I froze. First, because it’s weird to have an animal turn and speak to you, and second, because I was kind of annoyed that he’d called me kid.
‘What do you want me to say?’ I asked.
‘Say you’re sorry for being a traitor,’ Tennat replied, assuming I was talking to them. ‘Or just keep cowering there. Either way, your turn is coming.’
The squirrel cats were still waiting, as if they were somehow prevented from attacking. Panahsi was breathing easier now, calmer. The lids of his eyes half closed and his lips were moving as he rehearsed the spell. Fire spells are tricky – make one mistake and you get all the flame you asked for but not on the right target.
‘Come on, Panahsi,’ Tennat urged. ‘Light them up.’
‘Just a second. I’m almost ready.’
The squirrel cat gave an odd noise then, a kind of ‘huh-huh-huh’ sound that I was suddenly quite sure was his way of laughing. ‘Kid, you listening?’ he asked.
‘Uhh … yes?’
‘Tell fatty that just because he doesn’t understand me, doesn’t mean I don’t understand him. Oh, and tell him to look behind him.’
I looked over to where the animal was nodding. There wasn’t any light behind Panahsi, so at first all I saw was a rock in the shadows, only I didn’t remember there being a rock there before. The shape moved and I suddenly figured out what it was, and why the squirrel cats had waited. While everyone was standing around staring at each other, one of the pack had snuck around the long way to get behind Pan.
‘Panahsi, stop! Look behind you!’ I called out.
He ignored me. I guess he figured I was probably just trying to distract him. The first syllables of the fire river started flowing from his mouth – a deep baritone that vibrated on the precise resonances called for by the spell. Hells, he’s doing it.
The lead squirrel cat evidently understood. He let out a new sound, this one a sort of ‘heff’ that I interpreted as a sigh. ‘All right then, skinbags. You asked for it!’ He gave a short, sharp snarl and the black shape of the animal behind Pan flew into the air, going straight for the back of his head and digging its paws into his thick hair. The creature wrapped its front paws around his head, the furry webbing between its limbs covering his face while it used its long, cat-like hind paws to kick at the skin at the back of his neck. The other squirrel cats scattered, moving quickly even though they never took their eyes off the source of the flames.
‘Aim, you fat idiot!’ Tennat shouted.
I saw Nephenia extend her arms, touching the thumb and middle finger of each hand together as she spoke three words into the night air. It was a kind of shielding spell that kept the other squirrel cats from jumping onto Panahsi.
‘Nice!’ Tennat said. ‘Keep it up a little while longer.’ He brought his own hands together, fingers forming an attack spell. Predictably it was another gut sword. He aimed at the lead squirrel cat, who skittered in a zigzag pattern as if trying to dodge someone throwing rocks. That wasn’t going to work against a gut sword though, which didn’t require perfect aim, only a clear line of sight. I got to my feet and charged at Tennat, but at the last second he turned on me and his expression shifted to a grin. Pain exploded in my abdomen – worse by far than anything I’d felt during our duel the other day. Whatever illness Tennat had been suffering lately was clearly healed now, because I was pretty sure he was about to kill me.
‘Tennat, don’t!’ Nephenia screamed.
Hey, maybe she doesn’t hate me, I thought, as my insides started crushing in on themselves.
She let go of her shielding spell and grabbed Tennat by the shoulder, but he just shrugged her off. He said something to me which I couldn’t possibly hear in all the noise, but I guessed must be along the lines of, ‘I’m going to kill you now, Kellen, because, as you long suspected, I am a huge moron whose only ambition has been to make your life hell until I could find an excuse to end it.’
Panahsi screamed. One of the squirrel cats had just bitten a tiny chunk of flesh out of his arm. Nephenia, evidently making a quick calculation about whose life was more important at that exact moment, turned back to start the shield spell again.
