To the Dead City

by Alex Bentley

  “You’ve got quite the bump on your noggin,” says Ethra’s skin, and she brushes her fingertips over a tender spot above my left temple.

  “Shall I kill hin’?” says Ethra’s body.

  I look at the Scur kneeling in the dirt with his hands on his head.

  “Yes,” says Ethra’s skin. “We must. If we don’t, he will only follow us. Or tell others of our whereabouts.”

  But putting an arrow in a charging Leccan is one thing; an execution is another. My own words mock me from the very recent past: Perhaps you lack the stomach for butchery. Perhaps you are squeamish.

  “Yes,” says Ethra’s body. “We will ’e dead long ’efore we reach the Dead City if we let hi’ live.”

  “The Dead City?” says the Scur. “You are travelling to Utlath?”

  I glare at Ethra’s body.

  “Why would you tell him that, loose lips?” I say.

  “I don’t ha’ any li’s,” she replies, and Ethra’s skin gives a breathy laugh at that.

  “I’ll come with you,” says the Scur, words emerging in a desperate rush. “I told you this was just about the coin. I can get a fair coin for grefa stones, and the Dead City is full of them. I would never have chanced such a task alone, but three of us—”

  “Grefa stones?” I say.

  “Yes, they’re made from pieces of the Dead City. Pieces of the walls and buildings. It is said the very structure of Utlath cries out for the Glyst. Grefa stones are just chunks of Utlath with a hole poked through. Did you not know? And people pay heavy coin for them. Heavy coin. If I get enough of them, I will earn three or four times the bounty placed on your head.”

  “We can’t trust him,” says Ethra’s skin.

  “I shall ’ut an arrow in his ’ack,” says Ethra’s body with a tone of finality.

  “No,” I say. “Three of us will stand a better chance than two in our bid to get to the Dead City.”

  I surprise myself at how sincere I sound, because I know the real reason I want to take him up on his offer is that I have no stomach for an execution. I am squeamish.

  “I think that is a bad idea,” says Ethra’s skin.

  “A ’ery, ’ery, ’ad idea,” says Ethra’s body.

  “We will take his weapons and bind his hands,” I say. “You will ride behind him on his horse. If he does anything—anything—foolish, it will be the last foolish things he does.” I turn to him. “Will your horse be any trouble?”

  “Lata? No. No trouble. She is sweet and daft. And I’m Casmel, Casmel Durn. My friends call me Cass.”

  “We have no need of your name,” I say.

  “And we are not your friends,” says Ethra’s skin.

  I collect my weapons and lead his horse back to our camp. Ethra, all of a piece now, takes his travelling bag, sword and dagger. He was speaking true of Lata. She is no trouble.

  Once the Scur is bound and propped against a tree stump, I go through his bag.

  “That’s private,” he says, wincing as he strains at his bonds. I have not been as considerate as he.

  The bag contains everything I would have expected. Dried meat, nuts and berries; a small pouch of medicinal herbs; some fishing tackle; a flint stone and tinder; a few coins; a stone cup; and, bundled tight in leather and wool, the grefa stone. It begins whistling the moment I start to unwrap it.

  I touch it, but it refuses to be silenced.

  Ethra, I realise.

  I hold it out to her.

  “Touch it,” I say.

  “I would rather not,” she says.

  “It is the only way to silence the wretched thing.”

  It takes her a minute to find the courage, but then she taps it lightly with the very tip of her finger, as one might test a heated pot. Her skin ripples with repulsion. But the stone, at last, falls silent.

  I wrap the stone, return it to the bag and continue my search. There is a set of spedig tiles—thin slices of whalebone with various gods depicted on them—a tatty strip of leather with a knot at one end, and sketched onto a thin sheet of whitebark, a reasonable likeness of me.

  Scowling, I push the whitebark back into the bag. I wonder how many of those likenesses have been passed about and how far south they’ve travelled.

  “What’s this?” I ask, holding up the strip of leather.

  His face darkens,

  “Nothing,” he says. “Put it back. Please.”

