Witchsign

by Den Patrick

  ‘What did you do to them?’ asked Steiner, voice hushed with shock. He scrabbled backwards before stumbling to his feet.

  ‘They were in the way,’ said Aurelian, sneering.

  ‘They were the souls of dead children.’

  Aurelian shrugged. ‘Who cares? Better them than me.’

  The larger boy had also risen to his feet, one hand pressed to his broken nose. This was not a battle Steiner would win alone. Where was Tief when he needed him?

  Aurelian’s chest rose and fell as if he’d run a mile, but he looked exhilarated rather than exhausted. Steiner didn’t care to give him a chance to recover, running the few dozen feet towards the centre of the cavern. If Kimi were there he might stand a chance.

  ‘And may Frejna’s eye not find you,’ he gasped between breaths. Cinderwraiths flitted from his path and the heat from the furnaces licked at his skin when he ran too close. Steiner arrived at the dais, the huge furnace towering over him like an iron god. Frantic eyes searched for the Yamal princess.

  ‘Dammit, Kimi. Where are you?’ Steiner clutched at the anvil to stop his hands shaking.

  ‘Shirinov said you were trouble.’ Aurelian had drawn close, not troubling himself to run. He idled, a touch of swagger to his steps. ‘So I asked for help.’

  The boy Steiner had struck emerged from the gloom, bleeding from his nose, yet not troubled by the injury. The boy closed his eyes and tensed, his skin becoming a mottled, rough grey. Clothes split and tore as he swelled, a grotesque living statue.

  A flicker of movement drew Steiner’s attention as another novice stepped forward. There was a flash of silver in the dark that might have been a sword but she remained a shadow for the most part. The novice gave a nod to Aurelian and Steiner feared something awful had happened to Tief, Taiga and Sundra.

  ‘Shirinov said you wouldn’t come willingly,’ said Aurelian, stepping closer. ‘And I’ve not forgotten your little display on the ship.’ Aurelian’s stony accomplice lumbered forward.

  ‘We need him alive,’ said Aurelian to the granite-skinned boy with a broad smile.

  ‘You really shouldn’t have destroyed those two cinderwraiths,’ grunted Steiner, his anger as hot as the furnace beside him.

  ‘Friends of yours, were they?’ gloated Aurelian. The smile slipped from his face as Steiner stepped away from Kimi’s anvil, the anvil where Steiner’s sledgehammer had lain waiting, waiting for him to heft and swing as he did now. The dull metal head of the sledgehammer was an ugly comet in the darkness. The strike reached its apex just as the granite-skinned boy crested the lip of the dais. His craggy head came apart in a shower of stone and grit. Everyone blinked in confusion. Huge stony hands reached for a face broken apart, stroking at space that should have contained a head. Awful moments slipped by and the hands fell away. The granite-skinned boy toppled with a deafening crash, sending up clouds of soot. One colossal arm fractured on the anvil and Steiner blinked in disbelief at the sledgehammer.

  Who in Frejna’s name was my great-grandfather? And how did he make this sledgehammer?

  Aurelian’s eyes widened in fury, his mouth opening in a silent howl. Steiner threw himself clear as more draconic fire scorched the air.

  ‘You killed him!’ shrieked the blond-haired boy as the fire guttered out.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to come here,’ said Steiner, pulling himself to his feet, wincing at the graze along his arm, the skin red and raw. ‘And I didn’t ask him to attack me.’ He looked down at the corpse, trying to reconcile the shattered creature with the boy he’d left bloody-nosed just moments earlier. Steiner gripped the sledgehammer tighter as his hands shook and the same thought repeated over and over. ‘I didn’t ask for any of this.’

  You killed him! The words came to Steiner’s mind, but the thought was not his own. Aurelian’s second accomplice had drawn close, hair black and tangled, a cruel curving blade jutting from a white-knuckled fist, matching the twisted smile on her lips.

  Come with us now. Set down the weapon. Her lips didn’t move, each word appearing in Steiner’s head like the chime of a distant bell. He was suddenly nauseous, as if on the Watcher’s Wait, the sea doing its unkind work to his guts. Steiner spread his feet, grimaced and hefted the sledgehammer.

  ‘There’s plenty of this for everyone, lady. Get out of my head.’

