Vale of Blood Roses

by Tim Lebbon

  “Rufiere, your spear.”

  Rufiere lobbed the spear to Barr, who caught it from the air and wedged it beneath one of the bars. He pulled slowly, judging the strain, and then with one heave tugged the bar’s hinged end from the shutter’s frame.

  Jakk turned his back on the others and looked around, his bow at the ready, quiver full, every weapon he bore familiar to him, each blade and throwing star responsible for at least one of those dead faces that haunted him. He tried not to see the spread of blood roses, because now they made the village square look like a battlefield.

  Another breaking sound from behind him, and then he heard one of the shutters lifted open and dropped back against the building’s sloping wall.

  “What in the Black is that?” Leeza said. Her voice was quiet and hoarse.

  Barr’s breathing came fast, and whatever he tried to say came out as a croak.

  Jakk turned to see what they had found, and he only caught a glimpse of something red and wet inside the domed building before a roar of rage rose up behind him.

  The villagers had emerged. There were scores of them, maybe hundreds, spewing from doorways, pouring out from the shadows between buildings, some of them slipping down the abundant coloured streamers in the trees. None carried true weapons, but there were sticks and tools, rocks and knives, and they glared at the mercenaries with fury in their eyes.

  They were no longer afraid.

  *

  He dreams that the thing in the pit has tracked them through the woods, and that it takes Bindy and Romana down from the horse, slaughters the animal and hangs his wife and daughter from a low tree like living ribbons. It teases him. Jakk is watching from a distance and he is either hidden, or trapped and unable to move, it’s difficult to tell in the dream. It touches them with some it its long appendages, and where it touches blood roses grow. The stems stretch the skin first, forcing it from below and then splitting it, emerging in blood like a grotesque parody of human birth. They do not scream, but they are awake, both of them watching in fascination as their bodies host these mysterious blooms. He smells the blood roses then, and the scent impacts hard because it is the only thing he can smell in the dream. Even though he looks around and sees pine trees leaking sap, violetbells speckling the ground between trees and honey cones hanging all around, all he can smell are these flowers that should not be here. Never should have been in the folded valley, either, he says. Rufiere was right, it should not have been there, we should have found nothing.

  The thing looks at him then, even though he’s not sure it actually has any eyes. And mouthless, it smiles.

  *

  He rises from sleep and nightmare certain that he is being watched. He lies for a moment with his eyes open, trying not to move, and then he remembers that Bindy and Romana are sleeping behind him.

  Jakk sits up quickly and turns to where his family should be. And they are still there, covered with thick blankets, Romana huddled in to Bindy’s side for warmth. His wife mutters something in her sleep and shifts slightly, turning her face away from the dawn.

  Their old horse is standing apart from them, tied loosely to a tree. He can see its ribs moving as it breathes, and its head shakes slightly, tail swishes.

  Just a dream, he thinks, but he reaches over and pulls the blankets from his wife and daughter anyway. There are no blood roses blooming on their skin. That confuses him, and he frowns and shakes his head, trying to shake the remnants of his dream away. Perhaps it was still loose in there, planting ideas that should have faded with sleep.

  “No blood roses,” he whispers. His wife opens her eyes and stares around in panic. She looks at him and does not know him, but a beat later recognition arrives.

  “I’ve had such dreams,” she says.

  Jakk nods. “Sleeping under the stars. They touch your mind without a roof over your head to keep them out.”

  She pulls her arm gently from beneath Romana’s head and glances up and down her daughter’s body, as if searching for blooms as well. “I dreamed of those flowers.”

  Jakk draws in a startled breath and that’s when he realises what is wrong. He has risen from his dream and cast those roses aside, but he can smell them still.

  “Bindy…” he says, but she is already standing, seeing the warning in his eyes.

  “Romana?”

  “Leave her asleep for now.” Jakk stands quickly and reaches for his weapons. No time to tie on the slideshock, he thinks. Crossbow is old and hasn’t been oiled for years. He tugs the sword from its sheath leaning against the saddle, and plucks the bow from where he had stuck it in the ground.

