The Standing Dead (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon) Read online

  A word was passing among the raiders like a rumour. ‘Dragonfire.’

  Carnelian watched the next burst flicker for a while, then die. Looking round at the barbarians, he could see their fear. Voices made bleak requests about stopping, but Ranegale insisted they must push on until they reach the next kraal.

  They headed towards the silent, flickering dragonfire until, at last, they reached a kraal. Ranegale scaled its tower accompanied by Loskai and Cloud. Carnelian waited with the others, his heart fluttering between hope and a bleak desire that the coming crisis should be delayed.

  When the men came down it was obvious they had seen nothing but the dragonfire. Everyone was glad when Ranegale declared they would camp there for the night. Carnelian lifted his feet from Blur’s back and she sank to the ground. He bowed his head as he mustered the endurance to climb out.

  ‘Fern sent me to help,’ a voice said in a thick Vulgate.

  Carnelian lifted his head and saw it was a youth he did not know.

  ‘I’m …’ The youth hesitated, then smiled. ‘Krow, from Father Cloud’s tribe.’

  In the uncertainty of that smile Carnelian could see the fears that had been haunting everyone for days. He let the youth take his weight and slowly they managed to get him standing. Carnelian lent back against the saddle-chair fearing he might faint.

  ‘She’s a good one,’ said Krow.

  Carnelian looked at him not understanding.

  ‘This aquar …’ said the youth, patting the creature’s neck.

  ‘Yes,’ said Carnelian.

  ‘I could try and adjust her chair for you, if you’d like.’

  ‘You’re kind but I’ll not have much further need of it.’ He indicated the flickering sky.

  When Krow turned to look, Carnelian saw fear peeping through.

  ‘You’ve never seen it before?’

  The youth turned to look at him, then shook his head.

  ‘Neither have I,’ Carnelian admitted. Krow looked incredulous.

  ‘No, really.’

  They waited for the sky to light up again and then watched it until Carnelian noticed Fern approaching. He looked so morose Carnelian felt compelled to say something. Pointing he called out: ‘No doubt you’ve seen dragonfire often before.’

  As Fern blushed, Carnelian remembered his legionary collar had no sliders and he regretted his clumsiness.

  Fern locked eyes with him. ‘We’re going to have to remove the bitumen from your skins. Krow here will help.’

  ‘And Ravan?’

  Fern sent Krow away to fetch some water. ‘My brother and his father are very close.’

  ‘He blames me,’ said Carnelian, sadly.

  ‘Does that surprise you?’

  Carnelian held Fern’s gaze. ‘I can’t regret that you saved our lives but I do regret at what cost.’

  Fern looked down at his hands. ‘Do you need help walking?’

  ‘I’ll manage, thank you.’ They moved off, Carnelian enduring the awkwardness of each step.

  ‘How far away are the dragons?’ he asked to distract himself from the prospect that he was soon going to look upon Osidian.

  ‘We’ll meet the line tomorrow. That’s why we’ve got to wash you now.’

  ‘Of course.’

  As they had reached the drag-cradles, Osidian’s bitumen-mottled face came into view all glazed with sweat. Carnelian helped Fern undo the bands. Though a faded black, the blanket covering Osidian was woven with blue patterns that reminded Carnelian uncannily of those Ebeny had woven. He stared at it for a moment, remembering her. It strengthened his belief she had come originally from the same stock as the raiders. He reached out to touch the blanket but it was too damp for him to be able to tell if it had the same texture as Ebeny’s. What he did feel were the tremors coursing through the body beneath.

  ‘Fever,’ said Fern.

  ‘Yes,’ said Carnelian.

  ‘Soon you’ll both be free.’

  Carnelian glanced at Osidian’s face.

  ‘You don’t seem overjoyed,’ said Fern.

  Carnelian looked up. ‘He’ll die.’

  ‘You can’t know that.’ Fern frowned as he saw the certainty in Carnelian’s face. ‘How did you come to be among sartlar?’

  ‘That’s too long a tale for now,’ said Carnelian. He busied himself peeling the blankets from Osidian’s body. The rags the slavers had put on him could not conceal the shivering in his limbs and chest.

  Fern put his hand on Carnelian’s arm. ‘At least tell me why you gave up your drag-cradle for my father?’

