The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (15 page)

The leader glanced about, found faces. “Arvin,” he said. “Lilly.”

One of the injured fighters had been struck in the face. He stood leaning against a comrade, quietly regarding with his remaining eye a tattered, bloody object in his left hand.

His right hand still held his sword. Rowan gently took it from him.

The leader was speaking to his archers. “Get over there, get a clear view down the alley, and send everything you’ve got at the monster.”

Rowan was aghast. “You can’t just blindly pour arrows in there. Steffie is still there. He’s alive, he might get hit!”

“Bad luck for him.”

“But you can’t— ”

He turned on her. “We’re going to stop that beast, whatever it takes, and if only one more person dies, well, I’d say that’s good for the rest of us!”

“While it’s partly thanks to Steffie that half the town isn’t dead already— ”

The archers were standing, confused, watching the argument. One spoke up. “I’m a good shot.” Arvin. He looked from his leader to the steerswoman and back again. “Let me try alone. I can put six shafts right in it, and no danger to Steffie, I know I can.”

The leader studied him with a narrow gaze, then jerked his head, acquiesence and command.

Arvin pulled six arrows from his quiver, his eyes on the opening to the alley, already gauging his shots. “Sixty feet?” he asked Rowan.

“From what I just saw, yes.”

He nodded. “How fast can it move?”

“I saw it move only about as fast as a man might stroll along. Perhaps it can move faster if it wants to.”

“Taking its time right now,” he observed. The hum was neither rising nor falling; Rowan sensed that the creature was waiting. “Where should I place my shot on it?” Arvin asked.

“I have no idea.”

The archer drew and expelled two long, calming breaths, then paced away from her, along the back of the smithy to a central position. Then he took one step forward away from the wall and, gazing warily down the alley, thrust five of his arrows point down into the dirt.

There were voices at the back of the squad: townspeople had arisen and begun to arrive, and were being directed away. The wounded woman had fallen silent; she was dead. The man who had been struck in the face was making small, querulous noises in the back of his throat. Other than these sounds, other than the demon’s humming, the squad and the world were silent.

Arvin set his feet carefully, sunlight angling into the street, the long shadows of the buildings dividing the ground before him into fractured shapes of black and yellow.

“Corey,” Rowan said abruptly.

The leader turned to her. “What?”

“Nothing. I just now remembered your name.”

Arvin nocked his arrow, raised his bow, and let fly; and with fantastic speed he sent two more off immediately. There was a sudden increase in the uppermost overtones of the demon’s voice; then the creature was out of the alley at a loping run.

It had all three shafts in it, vertically down its body; it had turned the wounds away from Arvin, and was spraying toward him as it ran.

But Arvin had dodged to the side, opposite the squad, and he sent two more arrows into the creature.

Beside Corey, the second archer cried out and let fly one, two— one arrow striking directly between two of the demon’s arms, while the squad fell back again. The creature sprayed left toward the archer without turning its body, but the jet was diffuse; then it sprayed right, to where Arvin had run, and barely missed. Arvin put two more arrows into it, one of them striking between two arms on that side; and instead of a jet the creature sent out an unfocused spray in that direction, with no effective range. It began to turn again.

Spray vents between the arms, Rowan realized. Fourfold symmetry. Two vents were wounded. “That’s it,” she heard herself say; then she ran toward the creature.

Close by, the demon smelled of salt and musk, and the air around it was chill. One injured vent was still toward Rowan, and just as she passed, she swung the sword back, striking deep between two more arms, then dashed on. The demon’s body swayed, bending like a willow, and it sprayed at her, but without force or focus, and Rowan passed unharmed. “There’s one vent left!” she shouted to the fighters, as she hurried on. The creature was turning again, trying to bring its uninjured side toward her.

