Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (30 page)

‘Good, eh?’ smirked Lilith. She waved her hand for the flask but Samara didn’t give it back right away. She pinched the flask between her knees and reached for the knife at her belt. She tugged it free and, holding her hand over the mouth of the flask, dragged the blade across her palm. Dark blood sprang to taste the night air, and as she clenched her fist, drops of it began to dribble into the flask. Lilith watched the whole process wide-eyed. She had thought that she had tasted the last of that blood. She raised herself onto her withered arm and shuffled closer to the fire. Samara kept the blood flowing for a long minute or two, and with each tiny drop, Lilith leant that little bit closer, until she was lying almost in the fire.

Once Samara was finished, she held out the flask to Lilith. To her surprise, the seer didn’t snatch it, like she had always done, but instead reached out slowly and let her hand linger on the flask before she took it, brushing Samara’s fingers. It was a moment that neither of them ignored, but neither of them could mention. To Samara, it was a gesture of pity, of new and confusing sympathy. To Lilith, it was one that meant she could face the north on her feet, rather than on withered knees. It meant everything. ‘Thank you, girl,’ she mumbled.

‘You’re welcome,’ Samara replied, her voice equally low. It was a trade of words they were far from used to.

Lilith put the flask to her lips and tipped its end toward the sky. She gulped it down as quickly as she could manage. Both the mörd and blood stung her, and she had a hard time deciding which was more painful. Within moments, the flask was drained, and Lilith sighed as she dropped it on the ground. She closed her eyes, letting the heat swirl around her stomach. The blood began to make her twitch and flinch, but the strong mörd had also numbed her somewhat, so she simply lay there shaking, rather than doubled-up and wretched as normal.

After several minutes of convulsing, Lilith began to moan, like a sleeper caught in a dream. It sounded like the drunken moans that Samara had heard through many a rainy night as a girl. She decided to venture a question.

‘Did you look, or not?’ she asked, quietly. Lilith took so long to answer that she was about to ask again, only louder, when the seer sighed softly.

‘I did,’ she said, words slurred just a little.

‘When?’

Another sigh, as if the words were tough to get out. ‘You were jus’ a baby. Barely a year. Growing so fast though. Never seen a babe grow like you did.’

Samara pressed on. Maybe it was the mörd, maybe the blood, maybe Lilith had simply stopped caring about the answers, whatever it was, Samara had questions to ask. ‘And how many babes have you seen?’

‘More than you think, but always one less than I’d like,’ Lilith answered cryptically, making Samara pull a confused face. The seer groaned then as a wave of cramp spread across her body. Samara wondered if her timing had been a little awry. She turned around to scour the sunset-washed landscape, but there was nothing for miles. Not yet.

‘Why did you look?’

Lilith smirked between pained grimaces. ‘Would you look, if you ‘ad the power to?’

‘No. I don’t need to, do I?’

Lilith shrugged. ‘Well I did. Us mortals can’t help but wantin’ to know the end of a story. People don’t like doubt and they don’t like fate, either. That’s why they came to me in their droves, askin’ me to read their futures with my stones. Half the time I just told them what they wanted to hear and only that. First thing a seer learns is that you can be ruined by knowin’ everything.’

‘And that’s what ruined you?’

‘Didn’t want to end up like all the others I’d seen over the years. Didn’t want to end up drowned, or stabbed, or crushed by a rock, or fallin’ out of a third-storey window onto a butcher’s cart. Didn’t want to be another future, so I made sure mine was as long as possible. That’s what ruined me, girl, if you have to ask. That and a powerful thirst for wine.’

‘So you found Vice?’

‘Came across a book in my younger days. Scholar from Arfell didn’t have enough coin to pay for his readin’, so he paid me with a stolen book. All he wanted to know was the name of a girl that worked in his library, so I obliged him. Said it was valuable anyway. Before I could sell it I wound up readin’ it.’

Samara nodded along. ‘Let me guess. It was a book about daemons, or blood, or something?’ she ventured.

Lilith smiled, eyes still blissfully closed. ‘All three, girl. Imagine my surprise when my stones soon found me a pale king so close, in my very own city. Almost killed me he did, when I first approached ‘im, but I think he saw somethin’ useful in me. Vice put me to use over the years for his various little schemes, and he kept me just as alive as he needed me to be. His own future was hard to read, being as powerful as he was, but he seemed happy with what I cast for him, thank those bastard gods,’ she said, with a dry laugh. ‘He taught me all about them too, and you.’

