“They must be buried,” Mora said.
He searched the camp, messier than it had been minutes ago. He quickly put his hand on the shovel the humans had brought with them. Another token of death. One never left a human or nichan corpse out in the open, for no one wished to share this world with spirits. Even a child as young as Domino knew this fundamental rule.
“We’re not leaving?” Beïka asked as he scanned the surroundings loaded with death, as if new assailants were about to attack them.
Domino mirrored the reaction, the nape of his neck stiff with cold and shock, his cheek burning with pain. He instinctively leaned over the little human boy, ready to shield him again if any other fool charged them to seek revenge.
The shovel sank into the rocky ground. Once, twice. Then Mora stood up, spotted a second shovel, and pointed at it. “First the dead,” he reminded his younger brother. “Help me.”
Beïka sighed. “We should just leave. Who cares about them?”
“Right now, Beïka. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we’ll leave.”
An infallible answer.
They dug a hole and threw the first man in. They did the same for the second dead man, throwing arm and tongue with their respective owner. Wet earth covered both graves, blocking the black dust’s path. The Corruption dissipated, drifting away with the wind.
Then silence, and as the area cleared, a bird called in the distance.
Domino’s brothers knelt down, side by side. The young boy didn’t miss a single step of the ritual that followed.
Hands raised to the sky, Mora recited a few words. “This is your bed for the days to come and for all eternity. Find rest and forgiveness, for we have forgiven you. May you reach the realm of the Gods. Faces above, bring us the Light. Let it shine on the way.”
It was over.
Mora approached the travelers’ haversacks and searched them, soon to be followed by Beïka. They found leather flasks filled with water, but for some reason, Mora disposed of them. In the end, they set aside matches, a cloth bag filled with flatbread and dried meat, and a square satchel rattling with the sound of clashing coins. The same bag snatched a smile from Beïka before Mora took it from his hands.
Then came the turn of the human child.
“Domino, come here,” Mora called, but the little nichan refused, pressing himself by reflex against the child who had finally given up running away. Domino knew Mora wouldn’t beat him—he never had. Yet he feared the punishment he would have to face as well as the disappointment in his brother’s eyes. “By the Faces, Domino!”
Mora walked through the camp, cleared now that the dead were out of the Corruption’s reach. He stopped near the two children and lifted his little brother’s chin. No surprise or annoyance appeared on his face when he discovered new tears in the youngest child’s eyes.
“Why did you save him?” the teenager asked.
The answer was obvious to Domino, but under his brother’s insistent gaze, he answered anyway. “He’s very small and he was in pain.” His sobbing resumed. Air was pain in his lungs, and he took a deep shaky breath.
“You could have been killed. That child . . . You saw his wings? He’s no ordinary human; he’s a Vestige. Do you know what that is?”
The word was familiar, but Domino shook his head nonetheless. Adults said so many things, gave so many orders, then added more words as to make everything confusing. How could he remember everything?
“Mom told you about it, Domino. Everyone in the village talks about it. Vestiges can be dangerous.”
“No, not him,” Domino said, shaking his disheveled head. “He’s very small. He can’t hurt. The others wanted to hurt him, but we don’t hurt children, do we? We don’t put ropes around their necks. We . . . we can’t . . . we can’t . . .”
Breathing turned into a beloved memory as emotions grew inside him, filling all the available space. It was no longer a question of finding his words but rather of freeing himself from the crushing weight resting on his chest and thoughts.
Mora applied a tender hand to the little boy’s tousled hair. “I know, calm down. Breathe, Domino.”
“We . . . He comes with us, right? He’s hurt.” Domino swallowed a boulder-heavy sob, raising his eyes to his brother’s face.
Mora thought for a moment, watching the surroundings, then looked down at the small figure lying in the vegetation. “We can take him with us, but . . . No, no, no. Don’t be too happy. Domino, if the clan doesn’t want him, there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s not up to me. Do you understand what that means?”
“He’s . . . nice,” Domino said to defend his cause, sniffling between words.
“Do you understand, Domino?”
“You want to take it with us?” Beïka asked. He swayed from right to left behind them, his patience about to fail. “You said it was dangerous.”
“I said he could be.”
“That’s enough for me. I say we leave it here. Mama wouldn’t want that thing with us.”
He’s not a thing.
“He’s coming with us,” said Mora. “It’s too dangerous for him out there. He won’t survive on his own.”
“So what?”
“We didn’t take all these risks to leave him behind. Now shut up! He’s coming with us.”
A smile appeared all over Domino’s face, and he turned to the blond child. Having squirmed in all directions, the young human had pushed back the hair previously stuck to his face. On his dirty skin was a fresh burn, pink and swollen in places. It covered the left cheekbone and part of the child’s forehead. Domino failed to suppress a gasp. When his hand reached out in spite of himself, the human turned away, burying his face in the plants on which he lay.
“It’s all right,” Domino told him. “We’ll be there soon.”
“I don’t think he speaks our language, Domino,” Mora said.
