‘What I said then and what I say now are different. I, too, tire of this pointless burning. The appeal of the Martyr Stones remains trivial, fleeting. I wish to know more of this land, and all I have discovered are useless relics from useless wars.’

‘May I dispute?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘I must insist,’ the Grey One That Grins said. ‘Within these ruins lie secrets of the House, the methods they used to banish Ulbecetonth. We must seek them out if we are to destroy her.’

‘You mean if I am to destroy her,’ Sheraptus replied. ‘You only seem to emerge when you require something else of me.’

‘I would entreat you to have patience with me. My presence is required at many places at once.’

‘The point remains, I have yet to see a reason to oblige you in this vendetta against your demons.’

‘You wish to see the world beyond this one? Very well. But know that Gods are strange things. People may not understand it, but they believe that the Gods will protect them in exchange for their devotion.’

‘Symbiosis.’

‘Precisely. And their devotions come with spears and swords, Sheraptus, and they are many. Arkklan Kaharn numbers how many? Five hundred?’

‘That is as many as we’ve been able to bring through the Nether.’

‘Slay Ulbecetonth and you shall have more. We will put our resources behind you. We will open more doors to the Nether. We will point you to the seats of knowledge in this world. We will unleash you … if you simply perform this triviality for us.’

Sheraptus stared at him for a time before he blinked. The stones ceased to burn. His eyes returned to their milky white.

‘I suppose I can have patience for a while yet, then,’ he said.

‘I am pleased we could reach an agreement. All else goes according to plan?’

‘It does. Yldus is scouting the overscum city you wished us to. Vashnear combs this island with the Carnassials.’

‘And you?’

‘I am here to speak to someone about a book,’ Sheraptus said, smiling.

‘I was intending to inquire as to its status.’

‘I am pleased to have saved you the trouble.’

‘You would take no offence if I left now, then?’

‘Unless you require something else of me.’

‘At the moment?’

‘Or in the near future.’

The Grey One That Grins tilted his head to the side, looking thoughtful. Or as thoughtful as Sheraptus suspected his companion was capable of looking.

‘I have been made aware of certain presences upon the island,’ he said after a moment. ‘Peculiar creatures that should have died long ago.’

‘Beyond Those Green Things?’

‘Far beyond. Humans.’

‘With all due respect to your awareness and attunements,’ Sheraptus said, ‘I suspect That Thing That Screams would have told me if any other elements arrived.’

‘I do not trust that creature.’

‘I would suggest, then, that you trust in my hold over her.’

‘As you say. Of course, should you find trust in my reasoning, I would ask that you do your best not to slaughter these humans. They continue to oppose Ulbecetonth and have dealt blows against her before.’

Sheraptus quirked a brow. ‘These are the ones that were at Irontide?’

‘The very same. Does this aggravate you?’

‘Not entirely, no. The females lost were … females. They’d have been disappointed if they didn’t die.’

‘And the male?’

‘Cahulus was weak, apparently.’

‘I can trust your discretion, then?’

‘Discretion …’ Sheraptus hummed the word.

‘Judgement.’

‘You can concede my judgement.’

‘I will settle for that, then.’ The Grey One That Grins turned to go, crawling upon his hands and feet. ‘I trust Vashnear will arrange for the usual transportation?’

‘Of course.’

‘Very well, then. I leave things in your capabilities.’ The Grey One That Grins continued for another three paces before pausing and glancing over his emaciated shoulder. ‘Sheraptus?’

‘Hm?’

‘Symbiosis without certainty is faith.’

‘Faith being?’

‘The ability to move in one direction without necessarily knowing where one is going.’

‘Weakness.’

‘The one that drives the world.’

The Grey One That Grins said nothing more as he slinked down the rest of the beach, disappearing behind a dune. Sheraptus watched him go for as long as it took for him to feel it again: a light brushing of air against his cheeks, the faint warmth of fire screened through snow.

A moth’s wings, flapping.

