Free Twilight of the Wolves by Edward J. Rathke Page B

perimeter.
    Malik’s limbs heavy, his cough torturing him, wiping away the blood from his mouth, the tears from his eyes. The heat unbearable in his robes, the sweat covering him despite the cold. He lay in the grass staring at the fragmented moon and its sisters arranged around it, all the same pustule shade.
    The air shifted beside him and he turned to see the Deathwalker crouching beside him, watching, the intensity shimmering through the shade of his eyesockets.
    You’re here for me, Malik’s voice was ragged and barely audible. I have lived and now I shall die. We all must die, that’s what you crows are for, aye? To take us to her. The goddess. He coughed and vomited into the grass but the Deathwalker did not move. Take me now, Malik said, I’m tired of waiting. The last night in my body and I use it to rape a boy for coins that mean nothing now. All the sky shifts above me but without me. I have a daughter, just born. I’ve stayed away for her—he grabbed the cloak of the Deathwalker, like the rough feathers of ravens—so she may live. I stayed away for her. Gods know I may have already killed her and her poor mother. All for coins, all for sex. What comes next? Where do you take us? Won’t talk to me, aye? Aye, I wouldn’t either. A poor and miserable—he coughed his lungs through his mouth and spoke no more, and then the singing began, slow and far away but echoing in Malik’s skull.
    The Deathwalker lifted his head in its hands and stared into Malik’s dying eyes. Malik’s lips moved but no words came. TheDeathwalker breathed into his face and Malik’s body blew away.
    The streets grew more and more deserted but the market teemed. All strangers from far away, unaware, the coughs a surprise but not a concern, trade continued and the forest was full of bodies, living, dying, trading, transforming. When night came all was quiet but for the forest north of the market.
    I’ve heard the war’s getting serious.
    You saw the dirigibles today, aye?
    Aye, wha’s it about, you vink?
    What’s a dirigible.
    That bit flying like up in air. Ving’s a warship.
    Aye, carrying soldiers and Death. They head south far as I can tell.
    Are we at war with Drache?
    We?
    Not me, not at war wiv nobody.
    Aye, she’s right, we’re not at war. Luca can’t go to war. Luca’s simply Luca, for trade and so on.
    Right, aye, wiv trade and wivout governing like.
    I know but aren’t we kind of tied to The Federation and the Crown?
    Wiv bastards like vat, aye? Nah, no, not me.
    We’re tied to them just as much as we’re tied to Drache. Luca’s the center of all but the property of none. No, the war should leave us be. Too much at stake. What’s to be worried on is this illness.
    Blood everywhere like, real nasty shit, aye?
    I thought they closed the temple.
    Boy, how long you been here?
    All my life.
    And you vink, really, you vink boys like that’ll just go on home, stay where told? Aye, no, no place for bastards like. Livingto sell and selling to live, go on so till they’ve nothing left inside like.
    Aye, the temple is closed but they find ways. They always find ways. Do you not hear the songs?
    What songs?
    Aye, fool of a boy! No noving, aye? Deavwalkers, that haunting melody like. Sticks in me vroat and can barely breave when I hear it.
    The Songs of the Dead, aye. It’s all I hear these days, even now. Listen.
    What’s to be done then? If not the war, then maybe this. Everyone gets sicker and sicker and no one gets better. Even the Arcanes don’t help. They’ve all disappeared.
    Arcanes never do.
    Aye.
    But so what’s to be done?
    A fairskinned man with black hair watched the soldiers coming and hurried into town. They carried fire and rifles and steel. Tall and stern with faces covered by monstrous helmets, resembling demons and lost gods of the frozen north and the perilous east. The man ran ahead as fast as he could, faster than mortal. Then shouted and yelled for the merchants and traders to run, and then