MORE BLOOD THAN BONE

MORE BLOOD THAN BONE, by E.K. Wagner

 

Haukfin, classification unknown:

 

This sea-faring creature is of gigantic proportions, easily matching the length and girth of the Ngimbian ships which stalk the haukfin in its lair. Found to live hundreds of miles off-shore any civilized isle, the haukfin inhabits the coldest depths of the water. It rises to the surface only to feed or to hunt the sailors. The jaws of the haukfin unhinge like that of a large snake and it has teeth like razors. Any one of these teeth is the size of a man’s hand—or larger—and many sailors use these teeth, if they are so lucky as to have one, to carve themselves good-luck totems. Fine ladies and gentlemen also collect these carvings to display in their halls and parlors.

 

The Bestiary of Tierence Silltson, Esq.

Printed in Half-shine Square, at the sign of R. R. Quires

At sea, first bell

“Quiet,” Tate whispered. He held one hand up, broad, flat, callused. Tierence knew this only because his rings glinted in the moonlight, silver and spectral. Otherwise, he was a shadow.

Tierence was quiet as ordered. She waited, feeling the deck shift under her sandals. Three weeks, and the unsteadiness of the water felt less odd, less unsettling.

“Is it—”

He hissed, cutting her off. She tried to listen for what he heard. Sailors moved in the forecastle and below deck, their bare feet soft on the wood. The waves smacked against the sides of the ship.

Tate’s shout, when it came, was jarring in the silence. “To post! To post!” The cry echoed from sailor to sailor. Men and women burst into movement and she felt the air cold on her neck as they ran back and forth behind her.

“What should I do?” she asked, but her question was lost in the noise and hurry. Tate knocked her aside as he ran to the mast, untied from there his harpoon. She tried to move out of his way as he rushed back to the railing.

In the riggings, a man yelled. “Off starboard and breaching!”

There was, suddenly, a moment where everyone was quiet and held their breaths. Tate stood tense, his arm uplifted. The light of newly-struck lamps quivered on the metal head of the harpoon. Even the water grew still. Then, as if pulled down a drain, the water retreated, circling toward a growing whirlpool not four ship-lengths from them. A shiver ran down Tierence’s back and she gripped the railing, her knuckles white in her dark skin.

The noise of the waves crashed back on them as a huge shadowy mound broke the surface of the sea, emerging from the center of the whirlpool. The water sluiced off the slick skin, and the waves slapped back against the ship’s hull with a tremendous force. Tierence stumbled as the ship keeled portside under the assault. Tate whispered under his breath. He rubbed the scrimshaw charm at his neck with his free hand.

“We will die,” Tierence said to him, though he did not seem to hear her.

Closer to the ship, the haukfin raised its head, flat jaw and flat eyes. Its neck was long, but thicker than she had expected. At its throat, there was a pouch of skin that fluttered violently. The beast opened its mouth and wailed. The cry was high-pitched and quavering, eerie and lonely. Tierence’s breath caught in her throat. In the haukfin’s mouth, she could see more than one row of teeth.

As if the cry released him, Tate drew back his arm and launched the harpoon. The rope attached to the weapon’s grip trailed in its wake.

The man in the rigging shouted again. “Tail coming round!”

Tate braced himself and the rope wound around his arm grew taut as the harpoon found purchase in the haukfin’s neck, just below the pouch. Something heavy hit the port side of the ship, and Tierence glanced in that direction. A group of sailors balanced against the railing held long spears in their hand made of a thin whip-like wood. Their arms moved up and down rapidly as they jabbed again and again at what she presumed to be the tail of the haukfin.

“Take my knife,” Tate said, loud at her ear.

She looked at him and her jaw tightened. “What?”

“Take my knife,” he screamed. “I’ll pull him to us.”

She could not move. Tate jerked sharply on the rope, taking hold of it with his left hand and tugging backwards. The hook on the harpoon’s blade dug deeper into the haukfin’s skin and the beast grunted and snorted. It vomited. Sharp acrid liquid splashed on the deck of the ship. Drops of it stung on Tierence’s skin.

