Justice

by Ian Irvine

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know… I took them from two dead Cythonian officers. Each man was holding a crystal up in front of his face.”

  He handed one to Rix. “Are they like some kind of poison pill?” said Rix. “In case of capture?”

  “No, I rather think they might be some kind of speaking device, though I’m blessed if I know how they work.”

  Rix handed the crystal back.

  “Keep it,” said Holm. “You never know…”

  At midnight Rix sent his troops to their bedrolls, still dressed for battle. He remained at the top of the rise, which was only lit by a couple of lanterns, scanning the darkness beyond his camp. Everyone was on edge and his sergeants had broken up dozens of fights. One man was dead, six others were too badly injured to fight and many more had been put on charges.

  “I reckon some of the men wanted to be injured,” said Jackery, who had returned from doing the rounds of the watch, “to get out of the real fighting.”

  “If they knew what Grandys does to prisoners they might change their minds,” said Rix.

  “What’s he waiting for?”

  “He’s drawing it out to torment us,” said Rix. “Me, particularly.”

  “The men are saying you should attack and get it over with. Why don’t you, sir?”

  “The one small advantage we have is this elevated position. If we attack, we have to go down onto his territory, and that gives him the advantage.”

  “Rumours are running around the camp,” said Holm.

  “I heard them too,” said Jackery.

  “What are they saying?” Rix had a fair idea.

  “That you won’t attack because you’re afraid.”

  “I am afraid. Only a fool wouldn’t be. But I’m more afraid of being led into a foolish attack and losing precious lives. If Grandys gets the chance to make an example of us, do you think he’ll stop while anyone remains alive?”

  “You have to do something,” said Holm. “You’re giving him the initiative.”

  “Let me guess where the muttering is coming from,” said Rix. “Libbens and his cronies.”

  Jackery nodded, then headed off to his tent. Holm opened his mouth but closed it without speaking.

  “I know,” said Rix. “I should have got rid of them the moment I escaped from the crevasse.” He smiled wearily. “You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.”

  “If you take on the role of commander you have to be prepared to be ruthless where necessary. It’ll save you a lot of trouble in the end.”

  “I’ll deal with them at first light.”

  Holm shrugged. “Good idea. I’m going to bed.”

  Rix yawned and rubbed his eyes. He stood there for a few minutes more, thinking, then turned towards his own tent. He took off his sword and scabbard, put it inside his tent, yawned and stretched. As he did, a rope was cast around him from behind and pulled so tight that he could not move his arms.

  “Got you!” gloated Libbens, and punched Rix in the throat. “We’re court martialling you for conspiring with the enemy. And the minute you’re convicted—see this pole—”

  Grasbee hefted a heavy, eight-foot standard, swung it around sideways and slammed it into Rix’s ribs. He felt them crack and the impact knocked him to the ground.

  “Your head is going right up top,” said Libbens.

  CHAPTER 16

  Rannilt lifted her head, trying to pinpoint the psychic howl ringing through her mind.

  The night was still but not dark. A long way behind her, blazing pyres dotted the landscape. The air reeked of charred flesh, dead soldiers being burned by the thousands. She closed her eyes, blocked her nose, shut down all her physical senses and stood, statue-still, trying to pick out one man from the thousands who had been injured that day.

  Aaaarrrrgghh!

  There it was again—Tobry. Broadcasting his agony, his grief and his shifter torment.

  Rannilt did not stop to wonder how he could have survived the falling tree—her only urge was to get to him as quickly as possible. She did not know the land and had no idea where his cries were leading her. If she had ever seen a map of Central Hightspall, she had forgotten it months ago. She only knew that her dear friend was injured, in terrible pain, and desperate. She had to help him. And get away from the killing.

  She tracked him north for many miles, then east, travelling by night and hiding by day. The night was her friend. It reminded her of being a slave girl in Cython, when she had often roamed and hidden in the unlit tunnels far from the core of the underground city.

  Days went by. Rannilt did not count them. She lived only for the moment, not long now, when she would find Tobry.

  When her life’s work would begin.