  “What are you planning to do with all this ‘coin’ you’re always going on about?” asks Ethra.

  “My father has gambling debts,” he says. “He stands to lose everything.”

  I put the leather strip back in the bag and take out the pouch of spedig tiles.

  “Is this how he accumulated his debt?” I ask. “Spedig?”

  “Yes. I tried to win it back for him,” he says. “I’ve played in tournaments all over Abegan. But everything I win, I lose. I have never been in debt, at least not much, but nor have I been in credit for very long.”

  “It is a fool’s game, spedig,” I say.

  “Aye,” he says with a weariness that does not sit right with someone of his age. “Some say Gewith, God of Luck, created the game. But Gewith is also the God of Folly.”

  “My father says Gewith must have been drinking with Seros when he designed the game,” I say.

  “Your father sounds wise,” he replies. “Wiser than mine. But that’s not a difficult thing.”

  Ethra and I take it in turns to sleep, so that one of us is always watching the Scur.

  It is light when I awaken. Ethra is sound asleep, her mouth hanging open.

  And the Scur is gone.

  Chapter 15

  A Plan of Sorts

  “Ged! Ethra! He’s gone.” I jump to my feet and grab my sword.

  Ethra sits up, eyes wide. For a moment, her skin begins to ripple, but then it settles.

  “What?” she says.

  “The Scur. He’s gone.”

  “Said you should have let me put an arrow in his back,” she says, voice sleep-slurred. “But you didn’t listen.”

  Then I notice his bag is still where I left it, next to my bedroll. What’s more, Lata is still tied to a nearby tree. Why would the Scur leave them behind?

  “I will not be bound,” he says from behind me.

  I pivot on one heel, slashing with my sword, but he’s a good three yards away and I look foolish.

  He is unarmed, his hands filled with bright-red water apples.

  “There is a stream about half a mile from here,” he says. “Lots of these little beauties.”

  I track him with the tip of my sword as he walks back into the camp.

  “I could have run,” he says. “I could have taken Lata and been away. But I was speaking the truth about going with you to Utlath. There is more coin to be made there than from trading in your pretty head.” He lets the water apples fall onto my blanket, keeping one, which he feeds to Lata. “Help yourselves. They’re delicious.”

  Ethra doesn’t need to be asked twice. She grabs an apple and consumes more than half in a single bit. Pink juice runs down her chin. Her eyes roll back, and she lets out a groan of delight.

  I sheath my sword and, affecting an air of only half-interest, pick up an apple, shine it on my sleeve and take a bite.

  “Not bad,” I say, reminding myself of El at her most effusive. It is the first time I have had a water apple, and it is divine. Sweet, juicy, fragrant and with a little saltiness that lifts all the other flavours. “Not bad at all.” I finish it and help myself to another.

  “So, Alys,” says the Scur. “What’s the plan?”

  “Well… Master Durn,” I say.

  “Cass.”

  I sigh. “Well, Casmel, we cannot go by road now. Not now there are pictures of me in circulation. We’ll just have to follow the road as best we can from a safe distance.”

  “That will be slow going,” says Ethra. “It will add a week to our journey. We don’t have enough supplies to last that long.”


  “We could go wide of the South Road,” says Casmel. “Head south-east and meet the Fisher Road halfway along. That should put us back on schedule.”

  “Have you been that far from the Roads before?” I ask.

  He produces a grim smile. “No. I’ve always travelled by the Roads.”

  “So, you’ve no idea what we might encounter?”

  Another grim smile, almost a wince. “No idea whatsoever.”

  “So, we stay parallel to the South Road, then the Fisher Road,” I say. “We stick to the plan. We’ll just have to reduce our ration intake. And we could find food along the way. Like these water apples.”

  “It’s possible,” says Casmel. “But what if there is no food to be found.”

  “I can catch game,” I say.

  “But that means a fire,” says Ethra. “El said no fires.”

  “It’s the least risky option,” I say. “We can keep the smoke to a minimum and put it out once the food is cooked.”

