The cities begged for her expertise, like annoying flies eager to feast on the frail remnants of cultures long past their prime. She gave in at times; the need for human contact, however tenuous and brief, required it. Twice, government officials stole her griffon-birthed crossbow. Once, a man expertly removed her kin staff. Never had anyone bothered to take her birthing claw.
Until today.
The Duke of Savinia slipped his hand inside the claw, his expression filled with curiosity and wonder rather than greed. “It’s worn. Doesn’t look like much, does it?” He slowly lifted his gaze to hers, his eyes grey, but bright. “Ray of the Early Eventide. That is your full name, correct?”
Ray smiled faintly. She could have shot him between the eyes, but she recognized the weapon hanging off his belt. A decorative dirk, birthed from a steel-plated elemental, the hilt reminiscent of the earthy creature’s impenetrable flesh. An arrow would only bounce off the duke’s forehead while he wore that living weapon.
She would know. She’d created it.
“I remember you, Lars Savinia, but I don’t recall that you were a duke then. I’m glad to see my services put to use,” said Ray with an arch of an eyebrow. “However, the claw is mine. Return it.”
Lars glanced around the hall, as if seeing the swooping green-grey buttresses and his own black-clothed guards for the first time. Then he chuckled. “I did my research on you, Ray of the Early Eventide, last descendent of the Jaekarti, forger of living weapons. Do you know how much falsehood gets told when coin is on offer? Too much. I’ve had to wade through centuries of rumor and legend to find reality.” He lifted the claw. “But what reality it is, makes for an amazing legend.”
Ray arched her brow yet again, but didn’t respond.
With a flourish, Lars waved her three-bladed claw. “Bone. Wood. Metal. Dead, all of them, but representing all of life as we know it. The Jaekarti knew so much and yet behaved so differently. Murdering each other for weapons to use in a war against the manticore? And yet you both have been whittled away over the years until you’re mere fragments of the powerful cultures you once were.” He ran his free hand through his hair. The curls sprang back into place. “Sounds as if you escaped a death trap. There’s only one thing I don’t actually know for certain–were you truly born from that time? Or is that a lie and the claw has simply been passed down through generations?”
“Does it matter?” asked Ray, finding an anger burning in her gut over his misunderstanding of her culture.
Lars seemed to think on that, then shook his head. “Maybe not. Then he nodded toward two of his guards, who immediately stepped up to Ray’s either side. “We’ll see if it does. I’ve something to show you.”
Ray contemplated simply killing the guards and leaving, but her jaw clenched on the thought of abandoning the claw. And besides, this was the most interesting predicament she’d been in for a long while.
She followed Lars out of the grand hall and through more well-used passages and rooms where the decorative marble turned to muted stone, the throw rugs bore obvious trodden paths and the lamps smelled of oil rather than of rosemary and wealth.
He spoke animatedly as he walked, hands gesturing and barely contained excitement intensifying his voice. Ray kept her eyes on the claw, her fingers tightening around the strap of her crossbow every time he almost scraped the stolen weapon against the wall.
“About a century ago, an excavation team went to some of the more prominent Jaekarti ruins in an attempt to find remnants of living weapons. They were successful too, if you count the weak, partially broken finds that now hang in the War Museum.” He glanced back at Ray. “The texts weren’t as interesting to them and so much of what could have been saved continued to decay in storage rooms of private investors for quite some time. But, what I did find of the Jaekarti and the manticore has been fascinating.”
They took a turn down an enclosed staircase, the sunlight fading, leaving only the oil lamps casting their malformed shadows along the walls. As their footsteps echoed against the stone, a scent, one Ray remembered well, began to permeate the air around them. And as Lars continued his recitation of histories she’d lived through, of war between her people and the fierce manticore who had invaded their land, she became more and more sure what must be around the next bend.
She wanted to clutch her kin staff to her chest, feel the living wood warm under her hands as it comforted, but that would mean admitting fear. And ever since she had become the wielder, the weapon forger of her family, she did not entertain fear.
So she lifted her chin and steeled herself for the worst.
“It’s sad, really,” continued Lars. “If your people had moved from Jaekartia and rebuilt, then your culture might have survived to this day. Instead, we’ve lost two powerful races to the war of your past.”
“You sound disappointed,” said Ray. “Yet, if my people had survived, your ancestors would likely not have had the chance to flourish.”
Lars laughed. “You may well be right.” Then he stepped through a set of huge oaken doors. “But I enjoy wondering at the possibilities once rife in the past.”
