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 gods 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 piss-pots, or scrambling for weapons, or just running in terror.
Like a fire sweeping over dry grassland, 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 assault 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-arsed slaves to win our war.’ He raised his spear again. ‘We go in!’
The men behind him yelled, and ran forward, a mass of bloody hide and angry scars and shit-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 shore 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 mass 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-’
