by Ben Galley
‘You heard me! Let it loose!’
‘Then what? A siege? How long will that last? I say we cut our losses and leave.’
Personally, I agreed with Jexebel. I was about to interject and stir up their desperation, but Temsa beat me to it. Sparking mutiny was proving a lot easier than I thought.
‘You coward!’ he screeched at Jexebel, his knife waggling furiously in her face. She said nothing, spending the moment wiping the blood from her battleaxe, but the heat in her eyes spoke volumes.
Temsa snarled. ‘Danib! You lot! Get one of those cages open. Make it two!’
The men Temsa had pointed to visibly gulped, but did not move.
‘Go! Curse you!’ Temsa yelled, and with that, the soldiers trailed slowly after Danib, their eyes fixed on the knife in the tor’s hand.
As we and the remaining soldiers – almost two-score of us lucky buggers – tucked ourselves behind the shattered gate, I heard the ring of an impossibly sharp blade shearing through metal bars. A roar followed, the roar of something extremely upset and hungry.
I heard a fresh round of shouting. The rhythmic beat of swords striking shields rose, and then a scream as a soldier came scrabbling back through the gateway. Two wiry creatures made of black hair pounced upon him and promptly ripped the spine from his back with paws the size of dinner plates. The man’s screams were hideous, but paled in comparison to the faces that turned to us afterwards, full of white burning eyes, bare of fur and made of bone instead. Their grins were full of sharp teeth and their many eyes shone like the windows of a city. The creatures seemed to be part-bear, part-wolf, part-daemon, and they howled at the taste of fresh blood. Danib appeared behind them, beating his metal chest to drive the creatures on. When they didn’t move, too busy snarling and flicking their long tongues, he wrenched the arm from a dead soldier and hurled it towards the tower.
It was a gruesome trick, but it worked. The arm sailed through the air with the bear-wolf things snapping their jaws beneath it. They had almost caught it when they noticed the spearpoints ahead, and realised a buffet was better than one sole arm. They leapt the weapons with ease and became a whirlwind of claws and black, matted hair. I wondered if they had longed to do such a thing while they toured their bars every day, watching their captors and guards and wondering what they tasted like. I was glad they had got their chance.
‘What fine animals! See, Ani? Our situation is far from hopeless,’ remarked Temsa. He marched towards the tower, leading the final charge. His soldiers and Jexebel swarmed with him.
I looked to Danib, who was already back at Temsa’s side. I realised the panic over being trapped had made them forget me. My wrists were still bound, but I was practically ignored. I felt the opportunity seize me, tight and sharp as pincers.
I threw a look over my shoulder at the broken gate and all the escape it promised me. I couldn’t help myself. Finel’s guards lay behind me, but so did freedom. This was my moment. At last. It was clear to me now. I could not wait on the loose promises of the Cult to set me free, or for a madman to send me to the void. I was tired of playing patient. This may have been a half-life, but it was mine.
Feeling a shiver of cold run through me, I tentatively watched the gap widen between me and the soldiers. Nobody noticed my absence, and so I ran.
I was not a natural runner. My frame was wide and my gut had a tendency to jiggle. But in death, with no weight to me but mist and a desperate intent powering my legs, I streaked across the wild grass. A cloud of pollen and winged seeds chased me as I pelted towards the gate. My feet met its broken iron bars when I heard Temsa’s shout.
‘CALTRO!’
I turned to find Danib racing after me. Strength overpowering weight, he charged at me like a glowing catapult rock tearing through ranks. I swore I could hear the pounding of his armour over the cacophonous roar of the zoo around us. I heard Pointy’s angry yells too.
‘You bastard! You’re doing it again!’
‘You’re following, aren’t you?’ I yelled to the night, inexplicable to all but me and the sword.
Leaping through the gateway, I skidded on a cobble and introduced my head to it seconds after. It was in moments like that I was thankful I was a ghost; that I could get up and keep running instead of wallowing in a pool of my own blood.
I could hear another noise building, like floodwaters rushing down a gully. It was distant but racing towards me. I knew I was running to meet it, but I had little choice. Danib was closing fast. For a big lump, the bastard was quick on his feet.
