Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (73 page)

 
          
Calandryll
looked to his companions. Bracht sat stonefaced, staring at the laughing hide
hunters; Katya's eyes were troubled above the veil of cloth; Tekkan clutched
his mug, grimly, his weather-beaten features stolid. Ek'Salar turned to face
them; sat down, smiling.

 
          
"You
see? And these men are no cowards—they face death when they hunt the dragons,
but they know better than to die in pursuit of a dream."

 
          
Calandryll
nodded reluctantly. "A boat then?" he asked. "Can we purchase a
boat?"

 
          
"You
intend still to continue?" The Kand was incredulous. "Without a
guide? After all you've heard?"

 
          
"We
have come too far to turn back now," Calandryll advised him. "Guide
or no, we shall go on."

 
          
Ek'Salar
reached forward, settling his good hand about Calandryll's wrist, the fingers
digging deep, as if with that pressure he sought to impress his warning, his
good eye fierce on Calandryll's face.

 
          
"Are
your wits lost, my friend? Are you gone so far into madness you cannot hear
what I tell you?"

 
          
Calandryll
fought the desire to turn his face from the man's sour breath. "I have my
wits," he said, "And I shall go on."

 
          
"You!"
Ek'Salar released his hold, head swinging to encompass Tekkan with his
distorted gaze. "You are older— and so, perhaps, wiser—do you support this
insanity?"

 
          
"I
do," said Tekkan solemnly.

 
          
The
Kand sighed noisily, looking to Bracht, seeing the impassive stare that met his
unspoken inquiry and turned to Katya.

 
          
"You
are, I think, a prize among women. Would you have that face eaten by worms?
Would you die between a dragon's jaws? Or find yourself the plaything of the
swamp folk?"

 
          
"None
of those," she answered, her voice even, her eyes steady on his face.
"But still we must go on."

 
          
"Burash!"
Ek'Salar raised his eyes to the rush matting of the roof. "Are you all
mad?"

 
          
"Will
you sell us a boat?" Calandryll pressed.

 
          
"If
I cannot dissuade you," the Kand shrugged, "then, yes. I will sell
you a boat and the supplies you will need. But later—tonight you dine with
me."

 
          
"You
are kind." Calandryll inclined his head politely. Ek'Salar chuckled,
shaking his, and said, "You shall at least go to your deaths with full
stomachs."

 
          
There
was more conversation then, and more of the bitter liquor pressed on them,
the hunters, their initial curiosity satisfied, clustering about the women with
rough compliments and crude invitations. Calandryll saw Bracht tense angrily as
several men gathered about Katya, and was pleased that the freesword held tight
rein on his temper as the woman adroitly fended the unwanted attention. Tekkan
negotiated a refurbishment of supplies and a refilling of his water casks, all
promised for the morrow, and in time ek'Salar announced that they should eat.

 
          
Calandryll
had anticipated dining where they sat, and did not much relish the prospect of
such fare as the inn would seem to offer, so he was pleasantly surprised when
ek'Salar rose, leading them from the place.

 
          
The
sun was almost set now, the swampland assuming a weird beauty as red-gold light
sparkled on the brackish water, the moss that festooned the mangroves like
golden filigree, the trees themselves burnished. Frogs croaked a chorus of
farewell and dragons bellowed far off as a flight of birds—or creatures akin to
birds—winged toward the refuge of the branches. The halflings gathered about
the inn parted silently, studying them with strange, expressionless faces that
seemed to Calandryll to hang on the very edges of humanity, some animalistic in
their deformity while others appeared merely malformed, their physiognomy
misplaced. Ek'Salar paid them no heed, no more than would a man walking among
cattle, as if they were beneath his consideration: merely present and expected
to remove themselves from his path.

 
          
He
brought his guests to a building on the very edge of the headland, set a little
apart from the rest, built all of wood, with some yellowish membrane stretched
over the windows in lieu of glass and a covered veranda along two sides. He
mounted the ladder, beckoning them on, and opened the door with a grandoise
flourish.

 
          
They
found themselves in a room large enough to accommodate the full party, the
walls hung with hides painted in approximation of the tiles favored in
Kandahar
, a long wooden table with ominously large
rib bones for legs at the center, chairs of bone and hide set down its length.
Girandoles of polished brass were mounted along the walls, set with tallow
candles whose flames were reflected in the mirrors, filling the chamber with
warm light. Ek'Salar suggested they refresh themselves, indicating a door
granting ingress to a bathing chamber, a well at its center.

 
          
"The
water is fresh," he assured them.

 
          
"You
live well," Calandryll complimented, glancing about the room.

 
          
The
Kand shrugged modestly. "I have done well here," he murmured,
"and these people regard me as their leader. They are simple folk for the
most part, who would be cheated by the merchants did I not negotiate on their
behalf."

 
          
He
clapped his hands and a halfling woman emerged from a door at the rear of the
room.

 
          
"Guests."
He enunciated each word carefully. "Food for all."

 
          
The
woman bowed, strands of pure white hair that seemed to move of their own accord
falling about her face, and disappeared. Ek'Salar opened a cabinet of some
reddish wood, decorated with ornate figures, and produced goblets of carved
bone, two flagons of wine. "Saved," he explained, "for some
suitable occasion. Such as the settling of a contract."

