A MURDER OF KNIGHTS
Tim Akers
Slay the monster, save the girl—it’s nearly the oldest story there is. Even at the end of history, when the sun’s gone dark and the technology we created has become like gods to us, it’s a story that rings true. Because even at the end of history, there are still monsters, and still knights whose sacred duty it is to slay them. . . .
* * *
The dead hulk of the sun crawled across the starlit sky. I followed its path up from the horizon, eclipsing the dim lights of the eastern constellations, spreading like spilled ink. It would have been easier to wait until night, when the four moons gave some illumination, but our task was suited to darkness. When the sun’s black disk cleared the horizon, I rose from my crouch and awoke my companion. Vel’s wide amber eyes blinked up at me.
“Get the horses,” I said. “It’s time to go.”
“They’ll still be sleeping,” he complained.
“Good men don’t work during the day. If they’re awake, we will know the oracle’s words were true.” I shrugged into my raven-feather cloak and hitched the black leather scabbard onto my belt. The sword was nearly weightless. “And if they are asleep, we will simply have faith, and do the duty we have been given.”
“And what if some of them are asleep, and some of them are awake, eh?” Vel asked as he rose from the nest of blankets he had made beneath the bushes. His crooked form limped over to where the horses were tethered. “What do we do then?”
“Stop being an idiot,” I answered. I watched as he unhooked the horses and throttled their souls awake. The beasts growled to life, the soot-stained vents of their lungs glowing red with fire. I didn’t like the way Vel was moving. He was turning. One of the spirits in his flesh had bent inward, and was changing him. It wouldn’t be long before my duty would turn to him. “Where is your cloak?” I asked.
“Patience, child,” Vel said. “I had it watching over us while we slept.” He snatched his cloak from a nearby tree and slung it over his shoulders. The feathers settled smoothly against the metal of his armor, steel plates fashioned to look like wings. His face was long and smooth, his head bald, though wrinkles lined the aperture of his eyes. He smiled at me. “Awake or asleep, they will be waiting for us. The oracle has spoken.”
“The oracle has spoken,” I repeated, then swung up on my saddle. It took longer for the old man to mount, but once Vel was settled, we departed camp and turned our steeds south. The little spirit in my head, placed there by our domaen at the start of this mission, sang its song of direction and distance. I pushed it to the back of my skull and tried to relax.
The stars flickered overhead, sometimes disappearing behind the sun. A few glimmered dimly, on the verge of going out. In the far distance to the west, much farther than we would be going tonight, the sky was empty. No stars, and the orbit of sun and moon never crossed that unseen terminator in the sky. There was just darkness. The land beyond the stars.
“You’re awfully quiet this morning, Hanrick. What are you thinking about?” Vel asked. He sat slumped forward, his arms crossed over the godsteel broadsword in his lap.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Nothing at all.”
The village of Halfspire lay clustered around the base of a broken tower at the head of a shallow valley. The tower’s exposed ribs climbed high into the sky, its heights bristling with turbine kites and the fluttering banners of the raven god. Rings of fertile soil surrounded the village, emanating from the tower in concentric circles, richer the closer they were to the broken spire’s base. The village lay between the rings, linked by bridges and walkways that stretched over the fields, careful to avoid trammeling the ancient earth. There was no wall surrounding the village, by order of the raven god. Vel and I cantered down the main road toward the center of town. A nesting vulture dog dropped from the broken tower’s shadow and slowly circled the village.
“Asleep, then,” Vel noted. The houses we passed were closed tight, their windows shuttered and chimneys cold. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or heartbroken.”
“This isn’t a cull,” I said.
“Not yet. But they’re hiding something.” He shifted in his saddle, leather creaking and feathers shifting. “Else we wouldn’t be here.”
“Aye.” We entered the village round at the base of the tower. The building’s wide gates lay open. The darkness beyond was silent, even to my ascended hearing. “Sound the bell. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Vel grunted and rode to the platform at the center of the round. The structure served as podium, gallows, notice board, and bell tower. The elderly raven knight unhooked the hammer from its place and struck the bell. The sound echoed off the tower and rolled down the surrounding streets. A wake of vulture dogs startled from the heights, flapping lazily for a minute before settling on the rooftops overlooking the clearing. The sound of their bone-white jaws scissoring open and closed accompanied the last peals from the bell.
The citizens of Halfspire opened their doors and came out. The mayor of the village ducked back inside when he saw our crooked forms waiting by the bell, emerging minutes later in full regalia. Everyone else made their way to the round, barely filling the perimeter. Either there were a lot of empty houses in this village, or some of the citizens decided they were safer behind locked doors than in the sight of their god’s chosen messengers. Probably both. They avoided the arc of the round that led to the tower, I noticed.
Properly attired in the vestments of the oracle’s cult, the mayor scrambled to our side, bowing as he approached. Vel giggled. I drew myself to my full height and waited patiently as the man made his apologies.
