‘Let her go.’ Ilgrin swung a fist at the demon’s face. Refusing to risk snapping El-i-miir in half, Ilgrin stopped beating his wings, instead clinging to the back of the wounded silt, falling together with him and El-i-miir. ‘Let go!’ Ilgrin shouted, again punching the silt in the head. And suddenly he did.
‘Too dead,’ the silt choked out as he saw the ground rushing up at them. With those simple words the struggle was turned on Ilgrin. ‘Heal me,’ he begged. ‘Quickly. Heal me.’ The legion silt clung to him mercilessly and Ilgrin threw open his wings, which only served in slowing their decent. He still had one arm clasped around El-i-miir’s wrist, and only his feet and free hand to struggle against their attacker.
‘Teah!’ Ilgrin howled at a familiar site flying low above the rooftops. ‘Save her!’ he cried when the woman met his eyes. ‘Please,’ he whispered allowing El-i-miir to slide screaming from his grip. Without the additional burden, Ilgrin was able to retrieve his knife a second time to drive it into his attacker’s stomach. ‘Why don’t you just die? All of you!’ He shoved the dagger into the man’s torso again and again until the body fell away, spraying blue blood as it went.
Ilgrin glanced about in panic, but was soon relieved to see El-i-miir gliding safely toward the ground beneath Teah’s protective wings. He sighed and put a hand over his mouth as he headed toward the ground. The strange thing was that when he pulled it away it was covered in blood. Perhaps he’d been struck in the face and hadn’t noticed in the heat of battle.
*
Among the throngs of silts he was a mere speck of dust. If he’d ever hoped to reach such heights--a near impossibility considering the wind--his chances were further dashed by how crowded the sky was. Any time Seeol attempted to reach even a few strides into the air he was knocked out of the way by wings hundreds of times larger than his.
After fluttering down onto the hot roof of a small building, Seeol surveyed his surroundings. There was so much death around him. He knew he was simple. He was only an elf owl, but he wished he could understand why everyone always wanted to kill each other. In all his travels around the entire world, it was all he’d ever seen. When life became too beautiful, darkness soon returned. Perhaps it was him. Perhaps it was his darkness that’d brought all of this on their heads. No . . . it was just the way of things. Animals killed each other all the time, from the smallest beetle to the largest beast. Death existed as a means to arrive at who should be allowed to live.
Tilting his head at the sky, Seeol watched the silt masses squirming and writhing as they snatched men and women from the ground and killed them in increasingly creative ways. Beldin soldiers fought back, but proved to be an insufficient fend. A cannonball sailed through the air and carved a hole of destruction through the demon masses. Seeol shook his head in bewilderment. It was a shame they couldn’t all just be friends.
Seeol’s heart was saddened. Dark clouds rolled over. His heart ached in fear for his friends. Wolves howled in the distance. He felt . . . wet. Seeol shook his face but couldn’t shake the feeling. He put his beak against the thatch roof and rubbed it back and forth and examined a smear of bright red blood left behind. He couldn’t understand why he would be bleeding. Perhaps one of those stray silt wings had hit him a little harder than he’d realised.
*
Seteal watched El-i-miir and then Ilgrin disappear into the crowd. She watched Seeol flutter weakly after them and realised she was alone in the middle of the largest battle she’d ever seen.
‘Come on, baby.’ Seteal cupped Parrowun’s head in her hand and sprinted across the road. ‘We’ll go in here.’ She wriggled the handle on the first door they came to, but it was locked. ‘No, I guess we won’t.’
A large dog growled across the street. There was something wrong with it. It was far larger than Seteal had first realised and beneath its fur its muscles bulged to unnatural proportions.
‘Unnatural.’ Seteal choked on the word. A whisp had made the animal its victim. ‘Good dog,’ Seteal said nervously, putting a hand out in front of her and backing away. ‘Good dog,’ she said with a quivering voice. The mutant dog snarled and leapt toward her. ‘Good dog!’ Seteal screamed and turned to run.
