The wagon hit a rut and bounced, jarring Ahlitah momentarily awake. “Pick your trail with care, man,” he rumbled.
“There is only one.” Ehomba’s response was curt. “And while we have the wind with us, this is no flying machine to soar smoothly over what water has cut.” Moments after Ehomba composed his terse rejoinder, the wagon began to slow.
Opening his eyes again, Simna ibn Sind saw that the wind still blew in gusts sufficient to drive the vehicle. It was Ehomba who was bringing them to a gradual halt as he turned the sail sideways to the breeze. Frowning, the swordsman sat up.
“Hoy, bruther, why are we stopping?” A glance at the sky showed that it was too early for the midday meal. It was time for them to be covering as much ground as possible, not pausing to rest or engage in casual contemplation of their surroundings. “This wind is meant to be used.”
“So are your eyes.” Standing near the rear of the wagon, the herdsman held his long, slim arm out straight, parallel to the ground and pointing to his right, off into the woods.
Blinking, Simna glanced in the indicated direction. So did an insouciant Hunkapa Aub. Curled up near the back of the wagon, the black litah ignored the delay in favor of sleep.
“I don’t see anything, bruther.” The swordsman’s confusion showed itself in his face. “What are you pointing at? What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“In that big elm. A bird.” Ehomba sighted along his arm. “I understand your difficulty. It is not very big. About the size of a sparrow.”
Simna made a face. “You stopped so we could look at a sparrow?”
“There!” Ehomba’s identifying finger shifted slightly to the right. “It just flew into the tree next to it. It is a little closer now. See?” He gestured impatiently with his arm. “Near the outer end of the lowermost large branch, among the leaves.”
Realizing that to resume headway meant humoring the herdsman, Simna muttered under his breath. As he adjusted his position slightly in the wagon, he was nearly knocked over by the abrupt shifting of the hairy mass next to him.
“Hunkapa see, Hunkapa see!” Their oversized companion was pointing excitedly, bouncing up and down in the wagon. The stalwart wooden bed creaked dangerously. “Bird without!”
“Without?” Time to put an end to whatever nonsense had afflicted his friends, Simna decided. “Without what?” Straining, he followed the pair of pointing arms and used them to fix his gaze on a particular branch in a certain tree.
He located the bird, and as he did so the small hairs on the back of his neck erected. That was more than the bird could do. It had no hair to stiffen, or feathers either. Nor skin, nor muscle or insides.
Sitting on the branch and preening itself with its naked white beak, the small flying creature ignored all the attention its presence had prompted. Satisfied, it spread proportionate, compact wings and rose from its perch, flying off into the forest, a small white specter comprised of nothing but naked, fleshless bones.
Ehomba had watched many birds in flight, and dragonets, and even certain specialized lizards and frogs, but this was the first time he had ever seen a skeleton fly.
IX
The skeletal sparrow was but the first of many they encountered as they drove deeper into the heart of the Hexens. There were more birds: crows and robins, jays and grosbeaks, neocaths and nuthatches. But they were not alone. It was not long before they found themselves traveling through a dense and dismal section of forest where flesh was scarce and scoured bone dominant.
Skeletal hares hopped among the roots of sheltering trees. Four-footed white skeletons scampered through the branches trailing furless vertebrae like the whiptails of scorpions. Once, a cluster of capybara peered up at the travelers from the shelter of their stream, staring at the wagon from the mindless depths of dark, voided eye sockets. For the travelers, it was unsettling enough to encounter such sights. To see them staring vacantly back was more unnerving still.
Devoid of skin and muscle they might be, but the inhabitants of these woods ran and flew and hopped and jumped with as much energy as their more fully rounded, naturally fleshed-out counterparts. The only other observable difference between them and their tissue-heavy relations was the degree to which they stared at the passing visitors: stared with a degree and intensity that grimly belied their dearth of eyes. If not for the presence of healthy trees and bushes, Simna could well have believed that they had rolled on into the land of the dead.
