by Sam Sykes
Killedherkilledherkilledher …
He froze.
Watchedherdiediedie …
He fought to keep his eyes open.
Poorgirlgirl … lovedyoulovedloved …
It didn’t help. He could see the images flashing before him now, even as his eyes stung with salt and went dry.
Killedherkilledherkilledher …
A scream began to well up in his throat, carried on a boil of tears.
Killedkilledkilled …
His hand fumbled for the bottle, fingers too weak to grasp it. He felt the light sweep toward him, settle on the corpse he lay behind.
KILLEDKILLEDKILLEDHER …
He opened his mouth. A choked whimper emerged.
‘Denaos?’
Instantly, the whispers retreated. He felt his mind relax, his body go slack. The images left his mind, just as the light left him. He watched it through blurry vision as it swept along the courtyard, heading for another hole in the wall through which the orange light of a torch flickered and a voice emerged.
‘Are you in here?’ Asper called.
Relief died in his heart. He looked up and saw the creature’s twin jaws smile a pair of horrific grins as the light waned. The last thing he saw of the beast was its chattering teeth as the lantern’s blue light dimmed.
And then died.
This is your chance.
It was a foul thought to think, he knew, but it was true. He could escape now. He could flee.
And she would die.
But what could he do? The creature, whatever it was, was clearly too strong for her, or for him.
But together …
No, no. He thumped his head. There was no telling what the thing was, if it could even be killed, by a hundred or two. Where was the sense in offering it up two victims instead of one? Where was the sense in lingering behind? What would be the point of it all?
He sucked in a breath. A thought came to him, clear and concise.
Redemption, however insignificant.
He clenched his teeth and reached for his bottle.
She shouldn’t be surprised, Asper told herself. She should have expected this; even something as simple as going to get water, even something as noble as easing a companion’s fever was beyond the rogue. The ability to perform any act that wasn’t completely selfish was beyond Denaos as a matter of nature. She knew this, as she knew she shouldn’t be surprised.
Let alone hurt.
Every step, she scolded herself with a fury that burned as hot as the torch in her hand. To think that she had told him she had once relied on him, even in such a roundabout manner as she had. Undoubtedly he relived that moment, those words, revelled in them, laughed at how much power he had held over her.
She loathed him for it, but for every ounce of scorn she spared for him she took two more for herself. She was the one who had told him. And even if she told herself that she had left Dreadaeleon behind to find water herself, she knew that she searched for the rogue with equal intent.
As for what that intent was, she thought as she looked at the torch thoughtfully, she would know when she found him.
So raptly did her loathing capture her attention that she hadn’t even seen where she had wandered. The rock wall she had followed had become a decaying ruin, rife with mist and silence. She swept her torch about; the darkness of the night drank her fire and offered only inky blackness in exchange.
She had taken three more steps into the gloom before the thought occurred, not for the first time, that she was wasting her time. To go searching for a man whom she had once seen evade scent hounds while doused in cherry liquor and whorestink was folly enough, but to expend so much effort on a man for whom getting doused in cherry liquor and whorestink was a frequent occurrence was simply stupid.
Let him cling to the power she had so foolishly offered him, she thought, let his laughs be black. She turned about, held her chin high and tried not to care.
The wind picked up, sending the mist roiling about her ankles and her torch’s light flickering. It carried with it a stink of salt and the faded coppery stench of dried blood. The moon shifted overhead, exposing a scant trace of light over her.
And with it, a shadow.
She turned and beheld the monolith, towering over her. She did not recognise it, she did not know it. But something inside her did. Her left arm began to sear with pain, to pulse angrily. She let out a shriek, holding it tightly against her body, not daring to drop her torch. Instead, she raised the light to the statue, exposing it to fire.
A great robed figure stared back at her. Its left arm was extended, robe open to expose a thin, skeletal limb. She recognised the arm. Just as the arm recognised itself, throbbing angrily at its stone reflection. Biting back pain, she stared farther up at the statue. Beneath the stone hood, a skull grinned back at her.
