Black Halo

Forty

Awarm droplet of water struck his brow, dripped down a narrow cheekbone and fell to his chin. He caught it on a purple finger before it could fall and be lost on the red and black cobblestones.

The word for it, Yldus recalled, was rain. He knew only a little about it. He knew it fell from the sky; he knew it made things grow. There was meaning behind it, too. It was a symbol of renewal, its washing of taint and sin considered something sacred. This he had been told by those prisoners who had begged for water from the sky, from the earth, from him.

He had given none. He didn’t see the point. Where he came from, things did not grow. The sky never changed. And as he looked up at the sky now, the rain falling in impotent orange dots against the burning roofs of the city’s buildings, he wondered what reverence could possibly be justified for it.

The fires continued, unhindered, belching smoke in defiant rudeness to the meek greyness. There were faint rumbles of what was called thunder, but they did nothing to silence the war cries of the females or the distant cries of the weak and hapless overscum they descended upon.

He picked his way over the bodies, lifting the hem of his robes as he walked through the undistilled red smears upon the cobblestones. He glanced down an alley, frowning at the flashing jaws and errant cackles of the sikkhuns as they feasted upon the dead and the slow with relish. Their female riders, long since bored with the meagre defences that had been offered to them and subsequently shattered, goaded their mounts to gnash and consume with unabated glee.

Wasteful, he thought. Pointless. Disgusting.

Female.

He left them to the dead. His concerns were for the living.

Or the barely living, at least.

The road was slick with blood, clotted with ash, littered with the dead and the broken. Yldus searched the carnage with a careful eye. He had seen much more and much worse, enough to recognise the subtle differences in the splashes of bright red life. He saw where it had been squandered in spatters of cowardice, where it had leaked out on pleas to deaf ears, where it had simply pooled with resignation and despair.

His eyebrows rose appreciatively as he saw one that began a bright crimson and turned to a dark red as it was smeared across the road, leaving a trail thick with desperation.

He followed it carefully, winding past the stacks of shattered crates and sundered barrels, the spilled blood and split spears that had been the last defence the overscum had offered the females. Some had fled. Many had stayed. Only one lived.

And as the road turned to sand beneath Yldus’ feet, he heard that solitary life drawing his last breaths.

The overscum lay upon the sand. Unworthy of note: small, soft, dark-haired, dark-skinned, maybe a little fatter than most. Yldus watched with passive indifference as the human continued to deny the reality of his soft flesh and leaking fluids, pulling himself farther along the sand, ignoring Yldus and the great black shapes that surrounded him.

Yldus glanced up at the warriors of the First: tall, powerful, their black armour obscuring all traces of purple flesh and bristling with polished spikes. The spears and razor-lined shields they clenched were bloodied, but stilled in their hands.

Yldus offered an approving smile; the First, as the sole females proven to be able to overcome their lust for blood enough to follow orders, held a special place in his heart. They could slaughter and skewer with the best of them, but it was their ability to recognise, strategise and, most importantly, obey that made him request their presence in the city.

He was after answers, not corpses. And this was delicate work.

At his approach, they turned, as one, their black-visored gazes towards him: expecting, anticipating. He indulged them with a nod. One of them replied, stepping forward, flipping her spear about in her grip and driving it down into the human’s meaty thigh.

Delicate, as far as the netherling definition of the word went, at least.

He folded his hands behind him, closing his ears to the human’s wailing as he approached, being careful not to tread in the blood-soaked sand. He stood beside the overscum, staring, waiting for the screaming to stop.

It took some time, but Yldus was a patient male.

It never truly stopped, merely subsided to gasping sobs. That would serve, however. Yldus knelt beside the overscum, surveying him carefully, waiting for the inevitable outburst. The human looked back at him through a dark-skinned face drawn tight with pain and anguish.

‘Monsters,’ he spat out in his tongue, ‘demons. Filthy child-killers!’

Defiance, Yldus recognised, saying nothing as the man launched into a litany of curses, only a few of which he recognised.

‘Whatever it is you came here for,’ the human gasped out, the edges of his mouth tinged with blood. ‘Gold, steel, food … we have barely any. Take it and go. Leave the rest of us in peace.’

Rejection. Yldus still said nothing, merely watching as the man continued to leak out onto the earth, merely waiting until he drew in a ragged breath.

‘Spare me,’ he finally gasped.

Bargaining.

‘Spare my life,’ he croaked again, ‘help me and-’

‘No.’

‘What?’ The man appeared shocked that such was even a possible answer.

‘You ask the unnatural,’ Yldus replied. ‘You are here, beneath our feet. We are netherling. Because of this, you are going to die. It will not be swift. It will not be merciful. But it will happen. Ours is the right to take. Yours … the right to die.’

