Hinterland Read online

  A hatch behind the wood fin pushed open and was thrown back by an arm scarred by branded sigils. The owner of those brands climbed out next and balanced on the wet back of the vessel. Tylar stepped forward, recognizing his old friend. But it seemed Rogger’s time abroad had wrought ill changes in him. His scraggled red-gray beard framed a face gone gaunt. Bony cheekbones poked from beneath green eyes, his lips were cracked and split, and his skin shone with a yellowish tinge. Tylar prayed this last was just the reflected sheen of the flickering torchlight.

  Rogger shivered and huffed into the night. “Curse me black, it’s cold enough to freeze my arse cheeks together.”

  Tylar lifted an arm in welcome.

  But Rogger ignored him and bent back to the open hatch and called below. “Oy, careful with that, you overgrown dogfish.”

  Another figure, scowling sourly, half-climbed up through the hatch and hauled up a roughspun satchel. He passed it to Rogger, who swung it over a shoulder.

  “Much obliged, Kreel,” the thief said.

  At the hatch, Tylar recognized the leader of Fyla’s elite Hunters. There was no mistaking his fishbelly pallor, his smooth skin, and the throat lined by gill flaps. Like all the denizens of Tangle Reef, Kreel had been forged in his mother’s womb by an alchemy of Graces. Kreel’s presence concerned Tylar. What was so important that the god Fyla would send her personal bodyguard to deliver Rogger safely here?

  Kreel’s gaze settled on Tylar. The man’s eyes, usually stoic and cold, flashed with a mix of worry and relief, as if glad to be rid of Rogger…and whatever burden his presence entailed.

  Without even a nod, Kreel dropped away and hauled the hatch closed after him. Rogger barely had time to leap to the dock before the watercraft sank under him. The tall fin slipped back beneath the dark waters.

  On the dock, Rogger joined them, looking rangier than ever. He bowed deeply toward Delia and took her hand, kissing it with exaggerated pomp. “Ah, to allow my unworthy lips to grace the knuckles of the regent’s Hand of blood.”

  Delia shook her head as he rose, but she still hugged him warmly. “I missed you,” she said in his ear.

  “Truly?” He feigned shock. “And I thought I had experienced all manner of miracles during my pilgrimage. But this is indeed the most wondrous of all.”

  Tylar gripped him next, by the hand, then in a full embrace. Tylar was surprised by how glad he was to have the man at his side again. It was as if a missing limb, long gone, had returned. But Tylar also noted how wasted of frame his friend had become; the embrace was like hugging a stack of bones. Concerned, Tylar broke the contact.

  Rogger quietly shook his head, silencing the question on Tylar’s lips.

  Tylar read something behind the usual amused warmth, something dark with dread.

  “We need a place to speak in private,” Rogger said, shedding his easy banter and glancing warily around him.

  “We are far from the castillion,” Tylar said. “It will take us the better part of a bell to return.”

  “I’d as soon unload what I must now.” Rogger nodded toward an old shipwright’s shop turned crow loft, windowless, with windblown refuse for a door.

  Rogger strode off down the dock toward it, drawing Tylar after him. He kicked his way inside, scattering a few nesting rats. Tylar collected a torch from one of the pikemen and waved Kyllan and Eylan to stand guard.

  Delia made to follow them, but Rogger held up a hand. “Only Tylar for now,” he said apologetically.

  Frowning, Tylar climbed into the dilapidated shop after the thief. Rogger marched them past the front entry room, through a narrow hall, and into the wright’s workspace. It was empty and stripped, except for the broken-keeled frame of some abandoned project. Wings flapped up in the open rafters. The hay roof had long rotted away, leaving only the old ribbed joists. Between the beams, a few stars glinted down at them.

  Tylar propped his torch between two boards. “What’s this all about, Rogger? Why all the secrecy?”

  Rogger turned and shrugged off his satchel. Judging by the sag in the cloth, only one object weighted down the bag. Rogger hefted it in his palm and deftly fingered the satchel’s knot. Once it was undone, he shook the satchel, shedding the cloth and revealing the content within.

  Tylar caught the whiff of black bile.