  He’d expected her to surge forward, expected her to slash with the cruel curving dagger, flaying the flesh from his bones. Instead she raised her hands to the ceiling and threw her head back. A high-pitched sound emerged from her mouth, almost painful to his ears, at the very limit of his hearing. Steiner stepped back and looked to Aurelian, who breathed another gout of fire. Steiner shrank down beside the anvil, which shielded him from the worst of the flames.

  The witch’s wordless shriek was answered by other shrieks and squeals and the sound of wings. The darkness of the cavern’s roof became a roil of motion, a vast swarm of bodies wheeling about.

  ‘Bats,’ whispered Steiner. They swooped down and dozen of bodies buffeted him, claws swiping and scratching as they raced by almost too fast to see. Steiner flung up an arm to shield his face, turning away as more plummeted towards him. He scrambled away from the anvil and circled the furnace, hoping the heat would deter them, but still they came.

  And then they were gone, rising up and circling around the cavern, voices crying out in wordless fury. Steiner cast a disbelieving glance over his arms, the flesh scored, blood forcing its way to the surface.

  Aurelian grinned and held out a hand to the dark-haired girl. They circled the dais, drawing closer to Steiner. ‘Set down the hammer and come with us. Shirinov wants you alive. He wants to talk to you. Something about a Troika in Helwick. This doesn’t have to end in death.’

  ‘But it already has,’ said Steiner, nodding towards the corpse of the granite-skinned boy. He’d wanted to make the words a threat, but sounded regretful, even to himself.

  ‘So be it,’ grated Aurelian with gritted teeth. He gave a curt nod to the girl and bats wheeled about, coming closer. Steiner wanted to run to the safety of his cave, hoping the bats would struggle to gain access to his sanctuary. His mouth went dry, knowing he’d never make the winding route between furnaces and anvils. The cries of the bats grew louder until wings and dark bodies filled his vision before a terrible voice spoke aloud.

  ‘It always ends in death.’

  Sundra was standing atop Kimi’s anvil, her body taut, all muscles tensed, hands balled into tiny fists. It was her face that unnerved Steiner the most; eyes set hard beneath a frown, mouth a sour line that spoke of her distaste for Aurelian and his accomplices.

  ‘Have a care, Sundra,’ said Steiner. ‘He can breathe fire.’

  A bat fell from the swarm and shattered on the dais, coming apart like a clay bowl. Then another. Steiner flicked a glance back to Sundra, but her eyes were the colour of stone, seemingly blind, awful in their unseeing. More bats fell from the air, now petrified. They fell about the dark-haired novice who summoned them, clipping a shoulder, glancing her elbow, smacking into the crown of her head. She threw up hands to ward off the stony projectiles and squeezed her eyes closed. Steiner saw blood on the girl’s fingers, thought he heard an inhuman howl above the din of shattered rock.

  ‘Sundra, let’s run!’ said Steiner. He fell back to where she stood atop the anvil, her gaze no less terrible. The bats wheeled about and swooped down once more, then fell from the air, exploding apart on the dais just as the first of their number reached Steiner. The last of the swarm broke apart, fleeing in all directions. Darkness swallowed them and all that remained of their passing was a high-pitched shriek. Aurelian retreated, holding up a hand that guttered with arcane flame. He lit the way for his injured accomplice and the cinderwraiths cowered at his passing. Steiner watched them go until a voice broke the stillness.

  ‘You look like hammered shit.’ Kimi Enkhtuya stood beside him.

  ‘I feel like it too.’

  ‘I was asleep.’ Kimi nodde
d. ‘I came as soon as I heard.’

  She wasn’t alone, the workforce of Spriggani had escorted her, fixing Steiner with enquiring stares and whispering among themselves. A few complained, bitter and loud, before Taiga hushed them.

  ‘You’d best sit down before you fall down,’ said Tief, rolling a barrel towards him before setting it on its end. Steiner couldn’t summon the strength to perch on the makeshift seat and slumped to his knees, eyes still fixed on the fleeing form of Aurelian.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ said Tief. Taiga had fetched a bucket of clean water and was boiling strips of cloth. Sundra had not come down from her perch on the anvil, looking at the devastation of petrified bats with a curl of disapproval to her lips. Her eyes were no longer the impenetrable grey of stone.

