Britha’s blood was up. Breathing hard and covered in blood, she wanted to fight more. Kill more. She looked around. All were still or almost dead, their fight long gone. Disappointed, she let the dripping blade of her sickle hang at her side. The burning man launched himself out of the fire, axe held high. Britha started to turn. Something passed her face, brushing against it. An arrow appeared in the burning axeman’s mouth, and he fell to the ground. Britha became aware of the smell of burning flesh mixed with the coppery tang of blood and the smell of ruptured bowels. She turned and looked into the woods. Tangwen was lowering her bow. The blood that caked the other woman’s face looked black in the moonlight. Teardrop was standing next to her. Britha could make out both perfectly despite the darkness. She nodded to the hunter.
The figure was still there watching them from the fire. ‘I know you,’ it said. Somehow Britha could feel the words in her blood. She did not want to look at the figure. There was something wrong with it. It hurt her head to look. His shape, though the shape of a man, did not make sense at some fundamental level.
‘Get up!’ she snapped at the blood-splattered and terrified boy the Corpse People had been about to sacrifice.
‘You are close to being one of us,’ the figure continued. Impossibly deep, its voice seemed to reverberate inside her. She tried not to stumble. She reached for the boy, who was shaking uncontrollably, and after several attempts she managed to pull him to his feet.
‘You have to go to your people,’ she told him. It was useless. The boy did not understand her words.
‘He has no people,’ the voice said. There was no maliciousness there: it was a simple statement of fact. It earned the figure a glare from Britha despite the nausea-inducing pain that lanced through her head as she did so.
‘Is your power to mock us through the flames?’ she demanded.
‘I have no power. None of us do. Our mistake is to believe that we are something when we are less than nothing.’
‘Crawl on your stomach if you will, but do not try to drag us down there with you,’ Britha shouted.
‘I apologise. I have misled you. I am not talking of my beliefs. This is knowledge, simply a case of understanding my place in things and yours.’
Teardrop was striding towards the fire, the hood of his cloak pulled up.
‘Release my people and you can do what you will. We will trouble you no more.’ Britha sensed and tried to ignore Fachtna glaring at her.
‘I don’t know or care who your people are. I want to know you better. Bress wants to know you better. Death wants to know you better. I can promise you the fulfilment of every desire you have and those you do not know before the end comes.’
Britha tried to suppress the images of Bress that came to her mind, how they made her feel. The Dark Man was there as well, watching, his presence not unwanted.
‘I desire my people released.’
Teardrop stared into the fire. Fachtna joined him, sword in hand. The warrior had put his cloak back on and pulled the hood up.
‘Can you see it?’ Fachtna asked.
‘I see it,’ Teardrop said quietly. Fachtna swung his blade into the fire. There was an explosion of sparks. The figure warped and then was gone. Glowing embers filled the night air. Britha turned to look at the pair.
‘What were you looking for?’ she demanded.
‘A crystal blackened by the fire,’ Teardrop muttered. ‘And you know better than to talk to them.’
‘Not if she’s swiving them,’ Fachtna muttered.
Britha bit back an angry retort. ‘If you saw it,’ she said to Teardrop instead and then pointed at Fachtna, ‘how did he know where to strike?’
Neither of them answered. There was the wet sound of iron hitting flesh and the sound of bones breaking. All of them turned to look at Tangwen as she struck again and again at a corpse. Finally satisfied, she moved on to the next one and repeated the process. Feeling their eyes on her, she looked up. One whole side of her head was covered in blood.
‘We break their bones so when they rise again all they can do is crawl,’ she told them and then sat down hard, holding the side of her head. Teardrop moved quickly to her and knelt down to examine the wound. As far as Britha could make out, the serpent had given some of its people the blood magic, but it was not as strong as hers and certainly not as strong as Teardrop and Fachtna’s.
Fachtna looked out over the trees. They were heading down into a plain where there was little in the way of woods. It looked like many of the trees had been cleared long ago to make way for farmland. Britha had glimpsed the once-fertile plain earlier in the day when they had been in the trees trying to find a way past the patrols of Corpse People. She had never seen anything like the scale of the farming here. It must be able to feed thousands, she had thought.
Far to the south there was a line of hills. She could make them out only because her night sight was suddenly so good. That, and the crown of one of the hills seemed to be on fire, while flames from campfires and torches spotted one of the other nearby hills.
‘Wolves,’ Fachtna said, looking out over the plain. ‘They are the size of lions, white in colour with red feet and maws.’ The warrior did not sound happy. He glanced at the frightened boy.
Teardrop’s head whipped round. He had been making a poultice and dressing for the side of Tangwen’s head. Britha was watching him closely enough to notice that he’d added a silver tear squeezed form the corner of his eye to the dressing. She would have his secrets yet, she thought.
‘From the Otherworld?’ Britha asked, meaning the wolves, still watching Teardrop. White-furred animals with red eyes and maws were known to come from there.
‘At least changed by Otherworldly powers,’ Teardrop muttered. Something in his tone made Britha bristle. It was as if he was trying to appease her somehow.
‘We cannot leave the boy,’ Fachtna said. Teardrop was nodding. Tangwen looked up at Teardrop, an incredulous expression on her face.
‘If he will not go to his people or others that will help him, then he will die,’ Britha said, giving word to Tangwen’s thought. Not for the first time she wondered how comfortable things must be in Fachtna and Teardrop’s Otherworldly home that they could afford to think such things.
‘We may as well kill him ourselves then,’ Fachtna snapped. Their reliance on magic made them soft, Britha decided as she moved over to the swordsman Teardrop had killed. She saw that the sword had embedded itself in the man’s forearm, fusing with the flesh somehow. She glanced over at the swollen-headed sorcerer.
‘It would be a kindness,’ Britha said.
‘He comes with us,’ Fachtna said firmly. He looked to Teardrop for support. Britha could see that Teardrop desperately wanted to agree with him but understood the practicalities of their situation. The boy’s courage was spent. He would be insensate for the foreseeable future. ‘The boy is under my protection,’ Fachtna announced.
Britha decided to make the decision easier for the rest of them. She stalked over to the boy. Fachtna, realising what she was about to do, ran towards her. Britha grabbed the unseeing drooling boy and opened his throat with her sickle.
‘No!’ A heartbeat later Fachtna had yanked her away from the boy. Letting go of her, he grabbed the child, trying to will life back into his body.
‘Are you out of your mind?!’ Britha screamed at him, furious. ‘Laying your hands on a dryw!’