Of Bone and Thunder (40 page)

“Had to take the saddles off,” the flock commander said, handing a leather thong to Listowk. “They add weight. Rags might look indestructible, but they have their limits. This way we can carry more troops and supplies.”

Listowk had never considered that a monster might get tired. Maybe that's what had happened to the rag Sinte had been on.
Lovely.

“Use the cocking hooks on your belts to lock you in place. Put an arm in the short loop and a foot in the long one,” Pagath shouted at the shield, chivvying the soldiers into place. “The blankets will keep you from cooking, so don't rip them!”

“This is madness. We'll fall off!” Knockers shouted.

Pagath placed his hands on his hips and looked down at the shield. “There ain't a spike or a hook as strong as your desire to live. Any one of you does fall off, well, you're probably better off without him.”

“How dare a mule speak to us like that!” someone yelled. It sounded like Ahmist.

As quickly as Listowk had wanted to hurt Pagath, now he sprung to his defense. “Do as you're fucking told or I'll personally feed you to the rag!” It wasn't from a sudden desire to befriend the mule, it was simply a matter of keeping order.

Any more expressions of distaste died on the vine. Soldiers went back to wrapping arms and legs in the thongs. A few even wedged themselves between dorsal plates and grabbed on to the man across from them. Pagath didn't seem to mind as he simply walked over them toward the tail. Listowk looked over at the other rags and saw the rest of the shield was following suit. He noticed large bundles wrapped in tarps secured above those rags' hindquarters.

“It's a short flight,” the flock commander said, his voice lowering to something almost kind. “I might have been a bit of an ass yesterday, but I promise you this—I'll get you and your lads there in one piece. As for the landing, that'll depend on what we find.”

Listowk looked at the woman sitting a foot away from him in front of a wooden easel with a piece of glass on it. She smiled at him, her blood-red eyes twinkling in the morning sun, then bowed her head and focused on her easel.

“One piece sounds good,” Listowk said, sitting down on the quilt. It
was damp and heavy. He put a hand down to feel it and wet clay mixed with palm fibers oozed out of a small tear. Clever. He adjusted his crossbow so that it was slung across his back before wrapping his arm in the thong.

“Hold on tight,” the flock commander said, turning and sitting back down in his saddle. “Breeze, Pagath, we fly in three flicks!”

Listowk cupped his left hand around his mouth and shouted at the shield behind him. “Grab on and don't let go!”

The rag crouched, dropping its chest and stomach to the ground in a cloud of dust.

“Is it—”

The rag pushed up using its legs, its tail, and the length of its neck for force. Listowk's head tried to impale itself on his spine as they hurtled straight up on a hurricane of thunderous wing flaps. No one screamed, or if they did, Listowk couldn't hear them. His ears popped as his ass was driven downward so hard that he was sure he would break through the rag's scales to be consumed by the fire within. A moment later, the oppressive weight crushing him was replaced by the sickening feeling of floating. He gripped the leather thong tight with shaking hands.

Unlike yesterday's flight, the rags didn't continue climbing for height. All their power went into forward speed. With booming wing beats they raced above the treetops. The jungle melted into a blur of green. It reminded Listowk of the one time he'd looked over the side of the ship sailing them to the Lux, only this was much, much faster.

Dosha swamps appeared and disappeared in a flash. A bird with red, blue, and green feathers rose up from the treetops as the rags approached. It flew directly into Carduus's path and vanished in an explosion of feathers and pink mist.

“Damn parrots!” the flock commander said, turning. His face, filthy with soot, now glinted with fine red droplets of blood. “I swear to the High Druid they try to mate with the rags in flight!”

Listowk stared at his grinning face with its blood-red eyes and black-and-red-smeared skin. The man was a demon. A scream clawed deep in Listowk's throat, wanting desperately to be set free, but he gritted his teeth until his temples throbbed and the urge subsided.

“Don't think I didn't see that!” Pagath shouted from somewhere near
the back of Carduus. The flock commander rolled his eyes, a bloody tear trickling down his cheek, and turned back to the job of flying.

