The Ruthless

by Peter Newman

  The woman with the golden lips is Rochant’s enemy, and he is my friend, so that means she is my enemy too. But the woman with the golden lips saved me and I promised to help her in return. But, I saved her from Crunch so maybe I’ve already helped her.

  He shook his head, not sure what to do. He wanted to help Rochant and he certainly didn’t want the woman to get him, but he also wanted to help her, she had been so brave and strong, and without her he would be dead.

  ‘This is too hard!’ he said to Crowflies. ‘What do you think I should do?’

  The Birdkin looked at him as if to say he shouldn’t even be here.

  ‘I know. I should have listened to you before, but I’m here now. Help me!’

  Crowflies flew down to land in front of him, and Sa-at squatted next to it and held out his hand.

  ‘Sa-aat,’ it cawed softly, taking his hand in its beak, its proboscis pricking at the knuckle where his little finger used to be.

  He felt the contact, and the connection between them, vibrant, strong, as a sudden wave of emotions and thoughts – not his own – juddered against the edge of his mind. Crowflies had a lot to say, and this time, Sa-at gave the Birdkin his full attention.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Satyendra didn’t seek out anyone else to say goodbye to as he’d told his mother, instead he began the last preparations for escape. He hadn’t stockpiled food, the old cook was too sharp for such things, but he had planned the best ways to obtain it in a hurry. For years he’d watched the guards, getting to know which ones were diligent, which were not, and the routes through the castle that were least used.

  A side benefit of this was that he’d discovered the guards had their own stash of food in their supply room and, unlike the kitchens, there were times when it was left unobserved.

  Times like tonight.

  It was simple for him to swoop in and fill a sack with dried meat and fruit. He sucked on a crispy Lizardkin wing as he walked towards the abandoned courtyard, feeling an unusual sense of purpose. All of his life had been leading to this night, and now it was here, that planning was paying off.

  He’d almost arrived at the courtyard when he realized someone was following him. Another boy. He recognized the feel of them before his eyes had matched the silhouette: Pik.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The other boy shrugged, but didn’t look as deferent as Satyendra would have liked. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Things that are well beyond you.’

  ‘Like what? Maybe I could help.’

  Satyendra wondered if he might be able to satisfy his hunger after all. It would make him stronger, able to get much further from the castle in one night. He checked over his shoulder to make sure nobody else was around. ‘It’s a secret.’

  ‘It is?’ The boy was clearly desperate to know but also a little cautious, having been fooled by Satyendra a few too many times in the past.

  ‘Yes. Would you like to see?’ Pik nodded and Satyendra beckoned him closer. ‘It’s not far from here. Follow me and I’ll show you, but you have to promise to keep this between us.’

  ‘I promise.’

  Satyendra started walking again, he wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do to Pik yet, but the excitement was building nonetheless. They went into the courtyard, weaving their way through the vines towards the far corner, probably the most intimate space in the whole castle, cocooned in a weave of plants, held in a box of stone, tucked away, forgotten.

  His stash of clothes and tools was here. Waiting for him to collect. He just needed to deal with Pik and he could be away. He had to be careful though. If he made too much noise, it could raise the alarm.

  A brief flicker of doubt passed through him. This is too risky. I should just make an excuse to get rid of him and go hungry.

  But even as he thought that, he knew he wasn’t going to do it.

  ‘Is the secret here?’ asked Pik, and to Satyendra’s irritation, his gaze moved naturally to his hidden hiding place.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Let me show you.’

  He moved a few old bricks and unwrapped his treasures. Pik came to crouch next to him. ‘These look like road-born things.’

  ‘They are.’

  Pik looked from the collection of tools and supplies to Satyendra. ‘Are you going to run away?’

  His fingers twitched at his sides. ‘What if I was?’ Whatever he was going to do to satisfy the hunger, it would be soon. The risk mattered less to him with each passing second.

  ‘I …’ Pik hesitated, as if he didn’t know himself. ‘I’d help you.’

