Chapter 86: Lives Included (2)

Chapter 86: Lives Included (2)

The Winter Lord came at them. Not as a subtle stalking thing, but with the crashing of something large that didnt care over much for the little things crushed in its wake.

The kaibyou scruffed her final kitten and shoved it into Aarons hands.

The clearing, she ordered, now that her mouth was clear. And swiped her claws at him, as if he needed further incentive to start running.

Aaron would have rather made a break towards the coast than the clearing. But he didnt know how far theyd left to go, and there was a rather large obstacle between him and there. The bear heaved in lungfuls that strained its sides, squinting at them through eyes pollen-rimmed and reddened. Squinted at him, because the calf had bolted already, and Aaron was the one shoving a spring kitten down his shirt. It charged.

The kaibyou leapt on its face, four paws full of claws and yowling fit to rend the air. She was furious, and coiled with muscles, and entirely too small against the backdrop that was the Winter Lords face. Aaron was already running. He didnt see what happened behind him. Just heard a bears deep whuff, and a crack that might have been tree or bone. And its heavy tread, which hardly paused in coming for him.

Aaron stumbled into the clearing. Over a femur, he thought. His hands hit bones and the tacky jerky between as he pushed himself up, kept running, veering now towards another edge of the clearing hed just entered because if there wasnt a monster cat on his side anymoreshed better be alive, but mothers were hardly the most reliablethen hed have to try for the coast after all. Which would require circling around the thing behind him, which was the sound of a giant bear crushing bones. Aaron reached the trees again. Aimed for the densest thickets. The bear snapped branches and trunks just as easily. No kaibyou appeared to save him, and no leshy either; apparently they didnt interfere when it was the forests own spirit wrecking things.

The bear was getting closer. It had never been far, but now there was dark fur and icemelt in the corners of his eyes and a cold wind against his back that he really, really didnt want to be its breath, but nature rarely cared what people wanted. Startled kitten claws jolted against his chest as he grabbed the branch of a tree, swung to a new direction, kept running.

The bear was after the kittens, not him. The reindeers parents had proven how stupid it was to die for children that were dead anyway. But.

The point was moot. The Winter Lord would be on him before he could get the first knot of the sling untied. Hed barely left the clearing; hed never stood a chance of making the coast.

The bear did something; shouldered into a tree, or felled it with one of those boulder-sized paws, or just failed to notice it in its path. The trunk fell into his path. Aaron threw himself to the side, rolled with his arms over his chest and kittens mewling, and

Well. He didnt know what had happened to the tree. But that was a paw coming for him, right enough. He saw it with a final sort of clarity: the thick black pads on its bottom, their crags splintered through with shattered ice; the antlers, piercing from the side, white as bone and red as blood and shoving the paw off course.

There was a dead reindeer between himself and the Winter Lord. He could see through the tatters of its ribcage to the bear beyond, who was wearing the first emotion Aaron had seen on it besides rage: befuddlement.

Another reindeer charged, driving deep into its flank. The bear bellowed. Aaron scrabbled to his feet and got himself out of there.

Back to the clearing, where the kaibyou danced.

In the Downs, the dances they did were focused on the feet; jigs and sean ns and the other step dances.

The monster cat had four feet, a lithe spine, and a tail split to two. She twisted, she sprang, she spun; on one paw or four, she moved. She danced in the clearings center. Around her, the dead dragged themselves upwards to join her. She was their caller, and they her round, lurching to join the growing circle around her in parody of the way theyd circled to defend their calves while alive. They let Aaron pass; or rather, Aaron felt where to step, how to duck between figures like hed do at a proper party when the shenanigans had gotten started. He made it to the center, as the bear reached the edge.

The Winter Lord was not invited to this cil.

The cat jumped; a twisting leap, and the dead reindeer spun with her. Where thered been a gap for the bear to cross through, now there were antlers at all angles. It raised a paw and swatted clear a corpse. Roared, as three more impaled it. What gushed from its wounds was pink: blood and spring melt, spilling from the dam of its fur.

It crushed a skull between its jaws, a ribcage under its paw; pulverized an entire skeleton when it rammed its shoulder into ground and body both. Stumbled as it stood.

