Black Halo

He swept his burning gaze back to the objects. His hands rose, the air quivering between them as he gently separated his palms, an invisible force parting the clothes and weapons to expose a pair of books resting gingerly upon the wood. The first one was musty, old, well-worn pages trembling in the breeze, as if taking the cue to quiver before the man’s eyes. The other …

Too clean, too black, too shiny, too still and smug and noticeable while the rest of the world darkened for fear of being seen by a pair of bright red eyes. The tome met the man’s gaze fearlessly, sparing only enough time to look at Lenk with papery eyes and wink. Or so it seemed to, at any rate.

Surely, Sheraptus must have seen it, too. What could escape that stare? What sense did it make for him to reach down and pluck the musty, frightened book up first?

‘It does not call to him,’ a voice, he wasn’t sure which, answered. ‘He cannot hear it. His ears are cloyed with pride, arrogance. He will never hear it. Will never hear us before we take his head.’ He glanced to Greenhair, biting her lip, not daring to say anything as he plucked up the wrong book. ‘She … betrayed us. Those who betray … die.’

Warmth, then cold. Agreement.

If Sheraptus saw the intent in Lenk’s stare, he made no comment. Instead, he thumbed through the pages of the musty tome, heedless of Dreadaeleon’s whimper. Ah, right, Lenk realised. His spellbook. He hadn’t seen it ever unattached to the boy’s hip. He guessed that watching another man thumb through something that had been attached so long would be unsettling, at the least.

‘Humans use nethra,’ he hummed thoughtfully. ‘I wasn’t entirely sure I believed it.’ Idly, he flipped page by page, his frown deepening. ‘They scrawl their words on parchment, learn to burn, to scorch.’ He glanced up. ‘How many trees were rent asunder by such? How much green turned black?’

His eyes narrowed as he thumbed towards the end of the book. ‘Possessed of everything, you ruin it all. Spill more blood over imaginary things, like gods and ideologies, never once deigning to fight over the bounties surrounding you.’ He looked up, thoughtful. ‘You’re so concerned with these false notions of higher powers that you never once realise it’s all within your grasp.’

‘Merroskrit,’ Dreadaeleon whispered, ‘merroskrit … that’s another wizard he’s touching, another person and he’s just … he’s going to …’

He took a thin, white page and rubbed it gingerly between two fingers. The flinch of his lips, the ripping of the paper was short, bitter. Dreadaeleon’s scream was longer, louder. And at that sound, the longface’s lips twisted into a wry smirk.

‘But that’s part of your charm, isn’t it?’

‘Sheraptus …’ Greenhair spoke, then immediately stammered out: ‘M-Master … that is just a book of lore, nothing important. The true object is-’

‘Not moving, for the moment.’ He reached down and took a severed head from the palanquin, staring at its closed eyes, golden locks and frowning. ‘And they even carry death around with them … fascinating.’

The head, Lenk recognised. The Deepshriek’s head. The lizards kept it.

‘They know nothing of its importance. It will be ours again soon. Patience.’

‘There is a word for this sort of thing …’ Sheraptus hummed, tossing the head away. ‘It is either “macabre” or “deranged”, but it’s unimportant. I came for something else. Where is it?’

‘There, Master,’ Greenhair said, pointing to the palanquin. ‘The tome is there.’ Her glance flitted towards Dreadaeleon for a moment. ‘It will be safer with you.’

Sheraptus, however, merely stared at her, as unexpressive as a man with flaming eyes could be, before he looked over her to Xhai.

‘Where is it?’ he asked the Carnassial.

She shot him back a look, as wounded as a woman with spike-encrusted shoes could. ‘The Grey One That Grins only wants the tome. The other things are-’

‘I would very much like to have it … them,’ Sheraptus said. ‘It would make me very happy.’ He pursed his lips, furrowed his brows; beneath the fire, he looked almost hurt. ‘Xhai … do you not want me to be happy?’

She recoiled, as if struck. An emotion, close to but not quite the fury that was present earlier, shook her features. After a moment, her face settled into one of cold acknowledgement. She turned her head away and barked a command.

‘TCHIK QAI!’

There was a scrabble of boots, a few muffled curses from behind a massive, jutting ribcage half-buried nearby. Lenk’s ears immediately pricked up, his attention drawn towards the movement, his heart beating faster at the noise. The reaction did not go unnoticed.

‘Ignore that,’ a cold voice snarled.

‘The enemy is before you,’ a hot voice growled.

‘Duty first. Betrayers die.’

‘They will all die. They all betrayed you. Forget everything else.’

‘Kill.’

‘Listen.’

He did not hear them, felt them as nothing but flashes of hot and cold in his body. His eyes were locked upon the twitches of movement between the bones. He spotted glimpses of purple, but did not pay attention them. Before them, glimpses of colour, white and silver under the moonlight, moved swiftly, but erratically.

The movement stopped momentarily. There was another shout of protest, this one louder but not clear enough to be heard well. It was met with a snarling iron retort and a faint cracking sound. Lenk found himself surprised that he was wincing at the unseen blow, found himself surprised that he was leaning forward, craning his neck to see what emerged from behind the bones.

And despite the fear that had been growing in his chest since he had awoken, he found himself surprised to see a pair of emerald eyes, wide, terrified and searching.

He tried to cry out, tried to scream when he found he couldn’t. His throat was constricting, voice choked.

‘No,’ another voice answered his unspoken question, ‘speak not. Draw no attention. Not yet. He does not need you, does not want you. Survive first. Kill later.’

She looks hurt. She needs help. I need to-

‘Soon. Tome first. Duty first.’

No! Not duty first, she’s more important. She-

‘Fled. From you.’

What?

‘Fear was in her eyes. She was right to show us.’

No, she-

‘Does not understand.’

‘Cannot understand.’

‘Your duty … our duty … more important. She cannot see that. Looks away from it.’

She isn’t looking away now.

No response came; he wouldn’t have heard it, anyway. His eyes were locked on Kataria’s, and hers on his, as she was marched forward by ironbound hand and guttural snarls from purple lips. She put up minimal resistance to such, not that her bound hands would allow her much, in any case. Still, Lenk found himself surprised by her passiveness as she was ushered towards the knot of netherlings; he had expected her to be snarling, thrashing, biting and cursing.

To see that anticipated furious resistance emerge from the pale form emerging behind Kataria, however, was slightly more surprising.

‘And after I’ve chewed those off, because I’m sure you things only claim to be females,’ Asper snarled at the netherling shoving her forward, ‘I’m going to rip your eyes out and eat those, too!’ She dug her heels in, shoved back at her captor, tried to break away. All futile efforts, their failures doing nothing to curb her tongue. ‘Get