Brother red, p.30
Brother Red, page 30
“Rough goin’?” says one soldier.
“First time up here,” I say. “Pass is tricky; the Cargamun were a great help to us.” This in case he was a Cargamun himself.
“We being no trouble for the masters here. Lick their lips at all these Ososi cunts, won’t they, Crish?”
“Will do, brun.”
“Welcome, Guard, I’m Yaen.” The whoremaster this is. “You come back out here later, have your pick of these. I broke and trained them myself.” The woman steps forward. “Hard journey up to this shithole needs some rewards, doesn’t it?”
“It does, lady,” I say. I look behind her, see one of the girls with her arm around a boy, maybe her brun, giving him reassurance as he looks nervously at us all.
“See you tonight, then. I have more than enough for your crew, long as you don’t mind the sight of each other at it.” Her laugh is wet with phlegm. “Smell’s not so bad out here and all; better for business and better comfort for you soldiers. When you get inside you’ll see.”
The others approach us then, scritching about their wares and speaking like poets to the merits of whatever they’re selling.
“We just want to get this lot in the camp; it’s been a long road,” I say to the soldier.
“You have betony on there I hope,” he says.
“We do.”
“Marghoster’s not that stupid,” says the other one.
“Follow me,” says the first. “Yaen, I’ll be back tonight for another go at that Ososi boy.”
“I’ll have him ready for you, Dron.”
I dismount, Curic following, us being the only ones not riding the wagons. We’d put our red cloaks in bags before approaching the camp, wanting nothing to distract those guarding this place into taking an interest.
Two of the guards at the top of the gate wind the portcullis. A bar is lifted from its lip across the gates and two from inside push them out. As they open, the smell of burning flesh hits us, the wind blowing smoke towards us as it hits the lip of the quarry. As the Master of Flowers said, we pass through the gates and look at a deep crescent, rising across from us, a bowl of sorts, flattened at our edge of it. A wide stone path winds down to a shelf on which some of the remains of the bloomeries are used for other fires. My heart pounds, yet here is a sight to break it.
“Where’s the chief, the captain?” I shout, taking deep breaths to control myself.
“He’s down to your right there, big hut. Scar’s standing outside; can’t miss him.”
There he is. He’s watching us. As big as the Master, no hood here as he wore back in Lindur, though he stands in leathers, a sleeveless vest like Ufra, but his is chain, mighty arms bare and thick with vines and bark. His head is covered in scars and stitches, a mostly blackened patchwork, misshapen, as Ufra has told me it would be from his trying to repair his braegnloc with the skulls of those Ososi that forbade him becoming a Master in his own right. He leans back to hammer the door with his fist.
The path slopes down past where he’s standing. There’s a smithy and stores next to the captain’s hut. Further down the slope I see the bars over the cave mouths along it. Below I hear crying out, someone singing. The smell of burning flesh is hard to breathe. I move closer to the edge of the path as I gesture the wagons forward. Below are a pile of bodies burning, eight or ten, and two slaves, it looks like, manacled to each other, are doing their best to drag another pile of bodies to the fire. Many corpses have been opened up in the careful manner of drudhas. Some have no skin. Limbs and heads are stuffed into a fire in a big open barrel that might once have caught water. There are many of these barrels. It does us no good for me to dwell on the horror here. The path winds down the crescent of the rock face to the pit below.
From the captain’s hut comes a man who would look big against anyone but Scar; his head’s shaved and his mighty beard, thicker even than Gennic’s, is grey and patchy about his chin and lip with the orange that comes of smoking. He’s wearing full mail, a fieldbelt and all, though it’s not buckled for a fight. He carries a whip in his hand. He reads me as the vanguard.
“Welcome.” I can’t place his accent. We clasp arms. He’s got a nose like a plum, as if it’s been burned, his beard’s spotted with food, hair matted in places from a lack of washing and brushing. His is a sharp, sour smell. He looks tired, though his colour tells me he’s used to proper fightbrews.
