An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  she said.

  “Shkarag, I can’t under—”

  Her daze was swept away as if by a sudden flood, and it was all he could do to brace himself as she bared her fangs and lashed out. She bowled him over, taking him into the bank of the spring with a splash.

  “Wait!” he cried, as she pinned him to the ground, rearing back enough for him to see her wild-eyed and fangs flared to strike. “Shkarag! It’s me, Tir—”

  She seized the opportunity, and, one claw snaking into his waterlogged hair to take purchase on his scalp, she came in for the kill.

  Tirdad could have fought back. Overpowering her was out of the question, but he did have a dagger on his thigh. He wouldn’t even entertain the option. If she wanted him dead, so be it. He accepted his fate.

  So it came as a shock when, instead of sinking her teeth into his face, she kissed him with all the abandon of her bloodline.

  She was ravenous. Greedy, sloppy, tongue roving as if she needed to taste all of him at once, and leaving an aftertaste of rotten eggs wherever it went. Her nails bit at his scalp; she tugged at his hair so roughly he thought she’d yank it free.

  Briefly, he was too taken aback to return her fervour. Her kiss had stolen his tongue twofold. Had roused teeth and gums, tugged and split his lips, smeared his cheek and chin with saliva and blood. Her sawing breaths urged him to do the same.

  Tirdad began to consider how to react when he recalled the image of her limping away, spear thumping, and bringing a clear end to her wine analogy. Don’t think.

  He sat up. Doing his best to match her enthusiasm, he found her fangs where they were tucked away near the roof of her mouth, indulging a newly-discovered desire to tease the points with his tongue, which drew an approving hiss. It petered out between their lips, escaped in earnest, and vibrated in her throat following their charged give and take.

  She locked her legs around his waist; he secured hers with one arm, using his other hand to scrape at the scales and scars of her head same as she always did. That drew another hiss, though this one was cut short.

  She went limp, and would have fallen back to crack her head against the stone if he hadn’t caught her. Tirdad eased her the rest of the way down, following with his ear to her lips to listen for breathing.

  When a breath roused more than just his ear, he blew out a sigh, and pulled away. She lay there as if she were all but unstrung, head lolling once again.

  Tirdad stared at her. Where the din of excitement had once drowned it out, thinking hurried back in.

  “What in the seven climes just happened?” he asked himself. He smacked his lips, and passing concern darkened his features. He could still taste her.

  Tirdad was not a dense man, but he had been through a lot of late. He couldn’t have been honest with himself, not entirely. And she was even more of a puzzle than she had been before their parting. Reading her meant considering both her nature as a div and her illness—not making the mistake of misinterpreting her eccentricities. She’d seen to clearing all that up for him.

  So he sat there with her legs over his, and gave her the time she needed. Staring at the half-div and still more than a little nonplussed, he couldn’t help but laugh.

  One thing he knew for certain: eggs would never taste the same again.

  X

  When Shkarag did come to, she carried on as if nothing had happened. This made Tirdad doubt the integrity of her actions made while under the influence, and in turn crushed his confidence. Not to mention making him feel guilty for indulging her. So, striving to respect her illness, and more than a little embarrassed, he made no mention of it. There was something that needed addressing, though.

  “Shkarag.”

  She looked up from rummaging through her pack. “. . .”

  Looking at her felt strange now. Like that cyclone had returned to once again rearrange her scenery. He’d been with women of pleasure many times, especially after throwing his lot in with Chobin. Where there were soldiers, whores weren’t far behind.

  This was different. It wasn’t as if he’d fucked her there in that spring, but it was enough to force his feelings to surface. She’d wrung it out of him with that display. Shkarag was more than a friend. By Ohrmazd, he loved a fucking div!

  During his introspection, she’d returned her attention to her pack.

  “Shkarag.”

  “. . .” She looked up a second time, eyes narrowed yet inquisitive.

  “Why’d you do that?” he asked.

  She cocked her head.

  “You were on the drug again.”

