An affinity for steel, p.94
An Affinity for Steel, page 94
Alone. Again, again, again.
No matter how many spirits he found, how many rocks he stomped, how many soft pink things he surrounded himself with. They would leave him, all of them, leaving him with nothing, nothing of weight, nothing of meaning.
Except that word.
‘Again, again,’ he whispered, smashing his fist against the bone impotently with each repetition. ‘Alone again and always … always and again …’
‘Again …’
It was not him who spoke this time, nor was it the grandfather’s voice. It certainly was not the scent of either of them that filled his nostrils and drew his head up. His lip quivered at the odour: pungent, iron, sweaty, familiar.
Longface.
The creature appeared farther down the ravine, black against the assault of sunlight, but unmistakable. Its frame was thick, tall, laden with the contours of overdeveloped muscle and the jagged ridges of iron armour. A thick wedge of sharpened metal was slung over its shoulder as a long-jawed face scanned the rocks. He recognised the sight immediately, his eyes narrowing, lip curling up in a quiet snarl.
Female.
‘And again and again and again,’ she snarled, her voice grating. ‘Until you tell me what I want to know, you green filth.’
‘Shi-neh-ah! Shi-neh!’ the creature at her blood-covered feet spoke a language he did not understand. ‘Maw-wah!’
At a glimpse, it resembled something akin to a bipedal lizard … or it had been bipedal before both its legs had been crushed. It now strained to crawl away on long, lanky arms, leaving the sands of the cliff they stood upon stained red. Over the corpses of other creatures, identical to it but for their severed limbs, split chests and lifeless eyes, it crawled towards Gariath.
It caught sight of him, looked up. Its yellow eyes were wide, full of fear, full of pain, trembling with a life that flickered like a candle before a breeze. It reached out a hand to him, opened its mouth to speak. He stared back, anticipating its words to the point of agony.
They never came.
‘I don’t have time to learn how to speak your language.’ The longface seized the creature’s long tail, hauled it up with one hand. ‘You have exactly two breaths to learn how to speak overscum!’
‘MAW-WAH! MAW-WAH!’
The sounds of its shrieking mingled with the sound of claws raking against the sand stained with its own life, straining to find some handhold as it was hoisted up by its tail. Gariath saw its eyes wide as it looked to him, saw the pleading in its eyes, the familiar fear and pain that he had seen in so many eyes before.
‘RHE—’
One breath.
Her thick blade burst out the creature’s belly, thick ribbons of glistening meat pouring out. She paused, twisted it once, and dropped the creature. The blade laughed a thick, grisly cackle as it slowly slid from the creature’s flesh.
Gariath continued to stare at the creature’s eyes, at its mouth. He saw only darkness. Heard only silence.
‘Hey.’
It was the sheer casualness with which she spoke that made him look up to the longface. Her expression was blank, unamused and only barely interested in him. She slammed the blade down, embedding it in the sand as she dusted blood-flecked hands together.
‘They come in red?’ she asked. Narrowing white eyes at him, she snorted. ‘No. You aren’t one of them, are you?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘You want to fight, yeah?’
He wasn’t sure why he nodded.
‘That’s fine,’ she said again as she sat upon a rock with a grunt. ‘Just give me a moment.’
He wasn’t sure why he waited.
‘What are they?’ he asked, at last.
‘Those Green Things?’ she replied with a shrug. ‘They don’t have names, as far as I know. They don’t need names.’
‘Everything has a name.’
‘You?’
‘Wise—’ He paused, grunting. ‘Gariath.’
‘Dech,’ she said, slapping her shoulder. ‘Carnassial of Arkklan Kaharn, chief among my people, the netherlings and—’
‘I know what you are,’ he replied. ‘I’ve killed a lot of you.’
‘No fooling?’ She grinned at him. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of you. The Ugly Red One, they called you. You cut open a lot of warriors, you know. I knew a few of them.’ Her lips curled back, the grin evolving from unpleasant to horrific. ‘You’re good at what you do.’
