Etherwalker (8 page)

After a few millennia, you run out of new material.

So the thieves had caught themselves something, and that something was a kid. Rictus would have frowned at that, if he could have.

No lips.

He liked kids. Or had liked them. His dusty mind conjured up images of them—the kids—shouting and clapping and dancing and screaming at him with bright teeth and painted eyes. These scratched and scattered memories less tangible than a dream.

It was that shadow of feeling, that drop of diluted happy, which brought Rictus from his tomb.

He had been running on idle in the deepest of the deep holes in this necropolis, hiding from that mek witch. She had been on his trail since Nu Àleman, and Rictus had decided to lay low and let her pass by.
No need to cause a ruckus.

But now this kid was in trouble, and Rictus didn’t like that. Perched on the top of a leaning obelisk, he could see that the brigands were going to start hurting him if somebody didn’t step in soon.

Yeah, somebody. Of course somebody’s bound to pass by sooner or later.

Rictus marveled that he had already been able to get so close without the witch coming out of her chamber—her sensors should be going wild by now. Had these brigands realized what she was and mobbed her? Naw, he couldn’t give them credit for that. Maybe she realized that her trail had gone cold and left to sniff out a new one?

That’s unlikely—her band of saps is still alive, and a silverwitch never leaves a living minion.

Rictus didn’t really make up his mind until one of the brigands pulled a white-hot spear tip from the coals and decided it was time for some fun.

Because hey, I like kids.

‘Least I think I do.

*  *  *  *

The specter appeared just as Enoch had given himself up for dead.

It was a terrible sight—a grinning skeleton man leapt out of the shadows and
into the fire
, filling the air with embers and wild laughter. The specter dipped low and then spun, its longsword painting a wide, fire-lit arc. The arc passed through several of the men nearest the fire, including the brute with the spear. With a cry of horror, he looked down to watch the spearhead fall away from the shaft, followed by his right forearm and a portion of his nose. The rest of him soon followed with a thump.

Most of the brigands screamed and ran into the darkness. Those who stayed to fight were drunk and easily overcome. Enoch, his reserves of fear long depleted, simply stared at the specter with detached curiosity. He had never seen swordplay like this before. The long, thin blade seemed to move independent of the skeleton that wielded it, cutting a slow, yet deadly swath through the bumbling thieves like shears through wool. The sword sang as it danced, a low hum that turned blood to mist, flesh to steam, and bone to dust.

The specter was oddly dressed—smoldering black boots, pants, and a tattered jacket made of smooth leather, all painted in strange, arcane runes. Looking with his new vision, Enoch could see a black cord running from the longsword hilt and pulsing with energy. The cord wound around the specter’s arm, over a jagged shoulder, and into a glowing recess under slotted ribs.

The sword takes electricity, just like the Unit! But where does the power come from?

Then, to his surprise, Enoch noticed that the specter itself was surrounded by glowing lines of energy, similar to the witch.

The specter generates its own energy!

Finished with its mayhem, the apparition lowered the humming sword and stalked toward him. Enoch quickly backed away.

“Hey, hey, don’t worry, kid. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The specter looked down at his blood-spattered ribs and tried to wipe away the worst of the mess, only managing to smear it in a more ghastly arrangement. It looked up and shrugged its shoulders.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t believe me either.”

Enoch didn’t know how to respond. Was the creature trying to joke? That toothy grin was unnerving. There had been as many horror stories about specters as there had been about the Serpent Wives. It knelt behind him with a creak and began to loosen the rough bindings the thieves had tied from his ankles to his wrists.

“You . . . you’re a machine!”

“Well, no, technically I’m a . . . wait. Oh, you must be Pensanden, of course. Sorry. Didn’t see the scars. I haven’t seen one of you guys for a while. I thought you’d all gone dodo or something.”

Here the specter grabbed Enoch by the wrist and held it up to the firelight, raising a mummified brow in mock suspicion. Enoch caught his breath and froze. The ghastly creature actually rubbed a bony finger over Enoch’s skin, checking the legitimacy of the boy’s scar.

Satisfied, the specter grinned and released him, returning to the tough knots behind Enoch’s back. One hand was already free, and Enoch toyed with the idea of
pushing
this monster like he had the witch. For some reason he hesitated. Odd chatter notwithstanding, the specter didn’t seem to mean any harm.

“Anyhow, I’ve got to get you out of here—those brigands are going to be the least of your problems if the wicked witch finds out what has happened here.”

Enoch wondered at the cheerful rambling of the apparition as it walked back around and handed him the bindings. Coming shakily to his feet, he took in the specter’s fearsome appearance.

