The Road to Sinharat
Copyright© 2025 by Leigh Brackett
Chapter 4
The others came out of their stupor as he pointed, warning them to silence. The broad track curved ahead and vanished out of sight beyond a great reef of white coral. The wind had not had time to do more than blur the edges of the individual prints.
Mounting and whipping their beasts unmercifully, Carey and the others fled the track. The reef stood high above them like a wall. Along its base were cavernous holes, and they found one big enough to hold them all. Carey went on alone and on foot to the shoulder of the reef, where the riders had turned it, and the wind went with him, piping and crying in the vast honeycomb of the coral.
He crept around the shoulder and then he saw where he was.
On the other side of the reef was a dry lagoon, stretching perhaps half a mile to a coral island that stood up tall in the hard clear sunlight, its naked cliffs beautifully striated with deep rose and white and delicate pink. A noble stairway went up from the desert to a city of walls and towers so perfectly built from many-shaded marble and so softly sculptured by time that it was difficult to tell where the work of men began and ended. Carey saw it through a shimmering haze of exhaustion and wonder, and knew that he looked at Sinharat, the Ever-Living.
The trampled track of the Shunni warriors went out across the lagoon. It swept furiously around what had been a parked flier, and then passed on, leaving behind it battered wreckage and two dark sprawled shapes. It ended at the foot of the cliffs, where Carey could see a sort of orderly turmoil of men and animals. There were between twenty-five and thirty warriors, as nearly as he could guess. They were making camp.
Carey knew what that meant. There was someone in the city.
Carey did not move for some time. He stared at the beautiful marble city shimmering on its lovely pedestal of coral. He wanted to weep, but there was not enough moisture left in him to make tears, and his despair was gradually replaced by a feeble anger. All right, you bastards, he thought. All right!
He went back to Derech and Arrin and told them what he had seen.
“Wales just came ahead of us and waited. Why bother to search a whole desert when he knew where we were going? This time he’d have us for sure. Water. We couldn’t run away.” Carey grinned horribly with his cracked lips and swollen tongue. “Only the Shunni found him first. War party. They must have seen the flier go over—came to check if it landed here. Caught two men in it. But the rest are in Sinharat.”
“How do you know?” asked Derech.
“The Shunni won’t go into the city except as a last resort. If they catch a trespasser there they just hold the well and wait. Sooner or later he comes down.”
Arrin said, “How long can we wait? We’ve had no water for two days.”
“Wait, hell,” said Carey. “We can’t wait. I’m going in.”
Now, while they still had a shred of strength. Another day would be too late.
Derech said, “I suppose a quick spear is easier than thirst.”
“We may escape both,” said Carey, “if we’re very careful. And very lucky.”
He told them what to do.
An hour or so later Carey followed the warriors’ track out across the dry lagoon. He walked, or rather staggered, leading the animals. Arrin rode on one, her cloak pulled over her head and her face covered in sign of mourning. Between two of the beasts, on an improvised litter made of blankets and pack lashings, Derech lay wrapped from head to foot in his cloak, a too-convincing imitation of a corpse. Carey heard the shouts and saw the distant riders start toward them, and he was frightened. The smallest slip, the most minor mistake, could give them away, and then he did not think that anything on Mars could save them. But thirst was more imperative than fear.
There was something more. Carey passed the two bodies in the sand beside the wrecked flier. He saw that they were both dark-haired Martians, and he looked at the towers of Sinharat with wolfish eyes. Wales was up there, still alive, still between him and what he wanted. Carey’s hand tightened on the axe. He was no longer entirely sane on the subject of Howard Wales and the records of the Ramas.
When the riders were within spear-range he halted and rested the axe-head in the sand, as a token. He waited, saying softly, “For God’s sake now, be careful.”
The riders reined in, sending the sand flying. Carey said to them, “I claim the death right.”
He stood swaying over his axe while they looked at him, and at the muffled woman, and at the dusty corpse. They were six, tall hard fierce-eyed men with their long spears held ready. Finally one of them said, “How did you come here?”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.