Thyla - Kate Gordon [61]
But my questions would have to wait. I stayed silent and listened.
‘Are we ready?’ asked Vinnie. Isaac.
Mr Beagle nodded, and looked back over his shoulder at more Thylas, creeping out of the darkness. ‘As we’ll ever be,’ he whispered.
‘Then let’s go,’ said Isaac.
‘Is she coming, too?’ asked Beagle.
‘Of course,’ Isaac replied. ‘She’s done it a million times. A hundred and sixty years’ worth.’
‘But she’s for–’
‘She’ll remember. We need her out there. You know she’s a pro at this. She’ll remember.’
Beagle nodded. And so, I was in.
Isaac nodded back at Beagle and then, a sharp claw held to his lip, he nodded over Beagle’s shoulder at the other Thylas.
This was really happening. It was about to begin.
We had surprise on our side, but that wasn’t an advantage for long.
For the first few moments after we burst into the clearing where the battle was taking place, it seemed as though we were on top. We knocked men to the ground with our blows, stabbing at their chests with our claws, biting at their necks with our sword-sharp teeth. They fell like fish from a waterfall.
And I was in the middle of it. Isaac was right: I did remember.
It wasn’t easy. I was scared. I wondered if I had always been scared of this: of fighting, of the Diemens. Because they were horribly scary. And evil. You could see it in their eyes; in the way they smiled as they killed. We did not smile as we killed. We winced and grimaced. But we had to do it. To protect my friends.
We Thylas called out warnings and instructions to each other in yips and cough-like barks that only we could understand; sounds that I remembered more easily than I remembered many human words. The noises were instinctive. They were part of me. The Sarcos communicated in their own secret language that sounded like growls and screams.
I had Diemen blood on my tongue. It tasted like poison. I spat it to the ground and it sizzled.
Their blood was black.
As I fought, I added what I learned in battle to the list of things I knew.
I am Tessa. I am strong. I do not cry. I am dead. I am a killer.
And though I felt remorse for it – though the human inside me was ashamed of the pain I was causing – I was certain that I was doing the right thing.
It was instinct.
And it was memory.
I knew that Lord’s men were evil.
I remembered.
Lord and his followers came to Tasmania because this is where the convicts were. The convict girls and women. Before they killed them, they inhaled the last breath of their victims. And once they had killed them, they ate their heart and bathed in their blood. This was their bloodsport. They were hunters. This was also how they became immortal, a sort of vampire, except, like us, they could be fatally wounded.
The Diemens targeted the convict women because they thought nobody would miss them.
But somebody did miss one of them.
I missed my mother.
And the Thylas, though many had no humans to miss any more, missed a time when everyone – human and shapeshifter – was free to roam the bushland as they wished and without fear. When everyone could truly be wild. They hated Lord’s men for taking their freedom, and the freedom of the women they attacked.
I remembered them fighting beside me as though my battle was their own, and I fought as though theirs was mine.
And as I bit and punched and clawed, I remembered something else: ‘There are not enough prisoner women now to sustain them. They have been forced to start hunting civilians.’
The words repeated in my head in Isaac’s voice, and a chill ran through me even as my body flamed and burned and battled.
I remembered it, Connolly. Finally I saw it. The most important memory of all.
A girl who looked like you. Running. Terrified. Another girl behind her. A girl with white hair. A girl closing in, calling out, ‘Daddy! I’ve found her! I’ve found her for you!’
Me, leaping through the trees, misjudging my footing, falling behind.
They caught her. And it was my fault.
But I