by Peter Newman
Like a hail of glittering arrows, they shot across the land, riding the energies of the Godroad. It did not take them long to reach Fourboards. The swamp bubbled with activity, and he could plainly see the three Deathless and their people, all fighting for their lives. As they suspected, Lady Anuja had the worst of it, and he directed his Deathless to go to her, signalling with his spear. Umed, Yadva, and Gada each saluted him and then began to dive, their hunters following, one rank after another.
He was not surprised to see so many demons here, but there was no sign of either Quiverhive or the Corpseman.
They are here, somewhere. They must be!
Only one lifecycle ago he would have plunged into the fight without a second thought. After all, the situation was dire and he would not want to bring dishonour upon himself. Now though, he saw things differently. Before, Quiverhive hung back, watching. It’s here, somewhere. I know it is.
He continued to follow the Godroad, flying over the heads of the people of Fourboards. They had all retreated from their homes and gathered in several messy clumps along the road’s surface. Even from above, he could see how drawn and thin they looked. If the demons don’t kill them soon, the stress will. I have to end this.
He was only a little further along when he saw something strange ahead, a break in the light of the Godroad. At first it looked as if a hill had sprung up overnight, swallowing a section of the glowing crystal. But as he drew closer, he saw that it was a pile of bodies, not stacked like a carpet as he’d feared, but as a barricade. There was no sign of flame nor flash of power. These were ordinary human beings, not demons, and the Godroad’s power could not touch them.
Half a settlement’s worth were there. Good people reduced to macabre bricks. He felt sick at the sight of it. It was a monument of sorts. A vile proof of the failure of the Deathless.
But what is it for? To stop people getting here or to stop them getting out?
Tell-tale ripples in the surface of the swamp told him there were demons below. He stared down hard, straining his eyes to see if one of them was long enough to be Quiverhive, but all he could see were Murkers, their bloated bodies paddling lazily around the spot where the sides of the ‘hill’ joined the swamp.
He banked round in a wide arc, signalling his hunters to follow. They hadn’t anticipated this but his instincts were telling him to go the other way. As he returned to Fourboards he saw three more Deathless in the sky opposite, each backed by a full flight of hunters, and the familiar violet glow of House Tanzanite. He waved his spear, hoping to catch Lady Farida’s attention, but it was too late. As per the plan, she was diving to attack the demons in the swamp. Whatever was happening here on the Godroad was up to him to deal with.
And then he heard the screams. There was a distinctive quality to them: Terror and shock rolled into one. A horrible mismatched chorus of misery heading his way; made by the people of Fourboards as they ran towards him. Small children were being carried. Others were being dragged. The thick groups he’d seen before had strung out into lines, those at the back pushing those in front, desperate to get away from …
Vasinidra’s eyes widened. By the Thrice Blessed Suns!
He had to look a second time to make sense of it. A thick bloated wormlike thing was snaking its way after the mob. A demon without doubt, but one that traversed the Godroad without injury. Something in its movement reminded him of Quiverhive but it looked so odd, so changed, that he wasn’t sure at first.
The outer layer of the beast seemed to be made of corpses, their arms and legs threaded together, linking them in bands that ran from the demon’s tip to its tail. A row of bodies flopped over the front of the demon’s mouth like a fringe, bobbing obscenely with each forward movement. The bodies were as pale-skinned as those on the barricade, road-born that had been killed and left too long under water.
With horror, Vasinidra realized what he was seeing.
It is Quiverhive! It’s using them as armour! Quiverhive is wearing our people as armour.
Smaller demons swam nearby, braving the edge of the Godroad’s energies for the chance at scavenging whatever Quiverhive discarded.
Vasinidra had seen enough. He ordered half of his hunters to form a wedge between the demon and the people of Fourboards. The other half he called to follow him and attack.
They swooped down together, stabbing at the demon as they flew by. Vasinidra’s own spear caught at one of the bodies but failed to penetrate deep enough to do any real damage to the creature beneath.
