“That’s right. By Gworjha, you’re right!” Pulling in on the lines, the swordsman trimmed the sail. The wind-wagon slowed to a stop. Behind him, the black litah looked up sleepily.
“What now?” it growled softly.
Hunkapa supplied a ready explanation. “Big river.” He looked uncertainly from Ehomba to Simna. “Big argument.”
“That’s right.” Securing the lines, a determined look on his face, the swordsman was gathering up his kit and a limited share of their dwindling supplies. “I’m leaving!”
The big cat was only mildly interested. As always, it found sleep of more interest than the often unaccountable doings of humans. “What for?”
Ehomba elucidated. “Simna has realized that the treasure he sought in my company does not really exist, and he will no longer waste his time seeking it.”
“That’s right!” The swordsman fumbled with his gear. “Only a fool and an imbecile risks his life for no recompense.” Having arranged his kit and stuffed his backpack full, he put one hand on the side of the wagon. Looking back, he glared at the rubbery, limp length of the herdsman gazing back at him from within the cradle of Hunkapa’s arms.
“Well?”
“Well what?” Ehomba’s demeanor was as pleasant and placid as ever. “I wish you a safe journey back to the coast. One man traveling alone and making little noise should be able to avoid the attentions of the Brotherhood. Perhaps we will meet again someday.”
“Hoy, not if the fates are kind to me.” The swordsman started to lift himself over the side of the wagon. He had only gone partway when he paused. While he hovered between wagon and ground, the look on his face underwent a slow but profound change.
“Hoyyyy—you think you’re very clever, don’t you, wizard?”
“Clever?” Ehomba considered. “My mother and father thought that I was. Among the herders of my age I am considered tolerably adept.”
Simna let himself down, back into the wagon. He was grinning ferociously. “Master of magic you may be, or you may not, but the day will be long indeed when your kind can outwit Simna ibn Sind!”
The flaccid shape looked puzzled. “I do not follow you, my friend.”
Even as he spoke, the swordsman was disencumbering himself of pack and weapon. “You’re a shrewd fellow, Etjole Ehomba. Far more subtle than most. You almost had me!” He wagged an admonishing finger at the slack outline. “Your language is simple, but you know how to use logic to twist a man’s thoughts. You actually had me convinced there was no treasure! Planted the notion anew in my mind until it seemed to be my own. Well, it won’t work! I’m a little slow, long bruther, but I’m not like other people. When I get a grip on something, I don’t let go until I’ve shaken all the nourishment out of it. You won’t cheat me of my share so easily!” Settling himself at lines and tiller, he prepared to swing the sail around to catch the wind.
“Try all the thought-twisting you wish, but you’ll not be rid of me. No one talks Simna ibn Sind out of his share of treasure.”
Ehomba sighed, his ribless chest rising and falling less than it would have had it been properly supported from within. “You are certainly a most determined man, friend Simna. Once you get an idea in your head, nothing can take it from you.”
“That’s right, and don’t you forget it, mentor of calves.” The swordsman pulled hard on a line.
“Wait!” Ehomba rose up as far as he could in the cradle of Hunkapa’s arms.
“What for?” Jawline set, Simna continued to ready the windwagon. “So you can try more of your sorceral tricks and word games to discourage me? I don’t think so.”
“It is not that. Someone is coming.” A shaky, rubbery arm rose to point back in the direction they had come.
Frowning, a reluctant Simna turned to gaze back up the wagon track. “I don’t see anything. If you’re trying to stall so I’ll leave before we cross the river, you’re wasting your time, Etjole. Like it or not, I’m coming with you. All the way to Ehl-Larimar.”
“From out of the trees, a little to the north. A lone rider. An old friend.”
“What ‘old friend’?” Exasperated, Simna turned fully on the bench seat. “We have no friends here, and no member of the Grömsketter’s crew would leave her to come this far inland. We don’t—” He broke off in midsentence as a single figure hove into view. Ehomba was right; it was an old friend.
It was the herdsman’s skeleton.
