Rolling mountains stretched towards a horizon of crimson forestry, each peak too high to support anything other than the lowest of bushes and most resourceful of insects and rodents. The landscape was only interrupted by the occasional speartree, standing rigidly as if they were the fulcrum of the world. Gusts of wind buffeted from every angle, chilling bones on even the sunniest days. The mountains jutted like a collection of benign tumours, slopes gentle and seemingly low were it not for the way they overlapped one another, transforming from hills into smooth, flat summits, far above the world. An errant move would send the unwary rolling down the side, where the only hope of survival were torn and bloodied fingernails accompanied by a ferocious struggle for traction.
Amidst a collection of thorny shrubs, a monster stood. Its leonine form had been warped, made hairless and wiry. It shivered as a breeze caressed it with frosty tendrils; an unnatural amount of tendons and muscles rippling beneath its skin, like they were a writhing colony of parasites making a home in a space belonging to organs and veins. The Godkin lowered its broad head to the broken red grass beneath it and flared its nostrils repeatedly. Foggy eyes traced the contours of every shrub. Eventually, it huffed and loped back towards the forest, and was swallowed by the hill’s gaps.
For a time, the area was entirely still. Though the winds still sung, no bird of prey rode them, or cried mightily from the skies above. Then, like a bolt from the heavens, one of the shrubs spoke.
“We are going to die out here,” it said in a low, feminine voice.
Another bush shook as it replied. “Nah,” it drawled, “we’re good.”
A tanned young man erupted from the bush’s head, and even beneath his furred coat his form was apparent: tall and lithe as a twisted rope. On his back sat a bulging pack, a wood-axe strapped to its side. His pockmarked face grinned as he reached into the other bush.
“Blake,” it hissed. “Blake! No!”
Blake chuckled and with a sudden yank managed to pull the better part of a heavily-muscled young woman out of the bush. The upheaval was accompanied by a wooden jangling emanating from the holster on her back, filled with three long javelins. She sprawled onto the ground, scowling at her travelling companion.
“What if the monster is still nearby?” she whispered fiercely.
Blake scratched the side of his nose. “Well, better get goin’, Erin.” He smiled, and started walking away. “‘Les you wanna be kitty chow.”
“Wrong way,” came the reply from behind him.
He snorted. “How d’you know?”
Her words were terse. “I have the map.”
The young man turned to face her as she rifled through her pack. “Map’s useless if we don’t know how to read it.”
Erin shot him a brief glare before returning to her task. “I know how to read maps.”
“Sure,” he chuckled, “and I can walk on water.”
“The map’s wrong.”
He waved his arm. “Blame the map, then. We’ve still gotta go; let’s just head back to the road.”
“This route save us at least three days.”
“Or,” he said, pursing his lips, “it’ll pile on another thirty. Maybe we’ll fall down the slopes and kiss the ground headfirst.”
Her green eyes carved strips from him. “You and I both know we’re on a time limit. We have to find him before Esfaria does.”
“We’re probably months ahead of them,” he disagreed, “and getting lost ‘n starving’ll do us no good. Anyway, you said the map’s wrong.”
After punching the alpine grass three times she immediately sprung to her feet, revealing her full stature: a few inches taller her travelling companion, and nearly half again as broad.
“Fine.”
Blake dipped his head in mock acquiescence and began carefully treading down a mossy slope, screes of pebbles accompanying his movements. Erin’s steps were heavy as she followed.
“We had a better map, I’m sure you’d lead us straight,” he offered.
A hiss emanated from behind him. “Don’t patronise me. We’re lost because of my directions.”
He shook his head as his boots skidded across damp moss. “If not for you, I’da never made it this far. Glad you’re here.”
A muted swear resounded as Erin fell onto her backside. She swore quietly and rose again. “It’s not as if we’re making good time,” she muttered, the wind nearly stealing the words.
Blake waved a hand. “It’s bloody miraculous we even know where to go. Good thing he’s with a Face, huh? Might’ve crossed half the world askin’ after him if he wasn’t.” After a long pause, he added, “What is a Face?”
“Performer,” she grunted. “And we don’t know he’s at the Spires.”
He looked over his shoulder at her stormy expression. “Where else would ‘e be? Blooded or not, a boy’s gotta eat.” The young man turned back just in time to grasp onto a speartree and us it to support himself.
