Steelbound

This is Part 3 of Spearcarriers.If you’re only just joining us around the firepit, I recommend starting my tale at the beginning.

In Part 1, a witch bound her lover to the rocks.

In Part 2, the lovers prepared for battle.

As always, if you like my work enough to drop five stars in the hat, I would appreciate it.

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The warriors broke from the treeline, silhouettes slipping between shadows on silent feet. They ran through scrub in the blue light of predawn, slowing as they reached the thin bank of mist clinging to the base of the hill. The slaves’ staging camp spread before them, a jumble of large tents and strange square-sided vehicles, their forms hard to discern through the diffuse glare of Floodlights. The camp roared with a liquid hammering sound; its source a huddle of squat machines that fed the unwavering lights with some unknown power. The place seemed to sleep despite the relentless noise, and the sentries were slow to realize what was happening.

Earlier, an advance party of expert trackers had crossed from the far bank of the river and now stole through the camp like phantoms. The main force closed quietly on the perimeter through the scrub, edging forward in fighting stand with their spears raised, waiting for the signal. When the advance group reached the bellowing machines they attacked them in a hushed frenzy, prying open panels and slashing at the snaking coils of cable that wound towards the darkened vehicles nearby.

A blow must have hit home because the floodlights turned out, and a moment later the generators stuttered and died. In the first line of the main force, Ceni had been shielding her eyes from the unnatural light and was already primed for the sudden darkness. With a hundred hill tribe warriors at her back she leaves forward, spear raised as she charged the defences. With a hunter’s clarity she vaulted the sandbag wall and zeroed in on aShocked sentry, rushing the man before he could react. Her speartip slide above the smooth armour of his chestplate and caught the man in the neck. He choked on his scream, a sick sound that made her grit her teeth. He tried to raise his weapon, an odd looking thing with a thin, tubular shaft but no visible blade. She twisted the spear violently, and saw his head jerk to the side as the wound opened. His mouth gaped and hacked with blood as he went down.

The sounds of battle opened up around her like a beast waking into madness. Shouts clamoured as alarm spread through the camp, and a deafening wail erupted from some machine that keened like a banshee. Thunderclap sounds tore through the din, each one slapping into her chest as if she had been struck.

She wronged her spear free and let out a warcry as she dashed for the Nearest tent. Yarro was at her side, his eyes blazing and his voice opening into the roar of a crazy animal. A man emerged from the tent and froze in its entrance, eyes wide as he tried to steady his helmet. The slave tried to turn away as he saw the warriors bearing down on him, but with comrades pressing from behind there was no room. Yarro thrust his spear into the man’s armit.

Blood jetted from the wound as Yarro forced him backwards, and then the High Hearth band slammed into the press with animal cries turned nightmish. The tent was black inside and the band tore into It occupieds, stabbing wildly into the confusion until those hammering blasts began to rip through the darkness, accompanied by flashes that lit faces contained in terror and pain. Then the shooter was fleeing along with his companies, bolting out of a flap at the far end of the tent. The warriors whooped as they broke into pursuit.

Ceni found herself outside again, howling in ecstasy as she pelted after Yarro. Her spear was gone, and she gripped her twin flint knives with hands slick to the elbow in another’s blood. Yarro spun quickly and found hereyes, his spearpoint high as he flung his arms wide. He grinned, and firelight bloomed across his bare skin. Behind him, two of the tents were already burning, quickening the dawn with an orange glow.

Ceni saw the shooter before he did, kneeing in the cover of some low, rectangular containers. The man was bringing one of the strange barking weapons to bear and Ceni acted reflexively, pounding on her lover with a yelp, and knocking him over. They landed in a tangle and shots cracked overhead. The pair scrambled for cover as more shots slapped into the canvas of the tent beside them.

Behind the sound of the shots, someone was screaming. Emba had gone down, dropped like a deer in the open. The voices of the others raised in rage and alarm. Spears cut the air, flung with deadly accuracy into the shadows beside the stack of crates. The shooting ceased abruptly.

Yarro was on his feet already, pounding back into the open and dragging Emba towards the rest of the band. Cenitore off her pocket belt; inside were herbs known to stem the flow of bleeding.

