Chapter 18
Tristan couldn’t quite believe it when they broke the treeline.
“It’s the right place,” Sarai fervently told him. “The hills are in the right arrangement.”
She had to be right, she was no fool and she had the map tucked away inside her mind through a Sign, and yet the thief felt no relief. Before them a great clearing in the forest was stretching out, rolling hills and a stretch of gleaming grass. Miles of open land, with trees on all sides save the north – where the ravine lay, and the bridge to cross it. Tristan spat to the side, for his mouth taste of iron after all the running, and looked behind. The others were catching up, the fit and the not. The former clustered together, keeping the same exhausted but unrelenting pace, while the latter trailed behind.
Yong, Sanale, Ferranda, Lan. All these were mere moments behind he and Sarai.
It was they others they waited for until they came out one by one. It took nearly ten minutes: Vanesa had not got quicker for the evening’s exertions and Francho was barely ahead of her. As for Felis, it had been only a matter of time until his lick of dust’s feverish burst of energy passed – and once it had, he’d become a shambles. That Aines stayed with him was as much a result of her poor shape as loyalty to her hanging rope of a marriage, Tristan suspected. She was barely faster on her feet than the greyhairs now, evidently not used to lasting exercise. And yet they were catching up, all of them.
They had all made it.
“I thought we’d lose at least one of the elders,” Yong admitted. “It is a bruising pace we have kept.”
“Tough,” Sanale appreciatively said.
“Desperations is a kind of strength,” Lan said. “And even the old girl wants to live, deep down.”
The thief caught her eye and dipped his head in agreement. Vanesa had not given up. She might not expect to live through this, but neither was she ready to lay down and die. It was worthy of respect, as much as the freely gifted kindness. As the laggards entered the light of the lantern, Tristan saw how worn down they had become. Expectedly so: it had been punishing work moving through the woods even with their lanterns now wide open.
They had followed the edge of the ravine to avoid getting lost, following it east until the treeline broke. They’d passed to more rings of raised stones as they did – one intact, the other shattered – and the second they had passed not even a half hour ago. Whatever they might once have been used for, they now made for useful landmarks. When the last of them, a sweaty and dishevelled Vanesa, caught up the lot of them shared a brief rest.
“We’re close, then?” Felis raggedly asked.
Sarai pointed slightly to the northwest, past two high hills.
“The bridge is there,” she said. “There can be no doubt.”
Far be it from him to argue with the woman who had a used magic to memorize the map. Even the most exhausted of them picked up the pace at her words, elation and relief limbering slowing feet. Even Tristan found a smile tugging at his lips. It seemed they had reached salvation before the monster caught up with them, after all. He crested a hill, then another, and saw the dirt path laid down before him. Then the relief caught in his throat.
Lemures.
Lupines, a whole pack of them. Though Aines and Yong were standing at his side within moments, not a single of the beasts glanced their way: they were too busy tearing hungrily into corpses. Slowly coming down the hill, hand on his knife, he took a closer look at the bodies. Hollows, Tristan recognized. Less than half a day dead, and as the light of the lantern reached the bridge beyond the lupines he remembered the bishop’s smiling curse: you are all already dead.
The corpses being eaten had been crushed and stomped, as if by a great beast.
These were, he realized, the losses Bishop Dionne had talked about. The priestess herself might have been here mere hours ago. One after another, he fit the pieces together. Standing there alone with closed eyes, he painted the picture the way Abuela had taught him to.
By the time the Bluebell had come ashore, the cultists had already been stirred up from the debacle that woke up the airavatan. The warbands split, some roving the land while the largest claimed the western and eastern bridge. The morning after Ju was murdered the trial-takers split into bands of their own, but their story was not Tristan’s trouble: what he cared for was the bridges. After Inyoni and her fellows fought their way through the western bridge, the airavatan went mad from whatever had confused it and collapsed the bridge. What, then, were the hollows to do?
Everyone headed east. So, eventually, did the airavatan.
The monster slew a few warbands and some went into hiding, but what Tristan and the others had deduced when they first laid their plans was still true: the cultists did not help each other, they were rivals. And so no one went to warn the large warband holding the eastern bridge – led, he now believed, by Bishop Dionne - that a monster was on the prowl. The cultists were taken entirely by surprise when it attacked them.
That warband had been hit tonight, mere hours ago. It was why the tracks Sanale had found earlier were fresh: the cultists been fleeing the beast by going east into the woods, away from this deadly clearing. After finishing up here, the airvatan had followed in their direction but been lost – perhaps because of the rain, which would dampen how it smelled. It had still moved east somewhat, though, and been close enough to immediately smell the lodestone extract when Tristan used it.
Which brought them to here and now: the cultist camp of a rival warband destroyed, their own crew running for the bridge before the heliodoran beast turned on them.
