Doom's Break (24 page)

In the dimness he could just make out the legs and torso of another mot lying beside him. He leaned closer. It was Iallia.

His nearness awoke her.

"Thru?"

Her eyes gleamed, a sign of life in this strange netherplace.

"Are we dead? Is this the afterlife?"

Thru considered the question. Could it be? Could this be the realm of the dead? The Assenzi said that after death one's spirit returned to the Great Spirit that breathed throughout the world, but perhaps they were wrong.

Then he laughed. The sound seemed strangely loud and yet hushed by the soft down that they lay upon. The source of the slightly sweet, almost nutty smell had come back to him at last.

"No, we're not dead. We're in a chook nest."

Iallia's eyes blinked, an effect that was almost comical in those conditions. "Chooks? But how? We're miles from any village."

Thru had no idea, but he squeezed past her and crawled across the floor of the nest until he found an opening to the outside world. There was dim light, filtered by the enormous mass of twigs set atop the nest. He found an opening and wormed his way upward until he could get his head out into the open air, at once colder and filled with evening light.

It was just as he'd thought. They were in a wild chook nest, built in the low fork of a big oak tree about six feet from the ground. The nest was a huge mass of branches and twigs, woven together into an immense basket and lined with dry leaves and chook down for warmth.

After examining his side as best he could and determining that he had no broken bones, Thru clambered out of the nest and stood on the low branch that it rested on. He noted that, placed as it was, the nest was relatively safe from wolves, who would have a hard time scrambling up to get to the lower branches. Long before wolves could do that, the wily chooks would have scrambled higher, out of reach.

Before him was a narrow glade set among oaks of magnificent girth. He saw no sign of the builders of the nest but plenty of evidence of their coming and going. The ground was heavily marked by their tracks.

Iallia popped her head out of the top of the nest.

"Where are they?"

"Good question. There must be several of them living here, judging by the tracks they've left."

"Not to mention moving us here from the river."

Thru shook his head slowly in wonderment. Chooks had no arms, no hands to grasp with, but they did have strong beaks and neck muscles.

"It must have been quite a job."

"And what about the others?"

Only then did Thru realize that he and Iallia were alone.

"I don't know."

"And where are our clothes?" said Iallia, who clearly didn't relish emerging naked from the nest.

Before Thru could answer, he heard a sudden disturbance in the undergrowth close by. He whirled around, prepared to defend himself. However, nothing more threatening than a pair of big yellow chooks emerged from the brush.

"Hello!" they chorused in cheerful chook voices. "We are Chenk and Mukka, and there are also Pikka and Dunni, but they are behind, bringing food."

The big birds came bouncing forward to stand on either side of Thru. They examined him with their big, black eyes.

"You will be wanting your clothes, we know. But they are still drying out. You were very wet when we found you."

"We give thanks that you did, friends. I am Thru, this is Iallia, and we are from the coast. But tell me, did you see any others? There were more of us."

The chooks exchanged looks and bobbed their heads several times in unison, a sure sign that they were uncomfortable. "Yes, we found others. All dead. We have been burying them. Would you like to see?"

Thru closed his eyes. His attempt to rescue the old mots and mors had failed.

"Yes. I am sorry for that news."

"You fell from the top of the mountain, very far, too far for them, almost too far for you."

"Yes, we fled from the pyluk. There are many pyluk up there."

The chooks stared at them with big eyes. "Will they come down here?"

"Soon, I think they will. It would be best if we were all a long way from here by then."

"Can you travel?"

Thru hesitated. He could feel bruises and soreness all down one side, probably from the impact with the water. "I think so. We don't have much choice in the matter, not if we want to live."

The two chooks looked at each other again and bobbed their heads.

"If pyluk come here, we cannot stay."

"True. We must all go down the valley. You will not be safe here."

"We came here when everyone fled from our village, Chumsley."

Two other chooks emerged from the woods, each bearing strings of berries in their beaks.

"Look, here are Dunni and Pikka, with vine berries for you."