Pushing its mount hard, the long, lanky collection of bones kept low, head forward and arms locked around the neck bones of its osseous steed. Legs pounding, the skeletal stallion picked up speed as it struck the slight down-slope leading to the edge of the river.
“But how… ?” Simna’s query trailed away, and he could only turn a look of bafflement on his friend.
From within the folds of flesh that comprised his sunken face, the herdsman smiled back at his companion. “If deprived of the rest of him, a man’s skeleton gets lonely.”
“You knew it would come back to you,” Simna declared accusingly.
“I knew it would try. I hoped it would succeed. I have always had confidence in all of me, my friend.” A boneless hand fluttered in the swordsman’s direction. “Keep sail up. It will be back among us soon.”
“Not soon enough.” Rising to his full height and lifting Ehomba effortlessly as he did so, Hunkapa Aub nodded in the direction of the densest part of the forest. “Bones come also.”
Instantly, Simna was on his feet and staring along the line of Hunkapa’s sight. Sure enough, from among the trees there now poured an entire battalion of the Brotherhood. They came streaming toward the windwagon, some on foot, others riding an even greater assortment of skeletal grotesqueries than the travelers had seen previously, yelling and screaming in their hoarse, ossified whispers while waving all manner of weapons above their bleached skulls.
“Gipebwhen,” Simna murmured nervously. “There must be hundreds of ‘em!” He looked sharply at his soft friend. “What do we do?”
“Cross the river,” Ehomba told him. “Cross it quickly, I should say. Sail, Simna. Fill the sail.”
“Hoy, right, sure!” Settling himself back on the seat, the swordsman hastily brought lines and tiller into play. As the single canvas filled with the steady breeze, the high-wheeled wagon once more began to move toward the water.
“Just one thing, bruther.” As he spoke, Simna deftly controlled the lines that kept the vehicle’s sail properly trimmed. “What do we do when we reach the river? Swim for it? This conveyance is no boat.”
“No indeed,” the pliant figure of his friend replied, “but save for a few braces and nails it is all wood, light and strong. I am hoping it will float.”
The windwagon continued to pick up speed. “And if it doesn’t?” an anxious swordsman inquired further.
“Then I will float better than any of you.” The eyes that gazed back at the swordsman did not smile.
Howling and moaning, the Brotherhood of the Bone angrily pursued the turncoat skeleton and its fleshy friends. Repeatedly looking back over his shoulder, Simna ibn Sind tried to cajole more speed out of the solid but clunky windwagon. It had been built for durability, not speed. The breeze held behind them, but he found himself wishing for one of the gales they had encountered at sea. Occasionally he inhaled deeply and blew into the sail, more as a gesture of encouragement to the wind than out of any expectation of increasing their velocity, however minutely.
“Come on, hurry!” Holding Ehomba easily in one arm, Hunkapa Aub was using the other to beckon repeatedly at the herdsman’s fleeing skeleton. Spears began to fall around the fugitive. One struck its mount, but passed harmlessly through the rib cage without becoming entangled in the bleached white legs.
Then it was racing alongside, barely keeping pace with the steadily accelerating windwagon. With its bony mount exhausted and beginning to fail, Ehomba’s insides had no choice but to risk the jump from vertebrae to vehicle. Letting go of the ossified stallion’s neck b
ones, it leaped, arms outstretched—and fell short.
Only to be caught at the wrist by a massive, hairy hand. Thick fingers wrapped around the delicate bones and strained, pulling the skeletal structure bodily into the wagon.
“Set me down,” Ehomba directed his massive friend. Obediently, Hunkapa complied.
Having no breath to catch, the skeleton did not hesitate. On hands and knees it crawled over to the limp form of its outer self. With an effort, Ehomba opened his mouth. It was the mouth of an eromakasi, trained to expand sufficiently to swallow darkness of any size. Inserting first a hand, then an entire arm, the wayward skeleton wriggled and wiggled itself back into its fleshy sheath.
