The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читаем книги онлайн бесплатно TXT) 📗

'The watch-tower has been damaged by fire,' That observed, and they urged the horses into a canter.

When they reached the gates of the fort they found them standing open. They paused at the entrance and looked through into the interior.

The walls were blackened by fire. That rose in the stirrups and hailed

the deserted parapet in a stentorian bellow. He received no reply and they drew their weapons, but they were many months too late to be of assistance to the garrison. When they rode through the gates, they found their pathetic remains scattered around the cooking fires in the central courtyard.

'Chima!' Taita said, as they looked down at the evidence of the cannibal banquet. To get at the marrow, the Chima had roasted the long bones of the arms and legs on the open fires, then cracked them open between large stones. The shattered fragments were scattered all about.

They had treated the severed heads of their victims in the same way, throwing them into the flames until they were scorched and blackened, then chopping them open as though they were boiled ostrich eggs. Taita imagined them sitting in a ring, passing round the open skulls, scooping out the half-cooked brains with their fingers and cramming them into their mouths.

Taita made an approximate count of the skulls. 'It seems that none of the garrison escaped. The Chima had them all, men, women and children.'

There were no words to express their horror and revulsion.

'Look!' Fenn whispered. 'That must have been a tiny baby. The skull is not much larger than a ripe pomegranate.' Her eyes were bright with tears.

'Gather up the remains,' Taita ordered. 'We must bury them before we go back to the boats.'

They dug a small communal grave outside the walls, for there was little to lay to rest.

'We have still to pass through the land of the Chima.' Tinat's face was cold and set. 'If the gods are kind they will allow me a chance to settle the score with those murderous dogs.'

Before they left they searched the fort and the forest around it, hoping for some sign of survivors, but there was none. 'They must have been taken unawares,' That said. 'There is no evidence of any fighting.'

They rode back to the river in sombre silence, and on the following day resumed the journey. When they reached the territory of the Chima, Taita ordered two small detachments of mounted scouts to be landed, one on either bank.

'Ride ahead and keep a sharp eye open. We will stay well behind you so that we do not alarm the Chima. If you find any sign of them you must ride back at once to give us warning.'

464 1

On the fourth day That was granted his wish. They rounded another wide bend of the river and saw Hilto, with his scouts, waving to them from the bank. Hilto jumped aboard as the leading boat grounded and hurried to salute Taita. 'Magus, there is a large village of Chima on the riverbank not far ahead. Two or three hundred of the savages are gathered there.'

'Did any spot you?' Taita demanded.

'No. They suspect nothing amiss,' Hilto replied.

'Good.' Taita summoned That and Meren from the other boats and quickly explained his plan of attack. 'It was the men under Colonel Tinat's command who were massacred, so he has the right and obligation to vengeance. Colonel, this evening you will take a strong force ashore to avoid being seen by the Chima you must make a night march. Under cover of darkness, take up a position between the village and the edge of the forest. At first light we will bring the boats to the village, then flush the Chima from their huts with a blast on the trumpets and a volley or two of arrows. They will almost certainly bolt for the trees and will be looking over their shoulders when they run into your men. Have you any questions?'

'It is a good, simple plan,' Meren said, and That nodded agreement.

Taita went on, 'As soon as the Chima run, Meren and I will land the rest of our men and go after them. We should be able to catch them between us in a pincer movement. Now, remember what we found inside the walls of Fort Adari. We will take no slaves or captives. Kill every last one.'

At dusk Hilto, who had studied the location and layout of the village, led Tinat's column down the riverbank. The boats remained moored to the bank for the night. Taita and Fenn spread their sleeping mat on the foredeck and lay gazing up at the night sky. Fenn loved to listen to his discourse on the heavenly bodies, the legend and myths of the constellations.

But in the end she always came back to the same subject: 'Tell me again about my own star, Magus, the Star of Lostris that I became after my death in the other life. But start at the beginning. Tell me how I died and how you embalmed me and decorated my tomb.' She allowed him to omit not a single detail. As she always did, she wept quietly when he reached the part of the story where he cut the lock of her hair, then made the Periapt of Lostris. She reached across and cupped the talisman in her palm. 'Did you always believe that I would come back to you?' she asked.

'Always. Every night I watched for the rise of your star and waited for the time when it would disappear from the firmament. I knew that that would be the sign that you were returning to me.“

'You must have been very sad and lonely.'

'Without you my life was an empty desert,' he said, and she wept again.

'Oh, my Taita, that is the most sad and beautiful story ever told.

Please make love to me now. I ache for you with all my body and all my soul. I want to feel you inside me, touching my core. We must never be parted from each other again.'

With the dawn light and the river mist drifting across the water, the flotilla pulled downstream in line ahead. The oars were muffled and the silence was eerie. The archers lined the gunwales with their arrows nocked. Thatched roofs appeared out of the mist, and Taita signalled to Meren at the helm to steer in closer to the bank.

From the shore a dog whined and barked, but apart from that the silence was complete. The mist stirred with the morning breeze, then drew aside like a veil to reveal the crowded squalor of the Chima village.

Taita lifted his sword high, then brought it down sharply. It was the signal, and the trumpeters blew a ringing blast on their curling kudu horns. At the sound, hundreds of naked Chima came out of the huts to gape at the oncoming boats. A wail of despair went up, and in wild panic they scattered and ran. Few had armed themselves and most were still more than half asleep, stumbling and falling about like drunkards as they ran for the shelter of the trees. Taita raised his sword arm again and as he dropped it the archers let a cloud of arrows fly into them. Taita saw an arrow transfix an infant strapped to the back of a running woman, then kill the mother cleanly.

'Take us to the bank!' As the prow touched the shoreline he led the rush.

Spearmen and axemen raced after the routed Chima. From ahead there rose another wail of terror and despair as they ran into Hilto's ambush. The swords of Tinat's men thumped into living flesh, and made a wet sucking sound as they were pulled free. A naked Chima ran back towards Taita with one of his arms lopped off at the elbow. He was squealing shrilly as the blood from the stump sprayed over his own body, painting him a glistening scarlet. Taita cut him down with a stroke that

took away the top half of his skull. Then he killed the naked woman who followed him with a single thrust between her dangling dugs. In the rage of battle he felt no pity or remorse. The next man held up his bare hands in a despairing attempt to divert the blade. Taita cut him down with as little compunction as he would have crushed a tsetse fly crawling on his skin.

Trapped between the two lines of armed men, the Chima darted about like a shoal of fish in a net. Retribution was cold and ruthless, the slaughter furious and sanguinary. A few of the Chima managed to break through the closing ring of bronze and reach the river. But the archers were waiting for those who did, and so were the crocodiles.