  “What is it?” Bindy asks.

  “Whatever killed Barr is here.” Yet again the realities of Barr’s death hang between them, but Bindy remains silent.

  Jakk watches the spaces between the trees.

  “But what is it?”

  “I’m not sure,” he says. “He called it ‘it’, and he called it ‘them’.” He sees her looking at him from the corner of his eye but he does not turn. He needs to be alert, and if Bindy starts him talking now …

  There is movement in the forest. A shape passes from one tree to the next, a fleeting shadow that could have been cast by something crossing the sun. Jakk holds his breath and strings an arrow, pulling back to give it some tension. He can swing around and fire within a heartbeat if he needs to. He watches for more movement, and when he thinks of that machine they saw in the pit he knows that he will see it, hear it and smell it long before it is upon them.

  But still it killed Leeza and Rufiere.

  He steps closer to Bindy where she stands above Romana. He can hear her short, light breaths.

  Something else moves, a pale shape between trees. Jakk brings the bow up, pulling on the string as he does so, and fires the arrow. It whistles away into the forest and disappears without hitting anything. Even before he loses sight of it he has another arrow strung.

  “I’m scared,” Bindy says. “Can’t we just go? Can’t we run.”

  “Mummy?” Romana says. As the girl wakes she sees her parents standing above her, Jakk bearing the bow and a stern expression, and she immediately begins to cry.

  They emerge from between the trees. While Jakk is looking down at his frightened daughter, and Bindy is kneeling to give comfort, and for a beat his attention is distracted, that is when they choose to come.

  Jakk sense the movement and looks up, but it is too late. They are already close, and amazement freezes him long enough for the lead woman to knock the bow aside and lash out. Her fist is cool and hard and it strikes his temple, dazing him and driving him down.

  He falls onto his back and looks up at the things come to kill him.

  Bindy shouts, Romana sees them and screams, and Jakk tries to rise to protect his family.

  The woman who struck him hisses. The two thin metal pipes protruding from each shoulder spurt steam, and a sound comes from her mouth that is unmistakeably a warning. Her eyes are pure silver and reflect the strengthening dawn light with a metallic sheen.

  Jakk glances across at his slideshock.

  “I’ll kill you before your muscles obey your brain’s order to move,” a low voice says. The woman squats beside him and those pipes emit another puff of steam.

  Bindy is holding Romana, pressing the girl’s face against her chest so that she does not have to see, and looking intently at Jakk so that she cannot see. But there are four of them, and they are incredible, and to not look is impossible.

  There are two men and two women. They all have steam pipes, though the other woman has three from each shoulder. They all possess those metallic eyes as well, and grilles in the side of their necks beneath which red stuff seems to pulse, and their fingernails are a similar silver as though their hands are metal but for the skin. The junction between metal and flesh – at their necks, and the quick of their nails – is red and inflamed, glistening here and there with pus.

  “What are you?” Jakk asks.

 
The woman fists her hands and metal scrapes metal. “Children of the heart and mind,” she says.

  “Folded people.” The name comes to Jakk from nowhere but seems to make sense.

  “Maybe.” She smiles, and her teeth are grey as damp stone.

  “Please,” he says, but she does not let him finish. Please don’t hurt my family, he wants to say. Please let them go.

  “Please is just what the others said too.”

  “What others?” But he knows.

  “The others who came with you. The ones who destroyed our home and killed our people.”

  “I never wanted to—”

  “And yet you did.” The woman stands and walks to Bindy and Romana, and her movement is awkward and accompanied by grating, grinding sound. Pinkish fluid drips from the pipes on her back.

  “Don’t hurt my family,” he manages to say, and the woman and her three companions look at him. Unlike the thing in his dreams they do have mouths, and their smiles are obvious. But there is no humour there. Only hatred.

