Malefactor

by Robert Repino

  One of the birds gripped the other at the neck with its beak, and then ripped away a chunk of bloody flesh in midair.

  “Eagle!” Nikaya screamed. “That’s an eagle!”

  The geese already knew. The formations split into smaller triangles, with the strongest flyers taking the lead. Gaunt huddled closer to his partner. He must have known what enormous targets they made, a fat goose carrying a defenseless mammal.

  More screaming and honking, this time from below. Nikaya turned in time to see an eagle dive bomb a formation, knocking out the leader. The bird tumbled, its neck flopping about. The eagle slowed, spreading its pearl-colored wings, flecked with brown and gold. Though slightly smaller than a goose, his angular shape resembled a missile compared to his round, slow-moving prey. The eagle flashed his talons and caught the helpless bird, plunging his beak into the neck. The goose opened its mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

  The formation closed in to seal the gap.

  Nikaya spotted four eagles circling far above—high enough to gather speed. As they overtook the flock, one of the eagles tucked in his wings and dove. He collided with the bird to Gaunt’s left, bursting it apart in an explosion of feathers. Again, the formation tightened, allowing Nikaya to fly right beside Gaunt.

  Nikaya was no hunter, but she knew that these eagles wanted to isolate the two big targets. Remove anyone who could protect them before swooping in. She tried to throttle the bird to steer her away from danger, but the goose would not comply.

  “Hold the arrow,” the bird said. “Hold the arrow.”

  Despite the Change, this flock stuck to the same instincts that kept their species alive. They would stay the course because breaking formation would get them all killed. Those who died would save the rest.

  The mountains were too far beneath them for Nikaya to jump to safety. She riffled through the harness, checking all the pockets and creases, hoping to find something hard or sharp, anything she could use as a weapon. But when she spotted the birds of prey again, she knew it was too late. Another eagle, the biggest one, dropped from the circling birds and began his descent, a spear aimed right for her.

  She bared her front teeth. If this eagle took her, she would get one last bite in before the predator snapped her neck.

  The eagle slowed by fanning out his wings. His claws flashed. And then something enormous and shiny plowed into him. Nikaya covered her head as a shower of feathers flitted about her. One lodged in her mouth and she plucked it out. Over the goose’s shoulder, she saw the two creatures struggling in midair. The eagle beat its wings yet continued to fall, ensnared in the claws of something much larger. This new predator had an enormous head, and a body made of three large bulbs. Its transparent wings refracted the sunlight, and then buzzed so rapidly that they disappeared.

  “Alpha!” Nikaya screamed.

  The insect’s antennae twitched. The ant released the eagle. As the broken bird fell away, the Alpha ascended toward the V formation.

  The geese continued their pace. They would hold the arrow. But there were more Alphas in pursuit. Nikaya counted seven. Eight. The remaining eagles dispersed. The ants ignored them. Of course. They wanted fatter meat from prey that could not fight back.

  The failing sunlight painted the Alphas gold. They formed a triangle of their own, with the tip headed right for Nikaya. But as they drew closer, she realized that they aimed not for her, but for Gaunt. All of them. She recalled the Alpha that chased Gaunt into the trees. Why did they want him? Take me, she thought. He’s nobody!

  She could only watch as the Alphas overtook the geese, hovering directly over them. Gaunt turned in his saddle and tried to swat the beast away with his good wing. But the lead Alpha gripped his tail with its mandible. He screamed.

  It was then that Nikaya noticed the marking on the ant’s abdomen. A brand, charred into the carapace. It said culdesac.

  “You whorefucker,” she mumbled.

  She had seen this creature before. It had ransacked Lodge City, along with its siblings, on orders from the dog and the cat who betrayed them. And now here it was, having sprouted wings like some demon.

  The mandibles clamped around Gaunt’s waist. He flailed and screamed. The goose ignored him, his eyes blank as a puddle.

  Nikaya unhooked her harness. She tapped the female goose on the shoulder. “Thank you!” she said. The goose responded by flicking her tongue, now dried out in the wind like a hunk of leather.

