When the first daylight filtered into their sanctuary they were up again. Vesi's injuries forced them to travel very slowly; they seemed to be inching through the forest rather than running away. More than once Repana
ground her teeth with impatience. When a storm overtook them, thunder and lightning signaling the fury of the gods, she did not dare stop to propitiate the elements. She and Vesi must keep going. Their defection would not be forgiven by the Rasne, whose threat seemed the more immediate.
When the storm abated the two women hardly noticed. But in the silence following the thunder, Repana heard sounds in the distance that convinced her the hounds were on their trail. Holding Pepan's knife in one sweating hand, she gripped her daughter's arm with the other and dragged Vesi on. If only they could reach the glade, they might be safe from the hounds.
And if they did not ⦠well, there was no shame in being taken down by the famous hunting dogs of the Rasne. Death would be swift and sure; the animals were well trained. And it would mean Repana did not have to kill her own daughter.
At least, she told herself, they would die together. Without a formal Dying their spirits would wander aimlessly. But they would have each other ⦠and hope. It was common knowledge that those who died together in such circumstances were often rebirthed together, returning to the Earthworld if they found no home in the Netherworld.
The pursuing beasts were getting closer; she could hear them crashing through the undergrowth.
Repana frowned. The hounds of the Rasne were not usually so clumsy.
As something came rushing toward them, Repana whirled around, pushing Vesi behind her. The girl stumbled and fell with a loud cry.
Repana had been expecting dogs, but instead found herself facing an enormous, battle-scarred wild boar. Cruel yellow tusks protruded from its gaping mouth. She screamed ⦠and in that final, terrible moment, noticed
that something was wrong with its eyes. One was blasted open and suppurating. The other was opaque and glazed, like that of something dead.
Holding Pepan's knife in both hands, Repana called aloud upon Veno and prepared to die.
S
ix hooded figures stood wordlessly staring into the pool that dominated the long oval hall. A solid beam of intense white light shafted down from a circular opening in the ceiling, turning the water milky.
Sacred water, touching both Earthworld and Otherworld.
In the distance a wild dog howled. Shadows flickered across the beam of light as bats winged their way through the warm night air.
A single bubble rose to the surface of the water, gathered, then burst, sending concentric ripples flowing outward. The silent figures turned their backs on the pool and bent their heads.
Another bubble burst on the surface and then another. Soon the pool was heaving and boiling as if with a life of its own.
Abruptly, opalescent water cascaded off polished obsidian.
A smooth head emerged from the center of the pool. A flat forehead. Blind, slanted eyes. A long, narrow jaw, a slash of a mouth. White water flowed down the black surface of what appeared to be a statue as the image was more fully revealed. The slender column of a neck, sloping shoulders, and then, like a cluster of monstrous fruit, a ribcage covered by swollen black breasts tipped by enormous ruby nipples ⦠with one exception. A single breast was flat and withered, the nipple desiccated.
The statue spoke.
Her voice was sibilant but slurred, as if every word was an effort. “I have work for you.”
The six figures kept their heads bent to avoid sight of the presence in the pool. “We hear, O Great Pythia,” one, older than the others, murmured.
The dark goddess spoke again. “A particularly vicious and cunning
siu
has committed a crime against me. This demon is known to you by his original name of Bur-Sin. Until recently he was an acolyte of mine, the one I held in special favor. Then he robbed me. He took advantage of my trust to get close enough to me to fasten his mouth on my breast.”
The listeners shuddered in a mixture of religious ecstasy and terror.
“Each of my breasts has its own attributes, as you know,” the voice went on. “The one he drained has given him powers to which he was not entitled.”
The six waited, but she did not elaborate.
“I sent Otherworld minions in pursuit,” said the carven image, “but the
siu
escaped them in the Earthworld. During the chase they did succeed in injuring his bodily form however. To restore his strength he intended to tear out and eat the living heart of a human virgin. He was disturbed by the approach of another human before he had done more than open her flesh. He abandoned her and fled, but even now his child quickens within her body.”
A crescent of darkness edged the milky pool as the moon made its way through the sky, altering the angle of the shaft of light. The obsidian image, which had never risen above waist height, began to slip back into the water. Her dark form glimmered dimly through the translucent liquid.
