by David Hair
Zaqri raised his head. ‘Nevertheless, if she wishes it, I would wed her.’
More hissing, more anger. ‘You pollute us!’ someone shouted. ‘She’s a damned mage-blood!’
‘Forbid this, Eldest!’ another called. ‘It is a mockery! Let the coward die alone.’
Tomacz roared for silence. ‘They have the right to wed! Nothing forbids it!’ He looked like he wished there was. ‘Though it brings us all shame, they do so!’
This brought howls of derision. ‘Zaqri is soul-kin to you, Tomacz!’ Wornu bellowed. ‘You favour his cause!’
Hessaz stepped in front of her man. ‘No, no! Let the girl pretend to be his. Let her fight!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘She’s nothing! I’ll tear her apart.’ Her eyes burned into Cym’s. ‘I can smell her fear.’
Tomacz looked at Zaqri, then at Huriya. ‘Seeress?’ he said hesitantly.
Silence fell. Huriya preened, looking from Wornu to Zaqri to Cym. ‘Well, why not … ? One night of love before they die together. It sounds perfectly poetic to me.’ She looked at Cym with malicious eyes. ‘Do you claim the craven who slew your mother as your beloved husband?’
With her gnostic sight, Cym could see the aura-tendrils of the pack withdraw from Zaqri. He looked about him, his eyes bereft.
She nodded slowly.
‘Then, packmaster, you may claim her,’ Huriya pronounced mockingly.
Zaqri swallowed, still struggling at the withdrawal of the pack from his mind. It must have felt like an amputation. He swayed slightly, then turned and in a faint voice said, ‘I claim this woman, Cymbellea di Regia-Meiros of Rimoni, as my mate before the pack.’ His voice was disbelieving, as if his ears did not credit what his mouth was saying. Then, before she could react, he stepped forward and scooped her into his arms. She tried to wriggle free, but his arms were like vices, clamping him to her as the men and women of the pack gathered about, lust and hunger filling the air. No one asked her whether she was willing or not. ‘Tonight we will spend alone, as is traditional,’ he said, a jibe at Wornu and Hessaz for their ostentatious exhibitionism. ‘Tomorrow,’ he added, staring at Wornu, ‘we fight to the death.’
The pack yowled as he swung about and shouldered his way through them and out into the night. Cym felt like a child in his grip as he strode through the gathering. Hands reached out and touched her, some with pity, most with malice. Someone left four bloody lines down her thigh, then darted out of reach. A flicker of healing gnosis cleansed the wound, but there would be a scar. She winced, and glared into the shadows.
At the fringes, some pack-members shifted into animal form and began to howl.
*
‘Put me down!’ Cym said, kicking and twisting to get him to release her once they were alone. He did so: he opened his arms and simply dropped her to the sand. She hit the ground with a grunt, then bounced to her feet. ‘Who do you think you are, carrying me off like a bloody prize?’
He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Your mate, apparently.’ He looked more leonine than ever, his golden hair cast in silver by the giant moon above. The cooling air made her shiver, as did his luminescent aura, tendrils reaching out to her then coiling away.
She jabbed a finger at him. ‘You’re nothing to me but a shield from that poisonous bitch Huriya. I’ll help keep you alive for my own good, but after that, you’re going to help me find Alaron before Huriya does. She’s evil.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Evil? Really? Viciously ambitious, cold-hearted and childishly promiscuous, yes, but evil? What does “evil” even mean? Under most definitions all my brethren are evil.’
‘But she embraces it. You …’
‘Yes?’
She shut her mouth and faced him, wondering what to do.
All the nights lying near him pounded through her brain. Animal attraction, that’s what the other Rimoni girls of her father’s caravan would have called it, and they’d have been laughing at the little joke. She felt it, certainly; she knew it went both ways. But she finally had to admit the truth: it was more than that. She admired his demeanour, his strength, his fortitude, his bearing. He was a leader, for all his political naïvety. He reminded her of her father, the epitome of men in her eyes. But he killed my mother. ‘At least you fight your worst impulses,’ she conceded.
