Something like a gout of black flame exploded past him, rising into the sky to meet the descending fanged skull before it could strike. Instinctively, Simna thrust his sword upward in a parrying gesture, but it never made contact. The enormous eel had been jolted sideways, back into the water. The concussion as it struck rocked the windwagon, once more knocking all three of its occupants off their feet. Three, because one had gone missing.
Clinging to the tiller for support, shaking water from his face and braids, Ehomba hung on as their waterlogged transport rocked in the waves stirred by the stupendous underwater encounter. “Can you see anything? Simna!”
Dazed and drenched, the swordsman fought to get a grip on the rim of the wagon. Clinging leechlike to the rocking sideboard, he struggled to peer over the side. “No!” A small geyser hit him square in the face, forcing him to turn away and spit river water. “Can’t see a thing—nothing!”
Squinting through the dirty, flying liquid, the herdsman sputtered, “Ahlitah! Where’s Ahlitah?”
Of them all, only Hunkapa Aub, utilizing his prodigious strength, managed to struggle to his feet in the midst of chaos and tempest. “Hunkapa see him!” Sodden hair hanging in triangular, downward-facing points like limp, gray pennants from the underside of his arm, he pointed.
“How…” Ehomba spat out another mouthful of water. “How is he looking?”
There followed a pause, which ended when Hunkapa Aub declared, “Hungry.”
The highly localized squall subsided almost as abruptly as it had struck. Around the waterlogged windwagon the river once again grew calm. Within, everything that had not been tied down was afloat, bobbing in the water that had bubbled or sloshed in. Not even the inherent buoyancy of the sturdy planking would keep them afloat much longer, Ehomba saw.
In front of the wagon and paddling steadily for shore was the black litah. In its powerful jaws it gripped the broken neck of the great eel. The nightmare head hung severely to one side, the black eyes glazed with death.
“Hunkapa, we must go with Ahlitah,” Ehomba told his husky companion. “You are the only one strong enough to pull the wagon.”
The massive man-beast regarded the herdsman with limpid, mournful eyes. “Hunkapa would do, Etjole. Only one problem. Hunkapa cannot swim.”
“Cannot…?” It was rare indeed for Ehomba to be taken aback. When they had first plunged into the river to escape the pursuing minions of the Brotherhood, all the time they had been sailing and drifting across, even after they had become dangerously waterlogged and had begun to sink, the big brute had not said a word.
Simna was lying with his back against the inner wall of the wagon, his chest heaving, his sword hanging limp in the tepid water. He was still trying to recover from the experience of having been less than a few seconds away from being eaten by his “sandbar.” Ehomba pushed past him to peer over the front of the saturated vehicle.
The eel had been lying half-buried in the ooze that stretched out from the nearby bank. Though no sandbar, the mud bank did incline gently shoreward. He and Simna would have to swim for a little bit, but Hunkapa’s head should remain above water.
When informed of this, the shaggy biped hesitated. “Don’t know, Etjole.” He peered warily over the side of the wagon. “Hunkapa afraid.”
“You have to try,” the herdsman told him. “I think it is shallow enough so that you can walk, but if not, you will have to try to swim. I knew how to swim before I could walk. It is a more natural motion than walking.” He started to gather up his kit and spear, securing the two swords to his back.
“If you find yourself in trouble, just watch me.” He smiled encouragingly. “We cannot stay here, Hunkapa. This wagon is coming apart. If the current catches it, there is a good chance it will drift out into the deep part of the river. Then there will be no opportunity for you to walk.”
He could see the fear on the creature’s face. So powerful, and yet so afraid of an element in which Ehomba found himself very much at home. Reaching up, he took one massive paw in his hand.
“Come with me, Hunkapa. We will go in together. Do you understand? We have no choice.”
Slowly, the shaggy head nodded. “Hunkapa—Hunkapa understand. Go together. Ehomba look out for his friend.” Huge fingers squeezed painfully tight, but the herdsman did not complain. He glanced back over his shoulder.