  Nikaya turned in the saddle to face this creature, only a few feet away. She would make it. Her legs had one last jump in them. And so she leapt from the goose and landed on the Alpha’s abdomen, the largest part. With Gaunt still crying beneath her, she bit hard into the insect’s leg, puncturing the leathery armor and digging into the nerves and muscles. She let go, and the leg dangled from a few fleshy threads, leaving a taste in her mouth like oil and metal. The ant’s jaw snapped at her. Nikaya shimmied onto the thorax and drove her front teeth into the base of the neck. The antennae shot straight out. The Alpha tilted to the side until the four bodies—insect, beaver, bat, bird—all tipped over and spun out of control. As they plummeted, the V formation closed ranks once more as if nothing had happened.

  Gaunt unhooked his harness. The bird broke free and flapped away. They fell faster now, still clutching the stunned Alpha. In great pain, Gaunt flapped his own wounded wings, slowing their descent but not stopping it. Nikaya reached for Gaunt’s shoulder and pulled herself on top of him. With the last of her strength, she kicked the ant in the eye, feeling a satisfying crunch. The claws let go, and the beast tumbled away.

  Gaunt continued to beat has wings. Somewhere behind them, the Alpha crashed into the forest. Unable to hold them any longer, Gaunt could only steer between the trees as he glided. He scraped against set of thick branches, and Nikaya ripped away from his harness and fell. The ground came at her. She clenched her teeth and braced herself.

  She crashed into the mud, knocking the wind out of her.

  Her ears rang.

  The wind dissolved into silence.

  Then blackness.

  Then nothing.

  Chapter 14

  The Mournful

  (unofficial) Logbook of the SUS al-Rihla

  February 12

  Tonight, we make a run for it.

  We. Us. My son and I.

  In the morning, we will

  A shrieking howl cut through the forest. D’Arc knew it well. She set the pencil in the crease of her logbook and closed it. Sitting in her tent, she blew out the lantern and tried to listen. Another howl rang out in response, this one closer. Soon, a chorus broke out, but with no harmony, only voices shouting at random. A panic in the dead of night.

  The Mudfoot camp was under attack.

  D’Arc shoved the book into her backpack and grabbed her sword, a weapon the wolves found amusing when she insisted on bringing it along for the journey. Outside of the tent, she heard twigs breaking, branches rustling. With her eyes still adapting to the dark, she unsheathed the blade and let the tip lead the way. Another rally began, this one far off. She recognized none of the voices. They came from everywhere, closing in. Whoever attacked them arrived with numbers, enough so that the element of surprise no longer mattered.

  A form rushed past her, toward the intruders. Probably one of Mercy’s guards, sent to check on the disturbance. More of them raced to the scene, barking and huffing. None of them asked her to help. She was not one of them. These warriors trusted only their own blood. She could give them all the milk she had, and it would never be enough.

  Somewhere near the train tracks, a skirmish began. D’Arc held still and listened to the wolves snapping at one another, their bodies rolling in the dirt and slamming against the tree trunks. The noises got closer, surrounding her.

  Until this moment, she had a plan. A lovely, perfect plan that made her belly tingle when she t
hought of it. Even the Old Man would have found no fault in it, though he would never say that out loud. In her logbook, she drew diagrams of the camp, showing where each marauder slept, along with the tent where Mercy and the child retired for the night. Before sundown, D’Arc had traced the mountains to see if any of them may have looked familiar from her days on the ranch. And sure enough, one of them did—a peak with a dead cell phone tower that leaned to one side after years of neglect. It became the north star on the map she drew. After she took her child, she would follow that star to her old homeland, the same one she was so desperate to flee a lifetime ago. The baby would see all the places where Sheba the pet, Sheba the myth, became D’Arc, the bedraggled survivor of both fire and water. The pup would never believe the stories, but he would memorize them all the same.

  That was the plan. And if D’Arc wanted to salvage it from this chaos, she would have to become like the wolves. A marauder with fangs bared. She would charge the matriarch and kill her and take her child. This was her last chance.