As I weaved between the cages, avoiding clawed swipes and flying spittle, I saw Finel’s reinforcement guards pouring around the next gate, They lifted their voices with war cries, raising their spears and torches. Their black and gold armour looked fluid in the light, like the eyes of the hexowl.
‘The cages.’
I skidded to a halt, running to the nearest cage, where a mopey lion walked tight circles. He soon came to life as I tackled the gate, baring teeth at me and snapping at my hands. It was a simple pin-lock, and with the barb of my ropes’ copper core poking from the fabric, I managed to jimmy it open in moments.
I leapt to the side as the lion sprang free, ignoring my deadness and dashing for the roaring men instead. I had already moved on to the next cage, which held some giant baggy-skinned lizard. Its eyes were deader than all the ghosts in Araxes, like black stones pinned to its face. At least they kept its jagged fangs company. It hissed at me, and I swear it said my name.
Another snap of a lock and it too was loose, running in an awkward side-to-side manner, but at least in the right direction. I heard the shouts as the lion and the lizard collided with the ranks, and the guards’ charge momentarily stalled.
Danib’s had not. He was barrelling through the inner gateway now, a stone’s throw away, my own sword raised against me. I had no more time for picking locks.
‘Run, Caltro!’ cried Pointy.
I did, straight for the guards who were busy fending off two rather disgruntled and hungry beasts. The commotion had infuriated one creature in particular: the great horned fellow in the tiny cage. The bars were now bent almost to bursting. As I watched, the thing uttered a trumpeting bellow and threw itself against its door. I ran to help it, planning on a last-ditch distraction, but it had no need of me. The scream of steel drowned out the cries from the guards standing between the beast and me.
A few whimpering orders rang out. A handful of guards dug in their heels and spearbutts. The rest parted like crabs scuttling before a cartwheel. I glimpsed the beast in the light of their torches. It was like a huge armoured cow, over ten feet tall and just as wide. At first I thought it was part beetle, the kind the Arc was so fond of, but this thing wore no carapace. Its was an armour of leather, inches thick, striped grey and black and wrinkled like an old purse. Its face was an axehead of bone and armoured plates. From its forehead and snout sprouted two almighty tusks each as tall as me, and each curved to a barbarous point.
I gulped. Needlessly, of course, but old habits die hard, especially in the face of such a monster. I watched, almost stunned to stumbling as the beast broke the guards’ ranks with a roar. Men flew aside like trees under an avalanche, broken before they touched the ground. Their screams superseded the roaring. I even saw the big lizard cartwheeling into the night, coming to an abrupt halt against a wall.
It was then that I realised I was next. The beast had chosen its course, and I lay in its path, as did Danib. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the ghost had not slowed. He was rushing to close the gap between us before the beast could. The fucking bastard was driven, I’d give him that.
‘I’ll tell Temsa! I will!’ I yelled, giving him pause, but only for a moment. It was all I needed to bound forwards, rip the smock from my shoulders and fill the path with my glow.
It was a strange moment, running naked towards a charging monster, my extremities flailing wildly. They say avoiding death makes a man do desperate things, but I tell you, it’
s only when you’re dead and bound that you know the true meaning of desperation.
‘Come on!’ I yelled, mainly to steel myself as the ground shook under my feet. I saw the intent in the beast’s tiny brown eyes, and to my surprise, it was not for me. It was for Danib, clanking away behind me. It was his armour. It looked precisely like the beast’s. He even had a horn on his helmet.
I turned back to the creature with a grin, and gritted my teeth as I met its charge with my shoulder.
If I’d had a spine, it would have snapped under the speed at which I changed direction. I had expected to be thrown over a wall. Instead I reversed the way I came, and at a gallop far beyond the speed my legs could carry me. I opened my eyes to see Danib waving his arms, trying to slow his momentum. I yelled in what may have been delight, surprise, or even terror, but in any case I felt a roar in my barrel-like chest.
I was inside the fucking thing!
I felt rage. I felt hunger. I felt a driving urge to break something, everything. I let the beast’s feelings swirl with my own as I lowered my head, feeling the weight of the horns as I aimed for Danib.