“My knife!” Tate glared at her, every muscle tight, his eyes red.

She forced herself to move and slip the long gutting knife from Tate’s belt. She knew how to use a knife. Her mother had taught her. Every Ngimbian girl knew. But her arm still moved slow and stiff and unwilling.

“Under its neck. The pouch!”

The haukfin’s head came closer as Tate heaved on the rope. She could hear the animal huffing, struggling to breathe.

“Cut the pouch,” he said again, no energy left to shout.

“I heard you,” she answered quietly. She set her teeth.

A woman shrieked from the portside. “Sailor overboard,” the man yelled from the riggings. The ship rocked wildly as the haukfin’s tail began to thrash. The beast’s eyes were dark and bloody as if the strain of the fight had ruptured veins.

Tate grunted, falling backward, and the haukfin’s head loomed over the railing. It rocked its head back and forth, struggling to free itself from the hooked harpoon. She flipped the knife in her hand, resting the hilt in the cradle between thumb and index finger. She ducked under the heavy jaws and felt its breath, smelled the salt and algae of its skin. The pouch was there, at the base of the jaw and it moved like bellows, in and out. The beast’s lungs.

She thrust the knife in quick and dragged the blade down and to the side. The skin of the pouch was like parchment or paper, thin and fragile. Dark blood and fluid poured out of the wound.

The haukfin screamed, thin and tremulous. It sunk its head, gnashing its teeth. She was forced back against the railings, the wood digging into her back. She lifted one leg and shoved a foot against the bulk of the creature’s neck as it began to collapse.

The haukfin swung its jaw wildly. Before Tate could move, the beast had grabbed him by the leg. Tate scrabbled for a hold on the deck. Tierence tried to shove free from the weight of the animal, to reach Tate, but it was all she could do to grip the railings and not be pulled overboard by the weight of the retreating neck and head.

She saw Tate’s face as he slipped overboard, his leg caught in the teeth of the haukfin. His skin was sickly pale and his eyes were bloody.

***

 

On shore, dusk

 

The shop was quiet. Rutre rolled his sleeves up to the elbows to save his cuffs. He checked once again that the letters were arrayed correctly on the press. The pan of ink waited at his left hand. When he was sure that the page was set up, he pulled the roller through the black viscous liquid and then coated the type blocks. The paper was thin and fluttered in the breeze from the open windows as he snapped it straight and then laid it gently on top of the type. He pulled the lever which pressed the metal plate onto the paper and the inked letters below. He smiled.

The door to the shop slammed open. Rutre jumped in surprise, and the lever whipped out of his hands. The plate slammed up and the paper smeared over the ink. He shouted in anger. “Bloody fool.”

He looked up to see who had interrupted him. His arms felt suddenly weak and he took a step from the press to the counter. He cleared his throat and nervously ran his ink-stained hands over his apron.

“An honor,” he said. He clicked his tongue as he spoke, a token of formal respect.

“Are you the R. R. Quires of this printing house?” The woman who spoke was tall and abnormally thin—not only because of the bone stays she invariably wore beneath her high-waisted dress. Her forehead and brows were shaved in the style of Aevern high nobility, so that her beribboned cap stood off to good effect. Some said—not Rutre, for he was too wise to speak aloud of such things—some said that kinetic magic ate away at you, melted the flesh from you.

“At your service.”

She tilted her head, and her eyes ran over him and the printing press behind the counter.

“My apprentices have gone home to their supper,” he added, speaking too quickly.

“I have heard rumors,” she said finally. The silence had grown weighty. “Rumors that you sell magic here.”

His heart beat fast and loud. He became irrationally afraid that she might be able to hear it. “Books are a kind of magic,” he answered when he could think of no better answer.

Her forehead wrinkled, her non-existent brow rising. Evening bells rang outside, muted by the shop walls, welcoming ships back to the Ngimbian harbor.

Suddenly she laughed. “A quaint answer.”

