by Jen Williams
They both turned to look. Tor drew his sword.
‘Hest, this is a private conversation.’
‘I told you to leave.’ She twisted her hand inside the Jure’lia suit, and a pair of long blades made of pale chitinous shell slid out of the forearm casings; they were wickedly sharp and surprisingly strong. ‘Not once, not once in your long, idiotic life have you ever listened to me. I told you to run, and here you are, doing the exact opposite. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Why do you never listen to me?’
‘You’re standing there covered in that Jure’lia muck, and you have the cheek to call me an idiot?’ Infuriatingly, he laughed. ‘That’s you all over though, isn’t it, Hest? Standing on a heap of shit and declaring yourself the queen of it.’
She was moving before she even knew she had decided to fight him. The suit was a thing made with hate, constructed from the very need to fight and survive, and she let it suggest her movements, leaping from one side of the corridor to the other, blades flashing. Tormalin moved just as fast, his sword crashing against hers repeatedly, pushing her back.
The First, come to me. Bring help.
‘You’ve learned a lot!’ Tor actually sounded pleased. ‘I always thought you had no taste for the martial arts, sister.’
She slammed her arm across his, tearing leather and skin alike with the barbs on her armour, then thrust upwards, catching him on the chin. He staggered backwards but the sword he held seemed to have a life of its own, skating up under her guard and slashing at her breastplate.
‘We don’t have time for this!’ It was the witch, her hands full of green fire and the war-beast at her back, but at that moment the wall to their right spasmed open and a fresh wave of scuttling creatures fell on them, instantly pushing them away from Hestillion. The First stepped through after them, his pale handsome face serenely blank. Hestillion saw the expression of surprise that moved over Tor’s face, saw the horror on the heels of it.
‘What the fuck is that supposed to be?’
It was her turn to laugh. ‘Someone who actually does what I say. Someone who is actually useful.’ She nodded to the First. ‘Kill the witch. Do it slowly if you like.’
The corridor erupted into fighting again. This time, Tormalin did not look so amused, and Hestillion could sense that he was distracted. He looked over his shoulder more than once as the witch threw her green fire at the First and desperately fought off a wave of burrowers. She caught him a serious blow on the shoulder that drove him to his knees, and to her surprise, he struggled to get up. Taking advantage of his momentary weakness, she pushed her blade to his exposed throat, forcing him to stay where he was.
‘Tor? Tor, are you all right?’ The witch was shouting frantically, but the First was keeping her back.
‘I told you to go.’ Hestillion pressed the blade closer, watching as a thin line of clear blood ran down her brother’s throat. There were hot tears rolling down her cheeks, making it difficult to see. ‘I didn’t want you to be here.’
To her surprise, Tor lowered his arms and smiled. His sword lay loose in his lap. He wasn’t quite looking at her.
‘What is it?’ she spat. ‘Roots be damned, Tor, not everything is fucking funny!’
‘Oh, I don’t know. This world gifts you with a dark sense of humour, I think.’ He reached up and pulled at the section of leather armour covering his chest. Hestillion heard the sharp pops as stitching and rivets came away under his hands. Beneath it he was wearing a simple white shirt, which he pulled aside. ‘You can kill me if you like, Hestillion. I’m dying anyway. What difference does it make?’
There were livid red lines on his chest, fanned out in a shape a little like the veins on a leaf. The skin between them was a chalky white, and it already looked hard and broken. Hestillion stared at it, unable to move.
‘What . . .?’
‘The crimson flux. I mean, you can’t be surprised. It was always going to be the end of me, wasn’t it?’ He shrugged one shoulder. ‘The death you will give me with a blade will be much kinder than the one I face, sister.’
She moved the blade away an inch. It was impossible to look away from the infection, and suddenly all those years of silence in the Eboran palace – all those years of watching people coughing themselves to death, of cleaning sheets and bringing water to the doomed, of listening to the mad ravings of Eborans driven to feverish insanity by the sheer weight of their combined devastation – all those years seemed terrifyingly close. As though in a blink of an eye she could be back there again, trapped in those dusty corridors and entombed in silence. As though she’d never got away from it at all. She had changed nothing. The crimson flux was always waiting.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Tor . . .’