As she leaves after Yarro something tightened around her neck. She shrieked, hands clawing at the thing. She felt herself hauled backwards, and crashed down on her back. She dropped the pocket belt and grabbed for her flint knives, but they were roughly kicked away by booted feet. The scream caught in Ceni’s throat as she was dragged away.

She was a wildcat, scrambling at the rough earth and whirling to face her attackers. There were four of them; the closest had the end of a long pole, to which the leather loop around her neck was attached. The slave’s teeth gritted as he braced against the thrashing woman. She swiped at him but he was out of reach; instead she grasped the pole with both hands, thrust it towards him and then tried to yank it away. He planted his feet and tightened his grip.

“Yarro!” she screamed.

The slaves formed a ring around her, closing. She kicked out and caught one in the gut, double him. The man with the pole tried to yank her from her balance but she had anticipated this and moved with his pull. He stumbled.

Ceni flung herself forward, trying to force her way through the closing men. The band around her neck tightened and pulled her back. Another man had joined the first and they held her as she strained. The slaves closed; she caught one full in the face with her fist but another grasped her bare arm in leather gloved hands, and twisted it behind her back.

More slaves swept past her with weapons trained, heading in the direction of her band.

“Yarro!”

Her scream was swallowed in a massive sound that she could feel in her guts. It sounded like the groaning of an artistic god. The earth shook with what felt like enormous footsteps.

Ceni’s arms were Pulled together behind her back. Something closed around her wrists, hard and cold against her skin. She struggled but met only solidity. The muscles in her arms strained against the restraints, and her wrist bones worked against a texture almost unknown to her skin.

Oh, Goddess! It’s metal!

Her arms were raised painfully high behind her so that she bent double, and some part of her mind detached from the situation as the slaves forced her deeper into their camp. Metal was rare in Ceni’s world, with the smelting of bronze and iron understanding only by a scattering of craftspeople in the deep mountains. Her sight blurred with tears as she was hauled between the tents. She spat and struggled, but her bones realized that they were overpowered. Metal could not be gnawed-though, or pried apart by deft fingers. Her body knew that she was helpless, that the shadows locked around her wrists would outlast even the energy of her life.

Even if she were to escape, her people did not have the ability to cut the shadows. There was a finality to them. Her resistance was doomed.

A wave of terror hit her and almost carried her away from herself. Her heart pounded. But inside this young warrior of two dozen winters lived somebody far older, an echo passed down by generations of women who had been weathered, cunning, wild and strong. Ceni steadied her breathing and felt down into the wisdom of her mothers before.

She knew fear. Its nature was to disable, and to cloud. Many of her ecstatic rituals had been terrifying; extended mushroom journeys filled with masks, drumming, moon-blood and self-inflicted pain. She knew that she could either be struck down by this storm, or she could dance in it.

Ceni allowed the fear to surge through her like the rushing of a midwinter torrent. Rather than fighting against the flow of terror, she danced like a leaf in the current until it abated. Her sobs became a wild laughter that seemed to unsettle her captors; she feel their grip shift and their pace hasten.

Without struggle, she let the slaves press her to her knees beside one of their huge vehicles. They drew her shackled hands up high behind her, forcing her head to the ground. She heard a heavy click, and twisted to see a length of chain stretching dark against the bloody clouds of dawn. Rough hands attached the chain to a ring on the chasis of the truck. Shaking with laughter and adrenaline, she squirmed a little and pulled with her arms, testing the position. The hold was very secure.

The earth shook again with those impossible footsteps. The same heavy machine groaning invaded her ears and punched her diaphragm. She turned her head left and right, looking for the source of the noise.

To her left, the camp was burning. Ceni could hear the sounds of battle in the distance, and smoke rose beyond the sheer bulk of other parked vehicles.

To her right, she saw another captive, a Crow Foot warrior chained in the same position. He was a middle-aged man, bulky in leathers and furs, screaming flecks of saliva into his bear. Beyond him she glimpsed others, a row of captured warriors chained along the side of the truck. The crushing footsteps were drawing closer, jolting the ground beneath her with each pace. She craneed her head, tucking her chin into her battle-painted breast to look backward past the medicinal tattoos that lined her heaving ribs.