She moved to the shelves of books for sale. Her gait was stilted and slow. Her dress whisked against the floorboards. There were buttons up the back of her dress, scrimshaw buttons, carved with protective charms.

“You have a circulating library,” she observed, reading the placard on the top shelf.

“Yes. Three bones to join.”

She dropped her chin, studying the spines of the books. Slowly she raised her hand and drew her finger across the titles. Her hand paused. She drew out a thin blue volume with gilt lettering. He was particularly proud of the binding.

“A bestiary by Silltson.” She looked at him, sudden and quick. Her eyes were sharp. “You print for her?”

He stood very still. “Her books are popular, Lady. Some of my best-sellers.”

“But you have met her then?”

“When she is home, she brings new manuscripts to me.”

Something shifted in the lady’s face. “She calls Ngimbia Isle home.” He could not tell if it was a question.

“I did not mean to presume.” He lowered his eyes. Tierence’s father was from Aevern Isle, her mother from Ngimbia. The thought occurred to him only now that even this might be a sensitive topic. It was true, though, that she called Ngimbia home.

“I will join your library.” She strode forward, pulling three round bits of bone from her purse. She placed them on the counter in a careful row. He watched her.

“And I will remind you, Quires, bookseller, printer, that the selling of magic is prohibited on Ngimbia.”

He swallowed. “It is known, Lady.”

She cinched close her purse and left. The door rattled behind her. He tried to remember, his thoughts now frantic, how many buttons had been on her dress. Could it have been as many as eight? As intricately carved as they had been, the buttons represented an extravagant wealth of kinetic magic.

“She must be a high and mighty one.” He whirled, startled. His apprentice Sami stood quiet at the door to the back room. “That many buttons, that high a scalp. Was she sniffing after the magic?”

“Hsst.” He hissed sharply, motioning the boy quiet and towards the back room.

“Should we off-load it?”

“Quiet.” His voice was louder and harsher than he intended. He held a trembling hand to his temple. “She was not here for the library,” he added a moment later, softer. “Do we have any of the haukfin teeth left?”

Sami moved to the press in the corner of this room, ostensibly broken, the frame cracked. He lifted the plate and from the hollow cavity where the type would be placed he pulled a small paper parcel. “Must be two or three left.”

“That’s still a large amount of potential magic.” Rutre took the parcel from the boy’s hand. He stared at it, thinking. It felt like nothing to him, solid and smooth, but silent. He could not feel the power to be released by a kinetic magician. But the money he earned from the sale of these teeth told him the magic must be real.

“Ezra, at the docks. She’s usually good for a quick sale. Small quantities.”

“Yes, you’re right.” He paused.

“I’ll take it,” Sami sounded almost eager. “It would look odd you leaving the shop so soon after her.”

Rutre nodded, but was slow to hand the parcel back. He held it tight for a moment as Sami tried to tug it loose. For a moment, he felt almost a warmth, a vibration in the teeth. A shudder worked its way up his spine. His eyes smarted, and when Sami finally took the parcel, he felt a dread he had never felt before.

He set his jaw. “Hurry back. We’ve got more pages to print before we close.”

 

***

 

The haukfin’s teeth are curious things. Kinetic magicians in the rank of the Aevern nobility claim that the teeth are unparalleled in their capacity to store potential magic. Why this would be I do not yet know. Is it due to the pressure of the sea in the depths where the beasts live? Ngimbian sailors also laud the teeth’s properties. When they can, they learn some small hedge magic themselves, though this is strictly prohibited, or they hire an Aevern magician down on his luck to carve good luck charms in the smooth enamel, thereby releasing the magic held within. The more skilled the magician, the more complex the carving, and the more magic released.

Though it is the Ngimbian sailors who hunt down the fearsome creature, it is to Aevern Isle alone that the bones and teeth of the haukfin may be sold. This seems to me an injustice of some degree.

 

At sea, seventh bell

 

“Heave.” The quartermaster repeated the word over and over, rhythmic like the beat of a drum. “Heave.”

