After the fifth such interchange, Tokela heard a chuckle, looked up to see Našobok leaning against the doorway, grinning.
“Ai, animalKin See you, no question.” His grin widened, and he hefted the rucksack higher over one shoulder. “I’ve news. A trade vessel has been spotted upRiver.”
“Yours?”
“Likely. They were due here two darks ago. Come.”
They strode down the hill. It was a much different place with Sun cresting the trees, spilling brilliance across the settlement. There was mud, to be sure—always mud this turn of Hoop in duskLands—but the dwellings seemed less forlorn, the tall, carven lodgepole fortifications with their watcher’s hut less forbidding and more sensible.
A shout rose from the tall stands of still-misted conifers ahead; Našobok alerted, threw the rucksack over one shoulder, said again, “Come!” and skipped into a run, light-hearted as a ahlóssa.
Tokela followed into the towering trees; thick, then thinning, then a brilliant flash against his eyes nigh to match the one in his Spirit: River’s reflection, outer and inner. Still steaming around the corners, fog burning away but still hiding Her other flank, Her coppery waters lapped at the quays and shorehouses, tilting the small craft tethered there. A large promontory was beginning to peek through just upRiver, a protective jut of ochre stone and conifers. Nothing to be seen past that, but sounds travelled: a slap and slide of water against a great wood hull, voices floating, seemingly, in another place. People were emerging from the trees beside and behind Tokela, waving and calling out, running to eagerly line the largest and most deepset of the quays.
Našobok halted. Still grinning, he put thumb and fingers to his mouth, and let out a piercing whistle.
It was answered from the mists beyond the promontory, carrying high in Wind’s nigh-stillness. A span of drawn-out heartbeats passed. Then a tall mast burst from the mists and rounded the promontory, oars working.
Shorn of the grace of her winged lateen sails, the craft lay down in the water, broad and working-like with cargo, but Tokela felt his breath catch in his throat as she hove to, parting coppery water in search of the outer quay. In thisnow Ilhukaia was, inexplicably, one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.
Riverwalker, she called to him with River’s voice.
“She does it to me too.” Našobok’s voice was a mere whisper, and as Tokela turned, he saw River glint in the storm-hued eyes.
Heard, in a sudden scree of warning: Riverwalker. Beware!
Scented a tang, high upon a slight, dry breath of Wind.
Then, from the water, they came.
The colour of silt and kelp and bitter poison, exploding from River like water-horses. Yet they were nothing like. These were unnatural, Shaped things: bipedal creatures with fins, and claws, and one bulbous, lidless eye above a lipless mouth. Gashes gaped upon their swollen, misShapen necks, raw and open and fluttering.
They fell upon Ilhukaia.
And River… screamed.
The not-sound plunged into Tokela’s heart like a dual-edged blade, ripped sideways, and took him to his knees.
PANICKY CRIES rose, bouncing off the fog and surrounding trees. The current was against Našobok—not River’s, but the onlookers in flight. Našobok leapt forwards nevertheless, his passage a cresting wave, heading for Ilhukaia and shoving aside those who didn’t give way.
His crew was fighting for their lives. Munro hung to the tiller by sheer will, while a pair of oarmates fended off the invaders snatching at their oars. Ilhukaia gybed, a dip and swerve that sent everyone sliding. Only seven of them, against…
Monsters.
They screamed, a low-level keen that dug behind Našobok’s eyeballs and burned.
“Well,” he let the word drawl into a sneer. “The tall softlings must now make creatures to do their bidding?” He slowed but once, and that to shrug the shortbow from his shoulders and string it. He shot a glance backwards to ensure Tokela had heard…
Tokela hadn’t. He had fallen, sprawled facedown on the hard planks of the quay. One of the cursed creatures was squirming out of the water and towards him—too close for Našobok’s liking.
Fisting several arrows, he bent the bow, nocked and loosed,; gave a grunt of satisfaction as the creature collapsed into River. Shouted, “Get up, Tokela!”
But Tokela didn’t respond. perhaps the creatures’ screams were doing something Other to him, perhaps whatever had flung him down had also flung him… away, as if Sun had become Stars to incapacitate him.
His crew fought on, some hand to hand, others with whatever weapons could be snatched up and wielded. There was something hanging nigh to the furled sail… perhaps not… but a’io, it was there, fading like wings against bright Sunlight.
More, it seemed to focus back. Not with eyes, nor with any identifiable feature or expression. Nevertheless, its reality and intent hung there, Shaping the will of its creatures with…
What? It didn’t matter. Našobok snarled and shot. Waste of a good arrow. The hovering thing merely faded then reShaped itself, like some sick incarnation of clouds beneath Thunder’s wings.
Tokela suddenly twitched, lurched upwards, and let out a hoarse shout—a warning? Našobok’s body obeyed before he thought, whirled. One of the creatures, two arrows in its neck, skidded past him and rammed headlong into another. The things moved blind, clumsy, but when they went down they didn’t stay down. Even with missing limbs, or mortal wounds bleeding a thick, blue-black ichor, they kept coming.
And his crew kept fighting. Two were back-to-back, shadowing first mate Odina, who was beating off several of the things with her spear—and losing. Another was being dragged across the planking by the hair. Half were downed.
Several more of the creatures leapt out of the water; one headed for him and the other for Tokela. Našobok took them out, one after another, and laughed as two more scrabbled up onto the quay. He grabbed for the quiver at his hip…
Laughed again, this without humour, as he found it empty.
And three of the screaming creatures fell upon Našobok, sending him sliding across the slick-wet quay and into River.
HE HAD
