Blade of Glass: Chapter 54

Meriwether and Sight of Day made good speed for about ten minutes until they hit a snag.

The snag was about two meters tall, clothed in shabby robes. The Vhemin High Priest stood in the middle of the road, wearing a scowl that shifted to a mad-tinged grin when he caught sight of Meriwether. “You!”

“Ah.” Meriwether offered a small bow, then darted down an alley to the left. Sight of Day, initially on his heels, paced past him almost effortlessly.

The Feybrind vaulted onto a fence to the left, spun, and held his hand out to Meriwether. Scrambling over, they tumbled to land in a pile of rotten vegetables on the other side.

“Marvelous,” Meriwether said.

The cat clicked his fingers in front of Meriwether’s face to get his attention. {The High Priest can unmake me. I feel it in my blood. A weakness the ancients could exploit. I will join my people soon. You must run, friend.}

“Then we keep running together.” Meriwether brushed pieces of moldering cabbage from his pants. “After all, if I leave you here, who’s going to look after me?”

The wall behind them shook, a Vhemin roar behind it. A guttural voice snarled, “I smell them!” 

Sight of Day’s golden eyes were full of shame, but he nodded. The cat lurched into motion, some of his grace left on the floor behind them. He wasn’t as fast as before, and Meriwether had no trouble keeping up with him.

There was a crash behind as the Vhemin broke through the wall. Meriwether grabbed the cat’s hand. “Hold tight. Don’t ever let go.” 

They kept the pace up through a confusing array of streets. Meriwether saw abandoned inns beside smithys where fires burned in untended forges. A bakery blazed, the ovens spilling fire and soot. A washhouse lay abandoned, wet laundry scattered out front.

Sight of Day lurched to a halt. {I feel it calling me. I can’t resist. I must stop.}

Meriwether glanced around for options. He didn’t need a big one. Just a sliver of hope. Was it too much to ask? He snapped his fingers. “Got it.”

Sight of Day dropped his bow from slack fingers. Meriwether snatched it up, then hustled the cat down a short alley. He pinned the cat to a wall. “Hold still. Be quiet. Like the woods, right before dawn. Do you understand?”

The Feybrind gave him a long look full of pain but nodded. Meriwether held the cat. He smelled cinnamon and fear. He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering an outhouse they’d passed not two streets back. It had walls of old, untreated wood. A stain on the door, perhaps blood. The unmistakable crescent moon cut into the door stated its purpose better than any sign.

When he opened his eyes, they huddled inside old timber walls. Vhemin footsteps hammered dirt in the street beyond the alley. A familiar voice roared, “I know you’re here, manling! I can smell you. And the cat, too. Bring him to me, creature.”

Sight of Day lurched. Meriwether put his lips to the cat’s ear. “It’s just you and me. Listen to my voice.”

Golden eyes full of fear found his. The Feybrind shook his head, then shoved Meriwether back. He stumbled through the illusory wall of his imaginary outhouse, falling to the alley ground.

The walls of the outhouse shimmered like a mirage. Meriwether tried to hold the illusion in place, to hide his friend inside, but a Vhemin’s boot found his back. He arched in pain, and the outhouse vanished.

Sight of Day huddled against the wall. {I’m sorry.}

“Run,” Meriwether hissed. “Run!”

“Don’t run, cat. I command it.” The High Priest stood at the alley’s entrance. He held a metal box, glass glinting under the glowering sky. His lips split into a shark-toothed leer. “I’ve been hoping we’d meet again, manling. Waiting for it, you might say. You cost me a great deal.”

“Take an IOU?” Meriwether wheezed.

The monster laughed. “I could almost like you, if you weren’t so weak and feeble.” The High Priest toyed with the box that commanded Feybrind. “Should I make the cat kill you? Or watch while I do the butchering? Which do you think would be worse?”

Meriwether spat bile, then got to his knees. “I think a long, slow death by starvation would be best.” Vhemin huddled around him. First a couple, then five, and before he knew it the alley was full of muscled biceps and scaled hides.

The High Priest guffawed. “You have spark, manling. We’ve come to help liberate your fine city, and most of your kind run, or scream, or die silently on the blade. But not you.” He shook his head. “You want to live.”

Meriwether got a knee under him, and when no one kicked it away, lurched to his feet. He ran a hand through his hair. Khiton’s balls, but I can smell my own fear. “Who doesn’t?” He cast a glance at the sky, which continued to rain on him. His shirt stuck to his lean frame, and with so much angry beef around him, he was never more aware of his lack of strength, size, or martial skill. 

“True enough. You want it in the head or the chest?” The High Priest stalked closer.

Meriwether closed his eyes. I don’t want either. But I’d take both, if I could say goodbye to Geneve. Tell her I tried my best, but I wasn’t her, and that’s why the cat died. He opened his eyes, and by weird chance he had an unrestricted view of Sight of Day.

{I would have you know my all before we go.} The cat raised a weak hand. {Roars.}

“What’s he saying?” The High Priest squinted at Sight of Day, suspicion writ on his face.

{Like.}

“It’s a prayer,” Meriwether lied.

