PLAGUE
by Obsidian Blade

The Noose in Place

Like a bubble locked away in smooth stone, the spherical cave at Bladesworn Point shielded the scouting party from the blazing sun. It was only accessible from the sea, pressed into a crack in the cliff side. As water droplets rolled off her shell, Shaaca had to admit the swim had provided much-needed relief.

Inside it was cool and damp with sea spray. Water swelled and blossomed into roses of foam over an arc of coral spanning the one gap in the cave's rounded walls, each flex of the tide sending a distorting ripple across a clear central pool.

Raahn and Zetaahn slept soundly at the bottom, amongst a shifting crowd of discarded shells and fine white sand. Seated upon a natural shelf in the sweeping stone wall, the water lapping around her knees, Shaaca could see both quite clearly. The telniin could pass for a sea-worn stone with his legs curled up beneath the lip of his shell, but Zetaahn sprawled like a sunbathing grovyle. Ribbons of seaweed rolled against his outspread scythes, a school of remoraid darting about near his head.

The sight of them hollowed out an empty space in the aashnin's head where frustration should have been. On her own, she would have made the journey to the omastar's bay in a day. Unhindered by Zetaahn's injured crawl, she would have raced past Bladesworn Point without a second glance and been happier for it.

Not this time, not with those two at her side, but anger simply wouldn't come. Shaaca stared across the water, blank with exhaustion. A perfect circle cut in the ceiling cast a disc of light onto the the edge of the plunge pool, and through its glare she could almost see him. His rounded, sandy helm floated above the water just beyond the golden screen, peering upward at a moving point above the shelf.

'Call me Raakin, Delfiir.' Haakmin's words echoed back to Shaaca just as they had to the shiraar himself, eliciting a startled flinch at his own assertive tone. 'If that's alright,' he added more carefully.

Resting in the water at his side, twenty-five-year-old Shaaca saw his bare throat throb as he swallowed. Her gaze darted to young Tziir, barely half-grown but towering over them both as he stood on the sweeping stone. The delfiir eyed Haakmin curiously.

'Alright? Yes, certainly, if that's what you want.' His narrow scythes flexed absently at his sides. 'How did you discover your talent, if you don't mind my asking?'

Haakmin blinked, clearly as baffled by the older kabutops as Shaaca had been at first.

'My talent?' he asked.

'For fighting,' she supplied quickly, giving him what she hoped was an encouraging look when he glanced in her direction.

'It's not pressingly important for the time being,' said Tziir, when the newcomer seemed at a loss. 'But your case, your case is peculiar. It's an eye-opener. I hadn't even thought to consider it before, but what chance does someone born with a healer's skin have to do anything but heal?'

He began to pace as he talked, his blades gesticulating broadly with each additional revelation.

'The shiraari are sent straight to the shiraan as soon as they evolve. There's no time for them to so much as sharpen their scythes.'

Shaaca nudged Haakmin with her elbow.

'Don't worry,' she whispered, 'he'll remember you again soon.'

He peered at her sidelong, bemused.

'But here!' Tziir exclaimed suddenly, crouching level with Haakmin. 'Here, we have an example of a shiraar with fighting skills! Someone whose considerable talent could have been lost if he was forced into a particular role. You are a marvel.'

Haakmin frowned, a measure of confidence making itself known as he looked Tziir in the eye.

'But Delfiir,' he said, 'you haven't even seen me fight.'

Tziir eyed him quizzically, as though he had made a serious logical misstep.

'Do I need to?' he asked.

'If you think I'm that important as some kind of role-breaker, yes. Otherwise, how do you know I can fight at all?'

'Raakin Shaaca told me so,' the delfiir replied. 'I need no further proof. Now, I think in the name of equality we ought to...'

The aashnin's gaze focused ninety years forward to Zetaahn's twitching scythe as he muttered a stream of bubbles in his sleep. She blinked heavily. She no longer knew what to do with her memories of the Bladesworn. Once, not so very long ago, each one had filled her with an unerring sense of pride. Even the terrible things – creeping through the omastar's tunnels to splatter whole clutches of eggs up the walls – developed their own morbid worth when she remembered the way all three kabutops would come together. They were one another's support. How, she had been sure, could she feel anything other than pride after being part of a team like that?