And now they came to the reason Bishop Dionne had called them dead. Tristan opened his eyes as the light of the lantern carried by Yong passed the corpses and lupines. To the bridge, through which some cultists had tried to flee and where the monster caught up to them. And when it struck them down, in its rage it must have collapsed the wooden bridge: now only shattered edges on both side of the ravine remained, the rest long fallen into the river below. There would be no crossing here.
They were stuck on this side, with the beast and the hollows.
“No,” Aines shouted.
The lupines did not even care enough about the noise to abandon their meal. Despair trembled in the air, not one of them denying its sting. It was too long for a jump across, Tristan thought. And they did not have a rope long enough to attempt another kind of crossing. Even Sarai’s face fell, though she was the first to gather herself.
“If we go west, the river grows wider and stronger but there is no ravine,” she said. “Swimming through there is the only way left.”
Half of them wouldn’t make that swim, the thief thought. Neither of the elders, probably not Aines either and he was not so sure of Lan. Gods, he was not so sure of himself. He was fit but no great swimmer and the Watch had built bridges on the island for a reason. But it was all that remained, so he put away his doubts and breathed in. He let out his breath and his fear with it.
“Let’s go,” he said. “No time to waste.”
If they waited for too long their company was sure to fall into arguments and backbiting, which would eat into their chances of losing the airavatan. So he began setting out, nudging Sarai to do the same. She gave him a long look, then nodded and followed. Behind them he heard Felis comfort his wife and yell something out at Yong, but Tristan met the Tianxi’s eyes and the soldier snorted. Ignoring Felis, he joined them in walking away. After that, the simple pressure of people leaving forced the rest to make a decision: stay or follow.
Enough followed that the rest feared to stay.
It was not a solid foundation, the thief knew, but the worst had happened and so he must adjust his expectations. There could be no more sentimentality. Ferranda sought him out at the front, having surprised him when she and Sanale stuck with them.
“You have a scheme in mind,” she said. “What is it?”
“Going west,” he flatly replied. “If we live through the day then we can revisit how we will cross.”
She grimaced.
“Fair enough,” Ferranda replied. “We will stay with you for now, but make no promises for tomorrow.”
He shrugged. The pair were far from dead weight, and he’d given due thought to Sanale’s offer, but trackers were no longer needed. It would be hard to get lost now that they had found the river: all that remained was to find a way to cross it. It had earlier taken most of an hour for them to get to the bridge, and now they squeezed out much the same hurrying through the hills. In a few miles west the woods would begin again, continuing until they broke for another plain at the heart of the island where the other bridge lay.
Past that, at least a full day west, was where Sarai was suggesting they attempt the crossing.
Only when they were out of breath did they call their first halt. The pretence that they were all in this together had worn thin: both the greyhairs had been lagging behind again, the same for Aines and Felis, and no one moved to help them. They would catch up exhausted to the remainder of the group only by the time it set out, the thief estimated, and so be forced to continue without rest. It was a slow death sentence, but Tristan hardened his heart.
He no longer had the luxury of caring about anything but survival.
“Huh,” Yong said. “Unusual.”
Panting and on his knees, Tristan turned to follow the Tianxi’s gaze. Further along the ravine – it was wider here, likely why the bridge had been built further east – there were rings of raised stones. Two of them, rather close, and in near perfect state. Whoever the builders had been, they had made them to last. It was not long after this second ring the forest began again, the clearing come to an end. After entering those woods it ought to take at least half a day until they found open grounds again, which he did not look forward to.
It was vicious kind of irony that Tristan and his fellows were to see twice as many bridges anyone from the Bluebell yet all of them would be broken.
And now remembering, the other bridge’s fate – which he had known of for an entire day! - he cursed himself for not having considered the same might happen again. It was plain that the blackcloacks had not built bridges strong enough to withstand the lemure, that they had expected the airavatan to remain sleeping. He’d had the right knowledge in his pocket all along and never thought to put it to use.
“The others were further apart,” Yong breathed out.
The thief blinked for a moment before realizing Yong was still talking of the stone circles.
“Maybe we’re near the middle,” Tristan shrugged.
Francho believed they followed the length of the river, from east to west, but he might have been wrong. The thief got back on his feet, meeting the Yong’s eyes. A nod was shared and they began to move again – setting out at a pace that was not quite a run but far from walking. This was to be a trial of endurance, not a quick race.
Tristan forced himself not to think about the fact that Francho and Vanesa had not yet caught up.
Half an hour later they were slightly past the second of the rings, not even a quarter hour away from the woods resuming to the west. The thief slowed for a heartbeat, convinced he’d seen a light inside the stones, but it was nothing: only a stone smoothed by rain reflecting the stars, however. He breathed out, not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed. The answer was soon settled, however, as the little he had turned was enough for him to catch sight of something that froze his limbs.
Behind them, to the east, mist was billowing past the crest of the hills
His breath caught. If the mist was close enough for him to see without even lantern light, then there was no outrunning the monster. The heliodoran beast had caught up, and what could the likes of them do against such a creature? He was going to die here in the dark, surrounded by strangers. He- Tristan breathed in, breathed out. Remember your lessons. What he could not do did not matter, so what could he do? If the monster could not be fled from, it must be tricked.
