Black Halo (44 page)

His ears went taut of their own volition, sensing something he had not the consciousness to. A sound without meaning? No, he realised, a sound craving meaning. It ranged wildly, whimpering quietly one moment, snarling angrily the next, then letting out a terrified howl and searching for an answer beyond its own echo.

Impossible to listen to.
Too loud, too painful
.

Impossible to ignore.
Too close, too familiar
.

His people?
No
.

No
s’na shict s’ha. Then … what?

‘Oh! Look, look, look! He’s doing it again!’

Another voice. Distant, meaningless.

‘What is it that he’s doing, then?’

Words for those without minds, terrified of emptiness.

‘No idea. He always does this, though. Never says a word, just … sits.’

Words for those without thought, terrified of silence.

‘Well, it’s boring. Wake him up.’

An explosion of sound.

His eyes snapped open as the flower of emptiness wilted in his mind; he turned to see the iron blade rattled against the bars of his cage. Behind it, white hair, white eyes and jagged teeth set in a long, purple face. He recognised this one, gathered her name long ago, associated it with her ever-present, ever-unpleasant grin.

Qaine
.

The longfaces behind her, the male with the wispy patch of hair beneath his lower lip, the male with the long nose and red robe, the female with the long, spiky bristles of white serving as hair, he recognised too.

Yldus, Vashnear, Dech
.

Behind them, standing with arms crossed over her chest, taller and more powerful than any male or female assembled, face drawn so tight it appeared as though it would split apart and bare glistening muscle underneath at any moment … This one, he knew only by the venom with which the others spewed her name.

Xhai. Carnassial
.

He repeated their names to himself whenever he felt his anger towards them slipping. He collected their names like flowers and wore them about his neck in something fragile that he would pluck, petal by bloody petal and crush under his six toes. Names for now, targets for later. Just as soon as his people heard, just as soon as they knew …

‘Must you really do that?’ the one called Yldus asked, making a look of disapproval that seemed perpetual.

‘It’s not fair,’ Qaine replied, peering into the cage. ‘I caught him, I should get to kill him.’

‘
I
froze him, thank you. I suppose the irony is lost on you that we are gathered here to discuss the ways in which you can kill more than just one overscum and you’re barely paying attention for want of killing this one?’

‘He killed
two
females! I didn’t even get a chance to fight him!’

‘Two?’ Dech asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t think they were that hard.’

‘Did you not also say he bled all over them?’ The one called Vashnear, long of nose, red of robe, twisted his upper lip in disgust. ‘Filthy creature. Keep it in its cage.’

‘It’s obvious by now that the overscum won’t infect you with anything,’ Yldus replied, rolling his eyes.

‘You cannot know that,’ Vashnear snapped back.

‘Just a moment out of the cage,’ Qaine whispered. Her hands drifted, one toward the lock on his cage, the other toward the blade on her belt. ‘It’ll be quick. Those others were weaklings. He can’t be
that
strong.’

Naxiaw held his belt, already calculating how he would kill her, then leap to the spike-headed one and rip her throat out, seize her sword and move to the males. They were small, delicate – one stroke would finish them both. The big one with the taut face … he would have to flee and come back for her later. Just as well, though; shicts didn’t fight fair.

His breath came slow and steady as her fingers drifted closer to the lock. He was prepared for this. He was ready to spill their blood. He was
s’na shict s’ha
. He would kill them all as soon as she just drew a little closer and—

‘No.’

There wasn’t even enough air left to gasp with after the voice spoke. There was no threat in it, Naxiaw discerned; threats implied uncertainty, conditions that must be met. The voice spoke with nothing of the sort. It was a word full of certainty, a sound full of meaning.

This one sat so still at the edge of the ruined terrace, demurely seated upon a hewn brick, idly drumming his long fingertips on a crumbling trellis, staring down at the valley with what Naxiaw was sure was extreme boredom, even if he couldn’t see the male’s long face.

This one had no name as far as Naxiaw knew. His was whispered so softly, with such quiet reverence, that it escaped even the long reach of his ears. It seemed, rather, that the other longfaces took great care not to mention his name within earshot of the shict. They turned their eyes away from him, and even Naxiaw felt the urge to look away, to avoid the sight of his void-black robes and long and stiff white hair.

But he forced himself to look, to give this one a name, one more flower to the necklace. This one would bleed. This one would die. This one, Black-clad, would suffer most of all.

After a moment, the sound of fingers drumming resumed. Air returned to their lungs, meaninglessness to their voices.

‘As I was saying,’ Yldus continued, ‘the subject of the invasion is of some concern to me.’

‘As to us all,’ Vashnear replied with a sneer. ‘The fact that
you
were chosen to lead it is a decision of unending concern.’

‘I suppose you have a better idea?’ Qaine replied, stepping in front of Yldus, returning his sneer.

This, Naxiaw gathered, was their function – to be hounds to the males. To bare their teeth and snarl at those who looked at them without their express approval. These tall, white-haired ones, the Carnassials, were the fiercest and most protective of their charges. And Naxiaw waited with morbid anticipation for the spike-headed Dech to return Qaine’s aggression with the grim hope that one of them would die shortly after.

‘Granted, given the company,’ Yldus said before Dech could make a move, ‘I know that to request an end to your female posturing and snarling is to ask the impossible, but I was hoping we could get at least a little business done before you start tearing each other apart.’

‘The Master’s decision,’ Xhai uttered, ‘was made.’

A long silence trailed her words, suggesting that any event of tearing apart, as far as she was concerned, would end with her in possession of all her limbs and possibly one or two extra. The remaining females met her gaze briefly before snorting derisively and stepping back to their respective males.

