Bloodhoney

by Paul Stewart

  These were longer, sharper. Paler. They would make a fine set of pickspikes. Eli took a swig of water from the watergourd at his side, mopped his brow, then set to work again.

  He started humming. It was a plodding tuneless ­rendition of something he’d once heard. He wasn’t even aware of doing it.

  When the last of the front claws had been extracted, Eli pushed back his hat and turned his attention to the teeth. He peered into the dark yawning hole of the ­creature’s maw, then reached inside. He ran his­ fingertips over the spike of an eyetooth, the chisel-edge of an incisor.

  Using his knife, Eli drove the blade down between the teeth, one after the other, and sawed into the gums. He worked swiftly and efficiently. When the final cut had been made, Eli straightened up. The teeth were loose now. Setting the knife aside, he seized a front tooth with the pliers, then tap-tap-tapped at the gum with the hammer. Slowly. Gently. Taking care not to crack the enamel. Until, with something almost like a sigh, the gum finally gave up its grip on the roots and the tooth came free.

  Eli turned it over in his hand, then laid it down next to the claws. It was a fine specimen, and he would have liked to point out its qualities to the boy – the fact that its size alone would furnish a dozen knife handles, and that its grain, even finer than the greywyrme’s claws, would make for flawless carving.

  But Micah was not there. He was off on the high bluffs to the west with the girl, Cara.

  They needed time on their own, the youngsters. Eli accepted that. Especially Micah, after everything he’d been through that fullwinter past – not to mention the couple of seasons before that with the kingirl, Thrace. It had been a tough year, and that was a fact. But they had survived. Him and the boy. And now Micah had Cara to look out for . . .

  Eli smiled. Young love. There was no accounting for it.

  Eli Halfwinter on the other hand was a loner. He’d learned the hard way that most kith could not be trusted. They would cheat and rob you as soon as look at you. They would kill you over a small nothing. No, so far as Eli was concerned, he was better off steering clear of other folks.

  He glanced back down at the tooth. Though he sure did miss Micah to talk to.

  Returning to the gaping jaw of the greywyrme, Eli removed the rest of the teeth in rapid succession. He stood back, wiping the sweat from his forehead, and ­surveyed the haul. Then, swallowing drily, he unhitched the gourd from his belt and took a long slug of water.

  It was hard work. Despite the chill, he was sweating.

  He took another swig from the gourd and was fixing it back to his belt when he saw it.

  The broken shaft of a harpoon. It was sticking out from the base of the greywyrme’s neck.

  Eli had assumed that, given its age, the wyrme had died of natural causes. Certainly he hadn’t been looking for evidence of injury. Yet there it was. A harpoon. A kith harpoon; the backslant barbs at its base bore testimony to that.

  The harpoon was of a type fired from a kind of upright crossbow, favoured by those kith who went hunting for big game. The tip of the blade had penetrated the soft underskin of the greywyrme between the adamantine creases, and punctured its lungs. The ancient creature must have died instantly and, despite himself, Eli was impressed with the cleanness of the kill.

  But why bring down so magnificent a creature, then fail to butcher it for meat and strip it of the valuable bone and ivory to barter with in a scrimshaw den? he ­wondered. It surely made no sense.

  Eli shrugged, and was about to stow the claws and teeth in his pack when he noticed the small wound at the base of the creature’s throat.

  The flameoil sac had been removed.

  Eli frowned. His mouth grew taut with rising anger. The kith hunters hadn’t been interested in food or ivory, just the tiny gland in the greywyrme’s throat.

  Returner’s wealth.

  Small, easy to carry and highly prized. Apothecarists down on the plains would pay handsomely for greywyrme flameoil and its supposedly miracle properties. Anyone returning from the high country with a full pack of the stuff would have their fortune made – never mind that they were responsible for the slaughter of countless wyrmes.

  Eli hawked and spat. The thought of it turned his stomach.

  He wrapped the teeth up in an old blanket along with the claws, and stuffed the whole lot inside his rucksack before hoisting it onto his back. The pack was heavy, but at least he had honoured the magnificent greywyrme by using what it had to offer.

