A Time of Dying (Araneae Nation)

by Edwards, Hailey

  Keep away, it warned the living. Come to me, it seduced the dead.

  How else did these nighttime harvests go unnoticed?

  A shock of pain stung my ear, and I cupped it. The harbinger’s song turned deafening in her fury. The risers stumbled, shoving one another in pursuit of the female flitting in their midst. She had not spotted the males, but they could not evade her much longer if they hoped to capture her.

  With a roar, she plunged to the ground, wings shimmering and red teeth bared.

  All she did in her defense was point a finger.

  The risers turned as one toward Murdoch and Lleu. My heart stopped up my throat, choking me on the warning I would have screamed. Realizing they were revealed, they came to their feet with their swords at the ready. Between the males and the harbinger stood a dozen or more risers.

  They were all female, or had been. Skeletal. Ravaged by illness. Risen with a fierce hunger.

  Palms so damp they slid over the stone wall I clutched, I pulled myself up and ducked inside the pitch-black barn. Fumbling in the dark, I patted my way along the walls. It smelled fresh in here. Not of livestock, but of people. I dared not call for help, and while I sensed the place had been used recently, its dust coated the back of my throat, hinting at a long vacancy.

  Heedless of the scrapes and splinters my hands collected, I groped until locating what I sought in the farthest corner of the room I had entered. Thin sticks, roughly hewn and shoved into a dented metal container touched a slender box with a simple latch that gave way to my bumbling fingers.

  By touch I located the flint shard and blessed the coarse cloth I found wadded at the bottom.

  A fast downward strike made sparks leap onto the cloth. Once embers glowed, I nursed its hiss and crackle to a roar as I lit kindling and stoked a fire I set at my feet. With the light brought understanding. I stood in a small room with a cot in one corner and a table in another. Before me was the rustic hearth that was our salvation. Quick inspection of this room turned up a wall torch. The room beside it yielded two more. Soon as the fire caught on all three, I kicked dirt at a blaze I might not live to see overcome the barn, charged the door and clambered over the stone fence.

  Metal sang and shrieks pierced the night. Above it all, the harbinger awaited her victory.

  Lleu and Murdoch remained oblivious to my approach. Each was circled by risers, each absorbed in their own fight to keep the corpses at bay.

  The harbinger, though, was captivated.

  I had witnessed this reaction once before, and quite by accident. That this female reacted the same as the previous one had told me fire held some appeal to them. Lower and lower she drifted until a riser leapt up and caught her by the ankle. Hard as she kicked, the riser evidenced no pain.

  “Now, Lleu,” Murdoch bellowed. “Take her now.”

  “Give me room.” Lleu sheathed his sword and began to whirl the hawser over his head.

  Still I ran, toward the males and the greatest concentration of risers.

  Eyes wild, they recoiled at the sight of me running for them, torches waving. Torn between the desire to do as the harbinger bid them, and the primal fear of fire engrained into every living thing, they snarled and then fled.

  “How did you know that would work?” Murdoch wiped yellow flecks from his eyes.

  “I wasn’t sure it would.” The stitch in my side made conversation impossible.

  “Give me one of those.” Torch in hand, Murdoch forged a path to Lleu.

  Once I shifted a torch to each hand, I set off after him, waving the flames as I went.

  “Steady there.” Lleu wrung the harbinger’s free ankle with his hawser. “Easy, girl.”

  Despite our torches, the riser clinging to her ankle held tight. Her claws sliced open its face, a fact the riser dismissed. She might have been combing its hair for all the care it showed. When she used the foot Lleu controlled to kick the riser in the neck, it snared her ankle and brought her leg to its mouth. The sound of teeth tearing greedily into her calf is one I still hear in nightmares.

  Strength sapped from my arms until they drooped. Torch smoke stung my eyes. Blinking did no good. What I saw remained unchanged. The riser was…eating…the harbinger. In great gulps.

  “Take her out—the riser.” Lleu struggled to rein in the harbinger, who fought for her life.

  Murdoch ran his sword through the riser’s chest. It growled, but it was an animal sound. One that called to mind an animal warning competition away from its hard-won meal. In a fluid arc, I watched Murdoch bring his torch down atop the riser’s head. It squealed, anger and fear melding.