“How many?” He flicks his head up to the wagons behind me.
“Seventeen Ososi, ten Ilkashun.”
“Seventeen Ososi?”
“The Ilkashun chief had been hiding them.”
“Which one?” He’s suspicious.
“Yicre. We didn’t find out from him. Not seen him for a long time.”
“Doubt you’ll see him again. Tarstrik will be happy you’ve got this many. Have you seen their thorns drip with poison? Dangerous fuckers.”
“I’m looking forward to an ale. Can I leave the supplies here or do I need to take them down there?”
He walks past me, clasps arms with Curic, looking along the train of wagons.
“Dron,” he says to the man leading us, “before you go back, get a few off their bunks to move those three wagons to the stores. The shift’s changing anyway in an hour; they can get an early start on it.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Lindur.” I look back to the hut and Scar is now standing only a few feet from me. “I saw you in Lindur,” he says. “Post.”
“She’s Post?” asks the captain.
“She was at Brask’s shed,” says Scar. “Post.”
“You wear no red here. What’s your name?”
“Driwna. I am a fieldsman of the Post, a marschal of sorts. Morril, the reeve at Lindur, has supplied some of these stores, as was requested by High Cleark Rogus from the Gate.”
I do my best to hold Scar’s gaze. He sniffs the air. Just then I realise that if I were alone he’d be able to tell I was becoming an Ososi, that their plant was growing inside me. The soldiers in the wagons acting as our prisoners must be masking it.
Scar turns, looks up at the trees overlooking the quarry. I follow his gaze but see nothing.
“How do you get used to this stink?” I ask, looking to distract him.
“We don’t burn them every day.” Scar’s voice has the same soft, sandy quality I recall from Lindur, a voice not used to speaking, or speaking over others perhaps. “We must get those Ososi in cages. They’re dangerous.”
There’s an implication in there, subtle, that it must have been hard or even impossible to subdue this many Ososi. Scar looks at them and they don’t hold his stare. They know well enough that to challenge him, defy him, might bring him close to the wagons, to what we have concealed there.
“We’ve had them on some droop. They’ll have another mouthful as we bring them off the wagons, while they get chained back up with your guards below.”
“Lead them on,” says the captain. “Any of the guards below will help you with them.”
I need no more encouragement to get away from Scar while we ready ourselves with the Oskoro blood. We tie up our horses on a post next to the captain’s hut and I lead those pulling the wagons on down the slope.
“Don’t look back at him,” I whisper to my crew, “he’s Ososi. I’m learning that they can get a sense of things we can’t. We take the Master’s blood on my mark.”
Each step I’m waiting for something to go wrong. The slope winds down into the shadow of the quarry. The burning bodies light up part of it. Other fires are lit in the broken bloomeries and outside the tents below where the drudhas must be working. We pass by two caves, their mouths barred, dark within. At one there’s nothing, a mumbling from within, echoing. At another two men and a woman watch us. One’s braegnloc is open, flies swarm at it, crawling about his face and over the amony planted in it. He’s panting, sweating, and I’d think it was tears leaking from his eyes if I hadn’t seen his head. The woman is in a filthy robe, barefoot. Her one arm is mostly bark, creaking as she flexes her elbow. I smell dead skin, but I’m unsure if it’s from her or all of them. She watches us with some interest, maybe hunger, for the front of her robe and her chin are covered in blood. There’s little of what animates a person in her eyes.
It is horrifyingly clear to me now why the Ososi are so important to what they’re doing here. This whole camp is set up to find a way to grow what the Ososi have, to create soldiers and brews their equal and so greater than any soldier I have ever come across. This is the army King Hildmir must be building. With enough time their drudhas will create an unstoppable force, tortured and twisted enough to think only of killing, to want for nothing else, no coin, no fear.