  When it came to moving on, Eli found that the curved back of the greywyrme was pressed against the crevice, stopping up the gap in the rock like a cork. He had no option but to climb over it if he was to ­continue his journey. Reaching up, Eli gripped the folds of the wyrme’s vestigial wings, then clambered onto the ­creature’s back. He was about to climb down the other side – but then stopped.

  His jaw dropped. The trail ahead was blocked.

  Before him, like a rockfall of huge grey boulders, were hundreds and hundreds of greywyrmes. They were crammed into the narrow ravine, their throats cut and flameoil sacs removed.

  Eli swallowed numbly. These kith hunters had been clever, he could see that now. They must have tracked the herd across the pastures on their long migration to their fullwinter hide in these mountains, and as the old bull wyrme had led them through the ravine the hunters had struck. They had shown no mercy. They had slaughtered the entire herd. Male and female, young and old alike, sparing not a single one.

  And for what? For an ointment that supposedly reduced the signs of ageing . . .

  Eli’s face had turned a dark raw red. His lips trembled and his pale-blue eyes glistened. He was going to have to be late meeting up with Micah and Cara at the stickle falls. He would turn back, find another way through the mountains. He could not face clambering over all these bodies; all that needless death.

  ‘Oh, Micah,’ he whispered, ‘I’m glad you’re not here to see this.’

  Two

  Micah pulled his canteen from his belt and took a swig of water. It was warm, but better than nothing. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. High above him something screeched, and Micah looked up, his hand shielding his eyes from the glare of the high sun, to see a dozen or so carrionwyrmes circling far above his head on those tattered black wings of theirs.

  He smiled grimly. If they’d been fixing on having him for their next meal they were going to be sore dis­appointed. But then, unless he missed his guess, it wasn’t him they had their eyes on . . .

  Micah pulled off his hat and scratched his scalp, easing the heatprickle. Then, with a single motion, he jammed the hat back on his head and jumped down lightly from the bluntedge rock he’d been standing on. He kept on up the steep screescritch slope, head lowered. The shadows of the carrionwyrmes orbited his hunched body like dark stars, while his own shadow pooled around his feet, black as pitch.

  It was good to be back on the trail after the long months of fullwinter spent cooped up underground. The warm halfsummer air tasted good. His limbs felt strong. He climbed the screescritch effortlessly, silently, his fresh-greased boots picking out the best way through the jagged stones like they had a mind of their own. As the ground levelled out, Micah passed clusters of tall mottled rapierspikes that were just coming into flower. And there was new-grown chafegrass and rockvetch and feathermilt underfoot, and a brace of tall mountain oaks over to one side, their stubby branches hazed with green from half-opened buds.

  There came a sound.

  Micah’s hand shot to the handle of his hackdagger.

  The sound came again. Scritching and scratching. Micah peered into the shadows beneath the mountain oaks, and relaxed. A small squat squabwyrme was rubbing its rump lazily up and down the rough bark, sloughing off ribbons of old skin.

  Micah turned away and continued over the flat rock and up the next slope. A couple of basking scratwyrmes, the siz
e of his hand, scurried over the jumble of rocks before disappearing into crevices between them. As he approached the top of the slope, Micah slowed down, stooped forward and headed for a tall angular rock that lay precariously close to the edge. He crouched down behind it.

  Slowly, breath held, he peered round the side of the rock.

  The land fell away on the other side into a flat-­bottomed dip. And there, at one end of the depression, was a youth.

  He was hunkered down on his heels, his back turned but his face in half-profile. He was thin, fair-haired, with high cheekbones. Downy hair above his top lip suggested he was close to his first shave. He was wearing the clothes of a steerhand or a ploughboy from the plains; a collarless shirt, a homespun jacket, buckskin boots and breeches, all of them frayed and scuffed. His pack lay a little way off, propped up against a flat rock, the burnished copper cookpot strapped to it glinting in the sunlight.

  It was this dazzle Micah had spotted from the trail. It had also drawn the keen eyes of the carrionwyrmes that continued to circle overhead.

  There was a knife raised in the youth’s hand. And as he shifted awkwardly round, Micah saw that he had trapped a wyrme in the longnet that lay at his feet. The long-limbed brown wyrme was thrashing about furiously, screeching, squealing. One of its hindlegs and both forepaws stuck out through the oversized holes of the net, claws slashing at its captor’s shaking hand.

