Free The Warrior Who Carried Life by Geoff Ryman

peasant, to be amused?” Cara asked. She looked at Haliki as steadily as she could. “I know what you are doing, Sir Hero. Go away and let me learn my positions. As you had to.”
    “He has heart,” said one of the Angels, simply.
    “Only because he does not know what he is facing. Watch, magician, and learn who we are.” Haliki patted Cara on the back, and stood up. The others followed him, filing out of the courtyard through one of the gates.
    “Rest,” said Galad, sitting beside Cara. “And watch.”
    The Angels, returning, carried three huge rocks among them. The boulders seemed to float in the air, the Angels using only one finger each to support them. They were lowered gently; the Angels stood back.
    Haliki blew at the stone. “Wawawa,” he said, and thrust his hands towards it, palm first. His hands stopped, and vibrated, as if with reverberations. Then, with one movement, he dived for the rock, like a swimmer, hands flattened against each other into a head like a spear. He plunged into the stone, breaking it into thirds. Each third stood poised for a moment, as if in surprise, before rolling apart with a rumble on the pavement. Haliki stood, to light applause.
    “They sense the faults in the stone,” said Galad. “They sense the faults within the human body. They find the faults in the mind, the hairline cracks in the soul that weaken. Men who attack them with swords end up cutting themselves in confusion. To fight them is to fight air that suddenly becomes a fist. Never fight them. In a fight, you absolutely could not win. Please, country soldier. Remember that!”
    Cara tried the first ten positions, as the afternoon faded. In the last red light of sunset, people approached along the top of the broken walls, with a beating of gongs and drums and thin reedy wailings from flutes, and with the swaying of great umbrellas over them.
    “Galu,” said the trainer in a flat, guarded voice.
    Cara saw how they approached and she knew then that she faced a very great evil indeed. She saw what the Angels had called Carriers.
    The Galu rode men, as though they were horses. The first Carrier was a giant, with great heavy arms, and bulky legs and buttocks and sure broad feet. The top of his head had been cut away, to make him stupid and docile. His eyes were blinkered either side of his head, and he champed a bit inside his mouth. The Galu, astride his back, was completely covered in black. Even his face was covered by a lustrous black leather mask, without a mouth. On the feet were spurs.
    “Are they women, to hide their faces so completely?” Cara wondered aloud.
    Galad shook his head. “Those? They are the Sons.” Cara’s heart caught, with hope and hatred. “They are only ever seen at night, or just at sunset, covered like that.”
    “Galo gro Galu?” Cara asked, her voice rising.
    “Sometimes it is him.”
    Behind the first was a second Carrier, who had been born an idiot, with no brain. His forehead stopped just above the eyebrows, and his hair, as though confused by the lack of its allotted space was clotted and thick and crowded in swirls. The empty eyes were not blinkered, but looked around the world in delight. One of the Galu held up a hand, and the parade stopped, on the wall above the School of Angels. The orchestra, in single file, stopped sawing and bashing and whining. The Galu who rode the mutilated giant dismounted and strode to the edge of the wall and looked down. The Angels paused, and genuflected, and then went on with their practice with renewed vigour.
    Cara realised that the Galu was looking at her. Cara bowed, hand on chest. It was a gesture of purest hatred. The Galu, hidden in folds of cloth, seemed to swagger with amusement. Then with deliberation, he plucked away his mask, and smiled down. It was a chilling smile, full of knowledge, and Cara had the sudden, unreasoning fear that the creature knew who she was. She strained to recognise the hateful face. In the light of day it was