Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [112]
They were exposed to danger and the elements. The temperature remained two or three degrees below freezing. Quiet reigned; the air was hard. The shallow lake lay silent before them. It was some forty metres wide by one hundred metres long, occupying the hollow between two ridges with its unwelcoming expanse. Its waters were motionless but still unfrozen, reflecting the sky without a ripple. Its sullen appearance increased a certain supernatural fear which fell upon the women as they watched the hunters disappear over the ridge. Even the grass at their feet, crisped by frost, seemed under a curse, and no birds cried.
The men were unhappy about having their womenfolk nearby. They stood in a neighbouring depression, by another lake, and complained about their leader.
‘We’ve seen no sign of phagors,’ Tanth Ein said, blowing on his nails. ‘Let’s turn back. Supposing they destroyed Oldorando while we were away? A fine thing that would be.’
The cloud of breath about their heads united them as they leaned on their spears and looked accusingly at Aoz Roon. The latter paced about, keeping himself separate from them, his expression black.
‘Turn back? You talk like women. We came to fight, and fight we will, even if we throw our lives to Wutra while we do so. If there are phagors near, I’ll summon them. Stand where you are.’
He went at a run to the top of the ridge behind him, so that the women were again within his view, intending to shout at the top of his voice and awaken all the echoes in the wilderness.
But the enemy was already in view. Now, too late, he understood why they had seen no more wandering Borlienians; they had been driven off. Like old Molas Ferd before the flood, he stood paralysed before the sight of humanity’s ancient enemy.
The women straggled at one end of the fish-shaped lake, the ancipitals grouped at the other. The women made frightened and uncertain movements; the ancipitals were motionless. Even in their surprise, the women responded individually; the phagors could be seen only as a group.
It was impossible to make out the number of the enemy. They merged together with the late afternoon mists filling the hollow, and with the scarred greys and blues of the scene. One of them gave a thick protracted cough; otherwise they might have been lifeless.
Their white birds had settled on a ridge behind them, at first with some jostling, now spaced out regularly, with heads submissively on one side, like the souls of those departed.
From their frosty outline, it could be determined that three of the phagors – presumably the leaders – were mounted on kaidaws. They sat, as was their habit, leaning forward with their heads close to their mounts’ heads, as if communion was in progress. The foot phagors clustered against the flanks of the kaidaws, shoulders hunched. Nearby boulders were not more still.
The cougher coughed again. Aoz Roon threw off his spell and called to his men.
They climbed along the crest of the ridge, to stare at the enemy in dismay.
In response, the phagors made a sudden move. Their strangely jointed limbs geared themselves from immobility to action with no intermediate stage. The shallow lake had checked their advance. They had a well-known aversion to water, but times were changing; their harneys said ‘Forward.’ The sight of thirty human gillots at their mercy decided them. They charged.
One of the three mounted brutes swung a sword above his head. With a churring cry, he kicked his kaidaw, and mount and rider burst forward. The other brutes followed as one, whether mounted or running. Forward they dashed – into the waters of the shallow lake.
Panic scattered the women. Now that their adversary was almost on them, they ran hither and thither between the ridges. Some climbed one side, some the other, making small sharp noises of despair, like birds in distress.
Only Shay Tal remained where she was, facing the charge, and