Faces of Deception (13 page)

The other two riders continued forward, wading through water up to their chests. Rishi kept his face buried and screamed as though Atreus had struck his leg instead of the lance. Naraka began to work his way back through the willows, barking orders and pulling along the rider with the smashed nose. Atreus grabbed the lead of Rishi’s yak and turned away from shore.

“You cannot do this!” Rishi yelled. The water was already lapping at his thighs. “The river-men will kill us.”

“So will Naraka,” Atreus said, nodding back toward the willows where the patrol’s survivors were gathering their ponies. “And if they don’t, the cold will. We can’t let these boats past.”

Rishi raised his voice to protest but lost his breath to the cold when the yaks stepped into deep water and began to swim. Atreus’s muscles stiffened, and the strength began to seep from his body. He glanced back and saw Naraka leading four riders into the river. The one who had lost his hand to Atreus was in no condition to fight, but the fellow with the smashed nose had found the strength to continue, and of course Naraka would not stop until he was dead.

The guards on the slave boats began to call back and forth, and the dugouts started to angle toward Atreus and Rishi.

“You see? Does that look like they mean to kill us?”

When Rishi did not make the expected disparaging reply, Atreus glanced back and saw the Mar’s poor yak swimming along with little more than its nose above water. Even that slipped beneath the surface sporadically, only to pop back up spewing water and mucus.

“Rishi, what’s wrong with you?”

“Me? It is my yak that is too dumb to swim.”

“It’s not dumb, it’s drowning!” Atreus said. Behind Rishi, Naraka and his men were swimming along beside their ponies, holding their saddle horns and coming up fast. “Cut the gold free!”

Rishi looked as though Atreus had uttered a sacrilege. “You would sacrifice all this gold to spare a yak?”

“If you lose the yak, you lose the gold.”

Atreus pulled hard on the beast’s lead, drawing it alongside his own. The poor creature’s eyes were as big as saucers, and it was breathing so hard that it sprayed his face with water. Behind the yak, Naraka and his men had closed to within five paces of its tail. Atreus plunged a hand into the icy water and managed to locate the rucksack, then slipped his sword under the cargo rope and began to saw.

“No! You are mistaken in this,” Rishi begged, clutching Atreus by the elbow, but the Mar’s grasp was too weak to pull his arm away. “I am as heavy as the gold. If I swim—”

“You float. Gold doesn’t.”

Atreus’s blade bit through the rope, and the rucksack slipped into the muddy depths. The yak’s head bobbed out of the water at once, but its neck and shoulders remained submerged. It was breathing harder than ever. Atreus slipped his sword under the coffer’s rope, but Rishi leaned down and clutched the chest in his arms.

“The yak can carry this much!”

Atreus’s yak gave a sudden jerk, and he looked back to see one of Naraka’s men holding its tail. Two more riders were coming up behind Rishi. Atreus cut the rope. When Rishi continued to hold the coffer, he slammed the Mar in the shoulder and shoved him off the struggling yak.

“Forget the gold! Fight!”

The Mar vanished under the waves, still clutching the heavy coffer to his chest. Atreus spun on his mount’s back, drawing his sword tip across the faces of two men behind him. They screamed and clutched at their wounds, and the current carried them off.

Rishi surfaced behind a third rider, taking him completely by surprise and planting a dagger in his ribs. The man shrieked and began to flail about in anguish. Rishi shoved the fellow’s head underwater, then grabbed hold of his pony’s saddle.

A deep, unearthly voice rasped across the water. Atreus glanced upstream to see a huge, barge-like boat coming around the bend. Twice as wide as the dugouts, it had a flat profile packed with slaves, a square bow manned by four guards, and a double set of oars being worked by two rowers. On the stern, a gaunt manlike figure with sloping shoulders and a pointy head stood in front of a crude cabin watching the battle.

That was all Atreus could see before a fourth rider splashed up behind Rishi, his sword scribing an arc toward the Mar’s head. Rishi rolled into the assault, leaving the blow to slice harmlessly into the river, and dived. The rider began to slash madly at the water, cried out, and sank from sight.

Naraka swam up alongside Atreus, dagger flashing in one hand and sword flailing in the other. Atreus rolled off the far side of his mount and let his sword sink into the river, pulling himself under the beast’s shaggy belly. He could see Naraka’s legs in front of him, kicking madly as the patrol leader pulled himself onto the yak’s back. One foot nearly caught Atreus in the head. He ducked out of the way, then kicked hard and came up behind his foe.

