[Cenotaph Road 04] - Iron Tongue Page 3

  “Lan, you’re doing it!” cried Inyx. “Water is forming. Look!”

  He opened his eyes, forced them into focus, and saw that the dark-maned woman spoke the truth. The chilled flask condensed moisture inside; it beaded on the glass walls, then trickled into the dish. He had accumulated a saucerful of precious water.

  “So little,” he muttered. “I had hoped for more.”

  “But Lan, it’s enough to show you can do it. This is enough to keep a person from dying of thirst.” She bent down and sipped at the liquid. “Hmmm, it’s quite good, too. Better than the tepid slime Jacy carries in his casks.”

  It was small enough as compliments went, but it warmed Lan. Inyx and her enthusiasm for his accomplishment made his hardships more bearable. He leaned over and kissed her. The passion increased until Inyx pulled back and said, “Lan, not here. It… it’s so public.”

  He didn’t answer—with words. The rest of the encampment either slept, tossed in exhausted dreams, or were busily engaged in fixing equipment. None cared what went on under the canopy balanced between two stony outcroppings at the far edge of camp. None except Lan and Inyx. His lips stilled her protest, his body pressed into hers, and soon they were passionately engaged.

  Afterward, Inyx stretched out like a feline and sighed.

  “It has been so long, Lan. Since the Twistings.”

  “That wasn’t so long ago,” he pointed out. “But it certainly seems it. It was a world ago.”

  “New enemies, new friends,” she agreed. “New dangers, also.”

  He followed her line of sight and saw the cause of her concern. Krek melted in with the landscape, appearing nothing more than a lumpy boulder among boulders. His entire body had become shrunken with the ordeal of marching in the summertime desert. The spider exalted in the cold heights of the mountains; heat depleted his strength far faster than it did a human’s.

  “He has to get out of this wasteland soon,” she said.

  “Noratumi says it is another week’s march to Bron. I get the feeling that Bron and Wurnna are closer than that to one another, but this detour takes them far enough from the sorcerers to avoid confrontation.” Lan idly ran his fingers over Inyx’s sweat-sheathed body, the thrill he’d felt for her now turning to concern for Krek. “I think you’re right. Krek can’t last that long.”

  “What about the mountains yonder? They appear only a day or two distant.”

  Lan frowned. He had considered this, but didn’t want to broach the topic. Splitting forces when they were so few wasn’t wise; yet if it meant saving Krek’s life he had no real choice. The mountains thrust rocky, scrub-covered foothills out into the desert to the west, while the humans pushed ever southward.

  “We might reach the mountains, then skirt them until we can meet again at Bron. That route is much longer—perhaps a week longer.”

  “But safer for Krek. He can find food and moisture in the mountains.”

  Lan Martak worried over the best course of action to follow. He knew what it was and hated it the more. He finally said, “Krek and I will head for the mountains. You continue on with Noratumi and see what condition this empire of Bron is in.”

  “Lan, no! I’ll go with you and Krek. We shouldn’t split up like this.”

  “I wish it were possible to stay together, but someone has to stay with Noratumi, if we want his people to fight alongside us. You are the only one in our small rank that they find totally acceptable. They brand me a sorcerer and Krek, well, it is obvious about him. Rally support, find their weaknesses so we may strengthen them, find their strengths so we may best use them against Claybore.”

  “We should stay together,” she said.

  “Time is of the essence. It is dangerous dividing our forces while Silvain still patrols this area. He will not accept his defeat lightly. He will return with reinforcements—and he has probably informed Claybore of his encounter at the oasis. Claybore might decide to eliminate Bron in one quick stroke. Any such attack weakens our position.”

  “It hardly seems fair.”

  “Nothing has been fair since I first encountered Claybore’s minions.” Lan paused, then smiled, almost shyly. “The only good from this battle is meeting you.” He bent and kissed her gently.

  “I do not like Inyx going off with that brigand,” Krek said petulantly. “She is one human who understands me.”

  “You mean I don’t?” Lan Martak trudged along, forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other and not think of the heat or his own bone-jarring tiredness.

