The Poison Song

by Jen Williams

  ‘Perhaps she has cut ties with the worm people,’ said Vintage. ‘It’s not impossible, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Once my sister gets an idea in her head . . .’

  ‘We should go back to Ebora.’ Noon pushed her hands back through her hair. The blackened trees and plants had reminded her uncomfortably of her own recently recovered memories, and if she closed her eyes too long she could see it all again; the blinding light, her mother’s hair a halo of fire, the twisted burned things that were left after. She wondered what She Who Laughs was doing, if she wondered what Noon was doing with her newly rediscovered knowledge, or if she even cared that the people of Sarn might have finally won their war.

  ‘I agree, my darling. I have had more than enough of this strange corner of Sarn, and more than enough of Deeptown and its ants. As wonderful as they have been,’ Vintage added hurriedly. ‘As soon as Bern can travel, we’ll go. And let’s hope your sister has decided to dedicate her life to embroidery or collecting seashells, Tor.’

  Chapter Forty

  ‘Kill them all!’

  Much to Hestillion’s annoyance, Tygrish was resisting, and they were doing a reasonable job of it too. When she looked out the translucent panel in the Behemoth’s wall, she saw lines and lines of soldiers on the tall, white walls, and beyond them, trebuchets armed with debris and enormous boulders. Every few moments she and her other two ships were being pelted with a rain of fire and rocks – not enough to damage a Behemoth, not even close, but it was enough to knock some of her creatures out of the sky. And then there was the bat.

  ‘The war-beast is approaching again,’ murmured the First. Hestillion narrowed her eyes. The enormous snow-white bat was so fast it was difficult to spot, often getting close to them and blasting them with its icy breath before Hestillion even knew it was there. A flutter in the corner of her vision and it loomed suddenly close, an ugly thing with eerie blue eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. An arc of blue light shot across the screen, striking one of Hestillion’s grey men, and the thing fell out of the sky like a rock. She caught a brief glimpse of the woman who rode the war-beast – the human woman, she fumed to herself – and then the viewing screen was obscured with a blast of bright green witch-fire.

  ‘My circle, are you watching? Can you see it?’

  ‘I see it.’ It was the voice of Red Moth, as clear as if she were standing in the room with Hestillion. The Behemoth to Hestillion’s right began to bleed flying creatures, all of them heading towards the war-beast, who was already swooping back over the white walls, to the cheers of the people below. ‘We will take it down.’

  The grey men and the great beetles with serrated mouths were flying into a firestorm though, and to Hestillion’s annoyance she watched as they were knocked out of the sky, or flew up out of range, confused by the fire eating up their delicate insectoid wings. Her third Behemoth had moved into position beyond the city walls, and it was taking the brunt of the humans’ attacks. Periodically, alcoves would open in its shiny walls and spider-mothers would crawl their way out to float down towards the city streets, but the bat would come back, freezing them with a blast of her icy breath.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ spat Hestillion. She had a terrible sneaking suspicion she should have brought Celaphon; she quickly pushed that thought aside. ‘All these humans are doing is prolonging the inevitable. They should be fleeing, like the others. If they had any sense. Green Bird, draw back again. We need to take down this war-beast, or we shall waste all of our creatures.’

  It mattered little to Hestillion if they lost every spider-mother on board the ship, but the truth was that it would take her time to create more monsters from the crafting pools, time that they didn’t have if they wished to take Tygrish in one attack. As she watched, the Behemoth controlled by Green Bird moved up and away from the city walls, briefly attracting a flurry of flaming arrows. The bat came past again, and she saw, quite clearly, the human woman who rode on the war-beast’s back: she had hair a shade paler than Hestillion’s but cut very short, and the tops of her cheeks were flushed a bright, hectic pink. She opened her mouth and hollered, clearly an expression of victory, and she dared to punch the air with one closed fist gloved in green fire. Not her brother’s pet witch after all, and no war-beast that she knew, either. Not that it mattered.

  Hestillion hissed through her teeth. ‘My circle, I will go out there myself. Grey Root, you will join me.’

  She felt their reactions like the brush of a moth’s wing against her cheek. There was blind acceptance from four of them, and then . . . something else, from the last.