“Tristan,” Sarai called out, but then she turned to follow his gaze and her voice went out like a candle in the wind.
The thief did not answer, eyes staying fixed on the heliodoran beast. In the distance he could see the white fog slowly but surely gaining on Vanesa, ever the last of them. She had yet to notice. Sarai pulled at his arm, fingers squeezing hard at his flesh.
“We need to go,” she hissed. “I know you-”
“You’re letting fear do your thinking for you,” Tristan said, tone even. “We had at least an hour on it, running on open grounds while it was in the woods. We cannot flee from it, Sarai: we’re simply not fast enough.”
He straightened his back.
“As our good friend the bishop said, we must outwit the god or earn the honour of its teeth.”
Sarai loudly swallowed.
“You said to stick close to you, if this went bad,” she said.
“I can perhaps keep us alive, and another as well,” he admitted. “But I am not sure how long.”
It would be a gamble. While they were covered in magic feathers reeking of sleep the beast should not eat them, but they would be unconscious and he would have to hope the lemure kept chasing the others instead of taking the time to stomp them out of spite. By the way her breathing grew uneven, Sarai was panicking. He did not blame her.
“You’ve just good as said we’re going to die – how are you so fucking calm?” she demanded.
Did he seem that way? He did not feel it. There was a wild animal clawing at his insides, even if it had yet to break the cage.
“I am terrified,” Tristan honestly told her. “My limbs are trembling and my mind is mush. But it doesn’t matter, because I know where we are.”
“Where?” she snarled.
“In a grave,” the rat grinned. “We have nothing left to lose, Sarai: either we buy our way out or we stay buried. Fear only matters if it can still get worse.”
She let out a hiccup that was half indignation and half laughter.
“Gods,” she croaked. “No wonder the masks want you.”
Masks - did she mean the Krypteia? No, now was not the time. There would be time to ask what one of the Circles of the Watch might want with him if they lived. Instead he clapped her shoulder comfortingly and his eyes went back to their coming doom. By his count Vanesa was a quarter hour behind them, to the east, and the beast would catch up to her around the time she reached the first ring of stones. Indeed, now that the mist was spreading further across the wet grass he could make out the airvatan’s silhouette in starlight. The monster was following her doggedly.
Vanesa had noticed the monster at last and broken into a run that slowly curved north towards the ravine – her eye again, Tristan thought with a sliver of grief – and the beast had followed the adjustment exactly. Almost, he frowned, too exactly.
“Sarai,” he said, “is it me or is the airavatan running strangely?”
Afraid or not, the blue-eyed woman had not fallen to pieces. They stood there in silence for a long moment, gaze following the same great beast.
“It’s not moving across the hills well,” she murmured. “It keeps almost tripping on the slopes. Why?”
“It’s blind,” Tristan breathed out, excitement rising. “It wasn’t enough poison to kill it, but it went blind.”
He suspected the beast have been blind when it began following them across the plains – surely it would not have been able to hear them from so far away - but now the volcian yew had taken its sight. It could still get around somehow, and track them, but the way it kept walking on things instead of over them was telling.
“It’s still following Vanesa,” Sarai said. “The impact of feet on the ground? No, then it would feel the slopes and the stones when its footsteps make them shake. It must be the sound, it is listening to her run.”
“Then hiding would be pointless,” Tristan noted. “If it can hear her from that far away, there is no way to hold our breath for long enough it won’t hear us.”
“We need protection,” she said. “Something to hide behind. We could try going down the side of the ravine?”
Tristan grimaced, shaking his head, and even Sarai looked unconvinced. The beast would be able to reach them with its tentacles. Gods, the monstrosity was longer than the ravine was large. But there was one detail that he’d had in the back of his mind since earlier, an oddity about how the monster had attacked the cultist camp.
“I think I have something,” Tristan admitted. “But there will be no way to tell if it works until it’s on us.”
Blue eyes met his and she hesitated. He was, in practice, asking her to bet her life on his hunch. They had known each other for mere days, and spent much of these hiding secrets from one another and - her expression hardened and she offered her arm. She had, he sensed, come to a decision. Not just about the needs of the moment, but deeper things still. Gently, almost reverently, he clasped the proffered arm.
“Maryam,” she said. “My name is Maryam Khaimov. If I am to trust you with my life, I should trust you with that.”
He swallowed.
“Tristan Abrascal,” he said, lips gone dry.
It was the first time he’d said his surname in years and he shivered at hearing it.
“Let’s live, Tristan,” Maryam smiled. “After that, it would be embarrassing not to.”
He grinned back, minutes away from death and terrified and somehow more alive than he’d been since he was a boy.
--
They went back to the first ring of stones. This was madness, so naturally even after the others noticed they were no longer running and turned back to ask few were inclined to follow.