Parrowun wriggled irritably and sniffled in preparation to cry. ‘Not now.’ Seteal gritted her teeth as she raced down an alley between two houses and across a small backyard. The dog barked menacingly as it came closer. Seteal leapt up the back steps of one of the houses, raced through an open door and slammed it shut behind her. Parrowun’s face was a red mass of tears. His chest rose and fell as he became increasingly upset. ‘We’re safe now,’ she shushed him. ‘I’ve got you Parrowun. Mommy’s got you. Mommy’s here.’
Parrowun’s mouth burst open, an inhuman scream tearing from his throat. The dog slammed against the door, scratching, barking and yelping. Seteal raced over to a small table and snatched up a dagger. Spinning on her heels, she faced the door and waited for the animal to break through. Parrowun screamed louder still and the scratching and banging ceased. Seteal moved to the door and opened it just a crack. The dog was dead in a puddle of blood.
‘Stop it, Parrowun,’ Seteal pleaded, checking her nose, grateful to discover that it was free of blood. ‘You want to feed?’ She moved Parrowun’s head toward her breast, but he refused to take.
‘Stop it!’ Seteal cried, rocking his tiny body. ‘Just stop it!’
She turned in a slow circle, her ears filled with her son’s piercing cries of distress. There was something wrong. Beyond Parrowun’s miserable wailing she could hear nothing: no clashing swords or battle cries . . . just nothing. Moving cautiously through the empty home to the front door, Seteal took the handle and turned it.
The house was situated at the centre of the city overlooking the square. The square was full of soldiers and silts, but they didn’t fight. Instead, they stumbled about coughing and choking. Seteal stepped out onto the landing and made her way over to the stairs to further investigate the peculiar scene before her. She raised her eyes in time to see the first of the air born silts tumbling to the earth, blue sprays of blood trailing behind them.
A nearby an’hadoan fell to his knees and vomited. Bright red chunks splashed across the pavement. He wiped a hand across his lips and stared at the mark on his sleeve as though he were unable to recognise what it was. Parrowun’s scream pierced the square as countless others fell, rolling and moaning in pain as blood trickled from nostrils, ears, eyes, and anywhere else from which it could possibly escape.
Seteal stumbled onto the square and watched as a bead of blood fell from the tip of her nose. She watched the red spot fall to displace the dust at her feet.
‘Parrowun,’ she choked out as silts rained down around her. ‘My Parrowun,’ Seteal sobbed. ‘Please. You’re killing them. You’re killing us all.’ The child’s scream intensified only to be interrupted occasionally by short gasps for air. ‘You’re killing Mommy.’
Seteal sat down, stars dancing across her vision. She felt blood trickling from her ears and her stomach became nauseous. She vomited up the red liquid as she’d very well expected she would. ‘Mommy loves you,’ she whispered before coughing and spraying blood across the dirt.
The world twisted sideways as Seteal’s head hit the pavement. She gasped, but felt little pain. A soft fluttering sound brought an old friend clumsily into view. Seeol hit the ground and stumbled several steps, blood having matted his facial feathers.
‘No.’ Seteal felt a tear trickle from her eye. ‘Not Seeol.’ She reached out a hand and touched a finger to the side of his face.
‘Is okay,’ he croaked. His legs gave out, forcing him to rest on his keel bone. The little bird stared into Seteal’s eyes as his began to close and she sobbed uncontrollably. The wind screamed in blind fury as the Ways boiled in their tormented desire to protect him, just as they always had. Seeol’s features warped and for fractions of a second Seteal saw his other self, the beastly presence moaning on the edge of reality. But Parrowun was
too strong. The air surrounding the bird warped and curved forward and backward and swirled about in fury as his feathers twitched and squirmed under the pressure. Those unfortunate enough to be close to him started screaming in their miseries, amplified a thousand times beyond that which Parrowun could’ve accomplished on his own. Of course, Seteal knew the answer. She’d known it all along.
‘It’s not okay,’ Seteal panted.
‘Is okay,’ Seeol repeated, his voice almost inaudible.
‘You can’t ask this of me,’ Seteal sobbed, her eyes filling with red tears. ‘It’s too much.’
‘I know.’ Seeol’s face drifted toward the dirt. ‘Too mush.’ His claws turned inward, bunching together like a clenching fist.
