by Paul Stewart
Her features were so delicate, yet her expression so strong. Her skin was the most flawless he had ever seen, and her dark eyes seemed to hold mysteries he could scarce but guess at. Time and again he felt his gaze drawn to them.
She glanced up at the sky, as she had throughout the journey, looking – Micah surmised – for her companion, the great whitewyrme. A shiver of apprehension ran through him. This was no farmgirl from the plains walking next to him. This beautiful girl with the milk-white skin and pooldeep eyes was wild, dangerous, unknowable …
Not for the first time, Thrace caught him staring at her. She raised a hand and folded it over her shoulder, and her eyes winced as she gently squeezed it.
Micah winced, too. ‘That shoulder of yours is still hurting you some, ain’t it?’ he said softly.
They continued in silence, and were walking sideways on, when Eli stopped. The jutting slab of rock was just ahead of them. The sky was purple grey with imminent night. The cragclimber reached down awkwardly on the narrow ledge and picked something up.
Micah watched him, then leaned forward and thrust a rigid arm out at Thrace’s side, that she could grip a hold of and not slip.
‘What you found there, Eli?’ he asked.
Eli looked back, his finger and thumb raised and a look on his face that Micah could not determine.
‘A wyrmehook,’ he said. ‘Kith wyrmehook.’ He shrugged and pushed the five-pronged hook into a pocket, and continued.
Thrace followed, with Micah’s arm still outstretched protectively at her side. One by one, they slipped behind the falling water and into the concealed cavern. A darkness filled with flitting and skittering folded itself around them.
Something was wrong.
Eli took the lantern that hung from a hook-like spur at the side of the entrance. He struck a match, lit the wick and pushed the mantle down into place. A sputtering glow filled the cavern. He raised the lantern and swung it from side to side …
Thrace let out a high-pitched scream.
Thirty-Five
The kingirl was on her knees, rocking to and fro, her mouth open and her eyes rolling back in her head, glistening and marble white. She reached up and tore at her hair, dragging it down over her face, then out at the sides, her fingers clenched and buried in the tangled strands. She started moaning, softly at first, something that Micah couldn’t understand, then getting louder till a single word was echoing round the cavern.
‘Kith … Kith … Kith … Kith …’
Micah stared about him, bewildered.
The neat order of stacked boxes and lines of urns had been ransacked, reduced to splintered boards and broken shards, while their contents lay every-which-way; shrivelled roots and coarse powders, and dried leaves that covered everything, turning the cavern ground to a forest floor in late halfwinter. Cracked red earthenware pots dripped yellow ointment like pus seeping from ruptured boils. Dead wyrmes littered the ground, with the living – some injured, some not – picking their way between them, their eyes ablaze and stomachs bloated.
‘What … what’s happened?’ Micah said, his voice a faltering whisper.
Thrace howled.
Micah went towards her. He put his hand on her shoulder. She shot backwards, violently shaking it off and turned on him. Micah recoiled at the sight of the savage eyes that glared back at him through hanks of wild and matted hair. She was breathing hard through flared nostrils, while her lips had peeled back in a snarl, and the small pointed teeth gleamed. A low rasping hiss emerged from her throat.
‘There!’ she cried.
Micah followed the line of her pointing finger into the flickering shadows at the back of the cavern.
The great whitewyrme lay in a lifeless coil, its head to one side and long arrowtip tail looping back the other way. It had been kithstripped. Pliers had wrenched the claws from its feet and the teeth from its jaws, leaving the mouth bloodgummed and slack. Its stout ivory horn had been torn out by the roots, leaving a gaping hole at the centre of its long snout. The wings had been crudely hacked off. The valuable bones had been harvested; the valueless strips of skin discarded, and now lay in a tattered heap amid blood and half-digested food, for the creature had been eviscerated. The kidneys and liver were gone, and the heart. And there was a ragged incision at the base of the wyrme’s neck, where its flameoil sac had been ripped out.
