Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [222]
He knew this place. Its configurations had been familiar to him when snow clothed it. It was normally a welcoming place – the last pass before a hunter gained the plains on the edge of which Oldorando stood. He was too cold even to shiver, body heat snatched by the wind. They could not continue. Skitosherill’s wife still leaned sickly against the flank of the necrogene; now that she had given way, her maidservant also felt able to release her miseries and stood screaming with her back to the tide of air.
‘We’ll get up among the rajabarals,’ he said, shouting the words into Skitosherill’s ear. Skitosherill nodded, still involved with his wife, whom he was trying to help up into the saddle.
‘Mount, all of you,’ Laintal Ay called.
As he shouted, a flutter of white caught his eye.
Above the hillside on their left flank, cowbirds appeared, fighting the cold downdraught, their feathers flickering from white to grey as they rode in the shadows of the rajabarals opposite. Below the birds was a line of phagors. They were warriors; they carried spears at the ready. They moved to the edge of the mound, to poise themselves there as steady as boulders. They looked down at the humans embroiled in the tumbling mists below.
‘Fast, fast, up, before we’re attacked!’ As he shouted, he saw Aoz Roon was staring up at the brutes, without expression, making no move.
He ran to him, clouting him across the back.
‘Up. We’ve got to get out of here.’
Aoz Roon said something harsh in his throat.
‘You’re enchanted, man, you’ve learnt some of their accursed language and it’s rendered you powerless.’
By force, he heaved his friend into his saddle. The scout did the same with the servant woman, who was sobbing in terror.
‘Up the slope to the rajabarals,’ Laintal Ay shouted. He slapped Aoz Roon’s mare across its shaggy rump as he ran back to mount his own. Reluctantly, the animals started to climb. They made little response to heels in their ribs; a hoxney would have been lighter and faster.
‘They won’t attack us,’ the Sibornalan said. ‘We’ll give them the maidservant if there’s trouble.’
‘Our mounts. They will kill us for our mounts. To ride or for food. You stay behind and haggle if you wish.’
With a sick look, Skitosherill shook his head and swung himself into his saddle.
He went first up the slope, leading his wife’s beast. The scout and the maidservant followed close behind. Then there was a gap as Aoz Roon listlessly rode his yelk, allowing it to stray away from the others, despite Laintal Ay’s shouts to keep together. He brought up the rear with the pack yelk, frequently casting glances back at the eminence behind them.
The phagors did not move. It would not be the cold wind that worried them; they were creatures of the cold. Their immobility need not imply decision. It was impossible to know what the brutes thought.
So they mounted the rise. They were soon out of the wind, to their great relief, and tugging with urgency on their reins.
As they came over the brow of the hill, the sunlight shone into their eyes. Both suns, near enough to look amid their dazzle as if linked, glittered between the trunks of the great trees. Just for a moment, dancing figures could be seen in the heart of the gold, lightly tripping – Others at a mysterious festivity; then they vanished as if the acid glory of light had inexplicably dissolved them. The party drew into the protection of the smooth columns, still gasping with cold. With the canopy of steam overhead, it was almost as if they had entered a hall of the gods. There were about thirty of the massive trees. Beyond them lay open ground and the way