Something had happened to Rahm — not to the part of him staggering through the chaos of villagers and soldiers. Rather, it happened to the part growing inside, the thing that had begun forming when the bearded rider had shot Kern. It had needed a long time to grow: minute after minute after minute of mayhem. But the growing thing finally got large enough to fill up and join with something in Rahm’s hands, in Rahm’s thighs, in Rahm’s gut. It filled him or became him or displaced him — however he might have said it, they all referred to the same. And when from the darkness Rahm had seen Rimgia and the little soldier leaning against the council building, saw him touch her that way in the overhead light, the thing inside, jerking and bloating to its full size, had taken him over, muscle and mouth, foot and finger.
When what happened next finished happening, Rahm had dragged the soldier halfway through the town — till he no longer pulled at Rahm’s wrists, till he no longer flailed, struggled, gurgled, till he was limp and still and hung from Rahm’s grip, as Rahm stood in darkness — choking out one and another rib-wrenching sob.
Horses’ hooves struck around him. Rahm heard a shout beside him. A blade — Rahm saw firelight run up sharpened metal — cut at his shoulder; and a sound that was not a sob but a roar tore up out of him. He’d hurled the little soldier’s corpse away (the flung body struck the sword from the soldier’s hand, knocked the soldier free of his horse) and fled — till much later Rahm hurled his own body, nearly a corpse, down among the foothills.
He lay in the woods at the mountains’ base, his cheek on his wrist; tears ran across the bridge of his nose, slippery over the back of his hand. Breath jerked into his lungs every half minute.
He lay in the leaves, gasping. His eyes boiled in their bone cauldrons. His teeth clenched so tightly, it was surprising the enamel of one or another molar did not crack. His body shook now and again, as if someone struck him hugely on the head, on the foot. What kept going through his mind was mostly names. Names. In the dark woods, he tried to remember all the names he had spoken that day, from the time he’d first reached the field to the time he’d stood in the common. He would start to go through them, get lost, then try doggedly to start again, to remember them all this time. (What were they again? What were they?) Because, he knew, a third of those names — children’s, mothers’, fathers’, friends’—were no longer the names of live people. And they mustn’t be forgotten. But his body finally shook a little less. They must not…Without his mind ever really stilling —
— dawn struck Rahm awake with gold.
He rolled and stood in a motion, blinking to erase unbearable dreams. He was still a long time. Once he turned, looked down the wooded slope, then off into the trees on either side. He began to shake. Then, possibly to stop the shaking, he started to walk — to lurch, rather, for the first few minutes — upward. Possibly he walked because walking was most of what he’d been doing for the past week. And the relief from walking, the feeling of a wander at its end, the astonishing feeling of coming home — something terrible had happened to that feeling.
Rahm walked.
Once in a while, he would halt and shake his head very fast — a kind of shudder. Then he would walk again.
The trees thinned. As Rahm stumbled over the higher stones, bare rock lifted free of vegetation, to jut in crags around him or to crumble under uncertain handholds. Soon he was climbing more than walking. After an hour — or was it two? — he came around a ledge to find himself at a crevice. Fifteen feet high, a cave mouth opened narrowly before him.
Chapter Four
From inside, a flapping sounded — as of a single wing.
Rahm eased along the ledge. Still numb, he had no sense of danger. His motivation was a less-than-passive curiosity — more the habitual actions of someone often curious in the past.
A fallen branch, split along its length, lay on the rock. Morning light reflected on the clean inner wood, still damp from the breaking. Like metal. Like a polished sword gleaming in firelight.
Rahm grabbed up the stick, as if seizing the reality would halt the memory. He shook it — as if to shake free the image from it. Then, a moment on, the shaking had turned to a hefting. One hand against the stone wall, the other holding the stick, Rahm stepped within the cave mouth, narrowing his eyes. A slant beam from a hole near the ceiling lit something gray — something alive, something shifting, something near the rocky roof. That something moved, moved again, shook itself, and settled back.
Rahm stepped farther inside. Looking up, frowning now, he called out — without a word.
A mew returned.
Rahm took another step. The gray thing made the flapping sound again.
As his eyes adjusted to the shadow, Rahm could make out its kite shape. It hung in a mass of filaments, one wing dangling. A tangle of webbing filled most of the cavity. Ducking under strands, Rahm took another step. Leaves ceased to crumble under his heel. Within, the softer soil was silent. He glanced when his foot struck something: a bone chuckled over rock. Rahm looked up again, raised his branch, brought its end near the trapped creature.
He didn’t touch it. Between the branch’s end and the leathery wing were at least six inches. But suddenly the mewing rose in pitch, turning into a screech.
Rahm whirled — because something had flung a shadow before him, passing through the light behind.
Suspended nearly four feet from the ground, a bulbous…thing swayed within the cave entrance, dropped another few inches — much too slowly to be falling — then settled to the ground. It scuttled across the rock, paused, made a scritting noise, then danced about on many too many thin legs. Rahm jabbed his stick toward it.
Mandibles clicked and missed.
It ran up the wall, then leapt forward. Rahm struck at it and felt the stick make contact. The thing landed, spitting, and hopped away, one leg injured and only just brushing the earth. Behind it trailed a gray cord — the thickness, Rahm found himself thinking, of the yarn Hara might use on her loom.
It jumped again. Rahm swung again.
Only it wasn’t jumping at him; rather it moved now to one side of the cave, now to the other:
Two more cords strung across the cave’s width.
And the cave was not wide.
Backing from it, Rahm felt his leg and buttock push against some of the filaments behind, which gave like softest silk. But as he moved forward again, they held to him — and when one pulled free of his shoulder, it stung, sharply and surprisingly.
This time, when it leaped across the cave, Rahm jumped high and, with his branch, caught it full on its body. It collapsed from the arc of its leap, landing on its back, legs pedaling. Rahm lunged forward to thrust his stave through the crunching belly. Seven legs closed around the stick (the injured one still hung free): it scritted, it spat. Then all eight hairy stalks fell open. One lowered against Rahm’s calf, quivered there, stilled, then quivered again. The hairs were bristly.
Blood trickled the stone, wormed between stone and dirt, and as all the legs jerked in a last convulsion — Rahm almost dropped his branch — gushed.
Rahm pulled the stick free of the carapace and stepped back, breathing hard. He looked up at the thing trapped in the webbing above. He looked down at the fallen beast on its back. And above again — where cords, leaves, sunlight, dust motes, and movement were all confused. He raised the stick among the filaments. He did not bring the end near the creature, but tried to pry among the threads in hope of breaking some — possibly even freeing it.