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  But before he could finish, Rashind exclaimed loudly, and they turned to him. The young man had his arms wrapped around a strange shape that was dissolving into them. Or was it…? No. Carragheen realized with a start that the shape was forming, not disappearing. Someone was hydroporting right into Rashind’s arms.

  Another man would have swum from the sight. Not every Aegiran knew how to song-travel, nor was comfortable with it, but Rashind held onto the shape in his arms, singing softly to it as though it was a newborn babe. Carragheen was impressed with his steel.

  In seconds, it was clear. It was Telmei, whom they had sent to The Land just hours before. And it was evident even before he fully re-formed that he was very, very sick. His image blurred, and his voice was soft. It amazed Carragheen that he could speak at all. He was scattered. He had done it all too fast, hydroported too fast, and too frequently. He was spent.

  ‘My Queen,’ Telmei said, his voice a reedy thread through the water. ‘The soldiers of song. They are there, on The Land. They are trying to stop the Princess.’

  The Queen swam close to the dying man, taking him from Rashind’s arms. ‘My brave son,’ she said, silver streaking her face. ‘I know it is very hard for you to speak right now, but please, try to tell me. What do you mean?’

  ‘Aegiran men.’ The herald sighed, more pieces of him disappearing into the water. ‘Hundreds of them, marching…like dead men. With pain in their eyes.’

  Carragheen and the Queen spoke in unison.

  ‘Lecanora?’

  ‘Rania?’

  ‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘I found the river, and I came back to tell you.’

  And with that he was gone, scattered back to the currents he had come from. Rashind held up his hands and examined them, as though trying to make sense of what had happened in the circle of them.

  The Queen spoke, and her voice was brittle. ‘They have come for us here, and now they are there, also. It is not just that we need to join with T

  he Land for our own aid and protection now. Manos. His avarice knows no bounds. He wants it all. My daughter’s mission is more important than ever. Carragheen, you must go. Ensure they are safe.’

  Carragheen considered what Rania and her half-sister would do to him for disobeying their commands and leaving the Queen undefended.

  Another of Rania’s sayings popped into his head. A rock and a hard place.

  Rashind the healer swam close to him, and planted a thought inside his head. I will make sure our Queen is safe.

  Carragheen took in the young man of the dark aspect. It was not because he was so different that Carragheen didn’t trust him. He just didn’t trust easily at all. He had heard much talk of this man’s power, his gifts, but how could he protect the Queen, if they came for her?

  Forgive me, Rashind. No-one can ensure that.

  I can, Rashind said, nodding slowly at Carragheen.

  Carragheen weighed this steady young man, feeling with his instincts. How?

  I can hide her, until you return.

  Carragheen considered the young man carefully. And how would you do that?

  I know a place that they cannot find.

  Carragheen nodded. She won’t leave her people.

  Rashind nodded back at him. She won’t have to.

  Chapter 7

  Dirtwater A rock and a hard place

  Lecanora felt her back scrape against the granite ledge on which she lay, and her front press hard against the muscular length of the man lying on top of her. In the low moonlight she could see the sharp edges of his wanton face, arrested like an electric eel, sensing the current, about to strike. He smelled salty and sweet, not unlike that spicy cake Lunia had served earlier in the night—some warm flavor that made her think of firelight and sea-stars. Like the cake, Lecanora found herself wanting to cram him into her mouth and not consider the consequences, even though the thought of doing so had the same effect on her as her gluttony with the cake—hot flushes raced up her arms and neck, and she felt ashamed, even though nobody else knew what she had been thinking.

  Somewhere close by, the footfalls continued, eerily in time in the still night. Behind it all, Lecanora registered the sound of a stream, bubbling and tinkling in the darkness, unaware.

  She took a breath to whisper to Doug to let her up so she could see who was marching, what they were, but he pressed back hard against her and issued a single sharp ‘shh’.

