Night Witches

by L J Adlington

  Fenlon folds his arms. ‘Define operational. If you mean ready to fly, get shot at and crash, then I can have nine, maybe ten, ready in an hour.’

  ‘Only nine?’ I can’t believe it. ‘Did we lose so many while I was out of it?’

  ‘What’s with all this we and our stuff?’ snarls Yeldon. ‘Whose side are you on anyway, weird girl? What’s your plan of action?’

  I rub my eyes, which are still heavy and sore. ‘Can you spare a Storm for me? I need to get to the Morass.’

  Lida laughs at that, a harsh sound. ‘Hadn’t you noticed? The Morass has come to us!’

  She’s right. The school has become a garden. The bioweave walls are bulging with vine stems. Leaves are bursting beneath the ceiling lights, turning everything faintly green.

  Mossie says, ‘It started a few days ago and keeps getting worse. People tried burning it and the fires just got too out of control. The only good news is, it must be attacking the Crux as much as us.’

  ‘Who says it’s attacking?’ I ask. ‘They’re just plants, growing where you don’t want them.’

  When Papi speaks his voice is gruff. ‘Last Long Night it was the same. Trees sporing everywhere and these flowers sprouting. Back then we just yanked the weeds out and got on with it. That was before we knew there really were . . . witches . . . walking around like normal people.’

  ‘But they’re not normal,’ Yeldon insists.

  Zoya wants to know, ‘What are you going to do when you get back to the Morass, Pip?’

  ‘Anything’s got to be better than sitting around here waiting for the Crux to stop praying for the light to shine again. I thought I might try to defeat the enemy army, save the city and end the war – something like that.’

  Now they all look at me as if I’m disconnected as well as deviant, which, since Uncle Mentira took my keypad, is pretty much the literal truth.

  ‘You want to defeat the Crux army?’ mocks Lida. ‘Are you really that powerful?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. There’s only one way to find out . . .’

  I turn to go . . .

  ‘Not so fast,’ Lida says. She pulls her lighter-box from a pocket and deliberately flips it open in front of me. ‘One message did come through from Aura. We’ve had the highest-priority instructions to contain you here if you should happen to appear, using whatever force necessary.’

  Yeldon smiles with satisfaction. ‘Apparently witches do have some vulnerable points . . .’

  I nearly crumple to the grass-growing floor. All it will take is one strand of my hair from my pillow, my hairbrush, cut from my head, then . . . unbelievable agony.

  The crew move closer. They move as one. They are, after all, loyal citizens of Rodina. Bred to obey. To belong.

  Click, click, click, Lida flips the lighter-box lid. Then she smiles.

  ‘As I’ve said, the orders are to use force, but how can I help it if you turn violent and overpower me with some abnormal witch power?’

  ‘Violent? I haven’t touched you!’

  Lida steps aside and hands me the lighter-box. ‘Having made me your first victim of brutality, I hope you don’t somehow manage to force Fenlon to let you steal a Storm.’

  Fenlon grins. ‘There’s one already fuelled and armed.’

  I stare at them all.

  Fenlon coughs. ‘Er, any time soon would be good for the breakout, Aranoza. I can’t stand round here being a hostage all day. I have got other things to do, you know.’

  Mossie is suddenly at my side, taking off her coat and slinging it round my shoulders. ‘How dare you wrestle these warm clothes from me, you monster?’

  Petra joins her. ‘I’m appalled you knocked me to the ground and made me give you this good-luck hug.’

  Yeldon shakes his head in disbelief. ‘You’re all letting her go? You’re acting like she can be trusted, when we’ve no proof she won’t destroy us all too? Fine! Take a Storm if you have to, but don’t expect the rest of us to break faith with Aura by helping you after that. We’re loyal citizens of Rodina Nation. You’re a deviant creature of some kind. Go back to the Morass where you belong!’

  Where I belong . . .

  That has a nice sound to it.

  I go west. Light frost dusts my wings. Gunfire flashes as I break the blockade. The Crux are distracted by attacks from Sea-Ways civilians, who are braving the dark and their own indecision to fight. The people I thought of as my parents are somewhere down there, creating a diversion so I can fly free.

