The Serpent Page 9

  I thought hard before I spoke again. Master Sime had done work that was beyond Guntram—or any other Maker I’d ever heard of. I couldn’t say that bringing his wife back to life was beyond his ability.

  But the difference between alive and dead was more than a difference of quality: it was a difference of kind, the difference between stone and the Waste.

  “Sir,” I said. “You are a marvelous Maker. My friend Master Guntram in Dun Add is also very skilled. He might be able to teach you some things. Certainly he could learn from you.”

  “This Guntram?” Sime said. “Do you think he’ll be able to bring my Myrrha back to life?”

  I considered lying. I remembered he’d said his dog could read intent, but that wasn’t the main reason I said instead, “Sir, I don’t know what might be possible for two Makers of such skill as you and Guntram.”

  “You don’t think he could bring Myrrha back,” Sime said with flat accuracy. “I’m not interested in seeing him, then. There is nothing I want to teach him or anyone else. If you’ll go away, now, I’ll get back to work, modifying this chest to do what I need.”

  “I wish…” I said.

  “Please go away!” he repeated. The dogs beside him began to quiver restlessly.

  I felt the weight of my weapon. That wouldn’t do any good. I relaxed and backed away. Sam came with me, turning repeatedly to glare back toward the pair of mechanical dogs. “Thank you for your time,” I called to Sime.

  Baga and I went back to the Road, where Georges was waiting for us. He was ready to lead us back to the inn but I saw no reason to do that and turned the other way. The Road branching left out of Arpitan got very little traffic.

  We came to the entrance to a node. Sam wanted to enter, so we did. He ran twenty feet ahead and disappeared. Baga and I followed to find the ground fell away into a swale with a creek at the bottom where Sam was drinking.

  Baga scrambled down the slope and knelt beside him. He began scooping water up in his left palm and slurping it down by the mouthful. I tried to keep my footing when I descended on the other side of Sam—upstream—by digging my heels into the slope of bare dirt.

  A six-legged animal came from the opposite side of the stream. Baga shouted and scrambled up the low bank. I pulled out my shield and weapon.

  The creature looked to me like an ant three or four feet long with a slick body colored dirty white. Its jaws opened sideways and were about six inches long. Baga’s movement drew its attention but it didn’t attack.

  Sam barked from the stream bed. Baga, seeing that I was armed and the ant was only waving its antennae, picked up a fallen branch. The branch was rotten and most of the bark had sloughed off the wood beneath.

  After glancing at me, Baga gathered himself and leaped to the other side of creek. He jabbed at the ant, striking a firm blow that rubbed bits of wood off the end. The ant’s hard shell was smudged brown but it didn’t seem to be really damaged. Baga struck again, this time bringing his club down in an overhand gesture that broke it at midpoint. The ant retreated again, this time lifting one of its middle pair of legs and rubbing it on his bulbous abdomen.

  I wasn’t sure he was an ant after all. The juncture between its main body, where the legs were, was as thick as the body parts.

  I thought I felt a sound from the rubbing leg. There were tight little ripples spreading across the water. The ant backed further.

  Instead of wading in again with his remaining foot of branch, Baga tossed his stub away and looked around for a better weapon. He found a thicker length of wood. I think it was actually the trunk of a sapling which had died across the creek in the low light and fallen over when the roots rotted away. It was too heavy for a weapon: Baga had to lift it in both arms to get it off the ground.

  “Baga,” I said. “Leave the ant alone. It’s not doing us any harm.”

  Instead of obeying me, Baga lurched forward as though he were holding a battering ram rather than a club. He hit the ant’s shoulder with it and shoved the creature backward.

  Three more ants came out of the forest. They were larger than the first and had relatively larger jaws.

  “Baga!” I shouted and started splashing over the creek. “Come back!”

  I switched on my equipment and most Here lost definition as I went to a higher plane. The three large ants were all to my left. Baga and the first ant were on my right side.

