The Stone Knife

by Anna Stephens

  It fell away and she reared up, trapped his hand under her knee and slammed her broken knife down into the side of his neck. She paused over the dying man and then pulled away the top of her armour. It was staining red already, redder than the feather in her hair, hot and throbbing and hurting to breathe. Ilandeh put the wood-and-cotton handle of her knife in her mouth and bit down; then she drew the Tokob blade out of her chest. Only the tip was red, perhaps the length of her thumb-joint; her armour had stolen most of the force. Still, the wound bled freely.

  She breathed experimentally, but couldn’t hear or feel any bubbling. She ripped a wad of cotton from the medicine pouch on her belt and stuffed it against the wound, tightened the strap on her armour to hold it in place, and checked her surroundings again.

  More were coming.

  The sun told her two hours had passed. Corpses littered the hillside, all the tribes gathered to fight for or against the Empire adding their blood and life to Malel’s sides until the thin skin of soil on her flank was a red slurry and fighters slipped and skidded and fell and died.

  A distant roar as Calan finally committed her eagles, reinforcing the dog warriors who’d pushed the defenders back along the eastern line. The enemy had seen them too and shouts of alarm rose up. There was a collective shuffling together, a searching for orders, longing gazes cast towards the city. She scanned her own section of the battle and found it disciplined and holding firm. Below, some of the Tokob facing the eagles ran for safety.

  ‘Cut them off!’ she shouted, gesturing to the pod around her and then whistling. Second Flight Beyt, restored to her proper place as Ilandeh’s subordinate, looked up and Ilandeh pointed at herself and then downhill. The other woman nodded and waved her on.

  Ilandeh ran on burning, shaking legs, the shield on her left arm long since splintered into nothing and the flesh beneath pummelled black. She’d lost her spear and found another, lost that and stolen an axe from a dying Yalotl. Her pod formed the arrow shape with her at the tip, and they plunged down through the panicking, fighting roil of defenders. Cut them off cut them off cut them off.

  A few more Tokob broke for the city, then a knot of Yaloh. Ilandeh forced more speed into her legs, teeth gritted against pain and the uneven, slippery ground and the desire to stop. She was macaw, the half-blood warrior daughter of a Pechaqueh noble, she was Flight, she was Whisper, and she would not let down the Empire of Songs or the High Feather. She would not.

  Even so, it was mostly Calan’s dog warriors who got there first. Ilandeh knew they would be the ones only a few moons or a few actions away from freedom, that tantalising taste like honey on the lips that was a future armed with digging sticks and cooking pots rather than spears or knives. A future with their freed families around them, land to call their own, and the glory of the song forever in their hearts.

  Perhaps a hundred of them got between those fleeing and the Sky City’s eastern gate, fighting viciously to keep the Tokob and Yaloh away from safety. Ilandeh sped up some more, ignoring the fierce battles all around her, intent only on supporting those dog warriors at bay before the walls.

  Calan’s spear-throwers opened up on the Yaloh flank, and more of the enemy broke and ran. The dogs were badly outnumbered now and overseers were cracking whips and forcing the slave warriors forward through the enemy while the eagles followed, taking apart Paw after Paw with lethal efficiency. The slaves wouldn’t be in time to save the dogs. Ilandeh might be – as long as the gates didn’t open and reserves pour out to take them in the rear.

  ‘Setatmeh!’ she screamed and the dogs saw her, took heart, and pulled into one long impenetrable line in front of the gate that neither Tokob nor Yaloh knew how to counter. Ilandeh’s arrow formation punched into the biggest knot of Tokob and cleaved it in half. They spun to face the new threat and the dogs responded, curling the edges of their line inward to trap them in the scorpion’s pincer. Between them, none survived. It was wasteful, but the first day’s battle always was. They could begin taking slaves once the defenders’ will had been broken.

  Above on the walls, arrows began to flicker down and the Melody warriors pushed forward, pressing Tokob and Yaloh away from their city and towards the slave warriors and eagles. Another pincer, bigger but still lethal.

