by Paul Stewart
As the yellow milky moon rose, the whitewyrme coiled his long sinuous body protectively around the hunched kin. He purred softly deep down inside his throat, and tendrils of warm wyrmebreath rose from his nostrils. But she seemed unaware that he was there.
Finally, when the dawn flushed the low sky with muted pinks and yellows, he gently uncoiled himself and climbed to his feet. He looked down at her, his yellow eyes unblinking.
She should eat. Perhaps that was what she needed. Damsel flies, fresh-caught and fire-scorched. They would be difficult to discover in the midst of halfwinter, larval and wingless and buried deep in the scree, but he would search until he found some.
He raised his head and flexed the muscles at his shoulders, stretching his wings and launching himself up into the dawn sky. He circled once, twice, above her, hoping against hope that the sight of him on the wing without her might rouse her yet, but it did not. He arched his neck and flicked his tail and, with powerful beats of his broad wings, soared off towards the distant range of suntipped mountains, barebacked, empty and alone.
For two days and nights, they’d watched and waited, she and Aseel, before they had launched their attack on the gutting tarn. It had been worth it.
At first, those blood-smeared kith had been cautious, emerging from their barrows in ones and twos like nervous skitterwyrmes, to carry out their rancid stench-filled work. But on the third day, he had arrived, and they’d come out to greet him and his stolen treasure, all of them excited and greedy for a glimpse of the heart of a great whitewyrme that he carried in his pack.
And at the sight of him, bile rose in her throat and the blood roared in her ears, and they had attacked.
Aseel had swooped, her lance had danced; talons slashed, flame spewed, and there was blood. Kith blood. And she had rejoiced in it.
Then they had cornered him, the one the kith called Jesse. Aseel brought him down with a blow from his tail and sent him sprawling into the gutting rack, insensible. Then she had done the rest.
A fevered rage gripped her as she took her vengeance. The kith, Jesse, would pay for what he and his companions had done; he would pay with his suffering and his blood. She would make sure of that.
But as she had gone about her task, the release she sought, the savage satisfaction at his terror, would not come. His pain did not ease her own, it only drove it deeper, like a shard of ice piercing her heart and spreading through her veins. Her fury grew cold and merciless in its disappointment. And when, finally, she drove the knife into the kith’s chest, pinning the wyrmeheart to it, the full horror gripped her.
She stared at the corpse she had slaughtered, not a lancelength away, but so close that his blood now covered her, and no longer just saw the kith called Jesse. He was leaning forward, his face in shadow, and his long hair matted and tangled, obscuring his features. He was thin and gangly, awkward and vulnerable-looking in death.
He could be any kith hanging there. He could be Micah.
Thrace froze.
‘Thrace?’
She could hear him now, inside her head, his soft voice earnest and concerned.
‘Thrace?’
Micah stared at the bloodstreaked girl. Aseel was nowhere to be seen.
Thrace’s eyes flickered, though whether with recognition, Micah was not sure. Her dark eyes betrayed no emotion.
He stood up. The warm water trickled from his shoulders and arms and his skin steamed. He waded forward and stepped out of the pool. His teeth grazed his lower lip as he crouched down beside her.
He could smell the rank odour of death upon her. Splashed innards. Singed hair, scorched bone. The tang of the blood that covered her body, some of it brown and crusted; some smeared and red and still wet.
He cupped a hand below one elbow and placed an arm around her shoulders for support. She did not help him as he eased her gently to her feet, but neither did she resist. And when Micah took a step towards the hot spring, then another, she went with him.
Bathed in shadow, Thrace’s eyes looked like two black stones. Her skin was pallid and her mouth twitched, but she remained silent.
As their feet stepped into the hot water, Micah paused. Thrace paused with him. He raised a tentative hand and pulled the bloodsplattered hood from her head, and her hair fell loose, and there was more blood, staining the ash-gold tresses red and matting them in clumps. At the sight of her, Micah felt an overwhelming wave of pity and tenderness engulf him, and he knew he had to wash this blood away, to cleanse this strange savage girl and rouse her from her frightening trance.
