There were too many fucking stairs in Dalathar.
Yala Palathar descended into the undercity with a stream of curses, her cane smacking each step and her feet unsteady on the slick stones. While the past few days of heavy rain had washed away the stench of the corpses that had once clogged every entrance to the lower level of the city, the place looked even more desolate than it had during her last visit. Rivulets of water ran off roofs, and gaunt faces peered through windows in the shacks that flanked Yala on the way to the crossroads where she’d arranged to meet Nalen.
The broad, bearded man waiting for her cracked a grin. “Thought you’d be late.”
“Blame those wretched stairs.” Yala maintained a firm grip on her cane to avoid slipping on the rain-slick cobbles. “You know, I’d have much preferred to meet aboveground.”
“This isn’t a conversation I want to have within hearing distance of the city guards.”
“Why?” Yala liked Nalen, who’d once fought in the army and now helped protect the people of the undercity against threats both living and dead, but his paranoid streak often grated on her nerves, justified or not. “Viam kept her word, didn’t she?”
Yala had been under the impression that some of the ex-soldiers from the Undercity had found employment among the king’s guards, after their ranks had suffered substantial losses during Melian’s attack.
“She did,” he grunted, “but that doesn’t make me trust those scumbags, and people are often quick to discard their origins when offered a way out.”
“True enough.” In her day, the only way out of poverty had been through conscription into the army, but the new King had abolished that law when he’d taken the throne. Yala rarely thought of the orphanage in which she’d spent her formative years after her parents’ deaths in a fire, but here among the dilapidated shacks, she could hardly blame anyone who seized on the first opportunity to escape.
“Not that I’m referring to you,” added Nalen. “You’re a special case, seeing as you saved our hides.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she told him. “Didn’t I tell you not to stick me on a pedestal? As far as I’m concerned, the last thing these people need is to attach false worship to someone who can’t do a damned thing for them.”
“You stopped the place being flooded with the dead, that’s enough for some. Better than His Majesty managed.”
That’s true enough. King Daliel had inherited one hell of a mess to clean up and had done little to fix the many problems Laria had faced since the war. He hadn’t so much as peered out of the palace complex since the battle that had shaken the upper city, perhaps fearing retaliation. Frankly, Yala considered it lucky that there hadn’t been more revolts on the level of Melian’s attempt to topple him from his throne some weeks prior.
Granted, most would-be rebels wouldn’t have had the audacity to seek the allegiance of Mekan, the god of death, to achieve their goals.
“Go on,” Yala pressed Nalen. “Why exactly did you bring me down here? What is it?”
He glanced around, then whispered, “Corruption.”
Yala’s heart missed a beat. “How many times have you found Corruption in the last few weeks?”
“This time it’s real.” He drew closer, his face a grim mask. “In the river.”
Of course it’d be in the fucking river. “Let’s see, then.”
He beckoned her past another row of shacks. Faces peered from the windows, brightening when they saw her, and some even cheered or shouted her name. She never knew how to respond to that kind of behaviour. The gods knew she was no saviour of theirs, but the undercity folk seemed to have designated her as one all the same.
Ducking between two of the small dwellings, Nalen lifted a misshapen sack tied with a rope that didn’t quite hide the outline of what looked like a human foot. “Had to stash it somewhere … didn’t find the rest of the body, mind.”
“That’s a severed leg, Nalen.” There was a difference between an ordinary dead body and one that had been touched by Corruption—and Yala had a deeper understanding than most, being a Disciple of Death. Not that she’d chosen the title for herself. Her last encounter with the god of death hadn’t ended on pleasant terms, and her heart sank with a familiar dread when Nalen opened the bag wider. She peered inside, wrinkling her nose at the smell, but its contents gave no signs of interference from Mekan or His followers.
“I swear it was twitching when I found it,” Nalen pulled the rope taut, sealing the sack. “Creepy.”
“Bodies do that sometimes,” Yala said. “Besides, I’m fairly sure a decaying one-legged body hopping around would have drawn attention.”
Annoyance aside, she didn’t blame Nalen for being on edge; she suspected the entire city had been haunted by a miasma of nightmares in recent weeks since the dead had infested the streets. Before then, she’d been able to count on one hand the number of people who’d seen such a sight aside from herself.
“What should I do with it, then?” He looked at the sack. “Bury it?”
“In my experience, burying things leads to them clawing their way out of the ground.” The trouble was, the alternative would involve paying another visit to the Disciples of the Flame, and Yala had no desire whatsoever to meet whoever they’d chosen as their new leader.
Or to be more precise, whoever Dalathik, the god of the flame, had selected, and given that His last choice had let Corruption rise in the capital, she had little faith in the Disciples or their deity to make a good decision on the matter.
“I’m not tossing it back into the river to poison the water supply,” Nalen growled. “I swear I was sick for a week the last time I drank from the undercity well.”
