by Tom Lloyd
‘Yeah, that.’
She grinned. ‘If you were looking for sense, you’re in the wrong job, my friend.’
Lynx nodded and lapsed back into silence. As the gloom of night drew further over the sky and night elementals flittered through the canal’s shadows, the darkening sky was spotted only by clouds. Solitary trees punctured the view out on the plain beyond with great skirts of darkness, their close-weaved leaves spread like canopies high above the waving grasses.
As they walked side by side back down the barge, bow and mage-gun on their shoulders, Lynx felt a prickling sensation and glanced around. On the other side of the barge, the third member of the evening guard duty, Colet, was watching them. She was a former Card who’d been convalescing since before Lynx joined and even now carried her right arm awkwardly. Colet hailed from somewhere way east of Parthain if Lynx’s guess was right, with skin like pale coffee, wavy brown hair and bright green eyes.
‘Aw, you two are adorable,’ she laughed, seeing Lynx scowl.
‘What now?’
‘You two – walking in step, as close as an old married couple. It’s enough ta warm my jaded heart.’
‘We ain’t—’
‘She knows,’ Kas interrupted. ‘The woman’s just soft in the head. Bloody pagan who gets all sorts of foolish notions and says each and every one out loud.’
‘I’ve missed you too, Kas love.’ Colet beamed, crossing the deck. ‘And I didn’t say you two was bumping uglies, just that you made a lovely pair. Deern already said you broke Lynx in on behalf of the company. Kind o’ you to welcome him on his first day like that.’
‘Hadn’t joined up by then,’ Lynx said gruffly, unsure which of them was the focus of the needling.
Colet’s voice went furtive. ‘Does that bring some sort of finder’s fee from Anatin? ’Cos I could see—’
Kas slapped her on the arm. ‘Rein it in there, crazy-lady, I’m pretty fond o’ your husband remember?’
Colet scowled. ‘So’re the new serving girls back home.’
‘He’d never!’ Kas protested.
‘Aye well, I ain’t getting any younger and they seem to be. Doesn’t seem to mind them flaunting themselves around him.’
‘Not good for business to mind that,’ Kas scoffed. Seeing Lynx’s blank expression she went on to explain. ‘Her man’s a groom at the livery stable that adjoins the Hand o’ Princes, where the company’s based. He tells anyone who listens how he’s got a gentle touch with even the most skittish of mares, which is how he got Colet to marry him in the first place.’
Colet’s expression fell. ‘He didn’t sign up for this, though,’ she added bitterly, raising her right arm to chest-height. The limb looked barely under her control, her fingers twitching fitfully as she moved. ‘He’s been good about it, but what man wants a broken wife, eh?’
‘Sparker?’ Lynx asked, having seen the injury before.
‘Yeah, fried the nerves in my arm and damn burns got infected too. Took me months just to lift it this far, but Himbel says if I keep moving it things’ll improve.’
‘Good time to work on the babies then,’ Kas said, ‘instead of being out in the shit with us.’
‘Fuck that! ’Colet slapped the mage-pistol holster on her left hip. ‘Spent the last six months learning to shoot with this hand. You ever tried that, Lynx? Damn expensive to practise each day, but I’m a merc. I’ll play the doting aunt when Kas has a brood each as beautiful as her, but it ain’t for me.’
‘You’ll be waiting a while then,’ Kas laughed. ‘Not many o’ this lot are husband material.’
‘Come back to Ei Det with me then. We’ll find a man for you so beautiful it’ll make yer heart ache. Mebbe other bits too.’
‘Aren’t the Orders still trying to blow the shit out of Ei Det?’ Lynx asked.
‘Ah, only a bit of it. Ei Det’s a big country.’
Colet spat over the side and looked east as though she could feel the call of her homeland from so far away.
‘Plenty o’ work for a fighting woman and plenty of space to get away from it. The Orders haven’t made ground in years, food and water’s pretty scarce round there. If any one o’ them commits the resources necessary to take Ei Det, they’ll get swallowed up by another. That’s the fun thing about being deranged fanatics, your friends are real shitbags.’