Pausing only to eat some of the berries, which were very red and sweet, Thru accompanied Chenk and Mukka down the path to another clearing where the chooks had laboriously scraped shallow graves and placed the bodies therein.

Thru knelt beside the graves and offered up a prayer for the oldsters who had been torn from their lives, driven into flight, and then caught up in the nightmare of capture by men and abduction into these mountains.

When he was finished, Chenk and Mukka reappeared, carrying Thru's and Iallia's clothing. "They are almost dry. The coat is still damp, but it is close enough."

"Thank you, friends. You have saved our lives, and in so doing you have helped to save the Land, because I have very important information that must be brought to General Toshak."

The chooks, already solemn in the light of all that had happened, grew round-eyed at these words. "We hear you, and we are ready to do our part."

"Yes," chimed in Mukka, "you have big information. We help."

Thru put his clothes back on, thankful that his boots were still wearable. "You must help, friends. And in case something happens to me, you must go to the general yourself."

Chenk and Mukka blinked. "But we are only chooks!" they said in unison.

"Chooks are people, too."

"But the general is a mighty person. He will not have time to listen to a couple of chooks," protested Chenk.

"Not so, my friends, not when you tell them you have a message from Thru Gillo."

"What is the message, Thru Gillo?"

"You must tell them that the enemy is raising an army of pyluk. They will come down the valley with thousands of pyluk warriors, and we must be prepared."

At these fell words, the chooks gobbled and ducked their heads.

"We will stay in your nest tonight, and tomorrow we must all head downstream as fast as we can go. The fate of the Land depends on us."

"Sergeant Rukkh, come in, stand easy. Take a cup of tea?"

Rukkh entered the Emperor's tent with not a little awe. He had served this man all his adult life, but he had never met him like this, nor expected to.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Good. Make yourself comfortable. We have a couple of minutes."

The Emperor took up a dull metal teapot and a tin mug and poured the tea with remarkable gusto, keeping the pot at least two feet from the mug. Rukkh observed that not a drop was spilled.

"Look, I'll get to the point. You're a good man, Sergeant, been in the army most of your life, been with this colony army since its inception. You have plenty of experience."

Rukkh sipped the tea, unsure whether he was supposed to say anything or not. He was awed that the Emperor knew anything about him at all. Rukkh had always thought of himself as just another grunt in the army of Shasht.

"So, what I want from you, Sergeant, is information. You know how the men are thinking, and maybe even why they're thinking it. I want to know all that, too, understand?"

Rukkh took a breath. This was beyond anything he had imagined. The Emperor wanted his services. He nodded. "Yes, Lord."

"Good. See, I know we're in for a difficult time here. Only a short time ago we were fighting these people, what you were calling monkeys until very recently. Well, I know you're still calling them monkeys."

The Emperor had a conspiratorial smile on his face.

"I know how soldiers think. I rose from the ranks, Sergeant, never forget that."

"Yes, Lord."

"So I know where the salt is kept hidden, understand? But now we have made common cause with the monkeys. They aren't our enemy anymore. We're allies against our real enemy who sits in that fleet offshore and threatens us all with annihilation."

"Yes, Lord."

"So we have to cooperate with our former enemies, and I know that there are many men who still bear a grudge. We've all lost good friends here, and that can leave hard feelings."

Rukkh nodded. He'd heard plenty of harsh words about the monkeys from the men during the voyage north, and now that they were actually camped on the old battleground where so many had fallen in the first summer of the war, fresh veins of bitterness had opened.

"But that has to change. We have to fight alongside these people now. Our real enemy is too powerful for us to do the job on our own. We need the monkeys now, understood?"

"Yes, Lord, I think so. But, if I may be so bold, I would like to ask something."

"Go ahead, Sergeant. When you meet with me like this, you can say anything." Aeswiren let a grim little smile flicker across his face. "Well, almost."

Rukkh grinned. The Emperor was a soldier first and foremost, and he had long since earned the respect and love of his troops. Meeting him like this, Rukkh could see why.

