Etherwalker (6 page)

They are armored, but move quickly. Six seconds until they regain footing
.

Distract. Divide. Defeat.

Thin muscles rippled with a taut accuracy as the sling hummed through the air once, twice, in two fluid arcs. The hounds crumpled to the ground, each bleeding from a small dent in the middle of its head.

Enoch dropped and rolled to his right as a spear whistled over his shoulder. One of the raiders was up, an oily silhouette in the shadows of the forest.

They move like insects. Adjust timing patterns.

Still moving, Enoch found himself in front of a large fern bush. The other two coldmen had regained their feet now, and they circled around each side of the bush while the spear wielder collected his weapon and stalked closer.

Enoch stood and slipped another stone into the sling. The spear wielder stopped, tilting its head in a monstrous parody of amusement. It lowered the spear to the level of Enoch’s gut and took a step forward. Out of the corner of his eye, Enoch could see the raider to his right raise its axe. This was going to happen fast. Spinning around, Enoch found himself trapped by a third—it raised a strange, tube-like device to its shoulder.

The unexpected route.

Instead of dodging, Enoch leapt forwards towards the spear. Too late to raise its point, the spear wielder had only time to see the boy run
up the grounded shaft
and deliver a sharp kick to its head. Moments too late, the axe slammed down on the spear shaft, snapping it in two as a loud blast of fire erupted from the third creature’s weapon. The metal tube spat a swarm of molten steel balls and electricity that stripped the bush of leaves and ripped an arm from the axe wielder. With frustrated clicks, the grounded spear wielder struggled to stand, but the death throes of his bleeding companion knocked him back.

Enoch ran, the calm of
pensa spada
leaving him as worry for Master Gershom welled up in his throat. The sounds of battle had ceased, and only the thrashing of the wounded creature behind him was audible.

The monsters won’t find us so quickly without their hounds.

His head buzzed with these thoughts as he stumbled into the clearing, nearly falling over the twitching corpse of a disemboweled coldman. He cast his eyes around the scattered bodies, all glistening black wetness in the moonlight.

“Enoch—”

Master Gershom lay on his side, a thick spear shaft passing through the muscled flesh of his inner thigh. His clothing was torn, and Enoch could see countless smaller cuts through the tatters.

“Master!”

“Don’t fret, boy. This is not all my blood. The spear is the only serious wound of the bunch. A good warrior protects his vitals. Remember that.”

Master Gershom winced as Enoch tried to staunch the flow of blood at his leg with a handful of leaves.

“Quite a skirmish, eh? I’ve been in plenty of battles but never at five-to-one odds. And every one of them more skilled than the other, why that last beast with the spear, I only barely—boy, those leaves will do no good. Go tear some cloth from the sack over there under the tree. That ought to do it.”

Enoch stumbled over to the sack, his face a mask of misery.

I might as well have thrown that spear myself. Leaving him to fight alone and outnumbered. Coward! Coward!

The now silent woods echoed back his shame and rage. Master Gershom read the boy’s thoughts as he returned with the bandage.

“Not your fault, Enoch. There are forces bigger than the two of us, stronger than the Edrei themselves. We cannot blame ourselves when destiny turns sour. That’s right—not too tight now.”

He grimaced as Enoch wrapped the tattered cloth around his wound. Blood soaked through the bandage and ran down Enoch’s arms.

“No . . . no . . . I can’t stop the blood! I need some more . . .”

Master Gershom pulled the boy’s hands away from the mess and held them up to the moonlight. He looked intently into Enoch’s eyes. He knew. They both did.

Master Gershom’s eyes turned to his charge’s hands, and then widened with surprise. He gave a shallow laugh and shook his head.

“These . . . these scars on your wrists, Enoch.”

Enoch looked down at his hands. The serpentine scar which spiraled from the base of his left hand almost to the elbow caught the moonlight, seeming to ripple as he watched. On his right hand, the scar resembled an inverted wave, two arcs cresting at his knuckles and coming to a point at the back of his wrist. His master’s laugh turned into a wet cough.

“I’m such a fool. How did I miss these? You have been marked, Enoch. Only a rare few of the Pensanden ever received the marks. They are gifts to you, boy—gifts and an ancient lesson.” Master Gershom’s hands, perpetual sources of strength and comfort, now shook as they traced the pale tracks on his charge’s arms.

“The Serpent and the Hawk,” murmured Master Gershom, his voice growing steadily weaker. “The two forms which destiny takes, avatars of fear and hope.”

