by Scott Kaelen
The quiet night grew quieter still as the chirring and clicking of far-away heath-hoppers faded to a whisper. From behind the undergrowth, Dagra retched loudly, followed by a wheezing intake of breath, then a series of wet slapping sounds. Oriken pursed his lips in concern.
“I’m worried about him.” Jalis squatted to take a bogberry from the bowl. “There’s something he’s not telling us.”
“You think?”
“That’s my instinct You’ve known him longer than I have. You tell me.”
“He’s definitely out of sorts.” He shrugged. “But that business back in the graveyard would mess anyone up. I mean, no one ever believed all that shit about Valsana being the goddess of undeath. Adults tell stories to children about gods and monsters and dead things to scare them, or they tell the kids about other gods and friendly, fluffy creatures and all the cowshit about Kambesh to make them feel safe. Then those children grow up believing all the pleasant things they were told, like about going to the Underland when they die.”
Realising he’d been getting heated, he lowered his voice. “Dagra’s grandparents believe in the whole bloody lot. Valsana, the Dyad, all of the Bound and Unbound, and then some. Dagra was—” He paused as there came another strangled bout of vomiting from behind the trees. “Stars, is he ever going to finish? Dagra was the recipient of every single story you could think of, good or bad. If there was one thing old Grandma Ilhdra could do, it was tell stories. I should know; I listened to most of them after… well, for our last couple of years before leaving home. But Dag got it all since birth, I reckon. That sort of stuff buries itself deep in your head. That’s where he is now, more than likely – got the stories back in his head. I love him like my own blood, but he’s always been a sucker for superstition.”
“None of that explains him being ill,” Jalis said as more strained groaning drifted from the trees. “Certainly not that ill.”
Oriken bent to the pile of kindling and threw several branches onto the fire; their sap popped as they set ablaze. “No,” he said, “though it might explain why he’s hallucinating talking corpses. We all got our share of scratches and scares back there, and I know I got some acrid shit in my mouth. Dag’s probably just puking up bits of corpse brain. Nothing a little water and miremint hasn’t sorted out. I’ll be honest, the whole thing makes me shudder just thinking about it now it’s over, but what’s done is done, right? We lick our wounds and move on.”
Jalis glanced at the scratches and scabs on Oriken’s hands, which were more numerous than her own, given how he’d punched his way through their undead assailants as much as using his sabre. “If you want to lick those wounds,” she said, “be my guest, but my tongue is going nowhere near the rest of my body until I’ve had ten hot baths with salts and scented oils.”
Oriken puffed his cheeks in embarrassment as he forced a series of half-formed thoughts away. “Yeah, bad choice of words.” For both of us, he added silently.
“Don't ever change, Oriken,” Jalis said with a smile, seemingly oblivious to his emotional turmoil.
“Hm.”
A small frown creased her brow. “You know, considering the festering sked-hole we almost didn’t escape from, only the stars know how many infections must have gathered in that graveyard over the centuries. The surprise isn’t that Dag is vomiting his insides out, it’s that we’re not. And there’s another question. If those creatures have been dead for so long, how is it that they still haven’t fully decomposed? Some of them only looked months dead.”
Oriken cast her a sharp glance. Her words rang an alarm in his mind. She was right; he’d seen dead bodies often enough, and he knew how they rotted. The corpses in the graveyard should all be skeletons by now, if not crumbled into dust. But, as Dagra observed, there were no animals – not even spiders, thank the stars, except for their abandoned webs. No creatures meant nothing to feed on flesh. The only thing with a semblance of life, other than the dead that didn’t realise they were dead, was the fungus that covered everything.
“When did the Chiddari matron die?” he asked Jalis. “The dates on her slab, do you remember them?”
She pursed her lips, her eyes glazing over in thought. “225 is when she died.”
“More than four centuries ago.”
“Closer to five.”
“It makes no sense that they’ve still got meat on their bones. Admittedly there’s not much on most of them, but some were very meaty. They’re wandering around, exposed to the elements. Walking with what? Working muscles and tendons?” Oriken shook his head. “Withered and useless, or they should be. And as for brains, okay, some of those skulls were filled with head-soup, but I’ll bet most just have a dried little fig-like thing rattling around—”
Dagra stepped into the edge of the firelight. He mumbled a curse, bent over and retched. When he was finished, he cast Oriken a venomous glare as he wandered to his bedroll. He sat cross-legged near to the fire and pulled a blanket over his shoulders.