“My lords-raven, what an unexpected honor!” he proclaimed, loudly enough for the gathered audience. “As representative of the people of Halfspire, and appointed clergy of the All Seeing, let me welcome you to our humble—”
“All Seeing,” I interrupted. The mayor’s voice cut off. He froze in mid-bow. I swept my gaze across the audience. “And yet you are hiding something.”
“My . . . my lord, I don’t know . . .” He swallowed hard. I signalled to Vel.
“By edict of the Raven, Oracle of Murdermont and Domaen of all he Sees, a message.” Vel’s voice changed into a faint static buzz. He cranked his mouth open, jaw slack as the recorded spirit of our god proclaimed. The voice that issued from Vel’s throat was barely a whisper, and yet it rang off the tower’s heights like a cannonshot. “Something lurks in Halfspire. Clouds fall across the feed. I am blind to their works. Release them from their darkness.”
I first heard those words last night, when the domaen summoned me to his altar and fixed me on this task. That I would carry out my duty was unquestioned. What atrocities I would have to commit to see that duty done depended on how the mayor reacted, and what he was hiding.
A moment of heavy silence followed the proclamation. I fixed the mayor in my gaze. His face was turned down, the gentle glow of his eyes hooded. At least he was still bowing.
“The oracle has spoken,” I said, just loud enough for the mayor to hear. The villagers knew what I said, though, and answered.
“The oracle has spoken,” they intoned. The words struck the mayor like a hammer blow. He looked up at me, then nodded.
“Where is it?” I asked, though I already knew. He motioned toward the open gates of the tower. Vel cursed under his breath. Corruption at the emanation point of a village like this could poison the entire valley. If it spread, we would have to rouse the entire murder to contain it. I brushed my fingers across the hilt of my godsteel blade. I should kill this man now. Something stayed my hand, though. “What are we dealing with?”
“None of us have seen it,” he said. “Only a shape in the darkness. The vultures didn’t seem bothered, and the crops still grow, so . . .” His eyes fell on my sword, and he flinched back. “We hoped . . . we hoped it would sort itself.”
“Do you know who it is? Someone with knowledge of arms, or a criminal?” The spirit always bent the host, but if the body that was taken was already dangerous, the resulting kymera could be even worse.
“Just a child. A foolish girl, who should have stayed in the house, as she was told.” The mayor’s voice broke on the last word.
“Your daughter?” I asked. He nodded. “You have my condolences. Vel?”
“We’ll try to give you something to bury,” Vel said as he rode past the mayor. The man stood stock-still, tears wetting his cheeks.
“Get these people back in their homes,” I said. “And don’t open your doors for anything. Not the bell, or screaming, or anything.”
The villagers did not require prompting. As I nudged my horse away from the cowering figure of the mayor, they turned and melted back into their houses. A few moments after we arrived, the streets of Halfspire were once again empty. Empty, except for the vulture dogs. As soon as the last citizen was safely behind closed doors, the scavengers dropped from their rooftop perches and loped contentedly in our wake. Black nails clicked on the cobblestones, and the sound of their heavy breathing through the exposed bone of their skulls filled the air. Vel giggled again.
“The vulgs know when a feast is on,” he said. “No matter how this goes, those bastards’ll eat.”
“Focus on the task ahead, Vel,” I said. As we approached the yawning gate, I glanced back at the mayor. He stood in the middle of the round, surrounded by a tentative pack of vulture dogs. One sniffed at his hand, then nipped a finger. I turned back. “We’ll have to deal with that man afterward.”
“Give him back his girl, and all will be forgiven.”
“I doubt he will be thankful for a body.”
“No pleasing some people,” Vel said. He spat on the cobbles. It sizzled against the stone. “Should be glad we’re here.”
“They rarely are.”
We crossed some invisible barrier, and the vulgs stopped following us, though more of them circled high above, and a few perched among the spars of the broken tower. I glanced up at the choir of silent shadows, punctuated with glowing red eyes, and the distant stars beyond. The black gate swallowed us.
“We should leave the horses here,” I said. “The vulgs will leave them alone, and I don’t want to risk exposing them to whatever corruption lies ahead.”
“Sure, why not? Nothing I’d like more than traveling the width and breadth of this blasted tower on foot.” Vel slid gracelessly from his mount, adjusting his godsteel sword across his back and tugging at his cloak, like a bird preening ruffled feathers. “Will be good exercise for my weary bones.”
“If the kymera gets a hold of these beasts, you’ll be walking all the way back to Murdermont.”
“True enough, true enough,” Vel said with a sigh. He led the horses to a nook just inside the gate and cycled them to idle. “Perhaps the monster will kill us both, and save us the trouble either way.”
“We can always hope,” I answered, then looked around.