  D’Arc stormed up the hill, weaving through tree trunks and ducking under branches. The top of Mercy’s tent appeared as an unnatural straight line within the bumpy terrain. With the blade of the sword, D’Arc pulled the flap open. The tent was empty save for the thick scent of her son and the milk she fed him less than an hour before.

  D’Arc dropped to the ground and inhaled so hard that some dirt flew into her nose. When she snorted it out, she detected the warm smell of a pup, along with the earthy scent of a wolf, mingled into one trail that headed uphill. D’Arc followed on all fours, arriving at a patch of grass that had been trampled. The wolf had gotten sloppy in her desperation to run away. D’Arc broke into a full sprint. “I’m coming,” she whispered. She listened for her child to respond in her mind, but heard nothing. She wanted to hear him whine again about how he wanted to go home to the boat, sounding like the Old Man nitpicking everything.

  D’Arc passed a swaying branch and another flattened clump of earth before she saw Mercy standing upright, clutching the baby to her chest. She clamped her hand around the baby’s snout, probably to muffle his cries. The wolf turned to face her. Oh, do you even know who I am? D’Arc wondered. Do you even know that you’ll die here in this lonely place?

  D’Arc brought the sword to her shoulder and ran faster. Mercy, who must have thought D’Arc had come to help, remained still.

  “He’s not breathing,” the wolf said.

  D’Arc stopped. The blade lowered on its own. She realized that Mercy was not clamping the pup’s mouth shut. Instead, the wolf was trying to fish something out of the baby’s throat. The pup did not resist. His head flopped to the side like a doll.

  “He chewed something,” Mercy said. “Tried to get him to spit it out. Then the howling started. We ran.”

  “Put him on the ground,” D’Arc said. Instead of obeying, the wolf stared at her as she holstered the sword. “On the ground,” D’Arc said. “Do it.”

  Mercy rested the pup on his side. D’Arc took him, flipped him around so that he lay on his belly. He was so light and warm. A stubborn heart still beat inside of him like a pair of fingers drumming the ribcage.

  The wolf whined like a dog. Oh no, D’Arc thought. You don’t get to show emotion over this. You don’t get to love what’s mine.

  “My fault,” Mercy stammered. “My fault. My fault.”

  “No one’s fault,” D’Arc said. “Babies choke all the time.” She realized too late how bad that sounded.

  D’Arc slipped her fingers under the pup’s belly. Her left hand became a fist; she wrapped her right hand around it. Like the diagram she saw in a veterinarian’s textbook. D’Arc tugged upward, gently at first. The tiny body lurched with each movement.

  “What are you doing?” Mercy asked.

  By the fourth or fifth try, D’Arc’s vision blurred, and she found herself on the tiny lifeboat again, slipping her newborns, Tristan and Nautica, into the water. Beneath the surface, the dead ones took on a ghostly appearance, their fur fluttering around their skin, their tails lifting. And then they would sink far enough where they would dissolve out of existence, a dream that only D’Arc would remember.

  Another set of footsteps arrived. A human, judging from the sound. Maybe Augur. Killing the wolf had become too complicated. D’Arc missed her chance.

  The baby still would not cooperate, so D’Arc lifted him nearly vertical and squeezed on his abdomen as hard as she could.

  “You hurting him!” Mercy said.

  “Quiet.”

  One more squeeze, and the pup coughed out the knobby joint of a bone. The child inhaled desperately before crying out. Once again, D’Arc could hear him, even if the wolf could not.

  Why are you doing this to me? the child asked.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” D’Arc said, smoothing out the tuft of fur on his head.

  Not okay! Not okay! Where are we?

  A true explanation would only anger the child more, at a moment when he could give away their position.

  “You said we safe,” Mercy said to Augur. “This not safe.”

  “The Mournful are panicking,” he said. “Their slaves are rebelling. Their allies are turning against them. I’ve seen it.”

  “You did not see this!”

  “That’s because—”

  More Mudfoot arrived. D’Arc recognized them by smell, as they still carried the soil from the camp where she first met them. Mercy’s sister came the closest. She stooped onto her front paws and lowered her head, her eyes fixed on the child.

