Flowers have many uses.
That damned woman. There is something of her in the way that Sakura’s expression settles, something of her in Sakura’s determined eyes.
“I think I do,” she says.
They are so close now that a thrown lance could hit the enemy.
Burqila draws a finger across her throat. It’s important she knows the decision she’s making—there’s no guarantee that either of them will make it out of this alive.
Sakura is the one who nods. She bites her lower lip. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I know. But someone has to remember.”
The Qorin will remember, she thinks, we don’t need your twisted histories.
But she does not say this.
To look on a wave of unrelenting darkness and stand resolutely on the seashore, to plant your feet in the face of a charging bull, to greet your death with clear eyes and a clearer heart—all of these are to be commended.
And scholar though she may be, Minami Sakura is doing it.
Burqila draws her boot knife. She sets it in Sakura’s hands, closing her fingers around it. The girl is shaking worse than ever, but she asks how to make the cuts all the same. Burqila shows her the motions. In the precious seconds before the wave hits them, Sakura finds something like confidence.
“I’ve got your back,” she says, more a whisper than a promise.
It will have to do.
Burqila draws her sword.
The shadows crash into the tower shields; the lances pierce the dark clouds. Behind them—so far behind that Alshara hopes they will be safe—the cannons sing.
Burqila kicks her liver mare into a gallop.
She has a demon to slay.
BARSALAI SHEFALI
EIGHT
Pain is nothing new—but this infernal stench is.
This is not simply the scent of this place, above even the rot and corruption to which they had become accustomed. There’s something else lurking beneath the surface. Sour milk, perhaps. Shit.
Barsalai Shefali groans. She tries to remember where she is as consciousness returns to her, but it’s difficult to think when that smell is distracting her. Puts her in mind of a ger, for some reason; puts her in mind of—
“Are you awake? What a nap you took, Steel-Eye. I was ever so worried about you.”
That voice.
All at once, the memories come back to Shefali: the pit opening up before her, the earth itself swallowing up the army. The fall did her in—she’d cracked her head against the ground when she landed. What use were her godly powers if she was unconscious?
Spider?
When Shefali forces her eyes open, she sees the demon. Yes, a spider, but also, a woman: the legs and thorax take up much of the room they’re in. A woman’s torso rises from where the head should be. This wave of revulsion—is this what the others feel when they look on her, transformed? The angles of its legs, the gleam of the dim light on its teeth—Shefali cannot bear to look at it for very long. The details are too grotesque: the stitch where skin meets spider-flesh, the mandibles, the legs, the dripping silken threads …
And yet that is not the worst of it. Shefali cannot see most of the spider’s body, but she can see all of the woman, and there lies the true horror. Clad in old-fashioned layered robes, its hair a wild mess, it looks every part the lady. That only makes its grinning maw with its snapping pincers seem all the more alien—to say nothing of the eight eyes now blinking, each in turn, at Shefali.
Shefali swallows. She averts her eyes. Where is she? She does not remember coming here, does not remember arriving in this place, does not remember what this place is. The darkness is no impediment to her, but when she tries to move her head, she finds that she cannot. Something sticky holds her in place.
She curses.
Of course—she sees it now: the silvered threads of a massive web, spun in one of the upper corners of the room. Were it not for the web, Shefali would be dangling several horselengths up in the air, or else dashed upon the craggy rocks below. The spider woman’s silk lines the walls of this place, too, coating it in white like a perverse parody of a ger’s felt walls. Lumps here and there lend the rock some of the texture the webs took away. How many of them are there? Like larvae, Shefali thinks. Are there more of this creature waiting to be born?
And yet Shefali knows there cannot be—it is not how demons breed. And to warp the landscape in such a way—this can only be one of the Traitor’s Generals. Was it the one who had trapped Shizuru and Alshara so many years ago? No, it can’t be—Burqila had slain their captor.
Who, then, was this? And how was Shefali meant to figure out its name if she cannot scent it?