Ray didn’t slow her pace, didn’t even hesitate as the cage came into view, though her heart flipped and her instincts screamed for her to arm herself and attack while she held the frail element of startled surprise on her side. The manticore reared up, his leathery wings snapping out as wide as they could go in the limited space and his scorpion tail clanging against the reinforced bars. Many of the guards surrounding the cage stepped back cautiously, their voices quiet in the face of the manticore’s roar.
“Impressive, isn’t he?” asked Lars.
Ray didn’t respond, her fingers convulsively gripping the curved head of her staff. She frowned at the manticore, her muscles tense and ready for a fight. He glared in return, that ancient hate shining from his eyes reminding her of days when the Jaekarti stood proud and tall and the manticore ranged the hills to the east. This particular manticore had a yellowish mane with red streaks. His eyes glowed a pale green and his wings bore little scarring.
Nothing but a youth.
“Tell me how the claw works,” demanded Lars, all the good humor fading from his face.
“So I take it you’ve tried and failed.” Ray added an extra sneer for good measure before returning her attention to the more dangerous creature in the room. “You’ll fail a good many more times then, because no one but a Jaekarti can wield a birthing claw.”
“You can’t bluff your way out of this,” said Lars. “I told you I’ve a fascination with histories and one in particular mentioned the Jaekarti teaching their ways to a nomadic group that, in turn, settled to the south and promptly forgot the arts. Too peaceful, I presume, because they didn’t feel the need to disgustingly kill their own siblings in order to wield them on the battlefield.”
The scorn in his voice echoed in Ray’s mind. His dismissal of a tradition so sacred made her want to throw him into the cage with the manticore and watch as the beast devoured him in an example of something truly disgusting.
“You have your answer,” she said darkly.
Lars strode away from the cage. “Then I guess we shall see history brought to life. It’s been a secret desire of mine to watch a reincarnation of the fights between the Jaekarti and the manticore.”
As if in response, the manticore bellowed again, his thunderous voice, a cross between man and beast, echoing painfully in the enclosed room. Lars made a motion and two of the guards cranked a lever on the wall. Bars came crashing down from the ceiling around where Ray stood, as the ones along the closest side of the manticore’s cage sank into the ground.
Ray probably could have escaped the trap had she bothered to run, but she’d fought too many manticore in her youth to turn her back on one now. Instead, she swung her crossbow around and shot the first bolt as the manticore leapt over the lowering bars.
The bolt flew true, every one always did, the griffon-born weapon lacking an ability to shoot falsely. Except, this time the cross bolt jolted away from the manticore at the last possible second, flicking between the bars of the cage so quickly that it had sunk into the exposed neck of one of the guards before Ray realized she’d missed.
Ignoring the sudden commotion as guards scrambled defensively, raising their shields in belated surprise, Ray dove out of the manticore’s way. Her knee slammed hard against the stone as she twisted, this time aiming for one of its wings as the manticore landed and began to spin.
Again, the bolt shot true right up until a mere hand’s length away, then batted up and to the right to shatter an oil lamp embedded in the wall outside the cage. The manticore let out a furious bellow and lashed at her with his tail. Ray scrambled out of the way, using the barrel of her crossbow to deflect the hard carapace with its dripping viscous fluid. Then she grabbed her short blade with her offhand, a fire emblem sparking along its edge, the weapon birthed over a hundred years ago from a fire dancer living in a far southern province.
She slashed at the manticore’s tail as it swept away, missing by a hairsbreadth. Then she dodged his paw and ducked under his massive wing. As she ran toward the other end of the cage, she caught a glimpse of Lars standing on the outside, arms crossed, her birthing claw dangling from one hand, and his expression full of conceited arrogance. As if his disdain for her culture extended just far enough to her, but not so far as to dismiss the living weapons she created.
Then she heard the sound of the manticore pounding on the stone so she cut right to dash across the cage in the opposite direction. When he came too close, she slashed with her blade, watching as the sparking fire leapt toward the manticore, only to be blown sideways by a mystifying wind.
Yet, as the sparks showered away, she swore she saw something flicker in their wake. Smeared faces of the dead flashing and twisting. She blinked, and the flicker disappeared, leaving only a lion’s paw bearing down on her. Ray bent a knee and slashed again, forcing the manticore to staunch its attack to avoid the blow, his rows of sharp teeth reflecting the sparking of her sword. As his wings folded, his tail struck from over his head like a true scorpion.
Ray lifted the crossbow, but only managed to keep the full force of the blow from sending her into the ground. His tail scraped along her shoulder, leaving a burning trail in its wake. She yelled in anger, spun and swung down on the tail’s tip. The sparks gusted farther into the cage, just as before, but the blade itself connected, scraping into the carapace before a fierce buffet of wind and a paw to her chest sent her flying backward. She smacked into the cage and crumpled to the ground, her crossbow sliding across the stone.