He recognised it as nethra, albeit only a faint, fleeting trace of it. Weak as it was, though, the intent behind it was clear. With whatever pitiful power they had, someone was reaching out for him.

He smiled softly, narrowed his eyes and reached back.

As one, the fire erupted from his eyes as a wave of force swept out from his body. It sped along the sand, kicking it up in small waves of dirt. In a moment, it dissipated, but the force lingered. He watched it sweep over dunes, over beach, over puddle, following a distant, unseen goal.

He waited patiently.

He heard a scream, faint in the distance.

Female.

He smiled.

Dreadaeleon turned at her howl, seeing her clutching at her arm wildly.

‘What’s happening?’ Asper wailed. ‘What is it?’

He was about to ask when he was struck by it a moment later. The force shot through him, reaching up into his body with a burning hand, seizing his bowels in intangible icy fingers and giving it a sharp twist.

Keep it together, old man, he tried to tell himself. Keep it together. She’s in trouble now. Keep it together for her. He took a step toward her, collapsed onto his knees. Breath was coming in rasping, thick gasps, the force slipping up to choke him from the inside. FOR VENARIE’S SAKE, YOU WEAK LITTLE—

His insult died with his thoughts as electricity gripped his skull, setting it rattling in its thin case of flesh and hair. For a fleeting moment, he was aware of the sensation, aware of what it meant. Someone was attempting to find his thoughts, to harness the electric impulse in his skull. The human mind was too complex for that, he knew, just as he knew that every experimental attempt to do so had ended in—

He screamed. He couldn’t hear it. His ears were ringing. His vision was darkening.

He looked to his side. Asper was not screaming. Why wasn’t she screaming? She was always screaming, always terrified. He was supposed to protect her now. Once he remembered how to use his legs, he decided, he would do just that. All he needed to do was remember how to do that, also how to breathe.

Asper was clutching her arm, obviously in pain, but speaking clearly. The certainty was still present in the set of her jaw, the determination in her face. But there was something else there, a glimmer of something in her eye. He recognised it; he wished he could remember what it meant.

With his last thought, he wondered how things could have gone so wrong. He was going to save everyone, save her. But now he was numb, barely aware of the earth moving under him. But as his vision darkened, he could see the gloved hands gripping his shoulders, pulling him along. He stared up into Denaos’ face and summoned up the will for one final thought.

You dumb asshole.

Nine

PESTS

Five hundred and forty-nine patches of disease crawling on two legs, he thought as he stared down at the tiny port city beneath the setting sun.

Two hundred and sixty able to hold a weapon, with five hundred and twenty eyes that spoke of their inability to know how.

One hundred and three of them carrying fishing rods and nets instead, taking their aggressions out against an ocean that was far too kind to them.

Ninety and six of them infirm, indisposed or suffering from the delusion that their lack of external genitalia was an excuse to let others do the fighting.

Ninety remained, evenly split between visitors in short boats who believed that the glittering chunks of metal they traded for their fish and grain was what made their civilisation worthy of crushing other peoples beneath its boot, and the children …

The children …

Naxiaw scratched his chin, acknowledging the coarse scrawl of tattoos etched from beneath his lip to up over his skull.

Forty and five little, toddling future lamentations. Forty and five impending regrets on skinny, hairless legs. His eyes narrowed, teeth clenched behind thin lips. Forty and five future murderers, butchers, burners and desecrators.

He had counted.

Diseases all.

Naxiaw took note of them: where they stood, what weapons they carried and which ones would cower in pools of their own urine when he led the rest of them down into their streets. With a finger smeared with black dye, on a piece of tanned leather, he scrawled the city as he saw it from high on the cliff. His six-toed feet dangled over the ledge, kicking with carefree casualness as he plotted a death with each dab of dye.

Port Yonder, as the humans called it, was a city built on contempt.

It was a demonstration of stone walls and hewn wood that the kou’ru bred with more rapidity than could be contained. It was proof that there would never be enough flesh and fish to satisfy their voracity. It was their assertion of contempt for the land, that they would desecrate and destroy in the name of building walls to cower behind, to raise filthy little children behind.