Slowly, Ehomba’s shape and silhouette filled out, returning to normal. When the last of the animate white bone had disappeared down his gullet, he contracted his greatly distended mouth and sat up. Working his jaws up and down and from side to side to realign his skin with his skull, he twisted and turned as he sat in the bottom of the jouncing, rocking wagon. Finally satisfied, he stood up for the first time in days, and stretched. Simna had not heard so much creaking and groaning and cracking since he had been forced to spend a stomach-churning night alone in their cabin aboard the Grömsketter.
Looking over at him, the herdsman smiled contently. “That is better. Much better. Life is easier without a skeleton because there is less strain on the body, but being unable to stand up soon grows tiresome.” His smile vanished as he grabbed quickly for the mast and shouted. “Watch out!”
“Hoy?” Simna sat up straight and gripped the tiller and control lines tightly in his fingers. So entranced had he been by his friend’s structural renascence that his attention had wandered from their heading. In the interim, they had run out of road.
The windwagon hit the water hard, sending up a fan-shaped shower of water that sprayed higher than the mast. Instantly, the boxy vehicle slowed. Caught by the sluggish current but still powered by the wind out of the east, it began to drift with agonizing slowness across the broad, flat expanse of the unnamed river.
Lying in the rear of the vehicle, the black litah lifted its ebony head and yawned, trying to work up an interest in the proceedings. “They’re still coming. Better get a move on.”
“We’re making as much speed as we can! This is no pinnace.” Glancing down, Simna saw water beginning to filter up between the slats, threatening to submerge his sandaled feet. The wagon was caulked against the weather, but it was never the intention of its builders to make it watertight. How long the seals would hold against the pressure of the river its hopeful passengers could only guess.
The army of the Brotherhood reached the bank where the wagon had driven into the languid flow. Many halted there, pulling up and reining in their mounts. Dozens of the more determined dead, driven by anger and fury at the deceitful betrayal of the living and his promised contribution to their ranks, did not. Urging their ashen mounts onward, they plunged headfirst into the current.
“They’re still coming!” Frantically, Simna tugged on lines and tiller, trying everything he could think of to augment their sluggish pace.
Himself fully restored, Ehomba quietly contemplated the skeletal spectacle aft. “Easy for the dead to be brave.”
“Complimenting them is not likely to save us,” the swordsman snapped.
His tall companion smiled over at him. “Keep your hand on the tiller and your mind on the sail, friend Simna. Bravery and intelligence do not always go hand in hand.” He turned his attention back to the onrushing skeletal horde. “Oura says that after they have been dead for a while, people tend to lose their mental edge. They may remember well the little things, but the greater picture starts to escape them.”
Simna frowned, and despite the herdsman’s admonition turned to look at the waters behind them. What he saw raised his spirits far more than any gust or gale.
Charging forward without pause, those members of the Brotherhood of the Bone intent on punishing the retreating living who had dared to take back one of their own struggled out into the current of the wide, deep river. Struggled out—and began to sink. For while the living carry within their bodies the means with which to accomplish natural, unforced flotation, the long dead do not. Bone sinks. Confronted by this inescapable fact, mounts and riders closed no more than a few yards between themselves and the escaping windwagon before, despite their frenzied determination, they began to slip beneath the surface.
The blanched skeletons of once-powerful coursers kicked futilely at the water that dragged them down. Not to their deaths, for they were already dead, but to a river bottom gluey with accumulated mud and decomposing plant matter. Their furious riders sank with them. From a position of safety halfway across the river and slightly downstream, the wagon’s passengers watched as a number of their would-be pursuers crawled laboriously out onto the bank they had so recently and precipitously left, there to dry themselves in the sun as they rejoined their more conservative deceased comrades. Not all of them made it back out, some having managed to mire themselves forever in the grip of the shifting, glutinous river bottom.
Simna would have given a cheer, but he was too tired. Besides, he knew he might need his remaining energy for a swim to the far bank. With every gust of wind they drew nearer to that gently sloping haven, but at the same time the wagon continued to take on water.
“Will we make it, do you think?” he asked Ehomba.
