Blood of Heirs

by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

  Ran stumbled from the forest’s eaves into the emptiness and the glow of the torches on the wall, his heart in his throat threatening to block the air from his lungs. His legs began to fail and he reached down for his magic, depleted and weak after the fight with the first creature and healing his wounds. He touched it and drew on what little remained, powering his legs and willing them to carry him a little further and a little faster.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack.

  Ran staggered to a stop and stared at his boots. Three arrows quivered in the soil no more than a foot in front of him. He looked up and narrowed his eyes at the shadows above the walls. There were no faces, no signs of life except for the warning shots at his feet.

  The creatures screamed again, raising the hair on the back of his neck. They were close; they could smell him and they were close. The keep was right there, waiting. Safety, succour for him, for Sasha—right there, yards away. So close he could reach out and touch it.

  But death waited no matter which way he turned. Arrows raining down from the keep would end him as quickly as the creatures behind him, and once more he was stuck between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go and no one to help him.

  Fuck it, he thought. He hadn’t come this far, and sacrificed this much just to lay down and die.

  He stepped forwards and a fourth arrow slammed into the dirt. It shivered beside his boot, and he again stared up at the wall.

  ‘Please! I need help!’ he pleaded with the darkness in the vain hope it might hear him. Someone was shooting arrows at him, so someone had seen him. They had to help him. They couldn’t leave him out here. ‘Please! We need—’

  A deep, guttural growl rolled from the woods at Ran’s back. For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut and waited. Perhaps he’d heard wrong. Perhaps the thing was still far away…

  Another came from his left, a heavy snorting breath heaving with the effort of the chase. Then the third, skirting to his right and sucking a breath before exhaling with a satisfied sigh through its mouth.

  Ran turned and put himself between them and Sasha. Had the watchers on the wall seen her hanging from his shoulders? They would now, as the foul creatures slipped from the trees to surround their prey. The light from the torches didn’t bother them, unperturbed by the flames or the warmth. He’d been a fool to think they would be affected by it, or that they were all the same.

  They slunk forwards, hands reaching down to the dirt. They crouched, the thick muscles across their shoulders bunched and ready to launch at Ran. A flash of light drew his eye.

  In the hand of one beast, he saw a blade. Its hilt vanished under the skin and hair of its arm as if it had been inserted and attached as an extension—a deadly steel appendage. Another had two blades sewn into its right forearm, one on either side of its long, mangled fingers, and they scraped the ground as it crawled forwards. The third had two swords protruding from its collarbones and a shorter knife jutting from its forehead. It looked as though all it needed to do was charge and impale its victim to win the day.

  All of them were torn, rotting and deformed, and under their foul exteriors, all had human forms. They were not wolves or bears. They were not serpents or mountain cats. They moved like wild things, their hands and feet half-built in the shape of an animal’s, but true animals they were not.

  Ran backed towards the wall, scarcely noticing that no more arrows fell in warning. He heard voices, but their shouting seemed a hundred miles away. A high-pitched ringing in his ears drowned out even the snapping snarl of the creatures as they closed in.

  He lowered Sasha as carefully as he could, laying her at his heels and straightening again without taking his eyes from the beasts. They stalked forwards and smacked the saliva on their lips, baring rotting broken teeth and black stumps of severed tongues.

  Free of Sasha’s weight, he raised his hands and willed what remained of his magic to surface. He let his fear and revulsion fuel it, stoking the fire of anger at his own impotence. Sasha had protected him from her father; she had healed him, helped him escape, and when she’d needed him, he’d failed. He’d let one creature nearly crack her skull and a pack of others hunt them through the woods to their deaths.

  He’d ignored his father and insisted on going to the Territory, costing dozens upon dozens of lives in pursuit of his own achievements, he’d ignored Brit Doon and insisted on approaching the cottage in the night. He’d ignored the ghost for no reason other than his own pride, and his stupidity was about to cost him not just his own life, but that of a young woman who’d deserved better. He’d done nothing but lead himself, and now Sasha, into deeper danger, ignoring every sign and signal otherwise.

