The Boundless

by Peter Newman

  A Birdkin flew over their heads, fast and intent. Sa-at turned to go after it. ‘It’s this way.’

  ‘You have Rochant’s trail?’

  Sa-at decided that he wouldn’t lie. He just wouldn’t answer the question. That much at least, Rochant had taught him. ‘It’s this way,’ he repeated, and set off at speed.

  Satyendra followed him without another word.

  Lord Rochant’s return had thrown Chandni’s plans into disarray. Whatever may have happened, she still loved her former lord and felt loyalty towards him. Nevertheless she had made a pact with Murderkind, one that bound her body and soul. To navigate a path that met her duty to both of them seemed impossible. But that was what she must do. Anything less was unthinkable.

  There were so many Birdkin now they were beyond counting. They lined branches, filling the gaps left between the trees until it felt more like they were inside a large feathered dome than out in the forest.

  The only light came from Rochant’s fractured armour and its reach seemed to diminish with each new arrival, as if the combined mass of Birdkin were pushing back the aura with their very presence.

  Varg stood next to Rochant, and Glider stood next to her. Neither seemed to be very happy about it, and she was terrified that her friends would be caught up in whatever was about to happen. Of Rayen and the rest of the pack, there was no sign. She suspected they were nearby, doing their best to obscure their tracks through the forest and confound their pursuers. Whatever her hold over them, there was no way they’d interfere in Murderkind’s business.

  From the deepest shadows came a change, as if something were pushing through a curtain, its shape gradually becoming recognizable. Humanoid, with a long beaked head, multifaceted eyes that ate the light, wrapped in feathers that sprouted high on its shoulders and pooled heavily at its feet.

  Chandni bowed low. ‘Prince Murderkind.’

  ‘Iron Purebird,’ chorused the Birdkin, all speaking with one voice, ‘you smell of Kennelgrove and death.’

  ‘Yes, I met with both yesterday.’

  ‘Tell me of them.’

  ‘The Scuttling Corpseman came on strange wings with a great host to attack Sagan. There was nothing I could do.’

  The Birdkin gave a single, incredulous squawk, ‘You desired to help the ones who abandoned you?’

  ‘Nobody deserves the Corpseman’s justice.’

  ‘Truly said and truly felt. Where is the Kennelgrove? I smell but do not see it.’

  ‘Close by. Kennelgrove is willing to make an alliance.’

  ‘Then your desire to help me against the Corpseman has been doubly met.’ It gestured towards Rochant with a feathery arm. ‘For you have brought the Bane-friend to me, broken in all the right places. I would have his tongue and mind for my collection. Give him to me.’

  She tried to think of how to turn the situation to her advantage. She had dealt with many powerful and dangerous individuals before and found ways to persuade them to her point of view. However, unlike Kennelgrove, there was no game to play here. And with the other Deathless, even the mad ones like Yadavendra, she knew them and their foibles.

  ‘What if I asked you to release him?’

  ‘What would you offer? I have all of you already.’

  As she tried to think of something, anything, Murderkind spoke again, ‘This is not a matter for dealing and twisting and thinking and speaking. This is war and he is my way to win. Strip away his poison shell, and I will taste his bitter tears.’

  ‘My Prince, I …’

  How can I convince Murderkind to spare Rochant?

  ‘You cannot,’ replied the chorus of Birdkin. ‘Bane-friend is our enemy twice-fold. Once, for hunting us from the sky. Twice for bringing back that which should have stayed dead. Calm your heart, Iron Purebird, for it is misled once more. Bane-friend is your enemy too.’

  ‘Because my body and soul are yours?’ She hated asking the question in front of Rochant, but a man of his brilliance must already know she had sold out to the Wild. She would bear his judgement if she could spare his life.

