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.Human bones, without a doubt.'They eat the dead,' she whispered.'They what? But ''Nothing rots.' Bayaz had said the city was full of graves.Countless corpses,flung in pits for a hundred each.And there they must have lain down the longyears, tangled up together in a cold embrace.Until the Shanka came and dragged them out.'We'll have to get around them,' whispered Ninefingers.Ferro stared into the shadows, looking for a route into the cavern.There wasno way to climb down that hill of bones without making noise.She shrugged herbow off her shoulder.'You sure?' asked Ninefingers, touching her on the elbow.She nudged him back.'Give me some room, pink.' She would have to workquickly.She wiped the blood out of her eyebrow.She slid three arrows out ofher quiver and between the fingers of her right hand, where she could get atthem fast.She took a fourth in her left and levelled her bow, drawing backthe string, aiming at the furthest Flathead.When the arrow struck it throughthe body she was already aiming at the second.It took the shaft in theshoulder and fell down with a strange squawk just as the last one was turning.Her arrow caught it clean through its neck before it got all the way round andit pitched on its face.Ferro nocked the last arrow, waiting.The secondFlathead tried to scramble up, but it had not got half a stride before shenailed it through the back and sent it sprawling.She lowered the bow, frowning towards the Shanka.None of them moved.'Shit,' breathed Logen.'Bayaz is right.You are a devil.''Was right,' grunted Ferro.The chances were good that those creatures had himby now, and it was abundantly clear that they ate men.Luthar, and Longfoot,and Quai as well, she guessed.A shame.But not a big one.She shouldered her bow and crept cautiously into the cavern, keeping low, herboot crunching down in the hill of bones.She wobbled out further, arms spreadwide for balance, half-walking, half-wading, up to her knees in places, bonescracking and scraping around her legs.She made it down onto the cavern floorand knelt there, staring round and licking her lips.Nothing moved.The three Shanka lay still, dark blood pooling on the stoneunderneath their bodies.'Gah!' Ninefingers tumbled down the slope, clattering splinters flying uparound him, rolling over and over.He crashed down on his face in the midst ofa rattling slide of bones and scrambled up.'Shit! Ugh!' He shook half a dustyrib-cage off his arm and flung it away.'Quiet, fool!' hissed Ferro, dragging him down beside her, staring across thecavern towards a rough archway in the far wall, expecting hordes of thosethings to come pouring in at any moment, keen to add their bones to the rest.But nothing came.She gave him a dark look but he was too busy nursing hisbruises, so she left him be and crept over to the three corpses.They had been gathered round a leg.A woman's leg, Ferro guessed, from thelack of hair on it.A stub of bone poked out of dry, withered flesh round thesevered thigh.One of them had been going at it with a knife and it still laynearby, the bright blade shining in the shaft of light from high above.Ninefingers stooped and picked it up.'You can never have too many knives.''No? What if you fall in a river and can't swim for all that iron?'Page 204 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlHe looked puzzled for a moment, then he shrugged and put it carefully backdown on the ground.'Fair point.'She slipped her own blade out from her belt.'One knife will do well enough.If you know where to stick it.' She dug the blade into one of the Flatheads'backs and started to cut out her arrow.'What are these things anyway?' Sheworked the shaft out, intact, and rolled the Flathead over with her boot.Itstared up at her, piggy black eyes unseeing under a low, flat forehead, lipscurled back from a wide maw full of bloody teeth.'They're even uglier thanyou, pink.''Very good.They're Shanka.Flatheads.Kanedias made them.''Made them?' The next arrow snapped off as she tried to twist it out.'So Bayaz said.As a weapon, to use in a war.''I thought he died.''Seems his weapons lived on.'The one she shot through the neck had fallen on the shaft and broken it nearthe head.Useless, now.'How does a man make one of these things?''You think I've got the answers? They'd come across the sea, every summer,when the ice melted, and there'd always be work fighting 'em.Lots of work.'She hacked out the last shaft, bloody but sound.'When I was young theystarted coming more and more often.My father sent me south, over themountains, to get help with the fighting of 'em& ' He trailed off.'Well.That's a long story.The High Valleys are swarming with Flatheads now.''It hardly matters,' she grunted, standing up and sliding the two good arrowscarefully back into her quiver, 'as long as they die.''Oh, they die.Trouble is there's always more to kill.' He was frowning downat the three dead things, frowning down hard with a cold look in his eye.'There's nothing left