  “Whether they’re hurt or not is entirely up to you,” the woman says. She nods to one of the men and he kneels beside Jakk’s wife and child.

  “No!” Bindy screams. She lashes out with one hand, the other still holding Romana’s face against her chest. The man catches her hand and squeezes. Beneath Bindy’s shriek of agony, Jakk hears bones crunch and snap.

  “Leave them!” he shouts, trying to stand. The woman is beside him again in a beat, planting a hand on his chest and pushing him back down, pressing him into the ground. He can hardly breathe. He feels an old cracked rib beginning to go again, but he can understand nothing other than the threat to his family.

  Bindy curls around Romana, her face pale with pain. She’s sweating. Her hand is bleeding. When the man pulls Romana from her grasp, there is nothing she can do.

  “Please!” Jakk shouts again, and the woman smiles down at him with grave-slab teeth, eyes glinting yellow as dawn flames through the forest.

  “Yes,” she says, “that exactly what they said.”

  Jakk struggles, but to no avail. For the first time in his life he is utterly helpless. He has to watch as Romana is dragged away from Bindy, his wife crying and reaching for their child with her unbroken hand. He has to hear his daughter’s scream. And then the woman holding him down moves aside so that he has a clear view, as the other three folded people – machines, humans or bastard offspring of the two – pierce their forearms with metallic fingernails and dribble blood across Romana’s bared stomach.

  Jakk bites his lip and draws his own blood, but he does not wake from the nightmare.

  The roses quickly begin to sprout.

  *

  Perhaps it was the old man they had killed, but Jakk thought not. It was more likely the shutter Barr had forced open that enraged the villagers so much.

  They closed in on the building and then paused, keeping the same distance all around. Their eyes flickered down to the open hatch, at the invaders standing before it and back again. There was accusation there, and anger, and Jakk saw the promise of violence. He knew it well enough.

  “You should not have come here,” a short, old woman said.

  “We were walking, we found a valley and we entered,” Barr said. “We’re entitled.”

  “’Entitled’?” the old woman said, eyebrows raising. She looked Barr up and down as though viewing a new sheebok at market. “You’re part of the sickness in the land, and you say you’re entitled to bring it to us?”

  “I bring nothing,” Barr said. Jakk could already hear his patience withering, and looking sidelong at his comrade he could sense the violence about to erupt. “But I’m more than willing to take,” Barr continued, backing at the opening in the side of the building.

  “No!” the woman said. “You mustn’t. You can’t!”

  “’Can’t’?” Barr said, mimicking her voice.

  “We weren’t part of the Cataclysmic War,” Jakk said, stepping forward. If he could halt the flow of this tide, stem the wave of violence that tainted the air, perhaps they could leave in peace. Maybe he could talk to Barr. “We’re going north, that’s all, and when we came across your valley—”

  “They killed Raddock, as well,” someone said. “I found him on the edge of the village, by the stream. His head’s almost off.”

  “And Mayria has not returned from seeding,” another voice added, breaking with fear.

  The old woman closed her eyes. “More power for the heart and mind,” she whispered solemnly. It was a prayer Jakk had never heard before, but Noreela was full of such sects.

  “It’s you that shouldn’t be here,” Rufiere said. He stepped forward and held out his book as if to show them all.

  “Rufiere!” Barr said, but the tall soldier ignored him.

  “This valley shouldn’t be here, it’s not shown, it’s not right.”

  “More right than what’s left of Noreela,” the woman said. Old she may have been, but her voice was young and full of fury. “It’s a land slaughtered by greed, and you come down here, kill my friend and tell me it’s us who shouldn’t be here?”

  “But you’re not on the map!” Rufiere said, as if this would settle everything.

  “Maps!” the woman spat.

  “Rufiere, back in line,” Barr said softly.

  “What is this place?” Jakk said. He could see the villagers’ eyes when they looked at Rufiere, as if he had exposed a great secret. “What are those blood roses we saw?”

