Demon Night, page 3
The odors of roasting fowl, beef and bread carried on the smoke which rose from the chimney, increasing Sonja’s already ravenous hunger.
Sobut opened the heavy wooden door, then held back to let Sonja enter before him. Sonja chuckled lightly and pushed the man on ahead, pulled the door closed behind her when she was inside.
Perhaps fifty wide-eyed faces turned to look at her. Fifty noisy voices fell silent of a sudden; the loud laughter, the hammer of cups on the board, the creak of stools, the clank of eating utensils, all dwindled quickly into a silence that might have filled the Hall of the Dead.
Sobut sighed and pointed towards an empty table. “Come,” he told Sonja. “I see we’re just in time to break fast with Hovar’s company.”
Disregarding the stares aimed at her, Sonja made her way to a chair and a cupful of cool, strong wine.
* * *
“I’m going in alone, ” Gevem told the men near him. “It will be easiest and safest. Send a message by smoke to Captain Keldum at sundown if I have not returned by then. But I don’t think we have aught to fear.” He smiled crookedly, stared down at the trail of hoofprints in the grass, wiped his hands together.
“But should you take her on alone, Commander? Would it not be better that part of our company go with—?”
“No! That might only alert her—or antagonize whoever rules within those walls. Red Sonja’s tired, famished, perhaps even near to death, and she’s in that city because it offered her her only possible protection. I can do better alone, with my badges of Zamoran authority, than could an army.
“Now, stay here—do you understand? Follow my orders exactly. If all goes well, I will return ere night falls, with Red Sonja in chains.”
With that, Gevem kneed his horse ahead and galloped down the slope into the valley where the city lay. Behind him sat his company, ordered only to wait and waste the day in the steppeland.
Peth dismounted soberly, led his horse away from the others to a clump of thorny trees, tethered it to a bough, then sat down in the grass. Removing his bits of bone from the pouch in which he carried them, he began to hum as he shuffled them within one closed palm. The other soldiers ignored him and began telling crude jokes and breaking out rations for the day. Peth hummed to himself, shook his bones, then let them drop to the ground in scattered patterns. Carefully, he studied the fall of the bones…
* * *
“What think you, Mophis?” Hefei asked of her eldest seer and heirophant.
They had deemed it proper to make an inspection of the sacrifices which had been placed outside the walls early the previous night. With their retinue of city officers and priests and priestesses, and their attendants, they had been carried in their decorated litters through the gloomy streets to the northern wall and out the gate, onto the plain where the six posts thrust in the earth displayed their gory trophies.
Hefei was a large woman, dressed in vari-colored robes bedecked with fine gems and artistic jewelries that belied the poverty-stricken exterior of her city. Her flesh hung on her, drooping from her cheeks and chins, arms and belly. Her hair, yet dark in places, was predominantly gray with streaks of silver. There were veiny bags under her eyes, and wrinkles—and yet the eyes themselves shone with dark clarity.
Mophis was tall, cadaverous, pale as the wind. His head was shaved, his fingernails long-grown and painted. When he spoke, it was quietly and with a lisp. Critically he now studied the ruined remains of the six female sacrifices. The blood had been drained from the bodies, the skin was taut and stained, tainted. The small crawling things of decay had already begun their work.
“I think,” replied Mophis—loudly, so that all might hear—“that our ceremony was successful. The Earth-folk are pleased—they accept our sacrifices. These women are drained of blood.”
“Then the demons of this place are appeased?” queried Hefei from her litter.
“Aye—for the time.” Mophis’ eyes did not leave the shrivelled bodies tied to the posts. “But one more such sacrifice at the full moon may be necessary.”
“Be sure, Mophis,” Hefei answered him, her voice rising as if with agitation. “You promised us that the time of their Feasting would be averted. Our city cannot exist with the threat of the Folk breathing down upon us.”
“I will examine my charts again, and consult new oracles and burn new incenses, O Mistress,” announced Mophis, looking up to her, now, with concern in his eyes. “But fear not—rarely do my predictions go astray.”