“It’s been four years, Blake. Four years for a Ravenblood. He’s not going to be- “
As she said that, he raised a finger and squinted against the wind. To his eyes the sight was barely larger than grains of sand, however weaving its way through creases between mountains seemed to be a small animal trail. “Look!” he exclaimed, overly loud. “That’s the road, right?”
Erin slid beside him, supporting herself against the white shaft of the speartree. She shielded her eyes. “Yes, that’s it. There are a few people travelling along it as well.”
The young man’s pock-marked face broke into a wide smile. “D’you think they have food? I’m bloody well starving.”
His companion’s lips quirked humourlessly. “Well, two days without eating will do that to a person.” She shook her head. “If they do, I doubt they’ll share.”
“We can ask?” he offered. “Try to trade, maybe?”
“Unless you want to sell your clothes,” Erin stated, “the only thing left to trade is the jewellery. And we need to save that.”
“Well, we can ask.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s just as likely that they’ll attempt to sacrifice us.”
Blake tilted his head, conceding the point. “How many’re there?”
She squinted again, then turned back to him. “Four.”
He sighed. “You reckon? S’not good. Can we take ‘em?”
“You are an Oxblood,” asserted Erin, smirking.
The young man snorted. “I’m just enough Oxblood to keep from dyin’ of plague.”
“That’s still Blooded.”
“Erin,” said Blake, tone incredulous, “I can’t even beat you in an arm-wrestle.”
“You would if you exercised.”
“Gods know how many leagues a day s’enough exercise for me.”
She waved her hand. “What I’m trying to say is yes.”
“Two each,” Blake stated. He shook his head zealously. “You’re off it, Erin.”
A glare plastered itself over her face. “Do you want to starve? Because we’re getting there.”
His expression wavered. Finally, he closed his eyes and groaned. “If our blood’s used to water plants, it’s on you.”
Her only response was a sharp nod.
They scrabbled down one of the less steep inclines, aiming to cut the travellers off on one of the lower parts of the trail. Mossy rocks and a sporadic patch of crimson grass were caught under his heels or toes and uprooted, throwing the unlucky young man into a frantic battle to recover footing. It was a strange experience: losing hours of intense hiking in exchange for minutes of downward sliding. Despite their speed and the absence of burning calves, Blake preferred the upward climb. Controlling his momentum was similar to balancing on top of a fence, except at either side lay a lethal drop.
Erin seemed to maintain her equilibrium effortlessly. Her stare never left their target. Blake’s jaw clenched so fiercely it ached, and his eyes rarely left the ground beneath his feet. Even so, he couldn’t afford to slow down. They might not have another chance.
Then, a patch of moss slipped beneath his feet, sending him falling forward. Countless falls taught him to transform his trip into a roll, yet it was only after he did so that he comprehended the stupidity of the manoeuvre. Instead of falling flat onto his stomach, his tumble built speed. An image of a skull, contents spilled over dirt, flashed through his mind. Then something tugged at his back and he stopped.
His heart pounded. Mouth dry, he turned to find Erin leaning back, hands wrapped around the axe strapped to his pack.
“Thanks.” His voice wobbled.
She nodded and continued taking long strides downwards. He followed, unblinking gaze fixed on the ground in front of him.
After an immeasurable length of time spent warring with dirt, his travelling companion spoke. “Be ready. We’re close.”
Blake glanced up. Somehow, they’d found themselves on the mountain – though it had more in common with a hill at that point – adjacent to the animal trail. The four travellers waited below. He swallowed, and took the last few stumbling steps downwards.
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Finally, the ground beneath him transformed into something more beaten and less perilous. A yard down the path, two scruffy men and two teenagers – a boy and a girl – stood, eyes fixed on the pair of them. Tools hung off their belts: stone knives and hatchets for the men, something smaller for the youths. They were almost motionless, tightly wound in a way indicative of either predator or prey. Erin, standing beside him, gave him a gentle shove.
“Oi!” Blake called, tone casual. An echo mimicked his greeting, leaping between the adjacent mountains before being swallowed by the sky. “’Scuse me! D’you fellas happen to have anythin’ to eat? I’m sure we’ve got somethin’ to offer in exchange!”