  “They’re good for us,” the old woman said. She chewed on her lip for a moment as if mulling something over. The villagers shifted, nervous and unsettled. There must have been a hundred of them facing the four mercenaries, the threat still evident.

  “We don’t want to kill you all,” Barr said. “Well, in all honestly, these three don’t want to kill you all. Me … I’d happily put you to the sword. More trophies for me, eh?” He held up his thumb necklace and chuckled.

  Jakk saw the old woman’s eyes widen slightly as she saw what Barr wore. Perhaps she noticed the fresh blood there.

  “All this talk of killing,” she said. “You can’t leave.”

  “What?” Jakk said.

  “You can’t. If you leave you’ll bring Noreela back to us.”

  “You think you can stop us?” Barr said.

  The woman closed her eyes and dipped her head, and as she spoke the other villagers squatted and touched the ground at their feet. “Heart and mind, keep us well. Heart and mind, keep us wise. Heart and mind, protect us.” She opened her eyes again, and when she looked at the mercenaries her face reflected murder. “Heart and mind … give us strength.”

  “No,” Jakk whispered. Rufiere and Leeza backed away slightly, but Barr stepped forward, eager. The first stone struck him in the chest.

  *

  The shoots are both beautiful and gruesome, redolent of new life and harbingers of death. Romana stops screaming as they spread questing tendrils across the surface of her skin, flesh quivering beneath their prickle, and she looks from their rapid growth to her father’s eyes, begging him for help. She is beyond crying now. Shock has her in its grasp and the strange woman holding her down eases back, realising that her work is done.

  There are no blooms yet, but the blood rose flowers are still unmistakable within their closed bulbs. Even now Jakk can see the colour. They’re like blood boils waiting to burst, and he knows that when they do their smell will add to the scent of the four people who have come for him. Or four machines. The distinction no longer seems to matter.

  Two of the folded people move quickly to the unconscious Bindy, their blood dripping across her neck and exposed legs.

  “No,” Jakk whispers, but when he tries to move the woman presses down even harder, crushing the air from his lungs. “What ... what do you want?” he says.

  The blood splashes sprout scarlet shoots on Bindy’s body. Where the blood touched her crushed hand and broken skin they are already a hand’s width tall,
and they seem ready to bloom.

  “You want your family to live?” the woman says. Jakk is staring at her face upside down, and from that angle the pipes seem like horns. They steam, she smiles.

  “Of course,” Jakk says.

  “They’re important to you?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughs, a bitter snort. She is silent for a while. “I had family,” she says. “You killed them.”

  Jakk cannot find anything to say. An apology would feel so trite, an explanation pointless. There was nothing that could be explained, and ‘sorry’ held no power.

  “It made us,” the woman says. “Put us together from what was left and sent us out of the valley. It took a long time. You almost killed the heart and mind, and you left the valley weak. Unable to help itself.”

  “I wanted to leave,” Jakk says. “It was Barr … he was the one …”

  “Your actions made me, not your intentions.”

  Jakk finds that the woman holds his attention now, not his suffering wife and child, and perhaps there is some small escape there for a while.

  “We’re such a long way from the valley,” the woman says. “You have to take us back.”

  “Back?”

  The woman nods. Her silvery eyes are expressionless. He hears a rattling sound as she speaks, as though something is broken inside. She could be laughing or crying, Jakk cannot tell. “We’ve had our revenge. It made us for retribution, but we’ve lost our way. We come and go, but we cannot find the valley. It’s folded to us, hidden away, and …”

  “You think I know where it is?”

  “You have to know.” The woman lifts her hand from his chest, and with her other hand she turns his face back to his family. The roses bloom, dripping their thick red sap, and the other three folded people breathe deeply of the scent.

  “We can’t keep doing this,” the woman says. “The strength is good, but the killing is not.”

  “My family …”

  “They can be saved. It’s slow, they have time. Show us the valley and we’ll release them.”

  “No,” Jakk says. “No, I don’t know where it is, I don’t understand.”