Bones of the Past (Arhel) Read online

  Impossible, Medwind thought.

  —Pranniksonne’s expedition, full of Ariss’ great thinkers and doers, which went out only two days before them—

  Preposterous.

  An expedition made up of the greatest sajes of the age, caught in the same trap… ? She couldn’t believe it—she wouldn’t consider it.

  Roba carried the tablet past her to their own useless airbox and placed it carefully inside.

  Hope lives in the most foolish places, Medwind thought, and tried one final time to light the fire. Again it burned only to die.

  Suddenly Seven-Fingered Fat Girl waved her hands over her head to catch everyone’s attention.

  “Quiet,” she whispered. She froze, head cocked to one side. Then she swore—softly but with deep feeling.

  “The gods, they get us now,” she said. “Listen.”

  At first, Medwind heard nothing. When she did, what she heard made no sense. Laughter—chittering, screeching, high-pitched laughter—tittered at the very edge of audibility. It touched the base of her spine like the point of an assassin’s dagger, scraped up between her shoulder blades and along the back of her neck—left the tiny hairs there standing on end. It grew louder, and shrieked and sawed along her nerves until she couldn’t think clearly. It was a crazy sound—depraved and deadly… and it was coming nearer.

  “What in all the hells—?” Nokar muttered.

  “Roshu,” Fat Girl said. “One roshi is really bad, but that not one roshi. That a lot roshu—from one-two-three different directions. They big—big teeth, very hungry. And very fast.”

  “Then we had better run,” Thirk said.

  “Where?” Seven-Fingered Fat Girl looked at him, eyes dark with cold calculation. “You got someplace to go?”

  “The jungle?”

  “Nothing to keep you from their claws. They did that—” she pointed to the rows of hand-deep gouges in the airboxes’ doors. “Off the Path, nothing will save you from them.”

  “Well, then the Path—”

  “You not Silk People, big man,” she said with scorn. “The Silk People, they got no need for peknu. They throw their own kids out to make food for the roshu—what you think they want with you?”

  Nokar cut Thirk off. To Fat Girl, he said, “You know this place. What is best to do?”

  She snorted. “Not much choice. We die now by the roshu or die later by the Keyu. Which you like better?”

  “Later,” Nokar said firmly. “There is always a chance that ‘later’ may be postponed indefinitely.”

  Seven-Fingered Fat Girl shrugged and slipped a dart into her dartstick. “I don’t know ‘pose-poned in-def-in-lee,’ but if you want ‘later’ we got to run like wind now.” She trotted away from the roshu noises, snapping orders in Sropt at her two fellow Wen.

  Runs Slow moved to Dog Nose’s side and he lifted her to his back, where she clung. Faia swung Kirtha up onto her shoulders.

  Medwind ran back to the airbox and shut the door. Her vha’attaye were in there, or what was left of them. She couldn’t run with them and survive, but she couldn’t just leave them unprotected. As silly a gesture as Roba and her First Folk tablet, she thought. Not much chance we’ll make it back, but…

  They ran—Fat Girl in front, Dog Nose in the rear, and Medwind and the rest of the outlanders packed in the middle.

  “This is to the village,” Fat Girl called. “The trees get closer soon. We on a big Path right now. Maybe they let us run on their Path without good trade stuff—but not you peknu. And we brought you—so they sure will kill us, too.”

  The Wen kids drew ahead of the rest of the party—even Dog Nose with Runs Slow outdistanced them.

  Nokar was struggling to keep up. Medwind dropped back with him, while the rest of the group passed them. He was gasping, and his skin was gray-tinged and waxy.

  “I’m—too—old,” he gasped. “I can’t—do this.”

  “Yah—you look bad, old man,” Medwind agreed. She put two fingers to her mouth and whistled—a piercing, high-pitched shrill that caught the attention of the rest of the party. She waved her arms and yelled, “Kirgen! Here!”

  The young saje stopped, then turned and raced back. He pulled up in front of her, breathing hard.

  “You’re strong and fast. Help me here. We have to carry him—or he won’t make it.”

  “Both—of us? How?”