Yala sighed inwardly. “I’ll get rid of it.”
After checking the ropes were secure enough to conceal her grisly prize, Yala left the alleyway. More pairs of eyes watched her walk to the stairs out of the undercity, and climbing was even more awkward with a severed limb in addition to her cane. Why did I agree to this again?
At the top of the stairs, she assessed her options. The limb wasn’t infested with Mekan’s power, but part of her expected to feel the chill of the void through the damp fabric of the sack, and to hear the chilling whisper that had haunted her dreams since the battle. Frequently she woke with the sensation of ghostly hands gripping her throat, and the grim knowledge that if she ever called upon Mekan’s name again, the odds of her own survival were not favourable.
“Guess I’ll have to get rid of you the old-fashioned way.” Yala carried the sack across one of the bridges over the river. The gushing water below remained murky, but the guards had been thorough when they’d removed any dead bodies and handed them to the Disciples of the Flame.
Who, then, had been responsible for throwing a corpse into the river? Hadn’t they worried it might come back to life? Maybe that’s why they cut off its legs, Yala thought, then gave herself a mental shake. There were countless reasons someone might commit murder, and not everyone would consider the risks of leaving a body for the next would-be Disciple of Death to find.
For all she knew, there was no risk, as no Disciples of Death remained in the city aside from herself.
Yala carried the sack to an alley near a slaughterhouse, trusting the already foul smells to mask the stench of rot. Unease tugged at the pit of her stomach, but she could hardly haul the limb around the city asking people if they knew who it belonged to. Best to rid herself of the burden while she could.
With the sack gone, Yala made her weary way home. Yala and Saren had negotiated where to move their lodgings after the latter had been evicted from the pleasure house where he’d once resided, and they’d compromised by selecting a property close enough to the centre of Dalathar without venturing into the noisy and expensive upper city. The narrow tenement might not be as remote as her jungle cabin had been, but its location gave Yala some semblance of peace and quiet, most of the time.
Yala retrieved the key from a pocket and unlocked the door. She’d taken the lower floor as her own, but the furnishings remained sparse. Unlike Setemar, the capital was a haven for thievery, so her first act upon moving into their new home was to pry one of the floorboards loose and stash any valuables underneath, covering the hole with one of the battered armchairs she’d picked up from the market. The opposite side of the room contained some planks of wood she’d set up for target practise; over the past weeks, she’d began the gruelling process of trying to get back into fighting shape. Years of idleness had slowed her quick reflexes and her body ached as muscles she hadn’t used in years protested at her carrying that accursed sack.
Saren was in an even worse state. When she called his name, his only response was a faint groan.
“Hey, Saren,” she repeated. “You alive?”
After a short pause, he appeared in the stairway, his eyes bloodshot and his skin sallow. “Unfortunately.”
“Have you been up there all day?” Since the battle, the owner of the pleasure house where Saren had once lived had refused to return his alcohol to him, claiming payment for damages. As a result, Yala had made three attempts to convince Saren to stop drinking liquor and all had ended in her finding him insensible in a tavern. Each of Yala’s squad members had found a different way of coping with the burden of the horrors they’d witnessed on their last mission, but seeking oblivion held little appeal to Yala. Recent events had provided a new series of nightmares that no amount of liquor would dull.
“Define ‘day’.” He stumbled on his way downstairs, resting a hand against the wall for balance. “Where’ve you been? You smell horrible.”
“The slaughterhouses.”
“That would explain it.” He wrinkled his nose. “What were you doing there? Wait. I don’t want to know, do I?”
“Disposing of a severed limb.” She made her way to one of the armchairs and sat. “Nalen found it in the river.”
“Why’s it always the river?” He fell into the other chair and produced a flask from a pocket. “Whose leg was it? That should’ve been my first question.”
“No clue.” She rested her cane against the chair and made a mental note to obtain a footstool during her next trip to the markets. “He claimed it was infected with Corruption, which turned out not to be true, but I took it off his hands anyway.”
Familiar horror flickered over Saren’s face. “Are you sure it wasn’t infected?”
“Of course I’m sure.” She suppressed a shiver. “I’m concerned about why someone would commit murder and dismember the body after the dead were walking around the city a few weeks ago.”
Saren’s head slumped to his chest. “Maybe that’s why they dismembered it.”
“Where’s the rest of it, then?” Yala’s mind refused to let the questions subside; curiosity gnawed at her like a wild animal. “Nalen was convinced the leg was twitching, but he’s on edge, and I didn’t see any … weirdness.”
“What’d you do, toss it in an alley?”
“Did you want me to bring it in here?”
“Gods, no.” Saren shuddered. “I thought… I thought you might have gone to them.”
The Disciples of the Flame, he meant. “Did you really?”
“Well… I suppose not.” He chuckled. “I wonder if they’ve chosen a new leader?”
