Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos Page 2

  The dock near her was empty, all the displaced workers crouched a stone’s throw away on the main dock with wide eyes and mouths full of quiet curses. A short, fat man was threading his way through the mass and making his furious way toward her. His paunch bounced and swayed as he jogged from one junction to the next. His face was flushed red above the tight collar of his fine coat, and his bald, shiny head was sweating profusely. Nira felt nothing as he approached, not fear nor hope nor despair. After what she’d seen, she’d never feel anything again. She saw the carved stone amulet bouncing on the man’s chest as he drew near. Dockmaster. He had an abacus fused to the fleshy back of his left hand. She’d never seen anyone do that before. The thought of having to spend so much time doing figures that one needed a calculator quite literally at hand every moment made her a little sick.

  He took a cursory glance at the sinking ship and fixed his beady pig eyes on her, swelling like a puffer as he prepared for a mighty tirade. “Severing the dock! Goods thrown in the bay! Days of work lost! I’ll have the crew in chains and the captain hanged! Where is the blighted man? I’ll have his money and then I’ll have his head! Does he mean to let everyone go down with the ship? Get him on the dock at once, you skinny whore’s get!”

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed. It was a tired, thin little chuckle. She knew it was exactly the wrong thing to do in this situation, but she hadn’t the strength to hold it back. The dockmaster swelled even further in indignation. Going to pop like an over-filled grunter’s bladder. That made her laugh harder. His lip twisting, he reached out and slapped her. She coughed and laughed more. “Shut up, you chaga! I won’t have it!” He took her roughspun shirt in his fist and shook her hard. She gasped in pain as her ribs shifted, and she sagged against him. With a snort of disgust, he shook her off and let her fall. “Where’s the captain?”

  She couldn’t muster the energy to stand again. From where she lay on her back she simply pointed down the length of the ship and forced the words out. “He’s dead. All. All dead.”

  Confused, he glanced at the ship, and as his eyes took in the information they had previously denied, his jaw dropped and his jowls quivered. Another body had fetched up against the railing further astern. An arm hung over the gunwale, and the fingers looked too long. A closer look showed bones erupting from the fingertips like talons. Spurs of bone jutted like obscene spines all along the length of the forearm, and it dripped blood. The man’s back was pressed against the railing uprights – the first mate? He had a shirt like that – and was a profusion of extruded ribs puncturing the cloth. One had curved up to pierce his neck. His face was blessedly turned away, but it looked like he had grown horns.

  “Gaia protect us,” the fat man whispered. His mouth opened and closed and opened again, at a loss for words. He couldn’t look away. “Gaia hold and preserve us.” He turned to her, his face a mask of fear and disgust. “Dear goddess, what happened here?”

  Prostrate on the dock, smeared with blood and worse, hurt, cold, and alone, Nira closed her eyes and saw once more the brilliant shaft of light that had speared down from the heavens and caught them on the water, changing everything. “It was the Light,” she sighed. “We got caught in the Pure Light.”

  Chapter 2

  What Comes Next

  The sun filtered down through the forest canopy as gently as a butterfly kiss, and Kest reached out an arm to idly swipe his hand through the motes dancing in a nearby sunbeam. He shifted his bare back against the warm, pebbled expanse of rhino on which he rested, scratching the itch between his shoulder blades against her hide. The great beast rumbled out a throaty note that vibrated through him, responding to and sharing in his lazy pleasure. He patted the broad back beneath him and lifted his head to make sure they were still pointed in the right direction through the towering trees. Yes, the tribe’s summer huts were no more than twenty minutes from here. The clearing was on a rise just past a jungle-choked ravine that bisected the trail somewhere up ahead. Kest ignored the sudden twist of anxiety in his guts and laid his head back. His rhino would get him there. Everyone was expecting him. They won’t expect what I’m bringing with me, though!

  Kest had been in the deep jungle for the last five days on a ritual hunt for a bond-beast. Of all the two hundred people of the Granaal tribe, only Puldaergna, the chief, was bonded to one of the great rhinos. Finding one had been the first thing Kest had done. It hadn’t been easy… but it hadn’t been that hard, either. Sneaking into Oema lands at the edge of the Scalegrass Desert was no great task for a hunter as talented as he. He’d convinced the great cow rhino to come with him by nightfall. The rest of his trial had been even more productive than that.

