She clambered onto the upper deck. Weatherlight’s mighty wings beat the air, causing a wind that clawed at Mirri’s face. All over the ship, the crew leaned over the railings, staring at the scene beneath them. Overhead, an ornithopter swung back and forth erratically. Even as Mirri watched, a form came hurtling down from it to land on the deck: Tahngarth. The abandoned ornithopter shot past the ship and disappeared in the foliage a way beyond in a cloud of flame.
Mirri stared around wildly, looking for Gerrard. Surely, surely he had returned to the ship by now with Sisay. Surely he’d drawn Weatherlight’s captain from the dark and awful center of the Stronghold. Gerrard was never one to walk away from a battle. Again she had that flash of memory, of the Spirit Way they had walked together, of his blood-drenched figure slumped against a spire of rock. She shook her head. Spirits be damned; she had to concentrate. But he was nowhere in sight, and she realized that they must not yet have picked him up.
That must be why they were hovering here instead of running for the portal and the waiting Ertai.
But where was Crovax? She clambered onto the companion housing to get a better view. She turned and saw him. He was up near the bows, about one hundred and fifty feet away. He had his back to Mirri, but she could see that he was fiddling with something, apparently undisturbed by the fighting going on all around him.
Mirri leaped off the companion housing. She landed lightly enough, but the impact still sent pain tearing through her. It was nothing, she told herself fiercely. She ran toward Crovax, leaping over bits of the ship’s superstructure that had broken in their various battles. What was he doing? She had never paid much attention to the working of Weatherlight. Now she wished she had.
She slammed into him and grabbed his heavy coat in both hands. He turned in the loose folds. She glimpsed an open hatch behind him, and a complex mass of cogs and wheels and rods.
The sails, she thought. The housing covered the mechanism that transferred power directly from the Thran stone to Weatherlight’s great wings. Wreck that and the ship would plummet into the tangled Gardens below.
“Tschakren,” she yelled at him. It was the worst catling oath she knew.
He didn’t answer, just slipped from her grasp and danced away. Blood glistened on his cheekbone and on his arm, where she had bitten him.
“Don’t try to stop me, beast woman,” he snarled. The voice was no longer Crovax; it was deeper, stronger, somehow alien to everything she remembered about the nobleman. “You could have joined me,” he continued, “but it’s too late now. My destiny is fulfilled. You had your opportunity, but it’s past.”
“Then I won’t try,” Mirri said, and launched herself at him. “I will simply do it.” As she yelled the last word, she crashed into him.
The force of her attack sent him staggering back. She went with him. There was no chance now to use her sword. Instead she rammed the heel of her hand up into his face. His head cracked back, and she she drove her fist into his gut. He flailed at her, connecting with the side of her head. But the battle rage was on her, and she hardly felt the blows. She tried to loop her leg round his, seeking to unbalance him. She failed, and he grabbed her free arm and started to force it up. She jabbed at his eyes. He yanked his head back, and her fingers met cold flesh instead. She hit hard enough to force him back again, and now they were hard up against the taffrail. Just beyond them, the great wings stirred.
Mirri was tiring fast now. She could feel blood from her leaking wound soaking the thin fabric of her tunic, gluing it to her skin. He was pounding at her now, slamming his fists repeatedly into her face, chest, belly—anywhere he could. If she were ever going to finish it, it had to be soon.
She let his next blow move her back. Just a little. Then she rammed her knee hard up between Crovax’s legs. He screamed, and folded up. As he went down, she slammed her open hand into his face, catching him under the jaw.
For the space of a heartbeat, she fumbled for her dagger before she realized she wasn’t wearing it. The mistake cost her dear. Crovax bellowed. He leaped at her, face contorted in rage and agony. Before she could react, he had grabbed her. He lifted her bodily off the deck and swung her round. For a sickening moment, she hung suspended over the side of the ship, with nothing between her and the jungle below except a patchwork of the overlapping sails of Weatherlight.
