The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  ‘Get clear, all of you, get clear!’ Vostok lowered her head again, and this time Noon stood in her saddle, a halo of green fire already burning around her. ‘Noon, concentrate your witch-fire on its wound.’

  Both dragon and fell-witch released their flames. The blast was so bright Tor had to shield his eyes, but still he looked, watching as the maggot’s skin bulged and blistered. The place where they had torn it seethed and boiled, and then its insides were pouring out, splashing onto the beach in a hot torrent. The maggot itself visibly seemed to shrivel, something inside it irreparably broken. The twin fires ceased, leaving a thick pall of evil-smelling yellow smoke, and one very dead giant maggot.

  ‘We did it.’ Tor found himself grinning, and he pressed his fingers to Kirune’s fur, expecting to share with him a feeling of triumph – but the big cat dipped his head, breaking the contact.

  ‘I think we’ve annoyed it enough. Look!’ Tor turned to see where Bern was pointing. The Behemoth, now flying more crookedly than ever, was turning away from the coast and surging away, gradually picking up speed. There were more holes in it than Tor remembered, and several darkened patches from Noon’s and Vostok’s fire. That had to be good. That had to be worth it.

  ‘We chased it off,’ he said aloud, but no one answered. The settlement, he realised, was little more than a mixture of shattered houses and green varnish. The bits of it that were still standing were merrily on fire, while a handful of survivors stood down by the shoreline, their arms around each other. Jessen and Aldasair were down there, releasing their passengers to the stunned-looking crowd. Tor realised he could hear a child crying.

  ‘That’s got to be worth something, hasn’t it?’

  4

  ‘Vostok is angry.’

  It hardly needed to be said. The dragon had stalked off some hours ago, disappearing into the patch of Wild-wood at the edge of the bleak clearing, but Noon could still feel her rage near her heart, like a banked fire, and she thought the others should know it as clearly as she did. They were resting on their journey back from the distant settlement, and all of them – man and war-beast alike – were avoiding her eyes.

  Tor sighed from the other side of their campfire. ‘We are not what we should be yet. Of course we’re not.’ Kirune lay some distance behind him, a dark-grey shape with his head turned away from the humans. He snorted at Tor’s words, which Tor ignored. ‘With the best will in the world, Noon, she can’t expect us to be. So our first skirmish with the Jure’lia didn’t cover us in glory. Are we any of us surprised?’

  ‘Glory? Most of the people there died.’ Noon bit her lip. It was hard to separate her own anger from the dragon’s. ‘Their settlement is a ruin. We fucked up. We fucked up, and people died.’

  Tor’s face on the far side of the fire was bathed in orange light, turning the purple scars on the left side of his face grey. His expression was grim.

  ‘This is war,’ he said. ‘You can expect to see much more of it.’

  ‘The glory days of Ebora are long behind us.’ This was Aldasair, his soft voice seeming to float over them in the growing dark. Next to him, the giant wolf Jessen was little more than a mound of darkness, her orange eyes hanging like lamps in the gloom. ‘Our armies, with their shining armour and singing swords are rust and dusty bones. We are like . . . an echo of something that came before.’

  Next to him, Bern looked concerned, and Noon thought he had good reason to be. Aldasair had been nearly silent since the fight, and now he sounded ghostly and lost. Bern pulled the kettle from the fire and filled a tin cup, which he passed to the Eboran.

  ‘It’s been a long day. Here, drink something hot.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The Finneral know those people, a little. We’ve traded with them, sailing our ships up into that chilly little bay. They have these enormous crabs, you see, and the meat is so fatty and rich it can keep you going for days and days, and they weave this material from the seaweed, sea-leather they call it, tough as your arse it is. We take them our metal and our whale skins and there’s a fine old trade, although I imagine . . .’ He coughed into his hand. ‘I imagine there will be less of all that, for a time.’ Beyond the ring of their fire light, the griffin Sharrik had stretched out on the stubbly grass, his thickly furred stomach exposed to the air. The silence was broken by his snoring.

  ‘War is one thing. I know it’s going to get much worse.’ Noon reached out for Vostok and felt her growing closer, an angry white presence. ‘But we are . . . we are all wrong. We need to try harder.’

