The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  “No!”

  She shook her head, hard enough that she might fling the thoughts from her skull. She bit down, gritted her teeth so that she heard the muscles of her jaw creak.

  No more time for thought, for fear, or for doubt. Yarra was dead, killed by her hand. The rest of them would be, too, if she didn’t put every part of herself into moving.

  “West,” she whispered to herself as she looked up toward the distant dunes. “Keep west and eventually you’ll find—”

  Her voice died on the breeze. She froze in her tracks as the moonlight shone down upon the crest of a dune looming before her.

  There, painted black against the night, she saw a bestial, four-legged shape. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but she could see the glint of fang, the flash of steel.

  A rider.

  There was a sign of movement, and the rider’s mount spurred it forward. A yiji’s baying cackle carried over the dunes, heralding its approach as it came down the slope toward Kataria.

  The sound was enough to set her skin crawling, but not enough to frighten her.

  That honor belonged to the sound unspoken, a formless snarl that reached across the night sky and into Kataria’s ears.

  A mournful wail. A tender sound meant only for her. One she had heard before, on a warmer night and in closer company.

  “Kwar.”

  The word came with the rattle of bow, the creak of string, as Kataria drew an arrow back and took aim.

  The yiji came loping down the dune—quickly, but far from frenziedly. In the span of five breaths, it was close enough that Kataria could see its rider clearly. Her face was set in a hard blade of a frown, her braids whipping about her face as she spurred her mount forward. But even as dire as her expression looked, the khoshict’s eyes were as wild as ever and Kataria could see their burning darks clearly down the shaft of her drawn arrow.

  The breeze quieted. She held her breath, stilled her heartbeat. She watched those wild eyes grow larger with every step the yiji took as it came loping toward her.

  The perfect shot.

  “Shit.”

  A curse.

  “Shit.”

  An arrow falling to the earth.

  “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Footsteps crunching on sand.

  She was running, breathing heavily as she spit curses at herself for not taking that shot. Yet within moments she could not curse loudly enough to be heard over the sound of the yiji’s eerie giggle.

  Kwar came rushing up beside her, past her, circling her mount around to block Kataria’s path. The paler shict came to a halt, drawing another arrow from her quiver.

  The bow trembled as she raised it and drew the arrow back awkwardly. Her heart thundered in her ears, her mouth went dry. The arrowhead shook as she aimed it at Kwar, then past Kwar’s ear, hoping that a grazing shot would scare her off.

  Maybe Yarra hoped the same thing.

  She tried not to listen to that, either.

  Kwar swung her legs over the yiji’s humped back, landed hard on the sand. She took a moment, fixed her dark eyes upon Kataria before she stared at the arrowhead pointing at her. For a long moment, she stood there, as if waiting for Kataria to fire.

  And when she finally walked toward Kataria, she did so slowly, without attempting to dodge or weave. Her eyes locked on Kataria’s, dark and steady while Kataria felt her own quivering in their sockets. She came to a stop an arm’s length away from Kataria, the tip of the arrow grazing the fabric of her shirt.

  She stood there, staring, and whispered.

  “Do it.”

  No threat in Kwar’s voice. No command. No challenge. The words left her mouth on a quaver. Her eyes watered. Her hands were clenched into fists.

  “Do it,” she said again.

  It was those eyes that made Kataria slowly lower her bow.

  “If I can’t live with you, then I don’t want—”

  And it was those words that made her raise it again.

  “Don’t,” she snarled. “Don’t you fucking finish that sentence.”

  “I was just—”

  “You kidnapped me,” Kataria said. “You didn’t even wait for me to make up my damn mind. You paraded me around my people like I was a trophy. They looked at me like I was one.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear that word,” she said. “I don’t want you to pretend that this is something you can make up for.”

  Her eyes watered, but she did not weep. Her body shook, but she did not break. The muscles of Kwar’s jaw tensed.

  “What do you want, then?” she asked.

  I want you to turn around, go back to wherever you came from, and never think of me again.