He pulled Enoch closer, his voice a whisper. His eyes were closed.

“Feather and Scale.”

Master Gershom reached into his bloody tunic and pulled out the silvery memory spool he had taken from the Unit.

“Take this, boy. Take it and go north. Go to Tenocht. There are those who will hide you there. Show them this. Take my . . . my swords. Speak to no one. Hide your marks.”

Two coldmen crashed through the underbrush into the clearing. One held an axe, the other a smoking metal tube.

“Run, Enoch, run!”

“No, Master. I won’t leave you!”

“Fool, boy! Leave me and run! These are coldmen, bred to kill your kind!”

The creature has now raised its weapon to its shoulder. Enoch
paused.

There!

There were the lines of force, the motes of energy. He felt the hammer pivot back, the charge building power, the trigger slowly pulled . . .

“No.”

With a blasting roar, the tube exploded on itself, filling the air with white-hot metal, smoke, and steaming pieces of flesh. The first creature spun to see the mangled torso of its companion fall to the ground, and then turned and charged, axe raised murderously high above its head. It erupted from the smoke like a demon, orange eyes hot blisters of rage.

Enoch struggled to his feet, pulling his master’s curved blade from the ground. The monster was almost upon them, axe thundering through the air. Grinding his teeth, fatigued muscles screaming in protest, Enoch gripped the weapon and swung.

The axe spun end over end and thunked into a tree twelve feet away—two segmented hands still wrapped tightly around the haft. The coldman had time to lift the bleeding stumps up to its uncomprehending eyes before Enoch’s second stroke took him in the gut.

Exhausted, Enoch dropped the sword to the ground and fell to his knees. The sky beyond the mountains diffused into gray-blue as the dark liquid of night bled away into the west.

Chapter 4

“And was not this their greatest folly? For they lay with that which was of metal in a corrupted union, trading their souls for empty immortality, a life without life.”

—Abuk 4:15, The Book of Sins

From his stony niche, Rictus watched the thieves return from their raid on the caravan. Apparently it hadn’t gone well—two of them wore bloody bindings and all wore scowls. Some slunk off to their bedrolls while others gathered around the fire, grunting and cursing as they sat on the pitted headstones. Night had fallen, and a cold wind whistled through the ruins, causing a few of the rough men to shiver with more than just the chill. One of the men produced a wineskin from somewhere under his cloak and passed it around. As a gust of wind fanned the flames, they began to speak of the failed raid.

“Kingsmen! A damned caravan of the king’s own trained dogs and two of them on murback to boot—was a damned fool idea to jump that ship, I tell you.”

“Who scouted it, anyhow?”

“Gil!” came several replies. “Gil spied ‘em.”

The accused man protested. “How was I to know that they was Kingsmen? They wasn’t wearin’ no livery and the murs looked rangy enough!”

“Anyone catch a look at what was under the rag?”

“Nah—those kingboys kept us from gettin’ in close, as Scrape will tell.” One of the wounded men nodded his head and cursed.

“Looked like a cage to me.”

“Yeah—a damned cage. That’s what it was. Probably one of His Majesty’s new pets—perhaps we didn’t want to open the damned thing anyways.”

The conversation soon simmered down into drunken threats, mumbled vagaries, and tired boasting of the day’s exploits.

Rictus stifled a yawn, more a force of habit than a biological urge, and crawled back into his tomb. He wrestled with the idea of moving on and letting the highwaymen have their fill of this lonely place, but then he remembered why he was here and what was chasing him.

Room enough for everyone, I guess. Just as long as they help out with the rent.

*  *  *  *

Enoch awoke to the smell of wet earth and leaves. He rolled his aching body from a cocoon of forest debris and felt the first cold drops of rain, signaling an early morning storm. It had been raining periodically for the last couple . . . what? Days? Weeks? Enoch had lost track a long time ago. He rolled back under the low branches of the blue pine, trying to ignore the hunger gnawing at his stomach.

He tried to escape into the numbing world of sleep. Sleep did not come—only the nightmares that stirred his mind like a flock of noisy birds.

Enoch couldn’t clear his thoughts. He saw Master Gershom’s face growing pale and cold as the last few drops of blood crawled from his wounds. He felt the forest, weeping and quiet.

He shivered.

Those monsters—those
coldmen—
laughing with their rattle voices.

Eyes closed, Enoch saw the shallow grave he’d carved from the muddy forest floor. Levi Gershom now rested between the roots of the very tree which had sheltered his cowardly charge. Such a pitiful monument.