  The Birdkin all laughed. ‘Your heart, always true, cannot see what lies and lies and lies before you. Without Bane-friend, the Corpseman would not be. Without Bane-friend, the peoples of Sorn and Sagan would live uncursed and free of mind. Your lost child would still be yours and you would not be mine.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Murderkind moved closer until it could wrap her within its winged darkness. ‘A man of the road helps a corpse to live and a man becomes a hunter. A hunter helps a corpse to scuttle and a hunter dies but comes back, endless, Deathless. A Deathless helps a corpse to fly, to breed, to destroy those of wood and sky, and even I know not what that man will gain from it.’

  The idea that Lord Rochant, wisest of all the Sapphire, would be a traitor was ridiculous, and yet she turned away from Murderkind’s embrace to look into his eyes, hoping to find denial there, or even outrage.

  But, despite the situation, Lord Rochant’s eyes were as calm as ever. ‘Honoured Mother, you are far from home, but don’t forget what I taught you. The Wild weaves many tricks that do not bear scrutiny. Hold the demon’s words in your hand and see if they outweigh the years we have served together. You were the best of all my students and even the worst knows better than to trust the tale of a demon.’

  It was true. The stories were clear with their warnings: Do not look into the eyes of a demon. Do not speak or listen to them. Do not let them touch you.

  And yet, the Birdkin laughed, and Chandni laughed with them.

  Rochant’s brow creased with a frown. ‘You find me amusing?’

  She remembered what Murderkind had told them on their last meeting. ‘My heart and Prince Murderkind’s are too close together for lies to fit between them. You are lying, my lord, no more. Not the demon. I’m laughing because for years I have been afraid of your judgement and all the while, you have been hiding far worse crimes. I’m laughing at the absurdity of it all, because what else is there to do?’

  ‘My bidding,’ answered the Birdkin.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed and walked over to Rochant, reaching out towards his helmet.

  ‘You forget yourself,’ said Rochant. He stood faster than she thought possible, his hands moving for her throat and she suddenly regretted her close proximity. ‘For I am Deathless, and beyond your—’

  Rochant screamed and doubled over.

  As the great wings dipped, she saw that Varg was standing behind him, both hands on the shortened spear handle protruding from his side. There was a murderous look on his face that Chandni had not seen before.

  Glider leapt forward, landing on Rochant’s back, and pinning him to the floor. The force shattered his already damaged wing, and the rest of the armour began to disintegrate into fragments.

  Chandni took advantage of the moment to complete her action, pulling the helmet from his head. The glow, already diminished, faded still further, as Glider stamped and butted and Varg tore off chunks of armour with his bare hands.

  ‘Enough,’ she said at last. She was burning with rage at Rochant’s hypocrisy but she knew better than to cut off a source of information.

  What was revealed of Rochant’s body spoke of deprivation. There seemed to be little meat on his bones. But somehow, even stamped down, in broken armour, defeated, there remained some last dignity in the man. As a Sapphire, she could not help but admire that. She was not sure if she would be the same with Murderkind looming over her.

  At the Demon Prince’s gesture, Crowflies flew down and landed next to Rochant. It marched up and down the length of his body, inspecting it on both sides, and came to a stop next to the wound with the spear jutting from it. Varg’s recent treatment had widened it considerably and caused a wash of fresh blood to flow. The Birdkin opened its beak and its proboscis levered free, drinking deep of the easily available blood.

  As it gulped, Murderkind spoke through the other Birdkin. ‘Bane-friend, you are. Traitor, you are
. Now tell us, what do you dream to be?’

  Rochant said nothing, but Crowflies lifted its head and croaked: ‘The lord of all the sky. The lord of life and death, highest of the high.’

  ‘The thing that should not walk, is the Corpseman. What does it dream to be?’

  Crowflies drank a second time, then said, ‘The mother of mothers who makes a dead race fly, the killer of killers, the ruler of all the Wild.’

  While the shock of what she was hearing and seeing rolled over her, Chandni could not help but feel something was wrong. Even for a Sapphire, Rochant seemed to be facing his end with incredible calm. She knew how tired and beaten he was, and now he was about to meet some terrible fate at the hands of Murderkind. She didn’t know what the demon would do exactly, and for that she was glad.

  ‘Why do this?’ she asked.