For its part, Quiverhive ignored them and barrelled into the hunters on the road. The first was scooped up and bitten in half; the legs and lower body swallowed, the upper body, with wings still attached, was spat away into the swamp.
As Vasinidra turned for another pass, he tried to think of a way to counter the new threat. It was all happening too fast! I have to do something about that armour – he felt another urge to vomit at the thought of the armour’s nature – but what?
Four of the hunters on the Godroad set their spears, trying to stab at Quiverhive’s mouth. It didn’t try to bite them this time but just set its head forward, and charged, butting into them. Spears stabbed into dead flesh and stuck fast, their owners swung on the end of them like Purefish in a Birdkin’s beak. In seconds, spears ripped from hands, and all four were flung into the swamp.
The second rank of hunters stepped in and quickly suffered the same fate.
The third rank leapt back on their Sky-legs in a succession of little hops, stabbing futilely to try to slow Quiverhive down.
The barricade was in sight now, and the people of Fourboards had seen it. They were running ahead of the hunters and had been putting space between them and the demon but now they slowed, a great moan going up among them.
‘Follow my lead!’ shouted Vasinidra, using the currents of the Godroad to climb as high as he could before diving down, spear first. He used every bit of momentum, every bit of strength, and plunged his spear as deep as it would go. The point pierced one of the corpse’s bellies, going through with barely any resistance, then further, into hard scale. Not enough to break Quiverhive’s hide, but enough to get the demon’s attention.
Vasinidra didn’t wait to see what it would do. Standing on its back now, he used his exalted strength to tear the skewered body free, exposing a row of scales. Several of them flipped over to reveal eyes that glared upwards, hateful.
He was aware of his hunters also trying to attack the armour and that they were struggling. Even as he was worrying about this, he raised his spear a second time and drove it into Quiverhive’s back.
The eyes flipped back to scales again, but it didn’t matter. The glowing sapphire tip was anathema to all things of the Wild and it sunk deep, burning as it went.
Quiverhive twisted angrily, trying to shake him off, but he simply hopped upwards, hovering there until it had stopped. The moment it did, he attacked again. While the other hunters were not as effective as him, they continued to bother the demon, distracting it, slowing it down.
He put his weight behind the spear, driving it slowly deeper as Quiverhive bucked in agony. Then, when he had gone as far as he could, he pressed the trigger on the shaft, firing the point still further. Around the edge of his spear, the scales flipped, revealing eyes fixed on him, thoughtful, despite the pain. Then they flipped back.
Before he had time to wonder what that meant, the demon was moving, rolling its great bulk sideways. Vasinidra went with it, gripping his spear tight as the world lurched. Quiverhive kept rolling, not in an attempt to shake him off, but to leave the Godroad entirely.
One moment Vasinidra was the right way up, the next, he was upside down, one wing sparking off the corner of the Godroad as they fell off the side of the road. The moment after that was marked with a splash as his back broke the surface of the swamp. Everything went black, save from the glow of his armour. Even if the sunslight had been strong enough to penetrate the murky water, the sky was blocked by Quiverhive’s v
ast bulk.
They sank together, towards the bottom.
Vasinidra kept one hand on the spear, and gouged at the wound with the fingers of the other, his sapphire gauntlet burning the demon just as easily as his spear did.
Quiverhive began to curl, wrapping itself around him. Normally such an action would be suicide, but with its corpse armour protecting it, the demon had nothing to fear. It was so huge, it covered him in a single loop of its body, pinning his arms and legs. He felt the spear handle slip from his grasp, he felt the horrific pressure begin to build on all sides, and he fought back.
And so it went until, with an almost gentle bump, they reached the bottom, Deathless and demon, superhuman strength pitted against inhuman power. Vasinidra struggled with everything he had, but he knew he was outmatched. As the seconds ticked by it got harder for him to breathe, and he could feel the strain on his armour. Any moment now, the crystal would crack and snap, and he would be killed.