A shock of spidery hair clung to one side of its bony head, and yellow, parchment skin stretched perilously thin across that same half of the face—all the rest was bone. Dry, thin-lidded eyes stared out of recessed sockets, the irises a fierce, unearthly green. Through the specter’s open jacket, Enoch could catch a better glimpse of the flexible cable—covered with a patina of age, coiled once around a shriveled neck, and rooted in a rusted steel box. A tiny red light pulsed rhythmically over where the cadaver’s heart should have been. Another coil emerged from the bottom of the box and disappeared into the withered abdomen through the navel.

The specter noticed Enoch’s stare and smiled, tapping the box with a bony digit.

“The LifeBeat 3000—making your dreams come true one beat at a time. Thanks to this little baby, I’ve been a happily damned customer for fourteen centuries. Quality that lasts, kid.”

The specter tapped at the box again, stared at it for a long second, and then let out an airless sigh. He looked up and gave another quick shrug.

“But I’m not so tired of life that I want to see you lose yours. Let’s get out of here.”

Enoch didn’t move.

“Come on, kid. I know you took a couple knocks to the head, but—”

“Don’t worry about the platabruja,” interrupted Enoch, “I killed her.”

He was surprised at how easy it was for him to say. Master Gershom had taught him that to kill another person a warrior must be prepared to lose a piece of himself. The trick was in learning to keep from losing too much, he said.

Enoch felt no pain, deep or otherwise, for killing the coldmen. He felt nothing for the Silverwitch. There was a twinge of regret for the dead men lying at his feet, but he was glad they could no longer hurt him. And technically, he hadn’t been the one who had killed them.

Technically? Am I really that cold?

The specter hadn’t moved either, and was staring at him with steady green eyes. It tapped the box at its chest, scratched under a bony chin, and then let out another sigh as it sheathed the giant sword under a strap on its back. The power cable disconnected itself from the hilt of the sword and slid obediently into the recesses of the specter’s jacket.

“Serious little guy, aren’t you? And already going hand-to-hand with the big girls. I’m impressed, my somber friend, but the Meka-scheyf Cyborgs were designed with little mindwrenches like yourself in mind; and unless you melted her into soup, she’s going to be back on her feet in no time. And she’ll probably be angry.”

Perplexed, but oddly unafraid for the first time in what seemed like days, Enoch decided that he would rather have undead company than none at all; he gathered his swords and followed the specter away from the firelight. It was some time before he realized that they were heading deep into the crumbling heart of the ruins.

Chapter 5

“In the last centuries of their glory, they did thrust their stained hands into the destinies of those humble creatures not yet born, shaping crude tools from the near living. And in the irony of God’s justice, these crooked souls became their truest friends. And in the irony of God’s vengeance, the untouched became their truest foes.”

—Rephidem’s
Song of the Pensanden, Vol. 5

Mosk noticed the blood dripping from his fingers and stood, mouth watering at the sharp, heady smell. Shaking off his hunger, he walked around the still-twitching form of his Proximate to wipe his hands on the thick curtains that framed the room. A sullen clicking resonated from his chest, the sound of thin bones striking stone in endless staccato. The sound of frustration.

Proximate Isk had failed, and Mosk had killed him. The Hive was stronger. A Clot of searchers dead; the few surviving arakids gone feral and feeding on their master’s corpses. No explanations and still no clues as to where this hatcher had gone. It was going to be more difficult to trace this Pensanden than Mosk had anticipated, especially in such a backwards land.

The Hunt had been different years ago in the civilized north—there the Pensanden left electric footprints wherever they went, unable to resist dipping their minds into the ever-present machinery which filled the streets like honey pots. There the commoners had been helpful, even willing allies, ever eager to see the end of such an uncomfortably powerful folk. They had betrayed neighbors and friends alike to the slavering jaws of the arakid.

The clicking grew into a more hollow rattling sound from the back of Mosk’s throat, the closest his kind could come to laughter. He found himself both amused and repulsed by this peculiar weakness of mankind—ever fearful of a power greater than their own, they sought to destroy it instead of worshiping it as the blackspawn did.

Except for these Southerners. They were a frustrating bunch, silent and passive yet with an inner core of strength which had surprised even him. Many had died in the newly constructed smoke pits behind this so-called palace, and Mosk’s best torturers had reported an odd resistance to brands and screws which had made many a warlord weep—even though these shepherds obviously knew nothing about the etherwalker. A strange people.

At this, Mosk glanced beyond the body of Proximate Isk over to his special prisoner, who, although bruised, bloody, and bound hand and foot, still continued to glare at him with those wet human eyes.

“My dear Baron, are you still angry over the death of your child?” His bone-dry voice rattled like beetle wings. “You humans value your pets overmuch; did you not see how I dealt with an inefficient subordinate?”

Baron Mordecai Efron spat blood from his mouth and snarled.

“Does the Vestigarchy fear children and shepherds so much that it must send their trained maggots across the sea to murder them?”

