“Nope!” she said cheerfully. “Does it matter?”
“Not really, I suppose.” He raised his voice. “How far are we going?”
Naumoriel’s voice, slightly distorted, echoed from his towering construct. “Four days’ walk, given your human frailties. We follow this valley until it meets up with another, then turn upstream and follow the river to its source.” His construct extended a leg, testing the slope, then started its smooth glide forward. “Come. It will be safer to travel by day.”
Why? Gyre wondered as they tramped along in the huge thing’s wake. What could he be worried about? He was hard-pressed to imagine a plaguespawn big enough to challenge even one of the ghoul constructs, let alone a whole squadron of them. And he couldn’t see any signs of habitation in this valley, human or otherwise.
They stopped by the side of the stream as twilight was fading from the sky. Naumoriel’s construct planted itself next to the water, along with the two cargo carriers, while the rest fanned out to man a wide perimeter. It certainly beats a few trip wires. To his surprise, Naumoriel’s construct opened up, and its two smaller arms reached down with many-tentacled grips to lift the old ghoul out and deposit him gently on the sandy riverbank.
“I thought you’d be spending the night in that thing,” Kit said.
“I will,” Naumoriel said. His huge eyes scanned the darkness, ears erect and searching. “But it has been a long time since I was aboveground. I find that I desire… reflection.”
“Fair enough.” Kit looked back at Gyre. “Shall we see what Elariel packed us to eat?”
She’s up to something. He watched Kit suspiciously as she rummaged through the strapped-down packages on the cargo constructs. But what is it? With Naumoriel sitting a few feet away, he could hardly ask. Instead, he helped her inventory the supplies. The old ghoul had to instruct them which of the several tightly wrapped bundles was food—it turned out to be boxes of small dried pellets, which according to Naumoriel were some sort of nutritious fungus. Adding water made them balloon to the size of small oranges, and they had a salty flavor and a slightly slimy texture a bit like raw fish. All in all, Gyre concluded, he’d eaten worse, though he imagined a steady diet of the things would get old.
Naumoriel ate a few of the fungus balls and drank from a bulky canteen. He trailed his fingertips in the water of the stream, letting his claws carve lines in the flowing water. Gyre had never seen him in such a contemplative mood, and he decided to take advantage of it, while Kit rummaged to see what sort of sleeping arrangements the ghouls had provided.
“May I ask you something?” Gyre said politely.
“I suppose,” Naumoriel said.
“Elariel. You two seem… close. Is she your daughter?”
“Daughter?” The old ghoul’s lips spread in a toothy grin, and his ears twitched. “She is family, but my daughters are all long dead. You would say she is my great-granddaughter.”
“Great—” Gyre raised his eyebrow. “I see.”
“You wish to ask how old I am,” Naumoriel said.
“Honestly I don’t have any idea how long ghouls live,” Gyre said. “You look older than Elariel, is the best I could manage.”
“I doubt Elariel has many more years than you do,” Naumoriel said. “Whereas I was born… I suppose our calendar would mean little to you. It was the eighth year before the war began.”
Before the war? That made Naumoriel over four hundred years old. “Then you remember the war. The Chosen.”
“Of course I remember.” The ghoul’s eyes narrowed. “I was a child, but I remember. The sun-lovers chased us from their world, this world, above the earth, but that wasn’t enough for them. They cracked our mountains like eggs to get to us. The tunnels flowed with their fire. They sent your kind, their slaves, to root us out. However many we slaughtered, there were always more.” He stared, unseeing, into the darkness. “I remember moving from one city to another, always just ahead of the fire. Knowing that all who hadn’t fled in time, everyone we’d left behind, had perished at the hands of the Chosen.”
“Wow,” Kit said, over Gyre’s shoulder. “No wonder your people unleashed the Plague.”
Naumoriel’s head snapped around, and his smile faded. “Do not speak of what you have no means to understand, girl.” He waved a hand, and the big construct’s tentacular arms stretched down to lift him up into their embrace. “We leave at first light.”
