Nevernight

Tric pawed the scrape on his neck, fingertips wet. He tried to stand but couldn’t, staring at his hand as his brain caught up. His mind was his own, but his body …

‘Poisoned …’ he breathed.

Mia and the stranger were circling each other, blades clutched in knife-fighter grips. They moved like first-time lovers – hesitant at first, drifting closer until finally they fell into each other’s arms, fists and elbows and knees, block and counters and strikes. The sigh of steel in the air. The wet percussion of flesh and bone. Having never really seen her matched against a human opponent, Tric slowly realised Mia was no slouch with a blade – well honed and seemingly fearless. She fought left-handed, her fighting style unorthodox, moving swift. But for all Mia’s skill, the thin woman seemed her match. Her every strike was foiled. Every advance countered.

After a few minutes of spectating, the feeling was returning to Tric’s feet. Mia was panting with exertion, crow-black hair clinging to her skin like weed. The stranger wasn’t pressing the attack; simply defending silently. Mia was circling, trying to get the sun behind her, but her foe was clever enough to avoid getting Saan in her eyes. And so at last, with a small sigh as if admitting defeat, Mia moved her shadow so the stranger would be ankle-deep in it anyway.

The woman hissed in alarm, trying to sidestep, but the shadows moved quick as silver. Tric watched her fall still, as if her feet were glued to the spot. Mia stepped up and struck at the woman’s throat, blade whistling as it came. But instead of dying, the stranger tangled up Mia’s forearm, twisted her knife free, and flipped the girl onto her bruised backside, swift as a just soul flying to the Hearth.fn6

Mia’s blade quivered in the sand between Tric’s legs, two inches shy of a very unhappy accident. The boy blinked at the gravebone, trying to focus. He felt as if he should give it back – that seemed important – but the warmth at his neck bid him sit awhile longer.

Mia rolled to her feet, red-faced with fury. Snatching the knife from the sand, she turned back to the woman, teeth bared in a snarl.

‘Let’s try that again, shall we?’ the girl wheezed.

‘Darkin,’ said the strange woman, only slightly out of breath. ‘Darkin fool.’

‘… What?’

‘She calls the Dark here? In the deep wastes?’

‘… Who are you?’

‘Naev,’ she slurred. ‘Only Naev.’

‘That’s an Ashkahi word. It means “nothing”.’

‘A learned fool, then.’

Mia motioned to Tric. ‘What did you do to my friend?’

‘Ink.’ The woman displayed a barbed ring on her finger. ‘A small dose.’fn7

‘Why did you attack us?’

‘If Naev had attacked her, the sands would be redder. Naev asked why they followed her. And now Naev knows. Naev wonders at the girl’s skill. And now Naev sees.’ The veiled woman looked back and forth between them, made a slurping sound. ‘Sees a pair of fools.’

Tric rose on wobbly feet, leaning against the stone at his back. His head was clearing, anger replacing the haze. He drew his scimitar and glared at the three little women blurred before him, his pride stung to bleeding.

‘Who are you calling fool, shorty?’

The woman glanced in his direction. ‘The boy whose throat Naev could have cut.’

‘You crept up on me while I was sleeping.’

‘The boy who sleeps when he should be watching.’

‘How about you watch while I hand you your—’

‘Tric,’ Mia said. ‘Calm down.’

‘Mia, this skinny streak of shit had a knife to my throat.’

‘She’s testing you. Testing us. Everything she says and does. Look at her.’

Naev still held Mia’s gaze, eyes like black lamps burning in her skull. Mia had seen a stare like that before – the stare of a person who’d looked the end in the face so many times she considered death a friend. Old Mercurio had the same look in his eyes. And at last she knew the stranger for what she was.

The moment was nothing like she’d practised in the mirror. And yet Mia still felt a sense of relief as she took the purse of teeth from her belt and tossed it to the thin woman. As if six years had been lifted from her chest.

‘My tithe,’ she said. ‘For the Maw.’

The woman hefted the bag in her hand. ‘Naev has no need of it.’

‘But you’re from the Red Church …’

‘It is Naev’s honour to serve in the House of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, yes. For the next few minutes at least.’

‘Few minutes? What do you—’

The ground beneath them trembled. A faint tremor at first, felt at the small of her back. Rising every second.