I tried to roll away, to get somewhere out of Tennat’s line of sight, but to no avail. It didn’t look as if I was going to get much help from the squirrel cats either. They were focusing all their attention on Panahsi, throwing themselves at the shield Nephenia was putting up, some of them getting through as she struggled to maintain her focus. Pan managed to reach back and grab the one on his neck. The flames of his fire spell danced around his fingertips, setting the creature’s fur alight, as he hurled the thing away, into the centre of the oasis. Two of its fellows raced towards it. The poor creature rolled on the sand in obvious agony as its fur began to burn. When the other two reached it, they turned around and kicked their back paws in the silver sand, half burying the burning creature to smother the flames. The injured creature got back up, hobbling back towards the fight, though I could see part of the thin membrane that allowed them to glide was burned away.
For a brief instant Tennat turned to the others, giving me a moment of reprieve from the gut sword. ‘Get it together. Burn these things to ash before they try to escape!’
But Pan’s spell was starting to fade. His concentration, which had been phenomenal considering the situation, was finally breaking. There were lines of blood on his face and hands and belly from where the squirrel cats had leaped on him. Nephenia was exhausted too, from trying to keep a shield around him. I saw her eyes as she turned to plead with Tennat to stop attacking me and help protect Panahsi. I guess I must not have looked too good because she started screaming at Tennat.
He didn’t care. He’d found a moment and an excuse to rid himself of the monster he hated most, which turned out to be me. In my entire life I’d never been in this much pain. My inner organs were being compressed and twisted – things which weren’t going to be repairable. I looked up into his face, ready to plead with him. He liked it when people begged. Maybe if I …
Suddenly Tennat’s eyes went wide and then his mouth opened as if he were about to say, ‘Oh.’ He dropped to his knees and behind him stood Nephenia, holding the stick that Pan had used to hit me. Tears were flowing down her cheeks. She’d just betrayed the people whose support she needed most so that she could save me. She didn’t look happy about it.
I tried to stand up, to reach out to her, but my legs wouldn’t support me. It was all I could do to kneel there on my hands and knees and see the battle come to its conclusion. Panahsi was done. The combination of our fight earlier and the pain from his wounds had left him unable to concentrate enough to cast another spell. Six of the squirrel cats surrounded him, ready to pounce and tear him to shreds. A few others crept around Tennat’s prone body, sniffing at it and baring their teeth, the stripes of their fur an angry black against the pale silver sand of the oasis. The rest were stalking towards Nephenia.
‘Stop!’ I called out. ‘Leave her alone.’
‘Stay where you are, kid,’ warned the squirrel cat whom I had, in my infinite wisdom, freed from his cage earlier, setting off this entire disaster.
I crawled on my hands and knees towards where Nephenia stood, shaking, terrified by the creatures in front of her whose entire bodies seemed to vibrate as they waited for the moment to attack. One of them turned suddenly, rearing on its hind legs so that its eyes were at the same level as my own. It opened its mouth wide and let out a growl that carried the scent of blood and an overabundance of rage. There was no doubt in my mind that these animals were fully capable of killing us.
‘Back away, kid,’ the lead squirrel cat chittered. ‘I owe you a debt for springing me out of that cage, but you’re on your own if you get between us and our prey.’
‘She didn’t attack you, she just—’
‘The bitch shocked my insides with her lightning,’ he said. ‘She’s going to get what she deserves.’
Nephenia was staring at me, no doubt wonde
ring why I was talking to dumb, angry animals who just chittered and growled in reply. Panahsi looked as if he was having trouble staying on his feet. Tennat had woken up but wasn’t moving. I saw the first creep of a smile on his face and saw something reflected in his eye. A light. I glanced behind me and saw lanterns come to life in one of the houses off the square. Evidently the quieting spell had started to fade and someone had heard the ruckus, or else they’d woken up and seen the glow from Panahsi’s fire spell. It wouldn’t be long before people came to check on what was happening.
‘There are people coming,’ I said to the squirrel cat. ‘As soon as they’re close enough to see you they’ll summon the master mages. You’ll all be killed!’ I did my best to emphasise the importance of that last word.
The leader made his little huh-huh-huh laugh and started towards Tennat. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll be done with these three long before anyone gets here.’
Whatever else the creature was, he wasn’t very nice. I suppose I might not be either if I’d just been tortured.
