The Iron Ship (48 page)

Rel was aware that he risked making a fool of himself in front of his men. The other Khusiaks had finished and they in particular were watching him disapprovingly. He loaded Aramaz and mounted as quickly as he could. His mount sidestepped under him, rattling a call of annoyance as he shifted about in the saddle.

“You truly have never ridden a dracon for war? What kind of sauralier are you?” said Zhinsky.

“One whose father paid for his commission. But I can ride, sir.”

“Not very well.” Zhinsky said dismissively. “So it is. Then I teach you how to do it Khushash way.” He put his hands on the pommel of the saddle, one step on the stirrup. “So first, you know the most important part. Stay away from the mouth. This is the biting part. It is dangerous.” He hauled himself up. “And the tail. This is dangerous also. But the feet, ah, they are the most deadly.” Zhinsky leaned forward over his pommel. His dracon croaked and he scratched the top of its head. “I advise you stay in the middle. Then you will be fine!”

The men laughed. Zhinsky grinned fiercely. In his steppe tribe costume he looked dangerous. A wild man from the edge of the world, fresh from a story.

“Thank you. I know that,” said Rel through gritted teeth.

“Very good. Now we are galloping.” Zhinsky brought his dracon in a circle around Rel. “You have been at gallop before?”

“Yes!” said Rel in exasperation.

“Very good! We go now.”

Whooping in Khushiacki, Zhinsky dug his heels into the side of his dracon. It jutted its head forward, folded in its two upper sets of limbs, and strutted off at a terrific pace. The fort gates retreated into their slots in the wall as he ran at them, and darted through the gap between.

By the time Rel led his men through, Zhinsky was off the switchbacked ramp and heading out onto the plains, waving his hand around his head.

Rel watched him go.

Aramaz looked over its shoulder at him.

“Go on then,” he said. “Go!”

The dracon stridulated and pawed at the ground. Rel dug his heels in. “So much for asking nicely. Hyah! Hyah!” he shouted, pricking the reptile’s soft underbelly with his spurs.

The dracon lifted its head, roared, and leapt forwards worryingly close to the unbounded edge of the road. Rel signalled for his men to follow before he was too far ahead. He grimaced as the dracon slalomed around the bends and past a wagon crawling up from the plain. He was off the ramp swiftly, scattering pedestrians at the small market by the watchpost, then out over the trackless grasslands of Farside. Wind whistled past Rel’s ears. The jerking trot of the dracon became a smooth gallop, its head arrowed forward.

The creature’s legs ate up the ground. Rel smiled to himself. This was the first time he had ridden a dracon so freely, and he found it exhilarating. No drillmaster bellowing at him, no walls to arrest his progress, no need to pay heed to formation, men under his command following behind him.

He had a moment of realisation. As tedious as his duties had been in the fort, there was a very real possibility he had been even more bored in Karsa.

He was not bored now, not at that moment, although he was, he added to himself, fucking freezing.

He set his sights on Zhinsky, and followed him unerringly across the hissing grass.

Behind them, the Glass Fort hid itself in the mountains.

O
N THE THIRD
day northwards from the Glass Fort, Zhinsky reined in his dracon and gestured out over the grass to the desert. His mount tossed its head and chirruped angrily, drawing great gouges in the earth with its claws.

The patrol came to a halt. Zhinsky called Rel to ride up beside him. Rel kept his distance so that the dracons would not fight, but Zhinsky seemed to hold this convention in scant regard, and moved in so close their knees touched. “See!” A dirty finger indicated a black smudge on the horizon.

“What’s that?” said Rel, keeping half an eye on his mount. The pair of them nuzzled each other and croaked happily. He was halfway to deciding half of what he had learned about dracons in the 3rd Dragoons was shit, and when he took his eyes from them he was almost comfortable about it.

“Storm of sand. Blow out of Blacksands sometimes onto the steppe.” Zhinsky stroked his moustaches down the side of his open mouth with finger and thumb. “Very bad.”

“Is it dangerous?” asked Rel. Zhalak gave him that look that suggested he thought Rel an idiot. Rel was growing weary of it.

“A little. The storm might put us off course. But we stay out of the desert, we stay safe. That no problem.”

“So what is the problem exactly?”