The more she awakens, the worse the situation becomes. It is not until she has fully scanned the room that it occurs to her spiders make webs in order to catch their meals. And, yes—the spider woman holds a severed arm in its hand, gore dribbling onto its chin. Red slowly darkens its white robes. When it catches Shefali looking, it covers its mouth like a demure noblewoman.
“You mustn’t stare at a woman while she eats,” it says. Its words come out a little slurred, and Shefali has the sickening realization that it is trying to speak around a mouthful of Qorin flesh. “It’s terribly impolite. Although I suppose I shouldn’t expect much from a barbarian like you.”
Shefali tries once more to pry herself from the web. In her life, she has broken steel and flung boulders; she has lifted twenty men at once and held them dangling over a cliff.
But this web—this web vexes her. The more she struggles against it, the more it tears at her skin. If Shefali is going to sit up—and she does not know that she has it within her aching body to muster that strength—then she will lose strips of skin in the process. Her deel can protect her from only so much—the back of her neck, her wrists, the right side of her face, they will all suffer.
And yet that is a small price to pay for her freedom. Shefali focuses what strength she has on her aching limbs, on lifting her arm from the muck.
But it is simpler to bend the spine of an iron sheep than it is to raise her arm. Her body simply will not heed her; her shoulders and elbows are swollen to the point of uselesness, and she feels heavy enough to begin with. There is no strength left to her.
“Don’t bother struggling,” says the spider woman. Crunch. “You won’t be going anywhere unless I want you to.”
“Who are you?” Shefali says. Much as she is loath to admit the demon is right, she does not see herself being able to get up anytime soon. And yet—there was an entire army at her back. Even if …
No. To survive is Qorin. There will be others who lived just as she did, and then there is the Phoenix Guard besides. There is no way that Shizuka would suffer an attack like that without returning it in kind—and less chance still that Burqila Alshara would.
“If you think you’re going to get my name, I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken,” says the Spider. It shoves the last of the arm into its mouth with another sickening crunch. A small laugh leaves it as it wipes its mouth on its snow-white sleeve. “I’m not a fool like Rikuto.”
The edges of the web tremble just slightly; the Spider purses its unnatural lips together.
“Bother, bother,” it mumbles.
Bother, bother? That trembling—what does it mean?
Shefali remembers, all of a sudden, her aunts beating felt into shape in the ger. When her cousins would run around, the loom would sway along with their footsteps. Perhaps this is the same?
The army. It must be the army.
Shefali closes her eyes. There’s hope still.
“Where’s my wife?” she asks.
Weight shifting along the web—the Spider creeping closer to her. Drops of warm blood land on Shefali’s cheek. A disgusting thrill courses through her—if she could lick some of it off, it might give her the strength she needs to break free.
But to feast on the blood of a cousin—no. She is no monster, though she is plenty monstrous.
“Four-Petal is such a brave little girl, wouldn’t you say? Always trying her hardest,” says the Spider. Now it is really slurring its words. Slurping, almost. When Shefali opens her eyes again, she sees that the Spider is working up its spittle. “She’ll be coming for you any second now.”
A distant boom up above; rocks and dust fall from the ceiling. The Spider’s frown deepens. Nevertheless, it slathers its human hands in its spittle and lowers itself toward its prey.
“You’re going to die,” says Shefali. She is too weak still to sit up; too weak to move very much at all. Speaking is taking much of her concentration. Two more drops of blood land on her forehead. If she opens her mouth …
“Oh, perhaps,” says the Spider. “But today is your day, isn’t it? It’s terribly rude to keep the old hag waiting. You’ve met her, haven’t you? What a bother she is.”
With all the tender affection of a lover, the Spider lets its fingertips dance along Shefali’s exposed flesh. Caressing her cheeks, smoothing her hair, pinching her nose—it even traces Shefali’s collarbone. How foul its touch! Everywhere its fingers go, Shefali finds herself going numb.