Behind them, the war-beast Kirune leapt at the First and sank his teeth into her creation’s neck, tearing it out in one savage movement. The sight of the being with her brother’s face sinking to its knees, seeping Jure’lia fluid, was too much. She slid her blades away, and felt the queen’s eye fall upon her, suddenly watchful.
You told us you had cut all ties with your blood. The queen’s voice in her head. You swore it to us. You swore it to me.
Hestillion looked up and met her brother’s eyes. He looked sad, even though he was still smiling, and she found herself trying to remember the palace they had built together, when she was the queen, and he was her faithful knight. Such a long time ago.
That’s not how blood works, I’m afraid.
She felt the spike of the queen’s rage like an arrow to her heart, and then the witch was stepping between her and her brother. The human woman’s hand on her forehead was cold and damp.
‘We haven’t got time for this, Tor.’
Darkness.
Chapter Fifty-three
‘How many – how many of us are left?’
The look that passed over Chenlo’s face told Vintage all she needed to know. They had been trying to push the two Behemoths still flanking the queen back, as they were producing an unholy tide of horrors and dropping them down onto the city below, but the various flying monsters spawned from the queen’s oozing body were taking them out, one by one. Moments ago Vintage had watched with horror as a fell-witch was ripped from the back of her bat by an unsettlingly humanoid figure with wings, too far away to help. Helcate himself was exhausted, both from producing his acid spit and providing life energy for the witches.
‘Most of us are on the roof now,’ Chenlo shouted back. ‘They stand ready to defend the tree-god. We should join them!’
Vintage paused to raise her new crossbow, shooting a fleeing grey-man in the back.
‘If we leave off the pressure on the Behemoths, they will swarm in.’ In truth, she didn’t know what to do. Retreat felt like a dangerous option, yet with every second that ticked by they were closer to failing entirely. Not for the first time, she looked back to the Behemoth that hung over the mountains still. It was impossible to see what was happening there, and her link to the war-beasts and the rest of them had grown unstable again, filled with anger and fright. The Jure’lia queen herself was at the gates of the palace, her vast form close to blocking out the sight of Ygseril.
‘Helcate!’
‘What is it, my darling?’
It was the dragon again. So far Celaphon had remained strangely distant from the battle, flying back and forth around the outskirts of the city as though he were sight-seeing, a fact which had been playing havoc with Vintage’s nerves. Now, the vast purple dragon was flying in a straight line right towards them, his huge jaws hanging open to reveal a shifting blue light at the back of his throat.
‘Get away, get out of his line of sight!’ She signalled desperately to the other fell-witches. Chenlo and her bat flew up and in front of them, trying to shield them. ‘All of you, move!’
Vintage heard a roar from Vostok, and Celaphon opened his jaws wider in response. A jagged bolt of electricity shot from his jaws, yet instead of striking the white dragon – or, as Vintage had
initially thought, blasting her and Helcate from the sky – it hit the nearest Behemoth.
‘What –’
Blue and white light crawled over the Jure’lia ship in a vast net, growing brighter and brighter as they watched, until the thing looked like a huge, misshapen star. Celaphon flew next to it, continuing to spit line after line of lightning at the thing until –
‘Watch out!’
There was a huge crumping noise, and the lightning winked out of existence. The Behemoth, which had gone a dull, rusted colour, began to fall out of the sky, heading down into the midst of the ruined city. It crashed in a vast cloud of dust and fire, instantly turning several large buildings into powder and rolling partially away towards the outskirts. Beneath her own shock, Vintage could feel the confusion and consternation of the other war-beasts. And then, a new voice on the connection, strange and triumphant.
See how mighty I am?