  The ant nearest me raised its front pair of legs off the ground and waggled them toward me while the long jaws opened and closed. I cut at the mandibles, the part of the ant nearest me. My weapon at full power slowed when it met the horny covering, then jerked through with a smell like that of burning hair. One of the paired mandibles fell to the ground. The ant charged toward me with the remaining mandible wiggling like a curved spear point.

  I backed away and braced myself to thrust at where the neck met the body segment. Just as well that I’d set my feet or else the shock would have knocked me down. The point ground into the ant’s chest, catching and jerking free repeatedly as it went deeper. The legs continued to wriggle in the air.

  The other two ants were swinging around to the left side—my left—of the first one and would be on me in an instant. I shut my weapon off momentarily to get clear and skittered backward. I crashed into Baga, who was still carrying the fallen tree. “Get out of here, you bloody fool!” I shouted, slashing down at the second ant, picking its way around the one I’d killed or at least hoped I’d killed. I cut off one antenna.

  I was furious. My instant reaction had been to chop Baga out of the way—which was crazy. But I was terrified at the thought of those long saw-edged mandibles closing on me and pinching me in half while I was scuttling backward to escape. Baga had blocked my route.

  The ants paced forward rather than running—thus far, anyway. Cutting the antenna off didn’t seem to affect the injured ant at all. I wondered if they could follow us out onto the Road.

  I thrust toward the ant’s right eye. My sword skidded over the surface, scoring it but not digging deep. The faceted material must be harder than the body armor, and that was tough enough. The effort I’d put into driving into the ant I’d killed was on the order of what I would have had to expend on Lord Clain’s excellent shield.

  I backed again. Baga was out of the way but he’d dropped the tree-bole. I had to hop over it. The ant came on. I slashed at a foreleg and took it off with about as much effort as a wrist-thick branch would have taken. The ant staggered but didn’t fall. It stumbled toward me again.

  The uninjured ant was pressing me. I concentrated on it instead of taking off the remaining foreleg of the previous ant. I slashed left and right, backhand and forehand. I didn’t sever either of the ant’s forelegs but I cut deeply into the meat—the muscle—beneath the armor.

  I circled to my left, careful not to slide down into the creek. I was planning to rush in and stab into the socket of a middle pair of legs to really cripple the ant. Baga was struggling with his tree trunk again.

  “I’ll help you!” he said, shouting to be heard even though my weapon had taken up from the normal plane of Here.

  “No!” I shouted back. “Go the Road! We’re getting out of here!”

  I saw beyond Baga the looming shape of another ant coming through the trees. “Watch out, there’s another!”

  Baga dropped his pole and fell backward. Instead of rushing forward the ant remained ten feet back at the edge of the trees and from its misshapen head squirted a brown fluid at Baga. Baga screamed and fell down.

  I rushed the creature. When in doubt I always charged an opponent. It wasn’t necessarily good strategy, but it was one of two ways you could react in a sudden crisis. Running away was rarely the correct response for a Champion of Mankind, but my reaction wasn’t based on long-term considerations.

  This ant’s head wasn’t like those of the others. It was a long box on edge with a stubby nozzle like the watercock of a fountain. The nozzle was what squirted Baga, but though it turned towa
rd me it didn’t squirt again. Maybe it had exhausted its fluid reservoir, maybe it took time to build up the necessary pressure.

  I swatted backhand at the outthrust nozzle. It was a hollow tube and I severed it close to the base. The ant actually leaped backward, back among the trees. More brown fluid dribbled from the hole in the ant’s head where the nozzle had been.

  The ants I’d been fighting previously stood half-crippled at the edge of the woods. They weren’t coming after me. The only uninjured ant in sight was the small one which Baga had attacked, and it hadn’t been aggressive during the whole time we’d seen it.

  I dropped my weapon and shield into my tunic pockets. They had been at their highest settings for long enough that there was a risk they’d be hot enough to singe cloth or even set it on fire. I really ought to have my pockets lined with suede, but I didn’t have time to worry about it now.

  I lifted Baga under the arms and dragged him down into the stream. The stream was shallow even in the center—less than a foot deep. The current was swift, though, and the stones of the bed were smooth and six inches in diameter.

