Wir Sind Die Jäger Chapter 63: ballagàraidh, a selection trilogy, kiera cass fanfic

ballagàraidh: an uncomfortable awareness that you are not at home in the wilderness

They had found the sea, and walked alongside it for so many moments that Zoran found himself missing it once it was gone; they had been so long in Illéa that he had forgotten that they were, at their core, coastal people. Opona dwelled on the edge of the world; though Zoran's family had not reaped their livings from the water, it had been a familiar touchstone long-missed and almost-forgotten. Even the air tasted different here, cold and crisp though it was; the salt sank deep into your tongue and seemed to linger. Long after they had crossed back into the forest, and the greenery had closed back around them, Zoran tasted that sea-air in the back of his throat.

They followed the river away from the ocean, having found the place where one became another, and after some time, they came to the place where the river, in turn, became a lake. It was a broad, horseshoe shape – more a crescent moon, he thought, than an actual horseshoe, that lake – so perfectly still that it reflected the world back perfectly, every line exactly in place, every motion effortlessly mirrored. The world was quiet here; the world was peaceful here. It felt like they were stepping back into the forest by the training camp, like if they tilted their heads back they would see the mountains jutting high to skewer the clouds, like they could escape from all of this to become children again – cadets again – human again. It felt so strangely like home that Zoran half-expected to see Pekka and Ina sitting at the edge of the lake, waiting for him, laughter carrying softly over the water.

Nez walked to the water's cusp as Zoran glanced down at the notes screwed up in his hand; behind them, the misshapen body of Xynone Hanover hovered at the edge of the clearing, shuddering, as though it could not bear to come too close to the sunlight, as though it could not leave the mist in which it was shrouded. Was this the fate for Illéans unlucky enough to die outside of their precious walls – an eternity shuffling and shambling towards a home that never drew closer? Nez kicked the water, splashing the water in a broad fractal arc of shimmering colour; it caught the light, and sent spiralling rainbows rippling along the individual lines of the barely-felt wind.

It really could have been Opona; that was unnerving; that galled. Everything was in place; everything was the same; everything was identical. An identical image, this place, of its twin in the land across the ocean. Heaven and hell, mirrored. Zoran drew closer to the lake, half-expecting to see familiar boot marks, scattered footprints, the hastily drawn fingertip graffiti Myghal and Uriasz would leave in the sand nearest the edge of the water. The sky overhead was a pale cornflower dawn, and in the woods around them was the soft shuffling scuttle of animals or druj as yet unseen.

Pekka had paced his way around the lake once, when they were much younger, when he was still young and shorn-headed and brimming with whatever strange resentment had been his fuel during their first few years at training. He had come back and announced its perimeter: two virsta, which was also nearly ten vakomitta. Zoran had always imagined these to be some kind of esoteric nautical terms; imagine his disappointment when Ina had said that they were simply outdated Swendway measurements, from a time before Kaapo Hämäläinen's father had crossed the broad channel to Irij. Klaara had used them as well, to measure the slugs in her revolver or the font face on their typed sheets: linja and tuuma, always sounding much more beautiful and much more exotic than their mundane usages could contenance. That much, and the Aas surname, were the only suggestions that might have betrayed some long-ago Swendish heritage; but for that, she had been Kur to the very marrow.

It could have been Klara or Pekka standing there, at the edge of the lake – and how could that be? How could he have been unsure if the reflected silhouette wavering alongside his own was tall or short, broad or slender, fair and golden or dark and bronze? They were Towers; they carried a certain, unfair, indistinguishability. It could have been either of them; it might have been both of them. When the Tower spoke, it was with both of their voices, and the voices of many besides, and it rippled so that only a few words were audible at the very end of the phrase: "...believe...strong enough?"