And spoke.
Cursedcursedcursed …
Her eyes widened at the sound inside her head that echoed into her heart. She whirled about, searching for the source of the whispers.
Godsabandonedyouabandonedyou … hateyouhateyouhateyou …
‘No,’ she whispered. She clenched her teeth as thoughts came racing back to her, images of two young girls in a temple, a flash of bright, agonising red, and one young girl walking out. ‘No.’
Cursedcursedcursed … killedherkilledher … TaireTaireTaire …
It was with the mention of that name that the pain began. Her arm ached, burned with an unbearable agony that pulsed in time with the beat of her heart.
The torch fell from her hand and its light was smothered in the mist. But even as darkness fell upon her in a thick cloak, Asper’s world was still bright and blindingly crimson. The arm twitched, pulsed beneath her sleeve, and she could feel its heat through the cloth. She writhed, collapsed to her knees and moaned into the darkness.
‘Stop … please stop,’ she whimpered, unable to hear her own voice.
TaireTaireTaire … deaddeaddead … gonegonegone … nothingleftnothingnothing …
‘Why?’ she wailed. ‘Why, Talanas? Why? What did I do this time?’ She held her arm up to the sky and shrieked. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’
Godsgodsgods …
The whispers came now, slowly and brimming with a bitterness where before there was only sharp malice.
Don’tcaredon’thearwon’tlistencan’thelparen’ttherewon’thelpcan’thelp …
And slowly, the pain in her arm began to abate, to subside from agonising throb to dull and steady ache. Her pain began to seep out of her in hot breaths. The whispers, however, continued.
Weren’ttherenottheredidn’tlistendidn’thelpabandonedleftus-cursedusloathedus …
She should escape. She should run.
But Denaos …
No. She pushed him out her mind with hate, hatred for herself for thinking of him even as her body was racked and her mind on fire, for thinking of him when her arm was awakened. She fought the whispers, tried not to listen to them as they became moans in her ears.
LeftusMotherlovesustellsusspeakstousgodswon’tgodsdon’tgods-gonegonegonegonegone …
She looked to the rent in the wall through which she had come and took two steps before becoming aware of the fact that she could see it. In an instant, she knew that made no sense; the moon was shrouded, the torch was dead.
Where had the blue light come from?
HatehatehatehatehateHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE …
A low, chattering sound rose from behind her.
She whirled, and the scream was drowned from her as two mouths of teeth and lips opened as one, emitting a screech that overwhelmed all other senses. Pain, fear, instinct were rendered mute before the wailing. Her voice followed a moment after as she felt a pair of cold hands wrap about her throat.
She had no screams to offer the sight that awaited her, had barely the clarity of mind to take in the full extent of the creature. Its lantern swayed between them on a long and glistening stalk, bathing its bulbous head in waves
of light and shadow. She saw a pair of mouths — twisted and sharp, soft and female — torn between gaping, toothy growl and broad, wicked smile.
It did not occur to Asper to fight, to struggle against the creature or even to scream. The abomination transfixed her with horror, rendering her capable only of staring in gaping, mind-numbed abhorrence. She was aware of being lifted from the ground, drawn toward its glistening, jagged outer teeth. She was aware of the creature’s vast void-like eyes dilating into tiny pinpricks of blackness against froth-coloured whites. But she was aware of nothing else.
Certainly not the shadow rising up behind the creature.
Both priestess and abomination were made keenly aware of Denaos’ presence in a blink of silver, however, as the man’s knife flashed out of the gloom and sank deeply into the creature’s collarbone. The beast growled, rather than shrieked; more annoyed than furious. It twisted its neck to see its attacker.
Denaos pulled his blade free from the creature, and at the sight of blood pouring from the wound, Asper’s senses returned to her with a fury. She began to hit, kick at the creature, pulled at its webbed claws and drove her feet into soft, rubbery flesh. The thing turned its attention to her and snarled, offended by her sudden vigour, as it tightened its grip on her throat.
