by Peter Newman
There was a pause and he found his eyes closing, but very faintly he heard her bitter reply.
‘Very well, High Lord.’
When Lord Gada came to speak to Pari, she’d already guessed what was going on.
The knowledge of Vasinidra’s imminent death was passing between the hunters too. A muttered gloom flitting from mouth to ear. It was a strange time. The Sapphire High Lord had not died yet, but they were all waiting for it to happen.
‘He wants to speak to you,’ said Gada.
‘Vasinidra honours me.’
Gada’s mouth formed a thin line. ‘He does.’
She went over to where Vasinidra had been positioned. The worst of the damage on his back and side was hidden by dirt and tufts of wild grass. His armour was giving off very little light, and the fracture lines in the crystal looked ready to give up completely at any moment.
Nidra stood over him like a protective Birdkin. She gave Pari a cool look.
Vasinidra’s eyes were closed, but his lips curled in a drowsy smile as she approached. ‘Pari.’
She ignored Nidra and crouched down next to him, wobbling a little as she settled her Sky-legs. ‘Vasinidra. I do hope I’m not disturbing your sleep.’
‘In your case I’m happy to be disturbed.’
‘Then, can I disturb you back onto your feet and into battle?’
He smirked at that, then sighed. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be this way.’
‘I know. How can I help?’
‘You’ve already helped me a great deal.’
‘But? You didn’t call me here for a last cuddle to warm you between lives. Better ask while you can, my dear.’
His eyelids flickered, then opened. She felt a pang of sadness at the effort it cost him to focus on her. ‘I’ve warned the others that our enemy is different, but you’re the only one that really understands. I’ve told Gada he will speak for House Sapphire in my name, but I want you and Mother to guide him. Do what’s right.’
She glanced at Nidra. ‘What’s right for who?’
He managed a smile. ‘For all of us.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘Be gentle with Gada. He’s not ready for this.’
‘I’m always gentle,’ she winked. ‘Except when I’m not.’
‘And please, help Mother. She’s been through so much.’
Nidra tutted. ‘She is standing right here.’
‘I have no doubt that Nidra will be fine as soon as she’s returned to her proper station.’
‘Yes.’ His eyes closed and for a moment she thought he had slipped away. ‘Pari?’
‘I’m still here.’
‘I’m sorry. For leaving this all to you. It’s too much for anyone to manage alone but you’re the only one left that can.’
She put a hand over his. ‘I’m not alone and neither are you, my friend. Remember that when you come back.’
He tried to nod but though she saw the muscles flex in his neck, nothing happened. ‘Looks like I still have a lot to learn … Funny how that never changes … So many lifecycles and we still … act … like …’
The end of the sentence vanished in a sigh.
Vasinidra had gone.
‘I’ll see you on the other side,’ she whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was only when all traces of the swarm had gone that Satyendra dared to move. Fear had gripped him so tight that he’d thrown himself into some bushes and stayed there, as unmoving as death.
Now, at last, it felt like he could breathe again, could think again. Though in truth, he did not want to think about what had just happened.
The Whispercage was nowhere to be seen, reclaimed once more by the shadows. He had a feeling he would see it again soon enough.
I have seen my future and it is worse than I could have imagined.
He picked his way closer to where the fighting had been. Mostly, he saw dead Birdkin, but here and there he also saw the strange corpses of the humanoid Flykin. And in one place, faintly, was an intermittent buzz, a spasm of broken wings.
Life.
He went over to find a Flykin on its knees, its body bent over backwards and its head thrown up towards the sky. A Birdkin’s body and talons protruded from one eye socket.
Even alone, harmless, the sound of its buzzing made him wince. It was painful somehow, and he had a powerful urge to leave. This was countered by an equally powerful urge to investigate further. To act in spite of fear. For fear and Satyendra were intimate friends, and there was much give and take between the two of them.
The demon was so far gone that it did not register his approach. He lifted one if its hands, marvelling at how human the fingers were. He bent one back to see how far it would go. The thin plating had grown hard over the joints, restricting the movement. Satyendra continued to bend and was rewarded with a sense of its pain. Not quite as pure as that of a person, but something he could feed from nonetheless.
The shell cracked around the knuckle. Only the stutter of the Flykin’s wings gave any outward indication that it suffered. Next, the finger popped from its joint and he felt the familiar rush as the demon’s pain was absorbed by his body.
The fear he had felt drained swiftly away and was replaced with the need to take more. To fill himself up again. With increasing vigour, he set to work finishing off the creature as painfully as he could. By the time he was done, his wounds were gone, save for some scarring, and his bones tingled beneath the skin.
What do I do now?
Though he was no longer afraid, he was alone in the Wild. Aimless. Friendless. There was no sign of Rochant nor Sa-at, and he had no idea how to find his mother.
But he was different now. A predator. He instinctively tasted the air. It was full of blood and suffering. Moreover, he could see it like strands of smoke in the air, could tell one from the other.
Sa-at’s blood was shed here.
Rochant’s too.
He studied the strands, realized that he could follow them. Realized that they were travelling in the same direction.