‘… Is that what I think it is?’ Tric asked.

‘Kraken,’ Naev sighed. ‘They hear when she calls the Dark. A fool, as I said.’

Mia and Tric glanced at each other, spoke simultaneously. ‘O, shit …’

‘Didn’t you know that?’ Tric asked.

‘Four Daughters, how was I supposed to know that? I’ve never been to Ashkah!’

‘The kraken who attacked us before lost its bottle when you did your cloaky thing!’

‘“Cloaky thing”’? Are you five years old?’

‘Well, whatever it’s called, maybe you should stop it?’ Tric pointed to the shadows around Naev’s feet. ‘Before it brings more?’

Mia’s shadow slithered back across the dust, took up its regular shape again. She kept a wary eye on Naev, but the woman simply sheathed her blade, head tilted.

‘There are two,’ she slurped. ‘Very large.’

‘What do we do?’ Mia asked.

‘Run?’ Naev shrugged. ‘Die?’

‘Running sounds grand to me. Tric?’

Tric was already on Flowers’s back, the horse rearing to go. ‘Waiting on you, now.’

Mia vaulted into the saddle, offered a hand to the thin woman. ‘Ride with me.’

Naev hesitated a moment, tilting her head and fixing Mia in that black stare.

‘Look, you’re welcome to stay here if you like …’

Naev stepped closer and the ground trembled. Bastard raised up on his hind legs, kicking at the air. Mia glanced behind to see a trail of churning earth approaching – as if something massive swum beneath the sand.

Right towards them.

As the stallion set his hooves back on the ground, she called the shadows again, fixing him in place long enough for Naev to scramble up behind her. A bellowing roar sounded under the earth, as if the things were also answering her summons. As Naev put her arms around Mia’s waist, she caught a whiff of spice and smoke. Something rotten beneath.

‘She is making them angry,’ the woman said.

‘Let’s go!’ Tric shouted.

Mia released Bastard’s hooves and kicked hard, the stallion bolting into a fast gallop. The ground behind exploded, tentacles bursting from the sand and cracking like hooked bullwhips. Mia heard a gut-watering bellow, glimpsed a beak that could swallow Bastard whole. She saw a second runnel rumbling towards them from the west. Thundering hooves and roars filled her ears.

‘Two of them, just like you said!’ Mia yelled.

The veiled woman pointed north. ‘Ride for the wagons. We have ironsong to keep the kraken at bay.’

‘What’s ironsong?’

‘Ride!’

And so they did. A furious gallop over an ocean of blood-red sand. Glancing behind, she saw the two runnels converging, closing swift. She wondered how the beasts were tracking her. How they knew it was her who’d called the Dark. A tentacle broke the surface, two storeys tall, set with hooks of blackened bone. Angry roars filled the air as it slammed back down to earth.

Dust whipping her eyes. Bastard snorting beneath her, hoof beats thudding in her chest. Mia held the reins hard, riding harder, grateful that though the stallion hated her like poison, he seemed to hate the thought of being eaten even more.

‘Look out!’ cried Tric.

Mia looked ahead, saw another runnel approaching from the north. Bigger, moving faster, shaking the earth beneath her. Flowers let out a terrified whinny.

‘It seems there are three,’ Naev said. ‘Apologies …’

Tentacles unfurled from the ground like the petals of some murderous flower. Mia looked into the beast’s maw, all snapping beak and hooked bone. As Flowers cut east to avoid the behemoth, Bastard finally came to the realization that he’d run much faster without two riders on his back. And so he started bucking.

Mia had the benefit of stirrups. Reins. A saddle. But Naev was riding on Bastard’s hindparts with nothing but Mia’s waist to keep her anchored. Bastard bucked again, whipping them about like rag dolls. And without a whisper, Naev sailed off the horse’s back.

Mia cut east to follow Tric, roaring at the boy over the chaos.

‘We lost Naev!’

The Dweymeri glanced over his shoulder. ‘Maybe they’ll stop to eat her?’

‘We have to go back!’

‘When did you grow altruism? It’s suicide to go back there!’

‘It’s not just altruism, you knob, I gave her my tithe!’

‘O, shit,’ Tric felt about his waist. ‘She took mine, too!’

‘You get Naev,’ she decided. ‘I’ll distract them!’