  I want to go back to the time I met you and walk away.

  I want… I want to just stop until everything is over.

  These she did not say.

  “I want,” she spoke in hard words, “to save my people.”

  “Your people…” Kwar paused. “Our people want war.”

  “They won’t get it. Shekune will lead them to their deaths.”

  “Shekune is strong. The second-strongest shict I have ever seen. She has power. She has weapons. She has—”

  “And the humans have numbers, power, land,” Kataria said. “The humans have everything.”

  Kwar’s gaze dropped to the earth. “I know,” she whispered. “I know they have everything. I wanted to take it from them. Like they took everything from me.” Her voice dropped low. “My mother, my father, my brother…” She looked only halfway up at Kataria. “You.”

  “They didn’t. He didn’t.”

  “I didn’t know that! Some part of me did, but not the part that was speaking the loudest. I was afraid that you would leave, that I would have nothing, that I would be like them.” She gestured back toward the direction of the shict camp. “Like the rest of our people. Their land, their families… everything was taken from them by the humans. They have nothing left to lose.”

  Kataria stared at her, eyes so hard they might cut Kwar if she didn’t blink.

  “There is always something left to lose,” she said.

  Kwar met her gaze.

  “I know,” she whispered. “I knew that when you looked at me the way you did two nights ago.”

  “I told you, don’t—”

  “Please, just…” Kwar winced, holding her hands up. “I need you to know this. I never meant to hurt you. I was just…” Her hands fell, empty. “My mother once told me I should have been born a yiji, that I would be more comfortable if I had many littermates and slept in a pile.” She smiled weakly. “I remember being so mad, thinking she was saying I was some dirty beast. I never understood how right she was.

  “Until she was gone.” Kwar closed her eyes. “My mother is dead. My father is a coward. My brother won’t speak to me. I am surrounded by my people, but I am alone.” She looked intently at Kataria. “I stand two feet from you and I am still alone.”

  Kataria felt heavy. Her arms hung at her sides, the bow suddenly unbearably hard to hold. Her head slumped forward, eyes to the earth.

  “You don’t get to do that,” she said. “You don’t get to make me feel like this, like you have a good reason.”

  “It’s not good,” Kwar said, “but I did it.”

  “So, what, you want me to forgive you?”

  “No. I want to ask you something.” Kwar looked at her intently. “Who are you doing this for? For us?” Her jaw tightened. “Or for the humans?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know.” Kataria rolled her shoulders, helpless. “Is it so hard to believe I don’t want anyone to die? I know what the humans do to the shicts, but I know that Shekune can’t solve it.”

  “Then what can?”

  Kataria stared at her. “I don’t know. But neither she nor I can solve it if everyone’s dead.”

  Kwar said nothing for a time. She looked long over the dunes. A cold breeze blew her braids across her face.r />
  “Shekune’s army is large, but they’re still shicts,” she said. “They know the desert well and have covered a lot of distance already.” She looked at Kataria. “We can beat them to Cier’Djaal, if we ride hard and sleep little.”

  “We,” Kataria repeated.

  “We.” Kwar whistled sharply. Her yiji, which had been busying itself chasing some nearby scent, came loping over. She mounted it in short order, straddling the large crest of its back. “You and I.”

  Kataria regarded her warily. “You expect me to trust you?”

  “I expect you to not have much of a chance of getting across this desert unless you do.”

  “You kidnapped me.”

  Kwar sniffed, shrugged. “You stole my knife.”

  “Yeah, to free myself because you kidnapped me.”

  “So you agree we’ve both made mistakes.”

  “What? I—”

  “Do you want to stop Shekune or not?”

  “I do.” Kataria glared at her. “But just a moment ago, you said you wanted to take everything from the humans.”

  “I still do.”

  “Then what are you doing this for?”

  The faintest of smiles. Not her usual predatory grin, nor her haughty smirk, nor anything Kataria had seen before. Kwar’s lips curled up into something soft and weak that befitted the sound that played through her head.