His hand was shaking, but she did not seem to notice as she allowed herself to be led deeper into the steaming green pool. The hot water rose slowly to their knees, then the sandy bed of the pool beneath their feet shelved sharply, and they plunged in up to their shoulders.
Micah stood before her. He cupped water with his hands and let it trickle down over her face. With his fingertips, he gently wiped the blood from her cheeks and chin, and from the shell-like curl of her ears. The blood on her soulskin was dissolving and her whole body seemed wreathed in a cloud of red. Her dark eyes stared into his as he eased the bloodied wyrmeslough from her shoulders, from her arms, and peeled it down her body.
He cradled her in his arms and bent her backwards until her head touched the water. Her hair fanned out and Micah ran his splayed fingers through the thick hair and gently washed away the blood.
When he leaned back and helped her regain her footing, the last trace of blood was gone, and she seemed to see him for the first time. She stared at the scar on his chest, her dark eyes hardening, and her body tensed.
It was a kinwound, made by a kinlance. And kinhealed.
He flinched. He wanted to tell her that she had wounded him at the speckled stack, but that he didn’t blame her – and that she mustn’t blame herself. Or him. He wasn’t a wyve collector; he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time was all …
Before he could say a word, she reached slowly forward and touched two fingertips to the shiny nub of skin. Then she looked up into his eyes, her gaze penetrating and impenetrable.
‘I did this?’ she said.
Micah nodded solemnly. Thrace’s nostrils flared, and she breathed in, long and deep, her eyes still locked onto his.
Slowly, tentatively, Micah drew her closer to him, till their naked bodies met. Thrace tipped her head up; Micah lowered his. And their taut muscles relaxed in each other’s hold as their mouths pressed together and their lips parted and their tongues touched.
Forty-Six
‘I don’t like it, Sol,’ Leah was saying. ‘I mean, the dark places beneath the mountains … There’s good reason kith don’t venture there.’
‘We’re going to be just fine,’ Solomon reassured her. ‘Trust me, Leah. I know the way. We’ll be in and out of there in no time at all, and with more wealth than we know what to do with.’
Leah stared down at the sack. She kicked it.
‘Don’t you go scorching that leather none,’ she warned. ‘I won’t tell you again, wyrme.’
The wyrmeling flinched, but did not make a sound. Its ridged head and wing-knuckles pressed out at sharp angles from inside the cramped sack, exposed and vulnerable.
‘Hey, there,’ Solomon protested gently. ‘That’s no way to treat our precious merchandise.’
‘I hate it,’ said Leah bitterly through clenched teeth. She kicked out again. ‘I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. I wish we’d never found the damn thing …’ She was shaking her head from side to side. ‘That goddamn firebreath – and those eyes, Sol, staring right into me. I swear it’s almost like it knows what I’m thinking. And I don’t like it. It creeps me out, Sol …’
‘You just keep your mind on the heap of riches it’s gonna make us,’ Solomon said, and he wrapped his heavy arms around Leah’s body and drew her close. ‘Returner’s wealth, Leah,’ he said,
his head lowered and breath warm against her neck. ‘That’s why we’ve got to go where we’re going. It’s the only way, trust me in this.’
Leah nodded, and Solomon smiled and squeezed a little tighter. He looked into her eyes. Snow had started falling, fine and granular. It dusted their shoulders, their heads, their backpacks.
‘Are we resolved in this matter, Leah?’
She nodded again.
‘Come on, then,’ said Solomon, easing himself away from her clutching grasp. ‘Let’s go down there.’ He glanced up ruefully at the sky, where the clouds were curdled and dark and so low it looked like he could reach up and scratch them. Ice-chip snowflakes dropped into his eyes, which he wiped away as water. He lit the pitchdip torch. ‘Leastways we’ll be out of this weather.’
He reached out. Leah took his hand and they entered the tunnel together.
She glanced round at him. Despite the gloom, she saw that his eyes were wide and that there was a tautness to his jaw and lips. She didn’t recognize the expression, for she had never seen it before, not on Solomon’s face. And then she did.