Zhinsky pursed his lips. He shaded his eyes as he watched the smear grow. “Storm not the problem. What comes with it, that the problem. If the breach is close, then...” He called out to the others. “Storm! We must prepare.”

The Khusiak advised Rel to drink as much as he could, explaining that he would not be able to while the sandstorm was on them. Then he showed Rel how to use his Khushashian sukniar to protect his face. The long scarves wrapped loosely around his neck now made sense as Zhalak wound them tightly against his mouth and nose. “Not too tight!” he admonished, wagging his finger, even though it was he doing the wrapping. “Or breathing is too hard.” Zhinsky’s fingers smelled of dracon and strange spices. He picked up the last scarf. “If it get really bad, wrap this around the eyes. Only if really bad! We call this the oshlepnienie, the, the...” he searched for the word. “The blind! Yes! No, no the blinder.”

“Blinker?” said Rel. “Like for dracons?”

“Yes! Yes, this exactly. Blinker. You can see nothing. The thinner veil, this protect eyes in light storm. The blinker is for heavy weather.”

“I can barely see with it on,” said Rel. Zhinsky was an outline crosshatched by the weave of the cloth.

“You will not see at all with the blinker. You can, if you wish, bring it up so, under the eyes. Leave a small slit to see. But if it is so bad to make you do this, well, should wrap it over face entire. You understand.”

Rel nodded. “Can I take it off now?”

“Off? No!” Zhinsky took of his fleece hat, balanced it on the pommel of his saddle and reached for his own scarves. Behind them, the men also prepared. Deamaathani had a leather mask with glass lenses set over his eyes. The others used the scarves, the more experienced helping the less. “Storm looks far, but is moving fast. We have half hour, maybe less. Leave it on until it is over. Do not pull it down. Sand is sharp, kill your eyes.”

He had his own scarves done up quickly. “We keep riding. Do not stop! You see anything in the storm, anything at all, do not approach.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice. I grew up near the sea.”

“This not sea. This sand. They come from the sands,” said Zorolotsev, riding close.

“The major has never seen the sea.” Rare words from Wiatra, and insubordinately dismissive ones at that. “I have. The captain is right, major, it is like the sea.”

“Yes! Yes! So Wiatra say, like the sea!” Zhinsky punched Rel companionably in the shoulder. “This place, Farside, similar to the land between sea and shore. The Blacksands are like a big beach place, a place that is two places overlapping, a place in between two places...” He overlaid his hands atop each other then threw them up. “Bah! Braku mina slow. The words, I lack the words.”

“Liminal?” said Rel.

Zhinsky laughed. “Ha! Yes. Liminal.” His laughter died slowly, not the abrupt cut-off the Khusiak favoured when he was making a point. He looked over his shoulder, wheeled his mount around. The wind was already picking up. The dracon’s display feathers stiffened in reaction. The creature sidestepped. “The things of the sands, they come before the storm, they linger after the storm. Not a big problem most days, but if there is a breach big enough for skinturner to get through, we must get away from here. We spend much time talking. Form up! Two by two! Zorolotsev, pair with the captain.” He fastened his scarf around his mouth. “Now we ride.”

T
HE WIND CAME
first. Then the temperature dropped suddenly. The sky went black, long tendrils of sand chasing the sun away. The storm hit them soon after. Their pace slowed to a crawl. They tried to stay together, but the wind worked hard against their intention, and a gap opened up between the riders. Whirling shrouds of sand hid Zhinsky from Rel. The Khusiak rode with Dramion. They wavered in and out of view, uncertain as a mirage. Rel’s dracon plodded on, its forearms drawn up protectively underneath it. The top of its head pointed forward, protective outer eyelids tightly shut, nostrils closed to a slit. Zorolotsev was a vague bulk by his side.

Rel kept his own head down. The swaddling of his sukniar kept much of the sand from his eyes and nostrils, but not enough. It worked its way through the layers of cloth, chafing his skin. It collected in the corners of his eyes, starving them of moisture. Grains found their way under his eyelids, and there was little he could do but blink frantically to dislodge them, wincing as they scratched his cornea. Despite the restrictions on his view, he considered wrapping the thicker cloth of the blinker around his face, trusting to his dracon to carry him out of it.

He looked up. Zhinsky had vanished entirely. He could see nothing before or behind. The grass was hidden by serpents of windblown sand, fine as ash, where patchy snow lay it had turned black. Grass blades whipped about, driven first this way then that. The sun was hidden, its light thin and directionless. There was no way he could tell where the Khusiak had gone.