  ‘What is it?’ she snapped.

  ‘Your armour,’ said the First. ‘Is it ready? For combat.’

  ‘It will have to be.’ She left the translucent viewing screen and the chamber, stalking down corridors until she came to another room, one very close to the skin of the Behemoth. In here, she kept her armour. She had made it for herself, quietly and without fuss, and out of sight of the queen. Something about it made her feel vulnerable, as though the very fact of it revealed a desire or a dream she would rather keep to herself. Grey Root was there waiting for her, already stepping into the smaller version of the armour Hestillion had crafted for whichever member of the circle needed it.

  Hestillion raised her hand, intending to reach for the suit, when a shiver of some strange emotion moved through the Jure’lia web. It did not originate from her circle, or any of her Behemoths; it was very far away, impossibly distant. It felt like chaos, panic even, and it threatened to engulf her.

  ‘No,’ she muttered. Grey Root tipped her head to one side, curious. ‘No. I don’t have time for the queen’s chaos now. I have worked so hard to make us efficient. If she will not fix their brokenness, that is her problem.’

  She squeezed her hands into fists at her sides, and forcibly put the larger Jure’lia link from her mind. The battle was so close to hand, and the presence of her circle made it easier than it had been to turn it aside. Satisfied, Hestillion turned her attention to Grey Root.

  ‘You will go out first,’ she said. ‘Through your eyes I will see how the battle progresses. Then I will join you.’

  Grey Root nodded once. The Jure’lia armour closed around her, a close-fitting thing of chitinous plates and grey, fibrous padding. An aperture opened in the wall, letting in a blast of warm air that smelled of grass, and she was gone.

  Hestillion turned to her own armour, and began to strap herself in. It did not fit as closely as that which the circle wore – their bodies were already half made of the same stuff, after all – but she had spent a long time crafting it and tweaking it until it cupped her body like a gauntlet. Within the armour, she was stronger, hardier. Black and green moon-metal turned her arms into lethal knives, transformed her head into a sleek shell. Her torso was covered in interlocking plates of the springy Jure’lia hide, meaning she could still move as easily as when she was wearing her old silk robes, and the whole thing was light; nothing like the bulky plate armour her father had worn during the Eighth Rain.

  She stepped up to the aperture, reaching out via the Jure’lia network to her circle. In a flickering of images, she saw where they all were; the First remained in the central command chamber, standing utterly still; Green Bird was moving her Behemoth out, her head bent in concentration; Red Moth was still commanding the flight of the spider-mothers, while Yellow Leaf waited with her. And Grey Root – Hestillion got a sense of chaos beneath her, swarms of arrows arching up through humid air, and, circling around to attack, was the war-beast.

  Hestillion smiled. The tiny, flickering consciousness of the armour came to life, a sensation like being bombarded by fireflies in the dark. She reached out to it, and the back portion of the armour flexed, revealing two sets of thin, diaphanous wings. Hestillion spread her arms wide, and jumped out into the sky.

  Noise and light, the sensation of wind pressing against her. She flew with real speed, darting out of the path of several projectiles before she had
even gained her bearings, and then she soared up and away, taking a moment to collate all the information she had: everything that her circle saw, everything that the Jure’lia felt, and all that she could see with her own Eboran eyes. Tygrish lay below her, a teeming city of white walls and fruit trees – even flooded with armed humans it was a beautiful place – and immediately it was possible for her to see where the weak places were, the places where the humans were too thin in numbers to be effective.

  Red Moth, go to the southernmost gate – it’s where they’re hiding the civilians. An attack there will send them into a panic. Green Bird, and the First – wait on me. I will end this war-beast.

  The thought of it caused a curl of horror to move through her stomach, but then the air was full of arrows again, followed by a blast of freezing air that briefly caused one side of her body to go numb. Hestillion cursed herself even as she flitted away; the usefulness of the circle was enormous, but it was easy to be distracted by it. The great white bat was in the air with her, circling to get closer, and Hestillion saw the human woman again. To her surprise, she was laughing.

  ‘Who are you,’ shouted Hestillion, ‘to ride a war-beast?’