Give me the jungle at night
!
Listowk eased himself around, doing his best to shield his face from the buffeting winds. He gripped the leather thong so hard he worried he would tear it from the chain. The shield clung to the side of Carduus for dear life. All were hunched over against the wind. The mule, on the other hand, was walking the left-side saddle chain checking on the leather thongs with apparently no regard for his own safety. The two braids of his beard whipped about his face like dancing snakes.

The rag's wings rose and fell like walls constantly being constructed and torn down in the blink of an eye. The violence of the act left Listowk breathless.
Such incredible force!
How man ever tamed such power was beyond him.

The girl—Breeze, he remembered—looked up from her easel. He couldn't explain it, but her bloody eyes disturbed him far more than the flock commander's.

“We'll be there soon!” she said, offering him a smile that should have reassured him but didn't.

Remember your damn job
, Listowk thought, chiding himself, allowing his hands to lessen their grip ever so slightly. Sinte could be dead. If he was, then Listowk really would be in charge. He couldn't be mewling like a kitten whenever they flew. The shield needed a leader they could follow.

“Nice day for a flight,” Listowk said out loud. He hoped some of the shield heard it.

“It always is,” the flock commander said over his shoulder. “It's the fucking landings that are a bitch.”

Hopefully
, Listowk thought, increasing his grip again,
they didn't hear that
.

CARNY MISSED THE WOOD-AND-LEATHER
saddle contraptions that had been on the rag for their previous flight. He had felt secure enough in one to enjoy being in the air. Now, with only one arm through a leather strap and one foot in a stirrup and the other resting on a spike hammered into one of the rag's scales, he prayed for the flight to be over.

Safely.

Carny lifted his head off the quilt padding covering the rag's scales and studied the land. The jungle looked dark and gray, the sun barely a slim crescent on the horizon. He thought of Sinte and the lost members of the shield. They'd had to spend the night completely alone and cut off. Were they even still alive? His thoughts drifted back to the mountain. What if the slyts picking berries had been soldiers instead? Would
he
still be alive?

The need to reach into his haversack for a pinch of Flower gnawed at him, but he wanted his wits about him while they were flying and so he told himself his haversack was empty. The temptation to check to make sure the lie was in fact only that stoked the fire of his need.

A scratching sound from the other side of the dorsal plate diverted his attention. He pushed himself up from his crouched position and peered between the plates. Ahmist had a small dagger in his hand and was carving something into the plate.

“What are you doing?” Carny asked.

“As it seems we are to continue to use these foul beasts,” Ahmist said, not bothering to look up from his work, “I will consecrate each one with the Psalm of Necessity in Righteous Battle. Thus the High Druid commands, and the righteous obey.”

Carny looked up and down his side of the rag, curious if any other
soldiers had decided to do any carving. From the huddled shapes it seemed only Ahmist was so inclined.

“Isn't that psalm like two leaves long?” Carny asked.

Ahmist paused in his carving. “I am carving the psalm using the sacred runes as the High Druid himself did.”

Carny still didn't see the point. “So why didn't you consecrate the brorra? You could have carved the runes on his horn.”

Ahmist finally looked up. His eyes were clear and bright, as if illuminated by an inner light. Carny eased himself back, putting a little more distance between himself and the dagger Ahmist held in his hand.

“Though it be born of the filth and refuse of the underworld, this beast serves a greater purpose in delivering us to the enemy so that we might smite them down,” Ahmist said, his voice carrying surprisingly well in the wind.

Carny was all too familiar with this way of thinking. True believers like Ahmist thought anything deeper in the ground than an oak tree's roots was poison, both physically and spiritually. The LOKAM made it clear that dwarves and rags came from the depths where evil had once been banished from the world. Slyts, on the other hand, weren't from the depths but were also evil. Carny didn't understand, but as the local druid back home told the congregation, you needed only believe.

“I'd keep your voice down,” Carny said, motioning with his head toward the back of the rag, where the dwarf dragonsmith was sitting.

Ahmist leaned closer, pressing his face between the two plates. “I do not fear him,” he said, though his voice was lower now, causing Carny to lean in to hear him. “His time, so mirrored by his height, is short.”

