Ricardo Pinto - The Standing Dead

Fern frowned, upset, confused. Carnelian reached for his hand and squeezed it. 'Go now.'

A while later the Plainsmen were all mounted and, with a rush, they were coursing away down the knoll and up the escarpment. Fern gave Carnelian one last look and then his aquar ran to join the others who were fading into a great rising of red dust.

Carnelian stood watching until the cloud thinned enough for him to see they had gone. The nightmare lingered like an ache, bringing doubt. He dismissed it. He had made his decision.

Two Manila came to summon Carnelian. His heart sank when he saw where they were taking him. Still, he followed them. Krow came running to join him. Carnelian had forgotten Osidian had given the youth permission to remain behind. Neither was in the mood for conversation. Carnelian found distraction in counting the beads of bone and wood making up the corselet of the Maruli leading the way.

Carnelian's nose told him they were nearing the idol. It was impossible not to smell the rot rising from the blood-soaked earth upon which Osidian and Morunasa were standing waiting.

'Morunasa wishes to ask you something, my Lord,' Osidian said.

'Do we have to speak breathing this miasma?'

Manila showed Carnelian a spear.

'It's a spear,' Carnelian said, in Vulgate.

'A Flatlander spear,' Morunasa said, displaying it.

Carnelian was aware of nothing but the corpse of the man he had killed above him weighing the air with its fetor.

'Well?' demanded Morunasa.

'If you've something to say, Maruli, just say it!'

Morunasa regarded Carnelian with slitted eyes. 'We found this here, Master. It has blood on it.'

'Everything here has blood on it.'

Morunasa pointed up to the post where Carnelian did not want to look. 'See there.'

The Maruli pointed emphatically until Carnelian was forced to lift his eyes. At first he saw hanging above him only something like a scavenging bird utterly dark against the sepia sky. It resolved into the remains of the skewered man, his head pushed to one side by the idol's impaling tongue.

There. The wound,' insisted Morunasa.

Carnelian saw the hole torn through the pygmy's chest.

'It was made by this spear,' the Maruli said.

'I know.'

Morunasa turned to Osidian. 'He confirms what I said. One of the Flatlanders took what belonged to our Lord. You, Master, know how important it is such sins should not go unpunished.'

Osidian sighed. 'When the Plainsmen return I shall find whoever it was and give him to you.'

Morunasa fixed Krow with an amber stare. 'Who did this, Flatlander?'

'It was me,' said Carnelian.

Morunasa turned on him, opening greedy jaws. Carnelian remembered how those teeth had been used to tear out throats, but he did not care: all he wanted was to get as far as he could from the impaled man.

Osidian regarded Carnelian with a frown. 'Why did you do this, Carnelian?'

'If you need to ask that, Osidian, then no answer I can give would make it any clearer to you.'

Osidian grew angry. 'You have nothing more to say, my Lord?'

Waves of nausea began surging through Carnelian. He clutched at the air for words. 'I could no longer bear the noise. I was trying to sleep.'

Osidian stared, then laughed.

Morunasa looked at him appalled. 'You must give him to me.'

Osidian turned on the Maruli, incomprehension on his face. 'Give him to you?’

Morunasa shrank away. 'He took what was the Lord's. His blood now belongs to Him.'

Osidian regarded the Maruli as if he were a stupid child. 'If you so much as touch him, I shall burn you and your precious banyan to ashes.'

Morunasa became a wooden man. He pointed at Carnelian. The Darkness-under-the-Trees must have his blood.'

Osidian slapped Morunasa's arm down. 'I'll feed your god enough blood to sate even his thirst.'

He put his arm around Carnelian's shoulders. 'Come, let us leave this place, it is beginning to turn my stomach.'

Letting himself be led away, Carnelian was feeling too sick to care about Morunasa's look of hatred.

Carnelian pulled himself free of Osidian as they walked deep into the baobab forest. He was glad Osidian was happy to walk in silence. The only sound was the footfalls of their Marula guards and Krow, who had followed them.

Carnelian became aware Osidian was measuring up the trees.

'We will have to cut them down all the way from the knoll to here. And from the edge of the chasm to perhaps up there.' Osidian pointed halfway up the escarpment.

'Why?' Carnelian asked.

'I need a training ground.'

Carnelian surveyed the whole wide sweep among the leafless giants. 'But these trees are sepulchres.'

Then empty them of their dead.' 'And do what with them?'

Osidian shrugged. 'Did you not tell me they were desiccated?'

Carnelian nodded. 'Well, burn them.'

Carnelian grew uneasy. 'Perhaps you should oversee this yourself, my Lord.'

Osidian looked away towards the island. 'Would you then take my place negotiating with the Oracles?'

Carnelian glanced at Krow.

Osidian shook his head. 'I want that one with me.' He motioned more than half his escort to attend to Carnelian. ‘I shall send you more.'

Accustomed as Carnelian had become to towering over everyone, the long-limbed Manila in their bead corselets were unnerving. They stood avoiding his gaze, several with axes hanging from their hands.

'Do any of you understand Vulgate?'

The Manila gave no answer but only stared at him with their yellow eyes. He pointed at the baobab under whose branches they stood. While they looked on, he made a pantomime of cutting it down. After he was done he saw they were regarding him with the same blank faces. He grew exasperated. When he moved into their ranks, they ebbed away from him. Lunging, he snatched an axe from one of them and returned with it to the tree. He gazed at the monster. Stark it was, menacing, but the Plainsmen had taught him to revere all trees. Besides, he was reluctant to desecrate any pygmy dead that it might hold. Such arguments were nothing to Osidian. The baobabs would die. Carnelian put aside his feelings and swung the axe. Its flint bit deeper than he had expected. He was pulling back for another stroke when he became aware of the murmuring. Looking round, he saw the Manila were all staring at the ground. It was clear he was getting nowhere and so he went in search of Osidian.

He found him with Morunasa and Krow upon the crown of the knoll now deserted by the Plainsmen. Osidian was crouching in an opening high in one of the trees. Morunasa and Krow were on the ground looking up at him.

'What do you want, Master?' the Maruli asked, malice in his eyes and teeth.

'I've come to speak to the Master.' Carnelian called out in Quya: 'My Lord?' Osidian looked down at him. The Marula -'

'Speak in Vulgate so that Morunasa might understand you.'

The Marula,' he said, in Vulgate, resenting Morunasa even more, 'seem reluctant to cut down the trees.'

'Which trees?' Morunasa demanded.

Carnelian stretched his hand out indicating the forest lying below.

Morunasa smiled. 'But of course they'll not cut them down.'

'Because they're sacred?'

Morunasa raised his eyes to the sky. 'A childish belief of the pygmies, but the Lower Reachers are superstitious.'

'You must force them to comply, Morunasa,' Osidian called down.

Carnelian did not want to force anyone and besides, wanted to have nothing to do with Morunasa. 'It might be easier if I use the sartlar,' he called up.

'It would reduce salt production,' said Osidian.

'It should take only a few days to clear the area you want.'