Stone Spring Part 44

When they got to the crest of the hills, though the light was still uncertain, Me could see the ground fall away to a shallow beach, littered with rock and mounds of some dark weed - and beyond that there was water, nothing but water, a great lapping lake of it that stretched off as far as he could see. Me froze in shock. This endless blank flatness could not have been a greater contrast to the enclosing green of the forest canopy where he had spent almost all of his conscious life. It was as if the world had been stripped away.

The advance broke up into chaos. All around him Leafies were crying, or standing, shocked. But the men were soon on them with their fists and spears and boots and snarls, and yanking their tethers. Me was driven on at a stumbling run.

The Leafies were sent down to the beach, and then turned to the right, towards the light of the gathering dawn. They ran and ran.

And, somewhere in the blocky dunes at the head of the beach, a point of fire flared brightly.

82.

When Jurgi touched Ana's shoulder she woke slowly.

Oddly, as word had come of the Pretani's approach, she had slept as well as she had for years. Maybe it was the banis.h.i.+ng of doubt: better to face a real enemy than to fear worse in ignorance. Or maybe these deep, dreamless sleeps were merely a rehearsal for her own imminent death.

She opened her eyes. Jurgi's face, above her, was just visible in the low glow of the house's night hearth. She reached up and cupped his cheek, feeling the priest's tattoos he had worn since he was a boy, the circular mark of Etxelur. He covered her hand with his. One last moment of tenderness.

He murmured, 'The signal fires have been seen. They come.'

'Today's the day, then.'

'I think so. The others are waiting for you.'

She nodded.

He withdrew, and hurried out of the house. She saw from the loose door flap that the dawn was not yet far advanced.

She rolled off her pallet and sat up, aware of the weight of her belly, how heavy and slow the pregnancy made her. Well, she wouldn't have to fight today, not unless all their elaborate schemes failed. She pulled on her tunic, swigging water from a hide flask as she did so. Then she squatted over the night pot, trying to ensure it caught every drop of her p.i.s.s to feed the tanning pits. Of course by the time night fell even the pits might be in the hands of the Pretani. When she was done she pulled on her boots and cloak, and picked up her own fine-bladed knife and a short-handled stabbing spear.

She took one more deep breath, and glanced around. The house was tidy, the embers in the hearth dying.

Then she pushed her way out through the door.

They were waiting for her in the dawn, Arga, Dreamer, Dolphin, Kirike, Novu, Wise, a circle of grim faces, bodies hidden by heavy hide cloaks.

This house, not her own, was on the northern coast of Flint Island, set on a mound of fresh-dug earth. The holy middens were bulky shadows just paces away, and the sea lapped quietly, the rush of the waves an oddly soothing sound. Thunder was on a tether, tied up to a house post; it wasn't a day for friendly little dogs to run loose.

Cries overhead made her look up. A flock of birds swept over the sky, cool and graceful, early departures for their winter homes.

Arga saw her looking. 'Our own autumn migrants are on the way here, it seems. But we're still some days short of the autumn equinox.'

'Seven days,' said the priest, 'according to my counting sticks. Many of us had thought they would attack on the day of the equinox. Such moments in the year mean as much to the Pretani as to us.'

'Perhaps they are trying to catch us off guard,' Ana said. 'Shade is their Root. Shade was never a fool.'

Kirike said, 'They came from the south. They seem to have split into two. One group is heading inland, making for the Bay Land. The other is coming in from the west, along the coast. They must mean to use the causeway to get to Flint Island.'

Jurgi said, 'It's what we planned for. They're aiming their forces at the two targets we expected: the flint store in the Bay Land - and you, Ana, here on the coast.'

Novu grinned. 'I am no fisher. If I was, I would say the fish is nibbling at the bait.'

'I wouldn't feel so happy about it,' Jurgi said. 'Especially as the "bait" is what is most precious to us. And it shows they have been watching us.'

'You should take comfort,' Ana said. 'We let the Pretani traders stay in Etxelur so they could tell Shade what we wanted him to hear. That was the whole point.'

'Maybe,' said Jurgi. 'I just don't like being at the mercy of forces I can't control.'

Wise nodded. 'And traps can fail.' His Etxelur-speak was becoming fluent. 'Our legends speak of the sky G.o.ds who set a trap for the Great Eel. The Eel swam in, took the bait, and then with a flick of his mighty tail smashed the trap to pieces. This is how the world was born, from pieces of that great cage.'

'Today we are the trap,' Ana said evenly. 'It is up to us to prove strong enough to contain the eel.'

Jurgi glanced around. 'Are we ready? Do we all know what we must do? Then let's look forward to the end of this day, when we will celebrate a great victory - and honour our dead.'

They turned and moved off, some heading for the causeway, the rest to the Bay Land.

Kirike hefted his spear and would have moved away with the rest, but Ana touched his arm. 'Stay with me.'

