by Lucas Thorn
“Ah, Nysta,” he sighed, letting his grin return. “We are a dying breed.”
“Speak for yourself, Eli.”
“When this is over, and if we survive to leave this place. What will you do?”
She reached up to rub the scar on her cheek, thinking. Behind the town, the Bloods beckoned. But they'd been beckoning for months.
Perhaps even longer.
It was even greater now she had no ties to the Deadlands, and certainly none to Lostlight far to the west. But something kept her here. Kept tugging at her soul.
Inching around her body like the tentacles of a kraken. Wrapping her up and smothering her will to leave.
“I ain't too sure, Eli,” she admitted. “Some days, I want to go north. It's why I've come back here a couple of times. Each time, I'm certain I want to take that road through the Bloods. To make it all the way up to the Wall. Every time, I get so close I can almost feel that path under my boots. But then something pulls me back. Holds me here.”
“Maybe you feel you cannot leave because this place is a place of killing, my friend. And you are what you are. Maybe you need to accept this thing, first. Admit you enjoy doing what you do. What we do. That this place allows you to be something you could never be if you were in a civilised place. Not that a city is very much more civilised than here.” His humour was bitter. “You know what I mean.”
“I already know what I am, Eli. Never tried to hide that from myself. Or anyone else, for that matter. No, this is something else.” She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the ragged bits of knotted cloth woven into the thick locks. “Something less cold. And something I want to let go, but just can't bring myself to.”
“Your man, I'm thinking.”
She nodded. “I ain't ever felt like anything special. Grew up on streets which were meaner than anything the Deadlands has thrown at me. I've seen things which'd turn your face white, Eli. Done things which would make you scream in the night. Not sure how I managed to stay sane. Maybe I ain't. Might help explain a few things.” She showed no reaction as something slithered up her spine. Realised she was getting used to the feeling. “But Talek never judged me for it. Never tried to talk me out of what I was doing. Just accepted it was who I was. Knew I had something I needed to deal with, and that I was dealing with it the only way I knew how. Maybe he even encouraged it. Hoping it would burn out of me. But it never did. I got too much hate. Too much fear. It lives inside like a solid thing. One moment, it's frozen. The next, it's white hot like the sun. Boiling me from inside. Taking all my thoughts and turning them all to ash. Not sure I can cope, Eli. Not without him. Sometimes, when you do the things we do, it's nice to know someone sees you as something else. Something cleaner. Know what I mean?”
“I know it.” His voice was tight.
“So, every time I get ready to leave. Ready to put some distance between me and this cursed place, I stop. And I think of him. And I think how hard he tried to keep us together. Then I turn around, and I go back. Back to where I can feel his presence.” She had to fight to keep her eyes from burning, but not as hard as she'd had to in the past. A flash of guilt wired through her heart as she realised she was losing the raw bleeding wound of sorrow. That it was turning into a scar. “You said I was running around like a beetle. Ain't a beetle I feel like, Eli. Feels more like a blind animal, wounded and confused. So much inside just building up. And then there's the Cage.”
“The Cage?”
“That's what Chukshene called it.”
He looked more confused. “Chukshene?”
“Feller I met a few months ago. Helped me kill a few other fellers.”
“Sounds like a man we could use right now.”
The elf snorted. “He'd have run away by now.” She rubbed at the scar on her cheek. Felt a restless shiver deep in her belly. “Anyway. It was Talek's. The Cage. He'd always looked after it. Said it was special. I figured I should take it. Protect it for him. But I ain't ever been good at protecting. Destroying, maybe. It broke. Opened. I don't know. Now everything's changed. I'm just waiting to find out how.”
“This Cage thing? What is it? I am not sure what you are talking about, my friend.”
“ A gift. A curse. I ain't sure what it is, yet. But it's been opened. And whatever was let loose, it got inside me, I think. I ain't too sure. Maybe it's just my mind playing tricks. Maybe it's just that fear I've always had, and it's grown too much to keep controlled. Maybe it got loose and is tearing my mind apart.” She rested her hands on her knees and closed her eyes. Could feel his gaze on her. Still confused, yet curious. But she didn't care if he understood or not. The words weren't for him. “Maybe I miss him so much I ain't sure I want to lose that final connection we have, even if it's just a few feet of frozen dirt.”