‘You’re calm about that.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she asked. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to kill you, but it’s not going to be personal or anything. It’s just what I do. It’s what you do. Just like dying was just what those warriors did.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Yeah, I don’t blame you. A lot of overscum have trouble understanding it, which is why they’re always rushing around. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do.’ She gestured to the eviscerated lizard-creatures. ‘Take These Green Things. We got plenty of them back at our base. Slaves. Some of them try to fight against us, some of them pray to some kind of sky-thing, some of them beg for mercy, some of them try to run, some of them talk about how things were …’ She looked up at him. ‘And some of them cry. Big, slimy tears come pouring down their faces when we kill one of them. That’s what baffles me.’
‘They mourn.’
‘Why?’
‘To honour their dead.’
‘The dead don’t care.’
‘They do.’
‘You talk to them?’
‘Sometimes,’ he replied.
‘Huh … well, they shouldn’t. What do they got to ask for once they’re dead?’
‘Honour. Respect.’
‘You and I both know that’s … what’s the word? Shnitz?’ She shrugged. ‘If you believed that, you wouldn’t have watched this ugly thing’ – she kicked the eviscerated corpse – ‘do what he did.’
‘He didn’t do anything. You killed him.’
‘Ah, see, this is where the overscum stop learning,’ she said, smirking. ‘You all talk about death like it’s a sole decision. It takes two to die. The person with the sword does the least amount of work.’
He furrowed his eye ridges.
‘See,’ she elaborated, ‘these dumb things are quick. I only caught them because there was no other place to run.’ She gestured to the river rushing beneath the cliff. ‘Now, when I grabbed one, the others could have run away. They all stood and fought, though. They made the decision to die.’
She looked up at him disdainfully. ‘You could run now, too. I’ve killed plenty today. I can kill you later, if you want.’
‘You could run, too,’ he replied.
‘No, I couldn’t. There’s nothing for a female but death. I kill or I die.’ She spat on the ground. ‘You?’
He stared at her, unblinking. He closed his eyes. Darkness. He inhaled sharply. Quiet.
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
‘Didn’t think so,’ she said. She rose from the rock, pulled her blade from the sand and slung it over her shoulder. ‘You ready, then?’
He nodded. She furrowed her brow at him.
‘No weapon?’
‘Unnecessary.’
‘Don’t know what that means.’
‘It means—’
‘Don’t care, either.’
She howled, iron voice grinding against jagged teeth as she rushed him. Her blade came out in an unruly swing, adding its metal groan to her roar as it clove the air, hungry for Gariath’s neck, or torso, or head. A blade that big couldn’t be picky.
He ducked, more from reflex than desire, and dropped to all fours, meeting her rush with horns to her belly. It was impossible not to shudder at the blow, not to marvel at the rock-hard muscle he pressed against as he shoved, driving her back only one minuscule, agonising step.
As he extended his last weary breath, his muscles giving out at the futility and his mind fighting hard to remember a time when this had been easy, it was impossible to think of a reason to keep going … and even more so to keep from listening to her long, loud laugh.
‘Come on,’ she whined. ‘How are you going to kill me this way?’
It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. He remembered shrugging off blows like this before. Yet her first came down upon his neck and sent him buckling to his knees effortlessly. She made a clicking sound of disapproval, which he noticed less than the second strike she delivered. It was an intimate blow, all three metal-bound knuckles of her hand digging into his red flesh, finding a tender, affectionate spot between his shoulder blades.
Not possible. His thoughts ran wild, leaking out of his mouth as he hacked wildly, I don’t have tender spots.
His spine disagreed. His vertebrae rattled against each other, sinew bunched up painfully at the force that ran up his back and into his skull, sending brain slamming against bone and sending body crashing to the earth.
That’s never happened before …
That it had happened should have shocked him. It was difficult to feel shock, fear, pain, anything. Every scrap of consciousness was devoted to keeping his eyes open, to resist the urge to sleep into darkness, though he didn’t know why. At least if he fell now, he wouldn’t have to see the long, purple face leering down at him.
