A Triumph of Souls (21 page)

Suddenly he was out of the water, high and dry, heaved skyward by a robust thrust from below. No gigantic eel bursting from
the depths this time, but the hand of Hunkapa Aub, lifting him from beneath. Effortlessly, the herdsman’s huge companion placed
his angular friend on broad, hirsute shoulders. In this manner Ehomba rode in comparative comfort the rest of the way to the
shore. Only his ears suffered, bruised by an unending stream of blistering profanities from the struggling Simna, who, forced
to swim, trailed well behind.

A
s they drew themselves up on the reed-lined, accommodating bank, they scanned the now distant opposite shore for signs of
their pursuers. But the Brotherhood of the Bone, unable to cross by swimming or riding, had given up and gone back to the
dark, sheltering forest that was their refuge and abode. The weary travelers were safe, if once more afoot.

Taking a seat on the gentle, grassy slope, Ehomba unpacked his gear and spread it out beside him to dry in the sun. Like a
high-priced overstuffed rug liberated from a sultan’s palace, Hunkapa Aub sprawled nearby, basking gloriously in the heat
of midday. The herdsman watched gravely as the windwagon that had carried them so far and so well slowly drifted off downstream,
sinking slowly into the riverine depths.

Nearby, an exhausted Simna finally emerged, dripping, from the water. Stumbling up the bank, he tossed his pack to one side,
not caring if it spilled its contents all over the grass. Through no effort of his own, it did not. His sword he slipped back
into its scabbard, which he then removed
and dumped next to the pack. Swaying slightly, murky water and the occasional tadpole running off him in rivulets, he staggered
over to where the black litah lay panting. Its forepaws lay on the crushed throat of the great eel. As the sodden swordsman
approached, the magnificently maned cranium swiveled slowly to regard him.

Halting before the cat and its kill, Simna stiffly dipped his head and made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “Look before
you leap, my master at arms always told me. I admit it: There are times when I’m forgetful.”

The litah replied thoughtfully. “There are times when you’re an idiot.”

Gritting his teeth, Simna looked off to one side for a long moment. Still breathing hard, he rested one hand on a knee. “You’re
not making this any easier for me, cat. I came over to thank you for saving my life.”

Massive eyebrows rose haughtily. “Saving your life? Did I save your life? Dear me, I suppose I did.” Ahlitah turned back to
his kill. “If it will make you feel any better, I assure you it was coincidental. It’s just that I happen to be very fond
of eel.” With that, the great head dipped forward and puissant teeth tore into the slick, green-black flesh.

“Hoy, well, thank you anyway, thou maestro of piquant sprays. Simna ibn Sind embraces chance salvation over intentional abstention
any day.” Stumbling as he turned, he made his unsteady way back to the place on the bank where he had dropped his gear. Behind
him, the clear warm air of afternoon was filled with contented crunching sounds.

Exhausted, and mentally as well as physically spent from their exertions of the morning, they made camp in a thick copse of
impressive shade trees not far from the river. The
woods on the western bank closely resembled those they had passed through on the opposite shore, except that on the western
side larger trees were fewer and farther between.

“These woods seem to be thinning out.” Seated next to the campfire, Ehomba reached down to give the wooden spit on which their
evening meal of freshly caught fish was broiling another turn. “If that turns out to be so, it is a great shame. We could
have made good use of the windwagon on open plains.”

Lying on the other side of the fire with his head against the pillowing flank of Hunkapa Aub, Simna watched the meal cook.
Hungry as he was, the tantalizing aroma that rose from the sizzling fish verged on the sensuous.

“Hoy, long bruther, we’ve traversed desert and veldt, mountain and marsh on foot before. By Gumitharap’s calluses, we’ll cross
whatever lies before us as well.”

Ehomba smiled fondly over the flames at his sometimes trying but ever willing friend. “Optimism becomes you, Simna.”

The swordsman looked up and grinned. “Not being dead does wonders for a man’s spirits.” Lifting his head and glancing to one
side, he indicated a slowly heaving dark mass lying off by itself a little ways away from the fire. Having ingested an unholy
vast quantity of eel, the black litah was locked in a sleep that mimicked the deceased.

“Kitty there won’t own up to it, but he saved my life. I don’t buy all that pompous indifference about his just being after
a meal. He could catch fish anytime. He knew what he was doing.”

