Hal glanced sideways at him. “A bad feeling?”
Stig nodded emphatically, his lips set in a tight line. “Some places just feel evil.”
“It’s just a pile of rock,” Hal said, trying to convince himself as much as anyone. He was surprised when Gilan tended to concur with Stig.
“It’s not the place itself,” he said. “It’s what goes on here. A cult like the Scorpions creates an evil atmosphere around it. And of course, it’s not helped by the sinister look of the place.”
Hal wiped dust from his face with the tail of his kheffiyeh. He rewound the ends to cover his face once more, then took hold of the main sheet and steering lines.
“Well, if we sit here much longer talking about it, we’ll scare ourselves out of the whole idea,” he said. “Let’s go and meet this Shurmel person.”
Stig stepped down from his seat and pushed against the outrigger he was riding on, swinging the land sailer so that the wind caught the sail, sending it bellying out. As Hal hauled in on the sheet, Stig, at ease now with the sailer’s movement, stepped lightly back aboard and they began to trundle across the rough ground, gathering speed as they went. Once more, the familiar rooster tail of brown dust rose into the air behind it as Hal steered toward the black mountain that reared its three heads into the air ahead of them.
There was a flat, open area at the base of the central peak, rather like a military parade ground. They could see huts and tents set up around its perimeter. Dozens of dark holes pierced the side of the mountain, marking the entrance to caves. As their approach was noticed, men began to stream out of the tents, and from a large cave opening in the base of the mountain.
Hal eased the sheet, reducing the sailer’s speed as they grew closer. He estimated there were about thirty men gathered in the open space between the tents and the large cave. Most of them were dressed in the traditional robes and headdresses of the desert tribes. But he could make out half a dozen who were bare headed, and wearing bloodred robes.
As they rolled up to the silent, staring group, Hal released the sheet and let the land sailer come to a halt once more. They had approached the mountain from due west, as a result of the long tack they had taken on the last leg of their journey.
For some seconds, there was an impasse. The nomads among the group were staring, openmouthed, at the remarkable craft that had just come sailing out of the desert.
The red-robed group all looked suspicious and unwelcoming. Not only were they bareheaded, Hal saw now, they were all shaven headed as well. And the red robes bore a black insignia—a scorpion in the now-familiar attack stance.
One of this group stepped forward, stopping ten meters away from them.
He said something in a foreign tongue. His voice was harsh and unfriendly. He addressed Hal, who spread his hands in a gesture of non-understanding.
The Scorpion spoke again, this time in the common tongue, but with a thick accent. “Who are you? Why have you come here?”
Hal pointed to Gilan, indicating that he was the one who would do the talking. The tall Ranger stepped down stiffly from his seat and raised his hand in greeting.
“Saloom,” he said pleasantly. The word meant “peace” in the Arridan tongue and was the traditional way of greeting a stranger.
The Scorpion, however, waved the friendly overture aside with an angry gesture. “Never mind that! Why are you here? Who are you? Strangers are not welcome here!”
Gilan raised a questioning eyebrow. “Not even a stranger who wants to discuss a tolfah with the Shurmel?” he said mildly.
The Scorpion hesitated. He glanced around at his fellow cult members, not sure how to proceed. The stranger might be foreign, but he knew the name of their leader. And he knew about tolfahs. If he ordered him driven off or killed, the Shurmel might not be pleased. Such an action might even be taken as a blasphemy against Imrika.
He saw similar levels of uncertainty on the faces of the other Scorpions. The Ishti, of course, had no opinion on the matter. Most of them were still gawping at the land sailer.
Plus there was something else that made him hesitate. The number three was significant, verging on sacred, to the Scorpion cult. The symbol of their god was a scorpion—the two pincers and the tail forming a triple set of points. And now these three men arrived out of the desert with no warning, in a seemingly miraculous vehicle with three wheels.