“This is madness,” Ferranda Villazur flatly informed him.
As always, the infanzona caught on quickly.
“I am aware,” Tristan said. “It might, however, be the useful kind of madness.”
The fair-haired noblewoman studied him for a moment, then shook her head. Her plain face was drawn with exhaustion, but her expression remained steadfast in a stolid sort of way.
“I wish you well, but I will not risk my life so recklessly,” Ferranda told. “We part ways here.”
Or so she said, but then she glanced at Sanale – who nodded after a heartbeat. Reassured, her face firmed. Their decision was made.
“Good luck,” Tristan said, and was surprised to find her meant the words.
“You too,” Sanale said, offering his hand. “Keep your knife close. Better to die quick if can.”
It was said with such friendly concern that the thief could not even find it in himself to be offended at the presumption they were all about to die, shaking it. They were not truly friends, though perhaps in time they could have become something close to it, but the pair had been more than tolerable to work with. It was already better than he had ever expected to think of an infanzona. When Lady Ferranda offered her hand he shook it as well. The two hurried away after rushing through goodbyes, heading west for the woods. Lan followed behind them, offering only a cheerful wave before legging it.
The three had lost some time doubling back, but likely expected to make it back while the airavatan murdered everyone staying behind.
Yong watched them go, then grimaced.
“Now would be a good time to tell me you put some lodestone in their bags,” the Tianxi said.
“Alas, I used the full stock,” Tristan easily replied.
“I was afraid you’d stay that,” Yong sighed. “Is the plan really to hide inside the stone rings and pray they keep the monster out?”
“I don’t intend to pray,” Sarai informed him.
He glared at her.
“You two are a bad influence on each other,” he said, then turned to spit on the grass.
He sighed and began to load his musket.
“I think this might be the most idiotic plan I’ve ever followed,” Yong said, “and I’ve served with militia officers from Mazu.”
Tristan cocked an eyebrow. He knew little of that republic save that it was one of the foremost naval powers of the Trebian Sea.
“Half their promotion examination is about poetry,” Yong scathingly said.
“What I choose to take from this is that my insight matched that of trained military officers,” Tristan proudly replied. “Come on, let’s go hide in the rings.”
Their company had spread out. Ferranda and Sanale had pulled ahead to the west and were minutes away from the woods, a surprisingly quick Lan a notch behind them, while further back Aines and Felis were getting close to the first ring of stones. A few minutes behind them Francho was limping, and even further beyond that Vanesa struggled to catch up. Tristan worried his lip, evaluating the distances. He had the time, narrowly.
“We have two lanterns,” he said. “Let us put one in each ring.”
It was as clear a signal he could risk considering that shouting would likely attract the beast. Seeing a lantern in the eastern ring might induce the others to try going inside it.
“Soft touch,” Yong chided, but it was without heat.
The Tianxi stayed in the second ring while he and Sarai brought a lantern to the first, running back when they saw how close the airavatan was getting. They left just as Aines and Felis arrived, the pair looking baffled as the entered the ring. Even from there they could see Yong waiting in the other, his silhouette clear in the other lantern’s light, so though the wedded pair shouted questions that Tristan did not turn to answer they stayed inside in mimicry of the Tianxi. The surprise was that, by the time they got back to the western ring, Lan was running towards it as well. When she stumbled past the circle of raised stones, falling on her knees in the grass, she gave them a blue grin.
“Decided to bet on you this time,” Lan explained.
It was just as likely she had realized she was not as physically fit as the pair in front of her and was likely to get eaten while they kept running, but Tristan decided not to be unpleasant. It was not impossible they were all about to die. Instead he went for the edge of their circle of stones, leaning against the tall stone and watching as the airavatan closed the last of the distance to the eastern ring. Francho had made it inside, falling to his hands and knees before the other two as they held each other, and that left there was only Vanesa. She went straight for the ring, as quick as she could, while behind her mist followed. Make it, Tristan encouraged. Come on, you can make it.
Mist spread past her and the shadow loomed tall, the ground shaking silently beneath its feet, but she was there. Fingers biting into the palm of his hand until they bled, Tristan watched as the old woman got three feet away from the edge of the ring – and slipped.
“No,” he breathed out.
She fell, face forward, and a third of her body made it into the ring. The airavatan’s leg, tall and large as pillar, rose and came down – but Felis, in a burst of courage, left his wife and caught Vanesa’s arm. He dragged her forward.
It was not enough.
Vanesa screamed, one of her legs snapping like a twig. But she lived. Felis had pulled quickly enough that it had been a leg instead of her body up to the ribcage, and as the airavatan stomped furiously around the ring of raised stones the dust fiend finished dragging her inside. And though he’d just seen a woman’s leg become a ruin of bone and broken flesh, Tristan eyes widened in elation at what he saw: the beasts’ mist did not enter the ring of stones. It refused to, that was the reason they had been able to hear Vanesa scream at all. Yong cursed softly in Cathayan as the heliodoran beast’s tentacles felt out the stones, trying to reach through them but sliding as if against glass.