  ‘What? You’d help me run away on the eve of Lord Rochant’s rebirth ceremony? I find that hard to believe. Isn’t it your duty to stop me?’

  ‘No. An Honoured Vessel has to sacrifice themselves willingly. That’s what they say.’

  ‘They say a lot of things.’

  ‘I don’t want to die,’ came the quiet reply. ‘I don’t see why you would.’

  He looked into Pik’s eyes. Could the other boy be telling the truth? Had he misjudged him all this time? He’d assumed Pik’s scrutiny was born of jealousy or the desire to catch him out. What if he’d been turning away from the one person who might have been a friend?

  ‘If I wanted to,’ Pik added, ‘I could call the guard on you. It would only take a shout.’ He shrugged. ‘But I haven’t.’

  Satyendra shook his head, trying to understand this new situation. ‘Are you saying you want to come with me?’

  Pik actually laughed. ‘Suns, no! I like it here in the castle. I don’t want to go out there where the Wild is. But then, I’m not you. Nobody wants to sacrifice me.’

  It made sense, but Satyendra felt sad. It would have been so much easier to have an ally, even one as stupid as Nose. He watched the boy’s eyes move eagerly to the more unusual items of his stash and an idea came to him, a horrible one. ‘Before I go, do you want to try on my Gatherer’s coat?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He helped Pik into it. It was too big for him, almost comically so, and with dismay he realized the same would be true of himself. It would have to be left behind.

  ‘It’s so heavy!’ Pik exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, it has to be to protect me from the weather and the Wild …’ If he was going to do it, it had to be now. The need for Pik’s companionship faded, drowned out by the rising need to feed that other, inhuman part of himself. ‘I have a hood here too. Let me put it on you.’

  He pulled the hood over Pik’s head backwards, causing the other boy to make a muffled complaint.

  ‘Oops,’ said Satyendra, reaching down for one of the bricks, his heart beginning to beat faster, ‘let’s try that again.’

  Pik was struggling with the hood himself, but before he could twist it round, Satyendra hit him. The boy’s groan was caught in the thick leather as he fell to the floor. His pain and surprise surged into Satyendra, and with them came energy. He leapt onto Pik, straddling his chest and pressing down on his throat.

  ‘Sssh. No more talking. I’ve never liked you, Nose. Did you know that?’ He was more than strong enough to hold the other boy down now. But this was only the beginning. There was a rich seam of treasure here for Satyendra to mine. He applied just enough pressure to obstruct the air flow, but not enough to cut it off completely. The key was to make Pik’s suffering last, and to give him time to panic properly. With his free hand he poked and prodded his victim, aiming for the soft places, and mixing his rhythm, so that each one was an unpredictable shock.

  He leaned down to whisper in Pik’s ear. ‘The funny thing is, they’ll barely notice your absence, Nose. Everyone in the castle will be far too busy worrying about me. By the time they do find your remains, most of you will have been nibbled away by one thing or another.’ He poked at Pik’s face through the leather. ‘The body they find will have no eyes or tongue. If they find it at all, that is. Perhaps they’ll assume that you did come with me, and never search here. Wouldn’t that be iro
nic?’

  The rush was coming slowly, gloriously slowly, and he revelled in it, letting it fill his senses.

  He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, barely even registered Pik’s struggles.

  Then, two sets of strong hands twisted his arms behind his back and lifted him into the air.

  In a belated rush of awareness he noticed that others had entered the courtyard, two guards who now held him fast, aloft, and behind them, watching with eyes of stone: his mother.

  How did she know I was here? She should be waiting for me in my room!

  His quick mind came to a conclusion even before his feet were once more on the ground: she had played him. All this time he thought he was tricking her, and all this time, his mother had known. Unable to meet her eye, unable to face what was going to happen, he focused on the boy in front of him. Like an animal, he kicked out, catching Pik on the shin. There was a satisfying crack, a last gasp of fear, and then he was dragged away.

  Unable to hurt anyone physically, Satyendra fell back on the only tool left to him: words. ‘Mother, how could you do this to me?’