With a crash akin to a banquet table being hurled down a staircase, I collided with the ghost. The impact was stunning, but it barely even slowed me. When I looked up, I saw Danib impaled on my largest horn, a gaping, shining hole in his breastplate. He was wriggling like a daemon, but he was stuck fast. His hands were empty, clenched into fists, and busy trying to wrestle himself free.
My cackle came out as a growl at a first, and then a more human sound as I ripped myself from the beast’s body, tumbling out of its enormous backside. It sped on unfazed, barging through a cage of fanged rodents, too preoccupied with the thrashing ghost stuck to its face.
I shook my head, feeling the animal rage still running through me. I felt uncoordinated, foreign to my own vapours. It was Temsa’s shout that awoke me.
‘CALTRO, YOU BASTARD!’
My short gallop had taken me back to the gateway, and now Temsa and Miss Jexebel were on my tail. I burst into a sprint. Finel’s guards had picked themselves up and remembered their previous duties. The fight still raged around the serek’s tower; I could hear the clash of armour and the echo of inhuman screeching behind me.
‘Caltro!’
My name again, but this time in my head. I looked around, remembering Danib’s empty hands, and saw something blacker than shadows lying in the dirt. Scooping Pointy up as I ran, I flashed his pommel stone a cocky look.
‘See? All part of the plan!’
His voice emanated from the blade now, with a metallic edge. ‘You’re an idiot. But a damnable lucky one.’
‘Story of my afterlife,’ I yelled, cutting my bindings with ease.
‘I didn’t know you could haunt animals.’
‘Neither did I! Oh, and I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘This.’
I swung him downwards, chopping the lock from another cage, and another, releasing anything and everything into the night. It was part distraction, part moral high ground. I had felt the giant beast’s frustration melting under a glee born of freedom. It was not too dissimilar from what I was currently feeling. If I needed to be free, so did these creatures. Fuck Finel and his collection.
A spotted wolf. A huge hedgehog with quills the size of knives. A cow with curled horns. Even a crocodile with a sail like a ship. I set them all free with showers of sparks and drove them at the guards as I ran.
Within a hundred paces and a dozen cages, I had incited pandemonium. Beast fought man, tooth against blade and claw against steel. For the time being, nobody noticed the shade darting through the clamour, naked and glowing as dimly as possible.
Twice, I had to flip back on myself as more reinforcements joined the fray. On the second time, I stumbled over a hairy and limp body lying crumpled and face-down against a cage. From its frame, I guessed a wild dog, perhaps a small wolf. As I picked myself up, poised to dash on, I heard its spine snap as it turned to look at me.
Its head swivelled all the way around, and as its bloody tongue lolled out of its mouth, I saw its white eyes turn black, like ink fouling water. Pink lips curled into a smile, baring rows of crimson and broken fangs. I saw the chunks of teeth still swilling around its mouth, along with ragged strips of flesh I doubted were its own.
I should have been accustomed to visits from the gods, but there was something beyond the timing that disturbed me. This god had no words for me. No urgings of floods and duty. Just a black, haunting stare. It was not life seeping into this corpse, but death, and a deeper sort than had already taken this creature. I heard my name whispered by bloody lips.
‘Caltro…’
My vapours prickled and I pulled myself backwards, having leaned in unknowingly. As I shuffled away from the haunting sight, I heard another crack of bone as the creature died once more. I swiftly put it behind me in a spurt of dust.
‘What in the Reaches was that?’ Pointy yelled in my hand.
‘Something I don’t want to meet again!’
I spared no more time for talking and put the sword to work again, filling the air with screeching flocks of birds. Some eagerly disappeared into the dark sky. The others shared the same thirst for vengeance as their many-legged brethren, and descended on the nearest guards in blizzards of claws and beaks. I smiled to myself, even though they swarmed me as well. They couldn’t harm me, and they were finally having their vengeance, like rioting slaves.
I followed the river of fur, wings and teeth between the walls and to a large gate. I felt my face drop as I saw the ranks of spears that filled my exit. A flurry of arrows drummed against the earth and bars around me, and I threw myself against the nearest cage. I heard the gut-wrenching yowl of a big cat, and the thunk of birds meeting the earth.