“Come on,” Kit said, “let’s get the tents up.”
The ghouls, it turned out, had provided two neat little tents, made of some shiny material lighter than cloth but as waterproof as oiled leather. No sooner had they driven the pegs into the earth than Kit dove inside hers and buttoned the flap. Gyre stared after her for a moment, then sighed and went back for a few more fungus balls.
In spite of the long walk, some instinct kept him from falling asleep. He lay on his back and stared upward, silver eye showing him the ceiling in perfect clarity. After perhaps an hour, he heard shuffling outside and then a rustle at the tent flap.
Kit pushed her way in, wrapped in one of the warm, lightweight blankets the ghouls had provided. She wormed her way up beside him and propped herself on one elbow.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly.
“Hi yourself,” Gyre said. “What’s the matter, are you cold again?”
“Not really.”
“Nightmares, then?”
“Sometimes.” Kit sat up, her head nearly brushing the ceiling, and disentangled herself from the blanket. She was naked underneath. “But not tonight.”
She bent down and kissed him, fast and hungry. Her hand spidered across his chest, slipped down to his waist, and expertly popped the button on his trousers. Before it could plunge beneath them, he caught her by the wrist, and she pulled away a fraction.
“What?” she said.
“Is this another… what did you call it? Moment of weakness?”
“I mean. Probably. So?” A sly tone entered her voice. “Sorry, did that hurt your poor little pride? Here, let me make it better.” She grabbed for his cock, and he yanked her hand away. “Ow!”
“Kit,” Gyre said, letting go. “What are you doing?”
“I thought I was coming over for a quick fuck. Maybe to be followed by a longer fuck.”
“I mean… all of this. The way you’ve been talking to Naumoriel.” Gyre sat up himself. “You didn’t raise any objection when he refused to fix your heart until after this new mission.”
“Do we really have to talk about this now?” Kit said. “It’s been a long day and I think I am actually dripping, so if we could just—”
“Kit.”
“Fine!” She threw her hands in the air and drew her knees up to her chin. “I was going to talk to you later anyway. I just wanted to make sure he was asleep out there. I have no idea how much he can hear.”
“What don’t you want Naumoriel to hear?”
“That I’m onto him, obviously.” She pulled her legs in a little tighter. “He’s never going to fix my heart. Of course he’s not. And he’s never going to give you what you want. Either we die getting him to whatever he’s looking for, or he’s going to keep us on his leash forever.” She shook her head. “Or else, once he has his ‘power under the mountain,’ he’ll toss us aside like yesterday’s breakfast and leave us to rot. You know he will.”
“The thought has occurred to me,” Gyre said. “But I always knew that was a risk of looking for the Tomb.”
“You chose to risk your life trying to turn the world upside down. I’m just trying to fucking stay alive until my next birthday, all right? Forgive me if I don’t like the idea of being dropped on a dung heap to wait for my personal hourglass to run out of sand.”
“I don’t like it much either,” Gyre said. “But what’s the alternative? You said yourself we’re dependent on the ghouls.”
“On the ghouls,” Kit said. “Not on Naumoriel.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Thin
k about it,” Kit went on. Her voice was low and fast. “Naumoriel isn’t popular among his people, right? He’s practically an exile. And he said that dealing with us wasn’t something their leaders would approve of. If his project were to go wrong out here, well… who would know, apart from the two of us?”
“That’s…” Gyre paused. “That still doesn’t solve your problem.”
“It does if we find this ‘power’ and take it for ourselves,” Kit said.
“We don’t even know what it is,” Gyre said.
“We know it must be something spectacular,” Kit countered. “You’ve seen what the ghouls can do already. What goes far enough beyond that for Naumoriel to risk everything—his own life, even?”
“And you’re assuming it’ll be something we can use—”
“We don’t have to use it. Whatever it is, we just offer to sell it to the rest of the ghouls. Make our bargain over again, only this time we’ll have the whip hand. That ought to be enough to be worth a little dhaka to fix me up. And for you—what would you need, to destroy the Order? An army of those construct things, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Gyre muttered. “It’s a plaguing big risk. There’s so much we don’t know.”