But it had been sullied, hadn't it? In the six years after his death, Haakmin's ghost might have healed back into something she could think of fondly, but he was changing again now. Into what, she couldn't say. He filled her with unease.

And Tziir, Tziir was worse. He had been with her, with his blind faith and rambling speeches, for nearly a century. On the cliffside, three years after her evolution, while the raakinoi – the normal, brown-bodied, wingless raakinoi – duelled down on the beach, the tall, lanky delfiir had peered at her as she explained. I'm not normal, don't you see? His sincere confusion had shown through the tilt of his head and his bemused tone. Well, yes. You look exceptionally deadly. Is that a problem?

No, she had come to realise, guided by his patient assertions and the odd burst of fierceness when she spoke too lowly of herself. No, neither her black, unbreakable armour nor her silver wings were problems. They made her deadly, as he had insisted. They made her the most dangerous warrior in the tribe. They made her into his helniin. For decades they worked together, king and commander, and the tribe prospered for it.

And then what? Nothing. Weeks in the shiraan, with Haakmin dead and Tziir absent. No explanation, no sign of him at all until his voice – deeper and slower and less wildly eccentric with age, but his voice all the same – pressed at her back.

'Shaaca.'

She'd whirled, so unabashedly relieved to have him with her he was instantly forgiven for the twelve-day wait. Words tumbled into her brain, bloodied with a desperation she would trust to no one else. 'Ziir, he's worse, I left him and he's worse, what can I do, what should I do. But nothing left her mouth; he didn't give her the chance to speak.

'It's time to act. I need you to run ahead of the main force and ascertain the omastar's situation.'

She stared, uncomprehending. He must have come to help her, but she couldn't make the words fit. No matter how she twisted them, the syllables remained clipped and apathetic. And slowly it dawned on her, as her kabtaar spoke of scouting and war, that he didn't give a damn that Kognook was going to die.

At Bladesworn Point, Shaaca crumpled as shock had disallowed back in the shiraan. Limply she slumped forward, her blades slack on the stone shelf and her helmed head bowed toward her lap. Betrayal scoured her throat raw with each heaving sob. Her shoulders shook until her stiff joints burned. How could he? He had spared her not one moment of compassion, not one breath at her side. From the others, the raakinoi and the shiraari, she expected nothing. But Tziir she trusted. Even now, every wave of injured fury was capped with ardent, aching fondness.

I love you, she thought suddenly, unbidden and aimless.

It crawled so weakly through the drowning clamour of her mind that she barely heard it herself. She grasped it, her sudden focus leaching strength from her tears, and moulded it in her mouth. Between shaky hiccoughs, she growled it out, sharp with hate.

'I love you.'

She sat and choked on the words until the circle of sunlight burned at the middle of the pool. All that ragged, alien emotion withdrew somewhere out of sight within her, leaving only a familiar headache in its wake. Dry-eyed, the aashnin stared into her lap, asleep in her head.

Something shifted in Shaaca's peripheral vision, something large enough to draw her into the present. Violet eyes raising slowly, she watched a grey, ovular creature slightly smaller than Raahn slip cautiously over the coral dam at the cave's mouth. A row of long, white and red fins undulated in turn along each side, allowing the newcomer to prod at its surroundings with long pincers. A predator, clearly, though not of her class. Shaaca turned her head away dismissively and looked back down into the pool.

Save for Raahn and Zetaahn, everything living was gone. Remoraid, staryu, krabby, horsea: all of them, hidden in an instant. The aashnin thrust her face under the water without a second thought. Her talons gripped the wall as she leant further out, and something brushed her calf.

'Friend Kabutops!' exclaimed a little voice as a remoraid's round eyes and silver scales materialised right beneath Shaaca's nose.

