The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (39 page)

He was all the way down Karin’s road and at the corner of New High, running steady but not so hard he’d get winded, when he got a picture in his head, and it was of the room full of people just before he’d run out.

Zenna wasn’t in that picture.

At the healer’s house there were lights in the downstairs windows. Someone had told Jilly, maybe one of the children. She was ready.

He was up to the second baker’s house, halfway down the hill in New High, when he passed Zenna. She must have used that three-point run of hers to get there so fast, but she couldn’t now, because it was too steep. “Go back!” he shouted as he went by, running fast enough that he said the first word before he reached her and the second when he was past.

She yelled back at him, her words getting littler as he left her behind. “No! You go forward!”

And he did.

Back at the bottom of New High, he started listening hard for the demon hum. He stopped and took off his shoes, and stuck them in the back of his belt with the heels against his back; then he was off at a jog trot again. He didn’t know why he’d done that until he wondered; and then he saw that it was because his shoes made noise on the stones and demons came after noise.

Good thinking, Steffie. Now,
listen.

He slowed. He stopped. He listened, hard.

Demon-voice, east.

There were paths down there through the sea grass, and they all came up to Harbor Road. The demons were down there, but how far down?

Funny how sounds sounded different, depending what they were and where you were. If the noise was a person talking, he’d know straight off how far away he was. But that hum, all those hums together, like all the strings on Belinda’s fiddle all at once, only deeper . . .

Then he did hear voices, two of them.

One was that dog, barking instead of moaning, then just growling mean, like:
Burglars, stay back
!

Good dog. Do your job. You’re a dead dog, but you’re a good one.

Quarter of a mile away, just past the end of Harbor Road. Right.

The other voice was a man’s, and it was just one shout. Janus. Steffie could tell. From the same place.

Stupid, stupid bloody idiot Janus, off all by himself, going to get himself killed— and Steffie was supposed to run
back
now, pass the word up to Kenno and get the militia, and
leave
Janus, just leave him on his own—

Steffie, there’s not enough time to waste it standing and thinking. Either do what you want, or do what’s right, but do it
now
.

He was a third of the way back up the hill on New High when he came to Zenna again, still coming down, swinging herself slow so as not to fall. “Go back,” he told her, like before; but if she said anything, he outran it.

Kenno was at the crossroads by Jilly’s. Steffie told him where the demons were. “And that Janus, he’s doing something, he’s right with them, but I didn’t get close enough to see. Tell Corey. Don’t wait. Something’s happening now.”

And that was the best he could do— except he thought of one more thing. Kenno had a scythe; Steffie took it.

Like it was enough to help. Like if he got close enough to use it, he wouldn’t be already dead from that spray.

At the bottom of the hill, already going down Harbor Road, Zenna was swinging along hard, her shadowy shape making that shoulder twist that said she was about to start running, and she’d almost be as fast as Steffie that way.

And she had no weapon, and no hands free to use one, and she’d only got one leg. Nothing she could do, but she was still going.

So he got right in front of her, and let her crash against him; he dropped the scythe and grabbed at her shoulders to stop her falling. One of the crutches ended up swinging around and hitting the back of his legs, hanging loose from the strap around her left arm. He almost stumbled but got himself right before they both went down. “Stay out of it— you can’t help.”

“Are they coming?” She was clattering that crutch, trying to get it back right.

“The militia? Yes. The demons? Yes. There’ll be spray coming one way and arrows the other. You don’t want to be in the middle. What is it you think you’re doing?” And in his head, Gwen’s voice added: And how come
you
have to do it?

Then he didn’t need to wait to know that Zenna wouldn’t answer, because there was no answer, not to that question. And no words either one of them might say would change it.

So he did the only thing he could think of, which was to pull that crutch right off Zenna’s arm and swing it once over his head and let it go, out into the harbor. He heard it thump, then clatter, then splash. Then he swept up the scythe, and he left her behind.

It was a rotten,
rotten
thing to do to someone like her, and it hurt him like a knife to think he’d done it, and he swore to himself he’d find the crutch later, fish it out for her— but Zenna wouldn’t be going on now, and that was what mattered.

Up ahead, just past the end of Harbor Road, there was light, there was something burning. Someone was shouting, but it wasn’t Janus, and that dog was making noise again, but not
Burglars,
now; it was more wild, like
Wolves! Evil! I will kill you!
’

Of Janus he heard nothing, and Steffie ran silently himself, barefoot-sore on stones, then dirt, then grass.

24

S
omething crashed into him, something grabbing at him, and falling, almost pulling him down. Steffie tried to get the scythe where it would do good, but the thing was too close. Then he knew it was some person— except it didn’t sound like a person, making just noises, horrible noises, right in his face.

Steffie grabbed with one hand, and shook, and shouted, “Where? Janus and them monsters,
where?
”

It was a man, and the noises started being words, nearly. “Yes,” Steffie told him, “there’s help coming, yes, but I’m not help for you, I’m help for Janus.” He couldn’t see the man in the dark, and he was glad, because there was a lot of wet under his right hand, and shreds of cloth and bits of things shifting that shouldn’t ought to, not properly. Steffie tried to break free without hurting him more. He spun him around, and pushed. “That way, go that way, it’s Corey and the militia coming, soon— now
go!
”

He shoved him away, and the man stumbled half on the path, half in the bushes, and Steffie didn’t stay to watch him go.