  Out of arrow range, Ilandeh paused to breathe, her battered left hand pressed to her sodden salt-cotton. The blood had soaked through the stiff layers and rendered them useless. She was wearing nothing more than a padded tunic. Someone barged into her from her left, slamming her into the ground with a roar of animal rage. The back of her head hit mud hard and stars burst in her vision. When they cleared, there was a woman snarling in her face, a woman both familiar and armed.

  ‘Lutek of the Tokob,’ Ilandeh croaked and smiled a death smile as her hand scrabbled for her axe.

  Lutek’s lips peeled back from her teeth and the knife flashed as it began its downward arc. Ilandeh grabbed with her right hand and pushed; she jerked her left knee up and Lutek’s weight shifted to the side; Ilandeh threw herself in the same direction. She lost her grip on the warrior’s wrist and Lutek punched her in the face and slipped her arm free, her knife scoring through the base of Ilandeh’s thumb. She stabbed again, but a warrior’s sandalled foot connected with her ribs and tumbled her over. A hand dragged Ilandeh to her feet and by the time she’d found her balance in their grip, Lutek was gone, swept away by the swirl of the battle.

  The Whisper fought for air. She’d known what would happen when her old friends, all those she’d betrayed, saw her, she just hadn’t expected the flicker of guilt that had made her hesitate, a tiny fraction of a heartbeat only, but enough. If the dog warrior who’d dragged her to her feet hadn’t intervened with a well-placed kick, she would have died. It could never – would never – happen again.

  The Tokob had rallied once more and were again fighting a retreat towards the eastern gate while archers and darters on the walls shot over their heads, forcing the Melody back. The Yaloh streamed uphill towards the northern entrance. Splitting up, forcing the attackers to split too if they wanted to chase them down. Her macaws were still at the northern wall under Beyt’s command, supposing the Second Flight was still alive, but if they had archers there, too, it would make it difficult to close with the Yaloh without being cut to pieces. More defenders appeared on the city walls with arrows, slings, and spears.

  Ilandeh looked for Feather Calan, to see whether she’d order the slave warriors to storm the walls regardless, but then drums began echoing from above and behind. The retreat. Pilos must have decided they’d bled the city enough for the first day.

  Ilandeh jogged away from the wall, out of arrow range, beginning to let herself feel her exhaustion, her hurts and aches. This battle was over, but she’d been tasked with one final conquest on this first day. Grim and tight-lipped, she paused to haul air into her lungs and stared north. Uphill. Towards the womb.

  TAYAN

  The womb, above Sky City, Malel, Tokoban

  19th day of the grand absence of the Great Star

  This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. This isn’t happening.

  Eja Quin had been in with Tayan, watching over him from the cave mouth, while Eja Nallet had hold of the rope harness Tayan wore. They didn’t know anything was wrong until Tayan had stepped far too close, not noticing because there was no tension on the rope. It was Quin who stopped him and discovered there was no one on the other end.

  When they scrambled out of the womb, Nallet and her dog were gone and there were Melody lining the horizon. She hadn’t even jerked on the rope in warning. The Empire had deployed across the hill above the city, cutting it off from the womb. Cutting them off. Quin had ventured out once night fell, but there were too many sentries and too many fires. He hadn’t found a way through.

  Now they crouched in the mouth of the tunnel leading into the womb, Eja Quin next to him and his dog Zal at their feet. The spirit-magic Quin had taken had worn off the previous evening, leaving the
m trapped between the Drowned and the Melody. There was no food, no water, and only Quin’s spear, knife, and net to defend themselves.

  ‘They’re pulling back. Done for the day, looks like,’ Quin breathed. ‘I say we wait for night and make a run for it.’

  ‘You didn’t find a way through last night,’ Tayan pointed out.

  ‘Would you prefer to stay here and be caught by the Pechaqueh with one of their gods tied up and crippled?’ Quin asked and Tayan shuddered. He couldn’t begin to imagine what they’d do to them if that happened. He squinted some more, but it was all just a flowing, many-coloured mass and a roar of noise occasionally punctuated by a scream higher or louder than the rest. He couldn’t tell Tokob from Pechaqueh, friend from enemy. Could only distinguish the city because he knew it was there and knew its colour against the hill.

  ‘We should have gone when they sent in the eagles,’ Quin said again. He looked at Tayan. ‘First opportunity I get, I’m going. If we can’t get into the city, I’m heading wide around it and down into the jungle. Start looking for survivors, for somewhere to go, to hide. You can come or stay, but if you come, you do what I say when I say.’