{The.}

“It going to take long?” The High Priest leered, and his fellows chortled in vile accompaniment.

{Singing.}

“I think he’s just about done,” Meriwether said. The cat sagged against the wall, weakness taking the very heart of him.

With a last grunt, the Feybrind straightened. A Vhemin slammed a fist into the cat’s belly, dropping him to the alley floor. Meriwether tried to run to him, but a Vhemin punched him in the jaw with a hand the size of a ham.

Meriwether dropped, seeing stars. He saw boots, mismatched, old, worn. Borrowed from the dead, people the Vhemin had murdered. The feet shifted aside for a moment, and he saw Sight of Day on his knees. The cat’s golden eyes met his. {Sun.}

A hand found Meriwether’s throat, and he choked as a monster hauled him to his feet. The creature punched him in the gut, and he curled over the pain, but the Vhemin wouldn’t let him be. It slammed him against the wall, placing a knife to his throat.

The High Priest stood behind Meriwether’s captor. “So, runt. Head or chest?”

Meriwether gestured to the hand holding his throat. At the High Priest’s grudging nod, the Vhemin released him. Meriwether choked, gagged, then held a hand up in a give me a second gesture. He stood, shoulders straight, and looked the High Priest in his snake eyes. “Those are my choices?”

The High Priest nodded, picking his teeth with a knife, the ancient device for controlling Feybrind held in his other hand. “Seems simple enough.”

“Okay.” Meriwether reached deep and found a smile he didn’t know he owned. It was all sharp edges. You could cut yourself on the blade of his teeth. The cat gave me his name. The secret thing inside him that he doesn’t let anyone see. Let’s see if I can give him a gift as worthy. “Roars Like the Singing Sun, please kill these motherfuckers.”

The High Priest’s eyes went wide, then blood fountained from his lips as a long, ugly sword tore through his ribcage. The sword twisted, exiting sideways in a spray of gore. The monster teetered, then slumped, revealing Sight of Day standing tall and unbowed.

He held Vhemin steel. A dead monster lay at his back, another to his left. The Vhemin about them surged back as if noting the toddler in their midst brandished a live, loaded scattergun.

The cat’s golden eyes met Meriwether’s. They were still gold, but no longer warm. They were hard as the sun, as unforgiving as the desert. They weren’t human, nor Feybrind. They were primal, atavistic, and so very hungry.

Sight of Day spun like a dervish. Blood sprayed as he dismembered Vhemin with a ferocity Meriwether had never seen the cat display. A monster stabbed him through the shoulder, but Sight of Day didn’t appear to notice, merely snatching the blade with his bare hands, slicing the soft meat of his palm as he yanked it free.

Ah, Meriwether thought. Now he has two swords.

The Feybrind twirled, blades licking left, then right. Two-bladed strikes to one foe, then a single-blade strike to two. Sight of Day hacked the head from a Vhemin, then split it in half with his other sword. In eight seconds, it was done. The Feybrind stood in the alley, dripping red. His borrowed blades weeped remembered misery.

Meriwether walked to his friend. “Are you okay?”

The cat tossed the blades to his feet. {Command me.}

Meriwether looked about. He hauled bodies aside until he found what he was after: the ancient’s control box. He grabbed a discarded blade, hammering on the device until it wasn’t anything more than glittering pebbles. “There. No more commands.”

{Command me.} Sight of Day’s eyes were still unearthly, alien, and hard.

Meriwether shook his head, then held his hands up for attention. The Feybrind watched him, eyes locked on Meriwether’s fingers. {Roars Like the Singing Sun, you must be free.}

The cat shuddered, dragging a great, sobbing breath. His hand went to his wounded shoulder, and the Feybrind swayed. Meriwether caught him. “You’re okay. You’re okay! Well, you got stabbed, but you’ll be okay.” He got Sight of Day’s arm over his shoulders, then walked him to the alley mouth.

The sky was gray and hard, but Meriwether felt the wind change. It shifted around, and for a moment, he caught the slight warmth of the northern breeze. 

“I thought we were going to die,” he admitted.

The Feybrind unlimbered himself. {So did I. You’re terrible in a fight.}

Meriwether sighed. “Thank you for trusting me with your truth.”

{You were worthy of it.} The cat looked away. {What happened to me?}

“Nothing we’ll speak of again.” Meriwether combed hair with his fingers. “The ancient’s command boxes are gone. We broke them all.”

Sight of Day nodded. {How did they make them? Were you the enemies of the People?}

“I don’t know.” Meriwether sighed. “It was a long time ago. I’m sorry if we were. Humans can be dicks.”

The cat considered him for a moment that held like the silence after a bell’s toll. {Not all of them.}

Meriwether grinned. “Chin up. We’ve still got work to do.”

{I’ve been stabbed. I need to lie down.}

“What, and let Geneve and Armitage get all the glory?” Meriwether paced to the wash house, finding a clean shirt. He tore it to strips for a bandage.

The cat waited, sitting on a bench, but his eyes were warm again. {You’re right, of course. Armitage is quite likely to screw everything up.}

Meriwether set to bandaging his friend. He kept his smile in place, his tone light, even though one thought kept running through his mind.

Where’s Geneve?

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