Riding the Serpent's Back (69 page)

Leeth yelled out and threw himself belatedly to the ground.

Red dashed past him, staring at the fallen man. He had seen him step suddenly out of the bushes. He had spotted a sudden flash of silver in his hand.

He had never killed a man before.

The man lay on his side. Red reached for the deeply embedded spear and used it as a handle to roll him onto his back.

Blank eyes stared up from a heavily marked face. The man had the look of a fighter, his nose broken in several places. His face was covered in fresh but closed wounds – it looked as if something had bitten chunks out of his face, the teeth marks quite clear.

Lying by the man’s side was a small throwing knife. Red had been right to strike first.

He pulled at the man’s jacket and found a diagonal belt carrying another five knives. As well as the blood spreading from the spear wound, there was another dark patch on his abdomen. Red tugged at his clothing and found a wide wound in the man’s belly. It was amazing he had been able to stay upright, let alone try to kill Leeth.

Leeth.

Red turned sharply, but the shifter was standing harmlessly a short distance away calming the horses.

Red went over to him.

“I thought that was meant for me,” said Leeth, nodding at the spear.

“It might have been,” said Red. He studied Leeth’s face for signs that might betray him, but there were none. “How did you know my name?”

“I recognised you from Chi’s stories.” He reached out and gripped Red’s shoulder firmly. “Thank you. I’d thought he was dead. I had no idea he was still on my trail.”

Red looked at the hand on his shoulder. Then he glanced at Leeth. “How do I know you’re who you claim?”

Leeth shrugged, clearly taken aback by the challenge.

Suddenly, Red stepped forward, seized Leeth’s head in both hands and kissed him long and hard. He drove his tongue into the startled man’s mouth, tasted him, kept his eyes wide open to stare into Leeth’s.

He backed away and rubbed at his mouth. He was sure now: this man was not Oriole.

He saw that Leeth was still stunned by his actions. He smiled, and said, “I’m from Totenang: it’s the custom. Welcome back, brother.”

~

Over the succeeding days, he realised he was being excluded. Chi was always so busy, Monahl so distrustful of everyone. He spent a morning helping Sawnie, but she soon made it clear that she wasn’t in the least impressed by his military naivety. Joel would have little to do with him, either. Of the siblings that only left the ever-genial Petro and Leeth.

“I’m an outsider,” Leeth told him one time. “Because of my Talent nobody can ever really trust me: they don’t know why, they just sense something unreliable about my nature. I’m cursed to be the perpetual outsider.” Just then, Red understood how that must make him feel. He had thought his rescue of Leeth might win him some respect, but there had been little sign of it, despite his careful efforts not to appear to brag, allowing the story to seep out via Leeth. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong.

He spent a lot of time with Leeth, learning to like him in a strange kind of way. There was only a few years’ difference in their ages, but Red found himself thinking of Leeth as no more than a boy, someone to take under his wing and teach the ways of the world.

In character, he knew they were opposite in many ways. Leeth saw everything in such simple terms: good and bad, right and wrong – you should do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. Red, on the other hand, had a deep understanding of the complicated order of even the most simple of things: everything had shades of meaning, different interpretations. He knew the good and the bad could coexist, and even feed off each other. He and Estelle were proof enough of that: through all the vile extremes, through all the pain and deceit, they had still, at the bottom of it all, acted out of love.

It was on one of his walks through the camp with Leeth that they both met Monahl’s mage for the first time. They had been looking out into the Rift’s Heartlands from the top of Porphyr Hill, when they saw a lone horse-rider approaching across the ruddy landscape. Together, they headed down the steep path on the northern side of the hill to meet him.

By the time they had reached ground-level, the mage was waiting for them. He was a gaunt man, his cloak and jet-black hair thick with dust from the Heartlands. Slowly, he unwound a cotton scarf from around his face, revealing a neat beard and a thin, near-lipless mouth. For long seconds he studied the two with a knowing smile on his face. “You must be another instalment of my great grand-daughter’s half-brothers, no?”

