Black Halo

Thirty-Two

The din outside the cabin was enough to shake the ship. There had been the clash of metal and the roar of battle, a brief moment’s pause before the shuddering wail that caused the panes of glass to crack in their portholes and the doors to threaten to buckle under the pressure. Now, the snarling, roaring, grunting, clanging, hissing ruckus of fighting had resumed in earnest.

Each noise clamoured to be heard over the others, and each told Kataria nothing in their haste to tell her everything.

The din inside her head was still more aggravating. The fear, the doubt and the frustration that twisted inside her skull like so many screws were bad enough without the voice of instinct, of the Howling, of the shict she knew to be speaking to her through it, echoing in her brain.

Survive, it told her. Shicts survive. Shicts preserve. Shicts cure. You are a shict. You have a duty to your people. She found it hard to ignore the voice. Ignore the human. Her duty is to live and die. Your survival is worth more.

Especially when she couldn’t find the will to agree with it.

The will of the unseen shict came with nearly every breath, and was as impossible to ignore as it was to stop breathing. Yet for every time it bade her to look within herself, she found her eyes all the more pressed on the pale, bound figure in the corner.

Asper was still alive, though her shallow breathing and still body did not do much to support it. The priestess did not move, did not speak, did not so much as shiver anymore. The soft weeping and violent trembling had left her body and left her nothing more than a pile of limp bones and skin that muttered the same thing on soft, silent breaths.

‘You let it happen,’ she whispered. ‘I gave everything. I did everything right. You just let it happen.’

What could I do? Kataria thought to herself. How could you not have known what he was? How could you not have known to stay silent?

She is human, the Howling answered her. There is no instinct in her. She survives through other methods that she does not have now. You are a shict. You have instinct. You survive so that all shicts may survive. You have a duty to your people.

The thought was hers and not hers, a dormant, feral logic awakening within her. And it came more and more frequently, with more and more urgency. It was no longer shared knowledge. It was no longer instinct. The Howling was all her people condensed into a single thought.

It was impossible to ignore, yet impossible to grasp. The unseen shict’s will brushed her only in fleeting thoughts, prodding the Howling to awaken and tell her of his location. Nothing more was offered, no advice given or instructions handed down. She racked her mind, searching for a possibility for escape, to reach him.

And then, she would look at Asper, and forget everything.

She would hear the priestess’ sobbing, see the priestess’ agonised tears. She would forget that she stared at a human, one of many. She would forget that Asper should mean nothing to her, forget that she should think of herself, her people, her duty. She would remember Asper was her friend.

That Asper was the reason she was not lying on the floor and sobbing.

And nothing more than that: she recalled no words of comfort, remembered no reassurances of safety. The Howling would speak to her in these moments of lapsed clarity, and it would begin anew.

Survive, it implored as it knew she should. You must survive. We must survive. You must-

Her bones rattled in her flesh as the wooden pillar trembled with the force of the purple fist slamming against it. A harsh, grating growl filled her ears and drowned all other thought.

‘What’s taking so long?’

Kataria felt slightly comforted to know she wasn’t the only one wondering.

It seemed too mild a comparison to think that Xhai paced the cabin like a nervous hound as she stared at the door. Hounds, as far as she knew, didn’t show nearly so many teeth when they growled.

Hounds, too, had instinct. When they sensed danger, they acted, even in spite of their master’s orders. Xhai clearly sensed danger, clearly wanted to act, but remained in the cabin. She had been given an order and was determined to obey it. As vague as that order might have been, she rigidly clung to it as though it were the word of a god, or whatever equivalent longfaces worshipped.

Him, she reminded herself. They … she worships him.

‘What do you think it is, then?’ Xhai grunted at her. ‘Your pinkies come to take what the Master owns?’

Kataria did not answer, for it was clear Xhai didn’t want one.

‘We should have killed all of you,’ she muttered. ‘Netherlings don’t need pink things.’

Whatever caused Kataria to speak up, she was certain it was no instinct.

‘He seems to disagree,’ she said.

‘The Master needs nothing,’ Xhai snapped. ‘He wants. He wants everything.’ Her gaze became hard and looked straight through Kataria. ‘He deserves everything.’

‘If he had everything he needed,’ Kataria replied, ‘he would want nothing.’

