The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  ‘It was an excellent dinner. You have all been very kind.’

  ‘Ah. Well. We need to be kind to neighbours now, I reckon. Even the Sown, the ugly bastards.’ He paused. ‘They sent us horses to help, you know. With the Broken Field. They may be ugly but they aren’t stupid – if that thing gets out, it won’t be just the Finneral who suffer.’

  ‘Are you really a king?’

  Bern the Elder laughed, a hoarse sort of bark that made Aldasair jump. ‘I’m guessing kings don’t look much like me where you’re from?’

  ‘We do not have any kings.’

  ‘Ah. I don’t suppose you do, now that you say it. You’ve had a hard time of it.’

  ‘Yes. Much of what Ebora was is gone. The buildings are in ruins, our roads are overgrown. The library, even, was destroyed.’ He brightened slightly. ‘Your son rebuilt the Hill of Souls for us and it gave me hope.’

  ‘Yes, he told us about that.’ There was a different tone in Bern the Elder’s voice, but Aldasair could not decipher it. ‘But I don’t mean your people, lad. I mean you. You’ve had a hard time, going through those cold years alone.’

  Aldasair nodded hesitantly. ‘I don’t remember much of it. When I try to think of all those years I spent in the palace, just wandering, I cannot separate the days. Instead there is a grey sort of fog, in my mind. Perhaps that is for the best, though.’

  ‘You’re safe here, Aldasair. You can be whoever you need to be, in Finneral.’

  ‘I am not sure what you mean?’

  ‘I mean, our lad Bern is very fond of you.’ Bern’s father took a big bite out of the bread, and chewed on it for some time. ‘That’s what I mean. You can be part of a family here, if you want it.’

  Aldasair nodded slowly. Family. He could just about remember his mother and father, although the memories associated with them were difficult; like wild animals waiting in the dark, he had no wish to poke them into life. His two cousins were the only members of his family left alive, and Hestillion was apparently lost to them. Tormalin, who had come back to them just before the Jure’lia arrived, was now his only family, and he had always been flighty, hard to pin down.

  And Jessen, he realised. Jessen was closer to him than anyone, save for perhaps Bern. Vintage, too, was not far from his thoughts when he conjured the word ‘family’.

  ‘Family doesn’t have to mean blood,’ he said quietly. ‘It doesn’t even have to mean Eboran.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, lad. To answer your question, I am a king of sorts, which makes Bern a prince. Don’t say it to his face, though, he gets very touchy about it –’

  Aldasair’s first warning was a cold tremor moving through his chest, and then on the tail of that, a note of panic from Jessen, as clear and as sharp as a lightning bolt. He stood up.

  ‘Something is wrong!’

  Bern the Elder levered himself off the porch with a huff, scanning the Broken Field below as he did so. ‘Is it the carcass? Moving again?’

  Jessen was coming, with Sharrik close behind. In the hut behind them were raised voices as Bern picked up on whatever was alarming the war-beasts.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He looked up. It was a clear night, with stars dusting the sky from horizon to horizon, but there was a hole above them. A dark space where there should be stars. ‘There’s a monster up there.’

  ‘This is more than just a settlement.’

  Hestillion had pressed herself up against the transparent section of wall – she was no longer afraid of falling through them – and peered down at the lands below the corpse moon. She could see farmland and woods, and in the distance, a stretch of coast, and everywhere there were roads and clutches of houses. She saw lights and smoke, and all the other small signs that suggested the place was home to a large number of people.

  ‘One more place that humans fester in.’

  The queen had been striding back and forth throughout the whole journey, her jagged shoulders rising and falling. Hestillion was quite sure she had never seen her so agitated.

  ‘What is wrong with you? What vexes you so much about this one?’

  ‘It is broken.’ The queen gestured viciously at the window. ‘Now we are close, we can feel it. This piece of us is scattered and . . . flattened, held down even. They have tried to bury us, like one of their own dead.’

  ‘And this upsets you?’

  The queen pulled her lips back from her teeth. ‘It will be harder, but the core still lives, and still calls to us. The humans here will pay.’