There was a clear question in the address. Shaaca gave an irritable hiss as the fish hovered safely just beneath the rim of her helm, darting in and out of sight too close to the kabutops' body for any untimely dicing.

'I just ate,' the aashnin ground out, her frown deepening as her attempts to locate the speaker revealed the pool's missing inhabitants, all cowering between her legs, 'and you're not my sort of snack.'

'Oh good.'

Remoraid darted boldly out into the open. Her scales showed no sign of head trauma, but as Shaaca flexed her scythes she didn't rule it out.

'I was wondering if you could do us all a tiny favour.'

'Is that so.' The kabutops eyed her darkly. 'Why would I help a little fish like you?'

The remoraid's gauzy fins twitched in the water, giving her a nervous jig. Her gaze flew between Shaaca and the clawed newcomer as she struggled for a convincing answer.

'Perhaps if you heard me out...' she tried.

'The flat fish over there scares you and you want me to finish him off,' Shaaca said coldly, 'but he's not my prey.'

Remoraid dipped slightly in the water, shooting the newcomer a disdainful glance. 'He's an anorith,' she said severely, as though that explained everything.

Shaaca raised her head, tilting her helm toward him.

'Why are they all afraid of you, then, Anorith?' she asked.

He froze in place, claws snapping sporadically. Both eye stalks swivelled up to stare at the enormous black kabutops.

'We eat everything,' he said simply. 'That is all.'

The aashnin watched him as he advanced slowly into the main pool, giving her a wide berth. His claws fumbled fretfully at pebbles and empty shells. He looked like a weedy little scavenger, regardless of the pincers. With a disinterested burst of bubbles, Shaaca sat up, water streaming from her helm, and leant back against the stone.

'Please, Kabutops.' Remoraid's tiny voice decayed further into a weedy whine from below the surface.

The aashnin raked the lip of the shelf with her scythe, sending a rain of pebbles down over Remoraid's cowering friends.

'If you're desperate for me to kill outside my needs,' she snapped, 'just offer me your belly. At least I could feed you to my kabuto.'

Her stomach tensed at her own poor choice of words, but Shaaca clenched her jaw and rode it out. She wasn't going to let this presumptuous, demanding fish see her at her weakest.

'No,' said Remoraid, 'Anorith are toxic, like tentacool. Kill him defensively.'

'You think he'd go for a kabutops.' Shaaca gave her an incredulous look.

'Maybe, when you're weak, or alone,' replied the fish, her saucer eyes glancing downward for a split second. 'Or asleep.'

Shaaca started forward sharply, gaze snapping down just in time to see Anorith's pincer find the upper swell of Raahn's shell. She crashed into the water, waves dashing up the walls and bursting into foam through the tiny skylight. The surge of current threw Anorith and the telniin apart, hurling Zetaahn up onto the shelf in a confused tangle of limbs, but the aashnin's blade sheared straight through the chaos. It sliced Anorith in half and cut deep into the floor.

'By the bloody... couldn't you have woken us up the sane way?' snarled Raahn, righting himself on the opposite side of the swirling pool and flitting back over effortlessly. She saw his eyes widen as he drew near. 'What was that, Shaaca?'

'An anorith,' she said, pulling her blade free.

The kabuto swam after the creature's severed abdomen as it whirled in the surging water. He kept easy pace with it, tapping at its flimsy grey carapace with his claws.

'I've seen one of those before,' said Zetaahn from the shelf.

He ducked his head to let a grounded remoraid slide back into the water. It darted over to its school, who were already settling back into the main pool as though Anorith had never been there at all.

'They live in deeper water, mostly,' said their speaker, hovering near the aashnin's shoulder, 'but they've been moving higher and higher.'

Zetaahn cocked his head to the side. 'Our kabuto stay a bit deeper than most of the tribe,' he told Remoraid. 'Before I evolved, I think I saw one or two of those anorith swimming around the ocean side of our shelf. In fact, you were there, Aashnin! Don't you remember?'

