CHAPTER
TEN
Marty was scouting ahead of the rest of the party. He and Surjan generally took turns, with the others bringing up the rear. Sometimes Lowanna scouted, and Kareem was also becoming quite adept at moving silently, so he got worked into the rotation. Gunther and François both made too much noise to be trusted with going first.
Marty found he could move quietly. Being out ahead of the others let him really enjoy his sharpened senses. The details of the flowers along the trail, or the variations and motifs of the birdsong he heard, sprang out to him in vivid detail.
And when he got far enough ahead, sometimes he would stop and practice his forms. The others trailed a half mile or so behind him, just visible as a clump of dark shapes when he looked west.
He heard a bird call, and knew instantly it wasn’t made by a real bird.
He kept walking, forcing himself not to hesitate. If someone—or something—was waiting in ambush, perhaps if he didn’t let on that he had noticed them, he might turn the tables and ambush the ambusher.
The sky overhead was cloudy and sporadic rain had fallen all morning, but the terrain consisted of gentle, rolling hills thick with tall green grass. The trail stretched more or less straight out ahead of him, and off to his right, a modest bump of a ridge rose about the surrounding grassland. There were no trees in sight. A dark spot lay on the south side of the ridge, just visible to Marty. Was it a shadow? But from what?
Could it be greenery?
If someone was lying in wait and watching Marty, he would find them in the grass.
Marty stopped. He stretched his neck and arms, and then he stepped to the right side of the trail and made a show of slowly urinating. While he went through those motions, he carefully scanned the prairie around him, without turning his head.
There, to his left, he saw two boys crouched in the grass. They were young and small, so Marty had longer legs. On the other hand, he’d been walking all morning, and they might be fresh.
He took to the trail again and walked in their direction. They didn’t look ready to attack. Marty could ignore them—on the other hand, if he could talk to them, he might be able to get useful information out of them.
Of course, he didn’t want them to run away and bring back a war band.
When he’d come as close to them as the trail reached, they were twenty feet off to his right, holding their breaths. Marty leaped after them, sprinting and covering the distance before they could react. The faster boy was rising from his crouch when Marty stepped on his foot and pushed him hard, knocking him to the ground. He grabbed the second one by the back of his neck and simply held him in place.
The boys squirmed, but went nowhere. Looking at them, Marty realized he’d underestimated their ages. They were teenagers, but they were small and thin. They looked undernourished. Their hair was dark, long, and ragged and they wore simple undyed woven tunics with no leggings. Their feet were bare. Their skin was a deep olive complexion and their eyes were dark brown.
Bedouin? Or Moroccans? Marty tried Arabic first. “As-salamu alaykum,” he said. Peace be upon you.
The one on the ground spoke. “Who are you?” he asked in English.
No, not in English. What language was that? Suddenly Marty, master of multiple tongues, spoken and written, wasn’t sure.
“My name is Marty,” he said. What language was he speaking? He had no idea. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. “I’m a friend.”
“We don’t know you,” the standing boy said. “You’re not a friend.”
“I want to be a friend,” Marty said.
“Are you a trader?” the boy on the ground asked. “Traders travel this road.”
“I’m like a trader,” Marty said. “I’m a traveler. I’m a wanderer. I don’t have anything to trade, but I want to meet new people and make friends.” He gestured down at himself. “Look, I have no weapons.”
“We’re watching for traders. And for the Ametsu.” The standing boy pointed back at the trail behind Marty. “Do your friends have weapons?”
“We are armed.” Marty shrugged. “But as travelers, not for war.”
The boys looked at each other.
“Our people are numerous,” the standing boy said.
“They’re armed,” the boy on the ground added. “They’re warriors.”
“Good,” Marty said. “Can you take me and my friends to meet them?”
He wanted information. The whole crew did. In an ideal world, he’d like someone who could tell him what year it was, but he also wanted geographical data and information about the Seth-headed men.
But what language were they speaking? And who or what was an Ametsu? Marty felt a nervous nausea fluttering in his stomach.
They stood and waited. Marty smiled. He remembered research he’d read about smiles, indicating that humans in multicultural societies smiled more. The researchers, at least, believed that this was because smiling was a nearly universal sign of benevolent intentions. You smiled at people not of your own tribe to reassure them that you weren’t hostile, so in a society containing multiple tribes, people smiled a lot.
He smiled at the boys. “I’ll give you a gift when my friends arrive. And then maybe we can trade with your people.”
