D'Arc

by Robert Repino

  “There’s no evidence,” Fram said. “We’re taking the word of these bats and these . . . strangers.”

  “Step forward,” Mort(e) said louder, “and I’ll try to talk these bats into letting you live.”

  Two beavers elbowed their way through the crowd, a male and a female. The latter stripped her wooden armor and dropped it at her feet. The male looked like some kind of pencil-pusher, smaller than average, leaning on a cane and limping with a shriveled leg.

  “We’re sorry, sir,” the female said.

  “Save it for them,” Mort(e) said. He pointed to the bats. “Can they live?”

  The bats’ ears quivered as they squeaked at one another. Falkirk winced at the sound. When they finished, Gaunt answered with three quick screeches followed by a series of clicks. “Something about the caves,” Mort(e) translated. The bats didn’t really have verbs—only nouns and a random adjective. “They’re going to clean the caves? Some kind of hard labor?”

  Gaunt clicked once. It meant yes.

  “Wait a minute!” Castor said, pointing at Falkirk. “This dog here represents the law. These prisoners are protected by the Hosanna Charter. Even out here.”

  The attention shifted to Falkirk. The husky must have realized how ridiculous he looked, all covered in silk. He wiped the web from his fur and prepared to speak for Hosanna. “It’s true,” he said. “The accused can demand a trial in the city.”

  Mort(e) bit his lip. These goddamn bureaucrats, he thought. Collaborators with the humans. Mort(e) figured he would have to pistol-whip Falkirk in the snout if the dog tried to follow through. Just walk right up to him with a smile and cave in his skull.

  “They should have a trial!” someone shouted.

  “The right to trial applies only if the accused denies the crime,” Falkirk said. “These people have confessed.”

  Around him, the crowd murmured.

  “The matriarch didn’t confess!” Fram said.

  The people grew silent as they awaited Falkirk’s answer. “It sounded like a yes to me.”

  “Castor, do something!”

  His eyes on the bats, Castor stepped in front of the two confessors and aimed his rifle at Gaunt. The other Watchers raised their weapons.

  “Castor,” Sheba said. “Don’t.”

  “We don’t recognize this bat council,” Fram said.

  Falkirk walked over to Castor. “You’re the leader now. If you want to save the town, you have to let them take her. Please.”

  Castor lowered his rifle. Nikaya let out a muzzled scream.

  A gunshot. The window next to Gaunt’s head shattered. Fram took aim again, but a bat descended on him. People dove out of the way as the bat gripped the beaver by the fur, flapped her wings, and tossed him like a doll. Fram landed on his side and rolled over several times before coming to rest at the curb. People shouted. Another random shot ricocheted off the cement. The bats dropped from their perches, a waterfall of leather, fur, and teeth. Thup-thup-thup-thup-thup. The people on the ground shielded their faces from the swirling debris. The cloud became like a living thing. An appendage made up of several bats reached from the swarm and snatched the female Watcher. Then another unnatural arm, like a striking snake, swiped the male beaver. His cane clattered to the ground. Mort(e) grabbed Sheba’s hand and pulled her along. When they reached the end of the block, Mort(e) saw the tornado of wings lifting away from the town. A few of the Watchers took potshots at the bats as they flew away. While the civilians cowered, waiting for the wind to die out, Castor stood still, the loneliest person there. Mort(e) recognized the expression on the beaver’s face—the same dull stare that members of the Red Sphinx wore after losing one of their own, all regret and longing and muffled rage.

  ···

  By the time Mort(e) and Sheba reached the trail leading out of the valley, the beavers had broken into song again, more cheerful than expected. Maybe they had come to their senses, and realized that they gained more than they lost on this day. From here, they would rebuild. The water flows.

