Star of Cursrah (29 page)

Amber snapped her capture staff straight up and down before her chest and face. The ogre stabbed with both hands. By grace and good reflexes, Amber knocked the spear aside so it zipped past her shoulder. As the two staves struck, Amber saw the many scalps flap. Again the ogre jabbed in blind fury, and again Amber coolly smacked the spear to the other side, where it chipped stone. The daughter of pirates couldn’t parry forever. Any second the giant would change tactics. The ogre didn’t even need a weapon, but it could probably kick Amber’s head off her shoulders and would, when its slow-thinking brain grew frustrated enough.

As if reading her thoughts, the ogre hauled back its spear, paused, then jumped into the cellar pit almost on Amber’s sandaled toes. The alien face was long-jawed, beetle-browed, and shagged like a wolf’s mane. The creature stank like a lion’s cage. Amber squirmed backward, up a crumbling pile of dirt. She was fixated, almost hypnotized, by the cruel, keen spear point as long as her forearm. The she-ogre could drive that clear through Amber’s body and six feet down into dirt. Amber whimpered to think of her scalp added to the dusty string on the spear haft.

“Ugly! Over here!” Reiver’s voice sounded from out of sight.

Unused to fighting alone, the ogre hesitated, then tilted on tiptoe to spot the enemy. A lead weight on a chain whirled through the air. With a musical ching! it hit the spear haft and immediately snarled around. The distraction brought Reiver too close, Amber knew, for the garrote chain was short. Still, Amber used the opportunity to scramble up the pit’s slope. Hurriedly she prayed to Anachtyr, god of justice, if such a thing as justice existed for mortals.

Amber squawked as the ogre’s mighty hand snagged her tunic hem. Worn and weakened cloth tore, but not before Amber was yanked backward. Squawling, she tumbled a few feet and fetched against the ogre’s bare legs and great dirty feet.

The giant was barely slowed by Reiver’s attack. Snapping its wrists, the she-ogre wrenched the chain from the thief’s hand. Amber had the inane thought that Reiver had lost his clever garrote chain for nothing, as the ogre back-stepped to stamp Amber flat as a cockroach.

Amber thrilled as, between the ogre’s legs, she saw Hakiim leap down into the pit with his scimitar shining. Gritting his teeth, using two hands, the rug merchant’s son slung the wide blade and slammed the ogre squarely behind the knee.

The frantic chop would have felled a small tree, and here it severed twin tendons in the giant’s muscle-corded leg. Hamstrung, the she-ogre toppled backward so hard Hakiim had to jump aside or be squashed. The ogre cursed and gargled as it flung out a hand and crashed on rubble and dirt.

“Hang on!” Popping up like a gopher, Reiver grabbed Amber’s shoulders with both hands and yanked her from the pit. Clutching her capture staff, Amber was dumped on her butt in the dust.

Vaulting from the pit, Hakiim almost jumped atop her.

“Sorry,” he breathed. “Let’s go!”

Suddenly, Reiver spun and hopped into the pit.

Amber shrilled, “No, Reiver, come on!”

In seconds, a musical jangle sounded and Reiver dashed around a pile of rubble.

“Now I’m ready,” the thief said.

The three ran. Amber thought it idiotic to risk life and limb with a furious if crippled ogre just to regain a chain and weight, but she saved her breath for running. Twisting around fallen walls and broken masonry, the three dashed for the tallest, thickest ruins, simply hoping to hide.

Panting, jogging, Amber marveled that the sister ogre had outwitted them, hiding just as Reiver had warned by the waterhole, patiently waiting for revenge. Amber wondered where the White Flame’s band lurked. Had the she-ogre scouted ahead, so the other raiders didn’t know its whereabouts? Did they track the fugitives even now?

Another morbid thought intruded. The miserable she-ogre now lay in an abandoned cellar pit, crippled for life, alone, its brothers dead. Oddly, Amber felt a sting of pity. Yes, the giant carried scalps ripped from human victims, and Amber guessed the she-ogre had shown those victims no sympathy. Still, the idea gave the young woman no satisfaction, just a dose of sadness that thinking beings must fight and prey upon each other like animals, here in the harsh desert, or in the mountains, or anywhere else.

Reiver suddenly veered behind a low wall. Hakiim and Amber scooted and crawled to a bite in the wall. Reiver pointed, and the others squinted against noontime glare. Ruins stretched on and on, but nothing moved.

“What?” asked Amber.

“Bandits.”

“Are you sure?” Hakiim asked, trying to keep his head down and peek at the same time.