  For a second, its hold loosened on the harbinger. She kicked off the riser’s head and leapt for the sky. Lleu dug in his heels and held tight to his rope. Straining against it, she shouted in some language foreign to me. I wondered if she called for help as the risers so often did. Realizing that Lleu kept her grounded, the harbinger dove straight for him, using her speed to power a kick that snapped his head back with a grunt. The hawser slid through his hand, and she scratched her leg until it bled yellow to free herself. Rope in hand, she hooked the looped end around Lleu’s neck.

  His eyes bulged. She leaned down into his face, watching his struggle with a smile.

  I charged them, torches outreached. One caught the harbinger’s filmy dress afire. The other I dug in her side until the stink of burnt flesh made me retch. With an anguished wail, she whirled on me. My second torch caught her under her jaw and left her dazed. She slumped to the ground.

  Murdoch spun aside in battle with the bloody-mouthed riser. His torch had replaced his sword as he landed blow after blow to the body and head of the riser. Careful to avoid their dance, I circled wide around them and the writhing harbinger. Lleu thrashed on the ground, his hands dug into his throat. I knelt at his head, cautious of my torches, and helped him free himself of the rope.

  “Stop.” Lleu gasped.

  “It’s all right.” I unwound the final coil. “Hold still and catch your breath.”

  “No.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “Stop…her.”

  I reclaimed a torch and spun to face the harbinger, but she was a pale star rising in the night sky.

  “It’s too late.” I wasn’t sure now if I was glad of it or not. “No. Stop. Rest there a minute.”

  Weak but steady, Lleu stood. Hawser in one hand, sword in the other, he studied Murdoch to better gauge where his help was needed. Sheathing his sword, he threw the hawser and rung the riser’s neck. A sharp tug brought it crashing to the ground. It collapsed in a heap of singed and smoking flesh. It didn’t move again. Murdoch toed it with his boot, then squatted to catch his breath. Lleu dropped to his knees and began rubbing his neck. For a time, no one spoke. I glanced back at the Hamish barn.

  “I should douse that fire.” Dry barns made good kindling. “There’s nothing I can do here.”

  “You were right.” Murdoch let his ankles turn beneath him, and he too sat on the grass.

  Even Lleu agreed. “You can’t catch those—things—without a trap or some sort of trickery.”

  “You tried.” I comforted them the best I could. “It’s more than I’ve ever dared to do.”

  Tapping his ear, Murdoch asked me, “Is she gone?”

  Though certain she was, I craned my neck and let the crystalline pendulum swing. I heard no hum, felt no buzz. Clouds embraced the moon, leaving the three of us alone in the dark. “She is.”

  Lleu stared after the harbinger. “She’s headed southeast, best as I can tell.”

  My eyes drifted closed. I swallowed. “Toward Titania.”

  Chapter Nine

  When the harbinger escaped, she took our evidence with her. All that remained was the sole riser. Burned, battered and…appearing every bit as dead as it had before answering the harbinger’s summons. We left it where it fell. There was no point hauling it to the city to stink up the towers.

  Ahead, the walls of Cathis loomed. Guards milled along the wall,
but none saw us yet.

  Lleu pitched his voice low. “Watch yourself, Murdoch.”

  “You see something?” His chin lifted, eyes scanning the skies. “Kaidi?”

  I cocked my head. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Not that.” Lleu sounded relieved nonetheless. “You’re acting familiar with Kaidi.”

  My cheeks caught fire. “He was doing no such thing.”

  “Stroking your hair, holding your hand…” His voice held censure. “What would Vaughn do if a male dared take such liberties with Mana? Even before they wed, he would have broken that male in pieces the size of dust motes, then scattered them to the winds. You risk much with her.”

  “Theirs was a love match,” Murdoch said quietly.

  “All those with ears know Kaidi and Hishima’s match is not.” Lleu rubbed the base of his neck. “That doesn’t change the fact she’s betrothed. Vaughn respects you, maybe even likes you, but if you cost him this alliance with the Segestriidae, friendship won’t save you from hanging.” Murdoch’s fists clenched at his sides. “Abstain. If not for your own sake, then consider Kaidi’s.”