It had done the same thing, back at the cultist camp, but the ring there had been broken.
“You were right, you little madman,” Yong said. “You were fucking right.”
Sarai – Maryam, though he did not yet think of her that way – found his hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back.
“My wisdom is being followed as well,” Lan smugly said. “Just look at them run.”
He followed her gaze, finding that Ferranda and Sanale were doubling back. They must have seen the rings truly were a protection, and realized their safety was the best chance for them to live through the nigh. The situation had changed the moment the monster was kept at bay by the stones: now the airavatan might well abandon the prey beyond its reach for easier kills, and the pair were the only two on the table. Yet their earlier advantage, how quickly they had run, was now turning against them. They were too far.
With rising horror, Tristan turned to see the airavatan striding away from the other ring: it had heard them doubling back.
The coolness in the back of his mind, the part that had been trained, measured the spans and the speeds. The airavatan, rushing from west to east. The pair, rushing from east to west. Ferranda and Sanale were closer to the eastern ring than the airavatan was, but the beast moved almost twice as quickly and would not tire. It was a done deal and it became terribly obvious within a minute of the ugly race beginning that the pair would not get there in time. The truth of that sunk in them like rain, soaking them to the bone.
Sarai closed her eyes in grief. Lan smiled in poorly hid relief at how close she had cut it. Yong clenched his teeth and strode to the edge of the ring to shoot his musket at the airavatan, which had gotten close enough for it. The lemure turned one of its eyeless heads their way, but otherwise ignored them. The Tianxi might as well have shot at a fortress wall. The lovers saw it as well, though the realization hit them in waves. First fear spurred them to drop their lantern and all their bags and save one, sprinting as fast as they could.
It was a straight line east to the ring, for them, but already the beast was of a height with it. It would be standing between them and safety within moments.
Tristan watched as fear was replaced by despair, by anger. Ferranda slowed, taking out something from their last bag and trying to strike a match. She failed, even after trying thrice. The mist kept killing the flame. Sanale had stayed with her, and now their fate was plain: the airavatan was between them and the stone ring. Yong shot at the monster’s back again, but it didn’t even twitch. The lovers’ stride faltered, for a moment, and then Sanale said something before pressing a soft kiss against the side of Ferranda’s neck. Before the infanzona could finish turning to see his face, the Malani swerved away.
South, away from the ring, and screaming at the top of his lungs in Umoya.
Both the beast and the woman hesitated for half a heartbeat. Face ashen, eyes tearing up, Ferranda Villazur resumed sprinting for the ring. It was out of her hands now, she must know that all she could do was try not to waste his sacrifice. And the airavatan, well, it did what all hungry and spiteful lemures did when denied getting everything they wanted: it went to vent its anger on the most insolent of the prey, the Malani provoking it. Tristan did not remember walking to the edge of the ring or taking out his knife, or his fingers closing around the cithara in his bag.
And as he watched Ferranda Villazur approach salvation, he saw how Sanale had not yet abandoned the thought of survival. He’d taunted the lemure, got it to head further away from the ring, but now he had cut a sharp turn and was printing for it himself. The airavatan was too close. Tall legs swallowed the distance, unerring on the grass, and though the Malani was swift as cat he was so much smaller.
“Please,” Ferranda Villazur shouted, not even yet in the ring. “Please, if you can do anything, I beg you-”
Tristan looked away. Fortuna was leaning against the stone opposite his, eyes unreadable. Flicking a wrist, she twirled a coin between her fingers. Unearthly in the thin starlight, a slice of blood and gold cutting into the grey and green of the Dominion. His bet to make, she did not need to say. It always was.
“Fuck,” the thief cursed.
It was foolish, it was going to get himself killed and he wasn’t even going to get anything out of it. He ripped the cithara out of his bag, smashing the pommel of his knife into the belly. It cracked and he hit it again, twice more until it was open and a single lucent blue feather came drifting out. Dropping the knife, he ran out of the ring. Mist was lapping at the bottom of the stones and he hurried through, finding it thick as smoke but easy to breathe in. Grabbing the edge of the cithara, he inclined it so the feathers wouldn’t spill out and silently screamed his terror into the stillness.
Ten strides, twenty, and the airavatan’s long legs caught up to Sanale: the ground trembled and the sure-footed huntsman tripped. It was now or never, Tristan knew, and he threw the cithara. He hesitated, for the barest of moments, to pull on his contract. But the price… when the stakes were so high, only certain death moved him to use it. So he only threw.
The moment he did, he knew he had failed.
The arc was too short. He could still... But he did not, for in the end Tristan was yet a rat. It would surely get him killed, so instead of pulling at the power inside him he watched as the cithara flew up only to drop half a dozen feet short of Sanale just as he was grabbed by heliodoran beast. Tristan turned without stopping to look at what would follow.
The silence was a mercy.
