David Drake - Out of the waters

The trunks channelled her course, though she wasn't going anywhere in particular-just away-so she didn't suppose it mattered. It still made her uncomfortable.

She had kept going as long as she could; she couldn't ignore the pain, but she struggled on despite it. The cuts on her limbs and body were unpleasant, but the real problem was the soles of her feet. Thorns, broken twigs, and stones buried in the leaf litter had gouged them several times, but she had no choice except to go on.

They would have to grab me when I was stark naked! Hedia thought, then giggled. The garments she ordinarily wore even when she was going out-thin shifts and delicate silk slippers-wouldn't have been much more useful. If I'd had a little warning, I could have borrowed a pair of heavy boots from Alphena.

There hadn't been any sign of pursuit, but Hedia wasn't sure she would have noticed. Occasionally she looked over her shoulder, but sweat and the stinging tips of her hair-since her coiffure was down-would have made it difficult for her to see on a promenade ground. This jumble of vines, saplings, and fallen branches could have concealed an army, let alone three glass figures who had been perfectly silent during the time Hedia had been aware of them.

She had finally collapsed beside a fallen tree which was thicker than she was tall. Fine loam, sticky and damp, filled the angle between the trunk and the ground. Hedia didn't know whether it had blown there and been trapped or if it was the product of the tree itself, rotted bark and the excrement of wood-boring beetles.

Regardless, it was soft and cool. It had pillowed her head and had even, to her amazement, allowed her to fall asleep. It had been a busy day, and the stress of capture by demons and escape had drained her utterly.

Hedia got to her feet, pressing her hand against the tree bole more for mental than physical support. Something crawled over her toes. She froze where she stood. That was probably the right decision, because whatever it was-mouse? snake? insect?-vanished into the night, having left no more than a slight tickle on her skin.

Hedia stumbled on. The alternative was to huddle where she was. She wasn't going to do that. Many men-she smiled-could testify to the fact that she was not of a passive temperament.

The sun must have risen, because she was beginning to be able to make out shapes though not yet colors. She itched all over, and whenever a drop of sweat oozed into a scratch, it stung like a hot wire.

Birds called to one another in the canopy. They didn't for the most part sound very musical, and the cries of one in particular sounded like sheets of bronze rubbing.

Of course they might not be birds. Hedia was beginning to regret that she knew so little about plants and animals. She'd never really liked the outdoors, even in circumstances as controlled as the garden of a close friend. Afterward she generally found nicks and bruises that she had ignored in the throes of passion.

She saw a human figure and stopped where she stood. It was little more than an arm's length ahead of her, but because it was completely motionless she had almost walked into it before she noticed its presence: a bearded man, looking back over his shoulder in terror. It was stone, but it wasn't a statue.

Ahead of the male figure were a woman and a child. They had fallen over: their limbs stuck up from the ferns and leaf litter. None of them wore clothing, but the man had a bandolier woven from withies which had survived weathering better than cloth had.

Hedia turned in sudden reflex. She glimpsed a face watching her through a screen of the spindly saplings which grew until, light-starved, they died. The face vanished so quickly that she might have thought she imagined it, save for the blue pentacle tattooed on the forehead.

She was being watched-followed-by the man-faced ape which she'd seen clambering through the ruins just before she dived away from her captors.

Hedia began to run, which was pointless; and looked for a branch that she could use for a club, which was even more foolish. Any branch she could break off would be useless against the muscles beneath the ape's russet fur.

She didn't hear the creature following. Well, she hadn't heard it before, either, but it obviously had followed her from the ruins. If it wanted to harm me, it could have done anything it pleased while I was asleep. Or now, for that matter.

She had been aware of the slow thumping in the sky for some while, but as the sound became louder, she realized that it wasn't a bird's call. Understanding struck her; she stopped dead, wishing that she were closer to the petrified family so that she might be confused with them.

She craned her neck upward. Can they see through the trees? What they're doing is a waste of time if they can't, though… even if they can see me, that doesn't mean they can land in this forest.

The beating sails passed overhead. The thumping faded, then swelled again as a second vessel followed, slightly farther out than the first. Hedia couldn't see anything, not even a deeper shadow on the canopy.

She heard people on the ships speaking. Though she was sure the voices were human, she couldn't make out the words clearly enough to know whether the language was familiar to her.

Hedia set her hands on the trunk of a great tree and leaned against it; she closed her eyes. The men in the flying ships were hunting her: it can't have been a coincidence that they flew directly overhead. The glass men who captured her might be following her track; at any rate, she didn't dare go back the way she had come for fear that she would find them waiting.

And then there was the ape; she didn't know what its plans were, but she was certainly part of them. What his plans were: the creature's human face was masculine. Rather ruggedly handsome, as a matter of fact.

There was no point at all in her going on but she did regardless, pushing her way through more of these accursed saplings. Several were dead; their dried twigs scratched her no matter how careful she tried to be. She came to another fallen tree; she couldn't see over the trunk. I'll turn left when I get past it so that I'm going the way I was before. Otherwise I'll be walking in circles, which- An eight-foot long lizard hopped to the top of the great tree bole; it cocked its head to stare down at her. Half the lizard's length was tail, so it probably didn't weigh much more than a large hunting dog.

Hedia stopped in mid step. The creature stood on two legs; its thighs were disproportionately muscular, like those of the fighting cocks bred by the manager of Saxa's farm in the Sabine Hills.

Balancing as delicately as a sparrow on its right foot, the lizard raised its left leg and cocked it back. It hissed at Hedia. The middle of the three toes was armed with a hooked claw the size and shape of a sickle.

Something thrummed by close overhead. The lizard launched itself toward her, but a serpent- A rope! A bark rope weighted with fist-sized pieces of crystal on either end!

– -wrapped around the creature. Hedia ducked and the lizard crashed past, twisting its long neck to snap at her as it went by. It pulled a lock of hair, but she was already stumbling forward.

Over Hedia's shoulder, the lizard and the great red-haired ape were rolling in combat. The reptile shrieked like steam shrilling from a covered pot, but the ape was as silent as death itself.

Hedia ducked to shove her way through a shrub whose stems arched from a common center and touched the ground again with their tops. A day ago she couldn't have imagined plunging into such a mass; now it was only an obstacle to be surmounted as she fled.

She burst out into a broad glade covered with flowers and rank grass that grew no higher than her knees. Two of the flying ships lay before her, canted on their sides when at rest. Several score of men carrying ropes and hand nets were starting toward the forest under the command of one of the figures in blazing armor. This time the armored man had taken off his helmet, so that Hedia could see that he had a tattoo on his forehead like that of the ape.