The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  “They ain’t movin’,” Chemoi hissed, worried. “They ain’t takin’ it.”

  “They’re Mak Lak Kai,” Shuro said. “Very proud. If they’re going to take it, they’ll wait until we’re gone.” She swept her stare out over the assembled. “That’s a big if, though.”

  Lenk wondered why it had not occurred to him how unlike a merchant Shuro was. Perhaps Mocca was right about his inattentiveness.

  “Best thing to do now is just return to our business,” she said. “If we keep staring, they’ll take it as an insult.”

  With wary glances they sheathed their weapons, slowly dispersed, and went about their business. Shuro purposefully walked away before Lenk could inquire about her expertise. With a sigh he turned and began to walk back to the bow with Kataria.

  The shict hadn’t shouldered her weapon like everyone else.

  “Something wrong?” Somewhere behind, one of the gaambols let out a warbling hoot. “I mean, aside from the obvious?”

  “They aren’t attacking,” she said, as though that answered it all.

  “And?”

  “And they aren’t going to attack.” She looked at him with the same intensity with which she had scrutinized the tulwar. “I saw wounds on some of them: cuts, puncture marks from arrows. They had just come from a fight.”

  The observation struck Lenk, but he merely nodded. That Kataria should notice more than he did at such a distance was not surprising.

  “I guess that explains what they’re doing out here,” Lenk muttered. He looked over his shoulder. A few of the bolder tulwar had begun following the Old Man’s course on their gaambols; leisurely, as though just to suggest they could attack, if they wanted to. “But who were they fighting?”

  She merely fixed him with a look.

  “Didn’t see the arrow wounds?” she asked. “Who else would they fight in the middle of a forest?”

  “Shicts?” he whispered. “Out here?”

  “I…” The hardness in her eyes faltered for a moment before she looked away. “Maybe. I couldn’t say for certain.” And yet something in the way she paused suggested it was more that she wouldn’t say for certain. “At any rate, I don’t think it’ll be an issue.”

  “You’re sure?” Lenk asked. “If they saw we were giving tulwar supplies to leave us alone, they might start getting ideas.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she snorted. “Shicts don’t posture like those apes. They hunt. They follow, they observe, they wait, and then they strike when you least expect it.”

  Somewhere to the south a faint whistle cut the air. It grew louder in a heartbeat, ending in a crunch of wood and a spray of splinters. Lenk blinked, and when his eyes opened, an arrow quivered in the wood of one of the deck’s support beams, two fingers away from his head.

  “Yeah,” Kataria said, “like that.”

  “Shicts! SHICTS!”

  The cry, and dozens more like it, was taken up by the saccarii as they were sent scrambling across the deck. Lenk didn’t need to hear it, for once he looked upon the southern cliffs of the Gullet, he could see them.

  Everywhere.

  Perched on the bluffs. Emerging from viny undergrowth. Crouched atop the bending branches of bowing trees, their hair as thick and tangled as the forest and their faces hidden behind the empty grins of wooden masks. The khoshicts, dark-skinned and dark-haired, appeared on the cliffs like a bad dream.

  And their arrows sang a dozen harmonious dirges.

  Lenk’s boots thundered across the deck as he ran. His heart pounded in his ears. The Old Man groaned, the river shifted around its colossal ankles.

  The sky was swallowed by the sound of arrows: their shrieking flight, their heads crunching into wood, their soft-as-rainfall whisper as they found a saccarii who was too slow and sent him squealing to the deck.

  “Farlan!”

  A cry. It took him a moment to remember that was his name. The name he had given Shuro.

  The woman in black crouched behind a nearby crate. She grunted, shoving forward to send it sliding down the deck toward him. He crouched low, stopping it with his shoulder and whirling to take cover behind it. It shuddered as two arrows struck the wood. He drew his sword instinctively, then stared at it in his hand, quite unsure what good it would do against an enemy with twenty yards of water between him and it.

  Then again, how did one fight an enemy that appeared out of nowhere?

