The Dew of Flesh

  Chapter 68

  Abass kicked the double doors in the center, where they met. They splintered and buckled, but held. He kicked again. Shouts rose from within. A third blow shattered the bar on the other side and the doors, now webbed with cracks, fell, more than swung, open.

  Stepping over the bodies of the eses who had died defending the entry, Abass pushed through the wrecked doors and into the sanctuary itself. Dew raged inside him; he had consumed three of the cubes, and the heat inside him was like an inferno. His blood, racing to match the speed of his heart, was a whirlwind that fanned the flames. The room was too bright, the sounds around him too loud. There was a reason, Abass had discovered, that dew was measured out into cubes. One was the most a man should have in him at a time. Two was dangerous. Three—three had remade the world around him. He did not know what would happen when the dew left him; his heart would probably stop for good.

  The sanctuary was a vast chamber with a vaulted roof. Sunlight streamed through the opening in the center of the ceiling, catching in the smoke from the two huge braziers, on either side of the altar, filled with coals and smoldering bodies. So many bodies. The stench was incredible—bile and blood, always sharper than normal with the dew in him, but also singed flesh and hair. The altar itself was rough stone, as though plucked from the heart of the mountain. Twice as tall as a man, four times as wide.

  Eses formed a half-circle facing the door. A good twenty of them, in rows. Those in the rear held bows and arrows; those in front had shortswords. With three cubes of dew in him, Abass could smell, as well as see, the sweat beading on the eses’ foreheads. He thought he could almost hear their pulse, unified in their shared terror. He shook his head; no, not their pulse. The drums, outside. It was hard to think straight with this much dew in him. He wanted only to kill.

  Arrows flew toward him. With the dew, Abass found it easy to duck and side-step the missiles. He caught two out of the air, one in each hand, and hurled them back, taking two eses in the throat, where the chain left them unprotected. The arrows ripped through the back of their necks, and gore spattered the men behind. Blood flew through the air in great gobs, black in the smoky light. It stung Abass’s nose like a thousand bees; he salivated, tasting the life and death that hung around him.

  Time moved so slowly. Some of the eses charged forward, shortswords ready, sunlight shattering on their chain shirts. Those with bows reloaded, drew back their arrows, fired. Abass stood still, letting the world wash around him, a river around a mountain. Steel fell toward him.

  He leaped into the air, the smoke of burning flesh swirling around him, a whirlwind of ashy death in the sanctuary of life. The blades were close, a hairsbreadth away as he rose into the air, and Abass kicked out, snapping steel and bone, propelling himself higher by crushing the men below him. One esis’s head came under his foot, and flesh and bone collapsed under Abass’s kick like rotted wood with soft, wet, splintering. Arrows, so slow in comparison that they hung like hummingbirds, their fletching quivering in time with Abass’s heart, filled the air around him. More than one arrow meant for Abass took an esis in the back as Abass flew into the air, propelled by the dew.

  Behind him, the eses with swords stumbled forward, their target suddenly gone. Men with broken swords and broken shoulders careened into their neighbors, and the esis with the crushed head splayed out his legs, tripping his companions as he fell twitching. Abass was beyond them, though; they were the dust of life, no more important than the flecks of charred flesh that swirled in the haze around him—without the dew, they were not men. They were prey. Bloodlust pounded behind Abass’s eyes, insistent, a connection between men that stripped away everything to lay bare the flesh of life, to kill or be killed.

  He darted toward the eses with bows, his speed stirring the air around him, moving faster than they could draw. One man with long hair the color of fire stared at Abass, eyes wide, face pale. Abass could almost taste his fear, feel the frantic pulse that mirrored his own—one the exhilaration of terror, the other of the kill. Abass knocked aside the fire-haired man’s bow and, before the fire-haired man could flinch, ripped out his throat. It was easy, with the dew in him. Flesh parted beneath his nails like Setin gauze. Blood, warm, sweeter than rengi or enderr e, sprinkled Abass’s face, drops of fire on his tongue against the oily coat of dew. The fire-haired man stared back at Abass, dead and not yet knowing it, legs buckling. Abass turned and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying across the room.

  Rage and bloodlust blossoming, whetted by the taste of death, Abass grabbed the closest eses, ignoring their choked squawks, and leapt into the air, carrying them easily. He felt bones snap under his left hand, and the esis he held there thrashed. Careless. He had killed the man without even meaning to. A waste.

  With the grace of triple dew, Abass landed on the rough, pitted top of the altar, and his two captives hit the stone with the crack of bones. He paid them little attention. The disi was not here; the tair would not let it go, especially not when there was still a harvest to perform. Abass had hoped, though. It would have been fitting to kill the eses with the tool they revered, with the weapon of a god. There was nothing to do about it, though.

  Pain burst through the chaos of the dew, hot and sharp enough to make Abass gasp. He looked down. The esis he held by his right hand had driven an arrow into his side, toward the back. A killing blow. The pain of it made Abass’s knees weaken, and he fell to the surface of the altar. The esis twisted the arrow, and Abass screamed, hands clenching in anguish. Darkness washed over him and receded. The dew still held him, still kept him moving, but Abass could feel life seeping out of him. He looked over. The esis gave a final twitch, then fell still; Abass had crushed his throat in the paroxysm of agony.

  Furious, heart pounding laboriously, and with the sound of the remaining eses drawing near to the altar, Abass tossed the two dead men that he held in his hands into the massive braziers. Fat flakes of ash rose to accompany the sudden sizzle of burning flesh. Abass moved his hands to the arrow. He trembled, and suddenly his heart seemed to beat too fast, as though struggling to keep up with the world that was rushing forward around him. The pain burned the back of his throat, behind his eyes, the tips of his fingers. The wooden shaft scraped the palm of his hand as he seized it and felt along it. Pulling it free would kill a man; it needed a cutter’s attention, and even then it would be touch and go.

  But with the dew in him—

  Darkness fluttered at the corners of his eyes, in time with the tide of dew. Abass tensed, trying to ignore the sounds of the eses climbing the altar, the shouts for help, the smoke that burned his longs, no longer sweet and rich.

  Drawing a deep breath, Abass ripped the arrow from his side with the strength of the dew.

  Darkness flooded over him, deep and thick as a sea of blood.