Hooded

by A A Woods

  “Listen to me!” Carlette shouted, and those around her paused, mouths open in awe. “Get to the docks! You’ll be safe in the water!”

  She hoped.

  Finally, the settlers seemed listen. The people around her turned, sprinted toward the water.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Panic had become the most powerful enhabiter in the city. Even the trained guards and soldiers wore it on their faces. Bodies crammed the alleys, the crowd flattening everything in its path.

  Carlette ground her teeth as she waded through.

  Where was Yokan?

  A fight had coagulated around the Prince. Carlette glimpsed six Bloody Paws fighting to reach him, snapping and biting and enhabiting their way through the shield of soldiers. Birds scraped at the guards’ arms, fighting swarms of horseflies. Deep barks signaled that a few hounds had joined the fray.

  Carlette plunged in.

  Snapping her hands forward, she swiped out with the snow-snake spines on her arms. Half were missing and the rest were bent and frayed.

  But with any luck, a few might have poison left.

  Snarling like a mountain stag, Carlette slashed out with both hands. A Bloody Paw screamed. Another fell, his mind crippled by Carlette’s crushing grip. Insects swarmed a third. The soldiers backed away, shouting, as the Sibilese warrior shrieked, clawing at the ants and flies that stuck to his skin like spilled oil.

  Something tapped insistently against Carlette’s mind.

  A warning.

  She spun around, brought her arm up.

  Yokan’s bladed bow sank into the leather on her arm, its decorative bones jangling.

  “Well aren’t you full of surprises?” said Yokan, her voice the unsettling mix of a growl and a laugh.

  Carlette ducked, swept her leg out. Yokan leapt over it easily.

  “Powerful enough to stop me,” Yokan said, bringing her bow down again. Carlette dodged it, felt it snag on her stolen coat. “Strong enough to bodywalk my rebels without breaking your stride.”

  “These people,” Carlette snarled, swiping out at Yokan, “are innocent.”

  The rebel leader leapt backwards with sinuous grace.

  Bugs clouded around them.

  “No one in this city is innocent, girl,” Yokan growled, striking with enough force for her bow to chip the cobblestones. “They deserve what they get.”

  “They say the same thing about you,” Carlette snarled, whipping her arm at Yokan’s head. She felt skin catch. Blood spurted. “Where does it end? When do you stop?”

  “When we’re free.”

  Yokan’s left cheek dripped blood, scratched by one of Carlette’s spikes. She wiped it, examining the crimson stain.

  With an almost obscene smile, she put her fingers in her mouth.

  Carlette fought the urge to gag.

  Yokan stalked forward, still grinning. “Ebonal children are raised to tolerate nathair poison. It’s how we remove their weakness.”

  Carlette deflected her blow, twisting around to punch at Yokan’s side.

  In the distance, the screams were sharpening, rising to a fever pitch. Snarls ripped through the night. The sounds of collapsing buildings and crashing bodies had become almost deafening.

  All around them, people died.

  “How can you justify this?” Carlette said, knocked back by the bridge of the bow.

  “You would not understand, girl.” Yokan darted forward, jabbing at where Carlette’s leg had been a moment before. “Delasir’s taint runs in your blood. You are the illness I seek to cure.”

  Carlette flicked her mind at Yokan, grabbed hold. “Say that again.”

  Yokan’s chuckle was strangled as Carlette squeezed.

  “You make a mockery of our people,” she wheezed. “Look at you. You cannot do what needs to be done. You could have killed me, and yet here we are.”

  Her grin was spectral, taunting.

  Carlette’s gut twisted. She told herself that it didn’t mean anything. She could kill this woman, do the thing she had been trained to do since she was nine years old. It would be as easy as taking a breath. With just a little pressure, Yokan would be nothing more than a husk on the ground.

  Like Grand Mera.

  A soldier cried out nearby, clawing at insects, and Carlette knew she couldn’t do it.

  She wasn’t a weapon.

  Not anymore.

  With a jab of power, Carlette stole Yokan’s breath and shut down her brain. It took more energy than killing her, but in a few heartbeats, Yokan collapsed onto the gory cobblestones.