The interior of the tower was a puzzle box. Half-built staircases crawled over one another like a nest of snakes, and walls stood and fell at seeming random. The floor was cracked and uneven, marble tiles pushed against each other, mixing with tracts of stone that looked like rushing rivers that had frozen in place. An age of madness consumed the spirits of these ancient places, before the domaens ascended to impose order once again, and the ruins left behind offered little clue to their original form. This tower was no exception. Though it still breathed life into the ground around it, and stood against storm and wind, no one was fool enough to shelter in its haunted corridors.
“This place is worse than that water temple in Dossing,” Vel said. “We’ll be wandering these halls for the rest of our lives.”
“Perhaps not.” I pointed to a series of flags just inside the wall. “Judging by the kite turbines on the heights, it seems clear the villagers venture in occasionally. At the very least they need to harness the kinetic batteries from those kites. Perhaps they have rituals to appease the spirits of the tower, as well.”
“Those would be the mayor’s duty.”
“Yes. And the host is the mayor’s daughter. The girl would likely know her way around the tower as well as anyone in the village. If we follow these paths, surely we’ll find some sign of the kymera as well.”
At first our task was simple enough. The flagged path picked across the terraced staircases, winding higher and higher until we reached a balcony that overlooked the entrance. It was true dark here. Vel and I both had our eyes cranked open as far as we could, drinking greedily of the limited light. The yipping songs of vulgs carried in from outside, but there was no sign of their filthy nests this deep in the tower. The path we followed was well maintained. Makeshift bridges and handrails of rope and dead metal spanned the gaps that the tower’s madness left open. Clear flags signaled when the path split, or when the way forward wasn’t clear. I paused at one of these turnings.
“It’s hard to see how the child would get lost,” I said.
“But easy to see how she could become adventuresome. Perhaps she was lured here by an orphaned domaen, looking for a body.” Vel took a few steps down the unmarked fork. “This way looks clear. Even a half-mad spirit could manage an ambush in this place.”
“We can’t walk every hallway in this place,” I said. “Besides, I’m still in communion with the oracle. The raven said there was a place in Halfspire he could not reach. That’s where we’ll find our monster.”
“Perhaps, but—” Vel stopped, spitting and waving one hooked hand across his face. “Gah. Spiderwebs. Bloody things!”
A tangle of thin filaments came free in his hand. The webbing was nearly invisible in the darkness. I chuckled.
“So at least we know the girl didn’t go down that path. Come on. There’s more light up ahead. I think I can see the sky.”
The mismatched hallways and broken rooms of the lower levels gave way to a vast open space spanned by hanging bridges and platforms that dangled like victims in a spider’s web. These weren’t the rough constructs of mortal hands, formed from dead steel and harvested wood. The ground under our feet sang with domaen energy, the walkways strung in living glass and flexible steel. Sight lines shifted, with vast distances opening up from one vantage point, while ten feet later we were plunged into a tangle of suspension cables and towering pilings whose bases stretched into impenetrable shadow. The outside walls of the tower splintered, allowing a view of the stars. The shadows of flying vulgs passed around the tower. The silence found us soon after.
I was just navigating a creaking bridge when the constant dirge that my domaen whispered into my skull went silent. The look on Vel’s face told me he had lost communion as well. I stopped and looked around.
“This is a bad place to try to hold. Let’s make for that platform,” I said, pointing to a bowl-shaped span that hung from a latticework of steel cabling thirty feet ahead. “The beast can’t be far.”
“Not to doubt you, but that’s where I’d be waiting, if I meant to pounce on a pair of likely hosts,” Vel said.
“We’re here to get pounced upon,” I answered. “Loose steel, and prepare yourself.”
I drew my sword as we trotted toward the platform. The godsteel blade was nearly weightless, the only mass in the hilt and the kinetic generator in the pommel. She was fully wound, and when I popped the release on the handle, the blade spun to life with a slithering whir. The dull edge of the blade folded open like a card trick, growing razor sharp.
“Careful to not clip any of these supports,” Vel warned. “Don’t want to go spinning off into the dark just yet.”
“Grow some wings, Vel,” I snapped, then marched up the bridge.
The platform was hollowed out, so that the lip where we entered was about ten feet higher than the center. A series of concentric terraces led down to the middle, where a central pillar bore the weight of the platform, depending from a braided iron band that rose into the darkness. We were quite high up in the tower, and this platform was one of the higher structures in the constellation of bridges and decks that formed this vast interior space. Only a latticework of steel bones separated us from the sky.
The creature hung from the central pillar of the platform, just beneath the braided iron of the suspension cable. It looked like a cross between a crab and a spider, with angular plates covering its black body, and six spindly legs that clutched the cable. The limbs were multi-jointed and barbed, thick at the stalk and growing thin and sharp at the tip, with scissoring claws that snipped jerkily at the air. Dozens of spherical eyes roamed over the creature’s back, seemingly unattached to the kymera’s shiny exoskeleton. That exoskeleton was made of dozens of overlapping chitinous plates in a symmetrical geometric pattern. The plates shifted back and forth, leaking a small amount of blue light in the gaps. The kymera scuttled around the pillar, raising one of those knife-thin appendages in our direction, as though it was testing the air between us.
