by Alex Bentley
“Ethra?” I whisper.
She has the good sense to whisper back, “Yes?”
“Something is following us. Off to the left. Maybe forty yards or so out. That’s just beyond the range of my bow. So, it’s either a clever human or a very clever beast.”
“I don’t think a clever person would be out in the woods in the dark,” says Ethra. “Just idiots like us.”
“True.” Which means it is an animal. An intelligent animal. A predator.
I bring Skep to a halt. Lata wanders a few more paces then follows suit. I unshoulder my bow. Ethra leans back to give me the room I need. I move as slowly as I can, like a child playing scarecrows. If I move too quickly, the predator—and it is a predator, of that I have no doubt—will be alerted to my intentions. That could be a good thing. The predator might know its limitations and scarper. Or it might attack. I slide an arrow from my quiver.
I do not have the arrow nocked when I see the blackness between the trees, no more than ten yards ahead of me, convulse.
A nef.
It has the body of a wolf, but its forelegs are twice as long as the hind legs, making it look like it is rearing up. Its fur is glossy black and its hide is all folds and hanging swags. It looks as if it is wearing a wet, black cloak. It is its face, however, that is its most disturbing feature. Except for its huge split of a mouth, lined with gleaming-white, razor-sharp teeth, it has the face of a hairy, brutish man.
It launches itself at me.
I dig my heels into Skep, and he lurches forward.
Just enough that the nef misses us.
But Ethra is unprepared for the sudden movement and falls back off the horse, hands scrabbling at thin air. She hits the ground with a thud.
I jump down from Skep and slap the horse’s rump, as much to clear the field of combat as put her out of harm’s reach.
I see Ethra lying on her back, hands to her gut, gasping for air. Winded but otherwise uninjured, it would seem. The nef, already recovered from its disappointment, is advancing on her at speed.
In a single motion, I nock, draw, anchor and release. El would be proud.
My arrow strikes the nef’s shoulder. I was aiming for the head. But it is enough to cause the creature to stop in its tracks. It lets out a howl almost as human as its face. It is a pitiable sound. But I don’t have time for pity. I nock another arrow, draw, anchor and fire. This one strikes the nef above its all-too-human eye. It ceases its howling and collapses.
I run to Ethra.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Nothing broken?”
“Just… winded…” she manages.
“We were lucky,” I say. “So lucky.” I point at the nef. It’s still quivering as the last of the life goes out of it. “If one of us had been bitten…” I pull Ethra to her feet.
“If one of us had been bitten, what?”
“They have a poison gland just beneath the tongue. Their venom puts a darkness in the blood. Hallucinations, madness, rage, then death. It is a horrible thing.”
“You know a lot about nef,” says Ethra.
“My father said one of his cousins was nefbitten,” I say, walking back toward Skep and Lata. “He said they had to put him to the sword, to end his suffering.”
And then I remember something else that my father had told me about nef.
They hunt in pairs.
It is as if Ethra has been swallowed by the night. One moment, she is there. Then she is gone. The second nef has enveloped her in its swags of hide. It knows what it is doing. I cannot loose an arrow at it for fear of striking Ethra.
My father told me about this, too.
A lone nef will sometimes take a hostage. They are wily things. But know this, a hostage taken by a nef is already dead because the nef cannot resist the urge to bite. Do not be fooled. Do not withhold your blade or the tip of your arrow. Nef are clever and brutal. And you must be cleverer and more brutal.
Her voice muffled by the nef’s black swaddling, Ethra cries, “Alys! Alys, please! I can’t see! It has me!”
The nef’s eyes flash briefly from the dark cloak that is its own hide. I can’t help but see a smugness there, a challenge.
Ethra is already dead, I tell myself.
I nock an arrow.
The nef registers my decision, lets Ethra drop to the dirt and bounds toward the woods.