‘… mia …’ said the cat in her shadow. ‘… this is foolish …’

‘We have to save her!’

‘… the boy’s stallion will not take him back there …’

‘Because he’s afraid! And you can fix that!’

‘… if i drink him, i cannot drink you …’

‘I’ll deal with my own fear! You just deal with Flowers!’

A hollow sigh.

‘… as it please you …’

Red earth, torn and wounded, shaking beneath them. Dust in her eyes. Heart in her throat. She felt Mister Kindly flit across the sand and coil inside Flowers’s shadow, feasting on the stallion’s terror. She felt her own rise up in a flood – an ice-cold swell in her belly, so long forgotten she was almost overcome. So many years since she’d had to face it. So many years with Mister Kindly beside her, drinking every drop so she could always be brave.

Fear.

Mia jerked on the reins, bringing Bastard to a halt. The stallion snorted but obeyed the steel in his mouth, stamping and snotting. Bringing him about, Mia saw Naev was on her feet, clutching her ribs as she ran across the churning sand.

‘Tric, go!’ Mia roared. ‘I’ll meet you at the wagon!’

Tric still looked a touch befuddled from the ink. But he nodded, charging back towards the fallen woman and the approaching kraken. Flowers ran fast as a hurricane towards the monstrosity, completely fearless with the eyeless cat clinging to his shadow.

The first kraken erupted behind Naev, tentacles the size of longboats cutting the air. The thin woman rolled and swayed, slipping between a half-dozen blows. Sadly, it was the seventh that caught her – hooks tearing her chest and gut as the tentacle snatched her up. And even in that awful grip, the woman refused to cry out, drawing her blade and hacking at the limb instead.

Terror filled Mia’s veins, fingertips tingling, eyes wide. The sensation was so unfamiliar, it was all she could do not to sink beneath it. Yet the fear of failing was stronger than the thought of dying in a kraken’s arms, memories of her mother’s words on her father’s hanging turn still carved in her bones. And so she reached inside herself, and did what had to be done.

She wrapped her shadow about herself, fading from view on the stallion’s back. The kraken holding Naev paused, tremors running its length. And with a howl that shivered her bones, the beast dropped its prey onto the sand, and turned towards Mia with its two cousins swimming fast behind.

The girl turned and rode for her life.

Teeth gritted, glancing over her shoulder as massive shapes breached the earth, diving back below like seadrakes on the hunt. Beyond the horrors, she saw Tric at full gallop, snatching Naev up and dragging the wounded woman over his pommel. Naev was drenched in blood, but Mia could see she was still moving. Still alive.

She turned Bastard north, galloping towards the caravan. The churchmen were no fools – their camel train was already tearing away across the dust. The kraken kept pace with Bastard, one slamming into the sand just thirty feet behind, the stallion stumbling as the ground shuddered. Great roars and the hiss of their bodies piercing the earth filled her ears. Wondering how they could sense her, Mia rode towards a stretch of rocky badlands, praying the ground was something approaching solid.

About forty eroded stone spires thrust up through the desert’s face; a small garden of rock in the endless nothing. Throwing aside her shadowcloak, Mia wove between them, heard frustrated roars behind. She gained a short lead, galloping out the other side as the kraken circled around. Slick with sweat. Heart pounding. She was closing on the camel train, inch by inch, foot by foot. Tric had reached it, one of the wagonmen reaching for Naev’s bloody body, another manning a pivot-mounted crossbow loaded with bolts as big as broom handles.

She could hear that same metallic song on the wind – realised some strange contraption was strapped to the rear wagon beside the crossbow. It looked like a large xylophone made from iron pipes. One of the wagonmen was hitting it like it had insulted his mother, filling the air with noise.

Ironsong, she realised.

But beneath the cacophony, she could hear the kraken behind, the earth being torn apart by horrors big as houses. Her thighs ached, muscles groaned, and she rode for all she was worth. The fear was swelling in her – a living, breathing thing, clawing at her insides and clouding thought and sight. Hand shaking, lips quivering, please, Mother, take it away …

At last she drew alongside the rearmost wagon, wincing at the racket. Tric was yelling, holding out his hand. Her heart was thundering in her breast. Teeth chattering in her skull. And with Bastard’s reins in her fist, she drew herself up on unsteady legs and leapt towards him.

