The Skein of Lament (24 page)

‘What
now
?’ Nomoru cried.

Kaiku ignored her, turning her face to the blank mist and the demons beyond which were approaching with their languid, mincing gait. Her irises darkened to blood-red, and a wind stirred her hair and ruffled her clothes, momentarily blowing back the gloomy vapour.

‘I will not run,’ she said, heady with a sudden recklessness. ‘We have to stand.’

Her
kana
burst out from her, a million fibrous tendrils winding away into the golden diorama of the Weave, invisible to the eyes of her companions. The barrage smashed into the nearest of the ruku-shai, and Kaiku’s consciousness went with it. It was like being plunged into freezing, foetid tar. For a few fractions of a second – though in the world of the Weave they seemed like minutes – she was suffocating, her senses encased in the cloying foulness of the demon, flailing in panic at the unfamiliar brutality of the sensation; and then her instincts took over, and she found her bearings and oriented herself. The demon had been as confused and unprepared for the attack as Kaiku was, but the advantage was lost now, and they tackled each other on equal footing.

Nothing in the Sisters’ training could have prepared her for this. Nothing in her carefully orchestrated sparring had come close to the frantic sensation of meeting another being in combat within the Weave. Some part of her had thought that she could simply rip the demon apart, tear its fibres in a blast of flame as she had done to several other unfortunates that had crossed her path in the days after her power awakened; but demons and spirits were not so easily despatched.

They met in a scrabbling mesh of threads, bursting apart and arcing in on each other again like a ball of serpents chasing one another’s tails. The demon fought to track the threads back to her body, where it could begin to do her damage; she strove to foil it while simultaneously attempting the same thing. Suddenly, she was everywhere, her mind fractured and following a thousand different tiny conflicts, here knotting a strand to block the oncoming blackness that slipped along it, there skipping between fibres and probing weaknesses in the demon’s defences. She used tricks Cailin had taught her, finding to her surprise that they came to her as if she had known them all her life. She broke and fused threads to form loops which turned the ruku-shai’s advance back on itself; she created stuttered tears in the fabric of their battleground which her enemy was forced to work around while she sent darts of
kana
to harry at its inner defences.

She feinted and probed, now drawing all her threads into a bundle, now scattering them and engaging the demon on many fronts at once. With each contact she felt the hot, dark reek of her enemy, the frightening singularity of its hatred. Again and again she was forced to retreat to sew up a gap that the ruku-shai had opened, to corral its quick advances before it could get to her and touch her with the awful energy that composed it. She shrank before it, rallied and drove it back, then was driven back in turn by its sheer presence. It used maneouvres unlike anything that the Sisters had schooled her in, patterns of demon logic that she could never have thought of.

And yet, they were evenly matched. Their struggle swayed one way and another, but essentially they were at a stalemate. And gradually, Kaiku became accustomed to the conflict. Her movements became a little more assured. She felt less like she was floundering, and more in control. If the demon had thrown all its strength at her in the beginning, she might have been defeated; but she was learning its ways now, for its methods were few and often repeated. She found with a fierce delight that she could spot the demon’s tricks and prevent them. The ruku-shai’s inroads into her defences became less frequent. She realised that, untested as she was, she was quicker and more agile on the strings of the Weave than the creature she faced, and only her inexperience had allowed it to hold her back thus far.

She began to think she could win.

She gathered the threads under her control into a tight ribbon and went spiralling skyward, dragging her enemy with her like the tail of a comet. She took the demon dizzyingly high and fast, keeping it snared with hooks and loops, and it was bewildered by this strange offensive and slow to react. Dogging it with swift attacks, she drew its attention far from the core of its consciousness; then, nimbly, she cut it loose and plunged, skipping onto different threads and racing back towards the demon’s body, circumventing the battle front entirely. The ruku-shai, realising that it had been lured away from the place it was meant to be defending, followed as rapidly as it could. But Kaiku used all her speed now, and her enemy was not quick enough. She crashed up against its inner defences like a tidal wave, utilising the full force of her
kana
, and they crumbled. Then she was in, racing through the fibres of the ruku-shai’s physical body, scorching through its muscles and veins, suffusing herself into every part of its alien physiology.

