“He’s passed us,” he'd say or, “He’s very close.”
Usually a few minutes later the scent would grow cold.
The day fell into night, lights came on across the city, and still they searched. David guided them back to eat in the city proper – once he had run out of his own supply – devouring huge plates of food like it was his last meal.
“Maybe it's time we went back,” Margaret suggested.
David nodded. “Perhaps it’s time you did,” he said.
“What about you?”
“I’m staying here until this is done,” he said. “You're right, too many people have died already.”
That seemed to decide it for her. She reached out and squeezed David’s hand, a gesture that was almost tender. “As if I can just leave you to die.” David nodded, but he didn’t try to talk her out of it. It wasn't much later that someone screamed.
The scream hung in the air between them. David actually jumped. Margaret could see the pain on his face, even as he smiled at her. “We have him now,” he said.
They found him on an empty street near a butchery closed for the night. The air stank of the slaughterhouse, which was appropriate, Margaret thought.
“He’s here,” David said.
“Where?” Margaret couldn’t see anyone.
There was a crash of glass and the light nearest to them shattered. Margaret heard the next stone as it shot through the air, even saw it just before it hit the next closest street lamp.
Now, only a moon lit the street.
Margaret unsheathed her rime blade, though she didn’t activate it, counting on its hard edge.
“Put it away,” David whispered. “He’s too fast for that.”
“You don’t know how fast I am,” Margaret said.
“I know how swift he is, and, believe me, you’re no match – there, there he is.” He pointed into the dark. Margaret didn’t sheathe her blade.
Cadell crouched in the shadows. He hadn’t even bothered to wipe the blood from his lips. He grinned at Margaret, and seeing that face, all that blood, she knew that David was right, there was nothing of Cadell there. Nothing gentle or clever in all that hunger, unless the world itself was just hunger. Margaret had grown up on the terrors of the Roil, but this was an altogether darker thing, and worse, because she had seen some of that look in David. This was no Cadell, but a hollow man, possessed of a mouth, a gut, and cunning. Then clouds passed over the moon, and he was little more than a dark mannish shape.
Rain fell all at once, a great heavy downpour. How could they fight in this? Cadell sprang to his feet and sprinted at them through the dark – and David did something truly annoying. He stepped in front of her.
Margaret had to resist the temptation to cut into his back. David raised a hand, the Orbis on his finger flared with a cold hard brilliance that drew everything around them sharp and clear. It was almost as though the light of another time lit the street, things slowed, and grew a dangerous clarity.
Cadell backed from the light, a blood-covered hand thrown in front of his face, and Margaret could see each drop falling from his fingers to the gravel. None of it lost in the rain. Then things sped up, the light changed subtly. Cadell scurried backwards. But the glow followed him, and his hands couldn't conceal what he had become from it. Another drop of blood splattered on the ground.
“You remember what you are,” David said, and Margaret was startled by the pain and disappointment in his voice, as though despite knowing what he was facing, he’d never truly expected it. Cadell halted, lowered his hands, his face long and lupine. None of the sadness was there nor his overbearing mockery and impatience. He truly was cored of everything but the husk. And yet he stopped.
David strode towards him, closer and closer, until they almost touched. “You remember what you are,” David repeated. “Though not as much as me. If you honour the man, not the curse–”
Cadell swiped him aside, a movement so swift that Margaret hardly saw it, her limbs already given over to reflex as Cadell darted towards her. So much for David.
Margaret swept her rime blade out, and Cadell grabbed her by her wrist so tightly her bones creaked. She slammed her left fist into his face, it was like punching iron, and yet Cadell reacted. His eyes widened, and dark blood streamed from his nose. But he didn’t let go, just yanked her closer. She felt her fingers loosen, the sword starting to fall from her hand. Something moved behind them. Cadell's head snapped forward, Margaret almost buckled beneath his weight.
Over Cadell's shoulder, David's face loomed; blood streamed down a cut beneath his eye. He smiled at her, and, again, there was something ghoulish and un-David like about that grin. He closed his hands around Cadell’s head and wrenched him to one side. Now Cadell’s fingers released their grip, and David kicked out, driving him away from her – ribs cracked as the Old Man lifted into the air.
David was already sprinting after Cadell, who had landed in a crouch, catlike. Cadell wasn’t running, though. David kicked out at him, Cadell grabbed his leg and, as though it were little more than an afterthought, spun David in a rough circle, before hurling him into the window of the butchery. David went through, headfirst. There was no elegance in the way either of them moved, only strength and speed.
Cadell was fighting on instinct alone and it was giving him the edge.
Margaret let her rime blade drop, pulled free her rifle and shot Cadell in the head. The Old Man spun towards her; perhaps she should have considered running. She shot him again, and then there was no time. He was swinging out at her, and she was using the rifle like a club, looking up at those bloody teeth. She knocked his hands away, heard one of his fingers break as she struck them.
She scrambled back, all instinct herself. His eyes were as dark and empty as an Endym’s, and Margaret knew that soon she would follow him down into death. She was outclassed. Endyms, Quarg Hounds, Roilings – she could destroy those, but Cadell was another thing altogether. She flung her rifle at his head, and he swiped it away. She snatched a pistol from her belt and shot him in the chest, point-blank. It didn't even slow him down.