My first arrow strikes its hindquarters, and it barrels into a tree, howling that human howl. It gets back to its feet, braces to run again, but my second arrow strikes its chest with a resounding thud. But it doesn’t fall. In fact, it seems suddenly filled with a frantic energy and charges at me.
Some nef, I hear my father say, when they are facing death, will poison themselves. Nobody knows quite how they do it, but they take the darkness into their own blood. When they do this, they become something savage and lethal: a gasricnef.
I put another arrow in its chest, but still it charges. I do not have time to nock another. I cast the bow aside and draw my sword. I have just enough time to sidestep the creature and swipe blindly at it as it passes. I feel my blade pass through the meat of its shoulder. It rolls into the undergrowth on the other side of the track, then lurches back to its feet and turns to face me.
I barely have time to plant my feet and ready my sword before it is charging again. Charging and screaming like a burnt child. Its mouth opens so wide I think—I hope—its head will split in two. It leaps at me and I thrust my sword forward, bracing for the impact. My blade slips into its chest as easily as if into water, and the full weight of the creature slams into me. Fortunately, the impact throws me clear of the nef and its gnashing, venom-wet teeth.
I jump to my feet, but my sword is no longer in my hands. It is buried to the hilt alongside my two arrows. And still the thing is bounding toward me, shrieking now. I wait until it is almost upon me, then dodge right. It slides past me, but only a couple of yards, then stops, turns and is bounding toward me again. I try to back away from it, at speed, and my heels catch on something and I am falling backwards.
The nef, the gasricnef, makes a sound very much like human laughter. It is the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard. It walks toward me now, seeming to take its time. That toothy slash of a mouth seems to be smiling. I use hands and feet and elbows to scuttle away from it as fast as I can but, even at its leisurely pace, it is closing the gap with ease.
When it is almost close enough to sink its teeth into my foot, I am struck by its stink. It smells sharp, acidic and like rotten pears. I am preparing to drive my foot into the pommel of my stolen sword, hoping despite the fact that it is already sunk up to the hilt, that I can drive it deeper, when the nef… stops. Stops laughing. Stops moving. And then it collapses, its slack hide pooling around it.
Behind the suddenly motionless nef Ethra is standing, but only just. Her sword protrudes from the beast’s spine. I don’t know if the blow was a lucky one or a strategic choice on Ethra’s part. She doesn’t look capable of a strategic decision. Or, indeed, any decision.
She is pale and sweaty, her eyes are glazed and her skin is rippling like water on the boil. Her left arm, the shirtsleeve ragged, is drenched in blood.
“Hallucinations, madness, rage,” says Ethra. “Then death. It is a horrible thing.”
Then she faints dead away.
Chapter 19
A Darkness in the Blood
I tend Ethra’s injury as best I can with what medicinal herbs I have. The wound itself is surprisingly minor, a three-inch gash to the forearm, less than half-an-inch deep, but something in the nef’s venom stops the blood from clotting and it bleeds profusely. I use all of my Marchweed and rosepulp as well as the Scur’s supplies to get it under control. Our betrayer’s herb bag also contains some mamera leaf, doubtless to be smoked for non-remedial purposes, and I wake Ethra long enough to get her to chew on it. It should help with the pain and fever. Heat is pouring from her, as if she has burning firewood for bones.
I put her in front of me on Sk
ep, my cloak looped round both our waists to keep her secure. There are no signs of any pursuers, and I am able to stop every two hours to clean her wound and administer more mamera. Each occasion I tend the nef bite, it looks worse. By the time I stop for the night and set-up camp, it is oozing puss and the entire arm is as red as the rosepulp I’ve been administering to slow the bleeding. Her skin hasn’t stopped rippling since the attack.
I am preparing more mamera when Ethra says, “You will have to kill me.”
I have become so accustomed to the silence, I jump and the leaves scatter.
Ethra is lying on her side, looking at me, just her face peeking out of her blanket.
“You should sleep,” I say.
“My blood hurts,” she says.
“I know. I’ll give you more mamera. It will help a little.”