The grin that crossed his face felt wrong and too much air came into his mouth. At some point his scarf had slipped down, and he self-consciously pulled it up over his face whilst tugging his hood forward.
Then he set off.
Satyendra told himself that he was going for vengeance on Rochant, and perhaps, to pay off his debt to Sa-at. After all, he had sworn to save his life, and the oath bound him, he knew that now. Beneath it all, however, he felt something else. Loneliness and the need for a friendly face. A human face that would not turn from his in revulsion.
And he ran faster.
Chandni clung to Varg in the dark almost as tightly as he clung to her. Neither spoke. They stayed as small and quiet as they could, cheeks touching, eyes closed, barely daring to breathe.
The notion of the Wild being a home seemed foolish now. It was incomprehensible and dangerous and terrifying. What arrogance she had displayed to think that she, a mere mortal, could tame it when the Deathless themselves did little more than hold the borders.
Time passed.
She knew that Varg was cut and that his blood would make them a target, but nothing came. The forest was silent. She realized that the last time she’d come here it had been full of noise: The scampering of tiny feet, the flutter of wings, the call of one animal to another. All of it had gone.
It reminded her of the time she’d first struck a deal with Murderkind, how the whole Wild had seemed to hold its breath in anticipation of her sacrifice.
Once or twice, she dozed, or at least her tired mind stopped thinking, giving her some measure of peace. Then, at last, the stars faded to be replaced with a brighter grey. With the light came a little of her usual resolve.
We are going to live.
The thought made her grip Varg with renewed vigour. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘Yeah.’ He planted a soft kiss on her cheek.
‘Let go, I need to see you.�
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He released his grip and sat back. She got him to shuffle into what little light there was and started examining him for injuries. He was covered in scratches and cuts and bruises. The cuts were scabbing over. Not ideal, but much less alluring to the demons than flowing blood. Then she turned her attention to herself. Mercifully, her numb arm had not been badly damaged during their flight. She found a number of superficial injuries dotted about her person but could not remember getting any of them.
‘We need new clothes,’ said Varg. He raised one arm and the sleeve that hung from it was more holes than fabric.
She nodded, her practical mind reeling with lists of all the things they’d need to find if they were to survive. ‘Did you see what happened to Glider?’
Varg shook his head. ‘Nah, was all I could do to keep an eye on you.’
‘We need to go back for her.’
Getting up was harder than expected. The cold of the night had stiffened their limbs, forcing them to stamp and stretch and flex their bodies. They moved slowly, like people decades older than they were. For Chandni, every movement took effort. How was she going to build something from this? How would they even survive?
‘Varg, there’s something I need to say.’
An expression of worry immediately settled on his face. ‘All right.’
‘Whatever happens, I won’t serve under Rochant again.’
‘I, uh, kinda figured that out on my own.’
‘If the Corpseman takes over the Wild, I won’t bow to it either. I just want to be free to live my life with you.’
He took her hand and brushed it with his thumb. ‘You know, the Wild is fucking huge. We could find some place where no demons go and make a home. If Glider and the others survived, they could come too. All this,’ he spread his hands, ‘is bigger than us. Like, this is between giant demons and Deathless. We should stay out of it.’
She didn’t reply for a moment. Varg was right. It would be wiser for them to do nothing, but doing nothing felt wrong. It wasn’t who she was. Neither of them were in a position to stand against the Corpseman, so she just said, ‘Let’s find Glider and go from there.’
It didn’t take them long to make their way back, the distance seemed much shorter now they could see. As they began to make out the edges of the carnage, Chandni’s eyes were drawn to one of the nearby trees. It stood alone, as if the rest of the forest had pulled back in disgust. Every leaf had been torn away, and every branch snapped so that they dangled from threads of bark like arms on impossibly thin elbows. The breaks glistened with daubs of a dark resin. The same resin could be seen leaking from a number of holes bored deep into the main trunk. Powerful hands had dug down to the roots, cutting and coating them too.
Immediately, she knew that the tree was dead.
On the other side of the clearing, she saw a second tree that had suffered the same fate. It too, stood alone, a wide circle left around it.
This is more than just an attack. These trees have been made into warnings to the others. The Corpseman isn’t just going to war with us, it’s going to war with the Wild as well.
The air smelled of blood and death, and yet no scavengers had dared to appear. The Birdkin and Flykin bodies had been left unmolested in their death poses. There were feathers everywhere and small forms, twisted, crushed, broken. In the middle of them all was a great mound of the dead, pierced by three spears. As Chandni moved over to it she saw Glider, half-buried, lying on her side.
Varg instinctively moved over to the Dogkin while Chandni continued towards the mound. A long dark beak jutted from it, too big to belong to anything other than Murderkind itself.
She gave a bow of respect, manners coming to the fore even here, then crouched alongside it. ‘Can you hear me?’
The great beak did not move, but she heard a smaller voice reply, ‘Cha-aan …’
‘Crowflies? Is that you?’
She dropped onto her knees and began to search for signs of a white beak and talons among the black. Gore seeped through the fabric of her clothes as she worked.
‘Cha-aan!’