Seteal felt for Ways, but there was nothing for her to find. ‘Must I do it myself?’ She sobbed bitterly. ‘Must it be so cruel?’ Numb fingers slid away from Seeol’s face and traced their way along the pavement. They touched soft warm flesh. Cold fingers slid along Parrowun’s tiny legs as Seteal found her way to his screaming face. Blank eyes stared at Seteal from a square where countless lives had been lost.
‘Mommy loves you,’ Seteal said through gritted teeth, wrapping her hand around Parrowun’s throat. ‘I will always love you!’ she cried, in an attempt to drown out the sound of Parrowun’s wheezing. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Seteal sobbed, her body shaking as she tightened her grip around the baby’s neck. She felt his pulse diminishing and his struggling limbs coming to rest. By the time he’d stopped wriggling and his pulse had faded to nothing, Seteal found that she too was quite unable to move. She couldn’t think. She’d done the unthinkable. She couldn’t breathe. She was a monster.
‘Sss,’ Seeol hissed weakly. ‘Seteal?’ But she couldn’t respond. No words abandoned her lips: but rather the wailing of bitter mourning. ‘It’s done,’ Seeol croaked. ‘Is so sorry.’
Seteal opened her eyes to find the elf owl standing shakily a handswidth from her nose. Through a blur of tears she saw tired figures dragging themselves to their feet, many even weakly resuming their senseless battle. Those silts who hadn’t been killed while they were down, reascended to swoop clumsily over Beldin.
‘I can’t look at him,’ Seteal choked, scarcely able to tolerate the feel of his limp body in her arms. ‘Oh . . . I cannot have done this! I cannot have done this.’
‘Go into the house,’ Seeol said.
‘Yes,’ Seteal sobbed, climbing to her feet and stumbling back up the stairs she’d descended earlier. ‘He can rest in here for a little while.’
Moving through the house, Seteal found that the only parts of her body not completely numb were the parts in contact with him. She still cradled his head. She didn’t want to knock it. Maker forbid she disturb him. He might wake up and start crying. But he wouldn’t wake up. Seteal pulled back the covers of a child’s bed. It might’ve been his, had he been able to get a little older. Without looking she put his body into the sheets and pulled up the cover.
‘Mommy loves you,’ Seteal sobbed, sitting on the side of the bed. She kept her eyes locked on the white painted wall before her. ‘I’ll never forget you.’
‘Love him? You won’t even look at him.’ Master Fasil put a gnarled old hand on her shoulder. ‘I loved our son. You . . . you’re a murderer.’
‘No,’ Seteal recoiled. ‘I loved him. I did!’
Master Fasil vanished and Seteal forced herself to look at her son. ‘Oh,’ she gasped. His face was without colour, his eyelids half shut. There was a great deal of redness around his neck, but Seteal hid that by pulling up the blankets to his chin. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to grow up, Parrowun,’ she said breathily, releasing a fresh batch of tears as his name rolled off her tongue. ‘You truly will be wept for. There won’t be a tearless day. I love you, my darling son.’
She kissed his forehead, making believe that it was still warm. ‘I loved you.’
Revelation 2
20. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman, to teach and to seduce mortal men to commit fornication.
21. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not.
22. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation.
23. And I will kill her child with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He that searcheth the reins and hearts, and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
Revelation 16
3. And the whisp poured out his darkness upon the city: and it became as the blood of dead men, intending that every living soul died.
4. And the streets became as rivers and fountains of blood.
Scriptures of the Holy Tome
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE DISQUIET SPIRIT
Seteal stumbled through the front door and down the steps. She pressed the dagger’s blade against her stomach, but couldn’t find the strength to end her own life. She threw back her head and screamed, hating her mother for having given birth to her: a monster capable of taking her own child’s life. For the barest moment, she closed her eyes, resting to the sounds of reignited warfare. When she opened them something caught her attention.
The old man swung his sword, cracking it against a swooping demon skull. He spun in a semicircle, taking out another silt with the precision of an expert swordsman. He made small gestures as he manipulated the Ways--although seemingly with some difficulty--to do his bidding. He was War Elder Far-a-mael.