“Rarely—?” Hefei began, then halted. Best not to speak in public if the priest was indeed uncertain. Mophis could be disquieting sometimes. With a remonstrating glance to her chief priest that told him she would hear no more, Hefei clapped her hands and gestured for her litter-bearers to carry her back inside the walls.
But when she and her train reached the inner court of the north gate they stopped, for there was a wild commotion in the street. A crowd of soldiers blocked the path, many whooping with excitement. Hefei craned her heavy neck out of her palanquin, but could discern little—the merest hint of a scuffle near one of the barracks houses. The clash of swords came to her ears, together with cries and taunts.
“Stab her, Perith!”
“Take him, lass!”
“Flame-haired vixen! Slay my friend, will you? Ill stick this blade where you’ll—!”
Howls of rage, a scream of pain, whoops of laughter and derision—
Then above the pandemonium carried the brash, strident note of a trumpet. A loud, authoritative voice called out: “Cease now—by order of Hefei’s honor guard, I command it!”
Still the scuffle continued, but at the sight of Hefei’s palanquin the noise and commotion died down. Only the sound of a few swords clacking rose amid the silence and the dust.
Again the horn, insistent and angry.
“What’s happening?” demanded Hefei. “Bearers—set this litter down!”
They did so. Hefei stepped out, disdaining that any of her retinue should touch or aid her, and strode through the parting crowds toward the fray.
“Come ahead, dogs, and meet your mothers in hell!” rang out a brash female voice above the scrape of steel. “By Erlik! Come at me, fools, and I’ll spill your guts! You’ll—!”
“Stop! It is 1, Hefei—your Mistress!”
The swords fell silent; the red-haired woman’s antagonists—three of them—fell back at the sight of Hefei making her presence known.
Sonja glared at her angrily, panting, her wild crimson hair in disarray, her skin glistening with sweat, the sword in her hand stained red.
“And who be you?” she yelled, the fury of battle still on her. “Come ahead—take up steel and face me! These men won’t, if men they—!”
“Silence, woman!” Hefei’s voice contained a command. Her eyes scowled balefully. Sonja held check on herself, let drop her sword-point, and studied this large, regal woman more carefully.
“Who are you?” Hefei demanded, not advancing, but holding Sonja in place with the power of her stare.
Sonja sneered. “I am Red Sonja, of Hyrkania,” she answered between gasps of breath. “And who are you?”
“Hefei, Mistress of this city.” She announced it with imperiousness; then, gravely, she looked about her north gate’s inner court. Two men lay in pools of blood. “Did you slay these men, Sonja of Hyrkania?”
“Aye. They asked for it. Any dog who-”
“By what right do you come as a stranger into Elkad, to rend and slay?” Hefei demanded. “Do you think you’re some goddess of judgement? Obviously you’re some trollop handy with a blade; does that entitle you to draw blood where you like?”
Sonja felt her anger rising. “Mitra’s throne, but these dogs—!”
“Wait, Mistress—-” It was Sobut who interrupted. “I would speak to you, if I may.” He came forward across the court and bowed humbly before Hefei.
“Speak, then.”
“By your leave, Mistress. This woman appeared at our gates last night, exhausted and hungry, begging entrance. I let her in and allowed her to sleep in the stables. This morning it seemed to me only hospitable to bring her to the barracks for breakfast before sending her on her way.
“As you can see, she is not only a woman but a fine warrior. A number of rascals in this company saw fit to pester her, but I offer myself as witness, Mistress Hefei, that they attacked her first. She was not the first to draw steel; nor was she, as you can see by that wound on her arm, the only one to draw blood.”
Hefei studied Sobut for a long moment; her glance shifted abruptly to Red Sonja, who yet stood panting and erect, sword drawn and pointed to the earth, back against the outer barracks wall. “Is this true, Hyrkanian?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“All of it?”