The boy caught her, pulled her against his chest, hard as mahogany and drenched in blood. Shaking in his arms, she looked up into hazel eyes, noted the way he was staring at her – relief and admiration and something yet besides. Something …

She felt Mister Kindly slink back into her shadow, overwhelmed for a moment by the terror in her veins. And then he drank, and sighed, and nothing of it remained but fading memory. Herself again. Strong again. Needing no one. Needing nothing.

Muttering thanks, she pushed herself from Tric’s grip and stooped to tie Bastard to the wagon’s flank. Tric knelt beside Naev’s bleeding body to check if she still lived. The churchman in the pilot’s chair roared over the xylophone.

‘Black Mother, what did you—’

A tentacle burst from the earth in front of them, whistling as it came. It tore through the driver’s midriff, ripping him and one of his fellows clean in half, guts and blood spraying as the wagon roofs were torn away like paper. Mia dived to the deck, hooks sweeping mere inches over her head as the wagon rocked sideways, Tric roaring and Bastard screaming and the newly arrived kraken bellowing in fury. The crossbow and its marksmen were smashed loose from the tray, sailing off into the dust. The camels swerved in a panic, sending the wagon train up on four wheels. Mia lunged for the abandoned reins, bringing the train down with a shuddering jolt. She dragged herself into the pilot’s seat and cursed, glancing over her shoulder at the four beasts now pursuing them, shouting over the bedlam to Mister Kindly.

‘Remind me never to call the Dark in this desert again!’

‘… have no fear of that …’

The churchman manning the xylophone had been knocked clear when the kraken struck, now wailing as one of the monsters dragged him to his death. Tric snatched up the man’s fallen club and started beating on the contraption as Mia roared at Naev.

‘Which way is the Red Church from here?’

The woman moaned in reply, clutching the ragged wounds in her chest and gut. Mia could see entrails glistening in the worst of it, Naev’s clothes soaked with gore.

‘Naev, listen to me! Which way do we ride?’

‘North,’ the woman bubbled. ‘The mountains.’

‘Which mountains? There are dozens!’

‘Not the tallest … nor the shortest. Nor the … scowling face or the sad old man or the broken wall.’ A ragged, spit-thick sigh. ‘The simplest mountain of them all.’

The woman groaned, curling in upon herself. The ironsong was near deafening, and Mia’s headache bounced around the inside of her skull with joyful abandon.

‘Tric, shut that racket up!’ Mia roared.

‘It scares off the krakens!’ Tric bellowed.

‘Scares off the krakens …’ moaned Naev.

‘No, it bloody doesn’t!’ yelled Mia.

She glanced over her shoulder, just in case the ungodly racket had indeed scared off the monstrosities chasing them, but alas, they were still in close pursuit. Bastard galloped alongside, glaring at Mia, occasionally spitting an accusing whinny in her direction.

‘O, shut up!’

‘… he really does not like you …’

‘You’re not helping!’

‘… and what would help …?’

‘Explain to me how we got into this stew!’

The cat who was shadows tilted his head, as if thinking. He looked at the rolling Whisperwastes, the jagged horizon drawing nearer, his mistress above him. And he spoke with the voice of one unveiling an ugly but necessary truth.

‘… it is basically your fault …’

CHAPTER 7

INTRODUCTIONS

Mia pushed open the door to Mercurio’s Curios, a tiny bell above the frame chiming her arrival. The store was dark and dusty, sprawling off in every direction. Shutters were drawn against the sunslight. Mia recalled the sign outside – ‘Oddities, Rarities & the Fynest Antiquities’. Looking at the shelves, she saw plenty of the former. The latter parts of the equation were up for debate.

Truth be told, the shop looked filled to bursting with junk. Mia could’ve sworn it was also bigger inside than out, though she put that down to her lack of mornmeal. As if to remind her of its neglect, her belly growled a sternly worded complaint.

Mia made her way through the flotsam and jetsam until she arrived at a counter. And there, behind a mahogany desk carved with a twisting spiral pattern that made her eyes hurt to look at, she found the greatest oddity inside Mercurio’s Curios – the proprietor himself.

His face was the kind that seemed born to scowl, set atop with a short shock of light grey hair. Blue eyes were narrowed behind wire-rimmed spectacles that had seen better turns. A statue of an elegant woman with a lion’s head crouched on the desk beside him, an arkemical globe held in its upturned palm. The old man was reading from a book as big as Mia. A cigarillo hung from his mouth, smelling faintly of cloves. It bobbed on his lips when he mumbled.

