To Conquer Chaos

VIII

His father was still snoring on the other side of the room when Conrad woke up. One of the town’s watermen was crying in the street outside. Cautiously, wanting to try his knee before he risked hurting it again, he went down and traded half a lump of soap for a pail of fresh water. It was stupidly extravagant when he could have gone to the stream himself, as he usually did, but his leg was very painful.

Washed, he ate what was left from the night before-his father must have been too drunk to be hungry when he came in-and went with his sacks to collect the ash Idris had promised.

Her mother and brother were busy with her in the kitchen, racking the new loaves; it was not until he had filled two sacks and got dust all over himself as usual that Idris had a chance to whisper to him in a corner.

“Have you heard the news about the foreigners?”

“Who’d tell me, except you?” Conrad countered sourly.

“Why, it’s unbelievable! There’s a great army of men coming here, two thousand of them it’s said, from a city far to the south!”

“Fourteen days’ march,” Conrad muttered, thinking how close he had come to having this news direct from Yanderman. Blast Waygan!

“Idris!” A shrill interruption from her mother. “Are you talking to that no-good boy again? There’s work to do, have you forgotten?”

“Coming, mother! One more sack and that’ll be all!” Idris put her head close to Conrad’s again. “Won’t it be exciting? All the strangers from the south! They’re sure to visit the town while they’re camped here!”

“Idris!” her mother exclaimed. “Leave Idle Conrad to get on with it by himself-he’s quite capable.”

“But mother! Conrad’s hurt his knee!”

“That’s his lookout. You do as I tell you!”

“Go on,” Conrad urged her with a sigh. “This won’t take me long.” He gave her a smile and picked up the first sack; somehow, to prevent her feeling bad about it, he stopped himself from limping as he carried it to the door.

The news must have travelled with the speed of the wind, for as he trudged towards the gate of the town, his sacks of ash trailing behind him on a sledge of crossed branches, and paused at intervals to collect dollops of stale fat and grease from kitchen doors, he heard several people discussing the good effect the army’s visit would have on trade. Old Narl, the weaver, was less optimistic than most; Conrad heard him say grumpily to a friend, “I don’t like it! That many men could take all we have, not bothering to leave payment.”

“What could we have that they want?” the friend said cynically.

Soap made by Conrad? The presumptuous thought crossed his mind as he moved out of earshot. And yet … why not? It was good soap; men who had marched for two weeks would welcome a chance to clean up properly. If he made as much extra as this load of ash would run to, then he could salt away a little profit from selling it to the army camp, hide the cash where his father couldn’t find it and spend it on beer.

Soon he was lost so deeply in thought that he ignored Waygan’s usual mocking greeting from the gatehouse and all the shouts from the youths and girls working in the fields. It was not so warm as yesterday, and there were clouds in the west.

The moment he came in sight of his soap-vats, though, his reverie was broken.

The vats had been overturned-more: scattered. They were made of inch-thick pottery, and even when empty they were hard to lift; full, they could only be tilted on their bases of smooth round stones. Yet something had tossed them aside like so many drinking-cups. And the pans in which yesterday’s soap had set had also been broken up.

Clearly, a thing had come from the barrenland and wrought this havoc. It was unlikely to have gone back.

Conrad realised sickly that in his panic to get home last night before the bridge was drawn up he had abandoned his bow and arrows. He was not a good shot, but merely to have a weapon would be reassuring. Lacking anything better, he snatched up a couple of large, sharp-cornered rocks from the edge of the path and stared about him. His blood was very loud in his ears, and he cursed the fact, fancying he might be deaf to the noise of the thing if it approached.

But there was no sign of movement nearby.

Cautiously, he went closer to the vats. The soap had been spilled from the setting-pans before it was hard, and there were marks on the ground suggesting that the creature had walked around in it, perhaps surveying the damage, before making off. Conrad had never seen animal feet like these-the prints were of a kind of hoof forming three sides of a near-perfect square, with a short pointed projection forward from each of the closed corners. But that was small wonder. Few of the things which came from the barrenland resembled anything that had gone before.

The marks led away among the rocks, growing fainter. The soap was hard, which meant the trail was some hours old. His confidence oozed back.

Letting fall the rocks he had picked up, he ran to where he had left his bow and arrows. But the thing had trodden on the bow, breaking the shaft. He had six arrows intact, and nothing to fire them with.

He balanced them on his hand, irresolute. Before he tried to set up his vats again, he decided, he ought to make sure there was nothing lurking among the rocks. Two out of three things moved by night, but that was slim odds. Breathing hard, moving awkwardly because of his stiff knee, he began to walk in a spiral outwards from the vats.

He was on the point of giving up when he found it, lying in shadow between two rocks.

Cramming his fingers into his mouth to stifle a cry, he drew back until he was just peering over the nearer rock. It seemed to be asleep, but you could never be sure-things from the barrenland weren’t like ordinary animals.