  She was close now. So close that she could smell the distinctive, rank stench of the shifter he now was. It did not offend her; it was simply a part of him. But she had to be very careful. She had no fear of Tobry the man, even in his shifter madness, for he had been part father and part kindly uncle to her.

  But if he shifted from man to caitsthe it would be a different matter. Caitsthes were the most savage predators in the land, shifters Lyf had specifically created to be uncontrollable and unpredictable; creatures designed to terrorise. She had to prevent Tobry from shifting, which he was liable to do if threatened.

  They were in a flat land of a thousand lakes, large, small and tiny. It was called Lakeland although she did not know that. The ground was scattered with boulders that looked as though they had been melted. Here and there she encountered outcropping rock layers like petrified honeycomb.

  Ah, there he was, crouched by a ragged pond with a halo of ice around the edge. He was filthy and clad in rags. A broken chain was locked around his left wrist. He cradled his right arm, which was swollen and hung at a strange angle. It was badly broken and he needed help. He needed her.

  He was thin to the point of gauntness. Shifters needed twice as much food as normal people and by the look of him Tobry hadn’t eaten in days—perhaps not since that terrible vision of him feeding on the dead. Rannilt thrust the image away; she didn’t want to think about it. It wasn’t Tobry, it was the shifter.

  He broke off a section of ice and lowered his left hand into the water as if preparing to grab a fish. Rannilt salivated. Though she had been eking out her supplies for days, she had eaten the last of her bread and cheese yesterday.

  Tobry lunged but the length of chain struck the water and whatever he had hoped to catch was gone. He let out a howl, quickly stifled. He rose, supporting his broken arm, sniffed the air and looked around.

  Rannilt went still, her heart thumping in her bony little chest. Don’t alarm him—if he shifts to a caitsthe, he’ll eat you.

  Tobry’s head turned slowly. His hair was matted with mud and bits of twig. He had a few days’ growth of downy red beard—caitsthe red—and his eyes were yellow. There was not a trace of the grey eyes he’d had before he’d been turned.

  He sniffed again. Rannilt wasn’t game to breathe. She edged backwards and a pebble rolled away behind her heel. A tiny sound, but Tobry’s head shot around and his eyes focused on her.

  They stared at each other for a stretched-out moment. His gaunt frame tensed, every muscle standing out. The fingers of his good hand hooked. His mouth gaped and a trace of slaver appeared on his lower lip.

  “Tobry, it’s me,” she said softly, trying to temper her naturally shrill voice. “Rannilt. Your friend.”

  He stared at her, unblinking. She could not tell what he was thinking. Did Tobry still exist? Or had the shifter curse consumed every last good thing in him?

  “It’s Rannilt,” she repeated. “I’ve come to help you.”

  His eyes widened as if he had recognised her, fleetingly. He made an inarticulate sound in his throat, “Rurrrh! Rurrrh!”

  She took a tiny step towards him, reaching out carefully. “What are you tryin” to say, Tobry?”

  He bared his teeth, which were wor
ryingly fang-like, and then it burst out of him, a strangled cry. “Ru—ru—run away!”

  Her heart crashed back and forth. She sensed that he was struggling, that the madness, or the beast, had far more power than the man. She wanted to run but knew it was the wrong thing to do. He needed her, and if she turned away from him now he would be lost.

  “I ain’t runnin’ away, Tobry.” She emphasised his name; it confirmed that he was a man, not a beast. “We’re friends. You looked after me out in the Seethin’s. And I helped save you from the facinore—”

  He growled and slashed at the air with his good hand.

  “You remember the facinore, don’t you? And Lyf? And Tali—?”

  Tobry wailed, thrashed involuntarily and cracked his broken arm on a boulder. His fists clenched; a cry of uttermost agony erupted out of him. His face had gone purple, engorged with blood, and from where she stood she could hear his heart thundering. She could also feel the shifter heat radiating from him, and for a dreadful second she thought he was going to shift. She should not have mentioned Tali.

