Kith

Kith crouched at the base of the shattered trunk of a huge tree. The soft ash under his feet shifted noiselessly. Through the watery light, he saw two thin hounds fighting over scraps of something a stone’s throw away. Kith set his pack down gently beside him. He drew himself up, taking a deep breath, slowly uncoiled and launched his spear at the closest beast.

***

While the hound’s blood drained into a skin, he heard a strange noise from the heap the animals had been fighting over. He slowly approached it and probed it with his spear. A strangled cry rang out, shockingly loud in the still air. A child.

***

The night was cloudless; the feeble light of the full moon provided just enough light to see by. Kith tracked the solitary set of footprints in the ash-coated tarmac. He had walked for hours into an unfamiliar part of the city, unsure if it was his blood, the child’s blood, or his own sweat soaking his shirt. Here the ash was more disturbed. The child’s tracks mixed with those of some others. Kith set the unconscious child down and studied the tracks for a moment. A hunting party? Strange that they hadn’t followed the child after it became separated. Kith drew a deep breath and shouldered his burden.

***

The tracks ended in a squalid camp that huddled in the collapsed remains of a vast car park. Kith set the child down on the perimeter of the camp. He nudged the child with his spear to set it crying, before taking a few steps back.

People soon emerged, some held lanterns. One, Kith guessed it was the mother, ran to the child and clutched it defensively, wracked with sobs. Two men hurried up and roughly dragged her away. The child wobbled its feet. A few people cast small stones, as if to drive it away. A hunched figure, an old woman, shuffled to the fore and pointed a gnarled finger.

“Demon,” she muttered, “The demon has returned.”

Demon. The word thundered in Kith’s mind, reverberating, mixing with rising horror and disgust. The child stumbled away from the crowd. Kith caught sight of its eyes for the first time; one normal and one pale, like the faded moon. He looked down at his shirt, seeing where the blood from the demon-child’s wound had mixed with his own. Dropping his pack he ripped his shirt off, exposing his own wound, scrapes left by the hound’s teeth. He looked pleadingly at the old woman. She stared back at him, eyes wide and mad, muttering curses under her breath. Kith dropped to his knees on the dry earth, retching. He closed his eyes and dropped his head to the ground in prayer. The heart-shaped locket he wore, an heirloom and sign of his faith, dragged in the filth.

Aware suddenly of footsteps, Kith sat up. He saw the mother stumbling towards him, clutching a blade. Kith was relieved. He closed his eyes and bared his throat to her, pleased to have an escape. He felt a hand on his chest. Kith drew a deep breath and began reciting the many names of his god. He felt a sharp tug at his neck, and opened his eyes to see the woman holding his locket aloft. Realization struck him too late. The mother spoke then, her words intoned steadily in the sight of Kith’s god. He must keep the demon-child alive, or his spirit will be barred from the green forests of his ancestors for eternity. The woman plunged the dagger into her own heart. Ripping the dagger free, she held the locket to the wound. She locked eyes with Kith as life fled her body.

“No,” whispered Kith, uselessly. The mother crumpled forward. It was done.

***

Kith glowered at the child over the flickering firelight. It slept now, innocence writ across its face, belying the devilry within its heart. Kith gritted his teeth and moved closer to the demon-child, to try to clean its bite wound with what little medicine he had.

***

The witch lived high on the mountain. Kith struggled up the rugged terrain, carrying the demon-child in his shaking arms. Its skin was hot, its breathing uneven. The marks on its arm oozed green and black pus. With each step of his left foot, Kith cursed the mother’s existence; with each step of his right, he cursed demon-child’s.

***

“Has it the blood of the beast?” she croaked in her strange dialect. Kith handed over the skin at his belt. Some blood remained; most was used in the simple broth he had made two nights before.

“The teeth?” In answer, Kith glanced at his pack dumped outside the hut in the rain. Skinned and cleaned, the body of the dog lay atop the heap. Kith had yet to remove the head. Water dripped from its blackened tongue.

The woman muttered something further, without moving from the demon-child’s side. Kith sighed and heaved himself to his feet. He hissed as the rain stung the wound at his side, and ran burning into his eyes. Cursing, he dragged the dog into the hut, under the disapproving gaze of the witch. With his knife, he began digging teeth from the lolling jaws of the hound.

***

Kith worked methodically, scraping the fat from the taut skin. The demon-child emerged from the witch’s hut, toddling over to Kith. Its arm was plastered with a stinking poultice. It still looked ill, but the medicine seemed to be working. Bittersweet. Kith raised himself from his work and limped to where strips of dog meat were drying over a fire, the smoke thick with rosemary. Hooking one off with a stick, he laid it on a rock in front of the demon-child. It grasped it gently and ate.

