Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

The auxiliary line dissolved into chaos. A few in flight were pursued by Plainsmen but mostly it was riderless aquar that were running away into the ferns. Carnelian turned to the huimur, who were backing away, lowering their heads to present the stumps of their sawn-off horns. Riders astride their necks cowered behind the shields of the monsters’ crests. Plainsmen were throwing themselves onto the sloping sides of the wicker frames. Scrabbling up them they struck at the riders with mattocks. Though some managed to put up a fight with their goads, they soon joined the others tumbling to the ground, where they were crunched, screaming, under the huge feet of the huimur.

Astride the necks of the huimur the Plainsmen managed to bring them under control. More men clambered up the frames and began releasing the objects that Carnelian could now see were like huge leather pomegranates. Plainsmen queued up to catch the things. Grinning, a Darkcloud came to offer Carnelian one. It was a bottle of some kind, of leather held in a net of rope. It had a stumpy neck topped with a crown of bony knobs.

‘A belly,’ the man said.

Another had come up. ‘A sac, Master. Enough render in these two,’ the veteran indicated the bottles, ‘to feed you and your aquar for ten days.’

‘Can we tie them on for you, Master?’ asked the other.

When Carnelian nodded, they moved to fasten the sacs to the rear pole of his saddle-chair, one on each side. Turning, Carnelian could see how comfortably the sacs nestled between the flank and upper thigh of his beast. As he made her walk he could feel by her gait that they were heavy, but they did not impede her movement.

When everyone had a pair of sacs, Carnelian was asked what he wanted done with the rest.

‘Destroy them.’

Whooping, they rode among the huimur slashing at the sacs. The vessels ruptured like stomachs, spilling their soupy contents down the frames. Carnelian curled his nose up at the meaty smell as it soaked into the earth. The Plainsmen struck the haunches of the huimur with the flats of their spears and, bleating, the monsters lumbered off into the plain, spraying ferns brown with render as they went. The poor creatures would not survive long. The odour of the render was sure to draw raveners.

Carnelian gazed south, but could see no evidence that Aurum was following them. Still, without this consignment, Aurum’s host would begin to starve. Aurum would have no choice but to follow him north as fast as he could.

Carnelian unhitched one of the sacs from his saddle-chair. He did not like the feeling of the liquid moving under the leather. He crouched to set it down. He had watched the veterans moving among the Plainsmen and Marula explaining how to open them. Its shape reminded him of the funerary urns. The leather swelled up to form lips: two arcs of bone that bit up through the leather in a series of carved knobs. Within the lips the leather formed a puckered mouth. He pierced this with a flint. The gash released a meaty, salty smell. The knife came out moistened. Gingerly he lifted the sac and held it over a hollow he had scooped in the earth and lined with fern fronds. He tipped the sac and poured render out of a corner of its mouth. Lumps of meat spluttered out, falling into the puddle, splashing him with juice. When he judged there was enough for his aquar he let her feed.

He lugged the sac over to the fire Fern had lit. Sitting down with it between his legs, as he saw others doing, he dipped his flint into the opening and, drawing it out, licked some of the render off it. He grimaced at the salt burn. The taste was even worse than the smell. He forced himself to have some more, but could not manage a third scoop.

Looking up, he saw Poppy and Fern watching him. ‘I think I’ll finish the djada first.’

Poppy made a face. ‘I don’t like it either.’

Fern looked down at his sac grimly. ‘We’ll have to eat it eventually.’

Carnelian nodded. ‘But not until we’ve run out of djada.’ The others agreed. Fern demonstrated how twisting some twine from knob to knob across the gash in his sac pulled its lips closed. Carnelian rehitched his sac to his saddle-chair then returned with some djada which he handed out.

As they chewed contentedly Poppy spoke. ‘Where’s Hookfork?’

Carnelian shrugged. ‘I’m sure we’ll see him again in the morning.’

Poppy nodded and resumed her chewing.

Morning brought unease when the lookouts declared they could see no sign of Hookfork. Grumbling, the Plainsmen agreed to follow Carnelian north, though they hung back, their march becoming ragged as men took turns to ride up onto the Backbone to gaze south.

Carnelian’s gaze was fixed in the direction they were riding. He dared not turn his head despite being as anxious as the Plainsmen. He feared that if he did so they might refuse to go further.

A rider came up on his flank. Though the man was shrouded against the dust, Carnelian knew it was Fern and saw the worry in his eyes. ‘You must give them a reason to go on.’

Carnelian had run out of reasons. He shared the Plainsmen’s fear that Aurum had returned south. Before he could vent his irritation Fern said: ‘We’re near the koppie of the Twostone.’

Carnelian looked at Poppy to see if she had heard this mention of her birthplace, but she was slumped in her saddle-chair and seemed asleep. He surveyed the route ahead. For a while now the Backbone had sunk so that only knobs of rock rose up out of the earth. These rocks no longer offered decent vantage points nor any place well enough defended to make a camp. The Twostone koppie would provide both, but then there was the matter of the massacre of that tribe. He leaned close to Fern. ‘What about Poppy… Krow?’

Fern frowned. ‘Because it’s abandoned we’d not be endangering another tribe. The men would be glad to spend a night in a koppie.’

Carnelian worried too about how the Plainsmen might feel towards the Marula once they found themselves at the scene of another of their massacres. He said nothing, however. It was not likely to be something Fern had forgotten. He gave a nod and Fern returned it before swinging his aquar away. He gazed at Poppy, remembering the nightmares she had had about the massacre of her people. What would it do to her, or to Krow, who had seen his tribe left as carrion by Marula? Carnelian looked for the youth. The news spreading down the march was making men gaze north with an eagerness that had been absent for days.

The outer ditch had become a waterhole that held a bright sickle of water. Rain had softened the banks to lips, gouged where saurians had slid down to drink, printed with the huge arrowheads of ravener tracks. Some of the magnolias, gripping the banks, leaned, exposing their roots. Others lay fallen, rotting, bearded with moss.

Glancing at Poppy’s fixed expression, at Krow who rode staring at her side, Carnelian led the Plainsmen on a broad front over the ditch into a ferngarden that was being reclaimed by the plain. Once across, Fern rode ahead down the avenue of cone trees towards the two crag teeth that had given this koppie’s tribe its name.

The second ditch was as ruined as the first, but when they reached the one that encircled the cedar grove they found that its walls were still held sheer by the roots of the cedar trees. The rampart of the further bank still rose crenellated with earther skulls. The avenue brought them to the opening in that rampart which was still barred by the wicker gate studded with horns, at which a huskman had failed in his duty by letting in the Marula who had sheltered in the koppie and slaughtered the Twostone when they returned from their migration.

Dismounting, Poppy and Krow were first across the earthbridge to the gate. She pushed at the wicker and, when it resisted her, Krow put his shoulder to it and forced it ajar. The two stood for a moment gazing through the gap, then entered the grove. Carnelian followed them, warily, peering up a rootstair into the gloom beneath the mother trees. Hunched, he listened to their creaking. His shoulders only relaxed once he became aware he was searching for corpses hanging.