by Jeffrey Hall
But before she could, one of Carry’s thugs tackled her, sending her to the ground so hard that she smashed her chin against the stone, making her teeth clack and her skull rattle.
She cried out, hoping to find some reserve of strength to fend off the man, but the thug worked brutally and quick. He slammed her head into the stone and worked her arms behind her back. With a thick piece of rope he bound her arms and brought her forcefully to her feet.
When she stood again she felt blood running down her chin, could taste its iron flavor upon her tongue, and saw Carry standing in front of her.
“This has been a long time coming, Dashinora. I know that Shint will be disappointed to know that he missed the opportunity to do it himself. He has long had the desire to end your treacherous, unreliable ways.”
She kicked out with her legs, trying to catch the thug who held her in the groin, but he simply sidestepped and pulled her hair back.
“Easy there, spitfire,” said Carry.
She spat in his face. Her saliva slid down his forehead as he smiled, putting creases there to gather it before wiping it away on his sleeve. In a flash he put a curved dagger to her neck. The sharp metal met her skin, catching the curses she wanted to spit at him and the shadows in her throat.
“To think, of all your transgressions, sticking your nose in the wrong place is what finally caught up with you.”
She raised her eyebrows and was about to yell when she felt the cold metal drag across her skin.
Chapter 22
They lay huddled beneath a dilapidated market stand on the edge of the Blackened Line, a spoke running from Bothane Rock to the mainland given that name by the miners who had carved it many years ago thanks to the veins of onyx found surrounding it.
It was a scarcely used artery in Bothane, or so at least it looked to Requiem and the others as they gathered themselves in its darkness, finding a brief respite from their mad escape.
They had slapped the backsides of the wild belly-grups and sent the lizards back to their homes somewhere in the craggy faces of the stone, thankful to be rid of the creatures’ bare backs and the insecurity they offered as they rode them face-first down the side of Bothane Rock and onto the flatter ground of the Blackened Line.
Despite how tight Requiem had held onto Grey and how ready he was to meet the Abyss, the experience still unnerved him. He didn’t like putting his life into the hands of a beast. He liked it even less when he didn’t have a saddle to secure him and needed every ounce of his strength to stay aboard it… and to keep another from falling too.
Garp lay between them now, blinking as he looked up through the broken wooden roof of the abandoned stall they gathered beneath, looking into the craggy darkness of the tunnel’s ceiling further overhead, mumbling, blinking, speaking to himself as if he had just seen something that now needed to be discussed.
“What’s wrong with him?” Grey loomed over the younger man, running his hands through his hair. Though Grey looked a shade closer to death from the beating he’d taken from the Bothanian soldiers, he seemed unconcerned with his own health.
“The vapors he inhaled-… eldium chewed out from the bones of the davlish’s own kind.” Requiem scratched his chin. The one other time he had seen a young davlish release its gasp of desperation around others they had died, gone mad and killed themselves, same as what had happened to the Glimmerian soldier back in its burrow. He had never seen someone only half go insane like Garp. Though Requiem had called the man a fool since the day he met him, and disavowed his own involvement in causing him to lose his hand, guilt finally found his way to him when he looked down at the poor creature before him.
When Requiem had taken his hand, he had at least kept his spirit intact. But this. This was a severing of his soul.
If Requiem had just let him be. If he had just moved quicker and killed that damned child davlish.
Grey searched the faces of the others who looked down at the man. “Nothing can be done? He’s just supposed to be sitting here silly for the rest of his life?”
Sasha cleared her throat. “Don’t know of any Abysmal vegetation that can cure a frayed mind.”
Grey’s eyes filled with tears, but none fell. He blinked and looked up to the same ceiling his nephew gazed blankly at, forcing the wetness away.
“Enough of this,” said Glassius, who stood impatiently by their side. “We are a hunted people. Need I remind you? The Elder probably has his entire army knocking over houses searching for us. The Abyss only knows what that other Scarred wanted.” His eyes landed on Requiem. “We need to get to the king. Let him know what has unfolded here.”
“This man is near death and yet you crack your whip without remorse,” said Sasha.
It was Grey who interjected, surprisingly. “He’s right. We don’t tell the king what’s happening we’ll have another Shamble on our hands.”
“We’re gonna have one one way or another by the looks of it,” said Sasha.
“Not if we can talk him down,” said Glassius. “This was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. A poor choice made by me, attempting to make an elegant spy out of a blunt instrument.”
“Never claimed to be anything else.” Requiem stood. “There is something going on here. Something neither brother sees. We exposed that. Maybe we did it too early.”
“And what’s that?” said Glassius, the scowl on his face impenetrable.
“All I know is that the criminal we brought before them was released by the Elder’s own advisor’s hand. And when we confronted him about it, he didn’t seem in a hurry to side with me.”
“Why would he side with a man of the same brood that took his father?”
Requiem shook his head, balling his fists. “Never wanted to be involved with any of this. Just wanted to keep someone safe.” He glanced down at Sasha, whose own vision was still on Garp.
