Black Halo

by Sykes, Sam

  ‘Unnecessary.’

  ‘Don’t know what that means.’

  ‘It means—’

  ‘Don’t care, either.’

  She howled, iron voice grinding against jagged teeth as she rushed him. Her blade came out in an unruly swing, adding its metal groan to her roar as it clove the air, hungry for Gariath’s neck, or torso, or head. A blade that big couldn’t be picky.

  He ducked, more from reflex than desire, and dropped to all fours, meeting her rush with horns to her belly. It was impossible not to shudder at the blow, not to marvel at the rock-hard muscle he pressed against as he shoved, driving her back only one minuscule, agonising step.

  As he extended his last weary breath, his muscles giving out at the futility and his mind fighting hard to remember a time when this had been easy, it was impossible to think of a reason to keep going … and even more so to keep from listening to her long, loud laugh.

  ‘Come on,’ she whined. ‘How are you going to kill me this way?’

  It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. He remembered shrugging off blows like this before. Yet her first came down upon his neck and sent him buckling to his knees effortlessly. She made a clicking sound of disapproval, which he noticed less than the second strike she delivered. It was an intimate blow, all three metal-bound knuckles of her hand digging into his red flesh, finding a tender, affectionate spot between his shoulder blades.

  Not possible. His thoughts ran wild, leaking out of his mouth as he hacked wildly, I don’t have tender spots.

  His spine disagreed. His vertebrae rattled against each other, sinew bunched up painfully at the force that ran up his back and into his skull, sending brain slamming against bone and sending body crashing to the earth.

  That’s never happened before …

  That it had happened should have shocked him. It was difficult to feel shock, fear, pain, anything. Every scrap of consciousness was devoted to keeping his eyes open, to resist the urge to sleep into darkness, though he didn’t know why. At least if he fell now, he wouldn’t have to see the long, purple face leering down at him.

  ‘You’re doing it wrong.’ Her voice was clear and sharp as a knife.

  Funny, but he hadn’t expected there to be a right way to die. The fact that he had been doing it wrong did explain a lot. He might have mentioned this to her, had his throat not been swelling up.

  ‘It’s fine for us to do this, you know,’ she said. ‘But we’re netherlings. We come from nothing. We return to nothing. We live. We breed. We kill. We die. This is all there is in life.’ She reached down and tapped his red brow. ‘Note that third part, though, about the killing. That’s important.’

  Her throat loomed over him. His hand would just about fit around it, he figured, but it trembled, refused to rise.

  And why should it? he asked himself. Whatever your body knows, you didn’t. Now you’re both done. There’s nothing left.

  ‘But overscum are supposed to have bigger things on their minds, yeah? They talk to invisible people, spend their whole lives hoarding bits of metal instead of making them into weapons; they do stupid stuff like plant crops and store food and leave it all to wailing whelps who did nothing to deserve it. Point being … you’ve got reasons to scream, don’t you?’

  His breath came in shrill whispers, leaking through a closing throat, just enough to breathe, just enough to think.

  Kill her and then what? What’s left? Kill more, kill more, live in death. Die, live in nothingness … but with nothing to think about, to speak about, no one left to disappear.

  ‘But that’s what’s so fascinating to us. To Carnassials, that is.’ She glanced over the cliff. ‘And some males. We’ve never seen this before, a breed that worries about so many stupid things and lives in complete fear of whatever invisible thing they talk to and is concerned with things other than breeding and killing. It’s like … watching ants. That’s the correct animal, right? Yeah … ants that run around and cling to every little piece of dirt like it’s the greatest piece they’ve ever seen, even as a thousand more lie around. Take that piece away, and what do they do? Some grab new ones, but most sit there … like you.’

  And how much dirt have you been clinging to? Grahta, Grandfather, the humans … they’re all gone. How much more can you pick up?

  ‘You’re not going to get up, are you?’ She rose up, took her sword in both hands.

  This won’t be so bad.

  ‘No more dirt, huh?’

  No more hurting; no more being alone.

  ‘Too bad.’

  She raised the weapon, angled the flat edge of it at his throat. It would be messy.

