I grunted. I wasn"t thinking about the woods. My mind was on the funny-looking hills on the other side. I"d never seen anything like them. They were all steep-sided, smoothly rounded, covered with a tawny dry gra.s.s and nothing else. They looked like the humped backs of giant animals snoozing with their legs tucked up underneath them and their heads turned around behind them, out of sight.
They were very dry, those hills. The light to see them hadn"t never been good, but I was sure I"d seen a few black burn scars before it got too dark to see anything.
The woods were bone-dry, too. The trees were mostly some kind of scruffy oak with small, brittle leaves that had points almost as sharp as holly leaves. They were a sort of blue-gray color instead of the deep green of oaks in the north.
A feeble excuse for a creek dribbled through the heart of the wood. We watered ourselves and the horses and took time out for a snack. I was too tired to waste energy talking, except to say, "I don"t think I got what it takes for another fifteen miles. Uphill."
Half a minute later he surprised me by saying. "Don"t know if I got what it takes, either. Only so far you can go on willpower."
"Hip bothering you?"
"Yes."
"Might ought to have it looked at."
"Good job for Croaker, since he done it. Let"s see how much we got left."
We managed about six more miles, the last couple up the dry gra.s.s hills, before we sort of collapsed by silent agreement. Raven said, "This time we"ll give it an hour before we hit it again."
He was stubborn, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
We hadn"t been there five minutes before I spotted evidence of that bad storm from the north. "Raven."
He looked. He didn"t have nothing to say. He just sighed and helped me watch the lightning.
There wasn"t a cloud between us and the stars.
XXV.
Toadkiller Dog, carrying the wicker man, eased over a ridge line, halted. He shivered.
For leagues now they had sensed the presence of that place over there, an aura ever increasing in intensity and its ability to irritate. If they were sons of the shadow this was a fastness of the enemy, a citadel of light. There were few such places left.
They had to be expunged when found.
"Strange magic," the wicker man whispered. "I don"t like it." He glanced at the northern sky. The creatures of the tree G.o.d were up there somewhere, just beyond sight.
This was not a good place to be, sandwiched between them and that place.
The wicker man said, "We"d better do it fast."
Toadkiller Dog had no desire to do it at all. He would bypa.s.s, given a choice.
He had choices, of course, but not many. He might get away with defying the wicker man once. That once had to be saved. In the meantime he responded to the ego of the wicker man, doing the insane, the stupid, sometimes the necessary, biding his time.
The army presently numbered two thousand. The men had collapsed in exhaustion the moment their commanders stopped moving. The wicker man summoned two to help him dismount.
They were rich men, every one. Their packs bulged with the finest treasure taken from cities their masters had devoured and from fallen comrades. Few had been with the army more than two months. Of the two thousand only a hundred had crossed the sea with the Limper. Those who did not desert had no cause to be optimistic about a long life.
The wicker man leaned against Toadkiller Dog. "Sc.u.m," he whispered. "All sc.u.m."
Close. Most with any spark of courage or decency deserted quickly.
The wicker man eyed the sky. A faint smile stretched the ruin of his mouth. "Do it," he said.
The soldiers groaned and grumbled as they stood to arms, but stand to they did. The wicker man stared at the temple. It abused his confidence, but he could not discern any concrete cause. "Go!" He slapped Toadkiller Dog"s shoulder. "Scout it, d.a.m.n you!"
He then a.s.sembled the surviving witchmen from the northern forest. They had not been much use lately, but he had a task for them now.
There wasn"t a breath of warning. One moment the night was still except for the chirp of crickets and the uneasy rustle of men on the brink of an a.s.sault, the next it was alive with attacking mantas. They came from every direction, not fifty feet high, in twos and threes, and this time their lightning was not their most important weapon.
The first flights ghosted in and dropped fleshy sausage-shaped objects four feet long. Boiling, oily flame splashed everywhere. Toadkiller Dog howled in the heart of an accurately delivered barrage. Soldiers shrieked. Horses screamed and bolted. Baggage wagons caught fire.
