Grave of Words (Fall of Under Book 2)

by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

  Evie would have been more concerned if she didn’t know who—or what, rather—the spider had caught. She moved to stand by one of the large burning cauldrons of flame to keep warm. “Anything good, Vjo?”

  The Queen of Words sighed. How a giant spider could sigh, Evie still wasn’t quite sure. But Vjo could speak as a human, even if she didn’t have to wiggle the weird little whatever-they-were on the front of her face. Mandibles? That sounds right.

  Hell if she knew.

  “They are not from Under. Not just whatever compels them to move after their apparent deaths—but whoever they were before they expired.” Vjo shifted, lowering herself to the wriggling body that was mummified in silk. “Their blood is not of Earth.”

  “Weird…so they come from a different world? Is that why everything toppled over?” Evie walked to the body herself and pushed it, sending it swaying back and forth.

  “I expect—and it’s just a theory, as I have little proof—that we have collided with another world and consumed it. With it, came a new moon and these shambling dead.”

  “We called ’em zombies back on Earth.” Evie shrugged. “Tim thinks they’re neat. I think they’re gross. And they’re messing up my yard.”

  “Have you managed to get word to Yej?” Vjo’s many eyes caught the firelight, flickering back like orbs.

  “No. And none from, either. With the storm, the drake riders will have a slower trip. Since, y’know, we can’t seem to teleport like we used to.”

  “It isn’t teleportation, Evie.” Vjo sighed tiredly. “You know that.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She grinned. She liked to give the big spider a hard time. She knew it didn’t really annoy the spider woman—she was long past the point of feeling things like irritation. Vjo was past the point of feeling anything at all, in fact. What a sad way to live. But then again, she’s the one who pities the rest of us losers and our feelings. I guess it does make things easier.

  If she had the option to forget how much she had loved Edu, she wondered if she’d take it. But that was a debate for another time. “What do you think we do? I’m tempted to fly south and see what Lyon and Ini are up to in Yej.”

  “Don’t”—someone wheezed from the shadows—“bother.”

  Turning sharp on her heel, Evie summoned a throwing knife in her hand and whipped it at the person who had spoken.

  The figure ducked their head out of the way just in time. The blade hit the wood with a heavy thunk.

  “Hey!” It was a woman. Dressed all in skintight black clothing. A black metal mask covered half her face. She was leaning against the wall with one palm, her chest heaving. “Shoot the messenger, why don’t you?” She cackled. Or tried to. She groaned and put her hand on her stomach. “Oh, I think I’m gonna puke. I’ve never run that far or that fast through the shadows.”

  “Who are you?” Evie summoned her axe to her hand and glared at the woman in black. “Why has Aon sent you here?”

  “Me? I’m nobody.” The woman flashed a toothy grin from the shadows. “Nobody at all. As to why? Oh, he sent me south first…then to you. Yej is gone.”

  “What?” Vjo and Evie exclaimed at once.

  “Gone! Gone, gone.” The woman cackled. “Zombies ate the city. Nasty ones, too. Looks like you have the same issue up here. City’s dead. And the dead marched on our home.”

  Evie’s jaw ticked. She rubbed her hand over her forehead. “Fuck. Fuck.”

  “Nah. None of that. For once.” The woman snickered. “So, Aon told me to come ’ere and tell you to get moving. Retake the city. Kill all the zombies or die trying. Then go to the Temple of Dreams.”

  “We do not take orders from your master,” Vjo interjected curtly. “Remind him of that when next you see him.”

  The woman tilted her head. “That’s rich. You know you’re going to do what he says.”

  “Why the Temple of Dreams?” Evie asked.

  The stranger shrugged. “That’s where shit’s really gonna go down.”

  “What manner of ‘shit,’ messenger?” Vjo asked from where she was in the rafters. “What has come to pass?”

  “Don’t know for sure. The Master’s magic is all screwed up. Lyon came in blathering about a new Ancient. Didn’t get to see for myself, before the new king burned everything down and I had to schlep equipment south. Me! Carrying equipment.” The woman leaned against the wall, slowly regaining her breath. “Stupid. Rather be stabbing things.”