  The massive rhino rumbled at him, and he perked up from his reverie. They were approaching the ravine. To the north and then down, he cast at the beast. She snorted and turned her head to walk parallel to the rift, searching for a pathway down that she could manage. He knew it was somewhere nearby. It was a crude kind of communication he had just done, the merest sending of direction and intent without any nuance, but most of the newly-bonded spent months at home with their beast before they could manage so much, and he’d known this one only four days. She was a sturdy one, this rhino. She bore him well. He patted her side again, washing approval over her. She ignored it, of course – she was not so weak-willed as that – but he thought her pace might have quickened just a little.

  The hardest part of his trial had been to convince old Puldaergna to allow the ritual at all. The whole tribe had been shocked last year when he held back from bonding when the tribe made the pilgrimage to the Gathering at the Great Menhir. All the others his age and many even younger had stepped into the milling concourse of animals around the huge standing stone and found a willing beast to pair with. He hadn’t told anyone, not even his parents, but only his own pride had held him back at the Gathering. Everyone found their beast at the Gathering. It was so… common. Kest was going to be the next chief of the Granaal; everyone knew it. He meant to be one that was remembered.

  So he’d collared old Bekkan, the shriveled, white-haired elder who knew all the old lore, and pestered him for stories of heroes and how they found their beasts. He’d had to cobble together half a dozen old tales of dubious origin, but eventually, Kest convinced Bekkan to tell the chief that in the times before the old gods left, under certain circumstances, great hunters went searching for their beasts in private rituals of bonding. The tribe had been abuzz with the old stories for the better part of a moon’s turn.

  That was why, when he had gone to Puldaergna at the even-eat during the new moon, given him the ritual blow of respect, and said he was ready for his bonding ritual, the great-bellied chief had had very little choice in the matter. The mothers had started up the song for the death of a child even before Pul had given consent. It irritated the big man, who certainly could foresee Kest wearing his feathered chieftain’s horns within a span of years, but he was not so selfish as to deny the younger man the right to find a bond-beast when he was so obviously ready. Kest liked Puldaergna. He was fair and kind-hearted, but he had the temper to lead the Granaal tribe to war when it was needed. He hoped to be a chief of the same stripe as the big man when the time came. So long as they don’t tie me to a tree and leave me for the ants when they see what I’ve done. It was not an unthinkable outcome. The Granaal were fiercely traditional, and Pul moreso than most. He’d once thrown a man from the tribe when he insisted over and over that the tribe use a new spot by the river for their summer grounds instead of the time-honored location. This isn’t the same at all. That fellow was an idiot. I’m to be the next chief; they’ll listen.

  Kest peered over his rhino’s head, and there it was: a wide, well-worn game trail descending into the deep ravine that would support the great lumbering beast. Down they went, and Kest sat upright, kneeling on either side of the rhino’s spine, hands out to push back the choking vines and overhanging branches of the narrow ravine. Nettles wouldn’t bother her thick
hide, but she could easily get tangled in the ropy vines that hung from the trees and made a green roof overhead. South and back up the other side. I help. He wasn’t sure if that last bit was clear, but with a shudder and a huff, she began picking her way through the deep grass in the shadows of the narrow ravine. He leaned forward and, balancing with one hand on her many head horns, reached beyond her snout to lift a wrist-thick murder vine out of the way, carefully avoiding the thorns. He had no desire to spend the next three days squatting over a pit, leaking bloody stool.

  The path back up should be visible by now. Did we miss it? He tried very hard to quell his rising concern. Rhinos were not particularly sensitive, but at an early age he had learned that any animals near him became agitated whenever he got upset. He broadcast his emotions – his self – far more widely than anyone he had ever met. It was one of the first signs that he was not an average Pacari. They should have seen it, even then. It was all the animals, all at once. I’ve been set on this path from the first. They’ll have to accept it. Will they accept it? No, they’re too locked in their ways. I just don’t know. Pride, excitement, and fear mingled in his chest as he imagined how they’d all look at him when he stood before the tribe. With difficulty he pushed the thoughts aside. He would do what he needed to do and accept the consequences. Worrying beforehand was for the weak. Pay attention, ratling. You’re going to grab an adder thinking it’s a vine with how distracted you are.