  Krek didn’t answer him directly. “She is a rare one, that Inyx. A true warrior. She displays a bloodthirstiness that is almost spiderlike. Admirable. Most admirable.”

  “That’s one topic on which we agree fully. How much further is it to the foothills?” They had left Inyx with Noratumi’s band of traders the day before. Lan’s vision misted slightly as he watched the dust cloud stir and surround the departing humans while he and Krek struck out at right angles and started a shorter trip to the mountainous region paralleling the desert.

  “If I were not in such a debilitated and pathetic condition, a mere hour’s travel. As it is, who can say? I might die in this miserable place, far from my web and loving mate. O Klawn, can you ever forgive me for my dalliances?”

  Lan thought the spider was going to begin crying. He placed a hand on the nearest bristly, thick leg. Krek jerked away as if touched by a firebrand.

  “Sorry,” said Lan. “We’ll get into the mountains, you can find some decent food, we can rest, and then it’ll be about ten days before we rejoin Inyx.”

  Krek stumbled and fell, legs tied into painful knots.

  The man hastened to aid his friend, but Krek couldn’t stand under his own power.

  “Time to stop for the day,” Lan announced, as if he were the one too exhausted to continue. “Let’s get camp set up and then we can rest until sunset. A good start at twilight when it’s cooler will get us into the mountains before midnight.”

  “Leave me, friend Lan Martak. I am a shadow of my former self. A weakling always, I now pull you into death, also. That is something I cannot have on my conscience.”

  “You’ve saved me from worse, old spider. This is an easy way for me to even the score.”

  Lan stretched out the canvas canopy in the form of a lean-to and began using his chilling spell to generate a mouthful of drinking water for himself. The spell required little of his precious energy and supplied a product he desperately needed. His mouth felt as if it were filled with cotton and swallowing became a painful chore. Jacy Noratumi hadn’t allowed Lan any of the water from his casks, claiming they’d need it more and that a single day’s travel without water wouldn’t harm the young sorcerer. Lan’s pride had prevented him from arguing the point. Now his cooling spells proved useful.

  Two mouthfuls of water; then he fell into an unconsciousness closer to a coma than sleep.

  With the trance came visions, dreams, nightmares. And superimposed on all was a fleshless death’s skull with gleaming ruby beams lancing forth from sunken eye sockets. Those beams turned and twisted and sought Lan’s body until the skull smiled and began to laugh.

  Lan Martak awoke with a start, his body drenched in sweat, a single name on his lips: “Claybore!”

  He sat, legs pulled up and arms circling them, until it was twilight and time to push on toward the mountains.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “They will be all right. The spider is stronger than he lets on and the man, well, the man is a sorcerer. They can walk through walls. No harm will come to them.” Jacy Noratumi placed his hand lightly on Inyx’s shoulder. The woman flinched away.

  How could he possibly know how she felt about Lan Martak and the big, ugly, furry, gentle-savage spider?

  “I do not wish to see them leave like this. Splitting our forces only invites trouble. Alberto Silvain still patrols the area.”

  “Silvain, ha!” cried Noratumi, making a flourish in the air with his free hand. “
He dares nothing after we so soundly defeated him at the oasis.” In a different tone, almost crafty, he asked, “What do you know of this Silvain? Of all Claybore’s assistants, I have never seen him before.”

  “We chased him along the Road. He had almost complete power on another world, and we drove him off.”

  “You did?”

  She looked sharply at the man, seeking any sign of mockery. She didn’t find it.

  “I helped. Much of it was Lan’s doing. For all his protestations, he is becoming a fine mage. Claybore had trapped me between worlds in a ghostly whiteness. Lan rescued me, something others claimed impossible.” She didn’t elaborate, telling Noratumi she believed the task had become possible due to her love for Lan reaching out and finding him at the proper instant—and Lan’s love for her powering the spells needed to lever her free of the white nothingness.

  “You do battle on a grander scale.”

  Again she sought even a hint of irony and found nothing but simple statement.

