Beasts of the Walking City

by Del Law

  “Blackwell’s an interesting name,” she says.

  “I’ve been called a lot worse.”

  “What’s with that thing your drone mentioned about dogs?”

  I shake my head and dodge the question. “Kjat’s a partner. I’m not into that drone thing.”

  “She’s pretty young.”

  I nod, and leave it at that. She doesn’t really need to know anything about Kjat. “So the three of you—sorry, four—were stealing a ship from the Akarii? What made you think a plan like that could ever work?” I grin.

  She smiles back, and it’s a hell of smile. “You swear you’re not with the Akarii?”

  I shake my head. "I'm not."

  “I have this sense that I can trust you, Blackwell. Ercan’s been setting this up for almost a year. We bought Akarii identities, got ourselves hired onto the Retriever ship. With Ercan’s money, it was easier than you might think—even the Akarii don’t really want to go to Tilhtinora unless they have to. This was our third trip out. Fehris has some... ideas... about this ship. So we decided that this was our time.”

  “They don’t want to go in to Tilhtinora. But they’re happy to wait for things to come out to them. They’ll be tracking the storm’s trajectory and watching the closest towns, you know.”

  She nods. “I thought of that. Haven’t figured out what to do about it, though.”

  “Me either. What was that comment you made about Hulgliev and the Akarii?”

  “So you are one, aren’t you. A Hulgliev. I was right?”

  I nod. “In the fur.”

  “And you’re avoiding that question about the dogs, aren’t you.”

  “I am,” I grin.

  “One answer for another, then. I was just speculating that there are factions within the Akarii that would be really interested in meeting a Hulgliev right about now. You know the stories of Dekheret and Farsoth? How they unified all of the families together during a time of major wars?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Well, I’m sure there a bunch of well-placed Akarii leaders who would like to look like Dekheret these days. I’ve met a few, actually. And probably more who would like to keep others from looking like Dekheret, too. With the war, and old Golokhobiat getting very, very ancient, there’s a lot of maneuvering going on. You could probably be very rich or very dead, if you wanted to be. And the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  I’m not exactly sure how to respond to that. Like I said, politics are not my specialty. And rich and dead aren't exactly on my list of career goals.

  We’re walking around the small plateau. There are towers at two ends, where the cliffs drop down to the sea, and we’re heading toward the larger of them. “Now you,” she says.

  “Dogs seem to have a particular aversion to me,” I say.

  “How particular?”

  “Chasing, biting, throat-ripping, limb separating. There’s something about me that will turn the smallest lapdog into a raging killing mech, a veritable buzz-saw of hatred and vengeance.”

  She laughs, tucks stray hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry. I guess that’s not funny. I just had this image of you being chased by a pack of toy birdpoodles.”

  I sigh. “I get that a lot.” For some reason, I'm starting to trust her.

  We climb the ruined tower, Mircada’s bracelets chiming as she hoists herself up the disintegrating stair. Faded runes cover the rock, and I can’t read them—I’m not even sure what language they are. From the top, we can see signs of an ancient rail line that ran along the ridge. A series of stacked, rounded stones mark the way both north and south for the footpath that replaced it.

  “Fehris would love this,” Mircada says. “Don’t get him started on it. He’ll probably speculate something about a spice road or a salt caravan, or some sort of elaborate smuggling ring for ancient artifacts.”

  “Technically, I think we’re smuggling artifacts.”

  “Well, I am,” she says. “I’m still not sure what you’re doing, exactly. Besides looking down my shirt a little, I mean.”

  The hair on my face feels like it goes bright red. Damn, I hate that. “Sorry,” I say. “I, um…yeah.”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t tell Fehris that, either. He’ll be overjoyed to know he guessed your gender.”

  “Is it that hard to tell?”

  “No,” she says. She leans toward me a little, tilts her head to the side, and my hearts skip a beat. “Not to me.”

