John Maddox Roberts Stormlands 02 The Black Shield UC FR6

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not leave one of his beloved cabos to be killed by these night-horrors.
Another burst of long strides brought him close to the cabo. The things around
it were roughly man-sized, their shape irregular and impossible to determine
in the uncertain light. One whirled at his approach and he thrust his Shasinn
spear. It connected with something solid but not terribly substantial. The
thing emitted a trilling whistle and collapsed. Others turned. Hael could make
out no details, but moonlight glistened on what looked like needle teeth.
Something seemed strange, even amidst the general strangeness. Then Hael
realized that he should be seeing eyes as well as teeth, but he saw none.
He could see the dark forms leaping upon the embattled cabo. The beast caught
one with a horn and pitched it high. The thing whistled and made a strange,
fluttering sound as it flew through the air. Hael waded in among the massed
predators. With his spear in one hand,
he drew his longsword with the other. Using both weapons to slash and stab, he
cut down a number of them. It did not seem to make a dent in the population.
They were everywhere.
Hael was ready to give up and retreat when the first of the Matwa arrived.
Some had torches that illuminated the scene with a nightmare light. The
creatures they were fighting resembled, if anything, dwarfs in black cloaks.
Their heads were little more than bumps bristling with teeth and they had
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huge, pointed ears. No more could be discerned amid the chaotic action as men
stabbed with spears and short-swords, swung stone-headed clubs and even laid
about them with riding whips.
Minutes later, the tardy Amsi came upon the scene. One of them had the
presence of mind to mount the beleaguered cabo. Beating the attackers away
with a long-handled stone hammer, he rode the animal out of the mob and back
toward the army's encampment.
With their prey gone and many of their number dead, the strange creatures drew
back, fleeing into the outer darkness, away from the fires and the milling
men. For the first time since moonrise, there was quiet.
"What were they?" said someone.
"I cannot say," Hael answered, "but let's return to the camp. Bring some of
them so that we can get a look at them in daylight."
None of the men wanted to touch the horrid creatures, but they fastened ropes
around a few and dragged them back. Behind them came new sounds: low, gobbling
cries followed by ripping, tearing noises. There was a dense rus-
tling. A man came up to Hael, bearing a torch. It was Jochim.
"They are eating their dead," said the Matwa disgustedly. "If they are
night-haunting spirits, they're of a low order."
"Just scavengers," Hael said. "They are too weak to make clean kills. They
must chase an animal to exhaustion and bring it down by sheer numbers. It is
the dark and their frightful cries that make them seen terrible."
The light of the small fires was inadequate to make out any details of the
attackers, so Hael ordered a heavy guard posted. All others were to sleep. The
exhausted men needed no urging. The scavengers gave them no further trouble
that night.
With the light of morning, they examined their trophies of the night before.
Even in good light, they were so strange as to defy comprehension. They were
just under man height and covered with short, gray-black fur. The small, round
heads were hunched between narrow shoulders. The long, curved teeth protruded
from wide mouths below flat, triangular noses made up of convoluted membranes
spreading over half the face. Their eyes were mere dots flanking the nose and
their ears flared around and above the head, extending into tall points.
Strange as these features were, the limbs were stranger. The lower legs were
short and crooked, terminating in splayed feet with hook-clawed toes. The
upper limbs were jointed almost like human arms, but were so long that,
standing upright, their elbows almost touched the ground. The forearms were
almost as long and ended in five-fingered hands. Three of these
fingers were long and claw-tipped. The others were vestigial. Great flaps of
hairy skin hung below the arms, giving the cloaked effect they had seen the
night before.
They puzzled about these repellent creatures for some time. It was an Amsi, a
young warrior on his first campaign, who supplied the answer.
"They are bats," he said, "just big bats without wings." This was argued amid
much exclamation.
"He is right," said Hael. "See, these flaps of skin must once have been wings.
They are blind, so they hunt at night."
"Who ever heard of a walking bat?" someone asked.
"Why not?' Hael asked in return. "There are flightless birds, and flying
lizards. There are warm-blooded fur-bearers that swim as well as fish. Why not
ground-dwelling bats?"
Jochim shrugged. "The sort that fly are strange enough. I think we'll see even
odder things as we go farther into this accursed land."
They mounted and began the day's march. Hael planned to travel south before
swinging west toward Neva. The central and western parts of the Zone were much
better covered in the maps Choula had sent him. Not that they were going to be
all that helpful even so. The information in them was mostly over two hundred
years old, so much might have changed in the interim. What he needed more than
anything else was information about water and grazing, and there was very
little of that in the maps he was sent. A native guide would be helpful.
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He looked around. In land as low as this, a
mounted man could see for a great distance. Unlike his men, he did not find
the desert oppressive. Land was land, and each place had its own spirits. He
would learn this place and master it, as he had his island, the sea, the
coastal plain and the grasslands and the hill country. Unlike other men, he
felt that he had no limits.
EIGHT
Tj t is still too early, my king," said the " admiral. He stood beside King
Pashir M.on the great naval wharf of Kasin. A driving, wind-blown rain made
visibility limited. The hills sloped up from the huge harbor, but among them
the king could not see his palace, which was easily visible on a clear day.
They were at the northern end of the harbor, where the wharf jutted from a
circular, man-made pool surrounded by roofed docks where the fleet of Neva
waited out the stormy season. When time came to sail, the ships would be rowed
to this wharf to take on stores.
The two men were sheltered from the rain by a canopy borne by slaves. The king
gazed seaward. Past the mouth of the harbor he could see the craggy headland
called Point Shipwreck. Just off the point, on a small island, stood the
great lighthouse of Perwin, the tallest structure in the world. During the
sailing season, slaves toiled up a stairway on the sheer, polished-stone
exterior carrying baskets of oil-rich fistnuts to burn in the huge fire basket [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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