  “For you,” she said.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  A COFFIN FOR A THOUSAND MEN

  Do you feel that?”

  Lenk stirred out of his slumber at the sound of Shuro’s voice, his senses returning as she shook him gently.

  It was dark, long past the late-afternoon sun they had set out beneath. He must have dozed off at some point during the trip. He wasn’t sure how long they had spent climbing the mountain.

  Admittedly, he wasn’t sure how long climbing a mountain via the silk cradle of some hideous plant-monster-spider-thing was supposed to take, either. But that was the question Shuro had been about to answer, for in another moment, he felt it.

  They were slowing down.

  He looked up. The curious creature still clung to the webs upon the mountain’s face, but its multi-limbed gait became more ponderous and thoughtful.

  As they continued to ascend the mountain, Lenk became aware of metal rods inserted into the rock, one on each side and spanning about the length of the creature’s width from leg-tip to leg-tip. Holes had been drilled into the metal to provide some manner of grip for the creature.

  A landing structure, Lenk realized. They were arriving.

  Shuro, too, realized it. For her hand was once again on his shoulder. When he looked at her, she held her blade up meaningfully. He nodded and drew his own. Not that either of them had any idea what awaited them up there.

  But really, he thought, if you have to ride one of these monsters to get to a place, what are the chances that there’s anything pleasant waiting for you?

  “This cradle is probably more defensible than anything we’ll find up there,” Shuro muttered as the spider creature continued its ascent. “If there’re attackers waiting for us, we stay here. Make them come to us.” She glanced over her shoulder at Chemoi. “And you stay behind us.”

  Both Lenk and Chemoi nodded at that, the saccarii with considerably more enthusiasm.

  The metal structure in the mountain’s face grew suddenly more elaborate, rising up over a ledge above and creating two long arches that stretched up and over the lip of the rock. The creature followed these arches, its movement going from vertical to horizontal and ushering the cradle into a small gap that served as a loading dock.

  Lenk tensed, unsure of what to expect.

  After all, what did one expect to find in a forgotten city once ruled by a demon? More demons was a likely guess. Some manner of ancient defense system, maybe. Living statues or acid-spitting goats or babies that looked like babies but were actually evil squid-babies.

  Lenk hadn’t thought too hard about it.

  But what he had not expected to find was exactly what he found when the spider came to a halt and the cradle bumped gently against a stone dock.

  Nothing.

  A vast amount of nothing stretched out on all sides of him. Through the darkness he could scarcely see around him but for some key details.

  To either side he could see the mountain’s face had been carved to a fine, flat edge that gave way to a vast flat space, as though someone had simply shorn off the top of the mountain to build something on the flat spot that remained. Embedded in the edge were other metallic loading structures, other docks, presumably for other creatures like the one that had brought them here.

  The remains of small stone buildings and various forms of cargo long rotted stood nearby. This had been a busy place, Lenk guessed, some kind of loading bay from which goods and people had been transported to and from the jungle below. The air was thin and cold up here, far from the sweltering oppression of the jungle’s humidity.

  A kingdom in the clouds. Perhaps the closest thing to heaven mortals could know.

  Beyond the loading bay, Lenk could see the shapes of buildings: towers and houses and domed structures. But they stood darkened and quiet, shadows against the starry sky.

  No enemies. No defenses. No danger.

  Nothing.

  “Peculiar,” Shuro said. She stepped off the cradle and onto the dock, glancing around.

  Lenk looked at her for a moment. “Well, I mean… yeah. We just rode a giant spider to a dead city. Seems a little late to start calling—”

  “I mean there should be something,” Shuro said. “Some kind of enemy… a guardian or something. Khoth-Kapira was, our information tells us, paranoid and suspicious. He wouldn’t have left nothing for whoever came to his final resting place.”

  “Thing about final resting places,” Chemoi said, following them off the cradle and onto the dock, “is that they’re final. Once yer dead, ya ain’t get a say what happens to ya or yer city.”