“Aye. I lost my way in the steppeland, and came to your gates last night. Commander Sobut was good enough to lend me a place to rest and promise me a meal. These unchained dogs managed the rest of it. I didn’t seek to provoke them, but they were eager to know if I could use the sword I carry. They found out.”
Hefei smiled darkly. “Put up your sword, Red Sonja.”
Sonja did not move.
“You will come with me to the city palace. I would speak with you. You will not be harmed. But if you will not come peacefully—” She gestured to Mophis.
The wizened priest reached inside his left sleeve and brought forth a long, thin reed. Sonja had a fair idea to what use that hollow reed might be put, should she refuse to play Hefei’s game.
“Erlik!” she swore—but brought up her blade, slid it into its scabbard and stood her ground.
“Commander Sobut, escort her to the palace,” Hefei ordered. “You may fall in behind my troupe.”
Sobut turned to Sonja and gestured. She did not step ahead of him, but made certain they walked side-by-side to the rear of Hefei’s company. Nevertheless, it was necessary for her to walk to Hefei’s palace, without benefit of her mount; and every step of the way she felt a prickling between her shoulder blades, an anticipation of possible reprisal against her from some of the soldiers who watched her pass by.
* * *
It was almost noon when Gevem reined his horse before the north gate of the city in the steppeland. When the watch called down to him, he replied:
“I am Gevem, second-in-command to Captain Keldum of Zamora! I would have words with your city’s lord about a dire matter.”
Shortly the gates were drawn open, and Gevem walked his horse inside. Sobut was not in charge; the officer who was asked Gevem to state his business.
“I am an officer in the Zamoran border patrol. Four days ago one of our officers was murdered. We have reason to believe that his murderess escaped south through this territory.”
“Murderess?”
“Her name is Red Sonja—an Hyrkanian woman, dressed in scale-mail, and she…”
Sonja, at that moment, sat at table for the noon meal with Hefei, Sobut, Mophis and some others in the palace. They contained their curiosity and were cautiously friendly—at least, not hostile for the time.
When good food had satisfied her hunger, Sonja made bold to ask: “How comes a city like yours to be flourishing in this wild region?”
“This city was originally a remote Zamoran outpost,” said Hefei. “It was abandoned by the government but then renovated by General Zumbro, a rebel Zamoran officer. Over a period of three generations it grew into the city you see today—remote, autonomous, few but our priests having contact with the outside world. Streams from the southern hills enable us to grow crops in part of the valley, and the grasslands to the north and east support our goats and cattle.”
“And,” Sonja asked, not entirely comfortable with these people and their conversation, but intrigued nonetheless, “what of those women outside your wall—the ones who were sacrificed?”
Hefei glanced guardedly to Mophis, then replied: “We are not an inordinately religious people, but we do know that there are things in the world which are beyond man and are inimical to him. This land was cursed by the gods when it was formed. It is haunted by a race of things we call the Earthfolk. They feast on humanity. We must periodically sacrifice to them.”
Sonja remembered the strange feeling she had sometimes had since entering this region. “Why do you stay here,” she asked, “if they’re that harmful? Why don’t you—?”
“Why don’t we leave?” Hefei finished. “Because it is our home. We are human, we—”
“I was going to say,” said Sonja: “Why don’t you fight, rather than—?”
“Mistress!”
Hefei looked up. All heads at the table turned as into the hall strode a group of soldiers, and at their head—Gevem.
“Mistress, this man brings word that—!”
“Erlik!” Sonja jumped to. her feet, knocking back her chair and standing free of the table. “How did you—?”
“That is she!” Gevem yelled, his face breaking into a fierce grin. “That woman slew Captain Vos of the border fort!”
“Take her!” yelled one of the guard.
Three priests immediately stepped before Mistress Hefei, to guard her. But Sonja had no intention of harming her, or any other in that room save Gevem. She backed to a wall and drew her sword, crouching in a defensive stance.
“Gevem!” she growled. “Where is Keldum? Where’s the true murderer of Captain Vos? Hey? Tell me, you son of a she-wolf!”
“Murderess—I’ll take your head home on my swordpoint !”
