by Alex Raizman
The grip around her throat tightened. “Rephylon. You murdered him in the street, where everyone could see. You pulled him from his thrissulth. You didn’t even let him have the peace of death within it!”
Tythel’s eyes widened, and she tried to speak again, but Catheon was beyond listening. His wings buzzed, and they were shooting airborne. Tythel could see Eupheme right where they’d been. Even in his rage, Catheon wasn’t completely distracted. The valley shrunk beneath them.
They passed through the illusion and higher into the air. Catheon’s armor continued to flow. His head was exposed to reinforce his chest as she tried to kick at him, and for the first time Tythel saw his true face. It belonged to a boy about her age. His hair only existed in splotchy patches across his scalp, his eyes were far too wide, and his adult teeth had somehow grown in behind the infant set, giving him a double-jawed look. “You deserve nothing but death,” Catheon hissed. Without his armor – his Thrissulth, Tythel supposed – his voice was hoarse and pained.
The valley was now so far below them, Catheon had to stop ascending to still have air he could breathe. Even the tip of her father’s mountain was beneath them, and the individual trees ran together into a sea of green. Tythel’s vision was starting to go dark, and Catheon’s grip on her neck lessened slightly. “No, Tythel,” he croaked. “You don’t get to…die like that. You will…die like your father.” His mouth twisted into a terrible mockery of a smile. “In terror as the ground approaches.”
Catheon let go.
Tythel started to fall, tumbling end over end. No! It was exactly like before, only there was no Karjon beneath her, trying to guide their path to something safer. She spread out her arms and legs, trying to brace herself so she’d fall facing the ground. Tythel’s mind raced, and just as Karjon had tried to slow their descent with his flame, she let loose a burst.
It didn’t do anything to her fall, just sent her tumbling again. The benefit of the flame had been the thermals it had provided to Karjon’s wings.
Not like this. Tythel ground her teeth together as the ground rushed closer. Not like this!
Why not, girl? Nicandros’s voice sneered in her mind. He’s just doing exactly what you want. Avenging his father. Why do you have the right to seek vengeance when he doesn’t? Why is it just that you killed Tomah, and unjust that the Alohym killed your father? Are you really any better than Catheon? Let the ground come. End this cycle of death. Rephylon had been Catheon’s father. Just like Karjon had adopted her, Rephylon had adopted Catheon.
Tythel felt despair well up in her chest, far greater than the mere fear of death. Her nictitating membranes cleared away tears as the ground loomed even closer. Wasn’t that right? She’d only done this to herself. How did she have the right to hate above all others?
She passed through the illusion, and something drew her attention. The bank of the lake had been scorched by lumcasting and arcfire. Daetor’s mangled corpse was slumped onto the ground, as was Tellias, still trapped in his armor. He had no power, and worse, there was no sign of motion.
Stop mourning the dead. This time it wasn’t Nicandros’s voice she heard, but her father’s. Instead, look for the living.
I want to live! The thought burned through Tythel’s mind. The ground was so close now she could see blades of grass. Something ripped behind her. I can’t die yet!
An immense strain pulled at her back, so great it almost tore her shoulders from her sockets. Her path towards the ground turned horizontal as instincts she didn’t know she had pulled, and suddenly those blades of grass were rushing past her instead of towards. Her path took her over Tellias. She could hear his heart for an instant, a single beat assuring her that he still lived.
Tythel looked over her shoulder to see a pair of beautiful, golden wings stretched out from her back. Her armor still clung to her by the band at the waist and at her throat, protecting her front. That barely registered – she had wings. She smiled fiercely and banked, turning her momentum. It felt so natural, so right, she had to fight back the urge to whoop with glee. Grief was forgotten. Pain was a distant memory.
She dove closer to the ground and snatched a struggling sack from the earth before pumping her wings and pulling herself into the air.
I can fly. Tythel was giddy with the thought, all her despair – for the moment, buried under joy. I can fly, and Catheon has no idea.
Tythel pushed herself up towards the barrier of the illusion, waiting for Catheon to descend.
She’d be ready for him.
Chapter 54
Catheon descended through the illusion. He’d rebuilt his suit – his thrissulth – so it completely covered his form again. By exposing how it worked like that, it did lend credence to one popular theory about how those thrissulth worked for the Alohym. And, if they were right about that…This absolutely demented plan just might work.
Tythel circled the spot he descended through in a wide, lazy arc. He wasn’t scanning the skies – why would he, when he was the only one who could fly? “Where is the body?” Catheon said aloud, although Tythel couldn’t hear anyone near him. “Where is it?” his words started to sound more frantic as he began to search through the underbrush.
