Revenant

by Bevan McGuiness

  Slave looked up in surprise. Alyosha caught his look and continued.

  ‘Our history with the Scaren is complicated,’ he said. ‘We only mate in this, our human form. We all have three forms, our primary form — in my case, the barin — our secondary form and this one. The primary form is inherited through the male line, the secondary through the female line.’

  ‘What is your secondary form?’ Myrrhini asked.

  Alyosha scowled at her. ‘That is an offensive question to a vlekkenvorm,’ he chided. ‘When the Scaren ruled our kind, they took the mother and placed her within a circle of fire when she was about to give birth. The child came into the world in mortal danger and was rescued by a Scaren. Thus every vlekkenvorm was Linked from birth. When the Scaren were destroyed we learned freedom.’ He held Slave’s eye for a time before lowering his gaze. ‘We have mixed feelings about you, Beq, but we owe you our existence.’

  ‘But Quetzalxoitl said there was something between the spurre and the Mertians,’ Myrrhini protested.

  ‘Look at Slave’s Claw,’ Alyosha told her. ‘You will see there are three animals on it: the julle, the spurre and the wyvern. They were created by the Mertians to combat us. As we owe our existence to Slave, they owe their existence to you.’

  Slave held up his Warrior’s Claw to catch the sunlight. ‘Why are they here?’

  ‘To remind you of your duty to hunt them down and kill them wherever you meet them.’

  ‘But Tatya is both a spurre and a vlekkenvorm.’

  ‘She is unfortunate in that she owes death and allegiance to both of you.’

  ‘Is that why I can command her?’

  ‘And why she wants to kill you, yes.’

  Slave remembered the wyvern who had welcomed him and given herself as mount to him.

  Vlekkenvorm?

  Probably.

  ‘So that is why you were so confident Tatya would do as I asked,’ he said.

  ‘She would lay down her life for you willingly, but she will never be Linked again. Her devotion to you is now a choice.’

  ‘I don’t want her devotion.’

  ‘You have it whether you want it or not.’

  ‘And you, Alyosha? Do I have your devotion as well?’

  Alyosha lowered his head. It might have been submission, a simple nod or a way of hiding his emotions, Slave could not tell.

  ‘Tell me,’ Slave instructed.

  ‘Beyond life, my Beq.’

  Slave found that he was leaning forward, paying close attention to every word. He released his breath and leaned back, confused and upset. He did not want followers, neither did he want the responsibility for these strange creatures. Their existence was nothing to do with him, it was his ancestors, now long dead, who bore that responsibility. Let them deal with the consequences of their choices. He had enough of his own to deal with.

  Myrrhini and Alyosha were staring at him as if he had some answer for them, but he had nothing. He had no idea what they might want. They waited, then as the time passed, they looked at each other. Myrrhini shrugged and continued to eat. Alyosha rose to his feet, dropped the blanket and shimmered into a barin again before loping off to disappear in the long grass.

  When the barin was out of sight, Camaxtli raised himself carefully on one elbow. He had lain motionless, either still in a faint or pretending, hoping to escape notice.

  ‘Is it gone?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Myrrhini assured him.

  ‘I did see a barin standing there, then?’

  ‘He wasn’t standing, more squatting, but yes, it was a barin.’

  ‘And it’s gone?’

  ‘Yes, but he’ll be back. I think he’s just gone hunting.’

  ‘He? What do you mean?’

  ‘His name is Alyosha.’

  Camaxtli stared with incredulity at Myrrhini before shifting his gaze to Slave.

  ‘Is she lying?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How does a barin have a name? It’s just an animal.’

  ‘You could tell him that when he gets back,’ Myrrhini said mischievously.

  Camaxtli glared, but there was an edge of nervousness to the look. He clambered down out of the wagon.

  ‘Is there any food left?’

  Myrrhini handed him a cold rodent, which he took with disdain as he sat beside her. She watched while he examined the stringy meat before shaking her head and rising to her feet.

  ‘Are we going to wait here for Tatya?’ she asked Slave.