The wicker man would have screamed in rage had he been able. But had he had the capability, he would not have had the time.
He had begun preparing a snare. And while he had concentrated on that they had caught him flat-footed.
He was enveloped in flame. He dared not think of anything else.
He suffered badly before he shielded himself with a chrysalis of protective spells. He was sprawled on the earth then, his wicker body charred and broken. His pain was terrible and his rage more so.
Bladders continued to fall. Mantas that had dumped theirs returned with their lightning. The wicker man extended his charm to include a pair of shamans. One struggled to lift the wicker man"s battered frame. The other found the tag ends of the Limper"s charm and began to weave it stronger.
The remnant of the wicker man waved a blackened arm.
A manta tumbled from the night, little lightning bolts popping and snapping around it.
The wicker man waved again.
Toadkiller Dog charged the temple. Most of the men followed. A quick, successful a.s.sault would mean shelter from the horror in the sky.
That horror pursued them. The air above the Limper had become too dangerous.
Fire bladders fell and blossomed orange, finishing the baggage and supplies. Safe now, the wicker man forgot the fires. He chained his anger. He returned to his interrupted task As Toadkiller Dog neared the monastery wall something reached out and flicked him away the way a man flicks a bug. Soldiers tumbled around him.
There would be no shelter from the devils in the sky.
Yet a few men did keep going, their progress unimpeded. Why?
The mantas came down on rippling wings. Toadkiller Dog hurled himself into the air. His jaws closed on dark flesh.
The wicker man murmured while the two shamans recovered something from the smoldering remains of a wagon. He beamed at them, oblivious to the surrounding holocaust.
The thing they brought him was an obsidian serpent, arrow-straight, ten feet long and six inches thick. The detail was astonishingly fine. Its ruby eyes blazed as they reflected the fires. The witch doctors staggered under its weight. One cursed the heat still trapped in it.
The wicker man smiled his terrible smile. He began singing a dark song in a breathless whisper.
The obsidian serpent began to change.
Life flowed through it. It twitched. Wings unfolded, long wings of darkness that cast shadows where no shadows should have been. Red eyes flared like windows suddenly opened on the hottest forges of h.e.l.l. Glossy talons, like obsidian knives, slashed at the air. A terrible screech ripped from a mouth filled with sharp, dark teeth. The thing"s breath glowed, faded. It began trying to break away, its gaze fixed on the nearest fire.
The wicker man nodded. The shamans released it. The thing flapped shadow wings and plunged into the fire. It wallowed like a hog in mud. The wicker man beamed approval. His lips kept forming words.
That fire faded, consumed.
The thing leaped to another. Then to another.
The wicker man indulged it for several minutes. Then the tenor of his whisper changed. It became demanding, commanding. The thing shrieked a protest. A fiery haze belched from its mouth. Still screaming, it rose into the night, following orders.
The wicker man turned his attention to the Temple of Traveler"s Repose. It was time to see by what sorcery the place kept itself inviolate.
The shamans took hold and carried him toward the temple wall.
XXVI.
Bomanz"s knuckles were white. They ached. He had a death grip on some windwhale organ. The monster had dropped low enough that the flash and fire and chaos down below gave him a clear perspective of just how far he was going to fall if he relaxed his grip for an instant. Silent and Darling were close by, watching. One false move and Silent would give him a kick in the b.u.t.t and a chance to see if he could fly.
It was testing time. The White Rose had orders to stop the old horror here, where there might be help from its victims. This time she had woven him into her plan.
In fact, he had the feeling he was the plan.
She had not explained anything. Maybe she was playing woman of mystery. Or maybe she really did not trust him.
He was in charge-till he did something unacceptable and bit a boot with his b.u.t.t on his way to doing a swan dive into h.e.l.l.
Menhirs seldom got any feeling into their speech. But the one that materialized behind his left shoulder managed sorrow as it reported, "He"s shielded himself. Neither fire nor lightning can reach him."