“I suspect that you are right, my friend.” Rising, the herdsman wiped down the front of his kilt. “I was thinking
how nice it would be to have something else to eat with the fish. I think we passed a fruit tree a little ways back, and I
know I saw some mushrooms.” Picking up his spear, he started away from the fire and into the forest.

“Don’t go too far, bruther,” Simna exclaimed warningly. “We don’t know these woods. There may not be any possessive, ambulatory
collections of bones click-clacking about, but unknown nights often hide all sorts of hungry beasties.”

Ehomba replied without looking back. “I remember the tree as only being a little ways from camp, Simna. You rest here, and
do not let our supper burn.”

“No chance of that, famished as I am.” Sitting up and away from Hunkapa Aub, who snorted and rubbed his nose briskly in his
sleep, the swordsman gave the improvised spit another turn.

With half the moon and all the stars to guide him, the herdsman worked his way back through the woods until the campfire was
only a distant flickering among the trees. Convinced that he had already wandered too far, he tried a little more to his left—and
there was the tree he had remembered passing. It was a wild orange, its limbs bristling with long thorns. Their presence did
not worry him because he had no intention of trying to climb into those protected branches.

Using the ancient but still sharp tooth that tipped his spear, he cut away the ripest of the brightly colored spheres within
reach. Each time a severed stem fell, the faintest, most ethereal of roars could be heard. Sometimes the spirit of the tooth
could be invoked for purposes other than engendering mass confusion and destruction: gathering oranges, for example.

With the aid of the spear it only took a few minutes to accumulate enough of the juice-heavy fruit to more than sate himself
and his friends. He knew that Hunkapa Aub would probably eat Ahlitah’s share. To the best of Ehomba’s knowledge, large carnivorous
cats were not fond of fruit.

Slinging his spear against his back, he made a basket out of the folds of his kilt and filled the resultant concavity with
the best of the oranges. Nearby, he located the mushrooms he had passed earlier and added several handfuls of the tasty fungi
to his growing accumulation. Satisfied, he started back toward camp.

He was within sight of the fire when something sprang silently from behind one of the trees he was passing to press an incredibly
sharp knife tightly against his neck. His hands dropped, sending mushrooms and oranges spilling to the ground, rolling away
from his feet. Despite his acute herdsman’s senses, he had not seen or heard his assailant. Or smelled it, which was not surprising
when its nature became apparent to him. It had no smell.

Old bones generally did not.

“Surprised to see me, swindler of promises?” The voice was breathy, unnatural, and familiar. It belonged to the envoy of the
Brotherhood of the Bone.

“Very much so.” The edge of the bone knife dimpling his throat was sharp enough to cleave a notion. “From what I saw, I did
not think any of you or your brethren could swim the river, or walk across its bottom.”

Whispering in his ear, the skeleton smiled. “Who said anything about swimming or walking?”

“Then how did you get across?” With the bony rib cage pressing hard against his back, Ehomba could not reach his
spear. His swords lay back in camp, laid out neat and useless alongside his blanket.

“Flew, of course.” A spectral chuckle rattled the vacant chest. “Dead dragonets carried me. It was hard for them, but there
was no choice. I couldn’t use dead birds. When they die, they lose their feathers along with their flesh. But bats and dragonets
retain their wing membranes for quite a while. Took a dozen of them to bring me over, and they’ll never make it back. Their
wings are too frayed, too desiccated. It doesn’t matter. They were dead before they took off from the other bank anyway. Dead
here, dead there: Location means nothing, and doesn’t change anything.”

Ehomba stood perfectly still. “That means you are marooned here now as well, and will never be able to rejoin the Brotherhood.”

Teeth chattered. “No, but I’ll have something better. I’ll have their revenge. You promised your bones to us in return for
our letting your friends go. Then you called them back. Charlatan.” The edge of the knife pressed a little deeper. The herdsman
felt a tiny trickle of warmth start to flow down past his collarbone to his chest.

“I did no such thing,” he protested softly. “I left you my insides, as was agreed. If they preferred my company to yours,
that is no reason to blame me.”

“Isn’t it? As if you didn’t know they would find a way to return to you.”

“Actually, I was not sure. I hoped they would. I need my insides. They are of more use to me than to you.”