While he did not fear death, he feared delay. To be between lives for any length of time could spell disaster. And so he fought and strained, trying to find his spear again. It had moved in their struggle, still buried deep in Quiverhive’s flank, the glow only just visible through the layers of demonic flesh. It would be killing the demon slowly from the inside. Perhaps, if he could hold out long enough, the wound would finish it off completely. It was too far to grab now. Even if he had full movement of his arm, it was beyond his reach. So instead he worked to free his legs.
Meanwhile, Quiverhive continued to crush and squeeze. A gap appeared in the glow cast by Vasinidra’s armour, mirroring the first crack in his breast plate. First one, then two, then more, tiny little breaks all reaching out to one another.
And yet he felt Quiverhive weaken, just for a moment, and in that moment he swung out and kicked the spear, ramming it so far inside the demon that only a short stub of silver remained visible.
The next thing he knew, everything was in motion as the demon went rigid, flinging him aside. He struggled away, fearing that he would be trapped under its body, then tucked his Sky-legs beneath him and leaped – only to find the swamp bed sucking at his legs, stealing his momentum.
He kicked and swam, doing all he could to go up, aware that his strength was giving out.
Just as his fingers were about to break the surface, he felt something snag on his ankle, trapping him. It wasn’t Quiverhive – the demon was surely dead – but a simple tangle of weeds.
So close! he thought, but it gave him no comfort to be nearly free, to be almost alive. He gave a weak kick but the thing would not budge. He gave another, his last he suspected, and still it would not budge.
In desperation he reached for the surface again, trying to find purchase on the high sides of the Godroad. But it was smooth and straight, perfectly so, and his fingers slid down the sides, frictionless.
Then, a blue glow tinged the murk above, and a gauntleted hand closed around his. He felt his arm jolt in its socket and his hip complain at the pressure, and then the weeds tore free and he was moving upwards.
‘Got you!’ shouted Yadva.
He dangled from her arm, blinking in surprise. ‘You … saved me?’ Barely a day had gone by since she’d tried to destroy him and take House Sapphire for herself. He still had the bruises to prove it.
She laughed. ‘I’ve decided that I don’t want to be High Lord any more. You’re welcome to it.’ She set him down on the Godroad next to her, though she didn’t let him go. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘now I get to be part of the legend of Quiverhive’s defeat.’
‘How—’ he began, then stopped as something came rushing up his throat. After hauling off his helmet, he coughed up filthy water and a few nameless globs that he couldn’t bear to examine. ‘How are the others.’
‘Your plan worked perfectly. We slaughtered them. Took some losses though.’
‘Lady Anuja?’
‘She was alive when I left her, but I don’t think she’ll last much longer.’
‘Take me to her.’
Yadva nodded and helped him to walk along the Godroad. The swamp was quiet once more. Hunters waded on their Sky-legs through droves of Murker corpses, prodding them with their spears. The people of Fourboards were safe, huddling together in relief. And yet he could not relax. ‘Did you engage the Scuttling Corpseman?’
‘There’s been no sign of it. Maybe it’s scared of losing another arm to you.’
He failed to muster a smile in response, not least because his mother had taken the Corpseman’s arm and given him the credit. ‘I was sure it would be here!’
Yadva shrugged.
‘It was supposed to be here.’
She shrugged again.
‘Where is it?’ he asked, as much to the air as to her. ‘Where is the Scuttling Corpseman?’
CHAPTER TEN
They made an uneasy fellowship: two humans, a pack of Dogkin, a Birdkin, and a demon prince. Chandni knew she wasn’t the only one who felt it, the tension hung between them thick as Spiderkin silk. She’d hoped to ride back to Murderkind on the Dogkin, but while Glider was happy for this to happen, the rest of the pack had bristled at the idea of carrying Kennelgrove anywhere. Though the demon had grumbled at having to walk, she suspected it was relieved to be able to keep its distance from the victims of its curse. Their slow pace obviously irritated Crowflies, who was getting further and further ahead.