  ‘Yes.’

  Myrrhini pulled her knife from its sheath at her hip. ‘I want to know how you caught me last night, and how I could stop you killing me again like that.’

  Slave considered answering her, but decided against it. Without his training, his long intense experience, she would never be able to do either, but there was no point in telling her that. Instead, he rose to his feet, drew his knife and walked away. Myrrhini followed him.

  When they were back to the area of trampled grass, he turned on her. This time she was ready, standing with her feet apart, knees bent, knife on the ready. She dodged his agonisingly slow thrust with an equally slow twist of her shoulders to let his knife pass her chest.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now hold your position. Don’t move at all.’

  Myrrhini stood motionless as Slave took a step up to her and pushed her firmly in the chest. She gave a squawk and toppled over backward.

  ‘Balance, Myrrhini,’ Slave said as he held out his hand to help her up. ‘You lost your balance there.’

  She accepted his hand and allowed him to pull her up, but as she came close to him, she whipped her hand up in as fast a thrust as she could manage, aimed at his groin.

  Slave saw it coming. He felt the play of muscles in her arm, heard the involuntary intake of breath preparing for the strike, but it was a good thrust for all that, so he let it get closer than he normally would. When it seemed like it might strike home, he let go of her hand and chopped down with his knife, pommel first, onto her swinging arm. Myrrhini cried out in pain as her upthrust met his downthrust, bone to metal.

  ‘That was good too,’ Slave complimented her. ‘Very dirty, very quick.’

  Myrrhini staggered back, gripping her bruised arm, allowing her knife to fall to the ground. Tears of pain already streaked her filthy cheeks, but her burning eyes gleamed with fury. Slave stepped forward and slapped her, hard across the cheek.

  ‘Control,’ he snapped. ‘Control your fury. Make it work for you, use it, but never let it gain control of you.’

  She lashed out, aiming clawed fingers at his face. With more speed than she had yet shown, she came at him blow after blow. None of them landed, but with each one, she came closer, making him dodge and weave to avoid her jagged nails. He could have stopped her in any one of six different ways, three of which would have killed her, one, maimed her permanently, and the other two incapacitated her, but he chose to simply dodge.

  Eventually, he missed her knee coming up when she was close enough. White agony ripped through him when her blow landed. He staggered back, momentarily winded, which was what she seemed to have been waiting for. She crouched, picked up the knife she had dropped and drove it straight up at his face.

  There was not time for more than two or three choices, so he took the simplest. He lashed out with both hands. One slammed into her knife hand, striking at the nerve point in the wrist, briefly paralysing it, while the other hand caught her in the chest, just below where the ribs joined. Myrrhini dropped like a stone as the air was driven from her lungs. She lay writhing on the ground, gasping.

  Slave knelt beside her to wait for her to regain her breath, and the use of her right hand.

  ‘I nearly had you there,’ she gasped.

  Slave grunted in assent. ‘Good attack.’

  ‘Where’s my knife?’

  Slave pointed to where the weapon lay in the flattened grass nearby.

  ‘What did you do to my hand?’

  ‘Pr
essure point.’ He held out his hand.

  Myrrhini reached out her still-numb right hand. Slave took it in his, turned it over and pointed at a spot on her wrist. ‘If I apply the right sort of pressure here —’ he tapped her wrist ‘— I can stop your hand.’

  Myrrhini gasped and tried to snatch her hand back from even the small pressure he had applied. Slave released her. She flexed her fingers, pain on her face.

  ‘That hurts,’ she complained.

  ‘It is supposed to.’

  ‘Show me how to do that.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘Give me your wrist.’

  Slave held out his right hand, wrist up. Myrrhini took his hand and examined the wrist. It was hard, thick with muscle and marked with scars. She narrowed her eyes before jabbing hard with her finger, missing the spot. Slave shook his head. Faster than Myrrhini could react, he reversed the way their hands were arranged, so that her wrist was exposed.

  ‘Here,’ he said, tapping with his forefinger.