  Carnelian looked into the barbarian’s dark eyes. ‘I remembered my own father who once was wounded and near to death.’

  ‘Compassion?’ Fern said with such disbelief that it made Carnelian ashamed to be a Master.

  They crouched on either side of the drag-cradle. It was Krow appearing with a leather bowl that rescued Carnelian’s composure. The bowl regained its shape as the youth put it down and Carnelian saw it was filled with brackish water. They removed Osidian’s rags and all three began to wash him.

  Carnelian could not help but contrast this with the time he had cleaned him in the Yden. To do for him what only slaves did had been a proof of love. Carnelian tried to hide his tears by leaning over Osidian, rubbing at the brown-edged bitumen patching his face.

  ‘He’s so bright,’ said Krow in wonder.

  ‘Angelic beauty,’ breathed Fern.

  Carnelian wiped his eyes and muttered, ‘You’ve not seen the green fire of his eyes.’

  ‘Can they differ much from yours?’ Fern asked.

  Uncomfortable, Carnelian busied himself with cleaning one of Osidian’s stained eyepits. He could not help feeling he was preparing him for the tomb. Carnelian imagined Osidian and himself naked, gleaming bait for the dragons. Of course they would be taken back to Osrakum. No doubt the Wise would come themselves to the Three Gates to oversee a special purification before they should be let in. They would bleed Osidian; embalm him with myrrh. Carnelian leaned to kiss the cold stone lips. He could not bear that the Chosen should see him thus. Osidian’s pride would have baulked at appearing so dishonoured; a piece of meat. Carnelian grew angry wishing to keep him from their eyes, their sneers. What delight they would take in witnessing one who had been almost the Gods, brought so low. Come what may, Carnelian determined he would find a way to bury Osidian in the Guarded Land’s red earth where they would never find him.

  Slowly, carefully, he straightened his back. He watched Fern rubbing away at Osidian’s birthmark and he put his hand on his arm.

  ‘He was born with that.’

  The barbarian looked at Osidian with a strange intensity of which Carnelian was hardly aware. His life was a bitter taste in his mouth. Could he deny Osidian the second waking of the tomb, however high the price? What else then could he do but take him back to be slain in Osrakum?

  He became aware Fern and Krow were staring at him.

  ‘Couldn’t you make two masks of leather to hide our faces?’ he asked and saw they did not understand. ‘The auxiliaries who look on us tomorrow will be killed.’

  Fern’s eyebrows rose but then he shook his head. ‘It’s your white faces Ranegale is hoping to use as bait.’

  Carnelian stood naked in the midst of the barbarians, who were getting their aquar ready to make the dash through the scouring line. Ranegale and Cloud were up in the kraal tower trying to spy the dragons. Carnelian’s gaze fell on Osidian. The bruised marble of his body had been laid out on a blanket. His legs stretched beyond it into the mud. Carnelian had covered him with another to shield him from any rain, though there had been none since dawn. His gaze lingered on this second blanket. Its indigo-patterned russet was so like Ebeny’s it was hard to believe she had not woven it. Beside Osidian lay the corpses of Fern’s uncle and brother, weighing the air with the sickening stench of their decay. Stormrane lay beyond them. He had died some time in the night. Fern was crouched over him, mourning, the misery of the decis
ions that would soon come upon him clear on his face. His back turned, Ravan was gouging a channel in the mud with his heel. Several times Carnelian had seen him glancing at his father, his face sick with sorrow. Around them, already in their saddle-chairs the youths sat, some staring at nothing, others intensely checking knots, testing the tension of ropes or, absentmindedly, caressing the necks of their aquar with their feet. Sometimes one would sneak a glance up at the tower.

  Carnelian knew that when Ranegale came down it would be time to help them carry Osidian round to the other side of the kraal; the side exposed to the dragon line. Carnelian and Osidian would be bound to the two posts the barbarians had worked into the ground. From there, Carnelian would watch the scouring line draw nearer. He would have a good view of the consternation of the auxiliaries, their terror when they discovered the two Masters. A dragon would approach and one of the Chosen would descend from the tower on its back. The auxiliaries would be slain for having looked upon a Master’s face. Perhaps Carnelian might even see them lit like torches by dragonfire. The Chosen commander would find masks for him and Osidian and they would ascend into the dragon’s tower. He imagined the commander’s reaction. Pity perhaps. A confusion of emotions when he, being of the Lesser Chosen, discovered they were of the Great. The questions, the endless questions all of which Carnelian would refuse to answer. Perhaps the legion would halt the scouring while a message was sent to the nearest watch-tower. From there, if Ranegale had been right, the watch-tower’s ammonites might have to wait for nightfall before they could use flares to jump their messages from tower to tower all the way to Osrakum. No later than the next morning the Wise would know that two of the Great had been found naked in the midst of the Guarded Land. How would they react?

