To the Dead City

by Alex Bentley

  “There isn’t time for this, Alys.”

  The need to know is as strong as when my mother wouldn’t tell me about the Maddy Things and the Crawlies, stronger in fact. But unlike the irritation on my mother’s face, the fear on my father’s compels me to let the matter go. It will have to wait until tomorrow and I am with Aunty Elsam. But then another thought occurs. This one does not send frost down my spine but puts an ache in my stomach, like when I ate the cakes that had not cooled yet despite my mother’s warning that my belly would not approve.

  “What will you do?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Don’t worry? But they will know. If I am gone, and the stones are no longer whistling, they will know. And they will know you helped me, and they will kill you.”

  “I’ll tell them we saw someone in the Freewood, a man. A man making fire with his bare hands. A man with the Glyst. I’ll say we chased him and he escaped, but after that I could not find you. I will make a pretence of searching for you for the rest of my life. And they will believe me, because my face will be a mask of sorrow until I die.”

  He grabs me then, my father, and pulls me to his chest. He emits a single sob, so quiet. And it is by far the worst sound I have ever heard in my sixteen years. Even worse than the sound of the razored flint being drawn across my scalp.

  And then I hear, faint and in the distance, the whistling of grefa stones.

  My father releases me and wipes tears from his eyes with the heels of his palms. He kisses my forehead hard, as if he wants to leave an impression there that will last long enough to see me to safety.

  He hands me the sack with the bagged welpa.

  “It will keep until you get to Aunty Elsam, and she will cook it up fine.”

  “What are you going to eat?” I ask, but I know that is the least of his problems.

  “Go,” he says, his voice soft and kind. “And may Eascus, God of these and all woods, be with you.”

  I go. I don’t look back. I don’t think I could bear to watch my father, cloakless and unarmed, fading away from me into the woods. But also, there’s a part of me that thinks somehow everything is going to be all right. There has been some kind of mistake. I don’t have the Glyst. I will not be hunted by the men of Gafol and put to the sword. All of this is going to be resolved. It must. That naivety propels me forward for a little over half an hour then collapses. Because I remember when I was strung upside down in the Jarl’s squarehouse, thinking he isn’t really going to cut me with that flint. I remember thinking everything was going to be all right. I remember thinking there had been some kind of mistake.

  This is real. This is happening. I am alone in the Freewood, and I am being hunted.

  And what if my father is wrong about the Cwalee? What if they do come for me? What if they are coming for me right now from wherever it is they dwell? I imagine it just as my mother had described: the very air tearing open in front of me and one of those things—tall and thin and white, with too many joints in its limbs, head long and fleshless, and tentacles where a mouth should be—stepping out onto the decaying carpet of the forest floor and reaching for me. My mother had never described the creature’s fingers, but my imagination, generous and cruel, provides the details. The fingers are, like its limbs, too long and with too many joints. It has two thumbs, one on either side of the hand, and in place of fingernails it has thin, black barbs, like the stinger of a straggis wasp.

  For a few minutes, I cannot move. Fear has made me rigid as old, badly maintained leather. Then the whistling of the grefa stones starts up again, closer now. I run, and I do not stop until I can no longer hear that infernal whistling. I do not stop until I hear the River Woever. It is a loud river, fast-moving over many rocks.

  I make my way down to the banks of the river and, kneeling in the mud and stones, splash water on my face. Then I head east. I will keep moving until nightfall. I will follow every one of my father’s instructions and I will be with my Aunty Elsam in the morning. And everything will be fine.

  Provided my father is not wrong, and the Cwalee are not coming.

  They must be hungry, wherever they are. They ate over a hundred years ago and have not eaten since.

  I shake my head. Such thoughts are unhelpful, I tell myself. Put your trust in your father, you little brat. I feel a surge of anger at myself, and that’s good. The anger keeps the fear at bay.

  I make good progress, and for the hour or so I have been following the river, I have not once heard the whistling of the stones. I almost begin to feel something like confidence. And then I realise I would not be able to hear the whistling of the stones, not this close to the rushing water.