Heart thundering in his ears, the thief felt the ground shake behind him and the beast gain ground. He’d gone too far, or he’d not gone far enough, but whatever the truth of it Tristan knew in his bones that he was going to die. The lantern trembled ahead of him, inside the ring, carving out the silhouettes of the others. One came closer than the rest. Sarai? No, too tall.
“Roll,” Fortuna hissed.
He obeyed without hesitation, feeling a tentacle grab behind him. He rose into a run as the airavatan struck at the ground in anger. In front of him the silhouette grabbed at something he could not make out. A match cracked, the heartbeat of light revealing red-eyed Ferranda, and she lit something in her hands. The ground shook behind him and Tristan almost tripped, stumbling into a sharp turn to the left instead, but the game was up. He’d slowed, the beast had him.
“You need to-” Fortuna began, but he never heard the rest.
Something went flying above his head, something Ferranda Villazur had thrown, and after a heartbeat instead of death Tristan felt heat licking at his back. There was a detonation and burst of light as he ran, ran as fast as he could – and he heard the airavatan scream in pain even through the lemure’s own mist. He threw himself in the grass past the ring of stones, landing painfully on his arms but too wildly relieved to care. Behind him the world shook, the beast furiously stamping the ground around the raised stones.
But he’d gotten through, gods. By the skin of his teeth but he still lived. Rolling his belly up, panting, he found the infanzona’s eyes.
“Thank you,” he got out.
Her lips thinned.
“You tried,” Ferranda simply said, and looked away.
He had no answer to that, and so instead he dropped his head back in the grass and waited for his limbs to cease shaking. When they did, Sarai was there to help him up while he caught the tail of talk between the others.
“-was that?”
“Zhentianlei,” Yong said. “A grenade. Though one filled with more than powder.”
“Phosphorescent salts,” Ferranda quietly said. “It is a Malani trick.”
Tristan would have shared in the sliver of the grief he saw in those eyes, had he the time. Knowing he owed his life in part to the man he’d failed to save was a humbling thing. But sentiment would have to wait, for the beast lingered. This was the part where planning stumbled, for how could he know what the monster would do?
The answer, it turned out, was throw a tantrum.
It stalked around in the silence of its mist, smashing at the ground and trying to wriggles its tentacles around the protection of the stones. The ancient work did not fail, but the heliodoran beast did not tire: what Tristan thought might be it leaving ended up being the creature heading back to the other ring. It kept venting its fury there, terrifying the four inside clustering around their trembling lantern light.
“We have food and water enough for two days,” Yong said.
“No cultists will get anywhere near us while it’s here, there is that,” Sarai sighed. “But if it does not leave we may well be stuck here until we starve.”
“It may fake leaving,” Lan said. “It’s what I’d do: let us get far enough from the rings, then attack.”
Lady Ferranda took no place in the talks, out of what the thief thought to be grief, but he had underestimated her: she was crouching by the edge of the ring, staring at something. He joined her there, following her gaze. The grass had split a dozen feet away from them. His heart clenched at the sight.
“It could be only the one crack,” he quietly said.
“The cultist camp was about this far from the ravine, when part of the cliff came down in the storm,” the infanzona evenly replied. “And that was the work of wind and water, not a giant stampeding around.”
Much as he wanted to deny her, Tristan could not. She was right: if the airavatan kept stomping about, the slice of the cliff on which their ring stood was at risk of collapse. They were too close to the edge and it seemed that erosion had dug under their feet. Was the eastern ring also at risk? Doesn’t matter, Tristan chided himself. There’s no way for us to move there while it’s prowling the grass.
It seemed they did not have two days after all, but instead hours – or less, if they were unlucky. Tristan rose and walked away, leaving to Ferranda the unpleasant task of breaking the news to the others even. It was unkind, when she was in fresh grief, but he could not bring himself to care. Instead he went to the northern edge of the ring, the one overlooking the ravine. He could not make out the water at the bottom, it was too deep for that, but he could hear it.
It was not the depth but the length that’d kill them: the ravine just long enough that neither jump nor rope would work, though he thought that if the heliodoran beast took a long enough run-up it might make it across.
Staring at the dark below, he found himself empty of ideas. Part of him still believed that given long enough their company would figure out a way to get across, but what did that matter when the beast would send them tumbling down long before that? It needed to be- exclamations of surprise from the others drew his eye. The beast had been striking at the bottom of the raised stones of the other ring and some piece of rubble come loose: the airavatan charged it without missing a beat, furiously attacking the ground until the shard was nothing but powder. It turned back to besieging the ring after, which mercifully held even missing a piece.
For now.
The thief worried his lip. Had it been this aggressive before? He thought not. It had liked the fear, to make them run and cower. Now it struck to kill from the start.
“Yong,” he said. “I need you to do something for me.”
