“They’re fit. They’re Hebrian soldiers,” Murad drawled, and he turned away from her with such languid contempt that Hawkwood actually found himself admiring him. The woman’s smile took on a fixed quality for a second, and then became pure sunshine again.
They set off after a frugal meal of the inevitable fruit. It was weeks since any of them had tasted meat, and they were becoming nostalgic even at the thought of the ship’s salt pork.
Another day of labour. Though they were tramping a passable road, they still had to take it in turns to carry the two delirious soldiers. Even Murad did his share.
There was more life in the jungle here, if that were possible. Not the squeakings and scurryings of before, but the crash and thump of larger beasts moving off in the vegetation. Kersik appeared oblivious to them, but the company travelled with loaded weapons and drawn swords. They were aware of a subtle change in their surroundings. The trees were smaller, the canopy less dense. Almost the forest here looked like secondary growth, a reclaiming of land once cleared.
To reinforce this opinion they came across the remains of huge stone-built buildings half hidden at the sides of the narrow road. Bardolin wanted to pause and examine them, for they seemed to be liberally dotted with carved writing, but Kersik would not allow it. When he asked her about them she seemed even more reluctant to give out information than she had throughout the journey.
“They are Undwa-Zantu,” she said at last, surrendering to Bardolin’s badgering.
“What does that mean?” the mage asked.
“They are old, from the earlier time, the first peoples.”
With that one sentence she let loose a torrent of questions from both Bardolin and Hawkwood, but would answer none of them.
“You will learn more when we get to the city,” was all she would say.
T HEY had reached the foot of the mountain to the north of their anchorage. They could see it clearly, even through the canopy overhead. It reared up like a grey wall above the jungle, the forest struggling to maintain itself at its knees but gradually thinning and clearing all the same.
“How far do you think we have come?” Bardolin asked Hawkwood.
The mariner shrugged with one shoulder. He had taken bearings as often as he could—Kersik had been inordinately fascinated by the compass—and he’d had both Masudi and big Cortona pacing to check his own count, but in the day-to-day labour it was probable that major inaccuracies had crept in.
“We’re walking almost due north now,” he said. “Since we met the girl, I’d say we’ve come some sixty leagues, but we’ve changed course several times.”
They were far back in the file. Kersik was twenty yards in front, Murad striding beside her like her consort. Bardolin lowered his voice. Her hearing was better than a beast’s.
“She slips past questions like a snake. She knows everything, I’m sure of it—perhaps the whole history of this land, Captain. For it has a history, you can be sure of that. These ruins look as ancient as the crumbling Fimbrian watchtowers you can see up in the Hebros passes, and they are six centuries old and more.”
“Maybe we’ll find answers in this city she keeps talking about, though where it might be I’m sure I don’t know. The way she talks it must be on the slope of this damned mountain; but how could one build a city on slopes so steep?”
“I don’t know. It may be that if there is a city there somewhere we’ll find more answers in it than we bargained for.”
The file halted. Murad called for them at its head and the wizard and the mariner hurried past the line of soldiers.
The way was blocked by a trio of figures so fantastic that even Murad had momentarily lost his poise.
Two were inhumanly tall, eight feet perhaps. They were black-skinned, a black so dark that it made Masudi’s skin appear yellowish. Their limbs were bare and they wore simple loincloths, but where their heads should have been were incredible masks. One was of a leopard-like creature, only heavier and more muscular. The other had the head of a great mandrill, with bright blue patches of ridged flesh on either side of the flaring nose.
But the masks were not masks. The leopard-head licked its teeth and the eyes moved. The mandrill sniffed the air, its nostrils quivering. In their human hands, the two creatures carried bronze-bladed spears twice the height of a man, wickedly barbed.
The third figure was tiny by comparison, shorter even than Hawkwood. He seemed entirely human and his skin, though deeply tanned, was as pale as a Ramusian’s. He wore a shapeless bag of supple hide for a hat, and white linen robes which concealed his entire body except for small, broad-fingered hands. His face was pouchy and bejowled, eyes bright and black shining out of puffy sockets. Were it not for the strange garments, he might have passed for a well-to-do merchant of Abrusio with too many rich meals and too much good wine under his belt. His only ornament was a pendant of gold in the shape of a five-pointed star which enclosed a circle. It hung from his wattled neck on a gold chain whose links were as thick as a child’s finger.
“Gosa,” Kersik said, and she bowed. “I have brought the Oldworlders.”
The leopard head growled deeply.
“Well done,” the man in the linen robes said. “I thought I’d provide you with an escort into Undi. And my curiosity was consuming me. It’s been a long time.” His glance strayed to the members of the company who stood silent behind Kersik, even Murad at a loss for words.
“Greetings, brother,” Gosa said to Bardolin.
The mage blinked, but did not reply. His imp uttered a single little yelp which sounded almost interrogative. The leopard head growled again.
Murad stepped forward, clearly angered by being left out of the exchanges. Immediately mandrill head levelled the spear until it touched his chest, stalling him.
A series of clicks. Sergeant Mensurado, Cortona and the other soldiers had their arquebuses in the shoulder, the wheel-locks cocked back, the muzzles pointed squarely at the exotic trio in the middle of the track. Powder-smoke eddied about the company. Gosa sniffed at it, and smiled to show yellow teeth, canines from which the gums had retreated.
“Ah, the very essence of the Old World,” he said, not at all put out by the weapons pointed at his ample belly. “Put up your weapons, gentlemen; you will not need them here. Ilkwa—for shame—can’t you see the man is merely trying to introduce himself?”
The tall spear swung back to the vertical. Murad nodded at Mensurado and the arquebuses were uncocked, though the men kept their slow-match lit.
“Murad of Galiapeno at your service,” the nobleman said wryly.
“Gosa of Undi at yours,” the plump, berobed man said, bowing slightly. “Will you follow me into our humble city, Lord Murad? There are refreshments waiting, and those who wish to can bathe.”
Murad bowed in his turn. Gosa, Kersik and the two outlandish beast-men led off. The company fell in behind them, still hauling the two litters with the fever-ridden soldiers.
The world changed in a twinkling.
The jungle disappeared. One moment they were walking under the shadowed shelter of the forest, and the next it had vanished. Uninterrupted sunshine blinded them. The borderline between the riotous vegetation and barren emptiness was as clear-cut as if a giant razor had shaved the mountainside clean of all living things.
Now they could see the true size of the peak which soared above them. Its head was lost in cloud, and though from a distance it had seemed perfectly symmetrical, closer up they could decipher broken places in its cone, ragged tears in the flanks of stone, petrified waterfalls where long-cold lava had once gushed forth. The place was a wilderness, a desert leached of colour, defined only in greys and blacks. There were dunes of what looked like ebony sand, weird bubbles of basalt, outwellings and holes and the stumps of solidified geysers. A landscape, Bardolin thought, like that which he had glimpsed through Saffarac’s viewing device long ago. Lunar, dead, otherworldly.