by Ben Galley
As they flew past a makeshift signpost – just a collection of pointy rocks and driftwood – she recognised the glyphs for ‘water’ and ‘boat’. The falcon had steered them true. Nilith pushed Anoish harder.
Even though they were still a mile away, a small hut came into view, guarding a long sweeping ramp down to the river. The waters must have spent millennia digging down into the rock to make that canyon, but away from the sun, the river had survived the desert. She could see the blue sparkle between the dun rocks.
‘Yaah!’
Nilith caught the cry on the wind and turned to find the bandits were gaining. Their horses were taller, longer-legged stallions. Their scarab beetles were just as fast. She could hear the drumming of their hooves and feet. She blessed Anoish, but he was no stallion, though he seemed to have the heart of one.
The falcon plummeted from the sky like a falling spear. It flared its wings barely a yard from the ground and looped up to fly by her side again. ‘There is a flat barge tied to a jetty. Big enough for twenty and cargo. An old man lives in the hut, but he’ll be too slow to stop you.’
‘Won’t they kill him?’
The falcon clacked his beak angrily. ‘Or they’ll kill you. Your choice!’
The deaths of Eber and Fen, never mind the townsfolk, were already resting on her shoulders. She would be damned if another soul had to die that day because of her mistakes. Nilith felt a fresh sweat eke out of her brow. It felt cold against the hot, rushing air.
Once more she kicked at the horse. Anoish sensed her desperation. He pushed his head out and leaned into his gallop a little more. She felt his flanks shiver with exertion as she flattened herself to his back. She listened to the wind howl alongside the frantic drumming of hooves.
Farazar was far behind, but she heard his yelling all the same. A quick glance saw him kicking up as much dust as possible, all the while hollering to her how close the bandits were. The old bastard had his moments; the yellow cloud of dust he’d created blotted out the Ghouls, hopefully choking or blinding them in the process. Nilith twirled her finger in a circle, telling him to keep at it.
She almost flew from Anoish’s back as the beast skidded to the doorstep of the hut. She had to hug his neck to keep from falling.
‘Old man!’ she yelled between gasps. A figure was already standing in the dark of the open doorway. An old trident preceded him, glinting in the sun where it wasn’t rusted. ‘You have to run! There are bandits coming!’
The old man poked a raisin-like head out into the day, staring past her elbow at the diminishing cloud of dust, and the black shapes spread across the sand. Their cries were a rising roar.
‘We need your barge!’
‘I don’t want no trouble!’
Before he could slam the door, Nilith had leapt to the ground and closed the distance to the doorstep. He half-heartedly thrust his trident at her, but with a sidestep and swift yank, she’d disarmed him. He stood, hands clasped, defiance etched deep into the wrinkles of his face.
‘They’re bringing trouble, whether you want it or not. Come on!’
‘This is my home! I ain’t no coward. I’ve run this barge for eighte—’
‘Nothing to do with cowardice, old man. They’ll kill you just to better their moods. Come with us! There’s no time!’
Nilith had to drag him from the hut. She thanked the dead gods he had shrunk with age. It took almost no effort to place him on the horse.
‘Hold on.’ She slapped Anoish on the arse, and with a desperate whinny he raced for the river.
Nilith raced after them, feet pounding the gravel, her chin now permanently affixed to her shoulder. The Ghouls were eating up distance. There must have been a hundred yards left between them, and that was crumbling despite each dogged lunge. Farazar whipped past her, a smirk twisting his lip. She hefted the trident in her hand as a warning, but he was already out of reach. This was no time for his trickery.
She heard Krona’s voice rise above the rumble, a crack of lightning amidst thunder. It sounded twisted, muffled, but it still found Nilith’s ears.
‘Run ’em down, eh!’
The bitch was still alive.
Sweat began to pour. Nilith pushed her legs as hard as she could manage. The slope was gentle, but unkempt with rocks and discarded timbers. She almost tumbled twice staring back at the pursuers. She managed to find her balance through fear and panic alone, her body acting without her.