There was no more time for subtlety. She simply planted herself inside it, and tore apart the black knot of its being.

The demon emitted an inhuman clattering from its throat as it ruptured from the inside. A cloud of fire belched from its mouth, its limbs and belly distended, and then it exploded into flaming chunks of sinew and cartilage. Kaiku felt the rage and pain of its demise come washing over her as she withdrew her
kana
, an aftershock across the Weave that stunned her with its force. She snapped back into reality, her
kana
retreating into the depths of her body again, recoiling from the backlash of the demon’s ending.

She blinked, and suddenly she was no longer seeing the Weave but the grey mist, and her companions staring at the muted bloom of flame that had suddenly lightened it on one side. Perhaps a second had passed for them, if that; but Kaiku felt as if she had fought a war singlehanded.

Her momentary elation at being the winner of that war disappeared as she heard the rhythmic gallop of the approaching demons. She had beaten one, but its companions were enraged, and they were no longer content to wait on their prey. Their rattling took on a harsher pitch that hurt the ear. The dank curtains of vapour coalesced into two monstrous shadows. She did not have time to gather her
kana
again before the ruku-shai were upon them.

They burst from the gloomy haze, their six legs propelling them in a strange double-jointed run. They were seven feet high from their wickedly hoofed toes to the knobbed ridge of their spines, and over twelve feet in length, a drab green-grey in colour. Their torsos were a mass of angles, plates of bony armour covering their sides and back. It grew in sharp bumps and spikes like a coat of thorns, smeared with rank mud and trailing straggly bits of marshweed. Their heads were similarly plated around their sunken yellow eyes and forehead, and when they opened their jaws a cadaverous film of skin stretched across the inner sides of their mouth.

They smashed into the group, catching them off-guard with their unexpected speed. Kaiku threw herself aside as one of them thundered past her, lashing its tail in a blur at her head. She fell awkwardly, tripping on a clump of long grass and going down full-length into a vile slick of sucking mud. Her attacker pulled up short, rearing on its back four legs, and drew its front ones up like a praying mantis, spearing her with a deadly regard. Then a rifle sounded, and the ball sparked off the armour on its cheek. The demon recoiled, and Kaiku felt Yugi’s arm on her, pulling her back to her feet.

She found her balance just in time to catch sight of the other ruku-shai over Yugi’s shoulder. It had also reared in a mantis position, and as Kaiku watched in horror it jabbed a blow at Tsata with its hoofed foreleg, faster than the eye could follow, sending the Tkiurathi reeling back in a spray of blood to collapse against a marshy hillock. An instant later, it came for them.

‘Yugi! Behind us!’ she cried, but she was too late. The demon’s cord-like tail whipped Yugi across the ribs as he turned to respond to her warning. He sighed and fell forward onto Kaiku, his muscles going slack all at once. She caught him automatically; then she heard another rifle shot, and the angry, clattering snarl of a demon. She threw Yugi’s limp weight down, registering momentarily that the demon who had stung him was now flailing in agony at a wound in its neck where Nomoru’s rifle had pierced its armour.

But the ruku-shai who had first attacked them was looming over her now, its forelegs held before it and its mouth open, crooked and broken fangs joined by strings of yellow saliva as they stretched apart. A sinister rattle came from deep in its throat.

She had only an instant to act, but it was enough. With an effort of desperate will, she marshalled her
kana
from within, and throwing out her hand at the demon she projected herself into a furious attack. The Weave erupted into life around her as she narrowed her energies into a tight focus, driving into the demon’s defences like a needle through stitchwork, leaving nothing back to protect herself. The ruku-shai was not quick enough to mount an effective counter, overcome by the suicidal audacity of the maneouvre, and Kaiku lanced into its core in the space of an eyeblink and ripped it apart.

The force of the explosion scorched her muddied face as the demon was destroyed. Somewhere behind her, Nomoru was swearing, foul curse words in a gutter dialect thrown at the last demon as she fired again and again, repriming between each ball as she pumped shot after shot into the creature. Ignoring Yugi, Kaiku turned from the flaming remains of her victim and stumbled to the scout’s aid.