  She stood back from the window, and grew very still. Hestillion was beginning to recognise these moments; the queen would send herself out through the ship and beyond, travelling through connections that Hestillion could only guess at, and in these times she could be everywhere. The corpse moon itself was beginning to drop slowly, edging down through the sky. A movement from the ground below caught her eye; a big stretch of land that appeared to be glowing faintly – she had assumed it was Wild-touched – was beginning to shift and move, the stones and rocks scattered across it bucking and tumbling like it was in the midst of a very specific earthquake. And then, in the centre, she saw a green light flickering – another crystal, like the one at the heart of the corpse moon. She was looking at the remains of a Behemoth, being summoned into life by the Jure’lia queen. The black ooze, looking like dark water from this distance, began to seep out of the cracks in the ground.

  ‘They are fighting back,’ said Hestillion. People with torches were appearing, and she saw the orange pinpoints of flaming arrows appear. ‘They must know it is useless, I can’t imagine . . . wait!’ She pressed her forehead to the transparent wall, barely able to understand what she was seeing. ‘There are war-beasts there! Two of them!’

  This got the queen’s attention. Her sharp-angled face twisted at an unnatural angle.

  ‘Would Celaphon like to meet them, do you think?’

  Hestillion did not move. Perhaps, she thought, if I keep very still, she will not ask the question.

  ‘It is time, my little war-queen. War has come, and who do you think will win it? How can you best stay alive?’

  ‘By the stones, the bloody thing is waking up!’

  Bern and Sharrik were flying low over the Field, with Jessen and Aldasair close behind. Below them, the oily pieces of the Behemoth were shifting themselves out of the dirt and stones, urged together by the black fluid. As they watched, it almost seemed to form fingers, pushed the pieces into place like someone completing a puzzle.

  ‘What can we do? The corpse moon is right on top of us.’

  Bern lifted his head and looked. The Behemoth above them was lowering all the time, and Aldasair thought he could almost feel the connection between it and the remains on the ground – as if they were reaching out to each other. A hatch was opening in the side of it, a flexing of moon-metal flesh that would very soon release all the horrors they had seen at Coldreef. A great many people had died there, or lost their homes. And the Finneral people had been so kind to him.

  ‘There are only two of us,’ cried Bern. He looked stricken. ‘I’m not sure what we can do.’

  ‘We have to push the corpse moon back,’ said Aldasair, as firmly as he was able. He caught the surprise in Bern’s glance and pretended not to have seen it. ‘The dead one is only this lively because it is close – if we can force it away, we’ll buy ourselves some time. And we have to stop it birthing any horrors. Look! Quickly now, go!’

  The hatch had opened to its fullest extent, and things were beginning to crawl out, moving too quickly on multiple limbs. The six-legged burrower-mothers dropped like seeds, and it was possible to see the head of something else still making its way towards the opening, blunt and glistening and pale. A maggot.

  Aldasair leaned forward, feeling Jessen bunch her muscles, and they shot ahead, closely followed by Sharrik and Bern. The griffin was bellowing some war cry, and he crashed fully into the belly of the corpse moon, raking his claws across its flesh as he went. Jessen la
nded with more precision, and with surprising agility, propelled herself to the edge of the aperture. The maggot was still in the process of being squeezed out, and it was accompanied by several of the scuttling mothers; they appeared to be excreting some sort of clear fluid, which they were using to ease its passage. Aldasair coughed into his hand; he was fairly sure brave warriors didn’t vomit on the battlefield, but he was close to it.

  Jessen bent her head and snapped up one of the mothers between her jaws and worried at it, severing a few of its limbs before letting it drop and grabbing another. Sharrik scrambled further within the hole and actually tore at the end of the maggot with his huge beak. Aldasair saw the slippery white flesh of the thing tear open and the thing shifted backwards slightly, but he also saw the sticky clear fluid dripping down onto Sharrik’s wings.

  ‘Be careful, Sharrik! That stuff may ruin your wings.’

  Bern looked up, and struck at the interior of the passage itself with one of the Bitter Twins. Immediately the whole thing convulsed, and the pair of them were thrown back out. Sharrik’s wings snapped open, spattering fluid everywhere, and the hole sealed over as if it had never been there.