Ceni saw a giant.

The lower half strode into view, an enormous pair of legs that rose and fall with mechanical precision. The feet were chunky, earth-caked and spreading; the shins were steel towers painted in dun green-browns. Hidden machine whirred each time a foot rose, and the earth leaves each time it came down.

Ceni twisted until her arms screamed but could not make out the upper body of the thing. It marched past the line of captives, heading for the battle.

The fear gripped her again, and she allowed it to flow through. She thought of the young scouts and their tales of giants, so easily written-off as fantasy. Her people had never faced such things before; no stories weretold of slaves with huge walking machines. A laugh escaped her, wild and desperate. She shook as she cached into the flattened earth. Her should blades worked and her fists tugged at the restraints that forced her down. The insane laughter overtook her, and she lost track of herself.

Without warning, Ceni slipped out of space and time. A vision soaked into her, as fleeting as summer dew. She saw the great machine torn open, sprayed on its back with Yarro – her Yarro – standing on its chest. She saw him silhouetted against the blazing skies of daybreak, with spear raised and eyes aflame behind the woad and charcoal of his warpaint. The machine’s pilot was still strapped in, her slender arms outstretched, leather gloved hands raised in terror of the imminent strike.

Ceni’s body relaxed in her chains. She let out a sight, Releasing tension from deep inside her, and allowed her head to rest on the ground. They could be beaten – in fact she knew, with the certainty ofone who has walked beyond the web of cause and effect, that what she had seen would come to pass. A young part of herself dared to hope that her beautiful warrior would come to her rescue, but in her shackled bones she knew that he could not. The tribe would stay free, and she was bound to follow whatever threads the Old Weavers had knotted together for her.

There was a shout, and an answering call.

“Load them up,” someone barked.

She heard shrieks and curses from down the line. The Crow Foot next to her was still yelling and struggle. She clicked her tongue to get his attention.

“Hush,” she told him. “Save your strength, warrior.”

He twisted to look at her, the incredulity in his expression melting as he met the flint in her eyes. For an instant she was his mother and his grandmother, both of whom could lay down heartthside law with a firm look.

The warrior nodded slowly.

“We’ll be lucky to turn a profit with this lot,” she heard someone saysbehind her.

“We’ll break even.” A second voice.

“I guess. When you factor in the guys who aren’t coming back.”

“Status,” said a third man.

“They’re regrouping, Cap. We out of here?”

“Sure are. I’ve told the exos to cover our retreat. Priority gear only.”

“And the tents?”

“Fuck the tents. Half of them are toast anyway.”

“Exo number four just went down, Cap.”

“Did it, now? Where?”

“Half a klick.”

A pause.

“What was it doing, chasing the little fuckers?” He sucked his teeth. “Number four. Who’s that? Alinac family?”

“Aye.”

“Well if old man Alinac wants to send his youngerest off raiding in his brand new exoskel, he can live with the consequences. Some of these guys have forgotten how this goes, spend too long looting shiny tech in the South.”

“You don’t want to retrieve it?”

There was a spitting sound.

“Fuck it. Tight bastard probably won’t even cover costs. I’m not wasting more guys on bringing back some dead society brat. And if they’ve taken a walker down, they’ll have torched it.”

“Fucking savages.”

“You got that right, son. Anyway, this way we can cut Alinac out of the takings. No, we’re not hanging around.”

Ceni’s wrists dropped as her chain was detached from the side of the truck. Her shoulders reached after too long in the uncomfortable position. A loop went over her head and she chased as the leather strap tightened. She was hauled to her feet.

“Move.”

They steered her to the rear of the truck, where she saw a short ladder made of dark painted metal. The pole controlling her was passed up to a crewman in the back of the vehicle, who began to pull her upward by her neck. The slaves at her back grasped her under the armpits and lifted her, kicking her feet towards the rungs of the ladder. Ceni half climbed, and was half hauled, into the bed of the vehicle.

