This is Part 3 of
Spearcarriers
.
If you're only just joining us around the firepit, I recommend starting my tale at the beginning.
In
Part 1
, a witch bound her lover to the rocks.
In
Part 2
, the lovers prepared for battle.
As always, if you like my work enough to drop five stars in the hat, I would appreciate it.
The warriors broke from the treeline, silhouettes slipping between shadows on silent feet. They ran through scrub in the blue light of predawn, slowing as they reached the thin bank of mist clinging to the base of the hill. The slavers' staging camp spread before them, a jumble of large tents and strange square-sided vehicles, their forms hard to discern through the diffuse glare of floodlights. The camp roared with a liquid hammering sound; its source a huddle of squat machines that fed the unwavering lights with some unknown power. The place seemed to sleep despite the relentless noise, and the sentries were slow to realise what was happening.
Earlier, an advance party of expert trackers had crossed from the far bank of the river and now stole through the camp like phantoms. The main force closed quietly on the perimeter through the scrub, edging forward in fighting stance with their spears raised, waiting for the signal. When the advance group reached the bellowing machines they attacked them in a hushed frenzy, prying open panels and slashing at the snaking coils of cable that wound toward the darkened vehicles nearby.
A blow must have hit home because the floodlights winked out, and a moment later the generators stuttered and died. In the first line of the main force, Ceni had been shielding her eyes from the unnatural light and was already primed for the sudden darkness. With a hundred hill tribe warriors at her back she leapt forward, spear raised as she charged the defences. With a hunter's clarity she vaulted the sandbag wall and zeroed in on a shocked sentry, rushing the man before he could react. Her speartip slid above the smooth armour of his chestplate and caught the man in the neck. He choked on his scream, a sick sound that made her grit her teeth. He tried to raise his weapon, an odd looking thing with a thin, tubular shaft but no visible blade. She twisted the spear violently, and saw his head jerk to the side as the wound opened. His mouth gaped and hacked with blood as he went down.
The sounds of battle opened up around her like a beast waking into madness. Shouts clamoured as alarm spread through the camp, and a deafening wail erupted from some machine that keened like a banshee. Thunderclap sounds tore through the din, each one slapping into her chest as if she had been struck.
She wrenched her spear free and let out a warcry as she dashed for the nearest tent. Yarro was at her side, his eyes blazing and his voice opening into the roar of a crazed animal. A man emerged from the tent and froze in its entrance, eyes wide as he tried to steady his helmet. The slaver tried to turn away as he saw the warriors bearing down on him, but with comrades pressing from behind there was no room. Yarro thrust his spear into the man's armpit.
Blood jetted from the wound as Yarro forced him backwards, and then the High Hearth band slammed into the press with animal cries turned nightmarish. The tent was black inside and the band tore into its occupants, stabbing wildly into the confusion until those hammering blasts began to rip through the darkness, accompanied by flashes that lit faces contorted in terror and pain. Then the shooter was fleeing along with his companions, bolting out of a flap at the far end of the tent. The warriors whooped as they broke into pursuit.
Ceni found herself outside again, howling in ecstasy as she pelted after Yarro. Her spear was gone, and she gripped her twin flint knives with hands slick to the elbow in another's blood. Yarro spun quickly and found her eyes, his spearpoint high as he flung his arms wide. He grinned, and firelight bloomed across his bare skin. Behind him, two of the tents were already burning, quickening the dawn with an orange glow.
Ceni saw the shooter before he did, kneeling in the cover of some low, rectangular containers. The man was bringing one of the strange barking weapons to bear and Ceni acted reflexively, pouncing on her lover with a yelp, and knocking him over. They landed in a tangle and shots cracked overhead. The pair scrambled for cover as more shots slapped into the canvas of the tent beside them.
Behind the sound of the shots, someone was screaming. Emba had gone down, dropped like a deer in the open. The voices of the others raised in rage and alarm. Spears cut the air, flung with deadly accuracy into the shadows beside the stack of crates. The shooting ceased abruptly.
Yarro was on his feet already, pounding back into the open and dragging Emba towards the rest of the band. Ceni tore off her pocket belt; inside were herbs known to stem the flow of bleeding.
As she leapt after Yarro something tightened around her neck. She shrieked, hands clawing at the thing. She felt herself hauled backwards, and crashed down on her back. She dropped the pocket belt and grabbed for her flint knives, but they were roughly kicked away by booted feet. The scream caught in Ceni's throat as she was dragged away.
She was a wildcat, scrambling at the rough earth and whirling to face her attackers. There were four of them; the closest had the end of a long pole, to which the leather loop around her neck was attached. The slaver's teeth gritted as he braced against the thrashing woman. She swiped at him but he was out of reach; instead she grasped the pole with both hands, thrust it towards him and then tried to yank it away. He planted his feet and tightened his grip.
"Yarro!" she screamed.
The slavers formed a ring around her, closing. She kicked out and caught one in the gut, doubling him. The man with the pole tried to yank her from her balance but she had anticipated this and moved with his pull. He stumbled.