  “Come on,” Augur said. “There’s a stream. If we cross that, we can make it.”

  Mercy glared at him, then reached for the child.

  No, the pup screamed in D’Arc’s head. No, I want to stay with you!

  She held him tighter. And that simple movement, that slight tensing of her muscles, triggered something in the wolves. The circle around her tightened. The fangs flashed. The vapor from their breath shot out like geysers. Even Urna, the damaged one, dug her claws into the dirt. These people were a unit, no different from the wayward ant colony she raised, before she learned how the cruelty of the world could carve out people’s hearts and turn them into killers.

  D’Arc let Mercy take the child.

  No! the pup screamed. No, please! Please!

  A horse whinnied somewhere. Mercy led them away from the sound. She ran upright while slipping the baby into her backpack. Then she dropped to all fours and bounded through the trees. Soon, all the wolves followed suit. The humans as well.

  Run faster, the pup said. Hurry!

  “I’m right behind you!” D’Arc said.

  Look out!

  Something hard and heavy blindsided her from the right, punching the air out of her chest. From the ground, she lifted her head in time to see Friar, the silent one, scowling at her, warning her not to follow. He darted off like a wolf, his tail lifting with each step.

  They knew. They had figured out what she was trying to do.

  D’Arc got to her feet, unsheathed her sword. Fine, she thought. I’ll hunt you all.

  She ran after them. The pack veered to the right. D’Arc did not see why until a marauder was nearly on top of her, a black, hulking form tearing through the trees, too fast for its enormous size. The Mournful knew how to hunt. Scare the prey with the cavalry, then pick them off on foot. D’Arc swung her sword, and it sparked against the wolf’s scimitar. The force of it threw D’Arc off balance. She managed to prop herself on one hand. Looming over her, the wolf planted his feet and raised his weapon. A horrible smile shone in the scant light; his fangs were capped with molded silver.

  The scimitar arced through the air, barely missing D’Arc as she rolled away from it. The blade sank into a pair of exposed roots. While the wolf pried it free, D’Arc took off again, her nose searching for the muddy scent. More shadows dar
ted among the trees. She passed a marauder as he pinned one of the humans to the ground. It was Friar. The wolf chasing her lost interest and joined in mauling the prone human. Friar remained silent even as they shredded him. To protect the pack, Augur must have ordered him to his death. And he’d obeyed without question.

  The stream babbled in front of her. The scent of blood and musk clogged her nose, making her eyes water. At the edge of the stream, cold mud overtook the grass, and the ground sloped downward. The water trickled through a jagged column of ice. D’Arc tried to jump over it, but her foot broke through the ice, sinking into mud to her ankle. As she pulled the foot free with a loud sucking sound, she noticed a shadow downstream, getting closer. A horse with a rider. Two more cavalry appeared directly in her path. Another rider blocked her escape. Goddammit—they’d used the sound of the water to mask their footsteps.

  It was over. She was so cold, and so tired. Her soaked foot went numb. She gripped the handle, raised the blade, and dared them to kill her.

  The first rider dismounted. The others closed in.

  “It’s her,” someone behind her said.

  D’Arc spun around to point the sword at the wolf who dared to speak.

  “We’re not here to hurt you,” the rider said. He held his ground when D’Arc turned the sword toward him.

  “Grieve wants to talk to you,” the wolf said. His tone let her know what would happen if she tried to resist.

  D’Arc lowered the weapon. The tip landed in the mud.

  “Let’s get on with it,” she said.

  February 13

  Plan failed.

  Captured by Mournful following surprise attack on Mudfoot camp.

  “What are you writing?” The wolf rider asked as he rocked in the saddle. “What is that?”

  As morning broke, the rider appeared as a pitch-black shadow against a purple background. Each of the marauders who marched alongside D’Arc wore a stripe of blue paint from their ears to their noses, while the cavalry officer displayed more elaborate adornments: jewelry, weapons, war paint of every shade, elaborate carvings in his fur.