As scared as Tennat was of the squirrel cats, he reserved his anger for me. ‘You’re a traitor, Kellen. Everyone is going to hear –’
He was interrupted by a voice from the darkness behind us. ‘If you’re going to concoct a story, always best to make it one folks will believe.’
I swivelled my head to see who’d spoken, my brains being too addled at that moment to make it out. At first all I could see was a dot of red light floating in the darkness. Then I made out the tiny trail of grey-white smoke rising from it. The figure stepped forward out of the shadows and Ferius Parfax came into view, a smoking reed sticking out of the side of her mouth.
‘Well now,’ she said, her customary smirk firmly in place, ‘you must be just about the cutest little bunch of critters I ever laid eyes on.’
22
The Deal
The squirrel cats growled and pawed at the sand as Ferius approached. With every step she took I thought for sure they would attack. She, on the other hand, had no such doubts. She just swaggered towards us. ‘Kellen, would you do me a favour and tell the little buggers that I’m not the enemy?’
The animal in the lead chittered furiously. ‘Tell the Daroman bitch to take a walk if she wants to keep her eyeballs.’ He sniffed the air. ‘If she really is a Daroman, that is.’
Ferius looked over at me. ‘Let me guess, he threatened to rip off my ears?’
‘Your eyeballs, actually.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s always something with their kind. Ears, eyeballs, tongues. They’re never happy unless they’re threatening to rip something off of you.’
‘Kellen, what’s going on?’ Nephenia asked. She and Panahsi and Tennat were backed up against each other, trying to stay as far away from the surrounding creatures as possible.
Bad enough I can barely keep from crumpling to the ground. Now I have to explain this? ‘Just give me a second.’
‘You tell his fuzzy little lordship,’ Ferius declared, sounding more than a little annoyed, ‘that there are wars and there are wars, and that he’s one wrong move away from starting the kind that never ends well for anybody.’
‘Yeah?’ the squirrel cat countered. ‘Well, maybe that’s—’
Even if Ferius couldn’t understand the words coming out of the little chitters and growls, she got the intent.
‘These three are cubs to their kind,’ she said. ‘You kill them, and this whole place is going to go … Ah, hell.’ She stopped and pulled something from her waistcoat. With a flick of the wrist a card spun through the air, landing in the sand a few inches from the animal’s face. He hissed at it for a moment, then crept forward and stared at it with black beady eyes.
‘Ask him if he knows what it is,’ Ferius said.
The squirrel cat reached forward and picked the card up in its paws. From my vantage point I could see that it was one of the dark red ones she’d shown me that morning. It was a seven of diamonds, though I had no idea if that had any significance. The squirrel cat looked at the card, then at Ferius. He ambled over, walking on his hind legs with the card in his paws, and dropped it in front of me. ‘Tell her the deal is acceptable.’
‘What deal?’ I asked.
He just stared back at me with no discernible change in his expression. I was fairly sure he was trying to communicate that I was an idiot.
‘He’s agreeing to the deal,’ I told Ferius.
She gave a nod. ‘Good. Pass me back the card.’
I did, and watched as she held it in her hand for a moment, as if memorising the intricate illustration on its surface. When she put it back in her waistcoat she seemed a little more … I don’t know, tired? Finally she looked over at the animals. ‘Well? Go on then, critters. Get out of here.’ When the lead squirrel cat opened his mouth to speak, she stopped him. ‘Tell the little bugger to save any last speeches or posturing for somebody who cares.’
The animal grunted, then chittered to the others. As one, they turned and ran out of the oasis and into the deep shadows of the night, away from the city and towards the mountains. I’d kind of expected him to stop and say something to me. It bothered me a little that he didn’t.
Ferius sighed and then glanced towards the lights of lanterns coming towards us. ‘All right, children. Let’s get back to that song we’re all going to sing.’