“Look at us both,” he said softly. “When we go out there, into the street, those men look at us. And they see the worst of their kind. They see two killers with hearts made of stone, and souls left behind somewhere in our past. But the truth, my friend, is our hearts are bigger than anyone can dream. Our fears more real, and our loss so much greater. Our souls, then, must shine so bright that they light up the Shadowed Halls when we arrive. It is no wonder the Old Skeleton loves our kind more than any other. We are needed, or his Hall would be very dark indeed.”
She gave a wry smile. “You looking for a new life, Eli? As the first poet of the Deadlands?”
“Why not?” His face flushed, recovering his grin. “I tell the best stories, my friend. All the Deadlands know this to be true.”
“I reckon we do,” she said lightly.
“We shall go out there soon,” he said, suddenly fierce. “And we shall kill them. All of them. This General? I will put my knife so hard into his belly, my fist will come out through his spine. We shall leave their corpses to feed the crows for decades to come, my friend. I may even see my old friend, Sharpe, dead at my feet. That would make me very happy. And would let Balki put his feet up in the Shadowed Halls. On Sharpe's yellow back, I tell you. And then we will fight, you and I. We will do this, because I say to you, Nysta, you are wonderful. You are the greatest fighter I have ever known. You inspire me. And it would be my honour to kill you.”
“You ever thought I might kill you first, Eli?”
“All the time,” he said with his impish grin wide on his stained face. “And Nysta, my friend. That, too, would be a great honour for me.”
“Reckon that settles it,” she said with a mocking sigh. “Fellers like us? Killers and thieves, all? We're mad. The lot of us. It's the only explanation.”
“How can you say this thing? Do I look mad?” He lifted his head and showed his face in profile. “Look at me. I am the most sane man in the whole of the Deadlands. See?”
“You?” She snorted. “You're the craziest of all, Eli.”
Sharpe's voice roared from outside. Muted by the window and the bitter wind, she couldn't make out what he'd said. Eli grimaced at the sound, though, before grinning again. “Come, my friend. Let us go outside and watch the coward pretend he is a Lord. And then let us show how it is really done.” He held his hand out to her. “Let us show him the real King and Queen of the Deadlands.”
She looked at his hand with a sceptical eye, before taking it and letting him haul her up off the bed. Knew he meant it as nothing more than a gesture of friendship. A token of acceptance that they were the same. Two killers who only felt alive when in the heat of battle.
A helpless thrill of anticipation swept through her chest, rising from the ball of fear in her belly. But she frowned at him anyway. “Does it matter right now if he wants to be Lord? Soon, an army of Caspiellans are coming to kill us, and there's fuck all we can do to stop them coming through those gates. Right now, we're all the same. We're all royally fucked.” She led him to the door, her free hand checking her weapons. “Let him play at being Lord. He's not a bad leader. He did okay last time. If you go out there and fuck with him, his guards won't fight so hard. Then we'll really be fucked. L
eave it, Eli. That's what I'm saying. Leave it for a better time.”
Eli's hand tugged free and he looked at her, fuming. “Which side are you on?”
“Same side I'm always on,” she retorted. “Mine.”
“But if it came down to it. Him or me? Which one would you choose?”
“That depends,” she said. Absently, she recalled how she felt when she'd been talking to Sharpe after the last battle. How he'd reminded her so much of Talek.
Inwardly, she cringed at the memory. Hating herself for seeing something good in the man.
“On?”
“Who was winning,” she said blandly. “On who I needed most at the time. Maybe on who was closest. Does it really matter, Eli?”
Fury slid from his grasp quickly as he recognised the practicality of her position. “I understand, my friend. And you are right. I do not like to admit such things, and I will kill you if you tell him, but he is a good leader in a fight. So long as he stays for it.”