He looked over to Shaaca, who stared back wordlessly. She remembered. Though she refused to let him sleep with the group, Kognook had always insisted on visiting from time to time. She had watched the prowling anorith intently, never thinking they were dangerous but wanting them far away from her son nevertheless.

'One of them tried to come over,' Zetaahn recalled, 'but it swam away when you and Shiraar Hazaan got too close.' He scratched the side of his head against the cave wall. 'I wanted to meet it properly... but I evolved and never got the chance. And, uh, now this one's dead.'

Remoraid darted closer to him. 'He was going to eat your friend,' she said consolingly.

'Highly unlikely,' said Raahn. 'I am not easily defeated.'

'You were asleep,' said Shaaca, earning herself an irritated glance.

'And they can take down things like relicanth,' Remoraid added.

The aashnin eyed her sidelong. 'That is stretching credibility.'

'In terms of defensive capacity,' said Raahn, 'relicanth are even stronger than us.'

'Well, it's the truth.' Remoraid darted higher in the water. 'He was injured down near the sea floor and drifted into the anorith's territory when he rose closer to the surface. Only three of them came after him at first, but they were quick and managed to hit him a few times. Then their friends turned up. They beat him and drove him up into the shallows to die. He told me so himself.'

All three kabu gave her disbelieving glances, Raahn's scathing, Shaaca's apathetic and Zetaahn's vaguely confused.

'Not to be rude,' said the raakin, 'but how does someone who's dead tell you how they died?'

'He wasn't dead yet,' she said irritably. 'They don't kill like you do. They battered him, poisoned him, and left him to float. They all followed at a distance, watching, then disappeared altogether when he reached the reef and there were places to hide. That's when I spoke with him. And when he died, they all came flying out and just tore him up. That's why we're all sheltering here. This place has always been safe.'

'Bladesworn Point,' clicked Raahn to Zetaahn. 'Smaller predators don't come here for fear of kabutops, so little prey have nothing to worry about. Still,' he continued, glaring at Remoraid, 'I'm unconvinced. Your relicanth likely died from the initial injury; they just hurried it along. We have nothing to worry about.'

'I want Zetaahn to sit on watch,' said Shaaca.

Expressionless, she returned their stares. Through the corner of her eye she spied Remoraid looking distinctly pleased with herself.

Raahn darted forward, spreading his front claws questioningly. 'Why, Aashnin? You don't believe this creature's story, surely?'

She eyed him silently for a few seconds, considering.

'No.'

'Then why?'

The defensive note was already in Raahn's tone, souring his words. Yes, he was the weak point that had made up her mind, but she was much too tired for one of his rants. She waved one scythe dismissively, settling down to sleep.

'The raakin needs practice.'

Zetaahn crouched eagerly on the edge of the shelf, beaming down at her through the water. Shaaca could feel Raahn's angry gaze on her shell as she looked up at the raakin.

'Are you willing, Zetaahn?'

He nodded eagerly, scythes flashing. 'I'll do my very best, Aashnin.'

Her limbs creaked as she folded them in, her scythes pressed back against her forearms. 'Good.'

'This is unnecessary,' grumbled Raahn as Shaaca closed her eyes.

'I don't think so,' said Remoraid, skimming back to her school. 'I think an anorith's poison can kill just about anything.'

The water pressed cool and comforting around the aashnin, soothing the endless aches that flared through her joints. Her mind emptied like the draining tide. Senses distorting, she barely heard Zetaahn's mumbled reply.

'Not us. We're kabutops.'

o o o

The kabtaar lay bleeding on the beach. Sand clung to his armour, grating between his chest plates with each heavy breath. With the sun searing his one good eye, everything around him took on a blueish hue: Shiraar Rinaari hurriedly flushing grit from his wounds; Siira returning to his side after fending off the tightening circle of curious raakinoi; and the last tmiirin sprawled lifeless near his head.

Even with the young warriors clustered close and watching, Tziir's gaze clung to Jakinzaa. He couldn't see her eyes. Already, her flesh folded in on itself beneath her armour. Like the cloudy membrane of a newly hatched egg, her skin stretched dry and fragile between each plate, sagging and wrinkling behind her shoulders and under her neck. Sand trickled through the cuts in her shell and her scythes, rusty with her blood.