  The thought came a moment too late. The forest had gone still while he wrapped his head in tangled thoughts, and a shockingly loud snarl at his right flank made him flinch. Pain ripped across his bare back as a heavy weight pushed into him, throwing him from the rhino’s back. He crashed down through the branches, crying out in fear and anger, pinned under the writhing, rippling weight of a predator. What is it? The rhino trumpeted in alarm, stamping and snorting as it caught wind of whatever it was that had him pinned. Its massive, horny rear foot thundered down only a handspan from his head. Stop! he cast out desperately with all his strength. The foot shuffled away uncertainly, and the weight on his back slackened as his attacker caught the force of his mental sending.

  He didn’t hesitate – gathering his limbs beneath himself, he flung his body back with all his force, shaking his assailant free. Twisting to face it, he found himself face-to-snout with a majka. It had the blunt snout, rounded ears, and sleek form of a jungle panther, with a mud-red pelt and six strong legs that ended in wicked claws. It was a youngling. Kest would have been dead already otherwise. How long has he been following me? It surged at him, claws out, snarling fiercely. It used its middle pair of legs to try to pin him in place as they all did, but he anticipated the move and lifted his arms up and away from his ribs before the claws dug home, accepting the pain in his sides as the price for being able to fight back. He put his strong, knotted hands under the majka’s jaw and pushed up with all his strength. The toothy maw clacked shut on empty air beside his ear instead of in his throat. This close, embraced by the beast, he could hear the screaming growl vibrating in its chest through muscle and pelt.

  From the corner of his eye he could see the great rhino. It had managed to turn itself around in the narrow slot of the ravine and had its horns lowered, ready to charge and skewer the smaller animal with its great snout horn. No! Kest commanded. He had no desire to be either gored or trampled in the midst of it all. I do it. He rolled over on top of the majka, and it spat and thrashed. He had a vise grip on its throat, and he kept his face buried close against it to protect himself. Pulling his knees in close, he thrust his feet into the inner hip joints of its rear legs, spreading them wide to keep the hunting cat from raking its rear claws into his belly. Disembowelment was not on the list for him today. The claws still digging into his sides and shoulders were bad enough.

  No kill, he cast at it sternly, finding the tone of a mother putting down a rowdy cub. Enough. It yowled angrily at the air, thrashing in his grip. Shifting his grip on its throat to give himself more leverage, Kest let it surge forward a finger’s length and then slammed its head back against the ground. Bad cub! No more! And with that, the cat went limp, convinced of its role. He held its throat for another moment and spat a thick gobbet of spittle onto the young male’s muzzle, establishing his dominance. Then he stood, considering his options. Sloppy, Kest. If this were a bond-beast sent after you by its human instead of a half-grown cub, all your grand planning would have died before anyone knew of it. The majka was only half the size it would be when full-grown, but already impressively muscled and well-kept. The other one I found earlier is far bigger – no need to bring this one along. He addressed the majka, which watched him warily, tail lashing. Go home. No chase. It snarled at him, making the rhino stamp in warning, and then shot off into the underbrush. It wouldn’t bother them again.

  He took stock of himself and winced at the deep punctures from the majka’s claws along his ribs. All’s well. Let’s go, he sent to the rhino. A little blood on the skin would look good when he arrived. He was glad he didn’t have far to travel; he’d need flame paste soon to fight off rot in those wounds.