  I don’t fly alone. Eye Bright the corvil perches on my shoulder. Zoya scrunches in the nav seat behind me, wearing everything she owns and still shivering.

  ‘You didn’t have to come,’ I tell her.

  ‘I really did,’ she insists.

  ‘You could’ve stayed with everybody else, arguing about whether to do nothing, or next to nothing.’

  ‘I know.’ She sighs. I bet she wishes she had.

  As soon as we near the murky green-black of the Morass edge I tell her she has control.

  She squawks, ‘What do you mean, I have control? What are you going to do?’

  I turn round in the cockpit and smile at her. ‘I’m going to see just how fun flying can be.’

  I’ve already unlaced my boots. My feet will be cold but I don’t care. When I land I want to feel the ground beneath my bare skin.

  ‘Where are we going to land?’ Zoya asks.

  I climb out of the pilot’s seat and on to a wing. The corvil grips my shoulder. ‘Go back and stay safe with everyone!’ I shout as I drop, as I fall . . . as I soar!

  Not for me now the confines of wood and wingspan. Down I dive, trailing a cloak of darkness. I love it – love this freedom! I’m not buoyed up by air, I am the air. I’m the sky, the night, the wind teasing the treetops. I could fly like this for ever; I could circle the planet, breaking Marina Furey’s round-the-world record . . .

  Furey.

  Her name is a jolt. Others follow – Ang, Henke, Rill . . . Mama, Papi, Reef . . .

  Pain. Loss. Grief. Betrayal.

  They’re too heavy. I fall. I crash. I break through branches, shred nests and scatter leaves. The ground catches me. It’s hard. As soon as I touch earth my senses spread. I reach through roots, round rocks and under still water. This is the forest again.

  Home.

  I run. The frost-cold forest runs with me. Wolves pace between the trees, corvils skim above them, a croaking wave of black. Eye Bright flies too, smaller than the rest. We follow no path. The path follows me. I blaze my own trail over hill and under night. I come to the lake.

  Here we stop, the forest and I. Here we pause. The water is as grey and flat as ever. There are lights in the darkness. ‘Don’t look at the lights,’ everyone said. They dance for me now, bobbing in a tired breeze. I start wading. Blind fish swim away from me. The lights get closer. They’re made from fragile little bird skulls, filled with wax and lit with wavering flames. They mark stepping stones set just under the water’s surface. Soon I make out a shape in the mist – a wooden house on wooden legs, with a foot-smoothed wooden ladder.

  Welcome, Rain . . .

  The door is open. I push it wider and breathe in the smell of ancient life and imminent death. There are lifeless rachnids curled in cobwebbed corners, chairs and cups furred with dust, and a bed covered in clumps of dry moss. Under a quilt pieced from all shades of grey an old mother waits.

  I take a breath, tasting a torrent of questions.

  The old woman raises one bone-thin arm above the quilt. Just in time, she whispers. I sent the forest to find you and bring you home again. Now you’ve learned how the other world works you’ll know what to do with it. She grips my hand in a final, fierce clasp . . . and lets her last breath out. I’m too late. She’s gone.

  On the shores of the lake wolves begin to howl. My corvil flies up to an onion-hung roof beam. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and pick two thorn-vine flowers from a bush blooming in the hut’s stove. I put one orange flower on each of the old moth
er’s eyes and bow my head in a wordless prayer.

  The lake water seems colder when I start out over the stepping stones again. Where should I go? What should I do? I was hoping for answers . . . or powers. How can I face one Crux, let alone an army, when I’m just this bare-footed loner?

  Back on the rounded pebbles of the lake shore I think back to the last time I was here, when I saw Reef for the first time. I wonder where he is now. Stuck in Sea-Ways with a crowd of hysterical citizens? Resisting the siege with soldiers? I’ve been trying not to think about the vision I had of his knife-sharp death. Wherever he is, he’ll be night-blind until the Eclipse ends. Should I have stayed to find him?

  No. I came here to do something about the Crux.

  I smell them first, a reek of wrong overlaid with a stink of self-righteousness. They’re camped not far from the lake in a vast clearing ringed by torn trees. There are hundreds and hundreds of men, machines, weapons and lamps. As I approach, eyes, lights and gunsights all turn towards me. I brace myself for the shock of shells and spitting bullets.