  Rogger noted the crinkle of his nose. “Needed to shield it with bloodnuller shite,” the former thief said, confirming Tylar’s thought.

  All the various humours of a god bore special Graces, but black bile, the excremental humour of a god, nullified any blessing. Why such a ward here? Tylar also noted how Rogger was careful never to allow what he bore to touch his bare skin.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Tylar finally asked, brows pinched as he examined the strange talisman, the yellowed skull of some beast.

  Empty bony sockets stared back at him.

  The skull was missing its lower jaw and most of its teeth—except for two prominent fangs, glinting silver. It looked like some beast, except that the brow rose too high.

  Tylar’s lips settled into a sneer of distaste.

  This was no animal’s skull.

  Tylar met Rogger’s eyes over the crown of the skull. “Is it an ilk-beast?” he asked.

  Though the Battle of Myrrwood was a year old, city patrols still rooted out the occasional ilk-beast. The poor creatures had once been men, but had been forged by Black Graces into daemons.

  “Aye,” Rogger said, “you are right to recognize the taint of Dark Graces, of a form twisted and corrupted.”

  Tylar read the unspoken behind Rogger’s words. “But what?”

  Rogger bent down to the ground and gathered a pinch of windblown dirt from the floor. Rising with a stifled groan, he sifted the dirt over the crown of the skull. Where the particles touched bone, tiny spats of fire erupted. Rogger lifted the skull and blew upon it, dusting off the dirt and thus dousing the flames.

  Tylar’s eyes widened at the demonstration. The very soil of this land burned the bone. The implication iced through Tylar’s veins. Chrismferry was a settled land, imbued with the blood of the god Chrism. And like all other god-realms, its soil was a bane against the trespass of all other gods.

  “It was no man that was corrupted here,” Tylar mumbled, watching the last of the flames waft away.

  Rogger nodded, confirming his worst fear. “It’s the skull of a god.”

  Tylar fed a broken chair leg to the crackling fire that now burned in the center of the shipwright’s workshop. Rogger had returned the skull to his satchel and carried it over his shoulder, keeping it from touching the ground. Even though the skull was coated in black bile, they dared not let it come in contact with the land here.

  To the side, Delia warmed her fingers over the fire’s flames. At Tylar’s bidding, she had joined them in the shop. The three gathered around the fire. The others kept guard out in the streets.

  Delia stared at Rogger’s shouldered satchel. “The skull must have come from one of the rogue gods out in the hinterlands,” she said.

  Rogger nodded. “Aye, my thought, too. With Myrillia as tensed as a maiden on her wedding night, I’d have heard if any of our illustrious settled gods had gone missing. But at last count, all of the gods were secure in their castillions.”

  “But secure for how long?” Tylar asked.

  Better than anyone, he knew Myrillia was no longer safe—not for man, nor for god. Tylar fingered the buttons over his chest. Beneath the wool and linen, he bore a black handprint, the dying mark of Meeryn, goddess of the Summering Isles. He had gone to the god’s succor as she lay dying, the first to fall in this new War of the Gods. In her last breath, Meeryn had imbued Tylar with her Grace, healing his scarred body while granting him a sliver of herself, that sundered dark shadow that lived in the depths of naether, her undergod.

  As if aware of his attention, Tylar could almost feel the smoky daemon shift inside him, trapped behind his healed ribs, waiting for a break in his bones to free it ag
ain. Tylar had refused its release since the Battle of Myrrwood. Still, its presence served a purpose. As long as Tylar bore Meeryn’s naethryn, his humours flowed like those of a god, rich in Graces.

  Delia noted Tylar’s fingers at his chest. He forced his arm down. Too often, she had urged him to explore the bond with the naethryn inside him. He was loath to do so. He would rather be rid of it.

  Still, it was such a gift that allowed him to wield the sword at his belt.

  His hand settled upon its gold pommel, but he found little comfort there. Rivenscryr. The infamous Godsword.

  Four millennia ago, the blade had ended the first War of the Gods, sundering their lost kingdom and raining the gods down upon Myrillia. Their arrival here heralded three centuries of madness and destruction until the god Chrism chose this first god-realm and imbued the land with his Graces, sharing his powers to bring order out of chaos. More gods followed, carving out various god-realms, forever binding gods to their individual lands. Beyond these settled territories lay only the hinterlands, spaces wild and ungoverned, where rogue gods still roamed, unsettled and untamed.