  “There is another option,” says Casmel. He goes to his bag, rummages for a moment and comes out with a small pouch. At first, I think it’s his medicine bag. But then he gives it a shake and it rattles. The spedig tiles. “We’re two days from Awlen. There’s always a spedig game happening somewhere. You two can wait for me just outside the town. I make some coin, pick up some supplies then meet you back at the camp.”

  “Doesn’t sound completely stupid,” says Ethra.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “How do we know you won’t make your money and go, then make some more money telling the Jarl or Slek Mydra where we might be found?”

  “I’ll leave Lata with you. I’ve known her since she was a foal.”

  “I still don’t think—”

  “I can’t possibly make as much money at spedig as I can from collecting and selling grefa stones.”

  Eventually, I say, “Very well. But we need to get moving now. Using the South Road, it would take two days to get to Awlen. Now, off-road, it’s going to be three. More if we don’t keep moving.”

  We’re decamped and riding in less than fifteen minutes, Ethra sitting behind Casmel, her arms round his waist. For the time being, we’re able to ride parallel, and Casmel looks across at me and says, “I know Ethra’s Glyst well enough, but what’s yours?”

  “I can bring the dead back to life. I’m not sure how it works. A slite mortally wounded my father. I… I sort of pulled the life from the slite and put it in my father.”

  “And he was… normal? When he came back?”

  “I… think so. I don’t know.”

  For the first time, I wonder. What does it mean to have cheated death? What consequences might there be?

  Casmel looks over his shoulder at Ethra. “Does it hurt? When your skin… comes off? Is it painful?”

  “Not really. I feel kind of numb when it happens. It’s very disorientating. It’s like there are two of me and one of me at the same time. Mostly it’s like I take it in turns. One moment I’m the body-me, the next I’m the skin-me. But sometimes I am both. Seeing two sights at once. It’s nauseating.”

  “You’d make a great thief,” says Casmel. “You could slide your skin under a door then let your body in.”

  “I do not want to be a thief. I want to be normal.”

  “Is that why you’re going to the Dead City? To seek the Hollow?”

  “You know about that?” says Ethra.

  “Yes. Spedig is played at night, usually where there is drink. People who drink talk a lot and their attention always wanders toward the strange.”

  The track we are following narrows as woodland surrounds us and, for the next three hours, we ride single file and there is no conversation. I prefer it that way. Casmel strikes me as one of those people who is afraid that an unchecked silence can grow and become something insurmountable. There is an old Northern saying: When the tongue flaps too much, thoughts are blown away.

  As if he has registered my preference for silence and wishes to irritate me, Casmel starts up jabbering again. He is talking to Ethra, so I can’t hear everything he’s saying. The only sentence I catch in full is when he asks Ethra if the skin-her has ever got stuck in a tree on a windy day, like a kite. Ethra’s response is short and brutal. Casmel begins to defend himself but stops mid-sentence, perhaps thinking better of it.

  Then I see the arrow protruding from his neck. The side of his face is glossed red with blood.

  Chapter 16

  Ambush

  Casmel’s hand goes to the arrow, and he falls from Lata, taking Ethra with him.

  The arrow came from the left, and I look in that direction. The upward-sloping woodland is dense, but I think I see a movement no more than twenty or thirty yards away, up on the bough of a vine-strangled oak. Someone dressed in dull greens and browns, their face mud-caked.

  An arrow misses me by such a slim margin, I feel its fletchings brush my forehead.

  I jump down from Skep, slapping her rump hard so she runs on to safety. Lata, not so daft as Casmel would have us believe, follows. I look for cover and see a tree stump sprouting green ferns and orange mushrooms in equal number. Scrambling, I put it between myself and our ambusher. The moment I am out of sight, I hear an arrow strike the stump’s rotted wood. There is a stink like spoilt meat as the arrow doubtless demolishes a cluster of mushrooms.

  I unshoulder my bow and nock an arrow.

  I hear Casmel moaning and gurgling and, off to my right, a thrashing of undergrowth. I glance across and see Ethra pushing herself back against a tree, her arms pulled in tight.