  So she waited, counting her breaths. She could feel his every inhalation as it was taken deliberately in, and released out in rationed hisses, like a miser. There was not a soft spot on this man, from his geometric jaw, to the square line of his shoulders, the pectorals muscles that crushed her breasts, down to his serrated abdominals. And lower.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about lower. This man was tall, very tall. But so was Lecanora.

  And his groin pressed hard down on hers.

  The scene, this whole thing whispered fear into Lecanora’s heart in a way she had never known before. Worse than the cave. When they had taken her, and held her there, she had been sure it was the end. She had lain close to Imogen and tried to breathe her life spirit into the girl, so they would not die alone, the two of them, but together, two fish in a school.

  But here, this was different. She was in a place she did not understand. She was a creature of her home, and she was so very far from it.

  And something was out there. Many somethings. In the darkness.

  It was dark under the ocean, too, but that darkness was different. It was velvet, thick and familiar. She could read it like her own history lines. Seven miles down, she knew if something was coming, if it was stalking her. Here, among this blackness and these confusing trees which obeyed no laws of symmetry or reason, she could not see what hunted her. And she could not ask. She could only imagine. Her mind lolloped frantically, trying to keep up with the newness, and the fear. She did not know where Rania had gone. And Larry, Lunia and Arty.

  Had they been taken? By whatever it was that was coming towards them?

  As the footsteps drew parallel to where they were laying, Doug pressed down harder on her, as though he were trying to flatten the two of them as far as possible into the ground. The sensation was both uncomfortable and sensual. Her bottom pushed hard into the rock underneath her while her breasts responded of their own will to the feel of hard, wild man pressed against them. Lower, her hips pushed against his and she tried to silence the wanton inner voice that suggested she could wriggle just the tiniest bit to increase the pleasure of it.

  This was hardly the time for such thinking.

  On top of her, Doug’s breathing began to pick up a little, and a small piece of her increasingly wanton brain wondered if he too was affected by the proximity.

  ‘Stop,’ he hissed, so quietly it was almost inaudible.

  ‘Stop what?’ she hissed back.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Breathing, I guess. Like that.’

  Lecanora smiled to herself, sure now that he had been as moved by their contact as she had Before she could respond, he slid off her, and she had to tamp down the disappointment that welled, huge and bitter in her chest. He kneeled, grasped her hand and pulled her up to kneeling also. Then he pulled aside the curtain of her hair and spoke into her ear. ‘We need to get closer. I’m not sure where the others are. We were to rendezvous here.’

  His warm breath and prickly stubble on her neck made Lecanora’s stomach feel weak and slick, but she nodded.

  Silently, they stood and crept quietly over to where the trees met the crude path, close to where they could hear the footfalls. Doug placed a finger to his lips and parted the foliage closest to the path. Together, they peered out into the gloom. The path was green-black, lit only by the dull moon, and it snaked along bedside the old jail. Lecanora blinked twice as the picture before her took on distinct lines. It was impossible, and yet there it was.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Doug breathed, as he took it in: a long,
thin line, perhaps five abreast, of young men. Hundreds of them, marching forward in perfect unison, silent and unblinking, their eyes trained forward as though searching for a light on a hill. And they were naked. Their perfect, strong young bodies were like a deadly carnival parade. Their footfalls were soft, but together the muted shuffling called to Lecanora’s mind a deadly sea snake, slithering through the waves, its vibrations a portent of doom.

  Doug swore again, under his breath. ‘It’s an army.’

  As he spoke, the phalanx stopped, like it was taking a collective breath. Hundreds of fine, blond men leant almost imperceptibly in the direction of the trees where Lecanora and Doug were sheltering, then as one they turned on a heel and spun to face them.

  ‘Fuck,’ Doug whispered, grasping Lecanora’s hand tightly.

  Lecanora nodded, but could not tear her eyes from the men. Her men. Aegirans, like the boy that had been on Lunia’s couch tonight. Perfect and strong. Young, very young. And somehow, not themselves. She could tell by the way their eyes were trained perfectly ahead, zeroing in as though blind but focused on a patch of light in the blackness. Something sharp and jagged bit into her heart, and she felt, perhaps for the first time, the pain her mother, the Queen, felt when things went wrong for her people. She wanted to go to these lost boys, run to them, find out what they were doing, why they were here. But every cell of her body was warning her that they were dangerous. The sight of them, like this, was like blood in the water. All wrong.