"Well, Your Majesty, this enemy, out there on the ships, who is he exactly? We have been told some things, but there is still confusion. Who is this enemy?"

Aeswiren tented his fingers together and touched them to his lower lip as he considered the question.

"He is a sorcerer, Rukkh, an evil thing that has lived far beyond his time. It has been hidden behind the priesthood, and so it was invisible to the common people. It created the hierarchy of Red Tops and Gold Tops. It used them to rule us, while all the time hiding in the darkness, sucking our blood."

Rukkh heard the barely repressed fury in the Emperor's words.

"How could this enemy have hidden itself for so long?"

"Because it ruled by murder and intimidation. Only Emperors were made privy to the secret. Each Emperor was confronted with the knowledge that if he moved against this thing, it would kill him. When I refused to obey its wishes, it tried to have me killed. It unleashed the priests against me and fomented treachery among my own forces. That is why I am here."

Rukkh swallowed. These were weighty matters for a sergeant in the Blitz Regiment. "And why has this thing come here?"

"To kill me, to annihilate the native people here, both of which it sees as threats to itself."

"It is a sorcerer? You have seen it?"

"I have met it many times. It is ancient, and it despises all men. To it we are little more than ants. It has forced the men of Shasht into lives of misery for uncounted generations, and it could not care less. If we can kill it, then our descendants will have far better lives than we."

"Well, Lord, I will do everything in my power to help you."

"Good. I knew I could depend on you, Sergeant. This is how we will work together. I will send for you every other day or so. It will be nothing more than one of my men giving you a look or a tap on the shoulder. I don't want everyone knowing what you're up to or you'll be isolated in no time. When you get the nod, then I want to see you within the hour. Just find a way to reach me. My guards will recognize you. Be discreet, though, and whatever you do, don't tell anyone about this meeting."

"Yes, Lord."

"And now, tell me, honestly, how do the men see the situation?"

"Well, Lord, it's like this: We fought the bloody monkeys for years. We beat them sometimes, and they beat us sometimes. We've lost a lot of good friends here, buried a lot of good men."

Rukkh felt strong emotions rising in his chest.

"Right here on these sand dunes, Lord, we fought a hell of a battle. Lost a lot of good men. We all remember it well. And now we're going to fight alongside them. So we all feel a bit confused. But we don't look on them like we did years ago. We've had to respect them, 'cuz they are brave little fuckers. They fight hard. And they're hard to kill. When we first fought them, we always killed three of them for each of ours, but by the end of the war it was more like one of ours for one of theirs."

Aeswiren was listening carefully. "They learned to fight."

"That they did, Lord. And we have to respect them for it. But there are still some of us who hate them. It's hard to forget all that's gone before."

"I know."

"But more than that, we all want to get this over with and go home. The men are ready to fight, and they're ready to fight for you. We all believe that you're the real Emperor and that you're going to get rid of the priests, and we all want that."

"How do they feel about the colony here?"

Rukkh made a dismissive gesture. "Nobody wants to stay here. Well, maybe there's a few, but nearly everyone wants to get home where we belong. Kill the sodomistic priests and start new lives outside the army."

"Good, because we'll all be going home when this is done. I expect we'll have to knock a few more heads back home before it's all really over and done with, but in a year or two I expect most of the men will get their discharge. I plan to force through a land redistribution program and give every veteran thirty acres."

Rukkh whistled. "The men will fight through hellfire for that, Lord."

Aeswiren grinned. "I don't expect it'll be quite that bad, but we're likely to have a scrap before this is done. You'll all get the chance to wet your blades."

As the sergeant was leaving, slipping out of the back entrance of the Emperor's tent, he came face to face with a slim figure, a woman, but without the head covering of purdah. The next moment recognition bloomed in his mind. It was Simona of the Gsekk.

Her family had haughtily refused Rukkh's overtures, and then he had seen her one day, dressed in this open style, with no covering, nothing demure about her whatsoever, and he had felt hatred for her.