A silence was born, stretching between them. Finally, one of the men responded. His beard was a fierce copper, almost concealing the shadows in his cheeks. “Alright, friend,” he yelled back. “What’ve you got?”
“Lots o’ water,” Blake supplied, “a few nuts and grubs. A decent knife – good, strong iron! And, uh…” Erin glared at him. They couldn’t afford to trade any of it. “Some jewellery. They’ll sell for silver, at least!”
They were from Orvs’s hoard of ill-gotten gains. With his friend gone, only he had known where they were hidden. They were what had convinced the leery Heartlanders to share news of Face Bhan and his apprentice, years out-of-date. The allure of silver had gotten them attacked, or pursued, far too often. The two of them had agreed not to share them until they reached Spires, and could pursue another lead.
It was what kept them ahead of the Captain and the twins. Only a fool trusted Houses; but only a fool disobeyed them. Two people travelling alone were faster than a group of soldiers. However, it was the silver that helped widen that distance.
But starving wouldn’t help anyone.
Quietly, the copper-haired turned to his peer, covered in so much filth so as to make his original skin colour irrelevant. Blake internally labelled them Copper and Dirt. The two conferred for a moment, weighing the offer. Copper stabbed a finger in the interlopers’ direction, whispering fiercely.
“That’s not good,” muttered Erin.
Blake’s lips thinned.
Eventually, after a few moments, Copper responded. “Fine. We have some bread. The jewellery.” Blake started forward, but a quick bark stopped him. “The woman. Not you.”
A tight smile from Erin was their only reply. The young man unslung his pack, dropping it on the ground and pulling a small, chain-link necklace from a pocket. A jewel hung on the front. Orvs had filched it from an angry old customer who’d shouted at his brother. He’d been very proud of it. After a moment’s pause, Blake handed it over to his companion and rose to his feet, using his body to conceal the axe gripped behind his back.
Slowly, she padded over to them. The four of them spread out slightly. Their hands were held behind their back. The hatchets had vanished from the men’s belts.
In one fluid motion, Erin drew a javelin from her back and hurled it at the group. The men ducked sideways, causing an otherwise lethal hit to pierce Dirt’s shoulder, spinning his body around to topple in the ground. Then the remaining three were moving forward and Erin was shuffling back and Blake was running.
By the time he reached Erin, the three had already caught her. He sprung forward, winding his long axe for a swing but misjudged the distance, and instead of the axe-head catching Copper’s ribs the haft did instead, preventing him from pulling it back. Someone howled but Copper was swinging his stone hatchet inside Blake’s guard, so he dropped his weapon and grabbed the man’s wrist with both hands.
They grappled for a moment, then Copper reared back and threw his forehead down but Blake had already let go and leapt back. A kick pushed the man backwards, giving him a moment to see Erin striking the male teenager bare-handed, the girl howling at the javelin impaled in her chest. Then Copper was there again, bellowing as he drove his hatchet downwards, the arc making stepping aside the blow a simple matter. Blake slid his knife out of his belt and stabbed at his enemy’s head, but the iron was turned away by bone, skidding a gouge in skin but ultimately sliding off the skull.
The man stumbled backwards, clutching the side of his head spurting blood, and then Blake was running forward, wrapping his arms around Copper’s waist and driving both of them to the ground. He lifted his blade above his enemy and brought it down only for the man to catch the blade. Copper grunted as Blake placed his full weight onto the blade. The man’s beard swayed under the force of his desperate pants.
Blake’s name was screamed and he looked up to see a hatchet swinging towards him, Dirt’s agonised face behind it. He threw himself backwards and the axe ate air, yet it gave Copper space to throw himself on top of the young man. Their positions were reversed: the knife in Copper’s hands and Blake’s arms trembling beneath his wrists.
They remained like that for a moment, grunting and panting as each attempted to break the stalemate. With an agonisingly slow speed, Blake adjusted his grip, bringing his left hand to wrap fully around the hilt. Then his right released it, and with a heave of his left the knife flew down, burying in the dirt just beside his neck. Accompanied by a strangled roar, he hammered his right fist into the side of the man’s head. Copper rolled away, and halted as he faced the corpses of two teenagers. Blake seized the knife and leapt on him, jamming into the side of his torso. The man released a strangled groan, just before Blake’s fallen axe buried into his skull. It fell lifelessly from Erin’s hands.
