A Triumph of Souls (17 page)

Devoid of skin and muscle they might be, but the inhabitants of these woods ran and flew and hopped and jumped with as much
energy as their more fully rounded, naturally fleshed-out counterparts. The only other observable
difference between them and their tissue-heavy relations was the degree to which they stared at the passing visitors: stared
with a degree and intensity that grimly belied their dearth of eyes. If not for the presence of healthy trees and bushes,
Simna could well have believed that they had rolled on into the land of the dead.

Studying the forest as they rattled along the increasingly ill-maintained dirt track, bumping over rocks and clumps of uncropped
weeds, they watched a misshapen panoply of normal life play itself out among the vegetation. Ehomba pointed out a skeletal
badger busily excavating a new burrow with more than adequate claws—but no pads on its feet. A great bull elk trotted past,
displaying horns that in its entirely emaciated state seemed certain to make it too top-heavy to stand up, much less run.
But it managed to stay erect nonetheless.

Once, a bobcat of bones leaped from concealment to take down a large rabbit. Normally, there is no more piercing and heart-rending
sound in the wilderness than the cry of a dying rabbit, but this one could only emit the noise of bare bones rubbing together.
Settling down to its meal, the ghostly feline began to gnaw on its victim, pinning it to the ground with limber white paws.
Biting and ripping with sharp teeth, it methodically dismembered its prey, cracking open the smaller bones to get at the marrow
within.

Tiny skeletal fledglings croaked in nests carefully built by osseous parents. A trio of cassowaries loped across a clearing,
their exposed ribs clacking against one another like castanets as they ran. Cumbersome grizzly skeletons grazed in a dense
path of wild blackberries. Occasionally one would become entangled as the thorny vines wrapped tightly around ribs or arms.
One bear-shape pushed its
snout deep into the copse, emerging with it stained blue-black by berry juice. A vine thrust upward through the underside
of the jaw to emerge from one eye socket. This vegetal invasion appeared to have no effect on the lumbering ursinoid.

Why a skeleton would need to eat was but one of many questions contemplated by the travelers. As was his nature, Ehomba very
much wanted some answers, whereas his companions simply wished to be clear of the blighted chasm as rapidly as possible. Even
Ahlitah, who had a particular taste for marrow, sensed the unwholesomeness of the place and expressed his desire to leave
it behind.

Abruptly, the wagon made a sharp swerve. “Hoy!” Simna called out as he was thrown off his feet. “Who’s steering?” Looking
around as soon as he managed to recover his equilibrium, he caught sight of Ehomba taking in the sail. “Etjole, what are you
up to, man? Surely you don’t mean for us to camp here?”

“Not camp.” The herdsman spoke while continuing his work. “But we have to stop for a moment.” By way of explanation he nodded
forward.

A large tree had fallen across the wagon track, blocking it completely. Thick underbrush on either side prevented them from
going around. The toppled trunk would have to be moved, or cut through, or else the wagon would have to be unloaded and hauled
across, with their supplies following from hand to hand, one package at a time.

“By Givouvum, what a place for a rest stop!” Grumbling loudly at the inconvenience, the swordsman vaulted over the side of
the wagon to inspect the impediment.

“A stop, yes, but from the look of it, no rest.” Ehomba was soon standing alongside his friend. Together they pondered
how best to proceed, whether to try to remove the log or move themselves across it.

Not one given to much pondering, Hunkapa Aub lumbered over to the top of the tree where it lay among a host of smaller saplings
it had smashed in the course of its fall. For a long moment he stood in silence, considering the supine column. Then he bent
his knees, gripped the upper stretch of the tree in both huge hands, and with a rolling grunt lifted it off the ground and
began to pull it deeper into the woods and off the road. Joining reluctantly in the effort, the black litah put its forehead
against the shattered base of the tree. Digging in with all four sets of claws, it pushed while Hunkapa pulled.

It took them less than ten minutes to move the trunk far enough off the track for the wagon to squeeze past. Starting back
to their vehicle, Ehomba found himself wondering how much more of the blighted forest they had yet to traverse, and whether
they would be out of it by nightfall. Hopefully, they would be far away before darkness fell, provided nothing else materialized
to impede their progress.