All I have to do is get to Murderkind. Then Kennelgrove will transform the Dogkin back to their original form, and I will be free to enjoy my time with Varg.
As if sensing her joy, Kennelgrove drew closer. Weak sunslight filtered through the canopy to pick out the shape of a man much like Chandni had imagined. However, there was something odd about it. The joints seemed to be backwards at the elbows and knees, and the cant of its head was more animal than it was human. Moreover, it carried itself awkwardly. Mud and leaves were packed around a belly wound, and fresh scars adorned its arms and shoulders.
‘To be taken to Murderkind in this way is painful, shameful, woeful! I have changed my mind. I will not go another step.’
‘You swore an oath.’
‘Surely an oath sworn under false circumstances, brought about by false friends, is no oath at all.’
Chandni shook her head. ‘The oath is as good as you are, Prince Kennelgrove.’
‘I do not feel good at this moment, and neither should you.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
For the first time since they’d left its domain, she saw some of the old cunning return. ‘It was but half a trick they played on us when they pretended the Corpseman was coming. These trees can steal sounds but they cannot conjure their own. It may not have been hunting us, but it is hunting.’
‘Hunting who?’
It looked away, almost coy. ‘I do not know, but you could find out. That buzzing was fresh. Not here, but near, and close enough to feel.’
She took a step towards it. ‘Me?’
Kennelgrove looked her in the eye and smiled. In that instant, her thoughts became ghostlike, pale and half-remembered, all her attention snared by the creature in front of her. It had rich walnut eyes that she’d never really appreciated before this moment. She found herself smiling back, which felt wrong though she couldn’t in that moment think why.
‘Yes,’ it continued, ‘you want to please your Prince, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And surely you want to stop the Corpseman destroying all those you care about?’
‘Yes.’
Its eyes seemed to sparkle with approval. ‘Of course you do. When you learn what our enemy is up to it will be easy to upset its plots.’ Kennelgrove smiled again. ‘We will wait here for you.’
Again, something didn’t feel right, but she found herself nodding in time with Kennelgrove’s words. ‘Yes. I’ll go and see.’
‘Yes, you go and see and I’ll see you go. What a wonderful idea. Be sure to take a good close look, but do be c
areful. It would be a terrible shame if something awful and visceral and painful and permanent were to befall you.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Chandni, still nodding.
‘And perhaps you should take your lover with you.’ Its smile widened. ‘For protection.’
‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘For protection.’
‘I think the buzzing is coming from over there.’
Kennelgrove gestured towards a slender path, the kind worn down by irregular travellers that is easily swallowed by the Wild. Chandni nodded and called Varg to her. After a quick discussion, the two of them leaped onto Glider and set off.
It was not long before they could hear the buzzing for themselves.
‘You know,’ said Varg, ‘this part of the woods is familiar. I ain’t travelled here from this direction but I’d swear I’ve been round here before.’
Glider barked affirmation.
‘Shit.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Chandni. It seemed a pertinent question because she had the feeling that something was terribly wrong, but she couldn’t think what it was.
‘Well, I don’t travel the deep Wild, so that means we’re probably not far from the Godroad and people. And if you think the Corpseman is around, that’s gotta be real bad for someone and I’d rather that weren’t us. You sure you want to keep going?’
‘If my people are in trouble, we can’t just abandon them.’
‘I’m sorry, Chand, but they ain’t your people any more. You don’t owe them anything.’
She sighed. ‘It doesn’t feel that way. If I don’t even go and see … what kind of person does that make me?’
He kissed her cheek. ‘I won’t stop you looking so long as you come back with me if I reckon things are getting too dangerous.’
It was an effort to turn round on Glider’s back and kiss his cheek in return, but she managed it. ‘Agreed.’