When Marty’s friends caught up to him in ten minutes, he took two thick, thumb-sized strips of dried addax and impala and offered one to each boy. The meat was stretched over frames carried by Kareem, Gunther, and François. Lowanna, at her insistence, carried a frame also, but it held the stretched and drying addax pelt.
The boys grabbed the dried meat, popped it into their mouths, and chewed heartily.
Surjan joined them last.
“I have asked these boys to take us to their village.” Marty found that he was still speaking the unknown tongue. “We will trade peacefully, and I hope we can learn information.”
“Very good!” François rubbed his hands.
“There may be many of them.” Surjan frowned. Translation: What if we get into trouble?
“I think they’re peaceful,” Marty said, “as we are peaceful. If they don’t wish to be peaceful, we’ll leave.” Translation: If they attack, run like hell.
Marty nodded to the boys, who led them away from the trail and toward the ridge on the south. Gradually a path took shape, as if this land was much-walked, but the people doing the walking tried not to make themselves too conspicuous.
At the southern edge of the ridge, Marty detected the scent of water ahead of them. Darker green of melon vines and fruit trees stretched into sight, like the belly fat of the rich oasis spilling into view over its belt.
Two men with spears stood at a small clearing. They wore undyed weave and each held a long spear in his hand. At the sight of Marty side by side with the two boys, one of the men stepped forward and lowered his spear into a position of challenge. He had long arms and large hands, with skin the reddish color of wet clay and a hooked nose that leaned slightly to one side.
“Badis,” one of the boys said. “These men are traders.”
“We’re explorers,” Marty said, though he wasn’t really sure about the nuances of whatever word it was he was using for “explorers.” The others in the group stared at him, obviously understanding his speech. “We’re passing through and just want to trade information. We have gifts.” He handed Badis two larger strips of antelope meat.
“Are you from the Ametsu?” Badis asked.
“We don’t know what the Ametsu is.” Marty smiled. “We’re here on our own. We’re a little lost, and could use some information.”
Badis narrowed his eyes to examine the party, and focused on Surjan as he joined the others. “The big one leaves his spear with me,” he finally grunted. “And then I will take you into the village.”
“Bloody hell.” Surjan grumped but handed over the weapon. Then Marty followed Badis along the trail around the ridge, companions in tow.
Marty plied Badis with simple questions about the name of his people and where the nearest large water was and was met with stony silence. Once they were around the ridge, though, some of the answers became obvious: two visible springs fed a wide blue lake that was bearded with brilliant green forest and brambles. In a ring around the brambles, a band of land was hoed rudely into furrows, and was covered with ground-clinging vines.
In and around the trees squatted huts made of animal hide stretched over poles bent and lashed into frames. Perhaps a hundred people stood scattered across the scene, all turning now to watch Marty and his group approach. Their clothing was undyed, but many of them wore elaborate tattoos and jewelry of bright stones and ivory. Their skin was the color of sand, ranging from dull khaki through bright yellow to dark red, and Marty was surprised to see more than a few heads of blond hair among them.
Small goats grazed in the forest, surrounded by fowl that looked like stringy chickens.
Badis took Marty to a wide shelf of packed earth and pebbles, rising above the lake just beneath the western end of the ridge. Two men met them there: one tall, thin, and hunched over, with numerous long bones piercing his cheeks, and the second broad and muscular, with a wide nose and flaring nostrils. The four of them nearly filled the shelf, leaving Marty’s friends standing in reed-covered marsh behind him. François grumbled and pushed himself to the front, joining Marty at his side.
Marty wasn’t sure he was excited to have François’s help, but he smiled and clapped the banker on the shoulder.
He began by handing strips of meat to the two men.
“These are the Speakers,” Badis said. “Speaker for the gods”—he indicated the taller, thinner man—“and the speaker for the tribe,” who was the man built like a bull.
“I am the speaker for our people.” François tapped his own chest. Marty heard the faint chink of metal in the tap, and remembered that François was wearing the medallion they’d taken from the Seth-headed creature. “I am also called François.”
“And you?” Godspeaker pointed at Marty.
How to introduce himself? But Marty didn’t have to worry about it long, because François stepped in and did the introduction himself. “He is called Marty. He is also called Doctor Cohen. As a doctor, he is master of many hidden lores relating to the earth and mankind. Further, he is a seer.”
Marty felt embarrassed. He bit his tongue to avoid injecting that he was just a woodworker.