Seteal moved toward the man as he engaged yet another demon in combat. As their proximity increased, she noticed Far-a-mael’s decay had worsened since the last time she’d seen him. He was struggling in the use of his left arm. Parts of his skull were revealed through gaping sores on the back of his head where insects and maggots had made a home for themselves. His flesh gave off an odour that must’ve been almost unbearable to those foolish enough to meet him in battle. With a victorious cry, Far-a-mael outwitted his foe and thrust his sword through the silt’s chest. Eyes widening with pain and finality, the demon fell to the road in death.
Far-a-mael stood alone and unhindered. Seteal reached him and placed a hand on his bony shoulder.
‘Seteal?’ The old man wheezed, turning slowly to face her. With a sharp thrust of her hand, Seteal plunged the dagger into the flesh beneath his ribcage. With a furious shout, she tore it free and again plunged it into his chest. Far-a-mael stumbled backward, his face revealing naught but sorrow. But at the last moment, his features changed, revealing an expression unrecognisable to Seteal until her grandfather whispered his final words.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ he said with his final exhaled breath. Far-a-mael maintained eye contact until he landed in the dust at her feet.
The air surrounding Seteal boiled as the anchor that’d chained her so long vanished into the nonexistence from whence it’d come. Insane laughter tore free of her chest as she threw back her head and stared into the darkening sky. Rain flooded down in torrents. Thunder rumbled endlessly and lightning struck the distant mountains. Denying herself the time it’d take to lay down, Seteal tore away from the desecrated flesh that’d imprisoned her.
It was someone else’s body that fell. It was the body that’d killed her son. He was the son who lay in a stranger’s bed, his little body haunting her as all the warmth of life abandoned him. That awful woman’s body crumbled to the roadside, discarded: just another corpse on the battlefield.
Seteal bathed in the Ways, bending them and coiling thick bands around herself. She murmured on the winds of time and drank in the freedom of eternity. She glimpsed the other world and the silts inhabiting Hae’Evun before turning to ache at the decaying infant body lying in a stranger’s bed. Fleeing from Parrowun, Seteal turned her attention to Beldin. Her presence entered the crowded city and light itself twisted and warped wherever her spirit wandered. Tendrils of Elglair power slithered around her and through her.
A deformed animal snarled, preparing
to take a bite from the body breathing slowly by the road. Seteal almost allowed it, but when she saw her own pale face she realised that in some way she’d grown accustomed to the human a very long time ago. And there was a man--her father--who wished for nothing more than to see his daughter one last time. Seteal pulled on the winds and was satisfied to see the animal leap away in fright as the body drifted into the air.
The uninhabited body drifted into an upright position. She reached out and moved muscles to open her eyes. A portion of her spirit burrowing back into the body, forcing her head aloft and her arms to spread out to either side. Unable to master perfect control over the Ways, Seteal soon found that all sorts of objects were answering her call. Chunks of buildings that’d been blown apart in battle made their way into the sky along with corpses and shards of glass. Countless whisps caught her familiar scent and circled Seteal like hungry dogs.
A thousand faces turned to the sky where a single human drifted higher and higher. At first the silts dove at her, but they were taken by surprise when they were met with burning hot energy and plummeted to their deaths. Soon they would know . . . soon.
*
Ilgrin picked himself up, wiping the blood from his face as he went. ‘El-i-miir?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, her eyes opening.
‘Oh, thank Maker,’ he murmured, before turning to find Teah already on her feet.
‘I’m fine, too,’ she hissed bitterly. ‘Take care of your lover.’
‘What happened?’ Ilgrin shook his head disbelievingly as those surrounding them clambered to their feet. ‘Fes’s sickness?’
‘I don’t think it was illness that did this,’ El-i-miir said before putting a hand to her stomach. ‘Oh!’
‘What is it?’ Ilgrin put an arm around her for support.
‘It’s Seteal,’ El-i-miir replied. ‘She’s free.’
‘Free?’
‘Yes. Far-a-mael anchored her and now it’s gone and . . . so is he.’