Black Halo

by Sykes, Sam

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I met your victim.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘You took everything from her, including her name.’

  ‘It comes down to females again?’ Sheraptus snarled, thrusting a finger and sending a jagged blue arc over the man’s bald, brown head. ‘Are vaginae truly so scarce on this world as to be worth this much trouble?’

  Lenk took it as his good fortune that the longface’s attentions were so focused elsewhere. His eyes were drawn past the robed figure to the doors of the cabin, just as his thoughts were drawn to Kataria, undoubtedly inside. It would be a simple matter of crossing, infiltrating and retrieving with Sheraptus so distracted.

  As simple as matters involving wizards can be, at least.

  As if on cue, he felt a familiar hand, far too scrawny and sweaty as to be particularly worrying, on his shoulder. He turned to see Dreadaeleon’s sweat-slick visage and purple-circled eyes staring intently at him.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ he noted.

  ‘It’s incredible.’ The intensity of the boy’s grin raised some concern in Lenk. ‘All of a sudden, the weakness … it was gone! I … I can cast again, Lenk. I can channel it. It feels …’

  His eyes went unnervingly wide as he rose up. His pelvis, Lenk noted, was far too close to Lenk’s face before the boastful thrusting began.

  ‘Look! Not a drop of moisture, not a trace of fire, not a wisp of smoke!’ the boy proclaimed loudly. ‘Look! Look!’

  ‘No! No!’ Lenk seized him by his belt, pulling forcibly down. ‘Now, listen, the longface is distracted and you’re feeling …’ He paused, shook his head. ‘We’re not talking about that anymore. Denaos very clearly didn’t make it or he’d have let us know. We’ve got to go in and—’

  ‘Save them,’ Dreadaeleon said, nodding. ‘I can feel it, just thinking about it. The power … I can feel the surge. Isn’t that fascinating? Venarie is internal, to be sure, but it’s ruled by thought and logic, not emotion. For it to work this way is—’

  ‘Can you go out and get burned alive or something distracting?’ Lenk asked. ‘That … bird-man-thing can’t hold him off forever.’

  ‘The Librarians are trained to great feats of endurance and power, Lenk,’ the boy replied. ‘He can do more than you or I could.’ He winced. ‘And, you know, I’m technically obligated to help him as a member of the Venarium.’

  ‘Treason, treachery, betrayal,’ the voice, frigid and sharp hissed inside Lenk’s head. ‘They are useless. We are—’

  ‘Dead,’ the voice, feverish and burning roared inside Lenk’s brain. ‘You’re dead. You had your chance. You’re going to—’

  ‘Ignore that. Focus on duty. Focus on—’

  ‘Her. She’s dead, too. You’re all dead and—’

  ‘Enough, enough, enough,’ Lenk growled to all assembled. ‘I can do this without any of you.’ He glared at Dreadaeleon. ‘If you’re going to be useless, I can do it without you, too.’

  ‘Useless?’ The boy mopped sweat off his brow, flicked it at Lenk. ‘Do you think I got this from jogging in place all this time you’ve been unconscious, vulnerable and oh-so-stabbable? I’ve been setting on fire, freezing into ice, frying into blackness and otherwise harming the longfaces. There were ten more on this deck before you woke!’

  ‘Eleven.’

  The longface came shortly after the word, leading in with a purple fist that drove into Dreadaeleon’s jaw and sent him sprawling to the deck. Lenk had scarcely enough time to blink before her hand jerked backward and slammed him against the mast while she took a moment to drive a foot into the writhing boy’s ribs.

  ‘He’s already—’ Lenk began to protest.

  ‘No,’ the longface interrupted, smashing her fist into his face.

  He felt the bone-deep quake, felt his skin ripple across his flesh with the force of the blow. His vision did not so much swim as struggle to keep from drowning, eyesight fading as he saw first the remorseless, uncaring long face, then blackness, then her drawn-back fist, then darkness again.

  He felt the knuckles connect with his jaw, even if he didn’t see them.