She shouted again, this time in agony as the venom swept through her system. The pain pounded worse with every beat of her heart. Her vision danced. Her breath came sharp. Quick. The manticore roared triumphantly as she struggled to see, followed by an echoing laughter from Lars and an order to desist.
The kin staff on her back warmed, humming a low song only she could hear, in a voice only she would recognize. She imagined she felt her brother playing with her braids, just as he’d done when they’d been younger, when their world had been smaller and they’d still believed in their fated future. The venom squeezed her lungs and blackened her vision, but her brother breathed life through her body, stealing away her death, leaving only the pain of survival in his wake.
“I know your secret,” said Lars, his voice carrying across the room. “I found notes on you in some of the histories. Sketches of your face in books from other cities a hundred years old, two hundred years old. You’ve been alive for a long time.”
Her blade loose in her grip, Ray grasped a bar of the cage and staggered to her feet as the venom continued its searing, but useless, path through her veins. On the other side of the cage, the manticore smiled evilly as it stalked back and forth, his tail rattling against the metal bars.
“Supposedly you can’t die, according to the little I’ve gleaned. But then, neither can he. Both of you are quite possibly the last of your kind. I wonder, will the manticore finally reign…or will the Jaekarti? You’ve only to pull the rope and I will return to hear your answer.” Lars headed toward the oaken doors, his guards flanking him. He paused before leaving, “In the meantime, enjoy your stay.”
Ray lifted her head, noting the short rope dangling off center in the cage, its top attached to a claxon. The manticore lunged in her moment of distraction, so she yelled an old war cry and swept her blade through the air, creating a great wave of fiery sparks that flowed across the width of the cage. The fire dancer rewarding the gracefulness of her move, no doubt. Though, as the manticore landed, the wave broke, the sparks swirling around his wings, not a single one touching his flesh or lighting his mane. In the wake of his roar, the doors slammed shut behind Lars and his guard. The manticore twisted his head in that direction, then settled heavily on his haunches as the last of the sparks flickered out harmlessly upon the stone.
“He’s gone,” said the manticore. “And you’re making me hungry. Stop your incessant fighting.”
“Excuse me?” asked Ray in disbelief.
The manticore sighed in exasperation. “He likes theatrics. The grander the better.” Then he yawned, showing all three layers of sharp teeth. His tail swept around, the tip leaving a smear against the stone floor. “I’ve found it easier to humor him. The name’s Zaek, in case you cared.”
Ray blinked a few more times, then, when the manticore didn’t move, she said, “I don’t care.”
Zaek shrugged his huge shoulders and gave a toothy grin before he settled himself like a feline. “You probably killed your own family, so that doesn’t seem quite that surprising.”
Ray lowered her blade and narrowed her eyes as the last of the venom lost its potency, her brother’s love far too strong. She shifted, her gaze cutting sideways to examine what looked to be a locked door located at the back of the cage.
Zaek licked one of his front paws. “I’ve always wondered why your kind hated mine so badly when we did nothing different than what you did to each other.”
“We never ate each other,” she said blandly.
Zaek’s licking paused. “How is that better? At least we didn’t waste your bodies.”
Ray scooped up her crossbow, armed it and casually shot a bolt at Zaek’s head. The bolt veered down to the ground the moment it would have struck him, as if some invisible force swatted it out of the way.
He rumbled to himself, then said, “If you don’t mind my asking, how is it you heal so quickly?”
“How is it you can’t be harmed?” Ray countered as she armed the crossbow again, taking the time to slide two bolts into place.
A strange expression crossed Zaek’s face, his teeth flashing for just a moment before his lips came down again. “It’s a blessing. The god of the dead granted me a death wind.”
“Oh?” she said dubiously as she carefully stepped along the edge of the cage toward the door, her staff occasionally tapping against the metal bars. If he told the truth, she could kill him. Death winds, like all winds, were defense against projectiles, not a knife in the back. Or the front. But it would mean getting awfully close.
“You are welcome to your skepticism.” He snapped his jaw, obviously offended.
“How did you get captured if a death wind protects you?”
“Yes, that…uh, that’s a long, boring story.”
“We have time,” she suggested mercilessly. Then she reached out to feel the lock, keeping her gaze on the manticore.
Zaek cleared his throat, then muttered, “He offered three meals a day for my service.”
Ray froze, then made a sound that rarely came from her throat since she’d finished tearing a birthing claw through her brother’s chest.