  Lecanora felt Doug’s command to run even before he uttered it, but before she could move another sound interrupted the silence, and Doug stopped. A single crack disrupted the natural vibrations of the air, assaulting Lecanora’s finely tuned ears in a way that was almost painful. Lecanora briefly wondered if it was a bolt of lightning before she saw the guard standing at the gates of the prison, his shotgun aloft.

  The second, smaller guard stood behind him, holding a large instrument in his hand. He spoke into it as the young Aegiran men turned now towards the guards. ‘By order of the Parish of Dirtwater, disperse,’ the guard said, his voice surprisingly authoritative for such a small man.

  The men did not move, but Lecanora sensed them straining in Lantara, as though listening for some other, lower voice. Lecanora listened too. What was that? Something. Something so soft, so low, she couldn’t decide if there was a sound there or not. Then, before she could unravel it, the men moved as one, slowly, methodically towards the guards.

  ‘Disperse. I repeat, disperse, you freaks,’ the smaller guard said, his voice growing increasingly shrill as he repeated the commands. ‘And get some goddamn clothes on. Dirtwater ain’t that kinda place.’

  The phalanx shuffled slowly towards the guards, and they both stumbled backward a couple of steps at the sight.

  The larger guard squeezed the rifle again, and a second crack assaulted Lecanora’s ears. The young men continued to move forward, not breaking formation.

  ‘Retreat, or I will shoot,’ the guard growled, and Lecanora registered the mounting panic in his voice.

  As one, the group of men halted, and Lecanora felt her breath hitch. Then a raspy voice carried across the group. It could have come from any of the men.

  ‘Take them,’ it said.

  The phalanx surged forward, a thinly controlled riot. From where Lecanora stood they seemed to move as one, and she was reminded again of the thought she’d had earlier: fish in a school.

  The larger guard stumbled backwards as the men surged towards him. Then he lowered his rifle towards the crowd and emptied it into the group. Two young men fell, but the others kept moving forward. The smaller guard dropped the speaking device and both men turned to run into the prison. As they did, two of the young men in the forward group caught up with them. One grabbed the smaller guard by the shoulder and threw him to the ground. The other grabbed the larger one and repeated the gesture.

  Then all of the young men stood as before, straining in Lantara, as though awaiting their next instruction.

  Suddenly, one of the men, the one who had grabbed the smaller guard, picked him up casually with one hand, as though he were made of paper. He held an arm around the man’s neck in a way that made it very clear why he was using that particular grip. Lecanora felt Doug’s body tense to move forward just as she opened her mouth to cry out.

  But before either of them could move, they heard Rania’s voice.

  ‘Hey asshole,’ she called, from way down in the dark at the other end of the line of men. ‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?’

  Lecanora’s eyes searched for her half-sister in the gloom, and found her standing straight and defiant, in the one-hand-on-her hip gesture Lecanora knew so well. Lecanora knew that she could see further and clearer than Doug could. She could make Rania out perfectly, even standing as she was at the other end of the path, well back behind the long line of men. She was dressed in black and looked like a defiant goddess in the gloom, her eyes shining like a cat. Lecanora did not need to see her face to know she was angry. Very angry. Lecanora’s heart leapt in her chest at her courage, as it always did, when watching this woman.

  Rania the brave.

  Larry stood on one side of Rania, his body tense and straining forward. He looked, even at this distance, older and harder than Lecanora recalled him from Lunia’s warm kitchen. He looked like a soldier too, his head swiftly scanning the ranks in front of him.

  Arty, on the other hand, looked loose and relaxed. Like he was about to have some kind of party rather than what was looking a lot to Lecanora like serious trouble. His arms swung by his sides, and he sported a wide grin.