  Perhaps he was still dizzy from his previous awakening, he thought. That’s why this was so easy for the longface to beat him so savagely. Perhaps this one was just particularly strong, or perhaps they had all been stronger than he suspected. Or had he always been weaker than he thought?

  By the fourth blow, and the torrents of glistening red pouring from his nose, his thoughts shifted to something else.

  Sword, he told himself. Need my sword. The head … where is it? Sword, head, sword, head … someone …

  ‘We need no one,’ the voice rang across rime.

  ‘No one will come for you,’ the voice hissed across fever.

  And they, too, faded, with every blow the longface rained on him. His neck felt like a willow branch, his head like a lead weight. His arms were impotent as he tried to shield himself from her attacks. He felt bruises blossoming under his skin, cuts opening on his brow, his jaw. Eyelids fluttering, he stared at the longface as she stared back, appraisingly.

  ‘Huh,’ she said. ‘Don’t stop to talk before you kill ’em and they just fold right up, don’t they?’

  She might have had a point, as the only words he could muster were vain pleas – whether to her or someone else, anyone else, he didn’t know – through blistered lips and a tongue swelling with coppery taste. She didn’t seem to be listening, in any case, as she knelt down before him and pulled a jagged, short blade from her belt and brought it down in a vicious chop.

  He caught her arm as a tree branch catches a boulder. His wrist threatened to snap under the pressure, trembling as she strove to bring the blade down towards his soft throat, which twitched so invitingly.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Lenk took a quick, despairing stock. Dreadaeleon lay fallen. Gariath was still far over the edge. Denaos was dead, Asper likely with him and Kataria …

  Kataria was standing there, not twenty feet away.

  She was scrambling across the deck hurriedly, pausing only to snatch up a fallen bow and a pair of arrows. Her eyes were on the companionway at the opposite end of the ship, ignoring Sheraptus hurling curses and fire at the sky, the Librarian spewing frost back at him.

  She didn’t even see Lenk.

  ‘Kat!’

  Not until he screamed, anyway.

  She skidded to a halt, looking at him with worrying confusion. She seemed to recognise him in another instant and frowned, either at him or his situation, he wasn’t sure.

  ‘Kat! Help!’

  His plea for aid twisted in his throat and became a shriek of agony as the longface’s blade came crashing down into the tender meat of his shoulder. He fought back against her still, but even as he kept the blade from biting deeper into his flesh, the jagged teeth sawed at him. His ears were filled with the sound of each sinewy strand snapping under it so that he was only scarcely sure he was still screaming.

  ‘KATARIA!’

  ‘Gone,’ a voice said sorrowfully.

  It was right. He saw, in fleeting glimpses, the shict cringing, then turning and fleeing into the confines of the companionway. She didn’t even look behind her. She hadn’t even heard him.

  ‘She did,’ a voice hissed angrily. ‘She betrayed us.’

  ‘Betrayed you,’ another said. ‘Abandoned you.’

  ‘What now?’ he gasped through blood and tears. ‘What …?’

  ‘Fight back.’

  ‘Give up.’

  With a blade in his shoulder, his companions gone and the very reason he came to this ship of blood vanishing into shadow, one option seemed much more tempting than the other.

  He never got to make the choice, however, as Dreadaeleon staggered to his feet and, from there, staggered into the longface. Kneeling as she had been, she toppled over with a grunt of surprise, releasing the blade and focusing her attentions and fists on the boy.

  He, however, was just as focused on her. And
only one of them had crimson light in their eyes.

  His hands, pitifully scrawny, clutched her throat, indomitably thick. The word, soft in his throat, went unheard through her snarling. The blue electricity that raced down into his fingertips, however, demanded her attention.

  Crackling became sizzling became sputtering as her snarling became screaming became frothing convulsion. Her teeth all but welded together as the lightning coursed from his fingers into her body, snaking past purple skin and into thick bone. As though she were some blackening bull, Dreadaeleon fought to hold on as she seized violently on the deck, his fingers digging into flesh growing softer, eyes turning to red spears as they narrowed.

  When it was finally over, he slid his fingers from well-cooked meat, wisps of smoke whispering out from ten tiny holes. He clambered off, exhausted, but not spent as he looked to Lenk accusingly.