That feared something else took the form of several dozen figures who emerged from behind the wagon and the brush off to one
side. Each skeletal warrior carried a heavy wooden club or spear, save for several who brandished weapons confiscated from
unlucky predecessors. A few wore scavenged armor. Ill-fitting helmets of bronze and steel bounced loosely on naked, bony skulls.
Feathers and iridescent insect parts protruded from the metal crests, supplying a macabre touch of color to warriors whose
appearance was otherwise almost entirely the bleached,
chalky white of naked bone. Many of the animate advancing cadavers were missing teeth or limbs.

Worse, they stood between the travelers and their vehicle, in which all their weapons were stored.

However, they were not entirely defenseless. As sepulchral shouts rose from the gaunt, ghastly regiment and weapons were upraised,
Hunkapa Aub and Ahlitah took matters into their own hands and charged.

The shaggy man-beast’s unearthly howling combined with the big cat’s thunderous roars were enough to give even the dead pause.
As the skeletal raiders hesitated, the improbable duo tore into them. It was a revelation to Simna to see the ferocity with
which the gentle, soft-voiced Hunkapa scattered their attackers. Sword cuts failed to penetrate his thick, hairy coat, and
spears he knocked aside with sweeping sideways blows of his massive arms. Grabbing up one clattering, cackling cluster of
bones, he dismembered it as easily as the swordsman would a chicken. Ripping another assailant into pieces, Hunkapa threw
chunks of bone at its companions, bowling them over with the force of his throws. Skeletons were knocked askew or trampled
underfoot.

Eyes blazing, Ahlitah was not relying on his stentorian bellows to scatter the enemy. Powerful, curving claws severed skulls
from shoulders while heavy paws shattered vacant rib cages and limbs. The crackle of bones being crunched echoed through the
woods every time the litah’s powerful jaws locked onto another gaunt figure.

While their two nonhuman companions wreaked havoc among the surprised attackers, Ehomba and Simna made a dash for the windwagon.
Ducking beneath a spear thrust, Simna rolled into the legs of his assailant, bringing the startied
skeleton down on top of him. Reaching up and around, he locked both hands and forearms around the skull. Much to his surprise,
it was warm. Gritting his teeth, he twisted his hands and arms in opposite directions. With a snap, the neck broke and the
head came away in his fingers. As the decapitated skull tried to sink its exposed, gleaming teeth into his arm, the sickened
swordsman flung it as far as he could.

Ehomba leaped sideways to avoid a sword stroke and brought his right leg around the way Asab had shown him and the other young
men of the village when they were of an age to learn about fighting. Its legs taken out from under it, the skeleton went down
on its back. As it rolled toward him, flailing energetically but wildly with its sword, the herdsman was able to reach the
wagon. Simna joined him seconds later. While Hunkapa Aub defended one side of the vehicle and Ahlitah the other, the two men
scrambled for their weapons.

“Send the sharks after them!” Simna shouted as he picked up his own sword. Long knife gripped between its teeth, a skeletal
soldier was attempting to scramble over the side of the wagon and into the bed. The swordsman dispatched it with a single
blow that cleaved the raider from collarbone to sternum. Cut vertically nearly in half, it fell back, clutching at itself.

“I cannot!” Ehomba fumbled among the supplies. “The magic of the sea-bone sword works only on attackers made of flesh and
blood. Sharks will not attack bones. Neither will the spirit of my walking spear.”

“Hoy, then take up the sky-metal sword and call down the wind from between the stars to blow them apart!” With a grunt, Simna
stabbed a climbing warrior between
the ribs. Since his weapon met only air, it did no damage. With a curse, the swordsman drew the weapon back and hacked sideways,
beheading his adversary. That stroke had the desired effect.

“Remember, Simna, the sky-metal sword is not a shaman’s instrument, to be so casually wielded.” The herdsman indicated the
surrounding forest. “This place is too confining. If I were to succeed in bringing down the wind it would uproot trees and
send them flying in all directions, as likely to do away with us as our attackers.” He continued to busy himself in the center
of the wagon.

With barely enough time to glance in his friend’s direction, Simna finally shouted in exasperation, “By Gokhoul, bruther,
what are you doing?”

“Setting sail. Hold them off, my friends, hold them off!”

With the battle-tested Simna shouting orders, he and Hunkapa and the black litah did just that, giving Ehomba time to ready
their vehicle. As soon as the sail was up and fully set, he called out to his companions to join him within. Simna was first
back aboard, followed by Hunkapa Aub. As the wagon, under full sail, began to pick up speed, Ahlitah ran alongside, dispatching
those skeletons that tried to keep pace. Any that drew near found themselves crushed between powerful jaws or knocked asunder
by claw-tipped paws.