He looked frustrated. Dolphin glanced back, but she was pulled away by her mother. Kirike said, 'Stay here? But you're not going anywhere.' That was the plan. As a key target for the Pretani Ana was to wait by the middens, in the hope of drawing Pretani forces to her. But Kirike was sixteen years old and a slab of muscle. 'I'm supposed to go to the causeway with Jurgi and the rest. I'm ready to fight. I've been practising!' He raised his spear and jabbed it in the air.

'I know. I'm sorry. I changed my mind. Look at me - I can't fight. If the worst comes to the worst I need someone to protect me. There's no higher honour you can win today,' she added, a point the priest had advised her to make.

Kirike was confused. 'Why me?'

'Because you're family,' she said, linking his arm in hers. 'My nephew.' She patted her belly. 'Until my own child grows up, who else should I rely on?' And besides, she added silently, if the rumours were true about who might have joined the Pretani and stirred up this whole war in the first place, Kirike too might be bait, even more valuable than Ana.

Kirike was visibly unhappy. But when Ana walked down from her house mound towards the beach, he followed. Full of youth and aggression, he practised spear-thrusts at crabs that scuttled out of his way.

The first sunlight was staining the sky when the Pretani force, coming from the south, reached the rim of the Bay Land. They had met no resistance. Bark stood on a last ridge of higher land, like dried-out sand dunes but far from the sea. Hollow stood with him. Behind them the Pretani warriors were ready, bristling with weapons and aggression, and the Leafies cowered at the end of the tethers held by their handlers.

And the Bay Land spread out before them, a strange place of dark soil cut by straight ditches and dotted with stands of willow. Houses stood on mounds of black earth, their hearths sending lazy trails of smoke into the sky. To the east, standing before the sea, Bark could see a pale band, the barrage of stone and mud that kept the ocean from drowning this place.

Hollow the trader knew this land as well as anybody. He pointed. 'There's the flint lode.' It was a wound in the earth, right in the middle of the Bay Land. 'But for months they've been making a stockpile of the stuff, over there beneath the d.y.k.e.' Following his finger, Bark could see a heap of yellow-brown stone that must have been as tall as a man, piled up against that strange sea wall. 'That's the easy picking today,' Hollow said. 'Tomorrow we can put the slaves to work digging out the rest from the main lode.'

'Then that's our target.' Bark sniffed, feeling oddly uneasy. 'Funny place, this. I never saw anything like it.'

'Well, this whole landscape ought to be deep under the sea. The Etxelur folk have defied their own G.o.ds to expose it to the air like this.'

'And I don't like that sea wall. The men won't like it either.'

'But that's where the good flint is,' Hollow said, unperturbed. 'Which I predict the men will like, more than they fear the wall.'

'True enough. Anyhow we have to follow the plan we worked out with the Root.' Bark glanced at the rising sun. It was time. 'Let's get on with it.' Without further discussion he jabbed his spear into the air: the signal to cut the Leafies loose from their leashes.

So it began.

Driven on with spear jabs and threats, the Leafy Boys swarmed down into the great bowl of the Bay Land, screaming, jumping and yelling. Soon people were coming out of their houses, or rising up from their early morning p.i.s.s-pots, or scrambling for weapons, or just running in terror.

Like a fire sweeping over dry gra.s.sland, the Leafies with their grasping hands and meat-hungry teeth always spread confusion and chaos and fear. But Bark knew the creatures well enough by now to understand that the Leafies, pining for their green canopy world, were probably more terrified in this strange place than were the Etxelur folk.

And as always the Leafy a.s.sault soon burned itself out. A few houses had been pulled down, people were running - and a few lay dead, including a couple of the Leafy Boys. But there wasn't as much damage and mayhem as Bark had been expecting.

He turned on Hollow. 'Where are these slaves of yours that are supposed to be rising up?'

Hollow looked uneasy, but he shrugged. 'Do you need slaves to fight your battles for you?'

Bark glared. 'Don't push me, trader. You've always been too good at lying for my liking.' He looked down at the Bay Land. If he didn't act now he would lose any advantage he'd gained. 'But you're right. We don't need a bunch of ragged-a.r.s.ed slaves to win our war.' He raised his spear again. 'We go in!'

The men behind him yelled, and ran forward, a ma.s.s of b.l.o.o.d.y hide and angry scars and s.h.i.+t-covered spears, pouring down the slope from the stranded dunes into the Bay Land.

But the ground turned out to be difficult. Around the willows and the hazel stands it was boggy, and mud clung to their boots, trapping their legs and weighing them down. Bark, frustrated, saw that the straight-line ditches Hollow said were supposed to keep the ground drained had been clogged with stones and brimmed with water, drenching the land. The advance soon slowed as the men staggered through the mud.

And now a spear flew through the air, narrowly missing Bark. He looked up to see Etxelur folk advancing, men and older boys, and women too, scared-looking but hefting spears and knives. They ran at the Pretani in little bands of two or three, not mounting a full-scale attack, but jabbing and thrusting and then retreating. Bark's warriors fought back, but one by one they fell, spilling their Pretani blood into the muddy ground.

Concern flickered. Bark hadn't expected this much resistance, not after so many days' travel with no sign of the Etxelur folk at all. But this was just how he would set a trap, he thought uneasily, if he were planning it. Draw in your prey, get him stuck in the flooded ground, and then pick him off.

