The Broken God Machine (24 page)

“Pehr …” Tasha’s voice had grown soft again.

“Let me do this,” he told her, and he took his hands from his face but
remained on his knees, head down, eyes closed. He tried to picture Jace, the
way the boy had looked before the coming of the Lagos, and once he had that
image fixed firmly in his mind, he began to speak.

“Cousin, I have wronged you. I have left you here in this place and not
given you the honorable burial you deserve. I acted to save myself and left you
behind, and though I beg your forgiveness for this, I can never forgive myself.
Even now I must leave again … we must go to Tasha’s family and try and help
them prepare for the coming of the Lagos. If we survive, cousin, I swear to you
that I will return, and I will take your bones from this terrible circle, and I
will give you the ceremonies you deserve. You have my oath as a hunter, before
all of our gods, all of the plainsmen’s gods, and the god of those who once
dwelt here.

“I miss you, my cousin. Forgive me for what I have done, and what I must
do.”

There was silence for a time, and Pehr sat with his head still bowed, eyes
still closed. If Jace’s spirit remained in this place, it gave sign neither of
displeasure nor acceptance.

At last Tasha spoke. “Pehr, I’m sorry, but time is precious now. We
must—”

Whatever it was that Tasha had been about to insist upon, it was cut short
by a sudden rushing, whistling noise. Her words became a scream of agony, and
Pehr’s eyes flew open. He looked up to see that a great length of wood, tipped
with a wicked metal point, had embedded itself in Tasha’s side. Falling
sideways, she hit the ground with a thud that sent white bone powder puffing up
into the air, her blood pouring out from around the spear that had been driven
six inches or more into her body. Pehr turned, reaching for his club,
remembering even as he did so that the club was gone.

Pehr hauled himself to his feet. Less than fifty yards away and well into
the circle of bone, a single Lagos priest came loping toward them at full
speed, snarling and howling in abject, bestial rage. This was, Pehr understood,
their first glimpse of what was to come. This was the reaction of the Lagos to
the death of their god, and it was nothing less than the murderous hate that he
had expected.

“Oh, Tasha, I’m sorry for this,” Pehr murmured, and in the next moment he
reached down and tore the spear from the girl’s side, eliciting another
agonized scream. He had no time to worry about it right now; the Lagos priests
were smaller than the warriors, but they were still strong, fast, and equipped
with the same deadly claws. This one was clearly prepared to kill in
retribution for what they had done to the RDIS unit.

Pehr felt adrenaline flood him and relished it, wanting the clarity and
sense of purpose it would bring to him. Gone were thoughts about his cousin,
the future of mankind, or even of the girl lying in agony at his feet. Now
there was only the battle about to be joined, in which he would either prove
triumphant or die in the same circle of bones that had taken his cousin.

Pehr found himself filled with a hatred and disgust that he couldn't
remember having felt before, not even when these things had come to his
village, to burn and pillage and maim. He knew now what the Lagos were, nothing
more than the twisted end product of genetic engineering gone awry, and if they
had been human once, that humanity had long been lost. They were not something
natural, but rather something made by perverted science, and in that moment he
wished nothing more than to extinguish them from the earth entirely, that they
might never again threaten anyone on Uru.

The priest came upon him at full speed, slashing with its wicked talons and
screaming, froth flying from its jaws. Pehr ducked and turned, swinging the
spear around in a wide arc and batting the creature’s stomach with all his
might. The Lagos let out a startled, gasping grunt and doubled over. At the
same time, it grabbed the spear with one clawed hand, preventing Pehr from
pulling back and delivering the killing blow. In some other time, this
instinctive movement might actually have impressed Pehr, but now it only served
to enrage him further. He brought his left hand down, palm out, striking it
flat against the spear as he pulled up on its end with his right hand.

The spear cracked, splintered, and broke in half from the force of the blow.
Pehr brought it up above his head and back down again in another powerful arc.
This time the wood connected with the top of the Lagos priest’s head, and the
creature fell into the dirt. Pehr dropped down upon it, one knee out, driving
his full weight directly into the creature’s spine.

The Lagos jerked its head backward and let out a howl of pain, and Pehr
shoved his free hand forward, wrapping it over the creature’s head, covering
its face, fingers hooking into its sharp maw and pulling its head even further
back. Holding the Lagos like this, he dropped the spear, reached with his right
hand down to his boot, and drew forth his stone knife. Without word or
ceremony, he cut the Lagos’s throat, spraying its blood upon the bone-white
ground, and he held it there, neck wide and gaping, until it was dead.

