Black Halo

creature’s collarbone. Lenk pushed down, his sword humming happily and drowning out the screaming and muscle popping beneath it. He pushed it down until he felt it jam.

By then, the creature was lifeless, suspended only by Lenk’s grip on the sword that impaled it.

‘This,’ the voice uttered, ‘is what we do.’

It should feel wrong, the young man knew. He should feel the rush of battle, the thunder of his heart. He should feel terrified, worried, elated, relieved.

He should, he knew, feel something, anything other than calm, whole.

Even as the voice faded, the cold going with it, the sense of wholeness remained. His purpose, he realised, was gripped in his hands and knelt lifeless at his feet. His breath came easy, even as the fever returned. The desperation and fear had fled, leaving only a young man and his sword.

His bloody, bloody sword …

His senses came flooding back to him with the sound of a bowstring being drawn. He looked up, mouth parted in a vaguely surprised circle.

‘Oh, right,’ he whispered, ‘there’s two.’

It happened too fast: the string humming, the arrow shrieking, the flesh piercing. He felt it impale itself deep into his thigh, near his wound. He collapsed to his knees, falling with the other lizardman’s corpse as he lost his grip on his sword.

‘Ah,’ he squealed through the pain. ‘Khetashe, but that hurts.’ He looked up at the inked lizard stalking toward him. ‘I think you missed, though. It didn’t hit bone.’

The lizard didn’t seem to hear or care as it casually nocked another arrow.

‘It’s funny, though,’ Lenk said, giggling hysterically. ‘Moments ago, I was wishing for this, hoping for it. Now, I’ve killed your ugly little friend here and I want to live so I can kill you, too. But …’ He let loose a shrieking peal. ‘But you’re going to kill me. Is that irony or poetry?’

No answer but the drawing of a bowstring.

‘I shouldn’t be afraid,’ he whispered, ‘but … I can’t help but feel that I learned something a little too late.’

‘Too bad for you,’ the lizard replied in perfect, unbroken human tongue.

‘Oh,’ Lenk said, blinking. ‘Two things, then.’

Voice and bow spoke with one unsympathetic voice. ‘Shame.’

Lenk had no reply; pleading seemed a little hypocritical, what with the creature’s companion dead at his knees. Still, stoicism seemed hard to achieve in the face of the arrow. With nothing left, he desperately tried to come up with a final thought to ride into the afterlife.

And all he could come up with was, Sorry, Kat.

A shriek hit his ears. Not of a bow, he realised as he watched the creature spasm, but of a long, sharpened stick that ended its swift and violet flight in the lizardman’s shoulder. The arrow fell to the earth, and the lizardman shrieked and scampered backward, groping at the makeshift spear in its flesh.

‘Lenk,’ a voice said, distant. ‘Move.’

‘What?’ he asked in a trembling voice.

‘Down, moron!’

The shape came tearing over him, hands on his shoulders and pulling itself over his head. In a flash of brown and white, it struck the creature in a tackle, pulling both to the ground.

Lenk blinked, unable to make sense of the frenzy of movement before him. He caught glimpses of green, brighter than the lizard’s flesh, amidst a whirlwind of pale white and gold. The creature shrieked under the other shape, swatting at clawing hands and biting teeth.

The shriek arced to a vicious crescendo. There was a flash of bright ruby.

Blood, Lenk realised, then realised his own leg was warm and wet. Blood! It poured out of his wound in rivulets from the jagged rent the arrow had left, spilling across his leg and onto the sand. How long have I been bleeding? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

That thought was fleeting, as were the rest as he felt himself grow dizzy.

He heard, faintly, the sound of a tail slapping against skin and an agonised grunt. The pale figure toppled to the earth as the creature scrambled up, clutching a face painted with glistening red. It howled curses, incomprehensible, as it scrambled away, dragging its bow behind it.

‘I got its eye,’ the figure laughed as it rose up. ‘Reeking little bleeder.’

A familiar voice, Lenk thought, though its features were unfamiliar. Even as it rose and stood still, its face was blurry, its figure hazy as it approached him. It leaned closer; he thought he could make out some mass of twisted gold and emerald, a mouth stained with red.

‘Lenk?’ it asked, its voice feminine. It twitched suddenly. He felt a hand on his leg. She had found his wound. ‘Oh, damn it. Was it too much to ask that you survive on your own for two days?’

Hands wrapping around his torso, arms under his, sand moving under him. The sensation of being dragged was not as visceral as it should be, but he was quickly learning to forget what it should be.

‘Poetry,’ he gasped, breath wet and hot.

‘What?’

‘If I had just died quickly after I realised I didn’t want to, that would be irony.’

‘You’re not going to die,’ she snarled, tightening her grip. He made out other voices, alien languages behind him. ‘Help!’ she cried to them. ‘Help me pick him up! Move!’

‘I am,’ he laughed on fading whimsy. ‘It’s beautiful poetry now; I see it. I’m going to die.’

‘You’re not,’ she snarled as another pair of hands picked up his legs. Green hands. ‘I won’t let you.’

He rode those words, off the stained earth and into oblivion.

Fifteen

PREFERABLE DELUSIONS

‘That could have gone better.’

‘Really? I thought it went rather well. In hindsight, I suppose we should have killed the one with the bow, first.’

‘Hindsight.’

‘Yes. I could have done with a bit more planning, couldn’t I?’

‘Planning.’

‘Look, if you’re just going to repeat everything I say, I can really have this conversation by myself.’

‘There was no PLAN.’ His head trembled, brains rattling against bone. ‘There was only you indulging your madness and nearly ending us.’

‘I’m … I’m sorry, I just felt-’

‘Feeling is a corruption of the mind and body. Feeling is what we eradicate from ourselves before we eradicate whatever did this to us.’

‘Whatever did this … to us?’

‘Something was in our head. Something is interfering with our duty, my commands. Something … we must kill it.’

‘We must kill something.’

‘Not just kill it. Maim it. Burn it. Eviscerate it. Rip it apart and press its meat between sharp rocks. Cleanse it.’

‘What is it?’

‘Unknown.’

‘So … do I just start eviscerating and hope I get lucky?’