Yes, Zoran wanted to say, as though an answer was required – but he knew that it was not, it could not be. Beyond the unclear presence of the Tower, each xrafstar stretched, disappearing into the mist, a strange amalgamation of everyone that they were and had been and would be. If he looked into the water he could see them: Azula was cleaning the study of Lady Chou, and Khalore was following Lorencio down the stairs into the central laboratory of the Schools, and Pekka was holding Kinga by the shoulders while the remains of Dagmara hung over them dripping ichor, and Ilja and Eero were speaking conspiratorially by a porch that looked like nothing Zoran had seen in Illéa, and Ina was standing waist-deep in the water, waves lapping gently and kissing the very ends of her long hair, the hair she never cut, the hair now scattered with seasalt like a strange kind of stardust.

He recognised each of them in turn, and dismissed them as they came, letting them run over him like water. Keep going. Hyacinth flashed past him before he could discern any details about the tableau she presented, and then Nerezza, her face etched with the realest, truest, fear that Zoran had ever seen, and finally, Mielikki – lying on the forest floor, more black liquid and bone than anything resembling a person. Mushrooms sprouted from what have once been her eyes; wild flowers overspilled her teeth and ribs. It was very similar to how Alajos had died, but Alajos had been the Star, and this was Death, and this was the reality of death, which tore through everyone to whom it was gifted, who would surely claim the next to whom it was enburdened. This was death. Not a person anymore. Not Mielikki. Just this.

"Just meat," Nez was telling Khalore, "it wanted meat."

They were close. And then? In the reflection, he could see smoke rising over the horizon and horses moving below them. They were close to returning to the walls. The water rippled, and threw Azula off her balance, just as she stood and accepted the cup of tea that the lady Chou was offering her, with a maternal smile; Khalore was running her hand along the shape of a dead druj and listening intently to the silent words of the Scholar beside her as he explained the dissection process; Matthias Kloet had Kinga by the throat – "do us a favour, Szymańska – die when you ought" – and Pekka was limping through crowded streets, Opona's cobbled docks, perhaps, in a coat of Watcher red, and Ilja and Eero were clasping hands in a brotherly pact, and Ina was turning back to look at him in that fallen-rose, sea-glass, leaden-heart way that she had, and smiling sweetly, like a girl in love, and saying nothing.

Her golden eyes were full of tears.

There was a strange tension in Zoran's jaw. What had Kinga told him? He couldn't lose control – he hadn't even taken control yet. He was taking control now – forcing the visions from whatever strange, intangible place they dwelled. For god's sake, be useful. See something useful. He was taking control now. He was losing nothing. How could you lose something you had never grasped?

Oh, and he thought of Ina then, and her eyes, and the world tilted around him. Violently, like it was trying to buck him from its surface. Only the reflection in the lake remained stationary, like it alone was real, like it alone mattered.

The first Hierophant was trying to draw him back towards the Fall; Zoran's reflection dug in its heels, and resisted. To dwell in the long-ago past – perhaps there was sense, he thought, some hidden meaning not yet clear – or perhaps it was just wallowing about a victory two-hundred-years-won. Could one wallow in a victory, truly? Perhaps the Hierophant had been one of the xrafstars to stay loyal to the King of Illéa, as the Moon had. Perhaps this was a regret long-festered.

Zoran resisted, but perhaps not enough. This was Siarka, was it not? Perhaps the Siarka of his own childhood. The water was purple here, and the world was ending very slowly, just cracks papering the horizon; at the water's edge, a little girl was gathering black shells. She wasn't a monster yet. There would still be time. Was that hope? Could it be? Her sister had been older; her sister had been stronger. "Don't give it to her," Konrad was saying, somewhere, taking a child's face very gently in large, calloused hands, "you're strong enough to end this."

And Zoran was laughing at him, smiling in Konrad's face, even as he wiped the blood from his face. Somewhere on the sidelines, Ina was staring at him, her warm brown eyes somewhere between horrified and true, total, understanding. There, on the sand: Pekka, staring at the innards pouring through his fingers even as he tried to hold them in. What had she thought? That he would let her do this alone? Hadn't he whispered as much to Pekka, in the very moment that Hämäläinen had believed that the upper hand was his own – "I'm not leaving her."

There was nowhere she could go that he would not follow.