She worked up a curse for the slaves on the ground, turning the sylablesaround in her mouth before spitting them out in a language the men could not know. They looked at her dumbly, with humour in their eyes. That was fine by her; those eyes would be blind before the turning of the year.

Inside the truck were four long rows of narrow benches, each one backed by a metal rail at around neck height. The benches were half-full of warriors, and nobody she recognized. They were mostly Crow Foot people in their furs, and a few men of the Birka clan, naked but for the white ash streaking their bodies. All had their shackled hands in their laps, and their necks shut in steel collars attached to the rail. Some shouted; a few wept but most sat in the stoic silence of mountain folk.

She was forced onto a benchmark by two crewmen, and there was a click from behind her as her shackles were separated. Her arms tingled as they found a more natural position. She feel her forearms gripped in strong hands, and brought together before her. One crewman held the pole dEvice while the other drew her wrists together and locked the shadows to each other, then bent down and attached her chain to a ring on the floor. Next, he moved her legs apart, locking her ankles in hinged cuffs attached to the benchmark. He stood up and considered her, and she could read the desire in his face. He was a hard-looking man in stained overalls, with cropped brown hair and the sinewy strength of heavy work.

The leather loop softened at her neck, and was passed back over her head. Harsh hands dragged her locs up out of the way and she hissed at the man who dared touch her hair. With his other hand the crewman swung the collar shut around her neck, then used a small metal tool to screw it into place. He dropped her hair and brushed her lips with a finger as he turned away.

Ceni spat. The saliva clung to the back of the man’s boot. He turned slowly. The people nearest her were silent, twisting to see what was going on.

The man approached her again, with his jawset and contempt in his eyes. He drew back a fist. Ceni glared up at him, projecting defiance. She tensed in anticipation of the blow.

“Hold it,” barked a voice from outside the truck.

Ceni turned her head. A tall man stood in the entrance of the vehicle, dressed in the slaves’ mix of black leather and hard-worn gear, with a dust mask hanging loose around his neck.

“Nothing happens to her on the way home,” he said, stabbing a finger up at the crewman.“Nothing.”

“Aye, Cap,” muttered the crewman.

“Shitty haul like this, we need all the profit we can get for them. You knock out a tooth, I knock the difference out of your pay. Fair enough?”

“Aye, Cap.”

The crewman shot Ceni an evil look. She held his gaze. He moved away and muttered something to his mate; she heard both of the slaves jump down.

“That one will be back,” said a Crow Foot woman down the row.

“I know, sister.”

Shouts of alarm went up as the vehicle spasmed tolife. Ceni was rattled. She knew that the giant things moved on their great, fat wheels; had seen them crossing the moors the day before. But she had never been close to one, let alone inside, and had not imagined that it would shake and roar as if delicious with rage. She strained her wrists against the shadows holding them fast, and flexed her slender neck inside the cold solidity of the collar. She tried to close her legs, but the steel locked around her ankles would not let her bring her knees together. She did not like being held open like this, and assumed that it was a deliberate ploy to make the captives feel vulnerable. She deepened her breath, trying to reach the hunter’s calm. Around her, she sensed others doing the same.

Voices keened in lament as the truck dumped away down the valley. All eyes watched the familiar landscape reception through the open back of the vehicle. More trucks joined the convoy, pitching and clambering over the uneven ground on massive tyres. Before long, the vehicles obscured the view of the burning camp. The column of black smoke grow more distant, and by mid-morning it had disappeared around the shoulder of a wooden hillside. The Crow Foot people started one of their traditional songs, raucous voices raised over a simple rhythm created by tugging sharply at their chains.

The vehicles reached a track hugging the edge of the moorland, and picked up their pace. The captives bounced a little in their seats, and several times Ceni’s throat caught on the steel collar. Even harder to get used to was the shaking, a deep victory that worked its way through her insides. The sensing was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.

The unfamiliar motion and the sounds of despair brought a renewed terror rising within her. She yearned for release, and for Yarro. She was terrified for Emba. Her hands fight the chains, reflexively trying to cover her ears. Desperately, she wished that she could access her wyrd but felt too consumed by the growing tempest of fear. Locked in position, Ceni felt her throat tighten and a sob begin to well in her chest.