Jack Chalker - Twilight at the Well of Souls

Suddenly she felt terribly tired, terribly worn, and she sunk back, not into the coma, not into the muck, but into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She awoke, Wearily looked around, and tried to move. She was in some kind of harness and couldn’t quite get free.

There was a crackling fire in the fireplace. Two of the party were in sleeping stalls like herself, suspended by elaborate but obviously jury-rigged harnesses made of belts, straps, strips of fur, anything available.

Two other centaurs moved around, one stoking the fire and checking a pot of what was probably melted snow, the other standing at a small table and looking over some papers. Neither looked in the best of health themselves; the one at the fire, a mass of professional-looking bandages and deep scars, was favoring his right foreleg; the other, at the table, was Colonel Asam, whose humanoid torso was covered with puffy bruises. He, too, had a number of slick surgical bandages on various parts of his body.

“Asam?” she called out, sounding weak even to herself. “Asam, what happened?”

Both men turned, and the Colonel approached her quickly, a smile on his face. One of his eyes was swollen almost shut and his face was so bruised and puffy it shocked her, but he smiled, reached down to a pouch, and took out a cigar. “Well, well! Welcome back to the land o’ the almost-living,” he cracked.

She smiled. “What—who were those things?”

“Tilki. Pretty far from home, too. Bloody bastards. If this hadn’t been a nontech hex, they’d have had us sure. Them high-tech bastards usually are pretty lousy with close-up weapons.”

“Bandits?” she guessed.

He shook his head. “No. They had uniforms. Army. A neat little ambush team.”

“They were… assassins, then?” she asked cautiously, still thinking of Asam’s tale of a blood feud.

“Assassins, yes,” he agreed, “but not for me. We got ’em all—I think, anyway. Unless they had some they held back who took off when we got the upper hand. Doubt it, though. One or two more would’ve finished us.”

“Not for you? But—”

“I’ve got a translator, remember,” he told her. “I understood their jabberin’. No question in my mind it was you they was after. Heard your name a coupl’ve times. They mighta gotten you, too, if there’d been fewer of us, or if they hadn’t been screwed up by the earlier group of hunters. They picked their spot well —this would be the logical first night’s camp, and, flying, they could reach it without havin’ to go over the tall peaks. Trouble was, when they got here they found the hunters already there. They knew you wasn’t with ’em. I don’t think they had too clear an idea of your looks, but the others were all men and they knew you was a woman. Only a guess, you understand—no witnesses left. I’d say they probably drew out the hunters, who had no reason to fear and would be just damned curious at meetin’ Tilki up here, of all places. My guess the bastards took ’em so quick they never even knew what hit ’em.”

She considered this. “You said they were Army. Why me?”

He grinned. “You told me a lot about what was goin’ on right now. I’d say the Zone Council’s decided on war, sifted through their records to find who the key ringleaders on the other side would be, and are out to wipe out Brazil’s generals before they start. They might also be nervous about Gedemondas. Unknown quantity, you know. If you can’t get to ’em, they’re outta the fight.”

She nodded and looked around. “The others…?”

His expression became grim. “We’re it. The surivors. Malk and Zorn, there, they’re gonna need better medical care than we can give ’em. In a way we were lucky they hit us here, instead of just inside Dilla—infection’s much less of a problem. We’re battling only the bugs we brought with us.”

“How are you ever going to get them to a hospital?” she wondered, feeling sorry for them.

“A group of hunters came through yesterday. They’ll carry the news to Uplake and get help. I think they can stand it here another day or two until help arrives. We’re not really into the bad country yet, so they ought to be able to get ’em down without much trouble.”

“I see. Well, I— Did you say a group of hunters came through yesterday? ”

He smiled and nodded. “You been out three days. We thought we were gonna lose you. Most of your wounds aren’t really bad, nothin’ serious. It was the concussion that almost did you in. Bastard came in and hit you with a sapper.”

“A… a what?”

“Sapper. Stiff skin laced around lead shot. Damn thing can crack your skull. Don’t think it did, though —but you got a hell of a bump. Sent you into shock”

“Why… why am I trussed up like this?”

“We’ll get you unhooked if you feel up to it.” He reached over and started undoing some of the knots. “Like some of the large animals of the world that are our distant cousins, we breathe back of our underbellies. If you’re down on your side for more than a couple hours, your own weight will press down on the lungs and suffocate you. We had to get you up and keep you up—not easy, I’ll tell you. The two of us ain’t in the best shape, either, but we’re a lot better off.”

“I… I saw you take a spear…” she began.

He chuckled. “Oh, it takes a lot more’n that to get me. Didn’t hit anything vital and only hurts when I laugh. We’re just lucky they moved so fast from their home hex they didn’t have a chance to really look things up properly. All their tips were poisoned with what I guess they consider a horrible deadly toxin. Tannic acid. Maybe the next time we meet those bastards we ought to dump a pot o’ tea on each of ’em!”

She laughed, and when she did she felt all the wounds and bruises and sores she had accumulated. There were a lot of them, and over a large area, but she had had as bad or worse before and it hadn’t bothered her for long. Uncomfortable, yes, but little else.

Freed from the harness, she stood alone and tried walking out of the stall. Immediately she felt dizzy and wobbly, and had to hold on. “Guess I’m still a little weak,” she muttered to herself.

“Take it easy,” he cautioned. “That’s a nasty crack on the head. Ease into normal activity.”

She tried it again, more cautiously, and found that as long as she was holding onto something it was all right. He went up to her and let her lean on him, and together they made it out into the main room.

“Feel like you could eat something?” he asked her. “You really should.”

She looked over at the bales of strawlike material at the far side of the cabin. She didn’t really feel like eating, but decided he knew best.

The stuff tasted awful, but she found herself unable to stop once she started. Asam chuckled and told her to go ahead. “You don’t realize just how much food we Dillians need a day. Eatin’ regular like we do, that is. When you take it in at one gulp after a few days off, it can seem pretty piggy.”

Piggy wasn’t the word for it, she decided when she was finished. She went through most of a bale, a little at a time, and each bale weighed close to twenty kilos.

Later she did feel better, and managed to find a small mirror. She had double black eyes and felt like she had bitten the inside of her mouth half through, but otherwise the damage didn’t appear all that bad. The wounds on her equine back and side were painful and there was some internal bruising, but there didn’t seem to be serious damage and she felt she could live with them.

Asam, too, was as tough as his reputation. After seeing him in action, she decided she wouldn’t doubt any of his stories and legends again, and she said as much.