  ‘And you’re an expert on it now, are you?’ Tor took the kettle and filled his own cup. ‘A witch from the plains who has spent most of her life imprisoned in the Winnowry wants to tell me about how Eboran war-beasts should fight?’

  His tone was light, attempting to make a joke of it, but she felt the steel underneath the words. Here she was, stamping all over his birthright after all, and straightaway she felt her own anger growing.

  ‘I know more about being a weapon than you ever will.’

  ‘And you would do well to listen to her, son of Ebora.’ Vostok emerged from the trees, moving quietly despite her size. As always, Noon felt her heart lift at the sight of the dragon; even in the night gloom she was extraordinary, her shining scales picking up the orange glow of the fire and igniting a thousand tiny suns. ‘Our problems are numerous and complex, and we have little enough time to deal with them.’

  Tor looked away from the dragon. Noon knew he would avoid contradicting her directly – he was still half in awe of the first war-beast to be born in hundreds of years, and more than once she had caught him gazing at Vostok with something like longing.

  ‘We destroyed the maggot, killed dozens of drones, and drove off the Behemoth.’ He took a sip from his tin cup, and grimaced. ‘By the roots, what is this swill, Bern? Anyway,’ he shook his head, ‘I am calling it a victory, either way. There are people on that coast who are alive now because of us, and not trapped in varnish or stumbling around with their insides missing.’

  ‘You drove off a Behemoth that was already weakened.’ Vostok came over to the fire and pressed her long head briefly against Noon’s shoulder. ‘Lying for centuries in ruins has left them broken – they haven’t had their usual period of recovery, and we are presented with a unique opportunity. Of course, we’re also in the unique situation of fighting with possibly the worst war-beasts Ebora has ever seen.’

  At that, Kirune was suddenly upright, hissing through his bared fangs. Even Sharrik raised his head from the ground, feathers bristling.

  ‘Listen to me. We must fight as one. We must move and attack as one unit. Without unity, we are chaos.’ Vostok snorted, and Noon laid her hand against the scales on her neck. They were warm. ‘It is because you do not have your root-memories, any of you. Our souls should have returned to Ygseril’s roots when we last died, but instead we were exiled, lost. We became ghosts, parasite things haunting the wrecks of our old enemy, and now even those souls are lost, dissipated finally into nothing, and in the end it was only I who survived to find Ebora again, carried safe within Noon. Do you even understand what it is you have lost? With your root-memories you would remember all our battles, all our victories, and we would know each other as we should. You would feel Ygseril’s roots binding us together, one to another.’ Noon could feel the edges of sorrow clouding Vostok’s anger, but none of that was apparent in her voice. ‘So we must learn to work together without the bonds that would normally tie us. In short, you must learn to take orders.’

  ‘And you must be the one to give them, snake?’ Kirune was pacing now, huge paws kicking up dust. ‘Because you breathe fire, you must be in charge of us?’

  ‘Now, then, Kirune,’ Tor was holding out one hand towards the giant cat, his face alarmed. ‘That isn’t going to help—’

  ‘I command you because I am your only link to the glory that was!’ Vostok thundered. Violet flames danced in the back of her throat. ‘Your names were stolen, chosen at random from an old sc
roll, because we do not know what your names truly were. True war-beasts you are not.’ The dragon lowered her head, and Noon wondered if this was where all this madness would end: a ridiculous fight in the middle of nowhere, all of them cooked in dragon-flame. ‘Kirune, you refuse to bond with your warrior and take vicious pleasure in contradiction. Through your selfishness you lead us to doom. Sharrik, you are brave but you do not think. Your strength can be used for so much more. Jessen, you are timid, possibly the worst and most unforgivable trait in a war-beast. And your warrior is no warrior at all.’

  Despite the warmth of Vostok’s anger, Noon winced, although Aldasair seemed barely to have noticed. He sat with his head down, his fingers laced around the tin cup.

  ‘And Tormalin the Oathless.’ Tor jumped as if struck. ‘You are vain, distracted, arrogant and convinced that you are the only true warrior here. If you do not learn to work with Kirune somehow, you will be worse than useless – you will be a liability.’