  Myrrhini reacted as though she had been stabbed. Her hand spasmed once before dropping limp.

  ‘That’s the spot,’ Slave said.

  ‘And that’s just practice again?’

  ‘Practice.’

  ‘Why did you practise so hard?’

  ‘I had no choice. It was obey or die.’

  ‘You know that wasn’t true, don’t you?’

  ‘It was true.’

  ‘No. I have Seen something of your past. You were the only one Sondelle had like you. He would never have killed you. He needed you.’

  Slave shook his head. ‘I was there.’ He rose to his feet abruptly, staring off into the distance. Even the mention of Sondelle’s name was enough to bring memories flooding back. Memories of the dark, the pain, the endless training, the killing.

  With the memories came the sense of the vast open sky above, the lack of walls surrounding him, the unreasoning fear building on a level beneath conscious thought. He shivered as he walked back to the wagon. At times like this, even a wheel at his back was better than the forever extending sky above the open plains. Camaxtli spoke to him as he passed, but he did not hear.

  It was with relief that he sat beside the wagon with his back pressed firmly against the wheel, his arms wrapped around his knees. Feeling the solidity of something at his back, the swelling sense of fear eased a little, allowing him to think again. At some stage, Myrrhini came and sat near him. She sat quietly in the sun before moving to lie under the wagon where she stayed without speaking.

  Tatya returned sometime after the sun had reached its peak. She bounded through the grass with no regard for stealth and dropped beside Slave in the shade of the wagon.

  ‘Keshik sent trackers after me. They will get here in a couple of days and lead you back to his camp,’ she panted.

  ‘Trackers? How many men has he got?’

  ‘Hundreds.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘They’re all Tulugma.’

  How did that happen?

  ‘Was Maida there?’ Myrrhini asked.

  Tatya gave a low rumble, deep in her chest. ‘She was.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Alive.’

  Slave came to a decision. He stood up.

  ‘Tatya,’ he said, ‘could you lead us to Keshik?’

  The spurre snarled, but turned to make her way northwest. Without a word, Camaxtli clambered up onto the wagon and flicked the reins to get the horses moving. Slave and Myrrhini climbed up beside him and they followed the big black cat through the waving grasses.

  Alyosha rejoined them as they set camp the next night. He ambled in, in barin form, just after they finished eating their meal. Camaxtli cried aloud in fear, scrambling to his feet.

  ‘Sit down, Camaxtli,’ the old barin told him. ‘I have eaten already today.’

  ‘You’re a shapeshifter,’ Camaxtli said.

  The barin grumbled then shimmered into his hairy human form.

  ‘Keshik has spread his force,’ Alyosha said.

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Slave mused.

  ‘I think he got uncomfortable with all those people around him.’

  ‘What is he doing with all those Tulugma?’ Slave asked.

  ‘He’s going to use them as an army,’ Tatya said. She was resting under the wagon, a black shadow in the night.

  An army of assassins? An army of kabutat! Very clever. A war of hidden casualties, no pitched battles. With an opponent driven by madness and base needs. No acquisition goals for either side, just mutual destruction. Slave recalled what Keshik had told him about the army of barbarism that had swept Vogel aside. No clear command structure, no chance of organisation. It was an army of reaction, unthinking reaction at that.

  ‘Good decision,’ Slave commented. He looked up at the wagon with its cargo of poisons, stored fire and other chemical tricks. How much did Myrrhini See when she accepted Camaxtli’s offer of work? Did she See all this? Or was it intuition? Certainly all these chemicals will be ideal in a fight like the one Keshik has planned.

  ‘He’s started training them in stealth,’ Alyosha commented.

  A wicked thought occurred to Slave. He looked over at Tatya.

  ‘Do you want to play?’ he asked the spurre.

  ‘Always.’

  Slave and Tatya ran through the night. Both moons were in the sky for some of the dark time which made for better pace, and they reached the first of the outlying camps before dawn. They slowed to a walk as they approached the cluster of three tents.