Before Lynx could say any more there was a commotion on the other side of the barge where a dozen Cards were assembled. The trio exchanged a look and raced around the central cabin to where chaos had descended. For a moment Lynx thought something had come out of nowhere and attacked the barge, but then he realised the chaos was just panic. Beers were tossed aside as a dozen mercenaries tumbled off their seats and crashed into each other. Half were fumbling at their cartridge cases, mage-guns being waved in all directions.
In the middle of it Teshen roared orders that only he was ready to enact, but Lynx barrelling forward seemed to shock some into readiness. Kas and Colet appeared in his lee, making the most of the path he’d made and readying their weapons. For a moment the three of them stared blankly at the twilight beyond, the shifting cloud of dark shapes eluding them at first. Not thousands, Lynx saw, not like a flock of starlings, but scores of something much larger.
‘Oh shit.’
‘Yeah,’ Teshen growled. ‘Let’s hope they ain’t like that golantha in Shadows Deep. Bunched up like that, we need our sparkers and burners to work.’
‘Fuck, how many of them are there?’
‘Enough.’ Teshen tightened his gun against his shoulder. ‘Anyone with an icer, take aim – fire!’
The mage-guns crashed out into the night. Seven or eight white streaks tore through the evening sky straight for the oncoming flock. In the fading light it was hard see what hit, but the creatures broke and wheeled, one of their number spiralling down. The Cards gave a brief cheer until Teshen roared at them to shut up.
‘Least we know they don’t like it,’ Lynx commented as he reloaded. ‘Given ’em pause for thought.’
‘Ready – fire!’
All the guns spat a second volley and another of the creatures broke away from the re-formed group – not dead, but clearly hurt and abandoning the hunt.
‘Reload! Lynx, hold back – get a burner ready.’
As the third volley was readied, more Cards appeared on deck. Lynx distantly heard boots hammer on the wooden deck and Toil yell at Lastani and Sitain to get back below, clearly not wanting the tasty mage treats on view.
Above the plain, the creatures were close enough to make out slender wings and a pale hide. Against a darkening sky, Lynx could see long sinewy necks supporting a horned wedge-shaped head. The wings looked leathery like a bat’s, with hooked claws clearly visible down the arm. A broad, kite-shaped tail trailed out behind them, cutting at the air as they manoeuvred – forty or fifty at least and each bigger than a man.
There wasn’t time to count properly. A stuttered pair of volleys hammered the ghostly shapes at fifty yards, killing several, and this time the flock broke up. Diving fast towards the barge, they split into five or six flights that spread and spiralled down towards them on all sides.
Lynx tried to take aim but couldn’t get a fix on the moving shapes. After just a second of trying he pulled the trigger more in hope than judgement. The creatures parted in a flash away from the roaring spear of flame, while elsewhere one of the largest creatures led three others in a swooping raid.
The Cards scattered and threw themselves to the deck. Grasping claws tore splinters through the cabin roof and there was a howl of pain. Lynx glimpsed a thrashing figure be dragged a few yards along the deck before the claws ripped free of their clothes. White lines stabbed in all directions as the Cards fired in panic. The handful of mercenaries on the following barges had more success, calmer shots winging one and killing another. The creature crashed to the deck, a massive lump of grey-white that clipped the gunwale and pinwheeled into the side of the cabin. Deern howled as the corpse slammed rig
ht on top of him, the scrawny wretch disappearing under a tangle of limp limbs.
For good measure Reft jumped forward and hacked an axe into the creature’s back, just below the neck, but it failed to even so much as twitch. Leaving Deern where he was, Reft hefted his mage-gun again and clipped another of the beasts with an earther. The shot snapped its wing like a twig and the creature plunged twenty yards off the stern.
More strafed the deck, looking to snatch up prey, but those they did snag were heavy and flailing. The effort of lifting them proved too much for most and was abandoned. One or two persisted, only to present large, slow targets for the mage-guns around them.
Lynx slid a sparker home and readied his gun, waiting a few moments to get several in his sights until he pulled the trigger. A jagged burst of lightning scattered them but, even as they wheeled, the lightning’s claws leaped out to embrace them. Sparks wrapped around three, one falling and the others barely avoided crashing into the water before they recovered and limped away into the sky.