  ‘Look!’

  Below them, the warriors of Finneral had gathered and were loosing fiery arrows up towards the corpse moon, but already they were meeting trouble on the ground. A few of the burrower-mothers had escaped and were bearing down on the humans, and the black fluid oozing up through the ruins was forming itself into the shapes of strange, scuttling humanoids. Even as he watched, Aldasair saw several men and women falling, either pulled down by the fluid-creatures or overwhelmed by the mothers.

  ‘We will help them,’ he said, pulling his own sword from its scabbard. It felt very unfamiliar in his hand. ‘You and Sharrik, do what you can to drive this thing away.’

  Bern nodded once, and they split up, Jessen diving back to the ground in what was almost a freefall. Once there, they barrelled straight into a pack of the mothers, scattering them, and there was a small cheer from the humans. Aldasair leaned out over Jessen’s side and swept his sword at the mobile fluid – it danced back out of reach. He was just urging Jessen forward again, hoping to put them between the worm-fluid and the humans, when the area ahead of them exploded with green fire. His heart leapt, thinking it must be Noon, that Noon and Tor had joined them after all, and all would be well, but when he turned to look he saw the Stone Talker, riding high on one of her giant Wild-touched boars, her arms bare and held in front of her. She was building a huge ball of winnowfire there, her hands shaking with the effort. There were two warriors standing with her, Bern’s mother and father, and they were each riding a bear.

  There was a roar from above. Another of the holes had opened in the side of the corpse moon and more mothers were pouring forth. Sharrik was there, tearing them to pieces with his claws and beak, but he was being overwhelmed. One of the creatures was on his back, and Bern was wrestling with it, hand to hand. As Aldasair watched, one of its wiry legs wrapped around the big man’s neck.

  In seconds, he was in the air again, Jessen flying as fast as the arrows; faster. They came in so quickly that they nearly collided with Sharrik, but Aldasair was able to reach across and tear the mother from Bern, and with one convulsive movement he tore the thing in half. It was fibrous inside, and stank. Dimly, he thought of telling the red-headed man I am strong, stronger than you.

  ‘Thanks!’ Bern was grinning, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. ‘Stones arses, I thought I was dead for a second there . . .’

  The stars vanished again as something huge appeared in the sky next to them. Again, Aldasair experienced that strange cramp of joy – Vostok! She had come to help them after all!

  But it was not Vostok. This dragon was twice as large, and it was purple and black and green, the colour of a particularly bad bruise, although its eyes were white and blind-looking. It bristled with horns and ridges all along its back, and sitting in its harness was a woman with a pale, serene face. Her eyes were red, and her blond hair was pulled back from her face in a severe braid.

  For a long, heart-stopping moment, Aldasair did not know where he was, or what he was doing. That could not possibly be his cousin: she had been stolen by the worm people and was likely to be dead; she would never wear such filthy leathers, or carry such a lance. She could not be riding a dragon. Nothing that he was looking at made sense.

  ‘Hestillion?’ As if her name were the key, all the pieces rushed into place. Hope fluttered in his chest again. He twisted in the harness to speak to Bern. ‘It’s my cousin! She will help us, she must have found—’

  The enormous dragon knocked them both out of the sky.

  There was a period of blankness, of a whistling noise in his ears, and then Aldasair was struck with what felt like a brick wall covered in fur and feathers. A strong arm looped around his chest and pulled him upright. Bern was shouting something, but Aldasair’s head was spinning too badly to make it out. In front of them, more green fireballs were lighting up the night, and they were crashing against the enormous purple dragon, which was shaking its head and roaring.

  ‘Where . . . where is Jessen?’

  ‘She’s on the ground. We have to get to her.’

  This was easier said than done. More movement was happening around the corpse moon. A figure was easing down from its belly in a column of dark green fluid, a human-shaped thing with a white mask for a face. It was heading directly to the crystal, its arms outstretched, and something about that sent a curl of terror straight down Aldasair’s back. Another hole had opened and more mothers were scuttering out, floating down towards the humans on the ground, and that was when he spotted Jessen – the great black wolf was lying, half stunned, on the Broken Field. The oozing humanoid creatures were converging on her.