  One by one the Crux soldiers bend. One by one they kneel. As one they lower their heads and spread their arms. They bow. They submit. To me.

  The ground trembles with their devotion.

  There’s a huge building dominating this living carpet of worship. Its thick stones are spread with green-weave camouflage nets. As I stand there, stunned, the nets are dragged off and a god-house is revealed. It takes my breath away. The stones shine white and the windows are a cascade of colours. One I partly recognise from when I first came to the Morass – the picture window I saw wreathed in snow at the edge of the tree-eaten rift. It must have been removed and carried here to be part of this great monument. It shows a young woman stepping out from a black sun. Her hair is a brilliant gold corona.

  The walls of the god-house are still jagged with scaffolding and the roof is unfinished. The doors are open. I pick my way around bomb-slingers, soldiers and silent traptions. I step inside.

  The few god-houses still standing in Rodina when I was little were dreary places, dark with neglect and overrun with rablets. In those dark relics, the walls were hung with paintings of brown-stained, sad-eyed saynts. This place is surprisingly peaceful, with clean walls and not a rablet-dropping in sight, or even a rachnid web. The floor flows with rippled silk. It feels delicious under my bare feet. The painted glass windows are lit by Old Nation oil lamps. Perfume cones make the air taste rich. I see one chair only – a marvellous, wide, golden thing set high on a platform with cloud-soft cushions.

  ‘Go ahead,’ says a familiar voice. ‘Be comfortable. It’s yours, all of this. A god-house needs a god, after all.’

  I turn slowly. Everything about this place is unrushed and unreal.

  Steen Verdessica stands in the doorway with his army still bent low to the ground outside. He stares at me like I really am a god, not a girl with dirty feet and creased combat clothes.

  ‘I hoped, I dreamed you would come,’ he whispers. ‘I knew your culture could never accept you. Can you imagine how I felt when I guessed your true nature?’

  ‘That I’m a monster?’

  ‘That you’re a God. The God. The Light Bringer.’ He laughs and stretches with pleasure. ‘When I said I could worship you, it was the truth. What I failed to mention was that the entire Crux nation will worship you too, starting here in the Morass. Since the last Long Night we’ve been planning to conquer this land and offer it back to you.’

  ‘You invaded Rodina just to come here?’

  ‘Just to find you. What do you think has fired us on to fight so victoriously?’ Steen gazes at me with sun in his eyes. ‘It’s been worth every sacrifice. We hoped to have your god-house finished by Long Night, but the war took more resources than we thought. When you come to the Crux homeland we’ll worship you in God-houses that beggar the grandest palaces. Any one of them – all of them – will be yours. Everything we have, everything we are, all of us, all of me – yours.’

  With utter grace he sinks to the floor and spreads himself at my feet. That’s quite a sight.

  Good god – to be a god! To loll on those cushions with men at my feet. To be anything, to do anything, with the worship of millions. Rodina would have to bend their knees and worship me too. Uncle Mentira would grovel like a wormling if I was a god. Everyone would be sorry they ever said anything bad about me, or betrayed me or called me a monster. My real friends would think I was amazing, fantastic, the best ever! Reef would find me astonishingly beautiful, beyond any other girl in the entire world . . .

  Reef.

  Be careful what you wish for . . .

  Crux soldiers are carrying a limp body into the god-house, bound with bright bane-metal bands. I have to clench my hands so Steen can’t see they’re shaking.

  ‘We found your favourite Scrutiner wandering blind in the forest,’ Steen gloats, unsheathing an impossibly bright knife. ‘It will be an honour for him to serve as a sacrifice . . . and a pleasure for me to kill him.’

  There Reef lies, skin pale and eyes closed.

  Why did he return to the forest? Surely not looking for me? He must have heard what people in Sea-Ways were saying about me. He must have known why Uncle Mentira was taking me to Corona. I’m one of the witches he once came to the Morass to hunt. If he were to die now he’d never see me revealed as a monster. My vision would be fulfilled and I could glory in godfulness without him. Steen is here, pulsing with admiration – what more do I want?