The words were coming quicker as the level of the water began to rise. “I charge you to seek out this siu in the Earthworld. Take him captive to hold for my punishment. Locate his spawn firstâyou will find the impregnated woman among the Rasneâthen use the child as a lure to trap the father. He dare not allow it to live and thrive. Once you have the demon, destroy his child and summon me to complete his punishment. Go now ⦠and fail at your peril!” she added harshly.
“We will not fail, O Great Pythia,” one of the six whispered.
White water closed over a blind black head. The ripples died away, leaving the surface of the pool as smooth as polished glass.
The shaft of moonlight narrowed, disappeared.
Six hooded figures left the chamber without a backward glance, moving through pitch-black corridors without the benefit of torches. Their kind had no need of light.
L
owering its head, the boar charged.
Repana crouched reflexively as she struggled to recall anything useful her husband might have said about the habits of wild boar. Had he once remarked that a wild boar usually veered to the left, hooking upward with its tusks to disembowel its victim? Frantically she ransacked her memory for an echo of his words, some guidance from the Netherworld where he surely watched and waited.
She would have one chance. She must turn her body sideways to make the smallest possible target and in the same move step to the right, plunging the dagger she carried into the base of the boar's skull as it charged past.
If she failed â¦
The boar thundered across the glade; she could feel the ground shake beneath its hooves. But its behavior was most unnatural. The animal's one-eyed stare was
fixed and blind, no foam flecked its lips, no breath hissed from its nostrils. When it was five paces from her, she could smell the unmistakable odor of putrefaction. The boar was dead and rotting ⦠yet still moving.
“May the
Ais
protect us!” Repana gasped. The dagger shifted in sweat-slick hands. “Ancestors guide us ⦔
There was a blur of movement from her left.
Pepan's bronze-headed hunting spear buried itself to the haft in the beasts heavily muscled shoulder.
The boar should have squealed and turned toward its attacker or dropped to the ground and rolled to dislodge the weapon. It did neither. Instead it kept advancing with terrible intent, head lowered, dead eyes fixed on Vesi.
The Lord of the Rasne hurled himself forward, recklessly throwing his body onto the boar's back, using his weight in a desperate attempt to force it to the ground. He meant to dig his heels into the earth and try to get enough leverage to snap the animal's neck.
The boar jolted to a halt so abruptly that Pepan was thrown off in an unintentional somersault. Scrambling to his feet, he reached for his dagger, only to realize belatedly that he had given it to Repana the previous day. It was in her hand now. He could not reach it before the boar got him.
His hunting spear was lying in the long grass a little to one side. Closer than Repana and his knife ⦠but still too far.
The boar shuddered and lifted its head, flinging it angrily from side to side. Pepan blinked at the wash of foul air the beast exuded. Patches of the boar's flesh sloughed off with its violent movements. The Lord of the Rasne discovered that the film of grease and hair on his hands was composed of decomposing flesh. As he watched in horror, a flap of skin on the boar's jaw dissolved into stringy pulp, clinging to the bone by a viscous thread. Teeth gleamed yellow in the gap.
“Walk away,” Pepan said over his shoulder. He kept his eyes fixed on the beast, not daring to turn and look at the women.
“We can't,” gasped Repana. “Vesi can go no farther.”
“Then drag her! Wrap her hair around your hands and drag her to the lake. Wade out into the water; the boar will not follow you there. Even if it does,” he added grimly, “I think the rest of its flesh would fall away at the touch of clean water.”
Still Repana hesitated. “Did the Uni Ati send this thing after us, Pepan?”
“Even the Uni Ati cannot work such magic. This creature is possessed. Now go!” He heard Vesi moan and risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Repana was trying to maneuver her daughter onto her feet, but the girl resisted.
In that moment the boar gathered itself and charged again.
A terrific blow to the belly forced the air from Pepan's body, doubling him over, sending him sliding on the damp earth. He staggered to his feet with his hands pressed to his stomach. Repana was screaming behind him and there was a deeper, inner roaring as blood surged in his ears. When he tried to straighten up the pain was excruciating.