“You coming, Simna? Or does your love for this vehicle extend to floating downriver with it?” He mustered an ironic smile. “Swim a little ways and your feet might strike a sandbar.”
“They might strike something else, too,” the swordsman growled ominously. Sheathing his sword and holding his backpack above his head, he slipped both legs over the side of the steadily sinking wagon. With a grimace, he dropped into the cloudy, silt-rich water.
“Together now.” Ehomba allowed his hand to be half crushed as he stepped resolutely over the side. River buffeted him as Hunkapa Aub’s much greater mass displaced water. The ungainly hulk disappeared—only to reappear seconds later with its head well above the surface. Astonishment and delight beamed from the guileless, hair-covered face.
“Hunkapa not have to swim! Hunkapa’s feet on bottom!”
“I hoped it was so.” Treading water while struggling to keep his pack dry, the herdsman started to kick for the shore. Against his back, the sea-bone sword quivered orgasmically at the sensation of being submerged. Anyone else would have found the unexpected vibration unnerving, but Ehomba had anticipated it. What more natural than that the wondrous weapon should react to being placed in the surroundings from whence it had originally evolved?
Suddenly he was out of the water, high and dry, heaved skyward by a robust thrust from below. No gigantic eel bursting from the depths this time, but the hand of Hunkapa Aub, lifting him from beneath. Effortlessly, the herdsman’s huge companion placed his angular friend on broad, hirsute shoulders. In this manner Ehomba rode in comparative comfort the rest of the way to the shore. Only his ears suffered, bruised by an unending stream of blistering profanities from the struggling Simna, who, forced to swim, trailed well behind.
XI
As they drew themselves up on the reed-lined, accommodating bank, they scanned the now distant opposite shore for signs of their pursuers. But the Brotherhood of the Bone, unable to cross by swimming or riding, had given up and gone back to the dark, sheltering forest that was their refuge and abode. The weary travelers were safe, if once more afoot.
Taking a seat on the gentle, grassy slope, Ehomba unpacked his gear and spread it out beside him to dry in the sun. Like a high-priced overstuffed rug liberated from a sultan’s palace, Hunkapa Aub sprawled nearby, basking gloriously in the heat of midday. The herdsman watched gravely as the windwagon that had carried them so far and so well slowly drifted off downstream, sinking slowly into the riverine depths.
Nearby, an exhausted Simna finally emerged, dripping, from the water. Stumbling up the bank, he tossed his pack to one side, not caring if it spilled its contents all over the grass. Through no effort of his own, it did not. His sword he slipped back into its scabbard, which he then removed and dumped next to the pack. Swaying slightly, murky water and the occasional tadpole running off him in rivulets, he staggered over to where the black litah lay panting. Its forepaws lay on the crushed throat of the great eel. As the sodden swordsman approached, the magnificently maned cranium swiveled slowly to regard him.
Halting before the cat and its kill, Simna stiffly dipped his head and made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “Look before you leap, my master at arms always told me. I admit it: There are times when I’m forgetful.”
The litah replied thoughtfully. “There are times when you’re an idiot.”
Gritting his teeth, Simna looked off to one side for a long moment. Still breathing hard, he rested one hand on a knee. “You’re not making this any easier for me, cat. I came over to thank you for saving my life.”
Massive eyebrows rose haughtily. “Saving your life? Did I save your li
fe? Dear me, I suppose I did.” Ahlitah turned back to his kill. “If it will make you feel any better, I assure you it was coincidental. It’s just that I happen to be very fond of eel.” With that, the great head dipped forward and puissant teeth tore into the slick, green-black flesh.
“Hoy, well, thank you anyway, thou maestro of piquant sprays. Simna ibn Sind embraces chance salvation over intentional abstention any day.” Stumbling as he turned, he made his unsteady way back to the place on the bank where he had dropped his gear. Behind him, the clear warm air of afternoon was filled with contented crunching sounds.
