The moment was nothing like she’d practiced in the mirror. And yet Mia still felt a sense of relief as she took the purse of teeth from her belt and tossed it to the thin woman. As if six years had been lifted from her chest.
“My tithe,” she said. “For the Maw.”
The woman hefted the bag in her hand. “Naev has no need of it.”
“But you’re from the Red Church…”
“It is Naev’s honor to serve in the House of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, yes. For the next few minutes at least.”
“Few minutes? What do you—”
The ground beneath them trembled. A faint tremor at first, felt at the small of her back. Rising every second.
“… Is that what I think it is?” Tric asked.
“Kraken,” Naev sighed. “They hear when she calls the Dark. A fool, as I said.”
Mia and Tric glanced at each other, spoke simultaneously. “O, shit…”
“Didn’t you know that?” Tric asked.
“Four Daughters, how was I supposed to know that? I’ve never been to Ashkah!”
“The kraken who attacked us before lost its bottle when you did your cloaky thing!”
“‘Cloaky thing’? Are you five years old?”
“Well, whatever it’s called, maybe you should stop it?” Tric pointed to the shadows around Naev’s feet. “Before it brings more?”
Mia’s shadow slithered back across the dust, took up its regular shape again. She kept a wary eye on Naev, but the woman simply sheathed her blade, head tilted.
“There are two,” she slurped. “Very large.”
“What do we do?” Mia asked.
“Run?” Naev shrugged. “Die?”
“Running sounds grand to me. Tric?”
Tric was already on Flowers’s back, the horse rearing to go. “Waiting on you, now.”
Mia vaulted into the saddle, offered a hand to the thin woman. “Ride with me.”
Naev hesitated a moment, tilting her head and fixing Mia in that black stare.
“Look, you’re welcome to stay here if you like…”
Naev stepped closer and the ground trembled. Bastard raised up on his hind legs, kicking at the air. Mia glanced behind to see a trail of churning earth approaching—as if something massive swum beneath the sand.
Right toward them.
As the stallion set his hooves back on the ground, she called the shadows again, fixing him in place long enough for Naev to scramble up behind her. A bellowing roar sounded under the earth, as if the things were also answering her summons. As Naev put her arms around Mia’s waist, she caught a whiff of spice and smoke. Something rotten beneath.
“She is making them angry,” the woman said.
“Let’s go!” Tric shouted.
Mia released Bastard’s hooves and kicked hard, the stallion bolting into a fast gallop. The ground behind exploded, tentacles bursting from the sand and cracking like hooked bullwhips. Mia heard a gut-watering bellow, glimpsed a beak that could swallow Bastard whole. She saw a second runnel rumbling toward them from the west. Thundering hooves and roars filled her ears.
“Two of them, just like you said!” Mia yelled.
The veiled woman pointed north. “Ride for the wagons. We have ironsong to keep the kraken at bay.”
“What’s ironsong?”
“Ride!”
And so they did. A furious gallop over an ocean of blood-red sand. Glancing behind, she saw the two runnels converging, closing swift. She wondered how the beasts were tracking her. How they knew it was her who’d called the Dark. A tentacle broke the surface, two stories tall, set with hooks of blackened bone. Angry roars filled the air as it slammed back down to earth.
Dust whipping her eyes. Bastard snorting beneath her, hoof beats thudding in her chest. Mia held the reins hard, riding harder, grateful that though the stallion hated her like poison, he seemed to hate the thought of being eaten even more.
“Look out!” cried Tric.
Mia looked ahead, saw another runnel approaching from the north. Bigger, moving faster, shaking the earth beneath her. Flowers let out a terrified whinny.
“It seems there are three,” Naev said. “Apologies…”
Tentacles unfurled from the ground like the petals of some murderous flower. Mia looked into the beast’s maw, all snapping beak and hooked bone. As Flowers cut east to avoid the behemoth, Bastard finally came to the realization that he’d run much faster without two riders on his back. And so he started bucking.
Mia had the benefit of stirrups. Reins. A saddle. But Naev was riding on Bastard’s hindparts with nothing but Mia’s waist to keep her anchored. Bastard bucked again, whipping them about like rag dolls. And without a whisper, Naev sailed off the horse’s back.
Mia cut east to follow Tric, roaring at the boy over the chaos.
“We lost Naev!”
The Dweymeri glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe they’ll stop to eat her?”
“We have to go back!”
“When did you grow altruism? It’s suicide to go back there!”
“It’s not just altruism, you knob, I gave her my tithe!”
“O, shit,” Tric felt about his waist. “She took mine, too!”
“You get Naev,” she decided. “I’ll distract them!”
“… mia…,” said the cat in her shadow. “… this is foolish…”
“We have to save her!”
“… the boy’s stallion will not take him back there…”
“Because he’s afraid! And you can fix that!”
“… if i drink him, i cannot drink you…”
“I’ll deal with my own fear! You just deal with Flowers!”
A hollow sigh.
“… as it please you…”
Red earth, torn and wounded, shaking beneath them. Dust in her eyes. Heart in her throat. She felt Mister Kindly flit across the sand and coil inside Flower’s shadow, feasting on the stallion’s terror. She felt her own rise up in a flood—an ice cold swell in her belly, so long forgotten she was almost overcome. So many years since she’d had to face it. So many years with Mister Kindly beside her, drinking every drop so she could always be brave.
Fear.
Mia jerked on the reins, bringing Bastard to a halt. The stallion snorted but obeyed the steel in his mouth, stamping and snotting. Bringing him about, Mia saw Naev was on her feet, clutching her ribs as she ran across the churning sand.
“Tric, go!” Mia roared. “I’ll meet you at the wagon!”
Tric still looked a touch befuddled from the ink. But he nodded, charging back toward the fallen woman and the approaching kraken. Flowers ran fast as a hurricane toward the monstrosity, completely fearless with the eyeless cat clinging to his shadow.
The first kraken erupted behind Naev, tentacles the size of longboats cutting the air. The thin woman rolled and swayed, slipping between a half-dozen blows. Sadly, it was the seventh that caught her—hooks tearing her chest and gut as the tentacle snatched her up. And even in that awful grip, the woman refused to cry out, drawing her blade and hacking at the limb instead.
Terror filled Mia’s veins, fingertips tingling, eyes wide. The sensation was so unfamiliar, it was all she could to not to sink beneath it. Yet the fear of failing was stronger than the thought of dying in a kraken’s arms, memories of her mother’s words on her father’s hanging turn still carved in her bones. And so she reached inside herself, and did what had to be done.
She wrapped her shadow about herself, fading from view on the stallion’s back. The kraken holding Naev paused, tremors running its length. And with an howl that shivered her bones, the beast dropped its prey onto the sand, and turned toward Mia with its two cousins swimming fast behind.