As it moved, the monster dragged a thick bundle of glistening tubes with it. The bundle ran from somewhere deep in its torso down to the floor of the platform. From the end of each tube crawled an engorged sac of fluid, dragging itself forward on hundreds of milky legs. Dark shapes hung inside the sacs. And there, pressed against the thin membrane of the largest sac, was the girl. Her wide amber eyes stared sightlessly through the cloudy liquid that surrounded her. Dark veins sprouted from her head and back, feeding into the cable, pulsing silently. The other sacs held different shapes, some as small as a razorhawk, but most contained vulture dogs in various stages of growth.
“Broodmother,” I spat. Though every kymera was different, many of them fell into similar patterns. Broodmothers harvested material, both organic and not, and converted it into monstrous constructs. Unchecked, a broodmother could terrorize the countryside for years, overrunning villages and consuming the residents and buildings alike. “Vel, try to get to the other side of it. If we can cut those cords we might be able to give the mayor his daughter back.”
“More interested in keeping my neck intact,” he muttered, but shifted carefully around the platform. The humming length of his godsteel blade flickered to life as he moved. The kymera’s bluish glow cast a thin webwork of shadows across Vel’s face.
The kymera’s eyes rolled like marbles across its back until they formed two large clusters, one following Vel, the other focused on me. Several of the trailing sacs burst, and the foetal shapes of half-formed vulture dogs slopped out. Still trailing glistening umbilical cords, the beasts hobbled to their feet and trotted in our direction. Their eyes glowed the same blue as the broodmother’s shell. The umbilical cords pulled tight, then snapped with a wet popping sound.
“Kill them, but be careful of the child,” I called across to Vel. “And don’t get too close to the mother. Those claws are pretty long.”
“Wasn’t born yesterday, boy,” Vel said. He shook his head, then rolled his shoulders and brought his sword to a guard position. “Let ’em come.”
I turned my attention to the four foetal dogs loping toward me. Their bony heads were slick with amniotic fluid. Vulture dogs didn’t scare me, but I wasn’t sure what sort of spirits the broodmother had pumped into their flesh. They were just about in striking distance when a noise from the kymera startled me. It sounded like a horde of beetles taking flight, their shells buzzing against their wings.
I looked up just in time to see the broodmother’s hundred eyes iris shut. I was still wondering why it would blind itself when the overlapping chitinous plates shuttered open. The dim light that outlined each plate suddenly flared into sapphire brilliance that momentarily washed out my ascended vision. Vel’s sudden cry of pain matched my own. My eyes irised into pinpricks, but the glowing afterimage of the kymera hung in front of me, leaving me blind. I went to one knee, sheltering behind the blade of my godsteel weapon. The clatter of nails on steel was the only warning I had.
The first embryonic dog barreled into me, sliding across my sword and ramming its bony head into my shoulder. I spun around, catching myself with my other arm just as thick teeth closed around my bicep. Steel plate crumpled in the dog’s jaws. Blindly, I swung my sword in that direction, feeling the satisfying thump of holy steel in flesh. The jaws fell away. I stood and took a step back, but stopped when my heel went over the edge of the platform. I was completely disoriented. Growling, snapping jaws surrounded me, left and right.
“Han?” Vel sounded confused and in pain, somewhere on the other side of the platform. “What’s happening, Hanrick?”
“Sit tight, Vel. I’m on my way.”
In truth, the broodmother doubtless lay between my raven-brother and I, and my sight was returning too slowly. My eyes burned as the spirits stitched the damaged tissue back together, but I needed to act now. I shuffled to the side, swinging my sword in a tight arc in the hopes of catching one of the vulgs, or perhaps driving back the kymera at the center of the platform. I had to stay to the platform’s edge and out of reach of the broodmother’s snapping claws, at least until I could see well enough to fight back. The whistling growl of vulture dogs followed my slow transit. Blurry shapes filled by vision. The branching form of the broodmother loomed overhead, and the smaller vulgs danced in front of me. Glancing over, I caught sight of Vel. He was facing the wrong direction, arms slack at his side as he stared out over the precipice.
“Vel, don’t move! You’re nearly to the edge. I’ll—”
Three of the dogs leapt at me. I buried the forte of my sword in the skull of the lead vulg, splitting it from nose to neck. Black ichor sprayed across my helm and stained my gauntlets, the beast’s living blood squirming like flat worms across the steel of my armor. I twisted the blade and sliced sideways, taking the top of its head off and driving the tip into the second dog. Godsteel pierced flesh, catching it just under the right forepaw. It twisted in midair, jaws biting at the thorn, muscular body trying to wriggle free of the shallow wound. I braced and thrust forward. The sword slid smoothly through its body, cutting straight through the spine. The vulg gave a final rattle and then died.