  But the gods had not come whole to this world. As the Godsword had sundered their former home, the blade had done the same to the gods themselves, splitting them into three. One part was driven down into the darkness below all substance, into the naether, where they lived as undergods, shadows of those above, while another part sailed high, vanishing into the aether, never to be seen again, unknowable and aloof. And between them both strode the gods of Myrillia, beings of undying flesh and ripe with powerful Graces.

  Now, after four millennia, this balance among the gods was threatened. Among the shadowy naethryn, a secretive Cabal plotted and lusted for Myrillia, reigniting the War of the Gods. Was the Cabal responsible for the corruption of this rogue god? If so, why?

  Tylar turned his attention from the flames to Rogger and the strange skull. “Where did you find such a cursed talisman?”

  “Down south. In the Eighth Land.”

  “What were you doing in the hinterland down there?” Delia asked.

  Rogger shook his head. “I didn’t go into any blasted hinterland. I know better than to traipse those wild lands alone. No, I found the skull in Saysh Mal, the cloud forest of the Huntress, the latest stop on my pilgrimage.”

  He hiked his leggings out of his boot to reveal the sigil of that god freshly burnt into his flesh, representing his completion of that part of his journey.

  Rogger tucked his leggings back in with a sour set to his lips. “Something is not right about that realm.”

  “How so?” Tylar asked.

  “Can’t exactly focus on anything you can grab. Just something off-kilter. A ragged edge. A loose thread waiting for a hand to pull it. But I’ll tell you what—I’m skaggin’ glad to be rid of that place.”

  “Doesn’t that god-realm, Saysh Mal, border one of the largest hinterlands in all Myrillia?” Delia asked.

  “Aye,” Rogger agreed. “And maybe that’s it. Like something seeped out from there and tainted the blessed land.”

  Tylar nodded to the satchel. “How did you come upon the skull there?”

  “Now that’s a story best told over a flagon of your best—”

  A flapping of wings silenced him.

  All eyes glanced upward. The noise was too loud—too leathery—for any crow or raven. Something dark swept low over the bare joists, blotting out the stars, then away again.

  A cry rose from the street.

  Tylar’s sword slid from his sheath as he turned, rising unbidden to hand with a ring of silver. The gold hilt warmed with a feverish welcome, seeming to clasp his fingers with as much certainty as his own will. The length of blade trapped the starlight into a single shaft of brilliance.

  More shouts from the streets.

  Kyllan’s voice bellowed. “Hold your ground!”

  “Stay here,” Tylar said and headed for the front of the shop.

  Rogger ignored him and followed, drawing Delia with him. “If there was a roof up there, maybe, but as we’re bare-arsed to the sky and something up there has wings, I’ll stick with the man with the big sword.”

  Tylar led the pair into the front hall. “There’s a roof here. Keep with Delia. You still have your knives?”

  As answer, Rogger parted his outer heavy cloak, revealing the crossed bandoliers weighted with daggers.

  “Keep hidden,” Tylar said and headed away.

  Chaos greeted Tylar as he reached the shipwright’s broken door.

  He heard Kyllan shout from around the corner, out of sight. A pikeman raced into view, panic-footed, weapon clutched to his chest. His eyes were on the nearby canal as he fled.

  A mistake.

  From the sky, a spindly creature dropped out of the air, appearing half spider, half bat. Its limbs were skeletal, stretched as long as the creature was tall, webbed between forearm and back. Its body was hairless. Head misshapen, face split in the middle as it screeched, revealing a gnash of shredding teeth.

  It fell upon the man before he could bring his weapon to bear, wrapping him in a cocoon of leathery wings, tearing into his throat.

  A single scream, then the creature ripped away just as quickly. Its talons dug into the guard’s belly and pushed off again, wings snapped wide. Trailing gore, it climbed again into the dark sky and twisted away beyond a roofline.

  The pikeman tumbled to the stone, bowels roiling out his rent belly, blood still pumping from his ruined throat.

