The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 by Ricardo Pinto

himself up. The resulting spasm caused him to roll his eyes up into his head. Nausea surged in waves. Everything from neck to thighs was aching pulp.
    'I don't recall you warning us of danger when my son spotted the Bloodguard among the slavers nor any complaints when we went in to rob them.'
    The words pulsed with the blood hammering at Carnelian's temples.
    'Sky and Earth! What's that got to do with anything?' Ranegale replied. 'It was only when Fern found the Standing Dead among the sartlar that the Bloodguard began to kill us.'
    Sartlar? That word made the memory of his suffering seep in like rain through a cloak. He fumbled his hand up to his neck and trembled as it touched the raw crusty edges of his wound. He endured the agony as his fingers probed for and did not find the rope. That he felt naked without it made him weep bitter tears.
    A voice carried from the distance and Carnelian heard creakings as the barbarians turned to look. He tried peering down the tunnel between his knees and saw that his saddle-chair curved up into a basketwork prow. Beyond stood his aquar's neck, past which he could make out, against the brooding sky, a giant from which the voice appeared to be coming.
    Thank the Skyfather that at least we're not pursued,' said Cloud, the man with Grane's voice.
    'What need have they to chase us,' said Ranegale, 'when they know the dragons will do their work for them?'
    'We must get back onto the road then?' A youthful voice taut with fear.
    There we'd have no chance at all, thanks to you, boy.'
    'Ravan ...' said Cloud, gently. The fight was sure to have been seen from the watch-tower. Our descriptions will have been sent all the way down the road. Patrols will already be on their way up from Makar as part of the scouring. On the road they'd trap us as easily as if we were on an earthbridge.'
    Then we must hide deeper in the fields,' said the youth.
    'Without the watch-towers to steer by we'd soon be lost.' Cloud gazed out, sadly. This enslaved earth has no trees, no hills, no landmarks at all save only kraals, each identical to every other.'
    'How far are we from the road?' bellowed Ranegale in the direction of the giant.
    'We'll still see the tower flares,' a reply came back.
    The voice seemed to Carnelian ludicrously thin for such a giant. He was still dazed. He focused on thoughts of Osidian, desperate to know if he still lived. Fearing another spasm, he gingerly applied pressure with his thighs and, gritting his teeth, slid himself back and up his saddle-chair.
    Squinting against the pounding in his head, Carnelian saw there were perhaps twenty aquar ranged around him. A few were riderless, the others bore men and youths enveloped in black hri-cloth, their legs hooked over the peculiar transverse crossbars that formed the front of their saddle-chairs. Most of the raiders had their heads turbaned by more of the cloth so that only their faces were exposed. Save that these were free of the chameleon tattoo, the raiders could have been from his own household. Searching among them, he found a saddle-chair into which a patchy black body had been folded. Carnelian's heart leapt. He did not need to see the face to know it was Osidian.
    The raiders were looking into the distance and, when he followed their gaze, he saw a man riding towards them behind whom rose the giant that Carnelian now realized was nothing more than the overseer tower of a kraal.
    'You saw no one in any direction, Loskai?' Ravan again. Carnelian located the youth standing on the ground, a slash of dried blood across his forehead and cheek, his face sweat-glazed, bruised.
    Loskai shook his head. Ravan turned to look round at another rider who was hunched forward gripping his ankles, his loosely-turbaned head almost resting on his knees. Ravan sank his chin.
    'You're right, Ranegale, this is all my fault. I was the one who noticed the Bloodguard.'
    'Don't speak like that, son.' It was Stormrane reaching out to grasp Ravan's shoulder. The man