Page 13

"You and the tractwalker will need to go down.” The cousin rose to his feet, nodding emphatically.

"We need to save my brother!”

“And retrieve what you can from the cart.

You help your brother, and the tractwalker can carry the goods.”

“With one arm?” she said, scowling.

“Take what you can.

The larger metal artifacts will be too heavy, but the books and scrolls can go in your pack, and the copper pieces, too.”

"So you're just staying up here?" Esterra asked.

“With her.” Something gripped her innards and twisted.

Whatever the trader had planned in his few moments of machinations after the cart fell, it was not good.

The man knew something.

Dornig nodded at her sharply, eyes piercing into her mind, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking before she even thought it.

"Of course.

Effi and I will care for your belongings.

It's no use hauling them all the way down there and then back again."

"Just you and the girl.”

“You’re wasting precious daylight with your prattle, tractwalker.”

“Your cart is destroyed, and whatever precious relics you were hauling will be scattered and smashed…” Esterra said.

“My brother is down there!” the porter said.

"Find his brother,” Dornig said.

“You'll help him if he is wounded, and then bring him and those books back up here."

"He's dead.

Sorry, but that's just a fact.

And you, trader, you know I wasn't asking about him.

What else is down that stars-cursed chasm?"

"Water.

Cliffs.

How should I know?"

"You know something."

"You do realise that without the goods I can't pay you.

Your payment is dependent on the sale of those items.” Dornig took a hold of Effi’s elbow and drew her away from the edge, signing at her.

The girl nodded and turned away.

For a split instant Esterra saw a smile flicker across Dornig’s lips.

Some idea of what he was planning dawned on her, but the surviving brother interrupted her thoughts, grabbed her arm and tried to pull her to the path descending down from the cliff.

“We need to go.

My brother could be bleeding to death.”

“Let go of me.”

“But…”

“Let go. Now.”

The man released her, clearly distressed, looking from the cliff to the trader to Esterra, wringing his giant hands.

Then he leapt down onto a ledge below and followed the mossy path down into the ravine, vanishing around a corner.

Things were moving too quickly.

The cousins were gone.

Dornig wanted her gone, too.

Something on his map had warned him of this place, of staying overlong.

The valuables in the cart were not worth going after himself, but such abandonment did not fit his type.

He wanted profit.

Tals.

So without the goods down there, without Esterra and his cousins…

The bastard was going to sell the girl.

Dornig caught her gaze and was about to speak, moving between Esterra and Effi.

She put her palm on the pommel of her knife.

“Out of my way, Dornig.

I need to speak to Effi.”

“She cannot converse, tractwalker, you know that…”

Esterra pushed past him, grabbed Effi’s shoulder and pulled her down the narrow path for a few dozen paces, out of earshot.

Dornig made a move to follow but Esterra bared her teeth at him like a rabid animal, and he took the hint.

“Look, I think you can read my lips.

Nod if you can.”

The girl nodded, eyes wide and not just a little scared.

“I won’t hurt you.

But Dornig, that man, he just might.

You can’t trust him.

Do you understand?”

The girl shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head, frowning.

Esterra looked at her, bewildered.

The listener knelt and dug through her pack.

She revealed a rolled-up scroll covered in tiny runes.

Esterra took it from her.

It was a contract of employment, much like the one the trader had offered her before they had first set out.

She had declined.

Nothing was worse than being tied down by a Circle contract to a scummy trader.

The girl jabbed at one line of runes in particular.

Position as permanent listener in all mercantile travels, with fair remuneration, it said.

"Bullshit.

He is using you."

The girl shook her head.

"Damn the stars, child, listen to me.

He is a liar.

All such men are liars.

Do you understand?"

The girl pointed at the contract again, a frown creasing her forehead.

Esterra shook her head. "Lies."

The girl shook her head, the frown morphing into a look of distress.

"Child, his cart is gone.

He does not give a fuck about his cousins.

But he needs tals.

He’ll sell you to someone in the Circle, after stealing that contract from you and destroying it.

You can’t fight him, and you can’t explain yourself to anyone who cares, even if such a person existed.

Don't go with him.

You can do better.

You can choose to not die in this miserable place, and not to be a slave.”

The plaintive yearning in the girl's eyes struck a chord in her heart.

The young thing wanted to believe in something better, a life without the constant instability and suffering, a position where her skills were valued.

Esterra could not condone that hope.

She was not sure what more she could say.

Her botanist friend Naba had sought the same, and now wandered the world with her husband and baby.

She gripped the girl’s arm and pleaded with her through her eyes alone.

But then a heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder.

She turned and met the cold gaze of Dornig.

His other hand came down hard, brass-studded club crashing down across her temple.

She fell, darkness flooding her vision.

She heard Effi scream, the sound piercing through the ringing in her ears.

Stars danced before her eyes in the dark, equally as blinding.

