As A God

by T. G. Shepherd

  Curran had just thrown her sword. He must have doggedly tracked them through the city from the moment the hunt had begun, followed the bodies and the screams, seen her predicament and charged in. He had just saved her life.

  He went down in a spray of blood and then the winged man disappeared in another flash of feathers and madness, toward the north. A water tower loomed high above one of the buildings. He headed straight for it, disappeared in a sharp drop from the sky. That would be his nest, his refuge.

  The bricks holding the sword tip cracked, gave way and she fell again.

  But now in full possession of her senses, her skills and at least one of her swords. A rough descent and a rougher landing but she made it down to the street safely enough. Just at the mouth of the alley, a body sprawled in a pool of blood, hands still clutching at its ruined throat. It wore the red leathers of the Iron Quarters.

  Sequa stood for a moment, shivering with pain and exertion. Her body screamed at her from every muscle, every bone. Injury upon injury, heaped up. She had been using herself harshly since the day she cut Cur down from the gallows. How much had she left to fight with? She could see clearly, breathe well, so the head blow had been a minor one. The burns had turned to scabs, but thankfully not over any joints. The Shadow had healed what she could and her own will had done the rest. She could go on. She had no other choice now.

  Making her way up the external staircase, Sequa found the last five of her pack collected around the former slave. One man wrapped bandages, already blood soaked, around Cur’s upper arm.

  She scooped up her other blade from where Cur must have dropped it and screamed as she ran past the group. “Leave him!”

  They followed in the next fall of her foot, abandoning Curran to lie bleeding and alone.

  Second time she had done that; at least she hadn’t been the one to cut him on this occasion.

  She fetched them up under the tall building with the water tower on top, back down on street level. No other way to get to the roof but the internal staircase.

  The five remaining hunters, all ragged with exhaustion, each bore some visible wound and an unknown number of hidden hurts. Krif, of course. The slender ,foreign man she’d met at the second death by fire. A woman, taller by a head than all the others with whipcord muscles and limbs like branches. Sequa remembered her as the one who’d thrown the first blade to strike the monster. The final two men, cut from the same cloth as most Children, were small, fast, and precise.

  Panting, her own heart thudding with fear and horror and pain and joy, Sequa pointed upward.

  “He is there, run to ground. You saw? You saw his wings?”

  “I saw. I still do not believe,” Krif said, swigging a mouthful of water from a flask. “He can… he can fly?”

  The other four muttered and shifted in discomfort. The slight foreign man—X’san, his name came to her sharply—mumbled a few phrases in some strange sing-song language.

  She laughed deep in her chest, licked the sheen of blood off her lips. “He can fly. He is monstrously strong. He is fast as a hunting dog, agile as the wind and mad as the Gods themselves. He will rip your still-beating heart from your chest. If you can strike, strike to kill even if you must sever a companion’s head to do it. Give no quarter.” She drew her blades, tightened the wrist straps and ran forward.

  Kicking the door of the building open, Sequa did not look back to see if they followed.

  At the top of the stairs, eight stories up, she paused. The whole building was a city storehouse, dry goods that would not rot. Guarded and locked but seldom visited and tonight utterly abandoned. The last flight of stairs had been covered in the undisturbed dust of Turns at least. She touched the simple bar latch with one hand, then pressed her ear to the thick woven wicker of the frame. The rest of them came to the stillness and silence that only Children could manage.

  Nothing. The wind, the creaking of wood.

  The rhythmic creaking of wood…and the drip of liquid, water, or blood.

  Sequa clenched her left fist around the ring on her thumb and breathed out against the joints of her hand, a single salty drop of moisture beading, running, mixing with the blood on her lips to soak into the tightly woven hair. A tendril of something like strength slid up from the shadows at her feet and she smelled dry earth.

  Blood and breath; tears and bone.

  Let all the Gods attend now.