Thunder boomed from the heavy clouds, pounding across the dark sky and seeming to shake the heavens. Underneath the dripping boughs of a scrawny tree, Enoch’s hands slowly curled into fists. He struck the ground once, twice. His frustration was lost in the storm.

Hours later, the rain had turned into a wet haze, which hung motionless in the dreary air. Enoch crawled from underneath the boughs and stood for a moment, swaying on his feet, as if waiting for some errant breeze to pull him along. Mud streaked his bare arms, and his light summer trousers were torn and spotted with dead leaves. Master Gershom’s leather boots were strapped tightly around Enoch’s feet with leather bindings, long strips cut from the soldier’s belt to make sure that the durable footwear wouldn’t chafe in the journey ahead.

He rubbed at his swollen eyes and walked around the tree to where he had stashed his master’s swords. The Unit disc hung from a cord at his neck, and it jounced against his chest as he walked. Brushing aside a mound of leaves, his fingers trembled for a moment and then grasped firmly onto the dry, worn leather scabbards. He strapped them around his shoulder and hip with the ease of familiarity and began to walk.

North. Master Gershom said I should go north. To Tenocht.

His legs moved in a slow rhythm through the undergrowth, only losing syncopation to jump over a fallen log or sidestep a game trail. The
litania eteria
spilled silently from his cracked lips over and over as he waded through the morning mist. After a few hours of walking, the forest began to thin, and Enoch found it exhausting to keep up the stealthy tree-to-tree path he had been following. With every snap of a twig he imagined a horde of clicking coldmen descending on him from behind, but in the end he decided that if they were still on his scent after all the rain, then he would be caught soon enough anyway.

With a sigh of resolution, he stepped from the wet shade of the trees and onto the dirt road which he had been paralleling for hours. To the south, the road disappeared into the gloomy maw of the woods. Straining his eyes to the north, Enoch could see where the woods finally gave way. The land sloped steadily downwards from the green-laced feet of the snowcapped mountains to a broad plain. Large boulders were scattered across the flat expanse like grain tossed for enormous hens, and Enoch could barely make out what seemed to be a river transecting the plain from east to west.

He stood in wonder, almost in confusion. Never in his life had he seen so much flat, treeless land. Fifty shepherds could lose themselves for years in such a place, flocks and all. Enoch experienced a tiny thrill of discovery at the sight, a welcome feeling after so much numbness.

The
pensa spada
may have kept the grief at bay, but the resulting void had soaked through his entire being. Now Enoch experienced a detached hunger for feeling—
any
feeling that could make him less empty. That this tiny ray of sensation had been able to pierce the cloud which surrounded him gave Enoch hope. Holding tightly to that mote with whatever strength he had left, Enoch took a timid step. Then another. With growing confidence, he walked down the road, dark eyes quick and wary of this strange new world.

As the midday sun burnt through the gray thatching of clouds, Enoch began to realize that the distant plain was much further away than it seemed. He walked for several hours, occasionally stopping to drink from the common
flortasse
blossoms. The drip, drip of rainwater from the surrounding trees grew fainter, eventually replaced by the singing of morning birds as they fluttered overhead looking for food.

Stomach growling in response, Enoch pulled the sling from his vest and decided that if he wasn’t going to die any time soon, he might as well find something to eat. He was just stepping from the road when he heard voices coming around the bend behind him.

Images of coldmen fresh in his mind, he dove into the nearest thicket just as the party came into view. He landed with the hilt of the short sword digging into his shoulder, but he held in the gasp of pain. Wet foliage dripped icy rivulets of water down his back, and Enoch shivered. Peering between the leaves, he could spy on the group without being seen. They were human, he noticed with a sigh of relief, but something about them stopped him short.

Two of the men rode mangy muridons. Enoch remembered having seen a muridon years ago belonging to a dye merchant on his way through Rewn’s Fork. At first he had thought it a gigantic nerwolf, for indeed the creature shared the same black eyes, chisel teeth, and naked, scaly tail as its feral cousin. But the muridon was a taller, more muscular breed that had been tamed for riding. The two in this caravan were larger than the one Enoch remembered, and their coats were patchy and crusted with mud. Their riders were no cleaner. They clutched at notched swords and squinted dark eyes as they scanned the road ahead.

Enoch pulled back into the deep shadow of the underbrush as they passed, cringing as another barrage of chill droplets wound down his back.