  Unconscious, but alive.

  Filled with conflict and self-loathing, Carlette embraced the fury that washed through her. Allowed herself to ride its full strength. With a casual flick, she took down a Bloody Paw. Another. A guard tried to strike her down and he fell with a strangled cry. Men were backing away, but not quickly enough.

  Carlette was a lit wildfire and the men around her fell like leaves.

  She wondered if this was how Yokan lived every day. Furious. Sparkling.

  Animal.

  Prince Dirlen watched her make her way through the mess, his expression carved from stone. For an instant, their eyes met. Beneath his emotionless gaze—an expression cultivated by the vicious Beraselle courts—Carlette could taste his fear. And in that moment, reflected in the bastard prince’s eyes, Carlette saw herself.

  She was goddess.

  She was a monster.

  What am I doing? she thought, recoiling from this feral edge she’d never known existed. What have I become?

  But a new sound rose, breaking through her worry.

  Mileen’s scream.

  · · ─────── ·❅· ─────── · ·

  Byrna leaned against the docks, watching settlers and soldiers race for the bobbing ships. Her eyes glowed but no one seemed to care. It was a sign of their panic that no one noticed the paw tattoo or the near-black Moian hair. Byrna was out in the open—an uncomfortable place for a beetle-speaker of the Hanging City. Her power flowed, pure and delicious, and no one stopped her.

  It wouldn’t be enough.

  She could sense it through the feelers of her insects. Death approached. The thousands of minds she touched hummed with excitement at the prospect. To them, death was food. A place to lay eggs.

  Life.

  To Byrna, though...

  How many innocents would die this night? How many children? It was one thing to plan an attack in a deserted mining tunnel, fueled by rage and vengeance. It was quite another to see the fear, to taste it. These people were far from blameless. But that didn’t make them evil. Watching them flee for their lives, fight for survival, Byrna couldn’t help but notice the similarities between these settlers and the men and women forced to abandon the Moian capitol under the pursuit of Nuri Zanburs.

  She watched with a cocked head and a heavy heart.

  It was frightening how close she’d been to becoming the very thing her father had always hated. Was her mother watching from the Great Forest, shaking her head in shame?

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  Byrna spun around, her hold on the insects snapping like a thousand tiny threads.

  “What the…?”

  It was Tuk, looking disheveled and exhausted but otherwise unhurt.

  “Well if it isn’t the daisy himself,” she said, folding her arms and grinning. “I must admit, I’m surprised to see you with all your fingers.”

  “Byrna, I made a deal. To get us all out of here. But we need to go, now.”

  Byrna’s smile widened.

  “You made a deal with the Featherhands?” She cackled. “And I thought Carlette kept you around just for fun.”

  “Yes, but it only works if we get out of here!”

  Tuk grabbed Byrna’s arm, pulling it over his shoulder.

  “What’s the deal?” she asked as they hobbled up the beach.

  “You’ll like it,” Tuk said, half-lifting Byrna onto the doc
ks. “I promise.”

  · · ─────── ·❅· ─────── · ·

  Carlette’s world was a vortex of violence. Guns cracked. Swords clanged. Screams echoed. Death was everywhere, viscous and pungent. And layered over all of it were the Amonoux, howling against the night, ripping through Tuleaux like a city made of paper.

  She ran, trying to ignore the horrifying images as they hit her like cannonballs.

  A woman’s body torn in half, intestines spilling onto the street.

  An Amonoux pouncing on a screaming soldier and his horse.

  A group of orphans shaking in the shadows.

  That drunkard Eylon, sprinting towards the broken fences, his bloodshot eyes wide with terror.

  The Amonoux had plunged into the heart of Tuleaux, leaving a trail of wreckage in their wake. Settlers fought to reach the caves, but the wolf pack had wedged themselves between the city and the relative shelter of the mountain. With the fences broken, other animals had leaked inside too, eager for food. Three enormous forest spiders scuttled over the rooftops, leaving sticky webbing in their wake. Hungry foxes swooped through the air, silent and deadly. Mountain stags galloped through the streets, their fangs wet with blood.