  She helped Pik to stand and dismissed the boy before turning to him. ‘I promised I’d be here for you, right up to the end.’

  ‘Here for me? You’ve killed me!’

  ‘No. I’m just giving you the push you asked for.’

  ‘I won’t do it!’ he hissed. ‘I’ll fight you. I’ll kill myself if I have to rather than let Rochant take my body.’

  She looked sad to him, but it was the wrong kind of sadness to feed from, for it was wrapped around a core of steel, resolute and unyielding. ‘I’m sorry, Satyendra, but your life belongs to House Sapphire. What happens to your body is not your decision to make, it never was.

  ‘I would like it very much if you did your duty with honour and dignity, but we can drag you to the rebirth chamber, unconscious if need be. Would you prefer that? If it will make this easier for you, I can give you something to drink.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be mercy, Mother? Should I be grateful?’ He shook his head. To accept her offer of oblivion would remove any chance of escape. But how can I escape this? They’ve already caught me in their trap. He let his head hang down, defeated, and for once it was not a ploy. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  They took him from the courtyard, back towards his own chambers, and he allowed himself to be led, meek, lifeless, as if some part of his soul had already left his body. There was no hope within Satyendra, he knew he could not put off the ceremony any longer, and so he clung to something else, a last spark of hate. If this was truly to be his end, he would use his dying breath to ensure that he didn’t go alone.

  The Godroad shone silver-blue below Vasin, a lone light in a nighttime sea. To either side of it was the Wild, an undulating, endless blackness. Occasionally, it would be broken by the circle of torches made by one of the Sapphire settlements clinging to the side of the Godroad. He flew past them, one after another. There would be no torches where he was going.

  However, he knew these lands well, and memory told him when it was time to bank right and begin his descent. In some ways it was a blessing to be arriving in Sorn at night. It was easier to ignore the ruined overgrown buildings. Easier to pretend that perhaps people still inhabited them. Even so, he felt a great shame every time he came here. For Sorn was a ghost village. A monument to his house’s betrayal of its people.

  He skimmed over the top of the encroaching trees, and dropped fast, bouncing twice before coming to a skidding stop in the middle of the village.

  The door to his mother’s house was already open, Nidra’s body silhouetted black in the doorway, her blade a glowing slash of blue at her side.

  He started forward to embrace her but something in her manner gave him pause. His bounding stride faltered a few paces from her. ‘Mother?’

  ‘Now you come. Too late as usual. Why are you always too late, Vasin?’ He was close enough now to see her in the light of his armour. Each time he came she seemed so much older. Not just in her body but in her soul. Like the spark of Nidra Un-Sapphire was dimming inside.

  ‘I need to speak to Lord Rochant. He’s been holding out on us.’ She made a sound. He wasn’t sure if it was a snort of laughter or a suppressed sob. ‘Mother, what’s happened?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Dead?’ He remembered her treatment of him in the early days and shuddered. ‘Did you?’

  ‘No. You should know better than that. I wouldn’t give him the mercy of death, especially not this close to the rebirth ceremony. He’s escaped.’

  Vasin thought of Rochant. Crippled and bound, with barely the strength to eat. ‘How?’

  ‘Lady Pari came to visit. She spoke to Rochant and then I showed her the hill where the Corpseman sleeps. When we came back, he’d gone. He’d been carried out. We don’t know numbers.’

  ‘What do we know?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘But I have my suspicions. We had no trouble while that Tanzanite bitch was between lives. Then, she comes back to me on the very eve of our plan coming to fruition … and he just happens to disappear.’

  ‘No. I can’t believe that. Lady Pari is our friend and ally.’

  ‘She loves him still! I see it in her face. You can’t trust a Tanzanite. You can’t trust anyone. If you’re to be a High Lord you must hold that truth close and never forget it.’

  He pushed aside the feelings of despair stirred by his mother’s words. ‘Where is Lady Pari now?’

  ‘Out hunting for Rochant. She hasn’t come back so perhaps she found him.’

  ‘I should go after her.’