The cat rose on two legs, briefly, as if shed another dance partner supporting her. Yet more corpses stood. The bear crushed them, again and again, lumbering closer against the tide of bones and scavenger-stripped flesh that moved with fey grace to intercept. Hooves against earth and antlers against flesh and the cats own feet over the leaves formed a stomping beat even the dead must answer to. Aaron felt it; the need to move, the place hed step next, where hed stab if hed his knives or his deer cloak and could join this dance too.

Antlers found their mark, again and again.

Again and again, the Winter Lord shattered its dance partners, until there was not enough holding them together for the cats puppeteering to raise them again.

The bear pushed forward.

Aaron had the time to untie the cat sling, now; just enough. But he was also standing right next to their mother. So. He threw one of his rocks, instead. It bounced off the beasts fur, and was precisely as pathetic as it sounded.

How far to the forests end? he asked. Can we make it?

Too far, she panted. And, If you dare leave them, youll die before they do.

No cat needs her Death to tell her shes in danger, the kaibyou said. Or when its her time to die, for that matter. Though we do sometimes desire a friend, on the occasion.

Do you know how I can see them? he asked. Am I a ghost?

Ghosts are more a cat sidhes expertise, she said. Would you like to see if youd dance for me?

Not at present, Aaron declined, a kitten squirming in his hands.

Her whiskers twitched. Let me know if you change your mind.

Is there something we should do? he asked, looking back to the Winter Lords body. Funeral rites?

This is the way we end, the kaibyou said, with a shrug he suspected shed learned from humans. She turned away.

It felt a weird thing, leaving a body where anything could find it. Soon it would go back to being what it always was: meat for the scavengers, bone meal for the trees. At worst, a thing for puppeting, should the kaibyou or one of her ilk come back to this place. Not a thing for wearing, like a humans corpse would be.

They were escorted to the forests edges by the Lord of Spring itself. The kittens seemed quite content with this turn of events. Theyd stopped their needle-pawed flailing. Replaced it with needle-pawed escape attempts, as each tried to push the other down in an effort to reach his shoulder. The blossoms in their coats were turning to seed. He wasnt sure what that meant, except that something had passed. The one that had crawled towards the Winter Lord was larger than the others. He didnt think it had been, before.

Was the white calf always the new lord, or could any of them have been? Did the old lord need to die for the new to rise, or need it only bow to its successor?

By the time they reached the forests edge, the white reindeer towered over them both, its antlers blending with the canopy above. It didnt have any trouble with getting stuck, anymore; it was the forest. It waited at the edge as they crossed the stone line, into a field that bordered road and cliffs and the ocean below.

Would you mind me coming back through here, if Ive the need? Aaron asked, staring up at it, as it stared back down. He didnt get an answer, which wasnt a no.

The cliffs werent far from the forest, here. The mountain lion stared over the edge, at the seals sunning below. It was sunny. Barely midday.

Not my usual fare, she commented, but Ill make due.

Some of them can talk, Aaron told her. Probably.

Im a carnivore, kitten, she said. What do you think I was eating in the foxs forest?

She didnt show him where her new nest would be. But the kittens had started mewling their distress at the forests border, their little leaves sagging; one had left claw tracks on his shoulder and half-way down his back when it had tried to jump back inside. So. Probably shed still live out of the forest, even as she came out to hunt prey whose rules she knew.

Do you smell any dragons around here? he asked. And with her snort, and more distinct no, he showed himself to the nearest messenger station. They were surprised to see him alive. Aaron wondered how many times hed have to not die, before they got out of that habit.

If you could refrain from sending word north, he said, Id be much obliged. Lets call it a bit of a wager Ive got going on; itll have more of an impact, if I show up unannounced. And Ill carry news south myself. Ohand watch out for a kaibyou near the road.

The militia captain on duty winced. Well gather a hunting party.

I wouldnt, he said. Shes an acquaintance of the royal family.

If by royal family he meant Rose, and by acquaintance he was implying more friendship than might actually exist.

She can be a friend if you make yourself of use, he said. But dont show your back to her. Things that talked were still meat.

He borrowed a horse, and a dagger he didnt mean to return, and started south. Hed nearly a whole sun-shiny day left in which to travel.

And if not stopping helped him not to think overly much, well.

Hed gone between the reindeers circling bones, when the kaibyou had called the dead to dance; slipped between them as smooth as if hed heard the beat himself. It wasnt a thing a fellow wanted much to dwell upon, when hed only just survived.