Celaphon turned a loop in the sky and shot another blast of lightning at the other Behemoth, capturing it in a web of shifting power. The vast shape that was the queen, oozing its way across the palace buildings, stopped, quivering slightly. Vintage had the impression of communication happening that was hidden from them, and then the second Behemoth was crashing to the ground, destroying several buildings and rolling into the forest to the north-west of the palace. Celaphon roared his triumph and soared back up into the sky.
‘What is happening?’ shouted Chenlo.
‘I’ve no fucking idea, my love, but I don’t think we need to worry about the Behemoths anymore. Quickly, to the palace roof!’
What they saw as they flew over turned Vintage’s heart to ice. With Celaphon’s help they had destroyed the Behemoths, but the queen herself was the heart of the Jure’lia, and all they had done so far was slow her down. The front half of the palace was lost under the huge, oozing form of her, and the maggots that were somehow embedded in the monster’s back were spewing out long streamers of varnish again. Anything or anyone that had been in the gardens was dead, either eaten alive by burrowers or suffocated under the Jure’lia resin. In her slow movements, the queen had become partially humanoid again, with two arms reaching out towards the spreading branches of Ygseril, her long head splitting open as if to swallow the whole thing in one bite. Parts of her seeped down through windows and into courtyards, inquisitive fingers seeking every possible entry point. They were, Vintage reasoned, minutes away from disaster.
Aldasair? Aldasair, are you still with us?
Vintage’s voice was like a cold hand on his forehead. Aldasair, who had fallen into a trance-like rhythm of fighting and shouting orders, blinked rapidly and took a breath.
We’re in the Hall of Roots, everywhere else is lost. I –
Some of the human soldiers who had been attempting to hold the larger Jure’lia creatures at the doors were thrown back, tossed to one side by a huge spider-mother. The pale sac at the centre of its abdomen began to pulsate wildly, and a stream of freshly spawned burrowers surged over the human warriors. Aldasair ran forward and buried his axe in the creature’s soft stomach, very nearly splitting it in two, but there were more behind it. Jessen leapt into the fray, growling and snarling, and Aldasair fell back. Commander Morota had been with them, but he had lost sight of her.
‘Commander? We’re losing the doors –’
‘Lord Aldasair! Over here!’
The Reidn soldier was standing on Ygseril’s roots, looking up to the glass ceiling. Aldasair had a brief moment to consider what an outrage that would have been, once upon a time – a human with their feet on the tree-father – when he spotted the dark shapes moving across the panels of grass. There were fell-witches up there, fighting desperately with gouts of green flame, and tendrils of the queen’s body were oozing between them, pushing them aside or crushing them – heading towards the place where Ygseril’s trunk met the glass. Commander Morota grabbed his arm and pulled him up onto the roots.
‘What do we do?’ All her military poise was gone, he noticed.
She sees her end coming, said Jessen in his head. And worse, she sees that we are losing.
Fingers of oily black were spreading down the trunk, coming faster now, as though the queen could sense that she was close. At the doors, Jessen and the remaining human soldiers had fallen back, overwhelmed by the sheer number of Jure’lia monsters.
‘We stand together,’ said Aldasair. He held his axe in one hand, an old short sword in the other. ‘It’s all we can do.’
My friends, we’re running out of time!
The light from the crystal chamber played over their faces, turning them both a sickly shade of yellow. The crystal itself was full of fire, a vision of destruction and terror that Noon could almost feel the heat from. She turned back to Tor, knowing already the look that would be on his face.
‘Here we are,’ he said, smiling.
‘Yeah, and you need to get out of here. Now.’
He didn’t move.
‘How sure are you that you’ll be able to survive such an explosion?’
‘I’m sure.’ But some of the truth must have shown in her face, and he shook his head. ‘Reasonably sure. Either way, you have to go now, Tor. Both of you need to get far away from here.’ She looked at Kirune, who was standing watching them with the unconscious form of Hestillion slung over his back. ‘It’s the only chance we have to end this. I’ve lived through it before, right? And I can’t do it if you are here.’