While she had known she should have stopped long before saying that, Xhai’s incoming fist only confirmed that. She jerked her head to the side, saw Xhai pull back knuckles red and embedded with splinters.

‘If he needed any of you,’ she snarled, ‘I wouldn’t have watched all the cold, weak bodies of those he wanted fed to the sikkhuns when he was done with them.’ She sneered. ‘When I drag your body to the pits, overscum, I’m going to make sure you’re still warm.’

‘I’ll go laughing,’ Kataria replied, meeting her scowl with an even stare. ‘Because the thought of a longface who desperately wants to lick her Master’s feet being relegated to garbage removal is just hilarious.’

Xhai’s hand shot out and caught her by the throat as her fist cocked back. Kataria made certain to smile broadly at the longface, knowing this would be the last time she would do so with all her teeth.

‘I DON’T CARE!’

They both glanced to the side as Asper threw herself onto her back, her scream hurled at the ceiling from a face stained by tears.

‘I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!’ she shrieked. ‘YOU LET IT HAPPEN! YOU ABANDONED ME! LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN, THEN! TAKE IT! TAKE ALL OF IT! I DON’T CARE!’

‘So soon?’ Xhai released Kataria and stalked over to the prone woman. ‘You’re not supposed to snap this early. Wait until the Master can do more.’

‘Get away from her,’ Kataria growled after the long-face.

Think of yourself, the Howling insisted. Think of your kin. Think of your duty. You have to-

‘Leave her alone!’ Kataria howled, jerking at her bonds.

She is nothing. You have to survive. You have a duty.

‘Asper!’

‘I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care,’ the priestess sobbed, shaking her head violently. ‘I want it all to end. I don’t care for who.’

‘It doesn’t end now,’ Xhai muttered, rising up and nudging her with a toe from her spike-covered boots. ‘The Master doesn’t want it to. His is the right to-’

She paused suddenly, then leapt backward, astonishment on her angular features.

‘What,’ she grunted, ‘the hell is wrong with you?’

Asper’s arm looked as though it had suddenly contracted and gone through the worst bouts of an infection, the blood pooling in it and painting it red as sin. It was far too deep a crimson to be anything normal, Kataria thought, all the more disturbing as it throbbed, pulsed and tensed even as the rest of the priestess’ body lay unmoving.

‘Take it,’ Asper whispered. ‘Take it all.’

Xhai could muster nothing beyond an alarmed stare, looking to the door with a newfound longing for her master to return. Kataria’s eyes were locked on Asper, struggling to find the words to speak, the question to ask through the murmurings in her head. And yet, even as the Howling spoke with urgent fervour, she could still hear the sound.

Hinges without oil creaked. Something slid through a narrow frame. A pair of feet hit the floor.

She saw the porthole’s window swinging on its hinges and the shadow sliding beneath it, into the darkness at the edges of the overhanging lamp’s light. She only barely saw him, a shadow within a shadow in his black leathers, and only barely recognised him. His face was too long, his eyes too hard. And the smile he gave her as he noticed her staring had never unnerved her before.

Denaos raised a finger to his lips. She nodded, saying nothing, as he slunk about the halo of light. A rope slid into his hands like a snake, his fists drawing it tight. He rose up behind Xhai like a black flower and angled the garrotte over her head, his hands unnaturally steady.

He had only just begun to lower it when an eerily gentle smile split her long face.

‘I knew you’d come,’ she whispered.

His eyes widened just a fraction before he struck. The garrotte snapped down swiftly, finding the tender flesh of her throat and drawing tight. She snarled, thrusting her elbow back and into his ribs. He reeled, but refused to let go, pulling himself closer, hands shaking as he strained to pull the rope against her windpipe.

‘I knew it,’ she said, her voice only slightly raspy, ‘because I know you, because I know me. I know I wouldn’t leave my foe with just scars to remember me.’

He suffered another elbow, gritted his teeth. It was frustration and not pain that was evident in his face as he pulled so hard that the garrotte creaked in protest.

‘What the hell are you made of?’ he snarled.

‘And I knew they couldn’t kill you,’ Xhai continued, ignoring his words and his rope alike, ‘I knew you weren’t dead …’

Her hand lashed up and over her shoulder, gripping his throat in a vice of purple fingers.

‘Because I hadn’t killed you yet.’