His hands loosened. She clamped her hands ‘round his wrists. She fell, then stopped with a jerk, anchored by his weight. But the momentum of her fall was too great. Slowly—so slowly—he tumbled forward. A section of the taffrail came away with him, and then with a shriek of tortured wood they were falling.
Then they were in free air, with the green canopy of the Garden rushing up to meet them. Mirri tried to spread her arms and legs and tail out, hoping to slow her fall. But Crovax was thrashing around, sending them tumbling. Loosening her hold was the easy option, but it would have meant possibly having him free on the ground, free to run to Volrath’s creatures, or attack from behind. There was Gerrard’s raiding party to consider. She tightened her grip, and was rewarded with a look of pure hatred.
He screamed something, but she couldn’t work out what it was. The moment seemed to stretch out for ever; everything was happening very slowly. The fall was taking forever.
The world spun around her, green of the jungle, blue of the sky, green, blue, green, all smeared through the tears that the wind whipped into her eyes, while Crovax jerked and flailed, so that her arms felt as if they were being pulled from their sockets. Her chest burned with the effort of breathing.
And then there was no more time for worrying about anything, because the canopy of the jungle was rushing up to meet them.
Crovax was under her. She let go of one of his wrists and managed to get her arm up in front of her face before she smashed into the trees, only glad that it was Crovax that was breaking the path for them. She plummeted through a chaos of branches and vines. Leaves as sharp as blades tore at her. Thorns stabbed her. The sweet smell of putrefaction was everywhere, threatening to overwhelm her senses.
Crovax slammed into the solid branch of one of the trees. He screamed. Mirri pivoted on the fulcrum of his arm and crashed into the thinner end of the branch. It broke beneath her weight, and her fall continued. But, by reflex she had clenched her hand still tighter round Crovax’s wrist; now they fell much more slowly, and Mirri was underneath. Each new impact with a branch or leaf sent new agonies jagging through her.
She reached out to grab a branch—anything to stop herself falling—but it was impossible. She twisted round as they slammed into the ground.
* * *
—
Consciousness slipped away from her. She fought to hold the world in place, but it seemed to her that she was no longer in the jungle fighting Crovax. Instead, she was on the Spirit Way with Gerrard and Keilic. The dark path: it was night, and by starlight she saw a path lead up onto the stony side of a hill. Somewhere in the distance, the Chitr’in were drumming. The potion the shaman had given her to drink was bitter on her tongue.
She was dressed in the fighting leathers of the Chitr’in, and in her hand was one of their razor-edged horn knives.
“Now?” she said, bewildered.
“Now,” Keilic said from behind her. “You find your spirit beast and defeat it, and in the defeat know the path your fate lies upon.”
“And you?”
“We are your choices. Where else should we be but at your right hand and your left?”
Mirri glanced behind her. Sure enough, Keilic and Gerrard were behind her. Keilic was dressed in the full panoply of the Chitr’in warrior, his fur and leathers brightly painted, feathers and beads at his ears and throat and wrists. Gerrard was dressed simply, in his rough breeches and white shirt. Neither of them were armed.
This is my fight, then, Mirri thought. She led the way up the hillside. If there was a choice to be made, she could not see it. Th
e path led up between a cliff on one side and a sheer drop on the other, all made of black rock, without a vestige of plant life.
Ahead of her, there was a cave mouth. Plainly, she was meant to enter. She wished she had her sword to hand instead of just the dagger.
Warily, she approached. Behind her she could hear Gerrard’s soft footfalls and Keilic’s, softer yet. She paused at the cave mouth. After a moment, her eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness within. Shadows were layered upon shadow.
One of them moved.
Instantly, Mirri dropped into a fighting crouch, knife held low and ready.
The shadow uncurled and became a vast black cat. Its tail swept the floor. Twin coals burned in the pits of its eyes. Its mouth stretched open, revealing yellow fangs as long as daggers. The stench of rotting meat rolled over Mirri.
“Am I to fight you?” Mirri asked. It was a stupid question, yet nothing was clear to her.