‘Run ’er down!’ The shout was closer now. ‘Get that bitch!’
Krona was sat up in her saddle, squinting against the wind. An enormous bandage wrapped her face, but at its edges, Nilith could see how black and warped the skin was. Ugly black veins traced her neck where the char had spread. A thick mace was held in her hand, spiked like a beach urchin. The look in her good eye told Nilith she thirsted to use it.
Anoish and the bargeman were already at the water’s edge. The barge was a simple flat thing, rectangular and raised at the edges in some places like a shield. She saw the old man’s hand flashing over the mooring lines. Farazar was tackling another knot. Anoish had already found his spot at the far edge of the barge.
The falcon screeched above her as it dove out of the blue. Once again he flared his wings, this time in the face of an oncoming horse. His beak raked its head, talons grasping at its eyes. The equine scream that followed told Nilith the falcon had claimed a prize. She looked back to see a horse writhing atop its rider and the hawk turning skywards, a bloody eye clutched in his foot.
‘Keep running, you moron!’ he keened.
The tumble had bought her a handful of yards, no more. As other Ghouls collided with the horse, Krona and the others careened around it and bore down on her.
‘Push off, push off!’
The bargeman’s shouts stopped the breath in her throat. She would have to jump. That cold sweat streamed down her cheeks.
As Nilith’s feet pounded the wood of the small jetty, she heard hooves clatter close behind her. She readied herself for the jump, eyes fixed on the bargeman’s extended hand, a few yards out into the river. Her legs had become numb pistons. Her right arm was the wing of a windmill in a storm. The other gripped the trident so tightly she swore she would snap its wooden pole.
‘Yah!’
Nilith heard the whoosh of the mace as she leapt; felt the coldness of its spikes kiss the back of her neck. There was nothing she could do but will herself to be the first mortal to fly.
The bargeman leapt back as the trident’s points slammed into the wood. River water cascaded as Nilith collided with the side of the barge. She immediately scrambled aboard, fingers pulling splinters from the deck. The frigid water had stolen her breath, and she gasped for air.
Behind her, three horses and riders tumbled into the water. The beasts churned the river to a frenzy. The men’s shouts were garbled as their armour and weapons dragged them down. Krona was clawing at the jetty pilings, heaving with anger, spitting river water and curses. She spared one hand to point at Nilith, bent double on the barge. Nilith thought it was a toothless threat until she heard the twang of a bowstring, and the first arrow thudded into the wood beside her foot.
‘Down!’ she yelled, throwing herself flat. More arrows clattered to the deck as she crawled under the lip of the barge’s sides. The craft was gaining speed, but not quickly enough to stop the arrows raining.
Farazar was glued to the deck beside some enormous paddle. Anoish pressed himself as low as possible, but he made too easy a target. An arrow sank into his back leg, and he started to convulse, kicking out and splintering some of the deck. Nilith gritted her teeth as she waited for the arrows to stop, her heart clenching with every bray of pain.
The old man yelled in her ear. ‘Still him, woman! Before he tips the barge!’
As soon as there came a halt in the barrage, she rushed to him and lay hands on his back. It was no use: he would not stay still. He almost bucked her into the water when she tried to touch the arrow.
&
nbsp; Whispers spilling from her mouth while the shouts and threats of the Ghouls filled her ears, she held the horse by the neck and shut her eyes. It took several tense moments while the last few arrows zipped and splashed around them, but eventually he calmed enough to lie flat and catch his breath. White saliva covered his lips.
‘Easy, boy,’ she muttered into his ear. Staring over his mane, she looked at the now distant jetty, where shapes were still being pulled out of the water. Their voices echoed down the narrow canyon. Only then did she let out the breath she’d been holding, and allowed herself to sag to the deck next to Anoish. She let the pounding of her heart fill her head and flushed cheeks. Her vision blurred with every beat. She wondered if there was anybody else out there, undergoing the same hardship at that same exact moment. Then she remembered she was in the Arc, and that the answer was obvious.