Children, he knew, that will grow up to consume more land, to spread the same disease.

It was a city that proved beyond a doubt the threat of humanity.

He reached behind him, ran his long fingers down the long black braid that descended from his otherwise hairless head. He brushed the four black feathers laced into its tuft. He had earned them the day he proved that threats, no matter how unstoppable they might seem, could be killed.

The time for vengeance would be later; for the moment, he returned their contempt.

He sat brazenly out in the open, long having deemed subterfuge and camouflage unnecessary. The humans hadn’t spotted him in the week he’d been there, and wouldn’t. To do that, they would have to look up.

All it would take for him to be spotted would be for one of them to look up, to see his pale green skin, to squint until they saw the long, pointed ears with six notches carved into each length, to let eyes go wide and scream ‘Shict!’ They would all be upon him, then; they would kill him, find his map, realise there were more of him coming, assemble their forces, pass the word to their many outliers and empires.

And then, Intsh Kir Maa, Many Red Harvests, and all the long and deliberate years that had gone into its planning would be foiled. The greatest collaboration amongst the twelve tribes would be ruined.

And the human disease, in all its writhing, gluttonous, greedy glory, would fester.

But for that to happen, they would have to look up.

Naxiaw couldn’t help but feel slightly insulted at the ease with which the plan was developing. He had dared to venture down towards the city on more than one occasion, to slip a bit of venom into a drink or subtly jab someone from afar with a hair-thin dart. For his efforts, he had counted ten diseases cured. The venom acted quickly – a brief sickness, a swift death. That wasn’t the problem.

What angered him was that the humans never seemed to care.

No alarms were raised, no weapons drawn, no oaths sworn as their companions coughed, cried and fell dead. They simply dumped the slain into the ocean and went on without sorrow, without hatred, without asking why.

He had hoped to share that with them: the anger, the fury, the pain. He hoped to return these gifts of anguish, the ones he had taken when the round-eared menace had come to his lands. But the humans would not accept it. They refused sorrow. They refused pain. They refused him.

Many Red Harvests would be a lesson as much as revenge. It would be the wailing of two people, linked forever in death.

But that would take time. That would take patience. For now, he simply sat on a cliff and continued to plot the end of a race as serenely as he might paint the sunset.

The s’na shict s’ha had time. The s’na shict s’ha had patience.

The s’na shict s’ha knew how to paint a scene of vengeance.

His ears suddenly pricked up of their own volition, sensing the danger long before he did. Footsteps, the details becoming clearer with each hairsbreadth by which his ears rose. Four flat, heavy feet clad in metal, heavy weapons and skins of iron making their approach loud and unwieldy.

Humans. Careless foragers or vigilant searchers for a threat. It did not matter.

His eyes drifted to the thick Spokesman Stick resting at his side; he ran his stare along the twisting, macabre design burned into its polished and solid wood.

Two more go missing, he told himself. No one cares. Then there are only five hundred and forty-seven strains of disease to cure. Still … He folded up the tanned hide into a thin, solid square. With a yawn, he tossed it into his mouth and swallowed. No sense in being careless.

The footsteps stopped; he narrowed his eyes. They had found his camp.

‘Someone else has come here,’ someone grunted.

He raised a hairless brow at the voice. It was thick, sharp, grating with an indeterminate accent, like two pieces of rusted metal hissing off one another. He was not so concerned with their unfamiliarity; the disease came in all shapes, sizes and voices. What gave him pause was the distinct, if harsh, femininity to their voices.

Their females fight now? He had thought that to be a strictly shictish practice. They are evolving …

‘Saharkk Sheraptus sent others ahead of us?’ the other one asked, grumbling. ‘He might have said something and spared us the—’

There was the sharp crack of metal on flesh, a growl instead of a shriek.

‘His motives are not for you to question,’ the first one snarled. ‘And he’s called Master now.’ The footsteps began again. ‘And we’ll find out who wants to stomp here uninvited.’