The Inferior

by Peadar O'Guilin

  He’d been lost ever since.

  Stopmouth turned round to get Wallbreaker moving downstairs. But his brother had forgotten all about the hunt. He’d spotted a pair of battling Globes and was watching them intently as they swerved round each other against the blue glare of the Roof. They weren’t near enough for the pieces to rain down on Man-Ways, but Wallbreaker hadn’t lost his fascination with the things. Stopmouth followed his gaze in time to see a beam of light lancing from one of the spheres into another. The stricken Globe split neatly in two. As the halves separated, something tiny and dark dropped out and plummeted earthwards. It fell a thousand paces. Then a white membrane blossomed in the air above it.

  ‘It’s stopped falling!’ whispered Wallbreaker.

  ‘N-no. S-slower.’

  ‘You’re right, Stopmouth. It’s just falling more slowly. It’s heading for Bloodskin.’

  Wallbreaker was on his feet in an instant and hurtling down the stairs. ‘Let’s go!’ he shouted to his brother. He grabbed two spears, a water skin and a set of knives, and ran out to where the other hunters were waiting. His wife was there too, but he didn’t even take the time to flick her a drop of blood in farewell, and only Stopmouth saw the disappointment and worry on her face.

  ‘A change of plans,’ said Wallbreaker to the other hunters. ‘We’re off to Bloodskin instead. We need to be near that thing when it lands.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said Lowsquat, one of the party’s veterans. He was a man with a family to feed and an ailing wife. ‘It’s flesh we want, not more of that useless metal.’

  ‘It’s n-n-not m-met—’

  ‘I’ll get you your flesh,’ said Wallbreaker. He was breathing heavily. He seemed elated, as if the hunt had already been a big success. ‘I’ll get you enough to pay Stopmouth’s bride price for your daughter!’

  Lowsquat was outraged. ‘My Brighttooth won’t marry a mute!’

  ‘But he’s not a mute,’ said Rockface. ‘Are you, boy?’

  ‘N-n-n—’

  ‘Look,’ said Wallbreaker, ‘I’m going now. You can all follow, or not.’

  He set off at a jog. Relieved, Stopmouth ran after him and presently he heard the footsteps of the others following on behind. The shape had grown in the sky. The black part wriggled like prey in a Flyer’s grasp while the white membrane formed a dome in the air above it.

  The object wasn’t coming straight down as he’d supposed. It had begun its fall over Bloodskin but since then had drifted closer to human territory and now seemed destined to land in or near Centre Square.

  Wallbreaker turned back to follow it, but Rockface stopped him dead.

  ‘That thing is safe now, Wallbreaker. It’ll come down in our streets. You can look at it when we get back.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the other men, clearly angry.

  ‘Enough flesh for my Brighttooth’s bride price!’ growled Lowsquat. ‘That’s what you promised. Not that the mute will have her!’

  Stopmouth laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder and felt the muscles twitching under his palm. Whatever spell had cured him of his fear seemed to have worn off again. His eyes were wild and Stopmouth had a vision of his brother bolting. He couldn’t let that happen. He took Wallbreaker aside and whispered in his ear: ‘Th-the B-Bloodskin p-plan.’

  ‘What?’ said Wallbreaker. ‘Oh.’ He paused, still breathing too fast. ‘The Bloodskin plan. Yes. I remember that one. But, Stopmouth, I couldn’t!’

  ‘N-not you. M-me and R-Rockface.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘T-tell them!’

  Wallbreaker and Stopmouth went back to the others, who were muttering angrily. They stopped when the brothers approached, but clearly it would now take something spectacular for Wallbreaker to save his reputation.

  ‘I’ll get you more flesh than you and your families can eat,’ he said. ‘I’ve promised you that, and I can deliver it. But we all have a lot of work to do before dawn. Stopmouth? Run home–you know what I want you to get. Oh, and bring extra spears if you can find them.’

  Stopmouth ran.

  When they were children, Wallbreaker had already predicted a glorious future for himself. He’d be a hunter to rival the legendary Traveller: a great man who could sneak alone into enemy streets and return with an entire carcass strapped to his back. Wallbreaker always played the Traveller in their games. He always had a plan. As he got older and began participating in real hunts led by other men, he’d become increasingly frustrated by the lack of forethought that went into them. Sneak around, wait for an opportunity–any opportunity–and pounce! He’d do it differently if he ever took charge, he’d said. He’d bring flesh home in abundance. At last the chance he’d once craved and now dreaded had arrived.