“I was wondering the same, but I don’t see them inviting me for a visit soon, considering my role in the death of their last Superior.”
“Their last Superior killed the damned king.”
Yala levelled him with a stare. “Please tell me you haven’t been spreading that.”
“I’m not an imbecile.” He scowled at the flask. “This tastes abysmal.”
“What is it?”
“Drake piss.” He coughed. “Or it might as well be. Fuck that Giran for stealing my liquor.”
“Considering the state we left his pleasure house in, we’re lucky he didn’t take every coin we had.”
“He’s a prick.” Saren shrank further into his seat. “Why did you have to mention severed limbs? I didn’t need that image in my head.”
“It’s just Nalen being paranoid, Saren. Trust me, I’d know if he was right.”
“I guess you would.” He let the flask fall from his hand. “This is doing nothing for me.”
“Neither is drinking yourself into an early grave.” She stretched out her good leg and trapped the fallen flask under the heel of her boot. “Now, I’m not your squad leader any longer—”
“Stop that sentence there.”
“—but you’re living with someone who nearly became a sacrifice to the god of death, so you might want to consider being more aware of your surroundings.”
“As a walking sacrifice to the god of death, you’ve some nerve lecturing me about my life choices.” He snatched the flask from underneath her foot and cradled it like an infant.
Yala huffed. Often, dealing with Saren’s petulance reminded her of the times she’d been put in charge of supervising new army recruits, and while she’d had them muck out the war drake pens if they gave her grief, Saren was a friend. Besides, he’d never been the person to go to if one wanted a serious conversation. That role went to Viam, whose current job at the palace complex meant Yala rarely saw her, and Yala could hardly show up at the palace smelling like a slaughterhouse. Though Viam at least might have some suggestions about how to handle Nalen’s paranoia that didn’t involve personally disposing of every body part that crossed his path.
And what if he was right? The thought prodded her. Yala rose to her feet and nudged the armchair sideways to reveal the loose floorboard beneath.
“What’re you doing?” Saren peered at her as she used her cane to prop the floorboard open and reached for the small bag in which she kept her one concession to the title of Disciple of Death—a curved claw that had once belonged to a beast from the void.
Saren sprang out of his chair as if he’d sat on a prickly groundfruit. “You kept that?”
“Obviously.”
“No wonder there are bodies walking around.” He backed across the room, waving his hands as though to swat a bloodfly. “Are you out of your mind?”
“There’s one way to confirm if Nalen was right.” She ran her fingertips over the end of the claw, the splashes of her own blood as red as rust against the black scales, and a tingling sensation whispered across her palm.
“You’ll be the death of both of us.”
“I did warn you when we signed the paperwork for the house.” She’d also paid half his share, as he’d drank so much of the money her squad had received after the flight division had disbanded that his habit of sleeping his way around half the city had likely spared him from being rendered homeless. “I already have Mekan’s eye on me, remember?”
The god of death hadn’t spoken a word to her since she’d reneged on their bargain and seen Him banished from this realm, but the claw was the closest she’d have to a means of direct access. Destroyable only by Dalathik’s holy fire, it was a piece of Mekan’s realm and would surely react if anyone else in the region had been meddling with death.
Saren fell back into the armchair and covered his face with both hands. “Get that thing out of here.”
“That’s the plan.” Yala pushed the floorboard back into place and hefted her cane. “I’m going to look for the rest of the body.”
“If it’s walking, please don’t bring it back here,” Saren mumbled into his palms. “I don’t need the dead following me again.”
Do you think I do? Someone had to take responsibility and somehow, the role always fell to her.
Yala left the house, tucking the claw into the belt that held up the loose trousers she’d chosen as the most comfortable clothing to wear in the heat. Drakeskin would offer more protection, but it was too damned hot, the air like thick soup when it wasn’t raining. Saren had had a point about the lingering smell, too, though the general stench of the city was hard to shift at the best of times and it wasn’t uncommon for her sweat to carry a layer of grime. Yet another aspect of living in the capital that she’d forgotten during her years in self-imposed exile in the jungle.
Yala’s steps carried her back to the river and over the bridge. Nalen had found the body near the undercity, so she reached the other side and mentally mapped the route alongside the river. If the body had been dumped further upstream, it would certainly have floated this direction.
With the gushing river on one side, she reached into the pouch at her waist and traced the curved shape of the void drake’s claw with her fingertips. A chill rippled up her palm, and she scented a familiar tang in the air, one that raised the hairs on her arms. A skittering noise echoed, and her gaze picked out a small animal crouched in the shadows above the swollen waters.
A skirrit, a small rodent, its fur plastered to its body with filthy water and dark blood. Shadows oozed around its paws, and its sightless eyes were like dull glass beads.
Someone had called upon Mekan. Nalen had been right.
