The Land You Never Leave Page 8

  “Her?”

  “I guess I get a little. I know she’s a she, and I know she’s unhappy, but that’s about it. What do you—”

  A shrill scream ripped the very air asunder, then another and another.

  “What the …” Erik put a hand on Chogolisa’s mighty, smooth arm.

  “It’s the spiders,” he said, then, because he could see all the Owsla and Wootah on the deck were panicking, he shouted: “It’s the spiders! Relax!”

  “What’s happening?” yelled Chogolisa over the clamour of spider screams.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s bad.”

  “Are you communicating with them now? Is that how you know it’s them?

  “No, but look at the other people.” Erik nodded at the four Popeyes who’d already been aboard. They looked unconcerned.

  “He’s right!” shouted one of them, the man called Ovets. “It’s just the spiders calling out.”

  “What for?” asked Wulf.

  “Watch,” said Ovets.

  Erik did. Two flies landed on Chogolisa’s neck box. They crawled through what Erik had taken to be air holes. Her spiders stopped screaming, then his did, too, then everybody else’s were silent.

  Owsla and Wootah looked about, some confused, some afraid. Erik was about to tell them what had happen when Sofi Tornado said: “The spiders were calling out for food. They have that food now.” She sat back down, on her own, as she’d been since they set off the day before.

  “Does she always sit on her own?” Erik asked Chogolisa.

  “No. But when she does, we leave her alone.”

  Sassa Lipchewer sat quietly with Wulf the Fat and Yoki Choppa, shaken by the spider screams. The warlock Yoki Choppa was good company since he could go a whole day without speaking, which suited her mood.

  Sassa did not like the spiders.

  As a girl she’d fed squirrels on the edge of the woods. One squirrel had lost most of its fur and pustules had grown on its bare skin. After a few days, she’d found the squirrel dead. She’d picked it up and watched, horror-struck, as breathtakingly long and fat maggots had pushed their way out of the pustules. She felt like that squirrel now, hosting animals that were going to kill her.

  “In theory,” she said, as a lone bear stood out of the grass nearby to watch the Plains Strider thunder by, “the way to get these spiders off our necks is not to try.”

  “Right …?” asked Wulf.

  “If we try to take them off, they’ll bite. So we have to take them off without trying.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I haven’t worked that out yet. Any ideas, Yoki Choppa?”

  Yoki Choppa nodded at Freydis and Ottar. They were walking towards the monster at the back of the deck.

  “Not a good idea,” he said.

  “Freydis!” Sassa called. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going to talk to the hairy woman. It’s okay, Ottar says it’s fine.”

  “Um. Okay!” She turned to Yoki Choppa. “He’s always right,” she explained apologetically.

  The warlock shrugged.

  Sofi Tornado could feel her power leaching from her pores. When she’d woken from the dart drug, she could hear the spiders on their necks. Now, at noon the following day, she could not.

  Paloma Pronghorn walked up, legs wide to counter the rolling of the Plains Strider, and sat next to her.

  “Maybe spending the day looking at your own feet is a worthwhile activity,” said the speedy warrior, “but you are missing some extraordinary animal life. Lot of Pronghorns.”

  “Right.”

  “You do know we are approaching burrowing owl and tarantula hawk wasp territory?”

  “I do.”

  “And the spider confinement thing may be clever, but it does mean we can walk around in the evening, so you should have your animal very soon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, okay. Um, do you want to see the biggest herd of buffalo you’ve ever seen? Or a type of bear that I’ve never seen before? Because I can see both of those things right now and you could, too, if you’d just look around.”

  Sofi looked her friend in the eye. “Thing is, Paloma, I don’t give the tiniest of fucks about wildlife. How about you piss off and find someone who does?”

  “I will piss off almost immediately, but Yoki Choppa gave me this for you to eat.” She dropped a morsel of dried caribou into Sofi’s hand, “Now, off I piss! See ya!”

  Sofi Tornado sat and tried to scheme but her mind kept returning to the feeling of being held aloft and impotent like a caught fish. A small fish at that. She kept hearing the swishing of her inept flailing, the sound of the blown dart, the soft smack as it punctured her flesh.