  ‘Quickly!’

  But Sharrik was already moving. The huge griffin crashed next to the wolf, stumbling slightly on the uneven ground, before moving to stand over her. Aldasair slipped down from the harness and went to her, kicking away one of the burrower-mothers as he did so.

  ‘Jessen? Jessen?’

  She lifted her head, her orange eyes open a crack. ‘Aldasair. Who was that? Who hurt us?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He smoothed his hands along her snout, and was glad to feel her reaching back to him. ‘I don’t know who that was, not truly. We will stop them, though. Can you get up? We need you to get up.’

  ‘I’ve met that woman,’ said Bern, in an undertone. ‘She was at the palace, before the worm people came.’

  Jessen got to her feet and Aldasair climbed back into her harness. He could feel how unsteady she was, but also that she was gathering her strength. Family, he thought. Above them, the dragon was turning about, moving out of range of the Stone Talker’s fireballs, while the skeletal figure, descending on its ropes of green and black fluid, was moving ever closer to the Broken Field. She would be there in moments.

  ‘The dragon. It can’t breathe fire, or it would have done so by now. You and Sharrik should go and drive it back,’ he said to Bern. Somewhere, he had lost his sword. ‘Give me one of your axes, and I will join you in a moment.’

  Bern did not hesitate. He unhooked one of the Bitter Twins from his belt and passed it to Aldasair. ‘Be quick. That bastard thing is huge.’

  Sharrik leapt, and they were gone in a shower of feathers. For a second, Aldasair wasn’t quite able to tear his eyes from them: the brilliant blue griffin, the man with the shining yellow hair, and waiting to meet them, a dragon from some sort of nightmare. Shaking his head to clear it, he urged Jessen to turn.

  ‘Run!’ he hissed into her ear. ‘To the crystal!’

  They had to leap over several burrower-mothers, and one fluid-creature nearly tangled Jessen’s legs beneath her, but Aldasair swiped at it with the axe – it felt much more natural in his hand than the sword ever had – and they got to the crystal just before the Jure’lia queen did. Aldasair leapt from the harness, half falling, and then he was the
re. He gripped the axe in both hands, and held it high over his head. The surface of the crystal was slick under his knees. There was a hairline crack running through the centre of it already, some injury from its initial crash, and he focussed on that.

  ‘No!’

  The shout seemed to come from all around, an exclamation of despair that moved the very stones under him, and then he brought the axe crashing down with every bit of strength he had left. He had half expected it to bounce off, perhaps catching him in the face with its rebound, but instead the crystal shattered. A high, moaning wail filled the air, reverberating strangely around his head, and then all the glowing light and the shifting fluid grew utterly still. Above him, the queen of the Jure’lia hung on her ropes – despite the smooth surface of her mask-face, her fury was like the sun; he felt the heat of it on his face.

  A bellowing roar brought his attention upwards again. Sharrik and the dark dragon were locked in an embrace, Bern lost somewhere in the middle. He had a sighting of Hestillion, her eyes wild and her mouth open as she shouted something, and then he saw the dragon’s claws raking across Sharrik’s furry flank. Blood leapt into the sky, and he heard Bern shout out.

  Ignoring the queen, Aldasair climbed back onto Jessen and they were in the air again almost faster than he could pull himself into the harness.

  ‘Family,’ she murmured to him as they flew.

  ‘Family,’ he agreed.

  They were too late. A great mouth in the side of the corpse moon opened up, lined with tendrils of black fluid, and the dragon dragged Sharrik and Bern inside. They were gone almost instantly, and the mouth began to close.

  ‘No!’

  Jessen flew faster than she ever had, flattening her ears and pulling up her legs to close the distance more quickly, but the wall of the corpse moon was a smooth and bruise-covered blankness. Aldasair, hardly aware that there were tears in his eyes, leaned out of his harness and crashed the edge of the axe against it, again and again, although it made barely a mark. The corpse moon was moving up and away again, away from Finneral, but he did not care. Jessen’s pain and his pain were one, and he could think of nothing else.