  The woman looked shocked for a moment – she had clearly taken Hestillion to be another voiceless worm-creature. Then she grinned.

  ‘I am Tyranny, queen of Tygrish,’ she called, ‘and this is Windfall. We’re here to ruin your day, worm bitch!’

  ‘A queen?’ Hestillion shook her head lightly just before a barrage of green flame headed her way. She flew up, glass-like wings buzzing. ‘You do not look like a queen. Not even a human one.’

  The woman who called herself Tyranny didn’t reply. Instead, the bat flew screaming up, enormous jaws so wide they almost looked unhinged. Hestillion stretched, her body and mind conveying to the armour how she wanted to move, and where. For some time, she and the bat danced around each other, creating a spiral of leathery wings and glinting moon-metal, punctuated with blasts of fire and ice. Hestillion caught glimpses of how they looked from below, relayed to her by her circle, and for a dangerous moment she became dizzy – did she fly through the air over Tygrish, or did she stand within a Behemoth? She reminded herself of the First’s subtle warning: the armour was mostly untested. She could not allow this to continue.

  Finding herself momentarily above the bat, Hestillion flexed her left arm, releasing the weapon hidden there. A long segmented ribbon shot out of the Jure’lia gauntlet, expanding as it went. The thing was lined with wicked thorns and it slapped across the war-beast’s broad chest like a whip, piercing skin and digging in instantly. Hestillion threw herself upwards with all her strength, dragging the flail after her, and the bat screamed; a terrible, piercing noise that shredded the air like a hawk’s cry. Daring to glance down, Hestillion saw the bat’s white fur now running with black blood. The woman Tyranny looked dumbstruck.

  ‘Tygrish falls to us, Your Majesty!’ Hestillion yanked the flail free, and watched with satisfaction as the war-beast tumbled through the air. She was only falling for moments, but the effect on the people below was immediate. Hestillion saw soldiers breaking for cover, archers lowering their bows, uncertain expressions on their faces.

  Green fire filled her vision. Hestillion ducked away, but the bat had recovered and the queen of Tygrish kept coming, a look of fury on her face that was very far from sane. Hestillion folded her wings close to her body and let herself fall, dropping down out of the range of fire before surging back up behind the bat. She leapt forward, slashing her armoured arm, and caught the back portion of Windfall’s left wing. More black blood leapt into the air, but the war-beast spun round to grapple with her. The woman who had called herself Tyranny reached out and grabbed Hestillion around the throat, and she had time to think that she was surprisingly strong, for a human.

  ‘What even are you?’ hissed the woman. Up close, Hestillion could see discoloured scars across the woman’s neck. Just like Celaphon, she thought. ‘You look Eboran, so why are you covered in that muck?’

  ‘Why do you fight alone?’ The Jure’lia armour covered Hestillion’s neck and the top portion of her head, but she could feel the moon-metal getting hot where the fell-witch touched her. This could not be sustained for long. ‘Where’s my brother? The other war-beasts? The little one threw its acid on you, didn’t it?’ She grinned wolfishly. ‘You war with them, too. What idiots you are.’

  Tyranny made an inarticulate noise of rage, and her hand began to glow a bright, emerald green. Sparks spat into life against the armour.

  ‘The First! On me, the burrowers. Bring them here directly.’

  The war-beast screeched, a high-pitched noise that seemed to stab directly into Hestillion’s ears; the creature was clearly annoyed that she was out of range of her ice beam. It would be easy, Hestillion noted, to push away and break the hold the human woman had – she was only a human woman, after all, as strong as she was – but her presence made it easier for the First to know where they were. And besides which, she wanted to see this. Bright green veins crept across the Jure’lia armour, like delicate threads of lightning. Hestillion grinned.

  ‘What are you smiling about, you mad bitch?’ spat Tyranny. ‘I’m going to rip your head right off! I’ve done it before, and to people tougher than you . . .’

  ‘This,’ said Hestillion. ‘I’m smiling at this.’