  Stopmouth sped home on his brother’s orders. He cut through small alleys between the main streets, ducking under skeins of pounded moss hung out by the women to stiffen in the heat. Ahead of him he could hear a commotion in the direction of Centre Square, where the white thing must have come down. He was dying to see what it was, almost as much as Wallbreaker. But it would have to wait. He had other business now. Dangerous business. Already he was sorry for offering to be the runner in the plan, but he was excited too and, like any young man, keen for a chance to impress the older hunters.

  The creature swooped down towards Centre Square on its great white wing. Women who’d been smoking flesh ran screaming in all directions while their men tried to get shots in over their heads with slings.

  ‘Don’t kill it!’ shouted Speareye. ‘It’s only one creature–we can surround it first!’ The beast’s shadow soared over ash-covered paving blocks, dyed red from generations of butchery. The men thought it would come down in one corner of the square and ran in that direction, but it banked suddenly and everyone turned, tripping over each other to make for the middle again. The beast hit scant paces from the ancient fountain. In the fading light, it seemed to have shiny black legs, and they ran while it landed, kicking up a storm of sparks. Finally it skipped through a pile of bones and collapsed with the silky wing settling on top.

  The men circled around with raised weapons as the creature struggled to get out from beneath its covering.

  ‘Wait now,’ called Speareye. ‘You’ll all be getting your share, but it’s my right to kill it.’ He stepped ahead of the others, quite close to where the main body of the creature was emerging from its cocoon. The tattoos on his shoulders flexed as he raised his weapon, but he never struck.

  ‘By the Traveller!’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ someone asked.

  Speareye walked backwards, holding his weapon in front of him. The creature shook the last of the white wing away and all the men gasped together.

  ‘It’s a woman!’ said Roughnose.

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Gapsmile. ‘It’s got no hair! And its skin is too shiny!’

  The creature was panting and its bald head glistened with sweat. From the neck down its skin was charcoal black. It was devoid of nipples and genitalia, but it had a woman’s figure and a face so disturbingly human, none of the hunters could find it in themselves to strike it down.

  The creature moved one hand slowly to its neck and pressed a small wart. Suddenly the shiny part of its skin peeled away–a form of clothing?–and removed any doubt that this was indeed a woman, albeit a strange one. Her body was too young to have ever borne a child, and yet her face made her at least six thousand days old. They all stared, mesmerized by teeth too white to be human and skin a little too dark, too flawless to be real.

  She tapped her chest with delicate fingers. ‘Indrani,’ she said.

  ‘How did you come from the sky?’ asked Speareye, regaining some of his composure. ‘Are you an ancestor? Have we displeased you?’

  The woman shrugged. Her eyes shifted from man to man, passing over the buildings of the square, gaily decorated in the skulls and bones that signified plenty. Beads of sweat began to trickle down from her scalp.

  The chief tried se
veral more questions, but got no replies.

  ‘If she can’t speak,’ said Speareye, ‘either she’s a beast, and therefore flesh, or she’s a half-wit that’ll have to be volunteered next time we trade.’

  Indrani struggled when they tried to bind her. She had an amazing ability to kick a full-grown man in the jaw from a standing position. It took five hunters to tie her up, and after that they had to gag her, for she shouted at them in mad gibberish and wouldn’t be still no matter how many times they told her her life depended on it. None of them used their knives, however: not even the hungriest believed her to be a beast now.

  Stopmouth caught up with the party again on the Bloodskin side of the Ways. The women seldom dared gather wood out in this direction, even with the usual hunter patrols to guard them, so the wilderness had taken over in a way it had never managed in the no-man’s-land between home and Hairbeast-Ways. Trees grew everywhere, in every shade of purple and red. They had taken over the banks of the Wetlane and their poisonous fruits dragged branches right down to the leaf-littered surface of the water.

  The men had made a bridge with a fallen trunk. Now they were up to their knees in dirt, digging and cursing.