  The men of Gafol could be converging on me even now, swords and axes in hand. An arrow might be in flight at this very moment, and I would not know until it struck.

  I look up into the woods and see movement everywhere. But it is high in the trees where a mild wind is toying with the leaves and tugging at the weaker branches. I scour the forest, as I would when hunting, looking for telling details and refusing to see the whole. When hunting, my father once said, the whole is distracting. You must see it one piece at a time. Your game is never in ‘the forest’; it is in a tree or a bush or behind a rock.

  And so I look from tree to tree, bush to bush, rock to rock, and I force my hearing to filter out the sounds of the Woever behind me.

  There are no men, and I cannot hear the grefa stones.

  “Lucky,” I say. “Lucky, Alys. And luck is a bucket with a hole.”

  I resolve to follow the river from a distance from this point forward, keeping it just in view, just in earshot.

  It is only because I decide it would be sensible to fill my waterskin before leaving the river behind that I turn and see the scabwolf rising from the water.

  Chapter 5

  Depending on Lady Blackbelly

  It would be a pitiable thing, the scabwolf, if it were not for its considerable size, twice that of a man.

  It is almost entirely hairless, and its pale pink hide is patched with weeping sores. Its eyes are yellow and rheumy, set deep in sockets that speak of unimaginable hunger. But the things that make it pitiable are what make it dangerous. Scabwolves are born with a worm in the belly which eats most of what the wolf eats, a greedy, uninvited guest. That worm, sometimes called a flaythread, geds out a poison, which the scabwolf is able to tolerate, if only just. The flaythread’s venom finds its way into the scabwolf’s slobber. And so a bite from a scabwolf is a very terrible thing.

  Every instinct tells me to turn and run.

  But the teachings of my father command me otherwise.

  If I turn and run, the thing will be upon me in no time. Its eyesight is poor. Likewise, its sense of smell. But its hearing is keen. As if to demonstrate this, the scabwolf tips its head first left, then right. Listening. Then it bares its brown-yellow teeth. They are long enough to pierce my arm and see their way through to the other side.

  Suddenly it seems eminently sensible to ignore the teachings of my father. Running seems not only to be a viable option, but the only thing that can be done. As if my body has already decided the outcome of any debate, the muscles in my calves tense and my torso begins to turn.

  But the riverbank is steep and muddy.

  I might be the fastest runner in Gafol and have the Five Feathers to show for it, but I will not outrun a scabwolf on such a gradient with mud and water beneath my feet.

  And still my calves tense and my body turns.

  I glance back at the scabwolf. It stares at me with eyes that would not know the difference between a man and a tree stump, but it does a very good pretence of seeing. It snorts the air. Another pretence. It is a lie, this thing. Even its hunger belongs to the flaythread in its belly. And, for a moment, I am reminded of the Jarl. I don’t know why. Regardless, it is enough to lend me sufficient anger that my calves relax a little and I turn to face the beast.

  It tips its head left, then ri
ght again.

  I wonder if it can hear my heartbeat, which sounds to me like the beating of huge hands on a kanna drum.

  Abruptly, its head snaps to its right, looking eastward along the Woever. Or listening eastward. I see a fish, a Lady Blackbelly, drop back into the water, doubtless having leapt to snatch midges from the air. The scabwolf does not move in the fish’s direction; it does not move at all, but its attention is not on me for the moment.

  Holding my breath, I unshoulder my bow. Not my bow. My father’s bow. It is heavier than mine, and unfamiliar. The grip is thick and makes my hand feel small, like a child’s.

  The scabwolf continues to glare eastward.

  I reach back and pinch an arrow between thumb and forefinger.

  I hear the scrape of the arrowhead against the neighbouring shaft. It is a tiny noise, a thin noise. But the scabwolf’s head snaps in my direction as surely as it had at the splash of the Lady Blackbelly.

  I freeze.