  ‘Master?’

  Carnelian turned to see Krow, his head bowed.

  ‘Will you send the dragons after us down into the Earthsky?’

  Carnelian considered it for a moment. He realized he was already beginning to feel like a Master again. It was almost as if he were towering before the youth in a court robe. He knew that should he demand it, Krow would kneel in the mud and worship him. He shook himself free from that mood and saw standing before him not a slave but a human youth. This could be his brother Tain or many others of his people. He felt ashamed. Krow had shown him kindness even though Carnelian was of the race who oppressed his people.

  He reached out to touch Krow’s shoulder. ‘I’ll do everything in my power to make them forget you.’

  The youth gave him a trembling smile, a nod, then walked away. Carnelian’s gaze fell upon the miserable figure of Ravan regarding his kin lying dead in the mud. Carnelian could not help contrasting this with his own certain hope that soon he would be rejoining his own father and brothers. Compassion made him approach the grieving youth. As he neared the corpses, his disgust at their decay was overcome by pity. In a way these dead were his fault too. He noticed the tattoos Stormrane held in his hand and, crouching down, turned his head to read them. One gave the reign year, Ten Nuhuron appended to which, for some reason, was the number nine. Presumably the first two components showed the year in which Stormrane had enlisted in the legions. Carnelian mused that this was a couple of years after Ebeny had been sent to Osrakum to pay her people’s flesh tithe. Below the date glyph was another larger and more complicated one that he was surprised to find he was unable to read. He peered closer, trying to decipher it by reading its syllabic components. Still a reading eluded him. He allowed his eye to wander here and there allowing combinations to release their sounds in his mind. Snatches of almost words but nothing that made any sense. What might the glyph be for? As he considered this, his eye found, scattered through the glyph, the three syllables making up the Quyan word ten; the same as the reign year. He concentrated on the components left and found, similarly scattered, the name Makar. He read the three remaining components aloud.

  Ravan spun round eyes and mouth agape. ‘How … how do you know?’

  ‘Know? Know what?’

  ‘The name of our tribe.’

  ‘Your …?’ Carnelian stopped. He pronounced his utterance in the language of the barbarians. ‘Ochre,’ he said.

  Ravan looked as if he were just about to be sick.

  Carnelian reached over to lift Stormrane’s left hand.

  ‘Don’t touch him,’ cried Ravan. Before the youth snatched the hand from his grasp, Carnelian saw that it too held glyphs; mostly numbers.

  Fern came running up. ‘What’re you doing to my father?’

  Carnelian stood up to face him. ‘When you cut out their hearts you must also take their hands.’

  Fern looked incredulous. ‘Hands?’

  Carnelian reached out and took Fern’s hand. The barbarian allowed him to splay the palm and read the tattoos there. Fourteen Kumatuya Nine, with, below it, another large glyph which contained ‘fourteen’ and also ‘Makar’. The components remaining once again spelled out the name of Fern’s tribe rendered into Quyan sounds.

  Carnelian looked into Fern’s eyes. ‘All those of you who’ve been auxiliaries carry the name of your tribes tattooed on your hands. If the Masters find these bodies as they are, they’ll know they’re Ochre and will visit their vengeance on your people.’

  Fern paled. ‘But you know it and you’re a Master.’

  ‘But I won’t –’

  Carnelian was interrupted by Cloud rushing out from the kraal. ‘They’ve found us,’ he cried. ‘Up, up, all of you. We must flee.’

  Everything erupted into motion. Aquar squealed and flared their plumes as they lurched up, their riders clinging to their chairs.

  Cloud strode forward. ‘Auxiliaries riding fast in our direction,’ he said quickly. ‘A dragon’s coming up behind them.’

  Fern looked wildly at the dead. He drew a flint knife.

  ‘Don’t hurt father,’ sobbed Ravan.