The surprise had seemed a wan hope, anyway, but a long shot worth trying. "And his followers?"
"Decimated again. The monster is unconquerable, though. He suffers, but pain just makes him angrier."
"He"s not invincible at all. As you will see if I get close to him."
Bomanz"s least favorite talking buzzard cackled wildly.
"You"re big-timer, eh? Ha! That thing is gonna squish you like a bug, Seth Chalk."
Bomanz turned away from the bird. His stomach flopped as he looked down again. The buzzard was determined to get his goat. He was amused by the bird"s optimism. He had learned self-control in a hard school. He had been married for thirty years.
"Isn"t it time you stones made your move?" He tried a disarming smile, a man with nothing on his mind but the issue at hand.
A little scheme had begun to fester in the back of his head. A way to put that snide vulture in his place.
The stone said, "Soon. What will you contribute to the farce?"
Before he could temporize the buzzard shrieked, "What the h.e.l.l is that?"
Bomanz whirled. That d.a.m.ned bird wasn"t scared of anything, but it was squeaky with fear now.
Vast dark wings spanned the night, masking the moon and stars. Fires animated wise and evil eyes. Another limned huge needle teeth. Those malignant eyes were fixed on those who rode the windwhale.
Silent made frantic warding signs that did no good.
Bomanz did not recognize the thing. It was nothing of the Domination, brought out of the Barrowland. He was an expert on those and believed he knew every rag and feather and bone that had gone into them. Neither was it something of the Lady"s empire or she would have made it her own thing during her heyday. So it had to be loot from one of the cities desolated since the Limper had come out of the empire.
Whatever its provenance, it was dangerous. Bomanz began putting himself into that trance from which it was easiest for him to meet a supernatural challenge.
As he opened himself to the energies of another level of reality, fear struck. "Get on to the next phase!" he shouted at the scarred menhir. "Now! Recall the mantas! Get everybody off this d.a.m.ned thing!"
Fire-edged wings beat the night. The red-eyed thing streaked toward the windwhale.
Bomanz used the strongest warding spell he knew.
The monster tortured the night with its shriek of pain. But it came on, its path deflected only slightly. The windwhale shuddered to its impact.
All across the windwhale"s back talking menhirs began vanishing, leaving baby thunderclaps.
The talking buzzard cursed like a stevedore and flailed at the air. Young mantas screeched in fear. The Torque brothers rushed Bomanz, shouting questions he did not understand. They were going to throw him off.
Darling stopped them with a gesture.
Below, the windwhale"s belly opened and gave birth to a boiling globule of fire. Heat rolled up its flanks. A huge shudder ran its length. Bomanz"s knuckles grew whiter. He wanted to move back but his hands had a will of their own and would not turn loose.
Another explosion tore the windwhale"s belly. The great sky beast dropped a short distance. Upset became panic. "We"re going down!" one of the Torques shouted in his barbaric eastern gabble. "Oh, G.o.ds, we"re going down!"
Darling caught Bomanz"s eye and in peremptory sign language ordered, "Do something!" She was not rattled.
Before he could respond the air filled with icy water spraying from organs on the leviathan"s back. Despite the departure of the menhirs the windwhale had begun to lose buoyancy. It was shedding ballast high, hoping that would dampen the fires.
The chill water helped stifle the panic.
Mantas began coming in out of the night, fluttering into the spray. The instant they came to rest their young scrambled onto their backs, followed by other Plains creatures. Once a manta had all the weight it could bear, it flopped to one of the slippery, downsloping launch slides that allowed them to hurtle into s.p.a.ce.
Another explosion shook the windwhale. It began a slow buckle in the middle.
Darling approached Bomanz. She looked like she would put him over the side personally if he did not start doing something more than gawk and shake.
How could she stay so d.a.m.ned calm? They were going to die in a few minutes.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on the author of the disaster. He tried to pump himself up.