  Up here, the air is clear and sharp and the smell of salt coming off the sea reminds me of Tamaranth, despite the cold. I’m not sure what to say to her, so I take out the small eyeglass. In one direction, I can see the Dead storm, still roiling against this mountain range that rings the whole vast region where Tilhtinora came down. The other way is the ocean. The land there runs down to a line of snow-covered trees. The trees spread and grow in height as the elevation descends and the snow tapers off, and then a vast green expanse of hills undulates all the way down to the sea. A whole coastline stretches away to the north and south, a pretty fertile land from the look of it, edged by a thin line of black sand, and a bay that opens up in the distance to the north. The water is dark and grey, topped with whitecaps. A school of pepperwhales works its slow way up the coast, and I show Mircada the tiny spouts of white water through the glass. Off at the western horizon, I think I can make out the glowing of the fluvare we’d flown through in the podship. I’m not sure, and the colors are faint in the daylight, but something nebulous shimmers there, almost out of view.

  “What do you think?” Mircada asks.

  “They’re Akarii,” I say. “You know it’s only a matter of time before they come for us. There’s a town up to the north, I think, near that bay.” I point.

  “Some of their reputation is just reputation, you know.”

  “Just some?”

  Mircada frowned. “It’s your first time dealing with them, isn’t it.”

  I nod. “I’ve fought them as part of a unit, but that’s a little different.”

  I raise the glass again and focus in on the bay. A three-masted merchant ship has its sails up, and it tacks its way into the docks. The town must be off-lei, then, or they’d be going in under power. There are clusters of low buildings and several other ships at dock. Smoke rises in thin lines from many of them—another good sign. If the place is off-lei, it means the Akarii can’t call ahead. They might not have people waiting for us.

  I hand Mircada the glass. She steps close, and leans against me while she studies the city. She’s awfully warm. “I don’t think we have a lot of options,” I say. “If we can get there quickly, and get out quickly, it might work. The storm doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, and they’ll have a hard time moving in that.

  She nods. “It’ll take us time to get there.”

  “We should get the others moving.”

  “Yes,” she says. “We should.” But she doesn’t move from where she’s standing.

  We look out at the water for a long minute.

  “So, Blackwell,” she says.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ve heard certain things about Hulgliev.”

  “I’ve heard a few things myself.”

  “Just rumors, of course. You are pretty rare, you know. Legendary, some people might say.”

  “Rumors about…?”

  “Certain talents.” She tucks hair back behind her ears. “Prowess might be a better word.”

  “I’m not a very good swimmer,” I say. “I tend to sink like a rock.”

  “Prowess that human women can really appreciate.”

  I see another school of some sort of whale out there, in the distance. To be really honest, right now, I could care less what kind they are. “Not being a human woman, it would be hard for me to comment on that.”

  She looks up at me. Her eyes are extremely green. “Have you known human women before?”

  “I have.”

  “And you’re…compatible?”

&nbs
p; “Compatible? We seemed to get along well.”

  “Everything…works?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “Everything works,” I say. “Everything works just fine.”

  “Great!” she says, patting me on the shoulder and stepping back. “That’s just what I was wondering. So, I’ll go get the others moving?” She turns, heads to the stairs, and picks her way down them. “Coming?” She flashes me an innocent smile.

  “On my way.” I watch her climb down, and then catch my breath.

  The fact that I notice a tiny corpse road, tucked into the corner of this tower? That’s probably the last thing on my mind right about now.

  • • •

  Back at the ship, we bring Ercan up to speed. He's been trying to get the communications up, but no luck. Fehris is deep in the ship. There’s no sign of Kjat.

  “The colony’s probably a two day’s walk,” Ercan says.

  “Maybe three.”

  “Three, then, to get there. Three or more to get back, with something or someone to carry the ship.” He looks accusingly at me.

  “What?”

  “I can’t leave you with the ship. I can’t send you ahead without one of us.”

