Black Halo tag-2

by Sam Sykes

  Gritted between them, reflecting his own horrified visage that shrank with every horrified step he retreated, a set of teeth, each tooth the length and colour of three bleached knucklebones stacked atop each other, glittered brightly.

  ‘Ominous, isn’t it?’

  The words echoed in his thoughts, just as the polished, toothy grin embedded itself in eyes that stared blankly, long into the sunset, after the creature had vanished and drums began to pound in the distance.

  Twenty-Five

  CONFESSIONAL VIOLENCE

  Pagans had certain enviable qualities, Asper decided after an hour of lying in the mossy bed and staring up at the sun, enjoying the sensation of it as it bathed her.

  First among those qualities was the confidence to lounge around in skimpy furs beneath the sun for hours on end, she decided. That was certainly a practice she’d have to abandon upon returning to decent society. Not too hard, she thought as she scratched a red spot on her belly, especially if meant fewer bug bites.

  But she was possessed of the worrying suspicion that she would have more difficulty leaving behind the second quality she found so enviable: the complete confidence they had in their faiths. She had often wondered what it was about people with limited grasps of homesteading and hygiene that made them so sure of their heathen beliefs.

  Only recently, though, was she wondering what it was they had that she lacked.

  Perhaps, she reasoned, her faith permitted her a unique position to come to the conclusion. The creed of Talanite was to heal, regardless of ideological difference. The occasional attempt to convert the barbarian races from their shallow, false gods were largely carried out by the more militant faiths of Daeon and Galataur. The most she had ever seen of such attempts was the gruesome aftermath: the hacked bodies of shict, tulwar or couthi who had refused to give up their gods and chose to meet them instead. The most thought she had ever expended for them was a brief prayer and a silent lament for the futility of dying in the name of a faith that made no sense to her.

  Of course, she reminded herself, you worship the sun. That seems pretty silly at a glance, doesn’t it? She sighed, wondering if those barbaric races had ever asked themselves the same question. Does Kataria ever wonder that? She doesn’t look like she does … then again, she doesn’t look like she ever pays enough attention to anything deeper than food … or Lenk.

  She instantly cursed herself for thinking his name. The memories always began with his name. Like a river, they flowed from his name to that night when Kataria had dragged his unconscious body into the hut. The memories never got any easier to digest. Her heart never ceased to beat faster with every recollection.

  It was seared into her mind, its heat every bit as intense as the one that ran through her arm that night.

  Funny, she had almost forgotten about her arm, at least for a moment. She had almost forgotten the night prior to that, when it burned at the sight of that hooded face and skeletal grin, the confusion of waking up amidst a tribe of sentient reptiles, she could hardly think of anything else.

  Of course, he changed that entirely.

  Naturally, she had fallen to her knees beside him, running practised hands over his body, checking flesh for wounds, bones for breaking, skin for fever. She had ignored it all at that point: Kataria’s shrieking demands, Denaos’ cautious stare, the Owauku’s incomprehensible babble. All that mattered, at that point, was her charge, her patient, her companion. At that point, she could ignore everything.

  Everything except her arm.

  She was too well-used to it: the aching, the burning. She could feel it coming, feel it tense, feel it hunger beneath her skin. The scream that had torn itself from her lungs had been cleverly disguised, the pain concealed beneath a command that they all leave. They might have suspected something by the second and third screams, too shrill to be commanding.

  But they left, left her alone.

  With him.

  The arm might have been merciful in waiting until the others had gone to erupt. Or it might simply not have been able to contain itself. She didn’t care any more now than she did then; thinking on it brought far too much fear now, far too much pain then. There was no slow eating away this time; the arm simply burst into crimson, the bones black beneath the suddenly transparent red flesh, pulsating, throbbing, burning.

  Hungering.

  It had pulled itself of its own volition, for a reason she could not bring herself to fathom, towards Lenk. And try as she might to tell herself there was likewise no fathoming why she let her body follow its burning grasp, she had to live with the fact that, at that moment, she had simply let go.