“They're free men now—well, free dwarves,” Carny said, wishing he'd left well enough alone.

“They are abominations,” Ahmist said. “It is bad enough that we ride on a creature not of His making, but do you think it happenstance that it should be tended to by two more unclean ones?”

“There's only one dwarf, Ahmist.”

Ahmist looked forward. Carny followed his gaze.

“The girl?”

Ahmist turned back to Carny. “She is a thaum, an interloper into His
most glorious realm. Only the Great High Druid should wield the power of the cosmos. All thaumics mar His perfection, none more so than that wielded by a lowly woman. The female form is meant to carry children and prepare daily meals. They are weak of mind and body and—”

“You shut the fuck up!” Carny said. He released his grip on the leather strap and threw himself against the dorsal plate. He reached across and grabbed Ahmist by the collar of his aketon. “You don't know anything about women!”

Ahmist struggled to break free. “Let go of me!”

Carny pulled hard, slamming Ahmist's head against the dorsal plate. Ahmist's helm rang like a bell as it hit the plate. Carny pulled again, slamming Ahmist's head even harder. The dagger in Ahmist's hand fell and went flying off.

Tears streamed down Carny's face. “You don't know, you fuck! You don't know!” he shouted, pulling Ahmist forward again, bouncing his head for a third time against the plate. Blood poured down Ahmist's face from a long horizontal gash on his forehead.

“Carny, what the hell are you doing?” Knockers shouted, reaching forward and grabbing Carny by the arm. “Let him go.”

Carny's entire body shook. He sobbed, his vision blurring as tears flowed uncontrollably. “He doesn't fucking know.”

A heavy hit on the top of his helm stunned Carny. He lost his grip on Ahmist, who slipped out of sight on the other side of the dorsal plates. The dragonsmith stood over Carny, a large steel hammer held in his hand. The braids of his beard whipped and curled around his neck in the wind. The dwarf, however, seemed totally unaffected by the wind and the fact that they were on the back of a flying dragon.

“Are you fuckin' mad, the lot of you?! Save your fighting for the slyts, you stupid asses!”

“The LOKAM foretold this evil!” Ahmist shouted, pushing himself into a kneeling position. His eyes were wide in a mix of anger and fear.

No one responded with
Fuck the LOKAM
.

“Pagath, shut him the fuck up!” the driver shouted. “Don't make me come back there!”

“Carny, get him under control!” LC Listowk shouted.

Carny waved at them while he tried to regain his balance. He turned to face Ahmist. The soldier's face was a mask of red from the cut on his forehead. “Ahmist, don't ever speak to me again about your fucking High Druid. Not a word.”

Knockers gasped. Carny didn't give a fuck. The High and Mighty Fuckin' Druid could kiss his ass.

“You dare blaspheme—” Ahmist started to say, but Carny cut him off.

“You're fucking right I dare,” Carny said, a brittle calm gripping him. His mother's smile flashed in his mind and he felt her hand on his shoulder. “I dare with every bone and muscle in my body. Don't ever tell me again what you believe. And don't tell me about women.”

The rushing wind seemed to blow the heat away from the rag. Everything around Carny grew cold. He felt impossibly light, no more substantial than a dandelion in a storm. He was aware of the stares. He saw Listowk out of the corner of his eye. The LC was in a half crouch, as if debating whether to come back and intervene.

“I will not be silenced!” Ahmist said, grabbing ahold of a dorsal plate and reaching over his back for his crossbow. “The LOKAM is the highest order by which we live! Not even the Kingdom or the military may exercise dominion over it. I—”

The dwarf's hammer swung through the air and came down with a clang on the top of Ahmist's helm. Ahmist disappeared for the second time behind the dorsal plates. The dragonsmith looked at Carny. “Never been much of a fan of the High Druid either.”

Carny glanced in Listowk's direction. The LC had unslung his crossbow and was cradling it in one arm.
Fuck.
“Thanks.”

The dwarf hefted his hammer a couple of times before turning his head and spitting. “Fine, but if he does anything like that again I'll finish him and then come looking for you.”