  ‘You could have fought back,’ he said angrily.

  ‘No point …’ Lenk said. ‘She’s gone, she’s gone.’

  ‘Who? Asper?’

  ‘Kataria.’

  ‘Oh … well, yeah, why wouldn’t she? She’s a—’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lenk said, reaching up to clutch his bleeding shoulder. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So … what now?’

  Lenk made no reply, but an answer came to him as a great red hand appeared at the railing. They heard the grunt, saw Gariath haul himself up and over onto the deck. He spotted them just as quickly and rushed over, panting heavily, ignoring the battle raging between the two wizards.

  ‘Up,’ he snarled. ‘Get up.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Dreadaeleon asked.

  ‘Big problem,’ Gariath muttered. ‘Big problem.’

  ‘Where’s Togu?’

  ‘Dead, maybe? I don’t know. Now get up. We’ve got a big problem.’

  ‘You’ve said that already but—’

  There was the sound of a distant voice shouting commands in a deep, rolling tongue, audible even over the carnage on the deck. They looked out to see the ocean alight with a swarm of fireflies, dozens of little orange dots reflected upon the waters.

  ‘Are those …?’

  At another distant command, the fireflies rose. One more and they flew. By the time Lenk and Dreadaeleon realised the lights were no insects, they heard nothing but the shrieking of shafts and the sizzling of fire.

  ‘Get down!’ Gariath snarled, shoving the two of them behind the mast.

  The arrows came plummeting, singing mournful dirges accompanied by crackling fire. Sheraptus glanced up just in time to throw his hand out, the air rippling as the missiles struck an unseen wall and went quivering. Those females surrounding him that had not noticed in time to bring shields up became smouldering porcupines in an instant.

  The entire ship seemed to shudder with the sound of heads biting deeply into wood and flames snarling angrily as they passed through sails. After an eternity of waiting, Lenk dared to peer around the mast.

  Across the sea, he saw them, their green faces and yellow eyes aflame as they lit fresh arrows. Their tattoos of red and black were stark against the firelight, causing them to resemble ghouls fresh from a grave, rotted wrinkles and throbbing veins bright on their dire expressions.

  Shen, he recognised. Three long canoes full of Shen. Drawing arrows back.

  ‘That …’ he whispered, ‘that is a problem.’

  Gariath shook his head. ‘No, moron. I said we had a big problem.’

  ‘That’s not big?’ Dreadaeleon said, astonished.

  He was answered as the sound of a distant horn rose from the canoes.

  And in the next moment, the horn, too, was answered.

  In the eruption of the sea and the violent vomit of froth, a resonating roar tore through the sea and ripped into the sky. Combatants and companions alike were thrust to the deck as the ship rocked with the force of a violently disturbed wave. Black against the night sky, a creature rose into the air, a great, writhing pillar topped with two menacing yellow eyes.

  The Akaneed stared down at the deck as those upon it stared back up at the titanic snake. Its head snapped forward, jaws parting to expose rows of needlelike teeth, a roar tearing out of its throat on sheets of salty miss.

  ‘That,’ Gariath roared over it, ‘is big.’

  You served your people.

  Kataria heard it over her own footsteps.

  Yours was a duty to all shicts.

  Kataria heard it over her own thoughts.

  You did the right thing.

  Kataria did not believe it.

  And yet, she continued down the stairs of the companionway, all the same. She may have doubted the quality of the Howling’s message, but was driven forward by the frequency and urgency of its insistence. It spoke inside her a dozen times with each step she took.

  You did the right thing. You did the right thing. You did the right thing.

  By the time she reached the end of the stairs, she knew it was right, because the shict who spoke to her knew it was right. It had ceased to be reassurance, ceased to be a message. It was knowledge now, as primal a knowledge as knowing how to swim and to hunt.

  But with the next step, between the two hundred and forty-first time and the two hundred and forty-second time she heard it, she knew she still didn’t believe it.

  Perhaps it was that doubt that no shict could ever feel for the Howling that brought the tears to her eyes. Perhaps those came from a different instinct altogether. She didn’t dare think on it. She brushed them from her face with the back of her hand. If she began weeping now, over a human, over the doubt, that knowledge would become shared.