She could hear it more clearly now and pushed aside mud and other matter to reveal the Birdkin. It had been pinned down, but as soon as she lifted the dead weight from its body, Crowflies sprang up and shook out its wings, examining them with a compound eye.
‘Is Murderkind dead?’
Crowflies looked up at her sharply but said nothing.
She turned back towards the demon prince. ‘Murderkind! Murderkind! Murderkind!’
All around her, there was clacking as a hundred dead beaks opened and closed. Together, they let out a pained wheeze. ‘Iron … Purebird.’
‘Yes. I’m here.’
Crowflies cawed as if to say that it was there too.
‘We are broken and beaten … We are … done. Be gone, Iron Purebird. Be free if that is your wish. We … release you from your obligations.’
‘You can’t die,’ said Chandni. ‘Not now.’
‘Open your eyes to the truth. We are dead and we will not rise again.’
Chandni curled her hands into fists. ‘You don’t understand. I do not release you from your obligations. We had an accord, sworn under the eyes of the Wild itself. Until it is fulfilled, your blood,’ she picked up some mud and feathers from the ground, ‘your body, all of you, belongs to me.’
The Birdkin all wheezed together, a failed attempt at a laugh.
But Chandni was not laughing. ‘You promised me vengeance and a life of my choosing, a good and long life. If you cannot deliver that, then you must give me what I need to take it for myself. There are far worse things than death, even for you, Murderkind.’
There was a long pause.
Crowflies’ beak hung open in astonishment.
When she had spoken the words, she’d realized that this was how she truly felt. Living in fear in some corner of the Wild was no life at all. She wanted more than that. She’d rather risk it all than settle for scraps.
Slower now, the dead Birdkin spoke as one. ‘Take my mantle if you will. But … beware … You will be pure … no longer … Only iron and murder and—’
‘How? Just tell me how.’
‘Reach inside … take my heart … taste its last beat … take it down … take it … all … take it … take … it …’
This was it, she realized. The point of no return. She’d crossed lines before, made pacts, done things that most honest folk would never dream of doing, but always before it had been to save lives in the moment. This was different.
This is for me. It is not necessary. There are other ways, but all of them involve running and hiding, or giving up my dreams. I have had my fill of waiting and serving the unworthy. Of others not delivering on their promises. Of lords and princes failing their people. I paid for Murderkind’s support, and if it no longer has the power to help me, then I will claim that power and make it my own. I will make a better world from the ashes of their failure. I will make this better. Otherwise, what was the point of it all?
She reached between the spear shafts, into the feathered darkness below the beak. There was resistance but not as much as she expected. It was more like putting a hand into a wet lump of mud than a person. Gradually, it gave way to pressure and she felt around. It was hard work.
Once or twice, she thought Murderkind had died, but then she’d hear breath rattling in the corpses around her, and redoubled her efforts. Finally, her cold fingers closed around an object that flexed in her grasp.
Pulling it free was much harder.
She considered asking for help but this felt like something that had to be done alone. Inch by inch, she pulled her arm free until she could hold her prize up to the light. The organ was bigger than her fist and half of it hung down past her wrist, to brush at her elbow.
A fresh flutter of wings caught her ear. When she looked up, she saw a new Birdkin had arrived, much like those that served Murderkind but very much alive. A few more soon joined it. She
noted some were injured and that most were young. They weren’t the only ones watching her. It seemed that the trees leaned in in a way they hadn’t been when she arrived. Glider sat up, her mismatched eyes fearful, and Varg …
Oh, Varg.
There was such sadness in his face that he seemed to have aged ten years. His head shook naturally, almost of its own accord.
The heart beat against her palm. A single, feeble kick.
It has to be now. There is no other choice.
Chandni raised it to her mouth. She had endured so many things before and come through to the other side. She would endure this. Whatever she was now, whatever she would become, she had been born and raised a Sapphire.
I will not bend nor break. I will do what must be done.
The flesh of the heart was thick and rubbery. It resisted her teeth. When she clamped down on it and pulled, it stretched, resisting her efforts to tear it.
I will do what must be done.
More Birdkin came to watch. Not the great host that had come before, but a number. Their compound eyes glittered as the first rays of Vexation shone red through the trees.
At last, she tore a chunk free. It sat bitter on her tongue. With deliberation, she chewed and chewed.
And chewed.
Perhaps her efforts made it smaller but it did not feel that way to Chandni. Gathering her courage, she took a deep breath, and swallowed. It slipped down slowly until it reached her chest, where it sat, resolute.
There was a lot of heart left in her hand.
The watchers continued their vigil, intent. Whatever they were waiting for had not happened yet.
She brought the heart to her mouth once more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Chandni’s heart beat. Beat.
Beat-beat-
-beat-beat.
Beat-beat-
-beat-beat.
Twice as many beats as there should be, a second set answering the first.
She was on her knees still and the numbing cold was creeping up to her waist. For once her legs were as senseless as her right arm. Mindlessly, her jaw worked, chewing and chewing.
As she came back to herself, she realized there was nothing in her mouth any more. It was both a surprise and a relief. Some part of her had been convinced that her teeth would be worn down to stumps long before that elastic flesh yielded.