  The scabwolf pretends to stare at me. It is an excellent pretence. Almost completely convincing. My heart is beating so hard now I can feel it in my belly and in the tips of the fingers that are squeezing the nock of the arrow. I want so badly to swallow, but I dare not. The click in my throat would be as sharp and as loud as a click of the fingers.

  I wait. I wait for a noise, for anything to distract the beast.

  But the Lady Blackbelly has gone down to the riverbed now to eat her mouthful of midges and will not be leaping again soon.

  The scabwolf pretends to sniff the air.

  As if it has caught my scent, it takes one step forward. Then another.

  My throat is so dry with the need to swallow it itches. My eyes water.

  The scabwolf tips its head left, then right. One ragged ear twitches like the leg of a dying thing, and I wonder what it has detected, and know it can only be my heartbeat or the tiny trickling sound of the single tear that is making its way down my cheek.

  It takes another step forward.

  I can smell it now.

  It is the stink of an untreated wound. My stomach clenches at the foul odour.

  I wish I’d run earlier, when the thing first emerged from the Woever. I might have made it up the riverbank and away. It’s possible, with a little luck and no slipping.

  But luck is a bucket with a hole and not to be relied upon.

  An expression of my mother’s pops into my head.

  We are nowhere other than here.

  She would use it whenever there was some problem which could only be tackled head on and could not be shirked. Like when I’d stood on a nail and there was nothing to do but pull it from my foot in one good, swift tug, no matter how much I told her I could get used to it or that it might just come out on its own while I slept.

  We are nowhere other than here.

  So I wait. With nothing to do and nowhere else I can possibly be.

  The scabwolf takes another step forward.

  A few more steps and I will be able to reach out and touch the tip of its dripping snout.

  My shoulder stiffens and the muscles in my upper arm begin to burn. I start to feel dizzy and realise I have not taken a breath since I first caught the scabwolf’s putrid tang. I let my lips open a little, just a slit, and take in a few threads of air. Just enough to keep me conscious, not enough to set my guts roiling.

  I wonder why the scabwolf hasn’t leapt yet. It must know roughly where I am. What is it waiting for? Why doesn’t it just take a chance? At worst, it will miss its mark.

  Then I notice its hide isn’t decorated with sores alone, but with scars too.

  It doesn’t know whether I am a man or a bear. To make a mistake with me would be no terrible thing, but to misjudge its attack upon a bear or balegoat could see it badly injured, perhaps mortally so. It is a pitiable thing, and pitiable things always learn patience.

  It takes another step forward. Another calm, patient step.

  One more and I will run. I know I will.

  Then the Lady Blackbelly—the same and greedy or another—leaps from the water once more.

  The scabwolf’s head snaps right again, green-yellow slobber swinging from its slack jaws.

  I slide the arrow out and notch it in a single motion as my father has taught me.

  And the scabwolf hears the sound, its head lashing back toward me, lips pulled back to reveal red, raw gums.

  I draw the bow and the creature leaps. It is as if I have it on a leash, yanking it toward me.

  I let the arrow fly, then dart right.

  But the ground is slippy—I would never have made it up the riverbank, Five Feathers or not—and sprawl in the mud, losing the bow and cracking my chin on a stone.

  I am up again in a flash, spitting blood, my hand reaching for my knife, forgetting the sword.

  The scabwolf is lying on its side, my arrow buried in its shoulder, good and deep, at least half the shaft hidden in its sour flesh, blood bubbling up around the wood.

  At last, I swallow and take a proper breath.

  Not taking my eyes from the fallen beast—it is still breathing, shallow and ragged, but breathing nonetheless—I retrieve my bow. The wood clacks against a stone.

  And the scabwolf is up and lurching toward me.

  This time I run. Up the bank and away, not slipping once. Later I will tell myself it was a logical choice—the thing was wounded and so would be slower, less likely to catch me—but it is fear that propels me, make no mistake.

  I run up into the woods, away from the scabwolf, away from the river and the Lady Blackbelly. I lose track of how long I run and in which direction. I only stop running when I realise it is getting dark.

