Ian Irvine - Vengeance

‘The chancellor would like us to think so.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘He doesn’t like people to think he’s not in control.’

Rix put that worry aside for later. ‘Then where did they come from?’

‘I don’t know. The first records of shifters — little jackal-men — only go back a hundred years — ’

‘I’m not interested in them,’ Rix snapped. ‘What about caitsthes?’

‘They weren’t on the uncanny creatures list when I learned it as a boy.’

Rix rubbed his cold arms. ‘So they’re new. How did they get here?’

‘How would I know?’

‘You read books. You know everything. Have a guess.’

‘A wildcat fell into a pit of power and was transformed into a caitsthe?’

‘What’s a pit of power?’

‘Didn’t those expensive tutors teach you anything ?’

‘Sometimes my mind wanders.’

‘Let me know when it comes back.’ Acid had crept into Tobry’s voice; his injuries must be troubling him.

‘Just tell me what you know about caitsthes, Tobe.’

‘Well, in man-form they’re reasonably intelligent.’

‘How intelligent?’

‘Smarter than the average young lord, not that that’s saying much.’

Rix’s fingers curled around the hilt of his sword, sprang away, clung to it. ‘Then it knows we’ll come after it …’

‘Yes.’

‘And it’ll be waiting in ambush.’

‘They’re vengeful, too. It’ll be planning to attack you where you hurt it.’

Knowing how close he’d gone to losing his manhood, Rix swallowed painfully. What folly had brought him up here? Well, no choice now. Going down on hands and knees, he headed into the thicket.

‘I’m going first,’ said Tobry, coming after him.

‘Bugger off.’ Rix centred himself on the track to block the way.

The path was barely the width of his shoulders and the vines formed a woven wall so close above his head that a three-year-old child could not have stood upright. If it attacked him here, he would not be able to swing his sword. With its superior weight and strength, the caitsthe could pin him against the brambles and tear him apart. Or come at his defenceless rear …

Halfway in, he stopped to sniff the air. Dark blood spotted the ground here and there and the caitsthe’s rank tang was everywhere. How badly injured was it? Had it healed itself already?

A second path crossed the first. Rix checked left and right but could not tell if the caitsthe had turned aside. Now it could come at him from three directions.

‘See anything?’ said Tobry.

‘No.’ It came out as a croak.

He emerged from the vine thicket, which terminated at a steep talus slope running up against the Crag, itself a mass of knotted rock towering so high that he cricked his neck trying to see the top. The sky had gone the colour of lead and the wind shrilling around the ragged edges of the bluff made his head throb.

‘Where’s it gone?’ said Tobry, standing up beside him.

‘Don’t know. Haven’t seen blood in a while.’

‘We’ll never track it across all this rubble — ’

‘Something the matter?’ said Rix, when Tobry did not go on.

‘For a second, I thought the cliff face wavered up there.’

‘It’s solid rock,’ Rix said derisively.

‘Is it?’

Rix swallowed.

‘You didn’t see anything ?’ said Tobry.

‘Of course not.’

Tobry muttered something that might have been, ‘Bonehead,’ and crept up the rubble for about eighty feet. He crouched there, looking down at the cliff. ‘There’s a spot of blood, right against the face.’

‘So what?’

‘The caitsthe is too big to squat there.’ Tobry swung an arm and it disappeared into rock to the elbow.

‘Tobe?’ said Rix, not liking this at all.

‘There’s a concealed cave. Come up.’

‘Concealed by what?’ Rix’s stomach spasmed; his bruised cheek pulsed.

‘What do you think?’

‘Entering a caitsthe’s lair is a really bad idea.’

Tobry was beyond making a joke about it, which confirmed Rix’s dismal conclusion. But if the shifter wasn’t destroyed, dozens of people would die before it slaked the blood-hunger etched into its psyche. Previously, he had given little thought to the thousands of serfs on his family estates, but once he was lord they would be his people and it was his duty to protect them.

Rix reached the top. ‘Incidentally,’ he said, referring to their earlier conversation, ‘why was trying to save your grandfather from a shifter bite a mistake?’

Tobry shook his head. ‘The bite of a shifter is the one thing I truly fear.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘Don’t tell my enemies.’

Lifka’s principal recreation was chewing her dinner and she spent several open-mouthed minutes churning each morsel to a slimy pulp. Eyes averted from the repulsive sight, Tali handed over three shrivelled Purple Pixies, keeping another two. She felt stronger now. She had a plan and she was going to escape.

Most of the slaves had left the subsistery, but she hurled her defiance at those who remained, and they looked away — no doubt they considered her doomed. Damn you! she thought. I’m going to escape. I’m going home .

While Lifka vacantly gnawed a bone, Tali surreptitiously poked a red and yellow girr-grub deep into the orange flesh of her poulter leg. At the thought of what the grub would do, her cheeks grew hot. Though surely one grub would not cause lasting harm.

Lifka pushed back her chair and Tali rose hastily, tucking a small piece of yam into the inside pocket of her loincloth for her pet mouse, Poon.

‘Left yer poulter leg,’ said Lifka tonelessly.

Any other slave, including Tali, would have stolen it. ‘Not hungry,’ she lied, swallowing a mouthful of saliva. ‘You can have it.’

‘Goody.’ Lifka pulled off shreds of crisp skin as she headed towards her cell, slipped them into her mouth and yawned. ‘Think I like ya after all.’

The grudging admission did not make Tali feel any better. And what if Lifka was blamed for the crimes Tali was planning to commit, or punished as her collaborator? Surely no Cythonian would imagine Lifka to be part of a conspiracy? But if Tali did escape they would have to blame someone.

Her cheeks burnt, but Iusia and Mia cried out for justice and Tali had no other hope of getting it. No slave would help her. Anyone who learned her plans would betray her, and Tinyhead was coming in a few hours. If Lifka had to suffer for a day or two, that was too bad.

‘Goin’ ta bed,’ said Lifka.

Tali walked with her past the ever-guarded gates of the Cythonians’ living area, whose name translated as Away from Home , then around a bend and through the carved entry hall of the Pale’s Empound, where the wall dioramas changed dramatically.

No gentle, domestic-scale scenery here. Rather, a series of savage landscapes — cataracts in roaring flood, catastrophic eruptions, a forest torn apart by a hurricane, monster waves eating away at empty shores — and everywhere among the devastation, hungry eyes smouldered, warning the Pale of the consequences of trying to escape. Tali could not look at them. Even if she did get away, how would she cross such alien places to civilisation?

The enemy was paranoid about insurrection and every adult slave had her own tiny stone cell, these being clustered in tiers around each assembly area like chunks of curved honeycomb around an oval plate.

‘If you don’t eat that drumstick,’ said Tali as they approached Lifka’s cell, ‘someone will steal it.’

‘Mind yer business.’ Lifka went into her cell and closed the door.

Anyone else would have gobbled the poulter leg at once. It had not occurred to Tali that Lifka would keep it for later. Now what was she supposed to do? Tinyhead might have lied. He could be coming now. She turned and kept turning, afraid that he would appear behind her with his blowfly tongue hanging out.