by Mike Ashley
He stepped aside to let some burden-beasts pass, ex-slaves that had been transformed even further by the mages’ chemicala. It had taken time and interbreeding, but over two or three generations the mages had created large, strong beasts out of previously man-sized, weak slaves. These things had lost their sexuality, their humanity, and any remnants of dignity or pride that often still existed deep in a slave’s mind. Their skins were sometimes stretched and split by accelerated growth, and the dusted roads showed trails of dried blood where burden-beasts had passed by. Nox watched these four snort and strain as they hauled a sled of food out of the harbourside and up towards the barracks on the hill. A Krote rode the sled, sitting casually amongst the crates, smoking and staring absently over the beasts’ heads. He glanced down as the sled passed by, looked at Nox’s bloodied arm and away again. None of his business, his attitude said, and Nox could only agree.
He walked further into Newland, and the closer he came to the harbour, the busier it became. The whole point of the Krotes’ existence was to go to war; the fabled Great Return of which the mages spoke whenever they emerged from their solitude, a return to Noreela and vengeance upon the peoples that had made them outcasts before magic had withdrawn itself from humanity. Yet though the Great Return was their sole reason for being, generations of Krotes had been waiting for a long time. Over a century since the mages had landed on Dana’Man – so it was told, so it was true – still the war seemed no closer, the final order to prepare and launch as distant as ever. In darkened taverns and the dead of night, some whispered that it was because the mages had lost their magic. They had their chemicala, they had their rage, but without magic they were powerless against the land that had driven them out. Others said it was because the mages were too old. Most that spoke bad of them rarely did so more than once. Punishment was silent, and swift.
Nox felt suddenly dizzy, and he had to lean against a wall to gather his strength. He glanced inside his jacket and saw the weak sun reflecting from fresh blood. Maybe I’ve killed myself, he thought, and smiled grimly. Maybe that is an escape of sorts.
At the age of twenty Nox went on his first raid. He and his troop of thirty Krotes took a coastal sloop and travelled east for three days, dodging icebergs, whirlpools and giant cold-whales until they reached the far end of the isle of Dana’Man. Here they came ashore overnight before heading out across the sea. The small boat was not built for the swells and storms of the open ocean, and on more than one occasion Nox was certain that they would capsize. He knew very well that to be tipped into these waters meant certain death, either from the intense cold, or the things that lived beneath the waves. They saw them sometimes, white movement in the depths like wraiths floating by at twilight, and though the Krotes were not cowards, they could feel fear. Fear keeps you alive, the female mage Angel once said at a gathering. And it was fear that saved Nox and his fellow Krotes that day. Close to being swamped they took up oars, rowing all day and night and into the next day until they reached their destination.
Then, after days travelling without sleep, freezing, hungry and weak, the Krotes had to fight.
The tribe they went against were not warriors. Perhaps decades before they had held some semblance of organisation and civilisation, but after a century enduring regular Krote raids their society had regressed to something base and pitiful. Some had fled, but most stayed because their island was all they knew. And though they were all but resigned to the regular pillage, some still fought. They used rocks and sharpened whalebone, fiery blubber bombs and fists, and to begin with the Krotes toyed with them, giving the islanders a brief sense that victory was possible. After an afternoon of running, hiding and fighting, however, the mages’ warriors’ exhaustion took over. They stormed the islanders’ stronghold, slaughtered anyone who offered resistance and took what they had come all this way to steal.
They returned to Dana’Man with their hold filled with food, spices, and seedlings for the farms on Dana’Man’s volcano’s flanks. Also in the hold were several men and women from the island, and each Krote, man and woman alike, took turns pleasuring themselves.
“There has to be more than this,” Nox whispered to himself that night. It was not guilt or shame, but a hollowness that seemed to fill him as he lay on the deck, staring up at a sky so filled with stars, it seemed to be snowing. It was not a sensation he was familiar with, and he put it down to post-fight fatigue. But he felt empty, wanting, and perhaps then more than any time before he perceived a fraction of the potential his life could have borne. “Has to be.”