  ‘How did we do?’ Tayan asked.

  Quin sucked his teeth and then spat. ‘We held,’ was all he would say and so they waited, huddled down low, hungry and thirsty, as the sun peaked in the sky and began its slow slide to the Underworld.

  A light rain had begun and the hill had quietened in the aftermath of slaughter when Quin put his hand on Tayan’s chest and shoved him hard down onto the floor of the tunnel. ‘Scouts,’ he whispered and readied his spear. The shaman slid further backwards into the tunnel to give him room, his heart a sick thudding in his chest and his dry mouth even dryer. Behind them, in the womb, the holy Setat – Drowned, it’s a fucking Drowned – began humming.

  Quin yelped and spun around. ‘What’s that?’ he hissed as Zal growled.

  ‘It’s fine, it doesn’t affect you,’ Tayan said hurriedly. ‘I’ve been listening to it for days. Ignore it. Oh, shit.’

  There were shouts from below on the hill in the gloom: had they seen Quin move? The eja was staring out at the rain and then back into the tunnel leading to the Drowned, indecision etched across his face.

  ‘In,’ Tayan hissed, dragging at his arm. He didn’t wait to see if the man followed, just slithered further down the tunnel and then jumped up and ran. They hadn’t been in the womb since the previous afternoon, too intent on what was happening below and trying to spot a safe route through to the city, and now Tayan cursed his own stupidity. There was no orange glow from the womb, just the humming of the Drowned in the dark – the last of the candles had burnt out.

  ‘No fucking way,’ Quin breathed when he realised. ‘I am not going in there in the dark. No. Fucking. Way.’

  The pale light at the end of the tunnel darkened abruptly as bodies moved into the entrance. They crouched, still, silent. ‘… hear that?’ someone asked. A woman. Familiar.

  ‘Didn’t you say this whole place was made of songstone, Flight Ilandeh?’ another voice asked.

  ‘I did, and it is. But what was the songstone echoing?’

  Tayan closed his eyes, but not in fear or recognition of Ilandeh’s voice. At his own stupidity. Songstone. Fucking songstone. Of course that was it; of course that explained why the womb was sacred and why the prayers and chants the high shaman spoke in here had such power. He should have realised.

  And that was why the holy Setat hummed. He’d thought it harmless noise, a way to comfort itself, perhaps, but nothing that creature did was harmless. The headaches and thirst, the lethargy in the ejab dogs, the fact that he could spend an hour in here and have written nothing, though when he came back out he had vivid memories of learning remarkable things, things just beyond recall.

  The fact he had become so convinced it wasn’t a threat. An image of Tayan’s own hands on its leg, fixing its bones the way Toxte had done. How many days ago had he done that? Had he done it at all? Xessa rubbing her brow, confused: I’d swear I saw it standing in front of you, but my head was pounding. I must have imagined it.

  They’d done everything it wanted short of freeing it.

  The other end of the tunnel glowed brighter, a red blooming of light. Whoever was there had lit a torch. Was advancing. They could stay in the tunnel and be captured, or go into the womb and hope the sight of the Drowned would distract the Pechaqueh enough for Quin to kill them. And then they’d have to run, no matter what. But that was for after. That was for if there was an after.

  Tayan tugged on Quin’s arm and moved, slowly, on hands and toes, fumbling across the narrow tunnel into the blackness of the womb.

  Gentle splashing, the humming louder in here. Louder and changing, slowly, from hum to song, and Tayan was standing, blinking into the blackness, shuffling forwards until cold water seeped over his sandals. He could hear Quin’s harsh breath, tiny whimpers, Zal’s growl increasing in the back of her throat.

  Alarmed voices from behind and the faintest tinge of orange light that gave shape and form and substance to the blackness. And there it was, the holy Setat, the rope and collar torn from its neck, standing before them and singing.

  A sudden cacophony of barking, deafening in the small space, echoing and re-echoing from the songstone, enough to break the grip of the song, at least a little. Quin gripped Tayan’s shirt and threw him back against the cave wall so hard his skull bounced off it and lights exploded in his eyes. Dazed, he sank to the floor, blood a hot trickle down the back of his neck.

