by David Hair
She made a mast by growing it from the piece of bracing, then made a canvas sail from the material that had been used to cover the stores – not that they had any stores; a little water was the only thing left. They’d not expected to be needing the skiff, so they hadn’t got around to restocking it. A big mistake.
She grew more rope from the existing ones and Alaron, who knew how these things worked, fixed them to the corners of the new sail. Together they lifted the mast into place, then she helped him replenish the skiff’s keel, gripping his hand and feeding him energy for him to convert to air-gnosis. They weren’t used to working together and she could sense most of it being wasted, but enough got through to make a difference.
At last they rose from the grip of the reaching waves and using the position of the sun, turned the bow south, where there should be land, if they remembered the charts aright.
Thank you, Great Goddess.
Thank you, Creator and Protector.
Thank you Darikha-ji, for protecting us from the agents of death.
She flinched inwardly, trying not to remember that dreadful moment when Huriya, once her best friend but now an enemy, had pierced Justina Meiros’ defence by telling her the terrible truth: that the death of Antonin Meiros, Justina’s father, had come about because Ramita had betrayed him. That one piece of knowledge, hidden so carefully, had undone her dead husband’s daughter. Though she had never meant to deceive her husband, the deed could not be undone, and nor could the consequences. She had tried to be a dutiful wife, but instead she had betrayed all trust and brought ruin to the Meiros family.
She tried to hold the tears in, but still they flowed, even as her children stirred in her belly.
Vishnarayan, Lord of Light, show me what to do. Send me a sign.
Near the Isle of Glass, Javon coast, on the continent of Antiopia
Zulhijja (Decore) 928
6th month of the Moontide
Cymbellea di Regia woke with tears in her eyes, still seeing the face of her mother Justina, the way it had changed from composed strength to floundering bewilderment as each word uttered by the tiny Souldrinker Huriya struck her like a blow.
What had she said?
Then Zaqri, the lion-headed shapechanger, had swiped his clawed hand across Justina’s throat and all but ripped her head off.
Mother!
She lifted her face and found she was lying on her stomach across an unmade bed. She began to move, but a heavy weight landed on her back. She craned behind her to see – and froze. A lion was lying beside her on the bed, one forepaw across her back, pinning her down.
Zaqri?
He looked at her and growled. His paws were licked clean of her mother’s blood, but they still glinted in the half-light.
He killed my mother.
She remembered what she had sworn last night: a sacred vow to visit the same suffering on him. I will, Mother. I promise you.
At the doorway she spotted a dark-furred jackal with a scarred face, watching them. It yowled, a sound full of displeasure, aimed at her she was certain. Zaqri growled again, more menacing this time, and the jackal dropped its head and left them.
Cym tried to pull clear, but couldn’t, not without having her skin torn to pieces. ‘I need to piss,’ she told the lion, hoping he spoke Rondian.
Zaqri’s shape flowed from beast to human in an eye-blink. He was naked, of course, and built like a Lantric hero: golden, beautiful, and terrifying. If gods walked the lands, they would walk as he did. ‘I will go with you,’ he told her in a voice that sounded rusty from underuse. ‘You are not safe alone.’
‘I’m not safe with you,’ she retorted, averting her eyes from his body with some difficulty, despite her fear.
‘You are,’ he replied shortly. ‘I have watched over you all night.’
She tried to show defiance, but couldn’t. He terrified her. Instead she rose and hurried to the door. They were in a bedroom – Alaron’s, judging by the clothes piled on the floor. The chamber was deep inside a cylinder of rock that Antonin Meiros himself had turned into a hideaway. That they’d been found here was entirely her own fault: her lack of gnostic skill had given away their position. It was only the fact that two groups of enemies had arrived at the same time that had given them any chance, and it was beginning to look like Alaron and Ramita, Lord Meiros’ Lakh wife, had escaped. The Souldrinkers had triumphed over the other attackers: the Kore Inquisitors were gone, defeated.
