Aadore took the carnage in stride; there had already been so many atrocities. Only the smell was really making her ill—the same smell that lingered on Skar, whom she was sure had committed this violence. On her way back to the others, Aadore used the shadows to hide her search for a weapon with which to defend herself. She was lucky, luckier than the mutilated victim she’d found, and discovered an old Menosian military blade that had been leaning up against a pile of bland landscapes. The guard of the weapon, an entwinement of silver snakes around an iron hilt, was what caught Aadore’s attention. Cooing to the baby, she paused and slid the blade from its sheath inch by inch. She needed to hurry, though, in case her absence was noticed, in case Sean was in danger. Once unsheathed, the weapon gave her a gleam by which to see and the courage to move faster in the dark. She retraced Skar’s steps and crept past the chest she’d seen earlier. Two shapes appeared ahead: her brother and Skar engaged in a whispered conversation. Aadore slipped between them and tapped the ogre’s side with the flat of her blade. Aadore’s arm, shoulder, and back ached from holding the infant, her body felt ready to shatter, and she’d been chased by the dead after watching her city fall to chaos and evil. Still, she looked as fierce as a sword-maiden to the two surprised men.
“I found a dead body,” she said. “Sean and I heard a thumping and scuffling not long ago. I know it was you. Do you have an explanation for what you’ve done?”
Sean reached out and tilted his sister’s blade away. “I know. Skar and I have been chatting. He had to do it. He had no choice.”
Aadore stepped back from the men, keeping her sword at the ready. “You haven’t seen what he did, Sean. But go on, you brute. Go ahead and explain why you dismembered that…” She couldn’t remember the sex of the victim: all she recalled was red, torn meat, and that the body had seemed small. She decided upon “child.”
Aadore was entirely unprepared for what happened next: the ogre shook his head, drew up his knees, put his face into his hands, and trembled either because he was crying or because he was trying not to weep. Skar began to mumble. “You’re right…I killed her. A little girl. I’m horrible. A monster. I was paid to protect them—the family. But it was impossible. When the streets began to fill, we fled back to the manor. Kings be damned, the children wouldn’t stop screaming because of the things in the streets…eating coachmen, horses, dogs. I got her away from the windows…the youngest. I pulled her out of the fuking claws of those things when they broke down the door! We watched the master and his lady die—her father and mother. They couldn’t be saved. Couldn’t be saved. From the dead men. Dead men walking and eating. I think her brother died, too. I saw him hiding under his bed; he refused to come to the attic with me. I should have saved him. We made it, she and I. Clarissa is her name. Was her name. The little lass even helped move a pillow or two in front of the door. It kept them out. They’re not smart. I don’t think they can climb anything more challenging than stairs. I knew to take her to the attic. That’s what her father wanted me to do with the children. Take ’em to the attic. The children. The child. Only one. Couldn’t save the boy. Only one. Only one…”
“What happened up here?” whispered Aadore.
Skar stopped rocking and looked at Aadore; his face twisted with sheer ugliness as he attempted to hold in his tears. “The poison. This darkness that has cursed our city…it gets in them. I don’t know how. A bite, I think. Maybe just a scratch. Clarissa was clawed, and deeply—when they grabbed her at the window. I think that’s how the poison gets in. You’ll find no cure on hand. No magik that can fix…There’s nothing I could do—” At first, he’d made the little girl as comfortable as she could be, though she’d continued to suffer blood loss and delirium—the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding, no matter how much pressure he applied. She’d babbled about eating worms, tasting ash, and seeing a thin lady in a dark cloak. She had been quiet for a while after her rambling, then grown grayer and grayer in pallor, and finally stopped breathing. Dead. She’d passed on; Skar wept. Then suddenly, she’d begun thrashing about, tearing at the floorboards, while foam erupted from her mouth. After another speck, she had flopped onto her stomach, her limbs snapped and twisted at the joints, her body hunched as if she were a spider, and then she had scuttled toward him. In Clarissa’s eyes, once brown and kind, he had seen nothing that lived. So he had swung his axe again and again, without thinking twice. “She turned.”
Poison? Turned? “Iron Queen’s mercy,” said Aadore.