The tall herdsman contemplated the dirty backwash swirling around his feet. “I do not know, Simna. I am an expert neither on wagons nor boats. The sides are well made, and will hold. But that will not do us any good if we sink below the surface like our pursuers.” He raised his gaze to the sail that continued to billow westward. “If the wind holds…” His contemplative murmur trailed off into the sustaining breeze.
Amazingly, when there was nearly a foot of water inside the windwagon, it stopped sinking. The natural buoyancy of the wood that had been used in its construction kept them afloat, though with so much water inboard their progress was greatly reduced. They were no longer sailing so much as drifting with the current.
Before long, the small army of the Brotherhood had vanished from sight as the river took a westward bend. They were very close to the opposite bank now, tantalizingly close, but if they jumped overboard and swam, it meant that their supplies, not to mention themselves, would be drenched. Ehomba elected to try to ride it out, hoping that the combination of current and wind would carry them safely to shore. Simna concurred.
“If it sinks under us, we’ll have to swim for it anyway,” the swordsman pointed out. “Might as well stay as dry as possible for as long as possible.”
Even as he concluded the observation, something jarred the wagon sharply, bringing it to a shuddering halt. Simna grinned cockily. “Nothing like having a request filled on the spot. We just hit a sandbar.” Leaving the tiller set, he sloshed to the left side of the wagon and peered over the side. The murky water obscured and distorted everything that lay more than a foot below the surface, but by leaning over, the swordsman was able to make out the broad, dun-colored, slightly curved shape that had brought their aimless odyssey to a halt.
“It’s a sandbar, all right,” he informed his companions confidently. “Looks like it stretches all the way to shore.” Still grinning, he gathered up his sword and backpack. “We can walk from here.”
Ehomba hesitated. “Simna, I am not sure.…”
“Not sure?” The stocky swordsman hefted his pack higher on his shoulders as he prepared to step over the side. “Not sure of what, Etjole? With those long legs most of you will stay drier than most. Hunkapa’s the one to feel sorry for.” He nodded in the shaggy hulk’s direction. “With all that fur he’ll soak up this brown muck like a sponge.”
“Hunkapa be okay,” their massive companion assured him.
“Hunkapa always okay.” After mimicking his ponderous friend’s childish tone, Simna pointed out a spar splint floating on the floor of the wagon. “Sandb
ars are usually firm enough for walking, but I don’t want to step onto one made of silt and sink up to my neck. If I’m going to look like an idiot I want company. Hand me that length of good wood, Hunkapa.”
Obediently, Aub passed it across. Gripping it firmly in one hand, the swordsman threw a leg over the side of the nearly motionless wagon and thrust the length of lumber downward, anxious to see how far it would slide into the upper reaches of the sandbar. To his surprise and gratification, it didn’t sink at all. The gently convex surface was firm, yielding only very slightly to his exploratory prodding.
“There, you see?” He took some pleasure in being able to chide Ehomba. The soft-voiced, solemn-visaged herdsman was right so often it was beginning to grow irksome. “Easy walking. Get your stuff and let’s get out of here while we’re still afloat.”
Leaning around the mast, Hunkapa Aub tried to see into the murky water. “Is strong enough to hold me, Simna?”
“Sure! Here, see for yourself.” The swordsman thrust the wooden pole hard into the water.
Taking offense at this latest and most flagrant outrage, the sandbar promptly erupted in Simna’s face, drenching him with dun-colored water, decaying plant matter, and smatterings of the snails, freshwater crustaceans, and startled amphibians that had been living on its back. The swordsman was knocked down by the impact. Ehomba nearly went over backwards into the river, catching himself on the tiller only at the last moment, and Hunkapa Aub was knocked to his knees.
Wrenching its head from the mud in which it had been buried, the great eel whipped around to confront its assailant. Normally placid and somnolent during the heat of the day, it could no longer ignore the stabbing annoyance near the center of its spine. Rising from the shallows, it arched skyward for an instant to get its bearings. Tooth-lined jaws parted in the middle of the streamlined green-black head while tiny black eyes struggled to focus. Espying the intruder nearest to its back, it plunged downward, mouth agape. Simna was reciting his last will and testament as rapidly as he could, but he saw that he would not be able to finish it in time.