Her fury was choked from her in an instant, her life quick on its heels. Denaos was quicker; his knife came up again, digging into the creature’s armpit, and twisted. The beast roared this time, but there wasn’t nearly enough blood to justify agony. It tossed Asper aside, sent her skidding through the mist, and turned upon Denaos, black voids bubbling with rage.
Asper pulled herself from the earth, ignored the stench of death on the ground, and looked toward the battle unfurling.
Denaos did not cringe, did not turn and run. His form was smooth and flowing, an ink stain on the mist, as he brought his weapon back up to face the creature. It, too, flowed, body swaying from side to side, its lantern illuminating only one combatant each moment.
She saw the fight in flashes of blue light. The creature twitched, hurled itself forward, claws outstretched. Denaos flowed backward; his blade leapt. The thing’s lantern erupted in a burst of blue coupled by twin shrieks as it drew back, clutching a webbed hand with three fingers of steel jammed through the palm.
The lantern glowed white-hot for a moment as the creature recoiled. Then, the flashes of light became bursts and the battle raged in the darkness between them.
It lunged. Denaos reached for his belt. There was the sound of glass shattering, the odour of liquor. It growled, stretched jaws open, lashed a hand out. There was a shriek, this one male and agonisingly human. There was the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.
And then, silence.
The light returned slowly. It waxed to a pinprick; she could see it drift down to a man’s face contorted in pain, breath sucked in through teeth clenched. It became the size of a fist and she saw a grey webbed hand, stained dark with blood and dripping with whisky, reach down to grab the tall man by a throat smeared with green-stained claw marks.
When it bloomed, Asper stared at Denaos hanging from the creature’s choking grasp.
She rose to help him, but found her body fighting between her commands and the throbbing pain in her arm. She whimpered, clutched it, tried to stagger to her feet.
‘Not now, not now, not now,’ she whined, ‘please, just let me … just this once. Please!’
‘Hot,’ a voice answered in reply. ‘Hot … hot …’
She felt Dreadaeleon beside her, the fever of his body seeping out of his glowing red eyes. His hair hung about his face, coat about his body as he swayed precariously on overtaxed feet. He stared at the monstrosity and the rogue without acknowledgement for the latter’s imminent demise. Instead, he merely raised a hand, a small circle of orange glowing upon his palm.
‘Hot,’ he whispered, eyes suddenly blossoming into burning red flowers. ‘HOT!’
The word that followed next, she did not hear. But she did see the circle become a spark, flickering and twisting like a rose petal as it flew from his palm and wafted with an orange glow toward the two combatants. The creature took no notice of it as it sizzled over the mist, nor did it look away from its victim as the little spark drifted up and came to a rest with a hiss upon the thing’s whisky-soaked brow.
HothothothotHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT …
The whispers came in short, staccato shrieks. Denaos was dropped, forgotten as the creature erupted into flames. It writhed in a pillar, blue light sputtering out in the inferno that consumed it. Asper thought she could see something in its figure, now illuminated in the blaze, that seemed vaguely familiar. The shape of its torso, a mockery of womanly figures, perhaps, or the feathery gills that were burnt away like sticks of incense as it hurled itself to the earth.
She wasn’t about to try to get a closer look as the horror pulled its body across the ground, leaving a trail of ash behind it. Its wails, its whispers left her mind as the creature left the courtyard, pulling its burning body through a hole in the wall to disappear into the night.
Asper watched it for but a moment before her attentions were brought back to the scrawny boy beside her, legs giving out beneath him.
‘Did it …?’ Dreadaeleon muttered as he collapsed onto his back. ‘Saved again …’
She knelt beside him, felt his brow. The fever was no worse that she could tell; it was simply exhaustion stacked upon exhaustion. That simple spark had pushed him to a brink he was nowhere near well enough to tread upon. And like the spark, he flickered. He needed water; he needed rest.
