What is Himatan?
* * *
Okay, Murken Warrow, it’s time to get a grip on the situation. Everyone’s countin’ on us to get their puckered sphincters out of here. And who am I lookin’ at to pull that off? Fuckin’ useless Sour! We’re sunk. Absolutely had it. Might as well slit our own throats.
‘So, Mage — what now?’
Murk flinched, almost tottering over from where he crouched studying the jungle. He peered up, squinting in the blinding sunlight, to Burastan glowering down. He straightened and as he did so darkness gathered in his vision. Gotta get some food in me. ‘What do you mean?’ His answer sounded defensive even to his ears.
The tall Seven Cities woman rolled her eyes. ‘Which way now?’
‘East.’
Burastan leaned forward to bring her sweaty grimed face closer to his. Speaking very slowly, she asked: ‘Which way east?’
Murk looked away. He swallowed though no spit would come. ‘Have to talk that over with the scouts.’
‘You do that.’
‘If you’re all done …’
She waved him away. He went to find the scouts — and Sour.
These days the Thyr mage was spending all his time with the scouts. Murk had come across him actually teaching them how to pick flowers! Could you believe it? And these hardened veterans of Seven Cities and the Quon Insurgency campaigns. Murk couldn’t credit it. When did this happen?
It all started going haywire after they spent time with Oroth-en and his people. Sour took to it like a fish to water an’ now he’s runnin’ around wearing leaves and preachin’ all this living off the land crap. Well, as far as Murk was concerned it was all going to end badly for them. A pig can’t be a tiger no matter how hard it tries, as his old pa used to say.
He found his goggle-eyed partner showing a plant to four scouts. He was explaining something about the roots being edible at one time of year, the leaves at another, and the berries fine so long as you boiled them.
‘Boil them in what?’ Murk asked.
His partner blinked up at him, one bulging eye higher than the other. ‘Well … you could use a helmet, I s’pose. If you had to. Fill it with water and drop in heated stones.’
‘An’ who’s going to do that?’
The fellow shrugged. ‘Better than starvin’.’
Was it really, though? Eating grasshoppers and beetles and such? There was no way he’d do that.
Sour nodded to the scouts and they melted away among the broad drooping leaves. Droplets of rainwater pelted down in loud explosions all round them.
‘Which way?’ Murk asked.
‘I’m thinkin’ on it.’
‘Thinking,’ Murk repeated sceptically. ‘You’re thinking. Well … time’s passing, you know.’
‘I know.’
Murk studied him. There was something new about the man — beyond the natural colouring and dirt powders he’d painted himself in. He wore leather sandals that appeared to have been cut from someone’s cast-off armour. His only other covering was a loin wrap of ratty old cloth. The paints had smeared and faded and become mixed with sweat to a smooth layer over his limbs, chest and face. His hair was a greasy mat that was so muddy he looked as if he’d stuck his head into a hole in the ground.
Murk gestured helplessly to the man’s head. ‘What’s with all this …?’
Sour blinked at him, innocently. ‘This?’
Murk flapped his hands. ‘The hair — the mud!’
The mage’s brows shot up. ‘Ah! Keeps away the crabs and lice an’ scalp-rot ’n’ such.’
‘An’ all this crap you’ve smeared yourself in? Can’t be healthy.’
The man shrank, examined his hands. ‘Well … the dirt keeps the bugs off. No bites from the chiggers or flies or midges or mites. The layer keeps the sun off too, so no sunburn. An’ it helps keep you cool so that keeps down on the sweating too.’ He tapped a dirty finger to his chin. His nails were blackened and broken from all the digging he’d been doing. ‘That’s about it.’
Murk kept his scowl. ‘Well … you smell like a damned privy.’
Sour snapped his fingers. ‘That’s right! Yeah, an’ the animals can’t smell you so it’s easer to hunt. You smell just like the jungle … you see?’
Murk glared his hardest. ‘You smell all right. I can attest to that!’ He waved his hand in front of his nose.
Sour’s face fell. He kicked at the ground, his shoulders hunching. ‘Sorry. But … you know … you could maybe … it keeps the bugs off.’
Murk just glared. ‘Which way?’
Sour rubbed a hand on his head, smearing his hair all about. He winced as if contemplating something painful. ‘Don’t know. Can’t choose! There’re so many choices — so many ways things could go south round here. Don’cha sense it all?’
‘No, I don’t. Shadow’s no help.’ Murk glared now at the gloom of the thick brush. ‘It’s like all its attention’s elsewhere, you know? It’s like the shadows are all standing still, afraid to move.’
Sour was nodding eagerly. ‘Yeah! I know what you mean.’ He pointed to the lurid jade star that was the Visitor clearly visible in the full daylight. ‘It’s that. It’s so close now. I feel like it’s hangin’ right over my head. Like it was gonna fall right-’ He covered his mouth and staggered as if punched, his eyes huge above his hand. ‘Burn forgive us!’ he murmured into his fingers.
Murk had seen his partner like this before and each time it had saved a lot of lives during the campaign in north Genabackis. ‘What is it?’ he asked, reaching out to steady him, then pulling his hand away as he remembered he had no shirt. ‘What’d you see?’
Sour was gazing off into the distance. ‘It could happen,’ he breathed, awed by what he’d glimpsed.
‘What?’
Sour’s gaze snapped to him as if just noticing he was there. He edged close and lowered his voice. ‘There’s a chance it could fall right here on us,’ he whispered. ‘I saw it.’
Murk immediately glanced about to see if anyone was within hearing. ‘Don’t start talk like that.’
‘I know,’ Sour answered, fierce. ‘But it’s real.’
‘We have to run this by the captain.’
Sour blinked, quite startled. ‘Really? I thought you was just gonna tell me to shut the Abyss up.’
Murk glanced back towards camp and froze. ‘Naw,’ he murmured, ‘if there’s a chance …’ He tilted his head in that direction and Sour glanced over, grunted.
Burastan was headed their way. She halted, set her fists on her hips — wide and muscular ones beneath her tattered and frayed trousers that Murk didn’t mind resting his eyes on. She gave them a withering glare up and down. ‘What’re you two whispering on about like a couple of kids?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Murk replied, all airily. The woman’s presence quite tied Sour’s tongue.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t try that mysterious mage act on me. I know you’re nothing but a village wart-healer.’
‘Got any?’
She frowned warily. ‘What?’
‘Warts.’
Her lips tightened to colourless and her hand went to the wire-wrapped grip of her curved Seven Cities blade. ‘You’re wanted,’ she hissed through rigid jaws.
‘Okay,’ Murk answered.
‘Not you,’ she snarled, dismissing him. She raised her chin to Sour. ‘You.’
Sour pointed to his own chest in disbelief. ‘Me?’
She rolled her eyes once more. ‘Yeah you — gods help us. C’mon.’
Burastan led them to a trooper leaning up against a tree, one unshod foot crossed over the other. ‘He can’t walk,’ she told them.
Sour knelt before the man. He unceremoniously took hold of an ankle to study one foot. The man tensed in pain. Sour waved Murk in for a closer look. He indicated the sole. ‘See?’
The skin of the sole was an angry engorged red. The skin was covered in blisters and was peeling in thick layers as if it had been boiled. ‘What happened?’ Murk asked.
‘Poisonous plant.’ He regarded the man, shook his head. ‘Walked round in your bare feet, didn’t you?’