  Tylar edged out the door, back to the wall. It was too late to help the man. He watched the skies. The creature had moved with unnatural speed. Tylar had noted the swirl of refuse as the beast lit back into the sky. As if the winds themselves aided its escape.

  Tylar had also noted one other detail, revealed as the wings snapped wide: a pair of breasts. The bosom of a woman—or rather, she was a woman, one ilked into a beast.

  Scowling, Tylar reached the corner and checked past the edge.

  Kyllan and a knot of pikemen had something trapped amongst them. It thrashed and screamed as spears plunged repeatedly into it. Yet it refused to die. One man was knocked off his feet, his left leg severed at the knee by a scything blow.

  “Don’t let it reach the waters!” Kyllan shouted.

  The creature bulled through the break in the circling men.

  Kyllan grabbed the fallen man’s spear and tossed it with all his strength. The pike pierced clean through the creature’s shoulder and jammed into the first plank of the dock, pinning it in place.

  Tylar hurried forward. The beast appeared more oil than form, amorphous of shape, pale as milk, streaming with ripples of ink. There was something disturbingly familiar about the pattern.

  The creature yowled with a final tug. Its flesh flowed around the impaled pike, slowly freeing itself.

  Kyllan led his remaining pikemen to renew the assault.

  The molten beast’s face swung toward its pursuers. Thick-lipped, toadish, it growled and spat, etching stone with its slobber. Its snarl revealed a jagged shoal of black teeth as it reared up.

  “Now!” Kyllan yelled.

  A torch rose among his men and set to blaze a single pike, dripping with tar. Kyllan accepted the fiery weapon by its haft.

  Tylar reached his side. “Hold your—”

  Too late.

  Kyllan twisted at the waist, and drove the pike’s flaming tip through the beast’s belly.

  Where it touched, skin sizzled and blackened. The beast yowled, neck stretched back. A coiling curl of flame flicked from its lips. Still, it tried to escape its death, stumbling toward the icy canal.

  Kyllan kept hold of the pike’s butt end. Pinned by the fiery spear, the creature could not reach the waters. Flames spread, more skin blackened, as if some tinder had been ignited deep within the ilk-beast. With one last scream, it writhed, then collapsed, still smoking, to the planks of the dock.

  Death seemed to add solidity to its watery form, as if whatever Grace had imbu
ed its fluidity evaporated with the smoke, leaving only twisted flesh.

  Tylar joined Kyllan. “There are more beasts about,” he warned the sergeant. “One took wing a moment ago. Keep your pikes high.”

  Kyllan searched the dark skies. “Aye, another one lies over here. It was dispatched quick enough.”

  The sergeant led Tylar to a tumbled pile of boulders. Once closer, Tylar discerned that stone was actually flesh, a rocky monstrosity of calcified plates and pebbled skin.

  “A skilled thrust by your Wyr-mistress,” Kyllan said, nodding to Eylan, who stood off a step, sword in hand. “Nicked through a weak spot and pierced something vital. But before we could appreciate her skill, we were attacked from behind, from the canal. That skaggin’ beast was harder to kill. Figured what steel couldn’t kill, fire might.”

  Tylar nodded. But something still nagged him. He glanced back to the smoldering ruin of the other ilk-beast. Something…

  Kyllan continued, “We must have stumbled on a nest of ilk-beasts roosting here in the Blight. Left over from the last battle. We’d best gather everyone and get clear.”

  The pikemen closed around them, wary, spears held at the ready.

  “I’ll send a full squad in the morning to flush out this skaggin’ place.”

  Tylar had stopped listening. He drew closer to the smoking body of the other beast. He remembered shouting out against the slaying of the creature. It had been reflexive. What had he sensed?

  He returned again to the dock. He studied the pale flesh. Something familiar about—then it struck him.

  Gods above…no…

  He knelt to the planks and reached out.

  “Ser,” Kyllan warned him. “Best to be away from there.”

  Ignoring him, Tylar gripped the misshapen jaw and turned the head. He searched the throat, running a gloved finger across the flesh. Flaps of tissue fluttered under his touch, revealing the pink beneath.

  Gill flaps.

  Tylar stared into the dead eyes, knowing who lay before him.

  “Kreel…”