Reiver didn’t even answer. Slithering, he signaled them around a corner. Huffing, lying almost flat, and trying to calm her heart’s pounding, Amber peered at their surroundings. Nothing but rubble and wreckage, she thought, buildings collapsed centuries ago. Why did they look so familiar?

Bidding them to stay, Reiver scurried like a rat to the far corner, laid flat, and peeked. After a moment, he waggled a finger to move up. Amber balked, then stayed glued when Hakiim nudged her. Ahead, Reiver hissed impatiently. Puckering her brow, Amber tried to remember—what? She’d never been here before.

Reiver hissed again. His fingers signaled feet approaching and surrounding them. Hakiim cleared his throat.

Barely knowing why, Amber pointed north and whispered, “There… we’ll be safe there!”

Heads swiveled. North was more of the same, knee-high ruins and scattered slabs, yet Amber shook her head stubbornly. She’d go only there. Biting curses, Reiver slithered north. In seconds, he waved them up to a corner.

Skittering on hands and knees, skulking through broken arches, rocky litter, and pockets of dust, the trio finally settled inside a long rectangle of shattered walls. Nearby, a knee high tiled wall outlined a smaller rectangle.

“Will these accommodations suffice, milady?” Reiver’s sarcasm dripped venom like a cobra. “We dived headlong into trouble again. The bandits know we’re here.”

Muzzyheaded, Amber battled a dream. What had prompted her to come here? There was no place to hide, unless they slithered under rocks like snakes.

Hakiim stiffened, and whispered, “Deny the dragons, look!”

Amber gawked. Along the tile wall paced a cat, tall, lanky, and dead. Yellow fur had scuffed off its tanned leather hide. Skin shrunken around the skull curled lips from sharp fangs, forming a perpetual leer. It had no eyes, just haunted hollow sockets, yet the cat pranced on tiptoe as if hunting undead rats. Ignoring the three humans, the zombie cat stopped and dropped its muzzle over the tiled wall. Skinny hindquarters wriggled, then a paw batted at some invisible treat. Frustrated, the dead cat shrugged and strolled across the courtyard and out of sight. Amber knew where they were.

“This was Star’s courtyard,” she whispered. “That rectangle was her goldfish pool. The cat stopped for a drink and tried to steal a fish.”

Worried about bandits, Hakiim yet recalled one detail of Amber’s story and hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

“So this big ruin was her bedroom?” he asked. “Her private wing?”

Foggy, suspended between two ages, Amber rolled to peer into the rubble. A twinge pinged her heart as she surveyed rock and dust. In her mind she’d seen the princess’s opulent chambers with their gilt and paint, brilliant frescoes and mosaics, tapestries and rugs, and Star’s exotic pets: the saluqis, parrots, the delicate winged cat.

“Yes,” she said finally, “these were her rooms. That crypt cat was her ocelot.”

“Then there’s a secret passage down to the tunnels,” Hakiim said. “Watch for us, Reive. We’ll try to find the hole.”

Slithering over the wall, Amber closed her eyes to recall the wing’s layout, then nudged Hakiim left. Crawling, Amber prayed they didn’t awaken any adders, who loved ruins for their cool crevices and sunning spots. Pausing at a hollow in the floor, Amber brushed dust off a fallen wall. Colored chips sparkled to show a hippo’s foot shod with a sandal.

“Khises, the half man, half hippo hero,” she whispered. “Love of Ilmater—does anyone in today’s world know of Khises except me?”

“Does anyone know where the damned shaft is?” Hakiim asked as he shifted shattered slabs. “Whatshername sneaked down to the cellars from here, true?”

Shaking off reverie and forgotten heroes, Amber helped her friend tug and poke until the crumbled mosaic revealed a square downshaft. Rubble filled the shaft and proved solid when Hakiim kicked with his heel.

“Ibrandul haul them to the Seventh Hell,” he cursed. “They filled in the tunnel.”

Another hiss made Amber peek over the wall. Reiver twirled his finger around his throat, their signal for “the noose tightens.”

Hakiim and Amber scooted over lumps and bumps. Through a gap in a wall Amber saw a black robe flit by, then another. Surrounded, with no place to hide, Amber whimpered to think what the White Flame and her cruel bandits would do. Last time they’d almost scorched the skin from her face. Now they had even more reason to hate her.

Lacking any better plan, Reiver led them across the courtyard and over the tiled parapet. The pool was packed with dried mud, with only a foot of space behind the wall. With no choice, the fugitives lay flat on their bellies in one corner and wished themselves invisible.

Close by Reiver’s ear, Amber whispered, “Do the bandits know for sure we’re here?”

“They know. Hush.” Unable to lift his head, the thief listened carefully.