‘A fine epitaph. Would that all folk did the same.’ He sat, pointedly waiting until she joined him, defusing some of the anger crackling between them. When he spoke again his voice was softer, sadder. ‘I had the choice, when I found out what I was: to live with it, at the cost of the lives of others, or to kill myself. I chose to live. Do not underestimate the gravity of that decision. Some of our kind find it easy, others do not. Some of us like to think we’re part of Kore’s plan, others, that we’re Kore’s biggest mistake. I choose to regard myself as a predator, like a lion. I do not question the right or wrong of it. I was born as I am. Philosophers can chew that over until their teeth fall out, but I can’t be bothered. I am a lion and I choose to eat. If human life is so precious, why do I exist?’
It might have sounded arrogant, except that his voice was so humble and full of regrets. She had no doubt that he meant it – or that he suffered, despite it. She’d observed that he appeared to be judicious in his hunting and sparing in his use of the gnosis. He was both pitiable and fearsome, and almost impossible to hate, though she was still trying.
‘If we find the Scytale, maybe it can cure you all?’ she suggested, trying to placate him.
‘That can happen with or without me.’
‘I don’t want Huriya and Wornu to find Alaron – they’ll just kill him. He’s my friend, and I led him into this. It was my stupidity that led Huriya to the island. I have to stay alive to help him, and for now that means helping you.’
‘Very well.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Girl, tomorrow they will check you again, and if we are not mated, then you will not be eligible to fight.’
She flinched, nervous again. ‘I don’t understand you. You were married to Ghila for so long, and now, after just a few months, you’re ready to move on – and don’t tell me you’re only doing this because you must: you’ve been giving me hot eyes from the day we met. Are you really so fickle?’
‘I am not fickle,’ he said forcibly. ‘Ghila meant much to me, but we were not truly a love match. I resolved to defeat the previous packleader, a vicious brute, and I needed a strong woman to fight alongside me. Ghila was that woman. We learned to be mates, as best as two people thrown together by circumstance can.’ He looked at her intently. ‘I will not speak ill of her, but she and Hessaz were twins, in body and in soul: loyal if placated, cruel if thwarted. But Ghila is dead now and life continues.’
‘So I’m just the next convenient woman?’
‘No! You are the most inconvenient woman there has ever been! Beautiful, fiery, stubborn, clever, determined – all that I might have wanted, yet I meet you on the wrong side of a war and find you are magi. And then there is the blood-matter between us. If there was ever a woman I should not lose my heart to, it is you. But hearts do not listen to reason.’ He reached out, touched her arm. ‘There is something about you I need, and even if Ghila still lived, I would crave it. I don’t even fully known what it is, but I’ve risked everything for it.’
It felt as if the night had suddenly drawn breath. She tore her eyes away, heart pounding, and sought the face of the moon for guidance. Mater Luna, patron of lovers … What do you want of me?
The moonlight revealed nothing except the land around her: a desert, but teeming with secretive life: birds and insects and snakes and lizards and all manner of creatures, fighting and mating, a quiet and desperate dance of survival. Live, it said. Create life. Fight to go on.
Thank you, Great Goddess. She clasped his hand. It was big and warm. ‘Do we have to do it in front of everyone?’
‘No. Hessaz and Wornu were showing off, making a point.’ He stood and pulled her to her feet. ‘Come.’
He led her to the tent where she normall
y slept alone, but this time he entered as well, immense in the tiny space. He knotted the flap closed and all at once they were lying alongside each other, inhaling each other’s breath, thighs and shoulders touching through their thin cotton clothing.
‘I know what happens,’ she whispered. ‘I lived in a travelling caravan. No one has secrets. Not like your pack, obviously, but …’
He put a hand on her cheek, stroked it, went to kiss her.
‘No kissing,’ she said firmly in a low voice. ‘This is not about love.’
He stopped, pulled away, gave her room to tug off her tunic. He did the same, and immediately he thickened and became erect. She rolled onto her back on the rough blanket and he followed her and gripped her shoulders as he propped on his elbows above her. Her mouth forbidden, he kissed her left breast, above her fluttering heart, his hot mouth enfolding her nipple. A flush of heat swelled through her, as if her soul were being drawn into his mouth. It felt too good to ignore, but the sensation frightened her too. ‘Is this how Nasette was changed?’ she whispered, scared now and unable to conceal it.
