The next book had art on every page, but the drawings were rough. At first, Burns wasn't sure what to make of the depictions; most were bodies with muddily spilt blood and entrails. As he continued, he wondered if this was an anthology of violent deaths, but before the end, he came by familiar scenes – centurions collapsed with the short ropes used to strangle them left beside their necks like idling snakes; the dismembered body parts of people and animals in heaps (it had been animals, just animals, in Pais' chapel, Burns reassured himself); a cramped open grave with a frail adult body sitting inside and watching dirt rain down...
Several sketches depicted executioners wearing pelts and masks similar to Rodenje's revellers. They stood over bound victims awaiting sacrifice. The pelt-wearers had vague, watery eyes and smiles with too many teeth, and each held a weapon meant to finish the life of the unfortunates beside them: blades, ropes, and one that caught Burns' curiosity -- a large jug of slopping thick liquid -- until he saw the tinder box in the pelt-wearer's other hand, and was reminded of the charred bird in the bowl of spiced wine.
Burns wondered when these records originated. The first few pages indicated garbs worn before the Middle Ages, while the few people not wearing animal pelts wore rags or nothing, and were clearly subservient to the ubiquitous pelt wearers.
-- it's not a real record, he thought. It couldn’t be; the depictions spanned hundreds of years.
He understood the connection with the first book. This was a book of tributes. A record of sacrifices. At least, it seemed so, until he reached the final third of the book and the depictions became exaggerated and fantastical. They left him fully disappointed, since their sketches were an elaborate fictionalisation. The people no longer wore pelts; the pelts and their skins melted into each other as easily as the warm clumps of wax on Burns' table. As the merged man-beasts became more savage, so did the deformities of their victims, from knotted clumps of skin to bulging tumours and dense colonies of seeping sores.
The most impressive and surreal image waited on the final page; a naked man stood at a doorway similar to almost every front door in Rodenje, his features sketched in a flurry (perhaps to intentionally hide the face), with massive bull horns projecting from his skull like an elaborate crown. Druidic runes covered the aged and chipped horns. Dead birds littered the ground at his feet, plentiful as fallen leaves. Behind this horned figure, a woman waited on a low altar of smoothed rock; of course, she looked like Pais. The building was another chapel, the man was the horned god, and the woman … Burn wasn’t sure, since her position suggested more than sacrifice, as did her smile. She was at once a tribute to the fierce horned god, and something more important.
-- except none of this is important, Burns reminded himself.
There was nothing here but a confused mix of Rodenje history and neopagan nonsense -- the power of the old earth, the power of the moon, of animals, of woman, spiritual and biological cycles twisted together as if to appeal to modern spiritualists. Only the violence of many of the images lent the book a macabre appeal.
Disappointing.
Maybe tomorrow, when he felt more refreshed, he would find something salvageable in the text of the first book. For now, he'd eaten, he was tired, he'd had an odd, dismal day -- he wanted to sleep, even if the idea of returning to the suite with Elsie breathing the alcohol from her system already made his food feel dense and unwelcome.
Run.
With the books back in his case, Burns decided not to call the woman out from the kitchen by tapping its door; he preferred to leave quietly, with his newfound peacefulness unclouded, and set what he considered a fair sum on the table -- if he'd got what he'd come for, the succulent roast instead of seasoned nuts, he might have left a tip.
Outside, the coolness of the night settled over him like mist. This, too, was inviting, particularly after the lengthy heated day; he felt like another shadow in the night, colder and darker than the natural dark. The air (and Rodenje) felt cleaner without the sun. The odd deserted streets and the mostly dark houses no longer bothered him; he enjoyed the isolation, and how separate he felt, as if Rodenje and the countryside were incidental, transitory, and he, not the land, not the ancient stones built around him, was eternal.
It was brighter than he expected. The moon shone full and bright. Hadn’t it been a crescent just two nights ago? He probably misremembered, since it made sense Rodenje's festival occurred during this bloated phase of the moon, an important part of pagan rituals (even if the locals only paid heed out of ceremony and ritual.)