‘Then do it,’ the human spat back.

‘To demand is not your right. We require something in this city. You will offer it to us.’

‘Why should I? Why would I? You’ve killed …’ He paused to gasp, hacking viciously.

‘We have. We do.’ Yldus turned his gaze to the burning skyline. ‘To kill, to bleed, to die. This is simply what it means to be netherling.’ He glanced back at the man. ‘What does it mean to be human, overscum?’

‘It means … it …’

‘Hard to say, I realise. Females may only be concerned with your breed as to how much you glut their sikkhuns, but I have taken great pains to learn about your breed. It’s been difficult, but I have learned something.

‘To be human,’ he said, ‘is to deny. It is to fight, to flee, to beg or to pray, despite that each action leads to only one outcome. Your people can run, but we can run faster. Your people can fight, but we can kill them. Your people can pray …’ He glanced down at the man, taking note of the chain hanging from his neck. ‘Hasn’t worked so well for you, has it?

‘You are faced with inevitabilities: you will die. We will have what we need. Your people will die. How many of them, though, is undetermined. To kill is female. I cannot stop them from doing this. To direct is male. I can point them away from your people, let your people hide, flee, think that their gods are listening to them while we collect what we require and leave.’

He regarded the man evenly.

‘This is the choice you are offered. Deny it if you wish.’

The man’s face was too agonised to allow for any lengthy contemplation. His answer was swift and tinged with red.

‘What do you want?’

Yldus reached down, plucking the chain from the man’s neck. It ended in a symbol: a crude iron gauntlet clutching thirteen arrows. He studied it briefly, then held it before the man.

‘I know what this is,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘So you already know what I want.’

‘No,’ he said, shaking a trembling head. ‘No, I cannot do that. I swore an oath.’

‘Oaths are broken.’

‘Before the Gods.’

‘Gods are false.’

‘To perform a duty.’

‘You have failed,’ Yldus said. ‘Whatever you might have done for those you looked to is no longer a concern. Whatever you might do for those who look to you can still be effected.’

The man’s neck trembled under the weight of acknowledgement, forced him to nod weakly after a moment.

‘The temple,’ he said. He thrust a trembling finger to the distant cliffs and the humble building upon them. ‘What you seek is in the temple, beyond the pool. Do as you swore.’

‘It would be pointless,’ Yldus replied, rising to his feet. ‘I will do as netherlings do.’

‘Then whatever you do,’ the man said, grimacing, ‘whatever makes you need that cursed thing … you will die.’ He spoke without joy, without hate, without emotion. ‘And whatever you are, you will remember this day. You will know what it is you’re trying to kill. And you will know why we pray.’

He met Yldus’ eyes. He did not flinch in pain.

‘And I wonder who will answer yours?’

The man’s eyes were still, rigid with insulting certainty. Yldus felt his own narrow despite himself. He raised his hand and levelled it at the man, his vision bathed in crimson. The man did not flinch.

The man did not breathe.

Yldus lowered his arm, letting the power slip from his hand and eyes alike. The rain fell a little harder now, its droplets cold on his skin. The sky was grey now, the orange of the fire-painted clouds going runny as the blazes fell to impotent smoke.

He spared only another moment for the sight of the skyline, for the man, for this city before he trudged towards the distant cliffs, the metal solidarity of the First’s footsteps following him.

‘UYE!’ one of the longfaces howled.

‘TOH!’ six replied in grating harmony.

And then there was the sound of thunder.

Hidden behind the largest of the pillars marching the circle of the temple’s pool, the Mouth could not see the doors give way, but he heard them splinter open. He heard the sound of longfaces cursing as they made their way in; the defenders of Yonder had come here to the temple first, barricading the doors with crates and sandbags.

Not enough to stand against the invaders’ ram, of course, but the people of Yonder knew nothing of the creatures that had come in great black boats to their city. They could not have been prepared for the merciless heathen assault that came to their streets on howling war cries and clanging iron. They were people of fear and memory. Those people protected their churches, as much out of instinct as out of principle.

Their dedication to defending the doors, and later the streets, had made it easy enough for him to slip in unnoticed. The longfaces were complicating things, though.

‘This is why I hate coming in unannounced.’ A voice echoed: harsh, iron, female. ‘Look at what they put out to stop us. Wood. Sand. Barely more of an obstacle than the overscum. You know not a single female netherling died today?’

‘As I planned.’ Another voice replied: deep, arrogant, male. ‘These were not creatures worth bleeding over.’

‘If we had let them know we were coming, they might have been. They had weapons. They were clearly preparing for something.’

‘They had spears. For fishing,’ the male said. ‘Like Those Green Things back on the island. They are chattel. These were obstacles. Neither are worth losing females over.’