  He let the rage at his incompetence build, the heat scoring the core of his bones and arcing along the outside of his skin. The magic surfaced near his elbows, blue light scorching the sleeves of his coat and shirt until they fell away as ash. It swirled along his outstretched arms to his hands, held up in defence, now presented in defiance.

  The faces of the creatures narrowed against the light, but they were undeterred; they were not afraid.

  For a moment Ran pitied them.

  Fear might have saved them.

  He pointed his hands at the ground beneath the creatures’ feet and let go.

  The magic boomed, blue power exploding the earth under the creatures and enveloping them in lightning and flame. Their screams disappeared into the echoing thunder of the blast and Ran staggered back.

  His heels snagged on Sasha and he fell, the blue and the darkness blurring in front of his eyes. He heard voices, shouting and orders. He heard a gate groan open and saw figures rush into the clearing. He saw more flashes of light and heard the death throes of the creatures as they were slaughtered where they lay injured and wailing. He felt hands grasp his arms, then he saw nothing.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Namjin Range, the South Lands

  Lidan should have guessed by the heat in the previous night. She should have seen the signs in the gathering clouds and the rolling wind blowing from the south. She knew what a turn felt like, yet with all her energy focussed on escaping Yorrell, she hadn’t noticed.

  Their convoy of two wagons and mounted riders followed the track along the river, the same way they’d entered the Namjin range only this time without an escort. At her back, the other clans packed their things, their rangers and their horses and made a hasty retreat into the late afternoon. On Yorrell’s orders, the Tolak, Daylin and Marsaw clans had to leave and Lidan did not doubt for a moment he would make good on his threats if anyone of them remained at dawn. The Wolban, it seemed, were not included in the eviction.

  Her mothers wasted no time lamenting the need to leave before dark, all of them happy to put the Namjin far behind them as quickly as they could. Together with the rangers, they threw everything in the wagons and urged the horses on, thankful they hadn’t dragged the rest of the clan with them on the journey.

  Lidan didn’t think of the ngaru until the noise and commotion of the Corron disappeared behind the bulk of the southern hill. Only in the silence did she remember their calls and cries, promising to wait for her return and hunt her back to Hummel. She shivered despite the sticky warmth in the air, heavy with moisture and drawing sweat from her brow. They were in the trees and they were waiting.

  Overhead, the first roll of thunder announced the storm she’d felt coming all afternoon. It came from the south, dark clouds laden with rain inching closer on the wind. She knew the smell of the trees and grass as they readied themselves for the coming rain, yet she didn’t recognise it for what it was until it stood right over her head.

  The wet season had returned.

  *

  They managed to cross under the trees as the first splatters of rain hit the ground. The smell of it filled her nose with its heady aroma, enough to make her dizzy. The rangers turned in their saddles, untying bags and drawing out long, oiled leather coats with wide hoods. Loge pulled Striker to a stop and threw a co
at at Lidan, dragging another from a second saddlebag.

  ‘Put it on and draw it in tight,’ he shouted over the thunder as another crack of lightning flashed in the grey sky to their right. She obeyed his instruction and shouldered the coat before more than a few drops of rain could soak through her clean shirt.

  The leather was light and water beaded off the surface, running in tiny streams from her shoulders past her ankles. The hem of the coat fell past her boots, long enough to protect her from the heaviest downpour. She snapped the hood over her head and the noise of the convoy drowned in the thrumming of rain on leather. Suddenly every ranger looked exactly the same—all covered head to foot in dark, oiled skins, faces hidden in the shadows of their hoods. The water turned the horses’ hair from bay to brown, and chestnut to black. The few white horses soon became grey and wore socks of mud above their knees.