Thrace sprang to her feet, her limber body flexed and agile. With no trace of the injured shoulder now, she ran across the cavern floor and fell again to her knees, in front of the dead wyrme. Head down, her face shrouded by her corn-white hair, the wyrmekin girl reached out and ran her fingers over the bloody wounds on the whitewyrme’s head. Micah hurried across to her, stepping over the dead and dying smaller wyrmes in his path.
‘Thrace,’ he whispered, and she looked up at him. There was cold hatred in her eyes.
Kith had done this. And he was kith.
Just then, the light dimmed. Micah looked round to see Eli down on his knees by the wall on the far side of the cavern. His body was hunched forward, a flickering halo of lantern light around him.
Micah crossed the cavern floor towards him. Eli must have heard his footsteps, for he glanced back over his shoulder, his face haunted and drawn, then turned away again. Micah came to a halt just behind Eli, and peered over the cragclimber’s shoulder.
The body was on its back, the arms angled like broken wings and the legs apart. There were clumps of hair beneath broken fingernails, and dried blood. The head was lying on its side and tilted at an improbable angle.
‘Jura,’ Micah whispered.
The kin’s silver-grey suit of soulskin had been slashed open down the front, leaving the slender body exposed, and none too fastidiously, for there was a long thin line scoring the skin from the base of her neck to the top of her thigh; a scratch in some parts, deep in others. The blood had congealed, but Micah could see that, in places, it had been smeared by roving hands, by probing fingers.
He turned away, bent double and vomited; vomited till his stomach was empty and his heaving dry. Then he straightened up, wiped his mouth, wiped his eyes. Thrace had emerged from the shadows and was standing next to him. There was blood down the front of her soulskin. She was looking down at Eli, watching the cragclimber’s every movement intently. Micah turned back.
With taut delicacy, Eli cupped the dead kin’s head in both hands and turned her face to his. There was a deep gash in her neck. Red-black blood had gathered in a pool and soaked into her ashen hair. Her eyes were open and filled with defiance. The mouth was open too, the lips parted to reveal the dark empty hole inside, where the tongue had been cut out.
‘Why … why would they do that?’ Micah groaned.
‘Because she refused to speak to them,’ said Eli, his voice toneless. ‘Kith do this. Do this to kin who won’t answer them.’
Micah shook uncontrollably. He heaved emptily and tears sprang to his eyes.
Eli reached out a hand towards the dead kin. Gently, tenderly, he passed a finger and thumb over her eyelids, closing her eyes. His hand moved to her mouth, and he closed that too. Then, reaching further forward, he bent down, and pressed his lips to hers.
‘Rest peaceful, Jura,’ he whispered softly as he pulled away.
He climbed to his feet, his gaze still resting upon Jura’s face. Then he turned. He looked at Thrace, then at Micah. His expression was grim and so hard it looked as though those pale-blue eyes of his were staring out of a wooden mask.
Beside him, Micah heard Thrace softly hiss. Her fists were clenching and unclenching.
‘There were five of them,’ Eli said, his voice flat and emotionless. ‘Them five kith I expected to find dead at the speckled stack.’ He sighed. ‘Most likely they spotted that this green haven had been visited – maybe even followed tracks we left behind.’ He surveyed the mess of spilled remedies and herbs. ‘Co
uldn’t believe their luck, finding such a place … Jura would have sensed their coming, but she wouldn’t have run, not with Asra back there, sick and defenceless …’
Micah glanced at Thrace. She was nodding slowly. Her face was composed once more, her mouth set and her eyes wide. She was beautiful.
‘Judging by the marks here, and the blood spatters, and the hair and skin beneath her nails, she fought powerful hard,’ Eli was saying. ‘It must have taken all five of them in the end. The women pinned her down at first, but she was too strong for them. She lashed out, wounding at least one of them by the look of it. Then the men came to help out. If I know Jura, she’d have held out as long as she could, not said a word in the hopes that she’d keep their full attention; that they wouldn’t venture into the back of the cavern.’ He hesitated. ‘Then they slit her throat.’