So far, the members of the cult had heard nothing about the arrival of the foreign ship at Ephesa. That information was known only to the Shurmel himself. All they knew was that three men—obviously foreigners—had materialized out of nowhere in a three-wheeled conveyance that moved without benefit of horses or camels or other draft animals.
Antagonizing such men was not something that a rank and file member of the cult was willing to take a chance on.
And of course, there was the matter of the tolfah. The goddess Imrika loved tolfahs. They were bread and butter, meat and drink to her insatiable soul. They meant blood and death. Turning away, or harming, a supplicant who was willing to pay for a tolfah might well anger Imrika—and that was something no wise man did.
On top of that, the system of tolfahs was the reason for being of the Scorpion cult members themselves. They were highly trained assassins and they carried out the killing that a tolfah entailed. Without tolfahs, they had no purpose.
Of course, once the tolfah was in place, they could get rid of the foreigners with impunity. Then, it would be a compact between the Shurmel and the goddess. The men who had invoked the tolfah would no longer be of any significance.
“Let the Shurmel be the judge of this,” one of his brother Scorpions said in a low voice.
The Scorpion who had spoken to them came to his own decision. “You may enter,” he said, indicating the large fissure in the rock face behind him that marked the entrance to the cave complex.
Hal and Stig quickly lowered and furled the sail, lashing it in place. Hal unstrapped a water skin and a sack containing their food from the central strut of the land sailer. The Scorpion who had spoken to them frowned as he watched. Hal indicated the water skin and the haversack.
“We’ll bring our own provisions,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to impose upon your hospitality.” It was noticeable, he thought, that the Scorpions made no move to relieve them of their weapons. Then again, they were surrounded by dozens of warriors and the Scorpions themselves. Three men would hardly be expected to compete against odds like those.
“Follow me,” said the red-robed man and led the way into the large opening at the base of the cliff.
It was cool inside, compared with the savage heat of the desert sun. There was a constant cool breeze blowing, emanating from the honeycomb of tunnels and caves that had been dug out of the mountain over the centuries.
He led them to a chamber on the ground level of the mountain and ushered them inside. It was quite large, lit by burning oil lamps set in brackets along the rough stone walls. There was a table to one side. Half a dozen tattered and grubby cushions were scattered on the rock floor around it. Aside from that, the room was unfurnished. There was no window, no way in or out other than the door by which they had just entered.
“Just as well we brought a snack,” Stig said cheerfully.
The Scorpion scowled at him. Good humor seemed to have no place here. “Wait here,” he said. “You will be summoned when the brothers are assembled.”
“Thank you,” said Gilan.
The Scorpion grunted at him and left the room, closing the door behind him. They heard the rattle of a bolt being thrown on the outside.
“Well, here we are,” said Hal.
Stig grinned at him. “And here we stay, apparently, until the brothers are assembled.” He managed a passable impersonation of the Scorpion’s ominous, flat tones. “Wonder what he meant by that?”
Gilan shoved a cushion against the wall
of the chamber with his foot and sat down on it, leaning his back against the rock wall.
“It sounds as if we have to plead our case to the entire cult,” he said. “The one good thing about all this is that I’m not having the teeth rattled out of my head by that contraption of yours, Hal.”
Hal grinned. “I can see it’s made a big impression on you.”
“It’s made a deep impression—on my backside,” Gilan said, shifting his behind on the cushion to a more comfortable position.
“So what do we do now?” Stig said. He was prowling around the room, taking stock of their surroundings. Not that there was much to take stock of. The walls were hewn out of rock. In places, the drill and pick marks were still clearly visible. Aside from that, and the half dozen oil lamps, there was nothing of interest in the room.
“We wait,” Gilan told him. “Might as well make yourself comfortable.” He indicated the cushions and Stig copied his actions, shoving a cushion against the wall, then placing another behind him as a backrest when he sat down. He shoved his legs straight out in front of him, splayed slightly apart, and studied his boots. After a few minutes, he shifted to a more comfortable position.