***

They had made camp in a hollow on a high bank of the salt lake. Hearing raised voices, Kith peeped above the edge of the hollow. He saw his brother and cousins on the road some distance away. Kith drew breath and nearly shouted out, but caught himself before doing so. They would not suffer the demon-child any more gladly that its own tribe. He rolled back into the hollow, despair and anguish ripping at him. He forced his eyes closed to stem the tears streaming down his face. He felt small hands on his body and stiffened, as the demon-child leaned in and gave him a clumsy hug.

Rage boiled within him. Boundless, white-hot, forge-fire fury, filling his vision and mind with images of vengeance and blood. Kith clenched his teeth so hard he felt one crack. He itched to throw this accursed being from him, to rip the life from it and run and join his kin. They would never know. They would never know. No one would ever know, just this wretched demon-child. The cold weight of his grimy locket burned against his chest. The thin strip of dog skin holding it to him felt like stone. He laid one hand on the neck of the child. So thin. The child cried too, then. It was the first noise it had made since he had taken it back to its camp. It pressed its filthy body to his side. He returned the embrace and wept. With each outward sob, he cursed first his own existence and with each choking inhalation, he cursed his god.

***

Kith lay in the evening sunlight on the sandy beach, listening to the waves. Following the coast, there had been no sign of people for weeks. They had spent some time clearing the seaweed and flotsam from a large patch and had made a wooden shelter. Hearing laughter, Kith sat up, shocked. The child ran up the beach towards him, holding a huge, struggling crab before her, her hair dripping wet. The dog-tooth necklace he had made her shone red in the setting sun. Kith unconsciously reached for the locket he wore. The child reached him, her expression hopeful. He smiled at her, and thanked her for finding them such a fine meal. A smile broke across her face, as beautiful as anything he’d ever seen. Kith’s gaze caught on her pale eye. His expression must have changed. Her smile quickly faded. Kith moved to stoke the fire.

***

The noise from the other tents had ceased. Rising from his bedroll, Kith silently packed his gear. He stowed one of the loaned blankets and left a fine silver lighter as payment. He shook Fan awake. Her pale eye shone starkly in the dim cabin.

“Again?” she whispered. Kith nodded.

“The eye?” Kith nodded again. Fan said no more, and rose. They fled into the night.

***

“Why do they hate me? I haven’t done anything. I don’t feel like a demon.”

Kith didn’t want to have this conversation again. He led them south, as he always did.

***

In the sprawling shantytown at the edge of the great city, under the noisy rail-bridge, no one knew the songs of his tribe. Low and rhythmic, with flute and drum, Kith led their little group in song. From the shelters around him, he could hear a dozen different languages, music from other nations. Over the years, some of the faces around them had changed, lost to disease or accident and new faces drawn to the city. Still, they had friends in the community. Only a fraction of the strangers they met cursed Fan’s demon eye. Kith shifted his gaze to where she sat, deep in concentration on the simple flute she was playing. Her hair fell around her face, shining, yet darker than shadow. A young man sat close to her. Through narrowed eyes, Kith regarded him suspiciously. Kith ended the song a verse early, and led Fan away.

***

They walked back to the camp. They had had a successful trip; they were weighed down with rabbits and Fan carried the skin of a large cat she had brought down herself. It would fetch a good price. Kith realized that he no longer had to slow his pace for her to keep up.

***

‘Tina and the others are having a celebration tonight, I was hoping to go,’ Fan said casually, while they cleaned the cat skin.

‘We’ll be finished here soon. We still need to do the rabbits and wash up, but there should be time.’

‘I was hoping to go alone.’

Kith kept his face very still. ‘But I must keep you safe.’

Fan laughed shortly. ‘Safe? I am safe. We are surrounded by friends.’

Kith shook his head. ‘I will come too.’

‘You just want to keep me for yourself,’ Fan cried. A tone he hadn’t heard before. Kith froze. Fan dropped the knife she was using and ducked into their tent. Kith didn’t follow.

***

Kith headed back to their tent, away from the party and the sight of Fan with the young man. Anger boiled within him. He was the one who had looked after Fan for all these years. He was the very reason she was alive, he who had sacrificed everything to keep her well. He fingered his locket. Sacrifice? Or service? A bond forged between a younger man and his god. A god considered less and less frequently, away from the rituals of his tribe. Kith examined this thought, like a tongue probing the empty socket left when a tooth is lost. Ducking inside, Kith noticed Fan had left the dog’s tooth necklace hanging from the pole above her bed.

***

Kith crested the last rise before his village. He saw a man butchering a carcass. His father. No. His brother. They both cried out and, running to each other, the two old men embraced. Kith noticed a familiar shape pressing into his chest; his brother wore their father’s heart-shaped locket. It felt cold and heavy, a sharp contrast with the dog tooth that hung alone against Kith’s bare skin.