now, north of the mountains.Nothing and no one.'Ferro did not much care about that.'We need to move.''All back to the mud,' he growled, as though she had not spoken, his frowngrowing harder all the time.She stepped up in front of his face.'You hear me? We need to move, I said.''Eh?' He blinked at her for a moment, then he scowled.The muscles round hisjaw tightened rigid under his skin, the scars stretching and shifting, facetipped forward, eyes lost in hard shadow from the light overhead.'Alright.Wemove.'Ferro frowned at him as a trickle of blood crept down from his hair and acrossthe greasy, stubbly side of his face.He no longer looked like anyone shewould trust.'Not planning to go strange on me, are you, pink? I need you to stay cold.''I am cold,' he whispered.Logen was hot.His skin prickled under his dirty clothes.He felt strange,dizzy, his head full of the stink of Shanka.He could hardly breathe for theirsmell.The hallway seemed to move under his feet, shifting before his eyes.Hewinced and hunched over, sweat running down his face, dripping onto thetipping stone below.Ferro whispered something at him, but he couldn't make sense of the words theyechoed from the walls and round his face, but wouldn't go in.He nodded andflapped one hand at her, struggled on behind.The hallway was growing hotterand hotter, the blurry stone had taken on an orange glow.He blundered intoFerro's back and nearly fell, crawled forwards on his sore knees, gaspinghard.There was a huge cavern beyond.Four slender columns rose up in the centre, upand up into the shifting darkness far above.Beneath them fires burned.Manyfires, printing white images into Logen's stinging eyes.Coals crackled andcracked and spat out smoke.Sparks came up in stinging showers, steam came upin hissing gouts.Globs of melted iron dripped from crucibles, spattering theground with glowing embers.Molten metal ran through channels in the floor,striking lines of red and yellow and searing white into the black stone.The yawning space was full of Shanka, ragged shapes moving through the boilingPage 205 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmldarkness.They worked at the fires, and the bellows, and the crucibles likemen, a score of them, or more.There was a furious din.Hammers clanged,anvils rang, metal clattered, Flatheads squawked and shrieked to each other.Racks stood against the distant walls, dark racks stacked with bright weapons,steel glittering in all the colours of fire and fury [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Human bones, without a doubt.'They eat the dead,' she whispered.'They what? But ''Nothing rots.' Bayaz had said the city was full of graves.Countless corpses,flung in pits for a hundred each.And there they must have lain down the longyears, tangled up together in a cold embrace.Until the Shanka came and dragged them out.'We'll have to get around them,' whispered Ninefingers.Ferro stared into the shadows, looking for a route into the cavern.There wasno way to climb down that hill of bones without making noise.She shrugged herbow off her shoulder.'You sure?' asked Ninefingers, touching her on the elbow.She nudged him back.'Give me some room, pink.' She would have to workquickly.She wiped the blood out of her eyebrow.She slid three arrows out ofher quiver and between the fingers of her right hand, where she could get atthem fast.She took a fourth in her left and levelled her bow, drawing backthe string, aiming at the furthest Flathead.When the arrow struck it throughthe body she was already aiming at the second.It took the shaft in theshoulder and fell down with a strange squawk just as the last one was turning.Her arrow caught it clean through its neck before it got all the way round andit pitched on its face.Ferro nocked the last arrow, waiting.The secondFlathead tried to scramble up, but it had not got half a stride before shenailed it through the back and sent it sprawling.She lowered the bow, frowning towards the Shanka.None of them moved.'Shit,' breathed Logen.'Bayaz is right.You are a devil.''Was right,' grunted Ferro.The chances were good that those creatures had himby now, and it was abundantly clear that they ate men.Luthar, and Longfoot,and Quai as well, she guessed.A shame.But not a big one.She shouldered her bow and crept cautiously into the cavern, keeping low, herboot crunching down in the hill of bones.She wobbled out further, arms spreadwide for balance, half-walking, half-wading, up to her knees in places, bonescracking and scraping around her legs.She made it down onto the cavern floorand knelt there, staring round and licking her lips.Nothing moved.The three Shanka lay still, dark blood pooling on the stoneunderneath their bodies.'Gah!' Ninefingers tumbled down the slope, clattering splinters flying uparound him, rolling over and over.He crashed down on his face in the midst ofa rattling slide of bones and scrambled up.'Shit! Ugh!' He shook half a dustyrib-cage off his arm and flung it away.'Quiet, fool!' hissed Ferro, dragging