The Skybound Sea (55 page)

Especially when that chubby child was composed of hundreds of berserker, sharp-toothed warrior women brimming with jagged metal and bloodlust and quite possibly—

Stop it again
, she urged herself
.
What did you usually do in times like these? Shoot something? Right, right, that’s coming. What else? Ask your friends? Gariath would tell you to shoot something. Asper would tell you to pray. That works for her, doesn’t it? Right. Good. Start praying
.

She opened her mouth for a moment. When no words came out, the thought occurred to her.

Pray to … who, exactly?

Riffid was the obvious answer. Riffid would have been helpful. Riffid gave shicts nothing but the skill and the will to get things done. She sent no boons and offered no miracles. Riffid would have let her shoot and be done with it.

But Riffid was a goddess for shicts.

Riffid was down in the chasm, where Kataria had watched Inqalle die, where Kataria had spilled Naxiaw’s blood, where Kataria had chosen to protect a human. Riffid was taking Inqalle to the Dark Forest. Riffid was hearing Naxiaw ask for the strength to kill the traitor who shot him.

Riffid would not listen to her.

And when—and if—she walked away from this, she was not sure who would.

For a long time, she tried not to think.

A long time turned into a longer time. While her mind was content to remain silent, her body was slightly more vocal. She could persuade herself not to think about all that had happened, but his scent lingered in her nostrils, she could still feel the tension of his muscle as she dug her nails into him, she could taste his sweat, his blood, his skin against her skin as he—

This isn’t helping
, she grunted inwardly. Thoughts of him were as distracting as thoughts of the others and one invariably led to the other. So, as she felt the need, she attempted to empty thought and body at once.

Pulling her pants down and positioning the jar, wouldn’t have been easy for anyone else but a shict. But it was a common practice amongst hunters to keep their waste, liquid and otherwise, off the ground to avoid upsetting the prey’s delicate sense of scent and alerting them.

Admittedly, she had no idea if netherlings even
had
a sense of smell or if their noses were just there to be broken, but by her third filling of the jar she thought she might as well keep going. And once the tinkle of liquid stopped, she hiked her breeches back up, sealed the jar, and let it hang from the straps she had used to secure it to her belt.

Well, then
, she thought
,
if only shicts do that, you’ve still got … something
.

She forced her head silent.

And in that silence, she heard it. Her ears pricked up, full of the sound
of iron upon stone, alien curses upon lips. It began softly at first, distant clanking and distant roaring. And then the kelp quivered and the coral rattled with the tromping of boots. The fish scattered, fleeing into folds of forest and shadowed holes. The mist slithered away into the trees.

And she saw them.

They came one by one at first, a few females in ratty armor wielding crude spears. They snarled amongst each other as they used their weapons to pry stones and debris from the ancient highway, kicking them into the forest as they cleared the path for the purple tide that came boiling up the road.

Rattling, clanking black armor grinding against armor as shoulder brushed against shoulder. Spikes masquerading as swords held hungrily in gauntleted hands. Shields with jagged edges clanged in eagerness. Long faces curled up in jagged-toothed snarls as the female netherlings marched forth, their impatient, foreign-tongued curses blending seamlessly with the sound of grinding iron.

In teeming numbers, rows of black-haired heads, columns of twitching purple muscle, masses of iron and spit and snarls, the netherlings came in a slow-moving wave of flesh and metal, their thunder barely contained.

And yet, contained it was. For all the very palpable hatred and anger they spewed into the air with every breath until it was choking, they did not fight, did not blink, did not even look anywhere but forward. Their milk-white eyes were thrust straight and sharp as the swords they carried, purposefully and violently pressed forward as though they expected their scowls to kill just as effectively as a blade.

And they weren’t looking up.

They were focused, Kataria noted, too intent on their distant battle to bear much ill will toward each other beyond the occasional growl. Something drew them together, united them, drove them forward as one, as only one thing could.

That was bad, for obvious reasons.

But at least she knew Sheraptus strode amongst them.

Which was also bad, for obvious reasons.