It was fear.
‘Happen we should remove our packs while we still can, ’fore we end up getting wedged tighter than a cork-stop in a liquor bottle,’ he said. ‘We can pick them up on our return.’
He kneeled down, shucked the rucksack from his shoulders and propped it against the tunnel wall. Leah handed him hers, which he placed beside it. She felt lighter without the burdensome load, almost like she was about to fly, yet she also felt vulnerable without the reassuring weight upon her shoulders.
‘What about this?’ she said, holding out her spitbolt.
Solomon turned and observed the slender crossbow for a moment, his dark eyes narrowed, before taking hold of it. He gave Leah the flickering torch, pulled his own crossbow from his back and compared the two, eyeing their length and breadth, his gaze flicking from one to the other, then weighing the two of them on broad outstretched palms, the muscles in his neck and arms flexing as he did so.
‘It’s powerful and deadly compared to the spitbolt,’ he said, raising the sidewinder higher, ‘but it sure as hell is cumbersome. Then again, keld don’t take kindly to kith bearing arms. I’m minded to leave both of them behind,’ he said tersely, as if talking to himself.
Leah watched as he stowed the crossbows next to the rucksacks.
‘Though it sorely grieves me to do so,’ he muttered. ‘’Specially if it turns into a fight …’
‘A fight, Sol?’ Leah asked quietly, and was shocked by her voice, which was high-pitched and tremulous, like the voice of a frightened little girl. ‘Are you anticipating a fight … ?’
She wanted him to reassure her. She wanted his deep voice to brush aside her fears, to tell her that there was nothing to fret about. But he did not.
‘If the worst comes to the worst, I’ve got my gutting knife,’ Solomon said.
He picked up the sack with the wyrmeling, turned away and continued down the narrow tunnel. Gripping the torch, Leah followed as close behind as she could without tripping on Solomon’s heels.
The tunnel widened out, and Solomon slowed to allow Leah to catch up alongside. He swapped the sack from one hand to the other and wrapped a heavy arm around her shoulders. He peered round at her and flashed an easy confident smile.
She smiled back, but as they continued walking, the cold and damp of the tunnel seemed to worm its way inside her, making her bones ache and her senses spark. There was an odour of decay in the air and, to her ears, the howlings of the wind were like the moans of undead things. Solomon’s arm felt as burdensome as the rucksack she had left behind.
They kept on along the tunnel until it became too narrow to walk side by side. Solomon gave the sack to her, took the torch and led the way. Leah realized she was beginning to pant, plumes of her own breath billowing in the icy air as their pace increased. The smell of fear mingled with the odour of death, and it was her own. Inside the sack, the wyrmeling scratched and squirmed, and she chided it to be still.
They entered the narrowest tunnel yet. It got narrower still, then started to climb steeply. Leah’s boots slipped on the loose stones beneath her feet, and she had to steady herself with one hand pressed against the wall, recoiling at its slimy texture.
All at once, the tunnel opened up, and Leah stumbled after Solomon into a vast limestone cavern. Far above her head in the rocky folds of the vaulted roof, faint strands of light cast the cavern in skeins of green-black shadow.
‘We’re here,’ Solomon said.
Forty-Seven
Ichabod the stone prophet emerged from his hiding place.
He’d watched the two wyrmekith disappear inside the mountain. The yellow flame of the torch had flickered on the sides of rock for a moment, and then was gone.
His lop-sided gaze remained on the shadowed entrance as he jigged agitatedly from foot to foot in an agony of indecision.
Finally he turned away.
And then he was running. Running like he’d never run before. Madcap. Helter-skelter. Hurtling over boulders, slipping and sliding on scree, shatterrock, his tattered clothes snagging on thornbushes and spiky scrub. Falling to his knees, picking himself up, and running on and on, over rockmounds, through dry ravines and scrambling across bluffs and dry gulches. Running, running. Losing himself in the rhythm of his pounding legs and thumping heart. Losing all sense of time, of distance. Running. Running, running until he could run no more …
Eventually he collapsed, coughing and wheezing and fighting for breath.