Several Cards ran to the edge of the boat and fired icers down into the downed creatures, one screeching piteously until it was finished off. The bodies lay crumpled on the surface of the water as the others broke away, the fury of their hunt broken by gunfire. Whether or not they fed on magic like the golantha in Shadows Deep, they couldn’t shrug off gunfire so easily. Their losses had been severe with little to show for it, with luck they’d not risk the barges again.
‘Himbel!’ came a yell from the other side of the downed creature. As the yell came up the dead thing’s wing began to move. Several Cards almost shot it again before Deern’s scratched and dishevelled head popped up from underneath.
‘Just fucking leave me here then!’ he shouted at Reft. ‘Don’t worry, damn thing didn’t hurt when it dropped from the gods-burned sky on to me!’
Reft merely shrugged and hauled the creature all the way off Deern as Himbel hurried past. The company doctor knelt at the side of another man wearing a Blood badge, but in moments Lynx saw him shake his head. Reft stepped over, as sergeant of the suit, while Deern stood and swore profusely as he realised who was dead.
‘Anyone else?’ Anatin called.
A few people reported injuries, but the Knights of each suit did a swift count and all Cards were accounted for. The dead man turned out to be a taciturn veteran called Silm. Lynx had barely said two words to him, but even Deern looked upset at the man’s loss. In brisk fashion, Anatin ordered the stinking pale corpses kicked off the barge, ignoring Toil and Paranil’s efforts to sketch and inspect the unknown monsters.
Before long they were clear of the beasts and the barge-master had pulled to the side of the canal while Silm was wrapped in cloth. A pyre was swiftly built on the shore. As soon as yellow flames began to reach into the sky, the full ranks of the Cards assembled at the gunwale, the barges moved on.
It was late to keep going, but no one wanted to be near the dead monsters or whatever might be attracted by their corpses. Toil had been pushing them for days now, deciding they were running behind the schedule she’d set for herself, but no one was arguing.
The death, Lynx realised, was a reminder to them all. The holiday was over, the mourning of their lost was over. It was back to the violence of their usual lives. The putting of grief aside until the job was done. It was a cold way to live and broke many a good man, but warfare was a cruel and senseless calling.
‘How many more of these will we get?’ Lynx muttered to Kas and Teshen as they watched the pyre recede into the distance.
‘Not many,’ Teshen said, impassive as usual in the face of death. He had tied his long hair back for once and quickly turned his face south. It looked like he was searching for something on the horizon, but in the advancing gloom Lynx could see nothing.
‘How do you know?’
‘We’re close to the end of the canal, close to the Etrel Cliffs.’
‘So?’
Teshen gave him a strange look. ‘So something else hunts in the skies above the Mage Islands, remember?’
Lynx hesitated. ‘Tysir?’ He’d only read about the Mage Islands, never visited, but some things were famous.
‘Tysarn,’ Teshen corrected. ‘The biggest ones don’t fly, but I doubt anything’s going to want to hunt within twenty miles of the coast.’
‘Are they really man-eaters?’
Teshen shrugged. ‘Not often. If you go in deep water you’ve only got yourself to blame. But yeah, some. A pack o’ smaller tysarn are more dangerous – once they get to the size of whatever those are, they don’t play well with others. If you’re hurt and alone though, you’ll get ’et.’
‘Fond memories o’ home, eh?’
‘Some,’ Teshen said, looking south once more.
Kas clapped a hand on Lynx’s shoulder. ‘Reckon you’ll like the place anyway, whatever’s flying in the sky.’
‘How’s that then?’
‘The food, Lynx, the food. Spices from east and west, plus a few you won’t find anywhere else, and more’n a thousand different things you can eat from the sea.’
Teshen nodded. ‘The lagoon’s so full of life, you won’t believe your eyes if you ask an islander cook to surprise you. On feast days they catch and roast tysarn too. Of all the world, Lynx, the Mage Islands is the place for you.’
Lynx nodded as his stomach growled its approval. ‘So probably the worst place for me to visit alongside Toil – Princess of Chaos and Making Enemies?’