  Steen holds out the knife blade. I take it. Reef’s throat is bare. I could kiss or cut it. The air begins to tremble. God or monster, what am I?

  ‘Choose whose side you’re on!’ cries Steen, suddenly impatient.

  I take a deep breath in. The god-house starts to shake. Roots writhe beneath the floor. Outside, corvils hurtle round the clearing. One crashes into the picture window. Blood smears the face on the coloured glass. My face. Wham! Another corvil collides with the glass. Another feathered body falls, a dead red-black lump on the ground. Bird after bird follows. The glass cracks. Shatters. Black-feathered birds come pouring in.

  Steen staggers upright and fights them away. Bane-metal bells jangle on his wrists.

  ‘What are you doing, Rain? To us you’re a God. To everyone else you’re a thing they call a witch – something to be hated and hunted. Think of the connection we had back in the Biopolis. Think about what I’m offering you. Power! Worship! Adoration!’

  This should be a grand moment where I embrace god-head or spurn it magnificently. To my utter embarrassment I find myself crying.

  ‘I don’t want your adoration! I don’t want to be your god. I’m me, just me, why can’t anyone understand that?’

  It’s no good. I cannot keep myself within this skin any longer.

  Lamps spill. Silk catches fire. It burns with a blue-green flame. In the clearing outside soldiers leap up and arm themselves. Traption turrets swivel, seeking an enemy. Silver-sleek wolves leap out at them. Thorn-vines twine round guns, limbs, necks – snap! Further out in the forest mirror-leaves blink into eyes. Awake now, the trees slowly feast, beginning with ground.

  Power flows out of me. I can’t control it. Can’t keep myself me. My body’s breaking up. Skin’s splitting. Life’s pouring out, spreading in great waves of utter, unending dark. Fear makes me shake. I’m disintegrating, disappearing, lost . . .

  Not lost.

  Found you, says a voice, as if whispered underground a thousand klicks away. A hand grips my hand. Hold tight.

  At this touch, dark turns to light, massive light, all the light imaginable, shooting up like a spear then spreading out under the clouds. It’s not day, it’s not darkness, it’s a wave of impossibility – a second sun. This is dark light from the heart of the forest. My heart. My forest. It spreads and stretches until it beams over every branch, under every leaf, into every dark corner. The world turns white.

  Battle explodes in the light of this fake day. All the invading forces are scrambl
ed. Instead of stars, the sky is a constellation of Crux planes. Soldiers swarm like insects. At the centre of the war it’s just me. Me against the whole Crux army. Eyes closed, I can still see. Body motionless, I can still move. I spread invisible hands across the lake and the water stretches out, flooding the shore. From the unseen lake-bed I dredge up every skeleton, every plane, every boat that’s ever been buried there. Up they come, dripping grey weeds and water. These I fling at the Crux Air Force, and when Crux planes and pilots come tumbling down, trees are only too ready to greet and eat them.

  The whole world shakes. The very sky cracks. I can’t keep this up for much longer! There are bombs and bullets, corvils and missiles. I’m here, I’m there, I’m everywhere. I’m spread too thinly, I’m stretched too far . . . I can’t do this alone! There’s only one of me!

  Then I hear a new sound – I know this noise! It’s the gritty rumble of Storm engines.

  ‘Witches!’ call all the Crux still left alive. ‘The Night Witches are coming!’

  Here they fly, nine tiny Storms, each with faithful friends. They’re here, they’ve come, they’re on my side! First Lida’s plane, the Revenge. Next Dee with Zoya . . . Dee in her lucky hat. The other Storms follow, chasing whatever Crux I can’t catch. I’d cheer if I still had a voice. I offer up one last utter, bursting, supernova . . .

  Then silence.

  Just silence.

  Simple. Quiet.

  I gasp – my first breath since the storm began. Flames lick the gutted god-house. Reef is lying at my feet, not to worship me but to keep me connected through all the catastrophe. It’s his hand that’s been stretched out to seize mine. He held fast and kept me from disappearing. Now he’s not moving.

  I sink to the floor. Smoke thickens.

  ‘Reef?’

  I’m too weak to break the bane-metal chains wrapped around his body. Still gripping my hand, he opens his eyes and looks straight at me. An arm’s length away, I look back.