Chapter 60
There are no monsters, of course. Only wild things that we fail to fully comprehend. It is simply unfortunate that the further we go from civilisation, the more our comprehension fails us.
—Memories of a Poacher, Beyond the Lickstone Wall
Her fingers fit neatly in the small of her sister’s back. She feels quick little breaths, pushing the ribs up and out. Icecaller catches stray curls of dark hair on sweaty little temples, bright and wet, and, tucks them behind a pair of reluctant ears.
‘Good fight, Nigh.’
Nigh buries her nose in her sister’s chest, scurries her head back and forth.
A frown. ‘Did you just wipe your nose on me? Little shit.’
Nigh chuckles, her whole body shaking with glee.
‘I’m going to feed you to the eagles, Nigh.’ She makes her hands into eagle claws, strikes from either side of the ribs, merciless.
Her little sister squirms. A lift and a hoist and Icecaller can feel the balls of small feet drumming impatiently on her shoulders.
Above, Nigh’s arms are eagle wings, dipping and swooping, snatching fruits and sweets from the stalls they pass.
Her sister carries herself like a prize fighter, graciously receiving the adulation of the room, dispensing high fives like favours.
She smells like milk and mud and meat, little legs covered in bruises, purpling, yellowing as her toes stretch in delight.
Icecaller takes them down through the trade halls, past barrels being caulked, sealed and stored.
Fish sleeping in salt beds. Great sides of bloody beef on high shelves of chill stone.
Thell has never gone hungry, despite the fervent dreams of her enemies.
The cool caverns beneath her feet are stacked with stores enough to feed the mountain for a year; two on thin rations.
She grips her spear tighter as they dip downwards through a practice yard, a barracks.
She watches the soldiers for a moment, the shaft in her hand reverberating with memories of strikes blocked, and victories taken over years of sparring in mock battles against imagined fears.
Something real is coming for them now, out of the south, on dark wings; that crow-witch at the head of her grey army.
She wonders if they’ll be ready – if she’ll be ready.
Half or more of the soldiers in the mountain were born after the fall of the Empire.
Most of them were like her, with only a lingering memory, something inherited and passed down.
They feared it about as much as you’d fear a night hag, or an ice-witch, a bed-time story.
And yet, her father had never let them relax. Skinpainter had never let them relax. They’d drummed it into them since they were as small as Nigh. Don’t disturb the cairns, don’t break the skin. Do not spill the blood of a child of Thell within the mountain.
But there was obviously more to it than that. She’d seen cuts and scrapes and broken bones aplenty, had seen a severed finger once. Nothing had come for them. Something else was protecting the people here.
She prayed whatever was watching over her would keep it up.
Still, perhaps they would be OK. In front of her, warriors move back and forth with quick, practiced economy – rhythms and forms coming as easy as breath. Spears and shields interlocking and striking with precision. Her people know war, for all they fear it.
A few of the combatants lift their eyes in acknowledgement, dipping a shoulder to her as she passes. Most remain focused on their dance – blade, foot, hip and thrust.
She watches a little longer, that fire of impatience lighting under her bones again. So close to a change, to something new. She doesn’t notice she’s biting her lip, keeping her breath tight in her chest, until Nigh’s drumming feet push her reluctantly onwards.
As they move deeper into the training grounds, she peels a strip of jerky from a pocket and passes it upwards. ‘Did you fuck anyone up today?’
A wide grin. Noisy chewing.
‘Did you help them afterwards?’
A nod. Small hands flutter on either side of her head.
‘Good girl.’
A lick on her ear. Blown raspberries.
‘Ngghhhhh, no. A little gross monster. Killer deadly gross monster.’
Nigh’s feet drum happily.
They’re in a wider hall now, scooped from the belly of the mountain, more or less at the centre of the training grounds on this level.
The same looming pulse of war beats here on a larger scale. Formations are practiced. Rows of spears are drawn tight against tall shields.
Those same shields are turned and locked to form metal steps, pelted up by lithe young soldiers who explode upwards in a blur to hit targets distantly, impossibly high.
The rhythm of feet on metal pounds a backbeat to the music of tattooists carving geometrics around steel and blood. Alert to torn skin, smudged lines. Ink is armour in Thell, and needs to be maintained in the same way.
Ice feels a tug on her hair. Nigh points.
Skinpainter is here, crouched like a spider over a soldier’s spine, their rags and ribbons hanging low, brushing skin and muscle. They see her, nod briefly, beckon. Beneath their thick, careful fingers designs unfold, angles lifting and locking, colour blocked and shadowed. No needles here.
