The Chasing Graves Trilogy Box Set

by Ben Galley

  ‘I dare how I please. You can’t go anywhere, so why bother worrying?’

  ‘What about wolves? Jackals? Foxes. They’ll tear it… me to shreds, you inconsiderate trollop!’

  ‘Oh, they would if they could get close enough. They can probably smell your corpse right now. Luckily, most beasts are scared of ghosts.’ Nilith drew her knife. ‘Unless it’s you that’s scared of the dark?’

  ‘I…’ Farazar trailed off, distracted by the shadows.

  Nilith stalked away, crouched low and tense like a harp string. Her bones may have grown old, but they still remembered the wild steppes outside Saraka, hunting six-legged elk with nothing but a short blade. Krass she was, born and bred, and proud of it.

  The village’s torches were few, reserved mostly for the tiny streets between the mudbrick and plaster domes of houses. There were no guards or watchmen. With the desert awash with soulstealers and bandits, it seemed foolish. Hardly any of their windows were still aglow, but Nilith crept as though it were broad and burning daylight. She chose a darkened path, and was soon walking among the palms and wading through lush grass. She saw the oasis, black in the shade of the tall trees. Its waters bubbled gently.

  Nilith darted to its edge and dipped her flask while she drank with her free hand. It was desperately cold, but it washed away the dust like an ocean wave. She took one last sip before dashing back to the sands.

  Passing a larger dome, she spied a pen holding three horses. It was enough to make her pause, and after watching from behind a vine-wrapped trellis, she sprinted back to the oasis. Yellow berries hung like jewels between the thorns of a bush, and any fruit that was so jealously guarded must be safe to eat. She plucked two dozen, her fingers coming away spotted with blood. Clutching the fruit to her chest, she ran back to the horse-pen.

  Its gate was a simple rope knot which her knife solved in a blink. She tied its ends into a makeshift halter and edged into the pen. The horses were skittish at a stranger, but Nilith knew beasts, and with low and open hands she calmed one enough to slip the halter over his neck. He was a short but sturdy creature, skewbald brown and cream like her last steed, with a black brush of a mane and bred for the desert. She stashed most of the berries in her pocket and held out a few in her palm. Rough, slobbery lips scooped them up in no time and soon she was being nuzzled for more.

  Not wishing to risk the sound of galloping hooves, Nilith led the beast towards the desert at a walking pace. She left the pen closed, and after a moment of rummaging, left a cloth bag of gems on a post. Hopefully it would be a purchase and not a theft. As soon as she left the boundaries of the town, she broke into a run. The horse seemed content to trot at her side, probably keen for more berries.

  Nilith found Farazar standing over his body with a length of scraggly desert bush in hand.

  ‘I saw a wolf. Maybe a dog,’ he said, noting her smirk. ‘You’re stealing livestock as well as souls now, I see?’

  Nilith began to manhandle the body onto the horse’s back, tying it in place with the rope. The animal almost fled at the smell alone, never mind the nature of the cargo. Farazar’s ghost was already making him itchy. Horses were better than most beasts in the presence of the dead, but Nilith still had to spend a moment calming him. One hand pressed firmly on his coarse mane while the other stroked his neck. His stubble-hair resisted her fingers. She could feel the shivers of his taut muscles, the rattle of his breath as he snuffled. The heat of his skin was welcome against her frigid hands. Calm whispers of nothingness spilled from her mouth, the babble of a gentle stream.

  ‘I left a payment. Besides, it’s for the greater good,’ she replied once the horse had calmed. His unsaddled spine wasn’t the comfiest seat in the world, but she was willing to swap it for four strong legs that weren’t hers.

  ‘And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ asked the ghost.

  ‘Nothing.’ Nilith patted the horse’s flank.

  ‘Your greater good, perhaps.’

  ‘I said shut it! Now, do you plan to float alongside the entire way?’

  Apparently, he did. He’d already started walking. ‘You know I detest riding with others.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  With a flick of her heels, the beast broke into a trot. She pointed him north, waiting until they were over a dune before kicking him into a gallop.