At last, he seemed to gather his wits. Sitting up, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small leather pouch.
His fingers were shaking as he opened it and tipped the contents out into the palm of his hand. Eight wooden marbles rolled into it, one of them larger than the others. Ichabod picked it up with forefinger and thumb. It was sweatdark and smoothed by hours of play, and the letter H had been carved neatly into the wood on one side.
He set it down upon the ground, and sorting through the others, selected a second marble, which he lay beside it. Then a third. And a fourth … Until all of them had been used up. His cracked lips tightened as he stared at the name he’d created.
HEPZIBAR.
He sat back on his haunches for a moment, then began rocking slowly backwards and forwards, tears streaming down his face.
‘Heppy,’ he moaned. He was weak-willed. He was cowardly. ‘Heppy. Heppy …’
He wiped a sleeve across his wet face, then gathered the wooden marbles together with a single sweep of his hand. He slipped them back into the pouch, which he hung from his neck and tucked down inside his ragged shirt. Then he raised his head and looked around.
He was at the top of a tall ridged pinnacle. Down to his left was the rocky shoreline of a lake that was crystal clear and glazed with thin ice – apart from one corner, which was fed by a hot spring, its surface stippled by coiling twists of steam.
He would go down to the lake, he decided. He would soak his aching feet awhile in its warm waters.
The stone prophet climbed to his feet and began to walk down to the clear lake.
Forty-Eight
Aseel spotted the bare screeslope from high up in the sky, the hot vents that pockmarked its surface wreathing the rocks in smoke and preventing the snow from settling. He swooped down and landed, and used his tail to sweep the rocky debris aside, then scrabbled urgently in the loose stones beneath. The damsel fly larvae he uncovered were purple and wriggling, and there were far more of them than he had need of.
He skewered them on his foreclaws, two or three to each one, till the talons were laden with succulent morsels. He cradled them to his chest, flexed his shoulder muscles and took to the air with swift powerful wingbeats.
The snow thinned as he soared over a crest of jagged peaks, and far in the distance, the fetid red g
utting tarn came into view, with the clear lake just beyond, its waters like a huge turquoise gemstone set in the pure white of the snow.
It was only three days since he had returned to his kin from the mating. Flushspent and wounded, he had flown to the speckled stack to find her gone, and had set off at once in search of her. He had tracked her trailscent, and encountered only death. Death at the cavern behind the waterfall, death in the camp on the high plateau, and when he had found her at last at the mountain pass, she was walking with kith, and their deathstench was heavy upon her.
There was something else that was different about her – but their reunion was so joyful that Aseel had put that from his mind. But he could ignore it no longer. Not after the gutting tarn.
She had willed it, that bloody vengeance on the kith. He had felt her passionate hatred, and accepted it. With their constant predations and wanton exploitation of the weald, the massacre was something the kith had brought upon themselves. He hadn’t relished killing so many, but if it stemmed the advance of the two-hides, then such bloodshed was worth it, wasn’t it? That was what kinship meant. Wyrme and kin fighting as one, more powerful together than alone – yet Thrace’s lust for blood had surprised even him.
Afterwards, Aseel had thought, they would go to their winter refuge, their kinship as strong as ever. But something had changed in her; something deep and hidden from Aseel’s unblinking yellow eyes …
He folded his wings back and swooped down lower in the sky, eyes fixed on the clear lake ahead. She was where he’d left her, on the sandy shoreside of the bubbling hot spring. She lay on her side, curled up in the warm mist, a blanket draped over her.
She was not alone.
A second figure lay behind her, his body folded into hers and head nestling in the curve of her neck. It was a kith, the boy Aseel had found her travelling with when he’d returned from his mating. They were naked beneath the blanket, and heavy with kithscent. The boy’s clothes lay in a disordered bundle by the side of the pool, while her soulskin lay beside them, carefully spread out on a flat grey rock. It had been cleansed of the gore from the gutting tarn, and the skin was now as white and glistening as the day Aseel had shed it from his own body.