“Erlik! Come ahead and try it, you—!”
But already, Hefei decided, it had gone too far; Red Sonja could not be trusted. She nodded to Mophis. Immediately the priest pulled the hollow reed from his left sleeve and in one deft motion brought it to his mouth, aimed and blew.
Too late, Sonja noticed him. Just as she tensed to leap away, something bit into the bareness of her throat—no more than a gnat’s sting, yet in the space of a heartbeat her head seemed to balloon gigantically. Gevem, distant, suddenly shrank in size and vanished into a far greater distance. She heard someone call out: “Take her!” and the words seemed to stretch and grow! and linger forever, an unfading echo. Then she felt herself reel forward, knew that her knees and elbows had struck the floor, but she sensed no pain.
Her face smashed into the stone, and just before she lost consciousness she felt her stomach bunch and rebel. Then her mind dwindled and died.
Chapter Three
Tiamu was afraid. She had heard that the Earth-folk would require another and larger sacrifice at the full moon. She had seen six of her young friends taken from the temple yesterday, had watched as they had been led from the city, stripped and beaten, then bound to posts and left to die—as sacrifices to the demons that held the land in thrall.
Ever more frequently had the sacrifices been held this year, and ever greater were the number of the sacrificed.
And now Tiamu was afraid that she would be chosen next. She did not want to die, even though she knew it was blasphemy to desire against the will of the gods; she especially did not want to die in so ghastly a manner. As a sacrifice, her spirit would be damned forever, to live in unending pain, the plaything of the Earth-folk.
Tiamu was young; she had seen only fifteen summers. Orphaned as a baby, she had become a ward of the city temple and raised as one of its true votaries—a temple virgin initiated into the rituals of worship and belief, of propitiation and sacrifice. With the other young women of the temple, she had been schooled to obey the will of the priestesses who tutored her, who in turn followed the dicta of the High Priest Mophis and the Mistress of the City, Hefei. She had spent her young life enacting the holy rituals on festival days, miming in the streets during parades, and acting as servant both in the temple or in Hefei’s palace. And along with the other young women, Tiamu was very much aware that her life, her fate, was solely and utterly in the hands of those above her. If Mophis chanced to interpret, in the entrails of a fresh-killed bird, that a virgin must die to appease the Earth-folk, then a virgin must die—and that virgin might very well be Tiamu or any of her friends.
But Tiamu was an intelligent young woman with observant eyes and a questing mind. For years she had secretly dwelt upon the question of why she had become a virgin of the temple. While the others there seemed to accept Mophis’ dictum that they were fated or chosen by a higher power, Tiamu was convinced she was there by mere chance. As a child, she had been powerless to choose; now that she was grown and could give these matters consideration, she often wondered why she should not choose another path for herself, strike out upon it and trust to it.
Thus her instinct rebelled, while her heart beat wildly at the temerity and unholiness of her thoughts.
And this morning, she had learned that a strange woman with red hair had come to the city and caused damage, had upset Mophis’ schedule of prognostications and enchantments, and had alarmed Hefei with wondering and presentiments of vague portent.
A red-haired woman had appeared in the city, on the night before the six sacrifices to the Earth-folk had been deemed unsatisfactory. That, in Tiamu’s mind, was no coincidence; it was destiny. With the hopeful logic of a young woman struggling with fear, Tiamu decided that-her own life had not been consigned to the temple. The two events of last night could free her from her bonds. And she meant to take advantage of them.
As a temple virgin, Tiamu had access to most of the corridors and chambers of both the temple and the palace. She was also privy to the gossip and rumors that circulated there. Most of the time she despised such idle chatter as worthless and time-wasting; but this morning, she had overheard a few pertinent facts amidst the trivial buzzing of her fellow temple-adornments.
“The red-haired woman fights like a man!” Sithi had exclaimed delightedly that morning in the bathing pool. “She killed ten men yesterday—
“No, twelve!” put in another.
“-but Hefei captured her and Mophis disarmed her, and they put her in prison!”
