Black Halo

Fourteen

THE MANY CORPSES



When he discovered it, Lenk christened his vessel the Nag.

It seemed fitting enough to name it after a dying beast of burden, anyway. Though he couldn’t quite recall any diseased mare he had ever seen in as pathetic a condition as his former ship, spared no indignity by the Akaneeds or whatever god had sent them, was in.

Its two pieces had washed ashore together, lying upon the beach like wooden skeletons of long-deceased sea beasts. Their shattered timbers reached up, as if in plea to an unsympathetic sky, desperate for something to pull them free of the sand they sank farther into with every rising wave. Their reeking, rotting ribs clouded the air with unseen stench, and what remained of a sail flapped in the breeze, trying to escape this crumbling hell and flee upon the wind. Through the dunes, a dying river snaked from the distant forest to serve as a resting place for the wreckage, slipping through its shattered wood as it emptied into the sea.

Lenk could take some macabre solace in the fact that it had found a use as a battlefield for beach vermin. Crabs and legged eels slithered and scuttled in and out of its cracks and holes, desperately trying to avoid the watching eyes of seagulls and screaming in salty, silent breaths when they were caught by probing beaks.

Unable to bear their tiny despairs, Lenk turned his attention to scanning the wreckage, searching for anything of value. He supposed it would have been too much to hope that some supplies might have run aground with the Nag’s corpse. Of course, if anything edible had come ashore, it was likely devoured by one of the many combatants that crawled around the rubble.

Or, far more likely, Lenk thought, spirited away by some god who isn’t content to smite me with disease and despair. Any divine favour I might have enjoyed came exclusively from Asper’s presence, and she’s …

He winced, trying not to finish that thought.

‘Dead?’ the voice finished for him.

‘I was trying to avoid that conclusion,’ Lenk muttered.

‘What purpose is born through denial of the inevitable?’

‘Hope?’

‘Purpose, not delusion.’

‘I find myself hard-pressed to argue.’ Lenk stalked closer to the ruined vessel, ignoring the resentful glares the seagulls shot him and the sword he carried. ‘Still, there might be something here … some clue …’

‘What could you possibly find here that would make you realise anything you don’t already know?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe they left something for me to find.’

‘Such as?’

‘I said I don’t know.’

‘One would think that clueless futility is also a delusion.’

‘One would think.’

‘The indulgence can’t be healthy, you know.’

‘Given that my leg is a festering mass of disease and I’m having a conversation with a symptom of insanity, I’d say I’m well beyond concern for health, mental or otherwise.’

‘Did you ever stop to think that perhaps my presence is a blessing?’

‘In between you causing me to look like a lunatic in front of people and telling me to kill people, no, that thought hadn’t occurred to me.’

‘Consider this: You’re currently searching through rotting timber when you should be seeking medicinal aid. The captain sent his mate to pick you up. You and the tome, do you recall?’

‘I recall the giant, man-eating sea snakes that complicated matters a bit.’

‘Regardless, even if you’ve lost the tome, there would be medicine, supplies aboard the ship they sent. We could recuperate, recover, and then search—’

‘For the others …’ Lenk muttered, scratching his chin. ‘You’re concerned about them and my well-being. Does the fever affect you, too?’

‘The tome. We must find the tome. As for the others … stop this. They are weak. They are dead. We must concern ourselves with our well-being.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I know that this ship was wood and metal and the snakes destroyed it. What chance does flesh and bone have?’

‘I survived.’

‘Because of me, as you continue to do. Because of me. Now take heed and listen.’

‘There’s still a chance. There has to be something here. Something that can—’

‘There is something here.’

‘Where?’

The voice didn’t have to reply. Lenk didn’t have to look hard. He spied it, struggling to break free in the flow and flee into the ocean. His eyes went wide, a chill swept over his fevered body. Suddenly, the sun dimmed, his blood ran thin in his body, and his voice could barely rise from his throat.

‘No …’ he whispered.

Kataria’s feather, floating in the water, pulled by the flow as the smooth stick attached to it held it captive.

‘No … no, no. No!’ Lenk swept up to it, cradling it in trembling hands as though it might break at any moment. ‘No … she … she’d never leave this behind. She always wears them.’