I sign back to the wagons, and the Ilkashun acting as their guards open the flasks and give the slaves our fightbrew before finishing the flasks off themselves. The path carries on and at the bottom stands a guard. She’s before a line of slaves, eight of them, none are chained, all staring at her as though they have no will in the matter. I see better now the parts of the quarry hidden from the gate above. Curic passes me the Oskoro blood. I drink and pass it to Ensma. The force of it builds in me; I’m more ready for it this time. The Song grows in strength, kindling but not burning me.
We move the wagons out of the line into the space at the pit of the quarry. Here there are cages crammed with people, barely room to stand in each. There are some lying dead, others standing on them. Those facing us watch us. Some are in cages on their own and chained up. They have lost their minds, but they are bigger, fresh with colour, grinding their teeth. Some watch us with eyes so dead they could be blind, others with a dark and fierce wit. One has a man and woman chained to him; they are naked, bitten all over, and the flies are thick on them; the woman is weeping, trying to wipe the insects from her. There are two more dead in this pen, skin torn open over most of their bloated bodies. They’ve been eaten.
“Welcome,” says one of the guards, the only one close to us. She lowers her staff and as she does so the eight slaves before her kneel: trained pets. I look back at the wagons and my crew all stare back at me, revulsion and rage simmering. I nod and raise my arm. The guard has time only to widen her eyes as I leap forward with my spear and run her through. Those of my crew pretending to be slaves take up the hidden weapons and fly off the wagons as the slaves in the pens start screaming. They had practised the fitting of each other’s fieldbelts on our way to the Cargamun camp. The fire of the Master’s blood streams throughout me from my belly once more, a great heat, a giddy and thrilling lightness. We need confusion. I reach down for the guard’s belt, cut the loop of keys free. We have jumped from the wagon in all directions; some run for the drudha tents, a couple of whom have rushed out on hearing the noise. The drudhas are slick with blood, and I look back up the path. Scar and the captain see the chaos below them and the captain runs back to a bell hanging outside his hut, begins ringing it.
“Curic, Scar is coming. Ready your sporebags.” I signal for the Oskoro that have been hiding at the top of the quarry across from the gate and huts to begin shooting.
There are only six keys. I open one of the cages filled with slaves and they fall and stagger out, some pushing at others, the whole cage shaking with the fire of their hope. There are few guards here and they had been in the drudha tents. Our Ososi and Ilkashun are at them, spearing them on the fine cool high that this blood gives us. I hear our bows from above us then, the strings, and as soldiers pour from their huts, swigging their own brews, many are hit, the rest trying to get their bearings on where the danger lies. Scar runs down the slope at us, the captain and a group of others following. Curic throws sporebags up the path, and three of our Ilkashun shoot at each. Scar stops at each of the cavemouths we passed, opens the barred gates. Soldiers have followed behind him, throwing through the open gates swords, spears, axes. A roar comes from within the caves as they answer the call. Those that watched as we passed them moments ago calmly pick up these weapons. Scar bellows at them to follow, though his other soldiers are hesitant. Men and women pour out of the caves; they’re fast, picking up weapons and either leaping from the path down into the pit or else following Scar as he runs at us.
“Form up on me! Archers cover!” I shout. I unlock two more cages, shout at them to take up weapons, fight for their lives and freedom, before running to join Curic, masked up, eyes juiced, set with his spear before the onrushing Scar, his experience stilling all thought, bringing joy to the Song itself.