  Her eyes darted here and there. She pursed her lips. “Brings in the clouds, and you’re, you’re under cover. The—” Shkarag successfully made a claw by her head this time. “The noise goes silent. Background runs off. You forget.”

  Tirdad nodded. He’d always understood the allure. The desire for escape was an easy enough concept to grasp. “But why now?”

  She reached back to pluck an egg from her pouch—evidently having renewed her supply overnight—and crunched into it as if in deliberation. As she did, she aimed an inscrutable stare at him, flitting only marginally. “Needed it,” she said at length, popping the rest of the shell into her mouth and swallowing it.

  “Is there some way I can convince you to stop? Or something you can replace it with?”

  “. . .”

  “Shkarag?”

  “Why?”

  Tirdad matched her stare, and mulled over a response as he did. The last time she posed such a question, he hadn’t handled it well. Less thinking, he told himself.

  “I care about your wellbeing, Shkarag. You resort to drugs again and no path you take is going to end well.”

  At that, she broke eye contact. “Everything is . . .” She trailed off, raking her nails over her scalp as she did. “And . . .” Her scrutiny flashed over him and back to her pack. “Bothers you?” she asked. “Something fierce? Like some, like some worrywart of a wife, some šo-wistful mistress stationed on a promontory, peering and thinking, ‘If he never returns, all I’ve left of him is his smell.’ And she’s got, she’s got his old trousers bunched in her fists, taking whiffs, really flaring her nostrils, and never washing them.” She canted, raking as she did. “The trousers.”

  Tirdad couldn’t help but crack a grin at her rambling.

  She canted further, leering out of the corner of her eye. “For you,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “For me?”

  “For—” She bared her fangs, voice sharpened to a point. “You asked like some, stuck your nose in there and—”

  “Thank you,” he cut in. “If you need anything, absolutely anything, you come to me first.”

  Her cant deepened; with it, her expression softened. “Maybe,” she muttered. She retrieved a second egg, pale yellow like sun-bleached stone. She offered it to him.

  Tirdad accepted, wearing a smile he hoped she noticed. With a crack, he spared no effort in putting on a show of enjoying it, even as its repulsive contents oozed down his throat, all slime and underdeveloped feathers.

  “It’s kind of you to share,” he said, which inspired an enigmatic look that strained her features.

  “It’s . . .” Shkarag sucked in a hefty lungful of air, and swept her darting scrutiny over the spring and down the steps that led up to it. “Always feels like, like everything is . . .” She exhaled, slow and steady. “Even you. All out to get me. Conspiring. But . . .” Her wandering scrutiny stopped where the stairs disappeared.

  He followed her lead, inspecting the same spot from afar. That she was suspicious of others came as no surprise. Her actions often suggested as much, though he wished he didn’t number among them.

  An extended silence intervened before she pressed on. “But . . . I argue, and have rows. Tell myself you’d only ever skewer my chest. Never my back. Try to remember the šo-crunching yazata.” She set her head askew. “I think.”

  It was strange. More than anything else, Tirdad felt accomplished
. There were satellite feelings that orbited, revolved in their own way, but a sense of accomplishment was chief among them. “You’re right to trust me,” he said.

  “Maybe.” She craned up at him. “You’re out of practice.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed, or didn’t.

  “I’ll give you a beating.”

  • • • • •

  Later that night, she approached him, spear thumping on earth, to draw to a halt by his side. He glanced up from the table where he and Chobin were in the middle of a game of nard. Removed from the citadel, secluded by the orchard, and lit by a single brazier, it was a much-needed respite for the marzban.

  “It’s time,” she said, canting.

  He creased his brow. “Time?”

  “. . .”

  “Shkarag?”

  Her gaze darted over the board dozens of times as if she were playing the game in her head. Eventually, it ceased. Having won her imaginary match, she said, “You’re out of practice.”

  Tirdad took a pull of wine, and turned his confusion on Chobin, whose only reply was a shrug. “What’re you getting at, Shkarag? I’ve been playing nard with Chobin regularly.”

  “Not that.” She pulled out the axe he’d given her, training a deadpan expression on him, and tilted it such that the bit glowed in the firelight.