The boar was directly in front of him. Its grotesque head swayed from side to side as more gobbets of flesh fell away. The skull beneath was stark in the fading light. There was blood on the grass and blood on the creature's muzzle. For an instant Pepan thought he had injured the monster ⦠until he realized the blood was his own.
The boar's tusks had torn a ragged hole through his tunic and the skin beneath. Probing with his fingertips, he felt rib bones grate together. When he lifted his hand to his face, his palms were dark with gore.
He knew all too well the signs of fatal injury. So he would die. He was not afraid. Even if his ancestors were
not summoned for him, even if he were not guided to safety in the Netherworld, he had faith in his own ability to cope. His
hia
would survive.
The boar took a shaky step forward. Pepan distinctly heard a bone snap in its body and it lurched sideways. Its left hind leg was now dragging.
The Lord of the Rasne felt a surge of hope. If only he could keep the beast at bay for a few more moments, accelerated putrefaction would render the creature harmless. All he had to do was to keep it away from the women until it collapsed.
The boar staggered forward, enveloping Pepan in its nauseating miasma. Its jaws gaped, baring the cruel tusks.
At that moment a hand fell on his shoulder. He looked around to find Repana standing beside him, holding his hunting spear. “Go now,” he urged her. He was shocked to find his voice so weak; shocked too at the black wall of pain that was slowly enveloping him. “Run before it charges again.”
“I will not leave you.” The big woman planted the spear solidly on the ground before Pepan with its triangular head facing the boar.
“You must. My wound is fatal.”
“We will stand together,” Repana vowed grimly.
The crippled boar lunged ⦠straight onto the spearhead, which entered the animal's throat and erupted between the shoulder blades. The crossbar set onto the shaft should have prevented the boar from charging up the shaft to attack the hunter, but the beast's disintegrating flesh simply flowed around the obstacle.
In less than a heartbeat it was upon them.
Releasing Repana's hand, Pepan threw himself into the boar's gaping maw.
B
ecause he had not stopped for food or rest, Wulv was growing very tired, but he no longer had any thought of giving up. The chase was too interesting. The thing he was tracking followed no normal pattern, meandering instead in a disoriented way as if it did not have total control of its faculties. Which, he thought, was not surprising. But whatever the boar was, living or dead, natural or unnatural, Wulv had marked it as his quarry. His tenacity was a source of pride. He would destroy the monster no matter what and celebrate victory afterward.
The beast had become progressively easier to track as it disintegrated. By the time he finally caught up with it, he was afraid there would be little left to ⦠kill? But he would claim a trophy anyway; the tusks, perhaps. Properly cleaned, at least they would not stink.
He was actually imagining the arm-ring he would
make of them when he heard a male cry of pain just ahead.
Wulv ran forward with his spear balanced in his hand, ready for the throw. As he burst through the screening undergrowth he tried to see everything at once so as not to be taken by surprise, but it was hard not to be surprised by the sight that greeted him.
A tall old man had flung himself straight at the moving boar in a desperate attempt to stop it. He was obviously trying to protect a woman in a sodden blue gown. Off to one side a younger woman half-slumped against a tree, with one hand pressed over her mouth and her eyes wide with terror.
“Duck!” screamed Wulv. For the second time he hurled his spear at the boar; for the second time the weapon found its target. The beast's rotten flesh no longer had enough tensile strength to offer any resistance to the spear. With a shriek like a deflating bladder, it collapsed as the force that had animated the body fled.
For a brief moment the shadows around the creature suggested a crouching man.
Then only a pile of rotten flesh remained.
Wulv drew a shaky breath. After his last experience he was reluctant to approach the boar again. Instead he turned toward its intended victims. By the richness of their clothing and the craftsmanship of their jewelry he knew them as Etruscans. “Are you all right?” he asked abruptly.
“I am,” replied the woman in blue. “But my daughter ⦠come here, Vesi, come here to me. It's over now.” She opened her arms and the younger woman stumbled into them.
“There, there,” Repana murmured, stroking the girl's sweat-matted hair. Giving her daughter a hug, she turned toward Pepan and what she saw wrung a soft cry from her. She flung herself on the ground beside the man and tenderly cradled his head in her lap. “My lord, my lord Pepan!”