  ‘Yes. Find her. Find him. Before it’s too late. If he goes between lives all is lost.’

  He turned to go, then stopped. ‘Don’t give up hope in Lady Pari yet.’

  ‘They are out there right now laughing at us, Vasin! Don’t you see? Pari tricked me into looking after Rochant all these years. She made me think of her as a fellow victim, but she is Rochant’s lover still. And now, it’s too late to touch her. Rochant will return with Wrath’s Tear’s ascencion, and he will destroy us both!’ She sagged against the door frame, displaying a fragility he had never seen before. ‘And there is nothing I can do. We spent everything on this gamble. I’ve nothing left.’

  He went to her and scooped her into an embrace. ‘You have me.’

  ‘You? What use are you?’ She pushed him away. He could easily resist her in his armour, but he moved back, one hop on his Sky-legs putting her on the edge of his aura. ‘What use is an embrace to me? Look at me. Look. I am dying. I am dead.’ Her eyes bored into his. ‘Did you even bring me any food? Any drink? I am sick of foraged mush and stolen leavings.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I rushed here from the Ruby lands. Things are dire there, and it all comes back to Rochant. I have to find him for all our sakes.’

  ‘Maybe if you’d spent more time in the Sapphire lands, where you belong, this wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘I had to go. They needed me.’

  She turned away. ‘I needed you.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Your apology is worthless. Find Rochant. That is my only hope now.’

  ‘I will. I promise.’

  But she had already shut the door.

  Vasin sighed and began to jog back towards the Godroad. Finding someone in the Wild was a fool’s errand, but he had no other option but try his luck. Grim thoughts about his mother followed after him.

  Have I left it too late? Have I lost her already? He tried to remember her as she was, the strong leader, the quick mind, the absolute certainty. But those memories increasingly felt like a kind of dreamy nostalgia.

  The smallest of the suns, Wrath’s Tear, was just starting to rise as he launched himself into the sky. The weak red light did little more than tint the horizon, and Vasin scanned the tree tops, hoping for a glint of tanzanite in the dark.

  However, the forest gave nothing away, presenting him with miles of c
anopy, a vast green that would make an army impossible to find, let alone one individual.

  The Godroad was a different matter, and he spotted the black silhouette marring its silvery blue perfection immediately, not on top of the Godroad itself, but propped against its side. A few minutes later he was coming into land, bounding the last steps to come skidding to a stop by the prone form of Lady Pari Tanzanite.

  The last time he’d seen her, her body had been at the end of its years, whereas this one was in its prime. Though dressed simply, the sky-born skin and golden tattoos on her lips and fingertips marked her as Deathless.

  She did not look well. Her face was puffy, one side of it discoloured by bruising, her clothes scuffed, dirty, as if she’d been rolled in the mud. Other than that however, she seemed fine. With the way her cloak was neatly arranged around her, it was almost as if she’d decided to take a nap.

  Perhaps she has. With Pari, anything’s possible.

  Gently, he set about waking her. She groaned and squinted up at him.

  ‘Lord Vasin?’

  He nodded.

  She put up a hand to shade her face from his armour’s aura. ‘You’re too bright, you know.’

  ‘I think you’re the first person to ever say that to me.’

  She laughed. ‘I was talking literally. My last memory was of being in the forest. Did you bring me out here?’

  ‘No, I found you on the Godroad.’

  She sat up and looked around. As she did so, a black feather fell from her cloak. Pari picked it up and twirled it between her fingers.

  ‘Why is it,’ asked Vasin, ‘that every time I see you, you look to have come fresh from a brawl?’

  ‘Life just has a way of happening to me, my dear. Though in my defence, I only see violence when travelling through House Sapphire’s land.’

  ‘Then I take it you haven’t been to visit House Ruby lately.’ Before she could respond to that he offered her his hand. ‘Can you stand?’

  ‘One way to find out,’ she replied, taking it. Once upright she examined herself critically. ‘Well, I seem to be in one slightly battered piece.’

  ‘Good. I’m sorry to rush things, Lady Pari, but we need to talk.’