The third vulture dog slammed into my plant leg at full speed. Jagged molars crushed my armor and sliced through the soft meat of my calf. My greaves spared the bone, but bright blood splattered against the stained exo-bone of the vulg’s skull. I screamed. The weight of the dead vulg impaled on my sword slowed my reaction, and as I swung the pitted corpse slid sluggishly down to the hilt. With my hands buried in the severed belly of the beast, I hacked at the neck of the vulg gripping my leg. Slick blood and twisting viscera loosened my grip, and it took three solid blows before the vulg released my leg. Bleeding profusely, the creature backed away and glowered at me. The broodmother skittered higher on her pillar, straining the dozen or so tendrils that still hung to various pods on the floor. I spotted the girl among them, her dead eyes watching us closely.
I took the respite to shake the dead vulg free of my blade and closed the distance with Vel. He hadn’t moved throughout the fight. His godsteel sword hung loose in his hand, the blade dormant. Something was badly wrong. I grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Vel stumbled a few feet to the left, then drew himself up and turned to face me.
A spiderweb of black scars covered his bald head. The wounds near the top of his skull were blistering, or at least that’s what I thought at first. But as my vision cleared, I saw that the milky lesions were connected to a thin veil of black thread that floated away from his skin, like the finest corona of hair. Vel stared at me with blank eyes.
“The . . . the spiderweb. Hanrick . . .” His mouth stopped moving, and a thin line of drool spilled out from his lip. Then he made a ratcheting sound deep in his throat. He clenched his jaw, muscles bunching across the ingrown valves of his ventilator. For a brief second, my friend’s eyes focused. “Run!” he screamed through clamped teeth.
His sword flickered to life. Dull pewter scales clattered down the length of the blade, turning the blunt edge sharp, awakening the weapon’s divine power. I stared at it in horror, my mind frozen in place. I barely lifted my sword in time to block the slice that would have cut me in half if it had landed. The force of the blow shoved me off my feet. The sound of godsteel striking godsteel shrieked across the chamber. I hit the ground and slid.
“Hanrick . . . Hanrick, it has me. Do something, man!” Vel’s voice was strained, and his face was twisted with the effort of speaking. “Kill it before I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
Vulg jaws clamped onto my shoulder. The beast shook me like a rag, clattering my helmet against the bony ridge of its skull. I shoved my free arm under its chest, then heaved, lifting it into the air and throwing the wriggling beast at Vel’s stumbling form. Vel sliced it in half, like sun cutting through a bloody morning fog, then kicked the squirming halves aside. I struggled to my feet, left arm limp, right gripping my sword like a warding sigil between us.
“Vel, you have to fight it! Think of the Raven! Think of the blessings of the oracle! Fight it, Vel!”
Instead of answering, he lunged forward, whipping the sword back and forth. I parried, sliding our blades together until the hilts met. Vel had always been stronger than me, but the force behind the punch he landed on my chest was inhuman. The steel plate of my armor dimpled, and I heard the bones of his hand breaking like a bundle of twigs. It was enough to drive me back. I stared at him. Swollen fingers twitched from the pulped knuckles of his left hand, but his face showed no sign of pain. The corona of black threads that rose from his head connected to a narrow cord that floated, as light as a breeze, through the air. The other end of that cord sprouted from the broodmother’s chest. I swore.
“Burn my body, Hanrick.” His voice had a dreamlike quality to it, and his face was slack. “Do that much for me.”
“I will bury you in Murdermont, an honored servant of the Raven,” I answered. “But not for a long time, old friend.” But I knew I was lying.
A sound like breaking glass came from Vel’s throat, then he grabbed his sword with both hands and came at me. The broken fingers of his left hand burst, splinters of bone poking through callused skin, the hilt slick with blood. I caught the blow with the forte of my sword, deflecting rather than blocking. The force of the attack buried the tip of Vel’s sword into the platform. I drove my elbow into his face. Teeth and valves broke, shredding his cheek and dislocating his jaw. He responded by planting his face in my shoulder. As I spun away he whipped his sword at my legs. It was only luck that put my blade in the path. I hit the deck once again, the breath driven from my lungs, my skull ringing from the impact.
Vel stood over me, and the broodmother hung behind him. The kymera watched with all of its hundred eyes. After the flash of light that initially blinded me, there hadn’t been a glimmer from the creature’s chitinous shell, but now there was the dimmest glow between the plates. It was drawing power from somewhere.