  A loud whistle pierced the trees and someone waved their hand. At the signal the convoy moved faster, the wagons bouncing and jostling over the rocky path in protest of the increased speed. Theus put his head down and powered forwards, following Striker into the storm. It wasn’t for another hour that Lidan realised Loge had tethered her bridle to the back of his saddle and had been leading her horse all along. She ground her teeth and tried to push her anger away. He was only doing as her father had ordered and making sure she didn’t get lost in the weather.

  *

  The rain hammered on well after dark and the convoy of rangers and horses continued without any sign of stopping. The riders lit torches doused in animal fat, the flames defying the weather but lending only a little smoky light to the path ahead. Eventually a message was relayed from the front of the column for Loge and he unhitched the lead on Theus’s bridle.

  ‘Stay beside the wagons ‘til I get back!’ he shouted.

  She didn’t think he saw her nod and didn’t suppose it mattered. She wasn’t about to take off into the bush on her own. She knew what was out there and just because she couldn’t hear them over the thunder and the rain, she knew the ngaru waited at the edge of the light. She felt their eyes on her skin, as though she didn’t have a stitch of fabric on her body. She felt them leering and could almost see them salivating, wondering at how they might separate her from the group. She was smaller than the rest, thinner and weaker; perhaps not as satisfying, but worth the wait.

  Lidan shuddered and pushed the thought from her mind. She wasn’t going to let them eat away at her resolve. They’d already cost her father an alliance with his neighbour and slaughtered dozens of his rangers. She would not allow them to take anything more from her or her people.

  ‘Lidan?’ Raeh’s face appeared through the flap at the back of the wagon. Lidan urged Theus through the rain and squinted up at her half-mother. ‘Get up the front and tell your father we have to stop.’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Farah’s babe is coming.’

  The woman slipped back into the wagon. Over the sound of horses and the rattle of the wagon across the rocky track, Lidan heard a gasp and a pained moan. Her heart skipped a beat. She spurred Theus, giving him the length of the reins, and hurried forwards to the head of the group.

  Rain streamed down, spilling from the oiled leather coats and across the flanks of the horses. She glanced under each hood as she passed, the rangers’ heads all bowed against the onslaught of water. Ahead she recognised Titon and drew up beside him, tugging her father’s sleeve to get his attention.

  ‘Liddy, what are you doing out in this weather?’ He glanced around as if someone should have been watching her more carefully. ‘You should be in a wagon.’

  ‘Raeh sent me with a message. We need to stop.’

  He slowed Titon and rangers filed past them, under orders to keep moving. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Farah…’

  ‘Halt!’ he bellowed and the caravan of horses and wagons came to a stop, voices echoing in the trees as riders soothed uneasy mounts. ‘Now? Right now?’

  ‘That’s what she said,’ Lidan shrugged. Thunder crashed overhead and lightning arced along the belly of the clouds, illuminating the trail and bush in eerie black and white.

  The daari swore and stood in his stirrups to whistle at his rangers. ‘Spread out and clear a perimeter! Set shelters and light more torches with the oil. Keep your eyes on the bush.’

  His rangers moved as ordered and strung small hide covers between trees, lighting torches against the darkness. Without the creaking and rattling of the wagons or the stamping of horses’ hooves, the bush was filled only with the sound of the storm. Farah cried out and people glanced around, then nodded their understanding and fell into hushed conversation to distract from the noise of labour.

  Erlon turned to Lidan. ‘You head back and see what can be done. Bring me word when you can.’

  She hurried to oblige, tethering Theus to the wagon and helping the driver light the ring of oil torches around the rails. When they burned and hissed in the rain, she climbed the ladder and poked her head through the door flap.

  Inside was a steamy cluster of sweating women, each working silently at their tasks while Farah crouched on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth. How long had she been like this before they called for a halt? By the exhaustion on their faces, it must have been hours.

  Moyra sat behind Farah, her hand massaging a circle in the small of Farah’s back, while Kelill wiped the woman’s brow with a damp cloth and moved her hair from her sweat-slicked face. Raeh worked to mix a pain-relieving tea and Sellan crouched over the instruments from Moyra’s kit. Her lips moved, whispering hurried words, the same silent phrases she repeated on their last journey through the bush. The women started at Lidan’s intrusion, and the dana’s lips grew still.