"Don't leave," Ina was saying, just as Dimitar swept Allegra into a kiss and their paltry wedding party – xrafstars all – exploded into applause and approving cheers. They all knew how stupid it was. They had perhaps four years left to them, if they were lucky, if they were strong. They had not been strong. She had not been strong, though she had been desperate to be so. Ina could feel that desperation too, if the grip she had on the other Warrior's sleeve was any indication. "Please, don't do this, you don't have to do this..."

And the other Warrior's answer was scattered across a dozen generations that had been, a dozen generations that might yet be.

As the stars splintered overhead, the First Devil, Vrata, turned to look at her fellow xrafstars, calm despite the blood that slowly leaked from between her fingers, from the wound slowly blooming in the First Lover's chest as the light faded from his sun-gold eyes – I made a promise.

While the sky fractured, Jaga's hand tightened over her knife. She was fourteen years old, but barely, only just. She had been thirteen when she had struck out on this particular hunt, only thirteen, still childish. Childish no longer, with Dagmara's heart in her hands – it is my duty.

As the world around them began to shudder, Ina's hand closed over his. Those tears again – it must be.

Why? It was Zoran's question, his scream unexpressed, but it found voice with Ina, first, and then Kane Hijikata, and then with Khalore, and then, at last, with Ina again: "why?"

It echoed around him until he was no longer sure that it was a word.

"That's not the question you should be asking." Matthias glanced at him for the first time since this had all started. The end of the world raged on around him, ceaselessly, and the Hierophant-that-had-been said, quite casually, "have you gotten to the clocks yet?"

Zoran's voice didn't sound like it was coming from his mouth. "What clocks?"

Matthias shook his head. "Tell me when you get to the clocks," he said, "and the broken window…."

"Tell you?"

"Just wait," Matthias said, "just wait..."

And then the sky was crashing down around them in emerald fragments and Zoran was looking away from the surface of the lake just as Nez lashed a kick against the water that broke Zoran's reflection up into a dozen tiny shivering waves.

Only a moment had passed. As though the clouds had arrested their progress across the sky in his name; as though Nez had paused in her anti-lake aggression to allow him to process his visions in peace. No – all of that, in a fraction of a heartbeat.

"Well?" Nez turned expectant eyes upon him.

Zoran was surprised to find that his voice was very low and even. "Only a mile further."

Nearly there. Then they could return to the others. Then they could go home. They could not have been gone for longer than a day or two – it was hard to tell, in the forest, in this wretched mist, with Xynone Hanover bearing down so close by, with Nez and her knife so near, with the druj stalking so near.

There was not a moment to delay, to try and process what he had seen, to try and decipher Matthias' elusive words. They could only strike out, and move quickly, and hope that they were quick enough.

They weren't, of course, but they had done their best.

As they drew nearer to the place that Mielikki had died, soft voices infiltrated the undergrowth, drifting closer and closer to them. Illéan accents; Zoran had not expected to recognise them, and indeed he did not. He held up a closed fist to indicate to Nez that they needed to approach with caution, and, for once in her life, the Wheel did not quibble – only nodded, and dropped low, and crept through the forest like she had been born to it. Finally, all of those hours the Commandant had spent drilling their movements on the obstacle course was proving useful; the Warriors were utterly silent as they moved.

A scouting party, it would seem – but none of them clad in excubitor green. There was, instead, a trio in Watcher red speaking softly, and a lone blue-jacketed Watcher kneeling over – fuck, Zoran thought, despairingly, fuck, fuck, fuck – kneeling over what little remained of Mielikki after six months in the elements. What were the odds, he thought, what were the fucking odds?

"Savva," the Scholar was saying, rather dourly, "maybe Hanover..."

"Look at the coat." The Watcher who spoke was a young woman in a headscarf; one side of her face was mutilated, a clear memento of previous druj encounters. "You ever seen an excubitor wearing leather like that?"

"No harness either," her companion, a tall dark-skinned man with narrow eyes, agreed. "No swords." He paused. "It looks like a girl, right? Look how small..."

The narrow, pale man, who was clearly the commander despite being the youngest present, cleared his throat. "Whatever it is. Load it."