  The torch was blinding and dancing all over the place as the Pecha lunging into the womb swung it, trying to see everything at once.

  Glints of orange and gold reflecting from the crystals in the walls and the polished gems and stones lining the shelves. Twin flames reflected in the holy Setatmeh black eyes as it sank onto its haunches, limbs spidering around it, head swaying on its long neck. Zal, at the edge of the water and barking; Quin, lunging at and stabbing the warrior in the leg with a shout.

  The holy Setat leaping forward and clamping its claws around the dog’s skull and wrenching it off her body with a single tearing twist. Quin screaming, the wounded warrior screaming, the last of the dog’s barks echoing, the holy Setat singing.

  Noise. Movement. Flickering light and dancing shadows. Tayan, unable to focus. Quin, backing from Ilandeh as she advanced on him. The shaman trying to croak a warning. The holy Setat rising up behind him like one of the lords of the Underworld and snatching Quin so fast the spear tumbled from his grip. The eja didn’t even have time to shriek before its mouth had torn through his throat.

  Sudden silence, but for the rush and patter of blood into the shallow pool. Sudden stillness, but for the flicker of the torch. The holy Setat ripped at Quin’s throat some more, swallowing mouthfuls of hot flesh and blood, and then let his corpse fall. It held out a hand and trilled. Come.

  Tayan struggled to his feet, wobbling, his vision wrong somehow.

  Come.

  Smiling, Tayan stepped into its arms.

  Pain. Red and amorphous, pulsating thickly behind his eyes and inside his head so that his hearing faded in and out with his pulse and his vision blurred, cleared, blurred again. Cool rain on his face and wind over his body. Outside, then. And not dead. Not … eaten.

  Tayan cracked an eyelid. Firelight at several distant points and one close by, bright enough to make him turn away. Movement caused more pain, and also a murmur of interest from someone on his right.

  A sandalled foot in the ribs kicked him onto his back, stealing his breath. Tayan curled up on instinct, trying to breathe, but a second figure crouched at his side and yanked his head back by his hair. A woman. A face he knew.

  Ilandeh.

  ‘Enough,’ she snapped at whoever had kicked him. Then she met his eyes and hers were very, very cold.

  ‘Bitch,’ he breathed. Then: ‘How did I get here?’

  Her fist slammed into his mouth. ‘Shut up,’ she said r
aggedly and he saw bandages peek from the neck of her tunic. ‘You, the cave, the god …’ She trailed off, unable to speak, mouth contorted with desolation. ‘You really are fucking savages, aren’t you?’ she asked in the end, quietly, as if she didn’t want an answer.

  ‘Why didn’t it kill me?’

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said, and then snapped his mouth shut.

  Ilandeh’s lips peeled back from her teeth. ‘Xessa. That snake-fucking little bitch,’ she breathed. ‘I should have killed her when I had the chance.’

  Tayan lunged for her, didn’t even know he was going to until his fingers were hooked and curving for her eyes. Ilandeh swatted them aside and then reared up over him and punched him. His nose broke, mashed across his face, and blood burst from it and from his mouth. He wailed and rolled onto his side. It was as if she’d ripped his face off his skull and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t will his eyes open against the pain.

  I’m still conscious, though, he thought muzzily and even managed a bubbling, wheezing little laugh. Lilla would be proud of me. Maybe I am a warrior after all. Maybe this is my jaguar path. Tayan the warrior. Fear me.

  He made another noise – half-laugh, half-sob – and lay in the dark and the hurt, concentrating on the rain on his arms and the horrific pain in his face. Everything else was distant.

  ‘Shall I put him with the other prisoners, Flight?’

  ‘No, not yet. Keep him close by but secure. Once the Sky City is ours, High Feather Pilos will want to speak to him, I’m sure. And the holy Setat may demand him as its offering for the atrocities he has committed against it. Do we have a way to transport it to the river yet?’

  ‘We’re working on it, Flight. I swear.’

  ‘Work fucking faster.’

  Ilandeh stood and nudged Tayan with her foot. ‘Don’t die on me, little shaman,’ she said in a voice like the dry rustle of death. ‘You don’t get away from your crimes that easily.’