Dead men rise. Dead men fight. Dead men dance throughout the night.
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 964 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
David looked down at the corpse of Cadell. It shuddered at his boots, so he kicked it again. I did it, he thought. I managed it. But it’s not over yet. And already he could feel the exhaustion pulling at him, felt sick with it.
There was a break in the clouds and the moons shone down, and just to their left glowed the Stars of Mourning: those symbols of sin and forgiveness. That sight steadied him somewhat; reminded him, too, that the corpse was on the street for any passerby to see.
“We will need to cut the… body up,” he said, looking to Margaret. “Burn the pieces, and we need to hurry.” He tried to sound calm, more in control than he felt.
Margaret was already unsheathing her rime blade, her rifle at her feet. “No, that’s not going to work.”
David walked back through the broken window of the butchery. The blades weren’t too hard to find.
“This is much better,” he said. Thank the Engine for what little Carnival remained in his veins — and there was not nearly enough of it. His hands didn’t even shake, and they would, yes, they would. He’d killed what was left of the man who had saved and made him what he was. David wanted to cry out with joy, he wanted to punch the wall with his fist. He wanted to eat, suddenly that was all he wanted, and there was meat here, in the cold room.
Yes, he needed that. Now.
He yanked the iron door open, breaking the lock in the process. Inside he dragged free the least frozen leg of lamb and bit down on it. It was tough work, but he managed it, you just needed to get the angle right, chew with rather than against the grain of the meat. A few bites, then a few bites more. Part of him wondered what it would be like if the blood was still warm.
He heard Margaret calling his name. Of course, how could he be so forgetful?
He took one last bite and walked from the cold room, shutting the door behind him. His stomach rumbled, he chose the biggest cleaver he could find, and a bag of salt, and walked back through the window, almost forgetting to wipe the smear of blood from his lips. His teeth were red with it.
“Sorry, it took me a while.”
Before Margaret could say a word, he severed the head from the neck, swinging down in a single swift movement, utterly definitive. “We can’t do it here, of course. But this should serve for now.”
He lifted the head by the hair. It was surprisingly light.
He grabbed one of the shuddering feet, and began to drag it down the street. “Now, if you could just grab a foot.”
Lightning cracked, like a skull hitting stone, and it started to rain. David turned to Margaret. “Just like home,” he said.
His side ached. He reached down, fingers finding the source of the pain, and pulled. The piece of glass that came free was almost the length of his forearm. “Not so good,” he said. Something squelched and he realised that his boots were full of blood.
He felt light-headed, but still he dragged the corpse behind him. Then he realised that perhaps that wasn’t the wisest way to be hefting around a body. There was a wooden box nearby; he dragged it over to them. It was covered in web, which he methodically removed, pinching several spiders to their deaths.
He didn't like spiders. He'd once seen a man eaten by them.
David swung the blade with a precision and a brutality that just a few weeks ago, Margaret would not have believed him capable of. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or concerned. He carefully dumped the remains in a box.
“We have to take this somewhere and burn it,” he said.
“Why not here?”
“People are coming,” David said.
“I can't hear anything.”
“Trust me.”
He hefted the box up. Margaret grabbed the other end.
Twice the box had twitched in their grip; the first time Margaret dropped it, glancing furiously back at David. “Did you feel that?”
David nodded “I was expecting it,” he said. “Don’t be surprised. It’s quite normal.”
As though anything were normal, he thought.
She seemed ready for it the next time. Didn’t even flinch. They found cover — behind old boxes from Chapman that smelt of rot and the sea — in an alleyway, the closest most deserted place they could find, and put the box down.
Margaret used a few drops of the endothermic chemicals from her shells. As an accelerant it worked well, though Cadell’s flesh burned far easier then, giving off a peculiar cool heat. The smoke was thin and oily, and quick to drown in the rain.
David stuck a toe in the ashes, then dumped a bag of salt over them. Surely nothing could have come back from that anyway, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.
“One Old Man dealt with,” he said without much satisfaction. “Only seven more to go.”
“You still think they’re hunting you?”
“Yes, I can feel it in my bones. And when I sleep.” His voice lowered, though there was no one there to hear it but her, “And they're getting closer.”