  "That's my fault?" I shrug. “Kjat and I can head in to the town and negotiate some transport,” Blackwell said. “We’ll need mechs, or an off-lei truck. Or carts and animals, at least, to get the ship down that path, if that’s even possible. We’ll need to get a vessel to take us to sea. You three can stay with the ship.”

  I don’t mention the fact that I’m out of money. I don’t expect Ercan to go for it anyway.

  He doesn’t.

  Ercan shakes his head. “And you come back with some sort of mercenary army, tie us up again, and walk away? I don’t think so. Plus, you’re not exactly inconspicuous.” He makes his voice deep and raspy. “ ‘Greetings, sir. I’m a big black furry devil out of your worst nightmare, and I would like to hire you to haul something really secret out of the Tilhtinoran mountains.’ I’m sure the Akarii won’t notice that.”

  “We’ll stay, then. You get the truck. We’ll guard the ship.”

  Ercan considers it. “Where, exactly, were you hoping to go?”

  I study them. “Tamaranth,” I say, finally. “To Tamaranth.”

  “And how were you thinking you’d get the ship back there?”

  “We were going to fly it.” Pirrosh had been our pilot.

  Ercan barks a laugh. “You decide to pick up and fly across the world, steal something from the Akarii, and fly it back across the planet?” He shakes his head in amazement. “Did you consider it might not even lift off? That the Akarii might, say, follow you?"

  He’s got a point. But when you’re desperate, you work with what you’ve got. There’s a war on, I want to remind him. Arguably more than one. Sometimes you have to take risks. But then I see Josik and Pirrosh’s faces, and I bite my tongue.

  “It was something like that,” I say. “Though it sounded better when I said it in Tamaranth. You had a better plan, I’m guessing?”

  He and Mircada exchange looks that say ‘not really,’ but neither of them is about to admit it. I realize how young they are.

  Mircada runs her fingers through her hair. “Well, we’re heading to Tamaranth as well. Ercan, we’ll need to split the groups. It’s the only way to make it work. Unless…”

  “Unless what?” says Ercan.

  She turns to me. “You carried a Buhr with you, didn’t you? After you grabbed us. I saw it. It tried to disarm the ship’s warding.”

  Ercan frowns. “No offense, but how did you afford the Buhr?”

  I shake my head. “The Buhr might be an option,” I say, reluctantly. “But it’s pretty risky. What stops them stealing the ship from us, and selling it back to the Akarii?”

  “They would need to be well paid,” Mircada says. “And then they still might steal it.”

  “Buhr,” Ercan spits. “I’d rather deal with the Akarii. At least you know where they stand.”

  On that, at least, we agree.

  “You have a way to contact them?” Mircada says.

  I think about the corpse road on top of the tower. I nod.

  We’re all quiet for a minute.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Mircada says, finally. “Let’s take a few hours and think it through. We’re all tired. Fehris might find some way to get the ship running. We need to take care of Mishna’s body, and with that storm still storming the Akarii are probably still pinned down anyway.”

  She’s right. Ercan and I look at each other, and we both know it.

  We eat first, and then haul the bodies out of the ship. I boil some oats on a small portable stove, setting some aside for Kjat when she reappears. Ercan and Mircada look like they’re tucking into a minor feast with different packages of dehydrated stews that, in Tamaranth, would go for a small fortune, and a bottle of wine. My stomach rumbles and flips over.

  After that, we haul out the bodies. They dig a small grave for their pilot while I lay out the bones of the Hulgliev.

  If I’m honest with myself, the large skull of the dead Hulgliev mocks me. It has to be half again the size of my own head. The teeth are still long and sharp and white, despite him being dead for a couple of centuries at least, and when I stretch him out across the frozen ground, he would have been a good foot taller than me, too.

  I didn’t grow up with any other Hulgliev. After the hunters came, there were only a few of us that had survived, to make a new attempt at a village on Sartosh’s land. I was the only living child. My aunt had always told me that I was scrawny and small for my kind, and here was the truth to that. Small, weak, without backbone or purpose, unlike her own son, she claimed. She wielded words like her gnarled walking stick. Her own son, who died when the hunters came, because he’d gone out to fight them.