Outside the bedchamber she’d unwittingly shared with Zaqri she saw the rest of the Souldrinker pack was waiting. Most were in human form, and the dark jackal was changing shape herself, to a tall, angular Lokistani woman with a beak-like nose and short-hewn hair. Her name was Hessaz and she was a new widow; her husband had been cut down by the Inquisitors. Zaqri, she knew, was also widowed. His wife Ghila – this Hessaz’s sister – had also been slain during the fight. It was clear Hessaz wanted to take her sister’s place, and it was evident the pack expected that also.
Hessaz glared at Gym and rasped, ‘Why is the gypsy still alive?’
‘She is under my protection,’ Zaqri replied. ‘Touch her and you answer to me. Any of you.’
‘She is magi,’ a male growled. ‘You cannot protect her.’
‘I have a son who is yet to awaken,’ another man said. ‘Give her to him, to awaken his gnosis.’
‘When we return to our village, I may allow this,’ Zaqri said. His emotionless words made Cym shudder. ‘But for now, she has my protection and you will not touch her.’
‘You slept with her,’ Hessaz spat. ‘If you can use her, why forbid others? Lie with me if you require comfort. As your widow’s sister it is customary that I take her place.’
‘I did not use this girl – and Ghila is only one night dead. May I not mourn she whom I loved?’
‘Allow me to comfort you,’ Hessaz demanded. Her whole demeanour was as far from comforting as Cym could imagine.
‘Respect my grief, Hessaz, as I respect yours.’ Zaqri turned away, but the quivering tension of the pack didn’t lessen.
‘How noble,’ tinkled a girl who appeared at the door. She was barely five foot tall, though her body was ripely mature. ‘We all grieve for you, Zaqri.’
Zaqri bowed his head. ‘Seeress Huriya,’ he greeted her.
The seeress sashayed into the middle of the pack. Her rank carried authority, clearly, but though the pack bowed their heads before the girl, their eyes still followed Zaqri. Cym tried to read the balances of power, but couldn’t. The pack seemed closer to beasts than men, and they all looked at her with uniform hunger.
‘Mourning is not our way,’ Huriya said. ‘Our kind are surrounded by death, but we cannot immerse ourselves in it. We move on without looking back. You know this, Zaqri.’ She swayed up to him, stroked his chest. ‘Do not mourn overlong.’
Zaqri shifted uncomfortably. ‘Seeress, Ghila and I … we were as one being. Without her, I am only half a man.’
‘Then if any of us can help you become whole, you have only to ask.’
Cym was grateful that the attention was elsewhere as the memory of the awful slaughter last night returned. Her mother, whom she had barely known, was lost for ever. And the others …
Where’s Alaron? she wondered. And Ramita?
‘Gone,’ the Keshi girl said, turning to her and answering her thought as if she had spoken out loud. She spoke Rondian tentatively, as if for the first time. ‘ “Alaron” … ?’ she tittered. ‘Al’Rhon: the Goat! How amusing! He is gone, and Ramita also. For now, we cannot follow, not with so many wounded or exhausted.’ She studied Cym. ‘Of what value are you, Gypsy? Are you worth ransoming?’
Cym swallowed. Ransom? Might I buy my life somehow? To her shame, she found that she still wanted to live. ‘My name is Cymbellea di Regia-Meiros.’
Huriya cocked her head. ‘A Meiros? How wonderful. But of little use.’ She glanced at one of the shifters. ‘Kill her to replenish yourself.’
Before Cym had time
to realise just what was happening to her, the fingers of the man holding her had sprouted inch-long claws – but someone else had clamped a hand around the shifter’s wrist, stopping him from ripping out her throat then and there.
‘I claim her,’ Zaqri growled.
Huriya looked at him petulantly. ‘Zaqri, I have said they may kill her.’
‘And I say that we will question her, and after that we might use her to awaken one of our children. Think of the wider gain, Seeress.’
Huriya acquiesced regally. ‘Very well, dear Zaqri. She belongs to you.’ She looked Cym up and down and added, ‘Do with her as you will. But if she cannot fly with us when we leave here, then she must die. You have three days.’