‘Wore them.’

‘Shut up! YOU SHUT UP!’ Lenk snarled, bashing his fist against his temple. ‘This can’t be it. She wouldn’t have left this. She … they …’ He swallowed hard, a lump of boiling lead tumbling down his throat. ‘All …’

‘Dead.’

The word was given a sudden, heavy weight. It drove him to his knees, pulled the sword from his hand, crushed the blood from his face like dirty water from a sponge.

‘Dead …’

‘Dead,’ the voice repeated. ‘Another blessing you will come to realise in time.’

‘Please …’ Lenk gasped, his voice wet and heavy in his throat. ‘Please don’t say that.’

‘She would have killed you, you know.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘She said as much.’

The voices flashed through his mind, as hot and tense as his fevered brow. All he had left to remember them by – her by – was the scorn that had dripped from her lips when they last spoke. The memories, the pleasantries, faded into nothingness and left one voice behind.

‘I want to feel like myself.’

‘And you can only do that by ignoring me?’

‘No, I can only do that by killing you!’

It continued to ring, cathedral bells of cracked brass. He clenched his skull, trying to stop it from echoing inside his head. He could not let go of the noise. It was all he had left.

‘Kill you …’ he repeated to himself. ‘Kill you … kill you …’

‘She would have,’ the voice replied. ‘But that’s not important now. Now, we must rise up, we must—’

It faded, drowned in a flood of logic and reason that swept into Lenk’s brain on a hatefully reasonable tone.

Of course she would have, he thought. She’s a shict. You’re a human. They live to kill us. This voice, familiarly cynical and harsh, he realised was Denaos’ own, seeping up from some gash in his mind. What, you thought she’d give up her whole race for you?

Maybe it’s a blessing, a voice like Asper’s said inside him. The one favour the Gods will show you. You don’t have to worry about her anymore, do you? You don’t have to worry about anything …

Well, it’s just logical, isn’t it? Dreadaeleon asked, more decisive and snide than ever. Put two opposing forces in the same atmosphere and one destroys the other. You can’t change that. It’s just how it works.

Your life only became more meaningless when you centred it on her, Gariath growled. You deserve to die.

‘I deserve it …’

‘Self-pity is also a …’ The voice paused suddenly, its tone shifting to cold anger. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I deserve it.’

Lenk reached up and took the feather, the last action he took before he rose without compulsion from his body. He turned to stare out over the sea, clutching the white object close to him. Then, his feet beginning to move with numb mechanic, he walked toward the hungry, frothing sea.

‘What are you doing?’ The voice’s demand didn’t penetrate the numbness in his body. Whatever eyes it had, it must have seen the shore looming up. ‘Stop! This is not our purpose!’

‘You were right,’ Lenk said, a smile creeping across his face. ‘She’s dead. They’re all dead. We’ll be together again, though. Companions forever.’

‘Listen to me. LISTEN. Something is wrong.’

‘It’s over.’ The young man shook his head. ‘I can’t do this anymore. Not without them. Not without her.’

‘Sacrifice isn’t noble if it hinders everything else. We have much to do. What of purpose? What of vengeance?’

No more words. No more arguing with them, any of them. His willpower seeped out of his leg on weeping pus. Hope could no longer carry him. Futility could no longer fuel him. Surrender, the promise of an end to the blood and the pain, drove him forward, inevitably toward the sea.

‘Resist,’ the voice commanded. ‘Fight. We are stronger.’

No more words. The waves rose up to meet him. He would never stop walking until his lungs burst with salt and his flesh was picked clean by hungry fish.

‘You do not get to die here,’ the voice uttered, cold and commanding. ‘That is not your decision.’

No more words.

He felt a sudden, overwhelming cold, his fever coursing out of him on a frost-laden breath. His legs locked up beneath him; ice water coursed through his veins and sent him to the ground.

‘I won’t let you.’

So close to release, Lenk reached out with fingers trembling to grasp the earth and pull him into sweet, blue freedom. Freedom from Miron, from Greenhair, freedom from anyone and everything that had made him think she should have died for leather and paper.

