Jo Clayton: Wild Magic

A few heard him and slowed their charge, came back to form up behind him, their faces carefully blank. Only a few.

Confident in their training and their weapons, filled with contempt for these squatters, these peasants, furious at the taunting they’d endured, Lancers and hostas alike charged into the city. They’d been blooded in slave raids and bandit chases, had never faced a hostile city roused to resist them. They expected to ride over the feebs and slaughter as they chose.

The wynds were narrow and crooked, and the squatters had built their barricades around curves; the warhorses crashed into these before their riders saw them, or they stumbled over ropes strung low between the houses; the higher ropes caught the riders in their throats, knocked them onto the rutted earth where they were trampled by the horses behind them and the hostas running along beside them.

On the flat roofs of the one-story buildings the women howled, an ululating eerie sound, then they tipped the cauldrons over the low parapets and sent the boiling fluids cascading onto the attackers.

Children ran from houses into side wynds, threw stones at the intruders, scampered back inside, giggling and triumphant. More stones rained frum the roofs from the slings of the shepherds and the others.

Squatters with hammers and kitchen knives darted out of houses and side-wynds, swanned over men thrown down, cut throats and hammered heads. Some were killed, but most got away with scratches and bruises.

The blundering attack degenerated into a rout. Leaving their wounded to the knives of the squatters, the Lancers and the hostas staggered from the city.

The Naostam Runner came panting into the Kummhouse Reception Room, so excited she could barely speak. “They’re buzzitin’, Zazi. We did it! We did it!”

Penhari lifted a hand. “Calmly, Runner. It’ll be harder when they come again. Much harder.” She smiled at the girl. “But we did beat them this time.”

One by one the other Runners came in with reports from their Kummatas, reports of rout and people dancing in the wynds and on the rooftops, dancing in the Groves, of Cheoshim and hostas running with their tails between their legs, of kassos fleeing like frightened rats.

“Vema vema,” Penhari said. “All this is grand, but it’s not time for celebrating yet. They’ll come again and this time they’ll come as warriors, not as a mob. They’ll come by inches and slaughter as they move.” She smiled grimly into the suddenly sobered young faces. “I depend upon you, Runners. If you get yourselves killed, you blind me. After this, go in pairs; if one’s cut down, the other can carry the word. Run the rooftops, not the wynds; it’s slower, I know, but safer.” She paused. “Until they decide to clear the roofs. Watch out for that.” She scooped up a pile of sealed packets from her desk. “Don’t let anyone see this but your Kumms. Get it to them safe and fast as you can. Bring me back any questions or objections. Do you understand? Good.”

She handed out the packets with the plans she’d labored over for hours, consulting Panote, the Kassian

Tai and Desantro, pulling together the reports from the Kummate about the people and resources of their Kummatas, adding in all she remembered of the ramblings of the General about the Cheoshim and their training, all she’d learned from Faharmoy.

Runners stuffed the packets in their pouches and went trotting out.

Sting! To be so young and so eager. I never was. She shivered, swallowed the bile of ancient anger that rose in her throat. I never had a chance to be.

Faan woke in the Kummhouse Infirmary, blinked up into the Kassian Tai’s worried face.

“Fa.” Tai’s voice cracked on the word. She cleared her throat. “How’re you feeling?”

Faan pushed up without answering. She could hear sounds coming through the window-pans banging; the small drums that everyone seemed to have over here toom-tooming away; shouts and laughter. “I couldn’t hold, Zazi.”

“Don’t worry, honey. We drove them back, tails tucked.”

Faan shivered. “What…?”

“Listen to me, Fa. It doesn’t matter. They’re gone. Even the kassos. They’re back across the Iron Bridge. Chewed up enough to respect our teeth.”

“Juvalgrim?”

“Not there this time. I expect our High Kasso has lost his footing at last.”

“Mamay!” Faan swung her legs over the edge of the cot, looked frantically about. “If they got him, they got Reyna, I know it. Where’re my clothes, Tai. I have

“Hush hush, honey.” Tai reached out to touch Faan’s cheek, but Faan jerked away. “I don’t know what’s going on over there, child. No one can cross the River now.”

“No one? I can.” Faan got to her feet, swung her arms out for balance as her head swam. She stiffened her back, drew in a long breath, exploded it out. “I can,” she repeated grimly. She looked down at the skimpy shift which was all she had on. “My clothes. Where are my clothes?”

“Abeyhamal…”

“Abeyhamal can go jegg herself. The deal was SHE kept Rey out of trouble; well, that’s off and so’s the rest. I mean it, Tai, if I have to go like this, I will:”

Tai looked suddenly older. “Vema, Fa. What you were wearing… well, we’ll have to burn it. I had Dossan fetch some clean things.” She gestured toward a small chest beside the door, then turned to leave. In the doorway, she paused, looked over her shoulder. “I do want to remind you, honey, Abeyhamal has a lot more than you to worry about.” She closed the door gently behind her.

Faan grimaced. “Vema, she muttered, then began the loosening exercises Panote had taught her, working the dizziness from her head, the knots from her muscles. “You and I never did count, Zazi; you don’t want to know it, but it’s the truth.”

When she was feeling steady again, she dressed and left the room, scowling, wondering where Ailiki had gotten to.

Riverman jogged down the path trying to get used to the soft shoes the Sibyl had spelled about his feet so he could run the black iron tiles without cooking himself. He slowed as he came to the charred stump of the old olive tree. A small limber shoot with shiny green leaves had grown up from the roots; he hadn’t noticed it when he passed on the way to the Cave, but this time the wind shook it and it seemed to wave to him. He laughed his fizzy laugh, returned the wave, and started down the Jiko Sagrada.

He crept along the deserted kariam clinging to the ashy shadow of the dead kichidawa hedges, cautious despite the empty silence of the towers. He wrinkled his. short broad nose, shifted his grip on the horn hilt of the saber, annoyed at the Sibyl for not providing a sheath for it.

He reached the Circle, ducked under the raised boardwalk in front of the shops and began circling behind the kassos and the STRIKERS, any sounds he made lost in the ragged chanting of the Manassos, the reedy voice of the Prime going on about something. He didn’t bother puzzling out the. Prime’s words. It was all human nonsense anyway, this breast beating and reading profundities into the accidents of appetite. A god was a force you dealt with, like a blizzard or a tornado; when they were around, you kept your head down; when they weren’t, you did your best not to arouse them.

He wouldn’t be here now if the Sibyl hadn’t laid this geas on him. Fond as he was of the Honeychild, it wasn’t him she was going to lead to freedom, and as for the River-let Abeyhamal finish this thing, the rains would be back and the water clear again. Ah well, ah well, would-be was as useless as regret. Best to just get on with it.

Juvalgrim and Reyna were atop the pyre in the center of the Circle; he eyed them, sniffed with exasperation. Into the mouth of the Beast. He squatted under the boards, scratched his drooping weedfur and tried to figure out how he was supposed to cross that empty space without some fidgeting wander-eye spotting him and raising a shout. Eyes everywhere. I can’t do this. Sibyl, O Sibyl, I’m just a little Riverman. They’ll throw me on the fire and burn me to ash.