Tziir's innards shifted as though floating in some new inner reservoir as Rinaari pressed the blunt joint of her scythe against his abdomen. His gaze jerked straight ahead at the unexpected pain, liquid dribbling from a narrow stab wound in his side. The sun seemed set to bake him in his armour. Through the thin slat of vision in his ruined left lid, he saw Siira's attention shift from Jakinzaa's broken body to his own oozing injuries.

'How are you feeling, Kabtaar?' she asked. For all her tendency to babble, her words came slowly, clear and subdued.

The raakinoi drew close behind her, the whole circle struggling to fit into Tziir's arch of vision as he turned his head to answer. The cluster shuffled and huffed as helmed faces were thrust over shoulders and between arms and bodies, their respectful silence merely serving to amplify the scraping of shells.

The sight of them struck him dumb for a few long seconds. Though he knew full well that others were scattered around the bay, going about their daily rituals oblivious to this little scene by the waterside, it dawned on the kabtaar that here stood his tribe: young, open, optimistic and brave. Time had tempered all three into steady, informed assurance in Tziir himself, but the raakinoi were not so unlike him. Just as he hadn't been so unlike Jakinzaa.

'I've had worse,' he said, speech loosening the metallic tang in his mouth. 'Save your grief for our good tmiirin; I have strength in me yet.'

Rinaari raised her head from a close inspection of the liquid seeping from his flank. 'It's just seawater, Kabtaar,' she reported firmly. 'None of these wounds would be fatal.'

Tziir sat up slowly, his eyes locking on Rinaari as the truth behind her careful wording sank in. Her grey eyes peered back, melancholy and mature beyond her three decades.

This insightful young kabutops would be one of the eldest left, he realised. The title of tmiirin, of elder, would be open to her even though it was usually reserved for kabu past their bicentenary. The age boundaries of their tribe drew closer around her neck – around the necks of every member – like a tightening noose, carrying all his responsibility with them.

Her blunt scythe touched his arm questioningly and, vaguely, the kabtaar nodded. A murmur of relief spread through the raakinoi, each as yet oblivious to the implications of his injury. They were better off that way. He needed them focused on the task at hand.

He had to think of this as a time limit, nothing more. A severe deadline. The tribe had to be ready when the scouting party returned. They had to crush the omastar once and for all in the next few days. The alternative condemned enthusiastic, talented youths like Rinaari and Siira to blight and death without the time to learn the skills that could save them. It called for the tribe to stumble, headless, to its final resting place. That couldn't happen. The plague had to die with Tziir.

His flesh buzzed with odd energy as the kabtaar surged to his feet. Startled, the raakinoi tried desperately to pull apart, scythes catching on armour and heads jerking free of the crooks of their friends' arms as they struggled to form ranks. They stood at attention in disarray, Siira standing proud but curious at their head, and watched their leader intently. At the back, someone toppled sideways into their neighbour and nearly sent both to the ground.

They weren't his djirnoi and delfiiri. When he ceased to compare them with their fully-trained, battle-hardened counterparts, however, he could see the same loyalty in them, the same enthusiasm. He grinned savagely, eliciting a disconcerted wave of hesitant, hopeful looks from their untried faces. They were still his tribe, and they could still stop this plague.

'Shiraar Rinaari?'

She stood sharply at his elbow, her gaze flicking to his open wound for a split-second.

'Yes, my kabtaar.'

'You suggested our plague-stricken survive longer with full-time supervision.'

'Yes, my kabtaar.'

He looked back to the raakinoi, who attempted to stand even taller than before, their shielded heads tipped back.

'You.' He indicated half of them with a slice and sweep of his scythe, suppressing the tremble in the blade. 'Head to my cave. I want as many extra ka'aan created there as possible. Be smart. The shiraari will need space to stand. Go.'

