The Hunter's Kind: Book II of The Hollow Gods Read online

  ‘The enlarged fire javelin worked,’ she said.

  Algar grinned. ‘It did!’

  She looked at what remained of it: a pile of splinters. Algar’s face was scored with red marks from the destruction of his invention. The black powder must have shattered the tube even as it sent the javelin on its way. ‘We won’t be using it again, though.’

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘You saved my life.’

  His smile softened into something more tender. ‘Of course.’

  She levered herself to her feet and staggered over to the dead beast. She could see now that the spear was buried in its neck to nearly half its length. It hadn’t needed to penetrate iron, but the scales it had punched through were hard enough. Algar’s modifications had given the fire javelin far more force than it had ever possessed before.

  ‘You’re a genius,’ she told him.

  ‘But I needed you to make it. We need each other.’

  She hugged him, ignoring the agony of her bruised ribs. ‘Always, Gar.’

  He squeezed her back, then pulled away. ‘We need to move. Best we get clear of this place before that thing’s bigger sister turns up.’

  She looked at the wreckage of their wagon. The wooden panels were splinters, shards of random colour where once there had been an image of the Hunter. Their possessions were scattered over the road, pottery shattered and clothes stained with mud and salt. ‘We can’t just leave the wagon behind.’

  ‘It’s only the panels are broken. The frame held and the base is solid. We can pile everything on it and fix it later when we’re far away. There’ll be more than birds coming for that carcass soon, and all the black powder is gone.’

  ‘We should do some scavenging too, take some of its scales with us. They’re metal. Lead, I think.’

  ‘Lead’s useless.’

  ‘Maybe. But who knows what you’ll invent next?’

  He grinned at that and took her arm to support her as she limped round the beast’s corpse. Her knife was still stuck in its belly, gore crusted round the hilt.

  ‘Be careful,’ she said as he reached for it. ‘Its blood burns.’

  He wrapped the sleeve of his tunic round his hand before pulling the blade free. The creature’s head rested against the ground, pointing towards them, and Alfreda took the time to study it more closely. It looked like nothing she’d seen before. Its scales were reptilian but its head was furred. Its nose was as snub as a pig’s and its eyes, even now they were glazed in death, seemed filled with hate.

  Her brother circled the beast, intent on the thick scales that ridged its back. He grimaced as he forced the knife between them and sawed at whatever lay beneath. A smell of decay already hung in the air and it grew stronger when the knife popped free and the scale clattered to the ground at Algar’s feet. Alfreda turned it this way and that with her foot and watched it gleam dully in the sunlight.

  Algar knelt to bang the hilt of his knife against it, and it clanged, exactly like metal. ‘You’re right, I think. Lead. And look at where it came free – there’s more scales beneath.’

  She peered at the wound on the creature’s back and saw that he was right. Beneath the grey of the metal was another layer, greener and more organic. These scales were smaller and where the knife had nicked one, black blood oozed from the cut. As sunlight hit it, the flesh began to bubble and steam. She frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense. How can scales grow on scales?’

  ‘I don’t think they did. Look.’ He used his knife to prise away another scale, exposing its underside. There was a thin growth on it – no, it was a hook that had been punched into it.

  ‘It’s armour,’ Alfreda said. ‘Someone put armour on this thing.’

  ‘Because what you really want to do with a monstrous great creature like this is make it even harder to kill.’

  She laughed, though it hurt her ribs. ‘When I was little, Mum told me stories about the moon. She said he made the monsters in the forest and that’s why the Hunter had to kill him.’

  ‘You told me those stories too. But I thought that’s all they were.’

  Alfreda looked back down at the beast. The sunlight was slowly eating away at it and she realised that soon there’d be nothing but the grey metal left. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Then the Hunter’s really going to love our fire javelin, isn’t she?’

  6

  Dae Hyo had been right about the lion’s testicles. Krish finally felt his strength returning. The horses they’d stolen had helped them to eat up the westward miles and three days ago, when the ground became too marshy for their mounts to find footing, he’d set them loose without a worry.

