01 - The Burning Shore (30 page)

And yet, although they now had the excuse to slog back out of here, Florin
couldn’t quite bring himself to take it. He told himself that it was because of
the gold that might lie beyond, and it was.

At least, it was in part.

But there was also van Delft. For some reason that he didn’t quite
understand, Florin had fallen prey to the urge to impress the old man.

“Damn it all,” he muttered to himself. “Let’s impress him then.”

“What was that, boss?”

“I said, let’s press on for another hour or so. See if we can’t find a body,
hey?”

“That is a good idea,” one of the men muttered sarcastically behind him as
Florin led off, swishing a machete idly in front of him as he struggled up the
slope.

“Look out for tracks leading off to the sides,” he called back to his little
patrol.

“Come on then,” Bertrand reluctantly decided as Florin disappeared into the
mist. “Look lively. Let’s get it over with.”

“Can’t we just kill him?”

“Don’t even joke about it.”

It was difficult to keep track of time in the depths of this world. The
endless pillars of jostling trunks, and the suffocating mass of foliage and
vines they supported, sealed the men off from the sky above. Only the occasional
shaft of dazzling light that cut miraculously through the tons of tangled
vegetation above gave them any indication of the sun’s progress.

It was difficult to keep track of how far they’d walked, too, when every step
was a battle against clinging mud or snatching creepers. After a mere fortnight,
it seemed, the jungle was already surging back into the path the intruders had
cut, choking it closed with jealous fingers of vines, thorns and heavy, trailing
sheets of ivy.

Florin, who’d made the mistake of touching one such obstacle, was already
nursing a hand as swollen and red as a pound of sausages. Occasionally, he tried
to squeeze it closed into a fist, which eased the itching for a few seconds by
making his skin feel as though it would burst.

He was about ready to damn van Delft and return to the relative comfort of
his camp when the first hint of a breeze whispered across his brow. Soon the
cloying humidity through which they had struggled lifted, shuffled away by the
cool fingers of a freshening wind. Up ahead, as if in response, the gloom
lifted.

“Looks like we’ve reached the ridge,” Florin told his men, stumbling forward
into a sun-washed clearing. As he looked back over the valley Florin realized
that this was where they’d first seen the temples, all those weeks ago.

Now, standing in the withering heat of the afternoon sun, the four men turned
and stared back down at the city. The peaks of the ziggurats jutted up
aggressively from the canopy, their heights dark and brooding despite the
dazzling sunlight.

“We’ll take a rest here and then head on back,” Florin decided. He uncorked
his flask, taking a deep, gurgling swig, and then passed it on. “I think we’ve
come far enough.”

“I think we’d all agree with you on that one, boss.” Bertrand smiled, and
wiped a rag across his flushed face.

Florin grunted and turned his attention back to the endless green expanse
that rolled away beneath them. Who knew what other cities might be buried
beneath that vast expanse, their granite bones littered with treasures?

Behind him there was a clunk and the gurgle of spilling water.

“Careful with that,” one of the men said. “I haven’t had a drink yet.”

True, Florin considered, we haven’t found enough gold to pay for our
expedition yet. But it’s still early. We really need to send out parties to see
what else Kereveld’s damned sorceries might have turned up.

“Are you all right, Bertrand?” said a voice behind Florin, and he . turned to
find the Bretonnian collapsed onto the tangled mat that covered the ground.

“Must be the heat,” Florin said, joining the other two men as they bent over
their comrade. “Let’s put him into the shade, shall we?”

They grabbed hold of their comrade, but as soon as they’d done so a second
man fell forward as bonelessly as if he’d been pole-axed.

“Damn!” Florin exclaimed, and exchanged a glance with the last man standing.
“We should have brought more water.”

“I suppose you’re right, boss.”

It was the last thing the mercenary said. No sooner were the words out of his
mouth than a puff of feathered cotton, no bigger than a man’s thumb, appeared in
the side of his neck.

“Damn,” Florin repeated, his pulse racing in sudden fright. He stood back and
drew his sword, examining the surrounding shrub suspiciously. Something snapped
behind him and he whipped around to see what it was.

The movement came just in time to save him. The white feathered dart that had
been aimed at his neck punched instead into the leather of his shoulder strap,
the soft cloud of its tail close enough to tickle his chin.

Florin plucked it free, snatched a glance at the splinter of blue bone
jutting out from the burst of cotton, and bolted.

He got four paces before, with a pinch as painless as a mosquito bite, a drop
of venom sent him crashing insensibly to the ground.

Florin’s eyes fluttered open briefly, then squeezed tightly shut against the
painful brightness.

It didn’t help. As soon as his lids were closed a kaleidoscope of exploding
stars replaced the ice pick of daylight, the wheeling confusion racking his
trembling body with a sudden nausea.

Ignoring the splash of the water in which he’d been slumped, Florin lurched
forward, his stomach clenching as the acid rush of vomit burst from his throat.

I’ll never drink again, he promised himself desperately. Not even socially.

Heaving up the last contents of his stomach, Florin tried to roll away from
the mess, tried to curl up into a ball and slip once more into unconsciousness.
But he couldn’t.

Reluctantly, he felt himself becoming fully awake. It wasn’t very pleasant.
Apart from the spike that felt as if it had been driven into his head, and the
rolling nausea, there were other discomforts.

The burning pain in his hands and wrists, for example.

Squinting as hard he tipped his head back and examined the knotted vine that
bound his wrists together. They had been tied above him, clasped tight together
above an iron-hard length of bamboo from which he dangled, like a slaughtered
pig ready to be gutted.

Suddenly, Florin found himself wondering if this was just a hangover.
However, even as he wondered, an image flashed through his fuddled thoughts, an
image of a tiny dart and an unconscious man.