Rodenje teased him with recognisable parts -- smirking grotesques or buildings he thought he knew, such as chapels and the restaurant he and Elsie had eaten in on their first evening (except it wasn’t) -- either what he considered landmarks were reproduced throughout the town, or his memory was failing. Either way, he soon lost his sense of peace. Once again, the town made him feel disjointed instead of grounded.
He finally found a landmark he was sure of, the archway Pais had taken him through earlier. Despite the shimmering moonlight, Burns couldn’t read the inscription in the rock. The words looked like wounds, old gashes that refused to heal.
The longest part of the street was ahead. To find the hotel, he needed to put the ancient wall to his back. Rodenje locals had been busy while he ate: the flowers over the streets were gone. He strolled by Rodenje's drab and ubiquitous architecture. Elsie was lucky, he decided; she would go home in another few days. He had three more weeks of this place.
He hadn’t walked far from the archway when a hard clack-clack rhythm on the cobblestones that told him something with claws was behind him. At first, he assumed a nocturnal variant of the region's crows … but he soon realised whatever it was, it was closing on him. He thought of the wild dogs outside the restaurant (or had they been wolves?), and wondered if they had the sense to wait for him -- before he asked himself, why would they wait? He was being paranoid, but he was afraid to turn around.
He turned quickly, thinking of the woman in the restaurant noisily going to close the front door. He made sure his shoes scraped the stones, hoping to startle the animal into flight. The street looked empty, yet considering the brightness of the moon, the shadows were too dense. Anything could hide just a few yards from him, so long as it stood still. And the street was very still.
-- because there isn’t anything there, he tried to convince himself.
-- I'm alone. It was just a crow.
... and then he heard it, because while the clack-clack of its claws had stopped, it hadn’t stopped breathing. He stared at the impenetrable veils of the night.
A shadow beside the remains of the archway fidgeted, and became still again. Burns started away. He heard a woman snigger, but didn’t turn to see, since it could have come from any of the houses, even if it seemed to drop from the rooftops.
The hard clack-clack of claws followed him.
*
Burns reached a fork and took three paces down the left path, before something ahead of him piped air. It wasn’t a growl or a hiss, yet it had Burns think of both; another creature in the shadows ahead, letting him know he was not alone.
-- letting me know?
How much intelligence was he willing to bestow these unseen beasts? They might be wild dogs, huddled in the dark, sickly, hungry, and as afraid as he felt.
He went back to the fork and took the next path, trying not to run but feeling his calves and thighs ready to spring through the streets if those tapping claws quickened. When he heard wings overhead, he knew instantly this was something other than the Rodenje crows, something bigger.
Not just bigger -- something vast.
The memory of needing to escape from last night's festival recurred to Burns -- he'd sensed the same presence then, that same depth, the same darkness and alienness, the same blankness that was also raw appetite -- yet for some oblique reason his mind connected it with Pais, as if the universe had decided to punish him for what they had done in the chapel.
He resisted running. If he ran, the things behind him (and that terrible unseen presence above) would cease taunting, and hunt him down.
His heart shuddered like a timid creature. At the next fork, he found a street he recognised, where two drunken centurions still lay with bundled flowers covering their midriffs. He could have called out with relief, if not for his pursuers, and that whispery cloak-like rustle over the rooftops that was becoming less shy.
Shadows compact as wet soil kept the centurion-clad men partly in the dark. They should have awakened by now, even after the festival's excessive binge. He hesitated over which fork to take. The claws on the street behind him didn’t hesitate. They clicked closer, and he leant toward the centurions. They must still be sleeping off last night’s excesses. He could wake them. Three men together had a good chance of scaring off a few wild dogs.
Except Burns couldn’t ignore the thought that they were not revellers, not any more.
-- they're not acting, and they're not drunk. They're tributes.