His cry was a weak and pitiful thing against her roar as she yanked hard. He flew out from behind her and out before her with such swiftness as to suggest that, at some point, his innards had been replaced with soft wool.

That theory, and his all-too-fleshy body, were mercilessly dashed as he came crashing down upon the wood.

That should have worked, shouldn’t it? he asked himself, not certain who would answer. I was certain it would.

Everyone makes mistakes, he reassured himself.

Is that her foot above me?

It is.

I should move, shouldn’t I?

He needed no answer to spur him into a roll. Her spike-encrusted boot came smashing down where he had just lain. He sprang to his feet in time to see her pull her foot out, chunks of wood still clinging petulantly to its twisted spikes.

‘That’s fine,’ she said calmly. ‘We’ll take our time with each other, get to know one another.’ She smiled with something that was obviously intended to be warmth. ‘When one of us kills the other, I want it to mean something.’

She leapt at him, just as the knife leapt to his hand. With surgical precision, he slashed it up and against her brow. Like a shattered dam of purple flesh, the blood came weeping out in great rivulets, pouring into her eyes and rendering her blind. She shrieked, swung a fist, seeking him. He sprang backwards and continued to do so as she flailed too wildly.

His retreat came to a sudden halt as he felt his back meet the pillar his companion was tied to.

‘Not a lot of room to move here,’ he muttered.

‘You talk like it’s my fault,’ Kataria snapped. ‘Kill her quick and it won’t be an issue.’

‘I’m not getting near those hands of hers.’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

‘Run, maybe? Probably die. I’m not sure yet.’

‘You didn’t think of a backup?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, come on! What were the odds that strangulation wouldn’t work?’

Anything she might have replied was lost in a howl of metal and a wail of cloven air. He looked and leapt just in time to avoid the massive wedge of metal that served as her sword from taking off his head. It bit deeply into the pillar instead as he scurried around it and the shict bound to it. He grabbed Kataria about her midsection, glancing around her and avoiding her offended scowl, much more concerned with the white eyes painted red narrowed at him.

‘I’m assuming she won’t kill you,’ he said, darting behind the shict as Xhai shot out a fist at his left, ‘or she would have already.’

‘You can’t know that!’ Kataria shouted to be heard over the sword being wrenched free.

‘It’s an educated gamble,’ Denaos said, twisting back behind her as Xhai lashed her blade out to catch him on his right. ‘If she can’t kill you, then you make a very good shield.’

‘I can hear you, you know,’ the longface said.

She swung again. He leapt again. The blade did not so much strike the pillar as shatter it completely. The ropes were slashed, sending Kataria falling to the ground. Splinters sprayed in all directions, a haze of dust and shards assaulting Xhai’s already stinging eyes and sending her into a blind, howling fury.

When he looked down, Kataria was staring at him with vast and empty eyes.

‘I could have died,’ she whispered. ‘And if I had, there would be no one left to help you.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t let you die.’

‘Then help me find my knife.’

‘Asper isn’t well,’ Kataria said, rising to her feet and slipping her rent bonds. ‘You have your people. I have mine.’

Before he could protest, she sprang to her feet and darted past the flailing longface, shoving the cabin door open and disappearing. Though he knew he ought to feel it, the urge to curse her as a coward was decidedly faint.

The pang of regret at not having fled first: decidedly not.

A snarl seized his attention. Xhai kicked the last remnants of the shattered pillar out of her way, advancing toward Denaos, her eyes shining through a face painted with blood and adorned with splinters. Her smile was one of contentment, unconcerned with the red dripping over her lips to stain her teeth. His face was one of fervent panic as he backed away and searched for any way past her that didn’t end in disembowelment.

‘No,’ she answered his wild gaze. ‘No more chases, no more interruptions. This is where one of us dies.’ Even reflected in the blade she levelled at him, her smile was possessed of macabre affection. ‘I’m glad it ended this way, Denaos.’

The rogue did not cry out as he was backed up against the wall, did not think to beg or plead or make deals. There was no room in her face for that. What else he saw in there — the tinges of joy, of desire, of lust — he was determined not to take as the last thing he saw before being gutted.

Thus, when he saw the slender form of Asper stalking towards the woman on shaking feet, her body trembling, her arms still bound behind her, he focused on her immediately.