The sailors grunted and readjusted the ropes over their shoulders. The ship tilted to starboard as they leveraged the corpse of the haukfin slowly up the side. The tail of the beast already lay near the forecastle, chopped into manageable chunks in the water and then hauled up in turn.

Tierence watched the sailors work. Her eyes felt dry and gritty, though her skin was hot and flushed. She knew where Tate’s corpse lay, bloated from hours at sea while the sailors had waited for the sun to rise. The scrimshaw round his neck had swung down mockingly as the men and women had lifted his stiff body into the boats.

The haukfin’s body slid over the rails with a rubbery resistance. It thumped to the deck and the ship creaked in protest. Two men were rolling barrels up from the hold. A woman followed them with a large burlap bag of rough salt over her shoulder.

“You can’t mourn him,” one of the sailors said, straightening from the rope and wiping a dirty hand across his forehead.

“Can’t?”

“He knew the risks.”

“This is reason not to mourn?”

The sailor shrugged his shoulder. “There’s no time for it,” he answered.

“Roughly put, but he’s not wrong.” The quartermaster worked his way around the corpse, marking the skin with chalk as he did so. “Here,” he shouted, and he gestured over a sailor with a gutting knife not unlike the one Tierence had taken from Tate. “Cut here,” and he pointed to one of the marked spots.

Once he had finished his course around the haukfin’s body, the quartermaster returned to Tierence, continuing to speak as if he had never interrupted himself. “Tate and all of them, they sign up willingly though the print is laid out plain for them. There is danger in this job, and more often than not, more scars than bone to be had.”

“Scars for you, bone and teeth for the Aevern.”

The quartermaster eyed her. He clicked his tongue. “You speak as if you’re not blooded.”

She clicked in return. You are my equal or I am one of you. Aloud, she said, “There is more sea in me than magic.”

“You bleed ink,” he said, matter-of-factly.

More true than you think, she thought. Harder than he would know not to write her grief down and mar the records she was taking, not to interrupt a description of the haukfin’s lungs to narrate the terror in Tate’s eyes.

“You know magic?” The quartermaster’s attention was split between her and the sailors at work.

“A Ngimbian does not.”

He looked at her, studied her face.

“A share should come to me,” she said.

He breathed in deeply and shook his head as if to clear it.

“How so?”

“It was me who landed the killing blow.”

“A bold claim.” He took a step away from her.

“There is no need to be bold if speaking the truth.”

“That is not the way of it.” the quartermaster said. “But you may have your share. What shall it be?”

“I will take a tooth.”

“One tooth.” He laughed. “Will you take so little?” He knew it was not little at all.

“One tooth,” she repeated.

“Then go to it, girl.” He spread his arm out. The sailors looked up. A woman was stooped over the jaws which had been pried apart. She glanced over, then scuttled backwards, making room.

Tierence stepped forward softly, then more firmly. She wove her way between the sailors. There was a mingled smell of salt, and sweat, and something more pungent and unfamiliar. She knelt down by the beast’s head. Its eyes were open and glassy, unseeing. She ran a hand over the ridges of teeth. The woman handed her a knife by the hilt, and Tierence took the leather grip in her hand. She dug the knife into the hard flesh of the gums. It yielded very little, but she bit deeper and deeper until the knife was a lever to help pry loose a tooth. With her other hand, she took a tight hold on the slippery enamel and pulled. The tooth would not come out at first. Sweat trickled down her forehead and tickled the ridge of her nose. Her short hair stuck to the back of her neck.

The other sailors had not stopped their work, and the sounds of their knives in flesh was watery among the blood and cartilage. She grunted and worked the tooth back and forth in the socket. It finally tore loose with a ripping noise. Blood splattered on the bare skin of her collarbone.

“It’s messy work,” the sailor near her said and then she moved closer, elbowing Tierence out of the way.

***

 

On shore, dark

 

Rutre set the new page, dropping the last type block into its place. The front leaf of a small book of verse was laid out inverse before him. He let out a long breath and realized he had been holding it.