Then one of the men moved. It was just a rumble in his chest, a snort, enough to cause the wreath on his midriff to rustle; and it was enough to convince Burns forward.
The thing on the rooftops made a long leathery sound that might be a rasp. Burns suspected whatever stalked him over the rooftops wanted to inspire further fear, to panic him. To make him run. Then it could watch the wild creatures hunt him down. He was bait in its game.
The rumbling drunkard shook. Burns raised a hand to catch his attention, but he faltered at how oddly the man started to rise, at his badly angled torso. It was too thick and the shoulders, which should have rested against the wall of the house at his back, hunched towards Burns.
The man coughed again, and Burns realised he was choking, gurgling. The rising form rising was not the centurion. A wedge-like head hung between compact shoulders, giving Burns his first shrouded look at the creatures prowling the streets. Yet even as it raised its head into the moonlight, shadow clung to its maw and cheeks, still masking it.
-- that's not just shadow, Burns thought; it's blood, too.
The centurion choked through blood. Burns was sure the other man lying nearby was already dead, probably by the same gorging creature.
-- I'm trapped, he thought, but he still retreated.
The creature ahead snorted, and showed Burns its teeth -- they were long and yellow and reminded him of old bones, of Rodenje’s pale streets. It wasn’t a snarl, Burns realised through his terror, and the thing wasn’t a wolf. It smiled as it stepped over the gurgling near-corpse, scraping its bloated stomach over the man's midriff. Its claws clicked over the cobblestones.
Burns turned. He ran back.
*
At the fork, before he took the only street left to him, he glimpsed more shadows leave the walls on the intersecting streets -- dark patches of fur over filthy pale bodies, with stomachs so bloated they scraped the cobblestones. Each one turned to him. He caught sight of silvery eyes and teeth that gleamed like slivers on dark ponds. The eyes were eager; the teeth shimmered behind rictus lips. The creatures were shards of night, gifted with hunger and malice.
Burns ran.
He was adapted for academia -- it wasn’t long before his lungs were quivering sacks he could barely pack with oxygen. The muscles of his calves ached; those of his thighs felt ragged. He pushed forward, but each step trembled through him, jarred him. The skin down his back turned cold and damp, as if those creatures were already close enough to snort cold air on him. Their claws tapped the cobblestones like dice rolling over the street, hard sounds that hurried by Burns and made it seem others ran through the dark ahead.
Burns heard them panting. Or maybe they snickered at him. Above, along the rooftops, footsteps kept pace with him. Not paws, and not claws. Someone else was running, although unlike his heavy steps, those from above were agile.
Whoever it was laughed. He thought it a woman, until the throat smothered its own voice, deepening it into indistinguishable, soft sounds. The creatures at his back mimicked the laugh. They had excited and cruel voices.
Overhead, the footsteps leapt forward. They cleared the remaining ten yards of street in two tremendous steps that beat like hooves and shook the street. Over the corner ahead, Burns saw a wing swirl outward as the form spun away (it also swirled like a woman's frock, his panicked mind saw), but it couldn’t be a wing. It was the size of a ship's sail.
Burns reached the corner. Momentum and his exhausted body had him stumble. He reached forward to avoid colliding with the wall. Claws snagged his trousers and ripped the hem. Except it couldn’t be a claw. A claw couldn’t try to grab his foot with clumsy fingers. He cried against it. He lost balance.
He flailed along the wall. He scrabbled on all fours. The creatures laughed spitefully. Burns managed to get to his feet. Soft, then damp, warmth filled one of his shoes. Distantly, he wondered if he'd pissed himself. The smell would probably have the creatures giggling again. Then he realised the clawed hand had ripped more than the hem of his trouser leg, it had torn through the skin of his ankle to draw blood.
One of the creatures managed a word: "Bonj-zeh."