Tythel knew it was now or never. He’d take off soon, reclaim the skies – and in doing so, see her. An aerial battle with Catheon did not favor her. She had the instincts, but he clearly had far more practice. Tythel brought in her wings and stooped towards Catheon, breathing deeply with the dive.
When she got close, she let loose a long stream of brilliant blue ghostflame. Catheon shrieked as the edge of the flame caught him, the fire leaving his body unharmed but burning him at his core. His wings began to flutter, and he took to the sky, trailing wisps of smoke. “You – you can’t fly!” he shouted, indignation and shock combining with pain to overwhelm common sense.
Tythel’s response was to hurl the sack at Catheon. He responded exactly as she’d hoped – a wild slash that cut the bag open across the middle.
The payload was in the bottom and looked out at the sun, its eyes blinking in the sudden light.
—
Animals don’t have names as sentient beings do. They know who they are, others can recognize them, something as complicated as a name wasn’t needed. If the creature in the bag could be said to have a name, it would be in the emotional response his fellow creatures associated with him.
So this creature could, accurately, be said to be named Angry.
Angry rarely had ‘good’ days. There were days he found enough food and had minimal disruption, and those were the days he was less angry. Today had not been a good day. Things had been getting increasingly tense in the valley. Predators knew the dragon was dead and were starting to move in. None of them bothered Angry, not yet, but the increased fear had been a factor in worsening his mood. Then there had come a thing that was shaped like a man but smelled like metal and it had grabbed Angry. Angry had sprayed the metal-man-thing, but it hadn’t reacted. Then it had stuck Angry in a sack. Then Angry had been jostled around and suddenly Angry had smelled dragon. Dragon’s frightened Angry. They could burn from further away than he could spray. He’d gotten very still.
The dragon had gone away, but Angry hadn’t been able to get out of the sack. Then there had been lots of loud noises, and then the bag was picked up again and he could smell dragon. Angry was living up to his name and had gone past anger into outright fury.
Then the bag had been ripped open.
Thousands of years ago, before the Underfolk even had come to this land, there had been a race of creatures Angry’s species remembered in their instincts as The Great Eaters. They had hunted things like Angry, and they had been large and black and covered in chitin. They lived in hives and were very dangerous. This thing looked like a Great Eater but could fly.
So could Angry.
He flapped his wings to keep altitude as the thing that looked like a Great Eater but didn’t smell like one hovered in the air, staring at Angry. “W
hat is this?” he asked.
Angry didn’t know what the noises the thing made meant. He knew the noises sounded like buzzes, and that sounded like the Great Eaters.
Angry knew what to do about Great Eaters. Flapping his wing, Angry brought his anus to face this new adversary and let out a warning hiss.
The thing did not move away.
Angry let loose.
Then the Great Eater started screaming.
—
Tythel couldn’t help but smile as Catheon clutched at his face. The Muskbat was known for how foul its defensive excretions could smell, so much so that people rarely got close enough to get sprayed. What wasn’t known was what the Muskbat would use that excretion for – it would spray it into the hives of communal insects, letting the noxious concoction kill them.
Because the excretion would turn their exoskeletons into paste.
Catheon had taken a full blast directly to the face. The Muskbat squeaked and flew away, clearly certain it had done A Good Job. Tythel couldn’t argue with that – Catheon was screaming now and flailing wildly. He was blind.
Tythel dove towards him again, her talons outstretched. She shifted to dive under one of Catheon’s wild swings and let her talons sink into his armor.
The smell was revolting, like rotten meat left in a latrine to ferment under sunlight. Tythel fought back the gag reflex and she let her momentum carry them both to the ground, dragging Catheon towards the forest floor. He fluttered his wings, but with her claws around him, his superior mobility didn’t help. It was just a contest of brute force at this force, and Tythel’s wingspan was three times her height. Catheon’s buzzing only slowed their descent.
Then they hit the ground. Tythel stretched out her arms and was rewarded with a sound like paper being shredded as Catheon’s wings were torn to shreds. He – or rather, his thrissulth – screamed in agony at the pain. Bits of its body began to become thinner, rushing on instinct to rebuild the wings, only to be torn away again.
Catheon finally recovered enough of his wits to regain control of the thrissulth. He formed his arm into a blade and swung for Tythel’s neck.
Tythel responded by slamming him the rest of the way into the ground. Her own momentum carried her forward, out of the blade’s reach, and sent her tumbling along the ground until a tree arrested her movement.