He pulled tentatively against his bonds, and a thousand shards of pain burst
into life beneath the swollen flesh of his hands, pins and needles.

With another queasy lurch of his stomach Florin pushed the image away and
looked around him blearily He realized that the bamboo pole upon which he had
been hung was one of many—a tight grid which chequered the sky above.

The realisation that he was in some sort of cage hit him and he groaned with
fresh misery.

What made it even worse was that this was like no kind of cage he had seen
before. There wasn’t a single piece of iron in its construction, nor of stone,
nor of planed wood. Instead there was a vast, complicatedly woven mass of bamboo
stalks and braided creepers, their lengths studded with thorns as sharp as a
serpent’s teeth. These materials, still green with life, had been woven around
him in something akin to a vast basket, the lower half of which disappeared into
the torpid depths of a river pool.

Florin blinked away the last of the crusted tears that had blurred his vision
and looked down at the tepid water that flowed sluggishly past his chest. It
occurred to him that being strung up like this had probably saved his life. One
drunken lungful of this filthy river would have put an end to him as surely as a
sword’s edge.

That was not much comfort, of course.

“Give me water.”

Florin started at the voice and turned, blinking into the patchwork of
sunlight and shadow beside him. A gaunt face looked back at him, as hollow-eyed
and pale as a skull beneath the sodden mat of its straggling hair.

“Bertrand,” Florin croaked, and tried to smile. “You’re looking well this
morning.”

“Water,” he repeated feebly, and Florin noticed how wide his pupils were,
massive with either dope or delirium.

“Don’t worry, mate,” Florin told him, with forced good cheer. “There’s water
enough for both of us.”

Bertrand rolled his head to one side, a flicker of recognition touched his
face.

“Costas?” he said. “Hey Costas! Give me the flask. I don’t feel so… so
good.”

Florin chewed his lip thoughtfully and looked down at the surface of the
river. It was clouded with the rotten detritus of an entire jungle. Even boiled
and strained it would be a risky way of quenching a thirst, but to drink it in
this state a man would have to be desperate indeed.

“Bertrand,” Florin decided, trying to ignore how swollen his own tongue
suddenly felt. “Look down. There’s water everywhere.”

Bertrand looked at him blankly.

“Look down,” Florin repeated patiently, gesturing with his head.

This time his companion understood. He nodded and dropped his face towards
the rippling surface of the river like a cow bending down to drink at a trough.

But even as he opened his mouth to drink he was brought up short. Hanging
there, the knots of his spine pale beneath his grimy flesh, Bertrand flicked the
dry leather of his tongue towards the water.

It was no use. Whether by accident or design he had been suspended a fraction
of an inch too high to be able to drink. Florin tried himself, thrusting his
head down so far that his shoulder blades touched and his throat tightened. He
pushed out his own tongue, making a clown’s mask in the murky reflection he saw
in the fetid liquid, but to no avail.

“Swine,” he swore vaguely, pulling his head back up. Now that he knew that
the water was out of reach, his thirst began to burn as brightly as his anger.

Bertrand was still fighting against the stretched tendons and locked joints
that kept him from snatching a taste of the water below. He whimpered pitifully
with the strain of his contortions, body and soul torn by the sheer desperation
of his predicament.

Florin watched the pitiful sight for a long moment, remembering how he alone
had wanted to press on after finding the Kislevite’s hat. If he hadn’t been such
a fool they wouldn’t be in this—

Never mind that now, he told himself sharply: Think.

Without knowing that he was doing it, Florin began to grind his teeth. He
peered upwards again trying to see how his hands had been tied. It was no use.
The knots, as well as his paralysed fingers were hidden behind the bamboo. He
tried to pull himself up, but with the strain came a terrible numbness that was
somehow worse than the pain.

Florin quickly lowered himself back into the river even before he noticed the
thin rivulet of dark blood that had begun to trickle down his wrist.

On the other side of the cage Bertrand started to sob. It was a hopeless,
tearless weeping, an eerie sound for such a man to make. It worked upon Florin’s
nerves like a scalpel.

“Hey, Bertrand,” Florin called out. “Bertrand!”

But the man was lost in his own personal hell of poison and thirst; Florin’s
cries fell upon deaf ears.

“Bertrand!”

It was almost an hour before the mercenary fell silent. An hour in which the
sun climbed higher into the sky, the burning glory of its strength beating down
upon the cage like a smith upon an anvil. An hour in which the water became
blood warm, enlivening the leeches that found them, squeezing the blood from
their veins as painlessly as the heat wrung every last drop of sweat out of
them.

An hour in which the two men’s bodies grew weaker as their thirst grew
stronger—a torture that was made all the worse by the constant gurgle of the
water that flowed past their dehydrating bodies.

All the while, hidden by shadow, instinct and long, long practice, the
builders of the cage watched their captives. They watched with ice-cold eyes and
limitless patience, their minds still with a serenity that no human suffering
could ever touch. Later, when the cries of the weakest man faded to nothing, a
silent command was given by their leader; a flick of a tail sent a group of the
silent watchers swarming soundlessly towards the cage.

Amongst the breed that served the race in this capacity, Xinthua Tzeqal was
one of the youngest. He had seen scarcely more than three thousand orbits of
this world since crawling from his birthing pool, and the patchwork of
continents, the massive stone slabs that glided across his planet’s skin like
lily pads across a pond, had not moved more than a few miles.

Still, his breed had not been created for impetuousness; he had only made one
of youth’s errors. It had been whilst fighting the long ears in the North. There
had been a retreat and, despite the fact that he knew how easily replaced their
lives were, he had allowed contemplation of his shattered kindred to cloud his
mind. Anger had muddied his thoughts as silt muddies water and he had moved
hastily.