My thoughts were interrupted by Vel’s renewed attack. He struck clumsily, with none of the smooth transitions and balanced blows typical of our days in the practice field. He thrashed the blade like it was a club, standing straight and narrow. But it was still a godsteel weapon that could cut steel like paper, wielded with whatever inhuman strength the kymera’s possession had given him, and I was flat on my back, and stunned. I kept my sword between us, intercepting the vicious downward blows, my fingers soon numb from the effort, and then my forearms, my shoulders. I crawled to the edge of the platform. Vel paused as whatever connection enslaving him to the broodmother reached its limit. The kymera skittered down the platform to let out a little slack as I climbed awkwardly to my feet. Miraculously, I was at the bridge Vel and I had first taken to reach this platform. Holding on to the handrail that anchored the bridge to the platform, I backed onto the bridge. Vel approached, stiff-legged and slow.
I took one last look at him, at my friend. His body was a ruin, and his mind was struggling under the kymera’s infection. If we had caught it immediately, I might have been able to save him. But not now. Now all I could do was try to stay alive. He took a step forward.
I turned and ran.
I gripped the ruined ledge in both hands and swung out into the open air. I paused to shake out my left arm. The muscles were still stiff, but the scar tissue that bubbled up in the wounds left by the vulg’s bite was already melting away. Even my leg, nearly crushed in the attack, was nearly back to normal. I would have to spend some time in the restorative chambers at Murdermont, but for now I was fit enough for service to my god.
It had taken hours to climb the long way around the tower, avoiding the areas that seemed to be infected by the broodmother. It was good to be in the open air once again. I paused and looked down. Night had risen. The steady light from the four moons shone across the pebbled roofs of the village below, turning them into jewels. Citizens went about their business, tending the fields and selling their wares, completely unaware of the doom that hung overhead. Small groups gathered in the round, carefully avoiding the entrance to the tower. I thought I could even make out the mayor, lingering beside the gallows-bell. Not long now, I thought. One way or another, the mayor’s wait for his daughter will be over soon.
I heard the ruffle of feathers half a second before the creature landed on my shoulder. I drew my blade and whirled toward the sound, cycling up the godsteel even as I searched for my attacker. But it wasn’t the enemy. It was my god, or a messenger at least.
The pearl-white shape of a raven perched on my outstretched sword. The godsteel transformed beneath him, edge dulling and tip blunting, like an icicle melting in the sun. The bird preened the feathers of its wing with its serrated beak, then fixed me with crimson eyes.
The corruption continues. The silence is spreading. Raven’s voice vibrated at the base of my skull, like an echo through an empty canyon.
“Yes,” I answered. “It has taken Vel. A broodmother. I don’t think I can save him.”
You will be lucky to save yourself. The raven hopped from my sword to a piling that stretched out from the facade.
“How did you know to be here?” I asked.
I am the oracle, it hummed. I sensed your failure, and have summoned the rest of the murder. They are on their way here as we speak.
“Excellent. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to take Vel down on my own, much less the kymera. When will they get here?”
High night, it answered. If you have not destroyed the kymera by the time they arrive, they will cull the town and tear this tower to the ground. Including you.
“I hardly think that’s—”
The oracle has spoken. It wiped the sharp edge of its beak against the stone pillar, then fluttered into the air and away, disappearing like a puff of fog.
“Well, that complicates things.” Judging by the position of the moons, there couldn’t be much more than an hour until high night. If I was going to get Vel away from this monster and save the village . . . and myself . . . I had to get a move on.
The platform that held the village generator hung just above me. A dozen thick ropes led to the turbine kites that dragged through the river of wind overhead. The winds above us were constant, as ordained by the gods. Raven tried to take credit, but even I knew the winds were outside his control. They bent the knee to another domaen.
Climbing the last ledge, I pulled myself up onto the platform. There were doubtless passages to this platform inside. After all, the villagers had to harvest the kinetic batteries, but those walkways must have been monitored by the kymera. In retrospect, it seemed obvious that the girl had been caught on her way here. She had done nothing wrong. None of us had. Just bad luck, and the predation of feral gods. I had crawled along the outside of the tower because I wanted to see what was here without drawing the broodmother’s attention.
The generator was an ancient device. The air around it smelled like a lightning strike, and my hair tingled as I approached. The engine roared, its crying cycling loud and then louder, like a millstone biting into steel. The cables that led out to the kites were sheathed in blackened rubber, to keep them from tangling. A row of kinetics sprouted from the generator’s base. They were cold to the touch. They weren’t feeding off the turbines for some reason. Just as I thought.
I squeezed through the gap at the back of the generator to reach the rear panel. I had seen one of these machines in the wastes, among the ruins of the City After the Stars, before my service with Raven. Some tremendous force had broken that machine open, exposing its guts to the air, and stealing its magic.
Sure enough, the back panel of the generator had been forced open. Bright wheels whistled as they spun in the depths of the machine, connected by a tangle of wires. I knew nothing about how it functioned, but I still found what I was looking for. Black cords, mucous-slick and as thick as my arm, leached off of the machinery and trailed into the wall behind. Spasms ran down their length. They looked like vivisected throats, swallowing their fill. The kymera was tapped into the generator.