  From above, a dark rain began to fall on them. Hundreds of burrowers, black and shining, their sharp legs wriggling, pelted down onto the woman and her war-beast. Hestillion felt them crawling over her too, tiny feelers tasting her skin and rejecting it before seeking out the flesh they were trained to eat. Tyranny dropped her hand and began frantically brushing at herself, but the beetles were fast and hungry. The war-beast was beating her wings frantically, taking them away from Hestillion, but she moved with them, eager to see what would happen. Tyranny was yanking the things out of her hair and popping them in short, sharp blasts of winnowfire, but the bat had no such defence. Her beams of freezing ice shot harmlessly into the sky, causing brief flurries of ice particles but no damage to the burrowers.

  In the last clear glimpse Hestillion had of them, she saw that a beetle had started to eat one of the bat’s huge, blue eyes, munching down through a white, viscous jelly – and then both queen and war-beast were falling down, spiralling towards their doomed city like an old dead leaf.

  ‘Green Bird, you do the rest.’ Hestillion touched the neck of her armour, which was still hot enough for it to glow. ‘The city is ours for the taking now.’

  Chapter Forty-one

  It was a slow and painful journey back to Ebora.

  For Aldasair, it was one of the most excruciating experiences of his life. Bern was well enough by that time to walk around unaided, his injured arm kept close to his chest in a sling, yet he was still not quite back to himself. They travelled in short bursts, hopping across the landscape of Sarn for a few hours each day, before resting and finding food. The fell-witches, led by Agent Chenlo, went on ahead, and they soon lost sight of them beyond the rolling hills and the dark grey blur of the distant Reidn mountains. For reasons he couldn’t quite identify, Aldasair had become sure that if they could just get Bern home, get him beyond the Tarah-hut Mountains and back under the shadow of Ygseril, then the big man would come back to himself. But he was weak, easily tired, and they had to travel slowly.

  On the third day of travel, when they had stopped at the edge of a vast patch of varnish, Aldasair found himself shivering for no reason he could name. Looking up, he saw Bern – who had climbed carefully down from Sharrik’s side to stand on the scrubby grass – shudder violently.

  ‘What was that?’ called Noon. She came over to them. ‘Did you feel it?’

  ‘I think we all did,’ said Vintage uneasily. ‘A shared feeling between us. It was . . . panic? Horror?’

  ‘But we’re all here,’ said Tor. Aldasair’s cousin had brightened somewhat since the return of the fell-witch, although there was s
till a thinness to his face that Aldasair did not like. He gestured around to the war-beasts. ‘The five of us, and all the war-beasts. What could we be feeling? From who?’

  No one had an answer, until Kirune came slinking up. The great cat raised his head, bearing huge curved fangs.

  ‘We might not want to think of them as family,’ he said quietly. ‘But we five were not the only ones birthed by the tree-father.’

  An uneasy silence settled over the group.

  The next morning they all flew on, with Bern leaning too far forward in his harness, his face grey. When they made camp again, Aldasair went to him while the others set up the fire and made food.

  ‘I’m worried about you. Sometimes I look at you on Sharrik’s back and you look like you might be about to pass out.’

  Bern smiled wanly. ‘Me? What could there be to worry about?’ He sighed heavily. ‘Here, let’s sit by the water. I like the sound of it.’

  It was a rare patch of untouched forest, calm and green and refreshingly normal. The Wild had not spread its corrupting fingers here yet, and the shallow stream ran over pebbles so clean they looked almost jewel-like to Aldasair. The banks were sandy, and as they sat, Bern pushed the fingers of his left hand into the damp sand. His only hand, thought Aldasair, his stomach turning over.

  ‘How is it?’ he asked hesitantly, nodding at the place where Bern’s right arm ended abruptly. The pathfinder’s resin had begun to crack and flake; she had assured them that by the time it came off completely, the rounded stump should have healed over. ‘Does it pain you still?’

  Bern looked down at the stump as if he’d forgotten it was there. ‘Pain? Not pain as such. It’s bloody sore at times, I’ll give you that. But I’m not rightly sure how to tell you what it is like. There’s –’ he sighed again – ‘there’s a lot to tell.’

  ‘Try, my love.’ Aldasair put his hand on his thigh. ‘Please.’