  “Take her to the council chambers.” Murdoch brushed past us. “I’ll rouse the paladin.”

  I watched him go. Each step appeared so brittle the next might break him.

  “Was that necessary?” To take from me the one guardian I trusted.

  “Hishima has wronged you. In what way, to what extent, I do not know.” He began walking, much slower to give us a few seconds more of privacy. “What I do know is Vaughn. His father’s legacy is cruelty and his mother’s milk was spite. Entice Murdoch to cross him, and it’s Murdoch who’ll pay. You will go home with Hishima. You must. Your only choice is whether you leave Cathis bereft of her captain of the guards, or if you remember your station and leave him to his.”

  His words rang with the sort of truth that is hard learned. “You’re right. I was foolish.”

  “Hearts are a fool’s organ.” He scratched his chest. “We’d all fare better without them.”

  “No,” I disagreed. “We’d all be cowards without them.”

  “Cowards live longer,” he mused.

  Thinking on my months spent hiding among the dead, I said, “They don’t live at all.”

  “Ah.” Bram met us as we passed through the blood-and-bone gate. “There you are.”

  “Still searching for me?” I let him circle around me.

  “Why do for myself…” he gestured at Lleu, “…what others are so eager to do for me?”

  Lleu scowled at him. “Did Murdoch send you?”

  “Should he have?” Bram frowned. “I was sent to fetch Kaidi for the tailor.”

  Dread swept up my spine. “In the middle of the night?”

  “Try early morning.” He brushed dried grass from my shoulder. “I begin to see why.”

  “Stefan’s a peculiar one,” Lleu said, “but he’s blind as Breda the Eye ever was. I doubt he’d venture to the towers in the dark on his own. I knew his apprentice. Lad died of the plague, and I doubt there’s been a soul who volunteered to take his place. So what brought him to the towers?”

  Bram presented his arm, but I refused it. “The paladin’s request, I’d wager.”

  “Don’t force me to bleed answers from you.” Lleu rested his open palm atop the hilt of his sword. “After the night I had, I’d just as soon slit your throat and let your words spill at my feet.”

  While Bram debated answering, his hand likewise gripping his sword, I considered him.

  “If Paladin Vaughn roused the tailor when he was expected later today, then our timetable is shifting.” I regretted not taking Bram’s arm as my knees quivered. “When will Hishima arrive?”

  “Tonight.” Bram slid an arm around my waist. “Careful. Your excitement is showing.”

  “Leave her be.” Lleu shoved him aside. “It’s bad enough to be damned without the hangman bragging about the tightness of her noose. Tell the tailor he’s welcome to pick a room and wait.”

  He grasped my arm in one meaty fist and guided me once more toward the towers.

  “What should I tell the paladin?” Bram rushed to catch up to us.

  “Nothing.” Lleu dismissed the other male. “I’ll tell him myself when I see him.”

  “He won’t be awake at this hour unless…” Bram’s eyes glittered. “Murdoch.”

  “There’s a council meeting,” Lleu said at last. “See to Stefan. Then meet us at the chamber.”

  “This night grows more interesting by the hour.” Bram whirled on his heel, one hand lifted.

  “Should you have told him that?” After losing me, he should have been punished. Not left to stir more trouble.

  “If I didn’t, Isolde would have.” His strides lengthened. “She’s taken a shine to him.”

  At last I understood. “Bram let Isolde take me to that room.”

  “He says not.” Lleu shrugged. “I say he was the right hand of the Theridiidae maven, and he didn’t earn her confidences by indulging such large blind spots unless he was told to have them.”

  “Can he be trusted with our news?”

  “Tonight will be the talk of the city tomorrow.” He glanced around. “Gossip feeds these folk in times of hardship. That’s true enough of any clan. But talk of the plague? People will be lined up to speak with Vaughn about it for days. Lucky for him, he can brush off their concerns while he plays host to Hishima. After that…he better hope he has answers for them, or proof, or both.”