Pain thudded across her skull in a bone-shattering rhythm.

She breathed in and out, slow breaths, eyes closed, refusing to move, lest she hurl herself into one of the many pits about her.

When her vision cleared, she lifted her head from the ground and looked about.

She could see neither trader nor listener.

Pain etched runes across her skull like some ancient bone carvings, deep and jagged.

She rose to her feet, praying to whatever gods might be out there that she hadn’t suffered a concussion.

A scream echoed up from the depths, a horrid, high-pitched one which a man could only utter in mortal terror.

Dornig's cousin had met his end somewhere in the pits, among the waterfalls' spray and murky shadows that lingered there.

Just the three of us now.

Two, when I catch that bastard.

Esterra noted the trampled moss on the path before her, the sharp outline of a boot's heel imprinted there.

On the right track , she thought.

The damned trader knew the path out, or certainly thought he did.

Knowing the fickle reliability of both maps and the shifting nature of hollows, she did not have much faith in a map, particularly in Dornig’s slimy hands, but what better option did she really have?

The path went on without splitting for some time.

When she heard Effi’s muffled scream, she picked up the pace.

She hooked her thumb in her belt, fingers around the grip of her knife, ready to fly at the trader and gut him.

But as she rounded a corner, he was ready for her.

He held his club high above Effi’s head, his other hand gripping her throat from behind.

“Sleert!” he shouted, over the crashing roar of the waterfalls, “Don’t come a step…”

Effi spun and smashed Dornig’s face with a stone hidden in her palm.

The trader swore, spat out a tooth, and lifted the club again, ready to rain down vengeance.

But then his knee exploded.

There was a mad flash of blood and cartilage and pale bone.

Then it pulled away from him, the movement hurling him down to the earth with a vicious thud.

Effi fell in the opposite direction, terror scrawled across her features.

Dornig screamed.

The flesh of his knee erupted into strips of flesh and protruding bone.

Esterra could not comprehend it.

The man shrieked, clawing at the ground as his leg twisted, twisted, and then snapped in two with a sharp crack, blood spraying high into the air. The calf and foot vanished, and the blood spattered over something in the air, giving nothingness form. What dark magic is this? The man screams only grew louder. More blood filled the air. It painted a strange shape in the air, solid, moving. Esterra’s breath caught in her throat.

The blood revealed a serpentine creature in the air.

Now she could see the teeth painted in red.

Each ravenous bite revealed more.

Bulbous eyes.

A great jaw.

There was a muscled, scaly leg with an ugly claw.

Blood dripped from the invisible monster.

And still the man screamed, even as the thing reared above him.

A mouth painted entirely of blood, with fangs longer than Esterra’s hand, open wide and clamped down on the shrieking head.

A muffled crunch. The shrieking stopped.

Esterra crouched behind the pillar of stone, unable to move.

The more the thing feasted, the more it revealed itself.

A splatter of gore revealed a long length of torso.

Another grisly splotch showed a tall fin on its back or shoulder.

It was as if someone had taken a bucket of blood and dashed it every which way and somehow that madness had taken form, become a living beast which showed itself only in gory fragments.

Each bite it took from the man simply vanished into the unseen gullet, but the mouth was revealed anew each time it opened for another bite.

The blood ran down its jaw and its long, mottled throat, like that of a lizard.

The beast tore the top half of Dornig’s torso clean from the rest of his body, and vanished over the edge.

Effi sat by the rest of the body, keening with her hands clamped over her mouth, cheeks wet with tears.

The bloody, jagged stone she had used lay nearby.

Esterra let out a sigh of relief.

She crouched by the girl.

“Hey,” she said, “Good job.

Time to go.”

The keening continued.

The listener did not look at her, eyes fixed on the corpse.

“What’s wrong with you, child? Come on.” She shook the girl’s shoulder.

The listener pushed her away.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, and every muscle in her body seemed taut.

The veins on her neck and temples stood out.

Esterra grabbed her shoulder again, forcefully.

“We need to go.

Hey, look at me! There are monsters here.

Monsters.

Hey! Stars damn you, girl.”

She slapped the listener’s cheek.

Hard.

The girl crumpled to the ground.

The tears stopped for a second, then resumed with renewed vigour.

She could not look away from her kill.

It took Esterra a few moments to understand.

This was her first.

Desensitised to death so long ago, Esterra simply expected everyone to deal with it as she did.

Gut the enemy, clean the knife, move on.

Yet this young woman, innocent and naive, had just struggled free of her kidnapper and struck him in self-defence, and that had led to his instant death. The event had shattered all her misguided illusions about the world. She was a killer now. Verpace had given her a baptism of blood and she was struggling to stay afloat. Esterra had first killed a man decades ago, so long that most of the details were lost, blurred by all the bloody death and even bloodier life she had experienced since. She understood the girl’s pain, but she could not carry her through it. Effi had to do so alone.