  She prepared to run, knowing that she could never outrun a caitsthe. It could catch her in a couple of bounds. And caitsthes liked to play with their food…

  But there must have been more left of Tobry than it seemed, for he managed to contain the caitsthe and prevented it from emerging. The blood retreated from his face, leaving him waxen and corpse-like. The racing pulse slowed and faded, the rigid muscles relaxed until his flesh appeared to sag. His shoulders drooped; he looked as though he could barely stand up.

  “Bein’ a shifter burns you up,” said Rannilt.

  She had remembered Rix and Tobry talking about their first encounter with a caitsthe. Rix had finally killed the hungry beast by forcing it to keep shifting between caitsthe and man until its bodily processes consumed so much of its own flesh that its heart had failed.

  “You’re starvin’, but with a broken arm you can’t catch anythin’ to eat. But I can.” She met his eyes and drew his gaze sideways to the pond. “I could catch you a fish.”

  He frowned at her, then lurched over to a small boulder and squatted behind it. Rannilt could still see his head and shoulders, and half of his chest, but perhaps he felt it was safer putting that small barrier between her and the beast.

  She edged towards the pond, maintaining eye contact and making no sudden movements. Rannilt took off the little canvas pack in which she hoarded all her possessions, plus every useful thing she came across that didn’t specifically belong to one of her friends. She did not think of it as stealing; to an orphaned slave child, pilfering and hoarding were necessary for survival.

  She extracted a coil of heavy, waxed thread attached to a small fishing hook. She had stolen it from one of the army cooks. Rannilt tied one end of the thread to a small stick, baited the hook with a yellow, squirming grub she picked out of a rotten log, paid out a length of line and tossed the hook into the water.

  Tobry’s eyes were on her hands and he was slavering again. She drew the line gently through the water and out. The bait had not been touched. She tossed it in again. And again, prepared to do it all day if she had to. A slave girl learned patience at her mother’s breast.

  On the fiftieth cast, or thereabouts, she felt a tugging resistance on the line and knew she had caught something. She worked it in, careful not to break the line. Her catch was a freshwater crayfish as long as her forearm, with heavy bluish claws and a rainbow of colours along each side.

  As Rannilt drew it from the water Tobry’s yellow eyes lit up and he began to quiver, then drool, behind his rock. She watched him with one eye while she studied the crayfish with the other. It had not taken the hook but was clinging to the grub and the line. She worked out how to catch it safely, by the back of the head behind its claws, and pulled it free.

  Tobry rose slowly, eyes fixed on the crayfish, and she knew he was going to rush her and snatch it. If he did, the beast might emerge. She could not allow that.

  As he was about to spring she held up her hand. “No!” she said sharply, commandingly.

  He stopped, straining forward like a leashed dog, all his attention fixed on the food. His gaze travelled to her hand, then to her face. The fierce gaze of his yellow eyes softened and he made a yearning movement towards her, which she chose to interpret as Please?

  Should she toss him the crayfish? No. She wasn’t going to treat him like an animal. Rannilt took a step towards him, then another, holding up the crayfish. He tensed, clearly tempted to leap at her and snatch it. She held up her hand again, waited until some of the tension drained out of him, and took another step. And another, and so it went on, a minute for each step.

  A small layer of the honeycomb rock outcropped a few feet ahead. Still holding his gaze, she set the crayfish down on top and stepped back. One, two, three steps. She lowered her hand. The crayfish scuttled for the edge. Tobry sprang eight feet, caught it in his good hand and tore into it with his teeth, cramming it into his mouth the way a starving beast would. He spat out pieces of leg and carapace, and took another huge bite.

  Her heart sank. There seemed far more beast in him than man. Was it too late? People had said, over and over, that a full-blown shifter could never be brought back. But Rannilt could not allow herself to believe that. There had to be a way—there just had to, and she was going to find it.

  She caught another two crayfish—first a monster, and then a small one, not much bigger than her hand. He bolted down the big one the same way as the first. The other he ate rather more delicately and she felt a trace of hope. It was just that he had been starving.