“Feeling better?” Jalis asked.
“Cold,” he muttered, though a sheen of sweat covered his brow. “And I’d appreciate it if you stopped talking about dead things.” He lowered his head to his chest, his breath coming in shallow gasps.
“I hate to say it,” Oriken told him, “but you do look like shit.” Dagra grunted, and Oriken leaned back on his elbows. “Let’s discuss whether we’re gonna have a look in the city.”
Jalis gave him a flat look and raised an eyebrow.
“I vote no,” Dagra said. “As if that should be a surprise. We’d be tempting fate stepping back into that accursed place. I can’t believe you still want to.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it. You’re out. It’s obvious Jalis is, too.” Oriken sighed. “Understood.” He glanced sideways at Dagra. “You know, we’d probably be put forward for our bladesmasters if we secured a fortune from the Blighted City.”
Dagra tossed a twig onto the fire. “A promotion can wait, preferably for when I’m not feeling like shit.”
“All right,” Jalis said. “Let’s drop it. As much as the place intrigues me, and that there are probably tons of historical artefacts to be found in there, it’s not like we’re going home empty-handed.”
Jalis’s expression changed. Her smile faltered and her eyes became focused. It lasted only a second, and Oriken almost missed it. Then the smile returned as her hand moved stealthily to a slit in her leggings, from which she palmed a throwing dagger.
“Why don’t you tell me some more of the legend?” she said to Oriken, a touch louder than necessary.
Taking her cue, he reached casually into the backpack at his feet. “Okay. Let me think how it goes…” He took out the mini crossbow and a case of bolts, keeping them low to the ground. Clearing his throat to disguise the noise, he pulled the string taut and nocked it onto the catch. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Er, far across Himaera over many a wild heath and moor, in the farthest corner of the land lies Lachyla, the Blighted City.” He loaded the bolt onto the crossbow deck as Jalis palmed a second throwing blade. He could feel his heart thudding as he flicked glances into the darkness. “Um… Lachyla looms over the southern cliffs like a calloused hand, held out to the waters as if warning the creatures of the deeps to stay away.” His heart thudded as he scanned the darkened heath, but beyond the fire’s glow, the grey clumps of foliage stretched into blackness.
He shared a glance with Jalis. Her nod was brief. She flicked her eyes to the edge of the clearing, where a swathe of ferns covered the descending hillside. She drew a breath. Oriken pointed the crossbow and sprang to his feet.
“You can show yourself now!” Jalis called in a clear voice. “I’d advise doing it slowly, though; my friend here has something of a twitchy finger.”
There was silence, then Jalis rose nimbly to her feet. The small blades appeared in her hands, held between thumb and forefinger. Oriken glanced at her eyes and adjusted his aim to where she was looking.
“You should be aware,” Jalis said, her tone casual
, “that even a small crossbow bolt can slip through the branches of a bogberry bush. We don’t want to hurt you.” Still nothing. After a long moment, she sighed. “All right. You leave us no choice. Orik—”
“No!” The shout came from within the foliage. “Please! I’ll stand, just don’t hurt me.” It sounded like a girl. “I’m getting up now. Here I come.” A slim figure rose amid the bushes, as nicely and slowly as Jalis suggested, and lifted her hands in surrender.
“Are you alone?” Jalis called.
“Aye. I mean, I am. Please don’t shoot me.”
“I promised we wouldn’t,” Jalis said. “Step forwards.”
The girl edged around the bushes and approached the camp, entering the reach of the fire’s glow. She was in her mid-teens, Oriken guessed. She was dressed in leggings of soft hide, a simple tunic vest and shoes, all of varying shades of tan, and all of which had seen much better days. Her light brown hair was swept across her forehead in a side parting, and hung past her shoulders. She stepped closer, and the firelight revealed faint smudges of dirt on her face and neck, arms and ankles.
Oriken eased the string off the crossbow and clipped it to his belt as Jalis returned her daggers to the folds of her leggings.
“What are you gonna do with me?” the girl asked, a tremor in her voice. Slowly, she lowered her arms. “If you ain't gonna kill me, what then?”
