Worlds That Weren't

By that time his quiver was about empty. The cannibals had churned about for a moment, eyes blinded by the fire they’d been grouped around, until more of them fell. Then they turned and ran howling at the woods from where the deadly shafts came; Robre answered, firing smooth and quick, oblivious of the shafts that were whickering around him from the swamp-devil’s bows. One had a better idea; he turned and ran yelling up the trail that led away from the riverbank. Robre drew, drew until his arms and chest felt as if the muscle would rip loose from the bone. He loosed, watched-and four seconds later that last shaft dropped out of the night into the fleeing cannibal’s back, sending him pitching forward limp at the edge of sight.

“Let’s go,” King said, his voice stark. He slapped Robre on the shoulder as he passed. “Well done, man. Well shot indeed.”

Sonjuh touched his arm, as well. “Better ’n well. That shot was three hundred paces, in the night-it’ll be told around the fires for a hundred year ’n’ more.”

“If anyone gets back to tell,” he mumbled, embarrassed.

The men spent a few hectic minutes pushing the dugouts into the current, sending them on their long journey down to the Gulf-the Black River reached the sea to the northeast of Galveston Bay. The log canoes were heavy, but none of them so heavy two strong men couldn’t shift them; they glided away silently into the darkness, turning slowly as they glided empty into the night. While they worked Sonjuh went from one body to the next with her tomahawk and knife in hand, recovering Robre’s arrows and making sure the enemy dead were unlikely to twitch. King looked up and winced slightly; the clansman blinked in surprise. The only good swamp-devil was a dead one…and for that matter, even if they deserved a favor you weren’t doing a man one leaving him with an arrow through the gut and burns over half his body.

“Let’s leave one canoe,” Robre gasped, as they finished their work. “We might be coming back faster than we go-rather not have to dog-leg a half a mile north, if that’s so.”

King nodded. “And now, let’s see what’s going on.”

Ten, Sonjuh dawtra Pehte thought exultantly as she eeled forward on her belly. Ten scalps! Ma, you can rest quiet. Mahlu, Mahjani, Bittilu, soon you can rest, my sisters.

It was not quite so dark as it had been earlier, with the moon huge on the northeastern horizon, hanging over the swamp-forest ahead. The land sloped down here, away from the section of natural levee along the river behind them. It grew thicker and ranker, laced with impenetrable vine and thicket along the trail, then opened out into cypress-swamp, glowing ghostly as the lights of many fires on islets and mounds in the muddy shallow water filtered through the thick curtains of Spanish moss. They stopped there, at the border where the trail opened out, and stared.

“Shiva Bhuteswara,” King muttered, in the odd other language he sometimes fell into. “Shiva, Lord of Goblins.”

They pullulated over the swamp, squatting in mud and on beaten-down reeds, swarming, erupting in screaming throat-rending fights that ended when others appointed to the task clubbed them down again. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. On the patches of higher ground crude altars of logs stood, with figures strapped across them-swamp-devils, and others that looked like normal men and women. Those were mostly hundreds of yards away, and she was thankful for it. What she could see brought memories back and the taste of vomit at the base of her throat. In the center stood an altar taller than the others, built on a platform of cypress logs. Standing upon it was a figure in black, silhouetted against a roaring fire. He raised his arms and silence fell, save for the screams-then a chanting, discordant at first, growing into unison.

“Tchernobog! Tchernobog! Tchernobog!”

Drums joined it, war-drums of human hide stretched over bone, thuttering to the beat of calloused palms. The beat walked in her blood, shivered in her tight-clenched teeth.

“What does that mean?” Robre asked.

“Tchernobog,” King whispered back. “Black God. Peacock Angel; the Eater of Worlds. That’s the one who taught them.” He hesitated, looked at both of them. “If I kill him, there’s a chance they’ll be demoralized and run. On the other hand, there’s a chance they’ll come straight for us. At the very least, they’ll be short of leadership beyond the kill-and-eat level. Shall I?”

Robre nodded. Sonjuh did, as well. “He’s the cause of our hurts,” she said. “Kill him!”

King nodded in the gloom, the shadow of his turban making his outline monstrous. He unslung the heavy double rifle, lay behind a fallen log, waited a long second. A silence seemed to fall about him, drinking in sound. He could be more still than any man she’d ever met, and it was a bit disconcerting-like his habit of crossing his legs in an impossible-looking position and doing what he called meditating.