by Simon Morden
‘Wait,’ called Dalip, trotting up behind her, his feet sinking into the soft dry sand and causing him to have an awkward, almost stumbling gait.
‘You got something to say too?’
‘Me? No. What I know about relationships could be written on a stamp.’
She laughed despite her mood.
‘What is it, then?’
‘I wanted to,’ and he stopped, his lips twisting and no words coming out. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Fuck, Dalip. Sometimes you need to just say it.’
‘Okay.’ He took a deep breath. ‘If it comes to it, save the maps, not us.’
‘What?’
‘At least that way, one of us might survive. If you can’t carry the box, because it’s the wrong shape and too heavy, how many maps do you think you can hold in your claws?’ He waited for an answer, but she was too stunned to say yes or no. ‘We might get five minutes from shore, when I do something stupid and turn the boat over. If those maps get wet, they’re ruined for ever. So even if it’s just an accident, and we can get right way up again, we’ve lost the point of the journey. So you have to get as many maps as possible to safety, whatever happens to us.’
‘You want me to watch you drown?’
‘No. But who are you going to save? Me? Mama? Luiza or Elena? And while you’re doing that, you’re not saving the maps.’ He looked surprised at his own words. ‘We’ve all talked about it, and we’re agreed.’
‘Without asking me.’
‘Or letting Crows know.’ He held up his hand to forestall argument. ‘We have to consider that he’ll try and take the maps, just like we have to consider storms, shipwreck and me screwing up.’
‘Okay. Okay.’ She felt even considering the matter was a defeat. They might have decided she would be the last woman standing, but she didn’t have to go along with that when the time came. She could say yes with her mouth, and no with her heart. It wasn’t like she didn’t lie every five minutes back in London. ‘I’ll try. Carrying you was hard, but at least you were the right shape. Prey-shaped. What if we ditch the box, maybe rig up some sort of sling I can grab?’
‘It’s not that we won’t try and save ourselves. None of us want to die, and who knows? Crows might do the saving for us, flip the boat back over and dump each of us on board. It still means that you have to go for the maps first, because while you have them, we’re worth saving.’
That was a good reason, and she felt happier. ‘I said okay.’ Crows wasn’t going to renege on his deal, the deal they forced out of him, with promises of destitution and mutilation being his only alternatives. Was he?
She watched Crows play in the breaking waves, threading his sinuous black-scaled body through the walls of water as they rose and rushed inland. She knew what a gold-plated bastard he was, and yet … She chewed at her lip. Sooner or later, he was going to betray them. They all knew it, even – especially – him. All the kindnesses, the advice, the food: none of that would matter. Not to him, not to her.
At that moment, there was one person she really wanted to talk to, and that was Bell.
‘I thought that conversation was going to be much more awkward,’ said Dalip, and she tuned back in. Apparently he’d been saying some other stuff, but if it had been important, she’d missed it and she wasn’t going to ask him what it had been.
‘You’re fine,’ she said absently. The wind carried the smallest grains of sand across the beach, blurring it. She felt it tug at her skirt, and wished it was pulling at her feathers. She watched Crows for a few moments more, then deliberately turned her back on him.
‘We need more firewood,’ said Dalip, ‘and we used most of the nearby stuff last night.’
‘What happens when we run out?’ she said, more thinking aloud than an actual question. ‘We’ve got nothing.’
‘It’s not that bad. We’ve got enough to be getting on with.’
‘That’s not it, though, is it? We’re living like, I don’t know, cavemen or something. No wonder everyone ends up in a castle.’
‘Those brass instruments of Bell’s mean that there’s somewhere here that makes them. It’s another reason to believe that the White City is real place. Those things have to come from somewhere.’
‘But what if they don’t? What if there are paper trees and metal bushes and cotton mines, or stuff pops up out of the ground like the castles do? What if the White City doesn’t exist and we’re all just Down’s bitches?’
‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ he said. ‘Our one advantage is you. You can fly up and search a huge area quickly.’
‘I could do that now!’
‘You’d be gone for days, and we’d be alone with Crows.’ He sighed. ‘We wouldn’t stand a chance.’
Her enthusiasm deflated like a slashed tyre.
‘Don’t think I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Dalip. ‘You’re the only thing keeping us and the maps together.’
He knew it too, then, that Crows would ultimately turn on them. And, like her, he lacked the balls to get rid of him first.
‘The boat’ll be ready to go in the morning,’ she said, for the want of anything better. ‘How far do you think those islands are? When I’m flying, they look like I’d be gone for hours.’
Dalip shielded his eyes from the sky-glare and stared at the distant smudges of land. ‘It’s impossible to say. I can’t make out any features, except there’s a mountain on one of them. Could be five miles, ten miles. Twenty miles.’
‘Further than that.’
‘It is what it is. If Down is … flatter. Bigger.’ He shook his head. ‘Every time I look up, I get a little bit more of an idea of just how vast this place is. Nowhere on Earth is this empty. Nowhere. It’s easy to forget.’
She gave him a sceptical look, and he shrugged.
‘Okay, not that easy. But it’s possible. This looks like places I know, places I’ve been to.’