  No more rivers; no more rocks.

  ‘Hey, maybe you’re right about the whole invisible thing, yeah? If so, I’m sure you’ll see your pink friends there with you by tonight.’

  No more anything … It’ll be so great …

  ‘Anyway …’

  ‘SHENKO-SA!’

  He blinked. Those words weren’t said by the longface. That shrill, shrieking sound didn’t emanate from her, either.

  The loud, angry roar as she staggered away, clutching at the arrow embedded in her side, however, certainly did.

  Gariath was almost afraid to look across the river, afraid that he would see the pointy-eared one. If she had placed the timely arrow and saved him, he resolved he would die right then and there, hopefully taking her with him. He was prepared for that possibility, prepared for the idea that it might have come from nowhere and given him an opportunity to take one last breath before lying down and dying.

  What he saw, however, he was not prepared for.

  Not Rhega, but definitely not human, the creature stood, tall and covered in green scales, at the other side of the river. His long, black bow was in a powerful, clawed hand. His body, ringed by black-and-red tattoos, was tensed and muscular. Behind his long, lashing tail, more like him – more reptilian creatures – stared at Gariath with broad, yellow eyes down long, green snouts.

  The one in front raised his hand, regarded Gariath through his single yellow eye, and spoke.

  ‘Inda-ah, Rhega.’

  ‘What?’ he breathed.

  ‘I knew it! I knew it!’ He looked to see the longface pulling the arrow free without wincing, as though she were simply scratching an itch with a jagged, biting head. ‘Xhai said you all got up when someone started mocking you! I didn’t believe her!’

  He swept his stare across the river again. The creatures were gone; nothing but greenery remained where they had once stood. Perhaps he had imagined them; perhaps they hadn’t ever been there …

  But that arrow on the sand, covered in blood, was impossible to imagine. And it lay there now. He looked from it to the longface staggering toward him, dragging her weapon.

  Good enough.

  ‘I didn’t think it would work. I owe Xhai a—’

  If she saw the fist coming, she didn’t move away.

  A possibility, Gariath conceded, but one he was willing to accept as he and his arm rose as one, his knuckles connecting with her chin and sending her head snapping back. She was all skull – that much was apparent from his aching fist, if not her conversation.

  She, too, was ready to accept. She accepted his punches as he followed with two more in rapid succession, feeling bones shake, but not break, under his fists. She accepted the ground lost as he drove her back. She accepted his horns again, accepted the broken nose as he drove his head against her face.

  Only when he stepped back, waiting for her to fall that he might end it with a foot to her skull, did she refuse to accept. She pulled her face back up to stare at him, neck creaking as she did, teeth flashing in a grin that had only grown more wild as blood from her spattered visage dripped over her lips.

  ‘Yeah …’

  She came howling again, no concern for strategy, position or anything but the imminent and immediate desire to bring her blade swinging up to lop off his head. A moment of nostalgia swept over him at the s
ight of such recklessness, followed by a moment of swift panic as he saw the blade just as eager as her, sweeping up towards his head.

  He caught it on his wrist, the metal gnawing at the metal bracers there. She drove the blade harder, straining to chew through and cleave his hand from his wrist, his head from his neck. He pushed back just as hard, reaching up to place his free hand on the edge. It was an effort tinged in blood as the weapon bit into his palm, making his grip slick as he shoved back, but an effort that sent the blade swinging wide and leaving her open.

  He wasn’t sure if he was roaring or laughing, didn’t bother to think which it might have been, just as he didn’t wonder why his muscles suddenly felt so easy, so strong. There was blood on the ground, blood in his nostrils, anger in his veins and a purple neck beneath his claws.

  Good enough.

  He clenched, clawed, heard her gurgle as her blood seeped out over his palms, blending with his own. He refused to release her as she groped at him with one hand, dropped her massive, suddenly unwieldy weapon to punch at him with the other. Blows rained upon his head, one after the other. He felt the agony, felt his skull want to crack, but refused to succumb to either.

