ‘Let me through.’
There came a change in the pitch of the Uglies’ chant, from an irregular, snarling rumble to a steady sonorous roar. At the same moment the big stones ceased their restless whirling and froze in place. Either their inner radiance was growing, or her eyes were becoming more accustomed to the darkness, but Ria found she could see all of them now – all thirty of them – even the ones farthest away. They were arranged in a circle a hundred paces from side to side, and they surrounded the two inner circles of stones exactly as Brindle had shown her.
She heard his thought-voice. ‘I can’t stop the stones dancing for long, Ria. It would be a good idea if you came through now.’
She stepped between two of the huge grey megaliths, towering over her head. No sooner had she passed them than there was a further change in the pitch of the chant and the outer circle once more began to rotate rapidly – WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Still frozen in their places, the inner ring of twenty black stones now loomed before Ria. Again, as soon as she had stepped through between two of them, the entire circle resumed its rotation.
The light radiated by all the stones had increased to such a level that Ria could see Brindle. He stood at the centre of the innermost ring of eight gigantic white megaliths, each four times the height of a man. He had undergone an incredible transformation. His body was skeletal and dirty. His hair was matted. His eyes, hollow and dark-shadowed under his brow ridges, gleamed with feverish heat.
A few more paces and Ria was at his side. ‘What’s happened to you, old friend?’ she asked.
‘I’ve made this marvellous thing,’ Brindle replied, with an excited grin. There was a further change of pitch in the chanting deep in the cave, becoming more insistent, more urgent, and the inner circle began to rotate rapidly again, a hand’s breadth above the floor, until all was a blur and the individual stones could no longe
r be seen.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Ria watched the revolving circles with amazement – three circles, fifty-eight huge upright stones all suspended a hand’s breadth above the ground, all glowing with inner light and hurtling at tremendous speed around the still point at the centre where she stood with Brindle. The chanting that filled the cave continued to rise in intensity, and in the growing illumination cast by the stones Ria saw four separate groups of Ugly males gathered at intervals beyond the outer circle. As was their custom when they performed healings, they stood in knots of ten or so, their arms linked around each other’s shoulders, chanting in unison. But this was no healing ceremony. It was obvious the sounds they were making – not lulling and restorative but stirring and inflammatory – were powering the headlong rush of the stones. Ria also sensed an intense pattern of mental concentration linking them with Brindle and saw that although they were the source of the power it was he alone who was directing and controlling it.
‘Where did the stones come from?’ she asked him. ‘How did you get them here?’
‘They’re magic stones,’ he said. ‘Our Lady of the Forest told me where to find them, and taught me the song that makes them fly. All the time you’ve been away I’ve been bringing these stones here.’
‘And now?’
‘I’m making them dance,’ Brindle said. His thought-voice was no more than a whisper: ‘Our Lady of the Forest told me they have to dance before I set them in the earth.’ An anxious look crossed his face: ‘That’s why I was busy before. I hope you understand.’
‘But you’ve got time to talk to me now?’
The rhythm of the chant was rising towards a crescendo. ‘The dance is finished,’ said Brindle. He stretched his hands above his head and thrust them down, pointing his index fingers to the ground. The chant stopped and the whirling of the circles ceased. For an instant the fifty-eight stones hung poised in absolute silence and stillness. Then, with a tremendous crash, they plunged down, driving themselves like huge spears hip deep in the floor of the Cave of Visions. Not all pointed straight up, some were skewed at crazy angles, but within heartbeats they became still and the cracked earth out of which they jutted like giant teeth seemed to harden to rock around them, encasing them rigidly in place.