‘Lucky you.’ She thought again about Greece, about the video advert she’d seen just before the fire, about the blue water and white sand and the tanned, toned girl in a bikini. Maybe one day.
‘And then, of course, a sea serpent comes into view and ruins the illusion.’ He spread his arms wide as Crows’ sleek, serpentine head emerged from the depths. ‘I’m on a beach in a different universe, I’m dressed like a Guantanamo convict and my best friend can turn into a falcon.’
‘It could be worse,’ she said.
‘It was worse.’ Then, in an effort to brighten the mood, Dalip said, ‘We still need to find more firewood, or we’ll be cold and hungry tonight.’
‘Where’s Luiza?’ She didn’t need to ask where Elena was, because either by choice or habit, they were almost always together.
‘I think they went inland.’
‘To …’
‘Look for food, I suppose.’
She glanced over to where Mama sat, next to the map box.
‘How long have they been gone?’
‘Most of the morning. I think Luiza, at least, wanted some time away from Crows.’ He turned to face the line of dunes backing the beach. ‘Do you want to check up on them without looking like you’re doing it?’
‘Better than picking up driftwood and hauling it halfway across Down.’ She was still self-conscious enough about changing in front of him to want to find somewhere private. She’d done it before, but not while he was in any state to notice that there was a moment – blink and he’d miss it brief – when what she was wearing disappeared but the physical transformation had yet to begin.
Crows always changed underwater, so she hadn’t known, and quite why she cared she couldn’t say: except that Dalip would be embarrassed, and she didn’t want that. Well, perhaps a little. But not enough to cause more problems between them.
‘I’ll go,’ she flicked her hand in the direction of the dunes, ‘an
d take a look.’
She picked up her skirts and set off, climbing up one soft-faced dune and down the other side, sand falling into her footprints behind her. She was alone. Her toes transformed into talons and her skin ripped and flowed. With one, two, three lazy wing-beats she was aloft, heading away from the sea and rising over the crowns of the scrubby, salt-stunted trees towards the forest proper.
Her pin-sharp eyesight started to scan for the giveaway flash of orange through the shroud of green. She wheeled and soared, tracking a line parallel to the coast, then further and further inland. After a while with no sighting at all, she flew down until she was almost skimming the uppermost twigs, the wake of her passing stirring the leaves and causing them to whisper.
And then – did she hear that? It sounded like a cry, cut off, brief and uncertain. Maybe her ears weren’t as good as her eyes. She’d have to find a clearing, and check on foot. She circled again, finding a place nearby where a fallen trunk was rotting into exuberant life and a ring of saplings fought towards the light for dominance. It wasn’t ideal, and the springy trees whipped her as she landed, but she was back on the ground, rubbing her sore, bare arms and gazing into the shadowed undergrowth of the forest.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘Luiza! Elena!’
There was no response. Not even bird calls.
Which struck her as odd, as there was always noise – tweets and trills and caws – along with the flashes of colour that marked the startled warning behaviour of the birds as they trooped by underneath. It was more than that, though. It was almost perfectly quiet.
She shivered. This wasn’t normal behaviour for Down. Down was generously alive: something was always on the move.
She dropped her arms, then raised them again, bringing the forest floor with her: twigs, leaves, fragments of bark and browned petals. Little beetle things wriggled their legs frantically as they were suddenly denied the ground.
There, almost behind her, just beyond the edge of the clearing: a grey-green smudge the same colour as the dappled shadow. She clenched her fists and threw the hovering debris in one thick stream at her target. The outline of a man appeared, raising his arm against the spray of dirt and turning away so most of it struck his back and shoulders.
The deluge petered out, and the last few sticks rattled back to the ground. Her effort had left her momentarily breathless, and she didn’t have the energy straight away for another attack. In the calm, the camouflaged figure straightened up and grew more visible.
As did his wolves, which materialised out of nothing and after a moment’s straining on their iron-linked chains, were free to bound towards her across the clearing. Their shaggy heads were low, their powerful legs pumped, speed not magic blurring their oncoming shapes.
‘Fuck,’ said Mary.
6
Mama was telling Dalip how smart her nephew was – one of her nephews, at least – when he noticed the first crow on the map box. That it fixed them with one beady eye was nothing out of the ordinary. Both of them were used to having one or other of Crows’ birds nearby.
It cawed and ruffled its feathers, and Mama looked around for something to throw at it. It didn’t matter that they weren’t discussing anything important. She just didn’t want Crows eavesdropping on every last thing they said.
‘Shoo,’ she said, flapping her fingers at it. ‘Go on, get.’
Then there were two, hopping and flapping.
‘This isn’t a joke, Crows.’ She levered herself to her feet and batted at the birds with her hand. They easily avoided the swipe, rising and settling as it passed. When they landed again, there were three.
Dalip stared at the crows just as another of them folded itself out of nothing and started to hop from foot to foot. He pushed himself upright and scanned the horizon. Crows himself wasn’t in sight – didn’t seem to be in sight – but there was clearly something wrong.
Mama’s cry made him turn around. A good dozen glossy black birds burst up from the lid of the box and into the sky. They cawed and called, their wingbeats clattering as they scattered.