The Tianxi cocked an eyebrow but let himself be drawn into the scheme. It was a simple thing, after all, the testing of a guess. The former soldiers loaded his musket, aimed and fired at the ground to the east – as close as he could to the heliodoran beast while keeping a strong impact. The monster turned immediately, abandoning the other ring to charge at where the ground was shot and stomp the spot thoroughly. It’s not thinking anymore, Tristan decided. That grenade angered it beyond reason. That was… it was a fool’s notion, but what else was left save the likes of these?
He took Sarai – Maryam – aside.
“What can you do with Signs?” he quietly asked.
She grimaced.
“I know nine but have mastered only three,” she admitted. “All of them Autarchics.”
His confusion must have been plain, for she elaborated without prompting.
“Contained within my own mind,” Sarai said. “The Sign I used to keep the map within me, for example.”
“You made an orb of darkness when we encountered the gravebird,” he said. “To keep Vanesa from being swept by the river.”
“It is a Sign I learned,” she warily agreed. “But it is demanding and I cannot maintain it for long. The consequences would be… unpleasant.”
He acknowledged that with a nod, but pressed on.
“Does it need to be anchored on something like water, or can it hang in the air?”
“It needs no anchor,” she replied. “It is an exercise of shaping raw Gloam. Tristan, what are you scheming?”
“Maybe nothing,” he admitted. “Maybe something. It depends on how long you can maintain it.”
She searched his eyes for something. Whatever it was, she found it.
“How long do you need?”
--
If it were not plain to everyone by now that they would not survive another hour of the airavatan stomping around their ring, Tristan figured some of them might have called him a fool. The same people likely thought him one in private still, but with death looming so tall at the end of their common road none were willing to spit on even a fool’s chance of living through this. Yong caught his shoulder as he prepared to go. He hesitated, breath now smelling of drink in a way that was impossible to mistake even if Tristan had not seen him sneak a lick from his flask.
“Good luck,” the Tianxi finally said.
“And you,” Tristan replied, and on a whim pressed his hat into the man’s hands.
Hopefully he would be coming back for it. If not, well, why waste a perfectly good hat?
Swallowing his fear, the remembrance of the monsters’ tentacles coming within breaths of seizing him, the thief stepped out of the ring. He did not even need to shout: within two heartbeats the airavatan stopped tormenting the other stone ring and turned west. The difficult part, Tristan had known from the start, would be getting the angle right.
There were fixed points and objects in movement.
A ring to the east, from which the airavatan was coming as he headed west: towards the other ring, and Tristan who had just stepped out of it. To their north the ravine, to their south miles of grass and hills until distant woods were reached.
Tristan headed south, away from the ravine and onto the grass. The airavatan charged, eager for violence. Heat pounding in his throat, Tristan fought down the primal urge to run back to the safety of the ring and continued moving south as the creature approached. It was angling away from the ravine and straight towards him, charging blindly as it had for the stone and shot. Breathing ragged, Tristan waited as long as he dared before breaking into a run. Back north towards the ravine, not so far from the same ring he’d come from.
The moving parts he had sketched out in his mind came to be, one terrifying heartbeat at a time. Himself, nearing the edge of the ravine to the north – when he did, the ring where the others waited would be directly to his side to the west. Sarai would be there, his death or salvation. The heliodoran beast, on the other hand, took the angle he’d led it into. By going south he’d drawn it southwest across the span between the rings, and now to catch up to him as he ran north it was turning northwest. Adjusting its angle he got closer and closer to the edge of the ravine.
He'd begun running too early out of fear, he realized, so he had to fight down his instincts and slow his steps as the mist billowed past his feet and the beast approached. He felt the ground shiver beneath his feet and hurried, the airavatan charging after him. It was only mere feet between him and the ravine now. Thirty, twenty, ten.
“It’s close,” Fortuna whispered into his ear. “Behind you, to the right.”
There was only one way to live now that he’d got his far: trusting Sarai. And so, screaming into the silence at the top of his lungs, Tristan leapt off the edge of the cliff.
For a hideous moment he flew, until just ahead of him an orb of darkness formed and he smacked right into its surface. Scrabbling desperately against the Gloam – it was neither rough nor smooth, but his weight had him slipping the surface nonetheless – he balled up around the orb and hoped. It was the best he could do, too afraid to try to turn and look back, but he still made himself see it in his mind’s eye.
The airavatan was blinded, by both poison and rage, and it was a massive creature on the run. It had been but a heartbeat or two behind him, much too late to turn. Which meant…
The mist might have covered the grass and smothered sound there, but when the airavatan tumbled past the edge of the ravine he heard it scrabbling against stone. Thunderous bellows erupted from its maw as it slipped, desperately struggling, and a frenzied laugh escaped his throat. He’d done it. The fucking monster had heard him going north as he leapt and tried to intercept him right into ravine, which it could not see any more than it had seen the hill slopes. The orb of Gloam shivered beneath him and the thief let out a yelp.
Now he needed to get out of here before Sarai was forced to release the Sign.
