Free Assassins - Ian Watson & Andy West by Ian Watson Page A

Carrion birds hopped about, vile scraps hanging
from their beaks.
    Jabbering, Arwe’s bearers’ set him down,
their limbs trembling not from the extended exertion of the
journey, but in abject fright.
    The Arabs’ slave moaned in terror, and Yaqob
shuddered. “I not go more,” he said, grammar driven from his
mind.
    Arwe seemed unconcerned. Toting a bag, he
rose from his black seat and directed an abrupt order at Hakim.
    “Yaqob!” snapped Hakim. “Translate!”
    “He said, support me .”
    Arwe had darted glances at Hakim and at the
others, yet he was cocking his head towards the yapping of hyenas
rather than staring directly at the terrible spectacle. It occurred
to Hakim then that the old man’s piercing eyes must actually be
quite short-sighted. If so, the horrors that Hakim saw clearly must
still be quite blurred for the Priest-Witch. Maybe the spirit-world
was easier to see, or to imagine, in a luminous blur!
    Aware of the precaution he should take, Hakim
tied a fabric mask in place over his mouth and nose, then duly
clutched the wizened Priest-Witch under one armpit, easily taking
his pathetic weight as Arwe set one bare foot before the other.
More brusque words in Oromiffa. Yaqob’s tremulous voice. “Come to
feast your eyes! Come! ”
    And to feast Arwe’s eyes too, once he was
close enough to focus.
    Hakim realised that he wasn’t propelling the
Priest-Witch so much as being dragged forward against his will.
With a prayer, Hakim advanced, breathing deeply to calm himself and
quell his fears. Such would be the scene if his quest succeeded, he
reminded himself, yet vastly multiplied in many lands. God’s
enemies would be felled by God’s own instrument.
    Let it be!
    “Stay where you are, Sadiq,” Hakim called out
behind him, serene now as they drew closer, becoming coolly
observant...
    His professional eye picked out angry red
spots and black sores, festering boils and slimy pustules,
swellings, limbs twisted askew, liquefied guts and unidentifiable
deliquescing organs seeping through hyena-torn bellies. The
festering vomit wasn’t merely dark with flies, but blackened. The
smell was fouler than the contents of any diseased and shit-filled
bowel, yet laced too with a nauseating sweetness.
    Arwe hissed like a cat at hyenas that bared
their yellow teeth, and he gestured splay-fingered, hypnotically,
until the animals whined and reluctantly withdrew to worry at more
distant corpses. Some way off, Hakim spied a pile of charred
branches, the remains of what must have been a big bonfire.
Probably evidence of fearful villagers burning the earliest kin to
fall victim, before the situation became uncontrollable.
    Evidently unafraid, Arwe hobbled among the
dead bodies, pointing at ghastly signs they’d discussed before and
uttering single words, some of which Hakim knew by now. Then the
Priest-Witch stopped by the ruined corpse of a young man, jerking a
knobbed finger demandingly at the sharp knife Hakim always wore.
Hakim handed over the blade, after which Arwe mimed being helped to
kneel. Hakim complied, then was gestured back a pace or two. Oh
yes, in case pressure of gas in the body caused foul liquids to
spray.
    Arwe slit open the abdomen, laid down the
knife, then with his bare hands tugged yielding flesh wide.
Exerting himself far more than Hakim had believed possible, the old
man proceeded to break ribs and wrench them apart. This laid bare
what Hakim, stepping closer again and bending, could identify as a
livid, bluish heart and lungs that were blotched black. Lower down
the corpse and deep within, he scrutinised what must be a liver,
yet swollen to twice the usual size. Below this, the gall-bladder
leaked thick and fatty black bile. The writhe of pale guts,
ressembling the dissolving arms and legs of tiny infants, knees and
elbows all bent and jumbled together in an obscene stew, bore a
thousand black spots as though being consumed by feasting
beetles.
    Arwe took from his bag a container of