She tried not to think about those as the line moved on. They marched in order, of a sort. Thirty-three to a unit, as Dreadaeleon had said. Thirty-three angry, spewing, iron-clad creatures wholly intent on wholesale slaughter.

Thirty-three angry, spewing, iron-clad creatures driven by just one will.

Kataria slid an arrow from her quiver and strung it. No sense in drawing it in preparation; it would only make her arm tired, her aim shaky. She needed both strong for the sole shot she would get at this.

They continued to march. The warriors with their swords led the archers, that followed a trail of derision and scorn spat their way from those in the lead. The numbers were intimidating. She stopped keeping track of them by the time they passed the Shen’s number, which took an alarmingly short time.

By that moment, though, something else seized her attention.

Behind the archers’ grumbles and the warriors’ snarls, another unit came marching up in perfect, silent harmony. Clad in armor as black and shiny as a beetle’s carapace and covering them so that not a single trace of purple flesh could be seen behind the walls of glistening metal, they came. Their shields were tall, hammered to crescent shapes. Their spears were topped with cruel barbs.

As distressing as the sight was, the sound—or lack of it—was worse. They never said a word, never shared a single snarl of their less-clad companions. Their visored helmets betrayed no eye, no mouth, no sign of even a face as they marched in perfect, terrible synchronization.

Netherlings with discipline.

Worrisome.

Not half as worrisome as what followed.

Its groaning metal, creaking wood, and shrieking, roaring wheels could be heard for an eternity away. But it was only when the metal machination came rolling up, pushed by several grunting warriors, that she could appreciate the terror that came with the metallic cacophony.

A ballista, she had heard it called. A big bow mounted on wheels. Where the netherlings had found one, she didn’t actually know. She wasn’t even sure if it
was
a ballista. It had the bow part, but everything else was slathered in spikes and metal parts that had been punched on. Two giant arms of flexible wood were tied back at the sides of the engine, each one ending in a strange claw that clenched a jagged, twisted star of sharpened, unpolished metal.

She wasn’t quite sure if it would actually work or whether it was just there to look intimidating. It did, of course, but only because she knew netherlings had a talent for making anything into a weapon and making anything that already
was
a weapon into something … like
that
.

And if it did work, the Shen would have to know. She studied it as it rolled past and up the highway, trying to figure out how it worked and where it could be struck. Once she was done here, she would have to hurry back and tell them. Maybe they could get to it before—

Her ears perked up. Her eyes widened. Her heart slowed a beat.

She couldn’t explain what it was about him: a sound too faint to be real, an aroma that couldn’t be smelled, a threat that was never spoken. But she heard him, felt him, knew he was coming.

And she nocked her bow.

They came in a knot: white-haired females dressed in gleaming, polished armor, carrying titanic slabs of sharpened metal half-heartedly pretending to be swords on their shoulders. They were bigger, stronger, more laden with scars than any other warrior that walked amongst them.

Carnassials.

And Sheraptus rode at their center.

Two other males flanked him, short and slender with white hair and red and purple robes, wearing arrogant scorn upon their long faces. Xhai rode ahead of him, looking twice as vicious as the great beast she rode. For all their fury and their hatred and their bare-toothed savagery, they paled in comparison to the specter that rode between them.

He was wearing white robes, shrouded in them like they could keep in whatever he was, seated so comfortably in them with a small smile on his face as though he belonged in something that was worn by holy men. It was a poor farce, a poor disguise.

Even if it wasn’t for the black crown upon his brow burning with three fiery stones, even if he rode something other than a creature of muscle and claws and jaws and six twitching ears the color of coal, nothing he wore could hide what he was. His cruelty stained the cloth. His viciousness seeped through it.

And he was right there.

Waiting to be killed.

Her fingers tensed around the fletching of her arrow when the cry came down the line, an iron-voiced howl that was echoed from unit to unit until it reached Sheraptus’s. The entire column came to a grinding, groaning halt. Curses were exchanged in alien tongues, inquiries made with what Kataria was certain were threats following. Xhai smashed her fist against the nearest white-haired longface and barked an order, they complied with a growled reply. The Carnassial sneered and reined her beast around, trotting over to Sheraptus.