The baby chose this of all moments to finally cry. Aadore put down her blade and lowered herself to the floor so she could quiet him. Perhaps it was her weariness, perhaps her nerves had finally been rubbed raw, but she couldn’t calm him. Although his cries were not loud, they might still be heard or sensed by the creatures crawling through the house. Aadore began to panic. Stop crying! Stop! willed the handmaiden. She was no sorceress, though, and her thoughts had no effect. Frustrated, she passed the child to Sean, but his bounces and burbles seemed only to enrage the tiny terror.
“Give him here,” said Skar. He did not wait for Sean to hand him the boy, instead snatching him from his grasp. At the touch of Skar’s murderous hands, rusty with gore, the infant stilled. Skar held the boy up, and they stared, face to face, ogre to infant, and reached a silent agreement. The two sealed their peace with a smile; Skar’s grin was almost as gummy and toothless as the child’s. The ogre then patted and rocked the babe, who made no more fuss. “No more noise out of you until the monsters are gone,” whispered Skar.
Everyone knew to stay still after that. They weren’t sure how long they waited. Darkness stretched a cold blanket over them, tempting them with sleep. Sean’s head bobbed, and occasionally he snoozed for a speck, maybe even a few sands. Aadore removed her beggar’s satchel, found her brother’s skinny shoulder, and slumped against him. Awful dreams haunted her that night. In them, she wandered the streets, calling for her brother in a voice alien to her. While stumbling about, she saw her reflection in a partially broken window: a rotted, swamp-haired thing that looked wet and bedraggled as if from an accident.
Aadore awoke, gasping.
“It’s all right. They’re gone,” said Sean.
Grayness had chased away the attic’s deepest shadows, and something resembling morning was happening outside. Aadore took stock of herself. She felt rested, though she was full of aches and pains, and her stomach cramped from hunger. Her brother looked especially haggard in the light. Sitting cross-legged, he massaged the flesh by his knee where his bone met wood, wincing every time he kneaded it. Skar lay on his side, curled up like the babe in his arms—knees in, hands together. Big baby and small baby. If Skar had been sucking his thumb, Aadore might have laughed.
“Let him sleep a while longer. He’s had as horrible a time as we have,” whispered Sean.
Aadore looked around for her pack. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes. A bit.”
“What about him? He looks as if he should eat a lot.”
“He ate a few bites—didn’t appear terribly hungry. We fed the child as well. Water-soaked bread. I don’t know how good that is for the boy, but food is food.” Sean reached over and took his sister’s hand. “We’re all together in this now. The four of us.”
“I know. I was thinking only about supplies. What we have won’t last more than a few days.”
“I’d like to think we’ll be out of the city in a few days.”
Aadore squeezed Sean’s hand. “Is that the plan?”
“I believe so.”
Skar snorted, groaned, and sat up; he and the baby shared a yawn. “Well, if that’s the case, we should get moving. I can’t seem to sleep much anyhow. I’d like to make the most of this light…if you can call it that.”
“Gloom,” said Aadore.
The three smiled, enjoying a moment of silence together in which vows were made but left unsaid. Menosians had heart when it mattered, when they were at their lowest. We are all in this together, they thoug
ht.
“We should search the house for anything of use,” suggested Aadore.
With that, they moved. Sean found his cane and rose. Aadore collected her satchel and the ornamented sword. Skar set the baby down, opened the hatch, and lowered the ladder. When it came time to descend, Aadore dashed off, remembering that the scabbard had a belt that she should collect. By the time she returned to the hole, strapped and suited up like a proper sword-maiden, the men and child had already gone below. Back in the master’s chamber, the three found their barrier still undisturbed. Skar had spoken with wisdom about how easily the creatures could be deterred. Perhaps others as clever and lucky as themselves had also weathered the apocalypse. How far does the ruin reach? wondered Aadore, while picking detritus from the barricade. What if Menos had not been the only victim of this calamity, and all of Geadhain—
“Aadore, come on,” said Sean. He motioned his distantly gazing sister through the gap they’d created.
