Eventually, she’ll fall. Empty herself in gasps and heartbeats. Take the space at his side, press her skull into the curve of his arm. She’ll sleep. And he’ll hold her. Watch her chest rise and fall. He’ll tell himself it’s worth it. That they’re doing a good thing. And for a few ragged moments, it’ll be true.
Of course, things are not that simple. There are prices to be paid.
He sets the rag down, takes his gloves off, and presses a palm to the barrel of the gun. As always, it eats him, scorching his flesh, licking at him with terrible, acrid speed. His palm vanishes into a ragged hole, the blood blackening, smoking, swallowed. He grits his teeth against the familiar pain.
The gun purrs and stretches. He watches it realign, becoming sleeker, darker. It pulses with an oil-slick hue, and the air smells of hot metal, copper, lemon.
It eats him down to the bone and he watches it work. When it’s done, he turns to the city and raises his hand to his face. He imagines he can see Crowkisser through the hole, between the slats of bone, hung with meat and blood.
She’s safe. They’re all safe. Because of the gun, the shadow and the crows. Because of him. Because of what he gives.
He flexes his fingers, watching the naked struts dance in his hand. Behind them, people are opening shops, raising shutters, lifting canopies. Children stir, scuff sleep-grit from their eyes, are pulled reluctantly into outstretched jumpers.
Astic wakes slowly, grudgingly, uncharmed by the cold.
With the thumb of his left hand, Slickwalker fingers the gun. It folds in on itself, quick and clever, becoming nothing but a shard of black, a promise. He slides it over his back, feels it nestle into the clasps there. For a moment, its weight feels like her hand and he half-turns, expecting.
Three years now, with her always on the edges of his world, waiting for the next touch, the next word. Crowkisser. What was there but Crowkisser? Slickwalker knew there had been a time before her. Somewhere deep down, he knew it. But his mind was not interested in such things. When he woke, he saw the curve of her cheekbone in the half-shadow. When he slept he felt her breath against his lips. When he killed, he saw her as she wept.
She had given everything for the people of this world. And they cursed her for it. Everything, and they stepped around her like a mad dog.
Everything and they hushed their voices and doused their lights.
Everywhere but here. Over the last few years, the people of Astic had finally come around, finally realised how Crowkisser kept them safe. And after Astic, the Rim villages followed, one by one, as the cost of life alone on the edge of the south became too much to bear.
Behind him, he hears the wet slap of the first boats hitting the morning water as they put out to sea. Rhythm. Astic thrived on rhythm, and so did she. Every night, between those blasted pillars, her hands slick with blood and feather, her hips lifting in desperate hope.
Every night, she tore herself down to find the patterns. Every night she built herself back up from scraps.
And she was winning. She’d gleaned fragments of their enemies’ movements, snatched from the wind, teased from the beaks of crows. Plucked from the forest’s thorns.
Enough to send him to Hesper at the exact moment Shipwright and Shroudweaver had docked. To menace Fallon and flush them out, after months of hiding and running.
It was a pity he hadn’t been able to kill the old bull, but his visit had served its purpose, and confirmed that Crowkisser’s visions were true, that the pair were in Hesper. Less pleasantly, it had confirmed that Shroudweaver could still stitch together a god in a pinch.
His side aches at the memory of Shipwright’s fists; the bruise is gone, but the guts and bones underneath are slower to mend.
Yes, Shroudweaver could still stitch a god, and it seemed as if he was still as ruthless in his choice of host. Slickwalker smiled a little at that.
Interesting how quickly the pair had rushed to defend their old friend. Crowkisser would use that, he was sure. She had an eye for the weaknesses of others. It had worried him at first, until he’d seen the truth of their work; how much better life was under her, free from the gods.
He watches the boats skim out to the horizon and cast their nets, the arms of their crews slashed against the light. It will soon be time for him to head northwards, on the trail of the crows.Not that Kisser wasn’t confident in her prophecies, but she valued certainty, corroboration; eyes that were still in a human head.
Behind him would come their army. All the able-bodied from Astic, and the others that would join them from the Rim villages, Dryke, Vantage, Fallow. Not much, all told. Maybe three or four hundred bodies, but she seemed certain they would be enough. All of those fisherfolk were confident enough in her, that was for sure.
It didn’t mean they could get by alone, however. That’s where he came in.
His heart lifts a little at the thought of it. He loved scouting, nothing in his head but his own thoughts, his own body moving at his command. Climbing trees, fording rivers, the earth opening out around him like a puzzle to be solved. The whole army at his back, waiting on his word, for the safe routes, the clear places, the pure streams. It gave him a sense of purpose.
Then home each night, flitting through shadow to her bedroll, her arms. Her approving words.
He checks his supplies one last time. The pain in his hand is already easing, just the steady itch of new flesh creeping across the bone, pulled tight by shadow. A useful gift, another token of Crowkisser’s esteem.
He watches the waves a moment more. The light is particularly bright this morning, bright enough that he can almost imagine catching a glimpse out west to the spires and the stilts of the Heron Halls. Not that he’s ever seen them, just heard stories. But maybe someday.
In the far distance, something big breaches. A glimpse of white flesh and a finned, sinuous body that slaps the water hard enough to send the echoes racing to shore. The fishermen shout in return, their voices high and eerie, sending their song back out to sea.
His heart thrills from the strangeness of it. The sea both terrifies and delights him. He’s glad they won’t be fighting on it again; that might be a little too much.