Hakiim asked, “Do we fight or surrender?”

A patter of sandals on stone warned that bandits converged on their hideout. Amber’s heart thudded painfully, and her hands itched to grab her capture noose, to leap and fight or run. If the bandits simply stabbed straight down—

A crackling, crumpling, and thumping resounded, not outside the pool, but within it. Startled by the noise, Amber glimpsed a black-clad bandit who aimed a crossbow at her, then froze and stared. His bearded mouth dropped open, and red-rimmed eyes flew wide.

Amber looked to the pool’s center. Petrified mud split with long cracks as something pushed from underneath. Mounds crumbled and tumbled as if giant flowers thrust upward for sunlight. One huge mound spanned a dozen feet, and dust squirted as a monster humped up, flexed broad shoulders, and burst free.

“Mother of Ilmater!” shrieked Amber.

Thirty undead relics of lost Cursrah rose from the polluted pool. Walking skeletons were partly cloaked with petrified earth. Patchy heads showed yellow bone and black-brown mud that had taken the place of flesh. Eye sockets were caked with mud. Arms and hands wore more bone than mud, so the bodies appeared wasted and thin as tree trunks. Stringy rags marked ancient blue uniforms painted with eight-pointed stars. In their claw-like hands hung spears and halberds.

The unthinking zombies leveled their weapons in precise formation, yanked bony feet free of dried mud, and stamped forward, fanning into two half circles to encircle and engage the enemy.

The last zombie to rise was something Amber had only seen in visions. Rearing ten feet tall and twelve long, a giant’s scabrous head and torso bulked above the death-ravaged carcass of a rhinoceros. In bony hands big as bushel baskets, the undead rhinaur raised a tall, lyre-shaped halberd. A rusted and rotted leading edge, once sharp, aimed to kill.

A dozen of the White Flame’s bandits had rushed into the courtyard but now reeled in shock. Amber also struggled to comprehend the revival of these undead warriors, what they meant, what they intended. Reiver and Hakiim couched in a corner, poised to vault the pool rim and run, even into the midst of the bandits. As the zombies stamped in formation toward them, Amber suddenly understood and grabbed her friends’ sleeves.

“No, stay! They’re—they want to—they’re Amenstar’s personal guards. Song of El Nar’ysr, they think I’m their princess!”

Indeed, the two half circles of undead guards crunched and clacked like living statues to bracket Amber and her friends in two phalanxes. The giant rhinaur, a phalanx all by herself, bulled across the pool with steps that shook the earth. When her petrified-mud hooves banged the pool rim, stone and tile broke and scattered like spun glass.

The undead juggernaut was too terrible even for desert-and mountain-hardened outlaws. Spinning on their heels, they ran over rubble and ruin, wherever lay the quickest exit. The undead rhinaur—M’saba had been her name, Amber recalled—raised an arm only half fleshed and hurled her lyre-shaped halberd after a bandit. Propelled by that massive arm, the crumbly steel still had power to kill. One point of the lyre blade bit hard into the outlaw’s back, tearing a great ragged gash that broke his shoulder blade and collarbone and severed his spine. The man cried out once at the agonizing pain, then flopped and lay still. By the time his jaw crashed on rock, the other bandits had vanished.

Silence.

Peeking at the unliving guards, Hakiim hissed to Amber, “May we—go?”

Reiver nodded hopefully. Amber balked. The devoted guards, or their remains, had saved her life. Even looking at them was difficult, they were so gruesome and grotesque, but each clearly bore an identical slash across his throat, and the towering M’saba wore many axe blows. They’d been beheaded not for their fault but for their mistress’s. Loyalty had proved their demise, yet when the princess—or Amber in her guise—was endangered, they’d risen to defend her without hesitation. Their simple, unwavering faith deserved some reward.

Amber had nothing to give except her thanks, yet she hesitated to lie and claim she was the princess. Even ghosts deserved honesty.

Gulping, she finally blurted, “Th-thank you, loyal bodyguards. Thanks for myself and my friends. I—I’m safe.”

For a moment, she wondered if the zombies heard or could hear anything. Not one bobbed, or nodded, or bowed.

Reiver whispered, “Can we—”

“Look,” breathed Hakiim.

A guard lost a hand. It fell from the wrist without a sound and broke like a clod of dirt on the courtyard flagstones. Another guard’s arm fell and burst in a puff of dust. A leg gave out, and a guard toppled. Amber and her companions skipped aside as M’saba, only minutes ago so strong and formidable, keeled over like a sinking ship and smashed into dirt and powder. In seconds all the guards had collapsed. Nothing remained but dry mud and antique bones.