They Fly at Ciron

They Fly at Ciron by Samuel R. Delany

Book: They Fly at Ciron by Samuel R. Delany Read Free Book Online
Authors: Samuel R. Delany
Tags: Science-Fiction
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feet’s uneasy purchase on the flags because of the blood that sluiced them. He remembered a dark-glazed crock smashing under a horse hoof. (With the soldiers, horror. spread the village.) He remembered running to the town’s edge, to find the gravefield shack aflame.
    Ienbar had called, then shouted, then shrieked, trying to get past the fire from the mounted soldiers’ muzzles; then Rahm hadn’t been able to see Ienbar at all for the glowing smoke, and there’d been the smell of all sorts of things burning: dried thatch, wood, bedding, charred meat. Rahm had run forward, toward the fire, till the heat, which had already blinded him, made him—the way someone with a whip might make you—back away, turn away, run away, through the town, that, as his sight came back under his singed brows, with the chaos and the screams around him, was an infernal parody of his village.
    *
    Uk pulledhis sword free to turn in the light from one of the towers, parked by an uncharacteristically solid building with a stone foundation. Something was wrong with Uk’s knee; it had been throbbing on and off all last week; for three days now it had felt better, but then, only minutes ago, some soldier and some peasant, brawling on the ground in the dark, had rolled into him—Uk had cried out: it was paining him again. Turning to go toward the lit building, he’d raised his sword arm to wipe the sweat from under his helmet rim with his wrist—and smeared blood across his face, sticking his lashes together. But that had happened before. Grimacing at his own stupidity, he’d tried to blink the stuff away.
    While he blinked, Uk recognized, between the struts of the light-tower, from the diminutive armor and a motion of his shoulder, Mrowky—who was holding somebody. Three steps further, knee still throbbing, Uk stopped and grinned. The little guy had actually got the redheaded girl—probably snagged her as she’d fled the common’s carnage.
    You’re a lucky lady, Uk thought. Because Mrowky would do his thing with her, maybe punch her up a little, afterward, just to make her scared, then run her off. That was Mrowky’s style—even though, when a whole village had nearly gone into a second revolt over the petitions, laments, and finally rebellious preachings of a woman raped by a soldier, Nactor himself had harangued the troops a dozen campaigns back: “I don’t care
what
it is—boy, woman, or goat! You put a cock in it, you put your
sword
through it when you finish
with
it! That’s an order—I don’t
need
to deal with things like this!” But Mrowky wasn’t comfortable—norwas Uk—killing someone just because you’d fucked her. And rarely did a woman carry on afterward like the one who’d raised Nactor to his wrath, especially if you scared her a little. Though others among the soldiers, Uk knew, honestly didn’t care.
    Really though, Uk thought, if Mrowky was going to do her now, he’d best take her out from under the light—behind the building; not for propriety, but just because Nactor or one of the officers might ride by. (No, Uk reflected, Mrowky wasn’t too swift.) Favoring his right leg, Uk started forward to tell his friend to take it around the corner.
    The redhead, Uk saw, over Mrowky’s shoulder, had the stunned look of all the villagers. She was almost three inches taller than the little guy. Mrowky had one hand wrapped in her hair, so that her mouth was open. As his other hand passed over it, the redhead’s arm gave a kind of twitch.
    Which is when Uk heard the howl.
    From the darkness, black hair whipping back and a body under it like an upright bull’s, the big man rushed, naked and screaming. Rush and scream were so wild that, for a moment, .Uk thought they had nothing to do with Mrowky and the girl; they would simply take this crazed creature through the light and into the dark again. Then Uk glimpsed the wild eyes, that, as the light lashed across them, seemed explosions in the man’s head. The teeth

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