  The cliffs had been bare just a few moments ago, and suddenly they were swarming. They might as well have been shadows, dark shapes gliding effortlessly from branch to branch, their only sound the hum of bowstrings and the whistle of arrows. Where had they come from? What did they want?

  And why—the thought crept unbidden to the fore of his mind—didn’t Kataria notice them?

  Eyes following thought, he sought her out across the deck. But through the chaos of the six remaining saccarii trying to find cover and the falling arrows, he couldn’t find her. The saccarii cried out, but they were not panicking. They found cover behind crates, crouched low behind railings. They had made this run before, they were no strangers to calamity such as this. Shuro, too, seemed safe enough, crouched behind her own crate. She hardly even looked concerned, her face tense but unpainted by fear.

  The Old Man’s clip through the river was quick, and it hardly seemed bothered by the tiny arrows that found its hide. Perhaps they could just wait until the shicts ran out of arrows or the Old Man outran them.

  Perhaps they could survive this.

  “MAK LAK KAI!”

  It had been a nice thought, anyway.

  But any hope of waiting it out went dashing away as soon as he looked to the northern cliffs. The tulwar, blades bared and faces awash with white, appeared upon the ridge, carried by the swift lope of their gaambols. Their simian mounts shrieked and hooted, their frenzy propelling them to ever greater speeds as they pursued the Old Man. Above the wail of arrows, above the roar of the river, the howls of the beasts and the war cries of their riders cut across the sky, clean as any blade.

  And they cried as one.

  The gaambol in the lead, a burly red-faced brute carrying an equally fierce-looking rider, suddenly wheeled to the right. Its pace didn’t so much as falter as it took a flying leap off the cliff’s edge, colliding with the Old Man’s flank. Its clawed fingers scrambled for purchase as it pulled itself up.

  Lenk braced himself, holding his sword as menacingly as a man on his rear end could against one ton of fur and fangs. Yet the gaambol cast him nothing more than a blank-eyed stare. Its rider barked something guttural, kicked its neck with his heels. The gaambol growled in reply and hauled itself up to the top of the deck’s canopy. The wood overhead groaned with the weight as the beast took off running. Lenk saw it a moment later, flying over the river and striking the cliff wall.

  The shicts, for the first time, made a noise: a cry of alarm as the gaambol effortlessly scaled the cliff, taking arrows without complaint as it made a leap and seized one of the shicts.

  Shrieking, it picked the frail creature up in two hands and smashed him—once, twice, again and again—against the rocks until there was nothing left but a red smear upon the stone and a battered carcass that the gaambol tossed carelessly into the river below, like a worn-out toy discarded by a child with a short attention span.

  Okay, then, Lenk thought, releasing a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. They’re using us as a bridge to get to the shicts. So long as they see us only as that, we’ll be—

  “MAK LAK KAI!” Another gaambol, another rider pulled itself up over the railing. This one, though, came leaping onto the deck. This, apparently, was enough to startle the saccarii and they immediately broke cover to get away. The gaambol swept its red simian snout from side to side, beady eyes taking in the chaos, suddenly over-stimulated.

  A long black limb shot out, snatched up a screaming saccarii. Its nostrils twitched as it sniffed at the creature squirming in its grasp. Then, as if finding no other use for him, i
t opened its jaws lazily and brought the shrieking man toward it.

  “NO!”

  Lenk would have been surprised by his own voice if he hadn’t been so busy rushing headlong toward the giant beast. He would have been surprised by that, too, if he hadn’t been so consumed with fear.

  The Old Man needed its crew and, between the shicts and the tulwar, it was fast running out of them.

  Lenk closed the distance in a leap. His blade flashed, bit deeply of fur and flesh. An animal shriek cut the air. A spurt of crimson spattered the deck, the saccarii following. The man went scampering away, but the gaambol hardly seemed to notice. It clutched at its wounded arm, gaped at Lenk like a child scolded as he held his bloodied blade out before him.

  That astonishment lasted all of two breaths.