Naraka realized his mistake as soon as he heard Atreus’s head break the surface. He pushed off the yak, turning to face his attacker. Atreus cupped both hands and slapped the patrol leader’s ears. Naraka’s eyes lit with pain. He began to sink, too dazed to keep himself afloat. Atreus caught him by the arm and knocked the dagger loose, and by then Naraka had recovered enough to raise his sword.

Atreus knuckle-punched him in the throat, but even that did not stop the determined patrol leader. The sword flashed down. Atreus shoved a hand up and caught hold of the wrist. In the next instant, the fingers of Naraka’s other hand were ripping at his waist, gouging into his wound and tearing at the flap of loose skin. Atreus screamed and felt his chest fill with cold water, and he began to sink.

He reached up and caught Naraka by the throat, trying desperately to crush his attacker’s windpipe, but the cold water had sapped his strength. It was all he could do to keep squeezing. Naraka tried to jerk his sword arm free, but the patrol leader was growing weak too. He followed Atreus beneath the surface, and they hung in the icy current for a long time, clutching and tearing at each other with cold-numbed fingers.

Something crackled in Naraka’s throat. His eyes bulged, and a filmy white bubble slipped from his lips. The sword tumbled from his hand, but Atreus continued to squeeze, even after he saw water fill the dead man’s open throat. He wanted to shake the patrol leader alive, to rebuke him for the prejudice and ignorance that had made them enemies in the first place. Of course, Naraka would not have listened. He was too good a soldier; he did as his queen commanded, whether that meant hunting down innocuous explorers or hurling himself into battle against ghastly devils.

Feeling no regrets for killing him, Atreus pushed Naraka’s body away. The patrol leader might not have deserved to die because of his ignorance, but neither had Atreus, nor Yago, if that was what had become of the ogre.

Atreus broke the surface coughing and gasping for air. He felt more weak than cold, though he could sense the river sucking more heat from his body with every passing moment. His yak was gone, swimming for the far shore, and the small slave boats were well downstream, zigzagging back and forth after the surviving members of Naraka’s patrol.

Atreus thrust an arm up. “Here!” His voice was a mere croak, his legs so stiff he could barely tread water. “Help!”

The distant dugouts paid him no attention. One of the little boats slowed, as a slaver pulled a limp rider half out of the river and slit the man’s throat. Atreus was too exhausted to be shocked. He merely hoped he would not meet the same fate.

Upstream, Rishi cried out, “I have g-gold!” The Mar sounded as weak as Atreus felt. “Help me, and you shall be r-rewarded”

Atreus turned and saw Rishi splashing toward the big slave barge where half a dozen men stood just forward of the ramshackle cabin with the gaunt figure he had glimpsed earlier. There were no more boats coming around the bend, and all the others were well downstream, murdering the last of Naraka’s wounded riders.

Rishi raised his hand, holding the small purse of gold Atreus had given him earlier. “I have gold,” he said. “It is

yours!”

The gaunt figure turned toward the center of the boat and barked a command. At once, the two oarsmen began to row against the current, holding the vessel in place. Rishi tucked his gold away and began to swim. Atreus followed, determined to find a place on the boat.

As he neared the barge, Atreus saw that the gaunt figure looked more like a demon than any sort of human. His slimy, snake-like torso was covered in green-glistening scales, while his spindly fingers ended in filthy-looking claws long enough to disembowel a yak. To protect him from the frigid weather, he wore nothing more than a loincloth and a soiled yellow cape, and a long barbed tail flicked back and forth over his shoulder.

His face was even more hideous than his body. He had a narrow, pointed head with a bony brow ridge, a pair of beady black eyes set deep in dark hollow sockets, and a huge nose dribbling mucus and shaped vaguely like an arrowhead. His flaky-lipped mouth stretched a full hand-span across his face, exhibiting a row of jagged fangs that rose up from his lower jaw like saw teeth. Hanging from his chin was a greasy black beard braided into long spikes and teeming with white lice.

When Rishi reached the boat, the hideous figure— Atreus supposed he was the slave-master—dropped to his belly and thrust an arm over the side. “Pay up!” the demon called.