  Farazar was clever. Once he grew tired of trying to keep up, he crossed his arms, adopted a regal pose, and let the spell of the bond pull him along. He would not be able to abandon his body until it was either pitched into the Nyx or Nilith’s time ran out. For now it meant he followed behind the horse like a buoy trailing a ship. At least he was quiet. Nilith had only the rushing air for company, and the steady, if backside-bruising, gallop of the horse.

  Anoish, she dubbed him. Her favourite of the old Arctian gods. Nilith had considered a Krass name, but he was a desert horse, not a steppe-hoof, and so he deserved a desert name. The god of the dead would no doubt have applauded her mission. Nilith had always harboured a private suspicion that the gods were not dead, just watching, but such notions were branded as madness in the Arc.

  Anoish galloped until several hours past dawn until finally the heat got to him. His pace began to peter out, and he took to heavy puffing. Not wishing to be thrown by a horse twice in a week, Nilith rested him, walking while the sun ascended to its peak. Her buttocks thanked her, but every step brought back a new ache, or a forgotten sore between her toes.

  Farazar kept his distance, pale blue in the harsh sunlight. He kept looking over his shoulder, seeming pensive.

  It was past midday when they found the shallow ravine. It ran through the Long Sands in a north-easterly direction, and Nilith put it to good use, letting the horse rest in the shade while she took some water and dried meat. Anoish found some plants to nibble on, his rubbery lips smacking over their wiry branches. Farazar maintained his silence, no doubt cooking up more insults for later. She smirked at him as he paced. She had heard pretty much all of them over the years. It was always entertaining to watch him try to muster up something new.

  Returning to Anoish’s back, Nilith followed the ravine at a gentle trot. Every now and again, when a wayward dune blocked the way, they would pop up into the scorching heat and blink in the unfiltered sunlight. Around a fallen boulder, they spooked a pair of gazelles. Their hides were striped black and brown and their horns had the form of tree branches. The stick-legged creatures scattered in a puff of sand, vaulting clear out of the ravine in one hop.

  When at last the path pointed too far east, they struck across the desert sands once more. Nilith called a halt at the summit of a dune to check her bearings. The Steps of Oshirim loomed on the horizon, sitting between her and Araxes. The mountains were naught but a black smudge, but they still filled her with dread. She would deal with them when the time came, and not a minute before. Between them lay the Long Sands: an utterly thrilling country of shallow dunes and rippled stretches of grassless plains. Bands of red, yellow and white salt flats ran through the landscape. Whirlwinds danced where the winds jostled shoulders.

  Farazar’s voice caused her to jump. ‘Oh dear, Nilith.’

  ‘What?’

  When he didn’t answer, she turned, finding him pointing back across the ochre plain they had just trudged across. Her gaze followed the trail of their footprints to three black dots shivering in the heat haze.

  Nilith bared her teeth. ‘Company.’

  ‘Looks like you should have stuck to just stealing water.’

  ‘Shut it. They’re still an hour or two away.’

  Farazar rubbed his hands gleefully.

  With the ropes around the body tightened and Anoish calmed once more, Nilith drew her copper dagger. ‘Mount the horse.’

  ‘No.’ There was a hint of a laugh in his voice.

  ‘Get on the horse, or I’ll cut off something precious.’ Her eyes flicked down his naked frame to his painfully average manhood.

  ‘Go ahead. It’s
not like I have any use for it now!’

  ‘You never knew how to use it anyway, dear husband. Now get on the horse.’

  ‘No.’

  Nilith nicked the inside of his thigh with the flat of the blade, daringly close to more precious areas. He yelped, surprised at the pain.

  ‘Fine!’

  Farazar, with some difficulty, managed to climb onto Anoish’s back, and sat hunched as Nilith followed suit. His vapour was thicker now, and she could almost feel the shape of a body against her chest. He was cold, and once again she hated herself for enjoying the relief it brought from the heat.

  ‘Yah!’ she cried, making the ghost wince.

  They galloped until nightfall. Whenever Anoish slowed, Nilith pushed him harder. As the sun sank and bathed the world with gold, she saw the glow of metal on the distant figures. They had stayed level all afternoon, neither gaining nor falling back, simply following. It worried Nilith. It felt like time was being bided, and that was normally a luxury for those with the upper hand and the patience to wield it.