  “Oh,” he said. “You want to train?”

  “You’re out of practice,” she repeated. “Don’t want your—” She gave the axe another tilt so that the glow played at its golden inlays. “Don’t want you to lose your head.”

  Well, she wasn’t wrong. Tirdad looked to Chobin again, who offered another shrug.

  “Wouldn’t mind watching you two go at it,” said the marzban, flashing a toothsome grin. “Plenty of time for nard. And she’s right. Said it yourself, you’re out of practice.”

  Tirdad returned his attention to Shkarag. “Here?”

  She turned a circle to soak in her surroundings. “Maybe.”

  “Not very well lit.”

  “Not always going to be,” Chobin countered.

  “Yeah.” Tirdad stood and dusted off his plum-coloured tunic, thinking belatedly that it’d be worse off after sparring. He went for his sword, and the pommel encouraged him to set it free, but he stopped short. That wouldn’t do. “Mind if I use your sword?” he asked Chobin.

  The marzban gave him a bewildered half-smile before eyeing the ram’s head pommel, which was enough to remind him.

  “Oh.” He unsheathed his sword, which was identical to Tirdad’s in style, and flipped it over to offer the hilt. “All yours.”

  The planet-reckoner accepted, then faced Shkarag where she’d limped further into the clearing. All things considered, it was a pleasant enough location to practice.

  The orchard afforded privacy, but not so much as to obscure the moonlight-rimmed parapets that overlooked its grounds, or the ridge that loomed black against the heavens, only highlighted here and there where light graced rock at the right angle.

  Shkarag dropped a ewer, and began draining the one in her other hand.

  “Fucking skink-slicker took our wine.”

  “She’ll need it,” replied Tirdad. “She doesn’t want to kill us.” He threw a grin of his own at the marzban. “Well, me.”

  “Hah!” Chobin slapped the table, which threw nard pieces in the air and ruined their game. He had been winning, so Tirdad made no complaint. “Let her try!”

  To his side, the sound of Shkarag’s spear dropping beckoned him over. “. . .”

  Tirdad took the hint and strolled opposite where she stood, the dim light of the brazier gilding her in exaggerated contours, with the northwestern reaches of Ray a sprawling backdrop—busy with roofs, domes, and the suggestion of brightly-coloured accents. She wore a cant, axes in hand.

  “Well,” he asked, “should we take a moment to warm up?”

  Shkarag canted further. She listed slightly, which made the abruptness with which she set into motion all the more jarring.

  Shkarag casually tossed her axe as if hefting it, and within the adrenaline-second it hung at the top of its arc, a flick of her boot lifted her spear into the air, which she snagged and flung at him in one swift motion.

  Tirdad side-stepped the spear, but it hit the ground early, never meant to endanger him to begin with. It did, however, put him immediately on his heels. Having recovered her axe the instant the spear was airborne, Shkarag dashed in behind. She spun like mad, blades glinting as she did to render a ring of orange in their wake.

  Tirdad shuffled out of range, which kept him on his heels, and realized too late that was exactly what she wanted. She leapt—axes high, fangs bared, and eyes alight. He responded in kind, setting his jaw and punishing her leap with a shoulder slam that connected square with her cuirass. Only as she fell back did he realize why he’d done it.

  Brazen as her leap was, the opening had been obvious, but he only risked a counter where most would not because it came to him that it was an opening her sister would have plugged—and he was right. She still fought as if she weren’t alone.

  She crashed with a hiss and the rattle of metal.

  “Hah!” Chobin bellowed from behind, laughing from his gut.

  Tirdad leveled sword and smile on Shkarag. She was gasping for the wind that’d been knocked out of her. “I’m not so out of practice am—”

  An axe flew end over end by his ear.

  “What the everliving fuck?” shouted Chobin into his other ear.

  Between the axe and the marzban, Tirdad was distracted enough for her to bat aside his blade and spring up behind it. Shkarag drove the haft of her axe into his ribcage, and her weight behind it.