“Well, now you’re in it. Now you’ve endangered us all. And either we try to smooth this over or risk the heads of everyone in Moonsland.” Glassius started pacing again. “King Larken never wanted this to happen. He only wanted to keep things fair. He only wanted peace across the land, same as his father.”
“That’s all that the Elder wants too,” said Requiem. “Seems both boys have different notions of what that peace should be.”
“But only one is the king,” said Glassius.
“Tell me, how do you plan on meeting with the new King Larken when the streets are stuffed with soldiers?”
“The streets are dangerous, but even the whole Bothanian army can’t watch them all.” Glassius stopped and stared down the spoke they had come from. “This place is full of passages, from the mainland to the Rock. A handful of avenues for criminals like the ones you ran with to operate.”
“That’ll lead to more fighting,” said Requiem.
“Who would you rather face? A pack of loosely armed fanatics or an army of well-trained soldiers?”
“He’s got a point there,” said Grey.
“I remember the way,” said Requiem, reluctantly. He was still in no shape for a fight.
“Then take us.”
Requiem shook his head. “Not without what I came here with.”
Glassius’s face turned red. “What could possibly be more important than this?”
“That thing that destroyed a building with one swipe of its sword is after a girl. A girl that I found at the Edge, taken and drugged by Dread Cultists. A war may be on the horizon, but a thing with that power, on the search for something so mundane as a little girl, might be something more sinister.”
“Then let him have the girl,” said Glassius.
“Maybe I will,” said Requiem. “But first we need to hear her side.”
“Listen to you both,” said Sasha, suddenly. “Talking about a child like she’s currency to be traded. News for you, but she ain’t that.”
Requiem caught eyes with her and knew she wasn’t just talking about the girl. It was another reminder of his treatment of their son
. Another reminder of how she viewed him as a father. He tried to brush it aside, but couldn’t when it was a reiteration of his own thoughts, once more voiced.
“Not currency, but certainly not worth allowing a war to erupt for,” said Glassius.
“How do you know?” Sasha stood. “How does any man understand the worth of a child when their heads are so far up their own arses and even further up the arses of their kings and their wars and their blades.”
“My lady, I didn’t—”
“You meant what you said. You always do, so don’t try to back away from it now like a coward.”
Glassius’s face hardened, but it didn’t match that of Sasha’s. She was speaking so closely to the man that Requiem thought she might headbutt him.
“Fine. If you want to throw away a continent’s worth of life to explore one girl’s then let’s get on with it. But this will be on both of your souls.” Glassius slipped past his wife and made sure to bump Requiem as he went to stand outside the broken stall.
Requiem opened his mouth to speak to Sasha, but caught his words in his throat when she brought up her finger.
“I thought you learned. I thought Mote might have taught you something…”
“He did. I just—”
“Can you get him to stand?” She had already turned her back to him.
“I can with the help of others.” Grey pointed to the nearby soldiers.
“Get to it then,” said Sasha, and she went to her new husband’s side, leaving Requiem drowning in his own thoughts, replaying the words that had left both of their mouths only seconds ago. Wondering how he could keep on failing. Wondering how, after all these years, he still hadn’t learned. That, despite what he had told himself, despite what he had tried to do, he was still on his own journey.
Still a selfish creature who, deep down, had little use in the life of others. He could save people. He could protect them. But he was only ever doing it for himself. He was only ever doing it to show that he was not the man who had turned his back on his dying child to venture out into the world and find a remedy for his own guilt and sadness by striking down the next monster. Gaining his next pouch of weight. Taking the next job that would take him further and further away from the horror in his own household.
The slow erosion of his own flesh and blood. A creature he had never known could take such heavy residence in his soul until he was brought into his life and presented before him, wrapped and quiet, like some godly gift he wasn’t sure he deserved.
And here he was, many years later and many miles away from that same home, still cutting his way through the world all for his own purposes. All so he could once again stand at the edge of the world and end his life in his own way.
Alone. Taking flight like the birds he often watched soar through the air, free of the trapping of dirt and all that grew upon it. Finally meeting the Abyss and attempting to resolve all of its mysteries in that lonesome time where he cascaded through it, hurrying to its bottom. A place he was long destined for. A place he should have been many moons ago.
Yet there was a girl that still needed him. Yet there was a woman he once loved and maybe still did still alive and navigating the horrendous maze of this world: its politics and people, its monsters and its heroes, its mysteries and its unending feud with reason. Yet there was this world, a place he once protected, a place he once wandered and loved, that still existed.
And all he wanted was to walk away from it all and be done with it.
He had always thought he had done what the world and its people had asked of him, and repented and returned from the narcissistic creature that he was. But all he had ever really done was hide that selfish beast.
It was still there. It always had been.
And as he watched Sasha lingering in the tunnel next to Glassius, her arms folded in aggravation, he knew that he had failed her again. Despite how hard he tried to make amends and save her, he kept killing the man she wanted him to be over and over again.
“Are you alright?” Grey’s voice penetrated his thoughts.
Requiem looked down to see him and two other soldiers leaning over Garp. He nodded.
