by Ben Chandler
The captain nodded, once, and relaxed his stance. His eyes never left Kenji’s face. ‘Mister Clemens, please bring Suiteki and stay behind me. Sir Yami and Miss Clemens, please remain here with Mister Jackson. Everyone else should come with me.’
Slowly, the captain turned away from the Hiryū’s navigator and moved beyond the ring of crewmembers. Lenis followed him so closely he was almost stepping on the captain’s heels. One by one the others fell into step behind them.
Missy was still staring at Kenji. ‘Why? Why are you doing this?’
The navigator remained where he was, standing before the woman on the divan, between Missy and Yami. ‘You’re the telepath.’ He turned his head and smirked at her. ‘You tell me.’
She was tempted, so very tempted, but something held her back. It wasn’t that she felt she owed this man anything. During their time together on the Hiryū, Missy had never fully trusted him. Besides, he’d just proven that any trust in him was misplaced. It occurred to Missy just then that he had planned this all along. He was their navigator. They relied on him to plot the right course for them. He had known the Brotherhood wanted him dead for turning against them. It would have been so simple to convince the captain to come here, to lure them to Haven so he could barter the only weapons they had against Ishullanu for his own life.
The man’s treachery was appalling. Missy had never encountered such betrayal before. Not since her father … she felt her fury rising, her fingers twitching, yearning for the Quillblade. Why was she holding back? Why now, after everything, did she not enter the man’s mind, find the truth, force him to … He deserved it! He had tried to sacrifice them, their mission, just to save himself. And he was acting as though it didn’t even matter! Anything Missy did to him, anything she made him do, would be small punishment for that.
But Missy didn’t even attempt it. This wasn’t about him. She had decided not to manipulate anyone ever again. There was no excuse for it. Not even if that person was now her enemy. Nothing gave her the right to force him to think as she desired. What was it Lenis had said to her? For a telepath you don’t use your brain very much. Well, she would show him. It didn’t matter what Kenji had done, Missy could still get them all out of this. There was more at stake than their own lives.
She turned to the lady on the throne-like divan. ‘So, you like shintai?’
The woman tilted her head towards Missy. ‘What’s a shintai?’
Missy cursed. First mistake. Tenjin had once told Missy that there was no word for a shintai except shintai. She’d have to do better than that. ‘It’s a weapon. A gift from a Totem. It holds some of their power.’
‘Oh, those. Yes, that’s right. I have a … fondness for them.’
Okay. This was better. ‘What do you know about them?’
The woman chuckled. ‘This seems like an odd time for a lesson in arcane paraphernalia.’
Missy shrugged and hoped she looked nonchalant. ‘We’ve got nothing else to do until the Demons are taken care of.’
‘I like you,’ the woman said. ‘You may call me Vixen.’
Missy raised her own eyebrow, attempting to mimic the woman’s manner. ‘That’s a ridiculous name.’
‘Who said it was my name? If you’d prefer, try Füchsin. Or what about Kitsune? There’s always Volpe. Every word for fox is beautiful.’
‘How about renarde or hu li. There’s also lisitsa. That’s Garsian.’
The woman clapped. ‘I do like you!’
‘Why are you called “Fox”?’ Missy countered. She needed to get her talking about shintai again. Kenji had mentioned she had a collection, and a plan was quickly forming in Missy’s mind.
Fox placed a hand over her heart. ‘I am the High Priestess of the Fox God.’
‘And you have a shintai given to you by this Fox God?’
Fox’s eyes narrowed momentarily, and Missy thought she had misjudged the woman. She felt sweat starting to gather at her brow but resisted the urge to wipe it away. Equally strong was Missy’s desire to read the woman’s thoughts. She’d never had to do this before, to assess someone based solely on what she could see and hear and guess. To distract herself, she deliberately turned away from the divan and began examining a pair of Bestia lounging nearby. They looked a bit like foxes themselves, except their red fur crackled with fire.
‘I may have something of the sort lying around here,’ the woman said eventually.
Missy knelt down and began running her hand over the Bestia’s fur. It was hot to the touch but didn’t burn. As she’d guessed, these Bestia had been around humans for a while. Missy wondered just how long Haven had been out here. Parts of it had seemed very old, but she had noticed newer bits on the way in. How had it managed to repel the Wasteland taint?
