Chris Wooding - The ascendancy veil

'Is that it over there?' Phaeca asked, looking west to where an infernal red glow leaked into the sky, underlighting plumes of slowly roiling smog.

'That's it,' Juto said. 'We're close. But it only takes one Aberrant to see us, and it's over. Now you all know about shrillings, right?'

'Echo location,' Nomoru said. 'Helps them see when it's too dark for their eyes. Only forward, though. Can't see behind them.'

'It's mostly shrillings we'll be dealing with, though there's skrendel out here too, and they're hard to spot. Not so dangerous, but they'll put up a racket if they see you. Maybe ghauregs, but they can't see too well without any light. Chichaws, feyns. Assorted other types.'

Kaiku felt a strange thrill. She and Tsata had christened those creatures, among others, back in the Xarana Fault; it made her feel unaccountably dislocated to hear those names used here, hundreds of miles away. She found herself in a fleeting recollection of the Tkiurathi man with whom she had shared that feral existence for a time. They had seemed sweeter days, somehow.

They slipped down to ground level via a series of unsteady ladders and balconies on the north side of the building, after checking that the thoroughfare was clear. Kaiku felt her pulse begin to accelerate as soon as she touched the street. Suddenly the rooftops seemed a haven which she was reluctant to forsake. She clutched the barrel of her rifle, but it gave scant comfort, for like her kana it was a weapon of last resort and more likely to cost their lives than to save them.

'Stay here,' Nomoru hissed to the group at large. 'I'll go ahead.'

Lon made a noise of protest, but before he could speak Juto grabbed her arm. 'You won't,' he said. 'We stick together.'

She shook him off, her thin face angry, eyes glittering. 'I'm a scout,' she snapped. 'Wait for my signal.' Then before he could say another word, she flitted across the thoroughfare and disappeared into the black slash of an alley.

Lon swore in frustration. Juto motioned the others back against the wall, and slid to the corner of the building where he could get a better view of anything approaching. The clicks and taps of the lookouts were fainter here, but Kaiku still had the distinct impression that Juto was listening to them keenly, keeping track of the beasts that stalked their streets.

Time passed, marked by the thump of Kaiku's heart. She glanced at Phaeca, who managed a wan smile of reassurance and clutched her hand briefly. The night was full of small movements: rats scuttled along, hugging close to the buildings; part of a wall would crumble in a soft patter of dust, seemingly of its own accord; a stone bounced into the street from a rooftop, making them jump in fright.

'Enough,' said Juto. 'She'll find us. Let's move. It's too dangerous to stay here.'

Nobody protested. They slipped out of the Poor Quarter and across the street, where they were swallowed up by the alleys on the other side.

Lon took the lead now, moving with a purpose. They hurried through the narrow ways that lay between the main thoroughfares, pausing at every corner, scrambling into cover at the slightest hint of motion. There were more lighted windows here, but they were shuttered tight and only a tiny glow fought through to brighten the night. No lookouts aided them now; each turning could bring them face to face with the beaklike muzzle of a shrilling. Periodically they would stop and listen for the telltale warbling that the creatures made, which might give them a few moments' warning; but that did nothing to counter the threat of the other Aberrants who prowled more silently. Kaiku found her hands trembling with adrenaline.

'Back! Back!' Lon was whispering suddenly, and they flattened against the wall. They were in the middle of a long and narrow lane between residential houses, facades blank and featureless without the shrines and votive ornaments that they used to display. Dead plants straggled from clay pots, poisoned by the atmosphere.

A soft trilling coming from the end of the alley. Lon looked in alarm the other way, but it was too far to run. Kaiku felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, and gripped her rifle hard enough to bleach her knuckles.

'Here!' Juto snapped, and they scrambled behind a set of stone steps that descended from the porch-front of a house. It was pitifully inadequate as a hiding place: the four of them could barely cram behind it. Then Kaiku saw what Juto was up to. There was a cross-hatched grille there, covering the opening to the house's basement. He was pulling at it frantically.

Phaeca drew her breath in over her teeth. She was peering down the alley, where the lithe shape of a shrilling was silhouetted against the lighter street. It paused, head swinging one way and then the other, deciding which way to go next. The seconds it took making up its mind were agony for the Sister, who was praying to all the gods at once that it should go on its way and leave them alone.

But the gods, if they heard her, were feeling malicious that day. It turned towards them, and into the alley.

'It's coming,' she warned.

Lon cursed. 'Get that grille off!' he urged Juto, who gave him a roundly offensive oath as a reply. He had given up trying to pull and was shaking it instead, trying to work it loose from its setting. He had made some progress, for the stone was crumbly and weak, but it was still firmly in place.

'How close?' he murmured.

'Close,' Phaeca replied.

'How close?' he hissed.

'I don't know!' she said. She had never been good at judging distances.

Kaiku began to look over the edge of the step, but Lon pulled her down, and Phaeca with her. 'It'll see you!'

The warbling they could hear was merely the lower end of the aural spectrum of the shrilling's calls, which rebounded from objects and were picked up and sorted by sense glands in their throat, in a manner analogous to that of bats. The Sisters had captured live specimens in the past and studied them well.

Juto had freed up the grille a little, but not enough. The warble of the shrilling was becoming louder. He shook the grille hard. It was breaking away the stone bit by bit, scraping out dust and tiny pebbles, but it was still not coming free.

'Sweet gods, come on,' he pleaded. The shrilling was almost upon them now, they could hear it, as if it were standing right beside them…

Phaeca grabbed his arm.

And they were still, all of them, like statues hunkered together. A moment later, the shrilling's head appeared, its long skull curving back to a bony crest, its sharp teeth bared beneath its rigid upper jaw. It came slowly forward, bringing its scaled, jaguar-like forequarters into view, and there it stopped, cooing softly, looking up the length of the lane.

The creature was mere feet away from where they crouched motionless in the shadow of the steps. They could see the rise and fall of its flanks, hear the hiss of its breath. They were paralysed, some ancient and primal biological response freezing them to the spot like a mouse in sight of a cat. It seemed ridiculous that the thing was right in front of them and it had not yet pounced.

But it did not see them. The darkness was too deep for its peripheral vision to pick them out, and its echo location system was too directional to detect them. At least, until it turned its head.

Still it did not move. The outsize sickle-claws of its fore-paws tapped softly on the cobbles. Some animal intuition was pricking it, a sensation of being watched, of the nearness of other beings.

Go, Kaiku urged silently. They were close enough so that she could see the glistening black nexus-worm buried in its neck. Heart's blood, go!

She could sense Lon reaching for his dagger, moving slowly, slowly. She wanted to tell him to stop, but she dared not make a noise, fearing that even the movement of her lips or the disturbance of her exhaled breath would tip the balance here and bring the creature down upon them. Her kana was on a hair-trigger, coiled inside her, ready to burst free in an instant.