Exhausted, and mentally as well as physically spent from their exertions of the morning, they made camp in a thick copse of impressive shade trees not far from the river. The woods on the western bank closely resembled those they had passed through on the opposite shore, except that on the western side larger trees were fewer and farther between.
“These woods seem to be thinning out.” Seated next to the campfire, Ehomba reached down to give the wooden spit on which their evening meal of freshly caught fish was broiling another turn. “If that turns out to be so, it is a great shame. We could have made good use of the windwagon on open plains.”
Lying on the other side of the fire with his head against the pillowing flank of Hunkapa Aub, Simna watched the meal cook. Hungry as he was, the tantalizing aroma that rose from the sizzling fish verged on the sensuous.
“Hoy, long bruther, we’ve traversed desert and veldt, mountain and marsh on foot before. By Gumitharap’s calluses, we’ll cross whatever lies before us as well.”
Ehomba smiled fondly over the flames at his sometimes trying but ever willing friend. “Optimism becomes you, Simna.”
The swordsman looked up and grinned. “Not being dead does wonders for a man’s spirits.” Lifting his head and glancing to one side, he indicated a slowly heaving dark mass lying off by itself a little ways away from the fire. Having ingested an unholy vast quantity of eel, the black litah was locked in a sleep that mimicked the deceased.
“Kitty there won’t own up to it, but he saved my life. I don’t buy all that pompous indifference about his just being after a meal. He could catch fish anytime. He knew what he was doing.”
“I suspect that you are right, my friend.” Rising, the herdsman wiped down the front of his kilt. “I was thinking how nice it would be to have something else to eat with the fish. I think we passed a fruit tree a little ways back, and I know I saw some mushrooms.” Picking up his spear, he started away from the fire and into the forest.
“Don’t go too far, bruther,” Simna exclaimed warningly. “We don’t know these woods. There may not be any possessive, ambulatory collections of bones click-clacking about, but unknown nights often hide all sorts of hungry beasties.”
Ehomba replied without looking back. “I remember the tree as only being a little ways from camp, Simna. You rest here, and do not let our supper burn.”
“No chance of that, famished as I am.” Sitting up and away from Hunkapa Aub, who snorted and rubbed his nose briskly in his sleep, the swordsman gave the improvised spit another turn.
With half the moon and all the stars to guide him, the herdsman worked his way back through the woods until the campfire was only a distant flickering among the trees. Convinced that he had already wandered too far, he tried a little more to his left—and there was the tree he had remembered passing. It was a wild orange, its limbs bristling with long thorns. Their presence did not worry him because he had no intention of trying to climb into those protected branches.
Using the ancient but still sharp tooth that tipped his spear, he cut away the ripest of the brightly colored spheres within reach. Each time a severed stem fell, the faintest, most ethereal of roars could be heard. Sometimes the spirit of the tooth could be invoked for purposes other than engendering mass confusion and destruction: gathering oranges, for example.
With the aid of the spear it only took a few minutes to accumulate enough of the juice-heavy fruit to more than sate himself and his friends. He knew that Hunkapa Aub would probably eat Ahlitah’s share. To the best of Ehomba’s knowledge, large carnivorous cats were not fond of fruit.
Slinging his spear against his back, he made a basket out of the folds of his kilt and filled the resultant concavity with the best of the oranges. Nearby, he located the mushrooms he had passed earlier and added several handfuls of the tasty fungi to his growing accumulation. Satisfied, he started back toward camp.
He was within sight of the fire when something sprang silently from behind one of the trees he was passing to press an incredibly sharp knife tightly against his neck. His hands dropped, sending mushrooms and oranges spilling to the ground, rolling away from his feet. Despite his acute herdsman’s senses, he had not seen or heard his assailant. Or smelled it, which was not surprising when its nature became apparent to him. It had no smell.
Old bones generally did not.
“Surprised to see me, swindler of promises?” The voice was breathy, unnatural, and familiar. It belonged to the envoy of the Brotherhood of the Bone.
“Very much so.” The edge of the bone knife dimpling his throat was sharp enough to cleave a notion. “From what I saw, I did not think any of you or your brethren could swim the river, or walk across its bottom.”