 
          
"We
would not rob you of your last wine," Calandryll protested. "And the
purchase of a boat seems hardly to merit your loss."

 
          
The
Kand smiled, filling goblets. "How many of you venture inland?" he
asked.

 
          
"We
three," Calandryll indicated himself, Katya, and Bracht, "and eight
archers. As many more are needed to handle the boat."

 
          
"A
single boat will carry no more than twelve," ek'Salar said, "and
should you purchase two, that leaves a goodly crew still on board your vessel.
Who commands there?"

 
          
"I
command," said Tekkan.

 
          
"And
you will wait for their return? For how long?"

 
          
Tekkan
shrugged.

 
          
"No
matter." Ek'Salar stroked his beard, his voice casual as he said,
"They will not come back and in time you will accept that and depart. If
the Tyrant seizes merchantmen in his war with the Fayne, few will venture
north—but you will be here. You can carry hides south. And while you wait for
them, we can amuse ourselves negotiating a price—let us drink a toast to
that."

 
          
"I
drink to their return," Tekkan said.

 
          
The
Kand shrugged and raised his goblet. "No matter—you will leam. The lesson
will be sad, but you will leam."

 
          
"To
a safe return," said Tekkan.

 
          
"To
profit for us all," said ek'Salar; and lower, "Who live."

 
          
The
toast was inauspicious and Calandryll said a silent prayer to Dera as he drank,
savoring the wine, for he thought it likely the last he would taste in some
time. It seemed ek'Salar took their deaths for granted and that set a gloomy
note until the halfling woman and two others appeared with laden platters and
the Kand bade them be seated and eat.

 
          
The
food, to his surprise, was good, ek'Salar explaining that the halflings
furnished the settlement with vegetables from the swamps and fish from the sea
in return for trade goods. The meat they ate, he told them, was dragon flesh,
the hunters' staple aiet, and that, Calandryll found, was palatable as good
beef. The Kand talked throughout the meal, clearly delighted by the change of
company, and while much of his conversation seemed designed to deter them, he
furnished them with knowledge of the forbidding territory they must soon enter.
It was alarming, his talk of burrowing worms and lethal insects, of the swamp
dragons and flesh-eating trees, no less so the changeling creatures of the deep
swamp, but he promised to furnish them with transport and gear suitable to
their venture, and the night was old before they left his home.

 
          
None
spoke much as they rowed out to the warboat, nor as they prepared to sleep.
There seemed little to say: they were committed.

 
          
Dawn
found them ready. They went ashore, greeted by ek'Salar, who brought them to
yet another building, where he kitted them with high boots of dragon hide—
waterproof and able to withstand the lesser creatures that inhabited the
swamps, he explained—and tunics of greenish fiber, loose woven and light, that
would, he said, resist the decay afflicting cotton and similar materials. He
sold them foodstuffs and waterbags; ointments to deter insects, and salves for
those undeterred; harpoons to use against the dragons. Then he brought them to
a jetty, where several boats were moored.

 
          
They
had decided to distribute their party over two boats. Calandryll, with Bracht
and Katya, in the first, accompanied by Quara and three of her archers, with
four of the sturdy Vanu oarsmen,- four archers and four oarsmen in the other,
which would bear the bulk of their supplies. The boats were wide-beamed and of
shallow draught, with low gunwales, more raft than dinghy and propelled with
long poles, but suited to the negotiation of lily meadows and reeds. Tekkan
examined them both, minutely, and declared himself satisfied: Calandryll gave ek'Salar
the price he asked and the Kand ordered a group of watching halflings to load
the craft.

 
          
The
strange creatures obeyed in silence, shuffling back and forth from the
storehouse to the jetty, four of them dropping into the water, impervious, it
seemed, to the swimming things there. With ek'Salar shouting instructions, they
loaded the boats and clambered back to dry land, standing indifferent to the
insects as they watched the Vanu folk descend.

 
          
Calandryll,
Bracht, and Katya stood with Tekkan and ek'Salar, anxious to be gone now.

 
          
"You
have farewells to say," the Kand declared, "and I shall leave you to
that. I wish you well."

 
          
He
bowed formally: a man convinced they went to their deaths, and walked to the
inn. Tekkan sighed, looking them each in the eye, his face graye.

 
          
"May
your gods be with you," he said, his voice husky. "Find the Arcanum
and bring it out. I await you here."

 
          
He
took Calandryll's hand, and then Bracht's; Katya he embraced, murmuring
something in their own language too soft to hear. Katya nodded and went swiftly
to the ladder. Bracht followed on her heels. Calandryll moved after, then
halted as a hand touched tentatively at his sleeve. He turned to find a
halfling standing close, a hairless man with yellow eyes set too wide apart,
and overhung with a ridge of bone, his nostrils flared and flat, the mouth a
lipless slit tugged down by the near-absence of a chin. Calandryll thought
instinctively of a fish, and indeed there was a hint of scales on the pale
green skin, and the fingers that touched his sleeve were joined by webbing,
tipped with sharp, curved nails, like claws. The creature— it was difficult to
think of him as a man—wore a loose tunic of the woven fiber, sleeveless,
exposing powerful arms, kilted with a belt of rope, the legs muscular. He let
go Calandryll's sleeve as though afraid of reprimand, but his strange eyes
remained fixed on Calandryll's face, intense.