  She had lost a fight.

  She sat on her own until she felt the craft bump to a stop. She heard Paloma tell the others to leave her alone, then heard them climb down. She heard the squatch roar as it was encouraged to leave the Plains Strider. So a squatch could be controlled by the spiders in the same way that the people could. That was almost interesting enough to break her out of her funk. Almost.

  The Empty Children walked past and climbed down from the deck. Perhaps enough distance would open up between her and them for the spiders to bite? If not, they were bound to come and get her soon, and she would kill anyone who touched her. Then they’d make the spiders bite.

  Death would be a release.

  She sat and listened to the noises of others busying about, settling the Plains Strider for the night and preparing the camp. It reminded her of being ill as a child, confined to her bed as the noisy industry of the day went on outside, the world somehow still functioning perfectly well without her in it.

  She heard Badlanders by the side of the Plains Strider discussing what to do with her. They were interrupted by Rappa Hoga on his dagger-tooth. He asked what was going on, leapt off his cat and shinned up the wooden ladder.

  The leader of the Badlander catch squad and the only person in the world who’d ever beaten her in a fight walked across the deck. His gait was wide because, she guessed, he was used to walking across this deck when the Plains Strider was moving, or possibly because he’d been straddling a giant cat all day.

  “You were diminished when we fought,” he said.

  She opened her eyes.

  The broad, tall man was wearing a pocketed leather robe over his breechcloth. It was a garment intended for practicality, not concealment. She could still see the inner curves of his large chest, the humps of his powerful abdomen and the swollen muscles of his calves and thighs.

  Early in the days of the Owsla, before Sofi had been made its captain, they’d paid a punitive visit to a tribe that had its own herd of buffalo. The tribe followed the herd’s migrations and managed its population, killing any stupid, weak or infirm animals. The herd, shaped by centuries of husbandry, was the finest collection of animals she’d ever seen. Even among those excellent animals, one animal stood out: a gigantic bull with smooth skin, shining wool, muscles on top of muscles. He was a busy animal, since the tribe encouraged him to shag as many of the females as possible in the hope that his sons might be equally superb.

  Rappa Hoga reminded Sofi of that bull.

  “It would have been a longer fight, had you been at your peak. You might have won.” He squatted to bring his face level with hers. “I, too, am enhanced by power animals. Were I not, you would have beaten me as easily as you beat the rest of them. If I hadn’t had my power animals for a few days, as you hadn’t, then we cannot know what would have happened.”

  How did he know this? Had Yoki Choppa betrayed them further?

  “What is your power animal?” she asked, despite herself.

  “I don’t know. I’m a warrior, not a cook. Now come, we have stopped in a special place. Let me show you.”

  Sofi Tornado considered launching herself at him. She might be able to crush his windpipe before he reacted, or her spiders bit.

  Instead she stood.
“All right then, let’s go.”

  Chapter 9

  By the Lake

  The Plains Strider was settled on grassland to the north of a wood. People and beasts passed hither and thither, cookfires were stoked and food prepared. The crowd pigeons ascended in such a number that they created a breeze in the still evening.

  Sofi Tornado followed Rappa Hoga through the camp. They passed Sitsi Kestrel showing Sassa Lipchewer how to improve her bow grip. Nearby, Keef the Berserker was sparring with Paloma Pronghorn, long axe against killing stick. Given the loss of his eye and ear, and the fact he wasn’t Owsla, the Mushroom Man’s moves were fluid and effective. Nevertheless, Sofi did not like to see her women fraternising with the enemy. It would not help when the time came to kill them. At least Morningstar had the right idea, off on her own, stretching after the long day of inactivity.

  Bjarni Chickenhead walked by, yawning, and Sofi had to stifle her own reactive yawn. A moment later she was startled by screams. Freydis and Ottar were running around a tent, pursued by Wulf the Fat, Bjarni Chickenhead and a giggling Chogolisa Earthquake. Sofi sighed.