‘Why …?’ He felt his tears as ice on his face as his body trembled and folded over itself. ‘I can’t do this. Just let me die … I want to …’

‘It does not matter what you want,’ the voice replied, unsympathetic. ‘All that matters is what you must do.’

The pounding in his head faded, freeing his ears to the sound of feet scraping against sand, alien voices rising over the sandy ridge. Alien, but familiar.

‘Hake-yo! Man-eh komah owah!’

‘And what you must do … is hide.’

‘But I—’

‘You don’t get to make that decision.’

He could barely feel the sand beneath his feet or his spine bending as he plucked up the sword. He barely noticed; his entire willpower, what didn’t ooze out of him, was concentrated in his fingers as he held desperately onto the feather. He wasn’t even aware of moving behind the sandy dune until he was finally there, his numb body forced to the earth as whatever force moved his legs suddenly gave out.

No sooner had his belly pressed against the dirt than the first green scalp came rising over the opposite ridge. A pair of wide, amber eyes shifted across the wreckage. A satisfied snort emerged from a long, green snout. Two long, clawed feet slid down the sand and into the valley, their tracks concealed by the long tail dragging behind it.

That the creature didn’t notice his presence spoke more of its inattention than his subtlety. Even amidst the beach scrub, a head of silver hair couldn’t have been hard to spot. He lay still; his body bore obedience for only one voice.

The lizardman turned about, cast its glower over the ridge and snarled.

‘Nah-ah. Shii man-eh.’

‘Shaa?’ came an indignant hiss from beyond the dune.

Three additional green bodies came clambering over the ridge. Lenk took greater note of them now, particularly the clubs studded with jagged teeth and savage machetes hanging from their loincloths. A decidedly vicious improvement from the sharpened sticks they had carried last night, but that only brought a grim smile to Lenk’s face.

Their weapons were so sharp, so brutal-looking. They could eviscerate him in the wink of an eye, end the suffering in a horrific chop and smattering of red and fleshy pink chunks on the sand. It would be so quick, so easy.

His felt his leg spasm on the sand.

Despite his mounting excitement, he thought it odd that they hadn’t carried those tools last night. Even more curious was the fact that they seemed taller than before, their lanky musculature packed tightly under taut green flesh. Tattoos as ferocious as their weaponry ran up and down their bodies in alternating hoops, jagged bands and cat-like strips of red and black ink. Still, it wasn’t until Lenk noticed the space under their long snouts that the realisation dawned upon him.

‘Beardless,’ he whispered. ‘These aren’t the same ones.’

‘These are warriors. Look at the way they move.’

Lenk took note immediately. No step was uncalculated, no amber scowl was wasted. They stalked around the wreckage of the Nag with gazes far more predatory than the lizards from the other night.

Killers’ gazes, Lenk thought. They can smell my blood. They hunger for it. They’re violent, bloodthirsty creatures. His grin grew so large that he had to bite his lower lip to stifle it. Gods, but they’re going to kill me so quick.

He felt his hands tighten around the scrub grass in ecstasy. If the voice could feel the plants, too, it made no indication.

‘That one,’ it muttered. ‘The one with the bow. That’s the leader.’

Scarcely a revelation. That one lingered behind the three others with the cool casualness of command against its companions’ predatory vigilance. Its polished black bow hung off its shoulder with the easy relationship of a master and his weapon. Any remaining doubt was quickly dispelled by the fact that its tattoos covered more of its flesh than any other lizard present.

‘Cho-a?’ it called out, apparent disinterest in its voice.

‘Na-ah!’ One of them, the one that had first arrived, looked up with a snarl. ‘Man-eh shii ko ah okah!’

‘Shaa,’ the leader said, waving its scaly hand. It jerked its head back toward the ridge they had come from. ‘Igeh ah Shalake. Na-ah man-eh hakaa.’

The other two lizardmen looked up from their own inquiries into the wreckage with nods. They grunted once, then stalked away from the debris, past the leader and up the ridge, vanishing behind it. The leader sighed and folded its arms over its inked chest as it stared at the obstinate one expectantly.