"You think the Scholars will find use for it?"

"Someone will," the young commander said, darkly, "someone certainly will."

The Scholar nodded, and stood back, as the two Watchers knelt to cover Mielikki in a woven blanket, so that they could heft her into the waiting cart. It was not a typical wagon, like the kind most commonly used in Illéa – it was much narrower, and would have only allowed perhaps a single person, lying down. Coffin carts, they called them, for use on rough terrain like this, for a single purpose: retrieving bodies, those of druj or otherwise.

Zoran's hands twisted into fists. Was there anything they could do? The tagma were all armed to the teeth, their swords glinting at their hips and shoulders like strange silver promises; they outnumbered the Warriors two to one. Perhaps if Nez used her curse, but if that went wrong – then failure was guaranteed. Death was guaranteed. Could they risk that? Fifty fifty?

Or else they let them take Mielikki, and hoped that Khalore could get to her before the Scholars could. Was that the safest choice? It risked drawing more attention to them – to Khalore, who was otherwise unobtrusive in the world of the Illéans – it would risk the Illéans learning something about what made a xrafstar a xrafstar, it would risk losing the Death curse forever.

Zoran was frozen to the spot, utterly unable to move. Either way, they could lose. Either way, this could spell the end of their mission.

Either way.

Oroitz Txori turned his head in their direction. He couldn't see them – Zoran knew that he could not, could not possibly, in no world could he – but it felt as though he could. His eyes were somewhere between brown and grey; they were empty, somehow. Zoran hadn't realised before just how much a gaze could resemble a haunted house.

He and Nez held their breath. The moment passed.

Oroitz Txori turned away again, and gave a command. The coffin cart moved slowly out of sight, and the tagma moved with it, and in a single moment, they were out of sight and Mielikki – the Death curse – was lost forever.

Wait.

He slowly lowered his hand; Nez watched his motion with rapt attention, and seemed to understand immediately.

Her coin flashed gold as it spun through the air, and landed – Zoran already had his sword drawn – on tails.

Oroitz's arrow struck him right in the chest.

Zoran staggered a little, just from the sheer impact of the strike. It didn't hurt. He almost smiled to think that. It didn't hurt at all. It was just a little hard to breathe. Maybe the shaft of the arrow was pinning his lungs to his ribs to his heart. All sewn together with wooden thread. It didn't hurt, but when he looked down, he could see that blood – the brightest red he had ever seen – was pumping steadily out of the place over his heart where he had been hit. That wasn't something he could survive, he thought pleasantly. That wasn't something he could live past.

Beside him, Nez had turned to run and been struck through the throat, from behind. She was gurgling quietly on the forest floor now, gasping for air that wouldn't come. She wouldn't survive that either. Not a chance. Like Zoran himself.

He fell to his knees as Oroitz slowly approached him. His hands were all stained with Zoran's blood. Was that why the Watcher coat was red?

He should have told her. Why hadn't he told her? There was that question again – why?

It didn't feel real – like watching something happen to his own reflection, rather than to himself.

It didn't feel real.

Wait.

He slowly lowered his hand; Nez watched his motion with rapt attention, and seemed to understand immediately.

Her coin flashed gold as it spun through the air, and landed – Zoran already had his sword drawn – on heads.

A silent look passed between them, and then they had moved.

Nez went left – she tended to, though she was ambidextrous, simply because most people tended to be right-handed and this put her at a certain advantage – and in the same moment that the female Watcher had turned to conceptualise this threat moving towards them, and moving fast, Nez had slit her throat from ear-to-ear, leaving her with a strange red smile as she fell to the ground. Zoran had caught the Scholar by surprise – Ghjuvan had warned them that these types of tagma were a more cerebral breed, less accustomed to combat, but Zoran shocked even himself at how easily his pilfered sword passed through the soldier's chest. Zoran tried not to notice that they were wearing a wedding ring.