  She ripped open the door, letting it slam into the interior wall and vaulted into the open air of the roof with all the strength and speed her training and body could summon. Her blood was alive, and she felt no hurts in this moment.

  The man directly behind her—she did not remember his name—died in the next breath, taloned hands that flashed over Sequa’s head catching him in the throat and ripping it wide.

  His jerking, spouting body fell forward, blocking the path of the other four. The tide of his blood lapped at Sequa’s boots as she landed and leaped again, desperate for distance.

  She rolled, came up on one knee and drew her blades, shouting unintelligibly to draw his attention before he could strike again. He perched like a statue above the door, waiting for them to emerge to slaughter. Her yells devolved into coughing and she doubled over. Seeing her suddenly weak, he launched himself at her, wings catching with a snap.

  Sequa threw herself to the side. The base of the water tank took up half the roof, walled for two more stories. Her feet hit the smooth, clay wash, the soles of her boots sticky with fresh blood. She left livid footprints against the grimy, pale surface.

  She ran up the side of the wall, held parallel to the ground for perhaps three strides by speed and skill and the angle of her run. She turned her head to look and saw him arrowing toward her out of the sky. His arms spread out sharply, and he seemed to halt in midair like a kite, offering her a wide embrace. For a long, terrible moment, utterly exposed and perfectly helpless.

  If she’d had breath, she would have screamed like a child.

  In that moment of terror and memory and wailing disgust, she saw him without her fighter’s eyes and unbound by his magic.

  By blood and breath and earth and bone, in the air he became the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

  Her feet faltered, lost their purchase and she fell, hard, to the roof. Her knees hit first, driving pain up and down her legs and slamming the thought from her mind.

  Then the other four appeared, weapons drawn, stared up at their prey.

  Staring up at their executioner.

  The woman—Anis? Anel? Oh Gods, she was an Anem, a common name in the city—snapped her hands like a juggler and the air filled with spikes and stars of sharp metal. Krif and the other men dodged to either side of her, out of her line of attack. X’San drew a long, curved blade from his back; Krif had his knives and the last man a short sword and round buckler strapped to a forearm.

  The monster twisted in midair, avoiding the flying death as though he had foreknowledge of each individual piece. The woman whipped around, retreating back under cover to re-arm herself; she would be out of weapons in a few more passes at most. Her target spun in place then alighted in the middle of the open space for a moment.

  With his shield held out and high, the swordsman took two swift steps toward him and stabbed at his torso. The winged man’s hands flashed—the buckler suddenly spinning through the air…still attached to the arm that had held it.

  The maimed man shrieked, high and loud, reeling backward with blood pumping from the stump at his elbow.

  Sequa could parse the movement in hindsight; he had dodged away from the blade, dug his talons into either side of the joint and just ripped it apart.

  On the backhand, the winged man tore out his screaming throat.

  Four left.

  Not-Anem dodged out from the doorway, her hands bristling with steel. Krif came into a pure knife-fighter’s stance, one foot before the other, presenting as little of his body as possible, his knees bent to pull his center down and in. X’
san stood a little straighter, his long blade held loose and pointing straight at the winged man.

  Sequa curled her hands into fists on the hilts of her swords and rose to her feet.

  One at each cardinal point, the last four defenders of the city shared one swift look…and danced.

  Sequa moved first, twitching aside her pain, the weakness in her knees, the old, dull ache in her shoulder. Her upper body seemed to stay still as her feet slid, cutting just off straightforward. Angle-walking, the Michelian sword master had called it, the fastest way to gain ground and advantage without seeming to move at all. One blade whirled up, flashing over her head in a big looping strike.

  Her other sword snapped out and down under the false attack, striking for his near leg.

  Krif, directly behind him, moved in on the same side, coming to a smooth half-crouch and striking for the same leg, to hamstring.

  X’San’s breath huffed out, and he shuffled forward in short, crabbed steps, long sword rising up over his head to hang in the air, pregnant with menace and death.