“Time these people were told about chairs,” he said.
chapter forty
Thorn paced along the crescent-shaped thornbush barrier, frowning as he reached the western end, where the ditch and thornbush tangle reached the water’s edge. He had chosen the spot for their camp carefully, picking a site where the shore dropped off steeply into the water. But still he felt there was a problem.
“Jesper!” he called sharply. The former thief, who had been relaxing on a flat rock, warmed by the morning sun, sighed deeply and rose to his feet.
“Coming, Thorn,” he called, adding in a mumbled undertone, “Why is it always me?”
“Because you’re the one who annoys me the most,” Thorn told him briskly. Then he indicated the spot where the ditch and barricade reached the water’s edge. “I want you to extend the thornbush tangle into the water,” he said. “It’d be too easy for an attacker to simply go round the end and attack us from the rear.”
Jesper frowned. “It’ll just float away,” he said. He was always ready with a reason not to do extra work.
Thorn looked at him patiently. “That’s why I want you to weigh it down with rocks.”
Jesper’s frown was replaced by a pained look. “You mean I have to cut more thornbush, and drag it all the way down here and then carry a bunch of rocks as well?” he said plaintively. “That’ll take an hour.”
“Two hours,” Thorn told him cheerfully. “I want you to do the same at the other end.”
Jesper’s shoulders slumped. “Why do I always have to do these things?”
Thorn seemed to relent. “You’re right. Stefan!” he called, turning to where the mimic was watching with a smug look on his face. “You can give him a hand.”
The smug look vanished. “Me? Why me?”
“Well,” Thorn told him, with a deceptively pleasant expression on his face, “you’re a talented mimic. You can impersonate Stig, Hal, me and Gilan and it will feel as if you have lots of people to help you. Many hands make light work, you know. Let’s see if many voices do the same.”
“I doubt it,” Stefan said sourly.
“So do I,” Thorn replied. He gestured to the water’s edge. “Take it out until you’re chest deep.”
“Do you think that’ll really stop a determined attack?” Lydia said from behind him. She was always interested to see Thorn’s preparations for combat and this was a good opportunity to learn about defensive tactics.
He shook his head. “It’ll do to stop the first attack.”
She smiled. “Assuming somebody does attack us.”
“Always assume someone will,” he told her and she nodded. It made sense to expect the worst in potentially hostile territory. “I should think the first thing an attacker will do, after they’ve tried a frontal attack, will be to go round the end and hit us from the rear. They’ll get tangled up in the thornbush, in chest-deep water. That’ll make them an easy target for you. You’ll be able to thin out their numbers.”
She looked thoughtfully at the spot where Jesper and Stefan would be adding the extra entanglements of thornbush. In her mind’s eye, she could see a group of hostile nomads, waist or chest deep in the water, already hampered by their long, flowing robes, and floundering in the almost impenetrable tangle of thorns and branches.
“They’ll be sitting ducks,” she said. She looked at Thorn with some admiration. He had an ability to envision what would happen in a battle. She guessed that came from long experience and she knew they were lucky to have him as their battle master. “You always think one step ahead, don’t you?”
Thorn smiled at her. His expression was friendly, not the usual sly one he assumed when he was teasing her.
“I try to. It’s something you should try to develop yourself. You’d be a good battle leader. Mind you,” he said, a grin touching his face, “all too often, the enemy decides on a different step, and that can be embarrassing.”
Lydia said nothing for a few minutes. She was a little taken aback by his statement that she’d make a good battle leader. Thorn was always surprising her, catching her off guard. Most of the time, he teased her and made jokes about her, then he’d suddenly come out with a compliment like that. She recalled Hal telling her that Thorn respected her and admired her fighting and hunting ability. The teasing was something he did to everyone he liked—it was actually a mark of affection. It was just that she always rose to it before she could stop herself.
Thorn had moved on, and was beckoning to Edvin.