Tor stepped forward and took her face in his hands, gently tipping her head to look up at him. He brushed the hair back from her face with his thumbs, and after a moment she covered one of his hands with her own.
‘I’m dying anyway,’ he said softly. ‘What I said to my sister was true. Any death that isn’t the crimson flux, that isn’t slowly wasting away in a bed somewhere, my mind full of dust, is a blessing. I will not leave you to do this alone.’
‘You could still live.’ To her own horror, her voice was thick, and her face was wet with tears. ‘There could still be sap to heal you. We don’t know . . .’
‘I’ll send Kirune away.’ There was a growl as he said this, which Tor ignored. ‘But I won’t leave you now. Noon, it’s taken four hundred years for me to understand what this is.’ He leaned his head down so that it rested against her own. ‘Let me do the honourable thing, this once.’
She kissed him. They kissed for some time, briefly lost in the idea that they could be somewhere else, in a different life. His tears tasted like wine.
My friends, we’re running out of time!
They broke apart, Aldasair’s voice ringing in their heads.
‘I love you, Noon. I always have.’
‘I love you, Tor.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Don’t forget it.’
She tore the life energy from him as fast as she could, so as not to see the expression of betrayal grow in his eyes, and she held him as he fell to the floor.
‘Kirune, you have to – you have to take him.’ She stopped to rub her sleeve across her eyes. ‘As fast as you can. Please?’
The big cat came over to her and lowered his head. She kissed him on the end of his nose.
‘He will be angry when he wakes up.’
‘I know. But whatever happens next, he has to be far away from here.’ She dragged Tor and slung him over Kirune’s back, tying him in place with the harness straps. ‘Can you take them both? You can always leave Hestillion behind. I wouldn’t mind at all.’
‘I can take them.’ Kirune paused, seeming to struggle with his words. ‘You are brave, witch-warrior. Tell me truthfully. Will you make it?’
‘There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?’ She took a breath and looked at the slow rise and fall of Tor’s chest. He looked almost serene in sleep, and she hoped he was having good dreams: the one where they walked together in a field of wild flowers perhaps, or the one where they found each other for the first time, in a cave surrounded by snow and wolves. ‘Please. Go now, quickly, as fast as you can.’
When Kirune had left with his precious cargo, Noon turned back to the crystal and its fiery rage. With Tor’s life energy quietly banked inside her, she felt stronger than she had.
‘Time to end all of this.’
She pressed her hands to the surface of the crystal, which was perfectly cool despite the images of fire dancing inside it. There was a strange energy to it, alien and unlike anything else she had felt, but it was still recognisable, all the same – the same as any plant, or animal, any human or Eboran. And through that energy she could already feel the millions of dancing connections it carried, the web that linked it to every part of the Jure’lia, the network that held all of them together. It was even simpler than the chain of connections she had sensed on the day she had killed her people, because it wasn’t complicated by human emotions or any sort of food chain. There was just the Jure’lia, both the singular and the many.
She grinned, surprising herself.
‘Oh, this is going to be easy.’
The crystal flickered uneasily as she tore the life energy from it, and then sought beyond it, moving from crystal to crystal and every place in between. The winnow-thirst roared inside her, suddenly awake, and this time she gave it free rein, opening it up to consume as much as it liked. This was the secret she had glimpsed, and the thing that She Who Laughs had been trying to get her to understand: that her capacity was infinite. That there were entire universes inside everyone.
Standing with her hands pressed to the crystal, Noon began to laugh.
‘Look!’
Flying burrowers were beginning to drop out of the sky. Several of the spiky insectoid things Helcate had been fighting stopped moving, falling onto the glass as though they were made of stone. The queen herself had her head in Ygseril’s branches, her jaws slowly pulverising their way through the tree-father’s outer arms, but many of her smaller minions were collapsing.
‘What does it mean?’ Chenlo was bleeding from her forehead, her face a sheet of blood as bright as her shirt.
‘I think it means that Noon is where she needs to be.’ Vintage reloaded her crossbow. ‘There’s still a chance we could all live through this!’