“Zhinsky!” he shouted. “Zhalak Zhinsky!” The wind tore his voice away.

He looked all around him, yanking on the dracon’s reins to bring it in a tight circle. “Zhinsky! Zhinsky!”

The wind made a fluting moan.

“Zhinsky! Zorolotsev!”

“Captain!” replied Zorolotsev. His voice was torn ragged by the wind. He sounded far away.

Rel pulled his scarf down, and regretted it. Sand blasted into his eyes. His view was more obscured than with the scarf. Cursing, he yanked it back up. Sand stuck to the side of his nose and eyelashes. It smelled sharp and bitter, the scent of bad magic.

Ahead, he caught sight of a shape in the whirling dust.

“They are there!” he called. Zorolotsev emerged from the storm and came close. Rel waved at him. “Come on!”

“Captain, nieya!!”

But Rel spurred his way on. The dracon clicked deep in its throat, dug in its feet against the wind.

The shape ahead came and went. Rel could not make it out properly until he was on top of it. It was not Zhinsky, but a man on foot, head down against the wind. He wore a long robe and a hood that was pointed. He was walking toward him.

Rel pulled up twenty yards short of the figure. The wind dropped precipitately. A menacing calm replaced it. The air was hazy with dust. From this sharp fog more figures emerged, walking in single file. A taller shape loomed, and Rel’s heart skipped, thinking it to be a modalman or other demon from the wastes. An idol on a pole. That was what it was. Nothing more.

Zhinsky’s words came back to him. He thought of the things that roamed the sands of Karsa at night, and his heart raced anew.

These men were not of the living.

He pulled hard at his dracon’s reins, urging it back. It was skittish, and croaked. Its head feathers rose in alarm. Rel wasted a precious second bringing it around. The men were coming closer. They moved slowly, their progress too quick for their pace.

He wheeled about. Zorolotsev was nowhere to be seen; instead the same procession greeted him, coming from the other direction. He looked over his shoulder. The haze there was empty. They were close now.

Rel turned his mount around and around. Every which way he faced, the procession was, their somnolent walk bringing them inexorably upon him.

They were four paces away. He heard a low, droning chant, almost below the range of hearing.

Rel dug his heels into the lizard’s side. The dracon shrieked in terror, stepping back and rearing up. He was tipped from the saddle, banging his kidney painfully on the high cantle. He landed hard on the grass. The ground was gritty. Sand had insinuated itself between the blades, the desert swallowing the prairie.

Aramaz ran free.

Rel pushed himself up on his elbow. A circle of hooded figures surrounded him. The patch of sky they framed was black, not the black of the storm, but the utter absence of light. He was terribly cold. The chanting droned higher.

Nearby, someone screamed. The unfettered sounds of terror pouring from a throat. On and on it went. The screams changed pitch, becoming cries of agony.

They stopped.

One of the figures extended its hand towards him. Skeletal fingers cloaked in pale, luminous flesh reached for his face. Rel stared at them, transfixed.

A whooping came from outside the circle. Rel had the impression that it was close by, but it sounded far away, distant. The remembered noises of a dream.

The hooded figure looked behind it. Rel caught the gleam of naked bone beneath its cowl.

His hand reached for his belt unbidden. His fingers slipped under his robes and closed upon the pouch Aarin had given him. He drew it out.

Pain jabbed his arm. White light blinded him. He cried out. Gentle wind kissed his face. Then, the touch of the sun.

He opened his eyes. The figures were gone. The air was still hazy, but the storm had passed. Zhinsky and Zorolotsev were was sat upon their dracons, sabres drawn, amazed. Zhinsky recovered and slid off his mount to come to Rel’s side. Zorolotsev turned about and rode around, shouting for the others.

Deamaathani rode up behind them on his strange, slender-legged mount. Yellow witch fire played about his hands, but it was fading, and went out as he reached the others.

“That was a powerful warding. How did you do it?” he said.

Rel held up the pouch.

“Ah,” Zhinsky nodded. “A good charm you have there.”

“My brother gave it to me.”

“He should thank the merchant that sold it. Better, give me his name so that I might thank him and buy my own.”

“No merchant,” said Rel. “My brother made it.”