‘Yours will be sung in screams,’ Tennat said from where he still lay on the ground. I thought it was a pretty good retort, all things considered. His hands started moving, preparing a somatic shape. ‘Once my father learns what happened here he’s going to use spells that will tear the skin from your flesh, the blood from your—’
Ferius looked over at me and grinned. ‘Now where have I heard that kind of threat before? You think he’s part squirrel cat?’ Then she put the heel of her boot on Tennat’s right wrist. ‘You know, boy, since it’s obvious to me now that your only aim in this life is to become the most heartless, vicious thing you can, maybe you should keep quiet until your bite is as dangerous as your bark. The only thing your precious daddy and his fellow mages are going to care about is the fact that there’s a tribe of nekhek close to their city who aren’t afraid to fight. They aren’t going to be too impressed by the fact that you and your little friends came here to torture the one they’d captured, only you were so stupid that even a weakling like Kellen here –’ she pointed at me, which didn’t make me feel any better at all – ‘managed to beat the three of you senseless long enough to set the little monster free.’ She knelt down on one knee and got right up in his face. ‘Third, you don’t know for sure that Kellen’s father isn’t going to come and do you serious harm if he finds out what you tried to do to his son, “mage’s council” or not.’
‘But we have to tell people what happened,’ Panahsi said, standing sturdier now, though his eyes were still a little unfocused.
‘That’s simple,’ Ferius replied. ‘The four of you, good friends that you are, were taking a late-night stroll to do some innocent astronomy work outside the city when you saw that herd of nekhek here freeing their fellow. Being brave souls, you all tried to stop them, but you got overwhelmed. All of your injuries –’ she looked over and winced at the sight of me. Still not helping – ‘came from the nekhek.’
Nephenia shook her head. ‘But, Lady Ferius, no one’s going to believe that we—’
‘Of course they won’t believe you,’ Ferius interrupted. ‘They’ll know you’re lying, especially since one of you obviously paid the guards to take a break. But people will think it’s because you were coming here to show you weren’t afraid of the nekhek. See, we give them the obvious lie so they don’t look for the bigger one.’
You wouldn’t think that people who had done the kinds of things to each other that we’d just done would be able to let it go so quickly, but my people are pragmatic. Nephenia didn’t want the conflict to escalate. Panahsi was so tired he just wanted it to be over for now, and Tennat, well, Tennat probably figured he cou
ld use this against me – or the others – somehow. Or both. In the end, Ferius just seemed to know how to pull each person’s strings and convince them that, for now at least, her solution was in everyone’s best interests.
By the time the first five or six men and women entered the oasis, glow-glass lanterns in hand, the deal had been struck. People were asking me questions, but I really had no way of answering. Once the fight had ended, whatever mixture of fear and shock had been keeping me going started to slip away. I was fading in and out of consciousness until Ferius declared that she needed to get me to my parents and the others should get home too.
The last thing I remember is Nephenia looking down at me just before she turned to leave. ‘You hit me, Kellen,’ she said.
23
Injuries
When you’re fifteen years old and nearly a man, waking up repeatedly to find yourself being carried home is kind of embarrassing. This time it was Ferius doing the carrying, which made it worse.
‘You’re strong for a girl,’ I said, cringing as the words came out of my mouth. Lately I was discovering that the more beaten up I got, the dumber my thoughts became.
‘Strong for a girl, I suppose, but just about average for a woman.’
‘I don’t know many women who can carry me,’ I insisted. ‘I’m not that skinny.’ Somehow it was important to win this point.
Ferius let out a little puff of air in a ‘pfft’ sound, which I gathered was meant to be dismissive. ‘Kid, the only women you have around here are born and bred to do their little magic spells and be pretty to look at. Kind of like what passes for men.’
I was fairly sure that was an insult to all my people but I wasn’t quite sure which part to argue against, so I just tried to focus my eyes on the street ahead of us. It was pitch black for the most part, families long having gone to sleep. We were halfway to my house, and normally the glow-glass lanterns on every corner would have illuminated our way, but Ferius didn’t have the magic required to light them and I wasn’t in the mood to try, so we proceeded in darkness. I wondered if this was what it was like for all the Sha’Tep servants who had to start their work day before dawn, shambling to whatever shops or households where they would perform their assigned duties in the dark. Did they carry torches? Ferius seemed to have pretty good eyesight because she walked sure as can be along the street towards my home.
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