“Defeat me and I will kill whichever of those two you choose,” it said—or thought; Mirri could not entirely tell if the voice echoed in her ears or in her mind.
“Suppose I do not wish you to kill either?”
“Then you will not defeat me. I am your destiny. Make your choice, or let the Spirit Way take you where it will. But I will feed on the choices you leave aside.”
“Choices, yes. But those are people—”
“They are on the Spirit Way,” the cat said. “They are mine.” And it sprang at her.
Instantly, she was ready for it, braced and with the knife ready to plunge into its soft underbelly. Its claws raked her cheek, but she ignored the pain and sliced up into its belly. She felt the blade graze a rib, and ripped backwards. The cat screamed with pain. Blood and slime splashed over Mirri.
And then, somehow, the cat twisted into nothingness and was gone. Only a faint hint of mist remained. But before Mirri could move, the mist coalesced, and once again the great cat sat regarding her, now completely uninjured. Something glistened on its forepaws. Her blood, Mirri thought, and knew it for truth. Even as the certainty grew in her, the cat raised its paw to its mouth and began to lick it clean.
After a moment, it lowered its head, averting its eyes. “I am defeated and yours to command,” it said.
“This is too easy,” Mirri said.
“For you, perhaps. What would you have me do?”
“Let me go, and them.”
“You must choose.”
“I will not.”
“I am the Spirit Way,” the cat said. “I will choose for you.”
Again, it launched itself at her. But this time, it leaped over her head, and landed between her and the two men. It crouched there, tail swishing, head weaving back and forth, back and forth as if it were getting their scent.
Choosing.
Faintly, in the distance, there was the sound of the Chitr’in drumming. This is the Spirit Way, Mirri thought. Nothing hear is real. Our bodies sit entranced by the fire. We cannot be hurt, not here. Yet the claws of the great cat had felt real enough when they raked her. Nothing here is real, she insisted to herself. Probably.
The cat stretched itself out and began to smell Keilic, from feet to head and back again, letting its face come right up to his. He held perfectly still. So did Gerrard, when his turn came, though Mirri could tell by the way he held himself that he found it hard.
“She would have much honor, in the way of your tribe, if she stayed with you, Chitr’ini,” the cat said at last. “And when her fighting days were done, she would give you many fine cubs. Your line would be strong, aye these many years. And yet, she would yearn always for the soft-skinned one, and for knowledge of the world and adventures of a kind you could never give her.”
“I would give her all it is fitting for one of the Chitr’in to have,” Keilic protested. “She would be happy—”
“After a fashion,” the cat agreed, and turned its attention to Gerrard. “If she goes with you, she will be your strong right arm, ever at your back. She will give you more than you can ever, waking, know. All her loyalty, all her heart.”
“Yet she will be incomplete,” shouted Keilic.
“Be silent, catling,” the cat roared. “You have forgone your right to speak.” Mirri looked away. “Yet I tell you,” the cat went on, in a milder tone, now addressing Mirri directly, “you alone will remember what transpires here—of those who live.”
Mirri nodded. The great cat turned back to Gerrard.
“All her heart,” it repeated. “Yet in giving all that she has, she will lose who she is. How can it be otherwise, when you will deny her her heritage?”
“She could learn the way of her people,” Gerrard said. “She is my friend, my closest ally. How can I give that up?”
“Your friend, yes,” the cat said. “But you have her heart. Do you hold it gently?”
“I—”
“Do you want her?”
Now Gerrard looked away. “I love her as I would love a sister,” he said at last. “How can it be otherwise? We are too different.”
Mirri felt her heart die within her. It was as she had feared. The world turned to ash and saltwater around her. The great cat turned to her. It stared at her for a moment. She did not speak, but perhaps something in her stance gave her thoughts away.
The cat turned back, and in a single fluid motion, sprang at Gerrard. Unarmed and ill-prepared, he went down before it. He screamed as it slashed at him with his front paws. It scrabbled at his belly with its strong back claws, seeking to rake and gut him open. The mouth opened. Saliva glistened on the yellow teeth. It roared fury to the world.