Only when the last of their jabbering, gesticulating, spear-waving pursuit had fallen too far behind to pose any threat did
the big cat rejoin his companions, clearing the space from ground to wagon in a single long, easy leap. Once on board he sat
back and began to lick his wounds. They were minor, nothing worse than a few scrapes and the occasional shallow cut.

“It’s nothing,” he insisted in response to Ehomba’s solicitous inquiry. “I’ve taken worse from wildebeest.” As the cat spoke,
it groomed its face and mane with moistened paw. “One time I took a blow to the stomach from the spiked tail of a full-grown
female glyptodont protecting its young. Now,
that
hurt.” Twisting its head around, it began to lick a bloody gash on its right flank. “Made the kill anyway.”

“Hoy?” Sword laid out across his knees, Simna was sitting down, his back resting against the interior wall of the wagon. The
was no blood on the blade: only the accumulated white stain of powdered bone. “I always wondered what glypto tasted like.”

“Like pork.” The black litah lifted its head suddenly, ears pricked, listening intently. Seeing this, Simna immediately scrambled
to his knees and turned to scan the dense woods through which they were racing.

“What is it? More of them in the trees? They can’t hope to run us down. As long as we have wind at our backs and clear road
ahead they’ll never catch us.”

“Footsteps.” The litah sat still as a sculpture in obsidian, listening. On the other side of the wagon, an intent Hunkapa
Aub was likewise scrutinizing the forest. “Not human. Not human skeletons, that is. Something else.”

“Something else, how?” Standing tall in the rear of the wagon, Ehomba steered them expertly down the track and past the most
egregious ruts and potholes.

“Heavier,” the litah explained bluntly.

They came tearing out of the trees off to the left, the cavalry riding not to the rescue but intent on total destruction.
There were too many to count as the windwagon, with full canvas up and traveling at top speed, negotiated
one dip and curve after another in the increasingly uneven track.

Baying like a hundred xylophones all playing in concert, skeletal warriors came pounding out of the forest on skeleton mounts,
waving their weapons over their bleached skulls as they sought to ride down the fleeing wagon. Naked pelvises sat astride
the ivory-colored spines of horses and mules, zebras and okapis, kudu and pronghorn. It was a charge the likes of which even
an experienced horseman like Simna ibn Sind had never hoped to see, a charge from Hell.

But even as their mounted assailants bore down on the fleeing travelers, the forest was thinning out around them, giving way
to more open country. A grateful Ehomba had more room in which to maneuver. No longer restricted exclusively to the narrow
wagon track, he was able to utilize the windwagon not only as a vehicle to effect their escape, but as a weapon.

When a pair of high-riding, mace-swinging skeletal warriors turned their mounts toward the rattling, bouncing wagon, Ehomba
adjusted the sail to angle the heavy vehicle not away from but directly toward them. The front end of the wagon slammed into
the startled attackers, sending a shower of broken, splintered bone flying over the passengers as their assailants were smashed
to bits. Meanwhile, any raider that rode too close risked a blow from Hunkapa Aub’s fist, Ahlitah’s paws, or Simna ibn Sind’s
sword. Grimacing ferociously, the swordsman stood up in the unstable wagon bed to taunt their attackers. He still had his
sea legs from their weeks on the
Grömsketter
, and this especially allowed him to keep his balance.

“Come on, you offspring of bastard boneheads!” Gleefully,
he waved his sword in expert circles. “Here’s a tooth longer than any of yours. Come close and see how it bites! What’s the
matter—afraid of dying?”

“Simna, it is not good to taunt the dead.”

The swordsman threw his long-faced friend a wild-eyed glance. “Tend to your tillering, bruther, and leave me to deal with
the departed. They should have stayed dead.”

Emitting hollow, sinister cries, the remainder of the skeleton cavalry whipped their mounts with whips of slivered bone and
closed on the windwagon. Try as they might, they could not surround it in sufficient numbers to overpower its passengers.
Every time it looked as if more than two of the attackers might have a chance to leap or climb aboard, Ehomba would steer
the vehicle away from their skeletal chargers. Cut down by Simna’s flashing sword or pulverized by the strength of Ahlitah
or Hunkapa Aub, their numbers were steadily reduced even as their determination was redoubled.