‘Mad-eh kawa yo!’ it snarled, jerking its head back to the ridge. ‘Kawa!’

‘Sia-ah!’ the other one hissed, scanning the wreckage with desperate intensity. ‘Shii ko a man-eh!’

‘They look agitated,’ Lenk whispered, unconsciously slithering a little closer. He eyed the quiver of brightly coloured arrows hanging off the leader’s back and his voice took on a hysterical edge. ‘Absolutely irate, even. How close do you think we’d have to be?’

‘For what?’

‘For him to put one of those arrows right between my eyes.’

‘It won’t happen. They’re leaving now, look.’

Lenk bit back a despairing shriek, or it was bitten back for him by whatever numbed his throat. He didn’t care about anything save for the fact that the insistent lizard-man’s tattooed body shrank with a sudden sigh. Looking dejected, it turned to go and follow the leader back up the ridge.

Until something on the ground caught its eye.

‘Yes,’ Lenk squealed, ‘yes, yes!’

‘No!’ the voice countered with a chilling anger.

Lenk followed the creature’s yellow gaze past the gutted timbers and scampering crabs, onto the moist sand.

To the perfectly preserved indentation of his footprint.

‘Don’t move,’ the voice warned. ‘They haven’t seen us yet.’

‘Well, we can fix that.’

‘No! DO NOT—’

The voice’s command was lost in his laughter. Its control vanished in a fevered surge as Lenk rose to his feet. He spread his arms wide in a deranged welcome, his sword flashing in the sunlight and catching the attention of the creatures below.

From atop their heads, large crests fanned up. Lenk caught a glimpse of the many colours painting the webs of the green protrusions. Murals of blood and steel and teeth stretched from brow to backbone.

The obstinate one pointed a scaly finger up, opened its jaws in a shriek.

‘MAN-EH!’

‘Yes, yes!’ Lenk cried back. ‘Welcome, gentlemen, to the butchery! If you’ll just hoist those fancy-looking weapons, we can finally get down to the gritty process of spilling my guts onto the dirt!’

‘This isn’t your decision!’

‘You keep saying that, but here I am,’ Lenk replied. His eyes went wide as the leader unslung his bow, nocked and drew back an arrow in short order. ‘If it makes you feel any better, you can say it was your decision.’

‘Down, fool!’

It was not a suggestion. Lenk’s legs gave out the moment the bowstring hummed; he teetered backwards in time to loose a whining curse as the arrow shrieked just over his face. His hand seized up, clenching his sword as he tumbled down the dune and onto the beach.

‘No matter,’ he sputtered through a tangle of sand and steel, ‘no matter, no matter. I can still do this. It’s just going to be a bit messier.’

He felt the vibrations through his feet as he clambered upright, of legs thundering across the sand, long clawed toes kicking up earth as it shot toward him. He smiled, the same sort of grin he might have had for a fond relative, as he looked up at the ridge.

He did not have to wait long.

‘SHENKO-SA!’

The war cry came on the eruption of sand and a shiny emerald flash as the lizardman came leaping over the dune. For an instant, Lenk saw the majesty of his impending demise: the teeth glittering in the creature’s war club, the enraged circle of its stare, the tensing muscles in its body.

‘Oh,’ Lenk gasped, ‘this is going to be good.’

‘No,’ the voice uttered. ‘Fight.’

‘I don’t want to.’ The protest of Lenk’s voice was a sentiment not shared by his body, however, as his sword came up regardless. ‘I want to die.’

‘Fight,’ the voice commanded.

Refusal was mute against the creature, which slid down the dune in a cloud of sand and screams, swinging its club in wide circles over its head. Lenk watched the tattooed flesh, saw the mural painted on its crest foretelling his own bloody demise.

‘FIGHT!’

‘I don’t—’

Lenk did.

His sword jerked up spastically, was seized in hands not his own. The club sputtered a spray of splinters as it bit the blade, steel grinding against teeth. Lenk felt the shock rattle down his arm, shake his heart in his rib cage. Gouts of fire lanced his leg as he felt himself being pushed backwards.

Let it drop, he told himself. Let the sword drop and let him smash your head in. You won’t even feel it. Then all this will be over.