  Both mounted and on foot, the lizard monkey chose to travel clinging to his shoulder, and the warmth of Adofo’s body was an unpleasant addition to the growing heat as they travelled. The air seemed honey-thick and heavy with moisture. But the monkey’s constant chatter was soothing in a way Krish couldn’t quite explain. If he only half-listened, it almost sounded like words.

  The vegetation had changed along with the temperature, the grass of the plains giving way to a wilder profusion of plants. They were filled with moisture too, many with thick leaves that squelched into green mulch if you squeezed them. Others had thorns and his hands and face were scored with scratches that the relentless buzzing insects were drawn to in thick black clusters.

  Krish couldn’t decide if this new landscape was loathsome or wonderful. His body dripped with a constant sweat and they’d all begun to smell awful, worse than any billy goat. There was a green moss creeping from his armpits down his arms and chest, persisting no matter how much he tried to scrape it off, and he thought there might be small beetles living in his hair. But the dense leaves hid them from pursuit and there were flowers everywhere. He’d never known the world could be so colourful.

  He brushed aside a dangling red bloom, its petals bigger than his hands, and found himself standing on yet another riverbank. Though it seldom seemed to rain, there was water everywhere on the ground. At one point, from one of the higher hills, he’d had a startling overview of it: streams and rivers like a net cast over the greenery. He’d hoped for a glimpse of the ocean, but Olufemi said that was many miles away yet: the full breadth of Rah lands lay between them and it.

  ‘I don’t know why we’re coming here,’ Dae Hyo said as he studied a scratch on his arm, which looked as if it might soon begin to fester. ‘The Rah can barely be counted among the Fourteen Tribes. They won’t help us.’

  ‘They will help us,’ Olufemi told him impatiently. Krish didn’t think she much liked the warrior. But then Krish wasn’t sure she much liked him, despite her claim that finding Krish had been the whole purpose of her life.

  ‘Where are they, though?’ Krish asked. He’d seen fruit on many of the trees, and strange creatures in the waterways that lived within their own armour but were tender when roasted. There was plenty of food here. It was a more fertile land than the one he’d grown up in, and yet it seemed empty. They hadn’t seen another person or any sign of them for the last four days.

  ‘The Rah like to leave some clear space around their borders,’ the mage told him. ‘The other tribes haven’t been the best neighbours to them.’

  ‘When I was Ashane – when I lived with the Ashane,’ Krish amended at Dae Hyo’s scowl, ‘they talked about the Fourteen Tribes the same way they talked about the Ashane shipforts. Like … like they were just different parts of the same people. But the tribes seem to hate each other more than they hate any outsiders.’

  ‘The Fourteen Tribes are united by shared custom and shared history but that is all,’ Olufemi said. ‘After they crossed the ocean to come here, the Geum died in the desert, and the rest spread themselves from the sea to the mountains and from the Silent Sands to the Moon Forest. The new land changed them, as new things will. The Gyo, the Gung, the Nae and the Dogko made themselves stronger by forming the Four Together – the Five Together before the Yeum departed for colder climes and far st
ranger ways. The Seonu reappeared after their wanderings to make their home in the cold, high mountains, and the Ahn made a place and a living for themselves trading along the water of the New Misa and through the Silent Sands. And the Eom and the Rah chose to isolate themselves from the rest.

  ‘But where the boundaries of tribal lands meet, there is sometimes conflict. As, I believe, there has been conflict between neighbouring shipfort lords. Such is the way of things: sharing is hard and taking is easier. The Gyo took from the Rah and so now they make provision to ensure they aren’t stolen from again.’

  Dae Hyo shrugged. ‘The Gyo fought them once, but that was long ago. A man shouldn’t hold a grudge that long.’

  ‘So say you, who—’ Olufemi began heatedly, and then cut herself off with a snap of teeth.

  ‘If you think you’ll compare what happened to the Rah with what the rat-fucking Chun did to the Dae …’ Dae Hyo’s face glowed red with rage and Olufemi held up her hand placatingly.

  ‘No, no, you’re right. It’s not the same. The Chun went beyond the violence of any previous conflict. They did something no civilised people had ever done when they slaughtered the Dae. They turned themselves into something else, no longer a tribe but a band dedicated purely to war.’