‘Stay with the maps, Mama.’ He took a few steps towards the dunes. ‘Don’t let anyone near them. Especially not Crows.’
He started to run, across the soft dry beach and then up the unstable seaward face of the first dune. He’d almost broached the top when instinct made him duck.
Mary, flying hard and fast, flashed inches over his head. Loose sand, stirred in her wake, left him blind and spluttering. He spat and blinked, and tried to dust his face free. By the time he could see again, they were almost on him.
There was no finesse in the man’s first attack. He was out of breath already, red in the face and unsteady. He lunged with his heavy-bladed machete when he should have swung it, and all Dalip had to do was sway to one side to avoid the blow.
He reached out, pushed the man’s outstretched arm away and down, trapping it against the sand, and followed through with his open palm against the side of the man’s head. He went down, with Dalip on top of him.
He tried to free himself, while Dalip kept his weapon-hand pinned. He arched his body and kicked his legs, and scrabbled his fingers towards Dalip’s face.
Dalip punched him in the throat, and ended the argument. He now had a machete, weighty and long, which he took a second to scoop up before running back towards Mama. She was one side of the map crate, waving her small knife at the green-grey-garbed man on the other side. He was circling at the same speed she was, but he was just toying with her: he could have stepped over the trunk and batted her weapon aside without risk. Mary, back in human form, was running towards her, a writhing mass of seaweed lifted from the strand line building behind her.
‘Mama,’ she called. ‘Duck.’
She didn’t have a clear shot until Dalip had almost reached him. He skidded to one side to avoid being caught in the brown, slimy mass that smothered the other man.
‘Get the maps,’ he said. ‘Down the beach, go.’
Mama pocketed her knife and gripped one of the rope handles. She started off, backwards, dragging the box with her. Mary caught up with her, took the other handle and together they ran towards the sea.
The knocked-over man started to rise. The tendrils of seaweed slid slippery on to the sand, and he shook the last of it off. He was leaning on his knife-hand, and Dalip would never have a better moment.
All he had to do was raise his machete and bring it down hard on the man’s wet hair or sandy shoulders. He looked at the length of metal extending from his hand, clutched at the cord-bound handle, felt the weight drag his arm down. He hesitated, half-raised the blade, then lowered it again. He made a decision, stepped back, and let him stand.
The man wiped the last of the slime from his rough face and narrowed his eyes at Dalip.
‘Won’t save you,’ he said. ‘I’ll beat you like I did last time, and I don’t have to stop, either.’
Recognition flared. In the woods, by the river, where the Wolfman caught up with them all, this man had helped kick and punch Dalip insensible.
‘Where is he?’ asked Dalip. He set his feet apart, bent his knees, lifted the machete ready to either parry or strike.
‘He’s coming, boy. He’s coming.’ His own blade was shorter, but pointed and double-edged. He made a swipe at Dalip’s forearm, and steel rang against steel. He tried it again, and Dalip moved fast and countered with ease.
For Dalip, there was a gratifying moment of re-evaluation from his opponent, who tried to get past Dalip’s guard again, once, twice, and each time his blade was knocked aside. Dalip watched him closely, looking out for weaknesses or strengths just as Stanislav had taught him.
‘You can still leave,’ said Dalip. ‘Go. Run.’
That seemed to infuriate the man, who lunged wildly at him, grunting with effort.
Without having to even think, Dalip
turned away and kept turning, using his momentum to swing his machete down and through the man’s unguarded wrist. The blade was blunt. It didn’t slice cleanly, but all the same, bones cracked and blood sprayed. The man staggered and fell, folding in on himself and shrieking.
It was the noise, rather than the injury, which turned Dalip’s stomach. He checked his position, and sprinted across the beach to Mary and Mama. The map box sat between them.
‘Are you hurt?’ Mary asked.
‘No. No, I’m not.’ He was surprised. Neither of his attackers had so much as touched him. ‘Where’s Crows? Where are Luiza and Elena?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, there are crows, but no Crows. I couldn’t find the other two.’ She sounded desperate. ‘Crows! Crows! Fuck it!’
‘What did I tell you, girl?’ said Mama.
‘All right. But if the Wolfman gets the maps, Crows doesn’t. He’ll be here somewhere.’
‘The Wolfman? These are his men?’ Mama looked at her stubby knife. ‘God preserve us and send his saints to protect us. We are in so much trouble.’
Dalip was more immediately concerned about where the two men were going. The one who’d attacked him first was making his way unsteadily back up the dune. The other, finally realising that he wasn’t going to die immediately, was stumbling between being on his feet and crawling on his knees. His injured arm was pressed hard against his curled body.
‘How many of them were there?’
‘Four, five. Maybe six. They’re almost impossible to see in the forest until they move.’ Mary scanned the horizon for Crows again. ‘Where the fuck is he?’
A head bobbed into view, lean and lupine, and a wolf stood on the crest of the dune. Dalip nudged Mary and pointed. A second wolf joined it, and behind, walking almost casually, came the Wolfman. Behind him, struggling, was Luiza, pinned in the grip of one of the Wolfman’s followers.