Corey shouted, signaled, but did not wait for his own fighters. He rushed forward, swung his weapon down on the top of the demon, slicing deep. The arms flailed and clutched; a gout of yellow fluid fountained up. The demon’s taloned hands grasped at Corey, and he cried out and dropped back; but his squad was with him now, slashing and stabbing. The demon thrust its arms forward, trying to clutch at the blades, trying to turn its remaining vent toward them.

Rowan circled and came up again among the fighters. Corey was now at the rear, on his knees, a ragged, bloody gash across his scalp; but it was his chest he clutched. “Fall back!” he shouted, and spat blood. “Archers again!” But as he was speaking, someone drove a pike deep into the demon.

Rowan thought she had gone deaf, then understood: the voice of the demon had ceased. She felt dizzy in the silence.

The quiet was at odds with the action; the demon still lived, still struggled. The man with the pike was having trouble. Rowan heard ominous cracks from the weapon.

Then the pike shattered, and the creature came forward flailing blindly and silently, and seemingly more by chance than intent, clutched the pikeman. The man cried out, thrashed once, and then sagged, even as the other fighters attacked. The creature tossed the pikeman away, tried to rotate again.

Corey pulled himself to his feet, grabbed the broken end of the pike, and thrust it into the demon near its last vent. He was not accurate, and the demon sprayed; but it seemed to have lost its aim. The fighters backed away in fear, but none were struck; and they advanced again in a mob. Someone hacked viciously at another arm, and Rowan finished Corey’s attempt with the blade.

The creature now had two arms shattered, and all its vents uselessly leaked fluid. It flailed out with its remaining arms, but wildly. One fighter, with an overhand axe blow, severed one of the arms; someone else severed another; and Rowan hacked across its midsection, over and over. The creature slowly slid down the wall and at last lay prone, its legs trembling, then relaxing as it died.

The fighters stood, kneeled, leaned against the wall, some gasping for breath, some breathlessly stunned in the sudden stillness. Arvin cautiously prodded the demon once with his foot, eliciting no response.

Eventually, Corey said in a small voice, “That’s it, then.” Rowan looked around.

Far down the street, a half dozen spectators had gathered: warehouse workers, the smith and his apprentice. In the other direction, someone was peering cautiously through a half-opened door.

Two of the militia were dead, five others wounded. One of these was huddled, trying to protect his blood-soaked chest without touching it. Another, a woman, had removed her shirt and was with great concentration wrapping it around the raw bone of her upper arm.

Corey stood, weaving, regarding the blood on his right hand. There was a puncture in the lower left side of his chest, as if from a spear thrust. He looked up at Rowan. “The wounded need help,” he said, as if that number did not include himself. Rowan gestured to Arvin, who called to the spectators and began giving instructions.

Then Rowan walked down the alley to where Steffie was crouched by the corpse of the first person the demon had killed.

The demon had done exactly as Bel had described. Flesh had dissolved under the creature’s spray. The victim seemed only half a person; untouched below, raw muscle and bone above. Abdominal organs were visible.

Steffie was quietly regarding the corpse. He himself was uninjured.

Rowan stooped down beside him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Who was it?” He did not reply until she pulled him up, away from the body. She asked again.

“Leonard.” His voice was small, distant, abstracted. “Him and Maysie had come out the warehouse.” He looked to where the little door still stood open, made a move in that direction. “Someone should see to her, she’s hurt . . .”

Rowan stopped him, and waved over some of the people now helping the militia, spoke quietly to them. They cautiously entered the warehouse, calling out Maysie’s name.

Rowan led Steffie away. “Where’s Gwen?” she asked him.

“Don’t know,” he said. His voice seemed stronger now; his steps grew more sure. “Maybe run home by now. Maybe still out cold in Carter’s Street.” They paused by the dead demon; Steffie stared down at it in fascination. “I figured . . .” He swallowed. “You said stay still, and Gwen was doing that all right, so I figured she’d be safe enough.” He was speaking quietly, as if to himself. “But you were out there,” he went on, “whistling the monster to you. So I thought: she’s stopping it getting Lasker, but who’s to stop it getting her? And then I thought, Well . . . that would be me.”

