Alchymist by Ian Irvine Page A

her
and, by herself, she would not survive a week. She could not kill another
animal for food, nor eat its bloody, pungent flesh if she did.
    She
would have to follow the clanker column and find a way to live off it without
being caught. Though Ullii was a creature of the night, used to moving silently
and secretly, that thought filled her with terror. Stealing from the army was a
capital crime. Should she be caught, they would kill her like a beast. But she
had to eat.
    Going
back for water, she found the air-floater smashed to pieces. The gasbag, a good
fifteen spans long, had disappeared. Searching in the mud she discovered a
water barrel with a few handfuls of brown water in it, and drank the lot. There
was nothing left of the food.
    It
was growing dark. She circled around one of the camps, and around again, silent
as a ghost in the darkness. Many times she came on ruined clankers, but the
smell of blood and death was so strong she could not bear to crawl inside. She
was ravenous, and so desperate for a drink that, not long before dawn. Ullii
approached a dead soldier. Holding her nose with one hand, she went through his
pack.
    She
found nothing to eat or drink, but the next corpse had a stoppered skin of wine
and a bag of flat honey biscuits. After wiping the mouth of the skin a dozen
times, and suppressing a shudder, she put it to her lips.
    The
wine was so sour that it took her breath away, and the taste made her want to
wash her mouth out. She took another sip, then a mouthful. It had been watered
and was weak, but Ullii had not taken wine before, nor any kind of alcoholic
drink.
    Moving
upwind of the corpse, she nibbled at one of the honey biscuits. It was
delicious, though intensely sweet. She ate it all and took another sip of the
wine, which now tasted even more sour.
    Ullii
wandered off, alternately nibbling to break the sourness of the wine, then
drinking to rid her mouth of the excessive sweetness. In this way she
circumnavigated the camp again. To her right she heard cursing and the
distinctive sound of the whip. Groups of harnessed men were attempting to drag
clankers out of a bog. She turned the other way and shortly came upon a ruined
clanker, just as the sky was growing light. Her head felt strange. Ullii
giggled, staggered and threw up.
    The
sun burst over the horizon, right into her eyes. Ullii stumbled around the
clanker, found a hole in the side and crawled in. All around her echoed the
roars of overseers and the groaning of slaves. There was only one consolation —
the lyrinx had gone. In the core of her lattice she could see their columns,
moving steadily away, abandoning Snizort and all they had made here.
    Not
quite all — they carried a number of strange objects with them, thick with the
aura of the Secret An. But they were shielded and Ullii could tell no more
about them, even had she wanted to. She sought for the solace of sleep.
    Ullii
woke with a terrible headache, for she'd slept the day through, and the night.
The sun was beating down on the clanker now, which creaked and squealed as the
metal plates expanded and slipped over one another. Her mouth tasted foul; she
was thirstier than ever but could not stomach the wine. She ate a few more
honey biscuits, sniffed the contents of the skin and poured it onto the ground.
    Not
daring to go out in the daytime, Ullii lay panting in the clanker until
sundown, growing weaker and weaker. Her headache was worse than before. She
felt sure that she was dying.
    The
clanker cooled quickly once the sun set and Ullii, idly trailing her fingers
along the upper side, discovered that it was covered in beads of moisture. She
licked her fingers. Her tongue was so dry that it felt crackly. Following the
trail of drops down the side she discovered a small pool of condensation, about
a cupful, in a metal hollow. After drinking it dry, she felt strong enough to
look for more.
    Her
senses were so acute that she could smell water, even among the fumes from the
bodies