Leeth nodded, but Red just stared at the man. He had managed to fight back the worst of his paranoia, but even now it returned: a lone man, arriving from the direction of Samhab. He had none of the mannerisms of Oriole, but that could mean anything.

Leeth was watching him. “Go on, then, Red: kiss him.” Red had explained the real reason for his strange greeting: his certainty that even a mage would taste the same, respond in the same way.

Leeth turned to Herold and explained. “He thinks you’re Oriole in disguise. He thinks he can tell from a kiss.”

Herold smiled and then pursed his lips. “Try me, please,” he said. “But I’m afraid I never mastered the control required for form-changing. I am only a minor mage, after all.”

Red shook his head. They turned to walk together towards the camp. Waiting just around an outcrop was Monahl. She went up to Herold and kissed him on the cheek. The mage tipped his head towards Red and said, “Will you tell your brother that I am genuine, please? He is nearly as distrustful as you have become.”

Monahl glanced at him, but said nothing.

Red couldn’t work her out. She seemed so hostile about everything, yet Chi treated her as if she was special in some way.

He stared at the ground as they walked, finding his concentration drifting as Monahl interrogated Herold about his trip. After a time he suddenly became aware of Leeth’s hand on his arm and some words bouncing around his head. They had been talking to him.

He looked around and Herold repeated, “You look unwell.”

He shrugged, and the gesture suddenly seemed such an effort.

“I’m fine,” he said, just as his knees gave way and the ground rose up to hit him hard.

~

They had to put Red on a stretcher and lift him up so that Joel could examine him. He had forgotten that the horseman was a healer – he had put him down as a professional depressive.

He stared up at the sky as Joel pressed and prodded and leaned down to stare at his abdomen.

He thought it was probably still the same day, but he could not be sure. Everything seemed so remote to him, as if he was separated from the world by a translucent membrane. He kept sliding in and out of consciousness, and all the time he was awake he was aware that his body was trembling uncontrollably.

He realised Joel must have finished when the stretcher started to move. As he was lowered he looked into the horseman’s eyes and said, “What is it, eh? Am I going to die?”

Joel said nothing and suddenly Red was scared.

Left alone in a tent, he struggled to look down at himself and when he had lifted his head sufficiently he saw the small red patch on his abdomen. Peering closer, he saw that it was dotted with a number of tiny white blisters.

More time passed and then he heard the voice of Chi.

He raised himself onto his elbows and stared at the man-child. “I was at an ophidy refuge,” he said. “Oriole was protecting us from it, but it’s only the mild form, isn’t it? Only the chronic form.”

Chi shook his head. “I’m sorry, Red,” he said. “But it’s not. You have the acute form of the disease.”

Red slumped back onto his sleep-mat. He had the snake-plague...the disease that wiped out millions with every epidemic.

He felt Chi’s hands on his head, so cool against his own intense burning. He felt something reaching out to him – a presence, a mind-shape – soothing him, killing the pain.

He drifted off to sleep.

~

Time passed. Days, perhaps as much as a week.

Chi came to him regularly to do what he could to heal him. On occasions he was lifted up to Joel to be treated. He had heard Chi and Joel arguing at one point, he was sure. Chi had been insisting that Joel should do what he could. “You’re a healer, for the sake of Habna! So
heal
.” The boy had sounded on the verge of hysteria, although he was always perfectly calm when he visited Red.

“Where’s Leeth?” Red asked one time. Leeth had been one of the few to visit him at first, but it seemed even he had given up. Then he saw the look on Chi’s face.

“He’s ill,” said the boy. “We’re doing what we can.” Suddenly, Red saw how utterly exhausted the boy looked.

“It’s my fault,” sighed Red. “I brought it here. I must have picked it up from the refuge.” Again he saw the look on Chi’s face and knew there was more to it than he had been told.

“No,” said Chi. “You were given it. When you came from Samhab you brought with you Lachlan’s gift. You’re not the only one. There have been outbreaks throughout our camps: plague ophidy, brown ague, smallpox. The army is making raids all along the front, too: driving home the chaos and confusion. Before long we’ll be surrounded and isolated and Lachlan’s forces will be able to just sit back until we drop.”