  “Hoos trick. We carried injured warriors this way when we weren’t raiding on horseback.” She glanced at her husband. “Act like you’re sitting in a chair,” she told him. To Kirgen she said, “We each lock one arm around one of his legs, and he puts an arm around each of our shoulders. Got it?”

  Kirgen nodded.

  “Then on three. One—two—three!” They lifted the old man and ran. The rest of the band was well ahead of them, the roshu sounded close, the drums pounded louder. “Just make sure you—don’t go left when—I go right,” Medwind told Kirgen between gasps.

  Kirgen snorted once, his laugh disbelieving.

  Medwind shook her head. “I mean it. We ripped a—warrior’s hip—out of its socket once. Damn near—took his leg off. You all right—Nokar?”

  “I’ve been better,” the old man said. “I would have been a lot better if I hadn’t known about the warrior—”

  “You could have—been a lot worse—if Kirgen didn’t know.”

  “There is that.” The voice above her head was thoughtful.

  The depraved laughter of the roshu grew louder. Medwind looked quickly over her shoulder, swore, and yelled, “Faster, Kirgen!”

  She didn’t want to think about the things that chased them, but she couldn’t help herself. There were several of them; three for certain, and maybe more—big, armor-plated brutes that seemed, from her vantage point, to have been predominantly teeth. She ventured another quick glance, and bit into her lower lip. The things were all teeth.

  “Faster,” she urged again.

  Kirgen made a face. “If I could—sprout wings—I would have by now!”

  The character of the jungle had changed, Medwind noticed with a start. In that part of the forest, someone had planted the trees in rows—tight rows that had grown into palisades. The trees on either side of the three of them were too closely grown for even one person to squeeze between.

  I’ve let myself get trapped, Medwind thought. Of all the damned stupid—She might as well have waited in a corral for the roshu to come get her. She’d been thinking too much about carrying Nokar, and not enough about what she and Kirgen were carrying him into.

  She suddenly realized she couldn’t see the rest of the group. Where is everyone else? she wondered.

  The walls of trees on either side of her had been narrowing—she realized that she was having to slow down and squeeze in to avoid hitting the trees.

  —Narrowing—

  “Yes!” she shouted. She laughed.

  Kirgen glanced over at her, surprised.

  “It’s too—tight in here for—the roshu! It’s almost too—tight for the three of us—side by side.”

  She looked back. The roshu were well behind them again and not moving any closer. They chittered and howled their twisted laughter at the sky; puffed and tore at the ground with their clawed forelegs; shook their ugly heads. Their huge yellow eyes glowed like fires in the gloom of the narrow tree-path. “Kirgen, we made it,” she said.

  They stopped and lowered Nokar to the ground.

  Kirgen faced the monsters and grabbed his throwing knife.

  Medwind put out a hand to stop him. “Don’t waste a weapon,” she said. “We may need it ahead.”

  He glared at the roshu, then sighed. “Right. I wasn’t thinking.” He turned back to Nokar. “Can you walk now?” Kirgen asked the old man.

  Nokar still looked gray and weak, but he nodded firmly enough. “The magic is thin here—that’s bad for me, but I suppose I’ll do well enough. Where did the rest of the group get to? I lost sight of them.”

  “They have to be fu
rther along the path,” Medwind said. “They can’t possibly have gotten off it.”

  “It looks like the trees grow into a solid wall just ahead,” Kirgen said. He stopped and sniffed the air. “Odd smell,” he noted. “Smoke—”

  “Somebody cooking midden.” Medwind cut him off. “The path must curve on ahead.” It was a relief to be able to walk instead of running. She stared around her—up along the tall, straight trunks to the branches that met in peaked arches hundreds of eashos over her head. The corridor of close-growing trees with its oddly symmetrical, precise structure reminded her of the soaring Temple of Time in Ariss—but not even the Temple could compare with the slender spires and the sparkling green canopy that filtered light down to the leaf-carpeted jungle floor at her feet. Incredible beauty—and still the feeling of eyes—eyes everywhere.

  The three of them walked on.

  “Maybe we ought to wait here for the rest of the group to come back,” Kirgen said.