  There was no thought for what might have happened next, had her hand clenched on his throat, had he become twisted and reduced to nothing, like those who had felt the crimson touch before. There was no thought for what her god, his god or any god might have said of it. There was only pain, only hunger.

  And a blessed, unconscious meal before her. A relief from pain, from the agony that racked her.

  But where her hand had slid slowly and carefully towards him, his was swift and merciless. It snapped out suddenly from the sand, without a snarl or curse or even any indication that Lenk had known what was about to happen. Her body went from burning to freezing in an instant as his fingers wrapped about her throat. Her arm fell at her side limply as he opened eyes that weren’t his and spoke with a voice that belonged to someone else.

  ‘Do not think,’ it had said, ‘that it will ever stop if you do it.’

  It could have been Lenk, she thought, probably was him. He was feverish, if not enough to cause a hallucination, and he was starved and beaten. Trauma was known to cause such changes in personality, she knew from experience, and the fact that he remembered nothing of waking up would support this. But the eerie sensation that it was something more, some madness that gripped him, gripped her, too.

  Fear had made her recoil and hold her arm away from him as his slipped from her throat and he fell back into feverish slumber. Or maybe it was compassion, a sudden shock of shame that made her spare her friend. Maybe she had finally claimed some victory over the arm.

  Maybe.

  The pain was too intense to think, though, the burning from her arm and the cold from his grasp conspiring to plunge her into agony. There she remained, huddled against the hut’s wall, choking on her sobs so that no one outside would hear her.

  The pain passed, after it had thrust her into agonised sleep and she had awoken to find her arm whole again and Denaos standing over her. She had no idea what he had seen. He stared at her with what looked like concern, but that was a lie.

  It had to be.

  It was greed, she was sure, the presence of an opportunity to gain an advantage over her for whatever vileness he was planning that kept him around. It was greed that made him lean down and brace her up and offer her water. It was greed that made him ask with such feigned tenderness if she was all right. It was greed that she used to justify cursing at him and driving him out again that she might tend to Lenk and go through the ordeal of forgetting everything.

  She had not forgotten, of course. She never would.

  She spoke of the event often, posing questions and theorising answers with brazen frequency, but never to anyone with a mouth to reply with. Any time she was alone for a moment, she asked the same questions, as she did now.

  ‘Why?’

  And answers now, as they had then, did not come.

  ‘Why him?’ Her tone was soft, inquisitive; all her previous indignant, tear-choked anger had long boiled out her mouth and soaked into the earth. ‘What is it about him that you want?’

  That seemed a fair question to her. It had never really sought anyone with the unerring grip that it had sought Lenk. Of course, fair or not, it didn’t answer. Perhaps it had heard that one before. Or maybe she wasn’t asking the right question. And, in its silence, she furrowed her brow as a new thought occurred to her.

  ‘Who sent you?’ She held her
hand up to the sun, as though the light would finally deign to give her an answer she had been asking for all these years and shine through the flesh to reveal its purpose. ‘Why is it you wanted him? What did he do to …?’

  And she remembered his eyes, his voice, his cold grasp. And so, she asked.

  ‘Did he …?’ she whispered. ‘Does he deserve it? Should he die?’

  A sudden breeze struck. Clouds shifted. Branches parted. The sun shone down with more intensity than it had before, focusing a great golden eye upon her. She gasped, beholden, and stared back at the eye, unblinking.

  ‘Is that it?’ she whispered. ‘Is that the answer? Is what I’m meant to do with this?’ She bit her lower lip to control the tremble that racked her as she raised her head and whispered with a shrill, squeaking voice. ‘Please, I just want to-’

  A shadow fell. Light died. She blinked. Giant green orbs and bright white angles assaulted her senses, narrowing and twisting into horrible shapes as greasy yellow strands dangled down and pricked at her skin.