  Instead, he swung his body to the side and she followed, like a purple boulder. Releasing, he sent her crashing into the ridge. The earth cracked before she did, but she stood there, bleeding from nose and neck, murder flashing in her eyes, breath coming hot and hateful from between jagged teeth.

  ‘That’s it,’ she snarled, ‘that’s it. This is how it’s going to happen. This is how it has to happen. From nothing, to nothing.’

  ‘And no one will remember you,’ he uttered. ‘I won’t leave enough of you for it.’

  ‘Fine, that’s just fine,’ she gasped. Her hand slipped behind her belt. ‘Good to know you’ve got a plan. Thinking ahead, grabbing your pieces of dirt …’ Her hand whipped out, sent the green vial spinning toward him. ‘STUPID!’

  He had smelled it before she pulled it out, recognised it. Poison, the same that had felled Abysmyths, ate their flesh like fire ate paper. He wasn’t sure if it worked similarly on things not demonic, but he was hardly willing to see for curiosity’s sake.

  He darted aside; the vial smashed against the rock and he felt a few sputtering instances of pain as droplets spat out and licked his back. His flesh burned; the scent of it sizzling filled his nostrils. It hurt, he admitted as he clenched his teeth, a lot.

  ‘QAI ZHOTH!’

  So did the spinning blade that followed Dech’s screech. He remembered this weapon, the curved knife with its cruel, jagged edge. And it certainly remembered him, it seemed, as it sank into his shoulder and bit deeply, metal prongs slaking themselves on his blood. Pain racked him, coursing through his body in such excessive quantity that it screamed to be shared.

  ‘Gnaw, bite, gnash,’ Dech snarled as she took off charging toward him. ‘AKH ZEKH LAKH!’

  He met her, muscle for muscle, fury for fury. They gripped each other about each other’s throats, turning, twisting, staggering as they fought for control for their respective tracheas. Gariath slipped his hands up, releasing her throat, seizing her by the temples. Her smile was momentary, lasting only as long as it took him to slip his clawed thumbs into her eyes and push.

  He had heard her scream in fury and hatred, but the sound of her pain was enough to make him step away momentarily. It lasted only as long as it took her to lash out blindly, searching for him, snarling for him. He roared in reply, seizing her by the wrist, spinning her about and twisting it behind her back. His limbs worked in furious conjunction, his spare hand grabbing her by her hair, his free foot slamming onto her back, driving her to her knees, then her belly.

  There his foot remained, wedged firmly between her shoulder blades as he narrowed his eyes, tightened his grip on her wild white spikes of hair and pulled.

  Stubborn as the rest of her, it came slowly, hair clinging to her with such vindictiveness that scarcely any came off in his hand. But he did not stop pulling, as her neck craned. He did not stop pulling, as she screamed in panic and beat at his ankle in bloody blindness. He did not stop pulling, as he heard her flesh begin to rip.

  By the time he stared down at a glistening red pate, a mop of crimson and white clenched in his claw, it seemed pointless to keep going.

  He tossed it aside, taking only enough time to see that she had stopped moving, before turning away and looking back over the cliff. The other side wasn’t too far, he saw, and the scent of the creatures, their dead leaves and dry rivers, was still there, despite the blood seeping into his nostrils. He could keep going downriver, find a fallen tree or a narrow gap, and from there he could—

  ‘QAI ZHOTH!’

  She struck him from behind, wrapping arms about his torso. Blind and scalped, nothing remained of her save arms and feet, the latter of which pumped furiously, edging him towards the cliff.

  ‘Nothing else, nothing else,’ she babbled behind him as he lashed out, seeking to dislodge her with an elbow, ‘there is nothing else but this.’

  They staggered toward the edge, the riverbed and its sharp rocks waiting just below a surface of deceptively pristine blue. Gariath had no fear for that, no mind to think of anything but his enemy, thick in his nostrils, heavy on his back. He reached behind him as they tumbled over, seizing her blood-slick pate and twisting, tail lashing, wings flapping.

  They plummeted, a brief struggle in the air, her shrieking, him roaring, until they finally righted themselves. She, the heavier in her iron skin. He, on top of her like a red anvil, hands wrapped about her face.