But right now they had no time for that eventual catharsis.

“Look, this is tough.

I get it.

But we need to go.”

The girl finally looked up at her.

A step forward , Esterra thought.

“Those monsters, they’re going to com…”

The girl’s throat tore open and exploded in a gush of blood.

It splattered across the face of the serpentine lizard, the gore dripping from its toothy maw and scaled skin.

Esterra screamed, but the listener did not have any chance to do the same.

She was dead in an instant.

The thing ravaged her throat and face.

Esterra hesitated only for a second, then turned and ran.

Her boots slipped on the trail, and she careened near the edge of the precipice for a moment before regaining her balance.

Her heart beat wildly.

Panic drove needles of ice through her veins, all reason gone with the image of that woman’s death filling her mind.

She dove beneath an arch of stone and kept running, running for safety, for the hollow, anywhere away from that monster.

The crack of bones and splat of wet flesh followed her as the monster gnawed through the body.

The horrific sounds only seemed to grow louder and louder, till they drained out even her own footfalls, till all the world seemed to be crunching away at her hearing with teeth of steel.

She bit her tongue, hard, in an effort to refocus.

It helped, but not much.

The panic remained.

Adrenaline still shot through her muscles, her breath still choked her, every variance in shadow and light still revealed another invisible monster.

Her heart thudded against her ribs.

She could taste her exhaustion bitter on the tongue, but she only ran faster.

When the entrance of the hollow, a broken crack in the barren stone of the tawil, showed itself, she cried out brokenly, breathless and grateful.

But there was a rift between her and the entrance.

The path she had run along so far ended in an abrupt cliff.

Another narrow track climbed the side of the tawil from the depths below, but from where she stood she could never reach it.

Great streams of water fell into the depths, and a hazy mist obscured what lay below.

Esterra had glimpses of stone ridges like the one she had walked on, and bridges and outcrops of stone crisscrossing below like some maniacal maze had collapsed into the great pit of this tract, waiting patiently for a poor soul fool enough to even begin wandering its paths.

A rustling sound, like scaled feet scraping across damp earth, sifted through the roar of the waterfalls.

Esterra spun.

There it was, claws and legs and misshapen head painted in dripping scarlet.

It stopped when she looked, perhaps thinking itself invisible, unaware that the listener’s blood gave it away.

Esterra drew her knife and prepared to use her licht.

If it came to a choice of life or death, she knew which she was choosing.

She silently prayed it would not come to such a decision.

The creature shifted to one side.

It was thin and agile, lifting its bulk from the ground in order to move more stealthily.

Still it did not approach.

Esterra part-crouched into a good stance, ready to spring to one side or the other on the narrow path, aware of the drops to each side.

Then it struck her.

How did this thing sneak up on the listener? Where was Dornig’s blood?

Shit.

There are two.

She stepped forward just as something lunged from the side of a pillar of stone above her.

It landed with a crash and scrabble of claws.

She saw this in a blur, the second blood-smeared maw turning on her with incredible speed.

The first beast charged.

She ran towards it.

Bloody teeth flashed in the sun.

She spun and slashed her blade across its eye, and it shrieked, but she was already past.

But she had forgotten the invisible tail.

Hard as a tree trunk, if smashed across her ankles, tripping her.

She held her blade away from her body as she slammed into the earth, her breath jolted out of her. She gasped, gripped her blade, sucked in air, and scrambled to her feet. Both monsters were coming after, claws scrambling among the pebbles, their teeth painted in blood.

Esterra dove off the side of the narrow platform of land and landed on one below with a hard thud.

Her shoulder would demand payment for that fall the next day, but it was better than dying.

She ran onwards in the direction of the closest tawil.

Glancing back, she saw the two creatures had not followed her jump, but instead climbed headfirst down the thin pillars of stone which held up the land, quicker than any creature had a right to be.

Looking up sunways, she spotted a dark fold in the tawil which might very well be hiding a different hollow.

It was closer, and the raised path seemed to lead there.

I’ve worked with less , she thought, trying to bury the rising despair within her.

She set off, eyes constantly scanning all around her while also trying to keep her footing.

Her pace was deliberate, not too fast, in order to keep her breathing steady and prevent a lethal fall.

She passed by one iridescent waterfall, glimmering in the sun like a hundred thousand gems pouring out of an overfull purse.

Its elemental fury pissed her off, because it removed her ability to hear.

If anything with intelligence intended to ambush her, this is where it would happen.

But she passed without incident.

She rushed on, boots a steady clack on the rocky ground.

She glanced back and saw something shimmering back on the path, yet when she focused it vanished.

Perhaps just the mist of the waterfalls.

Perhaps not.

She picked up the pace.

A clatter of stones from somewhere below made her stop.

One of the beasts was climbing up.