Limbs shaking, he slowly began to wiggle around the orb so he could face the cliff. Every movement sent a thrill of terror up his wrists, the distant roar of the river beneath a reminder of what would happen to him if he slipped. When he finally turned to face the others he saw they had prepared as he’d asked. Yong had tied his wrists to his musket, extending it as a perch, and the others – save Sarai - were holding on to him. Beneath him the orb wobbled again. The more he let himself think about it, Tristan knew, the deeper the fear would bite.
So instead he crawled atop the orb, standing in a crouch as his teeth bit into his lips, and with what little footing he could muster he leapt back towards the cliff.
The butt of the musket caught him in the eye. He shouted in pain and terror, his cursed sweating hands slipping against the weapon, but his fingers caught on the lock. The piece of flint cut into his flesh but he held on for dear life, Yong and the others shouting as they hoisted him up. Only it wasn’t enough, his grip was too weak, and he half-sobbed as the musket slid through his fingers.
He pulled at his luck.
The ticking began but for a searing moment nothing at all happened – until he realized that above him Maryam has slipped on the grass, falling down: belly on the ground, but her torso hanging past the edge of the cliff. Line of sight, he thought, a second before she let out shout and something solid formed beneath his feet, catching his fall. Another orb. It immediately began breaking apart, but the brief moment had been enough for Yong to grab him by the collar. With a heave the former soldier hoisted him up, enough that the others caught him too and he was dragged over the edge. They dropped him face down in the grass and Tristan almost wept.
He’d bought his way out of the grave again.
He stayed lying there, panting and listening to his heartbeat slow. Clenching his teeth in anticipation, he released the luck he’d borrowed.
“Shit,” Sarai said, “Tristan you-”
The thief wriggled like a worm, for his feet were on fire. Or so it felt like: when he looked strands if Gloam were eating away at his right boot through the bottom. He tried to get it off but the pain was… Yong tackled him, ripping it off, and once the leather was away from his skin the burning stopped. Tristan pulled the sole of his feet close after Yong released him, finding the skin was red and raw, already blistering. Gods, that was going to hurt. Still better than falling to his death. He waved away Sarai’s apology, something about losing control of the Sign, and let himself fall into the grass again.
Someone set something down on his belly, and he reached to find it was his tricorn. Grabbing it, he fanned his face and found Yong smiling down at him.
“Lan’s going to get the other four,” he said. “We can all set out together.”
It was the only way Vanesa would get anywhere, now. Her leg was a ruin.
“The beast?” he asked.
“See for yourself,” Yong replied, offering a hand.
Tristan took it, rising to finally take a good look at his handiwork. He half-hopped on one foot, leaning against Yong. He’d been right, the thief thought when they got close: the airavatan might have made the jump, with long enough a run-up. It must have still gotten close, because it was hanging to the other side of the ravine by its heads and tentacles. Its back legs propped it up against their side of the ravine as it writhed and tried to climb out, but it was too heavy for the tentacles and a little legwork to be enough. Undone by its own weight, the airavatan was stuck between the sides of the ravine like a cork in a bottle. And the sight of that struck another spark of madness, because sometimes a problem was a solution. His boot was done coming apart and Sarai told him it was safe, so he tore into his pants and made strips to wrap around the bottom of the boot. A temporary solution, but better than going barefoot.
Yong asked what he was doing when he limped away, avoiding resting on his bad foot, but he did not reply as he headed back into the grass. Where Sanale had been taken after he missed his throw. The cithara lay broken on the green, stepped on out of spite, and translucent feathers had spilled all over. Tristan took off his hat and knelt by them, stuffing what he could inside the tricorn. He doubled back after, returning to the monster writhing between the cliffs.
The airavatan struggled and raged, shaking the earth as it tried to drag itself out of the trap with its tentacles. The complete silence lent the sight a touch of the surreal, as if this were a waking dream, but Tristan’s mind felt alight. Hat in hand he limped to the edge of the ravine, the raging heliodoran beast, and overlooking the great expanse of pale flesh he smiled a cold smile.
He emptied the feathers on the beast’s back.
They fell down in a rain, scattering in a wind that did not exist, and the monster shivered. Its limbs heaved again, then slowly they dropped. It went still save for the slow rising of its breath, remaining stuck between the cliffs from sheer size. Slowly the mist faded, thinning into nothingness, until Tristan could hear someone walking up behind him. Yong came to stand at his side, a veiled lantern in hand.
“Why bother?” the Tianxi asked. “It was already trapped.”
“What is it you see in front of us, Yong?” he asked.
“Waste,” the Tianxi shrugged. “What would you claim is there?”
“A bridge,” Tristan Abrascal replied.
He went back and took his cabinet, slinging it onto his back with a word, and as he reached the edge of the cliff he pressed his hat down onto his head. Looking down at the airavatan, the thief took a limping step forward. Then another and another, until he was all the way across.
The beast did not wake.
Not when Tristan did it, and not when all the others followed after him either.
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