‘I fought for so long,’ the priestess whispered, though to who was unclear. ‘I wanted so badly to believe there was a reason I should.’ There was a sizzling sound; a wisp of smoke rose from behind her. ‘I wanted to believe that the Gods wanted me for something other than this.’

Xhai glanced over her shoulder at the woman and snorted before returning her attentions back to the rogue.

‘There are no gods,’ the longface said.

‘There are,’ Asper whispered.

An arm extended from her shoulder: a black, skeletal limb bound in a red glow that pulsated like a decaying heart.

‘They just don’t care.’

The sword fell from Xhai’s grasp the moment Asper laid that red-and-ebon hand that belonged to something that was not her upon the longface’s neck. It was a gentle grasp, no more force behind it than that a wife would use to rub her husband’s shoulders. Five fingers rested lightly upon the netherling’s neck.

And Xhai screamed.

The longface fell to her knees, every muscle visible bunching up and tearing beneath her flesh. Her jaw threatened to snap off with the force of her wail, her eyes threatening to boil out of her skull and dribble in thick yolks into her mouth.

‘NO!’ she shrieked. ‘NO!’

‘I told myself that, too,’ Asper replied, shaking her head as tears poured down her cheeks. ‘I tried. But there’s nothing to be done.’ She choked on a sob. ‘They abandoned me. I did everything for the Gods and They just let that … let him happen to me. What’s the point in resisting now? What does anyone care?’

‘I … won’t …’

Xhai’s arm rose up as if to stop her. There was a loud snapping sound as an invisible force very visibly shattered her hand, causing her fingers to seize up in agonised curls. Asper’s arm reacted immediately, fed on her suffering. The flesh of her shoulder seemed to dissipate into sizzling wisps as the crimson spread farther up her arm.

‘This hasn’t happened before,’ she said, ‘but why wouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t everything be taken from me, flesh and soul?’

‘S-stop …’ Xhai whimpered.

‘I can’t … I told them to take it,’ Asper whispered. The crimson light spread like a stain of paint. The fur wrapped about her chest sizzled and fell off, her left breast bathed in translucent crimson, exposing blackened ribs below. ‘To take it all.’

‘And … I … said …’

Xhai howled, lashing out her uninjured fist that struck Asper against the jaw like a purple sledge.

‘Stop!’

She continued to howl, to hammer, flailing wildly behind her and screaming even as her forearm trembled and shattered like her hand had.

‘STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP!’

Asper did, her grasp shattered under the hail of blows. She collapsed, weeping, heedless of the looming purple shape as she rose up. Xhai stared at her through trembling eyes, looking from her to her ruined arm. Her face quivered, jaw hung open, as though on the brink of asking why, of demanding how, of weeping along with the priestess.

Instead, when her mouth found her voice, it was only a scream that came out.

‘QAI ZHOTH!’ she howled.

And nothing more came of it as a force exploded across her back.

She buckled under the attack, tried to look over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of the tall man in black leather holding up her master’s chair. Her eyes, and her face, were driven back down as he smashed the chair against her back again and again. It cracked, splintered, shattered in his hands, and still he brought it down upon her until she no longer moved and he was left holding two hewn chair legs.

He set them down six blows later.

Panting, Denaos spared only as much attention for the netherling as it took to confirm that she wouldn’t get up. Once that was clear, and after he had given her rock-hard flesh a kick for good measure, he turned his attentions to his companion.

‘Asper,’ he whispered gently.

She was curled in on herself, trying to bury her left arm under the whole of her shuddering body, weeping violently. With some trepidation, he knelt beside her, wary to touch her after what he had seen, wary to even look at her.

Kataria had run. He could, too. Asper was safe now. There was no reason to stay here. He could escape now, too. She wouldn’t want him around, either, when she finally looked up. He was a coward, a thief, a brigand. She had called him these before. He had run from her before. He could do so now. It would be easy.

That was what he told himself.

That was not what he did.

He placed a hand gently on her, paused as she recoiled from his touch. Undeterred, he gently rolled her over.

And resisted the urge to scream.

She stared up at him through one tear-stained eye. The other was nothing more than a black socket bathed in crimson light. Her naked breast rose and fell with each breath as the ribs where the other one should be shuddered. Half a pair of lips whispered in shuddering words to him as half a black jaw moved up and down with mechanical certainty.

‘I think …’ she said. ‘I think there’s something wrong with me.’