Black Halo (73 page)

Asper was still alive, though her shallow breathing and still body did not do much to support it. The priestess did not move, did not speak, did not so much as shiver anymore. The soft weeping and violent trembling had left her body and left her nothing more than a pile of limp bones and skin that muttered the same thing on soft, silent breaths.

‘You let it happen,’ she whispered. ‘I gave everything. I did everything right. You just let it happen.’

What could I do?
Kataria thought to herself.
How could you not have known what he was? How could you not have known to stay silent?

She is human
, the Howling answered her.
There is no instinct in her. She survives through other methods that she does not have now. You are a shict. You have instinct. You survive so that all shicts may survive. You have a duty to your people
.

The thought was hers and not hers, a dormant, feral logic awakening within her. And it came more and more frequently, with more and more urgency. It was no longer shared knowledge. It was no longer instinct. The Howling was all her people condensed into a single thought.

It was impossible to ignore, yet impossible to grasp. The unseen shict’s will brushed her only in fleeting thoughts, prodding the Howling to awaken and tell her of his location. Nothing more was offered, no advice given or instructions handed down. She racked her mind, searching for a possibility for escape, to reach him.

And then, she would look at Asper, and forget everything.

She would hear the priestess’ sobbing, see the priestess’ agonised tears. She would forget that she stared at a human, one of many. She would forget that Asper should mean nothing to her, forget that she should think of herself, her people, her duty. She would remember Asper was her friend.

That Asper was the reason she was not lying on the floor and sobbing.

And nothing more than that: she recalled no words of comfort, remembered no reassurances of safety. The Howling would speak to her in these moments of lapsed clarity, and it would begin anew.

Survive
, it implored as it knew she should.
You must survive
. We
must survive. You must—

Her bones rattled in her flesh as the wooden pillar trembled with the force of the purple fist slamming against it. A harsh, grating growl filled her ears and drowned all other thought.

‘What’s taking so long?’

Kataria felt slightly comforted to know she wasn’t the only one wondering.

It seemed too mild a comparison to think that Xhai paced the cabin like a nervous hound as she stared at the door. Hounds, as far as she knew, didn’t show nearly so many teeth when they growled.

Hounds, too, had instinct. When they sensed danger, they acted, even in spite of their master’s orders. Xhai clearly sensed danger, clearly wanted to act, but remained in the cabin. She had been given an order and was determined to obey it. As vague as that order might have been, she rigidly clung to it as though it were the word of a god, or whatever equivalent longfaces worshipped.

Him
, she reminded herself.
They …
she
worships
him.

‘What do you think it is, then?’ Xhai grunted at her. ‘Your pinkies come to take what the Master owns?’

Kataria did not answer, for it was clear Xhai didn’t want one.

‘We should have killed all of you,’ she muttered. ‘Netherlings don’t need pink things.’

Whatever caused Kataria to speak up, she was certain it was no instinct.

‘He seems to disagree,’ she said.

‘The Master
needs
nothing,’ Xhai snapped. ‘He wants. He wants everything.’ Her gaze became hard and looked straight through Kataria. ‘He deserves everything.’

‘If he had everything he needed,’ Kataria replied, ‘he would want nothing.’

While she had known she should have stopped long before saying that, Xhai’s incoming fist only confirmed that. She jerked her head to the side, saw Xhai pull back knuckles red and embedded with splinters.

‘If he needed any of you,’ she snarled, ‘I wouldn’t have watched all the cold, weak bodies of those he wanted fed to the sikkhuns when he was done with them.’ She sneered. ‘When I drag your body to the pits, overscum, I’m going to make sure you’re still warm.’

‘I’ll go laughing,’ Kataria replied, meeting her scowl with an even stare. ‘Because the thought of a longface who desperately wants to lick her Master’s feet being relegated to garbage removal is just
hilarious
.’

Xhai’s hand shot out and caught her by the throat as her fist cocked back. Kataria made certain to smile broadly at the longface, knowing this would be the last time she would do so with all her teeth.

‘
I DON’T CARE!
’

They both glanced to the side as Asper threw herself onto her back, her scream hurled at the ceiling from a face stained by tears.

‘
I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!
’ she shrieked. ‘
YOU LET IT HAPPEN! YOU ABANDONED ME! LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN, THEN! TAKE IT! TAKE ALL OF IT! I DON’T CARE!
’

‘So soon?’ Xhai released Kataria and stalked over to the prone woman. ‘You’re not supposed to snap this early. Wait until the Master can do more.’

‘Get away from her,’ Kataria growled after the long-face.

Think of yourself
, the Howling insisted.
Think of your kin. Think of your duty. You have to—

‘Leave her alone!’ Kataria howled, jerking at her bonds.

She is nothing. You have to survive. You have a duty
.

‘Asper!’

‘I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care,’ the priestess sobbed, shaking her head violently. ‘I want it all to end. I don’t care for who.’

‘It doesn’t end now,’ Xhai muttered, rising up and nudging her with a toe from her spike-covered boots. ‘The Master doesn’t want it to. His is the right to—’

She paused suddenly, then leapt backward, astonishment on her angular features.

‘What,’ she grunted, ‘the hell is wrong with you?’

Asper’s arm looked as though it had suddenly contracted and gone through the worst bouts of an infection, the blood pooling in it and painting it red as sin. It was far too deep a crimson to be anything normal, Kataria thought, all the more disturbing as it throbbed, pulsed and tensed even as the rest of the priestess’ body lay unmoving.

‘Take it,’ Asper whispered. ‘Take it all.’