  Baga’s left arm and the left side of his tunic were covered with the brown fluid. It smelled bitter and my stomach was already starting to roil.

  I turned him in the cold water so that it covered all of the stain. I tried not to touch the stain with my bare hands, instead trying to tug the tunic away from his body without touching the brown glop that stuck it to his skin. Then I pulled the tunic off his torso and used unstained portions of the hem to rub clean Baga’s left hand and forearm. Where the fluid had touched him, the skin was already turning angry red and swelling.

  The fluid didn’t want to come off in the cold water. Maybe soap would have helped.

  I was beginning to shiver with the cold and in reaction to what had just happened. The ants hadn’t moved from where I’d left them across the creek.

  I threw Baga’s right arm over my shoulders and gripped his wrist to hold him there. I ground my boot toes into the clay and carefully climbed the bank with the doubled weight. I lurched the last step up onto the high grass of landingplace. I called, “Sam!” He’d already bounded back across the creek. Now he stopped barking at the ants and ran ahead of me. Before we returned to the Road, I glanced toward what we were coming from. Three more ants were visible at the edge of the woods. Two of them had squirting nozzles on their heads.

  They didn’t seem interested in us, though with their faceted eyes I couldn’t be sure. At any rate, they weren’t following.

  Baga was moaning softly. I found that so long as I kept moving steadily I was all right. Baga’s feet dragged, but I couldn’t help that. We were heading off the way we’d been going. We already knew there was no help back the way we’d come.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to support Baga in a pack-strap carry and keep moving forward. I’d keep going as long as I could.

  Sam had initially run ahead but when he realized we were just crawling along he came back and rubbed closer to my right leg than I liked. Eventually he loped ten feet ahead and paused at the entrance to a node which was little more than a discoloration in the Waste. We stumbled out onto a landingplace at the edge of what seemed to me to be a prosperous farm.

  We were at the back of a barn made of vertical planks. Through the gap between the side of the barn and an outbuilding which held a pair of wagons. I staggered toward the opening, shouting, “Help! Can somebody help me?”

  I’m not sure anybody could hear me. Breath burned my lungs. “Help!”

  I could see a house with a porch across from the outbuilding with a yard separating them. I resumed staggering forward. Baga seemed to have doubled in weight since I left the Road, but I wasn’t going to quit now.

  A woman came out on the porch. I don’t think she’d heard me calling but she heard me croak now, “Help!” I waved my hand; the left was still clamped around Baga’s wrist.

  The middle-aged woman ran down off the porch toward me. Her dress was a muddy blue color and homespun like those of most women on Beune. “What’s happened?” she demanded, gripping Baga from the left side and supporting some of his weight.

  “He’s burned,” I said. “Can we get him to a bed? But be careful; the stuff on him may still be dangerous.”

  “Lord in heaven!” she said. “We’ll get him inside. You ran into those bloody termites, then?”

  As we staggered past the barn she shouted into the open end, “Robin! Get out here and help us! Move it!”

  By the time we’d reached the porch a burly man in clogs and leather shorts had joined us and lifted Baga out of our arms. “Into the back bedroom!” the woman said. Then, when a younger woman came out the door and whooped in surprise, she added, “Bertie, bring butter from the wellhouse. He’s burned.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. I leaned against one of the sturdy chairs on the porch, sucking in deep gasps to get my breath. “I’ll pay you for your help.”

  Greasing Baga’s injuries was going to play hell with her bedding. I wondered to what degree coined money would be useful on this node? Certainly I would offer it.

  Which reminded me that Baga’s purse held most of our copper. I’d take that shortly.

  The woman had gone into the house. As I started to follow her she came back outside. “There’s a healer two farms over,” she said. “He’s the owner’s brother. You said you can pay him?”

  “As much as it takes,” I said. “Will you send for the healer?”

  “I already sent Robin,” she said. “But I’m glad you said you could pay. Wilf’s searching for the plants he wants all the time. I know his brother Woad thinks he ought to be spending more time on the farm, but you know there’s plenty folk as can get hay in. When somebody’s got a fever, there’s a lot fewer around who know what simples to brew in a tea to bring the temperature down.”