I look up quickly as I ready my spear. The fire arrow’s gone up now and I pray for the Oskoro and Ufra to get here fast. These are men and women such as I’ve never seen, the proof that these drudhas are improving their arts of splicing plant and flesh. These feral slaves, no armour or belts, they move like wolves, leap like antelope over the wagons right at us, as fast as we are, hitting our line of spears hard. And the first of them have no hesitation, throwing their spears at us and running freely onto ours, holding them and pulling them down so those behind them can leap over. Scar, however, is armoured; his chain shirt turns a glancing blow from a spear, slowing him a moment. I pull my spear back as one of them leaps at me; I get him in his gut, watch him get up, in no apparent pain despite his wound. There aren’t enough of us. Scar is at Ensma on my left, and she matches him. He’s surprised, I think, by how fast we are. Arrows fly at us from behind them, the height of the slope an advantage. The spores have not affected them as we had hoped. Our line’s broken then on my right. An Ososi is hit in the throat and one of these strange soldiers is through, stabbing the Ilkashun next to me with his spear. He takes an arrow from one of our archers above, but snaps the shaft and keeps stabbing, heedless of it. I am risen now and I can see a thrill in his face, no concentration of a man stoning their brew. He is a match for me. I catch him in his gut, a stab with my own spear, less effective this close, thrust again to his face, but he’s read it and rolled the bind. I feel the weight of it; I know my fate and drop as his spear passes my shoulder. He is huge, muscles swollen grotesquely, the brew or something else. I thrust again, try to unbalance him. He knocks my spear aside, has read me again, but an arrow punches through his head as he stabs me; a few inches of his spear dig into me, cracking a rib. Desperate, I kick him over. The line’s broken. Behind us the slaves are cowering, backing against the far wall of the pit or running for their cages.
“Kill them and live!” bellows Scar, a command that’s felt as much as heard. There’s some that cry out then that are so afraid of him, so broken, that I hear them charge us. Ilkashun and Ososi are caught up, some killed, others turning to fight them off.
“Spores! Schiltrom formation!” I shout, for these slaves do not have whatever is in the soldiers before us to withstand the spores and we need the schiltrom’s shape to make some advantage from our lesser number.
More of their soldiers drop from the path further up the slope from us, and still they pour from the caves, fifty or sixty at least. They run up the slope to the stores to retrieve weapons. I have to hope that Ufra’s crew is at the gate and can stop them, but this crew, with me, I have to lead. Curic is cut, slices to his legs, Ensma’s lost her mask; she’s wailing and screaming at the monsters before us, finding an equal foe for the first time in her life, no longer sure she’ll make it. We all know that keeping our circle, even as we move back, is our only hope against these soldiers. Only three more join us, their spears over ours, raised. Still they choose to leap at us, some climbing the face of the quarry, looking to drop onto us, oblivious and uncaring of their own injuries. The bell rings again up in the huts. Ufra’s crew are over the gates and splitting the captain’s crew. Arrows still come in, finding those that are shooting at us on the slope, many now weaving among the wagons for cover as we’re forced back to the open pens. There are men, women and children all around us choking to death from our spores. I hear a cry behind me; one of my crew grunts as he’s killed. I glance back. A man’s buried an axe in his shoulder, has flanked us, another that’s had work done in his body. His chest is massive; I can’t imagine what’s inside him. He wrenches the axe free; his strength has forced it deep into the Ilkashun’s breast. My knife’s out, dripping with its own venom. I step to him, reading the fractions of his instinct, his left arm rising forward to counterbalance his right as the axe rises. He has no armour; a cut is all I need. As I slice his arm I feel a hand clutching at my leg, then a spear hits my shoulder from behind me. I kick down on the hand, but an arm hooks around my ankle. My footing’s gone and I fall back, land on the legs of one of our fallen. It’s a woman that’s holding me, an injured slave coughing and retching, frenzied. She writhes, bites at the leather of my jerkin. I let go of my spear, grip one of her arms and snap it clean. She goes limp with shock. I get to my knees. The soldier’s arm is cramping where I slashed it, fingers rigid, the speed of his blood, the might of his heart, making the poison work all the more quickly. I leave him, take up his axe. Ensma’s now covering Curic, who’s been hit in his hip. Scar’s not fought the likes of us, but each small mistake, despite all our stern defence and telling counters, means we cannot hold back this press for very long. Scar has cut many of us down, keeps trying to get at Ensma. We give ground to him all the time, his speed and power. They’re falling on us from the quarry face now, they’re flanking us from the far side of the path, dropping into the pit and running through the slaves, most of whom are huddled together, back in their cages, hands over their mouths, desperately trying not to breathe the spores in.