  They hit the water in an eruption of red and white froth. Gariath, too, was plunged into blindness like his foe. But the battle was his, he knew, as she lay unmoving beneath him.

  When the water settled and she lay beneath the water, skull neatly bisected like a rock, it was unnecessary to do more than rise, snort and stagger away.

  ‘Any happier now, Wisest?’ The grandfather was there, seated on the rocks jutting from the river. ‘Find a good reason to keep going?’

  ‘No thanks to you,’ Gariath snorted. ‘You didn’t tell me about them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The creatures, the green things. They called me Rhega.’

  ‘You have not been called that before?’

  ‘Not by anything that looks like me.’

  ‘You said they were green, not red.’

  ‘Closer than pink,’ he growled. ‘Tell me, then, Grandfather, who are they?’

  ‘They are … lost, Wisest,’ Grandfather replied. ‘They will lead you to nothing.’

  Gariath regarded the spirit for a moment. His eyes narrowed as he saw something in him. No, Gariath thought, it was at this moment that he saw through him. The spirit waxed, his shape trembling, becoming hazy as the sunlight poured through him. In this light, there was nothing to Grandfather, nothing hard, nothing blooded, nothing fleshy.

  And Gariath turned his back to the spirit, stalking down the river.

  ‘Where do you go, Wisest?’ Grandfather called after him.

  ‘To nothing,’ he replied.

  Twenty-Three

  QUESTIONS OF A VISCERAL

  NATURE

  ‘If he asks for water, don’t give him any,’ the young man posing as a guard said, waving his key ring like a symbol of authority. ‘And I wouldn’t look at him directly, if I were you.’ He sneered. ‘It’s a mess.’

  Bralston nodded briefly as the young man cracked open the reinforced door to the converted warehouse room that served as a prison. It opened into shadow, which Bralston stepped into.

  The door swung shut behind him, the cramped quarters swallowing the echo. He turned on his heel and walked deeper, taking a moment to scratch the corner of his eye as he removed his hat. The room had likely been storage for the least important objects, possibly the least important members of society, if the smell was any suggestion. The walls were as tall and wide as two men, the only source of light a dim beam seeping in from a g
rated hole above. Dust swirled within it, flakes clawing over each other in a futile bid to escape.

  Against the pervasive despair, the figure huddled pitifully against the wall was scarcely noticeable.

  Bralston said nothing, at first, content only to observe. Taking the man in – at least, he had been told it was a man – was difficult, for the sheer commitment with which he pressed himself against the wall.

  The Librarian could make out his features: scraggly beard that had once been kempt, a broad frame used to standing tall now railing against its owner’s determination to hunch, a single, gleaming eye cast down at the floor, heavy-lidded, unblinking.

  ‘I am here to speak with you,’ Bralston said, his voice painful in the silence.

  The man said nothing in reply.

  ‘Your assistance is required.’

  Bralston felt his ire rise at the man’s continued quiet.

  ‘Cooperation,’ he said, clenching his hand, ‘is compulsory.’

  ‘How long, sir, have you been seeking my company?’

  The man spoke without flinching, without looking up. The voice had once been booming, he could tell. Something had hollowed it out with sharp fingers and left only a smothered whisper.

  ‘Approximately one week.’

  A chuckle, black and once used to herald merry terrors. ‘I lament my lack of surprise. But would it surprise you that I was once a man whose presence was fleeting as gentle zephyrs?’ He leaned back, resting a hand on a massive knee. ‘I once was, despite the shrouded sorrow before you.’ He drummed curiously short, stubby fingers. ‘I once was.’

  A closer glance revealed both the fact that the man’s fingers were, in fact, fleshy stumps, and that the hairy backs of his hands were twisted with tattoos. Consequently, any sympathy or desire to know what had happened to the man passed quickly.

  Cragsman.

  Whatever cruelties had been visited upon this man by whomever was undoubtedly kindness compared to the blood he had shed, the lives he had defiled. Bralston felt his left eyelid twitch at the fate of the last Cragsman he had known.

  ‘Your … days of zephyr, as it were, are the object of concern,’ Bralston said curtly.