Red stared at his half-brother. “But we’ll beat them, right?” he said.

Chi stared at him. “You really think so?”

Leeth had been glad of Red’s presence at the encampment. He had not known what kind of welcome he might expect: he had, after all, run away from Edge City.

But Red, beneath his gloss of artifice and his ersatz sophistication, was not burdened by shared history. After his initial suspicion, Red seemed to accept him without reservation. Leeth knew that kind of friendship would be a rare thing in a shape-changer’s life.

Apart from a brief welcome he saw little of Chi. He wanted to talk to the man-child. Clear the air. He wanted to make his excuses for his sudden flight from Edge City, to find out what Cotoche had said after he had gone. He wanted to tell Chi about his visit to Donn: Chi should be told that the mage was still alive, and despite his poor health was still showing an interest in the fate of his offspring.

More than anything, he wanted to find out why Chi had let him go without telling him of his true nature.

Chi was avoiding him, he knew. But there was little he could do.

He asked Joel about it one morning. “Did you know about me?” he said. He was riding at the horseman’s side, so they could be on the same level.

Joel turned to him and shrugged. “I suppose so,” he said, noncommittally.

“Come on, Joel. Either you did or you didn’t.”

“Chi told me you were another of Donn’s children,” he said. “But I did not know you were a shape-changer.”

“You mean he told everyone apart from me?”

Joel nodded. “All Donn’s children knew,” he said. “But he thought you should find out for yourself. You think it would have been better coming from Chi? The two of you couldn’t stay in the same building together before you walked out.”

“He could have told me sooner.”

“True. That’s a game we could play forever.
If
he’d told you sooner.
If
he’d stood up to Lachlan years ago before things reached this farcical scale.
If
I’d never been so stupid as to get myself stuck on a horse’s back forever. If, if, if.”

~

The shock of Red’s diagnosis had barely set in before Leeth started to feel ill himself.

Despite having spent so long in Red’s company, his first fear when he started to feel feverish and dizzy was that a shifting crisis was going to hit him again. One from which he might never emerge: he recalled Donn’s warnings of the dangers all too clearly.

The first red patches appeared on his chest and arms one morning. They grew and merged together even as he watched, it seemed.

As he lay there, a Raggy called One Green Eye appeared at the entrance. “Stay away!” he snapped at her. “I’m ill. Fetch Chi or Joel.” She backed away quickly, then turned and ran.

By the time a healer called Gabby arrived, a rash of white spots had erupted across the red patches. It was frightening how quickly the disease seemed to be taking hold.

He showed her the patches. “I have the snake-plague,” he said. “Are you protected?” Ever since the first outbreak, all the camp’s healers had been treating their own immune systems as a matter of course. They were the rebel army’s only defence.

She nodded, and immediately laid her hands on his brow, pressing him back against his mat.

Just before sleep took him, he managed to say, “Where’s Chi?”

“It’s okay,” said Gabby, in her hypnotic tone. “He’ll see you soon. There are so many to heal.”

~

Four days later, Leeth was back on his feet, tired and sore, but no longer in need of healing. He had recovered even more rapidly than Red, who was only now beginning to move about again.

He didn’t really appreciate how awful a condition it was that he had survived until he went to see Sawnie on her sick bed.

She had always struck him as so strong and resilient, yet the woman he saw laid out on a sleep-mat was sobbing with pain. Petro stood by her, fanning her naked body with a shirt in an effort to fight the fever.

“Sawnie,” said Leeth, sinking to his knees by her side.

She was barely recognisable. Where the rash had first taken hold across her abdomen, a wide expanse of skin had lifted away, exposing raw flesh to the air. Her thighs were puffy and bruised, the skin parting along the line of a series of small tears.

“Can you hear me, Sawnie?”

She made no sign of acknowledgement. Leeth looked up at Petro.

His tongue flicked around his lips, then he said, “I don’t think she knows we are here. She has been like this since last night.”

Leeth looked around the small tent. “So where’s the healer?” he demanded. “Where’s Chi?”

There was a sound from behind and Leeth turned. It was Red. “Chi was here all night,” he said. “He’s sleeping now.”