Catheon lay at the bottom of a deep furrow. He shuddered and his arms bent at unnatural angles to reach the ground at the side of the furrow. Gradually, he began to pick himself up. “You…think that you can…still win?” The words came out in a sickly rasp. The thrissulth had pulled away from Catheon’s lips, and its eyes ran from their sockets, exposing Catheon’s human eyes. They burned with hatred. “You are…nothing”
Tythel stood up and began to limp towards Catheon. He was slowly righting himself, his body twisting in ways that should have broken every bone in his frame, yet those eyes betrayed no pain. “Come then…” he hissed the words, “come and die, you pathetic imposter. I will rip-”
Tythel let loose a torrent of flame before he could finish. She focused on her breath, pushing aside Catheon’s pained screams, and the red-hot Dragonflame shifted to the blue of Ghostflame.
Catheon’s cries stopped.
Good, Tythel thought, too numb from the flood of emotions earlier. Now I just need to-
The thought was interrupted by a scream of her own as Leora’s dagger rammed into her back.
Tythel whirled, her talons stretched out, but Leora had already leapt back. The dagger was still stuck into her back, wedged between her shoulder blades. Moving was agony. Flight was out of the question. With a single stab, Leora had grounded her. Got to get the dagger out, Tythel thought, reaching for her back.
Leora had already produced another dagger and was lunging for her. Tythel had to leap out of the way, hopping back from the thrust that was aimed squarely for her heart. Eupheme. Where’s Eupheme? That thought leant her motion an extra edge of panic. Reflexes Tythel didn’t know she had drove her to flap her wings, and the sudden lance of agony caused her to stumble when she landed. Leora’s next strike was aimed straight for Tythel’s heart, and she barely got her hands up in time. The blade of the dagger passed between Tythel’s middle and ring fingers. At the last second, Tythel caught it by the pommel before Leora could drive it into her heart.
“Die!” Leora shouted, bearing down on the blade. Tythel had to drop with Leora’s motion to avoid having her hand cut in half. With a flick of her wrist, Tythel was able to wrench the blade from Leora’s grasp. It bit into the scales between her fingers, deep enough to give her a new source of pain.
Leora drew a new dagger out of her sleeve and brought it around in a wide thrust aimed for Tythel’s throat, one Tythel was too badly positioned to block.
So. This is it.
There was a ring as the dagger struck another blade interposed in its path. Eupheme emerged from the shadow provided by Tythel’s wings, pushing Leora back. “Not. Today.” Eupheme hissed between clenched teeth.
The two were locked in a contest of strength, giving Tythel a moment to think. Leora and Eupheme both were covered with a dozen tiny cuts from where they’d managed to strike each other. Leora had a similar injury on her left arm – one that Tythel now realized she’d only used to draw new daggers. Eupheme had been spared any deeper injuries so far and seemed to have the upper hand – but there was no telling how long that would last.
Tythel reached for her back, trying to get at the dagger. I can help Eupheme. I just need to-
Her fingers closed around the hilt, and she sunk her talons into it. Bracing herself against the pain, Tythel pulled the dagger out.
She roared at the sensation. Not a scream, not a shout, but a true roar.
The sound threw both Eupheme and Leora off their balance. There was a primal instinct in humans, ones that went back to when their ancestors had huddled in caves as the ancestors of dragons roamed the sky. Something deep in that ancestral memory told both women that sound meant they were in terrible danger, and the sudden surge of adrenaline sent them both stumbling, breaking the lock they’d been held in.
Leora reacted first. She flipped the dagger she’d been holding and to grip it by its point and tossed it straight at Eupheme. Eupheme raised her hand in a warding gesture, and the blade went straight through her palm. Eupheme cried out in pain.
That wasn’t what caught Tythel’s attention, however. It was the way Leora’s eyes widened at Eupheme’s scream, the way her jaw dropped, the look of absolute horror that stretched across her face.
Tythel took advantage of the distraction and lunged. Leora didn’t start to dodge in time, and Tythel was able to catch her by the shoulders and shove her against a tree. The branches shook from the impact, and Tythel sunk her talons into Leora’s arm. From what Eupheme had told her, now Leora wouldn’t be able to step into the shadows without taking Tythel with her.
Leora snarled and reached for a dagger, but Tythel just wrenched her arms. She was rewarded with a grinding sound and a scream from Leora as her shoulder popped loose of her socket.
“I don’t know who you are,” Tythel hissed, her face inches from Leora’s, “but I made myself a promise. If I could, I’d spare Eupheme from having to kill you. I could see how much this battle tormented her. I’ll send you to the Shadow myself if it spares her that.”
“Then…do it,” Leora spat out the words between agonizing gasps. “Just shut your flathing mouth and do it.”
“Not until you answer a question,” Tythel said. “Why did you look like the sight of that blade in Eupheme’s hand made you sick?”
“She…she should have ducked,” Leora said, the words thick on her tongue. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t supposed to…” now there were tears in her eyes. “End me, damn you. Send me to the Shadow.”
