Sullen had sung of a glorious war to save the Star, and Best had wanted to believe the boy so badly she had gone along with his schemes, even when they meant conspiring with a sorcerer and summoning a devil. And now she had paid the ultimate price, for instead of being transported to the battlefield of legend she had sunk down into hell. Which hell it was exactly she could not guess, being less proficient in theology than some, but she wondered if it might be the Hell of the Coward Dead. How one as stalwart as she might have been banished to such a shameful eternity she did not know, but as they journeyed far into the trackless jungle the only denizens they met were foul demon apes who screamed her brother’s Outlander name at them in challenge, before being fought back into the trees from whence they flung their excrement at the interlopers. Where else but the Hell of the Coward Dead would Maroto be the battle cry of shit-throwing monsters?
Rather than being disheartened by their lonely exile to this disgustingly hot hell and its equally disgusting inhabitants, Purna took heart in meeting the creatures, saying it proved Craven had come this way. Which did not preclude them both being correct, for if he had died, there was but one place her brother should have gone. True, Best did not feel dead—if anything she felt hale as ever, her cracked ribs and lesser injuries all miraculously healed during her journey through the First Dark—but then she did not know what being dead actually felt like, and maybe in death all mortal pains faded away … and when she caught herself thinking such Sullen-ish thoughts she quickly tried to brush them away, as though they were the inquisitive spider crabs that infested the sea cliffs.
The small party initially stayed close to where Hoartrap had been carried off, thinking he might escape the flying monster and return. After another day and a night it was agreed that waiting could not help their cause, and that they should explore the coast in hopes of finding Tothan settlements to spy on or operations to sabotage. As with all decisions the matter was decided with a vote, and as with all votes, Keun-ju and Purna sided with one another, but unlike other decisions this one Best agreed with—better to hunt for worthy prey than to wait for a witch.
So far the hunt primarily consisted of keeping the other two alive, as they were nearly helpless in the bush. They were not, however, without their abilities in combat, as proven when the ape-things had come swinging down on them. Keun-ju fought fiercer with one arm and half a sword than some she had met with twice his blessings, and Best could tell Purna would be a strong knife-fighter even if she hadn’t had the devil dog distracting her enemies with its shrill yaps. If only there had actually been a demonic army to pit their skills against they should have comported themselves well, and whenever the impossible odds overwhelmed them slipped down to Old Black’s Meadhall, secure in their righteous hereafter—if this land truly was Jex Toth then it should be right beneath their feet. The only thing for it was to keep hunting and pray the Fallen Mother granted Best a foe great enough to cancel out the sins she had accrued in coming to this Deceiver-loved jungle.
“What if these monkey men are the dread demons of Jex Toth?” said Purna, using a leaf to pick excrement out of her devil dog’s fur after their second run-in with the vulgar creatures. “Wouldn’t it be a hoot if all those dire prophecies were just warning of the return of some punkass apes?”
“No,” said Best, refusing to believe that the Fallen Mother would be so cruel. There must be something far more dangerous to this place. Best prayed nightly for a worthy foe.
Reckoning if the alleged armies of Jex Toth were attacking the Star they would need ships to reach it, the hunting party hewed as close to the coast as the difficult terrain allowed. They bore east, deciding on the direction after Purna asked her devil in which direction the enemy lay and he cocked his head to the left. That settled the matter for Purna, but since setting out Best had noticed the dog always cocked his head when his mistress addressed him, and always to that side. This was what came of dealing with devils—instead of granting you wisdom they sapped you of it, making you certain when you should be cautious.
Day and night the cacophony of the jungle set Best’s teeth on edge. Even when their path led them down from the high country to gravelly black beaches they stayed in the trees as much as possible, for while the sky-devils patrolled more frequently after dark they were increasingly active during the day. One night as they all tried to sleep in makeshift hammocks of tangled vines, Best counted a dozen of them flying in formation through a chink in the canopy. She wondered how many more might be in the flock that went by unseen. The larger ones were even bigger than Nemi’s horned wolf Myrkur, and in the absence of more immediate challenges Best committed herself to bringing one of them down, though what trophy their gelatinous-looking flesh might yield remained to be seen.