Cym blanched. The island was hundreds of miles from the mainland, much further than she could fly using air-gnosis. Only someone in bird-shape could do that, but she’d never changed shape – she didn’t even know if she could. ‘Three days?’ she spat. ‘Just kill me now!’
‘Shut up, girl,’ Zaqri growled.
Though terrified, she summoned her defiance and tried to resist.
They stared at each other unflinchingly, until she couldn’t help herself asking,
He shook his head.
If she did not open up, she would be crushed and left broken. She let him into her mind. He was like a torch in a darkened room, filling her absolutely, his lion face shining like the sun as he studied her. She forgot how to breathe. Then she found herself humiliated as private moments were dredged up for his study: memories of family, friends, moments alone, her first kiss …
Then his eyes went wide and he dropped from her mind and turned to Huriya, shaking with excitement. ‘Seeress, I have learned something,’ he announced.
Huriya walked slowly back to him. ‘Yes?’ she asked.
Cym could only just make out his words as Zaqri bent his head down to whisper in Huriya’s ear, ‘You have Sabele’s memories so you will know of the Scytale of Corineus. This one has held it in her hands!’
Near the Isle of Glass, Javon coast, on the continent of Antiopia
Zulhijja (Decore) 928
6th month of the Moontide
The Fist awoke as the windship drifted aimlessly across the skies.
Malevorn Andevarion heard someone moving in the darkness: his bunkmate Dominic, dressing himself for his turn on watch on the decks above. Poor, dedicated Dom, drifting about like a lost sheep now their invincible Fist had been all but destroyed over the past few months. And his illusions that the Inquisition was a force for truth and justice, and virtue was rewarded and sin punished, had been shattered too. He had discovered that life was far from fair.
Malevorn had outgrown such childishness before he was ten.
He feigned sleep now, having no desire to converse, listening instead to the noises of the windship at night: the timbers creaking, the wind tugging futilely at the remaining stumps of masts on the half-burned hulk. None of the surviving Inquisitors had strong enough sylvan-gnosis to effect swift repairs. They were adrift, and would remain so for some time unless rescue came. The ocean crashed far below. Moonlight shone dimly through a small porthole barely six inches in diameter as he went back over the encounter at the island, worrying at the questions it had raised.
How could Alaron Mercer have escaped? Who was that mudskin girl with the terrifying strength? What about the shapechangers: were they really the dreaded Dokken? Were they also pursuing the Scytale?
The cabin door opened, as he had known it would about now, and Raine Caladryn, her goblinesque face alight with mischief, sidled through. He watched as she disrobed. Her breasts were as much chest muscle as anything else, and her waist was fleshy, her bottom slab-like. Her shoulders were broad and her thighs solid. Her face was ill-formed and she was quite the least feminine woman he’d ever had – but there was something in Raine’s glowering hatred of the world that he related to. They were alike in that: both driven by bloody-minded greed and lust.
Beauty is a myth, he thought. Compatability is more important. I like the way she tastes and smells and thinks. His cock was rigid well before she slid into the bunk and gripped it, purring appreciatively. Her mouth was sour, but it tasted sweet to him as they kissed and groped, his fingers inside her wetness while she stroked him. He mounted her and stabbed deep into her, and they pounded into each other, sweating and grunting, until at last she clawed his back and spasmed beneath him, and that brought on his own climax. He sagged onto her, his skin as slick and flushed as hers.
‘Can’t imagine why that silly cunt Virgina thought chastity was divine,’ Raine panted in his ear.
‘The Noorie woman skewered her with a mast,’ Malevorn said, still marvelling at the feat. ‘I saw it: a forty-yard throw, hard enough to penetrate her shields and armour. Impossible.’
‘Ordo Costruo?’ Raine suggested.
‘She looked too dark – even the darkest Ordo Costruo are half-bloods. This one was black as a peasant.’
‘Revolting. Have you ever fucked a mudskin?’
Malevorn shook his head violently. ‘Kore, no! The very thought disgusts me.’