“That was good thinking, Steffie,” she told him.

He looked up and regarded her blankly a moment. Then his mouth twitched. “Funny how good you can think when you’re scared to death,” he said.

“I know I’ve found that to be true,” she said with sincerity. She considered the demon again. “Does someone have a barrow?” She called out. “I want to bring this back to the Annex.”

9

R
owan was hard put to persuade the militia and townsfolk to permit her to take possession of the demon. “What do you want it for?” was asked by many, at different points during the organization of assistance and clearing. Rowan’s reply, “to examine,” brought only the further question, voiced in tones of incomprehension, “Why?”

“Because I’ve never seen anything like it.” This statement brought blank gazes from most, as if her words held no meaning whatsoever.

But a tiny, gnarled old woman, who seemed to be in charge of the relief efforts, spared an instant to study the dead creature with a squinting, disapproving gaze. “Ugly damn thing,” she said. “What’s it good for?”

The oddness of the question drew Rowan’s attention away from her adamant defense of the demon’s corpse against two longshoremen, who wished to drag the thing down to the sea. “I don’t know,” the steerswoman replied; then in retrospect pieced together the woman’s actions and understood that she was the local healer. “Perhaps a tincture of its spray can be used to burn away warts and skin tumors,” she hazarded. “If I discover anything useful, I’ll let you know about it.”

The woman nodded and returned to other work; Rowan returned to arguing with the longshoremen. But shortly thereafter a man drove up with a shabby little pony cart: the town’s honey wagon, arriving at the healer’s relayed request. Rowan and Steffie cautiously shoved the corpse and its severed arms onto a pair of empty burlap sacks, dragged and hauled them up into the cart, then followed the load and its odorous conveyance back to the Annex.

They deposited the carcass in the weedy yard behind the building, and Rowan entered to fetch paper, charcoal, pens, and a kitchen knife.

Gwen was slouched in the armchair. She glared at Rowan. “You left me in the street!”

With a job at hand, Rowan was disinclined to spare time for Gwen’s complaints. “I’m sorry. There were other things going on . . .”

“That monster— it could have got me!”

“Actually, that wasn’t likely . . .” Rowan rattled among the tarnished collection of knives.

“Me in the road like a sack of meal, and you two hightailing off like rabbits— ”

“Shut up.” Steffie had entered and was leaning wearily against the doorjamb. He spoke without force. “Shut up, shut up, and shut up.”

His posture caught Rowan’s attention. “Steffie, are you all right?” Gwen left her mouth open on an unspoken statement.

Steffie nodded weakly, then jerked his head toward the backyard. “Careful where you step out there, lady. I left last night’s dinner in the middle of the path.” He turned a pale face and a bright gaze toward Gwen. “Now listen, you,” he said, and began quietly to recount the morning’s events. Rowan eased herself past him and into the yard.

Within the open wounds in the gray, battered skin, the demon’s flesh was a yellowish gray, looking like no flesh or matter that the steerswoman had seen before. Blood like glue, yellow and translucent, had congealed across most of the body, standing on the skin, peeling and flaking.

The steerswoman considered the carcass. Symmetrical . . . She prodded the corpse with her foot, and rolled it. There was no identifiable front or back, as she had noticed before, but despite its cylindrical shape, the creature could be thought of as having four sides. Each arm at the top was aligned with a matching leg at the bottom, defining a quarter of the form. Each spray vent— she leaned closer— was located between two arms, between the shoulder joints, as Rowan came to think of them.

Using the point of the sword she had taken from the injured militiaman, she pushed one of the severed arms clear and away from the body. A bucket of water from the rain barrel sluiced away any of the corrosive spray that might have gotten on it.

She knelt beside the arm and touched it. It was cold, its gray skin the texture of oiled leather. Among the new slices and abrasions, there were a number of old, small scars, of the sort that any creature might acquire in the course of its life; Rowan had more than a few such herself.