  Night turned the blessing of Farazar’s cold vapours into a curse. She leaned as far away from him as the galloping would allow, but still she shivered uncontrollably. Nilith made a mental note to switch places as soon as possible.

  Anoish betrayed her as dawn’s fingers came reaching over the black horizon. Despite Nilith’s kicks, the horse’s gallop ground to a canter, then to a trot, and finally a standstill.

  Nilith slipped from his side, canteen in hand. With one hand cupped, the other pouring, she let him slurp the very last of the water.

  Farazar was watching her. ‘You won’t outrun them. You’ll be without hands by midday. Better yet, dead.’

  ‘Keep hoping,’ said Nilith. ‘I’ll keep disappointing you.’ It pained her to admit it but Farazar was right, and it darkened her mood. Anoish might trot, but he would not lend her any real speed. She cast around in the faint light, looking for outcrops of rock. The dunes had flattened back into another plain, as if the landscape prostrated itself before the distant mountains. It offered not a scrap of shadow to her.

  After another mile, in a shallow depression with pink salt encrusting its basin, she turned east to throw them off the trail. Nilith jogged alongside the horse, enduring Farazar’s constant noise-making. His ghostly lips hadn’t mastered whistling without lungs, so he hummed instead.

  She was reaching for her dagger when Anoish whinnied and came scuffing to a halt. The halter jerked Nilith back, away from the edge of the pit she hadn’t spotted. It was a shallow thing, dug by some weakness of the valley floor, but in the dawn light and growing haze it was practically invisible from more than forty feet away.

  Nilith ran backwards to check once more and then rubbed her coarse hands together with a rasp. ‘Down you go,’ she ordered the ghost. He did as he was told, but with a snooty look.

  ‘Never expected you to be the hiding type. It is cowardly.’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

  Nilith made sure Anoish didn’t break anything on his way down into the pit. His head poked above the lip, so she had to coax him to lie flat, easing his load a little to let him rest. ‘Good horse.’

  ‘Probably why they want him back.’

  ‘Shut your mouth.’ The threat came with a flash of copper. The dagger was already drawn and clutched in her hands. Farazar held his tongue, turning instead to watch the rippling tips of the distant dunes.

  It took almost an hour for the black dots to catch up. Precious time wasted, and Nilith spent it baking like a hog on a spit in the rising sun. The turn in her path had not fooled them; she’d had no time to cover her tracks, never mind a palm frond to do the covering.

  Nilith hissed, whacking the ghost on his arm, feeling cold, woolly air instead of flesh. ‘Down! You glow too much.’

  ‘And who’s to blame for that, you murderous shrew? You’re the one who turned me into this… this… half-life!’

  She could see it hurt him deeply to use such a slur while talking about himself. It was strangely satisfying. She waggled the blade. ‘Not now.’

  Nilith hunkered down, stroking the hot flanks of the horse to keep him steady. His eyes were half closed in the heat, sand dusting his long, dark eyelashes.

  The minutes inched past like lazy caterpillars. The black dots turned into quivering shapes sat tall atop horses. Their mounts were taller than Anoish, with reins encrusted with common gems. Those who lived beyond the Outsprawls of Araxes were too poor for silver coin. Nilith risked a peek and saw the glitter of blades, sweeping curves of steel and copper balanced on the riders’ laps. Their sun-baked skin was wrapped in strips of yellow cotton, as though they were bodies ready to be surrendered to the Nyx. Pale spines, like the needles of a Krass quillhog, poked out here and there between the cloth around their heads. Desert-folk and nomads came from older bloodlines that had spent too long in the sands, or so the old fairytales said, and been changed by them. Most sported horns or goat-eyes, some had insectile features, but Nilith had never seen spines before. Though she dared not look any longer, she could hear them rattling softly as they rode.

  She placed a finger over her lips as the men trotted closer, riding level with the pit in a wide line. The nearest of them came within easy bowshot. Nilith listened to the sound of hooves crunching on the tough salt, eyeing Farazar all the while. The copper blade hovered under his chin. Closer and closer they came, her heart rising with every hoofbeat, until they mercifully began to recede.

