R. Bakker - The Judging eye

Why this should seem a crime was beyond him.

The Skin Eaters watched them whenever opportunity afforded, some more boldly than others. Where the width of the trail allowed, a dozen or so always seemed to gather in loose and fortuitous packs about them. Achamian found himself bristling each time, and not simply because of the endless succession of gazes sliding across her form. They were friendly, courteous to a fault, but there was no mistaking their bullying nearness, or the predatory lag whenever their look crossed his own, that moment too long, pregnant with threat and prowess. He understood the game well enough, the false gallantry of helping her across the more treacherous twists in the trail, the implicit significance of offering him the exact same assistance. Leave her to us, old man…

Mimara, of course, affected not to notice.

That afternoon a stop was called at the base of an incline. No one at their end of the line knew the cause of the delay, and everyone was worn out enough to remain incurious. Achamian was doing vocabulary drills with Mimara when Sarl surprised them. "The Captain wants you," the man said, smiling as usual, though more than a little chagrin seemed written into the wrinkles netting his eyes. He grimaced at Mimara as he paused to catch his breath, then looked to the other Skin Eaters milling in the gloom. He lowered his voice to a mutter. "Troubling news."

Achamian did his best to pace the old cutthroat up the incline. By the time he gained the crest of the ridge line, he was breathing hard, pressing his knees with his hands at every step. A cold breeze greeted him, soaking through his beard and clothing. The Osthwai Mountains piled across the horizon in all their glory, titanic flanges of earth and stone rearing into cloud-smothered peaks. The woollen ceiling seemed close enough to touch, and so black that his hackles raised in the expectation of thunder. But the distances remained crisp with silence.

He saw Lord Kosoter standing with Cleric looming at his side. Both were watching Kiampas haggle with a Thunyeri almost as tall as Oxwora, though far older and nowhere as thick-limbed. The two seemed to be speaking some mongrel tongue that combined elements of Sheyic and Thunyeri. At least several dozen of the man's wild countrymen stood watching in the near distance.

The tall one, Sarl explained in a low murmur, was called Feather, though Achamian could see nothing avian about his ornament. Several shrunken Sranc heads adorned his crazed red-and-grey hair. His war girdle used knuckle-bones in the place of beads. Aside from his hauberk, the gold-wire Circumfix hanging about his neck seemed his only concession to civilization. Even paces back, Achamian could smell his furs, the carnivore reek of blood and piss. He was, Sarl continued in a low mutter, the chieftain of one of the so-called tribal companies, most of which were made up of Thunyeri, a people who had warred so long and so hard against the Sranc it had become a missionary calling.

When Kiampas and Feather concluded their business, the tall chieftain reached out to clasp forearms with Lord Kosoter. It struck Achamian as a formidable moment, two storied Scalpoi, each with their own aura of assassination, each garbed in tattered parodies of their nation's battledress. It was the first time he had witnessed the Captain extend anything so precious as respect. With an enigmatic gesture, the chieftain returned to the trail, followed by the long line of his men. His manic blue eyes scraped across Achamian as he passed.

"They plan on camping on the low slopes," Kiampas was saying to Lord Kosoter, "hunting, foraging…"

"What's the problem?" Achamian asked.

Kiampas turned to him, his eyes smiling in an otherwise guarded expression, the triumphant look of a man who kept fastidious count of wins and losses. "A spring blizzard in the mountains," he said. "We're stuck here for at least two weeks, probably more."

"What are you saying?" Achamian looked to the glaring Captain.

Kiampas was only too happy to respond. "That your glorious expedition has come to an end, Wizard. We can wait or we can hump round the Osthwai's southern spur. Either way we've no hope of reaching Sauglish by summer's end." There was no mistaking the relief in his eyes.

"The Black Halls," someone said in the tone of contradiction.

It was the Nonman, Cleric. He had his broad back turned to them, his cowl facing east, toward the nearest of the mountains to their right. His voice pimpled the skin, as much for its import as for its inhuman resonances. "There is another way through the mountains," he continued, twisting his unseen face toward them. "A way that I remember."

Achamian held his breath, understanding instantly what the Nonman was suggesting but too dismayed to truly consider the implications. Sarl snorted, as if hearing a joke beneath even his vulgar contempt.

Lord Kosoter studied his Nonman lieutenant, stared into the black oval with cryptic intensity.

"Are you sure?"

A drawn silence, filled by the guttural banter of the Thunyeri trudging behind them.

"I lived there," Cleric said, "on the sufferance of my cousins, long ago… Before the Age of Men."

"Are you sure you remember?"

The cowl bent earthward.

"They were… difficult days."

The Ainoni nodded in grim deliberation.

"Captain?" Kiampas exclaimed. "You know the stories… Every year some fool leads his compa-"

Lord Kosoter had not looked at the sergeant until he mentioned the word fool. His eyes were interruption enough.

"The Black Halls it is, then!" Sarl exclaimed in a smoky cackle, the one he always used to blunt his Captain's more murderous inclinations. He seemed to wheeze and laugh at each man in turn. "Kiampas! Can't you see, Kiampas? We're Skin Eaters, man-Skin Eaters! How many times have we talked about the Black Halls?"

"And what about the rumours?" the Nansur officer snapped, though with the wariness of a struck dog.

"Rumours?" Achamian asked.

"Bah!" Sarl cackled. "Men just can't countenance mystery. If companies get eaten, they have to invent a Great Eater, no matter what." He turned to Achamian, his face wrinkling in incredulity. "He thinks a dragon hides in the Black Halls. A Dragon!" He jerked his gaze back to Kiampas, red face thrust forward, knobby fists balled at his side. "Dragon, my eye! It's the skinnies that get them. It's the skinnies that get us all in the end."

"Sranc?" Achamian asked, even though fire-spitting monstrosities heaved in his soul's eye. How many Wracu had roared through his ancient dreams? "How can you be sure?"

"Because their clans make it through the mountains somehow," Sarl replied, "especially in the winter. Why do you think so many scalpers risk the Black Halls in the first place?"

"I told you," Kiampas persisted. "I met those two from Attrempus, survivors of the High Shields. I'm no fool when it comes-"

"Poofs!" Sarl spat. "Moppers! Trying to soak you for a drink! The High Shields were massacred on the long side of the mountains. Kiampas. Kiampas! Everyone knows that! The Long Side!"

The two sergeants glared at each other, Sarl in entreaty, like the son who always placates his father for his brother's sake, and Kiampas in incredulous resentment, like the sole sane officer in a host of madmen-which was, Achamian reflected, not all that far from the case.

"We take the Low Road," Lord Kosoter grated. "We enter the Black Halls."

His tone seemed to condemn all humanity, let alone the petty dispute before him. The Nonman continued to stare off into the east, tall and broad beneath his mottled cowl. The mountain climbed the climbing ground beyond him, a white sentinel whispering with altitude and distance.

"Cleric says he remembers."

Achamian returned to find Mimara fairly surrounded by Skin Eaters, most of them Bitten. She stood childlike in the looming presence of Oxwora and Pokwas, her look one of guarded good humour. She was careful to keep her face and posture directed toward the trail, as though she expected to leave their company at any moment, as well as to not look at any one of them for more than a heartbeat. He could tell she was frightened, but not in any debilitating way.