  ‘The Brotherband,’ Krish said. ‘But the Brotherband worship me.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Well indeed, young Jinn moved them to the moon’s worship, but that wasn’t what turned them into killers, I promise you. And as for the Rah, it’s not so much a grudge they hold as simple wisdom. In the War of the Red Grass of which our warrior speaks, they were robbed of all their remaining pastureland. No doubt they’d prefer to keep what territory remains to them.’

  ‘No one else would want it.’ Dae Hyo gazed unlovingly at the humid landscape. ‘You can’t keep horses here, or rabbits, and corn would drown if you planted it.’

  ‘The Rah thrive on other things. They’re fisherfolk and farmers and they breed livestock more cunningly than any of the other tribes. That’s how they guard their lands. And we’re approaching the border: it’s time for us to take some precautions. There!’ she said to Dae Hyo, pointing at a purplish vine curling up a tree trunk and drooping violet blossoms above their head. ‘Fetch those for me, will you?’

  Dae Hyo looked dubious and Krish said, ‘I’ll do it,’ finding handholds to pull himself up the thick trunk. Climbing, at least, was one thing he had more experience of than the warrior, and it felt good to use his newly regained strength.

  Among the branches, the smell of the flowers was almost overpowering: cloying and not entirely pleasant. They were dripping too, an amber liquid that had smeared the bark and stung a little against his grazed palms.

  ‘All of them,’ Olufemi said. ‘And hurry.’

  But he couldn’t resist climbing higher. The tree offered an easy upward route, almost a ladder of branches. The smell grew weaker as he pulled himself higher where a breeze was able to penetrate the leaves, and when he was near the top he could finally see through them. They’d scaled a hill to reach this tree and the view was sweeping: green in every direction, a far darker and denser colour than the grasses of the plains.

  ‘Come down!’ Olufemi shouted. ‘It’s dangerous!’

  Krish ignored her. Heights had never made him dizzy and the tree was more sturdy than the cliffs he’d once scrambled up in search of goat feed in lean times. It was strange to think he’d never do that again.

  ‘Brother!’ Dae Hyo yelled. ‘You must come down!’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Krish shouted back. ‘I’m just looking around.’

  ‘There are serpents in the trees, you fool!’ Olufemi called and the instant her words registered he realised that the brown twig by his right hand was writhing, raising its small head to watch him with blank black eyes.

  And once he’d seen that, he saw the rest: a thin green snake by his foot, and on a lower branch a monster as long as he was tall, its belly bulging grotesquely with the remains of its last meal. His eyes locked with those of the serpent near his hand as he slowly drew it away, expecting the plunge of fangs into flesh at any moment.

  ‘Careful,’ Dae Hyo warned, ‘she says they’re venomous.’

  Sweat beaded his brow as he inched his hand back and the creature swayed, swayed – but didn’t strike. The moment he was out of its reach he grabbed a branch and began to scramble down, refraining from going at full speed only out of fear that he’d tread on another snake in his haste.

  ‘And don’t forget the flowers!’ Olufemi added, as if he didn’t have more crucial things to concern himself with. Still, he found himself plucking the great violet blossoms from the branches as he climbed past and flinging them down to her. Then he heard a hiss and the wedge-shaped head of the huge creature twined round the lower branch turned towards him. He yelped and flung himself from the tree, falling the remaining fifteen paces to the ground to be caught by Dae Hyo. Olufemi frowned down as they both collapsed to the sodden earth, gasping.

  ‘Listen to me next time,’ she said and turned away to collect the blooms.

  When they made camp that night, Dae Hyo and Krish trod down all the plants to leave no hiding places for the smallest serpent, while Olufemi hovered over her cooking pot, stirring in the purple blossoms and other flowers she’d sent them to pluck over the course of the day.

  ‘No antivenom will save you from their bite entirely,’ she said as she stirred. ‘But this will prevent death from all except the scarlet adder. It might even prevent loss of the bitten limb, if you’re lucky.’

  Krish didn’t think she was joking. He found his eyes constantly darting about, searching for the small, scaled bodies.

  ‘Only the Rah would choose to live in a place so cursed as this,’ Dae Hyo said.