  Rochant simply looked at her and something in his expression suggested that she could not understand. This made Chandni even more angry.

  ‘You have nothing to say for yourself at all?’

  With what seemed like a great deal of effort, Rochant moved his right hand in a half circle across the dirt until it came to his face. Still looking at her, he raised his index finger and put it to his lips.

  For a moment she thought he was telling her to shut up. Varg had obviously come to the same conclusion because he took an angry step forward.

  ‘Wait,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ replied Varg.

  Murderkind turned its attention to her, and so did the rest of the assembled Birdkin.

  She held up a hand, held her breath, and listened.

  On the very edge of her hearing, far away but gaining steadily in volume, was a low-pitched buzzing. The kind made by hundreds of flickering, transparent wings.

  Now she understood. Rochant hadn’t given up, he’d been biding his time, waiting for the Scuttling Corpseman to come back for him.

  Satyendra was scared. The bloodlust he’d felt combined with the need for revenge had taken him a long way, but now it was fading. He realized his eyes were handling the dark surprisingly well. Though he couldn’t make out colours or specifics, he could make out Sa-at’s shape with ease, and those of the trees and the undulations of the earth.

  He caught only glimpses of the thing that followed them. It wasn’t a hunter, wasn’t even human, but it wasn’t an animal either. Its presence was like a person sighing on the back of his neck. Except that when he turned, there was nothing there except an echo. No, it was more than that. It was communication. He was sure the demon was talking to them, but whatever it was saying was beyond his ability to decipher. In his guts though, he had the feeling it was calling out, asking them to stop and approach it. It seemed almost friendly, and that scared him far more than any screech or war cry.

  Up ahead, the darkness was changing. He no longer saw trees and the void between them; now it was taking on a solidity, like a flexing, fluttering skin. He had the sense that he was looking at one massive creature, some fusion of bark and blood and … feathers? The sight of it mustered a very different kind of fear. The deep primal kind that told him to run as far away and as fast as he could.

  Satyendra grabbed Sa-at by the arm. ‘We need to go around.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ he replied, ‘that’s my friend. We’re safe now.’ Sa-at’s tone, annoyingly cheery and utterly at odds with everything else, seemed so out of place.

  ‘It doesn’t feel safe.’

  ‘It’s safer in there than it is out here. Come on!’

  And with that Sa-at sprinted forward, and into the dark, which fluttered like a curtain to admit him.

  When Satyendra went to follow, his foot sank between tangled roots that immediately tightened around his ankle. He tried lifting his leg but had no luck. He crouched down and tried to prise open the roots with his fingers only for the earth to slump beneath him with a sudden burp. Now, his leg was buried up to the shin, and his hands were between the roots, which curled like manacles about his wrists.

  There was nothing to draw from here. No fear save his own, no pain. Without a way to make himself stronger, he was trapped.

  ‘Help!’ he called into the dark. ‘Sa-at! Help!’

  No answer came.

  While he tried to think of a plan, he became aware that something was watching him. It approached from behind, and he was unable to twist far enough round to see it. Whatever it was moved as quietly as the sigh of a sleeping child. He felt the chill of its proximity, and struggled in vain to free himself.

  Its shadow loomed over him. He couldn’t see it of course, it was too dark, but he felt it all the same.

  He heard a sound, like air rattling in a dead throat, a threat, but it wasn’t directed at him. The tree shivered, and the roots released him, retreating still deeper into the moist earth.

  His immediate thought was to run but his body had other ideas. Slowly, achingly slowly, he turned around until he came face to face with the thing that had been following him.

  It was right there. No longer a ghost or a hazy image. It was nearly three times his height and twice as wide, and it exhaled at him in a soft, almost tender manner. It seemed to be made of bones, stretched long and thin and draped in rags. Up close, he was no longer sure the rags were actually fabric. Some bile stirred in his stomach as the creature’s name came to him from the Story-singers’ tales: A Whispercage.

  I should run.

  But his legs refused to obey. In fact it was all he could do to stop himself making eye contact. The old lessons were loud in his head now. Do not face a demon alone. Do not look it in the eyes. Do not let it touch you.