  ‘They’re students of Shirinov. He knows about my sister.’ Steiner released an exhausted breath. ‘And he sent Aurelian to fetch me.’

  ‘No doubt he has a few questions about your family,’ added Tief, tamping down some leaf in his pipe. Steiner nodded. Family. He tried not to think about Verner heading off to Helwick to kill three Vigilants, tried not to think about how a simple fisherman would even attempt such a thing.

  They remained in silence for some time. Taiga cleaned his wounds and Steiner grimaced and winced but said nothing. Tief smoked and cast sour looks towards the cavern entrance. Sundra remained atop the anvil, shoulders curved, head bowed, her animus spent. Only Kimi moved with purpose, sweeping up the many petrified bat wings and shattered bodies with a broom.

  ‘Felgenhauer told me she can do that.’ Steiner gestured towards the shards of stone that had once been bats.

  ‘Of course she can,’ replied Sundra. Kimi helped her down from the anvil and Sundra leaned close. ‘It is a power of the earth, but it takes years of practise to master. The Vigilants think they know the nuances of it, but they are children compared to the power of the goddess.’

  Steiner opened his mouth to ask more questions but Tief held up a hand. ‘Don’t speak to her when she’s like this.’ He blew out a plume of smoke and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Besides, we’ve got other problems.’ Tief nodded to where the corpse of the novice lay. The body was no longer stone and Steiner swallowed in a dry throat. Tief approached the body and Kimi shook her head and sighed.

  You killed him. Aurelian’s words echoed in Steiner’s head and sickened him. He stared at the sledgehammer and drew in a shaky breath.

  ‘Come on,’ replied Tief. ‘It’s time I let you into another secret of Vladibogdan.’

  ‘No good will come of this,’ said Sundra to her brother. ‘I don’t need to cast the bones to tell you that.’

  ‘What secret?’ asked Steiner, at once curious and afraid.

  ‘No good?’ said Tief to Sundra. ‘It’s all you’ve been telling me since the boy arrived. Come on, Steiner.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Kimi, hefting the headless body over one shoulder as if it were no more than a sack of coal. Steiner struggled not to throw up as a slick of gore ran from the neck.

  ‘Where are we going?’ was all he managed.

  ‘Somewhere even more wretched than this sad place,’ said Tief, tugging at one ear. He cast a glance at the thin faces of the Spriggani standing by the dais and the cinderwraiths drifting behind them. ‘As hard as that is to imagine.’

  Steiner followed Kimi as she carried the corpse, feeling an icy sweat run down his back with each step.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Steiner

  Dragons are merely part of history to much of the populace. Those who can remember the days when vast reptiles darkened our skies are long in their graves. Only the Emperor recalls those times and he speaks of them rarely. What the peasants know is recorded in saga and song, and such tales are often embellished with each retelling.

  – From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.

  Steiner’s cave was on the opposite side of the cavern to his friends’. He knew Kimi and the Spriggani must have their own caves, but had never given it much thought.

  ‘This is where I sleep,’ said Kimi with a nod. The stone had been worked into an arch and the image of a mountain had been carved at the apex, so different to the ragged stone that led to his own cave.

  ‘Did you do this?’ said Steiner, tracing fingertips over circular motifs containing rows of angular lines. Kimi nodded and the ghost of a smile creased her lips.

  ‘And this is where I live with my sisters,’ grunted Tief. He gestured to a smaller, but no less elaborate, opening. The stone had been worked until it resembled entwined vines with broad pointed leaves decorating the arch. There were a dozen other arches for the other Spriggani, all lovingly crafted portals.

  ‘You’ve been here a long time,’ said Steiner, tracing callused fingertips over carved stone.

  ‘Too long,’ said Kimi.

  ‘These carvings,’ Tief ran his hand over some intertwined leaves near the top of the door, ‘were carved by our elders, ones who have gone before us.’

  Steiner bowed his head a moment, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to draw his hand away from the carved doorway. He felt connected to the history of the brutal place by the simple means of contact.

  ‘So who lives in this one?’ he asked after a pause. He pointed at a wider arch, wide enough for men to enter three abreast.