As if her lack of strength were not bad enough to begin with.
Shefali swallows. Shizuka is coming for her; she is sure of it. Today may be the day she is fated to die, but she had thought they’d be together when—
Another boom, closer this time.
One of the stalactites to which the web is lashed cracks, cracks, and finally plummets to the ground, taking a third of the web along with it. The segment they’re on remains attached only just barely—it swings from one side to another like a moody mare.
All at once, the Spider’s cool, collected manner shatters. Its face contorts into a hideous mask of revulsion; as it skitters toward the falling web it lets out an unholy screech.
“Rikuto!” it shouts. “This was not in our agreement!”
So it is working with Rikuto? But that means … Those loud noises are not simply the army marching on the pit, lowering themselves one by one so that they might get to Shefali. If Rikuto is involved …
The pit is the corral, and Rikuto’s army the hunting Qorin. The Demon General means to drive them in for the slaughter.
Shefali looks around. Where is the corridor? She remembers seeing a corridor before the darkness took her, before she became this useless hunk of flesh. There—a great mass of webs crisscross over something that might be a corridor. Difficult to tell from this angle, but she can hear the distant moans of pain that emerge from it.
There are people in that direction.
If she can get to them … If she can get to Shizuka … How far down are they? If she can shift her form to something useful, the two of them may be able to climb up out of this at least.
And now is the best time to strike. The Spider’s distracted, reweaving its web in a panicked effort to keep them elevated. Shefali can feel the web starting to give beneath her. She won’t even really need to move—just get her weight moving, and let the laws of nature do the rest.
It’s going to be another long fall. That will be all right—so long as she does not hit her head again, so long as she stays awake.
She sucks in a breath. Her lungs feel as if they’re going to burst. Wiggling her shoulders as much as she can, she tries to get her hips to follow along. The stickiness of the web holds, but with one good roll, she might be free.
“What do you think you’re doing?” says the Spider. The web isn’t yet fully re-formed but it skitters closer all the same, its eight legs now adhered to the roof of the cavern. Its hair falls down like some sort of macabre brush. “Do you think you can get away from me like that?”
Shefali closes her eyes and throws all her weight into another roll. Yes! The skin on the back of her neck peels away, and so, too, a strip at her cheek. It aches—but it means she is free. Another roll, and her top half is over the edge; only her legs remain adhered.
Pull yourself free, she thinks, but her limbs do not listen—her arms hang stiff up ahead of her, dangling over the edge of the web. Black blood drips onto her tiger-striped deel.
It is then—at the very edge of the precipice—that she realizes where she really is.
The lumps lining the walls are not larvae at all. They are Qorin. And not just any Qorin—Lost Qorin. Two of them wear their braids in the intricate fashion favored by the southern clans; one of them has the geometric embroidery of the northern tribes at his collar. So many of them! She has not seen more than a handful of southern clansmen—the blackblood hit them the hardest.
The Spider left their heads exposed so it could watch them suffer. That is the only possible reasoning there might be for this—the Qorin are awake, but their eyes are glassy, their cheeks gaunt, their hair stiff as straw. How long has it been since any of them ate? How long have they been lashed to the walls? She finds herself hoping that it has only been a few days, a few weeks perhaps—that they have not had to wither for long.
And yet to see them! To see so many of them trapped where the sun and stars cannot reach them, to see them locked in a place their ancestors cannot see them …
How many of them are her relatives? How many of them are her friends?
The more her eyes scan the walls, the sicker she feels. Not all these Qorin are from the lost tribes. A few of them are from clans she’s encountered before. There’s Sarangaarel’s cousin, from the pine wanderers; there’s Aunt Baykhaal’s husband.
Awful. Awful, awful.
There, to what feels like the east: a fresh new cocoon, still glistening, enshrouds her aunt Khadiyya. Her head is lolled back, her tongue dangling out of her mouth like an overheated dog.