He looked up. The breeze from the window was cool and it was dark in the streets. The lamplighter had long come and gone. The flames flickered steadily the whole length of Half-light Square, reflected in the cobblestones slick with oil and water. Staring out the window, the dread and nausea returned, roiling in his stomach. Sami should have returned before now.

Working methodically, he closed and latched the window. Then he put up the shutters. Without the light from the street lamps, the shop was thrown into a second dusk. He picked up the small oil lamp from the counter. The flame gleamed off the gilded spines of the books on the shelves. The placard advertising the circulating library swung slightly, mocking him. He opened the glass dome of the lamp and turned down the flame until it winked out.

In the dark, he moved from the counter to the coat-rack, the floor-plan of his shop known to him from many years pacing it. The coat was rough under his hands. He slipped his arms into the sleeves of the coat and then buttoned it tightly, even the collar. Only then did he step outside and lock the door behind him. His breath caught at the sound of the latch.

The street was silent. It was a mercantile square and the other shops had long closed. A sea-bird squawked and flung itself up into the air from the roof of the neighboring business, a milliner. The hats she made could not equal the one the lady had worn this afternoon.

It was only two squares between him and the harbor, and these were quickly crossed. The square abutting Half-light was populated with taverns and brothels, so the lights were bright there. Music from creaky wind instruments haunted the men and women who stumbled from one door to the next. Rutre held his elbows close with both hands and scuttled with quick steps through the crowds.

The harbor was quiet again, waves lapping loud under the piers. Here, there were few street-lights and he could see the moon, large and round, the masts of the anchored ships silhouetted slender against it. Ezra lived where the shadows began, her small two-roomed house nestled snug by the wall of the town. The stone steps to the door were uneven. He stumbled.

“Who’s there?” The voice was old and wary.

“Quires,” he whispered, his mouth very close to the door. The splinters tasted like salt.

“Don’t cool your ass out there.”

Rutre opened the door and ducked inside, closing it carefully behind him.

“Miss Ezra,” he said, his eyes adjusting to the firelight inside.

“You know I don’t hold with those titles.” She was small and hunched, her shoulders crowded close on her neck. Her hair was gray and braided thick over her ears. “What do you have for me, Quires? Is it verse or prose? Comedy or tragedy?”

She held out a hand to him, fingers gnarled and nails long. She flicked two fingers up, eager, asking.

“I bring no book tonight.”

She frowned. “Then you bring me trouble. There’s people asking up and down the harbor, using licit magic to seek the illicit.”

“A lady visited my shop this evening.”

She nodded. She slipped a hand inside the collar of her dress and brought out a scrimshaw charm, carved deep and thick. “It’s protected me yet.”

“I sent Sami to you with the last of the teeth.”

Ezra tucked the charm back under her collar. Her fingers trembled.

“Have not seen him.” Her voice was low and thick.

“I sent him two or three hours ago.”

“Doesn’t change the fact.”

Rutre tasted bile at the back of his throat. He swung the door open behind him and stumbled a few steps toward the piers. Bending over, he threw up the contents of his stomach. Ezra followed him to the doorway. The fire framed her stooped figure with red light.

“He’s young.” Her words were almost too soft to hear.

“Can you help me?” Rutre panted. “Can you help me to find him?”

“My charms are for protecting, not finding.” She turned back inside.

He climbed back up the steps and leaned, panting, against the doorpost.

“Help me,” he pleaded.

Ezra moved to a trunk in the corner of the room. She knelt down with difficulty and lifted the lid. Light glinted off the carving tools inside. She put aside a layer of red, soft cloth and pulled out a bit of haukfin tooth, polished smooth and shining.

“It’s not for you and it’s not for Sami.” She waited for him to come close and then held out the tooth to him. He took it, almost afraid to touch it. It was cold in his hand. He brought it close to his eye. There was dense carving on it, spirals and whorls.

“Who is it for?” he asked.