“That is absolutely not a good idea,” Keun-ju told her when she announced her intention as they made camp the next evening on a small wooded island in the midst of a wide, shallow river that flowed out to the sea. “Dangerous, profitless sport. I vote no.”
“I do not propose it for a vote,” said Best, the word as sour as the yellow fruit they had foraged after Keun-ju excitedly declared them to be a varietal of Immaculate plum. “I offer you the opportunity to join my hunt, and you speak of votes?”
“We already have one hunt, and if you are hurt or killed then Purna and I will be in serious trouble on our own,” said the Immaculate, as though confessing their weakness might somehow sway Best from pursuing personal glory. “I believe it is an issue that concerns us all, and so I put it to a vote.”
“He’s got a point,” said Purna, draining the blood from her most recent snake—it was obvious from her grotesque tongue that the girl had the blood of devils in her, same as Sullen, so perhaps she was part mongoose. “A vote to decide whether we three postpone this thankless, blistery hike for something crazy-fun like monster hunting.”
“As I said, any issue that concerns us all …” Keun-ju began, but trailed off and blew his veil out in a long sigh as Purna grinned at Best. Her devil dog barked, hopping up on his little legs to happily lick the girl’s cheek. It took Best a moment to realize what had happened, and then she smiled, too. The little Ugrakari might be boastful but she was no coward, and had the hood to prove it—if the cloak had actually been cured properly it should have been as great a prize as any in the clan, but the work had been hastily done, and crudely. Still, she had taken it with her own hand, to hear Sullen sing it when she had asked how he dared associate with an Outlander who wore the mantle of their people. And now she voted with Best to seek other prey of great stature.
“How do you think we take it down?” asked Purna, pushing her face-licking devil away far more gently than Best would have been able to manage. “I mean, I’ve got an idea or two of my own, but one badass monster killer to another, what’s your gut telling you here?”
“I have considered this all day,” said Best. “It is wise to hunt birds in their nests, but I have yet to see one land. Perhaps if we capture one of the Craven-apes and stake it out in the open we may lure one to the ground, and then strike.”
“Too complicated, and we haven’t seen any of those chimp chumps in yonks,” said Purna as she began skinning the snake. “But the principle’s sound. I vote we have Keun-ju do it—wait until dark, but instead of dousing the fire have him stand out there in the stream with a torch to bring one in.”
“I do not think so,” he said, adding more kindling to the small fire that smoldered in the bole of a mangrove.
“I vote it as well,” said Best, warming up to this democratic process after all.
“What do we hit it with, though?” said Purna. “Guess we could stick it with those bamboo spears we made, but to really get the impact we’d want it to fly right into … oh, that’s it! Keun-ju, you’re fired as bait, I get to do it.”
“We won’t need spears,” said Best, patting her great-grandmother’s sun-knife. “This fetish of my family never misses, and always kills.”
Keun-ju cleared his throat, and it sounded an awful lot like one of those dirty two-syllable Immaculate curse words her son had picked up in his travels, and now she could guess from where. At least Purna swore in Flintlander like a civilized person. Best was about to ask the lippy boy what exactly he meant, but then her eyes caught the hollow sleeve of his coat he had tied off to prevent bugs from crawling in and she realized he was right. Best’s chest tightened. She could no longer make that boast of her sun-knife, a claim that had been true all the days she had used it, and all the days of her father before her. As if he knew he had won some victory over her, Keun-ju said, “I am merely suggesting you might not want to throw Sullen’s inheritance into a winged whale, lest it carry it away.”
“His inheritance?” said Best, appalled at the suggestion. “My son will never wield this blade.”
“Not so long as you’re alive, I suppose,” said Keun-ju, and Best squinted at him, trying to see if he had just threatened her or not. It was hard to tell, when he hid his mouth like a reformed anathema wearing a penitent mask.