‘You’re doing it wrong.’ Her voice was clear and sharp as a knife.
Funny, but he hadn’t expected there to be a right way to die. The fact that he had been doing it wrong did explain a lot. He might have mentioned this to her, had his throat not been swelling up.
‘It’s fine for us to do this, you know,’ she said. ‘But we’re netherlings. We come from nothing. We return to nothing. We live. We breed. We kill. We die. This is all there is in life.’ She reached down and tapped his red brow. ‘Note that third part, though, about the killing. That’s important.’
Her throat loomed over him. His hand would just about fit around it, he figured, but it trembled, refused to rise.
And why should it? he asked himself. Whatever your body knows, you didn’t. Now you’re both done. There’s nothing left.
‘But overscum are supposed to have bigger things on their minds, yeah? They talk to invisible people, spend their whole lives hoarding bits of metal instead of making them into weapons; they do stupid stuff like plant crops and store food and leave it all to wailing whelps who did nothing to deserve it. Point being … you’ve got reasons to scream, don’t you?’
His breath came in shrill whispers, leaking through a closing throat, just enough to breathe, just enough to think.
Kill her and then what? What’s left? Kill more, kill more, live in death. Die, live in nothingness … but with nothing to think about, to speak about, no one left to disappear.
‘But that’s what’s so fascinating to us. To Carnassials, that is.’ She glanced over the cliff. ‘And some males. We’ve never seen this before, a breed that worries about so many stupid things and lives in complete fear of whatever invisible thing they talk to and is concerned with things other than breeding and killing. It’s like … watching ants. That’s the correct animal, right? Yeah … ants that run around and cling to every little piece of dirt like it’s the greatest piece they’ve ever seen, even as a thousand more lie around. Take that piece away, and what do they do? Some grab new ones, but most sit there … like you.’
And how much dirt have you been clinging to? Grahta, Grandfather, the humans … they’re all gone. How much more can you pick up?
‘You’re not going to get up, are you?’ She rose up, took her sword in both hands.
This won’t be so bad.
‘No more dirt, huh?’
No more hurting; no more being alone.
‘Too bad.’
She raised the weapon, angled the flat edge of it at his throat. It would be messy.
No more rivers; no more rocks.
‘Hey, maybe you’re right about the whole invisible thing, yeah? If so, I’m sure you’ll see your pink friends there with you by tonight.’
No more anything … It’ll be so great …
‘Anyway …’
‘SHENKO-SA!’
He blinked. Those words weren’t said by the longface. That shrill, shrieking sound didn’t emanate from her, either.
The loud, angry roar as she staggered away, clutching at the arrow embedded in her side, however, certainly did.
Gariath was almost afraid to look across the river, afraid that he would see the pointy-eared one. If she had placed the timely arrow and saved him, he resolved he would die right then and there, hopefully taking her with him. He was prepared for that possibility, prepared for the idea that it might have come from nowhere and given him an opportunity to take one last breath before lying down and dying.
What he saw, however, he was not prepared for.
Not Rhega, but definitely not human, the creature stood, tall and covered in green scales, at the other side of the river. His long, black bow was in a powerful, clawed hand. His body, ringed by black-and-red tattoos, was tensed and muscular. Behind his long, lashing tail, more like him – more reptilian creatures – stared at Gariath with broad, yellow eyes down long, green snouts.
The one in front raised his hand, regarded Gariath through his single yellow eye, and spoke.
‘Inda-ah, Rhega.’
‘What?’ he breathed.
‘I knew it! I knew it!’ He looked to see the longface pulling the arrow free without wincing, as though she were simply scratching an itch with a jagged, biting head. ‘Xhai said you all got up when someone started mocking you! I didn’t believe her!’
He swept his stare across the river again. The creatures were gone; nothing but greenery remained where they had once stood. Perhaps he had imagined them; perhaps they hadn’t ever been there …
But that arrow on the sand, covered in blood, was impossible to imagine. And it lay there now. He looked from it to the longface staggering toward him, dragging her weapon.
Good enough.