‘We’ve got plenty of females. What we don’t have is things worth fighting.’ The female muttered over the sound of more bodies entering. ‘I heard the Master’s ship sank. Everyone but him died in it. That must have been a fight.’

A chorus of female voices grunted their agreement.

‘And now we have sixteen fewer females for the final attack,’ the male replied wearily. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that, yet again, no one but me seems to be taking account of the long term. We have more important foes than pink things.’

‘Right, the underscum,’ she said. ‘But the Grey One That Grins says this thing will kill them, right? What’s the point, then?’

‘The point is to kill the underscum.’

‘We’ve done it before. With the poison.’

‘The poison is limited, and it’s far too weak to destroy what we’re meant to kill. This … relic, I believe it’s called, will give us the edge we need.’

‘We’re netherling. We have enough edges.’

‘And yet, here we are,’ the male sighed. ‘I don’t ask that you understand, Qaine, merely that you do.’ He hummed. ‘The overscum said it was beyond the pool … but where?’

The female echoed his thoughtful hum. The Mouth heard her shuffle around the pool’s perimeter. He slid lower against the pillar, shrouding himself further in the shadow of the temple. His hands slipped down to the satchel at his side, producing a short knife and the vial.

He stared at the latter intently. If he was discovered, there would be no time to use it, no time to deliver it to the pool, no time to free Daga-Mer, to complete his mission.

He had a mission, he reminded himself. He had a deal. He would deliver the vial, pour Mother’s Milk into the water and free Daga-Mer. In exchange, he would remember nothing. He would be free of sinful memory, at long last. He would not remember the pain, the tragedies, his name …

He had a name.

He grimaced.

The sound of stone shattering pulled him from his brief reverie. A cry of alarm was bitten back in his throat. He hadn’t been discovered, he recognised. Rather, something had been shattered. The statue of Zamanthras that stood at the head of the pool, he recalled. Zamanthras was uncaring. Zamanthras did not save his family.

He had a family.

‘Hah!’ the female barked. ‘See? Found it! It’s like they say: Smash the biggest thing in the room and you’ll find your answer.’

‘No one says that,’ the male replied.

‘I say it. I’m a Carnassial. So they will say it now. Won’t they?’

The females grunted their agreement, chuckling. There was the sound of stone sifting, rocks sliding.

‘What … this is it? It’s just a heap of bones!’

‘That’s what we came for,’ the male replied. ‘Take it back to the ships. We’re done here.’

‘Done? The sikkhuns are still hungry.’

‘They are always hungry.’

‘The females haven’t killed enough.’

‘They will never kill enough.’

‘There’s still overscum here!’

The male paused.

‘Find the ones with heads bowed, talking to invisible things. Kill them. Don’t waste time on anything else. Ships need rebuilding, and Sheraptus is not pleased because of it.’

‘Right, right,’ the female muttered. The sounds of ironclad feet shuffling rang out, then stopped. ‘Well, well … what’s this thing do?’

‘We don’t have time to-’

‘It’s huge,’ another female interrupted. ‘Look at it! It’s got this big … big …’

‘Spiky thing,’ a third gasped. ‘It’s spiky! But how does it work?’

‘No idea,’ the first female grunted. ‘It can’t be that hard, though.’ There was the sound of shuffling, knuckles rapping wood. ‘There’s some kind of … stick thing. What’s it-?’

A snap. Wood rattled. Air shattered.

The Mouth froze as a purple blur fled past his pillar. He stared as it came to a halt against the stone. The netherling gasped, laying wide eyes upon him. She tried to say something through a mouth quickly filling with blood.

Possibly due to the massive spear jutting through her belly and pinning her to the wall. She squirmed once, spat once, then died upon the wall.

And a grating, wailing roar of joy swept through the temple.

‘Did you see that? Did you see it? It was all-’

‘TWANG! Yeah, and then it was all fwoom and she just went flying!’

‘Look at that! Killed her right there! Look at her just hang there!’

‘Could you make it twang faster? Could it be fwoomier?’

‘Yeah, you could! Just put more spikes on it!’

‘Right! More spikes and you could just kill anything.’

The low, morbid chuckle that swept the temple was the first female, Qaine.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘We’re taking this.’

‘Quite done?’ the male asked. ‘Want to collect the one on the wall?’

The Mouth tensed.

‘Who gets shot with a giant spike and deserves to get pulled down?’ Qaine grunted. ‘That’s not a bad spike, though …’ She hummed as the Mouth gripped his knife tighter. ‘But we can make it spikier.’

‘Shootier,’ another female agreed.

‘Stabbier,’ a third said.

‘Twangier.’

‘Yeah,’ Qaine said. ‘Take it to the ships. Round up the sikkhuns. They’ve eaten enough.’