‘Can’t a ghost catch a break in this city?’ I cursed. ‘Fuck!’
‘Can’t you use your haunting?’
‘And lose you somewhere in the process? I can’t hold o—’
I was knocked flat as a silver eagle landed on top of me, an arrow sticking from its breast. It gasped for air, massive wings rising and falling as if it were gliding on thermals, not sprawled in the dirt.
‘This is it!’ I said, pressing my hands to its feathered breast. It held no fear for me. I snapped the arrow shaft as gently as possible.
‘What?’
‘A way out.’
‘But he’s dying!’
‘Yeah, and we’ve done that before, haven’t we? This is how we escape, and I’m not leaving you behind.’
‘What’s gotten into you?’
‘I don’t know about you, Pointy, but I’m quite fed up of Temsa’s company.’
‘But…’
There was no time for the sword’s hesitation. I saw the spotted wolf run past me, fleeing in the opposite direction. I closed my eyes and drove my mind into the eagle. It battled me even in death, uttering a piercing wail. I closed its beak for it, suddenly feeling a wash of pain in my stomach. It almost broke the haunting, but I clung on, pushing myself into its pinions and golden feet.
With the bird’s nonsensical panic railing against my mind, I rolled onto my side and tested my wings, seeing my vision cloud as the pain washed over me again. I almost relished it. It was sensation, after all. I felt alive.
Clutching Pointy in my bloodstained claws, I flapped hard. I had seen birds do it plenty of times. There seemed to be no magic to it, and yet I did not move. More beasts flooded past my hiding place. Spears and bolts pursued them.
‘Caltro!’ cried the sword.
‘I’m trying!’ The answer escaped me as a screech.
I bent my knees, trying to spring into it, and I managed a moment of hovering. Again, the pain dragged me back down, along with Pointy’s weight.
‘Fucking bird! Fucking sword!’ I screeched again. Keeping promises was a treacherous business, but I was determined.
I tried one more burst of flight. This time, I reached the lip of th
e nearby cage. I grasped it with my free talons and hurled myself into the air in pure hope. My wings beat the air frantically and I felt it like liquid under me. Letting the wings guide me, I pressed against it, and as an arrow whistled past my pinions, I wheeled for the spiked edges of the wall.
‘Up! Up!’ the sword yelled.
Clang! His obsidian blade sheared one of the spikes from its rack and sent it spinning to the cobbles below. I watched the walls pass beneath me and raised my head to see the city sprawling ahead.
For a moment, I felt the possibility: the freedom only a creature with wings and wind under them could feel. A freedom to go anywhere, away from all this strife and pain, to where only the sky mattered. The breeze buoyed me up and I felt a powerful urge to keep flapping, to get as far away from—
Thump! The arrow struck me square in the ribs, sending me rolling through the air. The sword met the earth before I did, and as I crash-landed in a barrel of mouldy food scraps, I burst from the eagle’s body and rolled into a blue heap in the gutter.
Dead gods only knew how many kinds of effluence I dragged my face out of. I was thankful for my lack of a sense of smell, but I still came away thrashing. Shit was shit, after all. My arms beat the air like wings for a moment before I remembered myself.
Pointy was embedded in a doorstep a short distance away, and it took me far too much heaving and hauling to free him.
‘I don’t like flying,’ he admitted, as I used him as a walking cane. There was no injury, just a punishing dizziness and exhaustion. The bird’s dying moments were still washing through me. I flinched at an echoing clash of steel, still feeling its fear. I spared a glance for the eagle, bundled up in the barrel. It was an ignoble end for such a glorious beast, but I had no time for a proper burial. I could already hear whistles in the surrounding streets, barely audible over the cackling flocks of birds escaping from Serek Finel’s zoo. Even at night, their strange colours shone. I saw one bird gliding sedately and alone towards the desert. It was the golden owl, glittering in the fires from below. Before it was lost to sight, it turned its eye on me, and somehow it found me there, naked and crouched between two buildings.