‘I didn’t think it would work. I owe Xhai a—’
If she saw the fist coming, she didn’t move away.
A possibility, Gariath conceded, but one he was willing to accept as he and his arm rose as one, his knuckles connecting with her chin and sending her head snapping back. She was all skull – that much was apparent from his aching fist, if not her conversation.
She, too, was ready to accept. She accepted his punches as he followed with two more in rapid succession, feeling bones shake, but not break, under his fists. She accepted the ground lost as he drove her back. She accepted his horns again, accepted the broken nose as he drove his head against her face.
Only when he stepped back, waiting for her to fall that he might end it with a foot to her skull, did she refuse to accept. She pulled her face back up to stare at him, neck creaking as she did, teeth flashing in a grin that had only grown more wild as blood from her spattered visage dripped over her lips.
‘Yeah …’
She came howling again, no concern for strategy, position or anything but the imminent and immediate desire to bring her blade swinging up to lop off his head. A moment of nostalgia swept over him at the sight of such recklessness, followed by a moment of swift panic as he saw the blade just as eager as her, sweeping up towards his head.
He caught it on his wrist, the metal gnawing at the metal bracers there. She drove the blade harder, straining to chew through and cleave his hand from his wrist, his head from his neck. He pushed back just as hard, reaching up to place his free hand on the edge. It was an effort tinged in blood as the weapon bit into his palm, making his grip slick as he shoved back, but an effort that sent the blade swinging wide and leaving her open.
He wasn’t sure if he was roaring or laughing, didn’t bother to think which it might have been, just as he didn’t wonder why his muscles suddenly felt so easy, so strong. There was blood on the ground, blood in his nostrils, anger in his veins and a purple neck beneath his claws.
Good enough.
He clenched, clawed, heard her gurgle as her blood seeped out over his palms, blending with his own. He refused to release her as she groped at him with one hand, dropped her massive, suddenly unwieldy weapon to punch at him with the other. Blows rained upon his head, one after the other. He felt the agony, felt his skull want to crack, but refused to succumb to either.
Instead, he swung his body to the side and she followed, like a purple boulder. Releasing, he sent her crashing into the ridge. The earth cracked before she did, but she stood there, bleeding from nose and neck, murder flashing in her eyes, breath coming hot and hateful from between jagged teeth.
‘That’s it,’ she snarled, ‘that’s it. This is how it’s going to happen. This is how it has to happen. From nothing, to nothing.’
‘And no one will remember you,’ he uttered. ‘I won’t leave enough of you for it.’
‘Fine, that’s just fine,’ she gasped. Her hand slipped behind her belt. ‘Good to know you’ve got a plan. Thinking ahead, grabbing your pieces of dirt …’ Her hand whipped out, sent the green vial spinning toward him. ‘STUPID!’
He had smelled it before she pulled it out, recognised it. Poison, the same that had felled Abysmyths, ate their flesh like fire ate paper. He wasn’t sure if it worked similarly on things not demonic, but he was hardly willing to see for curiosity’s sake.
He darted aside; the vial smashed against the rock and he felt a few sputtering instances of pain as droplets spat out and licked his back. His flesh burned; the scent of it sizzling filled his nostrils. It hurt, he admitted as he clenched his teeth, a lot.
‘QAI ZHOTH!’
So did the spinning blade that followed Dech’s screech. He remembered this weapon, the curved knife with its cruel, jagged edge. And it certainly remembered him, it seemed, as it sank into his shoulder and bit deeply, metal prongs slaking themselves on his blood. Pain racked him, coursing through his body in such excessive quantity that it screamed to be shared.
‘Gnaw, bite, gnash,’ Dech snarled as she took off charging toward him. ‘AKH ZEKH LAKH!’
He met her, muscle for muscle, fury for fury. They gripped each other about each other’s throats, turning, twisting, staggering as they fought for control for their respective tracheas. Gariath slipped his hands up, releasing her throat, seizing her by the temples. Her smile was momentary, lasting only as long as it took him to slip his clawed thumbs into her eyes and push.