‘They will pay,’ Thrace said darkly. ‘For the whitewyrme. For the kin. For the wyrmeling they stole. I will hunt them down. I will make them pay.’
Eli nodded, his expression unchanging. ‘Yes,’ he said. His voice was low and measured, and colder than Micah had ever heard it. ‘And I shall help you in the endeavour.’
Thirty-Six
It was hot and cramped. The wyrmeling’s eyes were wide open, but it couldn’t see anything. Its heart hammered inside its chest.
This darkness, that swayed and bounced, was oppressive. It was suffocating and dense. It stank like death. It seemed without end.
The wyrmeling tried to blink the darkness away, but it could not. The same matt night remained. It was as if it had been returned to the wyve that it had struggled so hard to break out of.
It strained to flex its wings; it tensed its legs. It had to escape. It had to hatch a second time. One hindleg broke free and its claws scratched desperately against the soft walls that flexed yet would not yield. It would have breathed fire had it been able, but its nostrils were blocked and its jaws would not open.
Something struck it hard on the shoulder.
It fell still.
The swaying jolting darkness returned.
When, a time later, the wyrmeling came down heavily on its haunches, it let out a muffled cry of alarm. The rocky ground was hard, and it jarred. Above its head, it heard scraping and scratching, and dazzling light abruptly flooded in.
Its eyes snapped shut. It felt something cold drop down over its head and tighten round its neck. It blinked, once, twice. It looked up.
A gaunt hook-nosed figure loomed over the wyrmeling. Dark hair hung down to his shoulders and was thick on his face. One eye was concealed by a dirty bandage; the other, deepset and hooded, flashed as fleshy lips parted and guttural sounds emerged. A woman beside him nodded her head. There were half-healed scratches down one of her cheeks. She grunted softly as she pulled a rucksack from her shoulder, then rummaged inside and retrieved a package that unfolded to reveal thin brown strips.
The strips smelled good. They smelled like food, and the wyrmeling’s belly rumbled.
The wyrmeling went to lurch forward, but the noose round its neck held it back. The woman pushed her hair out of her face and reached out a hand, a single strip of meat dangling from her fingers. The meat grazed the wyrmeling’s snout, but still it could not open its jaws.
The guttural noises started up all over. First from one mouth, then the other. Then from the first again, but louder.
The woman shrugged. She picked up a stick and cut a snick in its end. She rolled up the strip of meat and wedged it into the split wood. Then she held the stick to the wyrmeling’s snout and pushed the skewered meat between its tightly bound jaws and into its mouth.
It swallowed. It wanted more, and more came. It came until the wyrmeling could eat no more and, sated, turned its head away.
It saw the other three. They were close by, two of them standing. One had a gleaming hairless head. One was broad as a boulder. The third was small and hooded and sat hunched up on the ground, her face pinched and hands clasped at a hip. Noises were coming from each of their mouths; guttural, nasal, sibilant …
The one with the hairless head was loudest. His noise was like a roar. He kept pointing off into the far distance, following the line of his outstretched finger with his eyes, then looking back at the others. He stared at the seated woman, then shrugged and raised his hands. She shook her head from side to side. Her eyes were wet, and her face creased up as she stroked tenderly at her hip, then pulled aside blood-soaked material to reveal a wound that had barely started to heal. There was ragged skin and clotted blood, and dark raw flesh. The broad man crouched down next to her and wrapped a large arm around her shoulders. He looked up at the one with the hairless head, and jabbed a finger towards him.
Suddenly, everyone was making noises at the same time. All five of them. They pointed and gestured; they put their hands on their hips, then flapped them about. They shifted their bodies, they shuffled their feet. Heads jutted forwards, jaws set. They growled and whined and snorted and sighed as lips moved, tongues darted and teeth flashed in and out of view. It got louder, faster, then stopped as abruptly as it had started.
The wyrmeling cocked its head to one side. Its eyes widened as its gaze darted from one to the other.
The one with the gleaming hairless head had his hands raised. He alone was making noises. Soft and soothing now, and much slower. The others sat in silence. Three of them were looking at him, nodding occasionally; but the one with the hood was still. Her head was lowered and she was staring down at the ground. The broad man was watching her intently, soft cooing sounds coming from his rounded thin lips.