  But when they climbed out of the ravine and approached the edge of the tribe’s clearing, Kest striding strong and confident to hide his fears, he soon faltered, his heart dropping into his stomach. No one was waiting for him. Not even Binmara, who had let him sit in her family’s fire-circle before he left, who had whispered to him that she would not yell if he slipped into her nighttime furs before the trial. Her eyes never left him when he was in sight, and yet she was not waiting. Not that he intended to make the pretty girl his karda – he had years yet before he intended to pick a woman – but, still, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Empty wooden octagons of the tribe’s shelters greeted him, their tufted grass roofs a dull, faded green in the sunlight. Everyone was supposed to be lined up, anticipating his victorious return. Not even Mother and Father are here. It was… wrong! He’d been dreaming of this for months. This was his moment, and no one was there. Where is everyone?

  He heard a low, multi-layered muttering coming from beyond the octagonal summer huts. It sounded as if everyone in the tribe were conferring together quietly, but there were occasional peaks and lulls in the sound that made him think of a contest of strength, but such a thing was ridiculous. The Granaal did not fight amongst themselves; the only reason for a one-on-one fight with everyone watching would be if someone were challenging Puldaergna for the chief’s horns.

  Again he heard a sudden hush chased away by a rush of speech and cheering. Was he imagining the slap of flesh on flesh? A loud smack was followed by ooohs from many throats, and he knew he was not. Someone was challenging Pul. No! Kest was supposed to be the next chief; they all knew it! Who would do this? He broke into a run, telling the massive rhino to stay put.

  Just as he thought – everyone was circled around the meeting dell, and two men grappled in the center. One of them was Puldaergna. His massive belly gave him away instantly. Ice rimed the inside of Kest’s guts, and he pulled up short behind all the others. No one noticed him –they were all absolutely focused on the fight, and justly so. A change in chieftain was the greatest upheaval the tribe would experience in a decade. The man currently trying to pull the chief’s arm from its socket was a stranger, tall, broad, pale-skinned, with a braided gray beard and long hair held back by a leather braid with a crystal woven into it across his forehead. He was swathed in a high-collared, long-sleeved black robe of curious, torn-thread quilting that split at the hips, revealing black pants and boots held close to the body by straps. Who fights in black at the height of summer? And why is Pul fighting him? No outsider could replace him! Who would follow a foreigner?

  The two men were alone in the circle. Where is Kyrak? The chief’s beast mate, a wizened and cranky old rhino missing the tip of its horn, would never leave the man’s side at a moment like this. Has the bearded man killed his beast? Is that what this is about? He could make no sense of it. Outsiders were for trading with,
gaining information from, and for killing if they proved untrustworthy – but they were not for fighting. Pul had slipped the robe-clad man’s hold and delivered a punishing blow to his opponent’s ribs. Kest winced in sympathy, but the man barely grunted, falling back and regrouping without any apparent discomfort.

  “I had hoped this would be done before you returned,” a quiet voice said in his ear. He turned, and Mama was there, smiling her crinkle-eyed love and patting his shoulder. Kest hugged her, and a bit of the ice inside him melted. If Mama was smiling, things couldn’t be so wrong as they seemed. The shorter woman gave him a tight squeeze, but quickly released him as he squirmed and protested in pain. Her arms had clamped down right over the wounds in his sides. Stepping back, she eyed the puffy claw-marks with a practiced gaze and without a word reached into her hip bag, bringing forth her ever-present pot of flame paste.

  “Mother, what’s happening? I don’t understand!” He tried to keep the whine from his voice. He was a man now, and he would handle his disappointments with strength and calm. But never had he expected to be robbed of his just recognition by the tribe at the same moment he was embarking on his grand plan! Did someone find me out? Impossible. I haven’t said a thing to anyone. Did they follow me during the trial? That also seemed unlikely. Who would sneak through the wilderness just to follow someone who was supposed to weather the trial all alone? Besides, he would have seen it. No, it was impossible.

  “This man doesn’t think to be chief, does he?” The broad man fought with a ferocity and precision he had never seen, fists lashing out like whips, feet planted solidly, face impassive. The broken-loop threading of his quilted black robe gave him a tattered aspect, almost as if he were a spirit of death. Pul rushed him and wrapped the man in a crushing hug, trying to knock him off his feet. Landing on your back with the fat chief’s weight atop you was a good way to lose a fight, but incredibly, the man did not move. It was as if Pul had rushed a boulder.