Farazar was pitching a fit. ‘They’ll just follow us, you fucking idiots,’ he was saying, now up and marching around the barge. ‘They’ll stand on the edge of the rock and shoot down at us.’ He kicked at a discarded arrow. ‘Copper tip! Why didn’t you build a boat with a roof, you camel-brained twat?!’
The bargeman said nothing. Instead, he concentrated on the tiller and paddle, working more speed into his vessel.
‘Does he not speak Common? Arctian, then! Faran esa m—’
Nilith pushed herself upright. ‘Farazar! Shut it! I will have words with you, but not now. You sit down and stay quiet.’
The ghost ignored her, continuing his marching instead. Silently, however.
Nilith went to stand by the bargeman, eying the rushing waters behind him warily. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Despite his foulness, he raises a good point, sir. I would wager they have plenty more arrows. Those men will shoot down into the canyon.’
‘Will they now?’ he replied, a deep frown doubling the cracks of his sun-baked forehead. His voice was shaky with age, but his calloused hands were as steady as the river’s flow.
‘Fifty years Ghyrab’s been sailing the Ashti, and every passenger I’ve taken on has thought they knew more ’bout her than me.’
‘The Ashti? Your barge?’
‘No, the river! Means “defiant” in my tongue. She defies the sands. She hides down here in her canyon, where nobody can touch her. See?’ The man pointed ahead, where the Ashti took on a wavering curve. Where the river showed its back to the striped sandstone, it had cut a notch in the rock tall enough for a horse to stand, and deep enough to hide the barge in its shadow.
Nilith smiled at the old man. ‘You know your river.’
‘They’d have to cross to have a shot at us. Ain’t no bridges for a while. This bend goes on for miles before she curves back toward the city and reaches Kal Duat. No bandits welcome there.’ The man shook himself as though he’d remembered something important. ‘In the meantime, you got some explaining to do! Why are you bringing all this trouble on me?’
‘They robbed us in the mountains,’ Nilith began to explain, but he only had eyes for the river.
There came a flutter and a thud from beside them, and they both looked down to find the falcon sat on the wood.
‘That was me, old man. I told them to take your barge.’
The old man shuffled away, holding his hands in a circle.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, man.’ The bird hung his head. ‘I’m a strangebound shade, not one of your old dead gods. What is it with desert-folk?’
The bargeman wasn’t convinced and edged closer to the tiller.
The falcon hopped away, beckoning with a wing. ‘That’s a regular occurrence. Something to do with a legend about one of the dead gods taking the form of a falcon. Hush, or whatever his name was.’
‘Horush,’ suggested Nilith.
‘That’s the fellow.’
The falcon led her closer to the barge’s edge, but Nilith stayed a few yards back, watching the waters run past with a curled lip.
‘Don’t like the water?’
‘Not fond of it.’ Petrified would be more accurate. If she wasn’t exhausted, she would have been shivering. As a girl, she had almost drowned in a mountain river just like this one, chasing her father’s hunting party.
‘Guess that’s why you weren’t planning on this route?’
‘That and it being less direct than a horse.’ Nilith narrowed her eyes. ‘Who are you? Why are you helping me?’
The falcon cackled, a strange, whispering sound. ‘My name is Bezel, and I only help myself. I’m not helping you.’
‘Then I’ll rephrase, you impertinent creature. Why are you here?’
Bezel’s black eyes were unreadable, nothing human in them besides the intentness of their stare.
‘Because your own daughter – my master – has ordered me to find you.’
Nilith tensed. ‘And now that you have?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Now that I’ve found you, and seeing as you are clearly in need of my help, I think you can make me a better offer.’ He clacked his beak as Nilith took a seat on the deck, her brow deeply furrowed. ‘After all,’ he said, with all the confidence of a predator, ‘why deal with a princess when I can negotiate with an empress?’
At the tiller, Ghyrab choked.
Chapter 23
New Friends
In cases of impasse at a hearing or claim against illegal binding of shades, the favour of the magistrate will always reside with the living.