  Mort(e) took the lead on the trail. Sheba tripped several times because she couldn’t stop glancing at the city. From this distance, the decimated town reminded him of those moments on the island of Golgotha, when Sheba, still a mere dog, rested her head in his lap while the fires burned on the beach. Though Mort(e) could speak, he could never convey to Sheba how he felt in those moments. This time would be different. They did this together. They would retell the story years later, finishing each other’s sentences, bickering over forgotten names and other details. They would have the same dreams.

  Before they could proceed into the forest, Mort(e) spotted a lone figure racing along the trail, moving faster than any beaver. The husky. He waved at them.

  “Make this quick,” Mort(e) said. “We’d like to go home.”

  “You can’t. We need you.”

  “We did what you asked. We killed a mother and her babies for you.”

  Falkirk looked to Sheba for help. “You must have told him everything.”

  “I did.”

  “So you know what’s at stake. There are other creatures out there like this one.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” Mort(e) said. “Come on, Sheba. I told you these lapdogs don’t listen.”

  Sheba hesitated longer than Mort(e) would have liked. Eyeing the husky, she finally pivoted away from him and followed Mort(e).

  “We need people who have seen these anomalies up close,” Falkirk said.

  Mort(e) heard Sheba stop. He had to stop, too. “Listen, husky,” Mort(e) said. “We’re not risking our lives for your human masters.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “That’s what all the slaves say.”

  “Have some respect, soldier. I’m not a slave. I fought in the war, just like you.”

  “No. Not like me.”

  He turned to Sheba. He had not seen her this sad in a long time, not since they first began euthanizing the Alphas. Mort(e) didn’t want the husky to hear him begging her to come with him. Instead, he looked into her eyes and hoped she would understand.

  “A few weeks,” Falkirk said. “That’s all I’m asking.”

  Sheba nodded to Mort(e). She would return to the ranch.

  “You’re asking too much,” Mort(e) said, walking away.

  The finality of it left the husky standing there on the trail, his eyes reflecting the fading light. Soon, the dog became indistinguishable from the surrounding forest.

  Deep in the forest, Mort(e)’s pupils dilated to pull in the faint light of a crescent moon. Behind him, Sheba shuffled along, breaking twigs, grunting as they climbed over boulders and felled logs.

  Mort(e) already missed the ants, maybe because he knew Sheba missed them even more. The Alphas would be the only children they would ever raise and send off into the world. Now they were free, like he was. Freedom would always be preferable to order, peace, even love. Those things meant nothing unless you chose them.

  If there were more monsters out there, ones that could read his mind, then the only possible direction was west, away from the doomed settlements that fell in line with Hosanna. With or without the ants, Mort(e) and Sheba would one day find humans at their door, flanked by their loyal animal subjects. Useful idiots. There was no telling how Sheba would react to a smooth-talking human, making promises he couldn’t keep. So many others, even those who fought in the war with no name, believed that the humans would save them, like angels descending to the earth. They scared Mort(e) more than any mutant spider ever could.

  The darkness broke at the perfect time, just as they climbed the last ridge before arriving at the ranch. Through the thick foliage, Mort(e) caught occasional glimpses of the brand new charcoal-colored roof. They were almost home.

  Mort(e) noticed that he heard only his own footsteps. He spun in a full circle and sa
w nothing but trees. Sheba had fallen behind. When he backtracked, he found her on the trail, kneeling, rummaging through her pack.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She closed the bag.

  “Sheba—”

  “I’m going back,” she said. “I’m going to Hosanna with Falkirk.”

  Mort(e)’s throat constricted. His legs went numb and heavy, as they often did in a nightmare. The mention of the husky’s name cleared the haze in his mind. A rage began to build in his gut, like tar boiling over. He waited for her to blink, to sniffle, to wag a tail—anything to show that she didn’t mean what she said.

  “Sheba, listen to me. Falkirk might be a good person. But he works for the humans. They know—they know—that the only way they can get to us is if they pull us apart.”

  Sheba weaved her arms through the straps on the backpack and tightened the buckles. “It’ll only be for a few weeks.”