‘Yeah,’ Kas laughed. ‘Make the most of this trip – we won’t be welcome again!’
Chapter 4
The following days saw a steady change in the landscape and weather. The vast open plains gave way to hills and rocky outcrops as they headed towards the broken coastline of the Callais Sea. The crumpled terrain was scattered with copses of low trees that looked as though they were hunkering down against some onslaught, while the huge isolated canopy trees of the plains dwindled and were left behind.
Just half a day’s travel from their destination, the canal merged with another that ran south-east through the Greensea towards the Hanese Mountains. They reached the junction not long after midday, a human-built tower on a wedge of land to dominate both branches. Lynx found himself staring at it as they came closer, a nameless bubble of tension building inside him. When a hand touched his shoulder he flinched, almost stumbling as he moved away.
‘Whoa, Lynx – where were you?’ Toil said, startled.
‘Huh?’
‘You were lost in thought.’
She looked towards the tower as he released his mage-gun, feeling foolish. He’d been holding the weapon so hard his knuckles were white, his wrist aching.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I see.’
‘Nothing to see,’ he replied, feeling himself grow angry, then even more so as he railed against his own stupid reaction. Gods damn it, Lynx told himself, get a grip on this.
‘Not yet,’ Toil agreed, ‘maybe on the other side of that though? Not much trade coming that way in recent years, so I hear, but some still.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
She sighed. ‘Sure, I know. All the same, we could all do with reaching Caldaire. The company needed this down time, but right now we’re a bunch of brawlers crammed on to a boat or made to run alongside it. Neither of those is fun, ’specially when half this lot are experts at getting on people’s nerves.’
‘Yearning for your freedom?’ Lynx said, far more snappishly than he intended.
Toil nodded slowly. ‘A bit of space would be nice.’
He forced himself to nod. ‘Aye, right. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t complaining about the cabin or … well, anything else. It’s just, ah …’
She laughed. The sound both lightened his heart and made him instinctively tense, but Toil just leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.
‘Don’t worry, it’d never occur to me that a man would complain about that. But you’re getting scratchy. Too much time trying to be nice, it’s not go
od for you.’
He shifted his feet. ‘I ain’t so good at nice, not for days on end. Too used to being alone.’
‘We’re not so different there. I’m exhausted and I’m not the one who’s a maladjusted loner.’
Lynx snorted. ‘Sure about that?’
‘Aye, mebbe,’ Toil admitted. ‘But I hide it better, even if that’s not saying much. Sharing my space, however, that’s not so easy. I’ve got my own issues there. Might be a growling semi-feral cat isn’t the biggest intruder my private space has seen recently, so I’m touchy on that subject.’
Lynx nodded, remembering the skyriver festival in Su Dregir. Toil’s apartment was surprisingly personal and understated – her sanctuary in a chaotic and violent world. That had been violated by the assassins sent by one of Toil’s employees attempting an underworld coup. Any disruption after that would leave her more prickly than usual.
Steadily they closed on the toll-fort. The barge-master had told them it was part of a local fiefdom that encompassed a handful of villages in the hilly ground beyond. Nothing problematic, but Lynx’s concern was the unseen waterway beyond. The economy of So Han, his former homeland, was still a shambles after the war and two subsequent famines. Even so, Lynx didn’t fancy meeting any of his countrymen coming this way.
While his prison designation was covered by the tattoo on his cheek, anyone he met was likely to be nosy – either rich and therefore arrogant, or ex-soldiers keen to work out the pecking order. Lynx didn’t give much of a shit what they thought of him, but he knew how such things would go, given the average Hanese soldier and his own short temper.
As they reached the junction and were flagged to a halt, he couldn’t see all the way round but there appeared to be nothing tied up at the toll-fort and he felt some of the tension slip away. Tolls were common enough on the canals and no great nuisance. They kept their demands modest to avoid merchant factions hiring someone like Anatin to deal with the problem. This far south-west they would bear no allegiance to the Militant Orders. As it turned out, they were as keen to buy cartridges as they were to extract a toll. The barge-master was carrying some and drove a hard bargain for them, but Anatin refused to sell any of the company’s stock.