could not imagine a lonelier way to die.
'Right you are, Captain.' Now Van got into the wagon and took the reins without hesitation; maybe the shock of the earthquake had made him forget his morning-after pains, too. Gerin scrambled up beside him. The horses snorted, both in fear and from the billowing smoke. The Fox counted himself lucky that they hadn't bolted when the fires started. He was anything but sorry to get away from the flames himself.
Along with so much else, the gold-and-ivory statues of Ros and Oren had fallen in the earthquake-fallen and shattered into the pieces from which they were made. Oren's head, its features plump and unmemorable but decked with a crown heavy with gold and sparkling with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, had bounced or flown out beyond the overthrown marble wall that delimited Biton's precinct.
Gerin and Van looked at each other, the same thought in both their minds. So much gold-Whispering a prayer of propitiation to Biton, the Fox leaped down from the wagon. He seized the image of the dead Emperor's head, ready to cast it aside at the first sign of the curse striking home (and devoutly hoping that would be soon enough). Grunting at the weight of gold, he picked up the head and crown and chucked them into the back of the wagon.
'We won't need to fret about money for a bit,' Van said, beaming, and even the abstemious Fox could only nod.
The quake struck so early in the day that hardly anyone had yet come in hope of hearing the Sibyl's prophetic verse. Only one wagon and one chariot had their horses tethered out in front of the dwelling the Sibyl used as her own. The cottage still stood, while chunks of the marble wall around the temple precinct had come down with gruesome result on the priest who the day before had tended Gerin's team.
Seeing the Sibyl's dwelling intact made the Fox hesitate. 'Maybe we should just head for home,' he said doubtfully. 'Those fellows over there will be able to take care of her without violating ritual.' He pointed through a gap in the wall toward figures running around by the ruined temple.
Van looked that way, too. His eyes were sharper than Gerin's, perhaps because, unlike the Fox, he spent no time peering at faded script in crumbling scrolls. He grabbed the mace off his belt. ' Captain, you'd better look again. Whatever those things are, you don't want 'em tending the Sibyl.'
'What are you talking about? They must be priests, and they-' Gerin's voice broke off as, squinting, he did take another look. He saw priests, all right, but they were down on the ground, not one of them moving. Over them bent pallid shapes hard to make out against the white marble of the temple. They didn't quite move or look like men, though.
One of them raised his head and saw the wagon. The bottom of hisits?-face was smeared with red. Gerin didn't think the thing was hurt. The blood around its mouth likelier said it had been-feeding.
As Van had seized the mace, so Gerin grabbed for his bow. The pale, bloodstained figure loped toward the wagon. The Fox remained unsure whether it was man or beast. It carried itself upright on two legs, but its forehead sloped almost straight back above the eyes (which were small and themselves blood-red) and its mouth was full of teeth more formidable than anything Gerin had seen this side of a longtooth.
Ice ran down his back. 'The quake must have knocked down the underground walls, the warded ones,' he exclaimed. 'And these are the things the wards held back.'
'Belike you're right,' Van answered. 'But whether you are or not, don't you think you'd better shoot that one before it gets close enough to take a bite out of us? Whatever it was eating before doesn't seem to have filled it.'
Staring at the pallid monster, Gerin had almost forgotten he was holding his bow. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked, drew, and let fly in one smooth motion. The monster made no effort to duck or dodge; it might never have seen a bow before. The arrow took it in the middle of its broad chest. It clawed at the shaft, screaming hoarsely, then crumpled to the ground.
The scream drew the attention of a couple of other monsters. How many of them had lived underground? Gerin wondered. And for how long? Whatever the answer was, the things were above ground now, and looked to be out for revenge against the men who had forced subterranean life on them for so long-and on any other men they could sink their teeth into.
Before the monsters rushed the wagon, a charge by a squad of temple guards distracted them. They attacked the guardsmen with the ferocity of wild beasts. The guards had spears and swords and armor of bronze and leather. The monsters looked to be faster and stronger than anyone merely human.
Gerin got but a brief glimpse of the fight, which looked to be an even match. 'If we mix ourselves up in that, all we'll do is get killed,' he said to Van. 'More of those cursed things keep swarming up out of what's left of the temple.'
'Well then, let's snatch the Sibyl and get out of here before they find her and figure she'd make a tasty snack,' Van said. In other circumstances, that would have seemed rough humor. Remembering the blood round the mouth of the monster he'd shot, Gerin thought the outlander was just stating a probability.
He jumped down from the wagon when Van reined in by the Sibyl's dwelling. The door stood ajar, perhaps knocked open by the earthquake. Gerin ran inside.
Had the quake not thrown pots from shelves and lamps from tables, the cottage would have reminded the Fox of one inhabited by a prosperous peasant. Tapestries enlivened whitewashed walls; the furniture looked better made than most. That hadn't kept stools from falling down, though, or the clay oven in one corner of the cottage from cracking.
The Sibyl lay on her bed, unconscious still, in the midst of chaos. As Gerin stepped toward her, the ground trembled beneath his feet once more. That was almost enough to send him fleeing out of the cottage in terror of offending Biton. But, he reasoned, earthquakes were not in the province of the farseeing god. Had he angered Biton, the deity would have shown his displeasure more directly.
He stooped beside the Sibyl, who still wore the thin linen dress she'd had on in the chamber beneath the ruined temple. He wondered if his touch would bring her to herself. She stirred and muttered as he lifted her, but her eyes stayed closed. He hurried back out through the doorway.
'Good thing the monsters are still battling in there,' Van said when he returned. 'A wench in your arms is pleasant even if you're not having her, but worthless to fight with.'
'Scoffer,' Gerin said. But the rising noise of combat inside the temple precinct warned him he had no time to swap banter with Van. As gently as he could, he set the Sibyl in the back of the wagon. Again she muttered but did not wake. He took his seat beside Van, snatched up his bow and quiver once more. Nocking another arrow, he said, 'Let' s get out of here.'
'Right you are.' Van twitched the reins. The horses bolted ahead, glad to have an outlet for their fear. As the wagon rattled past a gap in the fence, a monster came through. Gerin shot it. It fell with a roar. Van pushed the horses up to a gallop. Skirting the burning town of Ikos, the wagon plunged into the old woods.
V
Not long after noon, the Sibyl came back to herself. By then, the travelers were more than halfway through the strange forest that guarded the road to Ikos. Gerin had expected trees fallen across that road, perhaps other signs of upheaval from the earthquake. He discovered none. As far as the woods were concerned, the temblor might never have happened.
'Good,' Van said when he remarked on that. 'Maybe the trees'll swallow up those creatures, too, when they come swarming out of Ikos.'
'Wouldn't that be lovely?' Gerin said. 'Likely too much to hope for, though, because-' He broke off as the wagon shifted under his fundament. It wasn't, as he'd first feared, yet another quake: rather, he found when he looked back into the bed of the wagon, the Sibyl had gone from lying to sitting up. He nodded to her. 'Lady, I bid you good day.'
Her eyes showed nothing but confusion. 'You are the pair for whom I prophesied just now,' she said, her voice also halting. Though it suited her appearance well, hearing it once more gave Gerin a small shock: after Biton had spoken through her, he'd almost forgotten she had a voice of her own.
'Not 'just now,' ' he said, wondering how he could let her know what had happened while she lay unconscious. 'That was yesterday; you' ve been in Biton's trance for more than a whole day.'
'Impossible. It never takes me so,' she said angrily. But a moment later, she looked confused again. 'Yet if you do not speak truth, why am I on the point of bursting? Halt a moment, I pray you.' Van reined in. The horses, glad of a breather, began nibbling grass by the side of the road.
