Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

The St Brendan’s Fire ’s manoeuvring thrusters burned bright as it tried to rise above the firestorm. Vic knew that all over Arclight security coordinators, pet hackers and weapon operators were desperately trying to regain control of their weapons. Arclight’s PR team and spin doctors would already be apologising to the frigate and assuring them that the Queen’s Cartel was not initiating hostilities against the Church.

The Basilisk soared through the fire, taking minor hits from a few opportunists in independent craft. Scab made a note of every shot and added the ships to his enormous opportunist kill file. The pursuit craft that the cartel had launched were too far away; however, all the bridge points were covered by picket ships.

‘This is Woodbine Scab in the Basilisk . If you’re going to fire then make sure you get it right,’ he told the light cruiser waiting by the bridge point he wanted. A Corsair, even one as high spec as the Basilisk , was no match for a light cruiser. The picket ship didn’t fire. The Basilisk ’s bridge drive did violence to the fabric of space/time. The Basilisk left Real Space.

Only when Scab had locked the Basilisk onto the closest Red Space beacon and linked into the beacon network did he pull out the grisly objects the dead self-mutilator had given him. To Vic they were looking more and more like the eyes of some kind of properly alien species, not those of uplifted animals like themselves.

‘How’d they know you’d need that?’ Vic asked.

‘Are you going to behave if I give you your body back?’ Scab asked instead of answering the question. Vic nodded. The human gesture still felt uncomfortable but he was pretty sure that he had it down.

‘Who was the Church Militiaman you killed?’ Vic asked. Scab was staring at the alien organs pulsing in his bloody hand as he used a sophisticated neunonic surgery program to reconfigure his internal nanites in preparation for a xeno-graft surgical procedure.

‘Scab,’ Vic said.

‘I need to find the template and kill it.’ Scab said it in the same tone as everything else he said.

She was moving, floating to the sound of waves gently lapping against the shore. There was a bump as she hit the beach. She enjoyed the gentle movement of the sea. It was a moment of peace before her nostrils were assaulted by the charnel smells of aftermath. Her eyes flicked open. Carrion eaters wheeled in the grey, blank, nothing sky above her. She sucked in air in a long ragged gasp like the first breath of the infants she had delivered. She didn’t scream though. Britha just didn’t understand why she wasn’t dead.

The beach looked red. The sand crawled with flies that rose into the air in thick black swarms when the ravens landed to feast. The carrion that used to be her people had enticed a pack of wolves out of the forest, their maws red now.

Britha’s hand went to her chest and she traced the line of scar tissue. It was as if the wound had been received years ago. She understood that her magics were getting stronger, perhaps because of her relationship with Cliodna bringing her closer to the Otherworld and its wellspring of power, but it had been a mortal wound. She had felt the head of the spear grow through her like the sharp roots of an iron tree.

She had dreamed of Cliodna. The selkie had been strange, frightening and hateful. In the dream Cliodna had done cruel and agonising things to Britha’s body. Her eyes hurt but felt dry. She couldn’t cry. She ached but she could stand, though it seemed like the beach was trying to tilt up to meet her, nausea washing over her. She felt different somehow, hot, feverish.

The warriors and landsmen of her tribe were gone, all that was left was their empty shells making red patterns on the sand. Britha could not bury them all. She would not try. The sky would be their burial place. There was no shame in that. The ravens would carry their flesh there. The beasts of the land had nurtured them and they would do the same for the carrion eaters.

There was a low growl. The wolf pack scattered. Britha watched the bear lumber across the beach towards her, its maw already red from feasting on the dead. Normally all gave way to the king of the forest, but Britha felt nothing. That included fear. The beast got up on its hind legs but did not roar at her. It just stared. It was as if the bear didn’t think she belonged.

‘Maybe I am just a shade now,’ Britha said quietly to herself. She had failed to protect her people. This was the ban draoi ’s main responsibility – to live apart from the tribe but use her knowledge, wisdom and skills to keep them safe. Britha could not imagine a more complete failure. But how do you protect against the likes of the Lochlannach? she wondered.

Among the bodies Britha only found one of their dead. She had killed him, she knew, but she had killed more than one. They must have taken the rest of the bodies with them. As well as the hungry wounds she had drawn on his flesh with sword and sickle, she saw thousands of tiny cuts on his skin.

Britha cut into his cold dead flesh with an iron knife she had found. The strands of filigree were gone. His armour and weapons had been taken as well.

She heard the voice, soft and weak, barely audible, carried to her by the breeze.

He was lying on the beach propped against some rocks. He had stained the sand red underneath him. He spoke the same words over and over: ‘I fought well, I deserve to die in battle. I fought well, I deserve to die in battle. I fought well, I deserve…’

‘Feroth?’ Britha said softly. He turned to look at her. Tears sprang to his eyes. She could not recall anyone looking happier to see her. He had been old, Britha thought, but always full of life; now he looked all but a corpse. The life had been taken from him by what he had seen. It had left him a long time before he would actually die.

‘Britha.’ Then he became more guarded. ‘Do demons ride you?’ he demanded, trying to hold in his guts with one hand and reaching for his sword with the other.

‘It’s me, Feroth,’ she said. He relaxed though more blood ran through his fingers from his exertions.

‘Too old and too wounded to take, they told me. The demons would not even grant me an iron death,’ he managed. ‘Even the wolves wait until I am too weak to fight.’

‘I will give you an iron death,’ Britha managed, her voice cracking, the tears coming now.

‘I saw them leave. The black ships, the demon ships. They grew… then they sailed against the tide and the wind…’

‘Which way?’ Britha asked.

‘All the while Cruibne’s head was screaming from that monster’s shoulder.’

He was just raving now , Britha thought, but then they had all seen things. It must be true.

‘Where did they go?’ Britha asked again.

‘West, up the Tatha.’ He was sounding weaker and weaker.

‘Hold on,’ she told him gently.

She found one of the invaders’ longspears. It had been driven deep into the sand and must have been overlooked. She grasped its wooden haft. There was screaming in her head. She felt hot and feverish again as she staggered back still holding the haft. She watched as tendrils of filigree grew, writhing from the spear’s silver-coloured metal head and crawling towards her flesh. Britha understood now: all their weapons were alive, prisons for the demons locked inside. She wrestled for control of the spear, knowing that her magics were stronger, that she was stronger. The demon in the spear shrank before her, the fever subsided and the red-gold filigree crept back into the spearhead.

Britha was relieved that Feroth was still alive when she returned with the spear. He made a weak attempt to attack her with his sword as she drove the spear through his chest, burying it in the sand beneath him. She twisted the spear and tore it out. Her eyes never left his. She watched the life leave him, ready for his next journey.