  ‘Fuck,’ Doug said, his eyes scanning the scene as he yanked Lecanora back into the trees and dumped her down with a barked ‘wait here’. He crept back off to the path. Lecanora immediately dusted herself off and got up to follow him. Whatever was going to happen out there, she would not be kept away from it. Not when her people were out there, on both sides of whatever this was.

  She saw Doug creeping along the line of trees to where the naked young man stood with his arm around the small guard’s neck. As she watched, another boy solider picked up the other guard and copied the gesture. Doug was running now, his legs pistoning up and down as he hugged the tree line, trying to go back and around behind the men, towards where the two guards were being held. Lecanora caught a glimpse of shiny silver in his hand through the trees.

  The larger guard yelped as one of the naked men tightened his grip. In response, Rania yelled again. ‘Last chance, solider boy,’ she called, bringing a shotgun to her shoulder and pointing it at the two men holding the guards. For a moment, they did not move.

  Then, as one, they twisted their arms.

  The two guards dropped. Lecanora watched them fall, crumpling and sliding down the naked bodies of the Aegiran men like they had scales.

  The cry came straight from the lowest, deepest place of her. It launched itself from her gut, through her throat and into the night.

  ‘Nooooo!’

  The sound was not fully out of her mouth before half of the ranks spun as one, right where they stood, and turned in her direction. The other half turned back towards Rania and the others. It was like halving an orange perfectly down the middle. Lecanora’s Aegiran sense of beauty and symmetry applauded the precision of it. Then, like the pack of cards Lecanora had seen Doug shuffling earlier in the night, the ranks of men seemed to divide again. About ten advanced towards her. Perhaps twice that many proceeded towards Rania and the others, and the rest turned back and continued down the path they had been heading originally.

  Then, a hydro-second later, she heard the firing begin from Rania’s end of the path, and the world was a blur. She tried to take all the action in, as she worked out the right next move.

  First, Doug. She saw him reach the men who had broken the guards’ necks. They had turned and were moving swiftly towards Rania. Her keen eyes saw Doug leap from the bushes behind them and run that long, thin arc o
f silver across their necks.

  Slash, slash. One, then the other, before they had time to turn.

  Her flesh froze as she watched it. Like a dull thud, the realization of what he was landed in her chest. The swift, almost casual acts. The elegance of them—that long arm, those graceful fingers grasping their necks, tilting them, slicing, them. A single move, without pause or thought.

  He was a killer.

  She could not move, even though the naked men were advancing towards her deliberately, and faster with each passing second, like they were locking on a target. She saw some of them fall as the firing continued, but none broke ranks. None cried out, or ran, or moved any quicker. They just advanced relentlessly.

  The silence was the worst of it. Even those who had fallen said nothing. They lay, broken and beautiful in pools of their own blood, or crumpled and dead.

  But they said nothing. And she could not move. She could feel—rough bark under fingers as she sagged against the nearest tree. She could hear—the steady rhythm of feet, the background current of the stream. She could smell—anise and pine. But she could not move.

  Her eyes followed Doug as he darted back into the trees, and she knew he was coming back around for her. Then they flicked to Rania, Larry and Doug. The men were advancing on them, and her friends were firing at them, but she could not see them for long. As Lecanora watched, the three of them were swallowed by the first line of men. She willed her legs to run, to get away from the soldiers stalking her. . But her brain would not work, and it would not command her legs as she wanted it to. Her brain kept insisting that it wanted to stay, to be with these men, to find out what had happened to them. She reached for their brains, groping for answers, but the door of their minds were shut to her. More than shut. Blank, as though nothing was there. As though nothing had ever been there, nothing that connected her to them.

  But she knew them. She knew who they were. How could this be?

  It was only once they were so close that she could see their eyes glinting through the trees—blank and pale, even for Aegirans—that her reflexes kicked in again. She crouched low, and quickly considered the best approach. She desperately needed to go and help Rania and the others. Quite possibly she would be no help at all. But she had to get to her sister.