Samara pushed on, trying her luck. ‘So what did you see? In your own future?’

Lilith’s smile turned upside down at that. ‘None of your business, girl. That future’s mine an’ mine alone. Keep your nose out.’

‘But you already told me it was death. What happens?’ asked Samara, as blunt and as tactless as a spade to the face, like any young, inquisitive person can be.

‘Why, so you can help?’ replied the seer. ‘You’ve never cared. Why start now?’

Samara wrapped her arms around her knees as she leant forward. ‘Don’t know,’ she said. It was an honest answer. ‘Why not?’

Lilith scoffed. ‘ ‘Cause I’ve seen that moment many times, girl, and even though I can’t read your fortune, I know you ain’t in any way a part of mine. Not even you and all your magick can change that.’

Samara pouted. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘I will, thank ‘ee,’ replied Lilith. A moment passed.

‘Are you sure?’ Samara asked.

‘About what, girl?’

‘About you. About dying?’

Lilith opened her eyes and squinted at the night-bruised sky, as if reading the twilight’s stars. ‘Sure as nails.’

‘Why won’t you tell me?’ Samara pleaded, like a child asking for a sweet.

Lilith stretched across the dirt, searching for a warm patch. She didn’t answer for a while. She groaned and grimaced again as more pain flitted through her body. She pulled her hood down over her face so that all Samara could see were her lips. They were already looking less-winkled. It was then that she began to talk. ‘It happens in the north. The far north. I’m wearing clothes just like these. Black boots, rope belt. I’m running. I’m covered in snow, dirty, bloody snow. There are black rocks all around me. Cracked ice. Then
he
appears.’ Lilith shivered, as she had done in the privacy of darkness many a time before.

‘Who?’ Samara flexed a fist. ‘I can stop him, whoever he is,’ she stated.

Lilith shook her head. ‘Not this one. Not this time. He belongs to another, an’ I already seen to that.’

Samara didn’t know what to say. All she could do was wonder at the strange little ache that had developed just above her stomach. It was an odd sensation. She frowned at it, tucking her chin under her cold arms. Several minutes passed before she realised she could blame the old venison, and so she did. She watched Lilith as she curled around something square and thick in her pack. ‘So what does that make that? Our collection of skins? Is it a… what do you call it? Your legacy? Is that the word? You can’t even look at it,’ she asked.

‘That’s the word alright, dear.’ Lilith smiled with red lips. ‘It used to be insurance, for when this was all over. But now there ain’t no point. I won’t be coming back, and nobody wants it that can save me. So it’s a legacy indeed. For posterity.’

‘What does that mean?’

Lilith shrugged. ‘Vice… your father… said it once. For the future, he said.’

Samara was busy rubbing her chin against her arms, agitated, confused. ‘Just tell me who. Who does this to you?’

‘Don’t change a thing if I tell you. Told you, I’ve already seen to his end. Don’t you worry.’ There was a tinge of regret in her voice then.

‘And you’re sure the stones are working right this time?’ Samara leant forward.

A little and rare smile appeared on Lilith’s face. ‘Like I said, girl, sure as nails. I seen enough futures come true to know I’m right. Stones never lie, and I’ve asked them enough questions to know it all,’ she whispered. Lilith closed her eyes then. The mörd was fading. Her face was a scrunched-up picture of discomfort and twitching pain. Her body had begun to shake as if she were deathly cold. The withered hand wrapped in her folded sleeve was fidgeting.

An hour passed this way. Samara stared at the flames and tried to decipher her irritating new emotions, while Lilith fell into a fitful sleep, enduring the borrowed blood burning through her old veins. Night fell on the wastes, black and cold. Only a thin, broken fingernail of moon gave them any light, save for the flames of their fire. In the distant south, a black shape of a pine tree sat against the night sky.

For wanderers, travellers, explorers, and the downright lost, there is a constant confusion in the fact that the more barren and emptiness a landscape is, the more numerous and worryingly vocal its nightlife is. Samara had spent her life in the wild, but she could never shake the feeling of trepidation when something hairy and fanged howled uncomfortably close. She had always said it was her human side shivering; a sliver of something ingrained from the ages of darkness, when humanity had gathered around campfires and whispered of monsters. She eyed the black shapes skittering across the landscape, using her spells to watch them as clear as day. Foxes, rats, owls, voles, jackals… they all crawled from whatever hole they had made their nests in, and came to cry and hoot and whine to the night. There were other things out there too. Samara could feel bigger eyes upon them. Unnatural eyes. Fires and barrows. A combination that made ghosts lick misty lips.