  It was a splaywyrme by the look of it, Micah thought. Dullwitted creatures. Easy to catch but difficult to kill, on account of the heavy carapace that covered their wide bodies from neck to tail. Down on the ground, his chin resting on his clasped hands, he watched the youth grip the knife with both hands and stab down stiffly through the net.

  ‘Not that way,’ Micah murmured.

  The knife bounced harmlessly off the splaywyrme’s shell. Spitting and snarling, the wyrme lunged back at its attacker, its vicious snout thrusting at the rope mesh so hard that its head burst out through the net. Its neck swivelled round and its fangs slammed together. The youth pulled sharply back and jumped to his feet. He kicked at the squirming net, but half-heartedly.

  The wyrme bucked and writhed, and screeched all the louder. The youth looked close to tears.

  He was obviously a greenhorn, out on the trail. On his own. He reminded Micah of himself, all that time ago, when he had first entered the weald. Lonely. ­Frightened.

  Micah climbed to his feet.

  Below him, the youth continued his strange ungainly dance, hopping about, dodging the snapping jaws of the trapped wyrme as he attempted to land a fatal blow. Micah pulled the hackdagger from his belt.

  ‘Need some help?’ he called down.

  The youth spun round, fear in his eyes as his gaze fell upon the glinting blade in Micah’s hand. Micah smiled and raised his hands defensively.

  ‘S’all right, friend, I don’t mean no harm,’ he said. ‘But I can show you how to deal with that there splaywyrme.’ He started down the slope towards the youth. ‘Trick is to flip ’em over and aim for the base of the neck . . .’

  The blow to his arm seemed to come out of nowhere. It struck him with a dull crack just below the elbow, making him cry out with pain and surprise and sending his hackdagger scuttering over the dusty gravel. A hefty arm wrapped itself round his neck, squeezing tight and pulling him backwards, and he felt the sharp tip of a knife at his shoulder blades.

  ‘Keep still,’ hissed a voice in his ear. ‘Y’understand?’

  Micah struggled, cursing his stupidity. The knife jabbed harder. Micah fell still. He smelled the sour tang of hunger on his attacker’s warm breath.

  ‘One more move and it’ll be your last.’

  Three

  ‘Drop the knife.’

  The arm around Micah’s neck tightened, and he heard the quickening of his attacker’s breath.

  ‘I said, drop the knife.’ The words were quieter and more measured than before, but hard.

  Micah squinted into the setting sun. There at the top of the slope, her slim body silhouetted against the pale sky, was Cara. Her legs were braced, and the primed ­spitbolt in her hands was pointing over Micah’s right shoulder at his assailant.

  ‘I’ll kill him.’ The voice was close by Micah’s ear.

  Cara’s face registered no emotion, though Micah recognized a grim determination in her eyes. When he’d gone ahead to scout the trail, Micah had told her to follow at a distance, and keep him covered. This green-eyed kithgirl of his had done exactly that. She had handled herself well, just like she always did. And Micah was proud of her.

  They had met in the settlement of Deephome two short months earlier in the depths of fullwinter. Bone-chilled and half-starved and nursing a broken heart, Micah had been in a bad way. Cara had looked after him. And he had fallen in love with her. She was gentle and loyal and caring – and surprisingly tough when she had to be.

  ‘You kill him and I’ll kill you,’ she said evenly. ‘And then I’ll kill your kid brother. Got another one of these loaded and braced at my side.’

  Cara’s eyes flicked over to the fair-haired kith who stood frozen over the netted splaywyrme, which ­con­tinued to snap and struggle at his feet. The youth had already seen the second spitbolt, and so had Micah’s assailant, for Micah felt the grip round his neck get tighter still. Cara’s finger whitened on the trigger.

  ‘For pity’s sake,’ the fair-haired youth blurted out. ‘Do as she says!’ He raised his hands towards Cara ­imploringly, his brow furrowed and eyes wide. ‘He was just looking out for me, is all. We surely meant you no harm—’

  ‘Hush up!’ the voice by Micah’s ear snarled fiercely, and at his back Micah felt a sharp jabbing pain as the tip of the blade pressed hard against his skin.