Nomoru was standing over the prone form of Tsata on the hillock, holding the ruku-shai at bay. Each time she hit it, the creature writhed in pain as the iron in the rifle ball burned its flesh; but each time it came for her again, and Nomoru’s ammunition could not last forever.

Kaiku cried out in challenge. She was wading through the marsh towards it, her irises a deep red and her expression grim. The sight of her approach robbed the demon of the last of its spirit, and with a final rattle it plunged away into the mist.

Nomoru squeezed the trigger for a parting shot, and her rifle puffed uselessly. Her ignition powder had burned up. She glanced at Kaiku with a flat expression, revealing nothing; then she crouched down next to Tsata, and rolled him over.

‘Get the other one,’ she said to Kaiku, not looking up.

Kaiku did as she was told. The air was becoming less oppressive, the evil departing like an exhaled breath, the mist thinning around them. She felt numb. The demons were gone, but she was racked with tiredness, and the sudden departure of adrenaline from her system left her trembling.

Yugi lay sprawled face-down, his shirt torn open where the tail of the ruku-shai had hit him. Blood welled through from beneath. Kaiku knelt down by his side, her heart sinking. She pulled off his pack, then turned him over and shook him. When that produced no response, she shook him again, his head lolling back and forth as she did so.

Puzzlement turned to alarm. He had not been hit hard. What was wrong with him? She had no training in herbcraft or healing; she did not know what to do. The cushioning folds of exhaustion were not enough to suppress the new horror rising up inside her. Yugi was her friend. Why was he not waking up?

Omecha, silent harvester, have you not taken enough from me already?
she prayed bitterly.
Let him live!

‘Poison,’ said a voice by her shoulder, and she looked round to see Tsata crouching by her. His face was bloodied with a deep gash, and his right eye was swollen shut. When he talked, his bruised lips made a smacking noise.

‘Poison?’ Kaiku repeated.

‘Demon poison,’ Nomoru said, from where she stood over them. ‘The ruku-shai have barbs in their tails.’

Kaiku remained staring at the face of the fallen man, which was turning steadily a deep shade of purple as they watched.

‘Can you help him?’ Kaiku said, her voice small.

Tsata put his fingers to Yugi’s throat, feeling for a pulse. Kaiku did not know to do that. It was not part of a high-born girl’s education. ‘He is dying,’ Tsata said. ‘It is too late to remove the poison.’

The mist had almost sunk back to the ground now, and in some peripheral part of her mind Kaiku realised that they were three-quarters of the way through the marsh. The cultists on the other side were gone.

‘You get it out,’ said Nomoru. It took Kaiku a moment to realise who she was addressing.

‘I do not know how,’ she whispered. She did not trust the power inside her enough. Suddenly she felt a crushing regret for all those years she had spurned Cailin’s advice to study, to learn to master her
kana
. Wielding it as a weapon was one thing, but to use it to heal was a different matter entirely. She had almost killed Asara with it before, and later she had almost killed Lucia, all because of her lack of control. She would not have Yugi’s death on her hands, would not be responsible for him.

‘You’re an apprentice,’ Nomoru persisted. ‘An apprentice of the Red Order.’

‘I do not know
how
!’ Kaiku repeated helplessly.

Tsata grabbed her collar and pulled her towards him, glaring at her with his good eye.

‘
Try!
’

Kaiku tried.

She threw herself into Yugi before her fear could overwhelm her again, placing her hands on his chest and squeezing her eyes shut. The veined film of her eyelids did nothing to block the Weave-sight as the world turned golden again. She plunged into the rushing fibres of his body, knitting past the striations of muscle and into the weakening current that kept him alive.

She could sense the poison, could see it as it blackened the golden threads of his flesh. The slow thunder of his heart throbbed through her.

She did not know where to start or what to do. She had hardly any formal knowledge of biology and none of toxicology. She did not know how to defend against the poison without destroying it and Yugi with it. Indecision paralysed her. Her consciousness hung within the diorama of Yugi’s body.