“I think it’s not as much of a risk as letting Naumoriel get what he wants and trusting to his gratitude afterward,” Kit said.
Gyre gave a slow nod. “So what are you planning?”
“I’m playing it by ear for the moment. The more we can get Naumoriel to tell us about where we’re going, the better. Aside from that, we wait for an opportunity.” She grinned in the darkness. “I just wanted to get us on the same page first.”
“I may have an idea,” Gyre said. “At least it’ll be… a little insurance. If he gets out of his construct again tomorrow, see if you can get him talking.”
“I’ll do my best. He seems to like you better than he ever liked me. Probably because you’ve both got cocks.” She shrugged. “Or I assume he does. Do ghouls fuck like regular people, do you think?”
“I have no idea,” Gyre said.
“Elariel has tits, anyway. I should have asked her while I had the chance.” Kit looked thoughtful. “That’d be… I mean, all that fur, right?”
“Kit,” Gyre said again.
“Plaguefire, I know I’m horny when I start thinking about ghoul snatch,” Kit said. “Do you still want to fuck?”
“What you said, back in the tavern.”
“Are you still thinking about that?” Kit said, with a theatrical sigh. “What is this, you won’t give it up until I whisper ‘I love you’ in your ear?”
“I want to be sure where I stand.”
“Argh!” Kit rubbed her hands frantically through her spiky blue hair. “All right. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry! Is that good enough?”
“I don’t need an apology,” Gyre said. “I just want to know… what you think, I guess.”
“What I think is that my life has not done a great deal to prepare me for the experience of maybe giving a little bit of a shit about someone, okay? So maybe I’m not the best at dealing with it. And after what happened to you in the Tomb…” She hesitated. “I thought you might blame me. For, you know. Getting your eye socket ripped open and days of shrieking agony.”
“I was the one who made you take me there.”
“Yeah, well, people aren’t always rational about that sort of thing.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t actually fuck anyone at the tavern, if that matters to you. I may have made out with the blacksmith girl a little; I’m not sure, I was pretty drunk. But I’m ninety percent certain that was all.” She cocked her head and waggled one hand. “Well. Eighty percent.”
“You were right, though. I don’t own you.”
“Of course not. But if we’re going to be the kind of partners who spend time naked together, you know. There should probably be some ground rules.” Kit let out a deep breath. “Okay. Done with the feelings-talk. Can we please just f—”
Gyre cut her off by pressing his lips to hers. Kit fell over with a delighted squeak, her hands already tugging at his trousers.
Sometime after, Gyre lay on his back, staring at the roof of the tent. Kit was nestled beside him, naked and warm, her breaths slow and peaceful.
What am I doing here?
He could follow the steps that had brought him to this place in his mind. Maya’s abduction, his mother’s death, the hard years on the road as he’d searched for anything that offered a scrap of hope that the Order might not be all-powerful. Deepfire, Yora and the rest, his pursuit of the Tomb, and finally Kit. And now I’m following a mad old ghoul in pursuit of a power I don’t even understand.
You found what you were looking for. Yora’s voice echoed through his thoughts. Was it worth it?
Kit never seemed troubled by the people who got hurt because they got in her way. The Auxies, the bandits, Harrow and all the rest. Gyre didn’t fool himself that she’d mourn him, if the occasion arose. And when his rage burned brightest—when he looked Maya in the face and heard her spout the Order’s lies—he could almost make himself that cold. It was only afterward that doubt stole in.
Is it worth it?
He turned his head to look at Kit, outlined in perfect clarity through the darkness by his silver eye. She shifted, curling up tighter, as though she sensed his regard.
She’s right about Naumoriel. The old ghoul was using them. But he’s the only thread I have, the only connection to the power I need. He’d had a taste of it now. Defeating the pair of Legionaries had been a start, and he couldn’t pretend it hadn’t been satisfying. But it’s only a start.
Is it worth it? Yora echoed.