Mora carefully grabbed the human who, once again, struggled. The teenager didn’t seem to mind this reaction, for a nichan would always be stronger than a human. After a while, the little boy resigned himself, letting Mora carry him, his thin arms hanging along his body.
Walking beside his older brother, Domino grabbed the tiny, pale hand swinging in the air and squeezed it once. When the human boy lowered his strange eyes toward him, Domino offered him a bright smile. As if touched by a flame, the human snatched his hand back.
I I
The four boys hadn’t slowed or stopped since the morning.
“I need to pee.”
Everyone finally halted at Beïka’s pressing demand.
The sky was at its highest pitch of light when it came time to rest and drink from the stream running swiftly beside their feet.
Not a fish in sight, yet the water was clear, every single pebble coating its bed visible through the undulating swirl. Mora collected some in the palm of his hands and brought them up to his little brother’s mouth. Domino drank, water dripping down his round chin. Several sips in, his attention veered back to the human who, curled up against an old stump, hadn’t made a sound since they’d rescued him two days and two nights earlier.
Mora sighed. “Domino, drink some more.”
“I have,” said the little boy, his black eyes searching for answers in the prostrated posture of the other child.
Who was he? Where had he come from? Was he in pain? That upset pout on the lines of his mouth most definitely meant pain.
The human didn’t speak, barely drank, only let himself be approached when it was time to get back on the road. Whenever his orange eyes landed on Domino, they were cold as ice—like the rest of his person—and hard as steel. His body vibrated without interruption, even when he lay close to the campfire Mora had lit for the night, making a good use of their newly acquired matches.
“Humans are more sensitive to the cold than we are,” Mora had explained as he’d led the way, the child half asleep in his arms, jumping intermittently, hiding his face behind his hands.
O
riginally from the northern territories, nichans, whose lively blood was infused with the Gods’ Lights, proved to be more resistant than humans during the winter. And their thick skin protected them from many other threats.
“We have to drink more than that,” Mora insisted, forcing his little brother to face him with an inflexible, wet hand. “Hey, are you listening?”
Food was running out. Apart from the supplies collected from the belongings of the men they’d killed, the four boys had nothing to eat. There wasn’t a beast around, and hunting required time and celerity. Moving forward and reaching their destination would be quicker. They had to save food and strength and fill their bellies in any way possible. Drinking was the key. Without it, they would quickly weaken, and Mora didn’t have the strength to carry his brothers in addition to the human, he said. They had to hold on.
Domino bowed over the stream and sucked up small sips, his lips and nose grazing the wavy surface of the water. Not far away, having finished urinating against a tree, Beïka turned around and laid his eyes on the human. Domino immediately recognized disgust in his brother’s expression.
He stood up, his face wet. “Stop.”
The human was as still as the stump supporting his back, eyes lowered, his blond eyelashes brushing against his cheeks. Beïka approached anyway, wiping his tacky hands against his pants.
Domino leaped to his feet. “Stop!” he shouted again in a high-pitched voice.
Beïka only obeyed when their older brother ordered him to leave their protégé alone.
After several minutes of tense rest, they set off again. Domino kept casting suspicious glances at Beïka.
The human’s face remained concealed behind his hands.
Blood lined the road leading to their destination.
Mora stopped as he discovered their route—and the surrounding half-naked trees—splashed with dark trails carrying a stench of carrion.
Beïka stepped closer to the stains, sniffed the air, mouth partly open to taste every note of the smell on his tongue. “That’s blood? Look, it won’t stop.”
“Where do you think you're going?” Mora caught him by his collar with the hand not busy holding the human.
“What? It’s not that way? You said to follow the water.”
“You stay close to me,” Mora ordered. “Domino, be careful. Don’t step in the blood.”
The tracks were thick and bright on the surface of the flattened grass. They stretched on and on, their density diminishing little by little, even though the stench remained.
Following his brother closely, Domino kept watchful eyes on the ground, mouth dry. Concentrating on his every step, darkness casting a shadow over the forest, he ran into Mora. The teenager had just stopped.
Before them, the stream continued straight on and disappeared under a high bamboo wall. The group came to a halt. Voices came to them along sounds of a nearby presence. Many heartbeats vibrated against Domino’s eardrums. The little boy sniffed the air. All he could detect was a faint smell of smoke and burnt fat, similar to the one coming from the lamps they used at home.
“I think it’s there,” Mora said.
Following the blood as if this path had been left for them, they found themselves face-to-face with a massive double door decorated with grease lanterns swinging in the nocturnal breeze with a slight squeaking noise. The sound of metal against wood reached them from the other side of the ramparts. Domino was far too small to see what was beyond. He looked down and clutched his brother’s tunic. The hemorrhagic thing that had left its stench for miles had passed through the gate they now faced.
In Mora’s arms, the little human also stared at the dark, impenetrable walls. Biting his lip, Mora laid him down on the ground—Domino jumped at the occasion to approach the child, who rolled into a ball, his expression fierce—and took a step toward the door.
There was no soul in sight, only the flickering glow of the lamps through the veil of dusk.
“Hey! Anybody there? Hey, is that the Ueto Clan?” called Mora, standing before the door nearly twice his height.