  Unlike me, who, at five, had hidden deep in his dirtnest.

  I was what they were left with, and according to her the tribe was that much the worse for it.

  Since there’s no burial well up here, I lay the skeleton near the frozen lake. I have no clay burial urn, none of the traditional leaves with which to wrap the body in, no ceremonial well nearby in which to place the body. So I will leave them here, in the sun, face down and arms and legs spread to embrace the ground—in Hulgliev custom, it’s the next best thing.

  While I’ve heard the words to the burial rites before, I don’t remember anything more than the rhythm of them. I kneel over the bones, feeling totally inadequate.

  What was a Hulgliev was doing in that ship? Where would the ship have been going, or coming back from? What had it been carrying? Was the Hulgliev the captain of the ship? I find it hard to imagine a time where a Hulgliev moved freely among all of the other races, and did not have to hide himself under a large coat, a great hat.

  What would that be like, to step up to a merchant in the middle of the Warrens in Tamaranth, with the sun slanting down through the overstreets and buildings, and simply buy a tomato? Or even an orange, when the barges arrive?

  What would it actually be like to have my own ship, my own crew, and to be able to move across the face of the world at will? Yes, Capone got me here. And yes, if I get the ship back to his people I'll get paid pretty well. But I can't help thinking that I'm not getting the best end of the deal.

  Down the shoreline a bit, the two Kerul stand close around their pilot’s body. I imagine they’re speaking to each other about the man’s good qualities. I try not to think about Josik and Pirrosh, but without explosions or things either flying at me or me flying at them, it’s impossible not to. I remember the particular way Josik would meticulously clean a table when he sat down to eat, wiping all of the space around him with a cloth he carried with him for just that purpose, regardless of how clean the table or the restaurant actually was, regardless of how little food we’d actually be able to buy, regardless of how often we ribbed him about it. He wouldn’t touch a piece of food until he was finished, even i
f he’d been starving, and we usually were. I remember how Pirrosh had saved his life with a lucky shot from his knife at the ford of Amontar. Pirrosh had loved stories, and as they had trekked through the marshes south of Tamaranth he’d regaled us with legends of the Solingi, the people who lived in the roving blimp-cities in the air.

  I feel my fur droop and go pale. If I let it, the guilt will overwhelm me. I check my pack, but I don’t find a flask there and that’s probably a good thing. Two great men are dead now, because I talked them into a fool’s errand, and because they had had faith in me to pull it all off.

  At the end of their impromptu ceremony. Mircada begins to sing.

  Hulgliev are highly musical, and I can tell her young voice is perfectly in pitch. It’s an old song she's singing, full of melancholy. It was one that I’d heard as a boy. A human song, but one that really speaks to my people because it captures so much of what the Hulgliev feel as a wandering, scattered people. It’s a song of mourning and loss, a yearning for past glories and comforts, but as the last verses come around it also carries an undercurrent of defiance, of resolution and hope in the face of sometimes overwhelming despair.

  Ercan joins her with a complex harmony and their voices were fresh and clear, vibrant in the face of the wind coming off the sea.

  And despite myself, I feel something deep within me stirring.

  I walk over and join them, and I sing the baseline with them. Quietly at first, and then with more strength as I see their looks of approval.

  I realize that I’m singing not just for my own team, the fallen mage, or the podship’s ancient crew, but for the perilously few other Hulgliev that might still be scattered across this world and others. People who, like me, have been forced from their lands and who might search endlessly for a place to call their true home again.

  The retrograde moon has risen in the west, fat and blue, and now it partially eclipses the sun. The wind dies, momentarily, and in that space a flock of small brown birds from the ocean side of the ridge have alighted around us. They’ve come to rest in the lee of the fallen bodies, and one of them settled into Mircada’s outstretched hands as if they’re a nest.