Chapter 80 #4
Astic and Thell, or the scraps of both, together.
Perhaps it’s not so strange. Wasn’t that always the way?
Blood and knives and murder and then after, meetings and reconciliation.
Even in normal wars, the killing brought some sanity, in the end.
Enough slaughter always made the survivors weary, on any side.
Here, the dead themselves had risen against them.
No wonder they were clinging to anything with a pulse and a smile.
It wasn’t perfect, of course. They were still too close to the mountain to relax, scant hours from the horror that had unfolded.
The greycloaks look a little nervous still, their hands torn between hilts and helping.
Best not to make any sudden moves Shipwright thinks, turning to the crowd. She spreads her arms deliberately, tilts her hands forwards, back. Nice, clear empty palms. See? No reason to murder her.
She finds a jut of rock and sits down with a sigh.
Everything aches. The hangover of spinner magic is cracking her skull like a hauler’s hammer.
The crowd hover at the edges of their circle, held in uncertainty, watching and murmuring as Shroudweaver settles next to her, legs stretched.
He rubs at his calves, glancing anxiously back over his shoulder at the smoking mountain, which remains mercifully still and quiet.
The churned earth is full of potsherds here, scraps of bone and colour thrown up when the land spasmed, and slicked clean by the storm.
Just waiting to be joined by the fragments of bodies which now strew the Barrowlands.
He picks up a triangular piece, and thumbs the rough edge, turning it to brush off the mud. The design is simple and bright, blue and white in looping curls depicting the tip of something that might have been a dog’s ear or bird wing. He pops it in his pocket.
The pair turn to watch Crowkisser. She’s pulled herself together a little. Still busy with Icecaller’s corpse, her hands moving like a musician, the thinnest strands of blood threading their way from her fingertips and down into the hideous rents in the girl’s flesh, pulling them tight.
Shipwright nudges Shroudweaver, leaning her chin in close. ‘What do you think she’s doing?’
He shrugs, watching his daughter’s fingers dance. ‘The spirit’s long gone. I felt it go.’ He knuckles at his eyes, sighs. ‘There’s nothing left to save.’
Shipwright rubs her cheeks, winces. ‘Awful. I think I could have started to like her.’
He laughs. ‘Well, then she was doomed anyway.’
She digs, swishes, spits a piece of tooth into the soil. ‘Hey. Not nice.’ She slides a bit closer and puts a protective arm around his shoulders, fingers absently working at knots in his neck. Lowering her voice, she asks, ‘What are we going to do about your daughter?’
He shrugs. ‘I thought I’d have to kill her.’
She kisses the side of his head. ‘And now?’
His words are slow. ‘I’m not sure. I need answers. She’s not what I expected. She’s a lot more …’
‘Human?’ Shipwright finishes.
He nods wearily.
She scratches the nape of his neck gently. ‘That’s the trouble with the real world. We’re all human.’
He catches her fingers in his free hand. ‘I’m more worried about what she’s going to do with me.’ He waves at the shifting circle of refugees. ‘She’s got numbers on her side.’
Shipwright starts absently polishing a scuff on her boot. ‘Well, whatever it is, I think we’re about to find out.’
Shroudweaver watches Crowkisser raise Icecaller’s body into a sitting position, beckoning in an old woman with a face hard as salt tack, her back a mess of mud and blood, her fingers curled to stiffness around a blackwood club.
A few business-like words later, and the older woman takes the dead girl’s head on her lap like a babe, runs fingers through her hair, crooning something low and warm as a stove fire.
Then Shroudweaver’s daughter is walking towards him.
Her mother’s shoulders on his stick legs and a face above them that’s a mix of them both.
Hard to read. Sad, maybe, or angry. All he wants is to hug her and take her home, but she’s years grown from the girl he knew, and he doesn’t have a home to go to.
So instead, he stands and refastens red threads on his hands.
As he does, she slows and holds a palm out to him, like he was a wary dog.
He risks a smile, and watches it catch her face, pulling the corners of her mouth up.
Crowkisser has a different face when she smiles, small bright teeth and a light in her eyes.
For a moment, they stand there. He feels the sharp little sherd in his pocket, watches the mud well up between her bare toes.
She steps up next to him, and hovers there for a second, that tension back in her shoulders.
Then she’s in his arms and he hugs her, reflexively, instinctively. Her voice is a soft curl against his breastbone. ‘I thought I was going to have to kill you.’
He kisses her brow. ‘I know.’
She stiffens slightly. ‘I still might.’
‘I know,’ he repeats.
‘I’m so tired, Dad,’ she says and the tears come from her like rain.
‘I know, love,’ he says, and his hands trace the blades of her shoulders in small circles, like ripples on the sea.