Blake scrambled backwards. After a moment surveying his surroundings, seeing each teenager gurgling, javelins erupting from their torsos and the filthy man’s throat embedded with a dagger, he collapsed backwards, panting. Within a second, Erin fell beside him.
The sky was impossibly blue. Bile swirled in his stomach. He closed his eyes and listened to the children die.
They lay there for some time. The cries ceased.
“Good job,” Blake managed. “You hurt?”
Erin’s reply came amidst desperate inhales of breath. “No. You?”
Hands trembling, the young man pushed himself into a seated position, and then to his feet. “Nope.”
An offered hand was seized, and his friend pulled herself upright.
“Alright.” Blake’s gaze turned to the forest, a little way down the trail. “We better get their blood to th’ woods.”
She gave him a disbelieving stare.
“We need the food,” he explained.
The stare narrowed. “Blake. We’re not sacrificing them.”
“They’re already dead.” He tilted his head. “It’s a bloody waste. Almost worse than killing them.”
The pale skin around her nose crinkled. “No.”
Blake cocked an eyebrow. “No?”
“I won’t allow it.”
They stared at each other.
He scratched the sparse hairs growing on his chin. “You wanna starve?” Blake challenged.
Her reply was terse. “There are better ways to get food.”
“None quicker though.”
“Then wait,” the muscular woman hissed.
“Do the godsdamned math, Erin,” he retorted. “Watering the ground with four corpses – that’ll do nothing but rot – and plucking out some food or wasting the next few days scramblin’ for a bloody mouthful.”
She glared down at him. “If you want my help, that’s the condition.”
He tilted his head slightly upwards, bringing his eyes level with hers. “You can go back,” he spat, lips curling, “at any time.”
“So can you.”
“It’s not home anymore. S’not the Foot. S’whatever the Council wants it to be.”
“Is that so bad?”
“It’s not the same!” he bellowed. Afterwards he paused. The response came late. “There’s, uh…” He swallowed. “There’s no room for people like me.”
Erin’s eyes flickered. “You can go back and learn a trade,” she said gently.
Blake shook his head. “Orvs’s never let me down.” He chuckled. “The three of us: we’ll work somethin’ out.”
“Blake.” Something morose sat in the lines of Erin’s face. “He murdered his mother.”
Blake exploded. “He had a reason, Erin!” he yelled.
“What possible reason could he have?”
“I don’t know! No one asked! He might not have even done it!”
“Sash and Dash say so!”
He scoffed. “Sure, trust the bloody twins. Sash’s spent half her life tripping over her own tongue and Dash’s an angry pile of Oxdung. What reliable witnesses.” The words dripped with scorn. “Gods, what kind of person joins a troop to kill their own brother?”
“Dash saved your life!”
“Sure, he gave a fraction of a fraction of his mother’s blood to fifty different people.” Blake threw up his arms, pupils quivering. “Oh, and his body rejected the Oxblood. He couldn’t even use it! What a hero!”
“He has no reason to lie.”
“Well, maybe Orvs got those memories another way.”
“He killed Maja, Blake; that’s how Ravenblood works. They kill a person and absorb them.”
“Says who?” he sneered.
“Everyone whoreson who’s seen one!”
Blake’s scowl shifted into a more disapproving frown. “Language, Erin,” he chided, shaking his head. “S’not appropriate. Nothing wrong with someone who works with their body.”
She stared at him. He stared at her. Finally, the young woman ran a hand through her short hair, voicing a single query: “What?”
“The…” Blake’s face maintained an unnatural equilibrium. “The word, it’s rude.”
She rocked backwards, as if physically struck. “What does that have to do with Orv?”
“Nothing.” His eyes darted. “It just, uh, bears noting.”
“O-kay?”
They stared at each other for a second longer. When Blake cracked a sheepish smile, she burst out laughing.
Tears streamed from her eyes. Erin’s chuckles had transformed into a single wheeze, punctuated with high-pitched ‘Ah-Ah’s. When her body could take no more, she bent over and continued anyway.