  One man stood watch, yawning as the first hints of morning light touched the eastern horizon. Tatya distracted him with a low, menacing growl from the grass to his right. When he turned to investigate, he was knocked to the ground from behind and gagged faster than he believed possible. A knee was driven into his back as his hands were wrenched behind and tied.

  ‘Tell Keshik his encampment has been infiltrated,’ Slave hissed into the man’s ear. ‘And if he doesn’t know what encampment means, tell him it means where his second-rate army is slumbering.’

  With a slap to the back of the guard’s head, Slave vanished back into the grass. Tatya gave another threatening growl and slipped away in search of the next camp.

  Slave and Tatya found the cluster of three tents by smell alone. The sun was up, the morning breeze was already faltering and the smell of unwashed human carried easily over the normal scents of the plain. As before, Tatya went to one side while Slave went to the other. The sounds of muted conversation filtered through the grass: three people talking quietly about military strategy. Slave paused to listen. From the conversation, it was clear these Tulugma were experienced warriors who had been in a number of serious battles. He continued approaching while following the conversation, seeking to learn more about them.

  There were two women and a man talking, although Slave could identify five different scents. Two were either still asleep or just listening. Given the temperature, he decided the latter was more likely. The older woman had held command positions and was used to being listened to, while the man was much younger. He had, it seemed, never given orders in a battle situation. The other woman said less than the other two, but what she said was insightful.

  A movement very close made Slave hesitate. It came again. Someone was walking slowly through the grass towards him. He crouched lower, pulling out a knife. From the sound of the approach, he did not think the man … no, the woman, knew Slave was there. She was on guard, looking for someone. Slave allowed himself a tight grin. Tatya had mentioned that Keshik had threatened to stalk his army. This guard was looking for Keshik.

  We fear that which is undeserving.

  Slave tensed as the guard came in range. He sprang through the grass, catching her completely unaware, bearing her down to the ground. With his hand over her mouth, he lay on her, his face close to hers.

  ‘Keshik is not the only one hunting you,’ he whispered. ‘Make a sound and you will die.’ He waited until she nodded befo
re removing his hand. When she remained silent, Slave rolled off her and helped her to her feet. ‘Go back to your camp,’ he instructed.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Slave ignored the question. ‘Before you go,’ he said, ‘think about what just happened. I caught you and had you down at my mercy before you could make a sound. You don’t know how many are out here, nor do you know my intentions. You were as good as dead, and yet when I gave you the chance to warn your comrades, you chose your life over theirs. You should have screamed a warning the instant I gave you a chance. If that meant you died, it was a price you should have paid. In a battle, three lives are worth more than one, even when the one is yours.’ The woman’s eyes widened as she listened. ‘Go,’ Slave instructed. ‘You are in no danger from me today.’

  The woman ran. Slave watched her go, wondering what sort of army Keshik was putting together.

  The next camp was better organised. There were only three there — two women, one man — in three small tents. Each one was alert, patrolling the outer edge of their campsite. Slave crouched silently in the grass, watching their routine. They were good, but there were flaws in their technique that he and Tatya could easily exploit. He pulled out a knife and crawled towards the nearest guard.

  She was alert for walking attackers, but one who approached her from behind at ground level caught her completely unawares. Slave had her down and unconscious before she knew he was there.

  Tatya, meanwhile, bounded openly into the camp where she stood growling menacingly as she eyed off the two other guards. They stared at the big spurre, unable to react until Slave threw himself onto the back of one, wrestling him to the ground. In the momentary distraction, Tatya sprang onto the other. Slave easily subdued his opponent with a jab to the throat followed up with a fist to the jaw. Tatya stood over hers, her forepaws on the woman’s shoulders while she snarled and drooled into her face. The woman stared at the savage face above her in horror.

  ‘Let her up, Tatya,’ Slave said.

  ‘You said we were going to play,’ Tatya complained.

  ‘This is playing.’

  Tatya gave a full-throated roar before stepping away from the petrified Tulugma.