‘Hello, Ice,’ they say.
She smiles, tips Nigh forwards to pat the rags that wrap Skinpainter’s head.
‘Hello, killer grossmonster,’ they reply.
Nigh climbs off Icecaller’s shoulders and onto Skinpainter with surprising speed, twining her hands in their robes. They glance over their shoulder to watch her with eyes brightened by shadow.
‘Did you defeat anyone today?’
Nigh makes a blindfold for her eyes and laughs madly.
Skinpainter hisses softly in amusement. ‘And did you help them after?’
Rags become bandages wound around. A solemn nod.
The man below Skinpainter’s fingers moans in pain. They push down slowly, steadily. Joints pop. Sockets are filled.
‘Good, good. We bind if we break, remember. Now, let me work.’
Gently, Skinpainter grabs Nigh by the scruff of her neck and sets her to one side.
A moment passes as they straighten limbs, and salve bruises.
Nigh watches, bright-eyed. Catching her gaze, Skinpainter reaches forwards, taking her head in their hands.
Nigh’s jaw disappears into the cut of the broad, brown fingers which frame her face.
They twist her head towards the light, taking in her short shock of mountain-thistle hair, high cheekbones that catch the shadow, and a tongue that wiggles exploratorily.
‘No warrior marks on you yet.’ Their voice hangs in the wide air.
Behind them, feet beat on steel, the hall hot and noisy with harsh breaths.
‘Would you like a warrior’s mark, Nigh?’
She shakes her head, taps on their wrists, sketches a response. For a moment, Skinpainter remembers the last time they had talked only in touch, and shivers, before looking over their shoulder. ‘Ice? Translate?’
Icecaller hunkers down behind her sister, hands loose and easy on her shoulders.
Nigh turns, her lips grazing her sister’s earlobes, moving fast.
Skinpainter watches them. ‘Well?’
Icecaller smiles. ‘She wants a monster mark, Painter.’
Skinpainter hisses again, laughter bubbling in their chest and lets their thumb rise to stroke Nigh’s cheekbones. ‘You’re OK with that?’
Icecaller shrugs. ‘She’s her own snotty little person.’
Skinpainter’s eyes flash in the shadow of their hood. ‘So be it. Look at me, Nigh. Think of your monster. Think of its shape. Think of its fierceness. Think of its breath.’
Nigh hunkers down in her sister’s lap, wriggling furiously, sharp little hip bones stabbing into Icecaller’s thighs.
She grunts in pain. ‘Stop torturing me and look at Painter.’
For once, Nigh does as she’s told, turning her wide, dark eyes up to the hood crouched in front of her face.
‘Think of its breath,’ Skinpainter repeats.
Nigh holds their gaze and Icecaller, behind her, meets Skinpainter’s eyes for a moment.
She feels the sorcerer’s breath grow slow and steady in the intervening space, watches the hairs slowly rise on their forearms as muscles dance beneath their inked skin.
Watches their fingers trace steady, angular shapes on either side of her sister’s head.
Tucked between her legs, Nigh goes soft like a rabbit before a snake, her head lolling.
Suddenly, Icecaller feels the weight of her sister’s small body hard against her skin, as if an invisible hand was pushing them together.
Between the next inhale and the exhale, the marks appear, sharp-edged, dark against her little sister’s temples. Nigh smiles softly, shows her teeth, cheeks flushed.
Skinpainter lets their hands fall. ‘That’s plenty for a little one, even for a little monster.’ They pat her cheek. ‘There we go, small fangs.’
Nigh holds a hand out towards their face. For a second, they lean in to the touch. Then from behind them, screams.
A soldier has fallen somehow, stumbled and missed a footing. The side of his face met by the sharp edge of a shield, leaving skin hanging loose, blood flowing. Not deep, but messy, his teeth surprisingly white amid it all.
The tattoos on the left side of his face sheared clean through.
A scratch is all that’s needed.
A cold flood of fear runs through Icecaller’s gut. ‘Run home, Nigh,’ she says, ‘quick as you can.’
Her fingers tighten on the spear, as her sister disappears like a whisper, helpful hands opening paths away from the hall, deeper into the mountain. As Nigh is ushered to safety, Skinpainter moves faster than Icecaller thought possible, each step propelling them across the hall.
The screaming, bloody-faced soldier turns to meet them and is met by an open-handed slap that cracks bone.
For a second, a mist of blood hangs in the air.
For a second longer in that mist, a face, spectral, twisted, inhuman. Blossoming in the blood.