  Surely I haven’t been running that long.

  I look up. No, it isn’t dark. The canopy above me is dense, allowing in little light. Gesneh trees. They are tall and dark, their trunks a near-black red. The low branches are stubby and leafless, the high ones heavy with thick leaves, the size of a man’s face. The leaves are used for dyeing clothes. But only the Jarl and his cronies are permitted to wear red.

  Then I remember something else about gesneh trees. Moss will not grow on them.

  “Ged!” I shout. “Idiot! Gedding idiot!”

  I take a deep breath, calm myself.

  With no moss to navigate, I am lost.

  I look to the next tree and the next, and the next. And every one is a gesneh tree.

  I am about to launch into another tirade of self-reproach liberally peppered with the kind of words that would have seen me on the receiving end of my mother’s palm only a year or so back when I realise I only need to find the sun to know which direction to go. It must be getting close to end-of-day now, and the sun sets in the west. I only need to find the sun and head in something like the opposite direction.

  I scale the nearest tree easily, the stubby low branches as good as the rungs of any ladder. In just a few seconds, I am up among the high branches, surrounded by leaves the colour of the Jarl’s ceremonial cloak, the one he wore when he inflicted the Seven Cuts upon me. The eight cuts, I remind myself. That last one, the seventh, across the thighs, was a monstrous cheat. Just as quickly as I ascend into the canopy, I locate the sun off to my right. It is not as late as I thought. It has perhaps two hours to go before it finds the horizon.

  I am about to climb back down when I hear the whistling of a grefa stone.

  Close by.

  Very close by.

  Chapter 6

  The Boy I Kissed

  I wedge myself against the trunk, unshoulder my bow and nock an arrow.

  The whistling is getting louder.

  And there are voices. Two of them.

  “It will be quicker if we split up, Father.”

  “Oh, yes, what a tremendous idea, Dwynan. Yes, let’s split up. A fine plan.”

  “So pleased you agree with me for once, Father. It is a fine plan, is it not?”

  “It will be a good experience for you, lad. It will build character, as a straggis
wasp builds its conical house from animal hair and mud.”

  “Indeed, Father, a grand experience. What could provide a better experience for a boy of sixteen than finding himself lost among the gesneh trees? I can already feel my character improving. Why, my character is measurably better than it was just three steps ago. I suspect my character will soon be so big it might topple over, a victim of its own greatness.”

  I realise then that it is not two voices, but one talking to itself. What’s more, I recognise that voice and the name it spoke of.

  Dwynan.

  Dwynan Furral.

  We kissed once, a year ago, behind the Jarl’s stable, during the Festival of Seros. His lips were soft, and he tasted of yellowberries.

  Before we kissed, he spoke to me often. After, not at all.

  He steps into view then, the grefa stone held out ahead of him in his palm. Its whistling is suddenly so high it is like the shrieking of a scalded infant. He tugs his sword from his scabbard. Or tries to. It takes him three attempts to free the blade. He turns on the spot, seeking out the Glyster who must be somewhere very close by for the stone to be behaving so. He looks everywhere but up.

  “Hello?” he says, his voice tremulous with fear. “Show yourself, Glystgedder. Prepare to… meet… you know… your doom and all that. At the point of my sword and what have you.”

  I try not to laugh.

  And then I realise there is nothing to laugh about.

  I cannot let him see me. Because, if he sees me, I will have to kill him. I cannot let him go back to the Jarl and nay-say my father’s account. That would be death for my father.

  I draw my bowstring, training the arrow’s point on Dwynan’s chest.

  He shoves the grefa stone into a pouch on his belt, gripping the sword with both hands. Then he proceeds to work his way through the most basic sword drills, the simple kind my father taught me immediately I was well enough after the Ritual.

  He is not very good. There is every chance I will not have to kill him because he will do the job himself with a slip of the blade.

  I try not to laugh again. Then I remind myself of the seriousness of the situation. I have never killed a man before. Of course I haven’t. In fact, I have only ever seen a man die at another man’s hands once.