  And she could not bear the thought of descending and finding her kinsman weeping as well.

  The sight that greeted her in the vast ship’s hold, however, was one of emptiness. Benches and cots lined the hull, presumably for the netherlings to sleep upon when they weren’t fighting, crushing, killing, shoving jagged blades into throats from which her name emerged on blood-choked screams …

  Stop it, she told herself.

  Stop it, the Howling agreed.

  And she did. It was powerful here, speaking to her with greater clarity, greater urgency. It needed only to speak once, and she knew it to be true. She felt her eyes drawn to the darkness at the end of the cabin, the great void that ate the light of overhanging oil lamps. She could see the shadows of a cage’s cold iron bars, and while she could see nothing beyond that, she could hear something; she could feel something.

  A heartbeat. A thought. A knowledge that was hers. A knowledge that was theirs.

  A shict.

  She had barely taken another step when she noticed the lone netherling in her path, and then only after she noticed the jagged blade hurtling towards her. She fell to the deck, hearing the blade’s frustrated wail as its teeth sheared only a few hairs from her head.

  ‘Just how many colours do you things come in?’ the longface grunted.

  Kataria’s answer came with a growl.

  The arrow was up and in the bow, drawn back as far as she could force the rigid thing to go, and launched a moment later. A moment was all it took, however, for the longface’s shield to go up, sending the missile ringing off.

  Stupid piece of … Kataria thought irately, glowering at the weapon. Who the hell would call this stick a bow?

  The netherling, apparently, agreed, if the broad grin with which she raised her sword was any indication. Still, she refused to advance, holding her shield up defensively as she watched Kataria draw her final arrow back. Such lack of a willingness to have a piece of iron wedged in one’s brow, the shict figured, was likely what led this one to be below.

  And yet it served her frustratingly well as Kataria aimed and launched, slipping past the longface’s shield to find an unyielding iron breastplate below. It was clear, then, that what the black bow lacked in accuracy it made up for in power. The longface was driven back a step, nothing more than an inconvenience before she readied to charge upon the now-defenceless shi
ct.

  Still, Kataria smiled. A single step was all she had needed.

  The green fingers that came slithering out between the bars would handle the rest.

  The longface’s cry was brief as the long fingers, attached to longer hands and longer arms still, wrapped around her throat in five tiny pythons. They scarcely trembled as they intertwined and pulled her back towards the bars, possessed of a cold passionlessness that suggested this was just one more neck, like all the other necks that had been strangled. Cold hands. Killer hands.

  Shict hands.

  Kataria forced herself to watch as the crown of the long-face’s head was pulled between the bars, her screams choked as she was fed head-first into an unyielding iron mouth. There was nothing to silence the sound of bone groaning and popping as, hairsbreadth by agonising hairsbreadth, she was pulled between bars that would not accommodate her thick skull.

  This, she reminded herself, was what shicts did. Shicts did what they had to. The world, filled with diseases of pink and purple, left them no choice.

  The long, purple face was consumed in the void of the cage. Her body twitched soundlessly for but a moment before her legs went slack, bending her back at an awkward angle as she lay still, thick neck wedged between the bars and suspending her in standing, artificial rigour.

  Cold, killer fingers slipped out and calmly reached into a pouch at the longface’s belt. A few moments of deft search revealed a wrought-iron key that was drawn out neatly between two green digits. A faint clicking noise emerged after those fingers vanished back into shadow. The cage door groaned as it swung open, dragging the corpse frozen in its grip across the deck with it.

  He stepped out of the void, a great green plant out of dark earth, stepping lightly on feet bearing thumbs. Countless time in a cramped cage had done nothing to stunt his stature as he rose high enough for his bald pate to scrape the underside of the oil lamp above him. From his groin up, a long line of symbols ran the length of his body, each one a story.

  And each one a death. Of wife. Of child. Of their murderers.

  Each symbol was no bigger than a thumbprint, but each sorrow and every hatred was condensed into a pattern of lines that only a shict would know.