  Not-Anem held still, farther back than all the others, her eyes glittering above the veils she still wore.

  In the center of the maelstrom, the winged man never took his eyes off of Sequa. His face covered in shadow, she could feel that malevolent gaze roaming over her skin, like oil poured over her head. Her rapid, pointed footwork faltered, taking an angle just a little two shallowly, just a little too fast. Her cut to his leg, still blindingly swift, but just off the correct line of attack. It skimmed the rough fabric of his breeches; it may have caused some superficial wound.

  He seemed to bend sideways at the waist, that foot coming up to rake her extended left arm with sharp talons and followed through, spraying fine droplets of her blood into the air. They spattered across Not-Anem’s face; she did not flinch. Her right hand snapped up and out and a single thin blade flashed through the space where his head had been. It would have been close enough to hear, like an evil wasp buzzing to attack. He straightened up, turning with the kick like a dancer himself, feathers swirling and rustling in the air. Other than quick, panting breath, the only sound on the roof came from his wings.

  Krif’s strike, to the same leg that kicked Sequa, missed utterly. Exposed and over-extended, he threw himself forward, rolling past the winged man to pop to his feet next to Sequa while she jerked back from the strike to her arm.

  X’san’s blade seemed to react with its own mind, his smooth falling strike from above his head turning with his wrists to become a side cut to the torso, bare skin downy and glistening with sweat.

  It struck high on that hip, slicing through the top of the breeches and the winged man bled for only the second time that night.

  Not-Anem danced backward, both hands snapping and multiple blades cut the air between them. The winged man snarled and surged into the air, dodging three of the missiles and taking a shallow cut along one hand from the last.

  Krif and Sequa leaped as one, spinning to each side in mid-air, each landing a blow to either side of his ribs as he pumped his wings to gain height. Both little more than the cuts from the edge of a dull, eating knife, glancing bad angles. They both landed in tight, kneeling crouches, Krif’s cloak snapping.

  The winged man rose up and up, and Sequa thought he intended to flee again—this time she would not have chased him, no matter what the others did. In a few beats of those great wings, with nothing to compare against, he seemed no more than a large bird against the sky.

  How he had gone so often unseen as he hunted came to her clearly.

  Sequa’s muzzy, frightened, desperate thoughts meandered around that solution to a tiny, inconsequential mystery, and then the fact that all four of them stood still, out in the open, looking up with slack weapons struck her in the side of the head. She shrieked and dove to one side, starting a cascade of tumbling bodies like a stream of water on a hot piece of metal.

  He folded his wings and dropped from the sky, faster than thought, faster than sight, a great, hunting hawk striking for his prey.

  Not-Anem died under his feet at the end of the fall, her body breaking with a thick crunching noise that resonated down Sequa’s spine. She did not even have time to cry out. Her hands spasmed open in death and a little fan of knives and throwing darts patted to the roof from her fingers.

  Three.

  Of them all, only X’san had struck with any weight and now the side of the winged man’s breeches became wet and dark with blood.

  “He bleeds,” Krif hissed under his breath. “He can bleed.”

  “He is only mortal,” Sequa hissed back and knew she lied. Whatever he was, mortal was not the word for it. But she had never seen a God bleed.

  Her own blood pattered and dripped down her arm, soaking the sleeves of her tunic, the fingerless glove. Her leathers seemed to slosh and grow heavy. When she flexed the fingers of her hand, they moved freely. No tendons severed then, thankfully. She could not fight one-handed.

  X’san circled around to the winged man’s injured side with that precise, crabbed footwork. Krif and Sequa came to their feet and moved in, feinting and bluffing to draw his attention. They might as well have been children tormenting a wolf.

  He smiled at them fondly, indulgently and came up onto the balls of his feet, talons scratching cryptic messages in the dirt and blood. Krif snarled and darted foward, one knife high and one low, both strikes that could become blocks, feints or killing blows, depending on what the target did.