Cadell struck her hard, and she fell to the ground. He pressed one hand against her shoulder, reached down with the other to touch her neck. She raged against that strength, and couldn’t move. Her hands closed around the Verger's knife in her belt, she yanked it free, drove it into his chest. His mouth opened and shut. Margaret could hear the breath whistling through his broad nose, she could smell blood and putrefaction on his breath.
The rain stopped. Gutters gurgled, something dripped nearby, and Cadell peered at her, a heartbeat and a heartbeat more. Kill me and be done with it, she thought.
Cadell jerked forward, and then he was rising. Lifted up from behind, David’s hands around his neck, the Verger's knife jutting from the Old Man's chest.
“Husk,” David said, in a quiet voice that became a growl. “Husk, you are as NOTHING to me!”
David squeezed, and Cadell shook, eyes bulging. He thrashed in David’s grip, but David didn’t let go. The muscles in his arms flexed with a strength that Margaret could only wonder at. He squeezed and squeezed, and finally Cadell stilled.
David threw the body at the ground, and kicked it. Bones cracked. He kicked it again and again, mumbling something under his breath.
He turned to Margaret. “Are you all right?”
Margaret nodded.
“Good,” he said, and he didn’t look all right. He looked like he was crying. “We need to end this. Now.”
CHAPTER 11
Dead men rise. Dead men fight. Dead men dance throughout the night.
Hardacre folk song
THE CITY OF HARDACRE
964 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
David looked down at the corpse of Cadell. It shuddered at his boots, so he kicked it again. I did it, he thought. I managed it. But it’s not over yet. And already he could feel the exhaustion pulling at him, felt sick with it.
There was a break in the cl
ouds and the moons shone down, and just to their left glowed the Stars of Mourning: those symbols of sin and forgiveness. That sight steadied him somewhat; reminded him, too, that the corpse was on the street for any passerby to see.
“We will need to cut the... body up,” he said, looking to Margaret. “Burn the pieces, and we need to hurry.” He tried to sound calm, more in control than he felt.
Margaret was already unsheathing her rime blade, her rifle at her feet. “No, that’s not going to work.”
David walked back through the broken window of the butchery. The blades weren’t too hard to find.
“This is much better,” he said. Thank the Engine for what little Carnival remained in his veins – and there was not nearly enough of it. His hands didn’t even shake, and they would, yes, they would. He’d killed what was left of the man who had saved and made him what he was. David wanted to cry out with joy, he wanted to punch the wall with his fist. He wanted to eat, suddenly that was all he wanted, and there was meat here, in the cold room.
Yes, he needed that. Now.
He yanked the iron door open, breaking the lock in the process. Inside he dragged free the least frozen leg of lamb and bit down on it. It was tough work, but he managed it, you just needed to get the angle right, chew with rather than against the grain of the meat. A few bites, then a few bites more. Part of him wondered what it would be like if the blood was still warm.
He heard Margaret calling his name. Of course, how could he be so forgetful?
He took one last bite and walked from the cold room, shutting the door behind him. His stomach rumbled, he chose the biggest cleaver he could find, and a bag of salt, and walked back through the window, almost forgetting to wipe the smear of blood from his lips. His teeth were red with it.
“Sorry, it took me a while.”
Before Margaret could say a word, he severed the head from the neck, swinging down in a single swift movement, utterly definitive. “We can’t do it here, of course. But this should serve for now.”
He lifted the head by the hair. It was surprisingly light.
He grabbed one of the shuddering feet, and began to drag it down the street. “Now, if you could just grab a foot.”
Lightning cracked, like a skull hitting stone, and it started to rain. David turned to Margaret. “Just like home,” he said.
His side ached. He reached down, fingers finding the source of the pain, and pulled. The piece of glass that came free was almost the length of his forearm. “Not so good,” he said. Something squelched and he realised that his boots were full of blood.
He felt light-headed, but still he dragged the corpse behind him. Then he realised that perhaps that wasn’t the wisest way to be hefting around a body. There was a wooden box nearby; he dragged it over to them. It was covered in web, which he methodically removed, pinching several spiders to their deaths.
He didn't like spiders. He'd once seen a man eaten by them.
David swung the blade with a precision and a brutality that just a few weeks ago, Margaret would not have believed him capable of. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or concerned. He carefully dumped the remains in a box.
“We have to take this somewhere and burn it,” he said.
“Why not here?”
“People are coming,” David said.
“I can't hear anything.”
“Trust me.”
He hefted the box up. Margaret grabbed the other end.
Twice the box had twitched in their grip; the first time Margaret dropped it, glancing furiously back at David. “Did you feel that?”
David nodded “I was expecting it,” he said. “Don’t be surprised. It’s quite normal.”
As though anything were normal, he thought.
She seemed ready for it the next time. Didn’t even flinch. They found cover – behind old boxes from Chapman that smelt of rot and the sea – in an alleyway, the closest most deserted place they could find, and put the box down.