  ‘We’re nearly ready,’ said Wallbreaker. ‘Did you bring the skins?’

  Stopmouth showed them the Bloodskin-hide mantles he’d pulled from his bed. The smooth red skin glistened under the tracklights as though alive. He’d also brought the preserved Bloodskin head from the main room of the house. Someone had eaten the eyes, but that would go unnoticed in the dark, especially with the rest of the features in such fine condition. So many bright teeth jammed the creature’s mouth that many remained visible even after the jaws had closed. Wisps of hair dotted the cheeks, shielding a dozen tiny openings that made up for the lack of a nose.

  ‘Good,’ said Wallbreaker. That head had been his first trophy and he’d always been proud of it. ‘You’ll need to stuff the hides with moss and tie them closed. Rockface has agreed to go with you.’ Stopmouth nodded, glad to have such a good fighter to watch his back. Rockface could run too. Not as fast as Stopmouth, but faster than these others.

  Wallbreaker showed him where they’d have to jump on the way back. ‘You’d better go right over that big rock, or you’ll end up impaling yourself on the traps. When you get to the Wetlane, drop everything you’re carrying and cross over the log. Don’t worry about knocking it away afterwards, you won’t have time.’

  Stopmouth and Rockface prepared to leave.

  ‘Wallbreaker’s explained everything,’ said Rockface. He flexed his massive shoulders and grinned at his young companion. ‘You’re going to need that famous speed of yours!’

  Wallbreaker interrupted them. ‘There’s one more thing, men.’ He put a hand on Rockface’s arm. ‘I’ll have to ask you to leave your spears behind. They’ll only slow you down, and we need them here.’

  Rockface glared at him. ‘How’d you expect us to kill Bloodskins with only our knives, hey?’

  ‘The whole point of the plan,’ said Wallbreaker–Stopmouth could almost hear him gritting his teeth, ‘is that you don’t kill them. You run. You lead them here, and we kill them for you.’

  ‘I’ll run faster if I have a spear.’

  ‘My plan,’ said Wallbreaker. ‘My plan and you agreed to it.’

  Rockface flung the weapon against a nearby tree and turned away. ‘Are you coming, Stopmouth, or staying here with Windbreaker?’

  Stopmouth patted his brother on the back and followed the larger man through the trees. It was completely dark now and they often tripped as they walked along crumbling footpaths covered in vegetation. Fifty types of moss grew here, if not more. They fought for space on the largest trunks and rocks, dying and rotting away with an acrid smell that itched the nostrils.

  Stopmouth supposed houses must once have stretched from the Wetlane right up as far as Blood-Ways, home of their intended prey. He’d no idea how or even why the houses had been levelled. He knew of no power that could accomplish such a thing. Wallbreaker said the trees could do it by themselves, slowly, slowly devouring the buildings, or pushing them under to drown in the earth.

  After five hundred paces the cover came to an end. Here it was the trees who’d died, not the buildings. The Bloodskins had cut them down or burned them to form an open space between their homes and the forest.

  The two hunters crouched at the edge of the wood and rubbed dirt into their skin. Like everywhere else Stopmouth had seen in the city, streets and lanes criss-crossed Blood-Ways in a grid pattern. Most of these were blocked off, of course. From his hiding place he spied piles of rubble heaped between buildings and jammed into the doors and windows that faced outwards. Only one road on this side had been left free for the benefit of Bloodskin hunting parties. It was heavily guarded, watched from a pair of towers to either side. However, a determined, hungry enemy could find a way into any district with a bit of patience. There were always too many windows and doors. This was why most people in Man-Ways lived as close to Centre Square as possible. It meant enemies had further to go to find prey, and when they found it–in the very heart of hostile territory–one little sound would be enough to kill them.

  The men went belly first to the ground and crawled slowly through the darkness towards the nearest buildings. Stopmouth’s heart thudded in his chest. He wondered if a Bloodskin guard had already seen them and was pointing them out to others. The creatures had a way of leaping from buildings without suffering harm. He imagined one of them coming down hard on top of him, claws first, its toothy red face stretched into a vicious grin.