As he slept he dreamed of green fields.
And a Krote that had been lying near him remembered his words, sensed their rebellious potential, and pledged to confer them to her superior.
In Dana’Man, anything out of the ordinary had a way of making itself known to the mages.
“Nox, you snow goat’s cock. Where are you off to in such a hurry? Am I missing a fight?”
“No Sir,” Nox said. Of all the luck! The woman standing before him was at least two hands taller than Nox, wider, heavier, older, and scarred from countless fights and battles. A Krote took pride in his or her scars, displaying them whenever possible, and despite the cold this Lieutenant wore only bands of hide around her chest and hips. Her bare stomach was a network of livid red disfigurements, and her shoulders, though broad, had great chunks of flesh missing, as if burned away by a white-hot iron. Of all the bloody luck! Lieutenant Lenora was something of a legend amongst the Krotes of Newland.
“What have you done there, cut yourself shaving?” She nodded at the bloody patch on Nox’s jacket, her bald head shimmering with frost.
“Foxlion, Sir,” Nox said, changing his story slightly. He had to impress her now, pass her by, go on his way. If she thought he’d come out worse in a fight with a foxlion cub, she was likely to take a knife to him herself.
“And that’s all you have? I’m impressed, Nox. I’ll bet you cut the thing’s head off as a trophy, eh?”
“Absolutely, Sir. It’s back at the barracks. Serville is boiling it up for me even now. I’m off to the hospital barge to make sure I didn’t catch anything from the shitting thing, then it’s foxlion stew all round.”
“Hah!” Lieutenant Lenora clapped him on his bad arm and laughed at the sky. They said she had the ear of the mages. Some even said she was one of the Krotes that had survived the rout from Noreela, immortal now, the ultimate killer. “So let me smell your sword!”
“My sword?”
“The blood of victory smells sweet, Nox, and it’s months since I’ve bloodied mine in battle. A foxlion’s a worthy opponent, that’s for sure. Even though you shouldn’t have been down at the beach on your own, eh?” She leaned in close and smiled.
“I . . . I was looking for—”
“Something better to eat. Yes, I know Nox. Can’t blame you. The shit they serve you Krotes is enough to drive anyone to fend for themselves.”
I’m being tested here, Nox thought. She’s probing, she smells something wrong; maybe it’s my eyes, my guilty eyes. The way she referred to Krotes as if she were not one disturbed him greatly. Far from sounding disrespectful to the mages, it showed that she thought herself above a mere Krote, a true warrior of the mages with countless scars to prove it. He had heard that her shoulder wounds were caused by a hawk gone berserk. It had grabbed her and flown so high with her in its claws, that when she finally burst its stomach with her sword it took her a whole afternoon to fall. Foolish legends. But her eyes held a cool, dark humour, as if challenging him to doubt.
“Well, you don’t have to agree with me, Nox, even though I know you do. So, your sword! I trust you didn’t polish it clean, what with your arm half off?”
“Polish? No. No . . .” He felt suddenly faint. His arm began to burn where the blood still pumped through, and Lieutenant Lenora grew higher, wider, as he sank to his knees on the ice road.
When Nox came to, he knew that he was caught. Lieutenant Lenora had known from the
second she saw him that he had escape on his mind. It was obvious from the way he walked, the look in his eyes, the tint of his skin, and now he was being held somewhere awaiting punishment.
He had never, ever heard of a Krote trying to escape Dana’Man. He had never heard of anyone even entertaining the thought. It was bred out of them, and though he knew he was abnormal even considering fleeing, he did not waste time questioning why. Perhaps it was the grass-green dreams . . . but really, he did not care. Actions had meaning; musing upon such mysteries did not.
He had sometimes wondered whether there was a place on Dana’Man where attempted escapees were held. Now he opened his eyes, not knowing what to expect.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Lieutenant Lenora said. She was sitting on a bench before him, holding him upright. The muscles in her arms were knotted and hard. Even if he wanted to fall away, she would not let him.