Margaret used a few drops of the endothermic chemicals from her shells. As an accelerant it worked well, though Cadell’s flesh burned far easier then, giving off a peculiar cool heat. The smoke was thin and oily, and quick to drown in the rain.
David stuck a toe in the ashes, then dumped a bag of salt over them. Surely nothing could have come back from that anyway, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.
“One Old Man dealt with,” he said without much satisfaction. “Only seven more to go.”
“You still think they’re hunting you?”
“Yes, I can feel it in my bones. And when I sleep.” His voice lowered, though there was no one there to hear it but her, “And they're getting closer.”
CHAPTER 12
There is Drift, and then there is Stone, the levitating rock upon which Drift sits.
It is said that Stone was hurled there by a god, and commanded never to fall, and so it has remained, outliving even the god that threw it. Or that Stone was once a god. Or that it is merely a mechanism, a great engine, and a conceit. Or that its mechanism is a god asleep and should it ever wake, our world would be destroyed.
Take your pick.
Undecided Antiquities and the Mirrlees Lion, Sebastian Mercure
THE CITY OF DRIFT
1200 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
There was a crystal glass of good Drift rum before her, untouched. Kara didn’t feel like drinking. Actually, she did (and a serious sort of drunk), but here and now it wouldn’t help. In fact, it might serve to dig her deeper into trouble. Mother Graine’s breath, though, smelt as though she had no such concerns.
One is not often summoned to an audience with a Mother of Sky, and this was Kara’s third summoning. She did not enjoy it – in all honesty it terrified her – the Mothers of the Sky were meant to command from a distance, this was too personal. Better to be pounced upon by Mother Graine than to come to her chambers anticipating it. And yet here she was again, in the chamber of Mother Graine, with two guards standing outside, both armed with almost as much weaponry as mad Margaret Penn.
There were things that Kara wanted to ask, but knew she couldn’t. Where were the other Mothers? They’d not been seen for nearly a month, and normally they would have patrolled the city’s outer walls, a stern eye cast to the air. There were rumours of a sickness, something that had passed through the Mothers, and left Mother Graine whole. But Kara could not imagine something that might sicken a creature so powerful as Mother Graine and her kin. Death was something that happened to other people.
“How can you be sure he’ll come?” Mother Graine asked, and it wasn’t the first time. Kara had to struggle not to roll her eyes, despite her fear.
“He’ll come because he’s an honourable man,” Kara Jade said, tapping a finger against another. “And he’ll come because he owes me. He’d be dead but for me and the Dawn.” And that name caught in her throat, as much as she tried for casual, it just caught. “If we hadn’t gotten him, gotten them, out of Chapman, they'd all be rotting there. David isn’t one to forget something like that.”
And, she thought, he’ll come because he’s read the double meaning in my letter. Something so obvious that even David couldn’t miss it.
“You’re saying he’s gullible?”
“I’m saying he’ll come. What happens afterwards… you didn’t see what I saw.” Now, she did pick up that glass, and take a quick gulp, it really was good stuff, it warmed rather than burnt.
“Believe me, I am aware of the kind of… power he holds. David is a new Old Man, there’s potency in that youth that will keep building for many months yet. He is dangerous, but we can contain him.”
Kara put down her glass, half empty. “He tore three of those iron ships out of the sky, and scattered their contents across the ground as if they were nothing but toys.”
Mother Graine leaned towards her. The hair on the back of Kara’s neck stood up; she couldn’t help it, she leant back a little. “Does he frighten you?”
Kara wasn't stup
id. What she was really asking was: Does he frighten you as much as I do?
“No... yes... I don’t know. He’s just a boy, well, he was. I don’t know what he woke to, after that great bloody rending of the sky. Maybe he’s a monster now, but I doubt it, he's still a boy.”
Mother Graine sighed. “He is an anomaly, and an aberration, so many wrongs bound in the flesh of one man. And you must remember he was also an addict.”
“He never tried to hide that.”
Mother Grain’s brow furrowed. “Do not confuse candour with truth,” she said, almost gently. “It's an addict’s strategy. They are not to be trusted.”
Kara grimaced. “And what does that make you? Isn’t the sky your addiction?”
Mother Graine shook her head. “It is my comfort, it is the presence eternal or near enough. And it would be all for me, if I could believe in one thing. But I do not.”
“What is it that you believe?”
“We’re all heading towards a doom that only I can stop.” She gestured at the glass. “Now, finish your drink.”
And Kara Jade did. You can only say no to a Mother of the Sky so many times.
CHAPTER 13
Those of the sky and the land had grown increasingly acrimonious. But that didn’t mean that they chose to keep out of each other's affairs. After the fall of so many cities, and with Mayor Stade (who could be said to have given up his city so easily, and against character) in the air to the east, the scope of the drama had narrowed, but the stakes were so much higher.
Wars of Altitude, Molc
THE CITY OF HARDACRE
964 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
When David finally made it to his bedroom, he sat down, pulled his knees up to his chest and wept. He didn’t allow himself too much grief though, before going to his hidden stash and driving Carnival into his veins. A few moments later he was all smiles.
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