The light was up ahead— something burning, something big. Galer’s old shed, maybe, Steffie thought, and that must have been Galer himself he was leaving behind.

Farther down the path he tripped over something, and he thought it was that dog— but then the dog set up again, yelping and whining, still ahead. There was the demon noise ahead, too; and Steffie tried to count the voices, but he couldn’t. A lot. Just a lot.

Then the thought what he’d tripped over might be Janus, so he put out his hand— and brought the hand back fast. It was demon skin he touched, all sticky with that stuff they used for blood.

Well, good then. That’s one down. Steffie wiped his hand on his shirt, and put his shoes back on.

Right then the shed fell in on itself. Steffie couldn’t see it, but he heard it: a big sudden noise, and a hot wind pushed at him, hard. A huge spout of sparks went straight up, with the tree branches and leaves all turning away from the wind. Then the gust stopped; and it was just heat and light that Steffie was walking toward. He could feel it right through the trees. He got off the path and sidled along from trunk to trunk, stepping careful, because Galer always threw his trash out into the woods.

When he got to the edge of the trees, the whole yard was lit by that fire. He didn’t have to worry about not seeing demons in the dark; and maybe that was what the fire was for, because what could a demon do to a shed that would make it catch fire? So it was Janus who set it.

Janus had to have light, to swing that sword. And he was doing that.

But it was funny, because that was
all
Steffie could see at first. It was like he couldn’t put together anything else. Everything looked like nothing he had ever seen, and he could make no sense of it. But he could make sense of a man, a man with a sword in one hand, swinging it hard and slow and hitting something.

Then the thing Janus was cutting at sort of came together at the same time it was coming apart, because something fell off it onto the ground, and Steffie thought, Well, that’s a demon arm. Cut right off.

And all at once Steffie’s brain caught up with his eyes: the wreck of the shed to the left and the house beyond it; the open yard beside the shed, rutted; broken-down wagon half in the raspberry bushes; Janus stepping over a dead demon to get to a live one beyond it.

Right beyond it. Right there, within sword reach. Just a few feet away, but the demon wasn’t spraying. It was just backing off, slow.

And past that demon, there were four— no,
five
— more, and Steffie couldn’t tell which way they were facing, because of them having no faces—

But what they all were doing was walking away. Not running, just fading back. With Janus hacking at one still in his reach.

Then off to the right, with their arms pushing back the bushes, two more of the monsters coming out of the woods, crossing into the yard, moving fast— and pretty soon they’d be right behind Janus, where he couldn’t see them, and that’s when Steffie yelled, “
Look out!
”

They put up their arms to spray— but not the arms toward Janus, the ones toward
Steffie
. And he thought: Sound, they go for sound.

There was a broken bucket at his feet. He grabbed and threw it, past the demons, toward the shed.

Didn’t even come close. But it hit the ground, it clattered, and the demons sprayed at it instead of him.

And Steffie ducked back.

Good. Good. Now what?

Stay still. Like in the alley, with that first one. Can’t sneak up behind the monsters— they’ve got no behind to them.

But Janus did. He’d turned when Steffie shouted, and the demons now behind him started coming back. But the others— the ones Janus faced now—
they
were walking away.

Weird. That was weird.

Then the five from behind caught up with Janus and reached out their twiggy hands- -and Janus spun back around, sweeping his sword, and demon hands got broken and jerked back.

And the demons
still
didn’t spray.

But they moved back. They moved away.

Janus had something in his left hand, maybe a rock— and what a good idea that was. Steffie looked around on the ground nearby. He spotted something: not a rock but half a broken plate. Wait for a chance to use it.

The two from the bushes had started closing in again as soon as Janus’s back was toward them; then Janus half turned, stepped to one side, and angled himself out—

And everything stopped.

Everything living just stopped dead still.

Only the fire moved, raging huge and wild in the wreck of the shed; and the light from the fire, flicking, weaving, on the ground, on the trees, on demon arms and demon bodies.

And on Janus, standing like a great dark stone, with the monsters lined up in a half circle before him.

His sword arm was thrown back, his sword point dropped down: not pointing at any demon— no weapon on the demons at all, unless you counted that rock in his left hand.

He stayed like that. And the demons stayed. All, all of them standing still . . .

And then, slowly, not in any hurry, every demon started moving off.

Away. Away from Janus.

And that’s when Steffie knew.

That’s when it all came clear. It was one thing to hear Rowan say it, a whole other thing to see it himself.

None of those demons were going to hurt Janus. Not while he was facing them. That was the thing.

Then Janus moved, and he moved fast: three long steps, sweeping his sword, and he hit the nearest demon straight in the side, and the sword went in, deep. The demon fell, thrashing. And Janus pulled out his sword, changed his grip, stabbed straight down, and twisted and twisted; and the monster flailed once, and died.

It hadn’t tried to fight back at all. The whole thing was brutal and ugly; and it made Steffie feel good to see that demon die.

But going after that demon made Janus put his back to the others, and they started coming in again—

That’s when Steffie figured a flying plate might do some good. He stooped, grabbed, threw, and ran to the right, across the path to another tree. The plate shattered on the ground, one demon raised up its arms and sprayed at it; and another shot right where Steffie had been.

Made his stomach twist, to see that.

But maybe the noise did help, because Janus had cut down another demon, and was going after a third one.