  Carnelian grabbed Fern’s shoulder. ‘There’s no time.’

  Fern looked around desperately. ‘But you’ve just told me we can’t leave them.’

  Carnelian grimaced.

  Ranegale rode up. ‘We’ll have to kill the Standing Dead now,’ he said in the barbarian language.

  Carnelian looked deep into his single eye. ‘You’re welcome to try,’ he said in Vulgate.

  Fern gave him a startled glance before turning to Ranegale. ‘Would you stay to bury them?’

  ‘They’re your problem.’ Ranegale forced his aquar towards them so that Carnelian and Fern had to throw themselves from its path, then coursed away, followed by the majority of the others.

  Carnelian saw the remaining aquar still crouching with empty chairs. ‘Fern. Quickly. I’ll help you tie their bodies into the saddle-chairs.’

  Fern gaped and Carnelian could see the agony of indecision in his face, but then the barbarian gave a violent nod.

  ‘Ravan,’ he cried and the youth rushed up to help.

  They lugged Stormrane’s corpse, then hoisted it into Fern’s saddle-chair. The pain in Carnelian’s back made him more of a hindrance than an aid. He cast around for some way to help. He saw the blankets lying on the mud. He stooped to take one and was soon tearing it into strips.

  Once all the corpses were stowed, Carnelian gave the two brothers some strips and helped them tie the corpses into the chairs.

  Krow rode up. ‘Hurry!’

  Carnelian glanced round. Osidian lay under the russet blanket as if asleep. He frowned, seeing their return to Osrakum; seeing Osidian being bled for ritual. Panic rose in him. He tried to fight it with thoughts of seeing his father, his people. He tried to imagine the meeting with them, but the vision would not come. There was no joy. He told himself they needed him. His return with Osidian would damage Ykoriana’s power, perhaps bring her down. He would save his father from her.

  Carnelian tried not to look at Osidian, but his eyes would not obey him. He gazed at the face of his beloved. ‘You cannot save him,’ he muttered.

  This reverie was interrupted by
Fern grasping his shoulder. ‘Well here we part, Master. Thanks.’

  Carnelian looked at his friend. The sincerity in his face gave rise to an impossible hope.

  ‘Take us with you,’ Carnelian blurted before doubt could make a coward of him.

  Fern gaped. ‘What?’

  The man’s honest puzzlement set the decision steady in Carnelian’s heart. He pointed at Osidian. ‘If the Masters take us, they’ll kill him.’ Fern took a step back. ‘But … but you in the Earthsky … it makes no sense.’

  ‘We’ve nowhere else to go.’

  Fern’s eyes took in his kin sitting tied to their chairs, then returned to linger on Carnelian. He spun round. ‘Ravan, I’ll ride with you.’

  Carnelian’s panic returned. This was madness. Then he felt as if he was choking. What about his father?

  Ravan was protesting but Fern cut through with a bellow: ‘You’ll do as you’re told.’ He turned and looked at Carnelian. ‘Well, don’t just stand there!’

  Carnelian began moving towards Osidian. He tried to reassure himself that the Great would protect his father, if only to defend their ancient privileges from encroachment by the new God Emperor.

  Fern was pointing at Osidian. ‘Krow, will you give your aquar up for that one?’

  Krow stared down, paralysed by fear.

  ‘We can’t leave the Standing Dead here,’ cried Fern.

  Krow turned in his saddle-chair searching, crying out: ‘Father Cloud, Father Cloud.’

  Fern rushed up and grabbed the youth’s foot. ‘That one,’ he pointed at Carnelian, ‘read the name of my tribe from the picture on my father’s hand. By warning us, he saved my people. We owe him. Please, give up your seat and ride with him; Blur’s stronger than your aquar and will more easily carry you both.’

  Krow glanced over at Carnelian, then made his aquar kneel. Fern lurched over to Osidian, stooped, threw the blanket off him and, with a grunt, tried to lift him. He grimaced under the strain.

  Carnelian rushed to help and together they dragged Osidian to Krow’s saddle-chair, crammed him in and secured him as they had the dead.

  ‘Come on,’ shrieked Ravan. Carnelian turned to see Krow holding Blur for him. The drizzle that had begun to fall made Carnelian aware of his nakedness. He scooped the russet blanket from the ground and wrapped it around his waist.