Studying the forest as they rattled along the increasingly ill-maintained dirt track, bumping over rocks and clumps of uncropped weeds, they watched a misshapen panoply of normal life play itself out among the vegetation. Ehomba pointed out a skeletal badger busily excavating a new burrow with more than adequate claws—but no pads on its feet. A great bull elk trotted past, displaying horns that in its entirely emaciated state seemed certain to make it too top-heavy to stand up, much less run. But it managed to stay erect nonetheless.
Once, a bobcat of bones leaped from concealment to take down a large rabbit. Normally, there is no more piercing and heart-rending sound in the wilderness than the cry of a dying rabbit, but this one could only emit the noise of bare bones rubbing together. Settling down to its meal, the ghostly feline began to gnaw on its victim, pinning it to the ground with limber white paws. Biting and ripping with sharp teeth, it methodically dismembered its prey, cracking open the smaller bones to get at the marrow within.
Tiny skeletal fledglings croaked in nests carefully built by osseous parents. A trio of cassowaries loped across a clearing, their exposed ribs clacking against one another like castanets as they ran. Cumbersome grizzly skeletons grazed in a dense path of wild blackberries. Occasionally one would become entangled as the thorny vines wrapped tightly around ribs or arms. One bear-shape pushed its snout deep into the copse, emerging with it stained blue-black by berry juice. A vine thrust upward through the underside of the jaw to emerge from one eye socket. This vegetal invasion appeared to have no effect on the lumbering ursinoid.
Why a skeleton would need to eat was but one of many questions contemplated by the travelers. As was his nature, Ehomba very much wanted some answers, whereas his companions simply wished to be clear of the blighted chasm as rapidly as possible. Even Ahlitah, who had a particular taste for marrow, sensed the unwholesomeness of the place and expressed his desire to leave it behind.
Abruptly, the wagon made a sharp swerve. “Hoy!” Simna called out as he was thrown off his feet. “Who’s steering?” Looking around as soon as he managed to recover his equilibrium, he caught sight of Ehomba taking in the sail. “Etjole, what are you up to, man? Surely you don’t mean for us to camp here?”
“Not camp.” The herdsman spoke while continuing his work. “But we have to stop for a moment.” By way of explanation he nodded forward.
A large tree had fallen across the wagon track, blocking it completely. Thick underbrush on either side prevented them from going around. The toppled trunk would have to be moved, or cut through, or else the wagon would have to be unloaded and hauled across, with their supplies following from hand to hand, one package at a time.
“By Givouvum, what a place for a rest stop!” Grumbling loudly at the inconvenience, the swordsman vaulted over the side of the wagon to inspect the impediment.
“A stop, yes, but from the look of it, no rest.” Ehomba was soon standing alongside his friend. Together they pondered how best to proceed, whether to try to remove the log or move themselves across it.
Not one given to much pondering, Hunkapa Aub lumbered over to the top of the tree where it lay among a host of smaller saplings it had smashed in the course of its fall. For a long moment he stood in silence, considering the supine column. Then he bent his knees, gripped the upper stretch of the tree in both huge hands, and with a rolling grunt lifted it off the ground and began to pull it deeper into the woods and off the road. Joining reluctantly in the effort, the black litah put its forehead against the shattered base of the tree. Digging in
with all four sets of claws, it pushed while Hunkapa pulled.
It took them less than ten minutes to move the trunk far enough off the track for the wagon to squeeze past. Starting back to their vehicle, Ehomba found himself wondering how much more of the blighted forest they had yet to traverse, and whether they would be out of it by nightfall. Hopefully, they would be far away before darkness fell, provided nothing else materialized to impede their progress.
That feared something else took the form of several dozen figures who emerged from behind the wagon and the brush off to one side. Each skeletal warrior carried a heavy wooden club or spear, save for several who brandished weapons confiscated from unlucky predecessors. A few wore scavenged armor. Ill-fitting helmets of bronze and steel bounced loosely on naked, bony skulls. Feathers and iridescent insect parts protruded from the metal crests, supplying a macabre touch of color to warriors whose appearance was otherwise almost entirely the bleached, chalky white of naked bone. Many of the animate advancing cadavers were missing teeth or limbs.
Worse, they stood between the travelers and their vehicle, in which all their weapons were stored.
However, they were not entirely defenseless. As sepulchral shouts rose from the gaunt, ghastly regiment and weapons were upraised, Hunkapa Aub and Ahlitah took matters into their own hands and charged.