“Badis has brought you into the village,” the Tribespeaker said. “He has judged you safe to deal with. Know that his life stands surety for his assessment. If you attempt to harm anyone here, he will kill you. If he fails, you and he will die together.”
The hidden watchers on the path, the warriors with spears, and now this. These villages were willing to trust, but they lived in a dangerous world.
Marty nodded.
“We come in peace,” François said. “Does your village have a name?”
“The gods have called this place Ahuskay,” the Godspeaker said. “These are the beautiful waters.”
“We are looking for waters,” Marty said. “We travel east, and we are looking for great waters.”
The Tribespeaker raised an eyebrow. “A river?”
“A river so big you would call it a sea,” Marty said.
“You mean the edge of the world,” the Godspeaker said.
“Yes.” François nodded. “How far until the edge of the world?”
The Tribespeaker shook his head. “Many days’ walk.”
“Ten days?” François suggested.
“A hundred. Or more. None of the people of Ahuskay has ever been.”
Marty nodded. That put the edge of the world, which might be the Nile or maybe the Red Sea, somewhere between, say, fifteen hundred and two thousand miles to the east. Which meant that he had been to right to think they had arrived in Morocco.
“What other kingdoms do you know?” François asked. His facial expression was thoughtful. Was he looking for confirmation about the date? “As we travel eastward, what other people will we meet? Traders?”
“Traders.” The Tribespeaker nodded. “Herders. And the Ametsu.”
The Godspeaker spat.
There was something familiar about the word “Ametsu,” but Marty couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Where are you from?” The Tribespeaker asked.
“Our friends are from many lands,” Marty said. “But we took an unexpected journey from the edge of the world. We lost our way in a great storm and traveled for many days, and now we’re trying to return there.”
“You will travel dangerous roads,” the Tribespeaker warned them.
“Robbers?” Marty asked. Robbers were an endemic problem throughout most of the ancient world. Bands of armed men who simply killed travelers and stole their possessions.
The Tribespeaker nodded. “And worse.”
“We’re not too worried about bandits,” François said. “We were attacked west of here by a monster. With our combined might, we defeated it easily.”
“What kind of monster?” The Godspeaker eyed François warily.
“A giant.” François was exaggerating a little, but maybe, in preliterate, mythological societies, that wasn’t such a bad thing. “A giant with a head like a hound and with square ears.”
The Speakers both froze, staring at François.
“So that’s one less danger for your men to worry about,” François said.
“You lie,” the Godspeaker said. “The gods have told me no such thing. The gods would have warned us if they had left us so exposed.”
“He tells the truth,” Marty said. “Why are you distressed? Surely, this monster was no ally of yours.”
“The monster you describe,” the Tribespeaker said slowly, “is known to us as the Ametsu.”
They had been worried about the Ametsu. The boys guarding the approach to Ahuskay were watching for the Ametsu.
“The Ametsu was your enemy,” Marty said, taking a guess. “Why do you . . .” He didn’t want to say “fear,” which might be insulting. “Why do you hate the Ametsu?”
“The Ametsu takes men,” the Godspeaker snarled. “A tax, they say.”
“They say we are their farmers and also their crop,” the Tribespeaker added.
So there was more than one Ametsu. Marty’s heart sank.
“Slaves?” François was turning pallid.
“Food?” Marty guessed. “Do the Ametsu eat your people?”
“When the Ametsu comes . . .” The Tribespeaker spoke with a heavy voice. “He forces us to choose victims. A young woman and a young man. Healthy. He kills them in front of us. He takes their livers.”
Just like that, the Ametsu was singular again.
And . . . livers? What would the Ametsu do with human livers?
François gasped and swayed on his feet. Marty grasped his arm to keep him upright. “Marty,” he grunted. “Livers.”
“What?” Marty asked.
“The bag of meat.”
The strange meat that the jackal-headed giant had been carrying.
The meat that had so disturbed Lowanna.
Human livers?
“We killed the Ametsu on the road,” Marty said. “This is a joyous day for the people of Ahuskay. We killed the Ametsu, he will trouble you no more!”
“Yes!” François regained mastery of himself and reached inside his shirt. He pulled out the jackal-headed man’s infinity medallion and hung it visibly on his chest. “You see? We have a trophy evidence of his death. You’re safe now!”
A loud groan rang across the lake. Looking about at the people of Ahuskay, Marty saw terror on their faces. Many fell to their knees. A few fell prone.
The Godspeaker spat.
“You fools!” Badis snapped. “There are many Ametsu, not just one. Now the others will come for vengeance, and they will kill us all!”