  “The joy of the beeba spiders,” said Rappa Hoga, “is that we can allow our captives freedom, even to keep their weapons. The sensible captive will use that freedom to have a few last joyful days as he or she crosses the Ocean of Grass. The less sensible ones will sulk.”

  At the edge of the camp Rappa Hoga called an Empty Child to follow him. The boy or girl leapt onto a bighorn sheep and trotted behind as they walked into the woods.

  “How far can one get from a bighorn kid before the spiders bite?” Sofi asked.

  “Not far.”

  Here could be a chance, thought Sofi Tornado, while there was only one child monitoring her spiders. She just had to kill the kid, rip the collar off before the spiders bit her, then defeat the man who’d beaten her so easily two days before. Then she could rush back to the camp, slice the boxes off everyone’s necks in the blink of an eye, then defeat all the dagger-tooth and moose-mounted warriors.

  Not a great plan.

  The path led through sparse woods to a broader track that skirted the north shore of a lake. A startled deer bucked and bolted gracelessly off along the path. Geese, ducks and other waterfowl guided flotillas of fledglings across the calm water. Fish broke the surface, flashing wet backs. At the west end of the lake a herd of buffalo were drinking and grazing in the soft evening light.

  They walked around the eastern end of the lake in silence, disturbing opossums, muskrats, otters and one disgruntled skunk. The woods ended at a regular man-made bank, with the lake lapping on one side and a drop of around ten paces on the other. They walked across the bank and came to a spillway dam built of logs. Rappa Hoga stopped, hands on hips.

  “We made this,” he said, “with wood carried here on the Plains Strider.”

  “Well done.”

  “The industry was ours but the idea came from beavers.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “The Plains Strider follows buffalo paths.”

  “Wow.”

  “My point is that we learn from animals.”

  “Marvellous.”

  “Another thing we have learned is that if you remove the predators from an area, then the prey, unchecked, will multiply in such numbers that it spoils the land, for every animal including itself. It sounds paradoxical, yet if an animal that is meant to be preyed upon is not preyed upon, then that animal will suffer.”

  “Got it.”

  “Humans are prey animals.”

  She looked into his dark eyes. He appeared to be serious.

  “Many years ago,” he said, holding her gaze, “large predators like dagger-tooth cats were much more numerous, and there were other creatures that also ate humans. The beleaguered humans learned to create and use weapons, to cooperate to defeat animals more powerful than any man, and to build defended settlements. They fought back against the predators. They did well. Too well. They extinguished entire species, and limited the others so effectively that today it is unusual for any man or woman to be killed by an animal.”

  Sofi thought about the three Hardworkers killed by bears, but said nothing. Calnia’s historians also believed that predatory animals had been a problem for their ancestors.

  “The removal of predators may seem good for humans,” Rappa Hoga continued, “but in terms of natural balance and the health of the world, it’s about as desirable as deer teaming up and using spears against us. With no predators, humans have multiplied to unhealthy levels.”

  “So humans must be culled, and the Badlanders have taken the job?” A goose honked angrily.

  “Yes.”

  “So why bother capturing people? Why not simply kill them?”

  “Two reasons. Some of you, the better warriors and more interesting animals, will serve as entertainment for our people. We are bloodthirsty. The less capable captives will be used for research into the mundane and the magical. There is a third option.”

  “You want me to join the Badlanders.”

  “Good guess.”

  “The colour of your skin, the shape of your face, the size of you. You’re no Badlander. You were captured on a raid and given the same option that you’re planning to give me. Die with your fellows honourably, or live on as a Badlander.”

  “And you choose honour.”

  Sofi nodded.

  “Of course you do. I did at first. My apologies for being too obvious. I didn’t want you to know about that choice until you’d seen more of us, understood our goals and our power and, most importantly, met our chief, Beaver Man.”

  “Beaver Man is a very strange name.”

  “It’s a play on words, sounds like—”

  “Be the man. But that’s—”

  “Shit? Yes, I know. So does he. He had strange parents, but he respects their memory and will not change his name even though it does cause him some anguish.”

  “The great chief of the Badlanders suffers from anguish?”

