‘The armour,’ said Esiah, his voice utterly flat. ‘The armour.’
‘Yes, the armour of winnow-forged steel. I remember well your son’s pride in all he had constructed so far, and just imagine, my darling, how his face will light up when you tell him—’
Abruptly Esiah Godwort was on his feet, scrambling back from the circle of lamps as though he feared to be bitten by something there. He bumped into the far wall and turned away from them, cowering as if from a blow.
‘Go! You have to go! Get out, leave this place, get out of my sight, damn you.’
Vintage stood up. Her normally warm brown face had gone a milky grey, but as Tor watched he saw her gather herself. Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon was not to be so easily turned away from her path.
‘Please, Esiah. Tell us what’s wrong. How can we help?’
‘There is no helping me. Nor any of us. This world is poisoned. Seeded with filth, death growing in the Wild.’ The man took an agonised, watery breath that was half a sob. When he spoke again he sounded more awake and alert than he had since they’d arrived, but it was a voice heavy with sorrow too. ‘It’s the compound you want, isn’t it? Go then. Go. The gate is unlocked and, the gods know, I can’t look at it any more. Do what you must, but leave me alone. Now.’
27
The Winnowry’s giant bats (or to give them their proper name, Targus Black-eye Bats) are originally from the mountainous region of Targ. It’s a place that has long intrigued me, I must admit – all evidence points to a cataclysm taking place there millennia ago, long before even the very first visit from the Jure’lia – but its reputation as a cursed landscape means that it is absolutely impossible to book a passage there. No one travels to Targ, alas.
Except that wasn’t always true. We know, of course, that when the early followers of Tomas were laying the foundations for their delightful prison for women, some of them did travel to Targ, and we know that they came back with a clutch of Targus Black-eye young. As a side note: I would dearly love to know why they travelled to Targ in the first place. With its bleak chasms and towering mountains you would need a very good reason to go. Perhaps the reason is hidden somewhere in Tomas’s private writings; of the secrets he brought back from the sea, did one contain a reason to go to Targ? Or more intriguing still, does the region have a connection with winnowfire?
Either way, the young bats were raised at the Winnowry, as were their offspring, until they knew no other home, and generations of the creatures flew from the spindly chirot tower at the top of the Winnowry. They are carnivorous animals, hunting birds and smallish mammals, but they also enjoy fruit – on one memorable occasion I caught a fully grown Targus Black-eye feasting on the grapes in the vine forest. It must have been a rogue, having fled from the Winnowry – I can’t imagine that even such a huge winged creature could fly all the way from Targus to my forest. I chased it off with a stick, the bugger.
By all accounts they are loyal, intelligent creatures, with a tendency to fixate on their keeper, or other close human.
Extract from the journals of Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon
The day was swiftly dying, and the three of them stayed the night in Esiah Godwort’s enormous empty house, each finding an abandoned room to bed down in. Tormalin woke in the early hours and went down to the kitchens, looking for food and a bottle of wine to ease him back to sleep. On his way back he noticed that there was a band of buttery light underneath the door of Esiah Godwort’s study, and he could hear the dry noise of paper against paper; perhaps the man had been driven mad from a lack of sleep. From Noon’s room he could hear small noises of distress, muffled with sleep, and he stood there for some time, one hand pressed lightly against the door. He was curious, but he was also tired.
Back in his own room, camped on a bed thick with dust, he opened the wine and found that he no longer wanted it. Instead, he reached into his bag and retrieved one of the last vials of blood – blood donated by Ainsel. Turning the glass between his fingers, he watched the crimson fluid swirling thickly by the light of his single candle. Years ago, when Ebora had only been a few years into its blood-lust, a coating had been developed for glass vessels that kept blood from growing thick too quickly, and he had made sure to pack several jars in his bags when he left the city. Tormalin unstopped the vial and pressed it quickly to his lips. The blood was no longer even in shouting distance of fresh, and it did little to alleviate his weariness, but the taste of Ainsel was still there, the memories of her warm skin sweet against his tongue. For a few moments the abandoned room felt less lonely.
Pinching out the light and crawling beneath the musty covers, Tormalin thought of Noon again, caught in the repeated nightmare that wasn’t a nightmare, over and over. Eventually, he slept.
The girl wriggled deeper into the blankets, the horsehair rough against her bare feet. It was midday, and the walls of her mother’s tent glowed faintly with captured sunlight. This was good. If it was bright outside, they would be less likely to see what she was up to.
She reached into the basket and pulled out the bushel of rala root her mother had harvested earlier that morning. It was dying fast, the long green leaves that sprouted above ground were already wilted and soft, but there was enough life left in them for what she needed – she could feel it through her fingertips, ticklish and alive and leaking.
The girl looked up to the entrance of the tent, checking again that her mother wasn’t going to make a sudden appearance, but the flap was closed, and outside she could hear the gentle, everyday sounds of her people: voices raised in greeting, gossip and command, the huff and chuff of horses being tended, the faint sound of Mother Fast singing successful hunting to them all. There was the steady thump of axe against wood, the sound of other children playing and calling to each other, but within the tent everything was still. This was her time, a brief moment alone where she could do what she wanted. And there was only ever one thing she wanted.
The girl wrapped the fingers of one hand around the rala root, and held her other hand out in front of her. The living greenness of the plant beat gently against her fingers, almost as though it wanted her to take it. In the sun-hazed gloom of the tent, the girl grinned.
The rala leaves crumpled and turned brown. The bulbous heart-shaped root, so good when cooked in stews, grew wrinkled and shrunken. After a few moments, the ends of the leaves turned black and curled up.