“He'll stay,” she said, and knew it to be true. Sharpe was a man who'd been pushed into a corner he couldn't get out of. He was too old to go somewhere else. This was his final chance. That, and she recognised the stubborn streak in him as being almost as bad as Talek's.
It was the kind of stubborn that would lead him to stand in front of a Caspiellan mage and to use himself as shield against the spellslinger's fireballs. All to protect a king who hid like a coward behind his own throne.
“I wouldn't bet on it,” he growled.
“I would,” she said, allowing her lip to curl into a crooked smile. “After all. You're both after the same thing.”
“What's that?”
“Dethrone.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The morning chill gnawed deep into her bones.
She headed toward a small gathering of townsfolk squeezed around a small fire. An old woman squatted beside the fire, stirring a large pot, while a young boy handed out bowls of steaming stew. She noticed Tonks, sitting beside him.
The young guard was staring in mute horror at a small litter on which Dog lay almost motionless. They'd had to cut off what remained of his ruined arm, but he still clung to life with a burning rage evident in his grunted curses.
The elf shuddered as she heard him let out a crippled whine, realising it wasn't pity which made her heart want to break.
Rather, it was the shame of knowing she felt nothing for him and only felt grateful it wasn't her lying there.
“Eat up, Long-ear,” the old lady said in a brittle voice, breaking her thoughts. Her wrinkled face squinted up at the elf as she pointed the ladel toward where the boy was holding a steaming bowl. “Might be yer last meal. Did me best to make it a good 'un.”
Nysta nodded her thanks as she took the wooden bowl from the boy. Scrubbed his hair with one hand before moving away to sit on a small barrel.
Eli also took one of the bowls and sat beside her, eyes on the gate. He had a bandage around his wrist, but otherwise looked fine.
“Is that Pryke?”
She followed his gaze and saw the young man sitting in the shadows of the gate, glowering at them. Beside him, the guard called Bill was chatting amiably though Pryke appeared to ignore him.
Grunting, the elf shovelled stew into her mouth. Looked down at the knife on his hip and scratched the scar on her cheek. “Looks like it,” she said between chews. “Had hoped he'd crawled away to die.”
“You did not stab him hard enough, I am thinking.”
“I'll fix that later.”
“Strange, isn't it?”
“What is, Eli?”
“How our kind always seems to have unfinished business with someone.”
She shrugged. Studied the stew heaped on her spoon. Dropping her other hand, she toyed with one of her pouches as she wondered what meat was floating in the sauce.
She didn't ordinarily eat meat. Most elfs didn't. But the aching hunger in her belly wasn't allowing her to be picky with her food.
“Keeps us from being bored, I guess.”
The mercenary chuckled, looking up as Pad lumbered over.
“Ah, lass,” the guard called in a voice almost as big as he was. “I see you're out and about. You look a lot better than the time I last saw you, for sure. Had it in my mind you wouldn't see the morning. And here you are, looking ready to take on the world at a pinch. Which you might have to soon enough, I be hearing.”
“Didn't see you on the wall earlier,” she said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.
“True that,” he confirmed. “I was getting a few more surprises ready for the fine young gentlemen outside.” He waved a hand to the barrels some of the guards were lifting up onto the walls. “In a former life, I was a blacksmith at a fort not unlike this one. It weren't uncommon for a few young ogres to get it into their thick skulls to try and take down the walls. We used to throw some of that on their heads and they'd soon go away. Didn't do much to an ogre except sting them a little, but on us little humans? Well, it burns like fuck is all I'm saying. We're lucky the mountains have some of the same stone.”
She eyed the barrels curiously. “What is it?”
“Quicklime, lass. We take the limestone from them there mountains, and we burn it in the forge. Then crush it down into powder.”
“Powdered rock?”
“That's it,” he said cheerfully. “Powdered burnt rock. Doesn't sound like much, but you wait until you see what happens when we drop it on them. Failing that, I have a few other surprises to land on their heads.”
The elf glanced at Eli, who shrugged. “Do not look at me, my friend. I have not heard of such a thing.”