“Tierence.”

“How do you know?”

Ezra grabbed onto his arm and heaved herself to her feet. Her knees popped. Her nails were sharp in his skin.

“I saw her name and that’s what I carved.”

Rutre looked in her face. Her eyes were almost lost in wrinkled folds of skin. “Why do you give it to me?”

Ezra stared beyond him, at the sea and the harbor. “Her ship’s fast on the wind. She’ll be in tonight or the morning.”

Rutre followed her gaze. The skyline was flat and empty, black sky and black waves.

“She’ll need it,” Ezra said. She squeezed Rutre’s arm. “You’ll need it.”

 

***

 

As for symbology, what can one say of the haukfin? It is so terrifying as to be a symbol even when examined literally. The beast embodies all that one fears and comes from a place unknown. Is it surprising that from this horror comes such power as we see daily used in the Aevern Isle? No, for it is this also that we fear, we sailors from Ngimbia.

 

Tierence walked up from the harbor in the early dawn light. From behind her came the dull hollow thumps of the barrels rolled down the gangplank. She kept her hand in her pocket, clutched around the haukfin’s tooth. With the nail of her thumb, she traced the natural grooves of the enamel, carved by wave and violent feedings.

She paused when she came to the edge of Half-light Square, standing half-in and half-out of the shadowed gate. Even the taverns were now closed, and the piers were far enough away that the shouts of the sailors were lost in the fog. She closed her eyes, leaning against the stone. She imagined she could feel the water circling the island, swirling cold to the sea floor and then warm in the channel between Ngimbia and Aevern. And the water was quiet, no beast lurking in its depths.

Tate’s face, bloody and pale. She opened her eyes.

She moved naturally in the direction of Quires’ shop. It was unlikely he was awake, but if he were, she wished to discuss a second edition of her bestiary. There were corrections to be made, based upon the findings of her most recent sojourn. The sign over the door of his shop creaked a little in the soft wind. Shutters still covered the windows, but she could see light shining through the slats. She placed a hand to the door and pushed. It gave before her.

“Tierence.” A voice, hollow and unfamiliar greeted her. She took a step inside, squinting. “Niece.”

Someone gripped her hand tightly and suddenly from the darkness to her left. It dropped away just as quickly, leaving a small smooth bit of bone or tooth in her hand. She recognized it by feel, and recognized the thick overlapping grooves in it, signs of Ezra’s work.

“Step away from her, Quires, or you’ll meet the same fate as the boy.”

Quires scrambled away from Tierence into the light. He was favoring his right arm, holding it close to his side. Blood dripped from his sleeve and trailed from his fingers to the floor.

“Come in, girl. You must be tired from your travels.” Tierence tore her eyes away from Quires.

A thin woman stood in front of the bookshelves. Her dress was white, striped with blue, but there were red dots like flowers between the stripes. The light of the lamps reflected off her shaved forehead.

“What luck,” she said, watching Tierence intently, “that I find you and this black market peddler in the same day.”

“You called me niece,” she answered slowly. She gripped the carved totem tightly in her hand. “Yet I do not know you.”

“But then the bone shakers rarely tell me false.” The woman took a step forward, swaying like an over-tall tree caught in the wind.

“How do you call me niece?” Tierence repeated. She held her jaw tight.

“In the normal way. By blood.” The woman paused an arm’s length away and then she held out her hand. Her fingers were long and circled with rings of bone. In one was carved a rough crest. “It is time for you to return to Aevern.”

“To return one must have departed.”

The woman smiled, and her lips were thin and wide. Her teeth glinted white. “I have read your book. I know you are clever with words.”

“Then that is why you have come.”

The woman dropped her arm. “We will have you quiet one way or another.” She curled her hands closed and the rings stood out sharp and white beneath her knuckles.

“You will not move me,” Tierence spoke, quiet. “What I write is not for you.” She swayed slightly where she stood. She had not slept that night or the day before. She had not slept since Tate had died in the death-throes of the haukfin.