  It reached out towards him with one pole-thin limb. There was no violence in the gesture, but he shrank back regardless.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  Air hissed from whatever served as its mouth and he had the sense it wanted him to look up and meet its gaze.

  He did not want to look up.

  He did not want to know what it looked like.

  But it was as if invisible fingers had slipped under his chin and were slowly lifting it up.

  There were holes in the rags that allowed him glimpses of ribs within. Slender, knifelike bones wrapped around a hollow core. The face was not the skull he had been expecting. It was buried deep within a hood, but he saw four petals made of pale flesh pressed together like hands in prayer. And he saw eyes like smoke trapped in glass, and he saw enough to know that he was looking at a mirror of his future.

  He screamed then, but it was no ordinary scream. When he opened his mouth without care, it swung wide in four places, not one. Such was his horror and revulsion that he lost himself. He screamed and screamed while the Whispercage waited, patient as stone.

  Soon, the volume diminished, became muted, as if his throat were collapsing, his voice dying.

  When he finally stopped, the two stood together, not quite in silence. Not quite. Something unnatural was coming.

  A question managed to form itself in the remains of his consciousness. What is that?

  The Whispercage had noticed too, its head canting slightly.

  Satyendra could hear buzzing. The sound of a great host. Immediately, he knew two things. It was close, too close. And it was wrong.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sa-at stumbled into a strange gathering. Rochant was on the floor, and in bad shape. Only a few bits of his armour remained intact, and in what was left of its light, he could see Rochant’s thin and battered body. Crowflies stood next to him, blood glistening darkly along its beak.

  Murderkind loomed nearby, its host of Birdkin packed in around them all, and there were others too. A bearded man and a giant, five-legged Dogkin. But his attention was drawn elsewhere.

  A woman stood barely twenty feet away with her back to him. She had long dark hair that swept all the way down to her ankles. He knew it instantly.

  It is like my hair!

  A memory flashed into his mind of the same woman on a wagon, of the way his heart h
ad leapt and he had yearned to reach out to her.

  He reached out to her now.

  Though his voice failed him, as it often did at times like this, his feet were already moving towards her, his hands raising of their own accord.

  This is her. This is my mother. My mother!

  He knew it with unshakable certainty.

  As if sensing his approach, she turned, displaying strong, proud features. Emotions crossed them. First surprise, then confusion, and then the beginnings of realization. Sa-at was nodding, excitement growing inside.

  She knows me!

  Everyone else was still, tense, even Murderkind. As he pondered this, he drew closer to his mother, a few more steps and he would be at her side.

  Her eyes were wide now, the beginnings of a question on her lips.

  There came a buzzing, muted at first, then shockingly loud, as if someone had suddenly opened a box full of Flykin.

  And then, everything exploded.

  Birdkin filled the air, some flying, some falling, screeching chunks of shrapnel blown inwards as some alien force pressed in from all sides. He felt several of them bounce off his back and shoulders, felt the prick of talons and the accidental slash of a beak against his thigh.

  Without thinking, Sa-at dropped to the floor, making himself as small as he could. Through squinted eyes and splayed fingers he could see chaos playing out above. Things with human shapes and Flykin bodies crisscrossed overhead. Some had nets, others had spears, the kind carried by Sky-born hunters. Amid the madness, patterns formed, the swarm moving in units that seemed to blend and shift in the blink of an eye.

  Directly overhead the Birdkin circled in formation, like a gathering storm. Three lights appeared in their centre. Three glowing points of blue. For a moment he thought they were eyes, but no, they were spear heads of purest sapphire, each one mounted on a long shaft. Each carried in the arms of the Scuttling Corpseman.

  The great host of Birdkin swirled round it lazily, lulled by the pulsating spirals on the Corpseman’s wings. A natural space appeared around it, allowing the demon to descend uncontested.

  Sa-at found his gaze was also taken by the spirals, his eyes rolling in their sockets as they followed the strange curves, tracing them, over and over.