  They moved closer to the houses with agonizing slowness. Rocks poked through moss into their skin and tree saplings caught at their loincloths. When they reached the first buildings, they kept their backs to walls damp with Roofsweat and sidled along towards the main road out of Blood-Ways. Once everything was ready, they’d make sure the guards spotted them. The enemy would see the Bloodskin hides tied in a bundle to Stopmouth’s back and in the dark it would look as if the humans were escaping with stolen infants. The men would feign fatigue or injury. The alarm would sound and the Bloodskin guards would pursue them all the way into Wallbreaker’s trap.

  But twenty paces from the tower, Rockface leaned closer to Stopmouth and whispered in his ear. ‘We’re in luck! The barrier has fallen away from this window. See?’

  Stopmouth stared at the big man in horror.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ said Rockface, too loudly for Stopmouth’s comfort. ‘Your brother’s scheme will work just as well if we do this thing for real. And think of the glory! It’s been generations since anybody got out of Blood-Ways alive. Here, I’ll give you a boost up.’

  Stopmouth shook his head violently. Rockface scoffed. ‘Oh, you think you can support my weight, hey? No, you’ll be going first. Come on!’

  The man’s voice was growing louder all the time. Desperate to shut him up, Stopmouth put his foot into the stirrup of Rockface’s hands and climbed into the building. It was madness–Wallbreaker would surely think they’d been killed. And yet, if they emerged from this alive, there would be more tattoos; more admiration and respect.

  He clambered into the darkness beyond and reached back for Rockface. Then there was a bit of stumbling around until they found a door looking out onto a deserted lane.

  ‘Me first!’ said the big man, and he strolled into Blood-Ways as if he were in Centre Square, looking neither left nor right. Stopmouth did enough of that for both of them. He felt sure that an army would be leaping down from nearby rooftops at any moment. If he simply went back the way he’d come, Rockface wouldn’t even notice. But he tried to keep his mind on the tattoos he’d be getting on their return, and the look of jealousy on Lowsquat’s face as a mute was paraded around Centre Square on people’s shoulders.

  ‘You think I want your poxy daughter?’ he’d say. And Lowsquat would be the one to stutter in indignation.

  Rockface dragged him into a building just as two Bloo
dskins turned onto their laneway. The creatures were both male, their prominent lower teeth shining in the tracklights.

  ‘If we can find where they came from,’ Rockface whispered, ‘we’ll get their young. We’ll be heroes!’

  The Bloodskin males passed out of sight. The humans crept round the corner from which the beasts had come. A shock awaited them. Up till now the houses had been in poor repair, but most still had their roofs and the walls stood strong. Here, however, it looked like a giant foot had stepped on them, smashing everything for several blocks. Man-sized chunks of metal jutted from the buildings, while other fragments had torn up the paving on the street. Wreckage of a Globe, thought Stopmouth, and shuddered to think what had happened to any creature unlucky enough to be in the buildings at the time it had struck. If Bloodskins from these houses survived, surely they’d moved out to live elsewhere. But no; Rockface waved his dagger in the direction of the most damaged building of all. Cracks ran up the walls of the house, and the whole top floor seemed to have fallen in. And yet a faint glow shone from the doorway like the embers of a fire.

  Rockface pointed at the house again and signalled ‘Go!’ He crossed towards it on tiptoe and Stopmouth followed, wondering what kind of creature would stay within walls that could collapse at any moment.

  The glow led them to a room at the back, strewn with rubble. Half of the ceiling had fallen away, and a huge piece of metal had crashed into the room to hang a few spans above a dying fire. Stopmouth could see thousands of tiny flashing lights inside the ripped metal shell. A single Bloodskin lay sleeping beneath it. Wisps of hair on its face rose and fell above the many little holes through which it breathed. Why was it here? Stopmouth wondered. What manner of creature would endure danger to be close to such a monstrosity?

  Then it hit him. This creature…this flesh…was Wallbreaker to the Bloodskins. He felt dizzy. He had an image of the beast and his brother conversing, having more in common with each other than either had with the rest of their own Tribe. Stopmouth knew they had to leave this house and find a different Bloodskin to hunt. He touched Rockface’s arm and tried to signal they should go, but the bigger man simply grinned and moved closer to the sleeper. He raised his bone knife to strike. Stopmouth, without thinking, caught his wrist.