No answer except the distant cry of a bird, for only birds dared to live near nichans.
Mora cupped his hands. “Please! We need help. Hey!”
Several seconds passed during which Domino doubted having found the right place, fearing the silence would become eternal.
“Maybe they’re dead,” Beïka said, his eyes still on the blood trail.
Mora ignored him.
A head appeared over the wall. In the darkness, it was impossible to discern its features.
“Hey! Ohay, is this the Ueto Clan?” Mora cried.
Voices rose up on the other side of the bamboo, unintelligible. Above the wall, the slightly disheveled figure turned around and said, “Kids. Four of them.”
“We are Ako’s sons. My brothers are with me,” Mora added.
He avoided talking about the human they brought with them. He’d told Domino that he was a Vestige, who were rumored to be dangerous. Would this reason deny them entry? They couldn’t hide the boy’s wings for very long, or even his eyes, unless he closed them.
A creaking shook the group, and Mora stepped to his left to stand before his brothers. The doors opened, revealing more lamps hanging along a path that had no end in sight. One massive individual appeared in the opening, shirtless, bearded, and bald. He was covered in blood, the same color that stained the road.
From the ramparts, the other silhouette disappeared.
Domino grabbed the human’s hand and squeezed it, and, as two days earlier, the human moved away, keeping his hands out of reach. Domino agreed not to touch him again when the newcomer stood in front of Mora, close enough to study his face.
“Ako is your mother? Are you Mora?” the man said in a deep voice. The blood had dried on his muscular hands, arms and chest, cracked where the skin was solicited, like a network of roots.
Mora let a long second pass before answering. “Yes.”
“By the Faces!” the man said with calm. “You look just like your mother.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“It’s me. Ero. You might not remember me,” the man said, and Mora remained quiet for a handful of seconds. “The last time we saw each other I was probably in a cleaner state.”
“Yes, I remember, of course.”
Domino couldn’t tell if his brother was a good liar or not.
“Mom left the clan when I was three. I was too young to remember Ero,” Mora had said a few days after being separated from their mother.
“She doesn’t like him,” Beïka had recalled. “We shouldn’t go there.”
But they were here now, because Mora had made it clear: “She wouldn’t send us to Uncle Ero’s if it was dangerous. Now stop it. You’ll scare Domino.”
Which Domino had been quick to deny.
Now that he had his uncle in front of him, the young boy repeated the same words to himself. I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid. Lying ran in the family tonight.
Even stuck in his human form, like all nichans had been since the dawn of the Corruption, Ero was an impressive beast. His broad shoulders were all muscles, just like his neck; the curves of his thick thighs were evident through the linen fabric of his pants. He was more than a head taller than Mora. His bald head and part of his face were marbled with long, deep scars, as if someone—or some creature—had tried to split his skull in slices.
Beïka, eyes wide open, was stunned.
Except for his black eyes and brown skin, their uncle didn’t look like their mother at all. Ako was of a smaller build—enough to pass as human—like Mora, and thin despite her powerful limbs.
But above all, she wasn’t there. Domino couldn’t resist looking back, as if his mother was about to emerge from the dark forest to finally join them, as she had promised.
“Where is your mother?” Ero asked, his eyes still on his nephew’s face.
Mora released a trembling breath and shook his head. “I don’t kn
ow. She sent us here. There were . . . problems at home.”
“Problems.”
“The Blessers’ partisans."
Their uncle’s expression adjusted to the news, casting deep shadows over his eyes. Mentioning the Blessers’ followers often had that effect on people’s faces. For Ako and her sons, the presence of the supporters of the eastern cult in the vicinity of their village had marked the beginning of an ongoing separation.
Ero nodded and placed one of his huge, bloody hands on Mora’s shoulder before withdrawing it, probably remembering that even dried blood was messy. “Your mother was right to send you here.”
He monitored the rest of the group. Ero’s gaze lingered a little longer on the human child, briefly deepening his frown. The child didn’t react, unlike Domino, who came closer to his pale body folded in on itself.
Ero was still a stranger to them, so it would have been difficult for Domino to judge him on this first impression. On the other hand, he’d heard bits of conversations between his mother and brothers about the man. One thing was certain: their mother had left her clan because of her complicated relationship with her older brother.
“He disappointed me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to forgive him,” Domino had heard during a meal, paying only half attention to the conversation keeping their small house lively.
Forgive what? He didn’t know, but it was enough to instill caution in him about his uncle.
Another man came out of the village gates and stood next to Ero. He was much younger, perhaps Mora’s age, and his face was peppered with freckles and curiosity.
“Need help?” the newcomer asked. His enthusiasm dissipated as soon as he discovered the Vestige. “What’s it doing here?”
Ero turned to the newcomer. “Javik, go back and tell your mother about our guests. Have someone get them something to eat. Something warm.”
But the teenager remained camped on his feet, unresponsive to orders. The human then noticed the attention that had just turned to him. He lowered his chin. In his back, one of his wings unfolded to wrap itself around his right shoulder, protecting him like a shell.
The Nichan Smile Page 2