‘If
Sheraptus
has anything to tell us,’ Vashnear snarled, ‘then he can speak without the use of females. Until then, nothing is decided.’ He glanced fleetingly at Black-clad. ‘I still advocate overwhelming force. The males lead, use the
nethra
to burn the city to cinders without having to set foot in it and risk contamination.’

‘The cost would be enormous,’ Yldus protested.

‘You act as though we do
not
possess the stones.’ Vashnear tapped the red sphere dangling from his neck, smiled as it glowed brightly at his touch. ‘The cost is trivial.’

‘You aren’t considering the resources spent.’

‘Oh no,’ Vashnear moaned, rolling his white eyes. ‘
More
dead slaves? If only we had some inexhaustible source of working flesh and …’ He blinked suddenly, holding up a finger. ‘
Oh wait
.’ His thin hand made a dismissive gesture. ‘Ours is the right to take. We can always get more overscum.’

‘Really?’ Yldus strode to the edge of the ridge and stared down at the valley below. ‘We’ve already rounded up every green thing on the island and killed half of them already. Attempts to collect and subjugate the painted lizards have gone …’

Naxiaw peered through his bars, following the longface’s stare to the valley. Two females below dragged an unmoving compatriot by her ankles. Naxiaw’s eyes widened as he spied the female’s head, or the red pulp that used to be the head. He had but enough time to make out a miasma of colour, red-stained grey porridge rolling around in bits of exposed, glistening bone held together by a web of tattered purple flesh.

Then the two females tossed their fellow unceremoniously into the spike-lined pit. Shadowy figures moved beneath, stirred with sudden, violent movement. Naxiaw caught flashes of red and brown fur, bright teeth against black lips. An eerie cackle rose from the pit, to be drowned out by the sound of chewing and ripping.

‘Not as well as we had planned,’ Yldus finished.

‘If the worst that comes from our attempts is that the sikkhuns eat a little better and we lose a few females, so be it.’ Vashnear spoke with a very pleased smirk he was certain to swing toward Qaine. ‘Of course, we have an entire wealth of green-things that will
not
fight back readily, just waiting for—’

‘Not them.’

Black-clad’s voice lingered for just a moment this time, a spear instead of a cloak that he aimed directly at Vashnear. The red-robed longface nodded briefly, his smile disappearing.

‘Of course.’ He turned his stare back toward his fellow male. ‘But it is not as though there is a shortage of overscum in this world. We will use what we have to ruin their city and eliminate the need for this useless chatter or for useless females. The three of us. Burn them out. Burn them up. The problem is solved.’

Dech snorted. ‘What would be the point in just burning them, though?’

‘That’s what I was beginning to illuminate,’ Yldus replied. ‘The specifics simply have to be—’

‘Specifics?’ Dech frowned deeply. ‘You have a city full of pinkies. Stomp their faces in, cut their heads off, and if you want to get
really
specific, rip their arms out of their sockets and stab them in their throats with them.’

‘Stab them,’ Yldus repeated, ‘in the throat.’

‘With their arms, yeah.’

A silence settled over the assembly. Yldus stared at the Carnassial for a very long, unblinking moment before pursing his lips together and taking a deep breath through his nose.

‘At any rate,’ he continued, clearly biting back words far more suited to his mood, ‘burning will not work. The considerable resources that such a plan would utilise aside, our goal is not actually to burn as many overscum as possible, you will recall.’

‘Right,’ Qaine chuckled blackly. ‘Just a bonus.’

‘
Rather
,’ Yldus continued, shooting her a scowl, ‘I am hoping to
minimise
the amount of casualties needed, at least as far as our forces are concerned. Every female we lose in this battle will be a female we will not have for further conflicts. Hence, I will need more to attack the city.’

‘I don’t follow,’ Dech grunted.

‘Really.’ Yldus rolled his eyes. ‘The logic is simple. The overscum has a sizable presence. Not enough to hold my current force back, of course, but enough to take a toll that would make future conflicts with the underscum more of a difficulty than they need be.’

‘You have been given three
venri
to use,’ Xhai growled curtly. ‘More than enough for any true warrior.’

‘Females are warriors,’ Yldus countered. ‘I am not. And if we hope to have any warriors to fight the underscum with—’

‘The underscum are yet to be a problem.’

‘Really?’ Vashnear eyed her, noting the mass of thick purple tissue near her collarbone. ‘How did you get that mark again, unscarred? Or are we still able to call you that?’

‘
This
was given to me,’ she snarled, thumping the scar, ‘from no black-skinned, slime-spewing piece of
krazhak
.’

‘From the overscum you reported, then?’ Vashnear asked, smirking. ‘Perhaps you should have kept that to yourself, no?’

‘I have plans for that,’ she uttered, rubbing the scar with an intensity that went far beyond grudge-filled memory.

‘Could we perhaps get back to
my
plans?’ Yldus asked. ‘You know, the important ones?’

‘Proceed.’

Yldus shuddered slightly at Black-clad’s voice, gritting his teeth before continuing.

‘We …’ He paused to inhale. ‘We are in agreement that the overscum city must be sacked, yes? The relic must be procured. Our allies demand it. However, our knowledge on the subject’s location is as delicate as our allies’ patience is. We lack the time to spend sifting through ashes. Hence, burning is not an option.’ He glanced toward Xhai. ‘Neither is failure. To that end, it would be easier to crush them in one overwhelming force, rather than bleeding them, and our forces, over a longer period.’

‘And what are you asking for, exactly?’ Xhai asked. ‘How many more
venri
?’

‘One.’

‘One?’

‘The First.’

At this, a collective inhale of breath, a collective call to objection and insult, coursed through the longfaces. Naxiaw saw that even Black-clad’s head tilted slightly at the mention.

‘Unnecessary,’ Qaine growled. ‘I’m going with the invasion.
One
Carnassial is more than enough to kill a bunch of pinkies.’