He raised his head from the engorged nipple. ‘No. That is a matter of the gnosis, not of mating.’ He bent to her other nipple, brought it to the same bursting wonder as the first. His right hand slid over her thigh, stroked her mound.
‘No – don’t touch me.’
He frowned. ‘It will be easier for you if I stimulate your passage.’
‘I don’t want it to be easy. I don’t want to enjoy this.’
Zaqri looked stung, but he lowered his hips to her, engulfing her as she opened her thighs to receive him. He was twice her bulk and his weight pushed the air from her lungs, and as the tip of his member found her folds and pushed inside, her body stiffened. He worked himself slowly inwards, grunting softly, trying to ease his passage, and she gritted her teeth at the painful intrusion.
‘You are wet inside,’ he whispered in her ear, then went all the way in. Something tore painfully and she jerked beneath him and shook until the ripping sensation passed. He began to thrust, his member immense inside her, like a spear stabbing her slowly towards a kind of death. For a few moments they moved as one groaning, sighing thing, getting louder as his movements became more vigorous. She had to fight to breathe, but an animal heat was rising inside her that she fought to conceal. His face went wild and he gripped her harder, as he started thrusting faster and faster until he gave a soft, almost gentle moan and she felt him expend in her. His body quivered, the uncontrolled convulsion almost teasing a response in her, then he sagged, crushing her as she gasped for breath.
The thought came unbidden: This should have been more than it was.
He lifted himself on his arms, though he stayed inside her, and stared down at her face. He looked like a demi-god. His heat and thickness inside her was filling her with a spreading warmth. Her hands involuntarily stroked his sides.
‘You are not hurt?’ he asked in a formal voice. She shook her head mutely and he pulled out of her and rolled to her side. Their bodies filled the small tent and the air was warm and close. He looked concerned for her, hesitant; oddly, that annoyed her. She liked him more when he was certain – she needed him to be so on the eve of a death-match.
‘Well, is that enough to satisfy the pack?’ she asked, her voice more bitter than she’d intended, and he flinched. He wanted this to be perfect and I’ve ruined it for him. There was no pride in the realisation. And tomorrow we’ll most likely die together …
‘Yes.’ He looked down at her, his face hardening. ‘Do you know how the ritual challenge works?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
He nodded towards the flap. ‘Follow me.’ He crawled outside, unconcerned at his nudity.
She glowered at his brusque tone, but reluctantly followed, wrapped in her blanket. ‘Tell me,’ she said, keeping her tone businesslike as she joined him before the fire, which he kindled with a gesture.
‘Tonight the pack will mark out a large territory, roughly square-shaped and at least a mile wide. Each participant starts in a corner, diagonally opposite their partner. At dawn, when the sun rises, you are free to move anywhere inside the square. Any who leave it while an enemy lives forfeits the challenge and is killed. The objective is to kill your enemies. You get no weapons, but can use anything you find that was not forged by men. Tooth and claw, the gnosis, and perhaps a rock or stick: these are the only permissible weapons. It is as much a hunt as a fight. The deadliest strikes are those you do not see.’
Cym sucked in her breath. She’d barely begun to learn the gnosis, and Wornu and Hessaz had years of experience. She’d never really hunted in her life, except on the road through Sydia and that had been a disaster. ‘Why is it called the Noose?’
‘Because an hour after it begins, the pack will begin walking inwards, constricting the arena until the combatants are forced together. Tightening like a noose.’
Sol et Lune … ‘Can’t you just resign, if he wants the job so badly?’
‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘To take the leadership is for life. “Until death I will serve”: that is the oath. And I never said that I don’t want the leadership: I do. Huriya is taking this pack into disaster and Wornu will only speed that.’ He set his jaw, his voice intent. ‘Wornu and I are both the equivalent of a pure-blood mage. Hessaz is the equivalent of a half-blood, like you. But both are experienced fighters, and you are not. Your gnosis is no more than I would expect from a yearling.’
‘My father was rich by Rimoni standards, but not enough to afford an Arcanum education for me.’