The last word was punctuated by a vicious blow from Mosk, which sent the man sprawling backwards onto his bound hands. The Swarmlord loomed over his prisoner, then grabbed him by his stained lapels and pulled him close. Fierce carrion breath washed over the baron.

“You will tell me where the Pensanden is! If it wasn’t your son, then who? Such a powerful being could not have been in this land without your knowledge!”

Mosk dragged him over to the shattered window, which looked out across the burning city, and lifted him through the frame. The baron’s feet dangled over the paving stones far below.

With pleasure, Mosk noted how the man’s eyes had widened in surprise and horror at his captor’s inhuman strength. It had been a long time since this side of the world had witnessed the power of his kind.

“I see you finally realize your position,” he whispered. “I am not here to negotiate.”

Mosk was interrupted by the clattering of horned knuckles on wood. One of his torturers called through the door that he had found someone who knew of the etherwalker. Mosk toyed with the idea of dropping the baron, but reconsidered. The man might prove useful yet. Turning to the door, Mosk tossed the man against the table as he would a rat.

“Enter.”

The bulky torturer, carapace splotched with the rust-brown markings of the labor caste, ambled into the room. In his indelicate claws squirmed a fat, oily man with a shock of orange hair. Mosk noted that his clothes, while torn and dirty, lacked the singed edges of most torture victims. This one had spoken before the irons had even left the fire.

“This worm says that he knows a person fitting the description of a P-Pens-anden, Hiveking.” The torturer struggled with the foreign word, a word taken from a language woven for light tongues, not hinged and serrated mouthparts. Mosk looked down at the trembling man.

“Tell me what you know.”

The man gulped, and then stammered his reply. “Yes, Milord! My name is Mishael Keddrik. This, eh, person,” here he indicated the looming torturer, “asked if I knew of any visitors or strangers to this land who had dark coloring—”

“Yes, yes,” hissed Mosk impatiently.

The man continued fearfully, tripping over his words.

“A few m-miles from my shop there lives a shepherd and his son, except he looks like no blood of this land and n-nobody knows who the mother is, seeing as how the shepherd brought the child into town ten years ago, a complete stranger—”

Mosk yanked the man into the air. The last time the Hunt had been on this side of the world . . .

“Ten years? Are you sure? Where is this village? Speak!”

The man lost control, crying like a child as he dangled by his shirt.

“Y-yes, Milord, yes! I wouldn’t lie, Milord! Rewn’s Fork! That is my village!” The man tried to curl into himself, cringing under the baleful glare of the Hiveking. “Just let me go, please, I beg of you. I have children . . .” His voice trailed off into sobbing.

Savoring the man’s fear, Mosk carried him over to the window; the last red streams of sunset were staining the jagged edges of the broken glass. His voice was suddenly cool.

“Tell me. Did he have power over machines? Did he bear the marks of scale and talon? What was his name? Speak! Where did he go? Where is the Pensanden!?”

From the table behind him, a clear voice pierced the air.

“Fool! Tell him nothing!”

The Baron of Midian rose shakily to his feet and took a lurching step forwards. He had cut through the cords binding his legs with a piece of glass and staggered toward his stunned captor. The lumbering torturer moved to intercept him, throwing the table aside so that it smashed against the wall. Mosk turned, hissing.

The baron, face flushed red by the last light of day, gathered himself up and made a mighty leap. He collided with a squealing Mishael Keddrik. There was the sound of tearing cloth as the shirt came away in Mosk’s claw, and both men tumbled into the lengthening shadows far below.

Mosk held the fluttering cloth in the breeze for a moment and then let it follow the two men down into darkness. A black silhouette against the slowly purpling sky, the Swarmlord lowered his arm. The soldier behind him froze as a low-pitched rattle filled the room.

“You will return to your Clot Primal and ask him to slowly remove your hearts, one for stupidity and the other for sluggishness.”

“Yes, Hiveking. May my third heart serve you better.”

The torturer gave a shameful click of regret before turning and shuffling out of the room. Mosk called out after him.

“And tell the Matron that I need a new Proximate by week’s end!”

Rewn’s Fork. That was nearby the woods where one of his earlier scout groups had gone missing. It had to have been the Pensanden, and he must have had help from a small army of these Southerners to be able to dispatch an entire Clot.

Mosk had known Primal Kret, the group’s leader, since First Molt. Kret had been a ferocious, cunning creature.

Rewn’s Fork, on the edge of the Horeb Wilds. The unbroken forest extended for hundreds of miles to the west—an army could hide there for years. Mosk did not want to wait years. He decided to send a messenger back to the Vestigarchy for more matrons and whatever reserves could be spared from the Border Wars.

The forests would be black with soldiers in a week. Mosk felt his blood stir as hunting enzymes began to course through his body. As an afterthought, he decided to send a Clot of searchers north, on the off chance that his quarry might try to do the obvious.