Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

Satisfied that events were proceeding as he had hoped, Carnelian led Morunasa, his Oracles and Osidian back through the ranks of the Marula warriors until there was nothing but open fernland between him and the auxiliaries. He watched their line being disrupted by aquar shying away from raveners. He chewed his lip. He needed the auxiliaries safely on this side of the raveners. Glancing round, he saw Fern had brought the Plainsmen to a halt. Their line now stretched so far that, at either end, the heat made its thread waver away to nothing.

Carnelian resumed watching the auxiliaries approach. Their commanders probably believed they had their quarry trapped against the lagoon. His heart became a war drum as he watched their line smooth. The raveners were now behind them. He made sure everyone was in place. Death was in his hands as he raised them to comb the breeze flowing over him towards the auxiliaries. Behind him there was a flutter like flamingos taking to flight. Glancing round, he saw the Plainsmen holding aloft red pennants, scarlet and russet banners, all tainting the wind with the iron smell of blood.

The auxiliaries were now close enough for their brass collars to stitch a glint along their line. As time stretched, Carnelian began to fear his plan was failing. Suddenly a section of their line buckled as something forced some riders forwards. Then another eruption at a different part of the line. Two more. Squinting, he saw the dark shapes looming up behind each focus of disturbance. Thinned by the distance, he could hear the screaming of men and aquar. Military order dissolved as more and more raveners, woken by the odour of blood in the air, came in to feed. Raggedly, the auxiliary line fled towards him. He looked round the back of his saddle-chair. The Plainsmen seemed ready to leave. He tried to pierce their ranks to see Fern and Poppy one last time. Of course it was hopeless. The Marula were gaping at the oncoming auxiliaries. Carnelian was getting ready to charge when he noticed Osidian’s eyes were open, staring. He hardly had time to register this before Osidian’s aquar lunged forward. Cries erupted around him. He glimpsed Morunasa’s face, frozen in a silent scream as the whole mass of the Marula began sliding forward. Carnelian sent his aquar after Osidian, riding the thunder of the Marula charge.

Osidian struck the auxiliaries like a thunderbolt. Two aquar were flung on their backs. One staggered to her feet with a shattered mess of flesh and wood on her back. Carnelian noticed too late he had not unsheathed his spear. An auxiliary was bearing down on him, bulging eyes in a face marbled with dirt, teeth bared. Carnelian reached to deflect the bronze spearhead slicing towards him. Felt the burn of the shaft rasp his wrist. Then it jammed into the wicker back of his chair. His aquar, turning, snapped the spear, flaring splinters in Carnelian’s face. He caught the broken haft and yanked. The auxiliary snarled as his arms pulled taut, trying to keep hold. Carnelian forced the spear butt back into the man’s belly, grinding it in until the blood came.

Nearby, Osidian’s white Master’s face was instilling terror in the auxiliaries as he slid through them gouging, impaling, disembowelling. Carnelian tore his uba from his face. It seemed unfair to unleash such a weapon, but it was necessary he be taken alive. Auxiliaries cringed away from him, shielding their eyes as if blinded by his skin. He pushed his aquar through a space roofed with splintering spears. Snarling, the Marula were breaking them with their hands or lunging at the auxiliaries with their blades. Carnelian watched flesh slice open. Blood drizzled warm onto his forearms, then his face. He reached Osidian easily. The terror of their faces made them invulnerable.

Battlecries, then a shuddering crash as a front of riders struck. Grimly, he turned. Now, enveloped by the auxiliary wings, the Marula would be slain. He sensed the auxiliaries faltering, then gaped in disbelief. It was Plainsmen who had charged into the fight. This was not supposed to happen. Scanning their fury, his eyes snagged on Fern’s face. He looked deranged, shouting something, pointing. Carnelian searched in that direction. It was Poppy in the midst of the auxiliaries. He dug his toes so hard into his aquar’s back it bucked, but then leapt forward. Unhitching a mattock he swung it, bludgeoning a bloody path, his gaze fixed on Poppy in the very throat of carnage. She saw him coming and cried out. He veered his aquar as he closed on her so that their saddle-chairs slid side by side. He reached over and pulled her onto his lap. As he did so, something stung his arm. He cleared a space around them with his Master’s face.

‘Krow,’ she cried and Carnelian saw the youth had been there protecting her.

‘Take her to safety,’ cried Krow.

Carnelian longed to help the Plainsmen, but he could feel Poppy warm against his chest. He gave Krow a nod. Behind him the Plainsmen were pressing forward four ranks deep. He groaned, knowing there was only one way out, and urged his aquar into the auxiliaries.

Using their terror of his face to open a path, Carnelian rode with Poppy through the auxiliaries, as untouched as if they had been lepers, but, as they came through into open ground, the aquar suddenly reared up, blinding them with her eye-plumes. He leaned forward and saw a ravener not far away with an aquar in the talons of one foot at which it was tearing. Poppy slipped her feet to the aquar’s back, stroked her, soothed her and coaxed her past the monster. More raveners were being drawn by the odour of blood that even Carnelian could now smell wafting on the wind. As he watched the monsters lope towards the heaving wall of the battle, he was desperate to return, to share Fern’s fate, Krow’s and that of the other Plainsmen. First he had to carry Poppy to safety. That meant taking her back to the koppie.

Soon they were coursing through the ferns having left the raveners behind. As they rode Carnelian grew calm enough to be able to talk. ‘Why did Fern lead them in?’

Her head gave a tiny shake against his chest. There was something in the smallness of that movement that made him probe further. He felt her hand upon his arm. Looking up at him she focused on first one of his eyes then the other.

‘It might have been my fault, Carnie.’

He must have looked confused for she added: ‘When I saw you riding away, I decided that, after all, I would prefer to go with you to the Mountain.’

Some figures were waiting for them on the half-collapsed earthbridge that led into the koppie. Carnelian was surprised to see they were sartlar. As he swept up they fell prostrate on the earth. He made his aquar kneel. Poppy climbed out, then he followed her. As he stood over the sartlar one glanced up. He knew the face. ‘Kor?’

The sartlar abased herself. He wondered at her being there, but was relieved. ‘Get up.’

The hag rose painfully to stand, head bowed.

‘I’m going to leave this girl in your care.’

The sartlar looked up at him. ‘Yes, Master.’

The skin of her branded forehead almost made her eyes disappear as she frowned. She was looking at his wrist. He raised it and saw the wound there. It was just a graze. Quick as a snake she reached out and touched him. The graze stung. He raised his hand to strike her, but she cowered back to her knees. Her fear of him made him ashamed of his anger. She raised her face through her lank hair. She had her finger in her mouth. She withdrew it. She indicated his graze. ‘Blood.’

Her face had resumed its passive mask. What was she after? The scar around his neck itched. He recalled another sartlar woman, on the road when he had been a slave. He ran his fingers over his scar and remembered the soothing salve she had put on it. Kor was wiping her finger on her rags. Carnelian was anxious to get back to the battle, but he became worried, imagining what might happen to Poppy if they should be defeated. He dismissed this fear. There was nothing else he could do.