She glanced at Fox out of the corner of her eye. ‘You aren’t sure?’
The woman clicked her tongue. ‘Kenji was right about you. How bothersome. Why do you care if I have one of these … shintai?’
Missy straightened and looked Fox in the eye. ‘Because I want to know if you can use it.’
Lenis followed along behind the captain, clutching Suiteki close to his chest. It was impossible to tell whose heart was beating faster. Never before had Lenis sensed such distress in the baby dragon, not even when the Demon Lord had attacked the Hiryū. Whether she was reacting to Lenis’s own shock and fear, or because she could sense the mass of Demons descending on Haven, the tiny Totem wouldn’t hold still. Lenis was used to her squirming around in his grip and managed to keep hold of her, ignoring the welts her claws raised in his flesh.
Kenji had betrayed them. Lenis had always found the navigator to be insincere. His empathic gifts meant he could always tell when someone was being false. Still, he had never suspected Kenji would, that he could, deceive them all so horribly. Not like this. Somehow, Lenis had always believed, despite how wary he was of the man, that Kenji shared the same goals as the rest of the crew.
His head reeled. If he had been wrong about Kenji, whom else might he have misjudged? How much did he really know about the other members of the crew? He suddenly realised it might now be too late to find out any more about them.
As the crew rushed through the indiscriminate buildings of Haven, Lenis could feel the Demons closing in. He could sense them, as surely as he could feel the crew’s growing anticipation. Maybe it was because Lenis was stuck at the bottom of a ravine with the Demons up above him, but it was as though their aura was bearing down on him, suffocating his empathic senses in the collective fugue of their sorrow. And above them all was the raging hunger of a Demon Lord. Etana. Lord of Fury. Former Jinn. Warden of Retribution. He was up there, and he was coming closer.
As they emerged from beneath the netting that covered Haven and caught sight of the Hiryū, Lenis had to bite back a sob. His airship was safe. His Bestia were safe. His relief was short-lived. The settlement of Haven was at one end of a narrow ravine. It was not much wider than the Hiryū’s wingspan, but it was very deep. Bestia lit the darkened crevice brighter than daylight ever could. The fierce whiteness of their illumination cast equally sharp shadows up the walls on either side of them. The airdock was a narrow shelf built along one wall. Dark-robed figures moved along it, towards the far end of the ravine. The crew made to follow. And then Lenis felt –
‘Stop!’ He shouted.
‘Mister Clemens –’ The captain began.
‘No!’ Lenis pointed above them.
They all craned their necks back to see what Lenis was trying to show them. There was nothing visible beyond the Bestia’s light. They couldn’t even see the lip of the ravine wall. It was far too high.
The captain placed a hand on Lenis’s shoulder. ‘I do not see –’
Lenis shook his head. He could feel them.
‘Wait,’ Andrea said. ‘Did anyone else see that?’
‘What?’ Shin asked.
‘They’re climbing down the walls.’ Andrea’s voice was hushed, as if she couldn’t believe what
she was seeing. ‘That must be over five miles high …’
‘Higher,’ Lenis mumbled. He knew from the Hiryū’s descent that they were almost twice that high. This was mountainous country and the ravine ran deep.
Andrea cupped her hands to her mouth. ‘They’re climbing down the walls!’
If any of the dark-coated defenders of Haven heard her, they didn’t seem to believe her. None of them stopped or turned back, leaving the Hiryū’s crew to face the incoming wave of Demons alone.
‘And if I can use this shintai thing?’ Fox was leaning forwards with her elbows on her knees and her chin resting atop her clasped hands. ‘Not that I’m admitting I have any such item in my possession, of course, but if I did, why do you want to know if I can use it?’
Missy straightened from her scrutiny of the Bestia and took a deep breath. This was it. She turned back to the woman and noticed Yami had not so much as twitched a finger out of his original position. Somehow the fact that he was there gave her courage.