  “That’s how it’ll start. But they won’t let you leave.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “You lied to me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You told me you were going to hand over Nikaya to the bats. You didn’t say you were going to level the entire town. Was that the bats’ idea, or yours?”

  When he didn’t respond right away, she knew the answer.

  “Tell me why you kept that from me,” she said. When he turned away, she followed his gaze. “Do it.”

  She had caught him. He couldn’t lie. “Because you would have told me not to,” he said.

  “So that’s it. You get to make the decisions for the both of us and I don’t even get a say.”

  “Sheba—”

  “I’m not Sheba.” She motioned in the direction of Lodge City. “Sheba’s down there, caught in the web. I’m taking a new name, like you did. My name is D’Arc.”

  “Dark? D, A, R, K?”

  “No, D, apostrophe, A, R, C.”

  Mort(e)’s mouth hung open.

  “Like Jeanne D’Arc,” she said. “Joan of Arc. Remember when I read about her? We talked about her once on a Fifth Night.”

  “The C is silent,” Mort(e) said. “That’s how they pronounce it in French. So it’s really dar. Technically.”

  She stared at him. “Do you want that to be the last thing you say to me before I go?”

  Fuck, he thought.

  She embraced him, and let him rub the underside of his jaw on her neck and shoulders. “Keep the light on at the cabin,” she said.

  They let go. Mort(e)’s stubby fingers ran through her coat. He resisted the urge to latch on. When she stepped out of reach, the pink skin on his palms went cold.

  “Wait—”

  “No. I’m going. I’m sorry, I have to do this. Right now.”

  “I love you,” he blurted out.

  “I love you, Old Man. I’ll come back.”

  Mort(e) stood there, stiffly, watching her disappear as the trail curved into the forest. Long after he had lost her in the trees, Mort(e) remained locked in place. For a second, he saw himself as the pet cat in his masters’ house, experiencing the world in flickers, wondering if this was all there was and all there would ever be.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Shallows

  The scouts returned with Nong-wa’s corpse in tow, the mangled body spewing blood in a thick stream behind her. Three of her tentacles flapped in the current. The fourth hung severed, its wound seeping fluid. On the ocean floor, surrounded by his mates, Taalik waited to receive the funeral party. They placed the body before him. Taalik patted her head with his claw. The empty eye socket was raw and torn, the veins fluttering. The open wound became like a chasm yawning around him, its blackness spreading, snuffing out the light. The mates made a clicking sound, their song of mourning, like rocks hitting the seabed.

  Taalik could smell Orak’s presence. Her bitterness over this death tinged the water. It was Orak’s idea to send Nong-wa on a mission, a food run into the deep waters. Taalik usually hesitated to send one of his mates. When he prayed to the Queen for guidance, she fell silent. Having no alternative, he reluctantly agreed. And now this.

  Hovering over Nong-wa’s broken body, the Shoots told the story of what happened. It played out exactly as Taalik expected. The sharks set a trap for them. Nong-wa sacrificed herself so the scouts could escape. She killed one shark and fought off another before sustaining a mortal wound, a weeping gash to her midsection. She even scolded the scouts for dragging her away. Unable to move, she continued to click at them until her gills went stiff.

  When the song of mourning faded, Taalik told the scouts to bring Nong-wa to the infirmary—a deep crater where the wounded recuperated after the last encounter with the sharks. Take her to the sick, he said. Let her strength become theirs.

  The scouts towed the body away. Taalik’s claw held her face until the last possible moment, when she slipped from his grasp, her blood clouding his vision.

  Taalik lost count of how many times the darkness had passed over the water since the Sarcops arrived at this place. They settled here long enough for more explorers to go out and never return. Long enough for their numbers to dwindle, for a few egg crops to produce stillborn younglings, and for Orak to tell him more than once that she was afraid. She later retracted that statement, saying that she could not tell the difference between fear and anger. Maybe for me there is no difference, she said.