  Then, abruptly, the pressure round his neck relaxed and he was shoved roughly in the back. He stumbled forward and landed heavily on his knees, grazing his hands. Behind him, he heard the knife landing on the rock, and the sound of it being kicked across the dust. He looked round.

  His attacker stood glaring back at him.

  He was about the same height as the fair-haired youth, but older and far more powerfully built, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He had dark hair hacked down close to the scalp, and blueblack stubble on his jaw that put the other’s wispy moustache to shame.

  ‘They don’t look much like brothers to me,’ Micah observed.

  ‘It’s their eyes,’ Cara said, striding down the slope, the spitbolt gripped in her hands.

  Micah climbed to his feet. ‘Their eyes?’ he said.

  ‘They’re the same,’ said Cara. ‘Same shape. Same shade of green.’

  Micah looked. ‘Happen you might be right,’ he said. He reached down and picked up the dark-haired one’s knife, then, spotting his hackdagger, crossed the gravel to retrieve it. ‘You two got names?’ he asked as Cara unhooked the spitbolt at her belt – his spitbolt – and handed it to him.

  The weapon was too cumbersome when you were out scouting. But it sure felt reassuringly weighty in his hand now.

  The two brothers shuffled towards one another. The fair-haired youth’s thin arms dangled at his side, his fingers plucking at the frayed cuffs of his sleeves. His older brother folded his arms. His fists were clenched. They were both bone-thin and dressed in tattered plains’ clothes that spoke to Micah of an arduous journey up here to the high country, recently made.

  ‘I’m Ethan, and this here is Cody,’ said the fair-haired youth. ‘We are indeed brothers. The young lady was right on that score . . .’ He glanced over at Cara. ‘We’re fresh to the weald and we’re not looking for no trouble. Leastways, not this early on in our new careers.’ He attempted a smile.

  Beside him, his heavy-set brother continued to glare at Micah.

  Micah smiled back. ‘We ain’t either,’ he said quietly. ‘Name’s Micah. And this is Cara.’ He frowned, then added,
‘When did you two last eat?’

  ‘A week since,’ said Ethan. He nodded back at the splaywyrme, now lying still inside the longnet. He shrugged, his arms before him, palms up. ‘I was hoping this wyrme might make us a good meal, but the damn thing sure is hard to despatch . . .’

  ‘Like I said, they can be,’ Micah said. ‘Unless you know the knack to it.’

  He smiled to himself, realizing how he must sound to these two greenhorns. The voice of experience. He bent down and flipped the splaywyrme onto its back with the tip of his boot, then, with his hackdagger, swiftly slit the creature’s neck. The wyrme convulsed for a couple of moments, then lay still. When Micah spoke again, there was a certain drawl to his words.

  ‘Got to do it quick, y’understand, and with a sharp blade, so the creature doesn’t suffer any more than it needs to. Respect wyrmekind and use what they have to offer to the full and you’ll prosper in the weald.’ He paused. ‘A friend taught me that.’

  He dragged the dead wyrme out of the net by its hindlegs and held it up.

  ‘Either of you boys know how to skin a wyrme?’

  Ethan nodded vigorously. ‘I reckon I can handle it,’ he said. ‘I used to skin jackrabbits and squirrels back on the farm.’

  ‘Well, get down to it,’ Micah said, ‘while we get a fire going.’

  He glanced over his shoulder. The circling carrionwyrmes had come in to land a little way off and stood peering back at them, their yellow eyes glinting with hunger and stubby barbels quivering at the corners of their fang-fringed mouths.

  ‘There’s brushwood down there a piece,’ he said, pointing back the way he and Cara had come. ‘Want to help us gather it, Cody?’

  Cody was looking at Cara.

  ‘Cody?’ said Micah. ‘The brushwood?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Cody grunted.

  An hour later, as the sun set and the carrionwyrmes skittered and snarled in the distance, the four of them sat crosslegged around a small fire, feasting on the splaywyrme meat and tossing the picked bones into the flames. Micah noted the relish in the two brothers’ eyes as they chewed and swallowed.