“Something in the way ahead,” she grunted. “The low-fingers need more muscle to move it.”

“No hurry,” Sheraptus replied, his smile twitching.

Kataria hadn’t seen anything in the road on her way here. She didn’t care. The line had stopped. And he was right in front of her, stopped and smiling and waiting for an arrow in his gullet.

The purple of his flesh was vivid in the muted light. His jugular gyrated with each breath he took. And with each breath he took, it became bigger, a big, fat boil just waiting to be lanced.

She held her own breath as she raised her bow, drew her arrow back. The coral trembled slightly. The bowstring moaned in quiet anticipation.

On the road, the beast that served as Sheraptus’s mount twitched. Six ears fanned out like a dish as it swept an eyeless gaze about the road. She held her shot. Surely it couldn’t have heard her … could it?

No time to wonder. The nervous wariness from Sheraptus’s mount spread to the others. And like a fire it spread to the netherlings. Xhai looked down as her mount’s ears extended and it emitted low, excited whines.

“QAI AHN!”
she roared, drawing her massive blade from over her shoulder. The warriors around her followed suit, seizing their weapons and raising them before them as they huddled together warily.

Kataria held her aim. She held her breath back despite the overwhelming urge to panic and run. She kept her calm.

Right up until the moment she saw a flash of green out of the corner of her eye.

Something was down in the coral, moving. Something with weapons. Something with bright, yellow—

Shalake
, she had time to think
,
you stupid son of a bitch
.

“SHENKO-SA!”

The Shen came leaping out of the foliage, machetes in their hands, warcries in their throats, arrows chasing them like faithful puppies. The missiles struck first, sinking into netherling throats and exposed purple flesh. The longfaces fell with gurgles and cries of surprise, stepping stools of metal and skin as the Shen came leaping through the lines, waving their weapons.

One of them made a lunge for Sheraptus, machete held high with the intent of smashing it into his black-crowned skull. He loosed a cry, leapt from a fallen longface high into the air and, like a bird beneath a metal hawk, was snatched from the sky.

Xhai’s blade screamed not as loud, moved not as elegantly as the lizardman, but its howl was metal and unyielding and its edge was vicious as it clove the lizardman from his leap and sent him to tumble and bounce upon the earth.

In two pieces.

Kataria quickly scanned the fight. The arrows still flew, but those netherlings they struck did not fall. They snarled, as if it were mosquitoes biting them instead of arrows stuck in their arms and legs, and swung their gigantic blades unhindered by blood loss or pain.

The metal ate of scaly flesh, separated limbs, shattered spines, clove skulls. No blow was clean. No blow finished them. The Shen fell to the ground, their flesh sizzling and burning as the venom coating the swords ate
them alive. They writhed, they wailed, they screamed for as long as it took the nearest netherling to bring a spiked metal boot upon their skull and stamp them out like wet ashes.

And Sheraptus watched it all with a serene smile.

Whole and complete, he sat upon his beast’s back, unharmed. What had Asper done to him? Had she been lying? He looked completely fit, even more full of arrogant cruelty than she remembered. Perhaps this was not worth it. Perhaps retreat was the wiser—

No, no, NO
.

Kataria swallowed her shock, bit back her scream and took aim.
Now or never
, she told herself.
One shot. In his neck. Before he knows it. Then I run
.

She drew the string to her cheek, released it.

One shot.

It wailed as it flew.

To his neck.

He looked up.

And before either of them knew it, the arrow had found a mark.

It lodged itself into flesh with the sound of meat being tenderized and breath being stolen. It quivered eagerly beneath a purple collarbone, pleased with itself. A purple hand, too twisted to fit into a gauntlet, reached up to seize it and snap it off at the shaft.

Xhai, looming before Sheraptus like a wall of metal and iron, scowled up at Kataria. She snorted, broke the remains of the arrow with a twitch of her ruined fingers.