Beside him, Tasha was panting, pulling her breaths in through teeth clenched
against the pain. Blood had soaked her leather garments and was pooling
underneath her, mixing with the bone dust and forming a grotesque, pink mud
that clung to her body. She was badly wounded, and Pehr felt a moment of raw
panic as he contemplated the situation. Tasha managed to turn her head and look
at him, her eyes tightened to slits, lips bared against the pain.

“You must leave me here,” she said, and Pehr shook his head.

“Not even if a million of these things were at our heels,” he said. “I’ll
take you back to Havenmont. We can find something there for you …”

“They won’t work. Allen’s cures were for smaller injuries. Pehr, please! You
must get to the plains and warn them.”

“I'm not leaving this place without you,” Pehr said, squatting down beside
her. “I already left one person I love lying in this circle. You’ve been
punished for
my
inattention, and I won’t abandon you because of
it.”

Tasha stared up at him, clearly furious, but just as clearly aware that
there was nothing she could say to convince him to leave her.

“Don’t you see how this ends?” she asked him.

“I don’t care how it ends. I will not walk out of this circle of bone
without you. We’ll go together, even if I have to carry you. You must get up,
Tasha.”

Pehr took her arm and helped her to her feet. The girl with the purple eyes
cried out in agony from the effort, but her strength held, and after a moment
when Pehr thought her knees would buckle, she seemed to steady herself.

“That hurt,” she said through clenched teeth. “I don’t know if I can walk by
myself.”

“I’m sorry. Tasha, I'm so sorry. I should have—”

“Pehr, stop.”

Pehr bit his lip, forcing himself to put away the anger and self-loathing
that threatened to sweep over him. There would be time for it later, perhaps,
but Tasha was right: their present situation was too dire to allow it.

“Come,” he said. “Lean against me. We will stop in the glade below and I
will bathe and dress your wound as best I can.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Quite a lot, I think,” Pehr said. Tasha made a sobbing noise, but she began
to limp along with him back up the path, toward the branch that would take them
to the plains. Pehr was proud of her.

“Am I going to die?” she asked him, and Pehr told her the only thing he
could without inspecting the damage in much greater detail.

“Tasha, I do not know.”

Once he had cleaned the wound and dressed it with strips of soft leather
torn from his own shirt, Pehr had a much better idea of what Tasha was facing.
He thought it very likely that something vital had been damaged inside of her,
and that she would live two or three days at most. Tasha pressed him for his
diagnosis, but he brushed her off, saying only that he couldn't tell the extent
of her injuries and that they had to keep moving.

They made their way as best they could across the plains, but it was obvious
that Tasha’s strength was rapidly fading. Several times during that day they
were forced to stop and rest. Even during the times when she was strong enough
to walk, Tasha’s eyes leaked constant tears from the pain that movement brought
her.

“If only we had a car,” she growled at one point, and Pehr rolled his eyes.
Less than a day ago, the word would have been meaningless to him. Now he knew
what it meant, but little good it did – there were none left in Havenmont
capable of bearing the two of them. Though blessed with exteriors crafted from
non-metallic polymers that didn’t rust, and in most cases kept inside buildings
that had afforded some level of shelter over the millennia, the vehicles had
still been dismantled by the ravages of time. Their batteries were all dead,
their rubber tires all rotted away.

“We’ll get there,” Pehr said, but Tasha only looked at him with an
expression of disbelief, and he found that he couldn’t meet her eyes for
long.

The sound began behind them sometime after dusk, so low that Pehr mistook it
at first for his own imagination, but soon it rose to the point that it could
not be denied. It was not the drums of war with which the Lagos had announced
their presence two years ago. This noise was lower, rumbling, not nearly so
rhythmic. Pehr knew from his dreams that it was the sound of many trampling
feet. The Lagos horde had come to the Plains of Tassanna at long last, bent on
revenge and destruction.

“Already?” he murmured to himself, frustrated. He had hoped for another few
days at least.

“They’re coming for us,” Tasha croaked beside him, and Pehr came to a
stop.

“Drink,” he said, when she gave him a questioning look, and held out his
half-full skin.

“I don’t want it,” she said.

“Tasha, you need water. I can hear it in your voice.”

“I didn’t say I’ve no need of it,” Tasha said, hissing in pain as she sat
down in the grass. Pehr saw that fresh blood was seeping past the leather
dressing he had put on the wound.

“So drink …”

“I don’t
want
it,” she replied, and there was something in the tone
of her voice that kept him from pressing the issue. It was not anger or sorrow
or despair – those things he would have expected, here at what could only be
the end of all things. It was, he thought, almost a trancelike tone, as if her
mind was someplace far away. She had sounded like this in his dream.

“You’re not here,” Pehr said to her, and Tasha remained staring out at the
plains ahead of them.

“No.”

“Tell me where you are.”