To Atreus’s surprise, Rishi did not insist on being pulled aboard before yielding his gold. He simply withdrew the purse from inside his tunic and placed it in the fellow’s hand. “I c-can get you more … much more….”

Leaving Rishi to kick against the slow current, the slave-master tore open the purse and pulled out a gold piece. He tested it on his teeth, then glared down at the Mar.

“How much more?”

“Enough to drown a yak!” Rishi reached up. “And it is all yours, for no more than sparing my life.”

The slave master’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “You try to peel me, sod, and you’ll wish you drowned.”

With that, he plucked Rishi out of the river and tossed him onto the deck like some half-dead fish. Atreus reached the boat, then began to scratch at the slimy hull, too sore and exhausted to call out for help. A scaly hand reached down and caught him by his wounded shoulder. Recalling the fate of Naraka’s men, Atreus raised his good arm to block the expected dagger, already starting to explain why his life should be spared.

There was no need. The slave-master jerked him out of the water and dropped him on the deck beside Rishi, then kneeled down and brought his face close to Atreus’s. His breath stank of rotten fish.

“You don’t smell like no Walker!”

“Walker?”

“If you got to ask, you ain’t,” said the slave master. “So what in the Thousand Darkness’s are you?”

“A m-man, of course,” Atreus said indignantly. “A human being.”

The slave master’s lip curled into a sneer, revealing a stringy mass of rotten gum. “You’re a funny one, bubber. Could be worth something in Baator.” He faced the ramshackle cabin in the stern. “Seema! Gather up your brews and come out here. I got something for you.”

The slave master turned to Rishi, who was lying beside Atreus shaking. “Now, where’s this gold you were jabbering about?”

Rishi paled and said, “Just up the river.” He cast an angry glance in Atreus’s direction. “In the river.”

“What do you mean, in the river?” The slave master asked angrily, jerking Rishi up by the collar. “Like on the bottom?”

“It is his fault, Terrible One,” Rishi said, pointing at Atreus. “He sank it!”

The Terrible One’s barbed tail began to twitch. He rose, casually lifting Rishi with one hand. “It don’t matter who sank it, addle pate,” he said. “You tried to bob me. All the gold in this squalid little world does me no good on the bottom of a river!”

“The river is not deep,” Rishi offered, pointing upstream. “Take me back to that bend tomorrow, and I can dive down and find it for you!”

The slave master considered this, his fangs scratching his upper lip. Finally, he tucked Rishi under one arm and started forward. Rishi’s feet clipped the heads of some of the captives as the fiend stepped over rows of neatly chained slaves. The two oarsmen heard him coming and scrambled out of the way, allowing the boat to drift as the Terrible One passed. Even the bow guards scurried away to give him a wide berth.

The slave master draped Rishi over the side. “Prove it,” he said.

The slaver opened his hand, and Rishi splashed back into the river.

Atreus gasped and started to rise, but stopped when a stinging whip wrapped itself around his throat.

“Sit down,” said a gruff voice behind him. The guard at the other end of the whip jerked the handle, and the coil grew so tight that Atreus began to gasp. “Tarch didn’t say you could watch.”

“And yet, did he say you were allowed to harm this man?” The question came from the shack on the stern. Though heavily accented with a strange dialect of Maran, the woman’s voice was as pure and lyrical as a lyre. This man should not be strangled.”

The guard continued to hold the whip taut, choking Atreus. “What?” he asked, then turned to the door. “You think you’re giving orders now?”

“It is an observation, not an order. This man will die if you keep strangling him.”

Atreus grasped the whip cord and managed to loosen the coil enough to breathe, then twisted around to see a dark-haired woman emerging from the shack. In her hands, she held a wooden tray.

“Did Tarch not say that this one is meant for Baator?”

“Tarch says a lot of things.” Despite his words, the guard flicked his whip, loosening the coil. He kicked Atreus in the thigh, then said, “We’re watching you. Try anything, and we’ll whip you skinless.”

The woman kneeled on the deck beside Atreus and said to the guard, “I am sure he will be very cooperative.”

She was dressed simply, in a heavy tabard of dark yak-hair over an equally heavy tunic, and she wore her black hair twisted into silky braids. Her face was round and gentle, with a small nose and almond eyes as deeply brown as mahogany. There was a peacefulness in her bearing that seemed to well up from inside and envelope her in a halo of grace, and when she smiled at Atreus she was more beautiful than any priestess of Sune.