  She recognised Kataria too late. Too late to keep herself from starting and far too late to avoid the shict’s forehead as it came down upon her own with a resounding crack. She cried out, clutching her throbbing brow and scrambling to get away. She raised herself on her rear, staring at the shict, caught between shock and anger.

  Kataria’s own expression seemed settled on a grating, irritating grin.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Asper shrieked.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You headbutted me.’

  ‘Yeah, you looked busy.’

  Asper stared intently at her. ‘How … how does that even-?’

  ‘You seem like you’re going to dwell on this for a while and leave me no opportunity to give you the present I brought you.’

  ‘What?’

  The question was apparently enough of an invitation to spur the shict into action. She snapped her arm, sending a brown, multilimbed body into Asper’s lap. The priestess looked down at the gohmn, aghast; it was browned from cooking and, if the sticky substance dripping onto her legs was any indication, basted in something of origins she fiercely fought the urge to inquire over.

  Instead, she merely scowled up, her distaste compounded as the shict brought a barbed roach leg to her teeth and tore a tough chunk from it.

  ‘Like venison,’ she said with a grin, her teeth white against the brown smear on her mouth, ‘except a tad roachier.’

  ‘I’m …’ ‘Leaving’ would be a good thing to say, Asper thought, or ‘furious’ or ‘about to strangle you.’ ‘Not hungry.’

  ‘Eat while you can,’ Kataria said. ‘You don’t know how much you’ll miss basted bug meat when there’s no room for them on the boat.’

  ‘There’s a boat?’ Asper asked, eyes widening. ‘Sebast! He’s all right? He’s come?’

  ‘No, no,’ Kataria said, shaking her head. ‘Togu is lending us one to take back to the mainland … well, giving us one, since we can’t bring it back, obviously. We’ll set out tomorrow, Lenk says, after the party tonight.’

  ‘There’s a party now?’

  ‘A farewell celebration, I guess? Togu was insistent on it, so we figured it’d be less irritating to simply glut ourselves tonight and spend tomorrow defecating over the railing than arguing about it today.’

  ‘How … pleasant,’ Asper said, blanching. ‘Why would he be insistent?’

  ‘Neediness, maybe? Loneliness? A fierce desire to see half-clad pink skin instead of half-clad green skin?’ Kataria growled, taking another bite from the leg. ‘How am I supposed to know what goes on inside a lizardman’s head?’

  ‘Well, are they at least going to give us back our clothes?’ Asper asked, gesturing to the aforementioned pink skin. ‘If it’s a choice between coming back to the mainland dressed like this or staying here …’ She paused and frowned. ‘I suppose drowning would be preferable.’

  ‘I feel like you’re worrying a lot about trivial things,’ Kataria said, licking the bug juices from her lips. ‘It’s quite annoying. You’re starting to sound like Lenk.’

  Asper went rigid, fixing a hard stare on Kataria.

  ‘What,’ she asked, ‘do you mean by that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Kataria replied, canting her head to the side. ‘I’m merely suggesting that you’re being overly stupid about things that don’t matter and very rude when I bartered, slaughtered, cooked and slathered a twitching roach for you.’ She sneered. ‘You’re welcome, by the way.’

  ‘There are just enough things offensive about that sentence that I don’t feel bad for it.’ Asper rose up, futilely trying to wipe the juices from her skin. ‘Or for leaving. Good day.’

  She fought the urge to recoil as the shict leapt in front of her, but could do nothing to prevent the sudden beating of her heart. Kataria’s muscles tensed as she regarded the priestess with an unflinching stare.

  She heard me, Asper thought. She heard me ask if I should kill Lenk. She heard me. And now she’s going to … Asper’s face screwed up in confusion as the shict’s softened, her green eyes quivering. Cry?

  It certainly looked that way, at least. The savage humour, the feral grin, the bloodlust always lurking: all evaporated in an instant. Kataria’s mouth quivered wordlessly, fumbling for words to defeat this expression to no avail as she rubbed her foot self-consciously upon the moist earth.