‘Help ya w’somthn?’

‘Good turn to you, sir. Almighty Aa bless and keep you—’

The old man tapped the small brass placard on the countertop – a repeat of the warning outside his door. ‘No time-wasters, rabble, or religious sorts welcome.’

‘Forgive me, sir. May the Four Daughters—’

The old man tapped the placard more insistently, shifting his scowl to Mia.

The girl fell silent. The old man turned back to his book.

‘Help ya w’somthn?’ he repeated.

The girl cleared her throat. ‘I wish to sell you a piece of jewellery, sir.’

‘Just wishing about it won’t get it done, girl.’

Mia hovered uncertainly, chewing her lip. The old man began tapping the placard again until she finally got the message, unpinning her brooch and placing it on the wood. The little crow stared back at her with its red amber eyes, as if wounded at the thought she might hock it to such a grumpy old bastard. She shrugged apology.

‘Where’d y’steal that?’ the old man mumbled.

‘I did not steal it, sir.’

Mercurio pulled the cigarillo from his lips, turned his full attention to Mia.

‘That’s the sigil of the Familia Corvere.’

‘Well spotted, sir.’

‘Darius Corvere died a traitor’s death yesterturn by order of the Itreyan Senate. And rumour has it his entire household have been locked in the Philosopher’s Stone.’ fn1

The little girl had no kerchief, so she wiped her nose on her sleeve and said nothing.

‘How old are you, sprat?’

‘… Ten, sir.’

‘You got a name?’

Mia blinked. Who did this old man think he was? She was Mia Corvere, daughter of the justicus of the Luminatii Legion. Marrowborn of a noble familia, one of the great twelve houses of the Republic. She’d not be interrogated by a mere shopkeep. Especially when offering a prize worth more than the rest of the junk in this squalid hole put together.

‘My name is none of your business, sir.’ Mia folded her arms and tried her best to impersonate her mother when dealing with an unruly servant.

‘Noneofyourbusiness?’ One grey eyebrow rose. ‘Strange name for a girl, innit?’

‘Do you want the brooch or no?’

The old man put his cigarillo back on his lips and turned back to his book.

‘No,’ he said.

Mia blinked. ‘It is finest Itreyan silver. Th—’

‘Fuck off,’ the man said, without looking up. ‘And take your trouble with you when you off with the fuck, Miss Noneofyourbusiness.’

Mia’s cheeks burned pink with fury. She snatched the brooch up and pinned it back to her dress, tossed her hair over one shoulder and spun on her heel.

‘Word of advice,’ said the old man, still not looking up. ‘Corvere and his cronies got off light with that hanging. Their commonborn troops have been crucified along the banks of the Choir. Rumour is they’re going to pave the Senate House streets with their skulls. A lot of those soldiers had familia ’round here. So, I’d not walk about with a traitor’s mark pinned to my tits were I you.’

The words struck Mia like a rock in the back of her head. She turned back to the old man, teeth bared in a snarl.

‘My father was no traitor,’ she spat.

As she stormed out the door, her shadow unfurled along the pavement and slammed it behind her. The girl was so angry she didn’t even notice.

Back out in the marketplace, she stood on the stoop, fury curling her hands into fists. How dare he talk about her father like that? She was of half a mind to stomp back inside and demand apology, but her stomach was growling and she needed coin.

She was stepping down into the crush looking for a jewellery stall, when a boy a little older than her came careering out of the throng. His arms were laden with a basket of pastries, and before Mia could step aside, with a curse and a small explosion of powdered sugar, the boy ploughed straight into her.

Mia cried out as she was sent sprawling, her dress powdered white. The boy was likewise knocked onto his backside, pastries strewn in the filth.

‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going?’ Mia demanded.

‘O, Daughters, a thousand pardons, miss. Please forgive me …’

The boy climbed to his feet, offered a hand, and helped Mia up. He brushed the white powder off her dress as best he could, mumbling apologies all the while. Then, leaning down to the fallen pastries, he stuffed them back into his basket. With an apologetic smile, he plucked one of the less dirty tarts off the pile and offered it to Mia with a bow.