She looked at Oriken with fear in her eyes, her gaze taking in all of him from boots to hat. He supposed he must strike an imposing figure, being head and shoulders above the delicate waif, and still stained in graveyard gore. She probably wouldn’t have looked so scared if it had been Dagra standing before her instead, since she was about the same height as their bearded friend. Not that Dagra had even risen or uttered a word during the exchange, though his feverish gaze was glued to their unexpected visitor.
“Here,” the girl said, “you’re not gonna have your way with me, are you? Please, mister—”
Oriken stepped forwards. “For the love of the gods,” he growled. “No, I am not going to do anything to you. None of us are. Not me, not that hairy-faced midget over there, and not even this lovely lady with the daggers. What do we look like? Bandits?” The girl nodded, her eyes wide. Oriken shook his head. “Stars… Girl, we’re freeblades.”
“Feeble whats?”
Jalis beckoned her over. “Come and sit down. Tell us why you were spying on us.”
“Aye,” Dagra said. All eyes turned to him as he fixed the girl with a scowl. “And while you’re at it, since this whole region is supposed to be uninhabited, you might want to mention where in the cursed Pit you came from.”
The girl stared at him blankly.
Oriken sighed. “A little quicker, if you don’t mind.” He gestured with both hands down his grime-splattered clothing. “The sooner we figure out what to do with you, the sooner I can scrub off this fucking corpse juice.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DEMELZA
They gathered a short distance from the fire. Jalis bade the girl sit, though she herself remained standing. Oriken slouched onto a boulder, keeping close to Dagra who sat with his back against a tree trunk. Although the night was cool and pleasant with scarcely a breeze, Dagra’s drawn face and tangled hair were laced with sweat.
Oriken lowered his head and regarded their visitor from beneath the brim of his hat. She curled her legs and tucked them beneath her, leaning a hand upon the grass. To Oriken it seemed she tried to give the pretence of relaxation, but her eyes told a different tale; she was uneasy, and well she might be. Dagra’s question hung unanswered between the four of them. Where had the girl come from? No map Oriken had seen showed any settlements this deep into Scapa Fell, just Lachyla itself, the locations of several forts in the mid and northern areas, and the Death’s Head symbol right in the centre. ’Nothing here but death’ was the grim and obvious meaning.
The cartographers nailed that one on the head, Oriken thought as flashes of their escape flitted through his mind.
“Are you hungry?” Jalis asked the girl. “You look hungry.” She placed the bowl of berries on the ground in reach of them all. “Help yourself.”
The girl eyed the bowl sceptically, then she eyed Jalis. “You’ve been in the Forbidden Place, ain’tcha? I seen yous going in there. Didn’t think to see yous come back out again. Here y’are, though.”
“Is that why you were watching us?” Jalis asked. “What do you know about Lachyla?”
The girl glanced from her to Oriken, then to Dagra. Her gaze lingered on him a moment, catching his fevered eyes scrutinising her in return. To Jalis, she said, “None has gone in the Keeler since long afore me mam’s mam were born, not an’ what come back out. It’s forbidden. Anyways, it’s common sense, ain’t it? Why’d you wanna go in there for? Full o’ death, an’ nowt else.”
Oriken removed his hat and tossed it across to his bedroll, folded his arms and slouched further down onto the boulder. The stench from his own body was beyond irritating. Not only did his clothes reek of dead people, but they also itched to the high Void, from sweat, and grit, and the stars knew what else had found its way beneath his trousers and shirt, not to mention his hat. He could almost hear the song of sirens in the nearby stream, softly calling his name. Come to us, Oriken, they sang in their sweet, dulcet tones. Come, let us wash you clean…
“What’s your name?” he barked at the girl, then grimaced; it had come out much harsher than he’d intended, half-directed as it was to his imaginary sirens.
“Me?” The girl grinned. Still looked wary, though. Her teeth were surprisingly clean for someone so ragged-looking. “Me’s the Melza.”
“Huh?” Oriken shared a glance with Jalis. “Demelza, you say?”
“Aye.” The girl nodded. “That’s what they call me.”
Jalis leaned in slightly. “They?”
Demelza pursed her lips and glanced sidelong at Oriken. “You don’t smell so good, you know?”
“I'll ask you again, lass,” Dagra growled. “Where are you from?”