  Medwind stopped walking. “Perhaps you’re right.

  Seven-Fingered Fat Girl didn’t want to go into the village. Perhaps if we just wait on the path until the roshu get tired and go away, we can get our packs and start back for Omwimmee Trade. Everyone will realize we haven’t caught up with them and turn around soon.”

  “Yes,” Kirgen said. “Soon.”

  “Certainly,” Nokar agreed. “We will wait.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Medwind said.

  “Of course,” Kirgen agreed.

  “We’ll just sit down right here and wait,” Nokar said.

  They sat down in the soft leaf mold.

  “Roba and Kirtha and Faia are up there,” Kirgen remarked suddenly. He stood and looked down the path. “You two go ahead and wait here. I think I’ll just catch up with them and tell them what we’re doing.”

  Nokar said, “I don’t like the idea of splitting up.”

  “No. But I want to make sure they’re safe.”

  Medwind stood. “They may need our help. Let’s keep going.”

  Nokar stood too. “Yes,” he said, “I think really that will be the best thing to do.”

  He looked so frail—so very, very old. Medwind said, “You follow Kirgen and I’ll bring up the rear.”

  Perhaps, she thought, she would shout for some of the group ahead. It would save Nokar any further walking—but then, perhaps not. The roshu were no longer laughing behind her. They crouched at the mouth of the path, yellow-eyed nightmares, and waited in silence. The Wen drums had fallen silent, though when she thought about it she couldn’t remember when. In the whole of the jungle, she could hear nothing but leaves rustling in the breeze and the soft thuds of her footsteps and those of her companions. The idea of shouting into that silence made her skin crawl. They walked single file, forced to follow each other because of the still-narrowing passageway between the trees.

  “I wish we could hear them,” Kirgen said. His voice was swallowed up in the silence.

  Time stretched as they walked. Or perhaps the path stretched. There seemed no end to it—the gloom, the tall, rough-barked trees, the unnatural hush.

  The smoke from the Wen village had an uncanny reek to it, Medwind thought. Odd—but she couldn’t place it; she had no idea what they were cooking to make that stink.

  The path narrowed more—curved to the left, then to the right.

  Bad! Bad! Medwind’s nerves screamed. Kirgen moved around one of the tight twists, momentarily out of sight—Nokar followed. She pressed on. Even the sound of their footfalls died away, swallowed by the twin walls of trees. At the end of the line, wending along the twisty maze, she only caught brief glimpses of Kirgen, though she never lost sight of Nokar for more than a second.

  Bad! Bad!

  She knew it. She felt it. But her friends were ahead. The only way on was forward.

  The last semblance of daylight died. The living walls of trees pressed in so tightly only the faintest ghosts of light reached the ground. Kirgen and Nokar ahead of her dissolved into shadows, darker against dark. Medwind looked up to reassure herself with the delicate tracery of pale green high overhead, the promise that somewhere, the sun still shone. That somewhere was too far away, and too faint—unreachable. The trees were the whole world; she felt it. Tree bark on either side of her scraped her skin as she fumbled her way along. The damp air clogged in her lungs, thick with the reek of rotting leaves and village smoke. In this place without sight or sound, the stench itself became ominous. It crowded at her blinded eyes, her deafened ears, until in her mind the stink took on a shape and sound all its own. It became a living thing that stalked her, that tried to choke her.

  Bad! Bad!

  Suddenly, there was a round hole of light ahead of her, low to the ground. A tunnel of light, fogged with a swirling haze of thick, sweet smoke—she was distantly amazed that she could see it. Where were Nokar and Kirgen? They’d been ahead of her, and now there was nothing on the path but her and the stink. A gust of air blew in her face from the tunnel, and the stench grew heavier and richer—the world spun slowly around her, and she giggled. It struck her funny that there was no place for her to fall down. The trees held her up. She felt warm and sleepy and woozy. Her fingers scrabbled at the dark rim of the glowing gold tunnel—bark scraped her knuckles—she was aware of the pain of torn flesh, but unconcerned. It felt like somebody else’s pain. She knelt and looked directly into the tunnel—into the light—and the light blinded her. Ghost images danced in front of her as she crawled into the narrow, low inlet.