‘Stay …’ he whispered, reaching for her. ‘Hot … hurts … but I did it … I saved …’
‘I know you did,’ she replied, smoothing the hair from his brow. ‘And I’ll be here, but I have to help Denaos, too.’
‘Denaos?’ His eyes and mouth twisted into anger. ‘Denaos? He did nothing! It was me! I saved you! I’m the hero!’ He tried to rise, but fell back, gasping. ‘I’m the … the …’
‘Please, Dread,’ she pleaded as she laid him back down to the stones. ‘Just a moment.’
‘Assholes,’ he muttered as his eyes closed, mouth still contorted in a snarl. ‘Both of you.’
No time to heed or take offence, she rose from his side and hurried to Denaos’. Pulling his head up to her lap, she could see the wound in his neck, the seeping green venom. She checked him over quickly, hands flying across his body. His breathing was swift and laboured, but steady. His muscles were tensed, but neither turning to jelly nor hardening with preemptive rigour. His pulse raced, but was there. He was wounded and poisoned, but he wasn’t going to die.
Because of her.
‘Gone,’ he whispered.
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘it ran away.’
‘I meant my whisky,’ he croaked out through a dry mouth.
‘Yeah. Sorry.’
‘Not your fault.’ He grinned. ‘Not completely, anyway.’ He tried to muster a brave laugh, but wound up cringing. ‘It hurts.’
‘The wound’s not the worst I’ve seen,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I think you might-’
‘Last rites.’
‘What?’
‘Last rites.’
‘No, you’re not-’
‘I don’t want to die without absolution.’
The hand he laid on her arm was gentle. Her arm throbbed beneath his touch, rejecting the warmth of another human being. She fought the urge to tear it away.
‘I don’t want to die,’ he whispered.
She knew she couldn’t offer him last rites; he wasn’t going to die. There were no signs of a fatal poisoning; the claws had missed his jugular, and the venom likely wouldn’t do much more than hurt terribly. For all the wretched things he had done, he was going to live … again.
To offer last rites would be deception, a sin.
She could have told him that.
‘Absolution,’ she said instead, in a gentle voice, ‘requires confession.’
‘I …’ His eyelids flickered with his trembling words. ‘I–I killed her.’
‘Killed who?’
‘She was … it … so beautiful. Just cut her … no pain, no screaming. Sacred silence.’
‘Who was it, Denaos?’ Urgency she did not understand was in the quaver of her voice and the tension of her hands. ‘Who?’
The next words he spoke were choked on spittle. The agony was plain in his eyes, as was the alarm as he looked past her shoulder, gaping. He raised a finger to the cleft tops of the walls. She followed the tip of it, saw them there, and stared.
And in the darkness, dozens of round, yellow eyes stared back.
Twelve
INSTINCTUAL SHAME
Semnein Xhai was not obsessed with death. She was a Carnassial, proud of the kills she had made to earn the right to be called such, but only those kills. Deaths wrought by hands not her own were annoying. They left her with questions. Questions required thinking. Thinking was for the weak.
And the weak lay at her feet, two cold bodies of the longfaces before her.
‘How?’ she snarled through jagged teeth.
‘Perhaps they were ambushed,’ Vashnear suggested beside her.
The male held himself away from the corpses, hands folded cautiously inside his red robe as he surveyed them dispassionately. His long, purple face was a pristine mask of boredom, framed by immaculately groomed white hair. Only the thinnest twitch of a grin suggested he was more than a statue.
‘It is not as though females are renowned for awareness,’ he said softly.
‘They’re renowned for not dying like a pair of worthless, stupid weaklings,’ she growled. ‘What did they die from?’ she muttered, letting her voice simmer in her throat. After a moment, she turned to the female beside her. ‘Well?’
The female, some scarred, black-haired thing with a weakling’s bow grunted at Xhai before stalking to the corpses. She surveyed them briefly before tugging off her glove. Xhai observed her fingers, three total with the lower two fused together, with contempt. Her particular birth defect, like all other low-fingers, relegated her to using the bow and thus relegated her to contempt.