All through the next day, they descended, following the river.
Try as he might, Gyre still couldn’t put names to any of the mountains that surrounded them. The Shattered Peaks was a vast range, and he knew there were whole sections that had never been settled by the ghouls, and thus never attracted the attention of the Chosen or the scavengers who followed them. It was entirely possible that he and Kit were the first humans to set eyes on this valley, at least since the days when skyships passed overhead.
Then again, they were headed somewhere, which meant that the place wasn’t as free of ghoul settlement as it first appeared.
Inevitably, a few plaguespawn found them, drawn by the steady tromp of the constructs’ march. Compared to the ghouls’ creations, they were ramshackle, awkward things, organic material haphazardly repurposed into a new form with no coherent plan, no elegance or efficiency. By contrast, the constructs were marvels, the black muscle under their spiked exteriors making their movements fast and lethal. When they engaged the plaguespawn, the difference was clear—the interlopers were smashed aside with casual ease, their stolen forms pulped by stony fists and left as smears of black blood on the rocks. If Naumoriel thinks that Kit and I are going to be more effective than that, he’s going to be very disappointed.
That evening, as Gyre pitched their tents, the ghoul was again gently lifted out of his war-construct and set by the side of the stream. There was something different about Naumoriel out here, Gyre thought. He seemed almost melancholy, a far cry from his manic rants back in Refuge.
He doesn’t expect to come back from this, Gyre realized with sudden clarity. He had no idea how long most ghouls lived, but clearly Naumoriel was pushing the upper limit. Whatever power he’s looking for, he doesn’t expect to survive using it.
“Can I ask you something?” Kit said, plopping herself down happily beside Naumoriel. The old ghoul looked at her and heaved a very human sigh.
“If you must,” he said.
Please don’t be about ghoul fucking, Gyre thought.
“Why me?” Kit said. “You could have killed me, when I wandered near Refuge the first time. You could have just left me alone, even, and I would have died in those tunnels.”
“Indeed,” the ghoul said. “It was my duty to do just that. The Geraia entrusted me with the defense of
the city, so they can go on with their self-involved debating and debauchery and never consider the outside world.”
“So why, then?”
“Because the outside world will not ignore us forever.” He looked down at her, eyes hooded. “And because the war is not over.”
“Against the Chosen, you mean? Because the Twilight Order is still fighting? Is that why you need this power?”
Naumoriel’s ears waggled with amusement. “Your digging for information is transparent, human.”
“Yeah.” Kit ruffled her hair. “Subtlety was never my strong suit.”
“There is much that is hidden, even from me. Over the years I have discovered… hints. With the power that sleeps under the mountain, I will find the truth. That is all you need to know.”
As they spoke, Gyre was working. He finished with the tents, then took out his own pack, digging down to the very bottom and removing the thick clay cylinder. Trying hard for nonchalance, he tucked it under his arm and wandered toward the old ghoul’s war-construct, which stood motionless with its canopy open.
He glanced over his shoulder. Naumoriel was still staring at the river, ignoring Kit’s chattered questions. Gyre stepped closer to the construct, which was hunched on its legs far enough that he could see into its central cavity. His hasty recollection had been correct—there was a space behind the ghoul’s padded seat, big enough to fit the bomb. Naumoriel, Gyre guessed, was unlikely to find it—from the look of things, he didn’t move about the construct much.
For a moment, Gyre hesitated. He watched Naumoriel sitting with Kit and felt a stab of guilt. He hasn’t betrayed us yet. Maybe he never will. He repeated again the list of all those who’d already sacrificed to build the road to the power Gyre wanted. Yora and Harrow, Chosen knew how many others. Sarah, mangled and burned. Maya, turned into a willing slave. He touched his face, the new scars laid over the old around his silver eye. Me.
Is it worth it?
In one quick movement, he leaned over, lowered the bomb to the floor of the construct, and wedged it in place. He quickly stepped away, and waited a few seconds before looking at Naumoriel. The old ghoul gave no sign he’d noticed, still staring down the river.
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