Chapter 75 #2
On Skinpainter’s body, their geometrics burn. They watch as the mountain shudders, while in front of it, Shroudweaver’s new god dies. And from its body, like flies blown from a corpse, through the blood, the gold and the hammering rain, the numberless dead of the Barrowlands flood towards Thell.
After them, armed with knives and hooks and rage, follow the people of Astic.
Distantly, Skinpainter hears Kinghammer command them to keep the wall.
They wave a hand dismissively. They’ll do better than that.
Pain is nothing. Crowkisser is nothing. There is only the old equation.
People they must keep alive. And people who need to die for that to happen.
There are people they love within the mountain.
The geometries must hold. Thell must hold.
For that to happen, nothing must get in. Nothing must get out.
Skinpainter grits their teeth and ignores the writhing in their bones as best they can.
A twist, a wrench of their hands, and the storm is battened.
They can feel the Emperor rising under the skin of the earth; a surge of nausea, a buzzing red fever washing in from the sundered hills and hollows.
Years of Skinpainter’s work balances on a knife-edge.
Ancient things are stirring at their old enemy’s call.
They stagger as another wave of sickness batters them.
The Emperor is growing strong, and quickly, fattened by all the souls Shroudweaver just laid out like lambs under the knife.
They shake their head. Wipe spit from their lips.
Enough of this, they have responsibilities. The mountain has not fallen yet. As they watch, Thell’s warriors hammer into the depths of the Stump, following after Kinghammer and Icecaller, clashing with grey-skinned fishermen in narrow passages, dancing the blade-dance. Step, flick, lick, turn.
Skinpainter sweats, curses their churning gut. Mad as it seems, Astic’s army is not the real problem. Time is running out.
They feel small salted lives wink out, ten by ten, before they take a deep breath and throw themselves downwards, their bones bouncing gracelessly off the mountain’s stone.
Dizzy as a drunk dog, eyes full of stars and a skinned knee raw with blood, but still grabbing arms and shouting instructions, until their voice becomes a litany.
‘Guard the lines, let no man do you harm.’
Brave bodies fall in line with their tumbling descent. Broad shoulders, wary spears blocking the passages deeper into the Stump.
Skinpainter feels the first few cuts personally.
These fishermen are unskilled, but they have something in their eyes.
A determination, a steel. They believe in that ragged, murderous girl they follow.
And every damn cut that breaks a tattoo opens a gate for the dead.
Skinpainter reaches the first of the fallen in time, greeting the injured open-palmed, wrenching the dead clear of each shining wound.
They reflow ink at speed, mending as fast as their fingers can fly.
The dead chatter around them like locusts.
They feel nails on their cheeks, teeth on their sweating neck.
They bind, they break. Their heart lurches as they realise they’re not fast enough; could never be fast enough.
Around them murder swills, the Stump clotted with people, voices living and dead.
If Crowkisser is here, they can’t feel her.
They have to get deeper. Find the Deadsingers, build something stronger to hold back the dead, to stop the crow-witch making things worse.
They beckon a few soldiers forwards to clear a path through the melee.
As they run, they stagger into a clot of scared young foreigners who heft clubs uncertainly, every one of them barely as old as Icecaller.
The guards at Skinpainter’s shoulders lash out.
Spear-points punch through sockets and screaming mouths.
Wearily Skinpainter ducks a hastily swung club, brushes a bill-hook aside.
Punches, withdrawing an arm wet with teeth and tongue, letting the blood run down into the black geometrics of their arms and sending it back with a flick.
Ink follows and scatters briefly across bare muscles.
Like cobras at their back, Skinpainter’s rags flare, sway, strike. Stripping skin. Flensing down the bone.
It’s over in seconds. As the last of the Astic boys gurgles into quiet, Skinpainter steps carefully over the mess, and beckons their own wide-eyed soldiers closer. ‘Intact?’
No one misunderstands the question. They nod shakily. Check arms, wrists, legs. One redheaded girl is sick over her shield.
Lightmender. Skinpainter remembers making her first warrior marks.