  “I’m glad of Wilf’s presence,” I said. “I’ll be happy to pay.”

  And if it came to that, I was a decent hand with a scythe. I didn’t want to be around that long, but I couldn’t even guess when Baga would be able to travel.

  I went in to see him. I hadn’t looked at him since I picked him up in the creek.

  There was a hemp tarpaulin beside the bed but it must have been brought in later for Baga lay on a feather coverlet. The fluid hadn’t splashed his face but his cheeks were yellow beneath his tan. Bertie came in with a stoneware pot. I said, “Let’s get him on the canvas before we use that.” I ran my arm under Baga’s shoulders and lifted him while the servant tugged the hemp under the body.

  Though Baga was shivering strongly, his skin felt hot. I hoped the healer would get here soon. The skin which the fluid had touched had been red but now was fading to white.

  The mistress—Madame Sarah, she told me—had covered the burns herself with dollops of butter. She was still doing that when Robin returned with Wilf, a man of fifty with only a white fringe of hair above his ears. He opened his leather case of paraphernalia and took out a bundle of twigs tied with twine. He tossed the herbs to Bertie and said, “Go boil this up, girl. We’ll cut it with cold water and get it in him as quick as we can to bring his fever down.”

  I went out of the house and sat on the porch. After a moment I took out my notebook and filled in the day’s course and events for Mistress Toledana. After a few minutes Sarah and Wilf came out and joined me.

  “How’s Baga doing?” I asked them generally.

  Wilf said, “Sallie tells me you want to get back on the Road. That’ll be a week at soonest and two would be safer. How far do you need to go?”

  I shrugged. “We’re going back to Dun Add,” I said. “I’m not in a tremendous hurry, but is there anywhere we can stay on whatever this node is? Until Baga can travel, I mean?”

  “We call our node Elvira,” Mistress Sarah said in a slightly taut voice. “And if you like, your friend can stay here for three coppers a day and his keep. Mind, I’ll move him to the barn when Wilf says he’s read
y.”

  I calculated for a moment. “What say to two silver Riders on account now, new-minted in Dun Add? When I come back to pick up Baga, I’ll settle up—and clear what I owe Master Wilf here?”

  “Dun Add silver, then?” Sarah said on an upward note. She touched the face of the coin with a fingertip and found the edges newly struck. “All right, that sounds fair. You’ll be back in two weeks, then?”

  “The lord willing,” I said. “I’d add to that, though, for a meal and straw in your barn tonight.”

  “Glad to have you,” Mistress Sarah said. “I’m boiling a hen tonight. If that suits you, you’re welcome to join me. And there’ll be broth for your man when he’s able to take it.”

  “Thank you, mistress,” I said. “I’m very fortunate.”

  And Baga is even more so. It can’t have felt like a good day for him, but if he hadn’t been pestering the ant—“termite” Mistress Sarah, had called it—none of the trouble would have happened.

  In the morning Sam and I would go another week up the Road and hope that Baga was ready to go when we came back.

  CHAPTER 8

  Back on the Road

  I left Elvira in the morning with no destination in mind—just up the Road for a week and then back again. Just as I stepped onto the Road I met a packman about to turn into it. He had a terrier whose hindquarters quivered in excitement at meeting Sam. Sam was his usual imperturbable self, exchanging sniffs without undue interest.

  “Are they in a buying mood?” the packman asked, easing the weight of his large leather pack by squatting so that the base of the pack rested on the Road.

  “I wasn’t peddling anything,” I said. “I just carried an injured friend there and they’re taking care of him until I get back. If you’re honest and you’ve got good quality products then I wish you all the luck in the world. They’re right nice people and I’d want them to be treated right.”

  “You’re not afraid to speak your mind, are you?” the peddler said, raising his eyebrow.

  “I’m a Champion of the Commonwealth,” I said. “Not being afraid sort of goes with the job.”