Some of the other men in the party wore chains around their necks and wrists. They were pulling some sort of wagon. In contrast to the riders, these men held no savagery in their eyes. They smelled of filth and sweat, and the tattered clothes which stuck to their damp forms could not hide the myriad scars underneath. Enoch blinked at the chains. He had never seen slaves before.

The wagon turned out to be a sturdy wheeled cage that dug trenches into the muddy trail as it rolled past. There was a canvas tarp tied over the top of it, but from his low vantage point, Enoch could see upwards into the shadowy recess. A large shape, gray among the shadows, was huddled in one corner. As Enoch watched, two fiery yellow eyes blazed out of the darkness, staring directly into his. Stifling a yell, he pulled farther back into the bush, praying that the mounted soldiers hadn’t heard him. After a few endless seconds, the party had moved on, leaving nothing but two wide slashes in the mud, stippled with footprints and a waning stink of unwashed men.

Enoch waited for a couple of minutes to be sure that they were gone, and then stepped out onto the road again.

What was that thing in the cage?

He shivered, then shook off the chill and began walking again. He had read tales of the great heroes before the Schism and knew the journeys of Medrano, Galicia, and Armstrong by heart. Their trials had always seemed so much . . . brighter.

Is this what adventure is like? Fear and wet feet and unanswered questions?

It wasn’t until the sun was fully overhead that his grumbling stomach reminded him that it still had to be attended to. After a few minutes of searching, Enoch discovered some straggly cress plants growing just off to the side of the road, and the hoarse calls of a red jay led him to a nest of speckled eggs which, while raw, seemed to taste better than anything he had ever eaten. He chewed on the cress as he walked, curious about what lay ahead.

By evening, the trail had emerged completely from the woods and now followed a fairly straight course through the boulder-strewn steppe. A fiery sunset painted everything with molten hues, and long shadows stretched out from the gigantic rocks strewn across the landscape. Enoch shivered as he walked through the dark lee of one such monolith. Night would come soon, he realized, and he would have little protection here.

He began to search for some sort of shelter as the shadows grew longer across the plain. Enoch knew how to make a shelter in the forest—every shepherd boy learned how to build a lean-to after being caught in a few rainstorms while herding the flock. But out here it was different. There were no trees. No branches. No . . . no shelter at all.

But plenty of wind.

Just as Enoch had decided to curl up under the dubious protection of one of the giant boulders, he saw a flicker of firelight in the darkness. Walking towards the distant mote of orange, he could just make out the silhouette of some large structures.
A town!
He hurried toward the light, visions of warm food and shelter filling his head. Towns were safe—at least safer than the open wild.

The lookouts spotted him easily, for Enoch took no care for stealth as he scrambled up the crumbling stone ramparts. Too late, he saw that this was no town. It was a graveyard.

A bearded man stepped from the shadows and seized him roughly by the arm. Before Enoch could speak, the rogue struck him across the face with the back of his hand. Staggering under the blow, he felt his swords torn savagely from their straps, and a sharp kick in the back of the knees brought him to the floor with a painful crack. Wordlessly, the man lifted Enoch under one arm and began walking toward the fire.

Enoch’s head spun, and his entire body was numb from the blow he’d received. It was all he could do to keep from blacking out. Through tear-blurred eyes, he could see that the fire was closer, and he could just make out several forms seated around it. One of them called out.

“By the Snake’s tail, looks like Grunty’s caught us dinner!”

This was followed by laughter; the rough, dangerous tones made Enoch shiver. His captor ignored their words as he marched past the fire toward a building just beyond the light. It appeared to have once been a stone temple of some sort, but time and the ravages of nature had reduced it to an irregular stack of mold-skinned pillars.

Through the worn cloth curtain which hung from the lintel, Enoch could just make out the sputtering light of an oil lamp. Voices came from inside—two people were engaged in an argument. One of the voices was angry and stained with potential violence, while the other . . . the other raised the hair on Enoch’s neck.

That other voice had the sound of ice, free of any warmth or natural human inflection. It rose and fell with a liquid sharpness; the sound of a razor sliding through silk, a venomous frost snake tracing lines over new-fallen snow. Enoch did not want to know where that voice came from.

His captor pushed the veil aside and brought him into the temple. A man and a woman looked up from where they were seated. Their chairs were pushed up against a cracked alter which had been converted into a table, a gray hart skin spread over the top with a tarnished copper lamp as the centerpiece. The lamplight formed garish shadows among the pillars, and the features of the two thieves were sharply highlighted as Enoch’s eyes adjusted to the light.