  ‘No one lives here.’ Tief’s voice had lost its usual edge, sounding despondent. ‘It’s a corridor. Come on.’

  The passage was as wide as the arch that led to it, curving away into darkness. The ground tilted steeply, leading ever downward.

  ‘I didn’t think it was possible to go any lower,’ said Steiner, his eye coming to rest on the corpse of the boy slung over Kimi’s shoulder.

  ‘This is low all right,’ said Tief. ‘This is as low as it gets.’ He fetched a torch from the wall lest the darkness consume them entirely. Steiner followed, suddenly anxious.

  ‘Are there more bats down here?’

  ‘No.’ Tief flashed an unhappy look over his shoulder. ‘It’s much worse than bats.’

  ‘Where are you taking me, Tief?’

  ‘To get rid of this body. You don’t kill a novice without expecting someone to come looking. And Shirinov will come looking, you can bet your boots on that.’

  The cavern they entered was lower and flatter than the vast cavern of furnaces above. The sickly sweet smell of dung mingled with a more acrid tang, forcing Steiner to hold a sleeve up to his nose.

  ‘Ugh.’

  ‘Brimstone. The vapours of Hel itself,’ said Tief.

  ‘What are these statues?’ asked Steiner. Scattered across the room at intervals were slender columns, each of which appeared to have a monstrous form carved about it, indistinct in the gloom.

  ‘They’re not statues,’ replied Tief. He approached the nearest of them and held up the torch, the tongue of flame small beside the creature that loomed above him.

  ‘Frøya save me.’ Steiner’s mouth went dry. ‘Is that …?’ The front legs had been chained to the top of the pillar, where bony claws like sickle blades curved. The stone was crosshatched with marks of frustration. The long neck was held in place with a pitted rusting collar, also attached to the stone column. The wings were vast leathery expanses with old skin hanging in tatters, not quite sloughed off. The only movement was the swish of a tail, but even that was secured by chains. Steiner approached and craned his head back further and further until he was staring, open-mouthed, at the creature above him.

  ‘They don’t grow so big any more,’ said Tief. ‘They don’t live so long either. Nothing could when kept like this.’

  The reptiles were only a quarter of the size of the huge statue in Academy Square, and Steiner was unprepared for how broken and ragged they were.

  ‘But the Empire told everyone the dragons were exterminated seventy-five years ago during the uprising.’

  ‘The Emperor makes slaves of everyone,’ said Tief. ‘From Nordvlast to Yamal. Dragons
are no different.’

  ‘W-why are they here?’ said Steiner in a reverent hush.

  Tief pointed to a small aperture in the ceiling. It was blackened and scorched.

  ‘They light the furnaces?’ said Steiner.

  Tief nodded and frowned, but there was no anger in it, just a pained sadness. Kimi wandered off, moving from column to column beyond the torchlight Tief held aloft. Steiner couldn’t take his eyes from the creature before him.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘The fire they breathe,’ Tief gestured to the huge reptile before them, ‘has special qualities according to the Empire. They say the metal forged in such fire is more flexible, hardier, so they say. The wounds caused by such blades almost always become infected. I’ve heard it said the swords are luckier, though I daresay that’s just wishful thinking.’

  ‘How many?’ asked Steiner, voice a shocked whisper.

  ‘One for each of the thirty workstations above. A good breath of fire to light the furnace at the start of each shift, make the coals good and hot.’ Tief tugged at one ear and glanced around the dismal chamber. ‘We sent cinderwraiths to feed them before Kimi arrived. I’m quite attached to my fingers and they can be snappy.’

  Steiner looked up at the long pointed head. The teeth were yellowed and a few were cracked, each the length of his finger. The eyelid slid open, the orb beneath discoloured with rheum. Wetness leaked across the scales and dripped onto the wings below.

  ‘What happened to its eyes?’ asked Steiner, trying to imagine being chained to a stone column, barely able to see.

  ‘Infected,’ said Tief. ‘They’re blind not long after they turn ten.’ He cleared his throat and looked away. ‘And usually dead by thirty.’

  ‘Thirty?’

  Tief nodded. ‘The Empire uses them up like firewood. Keeps them weak and stunted. They need good fresh air and sunlight.’ He folded his arms and sighed. ‘They need forests and mountains. They need more food than we can give them.’