Aadore blamed her moment of distraction on her exhaustion and starvation, not on the horrors she’d seen; she felt she could deal with worse. A few specks and a small squeezing of herself later, she joined the others. Aadore wondered how Skar managed to navigate the hallway so easily, burdened, as he was, with an ax and a baby. The ingenious fellow had fashioned an old-style sling, a small hammock, in which the infant now rested; she should have thought of that contraption herself, she realized. Burbling and clinging to the man’s chest, the babe looked quite content with his mercenary nanny. Aadore put her industriousness to use and started foraging through the trash of the manor while the men followed along at a slower pace.
There wasn’t much of worth upstairs, just curios and personal belongings of the dead that she poked through with her blade. She and her sword discovered a letter opener, a little girl’s tea set—saucer, cup, and spoon—and a bag of toffee-sweets. She added all of the items to her satchel. In the oak-and-steel kitchen downstairs, Aadore found canned goods, powdered supplements—including milk for the baby—smoked meat, and preserves stashed in a larder. As she could only encumber herself so much, she suggested the men fashion another pack or two out of the curtains in the drawing room. After their happy raid had been concluded, Sean suddenly paused and tilted his head toward the shattered kitchen windows through which the haze leaked in; he’d heard a noise from outside. Up went everyone’s make-do packs: the dead were near. They raced through the house, crushing glass and mementos with their careless feet as they moved from kitchen to sitting room to hall to great hall. Finally, they stepped over a shattered, clawed-down door and emerged into the city.
Outside, they were immediately swallowed by the fog of death. But they were not afraid. They knew they could survive; they had so far. With Sean’s senses, Skar’s might, and Aadore’s cunning, they made quite a pack—one great wild hunter that silently stalked the deserted neighborhood of the damned.
II
Although they were brave, they were also cautious. During the night, the terrors of yesterday had bred, and now the streets were infested. The three crept under the billowing cover of fog to avoid the larger roaming hordes. They hid behind ruined walls, hunkered down in hollowed-out sewer pipes, and turned chameleon by pressing their black filthy bodies against the ruins of charcoal buildings. At one point, they waded and then swam for a small stretch across a submerged section of Menos that looked like a scrapyard after a tsunami. All the while, they willfully ignored the bobbing turds, limbs, and trash floating around them. Skar paddled with one hand, holding aloft both his pack and the infant, who giggled in delight. Aadore carried her brother’s pack in the same manner, while Sean focused on keeping the pollution out of his mouth. The unremitting reek of garbage and manure, the slimy skin they had to slough from themselves after reaching a junky shore, demanded that they rest. They camped beside a piece of scorched metal that might have come from a crowe, and shared food and sips of cleanish water. Sean sensed no dead nearby, and they felt safe enough to whisper.
“You’re good with him.” Aadore nodded to the baby, who was back in Skar’s sling.
The mercenary stopped chewing, debating whether or not to speak, then said, “I had a family once. I know how to care for children.”
Neither sibling inquired further. It was the way of the world to know loss and death; no one escaped that lesson. After the three had finished eating, Aadore used the stolen tea set to make a paste for the infant out of powdered milk and water. It felt proper, this way, lent a bit of dignity to an utterly undignified situation. Aadore let Skar spoon-feed the lad for the man continued to impress her with his paternal care and kindness. How strange that this child is even here, she thought. His mother and father were likely dead. She refused to believe the child’s uninterested caregiver, killed in the collapse of Queen’s Station, had been any relation. Why had they saved him? And why did they all care for him? She didn’t need to look far for an answer: in this darkest of nights, he was a star. He was life. He was a keepsake of their civilization. He was the Menos that would rise anew. Aadore would protect him, because he was hope. She believed the others felt the same.
“I never did hear how you and Aadore came to know one another,” said Sean. “Or how you ended up at that manor.”