  “New king?” Vjo lowered herself to the ground. She was some thirty feet in diameter with her legs, so it was a tight fit with all the burning cauldrons. “What do you mean, there is an eighth king?”

  “Oh, yeah.” The woman flashed her deranged, predatory, and cruel smile. “And you’ll never guess who it is!”

  Vjo and Evie went silent.

  The woman frowned. “Come on, guess.”

  “I can really see why Edu wanted to skin your kind alive. Give us the name of the new king.” Evie stepped forward with her axe, getting ready to swing it. “You have until the count of three. One.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. As Evie got closer, she could see that the woman’s eyes were black where they should have been white. “You’re no fun!”

  “Two.” Evie geared up like a batter swinging for the fences.

  The woman planted her hands on her hips. “At least Edu was good for a fuck now and th—”

  “Three.” Evie swung the axe for the woman’s head. Predictably, she disappeared the second before the blade would have hit her. She had vanished into the shadows.

  The mystery woman let out a long and annoyed whine from where she was, invisibly lurking in the darkness. “Fine…at least it’ll get your ass in gear with that army of yours. The name of the new king is one you’ll recognize. Rxa has returned…and he’s mad.”

  In unison, Vjo and Evie groaned.

  And somewhere, a woman laughed in the darkness.

  “Seventy-two bottles of beer on the waaaaaalll….”

  Ember’s eye twitched.

  “Seventy-two bottles of beer!”

  She groaned. Rxa had been at it for hours. Singing—hoarse and coughing as he was—down the numbers from ninety-nine to zero. He had finished to the end and looped around to the beginning again.

  Three times.

  Three gods-damned times.

  “Seventy-one bottles of—”

  “Stop!” She half-screamed the single word. “Stop. Please. For the love of the Grandfather, please stop. I can’t take it anymore.”

  “If you’re going to ignore me and not talk, then I’m going to make my own fun,” Rxa chimed from behind her. They hadn’t stopped for more than a few moments all day. That meant she had spent the majority of it back-to-back with a deranged, unnatural, killer demi-god.

  It was enough to set her teeth on edge without him incessantly singing some idiotic tune.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Then…you sing for a change.” Rxa leaned the back of his head against the back of hers. She cringed. She really wished he would stop doing that. He was several inches taller than she was—when they were standing, she only came up to his shoulder. It meant that when he leaned back on her like she was a rocking chair, he could easily flatten her down almost until the point she was touching Cricket’s neck.

  She had to keep elbowing him in the ribs to make him stop.

  “Come on,” he coaxed. “You have a beautiful voice. I woke up to you singing yesterday. I’d love to hear it again.”

  She frowned and didn’t answer.

  “Please?” The way he said it was soft. Innocent, almost. No—innocent wasn’t the right word. The way he was talking to her was tender and gentle. Not the manic insanity of just a few moments ago. As if it were a ghost taking him over for a split second.

  Is that who you used to be? She had to ask. “Rxa, what happened to you?”

  “I died.” The words were lead bricks thrown over the edge of a well. She felt their impact as if thr
ough dirt.

  “That isn’t all, is it?”

  “No.” He chuckled. The strange edge to his voice came back as quickly as it had gone. “No, it isn’t at all. I died. But I was betrayed. By my friends, by my so-called family. By the gods I professed to love with all my soul. I spent thousands of years in their service. And for what?” He hissed the words out between his teeth. “To be crumpled up and thrown away.”

  “And that’s why you want to kill everyone and everything?”

  “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds stupid.” He leaned his head against her shoulder.

  She sighed. “I understand why you’re upset. I can’t even imagine what dying and coming back from the grave feels like.”