The man struggled to open his eyes. His chest felt like broken pottery. “At last ⦠,” he whispered.
“What?” She bent closer. “At last, what?”
“I am in your arms,” he said almost inaudibly.
“You sacrificed your life to save ours!”
Pepan summoned another tiny surge of strength, enough to ask, “Was I ⦠successful?”
Repana's eyes filled with tears. “You were,” she told him. She did not mention the hunter with the spear.
But Pepan's pain-dimmed eyes moved past her and, with an effort, focused on Wulv. “You,” he said.
“I, lord?” Wulv sounded nervous. He was not accustomed to having Etruscan nobility speak to him. The tribes of Etruria regarded the Teumetes as little better than beasts of the field and forest.
“You were the one who saved them. I am ⦠gratefull.”
Wulv hardly knew where to look. The woman in blue was also staring at him, but he dared not meet her eyes. She must be a queen. Surely his damaged face and crude clothing disgusted her.
“You helped save us,” she said in a low voice. “I too am grateful.”
For the first time he could remember, Wulv felt a blush heat his face.
Pepan attempted to sit up. “Help me,” he urged Repana. He slid a massive ring from one of his fingers and held it toward Wulv. “Take this,” said the Lord of the Rasne, “as a token of my gratitude. And as payment for a further service you may do me.”
Wulv echoed numbly, “A further service?”
“These womenâRepana and her daughter, Vesiâare dear to me, and they are in danger. I must entrust them to your keeping. I bid you take them deeper into the forest, all the way to the glade of stones. You know the place? Hide them there; protect them from those who pursue them.”
“I, lord?”
A little of Pepan's old command returned to his voice. “You are of the Teumetes, are you not? Therefore you know your way around the forest, and you are good with spear and knife.”
Abashed, Wulv nodded.
“I cannot command you to do this. I ask you as one man to another. You have proved you are a man of honor; a lesser man would have run away. Will you do as I ask?”
The hunter nodded again. The ring was heavy in his hand.
“I will not ask you for your word,” said the dying Rasne. “I will not bind you thus.”
“My word is given. I will protect them.”
Repana was weeping now. “But what of you, my lord?” she asked Pepan.
He tried to sound strong as he answered, “I go in a different direction to throw them off your trail. When it is safe, I will return to the
spura
and say you have escaped. I will insist that no further effort be made to pursue and punish you.”
“But the Uni Ati ⦔
“Even if she does not believe me, she will not dare call me a liar in public. Go now, the pair of you. Go with ⦠what is your name?”
“Wulv.” Even as he spoke he recognized how harsh, how barbaric his name sounded.
But Pepan did not seem to hold it against him. “Go with our friend Wulv and be safe,” he told Repana.
“I would not leave you before. What makes you think I will leave you now?” Her eyes flashed; she was ready to fight.
For the first and last time he told her, “Because I love you, and this is what I ask of you.”
Repana caught Pepan's bloody hand and brought it to her lips. “Let me stay,” she breathed, her breath moist against his flesh.
“If you stay, then all of this will have been in vain. And Vesi will still be slain.”
Slowly Repana got to her feet. She backed away from the wounded Etruscan lord and gathered her daughter into her arms. “Will we meet again?” she asked Pepan.
“We will,” he promised. “I swear it. I will always be with you. Now go. Go!”
As Wulv shepherded his new charges deeper among the trees, Repana looked back. She saw Pepan on his feet, standing erect and proud, leaning on his spear.
In the cave with glassy walls the
siu
lay stretched on the earth, recovering. The expenditure of energy required for possession was not normally so exhausting. But finding himself in a suddenly dead body had been a shock. His hold on the flesh had been tenuous, and his struggles to maintain it had only succeeded in speeding up the processes of decay. The hunter's second spear cast had been more than he could counteract, forcing him to flee in order to recoup.
In all his long experience, nothing quite like that had happened before. It did not weaken his resolve to find and kill his spawn however. If anything, his anger at being thwarted was an added stimulus.
Meanwhile six hooded figures made their way through the forest pursuing their own hunt. They did not speak, having no need to confer for they acted with one will. The command had been given; they had no choice but to obey.