Then she nodded.
The next moment, there was more guttural noise, quick movements and bustling activity. The tight noose at the wyrmeling’s neck was released, and the suffocating darkness suddenly returned. A lurch made the wyrmeling gasp, and the darkness began to sway and judder.
It squirmed and struggled for a moment. Then, anticipating a blow, it fell still.
Thirty-Seven
‘You are kith,’ said Thrace. ‘I am kin.’ She glared at the cragclimber. ‘This is kin business.’
‘That may be so,’ Eli said evenly, ‘but your great whitewyrme is not with you at present, Thrace, to speed you across the weald skies in pursuit.’ He met her gaze. ‘You’ll need my help to track them on the ground.’
He looked down at Jura’s broken body at his feet, anger and pain clouding his eyes.
‘And I have my own score to settle with them wyve collectors,’ he said grimly. ‘And that is kith business.’
Thrace gave a curt nod, but said nothing. Eli turned away and knelt beside Jura. He slapped away a small wyrme with a jagged crest that was sniffing at the wound in her neck, sending it skittering away, squeaking with indignation. He pulled off his rucksack, undid the straps and reached inside.
‘Keep your backpack on, Micah,’ he said. ‘We’ll be moving out directly.’
Micah frowned and glanced behind him at the rushing curtain of water. The lantern light picked out glittering streaks in its shifting surface, like rock shot with silver or gold, but beyond it was black with nighttime.
‘We’re leaving?’
Eli spoke without looking round. ‘You may have a yearning to spend the night in this charnel-cave, boy, but I surely do not.’
Eli pulled a rolled wyrmeskin Micah had not seen before from the depths of his rucksack. He unfurled the gleaming coppercolour skin and laid it over Jura’s body.
‘Been saving this fine skin for a winter cloak,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘But Jura deserves the best. Now, Micah, lad,’ he said, gently turning the body over and gathering the wyrmeskin into a bundle. ‘There’s some salve over there.’ His shoulders flexed as he nodded towards the mess of shattered urns and broken boxes by the wall. ‘At the far end. Look for a pot that has a circle with a cross through it on the front. And see if you can’t find me an unbroken o
ne.’
Micah did as he was told. Leaving Thrace standing over Eli and watching his every action intently, he crossed the cavern.
There were more pots that had escaped destruction than he had at first thought. They’d been upended and lay on the ground, but many were still stoppered up, their contents intact. He located one with the markings that Eli had described, and pulled the stopper. Pungent odours wafted up. Pine oil, camphor …
Micah returned to Eli with the pot. The cragclimber was still on his knees, but now cradled the rolled wyrmeskin containing Jura’s body in his arms.
‘Is this it?’ he said, showing the pot to Eli.
‘It is,’ Eli confirmed. ‘Give it to Thrace.’
Micah held the pot out to the girl, who was still staring at Eli and the bundle in his arms.
‘Jura would have given you this herself, had she been able,’ Eli said quietly, climbing to his feet. ‘Rub it into that shoulder of yours, and it’ll take the fire from the joint.’
Turning to Micah, Thrace took the pot from his hand. She sniffed at it suspiciously, then nodded. She reached for the soulskin at her neck and pulled it down, revealing her collarbone. Then, wincing with pain, she carefully eased the pale clinging slough of the great whitewyrme, her Aseel, down off one shoulder. The pliant soulskin peeled from her smooth white skin as she turned her back on Eli and Micah.
‘You will have to help me,’ she said in a quiet faltering voice.
‘That means you, boy,’ said Eli, as he carried the wyrmeskin bundle towards the wall of water. ‘And bind it tight with whatever comes to hand – but don’t take too long about it.’
Her back to him, Thrace held up the pot with a steady hand. Micah reached into it and withdrew three fingers coated in pungent yellow ointment. In contrast to Thrace’s, his own hand was trembling, and he had to grip his wrist with the other to steady it.