  ‘I trained for decades while you were haunting Esiah Godwort’s wreck, you misbegotten relic . . .’

  ‘Hey,’ Noon sat up, ‘the war-beasts died at the end of the Eighth Rain, Tor, torn out of their bodies when your tree-god trapped the Jure’lia queen. It’s not like they chose to be parasite spirits. Who would?’ The memory of Vostok’s sorrow and confusion at what they had become was still very fresh.

  Vostok ignored them both. ‘The Behemoth was our target. We needed to work together to drive it off, long before it ever managed to birth a maggot, and yet where were you all?’

  ‘We saved the humans.’ Jessen’s voice was soft, but for the first time Noon thought she detected genuine anger there. ‘We helped the children to flee.’

  ‘Children,’ Vostok sneered. ‘It is war you must be concerned with, not a handful of lives. If we let all the Behemoths flee as we did today, Sarn’s children will soon be no one’s problem.’

  ‘Vostok.’ Noon pressed her lips together. She felt the dragon’s need to fight keenly, and it made thinking of anything else difficult. Absently, she pressed her fingers to her shirt; underneath it, the silver scar on her chest felt too smooth. ‘Do you really think we could have killed that thing today? With just four war-beasts?’

  Vostok turned her head away, looking back out into the trees as though she had heard something, but Noon knew she was just avoiding the question. That alone made her feel cold inside.

  ‘Has it ever been done before?’ asked Bern, his honest face unusually serious. ‘Any other battles in your history where the odds were so . . . uh, unfavourable?’

  ‘No,’ said Vostok shortly. ‘There were always hundreds of us, before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Sharrik. He rose from the thin grass and stretched out his wings – they were huge, and the darkest blue in the firelight. ‘We are mighty! We shall fight!’

  ‘You must learn to fight,’ said Vostok, but some of the anger in her voice had softened. She settled onto the ground, tucking her legs neatly under herself. ‘Unity, or we are lost. We must find a way to be one again.’

  ‘Well.’ Tormalin sat back. He met Noon’s eyes briefly, and gave her half a smile. ‘Perhaps we’ll get lucky and find a new brace of war-beasts freshly hatched when we get back to the palace. Stranger things have happened.’

  5

  This must be the strangest journey I have ever undertaken.

  Nanthema and I make our slow way to Ebora, travelling when we feel it’s safe, taking turns to sleep. I keep looking at the sky, searching for the corpse moon there like a tongue searching the hole where a tooth was once rooted – I know it’s gone, but part of me can’t believe it. Since we watched the waterlogged Behemoth remains rise from the sea we haven’t seen any Jure’lia as close. A few sightings in the distance, enormous bloated tumours hovering impossibly still over the tops of trees, or, more ominously, above tiny settlements. I feel I can barely describe here what it is like to see these monsters of our history risen again.

  It is strange too to be travelling with Nanthema. I find myself almost frightened watching her, as though a part of my past had just forced its way into my present. She is as lovely as she ever was, her eyelashes when she sleeps downy and thick on her cheek, her long, confident stride when she walks. She touches my hand and kisses my cheek, as though we have never been apart, yet I know I must look greatly changed to her, and although she is frightened, like me, she looks around always with curiosity and wonder. It is the thing I always loved most about her.

  I am glad she lives. I am very glad not to be making this journey alone.

  Extract from the private journals of Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon

  ‘I’m telling you, Vin, there’s someone there.’

  Vintage paused, squinting into the distance. All she could see on the road was a confusion of broken stones and the debris of years of isolation. There were fewer buildings in this remote corner of Ebora, but there was still a wide tracery of roads, dotted here and there with statuary that once, she suspected, would have been spectacular.

  ‘Your eyes are better than mine, darling. Who is it?’

  Nanthema frowned in answer. They had been travelling for weeks, and they were both tired, dusty and hungry, living off what food they could find in the wilds of Ebora, and the occasional rabbit Vintage surprised with her crossbow. There had been no sign of human life for much of that time, with most people hiding within their settlements, waiting to see if the Jure’lia would come for them. Most people, Vintage had cheerfully pointed out, were not stupid enough to be travelling anywhere, but then, they weren’t most people.