They motion her forwards. She moves gingerly over ripped and broken things that were once men.
Skinpainter’s heart aches a little at the look in her eyes.
They take her face in their hands. ‘It’s horrible, I know.
But it will be worse if we let them win.
Breathe for me.’ To her credit, she does, shuddering air into her lungs like a skittish horse.
Skinpainter busses her cheeks, runs a finger over her mercifully unbroken marks.
‘I know you. You can do this.’ Her face steadies.
They take her jaw, turning it to either side, letting a little ink flow gently over her features, darkening, straightening. ‘I’m so proud of you, Light.’
It has the desired effect. She smiles, wet-eyed.
‘I need you to do something for me, OK?’
She nods. ‘Anything, Painter.’
They raise their voice, so the rest of the little group can hear.
Run their eyes over the expectant faces surrounding them.
‘You have to hold them here. As long as you can. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out.’ Skinpainter straightens, flings a hand out towards the distant wreck of the gates.
‘Crowkisser’s brought the dead with her.
She’s brought the dead with her. Most of you won’t remember the Empire, won’t remember what that means.
But mark this, we have to stop her here.
We’re in between. We’re the border. We’ve always been the border.
Below you the Deadsingers, below your children.
’ They pause, pointing a steady finger at the young warriors.
‘Only you can keep them alive. They need your time, your breath, your life if needs be. For the mountain.’
‘For the mountain,’ they murmur.
Skinpainter pauses, their heart aching at the sea of trusting faces. ‘I love you all. And I will end this. She will not have us.’
As the little group mutters assent, Skinpainter pulls Lightmender close, their voice husky against her neck.
‘I need you to take something, Light. Keep it safe. It’ll keep you safe too.
’ They glance at the scared faces lingering over her shoulder.
‘And them. Come near. And be strong.’ Lightmender steps closer still, and Skinpainter pulls her in, hard against their ribs, stomach to stomach.
Her breath flutters against their hips. Half a question hangs on her lips, but she’s too well-trained to give it voice.
Skinpainter murmurs a quick prayer to all the dead gods, as they dig beneath their robes.
Get their nails tight around the gift, its wet little contours, the strange softness flecked with gristle and tendon.
Close their eyes against the pain, and pull.
Under their ribs something rips, moves of its own accord, drips across the brief space between their bodies and lodges against Lightmender’s stomach.
She gasps and staggers. Skinpainter remembers the sensation well.
They hold Lightmender’s head and smile at her, ignoring the tightness in their heart.
‘Try to breathe through it. It will get easier to bear.’
She grits her teeth, touches her side tentatively, lifting away fingers flecked with blood, ‘This will help?’
Skinpainter nods. ‘It always has.’
Lightmender’s eyes are wide as she looks up at them. ‘What is it?’
They smile tightly. ‘Leftovers. A little something I picked up in the south.’ They rub her shoulder reassuringly. ‘I’ll teach you all about it once we’re out of here. For now, just know it’ll keep you alive. And we need you alive.’
Skinpainter turns Lightmender’s head with their fingers, watching the progress of the gift through her eyes. The briefest flare of gold in the sclera, the faintest taste of honey and spice on her breath. ‘Hold them here, Light. Hold them here.’
She nods, and her soldiers form up behind her.
Skinpainter can already see the gift’s effects.
The straightening of Lightmender’s back, the lifting of her voice.
They can already feel the cost too. They touch a hand to the bloody remnant that still pulses against their ribs, and pray it’ll be enough to see them through.
As Skinpainter forges downwards, that thin brave line of young men and women closes behind them. A line against the dark, against the dead. They’re thankful for the minutes it’ll buy them.
The battle fades to the edges of their mind, as it always does.
See enough of war, and the patterns become familiar, pulses of movement like feet on a loom.
The warp and weft of bodies. As one cohort stumbles forwards, grey and bladed, another enters from the side, red and blackened.
Metal is threaded through muscle with precision.
Pulse, push, shift, lock. Another line in the pattern.