  The target killed him.

  Again, Sequa saw the death as clearly as if he demonstrated it in slow motion, each movement sweetly exact.

  Krif dodged forward in the feral, fast crouch of a knife-fighting Child, all limbs and blades. The winged man hopped, feathers catching the air and holding him up for longer than should have been possible. He seemed to float above the knives as they whirled out to where his legs and stomach had been. His feet touched Krif’s shoulders, pushing. The human’s knees bent as he gave with the motion, but for heartbeats all of his weight directed down, grounding him. The winged man stepped down lightly behind him, spun on one foot and jammed the talons of one hand into Krif’s lower back.

  Sequa, half-turning toward them as it happened, could see both their faces in the bright light of the Goddess.

  Krif’s eyes, visible above his veils, astonished.

  The winged man smiling at her, his eyes like black pools.

  A noise like a knife ripping through thick burlap mixed with a dull, wet percussion, as though someone ran a spoon over the ribs of a slaughtered cow. The winged man’s hand appeared above Krif’s head, dripping gore in ribbons and streams.

  Krif collapsed as though he had no joints, nothing more than a bundle of rags and meat, soundless till the end.

  Two.

  X’san struck from behind, another smooth, beautiful motion like falling rain or a fisher-bird bending to its prey. The winged man threw himself sideways, away from the strike.

  Sequa hit him in the chest with the tip of her boot, driving him back, depriving him of that grace for an instant. X’san struck again, seamlessly, this time folding his wrist over to pull his long blade upward toward the inner leg, the second fastest bleed on the body. The winged man back flipped up and away from the blow, feathers shimmering in the light of the Goddess, landing behind X’san and on his feet again.

  The pain in her arm was getting worse, blood still dripping.

  She shoved it away, shoved away the reek of shit and innards, shoved away the bodies strewn like cordwood around her. Shoved away the tingling ache in the air, as though the very breath in her lungs filled with some strange hallucinogen. She saw flashes in the dark, out of the corners of her eyes. She might be bleeding to death.

  Two slight figures in dark leathers stood side-by-side and faced off against a monster.

  Sequa clenched her hands around her sword hilts and took a deep breath then moved two steps to her right. X’san moved two steps to his left, as the winged man p
ulled his arms in, folding his feathers across his chest.

  X’san reached up and pulled down his veils, revealing his face for the first time, round cheeked and flat-nosed and utterly unlike anyone she’d seen before. She wished idly she’d asked him about his heritage before tonight. He spoke softly in the thick air.

  “An honor to die with you, Champion.”

  Sequa raised her blades with a flourish and saw the winged man relax just a little, his weight settling back onto his heels.

  The two former Children struck at the same moment.

  Sequa leaped, scissoring her swords at the winged man’s neck. X’san dropped to one knee, his slash at the winged man’s legs so fast and so smooth it seemed to float.

  In the air, unable to alter her direction, Sequa watched her last ally cut down.

  Their target bent backward at the waist, arms flaring out in a flash of feathers and bare skin. His head dropped below the line of Sequa’s swords as his feet came up. Talons hooked into X’san’s bare face and left four long, parallel grooves in the flesh, partially ripping off his jaw and bisecting both eyes. He fell backward with the power of the strike and blood spurted from his neck for a few beats of his heart, to join the slurry already congealing at their feet. He died barefaced, ruined pupils gazing up at the Feathers.

  One.

  Sequa’s swords cut air and she frantically tucked and rolled to her feet, smearing the back of her leathers in filth. She spun on one heel and faced him alone again, stomach clenching. The pain in her arm faded in the blood rush of desperation.

  He watched her with a quizzical tilt of his head, so very like a bird that the images strobed back and forth in her vision. The monstrous man melting into the beautiful feather creature with each blink.

  She took a step back, presenting her strong hand, her other blade held in a guard position at her chest.

  He spread his wings to make a gently glowing lattice against the rising Goddess.