  After the encounter with the floating island, Taalik led the convoy to the colder waters, where they weaved through mountains of ice until a glacier blocked the way. They stopped and marveled at it—a bluish white structure, expanding endlessly in every direction, from the surface to the black deep. The ice lived, they said. It fissured and fizzed, releasing air pockets and thundering with cracks.

  Taalik chose a direction, and his people followed, staying close to the ice, trying to blend in. After several days, the water shallowed, and the glacier gave way to an inlet, like a giant claw opening, welcoming them in. The water was clear thanks to the runoff from the melting ice, and the shallowness of it allowed the sunlight to reach the ocean floor. Taalik would have to get used to the brightness. Craters puckered the terrain, and as the Sarcops passed over them, a family of crabs scurried into their holes. A few of the Redmouths tried to dig them out, but Taalik told them to wait. Those crabs would have eggs, he told them. They could harvest the eggs for food. It was not ideal, but it would do for now.

  And it did for a time. Many of their kind knew only famine and desperation. Here, they had a home. The Sarcops replenished their numbers, and soon sent expeditions to find new sources of food.

  When the sharks found the Sarcops, having tracked them for many leagues, it took three days to fight them off. In that time, Taalik saw the folly of staying in this place. The inlet provided refuge only to fatten them up and serve them to the enemy. If only they could reason with the attackers, and convince them that their true adversary waited above the surface.

  Taalik and Orak led a counteroffensive, hoping to surprise the sharks. But when they left the safety of the inlet and entered the open water, Taalik’s mouth gaped at the sight—enemy fish, everywhere, forming a virtual glacier of their own. Every living creature with teeth must have followed the Sarcops here to finish them off, to wipe out the Queen’s abomination. These fish were not even intelligent. Instinct and fear drove them to band together, to hunt, to murder. Once the Sarcops were all dead, the sharks would most likely disperse as though nothing had happened.

  Taalik ordered a retreat. The Sarcops would never again enjoy the element of surprise. They had nowhere to go.

  Desperate, Taalik swam to the other end of the inlet. When he reached the edge of the water, he surfaced, hoping to find that the ice surrounding the i
nlet was merely a wall, perhaps even surmountable. But upon climbing to the top, he discovered that the gray sheet extended all the way to the horizon, with an equally gray sky hanging over it. If they could survive another season, maybe enough of them could adapt and be able to leave the water. But the Queen had not yet bestowed this gift upon them.

  When Taalik rejoined the Juggernauts, he issued standard orders to keep watch. As time passed, the scent of the invaders permeated the inlet, reminding the Sarcops of their impending defeat. Aware that a frontal assault would not be necessary, the enemy preferred to pick them off a few at a time. Some nights, the sharks would let the smell of Sarcops blood hang by the entrance, so that anyone who dared to peer into the deep would breathe in a dead comrade. Taalik continued his ritual mating, despite the odor of the savages clinging to everything. Not even the fluids from his coupling could mask it. This cruelty they exhibited, this pleasure in inflicting suffering, was a new adaptation. So many of the sharks—the older ones—bore the scars from human implements, the hooks and spears, nets and propellers. Even in this frozen place at the edge of the world, the evil of humanity poisoned the water.

  A few of the Juggernauts talked about making a run for it. With a surprise offensive, they could puncture the blockade and make it into open waters. Many would die, and the First of Us would be placed at great risk, but it was better than waiting to go extinct. It meant leaving behind the weaker ones, as well as the eggs. Taalik stalled them, saying that they still had food, whereas the attackers needed to forage in the outlying areas. Meanwhile, three egg clutches in a row produced new Juggernauts. They had time. How much, he could not say.

  On the day Nong-wa died, Taalik retreated to a crater far from the entrance to the inlet. Right on cue, as the light disappeared in the west, Riyya, his ninth mate, visited him. She smelled of salt and ammonia—a welcome change from the previous night, when Asha arrived with the enemy’s blood still venting through her gills. Riyya said nothing, preferring instead to coil around Taalik until he felt ready to join with her. When they finished, he told Riyya to find Orak.