  The rebels had succeeded.

  Tuleaux, as they’d known it, was gone.

  All Carlette could do now was find Mya and Mileen and the other orphans. She couldn’t lose them too.

  A body knocked into her.

  Carlette twisted to see a black-haired Sibilese woman cocking back a spear, bearing down on her. Not now. She ducked around an upturned carriage, unwilling to waste any time. But then, suddenly, a long writhing something was wrapping around her ankles, tripping her. She crashed into a hay cart with a strangled gasp, rolling over to see what it was.

  It was a desert snake, about to plunge its fangs into her thigh.

  Carlette tried to gather her frantic thoughts, reached out for the Sibilese woman’s mind. But before she could act, a shadow moved. The rebel was lifted into the air as if by magic.

  Carlette squinted.

  No, not magic.

  A long, black feeler.

  Tabis.

  The snake around Carlette’s calves loosened. With a shove, she kicked herself free and stumbled to her feet just as the kicking rebel was whipped against the nearest wall with bone-breaking force.

  Carlette looked up.

  Hanging in the alley like a nightmare brought to life, the cairog was draped between two grimy buildings. It clicked at her, as if in greeting. Carlette nodded thanks before diving beneath its innumerable legs, making for the Rae du Ora. She braced herself, held her breath.

  But nothing could have prepared her for the slaughter.

  The street overflowed with terrified soldiers, pouncing Amonoux, shouting Bloody Paws on bloodstained mounts. The Woodsman directed his hoods, barking orders and wielding a massive battleaxe. A horse-sized spider came out of nowhere, tackling the nearest city guard to the ground.

  Another shriek rose, Mileen’s broken voice pounding into Carlette’s skull.

  “Help!”

  She turned.

  “Mya!” Carlette screamed, almost toppling over as she rushed into the melee.

  There, framed in an alley like a creature from an ancient story, was the she-wolf.

  All seven of her eyes glittered with power. She radiated anger, frustration, impotence, loss. Carlette could feel her, feel the pain in her. But even that couldn’t drown out Carlette’s own terror as she recognized the two figures the Amonoux was bearing down on, her next two victims.

  Mya, leg trapped beneath a heavy wooden beam, and Mileen standing over her, legs splayed wide, as if the brave little girl could stop a legend.

  “NO!” Carlette shrieked.

  She lashed out with her power, grabbing hold of Quaina’s thread. It was easier to find this time, but harder to hold. She clutched it with everything she had. She was a dinghy in a hurricane, an airship in a storm. Carlette had never felt so much power. Instinctual and raw, the she-wolf’s mind was crackling like Carlette’s had been only moments before, but so much stronger. Carlette held on, desperately gripping her link to the Amonoux as if there was nothing else in the world.

  No! she thought as that vast consciousness threatened to consume her, drag her into unknowable depths.

  The wolf’s rage swept towards her like wind whistling over the desert.

  I’m sorry, Carlette thought, barely aware of the sobs building in her chest. I’m so sorry. But you have to stop.

  Carlette shoved things at the she-wolf. The image of her pup, bleeding in the bay. The Bloody Paws, carrying him over the mountains in the toboggan. The vague, human concept of a trap.

  This, she understood.

  They want you to do this, Carlette tried to say without words, struggling to make this animal understand things that were so horribly, dreadfully human. They’re using you. Please, turn back. There are pups here too.

  Carlette offered up images of orphans running down the now-ruined street. She thought of Mya, a different kind of matriarch.

  Please, turn back. Don’t meet their darkness with more darkness.

  That great, alien mind shifted, softened.

  Darkness… the wolf thought, and Carlette could almost see the understanding form.

  The Amonoux couldn’t grasp evil, for what in nature is? But she knew a loss that went deeper than death. A hunger that wasn’t natural. There was a black emptiness that pocked her lands, shaded trails her pack no longer walked.

  A strange sense of kinship flooded through Carlette, unexpected and overwhelming. The she-wolf was Voka, in her own way; a wild force, a leader, displaced by the march of civilization. Carlette could understand, all too clearly, how the pack felt about these humans, driving deeper into their mountains, eroding the freedom they’d once known.