“I’m flying,” he muttered, and for a brief instant he thought he’d said, I’m fleeing.
“Nasty bastards, foxlions. They carry something in their spit that stops blood clotting. Helps them drink from their prey easier. You say you were scratched, not bitten?”
Nox only nodded. To elaborate would be to open his story up to scrutiny, and he was not level-headed enough for that.
Lenora frowned. “Hmm. Well there’s something in there keeping you flowing like a holed goat.” She twisted Nox’s arm up out of his lap and licked across his wounds, slowly, her tongue fat and grey. She cleared a path through his blood, glanced up at him, smiling grotesquely. “Tasty,” she said.
Nox looked away, unnerved. He had often seen Krotes blooding themselves after a battle – had done so himself – but he had only ever heard of cannibalism second-hand. The immortal ones do it, Serville had told him one drunken evening. Those that came back from Noreela with the mages. They never die, so it doesn’t matter if they’re eating infected flesh drinking bad blood. Imagine being like that . . .
“Strange,” Lenora said. She turned Nox’s arm this way and that, examining the wounds. They began to seep and Nox was certain she was going to lick them again, and he was not sure he could stand it, that sandpaper tongue scraping across the pouting lips of his gashed arm—
“What?” he said, trying to draw her attention. “What’s strange?”
“Something in there,” she said, running her tongue around her mouth. “Gritty. We’d best get you where you were going, what do you say?”
Nox nodded, and his gratitude and relief were not feigned.
Lieutenant Lenora – allegedly immortal and over a hundred years old already – swung his right arm around her shoulders and held him upright. His feet could only just touch the floor, such was her height, but to begin with it seemed not to matter. She walked quickly towards the harbour, a path clearing naturally before her, and for a few seconds Nox began to believe his own lie. A few Krotes glanced at them, and he saw admiration in their expressions. Wounded in battle, he thought, and he wanted to tell them about the foxlion he had fought and defeated. But of course there had been no foxlion, there had been only his knife. And if Lenora asked again to smell the vanquished beast’s blood on his sword, then his ruse was over.
He looked down at his feet trailing across the dirty ice. Did I really believe I could get away?
Yes, he had. And he may yet.
They reached the harbour, and Nox suggested that he walked himself to the hospital barge. “It’s not fit for a warrior to be carried into hospital,” he said. “Not unless he’s missing legs and arms. Then, maybe, there’s no shame in having a lift.”
Lenora smiled and set him down, and Nox knew that he had impressed her. That was good. Perhaps it would ensure that she would ask no more about his foxlion-blooded sword.
“You’re a brave Krote,” she said.
“I’m surprised you even knew me, Sir.”
Lenora raised her eyebrows. “I’m a Lieutenant. You think it’s my duty to not know those under my command?”
“Of course not, Sir. It’s just that you’ve never called me by name before.”
“I never had cause to. You never impressed me before.” She stared frankly at him, her eyes intelligent and filled with the cool threat of imminent violence.
Nox smiled weakly, and his genuine pain and faintness helped him on his way. “I hope this will not be the last time,” he said.
Lenora laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, sending him staggering sideways into a mound of fishing baskets piled on the breakwater. She stepped after him and held him steady, still laughing.
“I’m sure it won’t,” she said. “When the time comes and we sail to Noreela, I expect you to be at the head of your troop. There’ll be plenty of blood to spill there. Plenty of Noreelan women to be stung by your sword. The wait for revenge is cold, but its fulfilment is hot as blood.”
Nox forced himself to smile. Maybe I’ll even be living in Noreela then, he thought. How ironic that would be. “And when will that be?” he said. Asking questions like this was usually frowned upon, but he seemed to have gained Lenora’s respect. And, truth be told, the idea that he may well be away from this place and on his way to freedom by nightfall made him more daring.
Lenora raised her eyebrows. “Keen, are we?”
“Of course,” Nox said, suddenly afraid that he had gone too far.