I raised my boot and stamped down. The feeder tendrils burst in a shower of sparks and burning blood. In the distance, I heard the broodmother scream from a dozen mouths. Now I had to hope the monster came looking before the murder descended on the village. I had a lot to do while I was waiting.
The walls began to sing. Steel cables woven into the fabric of the tower started to hum and vibrate, and the floor danced underfoot. The beast approached. I tucked the last cable into place, then snatched my sword from its sheath and hid myself away under a banner of the raven god. The platform wasn’t very big, but there was enough wreckage at this level to provide at least temporary shelter.
The broodmother descended from the outside of the building. What had the villagers thought of that? Her weight set the ground shaking. For a second my hope surged, thinking that the kymera had come alone, that I would be able to kill it without harming Vel or the girl. But then a pouch along its belly burst, and Vel and the other embryos fell onto the stone platform. The broodmother picked its way carefully through the maze of cables and ropes that led to the turbine kites, its hundred eyes scattered across its body. I held my breath and kept my sword silent. Everything depended on the beast reaching the generator. It was halfway across the platform when it stopped. Its attention focused on the broken machine. I ground my teeth together in frustration.
At a twitch from the kymera, Vel unfolded from the pile and stood up. He was much changed. Feeder tendrils burrowed across his body, black and pulsing. Cysts rose from his chest, and more of his armor had melted into his flesh. Only the raven-feather cloak remained pure. The spirits inhabiting the cloak must be fighting a hell of a battle. Of his sword there was no sign.
Vel walked jerkily across the platform and approached the generator. He examined it with newly segmented eyes. His nostrils flared at the smell of kinetics. The broodmother chittered excitedly, her carapaced body arched toward the generator. The bundle of embryos dragged forward. I was able to make out the girl, curled tight on herself, blank eyes staring at nothing.
When I looked back at Vel, he was frozen in place. The kymera still moved through him, but his body was as still as stone. Glistening tendrils burst from his outstretched hands and strained toward the generator, their mouths gasping for power.
He turned and looked directly at me. Vel’s eyes were glassy, his attention torn between the room and the pain wracking his body, but I swear that he saw me. Then he nodded, took a step forward, and gripped the generator firmly in both hands.
The front of the generator tore free, powered by the dozens of kinetic batteries that I had re-rigged and set along the floor. It slammed into Vel, flattening him to the ground. A second hissing explosion released the anchors of the turbine kites. The net of steel cables that covered the floor slithered loudly across the platform toward the open air, gathering up Vel as it went. The broodmother skittered to the side, watching her host plunge toward the void. The umbilical cords attaching my friend to his murderer drew tight, jerking the broodmother off balance and briefly dragging her across the floor. I pounced.
Throwing off the banner that covered me, I raced silently across the platform. The dragging net, the power arcing from the ruined generator, and the howl of whipping cables masked the sound of my godsteel shriek. The broodmother was busy trying to disentangle itself from Vel’s limp form when I fell on it.
Godsteel could cut the sun. It broke stone, it felled iron, it severed bone and blood and flesh. Even domaens fear the edge of a godsteel blade. And the broodmother, for all its horror and its power, was less than a god.
My first blow sliced through two of the kymera’s arms, sending them twitching to the ground, their claws still slashing at empty air. One hundred eyes scuttled across the beast’s back to stare at me. It let out a scream, then opened the shutters of its soul. I never saw a glimmer of its burning heart, because I expected this trick. My eyes went black, irises hardening into shells. Even with that transformation, I could feel the heat of the light across my face. My skin cracked under the force of the blast, and the smell of burning feathers and singed steel filled my mouth. I drove my sword down, screaming through bloody lips.
The sound of godsteel striking whatever organ produced that light was titanic. I thought my soul would break at the crash. Shivers of power traveled up my arms, sending my muscles flickering and my bones to sing. My body went limp. I fell backward, slamming into the ground like a fallen tree. The only sound I could hear was the screech of blood in my ears and the hammering of my heart.
The shells of my eyes cracked open. I shook the chitin away, then worked my way onto my elbows. The body of the broodmother had collapsed, as though its insides had dissolved, along with the light that powered it, leaving only the exoskeleton and a flood of gritty fluid the color of vomit. The dessicated corpse slid slowly across the floor, tangled up in the net of cables that was being dragged into the air by the half-dozen kites I had cut free. The hilt of my sword lay on the ground. The blade was gone. Only a smear of pewter scales remained, their lives given in the broodmother’s death. The winds roared outside the tower, and the kites dragged the dead kymera toward oblivion.
Movement near the ledge caught my eye. One of the gray sacks lurched forward, still attached by a glistening bundle of cords to the dead kymera. Fingers pressed against the thick membrane of the sac. I jumped to my feet and ran, stumbling, dizzy, toward the motion.