  It’s a cycle that never stops, Carlette thought hopelessly, sharing the she-wolf’s longing. A path that never ends.

  Until someone steps forward to end it, said a small voice in Carlette’s heart. Quaina’s thread glowed.

  Help me change things, Carlette thought, throwing open the shields around her mind.

  Slowly, the wolf’s hackles settled. Her lips closed, covering fangs. Carlette could feel that seventh and most mysterious eye peering into her, appraising her very soul.

  She was too exhausted to care what the she-wolf saw.

  After a long moment, the gigantic queen of the Amonoux pack threw back her head and howled. But this was a different sound. Filled with mourning, laced with sadness, it echoed off the mountains like a funerial dirge. Carlette sensed more than saw the stillness as it crept over the city.

  Thank you, Carlette thought, brushing Quaina’s thread one last time before letting it slip away.

  She opened her eyes.

  Like a ship angling into the horizon, the she-wolf and her pack were turning, melting into the darkness, allowing themselves to be swallowed by forest shadows. Carlette knew that the Bloody paws would sense the change. They were warriors, not soldiers. Discipline would fail them. Even now, she could feel their beasts scrambling to reach the Giant’s Wood, to disappear.

  Body swaying with exhaustion, Carlette took one, teetering step forward. Mileen turned, at first with a curious frown and then with gaping horror.

  “Look out!”

  Something hard hit the back of Carlette’s head.

  Her eyes crossed. Her knees hit the ground.

  As her consciousness leaked away like water through cupped hands, Carlette thought of Quaina.

  For you, my friend.

  And then the world dissolved.

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Queen of Nothing

  Carlette woke with a start, head throbbing. She jerked. Her numb shoulder slapped against stone. Her eyes snapped open, but it made no difference. The world was black and cold and dark. Something was dripping. Something else shifted to her right.

  Instinctually, Carlette stretched out with h
er mind to find the life she could sense nearby. But her eyes were covered. She tried to flex her fingers and found them balled in a fist. She brought her wrists together and heard a metallic clink.

  Iron gloves.

  Her heart sank.

  She knew where she was, although the understanding brought no relief. The cold, the damp, the muffled rumble of the sea. It all made sense.

  She was in the mountain cells beneath the Geldrue, trapped in the cliffs.

  Carlette began to piece things together. She remembered the Amonoux, remembered touching that vast mind and speaking to the she-wolf like an equal, almost like a friend. But as the puzzle slotted into place, she also remembered the faces of those around her. Mya’s agonized dismay, Mileen’s gaping mouth.

  And, somewhere behind her, the commander of the King’s Axe watching as a suspected deserter brought an Amonoux to a halt.

  The Woodsman had done this.

  Pain radiated from the base of her neck where the grip of his axe had hit her. She’d seen it before, a soldier sneaking up behind a rogue hood or prisoner and bringing the butt of their gun down where the spine meets the skull. It was enough to shock the enhabiter, stop their magic, and—if wielded with enough force—knock them unconscious.

  Carlette rubbed one fisted hand against the lump, grimacing at the scrape of metal against the cold skin of her neck. She shivered and pressed herself against the stone wall.

  This was the end. The Woodsman had watched her enhabit an Amonoux. She would likely be executed by nightfall. It would be a public affair, a warning to hoods and Ferrenese alike.

  Stinks like Voka.

  Carlette pictured the girl she’d seen hanging from the fences, a frayed rope around her neck, harsh words scrawled on cheap wood. Soon it would be her own body hanging in that place of dishonor until the crows and insects ripped her down.

  She shivered again, curled up.

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself, gathering the remnants of her courage. You saved them. You stopped the worst of the attack. Tuleaux will repair itself and life will go on. You did what you came to do.

  But the platitudes rang hollow even as she thought them. Just hours ago, Carlette had been brimming with hope. Standing beside a Nuri mechanic and a Moian warrior, a better world had been visible. Maybe even possible. But then that huge, beautiful, wonderful dream had been smashed to pieces, broken on the shore of her reality. And of course it had, why wouldn’t it be?