Against this, his body had one reply.

‘Fight.’

‘I said I won’t!’ Lenk shrieked back.

‘Man-eh shaa ige?’ the lizard snarled.

‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ Lenk roared

The lizard’s body twitched in response. It slid backwards, breaking the deadlock as it spun about wildly. His dumbfounded stare lasted only as long as it took the creature’s tail to rise up and smash against his jaw.

A heavy blow, but not enough that it should make him as dizzy as he felt. He reeled, feet giving out beneath him. The world spun into darkness, banishing his opponent and his body. He did not strike the earth as he fell, but tumbled through, twisting in the dark.

‘This is it, then?’ He heard his voice echoing in the gloom as a gasp. ‘This is what it is to die?’

‘No,’ the voice answered.

The world came rushing back to him in new eyes. The sand was soft. His sword was clenched in his hands, his hands. The club crashing down upon him was slow, weak. He stared up at what had been his enemy. What he saw was a corpse waiting to fall.

‘This,’ the voice said, ‘is what it is to kill.’

‘SHENKO-SA!’ the lizard screeched.

Lenk’s sword replied for him. There was no shock, no strength behind the lizard’s club as it met his blade. Or if there had been, Lenk did not feel it. He could barely feel anything, even the foot he rammed into his foe’s groin. The creature merely hissed, recoiling with composure unbefitting the injury.

That was unimportant. The earth was unimportant. He rose to his feet, easily. There was weeping from his leg, he knew, but he could not feel it. It was cold in his veins, cold as the steel he raised against his foe. From the corner of his eye, he caught his own reflection in the weapon’s face.

Two blue orbs, burning cold and bereft of pupils, stared back.

That was wrong, he knew in some part of him that faded with every frigid breath. His eyes should have pupils. He should feel hot, not cold. He should fear the voice, fear the chill that coursed through him. He should scream, protest, fight it.

He stared at his opponent over the sword.

No more words.

They sprang at each other, arrows of flesh in overdrawn bows. Their weapons embraced in splinters and sparks, crushing against each other time and again. He could only feel the metallic curse of his sword as it searched with the patience of a hound for some gap in the creature’s defence. Every steel blow sent the lizardman sliding back, every breath grew more laboured, each block came a little slower.

Only a matter of time, Lenk and his sword both knew. Only a matter of time before a fatal flinch, a minuscule cramp in the muscle, something that …

There.

The lizardman raised its club, too high. Lenk’s sword was up, too swift. The creature’s eyes were wide, too wide.

Then the sword came down.

Skin came first, unravelling like paper from a present. Sinew next. Lenk watched as the cords of muscle drew taut and snapped as lute strings too tight. Bone was sheared through, cracking open to expose glistening pink. There might have been blood; he was sure the creature’s arm hit the earth, but didn’t stop to look.

The lizardman looked up, mouth agape, eyes wide as it collapsed to its knees. It mouthed something that his ears were numb to. Threats, maybe. Curses.

All silent before the metal hum of Lenk’s sword as it came up.

No more words.

The sword slid seamlessly, over the arm that came up too meagre to serve as any defence and into the creature’s collarbone. Lenk pushed down, his sword humming happily and drowning out the screaming and muscle popping beneath it. He pushed it down until he felt it jam.

By then, the creature was lifeless, suspended only by Lenk’s grip on the sword that impaled it.

‘This,’ the voice uttered, ‘is what we do.’

It should feel wrong, the young man knew. He should feel the rush of battle, the thunder of his heart. He should feel terrified, worried, elated, relieved.

He should, he knew, feel something, anything other than calm, whole.

Even as the voice faded, the cold going with it, the sense of wholeness remained. His purpose, he realised, was gripped in his hands and knelt lifeless at his feet. His breath came easy, even as the fever returned. The desperation and fear had fled, leaving only a young man and his sword.

His bloody, bloody sword …

His senses came flooding back to him with the sound of a bowstring being drawn. He looked up, mouth parted in a vaguely surprised circle.

‘Oh, right,’ he whispered, ‘there’s two.’