  “It’s painful. Very, very painful. And I know what it means to suffer—I have lived a thousand years on my hands and knees in the burning sands beneath a blistering sun. I have been whipped, flayed, and tortured for the amusement of the Ancients. For the pleasure of their favorite son.” His voice grew low and quiet, a dangerous whisper. “I am done worshipping them. I am done bending for the will of others. Now they will all suffer for my pleasure.”

  “I’m sorry I asked,” she muttered.

  He laughed. “That was a bit dramatic, wasn’t it? Don’t worry, little dove. You aren’t on my list.” He nuzzled the broken cheek of his porcelain mask against her hair.

  She tilted her head away from his as far as she could manage. “You realize that you can’t kill the whole world and everything in it, without killing me too. Right?”

  “You’re mortal. You’ll age and die before I finally snuff everyone out, I expect.” He sniffed dismissively. “Armageddons take time.”

  “Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “But I still don’t get why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why spare me?”

  He paused thoughtfully. “You said it yourself. You aren’t from Under. You had nothing to do with any of this. Why should you suffer?”

  “There are other survivors from Gioll. What about them?”

  “Can’t save everybody. You mortals are so breakable. One slip of the knife, one drop of blood too many, and off you pop.” He snickered. “I think I’ll be busy enough making sure you survive without taking on a pack of scared humans.”

  “But why me? Because you met me first?”

  “Well…no. But sure. Go with that.” He kept chuckling.

  “What do you mean?” She twisted to look at him, which made him pull his head from hers.

  “The real answer you won’t like.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Nope. You’ll get scared. You’ll give me that wide-eyed ‘please don’t murder me’ look. Or you’ll make good on your threat to cut my head off. I don’t want to have my head cut off…that doesn’t sound fun at all.”

  “Tell me, Rxa.”

  “Nope!” He cackled. “Go ahead. Ask me again. I like annoying you.”

  Her eye twitched.

  This was going to be a long day.

  But at least he had stopped singing.

  “Seventy bottles of beer on the wall, seventy bottles of beer!”

  She groaned.

  4

  Grandfather, strike me dead. Please. Kill me. I knew becoming a hunter was going to be difficult, I knew there would be pain. But I never knew there would be torture.

  Rxa had finally—finally—stopped singing somewhere around hour five. But that didn’t mean he had shut up. In fact, the man never stopped talking. “I’m hungry. Can we stop so I can eat something? Or someone?”

  She glowered at him, even if he couldn’t see it. She faced front and reached down to pet Cricket’s mane. “No.”

  “Why not?” he whined. “I’m hungry. Like…really hungry. And if I eat something, maybe your blood will thin out in my system, and then we can have some real fun. Can I eat the horse?”

  “No!”

  “Oooh, that’s the angriest I think I’ve ever heard you. I do love it when you’re mad. Now I’m absolutely going to eat the horse.” He giggled. “I’ve never cracked one of them open before. I wonder if they’re squishy on the inside, since their—”

  She jumped off Cricket, and before the horse had even stopped walking, she yanked the rope that tied Rxa to the beast’s back and undid the knot.

  “Oh, so, we can stop. Fantastic! Just untie my hands and let me dig into the horsie and—gah!”

  She threw him to the ground. He hit the surface hard. Kicking him onto his back, she straddled his chest and sat on him, pinning him down.

  He groaned in pain then chuckled weakly. “Oh…this is nice.”

  Yanking her knife from her belt, she held the blade to his throat. “You leave the horse alone. You don’t talk about him like that. You don’t even think about killing him. If you even suggest it again, I’ll start cutting out your own organs and feeding them to you instead! Do you understand?”

  “I…think I’d be aroused if I could. That part hasn’t grown back yet…”

  She decked him hard across the face. The porcelain surface stung her hand, but she didn’t care. “I said, do you understand?”

  “No eating the horsie. Got it.” He groaned in pain. “But…I am really hungry. Please, can I eat something?”

  She checked the pocket watch that Maverick had given her. It was late. They had ridden for most of the day. “We’ll stop for the night.” She climbed off him and looked to Cricket, who had turned to watch what was happening.