Skar wiped the infant’s chin, and pinched and tickled the wee lad while answering. “I did some work for the lady Aadore. What was it…two, three nights ago?” Aadore shrugged. “I thought about catching a coach and heading back to the spot I rent uptown. I don’t have much of an attachment to any one place; I tend to move around and lay my head wherever it gets tired. So I didn’t wander far from D Twenty-Two. I found lodging in Beggar’s Court—a neighborhood just up the way from yours, milady. Good digs, good food, good whor—” Skar smiled. “Anyway. I slept there and then asked around for work in the morning. I’m guilded and bonded, so I hire easily. Masters aren’t scared that I’ll sell them out to the men they’ve hired me to protect them from. Professional standards, you might say. This job, though…It was supposed to involve shuttling people quickly from one place to another...people on the move, running from some shite they’d put their boot in.” His face turned grave. “I wasn’t told much, and you learn not to listen when you’re for hire—listening leads to knowing things that others want, which is never good. But the master…He was in real trouble, trouble that reached all the way up to the Crucible and the Iron Crown. I could be wrong, but I might have heard the word rebellion.”
Rebellion. A calamity, a rebellion, a city of unliving monsters. They spent a moment pondering: were all these things connected?
“My employer never made it to Queen’s Station,” mumbled Skar. “The quake struck before the ladies were able to pack their bags. Then came the ash, and the dead…”
“He wouldn’t have gotten anywhere from there, in any case,” said Aadore. “Queen’s Station is now”—Aadore cringed at thoughts of that place, its shrieking metal, smoke, fire, and heat—“much as you’d expect.”
“Well, that’s enough of a rest,” said Sean. “If you’re done feeding little…little…”
“Bugger,” exclaimed Skar. “What’s his name?” Brother and sister each gave embarrassed shrugs. “Not much of a surprise. I figured he doesn’t belong to either of you. Seems as if he’s just another casualty in the game of Fates. We really need something to call him, though. This farce of a world is cruel enough even if you do have a name, a few letters with which to declare yourself.”
“I’m terribly uncreative,” said Sean.
“I don’t have much of an artful way with words,” admitted Skar. “I tend to hit poets when they speak.”
By default then, the duty of naming their small charge fell to Aadore. The men looked at her with great expectancy, each waiting for her mouth to open and speak something wise. Aadore worked her way through the problem aloud. “I hate Fate. It means we are destined to live and die, our existences counted and woven like threads by three old hags at a great loom. What a shite faerytale. I refus
e to believe it, for here in the ruins, the four of us found each other. Some might say it’s fate that we’ve found one another, though I believe it is determination. We have defied death, and I feel we can continue our revolt against her, and against Fate. We can win the game of Fates, as you called it, Skar. This child has the same spark of insurrection. He will not be defeated. He barely cries; any other child his age would scream to high heaven until we denied our morals, thought only of ourselves, and left him in a heap of ashes somewhere. But he is true and Iron-born. If I could remember the word, the old word, the true word for that metal, I would call him just that…Iar…Iarrin…” While pondering the riddle, Aadore walked over to the child, bowed, and kissed his forehead as the revelation came to her. “I remember now, Iarron. But I think that Ian will do.”
“Ian,” repeated the men.
They beheld Aadore with a queer, canny respect. She had an air of greatness about her. She gripped the guard of her sword with assurance. Each man’s head was filled with thoughts of courts, knights, queens, and noble inheritances. The men blinked and the moment was gone. Aadore was no longer a queen, but once again a dirty woman, who now began striding into the fog-muffled ruins ahead. Sean followed in her wake. But he would not forget what he had seen. They might have lost their capital and their countrymen, but if nothing else survived, within Aadore resided the soul of their nation.
III
The dog had been dead for some time. Its carcass lay in the street, buzzing with flies. Its yellow ribs stuck up from a matted brown husk. All of the good stuff—the organ meats, fats, and entrails—had long ago been eaten. The three survivors and their child waited in a hideaway of rubble and beams for the fog of death, which had the temperament of mist over a lake, to thin and reveal what lay farther down the street, beyond the carcass. This was not the first dead animal the three had seen, not by a long chalk. Most of the alleys and roads featured similar hollowed-out taxidermies. Reborn horses, freed from their nekromantic commands and left aimlessly wandering the streets, had not escaped the hunt: the lonely, inedible hooves of these beasts were visible here and there, along with what remained of their bodies. Whatever force poisoned the air and haunted the city appeared interested in turning only men into the unliving.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 26