“Good. That’s good, Krote. Because whenever the mages call on us, we need to be ready to make them proud.” She turned to walk away, and through his queasiness Nox felt a warming sense of relief. And then she turned back to him. “Magic,” she said. “That’s what they await, the re-emergence of magic. When the time comes they’ll want it, and isn’t that right? Isn’t it proper that those who used magic to its full extent before should have it for themselves?”
“Of course,” Nox said. “Yes.”
Lenora glanced around at the bustling harbour-front, leaned in close, whispered in his ear. He smelled her breath – cool, stale, like a ruptured air pocket in a shifting glacier – and and he could not help but draw back.
“They still have it, you know,” she said. “Not true magic, but means. Methods. Knowledge. They know more than we can imagine. Now . . . here . . . they probably even know that we’re together. They can see us. They’ll smell us. And when I say this to you – when I tell you that the mages are your gods, and any god you betray will give you an eternity of pain – then they hear what I say. You hear, Mistress? You hear, Master?” Lenora stared into Nox’s eyes as if looking way deeper than her own reflection. “Oh yes,” she whispered. “They hear.” And then she turned and walked away.
Nox watched her go. Faint from loss of blood, sick with terror, he waited until she was out of sight on the harbourside. Then he turned and started to make his way to the hospital barge. It was almost half a mile away along the breakwater. Every step of that journey, he imagined the mages watching.
When he was twenty-eight, Nox fell in love.
She was another Krote, a warrior from a troop stationed at a remote village way along the coast. When they visited Newland to attend a training exercise run by the mages themselves, Lucie caught Nox’s eye. Hours after first introducing himself he was screwing her behind a storage hut on the harbour-front, and hours after that he knew that this was something different. She did not seem to realise, but his devoted attention was for more than the physical, his comments to her over the next few days held far more substance than simple sex-talk. They screwed every night and fought every day, but when they returned to their barracks – bloodied, exhausted, confident as ever in their abilities to fight for the mages – Nox would always fall in step with Lucie. She would smile at him hungrily, and he would smile back, silent, unable to speak, painfully aware of her presence, her warmth, her smell. Her talk was of the day they had spent slaughtering slaves brought in from the north and given ice-swords to spar with; his own words sang her praise. Lucie heard nothing of it, or if she did, she smothered it with her sexual abandon.
; Nox could not tell her what he felt. Love encouraged weakness and gave its victims over to mindlessness. Though not punishable, those who claimed love were often sent away to live in the northern mountains for a year or more. If they returned, they invariably found their way back to normality. If not, then their love was frozen into infinity along with their weak flesh.
One night, as she lay sleeping after sex, Nox laid his head beside Lucie’s and whispered into her ear. “It can’t always be like this,” he said. “We can escape. You and I, we’ll go away. There must be somewhere I can tell you the truth.” She stirred and uttered a dreaming growl, and Nox turned on to his back and sought sleep.
Behind him, beneath the skins insulating them from the icy ground, a worm the size of a thumb squirmed its way northward. It had listened. It had heard. It had not understood, but knowledge was not its purpose, only delivery of what it had heard to the mages. The tone of voice it had been programmed to find had been here. The intent it was made to discover was evident in the man’s voice, his words, the way he breathed and sweated and finally slept.
The worm’s journey to the mages’ redoubt took almost a year. That did not matter; a year was nothing. And once its message was delivered, its reward was Angel’s teeth tearing it in half for the cool juice of its insides.
The hospital barge was far from refined. It was a large coastal sloop, stripped bare of its superstructure and covered by a simple timber and animal skin roof. It had glassless windows, a few doors, a couple of chimneys smoking lazily in the still afternoon air. Inside there was no pretension to comfort. Those that came here always left very soon after, either back on their feet again, or dragged to the end of the breakwater and given to the carrion creatures that lived in the cold sea. There was never a long stay; once wounded or taken ill, patients would either recover quickly to fight again, or they were no longer of use. There was as much treatment by the sword as by medicine.