  “He is a complicated man. Those parents whose memory he respects so much, for example, he killed. Let us head back.”

  As they reached the path through the woods, she said: “Just in theory, because there are no imaginable circumstances under which I would join the Badlanders, but I assume the offer extends to my women?”

  “Indeed. All of the Calnian Owsla could become Badlanders.”

  “Yoki Choppa?”

  “He would also be useful to us.”

  “Any of the Mushroom Men?”

  “None. I’d be surprised if Beaver Man kills them quickly, since they are interesting, but he will kill them.”

  Sofi nodded.

  Finnbogi the Boggy walked past Sassa Lipchewer and Sitsi Kestrel to the edge of the wood, where he found Thyri Treelegs sprinting between two trees, resting, then sprinting again.

  “You could get just as far by staying in the same place,” Finnbogi suggested.

  “And you could get punched in the face for saying shit things that don’t even deserve to be called jokes.” Thyri set off between the trees again.

  “Aren’t you worried you might set off your spiders?” he shouted when she’d reached the far tree.

  “Not … if it means never hearing your voice again,” she panted.

  “Ha! Ha! I don’t suppose you’re up for teaching me more about fighting, then?”

  “You’ve lost your sword.”

  “I meant with this.” He held up Sofi Tornado’s axe.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  She still thought he’d killed Garth.

  “How about I exercise next to you?”

  “I can’t stop you.”

  “We both know you could.”

  “I won’t stop you.”

  That was a softening. Finnbogi suppressed his urge to jump in the air and clap. That wouldn’t be very warrior-like. He jogged to join her at the tree.

  Later, Finnbogi turned over in his sleeping sack, not sure whether it was Bjar
ni’s snoring or his inability to stop fantasising about Thyri and the Owsla women that was keeping him awake.

  Then he was flying, high above the land. It was the Ocean of Grass, but the grass was gone and the only trees were clustered around scatterings of oversized huts and huge, silver, phallic towers. The bare earth stank, which was no surprise as huge, gleaming insects crawled across it, spraying shit.

  He soared higher and saw that the land was cut by straight, black tracks. Smaller insects zoomed along these tracks at silly speeds, as fast as Paloma. A huge, stiff-winged bird soared overhead, roaring.

  The bare earth became green, and Finnbogi spotted the Plains Strider. He zoomed down to look. It wasn’t the Strider, it was another giant gleaming insect, cutting the grass and spewing it into a cart. And the grass wasn’t grass, it was crazily regular corn, all the same height, in fields that stretched to the horizon in every direction. There wasn’t a deer, racoon, fox or any other beast to be seen.

  He flew on, and on and on. It was all the same. Long corn, giant crawling insects chewing up the corn. He passed over more straight tracks where insects zoomed. Finally, he saw some life, a woman walking with two dogs. He flew down to her.

  “What’s happened?” he asked her. “What has happened to the Ocean of Grass? Where are all the buffalo?”

  “We have killed the Ocean of Grass and all the animals,” she replied, “to feed the Mushroom Men.”

  Chapter 10

  Chippaminka Must Be Stopped

  Luby Zephyr nipped between conical buffalo-skin tents, slipped past guards and skipped through dancing shadows on the fringes of buffalo dung fires.

  Since they’d crossed the Water Mother the day before, Luby had been through the motions. She’d walked with her division, discussed Owsla-beating tactics and trained them hard when they stopped for the evening. She didn’t know whether her two hundred warriors would be capable of defeating the Owsla—certainly a lot of them would die in the process—but she very much didn’t want ever to find out.

  Of course, the Owsla hadn’t betrayed Calnia. Why would they? The Calnian army was marching on the Badlands under false pretences at the behest of the warlock Chippaminka. What was Chippaminka’s game? Luby had tried to persuade herself that the young warlock was acting in Ayanna’s and Calnian’s best interests. But why all the subterfuge and mind control? The only realistic conclusion was that she was leading the Calnians to their doom. So Luby had to prise the empress away from Chippaminka’s clutches and show her the error of her ways.