Part 10 (2/2)

”It's a d.a.m.ned bluff!” Simna wanted very badly to rush forward and separate the taunting skeleton's skull from its shoulders. ”Let's finish them!”

Ehomba ignored him, straining to listen, to pierce the distant woods with hearing that was more acute than that of most men. Strive as he might, he knew that there were among his companions ears far more sensitive than his own.

”Ahlitah?”

The big cat sniffed the air even as it listened intently. After a moment, yellow eyes looked in the herdsman's direction. ”I think I hear something. It might be the wind-or it might be fleshless feet.

Hundreds of them.”

”Might be, might not be-what need for speculation?” Simna took a step forward. ”By Geewenwan, I say we put an end to this!”

”They are mounted and we are afoot,” Ehomba sensibly pointed out. ”It is a doable thing, friend Simna, but as the envoy points out, killing even the dead takes time. All of you have come this far because of me.

I will not give up your lives for a cause become yours only by accident.” Lowering his sword, he approached the envoy.

An alarmed Simna looked on uneasily. ”Etjole, I don't know what you're thinking, but don't think it!”

Halting several feet from the skeleton, Ehomba met vacant eyes with his own speculative gaze. ”You said something about us being brave enough to let pa.s.s, except there was a problem.”

The bleached skull nodded slightly. ”You have dispatched many from the Brotherhood and sent them on their final path to rest. Those who do so must take the place of at least one who has departed our company. If this is done willingly, then the others may live, and will be allowed to quit our presence still citizens of the world of the living.”

Ehomba nodded understandingly. Behind him, Simna was growing rapidly more agitated. The herdsman continued to ignore him. ”I have your word on this?”

”Here is my hand on it.” Skeletal fingers reached toward him. ”What remains of it.”

Wrapping his own long, weathered fingers around the bare white bone, Ehomba embraced the warm, smooth grip.

”Which of you will come willingly to the Brotherhood?” The envoy was looking past him. He need not have done so.

”I will.”

”What?” Behind him, Simna took a confrontational step forward. ”What's all this unG.o.dly mumbling about? Etjole, what have you promised this-this fugitive from an unhallowed grave?”

Rejoining his companions, Ehomba put both hands on the swordsman's shoulders. Inclining his head slightly, he stared hard and evenly into the smaller man's eyes.

Dropping his hands from the other man's arms, Ehomba looked up at the hulking, hirsute form of Hunkapa Aub. ”What about you? Do you believe in me, my hairy friend?”

”Hunkapa-believe in Etjole.” The broad figure replied slowly and solemnly, his response tinged with uncertainty over what was to come.

”And you, Ahlitah? What about you?” The herdsman gazed affectionately at the big cat.

It yawned. ”Do what you will. If you die, I go home. If you live, I continue with you. Only one thing I know for sure: I'm sick of the taste of marrow. So do something.”

”I will.” Turning back to the swordsman, the tall southerner smiled rea.s.suringly. ”No matter what happens, no matter what you see here, you must promise to continue the journey westward away from this place. Watch, friend Simna. Watch, and trust me.”

”Trust you? Trust you to do what? Etjole ...”

The swordsman reached for his friend but was unable to restrain him. After placing the sky-metal sword in Hunkapa's hand, a resigned Ehomba walked back to confront the expectant envoy. Halting before the skeletal warrior, the herdsman nodded once. ”I am ready.”

”Simna, do you still believe I am a mighty sorcerer?”

”Yes-but you've always denied it. I know your way with words. What trick of sophistry are you playing now?” The swordsman eyed his friend warily.

The envoy made a gesture and started to raise his sword. Ehomba lifted a hand to forestall the first cut.

”Hold! I will save you the trouble.”

Standing between the living and the dead, the herdsman parted his jaws to form a wide oval-an oval that grew large, and then larger still. It was impossible for any human mouth to open so wide. Even among the mounted skeletons there was a stirring at the sight. Among all the onlookers only Simna ibn Sind and the black litah were not shocked by the gape of the herdsman's expanding maw, for they had seen Ehomba do something similar before.

No human could part its jaws so wide-but Etjole Ehomba was more than human. He was also eromakasi. There was no darkness to eat here, no threatening eromakadi to consume. But that did not prevent him from making use of his remarkable oral abilities. Wider still stretched his jaws and lips.

Then, with a delicacy of step and perfect aplomb, his skeleton emerged from the container of his body, stepping out from within through the accommodating aperture of the herdsman's unnaturally distended mouth.

X.

Like a prosperous merchant discarding a favorite dressing gown, Etjole Ehomba's skeleton continued to slip free of his clothing and skin until it stood, white and glistening, before the silent, approving envoy.

When the last lingering flesh had been sloughed off, the mounted warriors vented a cadaverous cheer, waving their weapons in the air and reining their a.s.sorted skeletal mounts up on their hind legs in celebration.

”No!” Sword upraised, a horrified Simna rushed forward-only to fall hard as something tripped him.

Looking down, he saw, staring back at him from amid the pile of attire and skin and muscle that had moments before cloaked his companion in the garb of life, the face of his good friend. Though unnaturally flaccid and flattened in the absence of its usual st.u.r.dy frame, it was smiling rea.s.suringly.

”Calm yourself, Simna. Did I not tell you to trust me?”

Shocked, the swordsman scrabbled back on hands and knees. ”Etjole, is it you? Are you alive?”

”Alive but limp. As a wet rag, like the saying goes. Lift me up, my friend. I want to see what is happening.”

Placing a hesitant arm beneath the flattened head, Simna fought down the queasiness in his gut as he raised the soft, slightly rubbery remnant of his friend and held it where it could face their former a.s.sailants.

Having turned away from the living, Ehomba's expelled skeleton was following the envoy to the line of waiting skeletal mounts. There the envoy swung himself up onto the bare-boned back of a once n.o.ble but now wholly desiccated steed and reached down. Taking the proffered hand, the tall, slim skeleton that had just walked away from its owner leaped up onto the exposed spine.

With a final salute, the grisly members of the Brotherhood turned and, pa.s.sing in review in double file, trotted away, leaving the living to their own devices. Slack as a sack of beans, Ehomba watched them and a part of him go.

”I hope it can hang on for a while. The Naumkib are not known for their horsemans.h.i.+p.”

”It wouldn't matter anyway, bruther.” Simna followed the line of mounted skeletons as they disappeared into the trees. ”No amount of practice could prepare one for riding saddleless astride bare bone.” He looked down at his friend. ”Why have you done this?”

”To put them off.” The eyes that stared back up at him sank deeply into the limp, unsupported flesh.

”Ahlitah was right. I could hear the approaching hundreds also.”

”But the sky-metal sword! You could have tried to use it.”

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