The laughter lasted for so long, Blake eventually wandered off to loot the bodies. Amidst the gory remains he found little of note: bronze farming tools; a battered necklace from the copper-haired man; Erin’s gore-smeared javelins; a handful of nuts and cricket eggs; a pair of stone earrings from the girl; a handful of well-wrought carvings from the filthy man. Only the nuts and insect eggs were valuable enough to take. Everything else was too cheap to risk a bad spirit for.
It had defied his expectations, but most places in the Heartlands were far more wretched than the Foot. The people were unfriendly and ofttimes cruel, refusing conversation yet overly willing to cut a man’s throat for a bit of food. Maybe it was bad air causing their aggression. Yet despite their strange ways, they did get one thing right: Spirits. When an old woman had first explained it to him, it had made too much sense.
Four years ago, Blake had spent several weeks with his body ravaged by plague. He’d seen dead people: those that had been eaten beside him, limbs severed and faces impossibly gouged; the early members of the Butcher Street Boys, heads dashed by a zealous shopkeep; his mother, body sallow and swarmed by flies. When he had woken, the Foot was a different place. Friends were dead, Bran was dead, Orvs was gone and despised by everyone that’d known him, and the Old Guard had, somehow, taken control. His home hadn’t bled to death from its wounds, or perished in a fiery battle; it’d been consumed by something much larger, without any hint of a struggle.
The Butcher Boys had slowly dissolved over the years, whisked away as apprentices or Esfarian infantry as Blake tried to claw out a living for them. It was only when Gab had finally left that he’d comprehended what had happened.
With nothing else to make the Foot his home, he’d left. Erin had come, despite everything. That was half a year ago.
Blake paused. Somewhere amidst his musings and looting, his friend’s laughter had ceased.
“Sorry,” he announced to the air in front of him, “I shouldn’t have gotten so fierce.”
He turned around, facing Erin again.
She shook her head, bearing a wry smile. “Alright, okay. I understand.” The grin faded. “Just… even if you’re right, he won’t be the same person he used to be.”
“He’ll be my mate. That’s all I need.”
The muscular woman nodded.
Blake walked over to her, sat down, and handed over an assortment of nuts. “No sacrifices. This’ll have to do us.”
They crunched the nuts in silence for a time, feeling their stomachs roil and turn, slowly consuming themselves. He gave Erin her javelins and she gestured towards his wood-axe, laying in the dirt and still covered in a man’s brains.
“Why’re you even here if you think he’s a murderer?” said Blake, his casual tone belying the butchered silence.
She paused, and swallowed the last of her food. “It’s my fault. That the truth got out.”
“That’s not true.”
Her head shook from left to right. “I should’ve stopped them. The moment they realised what he was, despite all that he’d done… If I had, maybe it wouldn’t have come to that.”
“That’s not on you.”
“I just stood there, Blake.” She turned to him, eyes grim. “I stood there and nearly let him die. They stabbed him with a pike, and I did nothing.”
“You couldn’t have beaten them,” he comforted, then growled. “Who was it that outed him?”
“I don’t know. We were fighting; someone saw how he moved, yelled ‘Ravenblood’…” Erin smiled sadly. “That was that.”
“I wish they’d survived the plague,” he muttered, scowling. “Coulda had a long chat with them.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “It’s an understandable reaction, Blake.”
“Maybe,” he sighed. “I just wish things were… He didn’t deserve…“ His tongue fumbled through the words, and he halted, eyes drifting.
The young man’s gaze settled on Erin’s exposed navel, her coat and shirt having lifted up as she lay on the ground. He looked away immediately, rubbing the back of his head. After a short pause his brows crumpled and he glanced back.
“Is that a tattoo? When’d you- “
“Wait a moment,” Erin interrupted. “Do you smell that?”
Blake sniffed. The smell of charcoal – of woodsmoke – filled the air. Silently, his companion pointed at something in the sky. He followed the trajectory of her finger. A mass of smoke dominated the air above the forest. It must’ve taken up residence while they were recovering from the skirmish.
“A fire?” he mused.
“I can’t see any.”
He turned to her, disbelieving. “That’s man-made then? Who in the blood makes that much smoke?”
Without looking at him, she spoke. “A war-camp.”
Blake looked between her and the smoke.
“There’s only one place they could be heading.”
“Spires?”
“Spires,” Erin agreed.
Blake swore.