The shaggy man-beast’s unearthly howling combined with the big cat’s thunderous roars were enough to give even the dead pause. As the skeletal raiders hesitated, the improbable duo tore into them. It was a revelation to Simna to see the ferocity with which the gentle, soft-voiced Hunkapa scattered their attackers. Sword cuts failed to penetrate his thick, hairy coat, and spears he knocked aside with sweeping sideways blows of his massive arms. Grabbing up one clattering, cackling cluster of bones, he dismembered it as easily as the swordsman would a chicken. Ripping another assailant into pieces, Hunkapa threw chunks of bone at its companions, bowling them over with the force of his throws. Skeletons were knocked askew or trampled underfoot.
Eyes blazing, Ahlitah was not relying on his stentorian bellows to scatter the enemy. Powerful, curving claws severed skulls from shoulders while heavy paws shattered vacant rib cages and limbs. The crackle of bones being crunched echoed through the woods every time the litah’s powerful jaws locked onto another gaunt figure.
While their two nonhuman companions wreaked havoc among the surprised attackers, Ehomba and Simna made a dash for the windwagon. Ducking beneath a spear thrust, Simna rolled into the legs of his assailant, bringing the startied skeleton down on top of him. Reaching up and around, he locked both hands and forearms around the skull. Much to his surprise, it was warm. Gritting his teeth, he twisted his hands and arms in opposite directions. With a snap, the neck broke and the head came away in his fingers. As the decapitated skull tried to sink its exposed, gleaming teeth into his arm, the sickened swordsman flung it as far as he could.
Ehomba leaped sideways to avoid a sword stroke and brought his right leg around the way Asab had shown him and the other young men of the village when they were of an age to learn about fighting. Its legs taken out from under it, the skeleton went down on its back. As it rolled toward him, flailing energetically but wildly with its sword, the herdsman was able to reach the wagon. Simna joined him seconds later. While Hunkapa Aub defended one side of the vehicle and Ahlitah the other, the two men scrambled for their weapons.
“Send the sharks after them!” Simna shouted as he picked up his own sword. Long knife gripped between its teeth, a skeletal soldier was attempting to scramble over the side of the wagon and into the bed. The swordsman dispatched it with a single blow that cleaved the raider from collarbone to sternum. Cut vertically nearly in half, it fell back, clutching at itself.
“I cannot!” Ehomba fumbled among the supplies. “The magic of the sea-bone sword works only on attackers made of flesh and blood. Sharks will not attack bones. Neither will the spirit of my walking spear.”
“Hoy, then take up the sky-metal sword and call down the wind from between the stars to blow them apart!” With a grunt, Simna stabbed a climbing warrior between the ribs. Since his weapon met only air, it did no damage. With a curse, the swordsman drew the weapon back and hacked sideways, beheading his adversary. That stroke had the desired effect.
“Remember, Simna, the sky-metal sword is not a shaman’s instrument, to be so casually wielded.” The herdsman indicated the surrounding forest. “This place is too confining. If I were to succeed in bringing down the wind it would uproot trees and send them flying in all directions, as likely to do away with us as our attackers.” He continued to busy himself in the center of the wagon.
With barely enough time to glance in his friend’s direction, Simna finally shouted in exasperation, “By Gokhoul, bruther, what are you doing?”
“Setting sail. Hold them off, my friends, hold them off!”
With the battle-tested Simna shouting orders, he and Hunkapa and the black litah did just that, giving Ehomba time to ready their vehicle. As soon as the sail was up and fully set, he called out to his companions to join him within. Simna was first back aboard, followed by Hunkapa Aub. As the wagon, under full sail, began to pick up speed, Ahlitah ran alongside, dispatching those skeletons that tried to keep pace. Any that drew near found themselves crushed between powerful jaws or knocked asunder by claw-tipped paws.
Only when the last of their jabbering, gesticulating, spear-waving pursuit had fallen too far behind to pose any threat did the big cat rejoin his companions, clearing the space from ground to wagon in a single long, easy leap. Once on board he sat back and began to lick his wounds. They were minor, nothing worse than a few scrapes and the occasional shallow cut.
