Worlds That Weren't

“To get help,” he said, and at Robre’s dubious look, “We have several vessels at Galveston, and this river is navigable to the coast. It’ll take me some time to get there, with Ranjit and the garrison soldiers. Your people need to be warned.”

“Am I comin’ with you?” Sonjuh asked quietly.

“My dear-” Eric winced slightly at the hurt in her eyes. “My dear, we should each go to our own people now. Believe me, it’s best.”

She nodded quietly and picked up her pack, rising and turning away. He winced again, for himself, and then shrugged. Well, I’ll be over it by the time we make the coast. If we make the coast. Six guns was not much to run that river of darkness.

“Let’s go,” he said briskly.

Robre Hunter rose up from behind the overturned oxcart and loosed once more. The fresh wound in his left arm weakened the draw, but the target was only thirty feet away-and the swamp-devil went down coughing out blood, with the arrowhead through the upper part of his right lung. The others wavered and fell back a little; they were the outer wave of the onrushing cannibal flood, a scouting party. The clansman looked behind him; the last of the settlers they’d warned were out of the road through the woods, and probably across the cornfield. He worked a dry mouth, hawked, spat, suddenly conscious.

“Let’s go!” he called.

Slasher came out of the brush on the left side of the trail, licking wet jaws. Sonjuh came from the right, her bright hair hidden by an improvised bandage with a little blood leaking through it, almost like a wife’s headscarf.

Robre looked back down the road; there were swamp-devil bodies scattered along it, and two of the men who’d come back from the Black River with them. It galled him to leave the dead men for the enemy to eat, but there was nothing that could be done-it was a miracle so many of the settlers had gotten away. Pillars of smoke smudged the horizon, from burning cabins and hayricks and barns, filling the air with the filthy smell of things that should not burn, but far fewer of his people were dead in them than might have been.

Sonjuh flashed him a brief smile. Ten miles of grit and bottom that girl has and no mistake, the hunter thought admiringly. Aloud, he went on: “Let’s run.”

They turned and trotted out of the woods. The fields beyond still had occasional oak and hickory stumps in them-this was ax-claim land-but mostly they were full of cornstalks, tall and dryly rustling. The rutted path through them showed the twelve-foot logs of the station stockade; it was littered with goods refugees had dropped…and the narrow gate was closed.

A howling broke out behind them, far closer than he liked; the swamp-devils had found the bodies of their scouting party.

“Made your tally of scalps yet?” he gasped to the girl running beside him, bow pumping in his hand as he bounded ahead. She kept pace easily, despite his longer stride.

“I have,” she said. “Doesn’t seem so important, no more.”

Well, that’s different, he thought.

The howls behind them grew louder; the two clansfolk gave each other a glance and stepped up the pace, almost sprinting. Normally a half-mile wouldn’t be anything much, but they’d been running and fighting for near a week now, and even their iron fund of endurance was running low. Slasher panted, as well, tongue unreeled, his gray fur matted with blood; some of it was his, and he limped a little.

“No use telling them to open the gate,” Robre grunted, as an arrow went whissst-thunk! into the red mud behind him. “We’ll have to go over. You first.”

“Won’t hear me complaining,” Sonjuh gasped.

Robre looked over his shoulder. The swamp-devils had hesitated a little; the sun was shining directly into their eyes as they pursued, and they weren’t enthusiastic about coming into the open in daylight anyway. But they were coming on now, not graceful on their short powerful legs, but as enduring as one of the Imperials’ steam engines. At the sight of two enemies on foot, their screeching ran up the scale to the blood-trill, and even now the hair along Robre’s spine tried to stand up.

“Lord o’ Sky with us!” he shouted, and made a final burst of speed.