“I want you and Wulf to bring the ship closer in to shore,” he said. He turned back to where Lydia was still watching him, a bemused expression on her face. “The entanglements will only work once,” he said. “We may need to fall back to the ship.”
She looked around the camp. Jesper and Stefan were already at work farther up the beach, cutting great bunches of thornbush from a large, sprawling clump. Ingvar, unbidden, was carrying heavy rocks down to the water’s edge for them to weigh down the underwater entanglement. It was typical of the big boy, she thought. He was always ready to pitch in and help. Edvin was launching the skiff, taking a mooring line out to the Heron, where she floated at anchor some thirty meters offshore. It seemed everyone had a task—except her.
“Can I do anything?” she asked Thorn.
He swept his gaze round the beach, taking in the distant oasis and the cluster of buildings in the deserted town.
“Keep a lookout,” he said. “We’ve been here a couple of days. That’s plenty of time for someone to organize an attack.”
She nodded. Fetching her quiver of atlatl darts, she slung them over her shoulder and walked to the edge of the thornbush breastwork. Kloof, hearing her boots crunching on the coarse sand and fine pebbles of the beach, roused herself from where she was curled up snoozing in the sun and, stretching luxuriously, joined her. The spiny, tough branches were reinforced every meter or so with sharpened bamboo stakes driven into the ground and facing out at an angle. Lydia passed through the entry and found a rock where she had an elevated view of the surrounding area. She began scanning left to right, then back again, letting her eyes wander over the deserted buildings of Ephesa, then the thick groves of trees in the oasis, then back again.
In most people, such a repetitive, unproductive action would have quickly led to drowsiness and inattention. But Lydia was a skilled hunter and she was used to keeping watch for elusive prey—for hours at a time if necessary. Behind her, she could hear the muted voices of the rest of the crew as they went about their tasks. Kloof sat beside her on the rock, the dog’s head nearly at the same level as her own.
Idly, Lydia let her hand rest on the huge dog’s thick ruff and scratched behind Kloof’s ears. Kloof in
clined her head in pleasure, yawned hugely, then turned to lick Lydia’s hand.
“Get out of it,” the girl said good-naturedly. She wiped her hand dry on the front of her jerkin. Kloof allowed her front legs to slide out from under her and sank to the ground with a contented whuff! of exhaled breath.
“Keep your eyes open,” Lydia said quietly. The dog’s ears pricked up at the sound of her voice. It was odd, Lydia thought, how she sensed the reason for their current activity. Normally, Kloof would take any and every opportunity to snooze. But now she was alert, her head turning from side to side, her nose raised and sniffing the wind.
I guess she’s taking her cue from me, Lydia thought. She was alert and on watch, and the dog could sense her level of attention and was able to match it.
“If anyone comes, you’ll probably sniff them out long before I do,” she said. Kloof continued to scan the surrounding countryside, her nose twitching.
Lydia craned round to see how work was progressing in the camp. Wulf was knee deep in the water, hauling on the hawser that Edvin had carried out to the ship. At the same time, Edvin, on board the little ship, was paying out a stern line attached to the buoy that marked the offshore anchor.
The Heron was now only a few meters offshore, in the deep water at the edge of the drop-off.
“That’s close enough,” Thorn called. She noticed that he’d taken pity on Jesper and Stefan and was helping Ingvar place heavy rocks to hold the underwater entanglement in place.
At the water’s edge, Stefan surveyed the thick underwater tangle of branches and spikes, stretching out four or five meters into the water. It was a substantial obstruction, he thought. Then another thought occurred to him. He looked up to where Thorn was placing another rock.
“What happens when the tide goes out?” he called. If it went out far enough, there would be another section of exposed beach at the end of their carefully built obstacle. The old sea wolf looked up at him.
“D’you know why they call this the Constant Sea?” he asked. When Stefan returned a blank look, Thorn jerked a thumb at Wulf. “You tell him, Wulf,” he said.