  Asper found herself unable to leave for the painful familiarity of it all. She hadn’t seen such a display since …

  Since I saw myself in the river today.

  ‘I need …’ Kataria spoke hesitantly, shaking her head and summoning up a growl. ‘I want to talk.’

  ‘Oh.’ Asper glanced over the shict’s shoulder. ‘Lenk went into the forest, last I saw.’

  ‘Not to Lenk,’ Kataria snarled suddenly, then clenched her teeth, as though it pained her to spoke. ‘To you.’

  ‘What?’ Asper looked incredulous. ‘What did I do?’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean? I just … I want that thing that priests do.’

  ‘The last time I tried to bless you, you bit me.’

  ‘I don’t want that. I want the other thing; the one where we talk.’

  Asper looked at her curiously. ‘Confession?’

  ‘Yeah, that.’ Kataria nodded. ‘How’s it work?’

  ‘Well, with people of the same faith with something they seek atonement for, we usually sit down, they tell me their sins or their problem, and I listen and help if I can.’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Kataria’s nod became one of vicious enthusiasm. ‘We need to do that!’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s-’

  ‘Immediately!’

  ‘Look, we’re not even of the same faith!’ Asper replied hotly. ‘Besides, your problems always seem to be the kind that are solved by shooting someone in the eye. What makes this one so special?’

  ‘Fine, then,’ Kataria spat as she turned away. ‘I’ll figure it out myself, as usual.’

  The shict’s impending departure should have been a relief, Asper knew. After all, any problems Kataria was like to share were equally likely to be foul, unpleasant and possibly involving the marking of territory.

  And yet, she couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of Kataria’s face as she turned away. A choked expression, confused, lost.

  The shict had a question without an answer.

  And the priestess had an oath.

  ‘Wait a moment.’ Her own words should have been a worry, Asper knew, but she forced a smile. ‘I can listen, at the very least.’

  Kataria turned and stared as Asper took a seat upon a patch of moss, gesturing to the earth before her. With a stiff nod, Kataria took a hesitant seat before her. For an age, they simply sat, staring at each other with eyes intent and befuddled respectively. After waiting long past what would be considered polite, Asper cleared her throat.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘what did you want to-?’

  ‘This is supposed to b
e anonymous,’ Kataria interrupted, ‘isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought there were curtains or something.’

  ‘In a proper temple, yes,’ Asper replied. ‘But … look, even disregarding the fact that we’re in a forest, disregarding the fact that you asked me to do this, I’ve known you for a year now. Kat, I know you by voice and by smell both.’

  ‘What I smell is a loss of principles,’ Kataria replied, far more haughtily than someone clutching a roach leg should be able to. ‘And you, my friend, are reeking.’

  ‘Oh Gods, fine!’ Asper loosed a low grumble as she shifted about in the earth, turning her back to Kataria. ‘There, is that better?’

  A sudden jolt was her answer as Kataria pressed her own back against the priestess’.

  ‘Sort of.’ The shict’s hum reverberated into Asper. ‘Is there any way you could do this in a different voice so-’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fine.’

  The shict’s snarl was the last noise she made for a long moment. In the silence that followed, it occurred to Asper with some mild dismay that she had never actually wondered what her companion felt like. She had always suspected that Kataria would be more relaxed, her muscles loose and breath coming in slow and easy gulps of air.

  Someone who cuts wind with as much abandon as she does would have to be relaxed, right?

  But there was nothing but tension in the shict’s body. Not the kind of nervous tremble of dismay at having another woman’s bare flesh touching her own that now enveloped Asper, Kataria’s tension was muscle-deep, her entire body feeling like she had been twisted so tightly that she might explode in a bloody, stressful mess at any moment.

  One more regret for ever having agreed to this, Asper thought.

  ‘So, did you want to talk about?’

  ‘What’s it like?’ Kataria interrupted.

  ‘What’s what like?’

  ‘Being a coward.’