“They won’t be, in a moment.”

“Bruther, what… ?” Holding his sword in a firm, two-handed grip, Simna stepped out of the shadows. The
looming mass of Hunkapa Aub stood to one side of him, a softly growling Ahlitah on the other.

“Keep your distance!” the envoy shouted warningly.

“Etjole…” Seeing the knife that was gripped in the skeleton’s hand, the swordsman measured the distance between them. Too
far. “If you cut him…” he began.

“What?” The envoy cackled amusedly. “You’ll kill me? You’re more than a century too late to make that threat hold up, traveler.
When I’m through with him, maybe I’ll have your bones too. They look to be an interesting set, all squashed down and out as
they are.”

Simna looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he was interrupted by a loud
crack
, the dry cry of splitting wood. Automatically, everyone’s gaze snapped upward into the night. Everyone’s, that is, except
Ehomba’s. The instant the skeletal assassin’s attention was diverted, he broke free of the bony grip and threw himself forward
and down. Reacting, the envoy of the Brotherhood raised the knife, hewn from the shinbone of a comrade, and was about to strike
lethally downward when the enormous broken bough landed on top of him with a reverberating crash.

Bones and splinters went flying in all directions. Rolling away from the impact, Ehomba stared at the branch that had crushed
his would-be executioner. The bleached skull was no longer intact or visible, having been pulverized by the considerable weight
of falling wood. Leg and arm and rib bones lay scattered everywhere.

His friends were at his side before the dust settled. Hunkapa Aub simply lifted the herdsman bodily and set him on his feet.
Feeling of the cut that had been made to his throat, Ehomba knew he would have to wear a bandage there for a few days at least.
Had it gone half an inch
deeper his life would be gushing out between his fingers. The falling branch had startled the envoy for barely an instant,
just long enough to allow his captive to break away.

Now the bones of the murderous, spectral visitant lay strewn across the ground, dispersed and harmless.

Satisfied that their friend and guide was not seriously injured, Hunkapa Aub and the black litah returned to camp. Simna remained
to inspect the shattered bough. Having fallen from somewhere halfway up the side of a truly imposing trunk, the branch was
greater in diameter than many of the mature trees nearby.

“That’s what I call a lucky break,” the swordsman commented. “It doesn’t look rotten, and I see no evidence of termites or
other insects having been at work, so something else must have caused it to fall.” He gazed evenly at his tall companion.
“Fall just then, and just there. I don’t suppose a man who continually denies being a wizard but who can step out of his own
skin would have had anything to do with that?”

Having brushed himself off, Ehomba had bent to recover as many of the spilled mushrooms and oranges as he could. Like the
envoy, many had been squashed beneath the weight of the broken branch. Whatever he scavenged would have to do. He was not
going back into the forest in search of replacements. One nearly fatal fruit-gathering expedition a night was enough.

“As a matter of fact, Simna, I did not. Grateful as I am, it was as much of a surprise to me as to the rest of you.”

“Hoy, right, sure.” The swordsman wore a peevish expression. “That’s what you always say, bruther. You just happened to be
standing under that branch, and it just happened to break and fall right on that homicidal stack of
bones. No magic, no sorcery. Just coincidence, and nothing more.”

Having picked up those oranges and mushrooms that were unbruised, Ehomba glanced over at his companion. “I cannot explain
it, Simna. But I know that there are times in a man’s life when it is best not to question things too closely.” Tilting his
head back slightly, he sniffed of the night air. “Something is burning.”

“Our supper!” Whirling, Simna broke into a run, but not before looking back over his shoulder as he darted past his friend.
“By Gnomost’s gneels, if I didn’t know better, I’d
swear
I’d seen that tree before. Funny thing, that.”

“Yes.” Ehomba too spared a last, lingering glance for the immense old oak as he followed his frantic companion back into camp
at a more leisurely pace.

The incident was not discussed as they ate, but everyone watched the surrounding woods a little more closely, paid a bit more
attention to the distant rustlings and rattlings of the nocturnal forest creatures. The fish was delicious, not badly burned
as Simna had feared, but only thoroughly cooked. As Ehomba had surmised, the addition of broiled mushrooms to the meal and
wild oranges for dessert was an excellent complement to the main course. Even Ahlitah tried a little of everything, much to
the surprise of both his human companions.