For weeks, ever since Indirk had blasted out half of Anbash’s face with an iron slug, Anbash had been hunting. The Guardian Serpent had been born with a deep bitterness in her soul, a hate for everything that was not of her own blood and venom. Vengeance was in her every dream, retribution the undercurrent of each waking thought, and this littorn had overwritten all of it. Like ink spilled over the list of grievances in Anbash’s soul, every mote of hate and anger was now owed to Indirk. Every nightmare and fantasy of blood was about Indirk. For weeks, Anbash’s feverish hunt had been vexed by the protective magic of the Writhe, but that had fallen away. Still, Anbash had waited, followed, biding her time to catch the littorn alone and hurt.
Now, here in this tower, nobody was coming to save Indirk. Predator of the Laines she may be, but the littorn was alone, wounded, and ready to die.
Anbash had not expected a battle.
Indirk tore at Anbash’s underbelly with a fang torn from her own mouth, then ducked to Anbash’s right, where her wounded eyes could see only a bloody blur of movement. Anbash churned her long body, rushing the littorn with the clattering razor plates that lined her sides, but no matter how she cut her would-be prey, Indirk did not slow. Skin sliced open and dripping red, each wound only made Indirk cry out louder as she dug her claws underneath Anbash’s sharp plates and tore them from her body. Then Indirk drove those warm razors back into the body they’d been torn from, piercing through hard scales and severing muscle with a ferocity unmatched by any beast Anbash had ever fought.
Indirk’s shriek was horrifying, the fury of her black eyes as monstrous as her relentless pursuit. When Anbash retreated, the littorn clung to her body. Anbash threw herself to the walls, crashing through broken wood, dragging the shrieking creature across the floor. At one point, Anbash managed to tear herself free of the claws, but there was no shelter in this small room. Indirk was back in an instant, ducking into Anbash’s blind spot and grabbing at her face, tearing at her body.
Anbash resorted to slamming her body against Indirk, driving the littorn to the floor like a giant fist studded with razors. Pieces of her body torn away, muscles pierced, maw filled with blood and senses half-blind, Anbash slipped toward a bestial madness. She hissed and spat venom from broken teeth as Indirk shrieked and clawed and refused to die.
“Anbash!” Norgash’s gray-robed form surged between the warring beasts, dragging behind her a clattering surge of heat the blew Anbash away and kept Indirk pinned to the ground. Fire spat fitfully from beneath Norgash’s robes, where her body roiled with anger, the gems on her mask as bright as distant fires. She held her hands over Indirk and gathered heat, and beneath the clatter there was a growing beat like a frantic drum. “After what you did to Hado, you think I’d let you kill dear Anbash? You think-!”
Indrik exhaled a huff that carried a sound no anthral’s lungs could’ve made, a howling magic that echoed impossibly, and Norgash felt her own clattering magic waiver as though in fear. Then Indirk rushed upward, and their bodies collided, Indirk’s forehead hitting Norgash’s mask like a blunt mace. In a strangely lucid moment, Indirk grabbed Norgash’s hand and squeezed until the gathered music tumbled into incoherence. The magic erupted out of control and fire surged against every wall. Roiling flame reduced Norgash’s robe to a web of thread draped over her fulminating body. Norgash stepped away, but Indirk, her skin roiling with smoke and eyes wide with fury, pursued. Norgash stumbled and fell. Indirk caught her.
On instinct, Norgash stiffened. With one hand behind Norgash’s head and another pressing down on her neck, Indirk bent Norgash backward over a knee and leaned down as though to tear at Norgash’s neck with her sharp teeth. Instead, those teeth pressed against Nogash’s mask, scraping hungrily over its surface like it was meat to be tasted.
Norgash should have been able to burn Indirk to ash in an instant. The magic should’ve been simple. Instead, Norgash found herself lingering in fire that refused to erupt, burning against some barrier she couldn’t understand. Still, there was something else: the mark that Norgash had placed on Indirk still roiled inside of the woman. Back during the Sickle-Sough Festival, in the moment before Indirk had drawn a pistol to draw and kill her, Norgash had stared into the mix of terror and desire in Indirk's eyes. In that instant, the mark had been placed, and it persisted even now. It was a spark that could ignite at any moment.
So Norgash said, “What are you doing?”
In a low voice, Indirk said, “Waiting for you to kill me.”
That was not the answer Norgash had expected. “You don’t want to die. I can feel your desire for me. There’s a heat inside of you. It matches the heat inside of me. They want to be together.”
Teeth sliding down Norgash’s mask, Indirk said, “Give it to me, then,” and viciously bit down on Norgash’s throat.
Body convulsing, Norgash struggled to call up the flame that should have been so simple. She lashed out with arms and legs instead, clattering fire nonetheless erupting from her limbs throw Indirk away. The teeth did not come off cleanly, tearing with a horrible, warm wetness that poured over Norgash. She stumbled on her feet, turned, fell, and stood again, grabbing at her neck.
Norgash couldn’t stop the bleeding. She couldn’t even slow it. She looked down to watch blood flooding down her arm, sizzling over her fiery skin, pouring to the floor. So much bleeding, so fast. She grabbed at her neck with both hands, pressing desperately, screaming. Blood coated the ground around her. She slipped in it and crashed hard. She kicked and writhed, tail lashing like an animal.
Anbash moved slowly to curl around Norgash. The Guardian Serpent was careful with her sharp plates, rattling them in menace. Bloody and almost blind, body wavering in weakness, Anbash opened a mouth full of broken teeth to hiss warning at the monster that stood before it.
Surrounded by fire, blood dripping from her chin and smoke rising from her burned and tattered skin, Indirk stood straight-backed. She showed her carnivate teeth. “The whole world’s been fucked for a thousand years,” she said lowly, and only now did Anbash begin to understand the voice that was not Indirk’s voice, something that rode within it but remained separate. “It’s our turn, Anbash,” Indirk was saying. “Let’s all kill each other. That’s what the world wants us to do.”
Norgash whimpered. Anbash didn’t look down at the woman. Blinded as she was, Anbash would not have been able to see. For a moment, the Guardian Serpent had forgotten what its blood and venom were meant for. Now, as Norgash’s bloody limbs twitched pathetically inside of Anbash’s coils, the serpent’s fury shifted.
With a flick of its tail, the upturned cauldron of fire flew against a nearby wall, throwing what was left of its oil around the room. Indirk didn’t flinch. She lunged at Anbash, every bit as furious and hungry as anything had ever been. But Anbash slipped toward the heat and Indirk didn’t follow into the worst of the fire right away. A moment later, the great window on the wall broke outward, and the serpent went through the frame and out into the night.