  When they were beyond earshot, she finally let out a breath.

  ‘Lucky,’ sighed Nilith.

  Farazar’s face was sourer than a month-old lemon. ‘Too lucky. It’ll run out soon enough.’

  She prodded at him again. ‘You’d better get it into your thick head that whatever happens to me affects you. Feel free to enjoy indenturement in some desert hovel, or trailing a caravan for the next hundred years. Maybe they’ll have you work in a desert colony.’

  Farazar tried to spit but ended up spluttering viciously instead. ‘Better than giving you the satisfaction of binding me!’

  Nilith tapped the corpse beside her, smiling. ‘We’ll see. For now, you’d better hold that blue tongue of yours.’

  Anoish was reluctant to get back on his hooves, but with some coercing and the help of a last handful of dried berries, he complied with a grumpy whinny.

  With Farazar once again trailing behind at the leisure of the magic, Nilith rode with the body for an hour or two before dismounting to walk. The corpse had achieved a higher level of pungency. Before long, she was walking the horse at the full stretch of his ropes and breathing through her mouth.

  And so the afternoon went: slow and weary for the both of them, spent largely looking over the shoulder and lip-biting. Nilith saw no more sign of the riders, and as the dune-shadows began to lengthen, she finally managed to relax.

  The evening’s campsite came in the form of a small hollow on a rocky hillside. Even though she shuddered under her blanket and coat, Nilith risked no campfire. Starlight was their only illumination once more, and she had begun to find it a cold light. Even Anoish’s warmth, pressing up against her back, did little to help. Maybe it was Farazar, sitting opposite, glowing sapphire like a starved oil lamp. Like the stars, he offered only cold air and beady eyes.

  He was playing at his staring game again. His shoulder-length hair wafted about him at half-speed, like the tendrils of a jellyfish. Behind him, the hollow of rock shone a slate-grey with his light. Farazar was still as naked as the day he had risen from his corpse, peeling from his chest like a beetle outgrowing his carapace. He bore his neck wound proudly.

  Farazar had now settled into his ghostly form, and that presented a new problem. He would soon be capable of holding things, touching things, even stealing sharp things from belts and plunging them into their owners’ chests. Ghosts – or shades as the Arctians insisted on calling them, as if it somehow disguised their nature – were far from harmless, no matter what wa
s preached. Although they were weak and no more solid than a feather pillow, they could still hold and use objects, such as rocks for bludgeoning, or sharp things for stabbing. Combined with a ghost’s inability to sleep, it gave Farazar the capacity for revenge. He already had a heart black enough for it. The coldness of his gaze only affirmed that.

  ‘Got more complaints for me?’ she challenged him.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. That little smile of his appeared. His words came calm and slow, but she heard the tightness of rage beneath them.

  ‘At first I imagined my murder to be one of those wonderful lessons of yours; a final attempt to teach me the error of my Arctian ways. Decades you have spent giving me laborious, sanctimonious lectures. And yet here I am, being dragged along on some huge quest, a captive audience in every sense of the word, but I haven’t heard one word of gloating of your great victory over me. That is most unlike you. It makes me curious.’

  Nilith sighed. She was too tired for his manipulative games. ‘This is no grand lesson, Farazar. There never were any lessons, only my points of view. They just happened to clash with your archaic Arctian traditions. Stop looking for excuses as you always do. We both know what this is: I killed you; I’m dragging you to Araxes; when we reach the Grand Nyxwell in Araxes, I will have you bound and claim what’s yours.’ She lifted up the copper coin that dangled around her neck and thrust it at him. ‘It’s as simple as that, Farazar, and the sooner you realise it, the more peaceful and quiet this journey will be. For me at least.’

  ‘I was enjoying my own peace and quiet before you decided to track me down and murder me in cold blood.’

  Nilith clicked her tongue. In Krass it was a sign of disrespect, and one she had never forgotten after her years living in the Arc. ‘Whoring and drinking and smoking yourself into a shit-smeared heap is peace and quiet, is it? You could have stayed in Araxes to do that, instead of sneaking several thousand miles south to get away from me. Were the city’s orgies boring you, husband?’