Whispering in his ear, the skeleton smiled. “Who said anything about swimming or walking?”
“Then how did you get across?” With the bony rib cage pressing hard against his back, Ehomba could not reach his spear. His swords lay back in camp, laid out neat and useless alongside his blanket.
“Flew, of course.” A spectral chuckle rattled the vacant chest. “Dead dragonets carried me. It was hard for them, but there was no choice. I couldn’t use dead birds. When they die, they lose their feathers along with their flesh. But bats and dragonets retain their wing membranes for quite a while. Took a dozen of them to bring me over, and they’ll never make it back. Their wings are too frayed, too desiccated. It doesn’t matter. They were dead before they took off from the other bank anyway. Dead here, dead there: Location means nothing, and doesn’t change anything.”
Ehomba stood perfectly still. “That means you are marooned here now as well, and will never be able to rejoin the Brotherhood.”
Teeth chattered. “No, but I’ll have something better. I’ll have their revenge. You promised your bones to us in return for our letting your friends go. Then you called them back. Charlatan.” The edge of the knife pressed a little deeper. The herdsman felt a tiny trickle of warmth start to flow down past his collarbone to his chest.
“I did no such thing,” he protested softly. “I left you my insides, as was agreed. If they preferred my company to yours, that is no reason to blame me.”
“Isn’t it? As if you didn’t know they would find a way to return to you.”
“Actually, I was not sure. I hoped they would. I need my insides. They are of more use to me than to you.”
“They won’t be, in a moment.”
“Bruther, what… ?” Holding his sword in a firm, two-handed grip, Simna stepped out of the shadows. The looming mass of Hunkapa Aub stood to one side of him, a softly growling Ahlitah on the other.
“Keep your distance!” the envoy shouted warningly.
“Etjole…” Seeing the knife that was gripped in the skeleton’s hand, the swordsman measured the distance between them. Too far. “If you cut him…” he began.
“What?” The envoy cackled amusedly. “You’ll kill me? You’re more than a century too late to make that threat hold up, traveler. When I’m through with him, maybe I’ll have your bones too. They look to be an interesting set, all squashed down and out as they are.”
Simna looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he was interrupted by a loud crack, the dry cry of splitting wood. Automatically, everyone’s gaze snapped upward into the night. Everyone’s, that is, except Ehomba’s. The instant the skeletal assassin’s attention was diverted, he broke free of the bony
grip and threw himself forward and down. Reacting, the envoy of the Brotherhood raised the knife, hewn from the shinbone of a comrade, and was about to strike lethally downward when the enormous broken bough landed on top of him with a reverberating crash.
Bones and splinters went flying in all directions. Rolling away from the impact, Ehomba stared at the branch that had crushed his would-be executioner. The bleached skull was no longer intact or visible, having been pulverized by the considerable weight of falling wood. Leg and arm and rib bones lay scattered everywhere.
His friends were at his side before the dust settled. Hunkapa Aub simply lifted the herdsman bodily and set him on his feet. Feeling of the cut that had been made to his throat, Ehomba knew he would have to wear a bandage there for a few days at least. Had it gone half an inch deeper his life would be gushing out between his fingers. The falling branch had startled the envoy for barely an instant, just long enough to allow his captive to break away.
Now the bones of the murderous, spectral visitant lay strewn across the ground, dispersed and harmless.
Satisfied that their friend and guide was not seriously injured, Hunkapa Aub and the black litah returned to camp. Simna remained to inspect the shattered bough. Having fallen from somewhere halfway up the side of a truly imposing trunk, the branch was greater in diameter than many of the mature trees nearby.
“That’s what I call a lucky break,” the swordsman commented. “It doesn’t look rotten, and I see no evidence of termites or other insects having been at work, so something else must have caused it to fall.” He gazed evenly at his tall companion. “Fall just then, and just there. I don’t suppose a man who continually denies being a wizard but who can step out of his own skin would have had anything to do with that?”