  His ribs flared where she ground into them with force enough to have him backpedalling. He cried out, braced his forearm on her neck, and—was rammed into the trunk of a pomegranate tree. A flash of white swamped his vision, ribs all the more livid.

  When it passed, he found her waiting a few steps back, cuirass rising and falling, an uneven smile trained on him as if to challenge him to try again.

  “Fucker chucked her axe at your head,” said Chobin. “Could’ve killed you.”

  “Yeah,” said Tirdad. He returned her smile in kind, and brandished his blade. What a thrill! This was nothing like their duel, and he was more excited for an honest bout than he’d thought.

  Following her example, he burst into action. A step-thrust at her chest incited the expected parry, so—a blade stopped a hair’s breadth from his neck. She’d recovered her second axe during his disorientation.

  “You’re out of practice,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Didn’t see you’d retrieved your axe.”

  “Enemy won’t stop and regale you like some, like some—” Her eyes darted away, and he could now hear the sawing in her chest over the popping of the brazier. She’d distracted herself. Tirdad capitalized by bobbing under and past her axe, meaning to bring his sword across her abdomen, but she wasn’t quite as distracted as he thought.

  Instead, it whined over the inlay where she parried as he passed, and threw her other axe in a backhand that naturally transitioned into one of her whirls. This time, she didn’t let up. It was all he could do to pivot on his heel and intercept her axes as they shrieked along his blade in quick succession. Shriek, shriek, shriek, reverse; shriek, shriek, shriek, reverse.

  It wasn’t just that, though. She rose and fell, winding and unwinding so that he had to change the angle of his block with every whirl. After the fifth round of shrieks, she shifted to a style he was more accustomed to dealing with—perhaps in seeing that he was only defending, or as part of her normally unpredictable style. Whatever the case, he preferred it.

  She spun an axe in one hand and brought it in an overhand chop that he intercepted, only for her to bring her other axe up and around, clapping against his blade and trapping it by the bit.

  Shkarag followed with her now-freed overhand axe for another strike, which he denied by unsheathing
his short sword with his off-hand, catching the axe in its downward stroke, and retaliating with one of his own. She responded in kind, and with that they found their rhythm.

  They fell into a routine for hours, Shkarag sometimes throwing him off by inserting a random technique or whirl, but always returning to the more traditional method of axe-fighting. At some point Chobin had turned in, but Tirdad was too engrossed to notice. He’d trained for his entire life, but it had never felt like this. Every parry, every strike: they all fell into place as if by instinct. Reflex, not reaction.

  He could tell she was holding back; she could have killed him every other stroke. Shkarag was his better by leaps and bounds, but he was content with that. It made him feel young again, exuberant. Sadly, he wasn’t, which was most apparent in the increasing protests of his body.

  Shkarag must have noticed he was getting sloppy, because she ended it by slipping in under his downward stroke to throw him off his feet and flat on his back. His ribs would not be happy come morning.

  Breathing through his mouth, new tunic soaked with sweat and sticking to his skin, he lay with his arms spread, basking in the afterglow of their duel, adrenaline still coursing through his veins.

  Nearby, there came a thump. The rattle of cuirass. The slink of mail. The rustle of fabric. Tirdad rolled his head in time to catch a glimpse of his sword falling from her grasp. He swallowed. Shkarag lifted a blood-soaked hand from her side, which revealed a stab wound, and smeared the blood over her nose and mouth as if starved for it. She let her hand fall, brushing a broken line of flame-kissed blood over her torso as it did. Her chest rose and fell in great heaves.

  She limped—no, stalked over, wearing only her caftan, which hung loose and undone. As she did, his attention was drawn to that tantalizing streak of blood down her torso, over her heaving chest made all the more alluring by what her caftan hid, along the ridges of her warrior’s abdomen, to the trickle of blood that pooled around the nasty scar where her leg had been severed, to finally roll over and between the sinews writhing in her thigh. The brazier glinted on her lapis lazuli scales, shimmering as she neared like mail in the sun, bronzing her already golden-brown flesh.