‘I need to know if you can use it because I want you to teach me how,’ Missy said. ‘Something has been keeping Haven safe from the Wasteland taint. I’m willing to bet it’s you and your shintai. If you have that sort of power, I want you to teach me how to wield it.’
The woman leant back and tapped her lips with one finger. ‘And what makes you think that I can, or will, do such a thing?’
Missy swallowed. ‘I was sort of hoping you would do it because it’s the right thing to do. I need to learn if I’m going to help stop the Demon King and his army from overrunning the world.’
Fox curled her lips into a smile, once again revealing her extra-long eyeteeth. ‘Your hopes mean little to me.’
Missy hesitated. She could feel Kenji watching her. Now that she knew what he was capable of, he was making her more nervous than ever. With an effort, she ignored him. She had to focus on Fox. Missy was probably only going to get one chance to convince her. ‘Then I’ll make a bargain with you. I don’t want your shintai, and I’m certainly not going to give you mine, but if you know how to use them then you can teach me. That’s what I want. Teach me how to wield the Quillblade.’
‘I know what you want. What are you offering to pay me for these lessons?’
Missy licked her lips. She had to force the words out before she stopped herself. What she was offering was madness. She knew she couldn’t deliver, yet she could think of nothing else the woman might want that she couldn’t just take. ‘You serve the Fox God. Assuming this god of yours exists, he’s probably a Totem or a Jinn or something like that, and that means he’s been turned into a Demon by now. If not, he soon will be. If you teach me how to use the Quillblade properly, I’ll find a way to heal him.’
Fox threw her head back and laughed. There was a touch of madness in her mirth that reminded Missy of Long Liu. ‘No one can do such a thing, foolish child. You had better –’
‘I know there is no cure,’ Missy interrupted her. ‘I know that no one can do such a thing, but I believe there might be a way.’
‘Oh? I suppose you have access to some sort of magic elixir? Some potion no one else has ever concocted before?’
If only she knew how close to the mark she had struck, Missy thought. She said, ‘I do not have access to such a potion.’ Fox smirked at her. ‘Not yet. But I think I may know where to find one.’
Fox chuckled. ‘Oh?’
Missy took a steadying breath. ‘Have you ever heard of Silili the Peaceful Guardian?’
Lenis saw the Demons long before they reached the ravine floor. Everyone in the crew did. There were so many of them clinging to the rock face with their hideous claws. More than Lenis had seen from the walls of Gesshoku. There, they had been on the fringes of the Wastelands. Gesshoku marked and protected the boundaries between the two worlds. But Haven was in the middle of the Wastelands, surrounded on all sides by diseased ground.
The Bestia lighting up the area cast their illumination high enough to see the waves of decaying forms descending on them. As in Gesshoku, the Demons came in all shapes and sizes. There were a number of large cat and goat Demons, and more than a few bear Demons too. There were small lizard-like Demons, no bigger than Suiteki, but too numerous to count, swarming throughout the Demonic mass.
As the Demons came they made the horrid noises of enraged beasts, the sounds made all the worse by their wounded throats. As with other Demons Lenis had seen, these ones seemed to be decaying, their blackened skin peeling back to reveal the rotting flesh beneath. The stench from their hides pressed down upon him. Rancid meat and something like rotten eggs. In Gesshoku he had been too far away to notice it, but there was nothing between him and the beasts now.
As the undulating mass continued its descent, moving ever closer to the ravine floor, Lenis saw that not all the Demons wore the shape of animals. Scattered throughout the multitude were even more fearsome creatures. Something with three long arms and three impossibly stretched legs picked its way down almost delicately, from rocky perch to rocky perch, moving like a spider. Its body was tiny with a child-sized torso and skinny waist, but its head was a perfect, featureless sphere. Behind it came a squat, almost human figure. Its shoulders bulged, and its feet were slabs of stone. It shouldn’t have been able to find purchase on the mountainside, but its massive hands had many fingers. Lenis counted as many as fifteen on each hand, and these dug into the wall and clung to the thinnest outcrops of stone. This pair weren’t alone. In all Lenis counted six Demons who had all the trademarks of tainted Lilim. He remembered Akamusaborikū, the Demon who had accosted them in the Wastelands near Seisui’s temple. Decapitation hadn’t been enough to kill him.