  ‘Let’s get closer and see.’

  Although the ice had thawed in the last few days, it was still frigidly cold and Vintage unhooked her crossbow from her belt with numb fingers. To either side of them dark pine trees rose like an ominous curtain, and she began to wonder if people would have turned to banditry yet – that was what humans did, in times of war.

  ‘It’s a boy,’ said Nanthema.

  ‘A child? By the vines, what is a child doing . . .?’ A moment later she saw him, and on the heels of that, realised what he was. ‘Nan, that’s an Eboran child.’

  Nanthema just nodded.

  He was sitting on a broken rock, with what looked like a bow made of black wood slung over one narrow shoulder. To Vintage’s eyes he looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen years old, but in Eboran terms that meant he could be anywhere near as old as two hundred years. His hair was an ashy blond, long and unkempt enough to curl at his neck, and although his face was finely boned and delicate, he was also much too thin. The furred jacket he wore hung on him loosely, leaving a great gaping hole at the neck, and he was slumped on the rock as though he did not even have the energy to lift his head. He was sitting, Vintage realised, on a broken statue. Judging from the snarling head that lay at his feet, it had once been a dragon. A war-beast, of course.

  ‘An Eboran child,’ murmured Vintage. ‘I had thought . . . I had assumed . . .’

  Nanthema glanced at her, her lips thinned with displeasure. ‘When Ygseril’s life-giving sap was gone, very few were born. Those that were, were born sickly and ill.’ She touched a finger to the frame of her eyeglasses. ‘When we found out that human blood could heal us, mothers and fathers couldn’t feed their babes enough of it. Of course, we couldn’t know that consuming human blood would lead to the crimson flux. . .’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember when I last saw an Eboran child.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go and see who this poor creature is, and what he’s doing out here in the arse-end of nowhere.’

  The boy looked up as they approached, and his hands clutched weakly at the bow on his shoulder. There was a quiver of arrows by his feet – Vintage thought they looked ancient – and a steel bucket with a cloth over the top. His eyes were deeply shadowed, and now that they were closer, Vintage could see lines around them, making him look strangely ancient. She wondered how she could have ever mistaken him for a human chil
d – it was a stark reminder of the inherent strangeness of Eborans, with their red eyes and unnatural strength. Travelling with Tor, and now Nanthema, she had started to get a little too used to them. With a little grunt, the boy pushed himself off of the broken rock and faced them.

  ‘Darling, it’s a cold day for sitting around on old stones.’ Vintage smiled at the boy. ‘My grandmother used to say you’d get piles from sitting on cold rocks. I’m sure you’re much too young to suffer with such things, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.’

  ‘Piles?’ His voice was deeper than she was expecting. ‘Piles of what?’

  ‘Well, indeed. There’s a question.’ They stopped in front of him. The maroon of his eyes was too bright for the gloomy day, more akin to rubies than old wine. ‘Are you quite all right?’ When he seemed unable to answer, Vintage gestured to Nanthema. ‘This is my friend Nanthema. As you can probably tell, she’s not a stranger to your lands, but I have never been here before. My name is Lady Vincenza de Grazon, but you can call me Vintage.’

  The boy raised his eyebrows at her name, apparently impressed.

  ‘I’m Eri,’ he said. ‘Eri of . . . I can’t remember. Of Lonefell, I suppose.’

  ‘That is your home?’ asked Nanthema.

  ‘I suppose that it is.’

  ‘And are there others there?’ asked Vintage. She glanced around, wondering if perhaps there could be more Eborans nearby. ‘Relatives, perhaps?’

  The question seemed to distress the boy. Looking away from them, he turned to the dark woods on the other side of the broken road, and then picked up his quiver of arrows. ‘There are small deer in these woods, or at least, there used to be. It’s difficult to remember, but I’m sure that I saw them once. But lately I’ve heard wolves howling a lot, at night, when it’s dark, and sometimes in the day too.’ His throat moved as he swallowed heavily. ‘Do you think that maybe the wolves ate all the deer already?’ He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was strangely resonant. ‘I need meat.’