  Proof was in short supply. Answers were too. I wondered if Vaughn would lie to his clan for their peace of mind, or if he expected them each to bear the same burden of knowledge as he did.

  Would he believe me? No. Murdoch and Lleu? I wasn’t sure. They had standing. They were respected. When they spoke of what they had seen, I wanted to believe Vaughn would hear them.

  I hoped the spark of doubt making him entrust Murdoch with discovering where their lost clansmen had gone stoked a fire that consumed Vaughn with the same desperation gripping me.

  “Here we are.” Lleu ushered me through an arched door taller than him by half.

  As we walked, the floor gave way to carved seating set below floor level. Ahead of us, three blocky chairs awaited their attendants. For a few moments, we were alone. I used them to gather my wits. When three elderly males filed in from a doorway opposite the one Lleu and I entered, I got my first look at the keen minds advising Paladin Vaughn, and the sight of one made me grim.

  Pearce, I think his name was. My scalp prickled in remembrance of his rough handling. My nose wrinkled. I imagined I could smell his breath from here. His smile was too fond and merry.

  After the three were seated, Vaughn arrived with Mana at his side. They parted ways on the elders’ dais and went to claim seats inset into the walls, one to either side of the elders’ seating. I barely recognized Mana, so dark were the circles under her eyes. Vaughn appeared bleak as well.

  On their heels came Murdoch. Isolde strode beside him with a wrapped parcel under an arm.

  They joined Lleu and me, and every eye in the house focused on the four of us.

  “Murdoch.” Vaughn’s voice carried. “The floor is yours.”

  He nodded to Vaughn. The elders shifted in their seats, tired and bored before he began.

  “Some weeks ago Paladin Vaughn set two tasks before me. I believe tonight both have been completed. I was to discover the whereabouts of the females gone missing from the garden, and I was to track down the males who vanished from their posts.” He glanced at me. “This I know. The plague is not the simple illness we once believed it was, nor is it the manipulation of such an illness by an ambitious clan seeking to improve its lot. Or if it is, they’re unlike any I’ve known.”

  “If it’s not a sickness and not a ploy, then what is it?” a beak-nosed elder asked.

  “Owain’s got a point.” The male who made my lip curl added, “You’re making no sense.”

  “Pearce is right.” T
he third said to Vaughn, “You woke us for this prattling nonsense?”

  “Perhaps you would care to clarify?” Vaughn suggested.

  “Clarify this.” Isolde stepped boldly forth and ripped the cover from her treasure.

  The elders squinted in confused disbelief. Neither Vaughn nor Mana appeared perplexed.

  “Did you borrow that from Beltania?” he asked his mother.

  She fanned the wing for full effect. “Not unless Beltania was transplanted into our garden.”

  Mana stared hard at the wing. The turn of her thoughts was easy to surmise.

  “It’s not the same,” she assured her husband. “The wing found in Beltania had more black at its edges.” She studied it for a moment longer. “I think, if memory serves, the two are opposites.”

  “There’s another?” Pearce startled.

  She nodded. “At least one more we know of.”

  “Why were we not made aware of this?” Owain snarled.

  “My aunt, Maven Sikyakookyang, has sent her husband, Paladin Chinedu, to visit with most of the southland clans. He brings with him the wing and word of the plague as we know it. If we had not stopped in Beltania first, we would not have known the plague had come to Cathis. That is the reason my uncle has not paid the Mimetidae a visit. That and the fact he consulted with the Lady Isolde when she journeyed home from Erania and spent the night at my former clan home. I trust you do understand the futility of sending a healthy paladin into a city besieged by plague.”

  Admiration swelled my chest. Here I thought Mana at a disadvantage among this mercenary clan, but she had shown us in her subtle phrasing that the new Mimetidae maven did have teeth.

  “You knew of this?” the third elder accused Isolde. “You were maven—”

  “And I am maven no longer.” Her eyes took a wicked gleam. “This very council saw to that. Now my secrets are my own to share as I like—or not. In this matter, I chose not.”

  Bold as ever, Isolde met her detractors head-on. I wondered if I was the only one to see the pain beneath her boasting. Whatever she had done to cause this council to remove her from power, it ate at her still.