Ceni flung herself forward, trying to force her way through the closing men. The band around her neck tightened and pulled her back. Another man had joined the first and they held her as she strained. The slavers closed; she caught one full in the face with her fist but another grasped her bare arm in leather gloved hands, and twisted it behind her back.
More slavers swept past her with weapons trained, heading in the direction of her band.
"Yarro!"
Her scream was swallowed in a massive sound that she could feel in her guts. It sounded like the groaning of an artificial god. The earth shook with what felt like enormous footsteps.
Ceni's arms were pulled together behind her back. Something closed around her wrists, hard and cold against her skin. She struggled but met only solidity. The muscles in her arms strained against the restraints, and her wrist bones worked against a texture almost unknown to her skin.
Oh, Goddess! It's metal!
Her arms were raised painfully high behind her so that she bent double, and some part of her mind detached from the situation as the slavers forced her deeper into their camp. Metal was rare in Ceni's world, with the smelting of bronze and iron understood only by a scattering of craftspeople in the deep mountains. Her sight blurred with tears as she was hauled between the tents. She spat and struggled, but her bones realised that they were overpowered. Metal could not be gnawed-though, or pried apart by deft fingers. Her body knew that she was helpless, that the shackles locked around her wrists would outlast even the energy of her life.
Even if she were to escape, her people did not have the ability to cut the shackles. There was a finality to them. Her resistance was doomed.
A wave of terror hit her and almost carried her away from herself. Her heart pounded. But inside this young warrior of two dozen winters lived somebody far older, an echo passed down by generations of women who had been weathered, cunning, wild and strong. Ceni steadied her breathing and felt down into the wisdom of her mothers before.
She knew fear. Its nature was to disable, and to cloud. Many of her ecstatic rituals had been terrifying; extended mushroom journeys filled with masks, drumming, moon-blood and self-inflicted pain. She knew that she could either be struck down by this storm, or she could dance in it.
Ceni allowed the fear to surge through her like the rushing of a midwinter torrent. Rather than fighting against the flow of terror, she danced like a leaf in the current until it abated. Her sobs became a wild laughter that seemed to unsettle her captors; she felt their grip shift and their pace hasten.
Without struggling, she let the slavers press her to her knees beside one of their huge vehicles. They drew her shackled hands up high behind her, forcing her head to the ground. She heard a heavy click, and twisted to see a length of chain stretching dark against the bloody clouds of dawn. Rough hands attached the chain to a ring on the chassis of the truck. Shaking with laughter and adrenaline, she squirmed a little and pulled with her arms, testing the position. The hold was very secure.
The earth shook again with those impossible footsteps. The same heavy machine groaning invaded her ears and punched her diaphragm. She turned her head left and right, looking for the source of the noise.
To her left, the camp was burning. Ceni could hear the sounds of battle in the distance, and smoke rose beyond the sheer bulk of other parked vehicles.
To her right, she saw another captive, a Crow Foot warrior chained in the same position. He was a middle-aged man, bulky in leathers and furs, screaming flecks of saliva into his beard. Beyond him she glimpsed others, a row of captured warriors chained along the side of the truck. The crushing footsteps were drawing closer, jolting the ground beneath her with each pace. She craned her head, tucking her chin into her battle-painted breast to look backward past the medicinal tattoos that lined her heaving ribs.
Ceni saw a giant.
The lower half strode into view, an enormous pair of legs that rose and fell with mechanical precision. The feet were chunky, earth-caked and spreading; the shins were steel towers painted in dun green-browns. Hidden machinery whirred each time a foot rose, and the earth leapt each time it came down.
Ceni twisted until her arms screamed but could not make out the upper body of the thing. It marched past the line of captives, heading for the battle.
The fear gripped her again, and she allowed it to flow through. She thought of the young scouts and their tales of giants, so easily written-off as fantasy. Her people had never faced such things before; no stories were told of slavers with huge walking machines. A laugh escaped her, wild and desperate. She shook as she cackled into the flattened earth. Her shoulder blades worked and her fists tugged at the restraints that forced her down. The insane laughter overtook her, and she lost track of herself.
Without warning, Ceni slipped out of space and time. A vision soaked into her, as fleeting as summer dew. She saw the great machine torn open, sprawled on its back with Yarro - her Yarro - standing on its chest. She saw him silhouetted against the blazing skies of daybreak, with spear raised and eyes aflame behind the woad and charcoal of his warpaint. The machine's pilot was still strapped in, her slender arms outstretched, leather gloved hands raised in terror of the imminent strike.
Ceni's body relaxed in her chains. She let out a sigh, releasing tension from deep inside her, and allowed her head to rest on the ground. They
could
be beaten - in fact she knew, with the certainty of one who has walked beyond the web of cause and effect, that what she had seen would come to pass. A young part of herself dared to hope that her beautiful warrior would come to her rescue, but in her shackled bones she knew that he could not. The tribe would stay free, and she was bound to follow whatever threads the Old Weavers had knotted together for her.