Tasha shook her head. “It’s like the dreams … I know this is real, but
that’s what it feels like. I don’t want the water, Pehr. I don’t want anything.
Something is coming.”

“The
Lagos
are coming,” Pehr said. “All of them, I think. They’ll
be atop us by nightfall tomorrow.”

“Yes. We’ll make our stand then.”

“Make our stand?” Pehr grinned a hard, bitter grin. “I don’t know, Tasha … I
can only handle five, perhaps six thousand of them, and you’re in no condition
to fight the other half.”

Tasha laughed, then grimaced at the pain this caused her. “No, I’m not.
Three thousand at most.”

The rumbling had stopped. Pehr sighed and sat down next to her in the grass.
Tasha put her head on his shoulder.

“They’ve called a halt for the night, so we’ll do the same. We can camp
here, but I won’t risk a fire.”

“It will be cold.”

“I’ll hold you.”

“Will you? Even though I’ve nothing to give back? I have no kisses to offer
you, Pehr. No soft touches. No warm, wet place between my legs for you to
explore. It’s … it’s not what I was built for.”

“Tasha … none of that matters to me. You know that it doesn’t.”

“Yes, I do, and I love you for it. I love you very much, Pehr. Not like Nani
does, or even like Kissha does, but … but I do. I wanted you to know.”

She turned her head and kissed him on the cheek, and Pehr smiled at her. “I
love you too. I’m sorry it has to end like this.”

It was only after they had curled up together amid the grass, her back
pressed against his chest and his arms around her, that she spoke again. She
whispered the words in a voice so soft it might have been nothing more than the
wind, or just his imagination, except it wasn’t, and he knew it.

“This is not the end,” the girl with the purple eyes told him, just before
sleep took them both. “This is only the time before the new.”

* * *

Their last march lasted fourteen hours, and near its end the sky behind them
had gone the dusty red that Pehr knew from his dreams. To the west, at the very
edge of their vision, a dark black line had appeared, and Pehr knew that it was
the front of the advancing army of Lagos. The thudding of feet had become a
dull roar in the distance, and the sound was now and again peppered with cries,
yips, snarls and shouts. The Lagos were whipping themselves into a frenzy as
they advanced through these new lands, preparing to destroy whatever they
encountered.

“Your people will fall back to the southlands as the monsters advance,” Pehr
told Tasha. “They will find themselves pinned between the horde and the
mountains.”

The red-haired girl seemed not to hear him. She was sweaty and feverish,
wracked with pain, staring out ahead of him with wide eyes. She had taken
neither food nor drink, claiming not to want them, and Pehr hadn’t forced them
on her. What was the point? Death’s hands were already upon her.

As if to confirm these thoughts, Tasha stumbled and went to one knee, crying
out at the pain this caused her. Pehr stepped up beside her, put a hand on her
shoulder, and found the skin there slicked with sweat. Tasha’s head was
lowered, her breathing ragged and tortured.

“Tasha, no matter how hard you push, we will not reach your family before
the Lagos overtake us. Don't cause yourself undue pain.”

“Not trying to reach them,” she gasped, and after a moment more she forced
herself to her feet, making a sound of agonized effort that Pehr found he could
barely stand listening to. When at last she was up, he studied her face.
Despite the pain, her eyes still seemed distant, as if looking forward not just
in space but in time.

“Where exactly is it that you think we’re going?” he asked her, and Tasha
shook her head.

“I don’t know. I have … your dream, the rising waters …”

“There is no ocean in the middle of these plains, Tasha.”

She shook her head, leaning half-bent at the waist with her hands against
her thighs, panting. “No.”

Pehr glanced back over his shoulder. The thin line of Lagos had become a
large, black wave. The beat of their advance shook the earth, and their sounds
had gone from isolated noises to a steady roar. In the east, purple thunderhead
clouds were gathering, larger and in greater numbers than he had ever seen
before, as if nature was preparing to send him and Tasha off to death with a
vast and violent storm. Pehr thought of his dream and a small shiver ran
through his body.

“Let me know when we’ve reached wherever it is we’re going,” he said, and
without further discussion he leaned down and – like he had done in the great,
white capitol building of Havenmont – swept Tasha off of her feet. She didn’t
protest this time, merely wrapped her arms around his neck and put her face
against his shoulder.

Pehr found it grimly amusing that he was able to move faster in this fashion
than the two of them had managed with Tasha walking. He knew his reserves of
strength would not last very long, not with days of nothing more than salted
tral and water in his belly, but for now it seemed all right. Tasha had always
been thin to begin with, and the exertions of their journey combined with the
fever that was now eating her away seemed to have left her little heavier than
the air around them.

