An Old Man once came upon a boy in the street. He patted the boy's head and walked on. When questioned why he didn't hurt him, the Old Man replied: “He wasn't dead enough.”
The man who asked the question apparently was.
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 958 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
The trail had led them here, to the city. They stood in the spot where Cadell had died his second death, and mourned the passing of a brother. David was gone, high and fast.
But there were other things to hunt, enemies as ancient as they were. They uncovered nests of Roilings and froze them away. In a single day they found them all, and at the last, facing a host of the dead things, they lost all sense of the boy.
It was as though he had been snatched away from the world.
The Old Men turned to each other, paused in their fighting. David was no longer there. His presence and the bits and pieces of Cadell were gone.
They neither smiled nor frowned. There was no triumph.
“He is gone,” the oldest of them said, then tore off the head of the nearest Roiling. Witmoths spilled from the wound like ants from a nest, but at a gesture, the air temperature fell, cracking nearby stone, and the moths dropped dead to the ground.
Another Roiling stabbed out at him, and the Old Man caught its wrist, ice sheathed the creature’s flesh and it screamed once, briefly, and was dead.
“Is that the last of them?” the oldest asked.
“Yes,” came the response six times.
Perhaps this was it. Perhaps their task was done, and they could get on with their dying. There’d be a quiet dignity in it. After all, they had cleared the city of Hardacre of Roilings.
“Then we must feed, and-” He felt David again. They all did: the weight of his thoughts and their rage returned.
The captain of the Langan Twist waited for Mr Brown of Mr Brown’s estates. He clutched the invoice in his hands; he wasn’t going until he had all the money that was owed him. Times were desperate, and his business had grown even more cut-throat in the past few weeks. Mirrlees was gone, Hardacre and a few coastal towns the only major outposts — and Drift, of course, but they had no need of his lumpy old dirigible. They had their Aerokin and ways of dealing with the land.
He lived from commission to commission. And even that was getting thinner, this was the first time he had done the Creal and Hardacre run without proper security. His five passengers were stowed away and onboard, but he still needed this payment. He looked down at the invoice, it would see him clear for another month. After that, well, the world might have ended then — and with it his bills. Every cloud, he thought. Every bloody cloud.
If only most of his creditors had been based in Mirrlees rather than Hardacre, he would be free and clear of debt (as some of his competitors had become); but he was a good Northern Airship man, dealt only with northerners, and they still expected payment. Month in, month out.
Didn’t they see what was happening?
Still, the captain clung to his own ways, which was why he had rejected Buchan and Whig’s offer. That and he wasn’t given to madness. The way north was dangerous and fickle, and he knew he could never, not even in his most arrogant moments, know the sky well enough to risk those winds.
Now, where was that The invoice dropped from his fingers, he reached for it absently, only he didn’t stop reaching — and the paper seemed to slide further and further away. How frustrating! By the time his head smacked against the floor, he was already dead.
The Old Man picked him up gently, the body still twitching. He’d only just eaten, and while it never hurt to have a little more, he knew there would be no chance to eat in the sky. They’d come upon the airship fields by accident, but the Old Man was willing to accept serendipity. Before in the city, and for what came after, all that killing and running, they’d not been clear enough of head to consider it, but now, fat on refugees and city folk, clarity was coming back.
The last of the Old Men arrived. He carried a great bag over one shoulder. “You found the mechanism?” their leader asked.
The other nodded, and wiped at a bloody mouth. “Its owner was more than happy to give it up.”
“Then we are ready. We have stripped this town of its Roilings, its Vergers and scum. We have fed and fed deeply. Now we must fly. David is in the air, and we must join him. The time for walking is done,” the Old Man said. He nodded to the others, one of them dragging Mr Brown of Mr Brown’s estates with him.
The Langan Twist rose into the air, and not long after, the screaming began in earnest.
Not everyone could wait.