“That depends,” said Ganelon.
“THAT DEPENDS,” Teresa repeated, clearly having no idea what the words meant. “YOU COME TO VILLAGE. SPEAK WITH CHIEF. HAVE TRADE.”
Trade for what? Clay wondered as Gabriel sidled up beside him.
“We’re not going to your village,” Gabe said. “If your chief wants to speak with us he can come here. But he’d better come soon, or we’re leaving.”
The elder shook his head. “CHIEF NO COME. CHIEF SICK. YOU CHOOSE NOW: FOLLOW OR FIGHT. MAYBE US DIE. MAYBE YOU. THAT DEPENDS,” he added, and Clay realized he’d sort of grasped the meaning of those words after all.
A smart cookie, Teresa.
“Fuck ’em,” said Ganelon. “A few dozen of these bone bags against the six of us?” He spat on the barren ground. “Ain’t nothin’.”
“Ain’t nothin’?” Matrick scoffed. “I count at least fifteen bows aimed at you, big guy. You aren’t made of stone still, you know.”
Ganelon opened his mouth to reply, but Gabe raised a stifling hand and turned to Clay. “What do you think?” he asked.
Clay eyed the wall of wicker shields, white faces, and bristling weapons, wondering how many of those spear tips and arrowheads might be poisoned. The blow darts certainly would be, or else what the hell was the point?
Fighting here or in the village made little difference, since it was likely this was most of what remained of the Boneface warriors, which would explain their sudden willingness to negotiate rather than risk the few fighting men they had left. There were clan wars to think of, and with Dook dead under a tree they could use every spear come springtime.
“We’d might as well go with them,” he said finally. “We’re screwed anyway.”
Chapter Thirty-five
The Cannibal Court
They followed the Ferals back into the tangled forest, striking south until they came to a bluff of chalky white stone. There was a small camp here in which they spent the night. The band was offered shelter in a tall skin tent that had apparently belonged to the Feral champion, Dook. Teresa came to offer them supper, which was in fact just an assortment of severed hands, but Gabriel refused on their behalf, and for a second night running Clay was happy to gobble down whatever Moog’s hat was serving up.
Come morning they followed the cliff face west, and as the afternoon waxed the air grew damp and sticky with heat. The trees here were enormous, with trunks that would have taken Clay a full minute to jog around. A troop of orange-furred monkeys tracked them from the canopy above, and upon some unknown signal began screaming and pelting the party with dung.
What Clay assumed was harmless mischief, however, was anything but. One of the sloppy pellets landed on Jeremy’s bald head, and the cannibal wailed as the flesh beneath it sizzled and sloughed away. Other tribesmen cowered beneath wicker shields that caught fire when struck. Finally Teresa ordered a return volley of arrows and darts, which scattered the primates and brought one shrieking down with a feathered shaft in its chest.
Moog, naturally, took special interest in its corpse. “Holy Tetrea, they’re spark monkeys!” He glanced excitedly at the others, but his enthusiasm was met by his bandmates with underwhelmed stares. “Half my colleagues at Oddsford didn’t believe they were real. This might mean the entire pyromate genus exists as well. Scorch apes! Ember chimps! My gods, the ramifications …”
Teresa’s Ferals were moving on, eager to be away before their assailants regrouped, and Gabriel led the others after them. Clay, the last to leave the site besides Moog, pretended he didn’t see the wizard take a furtive look around before sneaking the dead monkey into his bag.
The sky was beginning to take on a darker shade of purple when the elder informed them they were nearing their destination. Craning his neck, Clay could see a palisade wall on the summit upon which headless corpses were impaled and left to bloat in the sun. Teresa pointed out a narrow switchback trail, and as they climbed the band was treated to the sight of yet more stakes, these ones adorned with severed heads in various states of desiccation. The elder stopped beside one to shoo a crow from pecking at a gory eye socket.
The Boneface village was like most other tribal settlements Clay had visited throughout his years of adventuring, except there were no animals in sight and considerably more body parts lying around. Arms and legs were stacked like kindling beside guttering cook fires; sheets of flayed skin had been left to dry on slatted racks. There were cages occupied by desultory-looking prisoners awaiting their turn in the pot. Most of these appeared to be Ferals from rival tribes, but Clay and the others were asked to wait near to where a massive ettin had been chained by both of its necks to a slab of jutting stone.
Clay had encountered a few ettins in his day. He knew that despite their huge size and monstrous appearance they weren’t particularly inclined toward violence. Sure, if you pissed one off they were real bastards, but like any savage thing it helped if you approached them with kindness instead of open aggression.
That being said, the first instinct of anyone confronted by a hulking man-giant with two heads was usually to either run from it or kill it dead.
One of the monster’s heads caught Clay staring and smiled toothily. “Good afternoon!”
“Urg …” Clay’s first attempt at a reply was a hoarse croak. “Hi,” he managed eventually.
“Fine weather we’re having today, aren’t we?” the ettin asked.
Clay looked up. Cobalt clouds of acidic rain crowded the rapidly darkening sky. “Could be worse,” he replied with a shrug.
The creature nodded, rattling the collar at its throat. “Indeed it could be. My sentiments exactly.”
The other head, which had been sleeping until now, roused itself groggily. When it turned toward Clay it was all he could do not to recoil in horror. It was hideously deformed: its nose a bruised smear, its mouth a gaping hole of shattered teeth. What few wisps of hair it possessed hung limply across a bulbous skull. Its eyes were the yellow-white of curdled milk, and when it spoke it confirmed Clay’s suspicion that the creature was blind.
“Is someone there, brother?”
“Yes, Dane,” said the first head. “We have illustrious guests! A band, by the looks of them. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name …”
“Clay. Cooper,” he said, doing his best not to gawk at the ruinous face. He introduced the others, careful to call Larkspur by her newly assumed name. Gabriel mumbled a greeting, but his eyes were glued to the mountains bordering the western horizon. Ganelon nodded but said nothing, Matrick waved a curt hello, and Moog, ever the amiable one, marched over to shake the ettin’s hand.
“Arcandius Moog,” the wizard introduced himself. “Archmagus and alchemy enthusiast.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Arcandius,” said the first head. “My name is Gregor, and this handsome gentleman is my brother, Dane. Say hello, Dane.”
“Hello,” said Dane.
Clay was still trying to reconcile the word handsome with the abomination before him, and was grateful when Moog took the reins of conversation from his hands.
“Nice to meet you both,” the wizard said. He paused to watch two grubby children run past. One was chasing the other, wielding a severed arm like a club. “I only wish it was under better circumstances.”
The first head, Gregor, shrugged the shoulder that belonged to him. “The circumstances could hardly be better,” he declared. “My brother and I have been honoured guests of the Boneface tribe for several months now. They’ve gifted us these beautiful golden torcs you see around our necks. They feast us nightly on roast pheasant and warm wine, and in return we’ve helped them build a proud and glorious wall around their lovely village.”