There was the sound of crates crunching under rolling wheels, grunts of effort as something massive was escorted out of the temple. A solitary breathing told the Mouth that he was not yet alone. He guessed by the lack of snarling accompanying it that the male still remained.

‘You could have stopped this,’ the male whispered.

The Mouth’s eyes widened. He tensed, preparing himself. The knife was tight in his hand, though he wasn’t sure how much difference it would make. The males used magic, he recalled. A flimsy little spike made of bone would be useless against such power.

Throw it, then, he told himself. Distract the male, then escape. There would be time enough to return later, to return to his home, to find what he had left behind, to say good-bye to …

What about the mission? he asked himself. What about the deal?

‘But you didn’t …’

The male hadn’t struck yet. Who would he be talking to, then?

‘Your people paint the stones red with their blood. Your shrines burn. You lay shattered on the floor … and I walk away.’ The Mouth could hear the sneer in the male’s voice. ‘If you were real, you’d do something.’

There was a long silence. The male waited.

And then turned and strode out.

It was some time later before the sound of dying and the war cries of the invaders faded outside. The Mouth waited quietly before he even thought to move.

And by then, he realised he was still not alone.

Soft feet on stone floors. Frantic breathing. Terror in every sound. Not a longface, then. Then there was the sound of slurping, the desperate gulping of water that belonged to the scared, the sick, the dying. He remembered that sound.

And as he turned, he remembered the girl. She stared up from the pool, wide-eyed beneath a mop of wild black hair. Her face was dirtier than before, covered in soot. Her hand was deep in the sacred pool, her cracked lips glistening with holy water.

No, he reminded himself, waters of a prison, that which holds back Daga-Mer. You’re to free him, remember? Remember?

Of course he did. But he also remembered her, her fear, her desperation, her name. He opened his mouth to speak it.

‘I don’t care,’ Kasla said before he could. ‘It’s not holy. If it was, She would have done something.’ The girl pointed to the shattered statue of Zamanthras. ‘And now nearly everyone’s dead! Stabbed, bled out or eaten by those … things. And She did nothing.’

The Mouth followed her finger. Zamanthras’ stone eyes stared at him blankly: no pity, no excuse, no plea for him not to do what he knew he must. He stared down at the vial in his hand.

Thick, viscous ooze swirled within. Mother’s Milk. The last mortal essence of Ulbecetonth, all that was needed to free Daga-Mer from a prison unjust. He looked to the pool, and as if in response, a faint heartbeat arose from some unseen depth within the massive circle of water.

A distant pulse, reminding him with its steady, drumlike beat.

He leaned closer, as if to peer within, to see what it was he was freeing. He saw only his reflection, his weak mortality distorted and dissipated as ripples coursed across the surface. Kasla, the girl, was drinking again, noisily slurping down the sacred waters of her city’s goddess.

The Mouth found himself taken aback slightly. It was just water, of course, but he had expected her to show more regard for that which her people revered.

But her people lay dying outside. No goddess answered their prayers, just as no goddess had answered hers. She drank as though every drop would be the last to touch her lips, as though she need not fear for anyone else. She was alone, without a people, without a holy man, without a goddess.

The humane thing to do would be to free them all, he told himself, to lift their sins of memory and ease the anguished burdens heaped upon them by a silent deity. To free them, he would free Daga-Mer, and be free himself. His own pain would be gone, his own memories lost, as would hers. And without anything to remember, they would be free, there would be nothing left, they would be …

Alone …

She looked up, panicked as he approached her. She backed away from the pool.

‘Get back!’ she hissed. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong! I was thirsty! The wells, they’re … the things were drinking from them. I needed water. I needed to survive.’

The Mouth paused before her. He extended a hand, palm bare of knife hilt.

‘Many people do.’

She stared at his hand suspiciously. He resisted the urge to pull it back, lest she see the faint webbing that had begun to grow between his fingers. He resisted the urge to turn to the pool and throw Mother’s Milk into it. They were there, the urges, the need to do them.

But he could not remember why he should leave her.

Kasla took his hand tentatively and he pulled her to her feet. She smiled at him. He did not smile back.

‘We both got here unseen,’ he said, turning towards the sundered doors of the temple. ‘We can help others get here, too, until the longfaces leave. There will be enough to drink.’

‘The waters are sacred. They would fear the wrath of Zamanthras.’

‘Zamanthras will do nothing.’

She followed him as he walked out the door into sheets of pouring rain and the impotent, smoking rage of fires extinguished.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked at last.

He paused before answering.

‘Hanth,’ he said. ‘My daughter’s name was Hanta.’

She grunted. Together, they continued into the city, searching the fallen for signs of life. Hanth stared at their chests, felt for their breath, for want of listening for groans and pleas. He could not hear anything anymore.

The heartbeat was thunder in his ears.