But he was Pretani, not some frightened piglet. He lifted his spear arm. 'So they want a fight!' he yelled. 'I hoped they would! At them!'

The men roared in response, and surged forward anew, despite the mud.

83.

Shade and Zesi followed True onto the causeway to Flint Island. The Eel-folk slave, decked out like a Pretani in hide tunic and cloak, led the way cautiously along the narrow path across the sea. Behind Shade the Pretani warriors walked, two or three abreast, moving silently, visibly uneasy.

The causeway was an arc of stone that sliced the world in two ahead of Shade, excluding the blue sea to his left from the Bay Land that stretched away to his right, several paces beneath the crest of the wall along which they walked. Shade hadn't been here in years. He was stunned by the changes that had been wrought. And he had never in his life seen anything like this wall that stood against the sea.

But today the Pretani had come to Northland. Already he could hear yells and screams drifting up from the Bay Land, see smoke drifting. Bark and his men, making their move. So they had got the timing right, with the two thrusts into the Etxelur heartland launched at the same moment. But he did not let himself be distracted by looking that way, for he had his own fight to win.

And there would be a fight, for their way was not clear, Shade saw, looking ahead. A gang of Etxelur folk had gathered at the far abutment of the causeway, where it met the island.

'We're going to have to fight our way across,' Shade said to Zesi.

At his side, she too was dressed as a Pretani warrior, lacking only the kill scars. Now she scowled at him, the lines in her face deepened by the low light of the morning sun. 'What did you expect? That Etxelur folk would just give up and let you walk in? You don't know us very well if that's your opinion, Pretani.'

He shook his head, irritated. 'Now's not the time for posturing, woman. You're sure Ana is where she's supposed to be?'

Irritated, Zesi snapped, 'My sister has been sleeping on the midden sh.o.r.e for months. Who knows why? Maybe she wants to be close to her grave, where she'll be lying soon enough. That's where we'll find her this morning, and that's where we'll kill her-'

There was a roar, coming from ahead of them. The band of Etxelur folk had broken into a run.

Shade had no doubt his Pretani warriors would be able to bring down these wall-builders and ditch-scrubbers in an open fight - but this wasn't an open fight, and wasn't the kind of encounter Bark had trained them for. Suspended between ocean on one hand and a steep drop on the other, with warriors closing on him, he suddenly felt extraordinarily vulnerable.

'Those aren't all Etxelur,' Zesi said now, peering ahead at the approaching warriors. 'I recognise those twisted skulls. Those are snailheads. So Etxelur is calling on its friends to fight for them.'

'We Pretani don't need friends,' Shade said.

'Just as well, as you don't have any. And, look! The man on the right - the tattoo around his thigh.'

The man, short, squat, yelling and stabbing his spear into the air, was still a good way from Shade, but he could see the tattoo. It was an eel, wrapped around the man's leg.

Furious, Shade stepped forward and punched True's shoulder. 'That man's of the Eel folk! You promised the slaves would rise against Etxelur, not fight the Pretani!'

True turned and faced Shade. Then he broke into a savage grin. 'I lied. For my children!' And he roared, raised his own stabbing spear, and drove it down with two hands into Shade's shoulder.

Shade staggered back, stunned, the spear sticking out of this shoulder, its heavy ma.s.s tearing at him, the pain coming in waves.

Zesi lunged forward and with all her strength drove her own spear up into the soft flesh beneath True's chin, through the man's skull and up into his brain. True's body fell away, shuddering in death, and slid down the wall and into the ocean water.

Shade's men supported him to keep him from falling. But the world seemed to freeze around him, the sea, the wall, all icy clear, as the pain washed out from the hot wound. Was this his last moment of life?

Without warning Zesi yanked the Eel man's spear from his shoulder. He felt his flesh rip, and he had to work hard to keep from screaming at the blistering pain.

'You'll live,' she growled. She ripped a handful of cloth from her own tunic, wadded it up and pressed it against the wound. 'Hold this. You've still got one good hand.'

'Just as well.' For the charging Etxelur warriors were about to close. Shade pushed away his support, stood alone, and braced, spear in his good hand, hunching over his injured shoulder. To Zesi he muttered, 'They were expecting us.'

'Obviously. This is a trap.' She hefted her weapons. 'But whatever it takes, however many lives I have to waste, I'm coming for you, little sister-'

'Be ready! Here they are!'

The first man to come at Shade was a heavy snailhead. Shade got his good shoulder down and used the man's own charge to shove him off the wall and into the sea. The second man stabbed but missed, and Shade managed to grab the shaft of his spear and shove him back. But then came the third, and the fourth.

And then a woman, tall and dark, called to them. 'h.e.l.lo, Zesi. Remember me?'

'Ice Dreamer? Aren't you dead yet?' Zesi screamed and lunged, but the woman, tall, muscular and dark, fended her off easily.

Shade, dizzy with pain and loss of blood, battling for his own life against snailheads and estuary folk and former slaves, could offer her no protection or help.