  They had been following a road that ran alongside a small river. It would make a good place to stop and camp. She wondered if they would pass through towns or cities as they went—she hoped not. Cities meant people, and people meant danger.

  But maybe Under was different.

  She doubted it.

  “Get up. We’ll make camp by the river.” She reached down to help him stand. He managed to get up, wavering on his bare feet. But he wasn’t nearly as weak as he was in the morning. Shit. Shit. The poison is wearing off.

  A few sad excuses for ropes wouldn’t be able to hold back a demigod. If Rxa grew strong enough to escape…

  “It feels like my stomach is eating itself,” he complained. “I don’t know if that’s even possible. It really might be.”

  She took him by the elbow and led him off the road closer to the shore of the river. Cricket was already wading into the water to get a drink. And to hunt for dinner, she assumed.

  “I have some bread and cheese in my bag.”

  “That won’t do. I need meat. If you untie me, I’m sure I can find and kill someone—”

  “No.” She shoved him down to the ground close to a tree. He grunted from the impact. She lashed him to the tree.

  With a heavy sigh, he hung his head. “Why do you hate me, Ember? I haven’t done anything to you.”

  Her jaw ticked. “I don’t hate you.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “I know. I don’t want to. But I have to stop you.” She started gathering firewood, careful to keep Rxa in her line of sight. He watched her as she worked. It was eerie, those empty black eyes and the crack in the face that created the lopsided grin. Every time she looked at him, with his bloodstained rags and unkempt blond hair hanging around the porcelain in strings, she felt like he was out of some kind of sick nightmare.

  That he couldn’t possibly be real.

  “You know…” He tilted his head to turn his attention toward Cricket, who was standing still in the river, his head lowered, hunting fish. “If you chopped off one of the horse’s legs, it would grow back, and I could eat it.” It was such an innocent, harmless suggestion.

  “No.” She knelt by the fire and dug through her bag to find her flint and striker.

  “Tell me something. When you were Lyon’s guest. Or Aon’s. Did you eat any meat?”

  “Yes.” She began striking the flint, sending sparks into the kindling and dry grass she was using as a fire starter.

  “Where do you think it came from?”
/>   “Animals.”

  “No different than the fish your little friend is catching for us. Do you know there was a time—a very long time, in fact—when there were no little critters or harmless monsters for us to eat? That our only choice was to eat our beast-kin like your horsie? And we would. And they would eat us. And we would heal. That is the curse of Under.”

  “I have no problem with killing animals to eat. You didn’t ask me that.” She shot him a glance. The fire caught, and she blew on the straw to encourage it to burn faster. “You asked me if I’d feed you. The answer is no.”

  “So, you do hate me.”

  “No. I don’t.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Then why won’t you feed me? Why are you hurting me?”

  “Because if I feed you, you’ll grow stronger.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Exactly.” She sat back on her heels and turned her full attention to him. She stared at him flatly.

  “Oh.” His shoulders slumped. “You want to keep me like this…”

  “Of course I do. I’m trying to stop you, Rxa. If you regain your strength, you’ll get free, and you’ll unleash the drengil again.”

  “I already unleashed them.” He shrugged, his tone innocent. “I couldn’t very well just let them all stand around like idiots. They’ll rot away and be useless bones if I wait too long. So, they’re off doing their thing.”

  She cringed. “If I were to cut off your head?”

  “They’d keep eating. They follow my last order.”

  Picking up a stick, she poked at the fire. “How is it you’re controlling them?”

  “I feel them.” He leaned his head back against the tree. “Like parts of myself. Little fragments in my mind—there’s…oh, maybe just over a million of them? I lost a few. Gained a few. You know how it is.”

  “No wonder you’re insane.”

  “I’m not in—” He stopped. “Yeah, okay. I am.” He snorted in laughter then let out a long sigh. “But that’s not why. I’m used to being fragmented. Feeling like I’m the hive, and all my little pieces are the bees. This is actually worse, being trapped in one body, with all their little parts crawling around inside my mind.”