Shefali lets out a whimper. Go. She needs to go; she needs her limbs to listen. As hard as she can, she throws herself forward and kicks against the webbing. Tumbling, tumbling—she’s hurtling toward the ground. The spider woman is rushing toward her, but how can it hope to beat the laws of nature? Shefali is going to hit the ground. She turns, draws her elbows up to brace herself—but the impact never comes.
A wet, slimy cord wraps itself around her waist. She jerks to a halt midair. Her Laughing Fox mask slips from around her neck and clatters to the ground, shattering an old skull in two as it lands.
“What did I say? What did I tell you?” says the Spider. It is laughing now, and the webbing it’s caught Shefali in rises and falls with the motion. “Did you think I was that much of an idiot? That you could get away from me so easily? Oh, no, no, no…”
It draws Shefali higher, higher. Wriggle though she might, this web is stronger than steel, stronger than iron, stronger than even her own will. What is she to do in the face of it? The pained cries of the Qorin below her lend her strength, but even that—even that—is not enough.
They are going to watch her die.
Her aunt Khadiyya, her cousins, her uncles, the distant relatives she never got the chance to meet—they are all going to watch her die.
Numbness, brought on by the Spider’s venom, begins to spread through her body. She can no longer feel her heart beating. Even that she might be able to withstand, but—but she can no longer feel herself drawing in breath, either. And if she is not breathing …
Closer and closer to the Spider’s lair, closer and closer to its grasp. Thick globs of venom fall onto her face, mixing with the blood of her family, seeping into her own open wound. Were she not infected before, she surely is now. Her arms go limp.
Move, Shefali thinks, struggle, fight!
But her body will not heed her.
Closer and closer. She can no longer feel her legs. Even the serpent women did not affect her in this way, even Jiyun—she fought them off. Why is it that today is the day she fails? All her will, all her concentration—she throws it into imagining herself smaller. Shaping her skin and bone into something that might be able to escape.
But what use is that when she cannot even imagine herself?
The cold. Perhaps the cold can save her—
>
Except that Shefali cannot feel her own breathing, and if she cannot feel her breathing, then how is she to feel the Ninth Winter?
She forces herself to try to take a breath as the Spider draws her up, as it cradles Shefali in its arms. Breathe. Is she breathing? She cannot tell. It does not sound as though she is. Breathe, breathe, breathe …
“I do love the look of panic in your eyes,” it says. “But I need to keep you safe. Yes, yes … with Rikuto reneging on his deals like this.”
Slowly, slowly, the spider turns her—like roasting a goat over the fire. Shefali is unable to do anything but blink her eyes in horror. Even her mouth fails her—she cannot keep from dribbling like a child. Layer after layer of silk wrap her tight. It would be impossible to move now.
“You see, Steel-Eye, I never actually wanted you,” it says. It drags a fingertip along Shefali’s aching cheek; Shefali wishes she had the strength to spit on it. “You taste terrible. Like death. Pah! But your wife…”
The Spider laughs, again, covering its mouth with its sleeve. With its other human hand, it pulls on the cord it’s made. Barsalai, cocooned, rises yet higher and higher into the air. Hanging upside down as she is, the blood starts rushing to her head.
“Well, the Eternal King thinks he can tame her. And me, for my part … I’ve never had an Empress’s heart before.”
And you never shall! Shefali thinks. Fury within her breast. To trap her in a place like this! Even if her body would not heed her, her own heart would not fail her—any moment now, Shizuka is going to cut through the swath of webs and barge right on in.
Shefali closes her eyes to imagine it: the arcs of gold giving way to radiant flame, the Qorin warhorns sounding behind her. Shizuka, clad in her enameled armor, raising her blade with an arrogant shout.
“Drop my wife, or drop your head!”
So Shefali imagines.
Her body may no longer be heeding her, but her mind … She can will her wife to come.
MINAMI SAKURA
The Warrior Moon Page 34