‘We who live here,’ said another, from close behind, making Shimmer spin about.
Closer now, they resembled Soletaken, yet not. A great deal of the man-jackal Ryllandaras looked to be in them as they resembled half men, half dogs, with long dark muzzles, and coats of hair striped tawny and black across their backs. She even glimpsed multiple teats on one — females, too?
‘What do you want?’ she demanded, striking a ready stance. It surprised her that though it was distorted and slurred by their canine mouths, they were speaking an accented Talian.
‘You should ask that of us!’ the first growled again. ‘You who invade our lands!’
‘Your lands?’
The creature threw its taloned hands wide as if enraged. Grey hair lined its stomach. ‘Who else? Stupid trespasser.’
‘You speak Talian …’
‘We speak your Isturé tongue, yes. You brothers and sisters of betrayers and turncoats.’
‘You mean Skinner …’
Many about her hunched, hissing and growling at the name. ‘Yes. Now, get back in your thing that floats and go away. We do not want you here. You are not welcome. Go away.’
‘Ardata invited us.’
The creatures snarled anew, hands spasming as if eager to tear at her. Long carmine tongues lolled as they panted. ‘Speak not her name! You are unworthy. You are betrayers and untrue.’
‘Betrayers? So Skinner-’
Enraged, they closed all at once. Shimmer spun, the keen blade of her whipsword flashing in the light. The nearest lurched away clutching at slashed forearms, muzzles, throats. In the pause of surprise that followed, she warned, ‘I mean you no harm!’
Something struck her from behind and she fell, twisting, to look up at another. ‘Eat the bitch!’ this one howled and threw its maw wide, teeth reaching for her.
Flames lanced over Shimmer, roaring like an opened furnace. The creatures yowled their agony. She clenched her eyes, holding her breath, and turned her face into the hot dry earth. A great rushing wind pulled at her and the heat dissipated. She lifted her face to dare a glance. The dry brush was aflame all about her. Smoking blackened carcasses lay amid the ash, seeping boiling juices. She straightened, gingerly, whipsword ready.
To one side stood a figure as familiar as it was impossible that he should be here: her dead fellow Avowed, Smoky. He appeared just as stunned as she. He studied his hands, obviously quite bewildered.
‘How …’ she began, amazed.
‘Got no damned idea,’ he said before he dissipated into blown dust that drifted away on the anaemic wind.
Someone approached, steps crackling in the burnt grass. Shimmer turned to see the Jacuruku witch Rutana. She was kneading the many leather straps that encircled her arms as she studied the seared earth. She lifted her chin. ‘I told you not to leave the ship.’
‘Foreigner …’ a voice grated, weak and wet.
Shimmer glanced about searching for the source of the faint call. She found that one of the blackened shapes still breathed. ‘Yes?’
The dog-creature licked its lips. It breathed in quick short pants. ‘Leave,’ it grated. ‘You do not deserve her. You will never — you will never … love her …’
‘Love her?’
The creature’s short breaths slowed. The light in its brown eyes dimmed and they took on a fixed stare. Shimmer turned her puzzled gaze to Rutana. ‘Love her? Ardata?’
The witch watched her silently for a time while reaching some sort of decision, then scorn twisted her slash of a lipless mouth. ‘We do not want you here. Nor do we need you.’
Shimmer brushed past the woman. ‘Funny — that’s exactly how I feel.’
On her way back to the vessel, Shimmer shouted a recall. She found Lor and ordered her to spread the word. K’azz she found exactly where he’d been earlier. Something in her anger must have communicated itself through the stamp of her booted feet because he turned at her approach, one brow raised.
‘Yes, Shimmer?’
‘Why in the Abyss are we here?’ she demanded.
He crossed his arms, sighing, and seeing these old familiar mannerisms worn by this old man made Shimmer wince yet again. What has happened to him? Is the power of the Vow doing this to him? Eating him alive? Should I feel pity? All I feel is revulsion.
‘We are here to deal with Skinner.’
‘You have already disavowed him.’
‘It seems that is not enough.’
‘You mean he is still bound?’
He gave a slow reluctant nod. ‘Yes. It appears so.’
‘Then we will never be rid of him!’
A sad smile crossed his aged face. ‘Like family, Shimmer.’
She slumped against the rail. ‘Damn it to Hood!’
Gwynn and Lor joined them. ‘What has happened?’ Gwynn asked. ‘There’s a familiar smell in the air …’
Shimmer nodded. ‘I was attacked. The locals don’t want us here.’
‘I could have told you that,’ Lor murmured, peering down to where Cole, Turgal and Amatt struggled in the mud to push the vessel from the shore.
‘I was rescued by an Avowed — but a dead one. Smoky.’ She tried to catch K’azz’s gaze. ‘How could that be?’
The man would not meet her eye. Head lowered, he began, ‘The locals call this region Himatan. They claim it is half of the real world and half of the spirit realm. Perhaps the Brethren are closer to us here …’
Ahh, K’azz! So smooth a liar to others. Yet so poor a liar to us! What are you hiding? She turned her attention to the mages and found them just as uneasy as she. ‘Perhaps,’ she allowed. Her gaze promised the two words later. ‘Yet for now we-’
The vessel’s lurching interrupted her. Everyone righted themselves as the ship ground free of the shore. Shimmer glanced down to see the three Avowed all standing in the waist-high waters and staring their bemusement at a grinning Nagal as the big man brushed his hands together, appearing quite self-satisfied.
Shimmer frowned, thinking, Did that fellow alone just …?
She broke off as K’azz walked away. ‘What about Smoky?’ she called after him.
‘In time, Shimmer,’ he answered without turning. ‘We’ll see — in time.’
* * *
Saeng had never before dared enter the Gangrek Mounts that marked the formal border between Thaumaturg holdings and Ardata’s lands. Some named them the Fangs, or the Dragon’s Fangs, for their similarity to jutting teeth as they shot so suddenly from the flat jungle to rise sheer for hundreds of feet. They seemed to have grown so swiftly they brought the jungle with them; it hung down their black rock faces in vines, creepers and roots. Verdant greenery topped them like mussed shaggy pelts.
Hanu led, hacking his way through the denser brush and carrying her over the deeper sinks and the mires of choked pools. A troop of monkeys shadowed them, hooting and shaking the leaves amid the high canopy. Brightly coloured birds shot from branches in explosions of flame crimson and sapphire blue. They shrieked and chattered their irritation. Some flew on to roost high in the vegetation hanging from the rearing mountains. Closer now, she knew that mountains was something of a misnomer. Mountains, she understood, could be as big as countries. They took days, sometimes weeks, to climb or cross. These features were in no way as gigantic.
What these mounts did possess that made them potentially just as dangerous, however, were sudden sheer drops into seemingly bottomless sinkholes. Some of these were immense, containing entire lakes that she and Hanu were forced to detour around. The pits and openings dotted the ground, making it impossible to move after dark. And so come the evening, as the clouds thickened for the nightly rain, they would seek shelter amid these caves and sit out the rains, awaiting the dawn.
And it was into one of these pits one dark twilight that Hanu disappeared.
He was there one moment, cutting the brush from their path, and then he was gone. So sudden and silent was his disappearance it was as if the jungle had snatched him away. Saeng froze. ‘Hanu?’ she called, still not believing he was gone. ‘Hanu?’