him down beside her, staring across thecavern towards a rough archway in the far wall, expecting hordes of thosethings to come pouring in at any moment, keen to add their bones to the rest.But nothing came.She gave him a dark look but he was too busy nursing hisbruises, so she left him be and crept over to the three corpses.They had been gathered round a leg.A woman's leg, Ferro guessed, from thelack of hair on it.A stub of bone poked out of dry, withered flesh round thesevered thigh.One of them had been going at it with a knife and it still laynearby, the bright blade shining in the shaft of light from high above.Ninefingers stooped and picked it up.'You can never have too many knives.''No? What if you fall in a river and can't swim for all that iron?'Page 204 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlHe looked puzzled for a moment, then he shrugged and put it carefully backdown on the ground.'Fair point.'She slipped her own blade out from her belt.'One knife will do well enough.If you know where to stick it.' She dug the blade into one of the Flatheads'backs and started to cut out her arrow.'What are these things anyway?' Sheworked the shaft out, intact, and rolled the Flathead over with her boot.Itstared up at her, piggy black eyes unseeing under a low, flat forehead, lipscurled back from a wide maw full of bloody teeth.'They're even uglier thanyou, pink.''Very good.They're Shanka.Flatheads.Kanedias made them.''Made them?' The next arrow snapped off as she tried to twist it out.'So Bayaz said.As a weapon, to use in a war.''I thought he died.''Seems his weapons lived on.'The one she shot through the neck had fallen on the shaft and broken it nearthe head.Useless, now.'How does a man make one of these things?''You think I've got the answers? They'd come across the sea, every summer,when the ice melted, and there'd always be work fighting 'em.Lots of work.'She hacked out the last shaft, bloody but sound.'When I was young theystarted coming more and more often.My father sent me south, over themountains, to get help with the fighting of 'em& ' He trailed off.'Well.That's a long story.The High Valleys are swarming with Flatheads now.''It hardly matters,' she grunted, standing up and sliding the two good arrowscarefully back into her quiver, 'as long as they die.''Oh, they die.Trouble is there's always more to kill.' He was frowning downat the three dead things, frowning down hard with a cold look in his eye.'There's nothing left now, north of the mountains.Nothing and no one.'Ferro did not much care about that.'We need to move.''All back to the mud,' he growled, as though she had not spoken, his frowngrowing harder all the time.She stepped up in front of his face.'You hear me? We need to move, I said.''Eh?' He blinked at her for a moment, then he scowled.The muscles round hisjaw tightened rigid under his skin, the scars stretching and shifting, facetipped forward, eyes lost in hard shadow from the light overhead.'Alright.Wemove.'Ferro frowned at him as a trickle of blood crept down from his hair and acrossthe greasy, stubbly side of his face.He no longer looked like anyone shewould trust.'Not planning to go strange on me, are you, pink? I need you to stay cold.''I am cold,' he whispered.Logen was hot.His skin prickled under his dirty clothes.He felt strange,dizzy, his head full of the stink of Shanka.He could hardly breathe for theirsmell.The hallway seemed to move under his feet, shifting before his eyes.Hewinced and hunched over, sweat running down his face, dripping onto thetipping stone below.Ferro whispered something at him, but he couldn't make sense of the words theyechoed from the walls and round his face, but wouldn't go in.He nodded andflapped one hand at her, struggled on behind.The hallway was growing hotterand hotter, the blurry stone had taken on an orange glow.He blundered intoFerro's back and nearly fell, crawled forwards on his sore knees, gaspinghard.There was a huge cavern beyond.Four slender columns rose up in the centre, upand up into the shifting darkness far above.Beneath them fires burned.Manyfires, printing white images into Logen's stinging eyes.Coals crackled andcracked and spat out smoke.Sparks came up in stinging showers, steam came upin hissing gouts.Globs of melted iron dripped from crucibles, spattering theground with glowing embers.Molten metal ran through channels in the floor,striking lines of red and yellow and searing white into the black stone.The yawning space was full of Shanka, ragged shapes moving through the boilingPage 205 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmldarkness.They worked at the fires, and the bellows, and the crucibles likemen, a score of them, or more.There was a furious din.Hammers clanged,anvils rang, metal clattered, Flatheads squawked and shrieked to each other.Racks stood against the distant walls, dark racks stacked with bright weapons,steel glittering in all the colours of fire and fury [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]