‘That’s irrelevant. Wornu and Hessaz will show no mercy. But think on this: Souldrinkers group together, like with like, birds of a feather. It is how we teach each other, as we have no colleges. But you’re an outsider, with an outsider’s affinities. Neither Wornu or Hessaz have wide experience in fighting the likes of you. I am a match for Wornu or Hessaz alone, but not them both. We must find a way to use your skills to surprise them. You are the key to our survival.’
Cym felt goosebumps rise at the thought. ‘I’m mostly Hermetic and Air … but my training was secondhand, and erratic at best so I’m mostly self-taught. Morphic-gnosis, healing, illusion … And I can fly in human form, but that’s incredibly tiring. I once crossed forty miles of sea, but it nearly killed me.’ She paused. ‘And I can manage a little spiritualism.’
‘Spiritualism?’ Zaqri looked interested. ‘I have heard of it, but never seen it. How does it work?’
‘You separate soul from body: it’s the strangest sensation, really creepy. You can use the gnosis while in spirit form, but your body is vulnerable, and so are you. It’s really dangerous and I’m not good at it.’
‘But it’s something our opponents cannot do – I doubt they even know about it, let alone have ever seen it. It may give us an opportunity.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Let us explore that.’
*
Cym did not think she would sleep, not with all she’d been through and what was to come. She wanted to flee, but she knew she wouldn’t get far. Flying with Air-gnosis was no match to shapeshifters in bird form. In the end it came down to winning or dying, and with that simple thought came resignation and, after that, sleep.
Zaqri shook her awake, his heavy hand warm on her shoulder. It was dark, and the silence of the night was oppressive, but there was a faint, pale glow in the east. ‘It’s time,’ was all he said.
She came awake immediately and stretched awkwardly. Her loins felt uncomfortably tender, and she smelled of him. She wrinkled her nose as she rose, then found water and washed before shrugging on her thin shift. Zaqri put a bowl in front of her filled with meat and rice in a wet curry gravy and using her fingers, she wolfed it down. She pulled her tangled hair into a ponytail and tried to slow her breathing. To her faint surprise she wasn’t trembling, though she was very much afraid – not of death, but of the bits before, the losing. There would be pain, of course, and the looks of gloating triumph on he
r enemies’ faces, and she dreaded those most of all.
Around her, the land and sky seemed to bloom into vivid life, from the glow of impending dawn to the kiss of the cool air. Then her stomach churned and her bowels clenched and she had to blink back sudden tears at the terror that these were among her last minutes when there was so much more she wanted from life.
‘Purge yourself,’ Zaqri urged. ‘Do it before the contest, so you do not have to in the Noose. You don’t wish to leave spore. And as you purge the waste, purge your fear – they are both just shit you don’t need.’
Feeling like there was a python wriggling in her guts, she fled for the dung hole beyond the camp, squatted and shat while tears stung her eyes. When she returned on shaky legs, Zaqri gave her a calm look. ‘Good. You will be fine now.’ His hand felt strong and solid on her arm. For a second she wished she could just cling to him and hide from the world. He was as solid as the stone beneath her feet as he led her to the middle of the camp. A few of the pack murmured encouragement to him, but no one said a word to her at all.
Wornu and Hessaz waited in the midst of their followers, wearing nothing but loinclothes. They were caked in wet mud from head to foot and were limbering up, breathing deeply, their faces taut but expressionless. Hessaz’s face flared into momentary malice when her eyes met Cym’s, but apart from that she gave little sign that she or Zaqri even existed. But Wornu strode over to Zaqri. Though Zaqri was over six foot and well-built, Wornu, massive and thickly muscled, dwarfed him.
‘My time has come,’ he proclaimed loudly.
Zaqri met him head-on and the two giants started squaring off, eyeball to eyeball.
Cym glanced at Hessaz, who spat in her direction. Cym poked her tongue back at her, then turned away, keenly aware of the eyes on her. A rat-faced woman called Fasha scuttled towards her, dropped to her haunches and sniffed her groin, smirking. ‘They have mated,’ she told the pack. A few whooped, but most sneered.