  “We have tracked Claybore across three planets. In the Twistings, we defeated him. On top of Mount Tartanius, the victory was a bittersweet one. We prevented his expansion into that world, but he regained torso and heart.”

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “Aye.” She shivered in spite of the heat beating down upon her. “When first we crossed swords, he was nothing more than a fleshless skull toted about in a wooden box. Now he has joined head to torso and heart, can travel at will between the worlds, and even has a magically powered mechanical acting as his legs.”

  “Then the myths contain more truth than any of Bron imagined.” Noratumi and Inyx walked side by side, hips brushing. “We have heard how his body was scattered along the Road, but who could give credence to such a wild tale told to amuse and frighten children?”

  “It is all too true. It has come down to Lan, Krek, and me to stop him. Somehow, we find ourselves uniquely suited to the task, though none of us really wanted to become involved in such madness.”

  “It is a dangerous goal. Claybore’s troops overrun this world and have destroyed all but a few small cities. Wurnna—curse all sorcerers!—survives, as does my Bron. But the others? Gone. We were traders. There is no one left to trade with. We mine ores and work the metals. The mines are closed to us by the spiders, except when a Wurnna mage enslaves one of us and forces us into their mines.”

  “You and the others ought not to fight among yourselves. Unite and fight the common threat, then work out your differences when Claybore is no longer interested in this world.”

  Noratumi laughed, the bellowing laughter coming from deep inside. He shook his head, wiped at tears and sent rivers of sweat cascading off his sallow face.

  “You make it sound so easy. Iron Tongue would torture me with a thousand hideous spells, should he trap me unawares. And the spiders? I’d sooner give myself gladly to Iron Tongue rather than enter their valley. I have no liking for your puppet-mage, but I do not envy him accompanying the spider into those hills.” He looked up and away at the rocky ridge toward which Lan and Krek had started.

  “He is not my ‘puppet-mage,’ ” she snapped.

  “A thousand pardons if I have offended, milady.” Noratumi made a courtly bow. This time Inyx detected the sneer in his tone. “I do not gladly suffer any mage in my midst, no matter who accompanies him.”

  Inyx shook her long, dark hair in a wide-swinging fan pattern. The sunlight caught strands and sent out tiny rainbows of color. She loosened her tunic even more, unlacing the leather front, wishing for cooler climes. This desert didn’t please her, not at all. She had been raised on a more temperate world and preferred those regions closer to the ice and snow than to desert.

  Nothing about her apparel was suited for this heat. Her tunic chafed and rubbed her breasts, sweat pouring down the deep canyon between to tickle and torment. Her tight breeches made every step that much closer to agony. Even her boots, those fine fabrications from her home world done by her long-dead husband Reinhardt, seemed intent on making her miserable. Sand accumulated inside, crunching and cutting into her feet. Heat boiled upward through the thick soles and turned the insides to ovens. And worst of all was the sword belt suspended about her middle; she’d sooner die of heat prostration than abandon her sword and belt, but it weighted her down until she knew it had turned into tons of inert steel instead of a single pound and a half.

  Inyx did not think of herself as a vain woman. She scorned the courtiers of the cities intent only on fine laces and silks and the most enticing of perfumes, but she found herself wishing for just those things. A silk tunic and breeches would be cooler. A lace scarf would keep the sun off her neck while allowing sweat to evaporate. And in place of a nice long, cool, bath to ease the aches, remove the stench of travel and soothe the body, Inyx prayed for even a small bottle of pungent perfume. Any odor, no matter how strong and artificial, had to be better than that she emitted. How long had it been since her last bath? The woman tried to remember and failed.

  “In this Iron Tongue I detect the man Claybore would seek out. Tell me of him.”

  “Man? Iron Tongue? Hardly. He is a demon sent to scourge our world. The empire of Bron and the city-state of Wurnna are pledged to mutual destruction. And of the evil lurking in Wurnna, Iron Tongue represents the worst. I often think he flirts with insanity, sometimes deadly in his logic and rationality and other times totally disconnected from his own tenuous humanity.”