Then Oroitz Txori was upon him, and swords were ringing out a horrible clash. This was not like the fencing that Myghal had sometimes chivvied him into practicing – this was something brute and awful. Oroitz Txori was not looking to score points but to allow blade to find flesh, and Zoran found himself fixing hand around wrist and just straining to keep the Watcher at bay, unable to fight back, his own sword falling almost forgotten to the floor as the tagma commander lashed out a punch in the side of his head that left Zoran's ears ringing, and another that drove all the air from his lungs, and pressed his advantage home, forcing his sword closer, and closer, and closer, to Zoran's throat. He had a strange, awful, brute strength that was belied by his narrow frame, the pallor of skin, the strange empty look in his eyes.

And Zoran had the horrible thought, what did Nez bet on?

Too late. He had faltered; Txori drove it home. Zoran found himself clinging to his opponent's sword hand just to stay upright, staring over the tagma's shoulder at Nez. She would slit Txori's throat and leave. She would leave Zoran to die, as she had left Ghjuvan, and she would return to the beach, and she would sail back to Illéa, and that would be that.

For the nine years she had left, anyway.

Zoran had, perhaps, nine minutes left like this.

Wait.

But he wasn't looking at them. He was looking beyond them, at something moving in the shadows.

A druj.

"Maryam," Oroitz began to say, "Åsmund, it's..."

He reached for his blade.

And then the druj exploded from the undergrowth in a shrieking mass of claws and fangs and bloodlust. Zoran dived for Nez, and pulled her to the ground as the monster tore past them and tore into Oroitz Txori, maw gaping, teeth rending, talons tearing.

The Scholar was already racing away with the coffin cart, and Mielikki inside, even as the Watchers Maryam and Åsmund tried in vain to save their colleague from the beast which had risen from the encroaching darkness. Zoran had been afraid to see that it had company, but no – Zoran had been afraid that it might have turned its attention on them, but no. It seemed content with the prey it had found. He hadn't even managed to get his sword free, but he was fighting nonetheless, still fighting, even as it ripped through his arms and into his chest and screamed victory to whatever of its brethren still lingered in the trees.

Wait.

Oroitz Txori turned away again, and gave a command. The coffin cart moved slowly out of sight, and the tagma moved with it, and in a single moment, they were out of sight, but not out of earshot, so that Zoran and Nez could still hear the screaming as the druj descended upon them and then –

Wait.

Zoran fell to his knees as Oroitz slowly approached him. His hands were all stained with Zoran's blood. Was that why the Watcher coat was red? He had a dagger in his hand. Good, Zoran thought, dazedly, good, he was going to be put out of his misery. Good. His enemy was willing to be kind. Was this what the Kur considered devilry?

Oroitz paused over him. "I don't understand," he said, slowly, softly, and then the druj exploded from the undergrowth, shrieking like something entirely wild and feral, and there was only black ichor and flesh flying in every direction, even as Zoran felt the last of the air slip away from him, even as –

Wait.

He could not have more than nine minutes left. Nez had slit Oroitz Txori's throat before fleeing; he had died slowly on the ground next to Zoran, haunted eyes staring, but he had not said anything, and he had died much quicker than Zoran had.

Zoran was only dimly aware that the forest was still alive around him, barely able to recognise the sounds and vibrations which seemed to pass through him rather than register with his senses. Dimly, he was aware of something enormous and burning-hot near to him – feathers brushing over his hand, claws clicking somewhere nearby – and maybe he was imagining that he was being embraced or maybe this was simply the prelude to his being devoured but he was sure that it didn't matter because in the end he had not even told –

Wait.

In every iteration, Oroitz Txori was torn to shreds, here and now, on the forest floor. Was that what Ina would have called destiny? Some cruel cosmic joke?

It seemed that the forest demanded some tithe. The wilderness needed to validate itself as such somehow, did it not?

"Well?" Nez turned expectant eyes upon him.

Zoran was surprised to find that his voice was very low and even. They had no chance of getting Mielikki back; he had seen that. But they would see it through. Nonetheless – they would see it through. "Only a mile further."

"And then?"

"And then they'll take her," Zoran said, "and then we'll go home."