Demelza cocked her head to the east. “Out yonder. From the Minnow’s Beck.”
Oriken gave her a bemused grin. “You live in the stream?”
Jalis shot him a look of disappointment. “Is Minnow’s Beck your village?” she asked the girl.
Demelza nodded, drew her legs from beneath her and hugged them to her chest. “That’s the beck, down there.” She pointed between the trees to the quietly-trickling stream.
“The stream runs to where she lives,” Jalis said. “So there are settlements out here, after all.”
“No minnows, though,” Dagra mumbled. “Another stupid name. Seems to be a trend in these parts.”
Jalis lowered herself to her haunches, took a berry from the bowl and placed it into her mouth. “Demelza, we’re leaving this area in the morning. You’ll not see us again. You’ve got no reason to be afraid. We have what we came for, and believe me when I say we have no intention of returning after we’ve gone.”
The girl frowned. “You took summat from there, didn’tcha?” She glanced up at Oriken. “You shouldn’t have done that.” Turning her gaze to Dagra, she said, “Ain’t no good’ll come of it. Mark me. No one goes in, an’ nowt comes out. Mostly nowt an’ no one, anyways. How it’s always been. How it should be.”
“Are you sure no one ever enters the graveyard?” Jalis asked.
“That’s what I said, ain’t it?” Demelza turned her eyes to the ground.
Jalis eyed the girl shrewdly. “You said mostly.”
“You shouldn't have opened the gate,” Demelza said.
“Near the entrance there’s a rotten rope hanging from the ramparts,” Jalis said. “That means someone entered the place, and either left the same way or didn’t leave at all. Do you know anything about that, Demelza?”
Again, Demelza averted her gaze. “I do know someone else went in with a ladder a long time ago, back when me mam’s mam’s mam were alive. Not that I ever knew m
e mam. I seen the rope though; everyone has who’s been to the gates, but I don't know nothin' about it. I ain’t no Tail-whiffer.”
“One riddle after another,” Jalis said, looking deep in thought.
“It doesn't matter.” Oriken scratched at his stubbled chin. “Come sundown tomorrow, the city will be so far south of us that no gates or runes or disgruntled dead folk will mean a jot.”
“You’re lucky to have come out, but you’ll not stay lucky if you keep what you took. I ain’t joking.” Demelza shook her head vehemently, although the hint of a smile seemed to play at her lips. “You weren't the first; you’re right wi' that. All I know is one went in there back in me mam's mam's mam's time. One from Minnow's Beck.” To Jalis, she said, “Can I stand?” Jalis gestured for her to do so and Demelza rose, brushed the seat of her leggings, then folded her arms. “Feller who went in there, his boy had died, so they say.”
Demelza’s eyes flicked to each of them in turn. When she cast Oriken a sidelong glance, he shot her an equally sidelong scowl. Something was nagging at him and he didn't like the feel of it. “Go on,” he told her.
“The feller went in the Forbidden Place at noon, safest time as it is an’ all. Found himself a deadstone an’ brought it home.”
Dagra shifted against the stump, his attention snagged. “A deadstone?”
“Aye. Him an’ his grievin’ missus lay the deadstone wi’ their dead bairn in the boy’s room. Left it for ages; months, so they say—”
Jalis raised a finger. “I hesitate to ask this, but what’s a deadstone?”
“Well, it’s a stone, ain’t it? Y’know, what the dead have.”
Oriken smiled to himself as Jalis struggled to maintain her composure.
Demelza unfolded her arms and hitched a thumb into the top of her leggings. “Anyway, the bairn stayed in his room, decomposin’ but not as much as he should’a done. Then one night, his mam – a woman named the Neira – she awoke to the sound o’ summat eatin’, all gristly and fleshy. She whispered her feller’s name. He never answered, but the chewin’ stopped. She reached out to him and touched summat wet and raw, and that’s when she saw the glint o’ starlight in the eyes o’ the thing what squatted over him. She jumped from the bed and ran out the house, screamin’ the place down. Their boy were back from the dead an’ feastin’ on his pa. After all that time, he’d got up when he were good an’ ready and went lookin’ for food. Must’a been starvin’. I reckon the Neira would’a been next if she hadn’t woke. I’ll take some o’ them berries now.” Demelza scooped a handful of the bogberries and popped them into her mouth, one by one.