“It’s nothing,” he insisted in response to Ehomba’s solicitous inquiry. “I’ve taken worse from wildebeest.” As the cat spoke, it groomed its face and mane with moistened paw. “One time I took a blow to the stomach from the spiked tail of a full-grown female glyptodont protecting its young. Now, that hurt.” Twisting its head around, it began to lick a bloody gash on its right flank. “Made the kill anyway.”
“Hoy?” Sword laid out across his knees, Simna was sitting down, his back resting against the interior wall of the wagon. The was no blood on the blade: only the accumulated white stain of powdered bone. “I always wondered what glypto tasted like.”
“Like pork.” The black litah lifted its head suddenly, ears pricked, listening intently. Seeing this, Simna immediately scrambled to his knees and turned to scan the dense woods through which they were racing.
“What is it? More of them in the trees? They can’t hope to run us down. As long as we have wind at our backs and clear road ahead they’ll never catch us.”
“Footsteps.” The litah sat still as a sculpture in obsidian, listening. On the other side of the wagon, an intent Hunkapa Aub was likewise scrutinizing the forest. “Not human. Not human skeletons, that is. Something else.”
“Something else, how?” Standing tall in the rear of the wagon, Ehomba steered them expertly down the track and past the most egregious ruts and potholes.
“Heavier,” the litah explained bluntly.
They came tearing out of the trees off to the left, the cavalry riding not to the rescue but intent on total destruction. There were too many to count as the windwagon, with full canvas up and traveling at top speed, negotiated one dip and curve after another in the increasingly uneven track.
Baying like a hundred xylophones all playing in concert, skeletal warriors came pounding out of the forest on skeleton mounts, waving their weapons over their bleached skulls as they sought to ride down the fleeing wagon. Naked pelvises sat astride the ivory-colored spines of horses and mules, zebras and okapis, kudu and pronghorn. It was a charge the likes of which even an experienced horseman like Simna ibn Sind had never hoped to see, a charge from Hell.
But even as their mounted assailants bore down on the fleeing travelers, the forest was thinning out around them, giving way to more open coun
try. A grateful Ehomba had more room in which to maneuver. No longer restricted exclusively to the narrow wagon track, he was able to utilize the windwagon not only as a vehicle to effect their escape, but as a weapon.
When a pair of high-riding, mace-swinging skeletal warriors turned their mounts toward the rattling, bouncing wagon, Ehomba adjusted the sail to angle the heavy vehicle not away from but directly toward them. The front end of the wagon slammed into the startled attackers, sending a shower of broken, splintered bone flying over the passengers as their assailants were smashed to bits. Meanwhile, any raider that rode too close risked a blow from Hunkapa Aub’s fist, Ahlitah’s paws, or Simna ibn Sind’s sword. Grimacing ferociously, the swordsman stood up in the unstable wagon bed to taunt their attackers. He still had his sea legs from their weeks on the Grömsketter, and this especially allowed him to keep his balance.
“Come on, you offspring of bastard boneheads!” Gleefully, he waved his sword in expert circles. “Here’s a tooth longer than any of yours. Come close and see how it bites! What’s the matter—afraid of dying?”
“Simna, it is not good to taunt the dead.”
The swordsman threw his long-faced friend a wild-eyed glance. “Tend to your tillering, bruther, and leave me to deal with the departed. They should have stayed dead.”
Emitting hollow, sinister cries, the remainder of the skeleton cavalry whipped their mounts with whips of slivered bone and closed on the windwagon. Try as they might, they could not surround it in sufficient numbers to overpower its passengers. Every time it looked as if more than two of the attackers might have a chance to leap or climb aboard, Ehomba would steer the vehicle away from their skeletal chargers. Cut down by Simna’s flashing sword or pulverized by the strength of Ahlitah or Hunkapa Aub, their numbers were steadily reduced even as their determination was redoubled.
Compared to the horde that had participated in the initial assault, few were left when the windwagon struck the brush-covered gully. It bounced once, flew into the air, struck the hard ground on the far side, and overturned. Ehomba barely had time enough to warn his companions to grab something to hang on to before he was slammed to the ground and thrown from the wagon.