Raine guffawed. ‘Get away with you. You men will fuck anything with a hole.’ She grunted, looking down at herself. ‘Luckily for me.’
‘I’d take you ahead of anyone else.’
‘Liar. First pretty girl we meet, you won’t even look back.’
‘Not true. You and I are cut from the same cloth, Raine Caladryn. We want the same things, we have the same scruples. We’re kindred spirits.’ He looked down at her mockingly. ‘You’ll fall in love with me. Everyone I screw does.’
‘Love?’ she snorted. ‘Go to Hel, pretty boy. I don’t believe in it.’ She scratched herself thoughtfully. ‘So, this Alaron Mercer of yours has the Scytale of Corineus.’
‘Not for long. He’s an imbecile.’ Malevorn scowled. ‘We’ll take it off him soon enough.’
‘And then?’
‘We’ll give it back to the emperor … Afterwards.’
‘After what?’
‘After using it. I want to be an Ascendant. You too. Both of us will be, with all the powers of the mighty. Then I’ll make those bastards who rejoiced when my father killed himself wish they’d never been born.’
Mount Tigrat, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia
Zulhijja (Decore) 928
6th month of the Moontide
Elena woke to the wind on her cheeks to find herself huddled inside her skiff, the Greyhawk, in the foothills west of Loctis. She and Kazim had flown all night, then slept all day in the shadow of the hull. Kazim was snoring gently, his body warm against hers, even through the layers of clothing and blankets. They were near the snowline and their breath steamed in the clear, cold air.
She wanted to stroke his cheek and pull him against her. He was so handsome, his bronze face perfectly formed, and so alive, so determined. He could have abandoned her, but instead he’d come back and fought tooth and nail against his own bloodbrothers to prevent her rape. She owed him. And he wanted her too: she could see it in his eyes, feel in his judicious concern and his closeness.
But she held herself back.
He’s a Dokken.
His aura was quiescent now that he’d killed and fed on the souls of his former colleagues, but she could still sense the way it reached for her, like tentacles of light, express
ing his yearnings. Its touch was not unpleasant, but it frightened her. She could sense it was linked to his desire for her.
What if we make love? What would happen? The little lore about magi and Dokken was troubling; she knew only the Brevian tale of Nasette Ledoc, a young mage-woman born three hundred years ago.
Nasette had gone missing, and a woodsman claimed to have seen her with two wolf-men, lupine creatures who ran on all fours and also walked erect. After months of searching, Nasette’s father, Heward, also a pure-blood, tracked her down. Finding that her captors were Souldrinkers – Dokken, as they were called in the north – he killed them both and freed Nasette. But he was too late, for the girl was pregnant – and worse, she had become a Souldrinker herself. Heartbroken, Heward had no choice but to kill his only daughter as well.
Heward was desperate to understand what had happened to Nasette, and he spent years researching. According to the story, he read every written account of the lives of the Souldrinkers – but no one could explain Nasette’s transformation, for there were no records of Dokken and magi ever lying together, and Souldrinkers were becoming increasingly rare as the constant purges took their toll. At last Heward concluded that any female mage who fornicated with a Dokken would be infected by their curse, for there was no other explanation for what had happened to Nasette.
Over the years, the story became a popular cautionary tale for mage-children, and with each retelling the truth became increasingly shrouded in myth.
Elena watched Kazim sleep and fearfully wondered where legend ended and fact began.
*
Kazim woke to find Elena’s eyes on him. Her functionally short blonde hair was matted from sleep and she looked pale and bleary, sad-eyed in the dawn. Her nose and cheeks were dotted with freckles and her skin was wind- and sun-chafed. His fingers itched to stroke her skin, to soothe it gently and draw her close, to kiss her chapped lips …
She is my Cause now. She is my shihad. She took me in when my brother Hadishah abandoned me. She taught me when she could have killed me. She trusted me even when she found out what I did and what I am. I am assassin and Souldrinker and I owe her everything: above the holy war, above my family, above Ramita. Elena is my Cause.