The girl was awake. She stared in horror as Vel’s body tipped over the ledge. Vel spun free from the wreckage of the generator, and tore away from his connection to the kymera. He fell silently, arms flopping, striking the side of the tower once before he cratered in the middle of the village round. His corrupted body burst in red and steel and bone.
“I’m here, I’m here!” I shouted. The girl’s pale eyes went to me. The kites had reached new heights, dragging into the strongest winds. Free of Vel’s weight, they pulled faster and faster. The net flew into the air. The broodmother, jumbled arms still trapped in the last cables of the trap, followed.
The girl screamed as the broodmother scraped over the ledge. It sounded like the burbling of a drowning man. The kymera’s drop wasn’t sudden, but as more and more of it tumbled into the air, the umbilical cords that held the girl yanked her back. I grabbed at the membrane, but it was slick with fluids. Her hand closed around my wrist, separated by the sac’s thick skin.
I grabbed the end of one of the broodmother’s scything claws as it passed. Working the joints to press the talon against the bundle of umbilical cords, I started sawing. One of them burst, spilling cold fluids over my hands, making the work more difficult. We started sliding toward the precipice. I tried to pull against the drag, but the platform was slick with mucous and the spew from the death of the kymera. We left a trail in the ichor as we slid, slowly, painfully, toward the drop.
Another of the cords burst, and a third, but then the broodmother toppled over the edge. My cutting tool was torn from my hands, leaving a long gash in my palms as it went. The girl screamed again, a pathetic sound. The tear in the cords grew. I buried my hands in it and pulled, ripping out strips of rubbery flesh, digging closer and closer to the embryonic sac that held the girl. Wind blew across my face. I tried to not look at the stars, and the moon, and the drop that was closer by the second.
Suddenly, a flood of dark fluid burst from under my hands. The girl’s hand thrust out of the tear and closed around my wrist in truth. My foot slipped out over the edge, then my knee. I shoved my arm into the wound, grabbed a bony elbow, and pulled.
We fell backward, arm in arm. The last of the broodmother’s embryonic bundle slipped over the precipice. It dropped for a brief second, then launched into the air, dragged higher and higher by the fleet of turbine kites.
The girl lay against my chest, gasping for breath and screaming in equal measure. I wrapped her in the dark feathers of my cloak and whispered nothing into her head.
The mayor waited for us at the gate, bracketed by the remaining members of my murder. Attis led them. The tall, thin knight held the stained remnants of Vel’s cloak in his hands. I swept my gaze across the murder. Swords sheathed, and the villagers were still alive. No cull. Thank the raven. I turned my attention back to the mayor.
The child slept in my arms. Her body had been dependent on the broodmother for so long that she had nothing in her, no energy, barely a heartbeat. Worse, she had changed. Her teeth were small and sharp, her eyes segmented, the shadow of darker things squirming under her pale skin. I limped from the shadows. I must have looked a fright, with my charred skin and the ash smeared across my armor. The mayor looked up at me and startled back. Then his eyes fell on his daughter, and his true terror showed.
“What have you done?” he asked quietly.
“Saved your daughter,” I answered. When he didn’t step forward, I held her out. The man flinched away. “What are you doing?”
“There’s no mercy in this,” he said. “Look at her. Look at . . .” His voice trailed off. The girl woke just enough to blink in slow sequence at her father, then nuzzled against the steel of my breast and fell back asleep. “You know what it will be like for her here. Among these people. What they’ll say.” He took another step back. “What they’ll do to her.”
“What would you have me do?”
“You’re a knight. You keep us safe from such things.” He ran thin fingers across his mouth and swallowed. “Do what you must.”
The man ducked between Attis and the others, scurrying back to his burrow. Attis stepped forward, looking down at the girl, his face creased in a frown.
“Vel is dead,” he said. It was neither question nor accusation.
“He died fighting. He died to save this child.”
“He died doing the raven’s will,” Attis answered. He took the girl’s chin in his fingers and turned her face. She woke up, confusion and pain in her eyes. Attis’s frown deepened. “A deep corruption. It might be a mercy to let her die.”
“It might,” I said, but didn’t move. Attis waited for a long moment, then looked up at me. He nodded.
“Very well,” he said, then turned back to the rest of the murder, mounting smoothly. At a signal, they turned as one and rode out of the village of Halfspire.
I carried the child to Vel’s mount and lay her thin body across the saddle. The horse woke up, shifting nervously under this new burden. I whispered into the beast’s ear, then fired up his soul and started my own mount. We rode through the empty round, past the gallows, the shuttered homes of the main road. The village of Halfspire watched us go from behind curtains and cracked doors, turning aside whenever I glanced in their direction. I looked down at the girl curled up in the nest of my dead friend’s saddle.
The murder needed a new knight. She needed a home. I would do what I must.