  “How many?” she says.

  “One?” I say, shrugging. I’m hoping it’s just one, a lone bandit. But who knows?

  Ethra holds up three fingers and points to herself, then holds up four and points to me.

  I nod, draw my bow and prepare to stand.

  Ethra counts to three on her fingers, then bobs her head out from behind the tree and then pulls it back again.

  On four, I stand.

  An arrow strikes Ethra’s tree with a thud.

  I don’t have time to seek a target. I just let my arrow fly where I last saw movement, up in the vine-choked oak. Before I drop back behind the stump, I am rewarded with a cry of shock and pain. A moment later, an arrow passes overhead and buries itself in a tree behind me. If I’d remained standing for a second more, the arrow would have struck me square in the chest.

  A second ambusher.

  Lucky, I think. Lucky, Alys. But luck is a bucket with a hole. I wonder how much luck is left in mine?

  There is a longer version of the saying about luck and buckets.

  Luck is a bucket with a hole, but a capable hand can plug it for a time.

  I look at the arrow that was meant for me. It is protruding from the tree at an angle, its fletchings pointing a little to the right. In my mind, I draw a line. As long as he stays put, I’ll have a chance.

  “There are two of them, then?” says Ethra.

  I nod.

  “There are three of us,” says Ethra.

  “Casmel has an arrow in him,” I say. “Did you not see? He will not live.”

  “I saw. I have his blood on me. But I’m not talking about Cass.”

  “What?” I say. Then, “Oh.”

  Already Ethra’s flesh is beginning to ripple as it did just two days ago—just two days ago?—after our confrontation with the Leccan. It ripples, then it undulates, then it whips up and away, going up high into the tree above her.

  I nock an arrow.

  “Up here, you gedsacks!” says Ethra, her voice loud despite its wispiness. “Here I am! Trapped like a kite on a windy day!”

  I hear not one, but two arrows strike wood.

  I stand, turn in the direction of the line I drew in my mind and loose my arrow.

  Luck is a bucket with a hole, but a capable hand can plug it for a time.

  Before I take cover, I hear my arrow strike something both hard and soft. I know that sound: flesh and bone.
Once I am back behind the stump, I hear a drawn-out growl of agony that ceases abruptly. Please, let him be dead. Please, let him be in the grip of Wealm. Let the God of Death have him in his grasp.

  From up-slope, I hear a thud and the thrashing of ferns. The ambusher who was in the vine-choked tree—wounded but not mortally so—has dropped from his perch and is making his bid for escape. I see it in my mind’s eye.

  A part of me thinks to let him go. What danger is he now? Doubtless wounded and afraid? Let him go. Let him flee.

  Another part, a new part, knows that he has seen us, that it is a risk too far to let him go. That he holds in his hand my father’s life.

  I stand, nocking an arrow.

  I see him running up the slope. He is making slow progress, one hand pressed to his thigh. He either injured himself when he dropped from the bough, or that’s where my arrow caught him. Even limping, he will be out of range of my arrow in a few seconds.

  I draw back the bowstring, take careful aim and loose my arrow.

  It strikes him in the middle of his back. I hear the crunch even from this distance. The crunch of arrowhead against spine. His legs cease to work, and he drops to the ground and begins tumbling down the slope. He is screaming when his descent begins, silent when he reaches the track at the bottom, a tangle of limbs and wide, white eyes staring out of a grimy face, jaw hanging slack and wide.

  I look down the track. Lata has returned and is nosing at Casmel’s motionless form.

  From behind me, Ethra says, “Can you bring him back?”

  I turn. She has reassembled herself, but her skin is still settling, pulling tight here and there.

  “I don’t know,” I say, making my way toward Casmel. “With my father, it just happened. I don’t know how to make it happen.”

  Casmel is lying on his back, one hand still loosely closed about the shaft of the arrow that killed him. He has the same look in his eye as his murderer. And that seems unfair, that ambusher and ambushed should look the same in death.