“A little, but not enough,” she scowls.
“It’s all I have.”
“I’m going to die, anyway. A horrible death. You said so yourself. Kill me quickly. And then you can bring me back using your Glyst.”
I have done little but think about this option since I first dressed her wound.
“I don’t know if I can, Ethra.”
“You brought back your father and Cass. Why not me?”
“I meant that I don’t know if I can kill you.”
“Why not? You killed the Leccans and the bandits.”
“It is different to kill in combat. And even that I do not find easy.”
“Will it be easier to watch me suffer?” Her skin ripples violently then, a sail caught in a strong headwind, and her face stretches and bulges grotesquely.
“Of course not.”
“Then do it.”
“Take some more mamera,” I say, collecting the leaves from the ground. “Sleep a little more and then we will talk about it.”
“I am going to die, anyway. You could make it painless.”
“I know,” I say. “Let me think on it.”
After a brief silence in which I think she has fallen asleep, she says, “How many days?”
“What?”
“How many days will it take me to die? How many days of pain?”
“Just three or four. Five at the most.”
I am lying, of course. When my father put his nefbitten cousin to the sword, he had been raging for a fortnight. I don’t know how much longer he would have suffered if he had not been granted mercy.
Ethra is relentless for the entire journey the next day. Whenever she is conscious, she asks me why I have not killed her yet, why I am happy to see her suffer. I am relieved whenever she loses consciousness.
There is no clearing in which to make our camp, and night comes at us quickly, so we sit facing each other, just a few yards apart, leaning back against the thin, grey trees that are all this part of the world has to offer. I don’t know what type of tree they are. They look like sickly old men. In truth, I’m not sure what part of the world we are in. I think I have kept us moving eastwards. I think we are moving parallel to the Fisher Road, but it has been at least six hours since I’ve heard the sound of people.
“You are right, Slek Mydra,” says Ethra suddenly, looking up and past me. “I should kill her.”
I stand, turn, draw my sword. My head is spinning, my heart striking my sternum so hard it hurts.
There is nobody there.
Hallucinations, I think. Madness. Rage.
When I turn back, Ethra is gone.
“Ethra? You need to stay with me. When you die, I can bring you back. We can hunt an animal, something big. I can take its lifelight and put it in you. But I can’t do that if you are not with me.”
“You’re a liar!” The voice comes out of the sickly woods, but I can’t tell from which direction. “My father is here with me. He says so. He says you are a liar! He says I will suffer for weeks before the relief of death finds me. Weeks, he says. But his face is a nest of hungry, featherless birds, and I’m not certain I can trust him.”
“That is the nefbite talking,” I say. “Come back here. I will give you some mamera. You will feel a little better.”
“Mamera does not touch the fire in my bones. Nor the darkness in my blood.”
I still can’t tell from which direction her voice is coming. But there is a wispy quality to it I recognise. She has shed her skin. Then I realise why it is I’m struggling to locate Ethra from the sound of her voice.
It is coming from somewhere above me.
I look up, but it is too late. She is swooping down at me from the feeble canopy, stars scattered behind her. Her glove-like hand is wrapped about a rock. I see it blur toward me.
My eyes peel apart. I can taste blood. I try to move, but my hands are tied behind me. For a moment, I think I am still a prisoner of the Scur and that everything else—the bandits, the betrayal at Awlen, the nef—has been a dream.
Ethra sits opposite me, leaning back against one of the old-man trees. At least her body is, red and glistening.
“We can’t kill you,” she says. “Who will ’ring us ’ack to life?”
“Yes,” says a wispy voice. “It is complicated.”
Skin-Ethra hangs in the air above her flayed counterpart. The infection in her wound has spread. That entire boneless arm is red. The wound drips pus. I hear it pat-pat on the dead leaves of the forest floor.
“I’n not sure I want to ’e ’rought ’ack to life,” says Body-Ethra.
“Yes,” says Skin-Ethra. “It has not been a good life. It already feels as if it has gone on far too long. When did we leave your aunty’s roundhouse?”