Another repeated the clumsy syllables; then a third, and more, until their voices overlapped like their rapid tapping claws. As the same word flew around him, Burns’ wit, dulled by terror and the gasping, aching, plodding thing that was his body, eventually realised the creatures were trying to say his name, they called him. They were taunting him. He ran on.
Near the next corner --
-- it'll be the last corner, he thought, the last before they take me --
-- his terrified senses belatedly grasped a faint orange light. Flame. Torches.
He grasped as if he could use the air to pull himself nearer the light. He heard people, as if they had waited for him to see the pulsing light before calling out. Their voices flowed through the street like innumerable eager and blind hands searching for him.
The creatures continued calling the softened, distorted version of his name -- "Bonj-zeh... Bonj-zeh..." -- but not all of them; others panted near his heels, and beat paws on the cobblestones to force their heavy bodies closer.
He was almost at the corner -- he could have jumped the distance, even with his exhausted legs -- when short fingers, fingers like a child's except for their strength and jagged claws, struck his back. They peeled open his shirt and his skin. Instead of knocking him over, the hand shoved him forward. He would have called for help -- he would have screamed -- if he had the breath, but his lungs felt drained, shrivelled. He fell out of the street, toward the singing crowd, and wormed another few feet over the cobblestones before he collapsed.
Burns.
The voices of the revellers flowed around him, hymn-like. The street flickered orange-yellow. He could feel the heat of the flames. That wasn’t right, part of him realised; the light was too bright and the heat too prevalent to come from torches. He didn’t care.
He heard the creatures and turned back to see a constellation of silvery eyes float like dead moons. They no longer called to him, but he still heard them. They were laughing, showing teeth like blades of grass. Above the tautened bulges of their stomachs, furred breasts sagged and shook either from excursion, or from their cackling. One pair after another of the moons blinked out. The dark closed like loving hands around over their smiles. Burns watched until nothing seemed to move in that street. Then he collapsed fully over the old stones, and shook helplessly through a fit of sobbing. No one came to him.
The people stood with their backs to him. They faced the flames as if mesmerised, singing and swaying. The firelight pressed their restless shadows against the houses behind them. The flames rose higher, as if responding to their numbers and voices. A bonfire, Burns thought. Despite the heat, he trembled. He just wanted to get back to the hotel, and lock himself in the suite until tomorrow, when he could get out of Rodenje.
He didn’t trust his body enough to stand. It shook and shivered inte
rmittently and he wondered if this was shock. How close had he come to death? Those centurions, those unfortunate men left sleeping on the street... Burns felt the muesli-type meal swirl in his stomach.
He sat with his back to the crowd, watching the dark street. He realised as his breathing regulated, and the aches in his chest and through his muscles faded, that he no longer had his case. He didn’t remember dropping it. That meant he'd lost the books.
No matter. Pais and her townsfolk and Rodenje's confusing ceremonies and its malformed creatures be damned. He'd find another way to prove himself.
The smoke from the bonfire irritated his throat. When he felt more stable, he stood to get his bearings. The cuts down his back and over his ankle throbbed and itched as if to coincide with the people's singing. He considered remaining on the fringe of the crowd until they scattered and he could use the proximity of stragglers for safety. The idea that this celebration might be another all-nighter made Burns miserable, but he’d rather wait than risk Rodenje’s abandoned (but not quite empty) streets alone. He just needed to move away from the singed air.
He needed to tell someone about the two dead men left on the street, but trying to communicate with an average local would do no good. Hoping to finally chance on a police officer, he looked along the fringe of the crowd. Everyone was a reveller. Many more than yesterday wore animal skins. The fur on the hides bristled, as if the flesh was still alive.
It took a few long moments before the location of tonight’s celebration filtered through Burns' troubled mind. This wasn’t the edge of a square; it was one of Rodenje's wider streets. He turned to face the bonfire, except it wasn’t a bonfire.
-- Elsie, he thought feebly.
Their hotel was ablaze.
Dead Birds: The Dark Orphans Collection Page 11