All this in the space of a heartbeat. In the next, Mirri threw herself against the beast. It was too heavy to knock off balance. She pushed back and raised the horn knife in both hands. It would be a difficult blow, for the cat’s soft parts were protected by its thick coat and rib cage. She struck once, but it twisted lithely away, and the knife did no more than scratch it. It ignored her, and swung back to Gerrard. Its jaws opened, and it snaked its head out to tear out his throat. Before it struck, Mirri hurled herself forward and down, then shoved the dagger up into the soft tissue of its throat.
It thrashed around, digging its claws into Gerrard spasmodically and causing even him even more damage.
“How many times,” Mirri said, panting with the exertion of driving the knife home, “do I have to kill you, cat?”
Suddenly the beast went limp. Mirri pushed it off Gerrard. He fell forward. She caught him. He was slick with his own blood, and there was more pumping out of the deep wounds in his chest and belly and back.
“So you have made your choice, catling.” It was the cat’s voice, from behind her. Mirri turned. Fiery eyes regarded her.
“I love him,” she said.
“He does not love you.”
The words were like a slap across the face. “After his fashion, he does.”
“After his fashion,” the cat agreed. “Though you will come to find it is not enough.”
“No.”
“After you have died a little each day, watching him, knowing he will not hold your heart, you will come to find it is so.”
“If that’s the price, I’ll pay it,” she said. “You may know the hearts of your catlings, but you do not know the hearts of men, and I was never yours.”
“No,” the great cat agreed. He swung his great head to face Keilic. “Chitr’ini, she has made her choice. Will you accept it?”
“I would have given her my life. How can I do other than accept her choice?”
“Then stand ready.”
Mirri watched, horrified, as Keilic dropped to his knees and threw back his head, exposing the soft flesh of his throat. The cat padded over to him.
“Wait!” Mirri said. “You can’t—”
“You have rejected him. He is mine.”
“Yes, but—”
“This is the Spirit Way. There must be choices.”
“I do not wish anyone to die.”
“This is the Spirit Way,” the cat repeated. “The only death here is the death of the life you might have had.”
“Mirri?” Gerrard called. His voice was weak.
“Go to him,” said the cat. “He is your life now.”
But Mirri couldn’t move. The cat turned back to Keilic, who was waiting still as stone. Without saying anymore, it sliced down with its huge fangs and tore out Keilic’s throat. Blood spurted across the cave, drenching the cat and the stone behind it.
Keilic’s body disappeared into the mist and did not reappear.
“I am done here,” the cat said. “Attend your loved one, catling. For I tell you, your time with him will not be long, and when his end comes, it will come at your hands.” And with that the cat moved back into the shadows. For a moment, its eyes of flame watched them. Then those, too, disappeared.
* * *
—
A great weight was pressing down on Mirri. She opened her eyes. Crovax’s face was inches from her own. His thumb moved across the side of her face. She tried to shove him off, but he had pinioned her hands behind her back, and he had his knee across her thighs.
“Sweet Mirri,” he whispered. “Foolish Mirri, you shouldn’t have resisted me.” His hand continued to caress her, along her face, her jaw. Her neck.
She thrashed around, trying to get free, but the hand under her and the knee across her were too strong. “What we could have together…such burning power you have never tasted,” he said. He brought his head down toward her. Immediately, she arched upward and sank her fangs into the side of his throat. His blood tasted bad. Putrid. She wanted to spit it out, but instead she hung on, wishing only that she had managed to strike true into a large artery.
He moaned, and for a moment went limp against her. Then he jerked back, at the same time slamming the heel of his free hand against Mirri’s face. There was a terrible rending sound, and he was free. Some of his flesh was stuck to Mirri’s teeth. She started to spit it out, but he covered her mouth with his hand, driving his thumb up into the base of her jaw to keep it shut.
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