  I was born like this once, she thought, and giggled again. In a moment I’ll burst out of the end of the passage, and the Hoos warriors will scream welcome—no, no, no… Not Hoos. Wen. I’m going to see the Wen. Wen, Wen, Wen again…

  She smiled, and tumbled out of the crawlspace into a blaze of light as bright and hard as a whitestone wall. Her eyes blurred and watered, and for an instant, images resolved into shapes she almost understood. Nokar and Kirgen, Faia, Kirtha, the three outcast Wen children, Thirk—all lying in a heap to one side of her; the faces of staring strangers with angry eyes, strangers who blew smoke into the tunnel with big, silk-sided bellows; trees grown in the form of a city, hung with shimmering silks.

  Then, with a terrific crack, darkness descended.

  * * *

  Lost, all lost. Choufa curled in a tight ball in a cranny formed by the intersecting maze of branches. She beat her fists against the tree and sobbed. The peknu were lost, gone, doomed. Food for the trees. And when they died, her hopes for escape—for herself and the rest of the sharsha, would die too.

  She’d felt them coming as soon as they crossed into the Wen territory. The Keyu had alerted her, rousing from their sluggish sated state to greedy hunger in an instant, clamoring for the fresh bodies that soared in their direction. And when the peknu came within range, the Keyu reached out with their god-touch and pulled them in.

  There had been an instant when Choufa thought the peknu would escape. They had fought—their own god-touch against the Keyu’s grasping, and for a brief moment, something inside the Keyu fought against itself. Dissonant voices screamed for the freedom of the peknu, put their energy with that of the peknu—until those voices were coldly and viciously silenced. And the Keyu won.

  The Keyu would always win.

  Choufa dried her eyes. She could not doubt anymore what would happen to her. She had no need to hope—hope was dead. She found peace in impending ruin; the future was out of her hands. It wasn’t her fault anymore. She stood and walked slowly along the branch, and down into the center of the sharsha tree. No one was visible in the main part of the tree. She didn’t wonder where the other sharsha had gone. She was simply glad they were.

  Then she heard a soft cry, quickly muffled, and sharp whispers. She followed the noise, down along the maze of intertwining branches, through two of the hollow trunk-rooms, and then up into an offshoot trunk. The other sharsha looked up, frightened, when she crossed the threshold, then turned back to the focus of the
ir attention.

  Thedra crouched on the floor, her face twisted with pain, gripping her belly. She rocked back and forth, panting and crying.

  “What is she doing?” Choufa whispered to Kerru, who stood by the entryway and watched.

  “The baby is coming out of her belly. She said she was inside the Keyu-thoughts. She said the Keyu called more food—then all of a sudden the Keyu felt her in their thoughts, and called the baby to come out. They made her time come. The Silk People will be here soon to take her away.”

  “The Silk People are busy. They caught the peknu. They used sleep smoke on them—”

  “The stupid peknu won’t make any difference!” Kerru snapped. “The Keyu called Thedra’s baby because they want to eat Thedra now. They will make the Silk People come and get her.”

  “I just thought maybe the peknu could help us—”

  Kerru looked at her sadly. “No one is going to help us.”

  Choufa nodded. Yes, it was so. There was nothing she could do, and nothing anyone else would do. She watched Thedra, and began to feel sick again. The pregnant girl quit writhing and crying for a moment and just leaned forward on her hands and knees, breathing heavily. Then her huge belly heaved under the dull gray cloth of her tunic, and she screamed and began to rock again.

  It was awful. Choufa saw blood and closed her eyes. I don’t want a baby in my belly, she thought, and started to back away from the scene.

  Two green-and-gold men shoved Choufa out of the way, walked up to Thedra, looped ropes around her wrists, and dragged her out of the room and away from the sharsha and the sharsha-tree. Choufa could hear Thedra screaming and fighting long after the older girl was out of sight—crying and begging for help—

  Won’t somebody save us?! Choufa cried inside. Won’t someone help all of us?!

  said the slimy whispers inside her head.

  * * *