  Inyx said nothing. Jacy warmed to his topic, building a fine tirade against his enemy.

  “He tortures small children. What he does to captured women is even worse, even more unspeakable. Of the men he imprisons, we know but little. They are forced into the power stone mines. None has ever returned, none has escaped.”

  “How do you know Iron Tongue is so unspeakably evil, then?”

  “He is!”

  Inyx fell silent. She realized she touched on a matter of faith with the man. Societies built up careful myths to protect themselves from having to deal with too much reality. This perpetual battle between Bron and Wurnna smacked of such an origin.

  “He speaks and all listen. It is impossible not to obey. The man is evil.”

  “Are you personally familiar with this?” Even as she asked, Inyx knew the answer.

  “I am. In my younger, more foolish days, I crept into Wurnna thinking to free my brother, ten days lost in a raiding party. I entered the walls undetected, but luck ran with me. All the populace of that foul city had gathered to listen to that necromancer. He spoke and… the air rumbled. I cannot describe it. But the words were repugnant to me and I believed. I actually believed them. He spoke and evil became the pinnacle of goodness. He spoke and I wanted to help slay my very own brother.”

  “His name. How did Iron Tongue get his name?”

  Noratumi shrugged. He obviously did not wish to pursue the topic further. The memory of his brother and his own abortive rescue wore too heavily on him.

  “I would not speak of such things. Rather, let us talk of you. Tell me of your life. How did one so lovely come to be a traveler along the Road?”

  Inyx began, her words hesitant at first but soon rolling forth with the man’s encouragement. She found him a good listener, an attractive man, someone to unburden herself to now that Lan and Krek were gone. Even the heat became less of a bother as they walked and talked, sharing experiences and remembrances both pleasant and painful.

  “When we arrive in Bron, there will be much rejoicing at such a discovery,” said Noratumi.

  “What discovery?”

  “My discovery of a lady so beautiful, so charming. My discovery of you.”

  Somehow, she didn’t see the need to object when his arm circled her waist and pulled her close.

  Five days of heat and footweariness brought them to a valley filled with green growing plants and fragrant pine trees, a cool breeze blowing off crystal-clear streams fed by mountain snows, real dirt instead of sterile sand, and even occasional a
nimals curiously studying them as they passed by burrow and nest.

  “This is the southernmost part of my empire,” Noratumi said proudly. “This is why we fight. To give up even one tiny lump of its soil is unthinkable.”

  “It is gorgeous,” Inyx agreed, but some small part of her remained wary. For all the apparent tranquility about them, this was not a peaceful holding. She saw no signs of battle or armed troops, but wondered if the images, the shadows, of such remained as a stain on the land.

  “Bron sits high atop a rocky spire. Gentle green meadows surround it and—” He was cut off by the return of his scout. The man ran up, out of breath. “Get decent, man,” said Noratumi, reaching out and shaking the green-and-brown clad man by the shoulders. “Report.”

  “Sire, it is terrible!”

  “What is, dammit? Don’t go on like this.”

  “The grey-clads. They attack Bron!”

  “So what else do you have to report? They were doing that when we left on our little sortie.”

  Inyx started to ask Noratumi the purpose of his mission into the desert, but he rushed on before she could properly frame the words. She had found that in this society questions had to be phrased in some fashion relating to the questioner’s ranking, that of the interrogated, and some other criteria she had yet to discover. If the question went unheeded, it meant a mis-asking.

  “All are within the city’s walls, sire. You know what that means.”

  “Come, hurry, dammit. Don’t dawdle. We must give what aid we can to our city.”

  “How can we be of assistance?” Inyx finally asked.

  “When cut, they bleed like anyone else. My sword will drink deeply of their scurvy souls this day. I will not tolerate the grey soldiers meddling in my kingdom!”

  Their advance slowed as they came to the main road through the valley-spanning empire. Under other circumstances, Inyx might have made a few rude comments about how ill-repaired the road was for such a mighty kingdom. She held all such criticism back, knowing that road repair ranked low on a list of priorities now. Even the smallest of kingdoms deserved better than Claybore’s rule.