“See, here’s what I’m going to do,” said Purna, skewering her snake and tossing its arrow-shaped head to her devil. “I find a nice rocky spot in the river, and take a nice long spear out there. Then I clear a little hole in the streambed, where I can brace the butt of the bamboo. Keep it lowered, inconspicuous like, until the last minute—when it zips down to nab me, I duck real low and pull up the spear. Splat.”
“That is indeed the likely result,” said Keun-ju. “Even if you succeed in killing it in such a fashion, Purna, it will crash on top of you from such heights as I cannot begin to guess. Splat.”
“Oh,” said Purna. “You think so?”
“A hole,” said Best, inspired by the snake Purna began smoking over the fire. “Instead of the center of the river we go to the far shore. The bank is sandy there. We dig a hole, just wide enough for you, and you wait with your spear. As it swoops you lie back in the hole. It will spit itself, and even if it strikes the earth atop you, you are safe beneath the surface.”
“Hey, not bad!” said Purna, turning her snake. “How deep a hole are we talking now?”
They plotted as the sun went down, Best feeling almost herself again, the skilled huntress she had been before the Fallen Mother had seen fit to test her. Even Keun-ju’s incessant mentioning of Sullen-this and Sullen-that no longer seemed intended to provoke her, for Purna sympathetically rolled her eyes at Best whenever the Immaculate made another such comment. It was not the epic song Sullen had promised her, but it was a better evening than most, and an illuminating one: when she asked Purna who had taught her to hunt such noble prey as horned wolves, the girl replied it had indeed been Best’s feckless brother Craven. Sullen had told her as much, but as a rule Best distrusted second-hand hunting tales. Purna had been there, however, and watched Craven charge headlong into one of the monsters as they traveled through the mountains, and together their small pack had overwhelmed the beast, and then a second of its kind. Even the Diggelby creature had taken part in the glorious battle, which surprised Best almost as much as the thought of her brother running at anything, let alone a horned wolf … but one hunt does not a huntress make.
Later, after they excavated a burrow for Purna and brought her spear and torch, Best and Keun-ju retreated, along with the girl’s devil dog—he had tried to stay in the depression with her but she had ordered him off and the miniature monster followed her instructions for a change. They had chosen the position of the hole carefully, and Best climbed a nearby eucalyptus, edging far enough out on a low limb that if the sky-devil landed atop Purna but was not killed outright she could leap onto its back. Keun-ju stayed in the shadows of the treeline, ready to rush in with a spear of his own.
Then they waited.
But they did not have to wait long.
Purna was singing a drinking song at the top of her lungs, waving the torch around, and then the monster was falling from the sky so swiftly Best had barely sounded the alarm when it struck. She couldn’t see if Purna had dropped back in time, its great silvery bulk swooping back up into the air … and then crashing down again, skidding across the riverbank and into the current. The devil dog streaked out of the trees, running toward the fallen behemoth and yapping its head off as though they might have failed to notice where it landed.
Best dropped from the tree as Purna poked her head up with an exultant woo, the girl shaking all over as she crawled out of the pit. She was spattered with blood, or something like blood, it was hard to tell since the torch had gone out, but to Best’s eye even in the moonlight it looked off, not dark enough.
Then they were rushing in together to confirm just how different this game truly was, wading into the water and spearing it over and over, though it was already still save for the death shivers that even strange demons in unknown lands apparently experienced. It was huge, its leathery opal skin translucent in places, showing organs that shimmered with phosphorescence, tentacles as thick as a mastodon trunk emerging from under one of its broken wings, swaying in the current. Strangest of all, perhaps, was a black panel on its ridged back, which almost looked like … like one of those things Outlanders used, for riding horses.
“A saddle!” said Purna, climbing up onto the seat and looking all around. “Holy fucking shit. Holy shitting fuck. Who do you think rides these guys?”
“I can tell you exactly who,” said Keun-ju, splashing up to them from the bank. “They were thrown when it fell. And one of them is still very much alive.”