  Its rider bellowed a command, kicked at the brute’s neck. The gaambol needed no encouragement to launch itself at Lenk, swiping a clawed hand out. He darted back, dancing out of range. The beast snarled, brought that same hand down in a vicious slap. He slipped away once more. The gaambol drew back a hand bristling with splinters, bared yellow fangs in a shriek.

  The sound cut through his ears and into his skin, sending the hairs on the back of his neck rising. But he kept his distance, his blade up. He had fought beasts before. One blow of those giant hands would mean death. And there was nowhere to run.

  Stand your ground, he reminded himself. Don’t drop your guard. Wait for the opportunity to—

  It howled, leaping toward him, long arms outstretched, long fangs bared.

  He darted forward into the beast’s charge, ducked low beneath its arms, took his sword in both hands, and jammed up. Flesh, then tongue, then bone, and then the spatter of blood that came washing over him as his blade punched up under the gaambol’s jaw and into its skull.

  It fell without another sound, bearing him to the deck beneath its weight. Its paw groped blindly for a target its glassy eyes could no longer see, a growl choked on steel escaping from its throat, before it finally went still.

  He took a breath.

  And then held it as the beast’s rider loomed over him, a short, thick blade in her hand. Her snarl was every bit as feral as her mount’s as she bared teeth and brought the blade down. He caught her wrist with one hand, the other trapped beneath the creature’s bulk.

  But her arm was longer, her muscle brimming beneath black fur while his own quivered beneath flesh that suddenly seemed so frail. He saw his own terror reflected in the blade as it slowly came down toward his throat.

  He cried out a name.

  Between heartbeats, a bowstring answered. The female tulwar jerked, blinked as though puzzled by the arrow that stood quivering in her bicep. The next found her throat, appearing there with nothing more than a whisper. Brow knitted in consternation rather than anguish, she grunted once and toppled over.

  He felt hands slide under his arms, help haul him out from beneath the dead gaambol. He felt them wrap defensively around him as they hurried him behind the beast’s carcass. Arrows continued to fall around him like rain, thudding into the corpse. The canopy shook overhead as more riders spurred their beasts to leap to the other side of the river.

  When he turned to see his Kataria kneeling beside him, he felt none of the reassurance he felt he ought to. Rather his voice was breathless, crawled out of his lips.

  “Did you know?” he asked.

  “What?” she replied.

  “Did you know? Did you know they were here?”

  “I…” She shook her head. “No. I didn’t. How could I?”

  “How could you pick out wounds on a tulwar but not see shicts in the cliffs?” He seized her by the arm. “How?”

  “Get the fuck off me,” she snarled, shoving him off. “I just saved your life.”

  “And how many of us have you killed, shkainai?”

  A voice he hadn’t heard before. Thick and creeping and guttural, a glistening insect crawling out of a rigid shed carapace. He would never have known who it was if Man-Khoo Yun had not risen up as a black shadow over him.

  “You waste words on trying to reason with them, human,” the couthi gurgled. “They have no remorse. They have no souls. They care for nothing but violence and treachery.”

  “This isn’t the time,” Lenk hissed, gripping his sword.

  “No. It is far too late for that.” He stood, heedless of the arrows flying past, heedless of the shrieks of the tulwar. “I was hired to protect Sheffu’s interests from shictish interference.” All four arms extended, began to gingerly undo the clasps of his black robe. “From any shict.”

  Kataria snarled. “So, that’s it? Sheffu didn’t trust me?”

  “He was right to do so. He, as well as I, knew of the Howling.”

  Lenk blinked, looked to Kataria for explanation. Her mouth merely hung open, astonishment plain on her face.

  “What is he talking about?” Lenk demanded, rather than asked.

  “She has been in contact with her twisted kin the entire time, human. She has been lying to you. But do not fear.”

  His robes slipped off. What lurked beneath was a body long and lean with muscle, skin the color of bone drawn tight and peppered with scars. Man-Khoo Yun’s larger hands flexed, the long fingers cracking as the smaller ones withdrew two wickedly curved daggers from his belt.