Still, it took only minutes to determine that the Lagos horde was rapidly
catching up to them. The creatures were not yet advancing across the plains at
a run, but neither were they taking their time. Pehr was sure that they had
sighted the two lone humans by now, which would only add to their excitement.
They would catch up by dusk at the latest.

As he walked, Pehr went over the images in his dream again, the last sliver
of sun setting in the west, the girl with the purple eyes standing with him at
the top of the hill and looking out at the oncoming army. He wondered about the
long fade to white at the end, about what it might represent. He was not
enthusiastic about the possibilities his brain came up with.

It will be difficult, saving the world once I’m dead
, Pehr thought,
and then surprised himself by laughing. Tasha stirred against him, muttered
something incoherent, and coughed twice. She felt like a bundle of burning
sticks in his arms, and Pehr knew that the end was not far away. He found
himself amazed and proud that she had fought for so long.

With nothing else left to do, Pehr made his way across the Plains of
Tassanna, carrying his friend toward the rains, and toward wherever it was that
they were meant to die.

* * *

“There,” Tasha told him, her voice fuzzy like that of someone who has just
woken from a long sleep. “Take me there.”

Pehr hadn't even realized she was awake until she reached out her arm to
point toward a large and steeply sloping hill just ahead of them. He looked up
to where she was pointing, and he shrugged. “It seems as good a place as
any.”

Pehr’s arms and back ached from carrying Tasha. Though he thought he could
go further, it no longer mattered; the Lagos behind them were now positively
roaring in anticipation, and the front ranks had broken into a run. There were
perhaps four miles between the advancing army and its intended victims, and
Pehr thought that simply getting to the top of Tasha’s hill would be a very
near thing.

He began to run as well, knowing the motion would cause Tasha pain but sure
that she would rather deal with that pain and reach the top of the hill than be
cut down only halfway up. She didn’t cry out, only tightened her grip on his
neck, affirming his choice. Pehr raced forward as quickly as he could,
wondering when he would feel an arrow or spear pierce his body and bring him
down. The increase in speed and elevation made his calves burn, but it didn’t
matter. Nothing mattered now, it seemed, except reaching the top of this hill
in time to turn, and face his enemy, and die well.

By the time he reached the top, the Lagos horde had already begun their own
ascent, but Pehr did not set Tasha down and turn to face them as he had
expected to do. Instead he found himself unable to move, unable to do anything
more than stare at the sight before him, his brain attempting to process what
it was that he was seeing.

It’s the black sea from the dream
, he thought.
It’s real after
all. How is it possible
?

But it wasn’t the sea, and after a moment more he understood what it was
that he was looking at. The great, roiling blackness spread out below him was
not liquid. Its movement was organic, but this was not water ebbing and flowing
before him. It was a herd of tral so large that it covered the entire valley.
Pehr had developed some ability to estimate the size of these groups during his
time with Samhad, but this herd dwarfed any that he had ever seen before. This
was the group Samhad had spoken of: at least ten thousand animals, each
weighing more than a ton, spread out below him.

“Gods, Tasha,” he said, his voice low with something near reverence.

“There are no gods,” Tasha muttered against his shoulder. “Let me go. Stand
me up.”

Pehr set Tasha down, glancing over his shoulder at the enemy clambering up
the hill toward them.

“We have come as far as we can,” He said. “There is no escape ahead, and no
hope of survival behind.”

The Lagos had closed the distance to only a few hundred yards, and Pehr
realized that there would be no spears or arrows for him or Tasha; the
creatures would take them up close and rend them limb from limb.

Tasha had turned away from the tral and was looking out at the horde with
the same dreamy, vacant expression that she had held for much of the past
day.

“I am frightened,” she said, and Pehr felt a sudden twisting, doubling
sensation within him, so powerful that he nearly dropped to his knees. Here was
the sunset and the storm, just as they should be, Tasha looking out on the
plains in awe, and if she felt the fear that she claimed, Pehr couldn't hear a
trace of it in her voice. He stepped forward, as he was supposed to, and took
her hand.

“I am frightened, too,” he said, and he glanced sidelong at Tasha. The girl
with the purple eyes did not look back at him, but a small smile formed on her
face.

“This is what you’ve seen.”

“Yes.”

“We have come to the confluence,” she said, and Pehr saw that she was
weeping. “All things will end here, and all things will begin anew. Will
humankind be there to see the new dawn? Oh, Pehr … I’m glad to know you’ve seen
this.”

“Tasha, what does it mean? What does the seeing mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a voice that was audibly weakening. “Maybe it’s
luck or chance. Maybe it’s destiny. Maybe it’s God. I always knew that the
plainsmen were wrong about
their
gods, but we have passed now beyond
the edge of my sight. Don’t let go of my hand.”