“Trust me,” Pad said with a grin twice as big as Eli's. He looked at their bowls with undisguised relish. “Is it edible, do you think? I've a hunger you could drive a wagon through.”
Eli lifted the bowl slightly. “It is very good. If I die today, I will tell everyone in the Shadowed Halls how fine the food was.”
“Sounds good to me, then,” the big man said. Then touched his forelock in salute. “I'll be seeing you around then, lass. And you, Eli. Even if his Lordship don't like you, I'm sure you're a fine fellow on your own. So best of luck to you both today. I hope at the end of it, we can sit together in the old inn and complain about how terribly Josef waters his beer.”
They watched him go, chewing quietly for a few moments. Feeling the icy wind creep across their faces.
“A good man there,” Eli said eventually, pointing his spoon at Pad's back. “I might have to kill him to get to Sharpe, of course. And that would make me very sad. Very sad indeed. Because I like him, Nysta. He does not deserve to die for that bastard.”
She sighed, realising she'd finished her stew and was still hungry. But the way the old lady scraped to fill Pad's bowl made her think she wasn't about to get seconds.
“Eli,” she said, voice tinged with resignation, turning slightly to face him. “Why is it you ain't dead yet? You seem to want to fight everyone. Surely someone should have gotten lucky and put their fucking sword in your gullet.”
“And you do not?” He waved the spoon at the sky. “If the Dark Lord were still alive, my friend, he would take you for his Herald. I have been to many towns after you. I have heard the tales of the elf with the very bad temper. I have seen the bodies, my friend. Many, many bodies. And the ones you leave alive would run all the way to Icereach if they heard you were coming.”
“Fuck you, Eli,” she said without heat.
And wondered why she was letting him stay close.
True, her mind was still feeling blurry. Her thoughts still a little slippery in her head. And the maddening ache between her temples was still present. But that shouldn't have made her feel so calm right now. By rights, she should be tearing her hair out. Frustrated at the pain and the absence of focus.
Instead, all she felt was an empty kind of curiosity. As though she was watching herself from just outside her head. Like her eyes weren't her own.
And her feelings were being held behind a shield.
Rolling her shoulders, she set the bowl down between them. Almost dropped it, and had to fumble to catch it before it fell. Cursing softly, she dusted her hands.
Winced as the nerve up her arm twitched. The pain shot into the crook of her neck and disappeared.
“Are you alright, my friend?”
The elf flushed guiltily. But kept her voice even. “I'll be fine, Eli. Just waiting for the fighting, is all.”
The lie sounded unconvincing to her ears, but he shrugged and let it pass.
Her gaze slid upward from the ground in front of her and across the gate. Over Pryke, who hurriedly looked away. Up toward Sharpe, who was directing Boe and a few other men to where the barrels of Quicklime should be placed.
Above the gate.
She saw Ffloyd was also one of them, his fat face bright red with exertion as he struggled with a barrel on his own.
Count Steel stood deliberately aside, affecting a disinterested air as he stared out at the Grey Jackets over the wall. He ran his fingers through his hair and the elf felt an irrational need to plant a knife between his arrogant shoulders.
“He said your name was Nysta,” a small voice said from her left, dragging her attention away.
Turning, the elf saw the young girl from the wall. “Who told you that?”
“Pad.” The girl's fingers balled into fists and she stared hard at the elf. An air of frustration hung around her expression. “I needed to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“You saved my life. On the wall, yesterday.”
“No sweat, girl.”
“My name is Flin.” She practically bristled. “Not girl.”
“Flin.”
“I owe you for what you did,” the young fighter insisted. “I gotta repay you.”
“You don't owe me shit,” Nysta said. “If I saved your life, it was to save my own.”
“I don't understand. He wasn't attacking you. He was trying to kill me.”
Eli wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She means she cannot fight the Grey Jackets on her own,” he supplied. “Not that Nysta would not like to. She would love nothing better, I am thinking, than to jump off the wall and rush out there to kill them all. But she is not stupid. Well. Not too stupid.”