The chosen few tore away from the rest of the group, darting up the beach toward the carved path ascending the cliff to the kabtaar's cavern. The remainder blinked in the resulting rain of sand, uncomprehending.

'My kabtaar,' said Rinaari out of turn, her question pressing behind his honorific.

'The creatures that killed Tmiirin Jakinzaa came from the sea, and they came onto land in pursuit of us,' Tziir told the group. 'They might do so again to attack our wounded in the shiraan; it is the last place left where we dwell at the water's edge, after all. We cannot allow that possibility to remain. The tribe will move further up the beach, with the wounded residing at the highest point of all: in my cave.'

He paused, watching as the raakinoi exchanged glances at this news. Some looked surprised, others wary. Tziir lowered his head until the full spread of his helm met their gazes.

'You are all worthy fighters,' he said. 'Together we will show the omastar just how misguided they were to think a disease could stop the might of our scythes. We will crush them into the mud in that cesspit they call a bay, and when we are done with them we will return and we will crush these belligerent little parasites too. We will avenge Tmiirin Jakinzaa and every other kabutops they may have hurt in the past. We will remind them why no one strikes us and lives.'

The kabtaar let out a derisive snort and straightened up out of the crouch his words had slowly goaded him into, blood dribbling down his leg.

'But enough. You all know what happens to enemies of the kabutops.' Tziir made another sharp gesture with his scythe, indicating the bulk of the group. 'You. Head to the shiraan. Inform the shiraari of my plans and escort them and the afflicted to their new residence as soon as they are ready. Make haste.'

With a few enthusiastic bobs of their heads, the raakinoi departed. Siira and Rinaari were the only ones left.

'Should I be-' the raakin started.

'Siira,' he said, cutting her off.

His voice maintained the harsh, demanding tone of his previous speech. Flustered, the raakin snapped her mouth shut, ducking her head self-consciously. Tziir paused, consciously replacing anger with pride before he continued, though he couldn't quite chase the underlying tension from his words.

'Delfiir.'

Siira looked up sharply, eyes wide.

'You proved yourself today,' the kabtaar told her. 'You were sharp and insightful. You showed no fear in the face of real combat. You followed orders impeccably, yet acted under your own instruction with equal competence.

'You are wholly deserving of your new title. And now that you have it, I wish to delegate some control over the raakinoi to you. Specifically, I want you to devise a guard rota so that the sick are watched over at all times. The shiraari are overworked and undoubtedly in need of respite; they can rest more deeply on the understanding that the raakinoi will wake them should the state of their charges change in any way.'

'I will be able to provide assistance in explaining all this to the shiraari,' said Rinaari slowly. 'They will be grateful, Kabtaar.'

He bowed his head to her. 'Thank you, Shiraar. Delfiir-'

'Thank you,' Siira blurted.

Both kabtaar and shiraar started at the raw anguish in the new delfiir's voice. She stared at Tziir, making no attempt to disguise her distress.

'Thank you for my title,' she said, voice wavering. Her scythes tensed at her sides. 'And thank you even more for... for surviving.'

Tziir struggled for an adequate reply and found nothing. Speechless, he wished he could simply accept the thanks, perhaps even force some humour in the aftermath of their ordeal. But it would be a lie. He swallowed back the unwelcome taste of fear and held her gaze.

'I was just... wondering if I might ask one thing of you,' Siira continued, 'before I go about my duties.'

Her gaze slipped tellingly to Jakinzaa, still staring sightlessly at the cloudless sky.

'Can't we do something for her?' she begged. 'We can't leave her for the birds or for... the things in the sea.'

'We can bury her,' said Tziir, covering his nerves with the familiar weight of his own resolve.

Rinaari sliced the air sharply, shaking her head. 'Kabtaar, I can't allow you to do that.'

He looked down at the shiraar. She barely reached his elbow in height, but she frowned up disapprovingly nevertheless. The sun pitched down on all three of them, their armour creaking in the heat. Rinaari was probably right. He still felt light-headed and weak. But that would only get worse in time.

'It must be done,' he told her.

He and Siira angled their scythes and began to dig.