A Triumph of Souls (20 page)

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. “Sandbars 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.

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?