  “Demons don’t die,” Shuro replied without looking back. “Not in the way we understand. The fact that there’s nothing here means that there’s nothing we can see.” She hissed out a soft breath. “Which means that there’s something out there we can’t see.”

  “An ambush?” Lenk asked.

  “Possibly,” Shuro said. “Or whatever’s here isn’t aware of us yet.” She sheathed her sword, tucked her hair beneath her black hat. “I’ll go on ahead and survey the surroundings.” She glanced back at Lenk. “Half an hour. If I’m not back, come looking for me, but do so with the assumption that it’s not safe.”

  “What?” Chemoi asked, shrill. “Ya can’t leave me here!”

  “Lenk will stay with you,” Shuro replied.

  “Why do I gotta stay with him?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Lenk asked.

  “Well, no offense intended, pink, but I been spendin’ enough time around the two of ya to know which one of you’s got the balls here.”

  Lenk blinked, looked at Shuro. “Yeah, feel free to take her with you.”

  “I can move more quickly alone,” Shuro said. “And I can’t afford to be slow here. Half an hour. No later. Don’t kill her until I get back.”

  Lenk blinked. “I… uh, wasn’t planning on killing her.”

  “Oh. Uh, yeah, I know. I was… joking.”

  “Oh. Right. It’s hard to tell what with the…” Lenk made a vague gesture about his face. “You know, face.”

  Shuro’s brows knitted in a glare. “Right.”

  Mercifully, she left, disappearing between two of the ruined buildings and into the night. Chemoi skulked off to go huddle behind some ancient cargo, taking shelter from the wind. Not desiring to be in the company of either of them, Lenk merely sighed and walked to the edge of the dock, staring down over the precipice.

  The mountain was a sheer drop down a vertical stone face. The jungle below stretched out like a particularly unruly rug and Lenk could just barely make out t
he scrublands where the forest gave way to the desert. Far up here he found it easy to believe that Rhuul Khaas could stay forgotten for so long. Who would think to look all the way up here for a city?

  For that matter, who would build a city up here?

  Mocca would, he thought. No, not Mocca. Khoth-Kapira.

  But they weren’t different people, he had to remind himself. Mocca was merely one name worn by a demon with many.

  And Khoth-Kapira was a demon.

  Still, Rhuul Khaas, remote as it was, hardly fit the image of a demonic fortress. There were no charnel pits, no perpetual flames, no writhing bodies impaled upon spikes. In fact, there was a rather shameful lack of spikes altogether, considering.

  The air was thin and clean up here. The roar of waterfalls down below was a quiet mumble, fighting with the moaning wind to be heard. It was peaceful up here. Quiet. Serene.

  “Hello?”

  His hand went to his sword as he whirled about. His eyes swept the darkness, seeing nothing but the same ancient black shapes amid the pervasive gloom. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end.

  Someone had spoken to him. He had heard their voice right next to his ear, a whisper from the darkness. It had been elegant, soft, almost melodic.

  He glanced behind him. Even if the saccarii hadn’t had a voice like a kitten being strangled, she was still huddled down behind the cargo, shivering thirty paces away from him. He opened his mouth to ask her if she had heard it.

  But he heard it again first.

  “Is someone there?”

  Again, right beside his ear. Again, he whirled around. His sword was out and in his hand, though he wasn’t quite sure why. There was damn near nothing that could have sneaked up behind him with his back to a plummeting sheer drop.

  “Somethin’ wrong?” Chemoi asked, eyes fixed on his steel.

  “No,” Lenk replied, though the hesitation in his voice suggested otherwise. “No, I thought I just heard something is all.”

  “Ah, there you are.”

  Lenk swallowed hard, resisted the urge to whirl around again. His body tensed as the voice from nowhere chimed into his ear.

  “Has someone at last come to grant a reprieve from my long vigil?” It did not speak. “Or are you merely a reprieve from boredom?” It chimed. “I will not turn either away, mind.”