The manticore scowled at her. “You laugh, but when you’ve been as lonely as I’ve been, and as hungry, you do stupid things. Very stupid things, as it turned out, because meals haven’t exactly been as forthcoming as he claimed.” Then he snapped his teeth at her. “Though you’re tempting me to consider you one of them.”
“And here I thought we’d become friends.”
He went back to licking. “What about you then? Why do you heal like a god instead of the human you are?”
“Not all weapons have the same purpose.”
He snorted, the sound more animal than human. “Of course not. You speak in riddles as much as the duke does.”
Ray sighed, then leaned against the cage by the lock, pulling free from her boot a slim weapon she’d once birthed from a thief. The same thief who had dared take her kin staff off her back and thought he’d walk off into oblivion with it. She slipped him inside the front of the lock, his form now a union of a lock pick and a grooved, poisonous dagger. She’d almost sold him, then decided any man or creature who could remove her kin staff off her back was too dangerous to be allowed out in the world without supervision.
Without any skill of her own, the lock popped with a soft metallic snick. Zaek leapt to his feet so suddenly Ray almost dropped the tiny dagger as she steadied her crossbow, readying for a second round of a not-so-impossible fight.
He only sniffed and bared his teeth. “You leave me behind and I’ll eat you.”
“And that’s why we never got along.”
He stood tense, eyes unblinking. He could rush her, the space between them short enough he might reach her before she could slip outside the door and close it behind.
So they stood at an impasse, Zaek’s paws curling as if he wanted to leap, his haunches slightly lowered in preparation and his expression clearly certain she would have no qualms over leaving him to starve in the Duke of Savinia’s care. That deathly flicker around his body came again, ethereal faces turned toward her.
“How did you become blessed with a death wind?”
Zaek shuddered, his wings fluttering frailly. “I ate my parents in the dead of winter,” he said softly, “and the god came to me.” Then he lowered his mane in shame, his youthfulness never more apparent. “They requested it and I obeyed.”
“So they gifted you their protection?” When he only stared at her, she went on musingly. “So a death wind triggers when the dead wish to care for their killer.”
Zaek’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why your people murdered each other?”
She shook her head and lowered the crossbow, suddenly unwilling to even attempt to destroy him. The sacrifice of his parents and his own youthfulness gnawed at her, reminding her of Jaekartia standing in ruins, that the furious war between her people and his had long since ceased, their borders frayed by new cultures, and he was far too young to have ever been involved. Plus, his shame, while misplaced, felt endearing. Not at all like the manticore of old. More valuable. More deserving of life.
“I’ve never killed one of my own. We didn’t do that. Our traditions were always meant to keep our people safe. I was to be a living weapon.” She lifted her chin in pride. “I was eldest in my family, trained to fight creatures such as you and ready to lend my brother strength and power when he came of age.”
She remembered the pride she’d felt then, just as she felt it now, though only in a reminiscent pang. As the years had crept closer, she had strived to be the best, the best marksman, the best swordswoman, balanced in feet and body, calm in soul. Yet, that disease, the one that had begun the decadence of Jaekarti, took hold of her brother before he turned sixteen. And as her brother, Branch of the Silent Ash, had lain dying, he’d begged to change their roles, to lend her what life he had left.
She touched her kin staff where it kicked out by her hip, then, making a decision. She tapped the door open. It creaked before stopping midway.
Zaek looked between the cage door and Ray, suspicion evident in his stance. “You wanted to be killed?”
“My brother is not dead,” she corrected, though she doubted a manticore would understand. “And yes, I wanted to become a living weapon because it meant I would be the one my family leaned on, the one who would never fail them. Instead, my brother never fails me.” She stepped away from the door so she wouldn’t block Zaek’s path and nodded toward the opening. “Aren’t you hungry, little manticore? The real shame would be if you did not live after your parents’ blessed you.”
Zaek licked his lips and stepped forward. “You’re not wanting to make me into one of your weapons?”
Ray smiled faintly. “Weapons come in all shapes and sizes and not all of them are wood and metal. That’s why the claw has three blades, not two.”
He hesitated for another moment, then rushed the cage door, his tail clattering against the bars, his wings whipping by with a rush of wind that rippled the ends of Ray’s braids. The metal clanged against itself as Zaek raced toward the oaken doors beyond. They crashed under his weight and his resounding bellow drowned out the terrified shouts of the guards beyond. He scarcely paused, though, must not have taken more than a bite or two of each, his teeth crunching armor, before he rushed along. Perhaps the need for air, for space, for revenge took precedence over the hunger.
Ray could understand that.
Either way, he existed as a weapon, more useful in true form. Or maybe she had become nostalgic for the time when both the Jaekarti and the manticore reigned.
She followed in his wake at a more sedate, cautious pace, holding tight to her weapons. Her griffon, her fire dancer, her thief.