  ‘The Rah know what they’re about,’ Olufemi told him. ‘And besides, Krishanjit, they’re your people. They chose the worship of the moon years ago. You’ll be safe among them, if you can resist the urge to slaughter them yourself.’

  He couldn’t find a reply to that and the rest of the evening passed in brewing her antivenoms and searching for fruit and tubers to make their supper.

  In the morning, he found that she’d brewed an even less pleasant concoction: a soup of dark black mud and leaves.

  ‘Smear this over you,’ she said, although she made no move to spread the pungent mess over her own clothes.

  ‘Why?’ Dae Hyo dipped a finger in the pot and frowned as he smelled it. ‘Will it frighten away the snakes?’

  ‘Quite possibly.’ She lifted out a ladleful and turned to Krish. ‘But it’s the crocodiles I’m more concerned about. We’re less than a mile from the start of their range.’

  ‘Crocodiles? Are they a form of serpent?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. They’re relatives, at least.’

  ‘And they’re venomous, I’ll wager.’ Dae Hyo looked disgusted.

  ‘They hardly need to be. They’re twenty paces long and walk upon their legs, though they’re quite happy to swim when that’s required. They could have you in their stomachs in three swallows.’

  ‘But they don’t like the taste of mud?’ Krish hazarded, though it seemed unlikely if they made their homes in the clogged rivers of this territory.

  ‘They don’t like bright clothing,’ Olufemi said, smearing the mud across his beaded shirt. ‘Or rather they like it too much: the Rah have trained them to see those wearing the clothing of their warlike neighbours as prey. The Rah themselves prefer to dress in darker colours but as we’ve brought no change of clothing, the mud will have to suffice to make you less appealing.’

  When she was finished, they walked in a tense silence, but the land around them filled it. There was a deep barking that made Krish jump until Dae Hyo whispered ‘toad’ to him. The buzzing of insects was constant and a moist throaty roar that the warrior couldn’t identify. Olufemi merely raised an eyebrow when Krish asked what it was and he knew it must be the sound these crocodiles mad
e.

  The water was everywhere, gurgling hidden behind dense bushes and running in plain sight in silvery runnels over the flat ground. In places, clumps of lilies floated on its surface, delicately beautiful. Krish was studying one of the flowers when the first head broke from the water and blinked in his direction.

  Olufemi had seen it too. ‘Keep going,’ she said. ‘Don’t show it your fear.’

  Krish didn’t know how it could fail to smell the terror sweating out of his body. Even Dae Hyo looked alarmed. The thing’s head was all teeth: jagged and sharp, they were still hung with the red remains of its last meal. It rose out of the water to waddle on to shore and he saw just how big it was: the size of a horse, but much lower to the ground.

  ‘It’s slow, at least,’ Dae Hyo muttered.

  ‘Don’t be fooled,’ Olufemi said. ‘They can outrun a man when they need to.’

  As she spoke, another head broke the water, and then another. Krish saw two more in a broad stream that ran to their left and then a third lying in the pond directly in front of them. Its head rose beneath a pad of lilies so that the flowers drooped absurdly over its heavy brow as it loped through the mud towards them. The muck covering it oozed back towards the ground to expose its moss-green scales, blunt leaf shapes that armoured the beasts all over.

  The other crocodiles approached too, at least a dozen of them. They roared as they came and even Olufemi shivered and stopped in the face of their advance. Adofo galloped over the ground to fling himself into Krish’s arms, his tail a tight noose round Krish’s waist.

  ‘They’re no danger to you,’ Olufemi said, though whether to Adofo or him, Krish couldn’t be sure. ‘The Rah feed them. They’re hoping we’ll do the same – they don’t mean to eat us.’

  ‘And when we can’t feed them?’ Dae Hyo asked. They’d had no meat for three days and these didn’t look like beasts that would savour fruit or grain. ‘I tell you what, I don’t think they’ll just walk away disappointed.’

  One of the creatures roared again, an angrier sound, and Krish thought Dae Hyo was right. They wouldn’t leave while they were still hungry. He backed away a step, only to feel Dae Hyo’s hand on his shoulder.