Article 21, S4 of The Code of Indenturement
With a sigh, I settled down into my alcove, feeling thin and as if I desperately needed to sweat, but couldn’t. The other ghosts milled about, spending the time we had been given muttering about me, no doubt. I couldn’t give a toss for their words, and instead shuffled backwards until my shoulders met the stone.
Two days had passed in which there had been no word from Horix. The widow had stayed ensconced within her uppermost chambers. The ghosts continued to tread the stairs at night, and I had continued to be on my best behaviour. Knowing an end is in sight will lighten any prison sentence. Weeks, she had said. I could handle weeks, if it meant freedom. Months, maybe. Years, I baulked at. Time is heavy in great quantities. What mattered was that I had my writ, and I had taken a step towards justice. Even if it took another step, and another, I was making progress.
Kon passed by to grin lopsidedly at me. No words, just a wave and a smile. The dullard was perfectly suited for indenturement. He seemed totally unaware of his plight, as if he’d been born a ghost and slave. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the sort with the audacity to sing or whistle while he worked. I did not know; Vex had separated the two of us since our late-night excursion. His alcove was now on the far side of the tower.
I waited for the others to retreat into their hollows before I began to claw at the wall. A light sprinkling of dust alighted on my fingers and mixed with my vapours. With a pinch and a bit of jiggling, the slip of papyrus came free. I paused, listening for signs of movement, watching the pattern of sapphire light on the floor. My secret was safe.
I settled back to read it again. I had made out several more of the glyphs, and indeed it did speak of freedom. I thumbed the three skeletons, watching the glow of my fingers beneath the fine papyrus. I lit each of the glyphs before I folded it away, and held it to my head, wondering how such a tiny piece of paper and some scribbled ink could hold so much power over me and my future. The old stories talk of a magic in words, written or spoken aloud. They say that magic died long ago, but at that moment I was not convinced.
‘Weeks,’ I whispered to myself. I could endure such a stretch until the widow was ready for me. Though my curiosity constantly tugged at me, I could play the nice house-ghost and fulfil my duties. At the very least, I knew I couldn’t be worked to death.
I didn’t dare to speak it aloud, so I mouthed it to the papyrus as I stashed it back into the crevice. It seemed I was finally turning this whole eternal enslavement malarkey around. Not completely, as my fate still rested on the widow and he
r obscure chore, but my luck, for the first time since being dead, seemed to be improving.
There came an abrupt clang from the far end of the corridor. Voices with commanding tones. A few ghosts came past. Kon came wandering back, seemingly lost. He was scratching his head even though he clearly had no itch.
‘What is it now?’
‘Supposed to go downstairs,’ he said. ‘Some work to do in the stables. Beetles and horses need cleaning.’
Bela came past, a sour face for me. I got to my feet, slyly checking the papyrus was out of sight. One by one, two house-guards worked their way down the corridor, plucking ghosts from their alcoves and pointing them to the stairwell.
‘Go on, off with you.’
‘Move, shade!’
When it came to me, being one of the farthest alcoves, I stepped out to join the train but received a wallop to my chest instead. The heavy copper staggered me. The guards said nothing, one following, one staying to hold me back.
‘Not you,’ he muttered. ‘You stay.’
None of the ghosts saw me remain, and when the guard was sure I wasn’t going to move, he pushed me once more for good measure and sauntered after the others. I listened to the clunking of armour and muted thud of feet recede downstairs.
‘Fine, then,’ I muttered to myself. I crossed my arms and leaned like a village lout against the stone. For an hour I waited to be fetched, but nobody came. When I got bored, I settled down into a crouch, and told myself that the widow had some more tests for me.
By the time the last light of day faded to black, I was deep in a haze of thoughts. It was why I nearly jumped out of my smock when cold hands shoved me awake.
The hollow eyes of Master Vex stared back at me, our blue noses almost touching.
‘This is all very sudden,’ I said. ‘I normally expect dinner before romance.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he hissed. If he’d had spittle it would been decorating my chin.
‘Dangerous pastime that, Vex. Could you step back a little?’