“Then do you mind helping us out here? Even minus a hand he’s still a heavy lout,” said Grey.
Requiem did, lowering himself to grab hold of the man and pulling him onto his shoulders while Garp continued muttering to himself, occasionally raising his voice as if something was coming at him.
“Can you walk?” Grey shook him slightly, nearly pleading with the man.
Garp’s head slumped, his eyes sneaking to either side of his lids.
“Can you walk?” Grey repeated louder and more sternly.
One of the Glimmerian soldiers sighed. “We’re gonna have to drag his arse—”
“I can do it.” Garp came to life, blinking, using his weight to push them all forward.
“Garp? Garp!” Grey caught him before he could get too ahead of himself. “You alright?”
“My head.” Garp put both sets of fingers to his temples. “It burns. There’s things in it. Things that I can’t escape. Voices. I... I…” He slumped again, and Grey was there to catch him.
“Maybe not all of him is lost yet.”
“Maybe,” said Requiem, forcing himself to feel hopeful, fighting to feel something for someone other than himself before they slipped away.
Requiem took the lead not long after they left the Blackened Line, following a narrow tunnel that snaked out from the main artery: nothing more than a passageway for Bothanian citizens to reach meager homes hewn deep beneath the overground. It was dark there. Difficult to tell if it was night or day any longer, but the shadows provided ample cover for them to pass by or hide from the patrols that now seemed to roam every street, every corner. Only the small glimmer stones that emanated from the fist-sized windows carved into the various homes’ walls proved to be any nemesis to their movement, sometimes shining on places they wanted to be, paths they needed to cross.
It made them move slow, but with Requiem leading the way, the slow pace was welcomed.
Though they were constantly in motion, it was a welcomed respite from the mad escape and combat they had endured over the past few days to reach that point. He started to feel recovered. Like he could cast a spell with Ruse and not fall over.
But the feeling of Sasha nearby and what she had seen in him, what she had made him see in himself, was a drain of a different source, one he could not recover from as easily.
He found himself—selfishly, again—thinking how thankful he was for the constant threat and the way it distracted him from himself. The threat, and Garp’s constant madness.
It was a threat in its own right. Grey and the soldiers took turns carrying him about, stifling his noises with cupped hands to keep him from giving away their position to the soldiers they neared.
Twice Glassius threatened to shut up the man for good, and twice Grey threatened the man to try. Requiem thought that they might shed blood then and there, but Sasha’s constant voice of reason talked them down from their warmongering.
“Aren’t there enough bodies at our back?” she said ferociously in whispers. “Preserve the ones we have and save your fighting for something that matters, children.”
Requiem watched on, surprised. She never acted so motherly and forceful when they were together. Probably because they were mere children themselves back then, but even then he’d recognized her relaxed nature. How she often could be found laughing or encouraging the fights that would erupt in Silver Hole’s lone tavern, encouraged by the drink and the oft invigorated crowd that watched on. But that was a lifetime ago. He was a fool to think that she wouldn’t have changed.
Eventually they maneuvered their way to the start of the Alley of Fangs. The street of destitution sprawled out before them like an old wound upon the dark stone beneath Bothane Rock, ragged and discolored, the vegetation that grew upon its wall the outer crust of a scab almost healed. It was quiet there. Barely any
of its denizens were scaling the walls to farm the rags of plants drooping over the outcrops. The only noise that could be heard were voices from somewhere deeper in the corridor.
Voices, and screams.
Requiem met eyes with Grey. Though they were some distance away from them, he thought one of them sounded like Dash’s.
He ran, not bothering to check if the others followed. He drew his blade, following the screams and raised voices like footprints on a hunt, and rounded the hut of the old mute woman to find a fissure in the wall.
He pushed aside a flap of plants growing along either side, and there, in the small chamber that existed on the other side, was a crowd of ruffians, men and women adorned in piecemeal armor and tattered furs, brandishing crude weapons like clubs, blades made of poor metal, and axes more mace-like than sharp. Members of Proth’s Prodigy.
And in the middle of the circle was a scene of violence that looked like some type of crazed ritual.
There lay the girl, sprawled out on the ground much as Requiem had found her with the Dread Cultists, a member of Proth’s Prodigy resting the blade of an axe against her neck like she was a stump used for chopping wood. Next to her was the boy who had spoken for the old woman of the alley, a dagger to his own throat, his eyes wide like white fruits in the darkness. Across from them was the mute woman herself, participating as a silent witness, her fists clenched and her veins bulging as if what she was watching was a physical attack on her too.
But in the middle was Carry, the leader of Proth’s Prodigy, his onetime employer, dragging a blade across the neck of a woman with purple hair.
Dashinora.
“Stop!” Requiem was overcome by the sight, swelling with a mixture of surprise, fury, frustration, and his own self-anger. It came out more like a crash of thunder than a yell and caused every person to flinch and freeze.
Carry brought up his dagger. Its glistened dark beneath the lowlight, barely a red. “You,” he growled and threw Dashinora to the ground.