It happened too fast: the string humming, the arrow shrieking, the flesh piercing. He felt it impale itself deep into his thigh, near his wound. He collapsed to his knees, falling with the other lizardman’s corpse as he lost his grip on his sword.

‘Ah,’ he squealed through the pain. ‘Khetashe, but that hurts.’ He looked up at the inked lizard stalking toward him. ‘I think you missed, though. It didn’t hit bone.’

The lizard didn’t seem to hear or care as it casually nocked another arrow.

‘It’s funny, though,’ Lenk said, giggling hysterically. ‘Moments ago, I was wishing for this, hoping for it. Now, I’ve killed your ugly little friend here and I want to live so I can kill you, too. But …’ He let loose a shrieking peal. ‘But you’re going to kill me. Is that irony or poetry?’

No answer but the drawing of a bowstring.

‘I shouldn’t be afraid,’ he whispered, ‘but … I can’t help but feel that I learned something a little too late.’

‘Too bad for you,’ the lizard replied in perfect, unbroken human tongue.

‘Oh,’ Lenk said, blinking. ‘Two things, then.’

Voice and bow spoke with one unsympathetic voice. ‘Shame.’

Lenk had no reply; pleading seemed a little hypocritical, what with the creature’s companion dead at his knees. Still, stoicism seemed hard to achieve in the face of the arrow. With nothing left, he desperately tried to come up with a final thought to ride into the afterlife.

And all he could come up with was, Sorry, Kat.

A shriek hit his ears. Not of a bow, he realised as he watched the creature spasm, but of a long, sharpened stick that ended its swift and violet flight in the lizardman’s shoulder. The arrow fell to the earth, and the lizardman shrieked and scampered backward, groping at the makeshift spear in its flesh.

‘Lenk,’ a voice said, distant. ‘Move.’

‘What?’ he asked in a trembling voice.

‘Down, moron!’

The shape came tearing over him, hands on his shoulders and pulling itself over his head. In a flash of brown and white, it struck the creature in a tackle, pulling both to the ground.

Lenk blinked, unable to make sense of the frenzy of movement before him. He caught glimpses of green, brighter than the lizard’s flesh, amidst a whirlwind of pale white and gold. The creature shrieked under the other shape, swatting at clawing hands and biting teeth.

The shriek arced to a vicious crescendo. There was a flash of bright ruby.

Blood, Lenk realised, then realised his own leg was warm and wet. Blood! It poured out of his wound in rivulets from the jagged rent the arrow had left, spilling across his leg and onto the sand. How long have I been bleeding? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

That thought was fleeting, as were the rest as he felt himself grow dizzy.

He heard, faintly, the sound of a tail slapping against skin and an agonised grunt. The pale figure toppled to the earth as the creature scrambled up, clutching a face painted with glistening red. It howled curses, incomprehensible, as it scrambled away, dragging its bow behind it.

‘I got its eye,’ the figure laughed as it rose up. ‘Reeking little bleeder.’

A familiar voice, Lenk thought, though its features were unfamiliar. Even as it rose and stood still, its face was blurry, its figure hazy as it approached him. It leaned closer; he thought he could make out some mass of twisted gold and emerald, a mouth stained with red.

‘Lenk?’ it asked, its voice feminine. It twitched suddenly. He felt a hand on his leg. She had found his wound. ‘Oh, damn it. Was it too much to ask that you survive on your own for two days?’

Hands wrapping around his torso, arms under his, sand moving under him. The sensation of being dragged was not as visceral as it should be, but he was quickly learning to forget what it should be.

‘Poetry,’ he gasped, breath wet and hot.

‘What?’

‘If I had just died quickly after I realised I didn’t want to, that would be irony.’

‘You’re not going to die,’ she snarled, tightening her grip. He made out other voices, alien languages behind him. ‘Help!’ she cried to them. ‘Help me pick him up! Move!’

‘I am,’ he laughed on fading whimsy. ‘It’s beautiful poetry now; I see it. I’m going to die.’

‘You’re not,’ she snarled as another pair of hands picked up his legs. Green hands. ‘I won’t let you.’

He rode those words, off the stained earth and into oblivion.