She sprinted forward, only a hundred paces or so to the tawil now.

A large pebble slipped beneath her boot and sent her sprawling and then crashing down into the path.

She spread out her arm and legs for purchase lest she spin right off the edge into oblivion.

Thankfully she came to a stop… just as the wet maw of the monster poked up over the edge before her.

The hole of its stabbed eye leaked blackish blood in a pulsing flow.

She snatched her blade and buried it in there again, quick as an eel.

She felt the metal nick bone, then ripped it free before the beast’s weight pulled it from her grip.

The corpse fell without a sound, dead before its brain could register it was dead.

She gasped a sob of relief, but shook her head quickly.

The other would not be far behind, and there might be even more.

And there it was, on the path ahead, bloodied face glistening in the red sun.

She was still on her belly.

Fuck.

It rushed at her.

She dug her boots into the soil and stone, and dove forward, knife extended.

The creature spun by, dodging the blade with agile ease, clawing at her as it passed.

She half-rolled to the side, slid in the gravel, sucked in a sharp breath and scrambled to her feet.

The beast was already on the attack.

She stepped back, back, back again as it lunged rabidly.

Dust and blood had coated the majority of its front and claws, making it partly visible, allowing her to better dodge and fend off the attacks with her knife.

But the thing was full of an unnatural energy, driven by either immense fury or hunger, relentless in its assault.

One wrong move, one mistake, and she would become its next meal.

Thankfully her back was to the hollow, and so long as she retreated along the path, she would eventually reach some kind of safety.

A defensible position.

But Verpace ever had a mind of its own.

She stepped on another angular rock and almost twisted her ankle.

The monster took the opportunity and closed in.

She dealt it a vicious cut across the cheek for its efforts.

It hissed and backed away, black blood pouring across its snout.

Esterra stumbled for a moment, swore as her ankle threatened to send her over the edge, then ran for the hollow.

The beast came after.

A claw snagged at her cloak, but thankfully it was sharp enough to cut right through the old fabric.

The beast had put all its weight behind the attack, and it gave Esterra the slight advantage she needed.

She wanted to scream but refused to waste the breath.

The hollow was right there.

Each step was pushing her closer and closer to the edge of exhaustion.

Once she crossed that threshold, she was dead.

Only a dozen paces remained.

The creature sprinted at her.

She dodged to the side, boots scraping the very edge of the ledge, knife flashing out to defend herself.

But the thing was not attacking.

It had feinted and used her defensive movements to run by, cutting her off from safety.

Esterra felt a sob of exhausted terror scratching at the base of her throat.

Covered in dust and blood both red and black, the monster came to a halt, facing her.

A bloody grin of razor-sharp teeth and two baleful eyes were waiting for her.

She forced herself to breathe in deeply, to suck in as much air as she could.

The next few moments would determine everything.

Her lungs burned, and her saliva brought with it the acidic taste of overexertion.

The thing’s blood and stinking breath flooded her airways like a curse.

It was gasping for air too, she saw, and she returned its grin, flashing her teeth in defiance.

Its eyes shifted to look past her, and she took her chance.

She sprinted at it, knife extended.

It leaped at her, a frothing mess of blood and saliva and teeth.

She fell to her knees, sliding on them and arching her entire torso back till her head almost scraped the ground, sliding forward with her knife raised.

The beast passed over her, claws nicking her skin.

Her blade opened the soft underbelly.

Luckily the thing’s momentum kept it moving, and the steaming guts only spilled out once it had passed.

It turned on her and she on it, but it died even as it lunged at her.

She stepped back to avoid its dying attack, and breathed in harsh, heavy breaths.

It died there, armfuls of guts hanging out of its torn belly, steaming in the cold air of the tract.

She saw what had distracted it.

There, back on the path, stood the older port.

He wobbled on his feet.

One of his arms was gone, and half of his chest.

Esterra had no idea how he could even walk, let alone navigate the madness of the narrow paths and the raging lizards.

He did not seem to see her, did not have any goal at all judging by the shambling randomness of his lurching movements.

He sat down in a daze and looked out at the waterfalls.

She imagined a hundred invisible beasts watched him in anticipation, saliva filling their ravenous mouths.

The man was dead.

She turned away and entered the hollow.

Death by beast, blood loss, gravity, he was dead one way or the other.

All men and women faced death in some form.

Some were cruel and unconscionable, others bland and dull.

Yet death came for all, and in good time it would come for Verpace itself, in the silent roar of a dying sun at the end of the world.

Then all would perish, the merchant-barons of the Circle, the bell-priests of the Valley, the self-flagellating Penitents, the steel-hungry traders, the wild dancers of the kanikani beyond the Scathefire, and all the denizens of the thousand thousand tracts rotting in their own filth and decay.

All would die.

Esterra wondered if Verpace deserved it sooner.