“A few days ago.”
Skin-Ethra and Body-Ethra laugh in unison.
“No, no,” says Body-Ethra. “It has ’een at least a year. Silly girl!”
“At least,” says Skin-Ethra. “I am fourteen now. I remember my birthday. You made me honeyed oatcakes and strawberries. And you gave me a necklace made of shiny metal and gleaming gemstones.” Her infected hand moves up to her neck and feels about. “Now, where has it gone?”
“I did not give you a necklace, Ethra. It has been only a few days since we set out to take you to Utlath. You are still thirteen. There was no birthday.”
“Liar!” she says, floating down to hover an inch from the ground, a yard or so from me. “You stole it!”
“What?” My forehead is throbbing where she struck me with the rock.
“The necklace. You must have stolen it!”
“There was no—”
She slaps me. It is like being struck with a piece of leather.
“Liar!” she says.
“She’s a liar and a thief,” says Body-Ethra. “Sla’ her ’ace again.”
Skin-Ethra slaps me again. My face feels like it has been stung by a straggis wasp, and there are tears in my eyes.
“Stop it, Ethra! It is the nef’s venom that is making you—”
She slaps me again.
And I start to cry. I am ashamed. I haven’t cried since the Ritual of the Seven Cuts and the Seven Cups. That something as silly as a few slaps should bring me to tears feels somehow unjust. But, by Wyrchen, the God of Pain, it hurts. But it isn’t just the pain; it’s the cruelty and the humiliation.
“Again,” says Body-Ethra. “Harder this ti’.”
Skin-Ethra raises a hand again but does not slap me. Her face, rippling and empty, somehow takes on an aspect of sadness. Her hand drops to her side.
“Sla’ her!” cries Body-Ethra.
“No,” says Skin-Ethra. “She is sad now. I have made her sad. And that makes my heart ache. I am sorry, Alys. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“It’s the nef’s bite,” I say. “It isn’t your fault.”
“You’re an idiot, that’s what’s wrong with you!” says Body-Ethra rising. “And you don’t have a heart.” She beats her chest. “I have a heart. You are just a nothing with a skin on it. A skin on it like a ’ilk ’udding.”
Body-Ethra strides toward me, drawing her knife fr
om her belt.
“I will cut her. I will give her so’thing to cry a’out.”
Skin-Ethra’s hand snakes out and coils around the muscle and sinew of Body-Ethra’s wrist.
“No,” she says. “Enough. We should sleep. We are tired. Mamma says that when we are tired we get grumpy.”
“I’n not tired!” shrieks Body-Ethra. “And I’n not grunky! You’re grunky! Get off ’e! You’re just trousers and a tunic!”
“You’re a naked idiot! I have all the sense!”
And then the two of them are fighting, rolling around in the dirt. The knife flies from Body-Ethra’s hand and lands at my feet. I use my heels to scrape it toward me, then turn on my bottom so I can grab it with my hands. I don’t know how much time I have, so I get to cutting immediately.
“You have to go back inside,” says Skin-Ethra. “You can’t be trusted to behave well outside. You’ve embarrassed yourself.”
“You’ve engarrassed yourself,” snaps Body-Ethra, but her voice sounds muffled.
Skin-Ethra is slowly slithering back into place.
The blade cuts through my bonds, but I keep my hands behind my back, gripping the knife.
Ethra—Whole-Ethra—stands, dusting herself off. She looks at me with such fear and desperation, my heart breaks.
“Make it stop,” she says. “Everything hurts! Please kill me. While you can. While I can let you. Or my blood will become darkness again and I’ll hurt you. And then who’ll kill me? And who will bring me back?”
I stand, letting her see that my hands are free, letting her see the knife.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. But we need to find something I can pull the lifelight from. A big animal.”
“Cass,” says Ethra, looking past me, eyes wide.
“You are hallucinating, Ethra. The nef’s bite—”
