Nettle & Bone(73)

“You can tell?”

“Gods, yes. Like having a sleeping bear in the room.” She closed her eyes and leaned her weight on her palms. “Wake up, dead man. We have business with you.”

Marra, insomuch as she expected anything, thought that perhaps the death mask might begin to speak, as it had for the daughter who had been buried alive. Instead the sword rattled on the lid, and on the wall, the painted king lifted his head and stared with pigmented eyes at the dust-wife.

Why have you come here?

The words had no sound, but the echoes rang through the room. Marra felt as if they were being pounded into her skull with a metal hammer. There was weight to them and a mind like steel and stone. Bonedog yipped and tried to hide behind Fenris’s knees.

Why do you intrude upon my grave?

“You must release the godmother from her service,” said the dust-wife. “She has been held far too long and it is harming your descendants.”

Godmother? What godmother do you speak of?

“The woman who blesses your children and who serves the royal line.”

Oh. The witchskin. The contempt tasted like tin inside Marra’s head. I won; she lost. I could have slain her on the spot, but I gave her immortality. She should be grateful.

The dust-wife’s fingers curled into fists against the sarcophagus lid. “Eternal slavery is no gift.”

The painted king narrowed his eyes. Behind the throne, the painted warriors moved and rippled, lifting their shields. An archer drew the charcoal line of his bowstring taut. Who are you?

“One who can talk to the dead.”

What is the witchskin to you?

“Nothing. We’ve never even met. But I do not allow the living to serve the dead forever. Release her, and I will leave you to your rest.”

Beg me, then. Perhaps I’ll release her if you beg.

The dust-wife raised her eyebrows. “Do you think I wouldn’t beg for another person’s life? I will, if it would sway you.”

The painted king looked away, the blue paint moving around the sour black slash of mouth. It would amuse me.

“Amusement is not enough. You must free her.”

I will not.

The dust-wife took one hand off the sarcophagus and took up her staff, which had been leaning against it. The brown hen flapped her wings. “Then I will fight you,” she said.

You? You who have lived a puny mortal lifetime would fight me for a witch who should have died a thousand years ago? The king began to laugh. It was a deep, roaring laugh, even more like a hammer on metal than his voice, and Marra started to feel like her skull was on the anvil. Go away, little deadspeaker. I am older and greater than you.

The dust-wife ran her fingertip across the crack in the death mask and the laughter in Marra’s head stopped abruptly.

“There,” said the dust-wife as calmly as if they were discussing where to place a stitch. “There, I think. Yes.” She reached up to the brown hen, who stepped onto her hand. Marra had held goshawks on the wrist that did not look so proud as the demon hen in that moment. The dust-wife set her down on the sarcophagus and the hen stabbed her beak down into the crack in the mask.

The king’s scream sounded like a sheet of iron being ripped in half, a long metallic shriek that made Marra’s teeth rattle in her jaw. Her head pounded. Bonedog barked, not an alarm bark but the high, rapid bark of a dog in trouble and desperately calling his pack for backup. It was barely audible, but it hung in the air around them.

What are you doing, witch?!

“Fighting,” said the dust-wife as if it should have been obvious. The hen began to hammer at the crack, occasionally pausing to lift her head and rake her claws across the death mask.

“There’s something else happening,” whispered Fenris. “Isn’t there?” He slumped against the wall next to Marra, holding his temples. “It’s not just a chicken and a mask. She’s doing … something…”

“Oh yes,” said Agnes. Alone of all of them, she seemed to be enjoying herself. Her eyes were bright with interest. “You can see it—oh dear, I suppose you can’t see it! But it’s very good. His magic is all laid out like swords on a rack and she’s … no, that’s a terrible analogy; it’s not like that at all. But it’s good, though!”

“Good?” said Marra weakly, her skull still ringing with the dead king’s scream.

“Let go,” said the dust-wife. “You tried to protect your descendants and instead you shortened their lives for generations. Their souls are feeding the spell that keeps the godmother alive. I can see it. Can’t you?”

Her voice was so confident that Marra found herself looking at the air over the sarcophagus as if there might be something that mortal eyes could see. There was only dust and the brown hen busily cracking open the death mask.

The spell works. It has worked for a thousand years. My descendants are strong and they have endured. I will not allow you to break it.

“You are dead,” said the dust-wife coldly. “Your time to control your family is done.” The demon hen cackled as chips flew from the broken mask. “They cannot live in your shadow any longer.”

The king gathered himself. It felt as if the tomb were breathing in. The painted warriors lifted their swords and the archers let fly their arrows, aimed at the dust-wife. They were trapped in the wall and it should not have been possible for them to reach her, and yet for a moment, it seemed as if she would be drawn into the wall, as if the arrows must reach her …