Xhai could muster nothing beyond an alarmed stare, looking to the door with a newfound longing for her master to return. Kataria’s eyes were locked on Asper, struggling to find the words to speak, the question to ask through the murmurings in her head. And yet, even as the Howling spoke with urgent fervour, she could still hear the sound.

Hinges without oil creaked. Something slid through a narrow frame. A pair of feet hit the floor.

She saw the porthole’s window swinging on its hinges and the shadow sliding beneath it, into the darkness at the edges of the overhanging lamp’s light. She only barely saw him, a shadow within a shadow in his black leathers, and only barely recognised him. His face was too long, his eyes too hard. And the smile he gave her as he noticed her staring had never unnerved her before.

Denaos raised a finger to his lips. She nodded, saying nothing, as he slunk about the halo of light. A rope slid into his hands like a snake, his fists drawing it tight. He rose up behind Xhai like a black flower and angled the garrotte over her head, his hands unnaturally steady.

He had only just begun to lower it when an eerily gentle smile split her long face.

‘I knew you’d come,’ she whispered.

His eyes widened just a fraction before he struck. The garrotte snapped down swiftly, finding the tender flesh of her throat and drawing tight. She snarled, thrusting her elbow back and into his ribs. He reeled, but refused to let go, pulling himself closer, hands shaking as he strained to pull the rope against her windpipe.

‘I knew it,’ she said, her voice only slightly raspy, ‘because I know you, because I know me. I know
I
wouldn’t leave my foe with just scars to remember me.’

He suffered another elbow, gritted his teeth. It was frustration and not pain that was evident in his face as he pulled so hard that the garrotte creaked in protest.

‘What the hell are you
made
of?’ he snarled.

‘And I knew they couldn’t kill you,’ Xhai continued, ignoring his words and his rope alike, ‘I knew you weren’t dead …’

Her hand lashed up and over her shoulder, gripping his throat in a vice of purple fingers.

‘Because I hadn’t killed you yet.’

His cry was a weak and pitiful thing against her roar as she yanked hard. He flew out from behind her and out before her with such swiftness as to suggest that, at some point, his innards had been replaced with soft wool.

That theory, and his all-too-fleshy body, were mercilessly dashed as he came crashing down upon the wood.

That should have worked, shouldn’t it?
he asked himself, not certain who would answer.
I was certain it would
.

Everyone makes mistakes
, he reassured himself.

Is that her foot above me?

It is
.

I should move, shouldn’t I?

He needed no answer to spur him into a roll. Her spike-encrusted boot came smashing down where he had just lain. He sprang to his feet in time to see her pull her foot out, chunks of wood still clinging petulantly to its twisted spikes.

‘That’s fine,’ she said calmly. ‘We’ll take our time with each other, get to know one another.’ She smiled with something that was obviously intended to be warmth. ‘When one of us kills the other, I want it to mean something.’

She leapt at him, just as the knife leapt to his hand. With surgical precision, he slashed it up and against her brow. Like a shattered dam of purple flesh, the blood came weeping out in great rivulets, pouring into her eyes and rendering her blind. She shrieked, swung a fist, seeking him. He sprang backwards and continued to do so as she flailed too wildly.

His retreat came to a sudden halt as he felt his back meet the pillar his companion was tied to.

‘Not a lot of room to move here,’ he muttered.

‘You talk like it’s
my
fault,’ Kataria snapped. ‘Kill her quick and it won’t be an issue.’

‘I’m not getting near those hands of hers.’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

‘Run, maybe? Probably die. I’m not sure yet.’

‘You didn’t think of a backup?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘
Why not?
’

‘Oh, come on! What were the odds that strangulation wouldn’t work?’

Anything she might have replied was lost in a howl of metal and a wail of cloven air. He looked and leapt just in time to avoid the massive wedge of metal that served as her sword from taking off his head. It bit deeply into the pillar instead as he scurried around it and the shict bound to it. He grabbed Kataria about her midsection, glancing around her and avoiding her offended scowl, much more concerned with the white eyes painted red narrowed at him.

‘I’m assuming she won’t kill you,’ he said, darting behind the shict as Xhai shot out a fist at his left, ‘or she would have already.’

‘You can’t know that!’ Kataria shouted to be heard over the sword being wrenched free.

‘It’s an educated gamble,’ Denaos said, twisting back behind her as Xhai lashed her blade out to catch him on his right. ‘If she can’t kill you, then you make a very good shield.’

‘I can hear you, you know,’ the longface said.

She swung again. He leapt again. The blade did not so much strike the pillar as shatter it completely. The ropes were slashed, sending Kataria falling to the ground. Splinters sprayed in all directions, a haze of dust and shards assaulting Xhai’s already stinging eyes and sending her into a blind, howling fury.

When he looked down, Kataria was staring at him with vast and empty eyes.

‘I could have died,’ she whispered. ‘And if I had, there would be no one left to help you.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t let you die.’

‘Then help me find my knife.’

‘Asper isn’t well,’ Kataria said, rising to her feet and slipping her rent bonds. ‘You have your people. I have mine.’

Before he could protest, she sprang to her feet and darted past the flailing longface, shoving the cabin door open and disappearing. Though he knew he ought to feel it, the urge to curse her as a coward was decidedly faint.

The pang of regret at not having fled first: decidedly not.

A snarl seized his attention. Xhai kicked the last remnants of the shattered pillar out of her way, advancing toward Denaos, her eyes shining through a face painted with blood and adorned with splinters. Her smile was one of contentment, unconcerned with the red dripping over her lips to stain her teeth. His face was one of fervent panic as he backed away and searched for any way past her that didn’t end in disembowelment.