Fallen by Tim Lebbon Page B

sought to tear it away. They would go at it with knives, or files made from urchins dried in the sun. Take out an eye, and a face is made imperfect. Take off a nose, and there's only ruin. But they went further than that. Physically, they could wreak havoc on us Mancoserians, but with each raid they left more of our men without their balls, and more of our women damaged inside. We fought hard and well, but the raiders were not seethe-gators. At least the ’gators come at you one-on-one, their intentions merely to kill and eat. The raiders were more brutal. They killed on every raid. And sometimes they ate too, tearing flesh away with their bare teeth. There are Mancoserians, now very old, who still remember the day a raider took a chunk of flesh from their breast, leg or face.
    “But back to the voyage. So, north of the mountains, Jeriglia took us to the coast. We found a small village there on the shores of the Bay of Cantrassa, and in the small natural harbor were the remains of five boats. The masts still stood high, but the hulls were rotting, and sea creatures and birds had made them their home. Some of the village was built from wood harvested from the wrecks. Other buildings had been hacked into the soft cliffs, and still others were made from stone blocks, carved carefully over years. The people there feared us at first, especially the Serians among us. They looked at our swords, and my scars terrified them most of all. When they asked where I got them, and I told them about the seethe-gators, that seemed to relax them. A little. But it was only when we met their elders— saw their scarred faces and skin scored by decades at sea—that we knew for sure these were raiders.”
    Konrad paused for a while and refilled his mug. This time there were no calls, no shouts to continue. He had cast his spell, and Nomi's attention was fully focused on the story. Is this a tale of love or of loss? she thought. Perhaps both . . .
    Konrad drank some wine, sighed appreciatively and continued. “We wanted to kill them all. Though the frequency of raider attacks had dropped off drastically, we still knew them for what they were. Yet the younger ones among them did not have the look of raiders, and they mostly spent their days farming the fertile lands around the village, or fishing out in the bay from boats that looked barely seaworthy. The older ones, still bearing the scars, were friendly toward us, offering us food and shelter. Though they seemed confused as to why we were there, they opened their village to our presence.
    “And then I met Neria. One of the few true raiders left among them. A lover.”
    Konrad stopped pacing and stared down into his mug. “I need more wine,” he said. Lowkie stood and poured, and worked his way around the group refilling mugs. There was no talk, no banter, because nobody wanted to interrupt Konrad's tale. It hung in the air unfinished, like a rock about to fall or a horse set to leap. Nomi sensed that the heart of the story was yet to be told, and everything up to now had been the preamble.
    “Neria,” Konrad said. “She looked a little like Lulah. Small, strong, rarely a smile on her face. She came to meet us down at the beach, and she arrived armed with all her raider weaponry. They used swords like us, and bows and arrows sometimes, but their favorite weapons were their throwing knives and stars. She had a belt of knives around her waist, straps of stars around each shoulder and down across her breasts, and more strapped to her thighs. As she came along the beach, the youngsters of the village ran to her, shouting in a language we had not yet heard them speaking. But I'd heard those words before. They sounded like waves hitting rocks, and it was the sea-banter of the raiders.
    “We prepared to fight, though we knew this would not be much of a battle.
    “The raiders were incredible warriors. We Mancoserians know how to fight, but our enemy is normally a seethe-gator. Strong enemies,