  “I am more than capable of handling this.”

  His hands went up, undid the clasps holding his painting against his face. It fell to the ground in a clatter.

  “After all…”

  From beneath a nightmare of scars that crisscrossed his white face, from beneath the eyes that shone glistening black like perfect obsidian orbs, from behind the pair of mandibles that clicked with every word he spoke, Man-Khoo Yun offered a fanged smile.

  “I have experience with them.”

  FIFTEEN

  LIQUOR, HEAVEN-SENT

  It was Arexes, the Architect, who first invented beer.

  Or so the tale went.

  After he had erected the sky to hold up heaven over earth, but before he went on to create the Thousand Marvels in a Single Day, the God of Craftsmen was said to have discovered the liquid by accident after discovering that he had dammed up a river and that barley was fermenting in the puddles left behind.

  He refined it, placed it in his tankard, and, for a single moment in his eternal life, let himself relax before he went on figuring out how the rest of the world worked.

  The tale had always fascinated Asper, if only because it seemed to be one item on a very short list of things the various faiths of the world would not fight over.

  No one agreed on how the world had been made—Daeonists said the Conqueror had found it and made it his own, Zamanthrans said it had been formed when the Sea Mother grew lonely and sought to make a companion out of earth. No one agreed on who had created mankind—Sainites said that they were the seventh finger of Galatrine, Khetasheans said that they had grown in the footsteps of the Wanderer.

  But everyone seemed content to let Arexes have the credit for beer.

  Asper’s own theory was that this was because the various brewers’ guilds—all ardent worshippers—might be less inclined to share their craft if their scriptures were disputed. But her private hope was simply that beer had been the first thing that religions could agree on and would eventually unite the world in a frothy, drunken orgy of friendship.

  Starting with her.

  That, she reasoned, was a pretty good justification for the fourth tankard that was set down before her. She reached an unsteady hand into the small purse on the table, produced a few coppers, and handed them to the serving girl.

  The lass—maybe a little over seventeen, wearing a dress that had been patched many times—accepted them with a nod and took off, deftly skirting the only other tables in the bar: the ones laden with Sainite soldiers, each one laden in turn with leering eyes and groping hands.

  Not that her attempted avoidance stopped the soldiers, loud and rowdy and deep in th
eir cups, from trying to reach out for her.

  Asper knew she should feel angrier about that than she did. But the only way an establishment like the Glutted Cat could keep open was by catering to soldiers. Sainite presence kept looters and thieves away, and while it might eventually invite Karnerian aggression, that would at least be only one army to worry about instead of both.

  That, too, should have made her angry.

  That should have made her seize the tankard, empty it out upon the floor, and smash it over the head of the nearest Sainite. Then smash it in the face of the next one, and the next one…

  And so on, she told herself, and then on to the Karnerians until every last one of them lies bleeding on the floor. It’s the only way anyone’s ever going to be safe again.

  But you can’t stop there.

  No, I can’t. There are more Sainites. More Karnerians. More soldiers, more thieves, more assassins, more monsters pretending to be men.

  Even as they feast upon the flesh of the weak. They shall never be glutted.

  Never, she told herself. The Sainite table let out a raucous laugh at some bawdy joke. Never.

  You must purge them.

  I have to stop them.

  You must kill them.

  I need to protect them.

  You can end it.

  I can save them.

  You can save them all.

  I can—

  She was distracted by a sudden cramp in her hand. She looked down and saw her left hand trembling about the tankard, fingertips pressing indentations into the copper. Beneath the flesh something twitched. She felt a prick against her scalp, the sensation of a spider’s spindly limbs skittering across her brain. And her breath left her at the realization.

  Those weren’t her thoughts.

  That wasn’t her voice in her head.

  And just like that, Amoch-Tethr was there.

  Not in her head, not in her thoughts, there. Seated at the table beside her, in the periphery of her vision, he stared at her. She did not acknowledge him. She never stopped hoping he was just a bad dream, a hallucination.