It was about as long as a tall man. It had a head, domed like a melon and ridged in somewhat the same way, with a blind-looking white eye on the front of it. But below the eye was a not-quite mouth, a ring-shaped opening with a double fringe of sharp little eroding teeth, somewhat after the style of a leech. The head was set direct on the body without a neck, and green and brown skin hung about that body like an ill-fitting garment. There was a tail. There were two big limbs ending in the square-but-clawed hoofs whose prints he had seen, and two smaller ones with a sort of soft pad on which three scales glittered like metallic nails.

Conrad dodged out of sight again, heart thumping. That was a killer! The nearest he had ever come before to one of the things in life was when the whole town was called out to reinforce the guard-and now here he was, alone. What was he to do? The sensible thing was to return to the fields and call up an armed party to deal with it. But it would be just his luck if the thing awoke while he was gone and made off without a trace.

With his bow, he might have risked shooting into that bulging white eye-at ten feet he could hardly miss. But to stab it with an arrow … He dismissed the idea.

And then he thought of the sacks of ashes.

He was surprising himself all the time now, he reflected as he stole back up among the rocks with the soft sack on his shoulder. It couldn’t be bravery. It must be sheer desperation driving him.

He poised the sack on the rock overhanging the creature. A tug on the drawstring would open its neck and let down a cascade of blinding dust. The next part would be more difficult-it involved getting one of the pottery vats up here too.

He managed it somehow, though his knee hurt abominably, and several times he almost lost his footing. Each time he waited in horror for the noise to wake the thing and bring it over the rim of the rock, yowling and ready to kill.

He got the vat on the rock, sideways so it would roll, and steadied it with one hand. He closed his eyes and wished, opened them again, sighted, and let go.

The barrel-like vat struck fair on the domed head, making a soft revolting noise like a fist going into mud. The thing came awake instantly, shooting its limbs out in all directions, and the vat smashed to fragments as a convulsion tossed it aside like a pebble. The strength it had! Conrad suddenly felt he had been insane to attempt this. Mouth dry, he opened the sack of ash.

Then he fled.

At the foot of the slope he snatched up the wooden bar he used to tilt the full soap-vats. Brandishing it grimly, he waited to confront the maddened beast. It was fully ten minutes before he plucked up courage to go back and look.

He found the thing had lived only a few moments after the vat fell on its skull; it lay half-buried in the pile of ash, and its sucker-like mouth was choking-full of grey dust as he had intended. Runnels of brownish ichor mingled with splinters of black bone in the ruins of its head.

Conrad felt he wanted to sing. But more than that, he wanted people to know what he had done. He scrambled down to the beast’s level and tried to drag it away by its tail, but it was much too heavy for him with his bad leg.

Well … there was no chance of it waking up and going away now. It was bound to be there when he brought someone back to look at it. And even if he had to whip them here, he was going to bring the townsfolk to admire his action. He was sick of their sneers. Then afterwards he could have the hide tanned and give it to Idris, and her mother might be a little less grumpy …

His thoughts running blithely ahead of him, Conrad started back towards the town.

A cry rang out from the leading man of the party, and Stadham’s mind snapped back from consideration of this area as a possible site for their long-time camp to more immediate matters.

“What is it, Berrow?” he shouted.

“Don’t know!” the soldier called back. “My horse shied at something-and there’s a foul stink around somewhere!”

“Close in on Berrow!” Stadham ordered his other companions. “Take it slow and keep alert!”

The soldiers nodded grimly and set their guns on their saddle-bows as they urged their steeds up the rocky slope in front. They were all nervy, as Stadham knew. They’d located two or three possible camp-sites-all with drawbacks-and Stadham had decided to work through the area at least until noon before settling for one or other of them. In the men’s view, nowhere could be a good camp-site this close to the barrenland, and they didn’t see there was much to choose between the possibilities.

Berrow was trying to calm his horse as it attempted to back down-slope; he could coax it no further. When Stadham found his own mount balking in the same way, he swung to the ground and threw his reins to his nearest companion. Gun ready, he strode up the rise past Berrow, and came in a few moments to a place where shadow fell between two rocks.

He started and gave an oath, slapping his gun to his shoulder. But before he fired, he realised it was pointless. He gestured to Berrow to approach him.

“Here’s what scared your horse-a dead thing!”

The men moved closer, two or three of them dismounting because their horses also shied, and stood soberly regarding the carcase. “They breed ’em out there, don’t they?” one of them remarked in a solemn tone.

“But this one’s dead, like the one that attacked Ampier!” Stadham reminded them sharply. They exchanged glances; it was clear they didn’t like the beast much better for all that.

Stadham came to a decision. “You two!” he snapped, addressing the men whose horses had come closest without taking fright. “Get this thing on one of your mounts! I want to show it off when the army gets here and prove that the things from the barrenland aren’t invulnerable.”

The soldiers hesitated. One of them muttered something, and Stadham rounded on him.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, lieutenant.” The man’s face was pasty-pale. He got down from his horse, but looked at the carcass for a long time before bringing himself to lift it with his comrades’ help and set it on his saddle.

Thus burdened, they moved away.

And, half an hour later, Conrad stood sick and bewildered before a group of impatient, hostile meant-to-be-witnesses, wondering if the universe was conspiring against him. Because if the ground hadn’t opened and swallowed the thing, what else could possibly have happened to the proof of his single-handed triumph?