“And have you not encountered anything in your travels,” the woman stepped very near. Her scent, verbena and lemon, was slight, hardly detectable. “Nothing that made you scared of death? Nothing that allowed you to recognize it?”

Tierence felt her eyes grow hot. Tears stood still in them, but she did not break her gaze with the woman who called herself her aunt.

“I have,” she whispered, spitting. “It seems that you have not.”

Tierence thrust her hand with the totem hard into the woman’s chest. Sparks flared up from the carved tooth and the woman was flung backwards, so that she stumbled and was forced to balance herself against the shelves. The placard advertising the circulating library swung perilously and then fell clattering to the ground.

“Don’t,” Quires gasped, breathing heavily. “Don’t kill yourself.”

The woman righted herself. A loud snapping sound came from the bone stays she wore as she straightened. Tierence reached beneath her coat to her belt and slipped loose the large gutting knife. She held it in front of her, gripped in her right hand. She imagined she could still feel the slick oil of the haukfin’s skin on the leather.

The woman drew out her own knife from the folds of her skirt, though the hilt of hers was smooth enamel, grooved deep with kinetic magic. The stilted movements were gone as she crouched slightly and skipped forwards. The light shone and danced off her smooth skin, almost negating the separate features of her face. Tierence stepped to her left as the woman came forward and they circled each other. The hilt of the woman’s knife began to glow.

Tierence lunged towards her, hoping to catch the woman off-guard before the full potential of the knife was released. The woman lifted her arms wide and stuttered back a pace. Then, as if dancing, one-two, she came forward again. She drove the knife straight toward Tierence’s stomach, twisting her wrist as she did so to stick the point true. Tierence tumbled forward to avoid the strike. She unrolled and leapt to her feet again, turning just in time to see the woman swing her knife wide at eye-level. The blade whistled through the air as she bent backwards. As Tierence bent, the woman brought her other arm up and, with her palm flat, hit Tierence full in the collarbone.

Tierence felt three levels of pain—the force of the blow, the cutting edge of the bone rings, and the burning skin where the haukfin had spit its venom. She tried to catch her breath, and coughed, gagging. Spit dribbled at the corner of her mouth.

“Beg mercy,” the woman said. She did not seem out of breath, but her cheeks were flushed and there was a sheen of sweat across her forehead.

The tooth in her pocket poked at Tierence’s leg. She dropped her knife and it rang loud on the floor of the shop. Quires groaned. The woman smiled.

Tierence plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out the tooth. She gripped it by the broad base and pointed the razor edge forward. She remembered the effort it had been to cut it free from the thick hard flesh of the beast’s mouth.

The woman looked questioningly at the new weapon and opened her mouth. Tierence did not let her speak. She dashed forward and though the woman tried to jump back, she drove the tooth deep into her gut, through the thick wire that held the bone stays together. The woman weakened her grip on her own knife and it fell from her fingers. She looked almost placid, eyebrow-less as she was. But her eyes were wide and bloodshot.

The tooth grew hot and Tierence let go and withdrew a pace. Veins of fire raced outwards from the wound and sparks cracked in the cold air of the shop. The woman sunk to her knees, then dropped limp to the ground, curled on her side. Her dress fluttered round her and ashes, black and feathery, drifted free from the folds of the gown as the fire sizzled out.

Tierence stamped out a stray cinder without thinking. Then she turned and went to Quires’ side. It still hurt to breathe and her collarbone shifted in unsettling ways as she moved.

“That’s a strange thing to see,” he rasped. He gripped her arm. His skin was gray.

She clicked her tongue.

“Not so strange,” she tried to say, but the words came only half out.

 

 __________________________________

E. K. Wagner is an assistant professor within the SUNY system. She lives in the Catskills, inspired by Rip Van Winkle’s game of nine-pins. Her speculative fiction has appeared in Apex, Perihelion, and Luna Station Quarterly. She was a finalist in the 2015 Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Chapbook contest, and she is a member of SFWA.  You can check out more of her work on her website.