Samara saw them moments later. The two shapes strode across the landscape like actors striding onto stage. Where they walked, the things of the night scattered. Fearful yelps echoed across the plain.

Samara nudged Lilith with her foot and the seer snuffled something derogatory and altogether foul. She slowly came awake, still halfway into a strange dream. ‘They’re here,’ said Samara, calmly and quietly. Lilith heard a slight nervousness in her voice, like that of a favoured servant hearing the sound of a king’s boots on the stairs. Trembling, Lilith pushed herself upright. She winced at the pain that flitted through her limbs. The blood was still at work. ‘Where?’ she asked, squinting past the flames. She could hear the thumping of their feet striding up the incline of the barrow. Samara fell to her knee. Lilith did the same. Valefor came first out of the gloom, grinning like a fiery jester as usual, and then Hokus, narrow-eyed and curious.

‘Do I smell blood?’ he asked, without so much as a greeting.

‘That you do, brother,’ confirmed Valefor, sniffing the air. His nostrils flapped. ‘Daemon-scent.’ Reaching out a single claw, he gently lifted Samara to her feet by her chin, and then tapped her arm. Samara opened a hand, where a faint welt of a cut could be seen, already half healed. Valefor flicked a glance to Lilith, who was still kneeling, swaying back and forth. ‘I see,’ was all he said.

Hokus growled. ‘What use you still see in her escapes me, cousin.’

‘She,’ began Samara, unsure. She raised her chin. ‘Has served me…
us
well so far.’

Hokus waved an arm. ‘So be it,’ he said, reaching into the fire and grabbing a handful of burning coals. Clutching them to his charcoal lips, he blew hard, making them glow white hot. ‘We have found you transportation,’ he said, between breaths.

Samara looked around. The glare of the coals and their little fire had made it difficult to see anything beyond the summit of the barrow. ‘Where is it?’

‘
What
is it, would be more appropriate,’ Valefor chuckled. ‘Show them what we’ve dragged from the depths of the forest’s caves, brother.’

Hokus nodded. He drew his hand back, the one that held the coals, as if to throw a punch at the moon. Then, with the quietest of grunts, he hurled the coals down the slope of the barrow. They landed in a flash and hiss of sparks, scattering like coins out of a torn purse. The two beasts standing at the foot of the barrow snarled in reply.

Wolves. Two enormous wolves. The flash of the coals lit their maws for the briefest of moments, but it was all that was needed. Yellow teeth and huge ice-white eyes. The mere sight of them was enough to stop the hearts of lesser creatures. Even Samara flinched. Lilith fell to the ground, prostrate on the stubbled grass, shivering.

Uttering low whines, the wolves began to pad up the slope in the gentle, yet terrifying way that wolves do: legs bent and fluid, effortless, head low and moving not an inch with the motion of the paws. Eyes fixed like nails welded to steel.

They stopped just short of the daemons. Even Hokus and Valefor, in their current size, looked puny beside them. Easily taller than a man, the wolves were wide and long like a cow, with thick, shaggy coats and tufted ears. Their claws were so large they could have been fashioned into doorhandles, their fangs polished and whittled into dirks. These creatures had a smell about them, like old leather, of dusty fur and hot, rotting meat.

‘What are they?’ asked Samara, breathless.

‘Fenrir,’ grinned Valefor, obviously enormously pleased with their find.

‘They’re massive…’

Valephor made a shocked face. ‘These are small, for fenrir. The elves used to breed them much, much bigger,’ he said, wagging a claw like a lecturer.

‘I hate to think,’ mumbled Lilith. She had gotten to her feet, and now stood on shaky legs. Her fear had faded quickly once she had remembered her earlier thoughts. All the same, one of the fenrir growled at her, and she stumbled backwards.

‘They can smell the blood on your breath, seer,’ said Hokus. He clapped his hands together and the colossal wolves flinched. ‘Ready?’

Samara pointed at the creatures. ‘How do we… er… How are they going to…’

‘You ride them.’

‘
Ride
them?’ Lilith spluttered.