  Before Lidan could speak, a ngaru’s howl rent the air outside the wagon. The dread sound was followed by the pitched wail of a dying man, then the bush erupted with the roar of men and beasts in battle.

  Sellan dove towards Lidan and wrapped a pale hand as hard as stone around her arm. Her eyes were wide with fear and she grimaced at the sound of the rangers and ngaru warring in the storm. ‘Lidan Tolak, you make sure your sisters are in that wagon and not one of you is to come out until I give the word. Understand?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Go!’ Her mother shoved her out into the rain and Lidan scrambled to shelter under the second wagon’s tray. She crawled through the mud and tried to ignore the stones cutting her hands and tearing the fabric of her skirt and trousers. To her left a ranger screamed and vanished into the bush, snatched from between his fellows as quick as lightning flashed overhead. The rangers roared and charged after the ngaru with their axes and spears, disappearing beyond the wagon’s light.

  She climbed out at the rear of the wagon and three rangers nodded at her, their weapons ready as others further off tried to keep the attacking creatures at bay. These rangers were the last line of defence between the horror of the ngaru and her sisters, and Lidan planned to add another. The beasts would pry her knives from her cold, dead fingers before she let them pass into the wagon.

  In the doorway of the wagon, she saw Elva and Bridie; so close in age they could be twins had their mothers not been different women. Bridie gripped the rear rail and stared into the stormy night while Elva held her by the apron with clenched fists and pale knuckles. Both girls’ eyes searched the gloom, and they winced as thunder crashed across the sky.

  ‘Girls, get inside!’ Lidan shouted, reaching to climb the ladder and shove them back inside.

  Both of them started as if only just realising she was there, staring and shivering. She tipped back her hood so they could see her face in the next flash of lightning but neither of them relaxed. A cold shudder rolled through Lidan. In all their lives she’d not seen her eldest sisters so terrified.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Abbi…’ Elva glanced at Bridie who continued to stare through the fighting into the bush with frantic, darting eyes.

  �
�Elva, what’s happened?’ Lidan demanded. She grabbed her sister’s rain-slicked arm as the dana so often did to her.

  ‘I don’t know!’ Elva shook her head and glanced again at Bridie.

  ‘Bridie?’ Lidan snatched at the girl’s shirt and pulled her down to meet her gaze. ‘Where is Abbi?’

  ‘She’s gone.’ Bridie swallowed and her bottom lip quivered.

  It took all Lidan’s restraint not to slap the girl. ‘Where? Gone where?’

  Bridie lifted a shaking hand to point at the darkness of the bush. ‘She must have followed Mam out after she checked on us.’

  Panic drew Lidan’s heart into her throat and horror rippled over her skin. ‘She went out there? She went into the bush?’

  Both girls nodded and Lidan’s heart nearly stopped dead.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Namjin Range, the South Lands

  ‘Get back inside and tie the door down,’ Lidan ordered, spinning into the rain.

  Her sisters vanished and the hide cover of the wagon snapped taut as they secured the ties on the inside. There was no time to alert her father and no one spare to form a search party. Abbi might only be a short distance beyond the reach of the torches, probably searching for her mother, and with every minute of delay she wandered further into danger.

  Lidan yanked her hood over her head and stole a torch from the rail of the wagon. She was in the bush and away from the trail in moments, rain hammering down and dripping across her vision. Lightning flashed and illuminated the trees, black shadows and brilliant white then nothing. It all vanished to pitch darkness except for the small circle of orange light from her torch.

  The drumming rain drowned out everything but the echo of her breath beneath her hood. She pushed it back and opened her ears to the scrubland, ignoring the screams and howls behind her. She willed her heart to slow and reached out beyond the splat of huge raindrops on dry leaves and the roll of thunder.