The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [51]
Ashura ran his hand over the shaved side of his head. It was not the most even cut of his life. Ashura tried to grin at the thought but his reflection sent back a wan death-mask in reply.
There came a knock at his door. It was Culpole. He stood ashen-faced, trembling, cap stretched to tearing between his hands. "Ashura, come quick, there's ― " He noticed Ashura's shaven scalp. "But what happened to your ― no matter, follow me." He made to say more, but thought better of it, turned and strode down the echoing hallway, kicking dust from the bare, warped boards as he went. "Come on!" he called, urgency cracking his voice.
Ashura grabbed his coat and hurried after his friend. "What is it?" The stairs clattered and shook as they hurried down.
"Foxtongue's had her leg taken off by the wheel of a fairground float." Ashura stared aghast at Culpole's harassed profile as they traversed the little square towards the Walking Eye tavern. "She was out buying curried sweets for Jape Day. She had a fainting fit, her foot slipped on a cobble.the ruts on the street are deep; they're sharp too. The wheel, it scissored her bone clean through."
Cold sweat tickled Ashura's back. "She's lost her leg?"
Culpole nodded, and coughed. "Above the knee, my friend."
Ashura let out a moan; his stride faltered and sagged. "Her leg?"
Culpole nodded. He turned to his stricken comrade. "Ashura," he said. "We'll catch it. It can't have gone far. Cess-beaters know the city backwards." He took Ashura's hand and squeezed it. "We'll find your bedmate's limb in time. Trust me."
Foxtongue lay in the dip of Mother Runnell's capacious bed at the Walking Eye. She was only half-conscious ― Culpole had mixed her a sleeping draught ― but the pain was still there. It came in waves, and her face distorted in a rictus of agony as she passed from one moment of slurred somnolence to the next. Ashura sat at the head of the bed and brushed the damp chestnut hair from her face.
"Ashura?" she whispered through dry lips. He wetted them with his mouth. Her breath was shallow and fetid. "Ashura, how long?"
Ashura glanced at Culpole. Culpole held up three fingers straight, and one bent at the knuckle.
"It's been on the hop for under four hours," Ashura told her.
Foxtongue set her jaw. Her eyes bored a challenge into Ashura's own. "How much time do I have?"
Ashura took a deep, ragged breath and pulled back the linen which covered Foxtongue from the waist down. Mother Runnell had wisely prepared a dung dressing. The wound was sealed, and the excrement was parchment-tough where it closed off the stump. Around the edges, the transformed waste matter had adopted the consistency and pallor of untanned skin. Tough black hairs stubbled the line of the join. Lymph and blood had stained the sheets, but a little weeping from the wound was to be expected.
Foxtongue howled with pain when Ashura touched a fingertip to the dressing. He whispered apologies in her ear and kissed it. "What happened to you?" he said.
"I ― I felt ill, faint, as if something had got between me and my eyes, and I just...I just." Pain and fear swelled her eyes with tears.
Ashura put a comforting hand on her swollen belly.
A static shock flung him from the bed. He stumbled and fell back against Culpole, and they went sprawling. Culpole scrambled up, his eyes wide in shock, and helped Ashura up. "It's a ward," Ashura muttered. "There's a ward in my child."
He went back to the bed and laid his hand more carefully upon Foxtongue's belly. He looked at her, wondering what to say, but she had slipped into fitful half-consciousness.
There! In his head, a vicious twitching, a scraping sensation behind the eyeballs.
He felt his jaw tighten in confusion and anger. He forced his mouth to relax, pursed his lips and twittered. Culpole stared at him and, overcome by the tension of the moment, laughed out loud. Ashura motioned impatiently for him to be silent. There! A response from the ward hidden in his lover, a scrabbling under his hand. Claws, the tickle of feathers.