Her brother.
On the third level, above where Zaek crashed and reigned, she found Lars leaving his chambers in a startled rush, still carrying her claw and his dirk. As Zaek’s furious bellowing roused the great house and shook its foundations, Lars’ first two guards fell with cross bolts in their throats, the satisfaction of the griffon murmuring through Ray’s hands. The last scraped sparks from his eyes, too late to stop the blade from burning a hole through his face, though his sword cut her shin in his flailing. Her brother kissed the wound away as she hid a pained flinch.
Lars glared at her. “This is pointless. You can’t harm–”
Ray spat on his hand, startling him into speechlessness. She sliced her blade through the wet smear before he had a chance to react, then caught the birthing claw as it fell.
“How–” He shouted unintelligibly as his wound cauterized, bright, vivacious sparks spraying around them as the fire dancer swirled gracefully.
Ray jerked the blade free and stepped back as Lars scrambled into his chambers, shouting for help and cursing her living weapons. She cleaned her blade and sheathed it, ignoring the distant screams within the downstairs halls. Then slipped her hand into the birthing claw, its worn leather supple against her skin, before touching each blade–bone, wood, metal–to show her reverence of life. She entered his chambers to find him bearing a sword, his stance wrong and his grip loose.
“This is respect, nothing more,” she said. “You are dangerous to me and powerful in your own way.”
She dodged his feeble attack, caught his blade in her claw and knocked the unassuming weapon across the room. Then she grabbed the washbasin from his dressing stand and tossed it against him, drenching his torso. As he attempted to free his dirk, Ray stabbed the birthing claw through his chest.
“How?” he panted as he clutched her arm, pushing at her elbow with what strength he had left, his wounded hand struggling to grip.
“Every weapon has a weakness. Your dirk was birthed from an elemental, strong as rock on the outside, but get it wet and its defense fails. Like mud.” She placed a hand against the back of his head as he fell to the ground so he wouldn’t smack his skull.
“What’s…yours?” he asked, his lip curling in a feeble sneer.
She leaned closer. “Why would I tell you that?” Then she pushed the birthing weapon in farther and intoned, “I summon the power of the earth. Metal and wood, from life and breath. By the shape of your heart, create strength.”
Lars blinked rapidly, his grip going hard for a second before fading. His form condensed and his eyes widened, the pain disappearing and a strange sense of wonder entering his expression before he dissolved into something small and metallic.
Ray released a heavy sigh and bowed her head, finishing the second prayer silently. Then she touched the head of her kin staff to feel her brother before finally plucking the penknife from the clothes Lars had left behind.
Before she had a real chance to examine the living weapon, she heard pounding of clawed feet, then Zaek burst into the chamber, his wings and tail cracking the doorframe as he shoved his body through forcibly. A length into the room, he stopped short and made a sound of distress.
“Why did you go and do that? I was going to eat him.”
Ray lifted the pen, turning it so she could see the flowing ink and the blade inside. Small, perhaps, but likely powerful in its own right. She would have to pen a letter to his family to see what it could do. “You had your revenge your way. I had mine my way.”
Zaek snapped his teeth, blood spraying across the stones and bits of leather and chainmail shaking loose.
They both turned at the sound of pounding booted feet.
“Thanks for your help,” said Zaek. Then he leapt across the room and stormed straight through the etched glass doors, shattering them in his headlong rush onto the balcony. He stopped and shook himself off, his mane whipping, his wings spread and his scorpion’s tail curling. There, at the balcony’s railing, he paused and turned back. “You coming, Jaekarti weapon?”
“Ray,” she corrected. “My name is Ray of the Early Eventide.”
He flapped his wings, sending shards of broken glass across the balcony and into the chamber. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Do you promise not to sting me again?” She asked as she crunched through the glass, eyeing his tail warily.
“Do you promise not to turn me into a living weapon?” he countered, his gaze dropping to the birthing claw on her hand.
“I think I can resist,” she said with a smile. “You’d probably make something less than worthy of being wielded anyway.”
Zaek scoffed. “I’d be the most powerful living weapon you’ve never seen. Get on before I change my mind.”
She didn’t respond as she climbed onto his sloping tawny back, but she did glance behind them to where guards spilled into their duke’s bedroom.
“Careful,” he said as he leapt into the night sky, the city spotted with light beneath them. “I might decide to drop you.”
“I’ll live,” she muttered, but she clamped her thighs tighter and gripped his striped mane.
| Marie Croke is an Odyssey graduate, has worked as a slush editor for multiple spec-fic magazines, and her stories have been published in Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Cast of Wonders, among others. |  |