Lenis felt a tingling at the back of his neck and heard a roaring in his ears. Strange lights played across his vision. He leant against a nearby mooring post and tried to steady his breathing, willing himself not to pass out, for Suiteki’s sake as much as his own. What possible hope did they have against so many? The crew couldn’t hope to hold out for more than a few moments. Captain Shishi, Arthur, Shujinko and Shin each held their swords. Andrea had sheathed her daggers and was aiming her automated crossbow above their heads, waiting for the Demons to come into range. Long Liu was sitting cross-legged on a block of stone, his sack nestled in his lap. Lenis remembered the sorts of things the doctor kept in there. Weapons capable of maiming and disabling human opponents. Hiroshi stood by Princess Anastasis, swinging his kusarigama. The princess was leaning against her war hammer, its barrel-sized head planted solidly at her feet. Tenjin was there, too, with his book of spells and – Lenis remembered – the Quillblade. The records keeper was still favouring his ankle, but his determination was palpable. Kanu was standing behind Lenis. He was looking up at the Demons, just as the rest of them were, but all Lenis could sense from him was sadness.
They were, each of them in their own way, warriors. Each had their strengths, their power. But what could even they do against so many foes? Lenis wished that Yami was by his side, even if his curse transformed him into Gawayn, the long-dead Kystian swordsman.
A high-pitched shriek pierced Lenis’s eardrums and interrupted his thoughts. A moment later a blast of wind shattered against one wall of the ravine, scattering Demons and sending them sprawling to the ground. They didn’t move again. Lenis recognised the cry. Etana. Lord of Fury. Suiteki had curled herself up into tight coils inside Lenis’s robe, pressing herself as far down as she could go. Lenis cradled her through the fabric, but he had no calmness to offer her, no hope, no reassurance. All he could do was hold her.
‘Captain?’ Arthur held his sword loosely by his side as he craned his neck back to regard the approaching Demons. They would soon be low enough to attack. Lenis sensed Andrea tense, readying to release her first volley.
‘We cannot run, Lord Knyght,’ the captain said. ‘The Hiryū would be overrun long before we cleared the top of the ravine.’
‘Then we fight.’
‘Yes, Lord Knyght. I am afraid we must become De
mon slayers for a time.’
‘The Totem have fallen,’ Fox said carefully. ‘All of them.’
‘No, they haven’t.’ Missy had to fight to keep her voice steady. ‘Not all of them. My brother has spoken to Silili. The Peaceful Guardian healed him and his Bestia, and we think he protected the Bestia from the Wasteland sickness.’
‘You think?’
Missy nodded. ‘No promises. I’m only offering you a chance. I don’t know where Silili is, or how to contact him, but I know how to track Totem. I can find him, though I’m not even certain if he can cure the Wasteland sickness, or why he hasn’t done so already if he’s able to.’
‘Then why would I strike such a bargain with you?’ Fox hissed between her teeth and waved a hand dismissively in Missy’s direction. ‘I’m bored with you. Go and die alongside your friends.’
Missy ground her teeth together. She couldn’t lose control now. Not like she had back in Erdasche. She had to keep her mind where it belonged. ‘So you won’t even consider my proposal?’
The woman crossed her arms over her chest and leant against one of the divan’s armrests. ‘I don’t see why I should.’
‘So your god doesn’t mind that you’re a coward?’ Missy snapped.
Fox’s eyelids narrowed so her eyes were mere slits. They seemed to glint in the rosy light in the temple. ‘Be careful, girl.’ It almost came out as a growl.
‘Why should I?’ Missy had one more shot at this. There was no point holding back now. ‘We’re all about to die anyway. If not today, then soon, once the last of our defences has been stripped away, once the Demon King has an army large enough to invade the untainted lands. I haven’t got the time to be careful. You’re stuck in this hole in the middle of nowhere and you do what? Serve your god? Hardly! I’m offering you a chance. It’s a slim chance, I’ll grant you that, and it might come to nothing, but I’m willing to bet it’s the best offer you’ve ever had. And what do you say? You’re bored! I’m sure the Fox God appreciates your devotion –’