Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [150]
They headed away from the thoroughfare, through the gaps between the close-set dwellings. The snow had collected in drifts here, and they forged on with some difficulty, but at least the buildings hid them from view. Jez followed in Riss’s wake, allowing him to carve a path for her. Her breath was loud in her ears, trapped inside her mask. Her fur-lined hood obscured her peripheral vision, forcing her to turn to look behind her every few steps. She was afraid something was sneaking up on them, following their trail through the snow.
Something was sneaking up on them; but the attack, when it came, was from above.
Jez barely saw it. It was a blur of movement in the confusing whirl of the blizzard. Riss reacted with a cry before he was flung aside to crash into the side of a building. Standing in his place, right in front of her, was a Mane. It was the first and last time she ever got a good look at one, and it rooted her to the spot with fear.
The stories said they’d once been human, and they were recognizably so in form and face. But they’d been changed into something else, something that wore human shape uncomfortably, as a skin to contain whatever hid beneath.
The creature before her was scrawny, wearing a tattered shirt and trousers and no shoes at all. Limp black hair was smeared across a pale, wrinkled brow. Its features were twisted out of true. Lips curled to reveal sharp, crooked teeth. It glared at her with eyes that were the yellow and red of bloody pus. Its fingernails were long, dirty, and cracked, and it stood low to the ground in a predator’s crouch.
It wasn’t what she saw but what she sensed that paralyzed her: the intuitive knowledge that she was in the presence of something not of this world, something that broke all laws and ruined all the certainties of a thousand generations of knowledge. Her body felt that, and rebelled.
Then it pounced and bore her into a snowdrift.
She remembered little of what followed. It didn’t seem to make sense when she recalled it later. The Mane had her pinned by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. Her gaze was locked, as if she were a mouse hypnotized by a snake. She could smell the stench of it, a dead scent like damp leaf mold. Her breathing dropped to a shallow pant.
She felt crushed by the weight of the creature’s will, oppressed by the force in its gaze. By the time she realized something was being done to her, it was too late to resist it. She struggled to oppose the invader with her thoughts, but she couldn’t concentrate. She was losing herself.
She became aware of a change all around her. The blizzard faded, turning ghostly and powerless. The world was darker and sharper all at once. She could see details where there hadn’t been details before: the fine jigsaw of creases in the skin of the Mane’s face; the shocking complexity of its feathery irises.
There was a whispering in the air, a constant hiss of half-spoken words. Movement all around her. She recognized the movement of the Manes, prowling around the town. She could feel them. She shared their motion. And as she sank deeper and deeper into the trance, she felt the warmth of that connection. A sense of belonging, like nothing she’d experienced before, enfolded her. It was beautiful and toxic and sugary and appalling all at once.
She’d almost surrendered herself to it when she was ripped back into reality.
It took a moment for her senses to cope with the change. She was being pulled to her feet by a faceless man in a hooded fur-and-hide coat. Her initial reaction was to pull away, but he held her firmly and said something to her. When she didn’t respond, he said it again, and this time the words got through.
“—re you alright? Jez? Jez?”
She nodded quickly, because she wanted him to shut up. He was frightening her with his urgent inquiries.