  Her stomach rumbled. She made a small fire with the driest sticks she could find, then caught a fourth crayfish. Rannilt killed it with a quick stab behind the head and placed it carefully on the coals. After a couple of minutes she turned it over to cook the other side, levered it out of the fire and peeled off the shell.

  The tail flesh was gloriously sweet and tender. She ate every skerrick, licked her grubby fingers and wiped them on her pants.

  “That was the best dinner I’ve ever had,” she said. “I’m glad we had dinner together, Tobry.”

  He was still staring at her, the man trapped inside the beast, with a desperate longing.

  “I don’t know how,” she said with quiet self-assurance, “but I know I’m goin’ to heal you.”

  CHAPTER 17

  It would soon be dark, the most dangerous time to be alone in an empty wilderness with a mad shifter. Rannilt had no idea how she was going to manage the night. First she had to win his confidence.

  She had made another fire in the most sheltered place she could find, in the lee of a small hill between a cluster of rocks. Tobry lay down a long way from her, faced the other way and closed his eyes. Even in sleep he cradled his broken arm.

  “How did you break it?” said Rannilt, trying to make her voice soft and calming, speaking slowly and clearly in short sentences. “Was it when the tree fell?”

  He jerked at the sound of her voice and his free hand clawed at the air.

  “It hurts, doesn’t it? The pain is terrible, but I can heal it.”

  Tobry went very still, slowly turned her way and made a yearning movement, akin to the ones he had made when she had caught the crayfish, though gentler and more poignant. Then he shook his head, and the firelight caught his eyes and made them blaze with yellow.

  “You’re afraid to come close,” said Rannilt. “Afraid you’ll hurt me or kill me.”

  The yellow eyes never left her face. He did not blink.

  “I’m not afraid, Tobry. You’re stronger than the beast. You would never hurt me. Come here.”

  He gave a swift, desperate shake of the head.

  “Then I’m comin’ to you.”

  Tobry’s eyes went wide in alarm and he began to scramble to his feet. She held up her right hand, locked eyes with him and willed him to sit down. It took several minutes but, ever so slowly, he sat.

  Rannilt took a ste
p towards him, holding his stare. Another step, then another.

  “I’m sittin’ down right in front of you. You’re gunna hold out yer arm.”

  Her mouth was dry, her breath rustling in her parched throat, and her knees were shaking. She slowly sat on the cold ground. The fingers of his good hand hooked into claws and he made a growling sound. Her heart fluttered, then raced.

  “Stop that,” she said hoarsely. “Hold out yer arm.”

  He went to move the broken arm, cried out in agony, then struck out wildly with the other hand. His knuckles caught her on the chin, hard enough to knock her backwards. She rolled onto her back, temporarily helpless, her eyes flooded with tears from the blow, and instantly the beast seemed to take over. Through the tears she saw him loom over her and reach down towards her unprotected belly.

  “Tobry, no!” she said desperately.

  He froze, mere inches from her. The beast receded and she saw the look in his eyes when he realised that he’d been about to tear her open. He let out a howl of anguish, whirled and, broken arm dangling, stumbled into the night.

  “Come back!” she yelled, but he was gone.

  Rannilt sat up, rubbing her aching jaw. Should she go after him? No, he was too distressed. Stupid little girl! She had tried to do too much, too soon. She drank some water and ate the tail of another crayfish she had cooked earlier. The fire had died down and she felt the need of its protection, its comfort. She built it up until it blazed three feet high, then wrapped her thin blanket around her and leaned back against a rock.

  The stars wheeled. The hours passed. She was tired. Rannilt closed her eyes, telling herself that she must not go to sleep. It wasn’t safe here, out in the open wild. She dozed, jerked awake, refuelled the fire and sat down again. And slept.

  She came awake with a start, knowing she was not alone; not daring to move because she was in grave danger. The fire had died to a heap of ash-covered coals and it took some time to recall where she was. She was all alone, miles and miles from anywhere, and a big, threatening shape bulked out the darkness a few yards away. As she groped for her knife the shape made a familiar, yearning movement towards her.